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

[Brian_the_Brute]

Originally posted by kbiz:

Gotta be level 5. Not level 4. That's the key to the fight.

did it at level 4 NP, just keep 3 up top at the lookout and send only Lae'zel down, they can't karate kid you to death if you are too far away and fill them full of magic arrows 1st before they can close the gap.

[Woodsy Alyn]

If you do all of the starting area and the whole udnerdark, you won't be losing that fight. I don't think it's bad design. It's not a hard wall (you can go around it, even) and lazel can and will wait. Shes more patient than she seems.

[victorvnv]

Just beat my own record and solo slaughtered them at lvl 4 on honor mode lol:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QcwoF1hQOog

[Delivor]

Taking this fight is probably cutting out some further story with Voss (and even a related steam achievement), so it's supposed to be avoided in a mainstream playthrough, you don't even need to go in this area.

[Hed]

lol so many answers in this thread but I say anyways. Kite em.

[daveyfunk]

This fight is best used to go to relatively early and talk your way out of it to gain some nice XP

To actually fight it it's best to approach when you're lvl5 and/or you can use the ogres if you went that route

[Foolwolf]

It's a typical Larian set-up. It is only difficult because you haven't started to think like they want you to think. Once you played enough and started to split your party, use all kinds of physics, the fight is a breeze. They always start grouped up, use the balls, oils, grease, webs etc to stop them from moving, fireball, sneack attacks from hidden not part of combat characters. Command the captain to lose the blade, disarm attack from Lazeal is a charm. Darkness, hamstring on the crossbow people. Use the horn to summon ogres if you got it from the village meeting

OT; Don't feel bad, this is a type of power gaming needed to solve some of the more difficult fights and has been a thing in the DOS games as well. Many uneven fight that needs to be experienced and lost first, then handled in different manners. That or luck, or just naturally play the way that solves Larian's tricky set-ups.... After awhile, getting in to this makes some of the fights almost boringly easy, and then you can luckily dial up the difficulty and start grumbling again ;)
Happy playing.

[Murgen]

Completely agree with the OP about this.

It's one of the hardest fights in the game, and you'll probably get to it when around level 4. Right from the beginning of the game Laezel is constantly urging you to find the gith as soon as possible, and all of the advice she has given up to that point has been correct, so there's no reason to doubt her. Once you meet the patrol, yes you saw them kill some Flaming Fists, but Laezel tells you the gith are on your side and you have nothing to fear, if you express hesitation. Plus she actually leaves your party when you approach, so you have a pretty strong impetus to go get your party member back.

Once you start talking to the patrol, most dialogue options lead to a fight, or Laezel must make a difficult to pass Deception check (her charisma is 8) that you don't even get to use Inspiration, Guidance, and other skillcheck buffs on (unless using a priori knowledge).

Most of the advice for beating it on this thread is either wrong, requires use of cheesy tactics and a priori knowledge, or is along the lines of "Wait until you're level 6."

So basically you have to deliberately ignore an early game area based upon a priori knowlege, or stumble into maybe the hardest battle in the game by accident.

BG3 is strange because the first Act has the hardest combat, and the gith patrol is perhaps the most egregious example of that.

[A New Player]

Originally posted by 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.

1) Meant to or not, it can be easy. I am not saying the fight CAN'T be hard, simply that with the right tools, you can make it easy.

2)Void bulbs are insanely precious because they pull the enemies into the middle, I forgot to mention to wait until they bunch up, as they naturally do that out of combat.
Did you perhaps fail to read my very first step? "ATTACK WHILE CROUCHED TO GET A SURPRISE ROUND IN". This means you will attack first, especially if you keep people crouched until they join the fight.

3) Yes. It is stationary, it doesn't do a lot of damage... but 4d4 is deceptive. Doing it the way I suggested is actually 12d4(First cast, they start their "surprise" turn, start of their first turn). Not to mention that is against 4 targets if you did a good job with the void bulb, meaning it's actually up to 48d4. Also, the strategy I outlined works in Honor mode because that's where I did it. Granted, I may have been level 4 or 5, but saying it was doable at 3 was just meant to mean that you have the tools at level 3 to do so.

