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Captain Oblivious posted:Most people in Faerun aren't going to find a half orc attractive. They are kinda butt ugly. God drat racist assholes. I only wanted to do the quest for the stuff with Bohdi. On that note, what happens with Hexxat if you go through with the romance?
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Jan 24, 2014 20:22
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gender illusionist posted:God drat racist assholes. I only wanted to do the quest for the stuff with Bohdi. gently caress if I know but the Hexxat romance is only for women, so you probably can't do that either.
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Jan 24, 2014 20:23
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Captain Oblivious posted:gently caress if I know but the Hexxat romance is only for women, so you probably can't do that either.
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Jan 24, 2014 21:07
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JustJeff88 posted: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. I love IWD2 but I have never gotten far enough through the game to know that on one playthrough you cannot get level 9 spells. That is kind of a bummer. It does make me want to ask how you got past the Dragon's Eye / Yuan-ti dungeon. I never ever got through it trying at least a dozen times. Not because of difficulty but because of getting stuck being unable to progress. I dont know if it was bugged or I just screwed something up every time, but at some point after talking to the guy who wants to do a modified histachii transformation I never got down to the next level.
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Jan 25, 2014 06:45
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Mickey McKey posted:I love IWD2 but I have never gotten far enough through the game to know that on one playthrough you cannot get level 9 spells. That is kind of a bummer. If you want multiple characters to gain access to level 9 spells, you could go with a 5-member party.
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Jan 25, 2014 07:08
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Factor_VIII posted:Technically, you can get level 9 spells with a full party. I just did a playthrough with a party consisting of 6 humans and while most of the party only reached level 16, the Wizard, who had read the "How to be an Adventurer" tome that grants the character using it 10,000 XP, was able to reach level 17 and access 9th level spell after the party slew the avatar of Xvim. That was admittedly near the end of the game though. Ah, well that is good to know. I will probably try to actually finish the game for once after I finish BG2EE. I always had a blast running a 6 member party (with only ECL 0 characters) that included two Sorcerers, and I will probably do so again because goddamn is it fun. Though I guess I could have 1 mage and 1 sorcerer. Spamming spells is just so much fun in that game.
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Jan 25, 2014 09:51
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I finally plowed my way through the rest of the Dragon's Eye in IWD1. After the gauntlet of various challenges to get to her, the dungeon's boss (with the crazy unpronounceable name) was pretty easy; party kicks it one room away in that torture chamber, the paladin (who's wearing those boots that double your movement speed) tells her to eat poo poo, then runs back to the torture room chamber while the druid casts entangle followed by that thorny attack in the intermediate hallway. It stopped most of her minions in their tracks, and then I pretty much threw all the undead, beetles and low-level monsters my casters could conjure up to wear her down before the paladin, F/T and F/M moved in to stab her to death. She tried conjuring cloud kill but I just moved everyone back ten feet, then she tried raising some low-level zombies and skeletons so incredibly pathetic they couldn't even reliably land a hit on my completely unarmored bard. After I got back to town I sold off anything my party wasn't using and ended up with a little over 30k gold. I bought that sash with permanent blur and slapped it on the paladin as I can imagine it'll only help his tanking, and also picked up the unique pointy hat for my halfling F/T, making him look like a tiny viking  Any other wondrous items I'm overlooking before moving onto the next leg of the journey?Also, I can't believe they literally made me slowly walk all the way back out of the entire six-level dungeon, for gently caress's sake. Wolfsheim fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Jan 25, 2014 |
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Jan 25, 2014 10:53
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Factor_VIII posted:If you want multiple characters to gain access to level 9 spells, you could go with a 5-member party. Or 4 people on a slightly higher difficulty. I remember reaching 9th level spells by the time I got to the Orc fortress. I... didn't feel like playing anymore after that.
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Jan 25, 2014 16:48
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NihilVerumNisiMors posted:Or 4 people on a slightly higher difficulty.
