/vr/ - Retro Games

are spears good?

nth for cleric and cleric/x is the most fun and versatile class and doesnt immediatly trivialize the game like mages

>>3880495
This.
I've played dozens of times both BG, BG II, Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale II, Planescape Torment and more recently Siege of Dragonspear, and never, and i mean never ever have bothered a single minute with spears.

>>3880484
So, playing BG with my wife, first time for her, not first time for me. Completely vanilla playthrough.

We're not right at the end yet, but we're getting near it, and The Plan is to transfer the character over to BG2. Any suggestions as to what items to transfer over?

We have killed Drizzt, and we have taken the Golden Pantaloons, but I'm sitting down on my own and scribbling out a few notes and wondering if I'm taking too many weapons and armor and not enough of the miscallaneous cloaks/boots/rings/etc.

>>>/vg/

>>3880535

>>3880495
Not really. They only really exist for druids to use because of their restricted weapon proficiencies, but scimitars are a better option for druids in the base game (particularly if we're talking BG1 and killing Drizzt.)

In BG2 the selection of spears is comparatively even worse, with nothing even remotely useful until the Impaler from the City-of-Caverns - a +3 spear with an additional 10 damage per hit. For most classes that still isn't hugely impressive, since you'd be comparing it to weapons with passive spell auras or meaty procs like Celestial Fury, but since druids have gimped weapon proficiency options, it can end up being useful for a time, since the good scimitars besides Belm mostly require Watcher's Keep stuff which you might be saving for later, and the other profiencies a druid can use for their main hand, clubs and daggers, are also shit.

In ToB, a druid might well use one because the upgraded Ixil's Spike actually is good, and one of the quite limited number of +6 weapons, meaning it can pierce Absolute Immunity.

tl;dr no except for druids, and even then they're not great.

>>3880551
>BG released December 21, 1998

Get shitted on, cuck.

>>3880495
>no +5 spears
>the only +6 spear gives you free action (aka can't use boots of speed)
They're inferior to both quarterstaves and halberds.

>>3880564
I don't get it, why by default you're getting the best items?

>>3880535
The Helm of Balduran is the only thing that actually matters, since it's effectively irreplaceable if you have a full party. Everything else is filler.

>>3880551
Just because we've got a continuation thread doesn't mean we need to make it a general on /vg/ where it'll get pushed off for being too slow.

>>3880576
rather than best it's more about options for different classes/builds
table 1 includes chainmail, platemail, and leather armor
table 2 has melee/ranged helm, tanky claw, or situational lifesaving horn

>>3880551
/vg/ is full, friendo.

Got BGEE for iOS, been playing it solidly. Only problem is, every time I go anywhere outside civilisation I get my anus ripped out through my nose. How do I git gud?

>>3880623
Read manual.

>>3880623
press your buttons harder

>>3880631
But I'll crack my screen

>>3880623
Press F to win.

>>3880623
AoE disables like Sleep and Entangle are super strong in most wilderness encounters. Use ranged weapons at the start of fights and kite dangerous melee bruisers like ogres and bears.

>>3880495
Spears are ok in BG and a very good choice for a fighter/druid in BG2, unless you give the druid your awesome quarterstaff (do not, give it to your backstabber instead), spears will be the best weapons for them, possibly better than dual wielding because the druid can heal, therefor it's better to have them stand right behind your main frontliners.

About to start a BGT installation after I've figured out how to install BG1 under a non-ancient OS. Wish me luck lads.

>>3880484

>Favourite class

Paladin, Inquisitor. Probably a "lazy" choice because the only tactic your party needs is debuff followed by a beating (and if the enemy is nonmagical, you don't even need the debuff)

>Weapon

Celestial fury. The % chance to stun is SICK. It's maybe even a little overpowered and my MC doesn't use it

>Companion

Found Haer'Dalis to be increasingly useful as the game developed, and enjoyed kitting out and using Nalia as a melee fighter.

Viconia has the most interesting dialogues.

>mod

Pfeh. G3 fixpack only. Fan content stinks.

>>3880570
Blackblood is good, Unicorn horn is good, there's a +3 spear available for purchase very early on, you are a shit and so is your waifu.

>>3880623
When you start the game, you're a pathetic faggot and there's nothing you can do about it. Don't stray from the paths and wait until you got a little bit beefier before you go exploring.

>>3880734
This, even minmaxed character will be wrecked by any bear.

You guys ready for PSTEE?

>>3880495
Without mods, not really. Item Revisions can change their 1d6 to 1d8, however. And there is a mod that can make Free Action not cancel out Haste, so the best spear is less shit.

>>3880721
There's a +3 weapon of basically every type available for purchase right out of the gate, if you're including the collector's edition merchants, many of which have better on-equip effects than than the spear (if we're thinking of the same one) and its +8HP. The Unicorn spear is useful to have in the same way anything with immunity to a type of spell or status effect is good, that doesn't make it a strong offensive weapon, it's still just a +2 spear.

Blackblood is actually quite good offensively, but it's also the best club until ToB, with the Club of Detonation barely being an improvement (and being a +3 weapon at that stage of the game, which is really dumb.) You can feel pretty good with your +3 club, +3 acid damage when the rest of your party is using mediocre weapons with some crappy proc or 1/day cast some level 1-3 spell, but it never improves while other weapon types eventually get stuff that outclass the club, some of which don't even require difficult encounters, like the Flail of Ages.

>BG1 specific
BG1 NPC Project
BG1 Unfinished Business
Baldur's Gate Mini Quests & Encounters
Baldur's Gate Romantic Encounters
>BG2 specific
IEP Extended Banters
PPG Banter Pack
Unfinished Business
Imoen Romance mod
Weimar Item Upgrade
Weimar Tactics
Romantic Encounters
>Both
Tweak Anthology
Stratagems (SCS)
eSeries scripts
gMinion script

>>3880815
*ahem*

>Favorite class?

Mage/Sorcerer

It's hard to decide and I'm often stuck when I create my character. The versatility of mages is great but Edwin will always be a better mage than you. Sorcerers are too limited with their spells and you basically are stuck with being a damage dealer but at least you are outclassing other characters in some way.

>>3880760
are you seriously questioning the fact that druid weapon selections are designed to be worse than equivalent selections available to warriors

their weapon limitation is supposed to be a drawback, the fact that clerics get all the retardedly strong equipment is a mistake, clerics are always too fucking strong compared to other classes (except high level mages of course, who have to suffer being able to do fuck all on their own until they get to that level)

>pick up Kivan early game
>he wants me to kill all the bandits
>whatever, you can be my pack mule
>get to the bandit camp after like two weeks
>Kivan gets bored and leaves mid-fight
>with all my good loot
>forcing me to abandon mission
>have to put him down to get my shit back
>then run into pic related twice trying to get back to Friendly Arm
This is only going to get more ridiculous, isn't it?

>>3880951
Forgot pic, anyway it was wyverns

>>3880849
>The versatility of mages is great but Edwin will always be a better mage than you.
not if you're a cleric/mage with priest spell contingencies and access to both sets of HLAs

>>3880950
I was pointing out that spears are bad in general, but then also that even amongst the restricted druid weapon selection they aren't too useful. The original question wasn't specifically about druids.

I'm not sure it was an intentional design choice that the druid weapon types mostly ended up being weak, so much as the item designers not thinking that some epicly powerful club was a good idea. Clubs and spears are less cool than greatswords and katanas.

>>3880978
>so much as the item designers not thinking that some epicly powerful club was a good idea
how is that not a good idea

fucking barbarian that just crushes shit with dual wielded clubs would be rad af

is barbarian/druid a thing? why is it not a thing if it isn't?

>>3880495
Yes. They're just not AS good as a lot of other weapons, so people piss themselves about how shitty they are. There's a solid progression of spears throughout the game.

Right out of Irenicus' dungeon you can either buy a +2 Spear or pick up Halcyon, a +1 Spear that does Lightning Damage. Outside Athkatla proper, you can pick up the Spear of the Unicorn +2 (grants immunity to charm and hold and +3 saves vs death) which is just fantastic for all the Holding, Charming and Level Draining undead that plague the game from that point on.

Once in Chapter 3, there's the Impaler, a +3 Spear that does an additional +10 piercing damage per hit. It's followed very shortly by the Spear of Withering, a +4 Spear that does 4 points of poison damage per hit. And finally, at the start of Throne of Bhaal there's Ixil's Spike, one of the best weapons in the game. It's a +6 Spear that grants Free Action on equip (if you're using the Boots of Speed, just equip the boots first to keep your Haste effect) and on-hit it roots the target to the ground for 3 rounds and a stacking DoT of 3d6+15 over that period. And since the spear has reach, you can stand outside their range while just poking them and stacking the damage higher and higher and higher, not to mention the high base damage of the spear itself.

But again, spears aren't as great as say... two-handed swords, so you'll never see people singing their praises. But they're perfectly fine for a playthrough.

>>3880989
The hero always uses a sword, so swords get most of the good items, them's the rules.

I've never done it myself but I'm pretty sure you can make a fighter/druid and then change the kit from pure class to barbarian in EE/ShadowKeeper, since it's technically a fighter kit. You can definitely get the class features that way, the only thing I wouldn't be sure about is the d12 hit die. BG2Tweaks has a component to allow you to dual class from barbarian if that's what you want, as well as from wild mage.

>>3880989
>is barbarian/druid a thing?

No, but Berserker / Druid is a thing, and one of my favorite dual-class combinations. The only real issue it faces is that you'd want to go full level 13 as Berserker for all those tasty Fighter APRs, but Druid uniquely has an insane XP requirement to get to 14.

>>3880989
cleric/druid is a thing

>>3881045
No it's not, unless you mean the Cleric / Ranger spell list glitch.

>Favorite Class
The Blade kit followed closely by the Crusader. The Blade is just a stronger version of the Kensai / Mage combo and it really tickles my almonds that the Bard of any class ends up being one of the most powerful in the game. And the Crusader is unequivocally the best Paladin kit in the game. All of its bonuses are designed for fighting the absolute hardest fights in the game, and Carsomyr ends up making some of the other classes like Inquisitor redundant.

>Weapon
Belm, probably. I never really aim to, but 9 games out of 10 I find myself with at least one dual-wielder using Belm.

>Companion
Jaheira. Even outside the romance option, she's pound for pound the strongest tanking NPC in the game. And you have so many avenues of use for her. If you don't need a tank, she's an excellent healer or failing that, quite a powerful debuffer and nuker. Once those insect plagues start spilling out, fuhgeddaboutit.

>Mod
I don't really do much modding anymore. After over a decade of indulging in them all, I just appreciate the core game so much more. But if I had to pick one that I still use from time to time, it'd be the Ascension mod. Once you know the mechanics back and forth, it doesn't really make the game any harder though.

>>3881050
it was clearly intentional anon, same engine in IWD and it didn't exist, but in BG it did, and was in the game until beamdog removed it like the retards they are.

>>3881093
No it wasn't. It's a bug and everyone has always known that.

>>3880495

Spears should only be used in IWD. Two-handed weapons in general are THE way to go in IWD.

>>3881068
>Crusader

Do you mean Cavalier? Or did they introduce a Crusader in EE?

>>3881104
>trying to take away manchild's favorite toy

>>3881118
>he doesn't use a viconia cleric/ranger
sad

How soon do you usually clear Nashkel Mines?

>>3881154
Level 2/3. It's not too hard.

>>3881154
It depends on party composition. My first order of business is to acquire all the people I intend to use in a playthrough ASAP. You don't want them leveling up themselves and rolling garbage HP or taking useless weapon proficiencies / thief skills. If they're all available pre-mines, like a canon party (Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir) then I really take my time before the mines and level up as much as I can in surrounding areas. If party members aren't available until post-mines then I just breeze through them as quick as possible.

>>3881160
And after that you'd start clearing/exploring available wilderness areas?

>>3881169
>Safana
>Charm Animal

>>3881169
Why the gobsmacking dickweed does Kagain get 20 Con?

>>3881183
to show off dwarf con bonuses

>>3881169
Some of those stats aren't as bad as they seem or as good as they look. For example, there's functionally no difference between a Constitution 7 and 14. So Xan's 7 Constitution, Viconia's 8, and Garrick's 9 are just as strong as Kivan's 14 in that none of them gain a bonus or take a penalty. The same is true for Dexterity. Anything less than a 15 might as well be a 7.

>>3881218
The bizarre distribution of bonuses and penalties for stats changing to the simple and uncapped base of 10 system is probably the most objectively improved thing going from 2E to 3E.

>>3881183
He needs something to make up for his unimpressive strength and crappy dexterity? Coran is the big cheater man anyway, 20 dexterity and three points in bows (at least in vanilla, I don't know if EE fixed it.)

>>3881154
2 is fine, I usually end up at 3 on characters like Imoen because I tend to do some significant wilderness stuff first, gnoll stronghold and the constitution tome cave at the very least.

>>3881320
Also the point buy system instead of rolling until you have 90+ stats. Though I think that existed in 2E too as an option, just the games didn't use it.

