BG2 should be played without ToB

[Barbarian]

Well, without ToB you don't really complete the saga.

Who cares? SoA's ending was satisfactory imo.

I don't think so. But like I said, with ascension ToB's battles are a lot more interesting(and difficult).

 

[jaydee2k]

He's right. ToB is a piece of shit. Story is laughable too.

 

[Barbarian]

Shadows of Amn story is also shit, that is no standard to compare.

 

[Makabb]

ToB Iz BETTERZ BECAUSE U KAN GET WEAPONZ DAT ARE + 5 !!!!!!!!111111111111111111111



and everyone one of you loved it the first time when you had a +5 weapon and could PWN anything, admit it

 

[Lilura]

ToB Iz BETTERZ BECAUSE U KAN GET WEAPONZ DAT ARE + 5 !!!!!!!!111111111111111111111



and everyone one of you loved it the first time when you had a +5 weapon and could PWN anything, admit it

Because going from +4 to +5 suddenly makes things awesome... besides, SoA itemizes +5 weapons (Crom, IMoD, SotM, Carsomyr).

 

[Barbarian]

You know, there is something about high-level d&d that makes it always suck. I wish designers would keep that in mid and design a whole series with levels 1 to 21 in mind(first game level 1 to 8, etc). I suppose once you pass level 21 you are a demigod who should steamroll most living beings in faerun and to keep the game challenging they hae to make shit up.

Alas, at this point I think Nwn2 was the last serious attempt to make a grand d&d game(and it failed). Hasbro won't let the license be used like that again and developers seem to have no interest. Futile to even discuss it.

 

[Theldaran]

What? Game breaking items in BG2?

Staff *cough cough* of the Magi *cough cough*

 

[Lilura]

Alas, at this point I think Nwn2 was the last serious attempt to make a grand d&d game(and it failed).

You probably couldn't understand the Spirit-eater mechanic.

Hasbro won't let the license be used like that again and developers seem to have no interest. Futile to even discuss it.

Who cares. So many mods have been made in Aurora & Electron that you couldn't play them all in your lifetime. UA is even older and ppl still play it.

 

[anvi]

There was no spirit eater in NWN2. That was in MOTB.

 

[octavius]

You know, there is something about high-level d&d that makes it always suck.

I guess that's a valid assumption if you haven't played Pools of Darkness and Dark Queen of Krynn.

 

[Makabb]

fighters are OP in low level DND and in high level mages are OP.

there is no balance! Sawyer must HATE dnd

 

[Theldaran]

fighters are OP in low level DND and in high level mages are OP.

there is no balance! Sawyer must HATE dnd

Go play D&D Fourth Edition.

 

[ilitarist]

You know, there is something about high-level d&d that makes it always suck.

Unlike low-level D&D?

 

[Gondolin]

No, just bg2 complete. This is why I'm thinking of buying a physical version myself.

Good thing I kept my CD images. Four SoA CDs, plus one for ToB.

 

[Kayerts]

Also, having enough level you can steamroll through the Twisted Rune. Which is important (or not) because they drop a game-breaking item.

As a solo ironman in modded chapter 2, you don't really steamroll it. Either you cheese it with engine abuse, or you play smart, make specific preparations, and then make redundant ones on top of those. The latter is not really a sure thing, because there are a lot of variables in the fight, and it's hard to manage all of them. But the Staff is enough of a get-out-of-jail-free card that it's tempting to beeline it in an ironman game.

 

[Incantatar]

Because going from +4 to +5 suddenly makes things awesome... besides, SoA itemizes +5 weapons (Crom, IMoD, SotM, Carsomyr).

Except IMoD which is to easily gained when joining the Vampires all of those items are pretty much late game SoA for new players. The worst offenders got added with ToB and were added by unofficial patches (except when you bought the collector's edition).

 

[jaydee2k]

You know, there is something about high-level d&d that makes it always suck.

Unlike low-level D&D?

2 Edition lowlevel D&D is good how it is...

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

How easy is it to hit the original xp cap in a non-modded bg2 game? I mean with a full 6 person party like the game was designed for?

If you do all the optional stuff before sailing for Spellhold (like most people do I assume), you will reach the vanilla BG2 cap around the beginning of the Underdark.

 

[Jason Liang]

There isn't content designed for high level D&D. This is a problem with NWN as well.

