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FairGame posted:Unless he's playing with some mods that give access to areas out-of-order, neither of the 2 Rings of Free Action nor Spider's Bane are accessible until you beat the Bandit Camp. Like...he could be at the level cap and he still would have no way of getting those items. You can go to Ulgoth's Beard and pick pocket that free action ring from that gnome right at the start of the game. The other ring and Spider's Bane take a while to get though.
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# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 01:55 |
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# ¿ May 15, 2024 18:49 |
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FairGame posted:Ulgoths beard is only accessible from the north side of the baldurs gate map in whatever version I play. What version are you playing? I'm almost positive you can go there right from the start in BG enhanced or BGtutu. You just need to go to the baldur's gate bridge zone or maybe it's the zombie zone just north of that. One of those two. Almost positive it works.
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# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 01:59 |
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FairGame posted:Bgt I think. I distinctly remember the weidu mod prompt asking if I wanted ulgoths beard accessible before cloak wood. I just tested it with bg enhanced with an old save that's in chapter 4 and you can access Ulgoth's Beard pre Cloakwood finished by zoning to the north in the Baldur's Gate bridge zone that is just north of the Ankheg zone. Don't have a chapter 1 save but I see no reason why it wouldn't work in Chapter 1 too. I think it also works in tutu if memory serves. Yeah I'm assuming like you said that you installed an option preventing going there early. You can also go to Durlag's Tower whenever you want. I've rushed there before to do parts of upper Durlags as with a protection from petrification scroll or spell you can easily get that +2 scimitar that's outside the tower. You just need to stealth or invis past the doom guards if you're unable to handle them.
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# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 02:14 |
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mottbag posted:My friends and I are having lots of problems playing multiplayer with both enhanced editions of BG1 and 2. Often someone will crash when loading a game or transitioning to another area. Is this common? Are there any fixes? If you're playing an unpatched version, yeah. The most recent patch fixes those problems.
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# ¿ Jul 20, 2014 20:18 |
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Antignition posted:After countless playthroughs I finally managed to kick this habit recently. It's tempting to try to play that way but man I can't imagine doing that it in IWD or IWD2 where spell scrolls are so rare. If you fail to scribe the one you wanted in that and don't reload you're hosed because you might not see it again.
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# ¿ Jul 21, 2014 21:14 |
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GuyDudeBroMan posted:I like to do literally every possible quest in chapter 2, except for some of the major boss fights (dragons, liches, etc). The reason why is that once you come back in chapter 4 you will have pretty nice magical items and that makes a lot of the sidequest content underwhelming. I do the boss fights too. I want to spend as much of the game possible having all the best items. The only problem with this approach is I usually take Imoen and she will be quite under leveled compared to the rest of your party if you do all the side quests before rescuing her. It's not a huge deal but it sucks a little bit.
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# ¿ Jul 22, 2014 21:27 |
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AC isn't that important to mages. If you're under direct assault, use your spells to protect yourself. Spells like mirror image and invisibility will keep your mage out of trouble far better than armor class could.
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# ¿ Jul 23, 2014 06:11 |
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Jaheira can memorize slow poison also.
