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Woolie Wool posted:So what the gently caress are melee weapons and shields even good for then? See what you're all doing to the poor guy? You can beat the game however you want. Wanna know what I first beat BG1 with as a kid? A goddamn Halfling single class thief. I didn't know they were sub optimal and that id be better off with a illusionist/thief, or a dual class whatever. I also had Khalid in my party and you better believe he was specced to use sword and board. He did just fine. Pretty sure Dynaheir was my mage and I somehow beat the early levels without knowing sleep was very powerful.
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Mar 14, 2016 15:09
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You can melee well as soon as you have 30-ish HP, just get your AC below 0 and you're good to go. A shield will help but isn't really required, in my current(ly halted) playthrough I'm using a Cavalier with 2h swords. It's not going to be the optimal approach for quite some time, though. Also, while there's not really tanking per se, you can often position yourself so that the AI will go after your melee guys or use choke points where you find them; there's just no game mechanic to enforce it. Things start swinging into melee combat's favor once you get access to Strength buffs (there are a lot of potions for that in BG1) and Haste due to melee doing more damage per attack. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 15:24
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Woolie Wool posted:So what the gently caress are melee weapons and shields even good for then? Melee weapons provide very good hitting power, especially when your warriors (Fighter/Ranger/Paladin/Barbarian) get a few levels and get 2 or more attacks per round (unlike bows on non-Archer characters, melee weapons really scale in terms of effectiveness with levels, and the Strength bonuses are even better than the Dexterity bonuses when it comes to accuracy and damage). Low AC means you can effectively 'tank' by tying people up in melee, and the bigger shields are excellent against ranged weapons. You can't really do it before about level 4 unless you get the best possible HP rolls, but as soon as that hits, you're going to be able to stand up to most targets you run into most of the time. Dynaheir is a perfectly good mage. She can't cast Sleep without a wand, but can cast Color Spray which does most of the same thing, plus she gets an extra spell per level in a pretty solid casting school. She certainly beats out Xzar in terms of spells that are most usable on a single-class mage (Necromancy's theoretically best early spells require base contact with enemies which I'm sure you can tell is not very safe). Pumps out a lot of damage and crowd control.
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Mar 14, 2016 15:29
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jBrereton posted:Don't even listen to him, seriously. He is coming from some kind of weird standpoint where healing spells aren't good and AC is meaningless. Explain why a cast time 5, cast range: touch, 8hp heal isn't completely crap? And I never said anything about AC being meaningless, just that you should get out of the tank/dps/healer mindset of MMOs. You're the person who shouldn't be listened to, you've given multiple pieces of seriously terrible advice (recommending a loving beastmaster?) Woolie Wool posted:So what the gently caress are melee weapons and shields even good for then? Sorry for the rather brief post (I was heading out the door, so couldn't expand). The way to think about BG1 encounters is generally to follow a two step process: 1. Minimise potential damage to your guys. 2. Maximise potential damage to their guys given (1). This is why ranged weapons are so good, because most enemies are melee - and can't hit your guys if they're far away! At low levels, you don't have enough HP to really have a character take hits - as all enemies hit on natural rolls of 20, so even though you'll generally be facing a lot of small stuff with crap THAC0 it's still too dangerous to consider really because a few unlucky rolls can have your guy explode into chunks. That's why kiting (and stuff like sleep) is superior at lower levels, no matter your AC (-2 or -20 matters not a jot if they only hit on natural 20 either way). When you start fighting more powerful individual melee enemies your warrior or whoever will probably have ~30+ HP and can take a few more unlucky hits. At that point you generally want as low an AC as possible, yes taking stuff off other characters in order to reduce it further - because only one guy should even potentially been getting hit (meaning that you don't care if it reduces the other guy's survivability) and survivability is more important than damage. Once you get into BG2, the situation changes massively because HP pools are bigger, items are better and THAC0s are better on your guys. This dramatically reduces the variance of combat and means you can more reasonably send loads of guys into melee without having to probably reload several times per encounter. You can "happily" have an all-melee party in BG1, it's just severely suboptimal - because as everyone in the early game misses most of the time, combat will be decided on lucky/unlucky rolls more often than you should be really comfortable with and you end up having to reload more times because "being unlucky" both happens more often and has worse consequences. [edit] Finally, think of casters at low levels as sources of utility spells. They don't become any good at being artillery until a level 3 spells really. MrL_JaKiri fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 16:22
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My paladin has 48 HP and my fighter 60 (dwarf, 19 CON) so they're well past the 30s. But why do monsters roll 20s? Surely they should obey the same rules as everyone else.
