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I need some help. All the monsters are a bit too dangerous. There seems to be no easy way on any encounter. Even if we see the monsters before they see us, they can implement plans and tactics to defeat us like taking high ground and so forth.

What are the main tactics to use in combat, other than a tank to soak up damage, and ranged units behind and everybody focusing fire on individuals to destroy them one at a time?


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you're thinking in MMORPG terms. DnD is different.

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If you spot the enemy ahead, get in turn based mode, sneak to where they are and place your party well to kill them all with ease. As well, check if there are oil barrels and other stuff you can use as your advantage.

You should see combat as a puzzle rather than a simple front line confrontation.

Last edited by Nyanko; 09/10/20 11:24 AM.
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Originally Posted by Nyanko
If you spot the enemy ahead, get in turn based mode, sneak to where they are and place your party well to kill them all with ease. As well, check if there are oil barrels and other stuff you can use as your advantage.

You should see combat as a puzzle rather than a simple front line confrontation.

This is going to be an enormous help. Everybody should know this. It should be part of the tutorial. Thanks!

Any more tips anybody?

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Do unto the monsters as they do unto ye... that is to say, get to high ground to shoot them from above, use tactics, use the environment to your advantage. Also, combos are helpful - throwing a bottle of grease and then having someone set it on fire with a spell, for example. Just be wary of friendly fire, you can kill your companions by accident.

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Use your spells too - bless, aid is good & effects whole party, bane etc small things that can turn the tide in your favour. Pay attention to the enemies when you mouse over them to see what statuses are in play too it all helps

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The sneaking tactic is especially effective if you split your party (drag their portraits apart). So a flow could go like this:

1. Sneak rogue close to the enemy, with height advantage
2. Have the rest of your party further off, also hiding
3. Have rogue (or whoever) initiate combat on an enemy
4. Sneak the rest of your party over one by one, having them each initiate combat on their own

This basically gives you 4 free attacks on the enemy. Depending on how you played it, you might wipe them all with that. Also, second the suggestions about using the environment - Larian is big on this, here's an example from early in the game:
At the first ruins you encounter, guarded by the halfling and company, there's a big rock above the two of them arguing. If you have some stealthily shoot it, it wipes out two of them - drops the number of opponents from 4, to 2. Plus, if you do it right those two won't even attack you - so you can still get another sneaky attack or two off.

Last edited by kreon; 10/10/20 03:42 AM.
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Originally Posted by Tarorn
Use your spells too - bless, aid is good & effects whole party, bane etc small things that can turn the tide in your favour. Pay attention to the enemies when you mouse over them to see what statuses are in play too it all helps


Expanding on this. Try to figure out what is best used where. Taking Bless and Bane as an example.

Bless is better when you're fighting fighting many foes, or foes that are very hard to hit regularly.

Bane is better when you're fighting relatively few foes, or foes that have very dangerous attacks.


If you identify what ability to use where correctly, You're well on your way to understanding and beating encounters.

Last edited by Myrnodyn; 10/10/20 05:15 AM. Reason: spelling mistake
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Originally Posted by kreon
The sneaking tactic is especially effective if you split your party (drag their portraits apart). So a flow could go like this:

1. Sneak rogue close to the enemy, with height advantage
2. Have the rest of your party further off, also hiding
3. Have rogue (or whoever) initiate combat on an enemy
4. Sneak the rest of your party over one by one, having them each initiate combat on their own

This basically gives you 4 free attacks on the enemy. Depending on how you played it, you might wipe them all with that. Also, second the suggestions about using the environment - Larian is big on this, here's an example from early in the game:
At the first ruins you encounter, guarded by the halfling and company, there's a big rock above the two of them arguing. If you have some stealthily shoot it, it wipes out two of them - drops the number of opponents from 4, to 2. Plus, if you do it right those two won't even attack you - so you can still get another sneaky attack or two off.


Thank you for all these useful tips, everybody. kreon, this tip of splitting the party is an excellent one. I vaguely remember it being mentioned by the game earlier on, but was overloaded with all that is new in the the interface. It is a great idea dragging the party members apart so they can operate independently.

These otther suggestions about using the environment will take some experience and practice and knowledge of the game. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Myrnodyn
Originally Posted by Tarorn
Use your spells too - bless, aid is good & effects whole party, bane etc small things that can turn the tide in your favour. Pay attention to the enemies when you mouse over them to see what statuses are in play too it all helps


Expanding on this. Try to figure out what is best used where. Taking Bless and Bane as an example.

