How do you run BG1 on Win XP

[Murk]

Yeah he's on the bridge - but uhh

spoiler****

it'll create a problem with minsc and dynaheir if you ever save her, which you should if you have minsc, she's not a bad mage either

...edwin is way better though

spoiler****

xan aint bad, it's jus the's some weird school of wizard that keeps him from using some fairly useful spells

also your damn thread got me replaying BG tutu with unfinished business installed over.

it also reminded me of that time my companions Abbath and Demonaz came across Peter North.

I never understood if that was an easter egg for the porn star Peter North or nto...

...guy in a cave, a "woodsman" (sup freudian references), raising animals that shoot venom out of long things that come out of their nether regions...

peter of the north...

right?

 

[RK47]

Well fuck, Kagain left my party cause I spent too much time getting to the gnoll fortress to assassinate Dynaheir for Edwin. I'm short of a tank now. An excellent one too, since Rambo can use Larloch minor drain on Kagain to get free heals before changing zones.

So. Who's the next tanker I should get?
Khalid & Jaheira: Worm food
Kagain: MIA
Minsc: Would probably kill me on sight cause I killed Dynaheir. (If Kagain left before the fortress I would've smacked Edwin on the spot for Dyna)

But man, I love mages now. Sleep is awesome. Sleep + Entangle = EZ kills. It's like a lvl 1 fireball.
Options:
Shar Teel: Where the heck do I find this butch?
Montaron & Czar: Dynamic Duo left behind at High Hedge..can Monty tank? I got a glove of DEX 18. Awesome AC for tankers. Kagain was so perfect...i'm so sad he left

 

[afewhours]

Shar Teel: Where the heck do I find this butch?

Go east from Beregost, then go east from the Temple. IIRC she's in the northwest corner of that area. However be *extremely* careful in that area as it's basilisk country! I recommend you hug the edges of the map so you don't die horribly.

Shar-Teel's the deadliest melee fighter in the game. Her CON is only 9, but she still gets 10hp per level. (Your CON has to go below 8 or above 14 to affect your HP!) She has STR 18/58, DEX 17, and she's a pure class fighter - which = a lot of force.

 

[Murk]

Shar Teel, she's a decent fighter and you can make up for the low con by getting high hit die rolls (just switch difficulty to "easy" adn you'll get instant max at level up).

careful with her, you might end up in basilisk territory...

also - you might want to get a decent cleric going...?

Monty sucks, he's a fighter/theif and I remember his stats as lackluster (might be wrong though)

you might want to go for Ajantis too... paladin though! So heads up with evil shit...

 

[Murk]

Have you thought about h4xxxing the game to just multiplayer in a custom fighter of your own making?

 

[RK47]

actually i'm pretty ok with Branwen at the moment, she's True Neutral so she's not likely to clash with anyone. But yeah Viconia would have more spells to cast and better spell resistance but if I remember correctly, she has HP issue and personality clashes with Kivan (will it escalate to combat though?)

Kivan and Rambo are solid archers already but I cant remember the other archer Coran statistic. So might wanna wait and see if I can replace Kivvy. 2 solid archer + 1 Imoen is solid enough to bring down anything. If numbers are a problem, Edwin can cast some aoe to spice shit up while Shar Teel and Branwen mop up with their magical weapons. Love the bastard sword and warhammer I get early game.

I'm not planning to bring in another custom char to retain the 'consequences' aspect in the game. It's a good way to balance it a bit. I'm planning to come back to Nashkel and dire charm one of the hostile guards to suicide them one by one. A lone guard shouldn't be too challenging to avoid or kill while doing trying to do my own business in there. There's a lot of quest and exp missed in there grrr. I don't want my rep to drop to 1.

 

[Murk]

OH okay.

Coran's a fighter/thief with 20 dex, which means he can attain grand mastery in composite long bow, and get a higher amount of attacks than usual (though Kivan with bracers of archery gets 5 a round I think). That's just mean.

I didn't relaize you had Branwen - thought you were surviving off of jaheira as a healer, good call though. Viconia is useful for her higher wisdom, but her low str and physical stats make her rather bleh in actual combat. she was more useful in BG 2 I think but only with some seriuos strength boosting gear.

two archers is enough I'd say, and yeah a tank is definitely what you need. Damn shame Minsc is out of the question as he and Kagain are the two best melee fighters, hands down. Minsc for damage (berserker, sup) and Kagain for actual tank.

I think Ajantis might actually be useful to you though, especially if you take him sword/shield style... high AC for sure, and in a jam he can heal a decent chunk of health.

he has 17 str, 13 dex, and 16 con - otherwise shar-teel.

I'd go with shar-teel just 'cuz I hate paladins

Are the guards attacking you due to low rep or because you man-handled one of their peeps (like you mentioned above) ?