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Jan 25, 2014 17:04
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Factor_VIII posted:I'm pretty sure difficulty doesn't affect how much XP you get. I'm 88% sure that it indeed does not. I don't know if it works with the IWD2 tweak pack that I found, but I bookmarked a page with another patch that removes ECL entirely. A lot of you are going to shout "that's cheating!", and I understand the concept in pen & paper games with other people. However, in a game like this that has finite experience and length being played by a player like me who doesn't like to abuse resting and also isn't particularly good at the game (despite at least 2 playthroughs, though none recent), I don't want to be locked out of later content because I had a really cool idea for a drow bard or whatever. Even with that tweak pack addition of having heavy armour provide damage reduction, I'm not sure if I would want to play HoF mode and get to even higher levels. I have to give kudos to the BG trilogy for letting you start getting the best spells and HLA's late enough, but also early enough to be able to really enjoy them for a good time. It's always a little saddening when you get a new tier of spells or a new unlock 15 minutes before the game ends.
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Jan 25, 2014 17:17
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I remember Planescape was like that. Oh cool, I can open up the Abyss and literally drag people to hell! Oh darn, I'm in the last dungeon and it really doesn't matter here.
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Jan 25, 2014 17:31
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Same, except "Oh darn, the only target left is the magic-resistant last boss."
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Jan 25, 2014 17:48
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ECL 2 was too high for Drow during 3rd edition but completely removing it is probably a bit overpowered considering you get immunity to half the spells.
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Jan 25, 2014 17:54
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In IWD1, I just got teleported back to the first city, with a magic sphere around it. How far into the game am I?
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Jan 25, 2014 18:51
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DeathChicken posted:I remember Planescape was like that. Oh cool, I can open up the Abyss and literally drag people to hell! Oh darn, I'm in the last dungeon and it really doesn't matter here. It did make the final confrontation feel suitably titanic for me, since I hadn't seen many of those spell effects before. Then I reloaded a save and just had a nice chat with my adversary.
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Jan 25, 2014 19:19
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Furism posted:In IWD1, I just got teleported back to the first city, with a magic sphere around it. How far into the game am I? The end, you won't be able to travel anywhere else. Have a brief wander around then make your way to the temple of Tempus.
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Jan 25, 2014 19:58
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Speaking of IWD1, that's the one Infinity game that I know very little about. Assuming normal difficulty and a party of 6 single-class characters, and being aware that character advancement is uneven in 2nd edition rules, about what level can I expect my sextet to be after doing a completionist run of the whole GOG version of the game (base + HoW & TotL)? Also, could someone explain to me how the expansion content is accessed? I'm honestly not sure if it's post-game, a specific point mid-game, or if it's whenever you want but it's better to be a certain level, etc
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Jan 25, 2014 20:26
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no thanks posted:The end, you won't be able to travel anywhere else. Have a brief wander around then make your way to the temple of Tempus. Cool, thanks! JustJeff88 posted:Speaking of IWD1, that's the one Infinity game that I know very little about. Assuming normal difficulty and a party of 6 single-class characters, and being aware that character advancement is uneven in 2nd edition rules, about what level can I expect my sextet to be after doing a completionist run of the whole GOG version of the game (base + HoW & TotL)? I literally just learned that I'm at the end of the game. My Paladin tank is 11, my R/C is 12 and my Bard is 15. I didn't go for a proper 'completionist run', and it's my first run in that game, but I'd say I completed a lot of the content.
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Jan 25, 2014 20:39
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JustJeff88 posted:Also, could someone explain to me how the expansion content is accessed? I'm honestly not sure if it's post-game, a specific point mid-game, or if it's whenever you want but it's better to be a certain level, etc
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Jan 25, 2014 20:51
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Furism posted:Cool, thanks! JustJeff88 posted:Speaking of IWD1, that's the one Infinity game that I know very little about. Assuming normal difficulty and a party of 6 single-class characters, and being aware that character advancement is uneven in 2nd edition rules, about what level can I expect my sextet to be after doing a completionist run of the whole GOG version of the game (base + HoW & TotL)? My last save shows 2.5m, which translates to level 16-20 ish for most classes. Expansion content is accessible before the base game end boss by talking to a dude in town, or by importing a save of a completed game. Expansion monsters are pretty beefy so especially if its your first time its probably a good idea to do it after the final boss of the base game.
