• Tag Archives Dungeons & Dragons
  • REBORN as the FIRST BOSS #5 & Winterborn

    The fifth of Stuart Grosse‘s Reborn as the First Boss novellas is almost stand-alone, focusing as it does on the elimination of an inquisitor squad. In a way it comes across as filler… despite not being any worse than the earlier entries.

    Another series by the same author, albeit one of full-length novels, Winterborn resembles the above series. The key distinction is that while that is a story with RPG elements, this is more a novelized Icewind Dale campaign complete with positioning grids, fully transcribed dice rolls, and (in the later novels) hundreds of pages of character sheet.

    The first three books cover a relatively low-level scenario focused on werewolves with the evil protagonist being of the ‘self-centered’ variety rather than the ‘slaughtering innocents’ variety. Of particular note is that while sexual topics/encounters come up from time to time, they don’t go into any detail. The second three then cover an epic-level campaign (following a time skip) and are much more like First Boss, with explicit sex scenes and a shift toward conquest on a societal level.

    Overall I enjoyed the series quite a bit, with only two things in particular being annoying. The first is that the fifth book (Invader) in general is by far the weakest. Both because that’s where the explicit sex starts spontaneously popping up and because there’s an entire chapter devoted to, of all things, FFXIV fanfiction. The second annoyance is far more minor: We never see the reactions of the Dale tribes to any of her actions. While it’s fairly fitting for a D&D campaign to kind of ignore the PC’s backstory… it ends up feeling like a loose end.


  • Baldur’s Gate III – Endgame

    It ended up not being quite as bad after dismissing my earlier hit percentage concerns. That said… it was still a chore to finish, to the point I skipped most of the Act 3 sidequests in the hopes of finally reaching the end.

    Compared to the first Act, both the second and third are a bit lacking in stability department (which considering the odd development schedule isn’t much of a surprise). The second in particular kind of falls apart if you don’t do things the ‘correct’ way. Fight the harpers instead of showing them the artifact? A whole bunch of broken reactions/quests is your reward. That aside the area itself is kind of dull with nothing much to recommended exploration, pretty empty as well with only a handful of setpiece battles (though it is nice to have conversational methods of defeating enemies).

    The third act also has an issues with sequence breaks. In this case, if you happen to kill Gortash as soon as possible, the Foundry and Iron Throne locations will spontaneously clear themselves. The Umberlee sidequest and Iron Throne also become impossible to clear if you don’t do them before the Foundry. So you’re locked into a very specific sequence of events if you want to avoid having unfinishable quests in your journal. The rest of pre-endgame Act 3 is pretty solid though without anything to complain about. Lots of areas to explore and sidequests to find.

    Which brings us to said endgame sequence: It’s real bad.

    Why oh why do I suddenly have to run through unending waves of trash mobs? And then fight a bunch of supersoldiers accompanied by a random dragon? And then fight the actual brain itself? It’s a massive, massive slog. Thankfully I had a bunch of Misty Step scrolls saved up so it was clearable first try… but seriously, what an incredibly unpleasant finale.


  • Baldur’s Gate III – First Impressions

    A bit infamous for being in development for so long, Baldur’s Gate III finally had its full release earlier this month. And I… I’ve bounced off it rather hard.

    In terms of visuals and gameplay it greatly resembles Divinity: Original Sin II, which is not surprising, while the characters and storytelling more resemble Dragon Age (which was unexpected). Despite liking both of those (Dragon Age II excepted) playing this one ended up subtly unpleasant.

    After thinking about it for some time I believe I’ve narrowed down the causes: Narrative and mechanics system.

    Narratively the issue is that right from the beginning the game acts as though you’re running out of time, when you are not. There is no time limit here. Yet all the early quests from the Mind Flayers, to the Druid Circle, to Gale’s ailment, to Shadowheart’s artifact keep reinforcing the idea that time’s in short supply… and I despise feeling rushed. It also clashes with the fact that many sidequests (particularly ones related to your companions) won’t progress unless you rest a ton.

    Mechanically the issue is one of base percentages. Apparently in this game having a 70% chance to hit is perfectly normal, which is an issue when in most other RPGs anything less than 95% means either you’re doing something wrong or the enemy in question is meant to have abnormally high defenses. So every time I see that relatively low chance to hit when targeting a random trash mob I immediately feel like I’m underpowered, and I do not play RPGs to feel underpowered. Quite the opposite.

    I’ll probably give it another shot later, now that I’m aware of what was throwing me off and can possibly look past it, but for the time being it’s not a game I can recommend.


  • Solasta: Crown of the Magister

    Much like Icewind Dale, Solasta is a low-level D&D campaign focused primarily on combat.

    While the implementation of the 5e ruleset is remarkably good, particularly in regards to movement and reaction abilities, the game suffers from a lack of party diversity; you can only have 4 party members, there’s no multiclassing, and the Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Monk, and Warlock classes aren’t available.

    There’s also something of a lack of equipment variety, party due to this being a low-level campaign (meaning relatively little money with +1 enchantments being the norm) and partly because a lot of stuff is locked behind Faction relationship levels. So you kind of need to use crafting to get the most out of whatever party composition you go for.

