#but in my first run shadowheart killed her very early on

[yeahyouresocool]

it's so fun having lae'zel in my party this time around lol

[pheavampire]

Astarion, Cazador and D&D vampire lore

Let’s talk about D&D vampires and some lore inconsistencies in Baldur’s Gate 3.

BG3 is not a game about vampires. It was obvious we won’t get a playable character who will be 100% vampire spawn from the handbooks - the mechanical balance would be disturbed in comparison with other characters. But we can list some weird stuff and missing aspects. For fun, for fanfiction, for nerdiness.

I still wonder why Cazador even asked Astarion if he wants to be turned. Sure, he could do that, so he could say later „ha ha you asked for it!” but still - weird. Anyway, a vampire lord doesn’t need to ask - he just bites his victim, kills it by drinking its blood and boom, a vampire spawn is made. Almost made…

… because at first the victim needs to be buried and layed in the ground before it rises. That’s the next question - how the hell did Cazador make 7000 spawns? Theoretically he needed to bury them all, dig them back/wait until they dig themselves out or something and transport them to his dungeon without being noticed. His servants could do that for him, but it still is a pretty big thing to cover. Besides…

… accordng to D&D 3.5 edition: "At any given time a vampire may have enslaved spawn totaling no more than twice its own Hit Dice" which means it was impossible for Cazador to create 7000 spawns. Sure, Baldur's Gate 3 uses 5 ed rules, but I'm sure they didn't change this one that much. (BUT! We can interpret this rule as: a vampire lord can create as many spawns as he wants, but the number of enslaved ones is limited. That's all right in this case).

That being said, Astarion is surprised when he discovers that all Cazador’s victims are spawns now. One of his dialogue options is „I thought Cazador was feeding on you”. Well yes, he had to feed on them to make them spawns Astarion, I thought you noticed that yourself 200 years ago. But let's say I understand your confusion, 7000 spawns mean Cazador's hit dice is 3500. Lol.

As a vampire spawn, Astarion should be able to regenerate even without biting someone. To be precise, he should get 10 health points at the start of every turn until he gets killed. But ok, this one doesn’t work in the sun, so let’s say it’s justified… unless the party is in the underdark, shadowlands or other dark place. But yeah, that would be too OP.

Astarion should be afraid of holy symbols, mirrors and garlic. That would be quite irritating, as he wouldn’t be able to even get near Selune's stuff or Lathander’s temple (Lathander HATES the undead, just ask poor Jander Sunstar). But let’s say the tadpole gave him immunity.

Spider climb. Imagine Astarion climbing walls or even ceilings like a damn Spiderman - this is what a regular vampire spawn can do. If the tadpole took away this ability, that’s not very nice of it.

Claws. Astarion should be able to transform his fingers into claws at will. That’s right, it works like another melee weapon.

Coffins, graves et cetera - bunk beds in Cazador's palace are a very anti-canon idea. Because D&D vampires have really traditional weaknesses, they always have to „sleep” in the ground they were buried in to recover - just like Cazador. Jander I mentioned earlier invented an un-lifehack, as he was traveling through Faerun by keeping some of the dirt from his grave in his pocket. He was scattering it in the place he wanted to rest for some time.

A vampire spawn can be controlled or banished by clerics like any other undead. That's right, when Shadowheart casts this one, Astarion should roll the dice, or else he will have to run away from her like those zombies you banished during your playthrough.

Last but not least, vampires get damage if they are in the flowing water, for example river, but you already know this one from the early access Astarion. Shame they removed it, in was a bit irritating but I loved it. It reminded me Astarion is a vampire not only in the dialogues.

That's all I can think of now. My knowledge is a mix of 3.5 and 5 ed, do with it what you want. I wouldn't mind more lore accuarte Astarion fanfics though.

Shocked Astarion reading D&D Monster Manual. Or Libris Mortis.

[whathebeep]

Can I just say like,,, obviously my brain is always thinking about Baldur's Gate 3 and narratively how it could continue for a BG4 (I know I'm getting ahead of myself here) BUT

There's so many characters that could make comebacks in the game and I am so here for it. In my mind, under the cut, here's the top contenders for returning characters (other than obviously Volo, Jaheira and Minsc) (Late game Spoilers included!!)

So first and foremost our fav Archdruid Halsin! The fact that he goes back and rebuilds the shadowlands village and builds it up as a community means so much. It means you could go there in BG4 and meet Halsin, the community leader, the wise Archdruid who runs the orphanage. Whether or not he is actually the leader directly or just a respected community member and advisor to the leader of the town/village (depending on how big it grows) would both be good narrative choices. You could listen in on him tell stories of the adventures he has with the PC from BG3 to the kids. Hell you could probably meet Thaniel while in the area if you're a druid/have a high enough nature skill. There's so many possibilities for this and I adore it so much.

There's a lot of the characters you could also meet there too, who so happened to either have settled down there or are only passing through, visiting an old friend.

Astarion of course you could meet either ending route for him! Either as an adventurer (maybe travelling with Shadowheart?) Or as a vampire lord ruling in Baldur's Gate, out of Cazador's old estate. He would probably keep the vampire secret from you as he's a spawn l, but perhaps if he comes to trust you he'll let you know. Perhaps he'll even direct you to a safe spot in the Underdark to rest your head. Whether or not he tells you it's all spawn would be up to choice. If he's a vampire lord I imagine he'll be very Strahd/Cazador like, and will either want you to be a spawn for him or will want to kill/manipulate you into doing his bidding. Either way he'd probably be a boss fight

Shadowheart as an adventurer as well (again potentially travelling with Astarion, or having settled down) but HEAR ME OUT. I love LOVE the idea of A Selune worshipper Shadowheart eventually returning to revitalize the Selune temple you see early game and starting up a village there. Hells.or even Isobel and Dame Aylin doing that and Shadowheart eventually making a home there.. I'M HERE FOR IT

Lae'zel ofc, but they'd have to have a strong reason for her to return to the material plane. Maybe she would, after defeating the bitch I MEAN Lich Queen.

Gale maybe as an Elminster type character? Like it would be different depending on what ending for him is considered "canon", but either god of ambition or teacher will work super super well for this. He could offer the position of his chosen to the PC cause let's be real that's basically your thing no matter if you're good or evil, or he could be a wise wizard who can give safe advice to you or just bump into you on your travels.

UGH there's just so many options and I love it

[loquaciousquark]

hi! i’ve been a fan of your writing since da2 and i’m so glad you’re playing bg3 now too. it’s been really interesting following your play throughs and character choices and how that ties in with your fic. i know you went with the choice to have astarion kill tav when he firsts bites her because it’s hilarious and i always want to do that, but i think i’d miss the scene after with the whole camp (and all the approval for defending him lol) and ahhhh i just don’t know! if you feel like it, i was wondering if you would talk more about your HCs around that choice and what to you makes it worth losing the morning after scene with everyone because i feel like it’s such an important group moment but… i want to punch him for killing me and also kind of slow things down with him so we stay just reluctant but oddly compelled allies for longer

Ahhh, what a fabulous question! Thank you so very much for this handcrafted opportunity to sit you down at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee and trap you for the next three and a half hours.

So the first bite scene ending in Tav's death wasn't actually intentional! I started playing BG3 in a three-person MP team with @eponymous-rose and @mystery-moose, and it so happened that my character (Tavish Gale, already ironclad) was the one who came across the boar and triggered the bite scene that night. By pure chance I rolled two natural ones on both those checks, and when it cut to the next morning and Tav was outright DEAD, we couldn't stop laughing! We had no idea what to expect or what the consequences would be, and when I switched to a SP campaign so I could horrifically binge this game like the gremlin I am, I felt compelled to recreate that glorious, character-defining moment.

However, as you note, that does mean you miss out on that lovely post-feed conversation where everyone says they're okay with him. On the other hand, you get that absolutely flat read of "Oh no. Something terrible happened here. :|" and then you get to punch him, so, you know, basically equal losses on either path. I know you get a ton of approval points after with the survival track, but I'm finding I'm not hurting for approval even in early game (I actually had to go and mod his approval 15 points lower about halfway through Act 1 this run because I was triggering his romance scene too early ahead of the party).

