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Ginette Reno posted:Pretty sure in Bgee they're both +3s. I thought one of them used to be +5 too. In 1e and 2e D+D they were listed as +5 because the total bonus was +5, ie +3 to hit and damage and +2 AC = +5 total bonus. There were several "Defender" weapons of this type. In BG generally there are other +AC weapons that do not use this nomenclature, hence the confusion.
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Mar 20, 2015 15:13
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holy poo poo the jaheira romance plot is looooooong i did all the side quests and i was just about to hit up the elven city when i realised i had like twenty something chats to go so i ended up using the console to trigger them before i took on irenicus how would you get all of them in a playthrough without doing that given that they seem to show up one per real life hour and there's like forty of them?
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Mar 21, 2015 16:56
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You should probably first ask how would you do the romance without it bugging out somehow. Edit: Also how do I equip Hexxat so shes actually useful in combat? Just give her a bow? Iretep fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Mar 21, 2015 |
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Mar 21, 2015 17:17
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Man I just almost wiped on Sarevok on my Ironman. Pretty much everything went wrong. I went to aggro Sarevok and nobody was prebuffed since iirc a dispel goes off shortly after the fight stars. I somehow failed my save on the web trap. despite being a halfling barb with 25% magic resist and absurdly good saves..yet fortunately for me Sarevok got held too. Then a dispel went off from a mage or trap I forget which and it freed me. Shortly after that I got confused by chaos from Semaj despite having a save vs spell of like 1. I managed to keep everyone off my barb long enough to have that wear off, but in the process Edwin, Xzar, and Montaron died. Angelo also got aggroed and started using his arrows of detonation but that actually wasn't much of a problem since Dorn + my halfling had fire resistance going, so he went down relatively quickly. By the end it was just me Vicky and Dorn kiting Sarevok and Tazok around until I eventually killed them. Thank god for boots of speed + barb speed.  Phew. I would have been so mad to wipe there. Now onto Bg2 where I can hopefully make it longer than a few zones this time. My skald from my previous Ironman attempt wiped on the Shadelord :/.  Final stats going into BG2 (con is 19- it's 17 there because of claw of kaz). Yes I did actually roll a 97 somehow. I think it might be the best BG roll I've ever had. I remember eons ago when I first got the game I rolled something similar on a f/m/t but it was so long ago I can't remember if it beat this roll or not. Shorty saves are outrageous (this is with 19 con + claw of kaz + helm of balduran + cloak of balduran though) 
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Mar 21, 2015 21:15
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jesus, a barbarian halfling is making me want to reinstall the game.
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Mar 21, 2015 21:41
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Ginette Reno posted:Man I just almost wiped on Sarevok on my Ironman. Pretty much everything went wrong. I went to aggro Sarevok and nobody was prebuffed since iirc a dispel goes off shortly after the fight stars. I somehow failed my save on the web trap. despite being a halfling barb with 25% magic resist and absurdly good saves..yet fortunately for me Sarevok got held too. Then a dispel went off from a mage or trap I forget which and it freed me. Shortly after that I got confused by chaos from Semaj despite having a save vs spell of like 1. I managed to keep everyone off my barb long enough to have that wear off, but in the process Edwin, Xzar, and Montaron died. Angelo also got aggroed and started using his arrows of detonation but that actually wasn't much of a problem since Dorn + my halfling had fire resistance going, so he went down relatively quickly. Wait til you've got Defender of Easthaven and Human Leather Armor.
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Mar 21, 2015 21:49
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Milky Moor posted:holy poo poo the jaheira romance plot is looooooong its terribly coded and conceived, though its the longest and most in-depth by orders of magnitude which makes me think someone high up in the dev team considered it the canon romance. In the original BG2 it was actually ridiculous, some of the dialogues would only go off after like 40 real-time hours, one of them was actually bugged to require like a million real-time hours (because they'd set it for real-time hour rather than the in-game counter thing which increments constantly). Other chats were set to trigger with the development of certain other plot points I think, which you often missed because the game plot developed so much faster than the romance plot. Basically it wasn't possible. Community fixes and EE make it slightly more realistic, though still stupid.
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Mar 22, 2015 01:34
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amanasleep posted:In 1e and 2e D+D they were listed as +5 because the total bonus was +5, ie +3 to hit and damage and +2 AC = +5 total bonus. There were several "Defender" weapons of this type. In BG generally there are other +AC weapons that do not use this nomenclature, hence the confusion. I don't think that's right - one of them could hurt Kangaxx and the other couldn't, at least when the games were originally released.
