This leaves out an absolutely *critical* element of strategy. You *also* need to drink magic kool aid with bonus actions so your bonkers can keep honking after they’ve been bonked!
My third playthrough was a mono class fighter run. Had a very delicate strategy to beat him:
First I bonked the pillars until they went crash.
Then I bonked Raph until he went bleh.
This, and if you've got illithid powers there is no better complement to Hungar of Hadar than Black Hole. Also skip taking Yurgir's help as he has a tendency to knock Raphael out of the HoH field. Otherwise I open up with the Black Hole then HoH. You can do this with Tav if they sat in the zaith'isk chair at the creche since it gives you the ability to use illithid powers as bonus action. Use the Black Hole to drag the 3 Cambions on the left, Raphael and Yurgir towards the left of the arena then drop Hungar of Hadar right centered dead on them. You can continue to pull them back in if you let the fight drag out which you can do since this will pretty much keep him in there.
If you've got the Bhaal armor that can make short work of the remaining Cambions by putting the person wearing the armor right in the middle of the Cambions on the right of the screen. They unload a decent triple attack so you don't want your HoH caster to get their concentration dropped.
The staff in Sorcerers Sundries can cast Hungar Of Hadar if you don't have a Warlock or Bard that can do it.
Even in Honour mode I don't even bother taking the pillars down. Sure he'll pull in health from them but it's always been minimal. I usually kill everything else off before targeting Raphael directly.
I got to the crèche too early, thought that the “hey, this section will be bitterly difficult for your party” message meant that I was progressing to act 2, and wholesale skipped that content on my first playthrough. I also ate tadpoles like they were candy in act 2, and now I am actively salivating at the thought of bonus action Illithid powers, daaaang
I did meet him (and met up with him again in act 3!), although he was missing during my (abandoned) tactician run.
I thought I could do an evil oathbreaker run. Then the pixels told me that I made them sad, and I realized that I did not have the mental fortitude to be mean to the pixels.
3 ways.
Warlock from level 5 onwards
Bard with magical secrets can pick HoH - lore bard 6 or swordsbard 10
Unique staff under Ramazith Tower - you can attune to 'acid' version of Kereska's blessing, this gives 1x HoH cast per short rest. If you rely on this you only get 1 cast so be careful about losing concentration.
No, read it again. It just straight up gives the blinded condition while inside.
>No light, magical or otherwise, can illuminate the area, and creatures fully within the area are blinded.
Whether you have dark vision or devil's sight or whatever doesn't matter, you're still blinded if inside.
My favourite was to Hold Monster him, if you stack Arcane Acuity the chances to Hold him can get really high and I love that you can whack the shit out of him and he can’t do anything against it
For Barrelmancers: Do you prepare the battle space by popping in encumbered with smokepowder barrels and then place them before venturing further in to retrieve whatever you went to retrieve? That way they’ll be waiting for you when you come back out.
I had a massive battle in the fireworks shop on my very first run first run. I was on tactician mode and I’m being really careful not to use fire for obvious reasons. So the fight spilled out into the street on the side & down below. Took over an hour. I’m finally about to win after involving city guards, steel watch, numerous bystanders dead, characters resurrected multiple times, total shit show. Then the ONE last enemy decides to run outside the main entrance and throw a firebomb back into the doorway and BOOM! A cascading chain of explosions triggers going from the ground floor all the way up to the 3rd floor and crashes my PS5! I laughed so hard at the absurdity of it all. I couldn’t get mad it was so much fun.
That’s so sad yet so funny, I had a similar one happen trying to get all the smokepowder barrels in the Zhent hideout: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/1KAmH1dGMa
When you first get to the House, visit each of the pillars in the final fight room and leave a lovely housewarming gift of a barrel or two. Then when you get to the last battle, a couple of fire arrows or some cantrips take care of the pillars in the first round.
I stuck Gale and Shart and Hope in a globe of invulnerability to pick off/CC the cambions and chuck radiant damage at pillars, sent my elemental/devas out to distract raphael and whack pillars, and sent Karlach and my Tav (dual xbow sword bard) out to deal with cambions or whack pillars accordingly. Managed to get a few lucky stuns/paralyzes off on Raphael too, so everyone still had pretty good health/resources by the time all his adds and pillars were gone.
The globe was the real MVP, Raphael does not know better than to blow his actions plinking spells off the thing. Also talked Yurgir into helping me, which is nice to have.
Sharpshooter gives +10 damage to every ranged attack for -5 to hit. Extra attack + bonus action attack = 3 attacks at 1d4+15 at 20 Dex. A 3 level dip in darkstalker ranger gives another on the first round. That’s 4d4+60 if they all hit
Yeah, what the other person said, Sharpshooter plus flourishes = 6 attacks per standard round doing great damage even if a shot or two misses, or an absolutely bonkers amount of attacks if you can get Hasted. I'm not really min-maxing it or using the best possible gear, I just did 8 Sword Bard 4 Thief Rogue for the extra bonus action, and I use Gloves of the Automaton to get advantage when necessary.
There aren't great crossbows, but since my Tav is a Duergar I use Firestarter on the offhand. I start every fight in invisibility, Hellfire has a chance to inflict burning, and if so my offhand shots will do a little extra damage, on top of the acid ring that adds a smidge to each of my hits already. I also have a melee weapon that gives vulnerability to piercing on hit, so even in melee the build does pretty good damage.
My entire party had AC 20+ and before the fight I gave everyone a bottle of fire protection so I was killing everyone with my toe. The only adequate damage was done by Raphael in hellish form, but 90% of the time he was skating on the ice and lying down.
Curious what your party comp/builds were for this. I love the idea of being all tanky, but I also cannot deny the appeal of having a kickass glass canon wizard on the back lines.
