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.

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Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

Nah, the wardstone works just as well whenever you need it.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2016 08:39

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 21:15

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

Dillbag posted:

I'm pretty sure I've prepped for that fight for long enough that the shadow dragon noticed me through the wardstone. There was a dialog from the dragon along the lines of "you're an idiot for hanging around so long, you should have known I'd eventually notice you" and I definitely didn't have SCS installed.

I looked him up in NI. He only has the one bit of dialogue, for which the triggers are
!PartyHasItem("MISC6P") // Shadow Dragon Wardstone
AttackedBy([ANYONE],DEFAULT)

Either way, that dialogue is just the default "You idiots, I'm killing you now."
How amusing that you petty fleshlings would dare disturb the slumber of the Shadow Dragon? Are you daft? Blind? Whatever, I shall tear your bodies apart and feast on your innards while you whimper and cry for mercy.

So I'm fairly sure that whatever it's doing in your case is a mod.

Dillbag posted:

Or tall to the girl on the far eastern side of the map on the second level and deal with her problems. One of the NPCs involved in the quest will have a medallion in his corpse.

I believe you can also tell the female courtesan you're there to kill the madam and she's like "Cool, she's a bitch. I'll let you in" but that may be depend on charisma.

If you're of their preferred gender, then there's a Charisma check of 15 or greater to see if they'll tell you about Claire for free. Once you know about Claire, by paying or by persuading, then you only have to choose the right dialogue to get them to bring you in: say that you'll kill Galvena, not just talk to her.

Sleep of Bronze fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Mar 25, 2016

# ¿ Mar 25, 2016 20:24

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

Sorcerers
(3e PHB, PO: Spells and Magic, Spellbound)

For once, a pretty uncomplicated transition. The Sorcerer isn't a total innovation, even within DnD, but this is a very clear case of just taking the 3e class and slapping it into the game without very many changes. Not that there's a lot to change, because the Sorcerer's class feature list beyond 'casts spells' is limited to say the least. The only things that went unimplemented are bonus spells for high charisma, and the possibility of expending a higher level slot to cast a lower level spell, just in case you really needed to cast Stoneskin again and had run out of your fourth level slots, but not your fifth.

Dynaheir, of all NPCs, probably gets closest to being a Sorcerer under the native 2e rule system. Witches of Rasheman, while in Rasheman get to do spontaneous casting just like the 3e class. It's a neat quirk, meant to be a counterbalance in lore to the Red Wizards' spell circles. There's also a peculiar variety of spellcasting in Player's Option: Spells and Magic, which lets you kind of mix and match Vancian casting and sorcery: memorise some spells normally, but leave other slots floating free so you can jam a spell into them as you like, albeit with more effort. They're balanced by taking real effort to cast spells, which can leave the wizard physically exhausted or even dead if they strain too hard, along the lines of lots of pulp fantasy magic. I really like the look of it, but I suspect it's either unplayable in practice or brutally OP, just because it's from a Player's Option book.

And we're done with the kitless classes, so I can move back to the normal ones. I'll put off having to explain 2e divine casting for a while, so probably thieves next.

Sleep of Bronze fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Mar 25, 2016

# ¿ Mar 25, 2016 22:00

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

Noooope, ToB just cannot sustain my interest another time through. What a trashy expansion pack. Well, since I'm not finishing that playthrough, it's yearly reinstall and mod update time! When I've refreshed the Tutu install, might start up another Ironman too.

While all that's happening, weeks-dead posts which I only just read, arise!

e X posted:

I genuinely wonder what the point of the Athkatla magic ban and the Cowled Wizards actually is. Or what purpose Spellhold served originally. Seriously, you'd think an organization that has their own torture prison on a remote island would be worth a quest. Do they have some complicated Forgotten realms backstory, like the Harpers or the Red Mages?

Others enumerated the Cowled Wizard backstory in brief, to which I'll only add that despite Amn inheriting some of the southern Faerun distrust for magic, it made bank out of it up until about 100 years before the game. Then one of the Amnish schools of magic hosed up and sent demons rampaging over the countryside, at which point the Amnish king outlawed all arcane magic as seditious. (Not necessarily coincidentally, the king who did this was overthrown shortly afterwards and was the last of the Amnish monarchy.)

As for Spellhold, there are some minor differences between tabletop and the game, probably thanks to development times and the changes in the Cowlies which have already been touched upon. Still, the backstory of what BG calls Spellhold is that the island stands at a strategic point which makes it contested by the Nelanther pirates, and the navies of both Amn and Tethyr. For a long time, they all conspired to avoid any of the others managing to secure the place. Someone unknown, somehow, built the heavily fortified keep there in such a short period of time that no one could stop them and then just abandoned it, upon which a gang of slavers promptly took it over. The local pirates, when they caught wind of a competitor, generously relayed this news to the Amnish navy, along with shocking tales about how they were definitely preying on wealthy Amnish nobles. The Amnians stormed in, took over the place, and certain pirates mysteriously acquired some very nice ships. In exchange for not getting locked up in the island prison there, and getting to use the harbour, the pirates haven't bothered to contest the mainland's ownership. The Council used it to house slavers and political enemies for a while, until at some point it was turned into the "Reformatory for the Magically Afflicted" - which still means the Council's political enemies, just of a specific type.

