Because the characters can't be buffed up all day long and they don't know when exactly mortal danger presents itself, and they might find it boring to be resting before/after each battle in order to rememorize buffs.
Thank you all for thinking about buffing when role-playing. Fact is, I always used to meta-game and that made the game less challenging, so in all my campaigns I rely on Sword Coast Stratagems for the difficulty. But it would be better, if I had created a separate install without stratagems for this playthrough. Really roleplaying a game is a whole different kind of beast and I wouldn't be able to roleplay it so faithfully if it weren't for writing a diary about it.
Haven't updated Deirdre's diary for a while. I've been on vacation for 10 days, then didn't feel much like gaming. Yet now I'm working again, I feel the need to game again to relieve stress. However, this campaign right now causes more stress than it solves.
I'm stuck. At the battle with the kobold shaman and chieftain in the Nashkel mines. My party doesn't have the 'panic, throw an exploding potion' option at hand, as I forgot to buy one when I resupplied at High Hedge. I don't feel like reloading to the point the party was at High Hedge as I have to do the swarms of kobolds at this level again, that I had already cleared. And just travelling back is no option from a roleplay point of view. Without a sense of real danger go all the way back seems strange.
I did try to solve the battle by the trick I intended to use when I started this series of diary entries by having Deirdre get 'a bad feeling' about something causing her to prep. I had her do just that, making her get all itchy and scared and urging the party to prep well. However, the party is at such a low level that even prepped (I have only Bless, Chant and Armour and Shield spells available) the Shaman has an overly high chance of getting a horror spell off, as he creates more mirror images than my 2 mages can cast magic missiles at (part of their slots having been taken by armour and shield for the regular kobold hits) and too most of my party fail their saves, leading to several deaths in only a few rounds time.
I did try making the party panic and run, resolving to a hit and run while escaping the scene but all the kobolds come in pursuit and the shaman still manages to Horror my party.
If I'd meta-game, I'd know this is a tough fight and make sure my party is level 3 before I tackle the final levels of the mines with the Dark Side Kobold upgrades of SCS. But I don't meta with this playthrough.
My conclusion and a fine TL;DR to finish with, is a Sword Coast Stratagems install is not the proper install for a roleplayed playthrough, and I should have created a special easier version of BG:EE for this playthrough. But I'm not in the mood to redo a diary-playthrough from the ground up.
Sorry, I guess this playthrough won't be continued.
Thanks for the compliment. A pity writing takes more effort than I can muster for a whole campaign. I guess even if a campaign is without improved SCS-like tactics and doable without meta-gaming, to finish it all in writing would be a chore. I'm used to writing columns, speeches, short articles (all non-fiction) and never tried my hand at story-writing and really finish it. It's a different ball-game than writing a column which is limited to 1 page in our newsletter.
I do like writing and get compliments for it sometimes, but in this as in everything, due to my mental state my energy is limited. I feel pity for Deirdre herself though, her story will be unfinished. I liked her character.
Hello again everybody, I felt like continuing with a low-level campaign and picked up Deirdre's story where I left, though it being an install with Sword Coast Stratagems, I won't refrain from metagaming. I'll try to write a good story around it if survivability means meta-gaming. Can't promise I'll post often, but here is a small update about the past period, before picking up her campaign again:
26 Mirtul 1368,
Dear diary,
The last week was quite a horrendous experience. I wrote on the other page “ we should put some time into learning to function as a group and practice our combat skills” as I was fearful of the demons that were rumoured to be in the mines. I wouldn't even want to imagine what a real demon would be like. It was just kobolds in the mine, but they scared the wits out of me. They were swarming all over and there were some commando-like types that shot arrows that were spurting flame while they flew at us. A frightening experience indeed! Actually, we did manage to put down quit a lot of kobolds, but just when we were reaching what I thought must be near the bottom of the mines there was a kobold that was like kind of a shaman for them: he was a spellcaster, just like me, but even though Quayle, me and Jaheira tried to put our wits against his, eventually I tugged at the coats of my fellow group members and told them to RUUUNNNNN!
