Unfair difficulty (but with 1.2x damage to party, instead of 2x damage) "tips"

[Slip]

Playing on this difficulty has high chance of giving you ulcer, or making you go insane, I just finished with Stag Lord fight, and wanna share few things I noticed, that can help you out if you are having trouble.


1. Jaethal is a very useful companion, due to her being undead, she cant die permanently, nor get stats lowered through various ways.

Her being undead, I used her as decoy, used expeditious retreat spell and lured as many enemies as I could, while rest of the party killed rest, then I let her be caught and die, while rest of the party runs away, and she resurrects, rinse and repeat. (was only way to do Thorn Fort at level 2, for me at least)

2. Sometimes you are underground, or in places where tip number one, cant really be applied, here I used her as a brick wall, first I would attack a monster with a bow, run away, and monsters would target Jaethal long enough, for me to get out of range, mobs reset their position(but not their health) she resurrect, rinse and repeat (some of those skeletons in Old Sycamore have AC=31, only way to hit them on low lvl is to shoot them from afar, which makes them fleet footed, and yes it took quite a while to kill them this way)

3. Use enemies huge stats in your advantage, when I see a wizard or an alchemist, I get wet. If you are able to make a tank, or Jaethal stand in line of fire from wizard or alchemist, they will hit their own, this is how I cleared 70% of the kobolds in Old Sycamore, I would run with Jaethal and position myself so alchemist would hit many of his own, and Jaethal would just rise and die over and over again. (in Stag lords fort, there is a wizard that spams few color sprays, so I positioned Valerie in right spot, and he crowd controled 2-3 of his own, while I took care of the archers).

4. Use potions/scroll/spells Enlarge person (or weapons with 6ft melee range), even though enemies break off from tank, you can save few precious attacks, if you attack from afar, you can also spam Charge, because you will be out of range, so enemies cant proc attack of opportunity.

In a nutshell, dont really play on this difficulty, I sort of enjoy it, with alot of frustration (I played sword coast strata gem, with everything on max except stronger encounters, because that had a chance to spawn a Lich, and no thx to that), I would advise starting game on Challenge or Hard, and swapping to Unfair around lvl 7-10.


Hardest fight, and one that is impossible without epic luck, was against Grarrukh, you have like 5-6 wolfs, that can knock you down, and get attack of opportunity, you have to tell him that you gonna attack him, as such you are in a bad spot, and so on. Only reason I managed to kill him, was by focusing on ferocious wolfs, who I luckily managed to kill, but I did that few times, and Grarrukh would still destroy me.
But one time I was killing the last ferocious wolf, and was like eh incoming death, but Grarrukh wasnt moving, and by some miracle Linzi managed to Hypnotize, by that point Valerie and Jaethal were dead, so I ran yelling "♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥", and managed to get out of combat, used that one awesome resurrection scroll, and beat Grarrukh.

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by Blood Flowers:

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

If you are

If you have "good" alignment you can just talk your way through the whole thing and get a bunch of xp ^_^ . Doing this also trivializes the Stag Lord fight due to some other things that happen as a result.

Yeah, I know :3

Unfortunately, I chose to go Evil this play through because of the fight against Tartuk and Hargulka. I figured there wasn't a chance in hell of me winning that fight (since they slaughtered me quite a few times even on challenging) without using the Evil dialogue there.

The Hargulka fight is actually really easy if you:

Hit level 6 before you go there, bring a cleric with animate dead. Before the pull you spam all your animate dead (only spell for that spellrank!) on top of Hargulka (You can do this from range without activating the encounter). Then pull an nuke tartuk, you should still have more than enough skeletons left over to casually murder hargulka without ever having to go into melee. Devourer of metal +2d6sneak from Ekun murder this guy.

Hargulka is also really weak to mind affecting will CC (paralyze doesnt work because he has permanent freedom of movement).

[Blood Flowers]

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

Originally posted by Blood Flowers:

Yeah, I know :3

Unfortunately, I chose to go Evil this play through because of the fight against Tartuk and Hargulka. I figured there wasn't a chance in hell of me winning that fight (since they slaughtered me quite a few times even on challenging) without using the Evil dialogue there.

The Hargulka fight is actually really easy if you:

Hit level 6 before you go there, bring a cleric with animate dead. Before the pull you spam all your animate dead (only spell for that spellrank!) on top of Hargulka. Then pull an nuke tartuk, you should still have more than enough skeletons left over to casually murder hargulka without ever having to go into melee. Devourer of metal +2d6sneak from Ekun murder this guy.

