BG3 Honour Mode: strategy & tactics (many spoilers)

[Black Elk]

On Summons - So BG3 reminds me of the first BG1, in that there are options to stack quite a few summons. The way it seems to work, these are cap'd by summon type rather than total number of summons, or with a ceiling for the party as a whole. So there's a slot for a familiar, animal companion, undead (3 skeletons/zombies/mushrooms), Woodland Being and the Woodwoad, Minor Elementals, Greater Elemental/Myrmidon, Planar Being, then there a couple specialty Zombies, along with one offs like the Little Spiders or any sort of Lump's Horn type summons from items. I'm not sure which class/multi-class would give the most options, especially since the most powerful summons are lvl 6 spells which can't be written via dip into Wizard.

I think for the meta, the lvl 4 spellslot is the most valuable over all, since those summons can be replenished via a potion of Arcane Cultivation, so sort of a freebie there. Probably skeleton Archers are the most versatile, but Ice Memphits are pretty solid, and the Woodland Being is of course a badass if she can survive the opening salvo. Enemies always seem to pick on her, probably because she's always concentrating so hard. In any case after that the lvl 5 spellslots are the workhorse and those can be replenished via the Wizards special when out of combat. Otherwise I think only the Druid Circle of the Land can replenish a lvl 6 Spellslots for free. Probably makes them the best overall Summoner since then you get a free cast on that, to prep the lvl 6 Myrmidon and then immediately replenish the spellslot.

The dilemma for Priests is that the lvl 6 slot for Planar Being or a Myrmidon competes directly with Heroes Feast, which buffs all the Summons at once with extra HP and resistances. So you really want at least one priest to have that slot available, since it makes such a difference as a buff. Aid is similar for a group buff, but that's only a lvl 2 slots so more of a given. What it means in my more recent runs is that instead of Summoning Myrmidons with Gale and Jaheira, I've been burning the lvl 5 slot instead to just use a Greater Elemental. They're not as strong as Myrmidons, but they all have some form of warp which is the main benefit. I think the flying Air Elemental is probably the best for my playstyle, with a water Elemental for support. It's a decent balance between damage type and attack versatility. Air Elemental does the zap Multiattack or the thunder ranged and can fly/warp as well as vortex, Water Elemental can do the slam prone AoE mini, Ice Multiattack with the warp, they also pair well when things get wet to stack more damage. Earth Elementals are also pretty reliable, though they're much larger and kinda get in the way when targeting. Fire I think I only really use vs the Vampires, they tend to explode everything around them if there are surfaces or barrels, even though they look pretty cool I usually just go Air or Water. Djinni I think is among the most useful since his Vortex can restrain even many of the bosses, unless they have a legendary against being restrained, but it's pretty solid for a freebie CC like every turn. His standard swipe can be hit or miss, but he's got the warp which again is sorta the top thing. I haven't messed with the Deva or the Cambion all that much, the Djinni just seems to outclass them, but maybe that's more down to the way I play.

In any event it probably didn't matter all that much for the final here, cause we still had quite a few Allies to burn. I spent the first turn just calling everyone so I wouldn't forget. We went right instead of left this time just to mix things up. The Emperor got off'd by some random Vampiric Ghouls, and Mizora got off the hold monster to set up the Dragonslaying.

Once again it was Alfira with the killshot! He wasn't ready for our Magical Secret blast hehe.

We pushed it right down to the wire, Crouching and Displacing, dodging the cannons till the very last round, but got to the Crown just in time!

For the Brain itself, I used the Fireworks kaboom Chronos style. It's the most reliable. Trick is to just try and one shot her with a single damage type all at go, so all Fire in this case.

Alternative is to work the brain down with a rotating damage type thing, but that can be hard to execute. I think the only other dmg type that can stack that high is Force, like from explosives or just a shit ton of grenades on the floor, but fire is definitely easier. 2 trips to Felogyr's and then commit hehe. We used the upcast fireball to ignite and then just watched as it showered down multicolored rainbow death hehe.

Pretty good times. We never did that make swim, I guess maybe my approval was too low from random criminality along the way. Least Astarion and Gale seemed to be riding high off their accomplishments. Got some random commentary from Minsc I hadn't seen before. Reunion camp with Alfira is a nice touch!