Kavak posted:

I would never have pegged Amn for Spain, minus the colonialism. I think they got confused with Calmishan's Arabian theme- Athkatla being Cordoba I can buy, though.

My take is this:

Sleep of Bronze posted:

The Amnish natives, making up the vast majority of BG2's NPCs, are technically from fantasy Iberia, but it's a fantasy Iberia which never had a Reconquista, Amn having just quietly split away into independence when the foreign empire ruling it collapsed. The Calishites and Tethyrans have ended up being the primary ethnic group in Amn too: turbans, scimitars, and all those trappings are thus still very much in fashion.

Woolie Wool posted:

Vikar Jerome posted:
if you talk to firebeard 50 times at the candlekeep inn he'll give you 300 gold just like that.

That sounds a bit too "1998 urban legend" for me to believe, but...

Bizarrely almost true. From straight BG1:

IF
NumTimesTalkedTo(30)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
SetNumTimesTalkedTo(31)
GiveGoldForce(300)
END

His Beregost .cre file even has 300 gold less than his Candlekeep one.

Kavak posted:

*This accidentally restored all the spells I'd cast- I think doing anything in EEKeeper with a save causes that, so the party has only had to sleep once since the start of the game. I imagine everyone is wired on Maztican coffee.

That's a legacy from the original Keepers: by default, it mimics the effect of a rest on your party when you save changes. SK certainly has an option to turn it off, but I don't know about EEK.

Sleep of Bronze fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Apr 27, 2016

# ¿ Apr 27, 2016 12:48

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

Kavak posted:

Interesting, I didn't know Spellhold wasn't invented by Bioware. That explains where the giant dungeon really came from. Where was it detailed?

There was a Volo's Guide which came out in 2000 as a sort of BG2 companion, except that its content had clearly been locked down before BG2 was anywhere near done, in order for it to be printed and sent out on time. I don't know if it was originally conceived as actually part of the BG2 marketing campaign or if it was just an expansion on the rest of the Volo's Guide series, especially the Guide to the Sword Coast, which got roped into the game's PR push because of the timing. Spellhold's concept turns up both in game and book, but I don't know if there's any way to tell who came up with it first and who then used it.

At any rate, it retained the tabletop Cowled Wizards in their revolutionary cells, called Brynnlaw 'Grimgates', and described the exact opposite end of Tethyr from where ToB actually takes place, amongst other elements which clearly signal it as separate from the game's version of the Realms.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2016 14:18

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

Kavak posted:

And he doesn't stick around to help you with Sarevok or later Irenicus even though he could shred them like tissue paper because...?

Cheats:DrizztDefends();

# ¿ Apr 28, 2016 08:30

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

AngryBooch posted:

I think the player's handbook description of true neutral contained an example of a character that helped a village under attack by trolls, only to switch to the trolls' side once the village begins to win. True Neutral as described was just loving insane.

In fairness, the description also says "Clearly, there are very few true neutral characters in the world", so they knew it was loving insane.

I dig the idea of a philosophy dedicated to total balance, but pretty sure it shouldn't have been an alignment unto itself.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2016 03:02

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

She's hanging around in my Ironman, ready to replace Dynaheir if she gets chunked. :v:

Guessing the release timeline isn't so short that she's likely to be available if I make it to BG2.

# ¿ May 4, 2016 12:01

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

Hollismason posted:

Wait, wands have alternate fire modes?

Right click on the Wand of Fire on the Quick Item bar, and you can set it. The tooltip will show whether you're setting it to Scorcher or Fireball mode. Pretty sure you can do it in the inventory too, like choosing what way you want to wield a combined range/melee weapon.

# ¿ May 4, 2016 17:51

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 21:15

Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

A Strange Aeon posted:

I've just finished the second level of Watcher's Keep, but I was curious when you're supposed to do it in the timeline of the game.

I found another head for the Flail of Ages (what an awesome treasure!), but it looks like I can't get it attached until Throne of Bhaal? I'm still in Chapter 2 of Shadows, and I don't remember how ToB works; do I really need to wait until the expansion or can Cromwell attach it? I assume even if I could get back to the forge in the Keep, that wouldn't work.

There are mod options to give Cespenar and Cromwell each other's forging capabilities, but I don't know if they'd work on a game in progress.

# ¿ May 12, 2016 13:51

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

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