I just had the most fun honor mode battle so far. Before the battles with Nere and Grym, I've been overly cautious with how I approached the boss fights.

I was in for a treat when it came to Grym. The encounter was balanced for my party, which was "prepared, but not cheesing it".

I ran this team:

1. Tav - War cleric 5, Vengeance Paladin 1 Feat: GWM Wielding: Faithbreaker Elixir: hill giant strength
2. Karlach - Berserker 6, Feat: ASI Wielding: Doom hammer [with wrath kit] Elixir: Colossus
3. Shadowheart - Life cleric 6 Feat: Alert Wielding: Phalar Aluve Elixir: Fire resistance
4. Lae'zel - Dex-based Battlemaster 6 [archer] Feats: ASI, Alert Wielding: Titanstring bow/club of strength Elixir: Fire resistance

• Pre-buffing: Longstrider, Aid, Bless (just the levet 1 spell)
• Tadpole powers: Tav used Luck of the Far Realms.

Before the fight, I wanted Lae'zel above the forge raining down arrows. This wasn't ideal. It did allow me to throw a 10 kg mold at Grym, though, for 24 damage :)

My whole plan was, since I'm not good at forcing Grym to move in certain ways, to swarm him with bludgeoning blows and kill him in two turns. This failed. Then I was swarmed by mephits. And Shadowhearts comment was fucking perfect (I had not read up on the fire mephits)

In the end Grym's legendary action was only triggered once (which even helped a bit due to friendly fire), and slam was a bigger problem. The mephits were an even bigger problem! I did not use illusions or smart things like that. There were two opportunities to cast command, but I forgot to. Preserve life and Mass Healing word were really helpful.

The cheese/non-cheese part: I only quaffed a speed potion when Tav was downed - in order to help him up. Didn't want to lose the buffs. I also didn't use enraged throw, but actually downed Grym with backbreaker. I'd recommend the safer way.

One major miss I did in the fight was to auto-path to Grym the first time I hit him. Tav didn't have fire resistance and so almost died melting.