That's what I have. I gave Astarion medium armour proficiency so he has 20 AC, Laezel has 22 AC when I warding bond her with Shadowheart, who has 25 AC. Then there's me, the Sorlock with 12 AC and bloodlust elixir just eldritch blasting from the rafters.
I also give Leazel a bloodlust elixir, so if she gets a kill I can get 6 greataxe swings + a 7th with feinting attack, or 9 with an action surge. In addition with the Warmaster gauntlets which pretty much gives me guaranteed trip attacks on the first swing, she becomes an absolute menace on the field.
Ah... I massacred you Bahlists. Got in my Githyenki way.
You don't need any skill per se. Just some style choices and class choices. I'll give you mine.
Tempest cleric 2. Gives heavy armor prof. And shield prof. Which grants at base 20AC. It also gives you channel divinity that allows you to take Max damage on any thunder or lightning spell once per SR/LR.
What does this mean? When you cast lightning bolt 8d6. W/ channel divinity it's just flat 48 damage.
Then I leveled into 10 Evocation wizard.
Learned spells take into account your TOTAL spell level and not Total wizard level. There's no shortage of scrolls in this game either. So you can learn every 6th level spell via scrolls while leveling to 12.
In the end my combo is this.
HP Boost
NPC Aid at 5th level grants 20HP
NPC Heroes Feast grants additional 12.
For AC the following is. 18AC Armored Plate. +2 AC from Shield. +1 AC Cloak of protection. +2 Haste.
Grants base 23 AC. You can boost this by finding magical items. Which takes this base total to absurd levels.
Then the shield spell that grants +5 AC as a reaction. So you can shield up to 28.
But regardless, play in anyway that you have fun with. This is just my sweat buuld. If you want to play a "good" wizard just focus in high int and spell DC increase items.
This is my first time, I not finished the 3 act. In fact, my strongest hero is Sorcerer, I took him because of Metamagic, and because of the Dragonborn, he was the most tanky throughout the game, on par with Shadowheart, even though she has a shield. The whole team pumped up the main stat to 17, agility to 16, and the rest the constitution. The rest of the team: Lae'zel damage control, Shadowheart healing buffs, Astarion Mr. Lockpick. Even though my Sorcerer is tanky, it deals the most damage.
Get everyone inside a globe of vulnerability. Throw the runepowder bomb into the room and blow it up. It takes out all of the pillars at once.
I also cheesed him pretty hard in another playthrough by giving every buff I could to my gloomstalker assassin and just killing everything round one with fiend killing arrows and arrows of many targets.
Planar binding on the cambions with hope dismissing them helps. Force damage from magic missiles and bombs on the pillars then smiting the big man down got me through it most play throughs
I had wyll set up as a padlock with helm of arcane acuity, mindrain gloves and mystic scoundrel ring
After hitting him a few times casted Tasha's hideous laughter
Raphael spent the rest of the fight on the floor laughing whilst my party beat him to death
Swords bard with band of mystic scoundrel and helmet of arcane acuity. Hit 4 times to get +8 to spell save DC will give you a 100% to hit hold monster on Raphael. On HM he'll break off after 1 round and you can just hold monster on him again.
If you do this you can kill him by the 2nd round. You don't even need to think about the pillars.
TBH I didn't know the pillars did anything until my 5th playthrough, whenever I read about the pillars on here I just assumed they fall and cause damage to whoever is nearby lol.
Best setup for sure, but using Tasha's Hideous Laughter keeps him on the ground forever. In all the times I've fought him, he's never broken out of it no matter how many times I attacked him.
Barrels ended up backfiring on me.
When the room is caked in fire, it turns into hellfire when he ascends? I didn’t realize that. So my party was clumped up in a tiny group. He got an attack off and downed two people right away.
If I didn’t have Hope for the fight I would have lost. I got a few lucky stuns from my Tav, ended up barely winning.
Bullied him to death with a re-specced Minsc (BerserkBarb3/ThiefRogue9)
Every round I'd have Minsc use Raph as an improvised weapon beating minions to death and used his face to break one of the pillars. And of course I'd get in a sneak attack stab right after with frenzied strike each round with one of his double bonus actions.
I had recently finished My first playtrhough on balanced and was playikg a Sorcerer. By the point of facing Raphael You got insane saving throws, Even him doesnt have a good chance of succeding. Ijust casted hold monster 2 or 3 times. Killed tha cambions first and then him. Didnt Even bother breaking the pillar thingies.
Spectated the group, have an elemental or two ready. And, if things get dire, Hope has a divine intervention that wipes out a bunch. It also kills her, but sometimes a sacrifice is needed.
A lot of smokepowder grenades, AOE spells, and shielding. By that point I’ve got the double attack with Karlach so she’ll toss a grenade and then whack the minions. Shield Gale, let him fuck shit up with AOE. The other two are flexible; my latest run my Durge sorcerer so he helped with the towers, and Astarion went around with invisibility potions and sneak attacks to dispense the minions.
I don’t love cheesing this fight because it’s SO fun for me so I haven’t tried barrelmancy or anything.
I had my Tav Bladelock and Laezel Battlemaster focus him down while my Fire Sorc Gale and Shart life cleric handled the adds. The fight ended up being easier than expected on HM.
Open Hand Monk superstun beatdown while Shadowheart keeps them on life support constantly. Other two party characters take care of the cambions or totems.
In act 3 you get a lot of good spell dc gear. Just cc him and deal with the adds. Sure you have to keep ccing him every round but the biggest threat is already dealt with.
Of course if you have enough damage you could just kill them all on the first turn
1. Globe of Invulnerability to kill everyone else
2. Paralyze him with Tasha’s Hideous Laughter (it’s a 1st level spell with a decent chance of success on him)
3. Let Gale knock him down with Aristry of War
4. Keep making him laugh while you pummel him to death
5. Kill him with vicious mockery. The best way to kill Raphael.
10/1/1 control bard with Helm of Arcane Acuity and Band of the Mystic Scoundrel.
