Videogames - Solasta

For context

To give some context, I'm at the end of a week of vacation I took to take a break from work and immerse myself into videogames, most specifically RPGs in the vein of BG and PoE.

I wasted about half the week installing Windows, Steam and finally ditching Windows for Linux and spending some more time to make Steam work on Linux. I finally installed Divinity Original Sin, just to realize keyboard shortcut do not work on Linux, making the whole game only playable by mouse, so I quit. I then installed Pathfinder: Kingmaker and although I was pleasantly surprised by the attention to details in the intro, character creation and tutorial, everything went to shit afterwards. The game is slow as fuck, so I had to install mods (let me tell you, it's not straightforward on Linux to emulate Windows stuff) to x5 the game movement speed. But even with a ton of cheats to add QoL improvements, the game was still a pain to play and I wasn't enjoying it at all.

By that time, we're on Saturday night of my vacation week, and this whole process of having a good time and immerse myself into a fantasy world is a total failure. I spent more time installing stuff than playing games, and the two games that I played were also failures.

So I'm now giving Solasta a try. I don't expect much from it, but honestly it will be hard to be any worse than the other two. I'm especially frustrated by Kingmaker as I really wanted to like that game. The AP it's coming from is great, Pathfinder stories are usually pretty rich in Lore and double-crossing, but the game is just a plain adaptation, without much thinking into adapting to the medium. UI is bad, everything is slow, fights are either way to easy or way to hard. I'm the kind of player that likes to agonize over micro-optimisations, but that game made me hate that.

So here we go, trying Solasta and giving my impression as I go along.

It starts with some gibberish. No idea what Vulkan shaders are, it sounds like a high level spell, but hey, I'll wait.

First loading screen. I like the ambiance here. I'm in the mood for a good old dungeon delve.

I can see that there are new classes and scenarios as DLCs. Ok, that's good, if I like the game I might buy them. I like that they are not part of the main game. After my Kingmaker experience of having WAY too much choice in character creation, followed by a very weak story and gameplay, I'm looking for something more focused.

I'm picking the default campaign and difficulty level. IIRC the game is based on the D&D 5e ruleset, which I know pretty well. This will be a great way to play the game.

Character creation

Characters are only pre-generated, they might not have specific quest and banter, which I like, because I'll do the RP in my head anyway.

Good, they moved away from the "race" terminology in favor of "ancestry".

Initially, I wanted to recreate my tabletop party of players, but one of them is a Tiefling so I won't be able to. I'll try to focus on a more classical party then.

Human, Elf, Dwarf, Half-Elf and Halfling. That's a good enough start. I might be going with the traditional trope party of Warrior, Cleric, Rogue and Wizard, with a Human, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling in it.

Let's see the available classes before committing though.

So, none of the "special" classes are available by default. I might have tried a Warlock or Monk, but ok I'll stay with the classical ones.

The Character creation screens are well done, asking to pick choices on each step, but explaining what they mean. Because it's 5e, there is way less choice than on Pathfinder, which makes answering each question easier. I'm building Tordek, a dwarf fighter to be in the frontline.

It's nice that they let me know that this Skill is not used in the game. In Kingmaker, they let you pick a weapon specialization for weapons that can't even be found in the whole game (hand crossbow).

Congrats to Solasta. That's not really hard to do, but they did it.

Second character is going to be Emrys, a elven Sorcerer I used to play a long time ago (he moved into an Entropist, not sure I can recreate that here.).

I'll make him a Draconic Bloodline, as that's, from a RP POV how I envisioned it when I played. Also, the spells given are exactly how I want to play it: kinda roguish, stealthy.

It's hard to pick only two. Burning hands does a lot of damage, and scales with the level. Charm Person was exploitable in BG, but I don't think it will be here. Might be interesting for my "face" character, though. Color Spray will blind everyone, which would open the road to Sneak Attacks for the rogue. Comprehend Language and Detect Magic will be helpful in understanding more of the Lore. Expeditious Retreat lasts for 10 minutes and allows me to dash as a bonus action (I like that). False Life gives me more HP. Feather Fall allows me to jump from anywhere. Fog Cloud is similar to Color Spray, but focused on an area instead of on creatures. Jump is like feather fall, useful to get to specific places, but I might not want to make it one of my core Sorcerer spells. Mage Armor seems to be redundant with my Draconic Blood line, it sets my base AC to 13. Magic Missile is a staple. Sleep can put creatures to sleep and Thunderwave can push people away.

I'm going with Magic Missile, because you can never go wrong with that. And Expeditious Retreat, because I've been so frustrated with the slowness of KIngmaker.

And here is our crew. Tordek and Kirah were players in my last campaign. Emrys was my character in an old AD&D campaign, while Andrew Able was one of my character in a 7th Sea one-shot.

I made the perfect trope party. Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Spellcaster. Also, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling and Human. We're all set!

Wait, isn't that the inn of the first Witcher game? Looks a lot like it, even with the wolf head on the wall.

I like how they put my characters in this scene, having them talk together.

Ok, so first thing first, I'm at quality level low, but I can already feel that it's slowggish (yeah, slow and sluggish at the same time). When I'm typing this sentence, letters take a few seconds to appear.

Ingame it's not visible, but when I come here it's pretty slow.

The game graphics are simple but immersive. I'm surprised I can't pan the camera by moving it to the sides of the screen, nor that there is a button to force focus on a specific character, forcing me to move with the keyboard a lot.

Also, no way to dezoom or change the angle of camera, and moving with keyboard has some easing functions baked it making it hard to navigate.

That's on brand!

I'll play a bit to better understand, and if need be I'll install mods to improve the control, now that I know how to do it.

Oh, how do I like that everything is made of cells. I like that.

Arggh, I'll have to handle encumbrance stuff. Oh, by the way I unchecked a few things in the graphical options, and I no longer have an slowness here.

This is amazing. Tactical turn based combat with the D&D 5e ruleset. And each character introduction is a playable tutorial.

This is so clear. It will make understanding the ruleset so much easier.

Erf, I'm buggued by the capitalization. Not sure it's my fault, or the game's fault. I'll have to find a way to fix that. Once is EMRYS, another is emrys.

There's a very nice scripted tutorial to learn sneak mode. I feel this game might not be an all open world like the others, but more scripted missions. That's a good change of pace. If all missions are as good as the tutorial, I'm going to have fun.

That's my party!

And I got the "How do you want to do this?" achievement for killing my first ennemy. One more nod I like.

The world really seem to take a lot from the Witcher serie, from the name of the provinces, to the overall lore.

I thought I should share with you the great artworks of the laoding screens.

So far, I really like this game. The more I play, the more I want to play.

Really, the feeling of seeing your whole party and not scripted NPCs is great.

It's so great to see my people moving that fast. I don't need to multiply the move speed by 5, and they move faster than in Kingmaker.

Nice UI to show the travel from one place to another.

Nice explanation of the 8h/day journey. 8h are also used for sleeping, and the 8 other hours are spread in the day for hunting, cooking, etc.

I like those small background elements, it gives life to the party. Anyway, I got attacked by bandits on the way.

We got attacked during the night. I placed Tordek on the other side of their leader and attacked twice with Action Surge. Then I Shocking Grasped one with Emrys and made it run far and cast Expeditious Retreat on himself. I wanted to disengage with Andrew and then attack, but I apparently need to first click on Cunning Action to do the Disengage as a Bonus action, damn I can't attack.

The UI is really well done. Let's you also target several targets with Magic Missile, allows to pick if you want to bonus action or main action cast. The combats are a pleasure to do.

I looted a lot. How can I tell the Scavenger Guild to take it away?

This UI is not very helpful.

