In the grove, we find Zorru, and after some menacing words, he tells us where he saw more of our kind! Shadowheart tells me (again) that I should get rid of the gith. I'd like to ask her 'which one' but I can't. Oh well. Next stop, Gith Patrol!
https://imgur.com/BpnaZV5On the way there, we come across an encounter with bloated hyenas. Shadowheart throws her armour at one, killing it, while Ka throws a dead gnoll at another... inaccurately. Oh well. She shoves another one closer to the pile in order to salvage the turn.
https://imgur.com/LjExj5Shttps://imgur.com/I0WEokjhttps://imgur.com/Qvi6BWihttps://imgur.com/5zAECCEThe hyenas aren't doing much, so we pelt them with more dead bodies. My luck runs a bit poorly and I have to throw quite a few things at them before they die... not so many misses than any of them hatched, but a few all the same. Gale kills one with his cauldron during the skirmish; he's growing quite fond of it.
https://imgur.com/Qgo6Ovuhttps://imgur.com/qmDrcFQWhile searching, I find a barrel of fire-wine, but the group of gnolls up the hill saw us as well. Ambushed... sorta... Here's the initial initiative roll and situation:
https://imgur.com/c8JPAJpGale throws the fire wine, but lack of an open flame meant it didn't explode yet, and just soaked everything in booze. The Gnoll didn't like this, and one of them ran down the hill to bite Gale; it stung a bit. Ka wasn't having a bar of this, so threw the gnoll back up the hill into its brethren, half-killing one with the throw, but missing her target and failing to cause any other damage.
https://imgur.com/JQXWb3ZThe other gnolls attack and curse Gale, before shadow throws a candle to ignite the wine. It doesn't really go as she hoped; no boom, just a sizzle that sets some of them burning lightly. Lae'zel throws a dead hyena, but also misses.
https://imgur.com/0xd0Kk3https://imgur.com/90Eu2IZGale start round two by throwing his trusty cauldron at another hunter, for moderate damage, before another gnoll rushes down the hill to slash and bite at him; he nearly goes down before Ka throws the gnoll back up the hill and away from us.
https://imgur.com/U04wSYqThis time she's much more effective, and notches up another double kill.
https://imgur.com/VghaiTBThe two remaining gnolls respond by a) rushing down the hill again to bite gale, and b) running out to a ledge to shoot at Ka; Gale went down, but Ka was fine. Gale being down, this is the first case of a downed character so far – I deigned to have Shadowheart use her auto-raise help action to get him up again.
https://imgur.com/oIStfbLAfter that, Lae'zel jumped up to stand next to the Hunter, and threw him at the Fang.
https://imgur.com/I2qkyYMOnly one of them survived this action, and Ka promptly threw him into a barrel, killing him, at the top of round 3.
https://imgur.com/jc7pNsmhttps://imgur.com/yPTV5uIOnce again, this was a very straight forward, and brutally effective clearing of what is usually considered a difficult encounter by some – it took two combat rounds, plus one extra action, and that was with several misses. It was also pretty dull. I made a number of 'mistakes' here – expecting things to explode when they didn't and such, but the strength of the guaranteed mechanics I was abusing let me walk over the encounter despite the wasted actions.
Moving on, we arrived at the location of the Gith Patrol, and crept up to see them interrogating some mercenaries. The lady on the bridge didn't like being told that we were gith and our gith business was our own. She pulled on us, and we shoved her off the bridge into the middle of the patrol.
https://imgur.com/cZdrX8IFor some reason, that actually started the encounter, even though none of us were close. I accidentally talked my way through it and didn't get into a fight, before I remembered that I'm actually supposed to be here to fight them... so here I reloaded my game and approached the patrol directly head on and at ground level, then told them that they were all bad gith, and that they needed to learn the ways of throw and shove better. They took offence. Here's the opening initiative and positioning:
https://imgur.com/Xur4AhwThis looks rough with us being level 3 still, so I decided to open with a bang and threw a nautiloid tank at the group with Lae'zel.
https://imgur.com/3bCcGVVAnd forgot that it doesn't explode on its own, again. I'm bad at that. It's okay, Gale had me covered and tossed a candle into the mix.
https://imgur.com/fQYC0R0Ah, nope... that didn't help either! That just made their toes toasty. Ka shook her head and told them that she'd show them how to cast throw properly. She threw another nautiloid tank onto the already burning fires.
https://imgur.com/wrEiyM1That's better. She rushed up and shoved one of them further into the fire to finish her turn.
https://imgur.com/BXPUTiEThe gith took their turn next: One used misty step to warp to the first landing, just off screen above Shadowheart, and then cast sleep on Ka. One healed himself and cast hunter's mark on Ka. I'm not sure what the third one did; whatever it was, it didn't seem to have any effect. I *Think* he threw a poison bottle at Ka, but could be wrong – either way, no effect.
https://imgur.com/gDWJ10XOn shadow's turn, I had her skip over and wake Ka up, before the boss got her turn.
https://imgur.com/8OJpwNsThe boss downed Ka and injured Shadow with her attacks, ouch.
