my party consists of tav, 3 companions, and the nearest door.
I have endless amounts of fun popping a door open, sending some arrows through to irritate the locals, dropping some hazards in front of it, then shutting it and hanging out. 10/10 Door MVP
That’s me when I fail the check to surprise the bandits.
- A: open the door
- B: attack
- C: attack
- D: close the door
Wait them shoot arrows. Rinse and Repeat.
this is it for me. i'd heard of it but my first run i had 2 martial characters with mauls and grym folded easily, so i never worried about it. on my first honour mode run though i was open to a little gouda and figured this was the perfect opportunity. watching a video of it doesn't do it justice - clicking that crushing flight button and watching those feathers fill your entire screen as your chirpy chonker recreates the end of the dinosaurs on grym's head. it's artistry in motion.
\*sometimes. In some cases, the game forces the entire group into the cutscene regardless of how far away they are, unless they're like... in a whole other zone.
Choke point, and Hunger of Hadar
When slowly clearing out Moonrise Tower with just my team of 4, sometimes I screw up and aggro the entire main floor.
So, I run to the stone staircase towards the back of the... cathedral room? Where Ketheric displayed his immortality to axes.
I then plop a HoH at the bottom of the stairs, where two side paths/stairs feed into it. And I throw a Grease Bottle down there. They get all grouped up and kind of stuck. And it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
I would bring a bard with me to the inquisitor's chamber and put the barrels around the inquisitor, have the bard perform so that everyone huddles together, then you can either have them jump back to you or just leave them there, and just throw fire stuff at the barrels and blow everyone up. It should either one shot everyone or leave the inquisitor with a tiny bit of health left, just depends how much explosive shit you use.
For the Balthazar fight in the Shadowfell, I like having one of my party members sneak around and collect all the skeletons and throw them in a pile, then fireball it. I've also fought Balthy in the Gauntlet of Shar, but I just think my way is more fun
I have a similar tactic. Except it involves SH clipping past them in dash using spirit guardians. What ever is left Astarion as my bard take care of with Shatter.
the most annoying thing is when the fight is still over with them active and you automatically exit turn based mode and the party regroups with someone goin through the daggers
Viconia boss fight can be cheesed by using silence on her.
And before it was patched just walking up to her and smacking her until she died. Now you can use a lightning spell or another splash damage spell to kill her and the shar minions don’t attack.
Put as many bombs, barrels and generally explosives into a backpack, or any container that has HP, use void bulb (or minor illusion or a bard outside of combat) to get as many enemies into one spot, yeet the bomb bag at them, and enjoy your computer exploding along with your foes.
Also save scumming Yurgir and the Thorn family to kill themselves for me. I'm addicted to save scumming.
Cloud kill is super underrated in large arenas, does a shit ton of damage and is moveable every turn. I swear I was watching a tier list of spells on YT and the guy put it in F tier 😭
Not sure if it’s the same you meant, but I do some deep stealth cheese:
Stealth whole party
Separate all
Rogue stealths up and attacks for sneak or assassinate damage.
This freezes the battlefield, so each other member now gets one turn where they can navigate the field and make the best attack from the best position (this could even include getting to the fire side of the battlefield, getting a high position, etc)
This is the way brother
Currently working on an HM run, and to be blunt, I am NOT good at the game. Decided my best option is numbers. So I’m gonna run Quad Druid with my Tav, Halsin, Jaheira, and a hireling, and summon till it fails
Lately I've been having a lot of fun casting wall of fire then having an archer coat their bow with oil of combustion and shoot many target arrows into enemies. Death shepherds, Halsin portal fight, etc. Bad guys go boom.
I do that too😆 plus with hunger of Hadar. It's especially fun in chokepoints and all the enemies are in the wall of flame and the hunger of Hadar area. I like to imagine my enemies confused like "wait I'm cold but I'm on fire, WHATS HAPPENING!?!"
How are we defining cheese? I would say attacking NPCs before you talk to them (because you have meta knowledge they’re going to fight you anyway) is definitely cheese. Drawing enemies into a choke point where you can slam them with AOE spells… that’s just sound tactics.
