The adventures of REAL Man (SoA)

Remove all ads!

I tell you what. REAL Man is a true inspiration for Lerrahud! If only they could join up together, maybe some of REAL Man's hutzpah could rub off on Lerrahud - wait, it has!!! 8-)

 

Arriving at De'Arnise Keep, REAL Man was finally informed what the problem was here: trolls. Trolls, REAL Man quickly decided, are cheesy opponents. You beat them, then they just lie around waiting for Nalia to stick them with a little acid arrow and get the credit for the kill. Bah.

Nalia failed two more traps in here. I think she's failed five by now, though one of them was the game's fault rather than hers (it made her step on the trap on her way to disarm it--she never even got a chance to try). She has failed a few locks, too, but REAL Man decided "Knock" wasn't any cheesier than picking a lock in the first place, so no harm done there. It's a pain, but she suffices--and unlike Yoshimo, she can cast magic missiles and fireballs.

An amusing glitch with Daleson: he didn't see Nalia in the back of the party, and told us all kinds of not-especially-flattering gossip about her. (-: Working our way upstairs, we met Glaicus the traitor. Since charm spells are cheesy, Glaicus had to be killed. This was a tough fight with no combat-prep spells. Then we met Nalia's aunt. REAL Man was dumbfounded by her behavior, the first character I've played this game with who actually had that intended reaction. Killing an unarmed woman would have been cowardly. REAL Man wasn't bright enough to navigate the moral high ground with the quiet-dignity type responses, nor nasty enough to insult her and Nalia into the dirt. He didn't know what to do, so he just sat there looking stunned, auntie got in one more nasty comment, and then left. REAL Man felt like he'd lost face, but didn't know exactly what he could have done to avoid it. This was not endearing Nalia to him.

De'Arnise Keep posed the first serious problems for REAL Man's ethical system. I didn't actually play this character in BG1, but I'm fairly sure it would have been a snap for him (there weren't that many cheesy weapons or items to reject, and most of the enemies could be easily killed without getting fancy). The early SoA quests were similar. In the Keep, though, came the first inklings of trouble on the horizon. First, the room of golems. There are several standard tactics in here, all of which REAL Man rejected with great scorn. Killing the golems two at a time by attacking them while they're deactivated; dashing up to the lockers, grabbing the stuff, and fleeing; using the earth elemental control ring on them; getting the big golem stuck in the door and pelting him with missiles till he falls over; all cheesy. REAL Man's team didn't have a prayer of defeating these golems mano-a-mano without even any combat prep spells. He tried it, once, just to convince himself that I'm right; watched the disintegrating-hand movie somberly, reloaded, and did the only thing he could: took the flail head and left without the fancy weapons. They were probably cheesy anyway, he scowled. Then we built the flail, only to remember too late that the damn thing slows you, so REAL Man won't let anyone use it. Not one of his better days.

Then, in the basement, came the umber hulks. The dogfood method was way too cheesy for REAL Man. It would have been avoiding a fight like a coward, it would have meant running away from the hulks as they made for the food, and it would have meant 'trapping' them by closing the doors. (Umber hulks can claw through walls, for Pete's sake!) So we had to duke this one out by hand, and, as you know, death spells and so forth are forbidden to anyone in REAL Man's group. This fight. Took. Forever. I only had to reload it twice, but it felt like more because I was constantly dealing with confused party members the entire time. When the dust finally settled, Anomen was dead and the rest of the team badly beaten. We stopped to rest, much to the relief of Aerie and Nalia, who had been complaining of fatigue non-stop since we first entered the keep.

Then the shit really hit the fan. Aerie and Jaheira got into another fight, in which Aerie made it clear she had a big crush on REAL Man. Incredibly, Aerie then started going on about how weak and cowardly Khalid had been. Now, Khalid wasn't the person REAL Man respected most in the world, but at least he wasn't scared of the dark. REAL Man was not about to put up with this stupid girl wailing "Oh, oh, I just feel like collapsing and dying!" and then turning around in the same conversation to call OTHER people weak. He told her so and she started crying and ran away, with probably $1000 worth of equipment and our wand of fire, too. Presumably she was eaten by a troll on the way out, because she never made it back to the circus. REAL Man was uncomfortably aware that he had not entirely succeeded at taking care of Aerie or teaching her to take care of herself, but this was defiitely all Quayle's fault for sending a little girl off on an adventure just to get her out of his hair. REAL Man should never have agreed to it, and he was now looking askance at Nalia, too. Adventuring is not a schoolyard game or a debutante ball. Perhaps he should choose companions who already seem to have some real experience in the future.

