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NihilVerumNisiMors posted:Cleric/Ranger is amazing from beginning to end. Does it mean you get Druid spells alongside your Cleric ones from the off or something?
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Nov 22, 2013 14:47
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 09:44 |
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Insurrectionist posted:Yeah, Fighter/Cleric and Ranger/Cleric have mostly a bunch of small things going for each side. F/C gets grandmastery proficiency...
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Nov 22, 2013 15:25
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I like how people playing allegedly good characters are hankering for the "kill literally everyone who helped you but may be engaged in things that are Bad Form" approach here. OK so you have Bodhi's crew and the Shadow Thieves. Do you then pop down to the Government District to generally take out the trash, Punisher-style? Every Cowled Wizard, maybe? (not that they can't just go to a different plane for a bit and wait it out or whatever Because Magic). After that, do you hang around being some kind of weird dictator to stop anyone possibly evil getting near power? Hey does anyone remember the opening cutscene of Baldur's Gate at all? 
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Nov 23, 2013 16:19
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Factor_VIII posted:That's what I did for all of BG1 and most of chapters 1 and 2 of BG2. Be sure to use Draw Upon Holy Might while you still have it as a Bhaalspawn ability. My character has 20 cleric levels and can get 25 across all physical stats (which have a base of 19) thanks to it.
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Nov 28, 2013 00:32
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Oh man. Just started BG again about 4 days ago (just before this ironman thing, I guess I could technically enter my character since they haven't died yet, but eh). Forgot about BG1's tendency to respawn mobs unless you leave people in the fog of war. I sure enjoyed the Gnoll Fortress' mix of egregiously crap foes that are barely worth an arrow. Time to experience it again on the way out for upwards of a turn and a half per screen, because the game wants you to stamp on half a dozen Gnolls and Xvarts over and over and over and over (if Xan wasn't grating to be around, I'd have kept him along, which I'm thinking of doing anyway because Minsc Was Never Funny and I left him somewhere safe) jBrereton fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Nov 28, 2013 |
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Nov 28, 2013 18:28
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For anyone thinking of an Ironman run, standing near Tazok if you get into the bandits and then confront him with the fact you know about Mulahey is enough to instantly kill CHARNAME in combat, and not from 'normal' damage, just insta-damage to death. So err don't do that.
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Nov 29, 2013 00:32
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Right, he's like Steve Blum or Jennifer Hale, where you have to try to force the cork back into the VA bottle before it wrecks everything.
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Nov 29, 2013 16:33
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DeathChicken posted:Judging by the new Shadowrun, people would have behaved like the world had come to an end. If you want to not save, that option is always available to you.
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Nov 30, 2013 16:25
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verybad posted:A frustrating mechanic is not necessarily a bad one. Dark Souls is a massively frustrating experience, but also a brilliant one. No other (single player) game I've played has had that same feeling of achievement when you make it through a difficult area and finally beat the boss that has been grinding you to paste for the last two hours.
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Nov 30, 2013 17:46
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NihilVerumNisiMors posted:Aww drat I gave the +1 Int tome to Imoen hoping that it would carry over to BG2.
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Nov 30, 2013 20:38
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zedprime posted:Back in the say before everything was documented as solved as it is now, on the old Black Isle message boards Valygar users were present but regarded as weird. I think the problem a lot of people might've run into with Cernd is that BG2 is absolutely choked with Divine casters. You have Jaheira, obviously, and then Anomen, Aerie, Viconia, sorta Keldorn, sorta Valygar, and sorta Minsc. Plus probably someone I forgot. That's like half the NPCs right there, and most of them are Good (Viconia is barely evil and can change, anyway), which is convenient if you're not being a pantomime dickhead. With the exception of Aerie, none of these characters is especially horrible to have around in your party just saying stuff and knocking about the place. I don't really like Minsc or Anomen, but the rest of them are all Just Some People. Cernd comes out of that badly because his kit is weird and his Dex is low, but as you get further into BG2 when people're pretty likely to hit whatever your AC is, his Wis 18 casting is more appealing. This is in contrast to Arcane casters, where you have Aerie (grating), Edwin (locks you out of Minsc, Keldorn and Valygar, because they'll all fight to the death with him), Haer'dalis (is a Bard), Imoen (but not for ages), Jan (eh...), Nalia (a poor man's Imoen), and very vaguely Valygar.
