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Man, David Warner, it's basically impossible to be a fan of anything even remotely nerd-adjacent and not run into him multiple times, and he treated pretty much everything, no matter how completely silly (like an evil wizard in a D&D computer game) like it was Shakespeare.
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Jul 25, 2022 20:57
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hostess with the Moltres posted:Is a longsword+longbow fighter alright for going through BG 1 and 2? I tried with a berserker, got frustrated and dropped my last playthrough. BG2’s combat being described as more magic centered is my main worry there also thinking about what party I want to use and I don’t remember if you can just pick characters up, do their quests and switch them out when necessary like with your henchmen in neverwinter nights or planescape torment. I’d like to go with Imoen for her story relevance and I like Minsc but going all “canon” party seems boring. A lot of people do Berserker dualed to something else but there's certainly no reason you couldn't go all the way as one (and it's probably the best fighter kit to do that with because Berserk is such a good anti-status buff). You'll definitely want some magic support but that can be what NPCs are for. You can mostly swap NPCs in and out any time. If you're in a romance with one they might not take being asked to leave very well. (I've never liked this aspect of the game; "Wait here for a few minutes" shouldn't be the same as "I hate you gently caress off forever"). What I usually do is build a core group of four or five and swap others in for their quests.
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Jul 25, 2022 21:02
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hostess with the Moltres posted:Is a longsword+longbow fighter alright for going through BG 1 and 2? I tried with a berserker, got frustrated and dropped my last playthrough. BG2’s combat being described as more magic centered is my main worry there also thinking about what party I want to use and I don’t remember if you can just pick characters up, do their quests and switch them out when necessary like with your henchmen in neverwinter nights or planescape torment. I’d like to go with Imoen for her story relevance and I like Minsc but going all “canon” party seems boring. Longswords and Longbows are fine weapons to invest in. Why do you want to be a fighter if you gave up as a berserker? A fighter will not play very differently from a berserker. What made you frustrated last time? BG2 definitely requires you to use magic, you can get all the magic you need from other party members. What's boring about the canon party? If you haven't beaten the game before it'll all be new to you.
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Jul 25, 2022 21:05
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That’s true about the canon party and using other party members for magic. I thought berserkers couldn’t get proficiency in ranged weapons but they can put one point into it which is all I will likely need really. I also want to do quests when I see them and for example Neera wants you to have her in your party for a while so you can do her quest, but if my party’s full I can’t slot her in.
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Jul 25, 2022 21:14
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When someone wants to join and you're full you can still say yes, you just have to immediately drop someone, so you lose access to any items they were carrying. But I don't think any party members gently caress off forever if you do that. Only other advice is definitely bring Yoshimo with you to Spellhold.
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Jul 25, 2022 21:56
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hostess with the Moltres posted:Is a longsword+longbow fighter alright for going through BG 1 and 2? I tried with a berserker, got frustrated and dropped my last playthrough. BG2’s combat being described as more magic centered is my main worry there also thinking about what party I want to use and I don’t remember if you can just pick characters up, do their quests and switch them out when necessary like with your henchmen in neverwinter nights or planescape torment. I’d like to go with Imoen for her story relevance and I like Minsc but going all “canon” party seems boring. Pure fighter will be fine but Berserker is better in almost every way. Even if you want to use ranged weapons in BG1, being restricted to 1 proficiency point isn't a huge problem because bows have a default of two attacks per round anyway, which will go up as your fighter levels up too. The tradeoff is the Enrage ability, which makes you immune to almost every problematic status effect in the game. By BG2 you'll probably be wanting to dual wield melee weapons anyway, just because the damage will be a lot higher. BG2 does make mages more powerful but there are more than enough NPCs to fill that role and fighters are still very strong all the way to the end of the game. E: this assumes you're talking about the Berserker kit and not the Barbarian kit (which was a separate class in the vanilla games, pre-Enhanced Editions) which has a whole raft of restrictions in exchange for a slightly worse rage ability, a few extra HP, faster move speed and physical damage reduction that doesn't add up to anything significant until high levels. As you can probably tell, one of these is significantly stronger than the other. voiceless anal fricative fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Jul 25, 2022 |
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Jul 25, 2022 22:12
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I liked Warner as admiral Tolwyn in the Wing Commander movie. shut up
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Jul 25, 2022 22:34
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Also I got annoyed because my party kept getting killed by bears. I'm not sure if the "better" way to play is to savescum when someone dies or just roll with it. Planescape torment's raise dead skill makes the game very jrpg in that regard.
