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Vichan posted:On the subject of mods: Which ones are considered essential to you guys? Are ANY NPC mods worth getting? I know there's a small list in the OP but I just wanted to hear other people's opinion! I've always installed Lure of Sirine's Call (BG1) and Tower of Deception (BG2, don't install the optional Ustrain component) since I found them and would recommend them to anyone. As for NPC mods, they tend to be either horrible (like Saerileth and everything else the people that wrote her shat out) or decently written but boring (like Kelsey). There are a couple of good ones, though, and even some of the more boring ones can be worth bringing along if you want to play the game but are just really tired of the Bioware NPCs. I don't know which of them are EE-compatible and which aren't, though. Are you looking for anything specific or just asking? Some of the mods that add to the existing NPCs are also nice, for example there's one that lets Jan invent more stuff over time, and I remember liking Mazzy's friendship mod. Also I assume you were asking for BG mods, but the IWD2 NPC mod is good. Or at least the NPCs I used were - I didn't take any of the characters that raised any red flags along with me and avoided all romances. The IWD1 NPC mod on the other hand is boring as poo poo.
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Nov 7, 2015 18:11
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I just found out that BG2EE is iPhone-compatible now, so I'm thinking of picking up the game again. Are the controls good enough to play on a 4.7" screen, or should I skip it?
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Nov 8, 2015 01:35
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in BG2:EE, you can apparently empower dorn's sword with bonus damage against devils or demons during a questline. which enemies are considered devils?
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Nov 8, 2015 02:58
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Lore-wise, Glabrezu, Pit Fiends, Imps, and a few other assortments that probably only appear in WK. In terms of what's actually coded into the game, God knows.
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Nov 8, 2015 03:13
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That's one of those things which is just a total mess in implementation. From memory one of the community patches fixed a lot of those problems though. In general weapons that have +x against specific types are not as powerful as other universal +x weapons and Dorn's sword is no exception. Actually the only exceptions to this I can think of are the weapons that give a chance to kill specific enemy types outright, like Mace of Disruption, Crom Faeyr, Wave etc
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Nov 8, 2015 03:27
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Mick Swagger posted:I just found out that BG2EE is iPhone-compatible now, so I'm thinking of picking up the game again. Are the controls good enough to play on a 4.7" screen, or should I skip it? I haven't tried playing on the iPhone, but I can tell that it's great on the iPad.
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Nov 8, 2015 06:08
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Mick Swagger posted:I just found out that BG2EE is iPhone-compatible now, so I'm thinking of picking up the game again. Are the controls good enough to play on a 4.7" screen, or should I skip it? Unless it's substantially bigger than a Samsung Galaxy s5 I wouldn't bother.
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Nov 8, 2015 06:24
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Sleep of Bronze posted:Lore-wise, Glabrezu, Pit Fiends, Imps, and a few other assortments that probably only appear in WK. No idea how Dorn's sword works, probably checks alignment somehow. Anyway, if something has a name like Abishai or Nabassu, it's probably a demon or devil.
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Nov 8, 2015 11:49
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Nabassu, Glabrezu, Mariliths and Balor are all Tanar'ri, or demons. Cornugons, Gelugons and Pit Fiends are all Baatezu, or devils. The other fiends are too weak to really matter.
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Nov 8, 2015 12:07
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I bought BG2:EE during the Steam sale and I think I'm gearing up for another playthrough here in the next couple of weeks. I played through BG2 as a half-elf stalker around this time last year and really fell in love with the game (prior to this I had had several false starts with the series). Would anyone mind recommending a kit or build to try for a second playthrough? A kensai/mage sounds pretty cool but I also don't want to break the game wide open or anything.
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Nov 8, 2015 16:08
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What NPCs did you use last time/do you want to use for this playthrough?
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Nov 8, 2015 17:24
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I'd recommend to think about the npc you want to use first and then choose your class accordingly. If you don't want to break the game, then stay away from the popular dual classes like kensai/mage, berzerker/cleric and the like. With the right npcs, you can beat the game with any class or kit.
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Nov 8, 2015 17:50
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Elf Fighter/mage/thief is super OP if you remove the level cap and play in solo or duo, but if you play it in a party it's still pretty fun, since it does timestop with traps and can still do whirlwind too, all while casting a bunch of cool defensive buffs and backstabbing. I don't think it would break the game or anything, not like a gnome thief/illusionist does or something else of that ilk. Half orc cleric/thief is pretty rad too. Since with 19str slings do decent damage and using a staff to whack things and backstab with is hilarious.