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# ¿ Jul 26, 2014 08:57 |
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baldur's gate, nigga! great game
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# ¿ Jul 27, 2014 05:00 |
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FairGame posted:The project eternity videos have me itching for more of this, but the only game I can't play with my eyes closed is icewind dale 2. Which consistently wrecks my poo poo. Specifically the goblin fortress and its drums of unending warg riders. I like to have one of each type of caster because they all get different spells that own and buff spells are extremely powerful and often long lasting in IWD2. Assuming you want a Paladin I'd do something like: Paladin of Mystra Barbarian Cleric - All of the Deities are viable but Bane, Mask, and Lathander have imo the best domain spells. But all are perfectly viable if you're more into roleplaying. Druid Rogue[1]Wizard[x] - You're going to want someone to handle traps and locks, but only one level of rogue is needed for this task. If you detest one level dips then you can go for a pure rogue and it will do ok. It will require a lot of micromanaging to be effective, but it's viable. I hate microing rogues and would rather just have a wizard that handles locks, so I usually make my rogue this way. Sorcerer This party covers all the bases. You get a ton of spellcasting power, and your melee will also be devastating. I'm running a party like the above right now. The only difference is I made my Paladin a Paladin of helm[1]/Cleric of helm[x] because pure Paladins don't get much past level 1 imo. They're viable though, just not optimal. I also minmaxed my stats, but only because I'm playing on insane difficulty. You don't need to min max the stats for normal unless you want to. My main tips overall are sleep and command are just as powerful at low levels in this as they are in baldur's gate. I love Clerics of Bane because they get sleep as a level 1 domain spell which means you can have your cleric, your sorc, and your wizard tossing sleeps around. That will dominate most any opposition early on and let your tanks deal with the enemy piecemeal. Entangle and Web are also just as great here as in other infinity engine games. Buffs are important. Bulls Strength lasts a very long time and should always be applied to your meleers. Cats grace, likewise for your ranged characters. Barkskin is great in this and lasts a decent amount of time. Once your sorc and wizard get 4th level spells, they get stoneskin which in this can be applied to any party member. That will make your tanks much more durable if you keep it up on them as often as you can. Consider using two handed weapons with as many of your meleers as you can. This is because in IWD2 two handed weapons do 1.5 times strength damage compared to 1.0 for one handers, and shields in IWD2 do not generally give a significant enough armor class bonus to be worth the trade off. The best defense in IWD2 is a good offense as it is difficult to achieve a high enough armor class to consistently evade enemies. One important distinction though is that the 6th level cleric/7th level druid spell "heal" is insta cast in IWD2. That makes divine casters severely overpowered at higher levels and is why it's great to have at least two of them. Another note on divine casters - clerics can spontaneously cast cure spells by shift + clicking on any non domain spell you have memorized. The only catch is you need to be good or neutral aligned to do that. Evil clerics spontaneously cast inflict wounds. And so because of this there's no need with those 1st through 5th level slots to memorize heal spells. Just spontaneous cast them as needed. Uh that's all I have off the top of my head. IWD2's early game is quite tough even on normal, but things get easier after the horde fortress as your spellcasters start getting stronger spells. Just keep in mind: -Buff! -Sleep/command & web/entangle are your friend -Two handers on your high strength tanks will eat people for breakfast
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# ¿ Jul 29, 2014 06:52 |
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I honestly don't even remember what my first party was any more. That was so long ago. I think I had Aerie, Imoen, Minsc, and Anomen. I don't recall who else I had, or what class I played, but I'm pretty sure I had at least those four.
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# ¿ Jul 29, 2014 23:44 |
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Factor_VIII posted:That's nothing. Dragons have lifespans that are measured in millennia, but Abazigal is not only an adult dragon in ToB, he also has an adult son. It' never explained in the game, but guess we could come up with the explanation that Bhaal used his divine powers to make all his offspring mature at the same time so that they would all be better at killing one another. I thought I recall reading somewhere that Elves will mature faster if raised among humans. I hate my life.
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# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 01:43 |
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Traps don't bother me because I've beaten these games so many times that I have 99% of the trap locations memorized .
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# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 21:25 |
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BG is easy enough as it is, I don't know why people would desire mods to make it even easier, but to each their own.
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# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 21:42 |
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Bathe with Nathaniel
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# ¿ Aug 1, 2014 03:23 |
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I said this earlier in the thread, but the key to IWD2 is to make good use of the long term buffs you get. Spells like bulls strength, cats grace, mage armor, and bark skin all last a fairly decent length of time and will dramatically boost the effectiveness of your party. To that end, you are going to want to take one or more divine spell casters, and at least one mage. Druids can be nice too, though to be honest I just beat the game and I didn't find mine to be terribly useful outside of barkskin which is a fantastic buff. Druids get some great offensive spells but most of them are not party friendly and are difficult to line up without hurting your party as well. Clerics are fantastically powerful in IWD2 thanks to the fact that the 6th level spell "heal" is instant cast in this. I can't overstate how overpowered that makes clerics. I had a Dwarf Cleric in the party I just ran who ended the game with over 200+ hps since I pumped the poo poo out of constitution on him and he was nigh impossible to kill even on insane difficulty because of his glut of hps and insta cast heal. Note also that Clerics in IWD2 are nothing like single class clerics in BG/IWD1. Clerics can fight almost as well as Fighters, and are actually vastly more powerful when you apply the innumerable buffs that clerics get. In IWD/BG that's not true just because single class clerics get less attacks per round than fighters, but in this, the difference is not dramatic. Clerics get one less attack than Fighters per round and acquire new attacks per round more slowly, but it's far less pronounced than BG where they max out at 1. What I'm saying is third edition Clerics are basically like fighters that also get a diesel spell list.
