Cazador fight, help please (Massive spoilers)

[Artimise Flare]

So I'm trying this fight again without cheesing it.

Details regarding the fight in spoilers below

I'm running with Astarion, Shadowheart, Gale and myself as a Oath of Vengeance Paladin; we are all level 11, and I'm trying to figure out the best way with dealing with the boss.

Right off the bat, I will lose Astarion if he's in my party (I wanted to give him the satisfaction of ending the bastard; but doing so puts me at a massive disadvantage), as he whisks him away to be a part of his ascension ritual. As far as I can tell, if I do not do something (damage him enough I presume?) within X number of turns, he will consume everyone, killing Astarion in the process. Casting daylight on him does not appear to stop this from happening (Be it one of my party members having been enchanted with daylight, or enchanting the boss himself). Trying to crowd control takes time, and often times Shadowheart is too busy trying to keep everyone alive with her healing to assist with killing the adds. Fireballs, lighting bolt, and other such things help, but I feel I'm doing something wrong since I can't kill the adds fast enough so that I can focus on the boss while not busting the turn limit to prevent the death of my companion.

Any suggestions would be apprerciated.

For the cheese I did to defeat him the first time, see below.

For those curious about how to cheese this fight and make it much easier, if you have a scroll or have a character that can cast daylight, "enchant item" one of your party members and stand at the base of the stairs that is just in front of the central platform where the boss is standing. Being a vampire, he will take steady damage 20pts every few seconds and you can "kill" him and eliminate him from the fight as you clean up all of his enslaved mooks

[pepperine]

You need to send someone over to Astarion and use the "Help" action on him ASAP in order to keep him alive, which will then stop the ritual's countdown and give you as much time as you need to fight the boss with all four party members. Gale can reach him in a single turn if you use both Dash and Misty Step, iirc.

[Arduous Wolf]

Bit off topic but just had my first couple of attempts at this fight. On my last attempt, the ritual completed and the quest log updated to say Astarion was dead, however he seemed to survive with 2hp and was still in the fight queue, albeit with the green halo of a non-controllable NPC. Obviously it was a bug, and unfortunately he was killed before his turn rolled around so I don't know if he would have acted or just stood there. Would have been cool to see if he could have been interacted with after the fight though.

[Woldy]

get someone to go and free astarion.
Sic your paladin on cazador and keep him busy, while the rest of the team kills the other sacrifices around the room. Cazador will run out of spells fast but they hurt like hell, so keep you paladin topped off and beating on cazador and you should have an easy time of it.

[Ghost]

^ Help Astarion, have your archers/casters stand in the magic thingies connected to whichever people he has targeted for his buffs to turn them off/take them yourself. Could also just kill them instead.

[[Countess]Vol†z]

I felt like I kind of cheesed it. Made the whole party drink a Necrotic resistance potion before and a speed potion at the start of their turn. Had ShadowHeart cast daylight on the coffin in the center, and used a shield of invulnerability scroll over ShadowHeart. Had my Warlock mist step to free Astarion and summon undead. Had Lea'Zel jump around and 6-9 attack Cazador. Eldrich blast everything else off the platform.

[Zygfryd]

Originally posted by Ghost:

^ Help Astarion, have your archers/casters stand in the magic thingies connected to whichever people he has targeted for his buffs to turn them off/take them yourself. Could also just kill them instead.

[Ruffio]

You can have Astarion in the party and complete it with all your people without Astarion get removed at all as well. The trick is in not have Astarion close enough for him to trigger Cazador's reaction to him.

[Husker_85]

There another even easier way to beat the fight. I thought it would be hard but I accidentally figured it out on my second attempt. While Astarion is talking to Cazador, move one of your party members to where Astarion is gonna get whisked away to. This way you can pick him up on round 1 and still have a bonus action and movement on that character.

When the fight starts, immediately help Astarion. Now there are still six vampire spawn being drained for the ritual. HOWEVER, if you move a character to stand on the glyph on the ground near one of the vampire spawn it will cut them off from the ritual and give the character a huge buff to defense. This makes the fight pretty trivial as you can keep moving characters back onto the glyphs at the end of their turns and using ranged attacks to focus down Cazador. Without his ritual members he's actually pretty weak and easy to take down. You can even push him off the edge, which will immediately make him teleport inside the coffin so you still get his loot.

[Lard]

when in doubt, push bad guy off high place

[Ranpo]

Step 1: Have one of your characters cast Daylight on themselves
Step 2: At the start of the battle, use your character with the highest movement and make a beeline for Astarion, you have to manually help him.
Step 3: AOE the crap out of the adds because Cazador likes to stay in mist mode and avoids you if you have Daylight.
Step 4: Throw him out of his coffin and ascend.

That's just the regular way, irregular way involves moving your other characters near Astarion's spot while in conversation, placing barrels then blowing them up while talking, pushing Cazador into the chasm, starting the fight without talking to him and nuke him, he's pretty squishy. Clerics pretty much make the undead a joke.

[M'igo Kazan]

I just shot a few ranged attacks at him, which triggered the fight without getting Arsetarion trapped

[Ruffio]

Originally posted by M'igo Kazan:

I just shot a few ranged attacks at him, which triggered the fight without getting Arsetarion trapped

Funny thing is though, if Astarion get close to him while you do it, cut scene and he slap Astarion in the chair. At least did happen for me in a version of the fight.

[Revan619]

sunlight spell or telekenisis and throw him off

[Anzaman]

Originally posted by RubyFruit:

when in doubt, push bad guy off high place

He rushed next to my Fighter, used Shove twice - failed both.

My Fighter shoved him off the platform. Kinda funny how that works against vampire lord, but hey.

[Ranpo]

Originally posted by Revan619:

sunlight spell or telekenisis and throw him off

Can't throw people into chasm with telekinesis anymore.