@Kurona "Being a Mary Sue in gameplay would mean she is so powerful than not taking her would cripple you." I'm saying that she is WRITTEN as a Mary Sue. I disagree with you mechanically anyway, but that was never my point. Its her concept and writing.
Again, though I don't want to say her writing is bad, as that seems pretty prevalent here. Simply that her writing uses a lot of concepts and tropes that I am either not interested in, or I find annoying.
Branwen and Mazzy are underpowered or lacking in some way?
I really like Branwen, but can you say she is better than any other divine caster in BG1? I mean, you can get her early, for the cost of a scroll, but would you rate her above Viconia and her MR? Jaheira and Yeslick give you more frontline power at the cost (in BG1) of one level of spellcasting. Her strength is ... not great, so she needs one of the ankheg armors if you want her up front. Her special ability is not too useful once you get a magic hammer or mace.
She's not bad, mind you, but she's not overpowered. None of the divine casters in BG1 are, except possibly Quayle, but then you have to deal with Quayle.
Branwen is still my default cleric, but I understand someone making another choice.
As for Mazzy, it's funny how things have changed over hecyears. If you look on other fora from 12+ years ago, Mazzy was considered a waste: a low strength fighter with tons of proficiency up an underpowered weapon. Now she's considered one of the better choices, particularly with the Gesen or Tiguan bows. She still requires some equipment (who doesn't?) but I still consider her a bit below Anomen (with his cleric buffs) and Korgan (with his inherent rage and strength) but above Keldorn as a front liner. If I play a frontliner I generally choose Mazzy, but if not, I tend to choose a Valygar for his stealth. But there is a reason they gave her special abilities, because she needed that little bit extra.
Personally, I think she's great, but her archery is her best feature, and that gets less important later in the game.
I'd say the best divine caster in BG1 is Yeslick because of his fighter levels and his shorty saves, (though he really needs those gauntlets of dexterity to really shine). Tiax and Quayle are solid because of their class combination, too. If I could recruit any divine caster I wanted fresh after of leaving Candlekeep, those would probably be my top three.
But you can't recruit any of them until you clear out Nashkel Mines, the Bandit Camp, and the Cloakwood... and you can't just not have a divine caster for all of that stuff. Which means most parties are going to be forced, (or at least strongly encouraged), to take one of Jahiera, Viconia, or Branwen.
Of that trio I think Branwen is the best, or at least would be*. Jahiera suffers from the fact that low-level druid spells are terrible, (and Silence 15' Radius is so awesome). Viconia has the magic resistance and 2 points better AC, but Branwen has better HP and her slightly higher strength means she can wear heavier gear.
*(The big spanner in the works is the suit of Ankheg Plate just lying around for you, which greatly offsets Viconia's biggest weakness-- her inability to wear decent armor because of her garbage strength. That tilts the comparison in her favor, but in runs where you're not grabbing it or where it's going to someone else, I think Branwen/Viconia is essentially a wash.)
As for Mazzy... the early consensus was that she sucked, I agree, but (A) that early consensus came when Grandmastery was hella nerfed, and it now grants 0.5 APR again, and (B) the early consensus was before Shorty Saves were common knowledge, and her +4 save vs. Spells / Death / Wand is huge.
Beyond that, Archery isn't her greatest asset, it's a starter setup while you level her up into her end-game role. Archery is awesome through chapter 2, but Mazzy's greatest asset is her ability to get Grandmastery in... anything. Mazzy, Korgan, and Anomen are the only NPCs in SoA capable of reaching grandmastery, and if you want Anomen to get Grandmastery in Flails, say, he won't be able to reach it until he has 4.5m XP. (He'll only get two more pips before XP cap, so if you want two-weapon fighting, too, it's going to be a bit of a wait.)
Provided you rush for the level 8 version, Mazzy can hit GM in any weapon of her choice by 3.25m XP, which means she'll be switching over right when you start to gain your end-game weapons and shortly after archery loses its shine. She'll even get up to six more pips after that, so you can get your points in two-weapon fighting and actually use it before the very end of the game.
(You don't have to, though. You can give her Halberds and Ravager, Spears and Impaler, Quarterstaves and Staff of the Ram, you can go Sword-and-Board with Flail of the Ages +5 and a ton of Greater Whirlwinds, you can dual-wield FoA and Defender of Easthaven... whatever you want, Mazzy can do it.)
Her other big advantage is her stats. Mazzy and Jahiera are really the only front-liners who don't need the Gauntlets of Dexterity. (Anomen/Keldorn/Korgan all have 15 or worse Dex, Valygar/Minsc/Dorn are really more secondary-damage-dealers than true front-liners.) This lets her play nicely with others, (I'll rarely have two of the Anomen/Keldorn/Korgan trio in the same party, but they all work great with Mazzy), and it also makes her one of the top choices for the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization if you're not using them on your Charname.
Really, her only "weakness" is strength, but she has an innate ability that will fix that for all of your combat, and strength is the stat with the most "fixing" items in the game, so by the end everyone relevant has giant strength, anyway. Plus her other innate abilities are also pretty cool and handy!
And like I said, the +4 shorty save bonus is also huge and a big reason why she and Korgan are head and shoulders above the rest of the fighter-types, IMO.
@SomeSort I think we could have a lot of fun on these discussions if we could enhance our discussions with techniques like using least squares for determining party composition or the Method of Frobenius to determine which spells cleric/mages should memorize. It would be like casting a sleep spell over the whole forum, with no saving throws!
@Kurona "Being a Mary Sue in gameplay would mean she is so powerful than not taking her would cripple you." I'm saying that she is WRITTEN as a Mary Sue. I disagree with you mechanically anyway, but that was never my point. Its her concept and writing.
