I can’t do italics in titles, so I have to clarify here that the intended reading is “Farslayer Ghislev isn’t that hard.” Farslayer Ghislev is a Bhaal cultist in Baldur’s Gate 3 who can ritually cast a mass Power Word Kill that instantly kills all enemies within the area of the ritual zone. Having more than 100 HP doesn’t help the way it does against regular Power Word Kill, the ritual only takes 6 rounds to complete, and fighting through the dozen-odd enemies standing between you and the farslayer is totally impractical.
This fight took me three tries, and while I hate long resting in the middle of a plot arc (despite there being no consequences for doing so), in this case that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Farslayer Ghislev wiped me out the first two times, despite generally wrecking the encounter otherwise. That’s more attempts than most boss fights in the game took (the fight a few minutes later with Orin, Bhaal’s chosen avatar, was easier), but also I didn’t have to swap out party members or back out to buy teleportation arrows or any of the other stuff online guides said to do later. You can absolutely win this fight with your standard party, you just have to know how the ritual works. For some reason, in all the threads of people talking about how to beat this encounter with teleportation tricks or by having an invisible character sneak ahead to assassinate Ghislev or whatever, no one ever brings up what seems like the intended solution: Get all your party members out of the death zone before the ritual is completed. There are lots of nooks and crannies that are outside the ritual zone scattered around the edges of the arena. You are going to have to fight your way through some affected areas, but fighting through five or six baddies to reach the next safe zone is doable in a way that fighting ten or fifteen to clear the whole encounter in one go is not.
Like, that gate that the Bhaal invoker sits on top of flinging dagger clouds at you. Bust that thing open and get your party safely on the other side and you’re out of range of the ritual. There’s only like three guys between the start of the encounter and that location, and you can fight the strangler and his lackeys safely from there. After taking those guys out and waiting out the ritual, you can try to sprint across the bridge to punch through Maiming Abby and her mooks and it’ll probably be fine, but you can also cling to the edges and fight them from inside the ruined building – which is outside the ritual area. At that point you’ve killed every single Bhaal cultist except Ghislev, and even if he sees you emerge from the ruins (he didn’t see me), you’ll have a full six rounds to take out one guy.
Side note, I wish the nautiloid artillery had the really clear boundaries that the Power Word Kill ritual did, it is super annoying trying to get characters in safe zones during the ascent up the High Hall.
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