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Archonex posted:So i've never really played the Baldur's Gate series before. I was wondering though, how compatible is the enhanced edition mod-wise? Are the huge mod packs like Big World workable with it? Or do I have to finesse which mods work and which don't? Assuming mods even work at all. You do NOT want the Big World Project for your first time playing, and no many mods do not work with EE. You'd have to check them on a case by case basis. Even with the BWP, though, Baldur's Gate and 2 are not open world RPGs like the Elder Scrolls games are. Those are a wholly different kind of game.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:07
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Archonex posted:So i've never really played the Baldur's Gate series before. I was wondering though, how compatible is the enhanced edition mod-wise? Are the huge mod packs like Big World workable with it? Or do I have to finesse which mods work and which don't? Assuming mods even work at all. Do not use BWP, 90% of it is poo poo and the only mods I'd recommend for a first playthrough would be the unlimited stacking tweak, but I think the enhanced edition includes higher stacks of items already, so you dont really need that either. The BG games aren't really open world games
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Oct 24, 2014 18:28
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Cythereal posted:You do NOT want the Big World Project for your first time playing, and no many mods do not work with EE. You'd have to check them on a case by case basis. I must have been misinformed then. Are they linear then? I'm aware that it's probably not going to be as freeform as the Elder Scrolls series is but I was under the impression that there was quite a bit of dicking around potential when it came to exploring and questing.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:28
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Archonex posted:I must have been misinformed then. Are they linear then? I'm aware that it's probably not going to be as freeform as the Elder Scrolls series is but I was under the impression that there was quite a bit of dicking around potential when it came to exploring and questing. There are lots of side areas to dick around in, but aside from the opening city in BG2 the plots of both games are pretty linear.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:36
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Skwirl posted:There are lots of side areas to dick around in, but aside from the opening city in BG2 the plots of both games are pretty linear. Makes sense. I appreciate the information.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:40
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The plots are highly linear, in that you can't make any choices in the main plots. So are the plots of the Bethesda games so I'm not sure exactly what relevance that has. The games are fairly open, in that you are free to wander around lots of different maps and do quests that are entirely unrelated to the main plot which either open up in response to things that happen in the main quest (BG1, to a small effect in BG2) or in response to unrelated quests (BG2). The BG2 expansion Throne of Bhaal is a lot more linear, but it does contain an excellent stand alone dungeon that's also available in SoA.
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Oct 24, 2014 19:19
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BG1 is way more "gently caress around and go wherever" than BG2. That can be hit or miss, as you're going to find areas with nothing of importance, but BG2 sends you to areas of nothing but importance.
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Oct 24, 2014 19:35
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BG1 also has no problem allowing you to stumble onto an area that you are in no way prepared for to be unceremoniously murdered (ankhegs at Level 2  )
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Oct 24, 2014 20:11
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MrL_JaKiri posted:The plots are highly linear, in that you can't make any choices in the main plots. So are the plots of the Bethesda games so I'm not sure exactly what relevance that has. Well the Bethesda games have tons of extra stuff like weird little side caves, or all the different factions you can join and work up the ranks. It's pretty easy to spend 100 hours in one of those games without advancing the plot, you'd be hard pressed to do something simliar in BG1 or 2.
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Oct 24, 2014 20:46
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Wolfsheim posted:BG1 also has no problem allowing you to stumble onto an area that you are in no way prepared for to be unceremoniously murdered (ankhegs at Level 2 BG2 has one snag early on. You can find areas with enemies immune to non-magical weapons. Of course most of these are optional so it's not as bad.
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Oct 24, 2014 20:51
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I would say that BG1 is open world, within the confines of the engine. It's area based so you cant actually just wander the world, but there's something like 40 different wilderness areas to explore freely as well as two towns and then the 9 areas of Baldur's Gate once you advance the story far enough to get in. There are some quests that crisscross different areas, and some quests that are contained just within the area. I mean if that's not open world then what is? BG2 has far fewer areas but with a lot more to do in each one. It's non-linear at the start because the first real storyline quest is to raise 20000 gold which you can do however you like, either through a couple of the long quest lines or lots of shorter ones that you can do, or you can just rob houses and plunder graves and murder people to get the money.
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Oct 25, 2014 01:24
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Skwirl posted:Well the Bethesda games have tons of extra stuff like weird little side caves, or all the different factions you can join and work up the ranks. It's pretty easy to spend 100 hours in one of those games without advancing the plot, you'd be hard pressed to do something simliar in BG1 or 2. 100 real time hours? You could spend that in Chapter 2 first time through the game, easy.
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Oct 25, 2014 01:31
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MrL_JaKiri posted:100 real time hours? You could spend that in Chapter 2 first time through the game, easy. Yeah. I think it's easy to forget what it was like playing bg2 the first time through. There is a massive amount of stuff to do in chapter 2. We breeze through it now because most of us have played the game a ton, but the first time you play through that content it takes a lot of hours to get through it.