I was thinking it might be fun to attempt some sort of super summoner Multi-Class, or continue with my dip into Wizard from Druid, but still not sure how to optimize it really. I'll probably take it from the top again and see if there's time for another Tactician Enhanced run before patch 8 drops. Either way, I'm sure we'll be back lol

 

[Black Elk]

I decided we needed to have a White Witch at the ready, since who knows when Patch 8 might come out. I disabled all the mods and went back to vanilla just to stay sharp.

Somehow of all the Draconic Sorcery types I never did a White Dragon lineage. I guess every other time I did Cold it was with a Metallic Silver Din. Probably because the Silver Dragon's Feather Fall is fun for a freebie in the early game (pairs well with Enhanced Leap), and White Dragon lineage with Agatha's has that all day VFX, which I'd been avoiding. In any case we needed an Ice Queen in the roster for team Villainy, and I'd yet to create a Half-Drow Sorceress, so that's what we went for here.

Runa Val back with the White Dragon chromatics hehe

Cold Damage Sorcery is probably the most powerful overall, since the damage type is pretty reliable and there are some fun items to boost it up and stack extra effects like chilly frozen wet rotation. There are enough OP cold spells in the standard lists to make it seem worthwhile as an elemental damage choice. Resistance to cold is rather less useful, but it's mostly the offense that matters in this one.

I can't see any reason not to dip into Wizard from Sorcerer. 11 Levels in Sorcery/1 Wizard nets the same number of total Spellslots as 12 levels in Sorcery. Sorcerers get their big power up at lvl 11 when they gain their sub-class feature, and the lvl 6 spellslot is cap'd at just 1 cast regardless, so not losing much. It's really just a choice between the Feat or the option to write Wizard spells and prepare 4 of those at a time. Everything else being even, having the extra versatility in the spell list coming from the Wizard dip is pretty hard to argue with.

The ritual spells Enhanced Leap and Longstrider open up a pretty deep meta right away, so I think the dip is viable at any point from lvl 2, but optimally lvl 5. This allows us to make the most of Lump and the gang before claiming the Circlet of Int 17. In this case I ended up taking Haste for the Wizard's showcase, since Blurg had a scroll ready to go. Also picked up See Invisibility for convenience later on. Knock is another good one to have in the bank. Usually I snap up Shield for the clutch saves, and keep that prep'd along with Enhanced Leap and Longstrider since those get used all the time for utility, then save the last prepared spell in Wizard for something like Haste that can be twinned or quickened via the Sorcerer Meta Magic. Later on we can switch it out for other spells, but probably the most effective for this part of the game I think.

We hit the ground running, and took Gale's hand immediately. Then Wyll died fighting the Goblins at the gate, so that sorta set the trend lol. We ended up resurrecting him eventually, but I decided for this one that I'd do some light Evil early on, just to see all the villainous dialogues I hadn't seen in a while.

Alfira got eviscerated, Barcus got Windmill'd, the Gnolls all ate lunch etc. We told Lia Cal and Rolan they should probably skip town, that sorta run.

Main highlight was probably Komira's revenge, since I don't see that one very often.

Usually Arabella get's saved, but this time we crit failed and decided to just roll with it. To pull it off, had to fail first, then go through the motions redeeming Kagha, for a death scene at the Party via a poison chalice. It's one of the better croakers, and a pretty satisfying capstone scene from Komira...

Otherwise fairly standard for the Durge run, except that this time around we've also got a bit of a Fire and Ice thing going with Karlach hehe. Lae'zel tried to make her move after we sold out Mayrina for the hag's hair 20 in Charisma, but I left the room before we could cross words. Ended up solo on the bedroll, so might be Karlach this time after all - if Dammon can manage to stay alive through the second act. Guess we'll see how far along we get. At this point we got a few Witches with classic names like "Half-Drow" or "Evil Wood Elf" etc since the choice of character race/background is sorta the only thing that can't be adjusted or tweaked later on. I like to have a few in the running on the way to lvl 5, then maybe they graduate to getting a name, or inheriting a moniker, once the restartitus wears off hehe. We did find some Harlequin dye burried in that one chest though, so took that as a good sign for the color coordination!

