I’m doing two simultaneous runs, a good Sorcadin run on Tactician and a dark urge, evil Berserker run in Honor Mode that follows along. The good party is basically acting as an advance team to remind me of the scary encounters, ambushes etc. but I’ve also never done an evil durge run so it’s not exactly a 1:1 comparison.
The evil party is just shy of Act 2, but I’m playing with the only companions I have access to (because of my evil actions) and I’m roughly trying to play them on type. Astarion is a Gloomstalker Assassin, Lae’zel is an Eldritch Knight and Shadowheart is a Light Domain Cleric. We are cake walking at the moment, didn’t really break a sweat through the Underdark and Monastery. I’m concerned at not having a true caster… But I’m also sort of intrigued at the viability of this party.
Counterspell is the big thing I’m worried about. The advance team is proccing it constantly. Also replacing Haste with potions would suck and I can’t get the Haste bow (I assume, Dammon is dead). So far relying on cleric skills for AoE has been working okay.
Can I get away with using speed potions and maybe something clever like going full anti-magic and using Sussur blooms with some party tweaks?(edit: apparently that’s not possible anymore, but still Silencing weapons etc.)
Or, should I bite the bullet and spec Minthara as something castery when I get her? If so, who do I replace?
Any suggestions welcome.
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Easily. The game isn’t very difficult unless you’re on an honor run, you shouldn’t even need any consumables to get through it, just bash your head against the wall and it’ll break easy enough.
Oh wait, you ARE talking about the honor mode run. You should still be fine so long as you know what’s coming up. I’ve done a couple of runs and I’ve never even touched haste, or elixirs, or speed potions. Honestly I feel like the first act of the game is hardest in honor. Usually much smoother sailing once you’re established and geared up a bit, as opposed to one or two bad rolls potentially wiping your whole team.
I mean making shadowheart a light domain cleric when her literal goddess (at least if you’re still in Act1 ) is literally the goddess of darkness isn’t exactly in character, so I wouldn’t see anything wrong e.g. respecing Astarion to a wizard. He’s 200 years old, he’s had plenty of time to study and I’d say him being a wizard is less out of character than Shar Shadowheart being a light domain cleric…
Yeah, totally, I just meant she stayed a relatively pure cleric. Trickery domain sucks and I wanted the fire/radiant AoE.
I don’t see any reason to really insist on keeping characters their original class, unless you explicitly want that class in your party.
I find respecing characters to different classes is a great way to allow you to choose which companion storylines you want to persue, without locking you into a specific class comp, and there’s plenty of class changes that imo stay perfectly in character.
For example oath of vengeance paladin is very easy to integrate into Karlachs backstory and character. Shart would work well character wise as a shadow magic sorcerer.
I can also totally see Astarion being a wizard, as I stated above, especially a Bladesinger.
You can complete honor mode with any strong group. Especially if you’re planning your run from another. I wouldn’t worry much. But also you could respec laezel as hexblade. That would kind of fit her. Maybe she takes up a patron after vlaakith lets her down.
Interesting idea for Lae’zel.
For the rest I guess that depends on whether this is a “strong group” without someone to deflect spells. And for the planning I’m sorta worried that I’m going to diverge a lot since the first party isn’t evil, but at the same time it’s not like the main quest changes a lot (AFAIK)
I’ve beaten the game using nothing but 4 gnome barbarians. So, no. You don’t need casters at all. Just learn how to throw.
Haha, well the Berserker is rolling with the Returning Pike so I think I got that part. 4 Gnome Barbs sounds hilarious, maybe I’m not in such bad shape if I’m all weapon damage and heals.
Some spells are annoying but usually not something you can’t outtank/outheal. Just give yourself and Lae’zel tons of running distance and focus down the biggest threats first.
Do you know if you will go half illithid? That should give you even more movement and one counter-spell per (short?) rest.
I’m definitely using my parasite powers, I’ll have to look for the counterspell there, I’m sorta low on worms at the moment though.
Casting has gotten me out of a few pickles but if you use your scrolls sparingly you’ll have plenty by late game.
Throw stuff at casters?
How about using the mage slayer feat?
Only works if you’re in melee range already and they cast which I haven’t seen a lot of. Advantage against concentration could be good but I have plenty of ways to break that. Counterspell stops the spell from occuring at all from across the room.
You’d have to create a speedy character and get to them first. Idk just an idea.
