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The only thing I auto-killed was that loving werewolf in BG1. gently caress that werewolf. As a challenge whenever I play one of these games I treat time pressures seriously. I try to only rest in Inns and not waste time when Imoen is being tortured or whatever.
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May 6, 2020 03:05
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Decided to dick around with baldur's gate EE: and decided that I want to have the canon party on one run (ranger) and a non canon party on the other run (cavalier paladin). What's a good party composition for the latter?
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May 6, 2020 03:38
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If I need to get lost a stupid hard encounter and don’t feel like doing it legit, I just turn on story mode and that’s all she wrote!
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May 6, 2020 03:52
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Turds in magma posted:So I'm stuck on Amelyssan as a solo Kensai/Thief. I beat Demogorgon without traps, Ravager was probably harder but i used Simulacrum to lay 4 spike traps and then beat him down, so I think I *kinda* know what I'm doing here, but I'm having a hell of a time even doing any damage despite pierce/etc. Heeeeeeelp!
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May 6, 2020 03:56
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chaosapiant posted:If I need to get lost a stupid hard encounter and don’t feel like doing it legit, I just turn on story mode and that’s all she wrote! I wasn't that keen on Story Mode when it was first introduced, but I certainly foresee myself using it at some point in the near-future. Lawman 0 posted:Decided to dick around with baldur's gate EE: and decided that I want to have the canon party on one run (ranger) and a non canon party on the other run (cavalier paladin). What's a good party composition for the latter? I'm curious about party composition as well. I rolled a half-orc barbarian, I thought to do something different than the canon party. I thought to get Imoen, Yeslick, Kivan, Ajantis, and Neera. I had trouble trying to figure out who to get; Kivan has the hiccup where you need to do a timed quest upon getting him, and Yeslick is stuck down in the Cloakwood Mines. Neera isn't my first choice for a mage, but almost every other mage I had a problem with: Xzar and Edwin are evil (trying to stick with good or neutral characters), Dynaheir paired with Minsc (though they tweaked the restrictions for Invoker in EE, giving her more spells she can use), Xan can't cast Invocations, and Quayle seems like he comes in too far into the game (though I guess his level is adjusted based on yours.) My issue with Neera is that she's a Wild Mage, so I worry about things going south with Wild Surges, where I managed to beat a tough encounter, but I lose 80% in the process. I guess the workaround of that is by not converting your gems into gold until you need to (which I suppose is the reason why recruiting her is the only way of obtaining a gem bag.) Turds in magma posted:So I'm stuck on Amelyssan as a solo Kensai/Thief. I beat Demogorgon without traps, Ravager was probably harder but i used Simulacrum to lay 4 spike traps and then beat him down, so I think I *kinda* know what I'm doing here, but I'm having a hell of a time even doing any damage despite pierce/etc. Turds in magma posted:Heeeeeeelp! Maybe you need else something to drop her protections?  I dunno; Amelyssan was really hard, and I can't remember how I ultimately won that fight, apart from a lot of reloads and buffs, so I'm not much help. If you're a Kensai/Thief, did you take 'Use Any Item'. I remember one of the strategies you could use with that build was to get one of the Paladin weapons like Carsomyr, and then use thief skills to backstab for crazy damage or something along those lines.
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May 6, 2020 04:19
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Max Wilco posted:
What about Safana? I was amusingly thinking of taking her along.
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May 6, 2020 04:27
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Unless they changed it for EE, you can't backstab with non thief weapons. So Staff of the Ram remains the best backstabber Carsomyr is still good because it wrecks mages even without the backstab bonus.
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May 6, 2020 04:27
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The timer on kivan seems to be super long if you get him first thing, I was stressed about it and it never came up
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May 6, 2020 04:29
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Lawman 0 posted:What about Safana? I was amusingly thinking of taking her along. I didn't see a point in picking up Safana, since Imoen has good thief stats, and you get her right out of the gate. shovelbum posted:The timer on kivan seems to be super long if you get him first thing, I was stressed about it and it never came up I initially picked him up right around the time I first reached Nashkel, and I think the time limit for him is 15 days, but I reloaded an old save, because I get paranoid about those kinds of things. With how often I stop to rest and regain health & spells, I figured 15 days go by pretty fast. Speaking of Kivan, I was reading on one of the wikis, and apparently, it looked like he was going to be in BG2 at some point. Might have misread that, but I wonder if there's a mod or something that adds him in.
