BG3 Honour Mode: strategy & tactics (many spoilers)

[Black Elk]

Thanks dude! It's pretty amusing and still fun with the mods, but I do wish there was more. The game could definitely have used more portraits I think!

I just did the Advent calendar puzzle for the 17th and saw a pretty cool looking pair of mobile companion wallpapers. The composition had them all pretty tall, with an environmental vignette along the bottom third to house the WotC Larian 2024 logos, but that part was sorta unecessary embellishment for phones to stretch. Also Jaheira was on top of the Githyanki Creche for some reason, and Minthara was reppin' the Gauntlet of Shar... But cropped to the more BG1/2 style portrait dimensions they have a pretty killer read...

They should do more stuff like that. Like put a portrait maker in the game and I'd be there for sure! hehe

Not bad for a surprise in the stocking though. It's the little touches I tend to appreciate

Halls all decked

 

[Black Elk]

Just crossed the 1800 hrs mark... lol

I'm not sure BG3 was really created to sustain that sort of continuous play hehe (I mean it's pretty much an SP thing for me after all) but that's not half bad for a Baldur's Gate entry. I think a more realistic assessment is that the game has enough juice for maybe 4 to 6 runs. So you got 1 solid Tav campaign, 1 solid Durge campaign at varying difficulties, along with the mix and max on the active party with the romances and such, pursuing the villainous path rather than the heroic, or resist the Urge stuff. Probably a half a dozen campaign attempts all told before it starts fraying and the seams begin to show. Still pretty decent though, I'm continually surprised by it.

This time we opted not to off the Nightsong. Just too many variables and moving parts to do the Dark Justiciar Shadowheart thing. In Tactician Enhanced it's very difficult to keep some of the neutral characters alive.

I took the feat Alert at lvl 6 with Lae'zel so we wouldn't get caught flat footed. Instead of nerfing myself by keeping Shadowheart as a Trickery Cleric, instead we went Life Domain. Thematically it makes sense to do that towards the end of Act II, but mechanically its awkward because if you respec from Cleric back into Cleric, it will rework her stat block to the defaults there. I think it's like 15 STR 10 DEX, instead of her 13 STR 13 DEX vanilla before respec. Radically altering her Attribute spread seems weird to me, even if her starting stats aren't optimized really for her Class/Sub-Class, so I left those the same.

Changing her Domain at lvl 3 when Withers is unlocked, matches up with the other Characters who get to choose a Sub-Class as they progress at lvl 2 or lvl 3, and makes her much more reliable. Not that Trickery can't be fun, but you have to micromanage way more to make it payoff, and gaming in and out stealth or initiative can feel like a chore, just because of the way party movement is handled. Life Cleric I think makes sense, especially because of that note we found about her initial Mission to retrieve the Artifact where it lists her as the group's "Healer." So basically Shar had her duped into the team's medic drawing on her Selunite background but twisting it around. Makes a certain sense. I think she could rep any Domain really. I tried Nature, it's a bit weird though, and there aren't really many Plants and Animals to charm with the Subclass action. Otherwise Nature Clerics got a vibe very similar to Druids, just with slightly different kit and a few more classic clerical options like Sanctuary or the endgame summons. War and Storm Clerics I think are more fun to use, since they're more attack oriented. Life Cleric can do the big AoE heals though with a quick click, and it pairs well with any of the items that boost the heals, like the Hellrider's gloves. I think when the chips are down probably the most useful, so that's what we went with this time.

We detoured to the Creche a bit longer than usual so we could be sure to hit lvl 9 at the Illithid Colony instead of after the big Ketheric fight. Plan was to bring Elementals and couple lvl 5 Ghouls instead of lvl 3 Skeletons, but first had to get there.

For the Last Light battle, we left 2 skeleton archers and Zombie, Scratch and Shovel to protect Jaheira downstairs. Then I drank two potions of Vigilance with the plan to cast Greater Invisibility on Isobel so she wouldn't get killed immediately. I did the Karniss fight first before going upstairs to trigger the Last Light, tried to save Rolan as well, but he ended up getting killed by Shadows before we could reach him, even with longstrider and wings. Like they just merc'd him outright. We'll have to do without the Arcane canons this time I guess, but priority number 1 was Jaheira and she's still alive so that's a plus. I wish they'd fix Shadowhearts Platinum portrait with the hair updated and such, but I guess we take what we can get...

For the "more" that I would have wished for, I think it begins with the idea of a Character Sheet and the whole import/export thing. The promise of BG1 that we'd be able to export our character for continuing adventures in campaigns to come. Or to import our previous character from the older games, like bringing the BG1 into BG3, or even going back to the Gold Boxes maybe, but at least to BG1. Obviously it'd be hard to recreate the whole campaign (although that would be fun) I think they could do something a bit like a highlight reel. Essentially a way to get caught up.

Even though the areas are compact and carnival arcade style in BG3, the down time is still pretty zen and not dissimilar from how I remember BG1 or BG2 . Like there are all these timeout moments to just zone and listen to the ambient music while trying to refigure the inventory or manage a hotbar or chat up an NPC for whatever. All that stuff is done well and reminds me of similar moments in BG1 or BG2, where the you're not really playing all there, but just sort of admiring the party and flipping through the character sheets, redoing the color coordination to match the latest items and such. The story is more incidental, it could almost be anything really. The fun part of the gameplay is more the nuts and bolts stuff trying to route around the areas and tease out the combat encounters, or doing the little min max optimization thing, but usually with some random nerfs to work around from a more aesthetic/cosmetic direction. I think the BG difference between a BG and regular D&D is that in BG the player assumes the role of the entire party. I'd like more to tool around with there.

I think much more could be done for the Twilight Zone dollhouse aspect of it, where we push and prod the other characters and that then results in markedly different story outcomes for whoever is in the active party. You can do this in a few places with certain Companions and also by using the worm, but it's all sort of directed at the main character and their relationship with each of the other Companions 1 to 1. Rather than a whole intraparty dynamic. I could imagine more stuff where if the player chooses to say, spurn character X or piss of character Y or refuse to whatever quests in such and such an order, that then we get little factions and breakdowns or teamups within the group. Like a power struggle to determine who is the real leader of the party. I think more companions with a potential to party break over various things would be fun, especially if they were to take another piece off the board when they left. So similar to the way that choosing to side with the Goblins and Minthara is meant to lock off Karlach and Wyll and force a party break there, but instead of having that be a campaign pathing outcome, it might be handled through the party camp interactions over a more extended period. Options to persuade them to remain, but for certain costs or requirements and a roll maybe. That way the party leadership thing could be more engaging. So for example, maybe when Wyll threatens to bail, we can put him in charge and placate him that way, while secretly working to undermine his leadership with one of the other characters. I also think Party formations and such would have been fun, with Leadership barks and 1 liners. It'll be interesting to see what people cook up over time for that.

I think I'd like to see a BG3 NPC project similar to the BG1 NPC project, to flesh out some of the bit characters. Like just using the material that's already there for some of my favs hehe. That would be fun!

 

[Black Elk]

Random foot draggin' hehe

So I had this brilliant idea like I would try to make a Viconia doppelganger but using the Jaheira head model, since that one is included in the head unlock mod I grabbed.

