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Jay Rust posted:Also the idea of throwing darts as a weapon is stupid
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Nov 3, 2023 01:16
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Dart of Hornet's Nest was like the most expensive item in Curse of the Azure Bonds and thus made me think darts were absolutely amazing as a young kid
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Nov 3, 2023 02:59
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Jay Rust posted:They get no damage bonus, have a shorter range, but have 3 attacks per round. Also the idea of throwing darts as a weapon is stupid Plumbata were used to great effect by troops of antiquity Alternatively, zedprime posted:I bet you don't even think about Rome every day.
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Nov 3, 2023 03:05
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I only think about Rome 2 or 3 days a week, unless I'm rewatching HBO's series Rome, or I Claudius, or a dozen other movies or tv shows about Rome.
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Nov 3, 2023 03:09
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The bottom line is, don't underestimate mars barbs
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Nov 3, 2023 03:13
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Air Skwirl posted:I got through most of BG2 with SCS (I didn't hit a road block or anything, it was just one of a dozen or so runs where I get distracted by another game or another character concept) so I'd recommend that. I haven't actually used it in years but I know a bunch of people in this thread use it regularly so they can probably give you advice on what specific options to enable that make it more challenging and what ones just make certain things more annoying. SCS is highly configurable so it's a good option for people who want more challenge.
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Nov 3, 2023 05:27
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I have finished BG2 countless of times as most classes except one - thief. In fact, I have never even used the thief NPCs as thiefs other than to disarm traps and open locks. They are all mages, anyway. So I have started a new game as something I have never played before - an assassin. And I am completely lost as to how the hell is this class supposed to be played. Sure, I can hide in shadows and backstab a random goblin but after I do so all I am is a melee with d6 HP, no helmet and one APR. And most of the difficult fights are triggered by dialog anyway so stealth seems useless?
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Nov 3, 2023 17:25
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Mr. Neutron posted:I have finished BG2 countless of times as most classes except one - thief. In fact, I have never even used the thief NPCs as thiefs other than to disarm traps and open locks. They are all mages, anyway. blind yourself. then everything is hidden and you get your assassin backstabs on them.
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Nov 3, 2023 17:33
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Allo! What's the scoop on the iron man stuff? When does it start and what's the recommendation for a first timer to the iron man but someone who's been playing the games since they came out?
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Nov 3, 2023 17:39
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Mr. Neutron posted:I have finished BG2 countless of times as most classes except one - thief. In fact, I have never even used the thief NPCs as thiefs other than to disarm traps and open locks. They are all mages, anyway. If you don't want to use the aforementioned blindness trick, you can just chug invisibility potions in battle or use an item that has invis charges. Stab, invis, stab, invis. Harder to do early on, but eventually you have a bunch of options for going invisible. DeadButDelicious posted:Allo! What's the scoop on the iron man stuff? When does it start and what's the recommendation for a first timer to the iron man but someone who's been playing the games since they came out? Someone usually starts a thread in December. As for class or whatever, people do all sorts of stuff. You can solo the game with pretty much anything if you know what you're doing, so just play whatever you find interesting. Maybe something tanky like a dwarven defender or a fighter/cleric multi if you're really worried about getting murked by the first gibberling you see.
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Nov 3, 2023 17:47
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Efficient backstabbing is extremely micro-intensive and should not be attempted unless you're a weirdo
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Nov 3, 2023 17:52
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DeadButDelicious posted:Allo! What's the scoop on the iron man stuff? When does it start and what's the recommendation for a first timer to the iron man but someone who's been playing the games since they came out? I got pretty far with an archer one year, they're pretty busted in BG1
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Nov 3, 2023 18:10
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Arivia posted:blind yourself. then everything is hidden and you get your assassin backstabs on them. It immediately reminds me of when I realized casting invisibility on a villager in too small a room to not notice me stealing would keep the guards from being called. Though to be fair that person was hostile the next time I entered that area
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Nov 3, 2023 18:10
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That's probably my favourite exploit. The game is coded in such a way that a character can only hide in shadows if they can't see any hostile npcs. Hence blind. The attack penalty barely matters since you get a nice bonus to attack for sneak attacks. Use whatever backstabbin weapon which has the highest hit die+attack bonus to make the most out of the damage multiplier. Quarterstaves are often the best choice, although I think there are some decent shortswords in BG1. and yeah, barring invisibility potions and aforementioned exploit, you'll be spending a good portion of battles using a shortbow or consummables. It's kinda micro intensive, although very satisfying when you can chunk tough enemies or erase mages before the fight starts.