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May 6, 2020 04:37
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Max Wilco: You can leave a companion in a far room, reform party and leave the room by stairs/door before they can talk to you to break tied up couples without killing them. That's how I roll with Minsc and Jaheira without Khalid and Dynaheir.
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May 6, 2020 07:24
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Khalid has some great physical stats. I keep him.
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May 6, 2020 07:29
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I often autokill SCS skeletons because they're scripted to disengage and dance around all the time to make the best use of their missile resistance and throwing weapons. Which makes sense but is way too annoying to have on respawning trash mobs.Max Wilco posted:I initially picked him up right around the time I first reached Nashkel, and I think the time limit for him is 15 days, but I reloaded an old save, because I get paranoid about those kinds of things. With how often I stop to rest and regain health & spells, I figured 15 days go by pretty fast. If you get him in Chapter 1/before reaching Nashkel, it's 20 days. If you get him in Chapter 2/before killing Mulahey, it's 14 days. If you get him in Chapter 3/before the Bandit Camp, it's 7 days. If you get him after meeting Tazok or finishing the Bandit Camp, there is no time limit. This is for the EE. I don't remember the timers for the original edition. I think they worked similarly but were shorter.
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May 6, 2020 07:33
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The Kivan timers were broken in the original and he never actually left no matter what. I think the EE just fixed the scripts and kept the original durations.
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May 6, 2020 07:36
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Lawman 0 posted:Decided to dick around with baldur's gate EE: and decided that I want to have the canon party on one run (ranger) and a non canon party on the other run (cavalier paladin). What's a good party composition for the latter? BG1 has a lot of potential companions (at least compared to vanilla BG2), but let's look at some non-canon options. If you're role-playing a paladin then the evil ones aren't really for you I suppose, but there's some good gimmick characters in the evil pool too. Wizards: The obvious answer is Edwin with his cheaty amulet and excellent lines, but he's evil and I guess his presence robs you of a fun wilderness mage fight. Most over-powered mage in the game either way, just can't identify junk. Xan is fun (if you enjoy endless existential despair, YMMV) and I've played through the game with him to the end a few times. His lack of evocations isn't so bad in BG1 since magic missile doesn't reach its full potential until near the end, and you still get acid and flame arrows, and  skull trap. Xzar is... Well, insane, I've never taken him to the end myself, and you either roll with Monty or get rid of him somehow. Neera is a wild mage, and how hilarious you find that pretty much dictates how much you'll enjoy playing with her around. Quayle is okay I guess, but you get him kind of late unless you mod the game. I've never bothered to try the drow sorcerer, but he's a sorcerer so you can't go too wrong there I suppose.Priesty types: Yeslick is pretty good both for cleric spells and punching dudes in the face (he will eventually conflict with Kagain, mind), but he's in chapter 4. Branwen is a pure cleric and is OK I guess, and same goes for Viconia (who is evil and will lower your reputation by 2 at point of recruitment), but they're less viable for face-punchy until fairly late in the game once you get some gear for their stats. Faldorn the druid is annoying and in vanilla BG1 the druid spell pool pretty much sucks. Tiax is insane, and only available in chapter 5 and on, but he's got an... Interesting multi-class as a cleric thief, and he has a pet ghast. Hitting dudes in the face department: Ajantis is the poster-boy for lawful stupid and will eventually conflict with all evil companions if you want any of them around. Okay fighter though. Kivan is a decent archer, which is always good in BG1. Coran is better, and he can also backstab, and he's more fun to have around, but you only get him in chapter 4. Montaron is IMO the lesser fighter-thief around, but you get him right at the start if you want him. (As above, he is tethered to the insane necromancer) Shar-teel is pretty frail, but makes for another decent archer and can be dualled to a thief (dual-classing is a bit of a pain if you're not familiar, however). The opposite end is the evil dwarf Kagain, who starts out with 20 Constitution meaning he will (very slowly) regenerate health just by standing around. If you recruit him early and play with max HP rolls he will be a brick outhouse of HP by the end of the game. I have not tried Dorn in BG1 yet, but I hear he's good at the face-punchy. Very evil though. Rogues: Imoen was meant as the default thief, but can be substituted with Safana or (in chapter 5) Alora without noticing much difference. I haven't played with Alora in the party that much, but I vaguely remember some discussion in this thread earlier about her rabbit's foot being better than what it says on the tin? Also in chapter 5 you can get Skie, who is paired with the evil bard Eldoth. There is also a neutral bard, Garrick, available as soon as you reach Beregost. Both bards are, well, okay bards, they can use a bow and wands so they can be useful if you can spare the party slot.
