Githyanki patrol fight in act 1 is the most unfair and difficult fight in the entire game.

[Gigapally]

Ive beaten the game, and not even the final boss fight was as difficult as this. You are put up against a squadron of 4 level 5 Gith, each of which are wildly overtuned for this early on. Im using potions, going in with full consumables, throwables, highground, etc...

• The captain of the squad Baretha is capable of doing 5 attacks in a single turn.
  
• All enemies can hit for half of your HP in a single attack if you are the same level as them.
  
• Because they are all Gith all of them have access to misty step (Teleport spell) which can quickly get rid of any high ground advantage you have already set up.
  
• They always have a higher initiative than you.
  
• They will cast hold person and effectively remove a member of your team from the fight.
• They win all concentration saving throws, and never lose the roll against you trying to cast hold person on them

[surreptitious]

I do it with 2 characters ...... and ogres ...
I use the tunnel ....
I throw one person under the bridge into combat with them ..
The other summons ogres
then runs to join combat before ogres initiate dialogue.

wait till the 2 with swords teleport to under the bridge ...
Blow it UP!!!!!!!
Barrels ... caustic fluid .. farts .. whatever you got .....
BOOM

Perfection is killing the ogres and at least 2 of the gith that way

[Pixelater]

Lots of people can and do regularly beat this fight. What you are doing isn't working.
Improvise - Overcome - Adapt: Heartbreak Ridge
Grow Stronger: 13th Warrior

The fight literally never changes and you know how it plays out, start it on your terms, always start fights on your terms. High ground is your friend, they Misty Step up to you, push them off. Not able to push them off, pick them up and throwing them off, not able to do that, use a Arrow of Roaring Thunder and so on.

Still can't handle them, limit their access to the high ground by stacking boxes by the ledge, then stand on a box, they can't teleport to where they can't see. You have ranged and they have melee, sucks to be them. If they can still shoot you, move back from the edge at the end of your turn. They have to run around to you, slow them down with grease or what have you, then they only come at you ones and two. You have a huge kit to control the fight with, if you don't, they will.

Going first in a fight is king, higher Dex is a must have, it also helps with Armor Class. If you pull off the ambush and it should be an ambush, you have a very good chance of killing one if not a couple of them outright or severely wounding them.

Improvise, Overcome, Adapt if that fails, Grow Stronger, you have that option, they don't. If you find that after that you still can't beat them, keep in mind, it's an optional fight, you can always exit the zone from the Goblin Camp or lower the difficulty. Good luck!

[Brian_the_Brute]

This can be an easy fight with tactics. I kept the high ground after killing the tiefling spying on them.... (evil drow party that already helped burn the grove) and sent only Lae'zel down to talk and waited above. It's kind of a hint that she is up there that this is a good location....
I had Lae'zel retreat and rained down AOE and arrows. Only one of them made it far enough to misty step up to the lookout position, but they got cut down after 1 round of making up to the lookout as they were already softened up.

With most difficult encounters remember 2 things:
It's a Trap! ... head on or going in the through the front door is unwise.
I have the high ground! ... grants a lot of advantage

forgot to add the 3rd thing: humanoid enemy parties always have a girl boss, kill them first.

[victorvnv]

Honor mode it’s easily soloable at lvl 5 :

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=52UDZeGqlXA

[Wotek]

Just remove the party number limitation with a mod. Once you have the number on your side, Gith will not have such an advantage.

[Pat Fenis]

You can bring some smoke powder barrels, strong character like laezel and karlach can carry 4-5. You can then drag them all into position with Astarion's invisible mage hand. Zhentarim basement has 6+ barrels and there are more in the room behind the zhentarim trader in goblin base.

[Henry-NYC]

Originally posted by Semour:

Ive beaten the game, and not even the final boss fight was as difficult as this. You are put up against a squadron of 4 level 5 Gith, each of which are wildly overtuned for this early on. Im using potions, going in with full consumables, throwables, highground, etc...

• The captain of the squad Baretha is capable of doing 5 attacks in a single turn.
  
• All enemies can hit for half of your HP in a single attack if you are the same level as them.
  
• Because they are all Gith all of them have access to misty step (Teleport spell) which can quickly get rid of any high ground advantage you have already set up.
  
• They always have a higher initiative than you.
  