I actually need to probably sit down and write out the details of what happens here, but I do think a couple things take place. I know for sure that Tav fails the checks & doesn't fight it because she gets sucked into the feeling of relaxation and lethargy and the sense that nothing matters anymore. She spends most of Acts 1 & 2 fairly certain they're going to die any day, so why not live life to the fullest and do whatever you want in the moment without thinking about the consequences? If she's going to go out early anyway, why not to a relatively painless vampire bite instead of the agony of ceremorphosis? She probably realizes she's dying in those last seconds, but it's very much a "finally" instead of "oh no," so it's not really any skin off her nose.

I'm almost certain Astarion is shocked out of his mind when her heart stops. I don't think he realizes what's happened until he sits back and she's ice-cold and smiling, and his first instinct is to run off into the dark ASAP before everyone else wakes up and shanks him. Except because this happens IN THE MIDDLE OF CAMP, LARIAN, I think someone sees the whole thing go down and realizes Astarion didn't mean to do it and Tav was a brick-thick idiot who leaned all the way into her own death.

On pondering, I kind of think it was Shadowheart, who is utterly disgusted with both of them but who also knows she can bring Tav back with a scroll and does so without much drama. She'd be the kind of person to see what was going on, but who doesn't care enough to intervene or go "hey everything okay over here I can't help but notice you're engaging in some risky behavior", but who also wouldn't leap to TIME TO KILL ASTARION the moment it went too far.

I think Tav wakes up with a raging headache, and now that there are suddenly consequences she can't immediately brush off, she gets embarrassed and mad. Cue the punch, the argument, and probably everyone else waking up in the aftermath. Lae'zel initially wants to boot him from the group, I think, but Tav's anger burns out pretty quick (and she's pretty aware of her own failures to stop him), and she points out that if they're going to saddle themselves with Wyll's, Gale's, and her own baggage, it'd be pretty hypocritical to dump Astarion over his. So we still get some defense of him to the group, and I think Karlach (and probably Wyll, and honestly maybe Shadowheart who saw his fear) would be onboard with keeping him around pretty quickly. Promises never to do it again, keep your teeth to yourself, etc.

Astarion I think spends this entire conversation very, very scared and doing everything he can to hide it. I think he's completely overwhelmed by euphorically feeding on a thinking creature for the first time and then completely horrified by killing her - not because he likes her but because what if this is why Cazador commanded us not to, what if I can't control myself on my own without his compulsion, what if I really am the beast he's always said. He's panicking from the outrageous swings of emotion and talking really quickly and trying to put up a bold front, but inside he's about half a hair from snapping off into the woods and never coming back.

I think it's the punch that kind of shocks him out of the spiral, and then Tav then defending him to the group helps him flip into the "well obviously I deserve to stay and in fact to kick me out of the group would be not only stupid, but deadly" mode long enough to get through the night. He tries to put on the usual devil-may-care indifference, even though everyone can see through it, and they have a tense few days where everyone's pretending everything is fine even though it's really, really not.

Astarion & Tav are also avoiding each other religiously here, until something happens in a battle (the harpies, I think) and one of them gets injured because of that avoidance. That night, Tav stakes him to the ground and makes them talk about it. I think this is where she says she's not actually averse to him feeding on her and in fact asks him to do it that night - to get them both over the hump of what happened the first time. Astarion needs to feed without fear & she needs to not get swept up in the lethargy, and if he's going to get back to the sneering equilibrium he ought to have in the first and second acts, he needs to be successful at this and he needs to feel like he's won, or at least like he has an edge over her again. She's a little transparent about wanting to be bled in part to help him get back to this position of control, and in part because she does like forgetting the weight of reality, and in part because, again, they're gonna die in like twelve hours, surely, so who cares?

Anyway, it goes as well as it can for the two of them, even if they're both a little prickly throughout, and by the end they're a lot more comfortably back in that manipulative space they prefer. From there it moves on compliantly with canon into the party leadup (Loviatar and such) and then the party itself, and then progresses as scheduled with the rest of the game.

Ahh, it's so fun to think about these kinds of things. I'll continue to ponder, but I think this is either it for them or very close. Thank you so much for asking and for letting me ruminate! <3

[dwarfsized]

leetleblue fanfiction masterlist

hi! you might also know me as leetleblue over on ao3

thought it was time to collect all the links in one place, so ta-da! find my fic below the read more! as i update this i'll only indicate if something isn't bg3 because at this point it's all bg3 babey.

series:

the transformed tiefling (astarion/kira)

true colors shine in darkness and in secrecy (ongoing), the more straight-forward longfic, the game-events-rewrite except we get very involved in druid politics

Astarion grabs a fistful of her robes and hauls her closer, the full brunt of his terror and rage slamming back into the front of her mind. He demands, snarling, “Why didn’t you let me kill him? What have you done to me?”

eldath's mercy (ongoing), AU: different first meeting, Astarion stuck in a druid's grove

Astarion did have a plan to flee his Master. He'd take some gold and run for a merchant city and make a new, luxurious life for himself. Despite that, he ends up at the Circle of Calm Waters, surrounded by druids.

that's the kind of love ive been dreaming of (ongoing), dubcon, inappropriate use of the tadpole, dream sex.

At first Astarion was stuck in his trance, but Kira pulls him into a dream, instead.

astringent (oneshot, 2795 words) Post-Canon, Kira's sister comes to visit the Grove and YIKES.

In Astarion's opinion, there was nothing to recommend having siblings the first time around and—though he would never say this to his lover's face—there's precious little benefit to it when the siblings are Kira's.

ephemera (ongoing), AU: Kira is a ghost in the Crimson Palace.

Astarion assumes, when he sees the tiefling appear in the corner of the study, that he’s imagining her.

waltz with five eyes, two hearts (karlach/shadowheart/wyll)

ease (oneshot, 2189 words) Wyll-centric character study, pre-relationship, examining how isolated Wyll has been because of the Mizora of it all before the tadpoles

Wyll has gotten so good at small talk that when Karlach says, “Copper for your thoughts?” He ought to comment on how lovely the sunset is shaping up to be this evening or grin and ask if Karlach thinks Gale will put any vegetables in their dinner tonight. What he does say is, “Mizora.”

new steps (oneshot, 5277 words) Wyll considering his history with his father as they get ready to enter Baldur's Gate, with some early relationship stuff in there also for the triad.

Wyll had believed, in the deepest and most secret parts of himself that he’d dared not even think about for the last seven years, that he might get to return home hailed a hero.

other fic:

troubled thoughts and the self-esteem to match (ongoing), Modern AU, Astarion/Auri/Kira

Auri expects the Ironhand Warehouse gig to change her life, at least a little bit. The vampire is a surprise.

innatism (explicit, no ships, 1996 words) Second Person POV, You are the Dark Urge and you are giving someone a Very Bad Night.

When Minthara said she would meet you to burn the Grove, you wanted to tell her yes and bathe in the blood of all those wet-eyed fools you’d promised to save. The word had formed on your tongue and swallowing it down had been bitter.

[alpydk]

If you ever find yourself bored again, you can do this 😉

CHARACTER ASK GAME!!! 💫

For Astarion: 5+6+8+12+25

For Gale: 14 + 16+ also 8+ 23 (I expect cowboy hat 🤣 just kidding)

I'm going to do this now before I fail to ever find the ask game questions again! (I love answering questions and using my brain to think over stuff like this.)

Right! Astarionnnnnnn!

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Keep me dumb, keep me small Keep me closer to you Keep me still, keep it all Keep away from the truth Keep me here, keep me cool 'cause it's already done Everything is so intimidating

My partner's choice was "Walking on Sunshine..." - -

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

Reactions to trauma, baby! It's too early to share further than that. Just know I struggle with his romance if I'm playing a good serious run through and I don't take him to beat Cazador because his breakdown is too relatable. (Even if it is one of the best acted scenes in the entire game.)

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Essentially make him out to be sin free the moment they romance him. You can't fix someone just by fucking them! It does not work that way. You think he's going to be healed within 6 months? A year? No, this guy is going to be fucked for at least another century, if not longer. You want a fucked up relationship with someone mentally ill go for it, but don't think you can truly fix him. #endrant

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Going to take from my fic CoO for this.

