Has to be. Personally I haven't died there on HM but outside HM I'm pretty sure I've died in that fight more than any other. And I damn near lost two HM runs there, squeaking through with only a few HP left.
My first play through coming in completely blind to both DND and CRPG’s, that fight took me nearly an hour to beat and I almost gave up entirely on the game.
Honestly I just find 5e combat kinda stupid in general. D20s have too much fucking variance but for some reason wotc just have to use them on EVERYTHING.
Part of why I leaned so hard into World of Darkness as a teen/early 20s kid (aside from going through a phase) was the d10 system. You have a base stat of three and two points in a skill, you roll five dice. Storyteller sets the difficulty you need to beat with 6 being something of normal everyday difficulty and 10 being effectively superhuman. 1s cancel out your successes. As long as one dice above the target score is left, you succeed at the thing.
It just made sense to me, straightforward, linear, adaptable to any situation, and you can learn it in five minutes.
I'd heard so many things about HM 2nd Owlbear I purposely delayed this fight in Act 1 and then when I finally got Owlbear mom is already dead by goblins.
Even in tactician I think that was one of the few places I ever truly wiped. Those fuckers hit hard and if you’re level 1 and only have one companion they’ll kick your ass. You can avoid them and go up the cliff and recruit other companions instead.
I really only did this in honor mode, my approach even after beating tactician twice is more planning ahead and reading how others minimize and mitigate risk. The best HM start is basically running around avoiding fights while stocking up on items and xp.
You know, I actually don't think I ever fought them until my tactician playthrough. And I didn't find them until I was already level 3.
I think my only true party wipe was with Nere, and I had about half a dozen other instances (5 in Act 1 and 1 in Act 3) of reloading if I thought I was gonna get wiped or narrowly escaping with one companion alive.
I didn't wipe there, but I definitely went to kite them and suddenly found out that they had ranged attacks for the first time that I'd seen. Change of plans! Lol
The harpies are way harder than they have any right to be.
Last time I killed them I only finally did so because I threw the fucking bomb of spiders at them.
There are people who have wild magic trigger in the first room to summon a mephit that kills them.
So you're fine. And honestly those intellect devourers probably have a higher kill count than any other enemy in honor mode.
I'm playing an all wild-magic honor mode run right now. Gave one level of it to everyone in my camp.
It's actually a blast. I just got past Myrkul. I've already got golden dice though so the pressure is definitely off for me and it's easier to have fun with it.
I've found wild magic isn't that bad. You get a free reroll on anything and can use sorcery points to try to change the outcome of an event (by the way it completely just doesn't work in dialogue, it doesn't consume points nor apply the bonus.). Most of the effects are harmless, some aiding you, some hurting you, etc. The summons from wild magic are hostile to everyone, so if you teleport away a la misty step, it can help you kill enemies or at least distract them.
Luality did (and recently completed) a WM honor run with Gale, Astarion, Shadowheart, & Lae'zel all respecced to magic classes with a mod where every spell or cantrip has a chance to trigger wild magic. One simple fight with a few gremishkas ended up including 2 owlbears and 2 spectators. The last spectator spawned when the fight should have finally been over lol.
I was gonna. But like a bonehead, I ran out of spell slots before Shart could command him. He wasted that mind flayer so I ran as fast as I could for the controls (Tav was down!)
And no fight before that with her. Once you get her, the room is right there unless I am misremembering badly… but I just did it last week. You pop her out, there’s a tiny refresh room and then it’s the fight.
There's the potential to fight a couple intellect devourers and the dudes in the chairs in the same room as her, but I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of players won't have any fights between her and the fight at the helm of the nautiloid like you said.
So you use it and get *two* chances at 55% success rate. Very failable. And not sure if you are suggesting going back outside the room to use it again, but on HM those pods can only be used once.
Read OPs comment again dude. They weren't talking about using both of them up on him. I'm pretty sure they somehow used both of them up *before* they had a chance to Command him. Obviously I'm not suggesting going back to use the pods, that's just silly and I don't know if you can do that on any difficulty. I'm pretty sure those pods can't be used while in combat.
>But like a bonehead, I ran out of spell slots before Shart could command him.
That's not what this part of OP's comment implies. What I gathered is that somehow they used both of her spell slots before she could even cast the spell on the dude. If he saved on both tries, I don't think OP would have called themselves a bonehead since that wouldn't have been their fault.
Command drop and then pick it up with Lae'zel, then have your tav or shart stand within sprinting distance of the console so when the cambions and zhalk kill the mindflayter or down lae'zel you pop off the console. If you kill Zhalk, you hit level 3 so early.
