#i kinda wanna get arcane up to 40

[sadlazzle]

tbh part of me is kind of dreading malenia this time around. most other bosses ive taken on w this build hav been easier, n i feel like malenia is gonna nip my optimism in the bud

[mokeonn]

Why don't you wanna play your other games cuz you can't turn them honor? What part of honor mode has enchanted you so?

I do enjoy my other games but I am having a TON of fun with honor mode, mainly coming down to the following reasons:

- No reloading.

This has been my blessing and my curse. On the one hand, it makes battles WAY more fun because if they go south, I can't just press the magic undo key. It's changed my battle strategy when I lose from "just reload to before the battle" to "have someone escape and prepare to pickpocket Withers at camp," which is a lot more fun imo. It's also why I had so many problems with the phase spider matriarch and why Poetry is technically continuing with dishonor because I kept running away and leaving camp right back to the fight. (Which was my fault, I forgot you can use waypoints in camp)

It also means I don't have to worry about saving often anymore. No more backtracking more than expected because I forgot to save before or after an event, because I simply can't backtrack!

However this also causes a nightmare, if you fuck up and end up wiping out an entire town or giving a character a bad end on accident, you're stuck with that. I have figured out how to turn the tide in my favor for a lot of events, but for others, I am simply out of luck if I mess it up. Like triggering the Isobel kidnapping scene and not winning the fight, or if something happens to a future companion in a battle where they're an ally. You're just stuck with the consequences, which sucks SO much.

- the difficulty is kinda fun and adds new features to fights that freshens it up

I normally go through the game in balanced mode, because that feels just right for me, but I can't help but admit that the new attacks and enemy features of honor mode freshen up the game a lot more. Take the intellect devourer fight at the very beginning of the game when you pick up Shadowheart, I've done that fight so many times it's more of a chore that gets you to level up than anything else. In tactician mode, it's the same fight, but they hit harder. In honor mode??? Those fuckers got laser beams! That's new! That adds something that freshens up an old experience! I like that a lot!

Many fights are like that where an old fight I've already done at least 5 times feels new. Getting the owlbear fight out of the way? Now there's 2 owlbears, bitch. Does the hag have new attacks? I wouldn't know! I just cheese the fight by arcane locking the stairs to the lair when she first reveals herself.

It really adds a breath of fresh air, and it gets me to think a lot more about equipment, spells, battle strategies, classes, feats, and so on. Rather than simply brute forcing my way through and reloading until I win.

-food system

I understand this is just a general tactician mode change, but instead of 40 camp supplies, you need 80.

I tend to pick up any edible substance I can see anyways, leading to me having over 1,000 camp supplies sometimes. I have to constantly distribute supplies to other party members lest my player character have 70% of their inventory and ability to carry things be taken up by food. I am constantly juggling to make sure I don't become encumbered.

So, having that set to 80 instantly helps me cut down on food and has even caused a little challenge. Due to the difficulty of honor mode, I have to long rest more, which means I now ACTUALLY have to worry about camp supplies. There will be times were the party needs to rest but I don't have enough supplies so I need to either find something, or buy something.

I find the food management aspect really fun actually and it's very interesting to want to long rest only to realize you only have 18 supplies and need to scramble to get 62 more.

-gettin' funky with it

I think the biggest part I like about honor mode as well is that there are areas where you can't simply run away to camp if things go south. So the game constantly requires me to think outside of the box and get funky with it.

Things like using enemies as weapons against other enemies, making a healing circle in combat and throwing a potion down in the middle of it, getting rid of an entire boss fight early by simply getting other enemies to fight them, blocking off doorways with boxes or arcane lock, finding out that darkness is your friend it is SUCH a good spell.

It's REALLY fun to figure out wild solutions to get things done without risking the run ending. A dumb example was in grymforge! I wanted to get all the duegar out of the way before fighting Nere, so I did this by going to the upper platform hanging above the entrance of the main room, and using a berserker Karlach to start throwing things down. Most of the duegar were melee fighters so they would end up dashing around and missing turns, and those that could hit far were taken out first. I had potions lined up the wazoo and made shadowheart throw them on karlach when she got low on health, Astarion was sneak attacking, and Poetry (my durge bardlock) was inspiring Karlach and eldrich blasting.

