I find Bassilus the Murderer hard

Glorfindel

This may sound silly, but I find Bassilus difficult. Especially when he activates all the undead. I don't want to cheese them out of the fight, because they came alive the first time I encountered him. I play on core rules with this party:

Fighter Berserker 3 (me)
Minsc 3
Ajantis 3
Viconia 4
Neera 3
Imoen 3

What's the best way to battle a mage(s)/cleric(s) at this level? How can I prevent him from casting his first spell? The first spell usually blasts us all with entangle. I was thinking to have everyone focus their arrows on him, Neera fires two or three magic missiles to help with spell disruption, and Viconia casts Silence. If Silence doesn't work then we're kind of screwed with him and all the undead.

Thoughts?

fkirenicus

I talk him out of his undead allies so that it's him alone, but who knows what "fixes" the devs have applied to this in v. 2.0... It may be that option is gone now.

Ammar

Yes, you can remove the undead by keeping him talking for as long as possible. Otherwise, try to use spells and arrows to stop him from casting. If you can hit him with a Blind spell he is as good as dead. Magic Missiles can interrupt his spellcasting.

He shouldn't be that hard at level 3 - or do you use SCS?

DetectiveMittens

I've beaten him many times at level 1, solo on insane with just a sling. You can try interrupt him with magic missles or command. Otherwise just pelt him with range so he cannot get close to you.

Dialogues 1,3,1,1 will remove all the undead.

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DetectiveMittens

Well then the only answer to hordes of undead is Fireball.

lunar

DetectiveMittens said:

Well then the only answer to hordes of undead is Fireball.

A wand (from ankheg lair) or necklace (carnival) can sub for the actual fireball spell. If you have both, Basillus is toast. (Literally!)

luskan

Have Neera cast Web. Used ranged weapons, all on Basillus, then mop up the skellies as they break free.

edit: use it from a scroll or risk NRD if she's not a high enough level

Raduziel

Use Imoen's Wand of Magic Missile to keep disrupting him. I'll just need a little bit of timing, no big deal.

dunbar

I peck away slowly at the outlying skeletons one at a time with ranged weapons (preferably slings) to reduce theirs numbers a bit and then rush Bassilus with my tank going hand-to-hand to take all the flack, while the ranged weapons do spell interruption. Invariably in this encounter (for me at least) slings are by far the most effective weapon.

_Luke_

Glorfindel said:

The first spell usually blasts us all with entangle.

Excuse me for the OT, but Bassilus should not be able to cast "Entangle"; his first spell is usually "Hold Person ", followed by other divine spells from the cleric's pool..... "Entangle" is only available for Druids and Rangers, so you probably bumped into a bug....

dunbar

Strange, he always casts Entangle in my games, right after Hold Person (1.3 version).

Edit: I've just used a saved game to do that encounter quickly, at an earlier level than I would normally do it, and in this case his spells were different: Rigid thinking, Hold Person (twice) then he attacked. So I suspect his spell library could depend either, on your level or, whether or not you saved against Hold Person (I couldn't in this case).

Lateralus

Glorfinedl that is a strong party you shouldn't need much strategy at all! With dice rolls nothing is 100% certain but I would just stroll in Zerker first and have at it.

Ever notice the stone pillars around the area? I always wondered what a well placed lightning bolt spell would do, is it possible for one to bounce around and form a pentagram? I think too much...

UnderstandMouseMagic

I have never seen him cast entangle.

I do this level 1, usually solo. I find the most effective way to disrupt his spells is arrows of biting interspersed with wand of missiles if the arrows don't hit and poison him.

steelsoldier

Use the Cleric Turn Undead, a level 3 cleric is sufficient to make them flee, then that gives you enough time for your party to focus on Bassilus and destroy him, then just have everyone else killing all the fleeing undead, anyone with a ranged weapon should easily be able to take them out.

cloudkillbeatsall

Command is a really nice spell to interrupt him. It casts fast and is guaranteed to disrupt him if you time it right (maybe Magic Missile etc isn't?). Plus for the small amount of time he's asleep everything is an auto-hit so you can backstab and shoot him with a poisoned weapon from an Assassin or a Blackhguard or just pelt him with arrows etc which will probably get him down to at least injured.

He likes to cast Hold Person so keep your party spread out so only a maximum of one member is affected.

deltago

Set-up is key. Have both Imoen and Minsc position themselves where it forces some of the undead into melee. This limits both their thaco and attacks per round.

PC should berzerk to prevent a spell from effecting him. Pre-buff with Bless.

Vic should start with Holy Blithe as an AoE and a first round disrupter to Bass.
Neera should also blast him with a magic missile wand just in case.

Ajantis and your berzerker should start with the now wounded undead from the blight while Vic follows up with a command against Bass. Neera should be use the wand right when Bassilus starts casting to interupt him.

Round 3 should start with Vic moving in closer and casting Chant to buff and curse at the same time. Then move into Melee B assilus. Hopefully enough skeletons have been brought down to have one of your tanks help while the other two mop up, first by helping imoen with her batch so she can switch to bow.

Kite B assilus if he starts scoring hits.