4) Most of her health is gone due to receiving 12d4 + whatever attacks you manage to hit. Also, 5 attacks? I guess you are including Pommel? But if she used misty step/jumps up there, she can only do max of 4(2 reg + surge + 2 reg). Unless you are just running up to her like an idiot?

5) OP has beaten the game. Everything is pretty much metagaming as they have knowledge about what is coming up. Yes, obviously you aren't going to naturally come across them at level 3 all that often, that is not the point.

[Kafik]

Originally posted by Murgen:

Completely agree with the OP about this.

It's one of the hardest fights in the game, and you'll probably get to it when around level 4. Right from the beginning of the game Laezel is constantly urging you to find the gith as soon as possible, and all of the advice she has given up to that point has been correct, so there's no reason to doubt her. Once you meet the patrol, yes you saw them kill some Flaming Fists, but Laezel tells you the gith are on your side and you have nothing to fear, if you express hesitation. Plus she actually leaves your party when you approach, so you have a pretty strong impetus to go get your party member back.

Once you start talking to the patrol, most dialogue options lead to a fight, or Laezel must make a difficult to pass Deception check (her charisma is 8) that you don't even get to use Inspiration, Guidance, and other skillcheck buffs on (unless using a priori knowledge).

Most of the advice for beating it on this thread is either wrong, requires use of cheesy tactics and a priori knowledge, or is along the lines of "Wait until you're level 6."

So basically you have to deliberately ignore an early game area based upon a priori knowlege, or stumble into maybe the hardest battle in the game by accident.

BG3 is strange because the first Act has the hardest combat, and the gith patrol is perhaps the most egregious example of that.

Learn to run away.

[Bono my tyres are gone]

I was ready to fight them then passed both intimidation checks with a 4 foot wannabe necromancer wizard ... didn't expect that

[justfaded]

Game gets a lot easier if you use consumables. Void bulbs and arrows can end fights so fast it feels like cheating.

[AvG]

Originally posted by EricHVela:

You can bypass the whole encounter.

1: Goblin camp has a passage into the Rosymorn Trail.
2: Enter Act 2 through the Underdark and go to the Rosymorn Trail from the Shadow-cursed lands.

Neither end Lae'zel's quest, and neither encounter the patrol.

Explore the game before claiming there's no possible other way.

I am assuming that if you don't encounter the patrol in any way they disappear if you visit the creche?

Originally posted by Hed:

lol so many answers in this thread but I say anyways. Kite em.

yes, one of the earliest methods was to kite them to the burned out inn, because the soldiers there would assist you, which was funny. Obviously you would want to time this before the soldiers left completely.

[Oubley]

Originally posted by Ironwu:

Well, if you CHOSE to fight an Elite Githyanki strike team led by Voss?

Heh. Don't know what else to expect but a VERY tough fight.

you don't know the level 1st time through.... it's one of the 1st fights if you just happen to make some of the wrong turns.

It's fairly easy once know the mechanics better etc, but the level design imo is terrible on how one COULD get here..

[forgiveyourself]

i can't stand looking for advice online, bc people only know how to turn it into a spin for themselves. "super easy," "ive never died in 500+ hours," jesus christ yall are such liars lol. no one believes you, and worse yet, no one cares.

this fight is axiomatically difficult. the ppl that are pathetic enough to try to shore up their self-esteem online are never going to admit that it IS difficult.

like that one dude, "hold person does 0 damage, so just concentrate attacks on the person concentrating on hold person,"

EXCEPT that they hold person and then proceed to attack? Lol. lae'zel got Held, attacked, attacked, and then the next turn was another enemy, and she was dead. that was turn 1.

from there, it becomes a game of attrition you're going to lose, because you can keep rezzing people with 1, 2 hp, but they're just going to keep attacking several times a round and decimating you.

it's a very hard fight. and i would say it IS overtuned, given that the subsequent fight with the resurrecting zombies on the way to the monastery, and even the fights at the monastery, are demonstrably easier than that one.

also it's ignorant to say anything is "super easy" in a game that, let's face it, requires a modicum of luck. i used a precision die with lae'zel and proceeded to trip attack with a 98% chance to hit, and she ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ missed. and then he went on to obliterate her. again.