The RP-Legit, No-Cheese Drizzt Challenge (spoilers)
Lemernis
Member, Moderator Posts: 4,318
Drizzt's gear is great. And there are ways to kill him to get that gear that shamelessly metagame and/or exploit the game engine's AI. Eg, you can prepare traps for him. (Lay traps, rest, rinse and repeat.) Or you can (or at least could in the vanilla game) lure him to one side of the lake and drop him with arrows. (He can't figure out how to get to the other side of the lake.)
But for RP oriented players who wish to try to win the fight without blatant metagaming or 'cheese' tactics, this is a major strategic challenge. Ideally, you want to tackle this fight early enough in the game to benefit from Drizzt's gear for the bulk of the game. As early as possible, really. So we're talking about taking on an epic level character at around levels 2-5.
The justification for even for Good aligned characters killing Drizzt in this game isn't a tremendous stretch in the Forgotten Realms. Most everyone in Faerun has heard the legend of Drizzt. (The manual says that too, essentially.) If the guard Fuller at Candlekeep refers to him, we may assume that you've heard the tales of Drizzt, even given your cloistered upbringing in Candlekeep.
But regardless, the drow are an evil race. And a monster race. And many if not most surface dwellers in Faerun would reasonably react to drow as 'kill-on-sight'. You have the dialogue option to respond as unfriendly towards Drizzt, refusing to aid him, after which he turns hostile. And you could arguably choose it as much simply because he is a drow (regardless of your alignment) as if you are evil. That's a rationalization that you can use anyway.
(Now whether your PC could or would make a good guess as to who this drow is, and respond accordingly in the dialogue, is another question. But that is on your RP conscience. 
)
You can also choose a dialogue option that rejects his plea for help yet doesn't turn him hostile. But if you speak to him after he defeats the gnolls he will identify himself and depart, ignoring your attacks, quickly disappearing. (Traps would be cheese here.)
So with that framework established:
How do you kill Drizzt with a party at level 2-5, using tactics that flow from legit RP in that moment of encountering him/turning him hostile?
or, alternatively,
If you're playing an Evil level 2-5 party and scout ahead, guessing that it may be Drizzt, and you choose the dialogue option to leave him neutral after defeating the gnolls: How do you then cunningly kill him without cheese tactics?*
You can use metagame knowledge but your tactic has to be believable more or less from the standpoint that you stumble onto this fight. It is certainly plausible that a stealthy scout would hear the commotion of Drizzt's battle with the gnolls. So you could well have some idea that a big fight lies ahead. You can spy it and see that a drow is surrounded by a dozen gnolls.
* If you're playing an evil PC or party, perhaps after scouting you do make an educated guess that it just might be Drizzt. And perhaps you then you're bold enough to attempt killing him for his treasure. But if you're Good aligned and make the guess that it's Drizzt you really should choose the dialogue option to help him.
But for RP oriented players who wish to try to win the fight without blatant metagaming or 'cheese' tactics, this is a major strategic challenge. Ideally, you want to tackle this fight early enough in the game to benefit from Drizzt's gear for the bulk of the game. As early as possible, really. So we're talking about taking on an epic level character at around levels 2-5.
The justification for even for Good aligned characters killing Drizzt in this game isn't a tremendous stretch in the Forgotten Realms. Most everyone in Faerun has heard the legend of Drizzt. (The manual says that too, essentially.) If the guard Fuller at Candlekeep refers to him, we may assume that you've heard the tales of Drizzt, even given your cloistered upbringing in Candlekeep.
But regardless, the drow are an evil race. And a monster race. And many if not most surface dwellers in Faerun would reasonably react to drow as 'kill-on-sight'. You have the dialogue option to respond as unfriendly towards Drizzt, refusing to aid him, after which he turns hostile. And you could arguably choose it as much simply because he is a drow (regardless of your alignment) as if you are evil. That's a rationalization that you can use anyway.
(Now whether your PC could or would make a good guess as to who this drow is, and respond accordingly in the dialogue, is another question. But that is on your RP conscience. )You can also choose a dialogue option that rejects his plea for help yet doesn't turn him hostile. But if you speak to him after he defeats the gnolls he will identify himself and depart, ignoring your attacks, quickly disappearing. (Traps would be cheese here.)
So with that framework established:
How do you kill Drizzt with a party at level 2-5, using tactics that flow from legit RP in that moment of encountering him/turning him hostile?
or, alternatively,
If you're playing an Evil level 2-5 party and scout ahead, guessing that it may be Drizzt, and you choose the dialogue option to leave him neutral after defeating the gnolls: How do you then cunningly kill him without cheese tactics?*
You can use metagame knowledge but your tactic has to be believable more or less from the standpoint that you stumble onto this fight. It is certainly plausible that a stealthy scout would hear the commotion of Drizzt's battle with the gnolls. So you could well have some idea that a big fight lies ahead. You can spy it and see that a drow is surrounded by a dozen gnolls.