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Nov 9, 2015 00:31
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Fighter/mage multi is like kensai/mage except less strong but with the upside of not having to dual and spend half the game underpowered.
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Nov 9, 2015 00:45
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Do be warned if you run a Fighter/Mage/Thief multiclass in a full party of six you can easily go right through Throne of Bhaal without ever getting enough xp to hit ninth level spells.
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Nov 9, 2015 01:02
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Mzbundifund posted:Do be warned if you run a Fighter/Mage/Thief multiclass in a full party of six you can easily go right through Throne of Bhaal without ever getting enough xp to hit ninth level spells. You actually can't get 9th level spells with a f/m/t iirc because of the XP cap. But you get traps anyway and that gets you timestop so it's still good.
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Nov 9, 2015 02:21
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Thank you for all of the suggestions. The party I used last time was Minsc, Jaheira, Aerie, Keldorn, and Nalia. I had Minsc dual-wielding the Mace of Disruption and FoA and he just tore through everything, though by ToB he wasn't quite as awesome. I gave Keldorn Carsomyr but he wasn't all that useful with the exception of his absurd dispelling ability. I think I had Jaheira use Belm and a girdle of strength and I mostly used her for offensive stuff, but her druid spells came in handy. Aerie and Nalia I kind of used in tandem and whatever I did with them was actually really effective, they were probably my two best characters. With my stalker I just dual-wielded and gave him a bunch of awesome items once I cleared Watcher's Keep and started ToB. I enjoyed the stalker kit for my first playthrough; it was low maintenance and decent enough as far as combat goes. I've never really tried any of the evil characters, and part of my hang-up with that is that I can't imagine playing a BG2 party without Minsc. He's so great! (Isn't it Edwin that doesn't get along with Minsc and will eventually resort to them trying to kill each other?) But I would like something different from my first go-around. It's been pointed out a million times but the progression from monastery orphan to a Demigod and the satisfaction of that journey is something I haven't really experienced in any other game (well, Morrowind I guess, but it's not quite the same.)
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Nov 9, 2015 05:48
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Take nothing but 5 thieves (pure class, no multis) and make your main be a single class thief too, using bows all through BG1. Then in BG2 switch them all to mages. Don't use any NPC's either just play in multiplayer mode. Make one of each race for the hell of it.
Washout fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Nov 9, 2015 |
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Nov 9, 2015 05:58
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OregonDonor posted:Thank you for all of the suggestions. The party I used last time was Minsc, Jaheira, Aerie, Keldorn, and Nalia. I had Minsc dual-wielding the Mace of Disruption and FoA and he just tore through everything, though by ToB he wasn't quite as awesome. I gave Keldorn Carsomyr but he wasn't all that useful with the exception of his absurd dispelling ability. I think I had Jaheira use Belm and a girdle of strength and I mostly used her for offensive stuff, but her druid spells came in handy. Aerie and Nalia I kind of used in tandem and whatever I did with them was actually really effective, they were probably my two best characters. With my stalker I just dual-wielded and gave him a bunch of awesome items once I cleared Watcher's Keep and started ToB. I enjoyed the stalker kit for my first playthrough; it was low maintenance and decent enough as far as combat goes. If you want to try an evil play through, do a Halfling Barbarian. Dual wield Flail of the Ages and defender of Easthaven, wear Human Leather armor, you'll save against every spell and hit like a brick poo poo house once you get the strength girdle. (The armor is late game but both flails are pretty easy to acquire early, do Nalia's quest and then sell what you need to buy Defender).
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Nov 9, 2015 06:55
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I'm a fan of straight cleric of lathander with a combat/melee focus. You have to use their buffs well, but you can turn them into decent meleers.
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Nov 9, 2015 07:36
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OregonDonor posted:Thank you for all of the suggestions. The party I used last time was Minsc, Jaheira, Aerie, Keldorn, and Nalia. I had Minsc dual-wielding the Mace of Disruption and FoA and he just tore through everything, though by ToB he wasn't quite as awesome. I gave Keldorn Carsomyr but he wasn't all that useful with the exception of his absurd dispelling ability. I think I had Jaheira use Belm and a girdle of strength and I mostly used her for offensive stuff, but her druid spells came in handy. Aerie and Nalia I kind of used in tandem and whatever I did with them was actually really effective, they were probably my two best characters. With my stalker I just dual-wielded and gave him a bunch of awesome items once I cleared Watcher's Keep and started ToB. I enjoyed the stalker kit for my first playthrough; it was low maintenance and decent enough as far as combat goes. If you don't want to bring Nalia along again and Edwin is off the table, you might just want to go with a straight Specialist Mage or Sorcerer, or something dualed to Mage.