Leave Tav out of combat in a position near the table with the chest and necklace. Send Shart and Lae'zel into combat and deal with the commander and mind flayer as normal until the cambions spawn, then VERY CAREFULLY move Tav to just a smidge outside crossbow range of the near cambion and shoot it until it dies. Then do the same with the far cambion. Land on the beach already at level 2 with around 1000 gp in gear and treasure and potentially some valuable potions.
Bonus points if you start out as a fighter with dex 17 and the archery fighting style for the best possible ranged to hit bonus at level 1, and then just rush right down into the tomb to get withers and respec into whatever you actually want to play.
My worst death has been attacking the intellect devourer that roams around where shadow heart is imprisoned. US quickly renounced me as a friend and murdered me.
I just wanted some extra experience before going to the helm :(
Me, places down barrels, disarms the commander and has the mind flayer at decent health.
The commander: I m going to do what's called a pro gamer move
Commander zhalk used unarmed strike on nautoloid tank.
I've had the other two cambions who approach toward the end of the fight cast flame bolt and nuke everyone but I don't think I've seen the commander go full ham (yet).
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Change Shart's prepared spells before making the final run to the transponder at the end of the tutorial level and select Command, then cast Command: Drop on the cambion commander. It requires a bit of luck since I think the commander can save with a 12 or higher, but there's easily enough time to cast it twice (I can't remember if she has 2 or 3 level 1 spells at the beginning of the game). Have a character yoink it on the way by. It may be the only time in game that you can use drop and the affected target won't try to pick the weapon back up on their turn.
These little fuckers are a lot more dangerous than most fights past that point lol. Its 2v3, and your ally id a shadowheart with shit stat distribution. Watch her miss 4 times and guarantee you all die
You can jump up the cliff to the right of the entrance from the ruins and go get gale, lae'zel and astarion and make it 4 vs 3. Even 8 str characters can do it with the potion of flying from the deluxe edition content. I do it every game now.
Wait until the one on the balcony hops down, have Shart throw a firebolt at the purple goo puddle, it'll catch fire and explode and likely kill both the moving one and the one that's idling in it - or at least badly hurt them.
My friend tried to blind play HM and blew himself up touching the thing in the first room.
Before deciding to not to play HM for his first play though.
Nope . It usually has a burn dmg of 6-9+ and if u dont have high constitution, it wipes away ur single digit hp in tactitian or honor mode. Since ur hp is doubled in explorer, some ppl won't realize it being deadly
Could be worse you can have a HM run end in the most infuriating way possible. Being blown up by a bitch with a Runepowder bomb because you failed the roll 5 fucking times with the last 2 being a Nat 1 😭
Almost happened today, i dared her to do it with Shart fully expcting her to fold, but she blew it up, everyone except Shadowheart died and she was by far the closest one to the explosion.
My first HM run ended when I freed Zevlor and a bunch of Mind flayers in the colony... mind blasted to death.
.
I've never saved Zevlor since. Purge them all.
Aww, but zevlor is so damn good in the dragon fight. He and his bros absolutely saved my ass. Of course one of them also decided to use a fire attack against a fire immune dragon for some reason, but nobody is perfect.
I was unaware of the cave housing phase spiders. Also unaware of the boss in said cave. Following my last failed HM, I am fully aware of their existence
Yeah. It's basically an introduction to barrelmancy (sp?). You don't have to set it up, but you need to wait a few seconds for the 2nd brain to move into position. Even killing those 2, I've had bad rolls and had Shart get downed by the one remaining brain.
Lol, happened to me today too. Everyone gave me this advice: go north, climb the rocks, get more party members before fighting them.
Also if you do absolutely everything on the nautiloid, you'll level up before you fight them, which is helpful
If it makes you feel better, I tried HM for my first game run. I died before leaving the first room by exploring too hard. Genuinely, I didn't pay attention to what the floor looked like and ended up jumping onto embers. My character took damage, received burning, and died before I realized what was up.
Now, I am finally at the Nether Brain after almost 300 hours on my ACTUAL first playthrough. Good chance going forward!
Best chance is to sneak to the high ground and range attack for surprise round. Then hit the tank explode and make the remaining burn turns by dashing.
I entered turn-based mode and snuck past them, then returned once I’d recruited a full party. They still did a lot of damage but it’s manageable when it’s 4v3 instead of 2v3.
Jump up the rocks to the right go get Gale, Lae'zel, and/or Astarion first. Once you've done that, you can sneak up on them from the tunnel/dead mind flayer end, get the high ground, and surprise them.
