Strategies for market square undead encounter [core rules]

[Z3R0]

Was playing on a core rules playthrough using mostly RTwP, when I ran into a group of about a dozen shadows and zombies. Either no cleric has been made available yet, or I missed him/her. I do have Seelah and Camelia, but neither of them has Turn Undead (still at 3rd level.) The party has been infected with several fun diseases, with no obvious cure at this point but that's not the point of the post.

I can usually take out 2 - 3 of the zombies with missiles and spells before they can close, but as soon as the shadows start draining STR I'm screwed. Main character is a Sword Saint with a good AC (24 with Mage Armor, thanks Ember) but still can't fend off the horde.

Any effective strategies for dealing with this zerg rush? I've passed through once already on a Daring play through and there were a *lot* fewer undead.

[Ovan]

You'll only find the cleric of the game after chapter 1, once you leave the city and it's main story stuff, you can't miss it.

[phadin]

Have youre best Religion character attempt Treat Affliction on whoever is diseased. That will help, at least.

Camellia can prepare and cast Lesser Restoration at level 3 to restore your stats.

Paladin Lay on Hands can be used offensively to damage the shadows, as can Cure spells. Nothing that will mass hurt them, but those will work for full damage unlike spells and weapons which deal half damage (or none if the weapons are not magical)

Magic Missile will also deal full damage to the shadows.

you might consider buying a coupld of Cure Serious Wounds scrolls for the shaman and paladin.

Also, I think if you go a different direction, you should get the invitation to go save a party. That will get you an oracle with spontanious cure and channel positive energy.

[bah]

You might want to wait until leveling. I left this particular fight until I was level 5. The extra magic weapons found between level 3 and 5 help a lot with being able to damage the shadows.

[Midnight]

I'd skip some of these encounters until you get Daeran in your party. Also, makes sure to use bless weapon potions if you don't have magical weapon for all your party members. Camelia has ghost touch weapon enhancement at this point but she isn't doing much damage.

[Morgian]

Your best weapon is Finnean, since he can hit the shadows as usual. Shadows, being incorporeal, attack your touch AC, which is presumably not 24.
One way is to use summons as meatshields while sniping at them with Finnean.

[AlexnChaos]

Treat in the ability section lets you do a Lore Religion roll once a day to try and cure diseases I believe, Camellia has the ability to make her weapon Ghost Touch as well for several rounds

[Balekai]

Undead usually have bad reflex saves, which means anyting that knocks em down keeps them down.

Try the Grease spell if you have access to it (The Shadows may be floating if i'm not mistaken so that may not work on them). :)

If the shadow attack is limited range, you can try some kiting measures instead. Switch all your characters to range and try to pepper them from a distance. That's usually the way to take down impossible bosses/enemies with melee drains/super attacks. The only problem may be that the shadows are faster than your characters. In that case, try to use a light armoured character or someone with access to expedeous retreat (+movement speed) to aggro/kite.

Combine that with the suggesting of using Finn as a ranged weapon on your best bow character.

Edit: Based on the nature of the drain and if you can get access to Death Ward, drains are no longer a problem as you're immune to death effects and level drains. If the drain is poison based, then you need to use delay poison first.

[gphotopoulos]

Camellia can buff her weapons with ghost touch property, that helps. Also, I ran into trouble in the same encounter, had 5-6 zombies and 6 shadows pop up (I also play on Core), lost a couple party members to strength drain, reloaded (my save was a bit further back), the second time I had 5 zombies, 2 shadows, 3 lesser shadows and that went much better. I was surprised by the difference in composition and checked the difficulty, it was still Core Rules, so not sure if it was a bug or the group composition is so random. In any case, the key IMO is to ignore the zombies, use missiles/spells to kill as many of the shadows as they close and kill the shadows first in melee. If Seelah can channel that is some extra AoE damage once you get in melee. If you bought any damage wands/scrolls (fireball etc.) that fight is a good time to use them. Finally, Ember can be multiclassed to a Crossblooded Sorc (two bloodlines aren't bad), if you plan to go Necromancy/Enchantment/Conjuration with her you can take Undead as one of her Bloodlines and that makes undead susceptible to her mind-affecting spells so you can try slumber on them (this is theoretical, I plan to go fire dam with her so I haven't tried it).