Like it's definitely my favorite for the Elves I think, cause it has that sorta triangular thing going on that always struck me as pretty cool for Elves/Drow. Initially I thought I go a bit further, and try it on a different phenotype like Tiefling or Human, but then realized that the faces are still gated by fantasy race or species. So basically the Elves just have way more options than any of the others. Something like 22 there, compared to a dozen for most of the rest. With humans you at least got like Mizora, Mayrina, Orin and Nine Fingers. For the Tiefs only one I saw the one gal who feeds us the Dragon groul at the Emerald grove. Kinda slim pickings honestly unless you want to be an Elf or Half Elf of some sort.

For the Jaheira head, I knew that the Drow mini portrait would at least flip to a left looking orientation, and trading the Green that regular Elves get for their portrait background color to a purple/blue. The base model didn't have the age slider, but it has the scar drawn on. But my thought was with a little makeup or some face tats we could probably tricky the eye there. The actual eyes were a bit trickier though.

Somehow I felt like the Sclera would be unnecessary for a Drow, like if they're trying to see underground that what they'd really want is more Pupil right? And so those demon Tiefling eyes that turn the Sclera from white to black those just felt way more Drow to me than the default eye sets for Drow. I guess the idea being that they'd have a kind of inner pupil and then an outer one for expanded dark vision. Or I don't know, if it's a Dune riff, Black within Black. But then of course to get it to show up in the portrait a red Iris seemed to make sense. I mean Drow and all hehe.

The hairstyles, I figured to make it look slightly less Jaheira and a bit more Viconia, to get one of those hair sets that has a little side swoop or like the lone tress. Either that or something pull up a bit bit tighter, since Jaheira's default do is more wild with the larger braids and such that something more posh would make a nice contrast for her Drow doppelganger. But then somewhere along the way I switch her to a monk lol

That had me thinking, hmmmm, maybe what I really need is some sort of Yoshimo blend on it? Cause I remember trying that a while back, but just couldn't find the right Yoshimo to fit the bill. Here I opted for a gender swapper, so I could go more Crouching Displacer Beast Hidden Dragon with it. I don't know, let's call her Yeoh Shima for now till I figure it out, but something along those lines. I thought about keeping the Wings for the Wushu on it, but couldn't find a way to make them invisible while still keeping the absurd flight option for Dark Cloud antics, but even without the flying around, we still got the ring just in case. For the most part though her techniques are hella underground!

Who knows if she'll ever actually make it off the Nautiloid. Our Character Graveyard for this game is pretty deep. Like it's probably one of those boneyard catacombs from the old days, but yeah. I really think the game could have used a few more of that all faces for all races vibe. For the Shorties in particular, Halflings, Gnomes, Dwarves/Duergar etc. I was surprised not to find one yet for the Goblins. Seems like such a natural!

I thought about trying to crack open the toolset or see what all people are working on, but there's another part of me that wants to avoid going in firsthand. I feel like I invariably switch modes from Player to something else if I go too far along that path. Sorta like a Shadowkeeper dilemma from BG2, like if I have too much control I probably get lost in it hehe. So I'm still keeping things fairly surface level with the Mods.

My favorite by far is the 6 member party with the Tactician Enhanced, mainly cause it does the thing I wanted from the beginning of Early Access, to at least try for big 6, even if it wasn't perfectly balanced. The only downside I can find to the TE mod, is that the default difficult will scale to the number of party members. You can go in and fine tune it, like to play as a party of 5 but using the difficulty for 6, that sort of thing. But for a more set in and forget approach, running with 6 felt pretty good. I wanted to try the difficulty scale for a party of 7 or 8 for the challenge, but I don't actually want to roll around with 7 or 8 characters the whole time. Might try the customization option next time I suppose. Just depends how long before that final patch drops, cause I'm sure when that happens I'll drop all my mods again and go back to the vanilla just to make sure nothing breaks lol.

 

[Black Elk]

I added the Darker Underdark lighting mod just to see how that feels.

Then grabbed the one for the Shadowlands, Grymforge and Shar's Temple as well, just to punish my eyes lol

So far so good. We thumbed our nose at Us, and put the holes in their brain to make sure they wouldn't aggro when we killed the only other intellect deveourer around for 10 xp. Then we managed to knock off both Zhalk and the Flayer at a go, for the first time in a while. Dark Blessings.

Thought we might even be able to drop a second Cambion with the flurry of blows, but didn't want to push our luck too hard. Shadowheart snapped the transponder and we're off!

I found an updo that worked as well, went with this one for the mini portrait... an extra high pony slotted via that mod which puts extension on the hair using the dragonborn chin-slot (which otherwise goes unused if not playing a dragonborn character.) Holds up reasonably well. Gave a us slightly cleaner read for the 3/4 view on the portrait I thought, and cause that hair style had the Viconia swoop on the other side so it wouldn't be quite as busy or distracting when doing the kicks and such. Best we could manage on short notice hehe

I thought about loading up that mod that keeps the unarmed strike always on, like so we could use a staff or that one non magical katana that we won't be able to acquire until like 60 hours from now, but ended up just throwing my weapons and the imps and charging ahead. I gave Lae'zel both Scimitars, thinking we'd rep that look like the splash screen art. Just a lot flourishes basically. Now that we're back in black, and on the beach, who knows. Anything could be possible!

I think we finally found our Drow though. Go figure that Jaheira would have lead us there lol

 

[Black Elk]

Having decided on a Drow monk for my main, it quickly became apparent that we were going to need some minions.

I had a desire to make them all Drow, which threw a bit of a wrench into my usuals staging with the Goodberry Girls. The Withers zombies just didn't have enough Elves to get the job done. So instead we tapped Rizzmeralda to step in as our main backup Drow Diva. An understudy or sorts, seemed to fit the theme.

Then we got Crishden Slayder and Yew Jackman for her security detail lol.

Their job isn't so much to come adventuring, as just to sit at camp and look good. Maybe deck out in our misc gear that nobody else is using. It's more for the ambiance than the mechanics, though it's nice to have someone around who can do the smooth talking early on and that's where the Rizz comes in. Technically she's a Half Drow (as long as no one is following up on that) likely from a lesser house, but her poison dragon draconic lineage and connection with the Yuan-Ti might prove useful. Sometimes we need to steal the money back, so figured I put Slaydon on gleaming that cube, while Yew just kinda stands around looking tough to deter any problems that might arise. He's either a Ranger or Druid, in case we need a goodberry, but that's only as a very last resort.

All together, with the Drow Expendables tagging along at camp, we'll definitely have enough healing potions and resurrection scrolls to make sure the Emerald Grove doesn't get too dicey hehe. Like they don't really add much to the saga while out on the road, but just in case it comes to blows we got goons on standbye.

Clearly the plan is to side with Minthara on this one, so I figured we'd be kinda empty camping towards the end. Will have to see how it goes!

 

[Black Elk]

About as quickly as we hatched that plan to side with the Goblins, we immediately did an about face, for something with a bit more of the double cross. Sure it's always fun to waste the whole Grove at the drop of a hat, but the hit to the XP and the merchants and all the rest is pretty rough. Doing that we really lose out on some of the better endgame letdowns and betrayals. Like we never really get to meet Evil Wyll or Mizora that way.