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Oct 25, 2014 01:42
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So I've just gotten that 2 year itch to play through BG 1 & 2 again and after a frustrating few attempts to reinstall on Windows 8 I was pleasantly surprised to so the updated editions. Mod-wise I'm setting up a relatively clean install which I'll do based on this order: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/23726/bgii-ee-compatible-mod-list, but there's a couple mods I like that aren't on the list - Adventurer kit for Imoen & Nalia, and level 1 NPCs (which lets you distribute proficiencies etc when NPCs join). From memory those sorts of mods come later in the process, would between SCS and the item randomiser be right? Also is the tweak pack no longer necessary?
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Oct 26, 2014 11:23
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Smorgasbord posted:So I've just gotten that 2 year itch to play through BG 1 & 2 again and after a frustrating few attempts to reinstall on Windows 8 I was pleasantly surprised to so the updated editions. Mod-wise I'm setting up a relatively clean install which I'll do based on this order: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/23726/bgii-ee-compatible-mod-list, but there's a couple mods I like that aren't on the list - Adventurer kit for Imoen & Nalia, and level 1 NPCs (which lets you distribute proficiencies etc when NPCs join). From memory those sorts of mods come later in the process, would between SCS and the item randomiser be right? Also is the tweak pack no longer necessary? Nah, the tweak pack still has a bunch of stuff for EE, I just think the only absolutely required thing from the tweak pack is larger item stacks, which I'm pretty sure the EE version of the game already has to some degree. If you want to mess around with leveling, graphics and animation, weapon and spell list tweaks, etc. there's a bunch of stuff in the tweak pack that might interest you.
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Oct 26, 2014 11:43
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The Enhanced Editions allow arrow stacks of 80, and potion stacks of (I think) 20.
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Oct 26, 2014 13:04
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Smorgasbord posted:So I've just gotten that 2 year itch to play through BG 1 & 2 again and after a frustrating few attempts to reinstall on Windows 8 I was pleasantly surprised to so the updated editions. Mod-wise I'm setting up a relatively clean install which I'll do based on this order: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/23726/bgii-ee-compatible-mod-list, but there's a couple mods I like that aren't on the list - Adventurer kit for Imoen & Nalia, and level 1 NPCs (which lets you distribute proficiencies etc when NPCs join). From memory those sorts of mods come later in the process, would between SCS and the item randomiser be right? Also is the tweak pack no longer necessary? If your planning on installing SCS, you should know that there's been a few rounds of bugfixing going on lately by the BG community for it, and you should go to this thread http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?showtopic=26792 to get the latest version of the fixes, especially since a few of the bugs fixed are quite serious. To install it you just extract it in the strategems folder from SCS (before you actually install SCS) and let it overwrite files as necessary.
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Oct 26, 2014 13:21
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Iretep posted:BG2 has one snag early on. You can find areas with enemies immune to non-magical weapons. Of course most of these are optional so it's not as bad. You can? I only remember that happening with IWD (the ghosts at the tomb) early in the game. quote:If your planning on installing SCS
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Oct 26, 2014 14:09
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Draile posted:The Enhanced Editions allow arrow stacks of 80, and potion stacks of (I think) 20. That's better than the default, I'd probably still want to use the unlimited stacking thing because I like to buy 300 of everything at the first town then not think about it for another 10 hours or so.
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Oct 26, 2014 19:35
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Taear posted:*you're! Also isn't SCS the one that makes it horrendously difficult? Depends what you mean by "horrendously"
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Oct 26, 2014 20:07
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Taear posted:You can? I only remember that happening with IWD (the ghosts at the tomb) early in the game. It's certainly more difficult and adds some bullshit, (Unholy Blight can easily be a tpk in early bg1 when the spellcasters are so much higher level than you), but if you have a really good understanding of the spell system it's not horrendous. Having an Inquisitor on the team still shuts down most mages.
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Oct 26, 2014 20:24
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I've played through all the Infinity Engine games myriad times. Are there any good mods for Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale that add storylines/characters? I know most of them are terrible, but could use a new experience. Modding PS:T would be heresy.
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Oct 26, 2014 20:37
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prometheusbound2 posted:I've played through all the Infinity Engine games myriad times. Are there any good mods for Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale that add storylines/characters? I know most of them are terrible, but could use a new experience. http://gibberlings3.net/bg1npc/ I used Valen once because I wanted to run an all evil party and didn't want to play a thief, I eventually stopped because she's horrifically overpowered, but the new content stuff isn't bad. http://www.weidu.org/valen.html. Any NPC mod that doesn't include a romance is probably a cut above the rest.
