/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5099463
yep, probably the game I have spent more hours playing, played the classic versions vanilla, modded, new versions, whatever...

>>5099473
Based

>Beamdog is guilty of
>EE vs not-EE
>"vanilla BG doesn't work on modern systems"
>"But it does"
>that screenshot of Dorn and Viconia talking about racism
>Amber Scott tweets
>outrage about a throwaway NPC from a non-retro expansion pack
>my favourite party is...
>that one "Imoen gets raped by her brother" mod screenshot
>that one Saerileth dialogue tree with 35 answers
>falloutfag gets mad about this game
>blobberfag gets mad about this game
>"Goldbox was better"
>waifufags
>"reinstalling BG, i don't know what to play"

I just started an Enchanter (no Fireballs for me) to try something gimmicky but still powerful.
I know the portrait is kinda ass, but it's surprisingly difficult to find a solid "elf mage" portrait.

baldurs gate is cool

>>5099485
>I just started an Enchanter (no Fireballs for me) to try something gimmicky but still powerful.
I've done this... for role playing purposes figure out combos of magic only from your school, only memorise magic from your school, use other magic only from scrolls or wands, and after using it cringe as obiwan used a blaster on grievous...

>>5099521
i have some pretty tough mods on, so all I plan on doing is simply restricting my main character from relying on brute force spells.
I got inspired by this one chick who beat the entire game in a superhard setup with a melee mage focusing on polymorphs, I think it was a transmuter.

>>5099485
>not replacing Imoen's 4head portrait with anime
Ugh.

>>5099528
full-on anime clashes with my preferred aesthetic and most portrait packs are godawful reskins and palette swaps. you don't know the meaning of darkness until you see clean shaven Anomen with kissy lips, or neon Viconia.

My favorite is Edwin and fuck you if you don't think he's the best character.

>>5099535
he's whiny personality wise but the game makes that sorta funny
i never bought much to his amulet thingy because it's not like the game discourages rest-spamming
still really fun to play with though

>>5099478
This is not the right pasta.


Also i tried out the Enhanced edition i got for pirate bay and you cant edit the portrait. Cant activate baldur.ini. its like the files are hidden. The version number is hidden by the SoA logo. I think this was when it was first released and they pished the $4.99 portrait pack.

I can't really get into it sorry. More of a JRPG guy

>>5099550
it's cool, I like both genres. You could maybe get into something like Might & Magic games if you like Dragon Quest-style combat or something and want to try western games.

>>5099463
>greatest RPG
>most of the stats are useless

>>5099550
Same except i cant get into JRPGs. I prefer wrpgs but i also want to like jrpgs.
I plan on playing a lot.
Ive only played
>FF7
>CHRONO trigger
>persona 5
And dropped all of them 3/4ths the way or half.
Im going to try SMT:Nocturne,Parasite eve, and shadow hearts. I think theyll be more my style however i just got trails of cold steel and shining resonance refrain. Going to try those out tonight or tomorrow.

Beamdog is a guilty of a number of different crimes. Here are the major ones.

1. The Enhanced Editions are essentially a collection of free mods that had existed for nearly twenty years. Beamdog gathered them all up, slapped "Enhanced Edition" on it and resold it as a new product. There's very very little in the Enhanced Editions that wasn't already out there, and most of it is stuff you don't want (like obnoxious character outlines).

2. The games didn't sell so well and the originals were still far outselling them, even twenty years after their release, so Beamdog had EVERY digital distributor stop selling the originals and ONLY sell the Enhanced Edition. If you want to buy a digital copy of the originals now, they're "bundled" into the Enhanced Edition. Now these scumbags can claim sales from people just wanting to buy the originals as their own.

3. The infamous 600+ bugs on launch. The game is still riddled with bugs (as even a perfunctory glance over their forums show) but the fact that it took nearly two years for them to get a game that had been working fine for 20 years to reach playability after launch is telling of their wild incompetence.

4. This is where we get to the ones that really piss people off. Beamdog couldn't just remaster the game, they had to fuck with the content too. New dialogue for existing NPCs like Jaheira, Viconia, Safana, Kivan, et cetera was written in to make the characters more progressive and leftist friendly. Beamdog shills will argue that "adding content isn't changing content XDDD" but it is when the new content changes the core personalities of the existing characters. This is in addition to adding a slew of their own LGBT (hitherto there were none in Baldur's Gate) NPCs, all flooded with OP attributes and magic items to encourage people to play them despite their cancer.

5. Siege of motherfucking Dragonspear.

>>5099565
>stats make an rpg good
Who gives a shit every RPG has useless stats.


>>5099550
Maybe try the Ultima and Wizardry Japanese versions as they are more weeby.

>>5099574
Based as fuck!

>>5099565
I mean, all of them have a niche somewhere - you build casters with high points in their favoured stat, wisdom is good for Wish, charisma affects at least some dialogues, etc.

even Fallout was really bad about the perfect diplomat being an aloof brainiac (10 IN, 1 CH) rather than the suave lawyer type (the IN 6 CH 9 pregen, Albert, is technically incapable, out of the box to kill the final boss by convincing him, you need an IN implant) simply because Charisma was utterly irrelevant once you pumped Speech.

to say nothing about games like original FF1 where half the stats don't work due to bugs

It is pretty stupid though that being a mouthbreather with INT 3 in BG isn't reflected in the dialogue and instead having high Int on a fighter ironically only has use in combat.

>>5099574
becoming almost as ubiquitous as "No!"

>>5099575
>stats don't matter to the RPG experience
Yikes
>>5099583
>even Fallout was really bad about the perfect diplomat being an aloof brainiac (10 IN, 1 CH) rather than the suave lawyer type (the IN 6 CH 9 pregen, Albert, is technically incapable, out of the box to kill the final boss by convincing him, you need an IN implant) simply because Charisma was utterly irrelevant once you pumped Speech.
But those games still reflect on your build perfectly in dialogue, even if it's rough around the edges at time. Whereas in Baldur's Gate there is nothing that alters dialogue, not even your supposed alignment. It's completely static and shit as a result.

>>5099602
>in Baldur's Gate there is nothing that alters dialogue
considering that OP specified series, that's not exactly true.
even in BG1 your charisma + reputation determine rewards. in BG2, your class choice gets a stronghold, different reactions from certain npcs, and a token number of times your mental stat makeup matters in dialogue.
>But those games still reflect on your build perfectly in dialogue
A Charisma 1 character is capable of delivering extremely eloquent speeches and swindle everyone in his path through sheer training (e.g. dump a level's worth of points into your Speech tag and you're already an expert), there are very limited checks to see how strong, enduring or agile you are (usually they are insanely obscure), and the only stat that truly has impact on dialogue is Intelligence. I know Fallout does it better, but it ultimately doesn't matter as much - most cRPGs make concessions in regards to how their system works. Fallout is still a butchered implementation of GURPS and the sheer amount of stuff that doesn't work properly in the SPECIAL system is still probably higher than the concessions made in BG.

>>5099602
>stats don't matter to the RPG experience
>Yikes
Youre a literal retard if you didnt understand me.

>>5099602
Fallout and Arcanum are the only rpgs that truly utilize actual roleplaying

But that doesnt mean the tons of other RPGs are bad

overrated but not bad.

>>5099692
>the only rpgs that truly utilize actual roleplaying
vampire bloodlines

>>5099463
Yes. It's great with friends too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuz0NxRi8I8

>>5099693
>overrated
Ugh that word again

>>5099463
I was an Ultima Dragon back in the day, so yes.

Shadows of Amn is the only exceptional part of the saga. BG1 is merely good and ToB is ass.

>>5099574
This pasta again.

I'm almost considering starting using it myself ironically.

>>5099463
never played it, why should I?

i really liked geneforge, which unfortunately is not retro, but has was made by one guy in the early 2000's so it looks like it was made in the early 90s. great game.. is baldurs gate anything like it?

>>5099693
Id say its more underrated than overrated.

>>5099734
A what.


>>5099735
I personally prefer bg1 to bg2. Havent played tob yet as im playing them right now.


>>5099776
Idk ive never played geneforge/avernum/exile.
If you like crpgs its an absolute must.

>>5099463
I really liked Icewind Dale II.

>>5099463
That's not Wasteland

>>5099997
>RPG
>and game series
>WL2
>good

i need an rpg to play

help

>>5100032
buy Realms of Arkania HD, it's a faithful remake of the classic /vr/ RPG and a hidden gem.

>>5099463
>do you guys like getting a shitpost every time a newbaby watches a lp
No

>>5099997
Yikes.

>>5099478
Wait, what?
Why would Viconia, who belittles all non-Drow as if they're dirt below her feet give a shit about racism?

>>5099485
You should have put those 18 Charyzma points into Madrosc
>since Imoen can handle the bantz in the first
>since there's a ring of human influence, and a nymph cloak right at the start of the second.
>since there's a game breaking Mage spell that wants 18 Madrosc for maximum effectiveness.
Also, you want your Sila and Kondycja scores to be 9 and 15 respectively to make room for both the tome buffs.

>>5099565
It's a role-playing game. Not a roll-playing game.

>>5100003
Anon, we are on /vr/. Why and what for you are even bringing Wasteland 2?

>>5100094
>Implying you can role-play at all in BG
Top lel

>>5099574
I think this might be my favourite pasta on all of 4chan

>>5100093
Enchanter's minimum Charisma score is 16, and there's plenty of ways to boost Wisdom temporarily before Wish casting.

I really really enjoyed my first playthrough of the the game a couple years ago. I went back with the intent of replaying it this year but I burned out before even reaching Baldur's Gate (I got up to Cloakwood). I had just come off of playing Fallout 1 and 2 and I think it's possible I was just burning out on RPGs in general, but I'm also thinking maybe I just don't like the combat system anymore. Perhaps D&D belongs on the tabletop.
I'm going to give it another shot soon with a different class. First playthrough was Neutral Good Dwarf Fighter, second was Chaotic Neutral Half-Elf Bard. But I get the feel alignment really doesn't matter. Anyone have a fun class suggestion? I didn't feel like I was making much use of the Bard's kit. I'm leaning towards maybe a Paladin or Fighter/Illusionist.

>>5100097
Yeah I can't really imagine playing an evil character in these games is really viable.

>>5100093
Also, there's no meaningful difference in the STR bracket of 8 and 15. You either put it at 16 or you dump it all the way to 8, because AD&D didn't have linear stat progression.

>>5099574
based beamdog-basher

>>5099928
Great game though they should
of kept 2e and the ui


>>5100060
Yea except i dont watch lets plays. But i did play it this for the first time

>>5100108
>Anyone have a fun class suggestion? I didn't feel like I was making much use of the Bard's kit. I'm leaning towards maybe a Paladin or Fighter/Illusionist.
Both are fun class choices. Cleric/Illusionist is also good if you want to have a super-extensive spellbook. Fighter/Thief is very versatile, you get to wear plate and hulk out or sneak and stab.
Generally I think anything that is mixed with Mage or Thief (or both) guarantees an entertaining play.
And there's nothing to the Bard to use in BG1, his bard song is worthless without BG2 kits or mods. Bard in BG1 is very strong, but as a backup archer / spellcaster / wandbitch, because he levels up insanely fast, so he will have stronger level-scaling spells than your Mage (like Fireball).

>>5100415
So would you suggest sticking with the Bard if I'm planning on carrying him into BG2?

>>5100447
Sure. BG2 Bard comes with three kits, all of them fairly unique, although 99% of players will only care about Blade.
Blade basically emphasises the fighting ability of the Bard and turns him into a very respectable damage dealer, particularly when equipped with Scarlet Ninja-To (after you get Use Any Item in ToB). Might not be as good as a regular F/M, but advances really fast as a single class.
Jesters are kind of fun if you enjoy playing a supportive role that causes chaos and focuses on crowd control. To Jester's credit, his song is more fun and better than the vanilla one.
Skald is a force multiplier, you slam him into a team with like 4-5 meleers/archers and you give everyone insane bonuses.
As you can see, Blade is a fantastic individual contributor and the other two classes are a little bit more about making everyone else look good, but nevertheless, Blade is a ton of fun to play.
Also, in BG2, you get a really cool and flavorful stronghold, so that's nice.
Bottom line is, BG2 Bards are pretty damn good and fun to play.

that's not Ultima

>>5099697
I just finished VTMB recently. It starts off strong as fuck but the last few hours just forgets about role playing altogether, it feels like an entirely different game. I can't imagine what it would have been like if I didn't invest in ranged weapon skills.

>>5099463
I started a journey today, playin the original saga with widescreen support, fuck enhanced editions. those scumbags also got rid of neverwinter nights diamond edition on gog, I suggest pirating it and NOT buying the enhanced edition

>>5100516
I finished vtmb as pure melee gangrel, 0 problems except the werewolf , but there is a trick for him anyway

>>5099463
I am playing it right now and it's great.

I used to obsess over getting a perfect custom portrait so I could feel my character was unique, but then I realized that the game would just change the portrait of any party member if they use the one you picked for your character

>>5100534
>Sneaky Jew portrait for Charname
Nice.

>>5100534
Always bothered me that you could use in game characters portraits. Did it really cost that much for custom portraits to be made.

>>5100959
Think of it this way - if you happen to never ever recruit these NPCs, you don't have an issue. You might not ever run into Kagain, for example (given his semi-obscure location), but still consider him a good choice for your own dorf.
And in BG2, nobody uses the BG1 portraits again, so that badass archer portrait Kivan is hogging is ripe for the picking.
Besides, I'd rather if they didn't make any more portraits if the quality was going to be the fag in pic related, that one guy who dropped out of The Rumjacks, or whatever the fuck is the expression Coran has.

>>5100959
>>5100976
see >>5100561
if you recruit them, they use a different portrait, so nobody in your party shares a portrait.

