August post #8 Kingmaker Challenging Run

 This was my 4th time playing it to completion; I usually play every September-ish but this time I brought it forward a bit. I usually play on Custom/super easy mode but this time I went for the Challenging difficulty achievement.

Achievements left (7); now 70/74

Challenging difficulty (done Aug 2026)

Unfair (2027)

Kill bear at level 2 on Hard (done Aug 2026)

100 random encounters (done Aug 2026)

10 artisan masterpieces (attempted, RNG let me down)

Tenebrous dungeon RNG item quest (7/16+5; will continue to work on)

Secret ending (briefly attempted)

The party

I love having a Charisma MC so Zacharaya would do the job. I also enjoy 'supervising' my autopilot party with spells and buffs so its perfect. Some sections where being squishy is a terrible idea and there were quite a few reloads because I was swiftly killed but nothing too obnoxious. Also I get to have a Leopard pet who was cool. I pretended it was a ocelot.

Linzi is ever-present; I usually follow the Neoseeker guide but I just have to stop doing that. It makes her a rogue/eldritch knight and I hardly ever use it correctly. I mainly just use her to play music. Also she had a level in sorcerer and thus an Elk that would die a lot.

Valerie is my rock, but idk once again the character build is weird and sometimes she would get clowned. She might be better with less gimmicky cheese builds and just be a straight shooter fighter with some stalwart defender? Maybe in my Unfair run next year.

Amiri is my more fragile rock. The Neoseeker build makes her more useable but 

The playthrough goals

The plan was to clear it on Challenging, which I managed to do.

I tried to get all the masterpieces from the artisans but RNG meant I only got maybe 5/10 of them? Onslaught is amazing.

I also finally grinded out the '100 encounters' achievement, Survivor. I checked the JSON code and I had like 45/100 at one point so just kept track of it on paper. I went back to the 1000 Voices area in Act 6 and 7 and farmed it up to 100. Nice!

I briefly tried to keep up with Curse research but I think I only did 1 so no Secret Ending this time. Some other time maybe.

After I finished the game I re-specced Zacharaya's brother (?) Zachariah my original MC from 2023 as an Elven Alchemist and bombed the Owlbear to death on level 2. Easy! Had tried it before but kudos to the Gamefaqs guide for actually helping me get it this time.

Also I actually finished the game this time; last year I stopped before the House at the Edge of Time just because of the tedium; this year I beat it in like 2 hours easily, I have gotten way better at the game and understanding it but the Gamefaqs guide makes it bearable, especially if you ignore the 'get the books' sidequest.

Playthrough timeline (diary entries in "")

12th August 2026 - "Cleared more of Kingmaker, up before the Great Elm or whatever it’s called. Challenging is proving… fine! I learned a little bit from the last few playthroughs so with a few guides I am doing fine."

13th August 2026 - "played a tiny bit of DayZ then Kingmaker." before work presumably

14th August 2026 - "Cleared Act 1 of Kingmaker anyway on Challenging. It’s not too much tougher but a lot of saving and reloading."

15th August 2026 - "mainly just played Kingmaker all night, cleared Act 2 and tried to sort various Artisan quests and whatnot. It may not be possible to resolve all 10 of them (Bokken kicked my ass?) but will get the Challenging Achievement plus maybe the elusive 100 encounters one and hopefully the Secret Ending."

17th August 2026 - "played a tiny bit of DayZ followed by a few hours of Kingmaker."

23rd August 2026 - "played Kingmaker until 10 [Monday 24th morning after work]. Am in Act 4 near Varnhold. "

24th August 2026 - "I played Kingmaker (a great session got a ton done)"; this was the night work got cancelled due to cyber attack so had a 10-12 hour follow up session "All I did was play Kingmaker, cleared Act 4 and deep into Act 5, I have to clear Armag’s Tomb next. Will I ever get a chance to upgrade my fucking advisors? "

25th August 2026 - Work still off; "Played Kingmaker all night, got as far as Act 7, it’s almost over. Have 88 random encounters, some of the masterwork artisan pieces and am almost finished re: Challenging. So that’s 3 achievements there but I doubt I’ll get the Artisan one, even with Kingdom maxed out. It’s too random." Added comment: Pitax was way easier. Who knew buffing was so important (half-joking)

26th August 2026 - no work so: "played Kingmaker all night once again, managed to grind out the 100 random battles achievement in the far western 1000 voices. I knew I had around 88 so it wasn't too bad. Artisans would not deliver masterpieces so that’s out of the question. I actually did House at Edge of Time (skipped it last year) - much shorter than I remember, totally fine and just spammed Mass Heal with not-Linzi, my replacement bard. Cleared it fine and am now in the capital city camp; will rid me of the curse and finish the game tomorrow."

