Hardest encounters in RPGs

[Ol' Willy]

Age of Decadence, thieves ambush in Slums, if you trigger it, that is.

 

[Cryomancer]

Why do you think 3.5e started with the HP bloat, and not 3e?

Yep. I should have said 3e.

if it were possible to have 1 HP, Mages and Sorcerers could solo BG2 with 1 HP. This lethality comment of mine isn't just about HPs. With such spells as Mirror Image, Stoneskin and PfMW, there is no physical-based lethality. And if we want arcane immunity, there are abjurations/wards.

IMO that is a problem with the lack of good AI from enemies and prepared spells. Enemies should try to dispell enemy defensive spells. And moredekainen's disjunction should be a spell which every high level lich/vampire has prepared and will use against you. Note : Disjunction on P&P works differently than on most video games. It can dispel magic even from your gear. It should be permanent on core difficulties and non permanent on easier difficulties. Having a risk of your Vecna's robes being turned into mundane robes is a part of P&P.

If is possible to put magic into a item, should be possible to remove it. And a Lich being prepared to face someone with "deathwards" makes sense. IMO one alteration which Beamdog could made is make enemy casters more intelligent and at least give pierce shield to liches. Liches on BG2 at least aren't retarded like undead clerics on nwn which uses heal on themselves and damage themselves.

beholders and mindflayers were already cakewalks. If we compare BG2 versions of the above with NWN versions, we laugh at the latter.

I agree that the stat blocks for 2e is the best. But 3e is not awful like 5e. Note that when you explore the Beholder's cave on NWN - Hotu - Chapter 2, your charname is in epic level(ie - far above human limitations). BG2 has you fighting then on far lower level. And on 5e, they disrespected this creatures even more. Mindflayer CR is just 7. Ravenloft? Ravenloft is now only Barovia, all other realms of dread are inexistent by some unknown reason. And Strahd instead of a lv 16 necromancer is a lv 9 generic caster which a angry mobs of peasants can easily kill him. There are no risky involving in using nasty powerful necromancies in domains of dread. According to domains of dread book(2e), many spells are far more powerful on ravenloft however, this necromancy spells are so powerful that put even the caster at risk. A wail of the banshee spell for eg, has twice the range and every female slayed by this spell is reanimated as a banshee, but the banshee is hostile towards the caster. And it also requires a "power check" which can draw attention from the dark powers which controls the plane and corrupt the caster, if the caster is fully corrupted in 13 "stages", he is now a Dark Lord like Strahd and Meredoth...

PS : Sorry if I made any grammar mistakes. I an still trying to improve my grammar.

 

[Lilura]

I personally prefer campaigns that start off lethal and maintain a good degree of lethality over their entire course. We still feel power progression but the experience never devolves into cakewalk.

Examples of the above would be:

Baldur's Gate (low level AD&D2 is supreme form of D&D):

Less is more. IWD is similar because it constrains the arcane spellcaster.

Jagged Alliance 2: Doesn't matter if mercs have Spectra + Compound 18 + Steel Plates -- lethality remains.

Fallout: Doesn't matter if Chosen = absolute-max-optimized dmg sponge -- lethality remains.

ToEE: it's only saved because of its lvl cap 10, and the fact that it throws some particularly nasty Surprise! Shit at the party.

 

[Lilura]

Note that when you explore the Beholder's cave on NWN - Hotu - Chapter 2, your charname is in epic level

Best part of that segment was that beneath Eye Tyrant was null magic /dead magic zone which impacted even magical gear, not just spells, as well as the fact it threw a fucking bebilith at the party. The DC-15 petrification gaze was also nice because there are not many reliable wards against petrification in NWN.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Fallout: Doesn't matter if Chosen = absolute-max-optimized dmg sponge -- lethality remains.

Fallout late-game is a walk in the park. My usual coda of Fallout is clearing Mariposa and Cathedral alone, on hard/hard, just for fun. Unless you catch an unlucky crit, you are literally unkillable.

If you mean Fallout 2, it's the same. Navarro + Oil Rig, alone, hard/hard. Same challenge. Fallout 2 allows for more munchkinism, so it could be even easier.

 

[DalekFlay]

Most tedious encounter ever is the Arishok in Dragon Age 2, but I wouldn't call it difficult.