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May 6, 2020 10:52
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If you want an evil party, you should definitely pick up Eldoth. He has the most interactions of any party member. Xan and Shar-teel absolutely hate his guts and the one thing that can actually make him happy is if Eldoth dies. He and Skie are an item but he's obviously not that into her and will flirt with any female party member who isn't Shar-teel. Yeslick is my favorite BG1 party member, and fighter/clerics are solid. He's apparently the one man who can earn Shar-teel's respect by just being a good dude, but on the playthrough I tried to use them together, she ditched me as I got the +2 reputation from clearing the mines. He's a must if you're going for the "goodest" party. Supposedly, Xan can talk Ajantis down from attacking evil party members, but I've never had a party containing all three. To add to the above, Quayle is an illusionist/cleric, so he's obviously a solid caster, and his main drawback is just having super annoying voice clips. Same goes for the drow sorcerer, only also he's evil and lowers your reputation by 2.
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May 6, 2020 11:21
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I agree with Faldorn being annoying but she is the only caster that can reach lvl 10 in the base game and be able to cast 5th level Druid spells which is not much with 3 incredibly powerful exceptions. The Summon Insect (lvl3) effectively shuts down spellcasters and Insect Plague (lvl 5) straight up wins fights (no save, 100% arcane spell failure, deals damage each round and causes fear, ignores invisibility). The Call Woodland Beings is arguably the most powerful summon in the BG 1 which can cast Domination, Confusion, Hold and Mass Cure Light Wounds along other spells. Jaheira can't cap at lvl 10 due to her multiclass but if you need a strong caster/summoner Faldorn is a legit choice unless you are a Druid. I almost never pick her up because I like rolling with two facepunch Clerics.
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May 6, 2020 11:47
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For a Good non-canon party with Paladin PC I'd probably go: Coran Kivan Yeslick Xan Garrick Keep Imoen around until Cloakwood unlocks for Coran and maybe grab Branwen until Yeslick too. PC and Yeslick to tank, Kivan and Coran to kill everything, Xan and Garrick for the light show.
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May 6, 2020 12:11
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My "grudgingly getting poo poo done" party is: PC Paladin Cavalier two handed sword tank Minsc because I'm a sucker for bromances and he kills things with dual wield longswords/maces Branwen hammer off-tank/buff/heal Imoen dual to wizard after lvl 6 Coran for l33t archery deeps and traps Edwin for maximum damage Corans slot can be replaced with Jaheira or Faldorn. Edwin can be changed but I seriously prefer him over straight up psycho evil companions like Xzar.
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May 6, 2020 12:32
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sebzilla posted:For a Good non-canon party with Paladin PC I'd probably go: I usually had these three TBH
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May 6, 2020 13:31
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I'm playing through IWD right now, and getting to create a full party wound up making it a much different experience from what I was used to. It's pretty neat. -Dwarf fighter/cleric: mostly hits things with hammers and casts the occasional buff and heal. I don't know if IWD really bothers with reaction scores, but I wanted to give him a decent charisma score and somehow wound up rolling a 92 stat roll. -Dwarven defender: At -11 AC so far, having just reached the Severed Hand, coupled with dwarf saving throws and buckets of hit points. This guy does not die, and I tend to just rest every few dungeon floors because I do not have the healing capacity to get him back to max HP when he finally does get hurt. -Dual classed fighter/druid: The IWD druid spellbook is so much cooler than the BG series' and I'm having a lot of fun with it. I realized too late I could have given her a fighter kit, but c'est la vie. -Half-orc Fighter/Thief: I found an ioun stone that gives +1 dexterity, so her physical stats are 19/19/19. She handles all my thieving needs and her backstab is instant death, but for most battles she's just cutting poo poo in half with a two-handed sword. -Sorcerer: She's there to cast fireballs and summon poo poo, but her biggest niche at this point is just to cast magic missiles at casters. I gave her the Red Dragon Disciple kit, but it really doesn't seem to be worth the trade-off. She doesn't get attacked near enough for the defensive buffs to be worthwhile, and the dragon breath has the same lovely hitbox as cone of cold. -Skald: He was supposed to be my archer and secondary caster, but he ended up mostly just standing behind the party and singing, because the -2 THAC0/AC ended up being a much bigger bonus. It was supposed to be a mixed party (two frontliners, two casters, two hybrids), but having a frontline of four fighters, all of whom hit like trucks, means that most fights are just me pointing my meat grinder at the enemy and watch them get turned to chunks. My standard idea of caster supermacy doesn't hold up when anything vulnerable to big spells or CC dies in two hits.