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Dec 1, 2013 17:24
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Fruits of the sea posted:Level 4 (5 for the thieves), so the camp is doable, if not exactly a smart choice. To be honest it's a while since I've played BG without SCS installed so I'm not sure what to expect. I may do a frontal assault just to be safe. Infiltrating the camp is a pain since there's no room to maneuver after the fight in the tent.
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Dec 5, 2013 19:02
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MrTheDevious posted:Got sick of my evil BG2 playthrough because other than Dorn it seems pretty dull, so I just bought IWD2! Any helpful advice for a first playthrough other than bards and druids are really good? This includes the Aasimar racial thing, and that's one of the most readily-available ranged sources early on.
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Dec 5, 2013 23:53
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MrTheDevious posted:Awesome Click on it immediately and it gets deposited into your party gold. Absolutely do not think to yourself "hmm I wonder if I can put this in a chest" and put it inside an object, because it just makes that entity anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand gold richer.
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Dec 6, 2013 01:11
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CrusherEAGLE posted:So I hear IWD2 is not very good. Are these rumors to be believed? If you're OK with those things, it has some alright combat and so on. I like the 3e ruleset better but the first bit of IWD2 is a total slog and it never really lets up from just being "alright time to gently caress up some guys, but now you're a level higher so it's a little harder sort of but you have more choices".
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Nov 8, 2014 11:18
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Iretep posted:From my experience playing IWD1 and baldurs gate games I've learned that making your diplomat a frontliner makes the whole talking bit a lot simpler so I'm trying to avoid making him a pure sorcerer. You might have to skimp a little on dex and con to get decent int, but IIRC the limit for con +hp for non-Fighters is 2 (which I think is 16?), so all it affects is Raise Dead chance, I think.
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Nov 15, 2014 14:56
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Pivotal Lever posted:You should make a half-orc beserker and start with 19 strength, 18 dexterity and 19 constitution.
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Nov 20, 2014 21:22
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Yeah.
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Dec 18, 2014 22:55
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Flip Yr Wig posted:Well right after asking about Cloakwood I get to its actual plot point, so I guess I'll see if it's the hell it seems to be described as.
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Dec 19, 2014 15:29
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Dyna Soar posted:IMO the worst area from a game design perspective is the basilisk area Second time's just really rude.
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Dec 19, 2014 16:30
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Taear posted:After I finished the game for the first time when it was new I picked up the guide for it and it's shocking how much stuff is easy to miss. I was curious and lost literally millions of XP irrecoverably.
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Jan 28, 2015 12:32
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Arivia posted:This is objectively, completely wrong. BG1's plot is actually the best of any FR computer game; it certainly gets the setting far better than anything else. It focuses on economics and politics, two of the things that make the Realms stand out and work very well. In BG1 I did not care about the iron crisis. It didn't do anything which created any urgency. Nobody in the world dies because their hoes and so on are breaking. You can gently caress off to Werewolf Island for a few months and hey everyone's still around, cool. Nothing mundane was out of reach for the player to buy except for the first hour or so, either. It's a total non-event. Sometimes unenchanted metal weapons broke, yikes!!!, it's not like you're hurting for NPC drops, and because of how 2e was, you're spending the first couple of levels firing extremely cheap arrows and rocks from your unbreakable bows and slings anyway.
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Jan 1, 2016 13:28
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I wish they'd have changed up IWD:EE a bit to include more BG2 style mage fights. I mean I dig the area design and all but it's trash mobs all the way down.
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Feb 22, 2016 11:52
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Woolie Wool posted:So I left the best character by far in my entire party, an archer with huge STR, DEX, and CON, by the side of the road when I met Imoen. Go me. Two things pretty much break level 1-3ish DnD, which are the Sleep spell and bows. The sleep spell does a wide-area effect that puts low-level monsters to sleep. They'll wake up eventually or when you hit them, but you get completely secure hits on them at least once. Bows get two relatively strong attacks per round, and since you really want your racial maximum Dex stat for the armour class bonus that you get regardless of armour, you're going to get an effective 10% to-hit bonus to hit with bows on any character that isn't a Dwarf. If you're using a Longbow which has an innate +1 to hit, it's pretty much a +15% to-hit, Composite Longbows also get +2 damage. Plus there are quite a lot of magic Longbows which are even better, and the same goes for magic arrows. Later on, melee classes get really tanky, and get more attacks per round which cuts it some, plus magical melee weapons can do some crazy poo poo, but it's normally worth carrying a bow on anyone who can use one forever. In Baldur's Gate one of the better kits that actually stays pretty strong is Beast Master. You can use Longbows (big help!), the Find Familiar ability gives you a bunch of hp at level 1 which helps you not get hosed off with the game if you run into a bad situation, and although you can't use metal equipment like swords, Baldur's Gate as a series is pretty generous with Quarterstaff type weapons; there's a Quarterstaff +1 in one of the first towns you run into that you almost always end up picking up. There's also good Studded Leather-type armour through BG1 and into BG2, way more than you'd need for your normal 1 thief in a party.
