I intentionally told him to go adventuring on his own, because he had annoyed me for too long and there was no way I was going to let him impinge on me and my giant red wife's honeymoon murdering devils.
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# ? May 18, 2024 18:44 |
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well, the final battle was, as usual, more satisfying to prepare for than to actually fight. i won the dc 99 check thanks to resonance stone advantage rolls, 47'd the courtyard with tentacle orpheus and saved the watch guys in short order, took a little potion-fuelled nap, then flew up the stairs in one turn for summoning, buffing, and many more naps. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() it was sort of a surprise to me there was only one dream guardian, but I probably should have expected it. it made the fight even easier than I anticipated. right away I popped the emperor's shield with an arrow of aberration slaying and took a hefty chunk of his hp, but more importantly, stunned the dragon, then had orpheus and some summons finish him off. also threw a confusion in there somewhere. in what I think was my sole actual tactical decision for this fight, I placed 3 shielded summons around the dragon and kept everyone else back or to the side so the brain would pop their shields and stun the dragon again. on turn 2 the illithids were wiped out and I moved 3 new summons in on the dragon, and on turn 3 I was clear to have orpheus start channeling the portal. ![]() ![]() I had to make one tactical decision for this too, which was whether or not to use haste. lethargic would probably be the end of me, but even with passing the dc 99 check, the netherbrain would have 360 hp, so I decided to roll the dice. both my mc and orpheus popped a haste scroll. orpheus ate the first brainquake with a blast and lost his haste, then my mc entered the arena and fired a ranged flourish with luck of the far realm and bhaal's favor for 3/4 crits. next turn, orpheus wasn't lethargic. not sure what happened there. had him punch the brain before my mc cast dethrone and artistry of war. and that was that. so rose the Lord of Murder. ![]() ![]()
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Congrats! Solo HM is an insane accomplishment.
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It really is. That’s awesome. ![]()
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I'm afraid the answer to this is "hahahaah nope!" but figured I'd ask. Is it possible to set your custom hotbar as the default hotbar? I set up a custom hotbar with my most used abilities, but every single turn I have to open it manually. The regular default ![]() My custom one. ![]()
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congrats dude! i play explorer because i am a dumbass who is also a pussy also because my irl alignment is chaotic good playing as durge kills me. please stop making my dating sim so hard
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cash crab posted:congrats dude! i play explorer because i am a dumbass who is also a pussy Could always play a Durge that resists the Urge. Don't gotta lean into the murderfantasies every time. As for difficulty, I played Balanced my first time, and honestly the only reason I bumped it up to Tactician this time is because I'm running with an Expanded Party, so I've got *everyone* with me.
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Medullah posted:I'm afraid the answer to this is "hahahaah nope!" but figured I'd ask. I wish. I also wish you could lock things that leave and come back in position on the hot bar for stuff like throwing weapons, potions you run out of, or swapping prepared spells. If anyone out there does know how to do these things I would also love to hear it.
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For someone like me who is bad at videogames that Grym fight was annoying. Trying to get him to go under the hammer thing then having him repeatedly take another step off wasn’t fun. If I ever replay I’m doing the cheeselordiest option I can come up with. Now I have to figure out how to forge a second item. Sadly I’m away for a week now and can’t keep going. I’m just listening to Real Lich Hours and wishing I could get back to playing.
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Snowy posted:For someone like me who is bad at videogames that Grym fight was annoying. Trying to get him to go under the hammer thing then having him repeatedly take another step off wasn’t fun. If I ever replay I’m doing the cheeselordiest option I can come up with. All you need is a second bit of Mithril; eject the first Mold with the Lever, put in a new mold and the mithril, then just slam the hammer again. Just... gotta make sure there's the Lava out, too. There are two bits of Mithril in the surrounding area, just gotta find them both.
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BlazetheInferno posted:Could always play a Durge that resists the Urge. Don't gotta lean into the murderfantasies every time. The resist Durge story is great btw, would recommend if people want to get a different perspective on the events of the game without having to be an evil murderhobo.