This is D&D's ideal progression

clvl 1-6: novice adventure module, something like Cave of Songs or Shadows of Udrentide chapter 1. Your goal is to get good at killing kobolds, goblins, gnolls, orcs and ogres and find a long sword +2. Perhaps at the end of this journey you finally meet an archmage like Elminister, or a dragon, or sell your soul to a demon lord or one of the gods.
clvl 7-12: adventure module, these levels are the heart of D&D, where you complete exciting quests, save the princess, kill dragons, overthrow tyrannical reubritters. Find the 2 handed Holy Avenger. Stop Irenicus from milkshaking the Tree of Life.
clvl 13-18: think Conan. By level 13-18 you aren't supposed to be adventuring anymore. You now have power, perhaps you are a king, a lord or a general. The game shouldn't even be combat oriented anymore, but instead about roleplaying choices as someone with power, making and breaking alliances, C&C gameplay. The gameplay should be more of a strategy game, like Sengoku Rance. Imagine Dragonlance, at this stage you are Ariakus, commanding Tahkisis' dragon armies to conquer all of Krynn.
clvl 19-24: you have been forced to retire or otherwise relieved of your worldly concerns. Now you are solving mysteries of cosmic proportions, uncovering the mythic past, travelling to the outer planes, struggling against the gods and demon lords. You have transcended fame; you have now become a legend. At this level you shouldn't by fighting red dragons. You should be fighting Vecna or Fistandantilus or the Lady of Pain. These levels are the transition to the endgame..
clvl 25+: your last adventure, how does your story end? Do you challenge the gods, overthrow them and attain godhood a la Raistlin Majere? In the end, do you die to save the world, or sacrifice the world to attain immortality?

Were ToB done right, it should still only be story for level 18 adventurers, not level 40 adventurers, rotfl.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yes, that's exactly the problem. Epic / high level D&D doesn't suck, it just requires different design methods. Obviously it sucks if you replace kobolds with demons and call it a day.

As it is very difficul to install SoA only at this stage, the best bet is to use mods. You can restrict Watcher's Keep so you can only enter it once ToB has started. You can restrict HLAs from being used in SoA part of the game. You can randomize the secret container items or even delete them. Dial-up SCS to max and combat is not a cakewalk. Reduce the amount of XP from reading scrolls and lock picking.

 

[bminorkey]

MotB does high level DnD pretty well

 

[Kayerts]

The main problem with high-level D&D in most CRPG adaptations is that D&D usually hands the player a lot of tools with levels, some of which are pretty interesting and aren't just variations of previously available effects. If players understand the system, and they get their hands on enough of them, they can combine these in ways that are difficult to foresee and which are either uncounterable or require specific solutions to be countered. Since most single-player game devs don't go down the PoE-style infinite balance patching route, this means that the devs write in counters for what they can think of during the balancing and QA phase (i.e. the most rushed period of most games' development cycle, because it has to be at the end), and the tricks that they miss stay missed. So the moment you figure out what Improved Haste + Mislead do to a mage/thief type in BG2, you have a god mode available. (There are about a dozen similarly overpowered combos in BG2, and dozens more which are unfairly strong but not game-breaking.)

Alternatively, you can just combine a large number of powerful effects in ways that make you very difficult for a scripting-based AI to defeat, not by breaking the game per se, but by playing by its rules more optimally than expected. Examples of this in BG2 can be found in most of the tricks employed by Tactics/SCS mages: sequencers loaded with resistance-lowering spells followed by contingencies loaded with heavy nukes, composing your party solely of characters who can cast layers of physical immunity self-buffs guarded by layers of anti-magic buffs, and so on. If you just rule that pre-buffing doesn't exist in your variant of D&D, that's a partial solution, albeit a kind of shitty one.

These tricks are more fair when used by the AI against the player than visa versa, since the player can bring in counters in itemization and encounter-planning that aren't available to the AI ("I'll wait until I get Carsomyr to fight the stoneskin-spamming wizards encounter"). It's just really hard to script against a player who understands the rule system well; you can see the evidence in hardcore tactical modders' attempts to do so. Take the Unholy Eclipse encounter. Here you have six max-level enemy antagonists with overpowered gear--and they all get a collective, free Time Stop that triggers every other round--and they're in a tiny room that doesn't offer the player any possible terrain advantages to exploit or room to set up traps. Their AI is miles ahead of anything in the base game. It's pretty straightforward for a soloist to beat them. If you've seen the Improved Asylum mod, it's probably even more unfair and in Chapter 4 of SoA (infinite spells, untargetable enemies with permanent invisibility and loads of spell immunities, characters who instagib you, auto-lose conditions if you don't defeat the enemies in the exact order the modder wants you to, power-ups that let enemies instagib you, instant time stop casts . . . ) and can also be beaten easily by a solo character who knows what's up, using only SoA-accessible loot and abilities.

The rules and interactions between different effects in BG2 are complex enough that it's very, very hard to cover all your bases in it, or to create an encounter that will challenge people who know the system well.

In comparison, a shitty system like you'd see in an early CRPG like The Bard's Tale II is really easy to write AI for: on your turn, you can choose between the effect that does shitty single-target damage, the effect that does large damage to a group, or the effect that does truly massive damage to all enemies and raises all your dead allies and heals them and gives them powerful armor buffs and also gives them extra attacks. (Which is better, and why?) This means that it's not hard to script enemies to be about as smart as a player.

 

[octavius]

BG2 style combat (including making it moddable) is much more ambitious than BT2 style combat. But if you don't have the time, patience, talent or resources to make a good combat system, the abstract blobber combat is a much better option than a simplistic overhead/isometric turn based system IMO.

 

[laclongquan]

MotB does high level DnD pretty well

I am not so sure with the word "very" but "well" is spot on. Anyone disagree? Please detail your argument.

 

[anvi]

Where is the word "very"?