Prologue Builds to kill Zhalk and both cambions on Nautiloid

[Raskgard]

Need suggestions from experienced players who managed this. I did it last night on Balanced with a Half-Orc Fighter. The last cambion died when I had only two rounds left, enough time to clean all loot. With all that XP, I reached level 2 on Nautiloid.

How i did it:
1. Recruited Us and mutilated to make them obedient. This is useful if you want to kill the other intellect devourer for XP, while keeping Us as an ally.
2. I gave Shadowheart the Command spell before the fight. When the Mindflayer was at half health, she made Zhalk drop Everburn. I gave Everburn to my Half-Orc fighter to use it with his Savage Attacks racial
3. I gathered all the purple explosives on Nautiloid (found 2 in the previous rooms and 3 more in the control room) and placed them around Zhalk and the Mindflayer.
4. I kept hitting Zhalk until both cambions came in explosion range. Then jumped my team out of range and detonated all.
5. Everburn Critical Hits with Savage Attacks melted both cambions.

Anyone did it on Tactician / Honor? if yes, how? with only 2 rounds left on balanced, I don't have any ideas. Thanks for your time.

[Delivor]

You can't do it on honour mode for sure, if only maybe to start it over 100 times, only thing that you can do there is to make him drop a sword with Command spell. On Tactician I've killed him to get an achievement, but it was just a pathetic save scumming, you can surely do it with your tactics there if to use save/load several times after missing hits.

[Steve]

On Honour Mode:
Tav Fighter with Archery Fighting Style, equip Crossbow, two Scimitars.
Recruit Us.
Recruit Shadowheart, equip Crossbow, two Handaxes.
Prepare Command and Bless on Shadowheart.

Before going into the room:
Place a Chest in the entrance corridor to semi-block the path.
Decouple Shadowheart from the party, jump the chest, Bless Tav, Lae'zel, Us, then quickly use the recovery pod to get your spellslot back, jump the chest, rejoin the party and open the door to the room.

In the Room:
Kill the Imps and Boar with Lae'zel, Tav, Us.
Command Drop on Zhalk turn 1 with Shadowheart.
Turn 2 steal the Everburn blade with Shadowheart and have Lae'zel use her Action to equip it. If one Imp is still alive use Tav to finish them off with archery this turn.

Swarm Zhalk with Shadowheart, Lae'Zel, Us, spamming Attack with Us, Weapon Actions and Attack with Lae'zel, off-hand Attack with Scimitar Shadowheart and Sacred Flame main Action.

Send Tav past the fight to trigger the boar and 2 imp spawns, for the next couple turns have Tav solo the Imps and Boar while the rest of the party keeps hitting Zhalk with those attacks I just mentioned.

Once the imps and boar are cleared, send Tav up the stairs to the left for High Ground, now your Tav shots on Zhalk are 50% without Bless and higher with it. Start shooting.

The chest in the path to the room will trap one Cambion and slightly delay the other before it then joins the fight around the time the turn timer is at 9 turns left.

What you want to happen:
This Cambion joins the fight, aggros Mindflayer, right as you finish off Zhalk.
Make sure your party is NOT near Mindflayer when Zhalk dies, or it will aggro onto your party and ignore the Cambion.
Mindflayer should be on about 40 hp, Cambion does 10hp per hit, use Throw Potion to keep Mindflayer alive for the Mindflayer vs Cambion fight while using Sacred Flame and High Ground bow shots to support it without getting too close.

Once the Turn Timer is down to about 4 or 3 turns left, send your melee people in to help finish it off (Us, Lae'zel, and Tav or Shadowheart depending on who is higher in the initiative order as you want the person who goes last to head toward the Ship Controls when the timer is at 2 turns left).

If all things go well, Mindflayer or Cambion will die with Turn Timer at 2 turns left and their hp around the 3-10 mark, allowing you to finish it off as well over the next 2 turns and have your Tav or Shadowheart head for the controls when Turn Timer is at 1 remaining (you get xp for Mindflayer as well at this point as it is considered your enemy, regardless of if the Cambion is the one to finish it off or not).

-----------
That's the closest I've come so far in Honour Mode, but I've pulled it off three times now so I think I'm getting pretty consistent with it.

You get the full xp from Zhalk, Mindflayer, all the mobs, and 1 Cambion, resulting in you getting Level 2 before you even reach the controls. It's fun!

[brendan_in_china]

I've killed all of them on HM on the last round once. I estimate there's a 1/8 chance of getting it to stick if you do everything right as explained in above posts. There's a random chance of failure you can't mitigate, mainly disarming Zhalk, getting both cambions in the blast and getting an above average run of hits on Zhalk.

To optimize chances, I'd pick a fiend warlock as they get Command, Eldritch blast and Hex.

- With 3 total Command spells, it's likely you disarm Zhalk.
- With EB, you're able to increase DPR without resistance halving damage.
- With Hex, there's potential increase in DPR in best case scenarios.

In current play through I had a suboptimal paladin but better than average luck. I managed to kill Zhalk, mindflayer and 1 cambion. I consider this a satisfying result well above the curve.