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Mar 22, 2015 01:44
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fong posted:its terribly coded and conceived, though its the longest and most in-depth by orders of magnitude which makes me think someone high up in the dev team considered it the canon romance. Yeah, the timing is weird. I really like how BG2 handled NPC development - they talk amongst themselves, relationships are long and you have arguments and differences of opinion - but, like, I played the game normally, walked everywhere, explored, did all the sidequests around Amn, Trademeet and so on before going to Spellhold, and was only on #12 talk with Jaheira. There's forty such talks, and they don't fire off in Spellhold, the Asylum or the Underdark (or any other 'dungeon' area). So, even just there is a significant chunk of game time which you'll be, basically, putting development on hold. And, I mean, given that #17 has Jaheira asking you about how much you like Amn so far, it seems like that one is supposed to happen pretty early in the main plot. Of course, BG2's main plot development rate is odd. There's seven chapters but they're hardly divided evenly. Chapter One is all Irenicus' dungeon - essentially a prologue - until you accept Boyle's offer, which you'll do the moment you see him. Chapter 2 is all about gathering up gold to pay Boyle or Bodhi. Chapter 3 is three quests plus stuff from Chapter 2. Chapter 4 is Brynnlaw, Spellhold, the maze and, if you choose the right path, the underwater city. Chapter 5 is the Underdark which you're going to run through quickly due to the timed nature of many of its quests. Chapter 6 is like Chapter 2 again, but you've probably already done most of the sidequests, so it's just about bringing down Bodhi. Chapter 7 is the Irenicus stuff. It kind of feels like most of the Jaheira romance plot is supposed to take place up until Chapter 3, with maybe the last ten talks in Chapter 6? It simply can't go on during Chapters 4 and 5 but there's hardly ten hours worth of content in Chapter 6. Hell, there's hardly three hours. As far as canon goes, it seems clear to me that the canon BG2 group is Charname, Minsc, Jaheira, Aerie, Viconia and Yoshimo. Yoshimo is replaced by Imoen during Spellhold. Otherwise, Yoshimo literally just falls over dead in the Copper Coronet for no apparent reason the next time you go back there. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Mar 22, 2015 |
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Mar 22, 2015 01:59
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Taear posted:I don't think that's right - one of them could hurt Kangaxx and the other couldn't, at least when the games were originally released. In AD&D and BG, a weapon can have a "strikes as" bonus which is independent of its actual to hit and damage bonuses. So although Defender strikes as a +5 (can hit targets that can only be damaged by +5 weapons or greater) it's to hit bonus is only +3, with the other +2 in the AC bonus, whereas Frostbrand is a +3 weapon in all respects. Keep in mind that the "strikes as" rating of other weapons that also grant AC bonuses are not consistent throughout the series (or in AD&D generally). Compare the Defender of Easthaven, which is a +2 weapon, strikes as a +2, but also gives +1 AC. Another good example is the Staff of the Magi, which has only a +1 to hit bonus, but strikes as a +5.
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Mar 22, 2015 02:05
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amanasleep posted:Keep in mind that the "strikes as" rating of other weapons that also grant AC bonuses are not consistent throughout the series (or in AD&D generally). Compare the Defender of Easthaven, which is a +2 weapon, strikes as a +2, but also gives +1 AC. Another good example is the Staff of the Magi, which has only a +1 to hit bonus, but strikes as a +5. That's because the real bonus of the "Defender" weapons was that you could vary the attack/damage vs AC as needed, which translated poorly into BG/2. It would have made Twinkle an absurdly good off hand weapon, since you could set it to +5 AC. Non-defender weapons that boosted AC boosted a set amount.
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Mar 22, 2015 02:39
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NinjaDebugger posted:That's because the real bonus of the "Defender" weapons was that you could vary the attack/damage vs AC as needed, which translated poorly into BG/2. It would have made Twinkle an absurdly good off hand weapon, since you could set it to +5 AC. Non-defender weapons that boosted AC boosted a set amount. Good point. I forgot about that.
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Mar 22, 2015 03:14
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I keep getting my rear end wrecked in the cloakwood. The poison i can kind of manage, but the web traps every five feet are awful. I can't seem to do anything about them with my thief. Its not much of a game waiting there twiddling my thumbs as spiders and ettercaps gang up on me. My wizard and druid both dont have freedom of movement to prepare, not that they could cast it when webbed anyways. What do i do?
