Succubus using ethereal visage in act 1?

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Howdy all,

I'm finishing Act 1, and started running into Succubi who cast Ethereal Visage. Of course, I have the annoying Bishop with me. My party couldn't touch them. I looked round the net and found that the succubi have [10/cold iron or good] DR + 18 Spell Resistance. Okay, fine, I should be able to beat that. Then I look up Ethereal Visage [20/adamantine] + concealment 25% + immunity to 2nd lvl or lower spells? WHA? That's end-game stuff. Used wand of disjunction --no effect. Elemental orb (no save, no resist) --no effect. Elanee's Call Lighting Storm --no effect.

I'm reading walk-throughs and guides --no mention of (oh, BTW you might need to craft an uber-weapon before the end of Act1). All guides say crafting is fun, but not necessary. Okay, looks like that is 100% wrong.

Well, I was pissed, so I cheated with the console --gave all my party cold iron and adamantine weapons. I went into the battle 50/50 -half with cold-iron, half with adamantine. The cold iron weapons had zero effect. The adamantine weapons only did 2 magical damage each hit, no matter what. Backstabs and crits did nothing.

Seriously? I thought DR did not stack. If I'm stuck doing 2 damage for the rest of the game, I'm out.

I finished NWN SOU and HOTU, both fun --I might be finished here in NWN2 Act 1. Any advice?

 

I don't recall that being an issue. Damage Reductions don't stack, but they do overlap. Adamantine weapons will bypass the DR/adamantine but will be subject to DR/cold iron and vice versa.

Succubi (and all other demons) are also immune to electricity, so lightning storm is useless, and resistant to most other elements (sans sonic if you consider that an element).

You need someone who can hit very hard or hit them with something that's untyped (e.g. magic missile).

 

Having a holy weapon is definitely a must in just about any D&D game. I like to craft myself an adamantine holy weapon as soon as possible. It goes through just about everything.

 

Tried Magic Missile --Caught by Ethereal Visage.

I've already saved the game with Bishop, Elanee, and Qara, and my main is a Ranger(2)/Rogue(8) focused on dual-wielding finesse weapons for super sneak-attack damage. Had I known the game difficulty was suddenly going to jump to [almost impossible], I would have swapped Qara for Khelgar.

DR overlaps? That's way OP! I can't make a cold-iron-adamantine weapon. So I need to craft a good-aligned adamantine weapon just to fight this one fight? What about the next fight? I assume the DR problems just go up from here. Am I going to need three sets of weapons for every character --Adamantine, Cold Iron, and Silver? Wait, no. I need [holy adamantine] [holy cold iron] and [holy silver] to try to bypass overlapping DR for the rest of the game? So now archers are useless for the rest of the game? My dual-wielding is out? Do I have to start over and just do all munchkin power-builds?

If that's what I have to do, I'm not doing it.

 

Unless I start the whole game over, it's too late for Crafting and too late for Casavir. It seems that once you go the Gith Base, you can't get back.

I've got Bishop, Elanee, and Qara, and my main who is mostly a rogue.

 

Thanks Beren and Ken.

I've been reading the guides, saving carefully along the way --there was no mention of getting stuck at the gith base, nor of the battles suddenly becoming impossible, nor of needing to power-build the party, nor of needing multiple save-games, no warning whatsoever. Everything I've read said crafting is optional, and to just relax and have fun.

Ironically, I had sort of been power-building Khelgorn, because it seemed in character, but the game forced me to take Bishop, so I kept the two spell casters.

I think there's an old autosave. I'll check it, but...

I think I'm stuck. This game might be done.

 

Ethereal visage will block magic missiles, yeah, it was just an example of a spell that does untyped damage. You'll need something like a missile storm at least.

Try your wand of disjunction a few more times to dispel the effect (would be more effective if you had dispel magic on your caster though).

Golfing is actually pretty standard practice for warriors in D&D. You have a primary weapon and then several cheap alternatives for various situations.

Archers have and always will be useless compared to all other options. Welcome to D&D 3E.

 

And by the time you're reasonably efficient with your bow, everyone else will easily outpace you. It's like intentionally shooting yourself in the leg (pun intended).

 

Well that's Bishop's set up (archery with all the feats) but he can't do anything in this fight. We can't make holy adamantine arrows, right? So archery is unable to cope with DR, so archery is out --in NWN2, anyway... Yes?

I currently play Pathfinder. When we were kids, we used to power-build and have a henchman (vis-a-vis the Nodwick comics) carry a huge golf-bag of stuff, different weapons, suits of armor, horses, whatever. Nowadays, I haven't seen an adventure in which any player had the resources to create a "golf bag" for any situation. It's not magic-poor, we just play adventures, and avoid lengthy campaigns.

The more I look at it, the more I think 3e DR breaks the game. It completely eliminates many PC options which would be super-fun to roleplay, but can't handle the DR problem --especially overlapping DR.

I like that DR is limited to block x amount of damage, but when I GM, I just extrapolate my own rules for bypassing DR from 2e: Silver or magic weapons to hit, Cold Iron or +2 weapons to hit, Adamantine or +3 weapons to hit. If it's a high magic adventure, I can bump the requirements up one notch, so that it's silver or +2 to hit, etc... If it's magic-poor, I can just add in a few special material weapons or maybe leave items of different materials out for improvised weapons, "You throw the adamantine bowling ball, and... ...Oh! The demon is down!" --that's always funny.

