Karoug revisited

Vreejack

Karoug is a basket of cheese as far as encounters go. He is overpowered to the point of being the hardest encounter in the entire game. Irenicus never gave me this much trouble. Regen 30 HP per round? That's insane. You arrive with no weapons that can harm him and then you find a dagger that seems to be designed for the encounter, except that it cannot exceed his HP regen, so you might get a nick or two in every round but it's useless.
There used to be a cheesy way to counter his absurd strength. Lots of traps (like, hundreds) would wear him down faster than he regenerated. But his behavior has changed and now he will not follow down the ladder any more.

Artona

If everything else fails, you can use wand of paralyzation on him; some consider it to be cheese though (I don't however). Also, explosives potions can come in handy - and firebreath's as well.
What party are you playing?

smeagolheart

And I used to enjoy scenic trips to werewolf island.

Now I don't even want to bother there's like 3 weapons thst can scratch him. It's just not worth it.

Artona

Also, do other werewolves come down the ladder? If yes, you can use it for your advantage to separate them from Karoug - if not, to heal after killing some of them.

Lorandar

I just finished this encounter on a playthrough and found that a very efficient weapon was the bastard sword Albruin +1 (+3 versus shapechangers). As I'm playing on iPad (unmodded, no codes), this is supposedly by design.
He also proved to be vulnerable to the combination of greater malison + ray of enfeeblement. If you can stick a tank to him, you should have plenty of time to deal with his minions before tackling him.

TrueDannyboy

Magic is the key I found, I had a dwarven defender tank him (Amazing class) And ranged him down. Our DPS out shined his Regen with ease. We wrecked him.

Vreejack

Artona said:

Also, do other werewolves come down the ladder? If yes, you can use it for your advantage to separate them from Karoug - if not, to heal after killing some of them.

Nothing will follow you down the ladder any more. But that isn't the issue; I can kill the wulfweres easily. I just have no way to reliably do in excess of 30 damage/round.

I'm going to try to let my thief try a backstab. Maybe have the mage come up with invis and magic missile at the same time. At least they can run away easily enough.

Abi_Dalzim

This level of regeneration has got to be a new feature, right? Because I've certainly never known him to be *that* resilient before.

Vreejack

He's always had 30 regen. And I think it's always been a bug that is treated as a feature for some reason. You pretty much have to kill him in one round or you are starting over. I can go toe-to-toe with him for a while but without doing any damage that sticks.

I just backstabbed him for 35 points. Let's see what fire breath potions can do.

smeagolheart

Vreejack said:

He's always had 30 regen. And I think it's always been a bug that is treated as a feature for some reason. You pretty much have to kill him in one round or you are starting over. I can go toe-to-toe with him for a while but without doing any damage that sticks.

I just backstabbed him for 35 points. Let's see what fire breath potions can do.

that's great, after one round he's gained 30 of it back right,,,

Zilber

There's two kondars, one albruin, one sword of flame and a silver dagger that can hit it (I think). A staff or mace would have been good, but my fighter/thief had no issues taking it out alone, with a bit of backstab, haste, strength 25, luck and the like.

Jarrakul

Spells can hurt him, as can the Sword of Balduran found in the room he's in. One character's gonna have a hard time taking him down, but two or three can usually do it.

Skatan

Zilber said:

There's two kondars, one albruin, one sword of flame and a silver dagger that can hit it (I think). A staff or mace would have been good, but my fighter/thief had no issues taking it out alone, with a bit of backstab, haste, strength 25, luck and the like.

^- This. Just stock up on the weapons that can hit him and gang up on him with some buffs. Also, I always use slow vs lycans. If the supporting lycans don't follow you downstairs, go up and down and take them out one by one if you have trouble facing them all at once until only Big K is standing alone.

UnderstandMouseMagic

What's this about him (or the other werewolves) not following down the ladder?
Since when?

SirBatince

Abi_Dalzim said:

This level of regeneration has got to be a new feature, right? Because I've certainly never known him to be *that* resilient before.

I believe you are right. Something is different.