“When they buried me, they forgot to wipe a spot of blood from my neck.”  He wiped the dirt and scarlet spots from her cheek, revealing the pale complexion beneath. “And when I woke up, I found myself trapped in the darkness, within the confines of the box they’d placed me in.” He placed the cloth in the water, squeezing it slightly, watching as the fluid changed colour to a murky red. “I remember the dirt falling in on me as I broke through the wood, terrified I was going to suffocate. It took some time to realise that it wasn’t happening as I swallowed the soil and emerged above ground.” Astarion began to softly wipe at her hands, delicately tracing under her nails. “And yet despite how I felt, how my clothes were left muddied, how much earth was beneath my own nails, all I really remember is that dried blood on my neck.” 

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

Killed him in my first run with little regrets. I didn't find him until near the end of act 1, got attacked by him, then bitten, all in a very short time span. Then I found the Gur and handed him over. Oops, but served him right.

Now though, he's my team cleric of Lathander (Irony!) - And he's my ride or die bro.

Gale time!

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

I'm a member of the messy suit brigade. Get that man an unbuttoned collar, stat! (Also picture related, I want that too.)

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

Shadowheart x Gale - Just don't see how it works. Or like I do, with him teaching her to swim or something, but I don't think she'd put up with his long lectures on subjects and he'd get annoyed at her snappiness. Just doesn't work for me.

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

I've ranted about this before. Pining God!Gale! -

23. Favorite picture of this character?

I have so many! (But these are my favourites, before I get dragged into my screenshots folder and you lose me forever)

[ex-textura]

I stumble in through the doors, having been a booping fiend the other day but ah hello! ;D; /)~~

My main/first tav for BG3 was an extremely sunny dispositioned, kind hearted, and optimistic half wood elf man named Hexmen Ziziaurea-Ivadaera, or simply just Hexmen Ivadaera for the sake of not having to write out an extra name ( + he more often uses his father's last name in memory of him!). Hexmen's an Oath of the Ancients turned Oathbreaker paladin who accidentally broke his oath literally at the beginning of his adventures when he unsuccessfully tried to save Lae'zel and ended up killing a tiefling ( ooc-- I was trying to hardcore commit to my actions early on with no save scumming and accidentally did a smite even though I did nonlethal attacks and oh god one of them died). 

After that accident and the Oathbreaker Knight jumpscare, he promptly told Lae'zel through gritted teeth that were barely holding back a panic attack to leave, in which she did. Afterwards, his entire adventure was mildly stressful but he tried his best to uphold his old oath tenets of kindling hope and helping those in need along the way! Astarion wasn't much of a fan of the do-gooder Hexmen, Shadowheart ended up being like a sister figure to him, Wyll is like one of his best friends who's a fellow Baldurian and he ended up finding himself mutually falling for a certain Wizard of Waterdeep! Karlach and Halsin are also dear friends of his, Jaheria felt like a cool aunt friend to him, and dear lord just like Wyll he couldn't get enough of Minsc. I sadly didn't have Minthara on his run, but I do think they'd maybe understand each other's devotions, however they'd clash because of their very different beliefs and such.

Throughout his run, he was mostly Lawful Good that eventually turned into something more chaotic in the long run. 

Before his time in the main campaign, he was a paladin of Lathander from Baldur's Gate! His mom's a full wood elf from the Ardeep Wood outside of Waterdeep and his father was a human man born and raised in Baldur's Gate that acted as a city guard until his untimely death. For a good portion of his early teens through adulthood he was raised only by his mother after his father's passing, and eventually as an adult he was left alone for the most part in Baldur's Gate with his father's side of the family, as his mother went off on a mid-life elf adventure on her own. 

Hexmen had his human grandmother and his best friend, Lumin Sacredlight, a human variant cleric of Tyr and Selune (who is also my multiplayer tav and who his dream guardian was modeled after), for company for a while until he was scooped up by the Nautiloid while on a patrol around the temple he guarded. 

- An additional handful of fun facts are that he did visit Waterdeep here and there when he was younger when he and his mom traveled to the Ardeep Wood to visit his wood elven family! I drew out an entire mini comic before of him accidentally brushing past a young Gale before! However they never formally met and didn't recognize each other when they met during the events of BG3.

- I researched so much DnD elven language for this man and some Forgotten Realms cuisine. One of his favorite snacks to have is Elven Seed Bread!

- He has such a heavy sun motif and despite being an oathbreaker, he still withholds his tenets from being an Oath of the Ancients sworn to Lathander.

- His face scar is from a duel he had with a fellow paladin trainee when he was younger-- that paladin who fought him later became an Oath of Vengeance paladin.

- I have written an ungodly amount of content for this man and have drawn him so much.

- Hexmen ended up falling for Gale! Him and Gale had such mutual pining for a long time until they eventually confessed to each other. I love these two so much-- Hexmen accepted his proposal at the end of the game and additionally moved to Waterdeep with him where they probably have a permanent magic portal somewhere in or near the tower so he can still check on his grandmother in Baldur's Gate often ( and additionally see old friends and etc). I originally thought Hexmen was going to be an Astarion romance until he pulled Gale out of the portal and yeah. Yeah… I would ramble more about their entire romance but I’m afraid that I’m going to write way too much if I get more in detail about it  whE A A

- If he was a recruitable companion, you'd be able to find him face down in shallow river water near the harpies and there would be a whole thing with Tav/the Origin character needing to figure out how to wake him up via magic with arcana checks, CPR with medicine checks, pickpocketing him with stealth checks at the risk of him drawing his sword on you as the movement potentially stirrs him, or straight up just leaving him there and claiming he's dead. 

- I tried to do a tactician run with him, but accidentally killed the owlbear cub due to a bug, and I ended up stopping the run because I knew and felt that Hexmen would not do that in good consciousness nor ever let that go. 

- Hexmen was extremely against using the tadpoles and only used his illithid powers a grand total of maybe three times throughout the entire game. The one time he used them, he thought a goblin was just going to be quiet from his command but nope– UH– they– they died. And Hexmen turned around to the party absolutely mortified at what he had accidentally done. Safe to say that was probably one of the last times he used those powers until the Elder Brain fight.

Thank you for the chance to ramble about m’dude! ;D; God I brainrotted over him for so many months and I love him a lot whEA E A

OH MY GOD THIS MAN IS EVERYTHING HEXMEN YOU PRECIOUS SUN!!

I love how much lore you have for him omg. I can feel the love from here and it's beautiful.

Also my boy. My man. My precious guy my Auric can commiserate on the paladin struggles. That feeling when you accidentally break your oath and your heart sinks into the floor. Especially when it's something like accidentally deleting an innocent. Gawd. I'm sorry Hexmen but I still believe in your good heart.

I love the slow alignment shift. Did he become more chaotic because of the influence of the tadfools, gremlins that they are? Or was there another influence? Or maybe it just happened organically for no other reason??

HOW DID HE GET CONKED OUT BY THE HARPIES??! Is that where he landed???? My man what are you doing out here xD I want to protect you.

(the owlbear incident was just a bad dream. Never happened. Let a wizard hug the pain away)

Thank you for rambling at me about him I love him! I love a paladin and an oath breaker choosing to still stick to his tenets and maintain his goodness in spite of it all is such a good flavour.

(you can ramble more about their romance I am always eager for Gale love have you seen my blog gimme Gale loooooove)

[wretcheddthing]

HI. mercury: 2, 16, 7 for all the categories (like 2 for general, 16 for story specific, you get it), bethan: 10, 7, 8, and venali: 11, 1, 5

hiiiiii hii hi hi hi sarah

putting these under a break bc i'm writing a lot and there will be bg3 spoilers for basically all of it.

Mercury 2. Do other companions have special comments or reactions upon recruiting your Tav? - I imagine Mercury would be found in a lone standoff against some intellect devourers near the crash site so her first impression is someone who can (at the VERY least) fight good, if a bit erratically. I think Lae'zel and Shadowheart may be like "Maybe it's better to have her on our side." and more sensible characters like Wyll or Gale would be like "... She hits hard? And not us, so that's good?" 16. How do they react to the Dark Urge killing Alfira - That happened pretty early in my Durge run and Mercury needs to be fixed so Depending on if anything has happened to start making her nice, she'll be pretty apathetic about it. Like "oh man. well don't kill me next, huh? lol" 7. What questions can Zethino ask the PC about Tav in the Love Test? - What is Mercury's favorite weapon? (Answer: Alchemist's Fire. Less specific? Bombs.) - How would Mercury spend a quiet evening? (Answer: Doing anything to make it less quiet) - What is Mercury's greatest asset? (Answer: Her (at times unearned) confidence. Will also accept "her big muscles")

Bethan (Durge) 10. Are there any unique NPCs associated with your Tav that can show up during the course of the game? - I do not know! Durge seems to have a canon backstory you have to uncover as you play but if there's a bit of wiggle room with it, I like to think they had a partner and fellow follower of Helm who trained with them. In the case of them showing up, they would be disgusted with Bethan, and Bethan would only have an inkling as to why. (It's the murder.) 7. What can they be found doing at the tiefling/goblin party? - Prowling. Not in a purposefully menacing way, they just don't do parties. 8. If they’re poly, do they have a reaction to the PC engaging in a relationship with Halsin? - Not only do they approve, they want in on it too.

