What the hell!?

[katanaofsubterfuge]

I was about to fight the absolutes armies in the shadow cursed land, it was so tantalising, I thought I was going to kite them onto a narrow bridge and just AOE them to death and get like 3k exp, then I'm tossed into a prison cell.

[Favonius]

You can't proceed to act 3 before you're done with Ketheric.
You've been told that fighting a whole army wasn't possible, so you end up (alive luckily enough) being caught and jailed.
But i dont think getting out is too much difficult

[Mike Garrison]

You were going to take on an entire army? Wow, I admire your courage. Your wisdom, however, leaves something to be desired.

[[TG] zac]

Its pretty obviously mentioned in the cut scene when you see army that its not something you want to fight head on.

When the game gives you obvious hints like that its best to take them.
Its like if your DM at a table asks "are you sure you want to do that ?"

[Raz]

Originally posted by TG zac:

Its pretty obviously mentioned in the cut scene when you see army that its not something you want to fight head on

Nor would it be something they could fight, despite their confidence in their choke point. We're talking multiple casters dropping Hunger of Hadar all on top of you, a couple of Ogres all throwing rocks at you. Since it is an army, you'd have well over 20 people all taking their turn while you wait. That's 20 people doing up to three actions, two of which might be damage on just four folks on a bridge, in the open.

[Romnia]

I mean, you'd be up against a whole army with hundreds of enemies, which would mean you're severely outnumbered against a bunch of zealots, goblins, orcs, gnolls, and true souls on a similar level to Z'rell and Nere perhaps. Imagine how long the fight would take and how quickly you'd be downed without having your turn.
(Ngl, would dig something like that as a mod with unlimited party. Sounds like fun.)

[DeMasked]

Originally posted by Raz:

Originally posted by TG zac:

Its pretty obviously mentioned in the cut scene when you see army that its not something you want to fight head on

Nor would it be something they could fight, despite their confidence in their choke point. We're talking multiple casters dropping Hunger of Hadar all on top of you, a couple of Ogres all throwing rocks at you. Since it is an army, you'd have well over 20 people all taking their turn while you wait. That's 20 people doing up to three actions, two of which might be damage on just four folks on a bridge, in the open.

It would actually be super simple since you have a bridge acting as a major choke point.

Alert Feat, Sneak up, use Ice Storm, enemies que up, sneak in the next 3 characters to drop more aoe concentration spells like Sleet Storm, Hunger of Hadar, Plant Growth, have all characters move back if possible (if they all have Alert they can).

Watch the show as all enemies try to move through the death aoe funnel trap and pick off any of those that get close.

I did this to the Goblin Camp using that bridge with some barrels and spells. Worked like a charm.

[Raz]

Originally posted by DeMasked:

It would actually be super simple since you have a bridge acting as a major choke point.

Alert Feat, Sneak up, use Ice Storm, enemies que up, sneak in the next 3 characters to drop more aoe concentration spells like Sleet Storm, Hunger of Hadar, Plant Growth, have all characters move back if possible (if they all have Alert they can).

Watch the show as all enemies try to move through the death aoe funnel trap and pick off any of those that get close.

I did this to the Goblin Camp using that bridge with some barrels and spells. Worked like a charm.

- The Goblin camp is not an army, nor is it the same kind of numbers as the Absolute's main body army, or as versatile in troops.

- They have Paladins. A lot of them. With Halbreds no less. Halbreds have Rush Attack. Rush Attack ignores grease and ice.

- The bridge is a choke point going both ways, meaning you ain't sneaking **** past them and their scrying eyes.

- That bridge is more a death trap for you than it is for the army. The army has Air Artillery. You're ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

- Even if you removed the Nautiloids from the mix, you'd still run out of Spell Slots before the army had suffered too many loses from the fact the army is large enough to siege ALL of Baldur's Gate. Did you pay attention to the layout of the city from the wallpaper loading screens? The city is massive, and to lay siege to such a city, the army has to number in the multiple thousands of various creatures, cultist, etc. You are not going to eat through that as four adventurers even if you made a Minion army to assist.

[DeMasked]

Originally posted by Raz:

Originally posted by DeMasked:

It would actually be super simple since you have a bridge acting as a major choke point.

Alert Feat, Sneak up, use Ice Storm, enemies que up, sneak in the next 3 characters to drop more aoe concentration spells like Sleet Storm, Hunger of Hadar, Plant Growth, have all characters move back if possible (if they all have Alert they can).