Aerie's hissy fit was not entirely unexpected by me, but it did come at a bad time. With no one to raise Anomen, the party was left with only four members. REAL Man had the choice of going back to town to resurrect Anomen and pick up somebody new, or staying put and toughing it out. We all know which he chose. The fight against TorGal was very tough with only four party members and no buffing or use of running-around tactics, but not impossible. Took an extra reload this way and we used up our last potions of extra healing in the combat. Then the party limped out of the dungeon to get our just rewards. REAL Man agreed to take over Nalia's keep, certainly a wise choice on her part due to his mighty fighting prowess. He left Nalia in the reception hall, both to keep an eye on things and because he knew she'd be safe there and didn't want to have to deal with her any more. REAL Man had had enough of babysitting teenage girls through dungeons.

Then the remaining three heroes headed back to Athkatla, dragging Anomen's corpse with them, and it is there that we leave them for now.

Further bulletins as events warrant!
L

 

I am impressed with the role playing here. Yeah, the choice facing you in the chapel is a big one given your character's life outlook. But, what did you mean about the flail slowing you down? Am I missing something here?

 

Nothing that complicated, Kailynne--the Flail of Ages just has a chance to cast "slow" on a monster every time it hits. Weapons that screw up a monster's fighting ability are forbidden by REAL Man's goofy ethical code. (-: And you can't sell the damn thing, either! REAL Man put it in the toilet at De'Arnise Keep.

****************

Okay, when last we saw our hero, REAL Man was dragging Anomen's bloody corpse back to Athkatla to be raised. Naturally, he thought he'd try the Temple District. There he encountered a bunch of weird cultists who had plucked out their eyes. The priest of Helm asked us to come in and have a chat about eliminating this cult, so REAL Man did, even though I as his demiurge knew that this quest was going to be way too tough for him to tackle without tactics at this stage in his career. We also agreed to go commission an artwork for the temple. None of this public service, nor the fact that Anomen was one of their own priesthood, moved those stingy priests to resurrect him for free, so REAL Man had to pay. As soon as we stepped outside, before the poor guy had even properly gotten his balance back, a messenger came running over to tell Anomen his sister had been murdered. Good grief! Well, conveniently that leads the team in the direction of the Government District, where I'd been planning for REAL Man to pick up some replacements for Posh Spice and Baby Spice anyway, so off we went. Indeed, there were some fanatics preparing to burn the lovely Viconia deVir. REAL Man wasn't about to let that happen, so he beat them off and welcomed her into the party, offering her the Mauler's Arm strength mace and some plate mail. He wasn't completely happy with her cheesy intrinsic magic resistance, but it wasn't overpowered enough to make him reject her. We stopped in at the government district, bought a magic license (not like we're likely to need one till Imoen comes back anyway), and were asked to hunt down a murderer by the Cowled Wizards. REAL Man would rather hunt down the Cowled Wizards for the murderer. They were not very helpful on the subject of where they had taken Imoen.

Then strolling across town on the way to Anomen's house, we ran into Jan Jansen trying to sell us some illegal warez. REAL Man wasn't about to turn anyone over to the cops like some kind of sissy informant, and Jan, in gratitude, signed on as our new thief. However, this seemingly harmonious arrangement lasted all of about two minutes, until I opened up Jan's inventory to see what he might want in the way of armor. Appalled and disgusted the arsenal of cheesy techno-gadgetry Jan employs to make himself a viable thief, REAL Man sent him home and resolved to go it without any cheese-ass thieves, at least until he retrieves Imoen. Viconia can detect traps, and REAL Man can bash open locks. We'll see how it goes. If he really gets stuck at some point he can always go hire Yoshimo on an hourly basis of some sort. And he left Nalia on good terms, so he can always pick her up again if he starts to miss her.