>>3881332
Well, you're only going to roll until you get the stats you want in CRPGs anyway. It's not like your DM will be okay with you sat there rolling your stats dozens times before you actually make your character.

Point buy is generally a better system regardless, with the caveat that 3E has the huge multiple attribute dependency issue, where it's much easier to make an effective wizard with point buy, who only really needs a single stat, than a monk or paladin, who are dependent the majority of them (ignoring that a wizard with vastly inferior stats to either of those classes is still much more powerful because of other game balance issues.)

>>3881332
>people think that you literally roll 5d20 until you get 90+ stats roll

>>3881042
most good mods fix druid progression though

>>3881024
right, spears are great, it's just that they're put beside a vorpal halberd, a sword of mage fucking, and a staff that makes dragons roll for anal circumference.

>>3881124
oh man it's too good to have a pure cleric and mage in the party, and Viconia is the best pure Cleric you ever have available

just make your main character a ranger and dual to cleric at 13

>>3880713
I did it using a win10 box. Easy.

>>3881154
immediatly, unless im running minsc/edwin in which case i do it right after gnoll

Why can't elves be bards or druids?

>>3881679
because they already are bards and druids all the time

bards and druids are just humans trying so hard to be elf that they go way past it into crazy town

>>3881154
i go to friendly arm first, then head south along the road

I do every available quest at friendly arm, beregost, and nashkel before I go to the mines. This includes getting dynaheir. So I'm usually level 2 or 3

>>3881320
>The bizarre distribution of bonuses and penalties for stats changing to the simple and uncapped base of 10 system is probably the most objectively improved thing going from 2E to 3E.
no. I love 3e, but I wish it used 2e's stat system. In 2e there were sensible limits, in 3e it all goes out the door and everybody is focused on ability scores all the time. Casters not getting direct bonuses to their spell power from stats was a good thing (I know they get extra spells, and that's okay). It was good that anybody (any warrior, anyway) could drink a potion and have 22 str, not +4 str. It was good that stats capped out. Stats mattered in 2e, but you still didn't really *need* great stats to be a badass.

>>3881743
really what it's about is that if you were actually rolling physical dice, you would have a buffer zone where you could have a range of acceptable values, and then need to distribute exceptionally bad rolls and exceptionally good rolls to design a character's personality

>>3881481
>Fixing what our lord and saviour Gary Gygax thought up in the 70s
Blasphemy.

>>3881929
gygax was biased against hippies because he was the only guy they wouldn't fuck

Just a note on some dual-classing possibilities for the NPCs in BG1. These two can dual-class pretty much whenever:
>Shar-Teel: Fighter -> Thief
>Imoen: Thief -> Mage

Ideally, you'd want Shar-Teel to go Fighter 7 / Thief 8. It'll get her the extra APR and more HP, though it should be noted she won't get those Fighter levels back until very late game (last 30k XP). If that's a little too much, then Fighter 3 is a good breaking point to pick up your fifth weapon proficiency pip and get an early start on Thief. Imoen is tried and true at Thief 7 / Mage 8.

Other NPCs that can dual-class but need Tomes to bump their stats slightly first are:
>Branwen: Cleric->Thief, needs Tome of Dexterity
>Safana: Thief->Mage, needs Tome of Intelligence
>Xzar: Necromancer->Cleric/Thief, needs Tome of Wisdom/Dexterity
>Dynaheir: Invoker->Cleric, needs 2 Tomes of Wisdom
Safana follows the same principle as Imoen. There's probably not a lot of good reasons to dual Branwen into a Thief other than the fact that she'd normally cap out at Cleric 8 and this allows her to go Cleric 7 / Thief 8. You're essentially just trading one spellslot for 8 levels of locking picking and trap disarming.

Xzar and Dynaheir can both go Cleric, but given the XP cap they can't do better than Mage 6 / Cleric 8, locking them out of 4th level Mage spells. In my experience, Dynaheir actually benefits from this change quite well. Given she's an Invoker, she's usually got a bunch of Fireballs and the like prepped, and with the secondary utility of healbot she doubles her value in the party. There's not a lot that her fourth level Mage spells offer that can compete with the Cleric spells.

Honestly, there's not much use for Xzar in either case. He can fulfill the same role as Dynaheir, only with fewer direct damage spells and a much lower HP pool, or he can dual to a Thief in which case his paltry Strength and Constitution still make him bad for frontlines.

>>3880847
Rite of Passage for all those who want to start playing Modded Baldur's Gate 2

>>3881959
>tfw I wanted to dual class yoshimo to fighter

>>3881959
>>Imoen: Thief -> Mage
Is this the only viable dual-class option for her?

>tfw mods don't install to my pirated version.

>>3881959
>>Dynaheir: Invoker->Cleric

I actually do that in my cannon playthroughs. I go with

Protag
Imoen: Thief 7- Mage 8
Jaheira: Fighter 7- Druid 8
Khalid: Fighter 8
Minsc: Ranger 8
Dynaheir: Mage 5- Cleric 8 (Mage 6 takes too long to get your abilities back, and you only lose 1 spellslot)

>>3881967
Yes. The only legal dual-class combinations for Thieves are Fighter, Cleric and Mage. She'd need 6 more points of Wisdom to dual into a Cleric, and 8 points of Strength to dual Fighter.

>comes with a cool weapon but is useless with it because of 7 CON
>can't cast magic missile
What's the point of Xan?

>>3881972
I think it's better to dual Imoen on lvl 6 so she can reach lvl5 spells in bg1.

>>3881978
The romance. It's all about romances these days.

>>3881978
He is funny.

>>3881978
As was mentioned before, there's functionally no difference between a 7 and a 14 Constitution. He doesn't take any kind of penalty for it being that low. And even without Evocation, he has plenty of direct damage spells like Melf's Acid Arrow or Skull Trap. But that's not really his forte. He shines much brighter as a buffer / crowd controller. Too many people only prep damage spells when he can easily clear the field with a well placed Sleep spell.

Also, the Moonblade makes it damn easy for him to hit the Fire Resistance cap (and higher) and it's fun to throw some defensive spells like Mirror Image on him, rush him forward, target him with a shitton of fireballs and watch the whole area clear while his HP gets filled.

>>3881980
There's something to be said for it. For me personally though, Thief 6 isn't high enough to handle the end game traps and doors, and Mage 9 is so far off, especially accounting for the 20k lost XP from Thief 6, it's not worth picking up a single use slot of Cloudkill or SM3.

>>3881969
they all worked on my pirated gog versions

>>3881998
EE version or original?

>>3881995
Thief 6 is enough to max find traps, gets reactivated faster and you can dump all her second tier spells into Knock for doors. It even lets you invest a bit more into stealth making it pretty viable for her.

>>3882002
original what do I look like a faggot?

>>3882002
>ever playing the EE

>>3881995
I use knock for all the lock that I can't bash with 19str.

>>3882007
EE gives you a scroll case and a gem bag near the beginning of the game, that's a good enough reason for me to play it.

>>3881978
>>3881990
adding to what this guy said:
drink potion of fortitude, cast strength on self, cast mirror image, go into melee with moonblade and fight

>>3881995
well, theres not that many traps and locks in the game, and theres plenty of thief skill boosting potions

>>3882015
and a potion bag, and fixed mechanics, and fixed quests

it's worth mentioning that my highest spell level in this group is 5

>>3882037
Why don't your guys wear helmets?

>>3882037
Breach and clear. Or buy a protection from undead scroll

>>3882052
I though liches are immune to lvl5 spells such as breach.

>>3882037
Get your own portrait you lazy fuck.

>>3882063

I think making them vulnerable to breach can be installed in SCS which is intended by this mod.

>>3882038

Some fags deactivate helmet animations.

>>3882002
EE is ok. Just disregard the terrible EE NPCs.

>>3882069
they've rebalanced it so that liches won't stonewall you by autoleveling to max if you turn on maxrolled encounters

what basically would happen was that you'd either have someone who could cast level 7 spells or you'd just get fucked

I actually won that encounter despite having the wrong spells set up, but died right right after by walking into the trap letters

fucking game

>>3882096
who can guess what spell I ran out of

>>3882102
How did you resurrect Dynaheir?

>>3882107
>>3882064
no

>>3882114
>Dynaheir portrait
>kensai
>19/19/19/18/8/8
I feel deeply insulted.

>>3882120
I was gonna dual her to thief and see if she could use a BBoD scroll for backstab

he rolled a different set of spells this time?

I started to play Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition last night in coop with my bros. It's my first time playing Baldur's Gate.

Th enhanced edition is so fucking buggy, but it's alright. My character can barely hit anything, he can spend entire fight waving his sword around and not hit a single hitpoint. I usually play as warrior class in this type of games, but this time I decided to play as tiny hobbit-tier thief.
I was laughing with tears in my eyes when I saw my halfling character model compared to the other characters in our party. He looks like a little kid.

>>3882102
Cure Disease

>>3882150
how high is your strength? you need high strength to hit things in melee and high dex to hit with ranged weapons

>>3882114
>Kensai 13
>Hasn't Dual classed yet
What are you? Some kinda role player?!?

>>3882157
My str is about 15. I kinda fucked up with the character creation by trying to make him equally good in everything, ending up with character who is equally bad in everything.

>>3882154
that was actually pretty funny

have a skelton

>>3882164
And they said 3.0e has more traps than adnd.

>>3882179
He's not 'bad', just average.

>>3882158
I turned the xp cap off I was gonna dual at 24 and just grind it out since the game won't be hard after level 9 spells anyway

I just wanted to do some shenanigans with a GWW Carsomyr on a kensai or something

maybe GWW assassination if that's possible

I know the game doesn't require grinding

I kinda hope his body doesn't explode

>>3882187
That encounter is, in my experience, the single most difficult fight in the entire dungeon. Everything else save the shadow dragon seems trivial.

>>3882203
what level would you usually fight the dragon at

I don't really know how much damage it does

>>3882212
Dragons are not the same, this shadow one is weaker than Firkraag.

Why aren't there any cleric NPC mods for BG2? I'm tired of Anomen, Aerie and Viconia.

>>3882216
good to know

>>3882187
>putting your wizards into the top slots

>>3882223
Not by too much though. He still hits consistently even fully armored and buffed fighters, has 60% magic resist, 25% physical damage resist and AC-12. On top of 160 HP. The gemstone that hides you is truly a godsend.

>>3882242
In my first playthrough I killed him fairly easy(and thought that dragons are not that bad), but was wrecked by Firkraag. On the thirty-somenthing reload I finally killed him though, and it was the most memorable battle in all rpgs I've played.

>>3881743
Having your casting stat contribute to the saving DCs of your spells isn't part of changing the stat system to be 10 as baseline, +/-1 for every 2 points above or below, which was my point. In 2E, a fighter with 14/14/14 physical stats is a cripple, in 3E that's not so awful.

>>3882443
Bullshit, 2e stats were explicitly rigged so that modifiers in combat were a big deal.

>>3882443
The only really bad thing was having something like +3 to hit and +7 damage difference between 16 str and 18/00.

>>3882150
>he can spend entire fight waving his sword around and not hit a single hitpoint.
the game adds a lot of fake swings to "spice up" combat
combat actually place in 6 real-time seconds, and your characters only have a certain number of actual attacks in that time, which you can see in their character stat screen (listed under attacks per round)
if you just started the game as a fighter you'll likely have 3/2 apr with a weapon that has 2 proficiency pips in it, 5/2 if you're dual wielding, so during all those swings in a 6 second frame at most 2 and a half of them are real

>>3882217
Gavin, but I was not impressed.
Finch, which I actually enjoyed, but is BG1 only.

>>3882063
They're not. Its just that they always put up a spell trap with their for contingency which absorbs all spells you throw at them until dispelled.

>>3880484
>favorite class?
f/m/t
I love having my main guy kinda do everything.

>favorite weapon?
in the whole series?
...blade of roses. kinda boring, but you can get it almost immediately in bg2, it's a solid +3 with no downsides, and you carry it all the time due to the cha bonus. It looks neat with a unique appearance, and it's great for my elf f/m/t

>favorite companion?
probably korgan, despite the alignment differences. I always want him on my team; he's a dwarf with a cool class, he's a grandmaster with axes (several cool axes in the game), and he's got one of my fav portraits

also dig imoen, kivan, valygar, sarevok, wilson, and baeloth

>>3880847
the perfect waifu

too bad you cant make her a slutty or at least corrupt her in some way

>>3882443
>In 2E, a fighter with 14/14/14 physical stats is a cripple, in 3E that's not so awful.
It's the other way around - 2E is perfectly playable without bonuses while 3E fucks you over for not having a high primary stat. There are a couple of classes who could get by with low stats and Fighter isn't one of them, plus magic items/potions set your STR instead of adding to it so a low stat in 2E isn't low forever while you're permanently behind in 3E.

>>3881978
You don't want Magic Missile in BG1 anyway. Sleep is way better.

>>3882738
You want a few in stock to first round disrupt mages you run into.

