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Taliesyn posted:A couple things: #2 is something that I also like about the game, as you progress new stuff keeps popping up that makes the old challenges look easy by comparison, but you will eventually figure out a way to beat them too, and the game seems better for it.
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Jul 25, 2015 21:22
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Washout posted:I don't really see the fights the same way as you seem to, the different combinations of various classes that you encounter require different tactics and pre buffing etc. You do have to autosave before almost every fight, find out what they are going to be doing, and then work to counter that though. But something like a berserker or barbarian in the party will go a very long way towards avoiding the major part of confusion (go berserk and bait the spells out), or a rogue going in beforehand to get off a sick backstab I hate forced meta-gamey poo poo especially in RPGs. I'm not -that huge on the ~my immersion~ type thing but at this level it causes enough damage that the storyline just becomes implausible, like the only way the story could've actually worked is if the protagonists has clarivoyant and omnicient knowledge of everything that would happen before it happened. But I still think sameyness of every encounter is by an order of magnitude the bigger problem. Once you learn how to deal with one encounter, you've figured them all out. Period. It says something that to me, the hardest fight in the entire game was not Davaeorn, not Sarevok, not Karoug, no but of all things those two "entropy" chicks in the Low Lantern at the docks. It was the only fight in the game that presented an actually unique challenge. Unfortunately that challenge was the game's lovely aged pathfinding that in areas that tight is basically non-functional and it meant I had go abuse AI limits to not trigger the mage chick while the one person I dedicated to fighting them killed the fighter chick first. Meta-gamey as gently caress but at least it was something to set the fight aside from say, the fight outside of the Cloakwood mines. Washout posted:If you used spoilers and dug up all the hidden items and killed Drizzt then you really made the game super easy though, the first time I went through the game I did it without any of that stuff. Tab spam led to finding some things on my own. I found the diamond and to me that set a decent enough precedent that would spam the Tab key all the time while moving. The Ankheg plate and Evermemory were the highlights of that search but beyond that I don't remember much. I didn't kill Drizzt though because I'm not an rear end in a top hat. Washout posted:All the various recruitables really work to give the game a hell of a lot of replayability, there are a few mods to move the NPC's around so that you have more variety before you get to Baldur's Gate though. And also open the game up to play in ironman and when someone dies you let them go and recruit someone else, again adding to replayability. All this has made this game the one I've played more than any other. Oh I'm not asking why there are so many recruitable characters. That much is obvious. But why put so many of them so late in the game? Why would anyone outside of extremely specific challenges like always permadeath Ironman recruit Quayle, Tiax, or Alora? By that point in the game Anyone will have already put so much investment into their current party that introducing new people just doesn't make much sense. Even people like Coran, Faldorn and Yeslick in the Cloakwood are pushing it. At least it's something modders have addressed. Washout posted:I really disagree about the plot, but if you were getting frustrated and rushing through a lot of areas and not reading everything then you probably missed a lot of the information. No other game that I know of has the progression of discovery and I can't think of many games where your arch nemesis is sending assassins and stuff after you throughout the game, in addition to bounty hunters coming after you, all that just lead me to hate Sarevok more and more because of what he is trying to do to the region and me personally so finally defeating him was one of my best moments in gaming. Hey hey hey. The burnout led me to not want to hullabaloo of quickloading every single house, I still did a fair bit side-questing in there and I still paid attention. Tamoko in particular comes off as a stronger character than she had any right to be and her attacking me seemed less like her trying to appease Sarevok and more her way of commiting suicide. After all, if she thought I could stand up to Sarevok when she couldn't how could she expect to beat me? Plus the dialog leading up to the fight with her just weeps of sorrow. Some of the game's best writing poured into such a one off character. Loved it. My problem is that the fight with Sarevok is not resolution, it's a climax. And then there is no resolution. All the plot threads that spawned from all the damage Sarevok caused whether economical with the Iron crisis or political with the murder of Entar Silvershield and Scar, poisoning of Duke Eltan, and the systematic replacement of several members of the Baldur's Gate nobility, are just left high and dry like they didn't even exist and all we get is a cheap 4th wall breaking "SAREVOK IS DEAD SEE YOU IN BG2". It's worse than the "Press Button, Freaky