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Jul 25, 2022 22:47
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Vargatron posted:Dang... I think I remember him best as R'as al'Ghul from the Batman animated series in the 90s. This is where my brain went when I heard the news https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZsMMoYryTI Fun fact, the waiters here are voiced by Jeff Bennett, aka the vocals of everyone's favorite sadsack from BG1, Xan
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Jul 25, 2022 23:37
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hostess with the Moltres posted:Also I got annoyed because my party kept getting killed by bears. I'm not sure if the "better" way to play is to savescum when someone dies or just roll with it. Planescape torment's raise dead skill makes the game very jrpg in that regard. You'll probably want to savescum if you're not familiar with the combat and fights yet. It's a 90s game and expects that. Just don't savescum by doing the same thing and hoping to get better rolls, 99% of the time if something goes wrong in a fight it's not because you got unlucky rolls, it's because you didn't make the right tactical decisions. Instead reload and try new spells/items/tactics. For example, in the very early game it's usually best not to engage melee enemies in melee but to give everyone a ranged weapon and shoot them while kiting them around with one armored character, letting them get as few attacks off as possible. Unlike real life bears, Baldur's Gate bears are slow so they can't even attack you as long as you keep kiting them away. Early on even non-fightery classes can contribute by giving them a ranged weapon, and all the NPC wizards and clerics support this by coming with proficiency in slings or darts or something. Ammo is super cheap and available. Just be careful, when you're using a ranged weapon and get attacked in melee, the attacker gets a big bonus on their chance to hit you, so be sure to swap to a melee weapon if you gently caress up the kiting and a melee enemy closes with one of your shooters. You can make use of this too by charging down hobgoblin or bandit archers with a melee guy yourself. There's a very early belt that gives the wearer a big bonus vs. piercing attacks, which includes every arrow in the game, and combined with a large shield which also gives bonus armor vs. ranged attacks, your lead heavy fighter-type can be extremely arrow resistant while charging down archers.
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Jul 26, 2022 03:33
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Mzbundifund posted:You'll probably want to savescum if you're not familiar with the combat and fights yet. It's a 90s game and expects that. Just don't savescum by doing the same thing and hoping to get better rolls, 99% of the time if something goes wrong in a fight it's not because you got unlucky rolls, it's because you didn't make the right tactical decisions. Instead reload and try new spells/items/tactics. Unless it's pickpocketing. Always savescum pickpocketing. Although in BG2 you'll find/purchase enough potions of master thievery that you won't have to.
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Jul 26, 2022 04:36
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EE bears are like twice as fast now. They're no longer free exp.
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Jul 26, 2022 05:29
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Skwirl posted:Only other advice is definitely bring Yoshimo with you to Spellhold. "What wealth does a bear drop in the woods?"
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Jul 26, 2022 05:40
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rojay posted:"What wealth does a bear drop in the woods?" 'It turns out that the answer was "poo" all along'!
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Jul 26, 2022 06:12
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What's a "good, but not great" attribute points total to aim for when creating a character in BGEE? Something that will keep me in line with other characters I'll have in my party.
