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A Single Sphink posted:Prehensile eyelashes. For a moment, I was also thinking a particularly nimble tongue, since beholders are always drawn with huge mouths, but I don't know how they could speak the words at the same time. They don't have whiskers or noses, so it's not prehensile nose hair either. I also just read a book about a wizard who cast a spell with his toes because his hands were bound, but beholders don't have those either.
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Jul 9, 2018 20:49
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Just did my first full runthrough of Durlag's Tower and dang it kicked my butt a whole lot. Also Durlag got the raw end of the stick, dude just wanted to put down some roots.
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Jul 10, 2018 04:47
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KKKLIP ART posted:Just did my first full runthrough of Durlag's Tower and dang it kicked my butt a whole lot. Also Durlag got the raw end of the stick, dude just wanted to put down some roots.
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Jul 10, 2018 05:27
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I can't play BG now without doing it as an Iron Man run. I have never been able to last long enough to get to SoD. What's the most interesting/fun with interactions NPC party to have in SoD? Time to fail yet again. Comstar fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Jul 10, 2018 |
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Jul 10, 2018 06:46
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Comstar posted:I can't play BG now without doing it as an Iron Man run. I have never been able to last long enough to get to SoD. Absolutely have Glint in your party. Holy poo poo that guy is a hoot.
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Jul 10, 2018 10:36
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chaosapiant posted:Siege of Dragonspear was really really good. It’s also my favorite BG interface. I love the black UI with inlaid dragons and such. I’m replaying the series now with the trilogy mod so I can use that UI for the whole series. Having never modded BG games and playing them on Ubuntu, can someone give me a quick & dirty rundown (or link) on what's required to do this? I've got BGEE, BG2EE, and SOD on Steam if that makes a difference. Thanks.
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Jul 10, 2018 10:49
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Can someone clear something up about multicalssing in BG, because I'm trying to decide if I want to do it with Imoen or not. Does it work where you don't actually level up your second class untill you surpass your XP of your first class? And are there better spellcasters in BG:SOD/2/SOA than Imoen would be and I should just keep her a thief?
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Jul 12, 2018 13:25
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You lose the abilities of your original class while multiclassing, so Imoen would stop being a thief until her Mage levels matched her Thief levels. I kept her as a Thief and fiddled with her stats in BG2 so she kept the two extra levels she got. You can't make her not be a mage in BG2.
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Jul 12, 2018 13:36
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KKKLIP ART posted:Can someone clear something up about multicalssing in BG, because I'm trying to decide if I want to do it with Imoen or not. Does it work where you don't actually level up your second class untill you surpass your XP of your first class? And are there better spellcasters in BG:SOD/2/SOA than Imoen would be and I should just keep her a thief? You don't get to use Imoen in SOD unfortunately. There's one better pure mage in BG2 and another mage/cleric multiclass who is good but you want two mages anyway probably, and her thief levels are really useful. I usually end up taking her along in BG2. Also dual classing is what humans do, which is where you stop levelling as your first class and start levelling as your second and don't get the powers of the second back until you surpass the first class's level. Multiclassing is what the other races do and you have to select it at character gen, and it's where XP is split equally between all the characters classes.
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Jul 12, 2018 13:41
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TotalLossBrain posted:Having never modded BG games and playing them on Ubuntu, can someone give me a quick & dirty rundown (or link) on what's required to do this? I've got BGEE, BG2EE, and SOD on Steam if that makes a difference. After some research, it looks like I'd have to mod a Windows game and then copy relevant files to the Linux installation. I guess I'll deal with the BG2:EE interface. But I will say that the SOD UI was excellent.
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Jul 12, 2018 14:38
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Ok, looks like I might just fudge some EEkeeper stuff once I finish Dragonspear and get her back for BG2
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Jul 12, 2018 15:29
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Very nearly finished my first playthrough of Dragonspear, coming off feeling very positive about it. I'll give a completely unnecessary extensive rundown of my thoughts when I've wrapped up the last bit of it tonight.
