What's up with the Owlbears?

[Jaeger Pilot]

I just ran into three Greater Enraged Owlbears at level 6. They were in the swamp, close mostly low level quests/areas. Why are they even here? One of them is enough to easily wipe out a level 6 party. They have +26 to attack, so armour does nothing. They have +14 to strength, which is 38 strength or something. Each attack does 2d6+24 damage (up to 36). They have 20% concealment. They have an AC of 24. They have a Fortitude of 21, which is higher than my spell DC.

This is on enemy difficulty 'normal'. I didn't get to check any more stats as they did a couple of critical hits for more than 60 damage, which outright killed my frontline fighters. Then the rest fell to one or two hits.

You need a party of level 10s at least to deal with this, so I found it odd that they were here, and in an area you can't escape or prepare (a skill check teleports you right in front of them).

[Toadally Awesome]

My 2 tanks (Valerie and Jaethal) have 38 and 36 AC so I wouldn't say armor does nothing. As for tactics, Fortitude is their strong stat because they are big dumb beasts so you should not hit them with spells of that save.

Now, on their 2d6+24, the max is 36, so if they crit your frontline twice in a row for almost max damage on both times, that's straight up bad luck.

As for their AC, at level 6 all members of your DPS group should have between +12-14 attack bonus at minimum (+6 BAB / +5 Str-Dex / +1-3 weapon) so your hit chance is 50% *before* you apply buffs like Prayer/Enlarge person, which can trivialize the hit chance.

If you do not have tanks, summoned creatures can keep it busy for your DPSs to finish it. So yeah, Damaging or Will save spells and proper aggro pulling should do it.

As a reference, I found out that while I can manage with inflated stats, reloading due to unlucky crits is boring. In a real life session, a DM would/should never let the enemies crit 5 times in a row even if the dice come this way because it's counter productive to the purpose of the session. So while I am content to play on harder difficulties, I turn crits to Weak to avoid incessant reloading.

[corisai]

Web. You shouldn't fight all bears at once.

What's with them? THey had two (!) affixes (enraged & greater) = they far, far stronger then should be.

They are another enemy that outside of your league - you should either deal with them later (pro tip : quests will return you here again, same as with vicount), or use your abilities at best to deal with them.

P.S. 6-7 level is more then enough to take them out on normal.

[Jaeger Pilot]

Originally posted by Toadally Awesome:

My 2 tanks (Valerie and Jaethal) have 38 and 36 AC so I wouldn't say armor does nothing. As for tactics, Fortitude is their strong stat because they are big dumb beasts so you should not hit them with spells of that save.

Now, on their 2d6+24, the max is 36, so if they crit your frontline twice in a row for almost max damage on both times, that's straight up bad luck.

As for their AC, at level 6 all members of your DPS group should have between +12-14 attack bonus at minimum (+6 BAB / +5 Str-Dex / +1-3 weapon) so your hit chance is 50% *before* you apply buffs like Prayer/Enlarge person, which can trivialize the hit chance.

If you do not have tanks, summoned creatures can keep it busy for your DPSs to finish it. So yeah, Damaging or Will save spells and proper aggro pulling should do it.

As a reference, I found out that while I can manage with inflated stats, reloading due to unlucky crits is boring. In a real life session, a DM would/should never let the enemies crit 5 times in a row even if the dice come this way because it's counter productive to the purpose of the session. So while I am content to play on harder difficulties, I turn crits to Weak to avoid incessant reloading.

So they are supposed to have close to 40 strength in Pathfinder, even when enraged? Seemed a little much to me. Valerie has 35 AC without fighting defensively, but they didn't miss once. Granted, I didn't prepare for this fight, as I didn't know about them, and my mage is set up to fight humanoids (hold person and other spells that doesn't work on animals) and web is in a forbidden school for him. I also had the pretty useless gnome alchemist with me to get his quest done, instead of Octavia (or wasshername).

I'm sure it's possible with a lot of preparation, but my point was that the owlbears seemed like doubly as powerful as I'm used to. I mean, inflating the stats a bit is fine, but 38 strength?

Edit: I checked the manual. A normal owlbear has 19 strength.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Jaeger Pilot:

and web is in a forbidden school for him.

