Combat in D&D/Baldurs Gate/etc: What's the appeal ?

[Naveen]

At this point, I'll be the third person to tell you to try the Gold-Box games if you want real AD&D combat. Forget anything from the Infinity Engine.

Is that true? I keep seeing this but it doesn't seem to be true. BG, by including weapon and spell speeds allows for something close to simultaneous turns and effects happening at the same time, which is something that should happen in classic D&D if you are playing it right (most people didn't, though.) There's, for example, an initiative example in AD&D 2nd edition about a mage and his enemy being hit or dying at the same time, being hit just as he finally casts his spell. This can happen in Infinity engines (sniping a mage just after he casts his magic missile, which kills the archer that killed him.)

 

[bminorkey]

Honest question. I'm a fag for tactical games and cum all over the screen with JA2, Xcom, NU-Xcom, Shogun TW, Invisible Inc, SWAT 4, etc. But I could never see the fun in D&D based games like Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale, etc. which for me always felt more like work ("Oh here comes another encounter") than fun, and usually is resumed by buff buff click click repeat with little to No consideration for terrain, maneuvering, flanking, LOS, hit locations, etc. It all feels so abstract and disconected to any RL sort of conflict it's almost like I'm playing Qbert or something.

I even forced myself to finish BG2 out of curiosity for everything people said about it, but looking back I just raped myself back then. I didn't like the experience at all.

So bros, what's up with these games?

the combat is really bad in those games but the amount of quests, encounters and character builds you can do is why most people like them

there's just a lot of variety

 

[Citizen]

Thing I like about the IE games is that battles take place in the same layer as exploration instead of a separate "battle mode". So you can take your thief, scout around, find a room full of enemies, then bring over your sorceror and nuke the room before they're even aware of your presence. I'm sure they aren't the only games you can do this in, but that help makes up for their shortcomings. I played ToEE, but I remember enemies always being "activated" so you couldn't preemptively strike. But maybe I'm remembering wrongly.

IIRC, you can do preemptive attacks. There's a 'start combat' keyboard shortcut, but it works in a strange way (ToEE!), like the combat phase you started being randomly stopped and combat restarting as if the monsters initiated it.

At this point, I'll be the third person to tell you to try the Gold-Box games if you want real AD&D combat. Forget anything from the Infinity Engine.

Is that true? I keep seeing this but it doesn't seem to be true. BG, by including weapon and spell speeds allows for something close to simultaneous turns and effects happening at the same time, which is something that should happen in classic D&D if you are playing it right (most people didn't, though.) There's, for example, an initiative example in AD&D 2nd edition about a mage and his enemy being hit or dying at the same time, being hit just as he finally casts his spell. This can happen in Infinity engines (sniping a mage just after he casts his magic missile, which kills the archer that killed him.)

I'd kill for a WeGo D&D 3E tactics (think combat mission D&D edition).

 

[JarlFrank]

Turn-based D&D games are the way to go.

ToEE is the best of them all since it uses the 3rd edition rules which are more interesting than previous rulesets when it comes to non-magical combat (due to feats being a thing now).

Also Knights of the Chalice, nice pure dungeon crawling experience.

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands is great too.

Gold Box games are classic and have solid combat and a bunch of decent encounters (also lots of "fight 100 kobolds lol" random encounters tho).

If you want the "real" D&D combat experience, you gotta go for one of these turn based D&D games. RtwP just doesn't do it as far as simulating the actual D&D experience is concerned.

Also, because I can't just ignore an opportunity to shill the game I'm working on, Realms Beyond when it comes out. Which will still take a while, but hey.

There's also the Chinese-made game Low Magic Age, which uses the OGL D&D 3.5 rules, and it's overall a decent game...
...but it uses cooldowns for spells.
Yeah.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Crom Faeyr and Carsomyr, yes!

Might as well portmanteau them seeing how often they get brought up in discussions together.

 

[MicoSelva]

Honest question. I'm a fag for tactical games and cum all over the screen with JA2, Xcom, NU-Xcom, Shogun TW, Invisible Inc, SWAT 4, etc. But I could never see the fun in D&D based games like Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale, etc. which for me always felt more like work ("Oh here comes another encounter") than fun, and usually is resumed by buff buff click click repeat with little to No consideration for terrain, maneuvering, flanking, LOS, hit locations, etc. It all feels so abstract and disconected to any RL sort of conflict it's almost like I'm playing Qbert or something.

I even forced myself to finish BG2 out of curiosity for everything people said about it, but looking back I just raped myself back then. I didn't like the experience at all.

So bros, what's up with these games?

