Unseeing Eye Challenge / Gauths
MikeC_81
Member Posts: 2
Is it actually possible to beat 3 Gauths after repairing the bridge without extensive pre-knowledge and/or cheese? I am currently trying to go through a Core rules playthrough and doing the quests without abusing rest (who sleeps in a dungeon repeatedly and doesn't have its denizens just murder you in your sleep) and using metagame knowledge that the characters wouldn't have (ie knowing exactly what is before you and taking spell/character loadout specifically designed to beat them).
Specifically, the idea is that the party would get a quest, sleep, and prepare for what is given to you in the quest description tells you. So if NPCs told you that D'Arinse Keep was overrun by trolls and handed you acid and flame arrows then you would be allowed to weigh the spell selections towards that.
Been 20 years since I played this game and as a kid, I cheesed the hell out of it but it feels like the 3 gauths that guard the passage in the ancient temple for the Unseeing Eye quest is legitimately unbeatable if you were to play the game as if it was an adventuring party with a generic spell loadout that has no metagame knowledge, and doesn't have the Shield of Balduran.
It has been going well so far despite forcing myself to be gimped in many situations like going in with no spells it has forced me to really use wands and scrolls a lot and stretching abilities of characters to their limits but the job got done. But even as an over-leveled party with all characters at level 12, they are bursting down tank characters buffed with bless and chant WITHIN a single round and that is with chugging an extra healing potion during that round.
Other cheese techniques like metagame knowledge and just laying traps and then fireballing the area where they know to trigger them to come into the traps etc are also disallowed.
Are there spells or abilities a generic party would take for a "general adventure" in the sewers that could possibly beat this encounter? I have a save if anyone is interested.
Specifically, the idea is that the party would get a quest, sleep, and prepare for what is given to you in the quest description tells you. So if NPCs told you that D'Arinse Keep was overrun by trolls and handed you acid and flame arrows then you would be allowed to weigh the spell selections towards that.
Been 20 years since I played this game and as a kid, I cheesed the hell out of it but it feels like the 3 gauths that guard the passage in the ancient temple for the Unseeing Eye quest is legitimately unbeatable if you were to play the game as if it was an adventuring party with a generic spell loadout that has no metagame knowledge, and doesn't have the Shield of Balduran.
It has been going well so far despite forcing myself to be gimped in many situations like going in with no spells it has forced me to really use wands and scrolls a lot and stretching abilities of characters to their limits but the job got done. But even as an over-leveled party with all characters at level 12, they are bursting down tank characters buffed with bless and chant WITHIN a single round and that is with chugging an extra healing potion during that round.
Other cheese techniques like metagame knowledge and just laying traps and then fireballing the area where they know to trigger them to come into the traps etc are also disallowed.
Are there spells or abilities a generic party would take for a "general adventure" in the sewers that could possibly beat this encounter? I have a save if anyone is interested.
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Comments
A standard gauth has 56 HP and AC 0. A level 12 warrior polymorphed hits on a 9, for 5d4 damage - 7.5 average damage per attack. That's about 8 expected attacks per gauth to bring one down. At 1.5 attacks per round, you should be able to take down all three before the two-turn duration of the cloak runs out.
You can also speed this up. While the polymorphed party member faces the gauth, other party members can throw in fireballs to hurt the gauth from a safe distance. Alternately, your front-line ooze warrior can drink a strength potion; +4 to attack and +9 to damage from having strength 21 makes a huge difference (17.2 average damage per attack, taking each gauth down in three or four attacks). If you happen to have a monk, they can do even better than a standard warrior; a level 12 monk gets three attacks per round as an ooze.
if you are at 1 million XP or less, you fight against 3 gauths
if you are at 1 million XP to 1.999 999 Million XP it will be 1 beholder and 2 gauths
and if you are at 2 million+ you will be fighting x3 beholders and x2 gauths all at the same time ( now try and win that fight without cheese, oi )
for none cheese tactics and spells i would go with;
animate dead, and send in one first ( to soak up the death spell that beholder's have ) and bring the rest in afterwards, the skellies are immune to all the whacky charm and hold effects, plus they have some MR so they can sometimes stop damaging effects as well
crowd control spells; these spells are KEY against beholder kind since they like to zero in on casters and either damage them or give them spell failure, so if you are going to cast spells i would go with things like; emotion hopelessness and hold monster, all beholder kin are susceptible to those spells, and if they hit, it will make them much easier to take down