Battle at Last Light Inn

[tallgeese]

I'm doing my first run through, I selected tactician difficulty and so far I've had some pretty tough battles but nothing I couldn't get through after a lot of planning and lucky execution.

(Mind you I know there are people who have been playing these types of RPGs for years and are very familiar with the DND ruleset, but for me it is quite a challenge.)

I just got to the part where the guy with the black chicken wings shows up and wants to take Isobel to his tower. I say no and the fight starts.

All the enemies role better initiative and within 2 turns Isobel gets mauled by a bunch of imps. Then the barrier fades and all hell breaks loose.

I tried reloading a few times but each time it's the same: I role ♥♥♥♥ initiative and before I can even get a handle on the situation Isobel gets gangbanged by 5 imps.

I'm wondering if this is scripted loss? Am I supposed to lose? Or can you save her?

[cheetah1546]

I respecced all four party members to have higher constitution in order to hopefully pass the constitution check during the cutscene of the battle itself starting.

You can save her. I managed to in each playthrough.

Strange that you're not getting anything different on reloads though.

I believe spirit guardians is a useful spell here.

[Boag]

It's a really tough fight but is possible. One way I found is to have a spellcaster cast Arcane Lock on the doors and let the NPC's kill everyone outside. If I remember correctly a few enemies spawn in there, but they should be easy enough to kill.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by tallgeese:

I'm doing my first run through, I selected tactician difficulty and so far I've had some pretty tough battles but nothing I couldn't get through after a lot of planning and lucky execution.

(Mind you I know there are people who have been playing these types of RPGs for years and are very familiar with the DND ruleset, but for me it is quite a challenge.)

I just got to the part where the guy with the black chicken wings shows up and wants to take Isobel to his tower. I say no and the fight starts.

All the enemies role better initiative and within 2 turns Isobel gets mauled by a bunch of imps. Then the barrier fades and all hell breaks loose.

I tried reloading a few times but each time it's the same: I role ♥♥♥♥ initiative and before I can even get a handle on the situation Isobel gets gangbanged by 5 imps.

I'm wondering if this is scripted loss? Am I supposed to lose? Or can you save her?

First of all who are in your team? What causes Isobel to die? (Being hit by Marcus normally and then via reaction? If so use your tank to eat up that reaction strike. Use Shadowheart to heal Isobel if need be.)
What is your main character?
Do you use haste?
Many questions, that could provide us with some info why you are failing and perhaps we could provide you some tips too what to do differently.

[Ruffio]

Priority is to protect Isabelle. Have someone to use heals at her help. Spells, potions (you can throw potions at the ground close to someone and they can be healed).

Use haste spells/speed potions to quickly dish out damage.

[Hentai is me]

Originally posted by tallgeese:

I'm doing my first run through, I selected tactician difficulty and so far I've had some pretty tough battles but nothing I couldn't get through after a lot of planning and lucky execution.

(Mind you I know there are people who have been playing these types of RPGs for years and are very familiar with the DND ruleset, but for me it is quite a challenge.)

I just got to the part where the guy with the black chicken wings shows up and wants to take Isobel to his tower. I say no and the fight starts.

All the enemies role better initiative and within 2 turns Isobel gets mauled by a bunch of imps. Then the barrier fades and all hell breaks loose.

I tried reloading a few times but each time it's the same: I role ♥♥♥♥ initiative and before I can even get a handle on the situation Isobel gets gangbanged by 5 imps.

I'm wondering if this is scripted loss? Am I supposed to lose? Or can you save her?

That battle was pretty hard no doubts. I found out that let all of your characters surround Isobel increases her chance of survival. What I mean is pre-place your characters near the centre of the room and have all the doors covered (or shut). Unfortunately the chicken wing dude will always starts right next to Isobel but placing your characters near the room centre allows you to heal her or debuff the enemies rather quickly. Don't put too much hopes on the Harpers as the Ai's path finding is quite stupid.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by Hentai is me:

Originally posted by tallgeese:

I'm doing my first run through, I selected tactician difficulty and so far I've had some pretty tough battles but nothing I couldn't get through after a lot of planning and lucky execution.

(Mind you I know there are people who have been playing these types of RPGs for years and are very familiar with the DND ruleset, but for me it is quite a challenge.)

I just got to the part where the guy with the black chicken wings shows up and wants to take Isobel to his tower. I say no and the fight starts.

All the enemies role better initiative and within 2 turns Isobel gets mauled by a bunch of imps. Then the barrier fades and all hell breaks loose.

I tried reloading a few times but each time it's the same: I role ♥♥♥♥ initiative and before I can even get a handle on the situation Isobel gets gangbanged by 5 imps.

I'm wondering if this is scripted loss? Am I supposed to lose? Or can you save her?