>>5099463
I tried BG1 once, a long time ago. Once I discovered how the magic system worked, I was done with it. I like to play blaster mages, and Baldur's Gate just doesn't support that.

>>5099463
What, DnD? Yeah, 3rd Edition best edition. BG is based on 2nd Edition so it's automatically an unreasonably inflexible rule-minded no-fun-allowed game, though.

>>5099478
>that one Saerileth dialogue tree with 35 answers
All of which say essentially the same thing.

>>5099550
Even a lot of WRPG fans don't like BG. Low-level AD&D just isn't very fun.

>>5099573
>Im going to try SMT:Nocturne,Parasite eve, and shadow hearts.
I haven't played the other two, but I played Parasite Eve, and I thought it was pretty good. I don't think I ever figured out exactly how everything in the game worked, but I was still able to finish it. Just don't do the Chrysler Building unless you're playing it on an emulator with savestates.

>>5100032
Neverwinter Nights. Ignore the original campaign and play the two expansions, then play the user-made modules. Unfortunately you can't buy it anymore because Beamdog has "enhanced" it and ordered the original version removed from digital stores, but you can easily pirate the GOG version of NWN Diamond Edition.

>>5100108
>Perhaps D&D belongs on the tabletop.
4e would make an awesome video game, but it won't happen.

>>5101174
2nd edition is best edition though.


>>5100976
True but still it costs nothing for commissions to be made especially if the artist was in house. Personally i dont like any of the portraits in BG the female ones are a little better. Icewind Dale had a lot better ones.

I always get bored with it in the first few hours, even though I've always enjoyed NWN and IWD. I've honestly considered just skipping to 2 because the beginning of the first game is just so dull.

>>5101413
Hmm bg1 is fun as fuck though story is ok but i just like exploring and combat.

Best game ever created
RIP Bioware

>>5099574
>5099574▶>>5099579 >>5099771 >>5100101 >>5100194

Playing BG2 for the first time ever, though i do have experience with the 3.0/3.5 games

I went with a transmuter mage, stats 9/15/14/18/18/18 any tips?
Also, how viable are the shapeshifting spells?
Who should i absolutely take in my party, who absolutely not?
Who should i romance?

>>5100109
you're not really allowed to dump under those rules you just take your roll and put it on a stat and then decide what background

point buy and stat dumping is more of a 3rd edition thing that honestly is bad and notfun

>>5099463
I grew up playing Shadows of Amn and just find the first one such a slog to play through. I don't have much free time and would rather play the second with shadowkeeper to bring shit from the first than go through the whole initial story again.

Also fuck 8-step captchas that make you fucking redo them

Been researching this for hours instead of actually playing the game, because it's a long game and I don't want to build up a character just to have him suck later

1.) Only difference between Kensai 9 and 13 is an extra APR, right?
2.) Fighter/Mages are preferred if you're more intersted in melee than spellcasting, because they get better Thac0
3.) Fighterkit => Mage is preferred if you want to do more spellcasting because increased caster level and more spells?
4.)Kensai doesn't just lock you out of Armor, but will lock you out of helmets and gloves, which seems a little too much to me.
5.) Kensai is better than Zerker in damage because of the Kai ability, right? Full damage 3x a day at 9 and 4x a day at 13?
6.) Zerkers are better defensively because of rage immunities and ability to wear gloves and helmet?

Still not sure which I want to play. I really want to play human, so I think I want to dual but don't want to use the tweak fix that lets humans multi (again), and so far it seems to me zerkers end up better just because of the ability to equip items. I would only want to play by becoming a mage ASAP in BG2 and use the scroll exploit to regain fighter kit levels, but to regain fighter kit levels at level 13 would require over 3mil XP which goes into HLA territory which means gonna hit gap WAY before the game is over. 9 SEEMS more sane to me, can anyone tell me if there is a big reason I SHOULD do kensai or SHOULD go 13?

Also I'm guessing dual-wield is nigh-mandatory for a build like this, yeah?

>>5103358

Who you take depends on if you're evil or good
Shapeshifting spells all alright
you should romance Viconia

also mandatory mod here

http://www.gibberlings3.net/tweaks/

>>5103445
I'm chaotic neutral, though i don't care if my alignment shifts

>>5103450

It's not about your alignment, but your followers alignment.

Alignment goes from 1-20. Good characters will permanantly leave your party at I think 2 or less alignment, and evil characters will leave at 18 or more alignment.

Also, some characters fight to the death if they are in the same party

you can negate that all with the tweak pack though. If you do, my favorite mixed party is CharName, Edwin, Imoen, Viconia, Jaheira, Minsc

>>5103442
>4.)Kensai doesn't just lock you out of Armor, but will lock you out of helmets and gloves, which seems a little too much to me.
Isn't it only Bracers of armor? regardless, this never matters because fighter potions can just automatically set your base AC to "platemail"

The main reason to go Kensai>Mage dualclass is because of the OP spellcaster katanas in the expansion and the stupid robe of vecna, but this is still really not as convenient as just having your caster level as high as possible as a pure mage or cleric. Even Mage/Cleric is kind of just a headache and basically overkill, becoming so invincible that your main concern becomes real life exhaustion from all the spells you have to cast all the gosh darn time and the huge amount of prep for everything that makes that combo cool

Now, if you want to have fun, you could take your Kensai and take him to level 13, and then Dual-class to Thief, which levels up FAST making the downtime of dualing at 13 actually tolerable and provides useful support until you catch up, and then the complete bullshit OP of being able to maxroll your sneak attack or completely negate all the disadvantages of the Kensai kit with epic level Thief's "Use Any Item" ability.

There's also a dire shortage of desirable permanent Thief characters in BG2 that makes this strategy even more advantageous

>>5103456
Oh I should mention, if you go with Kensai/Thief Dual, just pick Quarterstaff immediately and max it out ASAP, there is never any point where you will regret it, it just won't happen.

>>5103462
>>5103456

I appreciate the feedback, but I don't want main character to be a theif. I've always had issues with sneak attack in the IE games, and keep one around mostly for find traps and lockpicks.

Pretty dead-set on having my main guy be a caster, because spells are fun, but I also want to be able to fight decently. I like the idea of self-buffing with spells to become a torrent of death and destruction, but I also don't want to have to buff before every encounter, like all the trash that's thrown at you.

Am I asking too much? Should I just suck it up and multi so I can be a decent fighter and a shitty mage?

Pick my class for a vanilla, un-modded BG1+TotSC

>>5103471

Are you importing to BG2 or not

>>5103475
When I get there, yeah

>>5103468
>I've always had issues with sneak attack in the IE games, and keep one around mostly for find traps and lockpicks.
dude I am telling you it is the most hilarious shit to just completely explode the fire dragon's mage with sanic speed before the conversation even starts, and it completely circumvents all of the prepared spell nonsense from any tactical mods you run or anything, and there is literally no one who can detect a hiding thief with boots of speed and improved haste and invis because he can literally just run out of the the detection spell's range before they cast, so you can just use up all their spells, or easily just kick off any encounter with other adventurers by instantly exploding their mage before any bullshit comes out, and if you just dump points into hide and silently you can make the chances of detection by natural means almost nonexistent

taking it easy and not breaking the game is not something I would recommend, you really gotta capture the essence of CHIM to enjoy a crpg

>>5103478

Then stress for hours upon hours on which flavor of fighter/mage you want to be.

>>5100042
I remember the day the Blade of Destiny remake came out. I was so hyped for it. Every single text box in the game would go from English to German mid-sentence. When you started combat, people would fall through the floor as soon as it started and you'd get a game over.

I could never get past that. I'm willing to believe it's good, but my dreams were shattered!

>>5103456
>The main reason to go Kensai>Mage dualclass is because of the OP spellcaster katanas in the expansion and the stupid robe of vecna, but this is still really not as convenient as just having your caster level as high as possible as a pure mage or cleric.
t. I am retarded and I don't understand how dual-classing works.
If you're in a full party setup and you dual out of Kensai at 9, it takes the same amount of time to hit Mage 1->10 as it does to hit Kensai 9->10.
The total amount of XP you need to equalize with mage is, like, two or three quests at best because BG2 showers you wtih XP rewards.
What you get is fighter HP, fighter THAC0, bonus attacks and other shit that make you a more survivable and utterly superior single-target damage dealer to a pure mage.
>spellcaster katanas
Wow, a low enchantment sword that gives a bonus spellslot at level 1 to 4! Amazing! No, the OP factor here is not this single sword (more than one "spellcaster katanas" do not even exist), it's dual-wielding weapons that grant +Attack Per Round and stacking them with Improved Haste for like 8 attacks per round.
>Now, if you want to have fun, you could take your Kensai and take him to level 13
Don't do this unless playing solo.
If you want to dual for fun and profit in a party setup and want convenience (e.g. minimize downtime), you dual out of your original class around level 6-7 in BG1, or at max level 9 in BG2.
>>5103468
>and keep one around mostly for find traps and lockpicks.
Even Nalia, a level 4 thief, can do exactly that throughout the whole BG saga if you keep thief skillboosters around. Imoen is even less reliant on them and also deals with them splendidly. You'll be fine.
>>5103442
Roll a Berserker->Mage if you want a slightly more unorthodox, more defensive build. Rage is insane. And dual at 9, as I said; levelling to 13 only makes sense solo and if you know your metagame well. K/M is optimized for pure damage output, but any flavor of F/M is good.

>>5103442
Solid dual-wielding breakpoints for Fighter->anyone are as follows:
>3, 5, 7
if you just want more HP and a smoother BG1 playthrough
>9
ultimate convenience setup
>13
solo / small party / LoB powergaming
different classes do it slightly differently, like Swashbuckler generally wants to dual out after advancing into a
For the questions you've asked, you pretty much got everything right. Losing gloves and helmets is less of a big deal, but the main issue with Kensai is that they're absolutely ass to play through BG1 with (if you're using EE/BGT/similar) and have to resort for much of the game to throwing daggers or axes to survive at all.
Note also that you're very unlikely to make a character that plain sucks. Any Fighter->X dual is a strong contender for the god/demigod/top tier of characters no matter how you build them. Even plain Fighter, which you can also roll if you want to mostly enjoy HPs and heightened melee ability. As I wrote earlier, Zerk might be your man if you want a convenient package, because they slam through everything in their path and Rage that prevents Imprisonment and other nasty effects is pretty much always relevant.

>>5103791
>different classes do it slightly differently, like Swashbuckler generally wants to dual out after advancing into a
lol i was supposed to remove this sentence cause i was nerding out too much
Swashie for example generally duals out at the levels that advance his +1 AC/+1 THAC0 special ability, so 5, 10... and so forth.
Priest of Lathander (somewhat unorthodox, done for shit like PoL->Mage or PoL->Fighter, hardly trve kvlt powergaming, but interesting nonetheless) generally duals out at 6 or 11.

>>5103480
>it completely circumvents all of the prepared spell nonsense from any tactical mods you run or anything
>running a tactical mod setup to increase your skills at setting up a billion spike traps around neutral NPCs before aggroing them

>>5101171
Only in that in BG1 is low level adventuring. By BG2 your blasters can one shot nuke dragons.

>>5103358
-Shapeshifting is decent in that many of the forms come with various immunities that border on being exploits. So if you know what you're doing they're occasionally useful, if you're better off just casting something else.
-Most recruitable chars are viable and come with decent bants. The only you should keep for plot centric reasons is Yoshimo, and the only you'll hate is Nalia.
-Jahiera is a your defacto aunt, and Aerie is so moe she should come with her own anime dance intro which leaves best girl Viconia.

>>5099574
>gays: we want equal rights!
>jk, we want to circlejerk our sexuality 24/7 because it's our single defining personality trait

>>5099574
>4. This is where we get to the ones that really piss people off. Beamdog couldn't just remaster the game, they had to fuck with the content too. New dialogue for existing NPCs like Jaheira, Viconia, Safana, Kivan, et cetera was written in to make the characters more progressive and leftist friendly. Beamdog shills will argue that "adding content isn't changing content XDDD" but it is when the new content changes the core personalities of the existing characters. This is in addition to adding a slew of their own LGBT (hitherto there were none in Baldur's Gate) NPCs, all flooded with OP attributes and magic items to encourage people to play them despite their cancer.

>>5103953
Based boomer posting

Do the Drows in BG2 vanilla degrade all the males or is that a Beamdog thing?

>>5104232
Yeah that's a canon D&D thing that was in the original games. Drow society is a strict matriarchy where they worship a spider goddess. The part that Beamdog added was Viconia bitching about sexism existing. Going oh woe is me, life sucks coz I'm a woman.

>>5103805
I've actually never used thief traps

>>5099771
>The part that Beamdog added was Viconia bitching about sexism existing. Going oh woe is me, life sucks coz I'm a woman.
maybe you should consider ending it once and for all.

>>5099463
Yes, Wizardry is pretty great. Not sure why you posted unrelated game, though.

>>5104417
What?
How did you imply all that from what I said?
Talk about being unnecessarily aggresive.

I was always more of an Icewind Dale guy.

>>5103358
You fucked up. Your CON should be 16, anything under 15 won't give you any HP at all, WIS and CHA are dumpstats. Also, Transmuter sucks; losing Abjuration gimps you pretty had in this game, since you lose the ability to lower opponent magic resistance and make yourself immune to weapons or magic schools or damage types. Conjurer, Diviner or Evoker work better; but really, you shouldn't be a single class mage, instead you should be like a multi-class mage/thief or a dual-class berserker/mage or just a sorcerer - if you can handle clicking past all 400.000 of your lower level spells every time you want to use an 8th or 9th.
Polymorph is OK at lower levels, but the beatstick forms it gives you won't keep up for long. Shapechange, on the other hand, is fucking nuts, giving you shit like Iron Golem and Mind Flayer with its ability to do 5 no-save INT damage per hit, leading to death at 0 in way that fucking bypasses plot-immunities.
That being said, the game gives you an innate shapechange ability that's also pretty good.