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BlazetheInferno posted:All you need is a second bit of Mithril; eject the first Mold with the Lever, put in a new mold and the mithril, then just slam the hammer again. Just... gotta make sure there's the Lava out, too. There are two bits of Mithril in the surrounding area, just gotta find them both. I was able to put the second mold in, and I have the mithril, but I couldn’t add it or get the lava to work anymore. I must be doing something out of order I suppose ![]()
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thank you. it was a ton of fun, would recommend if you like to get your minmax micromanagement on. ![]() cash crab posted:congrats dude! i play explorer because i am a dumbass who is also a pussy this was going to be my one super evil playthrough, and I ended up saving alfira, the grove, isobel, aylin basically everyone and resolving all quests the good way, and just clicking "evil ending please" at the last second, and only because that's the only way I was getting the last achievement. ![]() at least I did eat that grilled boo meal with milk and cookies. proud of myself.
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There's one evil durge choice that makes a certain act 3 fight much easier. The Orin fight turning into a duel with you as slayer vs. her as a regular whatever she is.
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LifeLynx posted:There's one evil durge choice that makes a certain act 3 fight much easier. The Orin fight turning into a duel with you as slayer vs. her as a regular whatever she is. I did that as an Open Hand Monk ![]()
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Insanely Swift And Brutal Debuff Monk definitely is the way to go, but does anybody have any experience with Stealth Monk or Elemental Monk? They also look fun, if not as OP!
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i shot her with ranged flourishes and then cast 100% chance command: grovel while my summons stood on the sidelines and cheered. she didn't get to move an inch or take any actions. very funny.
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Medullah posted:I'm afraid the answer to this is "hahahaah nope!" but figured I'd ask. Would setting your default to look like the custom one work? I rearranged the default bar like this: ![]() And it's suited me reasonably well.
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That's like the House of Hope fight for me where Yurgir fell on ice repeatedly and didn't do anything the entire fight but slip
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Reveilled posted:Would setting your default to look like the custom one work? I rearranged the default bar like this: You know, I didn't even think about that. I'll give it a go
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LifeLynx posted:There's one evil durge choice that makes a certain act 3 fight much easier. The Orin fight turning into a duel with you as slayer vs. her as a regular whatever she is. She's 1/4th doppelganger
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LifeLynx posted:There's one evil durge choice that makes a certain act 3 fight much easier. The Orin fight turning into a duel with you as slayer vs. her as a regular whatever she is. The duel was one of the few fights that gave me serious trouble on tactician as resist Durge. My poor low dex sorcerer kept losing initiative and getting killed in one round. Even buffing myself I must have had to reload 10 times before I got a chance to act. That was a rude awakening after a long period of rolling every fight I came across
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wizard2 posted:Insanely Swift And Brutal Debuff Monk definitely is the way to go, but does anybody have any experience with Stealth Monk or Elemental Monk? They also look fun, if not as OP! They are still very good if only because Stunning Strike is a regular Monk skill, not part of Open Hand. Four Elements is a little weird because some of the skills are attacks and some of them aren't; I'm not sure if that's still the case or if it's a bug or if it's just not very intuitive. So you can Fangs of the Fire Snake twice with your extra attack, but you can't Sphere of Elemental Balance because twice because it's a "spell," and it doesn't really tell you that. Again, maybe this was a bug and now it works or doesn't work like that? On top of that, Four Elements wants more Wisdom for damage, which means more stat dumping somewhere else or different equipment or a different elixir if you are Tavern Brawling. Shadow is neat with Shadow Step, but regular Monk is so stupidly mobile that it doesn't help all that much. I tried to make a Way of Shadow Monk / Rogue to get an old school Shadowdancer but Sneak Attack only works with weapons so you're cutting out six levels of sneak attack dice just so you can teleport, and, I mean, mobility is rarely a problem in this game. But you still get to Stunning Strike so it still works... but then you might as well just be Open Hand.
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The one weird trick that I found re:monks is that any +DC items you come across will apply to your four elements stuff just like any other spell, even though they aren't spells but also yes they are and it's genuinely best not to think about it too hard. Monks are kinda sorta equipment independent so if you're doing, say, a solo run, you can probably squeeze some casting items in to create some utility. Four elements is nonetheless without question the weakest monk subclass though even if you can get a solid hold person going and brutalize the held dude (like any martial to be honest). I do like the ability that just lets you manifest a big ice cube, that one is genuinely really useful in a ton of ways. Shadow is still not as mechanically strong as open hand but everywhere save the exterior areas of act 3 can more or less be considered obscured and many parts of those areas have some geometry casting a vague shadow which you can use anyway. As stated, mobility is rarely a monk issue anyway, but if you're trying to get some kind of weird splinter cell build going it's nonetheless probably still the best way to do it, even if maybe you shouldn't. Monk in general multiclasses very poorly with anything but thief, for that sweet extra flurry per round, and bearbarian because resistance to essentially all damage is pretty solid considering a monk's HP pool trends toward not huge.