It got even better because some enemies had javelins they would throw up, which meant that Karlach now had more Javelins to throw down.

It was a dumb battle that ended with a solid 8 turns of everyone wailing on the scrying eye hoping to damage it, because we ran out of thunder spells that could hurt it and most of our damage was negated most turns. It cried for help every time, but no help came.

But I had a ton of fun with it! It was a memorable fight! It wasn't like my first fight in my first playthrough where I had to keep reloading, I just got to win by standing up really high and making Karlach throw every Javelin I had found and gave her throughout the game and then some.

-it justifies my bad habits that make gamers cry

To the joy of all my friends, I have stopped using my inventory system I made up. I used to pick up every backpack and pouch I could find and sort everything into 4 bags in the order of: spell scrolls, drinkables, throwables, and coatables.

This kept everything nice and clean as most things outside of these bags either got a special bag (i.e story items or dye bottles) or just got to be sold. It was a little tedious to grab things during battle, but I used the custom page to make things easier. So it was only really a pain getting things out of someone else's inventory.

I have since found out that an auto sort by type button exists, and I can just use that instead. And that a search bar exists. It took until a friend pointed it out for me to realize this. So I stopped doing the bag system since I could simply throw the story items you can't sell into a backpack and just auto sort everything else.

Plus I used to have a treasure pouch I would sell, which is not necessary! That's what the 'add to wares' button is for! Whoopsie!

So, thankfully, for everyone, I stopped doing the backpack system...

However

I had also developed another habit around the same time I developed the backpack system. I was doing a challenge run where I dared myself to use every object I picked up no matter how useless, and it caused me to develop a habit that makes everyone who plays with me cry:

I press take all no matter what.

That's just how I close containers.

There's nothing that makes a friend playing with you cry more than an inventory full of useless garbage, and you keep picking up more garbage off the ground to mess with them.

In honor mode, the shop prices are HIGH. A 80 gp ring of flinging in balanced mode is over 200gp in honor mode. The gloves of missile snaring that are about 200 gp normally? Over 600gp. If you aren't planning on pickpocketting (which admittedly I am clearly under utilizing and I need to plan on pickpocketting more), you need a LOT of money to buy items you need.

You know what gets you a lot of money? Selling a metric fuckton of armor, weapons, rotten food, bones, and whatever other garbage you pick up!

Hell, if you even give some of these to shop keepers for free, they'll like you more and lower the prices!

So next time your friend yells at you for picking up all of the severed body parts you see in on the risen road, consider that each of those parts net you about 3 gold, and you need that bottle of light blue dye Dammon is selling.

- I want the achievement and the gold dice

I've been getting into achievement hunting and I really like how all of bg3 achievements are achievable through story beats or small fun actions, so I want the achievement. I'm already working on the second hardest one which is busking 100 gold, so I need the hardest one. Boost my ego. Plus I wanna see if it gets the tactician achievement out of the way as well.

Also yeah I want those gold dice lmao

So that's why I have only been playing honor mode lately. I still love those regular balanced games, and I will need to revisit my main game soon since I haven't beaten the game yet and have no idea what act 3 encounters there are, but I am having the time of my life with honor mode. The furthest I have gotten so far is right before the Nightsong and the assault on Moonrise Towers. I would be able to tell you how well that went if I didn't proceed to let my hubris get the better of me and mess up the last light Inn.

Anyways, I highly recommend trying honor mode! It really forces you to get into out of the box thinking and try some spells, classes, and methods you might not have used. Whether that's disguising yourself as a drow to get past the goblin camps conflict free, pickpocketting every shopkeeper you can to save money, or saving every smokepowder barrel you can find; there's a lot of fun to be had in honor mode.

Of course, if you normally do explorer and never balanced or tactician, maybe reconsider idk. Also I am weird and absolutely have been trying new classes I never played before in this mode, I highly recommend playing a class you have played before if you're worried about the difficulty. For me? I got act 1 figured out, so by act 2 I'll be used to the class I picked it's no biggie :)

So far the only honor mode game going REALLY well for me is the one I'm doing with my friend, since he was unsure about honor mode and normally plays explorer. That one he is a druid half-wood elf (which is a fantastic pick as the wild shapes are grand for not dying and half-wood elves get an extra 3 meters to their speed) and I am a war cleric of Selune romancing Lae'zel (war clerics RULE for hitting hard, and I wanted to piss off Shadowheart as much as possible with my build.) So if you have a friend who likes playing tactician or honor mode, you can totally mooch off them. Having another player to control half of the team honestly helps a lot imo.

