Grachus Options

[Lemernis]

I hate to admit it, but I wonder if Grachus's Wind Horrors are too much for the particular party I'm using. My guess is I could probably take Grachus and only the three summoned undead humans. But not along with those four Horrors as well.

I'm using an unconventional party composition, and I guess it's now catching up with me:

PC Wild Mage 7
Imoen Thief 8
Minsc Berserker 8 (via Drew's mini-mod)
Xzar Necomancer 7
Tiax Cleric 6/Thief 7
Finch Cleric 7

I just cannot seem to find a way to fend off Grachus' seven powerful undead summons. I'm at the point where I'm considering going back to a pre-Grey Clan save and leaving this adventure for a future, more conventional party.

Before I give up, any thoughts on how I can get defeat Grachus with this bunch?

(Note: I'm playing with Sword Coast Stratagems installed. I have no idea if those amazing AI tweaks overlap with TGC's content or not, but they don't appear to.)

This post has been edited by Lemernis: Sep 6 2006, 06:44 PM

[Baronius]

Is Damien one of the dwarves?

Damien is human, a member of Amn's economic and military elite. The Grey Clan kidnapped his wife, so he came to to FAI to free her. You can find him on the northeast corner of the map, please see Map4 here: http://greyclan.blackwyrmlair.net/ep1/maps.html

Near as I can tell, the main problem I'm having here is that my party is heavily dependent spellcasting to win (especially with the much more difficult SCS battles, TGC notwithstanding). That is the challenge I intended to set up for myself at the outset with the party composition of two mages, one tank, a thief, a full cleric who supports the party with healing, item identification, and divine spellcasting, and a cleric-thief who suits up for melee.

Facing challenges often requires unusual, non-standard approach. And it's common that you have to use every possibility to win. This can be your solution here.

But here, with Grachus and his Moon Horrors, this party is facing SoA/ToB level opponents who appear to have magic resistance (is this correct?). And I don't have the BG2 spells such as Breach, Spellstrike, Lower Resistance, etc., that would allow me to defeat them with magic.

In your case, the non-stardard approach means that you don't rank opponents by power in this way (ToB/SoA levels), because it is known that traditional tactics won't help here. But there is always a solution. You need the support of all allies. And even at this point, no one (not even myself) knows which combination is the best if it's not tried. For example, cmorgan's idea about moving counterclockwise on the map might be better than the usual one (clockwise), I have never tried it. However, one thing is sure, you need all allies. Now that you know where Damien is, you have one more ally. Check the map I linked to, there is Talibehius as well. He has a leather armour, so he won't stand for too long, but his hits are effective. Additionally, if Tergius was alive, he would keep healing Talibehius even from big distance.
(It might not be the best feeling that it's not your party that wins this battle but other allies, but it still means you can advance in GCE1's plot with such a party.)

All in all, you've to mobilize every ally, and every character's power (if/where applicable) to win this battle with such a party. When you see that Grachus is weak and starts losing hit points, don't let your ally give the final hit. Provided you want the 18,000 XP. (Melf's Minute Meteors? I haven't tried them on Grachus, but without magical protections, he should be more vulnerable to such attacks as well.)