DavesGaming

The Twins

I like to think, every time a player starts a new run of the Baldur’s Gate Saga they’re creating a new alternate universe. A new Bhaalspawn and new choices made.  Of course we know many elements will be significantly the same, even a computer game as flexible as Baldur’s Gate has limitations on just how different any two run-throughs can actually be.  So sometimes, I think of things that go a little beyond what the computer’s story will actually tell us.  I did this on my previous run (“Jaynee and Taggert”) when I assumed there was another warrior (Taggert’s employer Gilbert) accompanying Gorion and his Ward on that first fatal evening of the game. 
Which is all my way of getting to, I will once again make a little assumption that is not quite what the game will tell us is happening.

*****
Let’s go back to Gorion, and a small group of Harper adventurers raiding a temple to the dead god Bhaal.  In an inner chapel of obscenity,  a coven of dark clergy are preparing to sacrifice a number of children.  We’ll let the game itself explain why, but Gorion and his comrades were horrified to find what they’d heard would happen was indeed happening. They were more outnumbered than they expected to be, but launched their rescue attempt regardless.  Things quickly became chaotic, and several of the children were slain. Others fled.  But the Harpers rescued a few, and those who fled into the night might be considered a partial win.  Gorion found a small girl, a Halfling girl, laying on a bloody altar ready for her turn next.  He grabbed the small child and started to withdraw.  On the way out, Gorion found several children in another room for reasons unknown.  The fussing little girl in his arms was determined to reach for another little halfling girl. A sibling, a twin.

Gorion rescued both Halfling girls that night. His friends brought out a Human girl too.  Both Halflings were taken to Gorion’s home in Candlekeep. He raised them as his own, in spite of the fact they obviously weren’t.  And Gorion often wondered why one, whom he named Beryl, seemed to be marked for more special treatment than the other (whom he called Saffron).  Several years later, he would see the human child again too. A widower named Winthrop bought the Candlekeep Inn, one of the few businesses operating within the walls of the keep.  He came with his young “daughter” named Imoen; Gorion knew Winthrop as a fellow Harper, and indeed was the man who had taken the Human child the night of their raid.

Gorion treasured his two daughters, a huge change for a lifelong bachelor.  He found the adorable little girls also made it easy to find willing helpers around the Keep.  They both proved to be easy going and good natured. He wondered at that too, so strange for their background.  The other Bhaalspawn in Candlekeep, Imoen had a little more of the troublemaker in her.  But she wasn’t any sort of “bad seed” either.  Also a good thing, since there were so few children in Candlekeep, all three got along wonderfully.
As they grew, Beryl proved to be studious and a deep thinker.  Saffron was more high energy and physically active.  Beryl also took more of an interest in her Halfling heritage, and chose to become a Horn Guard of Yondalla. That is, a cleric of a Halfling deity.  Saffron took to swords.  Her size and strength limited her to Short Swords, but she was quick and seemed to delight in her blades.  But both girls remained good at heart, all the way through as far as Gorion could tell.

20 years of peace passed.  Beryl and Saffron grew to be cute, beautiful, good natured, and cute.  But then, maybe Gorion was biased.  When strangers in the keep began asking questions about them Gorion was worried.  It was hard to hide two cute and friendly Halflings who wanted to meet everyone.  And they were the only Halflings in Candlkeep. So Gorion knew it was time to relocate his small family.  He would try to slip them all out at night and sent word to meet up with some friends at the Friendly Arms Inn.  Maybe a Halfling village would work better? Or a bigger city?

Beryl

Beryl is the older of the twin Halflings Gorion rescued from the Bhaal Cult. By their mystical means, the cultists had determined Beryl had a particularly potent share of the Bhaal essence and was to be sacrificed first. Gorion knew none of that, but rescued the fussing child from the altar.
Quite surprising, Beryl grew to be a generous and kind hearted young woman. She has an extraordinary gift for encouraging others. As a child, she had the irrepressible energy and spirit of playfulness one would expect. Especially in a Halfling child. But even then, Beryl also had a seriousness and studiousness about her. She loves learning and she loves time with Candlekeep’s massive number of books. Learning about her own heritage came to be a part of that study; but it was purely the Halfling part of her heritage. She has no knowledge (or apparent interest) of the darker things of Faerun. And she was delighted to discover how her kind so often lives in close partnership with the bigger races of the world. Especially living closely with Humans, Elves and Dwarves. So it was from that sense of helping and community that she became a Horn Guard of Yondalla.

