Baldur's Gate The Baldur's Gate Series Thread

[Melcar]

Can't you pickpocket his cloak?

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[SwiftCrack]

Doesn't blackrazor destroy items?

 

[SwiftCrack]

Can't you pickpocket his cloak?

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You can

 

[Wayward Son]

Can't you pickpocket his cloak?

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Not as a Druid.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

someone who hasn't played the goddamn series to death.

Judging from your LP, you are now.

Sadly, I won't follow it, there are so many screenshots per page that it takes forever to load one and after reading for a few minutes, it eventually crashes. I think that's why some guys at sorcerer's place asked you to cut it in spoiler tagged subsections. Then again my rig is old enough to have recorded Jesus' crucifixion in 16 colours 320 X 240, so....

Godspeed anyway, trying to tackle Durlag's battle horrors on a wing and a prayer was either very brave or very foolish.

 

[ga♥]

Blackrazor could destroy items in the original BG2 but not in BG2EE (I found the EEs usualy easier anyway at the start, I have also the impression that Tarnesh has been nerfed but maybe I am wrong).
To avoid that when you see that the enemy CAN'T hit you anymore, because it has been level drained to level 1 and his THAC0 is now 20 or something, you just switch to something else for the final blow(s).
On mobs you usually kill them via damage faster than level drain, and they don't have unique items anyway.

You don't need to cheese to keep it, you just need to accept that getting it has a cost.

Silver sword vorpal produce better effects when you get it (SoA) than when you get the Axe of the unyelding.
Axe of the unyelding is really a meh weapon.
I agree on lilura1 on Crom fayer being overrated tbh. At least for ToB. There are better alternatives. Like Blackrazor.
Blackrazor ability basically sets your strenght to nearly 25 (depends on your starting point) for most of the fights, while also healing, regenerating, and giving you ApR and movement speed boost.
And this still happens when you find enemies immune to level drain, you still get all the above!

 

[SwiftCrack]

fair enough

 

[Wayward Son]

someone who hasn't played the goddamn series to death.

Judging from your LP, you are now.

Sadly, I won't follow it, there are so many screenshots per page that it takes forever to load one and after reading for a few minutes, it eventually crashes. I think that's why some guys at sorcerer's place asked you to cut it in spoiler tagged subsections. Then again my rig is old enough to have recorded Jesus' crucifixion in 16 colours 320 X 240, so....

Godspeed anyway, trying to tackle Durlag's battle horrors on a wing and a prayer was either very brave or very foolish.

I'm gonna start putting everything in spoiler tags, that would probably help the issue. But yeah, damn your rig is old.

 

[gunman]

According to this link https://pihwiki.bgforge.net/Baldur's_Gate:_Classes_and_Kits#Mage

There are other previously undocumented benefits to specialization besides an extra spell slot per level:

• +15% chance to successfully scribe scrolls from the chosen school of specialization.
• Character gains +2 saving throw bonus vs. hostile spells from their chosen school of specialization.
• Enemies make their saves against spells cast by the character from their chosen school of specialization at a -2 penalty, which stacks with any saving throw penalties the spell already has (e.g. Finger of Death, Slow, etc.).
• Cleric spells cast by multi- or dual-classed specialist mages also carry this saving throw penalty if the spell is from their chosen school of specialization.
• -15% chance to successfully scribe scrolls that are not from the chosen school of specialization.

These bonuses apply to ALL of the BG games, vanilla and Enhanced Editions alike.

I didn't know that bonuses existed in vanilla BG 1. Can anyone confirm?

 

[razvedchiki]

What are your thoughts on a dwarf wizard slayer as a substitute of a mage in a 6 man party?
I'm using a wizard slayer rebalance mod made by a beamdog dev and SCS/ascension/atweaks mods.

 

[buru5]

What are your thoughts on a dwarf wizard slayer as a substitute of a mage in a 6 man party?
I'm using a wizard slayer rebalance mod made by a beamdog dev and SCS/ascension/atweaks mods.

I don't think there is any substitute for Mage in Baldur's Gate 1 or 2, but that mod sounds interesting. What does it change specifically? Always wanted to roll a Wizard Slayer but they always seemed like total garbage.

 

[Lilura]

In the stock game they're not as garbage as Monks.

http://readme.spellholdstudios.net/readme_wsr.html

 

[hell bovine]

I didn't know that bonuses existed in vanilla BG 1. Can anyone confirm?

You could test it yourself, I think Shandalar has a save vs spells of 0 (I don't have BG1 installed atm to check, so not 100% sure), which would make him a great lab bunny.

What are your thoughts on a dwarf wizard slayer as a substitute of a mage in a 6 man party?
I'm using a wizard slayer rebalance mod made by a beamdog dev and SCS/ascension/atweaks mods.

Does this mod add the casting failure penalty to ranged attack as well? If so, I'd recommend a halfling dart thrower instead.

