Baldur's Gate

Someone got my brother Baldur's Gate 2 for one of his preteenish birthdays. That game pretty much was my childhood. And the odd thing is that I've never played the first one and didn't ever even get to Spellhold until relatively recently. There was always just so much stuff to do in Athkatla.

I need to get my own copy of the discs so I can relive the adventures of Bernard the perpetually grumpy ranger at my leisure. And also explore the potential of Hrothsnert the dwarven womanizer-thief (his life was cut so short, so soon!).

I was that way with Icewind Dale. Played it like 3 time, never got past the first couple of dungeons. I can handle the tedium of the gameplay in Baldurs Gate because there's such a fun collection of party members to make up for it; something that is noticeably absent in Icewind Dale.

XP granted for befriending a giant magical spider!

Firewine Ruins is hell. Kobold commandos that respawn still hunt my nightmares.

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent

Favourite series of all time, absolutely love it all.

I find that I have a set way of doing things though. I use Tutu so I can be a Sorceror for the whole series. Means I end up ridiculously powerful, using Planetars in the Underdark for example. What's that Mind Flayers? You think you stand a fucking chance against me? Wrong, as my Planetar/Mordenkainen's Sword x3/Elemental Prince combination proves.

My party is always Keldorn, Anomen (who becomes much more useful and much less annoying when he passes his test, and dual-wielding Crom Faeyr and the Flail of Ages makes him a beast), Jaheira, Minsc and Jan. Only thing I lack is a solid archer, since Minsc is far too good on the front lines for me to want to give him a powerful bow too often, but he or Jan tends to end up doing it (the Fire Crossbow from the Watcher's Keep shop is very very good for the latter.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

@Nicknacks: Avellone also was one of the writers of the rather unremarkable Neverwinter Nights 2 original campaign. Not everything he touches is automatically awesome. Although he did make up for it by writing Gann and Kaelyn in the first expansion.

edited 22nd Aug '11 6:29:25 AM by lrrose

@Velandin: you can buy iyt off Good Ol Games for 5 bucks.

What? no mention of the fireball/lightning traps? At least the commandos are a good source of fire arrows!

it's actually 10 bucks

edited 22nd Aug '11 7:07:36 AM by Blissey1

XP granted for befriending a giant magical spider!

This thread has reminded me that I need to play Throne of Bhaal at some point. I shall probably get around to it sometime between now and this time next year.

Are Planetars still capable of killing literally anything in a few shots in the expansion? The original became hilariously easy once I downloaded a mod that got rid of the summon cap for Celestials.

edited 22nd Aug '11 7:48:15 AM by Wagrid

I have a podcast! I think that you should listen to it.

You don't need a mod to get rid of summon caps. Cast Project Image. Gain use of a second copy of your PC who has all the same spells memorized. Discover game doesn't check the cap when your duplicate casts summoning spells. Break game instantly.

Basically, from that point on, the answer to almost every problem is simply to throw more Skeleton Warriors/Mordenkainen's Swords/Planetars at it.

For what it's worth, Planetars are no longer hideously overpowered compared to the enemies you're facing in Throne of Bhaal. They are still very, very powerful, however. It's not hard to see why they (attempted to) put a cap on the number you could summon at once.

edited 22nd Aug '11 3:27:28 PM by arimnaes

@Ilrose:He wrote the character stuff for NWN 2, and I thought that was damn good — probably the most engaging part of the game. Chris Avellone didn't fuck up in my book, far from it.

This post has been powered by avenging fury and a balanced diet.

To be fair, that sounds about a million times more arduous than dragging a file into the override folder.

I have a podcast! I think that you should listen to it.

I got the first game when I was about...ten, I think. I wasn't really good in English, but I had lots of fun (even more when I found out how to get out of Candlekeep ). I remember that when I got to Beregost and Friendly Arm Inn made my jaw drop because of the cinematics.

Though, I didn't get any further than that for a couple of years. Then I picked it back up and got through the Naskel Mines...only to stop again when I got to the Ankhegs.

Another couple of years passed until I bought Tales of the Sword Coast, at which time I actually started playing the game seriously. I got to Baldur's Gate, with some help from a Game FA Qs-guide. After that, it became almost a tradition to start a new save every summer break, because that was when I remembered about it, but I'd forgotten what I had and hadn't done. Repeat until last year. Never got further than Candlekeep revisited, though...

...perhaps I should try again next summer.

Join us in our quest to play all RPG video games! Moving on to disc 2 of Grandia!

I know that if I recruit a character who wants me to do something and I don't do it in time, they will leave. But what if I recruit them and then remove them from my party for a few days? Because I recruited Minsc before I was supposed to and left him in Nashkel until I was ready to rescue Dynaheir.