Again, though I don't want to say her writing is bad, as that seems pretty prevalent here. Simply that her writing uses a lot of concepts and tropes that I am either not interested in, or I find annoying.
Well yeah her writing has a lot of Sue traits. Not disputing that. Could be alleviated if only you were given the chance to actually know her. But she's so secretive she never really develops past the "mysterious exotic vampire" thing...
Beyond that, Archery isn't her greatest asset, it's a starter setup while you level her up into her end-game role. Archery is awesome through chapter 2, but Mazzy's greatest asset is her ability to get Grandmastery in... anything. Mazzy, Korgan, and Anomen are the only NPCs in SoA capable of reaching grandmastery, and if you want Anomen to get Grandmastery in Flails, say, he won't be able to reach it until he has 4.5m XP. (He'll only get two more pips before XP cap, so if you want two-weapon fighting, too, it's going to be a bit of a wait.)
How does Anomen get grandmastery as a F>Cleric, short of mods? He's limited to 2 stars.
His Fighter Class when it's active for him should click back on the ability to grand master. Unless there's something going on that I'm not aware of.
I put Keldorn more in the additional damage dealer category myself. But that may be a personal playstyle choice.
And the over-use of sexuality is really the Vampire trope. Whether male or female. Even Edward is occasionally a bit guilty of it and he's a cardboard cutout personality wise. Sparkling skin or otherwise. The being only into girls isn't even really a twist to the Vampire thing really. Actually it's More rare that she's only into girls considering increasingly Vampires tend to be written from a more bisexual viewpoint with the excuse of having gone past the idea of traditional sexuality and being interested in only one or the other. For both male and Female but it's seen more readily in some of the females.
As for Vampires going immediately Evil and changing personality. Another issue with the older vampire style, including Dracula and some others. Is that they are much more driven by the idea of a master vampire and that master vampires will being imprinted heavily on all vampires they make. Which helps push the whole changing character and monster aspect as well. Your will is not really your own until you either hit a point where you kill that evil or you can survive without it. And either way by the time you manage that your likely too corrupt to be any less of a monster than they were.
As for Vampires going immediately Evil and changing personality. Another issue with the older vampire style, including Dracula and some others. Is that they are much more driven by the idea of a master vampire and that master vampires will being imprinted heavily on all vampires they make. Which helps push the whole changing character and monster aspect as well. Your will is not really your own until you either hit a point where you kill that evil or you can survive without it. And either way by the time you manage that your likely too corrupt to be any less of a monster than they were.
QFT. I think Dr. Van Helsing said as much about Lucy's transformation, that she was becoming more like her master. There is the moment at the end of Chapter 12 where she is nearly dead, and growing fangs, when she calls for her fiancee to kiss her in a seductive way. Van Helsing stops him because he knows that's not Lucy. Then Lucy recovers one final time and makes Van Helsing swear to protect Arthur from her, which he does. Arthur is then allowed a final kiss, and she dies.
Then we have this from Chapter 16
"When Lucy - I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape - saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares; then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy's eyes in form and colour; but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew."
"But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing for the Foul Thing which had taken Lucy's shape without her soul." Emphasis mine.
"Is it really Lucy's body, or only a demon in her shape?" "It is her body, and yet not it."
After they destroy Lucy, her appearance returns to that of a normal human corpse. Van Helsing explains the curse is over and she will now basically go to Heaven to be with God. What this tells me, from a D&D perspective, is the shift to Chaotic Evil that Vampirism brings to even noble souls is only as lasting as their undead existence. Once the vampire is staked and destroyed, the soul is sent to it's proper place in the Planes. The curse, not the person, did the evil things (unless they be evil before) and the gods forgive the trespasses done while a vampire.
Of course that's just from the perspective of classic D&D vampirism with a good dose of Stoker's version of the Vampire. YMMV.
You know, all this talk about vampires and Dracula is changing my mind about Hexxat. Her story makes less and less sense.
@SomeSort I think we could have a lot of fun on these discussions if we could enhance our discussions with techniques like using least squares for determining party composition or the Method of Frobenius to determine which spells cleric/mages should memorize. It would be like casting a sleep spell over the whole forum, with no saving throws!
I have an innate ability to summon a Wall of Text at will, three times per day. It's immune to arguments of +1 enchantment or lower and on a critical hit it can randomly cause sleep, stun, blindness, or feeblemind. It'd be pretty OP if it weren't stationary and so easy to go around. It's also vulnerable to Scrolls of Protection from TL;DR.
It... makes me popular at parties. Sorry, "popular".
How does Anomen get grandmastery as a F>Cleric, short of mods? He's limited to 2 stars.
Dual-class fighters can still achieve grandmastery, even in their second class, provided they've reactivated their fighter levels. This is why level 7 fighter duals, (like Anomen's), are so great-- they get arguably the biggest advantage of being a fighter, but have virtually no downtime waiting for their class to reactivate.
It is in various places considered a bug, an exploit, or just a reasonable advantage of dual-classes over multis, but it's been like this ever since vanilla BG1. When that game first shipped, the only way to achieve grandmastery was to start as a fighter, dual into druid or thief at level 3 (giving you three pips in your weapon of choices), and then you could place your 4th and 5th pips at level 4 and 8 in your new class.
(Tales of the Sword Coast and its higher XP cap opened up the option to dual at level 6 and still achieve Grandmastery, and also allowed F>C duals to hit it, too.)
His Fighter Class when it's active for him should click back on the ability to grand master. Unless there's something going on that I'm not aware of.
I put Keldorn more in the additional damage dealer category myself. But that may be a personal playstyle choice.
