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The fight outside the hobgoblin room turned out to be pretty easy because the goblins don't have much HP. It took a long time though because there were alot of them. I sent my PC (wearing a ring that gives bonus damage to thrown objects) and Gale up a ladder to stand on a ledge above it all, and Shadowheart and Hazel to the door closest to the drow area. The PC and Gale threw acid and grease down onto the goblins as they came through chokepoints while the other two dealt with anyone coming around the corner or across the wooden bridge. Two goblins appeared to glitch out and get stuck in the room beyond, and the drow stayed put in her alcove so I went and took out the gobbos before finally approaching the drow. I was concerned about crossing the little bridge in her room because it would've been easy to knock my party members into the chasm but the drow wasted a turn getting counter-spelled by my PC and then the next two getting zapped to death. The goblin leaders were all dead. I looted the drow and saw that she had a set of clothing and little tags about what she had equipped, like a party member. Maybe she's recruitable if you make bad life choices? No matter. The Absolute's lackies seem to be lovely people who I would not want in my party anyway. I was surprised to find that I could fast travel away from there, no need to fight all the goblins in the courtyard. Hope I'm not missing out on anything good because I'm ready to get back to the main quest.
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May 17, 2024 12:04
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Major Isoor posted:Sorry to quote this from a couple of pages back, but does anyone know what the armour and shield are called? I'm pretty sure I've found them already, but I have a giant pile of garbage scattered between my party members and camp, so I'm not sure where it is, or if I somehow stupidly sold them. While I retired the armor a while ago, I'm still using those gloves on Shadowheart in late Act 3. You can get a lot of Radiating Orb stacks onto enemies very quickly, and basically neuter them. Add in another fast-stacking debuff, like Reverberation, and you can seriously cripple most big scary bosses within a couple of turns. Speaking of big scary bosses... Episodeon CXXVII: What The Heck?    not really, but when has something being an obviously horrible idea ever stopped us? see: me licking the fuckspider (twice), me sticking my hand in the talking wall flesh hole, and maybe I just have poor impulse control. as soon as we walked up to the front door of the House of Hope, we were "greeted" by the projection of Hope, a dwarven prisoner of Raphael's with, uh, emotional regulation issues. for very understandable reasons, as we found out. some of the notes you find about her in the House are pretty nightmarish to say the least. also she glamoured us so we'd blend in with the debtors and slaves, but...    SHE CHANGED MY ODD EYE, THIS IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE I LIKE BEING A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE ANIME DEMON PALADIN GIRL oh, nevermind, they went back to normal after the cutscene ended. anyways, the feast from when we first ran into Raphael looks a bit worse for the wear. Must have been a killer party. the skeleton pictured up there was actually the architect of Moonrise Towers, and the one who gave his soul to Raphael in exchange for Ketheric and his cult being struck down. I'm glad we could finally give him some peace and satisfaction in the knowledge that Ketheric and Shar did, in fact, lose in the end.     so it turns out this abrasive little guy is the whole reason for everything that's happened to us and to the world, because he was kind of bad at running a jail and let Gortash escape. good job. jerk. there's also the archivist, who buys our claim of actually being a super-demon in disguise and gives us a pass to the...bourdoir? and Korrilla, because of course.    i will say, he might be an utter bastard, but Raphael has a pretty nice place, and the views are to die for!    we went along to the bourdoir, and ran into Raphael's pet incubus Haarlep, and...what? gently caress no. apparently if you do sleep with him, he tells you about Raphael's...lack of prowess in bed, and you can throw it in Raphael's face, which was a bit tempting, but no ew ew no. Raphael didn't have any throne that I could find, so we took a nap in his bed instead, a'la Orin. no, i don't want to think about what...things might be in the sheets. also, speaking to Haarlep's body told us what we all knew. also, Raphael apparently only has sex with demons glamoured to look like him. that's some serious ego...    