Any powergaming accomplishments?

[SCO]

I finished the QFG series with max statistics "multiclass".

Yes, even the spells... It was pure OCD grinding.

Was butthurt about the armageddon spell in V (that is impossible to grind obviously)

 

[Gregz]

Hmm, I stand corrected.

 

[Shadenuat]

I've beaten Baldur's Gate trilogy without any helping mods with a single-class Druid (made him an Avenger in SoA). Don't really remember why, think I just wanted to make soloing theme on local forum more interesting, cause it was already full of kensai/mages. It actually was't that hard after I got 15 bears and Call Lightning, but I had to literally burrow Sarevok under a pile of rocks from my +1 sling. Kited him for an hour I think. I've skipped Demogorgon though, yet Melissan was a bitch. I lowered her magic res with resist magic spell and threw bees on her, and when she can't cast, script buggs out and she starts to instantly summon demons onto her side, so my char was spammed by like 40 of them and recasted Iron Skins trying to hit her with skimitar.
I'm sad, I know...

 

[Infinitron]

I finished the QFG series with max statistics "multiclass".

Yes, even the spells... It was pure OCD grinding.

Was butthurt about the armageddon spell in V (that is impossible to grind obviously)

What class were you? Do the games give you access to some ostensibly class-specific quests based on your stats, or are those quests always locked out to you based on the class you initially picked?

 

[attackfighter]

I beat the Demogorgon guy in ToB with the Gaider difficulty mod installed.

I know that's not actually powergaming

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I had to literally burrow Sarevok under a pile of rocks from my +1 sling. Kited him for an hour I think. I've skipped Demogorgon though, yet Melissan was a bitch. I lowered her magic res with resist magic spell and threw bees on her, and when she can't cast, script buggs out and she starts to instantly summon demons onto her side, so my char was spammed by like 40 of them and recasted Iron Skins trying to hit her with skimitar.
I'm sad, I know...

Actually, no. That was both funny and unusual in a powergaming thread since it's more like "undergaming". :D

That, on the other hand

kensai/mages

is sad.

 

[SCO]

I finished the QFG series with max statistics "multiclass".

Yes, even the spells... It was pure OCD grinding.

Was butthurt about the armageddon spell in V (that is impossible to grind obviously)

What class were you? Do the games give you access to some ostensibly class-specific quests based on your stats, or are those quests always locked out to you based on the class you initially picked?

"Technically" a paladin.

Let me explain:
There are special quests that are "class" specific, mostly paladin/thief quests because they wouldn't make sense for the others. They either require the "thieves sign" or the paladin "sixth sense". But mostly if it's about the stats, there is no limitation, eg: you can rob houses if you have lockpicking and are not a thief. When you import a final character to the next game you can "cheat" and change class. But IIRC, it's not needed to get everything (except spells).

The original game had 3 classes. Magic user, Thief, Fighter. Each class had some stats set, and some were missing. You got a hundred points on char gen in each game, that you could use for other stats you had OR to learn a 0 points skill. Stats in game > 0 are learned through grinding, EXCEPT on some special cases.

So, i started with a thief-magic user, that is functionally equivalent to a magic user, augmented to allow the class specific thief quests (thieves guild, breakins etc). You can learn spells in game if you know what puzzles give them.

Now we come to QFG2 that is the pivotal point. This is because it introduces some special features. First it introduces learning a hidden 0 pts stat. There is (1) opportunity in each subsequent game to learn one of these 0 pts stat if you haven't yet. In the next game they become a "new" stat.
Second it introduces the concept of class upgrades.
You can, if you do the correct quests, upgrade you magic user (any class, just having magic and the right spells) to a "Wizard", or ANY class (including thieves if you behave) to a Paladin.
Paladins get spell like abilities through their "Honor" stat. The path to gain this opportunity is strict (but, as i said, it's possible to "cheat" with the imported char).