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Mar 22, 2015 05:03
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Quantumfate posted:I keep getting my rear end wrecked in the cloakwood. The poison i can kind of manage, but the web traps every five feet are awful. I can't seem to do anything about them with my thief. Its not much of a game waiting there twiddling my thumbs as spiders and ettercaps gang up on me. My wizard and druid both dont have freedom of movement to prepare, not that they could cast it when webbed anyways. What do i do? I usually cast invisibility (or use a potion) on my thief and send her (it's almost always Imoen) out to disarm the traps on her own. Even if she triggers one, the invisibility will keep her safe from attack if she gets webbed. If your thief doesn't have enough trap detection to reliably spot them (or you don't have the patience to hunt down all the traps), you could also just trigger them with summons and wait them out.
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Mar 22, 2015 05:10
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docbeard posted:I usually cast invisibility (or use a potion) on my thief and send her (it's almost always Imoen) out to disarm the traps on her own. Even if she triggers one, the invisibility will keep her safe from attack if she gets webbed. You can also use potions of magic resistance/magic blocking or potions of freedom if you have any. Also there's only one zone in the cloakwood where web traps are a problem. Once you get past it, it's smooth sailing and there aren't any more traps like that aside from if you get ambushed between zones as those random encounters occasionally spawn web traps. There's also not that many web traps in that zone. There are I think three or maybe four. Once you memorize their location through trial and error just invis your thief and disarm them while invis, or aggro all the monsters that are near those traps but do so carefully so you don't spring the trap as well. Then lure them away and kill them away from the trap and then disarm at your leisure. e: This is where I shamefully admit that I've beaten bg1 so many times over the years that I have almost every trap in the game memorized. Like I could tell you exactly where every trap in Durlag's is. I'm not quite so polished with bg2, though I have a pretty good memory of where traps/encounters are there.
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Mar 22, 2015 07:31
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Buy a freedom of action potion and a potion of invisibility (and haste potion) and run an invis character around the zone to trigger all the traps. There's also a 2H sword on the first cloakwood map that gives free action
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Mar 22, 2015 08:23
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fong posted:Buy a freedom of action potion and a potion of invisibility (and haste potion) and run an invis character around the zone to trigger all the traps. There's also a 2H sword on the first cloakwood map that gives free action And, if I remember right, has some weird foreshadowing for BG2?
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Mar 22, 2015 10:33
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Milky Moor posted:And, if I remember right, has some weird foreshadowing for BG2? Ya I think she mentions something about Irenicus if you ask her why she's there
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Mar 22, 2015 12:32
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Milky Moor posted:Yeah, the timing is weird. I really like how BG2 handled NPC development - they talk amongst themselves, relationships are long and you have arguments and differences of opinion - but, like, I played the game normally, walked everywhere, explored, did all the sidequests around Amn, Trademeet and so on before going to Spellhold, and was only on #12 talk with Jaheira. There's forty such talks, and they don't fire off in Spellhold, the Asylum or the Underdark (or any other 'dungeon' area). So, even just there is a significant chunk of game time which you'll be, basically, putting development on hold. I remember the first time I got to the Sahuagin city. It bugged out infinity style after the first conversation with the insane king and I couldn't rest or sleep and I think my last not-autosave was a couple of hours prior. I did that entire zone in one go because I remember getting to the underdark.
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Mar 22, 2015 15:05
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Milky Moor posted:As far as canon goes, it seems clear to me that the canon BG2 group is Charname, Minsc, Jaheira, Aerie, Viconia and Yoshimo. Yoshimo is replaced by Imoen during Spellhold. Otherwise, Yoshimo literally just falls over dead in the Copper Coronet for no apparent reason the next time you go back there. I'd go Haer'Dalis instead of Viconia, for his ties to Aerie and the fact he's not Evil. Also stops the group from being quite so heavy on divine casters.
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Mar 22, 2015 15:20
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I'm not sure why either of those two would be "canon" but you are pretty much railroaded to Keldorn while you can easily miss both Viconia and Haer'Dalis.
