In an outright battle, I agree, but a club to the back of an unexpected head kind of levels the playing field, and if his sons were involved, who knows what sort of skills or abilities they had. I wouldn't be surprised at all if one of his sons had joined the military. He wouldn't be the first son of a farmer to do so.
I was mainly refering to the "enslavement" of her, not the description of how she was attacked/subdued (club in the head). The second she woke up afterwards, she could have started to chant her magic, allowing her to either kill or charm her captors etc. The only way they could have actually ensvaled her is if she was continuously bound and gagged so she can't use magic, but I'm actually unsure if hands are even used in divine magic or if it's purely verbal? Maybe some FR guru can enlighten me.
@DreadKhan: I agree. The standard of using "HP" does weird things with many situations where the logical outcome can't really be reproduced in the RPG setting. Like a char fighting equally good at 1 HP as with full HP, which of course, is completely ridiculous.
Let's say for the sake of argument that she did get knocked out and they attempted to enslave her.
First, looking back at what I wrote, I realize that I should've written "*tried* to enslave her for his own perverted desires," as that's what I actually had in mind. That *can* change things, but ultimately I don't think it does and I'll explain why. I just wanted to take a second and clarify that.
Taking your points into consideration, there's no explanatory issue really. This is before she meets you, and so she's a lvl 4 cleric at best with a low CON and STR scores. Everything about her starting stats scream defensive and / or ranged combat, especially her 19 DEX. But after she's clubbed, presumably she's been stripped naked (no weapons, armor, or scrolls) and likely caged. If they've done this before (and let's face it, creeps that go this far usually have had practice), then they're smart enough to remove amulets and rings if they don't outright equip her with a cursed item to negate her spellcasting and / or weaken her further.
Setting aside the cursed item angle, what does a naked lvl 4 Cleric bring to the table? She has 3 lvl 1 Priest Spells and 2 lvl 2, but she doesn't have Holy Might. That would give her some buff spells that would be useless in this situation, a few weapon spells (like Shillelagh, Flame Blade, or Spiritual Hammer), and a couple of useful spells like Command and Hold. However, remember that she has a finite number that she can cast per day. I would say the odds are actually *not* in her favor.
With Command and Hold, she can either put you to sleep or hold you in place, neither of which sets her free and both of which can be saved against. Barring incredibly fortuitous circumstances, such as holding one who walks by the cage and snatching a key, they don't do much for her. The weapons are nice, but the cage is likely stronger, and even if it's not, her terrible STR score makes her easily defeated in melee against 3 attackers, one of whom likely has a high STR as a farmer. If this did work, I'd imagine they'd fortify her captivity to prevent it from happening again. Fool me once...
Now, possibly a combo could work. Command all three to sleep (burns lvl 1 spells), create Spiritual Hammer, manage to bust the lock, and win. Still, this assumes no saves are made and that the others do nothing while it starts happening. Furthermore, if it's even a decent lock, an STR of 10 negates almost any chance of breaking it. I just don't see it and now you have three drowsy but angry captors.
I just think you might be overestimating her combat abilities at lvl 4, and if she's lower, all the worse. Now, BG2 Viconia? 100% I would agree with you, but at this stage? She's just not much of a fighter. If her "dig out of the grave story a la Kill Bill 2" is true in any way, she exacted her revenge so easily because she had the element of surprise.
I'll be honest. I definitely hadn't thought this much about her captivity and capabilities until this conversation and am having fun discussing it. The gap in explanations is the space where creative fan fiction can spring forth. That's another reason why I'm not so quick to ascribe plot holes. Just talking about this has me visualizing all of these different stories, scenarios, and outcomes, and it's pretty entertaining from a storytelling / role playing angle.
Firstly, to make this very clear: I too enjoy to discuss this topic in very friendly terms, even if it may sound as I am debating/argueing with you. Thank you for your long reply, it was an interresting read.
