|
Giving elves, dwarves etc. a really long reproductive cycle does serve to explain why these ancient and powerful races are in decline in most fantasy settings. On the long term they'll lose out to quickly reproducing orcs or goblins due to simple attrition, clearing the way for the also quickly reproducing humans to take over.
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2014 03:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 13:38 |
|
|
Factor_VIII posted:Giving elves, dwarves etc. a really long reproductive cycle does serve to explain why these ancient and powerful races are in decline in most fantasy settings. On the long term they'll lose out to quickly reproducing orcs or goblins due to simple attrition, clearing the way for the also quickly reproducing humans to take over. Plus, they get into wars and, while they tend to give many more casualties than they take, the low birth rate and cost of war hurt even more. They might get raided by goblins and kill them 20-to-1, but it still hurts them more in the long term than little green buggers who breed like rats. I'd like to see a "generic" fantasy world where one noble demihuman race *isn't* in decline. I'm having a hard time thinking of one. I thought of Dark Sun for a second, I guess since elves and dwarves in that setting are about polar opposites of the Tolkeinesque, but that's a world where every loving thing that walks, crawls, or breathes is in decline. I know why I never liked Dark Sun now: it reminds me of the actual world I live in.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2014 04:33
|
|
|
More IWD chat, is there a more reliable way to take on trolls? If I encounter one or two of them I can pepper them with arrows to knock them down, then either my halfling F/T swinging his +1 flailing short sword can finish them, or (oddly enough) my paladin with his +1 long sword of confusion, but there are like thirty of them concentrated in that one area of Dragon's Eye, and I can't use the fog-of-war trick because the motherfuckers actually hunt me down even if I've yet to uncover their area, and they're accompanied by wraith spiders, and in that one bit there's a bunch of spell casters with them...Jesus Christ man 
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2014 17:54
|
|
|
Wolfsheim posted:More IWD chat, is there a more reliable way to take on trolls? I guess that the IWD games are more realistic than the BG series in that if one member of a group sees you, he brings his buddies along instead of charging off by himself to a heroic death. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2014 18:21
|
|
|
verybad posted:And I'm pretty sure its that inspirational quality that the right music possesses that made ancient people associate music with magic and gods. What's your point, exactly? Yes, I know, every NPC bard gets the same bard song (well, except the Skald/Jester variants since there are none of those in the games), but you know, even that one is pretty loving magical when you think about it: it's not only an inspiring song, it's a one that makes the listeners completely and utterly fearless - even Khalid will fight to the death under the spell of that song, and no magical spell of fear will affect anyone listening, nor can it be dispelled. Sounds pretty godly to me. (Oh, and incidentally, Gandalf's - a demigod of sorts - major magic power in Lord of the Rings was the ability to inspire people to fight Evil.) I always thought of bards as kind of rune singers of Kalevala, the place Mielikki comes from originally and where a rap battle is how wizards duel. http://www.aaronshep.com/extras/Kalevala_note2.html posted:In the Kalevala, magic is made by singing special runes. The text of many such runes is included in the Kalevala itself, though more powerful ones are generally just mentioned and left to the reader’s imagination. Magical runes were identical to other runes in form and recital, but they differed in content and purpose. For instance they often petitioned gods or spirits, or spoke of origins. Singing about the origin of a thing was believed to give the singer power over it. Väinämöinen (think Gandalf) is the guy that can sing so hard that it makes all the lakes of the land boil and the earth to shake, and to top it all off, will make you sink into a bog which is kinda underwhelming really...
