Whoever added Death Shepherds...

[Velamont]

Fk you, let you forever be unemloyed. Larien and their dumbass "creative" new enemies. You know why "no rest for the wicked" is not a spell in D&D? BECAUSE RESSURECTION AS A BONUS ACTION IS IDIOTIC AT IT'S PREMISE it breaks action economy. Never try to add your own ♥♥♥♥♥ enemies to a d&d again.

Edit: I mean I thought Owlcat's encounter design was sometimes total bs, but at least they used real enemies from rulebook... Who the fk signed off on this?

UPD: Whoever added "radiant retort" should suffer the same fate. It has no bloody reason to be in the game. If you can't design encounter without some out of nowhere bs you are not good at your job and you should quit.

UPD2: To idiots that go like "game must be hard for you". No it's not. It's unfair but it's not hard. It does not however means that you can add your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ unbalanced enmies because you can't design encounters to be chalenging for that level.

[Ivan the Gent]

I also get annoyed by fudgy encounters where NPCs have spells out of balance with PC spells. I mean the power of a level 1-9 spell should be the same for PC or NPC/Mob. The hagspawns spells are another example of this with their cantrips doing 9-12 psyhic damage plus 2 rounds fear and their level 1 psyhic dot spells does more damage than the lvl 2 pshyic dot spell PCs can learn and it also make the target vulnerable.

But I do recognise this annoyance is probably an issue with me more than it is the game.

These minor gripes havnt spoiled the game for me so far and I would bet with a bit of adjustment you will find a way to kill the Deaths Sheppards. I killed them so fast on normal difficultly that i didnt even notice they could do that.

[Daliena]

Originally posted by Mobiusx2:

Originally posted by Daliena:

Speaking of Shadowheart.. My tabletop thinking where you choose your party and then ride or die betrayed me, I swear. I should've brought Shadowheart. She's practically custom-made to send that lot straight to one or another of the Hells. Guiding Bolt, Silence, Spirit Guardians..

Heh. I've been playing RPGs for a long time and I have always made sure to have one mage and one cleric and healer on hand. Don't want to take any chances.

I kept Gale around for wizardry, but my PC is a Paladin, and it's been enough for healing. Not so much for offensive divine spellcasting, though.

Originally posted by Ebony witch:

Focus on Death Shepherd? I had only problem with them when there were two on the road, that is annoying, but at least kill one of them as soon as you can.
Also it is the problem of people, who rush the game, and usually they are underleveled.

The double Shepherd encounter is the only one I've ran into so far. Which can be frustrating because if you try to burn one down fast, the other will resurrect it. Both have to die at about the same time - or at least you need Silence/Counterspell/such.

Originally posted by MugiCharlie:

there is no way people actually had trouble with death shepards right? im playing on tactician and never even thought of shepards as anything but a jobber. and it's funny af because most of the adds kill themselves walking up to my team who has spirit guardians or polearm master +gwm

Polearm Master + GWM, huh? So level 8+? Must be nice, I was level 5 when I first ran into them, level 6 when I went back to actually deal with them.

Originally posted by Ivan the Gent:

I also get annoyed by fudgy encounters where NPCs have spells out of balance with PC spells. I mean the power of a level 1-9 spell should be the same for PC or NPC/Mob. The hagspawns spells are another example of this with their cantrips doing 9-12 psyhic damage plus 2 rounds fear and their level 1 psyhic dot spells does more damage than the lvl 2 pshyic dot spell PCs can learn and it also make the target vulnerable.

You're going to hate Nere then. Bastard has a cantrip - a CANTRIP - that inflicts a 4-turn mind control + constant Psychic damage.

(At least it breaks when the target takes any non-psychic damage so you can just slap them with a single Magic Missile or so, but jeez!)

[Mobiusx2]

One thing to note, is that I was able to knock one prone so he couldn't resurrect the other.

[angelsenvy228]

just knock off their temporary hitpoints (like 8 or something) and then turn undead everyone, and yeah counterspell if he is reviving the other, just ignore it if he is reviving the trash.

[Noodliest]

Obviously you must be playing on Tactician difficulty if you are struggling with some random mobs. Maybe go back down to Balanced if it is troublesome.

I assume as someone playing on Tactician mode you probably know more about the combat than the people in the steam forums !

[Sythalin]

And my "by a blocked user" list continues to grow by the minute....

[ProestUnicorn]

Originally posted by Sythalin:

And my "by a blocked user" list continues to grow by the minute....

Why so serious?