Finally the team went to pay their respects to Anomen's sister. Anomen's daddy was a drunk bastard, but REAL Man couldn't help agreeing with him on the subject of avenging the girl's death. After all, REAL Man himself is in the process of trying to hunt down the cheez-wiz who kidnapped his own sister, despite the Amnish government's not-very-convincing claims that everything was proceeding legally and apace and he shouldn't worry. Take the law into your own hands, REAL Man said. So the team went to the Bridge District to see justice done.

No sooner did we enter this district than a lieutenant asked for our help solving some grisly local murders. REAL Man's first thought was that Saerk might be involved. That would certainly make life easy--if we could bring the lieutenant proof of that we could get Saerk behind bars for sure. The clues led elsewhere, though, to a local tanner. Unfortunately he escaped our justice. Saerk, however, did not. We killed the murdering bastard... but Anomen got a little more carried away than even REAL Man was expecting and killed the guy's unarmed daughter, too. That kind of put an awkward silence over the group. It was a cowardly thing to do and also evil, but on the other hand REAL Man, Minsc, and Jaheira all understood about berserk rages and the blood rage of vengeance and all that. Hell, Minsc had killed Nalia in a blind fury during one of our reloads in the Keep. So the party chalked it up to temporary insanity and decided to take a little vacation outside the city while things settled down a bit. Off we went to Trademeet.

Further bulletins as events warrant...
L

 

I forgot all about that feature of the Flail of Ages.. Maybe that is how Lerrahud is doing so well. Anyway, REAL Man is looking like he's gonna be my newest hero.

 

This character is hilarious. Keep up the good work! Btw, I would have just ditched Jan's armor and crossbow and given him 'non cheesy' gear instead. The goggles and gloves don't do anything particularly slimey, IIRC, but they could go to. No thief or mage is certainly doable, but could get ugly in a lot of places. You're the boss, though.

Aloha
Vormaerin

 

Great story, a cool character but also a good personality.

I always thought about how it would be to play a real man that attacks with his fists only, so no weapons at all... Maybe that will be my next challenge...

BTW, I see it's a trend to start new challenges her, it never happened as much as now. Good point!

 

Usually I find Jan's gadgetry one of his neater features, as it's unique and pretty cool-looking. REAL Man was too disgusted to convenience me by taking him along, though. He's a real wimp without his stuff. I think Nalia had a better strength, and REAL Man expects more from men. Plus he thinks illusion spells are cheesy. If he runs into trouble I think he'd be more moved to give Nalia another chance than go back to Jan.

****************

Trademeet made a nice break from the hustle and bustle of the city, and Anomen seemed to have calmed down reasonably well. REAL Man could really like this guy if not for his annoying voice and action comments. Viconia has started flirting with REAL Man and Jaheira has more or less stopped (I think she's waiting on REAL Man to rest the party, or sleep outside, or something, and REAL Man doesn't rest the party much). Jaheira has started quarreling with Viconia, though, which makes REAL Man very uneasy after what happened with Aerie. Jaheira is a good friend and also a formidable warrior, and though Viconia hasn't been exactly impressive in combat due to her poor THAC0 and REAL Man's restrictions on her spellcasting, her healing spells added to Anomen's and Jaheira's are really giving this group lots of good hard fighting time between rests, and besides, she thinks REAL Man has a pleasing musculature. Will he have to choose between them? Will one of them leave the party? REAL Man just doesn't understand why women have to make life so complicated.