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Mar 22, 2015 16:09
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netcat posted:I'm not sure why either of those two would be "canon" but you are pretty much railroaded to Keldorn while you can easily miss both Viconia and Haer'Dalis. How are you railroaded to Keldorn, unless you're a Cleric, and going down the sewers for your Stronghold? I always felt like the intended party is CHARNAME, Jaheira, Minsc, Yoshimo/Imoen, Aerie, Nalia and Anomen. They're all super early, conveniently good or neutral, and form up a pretty balanced group for a spellcaster heavy game like BG2.
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Mar 22, 2015 16:50
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netcat posted:I'm not sure why either of those two would be "canon" but you are pretty much railroaded to Keldorn while you can easily miss both Viconia and Haer'Dalis. Eh, Haer'Dalis isn't really on the beaten path, but you only have to do a tiny bit of exploration to find Viconia. I'd even say Viconia is a lot easier to find than Keldorn.
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Mar 22, 2015 16:56
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fong posted:Ya I think she mentions something about Irenicus if you ask her why she's there in the original he had a different name that just looked like a badly spelt irenicus that kinda brought it into question whether it was him or not if i remember right but then text updates and modders "fixed" it and went out of their way to make her version of events play well with the plot of bg2. loving weird.
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Mar 22, 2015 17:01
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Aerie seems to easy to call canon because she's by far the easiest NPC to acquire after Yoshi. I'm not sure who else I'd consider canon after that. Most players will be directed towards the copper coronet by Gaelaen Bayle where Anomen/Nalia are so I guess it'd probably be one of them.
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Mar 22, 2015 19:00
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I'm about to play BG1 for the first time. I'm thinking of playing BG:EE with Unfinished Business and the BG1 NPC Project, now that they are both officially compatible with the EE. I'm also thinking of using BG2 Tweaks, but there are like 200 options and I don't know what most of them mean. Are there any that are specifically QoL improvements that don't affect game balance, or does the EE take care of most of that anyway?
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Mar 22, 2015 19:15
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Quixzlizx posted:I'm about to play BG1 for the first time. I'm thinking of playing BG:EE with Unfinished Business and the BG1 NPC Project, now that they are both officially compatible with the EE. I'm also thinking of using BG2 Tweaks, but there are like 200 options and I don't know what most of them mean. Are there any that are specifically QoL improvements that don't affect game balance, or does the EE take care of most of that anyway? I'm not going to recommend the BG1 npc project, a good chunk of the dialog is pretty cringe worthy. For tweaks, the ones I recommend are improved weapon animations and unlimited stacking, and if there's one that adds the various bags to BG1, that one too. Those won't unbalance the game but they make inventory management a little easier, the rest aren't necessary at all and can be confusing if you don't understand the game.
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Mar 22, 2015 19:38
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Skwirl posted:I'm not going to recommend the BG1 npc project, a good chunk of the dialog is pretty cringe worthy. For tweaks, the ones I recommend are improved weapon animations and unlimited stacking, and if there's one that adds the various bags to BG1, that one too. Those won't unbalance the game but they make inventory management a little easier, the rest aren't necessary at all and can be confusing if you don't understand the game. Thanks. Is the NPC project all cringeworthy, or just the romance stuff?
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Mar 22, 2015 19:52
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Attestant posted:How are you railroaded to Keldorn, unless you're a Cleric, and going down the sewers for your Stronghold? Ah yeah I forgot about Nalia and Anomen. As for Keldorn, simply visiting the temple district will put you on a major questline where you will meet him, but yeah I guess you aren't really railroaded to him...
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Mar 22, 2015 20:04
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Quixzlizx posted:Thanks. Is the NPC project all cringeworthy, or just the romance stuff? I haven't played with it, I've just seen screen shots. The non-romance stuff isn't particularly creepy, or anything, just frequently poorly written.
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Mar 22, 2015 20:06
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There are things I really like about the BG1 NPC Project (the non-romance stuff, I haven't looked at the romance stuff for the same reason one does not look directly at a solar eclipse), but yeah, some of the dialogue isn't great. In particular, they write Imoen like she's about 12 years old, which isn't the worst choice they could have made, but it's kind of dumb. It also changes some interactions with the world depending what NPCs are in your party which, again, can be either fun or annoying. I do like some of the new NPC-specific quests though. I still have the drat thing installed, so there's that.