Beryl has loved her life growing up in Candlekeep. She adored her adoptive father Gorion, her twin sister Saffron, and her always close friend Imoen. As the only three children in Candlekeep for many years they played and grew together, as close as any family.

Beryl is a LG Cleric/Ranger of Yondalla 1st level. Specialized in Sling and War Hammer.
12 – 17 – 16 – 11 – 17 – 18

Saffron

Saffron was rescued from the Bhaal cult the same night as her twin sister. She was in a separate room, kept apart from the horrors of the Unholy of Unholys. The cultists, by the same divination that told them Beryl was valuable and special, had determined Saffron was unimportant and not valuable. Of course, even as an infant Beryl did not feel that way about her sister. It was Beryl’s fussing in Gorion’s arms that drew his attention to “the other” Halfling girl that had been set aside. Once they had been brought together, Gorion found the two to be no more burden than a single Human child would have been and carried both out easily.

Growing up in Candlekeep was occasionally more challenging for young Saffron than it was for her sister. Mainly because Saffron never saw the appeal of all those books. Saffron has always been active, curious, active, a little mischievous and active. The whole Keep often knew exactly where Saffron was with her laughter, giggling and the sound of running feet giving away her location. Saffron was about six when Imoen moved to Candlekeep. They were immediately “thick as thieves”. Although Saffron was pointedly no thief, she was usually too loud for such things. And more than once, Imoen’s mischievousness was upended by Saffron’s loud laughter giving her away. Imoen’s presence also distracted Saffron and helped Beryl find more time for reading, studying, and physical training; something Saffron and Imoen never quite saw the appeal in.
For all that, Saffron is truly as kind hearted as her sister. Much of her boundless energy has been spent helping around the Keep. From running errands, to mucking out stables, to gardening, Saffron can always be found doing something. And that something is most often helpful to all concerned.
No one was surprised, that when Beryl started studying as a cleric, Saffron could be found rough-housing with the Watchers. By her mid-teens this settled into more proper training in self defense and weapons.

Saffron is a CG 1st level Fighter. Specialized in Short Sword and Dual Wielding.
13 – 19 – 18 – 12 – 11 – 16

*****

A quick comment about how these characters came to be. I often scan the Internet for portraits, and inspiration often comes from a good portrait. With the advent of AI portraits things are getting a little different. I mentioned when I did my “Goliath and Victoria” run a few months back that I’d had a fairly lengthy search to find a good portrait for the Halfling Goliath. Indeed, but I found a couple of good female halfling portraits. Including two that immediately gave me the idea for these two. For a while, I planned on just using those two portraits. But you know, they weren’t “perfect”. And the warrior (for Saffron) wasn’t even smiling much. So I decided to take a crack at making them better. I would add, I learned Halflings are difficult! They mostly seem to look like elves; and with no context you can’t even tell if they’re short. I think we all expect certain things, like maybe a chubbier face and softer build. Ironically, both of these portraits are from earlier attempts before I started finding terms to get more reliably good Halflings. They were finally chosen over a couple of later ones, that were “more what I wanted” for a Halfling; but not so much what I wanted for Beryl and Saffron. So, sort of a fun exercise. I expect I’ll continue learning for a while yet how to coax what I want from an AI.
Both characters were created, rolled by the game not EEKeepered. I’ve made that a rule for this run, partly inspired by the fact EEKeeper doesn’t always play well with the IWDification. Typically it will erase all IWD derived spells in BG! So I took that as an excuse to eschew its use entirely for this run. But that doesn’t mean I just took my first rolls, I decided Beryl would be somewhat gifted and I rolled for 90 points. Wound up with the 91 we see here, and I point shifted to make her a good character but not truly ideal. For Saffron I set the bar much lower (80), so of course my first roll was 89. Saffron is better character than I expected! But note, still a large emphasis on “Cute” which is not a prime requisite for a fighter…

I should also mention a little of what I’m thinking about the story of saga with twin Bhaalspawn from the start. Mostly, it will just mean Saffron is a weaker Bhaalspawn like Imoen. So most things that are addressed to Imoen regarding her heritage can be aimed at Saffron equally. Obviously this becomes a little problematic with the abduction part of the SoA story-line. We’ll just say, Irenicus found it easier to take Imoen from the Promenade because of the magic use issue. And later, when he has the twins, well he finds Beryl the more appealing target for his experiments.