Glorfindel

Thanks everyone. Next time I play I'm sure we're going to chunk him.

magisensei

I don't recall it being that difficult a battle. Bass came up and said my charname reminded him of his mother and sort of paused in his attack and so we more or less took the battle to him - with no real injuries from him - what was annoying was the skeletons that used bows - they hurt a lot while Bass himself wasn't for me too much of challenge.

Divide and conquer is the strategy. Have your melee fighters go after Bass with at least one arcane caster (3 or 4 on 1) while the rest go after the skeletons with the bows - melee skeletons can be ignored for a short time if you are decked out in okay armor.

Olteron

Wand of fire + missle amulet from circus(the one gift lost?) + attack the darkness= loot

Olteron

I just soloed him with fighter/cleric. Command turn undead, command again. Hold person. Beat him down.

jackjack

Remove paralysis is a must-have spell for me in this game anyway. Hold person is otherwise devastating to just about any party.

Glorfindel

We just beat Bassilus. I must say, I still find him difficult. Had to reload once because I berserk'd Minsc thinking it was like enrage. It wasn't. Minsc went crazy and started attacking my charname to the point of death.

Bassilus alone isn't too hard. But Bassilus with 12 skeletons, 2 zombies, and 1 ghoul is. Bassilus took 51 points of damage until he died taking another 14 points. Now we head to Nashkel for our first dungeon adventure.

alceryes

The skeletons can definitely be a pain. I'm an XP whore so I usually DON'T talk Bassilus into losing control of his 'family'. I will, however, get a good angle from the south side of the henge with my party and get close enough to initiate the conversation. If you get it right you're only confronting 2-3 skeletons and a zombie instead of the whole horde. At that point it's up to the DM (dice rolls). Command, hold, and maybe sleep(?) are your friends here. Then just pepper him like crazy with arrows, bolts, bullets, axes, daggers, kitchen sinks, and he'll go down. Once he's down for the count you can proceed to move north slowly, destroying the skeletons as they come into view.

namenlos

If it's entangle do you have Jaheira in your party, entangle as a spell and autocasting? As that is the only way I've encountered entangle(to the best of my knowledge).

Eadwyn_G8keeper

I usually save the Basillus encounter till a bit later because I love the full-on battle from casting Animate Dead before the battle starts and carefully directing them to positions around the Henge where they won't cause bottlenecks and can engage the Crossbow users ASAP.

One option at an earlier level that has not been mentioned is using Charm Person/Algernon's Cloak to recruit some of the Hobgoblins nearby. They can easily soak up Bassilus's spells and a few Crossbow bolts until your party can dominate.

I also find it helpful to spread out the party for maximum access to Crossbow users after Bassilus is dispatched ~ paying particular attention to those closest to Neera and Imoen.

Ithual

I usually go there after Ulcaster or Nashkell. This way I have a Fireball wand or necklace of fireballs. I also grab the Lightning wand from Beregost.

So, Lightning him, and fireball the whole swarm as soon as the fight starts. This makes it a little more even,

longjo83

I had a hard time with him in Legacy of Bhaal mode. I had 6 custom members, all level 1 except a thief level 2. I wanted his hammer and the bounty money so I refused to give up. I ended up needing to disable the skeleton army first, then got very strategic:

1- attack with all party members ( ranged weapons) before dialogue starts to disrupt his first spell
2-keep hitting him with everything you have but keep one person on standby to use magic missile, Larochs minor drain, or a wand to disrupt each spell
3- when he is spent, use a cleric to cast Command so he will drop for a few rounds
4-start sending one melee fighter in at a time to hold him still while the others shoot him. When you take damage, run and swap places with a ranged attacker

There is an opportunity for cheese here. Either run in circles and kite him around while 5 members keep missile attacks, or let him entangle you and click the ground far away from the entangled member. The AI will send Bassilis to the place you're trying to go, not where you are. Those are both risky since other skeletons are nearby, and their throwing daggers will kill in one hit in LoB mode. If you are kiting him around and click too far away you might get killed.

Good luck!

longjo83

namenlos said:

If it's entangle do you have Jaheira in your party, entangle as a spell and autocasting? As that is the only way I've encountered entangle(to the best of my knowledge).

He casts entangle for me too and I don't have a druid. I think it is a unique attack of his.

Tenrecc

longjo83 said:

namenlos said:

If it's entangle do you have Jaheira in your party, entangle as a spell and autocasting? As that is the only way I've encountered entangle(to the best of my knowledge).

He casts entangle for me too and I don't have a druid. I think it is a unique attack of his.

It most definitely is, I remember him casting it on me too in my latest playthrough.

wsmithjr

Just went through Bassilus with a lvl 3 party (Paladin, Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid (F/M), Neera and Minsc) and for whatever reason it almost seemed too easy. I didn't even talk him out of all his undead minions. Perhaps the key was the Khalid dropped a fireball on the group from a wand (that I got off somebody) and that took out almost all the undead and moments later Bassilus went down with them. Quite surprising really given the amount of times that Mulahey kicked my butt. Wand of Fire was probably provided due to some mod and perhaps it's a bit overpowered at that point.