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Jul 27, 2022 19:39
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Jack B Nimble posted:What's a "good, but not great" attribute points total to aim for when creating a character in BGEE? Something that will keep me in line with other characters I'll have in my party. This is somewhat class dependent. Sorcerers, for instance, can get away with garbage stats. Monks, less so. Anyway, in general you can make a perfectly viable character in the mid-high 80s, even 80 is fine Mr. Lobe fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Jul 27, 2022 |
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Jul 27, 2022 19:41
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78-80 is fair in my books. BG1 especially is full of the devs PnP concepts so it's a mix of 3d6 stat commoners clocking in at a threatening 65 total and Mary Sue's and Larry Stus with 95 totals. The design simmers down a bit by BG2 where people only average around 85 so a set in the 80s is gonna keep you on parity with NPCs. Stats don't do a whole lot in this game when talking about your non core stats so no one will look too far down if you just give yourself 95 and call it a day.
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Jul 27, 2022 20:15
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If you're a fighter ethos (fighter/paladin/barbarian/ranger) 18 str 18 dex 18 con If you're a cleric/druid 18 dex 16 con (non fighter ethos characters get zero benefit from con past 16 other than a really lovely and slow regen at 20+ con) 18 wisdom If you're a mage 18 int 18 wisdom if you want to make the most of the "wish" spells but you don't need it really and you can get potions for that 16 con 18 dex If you're a thief 18 str 18 dex 16 con If you're a bard 18 str 18 dex 16 con Those are what I'd consider the baseline stats for a pc of any of those classes. Keep in mind though there are plenty of strength boosting items, there is a dex boosting bracers, there is a belt that sets your con to 18 for like an in game day, etc. There's ways around having lovely stats in certain things if you really don't want to spend time rolling
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Jul 27, 2022 20:26
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To add to the above, Clerics will want 15+ Strength to use plate armor and heavy shields, melee character will find 11+ Intelligence useful when fighting mind flayers (though you can make use of potions to buff), and 18 Wisdom is useful for high level mages making use of the Wish spell (though potions are useful here too).
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Jul 27, 2022 20:41
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adding further to the above, it also depends a bit on your tolerance for min/maxing For example a fighter can dump wisdom and charisma down to 3 without much mechanical impact on gameplay - wisdom has no impact on fighters and charisma only impacts on the small handful of reaction checks in the game that can be done just by putting a high charisma character into the first slot. Dumping stats usually means almost any roll can max out your str/dex/con and get Int to 11 or higher, and it only takes about 30 seconds of rolling stats to get a mid-80s roll anyway. However those are inhumanly low numbers for any attribute so really don't make much sense from a roleplay perspective.
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Jul 27, 2022 21:40
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Minimum total roll is 75. If that's what the game gives me, so be it.
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Jul 27, 2022 22:46
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I say if you want high stats just use a cheat engine or something instead of spending 15 minutes rolling. It's basically just a difficulty option anyway, might as well be explicit about it
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Jul 27, 2022 22:49
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If you're a paladin you need to roll for an hour to get 95 and a good strength percentile, no cheating.
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Jul 27, 2022 22:52
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Ratios and Tendency posted:If you're a paladin you need to roll for an hour to get 95 and a good strength percentile, no cheating. Autorollers for paladins aren't cheating, they're divine intervention
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Jul 27, 2022 22:56
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Me personally I'm always looking for a balance between "has some bonuses" and "isn't a string of 18s" Generally I like something like: 17/18 15/16 15/16 10-14 10-12 8-10 Something in that range, arranged according to class.
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Jul 27, 2022 22:59
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Does Wisdom help with saves vs mental attacks in this game? I presume not, but I hadn't really thought about it and it's a major omission in a game with a lot of mind-type spells that also sticks very close to 2e rules.Ginette Reno posted:If you're a fighter ethos (fighter/paladin/barbarian/ranger) I was suddenly reminded of the game Warriors of the Eternal Sun. Because it uses AD&D rules and because it is a combat-focused video game, Int/Wis/Cha literally do nothing while Str/Dex/Con are good for every class.
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Jul 28, 2022 01:35
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Charisma doesn’t matter much in BG or BG2, but it does play in quite a bit in SoD.