I’ve done a new build of the whole Baldur’s Gate saga. I still have all of what I’d done before, except CDTweaks is doing a little less this time…

For Baldur’s Gate I’ve added “Mini-Quests and Encounters” which adds a number of small adventures. Also “Loretakers” by Acifer and Lava that adds new adventures to the City of Baldur’s Gate. I don’t think either of these is huge, but that’s good! We don’t want to pile on too much more experience before the endgame. (I do still have the XP Cap remover, but for balance reasons it would not be cool to earn hundreds of thousands of extra XP!)
Next I added “Enemy Randomizer” that I believe works on wandering and placed monsters that have no story. Just to mix things up a little. It supposedly keeps difficulty about the same based on location, but does include some of the new creature types from SoD.

I’ve added “Jastey’s Tweak Pack” to SoD which claims to improve the story of that part of the game.

BG2 I likewise added a few things, starting with “SimDing0’s Quest Pack“. I’m actually using very little of this; it puts a huge emphasis on AI improvements, but this is largely obsolete with the latest versions of SCS. Note I’m not using SCS *yet*, but I may install it soon. But there are a couple of minor components I DO want! Mainly, Improved Oasis that allows a possibility of avoiding bloodshed in that late encounter.
My biggest BG2 addition will be a new Acifer mod “Call of the Lost Goddess“. This is fairly new, still available in version 1.0. It looks like a fairly big detour to the main story. Acifer reliably does professional quality work, so I look forward to trying this out.

But by far the biggest overall change is adding “Deities of Fearun” to the entire saga. And this is the reason CDTweaks is doing less work. DoF is a massive kit mod, that makes unique classes of every Deities’ priesthood. This also means it reworks a lot of the game’s priest magic system. Actually, makes it all a lot more like PnP. I’m really excited to get into this, Beryl will be my first test cleric with this new mod.

So here we go…

Update 1

Off to a pretty good start, we’re through Beregost. First bit of drama, Khalid was killed by bandits just north town. I raised him, but then split the pair. Khalid, Mr “my heart’s really not in this” will keep a base of operations for us at Feldpost’s while Jaheira continues on with the rest of us for a while (no funny gameplay behind this, I have the “split couples” feature from CDTweaks installed. That functioned as designed.

The enemy randomizer is clearly in evidence. I’ve already encountered an extra half-ogre, sword spider, a ghast and ghoul. I encountered a “Shade Wolf” in the first adventure area where a nomral wolf should be near the messenger. That’s a SoD beastie, like a Vampiric Wolf, that needs magic to take down, so careful avoidance was our only option. The spider infestation we cleared in Beregost consisted of one spider (the one whose body you need to collect the reward), a half-ogre, a mountain lion and a wild boar. Well that was unique…
No doubt this has made a number of encounters I’ve played a hundred times go differently. But it is at some expense to the narrative. I hope this doesn’t get too strange where things like groups of soldiers or guards are supposed to be? I may reconsider this if it breaks the story reality for me.
The mod does include the warning “this may increase difficulty of the game”. We’ll see, I sort of suspect the opposite. The thing is, even if I have to avoid a few beasts early on, I am running ahead on experience now. Just finished Beregost and Saffron is already second level and equipped with a +1 short sword. Imoen has dualled to mage (yes, that means I currently have no thief). And Beryl is very close to second level cleric. So the party is feeling pretty tough just now. My expectation is, that although we’re running into a few tougher baddies (worth more experience) now, pretty soon the balance will swing the other way. Like by mid-levels there will likely be more weaker monsters in some places? We shall see…

Currently, the crew is Beryl, Saffron, Imoen, Jaheira and Neera. A girl squad! After completing Jaheira’s quest (which I do mostly so she will stay in the game, in case I decide to swap her back in later. I really like having her with me when we meet the Shadow Druids) I will remove her and run off to recruit Alora. Then back to Nashkel for Minsc. We’ll rescue Dyna, and maybe switch her for Neera? Or maybe not, Neera does add the one small extra area and its treasure. I think I’ll try to play around with the “kick out” dialogues and see if I can work it so Minsc and Neera stay with me while Dyna heads off to rendezvous with Khalid. But I’d rather not get too gamey with it all. Or I might kick both ladies and go get Ajantis?
Beryl is really dynamite with her sling! She has more than half of party experience so far. But as a multi she will level more slowly. I expect Saffron to grow dominant late game.