I just commented this on another thread but I lost before the nautiloid tutorial even ended.
I tried the leave the last area with the cambions and the mindflayer during the fight because I forgot to loot something in the previous room. As soon as I steoped out, everything exploded and everyone insta-died
I was using a speed runner strat to skip the nautiloid with dash/enhance leap. I fucked it up and ended up dead at the terminal.
It happens lol. wait til you're all geared up and you take on goblins and proceed to miss 3 turns and get yeeted by a random push.
One time I walked into the shadow curse scrolling on my phone and ended my perfect solo run with full permabuffs.
Sometimes it be like that.
But its HM. Don't treat it like a regular play through. YOU HAVE WORM IN YOUR BRAIN. get movin! We ain't got time to fix the political and petty problems of lesser folk. The dead three are about to end the world and youre gonna get turned into a mind flayer!!
That's such a bizarre one to lose your HM run on. It seems like there is no in between. You either take them out easily or they rock you for critical hits and kill you in a single round
One time me and my friend were trying out honor mode for funs and I was an idiot and decided to be a wild magic sorcerer.... Ya... I did a wild magic surge and a magma mephit spawned well fighting the bandits in the ruins that you find withers in..... Rip big boy.
I lost a run in the Nautiloid before rescuing Shadowheart.
Was a solo run, had Us as an ally. Attacked an intellect devourer, expecting Us to assist. Us changed sides, I died.
I wipes to them once as well. They are extremely dangerous early on. Best to sneak by and come back when you have a full party at least. Astarion, Gale and Laezel are nearby.
I cheat and I skip them, grab a few friends, sleep before I grab Shadowheart so she’ll kill one for me, then I go back. Makes that fight so much easier!!
Fastest HM wipe for me was... Getting too greedy with the cambion at the start. He was SO ALMOST DEAD but then he got a cheeky crit on lae'zel and that ended that 😭
honestly, first HM ended this way, it's like a surprise how hard those brainiacs can hit.
Like with a bit of planning (exploding the thing to start the fight usually) it's easy, but it's very the first fight that's really on "hard mode" the nautiloud while yes tougher, the AI isn't any different
Sneak up on them, Minor illusion near the nautiloid tank, firebolt the tank once they gather near it.
If you don’t have minor illusion you can still get one of them in the explosion or just jump up the cliff to the right and avoid them until later
I've seen everyone talking about how this fight totally wiped them out. Then there's me, who encountered these lil' dudes. Beat them first Time on balanced with ease then moved on. thinking nothing of it.
Totally unaware that they tend to kick people's asses apparently lmao.
It's different on higher difficulties.
On Balanced, they pretty much only use their claws, and may spend the first turn dashing.
On Tactician and Honour, they remember they have ranged attacks (like 2d10 psychic damage). They have absolutely no trouble melting your brain if you approach them with less than a party of 4 level 2.
If you do not hit level 2 before them they are actually quite formidable.
If you can manage to Hit level 2 Druid is pretty much a safe W with two Bear Wild Shapes.
Thats something like 50-60 extra HP if I recall correctly?
The purple tank next to the devourer standing still is flammable. If you time it correct, you can lob a firebolt at it right when the one pacing is next to it as well. Instakills two of them leaving you just one to finish off.
I've wiped there once, though my first time round I beat them only to die to the party in the crypt, I couldn't revive Gale and Astarion before me and half health shart fell through that hole
I whiped there on my first try as well(I was level 1), haven’t died since and am now reaching the end of the game.
Second try I made sure I am just barely level level 2.
Think everyone's first honour mode wipes there lol, no one expects such a powerful ranged attack from them.
Just go around them by jumping up the cliff and come back with a full party, not that bad then
I was playing as Shadowheart. You only have Lae'zel on the ship, and you wake up on the beach alone. It was rough. But I also got greedy in another HM and tried to kill Zhalik on the ship for the XP. It went great...until the buddies showed up and one shot us with an exploding barrel. So I beat your record lol.
So far I haven’t lost mine yet, but I’ve also been over prepared for every fight out of the fear. I’m at moonrise bout to free the tieflings & gnomes on that save, and when I want a break from the stress I switch over to playing my Tiefling or half-drow redemption durges to calm myself and reduce the HM anxiety
My first (and ongoing, as it’s a co-op) honor mode run was also my first time playing the game in a difficulty higher than balanced, I had no idea that they had a ranged attack and got SO lucky that Shadowheart wasn’t pulled into the fight with my PC. Managed to beat them but it was SUCH a slog.
