/vr/ - Retro Games

>of all time
You're in the wrong place. We only deal with games prior to 2000.

>What is the Krynn trilogy

Try again, kiddo.

Up there. Kind of like part 1 better though.

>>3535780
Shut the fuck up.

>>3535654
Pretty good but not my favorite. Definitely top 5.

too linear
neverwinter nights was the best thing WotC/Blizzard put out
i'd rather play the gold box games rather than this isometric crap

>>3535891
Neverwinter = generic D&D game.

>>3535785
>What is this Betrayal at Krondor you guys talking about?

I'm running through the saga yet again. Zero reloads in BG 1, 2 reloads so far in BG 2. Red Dragon is a huge faggot. But he wasn't laughing when he failed the saving through to my finger of death. Good thing too, or that would have been another load.

>>3535654
Is there any point of playing Baldur's Gate games if I didn't grow up playing AD&D and have very little experience with the system and Forgotte Realms? From everything I know about it seems like the first prioirty in the design above all else is to make the games feel authentically like a real campaign. And you're expected to know the lore and to know the systems in an out. And that's fucking beautiful in its own way, but I think I'll just be lost and frustrated. But I also hear it constantly called the greatest rpg series of all time and something you have to invest hundreds of hours into and play before you die.

Do I need to try to do some AD&D campaigns and try to read as many of the novels as possible so I can appreciate the game several years down the road? Is the game worth that much investment?

Or should I just consider this as something outside of my time? Just that I was too late for it and there's other CRPGs that are better for me to sink time into? Like I'm into table top rpgs, but I got into with stuff like Call of Cthulhu and World of Dakrness. Not D&D.

>>3535962
I played it when I was 11 in Poland a k a place where nobody plays RPGs and it actually got me INTO RPGs and Forgotten Realms, so backwards. You will do fine.

>>3535946
>zero reloads in BG1
Neat. What was your opening? Did you do the usual cheese with low-risk-high-XP-quests (Korax, Melicamp, Bassilus without his guard) or did you go more or less properly? How was tthe fight in the Duchal Palace?

>>3535962
BG's known for getting a lot of people into D&D. Just keep the manual around for when you need it, maybe look up a little clarification on THAC0, and you'll be fine.

>>3535993
Well, it is a matter of avoiding saving throws. So bassilus actually waits a bit. I usually do Friendly Arm Inn ring quest (don't go in yet), then the quests in Beregost, including the assassin, talking down Marl, necklace, message, half-ogres, and then go all the way down past naskhel for the boy's dog. Basically the idea is to get those early levels so my fighter can stand up in melee and I don't have to kite anymore. Then I generally do Korax's area after a few levels. I always make sure I have mage's protection from petrification if I can just in case. Korax can die quite easily if the basilisks decide they want to melee him instead of spam gaze. Also in the original Disk version of BG 1 the golem in the mage tower will randomly go hostile, which makes getting necessary scroll difficult. I'm not playing that version though.

Duchal Palace as in the doppleganger swarm? Hit them with wands of fear.

>>3535962

I played BG1 then BG2 with no prior knowledge of either D&D rules or the setting. It was great. The games explain themselves just fine. There are books you can find and read in-game, if you can be bothered to learn some game universe history. But it's pretty self-evident.

>>3535654

Yes.

It gets everything right. EVERYTHING.

>>3536231
EE SJWs need not apply.

Planescape for me, followed closely by Arcanum.

>>3536496
add bloodlines for the holy trinity of overrated games

>>3536509
There's that useless buzzword again.

>>3535962
Dude, i ended Baldur's Gate in two weeks when i was 14 and i didn't even know what the fuck AD&D was, i thought they were the guys who made the game or something like that.
Stop being such a pussy. Baldur's Gate was pure casual roleplaying in late 90's. It's a Bioware game for god's sake.

>>3535654
It was my first (I), but Fallout or Torment (Black Isle/Obisidian games in general) are just better.

>>3535891
>the best thing WotC/Blizzard put out
So the least stinky turd in the pile?

>>3535946
>But he wasn't laughing when he failed the saving through to my finger of death
Oh shit that's satisfying when that happens.

>>3536231
The engine and pathfinding could use a little tweaking.

>>3535654
Playing BG1 for first time right now. That shit is too difficult. Even a fucking dog can kill me.

>>3535946
>Zero reloads in BG 1
HOW

>>3538020
Probabilities. If there's a chance for something to result in dying, you don't do it. As far as wolves and dogs goes, this means you do not engage in melee combat until you have gained at least one level.

Also party members can die, just YOU cannot die. In which case you just haul your dude and all his gear to the temple and pay the cost in time and money. You just have to ensure that your MC doesn't die. Which means that playing a ranged character such as a mage or bowman (archer in BG 2 ports, ranged fighter in original) is easier. But you can still reasonably play a melee character as long as you are careful.

>>3538126
I'd add that some people play the game with no res, I feel that is an arbitrary restriction that is ignoring a normal and integral part of the game. However, if someone is chunked they cannot be ressed and I abide by that ruling. I've never been chunked since I got back into the game except when Khalid was chunked by the secret final boss of Tales of the Sword Coast.

Don't worry about no-load challenges. Worry about mastering the game. Then suddenly it actually becomes easy. Start by not engaging in melee until your fighter has a level or two and see how much less loading you do. Yes, this means kiting and ranged attacks, but it also means doing easy quests in Beregost for quick xp.

Oh, and I nearly forgot but I think this is worth making another comment for: for all new players: Use the Sleep spell! Enemies such as gnolls, which have good AC and can 1 hit KO a low level character suddenly become a hell of a lot easier. Same with Hobgoblins and their poison arrows. Magic Missile is a trap option for a new character. It is a scaling spell that only becomes good at high level.

>>3538137
>>3538126
>>3538020
>>3535654
>>3535946

>>3538126
>>3538137
>>3536096
what about cleric?

>>3538817
Cleric is a solid class. You have access to remove fear (which can be prebuffed, misleading name) which lets you take on mages early on as horror is the BG 1 enemy mage spam of choice. You can wear heavy armor and use a shield, so once you have a level or two, you can stand up to most enemies. And you can also use a sling to attack at range.

Just remember to distinguish between enemy mages and clerics. Enemy clerics are going to spam hold person on you. Only potions of freedom can make you immune to that, the spell that counters it is high level and you won't have access to it most the game. Mages will spam horror which is easily countered.

The hallmark of BG2's greatness is that I've been playing it for over eight years and am still learning new shit about it.

Did you know that you can lock party members in rooms and expel them from your party, but the game doesn't treat them as having left the party? So, for example, if you want to romance Jaheira but need to keep her out of the party for a while, you can lock her in a room in the Copper Coronet, go off adventuring for weeks, then come back and collect her, and as long as you say "of course I don't want you to leave, it was just a word misspoken" she will carry on as if she has never left the group. You can also lock Korgan up and use the same trick to avoid having to pay him 500gp every time you re-recruit him into your party.

And by the way, you can't save the game if you are in a location where you've locked a party member in a room without formally notifying them they've been expelled. But wait! If you lock party members up in the guest rooms in the Copper Coronet, you can then go down into the sewers under the Coronet... You still can't save the game in the sewer tunnels themselves but if you enter that weird chamber with the Myconids and Minotaur, you CAN save the game regardless of any playable character locked in rooms upstairs.

I tried to use this trick to prevent Aerie, Viconia and Jaheira from arguing with each other, in the hope I could romance all three in a single game. But it doesn't work. You can prevent them from arguing but after you reach a certain cut-off point with any one female character's romance discussions, the other two will automatically drop out of the race regardless of whether they were in the party when you passed that point.

>>3538898
Yeah, I use that to ditch Jaheira in BG 1 but still be able to have Khalid, who's a very good tank.

Jaheira's pluses in BG 2: being able to cast the awesome druid only spell Locust Swarm and having the longest, most involved NPC storyline, don't apply in 1, and she's just siphoning off xp there.

>>3538898
>lock and expel
works in BG1 too, good for evading the need of couples

>>3535654
That's actually a pretty good place to earn exp. at the beginning.

>>3538898

By the way, there is no way to prevent the Minotaur from dying; you can't save him, even using Time Stop. Even if you kill the Myconids before he reaches them, he'll still keel over and die. You can save all the servants in Nalia's Keep, though (although they will die automatically if you talk to them, so once you've killed the trolls, you can leave them be).

On the flip side, there are a few places in the game where you come across people being tortured on the rack. There is no way to save them, BUT you can mercy-kill them without inciting attack from either guards or the torturers themselves. This is a great way to deliberately reduce your reputation if you want to keep evil characters in a "good party".

Also: Charisma, which seems like a mostly useless stat often "dumped" by players interested only in min-maxing their fighting skills, has subtle effects on all sorts of roleplaying aspects of the game. A charismatic MC is able to hold a disparate party together better - party members will argue less and also complain less when expelled from the group. NPCs will be nicer and more respectful to high-CHA characters.

>>3538924
I never dump CHA. If I'm playing a combo that needs tons of stats, well, shit, I guess I"m a 7 int jock or bimbo.

How do I fuck up the dragon in the end of Watchter's Keep? He automatically aggros me so I can't cheese him with feeblemind et al.

>>3538938
Been a while, since I don't replay ToB religiously (its fun to stomp shit with demi-god level characters, but the story is awful nu-bioware). But I believe you simply wait for him to dispel you, put up imp. haste on your best beaters, then beat him in the face while your mages spam breach to take down his protections. Not a lot of finesse. Either you cut him down or he deals with you in melee quickly.

>>3538924

Some more shit I've discovered: the original release of BG2 has the concept of "earshot", i.e. if party members are too far away from an event or NPC, they will not be able to hear what is going on, and so won't respond to what is going on.

Example: the first time I met Firkraag in his natural state, my MC was wearing boots of speed, and ran into "dialogue range" of Firkraag before any of the other party members came into earshot. As a result, Firkraag spoke only to my MC and none of the other party members said anything. It wasn't until a later playthrough of the game that I realised Keldorn, Mazzy, Minsc etc will come out with various exclamations when you meet Firkraag for the first time.

BG2:EE dispenses with the concept of earshot. Even if you encounter the mad Priest of Cyric in the Docks District when Minsc is right down by the shoreline, for example, Minsc will still deliver a few lines of dialogue when he attacks. This is both a blessing and a curse; when you meet Madame Nin in the Copper Coronet, Jaheira will still forbid you from hiring a hooker, even if she's right on the other side of the map.

This difference is why I recommend BG2:EE to people despite the crappy additional content. You can ignore the crappy additional content, while getting the benefit of a less quirky game engine which enables you to more easily see more of the game's content.

>>3538948
>This difference is why I recommend BG2:EE to people despite the crappy additional content. You can ignore the crappy additional content, while getting the benefit of a less quirky game engine which enables you to more easily see more of the game's content.
It truly baffles me why people are so anti-EE considering what you pointed out. The only real downside is that you can't install more mods on it, but for most players, and 99% of newbies, that's not a problem.

>>3538956
One of the main reasons I picked it up was to do multiplayer with friends with the assumption that modern release meant easier connection. EE multiplayer is a disaster. The bugs are insane.

>>3538948

Case in point: in five years of playing BG2, I only ever once got Nalia's full, voice-acted speech upon meeting TorGal. I actually began to doubt my sanity and wonder whether I imagined it. No matter what I did - sending Nalia in alone, sending my MC in alone, sending them both in, etc, I was only getting the basic conversation between Charname and TorGl, with only a line from Nalia. Playing BG2:EE, it was easy, as long as Nalia is the first party member to enter Torgal's line of sight, the full voice-acted conversation will be initiated, no problem.