 

[Black Elk]

Got to lvl 5 and the Myconids before deciding to double back and catch up with a Din D'wizard sans mods. The flying Dins were fun and all but he's retired from the circus for now. Back to the standard hotbar etc. I'm curious to see if the vanilla hotbar can handle my plan for 11 Levels in Circle of the Land Druid, 1 lvl in Wizard.

Goldeneye hehe

Playing as a Dragonborn Durge there aren't any benefits coming from the weapons proficiencies outside of the standard class stuff. Not many cool specials there except the elemental resistance, so sorta just building from that. I dumped everything but Con, Wis, and Cha figuring that everything else can be handled via itemization by the end of Act I. Early game is the toughest, so for a challenge avoid the Wither's respec and just trying to slog through the start till we get all the Stat boosting items we need. I took a Gold/Fire lineage for the resistance since everyone is always trying to hit us with fire, figured it's pretty solid hehe,

My OCD ritual for the Nautiloid as a Druid is to always reach out for the Brine Pool to see how much damage we'll take. 4 is a pretty good sign.

We didn't nab the Haste potion from the dead flayer which is sorta the ultimate, but did grab a Cantrip Scroll for Ray of Frost in the first treasure chest! Took that as a good sign for the plan to multi into Wizard when we touch down on the beach, with an extra Cantrip ready to go. Otherwise I just make sure to choose "Friends" and then probably Light, in this case Firebolt when we take Wizard and grab all the spells we don't already have from Druid, which basically covers most of the utility stuff. We only get to prep 1 spell till we get to the circlet, but probably magic missile or chromatic orb there since most of the rest are situational and can be changed on the fly outside combat. I think the meta with Arcane Recovery is kinda fun. Only restores the lvl 1 slot, but comes in handy early on especially, and then later can be used that extra ping to push the rest, or for an extra goodberry on occassion lol

Having Enhanced leap and Longstrider makes it much easier to take out Zhalk and hopefully the Mind Flayer as well. Basically just casting Enhanced leap on everyone right before Shadowheart casts Bless, then hitting the restoration pod. Optimally we land the command then Lae'zel can jump to grab the sword right away and just start swacking hehe. My move is just to rough him up as best we can, have Us take out the imps and such, then off to hide when the Cambions show up till the Flayer is dead. It's nice if Lae'zel goes down in the Sacrifice, since then she can be rez'd for 1 extra inspiration point to start things off. But sometimes the Devils catch up to Shadowheart first, like here so it was down to Lae'zel to save everyone.

On the beach, again having the Enhanced Leap immediately makes things pretty straightforward. For the other Characters I like to just run them standard now, like whatever the usual class and trying to keep their statblocks. For Shadowheart I tend to just take Sanctuary, and when I hit lvl 3, to drop Bless and take Holding/Silence instead since it suits my playstyle a bit better. I think for D'wizard Din the toughest is dumping Dex, since it takes a little while to grab the Dex Gloves doing the resist and trying to hopefully save Alfira and such. The danger there is that Aron will spot us and then come over to try and break things up.

In that eventuality, I think I would treat it as a Druidic challenge 1 on 1 hehe.

 

[Black Elk]

"Friends!" lol

So far so good

Since we nailed the flayer for the extra XP, we were able to hit lvl 4 pretty quickstyle.

Alfira knock out was clean, all according to plan. Didn't have to duel with Arron after all hehe. We used a fog cloud to snap up the Breastplate from Dammon and high tailed it out of there before anyone was the wiser.

Shovel came clutch during the battle with the Owlbear. Got the Dog and the Lump deception without a hitch, so I think we should be solid.

I spent like 1000 GP on potions of hill giant strength, then some loose change left over for the Zombies. We got Thelma Helfberry and Wila Spellsworth fronting the Goodberry girls. We also briefly recruited Emilio Questevez as our regulator/roadie, basically just we could steal his extra Druid's outfit before sending him back to the fugue plane. Gotta make room for Sina'zith or a Roah knockoff later on, depending on what goes down. We found a scroll of Scortching Ray for our lvl 2 Wizard spell, but we have to get Lump killed first before we'll have slots to prep it. For now still just rocking the Magic Missile mostly. After all that and buying a Scroll of Fireball just to have something ready for the lvl 3 spell, we were definitely broke jokes. I think down to under 100 gp, so we've been foot draggin on recruiting Karlach. Can't afford the Returning Pike or Ring of Fling just yet, though at least we got some Rez scrolls and the extra healing potions out the deal.