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Jul 28, 2022 01:39
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Just use EEkeeper if you don't like your stats from rolling.
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Jul 28, 2022 01:48
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JustJeff88 posted:Does Wisdom help with saves vs mental attacks in this game? I presume not, but I hadn't really thought about it and it's a major omission in a game with a lot of mind-type spells that also sticks very close to 2e rules. It does not. Wisdom gives lore bonuses and bonus spells for Clerics and Druids. The only thing that affects saving throws is your class and your level, unless you are a shorty race with high con (Dwarves/Gnomes/Halflings get bonuses to certain saving throws at certain constitution levels). Additionally, specialist mages also get bonuses to certain saving throws depending on what school they pick. What class you are also I believe controls what type of saving throw you start with higher modifiers for. For example, I believe Mages get better save vs spell than a lot of classes, whereas Fighters get higher save vs death.
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Jul 28, 2022 01:54
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Chance of divine spell failure because of low wisdom wasn't implemented and neither were the wisdom requirements for spell levels. For example, you're supposed to have 18 wisdom to even be able to cast level 7 divine spells. Not in Baldur's Gate! Wisdom's a dump stat unless you're going to dual to a cleric or druid or you're an arcane caster who wants to use Wish a lot and find buying wisdom potions too much of a bother.
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Jul 28, 2022 02:04
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Amazing how they had a sort of 'blind spot' for Wisdom because they stuck so closely to 2e rules. I know that resurrection chance from Con was not implemented, as it should not have been, but some of those omissions would have been really nice to have. They definitely paid Wisdom back in Torment, though.
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Jul 28, 2022 02:15
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bike tory posted:However those are inhumanly low numbers for any attribute so really don't make much sense from a roleplay perspective. it would've been cool to have some more effect from those. on the other hand I will once again grouse about how a 9 int in NWN means that you talk like a caveman and every NPC talks about how loving stupid you are
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Jul 28, 2022 04:50
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Empty Sandwich posted:it would've been cool to have some more effect from those. 9 is literally 'slightly below average' as well. Maybe at a 3 or 4 as a comedy lark for your obvious dump stat, but that's just silly as-is.
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Jul 28, 2022 06:33
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I think they just liked the low int dialogue in Fallout and NWN wasn't going to even have a campaign to begin with, it was just going to be a thing people could make their own worlds with.
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Jul 28, 2022 09:40
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I've decided the One True Answer is to use Imoen's stats but reassigned. Companions in BG1 use the same portrait pool as the player, like can choose to use the "canonical" portrait for Minsc or Imoen and they'll be assigned another, right? Furthermore, the returning characters in BG2 have updated portraits that sort of reflect the passage of time. So, are there portraits I choose in BG1 that would then have a related portrait in 2?
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Jul 28, 2022 17:49
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Imoen's stat total is 87. For reasona elucidated later in the series it makes sense you'd be about on par with her
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Jul 28, 2022 17:54
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Jack B Nimble posted:I've decided the One True Answer is to use Imoen's stats but reassigned. No. The only added portraits in BG2 are for companions. Worse yet, the BG1 portraits stick out pretty badly if you use them on an import. There's a small handful of portraits in BG1 that aren't used by anyone I think, but it actually means the BG trilogy is actually the one where I think the portrait DLC was a good buy. e: also canonically imoen is latina now, so yeah
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Jul 28, 2022 18:14
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rolling stats for twenty minutes is a time-honored tradition and you can pry it from my cold dead hands
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Jul 28, 2022 18:35
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theshim posted:rolling stats for twenty minutes is a time-honored tradition and you can pry it from my cold dead hands I played some bg multi with friends a little while back, it was their first time with the game. I was very gratified to hear the cacophony of clicks that kicked off when we all hit the chargen screen.
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Jul 28, 2022 19:22
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Dehumanize yourself and face to CTRL+8
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Jul 28, 2022 20:22
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