ooh and I am once again thinking of a bg1-2 custom kit I want to make for Viconia. Thief/Cleric multiclass for Shar where you cast an AOE darkness spell that allows you to Hide better to get sneak attacks more often - like a limited Shadowdancer
I needed to respec a lot the first time I played WotR because there were just so many things I needed to learn. I remember feeling like I had to take weapon focus in the Shield Maze and not having any idea what unique weapons I'd come across and what my companions would be or what they'd use, and just being unable to make any decisions. But now that I have a good sense of the system and how to build in it, not being allowed to respec in Kingmaker this time though is really exciting???
I'm deep in the spreadsheets figuring out what my party is gonna look like through endgame, and any game where I have to open up excel is a win in my book. It's a little disappointing when I have an idea (Protective Luck!) and realize it's not possible in Kingmaker because there's no hexes, or I realize I was thinking about a mythic power.
But realistically, this is perfect. I'm getting the hang of thinking this way and mastering the systems, and then when I get to WotR and my options are like, doubled? It'll be so much more fun
they need to come up with more words like necrosis and miasma and mausoleum and cadaver and morose and decrepit and stuff like that just so metal bands can expand their vocabulary
I think I'm going to go for some combination of Inquisitor (Sacred Huntsman), Sword Saint, and Fighter for Geoffrey, but I'm not sure about the exact breakdown.
His (and Hedvend's) role is going to be dedicated DEX tank with some support - I figure if he spends a turn throwing out advantage to one of the actual damage dealers on the squad and the whole round dodging, it'll be a turn well spent. I haven't sorted out the rest of the party, but I expect to go two-handed with Regongar and get into ray sneak attacks with Octavia.
Sword Saint gives him a small boost to dodge AC based on his INT, but the main thing it'll give him is a wider Arcane spell list, specifically access to the Personal ones without needing to mess with items - Shield is a +4 shield bonus, he'd be able to cast Mirror Image.
And Fighter has diminishing returns, but 2 levels of Fighter gives him 2 feats right off the bat - which should balance out how feat starved he is.
the dance dance rebellion has failed to become a dance dance revolution and the dance dance repressive regime has kidnapped your fellow dance dance radicals in the middle of the night and taken them to a dance dance re-education camp. they're gonna get dance dance relentlessly tortured
"here's my original character, Man Who Sucks But Loves His Daughter Very Much" and it's a guy who worships at the altar of patriarchal violence and the woman he uses as an excuse and an effigy to absolve him
also if this ends up showing up twice or something it's because my tumblr asks have been wack the past few days just giving you a heads up
thank you so much! These were really fun and I think I'm gonna have to replay WoTR after Kingmaker - just thinking about building in it gets me so hype.
link here
2. What led to the Knight-Commander picking their archetype, or staying the standard class?
Helena was an Arcane Enforcer Slayer. Because she was primarily an undead hunter as a Slayer for the Pharasmin church, I like to think that she picked up some low-level wizard spells just to get the edge with the tougher undead. When she woke up Different in Kenabres, she tried to reach for those spells and instead channeled planar energy - through sorcery and charisma. So that Arcanist angle, with exploits and breaking the rules of magic, was totally intuitive at her New Self's level 1. I see the Arcanist exploits as the very first time that the wound/crystal pulled on Chaos, and the first time she really moved in the Trickster direction.
3. If they chose to multiclass, what does it reflect about them? If they did not, why? Story or player reasons.
omg i have an answer to this -
I think she just genuinely got interested in getting Strong from drinking poison because Wenduag was talking about it so much lol
6. What about their skills and feats - what story is told by their skill selection, or was it pure gameplay?
The Mythic Tricks (framed as Skills) really do tell a story, and that's peeking behind the curtain to understand reality. She was dual-handaxe melee DPS and Wenduag was dual-throwing axe DPS, and so they wound up having a lot of the same feats all the way through to maximize crits and APR. I liked to think they trained together.
As far as the skills themselves, she was a bit of a skill monkey in the game. The only skill she was really ass in was Lore: Nature, and I loved that specifically because she was a city girl through and through! In the Wenduag romance, there's a moment where you can try and use Nature to bind some of Wenduag's wounds, and it was literally impossible for her to get it. Even when I went back to the save with a bunch of spells and buffs and items just to see the text of it.
9. How does their Background choice reflect their character, and how does it play into their build?
She was a Street Urchin > Pickpocket! It played into her build because the sleight of hand was what she leaned on to start distorting reality as a Trickster. But also - oh my god, I loved the contrast between her and Seelah and between her and Woljif because of that shared background.
Helena had gone from pickpocket to assassin for hire. So the idea that Seelah believed so strongly that stealing a helmet caused a death almost just doesn't compute for her. Purely logistically, Helena would construct the circumstances to hunt her target - so she might steal someone's helmet, hell - she's probably paid a kid to steal a target's gear tbh- but there's still so much work to do before she can then be the mace on the skull.
But at the same time Helena puts a lot of weight on symbolism! Helena has to respect it as truth through the power of a story, just because of how much it's defined Seelah and constructed Seelah, even if she doesn't give the actual things in it any credence. She also just gets along with Seelah weirdly well.
And the way she got from point A as a pickpocket to point B as an assassin was a lot of loneliness? So Woljif really reminded her of her younger self - he was her son for sure.
11. How does their mythic path synergize with their build?
omg SO well. Trickster gives you a bathtub full of sneak attack D6s, which she could use on most of her attacks because she just kind of lived with Greater Invisibility on from the Stealth skill. Between the Trickster feats and one of the Tricks, her Crit Range was 1, 11-20. obscene dps, it was so good.
13. Which mythic abilities/spells would be iconic to them, and was it their preference or did they prefer something less iconic?
"You now know that whole world is just a game. But that is ultimately in your favor, because you are good at games, and at changing rules in your favor. You and members of your party can now ignore requirements of feats when leveling up." <- This skill was both the core of her cosmic horror loss of self and like the way she unraveled and it also resulted in builds that go crazy. Also this:
Genuine question: if they're remastering Fallout New Vegas genuinely how the hell are they going to release any kind of faithful remake of Honest Hearts in this day and age. like that was pretty repugnant even by mainstream 2011 cultural standards but now it's 2026 and counting. what is their move here. i feel like there's no possible way
snowghoul
blakekathryn
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stormborns