 

[afewhours]

Yeah, Branwen is sound as a pure class cleric. Vicky's more interesting, but Branwen's more solid.

So your current party is Rambo, Shar-Teel, Branwen, Kivan, Immy and Edwin, right? Coran, as Mikayel stated, is fucking h4xx0rz. He's the most stupidly overpowered archer in the game. He's an elven fighter/thief whose stats go 14/20/12/14/9/16 IIRC. He gets *3* proficiency points (shouldn't be possible for his class, but then, neither should his DEX!) in Bow, plus his elf bonus, plus his silly dex. It amounts to a *world* of hurt. His only problem is that I think his Find Traps sucks.

The most obvious character to drop for him would be Immy, but I'm against dropping Immy and I'll be very upset if you do it.

Viconia is useful for her higher wisdom

Vicky's WIS is only 15. Branwen's is higher.

 

[Murk]

Yeah, Branwen is sound as a pure class cleric. Vicky's more interesting, but Branwen's more solid.

So your current party is Rambo, Shar-Teel, Branwen, Kivan, Immy and Edwin, right? Coran, as Mikayel stated, is fucking h4xx0rz. He's the most stupidly overpowered archer in the game. He's an elven fighter/thief whose stats go 14/20/12/14/9/16 IIRC. He gets *3* proficiency points (shouldn't be possible for his class, but then, neither should his DEX!) in Bow, plus his elf bonus, plus his silly dex. It amounts to a *world* of hurt. His only problem is that I think his Find Traps sucks.

The most obvious character to drop for him would be Immy, but I'm against dropping Immy and I'll be very upset if you do it.

Oh wait, he can't get 5 points in a weapon proficiency? I guess I never used him enough - yeah he is crazy broken.

Supposedly he's based off of some actual concept character, hence the broken stats? I don't know - but if you decide to go low party number (playing with 3 people) he'd be a good addition to the party.

As of now I have imoen with me but she died in a diseased gibberling ambush - now I just carry her soul with me, not accepting any party members. Managed to get to level five just killing ghasts and ghouls in the area south of beregost (fuggin' tutu made it crazy hard).

@afewhours

Viconia's wis is at 15? Really? I must be confusing her for BG 2 viconia then... I could have sworn it was at 18!

EDIT: shit, you're right! She had super high dex and like... 16 int or something? Yeah, she's stacked like a moron. I guess they really did change her for BG 2.

 

[RK47]

Wont Ajantis go apeshit with Edwin in the same party? Find traps ...how crucial is this skill? I hardly used Imoen to backstab, most of the time she's free gold (lockpick ftw) and town talker (16 cha)

 

[afewhours]

Wont Ajantis go apeshit with Edwin in the same party? Find traps ...how crucial is this skill? I hardly used Imoen to backstab, most of the time she's free gold (lockpick ftw) and town talker (16 cha)

Depends if you want to visit Durlag's Tower. You *need* find traps for that dungeon or you will die many horrible deaths.

I think your current line-up is fine, TBH.

 

[Murk]

Wont Ajantis go apeshit with Edwin in the same party? Find traps ...how crucial is this skill? I hardly used Imoen to backstab, most of the time she's free gold (lockpick ftw) and town talker (16 cha)

No, the character's aren't that deep I think...

Since you have Shar-teel, you're fine. She's actually a better damage-dealer and you can easily deck her out with high AC gear to make her a good tank.

Charisma... hmm, I can't remember of BG is like Icewind Dale in that the person who actually speaks to a NPC does the talking - I think in BG your allies act as proxies to have the NPCs speak to you... I think, don't quote me on that though.

Uh in BG1 high find traps isn't important unless, as afewhours said, you want to go to durlag's tower which is one goddamn annoying dungeon... (in BG2 you can't survive without it though). Imoen should focus first on picking open locks (won't need higher than like 80 I think?) and you can pad her stealth skills if you want to scout with her, though I don't think there are too many situations where that will come in handy, other than to open up the field to drop a fireball on a horde of enemies.

*SPOILERRRR*

I think the only useful one for this is in the halfling' village's southern end where there's a bunch of high powered, well equiped thugs chilling around waiting for you, a well placed fireball can easily fix that fight, though you can just use an invisibility spell, potion, or charged-item.

 

[oltronix]

Have anyone here tried playing with a mega-mod?

http://www.shsforums.net/index.php?showtopic=30695

 

[Murk]

Have anyone here tried playing with a mega-mod?

http://www.shsforums.net/index.php?showtopic=30695

I had a semi successful install of bg trilogy plus about 3 major "adds hours of game time" mods and god knows how many minor ones

took all night to do it all

got a few minutes in -- bugged to hell and back, it was before this mega mod though

I'm personally just not that interested in extra material for the heinous amounts of effort required

 

[afewhours]

I'm starting to think that between Mikayel and I, we could handwalk anyone through the whole of BG1! :D

 

[Murk]

I'm feelin' it baby, I'm feelin' it.