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Mar 14, 2016 16:28
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Woolie Wool posted:My paladin has 48 HP and my fighter 60 (dwarf, 19 CON) so they're well past the 30s. But why do monsters roll 20s? Surely they should obey the same rules as everyone else. Monsters do roll attack rolls like your characters. You can turn an option on to see them, although it's really boring even to me and I know how this poo poo works.
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Mar 14, 2016 16:32
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Woolie Wool posted:My paladin has 48 HP and my fighter 60 (dwarf, 19 CON) so they're well past the 30s. But why do monsters roll 20s? Surely they should obey the same rules as everyone else. Anyone can roll a 20. When it happens it is an automatic hit and does double damage unless the character is wearing a helmet. When you only have 10 hit points this can really ruin your day.
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Mar 14, 2016 16:36
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Oh I see, I thought he said monsters use loaded dice. Every character who can wear a helmet does right now so at least the crits won't totally own them.
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Mar 14, 2016 16:41
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Woolie Wool posted:My paladin has 48 HP and my fighter 60 (dwarf, 19 CON) so they're well past the 30s. But why do monsters roll 20s? Surely they should obey the same rules as everyone else. Thing is, your 60hp dwarf will still die pretty fast if he gets surrounded or made helpless by a spell. What we mean when we say there is no tanking is that at low levels, the combat is so lethal that even the tanks will die pretty fast if you don't play it smart. Naturally you have your meat shields, your casters and your ranged characters but why most people new to the game think it's so hard is because they throw their fighters to the front lines and watch them get cut down by a single wizard with hold person and some darts.
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Mar 14, 2016 16:46
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Explain why a cast time 5, cast range: touch, 8hp heal isn't completely crap? Like your "don't take any heals they're garbage" advice is only good if you're savescumming very hard, as well as knowing where everything in the entire game is. If you get woken up by something you can't immediately kill and your party is low health, I mean that's basically GG?
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Mar 14, 2016 17:16
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Healing spells are good: 1. at low levels when Cure Light Wounds is a full heal to most characters 2. when the spell is Heal or Mass Cure 3. between battles so you're resting/savescumming less.
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Mar 14, 2016 17:50
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Dyna Soar posted:Thing is, your 60hp dwarf will still die pretty fast if he gets surrounded or made helpless by a spell. What we mean when we say there is no tanking is that at low levels, the combat is so lethal that even the tanks will die pretty fast if you don't play it smart. Naturally you have your meat shields, your casters and your ranged characters but why most people new to the game think it's so hard is because they throw their fighters to the front lines and watch them get cut down by a single wizard with hold person and some darts. So is the heavy focus of fighters on tanking and the football-like melee shoving matches one of theain reasons why the really old-school players seem to often hate more modern RPGs? Also how do I know what spells to memorize? I have more casts (5 for my wizard and something like 10 for my priest) but rarely the ones I want in that particular situation.