If he's gone I'm going to hate having to start over again, because I really want Minsc and Dynaheir in my party.

A fistful of me.

I always be the goody two shoes all the time and I have no regrets. BG 2 rocks.

I am either a Fighter (for Grandmaster) or Paladin (because Good is awesome!).

Usually romancing... Aerie. But I am annoyed that I have to take Imoen most of the time since Yoshimo betrays and dies.

But aside of that, my main tanks are mostly Minsc and Keldorn, and for mages, if Aerie won't do, Edwin does fine.

Minsc and Keldorn are great together. I gave them both two-handed swords (Carsomyr, fuck yeah!).

My party was Aerie (on healing duty), Minsc, Keldorn, Imoen (pretty useless), Haer'Dalis with me as a Sorcerer, providing AOE and summons. Haer'Dalis was outshone in terms of damage output by Minsc and Keldorn and I wish Imoen wasn't dual classed, since Aerie was already a dual class mage and I was a Sorcerer.

I have a podcast! I think that you should listen to it.

Jan Jansen: Best thief in the game. (since spoiler)

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent

my party was me(monk...I think. It's been a while), Aerie, Jan, Minsc, Mazzy, and Haer'Dalis. Mazzy makes a surprisingly good tank if you gear her out for it.

this thread has been making want to give it another run through...and all I know for sure is that I wanna use Keldorn and Seravok when I hit the expac.

hmm...was that spoiler necessary?

edited 26th Aug '11 8:22:07 AM by Blissey1

XP granted for befriending a giant magical spider!

I think anything that could be considered a spoiler is pretty much It Was His Sled at this point.

I have a podcast! I think that you should listen to it.

@RL Nice: You'll be fine. As long as he's not in your party, he'll wait forever. Also, even if he gets impatient while in your party and leaves to rescue her by himself, you should still be able to meet up with him at the gnoll stronghold. He doesn't rescue her offscreen and then leave the game.

edited 26th Aug '11 10:27:20 AM by arimnaes

Re: Spoilers: The OP explicitly asked for spoiler tags, as it's his first time with the game.

Anyway, I remember playing this... once, a while ago, for a few minutes before I got confused out of my mind with all the mechanics and just quit.

D&D y u so obtuse?

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

Yeah, that was me the first couple times I tried to play the game. I was fortunate enough to have a friend who played 2nd Edition Dn D and was able to explain some of the more arbitrary and counterintuitive elements of the system.

For instance, did you know that there's no functional difference between a Dexterity score of 7 and a Dexterity score of 14? Once you go lower than 7 you start taking penalties, higher than 14 and you start getting bonuses, but within that range? No difference whatsoever. Does this make very much sense? Nope! How does the game inform you of this? It doesn't!

This series is deservedly remembered for breaking a lot of boundaries and revitalizing the Western RPG genre, and some aspects of the games are impressive even by today's standards (the sheer depth and breadth of content in BG 2, for instance), but lord were they obtuse. A major release nowadays could never get away with the same level of Figure It Out Yourself, even in the age of Game FA Qs.

The majority of the obtuseness was due to being a mostly-faithful rendition of tabletop D&D rules, though. It's not really fair to criticize the games for flaws of the base ruleset, imho - if they'd CHANGED those things, they would've utterly alienated their core demographic, after all. When you sell a D&D game, you sell it by working with the assumption that people know how to play D&D. Getting people who're wholly unfamiliar with the rule set is a bonus. Otherwise, you might as well make up your own rule set from scratch and not have to deal with a preexisting rule set's legacy issues.

I'm more sympathetic to complaints that are based on things that aren't inherent to the D&D rule set, but rather, existed purely due to separate design decisions, such as pixel hunting for wands in random places, the way gold became utterly useless late game, or the generally slow pace of moving around areas that makes boots of speed so relieving to acquire.

edited 26th Aug '11 2:05:38 PM by Karkadinn

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.

I wasn't criticizing the game, I haven't played enough to fairly criticize it, I was criticizing D&D itself.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

In that case, carry on. :D

D&D 2E was a big bag of imperfection and flawed mechanics, yet somehow managed to be fun despite all that.

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.

Oh, yeah, it wasn't my intention to blame the designers of Baldurs Gate for the problems of 2nd Edition Dn D. That no additional explanation of the mechanics taken from Dn D was given in the game is more a sign of the times than anything else - it was definitely the rule rather than the exception at the time the game was made. Even now, games with complex systems rarely explain everything before character creation; they're just usually less punishing of mistakes the player inevitably makes in their ignorance of the system. Either the combat is balanced to be fairly forgiving on the normal difficulty, or the player is given a way to re-spec, or something along those lines. Baldurs Gate isn't having any of that nonsense, which makes it a lot more unforgiving for those who don't want to pore over all the details and micromanage their characters.