Yeoh Shima doesn't quite have the groundhog's day prescience and meta foresight that Din has attained, through his many fails, but we know enough to know that, fully embracing the Urge so soon, the companions and allies just start dropping left and right.

I don't think it would be such a big deal if the Hirelings system was more engaging. Like I'd be happy enough to pretend this was Icewind Dale II - go to the mat with nothing but Dark Elves, or whatever Half Drow thing we can cobble together. I'm game enough to imagine a pair of lamb chops on Yew's grill, or some sort of Handlebar Half-Elf thing there, but I think I'd preferred just having more Elven options generally so I didn't have to bend so much. One High-Elf half-zombie pretending to be Half-Drow I guess I can suspend the disbelief, but it's a bit hard to justify a pair. I imagine I suppose that they might share a common Human ancestor or something, like as if it were a family affair on that one somehow, more Logan style. Whereas I'm pretty sure Crishden Slayder we probably just picked him up along the way from bad gambling debts in the black pits arena. Gladiator Too style maybe? lol. I mean doubtless it was some sort of battle to death between him and Lonnie Walberk, where he had to off all the other regulators to make his spot in the band. New Kids on the chopping block. There's Drow raiders around, so I mean there's probably any number of angles to rationalize it.

I actually don't mind some of these zombie performances truth be told. Like the delivery on the lines and the little emotive things, it sorta works, but I think it's just all too weighed down and restrictive to really fly. Like where I have to bend and strain the imagination and credulity to come up something that feels worthwhile. I think I'd much prefer full customization for the Hireling Mercenaries. I know there are mods for that on nexus, but haven't seen it yet for the built-in mods. Who knows maybe someone will get it dialed eventually but for now I thought team villain was probably better off trying to work with what was already there.

Least with Wyll around we still get to meet Mizora, and have a ready connection for the power politics when we finally reach the big city. Taking Karlach off the board so early is a bit rough. Like I guess Yew could slide into that role, but there's really no Villainous Karlach variant to run into later on. I mean she's totally keyed Heroic in the later Acts, so we decided to just cut our losses there...

Anyhow, I think we all earned our colors on that one lol

Saved the Dog though - Always!

 

[Black Elk]

Darker Underdark!

How dark? Pretty dark! lol

I do find that I really prefer it this way for the atmosphere. Reminds me of the lighting conditions in Early Access, where I'd stumble down a hole and determining immediately that I was probably somewhere I wasn't meant to be yet. Like it's just a lot scarier when you can get turned around and disoriented.

I suppose I can understand why they changed it to crank the luminosity, since torches can be frustrating to use. Once someone has the "Light" cantrip, it's hard to justify torches. Both the spell and the standard torch are annoying in that changing weapons (say from Ranged to Melee) there's a good chance your light source goes down in the process, or you wind up in the dark with Disadvantage while trying to aim. Even still, the vibe with the Torches is superior in my view.

Here are some examples of how it looks with the Darker register...

It's still pretty manageable with a Torch or the Light cantrip going. With mutliple torches, or several characters using illuminated weapons the effect is to more lit up immediate surrounds very Low Contrast. The spell Daylight does much the same. Also, because weapons are worn on the back, the VFX of it has everything in scene sorta backlit, which can be somewhat jarring.

For my eyes, and the sense of impending doom, I think the best overall lighting conditions when underground is the lone torch. I like to have Gale, Shadowheart, or Alfira holding one up just a little bit behind my selected main character. That way I still get that impression, like something terrible could be lurking just around the corner just out of view. Or where I can never be quite sure at first, until Gale catches up to break up the shadows. Plus this way I at least get some use out of the Darkvision.

Monks with no weapons, is a bit like Barbarians with no armor for me. Like I get it, but also that doesn't really comport with my class fantasy. I mean I don't recall chainmail inhibiting Conan's rage during the battle of the mounds, or Jade Fox having much issue using swords or tassel claws or whatever. I feel like Longsword would probably be a natural, like maybe with the lantern on the belt and the other hand free, but here it's a bit much to juggle.

In general the lighting hadn't been much of a problem for me, but now that I'm an Open Hand monk, with no weapons in my hands to do the lite-bright thing, it's a bit more of a factor. I ended up equipping the Hunting Short bow, just to have something that could be lit up. As a Drow I have the hand crossbow proficiency, which would leave me an open hand I guess while using ranged attacks, but I gave them both to Alfira. Using that Ki ability that allows me to jump around like 4 times without using and bonus/action is pretty badass. It made me regret that I didn't put a bit more into Strength so my Jump distance would be greater, but with the ring of Jump it's pretty insane. Like I don't think we need the bow at really, other than to use Light on it. I remember this being jank before the Toggle light source thing was added to the hotbar, or like equipping the torch in the offhand. But I couldn't figure out how to do that here, like it just default to the mainhand and nixing my main hand punch attack. Stunning Blow sort of eclipses everything else once that is attained at lvl 5, though I still get some use out of the Stagger/Topple/Push variants. It's nice to have something similar to the Battle Master's push attack. I got nervous and had Lae'zel take Rally instead of that, so it's sorta been down to my Monk and Wyll with his repelling blast to get the job done. Saved me a few times, like when the Bulette showed up and the Hook Horrors called all their friends over. The Spectator almost did us in as well. Luckily Shadowhearts Skeleton stepped up, cause our Drow cousins were doing us no favors in that fight. Everyone got petrified and surprised, and I couldn't get close enough for the Flurry. Out by the skin of our teeth on that one heheh

Having Scratch around was also pretty helpful. Like I'm sure we'd have fallen to our deaths a couple times, if we didn't have his keen sense of awareness. When the eyes fail, the nose knows! Or at least that's how were imagining it. We can't actually fall off the ledge, but sometimes just accidentally clicking a ladder or some toxic mushroom can be enough to give everyone a heart attack lol.

In any case, I like the Darker Underdark quite a lot. Go figure. Though it does make the environmental hazards more hazardous. If I had to put my finger on my single biggest frustration, it's the paradoxical way that BG3 uses such a Real Time-y sort of User Interface for a such a Turn-Based game. I just always have that sense like the clock is ticking on me, even though ostensibly it doesn't exist at all. That the game is impossible to pause outside of initiative, and often at exactly those moments when one would want to insta pause. Immediately after combat concludes say, but then everyone is all running over towards the selected Character through the dagger clouds or flaming surfaces. We ungroup to pseudo pause, but the button for that is on the complete opposite side of the screen from the End Turn button. Similarly like if elements of the controls were very small on screen (say the Cancel Spell concentration tab) or little toggles of that sort. Skipping turns, cancelling End Turn, all that stuff has a way of feelin time intensive and part of the pressure cooker, even if the combat itself is turn based, getting into it or out of it still has that feel to me. Like as if I was playing an RTS game or something, because of the lack of a global Pause button. It could really be maddening at times, befuddling even.

But we just keep running through the dark and hoping for the best!

 

[OrlonKronsteen]

So how many honour runs have you completed?