>>3882751
Almost always impossible because of Mirror Image.

>>3882757
Casting Time 1 will cast faster than Casting Time 2.

Id love to try baldurs gate II for android anyone has an uploaded link probably?

>>3882760
Maybe I'm remembering it wrong but didn't almost all mages in BG1 use Mirror Image with Contingency?

>>3882225
I do that too. And then I take a formation which puts him behind the frontline.

>>3882757
Mirror Image doesn't protect against Magic Missile.
Shield does, but NPC mages rarely cast it.

>>3882757
which is why you want them
magic missile is my go-to mirror image destroyer
i mean, theres other ways to do it, but magic missile is pretty easy

>>3882767
Depends if you have SCS enabled. As I understand it, it insta-buffs wizards so they aren't interrupted and you actually have to deal with their spell casting instead of just getting in an interrupt and chainsawing them down.

>>3882751
There are enough Wands of Magic Missiles to not have to worry about that.

>>3882785

I prefer rolling for stats in 2e. More conducive to role-playing I think. 3e seems more for power gaming.

>>3882783
What? Of course it does. You still have a chance to hit but that's determined by the number of images. If the caster has 1 mirror image, the chance to hit is 50% and so forth.

Anyone know of a script or something that unlocks locked chests? I found some chests where 24 (Storm giant pots) strength isn't enough to force them and now I'm curious..

>>3882792
I'm pretty sure he means that all else being equal, the guy casting Magic Missile gets his spell in before the guy casting mirror image does, and thus disrupts him.

>>3882814
Why don't you have a thief? Or at least a mage who knows Knock?

>>3882817
Solo Kensai/Mage run, and I'm not at 13 so I can dual to mage yet..

>>3882819
You people and your munchkin characters. Seems like you just have to deal with it.

Post a screenshot of the chest, maybe I know what's inside

>>3882824
Both of these chests are locked so that 24str isn't enough to force.

They are in the secret room behind the torch-puzzle in the initial SoD dungeon

>>3882827
>SoD

Welp.

>>3882150
it's low level D&D, you will struggle to kill a rat until level 4

>>3882831
Precisely

>>3882831
For the sake of argument I fired up EEKeeper and buffed myself to 25, still no dice. I figure these chests require knock or 100 Lockpicking on a thief..

>there are people in this thread that think rolling for stats means you roll 3d6 in a fixed order

>>3882831
I dualed into mage, just to see, since I have about seven million scrolls laying around I can get 2nd level spells immidealty.

Lower chest contains:
Sword of Ruin - +2 2h sword. +5% chance to crit, does +2d4 slashing damage extra on a crit
Potion of Fire-giant Strength
Potion of Invulnerability

Upper chest contains:
Full Plate Mail
Helm of Unwavering Purpose - +1 AC, Immunity to Confusion, protects against crits.

Science has been done

Are there any bounty hunters/assassins sent by Sarevok in BG1 that try to kill you without chatting with you first?

>>3880815
>Imoen Romance mod
Will she be jealous to Phaere in the Underdark like the other girls?

>>3882942
Don't remember any.

>>3882987
At that point not in a serious romance yet so no. She gets turn on listening to you.

>>3883018
What a cuckgirl.

I played the mod a few months ago and don't know why everyone makes such a fuss about it. It's not good

>>3883018
I tried to kiss her, but there's no talking anymore. Did I fuck up?

>>3883069
Yeah, you escalated too quickly.

>>3883115
Well, ImoenRomanceActive variable is 1 on the latest save, maybe it was the last talk in the underdark.

>try to use BWS for the third time
>it always hangs at "testing the installation"

Sad.

thank you beamdog

>>3883436
>18/20
do you even lift?

>>3883448
15000 rolls per second for 15 minutes now.

>>3883452
Jesus Christ just use EEkeeper already.

>>3883459
>implying rerolling is cheating
bet you think reloading is cheating.
>>3883175
if the variable is 1, then you're safe.

>>3880484
>Favorite class? Weapon? Companion? Mod?
None because the game is fucking unplayable.

Out of joke tho, I'm not sure I'm playing this right, I'm missing almost 90% of my attacks and I can't rely on magic too much because that means resting after every battle.
I guess you're not supposed to play like that.

>>3883462
No one cares if it's cheating. Literally no one.
If you want some stats, just set them and be done with it instead of wasting half an hour.

>>3882819
Kensai/mage isn't very good

Berserker/Mage or Kensai/thief are the power combos

in a solo game maybe Ranger/Cleric or Fighter/Mage/Thief

>>3883471
it's about the journey there anon, not just the results. does your autism prevent you from having fun in real life too?

>>3883467
you're supposed to rest after every significant encounter.

>>3883467
Are you meleeing with a wizard? Maybe with a weapon you're not even proficient in? What's your THAC0? I'd bet it's like 25.
Anyway, use Sleep and let the rest of your party members take care of incapacitated enemies.
You can start blowing up stuff with fireball later, but early on play support.

>>3883467
Look how many attacks per second you have. Remember, this shit is not real time. If you have 1 attack per round that means your character can only attack once every 6 seconds.

>>3883467
turn off the cosmetic attacks and/or turn on the hit dice to watch why you miss.

>>3883481
>Look how many attacks per second you have

I mean attacks per round of course.

>>3882102
>>3882037
This is why we don't turn on the always maximized spawns option for SCS.

>>3882447
Huh? The point is that in 2E a guy with 14/14/14 has no modifiers at all. In 3E he'd be at +2 for all three stats. In 2E you'd rather you had a fighter with 9s in two of his physical stats so long as he had an 18 in the other one, which is silly.

>>3882484
Exceptional strength in general is a weird design choice, since it's literally the only stat that has that kind of thing. They should have just cancelled it and had warrior-type classes have faster ramping THAC0 and damage bonuses.

>>3882701
Magic items and potions setting stats rather than increasing them by a set amount is orthogonal to the point about the balance of stats as a baseline, though I do prefer that to the 3E version of such items. It's worth noting that pretty much no 2E campaign swarms you with potions and girdles and gauntlets of ogre/giant strength like BG does, though. A fighter with shitty strength is in a significantly worse position in the vast majority of tabletop campaigns or modules than he is in BG.

>>3883494
>This is why we don't turn on the always maximized spawns option for SCS.
no I still won, you don't need ruby ray anymore so it's doable. This was the first fight where I had to turn on extra-healing auto-potion AI in SCS though

my save is right at the shadow dragon but I think I'm gonna go buy groceries

I slept all fucking day

>>3883494
There is only like 1 item in BG1 that sets your STR to 18, even that near the end. True about potions, though.

>>3883494
anon, the real question is why would anyone play a warrior class in 3/3.5e. fighters and every other martial class are in a lot better places in 2/2.5e when it comes to contributing in encounters.

>>3883494
to be fair in a real PnP game a character with epic strength can do stuff like hurl a horse drawn carriage at a mage to block LoS, don't even get me started on what you could have a monk do, it gets to Sabin suplexing a train levels of ridiculous

>>3883504
That's fair, I was mostly thinking about BG2 with the items point.

>>3883509
Yeah, it's kind of funny how the thing people remember about the high level AD&D we see in BG2/ToB is invincible mages and caster chess, but that warriors - fighters particularly both because grand mastery is a big deal and because 3E fighters are uniquely shit - actually were much more powerful than in 3E.

I can't say I like the mechanic of only warriors getting bonus HP from constitution above 16, but the HP curve of a warrior vs a caster was much more favourable to the warrior in 2E, and because monsters didn't scale in HP or AC as much, warriors actually had very high consistent damage, instead of in-practice worse damage than blaster mages, which in any case is the worst way to play a 3E wizard.

>>3883519
I mean, you're right that you can do stuff as bruiser characters in tabletop that isn't represented in the video games, but so can casters. BG2 wizards don't have access to Fly, for example.

>>3883509
In 3E you just play a Warblade like everyone else.

>>3883531
I exclusively play casters and honestly I still prefer 2E when it comes to Wizards.
In 2E you can have a nice mixed spell loadout and still able to kill weaker enemies with a single fireball.
In 3E if you want to actually kill enemies you need 3 times as many spells and there's barely any room left for utility. This is especially a problem when you want to solo as a wizard in NWN/NWN2, you practically have to rest after every pack.

If you want to kill enemies without using up all your memorizations every battle, CoDzilla is the only real option.

>>3883531
>monsters didn't scale in HP or AC as much
That's what I really like about 2E. Everyone is relatively fragile and every attack matters.

>>3883556
It mostly leads to your tanks health potion spamming instead of doing damage, though.

Are there any dialogue options in BG1 or BG2 that are dependent on ability score?

>>3883716

A tiny handful of charisma based ones, I believe.

>>3883716
The gruff sargeant in Candlekeep who sends you out to get crossbow bolts gives you a +1 dagger if your charisma is over 16 and a few gold otherwise.

>>3883596
the role of the fighter ends up to being the mage's sword and shield while the mage controls the battlefield, but holy shit is that pairing effective, neither one is as useful without the other

>>3883716
there are options that are locked without the requisite intelligence or wisdom I think

you can also get some intimidation checks with strength

>>3883596
maybe in bg1 that's the case, but a level 13 fighter isn't going to be chugging at all unless they're getting hit by a dragon without any protection buffs

>>3883895
the chugging starts when things go south

so you might never chug in vanilla, but in a lot of the difficulty mods mages and the like will breakdown your frontline with debuffs and status effects forcing you to hold the line with just the one tank

>>3883519
Unfortunately martials outside of rare builds like Bear Warriors aren't even the characters with the highest STR. That goes to anyone who's abusing Polymorph or Shapechange mechanics. Nothing quite like shapechanging into a Zodar and running around with a natural STR of 45 - that's 51 with a +6 belt of STR, or persisted Divine Power, by the way - while still being medium size. And being able to cast 3 of any spell they want and being able to Wish once for free each time you shapechange into the fucker as the cherry on top, since this was about raw STR comparisons.

3.5 is just kind of fucked.

>>3883964
I'm pretty sure that would be veto'd by any DM who isn't complete shit or doesn't have a completely sadistic backup plan in mind. A more probable thing to see would be a frenzied berserker with maxrolled strength who grasps enemies and wields them as improvised weaponry, and everyone would love to have that kind of hilarious pro-wrestling companion around.

>>3883991
That's just the most extreme example. It's very easy to get high physical stats without going full cheese.

And really, if you have to target the spellcasters with cheese to keep them in line while doing the same would fuck over any martial, that really only proves my point.

this was not nearly as hard as I thought it would be

>>3884020
I'm not sure what your point was nor was I even paying that much attention because I'm not even sure anything you said was worth arguing over

did you forget how to just have a conversation at some point in your life?

>>3884038
The point is that 3.5 sucks really hard and big STR guys aren't even the best at their own niche because again, 3.5 sucks.

>>3884041
I thought 3.5 was fun if you're not a powergamer and are just a goodgamer

honestly it's pretty awful if you're a newgamer or badgamer though

t. guy who started out with 3rd ed

>>3884042
Joke's on you, 3.5 is tailor made to fuck you over if you don't optimize.

>>3884043
it really depends

if everyone else is optimized sure

but it's not like you need to play a game where everyone is totally on the bleeding edge of heroic

if you're just pretty good, and everyone else is pretty good, then when some kitted out baddude shows up and you have to use strategy and teamwork to beat him it's alright

it only seems unbalanced when the group itself is unbalanced

>>3884047
The obvious counterpoint to that is that parties that don't know what they're doing can end up with scattershot power levels completely by accident and that parties that are too weak or too powerful make CR even more useless. It's not a stretch at all for the guy who wants to play Zorro to end up in the party as the guy who likes bears and plays as the class that gets a bear companion and turning into a bear as class features.

>>3884058
>It's not a stretch at all for the guy who wants to play Zorro to end up in the party as the guy who likes bears and plays as the class that gets a bear companion and turning into a bear as class features.
man what the hell are you even talking about the grammar alone is disorienting

>>3884072
What do you think is going to happen when one party member sees the Duelist PrC and thinks "oh shit, that's cool!" and makes a character around it?

What about when another party member sees the Druid and thinks the same thing?

>>3884083
The DM should tell them to pick classes that synergize better together, like telling the duelist to maybe consider scout or ranger, or the druid to consider a kit that is less focus on summons.

Alternatively, as DM I would just kill one of them.

>>3883964
>9th level Wizard spells plus 10th level cleric spell slot
>36,000gp belt

I don't think the issue is 3.5, I think it's your epic level character.

>>3884125
Well, we were talking about 'epic level strength', but you've still got the problem to a lesser degree as early as level 7.