The inventory management is not very good here. Each character has their own, and there is no way to filter by type, not to quickly see what weights the more. No way to switch from one character to another with an item in hand.

This game is so much better than Kingmaker. I wished I would have started with this one at the beginning of the week.

I updated the encumbrance rule so that characters are not slowed down if they carry too much, but still have a max load.

The next battle is tactical, with palissades to take cover behind.

That was a great fight, where one of us became unconscious, and where I had to use my spells already. I'm already pretty used on resources right now.

Ah, this is perfect, exactly what I needed!

Oh damn, do Sorcerer get their spells back after Long Rests, not short ones. I might have been confused with Warlocks.

The camera controls are not very good though, they have this easing function (starts slow, the accelerate, and takes time to stop) that makes it hard to focus on exactly where you want. It's also not possible to adjust the zoom level, so you have to deal with the limited angle of view. Still, it's better than Kingmaker.

I hope I'll be able to get a long rest in the next building.

It can be hard to distinguish the chests from the dressing, but thankfully the map view displays the traps.

There is an interesting mini murder story here. Everything seems to point to Daliat the Scout having something to hide. And stories about shapeshifters. Maybe he's a traitor, or maybe they all are but him?

Ok, this game keeps on surprising me. Now a monster attacked, and he seemed like a big scaly monster so I ran in melee, but he was actually capable of range attacks (and one-shot Kirah) and climbing walls!

They actually rip part of their spine and throw it to their enemies. That's very nice flavor!

I had forgotten that as a Sorcerer I could transform Sorcery points into spell slots, so I managed to get back one Magic Missile

The camera angle change is a nice addition. Honestly this game could have had a bit more polish with its camera settings, but it's already giving me a lot of joy.

Ok, so first thing first, we need to wake Kirah up. She has been killed during the last fight and is now unconscious.

There is a room fool of those monsters. So I'm going to do it stealthily. By all firing at once one one when he'll come to that room. This didn't work as the very first attack (hit or miss), seems to trigger the whole combat for everyone. Firing a stalagmite on someone doesn't trigger combat, though.

Pushing a stone block did fire the combat. Not because of the block falling, but because of my char no longer being hidden it seems. Pushing the block removes me from stealth.

This fight was initially pretty badly started, but I kept going. Somehow I managed to have one monster stuck behind the rock (he kept regenerating, but couldn't act). And another one stayed far away and kept firing arrows at disadvantage (while it is a brute in melee). I kept it that way.

Interestingly enough, the monster stayed in the cube, but I could still attack it. And he didn't seem to be able to attack me (but he still regenerated).

I have a situation with Kirah, though. She had two successed, and then went into two failure. Next turn it's a 50/50 chance she'll die.

Pfiuu, managed to kill the last one just in time.

This fight was very hard, but doable, exactly the kind of challenge I like.

I've been seeing videos of the game online, as well as screenshots, and I realize I'm really running with the lowest of the lowest of quality settings. My so called gaming laptop that I bought is still not very good, even compared to today's standards.

I remember being able to play PoE2 on my Linux laptop without issue, but now that I think of it, it was actually running through Shadow. It had its limitations, but at least it was running games perfectly and allowed me to install mods.

I've been thinking about using GeForce Now, but it doesn't allow installing mods. It's 3 times cheaper than Shadow (10€ instead of 30€ per month), but not being able to install mods will be a pain. I'd rather play on the switch in that case, the advantage of playing on PC is modding games.

SO I'm going to give Shadow another go, see if the quality is really better on it and if the game is more enjoyable. Maybe my sluggish camera moves are due to the hardware capacity?

I'm installing Shadow, and I'll try that later on

Interesting fight with lots of elevations. My NPC Scout seems to be able to do Sneak Attack when fighting with his bow from above. I need to better understand how to trigger Sneak Attack bonuses.

Also, I'll need to find a way to respec my characters, now that's I've dabbled a bit in the game, I'd like to put more points into my Sorcerer CHA instead of DEX. I was surprised not being able to put 18 in any char, only a 17 and 15 at best, which seem pretty low.

I might also take some more light spells as cantrips now that I understand the main monsters can regenerate in darkness.

When Daliat do his Sneak Attack, there is a d4 displayed above his head, but I don't understand what it is, as he is doing d6 damage.

Andrew also managed to do a Sneak Attack with his bow when firing from above. Was it because of the height difference, or because the monster was engaged with Tordek?

There is some loot I can't take because I can't jump far enough. Maybe with a level up and some points in Athletism will I be able to?

I'm making Tordek a Mountaineer, I wanted to have him as some kind of tank, taking all the hits while other rain spells and sneak attacks on monsters. He'll have +2 AC if he's wearing a shield (which he will), and have a wall on one side.

Picking a rogue archetype was harder as they all seem great. Thief allows me to move faster on climbing, and jump faster. At higher levels I'll have advantage on Stealth and be able to use any item without restriction. Darkweaver also allows me to climb faster, and to add my proficiency to damage when hitting from above. At higher levels, I would be able to do addition poison damage on each it (DC13) and become invisible if in dim light and out of LoS. Shadowcaster gives me some cantrips and spells, and I can teleport to within 5 cells. At higher levels, I'll be able to cast cantrips as reactions when hit, and do sneak attack on enemies using spells.

I don't think Darkweaver will be good, as other classes gives me climbing speed, and the poison damage at higher levels will be too weak (DC13 doesn't seem that high). Becoming invisible is great, but breaking LoS is hard already.

I hesitate between Thief, to get the automatic movement speed and Use Any Item that, I think, will be exponentially better at higher levels (being able to use wands and stuff). But getting some spells and ability to teleport to reach areas is also tempting. Considering my Sorcerer won't have that many utility spells, having another caster in the group might be good.

Overall, I think I'll go with the Shadow Caster, which is the closest to an Arcane Trickster, a class I've always wanted to play. Sure, Use Any Item is great, but it's only at 13th level, and I want to be able to enjoy the game until then.

I took Chill Touch, to prevent a monster from regenerating from long distance. Shadow Dagger to bypass those enemis with high armor (as it's a save), and True Strike, to help in landing a Sneak Attack.

Level one I took Color Spray to try to blind a group of people at once, for more Sneak Attacks. False Life to heal myself, and Shield to protect from big attacks.

Oh, I can unlearn one spell, but can't unlearn a cantrip. Too bad.

I spawned a Shadow machine and installed the game on it. It looks so much better, which is nice. And the controls are much more reactive, including the camera, which is awesome.

Oh, I like how the Sorcerer specialization makes me move more. I still need to figure out how to play that character. He has so little spells that I don't want to waste them, so I need to find the right opportunities. I think Magic Missile is to kill the stragglers.

I got another encounter on my wait to the main quest. I like those encounters, as I can use all my spells and go nuke on them, and gain XP. This time, it was again Wolves and Scouts. I tried to hide in the ruins, to break as much line of sight as possible and force them to come closer.

There is a weird bug in Shadow though, sometimes it just unexpectedly quit. I think it's when I press Q (which I do to move the camera around). This only occurs when playing in windowed mode (which I need to write this text).

The shortcut is Win+Alt+Q, but I don't think I'm pressing the other two buttons.

Oh, just realized I can't cast my Rogue spells. I need to wear a Spell Focus. Where do I find that?

Ok, got it, it seems that when I press Q right back from alt-tab, it does quit.

The range on Charm Person is very small, and only affect Humanoids. I haven't had the chance to use it, yet.

Fuck, even pressing D now quits Shadow.

I managed to get my rogue on top through some teleportation, but got hit with an arrow.

On the other side, I somehow managed to get all the wolves in a row around me. Now, I just need some carefully placed Burning Hands.

Rhaa, the buggy controls of Shadow when coming back from alt-tab made Tordek move from his perfect spot and take 3 AoO. Grrrr!