If you're dead-set on single-class mage then stay away from Edwin, because he's going to make you look like a chump, and Jan and Aerie probably will too.
Korgan is killing machine and as a dwarven berserker he's basically immune to save-or-x effects and some of the no-save ones as well, which should be pretty helpful to a beginner; only problem is he's evil as fuck.
Keldorn is great too, since his kit gives up a bunch of irrelevant paladin abilities for some very relevant ones, and he retains the ability to use paladin-only items, and his own armor is pretty good too. His main problem is his low STR score, but that doesn't fucking matter since its ad&d and thus has items that just set you STR to something else; his other problem is that he's a fucking cunt because he's a paladin.
But honestly, cuntyness could be said for most of the NPCs.
Valgyar is pretty bro, although he's probably the weakest of the bunch. Still not actual dead-weight.

>>5103358
Charisma is the dump stat in Baldur's Gate. This isn't like Neverwinter or something where it might possibly maybe come up in dialog, or Fallout where it effects your followers. The only thing Charisma does in Baldur's Gate is modify shop prices. There is no reason for you to have a Charisma score that high at the expense of any other stat.

>>5105026
yeah baldur's gate is broken in that even paladins and sorcerers don't actually use charisma for anything like they're supposed to

>>5105026
greatest RPG of all time, they said

>>5105092
I certainly never said that.

I would've said Planescape: Torment.

>>5104860
>If you're dead-set on single-class mage then stay away from Edwin, because he's going to make you look like a chump
unless you go Wild Mage or Sorcerer

>>5105159
to be fair anyone who knows how to make sorcerer good doesn't need advice and anyone who plays wild mage doesn't deserve sympathy

>>5105164
Wild Mage is honestly one of the most recommendable classes to a new player: most newbies save/load anyway and the random effects are simply funny, plus Nahal abuse isn't as egregiously cheesy as most dual classes anyway
and BG2 showers you with so many Mages that 1-2 suboptimal Sorcerer choices will not utterly ruin you

>>5105185
jesus christ it's like you're trying to give awful opinions on purpose

>>5105207
oh you're that obsessed seething fag from the other thread
nevermind then

>>5104327
Same. Too time consuming unless youre a solo thief.

>>5104645
Same thing

>>5105039
>paladins and sorcerers don't actually use charisma for anything like they're supposed to

Wait, what? I'm about to play BG for the first time and was going to go Paladin. Rolled high Charisma since I figured a lot of it's abilities would rely on it.

>>5105335
Pallys have a min CHA requirement of 17, so you don't lose much by going to 18.

>>5105335
Charisma really only affects shop prices and even then, it is only influenced by the lead character.
As a paladin, your minimum allowed charisma is pretty high anyway so don't feel too bad.

>>5105212
considering I have no idea what you're talking about I'll guess that you've been browbeaten by psy ops and just jump at shadows all the time now?

>>5105335
Yea i normally allocate high CHR but i found out that its pretty pointless. Ive only ran into one situation in bg2 where a high chr made it easier to lie but still dont even need it.

>>5105956
Don't forget the tomes which will up your charisma by one point permanently, and the cloak in BG1 that gives you +2

>>5105092
and what does that say about its competition?

>>5104860
fighter/mage is also very powerful. With all the great defensive self-buffs like Blur and Mirror Image as well as the ability to wear the Amulet of Power, it's easy to have an F/M as a superior main tank. Offensive and utility magic is just a bonus.

>>5106189
I did a run as a fighter/mage/cleric and enjoyed myself immensely. The only downside was having to apply all the buffs before combat to ensure I wasn't a chew-toy for the gribblies

>>5106231
agreed that can get very tedious

>>5106278
Yeah, the mage buffs aren't too bad but the casting time on cleric spells is atrocious, luckily BG2 gives you the Robe of Vecna which IIRC cuts all casting times in half

>>5106303
Yeah I think Fighter/Mage is the sweet spot. The main issues for me with the triple-class setup are the equipment restrictions (no Celestial Thunder for FMC) and the diminishing returns from the extra abilities since you can only take one action per turn anyway. I'd rather not take the additional XP hit.

Has anyone gotten GemRB to work?

>>5106445
no

>>5106445
Yes

>>5106445
Sometimes

>>5099463

Baldur's Gate 1 is overrated shit and I can't understand why people like it beyond nostalgia and the fact that it's story is connected to the sequel.

Baldur's Gate II is one of the best games ever made.

I hate playing Mage. I mean you can’t have a top-tier setup without it, but it’s just like the equivalent of being stuck at the office doing paperwork before you can go out drinking.

I know how to use Mage, and I always take one, but always under protest.

Even in other games, it sucks. Like playing NWN with friends, every 5 seconds it’s like wait, let me rest, then cast like ten spells on us before we go into this asshole’s lair.

In BG/2, I’ll pick majority fucking Fighters every time. Sure I might have to bash through a Stoneskin or 3, but at least I can have my time back.

>>5109261
doesn't bg2 give you enough antimagic that it doesn't really matter if you bring a mage or not

>>5109276
until mindflayers show up anyway

>>5099463
Bought the game when it was new, have been playing it through once in a while, like 10+ times now.

BG2 stil unfinished, because no time for it.

Icecwind dale 1&2 finished, but those were a bit too linear, still good ones.

>>5109261
>Custom party
Always make one Cleric/mage

You can make couple characters and pick the rest on the way.

>>5109278
Mages aren't that great vs mindflayers. Shorty bonuses and/or clerics are what you need for them.
Last time I did the underdark mindflayer area, Korgan pretty much cleared the entire place on his own.

>>5109325
they can be pretty good for fluffing saving throws tho

>>5109364
At a decently high level with some saving throw boosting gear, Korgan will survive all but a critical fail against the psionic blast. If you cast chaotic commands on any character, they're completely immune.
The main use of mages against mindflayers is summoning skeletons (something that clerics can do too)

>>5109378
you can also nuke them from off screen and yakkity sax away while they choke on smelly gasses

>>5109261
>>5109276
without mods like SCS there's no point to stacking mages. if you really dislike having mages, then the only real utility they bring is dispels. solution: pick Keldorn, his Dispel Magic works at 2x his level. you can beat regular BG2 with a full martial party if you insist.
druids are also excellent at shutting down casters due to insect spells.
wizard slayers are also not half bad for miscast magic, but they're better off dualled with something like thief. Dual to druid is imba in vanilla because Fire Seeds are an AoE spell that procs Miscast Magic on everything it hits due to the peculiar way it works (probably removed in EE or either of the Fixpacks).
>Like playing NWN with friends, every 5 seconds it’s like wait, let me rest, then cast like ten spells on us before we go into this asshole’s lair.
Solution #4: employ a Bard and stack up in shops and stores on wands and scrolls. if you need any bit of arcane magic, he can provide it. wands render most AoE magic redundant. Bards are still really good at dispelling. You can sell them and re-buy them to replenish their charges. Works also in NWN. If you dislike a rest-heavy playstyle, just stop resting so much, martial-frontloaded parties, even with token mage support, don't have to rest after every battle.
>>5109302
he already hates mages so don't give him the most micro-intensive, homework-intensive spellcaster set in the game. C/M is good, but not that good if you aren't willing to work with the playstyle.

>>5109601
>solution: pick Keldorn, his Dispel Magic works at 2x his level.
that's a bug tho

>>5109839
it's not a bug at all, all inquisitors dispel at twice their level

>>5109189
Idk man i played it for the first time this year and its my all time favorite game. In fact i like it more than 2.

>>5109261
I usually never use magic in rpgs. Youd think id get tired of whacking things with a sword....but youd be wrong.


My problem with BG mages is you get a shit ton of fun powerful spells but they're all radial effects so youre going to hit your party. Or you have to add a status effect so your party wont be affected. Maybe ill do a solo fighter mage run one day...

>>5099463
I like all the big tits.

>>5110797
Same bro! Aeries are the best

>>5110693
That's what makes horrid wilting such a great spell. It does good damage and only affects enemies.

>>5110693
I had trouble getting used to it in BG1, although but in BG2 I found I was often able to use those spells tactically without much difficulty, especially since there are a variety of decent Fire Resistance items.

Sure, I might not be able to use AoE spells after the first round, but in some cases with enough AoE some battles can be over in a round. That battle in the Guarded Compound comes to mind, as well as the vampire ambush in Firkraag's lair. 2 magic-users cast fireball and another character uses the necklace of missiles, that can be like 50-120+ damage on all your opponents before anyone has a chance to move. At that point you probably don't need to cast any more spells.

In many other cases you can block a doorway and then shoot an AoE attack inside the room. The only spell I really was never able to use reliably due to friendly fire was Lightning Bolt

>>5110693
>My problem with BG mages is you get a shit ton of fun powerful spells but they're all radial effects so youre going to hit your party.
Just play buffer and disabler. Fireballs and Skulltraps aren't necessary; people with a martial-leaning playstyle should just cast Haste on their martials and party-friendly disablers like Confusion, Chaos and Slow on their foes.

>>5110693
Protip for playing mages in D&D; if you do damage with spells, you're doing it wrong.

>>5111552
To piggyback off that: mages are really, really good at area-of-effect damage in D&D, but you're usually still better off casting crowd control because 1) it gives your fighters something to do and 2) is more universal in general, with disablers often being party-friendly.

Although if >>5110693 you have a problem with radial effects, you can also just stock up on something like Protection From Fire on everyone and then cast Fireballs into the middle of the fray - with resistance over 100% your guys will be healed by bathing in fire.

FUCK BALDUR'S GATE IS DECLINE
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/was-baldurs-gate-considered-popamole-at-release.56380/

>>5111552
It's situational like everything else. One of the great things about the Vancian system (despite its drawbacks) is that it forces you to figure out creative uses for alternate spells rather than just spamming your best one over and over.

>>5111774
>rpgcodex thread from 7 years ago
That is kind of a funny thread. But BG did reboot the (fantasy) WRPG genre. Just because Bioware went on to shit out the DAO series doesn't change what they accomplished with Baldur's Gate.

>>5111880
THEY DUMBED DOWN RPG

>>5111552
Protip: that's only true for 3e.

What's a good point to dual Ranger->Cleric? I was thinking level 9

>>5112167
Good thinking.

>>5100090
Because she is sinultaneously extremely racist while being the subject of it herself because she was exiled to the surface.

You guys do ironman runs? Its pretty much ensured I'll never put these games down. I've gotten to the point where Baldur's Gate is easy, though I haven't actually done it in 2 yet. Messed around with trying it in Icewind Dale and it seems like it would be fun there, too.

Funny thing is, I didn't even like Baldur's Gate when it was released. I wanted something more like Fallout. But now, Baldur's Gate 1 is one of my favorite games ever.

>>5113043
Used to. Stopped it after a while because of the number of ways it’s super easy to fuck it up.

>>5113052
Oh yeah, I don't look down on anyone for not doing it, but I couldn't play it any other way now. And it keeps me honest, can't do stuff like pick up Carsomyr or Crom Faer at the start of the game.

>>5113043
Want to try it with scs once I finish my first run with this fucking great mod, not sure if I'm really ready for it but I'm sure it will be a fun try

>>5113063
I’m not sure if it’s any more brutal in 2 or not. In 1 it can be a mess because you get a lot of save-or-you’re-fucked spells getting thrown around. I’ve done it, but after a while it’s nice to not just lose several hours because you forgot some protection or other.

>>5113043
Depends on how you define it. I try not to reload unless the main character's death requires it, but I don't restart the entire run if that happens - there just aren't enough hours of diversion available in life to do the part up until Nashkel mines 30 times over.

I am most of the way done with a run where I wanted to take advantage of the fact that BG has so many potential party members, and would replace anyone that permanently died (chunked or turned to stone/shattered, etc.). It's been fairly underwhelming though, even with enemy damage increased 50%.

Early in the game, the damage threshold prevents you from having any party members permanently killed. Later on, your characters have enough health that unless you somehow manage to put someone with 5 HP next to an ogre, they'll almost never take a big enough blow. I just entered Baldur's Gate proper, with everyone around level 6 (~60k exp each), and the only character I have lost was Edwin (due to high reputation).

The biggest change is that costs of raising and consumables have made it so gold is more valuable, though I still have a sizeable stash of items I am choosing not to sell. If I were to ever replay the game again I would probably drop any party member that died, even in a raise-compatible manner. It would pressure me to use consumables more, which would probably cost more gold than the raising. There are so many potential party members in this game, and deaths just aren't that frequent... especially if you can interrupt enough of the lightning bolts seemingly every mage tries to cast in cramped conditions.

>>5113494
Its way more brutal in 2. Spell casters in 1 are easily dealt with using summoned skeletons to soak those AoEs. In 2, there's way more monsters that have save vs. game over and the mages have more casts, instantly kill your summons, time stop, etc. 1 is pretty easy once you learn the 4-5 problem encounters.

>>5113495
Only time I've had some one get chunked in BG1 was against the final boss of Tales of the Sword Coast. Since you have to fight him before Sarevok, I didn't have my best fighter for the final area, but not a huge loss since you kite Sarevok anyway.

>>5113505
That's a big problem too, even though it's sort of on the player as well as the game. Virtually any difficult fight can be trivialized with the whole party on ranged weapons and one guy kiting the enemies. Considering how many fights involve enemies that only have a melee attack (and are usually at most have the same move speed as party members), they could have expanded the basic enemy AI somewhat. For example, just making it so a group of five melee hobgoblins will split in two, with some of them heading for your mages/archers while the rest stay to occupy the tank. That script is totally generic and could have been put on most non-mindless enemies. Additionally, it would have forced the player to use a greater diversity of spells in their daily memorizations.