Fallout random encounters early on could be literally unbeatable, which I'd say is pretty hard.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker has lots of encounters in it that you almost have to experience, then reload and properly prepare for. Again more tedious than hard probably, but trying to beat them without a reload could be "hard" in that sense.

I recently had kind of a hard time with the skeleton king dude in Divinity OS. You start pretty close to him and his 8 or so minions, and there are several powerful mages and archers if you're doing it in the appropriate level range. Took me 4 or 5 tries.

 

[Gregz]

The Surprising And Allegedly Impossible Death Of EverQuest's 'Unkillable' Dragon

Rare today are opportunities for gamers to step outside the prescribed outlines of a developer’s intended gaming experience, especially in MMORPGs. Back in the early 2000s, anarchic players eagerly hunted down the virtual unknown, where possibility and impossibility were deadlocked within some specter of the original game.

...

(The Dragon) wiped out a hundred players at a time. Clerics cast over a thousand “resurrect” spells. Nearly 3 million damage was done to its icy body (some say its health was one billion).

But four hours in, a wizard named Trylun got the sought-after Sleeper killshot.

 

[Cryomancer]

The Surprising And Allegedly Impossible Death Of EverQuest's 'Unkillable' Dragon

Rare today are opportunities for gamers to step outside the prescribed outlines of a developer’s intended gaming experience, especially in MMORPGs. Back in the early 2000s, anarchic players eagerly hunted down the virtual unknown, where possibility and impossibility were deadlocked within some specter of the original game.

...

(The Dragon) wiped out a hundred players at a time. Clerics cast over a thousand “resurrect” spells. Nearly 3 million damage was done to its icy body (some say its health was one billion).

But four hours in, a wizard named Trylun got the sought-after Sleeper killshot.

Bullet/Spell/Blow/wathever sponge boss is not a hard boss.

4 hours spamming the same rotation over and over doesn't seems fun or interesting. Just boring and repetitive.

And i Blame wow for popularizing the WORST aspects of mmos into SP games and even TT games. Stat stickie itemization, low lethality where even minions of minions takes 40 seconds to die, cooldowns, leveling as just game mechanic/content barrier and not a mechanic to measure the progression of a character, everyone being a clone only wearing different boots which determines the char IQ/Muscle mass(...). This is a fun dragon fight in a very action game.



Everyone can just pick the maximum value for a int128_t and make every attack on a boss deal at best 1 damage and give regen to full health X times when the boss is with low hp. It doesn't make the boss hard, only a tedium.

Anyway, if you like slow tedious fight, you can try beat Gothic 2 RETURNING using only circle 1 spells. hu3hu3hu3

Baldur's Gate (low level AD&D2 is supreme form of D&D):

Well, the game name is Dungeons & DRAGONS, not Dungeons & LOW LEVEL KOBOLDS. Is far easier to challenge the player on low level than on high level. because there are more things to consider in high level D&D. Icewind dale instead of putting few spell scrolls available, could have made like IWD2 where enemies are much smarter and casts way more powerful dispels and CCs against your party caster. But if we look into story, the story of BG2 is clearly superior to BG1. And you can visit the plane of air, abyss, and far more interesting locations, can fight dragons, liches and so on. Hotu is considered superior to nwn1 OC and MotB to nwn2 OC and both are high to epic level expansions. If you wanna explore the cosmos of D&D, travel to Abyss, Shadowfell, Mount Celeste or even the elemental planes, you need to be at least medium level.

NOTE : For those who only played IWD:"EE", Beamdog added a lot of spells into the game. You can't cast Stop Time with vanilla IWD for eg. In fact, there are only two lv 9 spells, both very lackluster ( http://www.mikesrpgcenter.com/icewind/magescrolls/mage9.html )

 

[Lilura]

Well, the game name is Dungeons & DRAGONS, not Dungeons & LOW LEVEL KOBOLDS.

Meh, that's just marketing. Baldur's Gate doesn't just have kobolds. Also, there is the wreckage of a dragon in Durlag's Tower.

Is far easier to challenge the player on low level than on high level. because there are more things to consider in high level D&D.

Swordflight is the only D&D campaign that keeps up the challenge at epic levels. Even BG2 with SCS is broken.

