Ghoul multiple actions per round

[Enter the Wang]

Can someone explain monsters having twice the actions of my party members? It's not explained in their character sheets or status icons. When I poison/bleed or otherwise create a Damage over Time effect it doesn't seem to effect them on their second action.

Can anyone give advice on how to fight them? I'm having trouble with fighting stacks of 6 multiple times in Tectum Kelvar.

Edit: There is an 'action' number in the character sheet. For some reason in Tectum Kelvar my party has an action of 0, while the ghouls have an action of 1. Can anyone confirm? Curse on the ruins?

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

It's a turn based effect, so as they have 2 actions a turn, it affects them only once per turn.
To fight them it's good to have Finn hitting 6 tiles with it's chain lighting. It'll decrease their evasion and they'll get a lot easier to hit and to defeat.

As for your other questions, I don't remember so I cannot answer.

[greegarak]

Originally posted by Enter the Wang:

Can someone explain monsters having twice the actions of my party members? It's not explained in their character sheets or status icons. When I poison/bleed or otherwise create a Damage over Time effect it doesn't seem to effect them on their second action. ....
Edit: There is an 'action' number in the character sheet. For some reason in Tectum Kelvar my party has an action of 0, while the ghouls have an action of 1. Can anyone confirm? ....

Companion's skill poisoning/ bleeding/etc works once per turn, not per action.
Those "0" & "1", are misspelling, should be "1" & "2" instead.

[Andkat]

Some enemy types natively have two actions per round; ghouls are unusual in that it's all ghouls, for most other enemies there's a specific variant that either has it (e.g. certain 'elite' gladiatorial foes, elite dragonguard, tainted oghres, frenzied and great wyrms) natively or can gain it via a buff (sharduk reavers). For dealing with ghouls specifically- all of their attacks are melee or charge so immobilizing or stunning the front row will prevent the back row from doing anything with all their actions.

For fighting ghouls: Eylani is good for the above attack surface reduction with her multiple stun/immobilize tools (the eagle being the best), Nedir can work too but she wants spell penetration vs ghouls and I think needs the rank 3 version of her stun due to them being fearless, Ren's caltrops work but are a little buggy (the icon will show immobilized for the round of application but actually they only check vs. immobilize at the start of the next round), Venari agent stun bombs can be ok for this too (and their heal helps sustain for multbattle marathons like tectum kevlar). Criftaa's suppressing shots can provide a source of immobilize if upgraded but aren't a great investment in general (if anything triggers a dodge on Criftaa before the shot triggers she will cancel the overwatch, so it's really bad in fights where enemies have ranged attacks). Eylani's overwatch has the same issue but she can at least opt for block over evade, although with her lack of immovable and stun immunity, her native access to acrobatic, and the abundance of evade buffing items in the game she's actually usually better off otherwise relying her somewhat lower evasion (and in any case her normal spear thrust immobilizes just as well).

For doing damage consistently through evade: Harvek and Sedarias get evade ignoring/mitigating physical attacks and Nedir's flame traps also totally ignore evasion and are the premier mechanisms for actually finishing off evade-dependent enemies of all types. Ren's dagger throw forces two evade checks and so is also one of the more reliable mechanisms for inflicting damage in this context and you can usually clip a few with Finn's chain lightning (her upgraded shield is also excellent for keeping your party intact across multifight stretches). Skornar's shout can grant eylani/harvek/sedarias/ren additional uses of their relevant tool per round in this scenario too. Garrik's smoke bomb can trigger multiple evade checks and provides an evade debuff, but ghouls tend to be fairly resistant to poison IIRC. Javek's mindblast ignores evade but ghouls have pretty high mind resistance (Nedir can debuff it using her stun but she's usually much more efficient just planting flame traps in this scenario). Vorax's taunt is also ok source of immobilize or evade debuffing with the same mind resist caveat as previously; his barricade can be quite good for party endurance if you have injuries on a frontliner and opt not to deploy them for a combat, especially as enemies like to focus fire it.

For mercs, Venari agents also have an evade ignore/mitigating dagger throw and an evade-mitigating multistrike scimitar attack which makes them solid in this context, although they can be a bit squishy as frontliners. The peltast castrum merc also provides access to both a pretty damaging stun and a barricade for the above purposes while the necromancer merc can summon an ablative frontliner and/or provide heals for sedarias/vorax and can be interesting for sustain.

[Taylork2]

Originally posted by Enter the Wang:

Can someone explain monsters having twice the actions of my party members? It's not explained in their character sheets or status icons. When I poison/bleed or otherwise create a Damage over Time effect it doesn't seem to effect them on their second action.

Can anyone give advice on how to fight them? I'm having trouble with fighting stacks of 6 multiple times in Tectum Kelvar.

Edit: There is an 'action' number in the character sheet. For some reason in Tectum Kelvar my party has an action of 0, while the ghouls have an action of 1. Can anyone confirm? Curse on the ruins?

Ghouls just always get the bonus action every round.
That's just how ghouls work. They always have the section action/attack each round.
It's possible to fight ghouls elsewhere and they still work the exact same.

I'd recommend recruiting more/better companions, leveling them up, completing/advancing their quest-lines.

Nedir is pretty good against them with with her attack that creates fire runes(at max level). Though her questline is very hard, so you might want to just use it once at level 3 via boosting at the start of a fight. I did this in my playthrough.
Finnduranth is nice too with chain lightning at level 2/3.
Gor'Goro is decent with his attack that hits two of them.
Renkailon's dagger throws and caltrops are good for fighting them.
Eylani with skewer, bulwark, and skystrike are decent.
Criftaa with suppressing shots can help.

[Enter the Wang]

Thanks for all of the replies. I'll just have to work on levelling up my characters (some of the best ones are still quest locked at level 3). I'll also work on either focusing on a single ghoul, stunning them, or mitigating their ridiculous evasion via some of the tactics above.

[Wlerin]

Skornar can also give another character +1 ACT (can't recall if they also made it so he gets +1 ACT himself too). And I believe there's a hireling with a similar ability.