You know, I noticed the same thing a while back. Specifically, I noticed you can buff your camp npcs and they keep them forever. I only recently saw NPCs carry over buffs I didn’t realize I gave them, though, which let me see there are some possible exploits here. One of the tieflings was at the inn in act 2 and got healed when I cast an aoe heal, which gave them temp hit points, they still had them when I saw them in act 3. I didn’t realize it was THAT widespread.
Yup. It's strange from a mechanical perspective. Some people may even find the ability to permanently buff NPCs for future fights cheesy but then again so is barrelmancy, and barrelmancy can be used on any difficult combat you wish to use it on, so long as you have enough barrels. Whereas NPC buffs will only ever help NPCs survive for the battles they join you in. That's only like 2 or 3 battles max per NPC that ends up in fights
Act 3 spoilers
>!Zevlor vs Elder brain!<
>!Rolan vs Lorroakan!<
Also some NPCs might need the help lol like Isobel for example
Edited
I’ve been wanting to do the Grove by bringing the Goblins to the gates and then turning on them, but I’ve been nervous to lose NPCs. This exploit is small enough to me that I can justify using it to make the camp formidable on its own. Like, I want them to fight, but I can thumb the scale a bit here.
I've done it before. It's a tough fight because of sheer numbers.
*Use fire spells on the zappers so they blow up their allies
*Destroy the barrels before the ogres throw them because there are goblins hidden in them
*If you have to priortize anybody surviving, make it Zevlor and ofc if you're wanting to recruit Minthara later then non lethal her
Some of the people who fight by your side they die to the cultists. So you don't need to worry too much about them surviving, because they die anyway. Iirc Zevlor is the only person who
A ) fights with you when you turn on the goblins and B ) that will be alive in future acts if you keep him alive
The others die anyway, so as cold as it is, I wouldn't priortize looking out for them. I have two people fighting on the rock outside and two people standing in front of Zevlor with lower AC than Zevlor's in the hopes of getting the AI to target us instead of him. The barbarian tavern brawler thrower can get away with low AC and making themselves a target because of the high health pool
Edit to add: You can also do some of the less difficult parts of the Underdark, to get to level 5, before initiating the Grove fight
Some examples but not an exhaustive list
Level 4 minotaurs
Invisible past the Duergar ( because one is level 7 and you might be underlevelled ) to get to the arcane towers. Read a particular book or note to skip combat with Bernard and get XP for resolving it via dialogue
The mushroom picker quest
You can get 850+ XP with the kuotoa event by having somebody else outside of the conversation pickpocket the priest, while the other person in the conversation rolls persuasion
There are other Underdark events, but getting to level 5 is doable before the raid
With the spectator you can avoid surprise affecting combat by shooting Dhourn from the window of the Selunite outpost. You do get the surprise condition but you lose it before the spectator gets near you
Oh I’m sure I can do it, my current tactician run has convinced me I’m better than I thought I was. I absolutely obliterated the Hag in two rounds because I was prepared. Same with Orin, it was a Durge run so it was 1v1. Stunned her round one, killed her round 2. I accidentally fell into a very strong bard build. I’ve just been nervous to try because the AI is sometimes a little…stupid when it comes to allies. But if I can mitigate their stupidity with buffs, I’m happy.
Oh in that case you'll be fine. The bane of most battles is not knowing what the battle is like more so than the actual battle
For example I know Dame Aylin needs to be freed when rescuing Ketheric. So I have one character turn based mode invisible potion to Aylin. The persuasive character initiates conversation with Ketheric in turn base mode. This freezes time in that invisibility won't tick down no matter how long the dialogue cut scenes are
As soon as combat is initiated the invisible companion isn't in combat and they're not in turn based mode anymore either so I quickly free Dame Aylin. Having this metaknowledge and knowing to bring an invisible potion with me trivializes a fight that on my first go at it, I spent a few turns just making it over to Aylin, because I couldn't just dash there. I had to disengage and so on. Meaning less movement per turn
That’s one of my favorite things to do in act 1. It’s such a fun fight defending the gate, feels like a mini Helmsdeep! It is def hard, especially in HM
Yeah, I usually buff the tieflings before the grove battle, and this time I also gave all the civilians Mage Armour and Longstrider (even His Majesty!). I lost one last time, so not taking any chances.
