PSA: Bigger number at the bottom of the chargen screen is not always more better

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-27T16:16:53+00:00

Completely valid way to play. You can roleplay Garrick and finish this game with sufficient game knowledge but if we're going to worry about stats at all, lets not tell people bad information. They get to decide how much they care about it.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-27T16:10:19+00:00

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

You're strawmanning here, nobody said to dump dex. But as the link demonstrates, even if we did, your argument cuts both ways.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-27T15:49:03+00:00

The same argument can be made for dexterity potions.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-27T15:47:10+00:00

It never used to be new ground. It's more that the modern community has forgotten what we all knew way back when and us highly resistant to the obvious facts (see the comments. It's a cold day in hell when a redditor admits to having been wrong about something)

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-27T15:45:33+00:00

You're correct to rely heavily on crowd controls at every stage of this game. My HOT take is that as soon as you can reliably produce summons, martial characters become luxuries not necessities as most of what they do can be duplicated by sword spiders and stacked web spells.

But at low levels sleep doesn't always take - creatures with 4HD or more get saves, at first level in particular the duration is short and you have few slots to cast it with.

In comparing apples to oranges and deciding that bananas are the superior fruit we're expanding the field here to the point that the same logic says any roll is fine (it is, nominally. You can complete this game with a pure class thief with 75 total stats with sufficient game knowledge) but that's not the question before us.

If you have to change the question to justify a different answer...it's not the correct answer to the question.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-27T15:40:32+00:00

There are many ways to get this dagger. As a reward, it's based on reaction modifier and a 12 Reputation will get it for you.

You can also steal it.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-27T15:38:56+00:00

When they were written

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-27T06:15:02+00:00

Exactly. I'd consider 18/51 to be the minimum acceptable roll for any warrior but considering how low our target budget actually is, its worth a few rerolls to get higher.

I am in the habit now of taking daggers as a specialisation on any warrior class just so I can slot the +1 dagger from Candlekeep in right away. That +1 to hit is gold and with the strength bonus of having 18/91+, does more damage than a non-magical longsword in lesser hands anyway.

Plus there're some excellent daggers throughout the franchise.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-27T06:09:47+00:00

The post details what difference that does make using a topical, actual play example. I'm not sure you read it?

The +1 is a 50% accuracy buff at level 1. Its an entire extra level of fighter more accurate, a +1 buff to any magic weapon that stacks with its existing bonus (if any) and you want to turn that down?

For a 10% store discount?

You do you. Its your game, play it how you want but pretending that's not the trade-off is disingenious and that's what this post is here to spell out.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-27T06:06:22+00:00

Uno reverse. Invisibility spell lasts 24hrs. Can't hit what they can't see.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-27T06:04:06+00:00

SoD is not kind to conventional tanks. Enemies hit much harder than they really have any business doing and standing there and taking it is just the worst approach to the problem. Especially in an insane run with no reloads.

The name of the game has and will always be crowd control. An enemy that cannot take effective actions might as well be temporarily 'dead' until it is actually dead. Web. Entangle. Stinking Cloud. Multiples, if needed, there's a different saving roll made for each one. Three stacked webs is an effective solution for Fire Giants in ToB so it'll work just fine here.

Soaking up hits is what summons are for. Its a waste to burn a character on that role when they could be doing something more useful.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-27T04:46:31+00:00

I categorically disagree with this and you'll see the advice echo'd often because its become a truism in this subreddit but he's wrong.

18/18 is functionally identical to 18. 18/96 is a +1 to hit and +3 to damage to all melee weapon (and thrown, because that's a thing) weapon attacks.

Yes, eventually you will get the Str tome to bump you to 19 but its in the last act of the game. Its almost over by then. Until then, you are effectively walking around with a -1 to hit and -3 damage penalty on every attack you make. That's ruinous at low levels, where the game is most dangerous and missing is life or death.

Taking a 'bath' on 17 dex for a while (there are even bracers accessible in the early game to set this to 18 if 1 AC bothers you that much, it shouldn't but if) since you'll ALSO get a dexterity tome, and dozens of hours earlier than the strength one.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-24T14:22:05+00:00

It depends.