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Oct 26, 2014 21:29
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prometheusbound2 posted:Modding PS:T would be heresy. What if you really wanna keep your cool Dustman robes 
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Oct 26, 2014 21:35
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Linthar posted:If your planning on installing SCS, you should know that there's been a few rounds of bugfixing going on lately by the BG community for it, and you should go to this thread http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?showtopic=26792 to get the latest version of the fixes, especially since a few of the bugs fixed are quite serious. To install it you just extract it in the strategems folder from SCS (before you actually install SCS) and let it overwrite files as necessary. Thanks for the tip, but I just installed SCS before I went to bed last night and it took so damned long, now I have to redo it and the ones I did after 
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Oct 26, 2014 22:46
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I'm just going to come out and say it, SCS sucks in BG2. Not because its a bad mod, just because it makes the various issues in the 2.5e and BG2 (in particular) spellcasting system even more glaring. Far more than adding difficulty to the game, it just adds tedium as you have to strip away the same stupid combinations of buffs time and again. In BG1 I love it because it really does improve enemy mages' spell use and there is such a range of mages in BG1 that it makes each fight somewhat different and interesting. In BG2 I would love a SCS component that left their buffing the same but gave each mage a randomised set of offensive spells that the improved SCS scripts could make use of. Particularly in ToB that would make the game far more interesting and still a little more difficult because you couldn't anticipate exactly what the mage would do. The other components are ok~
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Oct 26, 2014 23:56
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MrL_JaKiri posted:100 real time hours? You could spend that in Chapter 2 first time through the game, easy. It took me about 75 hours to beat BG2+ToB last year, doing almost every thing there was to do including some of the quests for the new characters. I had finished BG2 (but not ToB) once back in 2001, but I definitely remembered almost nothing about it, so I don't think I had that big of an advantage over someone on a first playthrough. So I don't think that 100 hours in Chapter 2 alone is at all realistic.
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Oct 27, 2014 00:09
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fong posted:I'm just going to come out and say it, SCS sucks in BG2. Agreed, Tactics is much better 
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Oct 27, 2014 00:32
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Skwirl posted:Well the Bethesda games have tons of extra stuff like weird little side caves, or all the different factions you can join and work up the ranks. It's pretty easy to spend 100 hours in one of those games without advancing the plot, you'd be hard pressed to do something simliar in BG1 or 2. This is entirely true, but in defense of BG/BG2, there's a lot more variety in the places you can decide to wander (I'm thinking of all the BG2 side quests that aren't strictly necessary but are very well fleshed-out, like Umar Hills, Windpsear Hills, etc). There are ~50 enemy types in BG2, not counting all of the named humanoid enemies who are often interesting and unique in their own right. By contrast, once you've seen the five kinds of Skyrim cave you've seen them all. I'm not making GBS threads on Skyrim here and don't mean to argue about it--you're right that the BG games are not open world in that sense--but I think the variety makes these games attractive to someone seeking an open-world game even if it technically isn't. (and maybe that's even one of its strengths, because the side content isn't randomly generated Steal Object X From Town Y missions, it's all more involved and well-written) e: whoops, I forgot the reason I came to this thread, which was to ask this: I've forgotten enough about BG1 that I'm enjoying playing it with no guides or anything, but I also don't want to lose out on any of the extremely good stuff that might carry over to BG2. Outside of the tomes (I know where they all are) is there anything that's really great but also easily missable? anime tupac fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Oct 27, 2014 |
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Oct 27, 2014 05:13
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anime tupac posted:e: whoops, I forgot the reason I came to this thread, which was to ask this: I've forgotten enough about BG1 that I'm enjoying playing it with no guides or anything, but I also don't want to lose out on any of the extremely good stuff that might carry over to BG2. Outside of the tomes (I know where they all are) is there anything that's really great but also easily missable? Not sure what you mean here. None of your items carry over to bg2, though the stat bonuses from the tomes obviously do. So the answer is no I guess. But if you mean items that are strong in bg1 but don't carry over to bg2, I can think of one good one that a lot of players likely miss. There is a ring of wizardry to the right of the friendly arm inn when you first zone into that zone coming from the south. You'll probably have to hold down tab or whatever the highlight item command is in bg1 ( I forget) to see the little lootable spot it's in.
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Oct 27, 2014 05:57
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Taear posted:You can? I only remember that happening with IWD (the ghosts at the tomb) early in the game. I haven't really tested this but I suspect you can get stuck in the wizard sphere stronghold if you go there without any magical weapons. A lot of the stuff there is resistant or immune to something. I haven't tested if the lich you have to fight there is normal weapon immune but if he is it can be a pretty big pain to do that place.