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Medullah posted:I'm afraid the answer to this is "hahahaah nope!" but figured I'd ask. You can't, but you just customize the regular hotbar to be exactly the same thing (and also you can increase how many rows are in it with the + sign to the right) I believe shadow monk builds do more damage than open hand builds, but only once you get the (act 3) bhaalist armor from siding with sarevok feller fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Apr 23, 2024 |
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Of course there's a mod for that. I didn't even think to look for one. Thank you.
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Snowy posted:For someone like me who is bad at videogames that Grym fight was annoying. Trying to get him to go under the hammer thing then having him repeatedly take another step off wasn’t fun. If I ever replay I’m doing the cheeselordiest option I can come up with. I've done multiple playthroughs and never once bothered to hit him with the hammer. One strategy that's sort of funny is to have a bunch of people never get on the elevator and throw bottles and stuff at him from above. He's weak against bludgeoning so you're looking at like 30 damage per hit even from your weak-armed wizards.
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LifeLynx posted:There's one evil durge choice that makes a certain act 3 fight much easier. The Orin fight turning into a duel with you as slayer vs. her as a regular whatever she is. I think Rogue/Assassin Orin is more dangerous than her slayer form.
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After seeing this thread sing the praises of the Barbarian class dialogue options, I created a half-elf Conan and started a run and was immediately able to just rip the door off Shadowheart's pod on the Nautiloid, 10/10 problem solving, gonna take this one all the way to the Elder Brain. Also, it fucks the balance up but I don't care, using Custom difficulty and jacking up the Proficiency bonus makes fights feel a lot more impactful--not just a much-reduced chance of whiffing on your own turns, but you've also got to be a lot more careful about crowd control and enemy attacks, since they get the bonus too. I've also got all the NPC AI difficulty settings jacked up to Tactical, really wish you could turn on the Legendary Actions from HM in Custom too. (Alas I am on PS5 so the mod solution does not help me). Might need to also increase merchant price markups, though, since the trade system just uses your total Persuasion modifier to calculate discounts.
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Medullah posted:I'm afraid the answer to this is "hahahaah nope!" but figured I'd ask. You probably figured it out from other posts, but if you hit the little padlock icon, you can mess around with what's in the default bars, the little + button will add rows if you need more, and those red divider things can be moved around as well. You...probably don't need a visual reference, but I made one anyways! ![]() i'm really, really bad at drawing with a mouse sorry status update: I didn't have time to play much today, but I did arrive at the creche, and what I wouldn't give for a button that lets me hit Lae'zel in the back of the head and go THE GITH ARE TRYING TO KILL US AND ARE GOING TO KEEP TRYING TO KILL US YOU IDIOT right now. At least she's the one that lost some IQ points to the creepy death machine and not someone important, I guess...wait, maybe that -2 stat is why she keeps insisting on talking to the manager and the manager's manager and the manager's manager's manager. ![]() ![]() ![]() that's just slightly ominous...at least I hit the second speech check before worse things happened. Also, Astarion volunteered* to be my brain-worm eater, since I feel like Zehra would refuse to use them even if she kinda-mostly trusts the Dream Guardian, and the other companions I've picked up so far don't seem the type...maybe Gale would, idk an- oh god I'm RPing in an RPG what the hell's happened to me ![]() *i didn't want to inline even more dialog pictures, but the expression he has in that first image is just perfect GimpInBlack posted:Also, it fucks the balance up but I don't care, using Custom difficulty and jacking up the Proficiency bonus makes fights feel a lot more impactful--not just a much-reduced chance of whiffing on your own turns, but you've also got to be a lot more careful about crowd control and enemy attacks, since they get the bonus too. I've also got all the NPC AI difficulty settings jacked up to Tactical, really wish you could turn on the Legendary Actions from HM in Custom too. (Alas I am on PS5 so the mod solution does not help me). Might need to also increase merchant price markups, though, since the trade system just uses your total Persuasion modifier to calculate discounts. I bumped that to uh +1 I think, and set enemies to tactical AI, then set my party's health to the easiest setting. I figured that would let me see most of the game and not die constantly because, well, I'm not very good at CRPGs. It...seems to have worked okay so far? It might be a bit too low-risk though, I can't decide but hey it's nice enough to let you change that any time. ![]() Solo Wing Pixy fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Apr 24, 2024 |
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Solo Wing Pixy posted:I bumped that to uh +1 I think, and set enemies to tactical AI, then set my party's health to the easiest setting. I figured that would let me see most of the game and not die constantly because, well, I'm not very good at CRPGs. I jacked it all the way to +4 (so Proficiency bonus is +6 total, and Expertise is +12), because gently caress it, it's like my 5th playthrough and I just don't like the hit percentage odds D&D 5e is calibrated to (even with buffing and stuff, it feels too low when "miss" generally means "nothing interesting happens"). It does mean that winning initiative becomes much more significant, since a far higher percentage of hits land so you're far more likely to delete a bunch of enemies in the first turn, and also that spells like bless are a little less critical, but that at least opens up more things for clerics to do with Concentration. All in all it still probably favors PCs over enemies and maybe a bit too much, but we'll see how it feels as I get farther into the playthrough, I only just did the Nautiloid so far.
