Game News Josh Sawyer's GDC Next Presentation Slides

[Roguey]

True sight won't work on a thief hiding in shadows who's wearing a cloak of non-detection (which you can get very early in the game) and many of buffs don't last all that long.

Of course some of the non-human enemies see you without dispelling your invisibility, though some of them can still be backstabbed regardless (like demons and liches).

This wiki says otherwise
http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/True_Seeing
http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/True_Sight

I honestly don't remember. Even if it does, that would make it one one of those dreaded hard counters and it's only available from an optional fight against a rival adventuring party that someone might not even want to engage in for role playing purposes.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

This wiki says otherwise
http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/True_Seeing
http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/True_Sight

I honestly don't remember. Even if it does, that would make it one one of those dreaded hard counters and it's only available from an optional fight against a rival adventuring party that someone might not even want to engage in for role playing purposes.

IIRC the cloak of non-detection can't really be dispelled (unlike the largely useless same name spell) and it definitely protects you from true sight when you're hiding in shadows, also in vanilla BG2 rarely will mages have both buffs up instantly and cast true sigh on top of it, usually they'll start casting true sight without having protections up allowing you still time to backstab them before they finish the spell off.

I also wouldn't really call it a hard counter, it's just one of the ways to deal with enemy mages without using a mage/your pc being a mage, you could also disrupt enemy spellcaster with weapons which deal elemental damage, use poison with Assassin (both go through stoneskin), use some potions (magic shielding, magic resistance, invulnerability), traps, items that shield from magic damage (that belt you can buy in Trademeet for example and/or Valygar's armor), arrows of dispelling (very underrated) etc. options are there, you just have to look for them and use all tools at your disposal (instead of for example hoarding potions for the black day that never comes).

Another thing regarding cloak of non-detection, yes the fight is optional (although that party's behaviour should provoke most player to attack them) and you might not find the cloak in your first playthrough but if you do happen to you'll feel like your exploration is rewarded because you found a very useful item, if that item is easily replacable by something you find on the main quest path of the game then it (the cloak) isn't really that rewarding of a found now, isn't it? Same goes for some even more powerful (and obtained from more obscure fights) items like Staff of Magi.

If everything is as powerful and has similar uses/effects then nothing is really unique.

 

[Roguey]

I also wouldn't really call it a hard counter, it's just one of the ways to deal with enemy mages without using a mage/your pc being a mage, you could also disrupt enemy spellcaster with weapons which deal elemental damage, use poison with Assassin (both go through stoneskin), use some potions (magic shielding, magic resistance, invulnerability), traps, items that shield from magic damage (that belt you can buy in Trademeet for example and/or Valygar's armor), arrows of dispelling (very underrated) etc. options are there, you just have to look for them and use all tools at your disposal (instead of for example hoarding potions for the black day that never comes).

A strategy that utterly dominates another strategy, leaving no question of the outcome.

Compare to soft counter. In a soft counter, the strategy being countered can still be victorious through skill or luck. There is no chance of this when a hard counter is used.

The cloak of non-detection cannot ever lose to a spell of true sight/seeing, thus it is a hard counter. Much like how protections against death are hard counters against death spells.

Another thing regarding cloak of non-detection, yes the fight is optional (although that party's behaviour should provoke most player to attack them) and you might not find the cloak in your first playthrough but if you do happen to you'll feel like your exploration is rewarded because you found a very useful item, if that item is easily replacable by something you find on the main quest path of the game then it (the cloak) isn't really that rewarding of a found now, isn't it? Same goes for some even more powerful (and obtained from more obscure fights) items like Staff of Magi.

If everything is as powerful and has similar uses/effects then nothing is really unique.

A lot of people like playing good characters. It's not very "good" to attack someone just because he insults you. They could have placed the cloak in the adventurer's mart with all the other overpowered cheat-items or some other out-of-the-way place. It hurts role playing if you do things your character wouldn't do to gain a combat advantage you only know about through metaknowledge. Unfortunately, trying to role play a character in BG2 usually ends up as LARPing.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

.
The cloak of non-detection cannot ever lose to a spell of true sight/seeing, thus it is a hard counter. Much like how protections against death are hard counters against death spells.

Right, I thought you meant as in hard counter when it comes to enemy mages (on the condition you're not using a mage yourself).

So what changes you would propose then? That the cloak protects you 80% of the time for example? Doesn't guru Josh consider such things to encourage save scumming?

.A lot of people like playing good characters. It's not very "good" to attack someone just because he insults you. They could have placed the cloak in the adventurer's mart with all the other overpowered cheat-items or some other out-of-the-way place. It hurts role playing if you do things your character wouldn't do to gain a combat advantage you only know about through metaknowledge. Unfortunately, trying to role play a character in BG2 usually ends up as LARPing.

Sure, BG2 isn't really a full fledged RPG like Fallout or Arcanum (actual roleplaying is quite limited), no argument there but still as I said it feels rewarding to find a powerful item off the main quest path, whether as a reward for another quest or from an optional fight, even if it's presumed that it's only meant to be found by evil-aligned players who stumble into Den of the Seven Vales it's still nice that it's there.

Putting cloak of non detection in a store (especially one of the best equipped stores in the game that you'll most definitely visit numerous times) would make it that much harder to miss which sort of defeats the purpose of it being a cool little item off a main pathway that you're probably not that likely to find if you're not the type to explore everything, same with the staff of Magi for example (regarding Adventurer Mart bonus item like the Robe of Vecna, I believe that should have been a reward for a tough optional fight as well, something similar to Twisted Rune fight).

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

fuck, i just remembered Sawyerbot hates traps and thief skills in general; he always makes rogues useless as fuck...

one of my favorite BG things was luring enemies into trapped areas, or even walking into an ambush that had traps which decimated my buffed characters and strategy.