Black Elk
Habitué
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- 266
We're Good, but not that Good... heheh
Just came up on 10 thousand gold in the Sewers! And we're keeping it all!!! Screw the Bank! lol
I was a little worried that we'd just lose that ready loot, cause Roah died way back at the Goblin camp, but thankfully there was another Zhent to take her place. Woot! We used like all the ice, spike growth, entangle type spells to trip her up with a golden gambit, and it totally worked! She definitely dirt napped. I never pulled this off in Tactician cause Roah somehow always made it to the ladder, but her stand-in had no such luck hehe. Yeah, I think we'll be keeping that bag. Battling assassins had us hit the final lvl 12 spike down here in the Sewers, so just trying to settle into stat blocks for the closer now. First, had to stop and grab a bite.
Here everything is sorta keying off the itemization and pushing ASI I guess. I'm not sure if certain feats would be stronger for my party than others, like for the combat mechanics, but there is something very satisfying about seeing the big numbers get bigger.
It's hard for me to justify a multiclass with anybody really, although I did have fun with a couple 1 lvl dips in the other runs, it just doesn't make as much sense here where I don't want to leave any feats on the table. 4/8 multiclass splits seem to fall well behind the power curve for what I'm trying to do, and 5/7 same deal. 2/10 means eating that last feat, which is rough. So sorta would only make sense for 2 lvl dip in fighter or something like that, but I don't know. When we're talking Globes and Chain Lightning seems kinda hard to justify any dips. Basically 12 lvls or bust probably. That's fine for me, since I don't really think of Sorcerers as needing any more flare - like he's already got enough of that coming from the Dragonborn stuff and the Draconic sorcerer bloodline, so we just kept it steady for the time being. I might reconsider later.
The game is a little curious in that you spend like half the campaign just trying to get to the lvl cap, and then the other half maintaining at that same level for the duration. I suppose EA was similar being capped at lvl 4 forever, but still, it's a little different when you know in advance where the ultimate ceiling is ending up. Anyhow, seems like once I get this far along, there's a pretty high incentive to respec for an equipment based build or to tweak the abilities to pad the numbers a bit, or just for more situational stuff like replacing unused low level spells that compete with new higher lvl spells and things of that sort.
Costs a little gold sure, but we got some of that now too, after spending most of the game just living off the land, eating goodberries, the broke life lol. Withers always seems to have his eye on our wallets somehow, even with like 4 clerics standing right next to him, he still gets us on the respec/re-level indecisiveness.
This is where I'm at with it right now...
Might rework ourselves again after the House of Grief, but that fight has me a little nervous, so I thought I'd advance the main plot first at the Rock. I don't mind the visualization or the sound for the Mother Superior, though it does grate on me that I can't recruit her or do anything much to tilt that encounter.
It's a much more challenging fight when Shadowheart is all platinum like this. If Shadowheart stays dark then it's nothing to write home about, cause she can sway the Cloister for divide and conquer, but going in all by the light of the moon, I know it's going to be tougher.
Sanctuaried enemies can be a challenge, but Shadowheart doing the thunder and lightning as a tempest Cleric will hopefully help with that a bit. I'll probably do some CC and icy surfaces and just bring as many summons as possible, cause I'm sure that'll be a tough one. After enemy mages doing counterspell, fighting a bunch of priests is always rough stuff. I figure the meta magics Distant spell and Heighten spell will start to challenge Twinned spell and Quickened Spell to become more important overall. Similar to the way Hold Monster and the Globe start to eclipse stuff like Twinned Haste (although Twinned Chained Lightning is still a contender for sure!!!)
Playing a Sorcerer feels a little complicated in that I need to burn some low level spells to generate enough sorcery points to use metamagic effectively with the higher level spells. This gives me some pause, cause I feel like every spellslot is pretty useful, though this where potions of cultivation that replace arcane spells can be very useful. I've been saving them up for the boss fights that have transitions, cause they're all pretty intense. Anyhow, if we get that Mace that boosts STR to 18, then we might try a different stat block for somebody, cause that's another big get. For now still kicking the can on House of Grief till a little later.
Even though we just got a literal ton of gold, I'm reluctant to burn too much cash too quickly, just in case we need to pony up for some key scrolls.
Sorcerers are sort of entertaining, cause they force me to use scrolls and consumables which otherwise I tend to just horde pointlessly, but also gives me a thematic excuse for that, so it doesn't feel quite as gamey. I never played as this class in BG2, just didn't do anything for me there, I'd rather play as a wizard, but the new take on Sorcerers has been pretty cool. My head canon is that Draconic Groundhog Day magic just imbues the whole party with the ability to use scrolls that have been touched by the charismatic claws, so that way it all fits and clicks together for my narrative conceits hehe.
I'm not really sure what to do with Minsc. He doesn't really fit my party comp, so I guess he can just be Jaheira's camp sidekick or something. Ranger has some cool attacks like that ranged one that just nails everyone with thorns, but then I gotta sub somebody out.
Again this is where the party limit at 4 annoys me, cause I'd rather have a larger active party, even if it meant fewer camp companions. Probably Minsc could be a Cleric/Ranger to hang with the Zombies I guess. I'd make him a standard Berzerker Barbarian or something to maybe use one of the stat boosting robes, but he's mostly just here for show I suppose.
Still trying to figure out how I want to spec Jaheira, I keep going back and forth between DEX and CON, or whether I want to drop her down to an 8 for a more min/max Harper, but still haven't decided.
We did manage to punk Dolor pretty hard at the Wine festival, so I might dust Misc off for the lead up to Orin, but we've got our eye on Gortash for the moment, so Minsc can just chill out for a while and try to regain his senses lol.
For my new Stat block I boosted CON a bit, cause once I do the dailies we're into triple digits with stuff like Aid or Rally and such. Getting all stuffed up there. Makes a difference when they're buffed to the hilts, compared to the standard, say when we're just waking up at camp, before the Zombies do their morning prayers. We're in the high 90s hovering right around 100 hp normally before the buff & stuff (except for Lae'zel cause she's just that sturdy!) but I thought it made sense to keep stacking hp there, so everyone else could catch up to her a bit.
Add to that the Displacer Beast form and Durge basically has like 200 hp to burn on average, which felt pretty rad for a Sorcerer!
Time to bring the pain to Bane!!! heheh
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