In Trademeet, the party slew some deranged wild animals, then went to talk to the mayor about the town's problems. They seemed to have two: the animal attacks and some genies blockading their trade caravans. REAL Man went to take care of the animals first. Since he had an open slot in his party anyway, he let Cernd come with, although he really doesn't need another druid and isn't very impressed with Cernd, who took me a while to learn how to use effectively in the first place and is just not going to get a chance to shine in this finesse-free party. REAL Man and company fought their way through the Shadow Druids, and then Jaheira challenged her old rival Faldorn to single combat and kicked her ass without breaking a sweat. You go, Nature Girl! Back in Trademeet REAL Man confronted the genies, who promised to take the next coach out of town if the party does a quest to kill a rakshasa. REAL Man isn't much of a detective, but there was only one female character on the druid grove map except for Faldorn who is already dead, and when he went to check her out, she revealed herself and attacked without him having to say a word. Unfortunately, REAL Man failed to win this fight four times. He would have been able to with the use of a strategic retreat or, probably, some buffing spells, but these aren't options for a REAL Man. Finally he reloaded and slept for the night first. He wasn't thrilled about this either, but the party was wounded, most of the clerics were out of heals, everyone was fatigued, Jaheira and Anomen had never gotten new spells after leveling up, and Viconia and Cernd still had all kinds of sissy spells memorized. Even REAL Men need to sleep SOMEtimes. After this the fight with Ihtafeer went much better. Jaheira had another nightmare while we were sleeping, and made such pointed comments about REAL Man's company filling the void Khalid had left that even with his low wisdom REAL Man had to wonder if she was talking about something more than friends. He decided to play dumb and make Jaheira spell it out for him rather than saying something and screwing up the friendship and the party. Back in town, the genies honored their promise and the mayor was so happy he put a statue of REAL Man on the town fountain. Now, this was more like it!

Further bulletins as events warrant.

 

Nature Girl and REAL Man... reminds me of Tarzan and Jane.... I see a lot of similarities in the difficulties for REAL Man and Lerrahud with respect to high level magic - charging lightly onward is not really great for those who expect to live long lives. But, you have backup, so you will probably last longer than Lerrahud.

Good on ya!

 

I suspect Lerrahud's going to wind up beating REAL Man in the end. Lerrahud's willing to use running away as a tactic to take on enemies one at a time, if nothing else. I feel like as time goes on, Lerrahud gets more competent and better-equipped (and with experience he may get savvier about combats, too,) whereas REAL Man and his hamstrung friends fall further and further behind... (-:

***************

Anyway, having just become the Hero of Trademeet, REAL Man soon found himself a hot property among some of the townsfolk who had problems of their own to solve. First, a couple of local nobles wanted to see him at their estates, each wanting him to help them win a feud against the other. REAL Man picked Lady Lilith. All else being equal, he tends to favor people with mammary glands. He does, after all, only have a 3 wisdom. Lilith asked him to get an item out of the local crypt. This was a snap, but then the mayor showed up and asked us to give it to him instead. REAL Man liked this mayor, who seemed like a tough and honorable ex-military man, so he just did that. Then he went to the house of a local woman who said her son needed help. Turned out his girlfriend had been kidnapped by... the tanner from the Bridge District! REAL Man immediately went to track down this desperado. The skin dancer's fake story was so lame an 8 intelligence was plenty to see through it, and this loose end was tied up and the girl saved. Viconia cast "restoration" on her, and she ran happily home to marry her boyfriend.

Then Jaheira and Viconia started squabbling again. Viconia accused Jaheira of having a thing for REAL Man, and Jaheira denied it, saying she was just trying to warn him about her evil because she was his friend. This was just what REAL Man wanted to hear, because that was how he wanted to think of Jaheira anyway. She's one of his favorite party members, but he just can't stop thinking of her as Khalid's wife, you know? So REAL Man told her he appreciated her warning but could take care of himself, and she rolled her eyes and said she promised not to say I-told-you-so when Viconia screwed him over. So the Jaheira romance has ended while still letting both Jaheira and REAL Man save face and go on together as friends. REAL Man was relieved to find that Viconia and Jaheira were both much more mature than Aerie.