[sycamorre]

17, 33, 34, 38, and 40 for the OCs asks!

-OC Questions- Gonna try to find art for as many as I can to help with putting faces to names.

17. Any OC OTPs?

A handful! Most are from my Elder Scrolls RP days but I'm slowly collecting some DnD ones.

We have the werewolf power couple Indes and Korgul, my wood elf Companion (as in the Companions faction) and her half-orc beau Korgul:

Indes' little sister Nidhel, a healer, and another Companion, Tural:

And I still need to draw them together, but there's the newest pair from our last campaign, Ori and Ranna.

I have other ships out there, but I hate boring people with them because they're either characters that have never interacted with anything outside of my own brain or are completely unofficially and I'm someone who doesn't like to make a fuss or gush over things that only I know or care about on here.

33. Your shyest OC?

This is honestly a bit of a hard one. I have plenty of quiet/introverted characters, but I don't consider most of them as genuinely shy. Most have no problem socializing, even if they do not have a ton to say. Likely either as the result of myself being the same way or because most are RP characters that kind of depend on interactions.

I will say pre-campaign/younger Oriana was definitely in the shy camp, though as a result of being uncertain and scared of her magic rather than her personality. Gaining confidence with that and her fighting skills definitely got her in the previously mentioned "quiet but not shy" category.

I do have one character I can think of that is definitely shy in a literal sense. My witchy-innkeeper, Aubrey, has a member of her staff, Annabelle, who came from a servant background and was not treated very well in her previous job, so as a result she became very shy and anxious. To the point where if she is berated by anyone outside of the rest of the staff, she will either run away or freeze up. Aubrey has her mostly cleaning to help keep her from having to interact with bad customers, but not always foolproof. Everyone's trying to help her, though it's a slow process.

The night sky-themed air genasi I've drawn before (whose working name is Stellara/Stellari maybe) may also end up kinda on the shy side if I ever do get to play her. Mostly because I imagine her as a bit of a hermit who just doesn't do socialization very well in general.

34. Do you have any twin characters?

I do! Jayni, my halfling wizard (previously bard) that was originally made for a short-lived Waterdeep Dragon Heist campaign, has a twin brother named Finn. He was originally taking on an apprenticeship to a tinker in the city, but if the characters ever came back, I'm not sure if I would keep that or have him doing something else.

The art is old and Jayni specifically has strawberry blonde hair now, but Finn still looks mostly the same c:

And technically, though I never did make any official art for them and they would be shared and not just mine, it was decided between me and the other player that Indes and Korgul's first biological kids would be a set of twins (Uram and Taram), so I figure they may count as well.

38. Which one of your OCs would be the best dancer?

Easily Wisteria, the Eladrin glamour bard (who I drew here) that I really wanna play someday. The entire idea behind her was that I wanted a bard that didn't necessarily having singing or instruments as their main "thing" and I wanted an excuse to make a character that would feel natural dressing in very flashy, hanfu-inspired dresses, and she was born out of those two thoughts. Instead of playing an instrument, her magic is triggered by her dancing and her fan, which would act as her arcane focus.

40. Any fond memories linked to your characters? Feel free to share!

If we talked about all of my fond memories with my OCs we would be here forever. I have literally been making OCs and RPing them since the end of middle school/beginning of high school, and I still occasionally lurk around my old stomping grounds to see what old buddies are up to and reminisce on the nostalgia.

For the sake of being relevant to this post and the people I know here, I'm gonna go back to my Elder Scrolls RP days in the shipyard here on tumblr. Some highlights of my time RPing as Indes and Nidhel, as well as a family friend, Vialgo (an Imperial Dawnguard member) include:

The player of Tor-Acr, an Argonian were-croc, asking for a spar RP literally a day before I said I was gonna start looking for threads and sparking Indes' first friendship in that community.

