Wererats - holy Christ

[jdpvagabond]

This game has provided a nice challenge thus far, with a few save scums to go back in and attempt a new strategy after a wipe. But these wererats... I have no idea what to do. As soon as you walk in, you are immediately sneak attacked for around 30 damage (after 4 attempts), with repeated sneak attacks as you're bottle necked in the entrance of the cave. To make things more fun, they have someone lobbing AE bombs from the back. Let's not forget about that delicious DR and 26 bloody AC.

What strategy have you guys employed to get past this aside from lowering the difficulty? My party is level 4 and as optimized as can be given the horrendous premade characters, but this one is throwing me for a loop.

Edit: I should also mention that I try to buff up before running in with potions and some cleric love, but their attack bonus seems to negate that entirely.

[UnCivilServant]

My strategy was to not even stumble upon them until Lvl 8, so I barely noticed the fight. It's not as if they were a mandatory battle.

[FemKUltra]

Dont attempt it til about level 6 unless you have a specific comp that can deal with sneak attacks

[Algol]

Defeated them on lvl 5 after some save-scumming and a couple of lucky natural 20s. Not worth it. Come back at a later level.

[Naughty Mouse]

will fary dust reveal them?

[jdpvagabond]

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree - this just isn't doable without insane luck or post level 5 / 6. I have no issue with having to come back later, I just wasn't sure if there was a viable strategy to dealing with them earlier.

[pinewoodpine]

I fought them on level 4 @ Challenging. Not worth the effort/reward. Only reason I survived the encounter with everyone dead except my MC was because I got lucky with my last cast of Scorching Ray.

I suggest to try this encounter with Cold Iron/Elemental weapons and at a higher level.

[ArcturusRising]

My party defeated them at level 5 fairly quickly. To bypass an enemies high AC my necromancer uses Boneshaker modified by Metamagic Heighten, Spell Specialization, Greater Spell Focus, and Lesser Rod of Maximize for 6d6 damage and a spell save DC 20+ depending on Intelligence attribute. My necromancer also cast Protection From Energy (Fire), Communal as soon as the alchemist started lobbing firebombs, which mitigated a huge amount of damage per round. The frontline fighters provided a shield and added their own damage. I defeated the encounter this way the first time I stumbled upon it, not knowing what was inside. Now that I know what is in there I would use the same tactics, except prebuff the party before going in. The spider swarms were harder, because my necromancer usually only memorizes a single casting of burning hands, and the rest of the party was melee with no AOE. I also wasn't familiar with swarms in Pathfinder.

[Kshahdoo]

Originally posted by jdpvagabond:

This game has provided a nice challenge thus far, with a few save scums to go back in and attempt a new strategy after a wipe. But these wererats... I have no idea what to do. As soon as you walk in, you are immediately sneak attacked for around 30 damage (after 4 attempts), with repeated sneak attacks as you're bottle necked in the entrance of the cave. To make things more fun, they have someone lobbing AE bombs from the back. Let's not forget about that delicious DR and 26 bloody AC.

What strategy have you guys employed to get past this aside from lowering the difficulty? My party is level 4 and as optimized as can be given the horrendous premade characters, but this one is throwing me for a loop.

Edit: I should also mention that I try to buff up before running in with potions and some cleric love, but their attack bonus seems to negate that entirely.

Beat them with 5 lvl party on challenging (with normal lvl enemies). Amiri is immune to flanking starting from 5th level, so she's immune to their sneak attacks. I used her as a tank. Then I used my bard with her laughter spell to keep the grenadier out of fight. And then Octavia one shot one of rogues with sneak scorching ray, and my paladin killed another rat using smite evil. And then Octavia destroyed the last rat with true strike wand and snowballs sneaks.

And yes, I could get out of the cave, memorize protection from enery (fire) and get back, and it would be piece of cake fight then, but I tried to kill them with what I had.

[greennus]

There a trap in front of the cave which alerts the wererats into sneak mode but it was impossible for my party skills to disarm it with any throw.

It's the hardest fight available in Act 1 but can be won with lvl 4 party (playing on Challenging where I have changed enemy strength to Normal). Wererats are weak against will based spells. So try hideous laugher and hold person on them to immobilize one of the fighters and the bomber. Might want to buy protection from fire (communal) from the cleric at Oleg's to make the fireball bomber less threatening to your front party. Move your casters and long range fighters closer to the exit and your front fighters so they can charge on the first wererat fighter. Don't charge with your tank Valerie but let her take the aggro and then hope the first wererat goes down fast. Moved Linzi around the cave so she can see the bomber and cast hideous laugher then move her to corner and keep casting hideous laugher on any threats. Tanked the second wererat fighter and the fire bombs with Valerie and moved the rest of party to take down the bomber. +Lots of buffing before the fight like bless, blur, strength +4, enlarge person, shield of faith, bard song, etc (didn't have fire protection scroll but would recommend buying one).

Party was main wizard, Linzi, Amiri, Valerie, Harrim, Jaethal