Battles like this made me grateful that Harm is so overpowered. I generally tried not to use it except as a last result, but it seemed appropriate here. I took a few tries to handle this as a druid/shifter (partially because I wasn't expecting the combat, so I wasn't pre-buffed), but once I figured out that ignoring Grimgnaw until near the end of the combat was going to be best (he has very high AC IIRC so it can take a while to take him down, and he doesn't hit as hard as the minotaur anyway), I was able to handle it a lot better. But yeah, I took down the minotaur first, and then Balpheron and Maugrim (they both went down relatively quickly). Crimson can be a pain, especially because my companions couldn't even see her, but she really didn't do all that much damage.

I'm surprised you kept Nathyrra that long, to be honest. I imagine there's probably a fix for her, but her AI was so bad for me that I ditched her after she refused to help me against Sabal (it helps that Valen became a killing machine once I gave him my Boots of Haste, even though I was unable to upgrade his weapon).

Well, I had little choice but to keep Nathyrra. Deekin was exactly the same archetype as my PC (bard/RDD) and Aribeth became an option so late into the game that I already had a romance with Nathyrra I wanted to follow through to the end. :P

As I said, though, the fight wasn't bad for me. Balpheron was the greatest challenge, while Grimgnaw, contrary to what your experience with the pack was, went down first with little to no trouble. I guess that upgrading my weapon to +8 enhancement played some part in this.

Interesting. I believe Grimgnaw had an AC of like 40-something, so when I tried to take him down first I would stand there swinging at him and missing while Koth and the spellcasters waled on me...and then he would get healed. I didn't care too much about upgrading the enchantment value of my primary weapon, though (and found that I couldn't past +6, as I had the STR drain already attached and he wouldn't pump it any more after that), since I was in shifted form for most of my battles. My winning strategy involved hitting Koth with Harm immediately after the Time Stop and finishing him before he could be healed, and then taking out Balpheron and Maugrim. Even though Grimgnaw was following me the entire battle, he couldn't really damage me enough by himself to threaten me in Risen Lord form (though I do believe this is one of the battles where I had to finish it in Drow form, so that I could actually heal myself).

I thought this was harder than Mephistopheles, who I took out in my first attempt. Vixthra was only tricky for me because I ran through ALL of the traps on the way to his phylactery and spent most of the battle at low health (since I was in undead form), so I pretty much stood back and healed Valen as he fought him. Agreed that Vixthra's high priest was tougher--I had difficulty with him and with the Valsharess, purely because of whatever spell it was that caused me to damage myself whenever I hit them (elemental shield, perhaps?).

I really wanted to keep Nathyrra on my team, partially because of the Rogue skills, but I found she wasn't actually that good at those...and her frustratingly bad combat AI was too much for me to tolerate. Kept Deekin the whole game, ditched Nathyrra for Valen, and then ditched Valen for Aribeth (though he might have been more effective than she was). I can respect those reasons for keeping her around, though!

WArning: (Spoilers) I will only answer from the question okay... So yes it is possible to pass the HotU campaign in nvn 1 without being a spellcaster in-fact being a spell caster can be quite troublesome when you face mephistopheles(i'm sorry I don't know how to spell his name?) since he's had elemental spell resistance except acid so playing a fighter, a monk, or a paladin would be great..

BTW Grimnaw is a monk which means he has a small AC due to monks Arnor class penalty...Give em everything you've got to beat the wizard first since he can be pain in the ass let your henchmen deal with grimnaw first and then finish the rest...

Grimgnaw has an AC of 38 but also 50% concealment from Empty Body. The concealment makes it very tough to hit him, even worse without Blind Fight.

Yeah, I was wondering if I was remembering his AC correctly. 38 isn't bad, but it's not the 40s I thought it was.

That said, he went down very, very quickly in my second playthrough...an attack bonus in the 40s and Blind Fight made him nothing more than a speedbump. I'm guessing that's more a testament to the power of the Red Dragon Disciple class than anything else, as my character plowed through the entire HotU campaign without much difficulty, only dying a couple of times to nat 1s vs. Beholder death rays. Valen did go down because I let Koth survive too long (seriously, he hits hard--seems like the most dangerous non-spellcaster), but overall I found it much easier than I did as a spellcaster.

Well, say you're level 25. Even a plain Fighter would have...

23 BAB
+1 Weapon Focus
+2 Epic Weapon Focus
+1 Epic Prowess
+12 from Strength (34 total, could be higher for even more of a bonus)
+10 Weapon

That's an AB of 49 prior to any buffs.

