Stopping at Infinity: Baldur's Gate 1&2, Icewind Dale, Planescape:Torment.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Stopping at Infinity: Baldur's Gate 1&2, Icewind Dale, Planescape:Torment.

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Alan Smithee posted:

Am I crazy or did Minsc/a barbarian character in BG2 have a whirlwind spin attack? I can't find anythign on google and I swore someone did this

Martial classes get a whirlwind ability at super high levels, like 18 or 20 or something? I think the high level feats were added in the expansion.

Edit: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/High-level_class_ability

And I just remembered that Haer'Dalis was a blade and had offensive spin, if that's what you're thinking of.

Wicked Them Beats fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Dec 5, 2019

# ¿ Dec 5, 2019 07:35

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 04:43

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

An invisible thief clearing everything beforehand is your greatest asset.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2020 07:45

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

The evil choices in BG1/2 are usually over-the-top "villain who is kicking a puppy because he can" kind of choices. Neutral options are either refusing to do something, asking for a reward instead of just doing it for free, or agreeing to do the quest but saying you're not doing it to be nice.

BG does a lot of things I enjoy but reflecting player choice through dialogue is not its strong suit. But I suppose that's to be somewhat expected in a setting that has literal, quantifiable evil in it, where the few quests that appear like tough moral decisions can be solved by casting Detect Evil and killing the guy who glows the evilest.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2020 20:02

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

cheesetriangles posted:

The point of evil is the best NPC's are evil.

One of my best playthroughs of BG2 was using a mod to prevent characters from fighting or leaving the party and just constantly swapping between companions to take them on quests and see their interactions. Characters like Korgan have tons of interactions that you'll never see because most players aren't going to mix alignments in the party.

Korgan shits on Aerie nonstop, though. Buddy I think she's annoying too but tone it down a bit.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2020 21:04

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

bike tory posted:

Yeah people go on about how Kivan is such a beast as if Coran isn't there with his 20 dex and 3 pips in longbows

Coran being gated behind Cloakwood access is what keeps people from remembering that he's ridiculous.

One of these days I should use that mod that repositions all of the NPCs in accessible areas from the start of the game so I can run the whole thing with a weirdo party. I never use Tiax or Coran or Yeslick or like ten other NPCs since I usually settle on a party before even doing the Nashkel mines.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2020 02:06

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

BadAstronaut posted:

Ugh. So, playing Swashbuckler in EE BG1. Level 1 when I get to Friendly Arm, and totally wasted by that mage every time due to my 8hp. Only got Imoen in the party. She also easily gets killed here. Should I go elsewhere first and build the party up a little more before coming back? I remember this being tough, from having played this game a lot over the years but I am getting horribly ganked now.

Imoen has a wand of magic missiles, so open the fight by using that to disrupt the mage's spells. If you keep him from getting mirror image up the Friendly Arm guards will take him down pretty quick.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2020 01:39

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Best way to deal with traps is to cast invisibility on a thief and have them scout ahead of the party. If they're web traps then there's zero risk if they lack the skill to see/disarm it since the spiders won't be able to see them stuck in the webs. Invisibility lasts 24 hours so there's no time pressure either. If your thief's skills are a bit too low for picking/disarming you can buy a bunch of potions of master thievery from a merchant at Durlag's Tower (spoilered in case you don't want this sort of info up front). The potions last for something like 15 minutes of real time, so once again very limited time pressure.

You can sort of mimic this with a cleric who casts find traps and sanctuary, but sanctuary only lasts a turn and the cleric can't disarm the traps and has to either go around them or trigger them.

Edit: I haven't done the quest in a while but I think in the Enhanced Edition Coran wants you to kill a specific wyvern in a certain cave. You can't shortcut the quest by giving him any random head.

Wicked Them Beats fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Aug 20, 2023

# ¿ Aug 20, 2023 16:11

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

If I turn down the aid of the Dwarf Cleric prisoner, are they lost forever? If so, is the surface zone, the mine entrance, a safe place to leave someone behind for later? EDIT: And does he have any special dialogue with the boss? I would presume so, but it will determine who I leave behind.

Wiki says that (in the Enhanced Edition) if you turn Yeslick down he'll leave the map and you can find him at a tavern later in the game. I don't recall if he has any dialogue with the mine boss, but he does have some with a different Iron Throne guy later on.