I have one thing of note though, but again I want to make it clear I am not knowledgeble about any FR lore outside of the computer games, I believe it's quite clearly stated that even at level 1, an average character is way beyond any non-PC/NPC in terms of fighting prowess, and so any farmer, strong or not, should still have a rather poor THAC0 etc. I may have interpreted this wrongly though.
If the above is true, then a level 4 cleric with 4 HD vs 3 farmers level 0 with 1 HD (maybe 6 HP + CON ?) also, weilding Shillegagh or similar? I don't see any competition, she can very well win if they don't crit her. Especially if she get's of a Hold etc on one of them. Though she ain't stupid, so of course she would never attack them all three at once. Rather she would wait for the perfect moment to strike, just as she does in her story.
Command offers no save for low level targets when I played my last cleric, and even a middle-aged farmer isn't going to be a 3rd level commoner even in 3rd. He'd be what, a lvl 0 NPC in 2nd I think? @atcDave you are more familiar with 2nd Ed granularity, shouldn't random farmers be EXTREMELY vulnerable vs any adventurer? What kind of saves? Pretty sure they'd be awful enough that Hold Person would be awfully reliable.
Stats are usually pretty average for commoners too, so 13 strength would be a pretty high strength score for them to have. Iirc, an adventurer can oneshot pretty much any 0 level commoner.
Now, things get a BIT rougher if we're generous and make the farmers actual 'villains', ie maybe the farmer was a retired warrior. He might have 14 or 15 str then. Maybe a lvl 2 fighter? still an easy target though for a cleric that can use Command.
Regarding casting, I think most somatic components are very forgiving for Clerics, hence wearing heavy armour. Don't think they can cast without their holy symbol though, but I could be wrong.
@Skatan some gaming systems have worked out some alternatives to just HP, ie adding 'wound points', which represent actual serious bodily harm, usually inflicted via crits or vs defenceless enemies. Another alternative is using a damage threshold, usually based on constitution. In 3rd, the threshold was pretty crazy, but Thieves' World has a very low one, and also has the risk of infection and disfigurememt, ie ability score damage that requires powerful magic to fix. The result is a combat system thsts very strongly discourages unneeded combat, especially vs groups of enemies. Any battle can get ugly, and really hard hitting enemies can be a huge challenge; a single blow can cause a serious injury, kinda like how in real life a two-handed sword or polearm could do serious damage pretty easily.
Now, things get a BIT rougher if we're generous and make the farmers actual 'villains', ie maybe the farmer was a retired warrior. He might have 14 or 15 str then. Maybe a lvl 2 fighter? still an easy target though for a cleric that can use Command.
Yeah. I wasn't thinking of them as simple commoners given the circumstances, and besides, while the love interest is a farmer, IIRC it's silent on his sons, making it possible for either of them to have a class.
Normally I would expect a farmer to just be a 0-level human; if memory serves.... That's 2-7 HP (1-6 for "sedentary" types) and saves as a less than 1 HD monster. So basically, very fragile.
I would add a few qualifications; the biggie being, as mentioned, there's no telling who might be a retired soldier or adventurer. And even non-thieves get bonuses to hit a surprised opponent from behind. Also, once disabled, characters can be restrained or killed with no chance of failure. One other thought I'd add, and this is an interpretation only, but I always figured a character isn't really badly hurt until they're knocked out. BG takes liberties in that you're dead at 0 HP. But even the core books allowed for characters actually being alive but unconscious to -10 HP. So I usually say HP are more a measure of fatigue, luck and judgement. Your character maybe getting some cuts and bruises as their hit points are worn down, but they aren't badly hurt until knocked down. But this is sort a fan wanked interpretation that doesn't really explain for lengthy healing times. But hey, making a game system perfect isn't easy!
Personally, I think her story was never fully decided and thus ambiguously implemented into the game. Or maybe it was partially written by different ppl who had different opinions on whether or not she should be truly evil or just a little evíl and still very likable, hehe..
I think that her background was probably deliberately left mysterious/ambiguous in BG1 (much like most of the NPCs' backgrounds), and was then incongruously fleshed out in BG2 to fit into the romance.