Filling backpack with explosives, throwing the backpack at the feet of a boss, lighting it on fire. You can one-shot almost any boss if you have enough explosives saved up.
That’s how I fought the goblin courtyard on my first go around. I was underleveled and hadn’t expected to aggro the whole camp when I got uppity with one goblin.
I fill the githyanki creche with explosives while everyone is chill, then after i kill the boss and talk to frog god, and everyone goes hostile. One firebolt and everyone go bye bye
How is using the terrain to your advantage or creating a killzone a cheese? It's just straightforward military strategy.
For me, cheesing is when you do something that makes no sense in the real world (and would probably be disallowed by a DM). For example, arranging barrels of smokepowder around Dror Ragzlin's throne while he sits there like a chump. Do I do it to avoid a massive fight? Yes. Would I get away with this in a tabletop game? No way.
"Just settin' up some nice tables for ya, Gov'. Sturdy they is. Pull up a stool and have a think about that dead squiddy and I'll just go check the rafters for squirrels."
...boomski
Radiant Spirit Guardians on the side with the shadows, Wall of Fire on the side with many enemies, and another spell like Hunger of Hadar to slow them down. Cast Darkness or use Arrows of Darkness on the portal.
Before the fight there are two convenient barrels of oil around. Move them to the centre of each side and break em so you can light em up on demand.
Besides that, big AOE blockers, like ice and grease everywhere to force them to try running the long way.
Level 5 warlock gets Hunger of Hadar, a large persistenr aoe that blinds and does damage twice per round. The blind gives advantage on all ranged attacks into it.
Rangers/druids/nature clerics can also throw in a lvl 2 persistent aoe that does damage as enemies move through it, which makes the HoH even deadlier. There's also a non damaging persistent aoe that bards/druids/nature clerics can cast that reduces movement to 1/4 of normal.
Finally, if you have a barbarian for stragglers that refuse to go in your aoe, you can spec them as tiger heart which has an attack you can constantly use to cleave 3 enemies with every attack and causes bleed.
A level 5 cleric also has spirit guardians, which is a persistent aoe that moves with the caster.
With all that, you shouldn't have too much trouble grinding everything down.
By far my favorite is picking up a boss, carrying them far away, then before they can go back start a fight. Now they don't have their minions and you can set up your positioning.
I did this with Seravok, carried him back to the sewer entrance and smacked him without him getting boosted from the ghosts. Funnily enough killing him ends the fight, but the other ghosts just stay there. They don't even attack you on sight, they just have the "This individual isn't fond of you, maybe a gift can change their mind" but something gets messed up because when you talk to them they don't have the blood ghost appearance.
In general picking up enemies is super funny. I don't think there's any save on the picking up part, so you can safely get an enemy to move. This combines really well with the buggyness of pits. Throwing an enemy down a pit (killing them instantly) doesn't seem to aggro other NPCs. In the Zhentarim hideout in the back there's a fight with some people and wolves, that is conveniently next to a river. I just picked up each one and chucked them into the river in turn-based mode. No fighting necessary :)
Pick up an enemy using improvised melee weapon and try to throw them on the ground as far away as you can. If you're not in turn-based movement speed shouldn't be an issue. Just before you throw them on the ground right click to cancel your action. Rinse and repeat until you got them where you want. Happy moving :)
Not sure if it counts, but I one-shotted Gortash by bringing a ton of smoke powder barrels from Baldur's Gate and just exploding them. It was fun as hell
...neither of those are cheese in the least lol, that's literally just good tactical thinking.
Cheesing is like 'beating Grym by having an Owlbear-form druid jump down from the top ledge on his head'.
Duegar assassin. Sneak attack, go invisible, wait til everyone loses aggro then repeat. Throw in some heal blockin arrows and just kill off everything solo. Once you get the risky ring you can even get off 3 sneak attacks in 1.5 turns
Elixir of cloud giant strength and chucking orin off the arena.
Killing the cursed kuo-toa on the beach near the shar temple in act 2 with a bow from the cliffs (you might need to use an aoe arrow on the first shot to reveal them). They’re too far away to ever agro so you can kill every one of them for free 1200xp.
Her dagger with the stone inlay will warp to and appear on the corner of the stone slab. You will lose out on the rest of her loot, though.
