Fighting that drow army in Ust Natha?
ARKdeEREH
Member Posts: 531
I have SCS with tactics installed. With that mod enabled an army of 100-ish level 20+ drow show up in Ust Natha after the city turns hostile. I am wondering what other people do to defeat this army. I mean, I know you can just quickly run for the exit, but if you stay and try to actually win, what are some strategies that work?
In the past I have managed to beat them by defending a narrow choke-point with a small party where I only had to fight one of them at a time (while of course still taking ranged damage from the others).
I played this again yesterday with a party of six. This time, the choke-point I had used before didn't work since drow spawned on the stairs behind me and in between my characters. Once my characters were separated the weaker ones died almost instantly, and the others lasted until I ran out of healing potions.
I found a place inside the tavern where I could hold them off without them spawning behind me and where I could defend my party by having my stronger characters out in front while my weaker characters stayed behind them with ranged weapons. I would switch my characters out for uninjured ones once they needed to retreat to heal. This worked for a while, but eventually the drow broke through my line while I was switching my front-line defenders. They slaughtered my weaker characters and the stronger half of my party ended up pinned against the area where the drow tavern keeper stands for the next real time hour, surviving on healing potions, luck, and a buffer of summoned creatures. It took 2.5 hours real time, but I eventually won, barely. Only two characters survived and my PC only lived because I had him loot the corpses of my other party members for extra healing potions and more defensive items. I also had to have my two surviving characters run around the main area of the tavern for a while to regenerate their health and to avoid getting killed by the half dozen glabrezus and nabassaus the drow had summoned.
I would, ideally, like to win this battle without losing any party members, or at the very least without losing 2/3 of them. Does anyone have any suggestions?
In the past I have managed to beat them by defending a narrow choke-point with a small party where I only had to fight one of them at a time (while of course still taking ranged damage from the others).
I played this again yesterday with a party of six. This time, the choke-point I had used before didn't work since drow spawned on the stairs behind me and in between my characters. Once my characters were separated the weaker ones died almost instantly, and the others lasted until I ran out of healing potions.
I found a place inside the tavern where I could hold them off without them spawning behind me and where I could defend my party by having my stronger characters out in front while my weaker characters stayed behind them with ranged weapons. I would switch my characters out for uninjured ones once they needed to retreat to heal. This worked for a while, but eventually the drow broke through my line while I was switching my front-line defenders. They slaughtered my weaker characters and the stronger half of my party ended up pinned against the area where the drow tavern keeper stands for the next real time hour, surviving on healing potions, luck, and a buffer of summoned creatures. It took 2.5 hours real time, but I eventually won, barely. Only two characters survived and my PC only lived because I had him loot the corpses of my other party members for extra healing potions and more defensive items. I also had to have my two surviving characters run around the main area of the tavern for a while to regenerate their health and to avoid getting killed by the half dozen glabrezus and nabassaus the drow had summoned.
I would, ideally, like to win this battle without losing any party members, or at the very least without losing 2/3 of them. Does anyone have any suggestions?
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Comments
Cloud spells tend to be good for wholesale slaughter.
Hmmmm~ How much mass confusion would a Jester cause?
I'm just spitballing here...
Give someone with a ton of attacks a few dozen stacks of arrows of detonation.
I used cloud kill, horrid wilting, dragon breath, fireball, holy smite, and a few other spells that can hit a large number of enemies at the same time. Creeping doom and insect plague were particularly useful because they would affect dozens of drow at the same time. The problem wasn't really in what spells I used, because they were effective against those they targeted, the problem was that once those drow died, more took their place. There is a finite number, but there are just so many of them that it doesn't seem like that for a while. Even the drow priestesses that kept killing each other with globe of blades weren't enough to make a big difference, although it was rather amusing to watch.
I don't understand the Jester reference. Are you making a joke or is it a spell?
How about slapping down a Invisibility 10ft radius and moving somewhere?
Once the battle starts invisibility wouldn't be very useful if you're trying to escape when they've surrounded you because there are so many of them that there isn't anywhere to run to. They completely block up those narrow walkways.
I guess if my characters get separated I could cast invisibility on someone if they're about to die and have some fast moving character try to draw them away while the other characters are invisible.
Teleportation might help. Dimensional Door the squishies out of the way. The tanks and rogues can chug potions of invisibility while the mages open a hole for them to move through at range. Might win free enough to get to a more defensible location.
Another idea: Can you put down traps? If you know they pop in all around you...
I am going to have to try this now.
I found that if I left most of my party members in a remote area (in a corner in either the northern or southern edge of the level) they would be ignored by the drow if I had other characters near the center. I had my PC run around the middle of the level with a bow, the quiver from Watcher's Keep that never runs out of arrows, and the boots of speed equipped. I made sure he never engaged anyone in melee combat unless it was one-on-one or he was surrounded and had no alternatives. I ran circles around big groups of drow while slowly chipping away at them with arrows and occasional summoned creatures.
When my PC got surrounded I had Viconia cast holy smite and summon creatures near the thinner edge of the drow so that my PC could get back out. I also successfully had him cast dragon breath once to free himself.
This battle took a very long time. Eventually the drow stopped spawning even though their army was still mostly intact. I found a way to prevent them from being able to fight me by getting them to chase my PC and Viconia into the Ust Natha bazaar. Two nabasssaus that were in the lead got stuck against each other in the bazaar's entrance so that neither of them could move forward and the drow army was trapped behind them. I then had my two characters focus their ranged attacks on the drow and avoid harming the demons so that I could kill the drow army while it couldn't damage me. Since new drow weren't spawning anymore, because the battle had lasted so long, I didn't need to worry about being attacked from behind. This went on for some time and eventually Viconia killed one of the demons while my attention was elsewhere, which let the drow horde into the area, but at least at that point there were less of them, so I was able to fend them off with spells and summoned creatures.
This was an incredibly difficult battle, but it is good to know that it can be survived by a party of six (although only two of my characters significantly participated in the fighting).
I am still interested in hearing about other ways people have beaten the drow army though, so if someone else has played this it would be nice to learn what other strategies can be used.