The second she woke up afterwards, she could have started to chant her magic, allowing her to either kill or charm her captors etc.
I agree, the description of her "garroting" people and bashing their heads in just seems incongruous with her character (and especially her 10 str) IMO - I think it would've made more sense for her to use Animate Dead to summon an army of skeletons to kill the farmers.
Incidentally, does anyone else think the term "garrote" seems out of place in the BG universe? I usually associate that with the American Mafia using piano wire to choke people. I think it would've been more suitable for her to say, "I strangled him with a rope," or something along those lines.
Garrottes are an EXTREMELY useful tool for a physically weak individual. Its almost impossible to fight back or dislodge one if its done correctly, and acts very fast if used right; it'll cut off blood flow to the brain.
This was an interesting thread until it got side-tracked by a discussion about Viconia...
And for the record, I think Viconia's BG2 storyline/romance is left purposely vague to allow players to interpret her as they want.
I probably wasn't clear in my initial post, but my charming experiment has so far proved Mad Arcand the only one capable of summoning forth the hulking variant of the skeleton warriors. Those things were unstoppable on that map.
I've been a little busy lately and haven't had much of a chance to continue the charmed experiment. I'll resume soon though.
If Viconia can be brought down with a clubstrike (clearly real life and not hp RPG) then 'command' has more uses as well. I remember a story in which the captives (who where in a pit) commanded the captor to jump.... (Necromancers handbook, story of Sarzec)
Little disappointed with this one, but I managed to dire charm Daer'ragh. He just repeated his script, turned hostile again, and summoned a new set of Phoenix Guards. I was hoping he would at least tell me a little something about why he faked his death. In addition, he has no summoning spell, just lightning and flame arrows, which means the summoning spell is also just an arbitrary script. Nothing too interesting with him and not worth the hassle.
I did manage to dire charm Prat, which was funny because he indulges to you Sarevok's plan and it updates your journal with a "Framed" entry. I then walked him to the exit in the caves to meet Diarmid, wishing on a star that new dialogue would appear since Prat was in fact with me, but he ignored Prat altogether. In addition, dire charming Diarmid proved both difficult and, when finally successful, useless, reverting to the usual scripted dialogue.
Today, I dire charmed a squirrel. Unfortunately, they have nothing to say, but they can (try to) attack. Poor things really don't stand much of a chance in battle, but it is funny to watch.
I also dire charmed Dorn, but he just made an empty threat about bothering him. I promptly killed him for his arrogance.
Ichyrod in Ulcaster was also charmed, but again, he doesn't really say much more. I will say, however, that he's pretty formidable on that map, usually doling out non-crit 20s against kobolds. His defense is pretty underwhelming though. Too bad there wasn't a Hellraiser-like sidequest for evil parties involving him, such as finding him a body or two (such as a dead party member, Captain Brage's body, or a body from the sewers) so that he can have his flesh and return to the living, upon which he could join you.
Lastly, I tried to charm Baeloth and the druids. The druids don't reveal anything new, but you can burn off their spells, making the fight significantly easier. One even summons war dogs that are loyal to you after the charm wears off. The bear summonin are scripted and so there's no way around those,but the war dogs provide just enough distraction that you can take them out with minimal damage.
As far as Baeloth goes...magic resistance. This was new for me though. I usually accept him into my party, but after killing him and taking his stuff this playthrough, the merchant at Ulgoth refused to buy any of it, saying, "I don't fence stolen goods. Give me something else." I haven't seen that dialogue before, but it bothers me a little. (A) Other than the harmless and incidental bloodstains, how does he know they're stolen? (B) With the owner deceased, there are no claims to ownership and so technically they're not *really* stolen goods. (C) Hello? Almost everything I've sold you has been stolen. Oh well. His loss.
Too bad there wasn't a Hellraiser-like sidequest for evil parties involving him, such as finding him a body or two (such as a dead party member, Captain Brage's body, or a body from the sewers) so that he can have his flesh and return to the living, upon which he could join you.