 

[Black Elk]

5 times so far, making it to the Reunion camp. First with Din the Draconic Sorcerer, probably last year around this time. Then another Din who tried to combine Sorcerery with a dip into Cleric, just so I could have a Dragon god hehe. A couple Witches over the summer trying to figure out which multiclasses were cool. I like'd S'wizard the best I think Sorcerer with 1 lvl in Wizard, and she made it all the way Tief Necromancy, though we didn't dip far enough to get the specialization there. I flammed out on my Warlock and my Ranger attempts. We got pretty close, but I bailed in the third Act to mess around with mods. Mods are fun, though they lock off the achievements, so I haven't made much progress there. Flying Din did manage the Jack of All Trades in an honorary HM run, with a party of 6, but that was before this new Tactician Enhanced deal came out.

I've yet to complete that one, TE + HM using 6. It pretty hard I've died like 12 times already. I have a Druid Wizard in Act III using the same set up, but then I was sort of afraid to face Bane so we started another backup run just in case that one goes to hell. With the mods, I have to disable/enable or roll back some of those to use an older save. For that one I had something weird go down with the wildshape and some of the other summons like Shovel. Kinda on the fritz where Skeletons would sometimes refuse to die but hang around till I reloaded. I was intrigued last month by the NOVFX mod, and also this mod with the darker areas in Act II. Mainly so it wouldn't be quite so lit up like my Christmas tree hehe. Even the hotbar I feel gets a bit busy for this game, like I'm usually to lazy to organize the consumables or to do anything for them via the hotbar. I tend to just go inventory view for that, so if I remember to slide over and just forget it the UI is a bit cleaner. I like the extended bar a lot, but it takes a second to set up when the companions are first recruited (like everything has to slide to the left first to unlock the last bar.) The bar by default just gets very busy, colorful and loud, everything all super charged in neon glows. I find myself overly particular now about the visualization in the mini portraits too, like trying to find a nice spread there for the pick 6. I'm curious what I will go into the next patch. I still wish there was some sort of Durlags style Labyrinth for the very end. Just like a Dungeons of doom where we can go to get our comeuppance after the curtain falls on the main dish. I think I'd be easy to please on that. I just want some better hirelings so I can riff and assemble my own Avengers, but usually we only get like 1 Zombie that I'm actually vibing on per run, cause Withers only has the Dirty Dozen and we can't really mix and match em. I'd probably do Kagha again for that, except I'm already using the Varanna Sunblossom Zombie to tag along as my student. I guess any of the fake Drow zombies could get sent back to fugue plane at any point. Maybe I'll ditch Slayder for Izwea, since he's more legit Drow. Like at least that guy stuck around when the Spectator was trying to eat us all for breakfast! lol. I definitely find myself more attached to random NPCs that are in the game than my own creations on this front. Like Alfira is still a hundred times better than any of the Zombies, even though she only has 2 barks heheh. Last few runs she's pretty much bumped off Astarion, like as soon as we acquire the gloves of thievery from the Zhents, or something to boost her Dex, and then I just it all into sleight of hand. She's not quite as handy as the Vampire, but good enough to slot in on occasion.

ps. here's the survey view...

We had a few Characters in the running, but then also a couple saves tanked along the way. I think maybe from one of the older nexus dye or cosmetics mods or maybe the WASD that I had tried way back when? Who knows. But yeah, the saves that have the little yellow exclamation mark, pretty sure those runs are toast. Like I gotta disable all the newer mods or whatever, and it gives that 3rd party notification if not using the mod.io. So I think they're just kinda lost, or I'm too lazy to go back now. I took to making many Dins along the way while running the experiments, so the Dragons are for sure in the lead at this point, although the Witches are slowly catching up! hehe

Poor Bhaalina Thum, like I must have just completely forgotten about her down there lol

It's pretty entertaining. I think if I had to pick just one mod that makes the game more engaging it would be the 6 party mod. Like it's just more BG to have a full crew of 6 somehow. Tactician is pretty fun either way, enhanced just is basically that plus an enemy action per turn for like full on masochism. Single save is sorta not really necessary but I find that without doing that my folder just ballooned out too crazy. It's hard to parse all the saves for me. I wish they had like a character export at the very end for hall of Heroes/Villains. Maybe with like stats for the campaign, favorite weapon most killed/kissed whatever. Just like a stat tree with graphs and such like they do at the end of 4x games. That and more achievements even the base game I think has a pretty solid amount of replay. Sadly the one mod I want most, which is the camera unlock WASD, I still haven't seen. So I guess just waiting on that. Maybe the new patch will have something more going on there, otherwise it's the one mod I'm really waiting on. Like everything else can get fried if I can unlock the cam I'd be much happier.

 

[OrlonKronsteen]

Last few runs she's pretty much bumped off Astarion, like as soon as we acquire the gloves of thievery from the Zhents, or something to boost her Dex, and then I just it all into sleight of hand. She's not quite as handy as the Vampire, but good enough to slot in on occasion.

Interesting... I've been wondering who the heck I'd use as a thief if I run again. I'm only interested in good runs ATM and Asterion just doesn't work for me. I was thinking maybe give Wyll a level in rogue.

 

[Black Elk]

Yeah I think that works. He could probably rock like a 4/8 split and still not loose out on the feats or the special boons from Warlock, something like that. Gloves can get the job done for the most part, or the cat's grace robes. In this one I had given those duds to Alfira so she could rock a respectable 17 in Dex, since we'd already had 20 for our Monk with the ASI and the Hag's Hair. But then in this part of the game sometimes I can screw myself, like forgetting the gloves of thievery before attempting drinking games with Dead Thorms. I feel like Wyll would be a natural multi-class cause he's kinda wishy washy about the Warlock thing and might be looking for a side gig.

Speak of the Devil, dude just totally saved our ass vs Githyanki crossbows enhanced lol. I thought I was dead for sure!

I used Daylight to save Rolan this time and succeeded, but I think going from inky high contrast to super low contrast threw me and instead of entering Moonrise somehow we let the Githyanki get the drop on us! The psionic detector went off so I just went with it, even though we were under-levelled, but they came with an intensity that put all our monkish wits to the test!

I guess this would be an example of a very honor mode sort of calculation on the fly, where I opted to bail on the battle at exactly this point...

Like trying to decide whether to go for the Stunning blow, or use the Super Disengage hop hop to escape in a panic. I opted to jet, cause I felt like everyone was certain to die, but I also wanted to make sure at least one Gith was taken out so it wouldn't be as hard after we regrouped and recouped. Everyone was pretty much toast, Wyll quaffed a potion of invisibility and ran. I jumped 4 times but it wasn't far enough. The Gith caught up with Misty step and murdered us all except for Wyll - who for some reason decided to hang a left instead of a right. Good thing too, cause I totally failed to deflect the 3rd and 4th crossbow bolts. Even using my extra invisible hands for my full Spider Style technique that guy just had too many bolts in the quiver to keep up. So yeah, the Human saved our asses that time.

All told in only cost us probably 200 gp, but with a hit to our pride and the fever pitch of a pretty close call. Tension were high at camp.

Now by Lawful Evil murphy's Law, we're bound to this dude by a life debt?!

At least until we can redeem ourselves in Lolth's many eyes hehe.