I selected Desert as our circle for a change of pace, also since it seemed to fit the Fire dragon theme, all doubly parched. Blur is pretty useless but Silence is a mainstay! We'll keep it hush!

Fingers crossed

 

[Black Elk]

Wow Mirkon just came like an absolute boss in the battle vs the Harpies!

First he nailed the one Harpy by the vine ladder, then turned around to box the other Harpy to death with the unarmed strike!

Quite the display of martial valor there from the little dude...

I think Lae'zel's heart grew 3 sizes that day lol

We botched that one pretty badly. Forgot to cast Enhanced Leap or drink any of the dozen some odd STR potions we blew all that cash on. A goofed placement on the Silence bubble, then getting all lured out of position with Shadowheart and Lae'zel facing down the claws. Thought we'd have time to get a double trouble Silence bubble going, but it all went to hell real quick-like. Had to use the Ice Knives to recover, but then the Tief kid showed us up and snagged that killshot at the last minute with 1 pt of dmg hehe. I guess we'll have to save em all now. Seemed like only yesterday that Lae'zel was of a mind to end their misery herself, but I guess now she's a taken a shine to at least one of the Tieflings. Talk about a mean left hook! Like he should definitely be running security for Mol's operation with those fistacuffs, no doubt hehe.

 

[Black Elk]

The imminent arrival of patch 8 with a dozen new subclasses has sorta tanked my motivation to complete the Dragonborn D'wizard run on patch 7. Go figure! lol

I'm not in the pre-release stress test, so haven't really been able to check that stuff out yet, aside from streamers on twitch and such. Seems to be a pretty beefy patch though just judging from what I saw watching Lua play for a couple hours.

Instead I decided to make this... which is like every character portrait in the game, all stitched together in a single image. I took the portraits from the BG3 wiki, for a survey view.



It's a bit spoiler-ish, even for this thread, since the characters are listed Alphabetically by name, rather than appearance by game Act or some other grouping. But it works for a overview I think. Technically there are a dozen more Z names after "Zhalk", but they're mostly bit NPC characters from the Githyanki Creche so I cropped em off. Sometimes gotta know when to just walk away, and Zhalk gave it a nice symmetry, ending where we started lol. In any case, worked for my purposes, which were simply to see all the portraits at a glance, and to get some kind of comprehensive take on what's happening there.

Or I guess maybe just a "Where's Waldo?" for the portraits one recognizes? Say for the Origin characters or the more prominent NPCs.

It's a good example I suppose of the variety that can be produced using the mix and match from a somewhat limited bucket of parts. Those are all NPCs though. The variety available to the custom Player Character is not as extensive, since we can't really pose our headshots or choose the lighting conditions or the background colors for the various motifs.

I also put this one together a while ago, but I think it still holds... Showing how each fantasy race is given a particular portrait treatment, like a set background color or whatever. You can see how the majority of them are blue in hue. The origins like Lae'zel have their own thing going on, but for everyone else it's just determined by choice of race. NPCs have the variety here, whereas the Custom Characters/Hirelings and the like are stuck with the defaults.



For my part what I'd love to see is a kind of portrait palette, similar to what is available for the avatar. Basically a way to 'dye' the portrait. Photo Mode seems fun, but I'd rather have something that serves a practical in-game purpose. To me that'd be the Headshot Portrait, Char Sheet Portrait, and perhaps a Party Sheet Group Portrait showing the active Party posed together. Or perhaps the player could choose a couple highlights and do a couple shoots in each act, then have those images re-appear later on, say when the end credits are rolling? I don't know, I guess the equivalent there would be some sort of candid group shot at a theme park for a souvenir. Everyone screaming on the rollercoaster, right before the dragon eats us all! Or we Splash Mountain it, with extra cold and lightning damage from the wet condition, while trying to smile. I'm less interested in the group shot concept than the individual portraits though, because the headshot portrait is something we interact with constantly - It's a main UI element, shows up when the character is doing SP stuff, MP stuff etc. shopping around, and just generally has the broader in-game utility in that way.

