No one in the pod. Why ?

[ymarcotte55]

If you use Shadowheart as your main character then you have no help against Commander Zhalk while escaping the Nautiloid. There is only you (Shadowheart) and Lae'zel against him (as well as Us if you severed him from the skull). There is no one stuck in the pod where you would be as a companion ...

Why ?

Even if you start as Lae'zel you have a "guess" gythyanki in the quest to help you against the Commander. But no one if you play as Shadowheart.

[Callirgos]

The point of that combat is not to defeat him, but get to the device. The MindFlayer tells you to run for it. He's right.

[Moonbane]

You are contradicting yourself, you still get Lae-zel and Us.

Sure you have 1 member lower than normal, but you can still command the cambion to drop his sword, yoink it and kill the lowbie enemies before the devil reinforcements shows up.

[PK_Thunder]

Yeah because it's her in the pod.

But she's not there because you are her.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by ymarcotte55:

No one in the pod. Why ?
If you use Shadowheart as your main character then you have no help against Commander Zhalk while escaping the Nautiloid. There is only you (Shadowheart) and Lae'zel against him (as well as Us if you severed him from the skull). There is no one stuck in the pod where you would be as a companion ...

Why ?

Even if you start as Lae'zel you have a "guess" gythyanki in the quest to help you against the Commander. But no one if you play as Shadowheart.

You are not supposed to fight the commander. Your question is nonsense,

[Moonbane]

The commander is not too difficult to kill in balanced mode. I stopped bothering in tactician, just too much health. But I always steal his burning sword. Use shadowheart with command to cast the variant to force him to drop his weapon.

[HandyVac]

Bear in mind, you're not guaranteed to have Shadowheart join you at that point, even if you do find her in the pod.

You can fail the skill check/not find the key (or just ignore her) and have to walk away and leave her trapped there. In which case you'll meet her near the ruins after the crash.

[Abisha]

would be weird to find you in the pod while you playing her.
seams like some weird startrek story.

[Hopeless Ne'er-Do-Well]

This bothers me as well.
However, it seems to me that it would've been better if each of the origins had played from their points of view.

Tav (custom) should've started as normal.
Shadowheart should've been stuck in the usual pod you find her in where she'd either get released by succeeding a low dialogue skill check with Lae'zel, Tav (customized during character creation) and possibly Us, or crashing somewhere, like if you don't help her in the tutorial.
Lae'zel should've started out where Tav first meets her (where she could choose to ask for their assistance or not) or wherever her pod was (with the option to try to release Tav earlier).

The other party members should've skipped the tutorial area, started where their pods crashed (except for Gale) and possibly gotten experience in other ways for their areas.

Gale might've been good to have start out with the choice of landing in the portal or not.
If not, he could have gotten stopped from falling like Tav does perhaps.
If he landed in the portal, maybe he could have gotten pulled out by Tav succeeding a low dialogue skill check.

[Lamp]

Best thing you can do is command him to drop his sword and then score some guiding bolts for the illithid. Throw in a couple lucky hits and you've got a dead Zhalk.

[jchaosmaster]

Originally posted by VirtuousReincarnation:

This bothers me as well.
However, it seems to me that it would've been better if each of the origins had played from their points of view.

Tav (custom) should've started as normal.
Shadowheart should've been stuck in the usual pod you find her in where she'd either get released by succeeding a low dialogue skill check with Lae'zel, Tav (customized during character creation) and possibly Us, or crashing somewhere, like if you don't help her in the tutorial.
Lae'zel should've started out where Tav first meets her (where she could choose to ask for their assistance or not) or wherever her pod was (with the option to try to release Tav earlier).

The other party members should've skipped the tutorial area, started where their pods crashed (except for Gale) and possibly gotten experience in other ways for their areas.

Gale might've been good to have start out with the choice of landing in the portal or not.
If not, he could have gotten stopped from falling like Tav does perhaps.
If he landed in the portal, maybe he could have gotten pulled out by Tav succeeding a low dialogue skill check.

I Do think it would have been cool if you could have the character based start.

Say by picking Gale you start in the Portal and require a small skill check, one rolled Auto twice, one for shadow heart and one for Lae'zel. {althoght make it possible to game over yourself if you luck is that bad}

Or start as the Vamp guy in the middle of no where, hell let it be your Sneak/stealth tutorial.

Have the blade of frontiers landing near the grove having to save some people automaticily.