Your question has been answered in this article, published in a prestigious online magazine.

www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10683

RPG Codex Retrospective Review: Pillars of Eternity Revisited

Review - posted by Infinitron on Tue 4 July 2017, 20:09:19

Tags: Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of Eternity; Pillars of Eternity: The White March

[Review by Grunker]

RTwP: The Definitive Review



A retrospective on the Infinity Engine games and Pillars of Eternity

 

[Citizen]

From 'Birthright: Gorgon's Alliance' manual:

 

[Great Deceiver]

There's a recent (well, recent relative to say, Gold Box) turn-based D&D game game that doesn't get mentioned very often but it's pretty decent - D&D Tactics for the PSP (you can play it upscaled on the PC through PPSSPP and it looks much better).

The interface is awful (even for something made for console) and it's not very challenging, but the 3.5E rules are mostly ok and there are some pretty good levels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons_Tactics

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Your question has been answered in this article, published in a prestigious online magazine.

www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10683

Ignore this trash.

Nice thread, guys! RTwP abomination should die in a fire!

 

[ArchAngel]

There's a recent (well, recent relative to say, Gold Box) turn-based D&D game game that doesn't get mentioned very often but it's pretty decent - D&D Tactics for the PSP (you can play it upscaled on the PC through PPSSPP and it looks much better).

The interface is awful (even for something made for console) and it's not very challenging, but the 3.5E rules are mostly ok and there are some pretty good levels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons_Tactics

Take that console shit somewhere else.

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

D&D is best turn based, but the IE games are not without their merits.

BG2 does have the best wizard duels, and the spell list/bestiary for D&D is a lot of fun to mess with. I can't imagine trying to play the game without casters though. IWD has a some nice encounters and give you a lot of control, but doesn't quite hit the highs of the dumb BG combat. PS:T has shit combat, but it's a secondary thing in the game.

I think this is a large part of why PoE felt so lame, combat was just so flat, there weren't really the crazy spells, magic items, and interesting encounters to keep combat from being dull.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Unless it's 7,62, RTwP is subpar.

 

[Lilura]

BG2 does have the best wizard duels

That has nothing to do with RTwP. ToEE would have had the best mage duels if the encounter design was there. And this coming from someone who did an in-depth write-up of mage duels for SCS...

The design of the ToEE combat system is supreme. It's only the encounter design that isn't there; the potential just wasn't explored enough to do its CS any justice.

EDIT - the encounter with Lareth hints at what can be done.

 

[ArchAngel]

BG2 does have the best wizard duels

That has nothing to do with RTwP. ToEE would have had the best mage duels if the encounter design was there. And this coming from someone who did an in-depth write-up of mage duels for SCS...

The design of the ToEE combat system is supreme. It's only the encounter design that isn't there; the potential just wasn't explored enough to do its CS any justice.

Well you might have missed the topic, this is not a RTwP vs TB, this is about D&D/BG. He just explained why people like BG and you go all "Let's imagine.." . Unless you got more than imagination gtfo.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Mage duels is just an euphemism for "I enjoy RTwP clusterfuck with dozens of spells". It's a meme. Like all other "merits" of BG2, is all about the sheer variety of options despite the lack of meaningful gameplay structure. In fact, it has so many stuff to do precisely because there wasn't any thought put into the gameplay structure.

 

[Kruno]

Combat wasn't the main driving force for me, it was creating a set of powerful characters and interacting with the world.

The combat in the old IE games was clunky and begged to be turn based. I would pause the game so often that my space bar finger got bloody sore, and this was the game running at 43fps.

The only RTwP combat that I felt was done well was with Tyranny. The pacing was perfect for me that I rarely had to pause it on the hardest difficulty.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Like all other "merits" of BG2, is all about the sheer variety of options despite the lack of meaningful gameplay structure.

I beg your pardon, but I have absolutely no idea what this means, and I'd like to understand your point of view. If there isn't a meaningful gameplay structure, then why are all of the options adding this much to the replayability? Wouldn't what you're proposing mean that there's a variety of options that ultimately don't contribute anything to the gameplay? What exactly makes gameplay structure "meaningful"? Is the core of the gameplay, which is going through dungeons and questlines, killing difficult enemies (who are often dangerous spellcasters and needing to respond to their spellcasting repertoire), and unveiling the story and sidestories, somehow "meaningless"? How does it differ from games like Fallout?

 

[Lilura]

The combat in the old IE games was clunky and begged to be turn based. I would pause the game so often that my space bar finger got bloody sore, and this was the game running at 43fps.

Well, you could have used the auto-pause feature, but yeah, it's clunky and not proper TB combat system like ToEE, JA2 and SS.

As I've said before, RTwP is BioWare's biggest mistake before they became beneath contempt. D&D is a TB game. It's only because they had RTS in pipeline. RTwP has been one of the most pernicious influences on the genre. It's been pure poison.

 

[nobre]

ITT RTwP gets called chaotic, a clusterfuck, clunky, and it's compared to an RTS. There is even one guy who complains about sore fingers because of hitting the spacebar so much. Clearly these people are using the autopause function wrong. So git gud, faggots

 

[NotAGolfer]

...

There is no random number involved in either case.

