there are places in the world today that are experiencing 40°C for the first time in recorded history. of course there's no way to know whether chucking billionaires into volcanos will appease the sun god but i feel we're doing the scientific method a disservice if we don't at least try
Fucking wizards, man ... (Karlach quote!)
I like playing (part) sorcerer not least because of all the roasting of wizards in the dialogue <3
Back with another wild magic run - I got to Act 3 on a kensei monk run, but in that one I mostly just wanted to challenge myself to play as a two-person party and very high difficulty, and focus a bit less on the story. (Astarion's origin run was so intense emotionally lmao that maybe I needed a bit of a breather.) So I haven't really felt like posting about it.
But all the while I was itching to do wild magic again! Then a mod with cool thrower weapons came out, that you can find throughout the game, and they would be so much fun for Sarymsak and Karlach to use ... I could no longer resist to start a new playthrough!
Highlights so far under the cut:
I've missed all the banter between the companions so much, after my 3-person party Astarion Origin run (with Sarymsak as a custom companion, so not a lot of banter between her and Karlach), and my 2-person party Kensei monk run (Sarymsak + Astarion, of course <3).
So I'm doing this one with no party limit!
The no party limit mod can cause some mild bugs, such as Lae'zel just being right there practicing with her Everburn Blade while Astarion nibbles me, like she dgaf xD
And guess what, Gale? You're going to stay alive, on permanent camp duty! <3
I wanted to bring Gale out, too, but since I've cranked up the difficulty, his special death conditions are a bit of a liability with the reckless way I like to play ..... Sorry Gale, I'll bring you out more in Act 3, promise. ^^;
I'm using Tactician Enhanced and a few other mods to compensate for the bigger party, by making the enemies stronger, and making new, unexpected and stronger, groups of enemies spawn. And of course my wild magic effects can make things quite challenging, too.
The Strong Girls' Club is back 😎 (the boys are too weak to jump up here, and the ladder got destroyed in an explosion)
Omg, I got the Curse of Vampirism (from the Wild Magic d100 Table) very early in this game!!
And that's a curse I really, really want to keep lmao. Apart from the risk of accidentally picking Charm Person in persuasion checks and aggroing people when it wears off, this "curse" has only positive effects. (Possibly you will suffer a vampire's weaknesses once you lose the tadpole's protection, but maybe you will happen to get a vampire boyfriend, who has those same weaknesses, too. ^^)
I'm also playing with Dynamic Enemy Encounters, which includes cursed artifacts that give you small ability boosts (+2 with active curse, +1 after curse is removed), but also make a certain type of enemies spawn randomly until you remove the curse. So this changes everything lol
Since I want to keep the vampire curse, I can no longer remove curses from myself - which means I'm now collecting all the curses <3
This now being an extremely cursed run, I figured I could respec to a special sorcerer subclass, while keeping it wild magic with the very helpful mod Wild Magic Panties!
So I'm now a Tainted Soul sorcerer -
"A dark influence has awakened your innate power and still leads your magic in a direction that some consider to be unnatural."
The subclass fits very nicely for being maximum cursed, and my magic being wild and hard to control. It's not overly complicated, which I truly appreciate, and it grants some very cool and well fitting special abilities.
Astarion thinks chaos is sweet ... does that mean my chances are higher, as chaos is my very nature? :3
But then there's also my fellow goth girlie Shadowheart. <3 She had like 5 HP at the end of the day, but thought it was the perfect time for a date with me. <3 I agree <3
(I've started giving her brown contacts, and it suits her so well and looks so cute that it jumpscares me now when I see pictures of her with her normal green eye colour ...)
The Many More Monsters mod (my very favourite "additional encounters" type mod so far) adds Buthir's jealous ex to the barn, and that's a bit distressing to me. I like to go there with just me and Astarion, and prank the lovers Buthir and Grukkoh by opening the doors and then running away without harming them.
But if you do that with Many More Monsters, the ex will spawn and fight them, and likely kill Grukkoh, since as a bugbear, he is weaker than ogres like Buthir and her ex. :/
And if you stay, Buthir and Grukkoh will fight both you and the ex.