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Jul 12, 2018 17:09
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KKKLIP ART posted:And are there better spellcasters in BG:SOD/2/SOA than Imoen would be and I should just keep her a thief? SoD: one great, one ok and one risky specialist mages (3 total), one great sorcerer. Edwin, Dynaheir, Neera and Baeloth, respectively BG2EE: Imoen, who'll always be a Thief/Mage dual class in BG2 unless you have a mod that imports NPCs from BG1. Other than Imoen you get: One Cleric/Mage, one Illusionist/Thief multi, one Thief/Mage dual (Imoen discount edition), one awesome specialist mage and one risky specialist mage. Aerie, Jan, Malia, Edwin, Neera Don't count too heavily on having Imoen for either game due to plot, though.
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Jul 12, 2018 18:21
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Alright! My first ever playthrough of Siege of Dragonspear is complete and yeah, I'm glad I didn't listen to all the chud crybabies who were tanking the reviews of the expansion due to the "controversy". When I found out that all the fuss was over one line of optional dialogue from a side character my head nearly exploded off my shoulders. People are so loving pathetic these days, holy christ. Final party was me (L11 Sorcerer), Minsc, Dynaheir, Jaheira, Khalid, Glint. Pretty standard canonical "good" party, didn't change that composition much at all throughout the game. TLDR verdict: Siege is a hearty Baldurs Gate adventure and I'll happily include it in my runthroughs from now on. I was pleased to see it was meatier than I expected and there was a lot of touches I didn't expect. Campaign Design, Dialogue & Story I think they did a very solid job of trying to bridge BG1 & 2. It's not perfect, but it's kind of a big ask. Pre SoD I think most players kind of made up their own reason how their character transitions between the two games, but I think for a canonical explanation this one does a good job. You've got your cast of big bads, an enemy faction you have a decent reason to keep encountering throughout your playtime and sensible, interesting side content. A lot of the reasoning behind the events that occur will probably come off as fairly one note and shallow but I think there's still enough there to spur most players to want to see how it concludes. The campaign's linear nature and inability to revisit areas is strange when you're used to being able to freeroam everywhere, but I didn't get too much of a desire to revisit old areas since I was being thorough. Rather than BG1's huge sprawling wilderness maps, they opted to use far, far smaller areas but filled them with a lot more detail like in ToB. I vastly prefer this approach and it makes a lot of areas fairly quick to experience, though some were a little barren other than one or two side missions. There's a lot of visual spectacle that hasn't really cropped up in the engine before with massive crowds of NPCs in urban areas and other minor details that really make each area stand out, and visually the area and creature design fits perfectly into the artstyle of the series. A commendable amount of work went into really making it feel like this adventure fits snugly into the era the game was made without sacrificing modern conveniences and it feels great to play through. PC dialogue is handed well for the most part, without any of the silly metajokes or referential stuff that BG1 leaned on. It's not as comprehensive as BG2's but that's probably beyond this adventures scope. Instead, you get a more "modern Bioware" approach here - a serious/Lawful/Lawful Good response, a jokey/Chaotic response, and a (generally fairly tryhard or edgy) aggressive/Evil response. While generally you can't really steer NPC dialogue in a major way like you could in BG2, I did like how you get a chance to take the edge off a lot of situations that are maybe taking themselves a bit too seriously and some of the funnier responses really made me smile. The ending kind of fizzles out and ties itself up very quickly and abruptly just when you think you're going to get a wind down, but the additional dialogue they give to the Hooded Man and the events that occur along the way makes it worth seeing through. You kind of know what's going to happen anyway, but I still think a little bit more depth and exposition time for the motives of the bad guys would've really helped it feel a little less flat. NPCs and Voicework I've mentioned earlier how I appreciate the new dialogue and voicework for the OG characters, though I'm not too good at recognising whether they were the original voiceactors or not except for Minsc and the Hooded Man (Who, incidentally, both do sterling performances - you can tell David Warner's getting on a little but I can listen to that glorious voice forever). I think Dynaheir and Khalid's voices are really, really good this time round. Dialogue wise there were a couple of flanderisations here and there - Minsc a little too fond of butt-kicking for example, but there was nothing that truly ruined or misrepresented the fan favourite characters which I was concerned about going in. I like use of ambient chatter for interparty dialogue and it's great to see NPCs interjecting into