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Gerold: Update 6

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atcDave

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I’ve finished the original game, and am now a ways into Siege of Dragonspear. At some point, this team seems to have grown much more powerful. Through the mid-point of BG1 I felt like they were struggling a bit for their level/place in the game. But from Durlag’s Tower through the BG1 endgame it seemed to get very easy. Maybe I just got lucky on initiative and some saving throws? But Gerold and Company became a sort of steamroller.

Now into SoD, of course that means a minor rebuild. No more Imoen, so we need a new thief.

I think Gerold and Safana can only get along *awkwardly*. He will not know how to deal with her teasing and inuendo. But apart from noticing she’s a pretty woman, I think he is profoundly “not interested”!

This is where I often just create a new character. But this time, I thought it might be fun to have a bit of a troublemaker along.

Of course we also lose Jaheira and Khalid. For a bit. You can get either of them back easily enough, eventually. But here I thought I would go with a new team-mate for this stretch.

Captain Corwin is a very useful character, for her brief appearance. And no doubt she wants to get to the bottom of this threat to her city!

I do think Corwin could only be a “friendship path” sort of character for Gerold. And of course, ultimately she’s not even a very good friend. Someone he wouldn’t feel a need to see again, any more than Safana. I do wish they didn’t make her out to be such a lousy friend in the end.
One thing strikes me as funny is the ranks in SoD. Capt Corwin was apparently in charge of the trip up north, her number 2 is “Corporal Duncan”. Huh. It seems questionable to me that a Captain would be in charge of such a large expedition, its a fairly low officer rank for such a big thing. A Colonel seems more fitting. And a Corporal? That’s not even an officer! Its an NCO below Sergeant!
I have to keep reminding myself, ranks actually change A LOT with both time and geography. Even to say police forces often use very different ranks from their own national military. It seems completely backwards, but there are places where a Lieutenant would outrank a Captain. So I keep telling myself, this isn’t the US military…

So many big fights in the outdoors, Dyna will throw a lot of Fireballs!

Defeating a first Dragon seems like a big thing. The Temple of the Mad God was another thing where this party seemed ready to rock. Cleared the whole thing, from the dragon down, without a rest. I think that’s a first for me?

Minsc needed Boo’s help understanding the issues we were investigating for the besieged River Fort. He just wanted to do some butt kicking.

This led to our first really sprawling sort of battle. Louisa, along with other clerics and a certain Druid with the expedition, exhausted herself healing up the army after the battle.

I expect I’ll finish up SoD this weekend. I know I’m pretty busy next week, but I expect I’ll at least start BG2 pretty soon.

2 responses to “Gerold: Update 6”

  1. Zeno Avatar
    Zeno

    Still recovering from jet lag here.

    it’ll be interesting to see how Gerold deals with the darker themes in BG2. Not sure I’ll run SoD agin next time I do a BG run. Not fond of what it does to the story. Feels more like a ToB chapter that got misplaced.

    I like Gerold reacting to Safana. The dragon and the healing tent came off well too. That dragon is really sharp and menacing, with a really good diving charge pose.

    I’m thinking I’ll do a Kingmaker run after wrapping up the Company of the Coin. The main opposition in that is Fey – including expeditions into the Fey world. Leads to some very different render scenarios.

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    1. atcDave Avatar
      atcDave

      I’m thinking Gerold is growing up. There’s a lot I’m looking forward to with getting him into BG2.
      I really do like a lot of the combat and encounter structure of SoD, and I love putting together a new team for a short mission. But the character writing is really poor. When I get to the Coalition Camp I just cringe at some of idiotic mini-quests. And really, even the main quest at that point. I expect to keep playing it, but no doubt it’s the weakest element.
      It’s sort of like Trial of the Luremaster to me. Although that is better written!

      I do find Gerold dealing Safana an amusing thought. I think she scares him! I was very pleased when I got that render almost exactly as I wanted.

      The one of Louisa healing was by far the hardest here. Very low percentage of renders. Ideally of course, I wanted her a little older! But when this one came up I wasn’t going to argue! It captures the mood of what I wanted pretty well.

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