Gale leveled up and now I have to pick 2 spells of level 2. Not gonna do that tonight, it's gonna take too much time. And I didn't get to use much my level 1 spells yet.
I'll multiclass Naeblys to Sorcerer though.
But same, too many spells to choose from for tonight, will do tomorrow.
All the Sorcerer Subclasses seem great. Wild Magic gives Attack on next attack, which could be great with a Rogue.
Draconic Bloodline gives a good base AC.
And Storm Sorcery allows you to fly‽
I wanted to understand Dual Wielding in bg3. Because if I can master when doing my offhand bonus action attack, I could potentially use if for Sneak Attack as well.
From the tooltip, it might be automated additional damage.
And I need two light weapons, not only light in the off-hand.
The way it works I feel I cannot do a Sneak Attack with a bonus action, as Sneak Attack is specifically an action
I'll test on attacking Shadowheart from Stealth with my off hand.
It worked. If I hit, it suggests making it a sneak attack. That's good, it means I can use a spell as an action to grand me advantage (True Strike, Minor Illusion), and steal do Sneak Attack with the bonus action.
Now, let's try the same thing with a magical arrow.
Hmm, it seems that the basic damage of the arrow killed Shadowheart, so it didn't even trigger the Sneak Attack modal. That's a great addition to tabletop, you don't waste a potential Sneak Attack if your normal damage already kills the target.
Interesting, even if I miss, I still apply the fire damage. That's interesting, it's 100% sure damage, even against high AC.
Also, on a failed DEX save, they burn, and take damage every turn, which is great against spell casters, to break their Concentration.
So, let's analyze that. Stuff started to burn before they got hit. I think it's because the burn effect trigger first, no matter if the hit succeed or not. But inanimate objects always fails DEX saves, and are always hit, so this is why damage is displayed in that order.
Then, it did hit my intended target. Next action, I can see the stool takes more damage (not sure why), then only do they get the Burning condition applied. So maybe they take damage on hit on my turn, then as Burning damage on their turn right after (but the Condition is only applied after the damage, in case they died). I'm unsure why it's displayed twice in the chatlog though.
But what is great is that I got the modal to trigger a sneak attack on my flaming arrow.
And it added +1d6 damage afterward. I got confused for once, thinking that Sneak Attack would double the damage die, but not, that's Critical Hits that do that.
Still, it means that Dual Wielding and Sneak Attack is a viable concept, as is using every single magical arrow.
I wonder what subclass taking for Astarion.
Arcane Trickster seems to be the Jack of all Trades, that can go solo and cast spells. But I have other party members to cast spells on me, and I already tried an Arcane Trickster in Solasta and found that I wasn't using their spells much.
Sure I could get the Minor Illusion Cantrip which can be very useful.
But for level 1 spells, I don't find them that interesting. Unless Disguise Self allow me to change the way I look after I Pickpocket?
I can also learn one Wizard spell and that will probably be Familiar or Shield. But this makes me wonder if it wouldn't be more interesting to dip in two levels of Wizard to become an Illusion Wizard. This will give me Cantrips, Level 1 spells, Arcane Recovery and the Improved Minor Illusion. That's very powerful, but a two level dip.
I'll most probably better go with Thief and the Additional Bonus Action. This means I can Hide, Attack, Hide every round, or throw stuff, or hide, attack, move away. So many possibilities. If I also do this Wizard dip later, it means I can also cast some spells in the mix.
Second-Story Work means I can take the high ground for Sneak Attacks, and when creatures come my way, I can just jump down and flee, what they cannot do.
I'm back at multiclassing Naeblys.
But I just realize I have this Action in my Summary. I think Duergar can do that, but I had never seen it before. Maybe it unlocks at third level? This game has so much hidden content it's incredible.
I went with a White Dragon ancestry, for additional Cold Damage (and resistance to cold), Armour of Agathys.
And it goes well with my white mane of hair.