Lightshow, Please Buy DLC" that Mass Effect 3 gave us at launch. And I didn't mind that ending. Arivia posted:By the time Sarevok is dead, everything has been resolved. The Throne is sundered, the Dukes are alive and aware of his schemes, and you've even killed his last few henchmen who might cause issues (Tazok and Semaj, for example.) This isn't really true, or at least it's not clear. Even killing Eltan's fake healer there's nothing to say he's on the road to recovery. Hell for all I know the doppelganger wasn't lying about the "illness" and his days are still numbered (though, greater due to the cause being eliminated). And nothing is going to bring back Entar Silvershield. He's dead. So the city is down at least one, potentially two dukes. And what about the other nobles who were replaced by doppelgangers at Sarevok's inauguration? Are they (the originals I mean) even alive? If not what does that mean for the city? And with Eltan ill/potentially on his deathbed, Scar assassinated by the Iron Throne, and Angelo killed by the PC, what becomes of the Flaming Fist? These are tihngs that just a few words like the chapter intro blurbs could've, and IMO should've addressed. Without some essence of resolution, the story feels unfinished. Arivia posted:edit: It is worth mentioning that you might not have completed all the ending parts, especially if you hated the city that much. I think you can skip killing Cythandria and collecting Sarevok's diary for example, which leaves you without some very important perspective. Possibly the same with Tamoko. I can see skipping Tamoko being possible (though, as you might surmise from earlier parts of my post, I didn't), but could you even address Sarevok's scheming at the inauguration without his diary? Really unless Belt and the other real nobles turn on him I can't see any way the story could lead into the confrontation in the Undercity. Washout posted:BUT: BG2 is way better, but you have to learn to enjoy sidequests, because there are a hell of a lot more in Tales of the Sword Coast. I probably don't need to say this at this point but I'll just drive it home. I liked the city as a whole. My only problem was I didn't feel like barging into random homes and possibly leading to a guard murder-spree that tanks my reputation and causes half my party to ditch me. I could've looked up a guide (and I did... after finishing the game when it was all moot just to see what I missed) but I didn't feel like it. I felt overequipped by that point already and that adding to the pile of loot with other frivolous tasks probably wasn't going to get me anywhere (and I hit the XP cap in the end regardless) so my experience doesn't feel less. I'm just saying the placement of these is pretty poor and not well thought out at all. If BG2 does a better job of that I'll be glad, but if it doesn't... well I still don't see myself doing a lot of random B&E because I'm not that kind of person. V  VTaliesyn posted:1) Keep in mind that this game was designed when it was still considered normal for a game to regularly kill you off and make you reload. This is a statement I've heard a lot but only with regard to Baldur's Gate. Full disclosure, I'm 24 years old. The first time I can remember holding a game controller is when I was 3 years old. I played a lot of games, mostly NES and SNES. Did I think they were hard? Yes. Did I think they were unfair? Yes. But then again, I was a kid, either pre-school or early elementary during the era in question. I've since gone back to many of those old games, be they Mario, Zelda, Megaman, Dragon Quest, or more obscure stuff like Faxanadu or Startropics. Were they hard? Generally yes? Were they unfair? Seldom if ever. Generally the most unfair games were the ones that few if any looked back on fondly. The game that I loved though, that I kept thinking about and comparing to Baldur's gate as I was playing, was Dragon Quest 3. For franchise that was infamous for it's difficulty curve and grinding requirements, 3 I found was really lax. I don't remember ever feeling like I needed to grind. If I ever found myself in a difficult spot I could almost always scrape my way back to town without a game over at worst, or carefully place crowd control buffs to simplify and often trivialize individual encounters. Then it got a remake that smoothed gameplay even further, taking even more of the grinding and adding additional features and depth to the leveling system while for the most part preserving the original's difficulty and feel. For record, Dragon Quest 3 (using Japanese dates here as, well, that's more indicative of when the game was made) came out on February 10, 1988, with the remake releasing on December 6, 1996. Compare this to Baldur's Gate releasing on November 30, 1998. If an even relatively game almost 11 years older can release in a much more fair state, and then get further tweaked for fairness drat near 9 years later, two years before BG's release, then what excuse does Baldur's Gate have? And no, "D&D rules" isn't a sufficient answer for this. Or any other terrible quirk of the system for that matter. Maybe this was "normal" for PC RPGs, but it's in no way indicative of 90s, or even really late 80s gaming as a whole, and PC RPGs should have been held to a higher standard. That said, Baldur's Gate does have a few strengths that basically made the game for me and then some. The class system in particular is the highlight. My characters folder in overflowing because I just