Baldur's Gate 3: Left or R... Yeah, we're going Left

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Back at the druid camp the team are welcomed as heroes since Halsin turns out to be their leader! Halsin does pass that role off to someone else though so that he can accompany the team to Moonrise Towers, where he believes the solution or cure for the tadpoles resides. Volo first wants to try his hand at removing a tadpole and fails, removing Catharina's eye instead but replacing it with a machine version that lets her see invisible things. A decent upgrade!

Volo then waves them good bye as they set off and en route they find the berserker and ex-soldier of Zariel named Karlach who has an infernal engine for a heart and joins them after they help her defeat some evil paladins hunting her down.

One gnoll warband later they also rescue Chancellor Florrick and a few other Flaming Fist soldiers from a burning tavern en route to the mountain pass that leads to Moonrise Towers, only to find that an entire Gith patrol AND their red dragon block the way. As they don't look like they'd be leaving anytime soon the team decides to try out the second path - via the Underdark. Because that sounds MUCH safer right?

BDO: Shen Rising

[Part of my Adventures in Black Desert Online]

The arena battle is pretty cool as the death knight is the only enemy so far that can out pace me, but with potions and good dodging I still manage to kill him - which is bad because I forgot to ask about the white witch first. At least he gave me her name: Illezra.

After the match Captain Sarma Amin of the Shroud Knights and servants of the rightful lord Prince Barry Bareeds III, approaches and berates me for siding with the wannabe merchant despot, Neruda Shen. He is hurt by these accusations and so instructs me to assist the Shroud Knights in an effort to extend good will.

When player guilds can select their own emblems, you get funny flags.

Sarma is hesitant at first but welcomes the assistance as I take down a base of Illezra worshiping rogues and an army of manes (gnolls) threatening the small, sorceress filled village of Tarif. Thanks to my efforts, Prince Bareeds III (who turns out to be a kid) appoints Neruda Shen as Steward of Altinova while he seeks asylum at Valencia until he comes of age. Way to put off problems of the realm till later kid.

Neruda then asks I help the miners who are having horrible nightmares and after consulting with the sorceresses at Tarif, I am directed to find my old friends: the excavation dig team, who are now working on a ruin in this region! These guys certainly work fast!

Insight: My bonus beginner bag space ran out at this point, and if you are wondering - any items left at the bottom at the bag are now locked and held hostage until you can unlock more bag space, either through payment or by completing quests. I'm obviously going for the latter

The Cursed: Cloakwood

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Following the clue from the bandit camp, the team heads next to the massive Cloakwood forest - home to a multitude of wolves, ettercaps, annoying web traps, jihadi druids, a nest of wyverns and lots and lots of spiders. Poison is abound here, so Branwen prepares all the curatives she knows.

As they work their way deeper the meet the bard Eldoth who is thinking up some plan to get into a girls pants, the ranger Coran who wants aid in hunting wyverns, and the druid Faldorn who wants the new mine deep in the forest to be shut down. Coran and Faldorn are recruited while Eldoth is told to take a hike.

Not a cave sane people would enter.

Coran manages to kill his wyvern but is stung in return, forcing him to leave the party while waiting for his antidote to kick in. Just a bit further the team finds the mining operation setup by the Iron Throne traders using slave labor. No cursed iron here! The defenders put up a good fight, but are unable to stop the party from reaching their mage boss on the bottom floor. This teleporting bastard is a difficult fight.

Insight: Items of free movement will reduce your annoyance in the spider parts of the woods. Otherwise, you'll be waiting a long while like I did for the web traps to expire. Alternatively, bring a thief who can detect and disarm traps.

The Cursed: Bandit Hunt

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The Firewine Ruins are home to more kobolds who have rigged traps galore. As the party gets separated while wandering through the tunnels, both Safana and Viconia are dragged off into the dark by the little bastards while the rest of the party locates and defeats their ogre mage boss and finds a clue where to find the main bandit camp. It seems all these baddies are working in unison!

Gold is a great unifier!

This also accidentally saves the halfling village of Gullykin, as stairs up lead to a hidden place well behind their town walls. Here they encounter the man hater Shar-Teel once more who was helping to defend against the kobold infiltrators. She joins the group and convinces them there is no time to waste and to abandon the two missing girls in favor of scalping bandits.