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# ¿ Aug 2, 2014 20:11 |
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DeathChicken posted:It was said earlier that BG1 was made with the idea in mind that since it's low level D&D, your characters *are* most likely going to meet hilarious deaths, so they gave you lots of replacement options that scale with you. I've been playing that way on my most recent run. Whoops, Jaheira got exploded by an ogre before we even got to Beregost. It's alright, it's an excuse to use Garrick since I never do. And he surprisingly isn't bad. Dude is actually managing to not die. That's a fun way to play and I've done that before. Basically, play the game ironman style with the caveat that you can reload if your main character dies, but you can't reload for other characters dying. So if a NPC gets perma killed, you're poo poo out of luck. I found it fun because it forced me to use resurrection spells/temples which I never would have done normally as when I play without that rule I tend to just reload if one of my guys dies. It also means that it's likely that one or more of your npcs will be permanently killed at some point in your playthrough assuming you're playing on at least core rules. That makes party management interesting as you get to try out different npcs rather than just sticking with one party all the way through. It also makes it a bit less crazy than a pure ironman run since you don't lose weeks of progress when you accidentally get your main killed, but there's still tension because your npcs can be permadead at any moment. e: I wouldn't recommend a new player try this, but it's a fun thing for vets who want a new spin on the game
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# ¿ Aug 3, 2014 21:18 |
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Basic Chunnel posted:How new are you to 2E D&D? An inquisitor or berserker are both highly effective through the series and easy to use. Yeah I'd recommend either of those. But honestly play whatever class you want. You can get up to five NPCs to join your party so no matter what class you play you can use NPCs to fill in the gaps of what you might need.
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# ¿ Aug 4, 2014 06:43 |
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A dual class fighter (7 or 9) /druid (x) can eventually become completely overpowered in IWD1 if you acquire the right gear. This is because the water elemental shapeshift form gives you extremely high physical resistance. If you use that form and certain gear, you can actually make your druid completely immune to melee damage while in water elemental form. That makes for a pretty hilariously good tank. As for IWD2, what Fairgame said holds true. In IWD2 spells are super important, perhaps more so than in any other infinity engine game. This is because sustained melee is difficult if not impossible without spell backup. That's very different from bg where you can easily make a tank that needs little to no spell backup for most fights. To that end, you will want plenty of spellcasters in IWD2. Crowd control rules the day. At early levels, sleep & command & web & entangle dominate. A little higher and you'll get great mileage out of confusion and chaos as well as greater command and of course the tried and true slow.
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# ¿ Aug 5, 2014 21:17 |
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Yeah I just recently played IWD1 and 2 via GOG and I didn't use any mods and they played perfectly fine for me and looked fine. Maybe my standards are just really low
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# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 02:10 |
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FairGame posted:The only irritating thing about the IWD2 UI, for me, is the lack of formations that stick the party leader somewhere other than up front. In most cases with rewards though it's not a forced conversation so you can choose somebody other than your paladin to talk to the quest giver and accept whatever rewards they give. It can still get annoying though when you forget that like I always do and have your Paladin talk to the quest giver
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# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 03:00 |
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Inspector Gesicht posted:Icewind Dale: I'm going to have two fighters that I'll dual-class to a Mage and a Druid. I know about the restrictions in proficiencies and alignment, but I was wondering if the best level to dual over is 3? I don't want gimp my characters for long even if dualing from level 9 gives great HP. Dualing from higher levels isn't about the HP so much as the extra attacks and proficiency points you get. Fighters get +.5 attacks/per round at 7th level, and get another .5 at 13th. The reason people pick 9th is they get that extra half attack from level 7 and then at level 9 you get one more weapon proficiency point on top of that. Dualing at level 3 doesn't really give you much except a little bit better thaco than a regular mage and access to fighter gear. I'd go at least to 7th for that extra half attack per round, or else why are you even taking the fighter levels?