At this point, I feel like players would just marvel at the ability to change their portrait background color to anything different. If I could give Gale a Red portrait, or Wyll a Blue portrait, make Lae'zel's dominant portrait color Green etc. Right now if I want to be a Tief it's always purple. If I'm an Elf it's always Green, Drow always Gray and so on. I just want a nice spread there with the full rainbow on offer to everybody - complete with the outfits and the headwear! Basically all the same stuff these NPC portraits have going on. Ideally with the dye colors on the equipment carrying over into the portrait visualization. Oh and for Shadowheart's hair to update when she goes Plat in Act III! things like that hehe.

I think this is about as large as it'll let me go here for an image on the boards. The initial scale was like 100 mb and about 10000px tall, so I just kept reducing till I had something serviceable to trip out on here lol. I'll put a larger one for the header around 20 mb in case someone wants to read the labels. At that size I can just barely make out the font, but works for the big spread to see how the colors present.

Seeing all the portraits together really does remind of those magic eye 3d posters from the 90s. Like I swear something is going to pop out at me there in 3 dimensions, but it's just the stuff that was batch uploaded to the wiki.

Anyway, who knows, maybe it will end up more feature complete when the patch drops for real, but that's the stuff I'm holding out for I guess.

 

[Antimatter]

Wow, that's a lot of work put into creating that collage! And even weapons got their portraits Lilarcor family?

 

[Black Elk]

I know right! hehe each spiritual weapon I guess, but then also you can see a couple alts there for the various rando NPCs and monsters, like if the labels were nearly the same, or maybe the second portrait has a few pixels different. So we get a half dozen visages that basically look the same, but then also quite a few Gnolls and Gobs with the individual flavor hehe. Best I can tell the dominant portrait color Red was used very sparingly, like mostly for Fire Elemental types, Karlach and Wyll say. I think the elemental planes might have a thematic through line for the color, but for many others it's just sorta the standard Blue or Blue Cyan, the Green which also has a couple variants, and then the Gray with the background looking like trees or vines in silhouette. I'd think the background swatch might be something we could capture in-scene for a lot more variety.

The whole idea of photographing the character in-scene or in-world, and then having that be the character portrait, basically what I'm after. So comparing the portrait images above to something like that collage of the Early Access NPCs I threw together.







Utilizing the animations and expressions, the clothing, the camera all staged in a particular environment, I'd think it would be possible to get a much more dynamic sense of Character for the mini portrait. Although I think at this point I'd just settle for a simple of color wheel and a direction light source hehe. Being able to dress and dye the character and then have that carry into the portrait would be ideal.




In-game would be optimal, as opposed to like feature of the toolkit or whatever version of BG3 'Keeper' we ultimate get. If it's in-game and seamless, I think players would just camp on that for ages. I think it would also be ideal if the BG3 portraits could port back to the previous games, allowing players an easy way to create a set of BG1 or BG2s from the BG3s, or pathfinder, whatever works. I like the idea of something stylized but also consistent, using the bucket of parts hehe

 

[Antimatter]

How has it been, Elk?

I'm thinking about (!) finally returning to BG3 with the next update, so that I could try out all the extra tiers of difficulty and new subclasses!

Also, just how awesome this is: a modder added a Henry preset to BG3 as a mod (Henry from Kingdom Come: Deliverance).

Henry of Skalitz Head and Hair

Adds Henry of Skalitz's head and hair to character creator

www.nexusmods.com

 

[Black Elk]

Back in it!

I took a break for a month or so, but the pendulum has a way swinging home hehe. Went Shadow Sorcerery for the first out, so we could play around with the Shadow hound.
Pink Panther this time around the safety color. Keep on Dancin' lol

Lae'zel took a dirt nap on the bridge, so I raised her up first of course, but then forgot to click back to Din for the recruitment, so Shadowheart ditched us! Go figure!
She ran straight into the river, but I guess must have double around to meet up with Zeph in the Emerald Grove

In any case, we hit the ground running, right from the beach. No need for Lae'zel Unleashed, cause she was already home free. Although it seems the trap door remains... some things never change lol

We took a Photo mode, cause why not heheh

 

[Black Elk]

Upside I guess is that BG3 banged back for a last hurray. Like pretty well timed honestly, I needed this right now for sure

Shadowtax! hehe What an era. I had been spending the last 3 months playing A&A and dreaming of giant magneto boards with all the cardboard panels and tiny plastic dudes, or maybe some sort of bespoke 6th edition riff from what remains in the ttrpg boneyard after this all plays out. It'll probably be back to spiral notebooks and the trusty number 2 pencil on that front given the current scene, but least there's BG3 lol

I wish the new photo mode thing somehow involved custom portraits and dye ups, but from what I saw so far seems like that's still all under the hood and not really something we can tweak on the fly. It's fun to dance and pose, like reading the little labels there and such. We'll be at the Pink Pony club till dawn regardless hehe. New Subclasses are fun!

