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queeb posted:-_- Yeah once you get to Baldur's Gate it gets really overwhelming. I'd strongly recommend using a guide.
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Oct 18, 2020 08:37
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Suspicious posted:If you don't explore every wilderness area, getting to the city and even beating the game don't take that long. Who wouldn’t explore every wilderness! That’s the best part! I love removing the fog of war slowly and methodically on every single map. It’s relaxing and I still love Hoenig’s score.
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Oct 18, 2020 09:47
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Once you know where everything is it becomes practically a Zen technique. Clearing out each zone in order is the closest I've ever gotten to a meditative state. Even then, even as a hard-boiled, compulsive completionist, I don't do the werewolf island anymore.
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Oct 18, 2020 09:55
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queeb posted:is BG2 more focused? Most of the chapters are pretty focused but early on in the game you will need to raise a fair amount of money to move on. You're then left in a very open-ended situation with zillions of different quests you can do. That bit is very free-form and exploratory. You can get it over with quickly by just doing a few quests and saving all your gold, or you can spend hours and hours doing every quest and poking around all the hidden corners of the various maps. Once you've raised the money things are mostly pretty focused again though you later have a chance to come back and finish off any side-quests you didn't do.
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Oct 18, 2020 12:51
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Oscar Wild posted:Hello thread, Mages in BG1 are very squishy early on, and they can't cast many spells either. But their couple of spells per day can be very decisive in certain situations. Wands are also very powerful in the game and most wands are only usable by mages and bards, so once you start getting more wands your mage and bard can contribute more using them. So your mage is kind of just along for the ride a lot of the time in the earlier game. Their to-hit chance is terrible and they can't use bows or do anything good in melee, so they don't contribute meaningfully to most encounters. It's OK to just keep them far away from enemies. The 2nd level spell invisibility is great, it lasts 24 hours unless you break it. You break it by doing almost anything, but the character can walk around and not draw any kind of attacks. This is great for keeping your mage out of trouble until you need them. Potions of Invisibility are great to have as an emergency item as well, if the mage comes under attack drink the potion real quick. With your party I would fit out Jaheira with everything you can get to lower her AC, you can get to -5 or so but you don't know where some of the stuff is yet. In just general combat have her do the front line and everyone else attack at range. If enemies get around her, Khalid is 2nd line. When you have fights where enemies are on multiple fronts, try to use buffs like Bless, Chant, and later on Haste. You can cast Strength on people so they'll be more effective in melee. Buy magical arrows, fire, cold and acid. They are VERY effective in BG1 and a good use of cash. Use potions you find for tough fights, they can make a big difference.
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Oct 18, 2020 20:29
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Cafe Barbarian posted:Use potions you find for tough fights, they can make a big difference. Don't sleep on this. I rarely used potions and ended base BG1 with several dozen of a wide variety. The game throws consumables at you at a huge rate and since master thievery potions are in BG1 you can get real scummy and sell wands to a merchant then steal them back for full charge if the price is a bit high. Still, going from a empty fireball wand to 50 charges for 20k gold is still a great deal. The shield amulet at the Nashkel carnival is similarly effective to help AC for a weak armor character and the costs to 'recharge' it are much cheaper.
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Oct 18, 2020 20:36
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I used to not use potions much except for healing and antidotes, but as I got more into ironman-style play potions become really useful to ensure good results in different encounters. Now in big fights my characters are tanked up to the gills on so many potions, and I buy all the fire resist, speed and regeneration potions I can find. The difference in effectiveness between a base fighter and one that took strength, heroism and fire resist potions is immense. Speed potions last much longer than a haste spell, so they're very useful when you have a gauntlet of fights to go through. Combined with a giant strength potion and regeneration and a couple fighters can hack their way through a whole dungeon of fights.
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Oct 18, 2020 22:45
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I tend to play IE games in a way where I want to rest as little as possible, especially in dungeons, which is frankly stupid on my part because D&D, especially at low levels, just is not built for it. I've never liked vancian casting. AEDU was better, but not great.
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Oct 18, 2020 23:39
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The games assume you'll be resting a lot based on how long they give you for quests.