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Nov 9, 2015 12:18
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Evil parties can be pretty fun once you have beated the game once or twice with regular good/neutral parties. Evil npcs probably are the strongest ones, and have some fun banter. For example, take Korgan, he's an incredibly strong fighter, the tankiest tank, and has some surprisingly fun interactions with Jan Jansen and Mazzy ( a maniac dwarf berzerker who writes dwarf poetry? ), the downside is his personal quest, which is timed and not that easy, early on. Also, he's grumpiness incarnated. Then you have Edwin, he's the best single class mage in the game, you can't even make your character as good as he is, why? because he cheats. Also has the most hilarious personal quest. Don't put him in a party with Minsc, Viconia is an amazing cleric, but I find her pretty annoying, specially if you try to romance her, (not Anomen levels of annoying, mind you) but she's an excellent cleric once you solve her strength problems. Ends up fighting Keldorn. If you have EE, you also get Dorn, pretty much the same good ol'd rear end in a top hat from BG1 and Hexxat as an evil thief, the only one in the game, but her personal quests are kinda difficult. I've yet to beat the game with the new characters so can't say much. My party composition for evil runs has always been Edwin, Korgan and Viconia, then If I picked a thief-capable main character, then I went' as a 4-man party or just picked up the characters with fun banter. If not a thief main characte, then I just added Jan to the mix. Don't go full retard with evil and slaughter and try to maintain your reputation barely under the neutral zone and you will be golden.
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Nov 9, 2015 13:12
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NPC feuds aren't inevitable, they pop up like random banter. I've successfully completed playthroughs with Keldorn & Viconia and Minsc & Edwin in the same party by just reloading whenever they started to fight. I don't know if it'll also work with Aerie & Korgan because it works differently for them (they don't fight, Aerie just leaves) and also because I never use Korgan.
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Nov 9, 2015 22:51
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I mean, everyone should do at least one playthrough with Jan Jensen. Also haerdalis is an underappreciated character that becomes a real monster in ToB. Valygar can also be fun as a stealthy backstabber wielding the celestial katana.
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Nov 10, 2015 08:42
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Haer'Dalis and Valygar are both excellent NPCs, they just need a bit more effort to make em shine. H'D fully buffed and with his spins is a great backup tank or a DPS fighter or a mage. He's really versatile, esp. once he gets use any item. Valygar is a tank who can backstab, whats there not to like? AC is pretty much irrevelant by higher levels anyway, so him wearing only light armor is not that big of a deal.
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Nov 10, 2015 09:07
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Wizard Styles posted:Also I assume you were asking for BG mods, but the IWD2 NPC mod is good. Or at least the NPCs I used were - I didn't take any of the characters that raised any red flags along with me and avoided all romances. Huh, I've played both mods and had kinda the opposite reaction (Though I've never managed to finish IWD2. Every playthrough has died on that viper temple). The IWD2 Mod is much more ambitious, and the characters more interesting - in theory - but I found some of the character writing pretty poor (Diriael the elf supremacist being the worst, and Prachi was a complete non-entity) with horrible voice-acting. I guess it complements the game itself that way. IWDNPC I thought was kinda charming, and the group worked as a unit on a proper old school swords & sorcery adventure. Admittedly, none of the five were that exciting (I can remember literally nothing about the druid woman) but it felt a lot more cohesive.