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Mar 14, 2016 17:59
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Just pick a steady selection. For a priest with like 10 spells (I'm guessing 5/3/2 by level?) you probably want something like: Cure Light Wounds x2 Bless x2 Command Hold Person x2 (it's that good!) Prayer if you ever remember to use it, otherwise Barkskin to cast on a mage. Animate Dead Dispel Magic On your Wizard you want crowd control most of the time, and with 5 spells I'm guessing it's 3/2, so Sleep/Color Spray if you can't sleep x as much as possible Stinking Cloud Eventually Chromatic Orb is really good CC as well as quite useful damage, but for the first couple of levels it's mediocre. Once you get a few level 1 slots, a cast of Armor is handy, too, although it does get removed by Dispel Magic.
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Mar 14, 2016 18:13
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Woolie Wool posted:So is the heavy focus of fighters on tanking and the football-like melee shoving matches one of theain reasons why the really old-school players seem to often hate more modern RPGs? I can only speak for myself but modern games often try to give you a similar gameplay experience from the start to the end, which in my opinion makes the game more boring if easier to get into. Also modern RPG's are more about the often c-grade story rather than tight gameplay and replayability, but that's just my opinion. Then again I'm still playing Baldur's Gate and Jagged Allience 2 after all these years, heh. Woolie Wool posted:Also how do I know what spells to memorize? I have more casts (5 for my wizard and something like 10 for my priest) but rarely the ones I want in that particular situation. The spell system is pretty confusing and kinda overwhelming to be honest. Here's some of my favourite spells from the first two spell levels: Lvl 1: Charm Person (makes a character become your ally. You can control them and use their abilities), Magic Missile (direct damage spell that scales with your level. Very fast to cast), Sleep (must have crowd control spell for much of the game). Lvl 2: Agannazar's Scorcher (kind of a weird direct damage spell. Try it out, it's actually pretty fun to use), Glitterdust (Fairly good crowd control spell with the added benefit of revealing invisible enemies. Underrated), Melf's Acid Arrows (direct damage spell that has a poison effect. Useful against spell casters), Stinking Cloud (crowd control spell that effects a fairly large area. Best used with Web), Web (best crowd control spell in the game once Sleep stops being useful. Best used with other similar area effect spells). Dyna Soar fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 18:23
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Woolie Wool posted:So is the heavy focus of fighters on tanking and the football-like melee shoving matches one of theain reasons why the really old-school players seem to often hate more modern RPGs? I'd say it's more down to: 1. All voiced dialogue means fewer dialogue trees/etc, and with the move to "misleading summary of what you'll say" your character can come out with stuff you really didn't mean, which is counter-immersive and frustrating. (NB: this doesn't apply THAT much to BG1, because most of the game is "wander the wilderness"; it was the first in a mini-revival of D&D games, and it shows. Look at Torment or Fallout 2 if you want lots of dialogue) 2. Good balance and a lack of bugs makes everything very flat eventually. One of the big things about the Baldur's Gate series in particular is that it's exceptionally obtuse, so system mastery is rewarded extremely highly, doubly so if you count in knowing and abusing bugs like items recharging if you put them in bags (for a simple example). This means that as the game is balanced around the "average" party completing it, someone with system mastery so heavily outpowers the game that there exist multiple mods that make the game more difficult (SCS I and II for BG1 and 2 are the popular ones, I like Tactics because while it's complete bullshit that's kind of what I want) which are entirely possible to finish with any pretty much any party combination if you know enough*. For something like Pillars, the game is so balanced anyway that it may just be impossible to, say, reasonably reliably solo ironman the game (or indeed solo it at the highest difficulty at all) which is not the case for Baldur's Gate. 3. It's different WAAAAAAAAAAA *I don't know anyone who has done Tactics Ironman; I've gotten up to ImpIren before, which I thought was Pretty drat Good Going MrL_JaKiri fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 18:25
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Woolie Wool posted:Also how do I know what spells to memorize? I have more casts (5 for my wizard and something like 10 for my priest) but rarely the ones I want in that particular situation. The old fashioned way is "Try things out, see what works, and don't be afraid to reload a save point and change spells for a hard encounter". The above recommendations will generally serve you well (yes, including the one with heals in  )
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Mar 14, 2016 18:27
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Here's a pretty good breakdown of all of the mage spells in the game: http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php/Baldur%27s_Gate:_Arcane_Spells_List I fired up BG2 EE with full SCS after not playing the game since last fall. I'm doing the Unseeing Eye quest and Beholders are loving brutal and i forgot to bring stoen to flesh scrolls. Dyna Soar fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 18:27
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MrL_JaKiri posted:For something like Pillars, the game is so balanced anyway that it may just be impossible to, say, reasonably reliably solo ironman the game (or indeed solo it at the highest difficulty at all) which is not the case for Baldur's Gate.