QFG 3 introduces the first spell you'll HAVE to miss if not a wizard, the Staff summoning spell. It also allows you to become a paladin (if you know how, but limited to fighters now for some dumb reason) and to gain a hidden 0 pts skill too, but it's limited to thieves.
And wouldn't you know; you can have a paladin access the special thief quests from QFG3, if you were a thief in the previous one? $$$$$$ (you'll have to get some spells the wizard would get later though).
Unfortunately It's normally considered the weakest game for thieves beyond that because there is nothing much else to do (but it's on a stricter time limit than the others too).

QFG 4 has some really nice paladin quests, and a another wizard only spell (by now you should have all the stats > 0).

Generally, a magic user non-wizard either gets SOME spells later or not at all, a paladin is the cool fighter prestige class, and a non-thief thief doesn't get the thieves sign so can't generally do the thieves guild's quests.

The rest is grinding grinding grinding automatically and knowing when the timelimits are activated.

Of course, much of the charm of the game is the class specific solutions to the "puzzles" (that really aren't mostly).
So i advice to leave this breaking/experimentation/extreme multiclassing to a second replay.

At QFG5 you can potentially become:

Spoiler

The paladin king and thieves guild guildmaster.

Which is kinda lulzy.

 

[MaskedMan]

I got most of the skills in morrowind really high

 

[Infinitron]

I finished the QFG series with max statistics "multiclass".

Yes, even the spells... It was pure OCD grinding.

Was butthurt about the armageddon spell in V (that is impossible to grind obviously)

What class were you? Do the games give you access to some ostensibly class-specific quests based on your stats, or are those quests always locked out to you based on the class you initially picked?

"Technically" a paladin.

Let me explain:
There are special quests that are "class" specific, mostly paladin/thief quests because they wouldn't make sense for the others. They either require the "thieves sign" or the paladin "sixth sense". But mostly if it's about the stats, there is no limitation, eg: you can rob houses if you have lockpicking and are not a thief. When you import a final character to the next game you can "cheat" and change class. But IIRC, it's not needed to get everything (except spells).

The original game had 3 classes. Magic user, Thief, Fighter. Each class had some stats set, and some were missing. You got a hundred points on char gen in each game, that you could use for other stats you had OR to learn a 0 points skill. Stats in game > 0 are learned through grinding, EXCEPT on some special cases.

So, i started with a thief-magic user, that is functionally equivalent to a magic user, augmented to allow the class specific thief quests (thieves guild, breakins etc). You can learn spells in game if you know what puzzles give them.

Now we come to QFG2 that is the pivotal point. This is because it introduces some special features. First it introduces learning a hidden 0 pts stat. There is (1) opportunity in each subsequent game to learn one of these 0 pts stat if you haven't yet. In the next game they become a "new" stat.
Second it introduces the concept of class upgrades.
You can, if you do the correct quests, upgrade you magic user (any class, just having magic and the right spells) to a "Wizard", or ANY class (including thieves if you behave) to a Paladin.
Paladins get spell like abilities through their "Honor" stat. The path to gain this opportunity is strict (but, as i said, it's possible to "cheat" with the imported char).

QFG 3 introduces the first spell you'll HAVE to miss if not a wizard, the Staff summoning spell. It also allows you to become a paladin (if you know how, but limited to fighters now for some dumb reason) and to gain a hidden 0 pts skill too, but it's limited to thieves.
And wouldn't you know; you can have a paladin access the special thief quests from QFG3, if you were a thief in the previous one? $$$$$$ (you'll have to get some spells the wizard would get later though).
Unfortunately It's normally considered the weakest game for thieves beyond that because there is nothing much else to do (but it's on a stricter time limit than the others too).

QFG 4 has some really nice paladin quests, and a another wizard only spell (by now you should have all the stats > 0).

Generally, a magic user non-wizard either gets SOME spells later or not at all, a paladin is the cool fighter prestige class, and a non-thief thief doesn't get the thieves sign so can't generally do the thieves guild's quests.

