Baldur's Gate The Baldur's Gate Series Thread

[atalero]

I want to start a new game of BG 1 and 2, but don’t know if I should start with EE version 2.5, wait for 2.6, or stick with originals and mod.

I really like the work beamdog did with Icewind Dale EE. It remains the only IE game I beat, other than BG 1

Any advice?

Yeah, go play Planescape: Torment. It's short.

Good call. Thanks, Butter. EE version ok, or should I stick to original? I saw they released a new patch for the EE version.

 

[octavius]

Gaius maximus is a Beamdog shill. Brofist if you know of its agenda.

He's such a Gluteus maximus.

 

[octavius]

Lilura is a very lonely woman.

A spinster... Maybe a virgin. Maybe she got hurt a long time ago. She's a schoolgirl, there was a boy, it didn't work out. So now she needs a little tenderness. She needs a little understanding. Needs a little Melcar.

 

[Stella Brando]

This is what the Sword Coast looks like with all the pieces stitched together:

It isn't done perfectly... the bandit camp should be just north east of the Friendly Arm Inn, and the city and major river should be moved one square north.

 

[Lacrymas]

I like how most of the roads and rivers are generally connected with each other, but it's obvious it wasn't thought of as one coherent map that is cut into pieces.

Positioning doesn't matter; you need only be invisible or stealthed. Also, you must have a weapn that can backstab, and IIRC you can't use heavy armour.

Pretty sure you need to be behind the target. You can backstab in heavy armor, you can't stealth, but you can chug an invis pot and backstab that way.

 

[Quillon]

This is what the Sword Coast looks like with all the pieces stitched together:

It isn't done perfectly... the bandit camp should be just north east of the Friendly Arm Inn, and the city and major river should be moved one square north.

Codex: Open worlds sucks, yo. Hub based etc are way better.
Also Codex: Wet dreams about open world BG.

 

[Lacrymas]

Eh, the problem with open worlds is not inherent to them, it's more like most, if not all, open worlds that have been attempted are full to bursting with MMO fetch quests, non-existent exploration and level-scaling up the butt. I don't see why BG's map wouldn't have worked like an open world one if it was made with more coherency in mind. You'll be losing the sense of grandness maybe, though. Some of these locations don't make sense being so close together.

 

[Stella Brando]

Imoen sighed. She had been camping outside the locked gates of Candlekeep for almost a year, scared to move away in case a gibberling attacked her.

Suddenly her foster brother appeared, battle scars on his muscled limbs, lines of hard experience* on his face.

"Promise you won't get mad, love." he grunted. "I've just had a quick look around the Sword Coast. Picked up a handful of magic items and made a cool 50,000 in gold.

I wonder if old Aunt Khalid and Uncle Jaheira are still at the Friendly Arm Inn? They must have collected a hell of a bill. Let's see what all this iron shortage fuss is about."



*About 160,000 points worth.

 

[Stella Brando]

Do I have to finish the main quest to use my character in the next game?

Can I just export and then move on to Baldur's Gate II?

 

[Chippy]

Do I have to finish the main quest to use my character in the next game?

Can I just export and then move on to Baldur's Gate II?

Game should level you up as you import as well. Out of curiosity - is your Stalker backstabbing now? Did you see enemies spawning between yourself and your party as you were scouting? Did you encounter hardly any enemies on maps and then enemeis leveled to your level when you rested/got jumped in the wilderness: e.g. Ogre Berserkers and othe 650XP enemies?.

Just curious, as I found all of this shit when I played last.

 

[Martyr]

Do I have to finish the main quest to use my character in the next game?

Can I just export and then move on to Baldur's Gate II?

don't forget to pirate buy and play Baldur's Gate EE and Siege of Dragonspear first. this will help you appreciate the otherwise pretty mediocre and bland Baldur's Gate 2.
for me Baldur's Gate 2 was a huge disappointment and I've only completed it once, while I've completed Baldur's Gate at least 10 times. I liked the "generic" setting of BG more, Durlag's Tower was superior to Watcher's Keep due to better design and atmosphere, Irenicus had the potential to be more interesting than Sarevok but in the end he just wasn't and the writing in BG seemed more mature to me and less forced and wasn't trying to create an emotional response from the player.

 

[Poseidon00]

You could safely skip Siege of Dragonspear, in my opinion. Adds zero to the story, is the worst of the BG games, and it's only saving grace is mass combat.

 

[Apostle Hand]

siege of dragonspear actually suceeded in covering gaping hole between bg1 and bg2

 

[Stella Brando]

That's what she said.