Update 2

Made some good progress the last couple days. We just recruited Alora (as a Fighter/Thief, short bow specialist), so now have a half Halfling crew! Add in Imoen, Jaheira and Minsc. I may swap Jaheira for Ajantis after the Cloakwood mine. I often want to take him, and rarely do. I get close to the team…

A few things from the “Mini Quests” mod have come up. We had to deal with an explosion of baby Hamsters after visiting the Nashkel Carnival. Gave them all away to a kid, better stay out of town now or some angry parents may be after us. Speaking of, there’s a funny encounter after you kill a baby wyvern threatening to eat a kid. Apparently that baby wyvern cost the parents some money. I met a half-orc on the road trying to get to see his lady love, but I think I messed that one up by basically wishing him well. I suspect I needed to meddle more to get any adventure out of it?
Now I’ve been sent to find the Kobold problem in Gullykin, this *sounds* a little more involved than the others?
Anyway, its been fun having some new things pop up.

But some new things don’t appeal to me as much. The “Enemy Randomizer” certainly has provided a lot of variation over what I’m used to! But I just installed every component of the mod, and honestly its too much. It comes in three separate parts. One just randomizes spawn points, which is all well and good. Another randomizes those that disturb your rest. Basically, this is all still wanderings so no problem. But the mod’s third element randomizes set encounters with no story. I will not use that again! It’s too immersion breaking. The Gnoll Fortress hardly had any gnolls in it! There were all sorts of other critters. It is sort of fun; but like I said, at the cost of immersion.

Seriously, I’ll call this all good though. I’m learning some lessens for future games and having fun doing it. Life is good…

Update 3

I’m up to the Bandit Camp. Should tear through that tomorrow afternoon. I think I’ll leave this party as they are, I’m having fun with the changes from DoF. Both Beryl (as a Cleric of Yondalla) and Jaheira (as a Druid) are fun with their different abilities and spell lists. Jaheira as a druid has several mage/combat kind of spells. Like Acid Arrow and Fireball! That she can cast in full armor. This is definitely an interesting run through. This party is quite capable.

The damage done stats are far more what I expected now than they were back when I was starting. Saffron leads the way on damage done, while Beryl, Minsc and Alora all close behind. So not a lot of range, I’ve had runs where one dominant warrior has over 50% of kills by the end of the game and I just don’t see that happening here.

Update 4

We’re now deep into the city of Baldur’s Gate, this party is very effective. I did decide to keep Jaheira with us on this run, its my first run with DoF and the Druid gets an entertaining make over!

I also just finished the mod “Loretakers” and WOW! That was awesome, not to mention gorgeous. The new graphics are well done in a high def style. The initial hook is aimed right at the character who grew up at Candlekeep. The bulk of the story is a new 2 level dungeon to explore. There’s a number of encounters with new creature types, it made me strangely happy to see were-rats make an appearance! Several battles are harder, but this is late enough in the game they shouldn’t be too problematic. It is not linear, at least in the early parts. Which is a mixed blessing. It gives the player more free agency, but it means you do a lot of back tracking as you realize you need something that’s somewhere else…
That’s all the sort of thing that will be less of an issue on later playthroughs. There are also several riddles to solve, never my favorite thing. But if this moron figured it out I’m sure most players will.

Overall, beautiful and atmospheric. A terrific feel of menace and gross (!). This is going to stay on future BG1 installs.

Update 5

I just finished BG1 and am starting SoD.

A few thoughts. For one, I love the ferocious halflings! Saffron in particular looks great (little armored halfling with two swords!) and has by far the most experience of anyone. Like 40% of kills. I think in BG2, once Beryl gets a strength device, she will switch more from slinging to melee. Probably dual wielding.

I did install too much of the Enemy Randomizer. I will leave it on for random encounters. But it seriously breaks immersion too much for the set encounters. We get weird things like the Gnoll fortress with hardly any gnolls and a Xvart village inhabited mostly by hobgoblins. I’d also say my guess about how it effects difficulty seems to be born out. Early in the game, you get a number of harder encounters. Some of these must be avoided. But it does mean you get off to a fast start on experience. Everyone was 3rd level or higher by the time we cleared the Nashkel mines. And late game, well there were kobolds on werewolf island. So in short, you get more experience early, but it peters out by the end. I do still use the experience cap remover, Beryl and Saffron had about 210k each. So that’s average, but the different distribution makes things easier pretty early on, but no different on the boss fights.

Loretakers was an excellent find!

I’m looking forward to SoD now.

Update 6

Finished SoD with little drama. Defeating the big bad went faster and easier than ever, once you figure these things out its hard to unlearn it!