After an afternoon of shopping in the Trademeet markets, REAL Man headed back to town to see if the Saerk incident had blown over yet. To his surprise (though not mine), they met a neighbor of Cernd's who started raking him over the coals about being a deadbeat dad. Now, REAL Man doesn't like Cernd much, but it seems to him that if Cernd's ex-wife hid her pregnancy from him, he's not the one at fault for not raising the kid. He wanted to go find his son now, though, and REAL Man figured he'd help out. When they arrived in the government district, he suddenly remembered they didn't tell Anomen's father about killing Saerk yet. (I don't take this path very often.) The old coot sure is more reasonable about the whole thing when you're not romancing Anomen, isn't he? Then the team went to confront Deril. Threatening him made him give the kid over without a fight, much as REAL Man had kind of wanted a fight with this pansy wife-beating wizard. Cernd took his kid back home, which was fine with REAL Man, who wasn't that into the pontificating druid in the first place. Then the party went around doing a bunch of errands for XP: next door for the Helm-statue quest. To the graveyard, where the ghost of a murdered boy asked us to find his teddybear, Anomen picked a fight with a grave robber, and a man was freed from a shallow grave where some criminals had tried to bury him alive. To Waukeen's Promenade, to get the next clue about the Helm-statue (REAL Man also finally noticed those stairs in the Mithrest. This was STILL a hard fight for him, but his team prevailed in the end.) To the Copper Coronet, to get the next clue about the Helm-Statue and get that ghost boy's bear from the dastardly villain who took it. You don't have to kill this guy, but you can, and REAL Man did. There's not much less manly than stealing a stuffed toy from a child. To the Bridge District, where the illithium for the Helm-statue was finally acquired. Okay, maybe molesting children is even less manly than killing them and stealing their teddy bears. It's a tough call. REAL Man killed the child-molesting dwarf too. Then he killed the gang who'd been burying people alive in the graveyard, and rescued their soon-to-be next victim. Is anyone who lives in this district NOT wanted for murder? Building armor out of sissy pants is very, very cheesy, and besides, it would be cowardly to hold a helpless woman for ransom, so REAL Man let her go. Then back to the Government District, to get a reward from the Captain of the Guard and deliver the illithium to the artist (tricking him with fake illithium would have been cheesy, and REAL Man won't use the Mace of Disruption anyway), and finally back to the Temple District to get the reward from the Temple of Helm. REAL Man still has the teddybear to deliver, but the sun has risen, so the ghost probably isn't going to be there anymore. REAL Man now feels like he's been running around delivering newspapers all day, and he wants a meaty quest. So his next stop will be the sewers of the Temple District, to see what he can do about the weird cult hanging around down there.

Till then...

 

Hey, what's REAL Man's aligment?

 

WEll, I am not so sure that Lerrahud will actually finish/reach the end. I still haven't figured a way for an INT of 6 to figure out how to beat a really smart and high-level mage. My best bet is that he will die in either Brynnlaw or the Asylum at best with no way for me to justify playing on.... But, REAL Man has backups that can help overcome his own brazen charges.

We'll see. Keep on keepin' on.

 

Ah, but perhaps you missed this, Kailynne: REAL Man's NPCs are bound to the same lame rules he is. (-:

REAL Man is lawful neutral, but that's more a meta-reflection of his slavishly obeying the restrictions against cheesiness than his in-game interactions. (-:

*************

Okay, when last we left our hero, he had been awake for about 48 continuous hours and was trying to lead his team down into the sewers to take on an elder orb. Luckily, not everyone in the party has a 3 wisdom, so they convinced him to pitch camp in the sewer. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that *Viconia* convinced him to pitch camp in the sewer, as she immediately jumped him. A new dilemma for REAL Man: if he gets nookie when they stop to rest, is it still unmanly to rest?

The evil adventurers in the sewer kicked REAL Man's ass early and often. These guys are quite beatable--never took more than maybe one reload in any of my previous games--but there is no good way to approach, neutralize, and slay them at lower levels without resorting to tactics, complex magics, or at least combat prep. REAL Man eventually went clockwise around the sewer instead and happened not to run into them. Instead he met Keldorn, who offered to join up. REAL Man had the slot free and took him up on it. Old war vet, crappy dex, hairiest goddamn neck you've ever seen. REAL Man'll keep him for now, though I have foreknowledge that he won't be in this group long. (Whether he leaves in one or several pieces will depend on which happens first: reuniting him with his wife, or him trying to kill REAL Man's new squeeze.) Together with Keldorn, we headed down to unearth the Unseeing Eye cult.

They didn't take long to find. They were pretty much standing around in the tunnels shouting "Join our cult and be saved!" Infiltration is just a big word for sneakiness. The frontal assault was tough but not as tough as those adventurers on the other side of the sewers. REAL Man lost a big chunk of XP by taking the direct route, as well as the chance to ever build Kangaxx. This is probably just as well, since he thinks protection from undead scrolls, summoning spells, lame tactics like tricking a demilich into constantly attacking the one person protected from abjuration while the others hack away at him, and just about every weapon capable of damaging Kangaxx are all the height of cheese.