And the over-use of sexuality is really the Vampire trope. Whether male or female. Even Edward is occasionally a bit guilty of it and he's a cardboard cutout personality wise. Sparkling skin or otherwise. The being only into girls isn't even really a twist to the Vampire thing really. Actually it's More rare that she's only into girls considering increasingly Vampires tend to be written from a more bisexual viewpoint with the excuse of having gone past the idea of traditional sexuality and being interested in only one or the other. For both male and Female but it's seen more readily in some of the females.
As for Vampires going immediately Evil and changing personality. Another issue with the older vampire style, including Dracula and some others. Is that they are much more driven by the idea of a master vampire and that master vampires will being imprinted heavily on all vampires they make. Which helps push the whole changing character and monster aspect as well. Your will is not really your own until you either hit a point where you kill that evil or you can survive without it. And either way by the time you manage that your likely too corrupt to be any less of a monster than they were.
Interesting. I thought dual-classes followed the proficiency limit of multi-class once they dual-ed. But I've checked all the way back to BG2:ToB.
As for vampires, interestingly enough, Carmilla, a lesbian vampire, is a story older than Bram Stoker's Dracula.
TBH, I've been shaped by World of Darkness vampires more than D&D vampires. Where it's not really "your sire controls you" that I recall, although it's been close to 20 years since I've played. I mainly recall humanity points getting lost the longer you live and do inhumane things to keep feeding the thirst. Or was that karma?
I think both depictions could be valid though, generally speaking, you DIE when turned. Whose to say whether you lose your humanity right off the bat from the trauma of dying, and then rebirth as the walking dead, or whether the slip into monsterdom is a slow and gradual loss of humanity from the endless pangs of unquenchable thirst over hundreds of years?
I put Keldorn more in the additional damage dealer category myself. But that may be a personal playstyle choice.
Totally reasonable, as Keldorn's really more of an either/or. He can wear Full Plate, which says "front-line tank", but he's also pushed towards 2-handed weapons, which says "second-row fighters who pokes over top of the tank". Minsc is in exactly the same position, TBH. I tend to shade Keldorn more towards the first row (because high Charisma = great party face) and Minsc more towards the second row, (and by "more towards the second row" I really mean "leave him in the Copper Coronet".)
So if we really want to break down the fighter-types (using MMO conventions), let's say: Korgan / Mazzy / Anomen / Jahiera - "proper" tanks Keldorn / Minsc / Mr. ToB - off-tanks Valygar / Dorn / Rasaad - melee DPS
(With of course the caveat that all of those characters are flexible in their roles, and you can easily have Jahiera wield spears and Mazzy wield halberds and be off-tanks, give Keldorn or Valygar the Defender of Easthaven and a shield, have them cast Armor of the Faith, and use them as "true" tanks, etc.)
And to bring back Hexxat and pretend that this is the slightest bit relevant to the thread at hand, I'd say her unkillableness, (unkillability?), means the most interesting strategic use of her is as an off-tank, as well. Sure, she can't deal out much damage, but she makes a pretty interesting damage sponge since you don't really care if she gets killed, even in no-reload or no-resurrection.
Actually, she seems like the kind of character where no-reload / no-resurrection is probably the perfect place for her, since they largely eliminate the disposability of NPCs and she's the ultimate disposable NPC.
Really, I think Hexxat would be a much, much more intriguing NPC were it not for the existence of Rods of Resurrection. But this is making me want to run a duo run with her where my CE main is basically just using her as a disposable shock troop, essentially a glorified Storm Trooper.
As for vampires, interestingly enough, Carmilla, a lesbian vampire, is a story older than Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Wow that's fascinating. I knew about Carmilla, but not that it predated Dracula. Learn something every day they say. It's not surprising there is a strong sexual tone in Carmilla as in Dracula (that scene with the Brides...wowzer) because that was in vogue at the time. Sexuallity was surpressed in that culture so expressing it even ambiguously (there is no "sex" in either book) was racy and daring. And the same people who read Gothic were also looking for racy stuff. I actually took an entire course in Gothic literature and our professor always said sex was tied to vampire literature, and that even the act of feeding was synonymous with the sexual act.
In short, the fact that Hexxat is alluring, sexual, and lesbian is par for the course in vampire folklore and not the least bit out of sorts or out of place.
TBH, I've been shaped by World of Darkness vampires more than D&D vampires. Where it's not really "your sire controls you" that I recall, although it's been close to 20 years since I've played. I mainly recall humanity points getting lost the longer you live and do inhumane things to keep feeding the thirst. Or was that karma?
I think both depictions could be valid though, generally speaking, you DIE when turned. Whose to say whether you lose your humanity right off the bat from the trauma of dying, and then rebirth as the walking dead, or whether the slip into monsterdom is a slow and gradual loss of humanity from the endless pangs of unquenchable thirst over hundreds of years?
Mmhmm, I get you here. In Dracula, the curse does something akin to stealing your soul or humanity, making you a monster instantly after you die. In later works, like Anne Rice, the evil comes over time as you are forced to kill again and again to survive and slake the thirst. In Interview with the Vampire, Louis is initially disgusted at the idea of killing others and insists on feeding on animals to survive...but his lust for human blood leads him to reluctantly kill once, then a second time, and soon enough he's luring ladies to his bachelor pad and murdering them every night without a second thought.
I didn't play a lot of Masquerade, but from what the Storyteller explained to us, becoming a vampire was like becoming a new race of being. One that sees mortals as nothing more than food. Hunting and killing humans for food is no more taboo to them than humans hunting game animals for food. I don't think twice before chowing down on a hamburger or some venison, and the vampire doesn't think twice about chowing down on me.