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Jan 25, 2014 20:53
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Thanks for the info, lads and ladies. Long-term I am planning to play through the whole base game saving the expansions to the end, then start over with the same group on Heart of Fury mode - I'd really like to see my group at max level, but I am not stupid enough to try that starting at level 1. I'm still trying to decide on party structure. I've put together a bunch of ideas but every way I slice it I end up wishing I could have a 7th character. Let me ask what may well be a stupid question: I know that druid/thief is not a viable multiclass combination for any race (only druid MC I know of is Jaheira's fighter/druid, half-elf onlY), but is it possible as a dual-class? I could see a human going to level 7 or 8 as a thief and then dualing to a druid as being a very effective and useful combination, being that thieves and low/mid-level druids level up very fast and there is armour synergy between the two. If that's not possible, then I don't know what I'm going to do party-wise.
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Jan 25, 2014 22:36
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JustJeff88 posted:Thanks for the info, lads and ladies. Long-term I am planning to play through the whole base game saving the expansions to the end, then start over with the same group on Heart of Fury mode - I'd really like to see my group at max level, but I am not stupid enough to try that starting at level 1. You can't dual from thief to druid. If there's no valid multiclass, you can't dual class it either.
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Jan 25, 2014 22:43
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Best I remember, the 2e Infinity games only let you dual class into viable multi class configurations. Which isn't how it worked in actual PnP but presumably was necessary for some technical reason. Based on that, I don't think you can do a T -> D dual but I could well be wrong.
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Jan 25, 2014 22:43
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Hey so what fun things can you do with contingency? I've never bothered using it before but I'm not above turning Edwin into some sort of suicide bomber or something
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Jan 25, 2014 22:55
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Skwirl posted:You can't dual from thief to druid. If there's no valid multiclass, you can't dual class it either. That sounds right. I'll have to rethink this. I'll probably go fighter/druid MC, then. Maybe I'll just give in and recreate Jaheira completely. Right now I definitely want a single-class cleric, bard, illusionist (gnome, I have a particular fondness for gnome illusionists) and paladin. The problem is deciding what to do with the two others. Single-class rogues are pointless, but I hesitate to do a F/D because it delays all of the best spells for a long time. I'll either do Halfling F/T and half-elf F/D or straight druid and thief dual to fighter. God Bless 2nd edition arbitrary class combination restrictions.
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Jan 25, 2014 23:11
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I'm having fun with my halfling F/T in IWD, but I literally only pump the trap-finding and lock-picking skills and use him as a fighter otherwise, which means no real sneaking or backstabs. He can't tank as well as my paladin, but I can't help but think a straight-thief would be objectively worse regardless.
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Jan 26, 2014 00:14
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Wolfsheim posted:I'm having fun with my halfling F/T in IWD, but I literally only pump the trap-finding and lock-picking skills and use him as a fighter otherwise, which means no real sneaking or backstabs. He can't tank as well as my paladin, but I can't help but think a straight-thief would be objectively worse regardless. Edit: Disregard this bit. I downloaed the IWD1 manual from GOG and there are indeed 4 thief skills. Right now I'm leaning towards a F/T dual, and given the limited need for PP and having a bard in the group I would probably just stay thief long enough to get the other 3 scores to 100, then switch. Then again, I would be without thief skills until I got my fighter levels back, so there is that. 2nd ed frustrates me because everybody but warrior/MC warriors, paladins and rangers are lovely fighters at mid to high levels - it's not like in 3rd edition+ where priestly types and rogue types are pretty solid and only wizards are horrid at physical combat. I'd really like to have 2 dedicated tanks and an archer, but that's not going to work with this party setup and the fact that mages as well as anything with any levels in druid and/or cleric can only use slings. If there's a mod out there for IWD1 that lets clerics use crossbows, please tell me. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 00:25
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gender illusionist posted:Hey so what fun things can you do with contingency? I've never bothered using it before but I'm not above turning Edwin into some sort of suicide bomber or something Contingency is good, but it doesn't have much potential for abuse. Chain contingency on the other hand... -3 horrid wiltings on the first enemy sighted -3 incendiary clouds on the first enemy sighted -3 mordekainens swords on the first enemy sighted -3 summon fiends on, well, you get the idea. -project image/simulacrum/mislead on self -improved haste/tenser's transformation/simulacrum cast on self when low on health Cleric/mages have even more possibilities. There are some spells that stacked unintentionally in the original game, including project image and regeneration. That's been patched out in the enhanced edition and the unofficial patches.