Pick Transmutation as prohibited school is very bad idea, Haste/Slow and Web (+higher version of it) are god-send and game-breaking.

Originally posted by Jaeger Pilot:

I also had the pretty useless gnome alchemist with me to get his quest done

He can be source of Displacement if your level is enough. Displacement is a king :)

Originally posted by Jaeger Pilot:

I mean, inflating the stats a bit is fine, but 38 strength?

They aren't owlbears. They're [greater] AND [enraged].

Do you think, that something like abyssal troll-blood dire wolf should be on same power with a mere dire wolf?

[Rulin]

I buffed my party with all the things...
Managable, but still tough.
Like others have said, stun/root them, let pets or summoned creatures tank for a while and throw all the big dmg spells at them like fireball to get them down asap.

[Jaeger Pilot]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Jaeger Pilot:

and web is in a forbidden school for him.

Pick Transmutation as prohibited school is very bad idea, Haste/Slow and Web (+higher version of it) are god-send and game-breaking.

Originally posted by Jaeger Pilot:

I also had the pretty useless gnome alchemist with me to get his quest done

He can be source of Displacement if your level is enough. Displacement is a king :)

Originally posted by Jaeger Pilot:

I mean, inflating the stats a bit is fine, but 38 strength?

They aren't owlbears. They're [greater] AND [enraged].

Do you think, that something like abyssal troll-blood dire wolf should be on same power with a mere dire wolf?

Nothing I can do about now, since there is no respeccing.

I know they're greater and enraged. But DOUBLE the strength? There is a difference between increasing stats and... this. But if you're fine with it, then I guess we'll just agree to disagree :P

[The Silver Santana]

The game throws stuff like this at you every once in a while. To be fair, the game is hardly the only one, and there were spots like this in pillars and baulders gate where you could easily walk into the wrong neighborhood and get swept up with the trash. It's helpfully gated behind a skill check, incidentally.

Thing it, this is one of those "You're a wizard hermione!" moments. Greater enraged owlbears are nasty hitters, but they have no special senses and mediocre saves (compared to their attacks). Hit them with web spells, confusion, slow, and other spell effects, and they're as harmless as a fluffy kitten. Which you then shoot with arrows. Lots of arrows. Put displacement on your main tank and they can even survive straight melee with the buggers.

[Jaeger Pilot]

Originally posted by The Silver Santana:

The game throws stuff like this at you every once in a while. To be fair, the game is hardly the only one, and there were spots like this in pillars and baulders gate where you could easily walk into the wrong neighborhood and get swept up with the trash. It's helpfully gated behind a skill check, incidentally.

Thing it, this is one of those "You're a wizard hermione!" moments. Greater enraged owlbears are nasty hitters, but they have no special senses and mediocre saves (compared to their attacks). Hit them with web spells, confusion, slow, and other spell effects, and they're as harmless as a fluffy kitten. Which you then shoot with arrows. Lots of arrows. Put displacement on your main tank and they can even survive straight melee with the buggers.

I have to re-arrange my whole memorised spells, my party, and my equipment first. Then I'll return and give it a proper try.

[Jaeger Pilot]

Attempt 1: They suddenly attacked when I was buffing (and far from ready). The first hit on Val was a 61 damage crit, after they had killed all my summons in 2 rounds. It all went downhill from there...

Attempt 2: Apparently they attack when I use Prayer. And they attacked a bit prematurely again. Amiri is hit for 56 damage the first attack. After healing her back up, she got hit with another crit of 61. So Amiri is down. Also, running out of spells. One owlbear is dead, but so is Harrim and Amiri, with -30 and -35 hp. At least Amiri got one owlbear to badly wounded with a crit of 73 damage! Unfortunately, I didn't notice that the rage spell affects all party members, so I couldn't cast spells for half the fight... One owlbear got to my mage, and even with blur and mirror image, he was dead after two attacks, so the fight was over.

Attempt 3: I managed to buff in peace now. I cast summons and animate dead to give them something to busy themselves with, and threw some fireballs and such. They all made their reflex saves (+14 reflex), though, and I only got them down to barely injured, one badly injured by the end of the fight. My frontliners lasted about as long as last time. Only one 63 damage crit this time...