 

[Lilura]

Another write-up:

Best Classes - BG and BG2

VentilatorOfDoom Lhynn @butthurtCat @IE veterans @ppl in my iggy bin

 

[Lacrymas]

I experimented a bit with Cleric/Thief in BG1, managed to solo a lot of the early maps, including the sirines near the CON book cave and the flesh golems inside the cave. Stealth -> Backstab -> Sanctuary -> Stealth -> Backstab -> Sanctuary etc. is fun. The only weapon, outside of magically conjured ones, you can use for backstabs is quarterstaves, though, but when you get to 3x backstab multiplier you can see 60+ crits with them. It's a bit of a slow burner if you don't solo at first, however, so it's not for the freshest of fresh newbies.

 

[oldmanpaco]

I almost always run Berserker/Mages or Ranger/Clerics. Think I need to branch out some more.

 

[Wayward Son]

I almost always run Berserker/Mages or Ranger/Clerics. Think I need to branch out some more.

Try a Druid

 

[oldmanpaco]

I almost always run Berserker/Mages or Ranger/Clerics. Think I need to branch out some more.

Try a Druid

I said Ranger/Cleric didn't I?

 

[Lhynn]

All fighter types get godly saving throws in BG2, the +2 from paladins is largely irrelevant as they all should be saving consistently.
Another really good write up.

Cant wait for you to talk about nwn classes and character building, theres a lot more to say there.

 

[Lilura]

I posted a comparatively quaint write-up only a few days ago on the best NWN classes. I learned a bit about Rangers from one of the commenters, too. It's good to keep learning new things about old games.

 

[Lacrymas]

If you play a DEX-based Rogue in NWN you are pretty much forced to equip monk robes at one point due to the penalty, unless you find a leather armor which blows them out of the water regardless of the penalty. I've always kind of disliked that because I like seeing the leather armors on my char. Oh, well. My favorite Arcane Archer is paired with Rogue or Assassin, that's what I played in one of my playthroughs of Aielund Saga.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Best Classes - BG and BG2

I'd make some points here:
- Thief as a "best class" doesn't strike me as true. Single classed Thieves bring relatively little to the table. Your THAC0 is high enough that you can whiff a backstab, and then you lose your burst damage and need to pop an invis potion. Thief progression is very fast, but it doesn't really give you that much. Thief kits are fun, but they aren't that powerful. Anything a Thief does, you can replicate in easy ways - buff your Strength to 25 and just bash locks in. Traps can be dealt with using that one Cleric spell and just sending tanky fighters or summons to trigger them. Thieves are a convenience feature, IMHO, and their relative lack of combat utility bites until you get access to ToB traps and UAI; and even then, they're much better as multi/dual classes. Especially with cheese like Thief/Cleric 25 STR buff with Staff of Striking backstabs or Thief/Mage with Mislead/Black Blade of Disaster. In BG1, a Thief is still unnecessary to have, what with the ubiquitous Wand of Monster Summoning - good thing Imoen is capable of dualing to mage. You can't even disarm the traps in the final fight of the game.
- Bardsong is terrible and terribly documented; it shouldn't be in the "combat role" section until you get access to kits (Skald) or the ToB song. Really, though, Bard's role is more of all-encompassing combat utility; bards can hold on to your stockpile of wands, cast spells from scrolls, supplement mages with spells, fire ranged weapons, with some buffs can even go melee. EE players can use the Chesley Crusher on Bards, as they can't get more than 1 APR. Bards are also worth noting for freeing up the Pickpocket ability, because if you boost that up with Thieving Mastery potions you can earn a ton of money from stealing stuff and reselling it to blackmarket vendors.
- "Mage is just as good as the Sorcerer" - except the Mage is gated by scrolls he finds and Sorcerer is gated by levels. It's not uncommon for a solo or small party Sorcerer to gain access to high level spells before the scrolls of those are made available (Underdark).
- If we are praising the Bounty Hunter for his traps, we definitely could take a look at the Assassin (you can poison Darts for a 3 APR poison attack that goes through Stoneskin and pretty much nullifies mages; stronger backstab will make your late-game fighting less tedious) and the Swashbuckler (whose main claim to fame is being able to reach ridiculous amounts of AC). It's worth noting that these two other kits scale better into the HLA levels because the BH's traps are rendered sorta obsolete after that point.
- Wild Mage is not a god tier choice for Ironman games because the unpredictability will kill ya. Worthy addendum to this article, but you gotta be prepared for save/loading when you otherwise wouldn't want to, something that might strike as iffy ("this class is good because with save/load abuse it wins all battles")
- Druid on his own lacks many useful utilities and is virtually there for like 4 unique (sets of) spells - Iron Skins, the Insect line of spells, elemental (prince) summoning, and Nature's Beauty. None of this is that fantastic. Druids also lack anti-fear spells, making them a difficult choice for soloing.

 

[Lilura]

Most of those are pointless points stemming from not reading the write-up and the referrals to the retrospective, not reading its parameters, or simply repeating what I said, as in the example of Thief utility being devalued by BG2 campaign design. You suck.

 

[Krivol]

Most of those are pointless points stemming from not reading the write-up and the referrals to the retrospective, not reading its parameters, or simply repeating what I said, as in the example of Thief utility being devalued by BG2 campaign design. You suck.

Sup Cleve

 

[Lilura]

Well, even the points it did manage to make are so minor they don't even matter. Plus, putting words in my mouth. Ergo, blunt response and insult not unwarranted.