There are plenty of victims for her at the bandit camp hidden deep in the woods - a combination of humans, hobgoblins and gnolls making up their number. None of them are a match for the team with Party Girl one shotting most with her heavy crossbow. Their boss seems to be away though, and correspondence indicates something about a mine in the Cloakwood forest.

Insight: Summoning creatures, especially via wand, works well when out numbered against ranged opponents - as I learned in the thief battle of Black Pits. Get a mass of them and send them in as meat shields / distractions for your main party. It's more fun than casting protection spells.

The Cursed: Shortcut to Death

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The "shortcut" exit leads into a plateau littered with small tombs. In one such cave, Minsc (and Boo) are dragged under the soil by a trio of ghouls, removing them from the party and causing Dynaheir to cry.

Xan also gets beheaded by an ogre berserker with a magical two hander, which triggers Khalid's PSTD. Still, the team accomplish a few other tasks such as saving a crazy sculptor from a bounty hunter and turning in a deserter to the flaming fist authorities.

He's got everything under control.

The team also encounter the "legendary" Drizzt Do'Urden fighting a huge pack of gnolls. Faced by her familiar captors Dynaheir crumbles during combat. Once all the gnolls are dead Drizzt whisks her away to get healed instead of helping to unravel the goings on in the region. Thanks hero!

Insight: You can actually fight Drizzt if you so choose, but be prepared for an ass whooping as he has unfair stats.

The Cursed: Jokes on Me

[Part of the Cursed story line]

On the way to the stronghold the party encounters "the fastest dart thrower in the West". This joke brigand manages to hit Rasaad right in an eye, proving how terrible an adventurer he is. The monk is immediately sent back for medical aid.

Other than that, there are no encounters worthy of note. Even the frontal assault on the gnoll stronghold is made easy with Catharina in the lead and waving wands of fireball to incinerate the packs of enemies easily. Dynaheir is found in a pit, having been the gnolls plaything and Catharina opts to rescue her which infuriates Edwin enough into leaving.

The team returns to Nashkel to sell and recover, visiting the nearby fair grounds while they are at it - finding one of the attractions is a "stone warrior maiden". They purchase an expensive stone to flesh scroll from a peddler and release the petrified person who turns out to be the cleric Branwen. In thanks, she decides to join the party.

Glad it wasn't some stone golem instead!

Insight: The stone to flesh scrolls are much cheaper if purchased at a temple. Again, I still didn't know about those at this time and was very tempted to use it to free one of the original Black Pits characters before ultimately opting to free Branwen instead.

The Cursed: Another Detour

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Finally convinced by Jaheira to go to Nashkel as the situation is dire (really? doesn't feel that way), Catharina and company run into more elite hobgoblins who almost kill Neera with poisoned arrows. Fortunately Jaheira can cure it, but in doing so leaves herself open to a hobgoblin backstab which cripples her. Khalid is in tears as his wife is put on a random wagon back to the Friendly Arms Inn for medical attention. As usual, Baeloth makes snide and inappropriate comments.

"At least she wasn't backstabbed with a flaming sword... up the ass!"

This results in the drow sorcerer being voted out of the party at Nashkel proper. The low HP Neera is also side lined to recover from her near death experience after defeating yet another would be assassin at the inn. Replacing them is Rasaad the monk who immediately gets along with Khalid, Minsc (and his miniature giant space hamster Boo) who want to save a woman named Dynaheir from gnolls, and the Thayan Edwin who wants to kill a woman named Dynaheir. Party Girl wonders if it's the same woman. She has low INT.

While almost everyone else is asking that the party investigate the nearby Nashkel mines to solve the iron shortage (because random adventurers are qualified to do that apparently), Catharina wants to avoid having another walk out like Montaron so they delay heading there again and instead head West to the gnoll stronghold to find Dynaheir.

Insight: If left to their own devices, party members will converse with each other. This can also lead to in party fighting if they don't get along - mainly stemming from alignment differences. If you keep everyone busy though, they'll never get a chance to act out.

Riva: Round Two

[Part of the Darklands of Arkania Story.]

While in town to buy missile weapons (after fleeing from the tower) the team recruit the barbarianess Mama Cori and warrior Talarian Design to fill out the roster, dropping what's left of Allison and Dalian with the Temple of Ben Kingsley. Since no replacement for Thorgrim (NPC party slot only) is found, his corpse continues to be dragged around which is kinda strange in that it helps carry things.

