Knights of the Shield Hideout fight. Horrendously unbalanced

[CorujaC]

The fight is ludicrous. Whole team either frightened, blinded, frightened and blinded, frightened, blinded and disarmed for the entire duration. Its supposed to be D&D 5E, I've been a DM for D&D for 30 years, including 5E since its first round of playtests. Any DM who ran this at their table wouldn't have players anymore.

[voidlight]

I know I'm commenting way late, but I found this thread while googling whether there was a pacifist option for this encounter since I just did the fight.

I found the encounter super easy with a level 11 party. I brought:

Main character: spore druid
Gale
Shadowheart
Jaheira (respecced into a ranger/druid who can wear heavy armor and dual wield)

I had a bunch of spore zombies and both gale and my main character can cast cloudkill. Whole party is immune to poison thanks to hero's feast from Shadowheart. I made gale and my main character invis, positioned them on either balcony next to the portal dudes, and then started the figt by dropping a cloudkill on top of each portal keeper. Then zombies and everyone else rushed down the center aisle to clean up the rest and it was a cakewalk.

Maybe on my next playthrough I'll try and get here a bit faster and do it underlevelled.

[Mike Garrison]

Messaggio originale di voidlight:

I know I'm commenting way late, but I found this thread while googling whether there was a pacifist option for this encounter since I just did the fight.

I found the encounter super easy with a level 11 party. I brought:

Main character: spore druid
Gale
Shadowheart
Jaheira (respecced into a ranger/druid who can wear heavy armor and dual wield)

I had a bunch of spore zombies and both gale and my main character can cast cloudkill. Whole party is immune to poison thanks to hero's feast from Shadowheart. I made gale and my main character invis, positioned them on either balcony next to the portal dudes, and then started the figt by dropping a cloudkill on top of each portal keeper. Then zombies and everyone else rushed down the center aisle to clean up the rest and it was a cakewalk.

Maybe on my next playthrough I'll try and get here a bit faster and do it underlevelled.

That's an interesting, although perhaps over-complicated way of handling this. I just did this fight this morning with my most recent playthrough. Lvl 12. Me (wizard), Shadow, Lae, and Wyll (all pure-class default classes, all illithid). Wiped the room in two or maybe three rounds just with regular single-target attacks. I did take advantage of the psionic detector to justify going in crouched and getting off an initial surprise attack. Illithid fly let me get up onto the gate platforms still stealthed.

The gith never got a single spell successfully cast, due to my psionic dominance and counterspell reactions. Shadowheart was the only one who took any damage at all, and it was minor.

[Sicarius]

Agree with the OP. It seems in this fight, they cranked up the difficulty past what is originally available. I'm fighting an archer who has 3 HP left and he DID NOT cast disengage, yet he was able to move past my rogue who didn't have any negative conditions without provoking an attack of opportunity..... THEN I was able to dominate a fighter, who did little damage against an enemy and proceeded to go next to a barrel and cast fireball, blowing himself up. WHAT?!?!? Isn't the point of domination is that they HELP you fight the enemy????

Game is fun, but boy do they need to fire the department who handled the difficulty

[Calculus]

Messaggio originale di Sicarius:

Agree with the OP. It seems in this fight, they cranked up the difficulty past what is originally available. I'm fighting an archer who has 3 HP left and he DID NOT cast disengage, yet he was able to move past my rogue who didn't have any negative conditions without provoking an attack of opportunity..... THEN I was able to dominate a fighter, who did little damage against an enemy and proceeded to go next to a barrel and cast fireball, blowing himself up. WHAT?!?!? Isn't the point of domination is that they HELP you fight the enemy????

There are many things that can cause your character to not make an oppurtinity attack, the most common one is that you already spent reaction.
About the second one... that's AI for you... I had enemies constantly throw fireflasks under their own feet. Also, are you sure it was domination and not confusion?

That said. This fight isn't really that hard, it is way easier than act 2 boss for certain.

[Sicarius]

Calculus,
LOL i found act 2 boss easier...

It was a new turn and the rogue did not go yet, or maybe he did use a reaction. And Yes, it was dominate.
"Scroll of Dominate Person
Make a humanoid fight alongside you. Every time the creature takes damage, it makes a Wisdom Saving Throw against your domination. Allies cannot be dominated."

Enemy failed his saving throw but proceeded waste his turn by blowing himself up, but didn't kill himself. Felt like a real person was playing him.

[Calculus]

Messaggio originale di Sicarius:

Calculus,
LOL i found act 2 boss easier...