>>3538960
>play BG2 multiplayer
>can't connect at all due to internet stupidity
>play EE multiplayer
>can connect but it's fucking terrible and constantly DCs me

>Monk
>fast as fuck
>can beat the shit out of almost everything ALONE
>DAT magic resistance
Is the monk the most OP melee class?

>>3540756
In BG1 they're about as strong as a goblin.

>>3540761
just buy all the wands of fireball

>>3540769
Any character (well, almost) can use wand of fireball. Why bother with baldie?

>>3540770
because he gets gud in bg2

>>3540820
But you can just pick him up in 2 totally fresh and leveled up, or create a strong monk of your own.

Also jesus christ what's up with the captcha lately

>>3540825
bg1 gets you tomes though
and higher level

>>3540835
Alright. Still seems like an overkill, even from a powergaming perspective.

>>3538956
>It truly baffles me why people are so anti-EE considering what you pointed out
Yeah, who wouldn't want to trade the ability to mod your game for a massive litany of gamebreaking unfixable bugs, shit-tier NPCs and fanfic dialogue, horrendous voice acting and some of the worst cherrypicked stolen mod content available now part of the core.

But hey, every time my save file corrupts or a new hamfisted NPC spews some LGBT+ friendly dialogue to remind me I'm playing someone's social statement instead of a cherished childhood memory, I just smile to myself and remember that at least they gave all my NPCs super hearing.

>>3540842
>But hey, every time my save file corrupts
I've been playing the EE on a weekly if not daily basis ever since it came out and it has never ever happened to me.

>>3540847
Yet.

>>3540852
The 2007 result indicates the issue existed on the non-EE version as well. Anyway, it looks like there was an update to deal with it:
http://toucharcade.com/2015/06/10/baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition-gets-updated-to-fix-save-game-multiplayer-and-iphone-issues/
It's hardly a deal breaker.

>>3540852
>>3540867
This. They mostly fixed the save file issues.

I mean, then they introduced a dozen new bugs, and the game is still rife with them. But they DID manage to fix their save bug.

>>3540867
>they managed to fix the save file corruption bug they put into their game THREE YEARS after it was released
>the game is still jammed wall to wall with bugs
>but the save games are fixed, so BGEE is just fine!

Beamdog rep, get out of here.

>>3540887
>the game is still jammed wall to wall with bugs
Such as?

>>3540894
https://forums.beamdog.com/categories/troubleshooting

>>3540907
>BG 2 Android Version 2.3.67.4 - Failed to Log Into Google Play

OMG WALL TO WALL BUGS BROKEN GAME

>>3540923
>over 60 new bug threads in the last month alone
>"hey this cherrypicked one doesn't look too bad! i guess there are no bugs after all!"

Seriously, get out of here Beamdog.

>>3540948
Can you list a single game-breaking bug from that thread that is not obscure or extremely contingent?

As far as I see some threads there aren't even bugs or issues, just technical banter.

>>3540907
Looking through the several hundred bug reports from the last handful of months, the number of RESOLVED tags are depressingly sparse.

>>3540958
So what exactly are you looking for? I'm guessing you see the guy who's game crashes constantly when he tries to rest. Obviously that doesn't count. The people who can't get the game to even install on Macs, so that's probably under the purview of extremely contingent?


But fine, how about this one?

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/61560/adalon-gets-her-eggs-cant-take-me-to-the-surface

>>3540973
This is actually one of the few resolved ones.

>>3540973
Also you if you want to make a case against the EE you have to prove it has more bugs than the original version or that they are more serious. Every game has bugs, it's a question of proportions.

>>3540974
Where people fought through the bugs on their own using console commands and disabling content instead of waiting for a Beamdog fix.

>>3540980
Read the thread, the guy just dicked around with mods and screwed up the game.

>>3540978
No, I don't. BGEE is more expensive than the original editions are while limiting your ability to mod the game. Regardless of whether this new "Enhanced Edition" has more bugs than a twenty year old game that played on Windows 98 is immaterial, it shouldn't have the several hundred it does. Beamdog shouldn't be proud when they announce "we fixed over 500+ bugs guys!", they should be ashamed that they released a product for profit that had 500+ bugs. And the fact that they then went and strongarmed all the digital retailers to remove classic Baldur's Gate so you HAVE to buy Enhanced Edition is such a scumbag move that nothing they do can ever compensate for it.

>>3540990
>No, I don't. BGEE is more expensive than the original editions are while limiting your ability to mod the game
What does this have to do with bugs?

>Regardless of whether this new "Enhanced Edition" has more bugs than a twenty year old game that played on Windows 98 is immaterial, it shouldn't have the several hundred it does.
No game "should" have bugs, yet they all do, alas. Again, it's a question of proportions.

>Beamdog shouldn't be proud when they announce "we fixed over 500+ bugs guys!", they should be ashamed that they released a product for profit that had 500+ bugs.
The studio's PR is entirely besides the point.

> And the fact that they then went and strongarmed all the digital retailers to remove classic Baldur's Gate so you HAVE to buy Enhanced Edition is such a scumbag move that nothing they do can ever compensate for it.

> And the fact that...
See above. You can buy the original game on amazon. Even costs less than the EE, as you mentioned.

>>3540994
>What does this have to do with bugs?
It was in response to your "if you want to make a case against BGEE". Bugs aren't the only reason it's a shit game.

>No game "should" have bugs, yet they all do, alas. Again, it's a question of proportions.
And an "Enhanced Edition" ideally should have fewer than the original, not more and new ones.

>The studio's PR is entirely besides the point.
I'd say the same if I was shilling for the people who put out Dragonspear. "Jaheira is problematic, Minsc hates gamergaters, behold inexplicably transgendered NPC for the sake of it! Don't like it, too bad!"

>See above. You can buy the original game on amazon. Even costs less than the EE, as you mentioned.
I said digital retailers. Most people buy their games from GOG and Steam these days, and while Beamdog can't stop people from buying manufactured physical copies, they made damn sure they fucked over people buying digital ones.

>>3540761
They aren't playable in BG1 without mods

>>3540923
>listing Android bugs
>ever

Mobile is weird in that 150000 things you didn't know could happen will happen due to very specific devices wigging out. You could have a perfectly coded game with no bugs and still shit would explode on some phone.

The real issue is that Beamdog hasn't updated the Android versions in forever, but that means it's still pre-SOD.

What's the best Druid kit?

>>3541064
depends on your goal really
do you want to shred everything in sight in melee, pick werewolf
totemic summons are useful, but they gradually become better, to the point of immunity to normal weapons at lvl 10, so they're good meat shields
however as you progress the enemies can get too powerful, they plus there is a ton of normal mage summons

avenger other than mage spells gets to turn into the sword spider which is a beast, you buff yourself and then turn with 5 attacks per round +5, poison, and hasted

>>3541064
Avenger is a damn good class.

I forget, do 15th level druids in BG2 have the special spell progression of 6 slots in each level?

>>3541128
Isn't the werewolf pretty bad?
Anyway, the bonus spells and shape of the Avenger looks interesting.

>>3541167
It is. If you wan to shred things in melee, make a multiclass fighter-druid.

>>3541128
>do you want to shred everything in sight in melee, pick werewolf

No.
Werewolf only gets strong (overly strong, but still falls off in late ToB) with the EoU rebalancing which is controversial.
Otherwise it's a bad fighter plagued with ridiculous issues and whose damage is easily surpassed by a Rat-form cleric in a Blade Barrier. Or an actual Fighter. Or a Tenser Bard (particularly Blade). Wolfy's only real notable stat is his AC. But AC is negligible past mid-SoA.

Pick Avenger for the spells and the forms, they offer way more melee presence while having actual utility.

Totemic is amazing in early game and it wrecks BG1 in all setups. Not so amazing in BG2, but it hardly suffers from drawbacks.

Best Druid is a multiclass with Fighter. I.e. Jaheira. You can also make a good case for Berserker or Kensai/Druid. Once you get access to Staff of the Ram you are an Ironskinned monster with GWW. You have solid options earlier too, including a +1 APR weapon.

>>3541307
what about clerics?

>>3541340
Depends. If you are just playing BG1, regular cleric so you level super fast and get tons of spells. For BG 2, fighter-cleric hands down. Alternately Fighter 7/cleric dual.

>>3535654
There is no best because different people like different things
and BG2 has a bunch of flaws, especially once you leave Amn.

Can't stand it. Can't stand any CRPG where the only method of input is the mouse.

>>3541504
It has customizable hotkeys, you know.

>>3541504
There are multiple ways of using the keyboard.

>>3541504
top cuck

>>3541596
>>3541618
>>3541734
Pretty sure I wasn't able to move my character via the keyboard when I played. The game reminded me too much of a slower Diablo, and I hate Diablo.

>>3541504
Hello, me. It's nice to see me again.

>>3541504
Dumbass

I played BG in a Celeron toaster with windows 98, integrated graphic card and 128 mb of RAM, now EE doesn't even work in a dual core with 4 gb of RAM i'm using right now. That's reason enough for me to shit on Beamdog.

>>3541838
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOnKCcjP8Qs

What was her fucking problem?

>>3542553
Damaged goods.

>>3535654
I still haven't finished it. I couldn't say no to new quests, then everyone started nagging me to come through on my promises. Too much like real life desu.

>>3542557
compared to Aerie and Viconia she was a very stable woman

>>3542557
What

>>3542669
Tortured and had her husband tortured to death.

Also she was kind of a nag beforehand anyway.

>>3542557
Nice meme

Guy who was having trouble with Watcher's Keep dragon: did you beat him?

Just curious because I just got to him and he died first try to the tactic I suggested. Prebuffed with Prot. from Evil and Remove Fear (in previous room just in case). Sent in two front liners (Cavalier with Daystar/whatever that defender flail is called and Swashbucker/Fighter with Crom Faeyr/Belm). Had both activated Hardiness then force attacked. Rest of the part stayed back except mage who cast imp. haste on the fighter and then breach on the dragon. Dragon died in seconds from the 10 APR Crom Faeyr. Fight is relatively easier than Firkraag due to epic level abilities and better items.

>>3535962
just realize how damage works.

1d8= 1-8 damage
2d6= 2-12 damage
3d4= 3-12 damage
etc

lower your armor class the better.
example
2 is better than 8
0 is better than 2
-3 is better than 0

fuck around with spells, designated archers, thief skills, potions, and that's it. you can fuck around with everything else.

>>3543141
Read the manual. It helps.

>>3540761
BG1? Please explain.

>>3543253
You can play a monk in BG1 with Trilogy, Tutu or the EE version.

Monks aren't actually balanced around starting at level 1, so you're just a really bad fighter: fists start off doing less damage than a longsword, and when they get stronger you still won't have magic bonuses yet, your AC is much worse because your monk AC bonus doesn't get up to anything worthwhile until BG2 levels of experience, etc.

>>3543307
Never played one because I thematically hate monks; but can't they use swords? Scimitar uses the same proficiency as wakizashi, so you could exploit Drizzit and then have a solid not-fighter?

>>3543312
Yeah, but they can only put one point in it, so they're missing out on the extra half-attack and +1/2 hit/damage. Can't remember if you can use stunning blow with a weapon equipped as a monk or not.

Compare a monk in the BG1 level range to a barbarian (ie a class that is considered to be in almost all scenarios worse than a berserker-kitted fighter.)

They both start out at the same, moderately faster movement speed, with the monk edging ahead slightly at level 5.

The barbarian gets more proficiency points, can put them in a wider range of weapons and can specialize.

The barbarian uses a D12 hit die over the monk's D8, and also benefits from uncapped constitution bonuses, as well as being able to be a much stronger race in half-orc rather than the monk's restriction to humans. He's also immune to backstab.