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Mar 22, 2015 20:16
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Skwirl posted:I'm not going to recommend the BG1 npc project, a good chunk of the dialog is pretty cringe worthy. For tweaks, the ones I recommend are improved weapon animations and unlimited stacking, and if there's one that adds the various bags to BG1, that one too. Those won't unbalance the game but they make inventory management a little easier, the rest aren't necessary at all and can be confusing if you don't understand the game. Anyway someone linked this on Twitter: A chintzy TV program circa '99, featuring Chris Parker showing off BG1 on a smoking hot rig and hyping the forthcoming Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale. Transitions into a report on the first public showing of the Playstation 2.
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Mar 22, 2015 22:53
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Basic Chunnel posted:I'd shy away from any mod that adds items to the game, they tend to break random dialogue or item descriptions or both. The interviewer is a professor at my college. 
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Mar 22, 2015 23:31
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Deaderinred posted:in the original he had a different name that just looked like a badly spelt irenicus that kinda brought it into question whether it was him or not if i remember right but then text updates and modders "fixed" it and went out of their way to make her version of events play well with the plot of bg2. loving weird. haha you made me do some reading around on this. In the original BG she mentions that she was the lover of "Jon Icarus" but he cursed her. A bunch of people were saying that Jon Icarus was his name in the early drafts but I didnt see them link to a source for that. It sounds believable to me, they foreshadowed BG2 in a bunch of other ways too
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Mar 22, 2015 23:45
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Am I just a loving idiot, or is the BG:EE tutorial bugged? I used the thieving button on a green highlighted chest, got lock opening xp, and the chest turned blue when I moused over it, but Imoen keeps loving telling me to open the chest every 5 seconds. Edit: Yeah, I had to walk over to the chest and open it so I could loot it. I have a feeling I'm going to be having a lot of these moments.
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Mar 23, 2015 05:11
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The first time I played BG2, when I hadn't played BG1 and wasn't using any kind of internet guide and was basically bumbling through by myself, I ended up with CHARNAME, Minsc, Jaheira, Aerie, Yoshi/Imoen and Nalia. So for me that's the canon party, if only because they're the easiest to stumble across. It's a shame Aerie is a wet blanket, Nalia is like some kid's cartoon hero ("for the needy!") and Jaheria is a schoolmarm.
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Mar 23, 2015 13:36
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I think Nalia is one of the more believable characters in the series tbh. She's a naive idealist and her whole story and context fits really well with it.
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Mar 23, 2015 13:51
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fong posted:I think Nalia is one of the more believable characters in the series tbh. She's a naive idealist and her whole story and context fits really well with it.
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Mar 23, 2015 14:01
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So, previously in my BG2EE evil party travails, after arriving into Brynnlaw I got impatient and just edited in some high-end equipment and rushed the rest of the game. I reached ToB and decided to start over with an ostensibly good party, all custom characters using the multiplayer save dropped into singleplayer save folder trick, after enjoying that type of control in my preliminary forays into IWD2. Running a fairly min-maxed (all 85+ point) party of an inquisitor, elven archer, sorcerer, swashbuckler 10/mage dual class, warhammer fighter 7/cleric dual class, and monk. Holy gently caress what you lose in interesting banter you gain in total facewrecking. Just cheesed (lower resistance, doom, greater malison, polymorph other) my way into getting the holy avenger and pretty sure the game is going into fully broken now.
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Mar 23, 2015 14:21
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fong posted:Buy a freedom of action potion and a potion of invisibility (and haste potion) and run an invis character around the zone to trigger all the traps. There's also a 2H sword on the first cloakwood map that gives free action Ginette Reno posted:You can also use potions of magic resistance/magic blocking or potions of freedom if you have any. Also there's only one zone in the cloakwood where web traps are a problem. Once you get past it, it's smooth sailing and there aren't any more traps like that aside from if you get ambushed between zones as those random encounters occasionally spawn web traps. I just finished this zone, and I want to report back in on my progress. Turns out there aren't any freedom of action potions you can buy before the cloakwood. The two handed sword isn't on the first map either, it's after you get through all the web traps  I don't have any 2h fighters, and I guess I don't need it anymore to deal with the webs. I'll probably just sell the sword. My thief was also worthless and either unable to see the webs or unable to disarm them. I wound up throwing an invisibility potion on Rasaad, having him down a magic resist potion, and triggered a four or so, before I didn't have any resist potions left. There were still three or so other web traps, so I sent Coran in to trigger them with his stupendous AC. Web lasts far too long, what an abysmal zone.
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Mar 23, 2015 21:35
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