>>3884125
the wizard gets to fly in the air at level 5, like a bird
the fighter has yet to get his second iterative attack

>>3884083
Druid is one of the most OP classes there is in 3.5. And the Duelist is perfectly viable if you have even a basic grasp of the rules and extremely effective if you have any more than that. Frankly, I've always found it synergizes amazingly with the Shadowdancer and Assassin PrCs and in using Wizard/Rogue as the core classes over Fighter/Rogue. There's something immensely satisfying about having higher AC than the fullplated tower shield Fighter while you're absent armor, having sneak attack / precise strike bombs with your flanking shadow buddy that out-nukes Mages, synergizing your high Int for both spells, Duelist AC and stacking your Assassin Death Attack DC, and being able to just vanish in plain sight and send your shadow down into the ground when things turn on you. And it's really nice when your DM decides to cheese everyone with a grappler who still can't land a hit on your 30-40 touch AC.

>>3884150
The fuck? No, that's a one way ticket to being really bad at your job.

>>3884146
So? Have you looked at the Monster Manual under CR 5? Adult Arrowhawks, Djinni, Large Air Elementals, Hieracosphinx, Manticores, Nightmares, Rasts, Ravids, Shadow mastiff, Otto's Dancing Pixies, Spider Eaters, Wraiths, etc. Not to mention half the other entries have ranged attacks themselves.

>>3884152
Only if you suck at the game. Everyone knows the secret to real powergaming isn't in minmaxing, it's in multiclassing. It was true in AD&D and it's even moreso in 3rd edition.

>>3882942
going by memory:
2 retards at candlekeep
mage at friendly arm
dwarf in beregost
chick at nashkel inn
amazons
nimbul at nashkel
gullykin four guys
guys waiting at mine entrance
ogre at blushing mermaid
guys at top floor of iron throne
guys waiting at candlekeep dungeon exit
undercellar assassins
iron throne assassins in undercity

they all talk to you

>>3883467
gitgud

>>3883734
your charisma must be 18

>>3884041
>it sux becauise it sux becuz i said ti sux. it sux gais freal. sux

>>3884043
nothing fucks you over as hard as a DM who's not on the same page. anyway, unoptimized party is balanced out by lazy dm's who never do 90% of the shit they're supposed to.

>here's your point buy statistics and exact wealth by level
>now fight this set piece encounter in a safe square room that doesnt use complicated mechanics
>okay, now talk to these npcs and walk somewhere, then repeat
>never more than four a day, now, kids
>why are wizards so powerful?!!?!? my unbuffed breastplate-wearing fighter with generic weapons really sucks against these constantly challenge rating equivalent enemies!
>hurr durr

>>3884160
Shadow Mastiffs can't fly, you're probably thinking of a Yeth Hound. Though it does support your case, since they've been around since CR3.

>>3884083
well, assuming they used rogue to get into it, the only real downside of the duelist is lack of special rogue skills; they're gonna lag behind in their UMD and disable device and that shit, and you get into the class too late to switch back to rogue every couple levels to dump ranks back into them
PF actually fixed most prestige classes, to my surprise

druids being so powerful is a meme; summoning takes forever and they don't have infinite spell slots, their AC is low in animal form until higher levels, and in a dungeon with stairs and doors and ladders and shit, a big fucking bear is a liability
not to mention a single potion of protection from evil completely negates your summons unless you throw a dispel
animals have low ac and good but not awesome attack, so a fighter can buff his AC and just tank until your durations run out, if it comes to it

>>3884146
the fighter can also get far shot and throw a net a hundred feet into the air to bring your flier to the ground, or use a bola to trip and stall them, or be enlarged by a buddy and use a reach weapon to reach 30ft into the air

>>3884152
>mfw no argument

>>3884146
I'd be pretty pissed if the retarded Mage cast Fly on himself. While we're all getting bombarded by Mephit arrows from above, the guy with Magic Missiles, Lightning Bolts and Acid Arrows casts Fly on himself so he can go up and engage them in melee while he leaves the actual Fighter on the ground polishing his Greatsword?

>>3884162
>it's in multiclassing.
If you're a martial or a gish, sure. It's almost always worse than straight classing for a full caster, who want PrCs with full spellcasting instead.

Duelist's INT to AC is capped by Duelist levels, by the way. Monk 1+Carmendine Monk is flatly superior to it.

>>3880815
>Imoen Romance Mod

This Mod has achieved legendary status here.

>>3884181
>druids being so powerful is a meme
It's really not. Take a 8th level Druid with Augment Summoning who casts Summon Nature's Ally 4. Just for the sake of this hypothetical, he rolls a 3 on the 1d3.

That's three Lions who appear simultaneously wherever he wants. He elects to have them all 20ft out from the enemy and all charge into flanks immediately. Lions get full attacks on charge attacks, along with two rakes. So, all the attacks that round would be: +11/+11/+5/+11/+11/+11/+11/+5/+11/+11/+11/+11/+5/+11/+11 for 12d4+3d8+69, assuming they all land. And that's not counting that they all get a Free Action grapple if the bites land with an augmented Grapple check of +16. Meanwhile, the Druid's own Animal Companion (at 7th level that could be another Lion too!) is also dealing damage simultaneously. And if he had Natural Spell and was just hanging around in a Lion form himself, he jumps in next round for more of the same.

>>3884185
Nah, mixing spellcasting works too. The best caster PrC requires a mix of caster classes out the gate.

>sourcebook cheese is superior to vanilla game
You don't say?

>>3884209
Do you actually think Mystic Theurge is good?

>>3884212
>9th level Mage spells and 7th level Cleric spells
>not good
Wew.

>>3884212
I'd argue Cleric 3 / Wizard 3 / Mystic Theurge 10 / Archmage 4 is probably the strongest caster combination in vanilla 3.5.

>>3884217
You have slower spell progression than a Bard and are reliant on having a second mental stat at 19 minimum. Think for one second about what that means.

>>3884221
The ol' 18/16/14 split covers everything well and you only need a 17 Wisdom to cover your Cleric spells. Given you're primarily a Mage, you really don't need a high DC for your Cleric spells or a higher Wisdom than just what it takes to cast them.

And if you honestly think the Bard has a leg up on you because he's going to get Haste first then you're playing the wrong game, friendo.

>>3884241
It's not the Bard you need to worry about, it's being 3 spellcasting levels behind a Wizard or a Cleric after you start taking MT levels. Throwing around a tiny handful of level 2 spells when a Wizard of the same level just got Polymorph and Solid Fog or a Cleric just got Divine Power is shit.

MT isn't completely unsalvageable but it's terrible without early entry tricks.

>>3884249
I think you're wildly overestimating the one or two a day higher level spellslots stacked against functionally being two characters in one.

>>3884259
No, I'm really not. MT is well known for being a noob trap for exactly the reasons I'm telling you it is.

>>3884262
Except you're categorically wrong. A C3/W3/MT4 vs Wiz 10 stomps the Wizard every time. Those two 5th level spell slots are not equal to being a full 7th level Wizard and 7th level Cleric simultaneously. The noob trap is being so godawful that you think its a race to the highest level spellslot instead of overall power.

>>3884270
This.

>>3884270
Yes they absolutely are. There's a very large jump in power between spell levels and the MT's need for multiple stats makes them much more likely to lose initiative since they can't afford INT, WIS, DEX, and CON, and well, good luck ever winning a caster duel if you're losing that regularly.

And god help you if you think you won't get shit on at level 17.

Seriously, this shit has been known for over a fucking decade, google it.

>>3884276
>There's a very large jump in power between spell levels
No, there's not. Go find me an 8th level spell that all the 7th level Wizard and Cleric spells can't handle. Or any variation thereof.

>MT's need for multiple stats
Again you trumpet that. What stats did your Wizard take? Assuming you min/maxed, it probably went something like 8/12/14/18/14/8. Take the same build and funnel those 4 points of Dexterity to Wisdom, and you're done.

>And god help you if you think you won't get shit on at level 17.
Yeah, all those instant death spells are sure terrifying when you don't have the Cleric spell Death Ward.

>>3883716
I remember two wisdom checks - spectator beholder at sahuagin city and that guy in bordello tent in trademeet and his fake story about dragon.

>>3884287
>Go find me an 8th level spell that all the 7th level Wizard and Cleric spells can't handle.
Maze, PAO, Mind Blank, Prismatic Wall, Otto's Irresistible Dance, Bigby's Clenched Fist, that's all just at a cursory glance.

If we're talking about spells that are useful for a full caster but NOT for MT, then there's a lot more. Holy Word and its other alignment cousins are borderline broken on a straight Cleric but useless on MT. Polymorphing in general loses its power because you're so far behind in caster level that you can't take full advantage of it for your level.

>>3884301
>Maze
An intelligence check against a Wizard? Are you serious?

>Mind Blank
That's a defensive spell, not offensive.

>Prismatic Wall
Did you read the spell description? Nevermind he can fly over or Dimension Door through it, there's a list of Cleric and Wizard spells that specifically counter it.

>Otto's Irresistible Dance
That's as easy as countering any touch spell. Whether you go Repulsion, Mirror Image, Sanctuary or what.

>Bigby's Clenched Fist
The spell specifically mentions that something as lowly as a 2nd level Cleric Darkness spell beats it. It's not an automatic hit like Interposing.

>Holy Word
Eh, that's a bit more situational. Just being TN automatically trumps the whole Holy Word, Dictum, Blasphemy, Word of Chaos gamut. And given the two are the same level, just different caster levels the only thing you have is Deafened, which again, the Theurge has Cure Blindness/Deafness.

You can keep looking, but you're never going to find that one glorious spell that completely overwhelms someone with the entire spell lists of two classes one spell level behind you.

>>3884315
>that one glorious spell that completely overwhelms someone with the entire spell lists of two classes one spell level behind you.
If dueling was the goal I would've just posted Power Word: Stun. MT has like 8 HP over a Wizard and Wizards are quite a ways off from having enough HP to avoid getting screwed over by it, even with 14 starting CON and a +6 enhancement item for whatever reason.

>>3884319
Power Word Stun is beaten by a simple Contigency+Dimension Door spell. DD far out-ranges PW:S. Or, more fun, Spell Turning. Or Repulsion to stop you from closing that near in the first place. Or a thousand other spells.


And I assumed you were talking about dueling form the get-go. That's the only scenario where a straight caster conceivably has any use at all. In actual gameplay, the MT is a million times more useful than a straight Cleric or Wizard.

a mystic theurge is better than a wizard if you're going solo or if the party doesnt have an arcane caster or a divine caster

but in a balanced party the wizard is better

druids are great in the wild, but a lot more limited in dungeons

fighters are the other way around

its all good, fellas

>>3883716
You need 18 wisdom or more to see through and call out the illusionary Gorion who tries to make you SAD when you first go to the swamp temple in ToB

Anyone here played actual D&D? Is it fun?

>>3884393
If you're willing to get immersed and if there's opportunities to get immersed it's fun. If you are just about how much damage per round you do and how many fighting men your 10th level wizard can blow away (like people in this thread) I wouldn't recommend it.

>>3884393
I've never played it, but I think it's boring as shit by itself, and most fun turns out of people who you're playing with.

>>3884393

>>tg/52270186

>>3884393
Yes, I love it. However, it's only as good as the DM running it.

>>3884168
And then theres the 5 ogre mages in the locked house near the iron throne. Most shittily placed assassins whose whole plan banked on you checking every single house in the city. And theres even arrows specifically made to fucking end them.

>>3884037
wands are just completely broken, they let you kill anything in bg1 and bg2. also, that's the "training" dragon, hope you learned how the breath weapon works.

Do I have to kill Valygar if I don't want to bring him with me?

Does it cause a reputation loss?

>>3884587
It would almost be too easy though, I would feel kind of bad

>>3884587
Just pick him so he can open door for you and then dismiss him.
Yes, there's a reputation penalty iirc.

>>3884596
nope

it's okay because I'm the ranger

>>3884604
time to go kill demons in the sphere :^)

>>3884530
i don't remember them being iron throne, but now that you mention it, what about the guy with the blink dogs?

>>3884219
>>3884217
Action economy means being able to have access to both arcane and divine spells isn't anywhere near as powerful as just having 3 more levels of progression in one of the two, even if for some reason you would have otherwise just gone wizard 20, which you wouldn't.

>>3884530
Well, it worked, didn't it? Ogre magi 1, Bhaalspawn 0.

>>3884601
I don't think any recruitable NPC gives you reputation loss if you kill them (or XP.)

>>3884683
This. Having Time Stop and Shapechange for 3 levels while the other fucker is eating shit trying to catch up to you will make you so, so, so much better in any fight that happens at high level and the utility that naturally comes from Shapechange is absolutely retarded. Choker+Time Stop is extremely broken and that's core - counting the one you get for free on the same round you time stop, that's 8 standard actions on average, 15 if you're a dick and break out a metamagic rod of extend on the time stop. But, you know, guy thinks Mystic Theurge is worth shit if you're not early entrying it or cheesing it with Rainbow Servant and that Duelist is a good PrC. Can't help crippling retardation.

>>3884698
Mystic Theurge is still a cool concept, it just doesn't work out that well. I like the idea of giving it the ability to cast two lower level spells per round (say, 1st level immediately, 2nd level at Mystic 3, 3rd at 5, etc.) bearing in mind for a standard Mystic that's being able to cast one arcane and one divine level 1 spell per round at character level 7.