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Oct 18, 2020 23:47
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Suspicious posted:The games assume you'll be resting a lot based on how long they give you for quests. it always feels kinda cheesy, but only bc I'm used to tabletop. (or I was when this system was current.) it's essential here
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Oct 19, 2020 00:53
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Suspicious posted:The games assume you'll be resting a lot based on how long they give you for quests. Even then you'll probably end up resting a bunch in a row to trigger NPC quests in chapter 2 if you want to do all of them.
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Oct 19, 2020 00:58
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And romances
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Oct 19, 2020 02:46
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Just cast wish and ask to have rested so simple.
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Oct 19, 2020 07:00
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I did wind up starting a crossbow-archer, and it's been pretty fun. I did notice in BG2 that after I'd done the circus and the slavers, I already got a vampire pestering me to meet her mistress, the gold gatekeeping really... Isn't. Not that it's a good idea necessarily to proceed with the plot at that point, but it is possible!
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Oct 19, 2020 07:41
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Rappaport posted:I did wind up starting a crossbow-archer, and it's been pretty fun. I did notice in BG2 that after I'd done the circus and the slavers, I already got a vampire pestering me to meet her mistress, the gold gatekeeping really... Isn't. Not that it's a good idea necessarily to proceed with the plot at that point, but it is possible! It's usually the amount you'll get after the first major act 2 quest you do, assuming you sell of some items you don't need. I always beat the slavers in the slums first thing after leaving the dungeon and you've earned enough after that to get the 2nd offer for help. (also you get Lilacor which is wildly overpowered at the start, and is pretty much best in slot for any 2h sword users outside of paladins until ToB) I'd say wizard level 9/10 is probably the lowest level you should start act 3. Level 4/5 spells are where you start really experiencing magic supremacy. Edwin for sure when he immediately starts with 4 spells per level becomes an absolute monster at level 10 and then even moreso at 12. pentyne fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Oct 19, 2020 |
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Oct 19, 2020 08:43
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If I remember right, Lehtinan drops a bunch of gems and Hendak gives you an enchanted... Bastard sword, which no NPC uses, so that's vendor fodder right there too. And the slavers in the bizarrely grounded ship-house drop enchanted composite bows, which out of the gate only Minsc can use, so those end up on the selling pile a lot, too. It's a shame that Bernard has ridiculously high chances of catching a thief, he has a lot of decent loot that in theory one could obtain for free. If a character went to chapter 3 basically without doing any of the stronghold quests, would they miss out on anything? I think some encounters on... Let's say the island? scale up and you can meet a lich there just hanging out, if you're high level enough, but does the inverse happen? And I suppose the Underdark portion would be a pain in the butt, since you have to clear out at least one nasty dungeon. You can cheese one of them with the silly shield, but that baby is like 15 grand all on its own!
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Oct 19, 2020 09:59
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There's som important items you can only get by doing the stronghold quests. Flail of Ages is part of Nalia's quest, Belm is part of the Trademeet quest, etc, etc.
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Oct 19, 2020 10:08
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Skwirl posted:There's som important items you can only get by doing the stronghold quests. Flail of Ages is part of Nalia's quest, Belm is part of the Trademeet quest, etc, etc. Right, but you could do those in chapter 6, still. It's a tired complaint, I know, but the game's plot really disagrees with the game mechanics, since in chapter 2 you're potentially worried about your friend, and in chapter 6 you should probably get around to getting your soul back. Doing all of the stronghold quests just makes a whole lot of sense, game-wise, since most of the good loot is in those. I don't remember what sorts of stuff you get from the "main campaign", even the good spear for Jaheira is stashed away in an easily missed sub-plot.
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Oct 19, 2020 10:22
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Considering another BG run as a Paladin, since I've never mained one. Is there anything special I should know? Is Inquisitor the best kit? Should I just do a F/C or F>C instead? Or maybe a Blackguard since I've never actually completed an evil playthrough? My favorite part of the game is obviously the analysis paralysis.
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Oct 19, 2020 13:49
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Inquisitor is definitely the most powerful, partly due to their crazy dispel, but immunity to hold and charm will come in handy often and true sight comes in handy a lot too. Fighter cleric becomes a pretty unstoppable tank at high levels but it takes a little preparation before battles, so it's a different playstyle. From a powergaming perspective, blackguards and undead hunters come solidly in second. Immunity to level drain is very nice, but neither kit has anything that can compete with a level 40 dispel. I'm personally a fan of cavaliers just for flavour, but their ranged weapon restriction is a real problem in some situations.
