In previous version the major difficulty was to manage to get in melee without being annihilated by plasma at range, get surprised by the boss direction, and in 2 shots your character was dead.
Now that's a complete different story as it can destroy the player as easily at melee or at range, the most funny is that even taking a large medic kit is often not enough to prevent the insta death that follow (you losing a turn to use the medic kit, while the Spider deals plasma/melee death just after).
So now , unless the player is obviously lucky enough to find good plasma-protecting items, the Spider Mastermind is a very hard challenge even at the lowest level of difficulty.
edit : retrying a saved game, it looks like the Trigun (assuming you have maxed every damage bonus dealing traits) + power red armor can beat it , only at melee, and only if you managed to get to melee without having been hit by a plasma (that would then have hit your health and armor level too much to hope anything)
After that, taking large medic kits while shooting+reloading is enough, but it's very close in term of health, the armor got destroyed a turn before the end in melee, the character would have been dead if it had one more turn
So unless lucky enough to find plasma protecting items, it's always going to be solved by how quickly and without being hit you can get to melee.
And even so be sure to have good armor and good damage dealing weapon.
Just killed the Mastermind in my first 0996b - first time saw this spid in my life, and I got to say I felt extremely lucky that
1, I got the correct armor equipped;
2, I've chosen the Shotgun path thus spent my unused perks in Ironman, without which I'm sure to lose in the situation you described (one large med and back to 26% and yes with 50% torso resistance, w/o ironman I'm a goner).
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] missile launcher (6d6) [5/5] (B1)
[ b] BFG 9000 (10d8) [100/100]
[c] nanofiber red armor [2]
[d] Malek's Armor [0/3] (0%)
[e] shotgun shell (x24)
[f] rocket (x14)
[g] rocket (x13)
[h] small med-pack
[ i] phase device
[j] power mod pack
[k] technical mod pack
[l] bulk mod pack
[m] shell box (x100)
[n] shell box (x76)
[ o] shell box (x100)
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] Lava Armor [4/4] (82%)
[ b] [ Weapon ] BFG 9000 (10d8) [24/100] (A1)
[c] [ Boots ] tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
[d] [ Prepared ] double shotgun (10d3)x2 [2/2] (P1)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Fire - internal 0% torso 75% feet 0%
Plasma - internal 0% torso 50% feet 0%
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
You see : a Spider Mastermind (severely wounded) | floor | [ m ]ore
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. You are hit! You are hit! You are
hit! Boom!
You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You dodge! Boom! You are
hit! You dodge! Boom! You are hit!
You see : a Spider Mastermind (mortally wounded) | pool of blood | [ m ]ore
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. You are hit! You are hit! You are
hit! You are hit!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
You use a small med-pack. You feel healed.
You reload the BFG 9000.
You see : a Spider Mastermind (almost dead) | floor | [ m ]ore
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies.
Congratulations! You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
You feel relatively safe now.
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
He's the first brave soul to have ventured into Hell...
On a side note, seems its now possible to have mAC & mAD at the same time. intended?