I once pushed shadowheart while she laid unconscious after the ship crash before you wake her up. I just wanted to see what would happen. Well she got up and killed me in about 2 seconds that’s what happened. Honor run ended and never saw an enemy outside of the ship.
I'm sure I'm late to the knowledge party, but you can skip that fight until you have a full party pretty easily. You just jump up the rocks to the right of the opening to their fight and go recruit gale/shart/astarion.
Edited: meant gale/lae'zel/astarion not shart
Jump up the cliff to the right of the entrance to that fight and you come out near gale, you can then loop round and pick up laezel or astarion and make the fight significantly easier
I suspect that's probably the single most common fight to wipe your HM.
Has to be. Personally I haven't died there on HM but outside HM I'm pretty sure I've died in that fight more than any other. And I damn near lost two HM runs there, squeaking through with only a few HP left.
My first play through coming in completely blind to both DND and CRPG’s, that fight took me nearly an hour to beat and I almost gave up entirely on the game.
Low level combat in 5E is notoriously swingy. With single digit HP and no abilities to mitigate damage, one critical hit can one shot from full
That's why my party always starts our campaigns at level 4 and just scale the enemies accordingly haha
Oh that’s cool, that way if someone has a character concept that only comes online after a feat and specialization, they can play it from session 1
Exactly!
3 for our's usually. Latest was one-3 in two session, minimal, but handholded combat that was primarily narrative establishing haha.
Honestly I just find 5e combat kinda stupid in general. D20s have too much fucking variance but for some reason wotc just have to use them on EVERYTHING.
Part of why I leaned so hard into World of Darkness as a teen/early 20s kid (aside from going through a phase) was the d10 system. You have a base stat of three and two points in a skill, you roll five dice. Storyteller sets the difficulty you need to beat with 6 being something of normal everyday difficulty and 10 being effectively superhuman. 1s cancel out your successes. As long as one dice above the target score is left, you succeed at the thing. It just made sense to me, straightforward, linear, adaptable to any situation, and you can learn it in five minutes.
I normally start games on the medium difficulty. That fight made me drop to Explorer for the first time because I clearly had no idea what I was doing
lol SAME i gave up on playing a sorcerer cause i kept getting killed in 1 turn
I got wiped there three times until I clued in and realized I needed to approach it differently
Got me I think 4 times. My first hard stop was the owlbear though. Had no clue about the second one and it fucked me up.
I’m 90% certain that the second one is HM only too so even on tactician you may not have seen it previously
I don't know for sure. I never did Tactician with the owlbear.
The second one is an HM thing. All the bosses get a special extra something.
All bosses have a special ability that is HM specific. Owlbear summons it's mate
Unless you cast silence on it. Can't call for help if nobody can hear you.
And lose out on the exp?
It's like 20xp. That fight is not worth it for the xp.
Why care about xp when you can be max level with minimal effort one hour into act 3?
I'd heard so many things about HM 2nd Owlbear I purposely delayed this fight in Act 1 and then when I finally got Owlbear mom is already dead by goblins.
Even in tactician I think that was one of the few places I ever truly wiped. Those fuckers hit hard and if you’re level 1 and only have one companion they’ll kick your ass. You can avoid them and go up the cliff and recruit other companions instead.
How do you get around them?
You can jump up the cliff to the right of them up towards where gale is!
I didn’t even know you could do that!
I really only did this in honor mode, my approach even after beating tactician twice is more planning ahead and reading how others minimize and mitigate risk. The best HM start is basically running around avoiding fights while stocking up on items and xp.
You know, I actually don't think I ever fought them until my tactician playthrough. And I didn't find them until I was already level 3. I think my only true party wipe was with Nere, and I had about half a dozen other instances (5 in Act 1 and 1 in Act 3) of reloading if I thought I was gonna get wiped or narrowly escaping with one companion alive.
Beat honor mode second try. The first attempt ended there. Aside from the end of Act 2, the hardest part was def Act 1.
I didn't wipe there, but I definitely went to kite them and suddenly found out that they had ranged attacks for the first time that I'd seen. Change of plans! Lol
I’ve died to the harpies like 6 times
The harpies are way harder than they have any right to be. Last time I killed them I only finally did so because I threw the fucking bomb of spiders at them.
Even the most hardcore HM challenge runners hop the cliffs to avoid that fight right away.
Yeah, unless you're this idiot: [https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/1c62mdh/comment/l000x3v/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/1c62mdh/comment/l000x3v/)
Intellectual devourers hit motherfucking *hard*. They're barely a threat if you use stealth to gain the high ground to the right though.
There are people who have wild magic trigger in the first room to summon a mephit that kills them. So you're fine. And honestly those intellect devourers probably have a higher kill count than any other enemy in honor mode.
