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Its just something you gotta handwave. They have the same thing in Neverwinter Nights 2 when everyone talks about the last war when you were a baby which they refuse to say how long ago it was since you can be so many different races.
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Apr 7, 2016 10:22
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~LATEST NEWS~ Elf in diaper saves the Sword Coast. Nobody saw it coming as the 18 year old baby elf recently abandoned by her foster father in the middle of the road rescues Baldur's Gate region from an iron shortage and stops a plot to overthrow the government by the iron throne sect. Read the inside section with comments from her traveling companions who had to take turns in carrying the baby around in her carriage and listen to their arduous journey straight from the mouth of her half-sister Imoen who took her in as she was crawling slowly away from an armored fiend in heavy plate who somehow couldn't catch up to her. Read how the party dealt with this little leader who could pick locks, throw destruction from her fingertips and wield longswords like grown guards. Tiax reveals all! "I thought I was crazy, but I have nothing on that baby"
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Apr 7, 2016 10:36
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Milky Moor posted:The story is an interesting one, although it has some flaws and, in a lot of ways, feels kind of derivative of Mask of the Betrayer. Okay, this is interesting to me. How do you feel the story is derivative of Mask of the Betrayer? Tone, plot structure, themes and delivery all felt very different to me.
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Apr 7, 2016 10:46
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H13 posted:Enjoying the talk about what class suits Bhaalspawn best Clearly Fighter/Mage/Thief lets you murder people in as many ways as possible
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Apr 7, 2016 10:46
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Fair Bear Maiden posted:Okay, this is interesting to me. How do you feel the story is derivative of Mask of the Betrayer? Tone, plot structure, themes and delivery all felt very different to me. I'm guessing they mean that the antagonist genuinely believes they are doing the right thing by leading a crusade and marching into the afterlife to correct a wrong.
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Apr 7, 2016 10:49
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Pwnstar posted:I'm guessing they mean that the antagonist genuinely believes they are doing the right thing by leading a crusade and marching into the afterlife to correct a wrong. Essentially, yes.
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Apr 7, 2016 11:16
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Nycticeius posted:I think it's implied, if not outright stated, that Bhaal foresaw his death a few centuries before it happened, and started making lil' bhaalspawn right then and there. They could have just made Gorion a half-elf or something to avoid these issues, like with your adoptive dad in NWN2, but Throne of Bhaal makes the timeline pretty clear. Two Siege of Dragonspear questions, though I'm not done with it yet so tell me if the second gets answered in some way. The ruined temple of Bhaal is heavily implied to be where Gorion rescued you. How the hell did Sarevok get out of there to civilization? I always thought the temple was in a city and he just wandered out into the streets. Why is Irenicus content to have you and Caelar fight to the death? What if something goes wrong and you both die? Or what if she wins and her good divine soul proves incompatible with him? I know he's obsessed with potential, but wouldn't he want a backup just in case? And how does Bodhi fit into this? Was Imoen already earmarked for her or something? Why does she even need her soul in BGII anyway, was that just thrown in after Imoen's death was removed?
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Apr 7, 2016 12:06
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Kavak posted:They could have just made Gorion a half-elf or something to avoid these issues, like with your adoptive dad in NWN2, but Throne of Bhaal makes the timeline pretty clear. To the second, Bodhi and Irenicus were both exiled and stripped of their immortal power. Bodhi tried to counteract it by making herself a vampire but it didn't work as she had hoped. I don't think it is actually answered, unless I missed something, I just pulled that from BG2 info. To the first, well, Sarevok was obviously more in touch with his power than you, I don't think it's really a plot hole or anything. Some mysteries can work and I think this one does.
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Apr 7, 2016 12:35
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If you equate murder with up-close and personal killing, then I would say that Thief\Assassin would be a likely Bhaalspawn. However if you equate murder with number of people killed, I think it'd be hard to beat a flesh-eating, fireball flinging sorcerer. Fighter just feels so...middle-of-the-road and not-special to me. I'd assume that a Bhaalspawn who is strong enough to be a god would be something a little more interesting than a fighter? So I reinstalled BG:EE and... Holy poo poo. it looks atrocious. I turned off the sprite outlines, but even then they stand out and look like they're paper stuck onto a painting. The animation is jerky and not smooth either? I didn't like being zoomed out so far, so I zoomed in and...  MY GOD. WHAT HAPPENED?! It's a blurry, horrible pixellated mess! I either have to play zoomed out so that I feel like I'm on board the ISS, or zoomed in so close it resembles a seriously artifacted JPEG that has been screenshotted and re-uploaded a dozen times too many. It never used to look like that with normal BG and the Widescreen mod! The new GUI is nice, but goddamn. I might go back to BG and TuTu with the widescreen mod.