 

[EldarEldrad]

siege of dragonspear actually suceeded in covering gaping hole between bg1 and bg2

Is there any gaping hole?

 

[laclongquan]

Between my dick and the way I abuse Baldur's Gate2... Definitely!!!

 

[Stella Brando]

Chippy - I got my stalker backstabbing not too long after I complained about it here. It seemed to be a mixture of needing to level up, and standing right behind the opponent.

I did get some very tough 'you have been waylaid by enemies' events, like wyverns in Cloakwood. But I think that's meant to happen anyway. One time my party was destroyed by ettarcaps. And around the bandit areas if I tried to sleep I would sometimes attract about 10 bandits or guards.

I finished that game, but want to play a new character. I'd like to make an assassin so I can play with backstabbing more. I read that the most powerful backstabbers are multi or dual classes but I don't think I want to get that involved. I want to play the game, not the game system, if you know what I mean.

Being able to export a character at any time is actually a great feature, as it opens things up a lot more. I can make a character who explores the sword coast, then moves down to Amn without caring about the iron shortage mess (or suspects the Amnish are behind it and decides to investigate directly).

I'd like to mess around outside without doing things like the Spider Zone and Cloakwood Mine, or the Maze and the final battle again. Maybe I should get a mod to open everything up, so I can visit Baldur's Gate and the bandit locations from the start.

If I could improve two things about the game, it would be:

1. Make every location available from the start. Cloakwood Mine is behind four maps of dangerous forest, including those fucking spiders. You can keep an impassable tree line around the mine, so can't walk there directly without going through Cloakwood. That should be enough to keep the low level tourists from wondering in by accident. And just let the player explore the bandit camp freely, but make it Kazoug (or whatever his name was) isn't there. In fact you can make the entire far northern part of the map swarming with bandits so chumps can't win through. Anything but the damn 'Sorry Niko, the bridges are out' bullshit.

2. Improve the map system somehow. I don't mean lose the empty spaces, I like them. but make it that if you walk to the edge of one map, you're instantly teleported to the same latitude or longitude on the next. The ideal would be to make transitions absolutely seamless, so you don't notice where one ends and the next begins, but I realise computer power was limited in 1999. Hell, I was there.

Just do something to encourage players to explore in a specific direction, rather than clearing a square at a time. Surveyers work like that, travellers don't. I would also make it clear on the map how all the pieces fit together. Bioware pretends they don't, but they essentially do.

Besides these issues, this is a great game and I love it.

Although it does annoy me that you jump over the river when travelling to the zombie farm. Did you swim? Why not swim to Baldur's Gate? I also wouldn't mind some resources to create your own character class.

Wow, this turned into a long spiel.

This game is a classic and I'm starting a new game ASAP - An evil assassin with evil companions. That reminds me - the internet says you can pick up new characters and have them already on level 6. But my stalker was on level 8 and the others were on about 4 (Except for Imoen on level 1, lol). Do I have to squeeze out every last drop of 161,000 experience points? Even if it doesn't level me up? Would new companions be on level 6 then?

Talk to you guys later - I gotta get that sweet Assassin backstab multiplier.

What would be the best alignment for an assassin? Neutral Evil? Chaotic Evil doesn't seem right.

Could a trained killer be Lawful? A by-the-book, get-the-job-done type? Like a nazi prison guard?​

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Could a trained killer be Lawful?

He not only could, but should, if he wants to become a name in the business. Lawful evil is fine.

 

[Chippy]

Stalin_Brando If you really get into the game, you'll start agonizing over stuff soon enough - remember you can't get exceptional strength as an assassin - even if you don't want to get caught up in the system, you can still dual class after level 2 from a fighter (make sure you have the attributes) x9 backstab with 18/00 STR is something to see.. The level 8 > 4 difference was quite high - someone else might tell you what's going on there.

What I meant by the spawning system is that there were virtually no enemies in the EE that I played on the maps, but as you levelled up they spawned (if you were attacked while resting outside) to your level - so you could pick up on an ambush while resting more XP than you would from several maps on the game - which made the exploration crap, and threw off the levelling system more than a bit.

Edit: If you get into dual classing, look at the XP levels per class related to the XP cap of the game you're playing; a lot of people do stupid shit like starting as a thief and then going over to a mage.