I mean yea extra work but you wouldn't need a massive life changing events like say Dragon Age did in the first game.

[Hopeless Ne'er-Do-Well]

Originally posted by jchaosmaster:

Originally posted by VirtuousReincarnation:

This bothers me as well.
However, it seems to me that it would've been better if each of the origins had played from their points of view.

Tav (custom) should've started as normal.
Shadowheart should've been stuck in the usual pod you find her in where she'd either get released by succeeding a low dialogue skill check with Lae'zel, Tav (customized during character creation) and possibly Us, or crashing somewhere, like if you don't help her in the tutorial.
Lae'zel should've started out where Tav first meets her (where she could choose to ask for their assistance or not) or wherever her pod was (with the option to try to release Tav earlier).

The other party members should've skipped the tutorial area, started where their pods crashed (except for Gale) and possibly gotten experience in other ways for their areas.

Gale might've been good to have start out with the choice of landing in the portal or not.
If not, he could have gotten stopped from falling like Tav does perhaps.
If he landed in the portal, maybe he could have gotten pulled out by Tav succeeding a low dialogue skill check.

I Do think it would have been cool if you could have the character based start.

Say by picking Gale you start in the Portal and require a small skill check, one rolled Auto twice, one for shadow heart and one for Lae'zel. {althoght make it possible to game over yourself if you luck is that bad}

Or start as the Vamp guy in the middle of no where, hell let it be your Sneak/stealth tutorial.

Have the blade of frontiers landing near the grove having to save some people automaticily.

I mean yea extra work but you wouldn't need a massive life changing events like say Dragon Age did in the first game.

Yeah, maybe Astarion could've tried hunting the boar near that area or avoided some Intellect Devourers.

[Ironwu]

Originally posted by ymarcotte55:

If you use Shadowheart as your main character then you have no help against Commander Zhalk while escaping the Nautiloid. There is only you (Shadowheart) and Lae'zel against him (as well as Us if you severed him from the skull). There is no one stuck in the pod where you would be as a companion ...

Why ?

Even if you start as Lae'zel you have a "guess" gythyanki in the quest to help you against the Commander. But no one if you play as Shadowheart.

Unlike D:OS2, Larian recommends you NOT do your first play through with an Origin Character. This is one of the reasons; in the early game you short yourself one companion.

[Quacksalber]

Originally posted by VirtuousReincarnation:

This bothers me as well.
However, it seems to me that it would've been better if each of the origins had played from their points of view.

Tav (custom) should've started as normal.
Shadowheart should've been stuck in the usual pod you find her in where she'd either get released by succeeding a low dialogue skill check with Lae'zel, Tav (customized during character creation) and possibly Us, or crashing somewhere, like if you don't help her in the tutorial.
Lae'zel should've started out where Tav first meets her (where she could choose to ask for their assistance or not) or wherever her pod was (with the option to try to release Tav earlier).

The other party members should've skipped the tutorial area, started where their pods crashed (except for Gale) and possibly gotten experience in other ways for their areas.

Gale might've been good to have start out with the choice of landing in the portal or not.
If not, he could have gotten stopped from falling like Tav does perhaps.
If he landed in the portal, maybe he could have gotten pulled out by Tav succeeding a low dialogue skill check.

This would be awful for coop.

[DonBonov]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Originally posted by ymarcotte55:

No one in the pod. Why ?
If you use Shadowheart as your main character then you have no help against Commander Zhalk while escaping the Nautiloid. There is only you (Shadowheart) and Lae'zel against him (as well as Us if you severed him from the skull). There is no one stuck in the pod where you would be as a companion ...

Why ?

Even if you start as Lae'zel you have a "guess" gythyanki in the quest to help you against the Commander. But no one if you play as Shadowheart.

You are not supposed to fight the commander. Your question is nonsense,

Yeah, therefore he suprisingly drops the best two hander in the early game.

Originally posted by Lamp:

Best thing you can do is command him to drop his sword and then score some guiding bolts for the illithid. Throw in a couple lucky hits and you've got a dead Zhalk.

Save Scum is the only solution. Not quite a great feeling, but that is the best solution except you want to reload until the illithid hits with every attack.

[Moonbane]

Shadowheart's inflict wounds does bigger damage than guiding bolt tho. Especially if you save scum them to hit. If tav is a fiend warlock, he gets command as well, saving her from blowing spellslots on them.

Guiding Bolt only lasts 1 round and you will be using many more rounds to kill him at lvl 1.