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2014 19:10
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:Plus, they get into wars and, while they tend to give many more casualties than they take, the low birth rate and cost of war hurt even more. They might get raided by goblins and kill them 20-to-1, but it still hurts them more in the long term than little green buggers who breed like rats. Guild Wars fits the bill pretty well for what you describe. The Humans are in drastic decline and it's all the demihumans and whatnot that are having their heyday.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2014 19:15
|
|
|
All the playable races in the Elder Scrolls survive more or less equally, and the High Elves are pretty clearly wrecking the poo poo out of everyone around the time of Skyrim. But then in TES humans are defined much less clearly than they ought to. Actually let's not talk about TES races again.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2014 23:09
|
|
|
Captain Oblivious posted:Guild Wars fits the bill pretty well for what you describe. The Humans are in drastic decline and it's all the demihumans and whatnot that are having their heyday. The humans are in decline, yes, in the sense that the intro tells you they are in decline. The rest of the game and all content since release is focused on how much humans kick rear end and are ever so dreamy.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2014 00:31
|
|
|
For whatever reason I got it in my head that I wanted to save Coran from the werewolves, but that proved difficult since he kept charging right at them and getting gibbed. So I got creative and Mazed his rear end, killed the werewolves, out he popped again. Nothing much accomplished but some more dialogue, but whee.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2014 17:25
|
|
|
Okay, Neera's story about Charname genuinely made me laugh. "Once upon a time there was Charname, who was born with the blood of the Lord of Murder, but overcame it by wandering the countryside killing hundreds of monsters, dragons, shapeshifters, his brother, his brother's friends...nevermind."
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2014 20:02
|
|
|
DeathChicken posted:For whatever reason I got it in my head that I wanted to save Coran from the werewolves, but that proved difficult since he kept charging right at them and getting gibbed. So I got creative and Mazed his rear end, killed the werewolves, out he popped again. Nothing much accomplished but some more dialogue, but whee. PS: Maybe someone could try playing a character who's a priest of Eldath, the goddess of peace, and try to complete a pacifist run of BG.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2014 20:40
|
|
|
Factor_VIII posted:PS: Maybe someone could try playing a character who's a priest of Eldath, the goddess of peace, and try to complete a pacifist run of BG. The mephit portals A few vampires The kobolds, Dace Sontan, some goblins, 2 spore colonies in Spellhold Adalon (I think that's the Underdark exit with least killing) Bodhi The guardians of the Tree of Life parasites Wraith Sarevok Irenicus There's probably some that you could arrange for others to kill (Bodhi being the obvious example) but I think Imprisoning would just be semantics.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2014 21:04
|
|
|
Just got to the point where HLAs are opening up for my Inquisitor. Whirlwind seems practical, but Summon Deva seems hilarious for calling up Blade Globe and sending it into packs of monsters.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2014 03:31
|
|
|
It's going to be hard to go back and actually beat BG1 after the loving crazy encounter designs in IWD. I'm still in the Dragon's Eye dungeon, down to the, like, sixth level or something, fighting through yuan-ti, and every room I enter has a problem that has to be tackled differently, with different combinations of traps, archers, melee and mages. Even the mages can't be relied upon to act the same way; in some rooms they cast normal spells, but in other eight of them all cast strength buffs on themselves then bum-rushed my party. Granted, either summoning a half-dozen monsters or just throwing web/entangle followed by that thorn spell on a choke point to incapacitate and slowly wheedle enemies down is almost cheating, but it's fun all the same. Whoever said druids are baller was so right, and now that I've found the right combination of robes and magic items to give my F/M decent AC, the guy's holding his own on the heels of the paladin. It's pretty exhilarating, though exhausting at times. Also regarding the yuan-ti, I thought it was a nice touch that talking to the fake priest with my bard I just got the spiel about them being men of peace, but when I was talking to them later with my paladin the only dialogue option was to immediately call them out on seeing their evil auras or some poo poo, immediately initiating combat. This game is more reactive to the party than I anticipated, and now I almost wonder if clerics/mages/etc get unique dialogue and choices too.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2014 08:50