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Oct 27, 2014 06:08
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anime tupac posted:e: whoops, I forgot the reason I came to this thread, which was to ask this: I've forgotten enough about BG1 that I'm enjoying playing it with no guides or anything, but I also don't want to lose out on any of the extremely good stuff that might carry over to BG2. Outside of the tomes (I know where they all are) is there anything that's really great but also easily missable? Golden Pantaloons carry over, other than that literally only 2 possible items from this list will transfer. The Claw of Kazgorath is probably the only one worth thinking about that you don't get automatically, and that one has some drawbacks. There are very few things you'd even care about carrying over into BG2, because the caliber of loot in BG2 is heads and tails above that in BG1 (aside from the tomes).
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Oct 27, 2014 06:46
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Ginette Reno posted:Not sure what you mean here. None of your items carry over to bg2, though the stat bonuses from the tomes obviously do. So the answer is no I guess. Some items do carry over--the Helm of Balduran is the main one I can think of, but I remember that last time I hosed myself over by having some +2 leather armor that carried over in place of something that was better, some kind of plate mail I think. (Obviously the pantaloons too.) There's a chart for the items that you get to keep in BG2 somewhere, I'm just trying to do this without too much metagaming this time if I can help it. e: Ahh Skwirl answered this while I was typing it. That's pretty much what I wanted to know! edit 2: the BG wiki specifically says that the Cloak of Balduran is only available in BG2 if your character had it in BG1. Is that true? that 25% MR is pretty nice if you stack that thing with other +MR stuff or put it on Viconia anime tupac fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Oct 27, 2014 |
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Oct 27, 2014 06:47
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Skwirl posted:Golden Pantaloons carry over, other than that literally only 2 possible items from this list will transfer. The Claw of Kazgorath is probably the only one worth thinking about that you don't get automatically, and that one has some drawbacks. Yeah the Claw is the one I'd consider, especially if you're playing a Kensai. It's a stacking -1 AC, which is really helpful. It and the Horn are both bought at High Hedge in BG1.
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Oct 27, 2014 06:56
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Cloak of Balduran doesn't appear at all on the list I linked, so who knows. I admit I've never actually imported a character from 1 to 2. If I had to guess I'd bet it fills a slot somewhere on the second list. I'm pretty sure it doesn't appear anywhere in BG2 normally, but I could be wrong.
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Oct 27, 2014 07:04
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I've never found it in BG2 so it probably doesen't. It'd help becoming magic immune but that's not really super useful.
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Oct 27, 2014 07:11
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Every time I replay BG I find something to laugh at.Shaella posted:Leira, Lady of Mists, Mother of All Illusion, the Guardian of Deception, the Mistshadow. Some say she died in the Time of Troubles, killed by Cyric, betrayed by Mask. Some say she loved Mask and loves him still. Some say gods can die. Some say gods can be born. Some say gods can live. Some say gods are an illusion we create for our own contentment. Some say gods are an illusion we create to disguise our fear of living, our fear of dying, our fear of being. If gods are a disguise, if gods are an illusion, then perhaps Leira is the only beacon of truth in our entire pantheon of lies. But if gods are real and true and all-knowing, then Leira cannot be a god and must be dead if indeed she ever lived at all. PC dialogue choice 2 posted:Oh my, look at the time!
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Oct 27, 2014 08:22
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anime tupac posted:Some items do carry over--the Helm of Balduran is the main one I can think of, but I remember that last time I hosed myself over by having some +2 leather armor that carried over in place of something that was better, some kind of plate mail I think. (Obviously the pantaloons too.) There's a chart for the items that you get to keep in BG2 somewhere, I'm just trying to do this without too much metagaming this time if I can help it. Not sure about the cloak. As for the helm of Balduran, that doesn't really carry over in the way you think. A freshly created character in bg2 will see the helm of Balduran in the first dungeon, as will a character that imports into bg2. They'll both find the helm in the same place. So it doesn't really carry over since a character that didn't play in bg1 will still be able to get it in bg2. But yeah the pantaloons do carry over I forgot about them.
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Oct 28, 2014 01:26
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Ginette Reno posted:Not sure about the cloak. As for the helm of Balduran, that doesn't really carry over in the way you think. A freshly created character in bg2 will see the helm of Balduran in the first dungeon, as will a character that imports into bg2. They'll both find the helm in the same place. So it doesn't really carry over since a character that didn't play in bg1 will still be able to get it in bg2. Yeah, the helm is the default carryover, but there are other objects that can take its place (Skwirl already linked the list but here is another one). I just didn't remember precisely how that list worked, or if it was different with BG:EE, but I didn't want to miss out on an item higher in that list than some lovely item (e.g. Fallorain's Plate is probably more useful than Protector of the Second if you're playing a plate class) e: BG:EE didn't change the cap, right? I'm getting a lot more exp this time around and I want to dual-class at 9 but I'm approaching that pretty quickly. anime tupac fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Oct 28, 2014 |
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Oct 28, 2014 11:29
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No, the cap is still 161k in BG:EE.
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Oct 28, 2014 13:48
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