Like I never read the books and I always thought the whole thing about Drizzt being an unstoppable Mary Sue was somewhat of a meme but is it actually plausible lore-wise for Drizzt to essentially be able to solo a party of lvl 15-18 characters? His companions are weak af and his panther I can gib within 2 seconds flat but as soon as drow Goku decides to come after the PC or the main tank either one of them goes down after 1 round in which he naturally hits with all of his 4.5 attacks and deals 20-30 dmg each. Its just really disheartening transforming into the literal avatar of the GOD OF MURDER only to be stabbed in the shins until death by a 5 foot manlet.

Tl;dr basically what Im asking for is a list of things Drizzt has canonically managed to kill just so I can feel better about having to apologise to him for stealing his stuff in BG1 which I do not regret at all.

Let's put it this way: he spent many years wandering alone in the Underdark (not a mean feat by any stretch of the imagination), then he came to the surface and for many more years single-handedly protected the towns of Icewind Dale. So he is no stranger to facing all manner of creatures... alone. The thing is, there are dozens of tales of his exploits (read Salvatore) so putting it all in a forum post is out of the question. Even in training, as a boy, he was always top of his class. In a nutshell, he's bad-ass and CHARNAME is a nobody from Candlekeep.

Yes, in sword fighting he is supposed to be that dangerous. Basically, he is considered the best swordsman in whole of Faerun.

He was was considered the best swordsman in Menzoberranzan, the only one who could possibly match him was his father Zaknafein. And then he got only tougher by having to survive in the underdark completely alone, again an incredible feat.

SPOILERS IF YOU ARE GOING TO READ THE BOOKS.

Yes, Drizzt is unstoppable with his dual wielding. His father Zaknafein was only a match to him in his early years which he still bested twice developing new techniques.

Bottom line, Drizzt is the Chuck Norris of the BG series so don't mess with him.

He is still just level 16 though (when BG2 came out). So he shouldn't be THAT OP in the games. He is kind of a Mary-Sue, really.

Great setting for tabletop though IF you ignore those characters completely.

The problem with the Forgotten Realms is the writers. Most of the people who write novels set in the Realms aren't really writers, they are DMs + Devs, and they all seem to want to have their own Avatar in the setting for some reason. All in all those characters kind of steal the spotlight away from the player characters. It is enough that you know they are out there, I guess.

They tend to be very tied to the lore, which is another problem. Cause shit in Shadowdale and the lore says Elminster himself will get on your back etc.

"Level" is a contrived notion. It makes no sense, especially since the stats for a manufactured NPC like Drizzt can be set at absolutely anything.

Always hated it, hated it from the first release onwards. (I was a tabletop player back then). Far too detailed, over-created, over-mapped, every millimeter meticulously constructed. It felt like what it was - a heavily-designed RPG metasetting. A little bit of everything in neat little bundles, like a Delos theme park. None of it felt organic, little of it was interesting. Words for word's sake.

Greyhawk was the boss setting, vague enough it was mysterious, wild. It felt "dangerous". Look at an old Elmore Greyhawk artwork; there was a sense of mystery. Who is that knight? Where is this happening? Why is that fight happening? Will they succeed?

There's no mystery to the FR. You never feel like there's a larger, unknown, mysterious world. That's not to say you can't have excellent individual adventures in the FR, nothing wrong with Baldur's Gate. But it's a coastline. Some villages. Some crypts. Some towers. A city. Some green bits between them.


The best thing about the Forgotten Realms is the Underdark, i.e. not part of the day-to-day FR world and itself taken from Greyhawk.

Forgotten Realms really does seem like the most "traditional" and orthodox fantasy setting D&D has which explains its popularity. It is also very comfortable to write for since the world is familiarly medieval and pulpy and you can feel the 80's and 90's ooze out the whole thing which stands in contrast with Planescape for example.
Anyway the inclusion of writers pets like Elminster or Drizzt, themselves essentially PCs from other campaigns is a huge mistake in my eyes. Besides raising the questions like why doesnt Elminster simply curbstomp Sarevok immediately etc., they also upstage and devalue your own PC. Drizzt should never have been more than an easter egg in BG1 for the gnolls to cut up.

Dont know much about Greyhawk tho only that it has shaped much of D&D lore and that the setting itself has been largely abandoned. However it does make a more interesting impression if only because the original modules from way back in the day are said to be hilariously unbalanced and difficult, putting the focus on immersion and the actual roleplaying aspect. I think many people would welcome a CRPG set in the world of Greyhawk. I know I would like to explore some obscure D&D shit. Like you could set an entire story around Lum the Mad and witness his rise and fall or whatever.

Yeah but in this case he actually has official, canon stats. It is in a book called Heroes of the Realm (I think it was), and later on it is in the FR campaign setting books.
This is true. the FR setting has ZERO mystery to it. At least now. It had mystery early on since a lot of the nations and areas hadn't been too fleshed out yet. But yeah...It does feel like a fantasy theme-park now.

Greyhawk was a cool setting for sure. I'll raise you the Mystara setting, though. Even better in my opinion.

GoG needs to release Fantasy Empires. A great strategy game set in the Mystara setting. Can play up to 5 players hot-seat in it as well.

You just described Baldur's Gate 2.

[L.t.M == J.I]

Temple of Elemental Evil is set in Greyhawk. GoG has it in its store. Very hardcore d&d game, but I suspect you will like it.

All well and good, except for the fact that Baldur's Gate the game is not 'canon'. [I hate that word.]