Elemental Node Guardian Tactics (Spoilers)

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I was thinking of writing a mini-guide for this one, but I really can't be bothered, and it would mean re-fighting these guys to remember the order of the spells they cast - maybe next time.

For now, I'll just write out a few quick points that may help in general against the big fellas.

Essential:
Magic Missle
Scather

Damn Useful:
Druid Summoning
Searing Light
Flame Strike
Cone of Cold

A note of importance. It is highly unlikely that you shall not be able to obtain either Fragarach or Scather; You either help him or kill him. With this said, if you have rescued prince Thrommel, and not yet recieved your reward, wait until almost 14 days have passed since he escaped, and then travel, you should meet him on your first encounter, but you wont. Keep at it.

If you either do not have a mage, or have one, but are mentally defficient, and therefore do not have magic missile, do not despair.

The only wand I found was in the possesion of one of the members of the travelling adventurers, another random encounter, but you probably just talked to them and let them go, if not, shame on you.

Spugnoir and Burne may have the spell too, but they are a hassle, use only if required.

The solution? On the elemental plane/node of fire, there is a sorceress named Darley- she has 7 castings. Go get her.

Now, on to the tactics (sorry, I'll be brief).

The Vrock is a big baby, go up and *****-slap him. while he's crying about his crumpled feathers, he really loves the pretty colours of magic missile and searing light, so shoot a couple his way. His AC is not too impressive, so most of your fighters should be able to hit him fairly constantly, and he will waste his time casting mirror image (easily broken with arrows, a hasted fighter (usuing boots of speed), or the break enchantment or True Seeing spells) shooting spores, and summoning Quasits. I don't know why he's here. If you survived the confrontation with Iuz, he's a push-over.

A Glabrezeu is like the Vrock on steroids. He still pisses about with mirror image and quasits, but not much else. He packs a whallop, and has five attacks per round however, so you'll want to be a little careful. Make sure all your spell casters are well out of range to avoid those hefty spell-disrupting AoO. His AC is also thankfully low however, so a fighter-type, especially if they have a holy weapon (or the monk's lawful strike) will still hit a good fifty percent of the time. If those Earth-Elementals are bothering you, then use your fighter with the lowest to-hit (because he'll keep missing the Glabrezou), a spell like call-lightning, flame-strike, or cone of cold, or even better, slay living and phantasmal killer (phantasmal killer is the best, as it requires not otuch attack to hit) and take them out quickly while your scather-weilder and your best fighter is whacking away, and your mage launches Melf's Acid Arrow, quickly followed by Magic Missile.

Keep this up, he has about twice as many HP as the Vrock (320 instad of 140 IIRC) but those will get eaten up very quickly. Remember to keep using those big spells on him, with area effect to take out the remaining elementals or quasits, they should almost always hit, and the lower ones (Magic Missle, Searing Light) can keep up a good 10-20 points of damage per round. Don't waste your time with cloud spells or Inflict spells, they'll either hurt you more than him, or be disrupted as they move in for the touch attack, with subsequent damage. If you have an idle druid, summon a large or medium elemental (anything else is a waste). They may not hit often, but they'll keep those hefty attacks away from you, and a small distraction is all you should need, he falls fairly quickly. For some reason the call lightning spells seem to do no damage whatsoever, even if he fails all the resistence checks. Go figure. If someone falls unconscious, but doesn't die, cast sanctuary on them to prevent further damage.

Now you're ready for the Balor. This is a whole new kettle of fish. Remember that your cloud-spells, call lightning/storm and inflict spells are worse than useless. The problem is, most of your fighters will also be in the same postion. With power-attack on, you'll never make contact, with it off, you'll never deal any damage due to damage reduction.

This is how it works. Stand your spell-casters way back, send your Scather/Fragarach wielder in, and chase off the efreeti with your remaing fighters, or a phantasmal killer/slay living spell. You can get them both with Cone of Cold if you like, and this may do some damage to the Balor as well. All damage involved will be minor however, but that's the same with everything with this guy. Thankfully your own characters seem to be able to dodge Cone of Cold far better than Fire-ball (lucky in this situation for obvious reasons).