REAL Man returned to the temple of Helm for his just rewards and a referral to the temple of Lathander for the Dawn Ring quest. It was still daylight, so no point in going to meet the contact yet, nor to the graveyard to meet the ghost boy. Instead we went to the Government District to visit Keldorn's family. Turns out Keldorn is the real deadbeat dad. He has a teenage daughter he's practically never even seen, and his wife's screwing someone else. Keldorn asked REAL Man for advice: should he have the adulterer hung and his wife thrown in jail? REAL Man thought that sounded ridiculous. Murdering someone's innocent sister may deserve the death penalty, but having sex with a lonely army wife? REAL Man advised Keldorn to just find the adulterer and beat the crap out of him. Keldorn agreed and off we went to find Backdoor Bob. Once they'd talked, Keldorn decided to forgive the guy and go win his wife's attention back himself. REAL Man would at least have punched the weasel in the face once as he approached, but the "I know she'll choose me if I give her the chance" approach is, he agrees, pretty manly. The wife seemed to think so too, so REAL Man left the two of them alone and went on his way.

For the first time, REAL Man and his team had to actually sit down and think about where to go. Before this there was always one of the party members with an agenda, something we were already caught up in, or both. I've been avoiding Windspear Hills, the Planar Prison, the Planar Sphere, and anything to do with undead, knowing that REAL Man's disdain for combat tactics or subtlety would make those situations hell at this level. I would have liked to go rescue Haerdalis, who could fill our magery void, but we can't get past those sewer guys. Finally I bit the bullet and went to get Korgan. I knew he'd start bitching about going into the graveyard and make us fight all kinds of crappy undead things, but REAL Man thought the extra axe might put us over the top in the sewer fight. It did, though it took two tries and Minsc needed to be resurrected. Then REAL Man rescued Haerdalis. Though REAL Man was *sure* this guy was gay, he was clearly not a wimp, and we badly needed someone who could shoot our damn wands. REAL Man gave Anomen a rest break and he, Minsc, Korgan, Jaheira, Haerdalis, and Viconia headed off to deal with the undead things together. This was much tougher than it needed to be because REAL Man thought turning undead was cheese. One thing I'll give this group, though, they're damn good fighters. The weak link was Viconia, who despite her amazing armor class got killed a few times to force reloads. (I know Extremist said it's ok to let your love interest get waxed, but I didn't risk having to refight this whole damn dungeon.) Haerdalis, meanwhile, saved his dainty behind by casting stoneskins. He's a decent fighter as well as mage, even once he handicaps himself by getting rid of his cheesy swords and restricting himself to single-wielding, but if he calls REAL Man "my raven" one more time REAL Man is going to punch him the hell out.

By now it was nighttime, so the party returned the teddy bear to the ghost kid and retrieved the Dawn Ring for the Church of Lathander, then tracked down Korgan's book. After selling some stuff, we now had enough money to attract the attention of Bodhi and Gaelan. REAL Man had no interest in working for a bunch of damn vampires. Too bad, since the thieves' guild would probably have been a lot easier for him to kill than vampires will be. Gaelan took his coin and directed him to Aran Linvail, and Chapter Three began.

Further bulletins as events warrant!

 

Minsc says thank you for letting him kill evil-doers.

*Boo* Eeeep eeep

Boo says he doesn't like you saying he is fat for taking up an inventory slot. Minsc thinks be glad a miniature gigantic space hamster doesn't take up more space!

 

I have read the "no cheese" rules a few times and from what you wrote, there doesn't seem to be any restriction from using stuff like Haste AFTER the battle starts. After the battle starts would not be "buffing" - it seems to me... Or is it? I'm also guessing the stuff like True Sight/Seeing and Invisibility Purge will be allowed as those would defeat the "cheese" of the enemy. Likewise, Zone of Sweet Air would appear "fair game."

