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Topic Summary

Posted by: Black Robed One
« on: April 04, 2007, 02:21:15 AM »

Thanks to everyone for their advises!

I managed to get past these Fire Giants and two more groups of 5+ Fire Giants, though not without difficulties (but then again, that’s the point of “tougher”/“improved” mods), and on the easiest difficulty setting, I am ashamed to admit (but I don’t feel like setting difficulty back to “Core Rules” until I get past Improved Yaga-Shura).
Posted by: rinky
« on: April 03, 2007, 07:31:45 PM »

If you have Imoen as a 17th level mage then you can probably breeze through the whole thing with her solo.

Spell immunity evocation means no fireballs or firestorms will hit her.

Improved mantle means no weapons will hit her

Chain contingency (Abi-HW x3) on nearest or last hit will knock the stuffing out of all of them prob killing the non elite giants, then fire at then whatever you have left, Abi-HW's chain lightnings, FingOD, Maze a couple and send in the fighting troops to hack out one or two on their own.

Just as you wouldn't send a solo mage to fight magic resistant monks, you wouldn't send you're fighters in to attack fire giants, there just not suited for it
Posted by: Elfen Lied
« on: April 03, 2007, 02:37:56 PM »

Quote
but it doesn’t stop us from getting slaughtered in a matter of seconds the moment we enter Fire Giants Stronghold and get attacked by five or so Fire Giants.

yeh these are really the only ones i struggled with. they pound you pretty hard, and they cast fireball. ive only beaten them once. i just unistalled that part of Tactics, i get my ass handed to me, i like a challenge, but a challenge i can do.
Posted by: DavidW
« on: April 03, 2007, 01:57:26 PM »

We (my wife and I) have beaten it on Core difficulty, though it took three or four goes and I think our party was one or two levels higher than yours.

Some advice:
- you have to gang up on them. They regenerate scarily quickly, and do a lot of damage, and most disastrously, their attacks lower your fire resistance, so you've got to arrange things so most of you are attacking one or two while the rest are being held off somehow.
- possible ways of holding them off: they're fairly ineffective at killing Mordenkainen's Swords. (They will eventually, because they'll lower their fire resistance and then torch them, but it takes a while. Their physical attacks can't do much to someone protected from magic weapons - I had a fighter/mage, which you don't, but a boosted Aerie could at least hold them off.
- You need to start the battle as protected from fire as you can possibly manage - get everyone up to 125%+ fire resistance. It's true that they'll break through it eventually, but it takes time.
- look for ways to protect people from their fire attacks other than fire resistance. For instance, fireball doesn't penetrate Minor Globe of Invulnerability; magic resistance protects you from pretty much everything. Neither of those defences can be brought down by the giants.
- Slow is effective both at reducing their mobility and at halving their regeneration rate. Use several to be sure, possibly combined with Malison.
- The giants don't have any magic resistance other than their fire resistance. Horrid Wilting works particularly well on them.
- use sequencers, spell triggers and chain contingencies to hit them hard right at the start. You're not quite high enough level for a chain contingency, which is a shame - we had a CC containing three Mordenkainen's Swords, spell triggers containing two slows and a Malison, that sort of thing.
- it should go without saying, but make sure you're absolutely as protected as you can manage with pre-battle spells before you go in. A rough rule of thumb by TOB is: if there's still room on your character's portrait for more icons, you haven't cast enough pre-battle magic.

If you do want to uninstall, incidentally, I'm reasonably certain it won't have any serious effect on your install.
Posted by: Black Robed One
« on: April 03, 2007, 07:25:37 AM »

In my most recent re-installation I decided to install Tougher Fire Giants component from Tactics Mod, and was immediately (and not all that pleasantly) surprised at how powerful Fire Giants have become. I still managed to make my way through Marching Mountains well enough, thanks to Imoen-chan and get Fingers of Death, but Fire Giants Stronghold was a very brutal stop.

My party consists of: me (22nd level Fighter/15th level Swashbuckler), Aerie (17th level Cleric/15th level Mage), Imoen (17th level Mage/7th level Thief), Minsc (20th level Ranger), Valygar (20th level Stalker) and Mazzy (23rd level Fighter). We are of well above average level for that area, I believe, but it doesn’t stop us from getting slaughtered in a matter of seconds the moment we enter Fire Giants Stronghold and get attacked by five or so Fire Giants.

I am not really sure what “tactics” I am supposed to employ, when my characters (including the four fighters, each of whom has 120+ hit points) fall like grass before a scythe, and mages can’t cast a single spell under the bombardment of Fireballs (not that it’d make any difference if they’d manage to cast a spell or two before my main character falls).

Now a question…

Did anyone manage to make it through Fire Giants Stronghold with Tougher Fire Giants component installed? If you did, what tactics did you employ?

I have half a mind uninstalling Tougher Fire Giants component, and would have probably done so, if I wasn’t unsure how it will affect the components/mods I installed after it…

P.S.

Now I remembered that I had only tried to beat Fire Giants in their stronghold on “Core Rules” difficulty setting (the one I always play). But I am not sure if changing the difficulty setting to the easiest will make much of a difference… 50% less damage will only mean that my characters will get slaughtered in 10 seconds instead of 5…