But if we look into story, the story of BG2 is clearly superior to BG1.

Disagree, but I don't play RPGs for "stories."

And you can visit the plane of air, abyss, and far more interesting locations, can fight dragons, liches and so on.

I would consider Athkatla's lich-spam a grievous flaw, not a virtue. And Liches bereft of phylacteries are not liches but rather laughing stocks and an affront to Realmslore.

If you wanna explore the cosmos of D&D, travel to Abyss, Shadowfell, Mount Celeste or even the elemental planes, you need to be at least medium level.

I'd rather explore Durlag's Tower at low level than be led by the nose through an epic theme park.

 

[Suicidal]

When I played BG 2 as a kid, I remember struggling a lot with the final boss of ToB. I think I didn't have any problems with the rest of the game, but that one took me many many attempts and I eventually had to resort to an exploit to win. I'm sure if I played the game now I'd probably have no problems with it.

Out of the more recent stuff, the only games with encounters that made me think for more than a few minutes were indie JRPGs Labyrinth of Touhou and Genius of Sappheiros. The final boss of Genius of Sappheiros deserves a particular mention as it's one of the hardest video game bosses I've ever seen. It's a very long battle where your resources are very limited and you have to organize all of your characters into two groups to fight the boss. You need to think long and hard about which character goes into which group and why and then the fight itself is roughly 30 minutes of keeping track of dozens of variables that can kill you and constantly making hard decisions. It's very easy to die in that fight or to run out of mana early. There is a phase in the fight that has a timer and if you take too long the boss will become unkillable, but at the same time you cannot rush because you need to prepare your party for what comes after. There are things you can do at the beginning of the fight that can fuck you up much later. There's a constant threat of AoE spells with instant party wipe potential, some of which are triggered by your actions, some of which need to be anticipated and some of which can just come out of nowhere. And there's so much more.

It took me several days to come up with a working strategy and it was one of the most satisfying experiences I've ever had in a game when I finally killed that thing.

 

[NJClaw]

The fights against the beholders in BG2 were a buttery piece of cake with the shield of Balduran. And I don´t consider that a cheesey tactic because the shield is in a very obvious spot and it is kind of makes the impression the designers wanted to iron out their own messed up difficulty scale-involving instant kill traps- by presenting the player such un uber-item. I used to play this section of the game without the shield, but today I just consider that to have been utter idiocy on my part.
I agree on your spoiler part, though.

The shield is the kid's choice. A true man charges in with an enraged berserker under the cloak of mirroring.

 

[Jasede]

Every encounter in Kotc2 is worse than any of the encounters mentioned in this thread with the exception of the Beholder Corps. Which sounds like a joke or exaggeration but is true.

 

[JarlFrank]

Every encounter in Kotc2 is worse than any of the encounters mentioned in this thread with the exception of the Beholder Corps. Which sounds like a joke or exaggeration but is true.

Some of the chapter 3 fights are ok. But they do drain your resources in an environment with few resting opportunities, so...

 

[Jasede]

"On some days Jacob doesn't beat me, he's not so bad," said the wife.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

What was hard about the bugs? I don’t recall them hard cuz it’s been awhile. I think my imp even beat one to death. Their difficulty a 1.13 thing? I remember I had a firing of mercs with Fals and specialized ammunition, but other than the length of the mission it doesn’t stand out.

 

[eXalted]

 

[Thac0]

Both Baldurs Gate games are piss easy, you really have to pile on the the mods to make them challenging. Haste + Advanced Haste makes melees shred enemies in seconds, also there is summon spam and everything.

Age of Decadence, thieves ambush in Slums, if you trigger it, that is.

This is a good take. I tried to run the game with a more combat focussed hybrid, which made a lot of those fights I called impossible for hybrids before barely winnable. Zero chance against the bandits, my dude gets usually annihilated the first turn. I assume that is brutal even for 100% combat builds.

I found the chain of Roxanna fights in Dungeon Rats pretty hard, if you do not kill her for recruitment. Especially the last one, where she is just giving orders, was brutal for my beat up and bruised team. I had to do some next level strats with the door and burn quite a few grenades. After recruiting her the difficulty plummeted but stayed high enough to be fun.