I think the whole Drow team was pretty shook to see Withers so busy after hours lol. I stopped by the hidden temple of Shar to hedge our bets, hopefully Shadowheart will be inspired enough to ensure that Minthara can be saved for the next big swing. Trying to Charm Z'rell I wanted to go in with 4, but we picked that up just from having to resurrect everyone. In any event Alfira may opt not to write that one down lol.

Instead we returned with an edge-panned Fireball ~ The Classic!
heheh

 

[Black Elk]

Speaking of Wyll and what to do with him... In this run we're definitely stealing his clothes!!!

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed his outfit on a female Drow for the mini-portrait! hehe

For some reason I had it in my head that Mizora's robes were Light Armor but they're just Clothing (probably cause it has the same look/trim as Isobel's Moonmaiden getup and those Selunite Robes are Light Armor, like Padded or Leather.) As a Warlock Wyll can use the Light Armor and still cast his spells and such without penalties, but the illusion of choice in BG3 always seems to be between Unarmored Clothing (that any Wizard or Barbarian or Monk etc could use) or Medium Armor which everyone else uses. There's just not much in the way of badass Light or Heavy armor available, or between, least not that outclasses the Unarmored Robes or Medium Armor for the abilities or perks. Especially in the first half of the game. Even on the low end of the enchantment scale with Medium armor, say the Hide or Studded leather, those are pretty much a bust with middling AC and not much variation to offset. Even cosmetically a lot of the Armor or Robes tend to look the same. So like Bull's strength Robes vs Cat's Grace robes, or any of the Rage-y barbarian garb that has a similar cut with midriff and a lot of skin showing. Lot's of character's kinda end up looking the same cause some dud's are just way better than others.

We just saved Lakrissa at Moonrise to get the Potent Robes. Alfira gifted them away, saying they looked better on us, but we don't have a cantrip that could benefit from the boost to Damage based on our Charisma. The AC +1 is nice and all, so I thought about just telling her to keep it, like it makes vicious mockery slightly better, though I rarely use that one, when there are typically better options from among the lower levelled 1-2 spells. Wyll on the other hand is much more limited. Even with spellslots replenishing on short rest, or an amulet or potion to restore spellslots in-combat, having only 2 or 3 spells to burn per combat can be rough, and he has to use his Eldritch Blast way more than anyone else, least as far as the cantrips go. Potent robes will add that +4 or +5 to damage, for each ray. So basically getting like a double damage boost there, making it a much better use of the action. With the Potent Robes on, his standard Eldritch blast is about the same as choosing Agonizing Blast from the Warlock Pact Boons. So I think he could probably multiclass out of Warlock at lvl 2 (his earliest recruitment I think, if you do the Gate to the Grove fight first, before Wither's tomb and avoiding some of those early XP gets) that's like if doing the no respecs for companions thing. Otherwise he could probably take it back down to lvl zero, at some thematic point where he regrets some of the earlier life choices. I feel like his Character is so built around the Warlock thing though, that it makes sense for him to keep at least 1 level in that, in which case the Eldritch Blast is freebie, and you can sorta make it up on the backend by donning Alfira's robes. This getup we can only acquire by offing Karlach, so he traded her head for the cool looking robes, but then we traded with him in Act II like thrift shop haggling for the right fit.

I figure my Monk probably gets better use out of the Flame Shield from Mizora's robes since we're front lining. I also repo'd the Bracers of defense so I could hit 20 AC. I had been using those Gloves that boost the Thunder/Radiant Damage by adding reverberation on hit, but we loaned them to Alfira for now since she also bring the Thunder fairly often with her Lute themed spells like Shatter. Good for knocking off the Scrying eyes and whoever else might be watching nearby. In Cat's Grace she gets the +2 to Dex and advantage on Dex rolls/saves and a bonus to her Jump distance, so it all works out to be about the same as wearing Remedial Rhymes from Volo or the Potent Robes in Act II + Thievery Gloves, just with a somewhat sportier/spikier look. I swear if I could jog half so well in RL or run those sorts of calisthenics, everyone I'm sure is sweating constantly trying to keep up with Open Hand Yeoh lol. In any case we gave Wyll the Thievery Gloves for now, not that he's popping many locks really, but ya never know, sometimes a trap might need disarming in the pitch dark. Or slight of hand to get through a locked door in combat maybe. I like the idea of him being prepared for whatever in case we need to split at the last second like we did vs the Avatar of Vlaaktih! Or at least till we swoop into something better, but sorta the dress code for now I guess.

As for the mini-portrait, I think this is probably our optimal look for the mid game. A bit fancier than what we'd been repping up till now, more formal Lolth-sworn Drow lookin' in my view. She'll probably settle into some Monk stuff for the Third Act, but I might keep this one just for the portrait.

Like we get that little flash of red around the collar to bring out the malevolent glow in our eyes. Love it! Pretty radiant right there hehe, though I gotta remember to switch that for monk Psych or Necrotic blows, before we enter the Gauntlet of Shar. I'll probably bench Minthara for that one as well, because her smites have gotten me into trouble before, when skeletons start doing that radiant retort. It can get pretty dicey even in regular Tactician, but they're probably even more dangerous now, so I think we'll bring Wyll along for sure, and have Gale come Knocking too. First we gotta do a bunch of Firewall shadowcurse stuff though, so anyway, hopefully the fire-shield fire-robes come in handy there hehe. I burned through a lot of cash, so we're trying to make ends meet before the big nail bitter vs Ketheric.

Happy Almost There!

 

[Black Elk]

Oh my goodness! We nearly dropped the ball, right before the ball dropped! lol

Once again it was Evil Wyll who saved us. The dude's on a roll I guess hehe

My mistake was thinking that I could smooth talk Yurgir instead pinging the Displacer Beast off the ledge with a thunder arrow to open that fight like I usually do. Not that honour is actually required in any meaningful sense, but somehow it just didn't sit right with me to take that approach with my Monk. Like I don't know, it just didn't feel very Crouching Replacer Beast (or Hidden Dragon for that matter) to just gun after the kitty-demon without warning. I felt like we should at least announce ourselves first, and give her chance to fight. The dungeon master had other plans though. Probably wanted to teach us a lesson I guess. I thought we'd try to talk our way out of things maybe be a rat bastard and work some betrayal along that path, but we weren't aiming to go toe to toe just yet, especially since we had no skeletons to back us up.

I went around back to snag some gold from that one chest, but then accidentally perceived their ambush before the Yurgir conversation could start. Instead of smooth talking about who's master was about to kill who, they just agro'd full on, and we ended up having face down like 4 Displacer Beast copies instead of just the one lol.

He dropped the bomb on us very first thing, taking out Yeoh instantly. Lae'zel was still on her feat, and we'd taken the feat Alert so she could be at the top of the pops, but it was a scramble. Wyll threw down a Hunger of Hadar to slow many Merregon's while Gale started ringing the Bells. By the time Flesh arrived we were nearly dead. My priority was to keep Gale alive long enough for Minthara to kill Yurgir, then I figured we'd leave Balthazar's bro to his fate. Shadowheart tried her best to keep it to the shadows, but there were so many Merregon Halberds that we nearly all got killed before the next round could expire.

