Baldur's Gate The Baldur's Gate Series Thread

[octavius]

Why this is ahead of Gothic on the Codex Top 70 list is beyond me.

Vanilla game is medicore, but it significantly improves with mods. Probably the game after Oblivion that I've played that most benefit from mods. Especially Sword Coast Stratagems and BG1 NPC Project.

BG1: EE is a pretty mediocre game, really only a graphic update compared to the Gold Box games, not an improvement in adventure gameplay. People view it with rose-tainted glasses due to BG2: EE, which is the only true lightning in a bottle. I've never rated it higher than an equally rough game like Darklands, for example.

He wasn't playing BG1: EE, he was playing BG 1.

Seriously, could someone give this guy a "Trent Oster" tag?

 

[Barnabas]

DIS MY FAVORIT GAMES

 

[Sigourn]

Vanilla game is medicore, but it significantly improves with mods. Probably the game after Oblivion that I've played that most benefit from mods. Especially Sword Coast Stratagems and BG1 NPC Project.

Mmm, I've read about the NPC Project but it isn't something that interests me. SCS apparently requires that I use one of those "BG+BG2" mods.

 

[Iznaliu]

Why this is ahead of Gothic on the Codex Top 70 list is beyond me.

I think the nostalgia still hadn't worn off back when that list was written.

 

[laclongquan]

I've found that Web + Free Movement (Spiderbane!) for your melee guys is the winning combo in most battles against other parties, especially if you use a mod like SCS where enemies counter your Fireballs by drinking healing potions.
It gives me great joy to see enemy mages buffed with Stoneskin, Melf's Meteors, Protection from X Weapons, and Mirror Image being stuck in the Web.

But I guess you are not quite there yet, young Lucas.

Do you scout ahead, and then buff when seeing an enemy party?
The Iron Throne party is a typical case where I send my scout ahead, see a party waiting and I know that there will be a battle even though they are not red yet, so I have no qualms about doing some serious buffing.

To be honest I just save ahead. Mostly because it's just more convenient to simply go walk around and get ambushed and reloading than having to hide Imoen a few times (for it to be successful), go ahead, find there's nothing, bring everyone there, and repeat until the one time I do get ambushed (so that the whole time I spent with Imoen hiding was worth it).

The amount of spells in D&D is staggering, it's cool that they are useful in different situations, but because of how Vancian magic works I find it that sometimes it's just easier to plow through with what you've got instead of carefully thinking out a strategy. The battle against the Iron Throne was, I think, one of two battles I had to think out so far.

The IWD2 method of dealing with it is to drop enemies on your ass instead of having them visible. Of course, it's pretty tricky if you use the stealth scout method since those enemies (tended to be scripted) drop on empty area due to the scout trigger them all. But better than the rest-all-the-time strategy.

So the counter to scout method is to raise enemy's awareness level. And counter to that counter is to build a specialized stealth scout, like a Deep Gnome ranger. Its highly stealthy ability is overkill in normal situation otherwise.

 

[octavius]

That's how BGSpawns for BGT works for random spawns as well. Doesn't make any difference. What's annoying is scripted dialogue initiated by characters that should not be able so see Stealthed, Non-Detectable scouts.

 

[Cael]

The IWD2 method of dealing with it is to drop enemies on your ass instead of having them visible. Of course, it's pretty tricky if you use the stealth scout method since those enemies (tended to be scripted) drop on empty area due to the scout trigger them all. But better than the rest-all-the-time strategy.

So the counter to scout method is to raise enemy's awareness level. And counter to that counter is to build a specialized stealth scout, like a Deep Gnome ranger. Its highly stealthy ability is overkill in normal situation otherwise.

IWD2's way of doing things is insane in the Outside the Horde Fortress map. Those bloody war drums has worg riders teleporting right into your squishy REMF and lancing them to hell before you can react. And they are unlimited. That was one horrible slog, and if you think it is all over after you killed the damned druid orc leader with his call lightnings, and you try to rest? Surprise buttsecks from ice trolls.

 

[DraQ]

Now at chapter 6 and with most of the city of Baldur's Gate improved, I've come to the conclusion this game is a solid 5.

- Awful pathfinding that impacts many, many things (makes exploration annoying, makes combat annoying, makes dialogue annoying, makes area transitions annoying, makes EVERYTHING annoying). This alone is my biggest complaint with the game.
- Very slow movement speed, which wouldn't be so problematic if pathfinding didn't fuck up movement so often.
- Inventory management is kind of shit since it lacks some quality of life improvements, like being able to switch items between two characters with filled inventories.
- No particularly interesting quests.
- No way to filter out the filler NPCs so you can get right to the meaty ones that serve a purpose.
- Breaking into homes is very unrewarding, and reminds me of the whole "let go of the checklist" thread because of how much time I spent in those homes yet how little I get in return.
- That fucking inability of my characters to move in formation.
- Map is absolute crap. In a city like Baldur's Gate, it becomes even more obvious how crap it is.
- Juvenile, laughable writing.

Mediocre game that has its fun moments (mostly in the wild; even then you will spend lots and lots of time walking around doing nothing). The combat is nice, though.

