Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Honour Mode is AWESOME (Early Game Spoilers)

I was being an overconfident idiot and placed a purple exploding barrel from the Nautiloid in the chokepoint door to the next room after killing the guy you trick to let you in. Planned to lure them all in there and explode it and I thought I placed my party far enough away. Sneak mode, Gale pulls lever and edges just close enough to the door to shoot a Firebolt through the door past the barrel to ignite the oil barrel they are all standing around in the next room to surprise them to start the fight. That works but they somehow are not surprised and we roll trash initiative so they go first. They immediately shoot a firebolt or flaming arrow (honestly can't remember which 'cause I was shook) at the purple exploding barrel in the doorway. Instant near TPK, Gale and Shadowheart down, Tav and Lae'zel at like 4 HP each. I chugged a couple speed potions, regrouped and managed to grind out the fight but damn, that was a wake up call and a humbling experience and I love it.

There are some battles where you can't count on fleet feet and Withers though, like where you'll get pulled into initiative, or basically anytime portals and area transitions are involved or cutscenes that lead straight into a fight. This is like very very meta since it requires the player to know which fights cannot be fled so they can prepare hehe.

In my current run I just lost Halsin at the battle to guard the portal. I had remembered earlier, thinking that this is probably what all those barrels I hawked from the Selunites should have been used for, but instead I just ran after him caught up in the moment. We had 2 walls of fire up and a Cloud of Daggers for the birds, Karlach and Minthara both Twin Hasted. Astarion sniping at advantage, Durge popped off a pair of lightning bolts as well, to kill like half a dozen shadows at a go, and still - they shattered the thing into a thousand pieces with crossbow bolts from the backfield in the final round. Alas, I'm not sure we could have done Halsin much better, I mean short of some high yield explosives strategically planted at the spawn points, but I wasn't thinking too deeply on it. My plan all along was to have Minthara shatter it if we came in danger of TPK, which would just be a lesson in mercy for Durge hehe. I didn't let it get me down, after surviving the Creche by the skin of my teeth, I figure the wheel of fortune had to spin the other direction at some point. I was sad to see him go, but it couldn't be helped lol.

In general playing cautious where I can does end up being more expensive, but it still feels pretty decent on the first out. Like it definitely puts a bit of a gold sink there with the rez stuff, though I'm still hording enchanted equipment so that's part of the pocket book plan in a pinch. The zombies also come with a scroll like all the recruitable companions, so you get a two-for one on the first time you bring someone into the fold, since they're cheaper there than from Arron. In my current run Arron is poised to lead a mercantile empire of his own, like he went from bits and bobs to straight walmart, cause the Matriarch burned me hard early on, and he ended up with pretty much all the plates and spoons. Sampling most the cheese like costco paper cups where we can hehe.

Using zombie scouts seems like a decent method too. I've grown kind of attached to Sina'zith now, as my go-to shadow monk scout. I still think it would be more fun to resurrect the recently departed for this, basically with the Beetlejuice vibe on that. I like pretty much all the bit players, so I could easily see that working well. I also dig the idea of creating some sort of Zombie, Construct, or just recruiting a regular sort of Hireling from an Inn, but where we have more control over the visualization. I'd prefer stuff like that as opposed to having modular visualizations for every character, which is how it's sometimes handled elsewhere, like with standard outfit/haircut number 2 or 3 or whatever. I think they could do that here and still preserve the visuals and core characterizations for the mains, but open things up more for the hirelings. I think if they wanted to make death more hardcore they could bring back the hit to CON for that, or scale the cost by lvl, the go for the oldschool death by chunk, but that might a bit much for me here. Especially the further along you get, after hours and hours. Like if I'm trying to actually play most of the encounters out instead of skipping over them, but yeah, I thought I could get the Zaithisk over with early on for Bae'zel, but damn, we almost all took a dirt nap on that one! Having an extra invisibility scroll was ultra S in the clutch there!

Not sure what sort of staying power it will have for me, but for a Saturnalia surprise I'll definitely take it!

Man, I went to Moonrise, did the dialogue with Ketheric, dealt with the gobbos and went upstairs to report. There were a few dialogue options here, and I naturally picked the one that aligned with my class - which is Barbarian. Passed the check with flying colors...... But they saw right through that.