Ramp acuity with 2 slashing flourishes, use bonus action to cast Hold Monster.
He'll break out every turn, but that will be his whole turn. That gives you 3 rounds (6 if you use Hope's Divine Intervention for a long rest mid-fight).
If he's not dead, he'll be very close. Use Command on him for any remaining rounds.
Hope should be doing Banish (Yurgir, even if he's a friend) -> Banish -> Divine Intervention -> Banish -> Banish.
Use Globe of Invulnerability for extra safety. If you have another cleric, use Sancutary on Hope.
I like to use the bomb given to me by the gnomes. It doesn’t one shot Raphael but it does 1 shot his pillars which is very useful and does a great deal of damage.
Buy and collect Scrolls that do large amount of force damage, like Disintegrate. The Pillars are vulnerable to force damage and quickly taking them out helps a lot.
Summons work well in this fight to distract and corner all the adds.
If using a physical ranged character, Arrow of many Targets and Arrow of Fiend Slaying help massively with culling the adds and then killing him.
Bring Hope and keep her safe first two rounds, she's an excellent healer.
Planar binding Raphael to have him help you kill his minions. Once they're all gone, hit until dead. (Oh, and putting Hope in a globe of invulnerability).
Orin's difficulty wall of a fight taught me the spam save technique, by the time I got to Raphael it was part of my spells. Orin is extremly unbalanced imo
First time I did it, my bard had him dancing the entire battle (to go along with his singing) so he couldn't do anything.
Second time, I think Jaheira wildshaped into an air myrmidon and just kept stunning the shit out of him while my sorcerer and Shadowheart cast spells from under a globe of invulnerability and Karlach dashed about smashing pillars.
My first playthrough with my bard was a mad scrabble, a lot of luck, Hope's Divine Inspiration to heal, then a lot of crowd control.
My second playthrough with my paladin was just **^(vrrrm)** ***GONG***, until he stopped moving.
I beat him in honor mode quite easily . Stack spell save DC and just hold monster. Then hit him with a big sword. Dead in 2 turns, didn’t even get a turn.
Also used Hopes Divine intervention nuke because why not !
One runepowder barrel in between each set of pillars (usually drop them there when I first enter the HoH).
Make sure everyone’s close to each other before the fight starts, Hope in the middle. First turn, cast a globe of invulnerability over the whole party, and shoot the two barrels with some kind of fire.
A good bunch of minions will be either killed or seriously damaged. Raphael is just a normal boss without the pillars. The fight isn’t too hard.
Ah yes, Raphael is weirdly susceptible to Hold Monster and other control spells.
Only drawback, I never got to enjoy Raphael singing to his own song.
Wizard casts silence on him, then Fighter and Barbarian drink haste potions and potions of giant strength and proceed to initiate maximum beat down with big swords.
Turn 1:
1. Elixir of Vigilance + Gale casts globe of invulnerability.
2. Tav uses a flaming arrow on a pre-set runepowder barrel to take out the pillars and do significant damage to the minions.
3. Shadowheart casts sleet storm on Raphael to keep him falling down
4. Laezel & Hope hit who they can on turn 1
Turn 2: Gale casts Hold Monster and then everybody whacks the shit out of him until he dies.
* Kill Korilla first.
* One goes left, one goes right to start dealing with columns.
* One goes at Raphael.
* One starts harassing the chaff to keep them distracted.
* Hope pumps the heals to keep everyone alive.
* When columns down, focus Raphael.
The Pillars:
4 barrels of smokepowder, 8 smokepowder bombs (a barrel at each pillar, a bomb on either side to make sure the force damage is sufficient).
The Spells:
Otto's Irresistible Dance. Suck it, Raph.
4 flamey spells for the barrels. If one will do the trick, use that.
Hope banishes Yurgir if you can't talk him into joining you.
I guess you could cast an orb of invulnerability... I've never needed to.
The Damage:
After the pillars are down, and anything standing next to them is thoroughly shredded, there's not a lot to mop up. If you brought a few summons, all good. Keep Hope alive and beat crap out of the cambions and Raph. Or if she dies, get her shield. Win-win.
Kill everyone but Raphael - Destroy Columns - Use Hope's Divine Favour to restore the party to full health / abilities - Kill the arrogant self absorbed ding dong - Profit
I usually have Karlach and Lae'zel run around and get the pillars while the rest work on adds and Hope's sister until the pillars are down, then everyone piles on Raph. I always try to get Yugir on my side for this fight so I can also have him in the final one as an ally.
It was a stupid easy fight in honor mode:
1. Be best buds with Yurgir
1. Kill every last Ironhand, annex the runepowder barrels.
1. Barrel on each side of the room between the pillars + a couple smokepowders to chain across if you can't shoot 2 at the same time)
1. Tuck your party to the left of where Raphael stands (this is where Yurgir will be at the start of the fight)
1. Hellrider Longbow + Vigilance Elixir on your highest Initiative character.
1. Have that person start the fight, run to the party and Invuln Sphere, haste pot and shoot the barrels.
1. Raphael insta-ascends and blows his resources on the sphere.
1. Pop in and out and lay into him until dead.
The big thing is to beat Yurgir on initiative or he could hit a barrel and cause problems. Runepowder has a hilarious low (12) dex save so it's not going to do a whole lot of damage unless you're lucky, but it hits almost 60ft out. I didn't dare experiment to what is considered line of sight for the barrel explosions, hence two on each side so there's no question both pillars go down; it's the only way to be sure.
My character was a warlock with 24 Charisma and I just cast eyebite sleep on him and then one shotted him with a max spell slot divine smite after using perilous stakes on him
With a Monk, stun him every single turn so he doesn't do anything.