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Nov 13, 2015 02:13
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Diriel is one of the characters that I looked at and immediately knew were not going to be in the group, alongside the Drow and the, uh, ex-slave Aasimar Sorcerer eunuch. Not really surprised to hear that he's poo poo. And yeah, Prachi was very...I don't know, was she actually bland or did she just have almost no content? Either way, she made me restart with another character (the Gnome) in her place because being dull and a Monk in IWD2 is not a winning combination. I mostly liked the Hildury/Nord storyline, and Nikosh was pretty cool; the rest I honestly didn't care much about. That's still a lot more than I can say for the IWDNPC characters, though. I honestly don't even remember all of them, and I'll take anything over boredom. I hear you on the cohesiveness thing, but then again the IWD1 party is set (unless you play with less than 6) and the IWD2 mod gives you 10 characters to choose from, so that's not really something I'd call a weakness of the IWD2 mod, just a result of different approaches the mods took. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Nov 13, 2015 |
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Nov 13, 2015 17:16
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It's been a while since I took Prachi anywhere, but I had the exact same not sure if lack of content/or really boring reaction to her. The drow and the sorcerer are both surprisingly low-key, though the sorcerer feels like he could have come out of a Mercedes Lackey novel, and I get the impression the drow romance could be very bad. I enjoyed the bard - the right level of unpleasantness with enough charm that she's occasionally entertaining, as opposed to why the gently caress do I continue to travel with this terrible person? Speaking of, Diriael's low point is deliberately smashing the invisibility potion you pick up that you're meant to use to stop the villagers getting slaughtered. You are not allowed to prevent or react to this. I'll need to check out Nikosh, Nord, Valeero, and Hildury if/when I ever replay it. I felt IWD1NPC had a lot more group conversations and reactions to plot events, but you're right in that that's a lot easier to do when you know the exact party composition in advance. I would like to see the IWD games get more mods in general - anything to give IWD2 the complexity of player response it's plot really needed. The more linear focus and lower stakes might encourage less, ah, out there mods as well, if the BG1 modding scene in comparison to the BG2 one is anything to go by. Lysan Lurraxol fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Nov 14, 2015 |
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Nov 14, 2015 00:30
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I'm currently playing BG1 again, mainly to test out some weapons I made that may turn into an item mod. I thought I might as well give some mod NPCs a try, so I brought Valerie, Sirene and Tenya (that kid priestess you beat up in a sidequest) along. It kind of sucks to have unvoiced NPCs, and Valerie has no soundset at all, while Tenya has one voiced line she occasionally says when selected. So I kicked Valerie out again and picked up Neera. Valerie might have been the best written one out of the three, but Tenya gets some Mephit abilities as innates, and right now I'm just having fun loving around with those. Sirene on the other hand comes with an IWD voice, but unfortunately seems to have something to say about everything. She's interjected in most conversations so far, and it's getting annoying. Especially since the other two haven't said a thing so far, and I'm playing without the NPC Project, so Tiax and Ajantis never have anything to say either. I'll probably reinstall the game with the NPC Project, give Valerie and Tenya IWD voices as well, and leave Sirene out.
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Nov 17, 2015 22:51
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Wizard Styles posted:It kind of sucks to have unvoiced NPCs, and Valerie has no soundset at all, while Tenya has one voiced line she occasionally says when selected. So I kicked Valerie out again and picked up Neera. Valerie might have been the best written one out of the three, but Tenya gets some Mephit abilities as innates, and right now I'm just having fun loving around with those. I'm Valerie's modder, incidentally.  Doing voicing for a mod NPC is a major pain in the rear end unless you have good quality voice recording equipment/software and are either you yourself or know someone in real life who can do a good voice for the NPC in question. I had none of that stuff, and when I sent out a request in the modding community for anyone interested in voicing, the only person who responded sent in a couple of samples of recording her lines and they were... not good.
Cythereal fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Nov 17, 2015 |
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Nov 17, 2015 22:56
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I have to say, I really liked Valerie, so major kudos there. I've found most of the BG1 mod NPCs I've played way more enjoyable than their BG2 counterparts (Valerie, Isra, Indira, Finch, Vynd, White, the only exception being Gavin who was just not very exciting). Not sure why that it is. I guess the setting/plot of BG1 is far more low-key than 2, so there's less incentive for too much melodrama.
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Nov 18, 2015 00:28
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Lysan Lurraxol posted:I have to say, I really liked Valerie, so major kudos there. Thank you.  Unfortunately, for various reasons it's highly unlikely I'll ever complete her planned BG2 version. Gave going back a try earlier this year and nothing came of it.Still, I'm happy with her BG1 incarnation.
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Nov 18, 2015 00:31
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Any recommendations for a starting iwd party? I power gamed the poo poo out of the bgs but never finished iwd and find myself with party paralysis before starting n
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Nov 18, 2015 09:52
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Cythereal posted:Thank you. In a proper BGT installation she'll be there in the dungeon after the game transition so I kept her around to play through IWD. Currently I've replaced her with Tashia because well, content. That playthrough is intended to lockstep this one though so it'll be a while untill I find out what Tashia is about. Valerie and Isra are probably my most liked BG1 npc mods. Isra had content going in to SoA and ToB so I'm hoping that doesn't ruin my impression of the mod.