[Z3R0]

Both the Sword Saint and Camellia have Spirit/Arcane Weapon Enhancement. I also had Ember drop a couple of Burning Hands to good effect. But I still lost this fight after another try with the MC still biting the dust after taking a ton of STR damage.

The party is infected with multiple diseases and their spells are about half depleted by this point, but I'm loathe to return to Defender's Heart to rest and running down the timer to that huge freaking battle at the tavern.

I've heard rumors of Finnean but haven't run into this weapon yet. If it was back in the Shield Maze I've already missed it. I haven't encountered him yet in this play through, but In my Daring play through I took a pass on Daeren since he seemed like such a tool...

[mosspit]

Originally posted by Morgian:

Your best weapon is Finnean, since he can hit the shadows as usual. Shadows, being incorporeal, attack your touch AC, which is presumably not 24.
One way is to use summons as meatshields while sniping at them with Finnean.

Agreed. Finnean makes this a non issue at least on Core. I gave Lann a Longbow version of Finnean whilst my tank MC held the line. My tank was kinda min maxed though - 1 Sword Saint, 1 Scaled Fist Monk, 1 Paladin. With Camille spamming Protective Luck. I didn't even realise this is one of those "tricky" early fights as it went by without my MC even taking a hit and Lann clearing out the horde fast.

[Z3R0]

In that case, please spoil me and let me know where Finnean is. I suppose I can try to slip past the undead and revisit the encounter later, but I'd like to put them down sooner rather than later.

Even on Core difficulty this fight seems rather difficult. Would tabletop random encounter tables really pit five 3rd level characters against such a huge mob of undead? I've played tabletop Pathfinder (not GM'd though) and never had such a huge mess of undead attack me at 3rd level.

[Herr Glaube]

Originally posted by Bananaman:

In that case, please spoil me and let me know where Finnean is. I suppose I can try to slip past the undead and revisit the encounter later, but I'd like to put them down sooner rather than later.

Even on Core difficulty this fight seems rather difficult. Would tabletop random encounter tables really pit five 3rd level characters against such a huge mob of undead? I've played tabletop Pathfinder (not GM'd though) and never had such a huge mess of undead attack me at 3rd level.

Do Woljif's quest, you'll come across him during that.

[Z3R0]

OK so won this encounter with resources available. The Sword Saint has a 19 touch AC, so put her in front. I gave Seelah the only true magic weapon the party has, a +1 Glaive. Fortunately this worked out really well, since she has a crap touch AC and she could attack from the rear. Ember also dropped a couple of burning hands that helped, though she took some STR damage. Since his weapon is useless against Shadows, Lann concentrated on the zombies. And Camelia used ghost touch (I didn't know Shadows took 1/2 damage w/o it) and used a potion of enlarge to boost her damage output.

But the real equalizer was a potion of haste that I didn't even realize was in my inventory until I took stock. To my surprise, it not only hasted the MC but the entire party.

In Kingmaker, I mostly ignored potions and scrolls except for quaffing the occasional Cure Wounds. Looks like I'll need to pay careful attention to my 'consumables' in this game.

EDIT: Treat affliction also worked well to get rid of my diseases, but there's one 'Demon Plague' that doesn't respond to Treat Affliction. Is this a bug or does this require a special cure?

[gmclucabel]

you probably failed the DC for treating the demon plague, it's still a caster level check to "dispel" it with remove disease/treat affliction.

I remember I had trouble with that encounter, in the end I accepted my animal companion dead by STR damage and another dead, but I ressurrected the second one using one of Terendelev scales ( we have two, only need to keep one for that other thing). took a while to lesser restoration the STR damage away from the party, but animal companion is luckily simply ressurrected at rest for no cost.

I did have Finnean and he indeed was on Lann pewpewing with composite bow

[Z3R0]

I think the reason Demon Plague wouldn't 'dispel' is because 'Treat Affliction' can probably only be used once per day per character. And this character had two diseases originally, but one was cured with Treat Affliction. However it would not cure a 2nd disease, Demon Plague. I think I eventually found a Remove Disease scroll either in the field or back at Defender's Heart.