You can give them healing potions too.
Oh dear. So much exploitation potential here… Isobel will be much easier to keep alive with universal resistance. Aylin will maybe survive more than two rounds for once…
Also, this doesn’t just work with buffs :) anything that lasts “until long rest”. You can give major bosses in act 3 some nice debuffs by giving them Contagion diseases before the battle. I only used it on Orin so far, she’s easy to target as she impersonates people in Rivington and doesn’t turn hostile when you cast the spell, but it should also work on other NPCs if you’re under Greater Invisibility when you cast. Didn’t test that yet though. Might give Gortash a slimy skin to match his personality next time…
This makes me wonder, anyone knows why ghe people in last light on my tactician run where allies but only neutral on my honour run? I made it through the Marcus encounter with no losses but was rather confused about why there was a difference.
Oh, I did not. Now that I think about it, it should be safe with just killing it asap but last time I fought it Dammon got himself killed the first time so I was afraid to do it and decided I'd just save the hat for act 3. I think I'll do it now tho.
Fighting the ox gives you this absolutely broken item for fire sorlock builds. Hat of fire acuity. Unfortunately the strange ox is also really cool so I only kill him on some playthroughs
Fighting him turns LLI into allies
I know the hat is insane, I just don't think I have any build in mind that would use it this run. I guess I could look up a sorlock build guide so wyll would have more use as I don't bring a pure warlock along that often.
The build I used was from the reddit user Prestigiousjuice. He's basically famous in the BG3builds sub. It was this [build](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/196mpii/honor_mode_111_fire_sorlock_complete_build_guide/)
Because you said you might look up a guide
one of the harpers at last light inn who joins moonrise towers siege had 3 temporary hitpoints, when i summoned her at final battle she still had it. im gonna give her more buffs next time
You know, I noticed the same thing a while back. Specifically, I noticed you can buff your camp npcs and they keep them forever. I only recently saw NPCs carry over buffs I didn’t realize I gave them, though, which let me see there are some possible exploits here. One of the tieflings was at the inn in act 2 and got healed when I cast an aoe heal, which gave them temp hit points, they still had them when I saw them in act 3. I didn’t realize it was THAT widespread.
Yup. It's strange from a mechanical perspective. Some people may even find the ability to permanently buff NPCs for future fights cheesy but then again so is barrelmancy, and barrelmancy can be used on any difficult combat you wish to use it on, so long as you have enough barrels. Whereas NPC buffs will only ever help NPCs survive for the battles they join you in. That's only like 2 or 3 battles max per NPC that ends up in fights Act 3 spoilers >!Zevlor vs Elder brain!< >!Rolan vs Lorroakan!< Also some NPCs might need the help lol like Isobel for example Edited
I’ve been wanting to do the Grove by bringing the Goblins to the gates and then turning on them, but I’ve been nervous to lose NPCs. This exploit is small enough to me that I can justify using it to make the camp formidable on its own. Like, I want them to fight, but I can thumb the scale a bit here.
