And now, for something completely unrelated

FrdNwsm

I'm just playing around with some second run-throughs. Nothing serious, just experimenting. One of my PCs is a swashbuckler who is just starting the Mae'Var quest thing. Now, I understand that at the end of this, thieves get offered that guild hall as your own, much the way warriors get Nalia's Keep. But this character was designed to switch over to mage later. If I do that in the middle of the thief quest, what happens? Will I still qualify for a thieve's guild master? Or am I now eligible for the Planar Sphere as a stronghold? Suppose I complete the thief quest before dualing; do I keep the guild, or get kicked out since i'm now a wizard?

Oh and the first task MV offered me was to steal from the Temple of ... Illmatar? What the? On my first run through we had to steal a necklace from the temple of that evil god (whose name escapes me at the moment), and nobody cared. But hearing that we were going to rip off Ilmatar, Keldorn got all prissy and left the party in a huff. What caused the difference in the quest assignment? My alignment is the same; my reputation had slipped a bit to 8, however.

datrandomguy

i think the first class determines which class quest you get,so i think you should still Count as thief,you could test that tho,quicksave-go Multi then reload if the result isnt as expected

Arunsun

Unless I am mistaken, stronghold quests follows these rules:
Only one stronghold
If you are dualing or multi-ing, it is chosen in that order: Fighter>Ranger>Cleric>Thief meaning a dualing or multi-ing character cannot get mage stronghold whatever his class is
Blackguards get De Arnise Keep even though they are Paladin Kit because a Blackguard has nothing to do with The Most Noble Order Of The Radiant Heart.

wubble

if you have two active classes you get whichever you choose first.

joluv

@wubble: You mean whichever stronghold you choose first, not whichever class you choose first, right?

Jarrakul

Actually, I don't know if this is an EE thing, but I'm pretty sure multis and duals and take whichever stronghold they want from their classes. They get offered each one, and once they say "yes" they're locked into only that one, but if they refuse they can choose the other one later.

I base this on what I've heard elsewhere, and the fact that my barbarian -> druid was offered the De'Arnise Hold, turned it down, and then took control of the Druid Grove.

I suspect an inactive class from a dual works just as well as an active class for qualifying for strongholds, but I'm not 100% sure.

Arunsun

@Jarrakul : Barbarian/druid is not possible in vanilla. I can't say whether mods have affected this aspect of your playthrough but it is not impossible

By the way, if you like challenge, try and dual a barbarian into cleric at level 21 (after taking two hardiness). Yes it WILL be long to get back your barbarian abilities but once you do, with hardiness, armor of faith, barbarian resistance, defender of easthaven and belt of innertial barrier you get 105% damage resistance against melee physical attacks, 110% against ranged. This+ chaotic commands+ protection from fire+lightning+ shadow dragon scales + ring of gaxx + cloak of mirroring and you are immune to everything except imprisonment and acid (you will suffer only 25% acid damage but you might as well get immunity to acid with hell trials and darksteel shield)

Jarrakul

@Arunsun, that's true, but mechanically barbarian is implemented as a fighter kit, and I don't have any mods that should be affecting strongholds. So while I'm not 100% certain, I'd say I'm probably 95% certain.

FrdNwsm

Another question. The party fought some vampires and defeated them. A couple of the group died and were brought back with the rod of resurrection. Keldorn was killed, but his body ... disintegrated? Couldn't be raised because he was no where to be found. Is this normal for a paladin? I looked in the Radiant Heart, figuring he might come back there. Nope. I checked the Temple of Helm and the Copper Coronet. No luck. What's up with this?

FrdNwsm

OK, one mystery solved. Apparently Mae'Var's tasks do in fact depend on your reputation. If your rep is below average, he figures you are a slimeball and tasks you to rip off the Temple of Lathander. I pumped up the rep to 10, and he then asked us to steal from Talos. Keldorn objected to the first task, but not the second.

Now, can anyone shed light on the disintegrating paladin mystery? I managed to keep Keldorn around by casting restoration on him during the actual battle; one assumes that negative plane protection would also work. But they seem to concentrate on him, and every time he actually dies he vanishes utterly.

