Baldur's Gate II (5e campaign log)

[J-H]

And yeah if not everyone wants to play the Bhaalspawn arc I totally get it. But if that's the case, I'm a little nervous for how Bhaalspawn-heavy the ToB plots get. You'll need to be adding a lot of other organizations, world powers, secret supernatural forces behind the scenes, especially as The Five race towards a final conclusion.

ToB does include some stuff with vampires/undead, mind flayers, and of course I'm sure the Harpers would have all sorts of reasons to be involved in this...beyond Terminsel just showing up.

Fun sidebar to this discussion: my campaign just had an Athkatla session last night that featured a few run-ins with the Cowled Wizards. Later on, an NPC who was in hiding suggested that he use disguise magic to make himself look like a cow when traveling with the party, and our paladin just casually dropped this one:

"Well, that might help, but at least the city's magical enforcers would now be at your beck and call."
*beat*
"...you know, because they're the Cow-led Wizards."

He'd apparently been sitting on it for an hour, thinking "there's no way I'm ever gonna get to use this."

This is great!

That does bring up another thought I had - in the original BG2, you couldn't cast arcane spells outside without a magic license or risk incurring the Cowled Wizard's wrath - is this something you'd look to import @J-H?

With the somewhat blurring of 'arcane' lines in 5e (less so in 5.5), though I expect I'm still some years away I was considering restricting it to any non-Clerics(/maybe Paladin) casting, with the logic that clerics got away with it due to association with the Churches, who the Cowled Wizards have limited influence over, but everyone else would get pinged by the magic radar and warned, then attacked/arrested.

I know you're not asking me, but I do have some insights from the last few sessions on this:

My players really hated getting dinged for magic use. They're level 13 and have already toppled a corrupt kingdom, so their first interaction with the Cowled Wizards was of course confrontational after they scared off a mugger. My initial plan was for the ol' CWs to be mostly obstructive bureaucrats who welcomed bribes but were not actively malicious, and tried to make the "pay for a license" route clear-cut and easy. 5k is a drop in the bucket at my players' level, but they haven't bitten yet. I anticipate them making a bigger deal out of this than I expected, probably because it's not fun to have some shmuck tell you your business when you've already saved the world at least once.

I'll do it by source in the older style split of Arcane/Divine, no Primal source. EK and Arcane Trickster use Arcane magic, Shadow Monk's Ki isn't quite magic.

I expect the CW to get more attention at the table than they did in the computer game. They clearly use Dimension Door (max range 500') to move around the city for fast response, so they probably have a couple of invisible towers or an invisible flying/pocket plane base overhead, which also houses their sensors... and that's why you can walk inside a house, cast Fireball, and not draw their wrath.

Long ago, I read through most of the available BG2 Fanfiction. I expect to draw some on my recollections of that, especially one that was focused around Adrian, a NE/LE protagonist who worked with the Zhentarim. At one point, an old paladin who knew he was going to die in the next year or two hired him for a one on one duel, with assurances of no retribution. He wanted to go down swinging against evil rather than dying in his bed. The paladin's family wasn't happy about it, but he made them swear not to prosecute or interfere. If they go evil, I am definitely going to use it. I think one of the storylines also involved the CWs getting the Nether Scroll and Edwin provoking a raid to steal it back, swap it with a duplicate, or something like that.

I'll see where the players go on that. It could go anywhere from "we hate the CWs" to turning them into allies and getting some support within their ranks.

"Sharpshooter and GWM give a flat always-on +1 damage bonus to the respective weapon types, plus their side benefit. No -5/+10"

"Feat Changes
-5/+10 feats (GWM, Sharpshooter) instead grant a flat +2 to damage with the appropriate weapon. Other benefits still apply.
Polearm Master’s bonus attack only works if you’re wielding the polearm in two hands.

Items
Quarterstaffs are two-handed only."


Just a little thing - you say GWM/SS add a flat +1 to damage earlier/above and then change to +2.

Typo, thanks

So if a 1/4 staff is 2 handed, can you PAM BA attack w/ it?

Yes

Are the allowed race's subraces allowed (shadar kai for example)?

No, just basic PHB races, no Shadar-kai. 2e feel.

" Magic Resistance
Items or abilities that grant Magic Resistance give the creature +1 on saves vs. spells per 5% MR they would have granted. “Magic Resistance” as flat advantage on saves vs. spells doesn’t broadly exist any more.
Magic Resistance cannot be reduced below +0."

Isn't the normal MR = 50% so +10 on saves? How does that math work?

5e Magic Resistance is normally advantage, which is roughly +3-+5 to the saving throw.
http://rolesrules.blogspot.com/2012/...advantage.html