Haarlep's demise let us break into Raphael's super-secret safe, which contained, among other things, the password to release the Orphic Hammer! unsurprisingly, taking it made everyone in the House of Hope very, very unhappy with us, not to mention that it probably alerted Raphael himself to what we were up to. a jaunt to the other end of the House let us free Hope from her somewhat familiar looking crystal prison, and after a stop at the magical super-healing fountains in the bourdoir, we were ready to ma- oh. uh...hi?     so, the actual fight. apparently Yurgir didn't have too many hard feelings about the thing where Astarion shot him in the rear end then I Cloudkilled him, I only had to reroll once to get him to flip sides.  honestly, while Raphael did get a few good whacks in on Shadowheart and Minthara, I was expecting something a bit nastier. an Artistry of War courtesy of Gale, plus a few blows with the Orphic Hammer, were enough to take out the towers buffing Raphael, and Planar Binding flipped one of his cambions to our side. we stayed as spread out as possible, so Ravaging Inferno only hit Shadowheart, and Hope actually turned out to be a decent healer! within a few turns Raphael was a crippled mess. look at that wall of debuffs! Minthara got in the last blow with, what else, Divine Smite.    with Raphael's death came Hope's freedom from an eternity of rape and torment. Korrilla died during the fight, courtesy of a Planar Bound cambion, and I think the game wants me to feel bad about it? I can't really see why though, considering she was apparently a very willing part of, well, every awful thing Raphael did to both Hope and to the world. she also gave us some gloves that are going to make Lae'zel into even more of a blender.  oh, and also Yurgir, the guy Astarion shot in the rear end is now our BFF.     remember what I said about the views being to die for? i know he was already dead, but now he's dead and gone.  and from what we saw in the crystal ball back in Fae'run, Raphael's future is going to be considerably worse than getting hit in the face by an angry Drow... Oh, also I did the fireworks/child-exploding sidequest, but it sucked so I didn't take any pictures. It was weirdly buggy too, and probably more effort than some barrels of death were worth. Oh well.
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May 17, 2024 12:28
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I've also got that holy mace/hammer from the mountain church - so maybe she'll get that, too. Since yeah, I've definitely been thinking about changing her due to her underperforming as-is, into a (hopefully better) light cleric for... well, the usual reasons
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Dick Trauma posted:I looted the drow and saw that she had a set of clothing and little tags about what she had equipped, like a party member. Maybe she's recruitable if you make bad life choices? No matter. The Absolute's lackies seem to be lovely people who I would not want in my party anyway. You can recruit her later on if you side with the goblins or if you knock her out with non-lethal damage. She's not exactly a good person, but she does show at least a bit more depth once she's no longer got a worm making all the decisions for her. You can also get that baby owlbear back now, if you haven't already.
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May 17, 2024 12:30
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Leal posted:So these legendary books that are worth 2k in act 3... should I be keeping them for anything or should I get these merchants to give me all their cash? Once you have the scroll or terrible necromantic power or whatever they convey, feel free to sell ‘em off.
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May 17, 2024 15:03
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Thuryl posted:You can recruit her later on if you side with the goblins or if you knock her out with non-lethal damage. She's not exactly a good person, but she does show at least a bit more depth once she's no longer got a worm making all the decisions for her. Yeah I accidentally knocked her out with a flourish and found her many hours later at Moonrise. I decided to save and recruit her for a laugh, and she actually wasn't too bad after that. Very much a "only the strong deserve to live!" kind of person, but there's definitely a lot more to her, once she's in control of herself. Kinda glad I didn't kill her, even if I haven't brought her along for many fights
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May 17, 2024 15:08
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Major Isoor posted:Yeah I accidentally knocked her out with a flourish and found her many hours later at Moonrise. I decided to save and recruit her for a laugh, and she actually wasn't too bad after that. oh that rules! having it pan out that way for you and then making that call mustve been very satisfying.
