Beogh questions and a whine.

[Konebred]

Is there any way to force a follower to equip something? Right now they just seem to pick up random equipment and use that. I had a warlord in some crappy -5 str leather randart armour forever. Another question. Are there set character levels that you automatically get high level followers to submit? I have avoided messing with the orcish mines at all so i can convert the power guys on the bottom. My dude is level 18 and can convert knights from what I have seen. Whine time. I had 3 warlords and a high priest and we were doing well. Hit the swamp and my dudes got confused and one drowned. Is it a big deal or should I go rant about how Beogh needs to give their followers a chance to walk on water to prevent a cheesy death?

[TehDruid]

Pressing control + t (tell) brings up the ally pick-up options, not exactly what you'd like, but hope this helps.

[Zuboki]

Hit the swamp and my dudes got confused and one drowned. Is it a big deal or should I go rant about how Beogh needs to give their followers a chance to walk on water to prevent a cheesy death?

The simple solution is to not bring promoted orcs or those with good gear and no rP into Swamp. The main "challenge" of the Beogh playthrough, as it currently stands, is to have enough well-equipped and experienced minions that you can lose a few warlords and still have some reserves for endgame areas. To do this, you cannot let your more powerful orcs hog all the exp. Once you get a warlord or a few knights, drop them off somewhere and build up another dozen popcorn orcs into a handful of knights/sorcs/high priests. If you just take your first fully promoted orcs with you everywhere, you'll suffer more when they die/drown/get banished, and no other orcs will get enough kills to promote into a suitable replacement.

Once you clear Lair, early Vault, and the dungeon down to about 20, it gets harder to promote more basic orcs to knights up, either because you've cleared the dungeon of them, or because the enemies are just too strong and have crowd control like fireball/bolt spells. At that point, if you've followed my recommendation, you'll have about 2 dozen knights, and maybe a handful of warlords, high priests, and sorcs. If you do- great! Travel with squads of your choosing (I prefer 5 or 6) and slice easily through normal levels. Tell them to wait at the top of the stairs or in a safe corner for branch ends, and drag the heavy threats to them (works great for Vault 8).

If, at the point listed above, you don't have a strong orc following... Either travel alone and hope you get lucky with reinforcements, or leave Beogh if you so desire.

I mean, seriously. Why would you need 3 orc warlords and a demon swarm to get through Lair branches? Overkill...

As for your other question, I believe orcs are susceptible to cursed equipment. I think I've seen Beogh get rid of curses with a blessing, but I'd love for one of the higher-ups to confirm. They typically wear the heaviest armour and wield the heaviest weapons they can find, which is usually pretty welcome. The difficulties come when you're trying to get them to use reach weapons or armours with resistances...

[Konebred]

It was't a huge deal. I was leaving them on the levels above and exploring solo and would just run back and get them if I saw a unique I thought I could handle with their help. it just happened a swamp drake came out and shot a meph cloud and got one of my dudes. I was more curious if there is a minimum level I should wait for to go to the bottom of the orc mines. Thanks for the replies though, orc priests are a lot of fun even if it's a bit tedious at times.