Halsin´s 10 strength, giga arms

[Exarch_Alpha]

Guess he injects nature´s oils like those guys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT_xr63XF_g

[rubberducky102760]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

Originally posted by rubberducky102760:

I never got to know Viconia. My bad. I did rescue her from being burned at the stake or whatever in ToB, but pretty much gave her the brush off after that. Her ending up being the mother superior of a Shar enclave didn't seem out of character to me. Hasn't she always been neutral evil alignment? And of course it wouldn't be out of character for Sarevok to flip back to his old ways if left to his own devices for too long. But the whole raping his daughter, and raising his wacko incest baby, dreaming someday she'll grow up to be Bhaal's chosen, was a bit of a shock. It's grotesque. Bad as he was in BG, that one still throws me for a bit of a loop. But whatever, That's how they wrote it, and it doesn't break anything for me, it's just odd, IMO. But I don't mind being alone in that.

Viconia was a great character.

Raised to be a typical Lolth drow, but decided Lolth was just f*cking with them all after she was asked to ritually kill an infant. She refused, and she was eventually taken away to be killed for Lolth. Her favorite brother saved her, and so Lolth turned him into a drider.

After this Viconia escaped to the surface and decided to worship Shar. She was persecuted everywhere she went for being a drow. Eventually she ended up in a small farmhouse, and became friendly with her neighbor. Her friendly neighbor then realized she was a drow and tried to kill her. In self-defense and anger, she killed him. And his family (who had all been in on the plot to kill her).

So she has this protective shell around her. As far as she is concerned, the only person she can trust is herself, ever. Even if you are totally loyal to her in BG1/2, she always fears you will betray her.

Her romance arc in BG2 starts with her opening up to you a little about her past, then trying to use sex with you to control you (which you have to turn down). She will constantly try to infuriate you in order for you to push her away, the sort of rejection that is in her comfort zone of what to expect. Only when you demonstrate that she can trust you no matter how she tries to provoke you does she finally start to really trust you.

And the BG3 writers didn't seem to understand any of that. Even a non-romanced Viconia would (IMO) refuse to kill an entire enclave of people who trusted her just because Shar ordered it. She refused to do that for Lolth. I think she would refuse to do it for Shar, too.

Running the House of Grief scam? Sure, I can see Viconia doing that. Not so sure I can see her going along with the "torture Shadowheart and her parents for 30 years" thing, though. Seems too much like what she was unwilling to do for Lolth in the first place.

(And yes, obviously, Vicky was one of my favorite characters.)

My take on that was that Shar wanted Shadowheart tortured and emotionally abused to condition her into the new mother superior she wanted her to become. Keeping her parents to use as leverage, and because it affirmed her control to have SH torture them. It seemed Viconia wasn't obedient enough, as evidenced by her obsession with obtaining the artefact to amass power and secure her position. And some of the abuse she participated in would be in line with her jealousy and resentment toward Shadowheart. She clearly thought she was more qualified for the job, and didn't appreciate being supplanted by a weak, whiny little upstart who had to be controlled and brainwashed into serving Shar.

But that was the BG3 Viconia, and not knowing her full backstory per BG1/2 (pretty tragic, when you see it laid out like that), it's easier to understand. She's not vastly different from Minthara. I've lost count of how many playthroughs I did before I finally recruited her, got to watch her character development, and came to appreciate her.

[alanc9]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

And the BG3 writers didn't seem to understand any of that. Even a non-romanced Viconia would (IMO) refuse to kill an entire enclave of people who trusted her just because Shar ordered it. She refused to do that for Lolth. I think she would refuse to do it for Shar, too.

Of course, it's literally in her default ToB epilogue that she did slaughter her entire enclave. What's retconned is why.

[RhodosGuard]

Originally posted by Raï 𓆣:

Originally posted by RhodosGuard:

I remember fresh out of the gate people being confused why Sharts/Astarions Firebolts kept missing, not knowing that they use their Int Mod for Spellcasting, a score relatively low for both of them.
Now imagine people getting Halsin in Act 2 with an array that "fits his body"
What you get is a Druid with like 8 Dex, 17 Str, 15 Con, and what? Like 12 Wis? Imagine a newbie picking him up and being confronted by a Druid whos spell barely ever do anything productive. Or with Minsc, a Ranger that cannot use a Ranged weapon, because they just had to give him 17 strength cause he a big boy.

Yea, why not? People are intelligent - they can learn things about their characters and their games.

Maybe DnD systems aren't congruent and intuitive anymore and that's why it's confusing.