'WHO ARE YOU1?" - she replied, and the whole castle went hostile. Not on the first turn, but there's these eyeballs everywhere that call for reinforcements.

So, stuck on the upper level with my party at level 7, I had to fight all of the moonrise forces from a tiny room. No harpers, no preparation, no end-of-the-act level and no surpise round either. I put up a fight and must have murdered twenty or so enemies before it was just Astarion left who doesn't really run out of resources. He cheesed the hells out of that fight, survived on his own for a fair number of rounds... but there's only so much a single fighter/rogue can do. Ordinairly, I wouldn't even *try* that fight and jsut savescum out of there. But now I at least try to play to the best of my ability and deal with whatever happens - even if I don't like the outcome. That was an hour of thrilling combat, there was even a point where I thought to myself that if I kept it up, I could maybe get away with this.

I botched it big time in our hour of most desperate need, and then it was entirely up to Shadowheart to save all our asses!

She came absolutely clutch when the rest of us died almost instantly. Then she escaped to the cuts with sanctuary, a potion of flight, and my very last wall of fire scroll. It was so glorious! From complete despair and panic to the total heights. She's the most chosen now! For sure! haha









After that death-defying triumph we were riding high, but we immediately lost Halsin while defending the portal. Oh shit!!!

Then things went from bad to heartbreaking, when Jaheira fell gloriously in battle while storming Moonrise.

She went down to the black hole along with all the Harpers, killed by Z'rell, but not before giving us enough of an edge to escape a complete TPK.



Our first attempt vs Ketheric was near disaster too, when I accidentally cast Ice Storm right above my head with a targeting misclick on the one of the rafters and almost got us all killed again as my opening salvo.

Aylin got dropped immediately to what seemed like a 100 necromites.

For that one Lae'zel proved her mettle as the last warrior standing, feather falling with magic pockets, down from the roof like 5 stories to escape.

This burned me down to only 500 GP for the entire party and all the camp supply merchants were dead, except the twisted Sister at the house of healing. Good grief!




We regrouped at the Last Light, to break the news to Isobel. Minthara wasn't sure what to make of it - the wounds all seemed so grievous!

Alfira and Lakrissa are still alive though, so we got that silver lining at least...



I swore an oath to avenge Jaheira, and found a new circle in her honor, by the light of the Moon.

We recruited another Wither's zombie and spec'd her from fighter into to spore druid to try to capture the spirit, even if the look there is more BG1 Jaheira and she can't really remember much. For some reason she goes by Sunblossom now, but it was enough to at least keep the idea of a druid's circle alive.

Even though I know we can't lift the shadow curse anymore, maybe the mushrooms can still heal the land somehow even if shrouded in darkness? Who knows right. But we needed a druid, and Shadowheart is considering taking up the mantle there. Meantime Danton and Varanna were casting goodberry with every spellslot, since that was the only way I was able to long rest lol.






Minthara captured the whole vibe for me, with her running commentary... foreshadow much? hehe

to take Balthazar on at lvl 7 using Polymorph Fear and Silence, to try and just smoke him with a quickness, but I failed all of those spells, then we tried to just beat him down with Lae'zel and the whack whack lol. I thought I was doomed, cause he got off the cloud kill, and Shadowheart was standing right next to Aylin when that cracked off.

I didn't even know the overhang thing would work, I just cast sanctuary and ran lol. Got back up to the higher level using flight, then kept hiding and sniping and eventually got em all. Next time I'd probably just keep her up top. I had no idea I could blast from such a height, first time trying it.

There is a much simpler method if you want to avoid the fight altogether, but that involves a different set of spells and some sneak moves, and anyhow I was spoiling for a fight just to try it out when the stakes were high hehe.

We got dropped shortly thereafter, in the fight with the Bone Lord. I'm not sure how I'll handle that next time! Things pretty intense. I've seen a way to zap him from a distance, but I went for broke lol.

There was no escape for Shadowheart on that one, though we did make it the door, but then gah!!!! hehehe









We tried this first just to see, I was trying to light up the shadows, but it only gets a credit roll.

Still fun though, my party comp suffered from the choice to sub him in at the last minute after having left him at camp the entire time.