The Scourging of the Sword Coast
OlderThan13Years
Member Posts: 79
What is the goal of this playthrough?
I hope my character can make it through the whole saga without dying/reloading. This would be the first time I have ever succeeded in doing so. In my numerous previous attempts, I always got careless at some point and died due to stupid little mistakes. Hopefully, documenting the journey will slow me down and remind me to minimize any risk.
This run will hopefully be somewhat entertaining and original for you and me. I'll provide videos and story texts. It will not be as playful and heavily based on exploits as my previous run (adventures of an evil puppet master; maybe some of you remember this one) because that would be way too risky for a permadeath game. There's still plenty of room for fun, though, even without completely breaking the game.
The Rules (may still be incomplete)
The Character
Yes, he is a child of Bhaal and an auto-roller. More exactly, a product of my own roller. An impressive 105 roll, close to absolute perfection. It doesn't fell like cheating to me, especially since I created the tool myself. "Antares" is supposed to be a very talented misunderstood psychopathic maniac (see biography below). He is not completely insane, but quite rational and driven by a kind of scientific curiosity. His class (cleric/mage) allows him to learn almost any spell in the game. This will become important later.
The Biography
(It's basically an edited vanilla bio. Do not take it too seriously)
Despite your foster father's attempts to change your obviously vicious nature and give you positive impulses with his loving tales, you only ever dreamed of cruelly chastising the self-righteous adventurers his stories were about, traveling the land with your depraved mind and malicious talents alone. Nothing would stop you from slaughtering the innocent. The grounds of the keep were often the stage for many an imagined atrocities, much to the consternation of the monks that share your home. Companions your age being somewhat of a rarity, you endured by mutilating and skinning small mammals, a habit that has stayed with you as you enter into adulthood and that filled Gorion with great concern. As he desperately used to advise you, "A little bit of love and empathy makes a better life." You never really understood these words. You had as little emotional attachment to "love" and "empathy" as to the variables in a mathematical formula. Reducing a fraction or ending a life - both involve some form of satisfaction for you. You were aware, however, that this was probably not what Gorion meant.
You know little of how you came to be a ward of Gorion's and you don't care about your past anyway. Over the year's you have gleaned something of your mother's tale from the vague allusions and from the words he sometimes uttered in tear-filled sleep. You would have loved to take a pillow to silence the old man. But you knew he was a powerful mage. Therefore, you decided to resist the temptation and wait for a more suitable moment. Someday the old fool would have to leave the protective walls of Candlekeep... This day is today.
Part 1 - Prologue - The Carnage of Candlekeep
Of course this part of the game is not too exciting. You do all six sidequests and eliminate every single living being in Candlekeep (maybe except for lawful stupid Tethtoril and some doddering monks that you might miss). Unfortunately, our "Hero" was very careless (once again) and made a serious mistake in the "Candlekeep Inn". But fortunately, a critical hit in firebead elvenhair's face saved Antares's ass. Nevertheless, he had more fun than ever before in his life and learned more about human anatomy in that one day than he had in the previous 18 years. Overall a great start...
Result:
* about 5400 Gold
* a decent plate armor
* an unidentified robe
* a couple of healing potions
* Antares is now a Cleric 3 / Mage 2.
I hope my character can make it through the whole saga without dying/reloading. This would be the first time I have ever succeeded in doing so. In my numerous previous attempts, I always got careless at some point and died due to stupid little mistakes. Hopefully, documenting the journey will slow me down and remind me to minimize any risk.
This run will hopefully be somewhat entertaining and original for you and me. I'll provide videos and story texts. It will not be as playful and heavily based on exploits as my previous run (adventures of an evil puppet master; maybe some of you remember this one) because that would be way too risky for a permadeath game. There's still plenty of room for fun, though, even without completely breaking the game.
The Rules (may still be incomplete)
- No reloads. There will be very few exceptions later in the game. Some tricks that make the playthrough more interesting may require several attempts to make them work. However, there won't be any reloading due to death (even if it's caused by a bug) or if I choose the wrong dialogue option or anything like that. Mistakes like these will end the run.
- Only mild exploiting during battles. So no cloudkill of enemies outside the viewing distance. No constant changing of areas in order to evade enemies' spells (I will do this occasionally but not all the time).
- It's not a strict solo run since I want to make some NPC quests in BG 2 (probably most of them).
- No mods. The only exception may possibly be visual mods (I don't like how certain items look in the EE version, e.g. Vhailor's Helm).
- Difficulty is "core rules".
The Character
Yes, he is a child of Bhaal and an auto-roller. More exactly, a product of my own roller. An impressive 105 roll, close to absolute perfection. It doesn't fell like cheating to me, especially since I created the tool myself. "Antares" is supposed to be a very talented misunderstood psychopathic maniac (see biography below). He is not completely insane, but quite rational and driven by a kind of scientific curiosity. His class (cleric/mage) allows him to learn almost any spell in the game. This will become important later.