You know what, my bedroom could use more garlic flowers. I hear those look nice around your windowsill...
@Baptor Masquerade vampires have a strong element of damnation to them. Their original progenitor, Caine, is the actual biblical Cain with all the baggage coming with it. Kindred are in a constant battle against their nature that pushes them to forget their humanity more and more (Humanity is an actual stat), a battle they generally lose, particularly when they get older.
Masquerade is all about that dark struggle of trying to remain human against an inevitable decline for the acts you must commit. It's along the same lines of other "Flaws of Immortality" ideas that pop up in horror and sci-fi. How you become numbed to the world because you experience so much of it over such a long period.
Hexxat is not entirely out of character. If her master has somehow been wiped out but she survived... Or through some unusual effect of her own will(which is not unheard of. Mina's husband technically fits this category since he resisted the supernaturl allure of Dracula and his wives to manage to escape). It would be possible to sit on that duality fence and have moments where she is a driven unrepentant monster. And have moments where she mourns for her lost humanity and understands the failings in what she has become. Keep in mind I haven't seen how well written that is in her case at this point. But it is a potential possibility that is even supported by the older style of vampires.
And to touch on one other thing. People say you shouldn't ever take Hexxat because She needs to kill to survive. You know what? In General that's going to have signs that you can learn to read and actually to keep Hexxat less of a worry. Unlike Korgan for example who may try to kill you over a strong word or for the fun of it and he suddenly decides he might be able to take you, which gives you no forwarning. And Edwin's a plotter and if for some reason he was going to try to turn against you He'd purposely make sure you had as little chance to see it coming as possible. just because neither of them do. From a role play perspective it doesn't mean they can't. And Dorn has another entity telling him what to do. That is a whole other kind of unpredictable bag of worms. In RP fashion. All of the Evil NPC's are basically a calculated risk to take along with you. Hexxat while more unrepentantly evil up front is probably the easiest one to tell when something might go violent for you over the others. Making her potentially the least risky. However for many evil characters. A little bloodshed that's not yours shouldn't be as big of a deal.
Buffy followed the "vampire is actually a monster" quite happily until Spike. It was the curse from the gypsies that allowed Angel to have feelings, when that was broken, he reverted to being Angelus the monster.
Yeah, but look at Spike. Who wouldn't? Ratings people, ratings.
I never watched Buffy the T.V. series. Although I loved the movie (1996? something like that)
Actually, I guess I don't have much vampire cred. Never read, or even seen all of Dracula (any of them). Never read Carmilla (actually only heard about it from a reference from a dA pic and reading the wiki entry), never read any of Anne Rice's books (except one, Ramses the Damned, or was it The Mummy?), although I have seen 'Interview with a Vampire', and NO TWILIGHT!
Christopher Pike's 'The Last Vampire' series when I was a teenager and Masquerade are the only things I can think of off the top of my head. Oh, Jane Yellowrock series of recent vintage, although I haven't liked it so much.
Is there a proper explanation later on for why she has so much revulsion for her vampire condition? Because from what I can understand even unwilling victims of vampirism in D&D seem to revel in their undead condition, usually turning evil straight away. So unless Hexxat is a different breed of vampire for whatever reason, that alone made her a flawed character for me... A special snowflake and some of the banters and interjections I had seemed to match that(like Bodhi knowing her? what the hell?)
Odd, I had her in my party when we faced Bodhi and she never mentioned knowing Hexxat. Oh well. The issue with vampirism is unfortunately a consequence of old school vampirism and new school vampirism.
If you go back and read the original Dracula the Count is in no way appealing or alluring. He is a vile monster through and through. Lucy is a nice girl until she is murdered and turned by the Count, after which she becomes a murdering monster as well (she feasts on babies because she's not ready to hunt adults!). Van Helsing explains midway through Lucy's transformation that she's turning into something that is no longer Lucy.
That is a key difference from modern vampires. Over the decades that passed vampires became less monsters and more dark heroes or pitiable villains. Original D&D rules kept the idea that turning into a vampire means becoming a monster, so alignment moves immediately to Chaotic Evil and that character is no more. But times have changed, and well....Twilight. Now Hexxat is no Edward, she murders and feeds and is merciless for the most part - but she knows that her craving for blood, her aversion to the sun, and that thirst inside that never, ever ends is a CURSE inflicted upon her forcibly by another - and she hates it. Now you're right, by the old world and by classic D&D rules, that shouldn't happen at all. The transformation should've made her feel that vampirism is as natural as anything else and that mortals are mere cattle - but the writers wanted to make a NPC vampire and that was the only way it could be done. In that respect yes, she is a special snowflake.
However I reject the idea that they are really betraying the genre because almost everyone I know has made an exception to the idea that all vampires are monsters in some way at some point. Even WOTC recently released a vampire race in Innistrad that can be any alignment and isn't necessarily evil. Oddly, if you compare that version of the vampire to Hexxat, they are oddly similar.
But if you're a purist, and I totally respect that, I can see why you'd object to Hexxat on the grounds that any vampire would be unrepentantly evil, bloodthirsty, and proud of it.
I think the conversation happens the first time you meet Bodhi in the graveyard.
I'm not a vampire purist in that regard. There are tons of different interpretations on vampires..Your setting, your rules basically, as long as it makes sense and you stick to some basic stuff. I was mostly thinking of how vampires function in the Forgotten realms or D&D generally and given that Hexxat is so different from pretty much every other vampire you meet, she sticks out like a sore thumb in that regard. At least when there's no reason given for that. I didn't take Hexxat into ToB back when I used her though, so I don't have her entire story.