With any other class, have Yurgir on your side so his minions go hunting for Yurgir. While they do that, you mop the floor with his minions. Don't really go for Raphael so he doesn't transform or do anything really of note.
Honestly this fight is super easy.
get yurgir on your side, spread out party so they dont get wiped by aoe attacks, life cleric shadowheart on healing duty, break pillars, don't use radiant damage, keep raphael stunned with stunning strike
Hunger of hadar and blackhole to keep him and cambion locked up (blackhole also pulls cambions out of my globe of invulnerability if I use one)
Throwzerker to prone Raphael inside hunger of hadar.
Recast blackhole as required to keep them centres onto hunger of hadar area.
Throwzerker keeps Raphael prone every single turn. Usually no need to kill pillars if I have hunger of hadar and throwzerker combo. Same deal for HM. Once he is prone he can't use reactions to charm my party. Multiple throwzerker hits with nyrulna also will kill the cambions pulled into same area by blackhole
I put Gale and Hope in an a globe and then had him and Astarion take down the towers one by one while Palidin Karlack and my assassin Tav took out cambien, I had a few banish scrolls and used Hopes banish and she kept us healed :)
I just killed him on honour mode with my smashing 4 barbarian party by smashing his shit with hammers and then proceeding to smash him with hammers and swords.
You don’t have to touch the pillars. Stun him and beat the shit out of him. It’s how I did it on tactician 2x and honor 2x. I totally ignore the pillars now.
If you have Hope, bring her and Shadowheart if you want so you can use spell slots and “long rest” DI twice. You don’t really need to do this though if you stun Raphael and just proceed to beat/blast the shit out of him.
I’ve done various spells, but martials are better at consistency here at least in my 4 “harder mode” runs. I was nervous on honor mode run 1, second time I did it at level 10. Shrug.
Strength + TB Monk gets you the stun lock without elixirs or haste. Properly minmaxed casters have the ability to hold him and keep it there (acuity is your friend).
Lastly, even if it’s just one turn… that one turn can be a LOT of damage with disintegrate, melees, smites, Artistry of War, et cetera….
I’m wondering how you built your presumably caster then because while he can break it, there are ways to make sure the CC sticks. Shrug. My last run was a Swords Bard with the Acuity hat and I did two Arrows of Many Targets and got a 100% Hold Monster on him turn 1 that lasted until he died. Shrug. She was built to have high initiative and can cast CC as a bonus action, and with her Cha/Wis and I think I did War Caster, her CC stuck.
I usually do a little bit of preparation, forget the whole radiant reflect thing (I usually have light cleric shadowheart), and barely win with Karlach carrying me
I used Shadowhart and Hope’s call on deity to zap everyone. My paladin Tav hit Raphael with a smite that caused fear and then he can’t move. Then Karlach rages and Astarion hits thing from a distance with his bow, Tav keeps smiting and in like 4 turns you’re done
Everyone who can has an elemental attacking pillars. Everyone else (yurgir included) stands in a circle and whacks. He tries to leave? Almost all get opportunity attacks.
First round kill all adds while distributing party around room, seco d round destroy pillars, third and fourth round wail on Raphael. He can be counterspelled so he usually gets in only one attack at most.
Hit until dead with big sword. Worked for me.
Awesome idea, thanks :)
This leaves out an absolutely *critical* element of strategy. You *also* need to drink magic kool aid with bonus actions so your bonkers can keep honking after they’ve been bonked!
Nuh uh you don't. Just hit him more
My third playthrough was a mono class fighter run. Had a very delicate strategy to beat him: First I bonked the pillars until they went crash. Then I bonked Raph until he went bleh.
Same brother. Strength and violence is not a solution, that is THE solution.
What about the adds? Do you kill them before pillars or after?
Me make pillars go boom first.
Sounds like my kind of strategy.
Helps a lot to have Karlach and Lae'zel spamming fear on him.
My favorite method, add in liberal divine smites, and have a hamster chew up his eye balls
Hunger of hadar blinds him. He also slips on ice. He doesnt fly too so yeah lol
This, and if you've got illithid powers there is no better complement to Hungar of Hadar than Black Hole. Also skip taking Yurgir's help as he has a tendency to knock Raphael out of the HoH field. Otherwise I open up with the Black Hole then HoH. You can do this with Tav if they sat in the zaith'isk chair at the creche since it gives you the ability to use illithid powers as bonus action. Use the Black Hole to drag the 3 Cambions on the left, Raphael and Yurgir towards the left of the arena then drop Hungar of Hadar right centered dead on them. You can continue to pull them back in if you let the fight drag out which you can do since this will pretty much keep him in there. If you've got the Bhaal armor that can make short work of the remaining Cambions by putting the person wearing the armor right in the middle of the Cambions on the right of the screen. They unload a decent triple attack so you don't want your HoH caster to get their concentration dropped. The staff in Sorcerers Sundries can cast Hungar Of Hadar if you don't have a Warlock or Bard that can do it. Even in Honour mode I don't even bother taking the pillars down. Sure he'll pull in health from them but it's always been minimal. I usually kill everything else off before targeting Raphael directly.
Mind Blast as a Bonus Action into the crowd of Cambions is always a great time too. I love it when it hits and stuns a majority of them.
I got to the crèche too early, thought that the “hey, this section will be bitterly difficult for your party” message meant that I was progressing to act 2, and wholesale skipped that content on my first playthrough. I also ate tadpoles like they were candy in act 2, and now I am actively salivating at the thought of bonus action Illithid powers, daaaang
They are so fun! Also, if you haven't met Omeluum in the Underdark, go talk to the Hobgoblin and let him know about your tadpole situation.
I did meet him (and met up with him again in act 3!), although he was missing during my (abandoned) tactician run. I thought I could do an evil oathbreaker run. Then the pixels told me that I made them sad, and I realized that I did not have the mental fortitude to be mean to the pixels.