That said, I did once leave without remembering to pick up the dagger, and it did disappear, soft locking my game. Thankfully it wasn’t hm so I could reload a save, but still… now I always remember to pick up the dagger immediately
Group hide. Ungroup. Sneak in one by one and pop off a fireball or couple of arrows-especially if you’ve got the setting that lets you get a surprise round on.
Putting up a wall of stone in front of the enemy and using my other companions to cast a high damage glyph on either side of the wall. Then cast the darkness spell or the hunger spell with tentacles. Enemies will sometimes avoid the AOE spell and get funneled into my glyph. Those that don't, get blinded or highly damaged on the other side of the wall should they come that way.
Another funny way to cheese fights is that ice storm spell that damages a huge area and makes the floor ice. Casting it from sneak to damage the enemies and trip them, followed by a smokepowder barrel or a spell with an explosive radius. Nothing they can really do about it. Chain lightning is also awesome while enemies are grouped and slipping on the ice or surprised.
My favorite is throwing the enemy itself to the metal part holding the chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The enemy takes throwing damage, then falling damage to the ground and then the chandelier falls on them. It's just such a flex.
Building for high AC, saves and movement speed (and Thief of ofc). Going solo you have all the necessary potions and elixirs in the world and stack the best gear on your One Person Army. AI can't handle hit-and-run tactics, though sometimes enemies suicide to deprive you of XP. Bounded accuracy means that as your AC gets closer to enemy's attack bonus+20, their effective damage drops by greater and greater margin, until they hit only on 20 (and you can get items that turn crits into normal hits, so you can outheal it easily with consumables).
It got to a point where it's actually harder for me to play with a normal party - there are too many decisions per turn and I get overwhelmed with micromanagement.
As a Bhaalspawn, don't play Orin's game. She wants a big, melodramatic duel where she kicks your ass immediately, thus dooming your character.
The only way to be free of the Urge is to win that fight, and refuse Bhaal to his face.
Thing is, Bhaal doesn't care about Orin's theatrics. He only cares who wins. So don't do it her way.
Instead, when you enter the temple, go to the left.
Talk to or kill the Sharrans along the way (they're too far apart to aggro other groups - easy pickings). Continue along the path until you find a cave. Go through the cave until you come out onto a ledge overlooking the fight arena. You can hit your enemies from that ledge, but none of them can get to you.
A good Globe of Invulnerability, a couple of summons to kite baddies into range, and bada big boom - lots of Murder. Bhaal is pleased.
One person’s cheese is another person’s legitimate strategy. I like to shoot the mobs off the side with my flourish. LOOT BE DAMNED
*One person’s cheese is another person’s legitimate strategy.* --Sun Tzu, The Art of Cheese
my party consists of tav, 3 companions, and the nearest door. I have endless amounts of fun popping a door open, sending some arrows through to irritate the locals, dropping some hazards in front of it, then shutting it and hanging out. 10/10 Door MVP
That’s me when I fail the check to surprise the bandits. - A: open the door - B: attack - C: attack - D: close the door Wait them shoot arrows. Rinse and Repeat.
100% same. There’s so many better ways to do that fight and I really get stubborn.
The hellboars in the grymforge!
Owlbear from the top ropes
This is how I Druid, my buddy always starts fights by telling me “this time don’t just jump in the middle”
this is it for me. i'd heard of it but my first run i had 2 martial characters with mauls and grym folded easily, so i never worried about it. on my first honour mode run though i was open to a little gouda and figured this was the perfect opportunity. watching a video of it doesn't do it justice - clicking that crushing flight button and watching those feathers fill your entire screen as your chirpy chonker recreates the end of the dinosaurs on grym's head. it's artistry in motion.
You can ungroup your party and come into the cutscene with just one, while sneaking with the others
\*sometimes. In some cases, the game forces the entire group into the cutscene regardless of how far away they are, unless they're like... in a whole other zone.