And yes mainstream vampire fiction is a bit trashy, I don't disagree with that. That doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed films with examples of ''humanized'' vampires with a personality. Vampire the masquerade: bloodlines has a lot of that for example. It also helps that you have several clans, each with their own respective weaknesses and strengths. The sexualized and agonized/tormented vampires in WoD seem to be the Toreadors mostly and the game even makes fun of that sometimes.
There's also a rather fun and amusing quest involving a thin blood(really weak generation of vampires) on the beach in the first act. He's looking for a cure and you can bullshit him and take advantage of that, it's one of my favorite quests^^
As a quick aside, I wanted to say that I greatly appreciated the impromptu history lesson that sprung up on the depictions of vampires in media over the years. Carry on!
bloodlines is not really the best representation of WoD honestly. but it has it's moments. they were already long forgetting about what their own game was about and ended up resetting it a bit after that into Vampire:The Requiem. One thing they did decently well. at least in it's earlier stuff was represent several different "archetypes" to vampires in their different clans.
Since the Master Vampire concept is used in FR. I'd say that hexxat while different and somewhat rare does fit this concept by being one that has managed to survive lacking her Master but not be untouched by changes from being a vampire and that entity.
As a quick aside, I wanted to say that I greatly appreciated the impromptu history lesson that sprung up on the depictions of vampires in media over the years. Carry on!
They're probably more interesting than most other monsters because they remain quite close to being human, at least with some interpretations. Harder to relate to kuo-toa.
As a quick aside, I wanted to say that I greatly appreciated the impromptu history lesson that sprung up on the depictions of vampires in media over the years. Carry on!
They're probably more interesting than most other monsters because they remain quite close to being human, at least with some interpretations. Harder to relate to kuo-toa.
The vampire represents the darkest reflection of human nature. The part of us that is primal, aggressive, lustful, vengeful, remorseless, ruthless, and so forth. We are fascinated by vampires in part because we know that in our darkest dreams, we are just like them. While we may deny it, some part of us wants to become a vampire.
I think one of my favorite scenes is from Interview With the Vampire. Louis has been spending the entire time explaining how vampirism is an unbearable curse, but when he finishes all the reporter wants is to become a vampire himself.
I think one of my favorite scenes is from Interview With the Vampire. Louis has been spending the entire time explaining how vampirism is an unbearable curse, but when he finishes all the reporter wants is to become a vampire himself.
"Oh Louis, Louis. Still WHINING, Louis. Have you heard enough? I've had to listen to that, for CENTURIES."
As a quick aside, I wanted to say that I greatly appreciated the impromptu history lesson that sprung up on the depictions of vampires in media over the years. Carry on!
They're probably more interesting than most other monsters because they remain quite close to being human, at least with some interpretations. Harder to relate to kuo-toa.
Hexxat is a full-blown Mary-Sue. Which is not surprising given that a self-proclaimed male feminist wrote the character.
It's no wonder you feel so unappreciated in these forums considering so many of your posts consist of tripe like this. I find also very amusing you were so offended when @ThacoBell assumed things about you and then go on doing the exact same thing about Hexxat's writer.
Hexxat is a full-blown Mary-Sue. Which is not surprising given that a self-proclaimed male feminist wrote the character.
This is an interesting claim. I was unaware that male feminists were more prone to creating poorly-written self-inserts.
My intuition might have run the opposite. The term Mary-Sue comes from the fan fiction community, (the Star Trek fanfic community, specifically). Fanfic skews overwhelmingly, (overwhelmingly!), female. So if Mary-Sues tended to be gendered thing, as a fan of Bayesian logic, my prior would be that they "belong" more to the female gender than the male.
(In the same way, I would assume that behaviors that were more common on Reddit than Pinterest were more "male" behaviors, while behaviors that were more common on Pinterest than Reddit were more "female" behaviors.)
And yet here you're specifically saying that the tendency to write Mary-Sues belongs more to the male gender, provided those males happen to be feminists. (It can't just be a feminist thing, or else the "male" modifier would have not only not added any clarifying information, it would have obfuscated clarifying information. In an attempt to be as generous to your point as possible, I'm assuming that all modifiers you used were actually relevant.)
Is it the fact that they're a feminist that makes them more prone? Or the fact that they're a male? Is this an intersectional issue, where males in general are not prone, and feminists in general are not prone, it's just the intersection of male and feminism that makes one prone?
And is the propensity towards self-inserts in general, to poor writing in general, or is it a specific blind spot that causes them to only poorly write their self-inserts while leaving all of their other writing unchanged?
And now it occurs to me that I might have missed the point entirely. Are you saying it's the self-proclaimed part that is the key? Are male feminists that don't admit to being male feminists better at characterization? And if so, how could we possibly know since by definition they're not admitting they're male feminists?
(I suppose one could compare self-admitted male feminists to all males who don't admit they're feminists under the assumption that the latter population must surely contain some male feminists who aren't self-professing. But thinking of the kinds of lurking variables that would incorporate gives me a little bit of indigestion.)
As a bystander in this discussion (which has been fascinating, btw) I will repeat that I, personally, wouldn't care if Hexxat's story had been as well-written as the"Ode to a Grecian Urn," I wouldn't have a vamp in my party. Even if he were an Angel clone, there is still a chance that Angelus might emerge at the wrong time. Yeah, I was burned by Yoshimo and am a fan of Buffy/Angel. Mea culpa
As a bystander in this discussion (which has been fascinating, btw) I will repeat that I, personally, wouldn't care if Hexxat's story had been as well-written as the"Ode to a Grecian Urn," I wouldn't have a vamp in my party. Even if he were an Angel clone, there is still a chance that Angelus might emerge at the wrong time. Yeah, I was burned by Yoshimo and am a fan of Buffy/Angel. Mea culpa
But if he were a Spike clone?