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Oct 19, 2020 14:36
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Fighter clerics aren't really good at tanking, they're DPS.
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Oct 19, 2020 14:54
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I'm gonna replay this game for the first time in over a decade. What's the best place for custom portraits these days? I don't really want a giant pack I have to sift through, I remember a site where you could just download individual portraits but I can't seem to find it.
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Oct 19, 2020 14:54
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Devorum posted:Considering another BG run as a Paladin, since I've never mained one. Is there anything special I should know? Is Inquisitor the best kit? It's hard to go wrong as any of the paladin kits. Cavalier will probably be a bit stronger in BG1 (poison immunity is loving amazing in some fights and fear immunity + a spammable remove fear at the very least frees up some cleric spell slots) whereas Undead Hunter has some tremendous advantages in BG2 (never worry about level drain ever). And of course Inquisitor is essentially an off button for enemy mages.
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Oct 19, 2020 14:59
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I found this site and just threw some Luis Royo art in for the oldschool factor. Helped me figure out my character too, I think I'll play a Berserker http://www.notra.fr/portrait
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Oct 19, 2020 18:17
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pentyne posted:Hey, for all the people praising Kingmaker, can you give like a 2 sentence summary of how it played out for you? What class, general difficulty, how combat/story/Kingdom management shook out etc. because I'm kind of getting the vibe that maybe more people would play it if with the current state +mods you get a close approximation of a Baldur's Gate game as described by huge fans of the BG trilogy. Aasimar Sylvan Sorcerer, Normal difficulty. I LOVED the time limits, they reminded me a lot of the general gameflow of a Persona game where you have chapter story->decompress with some Kingdom Management until next chapter->repeat. I think the Kingdom Management aspect helps pace the dungeon crawling and stop it from becoming Too Much. I also appreciate anything that encourages me to NOT be a 15 minute adventuring day nerd because that poo poo is cancer.
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Oct 19, 2020 18:25
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Devorum posted:Should I just do a F/C or F>C instead? They're very different experiences from a Paladin, in that, as explained above, they're much more offensively-geared - you get the most bang for your buck giving yourself the insane combat buffs like Righteous Magic and combining them with blunt weapons like the Flail of Ages or Crom Faeyr. Whenever you're talking about a Fighter multiclass, dual-classing is always the 'optimal' choice. Fighter levels past 9 are astronomically less useful than spellcaster levels, and the exponential XP cost of levelling up means you'll get the higher spell levels significantly later in your game, and you'll end up missing out on around 13 levels of Cleric (F 24 / C 25 vs. F 9 / C 38). Additionally, dual-classing lets you take a Fighter kit; the Berserker kit in particular makes this a no-brainer by itself if you're optimising, since the Berserk ability makes you completely immune to the most dangerous effects in the game. However! Multiclassing is easier and simpler and there's no awkward liminal period where you're just a lovely Cleric, giving a smoother playthrough overall. Also, Fighter/Cleric is such a strong combo either way that you'll eventually godmode the game anyway.
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Oct 19, 2020 18:52
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Suspicious posted:Fighter clerics aren't really good at tanking, they're DPS. Oh yeah, I was thinking of fighter druids for some reason. Strong melee classes either way though.
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Oct 19, 2020 21:18
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Fruits of the sea posted:Oh yeah, I was thinking of fighter druids for some reason. Strong melee classes either way though. Yeah, Ironskins makes tanking a lot easier. Not that Fighter/Clerics can't take a few hits too.
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Oct 19, 2020 21:22
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somebody posted this summer that their quarantine playthrough list had been Planescape, Neverwinter Nights, and Icewind Dale. coincidentally, that's been mine, too... I just finished ID. my only complaint is that the way the levels are designed in combination with the fog of war meant that sometimes I couldn't see skinny passages into other parts of the level. the map would save me if there was a door in the nearby unfogged area. otherwise, it's good poo poo. I think I'm going to go back and play BG from the beginning. I'm debating either a fighter 1 > mage dual or a f/m multi. or hell, just a fighter. I normally like playing mages, but chunking enemies is so much fun. full party with characters I've never kept around.