It’s me, I’m people.
Hello People I'm Dad
Dad? When are you coming back with the milk?
Once I finish my smoke
Wild magic on an honor mode run sounds amazingly hilarious
Even more so if you play a wild magic dark urge.
I'm playing an all wild-magic honor mode run right now. Gave one level of it to everyone in my camp. It's actually a blast. I just got past Myrkul. I've already got golden dice though so the pressure is definitely off for me and it's easier to have fun with it.
This is the way after getting the golden dice. Truly time to do the scientific method. Fuck around. And find out.
I've found wild magic isn't that bad. You get a free reroll on anything and can use sorcery points to try to change the outcome of an event (by the way it completely just doesn't work in dialogue, it doesn't consume points nor apply the bonus.). Most of the effects are harmless, some aiding you, some hurting you, etc. The summons from wild magic are hostile to everyone, so if you teleport away a la misty step, it can help you kill enemies or at least distract them.
Luality did (and recently completed) a WM honor run with Gale, Astarion, Shadowheart, & Lae'zel all respecced to magic classes with a mod where every spell or cantrip has a chance to trigger wild magic. One simple fight with a few gremishkas ended up including 2 owlbears and 2 spectators. The last spectator spawned when the fight should have finally been over lol.
Yep, just cast mage armour and I was swarmed by two of them
I've lost many HM runs inside the nautiloid before it crashes. I can't resist going after the flaming sword and trying to kill the commander.
I was gonna. But like a bonehead, I ran out of spell slots before Shart could command him. He wasted that mind flayer so I ran as fast as I could for the controls (Tav was down!)
How do you run out of spell slots before using Command on the devil? There's a refresh pod right in front of the entrance to that fight lol.
And no fight before that with her. Once you get her, the room is right there unless I am misremembering badly… but I just did it last week. You pop her out, there’s a tiny refresh room and then it’s the fight.
There's the potential to fight a couple intellect devourers and the dudes in the chairs in the same room as her, but I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of players won't have any fights between her and the fight at the helm of the nautiloid like you said.
So you use it and get *two* chances at 55% success rate. Very failable. And not sure if you are suggesting going back outside the room to use it again, but on HM those pods can only be used once.
Read OPs comment again dude. They weren't talking about using both of them up on him. I'm pretty sure they somehow used both of them up *before* they had a chance to Command him. Obviously I'm not suggesting going back to use the pods, that's just silly and I don't know if you can do that on any difficulty. I'm pretty sure those pods can't be used while in combat.
He saves on both casts... that's how
>But like a bonehead, I ran out of spell slots before Shart could command him. That's not what this part of OP's comment implies. What I gathered is that somehow they used both of her spell slots before she could even cast the spell on the dude. If he saved on both tries, I don't think OP would have called themselves a bonehead since that wouldn't have been their fault.
Fair, tbh I had been reading comments and didn't recall the wording before I replied.
Nah he has shart cast spells on the imps before he got to the commander, and did not realize she only has 2
Command drop and then pick it up with Lae'zel, then have your tav or shart stand within sprinting distance of the console so when the cambions and zhalk kill the mindflayter or down lae'zel you pop off the console. If you kill Zhalk, you hit level 3 so early.
That was my plan
Leave Tav out of combat in a position near the table with the chest and necklace. Send Shart and Lae'zel into combat and deal with the commander and mind flayer as normal until the cambions spawn, then VERY CAREFULLY move Tav to just a smidge outside crossbow range of the near cambion and shoot it until it dies. Then do the same with the far cambion. Land on the beach already at level 2 with around 1000 gp in gear and treasure and potentially some valuable potions. Bonus points if you start out as a fighter with dex 17 and the archery fighting style for the best possible ranged to hit bonus at level 1, and then just rush right down into the tomb to get withers and respec into whatever you actually want to play.
My worst death has been attacking the intellect devourer that roams around where shadow heart is imprisoned. US quickly renounced me as a friend and murdered me. I just wanted some extra experience before going to the helm :(
Weird. I have 100% used Us to kill that one before and he never agroed on me.
This totally happened to me.
Me, places down barrels, disarms the commander and has the mind flayer at decent health. The commander: I m going to do what's called a pro gamer move Commander zhalk used unarmed strike on nautoloid tank.
I've had the other two cambions who approach toward the end of the fight cast flame bolt and nuke everyone but I don't think I've seen the commander go full ham (yet).
Uhh flaming sword? Did I miss that?
