Nulb Ambush Slaughter

marc1967, will you please post your saved game just before you have the Nulb house ambush, so that I can try to win the combat using your party? It may also help me to offer you advise on how to design better characters or how to win the combat with your party (if it is possible).

I must confess that I have never played the Circle of Eight Modpack without a wizard or sorcerer in my party.

I think that your cleric is the key character in your party that may enable you to win that combat. I would advise that your cleric memorizes the spell Sound Burst as many times as possible (put it in your level 3 spell slots as well). The amazing thing about this spell is that any character that fails his/her save DROPS THE ITEMS THAT HE/SHE IS WIELDING IN EACH HAND! This causes all opponents who no longer have any weapons in their inventory to resort to making unarmed attacks against your characters, which PROVOKES ATTACKS OF OPPORTUNITY FROM YOUR CHARACTER EVERY TIME THAT OPPONENTS MAKE AN UNARMED ATTACK AGAINST ANY OF YOUR MELEE CHARACTERS! [other players have pointed out that the spell only works this way in the Keep on the Borderlands module, not in the Circle of Eight Modpack]

The Assassin, Rannos Davl(?), and Gremag(?) are particularly susceptible to Sound Burst because (being rogues) they have relatively poor Fortitude saves compared to the enemy Fighters.

Another great spell for your cleric to cast on enemy rogues and enemy fighters is:

For designing the most powerful characters who have the best chance of survival, I would recommend:

1. All of your strong melee characters who have at least 13 Intelligence should select the Combat Expertise and Improved Trip feats. Then attempt to trip as many opponents as possible. The amazing thing about successfully tripping an opponent is that, when standing up, the opponent provokes attacks of opportunity from ALL OF YOUR MELEE CHRACTERS WHO THREATEN THE AREA THAT THE TRIPPED OPPONENT IS IN! The other amazing thing about successfully tripping opponents is that it denies them from being able to make multiple attacks against your characters, because an opponent who stood up can only make 1 attack that same turn!

2. Giving all of your characters the Improved Initiative feat gives them the best chance of acting before the enemy does in the first round of combat, which can mean the difference between life and death!

3. Equipping your melee characters with tower shields can maximize their chance of staying alive by being hit less often.

4. Equipping your melee characters with reach weapons maximizes their threat area (which allows them to make the most attacks of opportunity) and allows them to still attack opponents when unable to move within 5 feet of any opponent.

5. Have any archers in your party Ready vs. Spell in an attempt to disrupt enemy spell casters from being able to cast any spells.

6. Don't be afraid to have your frontline melee characters select Total Defense (or Fight Defensively or whatever it is called) and activate their Combat Expertise feat to maximum. If your frontline melee character is lower level than the opponents and facing multiple melee opponents, it is usually better to make your tank(s) as difficult to hit as possible (while the spellcasters and archers in your party concentrate on neutralizing and taking out the enemy).

 

Really?? The mobs drop stuff when stunned in ToEE? I don't recall seeing that before. Are you quite sure?

 

hmm,, i know it works in KOTB but i haven't seen soundburt work like that in TOEE and i use it often and the sometimes are stunned but they never drop weapons.
But i will try that when i get to the fight,

 

I've had soundburst cast on me numerous times in ToEE and my characters never dropped anything.

 

You can loot unconscious NPC''s.

 

I happen to share yr play style (no wiz , sorc or druid allowed) and clearly recall being hit by this encounter at party lvl 6+ i just returned from a sound trashing of the upper temple level and came to make some 'money gainz' so i can craft up a bunch of stuff and enhance my weapons a bit... soo i dump all the 'junk' on poor Otis and go home for a quiet crafting session...
I'm one of those always ready kind of guys so my first reaction upon entering any location is barkskin my front(pff the darn thing last so long i usually get my party to rag shape by the time it expires and need to rest by then any way) and trow an inspire courage from the bard then simply resume my tourist act...