    I ended up playing through with a party consisting of sword/shield Paladin (never do this), a 2H-Spellblade (decent-ish), a Marksman (okay), and a Shock Arcanist (pretty good).

    As it turns out, having a Paladin use a shield is a terrible idea for the simple reason that nearly all of their spells need a free hand to cast (2H weapons are fine since you can temporarily hold them with one hand). The Spellblade meanwhile suffers from a severe lack of defensive and melee-touch spells, but ends up remarkably mobile for a Fighter. Ranger is useful mainly for the Goodberry and Hunter’s Mark spells (the Marksman specialization didn’t add much)… although running a Greenmage might be a better idea in the end… and I have no complaints regarding Wizard’s Shock Arcanist variation.

    Putting aside mechanics we now come to the game’s primary flaw: Its storyline. The plot is… generic at best, while the character interactions and dialog in general are atrocious. Fortunately, unlike in Iron Danger, you don’t actually have to pay attention to any of that and can easily skip through it all.

    So is the game worth picking up? If you like turn-based D&D combat and are willing to sort through a bunch of Mods to enhance variety, then by all means. If you want roleplaying choices and engaging developments however it would be best to avoid it.


  • Prophet of the Dead, Ever After, & Slashback

    Prophet of the Dead is the fifth and final book in Richard Lee ByersBrotherhood of the Griffon series. It wraps up the Rashemen storyline while leaving Jhesri’s internal combustion issue hanging for a future series. It’s neither bad nor particularly notable.

    Ever After, by Kim Harrison, is the eleventh main entry in the Hollows universe. It has three primary features; finally giving some solid background information on the demons and revealing the exact relationship they had with the ancient elves, trimming the main cast down to manageable levels (though the way it was done in a particularly central case seemed a bit haphazard), and advancing Rachel’s relationship with Trent.

    Rob Thurman‘s most recent Cal Leandros novel, Slashback, curiously does not deal with the other Auphe hybrid at all. It instead focuses on a serial killer related to the brothers’ past. The key events in here are Cal and Niko learning that angels/demons actually do exist (which was shown in the Trickster series), Cal once again losing access to his gating ability, and the introduction of reincarnation. I’m not happy at all about those last two… particularly the reincarnation bit.


  • Baldur’s Gate 2: ToB Ascension

    I only, just now after years of having it installed, got around to playing through Throne of Bhaal with the BP Version of the Ascension Mod. It was not worth the effort.

    The default final battle is a slog, there’s no denying that. The Ascension final battle? Even more of a slog. Not only does it double down on the cheap plot-invincibility bullshit… it adds an extra battle. The default has you facing off against the various Elemental Princes interspersed with mini-fights against the Final Boss. The Ascension version has you facing off against a bunch of demon groupings (in place of the elementals) followed by a fight against the five earlier bosses plus Gromnir/Sarevok. When you kill some of them the Final Boss makes their appearance and starts attacking as well.

    Now if it just ended there it could definitely be seen as an improvement as the whole ‘repeated end boss fights’ bit in the default is beyond annoying. Unfortunately, once you get the Final Boss down to ‘near death’ they get scripted invincibility and do that whole default “recharging” bit, being instantly restored to full health. They do this twice… same as the default. So not only do you still have to face them repeatedly you have to do it with no rest breaks in-between while also re-defeating those five bosses from earlier. Total bullshit.

    What about the ‘improved’ boss battles though? Improved Yaga Shura is dumb. Having to sit around twiddling your thumbs for minutes on end waiting for plot invincibility to slowly wear off is not fun, it’s just a waste of time. Sendai suffers from the same issue; now you have to hack at her for 5+ minutes to finally whittle down her ludicrous plot-granted health buffer while she teleports between three locations. How is this fun or ‘tactical’? It’s just pointless busywork. The Gromnir, Abazigal, & Illasera fights seemed pretty much the same as I remembered them (perhaps they were overridden by SCSII?) while the Balthazar sequence was skipped due to talking him out of the fight (huge improvement).

    So yeah, one of two things is going to happen now:

    1) Uninstall Ascension and forget it exists.
    2) Edit the script so that the first ‘death’ kills the final boss, skipping the recharging bit.


  • Steel’s Edge, Undead to the World, & Lesser Evils

    Ilona Andrews‘ fourth Edge novel is allegedly the last centered on this particular cast of characters and it does a very good job wrapping up the loose ends from the previous two books. Namely Lark’s mental trauma and the mystery of where Rose’s father disappeared to. I think it may be my favorite out of the four, mainly because of the protagonist’s (a fallen healer) personality.

    Don DeBrandt’s Bloodhound Files series (as DD Barant) is unique among the multiple series I read in that I undoubtedly enjoy it while reading it, but somehow manage to forget nearly everything that had occurred in earlier books by the time the next installment arrives. This sixth book is no different, as despite my confusion in regards to what was going on (particularly acute as this one takes place in an alternate dimension) it ended up enjoyable anyway. The cliffhanger ending though? Not so much.

    The second of Erin M. EvansBrimstone Angels novels is interesting for feeling less like a story and more like a window into its characters’ lives. The series of events has a surprisingly natural flow to it and the only part that really feels contrived is Rhand’s interest in Farideh.