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# ¿ Aug 8, 2014 20:23 |
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a medical mystery posted:So how strong is the Avenger druid kit once you reach the later stages of SoA and ToB? Druids get nature's beauty which is perhaps the best divine spell in the game. Beyond that, their spell list has some solid spells in it like Insect Plague (5) and Conjure Fire Elemental (6). At high levels, Druids get elemental summoning and greater elemental summoning as HLAs which are fantastic summons. You're not gonna be as devastating as a high level mage (but what is?) but Druids are more than playable and get some nice unique spells.
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# ¿ Aug 10, 2014 19:57 |
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Wolfsheim posted:In that case, are there any druid weapons that wouldn't suck to cart around for all of BG1 as a fighter? I recall a distinct lack of good scimitars, quarterstaffs and clubs in that game. There aren't any magic clubs in Bg1, although I think if you're running BG:EE that they added one or more magical clubs, but don't quote on me that. Staves and Scimitars are perfectly viable. There is a +1 staff available early on, and there is also a +3 quarterstaff which you can buy in Ulgoth's Beard. It's not even that expensive, and you can access Ulgoth's Beard at any time. Just go there to the inn and buy that staff when you have the coin and bam you've got a weapon better than almost any other in Bg1. Scimitars are a little trickier. Drizzt has a good one to use if you're not adverse to killing a good aligned NPC (and he's also quite tough to take on). Beyond that, the only good scimitars you will find will be in Durlag's Tower which is not an area you'll be going to for a while.
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# ¿ Aug 11, 2014 05:48 |
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Leafy Wall posted:Are there any particularly nice weapons to put points into for a fighter/mage multiclass? I was wanting to try a playthrough of one from BG1 to BG2 ToB. I honestly don't think you can go wrong. Just about any weapon type has some powerful choices. I'd say the top ones are: Staves- A +3 is available in bg1 from Ugloth's right from the start. In Bg2 there is a + 4 available right from the start in Ribald's shop, and you can also get the Staff of the Magi. In TOB you've got the Staff of the Ram which owns. Halberds are nice too. A +1 and +2 in bg1, Dragon's Breath + 4 in BG2 which is a nice weapon, and then in TOB you've got the Ravager which is devastating. For dual wielding flails are great. There aren't any particularly good ones in bg1 but in BG2 you can get the flail of the ages early on and it's one of the best weapons in the game and strong all the way through TOB where it gets even stronger thanks to upgrades available there. Use flail of the ages in your maindhand then for your offhand put one point into scimitars or shortswords and use Belm +2 or Kundane in your offhand. The reason is those weapons grant your mainhand one extra attack per round, which is devastating. The reason for only one point in scimitars is you're not relying on that offhand weapon to do any damage since it only ever attacks once per round. The main utility of dual wielding is to put a weapon in your off hand that grants you powerful effects. Typically that's going to be something like the + attack I mentioned. Axes are good. +1s and +2s in bg1, some nice and easily available +3s in bg2, and by TOB you get axe of the unyielding. You're going to end up with enough proficiency points to specialize in a variety of weapons so you have plenty of options if you want to try out different things.
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# ¿ Aug 11, 2014 07:19 |
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FairGame posted:A fun thing is to make a barbarian dual wielding Flail of the Ages and Defender of Easthaven. Then you've got 40% physical damage reduction. Tack on the Human Flesh Armor and girdle of inertial barrier and you'll make every saving throw, take half damage from things you can't save against, and resist most effects anyway. You can add that helm that gives +50 resistance to bludgeoning damage in TOB to get that character up to 90% resist to bludgeoning . At least in theory, I've never tried it.
