Perfect place to type this out! It's definitely changed a couple things for me. First, my party is in fantastic shape because we run away a lot. Fleeing has become our anticipated method of combat. Second, most of my characters have developed some sort of severe fears. Everyone is basically terrified. Constantly. Third, we've all seen a lot of horrible things in the afterlife. A lot. We're really confused about life and death.
Act 1:
I accidentally did something that ticked off the tieflings in the grove. I don't even know what. But they ran up and started trying to hit me. The druids ignored me (and them)! I had just saved Arabella. They didn't do much damage, but I finally turned on non-lethal attacks and started knocking them unconscious. Figured it was better than killing them. Well Shadowheart summoned a weapon and apparently that sword's attacks stay lethal. And the one person it attacked was one of Arabella's parents. So ... she gone.
I bravely tried to kill off the dying hyenas, but the higher health led to me trying to fight off the gnolls, which quickly changed to a Monty Python sketch of all of us yelling run away! Tav got their first and fled. Withers just shook his head in pity at the request to revive all my companions.
But we went back! A little bit older. A little bit wiser. A bit more confused about life and death. Found our way to the back entrance, saw the Zhent's and figured "Yeah, revenge with the help of NPCs!" Long story short, Tav jumped the bridge in the back and hid and Shadowheart used invisibility, so we could head back and revive our friends. Withers was just downright embarrassed at us. Third time was the charm.
I tried to free the Gnomes, but somehow they died during releasing Nere. Why? Not sure. After he walked in, I got only one dialogue option "1. Continue" and they were all dead. Don't know if they got caught by the smokepowder or what. But my character took it in stride and vowed to keep his word to rescue his friend in Moonrise. You know, as long as it let me pick dialogue options.
Grym was a brand new type of experience. I don't read up the legendary skills, but it took me 5 different times fleeing combat that initially involved some brave (mostly involuntary) sacrifices of companions at one end of the platform while anyone else who could limp away did. Eventually it evolved into a strategy involving invisibility, so no one else had to be sacrificed, which made a few people who died earlier very disgruntled that Tav didn't think of this earlier. Tav also didn't know that Grym was quite so difficult.
I went into the mountain pass only to be flagged as an enemy of justice and immediately attacked by the vendor nearby, so needless to say I won't be selling the Society of Brilliance an owlbear egg. When I got into the Creche, they also flagged me as an enemy of justice. Not sure which person I harmed that angered both of those groups, but ... so be it I guess. I tried to get around it by leaving Tav in camp (since he had the debuff - figured he was the one at the scene of whatever crime). Turns out that's not enough so the entire entryway of the Creche got covered in blood. And ... everyone else inside was super fine with us. Little weird selling the Gith vendor Gith gear, but ... you know, they're kind of weird folks. Ended up having done so much before this point that the Inquisitor wasn't much of a challenge thankfully.
Act 2:
My entire party has a fear of heights from the elevator in Shar's temple. Glitched and sent folks plummeting to their deaths. Tav survived the initial escapade by getting to the landing. Tav revived everyone but when we returned, Tav was still alone on the landing, with everyone upstairs waiting to ride the elevator to hell. Died again, except for Shadowheart who somehow survived a fall and landed at the bottom of the map which still traumatizes her. There was nothing. She was so very alone. And still not close enough to get to teleport with Tav after heading back (though somehow Minthara was). So ... this time, everyone tried to die as close to Tav as possible. Which they did. Yay team!
Oh and I found out that approaching Yurgir from above makes him permanently hostile - so I didn't even get to talk to him and I'm guessing he won't be helping me with Raphael. Tav didn't know that was an option but Tav would've loved to tell Yurgir to kill himself. Especially AFTER the fight which consisted of multiple "run away" moments as bombs flew everywhere.
Rescued all the captives, though the Gnomes were very confused at Last Light and kept repeating themselves.
I talked all 3 Thorms into killing themselves (go me!) and talked Ketheric into skipping me into P2. All wins because Tav loves telling people to kill themselves. Unfortunately it led to a good ~30 minute fight because my comp was just not designed for that fight. Saved Aylin off the bat, murked the necromites, everything seemed great. It spiraled quickly out of control. Aylin got knocked unconscious by the avatar. I was just summoning things to take hits from the avatar, Karlach had been slaughtered up on that platform and was too afraid so she was handling some of the non-stop-necro spawn. Tav had another section. Jaheira was doing some spell damage until she ran out of spell slots. Shadowheart was basically focused on the summoning stuff. It wasn't good but we won.
Act 3 is still a work in progress.
