Baldur's Gate: The Zero Reload Saga

The beast master battle is one of those fights where, provided you cast a few good buffing spells beforehand, you can just wade right in and be almost certain of a smooth victory.

Still, that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to shamelessly exploit every advantage we can get, so we once again use the trick of saying that we’ll leave quietly and then attacking while our “enemies” still haven’t gone hostile…which, once again, actually works, showing that someone really needs to give these people a few lessons in basic guarding routines.

Tip: If a group of people tells you that they will peacefully comply with your order to depart the premises but don’t actually leave, and instead start carefully positioning themselves around you in what appear to be ideal locations from which to commence an assault, it’s probably safe to assume that they were lying and that you should start cracking some heads.

I wonder if the beast master here is an actual Beastmaster, as in the Ranger kit. If so, I don’t think that keeping animals in cages and occasionally tossing them into a pit for them to tear apart innocent slaves could be considered morally sound behaviour, so it’s likely that he’d be a fallen Ranger. That would certainly explain why he puts up such a woefully inadequate fight.

Looting his body earns us the key we were looking for, as well as a Wolfskin Bag, which is the all-purpose container I referred to previously. We also get his snazzy +1 attack bow, not that anyone in the party can use it.

I’m barely even exaggerating there. EVERYONE in the party except Jan is either prohibited from using ranged weapons altogether or prohibited from using bows, because apparently Clerics are only allowed to inflict bludgeoning damage.

Oh yeah, I said I’d take a few jabs at that, didn’t I?

I honestly don’t know what this was about. I kind of understand what they were going for, since it just seems more fitting somehow that a holy man would wield a hammer or a mace rather than a gigantic sword, (although this is something that might have been perpetuated by the rule we're talking about, which means that I've just started thinking in circles) but in practice it just doesn’t work. I could almost understand it if they just weren’t allowed to be proficient with sharp weapons, but they can’t even hold the damn things in their hands. What’s the idea? Are we supposed to believe that EVERY GOD IN THE REALMS arbitrarily decided to forbid their worshippers the use of anything with an edge or a point, even though many of them are traditionally viewed as using a sword or a spear? Is it more spiritual somehow to bash someone's brains in instead of decapitating them? What do Clerics cut their food up with? How do they shave? Is it considered pushing one’s luck to use a flail or a morning star when they have spikes?

Ah well. I suppose they had to give people some reason not to just sell all those enchanted maces.