We had to make that shot call another time - fight or flight, or bail or wail?

We chose to bounce, but then almost got killed there too. Lae'zel did a super jump, but then had to jump back to Rally. In the end she got herself killed as well, by the Last Merregon, and it was down to Wyll to save us and haggle with Withers again.

This time the hit to the pocket book was a bit harder. We had just purchased some Greater Elemental scrolls, Shadowheart had no spellslots to Revivify, and the camp supplies had just been exhausted. We had to break off like 6 bills at least to shore up our ranks. Down to 1200 GP, though thankfully I think we've got most of what we need for the press on Moonrise. Least those Githyanki are already dead.

We'd faced some tough calls earlier about whether or not to try and lift the Shadowcurse. It's a pretty scary fight even with 3 firewalls. Again mainly down to enemy crossbows, but we'd pulled just pulled that one off, so I was riding high, and didn't see the next thing coming. Just goes to show I guess. Should have kept ourselves in the dark lol.

But yeah, pretty nutso way to hit level 8!

I didn't have a save at the ready to take a run at the Netherbrain like last year going golden, but I'm pretty sure we got the dime store scratcher lottery win there. Now we owe Wyll a life debt double or nothing! I

'm probably going to have to save Jaheira if this keeps up lol. Fortunately with Alfira around too, I can pretend that she's probably trying to tip the scales to save Halsin and do the whole Folk Hero thing that Wyll prefers. I mean Lae'zel and Shadowheart would probably agree with us that it's all too risky, but then everyone is a bit weary of the Gith right now, and it's debatable whether Shar was working for us or against us after that last encounter. A dark moon Alliance might be necessary, just so we can make it over the hump here hehe

Fingers Crossed! Hangover's before sunrise!

 

[Black Elk]

New Year!

Same Jaheira! lol

My approach there remains largely unchanged. Jaheira is the reason we like to keep in Withers good graces, cause I feel like she needs to have a legendary stat block, but her attribute spread is pretty bread and butter, same as any standard Druid. For this reason I feel like she just always gets dibs on the Dex 18 Gloves since they pair well with the Enchanted Hide or Yuan-Ti Scale that adds the full modifier to her AC. I went with the Hide this time, Roah got dropped so we could pick up some cash and that one. Then the Club of Hill Giant Strength 19 so she can mule. For now the Circlet of INT 17 is better on my main for dialogue stuff, but that's also an option. Here we went Moon Druid with Tavern Brawler since I thought it would be better in the Ketheric fight. Put's us off hitting 21 in Wisdom till level 12, but with Khalid's amulet she can at least rep a 19 in WIS soon as we reach the lower city, and still have that heavy CON for concentration and HP. Felt about right.

My play is typically to blow like 4 grand on Greater Elementals in order to stay ahead of the Necromite adds. Send Lae'zel after the Flayer, then turn around to handle Ketheric/Myrkul with all the heavy hitters to smite him down. Mechanically the fight feels much easier to me with Alyin alive and no Karniss or resurrected Isobel lurking in the backfield to cause problems. I cut it super closer on XP, we had to kill every random intellect devourer in the Ilithid Colony in order to keep pace. Probably cause I neglected the Ancient Forge and tried to avoid facing down the Needles in the Shadowcursed battlefields. We gave the Matriarch in Blighted Village a pass, and a few other encounters avoided. It's a good thing probably that we stumbled into the Gith hunters early, cause otherwise we'd have been stuck at lvl 8 for the big showdown at the end of the Act. Sceleritas tried to shame us into doubling back for that, but we were undeterred.

I mean in the moment I thought to myself, am really going to slay the whole team after all the work we just put in? Like just so Shadowheart can keep her raven hair? Everyone else is pretty plat, so it only makes sense she'd want to visit our Drow stylist for a makeover. Who are we to judge? hehe So we opted to stay out of it when the time came to make hard calls. She was pretty shook after tossing the Spear of Night, and everyone a bit surprised. Now she's the main love interest. Made her move as soon as we returned from the Shadowfell.

I think BG3 has still got me pretty good. I suppose I should have guessed, I mean this is the game that made tadpole a verb after all lol. I'm sure it's got legs to fly!

Here's to the next swing around the sun!

 

[Black Elk]

Almost there! This is my first crack at the Lower City using Tactician Enhanced.

I attempted to blow past Rivington by just getting arrested immediately hehe. Like we didn't even stop to visit the Circus. I saved the dog, but just washed our hands of everything else. Almost got dropped by the Robocop cause I didn't realize it would eventually regain control of his senses after catching Philomeen's bomb to the grill. We killed all the witnesses but then got caught up looting their bodies. Some rando on the far side of the wall, so I just bit the bullet. Freed Florrick and we were into Baldur's Gate proper.

I dropped Dolor immediately. Thought it would be trickier but we took the poison the poisoner option and just stun locked him like a chump. That felt satisfying so we thought we'd take a shopping trip. Slightly overconfident and riding high off assassinating the assassins we nearly got taken.

Like our closest call thus far was definitely Ramazith's Tower, where a double Fireball almost TPK'd the lot of us. I had to use Divine Intervention with Shadowheart to keep Rolan alive! Problem was that we were packed in so tight, so the first Myrmidon did his double cinder swipe, then the fireballs, we were basically toast. Rolan got dinged twice in the Blast deep into the red. Shadow heart recovered with the full Moon divinity, but then we almost lost it again to a double Lightning Bolt, and Jaheira getting stunned by the Air Myrmidon before she could stun first! Tough fight with the extra actions from TE. I should have brought Alfira or Gale along maybe for the extra counter spell, but we'd just been making due with Wyll. I was disappointed to realize that Rolan didn't restock some of the cool gear, so I think I lost Alfiras Riss hat and the badass Monk robes. Forgot to shop first!!! I mean where were our Priorities!? I blame Aradin for tripping us up. Go figure lol

We opted for fish and chips after that, to finally even the scales on our life debts there. Wyll seemed eager at any rate, and I was trying to keep it humming. We were almost undone there, despite having 6 party members and a couple Myrmidons. The Fish get those extra net tosses, and also the Gondians got totally tripped up climbing the ladder. I guess one of the Gnomes got stuck, so then instead of climbing over them, the all started running back towards a watery doom. Lae'zel got the bends, I guess she's more toad than frog, and Jaheira apparently cannot breath under water, though that might have been a nice touch. She's still only lvl 10 I guess, pretty far off entering the elemental plane. But yeah they both had to wash out on the beach.

At this point we're all pretty broke, even with the gummy berry juice from the Wine Festival, so I guess bank robbery first probably before we try our hand at the big bads. I caught the banter foreshadowing thing, where Jaheira starts talking about Viconia before her reveal. Geez talk about spoilerville Shadowheart! hehe. But I head cannoned that bug figuring that Jaheira probably just put 2 and 2 together and confronted Shadowheart at camp while I busy rapping out with someone else. We got the duds at least, so now it's just kinda grinding to lvl 11. I don't think I can face the Megazord Robocop until Gale has the Globe memorized. Just too scary with extra boss actions and all those giant swords. Like we got that one scroll, but I'm trying to hold it for the emergencies since we can't look to the gods to save us a second time. Unless I make Minsc a Ranger/Cleric maybe?