At this point my strong belief that no Charname would ever entertain having a vampire in party begins to crumble.
Problem is, Hexaat is no Spike and to make the character work, she has to be. Just as Edwin, Viconia, Kagain are written well enough that the "evil" can be overlooked. They failed with Dorn too in BG2.
Problem is, Hexaat is no Spike and to make the character work, she has to be. Just as Edwin, Viconia, Kagain are written well enough that the "evil" can be overlooked. They failed with Dorn too in BG2.
Yeah, I intend to take Hexxat because the idea of immortal cannon-fodder should be amusing.
But I refuse to even entertain the idea of taking Dorn in in BG2. Well, I entertained the IDEA, but, no. Too evil.
As a bystander in this discussion (which has been fascinating, btw) I will repeat that I, personally, wouldn't care if Hexxat's story had been as well-written as the"Ode to a Grecian Urn," I wouldn't have a vamp in my party. Even if he were an Angel clone, there is still a chance that Angelus might emerge at the wrong time. Yeah, I was burned by Yoshimo and am a fan of Buffy/Angel. Mea culpa
But if he were a Spike clone?
At this point my strong belief that no Charname would ever entertain having a vampire in party begins to crumble.
Problem is, Hexaat is no Spike and to make the character work, she has to be. Just as Edwin, Viconia, Kagain are written well enough that the "evil" can be overlooked. They failed with Dorn too in BG2.
Hmm.. I'm not sure I agree with that. I do think more of the good npcs and possibly some of the neutral npcs would refuse to join in his personal quest though.
And if joining up with a vampire is too much, wouldn't a lot more npcs refuse your decision with Bodhi? At least using her crypt as a haven, all together almost like brothers-in-arms..With pools of blood all around^^
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Again, though I don't want to say her writing is bad, as that seems pretty prevalent here. Simply that her writing uses a lot of concepts and tropes that I am either not interested in, or I find annoying.
But you can't recruit any of them until you clear out Nashkel Mines, the Bandit Camp, and the Cloakwood... and you can't just not have a divine caster for all of that stuff. Which means most parties are going to be forced, (or at least strongly encouraged), to take one of Jahiera, Viconia, or Branwen.
Of that trio I think Branwen is the best, or at least would be*. Jahiera suffers from the fact that low-level druid spells are terrible, (and Silence 15' Radius is so awesome). Viconia has the magic resistance and 2 points better AC, but Branwen has better HP and her slightly higher strength means she can wear heavier gear.
*(The big spanner in the works is the suit of Ankheg Plate just lying around for you, which greatly offsets Viconia's biggest weakness-- her inability to wear decent armor because of her garbage strength. That tilts the comparison in her favor, but in runs where you're not grabbing it or where it's going to someone else, I think Branwen/Viconia is essentially a wash.)
As for Mazzy... the early consensus was that she sucked, I agree, but (A) that early consensus came when Grandmastery was hella nerfed, and it now grants 0.5 APR again, and (B) the early consensus was before Shorty Saves were common knowledge, and her +4 save vs. Spells / Death / Wand is huge.
Beyond that, Archery isn't her greatest asset, it's a starter setup while you level her up into her end-game role. Archery is awesome through chapter 2, but Mazzy's greatest asset is her ability to get Grandmastery in... anything. Mazzy, Korgan, and Anomen are the only NPCs in SoA capable of reaching grandmastery, and if you want Anomen to get Grandmastery in Flails, say, he won't be able to reach it until he has 4.5m XP. (He'll only get two more pips before XP cap, so if you want two-weapon fighting, too, it's going to be a bit of a wait.)
Provided you rush for the level 8 version, Mazzy can hit GM in any weapon of her choice by 3.25m XP, which means she'll be switching over right when you start to gain your end-game weapons and shortly after archery loses its shine. She'll even get up to six more pips after that, so you can get your points in two-weapon fighting and actually use it before the very end of the game.
(You don't have to, though. You can give her Halberds and Ravager, Spears and Impaler, Quarterstaves and Staff of the Ram, you can go Sword-and-Board with Flail of the Ages +5 and a ton of Greater Whirlwinds, you can dual-wield FoA and Defender of Easthaven... whatever you want, Mazzy can do it.)
Her other big advantage is her stats. Mazzy and Jahiera are really the only front-liners who don't need the Gauntlets of Dexterity. (Anomen/Keldorn/Korgan all have 15 or worse Dex, Valygar/Minsc/Dorn are really more secondary-damage-dealers than true front-liners.) This lets her play nicely with others, (I'll rarely have two of the Anomen/Keldorn/Korgan trio in the same party, but they all work great with Mazzy), and it also makes her one of the top choices for the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization if you're not using them on your Charname.
Really, her only "weakness" is strength, but she has an innate ability that will fix that for all of your combat, and strength is the stat with the most "fixing" items in the game, so by the end everyone relevant has giant strength, anyway. Plus her other innate abilities are also pretty cool and handy!
And like I said, the +4 shorty save bonus is also huge and a big reason why she and Korgan are head and shoulders above the rest of the fighter-types, IMO.
I put Keldorn more in the additional damage dealer category myself. But that may be a personal playstyle choice.
And the over-use of sexuality is really the Vampire trope. Whether male or female. Even Edward is occasionally a bit guilty of it and he's a cardboard cutout personality wise. Sparkling skin or otherwise. The being only into girls isn't even really a twist to the Vampire thing really. Actually it's More rare that she's only into girls considering increasingly Vampires tend to be written from a more bisexual viewpoint with the excuse of having gone past the idea of traditional sexuality and being interested in only one or the other. For both male and Female but it's seen more readily in some of the females.