>>5111907
>>5111774
REFUTE THIS

>>5113505
>>5113517
I should also add that chunking can be somewhat common. Spells can chunk as well, I believe. I seem to recall losing people to high damage lightning bolts (and probably would have lost a mage on this run that way if they hadn't made their save). There are also certain special effects that can permanently kill party members (I think the final boss of TotSC, like you mentioned, has a special ability that does so), including on Green Slimes. Pretty sure they have a "poison" ability that is non-standard and is a save vs. death-or-be-instantly-chunked. Usually I have a few party members go in such a way by the end of the game when I am playing not very carefully, so I'm surprised it has only happened to you once!

>>5113517
Kiting is fun, though. Sticking your guys in melee and hoping they don't get randomly hit for over their hp is RNG.

>>5113539
Now that you mention it, I've had someone chunked by a green slime before. It was before I started trying to play the game ironman, though.

>>5113540
It is RNG at the end of the day, but your buffing, armor choices, and positioning control what the inputs to the RNG are. I'm surprised you would describe kiting as "fun" though... I feel it makes the entire game one endless session of shooting arrows into things. With no risk or variety, doesn't it get repetitive?

>>5113546
I thought it was a glitch the first time I ever saw it, and had to look it up. They take "poison damage", but I am pretty sure it doesn't cause a portrait icon to appear. I didn't think it was related because normally slimes aren't a big deal, and I had cast slow poison on the character in question. I guess you just have to let it run its course and hope they don't fail the save? Not sure.

>>5113556
I only do hardcore kiting at the beginning of the game. Once my fighter gets to level 3, I start using melee with them. Meleeing at level 1-2 though? Pure RNG.

>>5113560
Yeah... they really needed more for fighters and thieves to do in-combat, so you could at least feel like you were making choices, rather than waiting for the die to land. Doesn't help that usually chance-to-hit is better for ranged attacks. The damage cap helps with the early-game ogres and ogrillons, for example, but doesn't fully obviate the issue.

>>5113540
>Kiting is fun, though
eh, sort of. After a point it feels too much like exploiting an AI limitation, at least in a game not really designed to accommodate kiting. Using Web or stinking cloud seem more appropriate.
>Sticking your guys in melee and hoping they don't get randomly hit for over their hp is RNG.
Well, it's playing odds. You're not really saying "RNG" vs "not RNG" you're just saying good odds vs bad odds.

>>5113560
You don't need to kite if you and Imoen are both thieves though (but you totally can and should to get exp early on). In the context of a videogame being a thief is incredibly OP.

>>5113560
>>5113598
>>5114512
you know, you can just take a hot steamy dump on the whole game with skirmish tactics if you want to, and this is basically the way that DnD was always meant to be played anyway, fighting fair is basically incorrect

>>5114669
The fact that it is an option is fun. I don't always do it (except early on), but its nice that Baldur's Gate never forces you to play "the right way". This is why the game has so much replayability.

>>5114512
I guess what I mean is that, a monster will always have, at minimum, a 5% chance to hit you. You cannot not get hit melee. To avoid the possibility of ever dying, you do not engage in melee if it is possible to be killed before you can dis-engage. This makes low level melee a very poor strategy. As can be seen whenever someone who is new to the game and wonders why they they got killed by a wolf outside candlekeep. The reason is because they were fighting it in melee, when they should have been running while Lemon shoots it.

>>5099463
I'm replaying it right now with BGT.
The BG1NPC mod is really, really good.

>>5099485
>Enchanter
Who needs Fireballs when Skull Trap is better, more useful in more situations and has higher level scaling?
That said, not much point in being an Enchanter when Xan is around, although once I modded the game to make him a Sorcerer in mine since I love those but didn't wanna play as one.

>>5099528
Best Imoen portrait.

>>5099535
>Baldur's Gate 2 didn't include Alora since she wasn't that popular due to being so late and wanting to force you to use Yoshimo
It is a god damn shame. Edwin and Alora were so much fun together.

>>5100516
They ran out of time and were banned from working on the game more. The dumb thing is they had the time to do so if allowed, since the game was held back so that Half Life 2 would be the first game released with that engine. The team wanted to work on the game more for free during the wait but they weren't allowed to do so.

>>5101046
>>5100976
I often use Garrick's portrait which I think looks good for a Monk or Kensage and the like, but when I recruited Garrick and he took the generic Fighter tough portait I opened up Shadowkeeper and changed them around.
It helped that the generic fighter in armor picture from that one tutorial fighter looks a lot like Garrick so I could consider it my character growing up a bit.

>>5103358
>Who should i romance?
Imoen

Great game, but not best RPG of course.

>>5103784
If you go Kensai -> Thief then dualing at 13 isn't quite so bad due to how fast thieves level up.
But yes, while it is ultimately more powerful to dual at 13, if you are going mage you want to dual at 9 because otherwise it takes ages. I guess scrolls can help but still.
Berserker dualed at 9 might be the better option than kensai though. Gives Helmets, Gauntlets and rages. If you do fight to 13 though then Kensai > Berserker, but even then it can be a chore to be a kensai that long.

>>5115493
See>>5111907
>>5111774

>>5103468
Ranger/Cleric Multi or Dualclass can be a fun set up too if you aren't doing EE (or if you remove the EE "Fix) since then you get full fighter bonuses except for Grandmastery in a weapon, along with full druid and cleric spell list.

>>5105039
I don't think Charisma was used by Paladins for anything in AD&D other than being needed to be a Paladin.
Sorcerers didn't really exist back then I think, hence why they don't require any skills in BG2 since they were just coming out.
Should have included a Psion instead, I know 2E had those.

>>5103450
Romancing Imoen is the only proper option for chaotic neutral characters

i like this one

>>5115705
For any character.

>>5114669
>>5114673
>fighting fair is basically incorrect
I'm not saying fighting fair is the idea. It's a blurry line, but there comes a point where AI manipulation starts to get unsatisfying. And for some reason, in Baldur's Gate kiting feels very awkward as opposed to other games I've used it (Everquest and Final Fantasy Tactics to be specific).

>>5115467
I feel like that fits Safana.

>>5115471
For Yoshimo? But you don't have to leave Athkatla to get Nalia or Jan (wouldn't want to give the player fewer than three mage/thief options later on...). Sure, Yoshimo is the only pure thief option, but pure thieves are contenders for worst class in BG2.

Baldur's Gate is mediocre, it does nothing that other CRPGs didn't do better.

>>5116113
This.>>5111907
>>5111774
SEE RPGCODEX

>>5105039
>>5105335
This
>>5115514
Poster is correct. Paladins require a high charisma by default, you cannot play one without it. But their skills do not use Charisma, they use Wisdom for all spellcasting.

Sorcerors aren't an AD&D class, they are just made up for BG2 as a preview for 3e. As such, they work as they are supposed to in terms of what Bioware intended.

As for the Charisma stat, its not worthless. It modifies NPC management (party in-fighting happens less, requires more extreme rep to make people leave) and modifies prices.

>>5115514
>Psionicist

Are you familiar with the 2e rules for psionics? Firstly, there are two complete different systems to choose from, and secondly, they are 100% independent from magic. To implement psionics, you need to include an entirely separate and additional system.

To my knowledge, only the Dark Sun games feature psionics (where they are completely busted overpowered) and there's good reason for that.

>>5116073
I suppose it fits Safana too. The scar is there though, and I like the skulls since it recalls the dead three.

>>5116239
Yes, I've played some Darksun. Good times.
You raise a fair point that it would have required actual work, mostly due to the psionic effects being different from spells.

>>5116073
Nalia is a pretty mediocre thief with bad skill investment and annoying besides.
Jan is great of course but that leaves only him or Yoshimo. Pure thieves are bad but the fact remains that if you want a thief at all you're stuck with Yoshimo or Jan unless you want to use boosters on Nalia. Jan's great but the game clearly really wants you to use Yoshimo for your Thief, which is likely why there are so few of them compared to last game.
Pure thief is pretty bad but other than jan there aren't even any thief multis and there isn't an evil thief until EE.

>>5116553
This is why I like playing Stalker or Kensai/Thief, right around when Yoshimo leaves you can easily replace him.

>>5109325
>Mages aren't that great vs mindflayers

Ehm, sweetie, death fog cleans umber hulks, and Mordenkainen's sword mindflayers.

>>5116639
Also protection from magic weapons.

>>5099463
i do. but its not baldurs gate

>>5116553
>Nalia is a pretty mediocre thief with bad skill investment
Yeah but you can do all of Chapter 2 content with her at the very least, which is sufficient.

>>5116073
>pure thieves are contenders for worst class in BG2

I'd argue that the worst class is Ranger, since its just a Fighter that levels up slower and can't specialize as high.

Thieves do have set snares, which is busted.

>>5118848
>Thieves do have set snares, which is busted.
Set snares is less than impressive until HLA levels, at which point the Ranger has Whirlwind and all the usual fighter goods.
>can't specialize as high
irrelevant in vanilla due to Grandmastery being shit
if you focus on what rangers actually can do (competent fighting with token spell support and decent fighting style versatility) then they're really not worse than a class locked at 1 APR whose entire damage ability is restricted to cumbersome maneuvers and prep
and if we take kits into account (which we should because Yoshimo has the distinction of being a BH, and that's probably the best thief kit out there), rangers blow thieves out of the water solely due to the existence of the archer

Anons I badly want to try BG but the only platform I have for the time being is my phone and I can't get any pirated downloads to work, does anyone have a reliable source?

What class makes the most sense for the main char? I know that faggot in the book was a fighter but just going off of in game things.

>>5119102
You're the child of the god of murder so assassin is a good fit imo.

>>5099463
>tfw female characters have a single love interest and it's Anomen
thanks i guess

>>5119102
Given that you're surrounded by books and raised by a cleric/mage, and there's a prosperous cult of Oghma in town, I'd say either cleric or mage. But you can fluff your class choice however you want - in BG1, if you go into your biography after the game starts, the first paragraph is about the events that shaped up your studies in a given class, and the second one is about whatever you know about your mom (it varies from race to race).

>>5119238
Makes sense

>>5119238
I run cleric/thief as I can then let jaheira focus on debuff while I focus on healing/buffs. The thief part means I can dual imoen to mage early without losing thief skills from the party

>>5119102
depends on the alignement you choose i suppose
if you're a goody or lawful neutral, you probably liked Gorion and his harper bullshit and cleric, mage/cleric or even monk make sense
but if you want to play an evil/chaotic neutral character, it can be assumed that your nature as a bhaalspawn had more impact on your upbringing than boring Gorion's lectures, so thief/assassin, pure mage/sorcerer, fighter or even berserker can also make a lot of sense

>>5119102
Fighter/Mage

So I started BD, immediately have a large party. How in the fuck am I supposed to issue individual commands and do tactical combat when they all just run up and start meleeing or get run up to and melee'd?

>>5120695
turn off AI and configure auto-pause settings to your liking. (might be able to turn back on AI at times when you get the hang of things)

>>5120708
I just find combat is really fast. Is there no option to turn down game speed in combat or anything? Auto pause would only half solve the problem. I'd be able to assign one planned action to each member, then either watch the battle play out or try to micro manage.

>>5120741
There are a few autopause options, pausing at the start of the battle is only one. You can have it autopause every round (6 seconds), every time someone casts a spell and every time someone kills an enemy. With some or all of those options activated, it should be pretty easy to manage your party.
Alternatively, just keep a finger on the spacebar and pause manually whenever the game is going too fast.

Also, remember that you don't have to play with a full party of six.

>>5120832
Ah the every round thing should do it. Thank you.

>>5121235
Yeah personally I think my settings are usually something like

Pause when enemy appears
Pause when target is killed
Pause when spell is cast

The main issue I have there is occasionally forgetting about a caster that doesn't have orders. But any more micro-managey than that and I start to get annoyed in most situations.

>>5121241
Yeah I dont like to be too hands on, but I also dont like it being like dwarf fortress where I just let shit happen. Having a tank character automatically run up and start taunting works fine most of the time, then just be able to issue special commands in certain situations. The other characters, and especially my own character, I want full control over.

>>5119168
Haer'Dalis and Valygar were originally planned as love interests as well, but when crunched for time were cut because women don't ever play video games anyway.

>>5121365
A nigger and a space alien, nice.

>>5119102
Vanilla thief or bard. An Imoen 2.0.
Gorion was a ward that provided for CHARNAME's immediate physical needs, and that may have even provided some tutors beyond this, but I never got the sense of him as a loving father beyond that. So being a neglected child that's cloistered in a place not designed for kids at all might have given CHARNAME all the time to explore various different hobbies and a craving for attention that could lead just as easily to anti-social mischief as to extremely high charisma.

At least that's what I thought of when I called my Swashbuckler/Mage Himoen.

On a sidenote: Pillars of Eternity 2 yay or nay?

>>5121365
Huh, I thought Valygar was always intended to be gay.

>>5121427
meh

>>5121427
Haven't played it yet, been too busy replaying BG yet again. Pillars 1 was pretty damn bad, it made sure that everything good about Baldur's Gate (tactical diversity, classes all playing differently, amazing loot to find, etc) was not present.

>>5121497
>>5121541

Really? I was just about to get it, because apperently it's JUST LIKE BG.

>>5121650
Depends what you expect. It has pretty pre-rendered (well, actually real time rendered, but in the older style) graphics, nice music, comfy atmosphere, and classic RTS style controls. So in that, yes, its like Baldur's Gate.