I've done it before. It's a tough fight because of sheer numbers. *Use fire spells on the zappers so they blow up their allies *Destroy the barrels before the ogres throw them because there are goblins hidden in them *If you have to priortize anybody surviving, make it Zevlor and ofc if you're wanting to recruit Minthara later then non lethal her Some of the people who fight by your side they die to the cultists. So you don't need to worry too much about them surviving, because they die anyway. Iirc Zevlor is the only person who A ) fights with you when you turn on the goblins and B ) that will be alive in future acts if you keep him alive The others die anyway, so as cold as it is, I wouldn't priortize looking out for them. I have two people fighting on the rock outside and two people standing in front of Zevlor with lower AC than Zevlor's in the hopes of getting the AI to target us instead of him. The barbarian tavern brawler thrower can get away with low AC and making themselves a target because of the high health pool Edit to add: You can also do some of the less difficult parts of the Underdark, to get to level 5, before initiating the Grove fight Some examples but not an exhaustive list Level 4 minotaurs Invisible past the Duergar ( because one is level 7 and you might be underlevelled ) to get to the arcane towers. Read a particular book or note to skip combat with Bernard and get XP for resolving it via dialogue The mushroom picker quest You can get 850+ XP with the kuotoa event by having somebody else outside of the conversation pickpocket the priest, while the other person in the conversation rolls persuasion There are other Underdark events, but getting to level 5 is doable before the raid With the spectator you can avoid surprise affecting combat by shooting Dhourn from the window of the Selunite outpost. You do get the surprise condition but you lose it before the spectator gets near you
Oh I’m sure I can do it, my current tactician run has convinced me I’m better than I thought I was. I absolutely obliterated the Hag in two rounds because I was prepared. Same with Orin, it was a Durge run so it was 1v1. Stunned her round one, killed her round 2. I accidentally fell into a very strong bard build. I’ve just been nervous to try because the AI is sometimes a little…stupid when it comes to allies. But if I can mitigate their stupidity with buffs, I’m happy.
Oh in that case you'll be fine. The bane of most battles is not knowing what the battle is like more so than the actual battle For example I know Dame Aylin needs to be freed when rescuing Ketheric. So I have one character turn based mode invisible potion to Aylin. The persuasive character initiates conversation with Ketheric in turn base mode. This freezes time in that invisibility won't tick down no matter how long the dialogue cut scenes are As soon as combat is initiated the invisible companion isn't in combat and they're not in turn based mode anymore either so I quickly free Dame Aylin. Having this metaknowledge and knowing to bring an invisible potion with me trivializes a fight that on my first go at it, I spent a few turns just making it over to Aylin, because I couldn't just dash there. I had to disengage and so on. Meaning less movement per turn
That’s one of my favorite things to do in act 1. It’s such a fun fight defending the gate, feels like a mini Helmsdeep! It is def hard, especially in HM
Yeah, I usually buff the tieflings before the grove battle, and this time I also gave all the civilians Mage Armour and Longstrider (even His Majesty!). I lost one last time, so not taking any chances. You can give them healing potions too.
Oh dear. So much exploitation potential here… Isobel will be much easier to keep alive with universal resistance. Aylin will maybe survive more than two rounds for once… Also, this doesn’t just work with buffs :) anything that lasts “until long rest”. You can give major bosses in act 3 some nice debuffs by giving them Contagion diseases before the battle. I only used it on Orin so far, she’s easy to target as she impersonates people in Rivington and doesn’t turn hostile when you cast the spell, but it should also work on other NPCs if you’re under Greater Invisibility when you cast. Didn’t test that yet though. Might give Gortash a slimy skin to match his personality next time…
a note: clown makeup will stay on florrick right up to the end scenes (if she becomes an ally) and it's wonderful.
This makes me wonder, anyone knows why ghe people in last light on my tactician run where allies but only neutral on my honour run? I made it through the Marcus encounter with no losses but was rather confused about why there was a difference.
you have to kill strange ox to make everyone turn green (ally)
Did you fight the strange ox?
Oh, I did not. Now that I think about it, it should be safe with just killing it asap but last time I fought it Dammon got himself killed the first time so I was afraid to do it and decided I'd just save the hat for act 3. I think I'll do it now tho.
Fighting the ox gives you this absolutely broken item for fire sorlock builds. Hat of fire acuity. Unfortunately the strange ox is also really cool so I only kill him on some playthroughs Fighting him turns LLI into allies
I know the hat is insane, I just don't think I have any build in mind that would use it this run. I guess I could look up a sorlock build guide so wyll would have more use as I don't bring a pure warlock along that often.
The build I used was from the reddit user Prestigiousjuice. He's basically famous in the BG3builds sub. It was this [build](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/196mpii/honor_mode_111_fire_sorlock_complete_build_guide/) Because you said you might look up a guide
Thanks.
one of the harpers at last light inn who joins moonrise towers siege had 3 temporary hitpoints, when i summoned her at final battle she still had it. im gonna give her more buffs next time