Thankfully they all failed, so I could move my other characters. This is something I might actually try again later. Moving the armored Dwarf to remove their reactions.

I'm really unlucky. The guy has like 22 AC and he got hit every single round by the Wolves that roll 18 and 20. Tordek is dead! Kirah healed him, and with some nice higher level MM, I could finish the monsters.

But I can't rest here, seems likes I was the one doing the ambush, so no long rest available. I hope I'll get one before getting to destination.

There's an option in Shadow to start shadow windowed. Maybe it will help?

Anyway, my third encounter is against a small group of Goblins and a Wolf. It shouldn't be too hard. The last one was worth 145XP, will this one be higher?

No it's not better, I still got disconnected. I might try to change the bindings to not use ZQSD, then. I'll use the arrows.

And the encounter was worth 50XP, but they never stood a chance. Magic Missile, Spiritual Weapon and Guiding Bolt made it quick.

New area to explore. The quest is to give a Sorrak head, but I guess I'll have to do more than that.

I managed to sneak into a Human camp. I'll now try to cast Invisibility, and see how far it gets me.

It seems to allow me to loot stuff easily.

I can't open the door. So I feel I'll either need to talk to them, or attack them.

One is named "Cult Fanatic", I'm sure they're fine people.

I looted everything. What do I do now? I removed my stealth to talk to them and they attacked. Well, I'll reload and at least have the surprise round for me.

One one side I have my Invisible Rogue ready to Sneak Attack their Cleric.

On the other I have a clusterfuck of pathfinding AI being confused.

I tried Charm Person, but in combat they have Advantage, so I still haven't been able to see what it does.

I like how my Spiritual Weapon stays there during cutscenes.

Haha, the magic does some weird gravity thing. The Soraks could also walk on walls. This might be fun.

Wow, 3D really bring it into another memory dimension.

Wow, that means I rolled two 20?

Just for fun. Really nice map.

Finally, a campfire, I'll be able to get my long rest and spells to get to the chests.

Nice elevation in this fight. This is giving me tons of ideas for encounters in my own games. Magic Missile, Guiding Bolt and Spiritual Weapons are still the MVP. As is Sneak Attack. But my fighter misses a lot and does not do a lot of damage. Still, he can tank.

Fuck, I got disconnected from Shadow as I was writing this and now I can't connect back. I almost had the fight over. Closing and re-opening Shadow fixed the issue.

This was the easiest fight I ever did in this game. I didn't even lose one HP, and I still have some spells left. I might be getting better at this game.

I think I need to take the crown. I think the game is subtly trying to make me do that.

Nice lore dump about the world, and the Sorraks. So humanity was first on another planet, fighting with the Sorraks and their god of ttreachery, shapeshifting and mind reading. Everyone became a suspect because everyone could be a Sorraks. Their god won.

An elite of Mages managed to create a rift to another planet, Solasta, to flee and create a new place for humanity. The god of Sorraks tried to follow, but failed. Some Sorraks managed to get through. They then mentally forced people to worship them.

This is interesting, because it gives a twist on the evil cult fanatic. Those people are clearly evil, and following evil deities, but they also lack free will and are forced to believe in the gods.

They can also perfectly embody someone, after weeks or months of studying. The process is irreversible, and it's only when the person is killed that they revert to their Sorrak form. This is very interesting, from a gameplay perspective, because it means there is no way to prove if someone is a traitor until we kill them, in which case we might have killed an innocent.

I need to defend a council of mages in a flashback now.

I'm enjoying this game more and more. I'm really enjoying the tactical aspect of combat, and better understanding my characters. Tordek is still just a tank that doesn't hit much, but the others are doing incredible feats.

What happen if I push him from here?

Haha, nice, this is what happens.

I really like this zone. I might craft it as a UDT (Ultimate Dungeon Terrain) piece. "Here" is the main part with the square stones, "there" is the rounded part around and "elsewhere" is the grass.

I'm taking inspiration from the encounter maps for my own encounters in my home game.

2 Ogres, 2 Orcs and one Orc Chieftain. This is going to be tough. Ogre are hitting pretty hard.

The Chieftain had a ton of HP. The Ogres were actually quite easy to defeat as they kept trying to hit my tank and missed.

Got ambushed by Veterans, Acolyte and Hunters. The Acolyte went down quickly as I was chasing him and focused Magic Missiles on him. The Veterans got stuck against the AC 25 of Tordek and kept wasting their 3 attacks on him while I tried to find a way to put them down.

I keep firing MM on him to wear it down.

Oh, a Dwarf Ghost!

Thanks to the Invisibility spell, I'm able to visit the whole castle and loot everything. I can even light torches; those skeletons and ghouls don't seem to mind.

Seems like the "find the back entrance" quest was actually bringing me to the same spot as the Invisibility exploration. Well, I might find to kill the groups one by one, to get the lvl up XP.

Let's kill some ghouls now. I'm going to need to clear the courtyard for the sweet XP. I aggroed the ones close, but it then aggroed the other group from afar. Thankfully I'm situated in a chokepoint, so I should be able to take them down one by one.

Combat lasted for a long time, but was never hard. So, it made me a lot of XP.

Now, inside the castle I found an absolutly not creepy place at all to rest. Inside the necromancer study, with zombies still walking the floor.

Gross.

Ok, here is the exit. I could get there by myself (which would teleport all my friends). But maybe that would make the fight harder? Or easier? There is only one way to find out!

Ah wait, no. The door is closed. I think I'll need to kill everyone to open it. Unless I could teleport behind?

Ah yes, shadow dodge seem to allow me to get behind. And so what, will I be able to kill them from behind the bars? Hmm, this didn't turn out as I anticipated. The combat started, we me locked inside and my friends at the other side of the level.

Ok this time I removed my torched, put myself in Cautious mode, and will teleport as far away as possible.

This worked \o/.

But does not seem to trigger any cutscene, damn. I'll have to do it the regular way.

I setup an ambush in the door. With a Spiritual Weapon, a tank protected by Faith, as well as against Undead. We'll kill the zombies one by one.

I don't know what they are casting. But do I want to? Nope, I'll counterspell.

A fight just triggered while I was speaking with Lizzaria.

It's really weird. It seems like the enemies got duplicated. Some are hostile, but others are neutral. I managed the fight, it wasn't too brutal, and if that's bonus XP, I'm all for it. I think the fact that I scout the area with Invisibility might mess up some cutscene triggers.

Hmm ok, I cannot open the door. But Lizzaria told me "go to the upper level", and then some of her minions turned hostile. Oh, there was a button on the pillars next to the door. I couldn't reach it before because there was a Dark Apprentice in front of it. Looks like he moved when I talked with Lizzaria. Pfiuu, crisis averted.

This fight against Aksha the vampire is the hardest I ever encountered in the game. It's my third attempt, and I still do not have a clear strategy in mind. She has legendary actions, legendary resistances, regenerates HP in darkness, and can create Darkness. She also has two adds.

Hmm, when I thought I had found a good tactic of casting Silence in the corner where she stays, she killed Tordek...

I managed to Bring Tordek back, but realized he died because he wasn't properly buffed, and I forgot to re-equip his shield...

Ok, no way I can win this fight now. I'll have start again once more. I need to get rid of the adds first, and then block her in a silence globe and go to town.

This time I managed to set her up in a 1:1 fight in a zone of silence. She can't cast her Shadow Veil, so can't regenerate, and my AC is too high for her to hit reliably. Also, I've hasted Tordek so he can deliver one more attack per round.

Oh, she died because of the rays of the sun that were affecting her here. Ok, good to know. Last fight she didn't take any damage because she was levitating and it seems that while flying she was in some sort of shadows.