Saffron seems to be the real power behind the throne here, she really carves opponents up quickly. Although now, heading into BG2 she has lost her Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Obviously a new strength device is a priority for her. Currently Minsc is the only really muscle on the team.
Beryl is a reasonably capable warrior and a good cleric.
But at this point Jaheira is getting less useful. The changes from Deities of Faerun was appreciated in BG1, but the trade off for her extra offensive spells is less healing magic. And her higher level spells are big on Summons, which don’t really appeal to me. So I may swap her out for someone early?

I might want Mazzy on this run? She’s one of my favorite characters that I rarely run, and for obvious reasons she would fit right in here.
So often I like Aerie, and I want see how she’s been rebuilt by the DoF mod.
And since I don’t have a Paladin, I’ll probably recruit Keldorn eventually.

That plus Imoen, will likely be the final team. But it may be a while until I get there.

Update 7

Off to a pretty good start in Shadows of Amn. Beryl and Saffron’s physical weakness is a little problem, we’re definitely not hitting as hard as at the end of BG1! But Minsc provides hitting power, and Saffron slams down Potions of Giant Strength regularly, so the problem isn’t a huge thing.

We have acquired De’Arnise Castle as our base of operations. And finished the Trademeet adventures. I detached Jaheira at that point, I figure a more polite conversation than what the game actually allows for. Jaheira will be good for rebuilding a Druid Grove, and we’re all neighbors. I think the story will still involve some cooperation too about resolving Jaheira’s Harper problem. This is one of those things where I just hate the Game Engine limitation on party size. I normally would not part with Jaheira, she’s a good companion and useful to the end. But I so rarely use Mazzy, and in a party led by two Halflings, well we just have to go get Mazzy next…

The rest of the party now is Minsc, Aerie and Nalia. Aerie is the only one I see as permanent. We’ll keep Minsc just until we’re ready to start in the Graveyard, then I’ll have him keep and eye on the Castle, while I go recruit Keldorn. Nalia will stay with us until right before we leave to get Imoen, that should include doing her family related quests in Athkatla. Then she’ll be swapped out for Yoshimo.

Update 8

The party has just rejoined Imoen, they now get to escape the asylum together. Things are going well, a few interesting things with this run. Beryl is specialized in both Hammer and Flail. In theory the Flail of Ages is now her primary weapon. But she has inadequate strength to wield it. So Beryl chugs Strength potions (of any variety) so she can use her favored weapon (and wear armor!). She still carries her hammer, because on occasion when her potion expires, the game unequips her weapon. And sometimes it doesn’t. Obviously, the next Girdle of Giant Strength goes to Beryl.

Saffron is by far the party’s dominant warrior. Of course she’s dual wielding short swords and has the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength.

The party now consists of the sisters (2 Halfling and an Imoen!), Keldorn, Aerie and Mazzy. I’ll call this the “final form”, except as mentioned earlier; Keldorn will need his break for family time and I’ll go get Valley Girl and do the sphere quests at that time.

Update 9

We’re a ways into the Underdark now. I’ve cleared everything off the main map including all three of the special enclaves. And we’ve done the first mission to rescue Phaerie. I like this point of the game a lot, this is where the SoA team is starting feel pretty bada**.

I could mention too I’m really enjoying the Deities of Faerun mod. And did I mention it rebuilds Mazzy as a fighter/cleric of Avoreen? That means I’m running with three clerics. All of different non-human deities. Pretty wild. And pretty.darn.powerful. I like this team!

Update 10

Still finishing up loose ends, all the incomplete quests around Amn. We just finished the Windspear Hills and have finished everything above or below the City of Athkatla except for some Liches and Bodhi. That will be my last pass of the city. Up next will be Call of the Lost Goddess, that’s the big new expansion mod I’m trying on this run. I’ll be back with my thoughts on that in a few days.

Update 11

Call of the Lost Goddess

Well that was fun…

More?

I’ll start with the obvious. This is a beautiful, professional quality quest mod for BG2. Very well written and very well produced.

Players may know that the Goddess Waukeen is still missing from the time of troubles. This adventure starts with clergy of Waukeen asking you to help find their missing matron. As soon as you have a brief conversation at the small temple (chapel?) of Waukeen in the Government District of Athkatla the BIG temple of Waukeen just north of town is added to your map. So there’s no reason way you can’t go there almost right away in the game. It does claim to add 8-10 hours of gameplay. I wasn’t actually keeping time, but that seems about right. That makes it a fairly big sub-adventure.