I don't think a character will necessarily have a +10 weapon at this point. I had +7 or +8 if I recall correctly, I preferred to save gold for other stuff.

I'd hardly call that "fault", since I could buy Mephistopheles' true name thanks to not spending all my gold on weapon enhancements.

In fact, at that point I rarely missed my target even in expertise mode, so I'd go as far as to say I'd waste my gold enhancing my weapon to +10. I know the discussion at hand is about how you can have nice AB at that point, but this simply shows "fault" is not a word to use in this situation.

Or...you could buy his true name AND have a +10 weapon. This also kind of illustrates my point too -- the only chance to upgrade your weapon (after finding out the true names) after the halfway point of Chapter 3 might be pointless since there's no further battles. So get it to +10 prior to to Grimgnaw fight or don't bother. There's not really a "later."

It's iterative attacks that matter here in terms of missing.

The "fault" in this context is not managing your money well enough to be able to afford both a +10 weapon and Meph's true name. Even with zero points in Appraise it's entirely possible to have both. Ergo, if you don't, that's your own fault.

I did have a +10 weapon (and it was Enserric, so it could be +13) at this point...my BAB was lower, though, since I took a few extra levels in Sorcerer so my familiar could deal with traps better. Didn't have a +10 the first time through, though, because my weapon had too many enchantments on it thanks to getting the STR drain from the altar on it--that was hardly my fault, given that I had no indications that would happen.

I imagine that theoretical Fighter also purchased the +10 STR belt from the quarry boss? IIRC, my STR was only a little higher than that at that point, even though all of my level-up boosts went there, I had the +8 from RDD, and I had several pieces of equipment boosting STR (+13, I think? From belt, ring, lesser golem armor). I believe I had the +5 STR belt, though, and I my gauntlets didn't boost STR, so I suppose that's where the discrepancy is.

It's actually quite easy to amass sufficient gold to craft a fully-enhanced melee weapon containing every property offered with some prudent planning and adequate Appraisal checks. Also, looting all 5 of the subquests in Ch2 can mean a noticeable disparity in your wad. The crafted +10 is an ENHANCEMENT, not just +AB. That means not only will you hit more, but do more damage per hit (and multiplied via crit) with the highest possible level.

You may have noticed that there is a resale cap in each chapter that rises with each chapter... so take advantage. Tote the most expensive gear (any/all that reaches the cap) using your hench(s) as mules to get better prices in the future stores. Those stacks of poison arrows and bolts that seem to reach the cap? Split them and sell in small discrete stacks. And there are many other ways to glean all the gold you'll ever need.

The only problem I've ever had, gold-wise, is trying to fully-upgrade a longsword for Aribeth in addition to my PCs. That can be a bit dependant on random loot seeds and timing.

Waiting until a weapon has been fully-upgraded before applying the black pearl upgrade should be a no-brainer. Any property with OnHit DC 24 is going to be extremely high in value (Rizolvir calls it "powerful"). Single-player is very lenient, though. When you learn you've made a mistake, just reload the moment before the mistake and correct it the next pass. Enserric is a poor choice to upgrade because that talking property is actually pretty valuable and counts against Rizolvir's "power" cap. Of course, if you feel you really need that incessant banter ringing in your ears...

Though the price for Meph's name is worth a lot of XP and is expensive, you'll never surpass Level 28 and he's a lot of fun to fight with your long-time and now-powerful friends. You could just bypass buying his name without any appreciable impact on the endgame.

Gauntlets of Ogre Power = 2 Strength
Nasher's Ring = 3 Strength
Fire Giant Belt (in Chapter 2) = 5 strength

So there's +10 of your max +12 right there, could drink a Bull's Strength potion to cap. Ideally you buy the +10 Strength belt, though, yes.

Unfortunately it has nothing to do with being high in value, it has to do with the number of properties on the item. Which is admittedly stupid. If you have a +3 sword with 7 other properties, you can't upgrade it further. But as long as you keep it to 6 other properties or less you can upgrade it to +10. And then add on one last property.

Sure if you already played before, and you play again with the primary goal of amassing a horde of gold to build an UBER weapon later in the game.

But a first time player, probably won't have such an extreme min-max approach to something they quite probably aren't even aware is going to be available.

I know on my first play, I couldn't afford to max my weapon while buying some other cool stuff found along the way, and I never spend skill points on Appraise.