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Jan 26, 2014 02:33
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Fruits of the sea posted:Contingency is good, but it doesn't have much potential for abuse. Chain contingency on the other hand... The best cheese uses for Contingency involve adding spell produced melee weapons to Polymorph forms. So you can Contingency -> Phantom Blade while polymorphed as a Sword Spider for 5 APR with a +3 magic weapon.
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Jan 26, 2014 02:59
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JustJeff88 posted:I'm 88% sure that it indeed does not. It was explained to me in the older BG2 thread that high ECL characters actually end up giving you more XP. It has something to do with how the game calculates average level.
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Jan 26, 2014 05:28
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Krowley posted:It was explained to me in the older BG2 thread that high ECL characters actually end up giving you more XP. It has something to do with how the game calculates average level.
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Jan 26, 2014 05:38
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Factor_VIII posted:Giving more XP does not equal ending up higher in level though since that bump in XP gain is more than compensated for by the fact you need more XP to level up. I suppose it might be possible to use that to have one or two ECL+0 characters being slightly ahead if the rest of the party is composed of races with high ECLs that drag the party average down, but again you pay an overall price by having the latter characters being lower in level. You could still put those ECL+whatever characters in non-caster roles where it doesn't matter if they never get to the highest level. That way they could boost the fighting capabilities of your party while still keeping the average level at normal, uh ... levels. I don't know, I never did the math I'm just saying that ECL doesn't work entirely like in P&P.
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Jan 26, 2014 07:06
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I just had a hell of a lot of trouble with the greater werewyvern in the entrance to Abazigal's lair. I don't remember him ever being especially hard so could his regeneration have become bugged? My Jester has 8 APR for 20-28 damage, Fireshields red and blue and throwing spells at him but just could not kill him. A couple of times I got him down to Near Death but he got scared, ran off and was back at full health very quickly. Eventually I killed him by using a bundle of traps after he'd run out of sight. The Ravager was also very difficult. I had to use up my Spell Sequencer of 3 x Skull Trap that I'd been hoarding all game, as well as using 4 x Ring of the Ram via Vhailor's Helm.
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Jan 26, 2014 10:19
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Just finished a complete play through of the entire Baldur's Gate trilogy with full SCS on Insanity with a shadow-keepered team of: 1. Multiclassed Fighter/Rebalanced Shapeshifter PC 2. Dorn (Blackguard) 3. Viconia (Fighter/Cleric) 4. Hexxat (Fighter/Mage/Thief) 5. Imoen (Sorcerer) 6. Neera (Wild Mage) After having completed this game about ten times over the past decade or so I have to say I had a lot of fun with this group. The PC was OP as hell in the beginning of the game and all things considered was generally my most powerful character throughout. Once I got to the later stages of Shadows of Amn and TOB the werewolf health regen was nowhere near capable of keeping up with the damage some enemies were dishing out and I think he might have been bugged in some way that he never got a full ten attacks per round with improved haste. His saves were absolutely ridonkulous so I could safely throw him in a den of liches and let them do their work while he just regenerated his health – i would have considered this cheesy had the breach component for liches installed properly and I had any way of debuffing them whatsoever. Strength wise Dorn is a good character. Once I got my hands on some decent shortbows I found myself really liking the Poison Weapon ability for big nasties like dragons. With the improved Mindflayer component of SCS you're basically screwed unless you have a character that can dish out physical damage with protection from magical weapons; Dorn kiting with a poisoned bow and boots of speed made a good substitute until the mages got Dragon's Breath (when the Ulithirid ballistic attack didn't hit him for 130 damage). Character wise I found Dorn one dimensional and boring. In the hands of a decent writer they could have done a hell of a lot more with him but his personality borders on the absurd, he's completely impossible to relate to and sticks out like a sore thumb compared to any of the other NPCs. His quests in BG2 and TOB take place in some interesting locations. Viconia got changed to a fighter/cleric with the same stats as Anomen because I couldn't face using Anomen because he's Anomen. Nothing interesting here - she