love throwing character concepts together. I ran through about 20 different characters before I settled on the Half-orc Fighter/Cleric (Which I chose because I found the two classes generally synergized well on all fronts and I wanted to see how much of an impact playing multi class versus a single class. I was pleasantly surprised by the results). It's something I can see myself coming back to experiment further with at least. I like how the plot, at least under certain conditions, can be put aside for side quests in a way that doesn't feel gamey, and I liked exploring all the extra wilderness areas. In spite of my hefty complaints, Baldur's Gate managed to be a really enjoyable game. I probably wouldn't have finished it, or at least not done the expansion content, if it wasn't. Putting up with random TPSD->TPKs, a disappointing ending, lovely trap detection, lovely pathfinding, etc. was worth it IMO. I can't say that enough. I may not share the love for the game that some of you have, but I don't ultimately dislike it either. Taliesyn posted:2) Once you start Shadows of Amn, you will find out why the most common advice is "Have an Inquisitor in your party" and start looking back on the BG mages as cute, adorable pushovers. So I hear. All the talk of level drain makes me want an Undead Hunter too. All the talk I've seen regarding BG2's encounter design makes me think taking a party of anything but Undead Hunter, Inquisitor, Conjurer, Cleric/Mage, Mage/Thief, (Insert Favorite other class here but prefer some form of another mage) is absolutely retarded and won't finish the game. But what do I know? BG1 wasn't nearly as bad as I was led to believe so BG2 probably won't be that bad either. Washout posted:#2 is something that I also like about the game, as you progress new stuff keeps popping up that makes the old challenges look easy by comparison, but you will eventually figure out a way to beat them too, and the game seems better for it. Assuming you're talking entirely about BG2 here, well, I hope so as a good chunk of this post was complaining that BG1 basically didn't do this. 
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Jul 26, 2015 04:40
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You get enough items with Negative Plane Protection on them that an Undead Hunter isn't really necessary. Handy, sure, but not necessary. You can also have your clerics cast it, but not on everyone - the spell only lasts six rounds. You're given LOTS of anti-undead tools, though, so that shouldn't be much of an issue. Also, you'll find that most people think BG2 is better than BG. Just be ready to deal with stacked magical defenses.
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Jul 26, 2015 04:47
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Assuming you go down that path, when the story requires you to kill vampires, you're given an amulet that protects against level drain that anyone with any sort of casting ability can equip. Combine it with a helm of charm protection (which also protects against domination) and you can tank vampires all day, er, night. Also you can talk Tamoko out of attacking you at the end of BG1. Doesn't change much, but I always found it a nice touch.
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Jul 26, 2015 04:56
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Baldur's Gate mage combat is meta-gamey as hell, but DnD is like that. The more knowledge you have of the system, the better off you are. It's a turn-based isometric view game, the difficulty curve is in getting to know the system because the game doesn't have any difficulty from positioning, reflex or timing like real time RPGs. Those things are literally pause, point and click in BG. To put it another way: if mage spells were like they are in modern RPGs, as in they're telegraphed, have counters that can be applied reflexively, etc, then there'd be no challenge to them at all in BG because you'd just pause and press a button and that'd be that. voiceless anal fricative fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Jul 26, 2015 |
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Jul 26, 2015 05:29
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Head Hit Keyboard posted:
Level drain tends to be more of an annoyance than a real threat, especially since restoration fatigues people, but Undead Hunter isn't a weak class and you fight enough Undead in various parts that it won't be useless, but Inquisitor is more useful because there are a lot of mages, and pretty much always on true sight helps immensely for other things too. If you enjoy chaos Wild Mages are immense fun, it will probably lead to a few reloads you wouldn't have otherwise, but can sometimes give you huge benefits, and as you go up in levels the good surges happen more and more frequently and the bad ones less so.
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Jul 26, 2015 06:25
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The real threat from level drain used to be the time you'd waste by redoing your spell books. But thankfully, you don't have to do that in the EEs anymore.
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Jul 26, 2015 06:57
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Head Hit Keyboard posted:
I'd recommend sticking with the character you had in BG1 so you get the whole 'epic hero's journey' thing going on. And boy is it epic, I envy people discovering this game for the first time.