Why this is ahead of Gothic on the Codex Top 70 list is beyond me.

Because as much as there are few things more infuriating than dismissing evident superiority of something as just nostalgia, most Codices *are* in fact completely blinded by nostalgia and will happily gush over, for example, BG1 while also whining that, say, DOS2 is not nearly perfect enough for their refined tastes.

 

[Sigourn]

Jedi Master Radek mentioned in his Baldur's Gate assessment that the game was "Worth playing, however, if only for the excellent Durlag's Tower dungeon". And I can see what he meant: so far, this has been by far the most exciting part of Baldur's Gate. It's more about treading carefully than about killing dozens upon dozens of Kobolds, searching for traps and unlocking chests feels immensely satisfying, and I've come across a riddle I'm looking forward to solving (since it's late and I want to go to bed) tomorrow, though I'm thinking I'd best leave the dungeon and sell all the shit I picked up so far. It's a very natural looking dungeon, which reminds me of the Iron Throne's base at the Cloakwood (but without annoying mine sectors and claustrophobic corridors).

There are a handful of areas I didn't explore yet, like the Carnival near Nashkel and a couple others at the edge of the sea, but once I'm done with Durlag's Tower I'm heading to Baldur's Gate to hunt down Sarevok and finish this game.

 

[octavius]

You didn't free the big wench at the Carnival?

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Jedi Master Radek mentioned in his Baldur's Gate assessment that the game was "Worth playing, however, if only for the excellent Durlag's Tower dungeon". And I can see what he meant: so far, this has been by far the most exciting part of Baldur's Gate. It's more about treading carefully than about killing dozens upon dozens of Kobolds, searching for traps and unlocking chests feels immensely satisfying, and I've come across a riddle I'm looking forward to solving (since it's late and I want to go to bed) tomorrow, though I'm thinking I'd best leave the dungeon and sell all the shit I picked up so far. It's a very natural looking dungeon, which reminds me of the Iron Throne's base at the Cloakwood (but without annoying mine sectors and claustrophobic corridors).

There are a handful of areas I didn't explore yet, like the Carnival near Nashkel and a couple others at the edge of the sea, but once I'm done with Durlag's Tower I'm heading to Baldur's Gate to hunt down Sarevok and finish this game.

While I do agree that Durlag is one of the best, if not the best part of original BG, you still have the wrong person

 

[Sykar]

The IWD2 method of dealing with it is to drop enemies on your ass instead of having them visible. Of course, it's pretty tricky if you use the stealth scout method since those enemies (tended to be scripted) drop on empty area due to the scout trigger them all. But better than the rest-all-the-time strategy.

So the counter to scout method is to raise enemy's awareness level. And counter to that counter is to build a specialized stealth scout, like a Deep Gnome ranger. Its highly stealthy ability is overkill in normal situation otherwise.

IWD2's way of doing things is insane in the Outside the Horde Fortress map. Those bloody war drums has worg riders teleporting right into your squishy REMF and lancing them to hell before you can react. And they are unlimited. That was one horrible slog, and if you think it is all over after you killed the damned druid orc leader with his call lightnings, and you try to rest? Surprise buttsecks from ice trolls.

I was almost raging at that. I had expected they would charge me from off screen, but that idiotic mechanic completely ruined everything so I completely changed my tactics by using stealth to avoid the guard posts and shooting drums down with ranged attacks from spots where no enemy could see me. Cheesy, but so is the moronic teleport super strong melee unit into my squishies so I do not feel bad about it.

That and the fact that they are endless.

 

[DraQ]

While I do agree that Durlag is one of the best, if not the best part of original BG, you still have the wrong person

Durlag's Tower is NOT a part of the original BG to begin with.

It was added by ToSC expansion.

 

[laclongquan]

Note that by abusing the drums we can overlevel your human mage to the point looted scrolls can not keep up. (Not overlevel your party however, by abusing the ECL mechanic and keep most of the party at -1 and -2, that way you will aways feel your mage is stronger).

I have to play with Ice Temple battle maze a bit to get a few high level scrolls for my human mage.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

While I do agree that Durlag is one of the best, if not the best part of original BG, you still have the wrong person

Durlag's Tower is NOT a part of the original BG to begin with.

It was added by ToSC expansion.

I know, by original I mean BG I as opposed to BG II.
You speak as if there were people nowadays who only play vanilla BG I .

 

[Sigourn]

I've reached the final level of Durlag's Tower and after exploring some rooms I decided to take a break (and also unload all the phat lewt). I've explored the Carnival area, the Archeological Site area, and I'm about to finish exploring the Lighthouse area. Really, the big issue with BG now becomes much more obvious: very empty open areas with little content to them, yet absolutely filled with trash encounters (I'm tired of wolves, hobgoblins, kobolds, and basically every other trash mob Baldur's Gate loves to throw at you by the fucking dozen). And respawns.