^- This! Oh my god, yes this! I would kill Noober and give his body to him, hahaha! That would be hilarious!
Comments
First, looking back at what I wrote, I realize that I should've written "*tried* to enslave her for his own perverted desires," as that's what I actually had in mind. That *can* change things, but ultimately I don't think it does and I'll explain why. I just wanted to take a second and clarify that.
Taking your points into consideration, there's no explanatory issue really. This is before she meets you, and so she's a lvl 4 cleric at best with a low CON and STR scores. Everything about her starting stats scream defensive and / or ranged combat, especially her 19 DEX. But after she's clubbed, presumably she's been stripped naked (no weapons, armor, or scrolls) and likely caged. If they've done this before (and let's face it, creeps that go this far usually have had practice), then they're smart enough to remove amulets and rings if they don't outright equip her with a cursed item to negate her spellcasting and / or weaken her further.
Setting aside the cursed item angle, what does a naked lvl 4 Cleric bring to the table? She has 3 lvl 1 Priest Spells and 2 lvl 2, but she doesn't have Holy Might. That would give her some buff spells that would be useless in this situation, a few weapon spells (like Shillelagh, Flame Blade, or Spiritual Hammer), and a couple of useful spells like Command and Hold. However, remember that she has a finite number that she can cast per day. I would say the odds are actually *not* in her favor.
With Command and Hold, she can either put you to sleep or hold you in place, neither of which sets her free and both of which can be saved against. Barring incredibly fortuitous circumstances, such as holding one who walks by the cage and snatching a key, they don't do much for her. The weapons are nice, but the cage is likely stronger, and even if it's not, her terrible STR score makes her easily defeated in melee against 3 attackers, one of whom likely has a high STR as a farmer. If this did work, I'd imagine they'd fortify her captivity to prevent it from happening again. Fool me once...
Now, possibly a combo could work. Command all three to sleep (burns lvl 1 spells), create Spiritual Hammer, manage to bust the lock, and win. Still, this assumes no saves are made and that the others do nothing while it starts happening. Furthermore, if it's even a decent lock, an STR of 10 negates almost any chance of breaking it. I just don't see it and now you have three drowsy but angry captors.
I just think you might be overestimating her combat abilities at lvl 4, and if she's lower, all the worse. Now, BG2 Viconia? 100% I would agree with you, but at this stage? She's just not much of a fighter. If her "dig out of the grave story a la Kill Bill 2" is true in any way, she exacted her revenge so easily because she had the element of surprise.
I'll be honest. I definitely hadn't thought this much about her captivity and capabilities until this conversation and am having fun discussing it. The gap in explanations is the space where creative fan fiction can spring forth. That's another reason why I'm not so quick to ascribe plot holes. Just talking about this has me visualizing all of these different stories, scenarios, and outcomes, and it's pretty entertaining from a storytelling / role playing angle.
I have one thing of note though, but again I want to make it clear I am not knowledgeble about any FR lore outside of the computer games, I believe it's quite clearly stated that even at level 1, an average character is way beyond any non-PC/NPC in terms of fighting prowess, and so any farmer, strong or not, should still have a rather poor THAC0 etc. I may have interpreted this wrongly though.
If the above is true, then a level 4 cleric with 4 HD vs 3 farmers level 0 with 1 HD (maybe 6 HP + CON ?) also, weilding Shillegagh or similar? I don't see any competition, she can very well win if they don't crit her. Especially if she get's of a Hold etc on one of them. Though she ain't stupid, so of course she would never attack them all three at once. Rather she would wait for the perfect moment to strike, just as she does in her story.
Stats are usually pretty average for commoners too, so 13 strength would be a pretty high strength score for them to have. Iirc, an adventurer can oneshot pretty much any 0 level commoner.
Now, things get a BIT rougher if we're generous and make the farmers actual 'villains', ie maybe the farmer was a retired warrior. He might have 14 or 15 str then. Maybe a lvl 2 fighter? still an easy target though for a cleric that can use Command.