Watching Indes' and Korgul's relationship grow from occasionally butting heads, to genuine friends, to secret feelings for each other, to admitting everything when Korgul was at a low point and sparking honestly one of the best RP romances I have every had the pleasure of being a part of and that made both of our characters better as a whole.

Getting to host a tourney event for the other Companion players and watching everyone get to enjoy it and building closer relationships between the characters.

Vialgo talking down one of his commanders when he almost slipped up and realizing I could actually play a smooth-talking character rather than just the blunt, gruff ones or super sweet, honest ones.

A whole multi-part story where Herryk, another player's Dragonborn character and one of the Companions that Indes is closest to (basically a little brother to her), is almost killed by a dragon and she witnesses him literally fall from the sky when he gets dropped by the dragon. And she plays an integral part in his return and the emotional payoff was just amazing.

Just getting to see my characters get integrated into other people's stories and getting to make even better stories together. I love that about RP so, so much and it's why I love it just as much if not more than just writing things by myself.

[amygdalae]

What is your favorite or preferred hunter tools? Most times I ignore them all and just go for attack spam but I feel like I should switch up my play style.

OK sorry in advance: I was just gonna answer the ask but I haven’t infodumped about Bloodborne in awhile so hooray you just won a free monologue from yours truly. buckle in because im gonna say boring gameplay stuff that everyone probably knows already lets go

ALSO to answer your question my favorites are blacksky eye, phantasm shell, augur of ebrietas, and madaras whistle

First, we’re gonna talk about the hunter tools that can easily be used regardless of build (as long as you have at least 15 arcane):

The empty phantasm shell is perfect for most builds, as long as you use a weapon that can be buffed. I personally like it for boss fights cuz of the added edge. It puts cool sparkles on ya weapon and the damage bonus isn’t that big, but it’s useful if you don’t have any fire/bolt paper or the boss is weak to arcane.

the choir bell is useful if you’re out of blood vials, but it really mainly comes in handy for co-op (it heals other players). It lends itself well with the ‘caster’ vibe of an arc build, but you don’t gotta be an eldritch wizard to help a friend in need.

The messenger’s gift isn’t that useful but it’s very fun to turn into messengers and it can be good to bust out for funsies in co-op. Also, I actually was able to hide from an invader with it until they left.

Beast Roar! folks like using it to tell enemies to back off. BIG yell, knocks em back. It’s aesthetically good to use for a beasthood build, too.

I haven’t used the Old Hunter bone much but it makes ya dodge fast. I hear it’s good for pvp and helps with faster-paced bosses. the effect looks cool. 

Alright. Next are the ones that are good but only kick ass with some arcane investment (with high enough arcane they really do shred shit up tho)

augur of ebrietas! it’s cute, it’s spooky, it parries/backstabs, and it does heaps of damage with good stats. Who doesnt wanna shoot tentacles out they hand

blacksky eye: it has a very brief casting windup, long range, and decent damage. It’s functionally similar to a throwing knife except it’s a small missile you shoot from your eyeball. Useful for staggering ebrietas or amygdala if you aim at their heads, and it only costs 1 bullet per projectile. good for cheesing as well.

A call beyond: pretty much only for higher-arc builds cuz it requires at least 40 arc. It looks badass and shoots homing projectiles in every direction, and can knock enemies over. the windup is kinda long, but a well-placed call beyond can turn the tide of a fight.

Tiny tonitrus is great. when used right, it cuts big swathes of sparky destruction and its satisfying to line it up to hit multiple enemies. definitely worth utilizing against bosses that are weak to bolt. ive always felt like it should cost fewer bullets tho

executioners gloves: who doesn’t love spooky homing projectiles? the range is shorter than youd think but its great for boss fights and doesnt take that much precision. it can also be good for distracting folks in pvp.

i havent used the accursed brew much since its a pretty late game item but it’s kinda like a fucked up magic molotov. the effect lingers for a moment, too.

The last one is the outlier! Snake whistle!!!

the Madaras whistle is the one hunter tool that scales with bloodtinge!! it makes a big snake come outta the ground and chomp. Enemies and also yourself. Best to get out the way. however it does kickass damage and can help keep invaders outta your grill.

Agh