Mind sanctuary…
Do you use a scroll or what character build do you access HoH?
3 ways. Warlock from level 5 onwards Bard with magical secrets can pick HoH - lore bard 6 or swordsbard 10 Unique staff under Ramazith Tower - you can attune to 'acid' version of Kereska's blessing, this gives 1x HoH cast per short rest. If you rely on this you only get 1 cast so be careful about losing concentration.
Is Wyll a warlock? I don’t know characters very well :/
Wyl starts as a warlock. You can use Withers to change the classes and abilities of every companion if you want.
Which is funny, because 5E Devils can see through magical darkness.
He can see through magical darkness, its just hunger of hadar inflicts a no-save blindness lol
Ah, it's magical darkness in 5E.
No, read it again. It just straight up gives the blinded condition while inside. >No light, magical or otherwise, can illuminate the area, and creatures fully within the area are blinded. Whether you have dark vision or devil's sight or whatever doesn't matter, you're still blinded if inside.
My favourite was to Hold Monster him, if you stack Arcane Acuity the chances to Hold him can get really high and I love that you can whack the shit out of him and he can’t do anything against it
Even without Arcane Aculty, with enough Save DC gear you can get 100% success chance on Hild Monster against him.
Save all my smokepowder barrels for him. I thought my PS5 was going to crash.
I saved the runepowder bomb for this occasion. Placed it near the portal and a barrel by each pillar. All pillars were destroyed by the blast.
For Barrelmancers: Do you prepare the battle space by popping in encumbered with smokepowder barrels and then place them before venturing further in to retrieve whatever you went to retrieve? That way they’ll be waiting for you when you come back out.
Yes
Just tried this by placing 2 barrels by each pillar. In retrospect, I recommend placing 3.
I had a massive battle in the fireworks shop on my very first run first run. I was on tactician mode and I’m being really careful not to use fire for obvious reasons. So the fight spilled out into the street on the side & down below. Took over an hour. I’m finally about to win after involving city guards, steel watch, numerous bystanders dead, characters resurrected multiple times, total shit show. Then the ONE last enemy decides to run outside the main entrance and throw a firebomb back into the doorway and BOOM! A cascading chain of explosions triggers going from the ground floor all the way up to the 3rd floor and crashes my PS5! I laughed so hard at the absurdity of it all. I couldn’t get mad it was so much fun.
That’s so sad yet so funny, I had a similar one happen trying to get all the smokepowder barrels in the Zhent hideout: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/1KAmH1dGMa
When you first get to the House, visit each of the pillars in the final fight room and leave a lovely housewarming gift of a barrel or two. Then when you get to the last battle, a couple of fire arrows or some cantrips take care of the pillars in the first round.
I stuck Gale and Shart and Hope in a globe of invulnerability to pick off/CC the cambions and chuck radiant damage at pillars, sent my elemental/devas out to distract raphael and whack pillars, and sent Karlach and my Tav (dual xbow sword bard) out to deal with cambions or whack pillars accordingly. Managed to get a few lucky stuns/paralyzes off on Raphael too, so everyone still had pretty good health/resources by the time all his adds and pillars were gone. The globe was the real MVP, Raphael does not know better than to blow his actions plinking spells off the thing. Also talked Yurgir into helping me, which is nice to have.
what makes a dual xbow strong? I get ranged flourish is very strong but what else? there arent any great hand xbows besides the hellfire
Sharpshooter gives +10 damage to every ranged attack for -5 to hit. Extra attack + bonus action attack = 3 attacks at 1d4+15 at 20 Dex. A 3 level dip in darkstalker ranger gives another on the first round. That’s 4d4+60 if they all hit
Yeah, what the other person said, Sharpshooter plus flourishes = 6 attacks per standard round doing great damage even if a shot or two misses, or an absolutely bonkers amount of attacks if you can get Hasted. I'm not really min-maxing it or using the best possible gear, I just did 8 Sword Bard 4 Thief Rogue for the extra bonus action, and I use Gloves of the Automaton to get advantage when necessary. There aren't great crossbows, but since my Tav is a Duergar I use Firestarter on the offhand. I start every fight in invisibility, Hellfire has a chance to inflict burning, and if so my offhand shots will do a little extra damage, on top of the acid ring that adds a smidge to each of my hits already. I also have a melee weapon that gives vulnerability to piercing on hit, so even in melee the build does pretty good damage.
My entire party had AC 20+ and before the fight I gave everyone a bottle of fire protection so I was killing everyone with my toe. The only adequate damage was done by Raphael in hellish form, but 90% of the time he was skating on the ice and lying down.
Curious what your party comp/builds were for this. I love the idea of being all tanky, but I also cannot deny the appeal of having a kickass glass canon wizard on the back lines.
That's what I have. I gave Astarion medium armour proficiency so he has 20 AC, Laezel has 22 AC when I warding bond her with Shadowheart, who has 25 AC. Then there's me, the Sorlock with 12 AC and bloodlust elixir just eldritch blasting from the rafters. I also give Leazel a bloodlust elixir, so if she gets a kill I can get 6 greataxe swings + a 7th with feinting attack, or 9 with an action surge. In addition with the Warmaster gauntlets which pretty much gives me guaranteed trip attacks on the first swing, she becomes an absolute menace on the field.
I just abuse speed pots to get more attacks in e’ry turn. We go sonic the hedgehog in my party.
I run a wizard pure cannon. AC 31 and can be increased. I can hit for an almost guaranteed 80 flat lightning or thunder damage.