So our wizard 3/cleric 3/Mystic Theurge 10/some random arcane PrC 1 has 14th level arcane casting, 13th level divine casting and can cast two spells per round of up to 5th level, versus wizard 17 just hitting his level 9 spells. Is that as powerful as a decently built wizard, cleric or druid? Honestly it probably still isn't, the lower top end spells, MAD issues, and lower caster level probably still put it behind full single-type casters, but it'd have a pretty strong niche.

>>3884754
I wholeheartedly agree with that, actually. I'm not opposed to MT because it's a stupid concept, I'm opposed to it because barring the builds that can sidestep its issues(Wiz/Archivist with early entry, RS for 29 CL at level 20) it's a noob trap that's worse than either of its constituents taken straight while this guy keeps claiming that it's better than straight casters. Unlike trap options for martials, you at least end up with a playable character once you're past the shitfest that is levels 4-10, though.

>>3884698
Not everything is about pvp.
Playing a coop module, it's kind of nice to have the sheer amount of spells that you get from the mystic theurge.
Time Stop is not going to help your group at all, I'd rather have a ton of level 1 - level 7 cleric spells that I can freely use because I have almost twice as many spells slots as you, so I can keep casting while're trying to save up your spells and spam your weak ass Reserve feats every round.

The biggest fault of MT is not caster level or the fact it only gets good at level 10. It's DC. Your INT/WIS are going to be mediocre and all your offensive spells are going to have shitty spell DC, which hurts the most important part of spellcasting, crowd control.

>>3884825
By level 17 casting spells every round has long since ceased to be an issue, and if you think an "I win this encounter" button isn't useful to a party, well, no wonder you think MT is any good.

>>3884834
So you use Time Stop and several other high level spells to win a single encounter. Good job, now you have nothing. You have a dozen more encounters until you can rest.

It's better to use any other level 9 spell besides Time Stop.

>>3884840
When you have 5-11 actions when you Time Stop, you don't really need to limit yourself to high level spells to get the job done.

>can cast 9th level spells
>can't open a door

>>3884860
>Draw Upon Holy Might
>Become a literal demigod of strength
>Can't smash open some random shitter's warded door
Really, BioWare?

>>3884831
only one side of your casting would have lowish DC's (still plenty high, though)

let's say you're 15th level
thats wiz 3/clr 3/mt 9
if you started with the elite array, youd have like 10/13/12/18/14/8 before items, with items, probably something like 24 int and 20 wis
assuming you have no misc modifiers, that's DC 17 + level for wiz spells and DC 15 + level for cleric spells (less of which have saves), and you have up to 6th level spells on both sides, for maxes of DC 23 and 21 respectively

a nightwalker (CR 16 undead) has fort +11, ref +11, will +19
so if you target something with a weak save (like an undead with a fort or ref spell), you'll likely win with your spell. you'd almost win with your cleric spells, though note I used a CR 16 monster, not 15
also note the wizard has max int for what he started with, not counting wish bonuses which are super expensive, so unless you took spell focus, that's as high as it gets anyway. a straight wizard would have 8th level spells at DC 25; not a huge difference, and his 6th and lower spells would be the same as yours
then there are various effects that lower saves
as a wizard, you'll have the knowledge skills to know which monsters are weak to what, and you'll target appropriately
with the practiced spellcaster feat, you won't be lagging behind your caster level with your wizard spells (and if your DM is cool, he'll let the remaining +1 go to your cleric casting)

>have 19 WIS, 19 INT, and decent CHA
>journal entries and dialogue options make me sound like a retard

>>3884884
>Me am have 3 WIS 3 INT but 19 STR STRONG!
>Joornul ritten by jeniuz
Wot duh fukk?

>blah blah blah cutscene cutscene words words words
BG was one of the first JRPG-influenced PC RPGs and the death of the genre. Never could stand to play more than 30 minutes of that snorefest.

>>3884910
If you want to troll effectively you need to do some research or play the game rather than looking at some screenshots, anon.

>>3884840

Go back to /v/ermin.

I've just started and am heading up to Baldur at the moment but I've turned down loads of party members because I've got my 5 already equipped and levelled up. Is this alright or am I turning down potentially more powerful characters?

Any way to get a companion to reappear using Sword Coast Keeper? I have a mod that allows you to send companions you kick out of the party to an inn. I sent a couple to the Elfsong Inn but they didn't appear and now I can't find them anywhere.

I never played Baldur's Gate, I spent most of my childhood playing other kind of games. Is there any way to make the controls less clunky for someone who is basically a normie casual to the series?

>>3885000
You can always just strip their gear and give it to the new character. XP can be an issue, but they level up to a certain degree to match your main character's level. None of the companions are terribly bad, but you can look at their stats to see if they are stronger than what you have or not. You should mainly pick the ones that you like based on their personality.

>>3885014
just use console and spawn them in

>>3885015
It's literally point and click. It doesn't get any less clunky than that.

>>3885021
I meant the way the characters walk and the fact they stay in place and I have to micromanage while I get attacked by all sorts of critters seems pretty clunky to me. Not trying to insult BG at all, I just never played it honestly.

>>3885026
Are you playing original BG1, or BG:EE?
In the original game walking speed was pretty slow.

The micromanagement is the point of the combat. You can always press space to pause the game to make it easier to control multiple characters.

>>3885026
you can use mods that endows them with some better AI

>>3885026
bump up your pathfinding nodes.
get some of the mods listed in the thread.
use the ai scripts posted if you don't want to micro.

>>3885029
>>3885032
>>3885034

Thanks guys, will try all of these.

>>3885026
you can also change the game speed so that everything is faster (I recommend about twice as fast)

>>3885026
>having to control more than one character is clunky

>>3885000
Yes and no. BG as a series isn't one of those games where the people you can recruit early on are dirt-farming peasants compared to the later ones, but that doesn't mean that some of the ones you might find later aren't stronger than some of the earlier ones. You can always tell someone in your party to wait on the spot while you recruit the new guy and see if you like him more (obviously save before you remove a character to test this since if your reputation is far away from what they want, they might just leave in a huff rather than waiting for you.)

The disadvantage of recruiting characters later on is that they have pre-defined HP rolls which are sometimes pretty terrible, whereas if you had them early on you might reroll low ones.

When you get to BG2, it's worth having the last slot in your party being a rotating one, because most characters there actually have a personal quest or a quest which you can do without them, but where they get a bunch of additional dialogue or exposition if brought along.

>>3885041
I worded myself terribly. I meant the movement and pathfinding seemed clunky to me, which is understandable for a retro game.

>>3885046
>I meant the movement and pathfinding seemed clunky to me
Yeah, it can get pretty bad.

>>3885046
>retro game
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>3885046
Pathfinding gets worse the longer it needs to look ahead. If you want to go from one end of the map to the other and the map is cut in half with some mountain, it's better to send them to the middle first, get around the obstacle and then send them to the other edge.

>>3885046
pathfinding is built around low processing power. just like with all optimized old school games, spam click the move order, and you get the most efficient and fastest way there, just like broodwar.

>>3885039
Not him, but how can you do this? And does changing the game speed multiple times mess anything up?

>>3885094
It's in the AI options section in the config exe, or can be manually set in Baldur.ini. Significantly higher than default FPS breaks some of the cutscenes with audio desync, I don't know if EE ever fixed it but that was the default behaviour in vanilla and the early versions of the EE.

After the campfire scene with Imoen I was told that she needs to sort out her emotions. So no more talking until Bodhi is killed?

>>3883895
Once you hit tob, you'll be chugging like its a Diablo game. The game throws potions and cash to spend on more pots at you like it's going out of style and healing spells are just way too slow and dont heal enough except for the full heal. I don't even bother with priest heals these days during play throughs and just rely on pots for combat healing and equiping regen items before resting and in between fights.

>>3882567
And what am I supposed to do? Remove it with some offensive spells? So far I can kill them only after pfmw wears off so I'm just trying to survive these 4 rounds.

>>3884972
Not an argument.

>>3885389
The lowest level spell that removes spell trap is ruby ray of reversal, a level 7 mage spell. Alternatively, you can bring along the fuck all casters class, the inquistor. Inquistor dispell casts at instant speed and at twice the character level. One cast will strip all buffs from just about anything.

I was recently gifted a copy of Baldur's Gate 2 Enhanced Edition and I just have to ask where I can find the mod to remove all the enhanced edition npc's cause I really don't want to deal with the sjw beamdog crap.

>>3885659
http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/1135-disable-enhanced-edition-npcs/

>>3885659
also use steam to revert to version 1.3.

>>3885665
>>3885672
Thanks anons

>the only reasonable way to kill this guy at low levels is to gank him with invisibility
scs is srs business

>>3885695
He's a level 21 mage, so he probably should be serious business. The reason a lot of the SCS mages are so difficult is because BioWare originally gave them pretty obscene levels to compensate for their shitty AI and lack of even basic preparations. Along comes SCS and gives them proper memorization, AI and pre-casting/contingencies and you have to reckon with the fact that this dude would be the highest level mage in an entire kingdom in many parts of the Realms, rather than some Cowled Wizard senior clerk.

>>3885721
are there any games that actually get the power scale right?

>>3885732
It's not FR, but Temple of Elemental Evil must be closest, since it copies the tabletop module of the same name by Gygax as closely as possible. The issue being that ToEE was 1st edition AD&D module, so the actual mechanics are often different, but the scale mostly isn't.

>>3884402
I wouldn't listen to this guy. There are freeform games without rules that just let you RP whatever you want. There are games with almost no plot that are purely mechanic you can RP in.

D&D is a brilliant fusion of both. People who bitch about players who love doing math and mastering the game system are people who are only playing half a game and should stick with mechanicless freeform RPGs.

these games have aged like dogshit

>>3884683
Except a Wizard 20 only has 9th level Mage spells. A Mystic Theurge has 9th level Mage spells AND 7th level Cleric spells. The fact that a Sorcerer/Wizard progresses at 1/1.5 spell levels faster becomes immaterial by the end, even if you wrongly ascribe a single spell level as being better than having two full spell lists.

>>3884698
>hey guys my class is better if i win initiative, get to pick the terrain, fight 1v1, and spam 9th level and epic spell slots!

Or the Theurge wins initiative and one-shots you first. Be less stupid, stupid.

>>3885783
yeah, they don't even have a first person perspective

0/immersive

>>3885783
so many flavours and you choose to be salty

>>3884770
I like how people who use broken source books are always the first one to bitch about how broken the game is and how weak the core classes and prestige classes are. And you can always spot them because they all use the same lingo "noob trap."

Shit, most of them died from burnout in the early 2000's after OGL had given them enough "Demi-God of Like Bonus Stacking Archmagi Druidic Fighter" classes. But every discussion board always has that one guy who goes on and on about his sourcebook cheese and how he can't BELIEEEEEEEVE people even mention PHB and DMG classes still.

>>3885784
"The end" is mostly a hypothetical, people don't spend any significant amount of time at level 20, and if they reach there, you're usually talking about a game that goes into epic levels as well. Theurges are behind in access to higher-level spells at all character levels besides exactly 20. And it's not just a single higher spell level, it's also three caster levels and some MAD (since a pure arcane caster can place constitution - or dexterity if he wants to be good at using rays - as his 2nd highest stat, rather than having use wisdom.)

And to repeat myself, wizard 20 isn't actually a build you'd compare it to, you'd want to look at an arcane caster with Incantatrix, Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, Mage of the Arcane Order or similar strong arcane caster prestige class levels.

>>3885813
>arcane caster with Incantatrix, Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, Mage of the Arcane Order
how do you justify this from a roleplaying perspective

>>3885838
I CANNOT BE CONTAINED

>>3885838
I didn't mean all three in one build, I was just shooting off examples of useful prestige classes that you might take as an arcane caster.

>>3885813
>comparing vanilla PrCs to sourcebook PrCs
Just like that chucklefuck who was bitching about how underpowered Duelist is. When you allow Initiates of the Sevenfold Veil, Hulking Hurlers, Ur-Priests, Frenzied Berzerkers and all the other nonsense, the base game suddenly looks like shit.

>wizards dump stat Wisdom
Not intelligent ones. Arguably Constitution is a safe dump if you know you're going Lich or Vampire, but only a fool gibs his Will save, particularly if he's single-classing it for lower overall values.

>>3885286
> no more talking

Until you go back to the elven city entrance with the Lanthorn, if I remenber correctly.

>>3885846
Why was he such a raging asshole?

>>3885916
guess that's what happens when your qt3.14 elf waifu cuts off your ears, eats your soul, and then banishes you for all eternity with your useless degenerate sister.

>>3885916
Because he was voiced by David Warner. The only VA who could give Tony Jay a run for his money in terms of quality villain voice acting.

