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Shadowheart, the darkness’ daugther

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Act 3 babey

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A Shadowheart study I worked on this week.

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x

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like if you got transported to the bg3 world right now which of the companions would you ACTUALLY date— like taking account for your sexuality, past dating preferences, etc.

Mine would be Karlach, as much as I like to pretend it would be Astarion :)

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Had Lae'zel's second romance scene, here's how it went:

Lae'zel got initiative. Cast Feign Death on Qir'ra.

Qir'ra went eeby sweeby.

Fight ended. Lae'zel went back to sharpening her sword. Got mad when my wife's Tav tried to wake Qir'ra up.

Qir'ra woke up. Fight started again.

Lae'zel got initiative again. Cast feather fall. Then used action surge and managed a crit on Qir'ra for 40 damage.

Somehow got Qir'ra down to 1hp despite the fact that she has 59 total. Fight ended (for good this time).

But hey at least she didn't demolish Scratch with a fireball so there's always that.

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Best part of being player 1 is that I can take over the game and make our tavs kiss, and my wife can't even stop me.

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Drew Shadowheart (commemorating me hitting 100 hours on the game lmao)

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Honor Mode update: finished act 1 and now on our way to act 1.5.

Qir'ra update: she's dating both Lae'zel and Shadowheart right now. In this economy, yeah, I know.

She beautifully failed the insight check to kiss Shadowheart on the date so that was fun (truly, I'm too used to passing it. She fumbled that date so hard it was amazing) but what else can you expect from a 19 year old?

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As someone who is guilty of using Wyll as an Eldritch Blaster, how would you suggest playing him? I'm new to D&D, BG3 is my first time encountering any of the mechanics, so any advice is appreciated :3

There's nothing wrong with building a warlock as an Eldritch Blaster! It's the easiest and most efficient way to build a warlock by stacking their invocations on improving EB and getting equipment for cantrips that won't be taken by other party members.

The reason why EB builds aren't a lot of people's cup of tea is because they get boring real quick to play in a tabletop setting. Your warlock's turn comes and you recite "I cast Eldritch Blast" ad infinitum. No manuevering because you're long range, force damage means you can blast walls through obstacles and very few creatures are immune to it, it can push opponents so you don't need to worry too much about managing AC, and it's a cantrip (the KING of cantrips even) so you basically have an infinite EBs and don't have to think about spell slot management like other spellcasting classes.

EB Wyll is basically just Wyll with a gun, and building him that way is a smart and totally valid way to play BG3 (which is not a tabletop setting).

That being said, here's how I personally like building Wyll because I think it fits his lore better and I never multi-class or class switch my characters. The general pointers are this:

Hunger of Hadar for AOE CC. Unlike other AOE CC spells that inflict Blindness, HoH is king because you can target enemies in it without having the ability to see through magical darkness.

Take Repelling Blast to use your EB primarily to push opponents into your HoH circle.

Access to Misty Step is a MUST for all characters

Take Armor of Shadows so Wyll has Mage Armor on at all times

Look for equipment that increases spell save DC, light armor that increases AC, or works with CHA modifiers

BIS is Ring of Arcane Synergy and other arcane synergy items. Cast EB once, get CHA modifier added to melee attacks

Pact of the Blade -> Bind Pact Weapon: Harmonic Rapier or whichever one-handed weapon you prefer

Do NOT pact bind the Infernal Rapier. The point of pact binding is to make the weapon scale with your spellcasting modifier (Wyll's CHA in this case) instead of DEX or STR. The Infernal Rapier already does this without being pact bound, so you want to place it in your off-hand to get access to that summon cambion spell and the +1 Spell Save DC.

This build is dependant on Wyll activating Arcane Synergy by casting EB on his first turn. HoH also stacks very well with other party member's CC spells (Sleet Storm, Spike Growth, anything that cuts movement speed). Misty step to key opponents (casters, healers, etc) and have Wyll take them down with melee attacks (especially useful since caster enemies have spell resistances/immunities on higher difficulties).