The problem is that it has the modern philosophy of obsessive "balance". This translates into no fun tricks to discover, no interesting loot (the system uses +% to damage, so all talents and loot feel samey), all classes feel similar.

These problems would be less noticeable if the story wasn't so incredibly boring.

That said. Pillars 1 for 20 bucks or less, you'll get your money's worth The Endless Paths dungeon IS cool, its just the only mega-dungeon in the game. I haven't played 2 yet, I heard they improved things.

>>5121430
I think he actually had a girlfriend that was working for Jon.

>>5121705
>The problem is that it has the modern philosophy of obsessive "balance".
I bet you like Under Rail though

>>5115514
Charisma was at least useful in RP and for Henchman
Wisdom was the true dump stat

>>5122040
Who doesn't?

>>5122353
my point is that nobody is forcing you to play games that were meant for casuals in the first place.

>>5122040
I don't know what that is. But Pillars isn't actually more balanced than Baldur's Gate. All BG classes feel overpowered in their own fun way, and enemies can easily kill you no matter what you pick if you don't approach fights correct. It just was designed with an autistic idea of balance and it ends up in samey, boring gameplay choice.

>>5121705
> actually playing these games for the dungeons

Post companions that remind you of yourself

For me it's Xan - intelligent, nihilistic and with a wickedly low CON score

>>5124740
>For me it's Xan - "intelligent", nihilistic and with a wickedly low CON score

so you're just like everyone else on 4chan?

>>5124762
That's the joke

>>5124740
hey man, people make fun of the way you talk irl

I got Pillars for free and didn't have a bad time with it, all things considered. It's no BG, but it does what it tries to do alright.

What it misses from BG, is that it never tries to surprise you or subvert expectations. Where in Baldur's Gate you're going all over the place and running into unexpected situations you just have to roll with, Pillars has a real problem of formulaic quest design, with a kind of setup-twist-resolution structure for every single quest in the game. It gets very noticeable halfway through and really egregious the closer to the end you get.

Combat also doesn't give you nearly the amount of stuff to play with, but I can't really fault an RPG system for not being as good as the full D&D 2E ruleset. It's fun enough and I wasn't bored with the combat.

>heavily injured from bandits and wildlife
>walk into town looking for blacksmith before resting at the inn
>"is this the blacksmith?"
>get ravaged by spiders
>lose everything

>>5119168
>girls actually playing and beating baldur's gate in its hayday before vidya was 'cool'
I want to believe.

>>5124830
I never finished it since it turned my laptop into magma by the time I got to the hand drawn super dungeon.(which was actually pretty cool) my complaints from what I played, is that some classes had very little to do in combat. Paladin gets really good AC, but their one offense ability would do tits all for damage, could be used twice per combat, which didnt even amount to half a healthbar, then im left with a slap fight for the next minute.

Meanwhile fighters get almost all the same AC via stances, and can switch to offensive on the fly. AND gets to regenerate stamina.

>>5124842
I got all the way to Suldanesselar in a multiplayer game session with this one girl friend of mine, she played Swashbuckler while I did the tanking and we had a mage player as well. It was all nice, she played many RPGs, was mostly into Morrowind, I have lots of screenshots from that escapade. She drew portraits for our characters.

One of the best documented Baldur's Gate players out there with many years of experience had written many reports on the old BioWare forums on her characters, like solo no-reload insane difficulty mods insert-subpar-class-here. Including Transmuter, Bounty Hunter, Beastmaster, Jester, Barbarian and many others.

Redpill me on something here, please.

If the game is supposed to be so open and that, how come if you decide to play a mage and ditch Imoen makes it super hard to the point of constantly saving and reloading every four steps?
The game wants you to be a bow user or at least that's how my runs always start. That or maybe I don't understand thac0.

>>5124965
Sleep is a great spell at low levels. Enemies have terrible saving throws and once they're asleep, you get guaranteed hits on them.
Bows are definitely the way to go for most characters though.

>>5124965
Not every minute of the game is necessarily suited to every class. Some have trouble in the beginning, middle, or end, and excel in other parts.

In any game, Mage tends to be the late-curve option. In D&D especially you will be fucking weak. This goes for all classes, but especially casters.

>ditch Imoen
I mean, if that’s how you want to RP or something, fine, but don’t pretend the game isn’t trying to throw meat shields at your Mage ass.

>bow
Or sling, as the case may be. If you want to solo it you may need one to pick off those fearsome gibberlings.

>>5124965
Nobody forces you to fight every monster in your way at level 1
Xzar and Montaron are literally 20 meters away from your starting point
Don't solo if you don't know how to play
Git gud
And read the fucking manual

>>5124974
>>5124975
Thanks for the tips, will try that. I value RPing a lot in games, specially in this since this is DnD. I can't play actual DnD where I live so I wanted to give this a try.

>>5124979
>Git gud
>And read the fucking manual
Rude but also honest.
I ready it but it was A LOT to digest and even then it seems I didn't quite get it so I'll read again about thac0 more in depth.
I'm not blaming the game for my mistakes or anything, quite contrary. I really want to get into it and enjoy it.

>>5124983
>ready
read*

>>5124965
Because the game doesn't scale to your level and if you're gonna be a non-combatant in a dress wandering the wild by your lonesome while 3-4 NPCs per location exist solely to flavorfully tell you about how dangerous the roads are, you better figure out some precautions.
Even a fighter in armor is better off not closing into melee simply because low level AD&D combat is gritty, deadly and overall the system was somewhat ill-suited to a story of a single Chosen One whose death is pivotal to some dude's plan of becoming a god. In tabletop, character creation was quick precisely because not a lot of characters survived to level 3 and people generally avoided confrontation.

Imoen is not only an archer, but she has those hiding skills for a reason - for scouting ahead.
Anyway, if you stick to the main road, you should generally avoid wolves. From then on, stick to quests where you don't fight (much) and rely on Sleep to dispatch the odd Gibberling pack.

>>5124983
Short version about thac0 :
If you play mage, it sucks forever, mages use spells, they don't bash stuff, read the fucking manual
Slightly longer version :
The thac0 is your chance to hit at armor class 0, the lower it is, the better.
strength influences your melee thac0, dexterity influences your ranged thac0, but in any case since you are a mage it will suck
Use sleep and get someone else to bash the monsters
If you are absolutely that clueless about the game, make a fighter. The base principle of baldur's gate is playing a party with full control over them ; you meet another mage 20 meters from your starting point, use him or another later in the game to understand how mages work.

>>5124983
You really don’t have to understand the mechanics on that level to succeed. It’s better just to be aware of more specific quirks of the system. Like needing magical (+1 or higher) weapons for certain creatures or you get the “weapon ineffective” text.

Knowing how Thac0 works won’t make you a better player, you just have to know that you want to reduce the number.

>>5124986
>>5124991
So I'M NOT supposed to kill everything.
That explains why I'm literally plaing "save state: the game". That's good to know.

>>5124983
How THAC0 works:
Every time you attack, the game generates a number between 1 and 20. The game then adds the targets AC and compares this number to your THAC0. If your THAC0 is the same or lower, you land the hit and the game goes on to roll for damage. If not, you miss. A roll of 20 gives a guaranteed (critical) hit while a roll of 1 is a guaranteed (critical) miss.
As you can probably figure out from this, having low numbers for your THAC0 and AC are ideal.

>>5124983
The game is pretty straightforward early on. Just equip slings or whatever and right click, kite if needed.

There are some fights in the game that can be tricky to deal with if you don't know much how enemy mages/spells work. One trick you can fall to for majority of the encounters in the game is summon monsters spell. If there's a tough fight ahead, just summon monsters until capped right outside of aggro range. I forget what level the spell was, you get it somewhat early from what I remember in BG1.

The game can still fuck you over with random high roll attacks from the enemy, no matter how big brained you are. Its just the nature of dice roll games, you'll get used to it.

>>5124983
Short breakdown of each class type:
>Warriors
Fighters, Rangers and Paladins generally differ in some minor ways (not important to you right now) but they excel at doing big single-target damage and have the most HP. They do the heavy lifting early game and they deliver the big damage to "bosses" overall.
>Thief
Thief is an utility character who scouts ahead, disarms traps, and can land a "backstab" for massive damage (hide behind back -> attack with any melee thief weapon). They keep party safe from deadly traps in dungeons, open locks with nice stuff in them, and can deliver high burst damage to a single target (but less reliably than a Fighter).
>Priests
Their most basic (and worst) use is to be the healbot, but they're most importantly buffers and defensive mages. Sturdy, can wear plate. Thye don't fight particularly well on their own, but can take a hit well, so don't shy from using them in the frontline if need be. Clerics > Druids, although Jaheira isn't half bad, especially early on
>Mages
Rule #1: you don't have a spammable basic spell that you can unleash on enemies. Your main role is support - you enable damage dealers and have the best AoE effects in the game, starting from Sleep (can knock out entire armies of little critters at the start of the game) at level 1. With time, you become a much better damage dealer as you start getting them Fireballs and whatnot. But yeah, especially early on, focus on making your mage a support with Sleeps, Charms and Webs - Magic Missile at level 1 can't even kill a gibberling whereas Sleep can take out the whole screen of them.
>Bards
They can do a little bit of everything. They're better than what most people say, but their song fucking sucks in vanilla BG1, so don't use it. Consider them tankier mages who can fire an actual bow and give them all your wands if you actually end up hiring one (don't; their stats in BG1 are low and they're very annoying), and you will actually have a pretty capable party member.

>>5124995
Early on, no, not all.
tbqh last time I restarted bg1 I pretty much dashed to the friendly arms inn, ignoring everything in the way except the gibberling pack.
A little tip for your mage once you're done with reading the fucking manual : if you pay attention, there might be a surprise for you somewhere south of the friendly arms inn.

>>5124983
>>5125008
Also regardless of everything else, at levels 1-3 at least every single one of your party members gets the best ranged weapon they can use (check their proficiencies) and you spam at range. As I said before, melee in low lvl AD&D is Russian Roulette, you must grab at any possible advantage to survive, and most critters you will meet at level 1 don't have ranged abilities. So I kicked 'im in the 'ead 'til he was dead, nyahaha! So I kicked 'im in the 'ead 'til he was dead, nyahaha! So I kicked 'im in the 'ead 'til he was dead, nyahaha! So I kicked 'im in the 'ead 'til he was dead, nyahaha! So I kicked 'im in the 'ead 'til he was dead, nyahaha!

>>5124995
Seek the most effortless quests in Friendly Arm, Beregost, Nashkel and just cheese through them quickly, this will take you midway through level 2 easily. Things like Joia’s ring and getting the book for that fag from Candlekeep. These quests are easy to identify. If it tells you to scalp an army of bandits or fight an ogre, well, maybe save that one for later.

>>5099463

Played and finished Baldur's Gate (not EE) for the first time a couple months ago, now I'm picking back up my backlog and decided to play BG2 (not EE).
Monk or Assassin? I don't want to go pure mage again.

>>5125031
If you’re a lazier player, Monk. Can confirm this class plays itself even on higher difficulties.

>>5125031
>Monk
late-game martial powerhouse with stealth but mostly for scouting and starting the fight directly in someone's face. Sorta boring to itemize because you're technically not wearing anything. Dumb melee animation. But, again, really, really powerful once it gets the levels. Kinda needs babysitting early on.
>Assassin
Tricky, but fun to play. Poison Weapon can e applied from range. EE nerfed Poison Weapon because it was given to Blackguard and Blackguard turned out to be too OP, so they nerfed the skill as a whole and Assassin lost a lot of power. Still, poison is as good as ever at interrupting mages as it passes through Stoneskin. Assassin gets stronger backstabs in the late-game - if you like that method of achieving really high numbers on the status screen (takes a bit of setting up though), be my guest.
SIngle-classed Thieves are generally lower on the power-curve but make up for it somewhat with late-game abilities. If you want a crafty main character with many options and plenty of micromanagement room, pick Assassin.

If you really want to play a shadowy striker, you can also pick Stalker or Fighter/Thief. The former opens a fight with a weaker version of Thief backstab and then proceeds to continue the fight in melee. The latter can be played as a "Thug" (basically a regular brawling Fighter with a big weapon, but who can also be sneaky in his approach if need be) or a "Ninja" (you can burst down anyone with a good sneak attack and then proceed to hold your own in melee), and is overall very versatile, whether as a frontliner in plate mail or a sneaky stabber.

>>5125031
Like >>5125039 said, my vote is for the Ranger kit Stalker.

Like both the Monk and Assassin, it can use Stealth and gets a +20% bonus to it automatically. It also gets the Thief's backstab ability up to x4, and unlike the Monk or Thief, can specialize into weapons and take three full pips of two-weapon fighting. Plus the class gets the Haste spell for itself. And then that's with all the regular Ranger amenities like Priest spells, Racial Enemy, etc.

>>5125031
I've played through as an Assassin. Abusing backstabs was pretty good fun. However, I'd strongly recommend taking Yoshimo in your party and having two thieves is a waste.

>>5125239
>However, I'd strongly recommend taking Yoshimo in your party and having two thieves is a waste.
Not really because Assassin has a very low skill point gain and therefore it's not a bad idea to allocate most of his skill points in what he's supposed to be good at (stealth) while another thief picks the slack up.

>>5125252
That's definitely true for BG1.
In BG2, with some good stat boosting gear and a willingness to bash/knock/revisit later locked chests, you can cover traps and comfortably get into stealth in dark areas without needing a second thief. With a couple of sandthief rings and a bit of patience, you don't even need to invest much in the stealth skills to take advantage of backstabs.

>>5125283
Well, that's a valid viewpoint.
The real answer to this conundrum is to simply pick Jan.