The barbarian will have a better AC, initially by a lot (splint mail being AC4 even for its worst damage type, the monk starting at AC9 and climbing to 5 at the TotSC level cap, and this assumes the barbarian never finds splint mail +1 or whatever.)


The monk has some other trivial advantages - AC bonus against missile attacks which doesn't even equal him to the barbarian's AC until the BG1 level cap & slight bonus saves against spells. They get stealth but no backstab, which is somewhat useful for positioning before a fight or scouting if for some reason you have no thief, but it's not reliable at low levels anyway due to low skill.

They also have what is mostly a disadvantage at level 5 when they become immune to haste and slow, because almost no enemy spellcasters even have slow memorized whereas you'll always pick up haste on someone.

The monk's only meaningful advantage is stunning blow. I'm not sure if it's better than the barbarian's rage, but it's certainly not better than the swarm of other advantages the barbarian has.

>>3542553
YEEEEES OH OMNIPRESENT AUTHORITY FIGURE

>>3542553
She had the best backstory out of all the romance options.

AERIE: Gets captured from the Avariel by slavers as a child, sold to the circus. That's it. You meet her there.

VICONIA: Her's is a bit better. She's from Menzoberranzan because that's where Drizzt is from so naturally every other Drow is too. Her House got out politicked by another and wiped out, so Lloth turned her back on them. She picked up a new Goddess - Shar and fled to the surface. There was no good reason why she didn't pick Vhaeraun or Eilistraee at that point. Most stories she tells you about her time on the surface are lies to push you away.

JAHEIRA: She was a noblewoman from Tethyr which contributes to her haughty attitude. Political unrest occurred and her family was slaughtered, all except her as she was saved by a servant girl who fled with her. The servant took her to the woods and found a Druid circle under the Archdruid Seniyad that took them in and raised Jaheira. Seniyad's enclave preached peace with cities and balance between nature and industry, shaping Jaheira's view of the world and ultimately making her a perfect fit for the Harper organization. There she met the likes of Gorion, Elminster, Khelben Blackstaff and Khalid, who would eventually be her husband.

It's typical modern pseudo-RPG linear story garbage.

This is an RPG.

>>3535654

No. It's competing with too many other games, and a good portion of the game takes a useful (and potentially powerful) character away from you, and saddles you with uninteresting and less useful psuedo-replacements.

God help you if you dual classed Imoen in BG1 and expected to be able to have her in the party from the beginning in 2.

The expansion is bad. Every fight is Timestop spam.

>>3535962

Nah. As an anon who actually plays PnP games and has even played AD&D 2e and older versions of said game, the actual rules aren't as obtuse as you've been led to believe.

However, you can skip the entire BG series and not really miss out on anything. They're not as good as they've been advertised. It's just that there was a long period where cRPGs were not very good, which led to them being unpopular. BG revitalized the genre with what was (at the time) nice presentation, and a slicker UI with action oriented combat for people whose attention spans are so feeble they're incapable of playing turn-based games.

I really don't recommend reading the Forgotten Realms novels. They're almost all shit, and when they aren't shit, they're barely above mediocre.

>>3543798
>I really don't recommend reading the Forgotten Realms novels. They're almost all shit, and when they aren't shit, they're barely above mediocre.

Truer words, friend.

>>3543345
Yeah, definitely not good. I was thinking more in terms of "you can get through BG 1 decently if you're determined to play the same character through both games." I mean, it can't be worse than Kensai.

>BG revitalized the genre with what was (at the time) nice presentation, and a slicker UI with action oriented combat for people whose attention spans are so feeble they're incapable of playing turn-based games.

Nice bait.

>>3543820
Quote was from this fag.
>>3543798

>>3543798
>Every fight is Timestop spam
Well, the timestop is awesome!

>>3540958
I said get the fuck outta here, BEAMDOGSHIT.

>>3543345
First of all, monks in BG1 ain't fucking legit unless you're using some fan-made mod or playing some Beamdog shit.

You obviously know jack shit about monks

https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/258273-baldurs-gate-ii-shadows-of-amn/faqs/65330

>>3544252
You mean, using either of the BG1-in-BG2 mods that literally 99% of people playing through BG1 use?

Not sure what that guide is meant to tell me about monks supposedly not being shit at low levels.

>>3535654
>Is this the best CRPG of all time?
No, fallout 1, for all its faults, is pretty much the pinnacle of the genre.

Arcanum expanded on edgy motherfucker RP and dialogue trees, but severely let down by everything else
Torment is a nice story but is a snoozefest text dump at the end of the day
BG2 has a lot of crazy OP items and that's where the fun lies, other than that it's Yet Another Bioware Game, in forgotten fucking realms no less

>>3544945
Not him, but I play through the games vanilla. After so many years of modding, I find the comfiest and most fun playthroughs are just going through as the developers intended.

Also, the shitty fanfic tier dialogue, NPCs and quests that tend to infect every utility mod these days? Really soured me on it.

>>3545716
The stack limit on missiles is brutal. I vastly prefer not being limited to 20 per, which is 5 rounds a stack and the level cap.

On the other hand, accessing the inventory making the game unpause is absolutely intentional and not having that feature is missed. It forces you to come prepared.

Seems odd how easy the Grand Dukes went down in BG1. Entar Silvershield is a 20th level Fighter and was killed by Slythe and Krystin, both of whom are only 13th level.

Dukes Belt and Liia Jannath get jobbed pretty easily by the Greater Dopplegangers at the Duchal Palace without your intervention, and they're a level 19 Fighter and 16 Mage, respectively.

And finally, the Grand Duke Eltan, head of the Dukes, leader of the Flaming Fist and highest level of them all at a Fighter 22 gets downed by a doppleganger.

>>3540756
>gay as shit
>useless
>don't realize this until it's too late
>have to beat the game with 1 wasted character

>>3544967
Fallout 1 is the pinnacle of overrated games.

>>3545743
Are they really that high-leveled? Seems pretty extreme.

>>3545839
Maybe. Its not like it would help them since they don't use any spells or abilities and are equipped with mundane items. Greater dopplegangers haste themselves. They could easily kill a level 20 character who doesn't have level appropriate gear.

I just finished my max difficulty BG1 runthrough with the "canon" party of Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc and Dynaheir. I went with a NG Half-Elf Bard.

I feel like doing another playthrough either Neutral or Evil and using NPCs that get a little less screentime. Anyone have some suggestions for parties with a good amount of banter and/or balance?

>>3535785
Fuck yeah. I played that trilogy so many times growing up.

But i swear DQK was a massive ramp up in challenge over the previous two.

>>3545839
They're that high leveled in the source material, because Faerun is swarming with high level goodly NPCs. In the game, they're not as impressive, Belt is the only one who has a proper class as a level 11 fighter, with Eltan and Liia being flagged as innocents and Entar not really appearing (though he has a file as a level 5 innocent for some reason.)

Although the class thing doesn't matter so much since many (most?) NPCs have arbitrary THAC0 or HP, no proficiencies assigned even to humanoids that use weapons, etc.

>>3545906
there isn't any banter in BG1 unless you install the NPC project mod

Anyway, Xzar, Montaron, Tiax, Edwin, Kagain, Quayle, Safana, Viconia and Branwen are all fun and pretty powerful characters, and either evil or neutral

>>3545985
>there isn't any banter in BG1 unless you install the NPC project mod

Not exactly true, it's just a lot rarer.

This has the most banters of any combination:
1. Eldoth
2. Garrick
3. Skie
4. Shar-Teel*
5. Xan
*She will eventually fight Eldoth to the death.

Eldoth & Garrick = 2
Eldoth & Garrick & Skie = 8
Eldoth & Shar-Teel = 10
Eldoth & Skie = 5
Eldoth & Xan = 8
Garrick & Shar-Teel = 3
Garrick & Skie = 2
Shar-Teel & Skie = 4

Then this one:
1. Coran
2. Shar-Teel
3. Safana
4. Skie
5. Branwen

Coran & Safana = 10
Coran & Shar-Teel = 5
Coran & Skie = 3
Coran & Branwen = 3
Shar-Teel & Branwen = 4
Shar-Teel & Skie = 4

Then this one:
1. Jaheira
2. Faldorn
3. Khalid
4. Kivan
5. Tiax

Jaheira & Faldorn = 5
Jaheira & Khalid = 5
Kivan & Khalid = 2
Kivan & Faldorn = 2
Tiax & Kivan = 2
Tiax & Khalid = 1
Tiax & Jaheira = 2
Tiax & Faldorn = 1

>>3546007
Interestingly, Imoen has no party banter in BG1. She might as well be a player-created NPC.

>>3545906
tell me, does Dynaheir become bearable?

I never bothered to not murder her.

>>3545985
>Anyway, Xzar, Montaron, Tiax, Edwin, Kagain, Quayle, Safana, Viconia and Branwen are all fun and pretty powerful characters, and either evil or neutral

Disagree with most of those.

Xzar is limited to a max of 4hp/level and loses out on very important spells like Blindness, Mirror Image and Invisibility. He's just completely outclassed by Edwin and arguably even Xan who has the same HP but 3 more points of AC and 50% Fire Resistance.

Tiax and Quayle don't come until Baldur's Gate in Chapter 5 and by then have leveled past usefulness with abysmal HP rolls and terrible Thief skill picks.

Safana and Branwen are just below-average representatives of their classes. Safana has no HP bonus, no Str bonus and only a 17 Dex. Imoen and Skie are automatically better and even the multiclassers like Montaron and Coran are arguably better. Branwen's only got +1 HP/level for Con, -2 AC for Dex and no bonus to Str. With Gauntlets of Ogre Power, she's okay as a front liner but by that logic Viconia is too, only with a far better AC and magic resistance.

But you're right about Edwin and Kagain. They're both God-tier, and Montaron and Viconia are pretty great too.

I'd also recommend two that people tend to overlook: Faldorn and Shar-Teel. Faldorn can summon Dread Wolves every day as an innate ability. She's also the only Divine Caster in the game that will get 5th level spells. And Shar-Teel makes an excellent Fighter / Rogue. There's enough XP in the game for her to get to Fighter 7 for the extra half-attack, achieve High Mastery in a Thief weapon, then dual to Thief and regain all her Fighter levels before the end of the game, along with more than enough Thief skills to handle Durlag's Tower and anything else. Her 18 Str backstabs deal an enormous amount of damage, and if using the Dagger of Venom, multiple attacks a round stack the DoT ridiculously fast.

>>3546141
I didn't mind her. She's voiced by Jennifer Hale (Fall-from-Grace, Femshep, Bastila, etc.) and she does a good job as a Mage. Max HP bonus, an innate Slow Poison ability that's one of the few genuinely useful natural abilities that NPCs get, and Invoker is a solid specialty. With both Rings of Wizardry she never really stopped spamming Magic Missiles.

>>3545985
Alright, I'm going to go with Montaron and Xzar to get the Zhentarim plot, Edwin and Viconia since they'll be around in BG2, and Kagain because I'm otherwise weak on the frontline.

I figure I'll dual-class Xzar into a Cleric early on since he's not much use in a group that also has Edwin.

>>3535891
>blizzard
what?

>>3545836
There's that buzzword again. Have you considered trying out this fresh and exciting board >>>/v/?

>>3543143
hell no. manual is long af

>>3546282
black isle whatever, been a long time since i rock and rolled
my point stands that isometric linear rpgs are shit and not worth playing through. comparable too top down early jrpgs.