 

[laclongquan]

Look, what was demonstrated in this thread is:

You can like tactical combat or you can like TB.

You dont have to like both because everyone here complains that "it's not TB", and not complain about "it's not tactical". You can not make a simple case of why RTwP is not tactical, just "it's not TB".

So my answer is: you can get tactical in RTwP. If you can not, git gud, scrub.

If you like TB I have nothing to say because I was discussing tactical, not TB vs RtwP.

 

[NotAGolfer]

The combat in the old IE games was clunky and begged to be turn based. I would pause the game so often that my space bar finger got bloody sore, and this was the game running at 43fps.

Well, you could have used the auto-pause feature, but yeah, it's clunky and not proper TB combat system like ToEE, JA2 and SS.

As I've said before, RTwP is BioWare's biggest mistake before they became beneath contempt. D&D is a TB game. It's only because they had RTS in pipeline. RTwP has been one of the most pernicious influences on the genre. It's been pure poison.

Yeah no, that's too harsh. I don't mind RTWP in general. Why be against that whole design approach, for some games it works.
X-Com Apocalypse was more fun in RTWP for example, because the maps where just way too big and full of hallways and hidden corners so TB often dragged on for too long.

IE was just RTWP done wrong imo, not nearly enough indicators of what the enemy is throwing at you and reading the combat log isn't fun in party vs party fights which are the ones where it fucking matters. Also too many specialized counter spells. And counter spells for those counter spells. And then they often don't even work because half of them are chance-based and the other half doesn't help if you already walked into that ambush. I guess it would have helped to make low level spells more useful for the complete length of the game instead of dumping the chance based placebo effect spells there and giving you the stuff that always works (read: the only stuff that works against these higher level bosses) as a reward for leveling up.
Also enemies with natural resistances up the wazoo and too many different gameplay mechanics for the same stuff ... magic resistance vs spell protections vs elemental protections vs racial elemental resistances and so on, yeah fuck off, whatever neckbeard designed that shit.
Oh and projectiles should move way faster, like speed of light fast. Evading fireballs shouldn't even be a thing.

 

[Parabalus]

Honest question. I'm a fag for tactical games and cum all over the screen with JA2, Xcom, NU-Xcom, Shogun TW, Invisible Inc, SWAT 4, etc. But I could never see the fun in D&D based games like Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale, etc. which for me always felt more like work ("Oh here comes another encounter") than fun, and usually is resumed by buff buff click click repeat with little to No consideration for terrain, maneuvering, flanking, LOS, hit locations, etc. It all feels so abstract and disconected to any RL sort of conflict it's almost like I'm playing Qbert or something.

I even forced myself to finish BG2 out of curiosity for everything people said about it, but looking back I just raped myself back then. I didn't like the experience at all.

So bros, what's up with these games?

TB RPGs don't have combat as deep/hard as that in dedicated tactical games (and tend to have much more cheese to boot), so you're comparing the wrong things IMO.

I'm guessing you don't like RTS games? RTwP kinda hits the sweet spot for many people, the perfect middle ground between TB tactics and RTS.

 

[octavius]

BG2 does have the best wizard duels

That has nothing to do with RTwP. ToEE would have had the best mage duels if the encounter design was there. And this coming from someone who did an in-depth write-up of mage duels for SCS...

The design of the ToEE combat system is supreme. It's only the encounter design that isn't there; the potential just wasn't explored enough to do its CS any justice.

While the Gold Box games had the encounter design and TB combat, but was otherwise were very limited compared to the IE game. Braindead AI, no skills or abilities, very limited spell list, no scouting to name some.

The IE games have it all. Except the TB combat, of course.

But the funny thing is that many of the RTwP haters have evidently replayed the IE games several times.

 

[Dzupakazul]

magic resistance vs spell protections vs elemental protections vs racial elemental resistances and so on, yeah fuck off, whatever neckbeard designed that shit.

That sounds more like the drawback of the AD&D system, where magic resistance is something you pierce with spells like Lower Resistance and Pierce Magic, spell protections require your Dispels, Breaches and Secret Words, and so on. It's basically a game of mage chess where you have to arrive to a deduction on how each spell works with one another. It isn't admittedly that intuitive and takes a wee bit of system mastery (doesn't every version of D&D?), but there are ways to make possessing such mastery really rewarding. SCS certainly compounds that approach by making sure that mages are smarter about their shit. You can still beat at least the vanilla game (and I'm pretty sure someone did it wtih SCS) by just playing a solo martial and using mundane ways to dispatch mages, such as poison, various arrows and other such utility, so if you really dislike mage chess, you can simply make a low-magic party. My first BG2 victory was a 4-martial party with a druid and a half-mage, and their contribution was basically to Haste my martials and stay back while they destroyed. Keep in mind that in BG2, martials aren't completely overshadowed by casters because martials are the number one way of dealing damage to your enemies reliably and quickly, no questions asked, no preparation needed.