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Solo Wing Pixy posted:Also, Astarion volunteered* to be my brain-worm eater, since I feel like Zehra would refuse to use them even if she kinda-mostly trusts the Dream Guardian, and the other companions I've picked up so far don't seem the type...maybe Gale would, idk an- oh god I'm RPing in an RPG what the hell's happened to me To be fair, Astarion and Gale are legit the two party members you don't need to Convince to dive in for that. Everyone else you need to pass at least one persuasion check.
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https://x.com/sisterlelianas/status/1782432115390652663 I love that Larian retweets this stuff
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Docjowles posted:The duel was one of the few fights that gave me serious trouble on tactician as resist Durge. My poor low dex sorcerer kept losing initiative and getting killed in one round. Even buffing myself I must have had to reload 10 times before I got a chance to act. That was a rude awakening after a long period of rolling every fight I came across I had a Lore bard and had a summoned myrmidon or some crap that soaked up some of the damage. Was a big help.
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Clarste posted:I've done multiple playthroughs and never once bothered to hit him with the hammer. One strategy that's sort of funny is to have a bunch of people never get on the elevator and throw bottles and stuff at him from above. He's weak against bludgeoning so you're looking at like 30 damage per hit even from your weak-armed wizards. I tried that but couldn’t get him to move back into the lava, at some point he stopped moving while standing on one of the raised parts and I couldn’t get him overheated. I had my guys split between the two overhead spots but still couldn’t get him to budge and spent way too much time trying. That’s when I went back to the hammer.
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It's somewhat tedious to get him to actually stand under the mallet without Command or a movement-impairing spell like Ray of Frost. And if you already have a Cleric that can cast Command, then you can also just use Silence and completely negate his legendary action anyway, letting your melee wail on him.
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Docjowles posted:The duel was one of the few fights that gave me serious trouble on tactician as resist Durge. My poor low dex sorcerer kept losing initiative and getting killed in one round. Even buffing myself I must have had to reload 10 times before I got a chance to act. That was a rude awakening after a long period of rolling every fight I came across I was going to quote some Kung Fu movie about allowing yourself to be hit so you can strike a superior combatant in but maybe multi attack would mess this up. Death Ward. Leaves you with 1 hp so now you’ve got time to throw up a globe. You said you finished the duel in your post but that’s how I’d have approached it at least.
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GimpInBlack posted:After seeing this thread sing the praises of the Barbarian class dialogue options, I created a half-elf Conan and started a run and was immediately able to just rip the door off Shadowheart's pod on the Nautiloid, 10/10 problem solving, gonna take this one all the way to the Elder Brain. Barbarian starts to lose out vs Fighter in the later game. If I were you I would definitely take 3 levels of fighter after level 5 when you get your second attack. You get action surge with 2 levels, which lets you double your attacks once a short rest. And battle master maneuvers at 3 which let you add like trip and disarm to your attacks, and one that’s a riposte where you get a free retaliate if they miss. Then go back to Barb. Bum the Sad fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Apr 24, 2024 |
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I'm playing a neat Wildheart Barbarian build that uses Tiger and Wolverine hearts for an aoe attack that leaves everyone maimed. Combine that with reverb gear, and they're proned too which usually means they don't get back up on their turn (but sometimes they do and idk why). It's not as much damage as full battlemaster was, but I like the hard CC
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# ? May 18, 2024 18:44 |
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Again one of my biggest complaints about this game is the lack of arenas/dungeons at endgame to practice all these cool builds. I don't even care about loot, just give us the ability to test ourselves against groups of enemies.
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