[Shahadem]

Originally posted by Tiviani:

You are aware that GM's home brew content -all of the time- right?

Yes and the GM is answerable to the players. The players can simply say no or that the GM needs to change their homebrew rules. There has to be an agreement between the two for a session to happen and generally players will have already decided if the GM is a killer GM and if those are the types of sessions they wanted.

Players as a group do not all share the same set of preferences or expectations. Some players want to always be 5 seconds or 1 dice roll away from dying, others don't. Some players want to be sweaty min maxing metagaming tryhards, others don't. Neither group is wrong but you do have to recognize there are other people with different preferences from your own.

[ShadowSkill11]

Just sounds like crying from someone who didn’t read the spell descriptions.

[tlenz]

We're already well into the weeds here, but...

When I ran into them, I had no-one in the party with particular facility against undead. So I just....mashed them. Just tons of raw damage and I think a fireball. The last Death Shepherd rezzed the ghast maybe...twice? But by that point I was only fighting one Shepherd and the ghast.

I believe I had my monk, Karlach as a wolf-heart barbarian, Wyll , and probably Astarion. If I recall, I took down the first Shepherd during my surprise round, and dropped the fireball on my second normal round of combat.

I really don't know what the OP's problem is here. They are undead, so it is on theme to expect the possibility of something "rezzing" them in combat. The combat itself is moderately challenging for a 5th level party, which in most cases will have 3rd level spells and multiple attacks per round, AND will likely have initiative.

And while I haven't played too far into Act 2 yet, I haven't seen a single encounter I'd consider unfair. Probably the closest is the one underneath the Blighted Village.

The fact of the matter is that virtually ALL encounters can be seen coming. If you haven't fought them before, SCOPE THEM OUT! Take a look at their basic stats. Their level alone will give you an idea of whether or not you should tackle them. If you do choose to engage, position your party for tactical advantage before starting a fight. And once you're positioned right, have Astation steath attack to open the fight, In almost all cases your entire PARTY will get an opening shot. That can be an ENORMOUS advantage in most fights. I mean, at level 5 (when I fought these dudes) I could have had a sneak attack, fireball, a few big melee hits from Karlach, and a solid ranged hit from my monk. That probably would have dropped 3/4 of the bad guys before they even got a TURN.

[Velamont]

Originally posted by Sythalin:

And my "by a blocked user" list continues to grow by the minute....

The feeling is mutual, cheater scum.

[Machpunch]

Honestly, I thought they were kind of cool looking and not that difficult to defeat. I don’t mind game studios getting creative with hostiles. Yes, it’s a D&D game. However, Larian introducing their own take on D&D has been refreshing so far.

Stating a game developer needs to be fired because of this, is a bit of hot-take in my opinion. The game is doing well for a reason. People are enjoying it. If you struggled a bit with the encounter, I’d suggest adjusting your party and/or respecing into a class that can dish out radiant damage such as a Paladin or Cleric.

[Foolwolf]

As with everything, line your people up, push, shockwave, wind of gush and psy pushing everying off the map, into shasm etc - best way and easiest way to win any Larian game. Less RPG and more like some advanced lemming game ;) Only use of stelth so far is to sneak up and push people off ledges, because attacking them from stealth does nothing it seems in new 5th ED - pushing hower... o boy.

[TonkatsuRamen]

Originally posted by Velamont:

Fk you, let you forever be unemloyed. Larien and their dumbass "creative" new enemies. You know why "no rest for the wicked" is not a spell in D&D? BECAUSE RESSURECTION AS A BONUS ACTION IS IDIOTIC AT IT'S PREMISE it breaks action economy. Never try to add your own ♥♥♥♥♥ enemies to a d&d again.

Edit: I mean I thought Owlcat's encounter design was sometimes total bs, but at least they used real enemies from rulebook... Who the fk signed off on this?

UPD: Whoever added "radiant retort" should suffer the same fate. It has no bloody reason to be in the game. If you can't design encounter without some out of nowhere bs you are not good at your job and you should quit.

Those enemies were supposed to be hard? I steamrolled through them. Why do I keep reading, that people have a hard time with the enemies? I thought on "balanced" the game was way too easy.

[Velamont]

Originally posted by TonkatsuRamen:

Those enemies were supposed to be hard? I steamrolled through them. Why do I keep reading, that people have a hard time with the enemies? I thought on "balanced" the game was way too easy.

Because it fking is too easy. So far I one-two turned every boss except for golem on max difficulty too. They just don't know how to make encounters so they insert those pathetic crutches that are annoying.