As a Sorcerer, I'm allowed 4 Cantrips at level one, that's interesting. I took Ray of Frost, to stay in the theme. I took Shocking Grasp for when an enemy is close and I need to move away, Shocking Grasp removes their reactions. Bone Chill to prevent them from healing, and Mage Hand because I'm sure there's a lot that can be done with that one.
I did hesitate with Storm Sorcerer and Wild Magic, TBH. Storm would allow me to fly sometimes, which could be great. And Wild Magic would be just fun, and thematically interesting with how I envision not being able to really understand what my powers are doing.
I'll stay with the Draconic one, but I will surely try a Wild Mage one day.
I'll take another ice damage spell for level one.
And Magic Missile because you can't go wrong with that.
Astarion is a Thief. I like having two Bonus Actions.
Now, for Gale. I'm not very inspired by him for now. I like his Minor Illusion Cantrip a lot, but that's the best thing about him. I'm going to use it as a follower here to let me test spells.
Speaking of spells, let's see the level two roster:
Makes a door close. Unsure how it could be useful. To lock some monsters in a corridor?
Blindness is great. DIS on their attacks, ADV on mine. That's very good, and not even Concentration.
Blur is everyone has DIS against me. That's Concentration though. I can see how I could maybe multi-class Gale as some kind of fighter with protection spells. Or a tank?
4d4 Slashing Damage, Concentration, on one spot. Interesting.
Forcing one creature to attack another. Oh, that I like.
Darkness to block all lines of sight.
Meh.
Concentration, until long rest. That could be pretty interesting in conversations. I wonder if I can cast it one someone else. I'll have to test it with Gale, and see if it's worth Naeblys to learn it.
Hmm, not sure.
A sphere I can move that does damage. Nice.
Makes everyone in an area Off Balance (ADV on attacks).
Nice Crowd Control, but only on humanoids.
This one I'll have to try. See if Pickpocketing is easier with that. The tooltip says I lose it if I attack, but also say that I need to fail a Stealth check to lose it.
Auto-unlock.
Makes an item +1. Considering how many magic items are available already, I don't think it's worth a slot.
Nice one to deal damage to spell casters. In BG1 it was great because the DoT could interrupt long casting times. Now, all casting times are the same, but there is the Concentration mechanism, so I think MM would be better to break it.
I like how the tooltip manages to explain complex spells easily. 3 times +3 to AC, each time it works, one removes. It's actually great on some kind of fighter. Honestly, thinking of turning Gale into a Fighter/Mage starts to become a good idea in my mind.
Teleport up to 18m. I don't see that in combat, but for exploration purposes.
That's a nice one. You send that to an enemy, and forgot about it.
Half damage on big buffy monsters. It's Concentration though, so I wonder if I wouldn't have something better.
Each ray does 2d6 Fire damage, but I need to hit each. It's also 3 chances for a Critical. WOrth it on targets where I have advantage, not so much otherwise.
I like that it's Until Long Rest, and not Concentration. Great against sneaky types. Wizards have so many situational spells, I want to try them all!
Another spell useful if he's a tank, because it will affect everyone, including my friends. Could have been good if I had take the Evocation specialization. Rhaa this game makes me want to test so many class combination (but there aren't enough fight for me, and we level up too quickly as well).
The go-to spell against large groups. Attacks have ADV, so Astarion can Sneak Attack, and we can kill them from afar.
Oh, that's a good one, much better than Blindness at low levels.
Well, I still haven't tried this one. I really need to test more of my spells.
Dash as a bonus action, still I don't understand how long it works. If, outside of combat, it allows me to run faster, that could be pretty fun for exploring.
The cheap heal.
Ah wait, I went down into level one territory. I went with Crown of Madness and Invisibility.
Now, Shadowheart. Because of her Trickery domain, she has access to Mirror Image to up her AC. I was pondering respecing her to the War domain to get access to heavy armor, but I'll try to see if I can make her tank with this domain.
