Strongholds

Sophia

What's your favorite class quest/stronghold in SoA? And what's your least favorite?
For me the least favorite is the one for my favorite class, the planar sphere for mages. And the best stronghold would be the thief stronghold maybe, but I've never tried the bard one, having a theatre to manage seems fun

Dougie

My least favourite thing about the strongholds is that you can't trigger the quest to gain the stronghold unless your main character is the appropriate class, even though you have companions in your gourp who could take it on.
As a result, I only ever got to experience the fighter, mage and thief strongholds as that was the only thriple class character combination available. The Castle who good, but I think I preferred the mage's dome.
Maybe the new game could make the stronghold quests available to party members.

Tetraploid

I haven't tried all of them, but I seem to remember the Fighter stronghold (ie. Nalia's keep) had quite a bit of stuff going on, and seemed to tie into things quite nicely for me since I had Nalia with me for most of the game.
The mage stronghold was disappointing.

CrazedSlayer

My favourite has always been the Keep because its the most useful for me. The playhouse is nice but it has less of a payoff and variety in comparison to the Keep. My least favourite by far is the Radiant Heart Chapel bedroom you get if you go Paladin. Wow, a whole bed all to myself!?

Sereph

I could never get over the "dungeon" feel of the sphere, though I liked having apprentices. The guildhouse and the keep are tied for favorite: I love playing the Lord in the keep and handling disputes, and who starts a rogue and doesn't want to run a guild? Not me.

Isair

@Sophia why don't you like the planar sphere? I've always had a soft spot for it, probably because it yeilds items.

Sophia

I don't know, I like the part where you get to help the Knights of Solamnia, but I find the part with the students (and then with Morul alone) boring

ChrisYui

Sophia said:

I don't know, I like the part where you get to help the Knights of Solamnia, but I find the part with the students (and then with Morul alone) boring

I always thought the idea of the Planar Sphere was amazing, but in execution with a Mage as a main character it was quite boring. The quest to acquire it was fun though.

My personal favorite was the Keep. It doesn't continue to feel like a dungeon after you've rid it of trolls ( imagine if you ruled the keep from the last room in the basement, that's kind of how the Planar Sphere feels to me ). It's also secluded enough from everything else to really feel like a good Stronghold.

WonKo

I did enjoy the Bard's playhouse and the process of staging a play. Never got to do the Paladin's stronghold. Looking to do that for my EE run.

Debaser

Priest of Lathander was great because you would take confessions like a Catholic Priest and try to guide people with wisdom and morality. And it's side quests were really fun. If playing good Character (Lawful or Neutral) it really has it's moments. Unfortunately whenever I multi-classed I could never seem to get multiple strongholds to work. Hopefully in the EE when they do BG2 that will get sorted.

Syntia13

I liked ranger's quest. Being a remote protector of a small village appeals to me, and the reward for doing a good job (your very own Moon Dog!) is the best IMO.

Sophia

Oooh, I never tried that stronghold, a moon dog *o*?? Now I'll have to try it!

Debaser

@Syntia13 See, I was Cleric / Ranger and it only let me do the Cleric Stronghold...*SIgh*...I wanted to do both....

Sophia

You can have only one stronghold. If you're dual/multiclass you obtain the stronghold which quest you do first. For example if you're a fighter/thief and you go to the DeArnise keep before doing the Mae'var quest and you accept the keep, then you can't obtain the thief stronghold during Mae'Var quest.

I think it's fair to have only one stronghold, but from a roleplay point of view I agree it's strange that you can't obtain both.

Moira

Ranger stronghold is my favorite. I like the class, and the stronghold quests had a great roleplaying feel to them.

Miridor

Or you could use the mod that allows you to have multiple strongholds - though it is a lot of work managing them all :-)

Djimmy

My favourite is the Planar Sphere. I haven't tried thief stronghold though.

The_New_Romance

I don't like the Planar Sphere much. It's not deep enough for my tastes. The only other stronghold I've experienced is the bard's, and that is pretty cool.

ajwz

Stronghold list
Fighter - Keep: one of the better ones but it takes too long to unlock each stage and you don't get a notification when a new dispute is to be resolved. Also why the hell did the put the gold in a random bookcase upstairs. I almost never bother to go fetch it becuase it takes ages to get there.