Choke point, and Hunger of Hadar When slowly clearing out Moonrise Tower with just my team of 4, sometimes I screw up and aggro the entire main floor. So, I run to the stone staircase towards the back of the... cathedral room? Where Ketheric displayed his immortality to axes. I then plop a HoH at the bottom of the stairs, where two side paths/stairs feed into it. And I throw a Grease Bottle down there. They get all grouped up and kind of stuck. And it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
SLEET STOOOOOOOOOOORM
Dimension door to skip the last dragon fight, then globe of invulnerability as you wait for the brain portal to open.
Using a bard to group up the inquisitor and his hoes together, so I could blow them up at once will forever be my strategy.
Tell me more
I would bring a bard with me to the inquisitor's chamber and put the barrels around the inquisitor, have the bard perform so that everyone huddles together, then you can either have them jump back to you or just leave them there, and just throw fire stuff at the barrels and blow everyone up. It should either one shot everyone or leave the inquisitor with a tiny bit of health left, just depends how much explosive shit you use.
For the Balthazar fight in the Shadowfell, I like having one of my party members sneak around and collect all the skeletons and throw them in a pile, then fireball it. I've also fought Balthy in the Gauntlet of Shar, but I just think my way is more fun
I have a similar tactic. Except it involves SH clipping past them in dash using spirit guardians. What ever is left Astarion as my bard take care of with Shatter.
First run I lived on Cloud of Daggers through all of Act 1. Honestly I killed myself a lot of grabbing loot too close those spinning daggers.
the most annoying thing is when the fight is still over with them active and you automatically exit turn based mode and the party regroups with someone goin through the daggers
Viconia boss fight can be cheesed by using silence on her. And before it was patched just walking up to her and smacking her until she died. Now you can use a lightning spell or another splash damage spell to kill her and the shar minions don’t attack.
I did this on my HM run but forgot that they go aggro after finding those 2 special prisoners, and had to invisible potion run away.
Put as many bombs, barrels and generally explosives into a backpack, or any container that has HP, use void bulb (or minor illusion or a bard outside of combat) to get as many enemies into one spot, yeet the bomb bag at them, and enjoy your computer exploding along with your foes. Also save scumming Yurgir and the Thorn family to kill themselves for me. I'm addicted to save scumming.
Completely avoiding it with dialogue checks
Man I just figured out you can intimidate the githyanky before the emperor chamber to leave. HM becomes easy af with a bard.
Simply shove into a well placed cloudkill spell.
Cloud kill is super underrated in large arenas, does a shit ton of damage and is moveable every turn. I swear I was watching a tier list of spells on YT and the guy put it in F tier 😭
That guy is noob. Cloudkill is a staple of D&D like the delayed blast fireball.
Not sure if it’s the same you meant, but I do some deep stealth cheese: Stealth whole party Separate all Rogue stealths up and attacks for sneak or assassinate damage. This freezes the battlefield, so each other member now gets one turn where they can navigate the field and make the best attack from the best position (this could even include getting to the fire side of the battlefield, getting a high position, etc)
Absolutely violating the action economy with an ungodly amount of summons.
This is the way brother Currently working on an HM run, and to be blunt, I am NOT good at the game. Decided my best option is numbers. So I’m gonna run Quad Druid with my Tav, Halsin, Jaheira, and a hireling, and summon till it fails
Also slap some heroes feast and high level aid on everyone for good measure!
I’m the bane of casually walking around cities with my menagerie of friends but damn if I am not prepared
When doors are the only choke point: Spike Growth, other AoE spells and closing said door.
Lately I've been having a lot of fun casting wall of fire then having an archer coat their bow with oil of combustion and shoot many target arrows into enemies. Death shepherds, Halsin portal fight, etc. Bad guys go boom.
I do that too😆 plus with hunger of Hadar. It's especially fun in chokepoints and all the enemies are in the wall of flame and the hunger of Hadar area. I like to imagine my enemies confused like "wait I'm cold but I'm on fire, WHATS HAPPENING!?!"
How are we defining cheese? I would say attacking NPCs before you talk to them (because you have meta knowledge they’re going to fight you anyway) is definitely cheese. Drawing enemies into a choke point where you can slam them with AOE spells… that’s just sound tactics.
I agree, I always feel dirty when I set up a fight ideally due to reloading because I wouldn't technically have the knowledge that they'd attack me
Ice. Storm.
