My greatest D&D experience, or the Tao of Murder

πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα 

tr:  A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog one important thing.

Because I am a fool and have no self control I have picked up Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn again.  I usually do this when my willpower and executive function are somewhat degraded, and I figure I'll play the game to "relax".  And four hours later, when my remaining executive function has been torched like tissue paper in a volcano, I stagger off to bed so I can wake up mentally drained , distracted, and incapable of good work performance the next day.  I call this Highest Enlightenment.

I'd been bogged down in this game in the past, usually because I was using elaborate sorcerer / dragon born / illusionist / bard characters that were fun to build and hell to play.  So I started fresh with the simplest, purest character I could come up with, a Half-Orc Kensai with a strength of 18.

This guy solves problems by chopping them up, very quickly.  He deals damage like nobody's business.  At the current level, as we traverse the evil super-vampire villain's unnecessarily elaborate and easily escapable dungeon, Minsc, our tank, would normally be our best fighter.  Minsc is a beast:  an 11th-level ranger with a +2 two-handed sword, he has a THACO of +4, does 11-20 damage, and gets two attacks per round.  But this kensai - Row De' I call him - has a THACO of -1 with his +2 katana, does 15-24 damage when he hits, and gets five attacks every two rounds.

And that's it.  He can't shoot a bow, he can't cast a spell, he can't pick a lock or spot a trap.  All he can do is: chop chop chop.  But he does that exceedingly well.  Even without armor he can put more damage on an enemy than the enemy can put on him, over and over again.  The results speak for themselves:

Let Helm sort 'em out

The Moment of Clarity for me came last night when we were in the Minotaur Wing of this place.  A resident minotaur took exception to our presence and Row De', winning initiative, started off the proceedings by putting 40 points of damage on it in one round.  At which point, it freaked out (counter color changed from red to yellow) and tried to run away.  

You poor bastard

This has to be the most satisfying thing that's ever happened in my (admittedly limited) D&D playing career.  Imagine that you're the Big Bad, and you've gone to the trouble to put together this army of minotaurs, and everything's fine until they see this particular half-orc coming, and their morale breaks and they start running off in all directions.  Dispiriting, I would think.

So far this kensai-led party has done quite well.  Minotaurs, ogres, trolls, snake men...none of them even have a chance.  But there is one limitation, which any fan of The Incredible Hulk will recognize immediately: the more super-powered your damage dealer is, the greater the incentive for opponents to try and take control of him away from you.

Doesn't always work

Row De's innate magic resistance is...let's see...checking here....oh yes, zero.  So the party is always one Dire Charm or Domination spell away from having the giant meat shredder turned back on them.  Minsc, with his wisdom of 6, doubles the potential for catastrophic system failure.  So, in order to play this way, you have to have three or four people in the party with Dispel Magic ready at all times.  Against monsters like vampires, beholders, or mind flayers you have to buff fast and get those saving throws down, or you're just feeding the back line into a wood chipper.  (I've been looking for a +3 tranquilizer dart to give to the mages, but no dice so far).

Kensai also cannot wear armor, which means you have to be careful with tactics.  Even with some protective items Row De's armor class is a very hittable +4.  The emergent tactical approach, especially as the game becomes more magic-oriented, is to summon a couple of monsters to keep the enemy occupied and have Row De' space the floor a bit, where he won't be recognized immediately as the greatest threat.  The mages can trade spells with the other side for a while, Minsc and the cleric can absorb some melee damage.  And then, when mages on both sides are getting spelled out, when the melee fighters are somewhat wounded...unleash the chopping machine.  It's like when you're directing a panzer attack, you don't sent the tanks in at the Schwerpunkt cold, you have to do your preliminary bombardment, maybe tied down the enemy flanks with air power and possible infantry attacks.  Done properly, someone else starts the fight, the kensai finishes it.

By the game's count, Row De' has so far killed 251 baddies since escaping from Irenicus' lab, the most powerful a recalcitrant Cowled Wizard.  Minsc is Klay Thompson here, with an impressive-except-in-comparison 218, including a Shade Lord who no doubt had it coming.

Minsc fan art is fun

Still, I cannot avoid the sense that this is an awfully high body count for two good-aligned characters.  

This is the artistic crux of the game, of course.  Good, neutral, or evil, you are a Bhaalspawn, and as a child of the late god of murder this all comes quite naturally to you.  Later in the game difficult choices will have to be made.  Will you be true to your alignment, or to the murder god-blood in your veins?  I think we all know just how difficult these decisions can be.

The canonical Ward of Gorion chose not to become the new god of murder:

He chose goodness, niceness, and mortality...  Sucker!

That was just, like, his opinion, but in the end I'll probably do the same - play the good character straight and have him retire to a peaceful life as a farmer.

But first we're gonna go scare the crap out of some more minotaurs.