conversations BG2 style, you really get to see more of their personality that BG1 really lacks. While there's a pretty solid bombardment of new party NPCs I don't think there were too many I actually liked all that much (gently caress Baeloth, oh my god gently caress him so much, his alliteration quirk is the most grating poo poo ever make it stop) and I didn't really have them stick around for too long. Sorry if my ignorance shows - I didn't spend too much time in BG1 searching new characters out so I'm not sure how many of these are carryovers from that game or new to SoD. Of the ones I tried, I enjoyed Corwin's no-nonsense attitude but found her a bit too uninteresting to keep around for long. Safana grated on my nerves from the get-go so I chucked her away as soon as possible, and unfortunately Rasaad felt too ineffectual to keep in my party for too long (Which is a pity, I love his personality. AFAIK he comes back in BG2 so maybe I'll give him a chance there). For the poster who recommended Glint to someone I'll happily throw my voice in for that chorus. He's from the Jan Jansen & Minsc school of "This character should be the most irritating poo poo in the world but for some reason he's lovable as hell" and his toolset'll do you proud for the vast majority of the campaign. Great voiceacting for that character, some fantastic interjections and jokes and I didn't realise he was a romantic option as well. Totally went for it.. Voiceacting for incidental NPCs and the villains range from average and tolerable to "Are you sure you don't want to do another take?". It's not a game ruiner but honestly I'd think a lot of characters could've done without voicework at all. Some of the comedy accents and especially the "woah far out" surfer guy they keep recycling really undermine a lot of the dialogue. Haephernan and his big bad demon boss were really grating as well, especially with the Hooded Man showing how creepy and intimidating should be done. Caelar's very solid though and I was sold on a lot of her line delivery. The narrator also returns and the chapter transitions are every bit as pleasing to listen to as they have been. That voice is just butter. (Fun fact: They even wrote new lines if you ask your familiar for advice. Cute!) Encounters and Itemisation: Before I begin: I've played a lot of BG1 & 2 but I've never truly completed ToB and have only recently begun playing the game in the last few years with the training wheels off. BG2 was basically my awkward teens' game of choice and I relied a lot on the ol' console command and CTRL + Y to get through harder encounters, if y'know what I mean. I'm not an expert when talking about encounter design and probably not nearly half as versed as most of the people in this thread, but I don't exploit the engine, try not to abuse Rest and play on Core Rules difficulty. I only really struggled in a few places in SoD during major encounters, the final fight giving me a lot of trouble until I replayed the final chapter from the beginning and made some more sensible spell choices. That said, SoD approaches combat in a way that most of the other games in the series don't: You'll get a lot of mass infantry, with very few enemies having anything major in the way of special abilities. As a result, Fireball spam became the weapon of choice and between me, Dynaheir and a couple of Wands of Fire most encounters ended before they could really begin. It's an interesting approach initially but can very quickly get tedious. When you do come across enemies that have abilities you have to counterplay, they generally have some element that make them a little more bothersome than they should be. There doesn't seem to be a very consistent balance but there were a number of fights that did feel good to win and required some thought. BG2 feels superior in this regard, but I wouldn't call SoD's efforts awful either. Side missions tend to be brief affairs but have enough personality to make them feel good and generally hide their simple nature. The vast majority of them end with a small battle and you'll see variations of the phrase "Here's a small reward" thrown around for your entire journey until it becomes nearly a running catchphrase among the inhabitants of Faerun. Regardless, I did appreciate the new items they added to the game, a lot of them with interesting quirks and pro/con setups which make choosing between them a fairly fun and interesting affair. There's a really impressive selection of them as well which really rewards checking out as much of the content as possible. Towards the end of the game it's basically showering you in healing potions, scrolls and other assorted consumables at no real cost to you. This is pretty helpful because I felt the last boss was pretty drat tough. You need weapons of at least +3 to harm him, which was a kind of nasty shock - the vast majority of the items in this expansion are +2, so even if you're buffed to the gills this is a very unwelcome surprise if you haven't armed yourself in advance.. Even with a well-itemised party, you're going to want to buff yourself to the gills before the last fight - something that is made all the more irritating by the fact it's preceded by a gauntlet on a elevator, timed so you don't have indefinite time to