The first encounter with the intellect devourers

[The One Armed Bandit]

I can't get past this fight. It's impossible. I'm on the lowest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ difficulty and my sorcerer character is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ useless in a fight, and shadowheart is of no use. What do I do?

[Angel]

on the nautiloid or the beach? you can avoid the ones on the beach by jumping up the side of the cliff if you really don't want to fight them

[Fluffykeith]

What are you trying to fight them with?

Shadowheart has a firebolt cantrip that does decent damage, your sorcerer should have something similar. If you initiate the fight by attacking at range you’ll kill at least one of them before they can get to you.

[Dork_Stalker_310]

Okay, the first thing you should do is to take the high ground. Both Shadowheart and your sorcerer are ranged, so they will be able to attack the enemies with ease due to advantage.

Then use cantrips, like Fluffykeith mentioned. Although Shadow's firebolt will have a scuffed hit chance due to scaling from INT which she, by default, doesn't have much.

[EricHVela]

Kite, high ground, stay at range... "Don't get too close. One strike could be deadly." (paraphrasing what someone will say when starting that encounter).

Don't keep trying the same thing over and over. While there is an element of chance, you have to stack things in your favor. If something is not working, change it up because you're likely stacking things in their favor instead.

This is different from table-top D&D in both that a digital DM won't adjust to your tactics and that you don't get second chances on table-top so you can't try something else.

[Detective Costeau]

At level 1, I'm pretty sure shadowheart will be more accurate with a shortbow or crossbow than the firebolt cantrip.
You can get several of them in the tutorial, though.
Also Guiding Bolt or Inflict Wounds on Shadowheart both have a decent chance of dropping an enemy if they hit. I don't know what spells you took for your sorcerer, but any good ranged damage spells will help a lot. (and you can also use a crossbow on your sorcerer if you've got one)

This is a potentially annoying fight just because you're very likely still level 1 and only have 2 characters, once you get past it you can recruit up to a full party of 4 without any other fights, which makes future encounters much easier.

[Manslayer]

You pretty much become level 2 when you get to the beach, I'd you dont, move north slightly to discover the fast travel and that should push you over.

There is always using dash and running passed them since they are slower.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by Manslayer:

You pretty much become level 2 when you get to the beach

Not always.

First, you have to do almost everything in the Nautilus for that to happen. And even then, I sometimes don't hit Level 2 before that fight.

The fight can actually be avoided entirely, if you jump up the rocks to the right of the area where you fight the intellect devourers.

[Vox Maximus]

If you can't get past that on the lowest difficulty, you might want to reconsider playing this game to save your time and nerve.

[DeMasked]

Either avoid the fight by using Jump and go back with a full party or use Shadowheart's Fire Bolt Cantrip to blow up the purple goop canister which can damage or kill 1-2 of them depending on where they are.

[Nats]

Whaaaat????
You don't even need to fight them lol. That is your first lesson in this game. Remember this for later.

[jonnin]

The first group of them off the beach:
1) be sure to kill the mind flayer at least, if not the demon guy, on the ship. The extra xp here ensures you land at level 2 instead of level 1. There may be a way to get to 2 without it but this ensures it. Use the exploding barrels and SH fire to ignite.

2) the braindogs, one is sitting on an exploding barrel to begin with. Another may patrol over to it. If you can sneak and kill 2 with 1 shot to start the fight, its easy. Even if you only kill 1, its still much easier.

3) the rest of it depends on you and your main character's class and the game difficulty. Eg if you are good at fighting, you can kill these easily by yourself and not get hurt, or if you do SH behind can heal you. If you are not good at fighting, you and SH need to burn spells, consumables, and any left over exploding barrels and such to get rid of them, or avoid them. For example, its bad to waste them, but if you have a void bulb you can suck them all onto a pile and then light up a barrel. But those bulbs are pure gold in a later fight so if you have another way, do that first. The caustic bulbs are less useful later, so one of those may help.

[=M$= Oroberus]

Originally posted by The One Armed Bandit:

I can't get past this fight. It's impossible. I'm on the lowest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ difficulty and my sorcerer character is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ useless in a fight, and shadowheart is of no use. What do I do?

Well, if they're too hard to fight then you can ... just not fight and go around them ... boy, 'modern gaming' really has made people regress in terms of mental capacity and problem solving skills

Kappa

[Doc]

Originally posted by The One Armed Bandit:

I can't get past this fight. It's impossible. I'm on the lowest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ difficulty and my sorcerer character is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ useless in a fight, and shadowheart is of no use. What do I do?

playing warrior and just going unga bunga with a big sword helps a lot in the first playthrough

[michaelfrederick]

Presuming the intellect devourers after landing on the beach...

I think this is one of the tougher fights. Still low level, and they can hit with some serious damage.

As others have noted, and I have not tried yet - you can avoid it.

Meanwhile, in some ways this fight might be part of the tutorial? Learning about 'hide' and sneaking around? What I usually do is sneak in, and coming from the beach side, on the right you can get up along a ledge and on the high side. From there, you have good advantage with ranged attacks while they still have some distance to cover to get to you. Even then, it can be a close call.

[Gaius]

1 - don't forget to equip a crossbow in Shadowheart and another in you character
2 - group stealth (shift + C) before reaching their detection range
3 - go to the right up the 2 steps
4 - crossbow them to death. You get a shot from each char in stealth.

Finish in melee if needed or spend some spells if you feel like it.