The rest is grinding grinding grinding automatically and knowing when the timelimits are activated.

Of course, much of the charm of the game is the class specific solutions to the "puzzles" (that really aren't mostly).
So i advice to leave this breaking/experimentation/extreme multiclassing to a second replay.

At QFG5 you can potentially become:

Spoiler

The paladin king and thieves guild guildmaster.

Which is kinda lulzy.

There's no need to hide information - I played through each one of these games except the last several times. I just never tried to "multiclass".
The way time went by in real time in QFG5 really pissed me off. In the earlier games it only passed as you walked around and did stuff. It totally inhibited exploration. Particularly annoying on the world map.

What's this "hidden stat" you speak of? I seem to remember Honor being hidden in QFG2, but that's it.

 

[someone else]

No.

 

[Giauz Ragnacock]

Back around 2004 I got Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link for Gameboy Advance. The guidebook said that if you increase any stat past level 8 you get an extra Link. I spent all the first night of getting the game grinding all 3 stats to 8 and finally raised one above that only to discover you just get an extra life (also stats remained maxed at 8). However, as you progress in the game you discover this hasn't made anything all that much easier.

What makes this such a feat of powergaming is I spent 6 or 7 hours grinding. On the weakest enemy (red and hopping blue slimes) in the starting area. Walking back and forth on the combat screen for 1 exp. or an extremely rare 50 exp. bag per kill.

You didn't say it had to be badass or even mildly not-retarded to be powergaming.

 

[Redeye]

In Stalker (Vanilla), I did Yantar without the Psi-Shield.

Requires constant split-second healing and running.

But I did it.

Not really power gaming, more like undergaming.

-------------------
Yes, there is all that crap you can do in BG2/etc. with dual class Cleric/Wizard and Contingency plus repulsion/blade-barrier and the Simulacrum stunts.

Plus the Wizard Eye/Summons tactic.

Trap cheese.

Tenser's on a Bard.

Having a squad of Druids (Shapeshifter) with Greater Werewolf is fun but limited, and you can also "cheat" with a squad of Archers. Too bad Jesters don't keep Confusion to high level, or it would be a breaker with Improved Invisibility.
------------
In V:TM-B, Malkavian obfuscate-gunner is quite good- just stockpile flamer ammo and elder blood for the tough stuff.
---------------------
In TOEE, having a low-level party with wiz and 2-3 sorcs (just splash levels) gives enough Sleep spells to turn Moathouse into a slumber party. Total walkover.
--------------------
MechWarrior 2 - shooting at legs with long range lasers with turret reversed, using rear-view camera for navigation (as it will be facing front), basically kiting cheese. Plus being fast/underweight and using jump-jets to dodge PPK/rockets.

---------------

E-Scrolls:

Breton/Atronach Sign in Morrowind/Oblivion then get Alchemy "free" by eating everything you can grab, speed/acrobatics/endurance so you can run/jump past everything (grind it from start so it maxes fast), then just practice thief skills. Use potions to wield Sunder and Keening without gloves, no stacking.
I just used the Gong-whacking Mattock from 6th house for its knockback IIRC as a weapon, plus the speed boots and the mace and cuirass from that wizard guy in Telvanni area.

In Oblivion, I didn't even bother with weapons other than Wabbajack and a few arrows.

Potion Stacking.

Craft that Chameleon Suit where the bits add up to 100%.

Levitate/Summon yawn.

edit:
Forgot about the Staff of Worms.
Never did try it on King of Worms... I wonder if it could be possible to keep reviving him and use him in later things.
-------------
I'm still squatting on my copy of SoZ, thinking of the best way to not ruin it.
Or ruin it in a fun way!
(Suggestions?)

 

[SCO]

What's this "hidden stat" you speak of? I seem to remember Honor being hidden in QFG2, but that's it.

Acrobatics in QFG3 (make the thief sign to the rope seller). Honor (and maybe Communication? If you chose to waste the genie bonus in that) in QFG2, don't remember if there is anything like that in QFGIV (though the obvious candidate would be pickpocketing).

