Blue Floaty Skull Thing?

[LeBurns]

What the heck is that? Found when camping near the big tree in the first map. Thing wiped out my party. Reloaded and it did it again. Seems none of my characters can even hit the thing except on a 20. Is there some trick to killing this thing? Thanks.

[Aria Athena]

That's probably by far the hardest thing you can encounter in Act 1. You shouldn't face it at least until Act 2.

[=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil]

Just search viscount smoulderburn on these steam threads. This game has ridiculous spikes in difficulty like that throughout the game.

Pretty much you need remove fear and scrolls of prot and resist lightning if you're going to try do it early.

But just come back a little later.

Just wait until you first encounter enraged owlbears.. Or 3 of them haha

[Doombringer]

Resist energy(electric), use all your animated dead (if you have any), wait until you roll enough 20s to win. (His damage per hit isn't very high.)
I just waited out the fear, it is less of a problem for ranged attackers.

[CHAO$$$]

Its really not a "diffciulty spike" by any means.

Its an obvious trap you can decide to walk into face first.

[=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil]

I would like to see the statistics on people who managed that encounter first time.

Getting attacked while resting is something we're aware of.

Getting it done at a place that is easily accessible at a low level, getting hit with fear, then lightning, and needing to crit to hit is a difficulty spike.

[subpopculture]

I totally walked into the trap without preparation and wiped the first time I encountered him. I reloaded and came back with Protection from Lightning and Resist Fears and stuff and was easily able to defeat him the second time.

[Lowkey]

Originally posted by LeBurns:

What the heck is that? Found when camping near the big tree in the first map. Thing wiped out my party. Reloaded and it did it again. Seems none of my characters can even hit the thing except on a 20. Is there some trick to killing this thing? Thanks.

I did this at level 3 or 4, was nuts. I had saved up maybe 30-ish minor heal potions because the rest of the game was so easy up until this point, then... it happened. Probably took me 10 - 15-in game minutes, using def stance, all of my shield of faith potions and wands, reduce person, was wild.

This was also the first time I encountered anything like this and it was refreshing to have a challenge. Totally doable at low level, but you will be in for a real challenge. Would for sure have came back with at least remove fear potions/scrolls/wand.

[burningmime]

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

That's probably by far the hardest thing you can encounter in Act 1. You shouldn't face it at least until Act 2.

There's also the shambling mound. Not sure if that's harder or easier. Both of them wiped my face.

[Kshahdoo]

Paladin can kill that "skull" (who's actually a will-o'-wisp) pretty easy.

[Aranador]

yah, as just said, 4th level pally can smite it and wail on it, and be immune to its fear spam. Give said pally some resistance to electricity, and blue skullator is toast. But it is definitely a trap for the overly curious player who ignores the major obvious warning signs placed around that camp.

[Notabot187]

I would rather have these sort of things early rather than later. Sets the tone of no handholding

[Immortal Reaver]

Originally posted by =NK= Col. Jack O'Neil:

Just search viscount smoulderburn on these steam threads. This game has ridiculous spikes in difficulty like that throughout the game.

Pretty much you need remove fear and scrolls of prot and resist lightning if you're going to try do it early.

But just come back a little later.

Just wait until you first encounter enraged owlbears.. Or 3 of them haha

You say difficulty spike, I say optional fight, you can completely avoid. haha

[Aria Athena]

Originally posted by burningmime:

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

That's probably by far the hardest thing you can encounter in Act 1. You shouldn't face it at least until Act 2.

There's also the shambling mound. Not sure if that's harder or easier. Both of them wiped my face.

I would add that talking wolf at the top right corner on the list too. Shambling Mound can wipe the party way faster than Smoulderburn with it's Cleave, but at least it also goes down faster. I prefer those chances. That wisp on Normal has something like 34 AC, I cannot think of anything with equal or higher armor class before chapter 5, except maybe King Tartuk and a Lich(?).

[Notabot187]

The first time a wisp cast shield my little minmax heart smiled. Immunity to the only thing that works at low level vs high touch AC enemies is just glorious.

[Ashtrails]

You also find a wand of true strike pretty early on which helps a lot here.

One thing I find weird in _all_ the threads with this encounter is how everyone points out it's optional, or there are clear warning signs etc...
Let me say this, though:
OF COURSE this is a trap, and I guess almost everyone realized that, because... d'uh.

However... by having corpses strewn out everywhere, the game triggers my curiosity and invites me to explore.
My first instinct is not 'ignore this part of the game like a sane person'.
it's not like I could see the level of the corpses to realize this is above my paygrade.
All clues I get is their party size, and partly their gear, both potentially MUCH worse than mine plus some hints what they were up against (corpse distribution for fear, burn marks for fire / lightning).
So I assume for these scrubs it was certain death, but whatever got them is 'in my level range', since the whole area was in my level range so far and i'm a badass adventurer with class levels and ♥♥♥♥.

That is what the game gives me as clues and nothing here says 'strong enemy I only hit on a nat 20, the AC being the one unifying 'difficulty spike' factor here.