Astolpho: Update 3

Published by

atcDave

March 20, 2025

About half way through the Severed Hand now. This team is very strong, they tore through Dragon Eye without any reloads. That includes a couple of tough fights for the level.

The front rank. Astolpho and Eriksen. Very strong front pair. Astolpho as an Undead Hunter just tears things up. Eriksen got off to a slow start, he was the last character to have a magic weapon. Now they’re both 9th Level, Eriksen has Grand Mastery in his +2 Defender Battle Axe.

The second rank. Carmen fights right up behind the guys. She hits hard, but has the weakest armor class and hit points of my melee types. Usually that’s not a big thing, just something I keep an eye on.
Anastasia is a terrific healer. Seems like its been a few runs since I had a single class cleric! We have “Heal” a lot quicker than I’m used to anymore.

The third rank. Marcus as a cleric/mage is a powerful caster! But he is a little fragile, no armor and no dexterity or constitution bonus.
Patrick is a good archer and useful thief.

We’re at the point in the game now where I’m starting to feel powerful!

A change in the AI renders here, I switched to “Clyde Caldwell” as the style prompt. Especially on that top render, I was much happier with the results.

3 responses to “Astolpho: Update 3”

Zeno

March 20, 2025

I’ve been playing with Caldwell a lot lately too. I had some pre-conceived notions of what Caldwell style would do with my female characters, but its generally turned out pretty well. He works very well with several of the “Crooked Coin” crew, and that style often gives me some dynamic options for combat scenes.

I usually pick a “primary style” for any given run, and then have “character styles” for when particular characters just work really well with a given style. So like in the current run “Tim Hildebrandt” is the primary, but Caldwell is one of the first alternates for both Bjorn and Tiana. I also often have specific styles for specific combinations of characters – as combos are often dicey to begin with.

If all of these are Cadwell, it looks like that’s doing a very nice job of combinations for you.

The other one I use a lot nowadays – which was my primary for the Hero and the Kat run through Solasta – is Jeff Easley. That style for me is pretty good at being consistent with character looks even when I throw them in odd situations with weird assailants.

Keith Parkinson is good when I want lots of fancy pyrotechnics. Elmore is good at celebration/comraderie scenes. And Gerald Brom for gothic vampire/undead stuff. Those are generally my go-to’s before I start throwing everything and the kitchen sink because a scene just isn’t working out.

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1. atcDave
  
  March 21, 2025
  
  You know the artists so much better than I do! Like I forgot all about Easley. I tried Caldwell because I was frustrated with Elmore on these. I wanted to do Buddy shots of the team, and Elmore just wasn’t looking right. Especially that first one. Caldwell is always the second name in the back of my mind. I do remember Easley (now) and Parkinson. I may play around with them too.
  
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  1. Zeno
    
    March 21, 2025
    
    I mostly go by “I wonder who did that old dragon magazine cover I liked”, then track down the artist, then experiment a bit. Jeff Easley came from “who did the cover of the original Unearthed Arcana?l
    
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