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Jul 26, 2015 10:12
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For real though which fuckface decided spelling their name backwards was a dope idea for their NPC mage?
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Jul 26, 2015 10:46
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Pwnstar posted:For real though which fuckface decided spelling their name backwards was a dope idea for their NPC mage? Melf the Male Elf is just one of the first in a long line of D&D characters with silly names. If you're playing an old school game where characters are killed and replaced frequently, it's not uncommon to get clones named Bob VIII or whatever.
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Jul 26, 2015 10:51
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Pwnstar posted:For real though which fuckface decided spelling their name backwards was a dope idea for their NPC mage? Names spelled backwards is a long standing tradition in old RPG's.
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Jul 26, 2015 11:07
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I guess Sarevok got the idea for his scheme to frame you from Semaj.
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Jul 26, 2015 11:33
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Head Hit Keyboard posted:This is a statement I've heard a lot but only with regard to Baldur's Gate. I'm 31, and in general I'd say the expectation that you'd be able to complete a section of a game first time, reliably, has only come in this century. There are plenty of great games - including some on your list, but also others not mentioned like Contra 3 ("Super Probotector" in the UK, what a title), Nethack, Ninja Gaiden, Battletoads (of course), etc - that require "learning by dying". You also forget you have a lot of knowledge about how the games work that you're not taking into account. Let's look at Super Mario Brothers. You run into an enemy, you die (you know this intuitively now, someone at the time may well not). You fall into a pit, you die. You jump on an enemy to kill them, but only some enemies - piranha flowers et al are an exception. In the swimming stages, even a non-spiky enemy will kill you if you land on them. And this is just mechanical stuff. There are plenty of times in the older games where trial and error is your only way of getting past a section, or occasionally just plain luck. Is this true of all games? No. But nowadays the vast majority of games ARE forgiving (the rise of renegerating health in FPSs, for example, is a mechanic designed around the assumption that you want players to be able to reliably do things, as a means of making sure you go into an encounter with a certain amount of life) and there are rare exceptions that either have sections that don't expect you to necessarily complete them, or have "traps" for new players (and they're mostly referred to as roguelikes, even if they aren't).
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Jul 26, 2015 12:08
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Smol posted:The real threat from level drain used to be the time you'd waste by redoing your spell books. But thankfully, you don't have to do that in the EEs anymore. Not ~entirely~ sure what you mean by this but it's nice to hear the annoyance has been reduced at least. no thanks posted:I'd recommend sticking with the character you had in BG1 so you get the whole 'epic hero's journey' thing going on. And boy is it epic, I envy people discovering this game for the first time. I'd planned to. A 20 Str, 19 Dex, 20 Con, 21 Wis Fighter/Cleric isn't necessarily easy to give up just like that. But hey don't set the bar so high or I might expect too much and be disappointed.MrL_JaKiri posted:I'm 31, and in general I'd say the expectation that you'd be able to complete a section of a game first time, reliably, has only come in this century. There are plenty of great games - including some on your list, but also others not mentioned like Contra 3 ("Super Probotector" in the UK, what a title), Nethack, Ninja Gaiden, Battletoads (of course), etc - that require "learning by dying". Yeah true. SMB is a game where you learn by dying. The difference between that game and BG's design is that if you die in SMB it's because you suck. Not that that's necessarily that bad a thing everyone sucks at games at some point, but the fact remains that a skilled player simply won't get hit or die at all, while in Baldur's Gate the RNG can still say "lol u die now" and there's little if anything you can do about it. That's what I'm arguing there. Not deaths caused by actual challenges that the player failed at. but deaths that even a skilled player couldn't avoid because the system arbitrarily said s/he couldn't. Being able to complete a section on my first run isn't something I necessarily want, at lest not consistently, but when I do fail I'd much prefer it to be entirely because I hosed up and not because of the RNG.
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Jul 26, 2015 17:46
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Not sure what you were told or expecting going into BG, but it's a dice based RPG system. So yeah, the RNG can gently caress you over. The "skill" part is minimizing the chance of that happening.
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Jul 26, 2015 17:50
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Suspicious posted:Not sure what you were told or expecting going into BG, but it's a dice based RPG system. So yeah, the RNG can gently caress you over. The "skill" part is minimizing the chance of that happening. That's why I brought up DQ3 a few posts ago. That's still a heavily RNG reliant RPG yet much more fair in it's design so I don't feel Baldur's Gate really has an excuse. My criticism stands, though I'm probably making it sound worse than it actually is.