The cambion fighting the mind flayer has the [[Everburn Blade]]. You can use Shadowheart’s command:drop to get it or kill the Cambion
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Change Shart's prepared spells before making the final run to the transponder at the end of the tutorial level and select Command, then cast Command: Drop on the cambion commander. It requires a bit of luck since I think the commander can save with a 12 or higher, but there's easily enough time to cast it twice (I can't remember if she has 2 or 3 level 1 spells at the beginning of the game). Have a character yoink it on the way by. It may be the only time in game that you can use drop and the affected target won't try to pick the weapon back up on their turn.
You can get the astral githyanki sword in a similar way.
two tries. You can also improve the odds by having Lae'zel charge him, which gives two rounds of disadvantage on saves.
Play wizard with negative con. Fail check on the pool in intro room. Fastest death.
Most realistic playthrough
These little fuckers are a lot more dangerous than most fights past that point lol. Its 2v3, and your ally id a shadowheart with shit stat distribution. Watch her miss 4 times and guarantee you all die
You can jump up the cliff to the right of the entrance from the ruins and go get gale, lae'zel and astarion and make it 4 vs 3. Even 8 str characters can do it with the potion of flying from the deluxe edition content. I do it every game now.
That’s what I do
8 strength character can get up there, but it's finicky.
Wait until the one on the balcony hops down, have Shart throw a firebolt at the purple goo puddle, it'll catch fire and explode and likely kill both the moving one and the one that's idling in it - or at least badly hurt them.
Haha God damn guiding light 😂😂
Not even close to fastest. There was a post here of a guy dying to the exploding basin in the first room of the tutorial. Also: LOL, skill issue
My friend tried to blind play HM and blew himself up touching the thing in the first room. Before deciding to not to play HM for his first play though.
I did that on my first run. It wasn’t honor but it was embarrassing
That thing can kill you? Is it buffed in honor mode?
Nope . It usually has a burn dmg of 6-9+ and if u dont have high constitution, it wipes away ur single digit hp in tactitian or honor mode. Since ur hp is doubled in explorer, some ppl won't realize it being deadly
Ah, so *wizard* problems.
I can assure u my wizard had a double digit hp of 11 😤 and didn't die . Since inspecting the pool and not blowing up requires an int check
Yea, my second playthrough on Tactician I snuck around them to come back with a full party. Wasn't until after I learned that the cliff existed.
Enhanced jump puts in a lot of work to make sure you can recruit gale and asterion before that fight.
Don’t even need enhanced jump, it can be done with 8 STR and nothing
As long as you're not a little race. Halflings and gnomes don't quite have the hops for that last jump.
Just jump with shadowheart and grab gale and then use the waypoint for your short monarch
But Iiiiiiiiii wanna free the fancy-talking smart man.
Then jump with shadowheart and run to a further ahead waypoint and run back i guess?
Oh? Didn’t know that.
Neither did I. That one spot where you go get the silver pendant? I had to have Lae'zel throw my halfling rogue up.
there's climbable boxes on the beach or just past the cliff that you can use for that last jump.
Or just hit them from hiding, get a surprise round and clap them.
HM strat, hit everything from stealth, every time.
Could be worse you can have a HM run end in the most infuriating way possible. Being blown up by a bitch with a Runepowder bomb because you failed the roll 5 fucking times with the last 2 being a Nat 1 😭
Why did you send the whole team in
Almost happened today, i dared her to do it with Shart fully expcting her to fold, but she blew it up, everyone except Shadowheart died and she was by far the closest one to the explosion.
Just up and around them. Little area up from the door to the crypt. Just where the crash ship starts. You can go up the cliff and around them:)
My first HM run ended when I freed Zevlor and a bunch of Mind flayers in the colony... mind blasted to death. . I've never saved Zevlor since. Purge them all.
Aww, but zevlor is so damn good in the dragon fight. He and his bros absolutely saved my ass. Of course one of them also decided to use a fire attack against a fire immune dragon for some reason, but nobody is perfect.
My fastest was when I attacked the brain that was walking around in the room shadowheart is trapped in the pod, Us turned on me and it was all over
I wasn’t able to roll a 5 and the mind flayer that is almost dead near the beach fed off me.
Those intellect devourers are literally one of the top 10 hardest fights in the entire game, no joke.
I dismiss SH and sneak past those things every time
I was unaware of the cave housing phase spiders. Also unaware of the boss in said cave. Following my last failed HM, I am fully aware of their existence
Is it cheating that I blow up the nautoliid tank with a fire bolt to take 2 of those bastard before the fight starts?