As far as mage wands go, which ones CAN you use in your party? I realize that you are precluding the use of Fear and Cloudkill, but I assume you will allow, Wand of the Heavens and Lightning for instance. I also assume that magic like Melf's Meteors and Fire Seeds are okay....

These are the types of reasons that I think that REAL Man will probably last longer than Lerrahud. BigL has no way to take down enemy protections.... Even if REAL Man takes damage while charging lilghtly onward, Viccy can heal him as he attacks, can't she? I mean, he is her main squeeze...

A very interesting game it seems. Keep us informed.

 

Yeah, it would definitely be much harder soloing REAL Man--I don't think he could even have gotten as far as he has fighting alone against superior enemies without being able to resort to any stealth or tactics at all. Now that would be a REAL challenge. (-: I personally find soloing much less interesting than playing the whole game, so this is going to have to do!

Kailynne is right about REAL Man's magical code, by the way. It's OK to cast spells during combat itself, provided they're not spells already on the cheese list for another reason (like "cloudkill" or "symbol of fear" or "finger of death" or so on). Haste or (Viconia's favorite) Righteous Magic are ok as long as nobody gets cheesy and casts them before combat has even started. All attacks and combat spells must take place only when enemies are in sight and red. Magic items are under identical restrictions--wands that cast cloudkill are bad, wands that cast fireballs are good. (-:

***********

Not much happened last night. REAL Man wanted to go talk to Aran Linvail about the plight of Imoen, but Haerdalis was starting to complain about getting back to the playhouse and everyone was complaining about being tired. Bunch of damn sissies. I'd been wanting to best Bodhi with this party makeup, but the reality is that Haerdalis just isn't going to stay with the group long enough to accomplish that. Maybe Nalia could fill in as lightning-bolt-sprayer for a while; there was apparently gold to collect in her keep anyway. REAL Man stopped in the Copper Coronet to switch Korgan out for Anomen again. Nothing against the dwarf, who was so manly you could smell him coming down the block; REAL Man just missed the extra healing. Then he brought Haerdalis back to the playhouse, where the actor and his friends revealed that they had tricked and used REAL Man, then were promptly captured by some cambions. REAL Man felt no obligation to hurry to their rescue. Maybe he'd mosey by and free them, sometime, after they'd had the chance to think about the mistake they'd made. In De'Arnise keep, there was indeed gold in the coffers, but REAL Man had to spend all of it plus money out of his own pockets to deal with some bandits that had been harassing the local merchants. Bah. Then Nalia rejoined the party and was summarily called to her father's funeral, where we met the rather nice Lord Roenall and the rather obnoxious Isaea Roenall, who threatened Nalia with a dire fate if she didn't marry him. The party just ignored him, and went back to see Aran Linvail. When they got to the docks, though, a paladin came looking for Anomen and told him it was time for his test. REAL Man was getting very frustrated with these constant interruptions and went to see Aran anyway. A couple of extremely easy errands later, he learned the real skinny: Aran wants him to destroy Bodhi's guild. Well, REAL Man never turned away from a fight yet. After stopping by to see Renal and getting a quest from him too, REAL Man took Anomen by the paladin house for his test. Unfortunately, the peccadillo in the Bridge District had gotten back to them, and they didn't buy the temporary-insanity plea. Anomen was kicked out of the Order, and was understandably pretty pissed off about it. REAL Man and Minsc managed to drag him off before he threw a punch at the prelate, and REAL Man decided maybe it was time to rest after all. The whole team went to the Copper Coronet and got Anomen shit-faced drunk, then went to sleep. Viconia had been bitching at REAL Man nonstop since jumping him in the sewer, but tonight she apologized and jumped him again. REAL Man was still kind of stinging over her telling him he was bad in bed last time, but she explained she was lying then because she was scared of a real relationship, and REAL Man didn't want to believe she really thought he was a lousy lay anyway, so he took her word for it. This time Viconia said he was great. REAL Man was ready for another day of adventuring.

Further bulletins as events warrant!

 

REAL Man performed like a "real man", eh? Would you have expected any less?

Sorry, had to make that joke.

I am tryly enjoying this story. Keep it up.