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Oct 19, 2020 21:35
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Empty Sandwich posted:somebody posted this summer that their quarantine playthrough list had been Planescape, Neverwinter Nights, and Icewind Dale. coincidentally, that's been mine, too... So, is Neverwinter Nights EE good? I've played the original and NWN2 to completion, but remember almost nothing about NWN1 and I think it would probably be a totally 'new' experience for me. I definately remember playing Shadows and Hordes but for the life of me couldn't tell you a single thing about them.
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Oct 19, 2020 22:18
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I've been contemplating for some time a super-gimicky playthrough of the BG series. It's seem to me that clerics are surprisingly rarely the PC of choice, and I was thinking of doing a pre-nerf Ranger/Cleric run with lovely physical stats but ungodly Int, Wis and Cha. I would only do Ranger for the druid spell access, to be honest; I just want to try a character with 25 wisdom and every priest spell in the game but who is physically inept.
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Oct 19, 2020 22:21
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Is NWN EE good is a complicated question. No but also yes. The original NWN1 campaign is basically a tech demo because the actual point of NWN1 is that it’s an incredibly robust platform for creating and publishing campaigns and modules. The Shadows of Undrentide campaign is...passable? It’s fine. Hordes of the Underdark is good. The actual good poo poo is all user made and Aielund is broadly considered to be the gold standard by a fair margin.
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Oct 19, 2020 22:21
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As a program NWN:EE is excellent. It's probably Beamdog's best work, they've worked a lot with modders to give them what they want and added lots of performance and graphical improvements and there isn't any sign of them stopping in the near future. I replayed some modules I enjoyed back in the day this summer and quite a few still hold up well. As for the official campaigns I haven't played any of the premium modules so I can't vouch for them at all (and most of them are locked behind a dlc paywall anyway) but Shadows of Undrentide is good fun and Hordes of the Underdark is an actually good high level campaign. The main campaign isn't amazing but if you find yourself enjoying NWN combat it's a good enough hack n slash with some okay writing with some standout bits (Linu La'neral) in between. There's basically endless hours of really good usermade content. Shadowlords, Dreamcatcher, and Demon are good campaigns all made by the same guy, Stefan Gagne's stuff like Penultima, HeX CodA, Elegia Eternum and Excrucio Eternum are good and have unique settings. Blackthorne is a detailed mystery/detective mod where you have to figure out who a demon is hiding in at an inn on a dark and stormy night. Basically everything highly rated on the NWVault is either good and worth playing or a really bad sex mod.
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Oct 19, 2020 23:02
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NWN is quite good and I love it. As a bonus, you can now get all the premium modules that went off of sale when BioWare shut down their premium module program. I like all the shader effects as well as the x2 scaling option for the UI.
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Oct 19, 2020 23:21
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agreeing with everybody: the first module sucks. the maps are all designed so that you have to go through every part to get anywhere. it seems... petulant? the plot is fine, even though I'm annoyed by the railroading. the second one is better. still lots of trudging, especially in the snow. the third one is fantastic. possibly the most epic DnD thing? just the scope is great, and you start at level 15 or something. good/bad thing: intelligence actually affects dialogue, but my paladin with 9 int talked like a caveman and everybody commented on how dumb he was. that's immersive, but the idea that a 9 int is practically drooling seems a little... something. I couldn't make any of the 3rd-party stuff work, including the purchased modules, but I'm sure I hosed something up. there's a lot of (apparently) great content you can download for free edit: well worth buying, but I played on Android, so it was like $3
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Oct 20, 2020 00:25
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Mr. Lobe posted:How would a witch be different from a warlock, sorcerer or wizard You might as well ask what makes a wizard different than sorcerer than warlock than every caster class? A lot of little subtle things for uber-nerds to quibble over. I want to think you were joking but evidently it's not an uncommon perspective, hence basically no witches in DnD. I'm struggling to think of an iconic witch characters or media where the "witches" could be thought of as just wiz/sorc/warlock. I suppose the actual Warlocks in Charmed were not too far off from DnD warlocks but the witches themselves don't fit the bill. Witches take many forms but they are rarely in-line with any of those. If anything I had to, I would probably jam them more in with druids/shamans/alchemists