so, i've just played the pranks and killed Shamira for her essence for the late-game Trickster Mythic quest. return through the closet to my bedroom, interact with the Council Closet Portal, talk to Socothbenoth, go into the Council Chambers. skip cutscene. fight with Nocticula starts. and whammo, WTF?!!

*EVERY*. *SINGLE*. *TURN*. a DC 42 Fort save is needed to do anything because of her Seductive Aura thing, which also cuts straight through any spells/feats/items that would otherwise negate mind-controlling/loss-of-control-prevention things. not even the Council NPCs, for the most part, can make the save. the devil guy and the peace-loving woman sometimes make their Fort saves, and my gorgeous man Cobblehoof has always made the saves in the attempts i've made to do the fight. but Nocticula always goes first, and she wrecks the Council's shit in a heartbeat, followed by wrecking my shit even faster. the only way for my characters - who are no marshmallows, and who are all buffed up - to pass the crazy high DC is to get a nat 20 on the save. and the rare occasion one of my party members actually makes that brutally high Fort save? it doesn't even matter. i still have no control of my characters, because Mind Fog. and Dominate Person/Monster. and Insanity. depending on whether Noctilcula shoots at me or the Council NPCs first, the fight is over in 2-6 rounds. she has approximately a squillion(*only a mild exaggeration) shots a round, plus spellcasts.

i'm level 18 right now, so there's not a whole lot of room for levelling up to gain strength. am i missing something/doing something wrong? is this fight bugged? or is the fight just crazy overtuned? i'm playing on Core difficulty, with Normal damage crits and 1.0 dmg (so no dmg adjust either way). i am aware that tuning down the combat difficulty for this encounter is an option, but i really dont want to - i prefer to keep the difficulty im playing on static.

i just really want to know if this is a me-thing, or a devs-please-have-mercy-thing. has anyone managed this encounter?and if so, how? HALP!!

I reloaded this encounter a bunch of times because you have to make a major plot decision at the end. Ran into the same problem after three reloads or so. Can confirm that Cobblehoof was always the MVP though xD. So it's not a you thing. And that's really the only thing I came here to tell you because I play on lower difficulties. In all my attempts either my whole party was charmed or nobody, no in between, was kind of weird. Having your archer open the fight with a Midnight Bolt seemed to help a lot to get her health down.

>< i do have some Midnight Bolts hoarded away, but again: my characters never got a turn. cannot shoot Bolt therefor. i guess i'll come back at lvl 19 or something.