I reach my nulb shack and the encounter fires : from the get go no assassin or ranos(offed em earlier in my carrier) the zuggy priest starts prebuffing while i listen to gremags teary speech...
Initiative rolls come in and my belle(bard-backup archer) and deadeye(fighter-ranger composite-longbow) get to go first (no surprise dex mod of 4+ and improved initiative) the belle gives counter-song (5 rounds of inspire courage remaining at that point since she hasn't got 2 mouths to sing-em both) and deadeye readies vs magic... slade the spike chain rogue specialist trows a low-blow atak move and lands in line with a yet flat-footed(but combat reflexed) darkstone(a tin can equipped with half-plate and a glaive) ...then all hell brakes lose a few of theyr melee guys get initiative and while taking ataks of opportunity bash the poor darkstone then one of theyr mages gets a go and deadeye nails him causing a miscast... then another mage slowes my party down (if i recall well enough either first or second round ?) then zugy priest fails a command spell on darksone towards the end linu the cleric goes (second to last -1 dex mod lol) i had her trow an entangle to counter that darn slow(if my guys get slow why shoudn't i return the favor) poor darkstone acted last but managed to kill a guy (the one slade sucker-punched) and obtained a nice cleave
On round 2 darkstone gets disabled and falls to the ground belle fires the short bow and kills a mage(the one deadeye interupted earlier), deadeye readies vs magic and disrupts yet another mage , linu trows a sound burst stunning zuggy priest and some 2 other guys slade ataks and does a 5 foot back-step making a new line with linu(longspear user)
Round 3 finds me with a dead darkstone a quarter life slade and a badly injured linu but the fun times were about to begin : belle trows glitterdust , dead-eye offs the last mage poor zuggy priest tries to wake up a passed up thug
Soon after slow effect ended i tell linu to break up the entangle spell and slade turns just about every one to mush potatoes (vs glittered oponents all ataks including those of oportunity count as sneek ataks) with linu providing long spear heal and command support :transform and belle and deadeye doing target practice shots... i then get cocky and do smth retarded i move linu and slade up closer to flank zuggy priest and on hes turn i get slade 'healed' to death...
End result 2 dead party members darkstone and slade and ragged up rest of the party .... btw can u guess where the initial crafting money went ?? (if u said terjeons pockets congrats)

Soo how did my party looked like :
Darkstone 5th lvl fig (heavy armor weapon specialization in glaive and cleave) died once before
Slade 1 fig/5th lvl rogue (spike chain , weapon finesse, combat reflex
Deadeye 4fig/2 rng (improved initiative rapid shot masterwork composite longbow adict
Linu clr lvl 5 plant and good domains(yeah a slight half-elf fetish here so zip it :transform
Belle 6th lvl bard with a rapid shot and a composite masterwork shortbow for any one that failed to praise her weird musical taste...

So its quite doable... but don't bother complaining about rapes when taking nude evening strides... do yr homework get a party that can (over)compensate the standard absence of mage issues :
1)lack of heavy raw dmg can be balanced out by bardic augmentation and long reach weapons coupled with cleave/trip moves
2)lack of concentrated ranged dmg/disable effects can be ofset by the presence of at least 2 competent archers to quickly down a mage or disrupt a pair of them
3)lack of insta-solve mage battle spells(yeah we both know of those too well since we shun mages to avoid the tentation of using them) ;have a darn cleric buff bot armor the guys up with shield of faith,barksin and protection vs and have a bard to counter song/inspire them... so they last long enough to win a battle
4)lack of crowd-control specials: best alternative entangle&glitterdust plus fascinate sadly this assumes the presence of a cleric(druid if u rly lack experience/creativity) and bard
5)Open up yr eyes: no one is ever likely to learn about and optimally deploy bard&cleric while hes able to use mages&druids ... just don't get confused bard&cleric are augmentation/support units so don't expect rock-star moves from them as you would from mages

 

All the times I've had this encounter I've never had it w/o the assassin, so I learned to move my most tanked character to the 5th character spot, as that is whom the assassin usually targets. Take him out and near everyone else there is a pushover- if you're ready for the fight that is...

 

Got both traders and the assassin at level 6, without buffing and preparing my party without chance.
My cleric was slain by the assassin as he held the 5th spot and the evil priest cursed my wizard so now it was 2 fighters a rouge and a ranger left do deal with 8 opponents that are several levels higher. i was crushed.

But when i added Otis and the oohlgrist and buffed a Little i slaughtered them instead.

Usually i just wait until level 8 and then we are quite evenly matched.