How are everyone’s stories coming along? Have you finished the game? If so how many times?
What tips, remarks or other things of note do you have that you want to discuss here?
As always try to keep things as spoiler free as possible.
Also should I do these posts more regularly (shows up on people’s feeds more and so has more traction) or like this is fine. Definitely don’t want to spam people.
Lucky rolls to you all!
After seeing an article about dark urge and how special it is I decided to give it a shot. I also read a comment on here saying romance between Shadowheart and Seluna’s cleric MC is great. So I decided to combine those two things for my 3rd playthrough! ( i have yet to experience act 2 btw…think I have a problem)
I made a Seldarine drow with the idea being that she used to be bloodthirsty Lolth sworn but eventually she found Seluna and became her cleric, now she’s trying to be better. I thought that worked well with heroic dark urge story I wanted and I get to experience the enemies to lovers relationship with shadowheart. Don’t know if the way the story will unravel will validate my headcanoned backstory for her but so far I’m quite enjoying it.
This is also the first playthrough where I met Timber the squirrel, I didn’t know he was in the game before this playthrough, I was kinda excited to meet him…yeah.
Im at the end of my durge run rn. My advice would be to not shy away from doing evil things despite what other people say about losing out on content. You really dont miss that much, and you get some pretty sweet cutscenes, especially if you commit to it. Plus, astarion and minthara will support you the entire way on your descent into darkness :)
You know I would do that if for nothing else than just for the sake of variety, but I’m such a coward >.> Just don’t have the stomach for it lol. The idea of this messed up person redeeming themselves is appealing to me, I’m not doing 100% “goody two shoes” kinda character but more of a reluctant hero who’s still bit of a dick. Maybe I’ll start another playthrough where I play the way you’re suggesting…I’ll never experience act 2 at this rate <.<
If it helps, if you give in to the urge you unlock special powers and stuff.
Next playthrough for sure, this one I wanna get the heroic dark urge experience.
Closing in on 100 hours and I still haven’t finished the game lol. Could I? Yes. Will I? No. I’m exploring every nook and cranny and doing every damn quest I can. This game is just too good not too.
Yeah, it took me almost 150h to finish my first playthrough, and instead of touching grass, i started a new one.
I’m at 160 and just got to act 3.
I am at 120 and just started act two. You are fine.
80+ hours on my main playthrough and I’m wandering around the Shadowlands, just finished going through Last Light. I tend to be a completionist and have to explore every possible nook and cranny before moving on. Just a basic druid and keeping everyone else the same classes. There’s so many crazy-ass multi-classing options I’ve seen that I can’t but feel I’m not playing optimally, but it’s going ok. Thank goodness for the Magic Mirror though, my character looked ugly at first and it was really starting to grate on me given the total lack of PC personality.
I have a separate Dark Urge playthrough, but it’s so hard to go the evil route that I avoid doing it, 30+ years of RPG playing habits is hard to break.
You can resist your dark urge too. That has a fun ending too.
Just started a new playthrough with the mod that removes the party size limit - and damn, it’s awesome not to have to choose. Of course it makes things a good bit easier, but to have so many more companion dialogues and so on… Wow, it really improves an already amazing experience.
Same here! Even on Tactican it’s very easy with so many players on the field. So what I’ve done is reskill most of my characters and start to really have fun with it. I’ve utilized spells and manoeuvres which I previously had omitted for being too weak, buffs and debuffs I never would have considered for the action economy, more or less useless roleplay stuff, or simply some funny shenanigans. My battlefields are more colourful and playful than ever. It’s not a tactical challenge for sure, but damn it’s a lot of fun to play this way.
And all the banter :D That’s almost the best part of having the whole band together.
I got to the start of Act 3, but I kinda stopped because I found out a few things…
- I missed an Act 1 companion
- I learned you can respec companions (d’oh)
- Being a wizard who’s romancing Gale means too many wizards in my party (and I didn’t know I could maybe respec him…)
- I felt like I was only really “understanding” how best to play by Act 3 and I basically just want a do-over so things are less messy.
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I kicked Gale out of my party. His special needs were to much and I am a Githyanki Dragonborn Sorcerer myself, which is a pretty interesting combination, because you are able to wear medium armor and wield a sword.
I’m doing a nothing playthrough, focused around progressing the plot by doing as little as possible. I finished act 1 by heading to the mountain pass and sneaking past all the gith and undead (this required a potion of invisibility). Went to Last Light, spoke to no one then went immediately back out, skipping Moonrise Towers and the entire shadow curse theme park, and going straight to the temple. Sneaked past everyone there and very disappointed to find B waiting for me at the end anyway, how did he know I was there? Well I’m like level 3 or something so I cheese him with a silence spell before he has the chance to get going then shove him off a cliff. Up next, sneaking into Moonrise Towers without anyone noticing and then guilt tripping the guy in charge because
SeluneSharMyrkul knows it’s not a fight I’m going to win. AFAIK this is where the fun and games end though, because the final phase of the act II boss requires that you actually be capable of doing something, which my MC for this run canonically isn’t.Probably close to 40 hours now and ive just reached the goblin camp and im trying to plan how i want to deal with the goblins
Romance them
44 in one swing with a one-hander at level 6. Phalar Aluve is busted.
