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BG3: gaming hypocrisy(?)
I decided to give you all Larissa a break from the Gale romance for a bit, but I'm also basically waiting for my Tumblr poll results to come in and determine Ilzara's final class. But I also needed to blow a few hours at my university while I wait for a friend to pick me up and was like ... oh yeah, I had a Shadowheart game!
This isn't a game romancing her, but playing as her—although I like several of the origin characters, she's the only one I ever considered actually playing, until I got carried away by custom character altitis. I'd even decided she'd romance Karlach. But I saved on the nautiloid and that was it, basically.
The nautiloid isn't hard, you say? Wellllllll. I assure you, it can be if you're ambitious enough!
You know how I had Larissa give Gale a super cool magic staff as acourtship present? I kind of loved the idea of Shadowheart eventually warming(lol) up to Karlach enough to present her with the kickass Everburning Sword that you get from defeating the devil final boss of the nautiloid escape, Commander Zhalk. She won't meet Karlach for awhile, which makes it better :)
Problems:
No, instead I save-scummed my heart out. I think there were maybe two or three attacks in the whole battle that I let pass without saving or reloading. Even when Shadowheart did high damage with Guiding Bolt, I reloaded; only crits would do with this party. Then we ended up doing so well that the mind flayer, usually a pretty easy casualty of the devil, had like... 40 hp left when we killed the devil. He turned on us and killed Lae'zel in a single attack. Shadowheart had no spell slots and could only spam Fire Bolt. I kept reloading to ensure she at least hit him. Us, interestingly, will attack the mind flayer once he betrays the party, but dies pretty fast if you're not careful, and I wanted them(Us) to survive. This all took... over an hour to execute, I think? I resurrected Lae'zel to loot Commander Zhalk's and the mind flayer's bodies and send the loot to Shadowheart, with the (very necessary) bonus of giving the cambion devil lieutenants that join the fight halfway through someone other than Shadowheart or Us to attack. They killed Lae'zel again while Shadowheart seized the chance to make her escape (after dodging various imps and boars).
It felt a bit scummy on multiple levels, but I decided early Shadowheart probably would do exactly that, and ....... Karlach really needs that sword, okay.
This isn't a game romancing her, but playing as her—although I like several of the origin characters, she's the only one I ever considered actually playing, until I got carried away by custom character altitis. I'd even decided she'd romance Karlach. But I saved on the nautiloid and that was it, basically.
The nautiloid isn't hard, you say? Wellllllll. I assure you, it can be if you're ambitious enough!
You know how I had Larissa give Gale a super cool magic staff as a
Problems:
- Commander Zhalk is level 8 with over 100 hit points. The PC is level 1. Shadowheart has 10 hp.
- Zhalk is fighting a level 8 mind flayer who uses the same attack over and over and mostly fails to hit him. If Zhalk survives, he tries to kill your party the instant the mind flayer (who has about half his hit points) is dead. If Zhalk dies, the mind flayer kills anyone nearby, including allies.
- There are various smaller foes you also have to wade through to even get to the level 8 characters.
- Normally, there's a max of three characters you can recruit for this fight, who will actually keep fighting for you: Lae'zel just shows up, Shadowheart can be rescued, and you can sort of befriend an intellect devourer (...) called Us. But if you're playing as Shadowheart, there is no substitute for the Shadowheart rescue in other games; you just only have two people to recruit. In fairness, the best way to win this fight is to use Shadowheart's two spell slots to cast the fantastic cleric spell Guiding Bolt and hope it actually hits—there's only about a 40% of hitting each time, but it does a lot of damage if it does, and 30+ damage a hit if it crits, and gives the next attacker advantage.
- Lae'zel is most effective as a melee fighter. She has 12 hp. Us has a bit more (I think 23 or so), but is easily killed by Zhalk/the mind flayer if they focus on him.
No, instead I save-scummed my heart out. I think there were maybe two or three attacks in the whole battle that I let pass without saving or reloading. Even when Shadowheart did high damage with Guiding Bolt, I reloaded; only crits would do with this party. Then we ended up doing so well that the mind flayer, usually a pretty easy casualty of the devil, had like... 40 hp left when we killed the devil. He turned on us and killed Lae'zel in a single attack. Shadowheart had no spell slots and could only spam Fire Bolt. I kept reloading to ensure she at least hit him. Us, interestingly, will attack the mind flayer once he betrays the party, but dies pretty fast if you're not careful, and I wanted them(Us) to survive. This all took... over an hour to execute, I think? I resurrected Lae'zel to loot Commander Zhalk's and the mind flayer's bodies and send the loot to Shadowheart, with the (very necessary) bonus of giving the cambion devil lieutenants that join the fight halfway through someone other than Shadowheart or Us to attack. They killed Lae'zel again while Shadowheart seized the chance to make her escape (after dodging various imps and boars).
It felt a bit scummy on multiple levels, but I decided early Shadowheart probably would do exactly that, and ....... Karlach really needs that sword, okay.
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