The mine entrance map should be a safe place to leave someone.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2023 16:07

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Pretty sure the manual was written well before they finished coding, so probably just a feature that never made it in. As far as I'm aware Animal Summoning just picks animals from a pool at random. Being in a cave doesn't increase your odds of getting a cave bear.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2023 17:07

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

docbeard posted:

Don't you also get a small XP bonus if the prime attribute for your class is especially high? Or did I just imagine that.

Sounds like the sort of dumb rule you'd find in early D&D, but it's not in the game.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2023 15:50

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

I regret putting points into "Hide in Shadows" because it essentially never works, and if I don't micromanage her, she'll open fire on the first thing she sees.

Not in the EE apparently. I have a quests tab and a journal tab. No "User" section either. I can also search for terms, which would be good if you remember what you're looking for. I also can't seem to look up older quests, ones completed in earlier chapters.

Hide in Shadows and Move Silently get averaged together, so you need to have points in both to make it viable. And there are a ton of modifiers; every map in the game is split up into areas that give a bonus or penalty depending on how well lit the map is and whether it's day or night, etc, and to counteract the penalties you need to have both skills pretty high. Invisibility spells/potions are easier to use and plentiful. And you can turn off or change character AI to prevent the autoattacking.

And the notes go into your journal in the order you copied them, mixed in with regular entries. The journal is divided by chapter, so if you copied the notes in chapter one you need to switch over to that chapter to read them.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2023 15:58

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

I can't take a screenshot right now but in the lower left of the journal there should be a title that says "Chapter Four" or whatever chapter you're on, with arrows to the left and right of it. It looks like decoration but those are arrow buttons for switching between chapters.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2023 16:03

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

IIRC they're both evil so killing them in cold blood is actually a good thing according to D&D morality.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2023 16:35

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Potion of clarity prevents it, I think? Not sure for how long and I don't think there are a lot of those available, though.

Edit: wiki says five turns, and there's maybe two of them in the game, so not a great solution

# ¿ Aug 24, 2023 17:04

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Rappaport posted:

Blindness has a straight-up save vs. spell throw on it, so it will be less and less useful as your foes become more dangerous. Honestly the first-level spell list for sorcerers doesn't matter that much, throwing Blindness in there won't be a deal-breaker. I think I would still want Sleep, even though it becomes obsolete (and ineffective) in BG2. Like for maximum usage maybe magic missile, chromatic , maybe sleep or identify (and identify will become obsolete too) and then whatever strikes your fancy. Well, not find familiar, but you know.

Spook is a good choice for a level 1 spell. Only hits one target but casts with a saving throw penalty that gets up to -6 at higher levels.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2023 22:47

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

For AC and THAC0 values, I usually just check the wiki. They don't give you the full calculation but you can work it out from the numbers and gear listed. For Karlat: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Karlat

He has a base AC of 10, goes down to 5 with chainmail (3 against slashing and 7 against crushing). Dex gives a bonus of -3, and a medium shield gives another -1. So add the -4 in bonuses to his base AC values and Karlat should be:

AC 1 against missile or piercing damage;
AC -1 against slashing; and
AC 3 against crushing.

For his THAC0 he has a base of 15. Str bonus of -1, and a weapon proficiency bonus of -1 for two pips in axes. So his THAC0 = 13.

Someone correct me if I did some math wrong, I usually screw up a step somewhere.

rio posted:

Got a quick question if y�all don�t mind. Tldr; is it safe to keep items in the Gaelan house containers throughout the entire SoA story?

Every container should be safe. The only exceptions are areas that become strongholds, because when you acquire it they swap out the map and all the items go with it.

Gaelan's house should be fine, as should any other house in that area as well as the Copper Coronet.

Edit: I think you get cut off from Watcher's Keep at some point, and I think the Umar Hills also updates its map after you finish that quest. Can't think of any other areas where it would be an issue off the top of my head.

Wicked Them Beats fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Sep 4, 2023

# ¿ Sep 4, 2023 04:48

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Jay Rust posted:

Thanks! Makes sense, except why did Khalid miss with his longbow on a roll of 19 with a thac0 of 18, if Karlat has AC 1 vs missile? The equation mentioned a -2, where is that number coming from?