As for Vampires going immediately Evil and changing personality. Another issue with the older vampire style, including Dracula and some others. Is that they are much more driven by the idea of a master vampire and that master vampires will being imprinted heavily on all vampires they make. Which helps push the whole changing character and monster aspect as well. Your will is not really your own until you either hit a point where you kill that evil or you can survive without it. And either way by the time you manage that your likely too corrupt to be any less of a monster than they were.
Then we have this from Chapter 16
"But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing for the Foul Thing which had taken Lucy's shape without her soul."
Emphasis mine.
"Is it really Lucy's body, or only a demon in her shape?"
"It is her body, and yet not it."
After they destroy Lucy, her appearance returns to that of a normal human corpse. Van Helsing explains the curse is over and she will now basically go to Heaven to be with God. What this tells me, from a D&D perspective, is the shift to Chaotic Evil that Vampirism brings to even noble souls is only as lasting as their undead existence. Once the vampire is staked and destroyed, the soul is sent to it's proper place in the Planes. The curse, not the person, did the evil things (unless they be evil before) and the gods forgive the trespasses done while a vampire.
Of course that's just from the perspective of classic D&D vampirism with a good dose of Stoker's version of the Vampire. YMMV.
You know, all this talk about vampires and Dracula is changing my mind about Hexxat. Her story makes less and less sense.
It... makes me popular at parties. Sorry, "popular".
It is in various places considered a bug, an exploit, or just a reasonable advantage of dual-classes over multis, but it's been like this ever since vanilla BG1. When that game first shipped, the only way to achieve grandmastery was to start as a fighter, dual into druid or thief at level 3 (giving you three pips in your weapon of choices), and then you could place your 4th and 5th pips at level 4 and 8 in your new class.
(Tales of the Sword Coast and its higher XP cap opened up the option to dual at level 6 and still achieve Grandmastery, and also allowed F>C duals to hit it, too.)
As for vampires, interestingly enough, Carmilla, a lesbian vampire, is a story older than Bram Stoker's Dracula.
TBH, I've been shaped by World of Darkness vampires more than D&D vampires. Where it's not really "your sire controls you" that I recall, although it's been close to 20 years since I've played. I mainly recall humanity points getting lost the longer you live and do inhumane things to keep feeding the thirst. Or was that karma?
I think both depictions could be valid though, generally speaking, you DIE when turned. Whose to say whether you lose your humanity right off the bat from the trauma of dying, and then rebirth as the walking dead, or whether the slip into monsterdom is a slow and gradual loss of humanity from the endless pangs of unquenchable thirst over hundreds of years?
See http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhoWantsToLiveForever for much suck about eternal life, especially vampirism and lichdom
So if we really want to break down the fighter-types (using MMO conventions), let's say:
Korgan / Mazzy / Anomen / Jahiera - "proper" tanks
Keldorn / Minsc / Mr. ToB - off-tanks
Valygar / Dorn / Rasaad - melee DPS
(With of course the caveat that all of those characters are flexible in their roles, and you can easily have Jahiera wield spears and Mazzy wield halberds and be off-tanks, give Keldorn or Valygar the Defender of Easthaven and a shield, have them cast Armor of the Faith, and use them as "true" tanks, etc.)
And to bring back Hexxat and pretend that this is the slightest bit relevant to the thread at hand, I'd say her unkillableness, (unkillability?), means the most interesting strategic use of her is as an off-tank, as well. Sure, she can't deal out much damage, but she makes a pretty interesting damage sponge since you don't really care if she gets killed, even in no-reload or no-resurrection.
Actually, she seems like the kind of character where no-reload / no-resurrection is probably the perfect place for her, since they largely eliminate the disposability of NPCs and she's the ultimate disposable NPC.
Really, I think Hexxat would be a much, much more intriguing NPC were it not for the existence of Rods of Resurrection. But this is making me want to run a duo run with her where my CE main is basically just using her as a disposable shock troop, essentially a glorified Storm Trooper.
In short, the fact that Hexxat is alluring, sexual, and lesbian is par for the course in vampire folklore and not the least bit out of sorts or out of place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmilla Mmhmm, I get you here. In Dracula, the curse does something akin to stealing your soul or humanity, making you a monster instantly after you die. In later works, like Anne Rice, the evil comes over time as you are forced to kill again and again to survive and slake the thirst. In Interview with the Vampire, Louis is initially disgusted at the idea of killing others and insists on feeding on animals to survive...but his lust for human blood leads him to reluctantly kill once, then a second time, and soon enough he's luring ladies to his bachelor pad and murdering them every night without a second thought.
I didn't play a lot of Masquerade, but from what the Storyteller explained to us, becoming a vampire was like becoming a new race of being. One that sees mortals as nothing more than food. Hunting and killing humans for food is no more taboo to them than humans hunting game animals for food. I don't think twice before chowing down on a hamburger or some venison, and the vampire doesn't think twice about chowing down on me.
You know what, my bedroom could use more garlic flowers. I hear those look nice around your windowsill...
Masquerade vampires have a strong element of damnation to them. Their original progenitor, Caine, is the actual biblical Cain with all the baggage coming with it. Kindred are in a constant battle against their nature that pushes them to forget their humanity more and more (Humanity is an actual stat), a battle they generally lose, particularly when they get older.
Hexxat is not entirely out of character. If her master has somehow been wiped out but she survived... Or through some unusual effect of her own will(which is not unheard of. Mina's husband technically fits this category since he resisted the supernaturl allure of Dracula and his wives to manage to escape). It would be possible to sit on that duality fence and have moments where she is a driven unrepentant monster. And have moments where she mourns for her lost humanity and understands the failings in what she has become. Keep in mind I haven't seen how well written that is in her case at this point. But it is a potential possibility that is even supported by the older style of vampires.
