53 réponses à ce sujet

[HoonDing]

Reading about Laeral & Alustriel kinda ruins the plot of NWN1, NWN2 & HotU in hindsight...

Premise of aformentioned games: "Oh no!!! The entire Sword Coast is threatened by the evil hordes of the King of Shadows/Val'sharess/Maugrim"

...
......

Unfortunately, Waterdeep has two Chosen of Mystra and their own army of mages & apprentices, not to mention Laeral is always aware of whatever's going on in & underneath Waterdeep due to her contacts with her sister Qilué and her own contacts (+ penchant for playing private investigator herself, even mixing in the night life). There's simply no way the disappearance of Halaster & the Drow attack could've surprised them like it did in the game.

Same goes for Alustriel in Silverymoon and her allies among the harpers and Dwarves, who could've contained, perhaps even crushed, Maugrim's army, not to mention contain the undead hordes of the King of Shadows.

There's simply no way that the most powerful beings in the Sword Coast would not get involved when their region is threatened to the extent shown in the games.

Baldur's Gate 1 + 2 did it way better, by first making it a low-level campaign so that the most powerful characters shouldn't get involved (beyond Elminster, who's merely a spectator on Mystra's order), and later on changing the setting to an area where the aforementioned Chosen have no direct influence (the same goes for Mask of the Betrayer as well).

Modifié par virumor, 10 septembre 2010 - 11:40 .

[Seagloom]

I wrote a lengthy post articulating my thoughts on this. Since it read like a mess I'll go with a much shorter message instead. While several chosen might take an active hand, there are extenuating circumstances I can see barring their involvement in HotU and the NWN1&2 OCs.



They let many upper echelon evils skate by either because adventurers are already working on it (at times at their direction) or Mystra ties their hands. This has even been highlighted in the Rage of Dragons books when Sammaster comments on his plans being derailed by a party of unknowns when he was sure it was Mystra's chosen were impeding him as they had done before.

[Cirexius]

jaxsbudgie wrote...

I found The Orc King ... difficult to read, and I don't know why. I bought The Pirate King, but haven't really looked at it twice since. The Hunters Blades Trilogy was good, as was The Dark Elf Trilogy, all the other are fairly forgettable.

Anyone else know of any other good FR setting novels? Didn't R.A.Salvatore do a series set in the Underdark?

I had the same issue with this Obould novel. It was, for some reason, very heavy. I had troubles reading through it. It didn't help that I don't like Drizzt (too perfect) and that the situations were getting more and more ridiculous.
SPOILER : Especially when that Elven guy gets killed and Drizzt ends hooking up with the widow? Maybe my memory betrays me, but I never finished reading it, it was beyond me.

This Underdark serie was "directed" by R.A. Salvatore and it started very good. The first novel is quite cool, but the rest quickly degenerate.  I'm not a fan of battle of Gods and so on. If I remember correctly, the first three are quite decent. I don't have them by me, but until some city is destroyed, the books had a nice pace, decent characters (Pharaun and Rhyld) and so on, but the remaining one had some horrible plotholes, with characters knowing things that were totally alien for them or author copy/pasting blocks of text.

As an example of why this copy+paste thing is so bad, the author uses the same block of text, changing a few words, to describe how the noble drows and Jaeger (Or something like that, he's the demon son of Triel) levitate and carry the other characters when they need to move from a lower position to somewhere else. It becomes hilarious when all characters except Jaeger go into a different plane, they need to levitate and the author uses the same block of text...including Jaeger.

I may be off with some names, but I don't have the novels at hand and I read them a few years ago.

About Baldur's Gate novel, I was planning to buy it, but read that Minsc and Jaheira had been totally butchered by the author...but I also read that the author had two months to write it. That's some nasty deadline.

Modifié par Cirexius, 12 septembre 2010 - 01:01 .

[Sparky The Barbarian]

The name of the new RA Salvatorre Drizzt series is "Transitions." That should tell you all you need to know. I also found The Orc King and The Pirate King hard to read and have not picked up The Ghost King (nor will I).



