Got killed in my own base by devourers from some portal

[Androme]

Hey guys, I really love this game and I'm not complaining about the difficulty, but I've got a question so I can understand if this specific event is intended to be a hard encounter or if I - up badly.

So basically, once you've unlocked this base whose name I've forgotten, the base that stores power and you unlock new stuff, after reaching 50 power I think, you can talk to the butler and he'll tell you that there is a portal in the base that can take you to some unknown location. Directly prior to this, I had been steamrolling previous content (was playing elf bulwark) because I had really good gear. Then I walked up to this portal the butler was talking about, and I saw four devourers, creatures I've dealt with before, so I just stride up to them and do my usual thing, problem is that I got almost instantly destroyed (from 500 hp to 0 between one to three turns), they did this to me four times in a row, with me having no chance of escaping due to some anti-magic zone thing, and there ended the story of my level 18 bulwark.

Now, I understand that there was an anti-magic zone which made me unable to teleport, but how on earth could they destroy me so easily so quick?

[Radon26]

the fortress has a name, but i don't thing anyone here calls it anything other than just the shertool fortress, or just fortress.

as for the enemy, you always get a rare of a mid tier enemy as far as i know. through, it may be different if you try with lvl 50 or so.

"four devourers"
if a creature spawns in a pack, it will always do so, even if its part of an event. same goes for the 3 pedestals.
so if you get a rare luminous, it will always be acompanied by 2 normal luminous.
if you get a rare wretchling, it will always be accompanied by 3 normal wretchlings.
and so on.

its roguelike, sometimes it is disproportionately harder than the rest of the times, simply because of RNG.

but don't worry, only the "first" can be a rare. as far as i know, companions are always normal.

"i've dealt with them before", "500 to 0"
well... that's the thing about rares. they get class talents. so if one was a wizard of some sort...
RNG!

oh and yeah. entire fortress is a vault, which is a "no teleport zone".
so yeah, rogue like. missfortune can stack way up high if you let it.

[Faeryan]

You have propably noticed before how some enemies have purple borders while most have red ones.
The purple ones are uniques and they have class skills like players and they should always be inspected before blindly attacking as they can literally be anything.

Above those are the randbosses or whatever the correct term is. They can be differentiated from other rares from their decorated purple borders. They are usually rather strong and I believe can have several different classes' skills. These are always without a doubt a very big threat. I'd treat them more carefully than dungeon bosses since these guys can be anything, but most of the time they will be Everything. Extremely dangerous.

There are still Elite named enemies that look like regular monsters with red borders but are like unique monsters I described in the first paragraph. These you will meet in end game areas and occasionally if you dig up some graves or stumble upon a certain graveyard.

Sher'Tul fortress as a whole is non-teleport zone so that would explain the phasing issues.

The horror in question has a tendency to be a rather nasty enemy. You just happened to have a really bad luck with it being a devourer type which means he will bring his entourage of normal devourers with him.

Better luck next time. Just don't skip that place because of one bad experience. While the horror is a tough fight it's usually not overly hard to defeat (though I've too lost a few very promosing characters there).

Edit: Horrors, not demons. Everything I said is now invalid. Forget.

[Radon26]

pretty sure devourer is a "horror", not "demon". though, may be wrong.
just a detail.
hmm... now that i think about it i can't recal getting anything other than a horror...
i remember getting a luminous (while playing a sunpal) and bloated...
although i have not used the farportal in some time.

at the very least i am sure you wont get anything high end like a "forge giant", or a "multihued wyrm"

[HousePet]

18 seems a bit low for that, but maybe its just a racial modifier.
Basically, you didn't notice that one of them was a randboss, not a normal faceeating horror.

[Androme]

Alright, thanks for all the advice. From now on I will actually inspect creatures with purple frames, you learn something new every day.

[Coldbringer]

Although phase door/teleport runes/abilities/torques/necklaces are nice, you shouldn't rely on them too much - have other options to use as well. Have a shielding rune, and items that grant damage shields equipped. VS devourers a torque that reduces physical damage would be great. Or even wards that absorb physical hits. Eventually you'll see some items that have these on them, they're very useful.

When up against rare monsters try to get your negative status effects on them as fast as possible, stun, confuse, blind, whatever it is. And have ways to remove theirs. Against particularly nasty ones, you may want to activate your rune shield ahead of time instead of saving it for an emergency. Like before you rush

[Frumple]

18 seems a bit low for that, but maybe its just a racial modifier.
Basically, you didn't notice that one of them was a randboss, not a normal faceeating horror.

Somewhere in the 18-20 range is usually when I get enough energy to open the farportal room, m'self. In general, the earlier you kick that thing open the better off you're going to be -- the longer you wait, the more likely the randboss that spawns in there is going to be one of the genuinely vicious horrors instead of a low-end devourer or bloated horror or whatever. It's never a fun time to open that door and greet an oozing or dream horror, and that very much can happen.

[HousePet]

Waiting longer to open that door doesn't make it any worse.
The zone level is set when you first enter the fortress/lake.

[Frumple]

... does the critter spawning code actually take the zone level, though? I don't know the code worth a flip, so the code in the quest file is gibberish to me, but if it's actually taking the initial zone level to determine base type and critter level, there's some nicely screwy things going on there. Thing scales to when you open the door level wise (which is often reason enough to go in early, imo, before the thing starts getting silly), obviously enough, and will very much happily drop oozing horrors, worms that walk, etc., on you, even if you actually hit the fortress for the first time when you're in the 14-16 range, and it's definitely felt more likely to do that when you open then thing later (mid twenties and up, ferex).

[Micbran]

Certain enemies have a "minimum spawn level." For example, Orc cryomancers have a minimum spawn level of 35, so if one is chosen to spawn in a zone or a vault, it will at least appear at 35.

[HousePet]

I dug through the code, and it creates a randboss at the level of the zone/floor, which is set by when you first enter it.

[Frumple]

Hrm. You'd definitely know the code better than I would, so I'll take your word for it, heh. Make sure you hit the fortress itself ASAP, then

[HousePet]

You just need to wait 3-5 levels and its fine.
Unlike the Celia situation, you usually can't run straight in at the same level it was created at.