That battle was pretty hard no doubts. I found out that let all of your characters surround Isobel increases her chance of survival. What I mean is pre-place your characters near the centre of the room and have all the doors covered (or shut). Unfortunately the chicken wing dude will always starts right next to Isobel but placing your characters near the room centre allows you to heal her or debuff the enemies rather quickly. Don't put too much hopes on the Harpers as the Ai's path finding is quite stupid.

I actually did it on my second try. On my first try Marcus rolled crit for initiative and attack too, so Isobel went down in turn 1:D
Thereafter i easily did it but about 4 guys died in the inn. So i figured wonder if it is possible to save them all, and on my fourth reload i did it. (Saved it) and thereafter i tried out different tactics how to make the encounter easier.
It really helped that i've gone with a ranger as a main:D

[Vandrosch]

Hi! I found potions/scrolls of invisibility to be very helpful in this fight. Invis. characters cannot be attacked by the enemy and that goes for Issy, too. If you can keep her invisible during the fight, she cannot be attacked. I used my potion after she went unconscious. Without her taking any actions, she just stayed hidden the whole fight and I could take my time killing the enemies.

[General Malaise]

I've not found this too difficult.

If you get all your characters around her, get Lae'zel Hasted, you should kill the leader(can't remember name) pretty much one turn, then keep her protected with all the rest. It's not so bad at all.

Try and precast Spirit Guardians if you got Shadowheart, and Haste on Lae'zel if you got her. I suppose you could even try things like putting Glyphs where he will appear, but I don't think it's as hard as that.

[berrako]

The batlle is really easy if you can go firts.

In this game, initiative is golden. Going before the enemy let you dictate the flow of the battle. This is even more true in battles with a particular objective, like this one.

Build your characters always around it. Ideally at least half of your group should have "alert" feat, specially crown control character (a single cleric can cheese these batlle going firts by simply casting sanctuary on isobel)

Remember that vigilance elixirs are also a thing, stock it and use it. And last no character should never totally dip dex, even heavy armor users still needs it for initiative and dex saving throws again damage spells

Edit: reload for new order is normal that doesn't work. In bg3 initiative if rolled with a d4 instead of a d20 like in original D&D. This takes out a lot of randomness of it and make initiative bonus really strong

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by tallgeese:

I'm wondering if this is scripted loss? Am I supposed to lose? Or can you save her?

No, yes (probably) and yes (definitely).

It is possible to win this fight at first attempt blind but you have to be a) a very good player b) very attentive and careful, and c) extremely lucky with the initiative rolls. Most ordinary mortal players, especially on Tactician, will fail to save Isobel and have to reload.

It is very difficult to tell what Larian were thinking with this battle. It is actually quite easy once you have 20/20 hindsight since you can prepare the battlefield in advance in various ways. That makes it a kind of "puzzle battle" so it's difficult to say whether their intention was for players to fail it first attempt and if it was why they would encourage players to continue on (i.e. by not TPKing your party) after Isobel was abducted given the dire consequences of that eventuality.

There is much debate about this. However the bottom line is the battle is easy enough to win if you prepare for it in advance so the answer is just to reload, save Isobel and move on.

[amathy]

have you considered not dumping dex on every character

[ZED]

Really hard to help you when you dont even share your build. I am also not experienced in DnD rules and playing on tactician, but that battle was easy to me. All the imps are distracted by the NPCs and the winged dude aint even that tough.

[Mansen]

You can block off one of the doors to Isobel's room with crates found on the balcony it leads to.

That leaves your main boss target, and any straggler winged beasts to come in through the double doors.

Have healing ready, don't be afraid to throw healing potions if Isobel needs it. You can also Sanctuary her I believe in a pinch. Be sure to space out your party to make full use of attacks of opportunity, buff up and all that.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by ZED:

All the imps are distracted by the NPCs and the winged dude aint even that tough.

They are not, they are programmed to go straight for Isobel. [discalimer: it is possible they've changed that in a patch since I played this one]

Originally posted by Mansen:

You can block off one of the doors to Isobel's room with crates found on the balcony it leads to.

That's the standard way to deal with this encounter. You can block all the doors in which case you have only Marcus and two gargoyles coming through a hole in the roof to deal with. After that you have to be quick about getting out to deal with the remaining gargoyles before they kill too many allies or even Jaheira herself though.

[FunkyMonkey]

Sanctuary can single-handedly save Isobel. She doesn't always cast spells that target enemies (I remember her casting Mage armor or the like for example) so the sanctuary stays on her and enemies can't target her. Also, Spirit guardians on a cleric just melts enemies. So, when your Cleric gets their turn, cast Sanctuary on Isobel, cast Spirit guardians on the Cleric and move them next to Isobel. (if you don't have a cleric, you can just respec someone in your team for this fight to be a Cleric)