So she's dead, I only have the two adds left and almost all my spells and full HP. Ok, that Silence tactic works!

My party is starting to get some stuff on themselves.

I'm now heading to fighting the master of this castle, the dark Wizard Mardracht. I just leveled up, so I could head back to the safe Long Rest area to level up, but I'm going to try with my current level first. Feels like I leveled up very recently already, and that I didn't get to try as many of my spells as I wanted.

Wait, what? He cast Cone of Cold on my party, killing both Kirah and Andrew in one spell. Well I think I'll need that long rest actually, because none of my characters had their full HP anyway.

I changed my tactic and charged head on. I put him prone, and started attacking him. I wanted to cast Silence on him, but he will act before I can, so I'll try to spread my characters around him, so he can't have us all in a cone of Cold.

I'll let the Sorcerer cast his spell, I'll keep my counterspell for Mardracht.

Pfiuu, it was Chill Touch, I'm glad I didn't counter that.

Should I slow them, or keep the Haste on Kirah and Andrew. Andrew cannot Sneak Attack twice (but more attacks gives him more chances to hit), and he already has a lot of Bonus actions. Kirah won't be able to cast more than one spell, so maybe Haste was wasted on her. I should have kept Haste for when we are dealing with enemies with lots of attacks. I think for spellcaster, Slow is more adequate, has it lowers their AC, forces them to do only one action, and even adds a spell failure chance.

Oh, slow is a cube of effect, not 6 individual targets. Alright, I'll exclude the Skeleton Archers, but include the Sorcerer.

Arggh fuck, cancelling Haste made my two characters Lethargic (and made me realize it wasn't even Kirah I had targeted with it, but Tordek). So they won't be able to do anything on the next turn. That's not good.

The Wight and the Sorcerer got slowed, which is good, but Mardracht avoided it (he has advantage on his Saves).

That's what I was waiting for! But also made me realize I "wasted" a Haste and Slow spellslot (level 3), while I should have saved it for Counterspell. Ok, now I know.

Hmm, I cancelled a Vampiric Touch, not so great. I wonder if I could have read the battle log to check that before countering it.

I'm going to have her cast Spiritual Guardians and try to keep it up long enough to damage everyone. Actually, no I'll first focus on putting Mardracht down, and I'll do the Spiritual Guardian later, to finish the Skeletons.

I like this model. I think I want one as a miniature, I'd love to send that against my players.

Ah, damn, I got bit by the action economy. I cast Spiritual Weapon as a Bonus Action and hit Mardracht with it, but forgot that it would prevent me from casting another spell as my main action (I wanted to cast Silence), unless it's a Cantrip. So, go for a Cantrip I guess.

No, I knocked him Prone instead, hoping to prevent him from moving too much, and maybe having Advantage against him.

Mardracht managed to cast Cone of Cold (16 Damage) on my Party, but this time as I was full HP, I could take it. He then moved out of Kirah's reach, and I hit him, and followed him in the corner, then cast Silence where he is. Neither Kirah nor Andrew will be able to cast spells, but I want to block him in the corner so I can remove his last 24 HP.

I took my chances, getting Andrew and Tordek out of their Skeletons reach, avoiding Opportunity Attacks, and focusing on Mardracht.

And he finally went down. Now, let's get to the other ones. It should be easier, now.

Scorching Ray allows me to target up to three targets, but it's still an attack roll to see if I hit. But, I add 2 points of damage because it's fire. I think this Elemental Affinity will be more interesting on my Fire Bolt Cantrip, especially since I have enhanced Cantrips that always do half damage when they miss.

I swapped Kirah's Silence for a Spiritual Guardian sphere, taking two of them into it. I hope I won't lose Concentration (actually, I think I'll take the feat to get Advantage on those checks when I can for Kirah).

I tried to finish this Sorcerer with Magic Missiles, as I often do to finish enemies, but he keeps casting Shield (and I keep on forgetting), which makes him immune to it, grr.

Positioning Kirah right in the middle of all three of them, so they take Radiant damage at the start of their turn.

And this Spiritual Weapon can't finish the Sorcerer either.

So let's Turn Undead and activate the Kirah Nuke. Meh, only one of them affected, so he will just start fleeing.

Good, the spirits finally killed the Sorcerer. But one of the remaining Skeleton was actually right outside of the area of effect, so he didn't get any damage.

But hey, he tried to move away from it, so he'll take two AoO.

And haha, dropped dead as soon as he entered the Spiritual Guardian AoE.

The last one tried to flee and is barely keeping up. "He looks very rough."

I finished him with the rogue, and I think Skeletons are immune to Sneak Attack. That plus their resistance to piercing weapons made Andrew way less potent than in other dungeons.

Yay, my first Bag of Holding!

That, plus the Feat I took on Tordek to increase his carrying weight. I think he's officially our mule.

Say what now? +2 to Wisdom, just like that. Ok, I think it will benefit Kirah pretty much.

I can now teleport at will between the Dark Castle and Caer Cyflen. There were random encounters with Ghouls in the Dark Castle, that might be a great ground to try spell combos.

But first, I'm going to validate all my quests, sell my loot, and do some inventory management.

I gave my findings to the Guild of Antiquarians. They seem to be the Pathfinder-like faction around here and have a lot of magical loot to sell. But first, I'm gonna empty my backpack to them.

Not so bad for weapons.

They have SO MANY good items. Let's see:

Advantage on Stealth. Would only be interesting for Andrew, and I can already turn him invisible.

For when I need the whole party Invisible, and it's only 100gp.

Nice QoL item, but I already have too many arrows.

I never had any problem with fall damage so far, but maybe there is an interesting combo to be have with Levitate/Fly and fly above hard to reach areas, drop the spell, and not taking any damage?

The jump part might be interesting, but I'm more curious about the Unaffected by Heavy Armor Penalties. Does that mean I can wear Heavy Armor without the feat? Will it remove the disadvantage on stealth? The casting failure? I need to test, but it it can make Andrew/Emrys wear full plate armor, that would be neat.

Oh, I think it's a spell that can light torches. That would be useful. I especially need to test if casting it would break Invisibility, as casting any spell does.

Not sure what this condition does, I don't think I've ever encountered it. But could maybe be useful for Andrew when he is scouting areas.

Wow, that is super neat. That is like, incredible. Nice for scouting for sure, and get to weird areas, but what about putting Kirah and her Spiritual Guardians on a wall, far from any melee attack? Or for Emrys to cast spells?

Oh, if this object allows to cast Levitate at will, it means I can completely forgot it from the list of spells Emrys has. Actually, I think I already forgot it, because I never used it. I wonder if the spell cast from the boots replaces the Concentration slot, or if it's a new slot.

Hmm, I often had disadvantage hitting monsters because they were not correctly lit. I had assumed that all my characters (except for Kirah) had Darkvision, but maybe Andrew doesn't, and this might be helpful.

Very situational (and expensive)

A once/day Fly spell.

Once/day scorching ray.

Oh, that is nice. I haven't encountered monsters able to cast MM yet, but I'll definitly remember that if it becomes an issue.

Also a very interesting item. I'll have to check if it's cumulative with Emrys Dragon origin that does the same thing for one hour per day.

They also exist for Cold, Poison and Necrotic.

A better version of the boots (but too expensive for now)

Limited number of charges. I'll have to test if selling and buying it back recharges it.

They also have those items to set an ability score to 19. Available for STR, INT, CON.

Hey, that would be fun.

They also have those manuals for CON, STR and DEX.

This would be awesome on Tordek. All attacks with Disadvantage until hit.

They have it for 21, 23 and 25.

Awesome one. I would like for everyone, please.