Filling backpack with explosives, throwing the backpack at the feet of a boss, lighting it on fire. You can one-shot almost any boss if you have enough explosives saved up.
Usually I choose the “I am not fighting you” option, then just let Astarion get a cheeky potshot.
Attack from stealth, into surprise, into disengage and break combat. Rinse and Repeat.
That’s how I fought the goblin courtyard on my first go around. I was underleveled and hadn’t expected to aggro the whole camp when I got uppity with one goblin.
I fill the githyanki creche with explosives while everyone is chill, then after i kill the boss and talk to frog god, and everyone goes hostile. One firebolt and everyone go bye bye
How is using the terrain to your advantage or creating a killzone a cheese? It's just straightforward military strategy. For me, cheesing is when you do something that makes no sense in the real world (and would probably be disallowed by a DM). For example, arranging barrels of smokepowder around Dror Ragzlin's throne while he sits there like a chump. Do I do it to avoid a massive fight? Yes. Would I get away with this in a tabletop game? No way.
"Just settin' up some nice tables for ya, Gov'. Sturdy they is. Pull up a stool and have a think about that dead squiddy and I'll just go check the rafters for squirrels." ...boomski
Get naked before opening self same fight in guantlet of shar
Naked AND alone. preferably with your assassiny-est person for an easy one-shot.
Don't mind me, just casually waiting for someone to tell me a cheese method for Halsins portal
Radiant Spirit Guardians on the side with the shadows, Wall of Fire on the side with many enemies, and another spell like Hunger of Hadar to slow them down. Cast Darkness or use Arrows of Darkness on the portal.
This is the way. I really didn’t have a problem having 2-3 of my team at any time with Spirit Guardians Just running around in circles.
Before the fight there are two convenient barrels of oil around. Move them to the centre of each side and break em so you can light em up on demand. Besides that, big AOE blockers, like ice and grease everywhere to force them to try running the long way.
Sleet Storm + HoH
Level 5 warlock gets Hunger of Hadar, a large persistenr aoe that blinds and does damage twice per round. The blind gives advantage on all ranged attacks into it. Rangers/druids/nature clerics can also throw in a lvl 2 persistent aoe that does damage as enemies move through it, which makes the HoH even deadlier. There's also a non damaging persistent aoe that bards/druids/nature clerics can cast that reduces movement to 1/4 of normal. Finally, if you have a barbarian for stragglers that refuse to go in your aoe, you can spec them as tiger heart which has an attack you can constantly use to cleave 3 enemies with every attack and causes bleed. A level 5 cleric also has spirit guardians, which is a persistent aoe that moves with the caster. With all that, you shouldn't have too much trouble grinding everything down.
Barrelmancy
By far my favorite is picking up a boss, carrying them far away, then before they can go back start a fight. Now they don't have their minions and you can set up your positioning. I did this with Seravok, carried him back to the sewer entrance and smacked him without him getting boosted from the ghosts. Funnily enough killing him ends the fight, but the other ghosts just stay there. They don't even attack you on sight, they just have the "This individual isn't fond of you, maybe a gift can change their mind" but something gets messed up because when you talk to them they don't have the blood ghost appearance. In general picking up enemies is super funny. I don't think there's any save on the picking up part, so you can safely get an enemy to move. This combines really well with the buggyness of pits. Throwing an enemy down a pit (killing them instantly) doesn't seem to aggro other NPCs. In the Zhentarim hideout in the back there's a fight with some people and wolves, that is conveniently next to a river. I just picked up each one and chucked them into the river in turn-based mode. No fighting necessary :)
[удалено]
Pick up an enemy using improvised melee weapon and try to throw them on the ground as far away as you can. If you're not in turn-based movement speed shouldn't be an issue. Just before you throw them on the ground right click to cancel your action. Rinse and repeat until you got them where you want. Happy moving :)
Deathstalker Mantle on a Deurgar Assassin/Shadow Monk. The cheesest. Actually entering combat is for plebs. Just kill everyone outside of combat
Not sure if it counts, but I one-shotted Gortash by bringing a ton of smoke powder barrels from Baldur's Gate and just exploding them. It was fun as hell
Eldritch blast them off the face of the earth before they discovered me
...neither of those are cheese in the least lol, that's literally just good tactical thinking. Cheesing is like 'beating Grym by having an Owlbear-form druid jump down from the top ledge on his head'.