Also, one of the vampires in the group is named; Talona I think it is. Named enemies usually are stronger; does she have special abilities? Among other things, apparently only +3 weapons can hit her?

I haven't run into this encounter before; among other things it only occurs if you wander the Docks area at night. For obvious reasons.

Jarrakul

I believe Keldorn's vanishing comes from being killed by level-drain rather than damage. Characters killed by being drained to level 0 are permadead.

wubble

I'm guessing you're playing on core or higher, has his portrait disappeared? If his hp was taken to less than minus ten he will be permanently killed, I think having all levels drained has the same effect, there's no way to bring him back after that unfortunately.

lunar

In pnp lore, when a level draining creature kills a living being, that creature is doomed to rise as a spawn of the monster. That's how vampires, wraiths and spectres breed. In bg, npc that is killed by lvl drain just goes poof and permanently dead. (It would have been neat to have a vampire Keldorn, though)

Also, excessive damage that drops your hp well below -10 with a single hit, equals chunky death:body is blown into pieces. I am sure you have dealt that fate to many with your barbarian pc. If that happens to a npc, that npc is dead forever also. Portrait will dissappear because there is no body left. Just chunky salsa parts. Big fire and lightning damage also does this, but leaves the body charred and burned to black. Cold damage freezes and shatters the corpse, etc. Only safe damage is pure magic damage, so a horrid wilting can never perma kill even if it does huge damage. A comet spell, however, will chunk most npcs! Also some very dangerous enemies like planetars and balors have vorpal hits, their melee hits can auto-chunk your characters.

elminster

Jarrakul said:

@Arunsun, that's true, but mechanically barbarian is implemented as a fighter kit, and I don't have any mods that should be affecting strongholds. So while I'm not 100% certain, I'd say I'm probably 95% certain.

You are correct. As far as the game is concerned being a dual class in this instance isn't any different than being a multiclass. You get to choose one of the two strongholds.

FrdNwsm

Jarrakul said:

I believe Keldorn's vanishing comes from being killed by level-drain rather than damage. Characters killed by being drained to level 0 are permadead.

That's interesting. MC (my main persona) is well into chapter 5, and this has never happened. Mind you, berserking protects one from level drain, and I usually always had two party members who had this ability, so they led the van when fighting vampires. (MC of course, plus Korgan with the bad boy group, Minsc with the good guys). And of course, Hexxat was totally immune to such stuff also. I was utterly unaware this could occur. OK, now the negative plane protection spell makes a lot more sense; I never bothered with it before, figuring a restoration would fix things up just fine.

Nor have I ever had an NPC "chunked" by damage. Heh, I always wondered where that term came from. Might have been just lucky, but I'm protective of the folks with fewer HP also. I'm really conservative with my rod of resurrection. And I have a front buffer of summoned expendables to cushion any combat, whenever possible.

NPCs who are drained really should come back as vampires. I mean, we already have Hexxat in the game. I'd really like to see what happens when a vampire Anomen tries to turn undead

wubble

FrdNwsm said:

Jarrakul said:

I believe Keldorn's vanishing comes from being killed by level-drain rather than damage. Characters killed by being drained to level 0 are permadead.

That's interesting. MC (my main persona) is well into chapter 5, and this has never happened. Mind you, berserking protects one from level drain, and I usually always had two party members who had this ability, so they led the van when fighting vampires. (MC of course, plus Korgan with the bad boy group, Minsc with the good guys). And of course, Hexxat was totally immune to such stuff also. I was utterly unaware this could occur. OK, now the negative plane protection spell makes a lot more sense; I never bothered with it before, figuring a restoration would fix things up just fine.

Nor have I ever had an NPC "chunked" by damage. Heh, I always wondered where that term came from. Might have been just lucky, but I'm protective of the folks with fewer HP also. I'm really conservative with my rod of resurrection. And I have a front buffer of summoned expendables to cushion any combat, whenever possible.

NPCs who are drained really should come back as vampires. I mean, we already have Hexxat in the game. I'd really like to see what happens when a vampire Anomen tries to turn undead

You may yet see a party member become vampirised...