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Mar 14, 2016 18:50
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Sleep of Bronze posted:According to Steam, more people have Triple Crown Solo'd PoE - ironman, path of the damned, expert mode - than have completed the game killing fewer than 175 enemies. I stand corrected (although then change the arbitrary challenge!) You can finish BG2 without resting, without levelling up, etc. The level of arbitrary challenge you can make is pretty high!
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Mar 14, 2016 19:14
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I remember someone from the old bioware forums ages ago completing BG2 with a shapeshifter druid (arguably the worst class in the game) with the worst ability scores you can get, solo. I'm not sure if ToB was even out back then.
Dyna Soar fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 19:19
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I know I am way late to the party but I killed Saverok a couple days ago for the first time. BG1 one had been on my to-do list for almost a decade now but the ipad version lots of downtime at work finally allowed me to get her done. It's always been a rough game for me to sit down and play on PC because there's not as much going on as in other IE games (so i kept getting bored around reaching the titular city or before) but man it's such a great mobile game, to start do a couple fetch quests and kill a few gnolls and then quicksave and leave when I have real work to do. I'll probably end up playing it a bunch more with other dudes rather than move on to do BG2 because BG2 seems like something I'd want to sit down and play at a computer. I wish BGEE had all the combat options they put in for IWDEE though. I'm all about Max HP rolls on Hard difficulty, and its annoying ticking the difficulty down to Normal every time I level up. I just really, really hate rolling HP. insanityv2 fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 19:35
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Head Hit Keyboard posted:Healing spells are good: For example, the Bandit Camp with SCS installed is a total meat grinder (meaning one of the most fun parts of the game) and requires CC to be manageable. But loading up your casters with CC means they won't be protected throughout because whatever defensive spells they have won't last the whole fight, apart from Armor. So I keep my casters back ready to go in to renew CC. But if they get shot on the way in or out, they'll need healing afterwards, because they likely won't survive another hit. And most of my potions are on the people actually fighting the bandits, who may need them themselves, so I let my Clerics/Druids fill their first level slots with heals just in case. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 19:48
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Kavak posted:As icing on the cake, the Realms are free of that munchkin Gary Stu! I wish you could do the same with Elminster. There is a way to kill him but it's pretty difficult, I've never managed to pull it off. But basically you have to block him in with summons and shoot him to death with arrows, same as Drizzit.
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Mar 14, 2016 20:10
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Dyna Soar posted:I kinda feel like starting the game with full SCS and a nature themed party. Problem is, there's no option to multi or dual ranger or druid with thief or mage, sadly Yes you can, just install the tweak fix that lets you dual anything.
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Mar 14, 2016 20:11
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Washout posted:Yes you can, just install the tweak fix that lets you dual anything. Link? I thought it was hard coded.
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Mar 14, 2016 21:05
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Kavak posted:As icing on the cake, the Realms are free of that munchkin Gary Stu! I wish you could do the same with Elminster. I don't know why you'd call Drizzt a Mary Sue. He's nothing of the type. He's widely disliked if not reviled in much of the campaign setting, he has flaws, and he certainly has his failures. Drizzt is certainly over-exposed, but he's not a Mary Sue.