This time I noticed a "Suspicious barrel" inside the barn, and thought maybe that was where the ex was hiding lmao - just like the kobolds in the Rosymorn Monastery, right?!? So I picked it up ...
But the ex still spawned, out of nowhere :(
Astarion and I helped kill him with ranged attacks from a safe distance, and then we ran away ... Back at camp I looked at the "suspicious barrel", and ... well.
One death related fear is to die in an inopportune position, like this zombie. Possibly you won't care at that point, since you're dead. But still.
As a cheese wheel you get the special attacks Claws (how???), and cheesy smell!
Somehow every single one of us, with full inspiration, failed the religion check for Phalar Aluve ......
But luckily I already know what it needs. So Astarion bit me sloppily, and my blood splattered on the sword, releasing it from the stone <3
(Probably I could succeed the strength check more easily, but I want to be respectful to this very special sword. Wyll gets to wield it on this run - I respecced him as a hexblade warlock, which tbh should really be the base class of the Blade of Frontiers. <3)
One of the special skills of the Tainted Soul sorcerer is being able to pass on the curse from Auntie Ethel's eye to someone else. So I finally let her try to remove the tadpole, for the first time in 15+ playthroughs. And it's quite an experience!
As she's trying to dig out the tadpole, it bites back! Burrowing even deeper into my brain ...
She said she'd kill me for this, but instead she gave me a charm that will grant many special abilities until long rest. I'll take it 🤷
I passed on the eye curse to a random goblin.
(Although later I realised I should have saved it for Raphael!! Just because it would have been so funny to give him the hag eye xD Oh well, next time ... ^^)
While you then lose the disadvantage on Perception checks and disadvantage when attacking Hags, sadly getting rid of the curse makes you lose the +1 Intimidation and the cool visual of Ethel's spare eye, too. (I mean it's fair lol, but still, Ethel's eye has some advantages. For one, it's not ugly like Volo's eye!)
I only have 8 Int (and sometimes 6, when I get the Headache curse that gives you -2 Int for the rest of the day lmao T^T), but I wish I could convey to you just how beautiful you are <3
(It's so funny that in my first ever playthrough, where my half-orc character kicked him out when he tried to bite her, I thought he was unattractive and annoying ... Well, that was of course before I knew him 🥺 He is still annoying, but in an endearing and funny way <3)
One of the best wild magic effects ever <3 I hope I get it again!
(From the amazing Homebrew Wild Magic)
Not to be a foot fetishist, but tieflings have such cute feet?!?!
This duergar from Many More Monsters ...
As a "sorcerer monk" I like to wear a bit fancier and not quite as practical clothes, so I made this brand new outfit <3
(It'll be a little while before I release it - first I'll test it thoroughly in the game.)
I added some stats for both martial arts lethality and more success chances for spells, including advantage on Charisma checks. There are two outfits in the game that have the Strength and Dexterity advantages from Enhance Ability, but not the other ones.
As always I'm a sorcerer with low charisma (9-12 so far). But the advantage can give me a bit more of an edge in my spell rolls, while I don't have to be a charismatic person.
Because I don't want to be manipulative and easily succeed persuasion checks :< For someone like Wyll it fits to have high charisma, because he is a good-hearted and likeable person, or Minthara because she has leadership skills and a forceful presence. While I'm a fucking weirdo lmao (and I like it that way :3)
I got the Sussur Flower Dialogue Bug Fixes at some point long ago, and forgot about it.
Tbh I kind of liked the bugged dialogue where Astarion says, regardless of your approval level, "I don't travel with you for your personality, you know", and you can shoot back "Just my good looks, then" ^^
It's just banter <3
While this is a bit meh. And your 2nd reply option here (where you can also get a different reply from him with high enough approval) is not one I'd ever choose, anyway.
Guess I'll be uninstalling the mod for the next sorcerer run :3
Exactly 😎🌠
That's a bit rude lol, especially now when we're already level 6 and Astarion could easily take her on all by himself ^^
(If you meet Gandrel after discovering Ethel is a Hag - for example through her eye operation - but before killing her, you can ask if it's her he is hunting.)