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Jul 26, 2015 18:12
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Head Hit Keyboard posted:Not ~entirely~ sure what you mean by this but it's nice to hear the annoyance has been reduced at least. In the original version of Baldur's Gate 2, every time a caster got level drained he/she had to reconfigure their spell book after getting restored because the number of spell slots you can memorize increase as you level. The Enhanced Edition version fixed this thankfully. Also, much of your complaints of the first game is more or less fixed in the sequel. The writing is stronger and there's more of it, NPCs who can join you are tied to sidequests and you can do most of them as soon as you finish the starter dungeon, there is some inter-party banter between characters etc. Gameplay is still meta gamey as hell but you also get a lot of options to deal with enemy mages and items that help reduce casting times in BG 2.
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Jul 26, 2015 18:19
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Suspicious posted:Not sure what you were told or expecting going into BG, but it's a dice based RPG system. So yeah, the RNG can gently caress you over. The "skill" part is minimizing the chance of that happening. The RNG honestly isn't that big a deal. If you prepare you're going to win, if you're not prepared you're not going to. I can't think of a single fight that's come down to dice rolls in any of the IE games I've played, which is really the way it should be. (A notable exception is anything with wild mages, but that's literally asking for it.)
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Jul 26, 2015 18:43
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RNG is not a big problem if you know the games and apply the right buffs or use the right summons. If you don't know exactly how to deal with Rakshasa or Demons, or what tricks some levels of Watcher's Keep are going to throw at you, things can be tough and then luck can decide a battle. Apart from that I can think of only a few examples where RNG plays a big role, but they mostly involve going up against too many Beholders for summons to handle, without a Berserker or the Shield of Balduran. Or making the big mistake of installing the SCS component that gives Beholders telekinesis so they can take even the last piece of equipment that protects from their bullshit away. I still want to know who thought that Beholders are an enemy type that can, and in fact should, be spammed. Fighting vampires before you're ready for them can also come down to luck, but those fights are generally avoidable. Edit: On that note, I can only recommend adding Korgan to the party for a first BG2 playthrough. Fighting wizards you'll figure out at some point, so an Inquisitor isn't all that needed, really. But the game will never stop throwing new weird enemies with gotcha-you're-dead abilities at you, and Berserkers like Korgan just shrug all of them off. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jul 26, 2015 |
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Jul 26, 2015 19:01
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Well in the lore beholders actually live in giant warrens and stuff and when they get older they leave to go questing and that sort of thing but generally they hang around their warren.
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Jul 26, 2015 20:12
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So I'm playing through a highly moddded BGT installation. In Dark Side of the Sword Coast you assemble a Mace of Disruption +2. Which I'm using on Viconia to bash undeads faces in, as you do. So I'm going through Durlags Tower and I get to the final fight. Before going through the door I buff up to the gills. Now I know that the fight is going to have some relativly unthreatening undead around the edge of the arena moments into the fight. You don 't want to ignore them since they can be ghouls and ghouls can Hold your party members and even without that you want to keep your squishies safe. So I planned to distract the boss with Viconia since she has the highest AC. Kill the undead, then focus on the Knight. Then this happens:  Apparantly he's UNDEAD, never realized before. But there you go.
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Jul 28, 2015 11:13
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Now go use it on Kangaxx.
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Jul 28, 2015 11:58
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He's normally a demonknight. Dunno why DSotSC changed him into a death knight.
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Jul 28, 2015 15:28
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Suspicious posted:He's normally a demonknight. Dunno why DSotSC changed him into a death knight. Because the kinds of people who make IE mods are actually surprisingly bad at the 2e rules and setting.
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Jul 28, 2015 15:56
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Suspicious posted:He's normally a demonknight. Dunno why DSotSC changed him into a death knight. So I got curious. Decided to look at mods resonpible for editing that room. Didn't find anything interesting. Looked at the deathknight file itself. Interesting factoid. The original filename is actually Deathk.cre. No joke, thats the original bg1 filename. Anyway, whole bunch of mods touch that file. I'll spare you the details but best I can tell the aTweaks PnP Undead option is responsible for turning it into a deathknight and giving it undead weaknesses. Because why not, obviously Demon knights are named deathk.cre so that must mean they are supposed to be Deathknights... right ? So in short: Arivia posted:Because the kinds of people who make IE mods are actually surprisingly bad at the 2e rules and setting. Tzarnal fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 18:13
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If mods have taught me anything it's that every little bit of unused code or inconsistency in the game files is a sign of cut content that needs to be restored.Washout posted:Well in the lore beholders actually live in giant warrens and stuff and when they get older they leave to go questing and that sort of thing but generally they hang around their warren.
