I'm running Karlach, Shadowheart and Lae'zel. Shadowheart is sort of a midpoint between the others, but as a goody two shoes MC, everyone is getting dragged into the light. Lae'zel fights you a bit but comes around on a lot. I would certainly plan to bring her to all the creche stuff and when you go to start act 3.
AngusOReily
joined 2 years ago
I agree with the other poster about respecting subclasses and considering multiclasses. You'll want someone who can take hits on the Frontline, and put of those four it's yourself and Shadowheart that are getting volunteered for duty.
Shadow can get heavy armor from another subclass. If you want her to blast a bit as well as support, you could always consider Tempest Cleric 2/Storm Sorcerer 10. You get heavy armor from the dip but and can use the Channel Divinity to max Lightning Bolt. She can also twincast Haste and then Quicken another spell at later levels. She's a nuke but needs long rests. If you wanted her to be more martial, you could instead go war cleric which gets extra attack at 5.
My MC is a Warlock 5 / Paladin 5 / Storm Sorcerer 2 (I know it's suboptimal, but I want the free flight from storm sorc). The extra attack from Pact of the Blade stacks with any martial extra attack, so at level 10 you're dishing out 3 attacks per round using your charisma mod instead of strength or dex. I started with a level in Paladin to get Heavy Armor and weapon proficiencies, as of you multiclass in later you only get medium armor. It's kind of immaterial as you can respect, so if you just want to start as a blaster lock and respec once you have the levels to do so that also works. I was definitely gimped early game by building almost entirely around CHA, dumping STR and DEX a bit, and still hanging out in melee. I built my lock to use Polearm Master and Sentinel to help control the battlefield, but you could run a shield and one hander for more survivability. Or go Great Weapon Master with whichever 2-hander you run across and dump massive crit smites, 2 per short rest minimum, burning your character level scaling warlock spell slots.
The most important thing is to remember that nothkng is locked in. Keep respecing and experimenting until you find something that works.
I was very anti-Laz until I took her with me for the crech stuff. With a Lockadin MC and Karlach, I figured I didn't need a fighter but could check out monk. She earned her way into the team through that one respec. Now she's a Tavern brawler Monk with a fighter dip who just absolutely deletes enemies the first round. I had expected to leave her in camp for Gale, Wyll or Halsin who I all like more RP wise, but now I'm monk punch nuking everything and loving it.
Great guide. One thing I've found helpful in my run of Striker/Tank (PAM Sentinel Lockadin), Striker (GWM Barb/Fighter), Striker (Tavern Brawler Monk/Fighter), Striker/Utility (90% Tempest Cleric Storm Sorcerer Shadowheart, 10% EB spamming Bard Lock Wyll) is just giving everyone I can misty step. If your only way to deal with powerful casters is to kill them, get in their faces round 1 and bust them down. Karlach or monk Laz can get there, surge, and bust pretty much anything. At the boss fight at the end of act 2, Laz cleared the left side on one round, MC used his tadpole crit to smite down the guy on the right, and Karlach helped a friend. I find it hard to get away from this party because of how effective they are at burning encounters down. Even when there are fights with a clear mechanic you're supposed to follow (the brewery fight), I just monk prone / stunned and chipped away with Shadowheart calling lightning each round. I got the achievement for another fight for not letting the boss do something to me because he melted to crits round one.
Gear also can help a bunch. Mostly misty step on gear a necklace helps, but there's also a rig that lets you store a crit if you kill something. Definitely helps when you can start each fight with a bang
I love it and am losing sleep to play. I think I'm mid act 2, but who knows; you go a little and then a whole new area opens up for you. I have run into more bugs in the second act than the first. I had an undead bug out, T Pose, and unload a ton of textures whenever it was his turn in combat, which was fun. I also had a fight where the game triggered my Polearm Master when I moved into range of enemies with Halbreds, but if I used it, they'd hit me. Which meant they didn't use that for the whole fight once I figured out I could just say no. Enemies also took actions while it was my turn and I couldn't end my turn in that fight, so it was kinda borked. Might be because I joined from timed mode to haste people up.
Regardless, I'm going to sing the praises of this game and hope I don't hit a game breaking bug. I have the same gripes about camp inventory and party management, but ideally that gets fixed or modded soon.
I'm like 60 hours in and can't wait for a second run. I'm a goody two shoes this run, gotta get some evil durge in the next. And being able to respec your party means I can have a fresh set of combat mechanics next time no matter who I take.
The Dark Tower is a weird series for King in that a) it's more post apocalyptic sci-fi than it is horror and b) the books were written so far apart. If I remember correctly, King had a draft of The Gunslinger ready among his first manuscripts, but only finished the series like 30.years after he started. If you were to put the first and last books side by side, you'd be able to pick out plenty of places where King improved as an author.
I'll also say that the characters as written in The Gunslinger do leave something to be desired. I have t read the series in some time, but my recollection is they get better in book 2 but really improve by book 3.