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May 6, 2020 14:02
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Max Wilco posted:I wasn't that keen on Story Mode when it was first introduced, but I certainly foresee myself using it at some point in the near-future. Yeah I have UAI, as someone else mentioned, though, you can't backstab with Carsomyr. I also don't have access to any BG2 items (no ring of kangaxx to resist her disease DOT either). One thing I did learn though is that her stoneskin is a "Spell Protection", not a combat protection like every single other instance of that spell in the game. Explains why Breach wasn't working.... edit: trip report: beaten. You have to use Pierce Magic to remove her stoneskin, then you can beat her down with 10 attacks per turn. Then you have to cast simulacrum and set traps, beat her minions, traps beat her down, set more traps, beat second set of minions, traps kill her 3/4 and you have to pierce magic and beat her down, then place the last of your garbage traps, kill 3rd batch of minions, re-buff with everything you've got, then beat her down a final time. I probably reloaded ~100 times for that fight - I don't see how you could do solo ironman on core rules, at least not as a fighter/thief. Maybe a caster could do it, maybe... Turds in magma fucked around with this message at 01:34 on May 7, 2020 |
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May 6, 2020 16:28
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Max Wilco posted:I wasn't that keen on Story Mode when it was first introduced, but I certainly foresee myself using it at some point in the near-future. Regarding Kivan and Yeslick, I highly recommend ditching Kivan for Coran when he becomes available. He is an excellent archer. His thief skills are not intelligently distributed. But, if you're keeping Imoen (or pick up Safana for some fun dialog between her and Coran), then you should be fine. Additionally, Coran is basically available to pick up while on your way to Yeslick. So, make use of Branwen or Jaheira as your healer until then if you want a Good/Neutral party. I usually bring Viconia and then ditch her in the mines. Which then flood later. But she's from the Underdark and should know how to take care of herself. Then it's also funny that she avoided a watery grave to almost get burned to death in BG2. Well, maybe it's just funny to me.
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May 7, 2020 15:54
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How do you deal with ochre jellies in IWD2? I've made it to the river caves at end of chapter 3, which is further than I've ever gotten before. I know they're supposed to split if you hit them with slashing damage. But, they seem immune to bludgeoning, and split when you hit them with fire, so I don't know WTF I'm supposed to do. RIP, solo paladin who has a body count of about 1500 and just killed two white dragons without breaking a sweat, but died of exhaustion fighting an infinite stream of slimy puddles that can barely scratch him. Was getting kinda bored of every fight being a tedious slog of four dozen mooks anyway.
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May 7, 2020 19:38
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Acid? Cold? I can't remember which.
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May 7, 2020 23:10
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I think acid will do the trick. Solo paladin's only option might be acid arrows?
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May 8, 2020 00:41
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Azuren posted:How do you deal with ochre jellies in IWD2? I've made it to the river caves at end of chapter 3, which is further than I've ever gotten before. I know they're supposed to split if you hit them with slashing damage. But, they seem immune to bludgeoning, and split when you hit them with fire, so I don't know WTF I'm supposed to do. RIP, solo paladin who has a body count of about 1500 and just killed two white dragons without breaking a sweat, but died of exhaustion fighting an infinite stream of slimy puddles that can barely scratch him. Was getting kinda bored of every fight being a tedious slog of four dozen mooks anyway. If memory serves, they are very tough to damage via physical. They also will just start multiplying if you hit them or not. They don't multiply infinitely; I think if you keep killing them the chain ends. What you need are acid and most especially fire spells. Since you can rest at the underdwarf place, I get my casters and just memorize as many fire spells as I can. Then I have them enter the cave and fling fire till the cave is free of organic life e: oh, solo paladin. Hm. You might be screwed, there. It's ok, you just need the key from the back of the cave.