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# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 22:14 |
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fong posted:So is there a legit way to kill Yxunomei in IWD without losing most of your party? Her MR was too high for her to get stuck in my web/entangle/grease trap or to be affected by any of the various debuffs I threw at her, and she tore through both my -6 AC ~70HP tanks in about 20 seconds. I ended up reloading and just kiting her/whittling her down with ranged. I always just haste/roid up my melee prior to going in there and beat her to death so fast she can barely do anything. The key to this strategy is making sure to disable all the traps prior to the fight as I think at least one of those traps dispels you. The other key is to keep an eye on the yuan-ti priests/mages and hit them with interrupts before they get off any dispels or disabling spells.
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# ¿ Aug 13, 2014 02:03 |
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Aside from the aforementioned fireball/paralyze wands one timeless tactic in any infinity engine game is to use items or potions which grant freedom and then just spam the gently caress out of web/entangle etc while your melees charge in immune to those spells and gently caress everyone up. That should work on many of the tough fights - Ironthrone included.
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# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 03:11 |
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MrL_JaKiri posted:100 real time hours? You could spend that in Chapter 2 first time through the game, easy. Yeah. I think it's easy to forget what it was like playing bg2 the first time through. There is a massive amount of stuff to do in chapter 2. We breeze through it now because most of us have played the game a ton, but the first time you play through that content it takes a lot of hours to get through it.
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# ¿ Oct 25, 2014 01:42 |
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anime tupac posted:e: whoops, I forgot the reason I came to this thread, which was to ask this: I've forgotten enough about BG1 that I'm enjoying playing it with no guides or anything, but I also don't want to lose out on any of the extremely good stuff that might carry over to BG2. Outside of the tomes (I know where they all are) is there anything that's really great but also easily missable? Not sure what you mean here. None of your items carry over to bg2, though the stat bonuses from the tomes obviously do. So the answer is no I guess. But if you mean items that are strong in bg1 but don't carry over to bg2, I can think of one good one that a lot of players likely miss. There is a ring of wizardry to the right of the friendly arm inn when you first zone into that zone coming from the south. You'll probably have to hold down tab or whatever the highlight item command is in bg1 ( I forget) to see the little lootable spot it's in.
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# ¿ Oct 27, 2014 05:57 |
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anime tupac posted:Some items do carry over--the Helm of Balduran is the main one I can think of, but I remember that last time I hosed myself over by having some +2 leather armor that carried over in place of something that was better, some kind of plate mail I think. (Obviously the pantaloons too.) There's a chart for the items that you get to keep in BG2 somewhere, I'm just trying to do this without too much metagaming this time if I can help it. Not sure about the cloak. As for the helm of Balduran, that doesn't really carry over in the way you think. A freshly created character in bg2 will see the helm of Balduran in the first dungeon, as will a character that imports into bg2. They'll both find the helm in the same place. So it doesn't really carry over since a character that didn't play in bg1 will still be able to get it in bg2. But yeah the pantaloons do carry over I forgot about them.
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# ¿ Oct 28, 2014 01:26 |
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I've always wondered if the kensai bonuses would work for a throwing axe specced character. Throwing axe counts as axe proficiency, right? And are also str based? if both hold true, and the Kensai bonuses work for throwing axe, then a str based Kensai tossing axes would be in theory pretty diesel
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# ¿ Feb 14, 2015 00:51 |
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Is there a time limit on any of Neera's stuff in bg2? I recruited her from her high forest zone but I don't want to explore it yet as I haven't assembled my whole party. I have to go get Mazzy and Valygar as those are the two I want to use. I don't want Neera to start bitching or leave, though. She wants me to find her wild mage enclave or whatever. I'm doing an Ironman too so I don't want to risk anything until my whole party is assembled.
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# ¿ Mar 1, 2015 00:49 |
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Yeah one key thing to look for - especially in Durlag's Tower - is bodies on the floor. If you see them, chances are a trap is near the tile with the bodies on them.
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# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 01:30 |
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Amused Frog posted:Encounters in BG got a lot easier now I have the two guys from the inn. I've just been opening every encounter with my MC Mage casting sleep and then having everybody wail on the unconscious enemies. If that doesn't work we run away and pepper them with arrows. That solves pretty much 90% of BG's encounters. Other great solve all spells: entangle (level 1 druid spell) web (2 mage), horror (2 mage), command (1 cleric), hold person (2 cleric).