Hmm, yummy as well. Ability to regenerate between fights. I can see how a Cleric that can make themselves invisible and casting Spiritual Guardian would be able to solo the game; but that would make it even simpler.

I only have 10% discount. I might want to come back later. I'll first sell more stuff in my inventory and see. I think the cheap Fly/Spider feet stuff would be worth it right now.

The Danantar Circle also sells good stuff. That would be good for Emrys.

And there's an even better (but way more expensive).

Now let's make some room on my inventories and decide some specific logic of what loot goes where. Tordek will be the mule, everything he has in his inventory is to be sold. Kirah will hoard the potions and spells, so we can prepare for specific encounters. Andrew will be looting most of the things, so his inventory will be mostly empty, then filled with junk, and then split with the others. Emrys is our crafter, so he keeps all the ingredients.

Which range weapon should Andrew use. The crossbow seem to do more damage, but it has the Loading property and I'm not sure what it does.

The SRD says that I shouldn't be able to attack several times in the same round with it. I'm confused, as I'm pretty sure I saw Tordek fire twice with his crossbow already. And anyway, Andrew has only one attack, so it would be better for him to use the crossbow.

Also, I put a +1 Javelin as his second weapon, but because it's not a Finesse weapon, he's not adding much to hit and damage. I think I should probably put a dagger there, it would be better.

Now let's see what I can craft.

+1d8 Cold damage would be nice in the off-hand of Andrew.

Or as a Longsword for Tordek (even if I would prefer Tordek to invest in protection gear)

A +2 Mace for Kirah, that also increase her Strength. Why not.

This is a must have for Andrew. Much better Rapier, with a dot effect.

Or a +1 Shortsword that also does +1d6 acid. I think that would be nice as a main hand, and the rapier in the Off-Hand for when I want to apply the DoT.

Bolt of Paralyzation would be awesome.

The thing with that one is that I don't even know if Andrew would be able to use it. I would need to craft it to find out. Let's find out.

There are even more magical items at other vendors.

Casting Light is actually so useful.

Oh, Spiritual Guardian on Tordek, with even a +1 to AC. That would be neat. This is something I can craft if I find a Diamond of Elai.

So, I need:

A Blood of Solasta for Whiteburn
A Blood Ruby, Diamond of Elai and Bulette Teeth for the 19 Mace
Another Diamond of Elai for the Wardenblade

Also, nice cloth armor for Emrys, sold by the Tower of Knowledge.

Or a similar one with some protection.

Oh, that's a very ice staff for Emrys, that.

They also sell +2 CHA, INT and WIS tomes.

And a nice wand to finish off enemies, especially if one can fire multiple of them.

They also do sell a lot of recipes for crafting arrows and bolts of various types. But no ingredients.

Oh my, the Arcaneum is selling all the Primed weapons/armors, ingredients and crafting recipes, but I don't have enough reputation with them.

Well I guess I'll then have to spend my coin at the ready-made magical items then.

I bought a few items to test things out.

So, the boots of Striding and Springing do not allow me to wear Heavy Armor if I don't have the feat. It could still be vaguely useful for Tordek so he would move one square more, and won't have disadvantage on stealth. But, not a priority anymore.

I don't think there is a place in the UI where I could see Fire Resistances, so we'll try by attacking him?

I cast a fireball on himself, and he took half damage.

Now I can his Draconic Resistance, and he also only took half damage, it does not stack.

I ended up buying the Slippers of Spider Climb for Andrew the scout. I didn't take the Boots of Levitation as I already have the Levitate spell, but maybe later.

I also took a Ring of Darkvision for Andrew. Kirah already have the Light cantrip.

I bought a Ring of Light and Shine for Tordek, so he can illuminate the center of battle.

And it used all my coin. Now I have motivation to go do the next quests!

I'm sorry, I'm killing a bunch of random thugs in a low level quest and they are giving me the exact same items I just spent all my gold buying?

I'm getting ambushed by 3 wolves and a worg. This thing is massive.

Well, one prone attack by Tordek, three more hits thanks to Action Surge and a sneak attack by Andrew, and it's dead.

I sent a wolf flying through Levitate. He won't bother us for the rest of the fight.

I'm actually finally finding some use for this spell. I thought of using it for exploration, but that's actually a good crowd control for melee types.

It's actually prettty bad for exploration, as the target can't even move. Could be useful to put a range character out of range, but that's it.

And the only way I found to have him cancel the levitation is casting another concentration spell (like Dancing Lights, but it's a full action)

I scouted almost the entire area with invisible Andrew, and triggered a cutscene at some point, which teleported everyone on the other side of the map, next to a Long Rest Safe Area. Nice, I'll be able to attack enemies from behind now.

I attacked the Goblin Skirmishers from behind. I opened the surprise round with Sneak Attack and Spiritual Weapon, killing one of them. I then put everyone in the back, readying actions, hidden.

The readied actions killed two, I kept harassing another one with Andrew from behind a pillar so I don't get hit by their arrows. I'm killing them one by one as they approach. A shaman managed to send an electric bolt in my face, by I one-shot him with an empowered Guiding Bolt.

While I was looting after this first combat, I triggered a combat with the very first group, on the other side of the waterfall. They are going to need to walk a lot to get to me.

If you fast travel while one of your companion is spider climbing, here is what happens.

I tried to make Kirah levitate with spiritual guardians, but by default it puts her way too high to put the fighters on the ground in the area of effect. Next turn I tried to put her down by one level, and it was still too high. And it consumes his whole action. Levitate might not be very interesting on allies, actually.

I'm now into another city. It was previously an elven city, but after the Cataclysm, it became a dwarf one. And even more recently, it seems that part of the garrison, and even the ruling Baron have been replaced by shapeshifters (but as they still officially represent authority, it's creating a bit of a situation).

I kinda like those self-contained stories in the grand scheme of the campaign. I need to find the 8 gems of power, each representing one school of magic, each in its own location inspired by common fantasy tropes. Nothing groundbreaking in terms of Lore but everything is well made, and actually kinda makes sense. This is simple heroic fantasy, but well done.

Those guards finally revealed themselves and attacked me, down in the dungeon. I got Joris Nikannen with me, another Dwarf Fighter.

I setup some Spiritual Guardian to inflict some damage every turn, and tried to have two of them levitate, but so far they succeeded on all their saves.

Just a simple screenshot, because I really like the idea of having my own party of 4, living their own lives.

Actually, after a long rest (or maybe after she got her spellbook back), she doesn't seem so useless after all.

I got attacked by wolves, but somehow it feels like I buggued their AI and they stopped following me. I'm going to send fireballs at them.

It did not seem to have unstuck them. They don't even seem to have a turn in the round, I just cycle through my own characters.

Second fireball killed two. Stilled buggued, their turn is completely skipped. I'm just going to go and kill them with range attacks, then.

Interestingly enough, my NPC follower can't get through Tordek acting as a bottleneck. Emrys was able to pass just fine. Is it because of a feat, or because she's an NPC?

I somehow aggroed the Wyverns while attacking the undead in the crypts. Seems like their AI is buggy as well as they wait a lot when it's their turn, and end up not doing anything. At least after a while it's my turn again, but I think I'll fireball them to kill them quickly, whenever it's their turn, I just have to wait.

I counted and it took exactly 35 seconds (per Wyvern), to wait.

I would seem that me levitating, and the Wyvern being aggroed creating a weird context where I could target them while technically in two different rooms. I'm sure will take advantage of that.

I'm fighting more of those undead types, but now I know that it's worth it to spend an action to cast light, so they don't regenerate, and actually lose HP.

The fight was relatively easy, I could even kill the main boss easily, but a cutscene started playing.

I then had to fight the same boss outside, but I had to load a save before the fight because it was getting impossible to kill him. He kept fleeing everywhere on the map and regenerating 15HP every round in darkness. I couldn't keep up because he was just teleporting over obstacles.

