Spoilers for characters and side quests early in Baldur's Gate 2
Butch:
You know, pondering it, the Hexxat leaving thing isn't really about making the game real, but the D&D experience real. DM draws up a great quest, everything's going smoothly and BOOM, some important player gets all real world busy and everyone's like "Dude, now?"
So, Friday nosed around the bridge district, did stuff there, got a quest that led me to the temple district, so spent yesterday there picking up quests, meeting ever more people who can join the party (there are a LOT of people that can join the party), did most of a quest there, that's about it.
Are any of us doing the same thing or have we all gone off on three totally different tangents?
Loothound:
I'm still fighting my way through the slavers' stronghold in the slums. For some reason there was a kid locked in a cell with two trolls. I hate trolls. Regeneration, my ass.
Butch:
One of the major flaws of this game is that the developers really, REALLY liked trolls. At least they let us shoot a downed troll with a fire arrow. Or zap it with flame arrow or Melf's (tm) acid arrow.
How'd you get in there? Front or back door?
Feminina:
I played. Went through Dragomir's tomb for Hexxat, defeated Dragomir, and then unwittingly freed the REAL Haxxat, who, in a totally surprise twist that no one saw coming, is a vampire. (So sorry! Such major spoilers!)
Then since we were in the graveyard anyway, we poked around in some other tombs, fought about 800 spiders and 200 undead, recovered a bit of loot, told the bodies in the tombs "you'll need to do better than that if you want to protect your grave goods from ME, THE HERO!" and went back to the city to sell some stuff.
Now I'm going to have to choose between Hexxat and Anomen because he's making noises about not wanting to travel with someone who's evil. Sigh. People with morals are such a challenge.
She really seems like kind of a damage magnet for someone who's already dead, and I'm not sure why healing spells heal her instead of inflicting damage, which I would have sworn was how it worked in the tabletop game. Maybe they just didn't want to confuse people, although they haven't exactly displayed a lot of concern about confusing people in other aspects of the game mechanics. But whatever.
I need to get back to Nalia's estate before all those trolls respawn.
Butch:
Yeah, I felt kinda bad about the fake Hexxat. She seemed an OK sort in a weird way.
I have not gone back to talk to real Hexxat. I'm trying to woo too good characters, here. Aerie almost took off just because I travelled with Korgan for a while. I don't think she'd dig a vampire. But then, ya never know.
Did you bump into a ghost in the graveyard? A small ghost?
What the hell is Hexxat anyway? Class wise? I never asked.
Feminina:
She's a thief like the fake Hexxat. Which is handy for all those traps and locks.
Aerie hasn't mentioned it yet, but I'm sure she's just biding her time. No small ghosts.
Butch:
Hmm. Maybe I should talk to her, then. Since I told Nalia I would get to her later and she took off, I have a million choices for NPCs and yet only Yoshimo can open locks. Not that I have anything against ol' Yoshimo.
Korgan can go kick rocks.
It's kind of weird how many healers you meet. I'm lacking mages and thieves, but man, Minsc, Jaheira, Aerie and Amonen can all cast healing spells. And I met someone else who could last night!
Seems a bit of an imbalance.
Feminina:
Almost as if they expect you to get in a lot of fights...
Butch:
The nerve.
I found a rod of resurrection last night. Makes me feel better about things. Harper's call is pretty great, too.
Feminina:
Man, if I had resurrection, I wouldn't have had to reload 15 times fighting all those undead and spiders. But that will come in time, I'm sure.
Butch:
Yeah, the one two combo of Harper's Call and Heal is great. I got a raise dead scroll for Amonen, and now I have this rod. Saves SO much time reloading.
Of course, the rod has limited charges and I'll likely use it up right quick, but hey. Something.
I failed at always be looting. Last night, big fight, took forever, three dudes died. I hit reload. Redid the whole bigass fight. Took forever again. Only one dude died, harper's call, heal, hit save. THEN I looted and found the rod and was all "I could've done that once...."
Live and learn.
Feminina:
Always. Be. Lootin'.
But hey, now you have more charges left for the next battle!
Butch:
That I do.
I don't know, I'm cruising along pretty good here, all on normal difficulty. Had trouble with a late quest "boss," but, other than that, can't complain. There's much to be done in the city. Quick levels, quick loot, and there's really no fights outside so you can go nuts.
Feminina:
Dude, I keep getting waylaid in the city! Just my luck, I guess.
Butch:
That hasn't happened to me once.
Sic Minsc on them. Or don't travel at night.
Loothound:
I could have gotten waylaid at the Copper Coronet, but Jaheira was giving me all sorts of sass about it.
<<crickets>>
Moving on. I went in the back door. I'm not even sure that I'm on a quest at this point. I was just exploring and ended up getting in a fight with the guard, then I was just all "might as well…" I hope it works like it did in Skyrim, where if you've pretty much done the quest requirements already it just gives you the completion. Used to love that.
I still think it's kind of cool the way they pulled that switcharoo with Hexxat, although the appearance of her new avatar icon is…interesting? Also, her name. Didn't she go on tour with Skrillix and Deadmau5 about 10 years ago?
Butch:
On the new avatar....
Here we go again. Game doesn't have one heroic character that's not lily white. Yoshimo's a bit of a cad, Hexxat is downright evil. Hexxat is even new! She wasn't in the original game. They added her as part of the "enhanced edition" that beamdog did whenever they did it.
Shit, they even GOT RID OF two good (in the moral sense) characters who weren't white in Dynahier (Minsc's witch, who was black, and was killed by Irenicus) and Khalid (Jaheira's husband, who was named Khalid for fuck's sake) who was killed by Irenicus.
Hmm.
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