The Biography
(It's basically an edited vanilla bio. Do not take it too seriously)
Despite your foster father's attempts to change your obviously vicious nature and give you positive impulses with his loving tales, you only ever dreamed of cruelly chastising the self-righteous adventurers his stories were about, traveling the land with your depraved mind and malicious talents alone. Nothing would stop you from slaughtering the innocent. The grounds of the keep were often the stage for many an imagined atrocities, much to the consternation of the monks that share your home. Companions your age being somewhat of a rarity, you endured by mutilating and skinning small mammals, a habit that has stayed with you as you enter into adulthood and that filled Gorion with great concern. As he desperately used to advise you, "A little bit of love and empathy makes a better life." You never really understood these words. You had as little emotional attachment to "love" and "empathy" as to the variables in a mathematical formula. Reducing a fraction or ending a life - both involve some form of satisfaction for you. You were aware, however, that this was probably not what Gorion meant.
You know little of how you came to be a ward of Gorion's and you don't care about your past anyway. Over the year's you have gleaned something of your mother's tale from the vague allusions and from the words he sometimes uttered in tear-filled sleep. You would have loved to take a pillow to silence the old man. But you knew he was a powerful mage. Therefore, you decided to resist the temptation and wait for a more suitable moment. Someday the old fool would have to leave the protective walls of Candlekeep... This day is today.
Part 1 - Prologue - The Carnage of Candlekeep
Of course this part of the game is not too exciting. You do all six sidequests and eliminate every single living being in Candlekeep (maybe except for lawful stupid Tethtoril and some doddering monks that you might miss). Unfortunately, our "Hero" was very careless (once again) and made a serious mistake in the "Candlekeep Inn". But fortunately, a critical hit in firebead elvenhair's face saved Antares's ass. Nevertheless, he had more fun than ever before in his life and learned more about human anatomy in that one day than he had in the previous 18 years. Overall a great start...
Result:
* about 5400 Gold
* a decent plate armor
* an unidentified robe
* a couple of healing potions
* Antares is now a Cleric 3 / Mage 2.
Post edited by OlderThan13Years on
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After examining Gorion's body (the old geezer was as useful dead as he was alive) and clearing the first two areas, Antares went to the Friendly Arm Inn. Not suspecting that butchering over 50 innocent people could have negative consequences, he found that local authorities were wary of his presence. As he strolled happily whistling through the gate, he was attacked from behind by troop a Flaming Fist clerks who tried to fist him. He just managed to flee to the temple, where he decided to let things cool down a bit. What could have been a more sincere gesture of repentance than donating a large pile of gold, which he had obtained by selling the stolen possessions of his victims? Sadly, this was not enough to convince the Flaming Fist and shutting them down was beyond Antares's current capabilities. Even recruiting Tarnesh could not solve the problem. And so he decided to head to Beregost.
Once there, Antares finished off some pesky errands and people. As our hero spotted Neera, she made a theatrical noise ("ugh... argh...") and handed him a gem bag. Strange little girl. Firebead was still lying around rotting somewhere in Candlekeep. So there was no scroll case available but a potion case from Thalantyr's store. To have a place for his treasures, the hero occupied a seemingly vacant house in the west of Beregost. After dealing with numerous wolves and spiders, he moved on towards the Firewine Bridge.
On the way there, three bandits ambushed him. Two of them were easy to kill but the last one almost ended the hero's journey. Antares spent all his healing potions to defeat this random nobody but it was just not enough (his hammer was broken, and so he was left with only his fists and a sling + 1 against this fairly strong archer). Beaten and humiliated, he had to withdrew.
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Result:
* Antares is now a Cleric 5 / Mage 4
* reputation is at 11
* sling + 1 and a ring of wizardry
* gauntlets of Weapon Expertise
* Friendly Arm Inn is kind of blocked by the Flaming Fist
Late TOB you will be a god tho.
Im enjoying the unashamedly evil playthorugh, i did one too. I expect nothing less than a holocaust on sword coast.
No, it's a random AI pic from the internet. I can't recall what I searched for to find it.
https://openart.ai/discovery/sd-1006177078074429492
@Ulkesh
Now I wonder what parts you meant by "too much cheese". I guess one man's cheese is the other man's legit action. lol
The next part will probably come on Monday, since I won't be home before that day.
- abusing oversights in the AI (for example, your video 1: minute 11:14 - your fight against Firebead; you leave the tavern when he is casting to avoid the effects of the spell)
- napping between the different fights (e.g: 19:42, you napping while you've started killing everyone). If Baldur's gate wasn't a pc game, a DM wouldn't allow you to nap in such circumstances; and if he did, it would be once, then not anymore. After all you started killing people, you cannot expect to not have a retaliation for your actions that would be, if not immediate (given that they would need to realize who did what), pretty soonish. There are also naps to get Winthrop to turn green (friendly) once again.