Round 2 begins, and Gale climbs the ladder, but fails to shove the gish off the ledge. He attempts to brain him with his trusty cauldron from close range, then, but this also fails. Exasperated, Lae'zel grabs the boss and throws her up at the gish.
https://imgur.com/2lTE4a1She misses too... The gish dodges his incoming commander and she slams into the ground instead, dropping and falling prone for nearly lethal damage. So close. With Ka down, it's now the gith patrol's turn: The shooter heals himself again and repositions, taking a shot at Shadowheart – it stings a bit. The sneaky one throws another bottle of poison at Shadow (it might be the first if they did something else before), and she's looking pretty hurt now. The gish casts silence on the area. Shadowheart takes her turn to help Ka back to consciousness, and then tries, but fails, to shove the raider off his rock.
https://imgur.com/2lTE4a1The boss gets to her feet, still burning a little, heals herself then rushes Lae'zel, hurting her badly, but not badly enough. Round three starts, and Ka answers the boss's silly sword action with another throw – she's determined to knock this gish off his ledge, and the commander goes flying again.
https://imgur.com/cLAAcQLAgain, the gish dodges, but the boss still falls and dies – thank you guaranteed damage.
https://imgur.com/DeaEf9AKa shoves the the stealthy raider into the fire, but Lae'zel has a better idea, and throws the same raider up at that annoying gish.
https://imgur.com/TA3dPTgHe dodges, again, but his next team mate suffers a guaranteed death from the throw and the landing regardless.
https://imgur.com/a243dEcGale tries again, in vain, to shove the gish off his ledge, and then picks up his cauldron in a huff, and climbs the ladder. This risks an opportunity attack, which hits him for a bit of a sting, but he weathers it.
https://imgur.com/zwztyTVFrom this point, he decides to throw something a bit heavier, and aims a set of ring mail down at the far off raider – that armour has a long, long way to travel, and he crits it. It's a mess. Edit to add: If I were shooting a bow at this enemy, from here, I'd be at disadvantage from the range. Not so with throwing things by hand, it seems.
https://imgur.com/3pqfeuyhttps://imgur.com/D1v8T5tThis one annoying gish still endures, and he decides to cast sleep on Ka again. Shadow throws something heavy his way, but still can't hit him; Lae'zel throws a body at him, but still can't connect. At last, at the top of round three, Gale caves his skull in with his cauldron from the floor above. Finally.
https://imgur.com/OqgLUJshttps://imgur.com/q9FPddBhttps://imgur.com/yoApL67The patrol has been defeated: this took two combat rounds, plus a mostly non-event third round and some clean up actions. It was brutal and effective, and a safer, more reliable clear than I think I've ever done, which is quite upsetting, really. Most of what killed the enemy team was guaranteed damage that I couldn't fail to deal, using actions that themselves couldn't fail. The things left to chance failed often here, and I still more or less breezed through this encounter. Four characters, level 3, no class abilities, no spells, no skills, no armour, no weapons... just Larian's homebrew, and it was game-breakingly brutal. This is a problem.
I'm going to continue this run, since others asked to see some of the later encounters – I'm going to go to Ethel, probably, and I'll do some of the underdark encounters as well; minotaurs, bulette, duergar and the construct in the tower, if I can keep it up long enough to do them all.
The trouble I have with this is that I can illustrate this issue, but we've already seen Sven and Larian's public-facing philosophy. They'll look at this and go “Isn't that funny and cool and fun! There's no problem here, it's great!”
It's not fun, it's not particularly funny after the first time, and it's not cool; it destroys any concept of game immersion, it breaks from the tone of the story in an aberrant way, creating a jarring juxtaposition of different conflicting elements of the game, and even within itself, it drowns out all of the other game systems that exist, rendering all player choices meaningless and obsolete in the face of the general universal abilities that overbear them. Resource-costing class spells, abilities and features are obliterated and pointless when a resource-free universal option is available to everyone that is faster, stronger, safer and more effective than any of them. In fights, there's no real need for tactics or careful decision making – the general strategy remains constant and works with brutal efficacy, almost regardless of the situation.
So, while this isn't one of my 'focused feedback' threads, and is simply a demonstrative examination... if anyone has any ideas how to explain to Larian that this is genuinely
bad for the game in a way that they might actually take on board, I'm all ears.