Venali (Current LOML) 11. Are there any moments in the game that trigger unique dialogue for your character? - Defeating Lorroakan will trigger a conversation about how she once lied her way into his tower to browse his personal library. He was offputting the entire time, but she got the information she was after that led her to further understanding of her wild magic. She's happy to see him gone, however. Will be happy for Rolan if he's around to take over. 1. How does your Tav advise the player character when it comes to the Dream Visitor? - Tread with caution but listen to everything they have to say. Like with Raphael, there is truth hidden in their words. You just need to play along and listen for something you can use to your advantage. 5. Does the romance have different branching paths, or just one route to take? - Really only one way to resolve her quest and that's to help her discover the source and nature of her wild magic. When it comes to romance, she's in it for the long haul. All she wants is to make sure she's not a conduit for something evil and then settle down someplace safe and far away from everything that happened with the tadpoles. Preferably somewhere close to the people she cares about.

[rottenbrainstuff]

BG3 Playthrough: Caught up! Exploring at the goblin camp

(Mild spoilers)

I am now finally caught up from my backtracking to fix the mistake I made, and now I’m moving forward again, and the owlbear cub is at my camp. I have no regrets whatsoever about redoing hours and hours of gameplay - this guy is adorable, 100% worth it. During the redo, I actually caught some books that I somehow missed the first time (one looks like it was probably destroyed in a fight - check areas before you scrap! The others - I just somehow wasn’t exploring thoroughly) I got a little more backstory about what exactly happened to the Blighted Village / Moonhaven. I’m really blown away by the amount of little details in this game. If all the areas are as rich as the ones so far, it’s going to take me absolutely forever to actually finish this stupid game.

I would also be much farther in this game than I currently am if I wasn’t also wasting a ridiculous amount of time double checking things - it is so hard to find actual, accurate, concrete answers for questions that I have. As someone who is used to gamefaqs.com or hell even the big Stardew Valley wiki, it’s frustrating to me that it’s hard or even impossible to find some info. The fact that early access has been out there for three years makes it worse. The info I find is either people on forums making guesses, sparse articles and naked wikis which sometimes are saying things that are just outright not true, or it’s early access info which just isn’t applicable anymore. Frustrating. So instead I waste hours and hours just going around, checking things, seeing under what circumstances certain things will and won’t trigger, etc. “Well why don’t you just do like everyone else is doing and not care about any of that, and just fuck around and see what happens?” I don’t know, this is how *I* like to play the game. Maybe it makes me feel smart to figure all this stuff out.

My current favs to have in combat are Astarion and Karlach. Astarion is a mean little murder machine. I gave him the dark urge cloak I got after (redacted) happened, and it turns him invisible for two rounds if he kills something. I subclassed him into assassin, he has a million items to give him extra movement and attacks and jumps and things, and I gave him dual weilding and two rapiers, so basically every battle he runs around very fast stabbing holes into absolutely everything. And then Karlach, I gave her that berserker subclass, so I have immense fun watching her pick enemies up and fucking SLAM them down into the ground. So much fun. Wyll’s also not bad, eldritch blast is one hell of a cantrip. It’s stressful having so many companions. They’re all so awesome and I want to use them all but I can’t.

I’ve been using the map markers to map out vantage points that have beautiful views that I like to go back and look at, ie the view from the ruined temple that overlooks the nautiloid crash. This game is so pretty,

I’m now currently making my way through the big old goblin camp with the “murder is fun” squad of Lae’zel, Shadowheart, and Astarion; the other companions get too mad when I’m trying to dialogue my way out of things. For goodness sake Gale, I’m not going to ACTUALLY torture prisoners, I said it to make the goblins leave, why don’t you understand that?... in a similar vein… Lae’zel, Shadowheart, and Astarion…. The approval you are giving me is for my clever fooling of the guards, right? You don’t actually think I’m going to torture people, right? This is what you’re approving? Right? RIGHT GUYS?

I just love the little details that have been programmed into this. Stuff like the goblin kids being afraid of the animal familiars (but not the imp or quasit) Stuff like how I played music in the big party and two other goblins jumped in to play instruments. Stuff like all the incidental dialogue and the silly titles the goblins call me (mr drow, your excelness, your drowness, your majesticness, etc)

So much fun. So much to explore. Soon I’m going to have to figure out what to do with the goblin leaders. Gut and Ragzlor I think I can easily take out, but honestly I am thinking I’m going to get Minthara to come to the grove. I think the idea of fighting alongside the tieflings against a goblin siege sounds crazy fun, plus then I can use the hoard of explosive barrels I’ve been collecting and blow Minthara straight into the stratosphere. Probably it will be a little while before I get to that, plus apparently there’s a new little set of tasks to do in the grove to help prepare. So much fun. So much fun in this game.

[pheonyxian]

Baldur's Gate 3: Sexless Any% Part 2

Part 1

Updated our old friend ratings and made three new ones! Including one that I know you animals have been not normal about.

Shadowheart: Basically the same, keep learning bits and pieces about her backstory, and she asks me not to pry, and I don't. Her dialog menu is literally full of shit like "We should talk about [thing you expressly told me not to talk about multiple times]" and "We should get to know each other better" and "I'm offended you kept secrets from me, a guy you've only known for five days." 2/10 literally nothing's changed.

Gale: Remember when I said I shamelessly like charismatic male characters who use charm to hide their dark secrets? Addendum: They have to do it for the *aesthetic.* The inner turmoil. Gale does it for profit. I'm offended. He said if I don't feed him expensive magical artifacts then the world is going to end. Not gonna lie I want to deny him any and all magical artifacts just to see if he explodes. 1/10 definitely sold essential oils in the past.

Astarion: We agreed that last night meant nothing and he was free to explore other necks, especially the bandits and paladins that try to kill us. Which actually unlocked a feature that allows him to drain HP from any living creature as a bonus action and gain +1 to skill checks. So remind me to play a vampire in my next DnD game. Regardless, now that we're just good friends we opened up about our lack of previous vampiric partners and gossiped about which companions would be a good drink and told each other our faces are pretty and other completely platonic things. 7/10 played bite/marry/kill with the other companions.

Lae'zel: I was supposed to recruit Lae'zel like, immediately after recruiting Shadowheart, but I was an idiot and walked right past her cutscene trigger. Thankfully six hours later I figured I really should have seen her by now and backtracked. Her first impression is very rough but talk to her a bit and turns out she can fight AND is well read AND literally gains influence with practically every action I do. Only issue is her one track mind to go to something called a creche and be "purified" of the mind flayer parasites, which is definitely not going to be some Logan's Run/The Island shit. 8/10 Not looking to avoid spoilers but you KNOW the fanbase underrates her.

Wyll: I heard someone describe Wyll as "main character energy" and yeah that's it. Go look up his intro cutscene if you haven't seen it. 6/10 have seen the thing with his patron and Karlach but honestly still too early to tell.

Karlach: Valid. 10/10

[vitanithepure]

Hey, hope you are doing great today!

I'd love to hear your insight on something if that's okay? Do you think there are wrong ways to play out the BG3 companion stories? Like, do the universally considered bad decisions are... well, bad?

I'm doing fine, thank you so much and I hope you are okay as well nonny!

My inbox is open, and that is never a problem!

That's a very multi-layerd and interesting question, I'll try to anwser what I think to the best of my ability, but bear in mind I'll leave out Shadowheart and Halsin here because I didn't manage to finish the game with their 'bad' ending and Mintha because I never recruited her so far so nothing to say here sadly :(

Spoilers ahead of course.

Okay, so to begin I'll say that the only bad endings for me is when a character straight up dies or is destined to die. Death is the only bad ending, because it's the literal end, nothing can progress beyond it.