became a standard FoA/Crom or DoE wielding monster like other cleric based characters towards the end of the game. Boring but effective. As the game progressed it became harder and harder to keep her in the front line because of her low CON so I could only really throw her in the thick of things properly with Armor of Faith, Hardiness and DoE stacking physical resists. Mages completely wrecked her at every point in the game. Hexxat I changed to a F/M/T because pure thieves don't scale well. Have to say she was pretty weak overall because of my large party composition but once she got mislead she started tearing things up left, right and centre. Almost singlehandedly killed every fire giant in Yaga Shura's temple. It's a shame that all of the enemies you'd really like to backstab - Beholders, Undead (liches), Dragons, Demons, Celestials, Golems – are completely immune to it and oftentimes see through invisibility anyway. Thief skills aside I'd say in retrospect a standard multi fighter/mage would make a way better stealthy killer. Character wise I thought Hexxat was fairly bland and god knows what was going on with the budget at Beamdog when they made her special areas - crappy and boring. Imoen as a pure sorcerer (or any pure sorcerer) is just plain scary once you get the Robe of Vecna and double that up with the Amulet of Power and Improved Alacrity. Fortunately in my game the robe was moved back to the last fight on the 5th level of Watchers Keep but after that point she became a complete monster. I never even bothered with the wish spell really because of project image, which is as far as I'm concerned probably the most powerful spell in the game. Being able to unload all of your horrid wiltings, flame arrows, chain lightnings, acid arrows and other nukes in the space of four to five rounds of in game time then do it all again more or less immediately afterwards at the cost of one seventh level spell slot is nuts. I never really felt like I used Neera to her full potential. She was handy enough pre-Imoen but I couldn't shake the feeling that the wild magic stuff was gimmicky and crap (that and she lost me all my gold five times in the space of the trilogy). Even though there were never any major disasters mid-combat I never felt that I could really rely on her to get the job done towards the end of the series – maybe I just don't know how to Wild Mage properly. Character wise she sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the original NPCs and her writing is mostly bad and too focused on her being a Wild Mage and having no other personality traits whatsoever. In the romance after your 25th conversation with her about wild surges you'll get what I'm talking about. My Neera got chunked in the TOB final battle and I couldn't have given less of a gently caress.
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Jan 26, 2014 17:42
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There's very little as fun as summoning a Fiend, getting a Wild Surge and winding up with several Fiends trying to kill each other and the enemies. 
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Jan 26, 2014 18:02
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DeathChicken posted:There's very little as fun as summoning a Fiend, getting a Wild Surge and winding up with several Fiends trying to kill each other and the enemies. Had I been playing without SCS on high difficulty you'd probably be right. It's fun when the game's actually challenging but things can get very stressful when your strategies don't go to plan (oftentimes very much for the worse) so I was always averse to reckless dweomers. I'd say hardcore is probably the best balance between being able to experiment with your characters and not steamrolling everything.
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Jan 26, 2014 18:15
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So my text has bugged out when I get the option to take the Ranger stronghold. Anyone know offhand which text option I need to take (like 1,2,3 or 4)?
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Jan 26, 2014 18:24
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gender illusionist posted:So my text has bugged out when I get the option to take the Ranger stronghold. Anyone know offhand which text option I need to take (like 1,2,3 or 4)?
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Jan 26, 2014 18:32
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Factor_VIII posted:I had the same problem, though I can't remember which one it was (maybe the bottom one?). One of the options gives you the stronghold though. Save the game before choosing and check your journal after picking it to see if you were given the stronghold. It was the third option - did your dialogue have stuff about Raelis Shai?
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Jan 26, 2014 18:41
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gender illusionist posted:It was the third option - did your dialogue have stuff about Raelis Shai?
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Jan 26, 2014 19:10
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