Also i think that in QFG5 the time limit only activates once you start doing the trials. And there is one trial in particular that apparently has no time limit (except the general one of the dragon).
As annoying as QFGII if you wanted to grind combat (buy lots of pills )
The time limit on QFGIV i was ok with.

 

[Infinitron]

What's this "hidden stat" you speak of? I seem to remember Honor being hidden in QFG2, but that's it.

Acrobatics in QFG3. Honor (and maybe Communication?) in QFG2, don't remember if there is anything like that in QFGIV (though the obvious candidate would be pickpocketing).

Don't remember Acrobatics being hidden.

Related, in QFG4 the Fighter learns how to climb (from a book in the Adventurer's Guild, IIRC ). Before that, only thieves could.

 

[SCO]

AHA! (though it's not new, so not hidden)

Acrobatics is hidden in QFGIII, make the thief sign to the rope seller.
It's a good way to grind agility, endurance (if you rest for 10 minutes in the heart of the world) and acrobatics, and can be used here and there.

Damn i love those games.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

Hrm...pushed through the gates of a border checkpoint in Suikoden II you weren't supposed to hit for a long, long time and kept running away from fights until it only involved one enemy. That lone random still flat-lined most of my party, but the two who survived must have jumped a dozen levels easily. So I healed up and kept doing it. By the time I left that area my party was capable of surviving there, which meant it could steamroll the current storyline locations.


Same basic scenario in other RPGs (WRPG or JRPG). In Fallout 2 you run around the southwest darting in and scavenging overpowered items off roaming bands blowing each other up.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

Back around 2004 I got Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link for Gameboy Advance. The guidebook said that if you increase any stat past level 8 you get an extra Link. I spent all the first night of getting the game grinding all 3 stats to 8 and finally raised one above that only to discover you just get an extra life (also stats remained maxed at 8). However, as you progress in the game you discover this hasn't made anything all that much easier.

What makes this such a feat of powergaming is I spent 6 or 7 hours grinding. On the weakest enemy (red and hopping blue slimes) in the starting area. Walking back and forth on the combat screen for 1 exp. or an extremely rare 50 exp. bag per kill.

You didn't say it had to be badass or even mildly not-retarded to be powergaming.

Oh man, FFVII in the first reactor. I read magazines while having Cloud run back and forth on one of the girders near the core. Come home from school, break out the latest monthly swiped from the library and have the party grind.

By the time I finally left that reactor both of Cloud's materia had hit the 3rd evolution and budded off new orbs. Guardian Scorpion really doesn't stand up to Lightning 3 all that well.

 

[JrK]

Defeated Improved Ilyich (or whatever his name was) from Tactics for BG2. That was the single most hardest thing I've ever done, and involved dire-charming the cleric (with a scroll), letting him summon a planetar or whatnot.

Dang that thing took 30 reloads and I've NEVER done that one again.

 

[tennishero]

couple of skill tests for any broski out there
nothing too hard


-legit jump the mage university gate WITHOUT using console commands
-beat every boss using initial equip and the jail clothing (not too hard because of level scalling)

morrowind- those yellow cocksuckers at the great houses- take out at least 5 in one go- ALSO no hiding in the bits they cant reach and using arrows


-beat final fantasy tactics using only chemists

- LOW LEVEL final fantasy challenges
(truly the greatest feat of metagaming- as it requires all the patience of grinding without any benefit and twice the skill- here's the rules usually- beat any final fantasy below level 10- final fanasty 8 is the easiest to do because of the broken magic system)

- final fantasy 8- beat omega weapon WITHOUT using holy wars (pro tip- in final fantasies before 6- the holy war spell used to be called jihad) or holy

- beat all the nasty ass secret bosses in FF10- (americans didnt get the secret bosses so this is a EU and JP only challenge)- also no using yojimbo

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

Rocking through MotB with a Wizard/Arcane Scholar/Red Wizard spellcasting powerhouse (spec: necromancy), taking the ultra-hunger path. Dude was frickin' scary. I even dropped all of my magic items someways into the game just to see if I could pull it off. It did not make much of a difference. Then I tested the build in that amusing Battle of the Builds mod - nothing could touch him, even when he was wearing but his underpants against characters with all of their magic items.

