Protect the portal for Halsin on Tactician

[Noquid]

Granted I might not have the best group build for this but the portal gets destroyed with 5 hits!! Turn 3 is the best I've done so far since the whole left side has ranged. Do I just let Halsin die? I tried shooting darkness arrows, throwing fire bombs on the ravens, etc. Nothing makes it to the portal but all the ranged attacks just destroy it. Any advice?

[ohio skibidi sigma boss]

try shooting the darkness arrows to the portal first turn and then cast a fire wall or that one spell that creates a large area of ice on the ground, this saved my portal but i had karlach as barbarian in case any of the enemies got too close. you could also use that spell from cleric which summons small radiant ghosts around your char

[zè libereso]

I don't know if this is a cheese or not but I started the quest in hiding and the enemies wasted 3 turns meandering toward the portal before we engaged. That saved me. Otherwise, every previous load I got overwhelmed. The archers in the back were my problem so I recommend heavy AOE, I had fireballs on two characters, with an archer/fighter and barbarian in the front holding back the hoard. Thunderwave is also your friend.

[Noquid]

Heh, I just cleared the platform with Thunderwave and it destroyed the portal. It must have been touching it, jeez. That was my best chance, was on last turn but we were overrun. I have 1 fighter/archer, two fighters and Karlach, so not much in the way of magic. I have scrolls but I was tossing out darkness, fire arrows, fire bombs. I thought I had it dangit. The portal literally gets destroyed if it gets hit 5 times. That's crazy.

[arikel.pv]

After some hard tries I got to tactics like this. First, make sure your party has in stash at least two scrolls of some rather powerful AOE spells or those impending their movement (like Ice Storm or Spike Growth), I they haven't - those can be bought from Talli at the inn. Then, split your party before speaking with Halsin and place them so that they covered the corners of the platform in pairs (fighter/dd + ranger/mage). Then fire up two barrels of firewine that are placed nearby - but not on the first turn, wait until the crowd comes closer. Latest, 1st lvl Magic Missiles have been very helpful with lesser things, like crows and plant whips.
Using this, I managed to wipe them all even before time was up

[Talist]

You're playing with three fighters and a barbarian? In this game, martials are very bad at AOE damage and crowd control, and this is an encounter all about those mechanics. I did this on honor mode, and Shadowheart's turn undead carried me (light domain gets another channel divinity AOE as well). I'd suggest also bringing a spellcaster with a good area denial, like a druid with spike growth, a warlock with hunger of hadar, or a wizard with black tentacles.

Though, if you want to do it with just martials, you can. If you don't have it already, I'd suggest getting the holy artifact from the mountain pass area. It gives off an aura that can blind undead, making them unable to shoot your portal from far away. You can use either AOE scrolls to deal with rangers, or scrolls/items that provide effects like fog cloud. Fog cloud is good because even creatures that can see through magical darkness can't target things in the fog.

[Renlish]

I tend to keep Shadowheart right in front of the portal with her radiant guardians on. It catches the birds and the vines immediately. I send a fighter/barbarian and someone else who has decent AOE or punchy moves into the main fray to lay a smackdown as the new mobs spawn in, and a rogue doing ranged damage from somewhere close to the portal - I have them working mostly on the mobs with crossbows so they don't take out the portal straight away. Eventually a small handful of mobs will inevitably get up onto the platform but they've taken fairly significant damage either from Shadowheart's guardians or the rest of the crew by this point. By this stage it's usually within a couple turns of having Halsin return, so then I just use the Sunbeam action the Blood of Lathandar grants you (Shadowheart in this case) to mow them down.

[Draknalor]

Originally posted by Noquid:

Granted I might not have the best group build for this but the portal gets destroyed with 5 hits!! Turn 3 is the best I've done so far since the whole left side has ranged. Do I just let Halsin die? I tried shooting darkness arrows, throwing fire bombs on the ravens, etc. Nothing makes it to the portal but all the ranged attacks just destroy it. Any advice?

Here is my video for Tactician halsin portal

https://youtu.be/3HgqgmLdLuM

[Aerohank]

Hmm my go to move is to have my fighter engage the ghosts spawning in the north east. Then use blinding and movement impeding spells to make sure enemies don't reach the platform from the north west. Hunger of Hadar, (arrows of) darkness, sleet storm, spike growth etc. Arrows of thunder to push them back if they manage to get out of the darkness. Basically the plan js to just bog the enemy down so they can't get close in 5 turns and can't shoot their crossbows. I'm not sure how to do it with only martials, unless you have the proper scrolls... maybe set up some smokepowder barrels in advance so you can AoE kill the enemies the turn they spawn?

[Pat Fenis]

Fireballs, spirit guardians, grenade things, explodey arrows, basically spam aoes. Most of the mobs have low hp.

[brendan_in_china]

Latest defence I did Darkness on the portal, Wall of fire on the main approach, Daylight spell for sunlight sensitive foes, Spirit guardians + boots of speed.

Absolute massacre. Massive XP dump. Loads of armour to pawn off.

[pirate135246]

even with 4 martials this encounter is braindead easy. Extra attacks and gwm bonus attacks should steamroll this. Its probably a build issue

[Dr.Abscondus]

Sleet storm takes care of the archers. They can't fire when they're on the ground. The deadliest combination is sleet storm and then Cloudkill. Enemies can't move out of the gas cloud and they eventually die.

[Mosey]

Wall of Fire and Spike Growth took care of most of them for me. Wood Nymph had an extra Spike Growth for larger area coverage.

Helps to drop some torches around the beach or just around the area to help with stray shades.

[Steffan]

The only fight I reladed without a TPK in my first run. I lost it again and moved on. You need at least two AoE characters. I had only one at the time. If I had Wyll (Gale had a sorry fate in the very start of the game), it would have been different.

These days I go for Minthara. ;)

[Draknalor]

Originally posted by steffan8:

The only fight I reladed without a TPK in my first run. I lost it again and moved on. You need at least two AoE characters. I had only one at the time. If I had Wyll (Gale had a sorry fate in the very start of the game), it would have been different.

These days I go for Minthara. ;)

You can reclass any one at anytime.

Recruit hirelings etc.