Watch the show as all enemies try to move through the death aoe funnel trap and pick off any of those that get close.

I did this to the Goblin Camp using that bridge with some barrels and spells. Worked like a charm.

- The Goblin camp is not an army, nor is it the same kind of numbers as the Absolute's main body army, or as versatile in troops.

- They have Paladins. A lot of them. With Halbreds no less. Halbreds have Rush Attack. Rush Attack ignores grease and ice.

- The bridge is a choke point going both ways, meaning you ain't sneaking **** past them and their scrying eyes.

- That bridge is more a death trap for you than it is for the army. The army has Air Artillery. You're ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

- Even if you removed the Nautiloids from the mix, you'd still run out of Spell Slots before the army had suffered too many loses from the fact the army is large enough to siege ALL of Baldur's Gate. Did you pay attention to the layout of the city from the wallpaper loading screens? The city is massive, and to lay siege to such a city, the army has to number in the multiple thousands of various creatures, cultist, etc. You are not going to eat through that as four adventurers even if you made a Minion army to assist.

Well Plant Growth would slow them down though yea? And I'm not talking about sneaking past them but up to them to aggro and then falling back since you'd have Alert. So long as you move back and leave behind your aoe spells that will help in winnowing down a ton of them.

I mean I'm just talking about what you see. With the Nautiloids in the mix and depending on the amount of enemies in total that you don't see yea it's impossible.

[Raz]

Originally posted by DeMasked:

I mean I'm just talking about what you see. With the Nautiloids in the mix and depending on the amount of enemies in total that you don't see yea it's impossible.

You can see the army from various points on the map. The army that you CAN see takes up an entire plain. They easily would cover the entire map we can explore of the Shadow Lands.

And no, Plant Growth won't slow them down. They have greater numbers than you. Those numbers translate into more chances than you can keep track of to break your concentration. God forbid someone set fire to Plant Growth by mistake to remove it.

[jonnin]

although, ... my group pretty much HAS sieged and defeated BG city. All the watchers and most of the fist have taken offense to my way of doing things. Ive killed off most of two cults, including the absolute's, the city leadership, and just about anyone with a proper name is either my ally or dead. An army of about 20 guys is all that was needed, assuming 4 or 5 of them are as good as team tav.

[Mike Garrison]

Keep in mind that the entire city of Baldur's Gate is attempting to hold off the Army of the Absolute. Four adventurers ain't gonna do it.

I know, video game logic and all that, but your characters in the game realize that their best bet for defeating the army is to infiltrate and then defeat the Chosen that are controlling the Elder Brain that is controlling the army.

Arguably, the reason you can get to Ketheric at all is that he has sent his army out to attack Baldur's Gate, so all he has left protecting him is his personal staff and a few guards.

[alanc9]

I guess what he's complaining about is that he can't use AI exploits to destroy the entire army.

[Raz]

Originally posted by jonnin:

although, ... my group pretty much HAS sieged and defeated BG city. All the watchers and most of the fist have taken offense to my way of doing things. Ive killed off most of two cults, including the absolute's, the city leadership, and just about anyone with a proper name is either my ally or dead. An army of about 20 guys is all that was needed, assuming 4 or 5 of them are as good as team tav.

... You're doing small skirmishes of 3 to 6 enemies in general. You've done direct strikes against the Chosen and usually with them not having massive numbers at their back but a small squad as well (Orin has more depending but pretty sure it's only about 10 Bhaalist give or take). An army that is besieging a city the size of Baldur's Gate, the entire city, would be too much for 20 adventurers.

Hell, the entire final fight proves this because unless our small squad didn't kill the Nether Brain to disrupt its commands, just the army of Mindflayer was enough to basically wipe out the city in a matter of MINUTES from when we confronted the brain, got yeeted into the Astral Prism, and came out of said Astral Prism.

Yes, yes Astral Prism time shenanigans but the game doesn't really go into detail on how much time has passed. We'll say the time we spent inside translated into a hour in the real world, still was a one sided slaughter fest that narratively wise, it took (if you're on a good run) all of the thieves guild, Rolan in a tower with a magical cannon, Aylin sending Selunite clan, the remaining Harpers, devils from the Hells if you convinced Mizora to help, juicing up an Owlbear and giving it battle armor, a friggin' red dragon providing air support, and the remaining flaming fist to get our four guys to the brain to succeed. That's basically a small army of our own, and was easily outnumbered but enough to soak up the pain so we didn't get instantly slaughtered.