Regarding Dispel Magic --I think Elanee can rest and get a bunch of those. Will they work, or is this another save and try it ten times before you get lucky sorta deal?

 

If you play Pathfinder, you should be more than used to this crap.

And yes, D&D in general isn't particularly friendly to fun characters. We have other systems for that kind of thing.

Also, I'm not sure if you can craft adamantine/cold iron/silver ammo in NwN2, but that's one of the cheapest ways to golf bag in D&D otherwise...

 

I never did get this far into NWN2, but juggling equipment was definitely a thing in NWN 1. In HotU I always had all three belts of damage reduction (slashing/crushing/piercing) and was swapping them all the time. Same with weapons. And I distinctly remember simply being unable to overcome the DR of the demi-lich in HotU with a specific build. Lack of DR was also the reason the dragon forms were not very useful for a druid/shape shifter. Or rather, lack of good DR against higher enchantment weapons.

In BG you'd typically be juggling different weapons as well, so it is indeed nothing new. Not being able to do any damage at all due to being unable to overcome DR is very frustrating, though, and not something you'd encounter in the BG games.

 

Well, in my recent adventure (I'm writing / GMing) the characters have tough problems with DR, but that's the whole point of the adventure. The Dwarves have been creating new things. So the PC's are running around finding ways to stop these crazy creations. A few they can fight, a few they have to outsmart, a few they have to engineer some way to stop them (eg. one heavy automaton was actually piloted by a dwarf. The PC's lured it onto a small bridge and then blasted the bridge, sending the 5-ton automaton into the river, and drowning the pilot). As a GM, I can create plenty of "backdoor" or brute-force options for defeating heavy DR, so in PNP, it's not necessarily a game-ender...

...Whereas here in NWN2 --uh... None of the party can do anything.

 

Of course not, in IE games you just get a nice "weapon ineffective" message.

 

DR overlap is only OP if you make it a point to create a creature with various sources of (overlapping) DR, plus other perks like godly HP/damage/AC. Otherwise, DR is EXTREMELY difficult to get (pretty much only a DM can create such a monster) and standard sources of DR have lots of (some would argue too many) counters.
DR isn't actually that impressive in this game considering the sheer amount of damage a well built/equipped character can do and AC/concealment work better as a damage deterrent.

If you have the expansions installed archery can be very powerful, as Beren pointed out. You can even enchant holy/elemental ranged weapons in the OC. I make it a point to give Neeshka a holy duskwood short bow in early game since it takes so long to develop her dual-wielding skills.

The most obvious solution to your problem is for your Elanee to memorize Dispel Magic, which ignores SR. You could also just wait out the spell (Succubi have low AB though their attacks can level drain) or you can also just Haste everyone and make sure Elanee's animal companion has the Greater Magic Fang buff since the additional magic damage ignores DR. Succubi have VERY low HP (hence the DR) and a Hasted animal companion with Greater Magic Fang will eventually kill them all. You can also summon another animal and cast Greater Magic Fang on that to speed up the process.
The Wand of Arcane Disjunction casts Dispel Magic with a caster level of 5 (see description). Skip that.

You don't actually have to craft Cold Iron/Alchemical Silver/Adamantine weapons in the OC, sheer brute force works with proper spell support. If you like switching party members around a lot though (eg. if you're playing the influence game) having these weapons around helps in case you find yourself with an all warrior party. The game also make it a point to nudge you in the right direction crafting-wise. Khelgar, Grobnar, Qara, Sand, and various other NPCs have all have craft weapons/armor/alchemy as default skills.
You can ignore Craft Magical Arms and Armor/Craft Wondrous Items but unless you cheat you'll always have access to items made of special material.

Other options include having everyone use melee weapons and then using Greater Magic Weapon on them, nuking the Succubi down using spells that deal sonic/magical damage (Orb of Sound, Missile Storm), a̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶i̶m̶p̶l̶y̶ ̶l̶e̶a̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶a̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶y̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶p̶a̶r̶e̶d̶/̶e̶q̶u̶i̶p̶p̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶f̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶g̶o̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶(̶I̶I̶R̶C̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶).

Edit: Nope

 

Thanks Par,

Will try.

Qara doesn't have greater magic weapon yet or an orb higher than 2nd level (if I'd have known)... Elanee doesn't have greater magic fang yet, hope the first level spell will work. I had previously ditched most of the Animal Companion buffs, because even after I added Awaken, the most her companion did to the orcs was 3 damage. It's a great meat shield, as I can buff the AC way up, but does almost no damage. How? I dunno. A 10th level animal companion should be dishing it out. Maybe the summons will somehow do better? It's all SNAFUed at this point.

Should I be worried about the overlapping DR / power-builds from here on out, or is this just a one-time FU to 3e players from Obsidian? Seriously, the game difficulty went from moderately easy to almost impossible --with no way out... And forcing Bishop into the party right when you need a power-build fighter. It doesn't look like a mistake, it looks subversive.