Most moment: killing off the entire barbarian lodge (they're supposed to have high fortitued saves, for fuck's sake) with a single casting of Wail of the Banshee. Then one-shotting the Angry Badger (well, ok, TWO-shotting - I fired off a quickened spell in that round).

Obvious powergaming: soloing any Infinity Engine game with a single class sorcerer. It does get old after some time, though, once the character becomes unstopabble.

 

[flabbyjack]

Had a reverse-powergaming moment in FF: Tactics when I leveled up the main character every chance I got. Naturally, this leveled up all enemies until they were overpowering the rest of the party. Boss battles became impossible fights against an enemy that can kill you in one hit.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I took the spellcaster character in SaGa Frontier, trained him in sword skills and got his physical stats as close to the maximum as is realistically possible, then trained the mental stats to about half of the maximum. Learned the most obscure magic sets possible. When you (spoiler) murder your twin, you gain all the opposing spell schools mastered and double all your mental stats. Result: Character that can single handedly defeat pretty much anything in a game meant to be beaten with 5 man teams, with bosses that scale somewhat as you grind. Imagine having a level 20/20/20 fighter/cleric/wizard in DnD. Using splatbooks. Oh, and the equipment was pretty damned good too.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I took the spellcaster character in SaGa Frontier, trained him in sword skills and got his physical stats as close to the maximum as is realistically possible, then trained the mental stats to about half of the maximum. Learned the most obscure magic sets possible. When you (spoiler) murder your twin, you gain all the opposing spell schools mastered and double all your mental stats. Result: Character that can single handedly defeat pretty much anything in a game meant to be beaten with 5 man teams, with bosses that scale somewhat as you grind. Imagine having a level 20/20/20 fighter/cleric/wizard in DnD. Using splatbooks. Oh, and the equipment was pretty damned good too.

That is incredibly cool.

Of course, you had to play the game beforehand to know that your stats would be doubled, so you only trained to half.

But of course, powergaming is generally possible on repeat playthroughs only for most games. (Except maybe for every TES game since the second one.)

 

[Giauz Ragnacock]

Back in the day when playing a Pokemon cartridge on the tv through N64 Pokemon Stadium was a thing, me and my brother had Blue Version and started with a Squirtle we named Kile (yes we spelled stoopeed). Anyway we kept him as our frontman to about level 80 where it could floor any single NPC trainer or pokemon on the cartridge. Well, I had never seen a level 100 before, so I decided to put Kile to the test of reaching it.

Turns out he could beat the Elite Four and the Champion all by himself (herself? no Pokemon games had sex as a stat yet and we never imported him to any of the newer games) at that point. Through countless victories and a solid hour at-least of end cutscene and credits Kile eventually became level 100 and beat them a final time just to prove his overpower non-fair-play supremacy (upon which I regretted catching Mewtwo as I am pretty sure Kile the Blastoise could have one-shotted it with a Hydropump further adding to his god-kingdom's glory).

How's that for badass-pointless? :D

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Defeated Improved Ilyich (or whatever his name was) from Tactics for BG2. That was the single most hardest thing I've ever done, and involved dire-charming the cleric (with a scroll), letting him summon a planetar or whatnot.

Dang that thing took 30 reloads and I've NEVER done that one again.

Tactics for BG2 is the exact embodiement of how to increase difficulty the wrong way. I hated it. I went a bit further than the starter dungeon but it doesn't get any better, it's still based on reload knowledge + lucky rolls. Even worse, it doesn't feature a single pylon.
The only thing I liked was not being able to move in and out of a battle by abusing stairs anymore.