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Jul 28, 2015 22:24
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Wizard Styles posted:If mods have taught me anything it's that every little bit of unused code or inconsistency in the game files is a sign of cut content that needs to be restored. Polymorph Self: Mustard Jelly works pretty well. Also Mordy Swords and Nishruus.
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Jul 28, 2015 22:39
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Beholders are one of the most diverse enemy types in the whole trilogy actually. There's gauths, "regular" beholders and elder orbs in BG2's hives, then there's a director in Firkraag's dungeon and a spectator in the sahuagin city. It's pretty true to how they show up in the Realms. I think there's also a death tyrant in Watcher's Keep, and there's one in the fight with the Twisted Rune.
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Jul 28, 2015 22:39
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Protection from petrification, protection from magical energy, protection from lightning, chaotic commands and death ward should cover everything, but they're just going to use anti magic ray to dispel it all and you'll be back to square one. Unless of course you're a fighter/mage that adds spell shield on top of it to exploit the bug, but that would be cheating.
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Jul 28, 2015 22:40
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amanasleep posted:Polymorph Self: Mustard Jelly works pretty well. Also Mordy Swords and Nishruus. If you didn't get/failed to scribe those scrolls, you can use wands as a slime. Drop cloudkills and chill out as they ineffectively shoot rays at you
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Jul 28, 2015 22:43
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Huh, I never thought of Polymorph Self as an option. I'd have thought that would just get dispelled when the first anti-magic ray hits. Cloudkill bombardment and just sending in Skeleton Warriors, Nishruus, Elementals and Swords until it's over, yeah, I've done that, but that's exactly my problem with Beholders. The best way of approaching them when you don't have party members that are straight-up immune to their powers is to not engage them with the party at all, which always feels cheesy to me. I guess at least it's not as bad as in IWD: Trials of the Luremaster, where you get ambushed by a Beholder that just teleports in, but that's the best I can say about the Beholder warrens in BG2. Arivia posted:Beholders are one of the most diverse enemy types in the whole trilogy actually. There's gauths, "regular" beholders and elder orbs in BG2's hives, then there's a director in Firkraag's dungeon and a spectator in the sahuagin city. It's pretty true to how they show up in the Realms. But, that's kind of my point though. The Beholder dungeons are full of Gauths, regular Beholders and Elder Orbs (which iirc are regular ones that can also cast Imprison, although that might be wrong), when they could have at least used Directors and Spectators as well.
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Jul 28, 2015 23:03
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Personally I like it, beholders are totally dependant on their magical rays, so the only way to beat them is to get around that somehow, so they provide a unique challenge and the beholder section is not all that big really. It's kind of the same as the mind flayer hive, that also takes a totally unique approach, got to spam undead or berserkers. The mind flayer section is way more annoying imo, but as I said both sections are not really all that big.
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Jul 29, 2015 01:03
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Wizard Styles posted:Huh, I never thought of Polymorph Self as an option. I'd have thought that would just get dispelled when the first anti-magic ray hits. Polymorph self is undispellable by any means. It's also one of the most broken effects in the game. Wizards who abuse it can melee better than the best fighter, then protect themselves from spells with 100% MR.