BG1 greater wolfwere had a smaller regen while BG2 GW (such as in firkraags dungeon) have 30/round

I believe 2.0 merged many assets from BG2 (you can notice the newer sounds for bows and dispel magic effect and healing) and this is an unfortunate byproduct.

SirBatince

UnderstandMouseMagic said:

What's this about him (or the other werewolves) not following down the ladder?
Since when?

you'd be surprised how many functionalities were broken or lost in 2.0, be it intentional or not.

woops double post

smeagolheart

the "functionality" of some creatures chasing you to be picked off one by one is more of an exploit that was fixed.

the regen was not arbitrarily changed, I guess they decided that he was supposed to get super regen like pnp or something.

moody_mage

Wand of Fire / Potions of blowing things up tend to work when used in a coordinated fashion.

jtth

I was unable to kill him w/ wand of paralysis + wand of fire + multiple backstabs on Hard. Like, mathematically I could not outdamage his regen. CTRL+Y.

Erg

Zilber said:

A staff or mace would have been good

Yep, someone should make a mod to add a silver staff or something like that.

Erg

Abi_Dalzim said:

This level of regeneration has got to be a new feature, right? Because I've certainly never known him to be *that* resilient before.

SirBatince said:

I believe you are right. Something is different.

Nope.

See this

If you remember differently it's because Karoug was nerfed in both BGT and Tutu (as opposed to vanilla BG1). See this.

Vreejack

The three potions of fire breath I had with me worked, but coordination is tricky. Do not send too many people into the room or some will block the way.

Do not overlook the sword of balduran hidden in that same room. +4 bastard sword vs. were creatures.

And... there is another greater ww guarding the way off the island. Maybe I can ignore this one? I am out of potions.

UnderstandMouseMagic

smeagolheart said:

the "functionality" of some creatures chasing you to be picked off one by one is more of an exploit that was fixed.

the regen was not arbitrarily changed, I guess they decided that he was supposed to get super regen like pnp or something.

Sorry, I disagree completely.

The beauty of BG is the numerous ways there are to kill enemies. It's leaves it to the players' discretion whether they want to use exploits. It's one of the reasons why the game is still being played nearly 20 years after release.

It allows players to play through without a maxed out ultra efficient party. I don't tank much because I don't like any of the "tanks" in BG.
So now I have my overall choice of NPC's I take cut down by this new release?
That cannot be justified.

We are not stupid, we are all perfectly capable of understanding for ourselves when we are using an exploit and whether we are happy with that.
It gives us choices.

And how in any RP scenario, is it an exploit to run away when you walk into a room and find yourself outnumbered?
The exploit is running through a door and the enemy not following you.

Seriously, I sometimes wonder if these upgraders/developers have ever played the game with anything like the passion and immersion that is on display in this forum day in and day out year after year.

Chad

you could always spam magic missile him to death...that's always been viable...

jackjack

Or get really reckless and toss out some skull traps!

TrueDannyboy

Not so much an exploit, the wrong word was used. They are trying to create smarter AI, Now they do not mindlessly follow like morons. They try to lure you in to fight with there numbers.

Vreejack

It may be that the ww's did not follow because I was in multi-player mode. No way to test that at the moment but I'll keep it in mind.

The additional Greater Wulfwere feels like a bug, as it is way more powerful than the Loup Garou bosses you face afterwards. But at least the new bastard sword with buffing and a haste potion made him killable. Also used the anti-werewolf amulet and backstabbed with the dagger and hit with some magic missile attacks. Still, it was a close-run thing.

Flashburn

Well, here's an easy way to beat Karoug: Greater Malison + Slow + Wand of Paralysis, then 6 Potions of Firebreath at once.

Greater Malison lowers his saving throws by 4 and he'll save against Slow and the Wand of Paralysis at a total of -8, making him unlikely to succeed. Slow will halve his regeneration rate to 5 HP/2 seconds (important!) and the wand paralyzes him so you can decide on your plan to take him down. At this point, I've always got 6 Potions of Firebreath saved up just for Karoug. I surround him with all 6 of my party members and have all of them use their potion on him at the same time and that's usually enough. If he survives (sometimes he does!), it should only take a magic missile to finish him off.