prepare. If you die and have to start it over, there's a frustratingly long in-engine cutscene preceding it which was a real dampener on the ol' momentum. Verdict: If you're a fan of BG and you're on the fence like I was, I think SoD is absolutely worth your time. While its story and the way it's delivered aren't anything revelatory, it feels very satisfying to play through and I think it succeeds at being a fun and interesting through road between each game. It's more linear than you might expect, but doesn't wear out its welcome and keeps its side content brief but rewarding. I was pleasantly surprised by it's length (If only Glint was here) and will very much include it in my next runthrough when I do a BG:EE Trilogy mod run. Songbearer fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Jul 12, 2018 |
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Jul 12, 2018 22:14
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Good review. I felt much the same way but I didn't try out all the NPCs. I kept Corwyn the entire game and sort of wish I hadn't. She was just a little bit too goody-two-shoes, even though I played a "good" party. We sort of had this romance thing almost going but in the end it didn't work out. However, she surprised me at the end when I decided to surrender to Duncan and she facilitated my escape instead of helping him kill me. I really enjoyed SOD. I only finished it two days ago myself and it took me over 20 hours to get through. As mentioned before, the UI improvements are really nice.
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Jul 12, 2018 22:31
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Generally agreed. The combat focus on massive mob packs made AoE way too central in the combat imo. For the other NPCs, M'Khiin was decent but generally a very serious character so there's not a lot of charm about her. Voghiln was ok but bards other than Blades are still trash and strength based bard just doesn't add much to a party so I didn't keep him around long. In terms of his class, personality etc it's all very consistent though so from a roleplay perspective he was well designed.
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Jul 13, 2018 00:08
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went through sod a second time recently as a berserker, hit 9 and dualed to mage shortly after. actually pretty great because while it doesn't have scs, being a weakling single class mage is enough of a power dip to make it challenging. of course you can just pick up edwin and corwin and make it a nonissue but still. if you hit the xp cap in sod you'll get your fighter powers back (10 mage, 9 fighter) which imo is a fitting end to the expansion. the only problem is then you're going into BG2 as a dualed fighter/mage with full powers which is pretty lol but oh well, with scs it almost balances out. it's not like everyone didn't just scribe 10000 scrolls asap anyway 
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Jul 13, 2018 00:37
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I picked Neera up in BG1 and kept her around because loading every spell I can up with wild magic is just how I roll.
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Jul 13, 2018 01:51
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Neera is awesome, gently caress the haters.
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Jul 13, 2018 02:43
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 e: and this is unfinished and will probably be left there  \/\/\/ Thanks. I was struggling to come up with more ideas Decrepus fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Jul 13, 2018 |
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Jul 13, 2018 20:55
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it's Sarevok but otherwise awesome. maybe could you add something like: "loves journaling, gives no fucks" and "shrewd master of geopolitical war and Neoliberal policy"
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Jul 13, 2018 21:08
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Virgin Anomen/Chad Keldorn please
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Jul 13, 2018 22:48
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Decrepus posted:
Lmfao
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Jul 13, 2018 23:37
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Helm sees all. Know this, and be judged.
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Jul 13, 2018 23:48
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 Oh Lil 
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Jul 13, 2018 23:58
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Irenicus: obsessed with elves, has no soul, tries to kill a single tree Sarevok: loves iron, immortal god soul, tries to kill entire continent
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Jul 14, 2018 00:03
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Sarevok was such a great villain. Even better, he's just a plain old fighter rather than a dumb wizard or demon or whatever
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Jul 17, 2018 11:53
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I liked Sarevok's distant third cousin: the scholar known as Koveras.