The great thing about Durlag's Tower is that space is limited but useful, and not absurdly claustrophobic to prevent proper navigation (despite the ocassional pathfinding brain fart). The empy areas usually have a gist to them, like traps or surprise encounters. And there's a huge charm to the whole place, with the rooms beautifully crafted as opposed to another woods/grass/mountain/sand pattern. The entire place is great, and I believe Baldur's Gate would have benefited from following in the Fallout design of having random encounters (which ironically are already present in Baldur's Gate, and are the few times where combat isn't so annoying) outside of the main maps. You can easily tell the difference between a handful of petrified adventurers warning you that Basiliks are roaming the area, and Hobgoblins that spawn for no reason a few feet ahead of you.

If Baldur's Gate had followed the design principles behind Durlag's Tower for the entirety of the game, it would have been a much better RPG. As it is, going back to those areas after playing DT feels like serious decline.

 

[Cael]

Note that by abusing the drums we can overlevel your human mage to the point looted scrolls can not keep up. (Not overlevel your party however, by abusing the ECL mechanic and keep most of the party at -1 and -2, that way you will aways feel your mage is stronger).

I have to play with Ice Temple battle maze a bit to get a few high level scrolls for my human mage.

That is actually quite pointless. As you pointed out, you can't get scrolls higher than L3 in that whole chapter. In fact, you probably won't get new spells until Limha (other than Battlesquare shenannigans).

And then there is the XP limit barrier. If your average party level is too high level for a monster, you don't get XP from it (this is actually a mechanic they introduced in 3.0 which IWD2 is based on). So, you might overlevel your characters, but they will hit the limit and won't get any more XP until the monsters are high level enough again, so you are basically rushing to the limit and waiting for everyone else to catch up. You might as well have levelled up at the normal pace. Same destination with no real degradation of the power curve. If you really want to abuse the mechanic for some tangible benefit, then use ALL +LA characters. The higher the better, as the LA levels are phantom levels. You gain XP as per your normal non-LA level, with the only downside being the amount of XP required to level (which doesn't matter because you WILL hit the mentioned party level XP limit without LA, and any extra kills would all be wasted XP). I have hit that limit with a full party of 6 Drow (LA +2) around the Black Raven Monastery.

Abusing the drums is also pretty dangerous because not only do they teleport into your REMF, you can't rest on that map. 4 out of 5 attempts would result in surprise buttsecks from ice trolls, who tend to start out within arms reach of you.

 

[laclongquan]

That's why I mention ECL. And you only waste a bit of time until Temple of Ice battle challenges, is all~

Since most of the party is at -1 and lower, the enemies almost always at the range that can provide xp. It's Deep Gnome and Drow and Aasimar oh my~

It's wandering in the arcane part of game engine exploitation so dont mind me rambling here~

 

[Cael]

That's why I mention ECL. And you only waste a bit of time until Temple of Ice battle challenges, is all~

Since most of the party is at -1 and lower, the enemies almost always at the range that can provide xp. It's Deep Gnome and Drow and Aasimar oh my~

It's wandering in the arcane part of game engine exploitation so dont mind me rambling here~

Yeah. It gets really arcane, but I believe that the best results is an average LA that is a multiple of the total number of characters in the party.

It was just a stupid exploit they put into the game because (I suspect) the programmers had no clue as to how the 3.0 XP system worked. It is more a bug than anything else.

 

[laclongquan]

You have no soul, Cael. When people see "a beautiful hole to exploit" you just see "a bug".

 

[Cael]

You have no soul, Cael. When people see "a beautiful hole to exploit" you just see "a bug".

*STOMP!* *SQUISH!* *squeaky squeaky*

Sorry, you were saying something?

 

[Sigourn]

Though Lana's party had finally put an end to the evil plaguing the depths of Durlag's Tower, their victory came not without loss. Shar-Teel, my beautiful waifu, died after the demonknight threw a fireball her way.

Spoiler

I already plan to replace her with Safana.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Spoiler

I already plan to replace her with Safana.

T-there are S-SO many chars I would rather take.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Spoiler

I already plan to replace her with Safana.

T-there are S-SO many chars I would rather take.

Pretty funny and cheeky, but Safana is basically an Imoen who needs a tome to dualclass and gets a little useful utility skill that isn't too much, but can help in a pinch (though probably isn't that useful when you've already cleared out Durlag's). You trade raw power (Imoen has a better stat spread) for waifu potential (though Safana's vanilla portrait is atrocious) if you're so inclined. Ergo, one big shrug, really. At this point in the game I'd rather pick Alora in Baldur's Gate for both reasons (Happy happy joy joy!).

I wish more people picked Tiax. Tiax rules.

 

[Sigourn]

Spoiler

I already plan to replace her with Safana.

T-there are S-SO many chars I would rather take.

Pretty funny and cheeky, but Safana is basically an Imoen who needs a tome to dualclass and gets a little useful utility skill that isn't too much, but can help in a pinch (though probably isn't that useful when you've already cleared out Durlag's). You trade raw power (Imoen has a better stat spread) for waifu potential (though Safana's vanilla portrait is atrocious) if you're so inclined. Ergo, one big shrug, really. At this point in the game I'd rather pick Alora in Baldur's Gate for both reasons (Happy happy joy joy!).

I wish more people picked Tiax. Tiax rules.

I don't dislike Safana's vanilla portrait that much, and while her PaintBG portrait may not be great

I could always resort to...

Spoiler