Aid gives everyone +5HP (and max HP as well). Nice thing to do when I wake up.
Cures most issues.
Wow, nice. Not even Concentration, so it's a free +1AC and Saving Throws to someone.
Situational, but good to know if I go in a poisoned area.
Most of my group already has similar resistance, but I can see how this will be useful in the fight against the harpies.
Same good old spell.
Nice, out-of-combat, heal. I'm probably keep this one prepared.
Oh, one of the best level 2 spells. Scales with the level as well.
Hehe, I could use that against my enemies. I wonder how it affects Pickpocket though. And I LOVE how it's the same icon as in BG.
Good old Blindness.
Oh, very good for exploration as well. Makes ADV on all DEX for pickpocket, or all CHA for dialogue.
Aren't I pretty?
I let Astarion bite me. Not sure it was worth it.
I can actually now do it as a Bonus Action.
I spent some time to organize each character action bar. Always the same basic actions on the left, always the inventory on the right, and in the middle the main used actions. I tried to organize them with on the left the one in combat, on the right the ones for outside of combat, and group somehow range/melee together, group spells of same level close, and if they are attack/protection/crowd control.
Wow, a Guidance necklace. That's OP.
I thought I was immune to falling damage but no, I just take half of it.
And now Astarion is on his own. I have to get back to him.
Fear the Enlarge Guided Duergar! I have ADV on STR Saving Throw and I do +1d4 damage. That's a fun little gimmick.
Astarion was able to sneak in the fight while not even being part of the initiative order; that's fun.
So, I cannot hide while in the reach of an enemy, but I can Disengage and Hide again thanks to my two Bonus Actions.
i'm gonna test the Crown of Madness on him. Too bad, he saved. I should have put a WIS Hex on him.
I'm gonna test Spiritual Weapon, seems like I can pick the shape, but they all do the same amount of Force Damage.
I has its own initiative turn, it's not usable as a bonus action on my turn.
It doesn't have Opportunity Attacks.
Yerk, I can consume the Mind Flayer Parasite...
Now, let's talk with the dead.
I didn't learn much, except that this guy likes sausages.
But I can re-cast it. I don't know why, but that's great, there are other corpses around.
I had Shadowheart heal everyone, and now everyone is Blessed for a few turns. I don't know if that was part of the spell, a specific Cleric feature or an item I have, but I like it.
Got a small staff, not much better than the one that creates Water that Gale has.
I pickpocket the wounded individual, got a +1 Nature Helmet. I tried to speak with him with Friends but he didn't wake up. Friends actually removed my "Re-apply Hex" Concentration thing, too bad. Maybe Friends wasn't such a good Cantrip. I'll try to cast it on everyone now and see what's the worse that could happen.
There is a a very deep chasm here. I'd like to jump with Feather Fall (or fly), to see what's there. Or maybe I can cast light on something and throw it?
I love this voice in my head.
So I tried Invisibility as a Spell. First it only lasts for 10 Turns, and it ends with a Sleight of Hand attempt. It does not end just looking inside of people pockets, so I might be able to use it to scout around, but I'll need to set Turn-Based mode to get the most out of it.
There's even Poutine in the game...
I found another NPC with a lot of things to steal, but a way higher DC.
Wait, am I a cannibal?
I couldn't jump on the other side of this cliff, but I could cast a Mage Hand and have it throw it back to me. There are so many little things in this game...
There was a strange Ox that I killed, and got a Shapeshifter's Boon Ring. It gives +1d4 to all checks when shapeshifted. It's almost too good to be true, I wonder if it isn't cursed.
Sometimes my face looks very weird, especially when I need to watch people bigger than myself, the eyes are not correctly aligned.
She looks good with this. I might try to respec her as a Druid maybe, that could be fun.
I did a Long rest just to get Lesser Restoration, let's see if I can remove Paralysis on this Tiefling.
Great, it worked!