* If you're playing an evil PC or party, perhaps after scouting you do make an educated guess that it just might be Drizzt. And perhaps you then you're bold enough to attempt killing him for his treasure. But if you're Good aligned and make the guess that it's Drizzt you really should choose the dialogue option to help him.
Post edited by Lemernis on
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Here's how I see it going down:
Garrick! How could you possibly have thought that picking a drow blademaster's pocket was a good idea?! Omigawd you killed Garrick! And now you're attacking us?! We're not with that guy.
Oh great, now he wants us dead. Scatter!
Okay, we've angered a demon fighting dbag who believes in disproportionate retribution. Plans?
Come back later when we're more experienced you say? No! I will intentionally avoid preparations to handle this dangerous threat who I can only assume has the means and motivation to pursue us if ignored indefinitely.
Is he still out there?
Yes? Okay, drow are magic resistant, psychotic monsters who murder bards. Time to create.... THE GAUNTLET RALLY.
*Trap trap trap trap trap we arbitrarily cannot place more traps in this area.*
Hey Drizzt! I'm bait!
*Archers gonna arch.*
*Trap.* "Ow!"
Arrowed!
*Trap.* "Ow!"
*Trap.* "Ow!"
Arrowed!
*Trap.* "Ow!"
*Trap.* "Ow!"
Arrowed!
Why did a clearly murderous psychotic bard chunker willing to kill a band of strangers over the actions of one, highly incompetent, bard carry around a sword only usable by good people? Truly one of the mysteries of our time.
Edit: A lightning wand doesn't seem to even tickle him.
@Pantalion the engine's limitations do create some weird behavior that can be exploited. Whereas in a PnP game this could be handled much more sensibly, in BG you only get the "turn hostile = murder the entire party" option.
If Viconia is already with you and scouts the Drizzt encounter area in Sanctuary it's a little hard to guess what she would do with what she sees there... I.e., what she would make of it and report back to you.
I've forgotten all the particulars of why Viconia left the Underdark. Her bio says she hates Lloth. Yet she is also proud of being a drow. It further mentions that she is naive about how surface dwellers view the drow. (That's gotta be a sharp learning curve, though, right?)
Anyway, she wouldn't necessarily assume that the drow she sees fighting the gnolls is Drizzt, though.
Drizzt's magic resistance isn't full, but it is 98%.
Her brother intervened and was turned into one of those half-spider/half-drow monsters whose name I don't recall right now.
She was either banished or fled, after which she became, let's say, unfavored in the eyes of Lolth. That's when she turned to Shar as a guide in the surface world.
Her epilogue, depending on whether you chose godhood or not, will either state she was honored by the surface elves (after which she disappears) or that she married you and was eventually murdered by assassin priests of Lolth.
It's been a while since I've played that romance, though, so I might have got some details wrong.
This is what happens when NPCs start having a life of their own.
Let's just remove the low level part, because I doubt anyone's going to find a way to do that.
Any level, let's say.
could a Cavalier justify killing the good silver dragon in the Underdark and making the Human Skin armour?
Paladins follow principles and absolutes, more than loosely structured moral codes. So a cavalier with a jihad against dragons would have no compunctions about killing a dragon, even a silver one.
The Human Skin armor, though, is inherently evil, and any paladin would be able to sense this.
In the same way, a paladin with a crusade against drow would also have no problems killing Drizzt. At a certain point, if you're a paladin you don't need any reason other than "it is tainted". One of the morally fuzzy aspects of the class, but there it is.
Drizzt fought in the two long-weapon style common among drow warriors. When the tides turned bad, or when facing opponents such as dragons or frost giants, he called upon his innate drow abilities to conjure up a globe of impenetrable magical darkness that neither himself nor his opponent could see through[14]. Depending on the situation, Drizzt continued the fight from there. In rare cases, Drizzt would go into a self-imposed trance[11] where, through pure instinct, he often gains the upper hand, parrying enemy blades and making attacks that find holes in his opponent's defenses that they, not used to fighting blind, could not possibly see coming.
maybe Viconia sneaks out to commission the Human Skin while my Cav and the rest of the gang are at the Five Flagon Inn?
Also do Gnomes still get their racial 5% MR? i don't remember checking it
Or... perhaps a non-evil character feels justified in killing him simply because Drizzt is drow and he or she hates drow, despite all the legends about Drizzt (i.e., not believing those tales to be true). Then one devises the plan to lay traps as well.
So it's basically about laying the traps, probably. But can one set enough of them to kill Drizzt without metagaming? Drizzt's imminent battle with the gnolls wouldn't just remain suspended in time.
If you however think fast i think you could beat him like i said ot at least have a better chance than anotcher tactic. If he however was the real Drizzt with a GM controlling him and not a AI in BG you would have no chance to beat him like this.