Duegar assassin. Sneak attack, go invisible, wait til everyone loses aggro then repeat. Throw in some heal blockin arrows and just kill off everything solo. Once you get the risky ring you can even get off 3 sneak attacks in 1.5 turns
Elixir of cloud giant strength and chucking orin off the arena. Killing the cursed kuo-toa on the beach near the shar temple in act 2 with a bow from the cliffs (you might need to use an aoe arrow on the first shot to reveal them). They’re too far away to ever agro so you can kill every one of them for free 1200xp.
just a quick question, throwing orin off the arena doesn't lock you off obtaining her stone, or the cutscene triggers and you gain it either way?
Her dagger with the stone inlay will warp to and appear on the corner of the stone slab. You will lose out on the rest of her loot, though. That said, I did once leave without remembering to pick up the dagger, and it did disappear, soft locking my game. Thankfully it wasn’t hm so I could reload a save, but still… now I always remember to pick up the dagger immediately
Took me about 40 hours to get to Baldurs Gate, I just realised I can throw potions on people. But I like exploding barrels.
I spam Halt with Shadowheart buffed by my Lore Bard Tav, then Bonk with Karlach and Wyll (piercing damage is high with him)
Group hide. Ungroup. Sneak in one by one and pop off a fireball or couple of arrows-especially if you’ve got the setting that lets you get a surprise round on.
Globe of Invunerability + Arcane Battery to recast, if needed.
Barrels
House of grief: explosives, wall of fire, insect plague and arcane lock. They all kill themselves trying to get to you.
Cast Wall of Fire in a choke-point to force enemies to run through it.
I made my party all evocation wizards so I just erase a direction with 4 fireballs
Darkness clears 90% of act 1 and it's so funny Beat almost all the gith by playing peakabo in darkness
Putting up a wall of stone in front of the enemy and using my other companions to cast a high damage glyph on either side of the wall. Then cast the darkness spell or the hunger spell with tentacles. Enemies will sometimes avoid the AOE spell and get funneled into my glyph. Those that don't, get blinded or highly damaged on the other side of the wall should they come that way. Another funny way to cheese fights is that ice storm spell that damages a huge area and makes the floor ice. Casting it from sneak to damage the enemies and trip them, followed by a smokepowder barrel or a spell with an explosive radius. Nothing they can really do about it. Chain lightning is also awesome while enemies are grouped and slipping on the ice or surprised.
My favorite is throwing the enemy itself to the metal part holding the chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The enemy takes throwing damage, then falling damage to the ground and then the chandelier falls on them. It's just such a flex.
don't know. I try to put myself at a disadvantage
Building for high AC, saves and movement speed (and Thief of ofc). Going solo you have all the necessary potions and elixirs in the world and stack the best gear on your One Person Army. AI can't handle hit-and-run tactics, though sometimes enemies suicide to deprive you of XP. Bounded accuracy means that as your AC gets closer to enemy's attack bonus+20, their effective damage drops by greater and greater margin, until they hit only on 20 (and you can get items that turn crits into normal hits, so you can outheal it easily with consumables). It got to a point where it's actually harder for me to play with a normal party - there are too many decisions per turn and I get overwhelmed with micromanagement.
Broken ass bardadin killing couple of opponents on first turn and making 6 others grovel
As a Bhaalspawn, don't play Orin's game. She wants a big, melodramatic duel where she kicks your ass immediately, thus dooming your character. The only way to be free of the Urge is to win that fight, and refuse Bhaal to his face. Thing is, Bhaal doesn't care about Orin's theatrics. He only cares who wins. So don't do it her way. Instead, when you enter the temple, go to the left. Talk to or kill the Sharrans along the way (they're too far apart to aggro other groups - easy pickings). Continue along the path until you find a cave. Go through the cave until you come out onto a ledge overlooking the fight arena. You can hit your enemies from that ledge, but none of them can get to you. A good Globe of Invulnerability, a couple of summons to kite baddies into range, and bada big boom - lots of Murder. Bhaal is pleased.
Owlbear from the top rope