Overall I think it's an interesting mechanic we got, where we are often placed in those character's stories as their moral guide. Like, they would manage all that on their own and make a decision that is best for them, but... not the morally (as we universally understand it) correct one. Usually we are placed in the role of the enabler, often it's the player that decides for their companions, and here they make their own choices and we just... challenge them on this idea if we feel they are wrong. It feels very real, and I really enjoy it.

With that said let's think about our companions and how the story can end for them in a way most people define as bad.

Astarion

So he obviously starts out on his path pretty early, he's out there to grab some power, from any source wiling to give it. So the natural extension of that would be to follow the Ascendant road. It certainly makes sense and while I understand why many people think it's bad because the cycle isn't broken and he is forced to become the the abuser, but... does he? I mean, he obviously does, because this path doesn't make him learn any lessons except that things worth in life can be obtained only with power. It's bad from a morality point of view, but things can still change for him, and now - if he decides to grow some conscience at any point - he has the power to make a difference. It's certainly not a bad ending for him.

Gale

Gale has a lot of actually bad endings. Bad in the sense I said at the beginning - he just ends up dead in them and that's straight up horrific. All of them are tied to resolving the problem with his orb, if he agrees to the first one given he just dies, either sooner or later, but unltimately he sacraficies himself. The worst ending by far. If he decides to pursue the idea of using the Crown of Karsus to control the orb - he dies, killed by Mystra. If he ignores the problem - he dies. The only ending he gets is when he convince him to return the Crown to Mystra, and that also happens to be considered his 'good' ending. I kind of see it as the only viable one, not really all that 'good' as the only one he has.

Lae'zel

Well, I'm not sure what people consider her bad ending, so I'll make a guess it probably is the one I actually got on my first run and that is her being left alone. Both her endings where she stil serves Vlaakith or the rebellion against her (in any capacity, with or without Orhpeus) can't really be considered bad for her. In the Vlaakith one she gets what she wants, but not what she needs - but as long as she lives it doesn't matter because things can still change. So when she is left without her people (because we turned her away from her queen and didn't free the prince) she is kind of... forced to live on this plane as I understand it? Which is a tragedy for herself, but not the end of the world for her. I wasn't surprised she left me feeling dejected, but I also think she deserves to make her own path - nothing realy stopping her to join with the rebels and find another way to stop Vlaakith. I don't know, I don't feel as strongly about her endings, I feel like I miss something essential but it hasn't come to me yet.

Wyll

Does he have an ending one would consider bad? Yes, I think he does and I'm not sure what people consider bad for him, but... generally the event of him signing the pact for the rest of his life is bad. No life is worth that kind of sacrifice, that's how I feel about it. Not in a D&D setting where we have a confirmed afterlife and Wyll's father death just means he goes to whatever god he prayed to while the alternative makes Wyll destined to suffer Hell for an eternity. Like... no, why would anyone even consider that a good option? There is nothing even remotely heroic in throwing your soul away this way, not in D&D.

Karlach

I don't believe there is much to be said here. It's just like Gale - the only viable option for her is to survive, and surviving means doing what she considers the absolute worse case scenario. Yet I still believe that her going back to Avernus is just a step back, not the end. As long as she lives she can find a way to deal with the infernal engine. I know she is a fan favorite, and I get it why people hope for a different solution, but I kind of enjoy her ending as it is? Not everyone will always get a happy ending, and hers is beautiful in that tragic sense. She got her life back, for a spell, and lived it to the fullest. It's so much better than having even an immortal life devoid of that spark she had.

[bphm]

Chapter 2: The Nautiloid

Because it's my run, and my rules, I've decided to make said rules only apply starting act 1, which means in the prologue, I can work with as full of a party as I can get. After all, the final battle of the prologue is on a strict time limit, and I'd rather not try to solo it while trying to farm as much XP as I can, short of killing cambions.

With that said, I made sure to grab gold from both chests in the first room, as well as off the goblin corpse in the second. I am NOT freeing Us yet, and I have a couple reasons for that.

after lae'zel and wyll take on the three imps, i looted one of the imp corpses with the light crossbow, and gave it to lae'zel to equip. This way, if she had to make a ranged attack in the race to the transponder, she would do a little more damage.

on a thrall's corpse in that same room is a robe, which I will eventually replace wyll's default armor with. Not yet, but eventually.

When we entered the room with the two sacrificed cultists, I killed them where they were without unleashing them. restoration is a limited commodity in honor mode, and I still get all the XP without having to fight them fairly.

Here's the first reason I haven't freed Us yet. If you attack an intellect devourer while Us is a follower, it will become hostile, so it's best to do it beforehand for a little extra XP. this particular intellect devourer is slippery, so I used turn-based mode to catch it. I had lae'zel make the first strike, knowing her initiative would almost certainly be lower than wyll's and the ID's. if he had made the first strike, then he would have been out of actions at the start of combat, and the intellect devourer would have had the chance to attack. Instead, lae'zel was the one out of actions, and wyll, who was predictably at the top of the initative, made the first (and last) strike.

because i didn't choose command as one of wyll's starting spells, it was imperative I freed and recruited shadowheart. going into her list of prepared spells, i replaced inflict wounds with command so there would be a way to acquire the everburn blade without having to kill its wielder.

We made the long trek back to the room where Us is, and this is the second reason I waited to free it.

as a cleric, shadowheart can grant guidance to any ability check, which was very necessary to free Us from the skull. I went with a dexterity check, seeing as wyll has 16 DEX and 8 STR. the DC was 10, and I rolled...a 10. Meaning if shart weren't there to help me, i would've been fucked. or worse, lae'zel would have to do it, which feels ridiculously out of character for her.

we walked all the way back to the helm, where our last battle of the prologue took place. The first thing I had to do was get zhalk's weapon, which will become wyll's eventual pact weapon in the early game. Luckily, even with a mere 55% chance of command: drop working, shadowheart succeeded and was able to pick up the weapon from zhalk the next turn, all while staying far enough away from him as to not trigger an opportunity attack.

as we were approaching the transponder, I had to make some inventory shifts. because i wasn't going to recruit either lae'zel or shadowheart and wouldn't have access to their (corpses') inventories until much later in the game, I transferred their health potions, revivify scrolls, and camp supply packs to wyll's inventory. i also took the everburn blade, scroll of detect thoughts, and shield from shart, which would benefit him. lae'zel's armor and crossbow wouldn't, but this isn't a solo run and would still be put to good use.

in the end, it was shadowheart who reached the transponder first. tbh, it almost always is in my playthroughs. And thus concludes the prologue.

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[achantersayswhat]

Heeeeeeeeeeeey guys, how's it going, is everyone getting cautiously stoked for Veilguard I'm getting cautiously stoked for Veilguard BUT IN THE MEANTIME I finally got Baldur's Gate 3 over the summer and have been very busy injecting that directly into my veins while not saying a word about it on this blog because every time I sit down at my laptop and go "okay I'm gonna play a little BG3 and then maybe I'll do some other stuff like edit and post some screenshots of my BG3 OCs" I instead play BG3 for a minimum of three hours and then am shocked, shocked to discover I haven't gotten anything else done.

BUT, right now I PHYSICALLY CANNOT play BG3 because Patch 7 is downloading, which has freed me to to Other Things on Computer, sooooo here are some Tavs! Well, two Tavs and a Durge.

Saffria, she/her, first Tav and still the Tav of my heart. High half-elf, wild magic sorcerer, Urchin background, Chaotic Good (look I don't care that the game doesn't give you an official alignment I'm a veteran D&D player I'm aligning them). Generally pretty noble/heroic but not above a bit of light chicanery, especially when it comes to cool magic items. Or food. Your unattended food items are not safe around her. Noteworthy talents include being able to talk anyone into anything (she has too much Charisma, someone stop her, lives have been ruined), having just so many hilarious wild magic surges at the worst possible moment (ask her about the time she turned everyone into dogs while Shadowheart was dying), and being the perfect height to receive forehead kisses from Halsin. Romanced Astarion and Halsin, post-game she and (unascended) Astarion go adventuring together looking for a way for him to be in the sun again, but will occasionally go check on the vampire spawn in the Underdark or drop in on Halsin and stay with him for a while.

