Your top three enemies faced in RPGs

[SwiftCrack]

After a second look I've realised that none of Wyrmlord's tactics for defeating Illithids are even possible at the start of BG2.

#1 Illithid Mind-flayers and Ulitharid in Baldur's Gate 2
There's no HP bloat or high attack damage in these creatures. They have but one strength. They take possession of the minds of your entire party, turn them against each other, and use psychic domination to attempt to kill you instantly. How do you kill something that takes control of other people's brains? By killing it with something that does not have a brain. Skeleton warriors and Mordekainen's sword must be summoned to confront them, since they can't be psychically possessed. Alternatively, you have to send an invisible party member to scout ahead, and then land a Death Fog on them in order to kill at least two of them. And then finish the rest of them off with an Invisible Stalker, since they are immune to offensive spells and physical damage.

Supposing that the moment you leave Irenicus' dungeon, you head straight for Firkraag's lair after getting the quest from the Copper Coronet. There, you take the sewer key from the Tazok guy from BG1. Once you are done with Firkraag's lair, you head back to the city and enter the temple sewers.

-Mordenkainen's sword is a 7th level spell that can only be found in Underdark.
-Skeleton warriors can only be summoned by a level 15 priest.
-Invisible stalker is a 6th level spell and there's only one scroll for it in Chapter 2, at Prebek's house
-Death fog is a level 6th spell and the only way to get it during Chapter 2 is to buy it at Trademeet

The route Wyrmlord allegedly took wouldn't have given him a chance to acquire any of those scrolls, except through random drop, but the odds of them all randomly dropping during Firkragg's dungeon are practically 0. He wouldn't even be able to memorize any of them in the first place, and summoning skeleton warriors is impossible for a low level cleric. If he somehow did obtain the needed scrolls through random drop he'd use them all up on the first group of Illithids he encountered anyway. So basically his tactics are impossible.

Been a long while since I played BG2, but can't Druids summon Fire Elementals pretty early on? And aren't they immune to mind control?

I seem to recall using them a lot in the early levels of BG2...

correct; Druids have the 6th level spell 'Conjure Fire Elemental'. Going by the BG2 ruleset this allows them to cast this spell at level 11 for the first time (iirc you start a BG2 druid at level 8 or 9).

 

[Johannes]

IIRC they are not immune to mental effects.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Lemme see...

1. Enclave Troopers. 200 hp, APA, ultra-advanced gun. I got rather frustrated in FO3 when I met those pathetic excuses of Enclave with their card-board Power Armor.

2. Bounty Hunters from FO2: If you kill a child or be too evil, prepare to be UTTERLY RAPED. Those fuckers ALWAYS have more numbers and ALWAYS come with better guns. They will rape you until the end-game, they appear cosntantly. They appear EVERYWHERE!! Fighting one of these and winning is goddly.


3.

Area-of-effect Mages in Dragon Age - It's not a hard game, not even when these guys are around, but nothing is more random and shitty than one of them blowing up an entire fucking room for no apparent reason and rolling the dice to see if it's your party that gets wiped or theirs.

Fuck those guys, like the Blood Mages in the Circle Tower, my main strategy against them is to freeze, stonefist and close in, or I get fireballed into oblivion. THey must have absurd spellpower because I don't remember my fireballs doing that level of damage so far. It would't be as bad if their costumary fireballs didn't thrown my entire party into the ground AND burning to death.


Honorable Mentions:

Navarro Plasma Turrets. There's only two counters against them: Staying the fuck away, or Tesla Armor. If they can hit you they can kill you, and they usually will unless you got, say, three levels of Lifegiver. Tesla Armor works, but I once got shredded by some recruit with a SMG. PHSIUM PHISUM PHISUM PHSIUM its like being on the wrong end of the Turbo Plasma Rifle in the first Fallout!

Those fucking Black Mountain Clan Stone Golems. Let's see... SWORDS, shit no weapon broken! Guns! Lol your guns suck and you just went outta ammo after firing more bullets at the golems than one day of production in a IMBEL ammo factory. Magic? Harm, Invisibility or quit! Those things are fucking annoying, and you can't avoid them.

 

[Johannes]

Those fucking Black Mountain Clan Stone Golems. Let's see... SWORDS, shit no weapon broken! Guns! Lol your guns suck and you just went outta ammo after firing more bullets at the golems than one day of production in a IMBEL ammo factory. Magic? Harm, Invisibility or quit! Those things are fucking annoying, and you can't avoid them.

But you can, just run past them.

 

[Tigranes]

Fallout had its share of enemies that punched hard but were either so HP-loaded or resistant that you were doing 6 damage a turn hoping like fuck for a critical. Low-level it was Wanamingos, higher level, with my preference for small guns, it was usually Floaters. At least Super Mutants could be consistently eyeballed.