So I reloaded, and this time I took shelter in the temple where there is always dim light at least.

I might have buggued their AI as well, because they just stay there without moving.

Casting Spiritual Guardian highlights a weird item below the floor.

I blocked the entrance with an invisible Andrew (to force them to move around me), an invisible Kirah with Spirit Guardians, and a Guardian of Faith. They take damage as soon as they enter here. As they can only see Emrys, he is the one they are targeting.

There seem to be issues with Levitate. Creating that levitates or fly can't get through doors. I had the issue earlier with my own rogue flying that couldn't get out of a room, and now with my Spiritual Weapon that I can't get out, and those flying vampires that can't enter the room.

Seems like I got into a tier of play where magical loot is much more common than it used to be.

I'm going to investigate the Embassy and plant some incriminating documents there. Well, I couldn't find the entry. I thought I would do all the other quests, in all the other places, first.

I didn't write much in here in my last playthrough, I was too busy completing various simple quests that required me to go to a bunch of different places, killing new random monsters, and stuff.

But then, on my way to one of those objectives, I got attacked by three Remorhaz Offsprings, and got my ass kicked. They surprised me, and killed both my rogue and tank in the first Surprise round. I managed to revive them, but they then went on killing my priest and I had to stop.

I'm now reloading the game, hoping to trigger the same random encounter again, and give it another go, now that I have a better understanding of what I'm facing. They are immune to fire and cold, and deal 1d6 retaliate damage whenever I hit them in melee. They can also burrow, go undeground and reappear anywhere around, pushing characters away.

Weirdly enough, they also seem to be able to burrow up to the top of pillars (and push my characters to the ground).

No remorhaz this time, but a group of Redeemers? Ok, let's see.

They look like large beetles. I don't know if they are dangerous or not, so I will focus fire on one to see.

They have an above average AC at least. Must be the chitinous armor.

14 damage and they lost maybe 1/6 of their total life, so I guess 80-90 HP.

It's not resistant to fire, I could deal 18 damage with my Fire Bolt. Fireballs and Scorching Rays will surely help, good to know. I'm already feeling more confident as Emrys is almost useless against fire-resistant mobs.

Oh, they can borrow and traverse the whole battle field in one round. That's nasty.

I managed to kill one by focusing on it. It has a high AC, so better to hit several times, but it then go does easily.

Hmm, one of them decided to walk all the way instead of burrowing. Maybe they only do that if their target is out of sight?

I did not get the Remorhaz attacks this time and got safely to destination. Gonna explore invisibly, as usual.

Wow, there are a lot of enemies around here. Dire wolf, Orc Berserkers, Shaman and Chieftain and also a Beastmaster. But also a Safe Long Rest area, so I can go nuke on my spells.

Oh, I could loot their own shield from under their nose, and I'm definitely going to use it in the fight against them.

Tordek now has an AC of 24, up to 26 when close to a wall.

Apparently I can perform a long rest with enemies around. What will it do?

Wow, it kinda buggued the display at least.

I did a Quick Save just before, but I'm going to see if I can survive this weird fight.

Andrew, that triggered the whole mess, is going to turn invisible.

I want to see how the AI interact with those ladders. If they can act as chokepoints, that would be great.

Like, how would those big beast get down through the ladders?

I'll cast some Wall of Fire here, hoping that the hole in the center will make them enter, leave and re-enter the area, thus taking the damage twice.

I also cast Shocking Grasp on the Berserker that was within reach (thanks to Quick Casting. I love Sorcerers), so he wouldn't have a reaction and I can now walk away safely.

I'm now in position to check the AI. My asumption is that enemies from the back will just walk in the fire and kill themselves, but I'm unsure what those near the ladder will do. Will they be able to get down (I assume not, as I have characters there), but maybe they'll be able to jump and take fall damage, or use melee weapons?

I also had Kirah (in addition to Tordek) cast Spiritual weapon, so now my trap is in place. Whoever manages to get to me will have to walk through 3-4 areas of damage.

So, several things happened here. First, the Orcs managed to jump from the top of the ladder and didn't take any fall damage. Other were clever enough to walk around the Wall of Fire (but it still used some of their movement to do so). But more weirdly, the Shaman cast Lightning Bolt, and manage to hit my characters, even if he had absolutely no line of sight toward them and they were one level above. So maybe there is a way to cast "unlimited" range spells like Lightning Bolt through walls?

I'm putting Tordek right below the Large Dire wolf, to see if it can jump.

On the other hand, it seems that I can block creatures downstairs, if I put someone at the top of a ladder.

One Dire wolf died by crossing the fire, the other tried to jump but died in the Spiritual Guardians. The Beastmaster also died by crossing the fire.

I just realized that Andrew can equip the Wardenblade, because he seem to be proficient in Longsword. And because he is wearing the Gauntlets giving you 19STR, he does not need it to be a Finesse weapon (and thus using his high DEX), he can do as much damage with both.

Granted, Whiteburn gives him +1d6 Acid damage, that only does a difference in case of Critical Hits, but Wardenblade gives him one more AC, and the Spirit Guardian Ability (which is becoming one of my favorite spells). I will try to craft a new one for him.

Wait, even Emrys could wear a Wardenblade? Granted it prevents him from doing an attack with his off-hand as it's not a light weapon, but still gives him +1AC and the Spiritual Guardian spell. I will definitely be crafting more of those swords.

This does a lot look like an UDT piece. I'm keeping that screenshot as reference. Maybe "here" is the center, the outer edge is "there" and I add a small ledge, overgrown with vines as "elsewhere"?

So I validated a quest, and everyone in the party gained a Ring of Poison Resistance, while for the next quest, we only gained one Handy Haversack. Not sure if a bug, or a feature.

There is a stealth mission, where I need to move carefully using Stealth, but I put Kirah invisible with Spiritual Guardian, and I'm having her killing the guards by standing next to them.

Killing the guards that way as well. I was hoping for some loot, but they don't have any.

And with that, I level up to level 9!

Now, I have two gems quests on my Journal, in two different locations. I'll first go see the optional area that had been indicated to me as a possible Silent Whisper hideout.

The new armor I crafted for Kirah gave her a Dark Kirah look.

Opening the door triggered the encounter. I'm going to do some tests with the door chokepoint and invisible characters. See how their AI react to path to visible characters being blocked.

They can't get through, so they went on the ceilings, but as they didn't have any range attacks, they were easy pickings.

Another map, another carnage. The NPC on the top left is alive, he might talk to me. I wonder what will happen if I kill him with Spiritual Guardians? Maybe he'll help first, I should talk to them.

Nice NPC with a lot of spells, many I don't know. She has Spirit Guardian, that's the most important.

I scouted the whole area, looted every container. I can now either go talk to the Orc Prisoner, or do a long rest, both will trigger a cutscene, and I think it will start the fight. Or I can go start the battle myself with them myself.

I will try to start a Spiritual Guardian on my friendly orc and Kirah, turn them invisible, then trigger the cutscene.

This didn't work. Apparently I need the whole group.

Ok, new tactic. I'll kill all orcs with this sneaky group except for one when I'll engage in battle and I'll see how much XP I gain.

Well, it didn't really work. I think I stepped on a monster and it triggered the fight anyway...

I have a UI issue. I cannot end my turn (the button is hidden on the far right). I might need to waste a bonus action for that.

Also, it seems I cannot go back in the corridor. The movement is blocked. I wonder what would have happened if I had part of my group there when the combat started.

Oh, I understand, the door closed. Ok, now I'm curious, I'm going to reload and keep part of the group on the other side.

Oh, the door was already closed before the fight. I hadn't noticed that. Ok, so let's try the sneaking spirit tactic once again, this time without getting detected ideally.