These novels have less to do with the author continuing his story and more to do with 'transitioning' the reader (and game player) to fourth edition. On the 'review this product' page for WOTC there was even a question: "How good a job did the novels do in introducing The Spell Plague?"



Like all FR authors, Salvatorre had to make the mandated 100 year time jump and modify the world to the new 4th edition FR Campaign setting. He got the task of establishing Obould's kingdom, trashing Luskan, and killing off Cadderly, Catti Brie, et al.



It made for a good "Transition," but not for good reading.

[jaxsbudgie]

Cirexius wrote...
I had the same issue with this Obould novel. It was, for some reason, very heavy. I had troubles reading through it. It didn't help that I don't like Drizzt (too perfect) and that the situations were getting more and more ridiculous.
SPOILER : Especially when that Elven guy gets killed and Drizzt ends hooking up with the widow? Maybe my memory betrays me, but I never finished reading it, it was beyond me.

(my post is laden with spoilers)

You've nailed it. Drizzt was too perfect wasn't he? At the beginning of every battle you already knew the outcome; Drizzt wins, the baddie dies or suffers some form of mortal wound. And if that isn't the case (which rarely it is), Drizzt undoubtedly returns at a later date to slay the villain that got the best of him all that time ago.
The fight scenes were lengthy and boring and draped in unnecessary descriptive writing that dragged the entire thing out. They made me feel lacking in creativity and imagination when I lost exactly how the battle was panning out, something I don't take very kindly to.
Tarathiel (sp?) and Innovindil I think were their names. Both I liked, Innovindil more so simply because she was alive longer, she had purpose and flaws .... which brings me to my next point, the best kind of characters are flawed characters. Precisely why I like the NPCs in Baldur's Gate, one rarely supersedes the other in terms of group role.
And how on Earth (or Faerun should I say), does Regis manage to endure and survive without injury through every single book? When characters with serious battle prowess die in a heartbeat (Shoudra Stargleam anyone? Another one of my favourites taken from me ... at least she went out in a bang, heh)
I was beyond pissed when Salvatore wrote out Innovindil in less than a few paragraphs, how could he allot so little page space to a character that was fairly important in The Hunter's Blades Trilogy? Bah! I think that was the point where I lost all hope and put down the book. Nono, the part where I lost all hope was when Salvatore turned Tos'un; my favourite anti-hero, into none other than a Drizzt 'drow turned good' clone.

/rant over ... for now

[Blastback]

The novelisations were nothing but the most pure epic distilled fail.

[Cirexius]

jaxsbudgie wrote...

Cirexius wrote...
I had the same issue with this Obould novel. It was, for some reason, very heavy. I had troubles reading through it. It didn't help that I don't like Drizzt (too perfect) and that the situations were getting more and more ridiculous.
SPOILER : Especially when that Elven guy gets killed and Drizzt ends hooking up with the widow? Maybe my memory betrays me, but I never finished reading it, it was beyond me.

(my post is laden with spoilers)

You've nailed it. Drizzt was too perfect wasn't he? At the beginning of every battle you already knew the outcome; Drizzt wins, the baddie dies or suffers some form of mortal wound. And if that isn't the case (which rarely it is), Drizzt undoubtedly returns at a later date to slay the villain that got the best of him all that time ago.
The fight scenes were lengthy and boring and draped in unnecessary descriptive writing that dragged the entire thing out. They made me feel lacking in creativity and imagination when I lost exactly how the battle was panning out, something I don't take very kindly to.
Tarathiel (sp?) and Innovindil I think were their names. Both I liked, Innovindil more so simply because she was alive longer, she had purpose and flaws .... which brings me to my next point, the best kind of characters are flawed characters. Precisely why I like the NPCs in Baldur's Gate, one rarely supersedes the other in terms of group role.
And how on Earth (or Faerun should I say), does Regis manage to endure and survive without injury through every single book? When characters with serious battle prowess die in a heartbeat (Shoudra Stargleam anyone? Another one of my favourites taken from me ... at least she went out in a bang, heh)
I was beyond pissed when Salvatore wrote out Innovindil in less than a few paragraphs, how could he allot so little page space to a character that was fairly important in The Hunter's Blades Trilogy? Bah! I think that was the point where I lost all hope and put down the book. Nono, the part where I lost all hope was when Salvatore turned Tos'un; my favourite anti-hero, into none other than a Drizzt 'drow turned good' clone.