I cast Crown of Madness, it's not exactly attacking the closest friend, but the closest creature. Better to cast it to open a fight, while they are neutral.
I've been thinking about the party composition, and I realized I don't really like having Gale in the team, as he seems more like a good-aligned character and my whole party is more neutral evil oriented. So I will swap him for another character soon.
I like that he has access to all spells though, because it let me learn all the spells and what they do, but I don't really like his class. I would rather have him as some kind of Gish, maybe like a Bard of the College of Valor, but that would be a CHA-based character and I already have Naeblys for that.
Also, I like to have an equally split repartition of armor between my team member. Naeblys being in Cloth, Astarion in Light and I plan on having Shadowheart respec to War Cleric (so Heavy armor), I would also like to have someone wearing Medium armor filling Gale slot.
Last point, with SH has a tank, Naeblys as support and Astarion as DPS, I would need another DPS, so I was thinking of going with potentially a Barbarian or a Ranger to fill the slot. I lean more on the Barbarian side though, and might even try a Barbarian/Monk thing, so I could have some "cool monk shit" as well as armor.
But I also like the infinite Minor lllusion cantrip from Gale a lot, so what I decided was to keep him for two levels (until level 5). At that time I will be able to have Astarion dip two levels in Wizards to replicate the cantrip, and have some kind of Arcane Trickster-like abilities. At that time I will ditch Gale for good and pick a Ranger or Barbarian. I hope that I will get some NPCs to fill those roles by the time I get there.
But first, I decided to respec SH to a War Cleric.
Which gives me the ability to change her cantrips.
Thaumaturgy is nice, but she won't be doing much of those I think.
Hmm, I will have to try to see if it can be used. On creatures that are vulnerable to light, that might help.
That one is good for a tank.
Infinite small fireballs to throw.
I'm going with Guidance, Blade Ward and Produce Flame to test it.
I picked the War Domain to get lots of Proficiences in armor and weapons.
At level 2, her Channel Divinity allows her +10 on an Attack Roll.
I saw that on Zevlor. I can see this useful if I have a character that can mass heal the group. Even just one 1HP could give resistance to everyone.
I went to see Nettie, she said she could cure me but almost put a needle filled with toxin in my eye. Instead, I seemed trustworthy enough and she simply asked me to take some poison if I feel bad, I refused and attacked me. I knocked her out.
I could have pickpocket the poison out of her before the dialogue, and I wonder what would have happened when she would have tried to hand it to me. Would I have it twice? The item was marked as Orange, I wonder if it means rare, or means quest item.
Now that it's in my inventory, it's no longer marked as Orange.
But the helmet she has is exactly the same another I stole from the head of a Druid I saved earlier, except it's orange. They are both marked as Uncommon, so it probably isn't the rarity. Maybe it's if they are marked as quest item, and if NPC/Doodads will react to it?
Ok, so that was it. The circlet can open some doors, and the Rune I had seen on another NPC is also needed.
Opening a door behind the Druid got me here. They really Jacquayed the dungeons here.
A band of adventurers, meddling with what they don't understand. Knocked a druid healer out, stole a rune from another and now lighting up a strange pillar. What's the worst that could happen?
Secret passage!
I found a Two-Handed weapon that allow me to pull creatures closer as a bonus action cantrip. I'll keep that, it's nice.
Little nod to BG1.
Another nod to the start of BG1.
Oh nice, I'll be able to talk to every single beast here in the Druid grove.
I like this description of the Shadow Druids (yes, I'm reading every single book).
There's an Owlbear and its cub. It's considered a beast, so maybe I can speak with it?
And because I had a Speak with Animal potion, I could speak with it.
The perfect low level interaction. Will you kill the cute little ball of feather, or let it live knowing that you killed its mom?
Found a protected chest that does 4d6 damage to anyone that touches hit. Marked as Selune's Shield. I tried to throw it out of the light, that maybe it would disable it. Didn't work and almost killed my party.