>>5124958
Hmm, thats pretty great, not that it invalidates your experience, but playing in a group setting tends to keep girls motivated too. Im curious if any girls playes start to finish on their own accord solo. There are a handful of high power level computer science girls in the 80s and 90s, so if I think of anyone who had done it, it probably would have been one of them.

>>5125309
>Im curious if any girls playes start to finish on their own accord solo
That multiplayer adventure with my friend was a repeat playthrough for everyone involved. She beat the whole trilogy with like 3-4 characters or so.
>There are a handful of high power level computer science girls in the 80s and 90s
I doubt that Scorpia, one of the OG cRPG reviers for Computer Gaming World whose review of Might & Magic 2 pissed off the lead dev so much he included her in Might & Magic 3 as a killable monster (pic related) was a rocket scientist, since you don't actually need to have half a brain to enjoy these games.
Funnily enough, Scorpia's own review of Baldur's Gate allegedly got her kicked out of CGW because the game was advertised everywhere as a Second Coming Of Jesus for cRPGs (including CGW itself, ads plastered all over the magazine) whereas Scorpia's review was generally scathing for its poor roleplaying elements and, in her view, worse tactical combat than dungeon crawlers of yore, so the final score "she" gave the game is completely not in accord with the fairly mediocre impression the game left on her.
As for the second example, which you obviously ignored, here, you might learn something: solo Jester no-reload by a BG veteran who happens to be female.
http://blackstrider.net/Archive_Forum_Bioware/bg1-full/baldurs-gate-1-no-reload-challenge_page-1/forum.bioware.com/topic/124374-baldurs-gate-1-no-reload-challenge/page-308.html#entry14826902
It's almost like you don't understand the relationship between unironically buying into 'no girls on the internet' memes and other 'tits or GTFO' stuff and women simply choosing not to reveal themselves because of patronizing attitudes like this.

>>5125336
Whoa, okay I think you misread my tone as condescending or something. I didn't register the challenging classes part as i'm not familiar with them. Please understand that I am absolutely searching for people who will change my perspective, just in 30 years of my life I have witnessed very few cases where girls are outgeeking the competition. Before now the closest I had seen was Kayane from France.

>>5124975
I ditch Imoen for the silliest of reasons: I don't like her portrait, at least not in EE. That forehead and hairstyle are atrocious.
That's why I also hate the vampire from BG2 that changes to an afroamerican woman. Not because she's black (my best friend is black), it because her first form is so perfect.

>>5125472

The original vampire mod before EE had the best portrait.

>>5125381
>girls are outgeeking the competition
maybe stop viewing this as a competition then
especially since you yourself don't appear to know much about the game this thread is about, so you're hardly even in the running by your own metric

>>5099692
>Arcanum

One of those games that will always stand out in my mind as having such a fucking amazing idea and well fleshed out concepts, but was completely hobbled by a low-mediocre execution

i'm playing ee right now. tried it before but quit at durlag's tower. i'm skipping it this time. such a fucking grind. (I've beaten the old bg trilogy back in the day).

just started my romance with neera.

I'm a cavalier...fun times.

this game is seriously the best rpg on pc. I just wish it had a run button like in pillars of eternity. I'm about to hit the big city...excited to jump right into 2 then ToB.

not sure how you guys play an evil party. I always want to...but whenever I create an evil character...I always back out. I actually like to roleplay my character in terms of dialogue/actions and I'd feel miserable being a bastard to everyone.

>>5125525
>I always back out. I actually like to roleplay my character in terms of dialogue/actions and I'd feel miserable being a bastard to everyone.
You can play a guy who actually doesn't listen to the insane reputation system where evil people want to be actively persecuted, instead he just puts himself and his party above everyone else. Saving the Sword Coast from the Iron Throne's conquest is a secondary goal to fucking up the guy who's been sending assassins over you and a tertiary goal to getting rich and powerful - which is easier when you're not a fugitive on the run from the law.

>>5125336
>>5125381
>Whoa, okay I think you misread my tone as condescending or something
Don't sweat it. She has a chip on her shoulder and is bitter that the only other people who share her hobby are sweaty neckbeards and other socially awkward nerds. Her skills at chastising meek and passive boys for a careless tongue like yours is finely honed and the caustic sarcasm is a force of habit.

>>5125628
I understand. Sweaty neckbeards seem to have a social stigma despite being the 'original' geek community, socially ostracized with their hobbies nearly untouched by women, because 'nerds' were unattractive and thus women didnt want to be part of their community or learn what they're about. Thats why im interested in the women who actually did care to learn, because it shows the level or investment they had in the content because they were willing to look past that social stigma.

>>5125716
your persecution complex is embarassing
leave this thread and go take a shower

>>5125525
Pretty much this >>5125568
Lawful evil characters are really great because they're probably those who allow you the most freedom in your actions, not compelled to be an ass all the time, but will tell useless idiots trying to send them on fool's errands for free to go fuck themselves, can save worthy lives with an interest in mind, life debts are worth more than gold, but will not help for free (i.e. fuck peasants, they have nothing, neither gold nor power, to offer, except maybe when you rule over them) and of course, following the main story as a vengeance / survival / opportunity for wealth and power situation rather than saving the world and all that shit. Think Vito / Michael Corleone types of characters.

>>5125770
This anon gets it. Some more tips for if you want to experience evil characters in your party:
>Get rid of the "Evil NPCs bitch and leave when your reputation hits low" mechanic.
Good NPCs obviously have a reason to find murdering random people abhorrent, but it makes no sense vice versa; reputation 20 means everyone in the Realms sucks your dick and you get amazing artifacts at half price. That, and if BioWare's intent was to make the stronger NPCs generally fall to the evil side, they failed, because in both games there's plenty of solid Good/Neutral NPCs that are very comparable if not stronger in certain niches than Evil ones, so that point is moot. Instead, make an alignment mix of favourite NPCs to experience all of their banter (Korgan with Keldorn, Mazzy or Imoen is pretty entertaining). Your roleplaying incentive to keep Korgan in your party of goody-two-shoes? Keldorn already gives a solid one - he respects Korgan in battle, but is worried about his bloodthirst. Well, all you have to do is keep his axe pointed at the bad guys and not yourself.
>Reasonable Evil
Act normal in towns and do everything to appear to the public like a good guy, but seize every opportunity to rob and kill people nobody cares about. There's multiple NPCs you can meet in the wild who are worth quite a bit of XP that you can randomly murder for their loot, XP, or because you personally believe they're better off not existing (best example: Mad Arcand, an insane gnome who doesn't live in a city, death dumps your reputation, is only tied to one quest, and who awards you a whopping 2000 XP for putting him off of his misery). There's also quite a few NPCs that you might want to murder just because nobody cares, e.g. Joia, the Friendly Arm Inn woman who sends you on an errand for her ring, grants 400 XP and +1 rep for doing her quest and 900 XP with no consequences for killing her, although you might consider that metagaming.

>>5125874
The BG trilogy also has plenty of characters that Good characters at least theoretically should think twice about murdering, but the rewards they drop are extremely tempting. But it's when you're Evil that you're absolutely incentivized to kill big hotshots like Drizzt or small fry like Bardo, the guy who is selling cursed potions in the Xvart Village location - the "hand over all your potions and we will let you live" line is only justifiable to Evil characters even though Good ones can kill him without any repercussions (because he's an asshole, but you can hardly call him out on it).

But in a big city deeds like refusing to accept Oublek's reward or helping out the problems of the local populace for free are exactly what you need to put in good word for you and your pals so that you can expand your influence. There are rumors that you were the ones who murdered this one guy for his boots of cold resistance, but who can really confirm them? It happened really far away on a random road, after all...

>>5125294
Jan is my multitool in nearly every playthrough. Will generally save you a party slot because every party should have at least one Mage and Thief. Plus his bruiser mates or whatever their names are are actually pretty useful.

>>5124838
Shoulda checked a map.

>>5126075
Every party needs at least 1 thief but can do with multiple mages, so having a multiclass like him and Aerie is nice.

>>5125031
>I don't want to go pure mage again.
Consider a mage/thief of fighter/mage, then.

>>5126097
Where's the fun in that? Do people really play games start to finish with a strategy guide beside them?

>>5126307
I don't know that looking at a town map is all that unfair. I mean when you go into a mall or something you look at the map, right? It'd be cheap if you looked at a guide for what's in every random house, but the shops/inns are like known entities.

>>5126310
he could have literally just talked to some people and asked where the inn was

>>5126310
Tbh I didnt even know there was a town map. Is that house marked as spider country?

>>5126360
I don't think that particular thing is. It's usually the inns, shops, and sometimes like 3 or 4 other points of interest, but generally not "curious" things like monsters inside a house.

>>5126382
Why would there even be monsters inside a house. Don't these towns have guards to deal with arachnid family down the street? Like what are they even doing there. This is a two leg town.

>>5101381
>2nd edition is best edition though.
The edition where you can stop a 20th level spellcaster with a 1st level adventurer declaring he will poke the wizard with a stick, best? No, I don't think so.

>>5126401
The guards have their hands full with the bandits, and with the iron shortage their shit is probably breaking non-stop, can't risk wasting it on monsters that are contained in an abandoned home. Also, who knows if they even knew no one was in there. Probably no one asked for a welfare check until you came along.

>>5126426
Its probably the product of irresponsibility. They probably were told to slay just the one spider, but didnt want to break anything or take any risks, so they just lock it in there. Then some local urchins pick the lock, get murdered by the spider and become food. Over time the spider multiplies, and now there are 4 living there feeding on intruders. The guards know full well about the spider shack, and use it to make people and evidence disappear.

>>5126313
>anon forgets to save his game
>walks into an inn with everyone bleeding to death
>chooses poorly
>gets owned by Karlat
that said I call bullshit on his story because the game does autosaves upon leaving an area

>>5126401
They're part of a quest. I don't think it's explicitly explained how they got there. The questgiver is a gnome mage though so presumably they were being bred or summoned into the house.
The guards are probably too busy dealing with other problems and don't want to risk being poisoned by giant spiders.

>>5126578
>>anon forgets to save his game
then he deserves the cruelest fate by default

>>5126578
My last save was in the forest somewhere in the middle of the map. I did have to re-kill mobs along the way. It didnt autosave upon entering town.

>>5127106
it always autosaves when you leave a location, so your last autosave should be right at the edge of the forest you left before you went to Beregost

Anyone know if there's any mods that add Planescape Torment sprites to the game files, for use with EE Keeper?

Haven't been able to locate anything

>>5127131
I must have been loading my manual save then, I remember seeing both in the forest with the autosave listed as lower playtime. I'll keep that in mind because im going to die a lot.

>>5127176
Don't forget Q for Quicksave and L for quickload, can get you out of a few jams

planning on another playthrough and thinking or going thief this time. which kit is the most fun to play? is swashbuckler good?

>>5128068
>which kit is the most fun to play?
bounty hunter imho, crowd control from traps is great
if you don't like traps and are wary of falling into some cheesy playstyle, go assassin for ranged poison application and stronger backstabs
swashbuckler is a good class but it's also basically a fighter-lite with thief abilities. It has potential for extremely low AC in the late game and is a really good Scarlet Ninja-To wielder, and you will spend most of the game dualling Belm+Kundane to maximize your pitiful APR. does decent damage throughout all game and UAI helps prolong their usefulness, but isn't generally better than a fighter aside from the usual UAI and trap cheese.

my guy of choice is a halfling fighter/thief

>>5099997
did you like fountain of dreams?

>>5128068
Swashbuckler is good, but it can't backstab. If you don't like the backstab playstyle, that's not really a downside. Remember that swashbuckler makes a good archer, all the bonuses apply.

Remember that thief-multiclass are a great option.

Thief-Mage makes can use his mage power to enable backstabs, self buff, or just nuke.

Thief-Cleric can use cleric powers to enable backstabs (sanctuary removes you from combat), buff himself, and summon monsters.

Fighter-Thief backstabs with fighter THAC0, and lends itself to staying in melee after landing the backstab (though leather armor is an issue in my experience).

>>5128076
unironically fighter/thief for mc

dual or multi you just can't go wrong

>>5129482
>though leather armor is an issue in my experience
>not wearing the skin of children

Hate isometric PC RPGs, always have. BG reminds of an even slower and worse Diablo, and Diablo is already bad enough.

>>5129617
Ok

>>5129482
>Thief-Cleric can use cleric powers to enable backstabs
Don't forget the spell, righteous might I think it was, that makes all your attacks do max damage for several rounds. It's like Kai backstabs but you can do it over and over.

Thinking of trying BG for the first time, any essential mods/fixes? should i go EE, tutu/trilogy or vanilla? any tips?

>>5130204
Seconding this

>>5130204
Just get the Enhanced Edition.

Tips would be that if the game feels unfair, just approach an encounter different. The game gives you all the tools you need to beat every encounter without save scumming. So if it feels like bullshit, you just need to think of a different plan.

>>5130204
>>5130353
>>5130204
>>5130353
BG1 original saga with easytutu, widescreen mod (1600x900), unfinished business, npc project, 1ppv4 and potentially cdt tweaks if you want the best experience for the game.
If you are a lazy faggot who can't spend an hour doing a bit of research and installing mods and doesn't give a shit about giving money to retarded lazy companies, "just get the EE" (and turn your brain off bro) indeed.

>>5130473
bitter virgin.

>>5130571
Seconding this; there's nothing wrong with the EE versions of the games, you can safely ignore the new party members and the tranny npc if you so wish. If you have a problem with paying for the EE versions then just pirate them

>>5130473
EE has autoloot though and that's kind of a big deal

>>5130473
>doesn't give a shit about giving money to retarded lazy companies
nobody pays for games here newfag

>>5130654
But can you ignore the atrocious sprites? The disgusting UI? The piss poor compatibility with half the good mods out there? The fucking joke of a resolution scaling? The not enhanced effects that you can't fix with mods?
There is literally no fucking good reason to pick up the EE, aside from being a fucking lazy faggot, and even then you still miss on UB and NPC project.
>>5130667
One more good reason to pick up the originals
>>5130571
Just fuck off retard.

