Demons and Demigods and Difficulty

I fought the 4 avatar's of Iuz's and voted: Very Challenging.

Party make up was 5 members with 3 as player characters...enjoyed the benefits of a tweaked Elmo & Furnok added to the group. Every player had at least 2 levels of Rogue for the evasion bonus while wearing light to no armor.

Party Leader Lv16: Male/Human CG Cleric13/Rogue3 - Holy Crafter/Healer/skill based Face for group that is usually equipped with a range weapon (doesn't AoO) and is invisible while healing & takes 5' steps as necessary.

Arcane Specialist Lv16: Female/Elf CG Wizard13/Rogue2/Fighter1 - Crafter/Archer/Secret Door Finder/Area of Effect Damage dealer and general caster of Magic's.

Primary Tank Lv18: Male/Human CG Fighter13/Rogue3/Barbarian2 - Tank/Combat Reflexes/Great Cleaving/Whirl winding machine able to take substantial amounts of damage while regenerating like a troll due to the Periapt of Wound Closure crafted by the Party Leader. He used the Hero shield from the Book of Hero's quest (except against the avatars of Iuz) and wielding Scather no less. He has specialization in bastard sword and the improved critical feats with it. When enlarged...he rips up the board and he never misses basically.

Secondary Tank Lv18: ELMO Fighter14/Barbarian2/Rogue2 - Tank/Combat Reflexes/Great Cleaving/Whirl winding machine able to take substantial amounts of damage while regenerating like a troll due to the Periapt of Wound Closure crafted by the Party Leader. He used the Radiant Ranseur for the reach and abused the glitch of the game that allowed him to hit enemies within 5', for doing so. Combined with the combat reflexes feat and great cleave he didn't even need to be enlarged to rip up the board but when he was enlarged...he really, REALLY ripped up the board. Insanely high Use Magic Device skill.

Rogue Skills & Ripper Lv17: FURNOK Rogue9/Fighter6/Barbarian2 - Invisible Scout/Trap & Lock specialist/Dual Wielding while flanking with 5d6 sneak attack bonus Ripper that often fought alone while under the affects from his crafted Wand of Improved Invisibility. Very high Use Magic Device skill.

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I never got a chance to pre-buff as the game threw me into the fight after stripping any buffs away. Unfortunately for me, I tend to run through the game without the use of summoning spells so I was really weak in this regard. My wiz had 0 summoning spells. Ziltch. With no experience to burn to craft anything and all major encounters finished, except for this quest. Random encounters are usually avoidable and a waste of time since they grant no experience. I could have bought perhaps some summoning wands in Verbobonc, now that I think of it while I write this. But I didn't.

But, fortunately for me...though I destroyed the golden skull in order to permanently kill Zug...I kept all the gems. Those allow you to summon up to 2 decent critters each. That combined with my wand of summoning lv4 that my priest made...allowed me to squeak through this final encounter on my 3rd attempt. (Between attempt 2 & 3, I read some of these forums to learn how important the summoning distractions were. With that knowledge combined with all members of my group using Improved Invisibility and the Enlarge spell upon my 3 combatants...I was able to pull off this win even without the use of Mass Heal spells. I did use some Stone Skin spells.)

I would like to mention something very weird I noticed about my Scather wielder. While he was enlarged, his damage was less. After the enlarge wore off...(I watched this damage shift twice during the fight) his damage went up about 15+ per hit and I'm not sure why. Weird.

Though I had no fatalities (Elmo went down once early but a Heal brought him back up) I was indeed at the end of my ability to summon any further distractions at the end of the fight. The whole game was about my Scather wielder but Elmo also often did some damage. You MUST try at all costs to NOT let the avatars get their full attack action on a party member. I highly advise using Improved Invisibility and the Enlarge Spell for everyone...but I didn't enlarge my 2 casters personally. Don't bother attempting to cast spells against the avatars as generally the spell resist will not be overcome & then they most likely won't miss any needed saving throw. I'm not going to look but I assume they have the Evasion feat as well. There may be some specialized way to get spells to work against them...but I'm mostly a fighter minded creature so my expertise doesn't lie in that direction.

I do NOT want to imagine this fight without the use of the artifact, Scather. Woe to those groups that do not have it as Elmo would hit 0-2 times out of 5 when he attacked. Furnok rarely hit even when only using one blade and I'm thinking it would be one LONG tough fight with 2-4 variant Elmo's trying to do damage. Then again, my group wasn't all lv20's and I could have had more members in my party.

To summarize...congratulations on having that Ultra-Hard final encounter to end the game with.

Thank you all for your work. I like what you have done with it all. I agree with keeping the newer content separate from the original first 10 levels & Temple. I also think the final fight should not have the Balor's but instead 4 avatar's of Zug.

 

When you're enlarged, you use normally two handed weapons (like bastard swords) in one hand, thus losing the two handed damage bonus.

You can squeeze in one (single) buff spell by pressing the "c" key in your second conversation with Lady Asherah (right before being whisked away to the arena). Make sure you have the spell caster you want to cast the buff selected before going to "dinner".

 

You can buff your brains out if you like. Like was said earlier, press C before the conversation to initiate combat, then use a scroll/helm of teleport and teleport out of there. Go back to the inn, and before you enter, buff your brains out, and then enter the inn. The conversation picks up immediately where it is suppose to and you meet the avatars with all your buffs. Although I did the quest 1 time with my evil party, and we never went to the inn. The bed started to bounce and we ended up back in her house (guess she couldnt wait and had to have me right away) Then I was just standing there, buffed the crap out of my guys, and then talked to the lady. In the past I use to use the lareth club bug to beat the avatars, but that bug has been removed I think.

 

I didn't like how the quest ended on a seemingly random botch or success. Regarding the fight...

My team was properly prepared. We had a CG Wizard19 and a CG Cleric20. Both had a Ring of Freedom of Movement, a Belt of Outer Perfection +6 (STR/DEX/CON), Boots of Speed, and Swords of Answering (Frag and Scather) with Power Attack. The Wizard carried potions of heal. Both characters had other things too which will be mentioned as prudent.

The initial initiative was Wizard >> Iuz >> Cleric.

The Cleric had a Potion of dimension door from Hickory Branch. The Wizard had dimension door and Otiluk's resilient sphere prepared. We activated the Boots of Speed and warped as far west at the start of the fight as we could. I saved, the Cleric cast divine power, I set her Power Attack to 20 instead of 15, we lured the nearest Iuz Avatar to us, and the Wizard cast Otiluke's resilient sphere (ORS). The retaliatory attacks basically reflected Iuz's damage back to him, and even with the foes' DR 15/-, each foe took about 50 damage per hit. It was just a matter of time until the foe died. Then the Wizard walked over and used a heal potion on the Cleric to remove the STR damage.

Repeat 2 more times. It would have been 3, but the game bugged and didn't spawn the fourth Iuz Avatar, which seemingly botched the quest.