Water Node...Eyes of the Deep

Howdy all, I am knocking about in the water node and have been repeatedly stomped by the four eyes of the deep. :cry:

Any suggestions?

I am running a 9th lvl party Ftr (Fragerach), Pal, Cle, Wiz, Rog & Ftr with Elmo(Scather). Using Co8 4.0 Six PC's 1NPC

 

I tend to get my melee types up in the Eye-of-the Deep's faces. They seem to cast spells less often when there is a sword swinger in close proximity, at least in my experience. Eyes are tough no doubt but up close is where they are weakest (not saying much). Depending on what you are using for spells I throw a fireball from my wizard and follow it with a clerical Holy Smite (good domain) from my cleric. The longer you stay back the more likely they get that nasty little Cone of Cold off. If I have them at the time my barbarian also throws a javelin of lightning angled to catch at least 2 of the Eyes. That is if she isn't close enough for melee but then again that is where the Quick Draw feat comes into play.
That fight is tough and may have to be played several times to figure out a good attack pattern. Even with my tactics I tend to have to refight this battle at least 3 times especially if I've lost three or more of my party and definitely if my cleric is killed.
Good hunting.

 

In the nodes, I have found that summoning large critters [especially a polar bear] and casting Animal Growth on them helps keep monsters at a distance from the party and lets the characters you want to close in on it and attack while letting your spell slingers remain at a distance to do their ranged magic attacks.

 

Aren't you drawing attention of only one of those at time, like any sensible person would do?
Your party should be quite capable in close combat (Frag and Scat in the same party... ouch!) so one EoD would go down quick, IIRC I killed them with much a weaker party... but only one of them at time.

 

I brought in an invisible (greater) druid close by and hammered them from affar with my spell casters. A few summoned creatures with my druid caused them to use up their cone of colds and then start casting their other spells on my main party. If they survived any instant kill spell then the eyes were practically defenceless and thats when I drove the tanks in to finish the job. I was probably about a level 7 or 8 party at the time with almost none of the good stuff since I passed by the main temple and all the goodies before entering the nodes. I think the experience I got for each character was about 6000 so that would indicate what level my party of 8 was at.

That is a tough fight though. Can't immagine what a beholder would have done to my poor party.

 

one strategy:cast protection against energy (cold) on elmo & your warrior, then make sure thier armor has spell resistance! (for slay living i guess, because they keep killing my guys even though i dont even see them attack them) and craft amulets of natural armor +5, & a get someone with a wand of magic missiles. nail the eyes with scath & frag to distract them while the main guy pummels them with the missiles. if at all.

 

Enneigard

If your character(s) just drop dead I believe it's a "phantasmal killer" spell. I've seen Eyes throw those before. I don't know if I've ever seen them throw Slay Living. Just a thought.

 

Re: Enneigard

I think if I recall the spellcraft description right that they threw slay living at me but could very well be dreaming it up. The spell effect was a small black globe that flew off towards the character they were attacking (which was half way across the map I might add: which, btw, made no sense as it appears the spells' ranges are too long. I tried to take in half my party with elemental protection against that gang of fire salamanders in the fire node and could not move the remainder of my party far enough away to avoid their barrage of fireballs- which made them Noble Salamanders according to 3.0 which again was not described in their descriptions - Much like the gaurdian variety of demons placed at the gates). I think that battle was even more annoying than the eye battle because of their range and number of enemies. The Eye of the deep cone of cold was relatively short range as it should be.

 

phantasmal killer........hmmmmm which saving throw negates it?

 

It's will, and it doesn't negate it. You just don't die.

 

Actually, that's one of the few spells that allows TWO saves. First, you get a Will save; if you make it, no effect. If you fail it, then you get a Fort save. If you make it, you take a few points of damage. If you fail it, you die.

(This fundamental weakness is why the spell is level 4 instead of level 5, the point where the rest of the single-target instakill spells begin to appear.)

This ends today's game balance commentary. Please return to your regularly scheduled beta testing. *glares impatiently at the door, waiting for delivery of video card* irate:

--Blair
"What are you talking about? Supreme guru? I ordered nachos supreme!"

 

I think my Eye of the Deep revamp, which is in Co8 5.0, replaces Phantasmal Killer with Slay Living, to keep them more on-par with Beholders.

 

so, its an annoying rolling spell? (where you roll more saves for an uncanny reason)