Baldur's Gate The Baldur's Gate Series Thread

[Storyfag]

Bro, no love for Shar-Tel?

Can't stand her attitude.

Xzar, Monty, Vicky, Kagain and Edwin = Flavour with Tiax as needed.

I've always found Xzar a bit ...redundant, tbh, regardless of the way you build him. Edwin is a better Mage than he is and, this is my preference, I usually play with only 1 Mage in the party, I find that it becomes too easy with more.

I never even considered party effectiveness. I roll with the above team simply for the banter. I probably should keep the Harpers around the Zhents for a bit longer on one playthrough. The effects are bound to be spectacular ^^

 

[Dux]

You're gonna meet a lot of companions way too late to consider reforming the party though. Which is quite a shame, I always found companions from Cloakwood and BG to be super fun. Especially the pair of insane gnomes.

You mean Quayle and Tiax?

It's interesting if you've grown attached to these characters in the first game and then move on to BG2, where pretty much all of their collective character has been butchered. Xzar is your run-of-the-mill evil wizard, and quite coherent. Montaron is dead. Quayle is suddenly quite humble and grounded. Aerie even calls him the wisest person she knows. WTF? Coran is just a derp living in the woods fawning over Safana. Faldorn, instead of being a fierce protector of balance, is now just an evil druid who won't even really acknowledge you upon meeting. Garrick has gone from being a sort of capable adventurer into a complete retard in need of special care. Ajantis is made to look like a monster and is killed by you without any real significance or fanfare. Viconia has slipped into Stephanie Meyer territory, Imoen is emo and Jaheira is grating and needy. Edwin is okay but is a tranny. Khalid lies dissected, splayed across a table.

Tiax, however, is all right and left largely unspoiled.

 

[Marquis de Lirium]

Khalid lies dissected, splayed across a table.

See, there is improvement after all.

 

[Lacrymas]

Tiax is in an insane asylum in BG2, though, which I also find to be a ...one-dimensional reading of his character. You are right that the quirks of the BG1 companions are taken to ludicrous extreme in BG2 and have taken over their entire personalities. I've had beef with BG2's writing since the first time I played it, especially the limited, fan service-y treatment of the characters.

 

[ga♥]

Tiax is not in an "insane asylum" he is in the "mages asylum" for users who used magic without permission (even if he's a cleric...or was in BG1). Not because he is insane.

 

[d1r]

For everyone playign BG1 (even for the first timers), do yourself a favour and at least install the BG1 NPC Project.

It's a well written mod for BG1, which greatly expands on some NPC's backstories, and adds a lot of party banter (á la BG2) into the main game.

There's also an option to make the late game NPC's appear way earlier ingame, making it possible to create some new parties.

 

[Lacrymas]

He is in Spellhold because he is insane. He is not a mage and can't cast arcane spells without permission, so they locked him up because he's a deviant.

 

[Piotrovitz]

I've always found Xzar a bit ...redundant, tbh, regardless of the way you build him. Edwin is a better Mage than he is and, this is my preference

Sure Edwin is the best mage around, also in BG2, but I always found Xzar more fun and interesting as a character - voice acting is top notch, and his derangement is delightful. Edwin feels more like generic arrogant/overintellectualized mage that was done before dozen times in various fantasy novels.

Coran with his 20 dex and three pips in longbows is OPd as fuck but he's fun too, and I always took him on most of the playthroughs. His only downside is abysmal detect traps skill, which requires you to take another thief.

 

[Melcar]

For everyone playign BG1 (even for the first timers), do yourself a favour and at least install the BG1 NPC Project.

It's a well written mod for BG1, which greatly expands on some NPC's backstories, and adds a lot of party banter (á la BG2) into the main game.

There's also an option to make the late game NPC's appear way earlier ingame, making it possible to create some new parties.

Most of it is meh level to be honest. The only really good one is Xzar's and Monty's bit. Also, don't install the romance component.

 

[Theldaran]

I played BG in ye olde days before the internet in a country where a lot of the other players were highschool kids who weren't necessarily the best with english. Or reading. From my point of view the average BG player had no idea there ever WAS a plot. For them it really was "Baldurs Fireballs: Tales of the Fireball Coast".

Then it really mimics tabletop D&D. I know that in D&D, farming for the Fireball scroll could be harder, and afterwards you had to memorise it without loading functions, but once you had it (or Lightning Bolt) you had true POWER in your hands, just as in BG.

 

[sullynathan]

I've made it to durlags tower and completed about 3 or 4 of the levels. level 2 is especially tough but the rewards are nice. On the four warder dwarves, these guys are giving me far too much trouble to beat them.

Bro, no love for Shar-Tel?

she sucks in combat and she's always pestering me about being a man.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

I-I-I'LL TEACH YOUR GRANDMOTHA' HOW TA' SUCK EGGS.

Xzar > Edwin. Fuck that genderbender.

 

[Lujo]

I guess its obvious now that you have some obscure answer you can completely pull out ur ass for any angle regarding this topic

Imoen was really added to BG1 at the last minute. Folks were complaining about the first companions available being Montaron and Xzar who are, well, crazy and evil, and they found it too difficult to play a lvl 1 character. True story. Now I'm definitely not one of those gay nazi "men's right activist" male fetishist basment closet dwelling dorks but I do have to say starting your Epic Quest TM and then immediately getting stuck with someone's-baby-sister-you're-stuck-with-babysitting-on-game-night-and-the-crew-let-her-roll-up-a-character-for-the-lols-and-of-course-it's-full-pink-who-knew was always pretty ridiculous to me. I mean, it's not that I like "ye olde generick mine-imagination-hath-been-amputated" cliche "fantasy", but, like, having your Gandalf Obi-Wan Gorion killed ought to be some kind of dramatic mo... "Heya, I'ts me! Imoen!". PINK! If it was satire it'd be pretty funny.