Not sure where the -2 is coming from. If Khalid was in melee range while shooting he'd take a penalty, but it would be higher than that. ~~You'd get a -2 for not having proficiency, but I think Khalid comes with longbow proficiency. Maybe he's actually got a shortbow equipped?~~ (edit: correction, I think this should impact THAC0 and damage rolls, but not To-Hit rolls)

Were any spells active, or was he fatigued? There's a crapton of potential modifiers for an attack roll.

For the roll, yeah you should hit AC 1 on a 17 if you have a THAC0 of 18. Checked the figures again and that should be his missile defense, so I dunno about that.

Wicked Them Beats fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Sep 4, 2023

# ¿ Sep 4, 2023 05:19

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

SirSamVimes posted:

I'm assuming the only reason to choose one party member over another is for their voice barks?

Not sure what you mean. They all have different stat lines and classes. If you're looking for a balanced crew you'll generally want one or two arcane casters, at least one cleric/druid, and a thief for traps and locks. Fill out the rest of the roster with tanks/frontliners or maybe a dedicated archer.

If you mean when you're comparing two characters with comparable skillsets, then yeah pick whoever you like best.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2023 08:52

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

SirSamVimes posted:

So has this theoretically cool fight in b3 of durlag always been hosed in reality or did the ee break it?

Well if you fuckers aren't playing by the same rules I am, then I am spamming aoes into the fog of war.

From 1999 to today, this has always been the correct response to the chess match

# ¿ Sep 8, 2023 07:36

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

If you want to check you can activate the console and put in the following command:

C:GetGlobal("AerieRomanceActive","GLOBAL")

If that returns a 1 or 2 then the romance is progressing or active, respectively. A value of 3 means the romance is over.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2023 18:57

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

hexwren posted:

I'm most of the way through bg2 for the first time (and at the rate I'm going, the last - this is just not clicking with me) and i haven't even encountered a single romance-shaped dialogue option, much less an actual romance

I'm in chapter 6, properly open-worlding for basically the first time all game, since I'm no longer chasing my kidnapped party member or dealing with the one-way path through and away from the asylum and it's extremely tempting to skip the various side areas I've never been to and just rush the ending. idk.

i think the part that's galled me the most is that I've basically had to spend the whole game with the main villain monologuing at me with very little i can actually do about it. yes, I still want to kill you, but what's worse is that I'm bored of you constantly showing up to chew the scenery

You were open-worlding right after your first conversation with Gaelan Bayle. You're supposed to let Imoen stew for six months while you go solve problems in Trademeet or whatever. Rushing off to save her is not the intended playstyle.

You might think giving you a seemingly time-sensitive goal and then asking you to ignore it to gently caress around is a design issue with BG2. And it is! But it's also a design issue with most RPGs ever made. BG2 at least has the excuse of being made two decades ago.

Ginette Reno posted:

He is. David Warner rules

# ¿ Sep 9, 2023 07:33

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

I always mod out the race restrictions. Dwarves need love too.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2023 17:37

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

I've played about 30 hours of BG3 and it feels like they set it a hundred years later specifically so they could pretend the earlier games don't exist. I know a couple characters from BG 1/2 will be showing up but aside from that I haven't seen much in the way of references, either direct or oblique.

Which is fine, I figure most people playing it never have and never will play the first games. But I would have liked if it cared a little more about its predecessors beyond the setting.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2023 17:17

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

sweet geek swag posted:

No, it's just when 5th edition Forgotten Realms is set. Here's a hint if you want to see references to the original games: do a Dark Urge playthrough.

Nice to hear there's some references somewhere, but I probably won't play it again. Not sure what it is exactly, but I don't really like Larian's writing style. Bounced off of Original Sin 2 for the same reason.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2023 18:22

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Rappaport posted:

I'm not sure if you have to do the donating step-wise

Heads up that that's the BG1 original table. The Enhanced Editions use something closer to the BG2 values which are a lot higher.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2023 16:00

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Rappaport posted:

I did look at the wiki before posting and it still shows different lists for BG1 and BG2, but I couldn't be bothered to actually play-test this. I guess no one has gone in to edit the wiki for the EE values

Might not be looking in the right spot. Here's the link and table: https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Reputation

EE values are on the far right.