|
|
|
Wolfsheim posted:now I almost wonder if clerics/mages/etc get unique dialogue and choices too. All the classes get at least a few unique dialog options in both IWD1 and 2. E.g. in IWD2 you meet a couple of necromancers that want to use a ritual that turns a dragon into a dracolith on a half-dragon. If you talk to them with a necromancer you can berate them about how this will never work and that the subject of the ritual will simply die.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2014 13:49
|
|
|
It's been long enough since I played BG2 that I can't really remember the storyline, so now that I'm playing BG2EE I am a little confused. Was I supposed to raise the 20,000gp so quickly? I have a bunch of unfinished quests (murders in Bridge District, Umar Hills, the feuding families in Trademeet, De'Arnise Keep) and I haven't done any of my stronghold quests yet. However, now that I have the gold, my dumbass roleplaying mentality says I should be proceeding with the storyline. I guess I shouldn't have gone to Trademeet so early. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2014 15:03
|
|
|
You can start chapter 3 whenever you want by paying the piper or you can keep sidequesting. If you go do the main plot it'll be a while before you can come back and do the rest of the sidequests. Chapter 6 is when you'll have another shot.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2014 15:14
|
|
|
Yeah the money comes fast if you know what you're doing. Best to do your choice of payment for a reward and then sit on the next quest in my opinion... But that's mainly because I want the amazing necklace from Aran Linvale as soon as I can
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2014 15:57
|
|
|
I assumed it would take a while to raise the cash, so when I was in the depths of an altohol binge in EE Keeper I saw how much gold my character had and assumed I hosed up and gave myself a bunch by mistake. Then I checked the quest rewards for the animal & djinn quests in Trademeet and 
unlimited shrimp fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Jan 23, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2014 16:41
|
|
|
That's when you go blow it all on the Shield of Balduran so you can make the Unseeing Eye and later stuff into a laugh riot.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2014 16:44
|
|
|
bathroom sounds posted:It's been long enough since I played BG2 that I can't really remember the storyline, so now that I'm playing BG2EE I am a little confused. Obviously the idea was that players could move onto the next chapter after doing as little or as much as they wanted, so the designers set the bar pretty low. But yeah go spend it at the shops. There's a lot of good stuff in the shops to mess with, especially if you have the bonus content shops active (which you should by default, it's mods that 'delay' their arrival to help make the game a bit more challenging). The shield of balduran really is good advice for a first time BG2 playthrough.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2014 17:02
|
|
|
I can't believe monks can't use quarter staffs. I also can't believe how unoriginal the monk class is in D&D in general -- did they do anything new with it in 4e+ or is it still a jarringly out-of-place Orientalist class?
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2014 18:29
|
|
|
In player's option: spells and magic monks were a priest variant that traded turn undead for unarmed combat bonuses. No mention of ki powers or anything else like that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2014 23:34
|
|
|
bathroom sounds posted:I can't believe monks can't use quarter staffs. In 3rd edition they can use quarterstaves, and I think they retain their special monk attack bonuses with them, as well as the handful of other weapons they use like kukris or shurikens, but in BG2 they're hard-coded to never allow 2-handed or off-handed weapons.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2014 23:44
|
|
|
I finished Baldur's Gate and moved onto Icewind Dale 2 and I'm completely lost at party creation. I've no knowledge of the intricacies of 3rd edition and what feats are good and which aren't and the abundance of choices are making me confused. Could anyone suggest a way to digest all of this?
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 04:50
|
|
|
bathroom sounds posted:I can't believe monks can't use quarter staffs. Monks in 4E can do all kinds of poo poo, quarterstaves are totally in if you want. They're a damage dealing class with a side order of copious amounts of battlefield control (pushes/pulls/etc). Different Monastic schools use different secondary attributes to govern their abilities and they run the gamut from CON focused endurance/penitence monks to elemental magic using monks with literal fists of fire or what have you. I seem to recall 4E Monks being really good with spears for some reason, but it's been a while.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 04:53
|
|
|
Mr. Fortitude posted:Could anyone suggest a way to digest all of this?