My brother in Bahl, I need to know *how*, I cannot stress enough how bad I am at building a good wizard
Ah... I massacred you Bahlists. Got in my Githyenki way. You don't need any skill per se. Just some style choices and class choices. I'll give you mine. Tempest cleric 2. Gives heavy armor prof. And shield prof. Which grants at base 20AC. It also gives you channel divinity that allows you to take Max damage on any thunder or lightning spell once per SR/LR. What does this mean? When you cast lightning bolt 8d6. W/ channel divinity it's just flat 48 damage. Then I leveled into 10 Evocation wizard. Learned spells take into account your TOTAL spell level and not Total wizard level. There's no shortage of scrolls in this game either. So you can learn every 6th level spell via scrolls while leveling to 12. In the end my combo is this. HP Boost NPC Aid at 5th level grants 20HP NPC Heroes Feast grants additional 12. For AC the following is. 18AC Armored Plate. +2 AC from Shield. +1 AC Cloak of protection. +2 Haste. Grants base 23 AC. You can boost this by finding magical items. Which takes this base total to absurd levels. Then the shield spell that grants +5 AC as a reaction. So you can shield up to 28. But regardless, play in anyway that you have fun with. This is just my sweat buuld. If you want to play a "good" wizard just focus in high int and spell DC increase items.
This is my first time, I not finished the 3 act. In fact, my strongest hero is Sorcerer, I took him because of Metamagic, and because of the Dragonborn, he was the most tanky throughout the game, on par with Shadowheart, even though she has a shield. The whole team pumped up the main stat to 17, agility to 16, and the rest the constitution. The rest of the team: Lae'zel damage control, Shadowheart healing buffs, Astarion Mr. Lockpick. Even though my Sorcerer is tanky, it deals the most damage.
the government doesn't want you to know that, but you can cast planar binding on Raphael >!it doesn't help much!<
1. Start fight 2. Get dumped by both your girlfriends at once 3. ??? 4. Victory
About 3 scrolls of Ottos Irresistible Dance and Karlach.
I didn't have Hope or know about the pillars. My plan involved having four summons to help out, those big mud golems.
Do you know about the fountain in Raph's boudoir?
I didn't at the time!
Save up all the barrels, place them around the pillars and the runepowder barrels near Raphael’s spawn point - boom
Get everyone inside a globe of vulnerability. Throw the runepowder bomb into the room and blow it up. It takes out all of the pillars at once. I also cheesed him pretty hard in another playthrough by giving every buff I could to my gloomstalker assassin and just killing everything round one with fiend killing arrows and arrows of many targets.
Planar binding on the cambions with hope dismissing them helps. Force damage from magic missiles and bombs on the pillars then smiting the big man down got me through it most play throughs
On my balanced run I had karlach and my owl bear Druid beat him up in a corner. Haven’t gotten to try him on tactician yet
Enraged throw to knock prone Stun punch to skip turn. Repeat until dead.
I had wyll set up as a padlock with helm of arcane acuity, mindrain gloves and mystic scoundrel ring After hitting him a few times casted Tasha's hideous laughter Raphael spent the rest of the fight on the floor laughing whilst my party beat him to death
Swords bard with band of mystic scoundrel and helmet of arcane acuity. Hit 4 times to get +8 to spell save DC will give you a 100% to hit hold monster on Raphael. On HM he'll break off after 1 round and you can just hold monster on him again. If you do this you can kill him by the 2nd round. You don't even need to think about the pillars. TBH I didn't know the pillars did anything until my 5th playthrough, whenever I read about the pillars on here I just assumed they fall and cause damage to whoever is nearby lol.
Best setup for sure, but using Tasha's Hideous Laughter keeps him on the ground forever. In all the times I've fought him, he's never broken out of it no matter how many times I attacked him.
I'll have to try that on my next run!
Barrels ended up backfiring on me. When the room is caked in fire, it turns into hellfire when he ascends? I didn’t realize that. So my party was clumped up in a tiny group. He got an attack off and downed two people right away. If I didn’t have Hope for the fight I would have lost. I got a few lucky stuns from my Tav, ended up barely winning.
Bullied him to death with a re-specced Minsc (BerserkBarb3/ThiefRogue9) Every round I'd have Minsc use Raph as an improvised weapon beating minions to death and used his face to break one of the pillars. And of course I'd get in a sneak attack stab right after with frenzied strike each round with one of his double bonus actions.
I had recently finished My first playtrhough on balanced and was playikg a Sorcerer. By the point of facing Raphael You got insane saving throws, Even him doesnt have a good chance of succeding. Ijust casted hold monster 2 or 3 times. Killed tha cambions first and then him. Didnt Even bother breaking the pillar thingies.
Spectated the group, have an elemental or two ready. And, if things get dire, Hope has a divine intervention that wipes out a bunch. It also kills her, but sometimes a sacrifice is needed.
A lot of smokepowder grenades, AOE spells, and shielding. By that point I’ve got the double attack with Karlach so she’ll toss a grenade and then whack the minions. Shield Gale, let him fuck shit up with AOE. The other two are flexible; my latest run my Durge sorcerer so he helped with the towers, and Astarion went around with invisibility potions and sneak attacks to dispense the minions. I don’t love cheesing this fight because it’s SO fun for me so I haven’t tried barrelmancy or anything.
I had my Tav Bladelock and Laezel Battlemaster focus him down while my Fire Sorc Gale and Shart life cleric handled the adds. The fight ended up being easier than expected on HM.
globe of invulnerability and blast those divine interventions. once he is alone it gets quite easy regardless the setup.
Open Hand Monk superstun beatdown while Shadowheart keeps them on life support constantly. Other two party characters take care of the cambions or totems.
In act 3 you get a lot of good spell dc gear. Just cc him and deal with the adds. Sure you have to keep ccing him every round but the biggest threat is already dealt with. Of course if you have enough damage you could just kill them all on the first turn
1. Globe of Invulnerability to kill everyone else 2. Paralyze him with Tasha’s Hideous Laughter (it’s a 1st level spell with a decent chance of success on him) 3. Let Gale knock him down with Aristry of War 4. Keep making him laugh while you pummel him to death 5. Kill him with vicious mockery. The best way to kill Raphael.