Edit - I had a minute so I did some testing in BG1 EE. Findings:

-The values are accurate.
-You only go up by one point at a time no matter how much you donate. If you're at 12 rep and want to go to 14, you need to make separate donations of 800 and 1,000. Donating 1,800 only gets you a single point.

Wicked Them Beats fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Sep 11, 2023

# ¿ Sep 11, 2023 16:46

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

God I miss that. Now instead of thick manuals they release games like BG3 which don't provide any of that information, and if you want to plan a character build you have to trawl through forums and wikis to figure out what they changed from the PHB.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2023 02:22

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

SirSamVimes posted:

I mean BG3 is far less opaque and doesn't need the thick manual as much.

Generally yes, but when you're choosing a class you can't readily see what that class looks like at level 8 or 10 until you get to that level. Respeccing is cheap if you level up and aren't satisfied with what you're getting, but I actively enjoy looking through feats and such and planning out a build, and BG3 doesn't really allow for that without referencing a lot of out-of-game resources. What am I giving up if I dip out of my main class for a level in fighter? No way to know with the resources Larian provided me short of just leveling to 12 and finding out. I suppose it doesn't stop anyone from beating the game or anything, but I find it irritating.

I think I got spoiled by Deadfire where they lay everything out for you right up front before you commit to anything, and it feels bad to play something that takes such a big leap backwards in communicating with the player. Even BG1&2 do it a bit better; the games tell you a bunch about the different bonuses and skills you'll get and at what level during class selection. I guess they don't tell you much about HLAs or spells, but they were designing with a manual in mind. The BG3 devs knew the player wouldn't necessarily have other resources.

IthilionTheBrave posted:

I can never let mention of the Age of Thick Manuals pass without mentioning Homeworld. That was a thick manual that didn't have the excuse of having to copy and paste chunks of a TTRPG rulebook. Chock full of fiction and even an in-universe argument between admirals over what fleet doctrine should be regarding capital shops and strike craft.

I still have that manual safely stored away. It's a great one. Also have the MechCommander manual which is pretty good, has a bunch of info on different mechs, weapons and vehicles in full color on glossy pages.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2023 03:09

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Can you dual Imoen to fighter? I thought her strength was too low.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2023 05:31

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Playing that way can get pretty tedious, especially at lower levels. "Auto-paused, what happened this round? Oh, everyone missed all their attacks. Ok, next round.... and everyone missed again. Next round..."

# ¿ Oct 7, 2023 20:20

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Mr. Neutron posted:

I have finished BG2 countless of times as most classes except one - thief. In fact, I have never even used the thief NPCs as thiefs other than to disarm traps and open locks. They are all mages, anyway.

So I have started a new game as something I have never played before - an assassin. And I am completely lost as to how the hell is this class supposed to be played. Sure, I can hide in shadows and backstab a random goblin but after I do so all I am is a melee with d6 HP, no helmet and one APR. And most of the difficult fights are triggered by dialog anyway so stealth seems useless?

If you don't want to use the aforementioned blindness trick, you can just chug invisibility potions in battle or use an item that has invis charges. Stab, invis, stab, invis. Harder to do early on, but eventually you have a bunch of options for going invisible.

DeadButDelicious posted:

Allo! What's the scoop on the iron man stuff? When does it start and what's the recommendation for a first timer to the iron man but someone who's been playing the games since they came out?

Someone usually starts a thread in December. As for class or whatever, people do all sorts of stuff. You can solo the game with pretty much anything if you know what you're doing, so just play whatever you find interesting.

Maybe something tanky like a dwarven defender or a fighter/cleric multi if you're really worried about getting murked by the first gibberling you see.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2023 17:47

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

I complained earlier that there weren't enough references to the earlier games in BG3. Having gotten to Act 3 and encountered a number of references, I regret my wish upon this monkey's paw. They did those characters dirty.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2023 04:12

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 04:43

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

The safe way to cast invisibility in combat is to drink a potion

# ¿ Mar 19, 2024 06:53

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Stopping at Infinity: Baldur's Gate 1&2, Icewind Dale, Planescape:Torment.