I find this build requires more maneuvering than pure EB builds, but it's less monotonous and more aligned with his characterization than just having Wyll stand back casting EB ad infinitum. Hope this helps!

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Writing recap. Didn't write that much cause I was busy moving and it was just overall not a very good week. Nonetheless:

IWTTSFY (post-canon fic): Manage to lock in and write draft 2 of the smut part. Not sure if it's gonna stay like that in the end but I do need the smut even if it's the first time I work on this and I think it's not good *grinding teeth*. I think I at least managed to capture the vibe I wanted. WC: 17.242 + 2463.

IWFILWY (post post canon one shots): had another idea... We have two docs now. WC: 2.554 + 903.

If you were easy to kill: I really need to sit down and work on this cause I read some part again and was giggling and kicking my feet. WC: 49.231.

Dans le dessin: barely touched it. WC: 36.531.

Happiness tidal: still brainstorming. I really like my ideas on this one, I think it's going to be fun when I start writing it down. WC: 3.939 to 4.877.

Hunter sequel: Honestly probably almost done brainstorming the first part. Reaching resolution is going to require at least another part, maybe two, tho it might all be part of the same work in the end. WC: 1.097 to 2.117.

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God’s favorite princess and the most interesting girl in the world✨

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I'm sorry to say, but just class-wise the deck was stacked against Wyll gaining popularity. He's a class-subclass combo that doesn't immediately fit into the conventional TANK/HEALER/MAGE/DPS roles people are conditioned with.

One look at Gale and people already know, oh, this dude is gonna be my spellcaster — maybe do crowd control and damage spells but is gonna be real squishy. Shadowheart? Cleric with armor so she's probably a healing tank (even though healing is probably the least powerful thing she could do). Astarion? Practically a must-have in your party if you can't reliably pick locks yourself. Karlach? Damage sponge berserker. Lae'zel? She can easily do the most damage in a playthrough, but otherwise it wouldn't be wrong to just use her to hold the line while your caster does damage. Her niche is melee fighter and while not the wall Karlach (or a druid) would be, one look at her and you know how she could slot into your playstyle.

Even a non-RPG enthusiast will know to put Lae'zel upfront while keeping Gale at the back even though. You can modify their builds so that Lae'zel does ranged damage and Gale is a close combat specialist, but there is nevertheless an effective, albeit cliche, way to build them that is intuitive to most people.

What about Wyll, though? He has a sword, so is he a melee fighter meant to be placed on the front lines? He's a spellcasting class, so is he meant to occupy the same niche as Gale? Is he meant to support the primary damage dealers with buffs and crowd control? He's even wearing generic padded armor, so you're not even sure if light armor is supposed to be his optimal line of equipment or if that was just what was available.

And I'm not entirely faulting Larian for not communicating what a warlock is supposed to do. Hells, a lot of D&D players don't know how to build warlocks and primarily chose the class for roleplaying reasons. Travis Willingham from Critical Role notoriously got bogged down playing Fjord as a warlock because sessions would just be him casting Eldritch Blast over and over again. That's the one warlock archetype that D&D players are familiar with — Shotgun Eldritch Blaster — and Wyll clearly isn't meant to be that from his design and special quest weapons (the Infernal Rapier, for example, does nothing for an Eldritch Blast build).

That is not to say Wyll can't be built into a beast. But it takes more effort and research on the player's part to discern which of these many class options create a synergistic playstyle and what items are best-in-slot for him.

Because people see Wyll and can't immediately slot him into a playstyle box, they leave him at camp. Because he's left at camp, they never hear his dialogue. Because they never hear his dialogue, they aren't as invested in him.

Honestly, lack of in-game content and WOTC not letting them develop Wyll's ties to other Forgotten Realms media aside, the way Larian designed the mere mechanics of the game just really stacks the odds against Wyll favor.

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god‘s favorite princess 💜

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Shadowheart sketch^^