Briony, she/her, high elf, Oath of Ancients paladin, Outlander background, Neutral Good. Second Tav I made because a) I wanted to play as an Ancients paladin (one of my very favorite D&D subclasses) and b) I wanted to romance Halsin with an Ancients paladin. Managed to actually develop a pretty close friendship with Astarion despite being a goody-two-shoes paladin. Enjoys annoying the shit out of evildoers shortly before she smites them. Post-game, she settles down with Halsin but maybe still goes off on the occasional adventure now and then.

Kelimar aka Kel aka MY SPECIAL BOY (ish), he/they, my first and so far only Durge. Half-drow, archfey warlock, Haunted One background, starts out fairly Chaotic Neutral but as the game goes on they're TRYING to be good. So, so pretty. Stole Scelaratis's hat after [SPOILERY DURGE EVENTS] and is never going to take it off because every time I see him in it I giggle uncontrollably. Currently taking a little breather after [SPOILERY DURGE EVENTS] while I figure out how I want their endgame to play out. Romanced Astarion and look, LOOK, this was GOING to be the run where I DIDN'T romance Halsin but then Kel confided in him about the whole constant urge to kill thing and Halsin said *gestures at screenshot* THAT and called him a good lad and WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THAT I AM NOT BHAAL'S STRONGEST SOLDIER so yeah now I'm three for three on romancing Halsin.

(I also have a half-elf bard Tav and halfling druid Tav who I've made mostly to play around with other classes and maybe, MAYBE explore some of the romance options that, y'know, aren't Halsin and Astarion over and over again, but they're both still pretty early in their respective games so I shall perhaps say more about them another time.)

[wolverinedoctorwho]

Zoruan and the Very Long 72 Hours

More yapping under the cut, spoilers for Act 2

I convinced Shadowheart to spare the Nightsong by passing the DC 30 check on the first try. I didn't have to make a save for Gale because we're besties and I had already talked him out of blowing himself up. (Now if only I could get the button to do so off his hotbar...) I didn't send any screenshots of the Myrkul fight to my phone but a Paladin with Divine Smite and Sentinel and Smite the Graceless is absolutely stacked against Myrkul and I wish I'd gotten a video of the curb-stomping. I'd been aiming for a Minthara run this whole time because I'm going for Gale with my Origin!Astarion run, and I was really nervous it wouldn't work out because I've been a very good person, but her conversation on Ketheric's throne can net you tons of points if you butter her up, and immediately afterwards she initiated her romance scene so it all worked out. (I gave Minthara the Performer feat so she can play her Spider Lyre bc I thought it would be a nice touch.) Zoruan has been mistrustful of the Dream Visitor from the get-go (the only reason they didn't kill them when the option to came up is because I googled if it was a good idea first lol) so them turning out to be a mindflayer was secretly so vindicating for them, even if they have to keep working with him. After he forced me to take the Astrally-Touched Tadpole I offered it to Minthara because she's the only one in my party who I've been feeding tadpoles to (Cull the Weak is incredible) and I thought she would like it, and she immediately gobbled it up. Not sure how I feel about the look, or how little time I had as her partner before this went down, but it does feed into the "immensely powerful paladin duo" thing I've got going on with them. I wasn't expecting to make it to Act 3 this quickly (and to be fair I did fuck up and finish Act 1 too early) and I'm excited to see how things play out!

Zoruan likes Minthara because she didn't immediately want to sleep with them (they're not sex-repulsed or anything just put off by people seeing a tall beefy butch half-orc and going 'i want you' when there's more important things to be doing) and because she kicks ass on the battlefield. They also have a bond as paladins even though they have different specifications (Devotion and Vengeance respectively). Even though they're differently aligned, Minthara has a softer (or at least pragmatically sympathetic) side, and Zoruan can be just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing. They call her their ukurn (monstrous spider in Orcish) and they're surprisingly kind of a wifeperson for an Upholder of Justice and Savior of the People whose spouse dreams to rule the Sword Coast. She wakes up in the morning and they say "good morning, your horribleness. what cruel and horrific conquests face you today?" and she makes out with them. It's very cute and also weird and fucked up.

[missizzy]

A Game Novice's Baldur's Gate Log, 29 Hours In: Too many goblins to kill!

Masterpost

(Note: this will definitely contain spoilers for all I've played through, and probably quite of a bit of the later stuff I've also seen.)

Although I am still closing the launcher's behind me when opening Baldur's Gate 3, Gog does still somehow seem to be keeping track of what I'm doing in it. When I let Astarion bite me, it noted this as my first achievement. This week I also got the achievements of digging up five chests in a single playthrough and killing a creature with fall damage. Except while I know which fight this had to have happened in, I cannot for the life of me remember just where it did. Though really, I was muddled in general this week. For much of it, I feared my biggest achievement during it was going to be putting Astarion in a cowboy hat.

Well, that and despite misunderstanding the directions I looked up, I did manage to get the gnome off the windmill from last week. When he mentioned his missing friend in the underdark, I was a little surprised he didn't ask us to find him, but I'm pretty sure we'll be going there sometime during this act. Then I took the party to the goblin camp entrance we'd found-only to be told to use the main entrance.

I promptly went looking for said entrance in a completely wrong part of the map, and spent way too long wandering around the Risen Road, looting a lot of alchemist's fire while I was at it. And so that was where we were when Gale's arcane hunger again failed to be sated and he finally spilled his tragic backstory of wizard hubris to us. At least some of which may have gone over Sara's head. She doesn't really care what a goddess might tell her wizards what not to do, or whether they obey her there. Even if she did connect with Gale's memories of what happened, in very dramatic slow motion that felt very emotional.

When he was done and had explained about the bomb in his chest, I briefly wondered if she should consult the other companions about keeping him around. But really, she had already unilaterally decided to keep the vampire around, and she hadn't even given Wyll or Shadowheart very much shit for their own associations with very dubious powerful entities. At this point, the group's her people, and Sara won't turn on one of her own. Perhaps they would've voted to keep him anyway. It must have been a comfort to Gale, that right after the whole cut sequence, Wyll promptly told him he admired him, and Astarion just asked about the potential usefulness of the bomb, but that's Astarion.

The other thing she got out of his confession, I'm afraid, is the current belief that she doesn't stand a chance with him. After all, how can a simple barbarian woman compete with a goddess, one that Gale still worships, and she remains convinced he still loves? Hopefully she can learn otherwise at some point, and while some part of her head is no doubt also telling her she shouldn't let her feelings for him develop any further, I suspect she'll ultimately let them anyway.

Eventually I looked up the entrance coordinates, and went towards them. I'm actually not sure if the entrance we reached was the main entrance or not. We tried to sneak around, but then I accidentally made Astarion start a conversation with the guards, and then said screw it and had him lie our way into the camp, which worked. We had the mental run-in with the Absolute and got our mysterious polyhedrons of protection, and then came at last to the goblin camp.

I'd seen pieces of the camp played through by one streamer, though it was long enough ago I didn't remember much, though some things, like finding Volo in the camp, jogged my memory. But I had no memory of that streamer finding Halsin, only of her fighting with him later, and having to reload multiple times because he kept getting killed. I got it into my head early on that I wanted to avoid any fighting until I had at least made contact. So I spent nearly an hour wandering around the camp, reloading twice to avoid combat, and looting a good number of potentially useful objects. Then I went and looked up Halsin's location, but even then it took me quite some time to finally find him.

Then, at last, after one last botched start of combat which I reloaded, I started the rescue of him by throwing some of the alchemist's fire at the goblins, which I'd wanted to do the entire time-and then discovered them to be immune to fire damage. That complicated fighting them a little bit, but killing those in the worg pens ultimately wasn't all that difficult. It was during that fight I must have killed one of them with fall damage. Then, at last, came the proper introduction to Daddy Halsin, as I've heard him called, and the first direction for us to go to Moonrise Towers, but first to kill the goblin leaders. Which was on the to-do list already, but his request to kill everyone in the camp...well, that felt like a rather daunting task.

Though the thing that really threw me was when the drow leader was revealed to be Minthara. I'd seen plenty of streamers play with her, and noted her being evil, of course, but up until then I'd still hoped to recruit her whenever she showed up. When, after another battle with guards, we stumbled into her immediately, I ended up looking that up too, and reading that you have to side with the goblins to have her as a companion. There's no way Sara would do that now. And so I resigned myself to killing her.