Conclusion: It's impossible without the (maximized?) Web spell, it seems, at current level, as I can't get them to only fight me one at the time.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Jaeger Pilot:

Conclusion: It's impossible without the (maximized?) Web spell, it seems, at current level, as I can't get them to only fight me one at the time.

You can try until they fail Slow saves too :)

If you don't have access to Haste&Slow already - well, you'd screw your party.

P.S. You still could use spells from prohibited schools on wizard. It will just cost you 2 spell slots instead of one.

[Jaeger Pilot]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Jaeger Pilot:

Conclusion: It's impossible without the (maximized?) Web spell, it seems, at current level, as I can't get them to only fight me one at the time.

You can try until they fail Slow saves too :)

If you don't have access to Haste&Slow already - well, you'd screw your party.

P.S. You still could use spells from prohibited schools on wizard. It will just cost you 2 spell slots instead of one.

This is why I want a respecc option. I'm a Thassilonian Specialist, so my prohibited schools are not possible to use in any way, shape, or form. The funny thing is, I made him to be a crowd control wizard, specializing in spells like Sleep, Hold Person, Hypnotism, Hideous Laughter, Deep Slumber etc. None of them work on monsters like owlbears, so I'm kind of screwed. And I didn't know at character creation what spells were Transmutation spells, as I don't have the spellbook memorised. Guess it wasn't ideal...

[RJM]

Octavia is a transmutation specialist and linzi can learn them too. This fight is in an optional area so you can definitely leave it until you have the tools to beat it.

[[GRVTS]Fat Bastard]

Honestly, the devs seem to have a hard-on for Owlbears. One of the bosses is an Owlbear, there are Treantlike Owlbears and so on. Makes sense since they named their company Owlcat.

[The Silver Santana]

Yeah, so you need octavia then (I think that's her name)?

There is a reason they put a transmutation wizard in the game for you-transmutation is one of the best schools by default, as it gets two of the best level 3 spells and has several very powerful spells otherwise (most of which weren't ported, but you really need Haste and Slow).

It's never a drop for specialist school if you can help it, unless you know you're taking a character who can use it. Sorry to say that, but it's the truth.

The only way I know of to respec is to use a save game editor or do so yourself. Several options exist, none of which I've tried yet.

The key to this encounter is, indeed, web spells, slow spells, and hasted archers or repeated fireballs. +14 reflex is still beatable, and if you hit them with two save or lose spells one is gonna connect.

Deep Slumber does work on monsters by the way, it just has a hit dice cap. Same with sleep.

You do eventually get enchantment spells that work on non-humanoids. Hold Monster and Confusion, for instance (confusion is a wonderufl barrel of fun).

Don't be afraid to retreat and come back. There are a couple trips you'll be taking to the area, and at level 7 this is a much more dooable encounter (Confusion).

[Jaeger Pilot]

Originally posted by The Silver Santana:

Yeah, so you need octavia then (I think that's her name)?

There is a reason they put a transmutation wizard in the game for you-transmutation is one of the best schools by default, as it gets two of the best level 3 spells and has several very powerful spells otherwise (most of which weren't ported, but you really need Haste and Slow).

It's never a drop for specialist school if you can help it, unless you know you're taking a character who can use it. Sorry to say that, but it's the truth.

The only way I know of to respec is to use a save game editor or do so yourself. Several options exist, none of which I've tried yet.

The key to this encounter is, indeed, web spells, slow spells, and hasted archers or repeated fireballs. +14 reflex is still beatable, and if you hit them with two save or lose spells one is gonna connect.

Deep Slumber does work on monsters by the way, it just has a hit dice cap. Same with sleep.

You do eventually get enchantment spells that work on non-humanoids. Hold Monster and Confusion, for instance (confusion is a wonderufl barrel of fun).

Don't be afraid to retreat and come back. There are a couple trips you'll be taking to the area, and at level 7 this is a much more dooable encounter (Confusion).

Yeah, I levelled Octavia as a rogue mostly, since I play a wizard... Another reason I want to respec, as I didn't know I only needed 1 level of rogue and still get better sneak attack from Arcane Trickster.

I don't think I will mess with editing files, though. I'll just have to deal with it.

I'll come back later, for sure. I just think they went a little overboard with fricking owlbears. Why not put 3 dragons there instead. Ancient red dragons have about the same strength...