Regarding casting, I think most somatic components are very forgiving for Clerics, hence wearing heavy armour. Don't think they can cast without their holy symbol though, but I could be wrong.
@Skatan some gaming systems have worked out some alternatives to just HP, ie adding 'wound points', which represent actual serious bodily harm, usually inflicted via crits or vs defenceless enemies. Another alternative is using a damage threshold, usually based on constitution. In 3rd, the threshold was pretty crazy, but Thieves' World has a very low one, and also has the risk of infection and disfigurememt, ie ability score damage that requires powerful magic to fix. The result is a combat system thsts very strongly discourages unneeded combat, especially vs groups of enemies. Any battle can get ugly, and really hard hitting enemies can be a huge challenge; a single blow can cause a serious injury, kinda like how in real life a two-handed sword or polearm could do serious damage pretty easily.
I would add a few qualifications; the biggie being, as mentioned, there's no telling who might be a retired soldier or adventurer. And even non-thieves get bonuses to hit a surprised opponent from behind.
Also, once disabled, characters can be restrained or killed with no chance of failure.
One other thought I'd add, and this is an interpretation only, but I always figured a character isn't really badly hurt until they're knocked out. BG takes liberties in that you're dead at 0 HP. But even the core books allowed for characters actually being alive but unconscious to -10 HP. So I usually say HP are more a measure of fatigue, luck and judgement. Your character maybe getting some cuts and bruises as their hit points are worn down, but they aren't badly hurt until knocked down. But this is sort a fan wanked interpretation that doesn't really explain for lengthy healing times. But hey, making a game system perfect isn't easy!
Incidentally, does anyone else think the term "garrote" seems out of place in the BG universe? I usually associate that with the American Mafia using piano wire to choke people. I think it would've been more suitable for her to say, "I strangled him with a rope," or something along those lines.
They aren't a modern only weapon afaik.
And for the record, I think Viconia's BG2 storyline/romance is left purposely vague to allow players to interpret her as they want.
I've been a little busy lately and haven't had much of a chance to continue the charmed experiment. I'll resume soon though.
I did manage to dire charm Prat, which was funny because he indulges to you Sarevok's plan and it updates your journal with a "Framed" entry. I then walked him to the exit in the caves to meet Diarmid, wishing on a star that new dialogue would appear since Prat was in fact with me, but he ignored Prat altogether. In addition, dire charming Diarmid proved both difficult and, when finally successful, useless, reverting to the usual scripted dialogue.
I also dire charmed Dorn, but he just made an empty threat about bothering him. I promptly killed him for his arrogance.
Ichyrod in Ulcaster was also charmed, but again, he doesn't really say much more. I will say, however, that he's pretty formidable on that map, usually doling out non-crit 20s against kobolds. His defense is pretty underwhelming though. Too bad there wasn't a Hellraiser-like sidequest for evil parties involving him, such as finding him a body or two (such as a dead party member, Captain Brage's body, or a body from the sewers) so that he can have his flesh and return to the living, upon which he could join you.
Lastly, I tried to charm Baeloth and the druids. The druids don't reveal anything new, but you can burn off their spells, making the fight significantly easier. One even summons war dogs that are loyal to you after the charm wears off. The bear summonin are scripted and so there's no way around those,but the war dogs provide just enough distraction that you can take them out with minimal damage.
As far as Baeloth goes...magic resistance. This was new for me though. I usually accept him into my party, but after killing him and taking his stuff this playthrough, the merchant at Ulgoth refused to buy any of it, saying, "I don't fence stolen goods. Give me something else." I haven't seen that dialogue before, but it bothers me a little. (A) Other than the harmless and incidental bloodstains, how does he know they're stolen? (B) With the owner deceased, there are no claims to ownership and so technically they're not *really* stolen goods. (C) Hello? Almost everything I've sold you has been stolen. Oh well. His loss.
Also funny, if you made Ichy get crummy commoner stats in the new body, at which point there is a short fight.