And to touch on one other thing. People say you shouldn't ever take Hexxat because She needs to kill to survive. You know what? In General that's going to have signs that you can learn to read and actually to keep Hexxat less of a worry. Unlike Korgan for example who may try to kill you over a strong word or for the fun of it and he suddenly decides he might be able to take you, which gives you no forwarning. And Edwin's a plotter and if for some reason he was going to try to turn against you He'd purposely make sure you had as little chance to see it coming as possible. just because neither of them do. From a role play perspective it doesn't mean they can't. And Dorn has another entity telling him what to do. That is a whole other kind of unpredictable bag of worms. In RP fashion. All of the Evil NPC's are basically a calculated risk to take along with you. Hexxat while more unrepentantly evil up front is probably the easiest one to tell when something might go violent for you over the others. Making her potentially the least risky. However for many evil characters. A little bloodshed that's not yours shouldn't be as big of a deal.
Buffy followed the "vampire is actually a monster" quite happily until Spike. It was the curse from the gypsies that allowed Angel to have feelings, when that was broken, he reverted to being Angelus the monster.
Yeah, but look at Spike.
Who wouldn't?
Ratings people, ratings.
Actually, I guess I don't have much vampire cred. Never read, or even seen all of Dracula (any of them). Never read Carmilla (actually only heard about it from a reference from a dA pic and reading the wiki entry), never read any of Anne Rice's books (except one, Ramses the Damned, or was it The Mummy?), although I have seen 'Interview with a Vampire', and NO TWILIGHT!
Christopher Pike's 'The Last Vampire' series when I was a teenager and Masquerade are the only things I can think of off the top of my head. Oh, Jane Yellowrock series of recent vintage, although I haven't liked it so much.
I'm not a vampire purist in that regard. There are tons of different interpretations on vampires..Your setting, your rules basically, as long as it makes sense and you stick to some basic stuff. I was mostly thinking of how vampires function in the Forgotten realms or D&D generally and given that Hexxat is so different from pretty much every other vampire you meet, she sticks out like a sore thumb in that regard. At least when there's no reason given for that. I didn't take Hexxat into ToB back when I used her though, so I don't have her entire story.
And yes mainstream vampire fiction is a bit trashy, I don't disagree with that. That doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed films with examples of ''humanized'' vampires with a personality. Vampire the masquerade: bloodlines has a lot of that for example. It also helps that you have several clans, each with their own respective weaknesses and strengths. The sexualized and agonized/tormented vampires in WoD seem to be the Toreadors mostly and the game even makes fun of that sometimes.
There's also a rather fun and amusing quest involving a thin blood(really weak generation of vampires) on the beach in the first act. He's looking for a cure and you can bullshit him and take advantage of that, it's one of my favorite quests^^
Since the Master Vampire concept is used in FR. I'd say that hexxat while different and somewhat rare does fit this concept by being one that has managed to survive lacking her Master but not be untouched by changes from being a vampire and that entity.
I think one of my favorite scenes is from Interview With the Vampire. Louis has been spending the entire time explaining how vampirism is an unbearable curse, but when he finishes all the reporter wants is to become a vampire himself.
My intuition might have run the opposite. The term Mary-Sue comes from the fan fiction community, (the Star Trek fanfic community, specifically). Fanfic skews overwhelmingly, (overwhelmingly!), female. So if Mary-Sues tended to be gendered thing, as a fan of Bayesian logic, my prior would be that they "belong" more to the female gender than the male.
(In the same way, I would assume that behaviors that were more common on Reddit than Pinterest were more "male" behaviors, while behaviors that were more common on Pinterest than Reddit were more "female" behaviors.)
And yet here you're specifically saying that the tendency to write Mary-Sues belongs more to the male gender, provided those males happen to be feminists. (It can't just be a feminist thing, or else the "male" modifier would have not only not added any clarifying information, it would have obfuscated clarifying information. In an attempt to be as generous to your point as possible, I'm assuming that all modifiers you used were actually relevant.)
Is it the fact that they're a feminist that makes them more prone? Or the fact that they're a male? Is this an intersectional issue, where males in general are not prone, and feminists in general are not prone, it's just the intersection of male and feminism that makes one prone?
And is the propensity towards self-inserts in general, to poor writing in general, or is it a specific blind spot that causes them to only poorly write their self-inserts while leaving all of their other writing unchanged?
And now it occurs to me that I might have missed the point entirely. Are you saying it's the self-proclaimed part that is the key? Are male feminists that don't admit to being male feminists better at characterization? And if so, how could we possibly know since by definition they're not admitting they're male feminists?
(I suppose one could compare self-admitted male feminists to all males who don't admit they're feminists under the assumption that the latter population must surely contain some male feminists who aren't self-professing. But thinking of the kinds of lurking variables that would incorporate gives me a little bit of indigestion.)
At this point my strong belief that no Charname would ever entertain having a vampire in party begins to crumble.
Problem is, Hexaat is no Spike and to make the character work, she has to be. Just as Edwin, Viconia, Kagain are written well enough that the "evil" can be overlooked.
They failed with Dorn too in BG2.
But I refuse to even entertain the idea of taking Dorn in in BG2. Well, I entertained the IDEA, but, no. Too evil.
And if joining up with a vampire is too much, wouldn't a lot more npcs refuse your decision with Bodhi? At least using her crypt as a haven, all together almost like brothers-in-arms..With pools of blood all around^^