 

yes definatly keep it up i think that lerrahud and real man are equally screwed and as soon as the get inside spellhold there going to get blasted into little tiny pieces but at least it will be entertaining

 

Spellhold is the easiest chapter in the game. You mosey through it answering a lot of riddles and raking in ridiculous amounts of loot. I had a game where I sent the party to Spellhold as soon as they had raised the cash, and I still didn't have to reload once in Brynnlaw or Spellhold. I'm much more concerned about the Underdark... and the dragons. I don't know if REAL Man is ever going to be able to kill a dragon.

**********

Well, when last we left our hero, REAL Man was trying to get his party into shape to take on Bodhi without any tactics, combat preparation, thieves, complicated spells, undead turning, or weapons that anyone in the history of Sorcerer's Place has ever condemned as cheesy. There weren't that many loose ends in Amn I felt confident about pursuing yet. Even the Shadow Dragon, with no preparation and no tactics, is a dreary prospect. I'll face him eventually, loyal readers, fear not; but the fewer dozens of reloads I have to make, the better.

So REAL Man went to the Docks. First he went to visit the Harpers, which Jaheira had been nagging him about. They gave him a truly inane psychological exam, pronounced him unfit, and tried to whack him. Jaheira stood by REAL Man, to her credit. Then the team took out Mae'Var's evil guild. It took some collaboration with Edwin, but of course REAL Man didn't let that hacked munchkin join the party afterwards. While we were doing this, Nalia was kidnapped by her lounge lizard of a fiance. REAL Man gathered enough evidence to ruin the fiance forever, brought it to the government district, and retrieved Nalia from his foul clutches. Then back to Renal and to Mae'Var's to finish him and his evil little empire off.

Then REAL Man went around mopping up a few minor loose ends, like the depressed paladin in the graveyard and a couple of houses that had fights in them (not any of the liches, the slavers in the guarded compound, or the Twisted Rune, yet). There wasn't much point putting it off any longer. Bodhi had to go down now.

This took me the better part of two hours. (This may not sound like much, but realize that that's about how long I spent on the last couple of updates combined. This game really flies once you've played it a few times, and being stuck in one stupid dungeon for a couple of hours can really cramp your fun.) REAL Man had to leave this dungeon to go to a temple for healing twice, and for some reason Nalia just couldn't keep herself alive in here. We used the wand of resurrection up on her. I also had to reload a few times when REAL Man or Viconia died. It was hairy, but doable. Viconia cast "negative plane protection" on REAL Man a few times (during combat, none of that cheesy buffing) and Righteous Magic on herself so she could kick ass with the rest of us. Nalia was mostly shooting off lightning bolts from one of our ill-gotten wands, but her breach spells were also of use. Jaheira, Minsc, Anomen, and REAL Man himself just ran up and bashed. It was all quite legit and manly. It just took a long time and a lot of tries.

Bodhi's guild finally defeated, REAL Man and crew staggered back to Aran Linvail, who offered him passage to Spellhold. This was just what REAL Man wanted, but he asked Aran to hold on a few hours. REAL Man needed to make a personnel decision. The artificial six-person limit will make him have to strand somebody in Spellhold if he takes five people with him. So he decided to leave Nalia behind again. Her whining is starting to grate on his nerves again anyway. Taking her back to her castle, REAL Man found a new situation awaiting him there: a guard that had stolen some silverware from the keep, trying to raise money to heal his sick wife. By now REAL Man had so much money he barely knew what to do with it himself, and he really didn't care what happened to Lady Delcia's silverware, so he paid for the healing himself and forgave the guard for the theft. The majordomo and captain of the guard were very surprised, but hey, it's REAL Man's keep now. After a good night's sleep (several of the clerics had gotten some new spell slots from leveling up), Nalia was bid farewell and left in the lobby, and REAL Man led his team--now consisting of himself, Minsc, Jaheira, Anomen, and Viconia--back to Aran Linvail's to finally go find Imoen. It is only day 18 (combination of Real Man's lack of sleep and his skipping significant quests in out-of-town places like Umar Hills and Windspear Hills). REAL Man is level 12, the others slightly less.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

 

I am half-sruprised that REAL Man would know that he would have to leave behind a party member in Spellhold. How did you justify that in your/his mind? Easy to justify in real life.

Very interesting game. Keep it up,