>>5130662
just as I said, no good reason aside from being a lazy faggot

>>5130473
forgot generalized buffing if performance issues after installing 1ppv4

>>5130473
forgot generalized biffing if performance issues after installing 1ppv4

>>5130717

Mods work fine with EE. Just admit you're one poor faggot.

>>5130852
How many? Half of g3/shs? Less than that?
Also what's with with you retards being incapable of forming a coherent argument to defend your trash edition objectively inferior in every way to the few mods I listed?

>>5130883
What if all I want out of life is SCS and Ascension under Legacy of Bhaal? You're forgetting how many shit mods there exist for these games that are not worth porting, like Tortured Souls, The Darkest Day, The Grey Clan or Drizzt Saga.

>>5130721
hey man if your time is worth nothing you probably are too

>>5099463
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U0Lh8-apvc

>>5130935
>hurr bad mods exist so EE good
K

>>5130943
>dude losing 30 minutes fine tuning your installation of a 80 hours long game means your time is literally worth nothing to you lmao
Fuck off retard

>>5130963
Where's my vanilla Legacy of Bhaal, anon?

>>5130979
Tried looking between your ass cheeks? Good for you if you enjoy this piece of trash, but I thought we were discussing what's the best overall experience for baldur's gate, not the hardest punishing setting.
But if you want to recommend scs + tactics + ascension + legacy of bhaal to a new player, be my fucking guest.

I am pretty far into my first EE run, and I can't say I recommend it. The autoloot feature does save time and keep the attention focused on more important parts of the game, that is true.

I was going into it with a sense of "if I don't like the new NPCs I will just ignore them", but unfortunately two of the three (primary) ones drag you into their stories, which is at odds with the usual NPC approach here. Also, Dorn's intro appearance offers you an early set of plate armor and a magic sword, even if you don't take him into the group, which is above the typical gear level you would otherwise have at this point.

One big thing that bothers me (and would be the case with Tutu as well (I believe; never used it), is that the game uses the BG2 engine. The biggest issues here are that 1) weapon proficiencies are fucked, because they are balanced for characters of about 20th level in a game where you go up to about 7th, and 2) you have access to things like dual-wielding, which might be a trap to new players. Also, the BG2 system gives you the ability to highlight all containers, which ruins the fun of all the secret ones scattered around (unless you have the iron will to not use this ability).

It's a matter of taste, but I dislike that you are given access to item containers (like gem bags) and ammunition stacks as high as 80 - I felt that inventory management was an important aspect of character design and dungeon diving.

The new spell book system is pretty annoying as well; I don't know why they changed it.

Maybe the best thing going for it is map notes and that the journal is (slightly) more useful.

Conclusion: if both games and have never played, go original, with only a widescreen mod if desired. If you get bored, speed through the main plot and move on to BG2. If you are considering a replay, try EE for the novelty. BG1's unique appeal is its ability to immerse the player in a low-level high-risk D&D setting, and EE damages that in a big way.

>>5131013
>The new spell book system is pretty annoying as well; I don't know why they changed it.
I can't remember what did they do here again? I feel like I also might have found it annoying

>>5130992
We're not talking about introducing those settings to a new player - we went past that a while ago already - we're talking about the kind of game I can build with mods. Bottom line is, EE has features over the vanilla games and it will continue to expand in that direction.
But if you want to recommend a vanilla install to a player that has no need to play a version of the game that will potentially run shitty mods no one wanted back then and no one wants right now (since the good ones were ported), be my fucking guest.
EE is also closer to the vanilla experience than TuTu/BGT because TuTu/BGT works off of a slapped together code to simulate the random spawn property whereas EE has it fixed from the start.

>>5130967
and least there is literally anything that would want to fuck me in the first place you degenerate sack of waste

>>5131026
This tard forgot his meds
>>5131020
EE has no good features over vanilla, vanilla is still the most easy to mod into whatever the fuck you want, beamdog is still a shit company, and all their additions are worthless pieces of trash, just like what this thread has descended into.

My dad played Baldur's Gate when I was younger. I was too little to understand how to play it. I've been trying to get into the Expanded Edition and... yikes. The game feels like a real copy paste of Dungeons and Dragons rules straight into a real time computer game with not much rumination on how it would affect things. I'm given all these ridiculous stats like hit dice, damage dice, saving throws, speed modifiers, stat modifiers, but it feels so bloated in terms of actual combat. Anyone using melee or ranged weapons is missing 90% of the time and I'm resting after every single encounter to ensure that my spells are always ready, even when I'm in the middle of a hostile dungeon. I want to enjoy the game really badly. Any advice for a beginner who doesn't want to cheese through the game, but also doesn't have the kind of free time to get into every single game mechanic?

>>5131040
>Anon, can you point me towards the mods that include autoloot, the Heart of Winter mode, convenience in store selling, streamlining of extremely outdated TuTu/BGT code and a much more stable base to play modded multiplayer on, and an entire expansion pack with encounter design overseen by a community expert? While at it, can you ensure me that my vanilla installation is going to remain compatible with modders moving wholesale to EE infrastructure because it's easier to work with?
>Why are you asking any of these sensible questions, Beamdog is guilty of a number of different crimes, here's a few of them
>okay but answer my question
>this thread descended into shit, reeeeeee
pic related is you

>>5131019
Previous system:
Left-click memorized spell to remove from daily list (with confirm if it hasn't been cast yet).
Right-click any spell to bring up info about it.
Spells that have been cast are dithered out.

New system:
Left-click memorized spell to remove from daily list (with NO confirm).
Right-click spell to bring up info about it, ONLY if clicking from within the spellbook rather than your daily spell list.
Spells that have been cast are grayed out (matter of taste, but the dithering was more immediately clear to me which spells had been cast or not).

When I move on to BG2 with this party, I've already decided that I will be using the original+mods. If I ever next play BG2, I'll try the EE version, but it is leaving a bad taste in my mouth thus far.

>>5131048
It is very much that. These earlier cRPGs were designed to have the appeal of "playing a tabletop game without someone being your GM", so they are largely ruleset copy/pastes. You will miss a lot at the beginning because you are level 1 and suck. But a level 2 character is basically twice as good as a level 1 character, and so on. It isn't the kind of game where a level 2 character is only 10% better. The game mechanics are fairly straightforward (and read the manual), so even if you just half-ass it you should be fine. Especially in EE, where there is more info presented about combat stats. The difficulty is not very high except at the very start. If you feel so inclined, you can also drop the difficulty at any time to reduce enemy damage, and then move it back to normal after you hit levels 2 or 3.

Same advice everyone gives beginners: try to prioritize easy-sounding or non-combat quests when you are level 1 and 2. Get a party of four to six to maximize chances of hitting, use spells that improve your rolls (like Bless). You will rest often at the beginning, but your power level will increase quickly. Also, the wildnerness areas further from cities tend to be more dangerous.

>>5131048
>Any advice for a beginner who doesn't want to cheese through the game, but also doesn't have the kind of free time to get into every single game mechanic?
Give everyone bows, focus on a strong core of martial characters, have your magic characters focus strictly on martial support (think Sleep, Blind, Charm Person, Web and Entangle over Magic Missile and Magic Stone). The "canon" party that you gather by following the game's suggested path (FAI -> Beregost -> Nashkel) gives you 3 fighters (one of whom is a competent priest), a thief (who can potentially become a mage) and a wizard is perfectly sufficient to beat the game and you can fill out any niche (I recommend Dwarven Fighter/Cleric for sturdiness, looks and versatility - one of the best weapons in the game is a Warhammer, which fits this character type perfectly.).
Buy out wands, items with spell charges and other consumables to give you magic-in-a-can that you don't have to rest to cast
Low level AD&D is meant to be gritty and a single adventure is supposed to be a risk of death, that's why the early game is slow. This is in tune with old modules - you generally avoided fighting at level 1 and stacked the deck in your favor in case you had to fight.
Your options and survivability pick up around level 4 or so, when fighters get more attacks and stronger proficiency, wizards get access to the level 2 spell circle, and your thief can actually open shit, detect traps, and sneak.
If you dislike the low-level AD&D, just go play BG2.

>>5131054
>let me strawman this debate into oblivion while i ask completely unrelated rhetorical questions about a fuckton of completely unrelated subjects haha i am clever
sure thing, be my guest

>>5131083
Still waiting for you to actually give me a straight answer. It's doubly ironic because you yourself strawmanned my position into "mods bad therefore EE good" right here:
>>5130963
(while completely avoiding my question about LoB)
and yet just a post later have deflected the issue that modders are moving to the EE infrastructure. Your opinion regarding BGEE's Heart of Winter mode is irrelevant to me - just tell me how to run it in vanilla instead of walking into your own strawman (this time it's "hurrr mod bad therefore vanilla good"), and I'll gladly put it in my vanilla install that I still keep on my hard drive.

Tell me, did you simply forget your own points from five minutes ago, are a hypocrite, or just a dumbass?

>>5131061
>>5131064
Am I meant to pursue anything besides "Kill everything in my path" as the best way to complete a quest? I don't see a lot of utility on the classes besides thieves being able to detect traps.

How am I supposed to break down what the different classes mean and their roles? I see basic stuff like fighter, thief, mage, but then there's all these other things like kensai, diviner, enchanter. The game provides a lot of information on them, but still ends up saying almost nothing in terms of how I am supposed to be playing them or what they actually are. I have a similar problem with the race selection. Human has no info at all, but all the other races have a bunch of pluses and minuses and modifiers that aren't explained well. Is this stuff I should worry about or are these variants so minuscule that it doesn't matter in the end? If I recall, I think I saw that the elf has like a 90% resistance to charm spells. That sounds insanely overpowered for someone used to Diablo style "90% fire resist means you take only 10% fire damage".

>>5131091
>hurr answer my question about specific mods and game modes I brought up for no reason
No. That's the point of rhetorical questions. You fold them and put them in your ass.

>>5131106
>but then there's all these other things like kensai, diviner, enchanter
Those are kits or mage specializations in the later case. Mage specs were always there, kits are just basically small modifications to the core class. They come with pros and cons related to the base class. Some of the cons are often negligible compared to the base kit.
Basically check this post out:
>>5125008
And yes, demihumans are stronger than humans in all cases except humans have access to a special kind of class-mixing (where you temporarily forsake the abilities from your former class to advance in a second one and then become a master of both; non-humans have different type of class-mixing where you advance in both classes at the same time).
That said, Elf's racial power is neat, but probably not the most overpowered shit in the world; Charm and Sleep spells can be nasty, but they don't do damage, they are a form of mind control.
Human has no info at all because it's basically vanilla and can become anything you want. It also is the only race that can be a Paladin, which is a very good class.

>>5131112
>for no reason
So your best way of convincing me that there's absolutely no possible reason anyone might want to install the EEs is to pretend that the advantages of the EE do not exist.

>>5131106
I have no idea what your first question is asking. There are quests like "take this dagger to my friend". You don't have to kill anyone, just take it to the guy. Most quests though only have one or two "routes" to solving them, and usually if they involve combat it is unavoidable.

That is too much to explain. If you haven't played an RPG like this before, you'll need to read the manual. It sounds like it would be worth it for you. All the things like Kensai, Diviner, etc. are just subclasses. They are more specialized than the more general class they are a part of, but there is nothing wrong with using the general class as well. Again, the game isn't that difficult so even if you don't understand the rules you can pick whatever character sounds appealing and you won't have any issues. Human has no info because it is the "normal" that the other races are compared to.

>>5131117
As for mage specializations you generally consult them with the manual. Kits should just give you the general idea based on the stats you see: "Archer is really good with bows, so I guess I should make him the party archer and give him all the best bows and ammo. Berserker can't specialize in ranged weapons but has a very useful cooldown to use in the heat of combat, so I probably should use him as a frontliner."
If you're confused, don't worry - kits have been hijacked from BG2 and the way they work in BG1 has always been a point of contention. Feel free to just roll a vanilla class - they're all powerful out of the box anyway, and don't need kits to work. Base Fighter will wreck a ton of shit anyway and you'll never feel any of the restrictions of its kits though to be honest the Berserker's restriction is insanely negligible. It's really hard to make a shit character in this game given how much magic items you're being tossed at, and that you can have your main character's primary stats maxed out with some patience before you even start the game.

>>5131121
Good summary, now fuck off.

>>5131061
>These earlier cRPGs were designed to have the appeal of "playing a tabletop game without someone being your GM"
I played through BG1 again recently and I was actually struck by this in a way that I didn't notice playing the game when I was younger. It's not just that it's porting the rules, but a lot of the characters and story elements feel like they were pulled straight from the tabletop tropes of the era. It surprised me how accurately BG1 meshes with my memories of playing tabletop AD&D, complete with a completely unnecessary railroading scene where you're given a "choice" to do something but are instantly killed if you say no. I think it stands out to me now since the approach to modern tabletop gaming is quite different now and many of those old conventions have been dispensed of.

>>5131106
>Am I meant to pursue anything besides "Kill everything in my path" as the best way to complete a quest?

Not really. If fighting is the path of least resistance, it's probably inevitable. Sometimes during the saga you might have a dialogue choice that's like, "Wait, we don't have to fight!" but this is just so you can feel like you're roleplaying correctly. Of course, there are other situations where no one in their right mind would find a violent situation, but you can turn them hostile with the right dialogue choice if you so desire.

It's not like in PS:T where if you have enough of a certain stat you can do some obscure mental gymnastics to get a completely different outcome to an interaction.