Hargulka is also really weak to mind affecting will CC (paralyze doesnt work because he has permanent freedom of movement).

The problem is that I'm not entirely positive that I'll be able to hit him very much. Unfair seems to give everything stupid AC values that require you to roll 18-20 just to get a hit in. It also makes a lot of the Will check spells require the enemy to roll something like 1-5. Anyways, you may be right that choosing to be of Good alignment would be better. It's been a bit of a struggle trying to hit level 3.

Any ideas on how to kill a primal dire boar? (27 AC, blur effect, pretty much guaranteed to hit anyone in my party, 75HP and 5HD so color spray is not super great).

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by Blood Flowers:

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

The Hargulka fight is actually really easy if you:

Hit level 6 before you go there, bring a cleric with animate dead. Before the pull you spam all your animate dead (only spell for that spellrank!) on top of Hargulka. Then pull an nuke tartuk, you should still have more than enough skeletons left over to casually murder hargulka without ever having to go into melee. Devourer of metal +2d6sneak from Ekun murder this guy.

Hargulka is also really weak to mind affecting will CC (paralyze doesnt work because he has permanent freedom of movement).

The problem is that I'm not entirely positive that I'll be able to hit him very much. Unfair seems to give everything stupid AC values that require you to roll 18-20 just to get a hit in. It also makes a lot of the Will check spells require the enemy to roll something like 1-5. Anyways, you may be right that choosing to be of Good alignment would be better. It's been a bit of a struggle trying to hit level 3.

Any ideas on how to kill a primal dire boar? (27 AC, blur effect, pretty much guaranteed to hit anyone in my party, 75HP and 5HD so color spray is not super great).

Ehm tbh i just tank and spanked that thing :/ . The grease spell carried me a lot during the early game (especially in the bloody Oleg bandit fight jesus christ that thing D:)
So i probably cast grease on top of it and had my monk tank it without getting hit (so that the boar is constantly in the grease and the monk is not >_>). Use tons of buffs. regongar gets you mage shield + uber dex + charisma/wis, reduce size is available idk. Defensive stance crane style mobility. Vivisectionist dip gets you +4 dex + 2 natural AC.

CC in general is great because it denys enemy AC in some cases.

Wasnt all that hard. Apply grease. Cant remember all that well tbh because it was a 1 try thing.

[Blood Flowers]

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

Originally posted by Blood Flowers:

Any ideas on how to kill a primal dire boar? (27 AC, blur effect, pretty much guaranteed to hit anyone in my party, 75HP and 5HD so color spray is not super great).

Wasnt all that hard. Apply grease. Cant remember all that well tbh because it was a 1 try thing.

Hm. I guess I made a mistake taking Hideous Laughter then. Oh well, guess I'll just need to hit level 3 before I try that again then. I ended up pathing to the Old Sycamore to do the quest with Grarrukh and the mites in the moonradish patch. It put me about ~500xp away from a level up. Handing in Tuskgutter's head and the moonradish will probably get me really close to level 3.

[Iry]

Originally posted by Blood Flowers:

The problem is that I'm not entirely positive that I'll be able to hit him very much. Unfair seems to give everything stupid AC values that require you to roll 18-20 just to get a hit in.

Unfair is absolutely brutal in the beginning. You are going to miss constantly and it feels like you are just fishing for 20s. That does change when you get access to Heroism, +2 Bard Song, +2 Freebooter, Outflank, Reckless Aura, etc.

What can you do in the short term? True Strike, Burning Hands, and Fan the Flames are your best damn friends

Otherwise, just struggle until Level 3 when you can start using Stone Call, Boneshaker, and other guaranteed damage sources. 2-3 is one of the hardest times in Unfair.

[Blood Flowers]

Originally posted by Iry:

Otherwise, just struggle until Level 3 when you can start using Stone Call, Boneshaker, and other guaranteed damage sources. 2-3 is one of the hardest times in Unfair.

All of the vanilla characters just hit 3 for me (raising a bunch of mercs that are currently level 2). I finally picked up faerie fire/grease/hypnotize so I think I'll be okay against the primal enemies now too.

Ironically, thorn ford is now impossible until I hit like level 4-5. It seems I left the map too early (lured bandits to entrance area, saved jhod, looted camp, left immediately). Turns out, they are ALL still there at the entrance. Enter thorn ford, unpause, instantly die. LOL.