27th August 2026 -  "I finished Kingmaker, the challenging run complete, was not too hard overall. Quickly used a hitherto unused Gamefaqs guide to clear the ‘kill bear on hard at level 2’ BS achievement [used Elf alchemist, Expeditious Retreat etc] Nice consolation prize for missing out on artisans and secret ending. I will just have to get them next year!" Confusing myself with these dates, but actually finished on 28th technically (night shift goofiness)

Assessment

That pesky artisan quest. MIGHT pop back in and see if I can figure out Tenebrous Depths, I think I have some of the items needed for the 1 achievement left: checked and I have 7/16. I've done 4 prior runs so maybe will keep tapping away at it, like I said in September 2024 (didn't bother playing TD in 2025).

I was way better this time; partly due to actually following the advice of using Resist: spells and buffing. Maybe playing on Custom/very very easy for so long was not so good, but feel like I've learned a bit inside and outside of Kingmaker. Looking forward to playing Unfair next year.

What's next

Need to play some new games. 

August post #7 assorted DayZ baloney

 I still had a holdover Survivor from May so ran around as them for a bit. I still had a bunch of gear so was a bit gear fear'd. I stayed in Solnech and managed to kill 3 people before killing that character in full view of a random freshie near the town train station. I had been logging in and out for a few minutes at a time and was bored senseless, I had everything.

Spawned back in near Elektro I think and ran all the way back to Solnech. I was decently geared by the time I got back to my body - gone, of course. That's fine. I ended up hanging around Solnech again not doing much, then one day I killed a guy in a house with a pistol. My pistol jammed so was trying to fix that when a girl appeared out of nowhere with only her underclothes on - she managed to punch me out. I woke up to see her wearing all my clothes and she finished me off. Why does no one double tap?

Cue the old guy. I seem to alternate between old guy with white hair and little redhead girl. Anyway this was the run I managed to make it Tisy, but I got most of my gear from the NWAF. Tisy was disappointing actually. Then I ran all the way back to Solnech and hung around the industrial yard. I love playing King of the Hill here and players love to play too. They were getting increasingly smart though, shooting me through the walls and floor. I even got knocked out briefly by a guy with a P1 and nothing else on him; again he didn't double tap so I was able to hop up and punch him out! Insane! That made it all worth it. I had racked up 12 kills before a Russian dude managed to shoot me with a very powerful gun through the walls/floor. Not even mad; I'm almost certain he had people with him nearby as I had seen a humvee drive up nearby.

---

Is this the end of DayZ Szn for a few months? I was almost about to set out and wander the countryside with my trusty CR and tons of ammo but then that happened. I'll probably hop back on the server again tomorrow and see where I spawn in and what I can do. I am also halfway through a Kingmaker Challenging playthrough so that is September Kingmaker Szn covered. We shall see

August post #6 Karlach Origin #5 part 5: Act 3 finished = Honour Mode finished 8 times

 It's over. Honour Mode cleared 8 times in 2026. Time to give it a rest; I was playing it less in August anyway but had to finish off this run. Managed to clear it in one final 8 hour session.

The party

Karlach Barbarian Giant 12

Shared-MVP with Lae'zel, probably edged her out overall. Had 25 AC in the end thanks to high Dex, Graceful Cloth, no armour and 23 Con from the Amulet and other sources. Just throw and kick stuff!

Lae'zel Barbarian Berserker 12

Solid, just wallop stuff with Sword. Writing this I realise I forgot to grab Silver Sword off Voss after HoH, oh well. Soulbreaker is just fine. Started to run out of strength elixirs by the end.