/rant over ... for now

Yep, exactly. He's not just a perfect warrior, but he's also super smart, cunning, diplomatic and a long etc. It's the same as Jarlaxle, just too perfect. Jarlaxle seems to have a solution to everything. Some random wand, some random pendant, his friends, the stupidity of enemies, etc.
It gets too annoying. Cattie-Brie is close up there as well, super pretty, super smart, super this, super the other...

In the other hand, Artemis Entreri is a very powerful man, but he feels more vulnerable somehow.

I enjoyed The Mercenaries Trilogy, but I think it would have been better if Jarlaxle wouldn't be just that perfect.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

I personally have no problem with perfect protagonists, as long as they are played out correctly. Golgo13 is distilled masculinity and raw badass-ness - you don't read the manga (or watch the anime) to find out whether he succeeds, but simply to see in how awesome a fashion he disposes of his targets.

Of course, the story turns bad when the protagonist becomes a Mary Sue and author self-realization. When the story is only there anymore to emphasize how great the main character is, the story has lost all it's appeal to me.

[jaxsbudgie]

Cirexius wrote...
Yep, exactly. He's not just a perfect warrior, but he's also super smart, cunning, diplomatic and a long etc. It's the same as Jarlaxle, just too perfect. Jarlaxle seems to have a solution to everything. Some random wand, some random pendant, his friends, the stupidity of enemies, etc.
It gets too annoying. Cattie-Brie is close up there as well, super pretty, super smart, super this, super the other...

In the other hand, Artemis Entreri is a very powerful man, but he feels more vulnerable somehow.

I enjoyed The Mercenaries Trilogy, but I think it would have been better if Jarlaxle wouldn't be just that perfect.

The last thing I remember about Catti-Brie is how she got crippled in some battle and in her recovering phase she started to learn magic ... does anyone know how that panned out? Did she stumble across some spell which extended her life so she can now magically exist in 4th edition?
Speaking of perfect protagonists, anyone seen Planet Terror? My favourite part was when they all break out of the jail towards the end and the scientist guy who is in Lost I think comes up with this amazing plan of escape, then the moment he turns a corner for everyone to follow his lead, his head explodes. Genius.
Now that's what I want to happen to Drizzt. Multiple times. In the face.

[Cirexius]

It depends on how powerful the character is and how it interacts with the rest of characters.
Like, comparing James Bond and Jarlaxle, both have similar flaws (women and arrogance) and similar tools (solutions for everything...and if there's no solution, they are lucky enough to survive), yet Jarlaxle feels very frustrating. Salvatore is telling you, every ten pages, how cunning he is, how all women fall for him, how much better he is than Artemis Entreri, etc.
He survives in the most unbelievable ways and if everything goes wrong, he always has a wand, a pendant or whatever that will save him.

In the Mercenaries trilogy, the dialogues with the two dragons were ridiculous and (SPOILERS)  Commander Ellery falling for him was bit stupid as well...


I think that something is wrong when you hope that the heroes will die. I end rooting for the rivals of Drizzt Do'Urden, Cattie-Brie, Jarlaxle or Cadderly. 

EDIT : I vaguely remember this Cattie-Brie and magic thing, but I suppose it was required for the Spellplague thing later on. When she was 18, she was already killing orcs and drows by hundreds. And she's super smart. And super pretty. And super nice. And bla bla bla.
I support Drizzt's head exploding. Multiple times.

Modifié par Cirexius, 14 septembre 2010 - 08:33 .

[jaxsbudgie]

Cirexius wrote...

It depends on how powerful the character is and how it interacts with the rest of characters.
Like, comparing James Bond and Jarlaxle, both have similar flaws (women and arrogance) and similar tools (solutions for everything...and if there's no solution, they are lucky enough to survive), yet Jarlaxle feels very frustrating. Salvatore is telling you, every ten pages, how cunning he is, how all women fall for him, how much better he is than Artemis Entreri, etc.
He survives in the most unbelievable ways and if everything goes wrong, he always has a wand, a pendant or whatever that will save him.