I got 175 XP for killing only one Redscar Orc in real combat (the other were killed by the sneaky spiritual guardians). I think it's lower than what I should have had if I had done the whole fight.

I got another Orc NPC, with the exact same powers. I think the 4 Spiritual Guardians I can summon will make short work of any boss that comes my way.

I really like the areas here. They are "basic" fantasy tropes, but well done.

I accepted the Arena challenge, but had Andrew invisible before the fight.

This meant he couldn't target me, and I could sneak attack reliably each round. Neat.

What, the merchant is a 30% Disco legend? Can he dance? Oh wait, that's the discount...

I took a two week vacation, without playing, and bg3 came out during that time. I'm going to finish Solasta before starting bg3.

My first fight after a hiatus went well. I still have to get back into the habit. I have a new Cleric with me, and lots of new spells that I should try.

I found a nice belt laying around in a grotto. I'll give them to Tordek, but he will first need to unattune the Gloves of STR 19. I'll do that at the next long rest. I'm not backtracking; I feel the game is getting too easy right now so I won't abuse resting.

I cast Fly on Andrew so he could scout the whole area.

Seems like every single Orc chief here wants me to find a McGuffin and bring to them. I hope they are all on the same level.

Bloodspear, Bladefang, Sandraven, so many clans.

Weird spiderwebs.

Good thing I'm flying AND invisible. I'll just scout the whole area, and I'll engage the fight afterwards.

There seem to be an invisible wall here, it's weird that the fog of war doesn't disappear. That might be because I've scouted too far ahead.

I walked right into the spider queen trap, without any preparation (apart from me having light all the light sources).

As I have three Spirit Guardian stack, all the little spiderlings coming die quickly, and I have the large one focus on Tordek that can tank very well.

Erf, I didn't know it could send a cloud of poison, I could have lost Concentration on all Guardians.

I attacked with my Invisible rogue. I could use the bonus action to go away, but I want to see who the AI is going to target. The visible, high-AC, Tordek, or the invisible, lower AC, Andrew? Tordek. She hits Tordek, so I can stay close and Sneak Attack each round.

And even with the Spider Queen dead, the invisible wall is still there.

I now went to the Necropolis, and because I scouted ahead and triggered a cutscene, I once again initaited a combat from the wrong end. A ghost was present in the room when the cutscene triggered, so it started a fight when it ended.

This time I opened the sarcophagus and still had my Spiritual Guardian up. This is becoming cheesy, and I can't even see clearly.

The "boss" used a Legendary Resistance to cancel the weak bleeding effect of my Rapier? Ok, that's fine by me.

I got ambushed by Sorak disguised as Orcs outside, but retreated in the room to kill them one by one. A Wall of Fire, some nicely placed spells, and they died.

BUT, I would love it if you didn't make me reappear after the cutscene in my own wall of fire!

I almost forgot there is a whole Crafting element to this game. But the mix of medium difficulty of the game with regular magic items, and the cumbersome UI/mechanics to craft made me not want to dig more into it right away. I will hoard ingredients and maybe take some time to craft next time I'm in a hub city.

There are weird flame elementals moving behind me during the boss cutscene. I'm not sure if they are supposed to be here or not.

Well, maybe they were not supposed, because they are starting the fight with some HP lost already, maybe because of my Spiritual Guardians x4 I casted before the cutscene.

The fire elementals are tough, but thankfully, the Spiritual Guardians do most of the work.

I also did counter every single spell the boss wanted to cast. I will definitely take Counterspell as one of my Sorcerer spells in BG3.

Oh wait, after the cutscene, one of my NPCs got placed below the ground level and can't get out.

Wait, and now my two wall climbers appear to be floating above non-existing ground. The hitbox of this level is pretty messed up.

Oh, ok, mister took a shortcut by walking below the lava level. Ok. Makes sense (not).

Seems like I only needed my main chars in the zone loading trigger to move to the next one, not the stuck NPC.

Haha ok, we got through a lot with the two orcs and now they don't care if they're dead?

Critical Fail when jumping during combat, made me Incapacitated and drop concentration on my twinned Greater Invisibility. Sure will make the fight harder now that I'm out of Sorcery points and too far to recast it on Andrew...

And of course, they've all piled up against him.

Seriously? I made him jump back, avoiding all AoO, but falling prone on landing.

I then went into a forest filled with poison trapped spores, but I have a necklace that makes one of my characters immune to poison, so I use him to trigger them all.

I triggered an encounter with Spiders on trees, but they seem to be stuck on their trees, not able to move to the ground, so I could simply flee and they couldn't get to me.

I played a bit without taking much screenshots, but I went through a Lava forest, fought some Fire Elementals, and finally found "the gem" I was looking for, but it teleported me into a weird area.

Little nod to Game of Thrones. The Night is dark, and full of terrors.

Oh shit, those bugs can see invisibility and attack me. And the rest of my group is far behind, I'll have to make them catch up to me in combat mode, turn after turn.

I just got myself locked into an area called "The Arena". Maybe I should have taken a long rest first?

Oh, so I'm going to fight monsters I've already encountered. Ok. Those are easy, but I'm sure it's going to be a battle of attrition, so I'll try to keep my best spells and abilities for the later stages. I'm a bit rough.

Next battle are undead. I prepared by putting Andrew and Emrys invisible, and I still have the Spirit Guardian on Kirah. There are some ghouls, skeletons and a Sorcerer. I'll focus on the Sorcerer.

Sorcerer down after combined efforts of the rogue Sneak Attack and the Reliable Firebolt of the Sorcerer. Now, to the others, letting the tank tank.

All the undead are gathered around my tanks.

One knight down. I really like this rogue.

Easy fight, actually easier than the previous one with my party comp.

This one might get more complex. Orc Shamans, Ogre, Ogre Zombies. I'll have to use more spells here.

First, my rogue killed the Shaman. Because I'm under Greater Invisibility, my attacks are with advantage and grant sneak attack bonus damage, and with a rapier in the offhand I could attack with my bonus action and it killed it.

Shit, Kirah got hit by their Orc Champion and lost concentration on Spiritual Guardian. I'll have to recast it.

I moved Tordek to the other side of the pillar so he would attract more attacks from the monsters. The winter wolf tried to hit him with an opportunity attack, but his high AC deflected it. But now I know this wolf doesn't have a Reaction anymore.

I could cast Hypnotic Pattern but that would make me loose the Greater Invisibility on both Emrys and Andrew, so I'll keep it in the back pocket for if all enemies are grouped.

They've almost all gathered here. The main menace are the ones attacking Kirah, because there is a risk of her dropping her Guardians. But also the Winter Wolf that has a cone of cold attack. I focused on the Wolf.

I'm going to activate my second Guardian, there are too many monsters around me.

I also managed to cast a Fireball that hits 4 of them, killing one.

The next battle was optional, but I went for it. Fire dragons are a pain, they burn when you hit them. Phase Spiders are ok. I guess Minotaurs are doable as well.

They are just hulking beast attacking in melee. With my high AC and my guardians, I think it's going to be easy. The drakes almost killed themselves going into the Guardian zones.

After having finally opened the door to the big room, I turned my whole party invisible to better scout ahead.

Touching the chest transformed the statues into elementals, but because I'm invisible, it didn't (yet) trigger a combat. I'll be able to position myself as I find best.

Well, I think this tight bottleneck will be perfect.

So far, I managed to have them follow me.

I got Andrew on the ledge, behind two invisible characters. I wonder how the AI will react to that.

Ahem, it didn't react at all how I imagined. It just flew over my head. Ok, time to get out of the invisibility then. Maybe I should have kite them to a place behind a crouch space instead.