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May 8, 2020 02:56
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Can you cast glyph of warding? It was an electric damage spell which should also work
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May 8, 2020 11:30
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Can't cast glyph of warding, and IIRC in DND 3.5 they're supposed to split when they take either slashing or electrical damage. I think they're just coded in IWD2 to split every time they take damage, since chucking lamp oil at them for AOE pure fire damage also makes them split. I think they can only split a certain number of times like Nebakenezzer said (in tabletop they drop a size category every time they split, and eventually are below a certain threshold and can't split anymore), I auto attacked with a flaming mace and left the room to pour a drink and the oozes died off eventually.
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May 8, 2020 23:55
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Wow, before I played BG:EE I saw a lot of people kind of down on Siege of Dragonspear but after playing a bunch of it it seems really well done. Some of the writing isn't so hot but the encounter and map design is leagues above most of the stuff in BG1. Even the random encounters between areas are more involved. Are people mostly just comparing it to BG2?
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May 9, 2020 01:50
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Siege was good and I think the bay sayers were just a very vocal minority. The only problems I had with it was 1) I wished it was a little more open world (excusable because it was a DLC) and B) they could only afford like four generic voice actors and two of them are loving terrible.
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May 9, 2020 01:56
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I take it back, it just allowed me to equip my goblin party member with goblin hide armor
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May 9, 2020 02:03
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Dillbag posted:Siege was good and I think the bay sayers were just a very vocal minority. The only problems I had with it was 1) I wished it was a little more open world (excusable because it was a DLC) and B) they could only afford like four generic voice actors and two of them are loving terrible. also gamergate blew up at learning there were trans characters in the Forgotten Realms and review-bombed it, which didn't help
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May 9, 2020 02:18
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I’m not a huge fan of Beamdog’s writing in the EE stuff, but SoD is a lot better than the rest of it, and the gameplay content is solid. It was mostly panned by the kind of internet people who hate anything “political.” In this case, the political thing was having a minor character talk about being trans.
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May 9, 2020 02:46
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You have to ask her several personal questions before she tells you she's trans and it's just a single line. She's not all in your face about it or anything. Right-wingers are huge babies.
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May 9, 2020 03:46
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Dillbag posted:Siege was good and I think the bay sayers were just a very vocal minority. The only problems I had with it was 1) I wished it was a little more open world (excusable because it was a DLC) and B) they could only afford like four generic voice actors and two of them are loving terrible. That's because they actually got all the VAs from BG1 to come back, even fuckin' David Warner as Irenicus
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May 9, 2020 04:05
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Nebakenezzer posted:That's because they actually got all the VAs from BG1 to come back, even fuckin' David Warner as Irenicus And he's now one of the protagonist voices for all of BG1. "With caution."
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May 9, 2020 04:29
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Suspicious posted:You have to ask her several personal questions before she tells you she's trans and it's just a single line. She's not all in your face about it or anything. Right-wingers are huge babies. what does transgender identity even look like in a world where cursed girdles of masculinity/femininity are a common prank and lying around everywhere, like the technology is hella advanced beyond our own and clearly developed and they only gave us one line
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May 9, 2020 04:31
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It's part of the Forgotten Realms. Some gods have male and female forms. If your god likes you enough, they may just outright turn you into the gender of your choice.
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May 9, 2020 04:34
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Elminster both the most famous character and an author insert, spent years as a woman as a test from the goddess of Magic. Also IIRC under polymorph rules back in AD&D you could change an orc into a rabbit and depending on the save roll sometimes it would know it's an orc in a rabbit's body and sometimes it would think it was a rabbit, and if the magic was dispelled sometimes that orc would now still think of itself as a rabbit, but being born with one biological sex and identifying as another is just too out there.
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May 9, 2020 04:55
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Maybe it's just the years of RPGs talking, but I thought she was a lead in to a serious use for the Girdle of Masc/Fem and that I, as the ~Player Character~ had found a "quest" to "resolve". I haven't played SoD yet, but I've kept it on me for the last 40+ hours for that purpose. Would've been cool to have a trans party member or major NPC so they could flesh out what that means in the setting.
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May 9, 2020 05:04
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