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Nov 18, 2015 10:23
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Hughlander posted:Any recommendations for a starting iwd party? I power gamed the poo poo out of the bgs but never finished iwd and find myself with party paralysis before starting n I posted a few write ups about powergamer parties to take now that you can use all the kits on everyone, but it's all advanced classes like half-orc cleric/thief and gnome fighter/illusionist. But here it is in short. Dwarven Defender (dual axes, loads of good axes in iwd) Human Berserker (dual longswords, poo poo for 2 handers in iwd) Elf Fighter/Druid (dual flail/warhammer) Elf Fighter-thief (bow), or h-orc cleric-thief, or dual class swashbuckler-mage Archer Sorcerer or fighter/illusionist Pretty much a berserker, archer, and sorcerer can carry anything on their backs, so really do whatever you want if you take those 3. And you certainly don't need anything but a multiclass thief. You can also max locks and traps with a thief kit around level 5 or 6 then dual to cleric or mage for more spell power, but that half orc is pretty neat. Also this game throws so many healing potions at you, you don't really need a cleric. Washout fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Nov 18, 2015 |
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Nov 18, 2015 11:02
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Cythereal posted:I'm Valerie's modder, incidentally. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3461287 I know it's a mod, but if you want it voiced/finished professionally, I recommend you save up some cash and offer a payout. Both myself & Blinkeve can put you in touch with talented actresses if you're interested.
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Nov 18, 2015 11:20
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Cythereal posted:I'm Valerie's modder, incidentally. Washout posted:And you certainly don't need anything but a multiclass thief. You can also max locks and traps with a thief kit around level 5 or 6 then dual to cleric or mage for more spell power, but that half orc is pretty neat. Especially in IWD. The Assassin kit is almost completely worthless in that game since you'll barely reach the levels where the extended Backstab progression kicks in. Poison Weapon is never bad but not as relevant in IWD, which doesn't have as many dangerous casters that the poison could disrupt. And the Swashbuckler sucks because the only thing it can theoretically do better than F/T multis is stacking armor, but it's prohibited from using helmets, which are one of the best sources of armor bonuses in IWD. The only use for Swashbucklers is to be dualed into a good class after picking up some Thief skills and an AC bonus. More general IWD advice: Even with summons I've found that having two tanky characters makes life a lot easier. Also, I'd bring at least two warrior types just to be able to simply auto-attack through the occasional trash mob. You don't need a fully leveling caster at all, but I'd take at least a Bard and a multiclassed Cleric or Druid along. There are lots of strong buffs, debuffs and summons, so I'd recommend bringing fully leveling casters along anyway. Spell scrolls are in short supply, so don't bring more than one party member that needs them. Bards are better in this than the Baldur's Gates and sometimes get special conversation options that also give extra XP. Still not gamebreakingly good, but worth taking. There are often choke points to take advantage of or get hosed over by, enemy casters like to hide behind a wall of bodies, and enemies with damaging auras appear later in the game. The auras are more an annoyance than anything else, but either way having decent ranged presence helps. It's hard to figure out what to put proficiency points into because so much in the game is random loot. Wasn't so bad in vanilla IWD, but Beamdog decided to implement the narrower BG2 proficiencies. Anyway, Washout already mentioned that Axes and Long Swords are always a good bet, and Flails/Morning Stars are solid as well. Daggers give you a pretty constant supply of nonrandom magical weapons with good bonuses, but of course also have poo poo for base damage. There are also Mage-only daggers that give armor bonuses and extra spells that would be good for Fighter/Mages, but I think they're random loot. I'd play with a full party of 6. This will make the pathfinding poo poo itself (whoever designed Kuldahar was blissfully ignorant of the IE pathfinding's limitations), so make sure cheats are enabled and Ctrl + J everywhere. Oh, and some of the BG2 features added by the EE can break the game, like the Archer Washout mentioned. Just using dual-wielding alone is going to make the game significantly easier. So use at your own risk. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Nov 18, 2015 |
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Nov 18, 2015 14:48
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The Joe Man posted:http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3461287 Thank you for the advice, but I don't think it's necessary. Valerie is a mod for an old game that I'm very unlikely to truly complete, so  It's nothing I'd pay money to finish.
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Nov 18, 2015 15:47
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Wizard Styles posted:Oh, and some of the BG2 features added by the EE can break the game, like the Archer Washout mentioned. Just using dual-wielding alone is going to make the game significantly easier. So use at your own risk.
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Nov 19, 2015 09:35
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Yeah, I used the settings that the EE introduced that allow you to play with Insane difficulty spawns but without the changes to damage and XP calculations, and I had a much easier time than I had with vanilla IWD on Core difficulty as well. I'll probably limit myself a bit more whenever I replay it.
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Nov 19, 2015 14:20
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