Shadowheart Barbarian Wild Magic 12

Nothing spectacular, I moved around her gear dropping armour in favour of Barbarian Clothes and she performed a bit better. Solid but unremarkable, the Wild Magic features are benign but fairly weak.

Jaheira Barbarian Wildheart 12

I didn't bother doing her personal quest and acquiring Minsc. I was very boring and just had Bear aspect so when I did rage, lots of resistance. Dual-wielding menace.

Timeline

21st August 2026 - cleared the House of Hope; looted everything I could and managed to free Hope relatively painlessly, then kill Raphael et al. Quickly took care of Ethel next but was probably a waste of time; then Orin I believe who managed to almost wipe me out. Jaheira ran away and revived everyone. I blame rustiness on my part. 1 Long rest in act 3 after all this.

Went back and killed Orin then charged the Gortash coronation yelling objection. Giant clusterfuck! Painful waiting for a small army of enemies to resolve their turns. Had to retreat and come back. Gortash didn't heal from the barrel pile I left at his feet so was not too hard, I just kept going up and down the stairs. Not very forward barbarian of me but would have been wiped. So Karlach kicked Gortash to death and took all his stuff, then had to go back to grab his corpse and bring it to camp to resolve her personal quest, dodging small army. Sigh.

Anyway was done so went to Morphic Pool after buying as many vendors stuff as I could; squid Karlach (messed up my stats a bit as usual) ; final fight was GRAND good use of haste spores and Globe of Invulnerability wiped out the Emperor's Dream Squad (had freed Orpheus), could not finish off the dragon so ran around and took out the Illithid artillery arcanists and into Brain. 4 rounds, 3 rounds dealing damage. Fin.

Assessment

43 hours to do this; it was fun and saw some different stuff but time to give Bg3 a rest. I want to do a Shadowheart All-Cleric run and a Durge III pure evil run but they can wait. In a better place atm so don't need my new comfort game as much BUT 2026 has certainly been the year of Bg3.

What's next

I had started a Challenging Run on Kingmaker for the first time so will try to finish that, am in Act 3 and its relatively smooth.

I was not too into DayZ for DayZ Szn in August but then my May holdover character died and suddenly all was fresh again. So that's kind of my chill mid-week game.

Need to play something completely new to mix things up, not sure yet what that is.

August post #5 DayZ 'win loss record' of sorts

 I keep decent records of stuff and decided to take 30 minutes to go through old screen shots plus notes I kept myself on my first few playthroughs of DayZ back in August 2023 and managed to compile this list.

I think this is fairly accurate; maybe missing a few quick runs that ended ignomiously (killed instantly, died of starvation etc)

DayZ kill/death calculation?
time	description	kills	deaths	how	extra info
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	0	1	two people on highway 3 infected treated me first and then killed me due to fracture
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	0	1	shipping container peek guy w/ bat
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	0	1	negan
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	0	1	stabbed by motorcycle helmet no resistance by me
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	2	1	repeater jam	double KO/farmgirl draw/
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	1	1	shipping container insanity	killed a guy w/ crowbar
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	0	1	indian dudes beat me up
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	4	1	small child killed me	(12-17)
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	0	1	shot to pieces inside house	[18]
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	1	1		killed afk w/ sledge
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	0	1
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	3	1	cannibal ended spree	hammer spree
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	2	1	gal in shed with bandages ended spree for good	cannibal guy gave back hammer!
August 2023	(win loss rec.)	2	1	killed in the rain	managed to recover from 2 double kos/win
August 2023	weird audio tour	1	1
August 2023	got tied up	5	1
August 2023	melee farming	2	1
August 2023	melee/tie black	1	1
June 2024	quick death	0	1	suicide
June 2024	nice run	3	1
July 2024	mummy run	7	1		tie up people achievement
August 2024	letmebandageu	3	1		peaches
August 2024	letmebandageu	1	1	asked to be shot	patch 30 people
July 2025	glob stream	1	1
July 2025	nerdy girl	5	1
July 2025	'letmehitat300m'	2	1		first car
August 2025	The knight	8	1	headshot helmet	300 metres+ achieve with a sawnoff blaze
October 2025	200km progamer	19	1	shot in back in solnech
November 2025	105km wolf dude	9	1	killed on roof/duo killed 1
May 2026	autumn crown	2	1
May 2026	mummy	1	1		killed a logger
May 2026	witch girl	1	1	suicide?	i think she killed someone in fisticuffs while bleeing from multiple cuts
May 2026	witch man	3	1	rando
May 2026	black death	14	1	gunned down prone inland
May 2026	55km walked	4	1
May 2026	insane fisherman	2	1
August 2026	still from May	3	1	suicide gift
August 2026	redhead	1	1	naked girl
August 2026	old again	0	0
		113	38

