Hardest encounters in RPGs

[Lilura]

Duel: Low level Gnome Illusionist / Rogue vs. Undead Warlord (Swordflight):

 

[Lilura]

I was reading your article about BG2 vs BG1 https://lilura1.blogspot.com/2017/08/Baldurs-Gate-2-Changes-and-Additions.html

One point which I strongly disagree about ToB is that "Thieves and Bards can expect to reach 40th level, Paladins and Rangers 34th, and Mages, Sorcerers and Druids 31st. Essentially, Godhood." In reality, a lv 30 mage is far bellow what even a demigod is capable. Karsus which casted the strongest spell ever was lv 40.

Meh, who cares. Charname can reach godhood at the Throne:

If we beat BG2 and ToB without leveling up beyond BG cap (161,000), we can reach godhood as Fighter (7) / Mage (7) multi-class.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

The early version of the slavers fight in ToEE (from Co8 new content), with the unescapable dialog that killed one of your party members immediately before fighting a high level party, was pretty brutal.
It still is hard, but at least you get a dialog choice to avoid the initial death.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

How you take screenshots from dosbox?

By pressing Alt-PrtSc (or just PrtSc, depends on the running game in the fullscreen), of course and pressing Shift-Insert in the Paint or some other graphic editor. If some keys are overwritten by a DosBox itself, you can manage them by pressing Ctrl-F1.

I an on Linux...

CTRL+F5
https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Special_Keys

 

[Crispy]

The early version of the slavers fight in ToEE (from Co8 new content), with the unescapable dialog that killed one of your party members immediately before fighting a high level party, was pretty brutal.

Are you talking about the

Spoiler

ambush right outside the secret cave entrance to Lareth's lair beneath the Moathouse?

I agree that was a brutal (and quite unfair) fight, but it's by no means part of the original release, thus -- and no offense -- shouldn't really count in the type of question asked by op. I mean it's basically a mod we're talking about here.

Co8 did some good things, but that wasn't one of them imo.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Sorry if that has already been mentioned, but I've always felt the hardest (and most rewarding) challenges in RPGs are when fighting members of "another party". That is to say, other adventurers who may be evil or competing with you somehow.

One of the best examples of this is in IWD's expansion, Heart of Winter. You meet a full party outside the inn in the town, and, after having decided to maintain the secrecy of the innkeep's identity as a mage of that group's ruthless society, they attack you. Great fight, especially if you go into it non-pre-buffed. Another example is in Trials of the Luremaster, when you encounter a smaller but much more deadly evil party who can make mincemeat of your characters in a big hurry.

The loot gained from these encounters is some of the best in the whole game.

One of the bigger disappointments in pilows was that enemy party battles were never that tough. The AI simply didn't work like a team and support each other in the same way a player would which defeats the entire purpose, might as well throw 5 kobolds xaurips at you instead.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Castle Darkmoor from MM6. Sure, the Tomb of VARN is technically worse, but doesn't feature the sheer tedious bullshit of Darkmoor. Hundreds of Liches, Evil Eyes and Ogres. Each capable of dealing a status that alone, would be a nightmare to deal with. Together, they drain your mana, curse you, and poison you. Further, this is all in a giant open area, where you rarely get the opportunity to pick one off at a time.

 

[mondblut]

Let me tell you, when you kill that demon, your problems are only beginning. The next dungeon is a nightmare, pure and simple. You have a four levels, you can save only on the stairs, there are a trolls everywhere, you need to kill a boss and return back.

Oh. Writing my post made me seriously consider trying to replay that game. Thanks for convincing me not to.

Do you talk about the end of Natuk and the Pool of Radiance or just unlucky mind control on your own party member?

Natuk was one thing on my mind. Another was that dumbfuck encounter in Shadows over Riva when your party member had to fight a clone of himself (god help if you pick a fighter, they'll never hit each other).

Speaking of Realms of Arkania, there was that unwinnable encounter with a boatload of mages when you left Lowangen in Star Trail, if you refused to hand out the salamander stone. One you are not supposed to ever win. Except that some actually did.