It proved surprisingly easy, too. Well, sort of, since my own stupidity got in the way three times. The first time I had Gale destroy the bridge of planks we hadn't gotten off her, killing everyone but Sara. The second time I had Astarion fire an acid arrow without checking the AoE, killing Sara and Gale. The third time I won the fight, continued us on our way, got into another guard fight, and then took us into battle with Dror Ragzlin, which went very badly, forcing me to reload-which was when I discovered I hadn't saved since right before battling her!

But the fourth time? She was dead before she even got a turn in. Her minion didn't live much longer, either. Even so, I was no longer up to trying the Ragzlin battle again, so I ended up parking us a distance away from the rooms he and the guards were in, and going through our potions. I had to save again and reload multiple times, as I had characters drink some of Auntie Ethel's potions just to find out what the heck they did. Most of them weren't worth it, but there was that gave simple poison resistance. I also had potions looted from the goblin camp, so now Sara and Asatarion both have poison resistance, and Wyll has a couple boosts as well. I left it off there today.

Who knows that I may spend another week at this. And I'm no longer even sure where in the camp the owlbear cub is.

[cornelius-sfm]

Order of the Awakened Mystic

Intro

To see how good a subclass is, I've decided to try and go through Tactician solo and see if it's possible for that subclass to beat the game, and if not, how far they can make it. The only restrictions I gave myself are to not multiclass and to not abuse Elixirs of Hill Giant Strength. Multiclassing would defeat the purpose of seeing how good the class is, and using Elixirs of Hill Giant Strength take away some of the impact of planning ability scores.

I decided to keep going with Mystic for the fun of it, deciding on Order of the Awakened (simply Awakened going forward). This is because I felt it would offer a different kind of playstyle to the Immortal Mystic, focusing on using Psionic powers instead of being a martial.

For race, I went with Githyanki for two reasons. First, I felt that it fit thematically since they were already a psionic race. Second, and the more metagame-y reason, they get proficiency in medium armor which I felt would be helpful in the early game. They also get access to useful spells during their level ups and Astral Knowledge, both of which are just useful.

The Acts

Act 1: For this run, I decided to forgo using weapons (for now), instead focusing on the Psionic Talents for most of the game. That made the early game quite difficult as my damage wasn't great. Thanks to being a Gith, I was able to steal and equip the +1 Breastplate Armor from Dammon. After that, I just traveled and talked through my encounters, gaining exp. At this point, I had a build idea in mind, but the necessary gear wouldn't be available until late Act 2. One thing that stood out, even after hitting level 5, was that this subclass was extremely long rest heavy. It didn't help that most of the AOE's were locked behind level 7, so I wasn't the absolute strongest. Regardless, I was still able to take on most of the Act 1 fights. The Grymforge fight was somewhat easy, though I did have to use a Potion of Invisibility to drop out of combat once. The Creche was also mostly easy to clear out, but things still didn't feel great. Every fight cemeted just how heavy this Order relies on Long Rests/Partial Rests, even after hitting level 7, where I unlocked Psychic Blast. It was around the time I hit level 7 that most of Act 1 was done, and I then moved onto Act 2.

Deaths: 10

Act 2: This Act had the last few pieces of gear for what I was aiming for as an "end game build," however I actually had to get there. Most fights were easy if I simply Psychic Blasted everything to dust, but if I wasn't doing that, then large groups were tough. On the other hand, solo fights were a breeze. This was very evident in the Kar'niss fight. While it usually is tough, I managed to wipe out the entire group except for him in 2 blasts, and proceeded to Ego Whip him to death, as he kept failing my saves. After that, I talked most of the bosses to death to hit level 8. I then headed to the Gauntlet of Shar, where I grabbed the Callous Glow Ring (after using Knock to have the Justiciars kill Balthazar). With this, I was one step closer to my end game build. To alleviate the future Assault on Moonrise, I headed back there and killed a good amount of NPCs, including Zrell. After I was satisfied with the bloodshed, I headed back to the Gauntlet of Shar again to finally free the Nightsong. I cleared some trials and convinced some devils to kill themselves, and headed to the Shadowfell, which got me to level 9. Once I freed her (and lost Shadowheart), I long rested to prep for the massive fights ahead. I went to get Shar's blessing to boost my Intelligence, then finally went to finish Act 2. After the easy assault, I headed up to Kethric where I proceeded to die. After another attempt and another death, I said screw it and just unloaded all of my Psi Points to Mind Crush Kethric (and also Dame Aylin by mistake), stunlocking him. Heading down to the Netherbrain, I grabbed the Braindrain Gloves and the Resonance Stone, both of which were essential to the build. I freed Us then headed to Ketheric, dreading the final fight. Before the fight, I summoned Us and an Earth Elemental with a Conjure Elemental Scroll and kept them outside of his line of sight. After convincing Ketheric to kill himself, I managed to get surprise thanks to a Greater Invisibility scroll. Dropping a Haste Spore grenade and using a Psychic Blast, I managed to burst down the Mindflayer and freed Aylin. Finally, I had the Earth Elemental to block a ladder to keep the Necromites away from Myrkul, and bursted him down. Thanks to Psychic Crush + a Wall of Fire Scroll, I was able to keep him locked down which allowed Aylin and Us to stay alive. With the three of us, we were able to take care of him rather quickly, but it took all of my Psi Points and more scrolls than I'd like (Greater Invisibility, Conjure Elemental, and Wall of Fire). With Ketheric down, I headed to Act 3.

Deaths: 4

Act 3: During my first night of rest, I immediately got jumped by some Githyanki. While they're typically resistant to Psychic damage, my Resonance Stone took care of that, allowing me to burst them down with Psychic Blasts. After that, I simply went around completing quests as I wanted to hit level 12 before I fought any of the bosses. After a lot of wandering and a lot of killing, I eventually hit level 12 as well as collected all the gear I needed (which will be covered later).

Act 3 Bosses:

Viconia: I decided to not make the mistake as my first solo run and fought her first to get the Mirror of Loss buff first. I sipped an Elixir of Bloodlust and headed right into it. As soon as combat started, I ran back to the door, creating a choke point with a Scroll of Evard's Black Tentacles. The next turn, I used Eldritch Evolution and started just blasting everyone to death. Thanks to the Psychic Focus: Psionic Distortion, Darkness was also a non-issue. The fight was actually so easy, I took zero damage and could have done it easily without the scroll.

Gortash: Similarly to Viconia, this was more annoying than difficult. I died once during the fight, however it was due to me being both Lethargic due to a Potion of Speed and at 3 HP due to Eldritch Evolution running out. The second try went easier, killing him by turn 2 and running away to wait out the Potion of Speed. After this, I took a Long Rest since the Steel Watchers were hostile, but they become allies after a Long Rest when Gortash dies.

Mystic Carrion: Neither difficult nor frustrating. Thanks to going first, I was able to use Eldritch Evolution and stunlock everyone. It took about 3 turns to take everyone out using Psychic Crush.

Lorroakan: Somewhat harder than previous fights. I was brought down to near low HP, but that was mainly due to bad positioning with my AOE's causing me to miss Lorroakan twice. Despite that, I was still able to take him out, even without Dame Aylin's help (she died turn 1 to my first AOE).

Raphael: Next I decided to take on Raphael because I felt like he would be the hardest and man, this fight cemeted how powerful this subclass is. Thanks to Victory Before Battle, I went second in initative (Yurgnir went first and did basically nothing). My first turn was spent doing some damage and using Eldritch Evolution. The real fight started on my second turn, where I just kinda... stunned everyone. Even Rapahel kept getting stunned, and I just kept using Psychic Crush, occaisionally refreshing my Eldritch Evolution. In the end, I beat the battle without even taking care of the pillars.

Cazador: I was somewhat worried about this fight, but once again, simply using Psychic Crush + Eldritch Evolution proved too much for the vampire lord who only lasted 7 rounds.

Ansur: Probably the toughest fight so far. He was able to do a good bit of damage to me, even with an Elixir of Lightning Resistance, and he had a high Intelligence save, meaning he wasn't constantly getting stunned. Despite that, he was still getting stunned enough to beat him first try.

Orin: The final battle, and just like all previous bosses, she simply fell to the massive stun AOE that is Psychic Crush. Honestly just not much to say about it.

Deaths: 3 (Including the bosses and final fight.)