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Apr 7, 2016 12:35
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Milky Moor posted:To the second, Bodhi and Irenicus were both exiled and stripped of their immortal power. Bodhi tried to counteract it by making herself a vampire but it didn't work as she had hoped. I don't think it is actually answered, unless I missed something, I just pulled that from BG2 info. Imoen's soul didn't seem to do anything to her- she's not immune to sunlight or anything IIRC and isn't that hard to kill. I'm going with handwave after the plot change. I don't agree. He got in touch with his power over time, and he was just a child in dangerous wilderness. Beamdog could have had someone find him there and bring him to whatever city the Iron Throne was based in. EDIT: I've noticed lines appearing left of the sprites on some animations, like the edge of their frame or whatever. Best guess is adding the new environments for SoD or the sprite outline option hosed something up. I'm anticipating a lot of downgrade mods. Kavak fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 12:43
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H13 posted:If you equate murder with up-close and personal killing, then I would say that Thief\Assassin would be a likely Bhaalspawn. Sarevok was just a Fighter. Kavak posted:Imoen's soul didn't seem to do anything to her- she's not immune to sunlight or anything IIRC and isn't that hard to kill. I'm going with handwave after the plot change. Could have, but I'm pretty sure a child ghost/wraith of Sarevok tells you in ToB that the big difference is that no one came for him like Gorion did for you. It's like some CinemaSins level nitpickery.
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Apr 7, 2016 12:46
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Pwnstar posted:I'm guessing they mean that the antagonist genuinely believes they are doing the right thing by leading a crusade and marching into the afterlife to correct a wrong. Fair enough, but I think the antagonist feeling they're righteous is a pretty common motif, and while I can see the superficial similarities between the two crusades, they also felt different enough to me that the connection with MotB didn't even occur to me until now.
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Apr 7, 2016 12:46
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Milky Moor posted:It's like some CinemaSins level nitpickery. We're D&D fans, it's what we do  .
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Apr 7, 2016 12:49
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H13 posted:So I reinstalled BG:EE and... You can always pick a middle-ground and being able to zoom in and out is much better than being stuck to one point you can't do anything with. The outline is horrible though, but the sprites and backgrounds are the same as the original game, I am pretty sure, so you might just be mis-remembering how bad TuTu actually looked.
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Apr 7, 2016 12:52
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H13 posted:Fighter just feels so...middle-of-the-road and not-special to me. I'd assume that a Bhaalspawn who is strong enough to be a god would be something a little more interesting than a fighter? And that it was always an assumed part of AD&D's balance that a Fighter can use all of the magical items in the game, including the most powerful weapons (even if, again, most powerful might just mean a +5 weapon with no fancy rider effects). It's important in context because you're really not going to find some guy that can Colossus Smash -> Bloodthirst -> Mortal Strike or whatever, but the lack of buttons doesn't mean that the Fighter is weak. Not by any means.
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Apr 7, 2016 12:59
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Yeah, it's only in 3rd edition that the fighter becomes truly boring. And that is mostly because you aren't going to take more than a few levels (2 or 4) of fighter before continuing down another path for the better bonuses. AD&D was kinda nuts because the warrior classes were really interesting not for their lack of spells, but because they actually change how your stats benefited your character. Only fighters, rangers and paladins benefited from a high con and high str score. Of course, dual-classing and multiclassing kinda changes the dynamic a bit. ------------------------------- Changing topic a bit, in my current game I'm running an elf fighter/mage, and after my go-to resource Planet Baldur's Gate has bit the dust I started reading other places online but it's kinda hard to see anyone discuss the low-level play in Baldur's Gate so everyone just talks about kensai/mages. Meanwhile, my worry right now is that I'm using my character wrong, because I've been preparing shield and armor as spells, casting them every day and running through the map with dual-wielding longswords, but it slowly occurred to me that I might as well just equip an armor and not care about being unable to cast and I'd get better AC out of the deal, especially after finding the drat Ankheg plate which is essentially cheating. Essentially I feel like I'm an idiot and going about this all wrong, but I've played myself into a corner and need some help in rethinking how I approach the spellcasting part, because as it stands I'm just a low-hp fighter, at least until I get my hands on a robe.