>>3546438
fallout was indeed trash
only isometric rpg worth a shit was arcanum because of its super cool theme
although fallouts play system was better than AD&D the game itself and it's shotty scripting and bland graphics design ruined the cool post-apocolypse theme

>>3546010
The devs did state that she was one of the last ones created to fill some sort of party member niche

>>3546438
Barebones game with the "choice and consequences" people suck off so much boiling down to a few different ending slides and terrible turn-based combat.

>>3546468
But Black Isle had little to do with Baldur's Gate or NWN, actually his games were pretty much non linear, except for IWD or Dark Alliance.

>>3546505

Choice and consequences are the only things that make RPGs what they are.

Without it, they're just tactical simulators aping the worst parts of PnP RPGs: the combat. Which is pretty much what 99% of JRPGs are, and what about 90% of WRPGs are.

They shouldn't even be called RPGs.

>>3546472
Very poor argumentation. See me.

>>3546505
Better. Grounded in hyperbole but touches on the precieved faults. C+

>>3535654
Why does everyone hate icewind dale?

>>3535654
Baldur's Gate 1 was better, I feel - more of a classic adventuring/dungeoncrawling/overworld with an emphasis on exploration.

BG2 chunks the world into narrative segments and removed most of the freeform exploration. I'm not a fan of the "romance options" trend it started either for western RPGs.

>>3542553
>>3543616
Complete character assassination more like. Jaheira's introduced in BG1 as something like your aunt - she knew your foster dad and promised to be your guardian if he ever passed; not to mention already happily married. She's a nag because she's supposed to be something like a surrogate mom.

And then they went and made her a romance option in BG2.

>>3545906
There's plenty of "high power" or hard to miss evil options that get talked about a lot, like Edwin, Xzar/Montaron (more Montaron than Xzar), Kagain, Viconia (and sometimes Tiax due to his gimmicky Ghast summon).

On the flip side there's a lot of B-listers in BG1 that you rarely see anybody use, mostly because they have weird joining prerequisites, join late, or have kind of middling stats - Shar-Teel, Safana, Eldoth/Skie, Faldorn, Garrick, Alora, Coran - it all depends on whether you want just evil characters or uncommon ones.

>>3546612
Choice and consequences are an illusion that have no meaningful impact in the game unlike tabletop. You have to be a braindead retard to play RPGs for them.

>>3546847

Hence why they shouldn't be called RPGs anon. They're not. They're just tactics games with a veneer of plot.

Or waifu simulators, like BG2.

>>3546612
>They shouldn't even be called RPGs.

That's like saying RPG's shouldn't be called RPG's.

>Which is pretty much what 99% of JRPGs are, and what about 90% of WRPGs are.

Well at least you are "coherent" with your thinking. I don't think there wasn't too much choice and consequences in Wizardry, Might & Magic or even Ultima. You could almost say that the genre started with Wasteland or something like that.

>>3546681
Because it sucks. I ended it two times, but damn, still sucks.

>>3546847
That's true except for 6 or 7 games.

>>3546847
This so very much.

Ye olde RPGs: we have choice and consequence for added illusion of depth and game world being more realistic
NuRPGs: we have 2 branching paths as means to make you play the game twice

>>3546145
xzar is absolute fun for me though, he's probably my favorite from BG1, he misses some of the spells, as you mentioned, but from playing the game for the second time forward, i chose to prioritize fun above stats and details, and both having him and Edwin provide a barrage of destruction and maybe even a little variety because he can focus on other spells than these

as you mentioned Montaron, i used him either for tanking besides Kagain, putting fullplate on him before certain fights, or backstabbing enemies to all fuck by the fighter boost

but i understand your points totally, you are right

>>3546864

cRPGs, JRPGs, and WRPGs are RPGs in name only.

>http://insomnia.ac/commentary/on_role-playing_games/

You can read it or not. You ranting at me won't change my mind.

>except for 6 or 7 games

Name them.

>>3546885
>Name them.

I can think basically in Black Isle/Troika/Obsidian/InXile games (not all but some), particularly Fallout 2, New Vegas and Alpha Protocol. Also Zill O'll seems to be impressive in that aspect too, and there's probably others obscure/semi-obscure games that could fit.

>>3546885
Don't you ever get tired of shilling your blog?

>>3547126

Absolutely none of them have any choices that aren't illusions.

And I say that liking most of the ones you're likely referencing.

Specifically, New Vegas just has "pick a flavor of ending based on which quests you pursued". Fallout 2 has an extra couple of slides.

Alpha Protocol is probably the closest, in that there are choices that do seem to matter when you're playing, but they don't affect the ending that much.

Not really an impressive list.

>>3546487
That makes a lot of sense. Not just because she's the only NPC with zero banter, but because there are 8 evil NPCs, 8 neutral NPCs and *nine* good NPCs. She threw the whole balance off.

>>3546883
Oh, if we're discussing fun and not what's most powerful then I completely agree with you. Xzar is a top-tier fun character standing shoulder to shoulder with Tiax for some of the best dialogue. Nearly twenty years later and I still forget about some of his split personalities until he voices them.

>>3547416
As I recall, Imoen was added as a recruitable NPC to give a good-aligned thief option early on, since Coran isn't available until Cloakwood, and Alora until Baldur's Gate itself. Although given a pure evil party only has access to multiclass thieves, it seems an odd choice.

They should have just made every NPC recruitable by Cloakwood at the absolute latest though, because you almost never see someone swap in one of the Baldur's Gate characters in to their party.

She was also meant to die in BG2 at Spellhold, which is why she doesn't really have banter or interjections from the Sahuagin city until the start of the expansion.

>>3547439
>She was also meant to die in BG2 at Spellhold
care to elaborate?

I want to play a blackguard but since the EE apparently sucks is there a blackguard mod for the original game?

>>3547760
http://www.shsforums.net/topic/56282-blackguard-fighter-kit-for-bg2-by-x0abar/

what are your favorite groups for bg1 and bg2?

>>3546859
>Or waifu simulators, like BG2.
BG2 has shit-tier waifus, and deliberately ruined the best BG1 waifu (Imoen).

>>3547454
I couldn't find an original developer quote with a quick google, which isn't surprising since it'd be probably 13 years old by now, but supposedly people on BioWare's forums complained that they really liked Imoen and wanted her to play a larger role in BG2, and so she's recruitable in Spellhold now.

I remember someone suggesting it was changed because BioWare did a poll for favourite BG1 NPC, which Imoen won, obviously that poll would have been lost in one of several website revamps they've had since then, though.

She lacks interjections and dialogue without mods because it was relatively last minute and they didn't want (or have time?) to go back to write dialogue for her or script interjections.

>>3544945
99% my ass. A lot of people actually prefer playing BG1 the way it was made.

>>3547454
I don't have a source for this, but Imoen was supposed to die in Spellhold before you could save her, but the playtesters' reaction was overwhelmingly negative, so they changed it.

Most of the dialogue was done by the time it was changed, which is why Imoen doesn't interact with just about anybody in Throne of Bhaal.

>>3536040
>mfw I have the collector's edition complete with everything
>got Baldur's Gate 1, 2, the Collector's Edition, and two strategy guides for the games for 10 dollars at a flea market, and they're all in nearly perfect condition

Feels good man. I need to actually play them now, though.

How well does Baldur's Gate 2 run on Windows 10?

>>3548495
Damn I need to go around hunting old PC game copies. Where do you usually go to grab stuff like this? I want a boxed Might and Magic set and a nice CRT monitor.

>>3548495
That looks like the regular edition with the bonus disc.
Pic related was the special edition i always wanted.

>>3548501
I found a lot of my PC games in my collection (its rather large but mostly unplayed because I have to be in the mood for a lot of them, especially stuff like Jane's flight sims) at flea markets.

Its relatively rare you'll find PC games at garage sales, and also decently rare you'll find PC games at resale/antique stores. You can find them, but they're usually heavily picked over.

Also check out places like Salvation Army. You can find newer titles (we picked up a Witcher 2 Collector's Edition for like 6 bucks, not that we really needed it because we already have digital copies).

So look up some local flea markets, make sure they're resale markets and not just local crafts/goods (those are fun too, but you aren't going to find video games there). Then make sure to dig through EVERYTHING. I found these Buldur's Gate games stacked up on an end table behind some random shit.

>>3548505
The one I posted is the Shadows of Amn collector's edition. It has the massive spiral notebook.

This is a better picture of that set.

>>3548518
I live near Portland so I'm sure I can get find some decent games at one of the dozens of flea markets around here.

>>3548523
Yup, its a whole lot of fun to do. I haven't really been seriously game hunting in a long time. My brother, his friend, and I would go out and we were usually looking for different games, so we wouldn't step on each others toes. We would look out for one another though and you never know the kind of shit you can find when you flip up that table cloth or open a box stuffed in the corner.

>>3548490
Well, the dialogue they left for her has top-tier bantz.

>Imoen: What... what was it like to die, Sarevok? Seeing as you've been through the experience repeatedly, I can't help but wonder if you've developed some... perspective on it?
>Sarevok: Do you intend for me to believe that a weakling such as yourself has never needed to be revived by a priest? Bah! I imagine this group has gained a discount at the Temple of Helm for you, dear sister.


>Imoen: You look a little down, Edwin. You're not upset are you?
>Edwin: My mood is no concern of yours, child.
>Imoen: You've become less blustery, I think. Maybe... maybe you're mad everyone else is finding destines and prophecies and generally surpassing you in every way?
>Edwin: You go too far, girl! I hold none of you above me!
>Imoen: I mean, even me, little frail Imoen, is a big scary child of Bhaal now! That's got to be frustrating.
>Edwin: Now that is just nonsense! All of it!
>Imoen: Hey Edwin! BOO!
>Edwin: Wha...!? What... is it... NOW!?
>Imoen: He flinched! The big bad mage flinched! HAHA! Oooh, look, I'm Bhaal! I'm big and scary, ooohh!
>Edwin: Now that was just... you are just being...
>Imoen: Ooooh. Don't worry, the big bad Imoen won't scare you no more.

>>3548523
>>3548518
How you americans don't suffer speculation?
In my country it's impossible to find anything since like 10 years ago.

>>3548589
This is the best Imoen interaction though. That whole discussion really got away from her:

>Imoen: So... Sarevok. You've had an itty-bitty piece of my soul in there for quite a while now. What's it been like?
>Sarevok: *Sigh* Well, other than a slight obsession with my weight and the resurgence of a few pimples, it's been simply grand. Now leave me be, girl.
>Imoen: No, I'm serious. Does the fact that you've got a piece of me inside you make any difference at all? Tell me... you owe me that much.
>Sarevok: What do you wish to know, girl? What are you curious about? Perhaps you would be interested to know that I can feel the knives of Irenicus, slicing into my skin, torturing me. I can feel his hands and his breath. I *KNOW* what he did to you, girl...
>Imoen: All... all right, stop... I wasn't really serious...
>Sarevok: How about the agony you felt as your soul was ripped from you? The despair at being left only with the cold voices of your tainted heart, discovering what was inside you all along? How about the hurt you keep deep down within, wondering if you weren't good enough for Gorion? Wondering why you're a Bhaalspawn? How about the loneliness... The unrequited longing you...
>Imoen: STOP! Enough... I won't bother you, Sarevok. Just...
>Sarevok: I feel many things, Imoen. And I know that you are stronger than you think you are.
>Imoen: I... thanks Sarevok, I guess. Um... excuse me...

What crappy extra content do the EE versions have? And what's all this about SJW stuff? I never played the original versions.

>>3548594
What country?

>>3548650
Spain. Here you can find an old dirty Sonic cartridge for 30 euros because it's "retro".

>>3548637
The writer for the BG1 expansion is pretty homophobic, and claims to be an LGBT lover because she "includes" them in things.

She includes them the same way you include the retard kid at your birthday party and make him sit facing the wall the whole time.