Somehow I kept succeeding stealth checks when I, as usual, immediately started shooting arrows at Nere after blowing up the cave-in, to prevent the cutscene with Meerna from playing. I shot like five arrows at him with my Bow of the Banshee before finally failing a stealth check.
Nere was just standing there, scared and not knowing what was happening ... While Beldron was also just standing there lmao
Another special skill of the Tainted Soul sorcerer is being able to speak to any dead, without having to disguise yourself if you were the one who killed them. And Speak with Dead can be toggled to be always active, so you see the glow of everyone who has something to say.
Ethel is kind of hilarious ^^
This time I did the Raphael Armour Exploit by harming him a little bit when he first shows up, so he just leaves immediately, and then beating the shit out of him the 2nd time he shows up in your camp. It takes a lot less time than the Gale death aura method.
But I had to reload a few times because the owlbear cub will aggro if he happens to run into the Silence bubble!!! Here I finally managed to position the bubble so the owlbear cub didn't run into it ...
I guess ideally you should do this before he joins your camp :-s
Now Wyll has the armour, along with the Adamantine Shield, and I can't wait to get the Daredevil Gloves for him, so he'll be a melee menace <3
One of the best encounters from Many More Monsters is with the Absolutist Chaos Mages ... one of them turned himself into a potted plant :3
And we all got Death Ward from another wild magic effect of the Chaos Mages, which was quite helpful <3
I like this scenic spot in the Grymforge camp :3
The whole place is such a cool location.
I keep having to up the difficulty, since the many added encounters grant XP, and thus we're levelling up quicker than usually. I do want to see what happens when you level up past lv 12, while also not having the game get too easy, but instead more Epic. :3
And Tactician Enhanced can help with that!
Every interaction with it counts as a spell, and only the player character can do it. So changing or just viewing the settings triggers a wild magic effect every time lol
You want to increase the difficulty? Summon a hostile spectator right away!
Recap of my curses so far:
1. Vampirism
2. Truth (disadvantage on deception checks - I got it twice and it doesn't combine lol. It's cancelled out by my Uncanny Magnetism Charisma advantage, so it's not too bad I guess, and I don't like to lie anyway :3)
3. Cursed Perceptions (traders charge you a lot more, which is inconsequential, since I always let Wyll or Astarion trade, anyway)
4. The Warlord's Ire (+2 Wisdom, and random attacks from goblins and their allies - which is great for the worg teeth that you can craft into Elixir of Bloodlust!)
We have a cursed item that grants a Dexterity bonus, too. I didn't pick it up myself, since I want to use strength and not dex, and I only have 18 str at this point. But everyone else passed it around and got their +1 to even out their dex stat ^^
We also found a cursed item that will give a bonus to Charisma, which I guess could be handy for me. But it causes hostile clones of your party to appear, and I have the Invincible Scratch mod installed, which makes his clone unkillable with our current skill levels and equipment :-s (But for example Hellfire and Stunning Strikes will still harm him </3)
So Wyll got to pick that one up, to even out his Cha to 18, and then remove the curse ^^;
I tried some Scratch mods that make him stronger but not invincible. But the clones turned out to be such a bane of our existence that I decided to reload the save from 4 hours before (basically the whole Crèche), and not pick up that artefact myself, after all. T^T
It's fun and very educational to fight your own clones! That's my favourite trial in the Gauntlet of Shar. But we are so crazy powerful by now that it just gets ridiculously tedious lmfao. Especially Wyll's clone is hard to kill with his 23-24 AC :-s (Kill Wyll: Impossible mode xD)
The enemy spawning is truly random, too. The first time around we got hit with like three groups of goblins and three groups of clones, and levelled up to 9 before we'd left the Crèche. But the 2nd time, we only got one single group of goblins, and we're still level 8 as we are now about to proceed to Act 2.
ellievsbear
annaxmalina
tangentwithtanner
kianamaiart
snowghoul
gummygunk
