Help with Druid Grove Rakshasa's

[MrHell]

The only effective tactic I've come up with is to duck in and out of the cottage untill they have wasted all their spells and then melee/breach my way through their stoneskins (I loathe that spell). That seems a bit cheasy though.

 

None of my guys have spells over level 5.

 

Any tips? Or should I just go and do some other quests for a while and return when I can cast some more powerfull spells?

[Jarno Mikkola]

None of my guys have spells over level 5.

 

Any tips? Or should I just go and do some other quests for a while and return when I can cast some more powerfull spells?

Get a lot more experience, as Rakshasa's should be immune to spells upto level 7. The Breach is the only spell that works cause it's made to work against these, by a mod component.

 

Of couse somebody would arque that the Rakshasa shouldn't use 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 level spells on them selves cause they are immune to their effects, but that's another story.

[Demivrgvs]

None of my guys have spells over level 5.

 

Any tips? Or should I just go and do some other quests for a while and return when I can cast some more powerfull spells?

Get a lot more experience, as Rakshasa's should be immune to spells upto level 7. The Breach is the only spell that works cause it's made to work against these, by a mod component.

Yeah, ducking in and out to make them waste their spells is clearly cheating. I think you have to be much higher in level as Jarno says, though an Inquisitor may be able to handle them more easily, or you may try to exponentially buff a single warrior to make him "absorb" almost all the damaging and disabling spells cast by the rakshasas.

 

 

Of couse somebody would arque that the Rakshasa shouldn't use 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 level spells on them selves cause they are immune to their effects, but that's another story.

Actually they are immune to 7th lvl spells too.

 

Anyway I don't agree with you. Such feature is a souped-up resistance, much like a permanent uber-powerful Globe of Invulnerability. Later editions replaced such feature (which I dislike with all my heart) with a much more easier to handle uber-high magic resistance (within BG it would be something like 75% magic resistance).

[Jarno Mikkola]

Of couse somebody would arque that the Rakshasa shouldn't use 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 level spells on themselves cause they are immune to their effects, but that's another story.

Anyway I don't agree with you. Such feature is a souped-up resistance, much like a permanent uber-powerful Globe of Invulnerability. Later editions replaced such feature (which I dislike with all my heart) with a much more easier to handle uber-high magic resistance.

Well, easier and easier... the Demi-Lich didn't use any protection spells... why?(unrelated to your user name) It didn't need to, cause it was immune to every spell there was (except the HLA's that came in ToB, not in SoA)and so also 'immune' to all the protective spells too, in theory at least. Or did you actually see one casting PfMW, and thus making itself immune to everything? No. That was because it would have made the Demi-Lich impossible to kill, even with the spellstrike!

That's the reason why it was always casting just the Impisonment spell. --And no, that actually has no much to do with the original subject of the thread... but still, I'll put it out there.

[the bigg]

Strangely, I'm a crap player but I've always found raksashas to be easy even at low levels - they should fall somewhat easily to melee-heavy parties. Buff up with damage-dealing summons (W4 Spiders, D6 Fire Elementals, or Spirit Animals), C4 Protection from Evil in 10' Radius and W3 Haste, then cast multiple W3 Remove Magic to remove their protections (they aren't immune to that spell even if it's 3rd level) and C3 Zone of Sweet Air to remove cloud attacks.

[Demivrgvs]

Well, easier and easier... the Demi-Lich didn't use any protection spells... why?(unrelated to your user name) It didn't need to, cause it was immune to every spell there was (except the HLA's that came in ToB, not in SoA)and so also 'immune' to all the protective spells too, in theory at least. Or did you actually see one casting PfMW, and thus making itself immune to everything? No. That was because it would have made the Demi-Lich impossible to kill, even with the spellstrike!

That's the reason why it was always casting just the Impisonment spell. --And no, that actually has no much to do with the original subject of the thread... but still, I'll put it out there.

Actually they didn't cast spells because they were badly implemented imo. I cannot find their 2nd edition template right now, but I'm pretty sure they were almost like this.

 

P.S SCS now allows them to cast spells, and I'm eager to try them out.

 

 

Strangely, I'm a crap player but I've always found raksashas to be easy even at low levels - they should fall somewhat easily to melee-heavy parties. Buff up with damage-dealing summons (W4 Spiders, D6 Fire Elementals, or Spirit Animals), C4 Protection from Evil in 10' Radius and W3 Haste, then cast multiple W3 Remove Magic to remove their protections (they aren't immune to that spell even if it's 3rd level) and C3 Zone of Sweet Air to remove cloud attacks.

Yep, Rakshasas are indeed much more easy to handle with 2-3 tanks instead of mages, but while vanilla's rakshasas were a piece of cake (horrible spell selection) recent versions of SCS have made them much more tough (their natural immunities combined with PfMW and Stoneskin make them almost untouchable).