In the Mercenaries trilogy, the dialogues with the two dragons were ridiculous and (SPOILERS)  Commander Ellery falling for him was bit stupid as well...


I think that something is wrong when you hope that the heroes will die. I end rooting for the rivals of Drizzt Do'Urden, Cattie-Brie, Jarlaxle or Cadderly. 

EDIT : I vaguely remember this Cattie-Brie and magic thing, but I suppose it was required for the Spellplague thing later on. When she was 18, she was already killing orcs and drows by hundreds. And she's super smart. And super pretty. And super nice. And bla bla bla.
I support Drizzt's head exploding. Multiple times.

I just read Catti-Brie's Forgotten Realms Wiki page ...

Spoilers.

She dies! Yes! And as an added bonus, so does Regis! Man I might even pick up and read The Ghost King now ...

[Cirexius]

Yeah, I saw that. Spellplague be blessed! Too bad Jarlaxle and Drizzt survived it.

However, I can't find confimation of the fate of Artemis Entreri. I suppose he has died of old age as well, but I can't find anything.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

@Cirexius
As I said, the simple matter of awesomeness isn't what breaks the character. The only flaw (really the only flaw) of Golgo13 is that he never lets down his guard (other people can tell how professional he is by the fact that he never allows anyone to stand behind him).
But I'm not disagreeing with you. From what I heard, these characters (and stories) are as boring as you are describing them. All I'm saying is that it's not just the fact that the characters are omnipotent.

[Seagloom]

Cirexius wrote...

It gets too annoying. Cattie-Brie is close up there as well, super pretty, super smart, super this, super the other...

In the other hand, Artemis Entreri is a very powerful man, but he feels more vulnerable somehow.

I enjoyed The Mercenaries Trilogy, but I think it would have been better if Jarlaxle wouldn't be just that perfect.

One thing that always annoyed me about Catti-Brie was when she found that magical bow capable of shooting infinite arrows. She hd very little training and out of nowhere was a crack shot with it. At least Salvatore handled her training with that sentient longsword more realistically. Although I thought it improbable that she was capable of taming it after it had her under total control before.

As far as Entreri goes, I prefer him because he's human. He's a cruel man... or was more so in the past books, who was dealt a bad hand by life. He has a sense of honor, but his experiences surviving in the cesspool of Calimshan's cities stained his soul forever. Whereas Drizzt is the anamoly who resisted his crappy homeland's culture to become a paragon of goodness, Entreri is a product of his environment. I can't help pity him a little. It's clear fighting, killing, and his obsession with Drizzt are all he has to live for. Well, at least before he teamed up with Jarlaxle and we got to see more of his humanity.

Another reason Entreri is cool: he wins not solely by skill, but cunning. He sets up traps, uses magic items to clevery catch his foes off guard, and is *not* invincible. Unlike Jarlaxle, he doesn't have an item for every situation. He works with the tools he has. And unlike Drizzt, he does lose. Maybe it's because he started off a villain and had to lose to fit the role, but I find Entreri usually doesn't push his luck the way Drizzt does.

On that note, Entreri is almost certainly alive. That he hasn't been revealed to have died almost guarantees it. He ran into a Shadovar who wanted Charon's Claw. Apparently the sword was originally created by the Shades. Entreri ganked him with his vampiric dagger and absorbed the essence of Shadow into himself. It made him revert approximately a decade in age, made his skin color a dark, gray tone, and slowed his aging drastically. He is at least as long lived as a dwarf or elf... possibly longer consider how long Shades can live. The essence also lets him wield Charon's Claw effortlessly. He no longer needs to dominate it through force of will alone. I suspect we'll see him return sooner or later.

[Cirexius]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...

@Cirexius
As I said, the simple matter of awesomeness isn't what breaks the character. The only flaw (really the only flaw) of Golgo13 is that he never lets down his guard (other people can tell how professional he is by the fact that he never allows anyone to stand behind him).
But I'm not disagreeing with you. From what I heard, these characters (and stories) are as boring as you are describing them. All I'm saying is that it's not just the fact that the characters are omnipotent.