Also for my JRPG brethren

Spoiler

Both are not terribly hard now that I am older, but both show up in games which are rather easy despite those fuckers, and they are mainline story bosses. They consistently ruin any attempts at 0 death runs for FF4 and FFX, since they will kill me once without fail.

Also if we count Bloodborne as an rpg, Orphan of Kos is literally the only rpg boss I could not beat despite wanting to.No matter of reading up on his stats and moveset could help me against him, I always got filtered by his lightning attacks. Since it is an action rpg it demands a very different skill than turn based, but still worth a mention. I reached my limit against him and put the game aside with respect. What a devious boss.

 

[Falksi]

Mwhahahahhaha!!!!

 

[Ol' Willy]

This is a good take. I tried to run the game with a more combat focussed hybrid, which made a lot of those fights I called impossible for hybrids before barely winnable. Zero chance against the bandits, my dude gets usually annihilated the first turn. I assume that is brutal even for 100% combat builds.

I wasted this guys in three out of my four runs (except for non-combat zero kills char, of course): blind run daggers-block guy, imperial guard axe-block and see-all loremaster dodge-zweihander sword. This fight is very stats reliant: I try it with 6 block, I die in two turns. I try it with 8 block, I die in four turns. I try it with 9-10 block and now I finally can kill them on second or third attempt. Best gear and high offensive skills are necessary, of course, but evading the damage is the key. Otherwise you die very-very quickly.

 

[Ol' Willy]

And more Age of Decadence toughness:

1) Antidas throne room in Imperial Guards storyline. Thing is, this fight is a part of main storyline and comes quite early, so you can't put it aside to grind more XP. You fight with allies, but still outnumbered, and Dellar is a fucking beast: unless you kill him quick he will curbstomp your entire team and you.
2) Zamedi guardian. Entirely optional (you can ignore Zamedi at all, you can escape, you can talk him down), but hard if you decide to fight him. He could be weakened, but he is still tough.
3) Agathoth, of course. Once again, there's a way to kill him without a direct fight, way to weaken him or use helmet to protect yourself from his psi attacks. Ignoring all this options and some tough skullbashery awaits you. I managed to kill him in direct fight only once: hitting his arms to stuck a lot of debuffs and then mowing him down slowly, but surely.
4) Two Arena fights: Arena Champion and Widowmaker. These guys deal a shitton of damage. Champion can stack a lot of poison and likes to use nets; Widowmaker has no active defense, but hits like a train - from 20 to 50 HP depending on your gear and stats.

 

[Fowyr]

As I already wrote, at least you had all your party. That Venetian beast made me reboot PC dozen times, even my best fighter was close to useless against him.

 

[Lady_Error]

Most of Age of Decadence.

Though the last hard battle I remember was the boss in the Forgotten Sanctum DLC in Deadfire. With a maxed out party it took me at least an hour and every trick in the book.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Also, no Underrail? List is shit, author is faggot. Underrail is full to the brink with ass-busting encounters. Depot A is a pain to everyone, I guess, regardless of the chosen build: it comes too early, before the world is opened to you, so you have very limited options to grind more XP and obtain better gear before it. Dozen dogs who spit acid, bypassing your DR/DT and stacking damage, acid entanglement preventing you from moving; muties reducing your offensive skills and spraying acid, two headed muties throwing some heavy shit at you; and yeah, all of them deal some serious mechanical damage.

 

[Black_Willow]

Battle for Cera Sumat in IWD2.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

EotB 2's Silver Tower and above. It's when you begin facing the toughest enemies in the game like beholders, illithids, and so on. Naturally this makes the game very horny with trying to fuck you. You also get annoying bitch enemies that love to poison you mixed in there.

BG1's first few levels can be pretty tough especially if you've not played in awhile and trying to keep Xzar alive becomes its own difficulty challenge. IWD can also throw you some curveballs when it brings shadows your way fairly early in the game.

It's a JRPG but Vagrant Story can and will happily fuck you if you don't know the mechanics of the game. If you ever play this on a PS1 emulator just swallow your pride and use save states when you begin encountering liches and shit.

The Black Lich from Grimoire gave me a hell of a time during my first attempt at playing through. If the first round went badly I pretty much had to reload or else I'd be fighting an unwinnable uphill fight where he reduces half my party to little sissies.