 

[Cael]

Stalin_Brando If you really get into the game, you'll start agonizing over stuff soon enough - remember you can't get exceptional strength as an assassin - even if you don't want to get caught up in the system, you can still dual class after level 2 from a fighter (make sure you have the attributes) x9 backstab with 18/00 STR is something to see.. The level 8 > 4 difference was quite high - someone else might tell you what's going on there.

What I meant by the spawning system is that there were virtually no enemies in the EE that I played on the maps, but as you levelled up they spawned (if you were attacked while resting outside) to your level - so you could pick up on an ambush while resting more XP than you would from several maps on the game - which made the exploration crap, and threw off the levelling system more than a bit.

Edit: If you get into dual classing, look at the XP levels per class related to the XP cap of the game you're playing; a lot of people do stupid shit like starting as a thief and then going over to a mage.

Play a Half-Orc. +1 Str bypasses all the 18/xx stages.

Spoiler

 

[Stella Brando]

cuz in no cheat run I don't have enough money to give Aerie all scrolls to scribe. And the game is really hard, so I like my warriors to have best weapons so they could protect Aerie better.

cheating in baldur's gate is like adding a fourth wheel to a tricycle.

a full party in a non-cheat game is 5 characters more than you need to win already.

You're right. I just want to protect Aerie from so many bad things that could happen to her.

She just got away from her circus captors, and is still young and unknowleageble to the world.

y tho, Aerie's a cunt

Don't offend Aerie. I am sworn to protect her.

uh, what's the "sup drog" meme for Baldur's Gate because this guy is not real

"Huh! You're a queer fellow!"

I like how he talks to animals, like a retarded Francis of Assisi.

If you really get into the game, you'll start agonizing over stuff soon enough - remember you can't get exceptional strength as an assassin - even if you don't want to get caught up in the system, you can still dual class after level 2 from a fighter (make sure you have the attributes) x9 backstab with 18/00 STR is something to see... The level 8 > 4 difference was quite high - someone else might tell you what's going on there.

My Assassin is capable of dueling to a fighter, so I have that option if I want it later. He has 18 in Strength, Dexterity and Charisma - I wanted a charming, high class assassin. The internet says that NPCs get their final level boost when you reach 160,000 XP. So my mistake was collecting them as soon as I had become a level 8 stalker. I should have solo'ed that little bit more.​

 

[octavius]

Oh my!

 

[Chippy]

Yeah, there's another way of getting your STR to 19 as a thief; I never use it as I play by PST rules.

If anyone thought their oppinion of Beamdog could get any lower - I'm currently playing the Drizzt Saga, and there's a certain robed figure in it with a certain voice from someone in BG2 that has an interest in your character... I knew the plebs has zero creativity, but I didn't expect them to lift ideas and plagerize directly from other people' mods.

 

[Theldaran]

Yeah, there's another way of getting your STR to 19 as a thief; I never use it as I play by PST rules.

If anyone thought their oppinion of Beamdog could get any lower - I'm currently playing the Drizzt Saga, and there's a certain robed figure in it with a certain voice from someone in BG2 that has an interest in your character... I knew the plebs has zero creativity, but I didn't expect them to lift ideas and plagerize directly from other people' mods.

Beamdog is a mod circle gone (shitty) company itself.

 

[Chippy]

Yeah, there's another way of getting your STR to 19 as a thief; I never use it as I play by PST rules.

If anyone thought their oppinion of Beamdog could get any lower - I'm currently playing the Drizzt Saga, and there's a certain robed figure in it with a certain voice from someone in BG2 that has an interest in your character... I knew the plebs has zero creativity, but I didn't expect them to lift ideas and plagerize directly from other people' mods.

Beamdog is a mod circle gone (shitty) company itself.

I suppose it could have been the actual modder giving the writers ideas. But also worst thing that could have happened to the game content-wise.. I remember reading a post from a guy that went up against the green dragon in SOD, he had used the green protect from poison scroll, and didn't get why the dragon still did poison dam, so some prissy Beamdoy fanboy fuck replies with: "It only protects from posion, but not from the effects of posion". In much the same way, I'm struggling through the Drizzt Saga and Region of Terror with vampires that bypass scroll of magic protection with their charm, and green dragons that do +140 dam AOE and 60 physical dam per hit (on normal) that bypass all magic resistance, physical resistance, and ... scrolls of magic. They're also immune to you casting the scroll on them and (suprise!) can't be interrupted during a spell.

I suppose my characters are only feeling the effects of the dragons claws and spells...

I'm only bothering with these mods because I missed them the first time round. The why of it all is coming back to me now.