 

[Lilura]

Even though mods are unauthoritative, I don't see a problem with posting mod-based encounters if they are cited as such.

[Co8 mod]

 

[Raghar]

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.

I actually doing ironman and I count deaths because it's too long to start again on each party wipe. And so far only 3 deaths. One of them by interface.

 

[fantadomat]

Most of the bosses in Drakensang games are pretty hard and long,pretty good challenge all around.

 

[Lilura]

How to craft Lich encounters properly (IWD):

How to craft lich encounters like a faggot (BG2):

Even Beamdog know more about Liches than BG2 BioWare (SoD):

 

[laclongquan]

Vampire The masquerade Bloodlines.
1. The warehouse explosion at the early stage. Meeting the demon after you set up the explosives. At that early stage you dont have powerful abilities and weapons, so that enemy is particularly challenging.
2. Keep the deads down in city's graveyard. it is always freaking tough. Unless you are a good shooter (which I dont) and maxed out on apporiate abilities.
3. Fighting the Kueijin brothers under the mansion.
4. And of course, fighting the Sheriff on the roof. The flying boss is a particular surprise at that point.

Fallout 2 Restoration Project
1. Kaga encounters. Only the first is particularly hard with 3 on you alone. The latter fights are hard only if you choose to break Kaga's leg and steal his inventory.
2. The raiders encounter at early-middle game (straddle the route VC-NR). We generally has problems with them because a stray burst or two can cut down our weakly armored partners. Also the Morton Brothers' vendetta.
3. Redding's Wanamingoes. At that time we meet them generally our weapons suck so they are very hard to beat.
4. Verti-Assault team sent to Gecko to chase after your ass for hacking into Enclave station. This is hard if you initiate it middle game which is the default obvious thing to do. Do it later just smell of metagame~

 

[aweigh]

lol literally any boss encounter in a Knights Of The Chalice game.

Balor in Temple of Elemental Evil was kinda tuff, i guess.

Ibag's Tower in elminage: Gothic remains the hardest RPG challenge I've ever faced, and my greatest accomplishment.

i dunno, the entirety of Wizardry 4? that game is imposiburu.

EDIT: that ice dragon in White March was kinda hard. had to use 2 different cheap tactics instead of just one !

EDIT 2: the spider swarms in Cuckmaker before the first patch lol

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

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.

1 really loses letality once you get Hardened Power Armor, only plasma weapons bother you then. These are rare and Mariposa AFAIK has no plasma weapons at alls. Normal damage could have done it but Mutants only stick to Miniguns to fire normal damage attacks.

The Master would have been a helluva fight if for some reason all armors didn't have ridiculously high laser resistances. Its a bit silly that in the original Fallouts, lasers are the least scariest thing ever the moment you strap on metal armor. Mariposa would have been way harder if all those Gatling Lasers and Laser Rifles could even scratch the paint on your Power Armor.

2 is different, even with APA + Implants + 3 levels of Toughness, something out there will and can hurt you. Gauss guns, Vindicators, plasma, pulse weapons... the Enclave is full of enemies with the best weapons in-game, and they are all 200 HP super-tough badasses with APA, too. Not to mention Armor Bypass Crits. 2 is just far harder than 1 on the whole.

(how come nobody made a "Fallout 1 but with 2's dificulty mod?" That would rock. Imagine 150 HP Super Mutants like in 2)

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.

Yeah Dellar is a beast.

I think the hard thing about Dellar, is that Dellar is both decently-armored AND a dodger. Anything you can hit him reliably with, he can tank. Anything he can't tank, he can dodge.

 

[Raghar]

Most of the bosses in Drakensang games are pretty hard and long,pretty good challenge all around.

Most bosses in Drakensang are 4 wounds and dodo.

 

[Cryomancer]

Castle Darkmoor from MM6. Sure, the Tomb of VARN is technically worse, but doesn't feature the sheer tedious bullshit of Darkmoor. Hundreds of Liches, Evil Eyes and Ogres. Each capable of dealing a status that alone, would be a nightmare to deal with. Together, they drain your mana, curse you, and poison you. Further, this is all in a giant open area, where you rarely get the opportunity to pick one off at a time.