Bless is better when you're fighting fighting many foes, or foes that are very hard to hit regularly.

Bane is better when you're fighting relatively few foes, or foes that have very dangerous attacks.


If you identify what ability to use where correctly, You're well on your way to understanding and beating encounters.


I've been unable to successfully use Bless because, if there are many enemies, I immediately have my concentration broken by the next attack. 🙃

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Originally Posted by Marcus Artorius
Originally Posted by Myrnodyn
Originally Posted by Tarorn
Use your spells too - bless, aid is good & effects whole party, bane etc small things that can turn the tide in your favour. Pay attention to the enemies when you mouse over them to see what statuses are in play too it all helps


Expanding on this. Try to figure out what is best used where. Taking Bless and Bane as an example.

Bless is better when you're fighting fighting many foes, or foes that are very hard to hit regularly.

Bane is better when you're fighting relatively few foes, or foes that have very dangerous attacks.


If you identify what ability to use where correctly, You're well on your way to understanding and beating encounters.


I've been unable to successfully use Bless because, if there are many enemies, I immediately have my concentration broken by the next attack. 🙃


Yes, I wonder how others manage to hold back the hordes from their spell casters. Some people must be, even a day or two after the game's release, be highly skilled at this game, way more than I am.

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My advice to add:
  • Holding shift to see enemy lines of sight will greatly help your sneaking endeavors.
  • Seemingly harmless spells can be of great use. For example casting Dancing Lights in dim or dark areas will help your non-darkvision party members hit their target a lot more often.


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Originally Posted by Vexor
My advice to add:
  • Holding shift to see enemy lines of sight will greatly help your sneaking endeavors.
  • Seemingly harmless spells can be of great use. For example casting Dancing Lights in dim or dark areas will help your non-darkvision party members hit their target a lot more often.


That Line of Sight tip will be very handy. Thanks! I didn't know that darkness had such an effect. So many of the rules are implemented in a seamless way, you just don't even realise things like that are being taken into account at all. If we had a sort of tool-tip which could appear indicating a bonus or malus when we took an action, that would be nifty.

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When the cursor hovers over the target with an attack primed, a list on the bottom left pops up and tells us what conditions are affecting the hit chance. Darkness and other forms of disadvantage are listed!

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Originally Posted by Languid Lizard
Originally Posted by Marcus Artorius
Originally Posted by Myrnodyn
Originally Posted by Tarorn
Use your spells too - bless, aid is good & effects whole party, bane etc small things that can turn the tide in your favour. Pay attention to the enemies when you mouse over them to see what statuses are in play too it all helps


Expanding on this. Try to figure out what is best used where. Taking Bless and Bane as an example.

Bless is better when you're fighting fighting many foes, or foes that are very hard to hit regularly.

Bane is better when you're fighting relatively few foes, or foes that have very dangerous attacks.


If you identify what ability to use where correctly, You're well on your way to understanding and beating encounters.


I've been unable to successfully use Bless because, if there are many enemies, I immediately have my concentration broken by the next attack. 🙃


Yes, I wonder how others manage to hold back the hordes from their spell casters. Some people must be, even a day or two after the game's release, be highly skilled at this game, way more than I am.



I try to make sure my cleric is out of line of sight from the archers, either by creating a cloud of some kind, or by having her move behind a wall or other structure at the end of her turn. Melee attackers is what the rest of the party is for.

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A lot of the answers are likely to lean towards "it depends." This focuses on your party lineup, spell choices and so on. If you focus primarily on damage dealing party members and know a fight is at hand, save prior, separate each party member using the chain feature and portrait drag, hide each member and set them up accordingly.
Once one character engages, use the character switch feature and attack with them, rinse and repeat.

If you are looking for more one shot tactics then use the Rogue sneak attack option.

If you are looking for something more exciting or explosive, use various barrels or have party members carry said barrels with them for such an occasion.

Learn to read the layout of the map/area and use that to your advantage. Electrify water, use the grease spell followed by a fire spell to ignite it.

Read your character spells. You can use sleep, charm, hold person, knock down/prone attacks to give you advantages over your opponents.

If you plan things accordingly, you will be able to easily win difficult encounters with planning.