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May 17, 2024 15:22
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In fact, she actually calls you out for helping slaughter the Tieflings and Druids - she was under the Absolute's control when she did that; you have no such excuse. As for me, I had a bit of fun with my own trip to that delightful home. I haven't done much in the way of Barrelmancy before, and I hadn't bothered to collect as many barrels along the way as I could have... but I did have 16 Smokepowder barrels, all three Runepowder Barrels, and the Runepowder Bomb, and I decided to blow my load in the House of Hope.  
BlazetheInferno fucked around with this message at 15:31 on May 17, 2024 |
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May 17, 2024 15:28
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Minthara rules, and she the best lines at the circus in act 3. She also has some great banter with gale. I wish they had given her some type of small side quest.
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May 17, 2024 15:32
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wizard2 posted:oh that rules! having it pan out that way for you and then making that call mustve been very satisfying. Yeah, it was pretty cool! Didn't feel 'forced' or anything either, which is good (and unusual, since that tends to be the way, when a differently-aligned character gets thrust into the party) After Shadowheart's stuff gets sorted, I'm very tempted to swap the two, on a more permanent basis. Minthara's experiences with Orin seemed pretty well-written, and now I'm wondering how keen she'll be to complete the set by ripping Gortash a new one too, like we did with Kethric. Gotta go on a big tour IMO, Minthara and I killing all the Absolute's chosen. Then parting ways promptly after, otherwise one of us would inevitably try strangling the other 
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May 17, 2024 15:37
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She is more nuanced than you might expect at first. My resist durge bonded with her over what a complete piece of poo poo Orin is. And she feels tormented and disgusted by all the awful things she did while mind controlled by the Absolute. That said, she will also not stop trying to convince me to take control of the brain ourselves and rule the world. Like her main beef with the overarching evil plot seems to be that she didn't think of it first. Showing compassion to others always garners disapproval. I wouldn't call her a good person but she isn't simply one dimensional evil either. Caveat that I haven't spent a TON of time with her, I dunno where here character can go if you romance.
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May 17, 2024 15:57
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Hello, I'm playing this game for the first time after upgrading my laptop enough to run it, I'm having a blast. Far into act 3 at the moment, just finishing up the various companion sidequests before doing the finale. It's really amazing - D:OS2 is one of my favourite games, and it's really great to be able to play an entire new game that's (in gameplay and in writing) following that approach. I'm really happy it's been so successful, because it means Larian can make more projects. Although a little sad that with all the conflicts with the DnD license owners that Larian's not going to make any DLC, because I can certainly imagine doing adventure #2 with all of these dysfunctional weirdos and going from level 12 on to level 20. I had a question about the romances. I got to the camp party in Act 1 and talked to Gale, but didn't actually start the romance with him, and it kind of locked me out of dating anyone else. I'm not sure if it was a bug or if that's how it's intended to work? I got the scene in act 1 after the party with the magic lesson, and the scene in act 2 watching magic fireworks, and just picked the platonic options on both of those because I'd never actually made a move on him, and then I just didn't get a chance to date anyone else. I'm not sure if the camp party is when you're meant to pick a romance (apart from the party members you pick up in act 2) and afterwards there aren't many chances to change it, or something else. But if so it feels a bit unnecessarily rushed - I'd had some of the cast (e.g. Karlach) in my party for like one hour before the scene happened. It feels more like it should have taken place later in Act 1 or in Act 2, but maybe it worked better pacing-wise to have it there when the game was in Early Access and players had months just with Act 1.
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May 17, 2024 15:59
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Docjowles posted:She is more nuanced than you might expect at first. My resist durge bonded with her over what a complete piece of poo poo Orin is. And she feels tormented and disgusted by all the awful things she did while mind controlled by the Absolute. That said, she will also not stop trying to convince me to take control of the brain ourselves and rule the world. Like her main beef with the overarching evil plot seems to be that she didn't think of it first. Showing compassion to others always garners disapproval. I wouldn't call her a good person but she isn't simply one dimensional evil either. Minthara has some of the most crushing lines in the game if you romance her as a Karlach Origin, it's pretty wild given how unlikely that path is.