Hmmmm heheh

 

[Black Elk]

I attempted the Cleric/Ranger concept using his default stat block and it seemed promising, but then I took one look at his hotbar with all those additional clerical spells to manage and instantly decided it just wasn't going to work for me! lol

Instead I tried to recreate his BG1 stat block as the starting point.

This was my thinking, originally Minsc's Intelligence was 8, his Charisma was 9, and his Wisdom was a pitiful 6.

BG3 won't let us dump the base stat that low, but if we figure that he maybe read all 3 tomes of Wisdom that gets him up to 9 there too. Which works for the point buy split. So basically like this CON 15, INT 8, WIS 9, CHA 9.

Then played like a BG3 character he'd boost his primaries in STR and DEX via ASI to achieve a sufficiently legendary block since that way we can hit a pair of 20s.

The rest of his stats can basically just vibe like BG1/2. Fewer fancy Ranged Spells and more Melee basically, or that was the goal.

I took 4 levels in Ranger Hunter, 8 in Fighter Battlemaster

Gives him enough moves to keep pace striking, while still preserving the Ranger flavor with the extra fighting style. Like he's got a couple tricks there to keep it wild but nothing too crazy. Mostly just uses the big sword and charges in.

Boo is already on board, so I figured he didn't need another companion. We chose Keeper of the Veil for protection from Evil and Urban Tracker for the sleight of hand. This way he can double as the Thief with the gloves that give advantage but otherwise we gave him the pair from Act I in case the bads gang up.

I feel like it just works better for me, because then he plays more like Lae'zel. She gave him the Soulbreaker Greatsword again, since the biggest backup Greatsword we have available at the moment. Also that Maul that ignores bludgeoning resistance, in case we need to break down any more walls. Felt about right hehe

 

[Black Elk]

I decided to become a War Priestess at lvl 12, with the dip into Cleric. To somehow embody the Spider Queen's Vengeance I guess, and also to rep that Katana we finally snapped up... lol

It's mostly for show since the stunning punch is usually better, but we can keep it at the ready along with the Hasty long bow that we jacked off the Megazord.

That fight was pretty intense! He busted through 2 of Gale's Globes and also the back up from the emergency Globe Scroll. His blast was able to knock us around a fair bit too. Almost took the dirt nap there, but Jaheria came clutch with the stunning electra blows to turn the battle.

We screwed over the Ironhand Gnomes and just fried Wulbren with a Chain Lightning after that. I had like zero patience getting back to camp to rest. We thought about giving the job to Barcus, but spacebar slam said no lol.

Bane almost got us as well, when the Globe ran out, but we were able to get up a Mind Sanctuary and did some Dimension Door antics to take him down.

Minsc recruited in already at 12, but everyone else just caught up. I figured 1 lvl in War Cleric gives us a pretty good bang for the buck. Like compared to any of the regular feats and the extra Ki point not losing out on too much there. I get some standards - Sanctuary, Command, Healing Word, along with a few cantrips, the weapons proficiencies and the choice of a deity.

Felt like it might be good to have like 8 more tricks up our sleaves for the advanced Spider Technique.

She can be the thief as well if we want to use the Thievery Gloves, but now that we got the Gloves that add force Damage and fear I think we'll use those. I've gotten used to Minsc as a Battle Ranger, but I'm still letting him look for the traps and busting the locks, cause his banter there is more amusing.

I think we're almost ready to face Viconia, but might try for the Dragon first, or mop up some Vampires maybe. Haven't decided yet hehe

 

[Black Elk]

We went after the Vampires, predictably. I thought about doing Viconia first, but I already know what's going to happen there. Like I'll plan a whole run around some Yoshimo-esque endgame betrayal, but then totally back out at the last moment hehe. Like of course I want to see Viconia atop the Brain as an one of the Allies, but the trade off there is way too steep. Like it's not so much Shadowheart as it is the Djinni, but still that's a pretty low glow. Like to get all the way to the house of Grief and just pawn her off to the Sharrans to be sacrificed or whatever. I mean who knows there I guess, but it's pretty heavily implied that things wouldn't end very well for her there. If it were Dark Justiciar Shadowheart doing villainy the whole time maybe it's debatable, but here she went plat, so it's like we already threw in our lot with the Black Moon right. Or I don't know maybe if Shar commanded it in person, I could get down, but that's not really baked into the initial exchange. I'm absolutely certain if the tradeoff was Viconia's recruitment as a standard companion then I'd be completely on board with that. Like swapping a Cleric of Shar+ for another Cleric of Shar, ok sure, but just giving up the Cleric all together? Seemed unwise...

Like I don't maybe Lolth's getting soft, and we're going to end up with the Charlottes Web version on it, just tugging at all my heart strings till I'm wound up into a tangle. In any case we didn't want to force anything yet on the Viconia front, so Vampires it was.

I always get nervous that Cazador is going to have some new super ability, so we stacked in pretty deep. He instantly merc'd the Woodwoad and sent the Woodland Being back to the dirt. I brought Astarion along this time with plans to Ascend him. I figured that would be a sufficiently Evil outcome to keep us in Lolth's favor for now. Everyone disapproved and tried to weigh in, but kept it true and did him a solid for +10 necrotic damage and a bigger bite lol.

Once Shadowheart has the Djinni and Gale has the Globe, combat sorta devolves into this weird combination of Duck Duck Goose and Death Tag. Or like running out, taking a few swings, then trying to bonus action back to the safety within the Globe. Mind Sanctuary sorta replaces Hasty Haste as the go to and the Black Hole collapses a lot of the rest into itself. Ilithid flight makes my monk jumps sorta unnecessary, so we just focus on the big moves now. I much prefer not having to see a Half-Ilithid transformation while rocking the power ups. My headcanon is that the veins and dead eyes that others see don't appear to us in the mirror reflection. Like we're just that deluded at this this point. I wish there was more to the full transformation. Like different eyes or different colored armor or tentacles, otherwise keeping it Half and Half seems about right for all the bonus abilities.

Even still, when the enemies have that extra Action things can pretty intense. I mean Eye Bite twice or Vampiric double tap logic, and things can turn pretty quickly.

Counter spell and the Ilithid variant of the same become sorta mandatory, but even then they often get off the second spell or beat the save on one of the attempts. I went with the Classic, Misty Step to the far side of the battlefield to free Astarion. Setting up a Globe and then trying to lay down a firewall and an insect plague to handle all the bats while we focused on the Head Vampire. The Hasty longbow and Daylight greatswords kept him from misting away, then we just stun locked him Radiant Palms and had Gale start chipping away at him with Artistry of War. We Stoker'd him threw the heart with the Katana just for good measure hehe.

Ascension is insta TPK if Cazador pulls it off, so bringing Astarion along only really makes sense if the plan is to have him take over and run the Red Palace, which is what we did.

I've also been encouraging Gale to pursue godhood so we can spread the risk around.