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Mar 13, 2016 23:35
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Suspicious posted:In BG, sleeping enemies don't wake up when you attack them. quote:Please don't recommend the beastmaster class, it's horrible. As I said, they have great survivability, there are loads of good quarterstaffs, including one you basically can't miss in the 3rd real place you will visit along the main quest, and even a one-hander if you have Tales of the Sword Coast. Bows are amazing through Baldur's Gate, and their armour restriction isn't that big a deal because there's always more than enough Studded Leather. They're also pretty convenient scouts with their improved stealth skill. If you're playing for the first time, they will stand you in good stead. If you're playing for the 3rd time and you have everything mapped out in your head from optimal paths to get all the best equipment and tons of XP straight away to straight up gamey poo poo like saving your character points by picking CHA 3 because you get a ring at the start of BG2 that sets your charisma to 18, and then a cloak that gives you another +2 within the first 2 hours of playing the sequel, sure, it's less good and you won't want or need the extra health because you won't ever get into any situation you don't know about in advance.
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Mar 13, 2016 23:58
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Woolie Wool posted:Well now when I try to enter the Friendly Arm inn again (already completed Nashkel mines), Jaheira approaches me and the game crashes. Well maybe that's the game itself telling me that this is not my kind of game. Guess I shouldn't have even bothered. I'd say give it a try again, it's pretty good entertainment, and the sequel is probably the best CRPG ever made.
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Mar 14, 2016 00:02
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Woolie Wool posted:If I decide to try again I might just roll with a single character + a cleric for healing and then dump the cleric when I find another cleric. But that means I'll have to fight loving Mulaney again. And yes it does mean you'll have to fight Mulahey again so maybe take a day off or something, because the Nashkel Mines are like the 3rd worst area in all of Baldur's Gate (after the totally loving garbage Firewine Bridge dungeon in BG1 that you should avoid like the plague, and a dungeon in BG2 that puts you into a slog against about billion Mind Flayers if you walk into the wrong, unlabelled door after a seriously overlong prior segment where you were also mainly walking through corridors).
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Mar 14, 2016 00:08
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Woolie Wool posted:Aren't those the things that eat your brain and you have to cast some ridiculously high level spell or pay a temple to get your brain fixed?
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Mar 14, 2016 00:14
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Clerics can't heal for poo poo Druids get to call a Dryad at level 4 of their spells that has MCLW two levels before a cleric would get it (and earlier in XP terms, since Druid advancement is fast early before dying on its arse later), but Clerics can totally heal.
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Mar 14, 2016 00:16
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Almost all healing spells are terrible. That no-one else gets any better spells is immaterial, it's not an MMO style tank+healer+dps paradigm. Suspicious posted:No metal item of any sort isn't a drawback, it's crippling. It's sawing off your two legs just for kicks. The only thing worse is the wizard slayer's no magical item of any kind. For such an extreme con, you'd expect amazing pros, right? Something like the kensai? Nope. Animal summons that quickly become useless fodder, even in BG1. Innate summon familiar? Yay! +4 HP! Sure wish I could wear full plate armor though so I wouldn't need it in the first place. Like there's only so much good gear in BG1. Regardless of Good/Evil party composition, the two Ankheg plates and magical plate are in pretty big demand by fighters and clerics, and you would probably never have anyone carrying a magic staff in the front lines, so it's a bit of a waste to palm it off to whatever mage you bring along. Sure, by BG2 you can have pretty much any gear you can think of for everyone, but even there your choices keep up. And hey +hp is +hp, especially at level 1.
