Can I convince Thaos not to fight?

[PredatorX]

I don't know how to defeat him. The battle seems impossible for me. Is there any way to persuade him not to fight?

[Nail]

From what I know there is no way to persuade him not to fight.

 

I would recommend you to review your level, party, strategy etc., but

if you suffer try this:

 

press ~  
type: iroll20s
type: God

 

 

You won't get any achievements for doing this though.

Edited January 3, 2018 by Nail

[Rosbjerg]

In general a good strategy is to bring along something that kills vessels - Abydon's Hammer is particularly effective.

 

If you don't have the expansions though, good AoE wizards spells like Adra Gaze, and priest spells that protect you from whatever debuffs you get, can buy you the precious seconds you need to take out the damage dealers.

[PredatorX]

oh my god

so much for being crpg

[Heijoushin]

oh my god

so much for being crpg

 

I'm all for talking my way out of fights, but do you really want to talk your way through the final boss? Well, I suppose Arcanum let you do that...

 

Anyway, my advice would be to reload an earlier game and level up a little. Sorry! 

Edited January 4, 2018 by Heijoushin

[Messier-31]

I'm all for talking my way out of fights, but do you really want to talk your way through the final boss? Well, I suppose Arcanum let you do that...

 

As well "Fallout"   

[smjjames]

One trick I've used is to retreat back so that the two statues try to go through the gap but only one can get through. That way you're near guaranteed to only fight one at a time. That might help you.

 

And no, you can't talk your way out of this fight.

[omgFIREBALLS]

Weird thing is I'd say Thaos once talked me out of the fight, but my character still decided he had to be stopped

[Vaneglorious]

That level 3 wiz spell Dampen Magic, or what's it called, is extremely useful in this fight. The statues and Thaos are all buffed to hell, this will weaken them a ton.

 

My only beef with the end fight (and the Adra Dragon one) is that the game forces your party into a fixed position. I really hate when these things happen. You barely have any opportunity to go into formation. I remember the first time I encountered the Adra Dragon, right after the dialogue ended, my whole party got instantly oneshot. I was like...oooookay this was fair.

[ULTIMAX]

It's kind of hard to give advice without knowing what difficulty you are playing, and who is in your party.  

 

Is your team max level?

 

Did you make sure to rest at one of the better inns for solid bonuses? (Celestial Sapling in Hearthsong or Dracogen inn in Dyrford Village)

 

Did you much a bunch of food before hand? (also potions are instant use in fights, highly recommend having some key potions on characters to kick off fights - like potions of power, potions of deleterious alacrity, Llengrath's displaced image).

 

Pretty sure the constructs are also vulnerable to weapons like St. Ydwen's redeemer, it doesn't even need to be leveled for the change to destroy vessels proc.

 

While all 3 targets are very resistant to quite a lot, they aren't necessarily immune to key control effects. I had two characters pumping put as many AoE paralyzes as they could to try and keep things under controlled. Cipher's Mental Binding (L2 power) is one of my favorite abilities. Try tossing out some debuffs like Priest's Shining beacon & Divine mark.

[Boeroer]

If you have a character with high deflection then put on Aila Braccia (small shield, monk in the Celestial Sapling). Present yourself to Thaos while the others retreat. It will turn grazes of Cleansing Flame into misses (100%) and reflect them back to Thaos - who will kill himself with it. It helps a lot to raise deflection with Shields and Crowns for the Faithful (= +50 deflection).

 

For the statues just grab St. Ydwen's Redeemer. If you didn't upscale they should be of lower level than you and you can just destroy them with a few hits.

 

Also, as already said: Arcane Dampener is golden in this fight.

Edited February 6, 2018 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

 

I'm all for talking my way out of fights, but do you really want to talk your way through the final boss? Well, I suppose Arcanum let you do that...

 

As well "Fallout" 

 

 

And Planescape : Torment 

[Carys]

You can also cc Thaos himself.  I did this fight for the first time today, and Grieving Mother locked him down with Puppet Master and he helped us kill of his statues before he went back to being the bad guy.