>>3885897
>Just like that chucklefuck who was bitching about how underpowered Duelist is.
Look retard, there is not a single core class that is actually improved by Duelist. 1 INT to AC without armor per level of Duelist is shit on multiple levels - you'd be better off wearing a shield and armor flat out, as only a Wizard can make that work and why the fuck would you throw away 10 caster levels for 10 AC - they're stuck with the worst combat style in the game if they want to make use of Precise Strike, and none of their features actually synergize at all. Literally the best things about Duelist are that it's a full BAB class and that it gets bonuses to initiative and reflex saves, which are not even remotely enough to justify its existence.

You are not some miracle worker who knows more about it than people who've been playing the game for nearly two decades now.

>>3885916
Muh elven soul.

>>3885897
None of the prestige classes I listed are anywhere near as silly as Ur-priests and their 9th level spells for 10 levels of investment, nor do they lean on combinations of non-standard races and additional prestige classes (Hulking Hurler/War Hulk) or blatantly unintended functions/extrapolations of the rules (Hurler again with thrown weapon damage by weight to be at its best.) They're just examples of quite strong PrCs that are tacked on to one of the already Tier 1 classes, we're not talking about silly 'hiring a high level wizard to Polymorph Any Object you into a true beholder twice so it's permanent and then taking levels as a Beholder Mage' stuff here.

I didn't say wizards would use wisdom as a total dump stat, just that it's not considered optimal to prioritize it over constitution or dexterity for most arcane casters. It's a 3rd or 4th rank stat for a wizard, which leaves you at a minor disadvantage as a Theurge having to boost it to your 2nd priority.

Obviously the further disadvantage is that you're pretty crippled in terms of using most offensive cleric spells, what with your reduced caster level and casting stat being 2nd priority, which gets worse with levels because you're not using your free boosts on it. There are more than enough defensive, utility and buff cleric spells that it's not crippling, but it's still a disadvantage.

>>3885948
>the ac is teh sux omg u n00b
Of course, you can acquire a bonus of +34 AC from the class, all stackable with other bonuses and counting toward your touch AC. But you're right, the +10 AC of fullplate and a heavy shield is so much better, right? Particularly when the latter doesn't grant a single point to touch AC.

>i wuz brought up to belief taht u cant dip in2 wizerd
Then don't challenge your retarded worldview and use Assassin instead. They also cast off of intelligence and have the added bonus of having their Death Attack DC be determined by Intelligence. And their spells are outstanding. Alter Self to Troglodyte for +6 Natural Armor; Cat's Grace for higher attacks, skills and AC; Fox's Cunning to meet any shortfalls in AC and pump DA.

Remember, Duelist isn't Swashbuckler. You can dual-wield and keep all your bonuses, and those Precise Strikes stack with Sneak Attack and work on offhand attacks too.

>You are not some miracle worker who knows more about it than people who've been playing the game for nearly two decades now.
No, I'm just a guy who's played longer than you and spends a lot of his time on D&D forums where this exact conversation has been had thousands of times and numpties like you were put to bed decades ago.

>>3885972
>Of course, you can acquire a bonus of +34 AC from the class
+10 from INT, +10 from fighting defensively and that is literally it. If you could actually read you'd understand that I'm right about this, but apparently you have a problem with that.
>and those Precise Strikes stack with Sneak Attack and work on offhand attacks too.
Nope.
>When making a precise strike, a duelist cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand
So you just cut your SA progression in half for AC, a defense that loses its relevance by the time you hit Duelist 10 anyways. Good job on that one.

>>3885981
>+10 from INT, +10 from fighting defensively and that is literally it. If you could actually read you'd understand that I'm right about this, but apparently you have a problem with that.
Really? Let me relook at the class and see how wrong I was.

A total of +10 from Canny Defense. +16 from Total Defense. +8 from Enhanced Mobility. Nope, that seems like it's +34.

>Nope.
Yep. I know you're a novice to powergaming, but I'm going to clue you in on how. Don't tell anyone though, it'll be a secret between you, me, and every other competent player that's figured it out. Here's the clue: "a duelist cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand".

>So you just cut your SA progression in half for AC
Yes, you cut a secondary situational ability in half for survivability that rivals tank-built Fighters. That's the point of the class and why damn near every ability is geared toward survival. Wanna bitch about how Dwarven Defender doesn't have the damage output capability Frenzied Berserker?

>>3885991
Yes, using your round to do LITERALLY NOTHING is a good option and bonus to AC against AoOs, something you can dodge with a skill Duelist *already has*, is exactly the same thing as a bonus to AC.

Are you retarded?

>>3885991
>"a duelist cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand".
Shit, I haven't played D&D for years and I still remember this one. Pulling shit like armor spikes on your clothes for off-hand attacks but still having a free hand. Or using a light/one-handed double weapon. Or an unarmed strike. Or a bunch of other ways around it.

>>3886006
>dodging with a skill the duelist has is stupid!
You wouldn't be moving the goalposts wouldja? Because I said a Duelist could acquire +34AC a round, I never mentioned attacking. Having been proven wrong, you're not suddenly backpedaling to try and reframe my own comment to be about attacking are you? You wouldn't do that, would you new friend of mine?

Besides, that +8 Enhanced Mobility still has a place even with Tumble being a class skill. Remember that Arcobatic Charge ability? You can't Tumble as part of a charge attack because it's a full-round action and Tumble takes place on a movement action. You'll be glad of that +8 when you're taking a -2 from the charge.

>>3886018
>Because I said a Duelist could acquire +34AC a round,
At the expense of doing anything useful that round and against AoOs.
>Remember that Arcobatic Charge ability?
You mean the thing you don't want to use because you don't have Pounce and your damage is based off of volume of attacks with bonus damage?

>>3886025
>At the expense of doing anything useful that round and against AoOs.
Keep moving those goalposts. The claim was only that they could acquire 34, you're the autist who wrongly contradicted it and now is trying to reframe the claim.

>You mean the thing you don't want to use because you don't have Pounce
Really? You're so new to the game you can't imagine a charge attack ever being made except for raw damage? Really?

See, this is why you will always fail as a powergamer, friendo. You graduated to rank 2. You got past the rank 1 minmaxers who think a 20 Strength raging Half Orc barbarian are god-tier and moved on to the babbies in rank 2 who think any obviously broken class in supplemental books are now god-tier and everything in the PHB/DMG is shit. But you're still stuck in the Sanic mindset of gotta go faster! Do more DPS! Fun ideas in a vacuum, but not in practice.

>>3886031
>and everything in the PHB/DMG is shit.
You know, except for Wizards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerors, and to a lesser extent in that it's where the actual balance is, Bards. Even PrC-wise Archmage is pretty good and Loremaster isn't a loss in power so long as you would meet the prerequisites normally.

>>3885981
Just spectating, but I wanted to point out that it would be +10 from Canny Defense and +13 from Fighting Defensively. FD gets a +10 bonus from Elaborate Parry, but it was already getting the +2 from the ability itself, and since Duelists require 5 ranks of Tumble, it would get another +1 synergy bonus bringing the total to +13.

>DnD autists

>>3886045
name one system that has basic parity with D&D and is superior at the same time.

>>3886049
Real life.

>>3886038
Fighting defensively at least lets you do something so it's automatically better than total defense, even if it's still not great because the game's stacked against AC and your offense, well, sucks cock as a duelist. 2d6 extra damage over 10 levels is a joke.

>>3886050
>intentionally kill off your character so you can reroll stats and write a new backstory
can't do that in real life

>>3886037
>casters are stronger!
Was never the debate. You claimed the Duelist was shit, I proved you wrong. The Duelist is a perfectly acceptable alternative for a player who wants to play a Dextrous / Intelligent tank and remains viable all the way through. At end-game with a handful of magic items well under the wealth limit, you can easily attain ACs in the 60's or 70's with touch AC to match and dodge around Great Wyrm, Pit Field and Solar attacks.

Your problem is that you just can't get out of the DPS mindset. It's about who can do the most damage fastest, and that's a really noob way to look at the game. It should be about maximizing your ability in your role. Your beef seems less like it's with the Duelist being "underpowered" at what it does, and more you slanted worldview that everyone should be a damage-dealer first, second and last and anything that's not is worthless.

>>3884594
>>3884596
>put Valygar in party
>take him to the sphere, have him open it
>leave him outside, pick up actual party member, do sphere
>when Lavos dies outside since Valygar is right there you get the full conversation and Valygar acts like you did the whole quest with him
Always makes me laugh

>>3886053
>what is reincarnation
Uninlightened detected

>>3886056
You didn't even come close to proving me wrong, and if anything just made it more obvious you don't know what you're doing. Here's the problem in a nutshell: AC for AC's sake is not useful, AC for AC's sake at the expense of offense is utter shit, and enemies with SLAs and spellcasting become much more common as you go up in level, which means your AC becomes even less useful as you start getting fucked over by save or loses that target your Fort or Will saves. Not only that, but when you throw everything you've got at AC and hit like a wet noodle while being stuck in place to actually do that damage, enemies can ignore you and attack the rest of your party at their leisure.

It's the exact same reason some dumbass Fighter kitting themselves out for pure defense is useless.

>>3886064
Forgotten Realms take on the afterlife is the best. A different set of endings for each alignment.

>>3886065
See, again your beef isn't with Duelist, you're bitching about game mechanics. You feel like physical tanks are useless and that's a different topic entirely. For what it is and what its niche is, the Duelist is perfectly fine and does its job excellently. Don't conflate the class being useless with the job being useless.

Besides, I get the feeling you're the sort of player that immediately ragequits the moment the DM says "Anti-Magic Zone."

>>3886078
Only if the DM thinks it's actually going to solve a balance problem instead of make the game shittier for everyone at the table. Turning off magic items when martials need them to do anything is just as bad as not being able to cast inside of one, but oh wait, there are multiple ways to deal with casting in one: shrunken cone of lead in your hat(blocks LOS and thus the effect once it unshrinks due to the AMF), walking out of the AMF and casting spells like Wall of Stone into it because instant conjurations ignore AMFs, or IoM cheese to just straight up cast inside.

>>3886078
>the moment the DM says "Anti-Magic Zone."

>>3886078
>Don't conflate the class being useless with the job being useless.
But they're exactly the same thing. A class that specializes in a shitty job that the game's stacked against is a shitty class. Duelist is right down there with stinkers like Green Star Adept and Brimstone Speaker for PrCs that make you worse off for taking them.

>>3886093
Only because you think in terms of a vacuum meta. Characters are supposed to compliment one another, and fill in the holes. It's great that you discovered casters can usually do all the jobs themselves through particular careful spell selection, but in reality the game would play differently.

Take for example, the group facing a Pit Fiend. The Duelist has nothing to worry about the Fiend's Empowered Fireballs, Power Word: Stun, Blasphemy, Bites, Claws, Wings, Tail Slaps, and Meteor Swarms. Those're all things he out-levels, out-ACs or out-Reflexes.

But the Fear Aura is an issue.

Luckily, the Cleric can cast a single first level spell and fix that immediately. The Duelist didn't have to have every single possible attack of the Pit Fiend covered, that's how the game is balanced.

In the meantime, the Duelist is stabbing the fuck out of the Pit Fiend with his silver rapier that the Paladin cast Holy Sword on, tumbling into his lines of sight, disrupting spells and charge attacks and the like, and generally doing his job of being the dextrous nuisance that he is to protect the backliners.

>>3886102
That example is fucking terrible for multiple reasons:

A) Wasting rounds on buffing a useless character to cover their weaknesses when it's entirely probable you could kill them faster not doing this.
B) Ignoring Mass Hold Person, which completely destroys the Duelist and makes it necessary to throw *more* buffs at him.
C) Forgetting their at-will Greater Teleport, which makes it nigh impossible to full attack them.
D) Forgetting they have flight, which makes it even harder for a duelist to protect anyone.

I mean, that's just straight up bad play.

>>3886109
A) With no one to stop him, the Pit Fiend lolgrapples your 0mghaXX0rz mage and wins. The End.
B) Unless he has a Ring of Freedom of Movement.
C) So, you think he's going to absorb a bunch of AoOs, sacrifice his whole turn of attacks just to move to a slightly more advantageous position by the backliners that everyone can withdraw from and the Duelist move over to, having ultimately wasted the entire round? You know they have an Intelligence of 26, right?
D) Ah, now we're outdoors eh? Still, the Duelist could've had Overland Flight cast him, drink a potion, be wearing Winged Boots, etc etc. None of this is insurmountable. And I don't think anyone with a 60ft Average maneuverability is looking to cancel actions to inch up 30ft.

>>3886119
>With no one to stop him, the Pit Fiend lolgrapples your 0mghaXX0rz mage and wins.
And exposes himself to the rest of the party as it does nothing, or fails because the wizard had shapechange going from before the fight due to utility and can free action shift when their turn rolls around, or triggers a contingency. Grappling casters is stupid when you could kill them in the same action.
>B) Unless he has a Ring of Freedom of Movement.
Sure, that works to counter it, no problem there.
>So, you think he's going to absorb a bunch of AoOs
Defensive casting. Can't fail the check with a bonus of +29.
>sacrifice his whole turn of attacks just to move to a slightly more advantageous position
You mean to dodge full attacks while he continues to harass the spellcasters, who are still the main threat here? I mean, if I really wanted to counter the duelist specifically, he could just Greater Dispel Magic Holy Sword when that goes up and laugh at him.
>Ah, now we're outdoors eh?
No, just anywhere that isn't a room with a 5 foot ceiling. But if that's what you wanted, I hope you like bone devils spamming walls of ice.