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May 17, 2024 15:59
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Do you have to get to a specific place- i'm thinking specifically, the Goblin Camp- before you start getting Dream Visitor, uh, dream visits? I'm on my second playthrough and i've kind of been all over act 1, except the camp, and while i've I've had the Astarion bite event and the initial Gale romance one (you moved fast Gale), but no dream visits as yet
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May 17, 2024 16:21
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An Taoiseach posted:Do you have to get to a specific place- i'm thinking specifically, the Goblin Camp- before you start getting Dream Visitor, uh, dream visits? I'm on my second playthrough and i've kind of been all over act 1, except the camp, and while i've I've had the Astarion bite event and the initial Gale romance one (you moved fast Gale), but no dream visits as yet Yes. Crossing the bridge in to the camp triggers the first visit.
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May 17, 2024 16:22
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In short, Minthara is in favor of pragmatic evil. Stabbing random people for the Evulz doesn't impress her, but power grabs, attacking someone before they can make their move against us, and similar stuff, she's all for it.
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May 17, 2024 16:54
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exquisite tea posted:Minthara has some of the most crushing lines in the game if you romance her as a Karlach Origin, it's pretty wild given how unlikely that path is. haha drat
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May 17, 2024 17:05
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Minthara is a drow aristocrat, her whole life has been shaped by constant power struggle in a brutal but clear hierarchy. More than anything else, she despises inauthenticity. Mercy to her is inauthentic.
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May 17, 2024 17:07
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My Embrace Durge defused the Druid Grove scenario by going the Shadow Druids route and kicking goblin rear end while leaving Minthara knocked out, I very specifically did not see her spicy cutscene. I recruit her in Act 2, make an extreme b-line for the Orin quest in Act 3 and she was allllll about me. This caused my partner, Halsin, to break up with me but NOT leave, and Minthara initiated a late game romance with me, which is not something I read anywhere as possible.
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May 17, 2024 17:14
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exquisite tea posted:Minthara has some of the most crushing lines in the game if you romance her as a Karlach Origin, it's pretty wild given how unlikely that path is. Got a video link handy? Google is failing me
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May 17, 2024 17:47
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWI6O-EDhfM
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May 17, 2024 17:56
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 thanks. I had found a clip of the other one, where they chose the Duke Nukem cigars in hell path, and that didn't seem so bad
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May 17, 2024 18:33
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Minthara are you still there?
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May 17, 2024 19:00
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Docjowles posted:
Larian will not make Baldur's Gate 4, so who knows what will become of the characters when Hasbro goes back to the well, but Karlach will live on in the Boomer Shooter in your mind where you're a Throwzerker putting an end to all this Blood War poo poo. I've got a heart of steeeeel. 
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May 17, 2024 19:02
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wizard2 posted:Larian will not make Baldur's Gate 4 yes they will stop lying
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May 17, 2024 20:00
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bird with big dick posted:yes they will stop lying I mean, you might just be saying that, but they've said they're done with Baldur's Gate and are moving on to other IPs.
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May 17, 2024 20:04
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Medullah posted:I mean, you might just be saying that, but they've said they're done with Baldur's Gate and are moving on to other IPs. and what about when those other ips fail and they realize how much money it costs to run five studios around the world???? 
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May 17, 2024 20:17
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I have complete faith and trust in the bird with a big dick
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May 17, 2024 20:21
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Medullah posted:I mean, you might just be saying that, but they've said they're done with Baldur's Gate and are moving on to other IPs. They're gonna make DOS3 and I can finally see my wife Lohse again.
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May 17, 2024 20:23
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I bet they make a brand new IP.
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May 17, 2024 21:01
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bird with big dick posted:yes they will stop lying I refuse to cease my lies. now what?
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May 17, 2024 21:13
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exquisite tea posted:Minthara has some of the most crushing lines in the game if you romance her as a Karlach Origin, it's pretty wild given how unlikely that path is.