Incidentally, a rogue specializing in shortbows is really hard to solo.

I want to say the difficulty is a neat change of pace but I'm honestly just weirded out by how many times I"m randomly finding two+ dread wolves in beginning areas.

I do like how I'm not at all worried about running away like a pansy though!

 

[RK47]

I think part of the charm of BG1 is accepting things are just too tough for you early game and try to come back when you are tougher. It also teaches how 'strong' certain classes are early/late game and how certain alignments clashes with each other. i certainly did not appreciate the hard 'survival lessons' when i was younger. I just power game my way through with a 'good' alignment party since the evil guys get higher shop prices and all. I always reload when guards caught me when stealing etc. And even use some editor to change my stats to higher points.

But after nearly 8 years of not touching it later, I'm starting to appreciate it more than it first came out. I no longer cry foul over being owned by Dreadwolves or Basilisks. Nor reload when Khalid gets insta-gibbed by Hobgoblins, or Kagain leaving the party cause we wasted too much time. Stuff like that hardly exist in today's game, it proved challenge can be fun.

 

[afewhours]

But after nearly 8 years of not touching it later, I'm starting to appreciate it more than it first came out. I no longer cry foul over being owned by Dreadwolves or Basilisks. Nor reload when Khalid gets insta-gibbed by Hobgoblins, or Kagain leaving the party cause we wasted too much time. Stuff like that hardly exist in today's game, it proved challenge can be fun.

Heh. Was it Edward_R_Murrow who said Ironman was the only way to play BG1?

I must say BG1 has a special place in my heart. I found it to be the most charming and unpretentious of the Bioware/Black Isle games. I know BG2 trounced it in just about every department, but there's something about the first game that makes it, well, innocent and more fun. It's something I can't really describe. Perhaps the fact it's a lower level campaign had something to do with it? Meh, I don't know.

 

[Murk]

Yeah the permanent negative consequences can be enjoyable if done well. Luckily BG1 is a low level romp for the most part (end game is... what, level 8 if played as intended? though the average RPGer will be around 10+, I think the cap was at 11/12 for fighters/thieves) so the lower stats that many of the NPCs have (16s in main stats instead of 18s) is acceptable and fully functional.

Yeah, I know 16 is still "superhuman" but in game mechanics, not so much. This basically meant that if you did lose a party member you'd be able to find a suitable replacement of some kind, though possibly not as good - they'd still get the job done. Less encouragement for reloading and re-fighting. The weakest characters are probably the bards, and I think that's 'cause of the low levels, they never manage to achieve eye-laser status throughout it.

It's also somewhat neat to go through half the game treasuring and valueing +1 gear. I remember in Throne of Bhaal I wouldn't even bother picking stuff up unless it was +2 or had some special stats to it, money was near useless and my gear was just too good to bother swapping out continuously - that and regular human enemies dropped +2 weapons and armor like nothing).

The other thing BG1 had going for it, most definitely, was the exploration. It really felt like a big old world you can wander around and see and occasionally come across a random quest. BG2 was definitely a bigger game with more stuff to do but it was so concentrated into areas that you never got that same feel. Other games I think did this well were Divine Divinity and the Gothic games. They made me want to put quests aside and just wander around and see what I could find. Sometimes I'd run into super power enemies, sometimes I'd find random treasure, and sometimes nothing - just wilderness to go through. Good times!

 

[RK47]

Yep huge world and low level stuff.
I'm still a bit annoyed about that 5,000 gold reward off killing that undead cleric though.

Yep I love finding random handplaced quests in game. I know I'd totally miss a lot of it if we just follow the road from Beregost to Nashkel. Temple of Elemental Evil does not have it at all. I explored the first town, got around 2-3 dull quests...and walked out of town, only to get limited number of places to visit. I can't 'wander' around and stumble on some abandoned caves etc.

Wonder why the current Bioware adopted 'If 50% of the player would miss it, then what's the point of putting it in' philosophy of design.

 

[Murk]

I honestly don't know. the last bioware games I played were KotOR 1 which was awesome as a game, but I'm not a big Star Wars fan and NWN 1, which left me seriously questioning wtf was up with that game. So stale, so dry...

To me, ToEE seemed like a near perfect engine for a d&d game, but like the actual content was just crap. The module itself was pretty lame and they didn't do a whole lot to bother sprucing it up - much kudos to Co8 for how much work they've done with it, despite basically starting off entirely on their own. I honestly await a full conversion to a swankier game.

