czernos

[iLk]

saved by his coffin, 37 straight loses, exit stone doesn't work. Am I screwed?

[Adamantyr]

What level are you? Is your party fully healed and refreshed?

[Adamantyr]

Some tips: Iron Aura makes the count indestructible. But if you hit him it reduces the counter time of the effect. Have guys with quick attacks like wands work on his aura. Empower is a good idea for melee damage. Use fireball and shock wave to wear down his minions. It's a tough fight but not impossible.

[iLk]

I won the fight on attempt 46. In response to your questions:
Fighter thief wizard warlock...all lvl9, 0 wounds, 0 fatigue, and prebuffed with: mind guard, haste, protection
One thing that helped out a lot is that I Learned through trial and error that the way you have invulnerability doesn’t work the way I expected it to. I expected invulnerability spell to work on a set amount of time or a number of rounds. So I spent quite a good number of attempts trying to just wait for the invulnerability to fall off. Your invulnerability spell is really more like an absorbs shield where after a certain number of attacks then it falls off

[Zeluvius]

Good job bet that felt good, I find blur better than protection overall myself

[Adamantyr]

It's both duration AND ablative armor of sorts, rather like the classic Stoneskin spell from AD&D. I realized it was too powerful as duration alone, and still offers a significant challenge even with that.

[flanagan.ffs]

Thanks for mentioning it! I haven’t hit Czernos yet (I’m pretty sure it’s the last location I need to clear before starting the endgame) but I hit the iron aura with Creel, (I think, exact boss recollection is fuzzy) and I just waited it out because I assumed hitting didn’t help.

On a tangential note, I never fought the Abomination before the buff to Regenerate, so I don’t know how challenging it was before, but man, it was annoying with Regenerate scaling with max health. You just had to keep hitting him and hoping for low Regen ticks, and/or him not casting it for a turn or two after it fell off. I went there pretty late and heavily geared and it still was an interminable slog.

[Adamantyr]

Ah, I made that change recently, giving him Regeneration! Before, he seemed to be a total pushover for most parties. I'm glad to hear it made him much more of a challenge. (But not impossible.)

[flanagan.ffs]

I don't know if that's the appropriate way to judge the scaling, because I just got over to Czernos and beat him on the first try (with mass exalt, mass protect, mass haste, and mindguard prebuffed). And then I had to beat him on the second try as well, because i didn't save before I accidentally took the portal out without going into the treasure room. But never mind that!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't take "maxed pre-endgame gear on a party with all stats raised to 10 because I thought that was the max" as your standard for "the fight is challenging but not impossible". I think the needed level of sustained damage combined with sustained defense might be hard to do for a more casual player. Get a few more trip reports before you call it balanced :)

[Adamantyr]

A fair point. I'll make adjustments as needed.

I just discovered a bug where fury (another ability the Abomination gained) was a little overpowered, so that may affect things as well.