Final Fight: The final fight was honestly quite difficult, at least compared to earlier fights. Because of the nature of the arena, I couldn't get close enough to the Emperor to wipe him out fast by using Steeped in Bliss, so I had to use Psychic Crush + Orpheus' Illithid powers to take care of them before heading up. I used a Globe of Invulnerability scroll to get to the brain, and then promptly died to a platform breaking. After doing it all again, I got to the brain and with a Potion of Speed, blitzed them with good ole Psychic Crush.

Final Build:

Combat with this build was pretty simple and very offensive based. I'd start the day with an Exlixir of Bloodlust, then when combat starts, I'd use Eldritch Evolution. With those two active, I'd typically shred through most fights, and enemies who didn't die to my attacks were usually stunned or debuffed enough to not matter. My bonus action was mainly used to shoot Gondiva to get Psi Points back so I could use Eldritch Evolution again later. If I didn't manage to end combat in those 4 turns, my only option was to pray that I could stun everyone before my HP dropped and I could heal up.

Stats: Str (9) Dex (14) Con (15) Int (17) Wis (8) Cha (10)

Head - Fount of Endless Knowledge: Eases the heavy usage of Psi Points a bit. Helm of Balduran is also a good alternative that I ended up switch to near the end, but honestly didn't notice a difference.

Cloak - Cloak of Psionic Interference: Makes enemies more likely to fail their saves, leading to more stun chains

Armor - Armour of Persistence: Just good for survivability.

Bracers - Braindrain Gloves: All our damage is Psychic + our strongest options are mental saves.

Boots - Boots of Stormy Clamour: We're always proccing Mental Fatigue, so this is also always going to proc.

Necklace - Amulet of Mental Fortitude: Leads to massive saving throw bonuses.

Ring 1 - Ring of Mental Inhibition: Further helps with stun chaining.

Ring 2 - Coruscation Ring: Helps debuff enemies even if they pass their save. There are probably better options

Melee Weapons - Markoheshkir: Just the best staff to have.

Ranged Weapon - Gandiva: A nice bonus action damage option thanks to Spectral Arms.

Feat - Heavily Armoured: Lets us wear Armour of Pestilence.

Feat - Resilient (Constitution): Lets us use Strength of Mind on other stats + boosts Con.

Feat - Ability Score Improvement (+2 Constitution): More health.

Hag's Hair: +1 Intelligence

Mirror of Loss: +2 Intelligence

Overall Thoughts: Early on, this subclass felt super weak. I didn't have many good offensive options and it felt like the damage wasn't ever there. It wasn't until I got Psychic Blast and eventually Psychic Crush. Both of these abilities, especially when combined with Eldritch Evolution, make this subclass an offensive behemoth that is only limited by it's terrible defensive options. Overall, I'd rate this an B tier subclass.

Pros:

Very strong burst potential.

Good at locking down enemies and making sure they can't take turns.

Massive AOE attacks in the late game.

Can spam Psionic Disciplines at later levels.

Cons:

Extremely long rest heavy in the early game.

Very good risk, but very dangerous reward

Strong offensive abilities are Psychic only.

No good ways to boost defensive abilities.

Psionic Disciplines: Here is where I'm going to rate each Discipline from 1-5, and give a small thought about each one. This is coming from the viewpoint of a Lone Wolf Run, so some that are more support and ally based will rate lower.

Aura Sight: 2/5

Psychic Focus: A good skill to have advantage on, but need to remember to use it before entering conversations.

Assess Foe (2 Psi Points): Not a bad option for enemies who have a rather high DC.

View Aura (3 Psi Points): Another good ability that is hard to remember you have.

Percieve the Unseen (5 Psi Points): Once again, an ability that is good, but by the time you'll want it, it's too late.

Infinite Abyss: 4/5

Psychic Focus: Same as Aura Sight.

Glimpse of the Void (1 Psi Point): Not great damage, but the only AOE you get at early levels so not the worst.

Symbotic Link (3 Psi Points): Useless in Lone Wolf runs.

Psionic Disturbance (5 Psi Points): Good for when you're fighting a lot of spell casters.

Eldritch Evolution (7 Psi Points): Insanely strong, but also can just be the death of you if you aren't smart about it.

Intellect Fortress: 3/5

Psychic Focus: This will almost never be relevant.

Psychic Parry (1 Psi Point): Nice way to avoid those pesky save-or-suck incapacitation spells.

Psychic Backlash (2 Psi Points): Basically psychic Hellish Rebuke. I'd honestly prefer if it didn't give disadvantage and was only the damage.

Psychic Redoubt (5 Psi Points): The advantage on saves is nice, but once again, the damage resistance is next to useless.

Mantle of Awe: 2/5

Psychic Focus: Same issues as Aura Sight.

Charming Presence (2 Psi Points): Good in the early game, but by late game there are better ways to stop enemies attacking.

Center of Attention (2 Psi Points): I don't see the point in this in a Lone Wolf run.

Invoke Awe (7 Psi Points): Not really worth the action.

Mantle of Insanity: 4/5

Psychic Focus: Very situationally useful.

Delirium (2 Psi Points): A good early game way to get an enemy to go away for a bit.

Hysteria (3 Psi Points): Useful if there is only a few enemies in the battle.

Paranoia (5 Psi Points): Probably the best crowd control option you'll get.

Unending Torment (6 Psi Points): I'd rather use one of the earlier abilities.

Precognition: 4/5

Psychic Focus: A nice and useful little boost.

Precognitive Hunch (2 Psi Points): Basically just Bless, but you'll likely have better things to concentrate on.

All-Around Sight (3 Psi Points): A shittier Psychic Backlash that also costs 1 more Psi Point.

Danger Sense (5 Psi Points): Super good as it lets you forgo the Alert feat, but does require concentration.

Victory Before Battle (7 Psi Points): A worse Danger Sense imo since it doesn't prevent Surprise, but doesn't require concentration.

Psychic Assault: 5/5

Psychic Focus: Useful in the early game, but useless by the mid to late game.

Psionic Blast: Literally guaranteed damage as it has a 100% hit rate (but the damage sucks.)

Ego Whip (3 Psi Points): A concentration free control option, but the damage doesn't scale so it falls off rather fast.

Id Insinuation (5 Psi Points): Slightly more damage than Ego Whip, but also a worse control option unless you're fighting a caster.

Psychic Blast (6 Psi Points): A bunch of damage in a massive AOE, what's there to say?

Psychic Crush (7 Psi Points): A bunch of damage in a massive AOE that also can stun and targets Intelligence, a usually low stat, what's there to say?

Psychic Disruption: 3/5

Psychic Focus: A nice bonus to a good skill that you can reliable utilize in conversations

Distracting Haze (1 Psi Point): Not a bad option for screwing over spellcasters.

Daze (3 Psi Points): A worse Ego Whip imo.

Mind Storm (5 Psi Points): A good AOE for before you get Psychic Blast, plus stays somewhat relevant thanks to its secondary effect.

Psychic Distortion: 4/5

Psychic Focus: Great if you want to abuse Darkness strats.

Obscuring Veil (2 Psi Points): Not a bad ability, but it doesn't really fit the playstyle of this subclass.

Psychic Double (3 Psi Points): I literally never used this ability however I'm sure there are some shenanigans there with the teleporting.

Mirage (5 Psi Points): Once per turn disadvantage is nice, but stellar.

Illusory Horde (6 Psi Points): The only way to buff your AC, plus it pairs well with Mirage.

Ethereal Shroud (7 Psi Points): I could never get this ability to work properly for me.

Telepathic Subjugation: 5/5

Psychic Focus: This alone makes the Discipline worth taking (damn near a must take).

Broken Will (2 Psi Points): Concentration free CC, but there are better things to use your action + Psi Points on.

Psionic Grip (3 Psi Points): Once again, there are better things to spend your action on.enemy.

Psychic Grasp (6 Psi Points): Useful if there is one big monster that is very threatening and a few small mobs you can wipe out next turn.

Psychic Domination (7 Psi Points): Domination abilities are almost never worth it.

Transcendent Form: 5/5

Psychic Focus: Useless since this subclass is almost exclusively a spellcaster.

Transcendence (2 Psi Points): A strong ability, but the drawback just isn't worth it.

Psychic Brand (6 Psi Points): Insanely good ability that just lets you not have any bad stats.

Spectral Arms (7 Psi Points): Even when casted on yourself, it still gives you a solid bonus action if you have nothing else to use.