Any error proof methods to beat Drizzt early levels ? (SOLVED)

Soido

As far as I understand Drizzt is endgame foe and extremely hard early on. Even kiting doesn't help due to his very high AC.

Isn't there any other way using high end magic scrolls, or some special potions, like firebombs or something, or high end wands which I could buy from the mage in Beregost early on ?

Maybe I can throw AOE bombs or spells at him while he is engaged with the gnolls ?

Or if I can somehow poison him then I can kite him around, poison again rinse repeat ?

I am looking in Thalantyr's inventory that he sells 3 explosion potions for 6D6 damage, so max damage if lucky is 108. Drizzt has 92 HP so they potentially can kills him. Problem is the potions allow reflex save for half-damage. And I think he has 98% magic resistance !!?

Rangeltoft

Easiest way i know is to move around invis, outside of Drizzts line of sight, then the gnoll will activate and kill Drizzt eventually. But dont minimize the screen because then Drizzt will activate and kill the gnoll otherwise he will do nothing and die

Grond0

I agree letting the gnolls kill him is the easiest way. However, if you're playing with a party then kiting him is not too difficult. Just have one character run him round in a circle, with the rest of the party in the center of that shooting him.

Ardul

You can place four party members around him and then dismiss them, keeping them in place. If you do that correctly he can't move to get you and you can hit him with arrows, halberd or other weapons with more range than his scimitars.

Soido

I don't want to cheese him with engine exploits. The easiest legit way I saw on youtube is with arrows of detonation. These arrows bypass magic resistance (unlike the potions of explosion). And also require use of the boots of speed. But...these arrows are probably very expensive and it takes around 20 arrows. So it is not really early level task. And I think there is simply no early level way to kill him. I mean even Silke just kill my main character level 1 with her stupid chain lightnings.

Another legit method I saw is with Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on one aggro character and another mage casting a bunch of flame arrow scrolls. But..again..Otiluke's spell is level 4 spell, late game stuff and requires many flame arrows.

So I have given up killing Drizzt. Mission impossible, but he is not mandatory and it is okay role-playing to leave him be.

Grond0

See my post above - Drizzt has extremely limited distance capability (essentially only charm person). If you're experienced in moving your party around, it's therefore not that hard to let him chase one character while the others shoot him down. It makes no real difference whether your characters are level 1 or, say, level 5 as you're likely to only hit him with a critical anyway.

Exploding arrows in any quantity are only found in Baldur's Gate, i.e. relatively late in the game. By that stage Drizzt can be attacked much more directly than through relying on criticals and weight of shot. For instance, a level 8 fighter using potions of mind focusing & power and an oil of speed and shooting arrows of piercing from a magic bow will hit him pretty easily (even before you consider potential spell buffs like chant, bless etc if you're using a party).

sarevok57

there has been lots of discussion on these forums about killing drizzt both "unfairly" at level 1 and legitimately ( i've done it with a party around 55 000 - 64 000 xp )

so to save time, here is the way you need to do it;

first, whoever is going toe to toe with this guys needs some insane AC vs slashing weapons

drizzt wears boots of speed, so unless you are a barbarian with haste/boots of speed or another character with haste and boots of speed you will not be able to out run him

so AC, you can buy some potions of mind focusing at the friendly arm temple ( they give +3 stackable DEX and lasts 12 hours ) so whoever is going toe to toe, make sure you pump that DEX up to 24 for the max AC bonus from DEX and a potion of defense or invulnerability ( defense is actually better ) to get your AC down more

drizzt's thac0 is -4 main, -2 off hand, so you need to get that AC down low as possible, using full plate mail, golden girdle, ring of pro +2, cloak of balduran, helm of balduran, large shield +2, claw of kazgaroth ( this is the best combo, if you don't quite have the above items, then do the best with what you have )

but you especially want to use; full plate mail, golden girdle and have improved invisibility cast upon that character, just the AC modifiers alone will give drizzt a -11 penalty to hit, and he can do damage quickly if he hits with his 4.5 APR

also spells like defensive harmony or abilities like enrage ( not barbarian rage ) or defensive stance or skald's song help tremendously here if you have them

*you can also gives the potions of mind focusing to your ranged crew to help their chance on hitting him if it makes sense;

speaking about hitting him, here is what you need to know about his AC;

-18 vs slashing weapons
-16 vs missile/piercing weapons
-14 vs crushing weapons

so lets translate this to make more sense, if you want to hit him with 19s or better ( not just nat 20s, here is what your thac0 will need to start at )

slashing weapons; 1
missile/piercing weapons; 3
crushing weapons; 5

so if you can't get your thac0 for the appropriate weapon down to that value or less, the fight is going to be potentially pointless

but here are some other things that can help you on hitting him;

potion of cloud giant STR ( i would say storm giant STR, but there are only 6 in the entire game, and thats IF you find them all but its up to you which one you want to use )

potion of heroism which gives a +2 thac0 bonus and some HP ( or if you are really crazy you could use a potion of power instead, but there are only 3 in the entire game so its up to you )

bless, chant, aid, haste are all great battle spells, but watch out for short durations and recast when need be

and you will want to use the gauntlets of weapon specialization for the to hit/to damage bonus ( and if you have a ranged character that can hit him, obviously give them the bracers of archery )

if you have class abilities like enrage, skald's bard song ect... use 'em up, whatever makes your AC better/ to hit better by all means do so

remember that drizzt also has 30 damage resistance against all physical damage, so you still want to hit him hard as possible

if you can, he is 100 % susceptible to thief traps, so if you can lay some of those down, that will help immensely

when i did this fight, i used a dwarven fighter/cleric that used a potion of cloud giant STR and draw upon holy might to hit 25 STR, and i used a potion of heroism and plus bless, i was using a crushing weapon ( obviously ) and i believe my thac0 was around 0

with haste and having some archer support ( i believe i also had coran on my team and his thac0 was also around 0 because of the longbow of marksmanship and some potions of mind focusing ) and he went down in a few rounds

plus, while you are attacking drizzt ( with your melee guy and any ranged character that can hit him ) have everyone else equip the most powerful ranged weapon they can as well ( starting with composite longbow, longbow, shortbow, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, sling - of if they have no STR bonus; dart ) even if those other characters can't hit, a 20 always lands, and if everyone is using bows with haste, they are bound to land the odd 20 here or there, which will make taking him out all that much easier