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Apr 7, 2016 13:16
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One thing I'm curious to hear more opinions about [endgame chat] is the fridging of Skie Silvershield. Like, unless they patch(ed with the EE) something in Baldur's Gate 2, she's goner than gone, and all to justify a pretty minor line in the opening of that game. I didn't even like the character, but it seems extremely hamfisted and also doesn't really work well with the plot of the actual expansion. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the trek in the catacomb and the murder of Skie Silvershield were all there was to Adventure Y at the beginning, and that they decided they liked those scenes but wanted to put more stuff in the expansion. As a result, they came up with the crusader plot that offered them opportunities to tie the Baldur's Gate titles with Icewind Dale, put in more Irenicus scenes, and make the Bhaalspawn's fall from grace harder. It's pretty much all dumb post-facto speculation, though.
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Apr 7, 2016 13:17
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That makes a lot of sense.
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Apr 7, 2016 13:32
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Fair Bear Maiden posted:One thing I'm curious to hear more opinions about [endgame chat] is the fridging of Skie Silvershield. Like, unless they patch(ed with the EE) something in Baldur's Gate 2, she's goner than gone, and all to justify a pretty minor line in the opening of that game. I didn't even like the character, but it seems extremely hamfisted and also doesn't really work well with the plot of the actual expansion. No, I agree with that. It feels very weird. Here's my understanding of it. Irenicus is manipulating you to kill Skie. We're not sure why but I assume it's to eliminate any good will and support you may have in Baldur's Gate. There's a dream/nightmare where you stumble upon her, she turns into a monster, and you kill her. When CHARNAME awakens and finds Skie dead at their feet, they are confused about it all. But only maybe. See, CHARNAME says that they saw Irenicus kill her, later, when Irenicus visits them in the jail. So, Irenicus killed her... but made it look like CHARNAME did it? Or Irenicus took control or altered their perceptions, with the whole dream sequence? It's unclear. It's messy. We know Irenicus saved Skie during her time in the Crusader castle (she mentions being saved by a hooded man who mysterious disappears), so, it was obviously a plan that had to happen, not one he just improvised. I think any part involving the Hooded Figure when he wasn't in dreams is just a bit of a mess, particularly the bit on the bridge where he stands there and no one says anything while he quizzes you before vanishing. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 13:35
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I love how loving arcane and unintuitive the AD&D ruleset is. It's just so complicated and twisted that while it most certainly deters some potential players, I feel like actually understanding how it works and exploiting it to your advantage is so rewarding. It's like learning particle physics or something.* * As you can probably guess I know nothing about particle physics.
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Apr 7, 2016 13:38
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ineptmule posted:I love how loving arcane and unintuitive the AD&D ruleset is. It's just so complicated and twisted that while it most certainly deters some potential players, I feel like actually understanding how it works and exploiting it to your advantage is so rewarding. It's like learning particle physics or something.* SoD is the only game in history where I've turned a story mode difficulty setting on. I get the basics of it all but I've never understood the intricacies and I've never liked the UI, even back when I first played the games.
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Apr 7, 2016 13:41
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IIRC Dream Irenicus is actually your Bhall essence loving with you, or maybe that's just some of the time. Irenicus' hand in the plot is a little too direct for my tastes. He should be speaking to you telepathically and the like, not visiting the camp. Also why do they keep saying he's scarred? He didn't look scarred, more like the Son'A from Star Trek: Insurrection with the stretched face. Scarred makes me think the Nameless One is following you around.
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Apr 7, 2016 13:41
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ineptmule posted:I love how loving arcane and unintuitive the AD&D ruleset is. It's just so complicated and twisted that while it most certainly deters some potential players, I feel like actually understanding how it works and exploiting it to your advantage is so rewarding. It's like learning particle physics or something.* I'm afraid there's very little in particle physics you can exploit to your advantage
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Apr 7, 2016 13:51
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Kavak posted:IIRC Dream Irenicus is actually your Bhall essence loving with you, or maybe that's just some of the time. his elf ears have been ripped out as far as im aware. i guess thats kinda sorta scarred
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Apr 7, 2016 13:51
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Kavak posted:IIRC Dream Irenicus is actually your Bhall essence loving with you, or maybe that's just some of the time. Iretep posted:his elf ears have been ripped out as far as im aware. i guess thats kinda sorta scarred Check Google Images for Irenicus images, he's got scarring on his forehead and chin, like ritualistic stuff.
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Apr 7, 2016 13:56
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So with the new interface, are you goons using the new sprite outline feature or not? I can't decide what looks better or even what the point of the outlines are.