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Jul 17, 2018 17:04
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Back in Icewind Dale 1, and I'm currently battling through Lower Dorn's Deep. Dealing with these enemies has been a pain, but I've been making good progress (aside from my cleric dying randomly after a boss battle, so I had to take a week trip back to Kuldahar to raise him). Then I got to the room with the big bladed skeletons. And mummy's. And zombie lords. I'm going to need to tailor my spells for that fight I'm thinking. Finding 9th level spell scrolls is such a tease.
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Jul 21, 2018 16:59
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Lucas Archer posted:Back in Icewind Dale 1, and I'm currently battling through Lower Dorn's Deep. Dealing with these enemies has been a pain, but I've been making good progress (aside from my cleric dying randomly after a boss battle, so I had to take a week trip back to Kuldahar to raise him). Then I got to the room with the big bladed skeletons. And mummy's. And zombie lords. I'm going to need to tailor my spells for that fight I'm thinking. Finding 9th level spell scrolls is such a tease. Destroying the Idol will immediately destroy all the undead in the room.
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Jul 22, 2018 20:50
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KKKLIP ART posted:Just did my first full runthrough of Durlag's Tower and dang it kicked my butt a whole lot. Also Durlag got the raw end of the stick, dude just wanted to put down some roots. Pretty much no other game than BG has given me the feeling of trucking along with an ongoing narrative, and then climing into a hole in the ground, and emerging a literal month later with a thousand-yard-stare, a million XP, and a glittering set of new items stained by the fluids of abominations.
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Jul 22, 2018 21:03
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Willie Tomg posted:Pretty much no other game than BG has given me the feeling of trucking along with an ongoing narrative, and then climing into a hole in the ground, and emerging a literal month later with a thousand-yard-stare, a million XP, and a glittering set of new items stained by the fluids of abominations. Icewind Dale 2 scratches that itch for me pretty well. I still fondly remember the first party I beat that game with.
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Jul 22, 2018 21:25
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Even though I still need to go through Throne of Bhaal and finish up BG2 in full, and despite the fact that I have Planescape Torment EE installed and I've wanted to play through that for a long time, I'm tempted to install Icewind Dale, if only because of the appeal of making your own party of custom characters. I thought about giving Temple of Elemental Evil a spin for the same reason (though that would take a lot of setup with mods and whatnot). I meant to ask a little while ago if there are any guidelines when making a party in either IWD or ToEE. I remember someone saying a long time ago that if you played IWD2, you don't want to make the leader of your party a paladin, since they'll always deny monetary payment when you complete quests.
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Jul 23, 2018 00:27
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Max Wilco posted:Even though I still need to go through Throne of Bhaal and finish up BG2 in full, and despite the fact that I have Planescape Torment EE installed and I've wanted to play through that for a long time, I'm tempted to install Icewind Dale, if only because of the appeal of making your own party of custom characters. I thought about giving Temple of Elemental Evil a spin for the same reason (though that would take a lot of setup with mods and whatnot). IWD doesn't have any of that, general guidelines are just to have a balanced party: 1-2 frontline fighters/tanks, 2-4 ranged damage dealers with a mix of physical and magic, two good AoE/crowd control classes, some sort of anti undead like cleric or paladin, one or two healers and someone with thief skills who isn't a pure class thief. Obviously these can overlap and intersect with multi/dual classes. Also bards are actually good unlike in the Baldurs Gate series.
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Jul 23, 2018 00:50
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bike tory posted:IWD doesn't have any of that, general guidelines are just to have a balanced party: 1-2 frontline fighters/tanks, 2-4 ranged damage dealers with a mix of physical and magic, two good AoE/crowd control classes, some sort of anti undead like cleric or paladin, one or two healers and someone with thief skills who isn't a pure class thief. Obviously these can overlap and intersect with multi/dual classes. Also bards are actually good unlike in the Baldurs Gate series. You can't do this in Icewind Dale 1 because it's 2nd edition rules, but for anyone who plays IWD2 I strongly recommend a character that takes 1 level in thief and then keeps levelling bard from then on. It's been a while since I last played, but I did that with a drow as the racial chose and he was great.