Either way, the duelist is by far the worst party member here and you really could remove him and lose little. Not having to worry about someone failing a Will save = an action to spend on shitting on the pit fiend.

>>3886147
>A) Mage prebuffs!
Uh oh, are we going down that route? This'll be all night! Alright, the Pit Fiend also pre-summoned a Cornugon and filled the battlefield with Mohrgs. The fight opens with him Polymorph Any Object your Mage into a gnat or something appropriately useless, the focus really being on your having 0 intellect and ability to Shapechange new or fight back.
>You mean to dodge full attacks while he continues to harass the spellcasters, who are still the main threat here? I mean, if I really wanted to counter the duelist specifically, he could just Greater Dispel Magic Holy Sword when that goes up and laugh at him.
True enough, though nothing stops the duelist from just plain having a holy silver rapier. I just wanted to include a Paladin. And the Duelist isn't exactly threatless. His eight attacks a round with 8d6 of Sneak Attack and Precise Strike damage with the extra 3d6 of his say, Shock and Holy enchantments and the d6's of his base attacks means 96d6 damage a round.

Or yeah, he could just teleport around a lot never attacking while the Duelist chases him around for 12d6 every round till he drops. Still not an optimal strategy for ol' boy.
>Not having to worry about someone failing a Will save = an action to spend on shitting on the pit fiend.
And then the Mage fails the Will save too.

>>3885914
Thanks.
I probably have to rush into Bodhi lair just like I did with Spellhold.

>>3886175
>Uh oh, are we going down that route?
When the spell lasts for 10 minutes per caster level and you can freely shapeshift into any form once a round? Yes, yes you are.
>The fight opens with him Polymorph Any Object
That's not on anyone's spell list.
>means 96d6 damage a round.
Actually it's much lower than that in practice. SA isn't a given against a pit fiend, their AC is high enough that only the first two are going to connect reliably because your BAB is suffering from Rogue levels and your Dex is naturally lower because you were throwing enough points at INT to hit 30 for some reason.
>And then the Mage fails the Will save too.
Not at all comparable. Wizard has a good Will save and many many many tools to raise it.

>>3886195
>That's not on anyone's spell list.
No, but Wish is, and PAO is within its purview.
>Actually it's much lower than that in practice.
Or is it? I have no problem assuming the Duelist is twinked like your Mage. +5 Insight and +6 Enhancement to Intelligence means little enough effort getting to 30 to cap all his bonuses. And a BAB of +16, Dex similarly in the 30's, pre-buffing (which seems to be ALL the rage) with potions of Good Hope, Haste, Fly (never underestimate a +1 terrain bonus!), flanking, weapon focus, magic weapons, possible polymorphs, etc. etc. puts him well over the Pit Fiend's AC. But hey, let's say only the first two hits from each land, that's still 52d6+modifiers. Potentially enough to one round K.O. the Pit Fiend.
"those shitty duelists"
>Not at all comparable.
Nah, they're comparable. Maybe not as likely, but a DC 27 on a class being argued that Wisdom is a tertiary stat at best in a system that also carries a flat 5% chance of always failing, it's not quite the lockdown that say a Cleric or Druid would be facing.

And let's say he did fail it. Is the Cleric going to "waste a turn" removing the fear from him?

>casted a protection spell on the street before the fighting with githyanki
>cowled wizard appeared and said it's my first and last warning
>a moment later another group of enforcers with Zellanora appeared
What the hell? I remember first wave was quite weak.

>>3886206
>No, but Wish is, and PAO is within its purview.
It's also a 1/year thing. You sure that's what you want to use it on?
>+5 Insight and +6 Enhancement to Intelligence means little enough effort getting to 30 to cap all his bonuses.
That would be 29 if you started with an 18 and would completely implode your WBL because you need to pay for *two* +5 manuals, so no, not happening.
>pre-buffing (which seems to be ALL the rage) with potions of Good Hope, Haste, Fly
5 minute and 5 round durations are not at all comparable to a 200 minute duration that can be extended to 400 with a metamagic rod. I don't know why I have to explain this to you because it really should be common sense.
>flanking,
Flanking a flying target is pretty difficult.

You're also still not getting that it's extremely hard for them to full attack. Moving away and eating an AoO then casting something is better than staying right next to him. And even then, you've got: 16 BAB+10 Dex+5 weapon+1 weapon focus for +32 to hit, which makes you unreliable unless he's flat-footed or unless you were buffed to the gills before you even fought.
>Is the Cleric going to "waste a turn" removing the fear from him?
Yes, because unlike the Duelist he can do something with his round that's not "run up and standard attack or charge to do a single attack that doesn't even trigger SA".

>>3886219
>It's also a 1/year thing. You sure that's what you want to use it on?
On the group of 20th level adventurers coming to kill him? Again, 26 Intelligence.
>That would be 29 if you started with an 18 and would completely implode your WBL because you need to pay for *two* +5 manuals, so no, not happening.
Manuals? I have a Mage friend.
>5 minute and 5 round durations are not at all comparable
They don't need to be comparable, they just need to be cast beforehand. And if you're really triggered by the Haste duration, there're Boots of Speed.
>Flanking a flying target is pretty difficult.
Not when you're flying too and at a better manueverability.
>You're also still not getting that it's extremely hard for them to full attack. Moving away and eating an AoO then casting
Sounds like the Duelist is doing his job, doesn't it? Pit Fiend's in constant retreat and forced to only use spells.
>And even then, you've got: 16 BAB+10 Dex+5 weapon+1 weapon focus for +32 to hit
Is that really the best you can put together? I mean hell, even not counting the things I *could* have added, the potions alone account for +6 more than that, and we're not even touching on the group's AoE prebuffs like Prayer luck bonuses. But hey, we'll say approximately +40 to hit. That'd be +40/+40/+35/+35/+30/+30/+25/+40 to hit. Or, 95%, 95%, 75%, 75%, 50%, 50%, 45%, 95% to hit. Better chances of hitting more than the four I conservatively estimated. And of course, you're predicating this on the Pit Fiend knowing that the lanky naked fop with the rapier is capable of one-rounding him. Maybe he thinks the same as you, that spells = power?
>Yes, because unlike the Duelist
-the Mage is completely stumped by the Spell Resistance 32, grappling, Power Word: Stun, readied Greater Dispels, etc.? Yeah, he sure is.

>>3886239
>Sounds like the Duelist is doing his job, doesn't it? Pit Fiend's in constant retreat and forced to only use spells.
You say that like their spells aren't way more dangerous than attacking and that the Duelist isn't the one losing here.
>is completely stumped by the Spell Resistance 32
Conjurations ignore it, party buffs don't interact with it at all.
>grappling
Do nothing and laugh as he just wasted his turn and got himself killed by your party members.
>Power Word: Stun
Not an issue at level 20 and even less of an issue with Shapechange in play.
>readied Greater Dispels
Do nothing and laugh as he just wasted his turn and got himself killed by your party members.

Seriously, if you wanted to play something that ultimately amounts to charging someone and hitting them once, maybe twice if he triggers an AoO, play a Barbarian or a Paladin.

Like seriously, you would've gotten laughed off of the charop board 14 years ago, let alone now. Who the fuck are you trying to kid with this bullshit?

>>3886246
>You say that like their spells aren't way more dangerous than attacking and that the Duelist isn't the one losing here.
Sounds like those shitty casters should git gud. Hell, the only hole in the Duelist was that I felt compelled to not prebuff him with Heroes Feast, when I could've easily done so. Even just saying he used a scroll and UMD instead of relying on the team.
>Conjurations ignore it
Ha! So, what CR 9 monster did you think you were going to spend a full turn summoning at the expense of your highest level spell slot that was going to contribute a single worthwhile thing?
>Do nothing and laugh as he
Teleports Without Error away to eat your screaming Mage? Unless of course you think your Mage was going to trump his +35 grapple and prevent him from using it.
>Not an issue at level 20
For a Mage? The fuck it isn't. Average rolls (with max HP start) for a Mage are 70.5 at 20 (I'll give you the .5 and call it 71). Your Mage is going to need an 18+ Constitution to beat that spell. And hasn't Shapechange been squashed by his Polymorph Any Object? Or hell, Greater Dispel Magic? Speaking of, what great Shapechange did you think was going to 'show him a thing or two'?
>Do nothing and laugh as he
Lets his Fear Aura wipe out your group because your Cleric can't be bothered to remove them from "garbage classes" while his Cornugon and army of Mohrgs wipe out everyone else with your Mage in perma-lockdown? Laughter to hide the pain, eh?
>Seriously, if you wanted to play something that ultimately amounts to charging someone and hitting them once, maybe twice if he triggers an AoO, play a Barbarian or a Paladin.
Except the Pit Fiend turns and unleashes a full attack with power attack into a constrict and one-round gibs them because they don't have the Duelist's untouchable AC.

>Like seriously, you would've gotten laughed off of the charop board 14 years ago
>charop
lmao I bet you thought it was an impressive namedrop too. Argue on your own merits, kid.

>>3886259
>thinks Conjurations = summons
>or that a pit fiend that did nothing and just flat-footed themselves in the middle of the entire party isn't a sitting duck
>or that a Wizard isn't winning initiative over monsters the majority of the time when they're running around with Shapechange up, or somehow has low HP with Shapechange up
>or that a halfway competent Barbarian or Paladin will get instantly killed by a full attack when miss chance exists and the pit fiend doesn't even do enough fucking damage with their full attack to do it
Come on, at least try to pretend you know how the game works at high level.

>>3886272
>doesn't specify his conjurations because he doesn't have an answer and hopes being vague will win the argument for him
Nope.
>Pit Fiend is flat-footed with a 32 AC and allows all the non-Fighters with good Will Saves who aren't Feared to move forward and get one standard attack before TWE out, eating the Mage, regenerating and returning
I guess you showed him!
>the Wizard is going to beat his +12 initiative with the Shapechange I also haven't specified because I'm getting fucking desperate and living in the land of vague unspecific spells is the only thing I can bank on
Go on, I'm really eager to hear what 34+ Dex form you took that you think isn't going to be a complete waste and get rekt by the Pit Fiend.
>a raging barbarian with a charge penalty to AC would just dodge all those attacks! Nevermind that before Power Attack and Quickened Fireballs drop on me I've already lost 125+ HP or the fact that I just charged through an army of AoOs and will now get full-attacked by a Cornugon with my already shit AC further compromised by being in a grapple!
Wew lad, is this your first D&D debate?

Jesus Christ you guys are still arguing about this

Give it a rest and go outside

>>3886286
Or get the fuck out to >>>/tg/
It's baldur's gate thread after all.

Alright, we'll call the argument a win for the pro-duelist guy and move back to Baldur's Gate.

>>3886280
Hey watch this.

Elder Air Elemental form has 33 Dex. With Imp Init, that's +15. Any of the Ioun Stones that boost checks + no wish Luck Blade, that's +16 and a reroll for init, which pretty much guarantees you the initiative win.

Fight starts, Wizard gets initiative, free shifts for the round into a Choker for the 2 actions per round, Dimensional Anchors and Solid Fogs him to lock him out of the fight until he can dispel them both. Pit Fiend has to waste 2 rounds getting rid of them to do anything because he can't get them both with the burst mode due to no LOS on it, in which time the Wizard and Cleric can buff the party, clear out his summons, etc.

>>3886302
>Hey watch this.
Watching.
>Elder Air Elemental form
Requires you being 24th level.
>With Imp Init
You're really arguing that you took Improved Initiative on your Wizard? Ha! Alright, fair enough.
>Ioun Stones
None that boost Initiative.
>Luck Blade
Wouldn't it be melded into your form?
>initiative win
Looks like Initiative tie to me, assuming you downgrade a couple of Elementals to one you can meet the req for.
>Dimensional Anchors and Solid Fogs
I'm assuming you also took Eschew Materials to cast Solid Fog?
>in which time the Wizard and Cleric can buff the party, clear out his summons, etc.
I see this is all predicated on your hope that your +12 Initiative (ha) beats out the Pit Fiend's +12, all the Mohrg's +9's and the Cornugon's +7. Also, that the Pit Fiend isn't operating on any kind of surprise round with his +25H/+29MS against your cross-class Listen/Spot. Or that he hasn't also used Invisibility. Or Persistent Image. Also that you rolled high enough to overcome his Fear Aura AND a separate check for the Cornugon's Fear Aura (which again, your +14ish save is not looking good against a 27 and 23). And that your spell overcomes his Spell Resistance which it statistically won't. And that you're close enough to land the spells at the start of initiative but far enough away that they don't effect you too.

In short none of that is going to fly.