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May 17, 2024 21:17
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Red Bones posted:They're gonna make DOS3 and I can finally see my wife Lohse again. it's so funny her VA changed sides, would be funny to have her trashtalking Adramahlihk
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May 17, 2024 21:38
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Docjowles posted:I have complete faith and trust in the bird with a big dick I want to believe bird with a big dick and that's all it takes in the year of our lord 2024.
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May 17, 2024 21:52
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rojay posted:I want to believe bird with a big dick and that's all it takes in the year of our lord 2024. Same, yet my lies continue...
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May 17, 2024 22:06
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wizard2 posted:Same, yet my lies continue... Your fake news continues, friend, for surely Swen will not forsake us in this, our hour of need? Surely his statements were merely intended to calm the emotions of those who seek downloadable content! Surely some revelation is at hand! Surely the DLC is coming! Hardly do I type those words when an image of Baldur's Gate 4 troubles my vision. Somewhere in a small nation where labor is cheap and taxes non-existent, a large group toils to design a game with the body of Baldur's Gate 3 and the soul of Elden Ring or Zelda or some other game that sold a lot. Development slouches forward on slow thighs fueled by snack products while all about it reel forum posters and fringe you-tubestronauts asking if barrelmancy is in the game and "can I gently caress a wombat"? The darkness drops again and with it my vision; but now I know that twenty years of sleeping on an IP led to this rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouching towards beta. with apologies to Yeats.
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May 18, 2024 00:25
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Red Bones posted:Hello, I'm playing this game for the first time after upgrading my laptop enough to run it, I'm having a blast. Far into act 3 at the moment, just finishing up the various companion sidequests before doing the finale. It's really amazing - D:OS2 is one of my favourite games, and it's really great to be able to play an entire new game that's (in gameplay and in writing) following that approach. I'm really happy it's been so successful, because it means Larian can make more projects. Although a little sad that with all the conflicts with the DnD license owners that Larian's not going to make any DLC, because I can certainly imagine doing adventure #2 with all of these dysfunctional weirdos and going from level 12 on to level 20. iirc it can lock you out after you get to moonrise, sort of. i know there’s a point of no return with early characters. speaking of minthara i am not sure how how early a romance can be sparked with her if you’re not on an evil run but she hit on me quite insistently at the beginning of act 3 to the point of asking me to break up with gale despite a “good” alignment
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May 18, 2024 04:46
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Also, from last time, why didn't anyone Raphael has a Disney villain song?  I'd have gone there first thing if I'd known!longer update: Episodeon CXXX:     a lynch mob wants to kill Volo? not on my watch, only I'm allowed to hurt him! after his rescue, he helpfully told me to kill someone I killed a few days ago, which is probably the most helpful he's ever been. also, i got a bit of a chuckle out of this one enemy's name for some reason.    a little ways past where Volo almost got himself set on fire, we found a temple full of, uh, goldfish ladies, I guess? they were having a funeral for one of theirs that was run down by a submarine, and demanded retribution, which I quickly volunteered to dispense as needed. then we decided to sneak into Gortash's source of power, the Steel Watcher Factory, in the silliest way possible: by turning into clouds and floating through the air vents.    the first people we found inside were a handful of terrified Gondians with bomb collars, and an exceptionally cruel supervisor. I might have lost my head a bit threatening her, but smashing her head in with the Blackguard Sword was the best kind of self-care. a television in the supervisor's office told us why the Gondians were so subservient: most of their families were being held hostage by Gortash, in the undersea ruins of the Iron Throne. we decided that it would be best to rescue them before doing anything else at the factory, lest Gortash take their lives as petty vengeance. oh, also I found the parts to make a handheld version of the crossbow the Watchers use!    so, one problem. the Iron Throne is kind of under water, and way too deep to just swim or dive to. fortunately, investigating the, uh, fish ladies' request had already given us a lead on where we might find a submarine! its captain explained that the whole dead