[PetrusOctavianus]

Isn't the easiest way to kill a Rakshasha to use a Blessed Crossbow Bolt?

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well, easier and easier... the Demi-Lich didn't use any protection spells... why?(unrelated to your user name) It didn't need to, cause it was immune to every spell there was (except the HLA's that came in ToB, not in SoA)and so also 'immune' to all the protective spells too, in theory at least. Or did you actually see one casting PfMW, and thus making itself immune to everything? No. That was because it would have made the Demi-Lich impossible to kill, even with the Spellstrike!

That's the reason why it was always casting just the Imprisonment spell. --And no, that actually has no much to do with the original subject of the thread... but still, I'll put it out there.

Actually they didn't cast spells because they were badly implemented imo.

Badly implemented... how would you have done them then?

 

I cannot find their 2nd edition template right now, but I'm pretty sure they were almost like this.

 

P.S SCS now allows them to cast spells, and I'm eager to try them out.

Eager to die? There is a good reason why the Demi-Lich is only able to cast only the two spells:

1) If he would be able to cast any protective spells, he becomes immune to everything with PfMW spell until they'll all run out, and as he is immune to the Spellstrike... make your own mind(as its only 9th level spell).

2) The spells that work on D&D against the Demi-Lich... well, let me quote the link you provide:

A demilich’s natural weapons are treated as epic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.=A few very powerful monsters are vulnerable only to epic weapons; that is, magic weapons with at least a +6 enhancement bonus. Such creatures’ natural weapons are also treated as epic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Spells

The demilich can cast any spells it could cast as a lich. This sample demilich was a 21st-level wizard (spells per day: 4/12/8/7/7/7/7/6/6/3). The last three spell slots are 10th-level slots and available for 0-9th level metamagic spells.

Magic Immunity (Ex)

Demiliches are immune to all magical and supernatural effects, except as follows. A shatter spell affects a demilich as if it were a crystalline creature, but deals half the damage normally indicated. A dispel evil spell deals 3d6 points of damage (Fort save for half damage). Holy smite spells affect demiliches normally.

Immunities (Ex)

Demiliches are immune to cold, electricity, polymorph, and mind-affecting attacks.

Those can be interpreted in many ways. He can be immune to all spells, most of them like in BG2(not the HLA's), but the problem comes from the three spells that in D&D are supposed to be able to danish the Demi-Lich. We don't have the Shatter, nor the Dispel Evil spells, and the Holy Smite is 3th level Divine spell that not every Divine caster gets.

Of course the +6 epic weapons vulnerability can be seen as an obstacle, but I do think the +5 weapons should be epic enough for within the rules of the game(let's remember we are talking about the SoA portion of the game)...

Or then I'll just remake my all weapons to be epic, and able to pass the PfMW(the +0 weapons as well).

[Demivrgvs]

Demiliches

I fear we're going a lot off-topic thus I'll try to be short.

 

Badly implemented...how would you have done them then?

As similar to PnP as possible, and probably that means like David did for SCS.

 

Regarding Spellstrike not affecting them I agree it would make them almost-invincible (I don't know how David handle this matter), but I actually think all 'spell protection removals' like Pierce Magic should be able to work against them. Those spell don't directly "attack/affect" the target, they only affect the spell protections (e.g. Globes of Invulnerability) which surround/protect such creature.

 

P.S If you play with SR v3 Spellstrike is able to affect Demiliches.

 

Those can be interpreted in many ways. He can be immune to all spells, most of them like in BG2(not the HLA's), but the problem comes from the three spells that in D&D are supposed to be able to danish the Demi-Lich. We don't have the Shatter, nor the Dispel Evil spells, and the Holy Smite is 3th level Divine spell that not every Divine caster gets.

You do have a point here, though SR may partially make up to this (only marginally though).

 

Of course the +6 epic weapons vulnerability can be seen as an obstacle, but I do think the +5 weapons should be epic enough for within the rules of the game(let's remember we are talking about the SoA portion of the game)...

Or then I'll just remake my all weapons to be epic, and able to pass the PfMW(the +0 weapons as well).

PnP Demiliches are not immune to low enchanted weapons, they are uber-resistant to them (within BG it would be something like 80% physical resistance), and blunt/epic weapons completely ignore such resistance.

 

How BG and old editions handle this (complete immunity to x enchantment level) is very stupid imo (and the same is valid for other cases such as golems), but keeping this feature as per vanilla wouldn't ruin anything.

[DavidW]

As a point of interest, 2nd edition demiliches are nothing like 3rd edition ones. The BG2 vanilla demiliches are reasonably good implementations of the 2nd edition demilich. My feeling, after a bit of thought, was that it wasn't going to be possible to come up with a sufficiently interesting SCS version of the 2nd edition one, hence I used 3rd edition. (I don't massively care about source faithfulness, but other things being equal I try to stay accurate to 2nd edition. This was a case where other things weren't equal.)