Right now were camping on the grounds outside of Thalanthyr's mage fortress after buying a potion that should burst in an explosion of flame. But the haughty mage wouldn't part easy with it. He said they were rare, he had only a few of them and even though we always let Imoen with her charming 'innocence' do the talking and haggling, he wouldn't part with it for less than half a thousand of our precious goldpieces. While Imoen was negotiating a price for that potion, I was oggling the cabinet with cases containing scrolls of spells that Thalanthyr had for sale. Would that I could cast one of those!
If I studied some more, practices some more wielding magic in real situations, not just behind a desk in my dear old Candlekeep, maybe I could survive battles in another way than blasting a shaman with a potion that burns half a thousand goldpieces in a single WHOOSH... It would be much like the fireworks at Candlekeep: expressive effects, but very expensive as well and a waste of money. I actually feel ashamed while writing this, I seem more like a bookkeeper now than a 'Bookchild' (btw, that's the name Gorion always gave me... Sorry, gotta take a hanky now. See you later.
The result of an evening of playing. I swapped Quayle for Finch (a mod npc) and actually created a story about a meta-gaming decision I took to make my party smaller while getting some quest xp, as it turned out Finch had only 750 xp upon joining while most of my party is already in it's 6000's. She might actually be less powerful that Quayle, but her personality befits Deirdre more, as you can read below
1 Kythorn 1368:
Dear diary,
It's the first of the month of Kythorn today and I actually feel kind of new and refreshed myself as well. The events didn't turn out really well at first, with a bit of a row with Khalid and Jaheira. It all started when we met a woman in Beregost that asked for our help as her neighbour had been transformed in a slime. Some hints in the diary of the poor man – called Eltotlh – led us to believe his transfomation might be caused by a potion he bought that was supposed to turn him into a more handsome man, but instead turned him into a big blob of mucky green goo. We visited all bars in Beregost looking for the culprit who sold the poor Eltolth that potion and I got beset by another assassin – a very muscled dwarf.
But then I got help from a passerby in defeating the dwarf. It was a gnome girl, just like me, who had been in Candlekeep only a few weeks before. She's a cleric of Deneira and had her head buried in tomes so much – and me as well – that I hadn't even noticed her there, but now I met this gnomegirl here we immediately got off into banter about books, old lore, doing pranks. Finally someone I could befriend, who is just like me, just as inquisitive – but mostly by burying myself in books – a bit awkward socially but with a kind heart. Anyway, it immediately led to me disliking the haughty gnome Quayle with his superiority complex and gave him the message to take a hike.
Bit ashamed I am now. As we were having so much fun in the bar, Khalid and Jaheira started worrying about us forgetting what we were trying to do, solving Naskhel's problems, but over a glass of tea and later some Golden Sands Brew I told them to take a hike as well. We could meet them again in the Friendly Arm Inn, once we were sobered up, a gruffy Jaheira said and then the three of us – Finch, Imoen, me – plus a worried but patient Rasaad who wouldn't leave my side and really felt responsible for me – even though I was acting childish, I admit – the three of us plus Rasaad took a hike as well, south past Naskhel into the Cloudpeaks.
It was a big rump of stress relief what we did. And we experienced some really weird things. Just outside of Nashkel we ran into a man who wouldn't stop talking and Imoen started running around in circles shouting 'he's driving me nuts, he's driving me nuts', while I pretended to be very interested in this Noober guy until suddenly Twack! Imoen tripped over a piece of plate hidden in the field and it turned out to be some really strange chitin-like suit of armour that fitted Finch really well. And there was this other strange thing when we went hiking in the Cloudpeaks and met a small boy who has lost his dog, but when we found his dog for him, he turned into a demon and teleported away. We were too flabbergasted to feel scared at the sight of a real demon and fell to the ground laughing.
It felt like a big relief after all the tensions of the last month, to have some genuine fun for a few days, but when the weather started chilling we started to sober up a bit and I actually feel a bit guilty about what I did. I think about going back north to pick up Khalid and Jaheira again.