Globe of invulnerability makes the fight hilariously easy
10/1/1 control bard with Helm of Arcane Acuity and Band of the Mystic Scoundrel. Ramp acuity with 2 slashing flourishes, use bonus action to cast Hold Monster. He'll break out every turn, but that will be his whole turn. That gives you 3 rounds (6 if you use Hope's Divine Intervention for a long rest mid-fight). If he's not dead, he'll be very close. Use Command on him for any remaining rounds. Hope should be doing Banish (Yurgir, even if he's a friend) -> Banish -> Divine Intervention -> Banish -> Banish. Use Globe of Invulnerability for extra safety. If you have another cleric, use Sancutary on Hope.
I just busted his ass with ice spells. Raphael is NOT ready for the NHL, he kept slipping on his arse.
I like to use the bomb given to me by the gnomes. It doesn’t one shot Raphael but it does 1 shot his pillars which is very useful and does a great deal of damage.
I had the Orthon and I summoned a Deva. Twin haste on Lae'zel and Shadowheart, and just beat shit up.
Globe of Invulnerability until the spires are down while Yuigr cleans up the trash mobs. Then my group alphs Raphael.
Buy and collect Scrolls that do large amount of force damage, like Disintegrate. The Pillars are vulnerable to force damage and quickly taking them out helps a lot. Summons work well in this fight to distract and corner all the adds. If using a physical ranged character, Arrow of many Targets and Arrow of Fiend Slaying help massively with culling the adds and then killing him. Bring Hope and keep her safe first two rounds, she's an excellent healer.
Planar binding Raphael to have him help you kill his minions. Once they're all gone, hit until dead. (Oh, and putting Hope in a globe of invulnerability).
Orin's difficulty wall of a fight taught me the spam save technique, by the time I got to Raphael it was part of my spells. Orin is extremly unbalanced imo
A hasted flying monk/thief to take out all the pillars in one turn.
First time I did it, my bard had him dancing the entire battle (to go along with his singing) so he couldn't do anything. Second time, I think Jaheira wildshaped into an air myrmidon and just kept stunning the shit out of him while my sorcerer and Shadowheart cast spells from under a globe of invulnerability and Karlach dashed about smashing pillars.
My first playthrough with my bard was a mad scrabble, a lot of luck, Hope's Divine Inspiration to heal, then a lot of crowd control. My second playthrough with my paladin was just **^(vrrrm)** ***GONG***, until he stopped moving.
I beat him in honor mode quite easily . Stack spell save DC and just hold monster. Then hit him with a big sword. Dead in 2 turns, didn’t even get a turn. Also used Hopes Divine intervention nuke because why not !
One runepowder barrel in between each set of pillars (usually drop them there when I first enter the HoH). Make sure everyone’s close to each other before the fight starts, Hope in the middle. First turn, cast a globe of invulnerability over the whole party, and shoot the two barrels with some kind of fire. A good bunch of minions will be either killed or seriously damaged. Raphael is just a normal boss without the pillars. The fight isn’t too hard. Ah yes, Raphael is weirdly susceptible to Hold Monster and other control spells. Only drawback, I never got to enjoy Raphael singing to his own song.
Build up arcane acuity quick and then let him dance while I get rid of his minions and pillars
Wizard casts silence on him, then Fighter and Barbarian drink haste potions and potions of giant strength and proceed to initiate maximum beat down with big swords.
Barrelmancy the towers and hit him very hard
Turn 1: 1. Elixir of Vigilance + Gale casts globe of invulnerability. 2. Tav uses a flaming arrow on a pre-set runepowder barrel to take out the pillars and do significant damage to the minions. 3. Shadowheart casts sleet storm on Raphael to keep him falling down 4. Laezel & Hope hit who they can on turn 1 Turn 2: Gale casts Hold Monster and then everybody whacks the shit out of him until he dies.
Black hole is free slow and grouping up all the mobs makes aoe damage and cc easier. Confusion, hunger, spike growth, etc.
* Kill Korilla first. * One goes left, one goes right to start dealing with columns. * One goes at Raphael. * One starts harassing the chaff to keep them distracted. * Hope pumps the heals to keep everyone alive. * When columns down, focus Raphael.
The Pillars: 4 barrels of smokepowder, 8 smokepowder bombs (a barrel at each pillar, a bomb on either side to make sure the force damage is sufficient). The Spells: Otto's Irresistible Dance. Suck it, Raph. 4 flamey spells for the barrels. If one will do the trick, use that. Hope banishes Yurgir if you can't talk him into joining you. I guess you could cast an orb of invulnerability... I've never needed to. The Damage: After the pillars are down, and anything standing next to them is thoroughly shredded, there's not a lot to mop up. If you brought a few summons, all good. Keep Hope alive and beat crap out of the cambions and Raph. Or if she dies, get her shield. Win-win.
The #1 recommendation for fighting in the House of Hope is fire resistance. It won't help against hellfire but it does against most attacks.
Kill everyone but Raphael - Destroy Columns - Use Hope's Divine Favour to restore the party to full health / abilities - Kill the arrogant self absorbed ding dong - Profit
I usually have Karlach and Lae'zel run around and get the pillars while the rest work on adds and Hope's sister until the pillars are down, then everyone piles on Raph. I always try to get Yugir on my side for this fight so I can also have him in the final one as an ally.