BMC Stone Golems are terrible as well, my usual solution with tech characters is to do lots of sidequests and go in at least with a long range pistol, and then waste 30 bullets per golem in real-time. Costly, but least annoying.

Mindflayers in BG2, which I found a lot more difficult than beholders for some reason. With beholders, you know when the projectiles are coming in at least, and to whom - with midnflayers I always got confused, people would randomly get a little symbol on the portrait then either insta-die a few turns later.... or not. Because of the ambiguity of the generic mindflayer animation I found it way too hard to protect party members - which, in fact, is similar to the Aec'Letec chunkify-into-ghoul ability.

 

[Wyrmlord III]

I agree with Tigranes. There are no particularly interesting enemies in the Fallout games, since they were based mostly on HP bloat and resistance.

Fallout games are great, but they just don't compare to any D&D game in terms of encounter quality.

 

[bhlaab]

Any Dude With a Sword - Gothic 1 and 2. the combat in those games is so much fun.

Enclave Troops from the end of fallout 2 are really the only time in the series I've felt that aiming for anything besides the eyes or head was useful

 

[suejak]

Enclave Troops from the end of fallout 2 are really the only time in the series I've felt that aiming for anything besides the eyes or head was useful

So uh... what did you aim for?

 

[Captain Shrek]

My favorite enemy in an action RPG was the Orc leader from DMM&M. If you did not abuse the fire mechanics of the game, the fight could be tough and pretty amazingly "immersive" in the sense that you have to completely maintain concentration to keep yourself alive and him dead by the end.

 

[laclongquan]

Remnant of Master's Army as the most scary encounter. The problem is that the damn supermutant can get out a rocket before killed and therefore can blow to small chunk one unarmored companion (Marcus, Dogmeat, etc...).

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Enclave Troops from the end of fallout 2 are really the only time in the series I've felt that aiming for anything besides the eyes or head was useful

So uh... what did you aim for?

Yeah, wtf.

 

[Sabriana]

The most idiotic enemy I faced was the Arishok in DerpAge2. Hells Bells, my mage had no business even being allowed to agree to a duel.

All she did was run around and chip away at the health bloat of the dude. He simply ran after her, and she ran around in circles, chipping away at the bloat. No strategy, no special moves, nothing. Stupid, stupid, boring fight.

There's a youtube video floating around that has a mage running around and chipping away at the Arishok to the 'Benny Hill' theme. That's just about what my mage looked like. Stupid design.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

1.) Jellies and Slimes. I remember that green slimes can be harmed by fire and gelatinous cubes can be killed with regular weapons but are nearly invisible to the point you could walk into one. But after those two, I have trouble recalling all the things that harm the ochre jellies and yellow molds and so on and so forth. Oh and if one of these creatures makes contact with your character, you are going to have a hell of a time saving him? A green slime landed on your thief's head. Looks like the thief and companions are going to have to take their torches and apply flame to his scalp until the green slime and/or the thief is dead.

Oh god, you reminded me of one of the nastiest D&D monsters ever created, the Living Muck.

Here's a (updated to 3.5ed rules) ruleset for this abomination.

This thing fall on your thief's head? Your party is going to need a new thief. And some new weapons. Probably some new armour as well.

2.) Level draining undead. There's nothing worse than grinding hundreds of thousands of experience points to get to 12th level, just to face wraiths and such that can get a lucky attack in and drain a level or two off your character. Sure, if the character survives the attack he may still have his uber-powered equipment, but he still been reduced to level 1 and has to somehow make it out of the haunted castle and back to friendly territory.

The only (video) games that handle level draining properly, are the ones that skip it. That's how much I loathe the concept.

In D&D territory, I once encountered an 35 XP monster that wiped out my party because we couldn't look up. It was some kind of fungus with an eyeball that instantly stole any memorized spells from people it "saw", and allowed the fungus to cast them. Cue high-level mage being "seen". High-level spells being cast by a immobile 1 HD creature. There wasn't even anything left to resurrect. I can't remember the name of the damn mold.

 

[DraQ]

What?
No reference to "enemies three"?

Codex, I am disappoint.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Enclave Troops from the end of fallout 2 are really the only time in the series I've felt that aiming for anything besides the eyes or head was useful

So uh... what did you aim for?

Yeah, wtf.

Groin, most likely. It could be wishful thinking but iirc a powerful attack there will usually make the enemy fall down. Their head is well armored, so aiming there isn't as much of a win button as it is with nearly everything else.