August post #4 Wrath of the Righteous initial impressions

 I played WOTR in April 2026 and found it underwhelming.

I was playing a Sylvan Sorcerer from the start assuming my companions would form a balanced team, nope. Every new companion I seemed to acquire other than the excellent archer Wenduag and the strong mounted (!) paladin Seelah was a gimmicky spellcaster or niche class. I needed strong warriors not another perosn who is really good at one specific kind of spell or skill.

tbc

August post #3 Karlach Origin #5 Honour Mode #8 part 4 Act2 done; Act 3 half finished

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The party

Karlach Barbarian Giant 12

Superb when Enlarged, good when not. Throwing Nyrulna now so everything simply dies.

Lae'zel Barbarian Berserker 12

Soulbreaker Sword is just so good. 

Shadowheart Barbarian Wild Magic 12

Solid but I hardly ever use the rage effects, they add very little especially at this stage of the game. 

Astarion Barbarian Wildheart 12

Have him sorted as a pretty damn good archer; he can also dual wield well.

Timeline

9th August 2026 - I cleared Act 2; I cleared Rivington minus Ansur and Gortash, went to Lower City and managed to kill Dolor immediately, Lorroakan easily enough, cleared the Shar House and then Cazador; I couldn’t convince Ast to stay good so we had to fight him to death. Jaheira now has all his stuff, oh well. Halsin is on Orin’s desk and I’m thinking I’ll either accidentally kill him like I did Lae that one time or I will forget to free him and he’ll walk. I’ll collect some more good gear then work on the Coronation battle.

Assessment

Just need to attack Gortash on sight. I managed to walk passed it earlier so will return in a bit; 

August post #2 Karlach Origin #5 Honour Mode #8 part 3 Act2 75%+ done

I cleared the end of Act 1 and most of Act 2 on August 1st & 2nd; I managed to do a small few bits a few other days during August

The party

Karlach Barbarian Giant 9

Throw Returning Pike twice and maybe kick people. Repeat.

Lae'zel Barbarian Berserker 9

Very good at whacking stuff with her Soulbreaker Greatsword. 

Shadowheart Barbarian Wild Magic 9

She's just sort of there; solid all-around though.

Astarion Barbarian Wildheart 9

Have barely used any of the powers, he's just a really good archer. 

Timeline

1st August 2026 - played for ages; beat Phase Spider, Ethel (took Hag hair and Mayrina) Flind, Tyr paladins, hook horrors, could not find Bulette; Duergar on beach; Myconid king; all of Forge minus Grym; made it to level 6 and went to monastery/Creche; sent Lae into the pod this time and almost lost her, the doctor aggro’d the next room over but not full creche.

2nd August 2026 - cleared creche, moved into Act 2 and did almost all of that; got halfway through Trials and am almost level 9; it’s getting testing not having magic and so on.

5th August 2026 - I googled how to get a scroll of knock in Act 2 and turns out there is a guaranteed one in the Mason’s Guild so I got that and got to the end of the Trials; cleared the Library fight, then the big  Shadow Mound to get to level 9; and Yurgir (auto-hostile, no talk because I was in menu at the time? Apparently it’s because I went in the wrong way) but he was easy even with all his servants, and took almost no damage. Stopped again after an hour; will finish next time.

Assessment

Trucking along fine, slightly more amusing than the all-fighter run.

I have 3 or 4 rage charges on everyone left so will probably burn through them before the restoration pod (I will not be long-resting in Act 2). Maybe the Inn fight, Moonrise entrance, Ketheric, lab fight? Then restore pod and fight Myrkul and the gith ambush on way to Act 3, but whatever.