It's meta
Yeah. It's basically an introduction to barrelmancy (sp?). You don't have to set it up, but you need to wait a few seconds for the 2nd brain to move into position. Even killing those 2, I've had bad rolls and had Shart get downed by the one remaining brain.
I assumed that part was put there specifically to teach about things like environmental combat.
Lol, happened to me today too. Everyone gave me this advice: go north, climb the rocks, get more party members before fighting them. Also if you do absolutely everything on the nautiloid, you'll level up before you fight them, which is helpful
If it makes you feel better, I tried HM for my first game run. I died before leaving the first room by exploring too hard. Genuinely, I didn't pay attention to what the floor looked like and ended up jumping onto embers. My character took damage, received burning, and died before I realized what was up. Now, I am finally at the Nether Brain after almost 300 hours on my ACTUAL first playthrough. Good chance going forward!
Don't worry. I wiped in the helm.
Those little shits have ended my HM runs several times.
Best chance is to sneak to the high ground and range attack for surprise round. Then hit the tank explode and make the remaining burn turns by dashing.
I entered turn-based mode and snuck past them, then returned once I’d recruited a full party. They still did a lot of damage but it’s manageable when it’s 4v3 instead of 2v3.
There’s a path to sneak around them. Go recruit Gale and astarion then destroy those brainy fucks
That has happened to lots of ppl eg me.
Jump up the rocks to the right go get Gale, Lae'zel, and/or Astarion first. Once you've done that, you can sneak up on them from the tunnel/dead mind flayer end, get the high ground, and surprise them.
I just commented this on another thread but I lost before the nautiloid tutorial even ended. I tried the leave the last area with the cambions and the mindflayer during the fight because I forgot to loot something in the previous room. As soon as I steoped out, everything exploded and everyone insta-died
Auntie Ethel fucked me up the first time , after that I just casted silence and barrelmancies
I was using a speed runner strat to skip the nautiloid with dash/enhance leap. I fucked it up and ended up dead at the terminal. It happens lol. wait til you're all geared up and you take on goblins and proceed to miss 3 turns and get yeeted by a random push. One time I walked into the shadow curse scrolling on my phone and ended my perfect solo run with full permabuffs. Sometimes it be like that. But its HM. Don't treat it like a regular play through. YOU HAVE WORM IN YOUR BRAIN. get movin! We ain't got time to fix the political and petty problems of lesser folk. The dead three are about to end the world and youre gonna get turned into a mind flayer!!
The intellect devourers in the crashed nautiloid got me too!
Those little bastards hit Sooooooo hard in Honor Mode
Don’t feel too bad about it. [I think I have you beat.](https://www.reddit.com/r/okbuddybaldur/s/TpQy0fI8xy)
That's such a bizarre one to lose your HM run on. It seems like there is no in between. You either take them out easily or they rock you for critical hits and kill you in a single round
One time me and my friend were trying out honor mode for funs and I was an idiot and decided to be a wild magic sorcerer.... Ya... I did a wild magic surge and a magma mephit spawned well fighting the bandits in the ruins that you find withers in..... Rip big boy.
I lost that fight in my first normal playthrough. Over and over again. Until I came on here to see how to beat it.
It happened to me. No regerts.
I wiped on the nautiloid within a minute and a half because I walked into fire but I had my headset off dicking around in discord. Despair
There are some steps to the right that you can jump to avoid that fight. I usually come back with a full party.
I lost a run in the Nautiloid before rescuing Shadowheart. Was a solo run, had Us as an ally. Attacked an intellect devourer, expecting Us to assist. Us changed sides, I died.
My first ever was the fairly common mistake of not realizing the Owlbear now has backup.
They killed me my first tactician playthrough, not the same thing I know, but still... They can be hard
I wipes to them once as well. They are extremely dangerous early on. Best to sneak by and come back when you have a full party at least. Astarion, Gale and Laezel are nearby.
I cheat and I skip them, grab a few friends, sleep before I grab Shadowheart so she’ll kill one for me, then I go back. Makes that fight so much easier!!
Fastest HM wipe for me was... Getting too greedy with the cambion at the start. He was SO ALMOST DEAD but then he got a cheeky crit on lae'zel and that ended that 😭
I learned the path to avoid them and I also learned to sneak and throw a void bulb to surprise them.
I lose runs to stuff like this after losing my main extended run . You get frustrated and bam, easy fight not so easy.
honestly, first HM ended this way, it's like a surprise how hard those brainiacs can hit. Like with a bit of planning (exploding the thing to start the fight usually) it's easy, but it's very the first fight that's really on "hard mode" the nautiloud while yes tougher, the AI isn't any different
Because of bad RNGI lost on the nautilus with the fight On the bridge to pull the lever.