>>5131167
I was thinking more like Fallout where you have dialog and stealth options as well.

>>5131143
I don't have a source on hand, but I heard somewhere that some of the higher ups involved in the production intentionally brought elements of their own tabletop campaigns into the game. That is, certain NPCs or events were based off equivalents in their own D&D sessions. I'm sure in another ten years it won't seem "quaint" so much as "unplayably archaic" to newcomers, but we'll see. It's certainly very distinct from modern video games as well, where they are usually designed from the ground up to be digital-only. I can't say it makes for a better game to do it BG's way, but I appreciate it because I never got the chance to play D&D or another tabletop game.

>>5125525
>quitting at Durlag's Tower
The fuck? It's the best part of the game.

>>5125716
You're giving her too much credit. Some girls get into vidya because they're social rejects as well. Even some because they're assholes that kinda deserve to be rejects.

>>5131106
-Wheras most fighters tanks Kensai are glass cannons that do little to nothing in the first but scale into gods of war in the second - especially if they're dual class casters with self buffs.
-Specialist mages are exactly like regular mages except they've slighty more spells than others that sometimes slightly better with the downside that other spells are prohibited completely. The best one is conjurer. The rest of them are garbage.
-As far as races go, for most single or multiclass characters you want an Elf or Halfling since that added point in dexterity adds a lot to survivability. Except you if you want to be a frontline DPS sort, in that case pick a Half-Orc. Humans have their niche in that they're the only race that can dual-class, which is picking a certain class, switching to a different one, and keeping the advantages of both.
-Yeah, 9/10 charm spells will fail against elves. Except spoilers, this doesn't matter much since few enemies will cast charm, and those that do aren't much of a challenge anyway. Just keep some dispels handy.

>>5131443
>The best one is conjurer. The rest of them are garbage.
Illusionist is good because you give up relatively little (Horror and Horrid Wilting sting a bit), and you get to be a (multiclass) gnome, which is a power race. Remember that mage specialization also gives enemies a penalty against saving certain spells; I rolled an Enchanter at the beginning of this thread to maximize my fun with Charms.

>>5131143
>complete with a completely unnecessary railroading scene where you're given a "choice" to do something but are instantly killed if you say no.
Maybe I'm alone in this, but I'll always appreciate DMs with the balls in them to do this. It's always a better roleplaying experience when immensely stupid actions come with immediate consequences.

>>5131446
By garbage what I mean is they're probably worse than regular mages, with case in point just having slightly less of a drawback than others. Having the flexibility to cast whatever spell you want > getting by on casting inferior choices better. With said really the only important thing to know about a specialist is that they're light years better when your parties have other casters that can fill in the gaps.

>>5131474
Yeah, I just think Illusionist is still better than regular mage (esp. if gnome) because I just don't really miss Necromancy spells much. And it doesn't matter as much unless you're playing solo as any deficiencies can be solved by the multiple spellcasters available for employment. Mages are still overpowered at some point regardless of specialization.

>>5131443
Kensai/Thief is pretty ridiculous once you get thief HLA though, you don't need to be a caster to make them broken

>>5131391
We need more social rejects then.

>>5131391
>Even some because they're assholes that kinda deserve to be rejects.

Those are the best ones.

Slugging through heavily modded Insane Big Picture run after not playing for several years.
>Beholders steal your Shield of Cheese, Elder Orbs spam Imprison like a Demilich
>Mind Flayers Dimension Door to your squishy mages and eat them

>Have to backtrack to Amkethran to buy some rope because fuck you
>get back to Abazigal's lair
>two black dragons parked outside, they're pissed about Draconis
>third dragon spawns immediately after killing both
>there obviously is a fourth one, taunting you about getting tired

Fun times all around.

>>5099463
>greatest RPG
Not really.
>inconsistent writing style (sometimes you refer to others as “thy”, others as “you”)
>most characters are caricaturized and unrealistic, making it difficult to care or relate to any of them
>lack of dialogue choices that aren’t quirky, sarcastic, or evil for the sake of being evil
>snowflake chosen one protagonist
>no sense of urgency to your quest
>intelligence and wisdom don’t affect dialogue at all
>charisma doesn’t affect dialogue beyond the tutorial area
>luck plays a big role in the outcome of fights because muh dice-roll combat
>boring early game (killed in one hit by almost everything, lack of powers and skills make fights boring and reliant on good rolls)
>little to no interaction with party members
I’ve tried this game multiple times but it just blows. Even if the gameplay is fine at high levels, all its other flaws completely undermine whatever fun you can get out of the combat. It isn't even good for roleplaying because your dialogue choices are extremely basic. I don't get the appeal.

>>5132024
>luck plays a big role in the outcome of fights because muh dice-roll combat
Much less so than Fallout where almost everyone has guns and you are very liable to drop dead instantly from any amount of HP due to lucky crit rolls. In BG, a crit is a crit. still works within the realm of your HP total. In Fallout, you can genuinely take a crit that does no damage and yet kills you (It works both ways, but it also contributes to only two types of Fallout builds existing - burstfire or Shoot The Eyes).
>I don't get the appeal
Try out IWD1 which has tighter and more mature writing (ironically, because every reviewer ever slammed it for being a "Diablo clone"), a bit more fluff, and really focuses on just dungeon exploration and combat, which is what IE games excel at. Much of the thriving IE community remaining is about playing the game with new party and encounter setups due to mods. Also, BG2 has more of a fandom and it deals with most of your issues.

>>5132142

> start IWD1 Heart of Fury with lv1 characters
> TPK when clearing out the bugs in the inn cellar

>>5132221
That's because Heart of Fury was designed to be a NG+ mode (as IWD encourages you to do repeat playthroughs) and attempting to play it at level 1 is for expert players.

>>5132231

I'm aware of what HoF is and what it does and that it was nerfed in later patches because it was too hard.
The second attempt even had survivors until the Goblin encounter when you leave town.
Try five made it past the Orc cave.
By that point, you should have enough XP on the freshlings that you actually stand a fighting chance instead of relying on cheap tricks exclusively.

Still playing it.

>>5132661
more like still gaying it, you faggot.

>>5132905
10/10 post here

>>5131450
On some level I understand that some railroading is necessary at the tabletop to keep the game moving in the face of stubborn players. But a computer game doesn't have this problem because it's so much easier to limit your options. It would have been simpler to say "you're going HERE now" and cut the scene instead of a giving you a dialogue option that just forces you to reload and go through the conversation again. But on some level I have to appreciate the fact they left it in, because it's exactly the sort of thing that DMs were actually advised to do by certain adventure modules back in the day.

>>5115731
Very good diablo clone, unfortunately not balanced around the whole 250 levels but only the first 50

Does the tactics mod actually make tactical fights like the encounter with Venduris in Rogue Rebalancing or is it the same fights like before with just stronger enemies?

>>5133175
Tactics is mostly pretty archaic in the way that it makes encounters difficult, since it's one of (the first?) significant challenge mods. A lot of cheating, basically. Stuff like SCS beefs up vanilla content in less cheesy ways, though I still install some of the Tactics components that add additional encounters.

>>5133175
Like >>5133378 said, the only mod I can think of that really focuses on improving the AI is SCS; you can run a minimal install just to have small improvements like archers kiting you, enemies using consumables, plot-important mages being prebuffed while awaiting you in their lair etc., but you can also run a max install that even includes some of the infamous Tactics components.
SCS can very well, in some lighter configurations, be enjoyed for someone's first, blind BG playthrough, particularly if they are a veteran of stuff like, idk, Nightmare Dragon Age Origins or whatever newer, gateway game there is.
Tactics absolutely can't; you need pre-existing meta knowledge and the willingness to cheese like crazy in order to succeed.

>>5133378
>>5133453

Thanks for the clarification. I just hope for a mod that puts more fights like the Venduris encounter -- best and most fun fight I ever had in the game.

>>5133928

I liked the part where you could make some shit up so Venduris leaves you alone.
Didn't like the part where he kept toggling his unbreakable invisibility and just played hide and seek without attacking.
Stupid cunt.

>>5134023

He's a bitch, but that's how assassins are.

>>5134043

There's a special place in the abyss for him.
And it's Yaga-Shura's asshole corner.

Since there seem to be a fair amount of new players, just going to let you know not to fall for the Kensai-Thief meme you've heard so much about, it is not a good build.

It sure looks nice when you look at the finished stats, with use any item, doesn't it?

Now consider that you have to play the entirety of BG1 as a Kensai, and a good chunk of BG2 as well. You then need to exceed your kensai level as a thief, playing as a pure thief. Just in time for ToB, your build will be ready. Except ToB kind of sucks and most enemies you'd want to mega-backstab are immune, because fuck you its ToB.

>>5135454
>Now consider that you have to play the entirety of BG1 as a Kensai, and a good chunk of BG2 as well
Just start at BG2 with this plan (kits in BG1 were a mistake) or dual out at level 9 instead of 13 if you don't like downtime. If you really must, Kensai with ** in Daggers has a solid start in BG1, beginning with thrown daggers and Dagger of Venom under protection of the Necklace with Shield charges. It's not great, but can work.
>You then need to exceed your kensai level as a thief, playing as a pure thief.
If you're dualling at all then you probably have enough meta knowledge to understand how to crawl yourself out of the dualling hole fast.

Kensai/Thief itself isn't bad; the main reason it exists is to pick up the Scarlet Ninja-To, which is one of the best weapons in the entire game. That, and you get Time Traps and Spike Traps, and on top of that, access to scrolls and bypassing of Kensai restrictions on many items.
And BTW, if you're in a full party setup and dual out at 9 like a normal person, it takes less time to hit level 10 as a freshman Thief than it takes for a level 9 Kensai to ding level 10. A whopping 90000 XP of a difference between these two benchmarks.

So yeah, bottom line is, if you suck arse at dualling, don't dual. Great advice for beginners, because the mechanic is cryptic as fuck. Especially don't dual out at 13, it's redundant if you're not playing solo and aren't really knowledgable. Fighters are dualled at 9 - they really don't gain that much from going all the way to 13 if you're not autistic.

>>5135454
>most enemies you'd want to mega-backstab are immune
If I wanted to optimize a build for megabackstabbing, I'd make an Assassin->Cleric or just a regular Gnome Thief/Cleric. Righteous Magic at 25 Strength with Staff of Striking / of Ram is the reason why.

Kensai/Thief is for adding solid sustained damage per second, HP, THAC0, and APR to a Thief; backstabbing is completely tertiary compared to the other benefits. Thieves in ToB are entirely self-reliant even without backstabs; it just takes more prep to kill stuff, which is why you have the Kensai levels.

>>5130979
If you're going to be an asshole, at least learn the name of the expansion, the Throne of fucking Bhaal, not legacy.

>>5135564
>they really don't gain that much from going all the way to 13 if you're not autistic.
>playing dnd
>not being autistic
what did he mean by this???

>>5135783
Legacy of Bhaal is the name of the Enhanced Edition's Nightmare mode that replicates Heart of Winter-style difficulty enhancement from the original Icewind Dale. Those are two completely different things.

>>5099463
The isometric view plus the huge ass maps trigger my ocd. Weirdly enough, I have no issues with planescape torment.

>>5125031
Here:
I'm not entertained so far, I think I liked BG better.
None of the companions are interesting to me. I also don't like being dropped right in the middle of a big as fuck city from the start, I feel overwhelmed, it's been maybe 3 hours of game play and my journal is inundated with quests.
I guess I will put this one in the back burner for a while.

>>5100090
>>5113013
You got it all wrong! She's a victim of racism. She can't be racist herself because she's a minority in the surface world.

>>5099463
VtMB > any BG
M&M series > BG series

>>5137161
>She can't be racist herself because she's a minority
please don't even say this as a joke

>>5137130
There aren't as many companions in BG2 as there were in BG, but their personalities are about 50-fold more developed. The city can be overwhelming, but once you have the quests things don't keep "happening", per se. So feel free to ignore the ones you don't want to follow-up at the moment. The very beginning is the only real frantic part of that game.

If you haven't left the city yet, you should be able to soon, and the out-of-Athkatla zones are definitely calmer. Also, not all of the companions are in the city, some you have to leave to find.

BG2 is, on the whole, a better game than BG1 and I think you should push another few hours in. It's hard to drop RPGs and pick them up again later, and BG2 is one of the most content-filled ones.

>>5115731
What's this?

>>5137161
Being anti-racism in being anti-white. Don't forget that.

>>5137507
I think I'm appreciating it a little bit more now.
My party so far consists of monk bhaalspawn, Jaheira, Jan, Korgan and Aerie. I'm thinking of booting Jaheira and adding Viconia.
Also, how do backstabs work? I found a Short Swrord of stabbing for Jan.

>>5137982

http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Backstab
Jan really has no business backstabbing in a melee though...

>>5137982
You need to be in stealth or invisible and behind the target. Jan starts out with fairly low stealth skills but as an illusionist he can readily cast invisibility spells.
Unless you want to get some sweet drow pussy, Jaheira is probably a better companion choice. She's a solid tank and some of those druid exclusive spells are incredibly good whereas Viconia will just add a few more cleric spells, something already covered by Aerie.

>>5137982
Viconia is great and all, but don't be too quick to let go of jaheira, especially if you are quite new to the game. Thing is, some of her druid spells can be insanely powerful if used properly, especially in the early/mid game. For example, insect plague totally wrecks all spellcasters. Summoned fire elementals are great in melee (hit hard and very difficult to kill). Also the summoned dryad things have some useful spells which can sometimes make tricky encounters easy. Her romance is probably the most involved/interesting too.
She can't do everything that a cleric can do but I think aerie has you covered in that respect.

>>5137982

Jaheira is very strong in the endgame. She will have Greater Whirlwind and Greater Elemental Summoning.