>>3548603
Sarevok is awesome like that.

>>3548594
There is no market for used PC games.

In any event, I've had both since they came out. The CD cases fell apart from use, especially the awful BG 1 paper one. The BG 2 strat guide is also a mess, not that I actually need it.

>>3548637

>>3549443
>It's not reflective of the real world.

Just like 1-2% of all people are gay.

>>3549762
You wouldn't think that just from watching TV though

If I was a alien tuning in to HBO I'd think humanity are 50% great big poofs

>>3535654
>WRPG.

Alright, who's best girl and why is it Aerie? Also, how many of your deaths were caused by mind flayers? Poor Valygar got his brain eaten 5 times today.

>>3550870
>Also, how many of your deaths were caused by mind flayers?

None after i learnt about Mordenkainen's swords.

>>3550872
Will have to try next run then.

>>3549813
>JRPG
>it's just a blobber with worse combat and terrible story

>>3550883
Not that guy, but the swords can tank most fights on their own, since they're, I think, immune to all status effects and ability drain, as well as all damage types except pure magic - magic missile, skull trap, horrid wilting, etc. If enemies actually use those kind of spells, they don't last long because they don't have much HP, but otherwise they'll almost always just last until they despawn from duration.

They can also be used to block things because of their invulnerability. Since they're summoned, they get instantly wiped out by death spell but obviously it's not something you have to worry about on most fights.

>>3548637
It's all bugfixes sans expansion except for three additional NPCs and a secret bear party member.

It's worth it for the bear.

>>3549443
>implying that had any bearing on the actual game
She was just covering her ass and failing hard. Beamdog never actually gave a fuck about the character everyone was sperging about, they just added it in because they just needed a generic shopkeeper but wanted to make them unique. That's it.

>>3550996
This. tl;dr Beamdog sucks at writing new content. That's fine if you play EE, because the relevant NPC interaction isn't needed except for one that pulls you into a fight.

Kinda wish they kept them optional even though they rolled them into one update though. They're still in-app purchases in mobile anyway.

>>3535654
No.
Betrayal at Krondor is better.

>>3550996
>>3551008
>"This"ing yourself

EE shills, everyone.

Let's be honest. It wasn't just the LGBTQ+ shopkeeper who was a vocal transexual purely for the sake of being a vocal transexual. (But my, the extreme negative reaction from trans players about the NPC was an amusing surprise, wasn't it!)

I'd say even more people were offended that they used Minsc as a political mouthpiece to ridicule Gamer Gate, wouldn't you? I mean, they left the tranny in, but the Gamer Gate issue became so huge that they had to patch that out.

But that wasn't all, was it? There's a Goblin in the game who gives you a nice soapboxy SJW condemnation for your racism. Or the little girl NPC that chides you for mansplaining and lets you know her single mother is a strong independent woman who don't need no man looking out for her.

And those new NPCs you tactically glossed over. Half of them are bisexual and gay, aren't they? Marking the first LGBT+ forced romances in the game?

But hey, a lot of people could forgive and overlook all that too. I mean, even for me only the Minsc thing came close to being a dealbreaker and they removed that. But all of that isn't everything, is it?

>“If there was something for the original Baldur’s Gate that just doesn’t mesh for modern day gamers like the sexism, [we tried to address that],” said writer Amber Scott. “In the original there’s a lot of jokes at women’s expense. Or if not a lot, there’s a couple, like Safana was just a sex object in BG 1, and Jaheira was the nagging wife and that was played for comedy. We were able to say, ‘No, that’s not really the kind of story we want to make.’ In Siege of Dragonspear, Safana gets her own little storyline, she got a way better personality upgrade. If people don’t like that, then too bad.”

And that, for me, was it. The stunning fucking audacity that they took the original characters and started rewriting personalities to be less "problematic."

>>3551050
No one even mentioned SoD until now, just the EE until that pic. But enough backpedaling from me.

>Misc
That was fixed.

>Everything else
Tbh the writing was so terrible and spaced out through the entire thing, then played it like IWD. SoD is made like that so it's fun that way. Ending's utter shit though.

>>3551107
*I spaced

Also lol shills.

>>3551113
>>3551107
>>3551050
>>3551008
>>3550996
>look ma, I can derail threads!

>>3551121
>openly SJW developer buys license of game in discussion
>developer pulls all copies of original game from every digital distributor online
>forces everyone to buy their "enhanced" version
>fills the core game being discussed with SJW garbage
>makes an expansion also filled with said garbage
>remember again, you cannot buy the core game digitally anymore, they have it locked down
>"irrelevant to the conversation! derail!"

You not liking the thread of the conversation and it being derailing are two separate things. I don't really care about waifu spam and romance mods, but I don't bitch when people feel like talking about them.

>>3551126
Yep, just keep going, Le b8 man has all day.

Come on /vr/, I'd say you're better than this but I know you. Stop taking that obvious shit.

>>3551173
I think his posts are relevant.
Just bring back other topics, if you can.

Thick barbarians, best barbarians!

>>3551173
Honestly, your bitching is the first offtopic post. If you don't like where the discussion is going, change it yourself, don't be a /v/fag who shits the thread up with whiny little complaints.

>>3551126
and nothing of value was lost

or gained

it's pretty much zero-sum with a kusoge like this

>>3551720
Nothing of value was lost??
Kill yourself. You are the scum ov the earth.
Or, much easily, you have no clue.
So kill yourself either way.

>>3551687
Adeleine 20 CON -
KEK

I was looking to pick up Tales of the Sword Coast, because it was the only BG title I didn't own. A packaged DVD set of both BG games plus their expansions is 10 bucks total on amazon right now. Why would you even consider the EE at this point?

>>3551720
>Baldur's Gate, Tales of the Sword Coast, Shadows of Amn, Throne of Bhaal
>"nothing of value" "kusoge"

If you hate them so much, why are you posting here?

>>3551848
Because when they released EE it was to remarkably dismal sales. So, they went to all the digital distributors and had every copy of the originals pulled and replaced with EE. However, the originals are now "bundled" with the EE. After that, copies of EE inexplicably began selling, validating their shitty remake.

Now a days the only way to get around them are physical copies from Amazon and the like. And it's just so much more convenient for most people to have their PC games on services like GOG or Steam.

Scumbag move of the decade for Beamdog.

What the fuck is the difference between bgtutu and trilogy?

>>3551876
TuTu puts BG1 in a separate EXE with an included bugfix for BG1. Trilogy does that and puts everything into one combined package, and after you win BG1 you port your characters over to the next game. When you start up the game, you have a selection between BG1, BG2, and BG2's expansion. There's even a setup that includes IWD somewhere.

TuTu probably has the least bugs if I were to compare them though. Both are stable however.

>>3551687
baldbarian
I might be the only one but i find melee class much more satisfyingsfyingying than pure casters, there's nothing more fun than playing a dw barb chunking enemies left and right, too bad their rage is a little worse than the berserker one

>>3552409
>satisfyingsfyingying
Well fuck

>>3552413
For some reason i read that like it was perfectly written. The fuck is wrong in our brains.

>>3552409
I like the aesthetic of Barbarians too. Especially playing them as Conan-types. Two-Handed Sword wielding Chaotic Neutral follower of Tempus. The fact that you become the Lord Regent of the de'Arnise Keep also fits perfectly.

>>3551687
18 STR but no exceptional strength on a barbarian, am I missing something here? Is that what happens if you start with 17 but use a tome on yourself?

>>3552425
>Two-Handed Sword
Pls no

>>3551867
Does Hasbro make more money off of EE? IIRC it was them who negotiated that one.

>>3552508
Not every single character needs to be a dual-wielder, anon. And Two-Handed Swords are consistently great throughout the game.

Sword of Chaos, Lilarcor, Harbringer, Flame of the North, Silver Sword, Soul Reaver, Warblade, Gram the Sword of Grief, Psion's Blade, etc. You've got a great two-hander in every chapter of the game, from Irenicus' Dungeon through the end of Throne of Bhaal.

>>3552585
>Not every single character needs to be a dual-wielder, anon
That's funny when everyone and their mom use 2h swords

Since this is a D&D game, it's mostly based on dungeon crawling and developing characters? Not too much lore and drama? I think I've been spoiled with modern RPGs

Do I make my own custom party, or do I have to go around recruiting premade characters? I want to have a wandering warrior guy teamed with another guy with a spear, a girl with a bow, and woman with a sword.

>>3552616
Your choice, doesn't really matter in the first game but in the second npcs have a lot of banter and quests tied to them

>>3552597
What world do you live in? Outside Paladin builds, almost every single melee build for the protagonist that ever gets posted is dual-wield. And besides Keldorn, all the other SoA meleers end up dual-wielding too.

>>3552627
I'm talking about npcs
Minsc, keldorn, sarevok and Dorn all have pip in 2 handed sword

>>3552636
Minsc also comes with two pips in dual wielding. So does Valygar and Haer'Dalis. And of the remaining melee NPCs, Mazzy specializes in weapons that can dual-wield but not two-hand, same with Anomen, Jaheira, Korgan and Yoshimo.

are the bugs on the EE versions really that bad? I want to buy the games but I only see this version.

>>3552643
The original games are hidden bundled with the EE. Thanks Beamdog! Just buy the EE, download the originals then get a refund from the EE.

>>3552643
I didn't run into any in the latest.

>>3552643
Single player? No, bugfixes have smoothed it out.

Multi? Still a disaster.

>>3552604
Baldur's Gate is quite open. You can explore all you like. The city is closed off til you complete part of the main quest, but otherwise you can explore the wilderness and discover dungeons. No hand holding. If you run into stuff over your level, you either handle it for great reward or get massacred.

>>3552643
The only reason to buy them is for multiplayer, which is still buggy. None of your money will be going to the original team and Beamdog doesn't deserve it, and the changes they make in singleplayer for ease of use can all by done through a couple of easy to install mods.

Does bg2EE also have SJW shit in it? Pls say no

>>3553349
Nothing that isn't optional.

>>3553365
Thank goodness no changing pre existing dialogue?

>>3553369
No. You can pretend all the content doesn't exist except for a scripted introduction scene that you don't have to follow up on.

>>3552464
Started with 17 STR. I am also using a mod which lets me distribute an extra attribute for five times in a whole BGT playthrough.

>>3552409
Amen.

>>3551758
what is your problem senpai

>>3553349
See >>3549443

Are there any other decent ADnD based computer games? I try to enjoy BG and Icewind Dale, but the Forgotten Realms setting is so shitty. It's a neckbeard fantasy cliche extravaganza.

>>3553958
That was about SoD. BG2 only has a few new NPCs and that's it.

>>3554214
BG was already kinda gay and homoerotic and inspired the hidden queer in RPG fans. SJW is the logical next step.

>>3554209
There are plenty of others. Your definition of "decent" might vary wildly from mine though, especially since you're under the mistaken impression that the Forgotten Realms setting is shitty. It's literally the largest, most fleshed out and comprehensive setting ever created. You could find all the content of Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Eberron and Greyhawk crammed into it twice over and still have room left.

Anyhow, here you go highspeed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_video_games

>>3554209
Planescape: Torment

>>3554214
It wasn't just about SoD. She was also talking about the LGBT NPCs she forced into BG1 and BG2.

>>3554226
Look at all the Forgotten Realms. It's such a versatile ruleset and they waste their time on that goofy setting.

>>3554235
What about the setting strikes you as goofy?

>>3535654
Can someone give me a good strategy/party/playerchar for killing the shadow dragon? I don't want to cheese with traps, and I hate playing solo FMT.

>>3554274
I agree with you. Forgotten Realms is the end-all setting for D&D. Literally any story you can conceive of running fits into the setting.