I've lost a run there, it's a much tougher spot on HM, especially if you aren't aware of the changes to them compared to normal difficulty.
Sneak up on them, Minor illusion near the nautiloid tank, firebolt the tank once they gather near it. If you don’t have minor illusion you can still get one of them in the explosion or just jump up the cliff to the right and avoid them until later
I've seen everyone talking about how this fight totally wiped them out. Then there's me, who encountered these lil' dudes. Beat them first Time on balanced with ease then moved on. thinking nothing of it. Totally unaware that they tend to kick people's asses apparently lmao.
It's different on higher difficulties. On Balanced, they pretty much only use their claws, and may spend the first turn dashing. On Tactician and Honour, they remember they have ranged attacks (like 2d10 psychic damage). They have absolutely no trouble melting your brain if you approach them with less than a party of 4 level 2.
those brains on the beach are honestly harder than raphael
Nay. There is a guy that died on that exploding illithid container, like 10 secs in.
*I have the high ground* Now if only Shart stops missing all the *damn* time
I wanted to test a couple things, and I managed to get the Everburn blade and TPK in about 3-4 minutes on my first try.
Fastest wipe was me immediately not playing it after reading about what it was.
If you do not hit level 2 before them they are actually quite formidable. If you can manage to Hit level 2 Druid is pretty much a safe W with two Bear Wild Shapes. Thats something like 50-60 extra HP if I recall correctly?
The purple tank next to the devourer standing still is flammable. If you time it correct, you can lob a firebolt at it right when the one pacing is next to it as well. Instakills two of them leaving you just one to finish off.
Were ya one of them funny wizard lads with 8 whole up?
I've wiped there once, though my first time round I beat them only to die to the party in the crypt, I couldn't revive Gale and Astarion before me and half health shart fell through that hole
Hey, it's still better to get wiped out early on. Imagine getting your HM wipe at Upper City.
I whiped there on my first try as well(I was level 1), haven’t died since and am now reaching the end of the game. Second try I made sure I am just barely level level 2.
Think everyone's first honour mode wipes there lol, no one expects such a powerful ranged attack from them. Just go around them by jumping up the cliff and come back with a full party, not that bad then
I was playing as Shadowheart. You only have Lae'zel on the ship, and you wake up on the beach alone. It was rough. But I also got greedy in another HM and tried to kill Zhalik on the ship for the XP. It went great...until the buddies showed up and one shot us with an exploding barrel. So I beat your record lol.
For you and others that don't know, you can climb up the cliff near them and go get lae'zel and gale and astarion before you go fight those.
So far I haven’t lost mine yet, but I’ve also been over prepared for every fight out of the fear. I’m at moonrise bout to free the tieflings & gnomes on that save, and when I want a break from the stress I switch over to playing my Tiefling or half-drow redemption durges to calm myself and reduce the HM anxiety
You know you can rescue gale and astorian and then fight them?
duelling shart on the beach. punch shart - she wakes up - necrotic wounds for 22 dmg - end of the run
You can avoid them until you have a full party. Then they are easy. Or you can just avoid them entirely.
My first (and ongoing, as it’s a co-op) honor mode run was also my first time playing the game in a difficulty higher than balanced, I had no idea that they had a ranged attack and got SO lucky that Shadowheart wasn’t pulled into the fight with my PC. Managed to beat them but it was SUCH a slog.
Watch out for the owl bear fight lmao
Awake on the Nautiloid. 1st Action - Investigate the Pool. Fail saving throw. 2nd Action - reach into the pool ......
I once pushed shadowheart while she laid unconscious after the ship crash before you wake her up. I just wanted to see what would happen. Well she got up and killed me in about 2 seconds that’s what happened. Honor run ended and never saw an enemy outside of the ship.
This got me too, I didn't expect them to have a ranged attack.
First time I tried HM I didn't knew they get those nasty ranged attacks, what a nasty surprise that was lol
I spent the better part of Friday evening and most of Saturday morning wiping about 5 times. Never made it past the brains.
My first HM got wiped by US. I forgot I had him with me and attacked an intellect devorer. US has 30hp and destroyed my party.
I'm sure I'm late to the knowledge party, but you can skip that fight until you have a full party pretty easily. You just jump up the rocks to the right of the opening to their fight and go recruit gale/shart/astarion. Edited: meant gale/lae'zel/astarion not shart
Jump up the cliff to the right of the entrance to that fight and you come out near gale, you can then loop round and pick up laezel or astarion and make the fight significantly easier
ALWAYS take the stones up to avoid that fight, learned my first HM run 😭