The free-roaming is almost completely disconnected from the chapters. I think you can complete 80% of the maps without stepping foot in Nashkel, only Baldur's Gate (the city) and Cloakwood are closed off to you, so knock yourself out.

This is not entirely true because you'll run into items which are quest items but not neccessarily know it unless you pick the quests up beforehand. If you happen to sell them and then get the quest good luck remembering where you sold them or if you even had them at any point to begin with.

And yeah, Xzar > Edwin. Anyone cand wand fireballs, Xzar can cast Identify. And, like, has a personality. Has more than one, even.

 

[sullynathan]

I just beat Sarevok. I cheesed him. I lured him in with two fire balls then went outside. We fought there with none of his companions and I killed him. Overall BG Enhanced Edition was a good - great game. I liked it enough, I'll give more of my thoughts on in the morning. Should I play BG2 EE with my character, play Siege of Dragonspear because it automatically starts after I beat the game or re-roll a new character in BG?

 

[CptMace]

It happens that I replayed through BG recently, and finally decided to get Dragonspear.

Siege of dragonspear is an iwd-esque xpac. It has a linear structure and a contained level-design. Basically, you're free to roam through the 2-3-4 maps of the present chapter but once you move on to the next, former areas are unavailable for story reasons. It's actually a good xpac in my book, because it offers good d&d shenanigans and the monsters encountered are coherent both with the party level and the BG continuity.
Story-wise, it's a self contained story that failed to interest me in any manner. Companions writing and banters range from retarded to alright.
They found a way to put a lot of npcs on screen a the same time I guess, because they do it again and again and again. It's also the occasion for actual battles, 30 vs 30 or something, which I think is either the strong selling point or the worst shortcoming depending on your tastes.
It actually has some branching in the main quest, with not only consequences but gameplay-related consequences.

Overall, yeah, it's good d&d. With questionable writing and character design. And weird ass random stuff to make the story actually bridge with bg2's situation.

But if I may make a proper suggestion : play IWD.

 

[ga♥]

I lured him in with two fire balls then went outside. We fought there with none of his companions and I killed him.

Huh? You can't exit the temple once inside. How did you go out?

 

[sullynathan]

I lured him in with two fire balls then went outside. We fought there with none of his companions and I killed him.

Huh? You can't exit the temple once inside. How did you go out?

The key is not to start conversation with Sarevok. If you attack him outside his fog of war with an AOE spell, he'll take damage (I used fireballs) and then come to your party. Once you initiate dialogue, walk outside with your party then he immediately follows you. None of his companions came outside either so it was a much easier fight. Especially because he's a melee fighter.

 

[Lacrymas]

He has always been easy without SCS, you can just focus him and he'll go down pretty fast. SCS makes it so you have to kill his cohorts first and it's a very brutal fight.

 

[Storyfag]

Wand of Cheese Summoning and/or Animate Dead work wonders there

 

[purpleblob]

And weird ass random stuff to make the story actually bridge with bg2's situation.

Exactly the reason why SoD shouldn't have been part of BG saga.

 

[sullynathan]

He has always been easy without SCS, you can just focus him and he'll go down pretty fast. SCS makes it so you have to kill his cohorts first and it's a very brutal fight.

what's SCS?

 

[octavius]

Sword Coast Stratagems.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I think I'm nearing the end of Baldur's Gate 2, I've just started chapter 6...

Holy cow, this is a long ass game if you go completionist.

On the one hand its great that it just keeps on going, on the other hand, you can have too much of a good thing. I started not enjoying it so much in chapter 4 and 5, but mostly chapter 5. Not in a bad way so much, as it's coming down from a very high peak, so its still better than most games, but the underdark didn't realy do anything for me and I hated having to squint at such a dark and indistinct screen for so many hours. Also, Bioware's love for copy-paste has worn me down a lot by this point as it intereferes with a completionist mindset keep walking into rooms you think you've already cleared twice, not to mention doing the exact same Beholder cave you already did in the main city in Chapter 3, not that it was hard after realising Jahira could do the whole cave almost by herself with the Cloak of Mirroring and a couple of other items, but just, *sigh*, starting to feel a bit grindy now.

I mean, good Christ, I've been playing this since before Christmas 2017, LOL. It's not that I'm feeling bored with the game, its that I'm starting to get the urge to just play something different for a bit, but the game refuses to end and I know if I play something else in the routined time-slot for this game then I might never get back into it, and, damn, I'm so close. There's long, and then there's selfishly long. Possibly even cynically long, a bit like how cerial boxes are always way bigger than their contents, just to fill up the shop self and push other brands out the way (what with space in a shop being finite). It was possibly designed to be long for the sole purpose of ensuring people couldn't / didn't want to play anything else at the time.

There's a big difference between huge and original versus Huge and... lots of copy-paste...

 

[Lacrymas]

Weeelll, you are nearing the end of something, but I wouldn't hope that it's the game :p

 

[oldmanpaco]

He has always been easy without SCS, you can just focus him and he'll go down pretty fast. SCS makes it so you have to kill his cohorts first and it's a very brutal fight.

what's SCS?

SCS is the mod that makes the game worth playing 20 years after release.

Well that and Romantic Encounters.