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Jul 23, 2018 02:24
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IWD, in addition to what bike tory said: Summons are good and there are lots of partywide buffs that help them further. You don't get a lot of scrolls. You won't manage to supply two fully leveling Mages with everything they want. There's only one Stoneskin scroll. Weapon proficiency choices are fucky because a lot of loot is randomized. This can be annoying in the Enhanced Edition because it uses BG2 proficiencies instead of the wider proficiency groups of the earlier games. Someone should use long swords, and flail/morning star is a safe proficiency as well. You're guaranteed to get an axe that's good for tanks; a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist with points in axes can reach very low AC values in addition to the usual Fighter/Mage defensive spells. Monks are mostly poo poo in the IWD level range and don't get a lot of equipment to make up for it in IWD but I had some fun with the evil Monk kit at least. IWD2: One cool thing you can do in IWD2 is make an all caster party that works pretty well. Rogue (1)/Bard, Sorcerer, Druid, some Mage (Transmuter can be fun), a Cleric with Domain spells you like, and lastly some tanky Cleric (Mask is a decent one) with 4 levels of martial classes to cherry-pick good bonuses and get extra attacks. Oh, and Monks are poo poo. ToEE: Get the Co8 mod. Maybe the only D&D video game where I think a Wizard may be better than a Sorcerer. One of each is possibly your best bet. You get a very decent NPC frontliner in the first town. He's also Chaotic Good, which means he can use a strong bastard sword you find later on. So your own party only really needs one. Having your own guy focus on battefield control with Improved Trip and Combat Reflexes is a good option. Clerics are very useful. Rogues are questionable. You want some Rogue levels on somebody but that's about it. This is all about skill access; you don't really need that many skill points per level since the game is mostly about combat. So a minimal level investment is fine. Monks still poo poo. Wizard Styles fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Jul 23, 2018 |
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Jul 23, 2018 03:19
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ProfessorCirno posted:Yeah, players liking Imoen was one of the things that took the devs completely by surprise. She was your annoying sister you were supposed to ditch early on (or she'd die because, well, early level 2e). If I remember, Plan: Imoen Dies fell apart as soon as it became apparent that no, she's actually really popular, killing her off is a terrible idea. Well, why wouldn't she be? It's an extremely hostile world and she's your only link to your childhood home. It's cool to have someone that is loyal to you specifically and is not just there to get their side quest done. Plus, she's not nearly as annoying as some of the other NPCs.
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Jul 23, 2018 11:29
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Speaking of ToEE, what's the verdict of the ToEE+ mod or whatever it was called? Proper widescreen support and code-level bugfixes seem great, but I'm wondering whether it also changes stuff that's questionable and how well it plays with Co8.
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Jul 23, 2018 11:31
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Fair Bear Maiden posted:Speaking of ToEE, what's the verdict of the ToEE+ mod or whatever it was called? Proper widescreen support and code-level bugfixes seem great, but I'm wondering whether it also changes stuff that's questionable and how well it plays with Co8. I’ve not gotten too far into the game, but it does run really really well and seems to be relatively bug free. In order to make sure the UI doesn’t shrink too much I play at 1280x720. But it will support higher, including 21x9 resolutions like 2560x1080.
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Jul 23, 2018 11:54
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I'm finishing up my BG1 SCS run and getting ready to import into BG2 and set up SCS. I've beaten the trilogy before but this is my first playthrough with SCS... any advice for things to not install in BG2 SCS? I installed all of the optional tactical challenges but turned off some of the things that sound really annoying (will not be using prebuffed mages or extra mage HLAs, for example). One thing I've been really annoyed by and will be disabling is the enemies using potions, solely for the thieves quaffing infinite invis pots every round forever, despite standing next to an inquisitor with true seeing  I've heard improved vampires and improved demons is annoying, but never seen them in person. I like the smarter AI, and harder encounters in general, but some of the options seem super cheesy and unfun, especially since I try to avoid using super cheese broken things myself, so I'd like to skip those if possible.
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Jul 23, 2018 19:01
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