I know Golgo13 (not too much, saw one of the movies many years ago) but it's an anime (and manga) based totally around him, named after him with him as total protagonist. I suppose the context is different, but I agree, it's probably a mixture of many things. I suppose that making other cool characters feel small and useless may pose a problem as well. In example, Wulfgar the Barbarian, is a cool character in my opinion. He starts as enemy of Bruenor, then Bruenor teaches him, he becomes a great warrior, then (SPOILERS) he gets killed, resurrects, is totally tormented. He has a clear developing line and I dislike that you are reminded all the time that Drizzt is much better and even takes his girl.


The no confirmation of Artemis' demise certainly opens the possibility of his longer life due that shadowy power. I hope so, but I'm also worried that, if after 100 years of fighting (hypothesis) you are still alive, you are probably too good for my taste already...

[HoonDing]

Jarlaxle sounds like Batman from the 60s series who had a special Bat spray for every problem. Ridiculous.



I've read few D&D novels, but I kinda liked Dragonlance chronicles + Legends. At least in these works very bad things can hppen to the good guys, and they only win at the cost of great personal loss & suffering.

[jaxsbudgie]

Speaking of Jarlaxe, he didn't have a wand for that time I chunked him in the Underdark.

[HoonDing]

jaxsbudgie wrote...

Speaking of Jarlaxe, he didn't have a wand for that time I chunked him in the Underdark.

That was only his simulacrum. 

[Fallschirmjager007]

Haha, I was browsing TVTropes today and the following quote from the BGII novels was listed as an example of "narm"

"Abdel became a paralyzed mass of white hot indignation, and he screamed
loud enough to scare birds from trees miles away. A child in Candlekeep
began to cry, and his parents didn't know why. A whale swimming past
the rocky edges of the Sword Coast took note of the sound and formed a
rumbling that gave the Sahuagin communities pause. A god, then another
glanced down, but it was by sheer force of will Abdel made himself
stand."


<_<

Yeah, definitely not picking these books up.

[Cirexius]

Wait, is that quote real? At first I thought it was some kind of joke...



Also, what is "white hot indignation"?

[Humanoid_Taifun]

With every post here the temptation to buy these books grows. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing though.

Modifié par Humanoid_Taifun, 18 septembre 2010 - 09:13 .

[Fallschirmjager007]

Cirexius wrote...

Wait, is that quote real? At first I thought it was some kind of joke...

Also, what is "white hot indignation"?

I assume so, but not having read the books I can't verify the quote.  If it is real, though...

[Chebby]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...

With every post here the temptation to buy these books grows. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing though.

It's a very bad thing. The ratio of laughable moments to depressing moments is 1:10, roughly. The entire thing takes itself very seriously, so although the above paragraph may be humourous to look at outside the 'story,' it's just sickening to read the real thing.

[AzureDrag0n1]

Man I am glad I read some of the better FR books. I read most of what Richard Lee Byers wrote. He is probably the best of the FR authors. The books with Artemis where also pretty good. I did not like Salvatore books about Drizzit after a certain point.



Drizzit works much better as a side character or a guest appearance now.

[Valente11]

Believe it or not, I actually am enjoying the 4e realms, and this is coming from a FR fan since 2e Obviously one has to get past the retconning, but when you take it for what it is and not what it should be, it's actually quite interesting.

I've taken a break from the Drizzt books(reading frequently gets VERY monotonous) but I recently picked up Salvatore's new book Gauntlgrym, and I have to admit it's interesting. He handles some heavy changes to the sword coast, but at least he gives the event character and tension. It's one thing to read "okay all of this is now destroyed because of the spellplague"(in the FR Campaign Guide) and another to see certain things acted out with very intriguing characters, and to see old characters' reactions is also nice.

I was into the whole 4e realms hate-fest for a while, since then I've learned that's it's not worth the effort, and once I accepted the changes they have grown on me. Especially as a campaign setting for my DnD games, which gives me a lot of subject matter to work with.

Modifié par Valente11, 13 octobre 2010 - 11:53 .