Air Elementals came first, then the Earth one, one by one.

Seems like stealing from the chest made the dragon angry. Guess I'll have to fight him as well.

Hu? That was too easy.

Now onto the classical trope of the dreamy landscape of weird platforms. I've seen that in the PoE2 intro, in Batman Arkham Asylum, and in many other games already. Maybe even in Super Mario.

What, I just cast Fly on everyone, and I can't move from one platform to the next? Gonna have to load back my save.

Some puzzles to do to access hidden chests.

Found a nice enough loot in the chest, but none of my characters need INT.

A battle against a cube of light? This is getting weirded and weirder. One well placed silence spell and it didn't oppose much resistance.

Got teleported once again into a strange place. I'm very fond of this dungeon so far, it's too weird for me.

The master of the place finally talked to me. He tempted me with riches in his house, telling me not to steal them (but I did), and then attacked me.

I deactivated the 4 columns while invisible (not sure it was supposed to be possible), which transformed the wizard into a dragon, and triggered a cutscene.

I'm unsure of what is going on. There are hostile Spectral Servant on the grid. I can even attack them, but they are not in the initiative order. Maybe they'll be added later?

Yep, they arrived on the second round. I guess if I had done the fight normally, they would have been dead by this step.

I made a Blade Barrier spell on the dragon, but it didn't seem to have much effect. I couldn't see anything in the log about it.

I somehow managed to do a sneak attack during an AoO even if I was frightened.

Oh, it's because I somehow had managed to save against it.

And coup de grace by the rogue, as usual.

I used my high level damaging spell to a bunch of enemies that are actually immune to it...

I did more damage with my Cantrip (granted I twinned it and I have Fire bonus because of my class)

After the fight I got attacked by a random encounter and it turned to a disaster quickly. I was out of spells, not full HP, and I managed to kill myself with Emrys casting a Wall of Fire that I somehow misjudged the dimensions of. He died by his own fire, but the fire stayed on the battlefield, even if he should have broken concentration. I finally finished this fight with Emrys dead and had to use my first Revivify at the end of the fight.

I have been having a few more random encounters on my way back to Caer Cyflen, but I went nova on each of them and it was quick work. I'm now eager to get back to the hub, sell my loot and craft/buy some new items before continuing the next leg of my journey.

41 damage with a Cantrip. I like this Sorcerer.

I'm going into what seems a big secondary quest against a "monster", I don't know what it is, but I expect it to be big.

It's me against a lot of bugs.

I'm unsure how this is possible, but Tordek ended up in the midst of three of them.

12d6 damage on a critical hit, it's starting to add up.

I engaged the Remorhaz while being invisible and with my Guardians, they seem to be coming toward me, but not attacking me. Except for my friendly NPC of course, Invisibility doesn't seem to work on him.

Ah no, I'm wrong, they can also attack me. Ok then, time for a good old fight.

They do retaliate with fire damage when hit, so I'm avoiding AoO.

I'm doing it only for a well placed Sneak Attack to killed one. It's only 1d6 damage actually, so it might be worth it.

Not gonna do it with Tordek and Kirah, they might lose their Concentration. No gonna do it with the NPC either because I lose if he dies.

Erf, he failed his save but is immune to cold, shit.

The retaliation on the main Remorhaz is 3d6, that's not negligible.

This thing is ugly.

He does what? More damage to creature with Darkvision. That's the weirdest feat I've ever seen.

No way, he's also immune to Fire?

What a great loot! +2AC could be good for Tordek, putting him to base 26 and 28 when near a wall. On the other hand, Andrew rarely have to Concentrate on spells, so he could make use of this. It's using a lot of charges, so very situational (or if looking for exploits), and requires attunement.

I love the immersion of this game, it feels like we're not in a videogame at all!

Joke aside, I like that this game isn't taking itself too seriously. It's well done, it lacks some polish here and there but is overall very enjoyable. I'm sad I'm almost done with it, I'll soon go into the last part of the quest, but I would have wanted to play more.

This twinned Firebolt is wonderful. I can attack with Advantage because I'm invisible.

I just spent a lot of time going to one merchant to another, moving to various zones to gather the required ingredients, spend time crafting, to finally realize Kirah is not proficient with Martial Weapons and can't equip the Morningstar I just crafted her. And I'm max level, so there is no chance I could take a feat to give her that proficiency. Too bad, I just wasted a lot of money on nothing.

My party went a long way from the first time it went into this room.

I got attacked during my sleep.

One of them has +13 to hit, I'll need to focus on that one and put it down fast.

You think you're an assassin? No, I'm the assassin here.

Twinned Disentegrate.

One died.

And done.

...but my mouse battery died, so no more playing for tonight.

Now getting to the last area.

I'm glad I put the whole group invisible to scout, now the NPC appeared but they didn't trigger a fight yet. I'm going to put myself in position first.

I could use the surprise round to gather everyone on the legendary boss.

Aaaand dead. And this duo Sorcerer/Rogue is so fun to play, I'll try to do the same thing in BG3. I might need a tank though.

There was some weird line of sight bug were the enemy spellcaster could fire spell at me from behind the house. So I cast a spell back at him, and Disintegrated him.

Going now to the den of one of the big bad of the campaign, that have 30-something dead people in his home in town. The smell should surely have attracted someone.

You have hands too big to not be a Sorrak yourself, man.

That was a nice turn of events. 30 people died, poisoned by who-knows-who. They were all delegates from a border province, so now to avoid a war with this province, my home town is going to resurect them (which will cost a lot of diamonds), right in the Temple of Einar.

But the temple also seem to be the place where the very important McGuffin is, and those 30 people were actually traitors, Sorraks in disguise, that fake their death and will be transported into the heart of heart of the Temple.

And all clerics and paladins are also tapped out because the cast all their high level spells to resurrect. This is a very clever trick.

The one in the middle is named, he seems more powerful than the other, I'll focus on him.

What the? Epic loot in the last chest before stepping into the Major gate.

Meh, actually it's a bunch of +2 items, an endless quiver and a ring of light that I already have twice.

And here we go, the last zone.

Here, I didn't even bother to kill the monsters, as I'm invisible, I'm just doing the puzzle and moving forward.

Hmm, seems like I still trigger the fight somehow.

This one area I'm traversing again while being invisible. I'm already max level and coming to the last boss, so there is no need for XP or loot right now. And I think I'll use less spell slots/HP by just sneaking my way than by fighting monsters.

I'm glad they can't see invisibility.

Reaaaaaaaaaaaaally glad.

Haha, this is a funny zone.

The music is starting to get epic, I think this is the final battle.

Because I had everyone invisible, it didn't trigger the fight yet. So I'm going to position myself around the Tshar and focus on him.

I'm right in the middle of it, with new adds coming every round, but I have a Surprise round for me and the Tshar is already at half HP.

What, a gold dragon is coming to help me? No, please let me do it myself!

Ok, so the Tshar died before being able to act.

I can't believe this really was the last boss?

We did it!

Ah, good, it wasn't the last fight, I actually have an army to fight now!

The Shikah shrieked and it caused fear in both Tordek and Andrew. This is getting tense, I like that.

25 misses, I'm so glad of Tordek AC, he can run around to position himself correctly, and wasting other people Reactions.

Aaaaand done.

But I pressed Escape to pause the game while I was writing this, but this skipped the final ending... so I couldn't see the actual end of the game :(

Graeme Davis! The guy is in every Warhammer rulebook as well.

More artworks I had never seen.

Some of the voices of the game.

\o/

That was a great game, I had a lot of fun with it. I'm not sure I would replay it, as the story is pretty linear, but it really was a lot of fun, and also a great way to test 5e character concepts. I might be playing the other DLCs (but first, I have to play BG3).