It was a new turn and the rogue did not go yet, or maybe he did use a reaction. And Yes, it was dominate.
"Scroll of Dominate Person
Make a humanoid fight alongside you. Every time the creature takes damage, it makes a Wisdom Saving Throw against your domination. Allies cannot be dominated."

Enemy failed his saving throw but proceeded waste his turn by blowing himself up, but didn't kill himself. Felt like a real person was playing him.

They are easier, but at this point you should be at level 10/11 which means you should have a massive powerspike, so enemies are easier in comparison to your party.
Even if it was new turn, you don't regain reactions until your turn, it's not dependent on the round, but on a specific character turn. It's either that or you turned off oppurtinity attacks in reaction tab (personally i recommend always changing it so game aks you if you want to use them).
And well... i can't say i didn't have non dominated opponents do this when they saw one of my party members in the range of explosion...

If you want i can give you some tips, but what is your team and equipement?

[:bestgamerchina#1最好的中國]

I had Paladin, Fighter and two Rangers. I've farmed this encounter untill mobs couldnt keep up with their spawns.

[StarScepter]

Everyone in your party having 'Misty Step' helps tremendously.

[Knightly Gamez]

don't listen to these idiots, it is very unblanaced, you shouldnt have to optimise your build to play the game. i have a monk and i know i've messed up a couple of her levels, so she goes down in every fight, this game has turned into a real slog for me because of how unbalanced a lot of the fights have become. this is the gamer vs ttrpg gamer issue, they research, mke sure they play the game optimally. we just want to explore the world of D&D. enjoy what faerun has to offer

[yahboi1988]

Skill issue

[yahboi1988]

Messaggio originale di Knightly Gamez:

don't listen to these idiots, it is very unblanaced, you shouldnt have to optimise your build to play the game. i have a monk and i know i've messed up a couple of her levels, so she goes down in every fight, this game has turned into a real slog for me because of how unbalanced a lot of the fights have become. this is the gamer vs ttrpg gamer issue, they research, mke sure they play the game optimally. we just want to explore the world of D&D. enjoy what faerun has to offer

Maybe save and approach it in a different way? Just because you can't steamroll every fight without having to think about your tactics and builds isn't the game being unbalanced. In fact it's actually quite unbalanced in the opposite direction.

[Fallen-Sith]

I literally just talked my way out of this fight... like 5 minutes before finding this post.. Passed the intimidation check in the conversation and they just left. Did this with my Bardlock. I know i missed out on a bit of loot, mostly just stuff to sell/trade, but i definitely wasn't expecting that. This fight can for sure be challenging, but its far from unbalanced, Your Tav should be able to fly by the time you get to this fight with your illithid powers and you can just fly around the room and kill the dudes making the portals in just a couple turns, maybe even a singe turn if an other party member also has a way to fly or misty step. Potions of speed are great as well. This is also one of those fights where you should try not to hold back on using spell slots or abilities that require a long rest, youre gonna need one after this fight regardless.

[Dr.Abscondus]

There are shield spells to prevent blinding and frightening, as well as cure spells for those conditions. If your party doesn't have those then it's your mistake. You can also sneak up on the knights or you can avoid the fight entirely with an intimidation check. I'm sure you have one party member who has high numbers on persuasion and intimidation. If you don't then that's a serious mistake. You can talk your way out of a lot of fights. Most experience points come from completing quests and not fighting.

[Pyromaiden]

Skill issue.

[ahsanford]

Respectfully disagree with the OP here. The fight is properly challenging, but you have a few things that really help here:

1) You have a psionic detector --> you get the element of surprise.

2) There may be a roll to make to scare them off, but from an RP perspective there is no talking here --> you were already told that they would come at you on sight.

1 + 2 = Ambush them in turn-based mode deliberately and carefully. If there was a time to script a vicious opening salvo without any prior talking, this battle was it.

At L11 and L12 you should have a lot of powerful mobility moves:

* Melee leap or misty step right to the portal people and burst/smite them down immediately in turn 1.

* Bless (+ Mystra's blessing double up) all members with your cleric/bard because they will dump all kinds of effects on you. If not that, hit and hope with a Hypnotic Pattern to at least tamp down one side of the battle.

* Use Stage fright (if you have it) -- it's a nasty 1-2 combo with a bardic cutting words. Archers and melee whiffing twice a turn against high AC melee closest to them really burns them down.

* This is the hard part: you need to park casters on the floor in between the two mezzanine areas to maximize counterspell and psionic backlash abilities (if you have it). This will prevent your melee from getting held. The hard part, of course, is the boss is on the floor area and can properly mangle lower AC / non-con-saving throw classes.

Tough fight, most of the Gith fights tend to be. But soldier on. Doable.

- A