Yeah, I hit a wall I can’t overcome; Shadowheart or Karlach?
Neither. Lae’zel.
I see you like your bits stepped on and abused.
Aye, she’ll do it, lad.
I only just started act 2 but she’s already asked me to fight her. I won and I think she’s even more into me now.
Yep. Right after the Grove she’s shaking her moneymaker in your face. Gith do that shit.
I’m into it!
Funny thing was I didn’t even have to fight her.
Depending on your actions in the fight with the 3 absolute generals to close out act 1 and how much of a stud you are, she just throws that pussy at you like a hot potato. I was like, "Damn baby, can we like have dinner first? I just slaughtered like 50 dudes. I’m hungry. "
To be fair, you can also be the dom in that relationship, and its awesome
Karlach because she’s hot…
I’ll see myself out.
I chose Shart on my first playthrough because she was kinda nice? And Lae’zel and Astarion were both kinda dicks. On my next playthrough I’ll try Karlach first, I think I’ll fall in love immediately.
Lae’zel is a huge dick at first, but come act 2 and her romancing scenes and she tends to turn around. She’s also a prime example of a character that has her pride but her respect for you makes her question her believes
Me too man, I’ve just barely made it to last light for the first time, and I’ve been going for shadowheart the entire way, but maaaaaaaaan, Karlach is so damn precious
I would go for Karlach but none of them want me.
Think my game is bugged because they both like me quite a lot but stuff doesn’t move forward
Might take halsins offer
Shadowheart easy, actual character growth and development. Karlach is so simple
Karlach, 100%, she starts to grow more in act 3 too, though shadowheart does the whole story.
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I’m fairly fresh into act 3, just did the shadowheart part and man, that was heavy.
Definitely gonna be doing a new play though with my opposite choices though.
I do gotta say, I’m enjoying the challenge of tactician but man does my lvl 11 monk suck and is just so squishy, anyone got any recommendations to strengthen her up to take more than 2 hits?
Multiclass into 3 levels of Rogue and pick the thief subclass for additional bonus action to dish out unarmed strikes like a mad man.
Go strength and tavern brawler hit like a truck 8 times per turn
What do you mean by go strength? What actual things are you talking about? Levels as fighter or barbarian? How can you get 8 hits a turn?
Rogue 3 (thief), monk 8 (open hand)
Pre-combat: use Wholeness of Body for an extra bonus action for 3 turns
Turn 1: action attack x2, flurry of blows 3x for 6 attacks.
If you have maxed strength and pick tavern brawler, each attack is +10 damage on top of the martial arts die. Easy 100 damage per turn with Manifestation of Soul and an ok wisdom score (ie + 1d4 + 3-5 per hit passively)
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Yep, unfortunate that the other two subclasses really can’t compete
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I think I have around 200 hours and haven’t finished the game yet lol. First playthrough was with an evil drow warlock, but bugs with Minthara’s quest made me quit during act 3.
I’m now playing an evil dark urge (sorcerer dragonborn), and just started a parallel Githyanki Monk too (I would like this one to be a good playthrough, let’s see). I also have a gnome bard somewhere but I don’t have the time 😂
I just can’t stop myself from trying different things, and I love how the slightest change in conversations and choices can results in very different things and how the game accounts for almost every possibility, just love it.
It’s what keeps me entertained vs a regular story, where once I know how it progress I find it kind of boring to replay.
I’ve just finished the game on normal difficulty after about 90 hours, probably because it was a ‘blind’ playthrough so I managed to just never encounter more than the first 5 companions.
Have to say the ending was stylistically great but very WTF in terms of closure, even after the patches to extend the epilogue. It feels a lot like the Mass Effect 3 ending before they added the director’s cut. And even then, the ROs are a lil buggy in terms of contradicting your previous conversations.
Everything leading up to that was really fun though. Maybe the real treasure was the magical artifacts we stole along the way.
I just finished my first play through. My friend hosted and I joined. He wanted to go “good” on tactician difficulty. So, we did. It took us 25 days. We got a lot of the more difficult achievements out of the way.
Next time I’m hosting and we’re doing an evil play through. Larian killed it. One of my better purchases this year.
Second playthrough, trying out dark urge and being evil. It’s really hard, honestly. I’ve lost half of my beloved companions and slaughted some favourite NPCs. It feels really fucked up. Minthara better be worth it lol.
Despite the fact I tried to be a completionist in my first playthrough, I’ve still been discovering lots of things I missed. The biggest so far is that there was a massive amount of the creche to explore on the exterior. I missed that before and basically only went into the basement. I also last time missed that there were 2 mythrils, among many other smaller things.
I’m kinda in the same boat. I’m doing a second playground with a human Bard Dark Urge, named Dirge of course, and I’m having trouble going full evil. I’m picking every Bard and Dark Urge text when I’m given those options but I’m not going out of my way to be evil yet.