Those fucking Black Mountain Clan Stone Golems. Let's see... SWORDS, shit no weapon broken! Guns! Lol your guns suck and you just went outta ammo after firing more bullets at the golems than one day of production in a IMBEL ammo factory. Magic? Harm, Invisibility or quit! Those things are fucking annoying, and you can't avoid them.

But you can, just run past them.

Admission of defeat, unnaceptable.

 

[Gurkog]

The BMC Golems were easy to defeat as a dumb ogre with over 20 strength and gloves that increase hand to hand damage. At least I think that is what I did... Last time I fought them was like a decade ago.

 

[DalekFlay]

The most idiotic enemy I faced was the Arishok in DerpAge2. Hells Bells, my mage had no business even being allowed to agree to a duel.

All she did was run around and chip away at the health bloat of the dude. He simply ran after her, and she ran around in circles, chipping away at the bloat. No strategy, no special moves, nothing. Stupid, stupid, boring fight.

There's a youtube video floating around that has a mage running around and chipping away at the Arishok to the 'Benny Hill' theme. That's just about what my mage looked like. Stupid design.

My rogue had to game that fight as well. 90% of DA2 felt designed around the warrior class.

 

[Murk]

The BMC Golems were easy to defeat as a dumb ogre with over 20 strength and gloves that increase hand to hand damage. At least I think that is what I did... Last time I fought them was like a decade ago.

If you hand-to-hand you took HP damage per hit, which was at times preferable if you had the walking heal-kit that is Virgil. Otherwise, bust out an axe or hammer or range-attack. In my first playthrough, I broke something like 7 swords clearing that place out. In subsequent playthroughs, I was a pyrotechnic bow wielding katsyusha with spare grenades. They ran if they knew what was good for them.

Top 3? Hell if I can remember.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

The route Wyrmlord allegedly took wouldn't have given him a chance to acquire any of those scrolls, except through random drop, but the odds of them all randomly dropping during Firkragg's dungeon are practically 0. He wouldn't even be able to memorize any of them in the first place, and summoning skeleton warriors is impossible for a low level cleric. If he somehow did obtain the needed scrolls through random drop he'd use them all up on the first group of Illithids he encountered anyway. So basically his tactics are impossible.

Wyrmlord exposed as a bullshitter (I still remember his "use Grease on epic vampire monks with imp evasion" in MotB strategy)? The mind boggles.

 

[Gurkog]

Super Mutant Remnants in Fallout 2. It seems like every time I took a caravan escort job 10 of them would ambush us and blow the shit out of everyone.

Oblivion Knights in Diablo 2, whenever I played a melee character. Fucking Iron maiden. Conviction aura unique boss + lower resist hurt like a son of a bitch too.

Liches/mindflayers in BG 2. Assholes with instant kill attacks...

 

[attackfighter]

The most idiotic enemy I faced was the Arishok in DerpAge2. Hells Bells, my mage had no business even being allowed to agree to a duel.

All she did was run around and chip away at the health bloat of the dude. He simply ran after her, and she ran around in circles, chipping away at the bloat. No strategy, no special moves, nothing. Stupid, stupid, boring fight.

There's a youtube video floating around that has a mage running around and chipping away at the Arishok to the 'Benny Hill' theme. That's just about what my mage looked like. Stupid design.

My rogue had to game that fight as well. 90% of DA2 felt designed around the warrior class.

Warriors had to abuse it too. that fight was impossibru otherwise

 

[Psquit]

Death knights

Zombies

Eldritch horror

 

[Psquit]

The most idiotic enemy I faced was the Arishok in DerpAge2. Hells Bells, my mage had no business even being allowed to agree to a duel.

All she did was run around and chip away at the health bloat of the dude. He simply ran after her, and she ran around in circles, chipping away at the bloat. No strategy, no special moves, nothing. Stupid, stupid, boring fight.

There's a youtube video floating around that has a mage running around and chipping away at the Arishok to the 'Benny Hill' theme. That's just about what my mage looked like. Stupid design.

 

[Yoshiyyahu]

Those fire rats in Arcanum were a fucking nightmare for my pantywaist of a character. I can't remember where they were, I think it was in the cave for the quest where you destroy the sword. Anyway, they'd charge in and kill me in three hits, or kill one of my NPCs in three hits. I was too much of a tightass to spend points on resurrection so I had to try and kite while the ogre hero dude pillaged them with his axe. The Seething masses or whatever were also a pain in the ass, had to spam harm all over the shop to take care of them.

 

[Sabriana]

So was the rat mother in Drakensang. Damn, I hate her. I can't decide whether the warrens in VtM_B were the worst thing I've ever encountered, or if it was that stupid rat mother.

Yes, Psquit. That was exactly like my mage 'duelled' with the arishok. It's utterly preposterous.