The game had so many problems that seems like an extra 6 months of development time would have cured, and I don't even mean bugs/glitches. potions/scrolls having absolutely no explanations, horrible interface (I have NEVER understood why anyone prefers that whole ring menu deal), and seriously shitty quests. I guess if I was there back in the when and played it maybe I'd care, but the game's content was bleh. If not for that sweet battle system and very proper implementation of the rules, i don't think I'd have even bothered with it. Correction - the music, graphics, and atmosphere were very nice as well.

Undead Cleric? you mean BAssi... bassa.. bassa whatever who's talking to all the undead? I wish I could get that dude to join me - I love necromancers who've lost their mnds. You'd think, having said that, that I'd always use Xar right? Alas...

 

[RK47]

Bassilus.
I got Shar Teel and cleaned up Basilisk map with the help of Zorgal, the talking ghoul. Turns out he's immune to petrification. Awesome tanking and sweet sweet 1400 exp per kill! The honeymoon ended when I decided to pick a fight with a cocky party of 4.

Edwin proved his worth when I made the mistake of letting the enemy conjurer summon too many creatures (fuck I need the scroll bad) for our Ghoul tank and archers to handle. One sleep spell was all it takes to neutralize the summoned wild dogs.

Well I cleaned up Bandit camp. Sweet Lv 2 & 1 disabling spells work so well. Pulled a named fighter in full plate with Imoen. Then had Branwen toss entangle. Caught him on the trap. Pin cushion!

The boss tent wasn't even that hard either. Hold Person and Horror coming in handy. Onward to Cloakwood!

 

[RK47]

Picked up Coran. 20 Dex. Fighter/Thief. 16 Cha. Uh, this guy's the only overpowered NPC in the game imo. Power game or not, he fits in well and makes other thieves look terrible.I better buy him a helmet soon lol.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

It's something I can't really describe. Perhaps the fact it's a lower level campaign had something to do with it? Meh, I don't know.

BG2 went way over the top with its high level content, as well as the focus on magics, period. I also preferred exploring the coast instead of clicking icons on a map and -cowabungah- I was somewhere else completely.

Maybe you can already tell where I'm going with this. I seriously question that BG2 "trounced its predecessor just about every department". For all the pretty cool adventures Bio managed to cram into just a single game somehow, the game lacks coherence. So much that at one point it breaks the narrative and beyond. I'm thinking chapter 2: A Multitude Of Adventures To Be Had While Lil' Sis Is Rotting In The Dungeons Of Doom (to hell with her, hmkay?) It feels a little makeshift, like a couple of cool "wouldn't it be cool?" ideas tied together for the hell of it, and hey- most of them ARE cool: Expore the streets of Atkathla! Then The Underdark! Then a Mindflayer's Lair! [strike]Lord British's anus![/strike] ! If you look hard enough: the planes! And so on.

Well that and I just despised quite some of the combat, where even minor encounters would turn into repetitive break magic/cast magic-clickfests over and over sometimes. Even though, cool game. That is, except for the addon. Anyway, w0t about BG1?

 

[afewhours]

Picked up Coran. 20 Dex. Fighter/Thief. 16 Cha. Uh, this guy's the only overpowered NPC in the game imo. Power game or not, he fits in well and makes other thieves look terrible.I better buy him a helmet soon lol.

I'll be very upset if you ditched Immy.

I'm thinking chapter 2: A Multitude Of Adventures To Be Had While Lil' Sis Is Rotting In The Dungeons Of Doom (to hell with her, hmkay?) It feels a little makeshift, like a couple of cool "wouldn't it be cool?" ideas tied together for the hell of it, and hey- most of them ARE cool: Expore the streets of Atkathla! Then The Underdark! Then a Mindflayer's Lair! [strike]Lord British's anus![/strike] ! If you look hard enough: the planes! And so on.

Yeah. I felt this was the whole point of BG2 as well. Let's cram in everything the fanbase wants! Let's do everything! The Underdark! Dual-wielding! Kit Classes! The Planes! Romance! etc. etc.

To be honest, I'm amazed the whole game wasn't *more* chaotic. It was something of a feat that something so ambitious held together as well as it did. Okay, the MQ was silly, and there were plot-holes all over the shop, but it could have been far, far worse.

But... I wasn't too bothered about the lack of coherence. As the whole point of the exercise was crazy all-encompassing epic fantasyness, I could forgive a lot of hyperactivity. I missed BG1's more humble, plainspoken approach, but you can understand an ambitious dev team wanting to push themselves and up the ante. I suppose it's like comparing Led Zep's earlier albums to Physical Graffiti

In terms of epic silliness, I think HotU tops just about *everything*.