Any tips for hardest difficulty?

[AlphaWhelp]

For the most part, the normal difficulty gave me little trouble, so I turned it all the way up, had to fight a little harder and smarter, but for the most part I had no problems until I made it to the first nephilim boss under Silvar who is wrecking my face.

 

His poison spray or whatever does half my character's life in damage and then when their turn comes they take the other half of their life in poison damage over time and die. He also occasionally fireballs twice which nobody can survive. Should I just wander around outside Silvar and grind levels? This fight is brutal. Closest I got to killing him was about getting him down to approximately 15% of his life, then the tank died and he massacred the rest of my party.

[Mosquito---Slayer]

Firstly try to space your party apart so that the poison doesn't affect everyone.

Also you needn't talk to him, just attack him straightaway, which will give you an extra turn.

Try to daze the worms he calls.

Also use your own summoning spells and buffs before the fight for sure.

*If you still can't beat him then you are a bit lower in level then you should be, In that case maybe you should first attempt the comparatively easier Fort Duvno quests.

[Lilith]

Yeah, that poison spell is a killer in the early game, and makes some of the early boss fights on Torment pretty awful. Work around it as best you can, and maybe clear out a dungeon elsewhere to gain a level or two, but if you find yourself dying to That Damn Spell a lot it's not necessarily because you're doing anything wrong. Once you hit level 10 or so, things start getting easier, although you still can't just frolic across all of Avernum without fear.

[Jerakeen]

I'm a little late to this discussion, but I'll add that you probably want to be level 4 for this fight on Torment.

 

Follow Mosquito Slayer's advice, and have whichever character can hit Droknarr most reliably quaff a speed potion at the start of the fight. You shouldn't have too much trouble.

[AlphaWhelp]

Firstly try to space your party apart so that the poison doesn't affect everyone.

Also you needn't talk to him, just attack him straightaway, which will give you an extra turn.

Try to daze the worms he calls.

Also use your own summoning spells and buffs before the fight for sure.

*If you still can't beat him then you are a bit lower in level then you should be, In that case maybe you should first attempt the comparatively easier Fort Duvno quests.

 

Actually what I've been doing is initiating the conversation, choosing to immediately attack him, then run backwards behind the wall to where the grubs spawn, for some reason, he won't follow you. I kill all the grubs peacefully, then try to take him on solo with no grubs involved but his poison spell is just killer.

[Jerakeen]

What level are you? Are you able to spread the party out, preferably keeping your healer out of range? Do you have trouble hitting Droknarr?

[Mosquito---Slayer]

What level are you? Are you able to spread the party out, preferably keeping your healer out of range? Do you have trouble hitting Droknarr?

This.

Basically if you are still finding it hard, then either you lack levels or you have done some mistake with the party composition.

[AlphaWhelp]

What level are you? Are you able to spread the party out, preferably keeping your healer out of range? Do you have trouble hitting Droknarr?

 

Heh, I'm level 3. Maybe I should grind random encounters for a little bit?

[The Reverend]

Heh, I'm level 3. Maybe I should grind random encounters for a little bit?

On Torment? Yes, I think I was level 4 before I was able to handle that encounter on Torment, and even then I barely scrapped by. I think I used a wand as well to get some extra attacks in order to kill him quicker. Wands are actually useful early in the game, because their damage is comparable to the damage you can do (or even slightly better), but they use fewer action points so you can do a wand (or scroll), and then do your regular attack in the same round. Later in the game, though, all but the best wands pale in comparison to the damage you can do, so they aren't nearly as useful (except as items to sell in order to get more money for training or spells).

[Jerakeen]

You can get a big juicy bunch of XP from "Nephilim Encampment" (job board in Cotra), if you haven't done it yet. Choose the "warn them off" option. It's not worth waiting until you can fight them, because the XP reward will scale down with your level.

 

You can also pick up a boat while you're in Cotra and do "Message to Ft. Dranlon" (another job board item) for no risk.

 

"Brigand Extortion" from Jason in Ft. Duvno should present no great difficulty either. "Bat Swarms" (job board in Cotra) - just do the bats, the rats will probably kill you at this point.

 

Then there's the lone slith who wanders around the northern cave wall (only if you can survive the first hit), and a couple of bandit ambushes in that neighborhood.

 

Giant Lizards (Outdoor Encounter, watering hole) - A bit tricky but doable if you can get them to split their targets on the first round. If you don't have a high-Dex character, you probably want to leave this one for level 5 or so.

 

If you've done all that and you're still not level four, you can work at partially clearing a couple of other dungeons:

 

Goblin cave (northern cave wall) - This is the location of the Nephilim Problem quest, and you can clear most of the dungeon at level 3. You will almost certainly level up before reaching the boss fight, but if not, go do something else and come back at level 4.

 

Bandit fort (west of Ft. Duvno) - This is the location of the Bandit Irritation and Misplaced Knowledge quests, and again you probably can't finish them yet, but you can clear most of the map. Avoid the center-west room and the one immediately south of it.

[The Reverend]

Another tip is to head over to Fort Duvno and buy/improve some of your spells before attempting that fight. Getting Icy Rain up to level 2, for example, is nice because with the 15% bonus it gets at level 2 it can do a decent chunk of damage to Droknarr, plus hurt (or sometimes even one-shot kill) his summons. You can also buy Haste there, which is really helpful. For priests, you can buy call the storm, and improve smite to level 2 (gives a damage bonus). Another thought (that I haven't tried, but sounds interesting) would be to try buying a level of summon shade for your priest there - shades are fairly tough, especially relative to early game characters, and Droknarr may focus some of his spells on the shade rather than your characters.

[Jerakeen]

Another tip is to head over to Fort Duvno and buy/improve some of your spells before attempting that fight.

 

I think you mean Ft. Dranlon. And yes, any of those spells might be helpful if you can afford them, but Droknarr is perfectly beatable with the starting spells.

[The Reverend]

I think you mean Ft. Dranlon. And yes, any of those spells might be helpful if you can afford them, but Droknarr is perfectly beatable with the starting spells.

Oops, yes I do. I mix up all of the Fort D-somethings.

[Mosquito---Slayer]

Oops, yes I do. I mix up all of the Fort D-somethings.

At least you didn't say Draco.

[The Reverend]

At least you didn't say Draco.

I actually had to go look at the map to remember which one of the three that was - the three names are interchangeable in my head ... I also mix up Blosk and Bargha ...

 

Luckily I'm much better with real life places. I've never ended up going to Paris when I meant to go to Portland, or example. Although maybe that wouldn't be so bad ...

 

 

Edit: Nothing against Portland, it's a great city, as is Paris...

[Death Knight]

What I found helps in a party is that each character has a large quantity of potions that they can use regarding multiple circumstances. I find that if a fighter can heal instead of relying on the priest (who normally could blast with a aoe) it maximizes what you can do in the battle. Of course I play on normal so I don't know if that may help.

 

I think that when it comes down to curing an opponent with an assortment of statuses, its much better to just heal them to max hp.

[Arrhythmia]

Speaking of tips for Torment, I just started a new game on it after finishing up a normal run, and I was wondering how the endgame of Torment fared. I found it really easy on Normal, with two of the three final bosses being trivially easy, so I was hoping they ramp up.

[Lilith]

The final bosses are pretty challenging on Torment even with a well-designed party, especially if you restrict yourself from using invulnerability potions.