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Jul 29, 2015 02:04
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So, with getting my thoughts and grievances of BG1 off my chest, I've gone ahead and imported my character into BG2EE. Cleared Irenicus' Dungeon (I was worried when I heard of people comparing it to the Temple of Trials in Fallout 2, ho am I relieved to find they're nothing alike), Imoen got arrested, we have an objective. After Getting out I investigated the circus tent which ended quickly, recruited Aerie, and then got eventually led to the temple district where I was tasked with finding Keldorn and dealing with a beholder cult, which I have done... techinically twice because I just murdered them the first time and then learned I missed out on like, six maps worth of loot so I reloaded and did it right. Came out of the sewer and was quickly approached by people making requests of Minsc and Aerie. Am now saved outside of the Temple of Helm about to turn in the cult quest. Thoughts so far: -Holy cow these XP numbers are big. I mean, I expected bigger numbers since it's higher level and stuff but this is like, 100 times what BG1 would give for anything. Quest XP, if anything, feels more appropriate now for sure but stuff like trap removal, lockpicking, and scroll scribing of all things has simply gotten ridiculous. That could be just me though. -Oh my god people are talking. Playing BG1 I was half tempted to replace my party with custom characters from time to time but here they actually give you reason not to do that! Awesome! Imoen probably talked too much in the intro dungeon though. Like she has sometihng to say every five steps. Jaheira reacting to Khalid's death was really well done, even the VA IMO. Minsc is... Minsc. -Imoen is a Bhaalspawn isn't she? The game is terrible at hinting poo poo. "Death is... pretty?"  -Yoshimo is single handedly making me change my tune on Thieves. In BG1 I dualed Imoen before any of her skills besides Find Traps really matured but Traps are pretty great and have much larger radius than I had expected. Like, four times as large. -Fights are a lot more dangerous now. Enemy melee now feels actually dangerous as opposed to BG1 where I probably took mele damage less than 20 times in the entire game. My only gripe with this is that now I have to rest after basically every fight and I don't know if that's going to bite me in the rear end or not. Although this could just be because I neither have, nor can afford any high quality armor. -Aerie seems interesting but despite her status as a double caster she doesn't seem to have much to offer the party yet. So far she's just been throwing around Bless, heals, and restorations. Her mage spells are... honestly not helpful at all and I'm leery of throwing her scrolls because I don't want to waste them, especially if I decide not to keep her. Agh. -The undead town actually got me to use Turn Undead. Turns out that Turn Undead is pretty great, espcially if the Cleric doesn't need to be on the front lines like my main character expects to be (though with Keldorn, Jaheira, and Minsc, doesn't necessarily NEED to be). -I... somehow expected Beholders to be harder. Especially considering the group at the northern tip of the sewers was actually unbeatable until I picked up Keldorn, and the cultist group in the center of the Beholder area could easily overwhelm my party in seconds. -I encountered level drain! Then quickly installed the tweak that removes from restoration. Double rest after level drain is the last thing I need. -My party composition worries me. Three multiclass clerics (counting Jaheira), one multiclass mage, and four frontliners (hell sometimes I send Yoshimo in as well. It's worked out so far but feels so lopsided. I probably need to swap out Minsc or Jaheira but I like their banters. Minsc claiming Aerie as his new witch and two declaring they will avenge Dynaheir was great. Questions: -Do you still gain XP while level drained? The status hiding the XP counter worries me. -Any particular standout party members that would (or absolutely wouldn't) go nicely with a half-orc Fighter/Cleric PC? -Anything else I should know? Quests to fast-track for whatever reason? Proficiencies I should look into since the ones I took in BG1 (Warhammers, Slings, and Sword'n Shield style) are all maxed now? Get rich quick schemes?
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Jul 30, 2015 03:58
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Have you been to the Copper Coronet yet? You've got some quests and several interesting NPC's there. Hexxat (T) is hiding behind the stairs, Nalia (T->M dual) will greet you near the entry, and Anomen (F -> Cl dual) isn't too far past her. Aerie is actually an extremely strong character - there's a reason she's one of the characters the Ironman threads give you an award for NOT using - but her strength is generally going to be in hanging back, buffing, and debuffing. She's the one who tosses mass cures, haste, confusion, and the like, while your stronger mage tosses the fireballs. Make DAMNED sure to take spells that break magical defenses, though - you're gonna need 'em. Save often, and use multiple slots. At some point you're going to go on a trip. As it is your first time through, I *STRONGLY* advise taking Yoshimo with you. (Side note - he's in Amn looking for his sister...who just happens to have been Sarevok's girlfriend in BG, the one you either killed or talked into going away right outside Sarevok's temple at the end.) Fighters will always be something of a threat, save to specially prepared mages. Once you approach level 20, you'll find enemy melee pretty much stop missing. (Same