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# ¿ Mar 9, 2015 19:08 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah I think it's because I was using a special portrait from the packaged DLC. That's how I've always done it. I beat bg, then load my final save, export my character, and start a new bg2 game and import him in. Works like a charm.
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# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 04:41 |
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AtillatheBum posted:Going into BG EE more or less blind, can anyone give me some good (non-spoiler) advice for my Cavalier? (I know Inquisitor is better but I like Cavalier's theme and abilities more.) By that I mean I want to know like what kind of weapons should I specialize in, what would be a good party for a lawful good MC, is there anything else useful/important to know? I plan to take this char into BG2 and eventually the xpac as well if that info helps. Keep an eye out for fire resistance gear. The Cavalier gets a passive 20% resistance to fire damage, and there is a ring that gives 40%, as well as a helmet that gives 20%. Put those together with the Cavalier's passive bonus and you have a character that is more less immune to fire damage, so you can charge your Cavalier into a group of enemies and then launch fireballs at him and laugh as he mostly shrugs off the damage and every enemy burns to a crisp.
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# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 15:11 |
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Doing an Ironman on core rules (not rerolling hps) with a lawful evil halfling barbarian right now and it's pretty fun. Got me + Dorn/VIconia/Montaron/Xzar/Edwin Kinda steamrolling most enemies so far. WIth the claw of kazgaroth plus being a halfling my saves are just through the roof. I'm going for scimitars for bg1 since I plan to kill Drizzt and it would be a shame to let those go to waste. I think one of them is good only alignment but there's a sneaky fix for that since the Death Knight in Durlag's drops a helm of opposite alignment now. Pop that baby on and my Halfling will have two diesel weapons. Of course that's a bit of a wait but both of Drizzt's scimitars are strong so it won't be a big deal. By bg2 I'll be using flail of the ages/defender of easthaven which will pretty much be my combo all the way to the end. Between that and the human leather I should be near impossible to kill. I actually haven't been doing too poorly with hp rolls yet either. I don't think I've gotten below 10 on a level up yet. The 17 str for Halfling also isn't too much of an inconvenience since I can rage if needed and will have the ogre gauntlets before too long. Just need to figure out when would be a good time to try to kill Drizzt. I have no room for error and I'm not sure if BGee made him tougher at all since I've never tried fighting him in it. I'm thinking I might try him after clearing all of the wilderness zones but that one and cloakwood. As long as I have wands of monster summoning I should be able to wear him down. Right now I've done Nashkel + most of the West aside.
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# ¿ Mar 12, 2015 14:25 |
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Bort Bortles posted:Re; Evil Party chat If you go mage, try a Sorcerer or Wild Mage. Both are a blast, and incredibly powerful. You could grab Hexxat for your thief if you decide to go Mage. Or just take Yoshimo and then replace him later with Imoen or whoever. Yoshimo has a quest that gives a shitton of xp and he's powerful so he's always worth taking along as well. If you go fighter/thief you can really do just about anybody for the final slot. Eventually you'll want Sarevok regardless, though.
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# ¿ Mar 12, 2015 16:54 |
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# ¿ May 15, 2024 18:49 |
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I'm really trouncing stuff in bg1 with my evil party of Halfling Barb (who I somehow rolled a legit 97 with), Dorn, Montaron, Vicky, Xzar, Edwin. Evil npcs are just so damned powerful, and I don't even have Korgan yet. It's an ironman so I'm a bit afraid I'm going to get lazy and wipe for stupid reasons. The halfling Barb has insanely good saves thanks to his 19 con from the book of con + halfling + claw of kazgaroth, though. His hps aren't as great as they could be since I'm not lowering difficulty for level ups and I've had a few bad rolls upon level up. Dorn especially has done really lovely every time he levels up. I think he's level 6 right now with like barely 30 hit points. The halfling has I think 59 right now and is the same level. Playing on core rules so that should be plenty enough for most encounters in bg1. Bg2 I'll get the defender of easthaven to mitigate my lower hp totals and hopefully that will be enough to keep me alive until barb resist/hardiness start to become available. I'm also soon to go fight Drizzt after I finish cloakwood. I shouldn't wipe though as I plan to just kite him with boots of speed.
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# ¿ Mar 16, 2015 01:56 |