DavesGaming

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.