 

[Black Elk]

Handled the House of Grief with a flurry of non-lethal blows. Everything there went according to plan, although I nearly screwed myself by forgetting to switch from Radiant palms to Psychic palms. It was only when we were all drinking our potions that I somehow remembered, otherwise radiant retort would have hobbled us. As it happened our quick wits made the adjustment and went for KO and mercy. I'm content to just always let Viconia get away in the hopes that she meets back up with us again somewhere outside Durlag's. Who knows maybe someday it'll happen hehe.

Then it was off to slay the undead Dragon. I decided to sub in Wyll for his finale run, since he's unlikely to stand with the full crew atop the Netherbrain. I imagine he can lead the B squad with Ascended Astarion and Minsc and wherever else is still hanging around at camp. At this point Gale is pretty much always in the rotation. With the Spellcrux Amulet & Arcane Battery from the staff the double Globe is covered, so pretty much 6 rounds to make it happen in whatever bout. I brought mostly Water Elementals to run interference, although the Myrmidons are also vulnerable to electricity weirdly for that zone so I guess whatever works, but we went for Cold with Kereska's Favour on that one.
Once again Stunning Blows had us in the pocket and controlling the pace. Fly in to stun lock seems to be the most reliable then everyone else just does whatever to try and mop up. We grabbed the Helm and the gigantor Sword and just blasted straight to hell.

I figured if I could just keep charging we'd pick up steam in the last hour or so. I don't know why I thought it'd be a good idea to head to Hell with only 2 lockpicks but those were the breaks. I remembered we had Alfira so she sub'd in with a potion of hill giant strength and some explosive barrels, but I forgot I'd given most of the lockpicks to Astarion and Minsc so we had to leave some treasure behind. Once we crossed over there was no turning back.

Somehow Lae'zel broke disguise, it's happened to me once or twice before, but where everyone just agros immediately cause of the debtor's attire. In the end it wasn't too terrible, but we had to fight our way down the hall and the battle spilled over to Harleep's room. We prevailed but it left me a bit light to face the Spectators. We were almost TPK'd there when Lae'zel got Eldritch blasted off the platform by an Imp while wielding the all important Hammer! Spectators did the paranoid dreams thing where the befuddle blast and chomp. Alfira saved the day with Hypnotic Pattern to mesmerize both the beholders, while I scrambled to resurrect Lae'zel and recover. Somehow pulled it out and made it bake to the rejuvenating fountain.

Battle with Raphael went rather poorly, the kaboom barrels only carved off like 60 HP there. His super necrotic death ray had Lae'zel trapped off the second pillar so it was mostly up to Gale with the Artistry of War. We used Hope's Divine Intervention twice, for a radiant strike and then a rez, cause Alfira got smoked in the opener. We worked him down pillar by pillar pretty methodically using both Globes Mind Sanctuary and the Black Hole. We saved Yurgir and did the whole bit there, but when we finally broke Raphael he agro'd against us after running into Shadowheart's Insect plague. He almost nailed hope with the quadruple poison backstab, but somehow she survived.

No big guy atop the brain for us this run I guess.

Whatever works though, I got the Con amulet and the super STR gloves so I think we're in business. Just gotta handle Bhaal now and we're off.

 

[Black Elk]

Finished up the Tribunal late last night. We disputed the edicts of the tribunes, obviously. I mean we definitely remembered what that one goblin said, "Tribe!" but then I took another look at Sarevok and his crew and figured they probably didn't have the best interest of the people at heart lol. We were willing to entertain the forms and procedures, even if surfacer politics are still perplexing, but had to put our foot down when he started trying to bring Jaheira into it!

I goofed my initial stun lock, as I forgot about his Murderous riposte, but we recovered with the Flail of the Vortex to nail Sendai and co, to prevent the minions from buffing him up too hardcore. I kept the non-lethal up, just in case he might have mercy scene similar to Viconia's, but it was no dice the Kurgan in this as he opted to stay down and play dead I guess. I still think he should have been a recruitable companion. In any case, we got surprised when we went for the exit, and discovered his Hell Horror doormen were still alive, so I guess we know Sarevok was still breathing when we made our outro hehe.

Speaking of surprise, the choice to take Alert with Lae'zel definitely came in handy vs Orin. I opened with Sleet Storm thinking to agro the cultists and not risk a conversation. Even with stunning Palms I wasn't not sure I could take the Slayer 1 on 1, or at least not without screwing myself into some lame ending, where we both lose the duel and then don't get to reject Bhaal or resist the Durge either. Easier to edgepan her with an AoE spell and start the fight that way. I opted to first-strike with Jaheira on the Sleet, thinking Gale would come up first after that, since we he vigilant. Plan was to ping with Magic Missiles. I'd also taken Magic Missile with Alfira for a Lore Bard's magical secret, but we got screwed by reverse surprise round! It was up to Lae'zel to break through the Slayer's Unstoppable with the just the regular whack whack attacks. Plan was to one shot her before the ritual could commence, which worked, but sorta the reverse of what we'd planned. Instead of breaking the Unstoppable with Magic missiles and then swords, it was Swords first then Magic missiles to shred her HP. Alfira got the killshot there for the golden record hehe. I switched out the Katana from the Crimson blade.

Spent a few nights camping around and resupplying the potions and scrolls. I figured for the final ascent we'd want a couple Potions of Cloud Giant Strength and a few more potions of Vigilance and Angelic Reprieve. Then a backup Globe of Invulnerability scroll and some elixirs of resistance/battle mage's power or whatever was on offer to round things out.

I like to use the Colossus on Lae'zel, not sure if it'd be better to just have her quaff a cloud Giant Strength potion, but we gave her the Gauntlets of STR 23, so I figure with a Colossus on that it's probably about the same. I just like seeing her 10 ft tall hehe.

I don't think I've ever once sided with the Emperor. Like it's Lae'zel every time, that's a double cross we could never make lol. Yeoh stay'd true a unshackled the prince of the Comet.

The final final is usually a pretty decent fight. Here we kicked things off in style, when I forgot to kill the one Winged Horror. He called everyone over all at once. The Spectator, like half a Dozen mind Flayers, a bunch of Goblins and rando Absolutists. I was super glad I decided to go complete overkill with summons, even recruiting a few Skeletons using the lvl 4 animate dead and then drinking a super potion to restore the spellslot, cause the Spectator did his Paranoid dreams and the Flayers dominated half the crew. It go so sketch that even the Ogre managed to hurl the explosive barrels on the ramparts before anyone could go pre-ignition. I had to burn Rolan's arcane canon and summon Mizora to get my back!

Definitely the highlight so far and probably the largest set piece battle. Our spellslots were mostly exhausted so we raced up the brainstem with Jaheira using her Myrmidon warp. Just waiting on the last battle till I have a good hour to kill with the Nebulous black hole. I think it's a done deal cause Alfira bought like all the fireworks, but I guess we'll see soon enough hehe

Now that I'm all super used to the modded Hotbar and Tactician Enhanced with 6, it'll probably be hard to go back. TE is my favorite mod thus far. It's a little uneven, in that the battles and boss fights that involve a lot of minions tend to be the harder bouts, but overall it does the trick.

I mean even as a super powerful Open Hand Monk who can get anywhere at the drop of a hat, it still put me through my paces. Probably the most fun I've had since Honour Mode first came out. I think I might add the D20 initiative mod next time, but otherwise these will probably be my go to mods to spice things up.