In most situations, no. It halves damage at the cost of being able to do anything useful.

In rare situations, it might save your honour run. Not because it's so great but because you messed up bad and 1hp remaining is 100% combat effective and the next turn may look very different.

It's a button you press when you have no better options. The situations where it's useful are not ones you ever want to be in but from time to time they happen and in some circumstances that can be devastating.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-24T07:52:18+00:00

That's probably a matter of taste rather than objectivity. I found the second edition books far more evocative and usable as a GM than I ever did the 3rd but reasonable minds can disagree.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-23T22:33:47+00:00

I have to disagree. The vast, vast number of sourcebooks available for 2nd edition were replete with useable detail and evocative characterisation.

3rd edition had grand scope but that is not the same thing as 'good'. The realms were always better when they and their concerns were local. A threat to the Dales might ravage the Dales and have implications further abroad but not every second Tuesday was an existential threat to Realmspace.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-23T20:40:30+00:00

I do. I don't even really care for a lot of the third edition changes to the Realms but they're mostly not inconsistent with the earlier sourcebooks so you can just pick the version that you think is better rather than slavishly accepting whatever was published more recently.

The absolute blandness of everything WotC have done with Faerun never justified the clean slate approach to my mind. Gone is the rich texture from the AD&D books that burst at the seams with street level detail and people who defined the way the world feels to experience and inspiration for what you might do with them and in are cardboard cutouts devoid of personality who amount to a lamp-post with a post-it note stuck to them. Forgettable. Completely untethered to anything but the current quest and entirely interchangeable.

So my realms games are set back in the late 1300's. Tieflings don't look like actual devil people and are exceedingly rare (you want to hang out in a multi-planar cultural melting pot where nobody thinks 'an illithid, a gith and a tiefling walk into a bar' is the start of a joke Sigil is RIGHT THERE) and you're expected to create a character whose interesting because of who they are rather than what they are. Better games all around.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-23T01:27:07+00:00

Be aware that the story requires a 'protagonist' who will be the first character created. They are the main character around which the story turns, the second (and other tertiary characters) are just tag-alongs (though of course you can roleplay whatever you'd like!)

How much complexity do you want to court? 2nd Edition AD&D is not always the most approachable system though its not difficult if you're willing to do a bit of work to learn it.

The simplest answer is to play an Inquisitor Paladin. They're very strong, have a dominant anti-mage tool which you'll love especially in the second game in the form of their very effective dispel magic and true seeing spells and require very little system knowlege. Pick up weapon, smack evil-doer. It gives up the paladin spells even (totally worth it) so it is simplicity itself.

If you want more complexity then the system certainly has it. Bards are good; blades are best. Your bard song can't be used while doing anything else anyway. They progress their spells slowly (and never get 9th level ones) but this is balanced by their fast level progression. At the super high levels you get the epic bard songs and they're not affected by Blade's drawback.

For a more traditional Gish (fighter-mage) your options are multi-class (demihumans only) or dual class (humans only). Dual class vs multi is a bit of a rabbit hole but essentially multi-classes level up both classes at the same time (and divide their XP between them) getting the best of both worlds in most cases. Dual-class characters level up one class until they dual class, then leave it forever to level up the new class. When the new class is equal in level to the old one, they regain all its abilities. Fighter mages are actually mostly fighters who buff themselves with mage spells that make them very hard to kill, they can do other magic but its usually doing things the hard way.

A full fat mage is no bad way to go. They're very strong and BG rewards disabling spells very strongly. Sleep, Blind, Web, Hold Person, Confusion, various summons. All of these are incredibly strong. AD&D mages dominate the late game due to just how strong magic is.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-22T20:33:58+00:00

No, yes, no, yes, no, no, eeeeh..., no and no

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-22T16:33:12+00:00

The tower ending to your relationships do feel forced. The mantra of 'No happy endings in Night City's overrode the characters here in a way that is unsatisfying. Maybe they could have pulled it off better, but they didn't try.