fish lady thing was essentially a traffic accident, and a bit of reading gave me the sense that Gortash didn't give him much choice in the "moving hostages" thing. he was also surprisingly willing to give us a ride to the Throne in exchange for, well, not killing him on behalf of the "bitch queen" so I decided to spare him.    unsurprisingly, Gort was not happy about us going to his super-secret prison, and sent me a Facetime demanding that I turn the ship around. a quick "gently caress you, Gortash." made him mad enough that he set the whole drat place to self-destruct...well, time to play the hero once more. while running madly around releasing the Gondian prisoners, Gale and Wyll ran into...wait, Duke Ravengard? how is he...oh god not you AGAIN for gods' sake. she was here to make absolutely sure Wyll's sacrificed father was, in fact, sacrificed, and stunned him while summoning a pack of exploding spiders to murder him between that, the many panicking Gondians, the crippled Duke, and our party being scattered across a base that was rapidly exploding, things looked dark...    and yet, we lived. Us, Ravengard, all the Gondians...we all made it out, the last hostage climbing into the sub with a couple of seconds to spare. Ravengard was considerably less grateful than you might expect, but we'll get to his story in a minute.    as for our captain, well, the Umberlee cultists were not too happy with him, even after we explained that it was an unfortunate accident, and were dead-set on executing him. while he probably deserved some kind of punishment, murdering him was not something I was going to accept, so we had to strike them down. Ravengard was an utter prick to all of us, and I was seriously considering giving him a shove back into the harbor. lucky for him, his parasite connected with Wyll's. after seeing all that Wyll had given up to save both him and the city, the Duke finally, finally understood what his son stood for. there's going to be a lot of catching up (and a lot of therapy) for those two, but at least they're finally moving in the right direction.    reentering the Steel Watcher Factory, we ran into CNN legal analyst and Zoom flasher Jeffrey Toobin fighting off some Baneites. we quickly dispatched them and told him his family was safe, and he asked us to take him to the heart of the facility [spoiler]so he could destroy it and cripple the Steel Watch. on our way down, we fought off a few more cultists, then found something completely horrifying... the Watchers aren't artificially intelligent. they're being piloted by parasite-infected brains extracted from people...gods. if I had any regrets about double-crossing Gortash before, I sure as hell didn't after that.     between us and the core of the facility was the mightiest of the Watchers, the Titan, Gortash's magnum opus and a terrifying opponent. or at least it would have been if I hadn't picked up a few flashblinder grenades. turns out Gortash didn't bother fixing that design flaw, and one blast crippled the Titan and two of its three helpers. after that, it was just a matter of letting Karlach have some fun with Balduran's Sword. with the security taken out, Toobin came in and overloaded the mass of brains controlling the factory and the Watch, blowing the factory apart and causing every Watcher to drop dead.    and somehow, in spite of being short and blind, he escaped the blast! only for something worse than a Watcher to show up. Wulbren Bongle. he was absolutely insistent on killing the Gondians, even knowing that they'd been enslaved. I tried to show him mercy in the form of scaring him into fleeing, but he made it clear that he'd just come back and kill them when I wasn't around. so, well, there's no Wulbren Bongle any more. I can't say I feel too bad, honestly. Solo Wing Pixy fucked around with this message at 10:11 on May 18, 2024 |
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May 18, 2024 07:21
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Just finished the Orin fight. Man, using equipment that gives arcane acuity, getting it up to 10 stacks and then casting a hold person/monster spell really does just break the game doesn't it? E: Especially with a paladin to use smites on the guaranteed crits
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May 18, 2024 11:13
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She Cannot Be Caged! is the best achievement, get it on your next playthrough if you don't already have it.
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May 18, 2024 13:55
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Leal posted:Just finished the Orin fight. Man, using equipment that gives arcane acuity, getting it up to 10 stacks and then casting a hold person/monster spell really does just break the game doesn't it? considering i am super bad at every fight i went into orin’s house (it’s her house right? her bed is in there?) and just smacked her in the head a bunch of times and that was it. the worst problem i had is her friend kept turning invisible and punching my dog
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May 18, 2024 14:48
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