• They will cast hold person and effectively remove a member of your team from the fight.
• They win all concentration saving throws, and never lose the roll against you trying to cast hold person on them

Comments on your post:

1) Their leader is a level 6 warrior of the fighter class. Not level 5.
2) 2 of the patrol members are only of a support type. They cannot deal a lot of damage.
3) You can always beat them, if you know how to do it.

4) They are not as powerful / violent as a Karlach-led party, as long as you don't ask Withers for changing companions' class/stats.

5) Don't be afraid of the "Hold Person" spell by your enemy. Hold Person => 0 damage, which is NOT bad - at least it's better than losing half of your HP, right? To break the spell, just have the rest of your party concentrate fire on the person who cast the spell. They can't keep their concentration if they are dead.

6) This battle is supposed to be a challenge, but is a very fair challenge. Technically, it serves as a test to see if you are worthy and ready enough to "venture forth" via the Mountain Pass.


Tips for you to "trivialize" this battle on Tactician Mode

1) Don't choose to fight them if you are level 4 or below. Astarion will be inspired, if you talk your way out of combat - which is not hard at all. Only one DC=10 check is needed if Lae'zel is with you.

2) If you are level 5+, you should choose to kill them (for their gear, which is the best at this early stage, and the extra XP, which is also a lot to a low-level party). Lae'zel will be inspired, if she is with you when the patrol is destroyed.

3) I have never died in this game even with 500+ hours spent playing exclusively on Tactician. So, believe me, no battle is really too hard. All we need is the right "knowledge" of how to survive to kill our enemies in 1 go - not even reload is needed.

4) Karlach and Shadowheart (if they get to keep their class/stats) are extremely effective in this kind of combat scenarios.

- Karlach => berserker thrower by default => massive damage (even at this low level). Most enemies ignore her as much as possible, except on special occasions.

- Shadowheart => Trickery cleric by default => uniquely capable of disarming & disabling up to an entire army (this is especially evident during the final epic duel in her own personal quest, which is Shadowheart's party vs a full house of 20 enemies). She's God's favorite princess, our party's default protector and savior. She can also summon an army at a later time.

[Jhea]

just let laezel do the talking, whisper er 'play along' and suddenly you don't have to fight at all.

[Tenjou]

If you have not yet done so yet, I recommend going to and leveling in the Underbog. It also provides an alternative pathway to your next destination. Although I recommend being level 4 or 5 before pressing far west. Or at least that was my requirement, But I'm also playing on tactician mode since it's my first Baldur's Gate game.

[A New Player]

The fight is super easy. Can be done at level 3.

-Attack while crouched to get a surprise round in
-Have one character throw a void bulb to get everyone close
-Cloud of Daggers
-Proceed to just whittle down anyone with the most HP

If rolls aren't terrible, only 1 should really survive on Honour mode.

[AvG]

Originally posted by Semour:

Ive beaten the game, and not even the final boss fight was as difficult as this. You are put up against a squadron of 4 level 5 Gith, each of which are wildly overtuned for this early on. Im using potions, going in with full consumables, throwables, highground, etc...

• The captain of the squad Baretha is capable of doing 5 attacks in a single turn.
  
• All enemies can hit for half of your HP in a single attack if you are the same level as them.
  
• Because they are all Gith all of them have access to misty step (Teleport spell) which can quickly get rid of any high ground advantage you have already set up.
  
• They always have a higher initiative than you.
  
• They will cast hold person and effectively remove a member of your team from the fight.
• They win all concentration saving throws, and never lose the roll against you trying to cast hold person on them

1.don't melee the captain
force him to climb the cliff by shooting out the wooden stairs
then push him down the cliff three times (its hilarious btw)
alternatively set up slide or slip zones at the edge of the cliff both on the bottom and top

2. the biggest issue with the half hp hit is they actually have decent gear. When you open the fight scramble their vision as much as possible with fog clouds, slip mechanics, blind them, toss explosives, all into their area from up top the ledge.

3. misty step is an issue, but if they misty step to you on the bridge you can push them off with a few checks. I suggest having the effect of a strength potion on at least one person, or someone with at least 16+ strength, or anything that you can knock them around with, theres some cheap knockback arrows in stores too.

4. you can temporarily respec and pick up alert feat to guarantee initiative. I believe an initiative roll is 1d4, + any feat/gear bonuses and dex bonus. dex bonus is +3 in general, and the feat "alert" is +5 which will almost always put you first. Some people even keep Alert in their builds.