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Nov 3, 2023 18:36
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Sigmund Fraud posted:I imported a dagger wielding l7 Berserker / Druid over to BG2 from BG1 and man he feels almost too strong. 19 in most stats, great AC with a shield and self buffs. SCS is great, though I haven't run BG2 with it and have heard goons say it's less impactful there. I imposed stat limitations for the BG1 run, but ultimately the build is going to be dictate the strength of the char more than just raw stats I feel - though I'm no system expert. Rule I used was an 80 point buy with additional restrictions to prevent mix/maxing too much: 18 for 1 stat, +32 points for 2 stats with max 17, +30 points for 3 stats with max 15 and min 7 This gives you at most 4 stats with bonuses at all, and only one of those will be an 18. Of course, I then built a dagger-throwing kensai/thief that was an absolute terror even with 18/17/15/11/9/10 stats. So the build is more influential than the stats I think. More here on the stat distributions: https://gist.github.com/v1ld/3d00c0c4eb0f479838286dd4278d243b v1ld fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Nov 3, 2023 |
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Nov 3, 2023 20:29
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v1ld posted:SCS is great, though I haven't run BG2 with it and have heard goons say it's less impactful there. I dunno about less impactful. High level casters using their abilities more intelligently can be pretty scary. As for Thieves, one other trick you can do that isn't an exploit is to run your Thief out of line of sight of enemies and hide in shadows. If you're far enough away from enemies, you can re-hide even if the rest of your party is fighting stuff. Boots of Speed are a great item to toss on a Thief for that reason. Remember that as a Thief your 1 apr basically lends itself to that sort of hit and run combat style. You're not meant to backstab and then sit there auto attacking. You should be stabbing, running away and restealthing and doing it again. Or backstab and then pop invis potions or items and backstab again. Thieves are probably the most micro intensive character in bg if you want to get the most out of them offensively.
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Nov 3, 2023 20:55
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In BG2 can't you just make a thief/mage and cast misdirect then have infinite backstabs?
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Nov 3, 2023 21:07
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Air Skwirl posted:In BG2 can't you just make a thief/mage and cast misdirect then have infinite backstabs? You can, yeah. Mislead backstabbing is pretty op.
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Nov 3, 2023 22:02
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Oh yeah, the spell is Mislead not Misdirect.
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Nov 3, 2023 22:06
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Arivia posted:blind yourself. then everything is hidden and you get your assassin backstabs on them. That smells awfully lot like cheese. Wicked Them Beats posted:If you don't want to use the aforementioned blindness trick, you can just chug invisibility potions in battle or use an item that has invis charges. Stab, invis, stab, invis. Harder to do early on, but eventually you have a bunch of options for going invisible. Yeah but I won't have access to any of that for a good while. Fruits of the sea posted:and yeah, barring invisibility potions and aforementioned exploit, you'll be spending a good portion of battles using a shortbow or consummables. It's kinda micro intensive, although very satisfying when you can chunk tough enemies or erase mages before the fight starts. So....that's it? That's the only way I can contribute to the actual difficult battles? Is there really no way to stealth in combat otherwise?
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Nov 4, 2023 08:36
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There is a kit that can hide in plain sight I think it’s called shadow dancer. But thief is not really good in combat without cheese.
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Nov 4, 2023 09:27
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Mr. Neutron posted:So....that's it? That's the only way I can contribute to the actual difficult battles? Is there really no way to stealth in combat otherwise? You can stealth in combat so long as you are not in line of sight of any hostile creatures. The non-cheese way is to have your party members hold them down after the first backstab, giving you the chance to dip out, hide, and sneak back in.
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Nov 4, 2023 09:37
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No one really has anything to do in combat except spellcasters, at least, until you get hla's.
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Nov 4, 2023 09:52
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Just like every class except pure fighter, assassins are better off with bows in BG1. Start the fight with a backstab then run to ranged for the rest of it. By late BG1 you'll probably want to have a bunch of invis pots for the boss fights so you can actually pump out some chain backstabs, but yeah even doing that you're not going to put out the same sustained DPS as a fighter class. In BG2 once you've got imp haste and x8 backstab multiplier and an APR weapon in your offhand and poo poo (all of which you can get in chapter 2/3), your assassin will be great.
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Nov 4, 2023 11:28
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I found an old save of an assassin, it seems I ran out of steam in the Candlekeep catacombs, but at chapter 6 of BG1 the character is responsible for 34% of the experience and 31% of the kills across the run. The rest of the group is Yeslick, Ajantis, Xan, Dynaheir and Imoen; no idea who else would've been in there at some point. Aside from a pip in dagger (for the dagger of venom, obviously, get this ASAP) I seem to have invested in pips in crossbows and darts. If you really want a back-stabber character, you want to give them the boots of speed and keep running out of the fight, stealthing, coming back and merking someone, rinse and repeat. It's kinda micro-intensive, but there you are. And of course the assassin's actual gimmick, aside from poisoning their weapon which is pretty dang fun, doesn't come into play until fairly late in BG2 when you start getting those ridiculous x6 or x7 backstabs. In BG2 by that point you will have more options for stealthing in the middle of the fight, too.