So, if you like King and are a fan of extended universe stuff, I'd say stick with it as it gets closer to his more modern stuff as the series progresses.
It's a deep, deep rabbit hole. I've spent so much gold just tweaking this or that to get things "perfect". And then I change my mind and revert. I should just save before doing it, but I never remember to!
MC: An attempt at Kaladin from Stormlight Archive. Currently Oath of Ancients 1/Archfey Blade pact 4 with PAM and using Sorrow as my Pact weapon. Eventually he'll be something like Paladin 4 / Warlock 5 / Storm Sorcerer 3 with PAM + Sentinel. Hex, fly into range, start controlling the battlefield is the plan. I might take Warlock to 8 and leave the other two classes at 2, but I might want the extra spell slots and metamagic. I think Warlock 8 would.let me get Find Familiar as a ritual from the Invocation at 7, which would be cool. The core of the idea is there, and I'll keep tweaking it as I play; respecing is awesome.
Karlach: currently Frenzy Barbarian 5 GWF, and is about to dip Fighter for Action Surge and probably improved crit. I might respect her to Wildheart as Frenzy Strike and GWF -5/+10 kind of fight each other for use. Regardless, she's a killing machine.
Shadowheart: Just respected to Tempest Cleric 2 / Storm Sorcerer. I needed someone to blast and heal, and I wasn't digging Gale. Previously she was underwhelming as a straight cleric. Now she has some more offensive spell options, especially ranged AOE, which previously was a weakness.
Laz'ael: She had been benched all playthrough as she wasn't fitting RP wise, but I wanted to bring her out when I met the Gith. Except with a Barbarian and a Lockadin, I didn't really need a fighter. I wanted to check out the Monk class, so I said screw it and respected her to Way of the Open Hand 5 with Weapon Master to bring her dex to 18 and grab the last few versatile martial weapons she wasn't already able to use. Honestly, I don't see her leaving my team anytime soon. She's putting out really solid damage; getting any versatile weapon as a monk weapon is a little crazy. I also have bracers of unarmored defence, so she's sitting at 19 AC, the highest on the squad.
Wyll: Fiend warlock 2 / Lore Bard 3. He fires eldritch blasts. And heals a bit. And lockpicks. Maybe I'll retool him, but I didn't have great ranged AOE options and clicking EB every turn is a snooze. He did lockpick a s sneak his way through the Zent hideout though, so good work Wyll!
Gale and Astarion: Bench warmers. Astarion doesn't fit RP wise, but Gale does and probably will rejoin the team at times. I had Astarion go theif, and the extra BA is pretty nuts; might use that on my next playthrough with a gloomstalker MC multiclass. Gale is a Divination wizard, and the portent rolls are very powerful but the constant popup confirmation for use is annoying. He started the game as a Grease monkey though, and if he comes back with Shadowheart still on the squad, he might be a Create Water monkey now.
I also Bard-lock'ed Wyll! It just makes sense. He's a folk hero and was sort of betrayed by his patron. He'd look for some other source of empowerment rather than deepening his pact, and a story teller of heroic deeds seems to fit.
We're not there just yet, but Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books will be blending magic and tech as they go on. He keeps promising to deliver FTL travel using the magic systems he's embedded in his worlds.
Without getting spoilery, the Cosmere is a shared universe for the majority of his book series and novellas. Each series deals with a magic system that was "splintered" in a way from a main source of divine power. While each series or novel is pretty well self contained, they more you read the more you notice overlaps between the series; it's possible for powerful and talented beings to travel between worlds in the Cosmere without going through space.
Each of his main series has tech developments and time jumps built in where we see tech developing more and more. In one series, he has three or four eras planned, with the first and second eras already published. The first era is your typical dark fantasy setting, and by the time of the second era "magi-tech" (or "fabrial" tech might be a better in universe term) has developed to be about old west levels. The next era is supposed to be at a 1980s tech level, and I think the last era will be future tech.
There have also been indicators that beings that are aware of more than one planet in the Cosmere being concerned about tech level and the rate of technological progress occuring in a given world. There might be a conflict brewing in which a magi-technological arms race matters, so each series is getting a healthy injection of tech development.
All that is to say, don't pick up a book set in the Cosmere today and expect robots and spaceships. But the current work is all clearly laying the foundations for such. Might take a few more years to really get there, but Brandon is nothing if not a prolific author.
Well that certainly answers a question from the end of RoW. Guess we know who tricked who.
I guess it depends on your definition of evil. Because you could add Gale to that list; it's pretty evil to not help him at the portal. But I'd imagine you can still get Wyll and Karlach. I tend to play evil as "what benefits the PC most?" Killing Karlach or the grove right when you get there isn't necessarily what benefits most. If Wyll and Karlach leave if you kill the grove, that's another story, haven't gotten to try that yet.