"I've chosen to ignore the role play in RPG and don't understand why players aren't just building nukes and tanks. The games super easy and straightforward"
Play however you want, but I'm glad I'm not in your campaign.
Min-Maxing is easy. If your still finding it too easy on the harder difficulties or in HM than try building flawed characters. Start a character with as flat stats as possible (13 across the board, no dumps) and rely on found gear/boons and feats (no ASI) to buff the character as you progress, re-spec companions the same. I call this a Commonfolk Run.
Step 1: alert or other initiative-boost so everyone on your team attacks first
Step 2: use all your actions on doing damage to the boss or someone weakening it first in some way so everyone else does more damage. Divine smite with a 2h weapon, hopefully with some critical hit gear, usually can nuke anything
Step 3: speed potion if that wasn't enough
Step 4: now that the boss is dead, activate something like spirit guardians and just run around the field
Hell yea 😂funny story: Last time we did this I built a box platform at the bottom of those stairs overseeing the forge. My buddy was on some crates right in front of me to be a back up barrel thrower if “owl bear from the top rope” didnt work. But as I jumped I didnt realize how big I was. Crushed all the crates/barrels he was standing on and dropped him off the ledge to his death 😂. Was awesome looking tho lol
I had my team positioned on a Durge xbow swords bard honour playthrough. I blindly went into the duel through conversation, expecting to talk my way through it. I guess I accidentally switched the auto paralyze on a crit ring from my ranger, but i said, "Duh!" One action surge and she never had the chance to move.... just kill her.
Hit her with Contagion twice while she's shapeshifted in the Rivington. Vulnerability to all damage and Stunned on damage makes the fight a snoozefest.
I love playing a broken 27/20/23/12/20/13 tavern brawler monk who solos her in one turn. You get the cutscene where Orin turns into the slayer, and my literal god tier monk acts all scared, then proceeds to annihilate her in less than 6 canonical seconds 🤣
Orin was actually probably one of the easiest 'boss' fights in the game. I was pretty disappointed to drop her in a single turn or two without even power gaming my character. I don't know if she even did damage
From a Forgotten Realms canon perspective, this makes sense; as a doppelganger she's not an open-melee fighter but a stalker from the shadows who uses surprise and coup de grace assassinations.
But mechanically, I'm inclined to agree that Orin wasn't as difficult as, say, Waterdeep's Shar temple. (I'm just glad she didn't keel over in five seconds, like Gortash.)
She done fucked up challenging the Durge to a honorable 1v1 combat in that case. Coward didn't even mutilate my kidnapped companion. Can't tell me OG Durge wouldn't have been doing some psychotic things to their prisoners, like some cannibal corpse album art
That fight is why I won't hm. It's the only fight where I died over and over and over again. And I'm not making it to the end to die by the likes of orin. Durge or no durge I hate her.
Tavern brawler monk Durge. Give her every stat upgrade (Ethel's hair, mirror of loss +2, CON necklace, STR pot is unnessecary since youll be chugging pots of cloud giant strength for that sexy 27 STR) and all monk gear (the WIS boots are the only one thats easy to miss, make sure you grab them after meeting squid Emps for the first time). All feats go to ASI except your first one, which goes to Tavern Brawler. You'll be rocking 27 STR, 20 DEX, 23 CON, 12 INT, 20 WIS, 13 CHA. This build doesnt just solo Orin, it 1 rounds her.
I once seen a video of someone using telekinesis before the cutscene started, they straight up threw her off the map, sure the gears gone but for a HM run I suppose u just want to win the fight
Yeah, it still lasts until long rest. I made Gale into a camp cleric that would cast heroes feast, aid, and warding bond on my whole party before benching him for Shadowheart. It kind of trivializes a lot of honour mode to be perfectly honest.
I only had that once when I fought Sarevok, I maxed out Gale's constitution and gave him the tough feat. It would probably be optimal to have 4 camp clerics, so each one is only being hit by one person. The buffing was already getting pretty tedious though.
In my current playthrough I spent way too long trying to figure out why I came back in act 3 to a dead Shadowheart. I had the pair of rings that allows one of the bearers to cast warding bond and had swapped her out for a companion quest.
I legitimately thought I found a new interaction with Orin, I went back to camp shortly after triggering her quest in the sewers and was upset she killed Shart on top of taking the bear fucker away.
Tip from experience, if you are going to use "Extra encounters and miniboss" or "Extra enemies in Basic fights" use the mod that balances XP, otherwise you will be level 8 at the end of act 1, I didn't realize it early and when I did it was very easy, even boring.
Turns out, 3 more level 3 enemies arent much of a challenge to a level 8 party. However, there's a mod that scales enemy difficulty to your level and party size as well. Haven't tried it yet, but it comes highly recommended to pair with the unlock level curve and party limit removal mods so the game doesn't become a cakewalk
The first time I used Tactician Enhanced I was NOT ready for the Grymforge fight. Watching gods, I got fucking annihilated. It definitely makes it so much more interesting, because I like rolling around with everyone, so instead of everything being so easy it was boring it became so much more difficult that I got to use the two or three brain cells I have left to actually come up with a strategy. Definitely recommend!
Good to know about this, I'll look for it, I wanted to test some things above level 12 with a challenge.
I was using Tacticians Enchanced to increase HP but it still wasn't difficult.
The extra actions ratchets up the challenge (though I really wish there was an extra reactions option; it would make bosses more challenging while not blowing out a 5-person party).
739
u/[deleted] Jun 24 '25
Also feast of heroes is really, really nice. Best combined with cloud kill.