Anders fight

[JF]

wtf is this stupid ass garbage NPC who attack twice in a roll and kills your party alone. This garbage at all

edit: i beat the mf at lvl 3 my shoving him from the cliff. ♥♥♥♥ you anders.

[Draknalor]

Yeah, don't engage that fight until like level 4.

Or just go up to the high ground and try to nuke him before he goes up to kill you.

[DargonBlak]

yeh - he's a surprise

the good news is that he's practically unique for how OP his power difference can be

two levels higher makes a big difference at level 3

i sneak in now using a priori knowledge - i already told Karlach i believed her, so kill em all

knocking him prone with ice arrows (or similar) works nicely - then smite prone ftw

[[TG] zac]

Martial classes get extra attack at level 5.

He is level 5.

Use grease, get lucky with hold person & ensaring strike and he is easy because he has no real ranged options.
But don't try to melee him before level 4.

[jonnin]

all level 5 melee except bard and cleric get 2 attacks per round. All casters get 2x damage on cantrips at 5th. Bard gets an attack at 6th and clerics got nerfed and have to rely on summoned undead or elementals and other pets to fight for them, though high level cause wounds can all but kill one enemy including anders.

anders has no dex. A grease bottle and hex will win if nothing else.
Anders is a 5th level paladin so he gets to hit you pretty hard. But a level 3 frenzy barbarian can do as much, and you should have one with you.

[Humpenstilzchen]

If you happen to have shadowheart in your group you can also use her command spell to make him drop his weapon and then grab it. This way he´ll only deal like 5 damage per hit.

[Bumc]

Most greatsword melee guys are just one command: drop weapon away from being useless.
Bonus points if you have Portent (divination wizard spec) with a low die roll to guarantee your own luck.

[Detective Costeau]

As people have said, just about any good crowd control does wonders on Anders. Grease or Hold Person can both leave him pretty much helpless if they work. Command:Drop Weapon or a battlemaster fighter's disarming strike will also make him much less lethal.
He's absolutely lethal in melee combat. So the best way to beat him is to not fight him in melee, either by using crowd control spells or just by staying at range and picking him apart from a distance. You can still win even if he does manage to drop one of your party members.

[Namdoolb]

Yeah, Anders is a bit of a shock to the system if you're not prepared for him.

In MP I'd go into dialogue whilst the other players sneak in through the side door (better positoning). in SP just do what you can to make sure that the lower INI characters aren't blocking the door.

As for the fight: Level 3 is the lowest I'd try and handle him; and I'd want two decent melee fighters in the party. Get in there; jump if you need to make up the extra distance - block him in behind his little table and hit him from both sides. Have your ranged attacker(s) focus on him as well.

Even on honour mode you should put him down without too much trouble unless you get very bad rolls. you might have to use a res scroll on one of your characters, but that's no biggie. Don't worry too much about the other two - once Anders goes down you can clean them up without too much trouble.

If you've got Command: Drop or ice arrows or grease, those also work great: but you don't need them.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

This is a very good example of why most D&D DM's don't use player classes as opponents, except on rare occasion.

[AnonymousWizard]

Anders is specifically set up to be annoying if you recruit Karlach as soon as possible. He has high hp and spams smites for high damage, his support is more than willing to throw out crowd control, and even has high saves just in case you were planning to crowd control him. He exists to impart the lessons of 'run from hard fights' and 'don't rely on one strategy'

But he is beatable at level 3, especially if you exploit buffs and a bearbarian's damage reduction. it also helps to take out his mage early so that you're not also dealing with Hold Person. It's also possible to break the effect that buffs his saves, but I think I've managed it once.

[[TG] zac]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Cassandra:

This is a very good example of why most D&D DM's don't use player classes as opponents, except on rare occasion.

Its actually a show of bad balance design on wizards end thus why most DM's don't do that.
Its also why with any experienced table you have to throw extremely hard stuff at them to provide any sort of challenge.

In several other table tops fighting stuff with classes the players could have access to is actually fairly normal, especially for any humanoid enemies.
(heck even monster enemies in a few systems often have class levels if said monster is intelligent and physically or mentally capable of doing what that class would do)

[♠.brT]

Paladins are scary.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by TG zac:

Originally posted by Pan Darius Cassandra:

This is a very good example of why most D&D DM's don't use player classes as opponents, except on rare occasion.

Its actually a show of bad balance design on wizards end thus why most DM's don't do that.
Its also why with any experienced table you have to throw extremely hard stuff at them to provide any sort of challenge.

In several other table tops fighting stuff with classes the players could have access to is actually fairly normal, especially for any humanoid enemies.
(heck even monster enemies in a few systems often have class levels if said monster is intelligent and physically or mentally capable of doing what that class would do)

While I agree that D&D has many balance issues, especially when it comes to magic, that doesn't negate the fact that as a rule of thumb, DM's rarely use player classes as opponents.

[AnonymousWizard]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Cassandra:

Originally posted by TG zac:

Its actually a show of bad balance design on wizards end thus why most DM's don't do that.
Its also why with any experienced table you have to throw extremely hard stuff at them to provide any sort of challenge.

In several other table tops fighting stuff with classes the players could have access to is actually fairly normal, especially for any humanoid enemies.
(heck even monster enemies in a few systems often have class levels if said monster is intelligent and physically or mentally capable of doing what that class would do)

While I agree that D&D has many balance issues, especially when it comes to magic, that doesn't negate the fact that as a rule of thumb, DM's rarely use player classes as opponents.

For a ridiculously simple reason: opponents rarely need to conserve resources.

[wtiger27]

Originally posted by AnonymousWizard:

But he is beatable at level 3, especially if you exploit buffs and a bearbarian's damage reduction.

That is not a exploit. It's good strategy.