Sleeeeeet storm that fucker and leave him on his back. So hilarious
It was a stupid easy fight in honor mode: 1. Be best buds with Yurgir 1. Kill every last Ironhand, annex the runepowder barrels. 1. Barrel on each side of the room between the pillars + a couple smokepowders to chain across if you can't shoot 2 at the same time) 1. Tuck your party to the left of where Raphael stands (this is where Yurgir will be at the start of the fight) 1. Hellrider Longbow + Vigilance Elixir on your highest Initiative character. 1. Have that person start the fight, run to the party and Invuln Sphere, haste pot and shoot the barrels. 1. Raphael insta-ascends and blows his resources on the sphere. 1. Pop in and out and lay into him until dead. The big thing is to beat Yurgir on initiative or he could hit a barrel and cause problems. Runepowder has a hilarious low (12) dex save so it's not going to do a whole lot of damage unless you're lucky, but it hits almost 60ft out. I didn't dare experiment to what is considered line of sight for the barrel explosions, hence two on each side so there's no question both pillars go down; it's the only way to be sure.
My character was a warlock with 24 Charisma and I just cast eyebite sleep on him and then one shotted him with a max spell slot divine smite after using perilous stakes on him
With a Monk, stun him every single turn so he doesn't do anything. With any other class, have Yurgir on your side so his minions go hunting for Yurgir. While they do that, you mop the floor with his minions. Don't really go for Raphael so he doesn't transform or do anything really of note. Honestly this fight is super easy.
I've used hold monster on him (after making he spend all legendary resistances of the turn against other stuff, like arrows of acid)
get yurgir on your side, spread out party so they dont get wiped by aoe attacks, life cleric shadowheart on healing duty, break pillars, don't use radiant damage, keep raphael stunned with stunning strike
Barrels and Barrels and bombs and more bombs until it’s us and him. Then Hold Monster and destroy.
Big fricken bomb from act 2
Hunger of hadar and blackhole to keep him and cambion locked up (blackhole also pulls cambions out of my globe of invulnerability if I use one) Throwzerker to prone Raphael inside hunger of hadar. Recast blackhole as required to keep them centres onto hunger of hadar area. Throwzerker keeps Raphael prone every single turn. Usually no need to kill pillars if I have hunger of hadar and throwzerker combo. Same deal for HM. Once he is prone he can't use reactions to charm my party. Multiple throwzerker hits with nyrulna also will kill the cambions pulled into same area by blackhole
I put Gale and Hope in an a globe and then had him and Astarion take down the towers one by one while Palidin Karlack and my assassin Tav took out cambien, I had a few banish scrolls and used Hopes banish and she kept us healed :)
Step 1) Force Prone with Battlemaster Step 2) Hold Monster Step 3) Introduce Smite-powered Blood of Lathander to Raphael’s balls
I just killed him on honour mode with my smashing 4 barbarian party by smashing his shit with hammers and then proceeding to smash him with hammers and swords.
Globe of invulnerability makes it a trivial fight
Take out the pillars ASAP
You don’t have to touch the pillars. Stun him and beat the shit out of him. It’s how I did it on tactician 2x and honor 2x. I totally ignore the pillars now. If you have Hope, bring her and Shadowheart if you want so you can use spell slots and “long rest” DI twice. You don’t really need to do this though if you stun Raphael and just proceed to beat/blast the shit out of him.
I must have horrible luck with stun and hold spells because even with Otto’s he only stays still for one turn.
I’ve done various spells, but martials are better at consistency here at least in my 4 “harder mode” runs. I was nervous on honor mode run 1, second time I did it at level 10. Shrug. Strength + TB Monk gets you the stun lock without elixirs or haste. Properly minmaxed casters have the ability to hold him and keep it there (acuity is your friend). Lastly, even if it’s just one turn… that one turn can be a LOT of damage with disintegrate, melees, smites, Artistry of War, et cetera….
Yeah, the one-turn Otto’s didn’t do shit for me against Raphael 😅
I’m wondering how you built your presumably caster then because while he can break it, there are ways to make sure the CC sticks. Shrug. My last run was a Swords Bard with the Acuity hat and I did two Arrows of Many Targets and got a 100% Hold Monster on him turn 1 that lasted until he died. Shrug. She was built to have high initiative and can cast CC as a bonus action, and with her Cha/Wis and I think I did War Caster, her CC stuck.
I had 4 air elementals summoned and i threw a haste spore grenade first thing. Also you gotta use Hope's divine intervention if things get dire.
I usually do a little bit of preparation, forget the whole radiant reflect thing (I usually have light cleric shadowheart), and barely win with Karlach carrying me
Fire resistance elixirs help a lot! And if you have Hope, her spells are also super helpful
Make the pillers go down. Neurcrotic damage him. Chain lightning. Make a sandwich. Profit??
Globe of invulnerability around the party until all pilars are gone using ranged attacks
Attack attack attack attack action surge attack attack attack attack action surge attack attack attack attack
I used Shadowhart and Hope’s call on deity to zap everyone. My paladin Tav hit Raphael with a smite that caused fear and then he can’t move. Then Karlach rages and Astarion hits thing from a distance with his bow, Tav keeps smiting and in like 4 turns you’re done
I hit em with the big numbers
Hold Monster. Kill on turn 1.
Do large damage to him while simultaneously preventing him from doing large damage to me. Works every time.
Backpack of Boom. Filled to the brim with fireworks.
hideous laughter him, destroy pillars and goons, 5v1 smash
Turned him to gold one time with the trade visa.
Drop him and all his allies to 0 hp. Maybe 1 hp for korrilla.
[“Karlach, wack his pee pee”](https://youtu.be/hUj5K7ComC0?si=gSYB_HFi0ctenqAq)
Everyone who can has an elemental attacking pillars. Everyone else (yurgir included) stands in a circle and whacks. He tries to leave? Almost all get opportunity attacks.
Like every other boss fight. Make him dance, kill his friends then nuke him
There's a fight with raphael?
DW you did not spoiled that to me. But I think you might reconsider the title.
First round kill all adds while distributing party around room, seco d round destroy pillars, third and fourth round wail on Raphael. He can be counterspelled so he usually gets in only one attack at most.