Soido

How about a dwarven defender ? Maybe can stand toe to toe against Drizzt even if AC is not too high ? I guess it depends how many turns the fight takes because the max you can go with DD ability is I think 2 or 3 turns late game.

I read somewhere someone mention that Dorn the blackguard can poison Drizzt. I don't know how that is possible because I guess the hit needs to connect right ? And if you hit only on critical then how so ?

Soido

Hmmm, the idea of using traps against Drizzt is very interesting.

A level 5 Bounty Hunter can set 4 traps while Drizzt is fighting the Gnolls. 2 regular and 2 special traps and walk Drizzt right into them.

2x(2d8+5)+2x(3d8+5) or total damage of 10d8+20. This is max potential of 100 damage in round 1 only. His total health is 92 which means he dies outright.

Minimum damage is only 30 though, but on average the damage will be in the middle so I guess Drizzt will be left with half of his health. So the fight needs plan B.

Soido

How about using 2 or more thiefs in the party for Drizzt encounter. Let's say main char is a Bounty Hunter, add Imoen for 2 more traps and possibly Coran for another 2 traps. Then total damage in round 1 can get to 18d8+40, or minimum damage 58 and max damage 184. Average damage 121. Drizzt dies in round 1 with 3 thiefs in the party.

Grond0

You can only stack a maximum of 7 traps in an area. Drizzt also has physical resistance of 30%, so traps alone are unlikely to kill him. By the way a single thief can set more than his daily allowance of traps - just rest and set more.

sarevok57

Soido wrote: »

How about a dwarven defender ? Maybe can stand toe to toe against Drizzt even if AC is not too high ? I guess it depends how many turns the fight takes because the max you can go with DD ability is I think 2 or 3 turns late game.

I read somewhere someone mention that Dorn the blackguard can poison Drizzt. I don't know how that is possible because I guess the hit needs to connect right ? And if you hit only on critical then how so ?

a dwarven defender can work, defensive stance will help you survive longer, but as for poison, i just don't know how that is possible period, drizzt's save vs death is 1, so he can't fail against poison saves unless they come with a penalty and getting a greater malison to land on drizzt has a SUPER low chance

my only other idea on how a blackguard's poison might land is with their unholy aura type ability that gives their enemies some penalties, but i don't recall if it affects their saves

i just did some math here and if you have coran on your team at the 64000 xp mark, he will be a level 6 fighter, and with 2 potions of mind focusing, and the longbow of marksmanship and the bracers of archery he will have a thac0 of 0 and that is with arrows +0, if you give him a potion of heroism, then his thac0 will be -2, and then on top of that, give him some arrows +2 ( you probably only need 40 at most, so that shouldn't cost too much ) he will have a thac0 of -4 altogether, which means he will be able to hit drizzt with 12s on the attack roll, which is a pretty decent chance to hit

so if need be, bring him along get him up to speed and make him your drizzt killer, and if you for some reason don't have haste, then have him down an oil of speed ( which actually has a pretty decent duration )

if you want to get super hard core, you can wait until you hit the 128 000 xp mark, which will make coran a level 7 fighter, do the steps above, but instead of arrows +2 you could use arrows of piercing which would make your thac0 -7, making it so you hit drizzt with 9s on the attack roll, then give him some haste and he will be dishing out 4 attacks per round on top of that

so if you are still struggling with the level 6 coran strategy, the level 7 one should be able to wipe drizzt

Soido

Grond0 wrote: »

You can only stack a maximum of 7 traps in an area. Drizzt also has physical resistance of 30%, so traps alone are unlikely to kill him. By the way a single thief can set more than his daily allowance of traps - just rest and set more.

If the maximum number of traps is 7 as you said, then the damage changes from 18d8 + 40 to 16d8+35.

Then average damage is 107 (from min 51 to max 163). Potentially can still kill Drizzt in round 1 even with 30% DR.

You also said that you can just rest and place traps up to 7. Then a bounty hunter can place 7 special traps for total damage in round 1 of 21d8+35 or average of 130 damage (min 56 max 203). This very likely will kill Drizzt in a single round just by one bounty hunter and no need for 2 extra thiefs.

Soido

I went to quickly test if Level 1 Bounty Hunter can solo kill Drizzt in round 1. And yes he does. I guess that's why the kit is called Bounty Hunter. All credit goes to Sarevok57 who gave the idea and to Grond0 who refined the idea, I just tested them to the extreme.

Here is what happens in pictures

Here are 7 special traps



And here Drizzt dies to only 4 of them, you see 3 traps are still intact

SirBatince

potion of power is better than heroism and can be used by any class. there are 3 potions of power in bg1 total. the violet potion can also be used by every class (25 STR).

if you're a spellcaster you can just cast fire shield, cold shield and otiluke's sphere on yourself.

if you have ranged weapons + haste potions you can just kite infinitely and pray for crits.

Soido

Last night I was playing around with a bounty hunter again and killed Drizzt by the same way. With traps. Gorion will be ashamed by me