Game balance good.... Then came the Galeb Duhr... (SPOILER)

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This game is superb concerning game balance... at least until now that it draws towards the end.
I've had challenging fights all the way at times, but through experience (I've played all IE games and NWN) and some luck I've prevailed.
Not even the fight with Hedrack I would say was hard - why, I beat him the round after Iuz and St. Cuthbert went to settle their own differences.
I had a hard time defeating the Hezrou until I started using Stoneskin on the fighters, then he was challenging, but not impossible to overcome.
But yesterday I encountered some geezers of stone, called Galeb Duhr.
Not even the Hezrou was worse than they are. I mean, I have a 10th level Paladin that hits them EVERY time he strikes, but does no damage??
They have DR 15/--, which means they are virtually not possible to kill with physical attacks. Further on, they have SR 15, which means you must have some 300 Magic Missiles, Fireballs etc. prepared to kill off the some 10 of them....!
What gives? I really don't believe any creature has DR 15/--. That means they'll generally ignore being hit by a weapon +5! This is a bug, right?
Does anyone know if this has been corrected to DR 15/+1 as I suspect it should be in the fan fixes?

[ February 02, 2005, 10:37: Message edited by: fkirenicus ]

 

I would just recommend skipping the Galeb Duhr, I've never been able to beat them in my runs through this game. I've even beaten the Balor, but not them. My advice would simply be to skip to the Demon Lord of the Earth Node and get his gem in the Golden Skull. Perhaps using him and the Hezrou to clear the Galeb Duhr is a viable idea?

 

Yeah, they have spell resistance but I play with the fan patches. Level 13 wizards with spell penetration have no problem getting rid of them with fireballs. It doesn't help they have an AC of 28 so using power attack to up damage means you hit less probably unless you use buffing spells for your AB etc. What does help is that not all the galeb duhr come at you right away.

If your wizard has intiative, you can move the targetting cursor around the map to see where most of the galeb duhrs are and throw a fireball their way. They probably took 35 to 50 damage each when I did that. By the end of that turn, only 3 galeb duhrs made it to the party's fighters. The rest were fireballed by the PC wizard and Spugnoir. Grease helped to trip them up as well.

 

You need lots of fireballs and magic missiles (2 sorceres would help). Try not to take them all on at once but only 3-4 at a time. Heal up and go back! Prince Thrommel with Bulls strength can hit them and do damage to them every time. So also use haste to increase the number of attacks.
Lightning ball is also great often doing 25-30 hp in damage on average and you should be able to get to an angle where you can hit 3-4 of them every time

 

My fighter with a +8 power attack and Scather was able to take them down quite easily.

 

I've found a combination of web and cone of cold barrage does the trick. I think the idea is if you go in with a wizard of sufficient spell prowess (L10 + spell penetration) he can bring them down to size and let the fighters take care of the stragglers. Their freedom of movement rings are a great combo with web.

Side question - does a webbed creature lose AC points? It looks like they do.

I've actually found that defeating them is quite a fun exercise of the strategy aspects of D&D.

 

Ah well....


You should makesure to enchant your weapons.
Both cleric an wizard enhancements.

Important things:

Keen
Cold damge
Elergy amage

Fill the rest of the "slots" as you prefer.

By the time you reach that portion of the game, you should be able to maul everything without trouble, since your weapons are dealing insane amounts of elemental damage.


The reason you fail to beat these critters is not bad balancing: its the lack of preparation.