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Mar 14, 2016 21:07
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In re healing spells: I never use them, and its not because i metagamed or rested after every fight. It's because after an hour or two, I was usually up to my nipples in healing potions. Also Drizzt is ok but he has the only +4 armor in the game so he has to die sorry. Also also, woolie wool, if you are still having trouble with Mulahey or any other caster boss, try picking up some acid arrows from high hedge. The DOT fucks their spellcasting. insanityv2 fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 21:24
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Coming from a non-EE perspective (BGT), they only stacked up to five and you're normally hauling all kinds of poo poo around so I only really used them late in BG1 where you can get Potions of Extra Healing that are still kind of useful, unlike mid-late BG2 where they're kinda gash again. I think EE increases the stack limit, though?
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Mar 14, 2016 21:25
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Yeah in EE they stack up to 20. I guess that explains it. I chugged those things when i played the game blind my first time, during fights, between fights. Ran low but never spent much time with none at all. E: VV Command. Command command command. insanityv2 fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 21:32
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I use a lot of healing spells mostly because there's less useful low lvl priest spells and because I try to rest as little as I can, hah. You'll be swimming in all kinds of potions and consumables unless you actively use them though so I usually use potions as well.
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Mar 14, 2016 21:35
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Call me crazy but I use both at the same time As in someone on the front line takes a decent hit so they chug a potion for a little boost, then a few seconds later they get another boost from the cleric. Keep em in the fight tying them up instead of backing off and risking a target swap.
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Mar 14, 2016 21:41
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insanityv2 posted:In re healing spells: Mulahey kicked the bucket a long time ago. I think I just did the quest too early with a lovely party. But I'll keep that in mind. DoT seems much more effective here than in other games, where it is often useless or nearly so.
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Mar 14, 2016 21:47
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Woolie Wool posted:Mulahey kicked the bucket a long time ago. I think I just did the quest too early with a lovely party. But I'll keep that in mind. DoT seems much more effective here than in other games, where it is often useless or nearly so. Also be sure to try using silence 15' radius and other similar anti-mage spells. They honestly can turn a really hard battle into a breeze if you time them right.
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Mar 14, 2016 21:50
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jBrereton posted:Dynaheir is a perfectly good mage. She can't cast Sleep without a wand, but can cast Color Spray which does most of the same thing, Color spray is awful because it affects absolutely everything. Hostiles, neutrals, even party members and yes, it will aggro everyone around, unlike some other undiscriminating spells like web. It also fires in a cone instead of like a fireball so you can't shoot it over your party, you have move your party members out of the way before she casts it. It's a complete pain in the rear end to use. Sleep only affects hostiles so you can blindly cast it in the middle of a crowd without a care in the world.
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Mar 14, 2016 22:16
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Kind of reminds me of why I rarely used the cone/line of sight spells in Pillars but worse since there is no AoE indicator. Have AoE indicators a la Pillars/Dragon Age been modded into the Infinity Engine?
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Mar 14, 2016 22:38
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Woolie Wool posted:Kind of reminds me of why I rarely used the cone/line of sight spells in Pillars but worse since there is no AoE indicator. Have AoE indicators a la Pillars/Dragon Age been modded into the Infinity Engine? Your innocence is adorable.
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Mar 14, 2016 22:42
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Arivia posted:Your innocence is adorable. But the little yellow circles are so useful. 
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Mar 14, 2016 22:53
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Woolie Wool posted:But the little yellow circles are so useful. They are! But this is the thing, a lot of those changes in Pillars of Eternity were responses to things people wanted to see but couldn't change in the Infinity Engine.
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Mar 14, 2016 22:59
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In practice, a lot of spell radii are the same, so you only need to learn a few groups into which they all fall. Go role-play it: find a patch of deserted wilderness and have your mages spam out their spells until you're confident of the blast area, just as if your characters were actually practicing. Aiming your AoEs becomes instinctive surprisingly quickly.
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Mar 14, 2016 23:02
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Also you are going to have a real bad time the first time you cast Prismatic Spray, that's just guaranteed.
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Mar 14, 2016 23:03
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