But even if it did, your end-game is now being in a Small form with a reduced Con surrounded by a sea of grapplers, who force Fort saves on you who already has the lowest Fort saves possible - lower even if you went through PrC's. So you're on your abysmal 10 or less BAB with the small size penalty against a guy with a +29 Grapple who can also teleport eat you.

And of course, you going first means that the Pit Fiend hasn't used his Wish spell yet.

So, this wasn't really your answer, was it? I mean, if you want to go back to the drawing board, phone a friend... I'll let you come back and revise it.

>>3886336
Okay so you don't know about how initiative is actually a stat check, or about CL boosters like a Bead of Karma, or that a Wizard has a truckload of bonus feats, or that you can drop magic items before shifting and pick them up afterwards to stop them from melding, and that's only if you can't wear them, plus you think that initiative isn't important on someone who can end fights in 1 round. I don't really see the point in bothering anymore because you're exactly as stupid as I thought you were in the first place.

>>3886213
I always "accidentally" fire off mage spells to specifically summon them, then act belligerent until they get pissed and attack me. Then i slaughter them. Rinse and repeat until they take the hunt and stop coming to bother me. No need to pay the fuckers for a license. Wish I could tell them to take a hike when they come to me after i take the planar sphere too. Early signs of bad bioware writing.

>>3885948
duelist can wear bracers of armor and have a higher AC than any rogue

most rogues at high levels end up wearing bracers anyway because their dex mod is too high for any armor

not to mention once their elaborate defense kicks in they're fucking untouchable in melee, and get deflect arrows for ranged attacks

>and numpties like you were put to bed decades ago
aka the vocal minority thinks they represent everybody

>>3886009
>Or an unarmed strike.
atta boy

>>3886336
>You're really arguing that you took Improved Initiative on your Wizard?
I always do, but i'm not him

>None that boost Initiative.
pale green prism

>>3886350
>how initiative is actually a stat check
It's not. It's an attribute check modified by Improved Initiative. All of which is immaterial because A) you didn't say a Dexterity Ioun Stone or Gloves of Dexterity or anything else suggesting an attribute raise, and B) your gear would've melded into your new form.
I'm not responsible for your ignorance of the rules of terms. I shouldn't have had to correct you on how the Pit Fiend cast Polymorph, or that you are limited by HD in your Shapechange or the other myriad of beginner mistakes you've made.
>Bead of Karma, or that a Wizard has a truckload of bonus feats
You never mentioned Bead of Karma or Spell Penetration until literally this post. If you're pissy that I didn't count abilities and gear you didn't name, it's on you for forgetting them. And even still, you're only boosting your chance to effect the Pit Fiend to like 50%. Not exactly guaranteed numbers.
>that you can drop magic items before shifting and pick them up
Something you should've announced doing. It matters, especially since you're going to be hopping in and out of forms and picking up a discarded item is a move action that provokes an AoO.
>plus you think that initiative isn't important on someone who can end fights in 1 round.
No, I think initiative is for stupid twats who don't know how to win fights as a Mage. This should've opened with you scrying him out and telefragging him from buffed out Improved Invisibility, not chancing on an initiative check. I mean c'mon, is this your first mage? Goddamn is it frustrating to have to sit there and explain how to properly utilize a non-caster class to a guy who can't even use the most broken class in the fucking game right.
>I don't really see the point in bothering anymore because you're exactly as stupid as I thought you were in the first place.
"n-now i have to go, b-but not because i'm outmatched and you keep publicly correcting and embarrassing me, b-but because you're the dumb one!"

>>3886357
>I always do, but i'm not him
It rarely makes the cut for me. Especially if we're talking about a vanilla Wizard. You figure going Wizard 7 -> Loremaster 6 -> Archmage 5 -> Loremaster 2 is pretty feat intensive out the gate. Before level 8 you need Skill Focus and three Item Creation / Metamagic feats. Scribe Scroll counts as one, and you've got your level 5 Wizard for the other, which means your level 1 is spoken for with Skill Focus and level 3 for the remaining metamagic.

And before you get to 14, you need two Spell Focuses (level 6 and 9) and another Skill Focus (12) for Archmage.

You're still good for the level 15 and 18 feats (and possibly one other from Loremaster secrets) but there's so much stuff I'd rather be taking. Leadership, Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, Great Fortitude (if you roll Dwarf and invest in the Loremaster Fortitude Lore, stack Con with magic items and a Cloak of Resistance, it's very easy to overcome the severe Fortitude hit of three caster classes and end up comfortably in the +20's), Eschew Materials, etc.

Improved Initiative, while good, just never seems to make the cut.

Speaking of Wizard, why are they so dogshit in NWN and even more so in NWN2? If I want to actually be useful it really feels like there's not much else than CoDzilla in 3E. CoD is often grouped together with Wizard as the OP classes, but it really doesn't feel like it.

-everything has so much health that spell damage is hardly viable even with reserve feats
-summons are weak
-stinking cloud is level 3 now, plus it only dazes and doesn't incapacitate, they can just walk out of it
-web has a really short duration
-every rogue type with evasion is practically immune to 90% of the damage dealing spells with reflex save
-wands are almost useless, have pitifully low DC
-confusion now has friendly fire
-I can't just take a fighter/mage and have reasonable melee to kill weaker enemies to save spells
-melf's acid arrow is no longer the reliable damage dealer spell, it needs a ranged touch attack
-ice storm is now just a glorified fireball, instead of a multi round spell to ramp up high damage
-cloudkill no longer does damage either

If I want to solo and kill enemies without using up all my spell slots in every battle, it really feels like the only viable tool is abusing Evard's black tentacles and wall of fire.

>>3886469
Because the playstyle 3.5 favors is clunky as fuck in a RTwP setting.

I'm going to pick Valygar and Mazzy for the first time on this playthough, what's the best weapons and proficiencies for them to use?

>>3886513
Nothing personnel katanas for Valygar because he gets backstabs. I think Mazzy has crossbow dots by default but it's been a long time since I've used her, so go hunt down the crossbow with the infinite fire ammo early.

>>3886525
No, she has short sword/short bow pips.

>>3886528
Tuigan bow it is.

why the fuck are you assholes posting about 3e shit garbage
shut the fuck up
this is /vr/
this is a baldur's gate thread

go the fuck away you fa/tg/uy pieces of shit

yes i'm mad

*blocks your path*

Barring "getting gud", how does one play these games for the first time? People I've talked to back in the middle school days cite this and BG2 as some of their favorite games. That was over 15 years ago and I want to get into these games now, but I don't know where to begin with this.
All these numbers and modifies and rulesets and shit. I feel like it'd be very easy to make the game unplayable without an extensive knowledge of where to put stat points in character creation. And I don't want to make the game needlessly difficult trying to do things the hard way when it was just a simple matter of "oh, you're SUPPOSED to put X amount of points in Y"

How the fuck were 15 year olds playing this in middle school with limited internet knowledge base when here I am now at 32 feeling like a retard?

>>3886601
>Command

I forgot, can shorties use long swords without restrictions? Or it's from nwn?

>>3886637
tl;dr:
7-15 in a stat = no modifier, everything below that gives progressively lower modifiers, everything above it gives progressively higher modifiers.

Lower armor class = better. Every point of THAC0 below 20 is +1 to hit in normal terms.

STR = melee hit and damage
DEX = ranged hit and armor class
CON = hit points per level, regeneration at 20+
INT = how easy it is to learn spells from scrolls and the maximum spell level you can learn
WIS = bonus spells for divine spellcasters
CHA = social stuff

Pick a Fighter or a Cleric/Ranger, pick axes or flails for most of your dots and put at least one in a ranged weapon, go to town. Don't engage in melee until you're higher level in BG1, just kite and pelt with ranged weapons.

Playing BG1 EE for the first time. Beamdog added so many enhanced weapons and armor it's starting to piss me off. I'm swimming in money and can make the game play itself because my party is so OP compared to all the kobolds and gibberlings.

>>3886657
They added only mace in one of bereghost houses iirc.

>>3886637
Pretty sure most kids playing Infinity Engine games just used cheese and exploits that the AI can't handle, like throwing poison cloud spells to the edge of the fog of war and killing enemies off screen, combined with a lot of reloading.

You only (need to) make one character in BG, so you can always get carried by your party if you somehow mess up, or use a character editor to swap your stats around. Bear in mind AD&D doesn't have much in the way of options in terms of leveling, after you make your character what you get is already heavily defined by your class/kit.

So for example, the only thing a fighter really chooses after first level are his additional weapon proficiencies, which you can just put into whatever you started with for quite a few levels (until it's maxed.) You can pick shitty spells if you make a wizard, but you can learn all the other ones from scrolls anyway, so it's recoverable. A thief might put all his skill points into one skill and be pretty shit at the other thieving abilities, but you get enough points to 'max' them all at 100 eventually, so it's only temporary. Sorcerers are alone in that you can actually ruin yourself, because they get spells on level-up instead of learning through scrolls, so if you pick awful spells it's not recoverable.

Basically if you want to make an effective character, you only need to worry about a handful of things, and they're pretty much 100% at character creation rather than later: picking a class that you'll enjoy, which isn't total shit (there are only a few classes or kits that you'll probably get annoyed with, most are honestly fine,) and assigning your stats properly at character creation. Between them those are the two things you can really mess up.

You can just take a look through the classes, kits and races, say what you want to make and people here would be able to tell you what stats you need to be effective or what weapon types to use.

>>3886652
*it was a mirror image*

>>3886657

Like what? I don't really recall anything special added, at least not to the start of the game.

>>3886656
19 con gives regeneration, its just very slow; if you rest or travel, you'll heal to full

and with a fighter, it really doesnt matter what you pick, you'll still kick ass

i recently solo'd the game as a half-elf dagger fighter, and it was amazingly easy

>>3886665
>>3886669
http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/New_items_Baldur%27s_Gate_EE

You can't really fault the stuff like adding a magic katana to the game so you aren't hobbled if you take the proficiency (since it didn't exist in BG1 and there are no magic katanas in the game if you just port it to the BG2/EE engine.) And a fair few of the items are related to recruiting the new NPCs so you wouldn't encounter them unless you do their quests.

Honestly the only thing that really stands out as super strong is the cursed belt you can get on Rasaad's personal quest, since for most classes it's a girdle of hill giant strength in BG1. Who cares about having 6 intelligence unless you're a mage? The mace they added in Beregost was ridiculous originally, 25% chance of stunning for 1d4 rounds without a save, but it's barely better than a regular +1 mace now, with a 10% chance to stun for a single round, which can be saved against.

>>3886681
Random enemies also drop +1 longswords/shortswords and leather armor a lot more frequently than in the original.

>>3886681
what made me mad was the extra gauntlets of weapon specialization in the bandit camp

there used to be just one of those, and you had to explore the far corner of one of the far maps in order to meet the guy who had them, and then get into a fight with him and win

first couple times i played the game, i had no idea they existed

also now theres tons of magic ammunition (admittedly you have to buy it; you don't find it) that makes the game even easier

a few new spells, a few more items here and there, nothing big but its already an easy game

>>3886656
A lot of this is incorrect.

It should be 7-14 in *some* stats = no modifier. A 15 in Dexterity is good for a 1pt bonus to AC, 15 Constitution is +1HP/level, 15 in Intelligence and Wisdom are when Lore bonuses become available, etc.

>Cleric/Ranger
Don't tell people to take a multiclass that's only value is that it has a bug. Hell, a fresh player should stick away from multiclassing in the first place until he gets his feet wet.

>>3886675
>19 con gives regeneration
No it doesn't. Regeneration doesn't start until a 20 Constitution. The only way you'll see that without cheating is rolling a Dwarf with a 19 Constitution and using the Constitution tome on yourself.

>>3886714
Even if it is 'bugged' it's still better than Fighter/Cleric by virtue of free TWF dots and stealth, and Fighter/Cleric is already a very good noob class.

>>3886724
I don't know why you put it in quotations, Ranger / Cleric is a known bug that the whole community is aware of and has been for near twenty years.

And given the EE fixes the bug (no Druid list), the only way you'd take advantage of it is with the original game which doesn't have TWF on their Rangers. And Stealth is no real use to a Cleric, you're better with Fullplate.

>>3886687
I did a bit of research and it turns out you could get a 2nd set of the gauntlets in vanilla BG1, but it required taking the duel with Tazok at the bandit camp and actually killing him rather than just trying to survive. I guess they figured they'd close the plothole of you killing Tazok earlier on and having him show up at the end as though nothing happened but didn't want to remove access to the gauntlets that a powergamer would obtain. Seems unnecessary to me, but that's why you can pick them up from his chest now.

>>3886684
No idea if this is true or just confirmation bias of wanting it to be easier. Is there a source?

>>3886735
The full druid spell-list is a config option in the EE version, you can still have it if you want it.

>>3886652
>*Dimension Doors behind you*
Nothing personnel, kid.
>*Attacks with staff and misses*

>>3886735
>the only way you'd take advantage of it is with the original game

>baldur.ini -> 'Game Options', 'Cleric Ranger Spells', '1'