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 06:06
|
|
|
Clerics became a really superb class in the move from BG to IWD2 due to spontaneous casting and domains, very worth looking into if you underwhelmed with 2e priests. They're also plenty powerful as a single class if you don't want to trouble yourself with multiclassing. Tempus priest with axes make great warriors, Lathander gives a good mix of blasting and heals, and Talos has damage and nukes. Really versatile party members, not just healbots or second-tier fighters. As far as feats, pretty much follow the above. Offensive casters will want to grab some of the elemental boosting feats, as well. Don't take Improved Init, which is unfortunately bugged and doesn't work.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 09:33
|
|
|
Factor_VIII posted:If you're completely lost, you could use one of the pre-generated parties. If you want to make your own, follow the KISS principle. I'd suggest avoiding multiclassing, avoiding races with an ECL of more than 1 for primary casters (Tieflings make great wizards and Aasimar great clerics). The party could include a couple of warriors, a cleric for healing, a rogue for traps/locks/negotiations, a mage for crowd control (also instant death spells are also very good in IWD2) and whatever else you feel like including. For feats I'd suggest: Warriors: Power Attack, Cleave, Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, Dirty Fighting, (possibly Blind Fight). Rogues: Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus, Improved Evasion, Slippery Mind, Crippling Strike. Wizards: Spell Focus, Spell Penetration. Clerics: Depends if you want to melee or cast offensive spells (take similar feats to either warriors or wizards). Feats that boost Saves are useful for every class, especially ones that boost a class' weakest save. Toughness is bad. Isn't there some quirk of IWD2 that playing with a load of high-ECL dudes actually means you get quite a bit more experience over the course of the game, and consequently a higher overall level? I believe that experience rewarded is based on party level relative to that of monsters fought (not sure about quest rewards) but the rewards are based off of actual level, not ECL, so the game calculates it as lower-level dark elves/duergar/svirfneblin beating tougher opponents, increasing the overall actual rewards by quite a lot.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 17:50
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:Isn't there some quirk of IWD2 that playing with a load of high-ECL dudes actually means you get quite a bit more experience over the course of the game, and consequently a higher overall level?
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 17:56
|
|
|
Anyone got any ideas with regards to my Jaheira romance problem? It's not happening at all as far as I can tell - the only global variables I have are: derminappear (some high number) jaheiraromance (less high) no value for lovetalk or jeheiraromanceactive
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 18:33
|
|
|
gender illusionist posted:Anyone got any ideas with regards to my Jaheira romance problem? It's not happening at all as far as I can tell - the only global variables I have are: You wouldn't happen to be a half-orc would you
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 18:35
|
|
|
Factor_VIII posted:I don't know about that. Perhaps the XP rewards for killing things are based on your level without including the ECL. I did notice that NWN2 works that way. However your class levels will probably be lower than those of an ECL-heavy party in the end, since quest XP is static and you still need more XP to level up races with ECL. In NWN2 for example I remember that it took me longer to hit the level cap with an ECL +2 PC than with an ECL +0, despite the fact that the former character was earning more XP. I suppose the characters will be higher level if you include the ECLs, but that might not be worth it, particularly for spellcasters. I'll have to do more research. I know that I read that somewhere, but what you say makes a lot of sense. IWD2 always frustrated me because even if you play nothing but ECL+0 characters and are incredibly thorough, you won't reach level 9 spells even on single classes by game's end. There is Heart of Fury mode, but that was so frustrating and unfun to me that I didn't bother. Having my mid- to late-teens group getting crushed by orcs who suddenly have 100+ hp each and a BAB of +30 isn't good game design in my eyes. Anyone can increase numbers, but it takes a good mind to create better encounters.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 18:42
|
|
|
Captain Oblivious posted:You wouldn't happen to be a half-orc would you Why yes! Is Jaheira racist?
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 19:11
|
|
|
I think only Viconia dates half-orcs. All the other romances are human, elf, half-elf only IIRC.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 19:24
|
|
|
I'm pretty sure Aerie will date Gnomes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 19:26
|
|
|
gender illusionist posted:Why yes! Is Jaheira racist? Only Viconia will romance a Half-Orc.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 19:27
|
|
|
sebzilla posted:I'm pretty sure Aerie will date Gnomes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 19:34
|
|
|
gently caress, kickin that bitch to the kerb.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 20:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 13:38 |
|
|
Most people in Faerun aren't going to find a half orc attractive. They are kinda butt ugly. Viconia is the exception because she's really into super ripped dudes.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2014 20:17
|
|