If you wanted to tell a high magic story in a city filled with flying airships where everyone is a wizard to some degree and the streets are swept by autonomous brooms and pointed-hatted familiars are flying this way and that, you run a game in Halruaa.

If you want to run a primal, savage game where your characters are using bone weapons and riding dinosaurs as they raid nearby clans for their precious iron tools? The Chult is the place for you!

Or maybe you want an Arabian setting ala 1001 Nights with Djinni merchants plying their wares in grand bazaars and flying carpets zipping about while the players are Genasi in origin? Calimshan is right up your alley.

Maybe something a bit more classic fantasy? Shining Knights tilting against fierce dragons and rescuing damsels from their enchanted towers? Could it BE anymore Cormyr?

Or you just want a vanilla experience dungeon crawl. A little bit of everything with nothing too "out there." Waterdeep, friend. Waterdeep.

Maybe you're a weeaboo and your gaming experience just isn't complete until you unsheath your katana, recite an ancient Haiku and face your family's ancestral Oni in single combat. Kara-Tur exists!

This setting has something for everyone.

Holy shit highest I've ever rolled
Too bad it was for an Elf Archer

>>3554285
or just any general tips

>>3554307
>Literally any story you can conceive of running fits into the setting
And that is the problem. It's full of world-ending threats and somehow nothing ever changes.

>>3554314
Given an Archer's minimum stats for Constitution and Wisdom are 14, and Strength and Dexterity are 13, it's not too hard to get a great role on them. They have the best automatic minimum stats of any class in the game.

I really want to make an evil party, in bg2. But god damn it seems like you miss out on so much.

>>3554321
What world ending threats? You keep listing complaints and then never answer when a single one is challenged.

I mean the major villains of Forgotten Realms aren't all that huge. Larloch is probably the highest level villain and all he wants to do is sit in his tower and eat adventurers and Red Wizards who try and steal his Netherese secrets.

And speaking of the Red Wizards, they're not trying to take over the world. They're just trying to gouge a profit out of it in any legal or semi-legal way they can while bickering with the Witches of Rashemen.

Or maybe the Zhentarim? That's about as big a bad guy organization as you can get. And at the height of their power where Fzoul and Manshoon were working together and Bane was resurrected, they were never much of a threat outside the Heartlands.

So what was it? What world-ending calamity do you think was hanging over everyone's heads?

>>3546752
There were a lot of meh to garbage companions in 1. And most didn't have much personality but I still liked running into, and sadly usually killing, them in 2

>>3554326
wow thats a real bummer
I never thought about it like that but still bums me out

>>3535654
Are rangers a strong choice in bg2?

>>3554341
Which books do you recommend?

>>3554363
Not really go with a kit or play easy mode and have fun with more wacky and shitty classes

>>3554314

I got 97 for a Paladin earlier today.
It took an hour's clicking, I can still see numbers dancing when I close my eyes.

>>3554373
>that feel when you click past a higher number

>>3554370
How about making a playerchar mage? Since i'm going good/neutral party. Or is Jan enough?

>>3554364
The Forgotten Realms: Campaign Setting, 3rd edition.

>>3554363
Yeah, Rangers are pretty strong. It just depends on what you're doing with them. A vanilla Ranger by itself is just okay, but a multiclassed Cleric / Ranger is quite powerful. The Ranger kit Archer is also very powerful. Stalkers aren't crazy powerful, but they're pretty fun. They're essentially Thieves with a mixture of Divine and Arcane spellcasting and above average combat skills.

Is a sorcerer in bg2 good for damaging projectile spells? Or are magic meteors, acid arrows etc. pretty weak in Bg. I was thinking of having a sorcerer dedicated to Magic meteor, chromatic orb etc.

Is there a mod for the original game for the EE characters?

>>3554673
Yes. Saerileth mod will provide you with a similar experience, I highly recommend it.

>>3554463
Magic Missile is fine once you get 5 of them, Minute Meteors is good, Fireball is good, Cloudkill is good, Horrid Wilting is good.

Is there a reliable DnD encyclopedia online?

>>3554747
Teeheehee

I'm an absolute newb to DnD and I'm fishing for info. The only thing I've been exposed to are a few Dragonlance novels; I loved those and Forgotten Realms feels like a step down in quality.

>>3543798
Faggot
>muh turn-based combat for smart people
I love TBS and blobbers as much as the next guy but anyone that says this is delusional as TB games are most often far simpler and less strategic than even BG due to poor encounter design or shit systems.

>>3555160
Well, it depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking for novels, you're going to be sorely disappointed. All the books for all the settings are varying degrees of shitty. The Dragonlance ones might actually be the best, even though they come from one of the worst settings.

In terms of tabletop gaming, most of the settings are pretty great, it just depends on what you're looking for.

Dragonlance is one of the smallest settings and is mostly just dragon fandom. The popularity of the setting never took off in tabletop or video games as much as it did in novels. Apparently it's more fun to read about than to play in.

Forgotten Realms is the everything setting. You can run any sort of game you can imagine and there's a place for it.

Greyhawk is the white bread of D&D settings. It's what they use in the core books and it's mostly bare bones for new DMs to build on as they see fit.

Ravenloft is a Gothic Horror style game. Think huddled villagers lining their windows with garlic gloves and gypsy werewolves prowling the foggy forests kind of setting.

Dark Sun is a sort of post-apocalyptic survival setting. Scrounging up pieces of armor and enough water to survive while mutated monsters prowl the wastes. It tends to have a higher difficulty curve.

Spelljammer is D&D in space. Elves and Dwarves and such in spaceships called Spelljammers.

Eberron is... well, shit. It's a player made setting that some faggot won a Dragon magazine contest with. I'm not salty that my completely superior setting lost and his "lol there are robots and drow!" setting won. Fuck Eberron.

And then there's Planescape which isn't really a setting so much as a wishy-washy option for people that want to play everything. Back in 2nd edition, all the campaign settings were owned by TSR and Planescape was just a way to have your character bounce between Ravenloft and Dragonlance and the like.

1/2

>>3555247
Now, if you're looking for video games, the undisputed king of settings is the Forgotten Realms. Those're your Baldur's Gates, Neverwinter Nights, Eye of the Beholders, Icewind Dales, Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Menzoberranzan, etc.

Dragonlance had like... two years in the late 80's when the novels were super popular where they spammed out a lot of games. Some people swear by them, but I've never found them to be much better than pretty good. Those'd be Champions of Krynn, Death Knights of Krynn and The Dark Queen of Krynn. There's a few other titles, but you're not missing much.

A couple of good one-off titles are Temple of Elemental Evil in Greyhawk. The story and setting are bland, but no game has ever perfectly captured the 3rd edition D&D mechanics. It still gets a lot of support and updates from the Circle of 8 community. Also, Planescape had one video game title, and it's arguably the best D&D game released: Torment. It's light on the gameplay, but heavy on the story.

As an interesting note, Baldur's Gate 2 has moments where you meet Knights from Dragonlance, collect equipment from Planescape, fight feral Halflings from Dark Sun, etc.

2/2

>>3555249
Strictly speaking, you aren't interacting with anything Planescape in BG 2. The Planescape setting is Sigil. The Planes are D&D cosmology and exist whether you use Planescape or not.

You forgot the Dark Sun game, by the way.

>>3555206
You just don't understand the deep, tactical nuance of having your fighters whiff against AC 21 Hobgobins at level 2 in ToEE. Or having monsters just walk right past your fighters and chase your mages around the level because you can't actually land attacks of opportunity against AC 20 enemies.

>>3554747
>>3555147
Speaking of NPC mods, does anyone have any recommendations? I need something to spice up my 20th replay and I've tried a handful but nothing has been any good.

Yes I've done Saerileth and Chloe before anyone mentions it.

>>3555260
And Sigil exists solely as a means of you jumping between campaign settings through the doors. It should be noted there are plenty of Sigil-based items in BG2 and Haer'Dalis himself is originally from Sigil.

And there are a few Dark Sun games. Wake of the Ravager, Crimson Sands and Shattered Lands. But WoR is nearly unplayable because of game crashing bugs, I don't think Crimson Sands exists anymore, and Shattered Lands was just... okay. It benefits from being the only playable Dark Sun game.

>>3555308
My favorite bug with Wake of the Ravager was always the voice files just ceasing to work after the initial intro. Now, the voice acting was atrocious so this wasn't actually a loss, but most of the game's enormous (for 94) 60 meg size were the voice files.

Shattered Lands is way better than okay, though. It is one of the best D&D games.

>>3554960
Do a search for "purple worm rules" - that's for the AD&D 2e rules.

>>3555160
/tg/ is the place to ask. What info are you looking for? Rules? History of the game? Setting material?

>>3555249
>Icewind Dales
since it's brought up, how is the EE for IWD? Is it any better than the BG ones?

Most fun class?

>>3555958
definitely not F/M/T solo. That shit is stupidly easy.


The most fun classes are the classes that aren't overly powerful, but have a specific gameplay. So imo bards are probably the best

>>3547256
>Absolutely none of them have any choices that aren't illusions.
Just like real life then.

>>3556000
Sure wish I didn't delete all my fedora/katana/vape images. Could use one right about now.

>>3556012
Sure wish you had at least one of yours fedora/katana/vape images because it surely would've made for a witty and original comeback.

>>3556016
we'll both just have to imagine.

>>3556018
*tips neckbeard* imagine there's no heaven...

>>3555296
I enjoyed Finch and Indira, personally, but they are BG1 only. They're not super intrusive and also have no romances, AFAIK.

Every NPC mod I've tried so far for BG2 has been trash. Too many damn interjections to the point where I'd kill them off after a few minutes.

When you replay baldurs gate 2 for the millionth time, do you still read all of the dialogue? Even tho you know alot of it off by heart

decided to dig out my discs and do another playthrough of the entire series

I can't decide which class to play though

Cleric/ranger multiclass
Kensai / thief
Assassin
Cavalier

>>3556356
>Cleric/ranger
Might be cool. I have yet to do a full run with this. It is on my list.

>kensai/thief
Lame. Plus you have to play BG1 as a kensai. Extra lame.

>Assassin
Honestly not a very good kit. Gimped thief skills which you actually need. If you want a backstabbing monster, maybe consider a half-orc fighter-thief?

>Cavalier
Much more fun if you are doing a pre-made party. Great when its needed, but not exactly a whole lot of exciting skills.

I know most if not all of the people here love this game, but as someone who has never played it, is it worth it? Tried Pillars of Eternity and the game was excellent in everithing except gameplay, but story, design, sound, music, atmosphere, was perfect. The combat felt even worse than in DAO where the only thing that changed was how much damage i dealt/received, so i had to stop the game for a lot of time and every little mistake i made meant i had to redo that part.

>>3556421
Similarities with Pillars of Eternity: Great pre-rendered graphics, music, user friendly point and click interface.

That's about it. Baldur's Gate doesn't use "tank and spank" gameplay. Every fight in Pillars is the same because there's only a small amount of different strategies you can use. The combat is BG is based on AD&D 2e. So there's a huge variety of class options and tactics. There's no engagement bullshit, so you can kite. You can prebuff, pre-summon, disengage, all sorts of things that aren't possible in PoE's limited and shallow combat system. Combat is based around huge swings rather than incremental advantage and dps. So save versus death for panic, long stun durations, huge crits, etc.

Not saying you'll love it for sure, but BG is on another level to PoE. In terms of how fun the games are, its PoE < DAO < ToEE < BG.

>>3556440
Thanks man, much appreciated, do you think it's worth buying the Enhanced Editions or should i just download the old versions, the EE have really bad reviews.

>>3556456
The EE are convenient, but they are overpriced for what they are.