Even if I cast spells against it, I can be hit.
I welcomed a Bard in our group, and apparently killed her the first night.
"The only joy greater than murder is to get away with it!", ok this is how I'm going to play this child of Bhaal charismatic character: let's look nice and everything when nobody can hear nor seen, but evil behind closed doors. Killing is rewarding, but only non-weak opponents. Let the weak escape, and hopefully come back stronger to be worthy of my killing.
She was going to the Elfsong Tavern. Isn't that the one that has an access to the sewers?
This lovely swamp wasn't what it looked like. I had my doubt about Aunt Ethel, but now I have them confirmed. She is a hag.
All of that because I could speak with animals. I really wonder what other playthroughs will look like.
I'm having my ass kicked by a tiny frog that reflect my magic to me.
And Shadowheart became mad. This fight is not at all going the way I thought.
The fucker has 22 AC.
Reflect projectiles to me. I don't know if it's per turn or forever. I think it's per turn as it has already reflected two.
And if I attack in Melee, I can become mad.
All that for 1XP. Shit.
Fucking SH backstabbed me.
Astarion fucking killed SH with a Critical Sneak Attack. "Shadowheart disaproves". You bet.
No way I'm going to fight Mud Mephits in my state. Gonna have to retreat.
I actually managed to kill them one by one thanks to SH fleeing, Gale turning invisible and Naeblys/Astarion playing clever with their actions. Naeblys has a really low number of actions; Eldritch Blast being his only action doesn't make him able to do much. Astarion and his three actions on the other hand can do a lot.
When I'm reading "In Faldorn's memory", I know this is not going to be a good Druid. Cloakwood forest, Shadow Druid domain, that's incriminating.
Also seems that I used to have a Butler? Maybe I wasn't a Child of Bhaal then?
I got an item to turn myself invisible because of that. I can see how this would make Astarion useful. I'm really should have taken Astarion as my main character I think.
I love it that they used the Monster Manual illustrations for the monsters here.
I Critical Sneak Attack a sleeping bugbear, and it turned me invisible automatically. That. is. just. rogue. awesomness.
Yeah, that's my rogue.
I then managed to have Astarion kill four sentinels all by himself and then...
He got spotted and took a Critical hit.
Then the shaman cast a spell at him, and he's down.
And one last flaming arrow burned him to ash. That spike of high luck and high bad luck happened in 3 minutes.
I tried again, and this time I talked to them instead and visited their village. I'll surely kill them later (as well as the druids, but not now). I found a well that lead to a cave full of spiders and then to a wizard study linked to drows.
I'm having so much fun playing with Astarion I wonder if I shouldn't have rolled a Rogue myself. I'm toying with the idea of respecing Naeblys as a Thief with a single dip in a spellcasting class for Friends (ADV on all CHA based interactions). Maybe Warlock for getting spells back on short rest, or Sorcerer for casting more of them, or Wizard for some versatility. Or maybe Bard?
That raises the question of who should then be my main spellcaster. Given how cheap respecs are, I could go with a full Sorcerer and test spells by respecing. I like Wild Magic, so I might make Gale such a character, and take the Barbarian speced as well in Wild Magic for interesting theming. Or respec Astarion as a spellcaster? I'm surprised at how much I like the Companions in BG3 as opposed to in BG1 and BG2, and I want to know their storylines, so I'd like to keep them in my party.
But playing a murderer, I'm unsure if Gale will fit correctly there. Maybe Gale as a Wild Magic sorcerer would fit.
OR... I respec Gale as a DPS monk in Cloth, and Astarion as a Medium armor Bard? Hmm, that could be interesting.
Sometimes, I just stop playing and contemplate how beautiful that game is.
I then went on to fight a spider way above my level, the Matriarch. I'm using everything I have, including Oil and Gunpowder Barrels I had stored in my inventory.
And it's vulnerable to fire. Good to know.
We finally got it, even if almost everyone got downed at least once during the fight.