Things almost went south with the Owlbear double whammy. Lae'zel had to cut Andric and Brynna loose when they went after the Cub. That was a no go, so Lae'zel is wearing his chainmail now. Seemed to fit the Pink Cadillac theme. I dash and dashed, fled the combat, so hopefully it all works out for chicken chasing. Just grinding it out, since I don't think the Shadow pup comes online for another level or two. The free cam still tracking, but keeping it on the ball as best we can! hehe

 

[Black Elk]

Died and tried again lol

Second attempt we went Death Cleric as the starting class. Better for itemization since that way we can use the simple weapons for Club of Hill Giant Strength, which was an early get and also to wear that cool armor we snapped up from the Gith raiding party hehe. I went after the gobs, knocked out Minthara out and dashed around what felt like a safe circuit, trying to hit lvl 5 before going for the Hag's hair. I was a bit behind in terms of the spell selection, but was able to get off the lvl 3 super magic missile to nail all her illusory copies, then Lae'zel and Karlach carried us over the line. Got the hair kept May for another day hehe. The Toll cantrip was pretty useful with the double necrotic damage, but mostly it's been down to the missile and the standard spread from Sorcerer. My thought was to delay the gratification and then that way maybe the Shadowhound shows up in the Shadowlands on theme, but meantime we'd have Martial weapons and sanctuary and whatnot. Cleric dip seems to be the best, like doesn't really matter so much which sort of Cleric of Tiamat, they're all pretty decent, but Death Cleric gets the triple skull so of course lol.

I still wish we could just bring Kagha along for the ride. Feels like with all that cracks off at the Druid's grove and all that build up, but then the Druids are all just back benching it for the rest of the act? lol

As usual we recruited the Goodberry gals from Withers to pick up the slack, since Halsin can't even be relied up for that lol. I found a new trick that speeds things up a bit on that score. If I have one Goodberry zombie cast the spell on the other Goodberry zombie, the animation is much faster and the icon restores more quickly, so saves about half the time.

Still takes many clicks, but least not as long as the self-casting Goodberry thing. Just in time too, cause we almost ran out of supplies at the Creche!

Out by the skin of our teeth there. Back to the Emerald Grove with the Dex Gloves, now I just want to hang out there and listen to the whimsical music, before we take the boat to dare Nere hehe.

 

[Black Elk]

Handled hehe

We took Nere's head then instasplit to the Shadow Cursed Lands. So far so swift, Shadowheart came clutch to save Isobel with Lathander's beam of luminous Ghoul slaying. Then we B lined to save Minthara and the Tiefs. I retired the Gith armor for now, and settled into the Pink Panther robes, persuading the Thorms to just go die. Potent threads give the CHA boost to the double death Toll, so that seemed handy. Pajama Rich lol. Had to give up a couple AC for the fit look, but still not too bad with the shield and the bonus to hitpoints and cantrip power up. I had two light pink dyes so just enough to flex with that and the mantle for a lvl up. Not too bad for night out. I took Counter Spell, and Haste since we're mostly in a support role at this point.

Thus far I think Giant Barbarian has been the most interesting subclass, like basically Karlach just hurls the elemental cleaver (Zhalk's Flaming Great Sword) with double fire damage haste up, which is pretty entertaining. I kept Lae'zel as a Battle Master to anchor the team and keep her set up familiar. Shadowheart I just went Life Cleric while trying to fix her portrait, but kept her stat block with the double 13s. She's basically set to switch out with Minthara on the fly, since they have a similar kit for item tradeouts and safety color dyes. For now Boots of Speed, Radiant Breastplate, the Gloves of extra jump etc. Everyone else sorta has their own thing going on, so it's a bit tough to switch. Also I'm always afraid now that I'll forget her in the Shadow Fell, so now probably will just keep her on board till her hair goes Plat, and keep Minthara on ice in the backfield to protect the camp. Probably Wyll and Gale will have to duke it out for dibs on the Pink Potent Robes at some point, but that's not till Act III, for now they seem to be doing the trick. Happy Hounds!