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Mar 14, 2016 00:32
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In BG1 they're mostly there to give a bit more shape to the story for first-timers, really. You'll normally run into people about an area or two from where a quest is. Same's mainly true of BG2 but there's a bit more to them. If you're spoiling yourself with a walkthrough or something then I'd say they're alright for a bit of audio variety but not terribly necessary.
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Mar 14, 2016 00:38
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Woolie Wool posted:So what the gently caress are melee weapons and shields even good for then? Melee weapons provide very good hitting power, especially when your warriors (Fighter/Ranger/Paladin/Barbarian) get a few levels and get 2 or more attacks per round (unlike bows on non-Archer characters, melee weapons really scale in terms of effectiveness with levels, and the Strength bonuses are even better than the Dexterity bonuses when it comes to accuracy and damage). Low AC means you can effectively 'tank' by tying people up in melee, and the bigger shields are excellent against ranged weapons. You can't really do it before about level 4 unless you get the best possible HP rolls, but as soon as that hits, you're going to be able to stand up to most targets you run into most of the time. Dynaheir is a perfectly good mage. She can't cast Sleep without a wand, but can cast Color Spray which does most of the same thing, plus she gets an extra spell per level in a pretty solid casting school. She certainly beats out Xzar in terms of spells that are most usable on a single-class mage (Necromancy's theoretically best early spells require base contact with enemies which I'm sure you can tell is not very safe). Pumps out a lot of damage and crowd control.
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Mar 14, 2016 15:29
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Explain why a cast time 5, cast range: touch, 8hp heal isn't completely crap? Like your "don't take any heals they're garbage" advice is only good if you're savescumming very hard, as well as knowing where everything in the entire game is. If you get woken up by something you can't immediately kill and your party is low health, I mean that's basically GG?
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Mar 14, 2016 17:16
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Just pick a steady selection. For a priest with like 10 spells (I'm guessing 5/3/2 by level?) you probably want something like: Cure Light Wounds x2 Bless x2 Command Hold Person x2 (it's that good!) Prayer if you ever remember to use it, otherwise Barkskin to cast on a mage. Animate Dead Dispel Magic On your Wizard you want crowd control most of the time, and with 5 spells I'm guessing it's 3/2, so Sleep/Color Spray if you can't sleep x as much as possible Stinking Cloud Eventually Chromatic Orb is really good CC as well as quite useful damage, but for the first couple of levels it's mediocre. Once you get a few level 1 slots, a cast of Armor is handy, too, although it does get removed by Dispel Magic.
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Mar 14, 2016 18:13
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Coming from a non-EE perspective (BGT), they only stacked up to five and you're normally hauling all kinds of poo poo around so I only really used them late in BG1 where you can get Potions of Extra Healing that are still kind of useful, unlike mid-late BG2 where they're kinda gash again. I think EE increases the stack limit, though?
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Mar 14, 2016 21:25
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Also you are going to have a real bad time the first time you cast Prismatic Spray, that's just guaranteed.
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Mar 14, 2016 23:03
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Wizard Styles posted:OTOH having to select which Druid spells to learn doesn't even look like any kind of disadvantage, I mean how many good Druid spells are there at a given level? Compared to a Cleric, level 1 is pretty good, level 2 is a complete bust other than Barkskin, Slow Poison, and the very occasionally useful Flaming Scimitar, levels 3-5 they get some great stuff. Level 6, about the same. Level 7, kinda weak by comparison.
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Mar 15, 2016 15:07
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Washout posted:Druid spells are pretty self explanatory and I don't think there is anything remarkable on the entire list. Their best spell call lightning can't be used for most of the game.
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Mar 16, 2016 12:07
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Woolie Wool posted:You know what? gently caress Durlag's Tower, I'm going straight to the city to fight Sarevok. You can spring difficult combat encounters on me all day, but don't make me wade through this moon logic King's Quest bullshit for something that's not even part of the main quest. Rip Dynaheir, chunked by an extremely rude cultist before you could get killed by Irenicus.
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Mar 19, 2016 12:22
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 09:44 |
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Yeah there's like 3 clerics/cleric-multiclasses pretty much instantly, and there's another pure druid in Trademeet which is one of the simpler quests to make money in Act 2. I always find my party runs a bit heavy on divine magic and light on arcane because of it.
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Mar 19, 2016 22:26
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