Anyway, now armed properly the team returns to the tower and with Mama Cori acting as "winch person" (staying behind to operate the lift: the politically correct verion) they return to the slab that blocked their return on level 2 which happens to be easily openable from the entry side. It simply closes again when the party passes through - trapping them again. If that was designed to piss people off, it's doing a good job.

They find the gnoll making mage and his new gnolls right where they left him. This time everyone focuses fire on him first, and Cooper manages to land an arrow right into the mage's face: killing him instantly. The rest of his creations are easily dealt with afterwards, and it turns out they were guarding the next stairs up.

You look familiar...

There on level four, a familiar wizard awaited. Toranor!? AGAIN? This time he also summoned ghouls to the fight, and cast terror spells which sent all the party fleeing. All but Cooper, who got knocked out by ghouls (continuing his running gag with them), and Talarian who ended up soloing the entire encounter and with 4 hit points left - somehow won! Not bad for a first day on the job.

Riva: Oh Gnolls!

[Part of the Darklands of Arkania Story.]

The elevator is manually operated so Cooper Mantly stays behind as the "winch man" while the rest of the party advances to next floor, which is inhabited by undead of all sorts. Predominantly skeletons with various gems socketed in their eyes that are then used to open puzzle doors.

Hi!

Around half-way through a heavy slab falls behind the team, blocking any option of escape so they simply push through the undead, finding stairs up to level three which features really long and empty corridors, for good reason too. Half of them are illusions!

Saving throw: success!

Finally the party finds a laboratory where another wizard is assembling... gnolls? So that's what the dogs were for. Without hesitation the team enters combat against the dog-men and the magician, with Dalian charging straight for the spell caster only to make a horrible discovery.

Dog men sure look like gnolls to me.

The heptagram the mage is standing in shields him from all melee. Also, he's not so much a mage - he's a TURRET with unending magic! In just three rounds Dalian gets blown into pieces and the rest of the team, without a single ranged weapon or ability, are forced to retreat.

Badly injured and ill equipped for this fight, there is no option but to return to town - using the only exits available from the tower: they jump out the illusionary halls and land painfully back in the garden.

Photo Story: Hammering Gnolls (Part 3)

[Part of my Photo Story Folder.]

Once I could stand again it was time to finish my job here... without the giant hammer.

I learned that shooting explosives into an enemy's crotch makes for a pretty good substitute.

It would send them flying!

After sending a few gnolls into orbit I considered this mission done.

Photo Story: Hammering Gnolls (Part 2)

[Part of my Photo Story Folder.]

I tried to sneakily take out all the sentries...

... but you can only be so quiet with a giant hammer.

More and more gnolls showed up to get hammered.

Eventually I ended up having to throw mine at one of their leaders 

and switching back to my cross gun.

Dropping a giant hammer on your foot is not recommended. Ow.

Photo Story: Hammering Gnolls (Part 1)

[Part of my Photo Story Folder.]

Trying something new again today, somewhat inspired by Missy Mojo and Ravalation's love for screen shots. I thought I'd try entertain you all a few quick (non-too serious, mostly made up) photo stories based on my time in Vindictus (for starters anyway). Hope you enjoy!

It all started when my wife decided to beat up some gnolls...

After hacking up a few with her sword, one of them begged for his life 

in exchange for giving information on a weakness their boss had.

He was thanked for the information (via beheading)

and I was promptly dispatched to see if this information was true.

Though I did suspect most things have a natural weakness to a giant hammer.

Vindictus: Oversized Enemies

[This is part of my Vindictus tutorials.]

More tips today but these are more for a Kai/ranged type.

Giant, brute type enemies like Shakkar, the Ogre centurion, and Black Hammer always seem scarier, but in a non-raid mission this might actually make things easier for you if you are a patient Kai. Simply sprint away from the bad dude in a circle. They will stomp after you, slowly gaining ground until they think you are in range for an attack. At that point they will do something that looks anything BUT walking and that's your cue to evade. Maybe twice for good measure.

No Benny Hill music plays while doing so.

Turn around, plug the flailing fool full of arrows and run again. Done right he will never hit you while you slowly whittle away his HP. Boring and not very sportsman like, but it works. Not so much against big enemies that still seem agile like gnolls and tall but thin goblins, nor in raids. :P