than wiz/war/sorc. More curses and hexes where you might wonder if they had anything to do with it at all moreso than glowing magic particle effects blow up enemy with energy. Crystal balls and folksy divination, light psychic powers. Herbal remedies and hella newt eyes. Potions and cauldrons, voodoo dolls, house with chicken legs, seducing forest chumps and then hagging out on em, eating children, making college kids freak out in the woods and stay in the corner. Flying loving broomsticks. gently caress, green skin and a weakness to water. Dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight. Living deliciously. Candy architecture and engineering. Goth gfs getting weird with crystals and newage poo poo but accidentally summoning demons. Being mad persecuted by any fuckwit with a religion. Sapping youth from maidens.Turning into a bird to save Mulan. Having a big wart and a terrifying cackle. Witches have a lot going on that simply isn't covered by the common magic classes in DnD even when each of those has some elements of some witches. I think the big problem outside of just willpower to do it is that a lot of the stuff that makes witches distinct doesn't translate well into combat rolls as well. Rituals and spell components just get ignored usually, at least in my experience with cRPGs and a bit of TT. Maybe a lot of DMs were out there stopping wizards from casting spells because they forgot to rub the big mouth billy bass three times, and didn't have the broken stub of candlewax from widow's wake, 30gp, and a tiny silver bell or whatever. Rituals and stuff tend to just get abstracted away or kind of just stuffed into general "resting time" activities. Pathfinder's Witch class is a pretty good version and its subtypes cover a few other good witch archetypes and its spell selections pull thematically from cleric/wizard/druid spell books. It's even got a Cackle to refresh hexes cast. Personally I think it's odd we have Warlock as a PBH thing and not a Witch. Warlocks aren't much of a thing, and all the demony patron stuff really takes a backside to just being an X-Man with power blast and some of the rude spells.
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Oct 20, 2020 00:39
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Empty Sandwich posted:agreeing with everybody: the first module sucks. the maps are all designed so that you have to go through every part to get anywhere. it seems... petulant? the plot is fine, even though I'm annoyed by the railroading. If you ever wanted to try the user modules again here's a quick post from beamdog on getting them to work on Android. http://blog.beamdog.com/2018/12/how-to-install-custom-content-to.html Apparently saved games are also transferable if you later get the desktop version.
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Oct 20, 2020 00:44
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What game had this spooky town in the middle of a forest, basically had nothing much to do with your main quest that I recall, but it was a really good focused-area centered on some kind of spooky horror mystery going on in this town with a haunted mansion or tower in it. I think there was either a Lich, a pair of Liches, or just a pair of differently good/evil brothers. The dungeon map itself was pretty elaborate, with different paths and challenges depending on how you approached it or who you were siding with. I think you may have also been appointed sheriff, lawyer, and judge in some capacity. The more I try to describe it the looser idea I'm getting of it, but I also want to think there was a twist that you didn't necessarily have to uncover or deal with to resolve the quest. Maybe like the Lich did something super horrible to become a Lich, but those kids were dicks or something like that? Anyway, just thinking of cool Liches and Lich stories while waiting to be one in Wrath of the Righteous.
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Oct 20, 2020 00:46
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NWN's user-made content aspects are indeed very impressive, but functionally I prefer NWN2 because it's party based. Having a game full of interesting classes and limiting me to having just one of those and a loving stupid henchman is just wrong.
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Oct 20, 2020 01:14
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Khanstant posted:What game had this spooky town in the middle of a forest, basically had nothing much to do with your main quest that I recall, but it was a really good focused-area centered on some kind of spooky horror mystery going on in this town with a haunted mansion or tower in it. I think there was either a Lich, a pair of Liches, or just a pair of differently good/evil brothers. The dungeon map itself was pretty elaborate, with different paths and challenges depending on how you approached it or who you were siding with. I think you may have also been appointed sheriff, lawyer, and judge in some capacity. The more I try to describe it the looser idea I'm getting of it, but I also want to think there was a twist that you didn't necessarily have to uncover or deal with to resolve the quest. Maybe like the Lich did something super horrible to become a Lich, but those kids were dicks or something like that? Sounds a lot like Elegia Eternum.
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Oct 20, 2020 03:50
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