with yours, too.) You will eventually find a mace of disruption. I'll save you some grief now - you'll run into a sculptor who wants a special material. Find a way to cheat him, and then go get the real material. It will allow you to upgrade the mace, and the upgraded version gives its user Protection From Negative Energy. It's also possible to get an amulet with that ability. These two items make fights against level-draining undead much, much easier. Beholders are interesting. If you keep successfully saving vs their attacks (or using the Shield of Balduran), they're not too tough. If you don't, you're screwed. One Flesh to Stone and you're reloading. Same if you get an Elder Tyrant and he casts Imprison. My 'classic' party is generally: Inquisitor, Fighter/Cleric, Cleric/Mage, Theif/Mage, Ranger, and another melee of some sort. At a minimum, I'd say you want 2 mages, 2 clerics, a thief, and 2 fighting types. With dual- and multi-classing, individual characters can fill multiple of these roles. I believe you get XP while level drained, but restoration (I think) puts you back at the XP you had when you got drained, so you sort of lose the XP earned in the meantime. Don't sweat it, though, there is a crazy amount of xp available. I think you don't get to do any romances as a half-orc, so there would be no standouts with your PC. Depending on alignment, Korgan and Edwin are both pretty awesome for evil parties, Yoshimo and Jan are both cool to have (but you'll want one or the other), and while I rather like both, many people hate both Aerie and Anomen. (To be fair, Anomen is meant to be annoying until you finish his personal quest.) Cernd always just annoyed me, and if you're evil, Viconia makes a surprisingly good front-liner with either a strength belt or certain of the cleric melee buff spells. If you're playing a fighter/cleric, you REALLY want to get to 5 stars in either Warhammer (for Crom Faeyr and the Runehammer), Flails (for the Flail of the Ages), or eventually, both. Paladins should put 2 dots in 2-handed swords. There are a number of slings and daggers that provide infinite ammo, as well as at least one short bow. Anyone using a two handed weapon should put one point (not 2) into two-handed style, and thieves may as well put points into one-handed weapon style. Wands of Cloudkill can be your friends, and one of the vendors in the Coronet sells a helm that casts Simulacrum once per day. Learn to abuse the HELL out of that thing.
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Jul 30, 2015 05:20
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You can use Aerie in different ways and she's overpowered in all of them. Buff up into an unstoppable melee juggernaut? Ok. Hang back and empty your 2 spell books? That works too. Cleric spells in sequencers are fun. You want to use slow a lot and Aerie already knows it. It makes dangerous melee fighters almost toothless. Viconia will romance a half-orc but that's it. Also isn't a fighter/cleric multi limited to 2 pips? I'm not a fan of cloud spells. Hanging back twiddling my thumbs for a minute while stuff dies off screen is not my idea of fun. I always keep the wand of cloudkill with 1 charge you get from Irenicus's dungeon "just in case" and I never use it.
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Jul 30, 2015 05:37
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I don't know how much of the thread you've otherwise read, but If you've paid attention to inquisitor discussion then you already know Keldorn is really god drat powerful. If you haven't been reading, then know his dispell is instant cast and casts at twice his own level. This makes stripping mage/cleric buffs in a massive area totally trivial and will mess up casters in a real bad way. True sight is also quite handy and there's some exclusive paladin equipment that will allow him to really tear it up. His downsides are his rather awful dexterity and meh strength but I believe you find the gauntlets of dexterity during the sightless eye quest and there are several spells and items that can fix strength. Some would say he also makes some fights too drat easy with his dispell, but that's at your discretion if that's an honest downside.
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Jul 30, 2015 06:01
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as a f/c go to copper coronet and do Nalia's quest, it will give you the best melee weapon in the game for a cleric (it's a flail, if you aren't specced for it don't worry just start on that path now, you'll get enough points eventually) she wants to join your party, but she doesn't have to for you to do the quest, you can just tell her you'll meet her there. Jaeheira (I can never remember how to spell her name) becomes a loving melee beast, especially if you spec her for spears. If I understand your party makeup correctly it's not the most over powered twinked out one, but it's definitely on the kickass side of the scale. When you're getting on a boat make sure you bring Yoshimo.
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Jul 30, 2015 06:13
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Suspicious posted:Cleric spells in sequencers are fun. This is one of the best things about cleric/mages IMO ^
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Jul 30, 2015 06:21
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I would qualify a party with Aerie, Jaheira and Keldorn as pretty OP. He's only missing Edwin, really. Stop whining about reputation, Edwin, I'm only doing it for the shop discount.
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Jul 30, 2015 09:26
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