5. Hold person is a problem yes. it has ok range, but at least you get a saving throw each turn against it. Stuff like Bless and anything that improves saving throws will be ideal. Otherwise blind effects or silent effects can stop this. You can put down like grease and a silence bubble at the edge of the climbable cliff for example. They can't cast on the cliff edge and will have to run thru the grease out of the silence to cast anything.

The easiest way to break a concentration spell is to make them prone (knock them down) which is fairly easy with push tactics. It sounds cheesy but they do hit hard.

If you want to be cheesier but safer:
1. Approach bridge with a team that doesn't have La'zel with.
-La'zel will pull you into a conversation which makes it a bit more annoying to set up and save her.
2. instead of directly approaching send 1 person around the corner of the cliff behind the dragon and sniper shot the boss, he will immediately teleport out with the dragon and leave without initiating a conversation (this is also the make him drop weapon tactic)
you can use a recruit disposable archer warrior character if you don't care about them, want to make sure they can't id you then res them at camp later.
3. After the boss has left you can set up on the bridge above using all the fun tactics to push them off. Make sure to vaporize the wood bridges so they have to go around.

Alternatively you can also set up barriers to make the bridge more one way (the cliff)
just place boxes and barrels over places where you think they can misty step, the AI will only misty step valid spots, usually near ladders, but if their is things blocking the ladder spots they will usually opt for the cliff.

[Henry-NYC]

Originally posted by A New Player:

The fight is super easy. Can be done at level 3.

-Attack while crouched to get a surprise round in
-Have one character throw a void bulb to get everyone close
-Cloud of Daggers
-Proceed to just whittle down anyone with the most HP

If rolls aren't terrible, only 1 should really survive on Honour mode.

I really wish OP wouldn't feel insulted at believing that a "super easy" battle for a party of 4 level 3 babies could have driven him or her so mad...


My comments on this post above:

1) No, this battle is not meant to be easy, let alone super easy.

2) I can't imagine many players would pick up those void bulbs, let alone carrying them all the time as if they were really precious.

Even if you do have a void bulb, you don't get to attack first. As the 4 Gith warriors will most likely spread out far apart, you will unlikely be able to use it on more than 1 target. You are essentially "advising" OP to make fun of those Gith warriors by doing 1 damage during OP's turn.

3) Cloud of Daggers is stationary, has a small radius, does only a little damage on Tactician mode, requires a spellcaster to hold the concentration. On the other hand, every Gith warrior can teleport, can move around a lot in their turn. On a harder mode, they may also choose to walk around to completely avoid such stationary AoE effects.

... Well, unless you lower your game difficulty.

4) The one with the most HP is the level 6 Gith leader. She can do at least 5 attacks during her first turn, potentially killing 2 of the player party members at the start of combat.

... Well, again, unless you lower your game difficulty.

5) Unless you do metagaming a lot, you cannot naturally get to fight this Gith patrol as a level 3 baby party.

[' koelouS]

Originally posted by Semour:

Ive beaten the game, and not even the final boss fight was as difficult as this. You are put up against a squadron of 4 level 5 Gith, each of which are wildly overtuned for this early on. Im using potions, going in with full consumables, throwables, highground, etc...

• The captain of the squad Baretha is capable of doing 5 attacks in a single turn.
  
• All enemies can hit for half of your HP in a single attack if you are the same level as them.
  
• Because they are all Gith all of them have access to misty step (Teleport spell) which can quickly get rid of any high ground advantage you have already set up.
  
• They always have a higher initiative than you.
  
• They will cast hold person and effectively remove a member of your team from the fight.
• They win all concentration saving throws, and never lose the roll against you trying to cast hold person on them

Even the narrator, Astarion and everybody says “fighting this guys is suicide”

[Aerohank]

It's a difficult yes, but I don't see what is unfair about it? You are given plenty of warning that it is dangerous (there is an actual dragon and a cut scene where a group of flaming fists are murderer in cold blood with barely an effort). The cutscene and dialogue with Leazel make clear that the Gith are very much 'kill first, ask questions later'. So it's really your own fault if you choose to fight these guys at level 3 or 4, you really have to make a number of bad choices. And even if you do choose to fight, you are not locked into an arena with them so you can always just flee and try again later.

[jayman760]

I keep one party member out of the fight and have the other three sneak up to take out at least one from above. Rez as needed. Also barrelmancy is your friend.