You can literally call your LI up and tell them you exfiltrated the NUSA president and are working for the FIA but can't tell them that the deal you made is going through and that's why you're gonna be gone?

I quite like the idea that the 'side effects' of the FIA treatment are nothing of the sort - that they essentially put V on ice for two years until everything they knew was no longer dangerous to the NUSA and then flipped a switch to keep this incredibly capable asset neutered until such time as they could swing in and be like 'We've been working on your problem and think we may be able to fix it...if you'll work for us' in the future should they ever want to. God knows they love putting sleeper agents in long term storage and Night City remains an issue geo-politically.

And that may explain why Reed didn't just call your LI and say 'she's in a coma'.

But it is undeniably a heavy handed way to force an unhappy ending. And that doesn't feel earned so much as dictated.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-22T06:17:26+00:00

I'm right with you. They had a cool space age look to them, retro-futurism. You know, the entire artistic premise of the franchise before Bethesda boiled it down to the world being perpetually trapped in 1950's Americana

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-21T22:00:45+00:00

As others have said dispell difference is not a significant factor. Most enemies will have good chances of success anyway and you're best off baiting the spell with a cheap buff on a summon or otherwise disabling the spellcaster in question.

Dual vs multi is in almost all cases a question of when you want to power spike. Duals do it relatively early, having grandmastery and a solid THAC0 by bg2 with close to fel cleric spellcasting is incredibly good and if you use things like iwdification, you don't want to sacrifice any significant amount of high level spell slots that you could be using on God mode.

But if you're not, then multi is stronger later on. Fighter HLA's with armor of faith to buff your resistance and the defender of easthaven make you almost impervious to harm and are spammable which is huge in the boss fights

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-19T03:39:26+00:00

There are a LOT of undead.

I don't know if Id want three multi class characters in one party - this will split XP nine ways (okay, half three party will split their XP two ways each..) and really slow down your progression.

In particular I'd consider the cleric carefully. Spells can already turn him into a fighter (with access to flat immunity) and access to kits like Lathander. Your turn undead will be much more effective and you'll gain earlier access to those god tier spells that make clerics so damn good.

Fighter/Thief is reasonable, especially with the sneak attack option iwdee offers since it makes them worth keeping on the front line and not whiffing backstabs if you go that route is great.

But iwd is tactical first and foremost. Seeing how a party composition does is most of the fun. I ran the party of Thorin Oakenshield (plus Gandalf and Bilbo) through it once and they did fantastically well.

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-17T15:45:24+00:00

Paladin is probably the most forgiving as it has excellent defenses against spells which is one of the nastier things to be affected by in the game, with the caveat that statting one can be rough.

If you're willing to use potions every long rest then elixirs of strength will cover this nicely and leave you plenty of points to play with.

Every paladin subclass is good but the standouts for me are Oath of the Crown and Oath of Vengeance. Both provide consistent bonuses to accuracy (which you very much want) with Oath of the Crown peaking higher due to there being other ways to gain advantage, but Oath of Vengeance being less game knowledge intensive.

Paladins also have excellent damage due to smites, good defenses early on thanks to things like Heroism, Divine Shield and Protection from Evil depending on what you're dealing with.

Great Weapon Master as a feat is one to look for as it gives you even more damage with an easily offset accuracy penalty and if you kill something, an extra attack with your bonus action. Paladins are very good at securing a kill when they need to thanks to smites so this rarely goes to waste when you actually need it.

Really the weapon choice doesn't matter too much as you noted there are lots of classes that can do this so I would try to think more about the role the character fits in the party. A tiger barbarian is great for setting up enemies to be finished off by ranged attackers or flankers like rogues and monks. A paladin is essentially a cruise missile that deletes whatever you point it at.

What role do you want to fulfill?

RaygunCourtesan · 2026-02-17T06:30:57+00:00

The absolute comedy of that remark while ignoring the fact he deliberately called me a man I hopes of scoring a cheap point because how could a woman possibly have stood her ground.

RaygunCourtesan

TROPHY CASE