I should point out my character is a Knife Master. It probably wasn't the best decision... but it's working, sort of. If it turns out really poorly, I may just use Octavia and try to solo everything xD.

[Slip]

Originally posted by Iry:

Originally posted by Blood Flowers:

The problem is that I'm not entirely positive that I'll be able to hit him very much. Unfair seems to give everything stupid AC values that require you to roll 18-20 just to get a hit in.

Unfair is absolutely brutal in the beginning. You are going to miss constantly and it feels like you are just fishing for 20s. That does change when you get access to Heroism, +2 Bard Song, +2 Freebooter, Outflank, Reckless Aura, etc.

What can you do in the short term? True Strike, Burning Hands, and Fan the Flames are your best damn friends

Otherwise, just struggle until Level 3 when you can start using Stone Call, Boneshaker, and other guaranteed damage sources. 2-3 is one of the hardest times in Unfair.

With dmg modifier of 1.2x, even on lvl 14 I still get hit for over 100 dmg sometimes, red caps with their sneak attack cleave hit for 50, like I cant imagine on 2x how to do anything, those will o wisps, were a nightmaire to beat, had to spam energy shields, barely managed, but with 2x modifier uff. Probably would need to buff with stone skin literally every fight, but it takes a while to get that, and displacement doesnt always work, plus some enemies have 30-40 attack chance, with multiple attacks per round.

My best friends were by far ranged touch attacks, since enemies have lowest ac in that, but not all of them. The you have defaced sisters, which are just cheap, because there is nothing you can do to prevent their aoe drain. And bards Fascinate was a life savior on many occasion, and you can boost its dc quite well.

[iamtheworld]

Playing bard on unfair with default 2x dmg. Yeah, first levels are the worst. But it forces you to actually use all these potions and wands that usually just taking place in stash until the game ends. Most useful thing for me was invisibility - vanish on Amiri each round and enemy is denied dex bonus to AC. Spent all early money on getting fullplate for Valerie so she could tank all those insane attacks. Also there is a wand of lead blades somewhere in the first chapter - add an enlarge person and you get a decent dps. Was pleasantly surprised that hideous laughter works on that man-eating troll. There are traps near wererat cave that could give a lot of exp early on.

[Slip]

Originally posted by iamtheworld:

Playing bard on unfair with default 2x dmg. Yeah, first levels are the worst. But it forces you to actually use all these potions and wands that usually just taking place in stash until the game ends. Most useful thing for me was invisibility - vanish on Amiri each round and enemy is denied dex bonus to AC. Spent all early money on getting fullplate for Valerie so she could tank all those insane attacks. Also there is a wand of lead blades somewhere in the first chapter - add an enlarge person and you get a decent dps. Was pleasantly surprised that hideous laughter works on that man-eating troll. There are traps near wererat cave that could give a lot of exp early on.

Indeed, there are quite few things I would have done differently, from choosing spells, to using items more effectively, but its my first playthrough. There are many traps like that, for easy experience on the world map, plus many items you can get in certain locations without fighting, but that takes a lot of knowledge, and planning, and for a game of this size, alot of work.

To manage unfair, you would truly need to play it just for that, going with decisions that resolve heavily in your favor, go paths with least enemies, and so forth.

[Slip]

Okej, I managed to reach Lantern king....but WTF is that fight, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, with unfair stat adjustment, first stage he dispels you, next stage he crowd controls you, and then if you are lucky enough to reach third stage, he ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ destroys you with dmg, didnt managed to get past that.

All my summons also get recked in between stage transfers, together with his summons, I guess its scripted that way, but yea, total ridiculous bs, and I have no idea wtf to do.

Edit: Uff, oke I managed, pure luck ofc, just focusing on Latern king, and hope for the best, and last stage made my breath go away, because It seemed like a nuke was incoming, so I buffed like crazy, good thing I did.

[Iry]

Originally posted by Deqra:

Uff, oke I managed, pure luck ofc, just focusing on Latern king, and hope for the best, and last stage made my breath go away, because It seemed like a nuke was incoming, so I buffed like crazy, good thing I did.

Yeah, Lantern King is hilariously crazy on unfair. You can cheese him, but then the entire conversation and epilogue are drowned out by CRASHBOOMWATEREARTHBLADEBARRIER sound effects.

Which is hilarious punishment for cheese in my book.