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Nov 4, 2023 11:55
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Actually, I forgot the greatest thing about thief classes. The traps are surprisingly powerful and at higher levels they also apply a DOT. Makes some difficult fights a lot easier with a little planning beforehand. I always place the maximum number of traps just out of range of Sarevok and his goons. The instant proc means they can hit spellcasters before they get their protections up. The max limit for traps is pretty high so you can also rest and apply another set. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 12:42 on Nov 4, 2023 |
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Nov 4, 2023 12:39
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I think I asked this before but how iare the games on Windows 11. I apparently have all the games on GOG and was thinking of installing and playing.
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Nov 4, 2023 15:26
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EEs obviously run fine everywhere. If you're talking originals, every game that isn't PST and IWD2 runs just fine. Original IWDHOW in windowed is my favorite IE game experience. But normal people probably want a widescreen mod if not UI mods. Original BG is a very unique (in 2023, let's just say bad) experience without something like Tutu.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:37
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Yeah if you have the enhanced editions they'll run great out of the box and be about as great a play experience as you'll get (as someone playing a game from 1997 for the first time now). Thankfully the IE games don't actually have a terrible interface to figure out, since it's a precursor of modern hotbar controls.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:49
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I keep telling myself I should go back and actually replay BG1 for real. I only played actual BG1 once ever 20 years ago (played BG2 first) and then it’s always been ports.
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Nov 4, 2023 20:03
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I just finished BG1 for the first time ever about a month ago and its definitely a slog at times It almost feels like they should've let you into the city itself earlier because by the time you get there doing little side quests for 500XP and a +1 long sword has lost a lot of its appeal and just made me want to beeline the ending
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Nov 4, 2023 20:08
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Flowing Thot posted:I keep telling myself I should go back and actually replay BG1 for real. I only played actual BG1 once ever 20 years ago (played BG2 first) and then it’s always been ports. What do you mean by ports? The EE isn't really a port, it's just the same game fixed to work on modern Windows with some QoL stuff. Unless you're being needlessly purist to the point that it's going to make the game actively worse, installing BG:EE and doing a run through with the tweak pack to do stuff like use BG1 weapon proficiencies and restore the original videos is going to get you 90% of the way there. The other 10% is just not using options from BG2 that got backported, like containers/kits/spells. Honestly I personally don't think any of that is even necessary. It's okay to have the BG2 stuff in BG1, it's not ruinous but it does make you a bit more powerful when the game is at its most chaotically dangerous. I use the tweak pack to restore the original cutscenes, but that's because I like them and I think they're better than the EE "painted" replacements.
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Nov 4, 2023 20:09
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Icewind Dale II: Enhanced Edition is out, fanmade. Going to install it in a bit to see if it's worth it, just thought I'd let everyone know.
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Nov 4, 2023 20:11
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Arivia posted:What do you mean by ports? The EE isn't really a port, it's just the same game fixed to work on modern Windows with some QoL stuff. Unless you're being needlessly purist to the point that it's going to make the game actively worse, installing BG:EE and doing a run through with the tweak pack to do stuff like use BG1 weapon proficiencies and restore the original videos is going to get you 90% of the way there. The other 10% is just not using options from BG2 that got backported, like containers/kits/spells. I mean things like Tutu BGT and the EE. I have played thousands of hours of BG1 and BG2 and each but all of that has been with the BG2 ruleset except once. Feels like it would be fun to go back to the actual original.
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Nov 4, 2023 20:28
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Vichan posted:Icewind Dale II: Enhanced Edition is out, fanmade. jesus that's a huge amount of work, modders are incredible
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Nov 4, 2023 20:31
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Vichan posted:Icewind Dale II: Enhanced Edition is out, fanmade. lol jesus christ they removed the timeloop.
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Nov 4, 2023 20:32
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Flowing Thot posted:I mean things like Tutu BGT and the EE. I have played thousands of hours of BG1 and BG2 and each but all of that has been with the BG2 ruleset except once. Feels like it would be fun to go back to the actual original. that's what i mean. it really, really isn't that different except for only being designed to work on computers from 1997 and some changes you're aware of/some you can fix with the tweak pack. the remaining stuff that's not encompassed in that is poo poo like cleric/thieves having their ability bars so full of mandatory abilities they have their spells stuck under the special abilities menu or something like that (totsc fixed this).
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Nov 4, 2023 20:34
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goblin week posted:lol jesus christ they removed the timeloop. lol what
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Nov 4, 2023 20:37
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Yeah, the core gameplay is unchanged. Some bugfixes, minor graphic improvements (mostly contributed by the 1PP mod author) and a bunch of UI QoL stuff. Whatever they did to the engine makes the animations a lot more fluid feeling. E: Wait, the big difference in ruleset is the weapon proficiencies. The categories are greatly simplified in BG1.
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Nov 4, 2023 20:39
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bike tory posted:lol what IWD2EE is very aimed at people who already played the game so they removed some Annoying Features such as the entire time loop level in Dragon’s Eye
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Nov 4, 2023 20:45
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