I believe that Tomb of VARN Vs castle darkmoor depends on your party composition. I had two master water mages which can teleport me to a temple and back. I imagine that for heavily melee party, darkmoor is a nightmare...

2. Keep the deads down in city's graveyard. it is always freaking tough. Unless you are a good shooter (which I dont) and maxed out on apporiate abilities.

Or use blood sorcery

4. And of course, fighting the Sheriff on the roof. The flying boss is a particular surprise at that point.

He dies with few shots

Here is dead in 20 seconds. This .338 LM rifle is extremely good.

 

[Lilura]

How to make weak enemies dangerous (IWD):

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Those screencaps are from an SCS-based game in which the shield can be taken from the wielder by beholder telekinesis.

So? Mod authors do lots of dumb shit all the time.
The developers clearly never intended for this, the shield existed for a very specific reason. Why even have it in the game if its one purpose is taken away?
Beholders in BG2 are not implemented correctly, the shield was a bandaid for their broken game. Beholder anti-magic ray is nothing like what they actually get in BG2, it's not even remotely close to the same thing.
Want to take the shield away? Fine, then implement them by the rules.

What did SCS do to prevent offscreen cheesing via cloudkill? Oh, nothing?
Then why even bother touching the shield

 

[reversependulum]

Monster Girl Quest.

Somehow I lose almost every encounter in the game.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

2. Keep the deads down in city's graveyard. it is always freaking tough. Unless you are a good shooter (which I dont) and maxed out on apporiate abilities.

I'm so grateful they made that an optional quest. Having to walk back and forth between the two gates quickly is more difficult than actually killing the zombies. Even when using the right strategy, it feels like one is barely hanging on. The rest of the things you listed, while absolutely hard the first time you get through them, are a massive pain the first time.

I believe that Tomb of VARN Vs castle darkmoor depends on your party composition. I had two master water mages which can teleport me to a temple and back. I imagine that for heavily melee party, darkmoor is a nightmare...

Hmm, my party was balanced the last time I went through the game, but the area seemed to favor forcing melee then throwing another group within spitting distance. Only ranged seemed to be ideal, but still didn't deal with the eyes overwhelming status effect attacks.

 

[Butter]

Adra Dragon in Pillars of Eternity.

Ming Xiao in Bloodlines.

Shelach and the Black Lich in Grimoire.

Beast of 1000 Eyes in Wizardry 7.

Outpost and Bandit Camp in Age of Decadence.

Wolves in Arcanum.

Dishonourable mention for Grurn in Morrowind: Siege at Firemoth. Guy has extremely high health regen and can one-shot you, The only way to win is to cheese him with reflect stacking.

 

[Lilura]

Balor in Temple of Elemental Evil was kinda tuff, i guess.

Probably the toughest boss going in blind, yeah. The others were a bit under-powered.

Frog grapple and injest was p. powerful for early game, too:

And yes, frog can swallow Temple+ giants:

 

[Cryomancer]

What did SCS do to prevent offscreen cheesing via cloudkill? Oh, nothing?

Cloudkill is a valid strategy. IMO the problem is that the enemy AI is dumb and beholders stay in the cloudkill until death... But could be worse, they could did the nwn2 way. Made cloudkill worthless by cutting the duration to a tiny fraction of P&P duration, removed the ability to apply metamagic, nerfed the radius, made it susceptible to SR contrary to 3.5e rules and even removed the Concealment. Cloudkill is one of the most iconic spells which Obsidian destroyed on nwn2.. Thanks Mystra, we have the spell fixes mod for this game

Balor in Temple of Elemental Evil was kinda tuff, i guess.

Due lv cap = 10. His CR on 3.5e is 20. https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Balor

Sorry, ToEE is a amazing game but throw a CR 20 fire demon in the plane of fire against a mid level party is not fun or engaging...

I just don't know people bitching about Pathfinder Kingmaker and praising ToEE which has far more unfair encounters.

 

[aweigh]

maybe ToEE had more unfair encounters than Pathfinder, but ToEE was mechanically richer and the challenge was more satisfying.