Cult of the Black Dog hehe

 

[Black Elk]

Double Shadowhounds came pretty clutch. I wasn't really planning to take on the Displacer Kitty, but then I botched the convo and had to deal with the fall out lol

Luckily we were able to displace a bit too with Nimbus Ill Omens, or it might have been bombs away there.

Instead Lae'zel was able to slice and slice with hasty swacks, before things got too dicey... hehe

We're almost ready for Ketheric, but I skipped the Ancient Forge and half the Creche so we're a bit under levelled. I think Giant Barbarian hurling a supercharged war hammer from the top ropes would be easy enough to pull off, but the Magma memphits give me pause. Those minions always sketch me out cause they'll use that Heat spell to make us drop our weapons in inconvenient places, and then I forget to go back and retrieve them. Probably I will just save the cash we might have picked up for the heavy armor and spend it on another Stone Elemental scroll, just to keep things humming along lol

Pink Din is trying to go the distance, but first have to face the reaper. Fingers crossed!

ps. Giant cleaver plan worked pretty well. We doubled back with the fire resistance potions and upcast Shatter for the memphits. I had Lae'zel leap to this point and held Karlach back to run up after the battle was already joined...

I forgot my cool Hammers since I gave them all to Minthara, but we had the Argument solver with Xenomorph acid rage, so it was no probs lol. Now we'll definitely have enough cash for the scrolls and hopefully can hit lvl 9 by the time we get to under Moonrise

 

[OrlonKronsteen]

So how is that shadow hound? And how is that sorc subclass overall? Just from reading, it looks like the only one of the new subclasses that interests me. I do wish it got Hunger of Hadar, though.

 

[Black Elk]

So far so good!

I think the Subclass doesn't feel particularly interesting until lvl 6, when the Shadowhound comes online. Prior to that it's just like supped up Darkness which I had some trouble making the most of. I think it'd probably be more fun if I'd kept Wyll or Astarion on board since maybe then we could have done some darkness antics with Devil's sight or thievery moves. I did get some early use out of it to steal a couple items and bail on a few encounters to cover the escape, but mostly I'd keep getting myself stuck where somebody with a crossbow couldn't target through the Shadows.

I think I've been playing more as a Cleric, but with Distant Spell to edgepan Hold Person, and Twin Haste for support than the full on Shadow Sorcerery. Took me a while to figure out what I was doing hehe. I enjoy the Twin Haste plus Sanctuary on myself combo, which just feels like a huge flex. Praying to the many headed Dragon Goddess, while Lae'zel and Karlach just murder everyone. Hunger of Hadar would have been cool, and pretty on brand for the Shadows, that spell always feel nice and crunchy whenever I was trying Warlock. Maybe next time I'll use Wyll a bit more and see if we can get some synergy going there, but for this one mostly I've been keeping Karlach around for Giant Barbarian stuff and Lae'zel cause she's always the anchor. Having a Shadowdog companion has been enough to maintain my interest so far. Like his jump is pretty good, and basically works like Scratch sans the help action. Having double dogs is pretty good I find for my morale and my motivation.

The way the Ill Omen attacks works, you get the elemental bonus if the Shadow Dog lands his bite. So what I've been trying now is to caste Twin Haste on the Hound and Karlach. That way more likely we land a double bite, and then Karlach can use Elemental Cleaver to select that dmg type for the super attacks. Prob is that I was running out of low stakes encounters to try it out, so I ended up going back to the Mountain Pass to face down the Death Shepherds with a side Githyanki scrambled eggs. It worked pretty well, though I'm not sure it's the best use of the second Twin Haste. It's pretty satisfying when it lands, but sorta comes down to initiative order I suppose. Still, better than not having a familiar, so I try to make use of it when I can remember. We just took on the Meenlocks beneath Last Light, so that was sorta like dualing Shadows. Nimbus' shadow vines actually came in handy there, since they're basically like entangle with necrotic damage, it managed keep a few us becoming too afraid lol.

Found that note, that I'd never bothered to read before, after picking up Halsin's slack. Somehow it survived the double firewall lol. When we get to Baldur's Gate that score will get settled for sure!