Jaheira was quite focussed when I got back to her. No lectures, just 'let's get on with the task'. And it went surprisingly supple this time, entering the mines. We traced back our steps to the bottom of the system of tunnels, kobolds we were encountered were put to sleep by my magic, then put to sleep permanently by our arrows, stones, swords and Jaheira's club. The Shaman I ran away from that got me so scared earlier? I trapped him into a spiderweb I conjured using a spell we found a week before on the body of some Flinds we slew at High Hedge. In a cave in the middle of an underground lake we found a half-orc that got bluffed into revealing his secrets by us telling that 'Tazok' send us. Not that I know any Tazok, but I just made use of what he himself said: did Tazok send you? Yes, he did! I bluffed. The bluff didn't last long though, he let us look into a chest with papers, then summoned his kobold minions but again my magical spiderweb rendered them harmless.
Quite interesting those papers. I had a discussion with Khalid, what to do next. I said I wanted to continue hunting bandits to make the Swordcoast safe, Khalid pointed out it could take forever, I said if it would take several months I would go on for months if necessary. Khalid pointed me to the letters: the trouble at the mines and the bandit attacks might point to an organized attempt behind it all. The letters we found point (sorry diary, for using the word point four – now five – times in a row, I'm actually quite tired) to a contact of that half-orc in Beregost, that we might seek out, so as to unravel the troubles in the region from the top down – once we trace the links from the bottom – of the mine – to the top.
Quite muddled, my last sentences, aren't they? We really should get some sleep, once we have reported back to Berrun Ghastkill, the mayor of Nashkel. I'll ask the others to spread out our camping gear at the Carnival. I have developed a fear of inns, too many times I had to fight for my life there. Why is someone trying to kill me by putting a reward on my head? What have I done wrong? Will I ever find out? Once we get sorted out who is disrupting iron trade in the region, I'll ask my fellow comrades if they would continue helping me to get after the ones who murdered Gorion - and try to murder me.
Tonight I finished the campaign of Deirdre Bookchild, not as a story-telling roleplaying campaign, but just as an ordinary Sword Coast Stratagems game. The idea of doing a story-telling campaign with meta-gaming put off, just role-playing from the perspective of a character was nice, but I should have made a new install for it without the difficulty enhancements of Swordcoast Stratagems.
Anyways, Deirdre Bookchild defeated Sarevok tonight with the aid of Ajantis, the other lover of books, cleric of Deneir Finch Bloomwhiffler, Rasaad, who has been a spiritual help to Deirdre, the cheerfulness of Alora and Imoen who became a mage once she achieved level 7 as a Thief. The last thing was an afterthought, if I had planned it earlier I would have chosen for Imoen to be able to reach 5th level spells, but it wasn't to be. Anyways, I had fun with it.
This time, I won't continue with Siege of Dragonspear, as I want to start a campaign with Deirdre and Aerie and Haer'Dalis in the party, as I'm curious how the romance between Aerie and Haer'Dalis works out, if Aerie's not involved with charname, because of what @Nightingale said here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/855530/#Comment_855530 "You get to see an independent side to her there that you don't see normally".
I was wondering myself why the romantic talks with Rasaad did stop. Past what I've told here, I didn't experience any in-game dialogue any more with Rasaad. I wonder if I did something wrong or if there's not really that much talk by Rasaad.
Comments
I'm stuck. At the battle with the kobold shaman and chieftain in the Nashkel mines. My party doesn't have the 'panic, throw an exploding potion' option at hand, as I forgot to buy one when I resupplied at High Hedge. I don't feel like reloading to the point the party was at High Hedge as I have to do the swarms of kobolds at this level again, that I had already cleared. And just travelling back is no option from a roleplay point of view. Without a sense of real danger go all the way back seems strange.
I did try to solve the battle by the trick I intended to use when I started this series of diary entries by having Deirdre get 'a bad feeling' about something causing her to prep. I had her do just that, making her get all itchy and scared and urging the party to prep well. However, the party is at such a low level that even prepped (I have only Bless, Chant and Armour and Shield spells available) the Shaman has an overly high chance of getting a horror spell off, as he creates more mirror images than my 2 mages can cast magic missiles at (part of their slots having been taken by armour and shield for the regular kobold hits) and too most of my party fail their saves, leading to several deaths in only a few rounds time.