[The Sharmat]

Thaos has been doing this for what, 2,000 years? More? If he had any moments of weakness they're long gone and resolved. I don't think talking your way out of it would make sense for this character.

[ibanix]

Yeah, Thaos is beyond any ability to change his mind. This is not some random NPC, this is a guy who has been manipulating events to deceive people for 2 millennia. 

[Elric Galad]

"Changing one's mind" is not very "Woedican"...

[The Sharmat]

Given what we know after end game, I don't know that we should say Thaos is Woedican. Rather, it might be more accurate to say that Woedica is Thaosian.

[Yenkaz]

The only peaceful resolution I could see would be conceding to Thaos' point of view and joining the leaden key. Even then, he'd be likely to demand your death, since he's unlikely to trust you (or the party you likely brought along).

 

I wouldn't mind a non-standard game over, but that is what it would be.

[The Sharmat]

Yeah he'd have to kill you for what you know. And even if he didn't want to, your character is going to be bat**** insane soon since I doubt the awakened identity would agree with such a course of action.

 

But nonstandard gameovers are great and every game should have them.

[smilehigh]

By the way - can anyone explain how killing Thaos cures your from eventual madness? Is confronting your past enough?

It's somewhat vaguely described in the game.

[The Sharmat]

It's not from killing him. The cure is ripping the answer to the past life's question from Thaos' soul. Which, Thaos being Thaos, required killing him.

[Vaneglorious]

I just realized something about one of the endings.

 

There's an option to return Thaos to the wheel with his memories in tact. While this should be the 'merciful' ending I believe, it isn't at the same time. Making him remember he finally failed is quite cruel. Tearing his soul apart is just granting him eternal rest, even though that's the cruel option according to the game.

 

But anyway, if you return him to the wheel, he's just going to reappear in another body and it might strengthen his resolve, and thus he might try again to cause ruin. Isn't that how it'd go down?

 

Ending side questions (sorry for a little off topic): do you think the people he merged together into the first god knew what was coming to them? There were even children there and newborns. Also, if this happened in Engwith on the Eastern Reach continent, how did other continents begin worshipping the gods they had no clue about? Did the gods send them clear signs that they now exist?

 

And finally, do you guys think his actions are justified? It's a moral and also a practical question. If the whole point was to make people fear a higher power, why are there evil gods like Skaen? As much conflict fake or lack of faith (allegedly) had caused, the real gods didn't really change much imo. I'd like to hear opinions on this.

[The Sharmat]

You can return him to the wheel with memories explicitly as a punishment/taunt IIRC. It's not necessarily portrayed as merciful. But yeah it's surely not the wisest course, but who says the main character has to be wise?

 

I imagine most of the adults knew something about what was going to happen to them. The kids, not so much. Some of the Engwithans stayed behind as missionaries and inquisitors. Thaos, Iovara, and the Watcher's previous life among them, although only the original missionaries knew the score with the Gods' creation. With the aid of the Gods very real miracles, it wasn't too hard to spread the faith.

 

His actions absolutely were not justified. I'd be interested in seeing more Engwithan culture and why the lack of obvious meaning terrified them so.

Edited May 3, 2018 by The Sharmat

[gkathellar]

oh my god

so much for being crpg

Since when was being able to talk down the bad guy a prerequisite for being a CRPG? Should I have been able to talk down Sarevok, murderous fanatic that he was, in BG1? Or Irenicus, a man willing to sacrifice his soul, his life, and everything he loved for power, in BG2? Yes, Fallout 1 famously allowed you to do it, but only if you had access to very specific information which happened to undermine the viability of the villain's thesis - there was no persuading him or getting him to "see the light," because that's not how people work. PS:T let you avoid a fight only by way of threatening to kill yourself and take the villain with you.

After 2000 years, Thaos knows what he believes. You're not going to change his mind.

[The Sharmat]

The Fallout ending doesn't make sense that way anyway honestly. All that work engineering the super mutants and he gives up instant when he finds out they might need some tweaking to get functioning gonads?