But its quickly obvious this adventure is heading to the Abyss. It might be an interesting challenge to head there right away, but it might be smartest to do a few other adventures first. For this first playthrough with it, I choose to do it last as I approach endgame (I will do Watcher’s Keep now before I face Irenicus, but otherwise its the last thing in this run). I specifically didn’t want to worry too much about combat so I could focus on the story, characters and puzzles. And that is how it worked out, none of the fights were hugely challenging, even against the named “big bads” towards the end. It is sort of amusing to go after a boastful demon who wants to feast on your innards or something and destroy them (my mighty Halflings!) with nary a scratch. My personal challenge was I did NOT want to sleep while I was there!

Make no mistake, some of the climactic fights could be quite challenging to a lower level party. I would think it could be tough until your mid-teens on levels.

The story is very well written. It is based (or “inspired”) by a PnP 3E module, that I’m not familiar with so I can’t testify how closely. So many characters are colorful and entertaining. I do have to admit this is a longer romp through the Abyss than I really care for. Seriously, its a disgusting and depressing place. I did follow the story, played the part of a shady mercenary with a bit of bloodlust. Towards the end, I was pleased when pretenses were dropped and I could just carve up the disgusting demons. On this first play through I feel like I left a few things hanging, things I’ll want to pursue a little differently next time.
And that may be the main take-away. I DO see myself playing this again. Maybe even leaving it on as a regular part of all future builds. I waffled on that a little as I was playing; because, well again, the Abyss is a disgusting place. But the denouement is actually pretty satisfying, and that makes up for a lot of disgusting.

Update 12

Tore through to the the end of SoA pretty quickly, including Watcher’s Keep in near record time. A very fun, very dangerous team at this point. As always, its extra fun having a pair of Halflings leading the way through.

It always strike me as interesting how the big showdown with Irenicus in Suldanesslar seems far more challenging than the last battle in Hell. I’ve often had that first last until Breach and Dispel are almost exhausted, while the second encounter rarely lasts more than about three rounds; one to kill all the Demons and at most two more to pile on Jon.

Of course a huge party with the Elves ensued, and the whole team was good and worn out, having just been dead and all…

Now its off to deal with The Five!

Update 13

Another saga comes to an end. Initially, Beryl and Saffron settled into the old D’Arnise Keep as the new Ladies of the land. And an odd thing it was, Beryl taking an Amnish title of nobility while Saffron worked mostly as her key troubleshooter. In time, things changed a little. Beryl married, had children and leaned more than ever into her role as a Priestess of Yondalla. Meanwhile, Saffron became the Steward and functional commander of the new realm. She married much later in life and it was to a Human, but that’s a story for another day…

*****

A couple thoughts with this run now over. Saffron remained, by a wide margin, the team’s top damage dealer to the end. Showing over 40% of party experience at the end of the game. Impressive since she was a single class fighter without even a strength bonus at the start. Although her dexterity and constitution were maximized. And no doubt I favored her with first dibs on every strength device. Also in the end, she had Grand Mastery in both Short Sword and Mace, and mastery in dual wielding.

Beryl was somewhat hindered by multi-classing, she couldn’t go above specialization. And a “Hornguard of Yondalla” must always use a shield, so no dual wielding for her. But wielding the Crom Faeyr gave her fearsome hitting power.

Late game, of course Keldorn had a strength device too. That meant my fighting front, when they all used Greater Whirlwind, became a wrecking machine. In the last battle against Melissan she went down in a single round. That was fun.

I really like the Deities of Faerun mod I have now. It adds a new dimension to the game for priestly characters. To me, it makes it much more like PnP games I’ve played and run over the years.
But apart from some new abilities, it really mixes up things with your cleric spells. So I had three clerics of non-human deities in my party at the end. All could cast any healing spell, Holy Smiting, Remove Fear a few other common and useful things. But NONE of them could cast Negative Plane Protection! That required attention. Beryl got the Amulet from the Shadow Thieves, so she was protected for most of the game. And Saffron got the +2 version of the Mace of Disruption before we left for Spellhold. But she wasn’t even proficient in it yet when she got it. So that was for level draining beasties only for a while. But Keldorn was basically never protected. As the 2-handed sword guy he has a reach advantage and can fight over the heads of the Halflings. This really does mean they draw all the fire. I did use Restoration a few more times than normal, maybe a dozen times total in the game. I’ll say that worked out pretty well.
I should also mention, nobody had Chaotic Commands! That surprised me. But you know what, by the mid-point of the game, most of the team could be counted on to make their saves. AND, I’d say Illithids are pretty soft targets. Ultimately, this didn’t seem to be a very big deal.

Another very fun run has come to an end.