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Apr 7, 2016 13:59
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Milky Moor posted:Check Google Images for Irenicus images, he's got scarring on his forehead and chin, like ritualistic stuff. They're supposed to be veins, I think
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Apr 7, 2016 14:02
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The chin might be scars.chaosapiant posted:So with the new interface, are you goons using the new sprite outline feature or not? I can't decide what looks better or even what the point of the outlines are. If you're playing on mobile it might help spot stuff, otherwise it looks bad.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:04
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Wizard Styles posted:Also, Samuel Clemens, why did you ask about Axes and Slings specifically? Just for the highest enchantment bonuses? I was just thinking about the potential of unorthodox ranged builds. You could throw in darts and throwing knives as well.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:16
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Am I the only one who likes the black outlines?
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Apr 7, 2016 14:16
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Arivia posted:I can't think of a single deity in the Realms like this. Who are you thinking of? Old post, but there are a few examples. A big one is Oghma, god of knowledge. In some parts of Faerun, he's known as Curna, the goddess of wisdom and foresight who has an exclusively female clergy. Sune and Hanali Celanil have both been noted to occasionally appear androgynous or even male - they're deities of beauty and love, and not exclusive to women.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:21
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Milky Moor posted:Am I the only one who likes the black outlines? I might not have the same level of nostalgia as everyone else for these games, but it might be easier to like them if you aren't used to them not being there.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:22
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Mordaedil posted:I might not have the same level of nostalgia as everyone else for these games, but it might be easier to like them if you aren't used to them not being there. Correct, change is bad. EDIT: Cythereal posted:Old post, but there are a few examples. A big one is Oghma, god of knowledge. In some parts of Faerun, he's known as Curna, the goddess of wisdom and foresight who has an exclusively female clergy. Sune and Hanali Celanil have both been noted to occasionally appear androgynous or even male - they're deities of beauty and love, and not exclusive to women. Isn't Corellon Larethian described as androgynous occasionally? Kavak fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 14:24
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I wanna go back to my 16 year old self and tell him that in 2016 he'd be playing an expansion pack to Baldur's Gate and it'd be critically praised mostly because the rest of the industry is in such a dire strait and that it'll still use AD&D rules, but not because there weren't any new ones. But just because. Then I'd record his face with my breast pocket device.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:31
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Longshot: back in 2012 (god time is flying) I started BG1 with Tutu. I made it to Baldur's Gate and completed all the plot threads up through to that point. Then my computer died. Since the EE sale, I got both BG1 EE and BG2 EE. Before I just jump into BG2, does anyone have a save file that would work with EE that occurred around that same point? I figure I could use a save game editor to make things roughly what they were (I *think* I was some sort of fighter/mage), so I can beat it before going on to BG1. I was going for chaotic good, and I figure that's a common enough way to go about things that it's not a completely silly question. I found some files on google, but I suspect there are incompatibilities between normal BG1 and BG1EE, since they straight up did not work.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:33
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Kavak posted:Isn't Corellon Larethian described as androgynous occasionally? Among others, though IIRC Sune and Hanali Celanil are the only ones explicitly stated to occasionally appear outright as the other gender while still in their primary identity. Oghma is one of several gods in the Realms who answers to multiple identities - when he's appearing as Oghma, he's a bearded old man. When he's appearing as Curna, she's an elderly matriarch. The book dealing with the subject says that there is no contradiction in this: Oghma/Curna/whatever is a deity and above concepts like gender except insofar as he/she/it/they/whatever adopt a humanoid guise when the deity sends an avatar to the Realms.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:35
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Gotta say some of these new maps in Dragonspear are gorgeous! Loving where I'm at now, which is basically "infinity engine black reach!"
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Apr 7, 2016 14:35
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Mordaedil posted:I wanna go back to my 16 year old self and tell him that in 2016 he'd be playing an expansion pack to Baldur's Gate and it'd be critically praised mostly because the rest of the industry is in such a dire strait and that it'll still use AD&D rules, but not because there weren't any new ones. But just because. You can't really have an expansion pack in a different ruleset. On a similar note, wasn't Neverwinter Nights originally planned as an Infinity Engine game, and you could transfer characters to it until 3rd Edition came out and they realized they were totally incompatible?
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Apr 7, 2016 14:46
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Kavak posted:You can't really have an expansion pack in a different ruleset. BG2 has a loading screen tip saying you'll be able to take your character into NWN, yeah.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:49
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Milky Moor posted:Am I the only one who likes the black outlines? I really like them myself as well. Somehow it reminds me of Ultima 7. Then again I also keep the outlines in Divinity Original Sin. For exactly the same reason.
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Apr 7, 2016 14:52
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