Because people dont want their games to be homework.
If they learned the game, and about the characters, then the first thing all of them would do is go to withers and respec them, or, simpler even, not put them in their party. Giving them acceptable standard arrays is the most forward way to introduce a class/character to a player. If people new to the system I have played actual DnD with are any measure of the average person interested in TTRPG, it is that they often dont learn particular fast.

The systems are intuitive. The only thing not intuitive are the tooltips. Once you know what your spellcasting modifier is, every class breaks down to bringing that to 20, or your STR for a full melee Fighter, or your Dex for Rogues/Rangers, learning about how Weapons work, people will figure out that STR Rogues and STR Rangers can work.

The problem is mostly the tooltip that only shows an icon with an abbreviated Ability behind it.
And what's funnier, is that they keep making the game more intuitive. I mean, most of the people who hate modern DnD hate that it's being "Dumbed down" or would you rather confront new players with THAC0?

In 2024 OneDnD or whatever they name it, they made it more intuitive again, by allowing you to chose the spellcasting mod for Magic Initiate Spells and, more importantly, the lineage spells for Elves.

Originally posted by brendan_in_china:

Originally posted by RhodosGuard:

I dont get the confusion over this.
First off, it's fantasy, ease off.

Nothing confusing. It's just the mechanics not fitting the narrative.

And fantasy isn't a licence for anything goes. Check out say Brandon Sanderson's online lectures. There are rules. only If you know them, you can break em.

OP is stating a valid point that default array broke immersion. Not at all hard to understand.

I didnt say "Ignore everything, it's fantasy" I said "ease off" as you should in all fantasy.
There are rules, it's just that people like you dont wanna acknowledge the rules and then insist the rules should actually work the way they work in reality. And because you want that, you stick to 3rd Edition or 3.5 or ODnD or whatever edition gets you boner.

You want our Reality to have more bearing on a fantasy world, than you want that world to establish it's own rules. So here is the rule that this world establishes:
Body Type doesnt inherently influence your strength.

Easy as that. Women can be as Strong as men, and tall men can be as strong as short men, and in the end, the gods simply give you a STR Score that determines your physical strength. That's the rule.
Dont like it? Too bad.

Default Array only breaks immersion because you refuse to, or cant, immerse yourself. Which is fine. But dont whine about it.

10 is the default average score for a commoner. A person without the experience of an adventurer, who hasnt acquired a class, will most likely have 10 Strength. So as long as commoners work out, and can maintain their physique, it's not at all unbelievable for a tall person to look like Halsin and have 10 Strength.

In the end, it's a video game. And a Video game has it's limitations, and it has artistic license. Having a tall druid, who works within the framework, use the more bulky body type, because they dont want to create 10 body types just to satisfy people who want this game to be more realistic, is absolutely understandable.

Anyway, you keep annoying me on these forums, so it's time to block you, I think.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by alanc9:

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

And the BG3 writers didn't seem to understand any of that. Even a non-romanced Viconia would (IMO) refuse to kill an entire enclave of people who trusted her just because Shar ordered it. She refused to do that for Lolth. I think she would refuse to do it for Shar, too.

Of course, it's literally in her default ToB epilogue that she did slaughter her entire enclave. What's retconned is why.

I think the difference is huge.

Viconia went on to found a cult dedicated to Shar
in the city of Waterdeep. One of her followers betrayed her, however,
prompting the slaughter of the whole tainted lot. Shar admonished Viconia
strongly for this, but she was unrepentant and again wandered the Realms.
Viconia was still formidable, and went on to prevent an attempt by the
Knights of the Shield to take over Calimport, and even worked with Drizzt
Do'Urden to save the elven city of Suldanessalar from a Zhentarim plot. For
this last act, the elves accepted her, and Queen Ellesime bestowed the
highest honors of the Seldarine, an accolade never before given to one of her
dark kind. Viconia reportedly bowed once without emotion, and then left. Her
fate remains unknown.

She didn't betray the enclave. She didn't blindly follow Shar's orders. Viconia had been taught by life to be entirely unforgiving of anyone betraying her.

You can see this is the ending that the BG3 crew used as their backstory, but they twisted it around so that Viconia was following Shar's orders rather than protecting herself.

In ToB we are told that the enclave betrayed her. In BG3 we are told that Viconia slaughtered the enclave even though she knew they had not betrayed her or Shar. Huge difference for Viconia's character.

[alanc9]

Definitely a bigger issue than Minsc's stats, which a player can fix at will.

[RhodosGuard]

"Sometimes I think conventional wisdom is too narrow about what someone can or cannot be. Stranger Things have most certainly happened"

- Halsin 2023