I did try making the party panic and run, resolving to a hit and run while escaping the scene but all the kobolds come in pursuit and the shaman still manages to Horror my party.
If I'd meta-game, I'd know this is a tough fight and make sure my party is level 3 before I tackle the final levels of the mines with the Dark Side Kobold upgrades of SCS. But I don't meta with this playthrough.
My conclusion and a fine TL;DR to finish with, is a Sword Coast Stratagems install is not the proper install for a roleplayed playthrough, and I should have created a special easier version of BG:EE for this playthrough. But I'm not in the mood to redo a diary-playthrough from the ground up.
Sorry, I guess this playthrough won't be continued.
I do like writing and get compliments for it sometimes, but in this as in everything, due to my mental state my energy is limited. I feel pity for Deirdre herself though, her story will be unfinished. I liked her character.
26 Mirtul 1368,
Dear diary,
The last week was quite a horrendous experience. I wrote on the other page “ we should put some time into learning to function as a group and practice our combat skills” as I was fearful of the demons that were rumoured to be in the mines. I wouldn't even want to imagine what a real demon would be like. It was just kobolds in the mine, but they scared the wits out of me. They were swarming all over and there were some commando-like types that shot arrows that were spurting flame while they flew at us. A frightening experience indeed! Actually, we did manage to put down quit a lot of kobolds, but just when we were reaching what I thought must be near the bottom of the mines there was a kobold that was like kind of a shaman for them: he was a spellcaster, just like me, but even though Quayle, me and Jaheira tried to put our wits against his, eventually I tugged at the coats of my fellow group members and told them to RUUUNNNNN!
Right now were camping on the grounds outside of Thalanthyr's mage fortress after buying a potion that should burst in an explosion of flame. But the haughty mage wouldn't part easy with it. He said they were rare, he had only a few of them and even though we always let Imoen with her charming 'innocence' do the talking and haggling, he wouldn't part with it for less than half a thousand of our precious goldpieces. While Imoen was negotiating a price for that potion, I was oggling the cabinet with cases containing scrolls of spells that Thalanthyr had for sale. Would that I could cast one of those!
If I studied some more, practices some more wielding magic in real situations, not just behind a desk in my dear old Candlekeep, maybe I could survive battles in another way than blasting a shaman with a potion that burns half a thousand goldpieces in a single WHOOSH... It would be much like the fireworks at Candlekeep: expressive effects, but very expensive as well and a waste of money. I actually feel ashamed while writing this, I seem more like a bookkeeper now than a 'Bookchild' (btw, that's the name Gorion always gave me... Sorry, gotta take a hanky now. See you later.
1 Kythorn 1368:
Dear diary,
It's the first of the month of Kythorn today and I actually feel kind of new and refreshed myself as well. The events didn't turn out really well at first, with a bit of a row with Khalid and Jaheira. It all started when we met a woman in Beregost that asked for our help as her neighbour had been transformed in a slime. Some hints in the diary of the poor man – called Eltotlh – led us to believe his transfomation might be caused by a potion he bought that was supposed to turn him into a more handsome man, but instead turned him into a big blob of mucky green goo. We visited all bars in Beregost looking for the culprit who sold the poor Eltolth that potion and I got beset by another assassin – a very muscled dwarf.
But then I got help from a passerby in defeating the dwarf. It was a gnome girl, just like me, who had been in Candlekeep only a few weeks before. She's a cleric of Deneira and had her head buried in tomes so much – and me as well – that I hadn't even noticed her there, but now I met this gnomegirl here we immediately got off into banter about books, old lore, doing pranks. Finally someone I could befriend, who is just like me, just as inquisitive – but mostly by burying myself in books – a bit awkward socially but with a kind heart. Anyway, it immediately led to me disliking the haughty gnome Quayle with his superiority complex and gave him the message to take a hike.