Mage - Planar sphere - Well it's good point is that it is one of the least insistant quests. The choice between obtaining one or 2 decent magic items or a room and back every time. Still feels like a dungeon

Thief - Much too insistant, you will probably end up losing it pretty quicky. Also, only 1 event. And you have to keep resetting your thieves every time one of them goes to jail. A lot of effort for relativley little gold

Bard - Too arcane, and difficult to produce any profit without consulting a walkthrough. Entertaining to read though.

Druid - Becoming leader is incredibly underwhelming. Nothing special here

Ranger - Decent rewards and quests, but annoying in that you lose your stronghold if you dont go immediately. Don't go to spellhold until you have completed it.

Paladin - Barely a stronghold. Just 2 consequetive quests followed by a request to kill a dragon you were probably going to kill anyway

Cleric - Best of the bunch.

reedmilfam

I didn't know there *was* a Ranger stronghold. I guess I always thought they got Nalia's. Archer is high on my list of playthrough ideas, so maybe it will happen!

Never played a mage, and probably still won't. I actually don't like dealing with magic in RPG's, especially in the "let me adjust my spells each night for the next fight" point-and-click exercise. It's a 'me' thing.

Eiler

@sophia
I always pick up both when I do fighter/thief dual class (I've done it both ways, fighter to thief and thief to fighter, and was able to get both strongholds each way) in vanilla BG 2.

However I have read that multiclass (as opposed to dual class) cannot do this and run into the limitation as you described.

But no restriction as Dual Class. It may be an oversight but I never ran into a game where I could not when dual classing.

Sophia said:

You can have only one stronghold. If you're dual/multiclass you obtain the stronghold which quest you do first. For example if you're a fighter/thief and you go to the DeArnise keep before doing the Mae'var quest and you accept the keep, then you can't obtain the thief stronghold during Mae'Var quest.

I think it's fair to have only one stronghold, but from a roleplay point of view I agree it's strange that you can't obtain both.

ChrisYui

I think the Planar Sphere would've been cool if having it as a Stronghold allowed you do "drive" it around to other places. Maybe you could land it somewhere more secluded, or consistently travel to different planes as sidequests.

elminster

It would be cool if you could start a mage school in the sphere.

nptitim

Do you think they will change anything for the stronghold for the Blackguard class? Also how does the Moon Dog work - do you summon it, how powerful is it, can it level up with you, etc?

bbear

For some games when I multiclass (FMT), if I do a thief guild or the mage sphere first, I can later get to do the keep stronghold. Most likely a bug.

I think the thief's guild is underwhelming. There is only 1 battle, 1 quest and weekly assignment of thiefs.

For the mage planar sphere, does anyone ever get the staff of power? I tried it couple times and all 3 apprentices exploded.

elminster

I go for the ring of wizardry instead.

AHF

bbear said:

For the mage planar sphere, does anyone ever get the staff of power? I tried it couple times and all 3 apprentices exploded.

To get the staff of power, you need all 3 apprentices alive and they will always all die but...you have some % chance of getting the staff.

Elandir

Sophia said:

Oooh, I never tried that stronghold, a moon dog *o*?? Now I'll have to try it!

The ranger's quest is one of the most beautiful.
I strongly recommend you to try it.


I think I'll do a fighter/cleric with Crom Faeyr hammer, since I've never tried it (Cleric).

Shin

Hm, I would say it depends on how you rank them. For me:

- Best one in terms of the quest/adventure to acquire it: Planar Sphere

- Best one in terms of quests once you have it: Five Flagons Theatre



I'll also point out, for people who would want more than one stronghold, there are two mod options: The Gibberlings 3 tweak pack has an option to make all strongholds available for all classes, and Sword Coast Stratagems II lets you select stronghold by stronghold to make it available for all classes. Comes in handy if you feel your thief/mage should be able to get both strongholds, or perhaps that your paladin should be able to both run a keep and work for the Radiant Heart.

@nptitim You get a figurine that can summon the moon dog once a day. Iirc it can handle itself in melee up until the later parts of BG2 and get some spell like abilities like minor heals, etc.