I think I was foot dragging it enough that we should definitely hit lvl 9 before Ketheric, so lvl 8 Shadow Sorcerer/1 Death Cleric, but with a spellslot for lvl 5 at least. My plan is to just play it safe and buy 4 Stone Elemental Scrolls, since they seem to be the most reliable. This is the first time I've felt like keeping Karlach around instead of switching her out for Minthara. I would bring Minthara along instead of Shadowheart since I've already got Cleric covered, but as a Life Cleric spirit guardian sprinter she's more useful for this part of the game than another brawler with Smites. I always gets nervous not bringing Minthara into the Ketheric fight though, since she always seems to get shit handled there, but Karlach has been coming pretty big time this game. It always takes me a while to get used to throw attacks as the main thing, since before I would play here as Elk Heart and just sorta run or bound into position to s'whack attack, here it's more like Giant Rage Elemental Cleaver every time. I feel like she's short a bonus action though after all the rage-y stuff. Probably I should multiclass her into a Rogue since she's the primary lockbuster and Barbarian probably losing some luster by lvl 12. Not sure though, so far I've just kept her standard Giant with no dip, but looking back might have been better to dip just to have a jump or misty step or whatever to position. I might try it next lvl, but sorta need the extra attack and the feat, or so I thought. I already feel a bit behind with the 1/7 multiclass split heading into this part of Act II. I spread the distance around a bit this time too, gave Lae'zel Crusher's ring, Shadowheart with the click heels and jump gloves etc so everyone has pretty good maneuverability, but still can be tough. Sometimes the throw will lag pretty hardcore, I just have to always remember to wait until Zhalk's sword comes back into my hands before clicking end turn cause sometimes it will remain on the ground for a while. Otherwise mostly controlling the dog and trusting in the nose hehe

 

[Black Elk]

I put Pink Din on pause to try another Witch. I like to have a backup Sorceress waiting in the wings, just in case things go south hehe.

For that campaign I went with what I imagined would be a more standard approach, Dex focus instead of some crazy Wisdom Multi, just a pure class Shadow Sorceress. I took Shadowblade at lvl 3 for more Gish striker tactics. Usually I like to play more from the backfield with Distant spell, but I think the Shadow Sorcerer setup favors something more like having Shadowblade always equipped, or in this case shadow sword and board, since I chose a half-drow and they can use shields. She can still do the hasty strike thing later on I guess hehe. Aestus said it was the way to go, the Shadowblade, so trying that out now. We decided to branch early by just immediately merc'n Zevlor. Wasn't the plan, I had meant to non lethal knock out, but forgot to click the passive, since last time I forgot the Hellrider's Pride for Shadowheart. I used the Darkness cloud and the Shadowblade for that one. Then we did the same to Arron cause we were on a roll. I closed it out by murdering Damon with hold person, but then Rolan witnessed our crimes and we had to skip town with a dash dash dash. Had to rest with no supplies. Robbed Withers and recruited 3 goodberry zombies just so we could hopefully make it to the Goblin camp alive lol.

I had a similar thing go down with the portraits, but just did the trick suggested at lvl up when we hit lvl 3. Seemed to work, or so far at least.

We'll see how far we get going Wicked, the Shadowstabbing I'm sure is pretty satisfying for an Evil Durge.

Runa Val has a ways to go yet, before catching up with the Hound lvl 6. Din's gotta a pretty good head start, but least we put in a couple hours stalling, in case I botch this boss fight.

Guess we'll find out soon enough if this Pink Cadillac will ride lol

 

[Antimatter]

I watched a video by Wolfheart and still can't decide what subclass I want to try more in my playthrough. This doggie (and how you can synchronize it with restoring sorc points) looks so awesome, and yet, there are such fun ideas with the new Barbarian, Warlock, Druid, Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard subclasses as well.



Again, thanks for all your commentary and screenshots.

 

[OrlonKronsteen]

I watched a video by Wolfheart and still can't decide what subclass I want to try more in my playthrough.

I had restartitis before I even started my very first game!

 

[Antimatter]

I had restartitis before I even started my very first game!

Haha, that's so precisely true. The number of options is maddening. A good thing we can respec companions and have 4, not 1, new subclasses present in the party (or more, if you rotate companions). Even @Black Elk had restartitis right above