If for some reason you are finding the area or mobs are to difficult, then I would suggest exploring elsewhere in order to level your party and then re-engage these mobs at a later date.

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concentration may just be do to Shadowhearts stats. I'll have to look at them, and think on it.

Alot of helpful advice is probably coming from D&D players that have been playing for years, that know 5e and all it's little tricks and stuff.

I posted somewhere about tricks to use, and tips.

Another thing is look at levels if something is higher level then you don't engage look for the weaker stuff. Another is look at every spell, ability and see what fits our play still. You can hamper enemies forcing them to move with grease, fog, darkness spells, put them to sleep with sleep spells, make them inable to act with hold person etc.

Then their is action economy, are you doing damage/hindering enemies every round, if they same to be hitting you more often try getting different armor, or using armor spells, or bless, and bane.

With Shadowheart and her always breaking concentration keep her way back, or hidden. I swear something sneezes six states away she loses focus.

Always have a good mix of classes, and damage types (melee, ranged) for those without spells, or even shadowheart her cantrip abilities are easilly shrugged off. classes: fighter, rogue, cleric and magic user. Warlocks have a great cantrip they can couple with hex to do serious burst damage. Wizards are more flexible.

Keep your cleric alive (unless she's out of spells) If you fall below half hp pop a health potion. keep Shadowhearts cure wounds handy for those that do fall. DONT use healing word unless you have no way of getting to downed party member. Healing words healing isn't all that great, though it's more flexible do to range.

Rest/heal after fights, need to top off or nearly top off.


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Originally Posted by Languid Lizard
I need some help. All the monsters are a bit too dangerous. There seems to be no easy way on any encounter. Even if we see the monsters before they see us, they can implement plans and tactics to defeat us like taking high ground and so forth.

What are the main tactics to use in combat, other than a tank to soak up damage, and ranged units behind and everybody focusing fire on individuals to destroy them one at a time?



Okay, there are no tanks in DnD.

The main issue is coordination of effort. Work to figure out who the "main" bad guys are; as sometimes killing the boss makes the underlings run.

Yes, you are right, concentrate fire - fewer enemies mean fewer attacks.

Between turns it never hurts to try to hide; it usually doesn't work, but sometimes it does!

Be careful of getting in each other's way; try to plan ahead. Also it doesn't hurt to scan around, look and see if there are other enemies that might join in.

Anyone who can use a distance weapon should get one; doesn't matter if they suck at it - sometimes one "1 hp" attack makes all the difference.

Early on:
Bless
Cast things to screw up the terrain (grease, fire, acid)
Armor/protection spells

Heal early and often - spend some time getting a feel for when folks are "in danger" (I start looking/planning for heals if someone gets below 10).

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Originally Posted by Nimue_de
Just be wary of friendly fire, you can kill your companions by accident.


Yup... first playthrough I thought to shoot an arrow at the hanging red blobs in the ship. One exploded, landed on a brain pod (of some kind, not sure exactly what it was) which exploded. Fire everywhere.

"Your party has been defeated"

Reload from save....

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Originally Posted by Newtinmpls
Originally Posted by Languid Lizard
I need some help. All the monsters are a bit too dangerous. There seems to be no easy way on any encounter. Even if we see the monsters before they see us, they can implement plans and tactics to defeat us like taking high ground and so forth.

What are the main tactics to use in combat, other than a tank to soak up damage, and ranged units behind and everybody focusing fire on individuals to destroy them one at a time?



Okay, there are no tanks in DnD.

The main issue is coordination of effort. Work to figure out who the "main" bad guys are; as sometimes killing the boss makes the underlings run.

Yes, you are right, concentrate fire - fewer enemies mean fewer attacks.

Between turns it never hurts to try to hide; it usually doesn't work, but sometimes it does!

Be careful of getting in each other's way; try to plan ahead. Also it doesn't hurt to scan around, look and see if there are other enemies that might join in.

Anyone who can use a distance weapon should get one; doesn't matter if they suck at it - sometimes one "1 hp" attack makes all the difference.

Early on:
Bless
Cast things to screw up the terrain (grease, fire, acid)
Armor/protection spells

Heal early and often - spend some time getting a feel for when folks are "in danger" (I start looking/planning for heals if someone gets below 10).


there are to tanks in dnd!!! just saying carrying on lovelies

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