If you dl the originals, note that BG1 is kind of clunky, most people use mods to run it on the smoother BG 2 engine. Not that you need to, but you'll have to forgive it that. Also note that it starts at level 1 AD&D. A stiff breeze will kill your character unless you've mastered the engine nuances. Don't be discouraged. Kiting isn't an exploit.

How are the EE versions of BG 1 and 2 on iPad? I've been playing PS:T and feel like tablet would be perfect for this kind of game.

If I play through 1, does my party transfer to 2 on these versions? That sounds awesome.

>>3556839
Depends what you mean by that. Your character could always transfer over. EE lets you import directly from the other game so you don't need to copy and paste save folders.

If you create a full party in single player, the import doesn't work right. You'll need to create a new game and import each character manually. If you do the old style single player multiplayer game it works properly.

>>3556060
I speed read, but I stop for voiced dialogue.

Well, I got lazy and half my party dies, along with anyone who could resurrect. But all is not lost. I never used my tome of int, it is just sitting there. Give it to Minsc, who can then use scrolls. Grab some scrolls of resurrect from my scrollbox and the day is saved. Huzzah.

>>3556456
I don't like beamdog one bit, but the EE's are fine
I have them, I played the originals, I have no problem

>>3555990
>not F/M/T
>imo bards are probably the best

You know a F/M/T is essentially just a Bard, right?

>>3555206

>TBS
>less strategic than BG
>BG
>which is based on the PnP AD&D 2e system
>which by virtue of its PnP nature is a TBS

An hero mang.

i've never played monk before, are they any good?

>>3557741
a bard is a weak f/m/t therefore more fun

>tfw the conversation between Imoen and the dryads in the beginning dungeon implies that Irenicus raped Imoen

This alone makes me want to kill him for hurting my wife

>>3558756

i always read it as being that he molested her (groping, running his hands over her etc) but he never struck me as the type for having enough interest to fully penetrate her.

idk

>>3557879
BG is not a turn-based game and not direct translation of tabletop rules to video game format. Are you retarded?

>>3558814
And if you're trying to twist my words into implying that all TBS games are less strategic than BG you're a moron.

>>3558630
Blades are the strongest class in the game.

>>3559038
kensai-mage

Blade is fun. But once you get to ToB and every fight starts with them dispelling your half a dozen self-buffs, you'll see its weaknesses.

As for broken, the EE class "Dwarven Defender" seems like something that guy would try to foist on an unsuspecting DM. Epic level abilities as a class default? Ridiculous.

>>3555247
>Eberron is... well, shit. It's a player made setting that some faggot won a Dragon magazine contest with. I'm not salty that my completely superior setting lost and his "lol there are robots and drow!" setting won. Fuck Eberron.

Rich Burlew? You lurk /vr/?

>>3559042
Nah, Blade BTFOs Kensai/Mage.

Assuming you dual at 13 for maximum benefits, you've picked up -2 AC, +4 Attack / Damage, and Kai 3/day.

By the time you've achieved this, before taking a single Mage level, the Blade is 15th level. His Offensive Spin gives him an extra attack equalizing what you get as a Fighter, +2 Attack/ Damage, and can Offensive Spin for max damage as often as you can Kai for max damage. PLUS he can wear armor, bracers and gauntlets. AND he's already casting 5th level Mage spells, so Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility, Protection spells. He's dancing circles around the Kensai. And that's not mentioning the fact that he auto-identifies all items and can pickpocket anyone.

Now, by the time your Mage has picked up the 1.5 million XP to reactivate Kensai, the only thing this K-13/M-14 has over the 22nd level Blade is one 7th level spell. You spent nearly 3million XP to Tenser's Transformation and do what the Blade had already been doing at 1.3m XP.

Moreover, the Blade is a scant level and some change away from his HLAs (and Bards get some fantastic ones) while the Mage has an arduous 1.5 million more XP to go. Further, the Blade's combat abilities have been improving too. You're no longer equal on the Kai - Spin count, the Blade is head and shoulders above. Plus, while through the majority of SoA you had Kensai inactive, he got to play the whole thing using all of his kit.

And honestly, even when your Mage finally starts truly surpassing the Blade in spell levels at the tail-end of Throne of Bhaal... you're not even really using your Kensai anymore at that point. Once you've acquired 9th level spells and the like, you're just gimping yourself by going back to melee. It really makes the Kensai levels wasted by the end of the game.

>>3559736
Now, you might argue about dual-classing earlier for Kensai. But there's always a problem with it.

The earliest you'd probably want to dual is 7th for that extra half-attack. But if you'd held out until 8, you'd have gotten the extra weapon speed enhancement AND your second Kai. No one wants only 1/day.

But if you stop at 8, you can just see those buffs at 9 and 10 waiting. Another permanent +1 attack/damage and the last chance to get those huge Fighter HP for your melee character that's going to be stuck on 2HP/level for the rest of your Mage career.

So maybe stop at 10? But 12 is the big breaking point for Kensai. Weapon speed, attack bonuses, damage bonuses, another Kai... all waiting at 12. And no one's going to stop at Fighter 12 when the extra half attack is at 13.

So, you go 13. Or else you play a gimped Kensai who can only Kai once a day or so and wasn't worth the dip in the first place.

>>3559690
My setting was better than Burlew's too. His "Norse mythology meets Japanese XDDD" setting wasn't any better than Eberron.

>>3559757
Was it underwater?

>>3559038
not that guy, but my f/m/t playthrough was the best ever
I've considered playing a blade, but I like being able to deal with locks/traps and I hate being neutral
just feels gay

>>3559757
I always wondered what the third setting was
those that didn't get picked are still locked up in wizards patents
are you a bitch or can you tell us about yours?

>>3559780
Some of it. It mostly had to do with a Mind Flayer "moon" invading the orbit of the planet and as a consequence of its psi radiation, psionics begin to hugely develop.

There were just a lot of little things that really developed the flavor though. Like all Mages were specialists that were trained at their respective colleges and their specialties carried certain weights in society. For example, throughout most of the Human kingdoms, psionics were considered a mark of the invader and Inquisitions were developed to find and root out said heretics. As such, Diviners were usually offered high position in the Inquisition.

Or that most magical items in the game are marked racially. The +2 Flaming Longsword you found might be marked with Dwarven Blood. As such, there was a bit more hybridization of races. For example, Wood Elves (the ones that traditionally gain a bonus to Strength and penalty to Intelligence) are found primarily on the Feral Expanse where Orcs are in abundance. Wood Elves automatically have both the Elven Blood and Orcish Blood traits. Depending on your character's home region, it's possible to start with a number of combinations of traits. Half-Elves (and Half-Orcs) don't specifically exist, you'd either roll a Human or an Elf, use their starting template and then apply Human Blood or Elf Blood to their traits.

I always found that rather than introducing huge sweeping things like Living Robots (Eberron) was ultimately less fun than adding smaller character-defining details and developing the history and politics of classes.

>>3535654
Been thinking about replaying 1/2.
From what i hear the EE content is atrocious, am i better off just modding the original games?

>>3559804
As a side note about the racial traits, that had some societal impact too. Throughout the Dwarven Confederation, the Mythril Vein Society is largely prevalent in their nobility. Although largely informal, the Mythril Vein Society works to make certain than no one of rank can ascend with questionable heritage (IE- non-Dwarven). So, while generally speaking, you're free to have different lineages to maximize what magical items you can utilize, there would be some societal pushback.

Also, on that note, should you yourself create magical items, they would come with whatever your base race was. So, if you roll a Human and add the Gnome Blood trait, all your items created would have the Human Blood trait, not Gnome. Further, crafting "general" items that don't require a specific lineage to use requires 2CL higher and twice the base cost (unadjusted by the 2CL increase) in GP and XP.

>>3559814
Yes you are better off just modding the game. At least you can pick witch mods you want.

>>3535654
What's the best class to get through the game just auto attacking?

Call it a minimal clicking run through "challenge".

>>3560001
Fighter class probably
but why

Been meaning to play the EE but from what I heard around the 3rd episode the game forces you to participate in an IRL interracial hand holding session with an overweight genderfluid transsiberian eskimo.

is this true?

>>3560145
Yes. Literally.
C'mon guize the EE belongs to the trash.
This is /vr/, not /v/.
So just play the original, or Betrayal at Krondor.

Maybe i'm an austist but one of the things i don't like about EE is how they used the interface style of BG2 for BG1, same way as trilogy or tutu mod.
It doesn't fit at all.

>>3560145
The answer to SJWs bullshit is Betrayal at Krondor, a game where everyone is discriminating towards the dindu moredhels.

THE DROW RULE SUPREME.

yo yo yo

>>3562264

Hey guys, help me decide on a name for a boy character. I want something simple and not corny, but something unique, and preferably something gender neutral.

>>3562794
Ashton

I'm upset that they took BG2 complete off of GoG. I was gonna buy it now that I beat the first game. It comes packaged with the EE but I don't care for that. Just give me the original damnit

>>3562820
I mean, you're allowed to torrent it. There's not really anyone even left at BioWare that had a significant role in development of even Throne of Bhaal.

>>3562820
buy the boxed set for both games for 10 bucks off amazon or pirate it

>>3542553
She was a Harper. Harper scum need to be slaughtered like pigs. Their NWO must be stopped at any cost.

>>3562897

I agree fuck the NWO

Trying out Cleric/Mage multiclass and its not as OP or fun as I hoped
Archer was kinda fun though

>damage range is 6-13
>regularly hitting for 15

Nice combat system you have going here Beamdog. This is seriously triggering my autism.

>>3563224
I mean, if I can't trust this buggy PoS to adhere to its most basic rules, how do I even know what sort of buggy shit is going on under the hood.

>>3563235
I'm thinking of a Thief/Fighter dual class for I can use those godamned paladin weapons in Throne

>>3563224
You should probably read the manual. Strength is applied to melee damage.

the lord of murder shall perish
but in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny
chaos will be sown from their passage
so sayeth the wise alaundo

>>3563286
Maybe you should. Not only does 15 STR add no bonus, but bonus is including in the inventory damage listing.

I'm thinking of getting Baldur's Gate on my phone, will it be playable with the touchscreen controls and will it be readable on a 5 inch screen?

>>3563273
That's not a bug though, working as intended. And yes, use any item can lead to some really silly things. Like a 100% magic resiting fighter-mage wearing the human skin while wielding the holy avenger.

>>3556440
>Combat is based around huge swings rather than incremental advantage and dps.
I think this is the problem with a ton of new RPGs - they're way overdesigned with almost a sort of MMO pacing/number crunching feel, rather than allowing players to assemble the pieces for a single big master stroke.

>>3563472
Because the people make modern RPGs are babies and the idea that someone is having fun by using their brain to exploit there system is a way they didn't think of triggers them.

Hi walter

>>3563472
>>3563503

The other issue is that BG is using AD&D 2e (and a bastardized version at that). There's very few PnP RPGs that are quite as swingy as D&D (mostly due to the d20 being used for attacks/saving throws, and damage ranging from d4s to d12s potentially).

Licensing is a pain in the ass too, so most cRPG devs are going to be making their own ruleset and combat system, which can either be good (in Fallout's case) or disastrous (Arcanum).

AD&D by its very nature has abilities and powers that can be abused, and when you combine that with even the poorest attempt to implement that craziness (and bugs), you get BG.

>>3563503
Breaking the system is like half the point of playing trpgs

>>3563345

No.

It's playable on an 8" tablet. 7" probably starts to become aggravating. 5", no way.

>>3563224

only thing i can think of is that the enemy might be partially vulnerable to a particular damage type (piercing, blunt, slashing)?

Favourite cheese to use?