Bit ashamed I am now. As we were having so much fun in the bar, Khalid and Jaheira started worrying about us forgetting what we were trying to do, solving Naskhel's problems, but over a glass of tea and later some Golden Sands Brew I told them to take a hike as well. We could meet them again in the Friendly Arm Inn, once we were sobered up, a gruffy Jaheira said and then the three of us – Finch, Imoen, me – plus a worried but patient Rasaad who wouldn't leave my side and really felt responsible for me – even though I was acting childish, I admit – the three of us plus Rasaad took a hike as well, south past Naskhel into the Cloudpeaks.
It was a big rump of stress relief what we did. And we experienced some really weird things. Just outside of Nashkel we ran into a man who wouldn't stop talking and Imoen started running around in circles shouting 'he's driving me nuts, he's driving me nuts', while I pretended to be very interested in this Noober guy until suddenly Twack! Imoen tripped over a piece of plate hidden in the field and it turned out to be some really strange chitin-like suit of armour that fitted Finch really well. And there was this other strange thing when we went hiking in the Cloudpeaks and met a small boy who has lost his dog, but when we found his dog for him, he turned into a demon and teleported away. We were too flabbergasted to feel scared at the sight of a real demon and fell to the ground laughing.
It felt like a big relief after all the tensions of the last month, to have some genuine fun for a few days, but when the weather started chilling we started to sober up a bit and I actually feel a bit guilty about what I did. I think about going back north to pick up Khalid and Jaheira again.
Jaheira was quite focussed when I got back to her. No lectures, just 'let's get on with the task'. And it went surprisingly supple this time, entering the mines. We traced back our steps to the bottom of the system of tunnels, kobolds we were encountered were put to sleep by my magic, then put to sleep permanently by our arrows, stones, swords and Jaheira's club. The Shaman I ran away from that got me so scared earlier? I trapped him into a spiderweb I conjured using a spell we found a week before on the body of some Flinds we slew at High Hedge. In a cave in the middle of an underground lake we found a half-orc that got bluffed into revealing his secrets by us telling that 'Tazok' send us. Not that I know any Tazok, but I just made use of what he himself said: did Tazok send you? Yes, he did! I bluffed. The bluff didn't last long though, he let us look into a chest with papers, then summoned his kobold minions but again my magical spiderweb rendered them harmless.
Quite interesting those papers. I had a discussion with Khalid, what to do next. I said I wanted to continue hunting bandits to make the Swordcoast safe, Khalid pointed out it could take forever, I said if it would take several months I would go on for months if necessary. Khalid pointed me to the letters: the trouble at the mines and the bandit attacks might point to an organized attempt behind it all. The letters we found point (sorry diary, for using the word point four – now five – times in a row, I'm actually quite tired) to a contact of that half-orc in Beregost, that we might seek out, so as to unravel the troubles in the region from the top down – once we trace the links from the bottom – of the mine – to the top.
Quite muddled, my last sentences, aren't they? We really should get some sleep, once we have reported back to Berrun Ghastkill, the mayor of Nashkel. I'll ask the others to spread out our camping gear at the Carnival. I have developed a fear of inns, too many times I had to fight for my life there. Why is someone trying to kill me by putting a reward on my head? What have I done wrong? Will I ever find out? Once we get sorted out who is disrupting iron trade in the region, I'll ask my fellow comrades if they would continue helping me to get after the ones who murdered Gorion - and try to murder me.
Anyways, Deirdre Bookchild defeated Sarevok tonight with the aid of Ajantis, the other lover of books, cleric of Deneir Finch Bloomwhiffler, Rasaad, who has been a spiritual help to Deirdre, the cheerfulness of Alora and Imoen who became a mage once she achieved level 7 as a Thief. The last thing was an afterthought, if I had planned it earlier I would have chosen for Imoen to be able to reach 5th level spells, but it wasn't to be. Anyways, I had fun with it.
This time, I won't continue with Siege of Dragonspear, as I want to start a campaign with Deirdre and Aerie and Haer'Dalis in the party, as I'm curious how the romance between Aerie and Haer'Dalis works out, if Aerie's not involved with charname, because of what @Nightingale said here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/855530/#Comment_855530 "You get to see an independent side to her there that you don't see normally".
I enjoyed this, though.