Be careful, the first couple of rounds will go by in your favour, with the balor wasting his suggestion spells on your summoned creatures (you did summon them right?) or even better, an animal companion (who are immune). There seems to be a bug here, so be careful, it can cause a CTD, I'll get to this later. He'll then open up some Chaos Hammers (minor area effect damage spells) quasits, and not much else. This is your chance to pound him for all your worth, cast flame strike -the fire wont hurt him but the divine damage will, only for 9 usually, but that's more than most things. Unfortuantely searing light seems to be ineffective here, so after your divine catsers have depleted those you can summon more elementals (you'll need them for cannon fodder later) or in the case of a cleric (which seems more popular) you can start buffing your players, or attempting to de-buff/anti-buff him (good luck). Don't bother with healing, they wont make it unless it's cure light wounds mass, due to AoO as you approach players. There is a reason I say to leave the buffing to later, I'll get to that soon.

As always, your arcane casters are going to be opening with with either an area effect spell, or maybe launching a Melf's Acid Arrow or lightning bolt (I'm unsure if this will work well, but it's worth a go) and then quickly focusing on magic missile, magic missile, magic missile. With a PC wizard, and the NPC Darley, that's about 6-7 rounds worth, meaning 13 spells, meaning 65 missiles (if you last that long) Let's say about half hit (you should do this easily if you have a spell penetration feat, I actaully had a couple of rounds where all five made it through his ample resistance. So we're talking 35*1D4+1, that is considerable, and your best weapon (maybe second best if you have a good weilder for Scather or Fragarach).

The Balor's fire-shield actually works in your favour here, as the only melee character who will actually make contact is the one weilding Scather, meaning that your attacks per round effectively double (if CG, you will only get half-again if NG, but no extra if anything else. This will be the only weapon to hit however, so two is better than nothing). This is because it takes the damage (minor) dealt to you every time you successfully make an attack against the Balor from his fire-shield as an attack, meaning you get an extra free automatic AoO against him. As a side note, use any abilities that increase damage, these are obvious (like power-strike, barbarian rage, inspire greatness/courage, etc), but I thought it worth mentioning.

So you've been whittling him away with Magic Missile, Flame-Strike, and Scather, using either your cleric or secondary fighters to take out the efreeti and Quasits, and summoning Elementals as shock troops to absorb the damage he's going to start dealing any second now. All of a sudden he casts fear. I hope you saved before-hand, because if all your characters become afraid you'll be in dire straights. This shouldn't happen however, as at least half should resist, and they will only run for the first round. As long as the Character weilding scather is ok, you'll be fine, as your spell casters can still attack from range (they only run within a certain radius) or summon more backup. By this point he should be in the red- so keep at it. Your other fighters shall be useless I'm sorry to say. If they are hybrid-types, take this oppurtunity to maybe heal your fleeing characters, or re-buff if possible, as Rangers and Paladins can't cast offensive spells of any signifigance. Your bard (if you have one) can't take magic missile, but here they may be able to heal you fleeing partcipants. They should have either been concentrating on bard-song and killing Quasits, or if you're fighter-light, (or if everyone else is LG or evil for example) weilding Scather. They can also learn Break Enchantment at level 10, so if your other casters are busy, they can take off the fear effects. You want to do as much damage as possible before he casts fear, or the battle may drag out, and a party member die.

Now is when your Warriors, who have been patiently sitting on the bench, or futiley whacking away, can do some good. Remember those suggestion spells he cast? Notice how the Summoned Cretures kept attacking him, and got added to your party's portarit list by mistake? This is a bug, and I learnt it the hard way. Send those fighters off immediately, and use those spare spells that don't have any effect (by this time you're out of Flame-Strike, so Call Lightning/Storm and Searing LIght can do some good. You want to take out those suggested summoned creatures and pronto (if the Balor hasn't swatted them down allready they probably ran in fear) and dismiss them like a man in hot-pants (unless you like men in hot pants, god help us, not that there's anything wrong with that ).