I remember playing this when I must have been about 13/14 years old and loving it; over the years I discovered a handful of ultra-cheesy tactics.

Stuff I discovered on my own:

>in SOA, though I think it was fixed in TOB, there was pretty much no limit to the number of traps you could set - at higher levels these traps completely bypass most damage reduction/immunities so you could destroy almost every single dragon purely by cheesiness with setting umpteen snare's + special snares to turn those encounters into a farce
>after dialogue where a previously neutral boss character will turn hostile, if you pause quickly enough, you can get 1 of your char's to enter dialogue with the enemy; this will stop them from turning hostile. You can start pounding on them as much as you like, and as long as you keep using 1 character to occasionally enter dialogue with them then then they'll never turn hostile.
>this pause bug could also be abused to get 32500 quest experience points for every character from the statue in the maze at Spellhold
>thief merchants on the black market have no qualms buying stolen goods, so you could literally sell valuable shit to them, then immediately steal it back, then sell it back, then steal it etc. until you had as much gold as you wanted, and never get caught if your pickpocket skill was high enough
>not much of a cheat but the TOB spell Summon Deva absolutely wrecks SOA once you get it, can destroy 99% of encounters with a deva

stuff I hadn't considered til I saw these threads::

>Improved Inv on every character makes them impossible to target with spells; the Planar Sphere boss fight becomes a joke with this
>Protection from Undead scrolls make you untargetable by lich's etc. and render otherwise tricky encounters, particularly at low levels, a joke

It was fun in itself learning how to break the game after a few playthroughs.

>>3566185
Cap is 5 with TOB. But 5 traps is enough to wreck pretty much anything. If they don't die, they are close enough.

>>3566185
Most fun thing in ToB was having a wizard with vecna robes and some other ring i don't remember.
Then you stop time, use improved alacrity and just use all the spells you want. You can shoot all your magic missiles instantly, like a machinegun, or just use 4 Abi-Dhalzim's after lowing the enemy magic resistance to 0.
You can kill every enemy in the game before time turns to normal, except the 2 or 3 ones that are inmune to time stop.

When i played ToB in a Pentium IV, doing that could almost freeze the game since there was too many shit happening at the same time though.

>>3562264
Yes. Yes they do.

>>3563293
Why did they dumb it down from the Nietzsche quote? I mean that one about monsters and the abyss made no sense in the game context but still.

>>3566185
>>not much of a cheat but the TOB spell Summon Deva absolutely wrecks SOA once you get it, can destroy 99% of encounters with a deva
Planatar is even stronger imo


>Improved Inv on every character makes them impossible to target with spells; the Planar Sphere boss fight becomes a joke with this
>Protection from Undead scrolls make you untargetable by lich's etc. and render otherwise tricky encounters, particularly at low levels, a joke
Those aren't cheeses though, just overpowered as hell.

I used to find BG2 very hard. But coming back to it, I killed the shadow lich first try, shadow dragon first try, ran through D'arniese with ease, did the unseeing eye quest FIRST and it was easy.

What should I do to make this game fun again?

Solo playthrough no party members?
Or evil party no reloads.

>>3567061
Up the difficulty, or if it's max get a difficulty mod. Solo playthrough can be easier then with a party depending on the class and the evil NPCs are all great.

>>3567061
play with sword coast stratagems

>>3567491
This or no reload challenge.

Solo is lame.

I've completed the game more times with an evil party than good. Korgan is nuts. Best fighter kit, +3 axes are everywhere and are available immediately, just destroys shit.

>>3567491
whats this?

>>3567649
>>3567491
nevermind i googled it like i should have before asking what it is. Sounds like alot of fun, but I haven't done an evil playthrough in vanilla yet ,so I think i'll do that with no reload.

>>3567512
Is he better than Dorn? I've never made it an entire playthrough with Dorn because he's legit terrifying.

>>3566185
I remember an alternative strategy for Firkraag was to lower his magic resistance + saving throws and polymorphing him into a squirrel.

>>3567918
Dorn is pretty OP in BG 1, because of poisoned weapon fucking up mages. You put it on a crossbow and go to town.

In 2, he's not even close. For starters, he has no CON bonus, so he's not a tank. Korgan has massive HP, and has the berserker class ability, which is both offensive and defensive, making you immune to most status effects while boosting your stats. He can face tank almost anything, while doing insane dual wielding damage.

>>3567947
Set resistance plus greater malison, IIRC. The set resistance spell actually lowers his MR, and malison lowers his saving throws.

>>3567947
You can also lower his magic resistance and then use Feeblemind, at which point he just stands there and takes whatever you dish out. Dragons are really easy to cheese.

Granted in the non EE version its Jon ICARUS but its still cool

>>3569287
It'd be interesting if there were more games if they'd reuse names like in Final Fantasy with Cid. Tanova and Hareishein show up in BG 2 as vampires.

>>3569295
Carbos & Shank, the assassins in Candlekeep, also appear in Athkatla, fighting over a woman.

>>3569480
I noticed Carbos but forgot Shank's name. I wonder who'd bother reviving those scrubs

i'm doing a playthrough of the series as a fighter/thief on bg1 atm

i'm planning on making Imoen a mage/thief, i'm not sure who to use for my final slot, dynaheir or coran

This happens every time in bg2, I've never beaten the game because of this.

I do EVERYsingle quest before chapter 3. And then by the time i'm in the asylum i'm burned out and bored of the game, then I just all together stop playing. It JUST happened again, can someone please tell me that i'm missing out or SOMETHING?

>>3570778
>I do EVERY single quest before chapter 3
There's your problem. A lot of the quests are quite petty and you hardly have to do all of them, just the major ones.

Also, funfact, if you somehow have 20k gold when whatshisface takes you to his house, there's actually an option to give it to him despite this being pretty much impossible to accomplish

>>3570795
so do they add more quests in chapter 6? Or is it all storyline from here. I'm overpowered for the story so it's pretty boring.

>>3570734
Coran is the strongest NPC in BG 1. Dynaheir is unnecessary if you made Imoen a thief.

>>3570871
If you made her a mage, that is.

>>3570778
I stopped after I reached the copper coronet, trying to finish that vampire broad's quest, and ended up being trapped; the door to leave doesn't work and the map is conspicuously missing some key NPCs. Although the "extra party members" are oddly still about.

Could probably edit my character outside, but I can't find anything about this glitch on google, and sometimes you got to know when to quit; I think this is one of those times.

>>3570917
that's EE. Don't ever do EE quests.

>>3570871
Imagine if he was an Archer
Fuck I just love that kit

>>3570917
Yeah even for EE Hexxit is pure unbridled sue. Avoid her and Neera at all cost but Hexxit in particular
Dorn and Monk are boring but mostly alright I guess mostly inoffensive

>>3546438
/v/ is overrated

Anybody played the Android version? How is it?

>>3570795
>despite this being pretty much impossible to accomplish

You could do it easily selling the stuff you imported from BG1.

>>3572031
You don't get to keep your epiupment.

>>3572046
You can with just a little trick.

>>3536530

I'd moreso say they're the holy trinity of RPGs that have excellent presentation (worldbuilding, customisation, characters, story, dialogue choices) but poor gameplay to back it up.

Overrated is definitely a word you can use to describe games like Planescape Torment where you constantly see people gushing about it online and it's on all the top CRPG lists and everyone's telling you that it's a work of art that you need to play before you die. But nobody ever tells you that the game reads a hell of a lot better than it actually plays. The crappy combat is swept under the rug and people like to downplay it by pretending it's not a part of the game to begin with and reinforcing the idea that 'you don't have to fight most of the time anyway'. Well, you still do have to fight eventually. And some areas you either have to fight through or just run through while being pursued by hordes of enemies which is just tedious (the weeping stone catacombs jumps to mind as a good example, it was where I ended up getting sick of the game the last time I tried to replay it).

I mean, credit to the game where it's due. Credit to Arcanum and Bloodlines too (which I like the most out of these three). But they are definitely overrated, and purposefully so. Fanboys go out of their way to try and mislead people into thinking that these games are masterpieces instead of flawed gems of various levels of quality.

>>3572084
>but poor gameplay

I hate it when people use gameplay when they mean combat system. Dialogue choices are gameplay too.

>>3572084
Unlike Arcanum and Torment, combat in VtM Bloodlines is legitimately fun. I actually enjoy the combat zones towards th end that allow you to use all the powers you've been building.

Torment is just kind of there in combat, it being awful is something of a forced meme. It isn't good either, of course. Just not terrible. Arcanum's is straight up bad though.

>>3572171
>Torment is just kind of there in combat, it being awful is something of a forced meme. It isn't good either, of course.

I never understood this neither, it's just the same combat of other Infinity Engine games with less options. It's also extremely easy to avoid.

>>3572048
It's still an exploit/cheat. The game intends for you to start BG2 with no equipment.

>>3572202
no the game doesn't

>>3554373
Autoroller is a thing

>>3572171

I am glad you feel that way but I cant agree. And I worked on Bloodlines. Before that I was with Black Isle, and before that SSI.

Bloodlines was a work of art in my opinion but we felt the combat was lacking. The reason is we were mostly used to creating RPGs and had little experience with FPS.

Notice the level design is made more like an RPG than an FPS when combat is involved. The combat engine is awesome, because it uses the source. Still before that game we worked on games like Dark Sun, Planescape, Baldurs gate, Fallout, and sort of tried to create those games as a FPS without taking what makes a FPS good into account. The sewers is best example of this, it would have been fine in an over the top rpg, but didnt translate well as an rpg.

We also didnt do a good job with the AI. That is another story.

thanks for the gear

>>3572303
>an screenshoot that's not fucking EE

Thanks God.

>>3572310
i still have my original disks for all the games, and strangely i don't care about the resolution

>>3572314
I play that zoomed in with the EE anyway.

I boot up the disc version of 1 if I want to take advantage of engine peculiarities that don't exist on the BG2 engine.

can i turn into a dragon and get stuck in doors in this game?

>>3572404
Yeah, download shadowkeeper.

>>3572407
then its officially good

>>3540756
Only in Diablo 1 where their AC can go higher than a warrior, and can do as much damage as a good sword except with barefisted speed. Anywhere else, they're like priests with weaker armor and no summons.

>>3571427
Simple(ish); take Kivan instead and use EEKEEPER to alter his kit/class to Archer

>>3572119
No they're not. And if they are that does not excuse how much combat you have to go through in the games anyways, making noncombat builds worthless. This is not tabletop where you have freeform gameplay and reactivity. All you have is a token noncombat or fallback option in these games and a handful of predefined dialogue choices.

>>3571427
I find his thief skills to be handy, honestly. If I plan on doing Durlag's Tower, especially. I usually dual class Imoen too early for her to be much use against those expansion traps. And her open locks is always bad.

Coran gets these thief skills with no real loss of crazy ranged damage.

>>3573069
I just really fucking love the archer kit is all
Never actually done the Durlag Tower

>>3572303
>meeting Drizzt in BG2 and telling him you killed his ass
So good. Not being able to keep his gear was utter fucking bullshit though, it's not even that good.

>>3573286
If you hack it in, you can use it until that point of the game. But yeah, you get it just as its becoming obsolete at the very end of the game.

>>3535654
Top 3 in no order:

- Fallout 2
- Baldur's Gate 2
- Jagged Alliance 2

JA2 is a different breed, but it puts free in freeform tactical rpg

>>3555308
wake of the ravager is bug free in the current download on the web

there is a simple dos patch

SSI Dark Suns were Top tier, easily in Best 10 RPGs ever lists.

>>3573429
Aside from having awful graphics, Dark Sun 2 is just wrong. Most of the enemies shouldn't exist in the setting.