The Balor should be approaching the big sleep now, and unless something untoward happend to your prime combatants, you should be finishing him off quickly with Scather or a Magic Missile. *Be Warned! If you do this while the Elemental/Summoned Creature is still incorrectly a member of your party, it will CTD immediately* Take him out, do it now, and then soon you should see the Balor fall. Be careful, as he drops a fire-ball like death explosion as he hits the ground. Hopefully this will only drive one or two to lose conciousness, which can be quickly remedied by those pent-up healing spells you've been anxiously waiting to cast. Oh yeah, he has a penchant for the spell Slay Living after he's done with that fear spell, so time is the imperitive here. Even if you can resist the instant death, you can only take so much secondary damage.

Now you're ready for the big guns. You thought that was tough? You ain't seen nothing yet! The Hezrou was the the most insane battle in the game for me. I lost it (my temper, my sanity, not the battle), I almost bit my keyboard, I punched the tower case, the wall, the desk, the monitor, I even head-butted the Monitor at one point. I could barely speak for the rising inevitable involuntary fury. Use tactics as per above relating to spells, but be glad! He has a lower spell-resistence, and gets squeamish around naked flames, so use Searing Light and Flame-Strike, even Fireball (If your real game and have bollocks you could crush walnuts with) with impunity. You weren't going to use cone of cold again were you? I didn't think so. Careful though about those area spells, as it is the most confined space of all the battles. As always, Magic Missile works wonders. Rejoice again! He has a semi-breachable AC. This means that those lazy lazy fighters can be your big-hitters once more, you will miss a good 70-80% at least, but every bit helps, and the damage you deal, both for spells and melee, while less than our humble fiends the Vrock and Glabrezu, are considerably greater than that which the Balor shrugged off.

So why the big challenge you say?. His CR of 28 reflects this, he's a mean bastard. Real mean. He'll open up with some meaningless Chaos Hammers, and a Quasit or two, but that's almost it. The lesser enchantments are a nuisance, but a minor one, and I don't think he uses Fear or Slay Living like the Balor did. He doesn't waste his time with suggestion or mirror image either however, and this is the drawback.

He has 450 HP. 450. That's a lot. He finishes spell casting quicker than any one else. He has 4 attacks per round, and hits for 20-30 damage at least. He wil kill a player eventually I'm sure, unless you are damn quick on your toes, or if you discover that he's also liable to lose his temper. He will start attacking someone, likely an animal companion or summoned cereature if you've got one, failing that, your weakest character engaging him in melee. If they survive (fingers crossed) you want to cast Otiluke's Resilient Sphere immediately. He'll not notice at first, and keep smacking away. The more he does that, the more he becomes frustrated that he can't seem to hit anything, and that his meaty fists are quickly becoming bruised. He'll lose it, and pound away for all he's worth at your now invincible target, and this is when you hit him with all you've got. It's cheesy I know, but eventually you'll tire of plucking Scather from the cold dead hands of the last fool that weilded it, and was subsequently slaughtered, and decide maybe it's not too bad. Good luck if you can defeat him without it, just remember to try and keep a supply of creatures available for target practice, to keep hitting him with your spell-casters, and to use every trick in the book to get your fighters to deal some blows. Remeber as well, that cloud-spells are obsolete, and anything that requires you to make a touch-attack (non-ranged) against him or anyone within his attack radius/range, will likely be disrupted and result in at least two attacks of oppurtunity against your spell caster. If anyone doesn't seem to be landing a blow, or has run out of working spells, then use them to finish of the Quasits. You should always try to get the extra enemies out of the way as quickly as possible (with either area spells or a weaker/low to-hit fighter) so as to avoid extra damage. It will make it a lot easier, and you don't want any more trouble with any of these guys (except perhaps the Vrock, hehe- Vrock).

Well, I hope that this has been of assistance to any of you guys experiencing difficulty (or head trauma casue by monitor-cranium impact) and I will perhaps write an addition to this later regaring Zuggtmoy. If you can beat these four, Zuggtmoy is merely a piece of scenery on your path towards the end-game cut-scenes, however, unless of course she summons three Hezrous....

[ November 25, 2003, 12:39: Message edited by: Manus ]

 

Try enchanting your fighter with protection from evil and protection from chaos during the Hezrou battle. The Hezrou will deal no more then 0 damage to that fighter. As long as the Hezrou doesn't change his target the battle should be a piece of cake. That's what I did.

Edit: I wasn't using the Scather as none of my characters specialize in the sword.