New all purpose Baldurs Gate thread - Page 16

Jamski · March 22, 2004, 07:38

Hide in shadows with any thiefs/Minsc (if in light armour) and backstab the commando with the fire arrows, timed with the rest of the gang coming from the front and launching an "arrow storm"

The darts aren't powerful BTW, but he has Bracelets of Archery and 5***** in darts. Just hit him with lots of arrows really fast. Physically he's a *****.

-Jam

Traianvs · March 22, 2004, 07:51

Quote:

See, you don't need extraordinary stats. I soloed the game with a sorceror who had MINIMUM stats, who also used no stat boosting items. His STR was so low he couldn't move after he cast Melf's Minute Meteors (they are too heavy)

Hmm then how did you carry loot to be sold off for a new staff, or some new scrolls?

edit: right the bag of holding of course..

duke o' york · March 22, 2004, 07:55

I'm sure that there are 3 archers with fire arrows. I'm going to try to draw the normal kobolds out, and then use my sneaky characters to take out the fire archers before they can get me.
Shouldn't be too tricky.

Bracelets of Archery sound fun. I only have to keep Minsc alive long enough to give him a good hiding though.
Duchess is going away on Wednesday, so I should make lots of progress this week and next weekend.

Jamski · March 22, 2004, 08:06

Quote:

Hmm then how did you carry loot to be sold off for a new staff, or some new scrolls?

edit: right the bag of holding of course..

Of course. If you start a solo game its considered "fairplay" to CLUA in a Bag of Holding, or use SK to add one to the inventory.

I needed to carry corpses and dragon scales etc with my pathetic STR... sure

-Jam

Stuie · March 22, 2004, 08:54

Well, I finally finished SoA. Unfortunately I lost Anomen (and more importantly all his equipment

) in the final battle. Good-bye Mace of Disruption! Good-bye Balduran's Plate! Good-bye almost every potion the group had because Anomen was my potion carrier! Oh, yeah, see ya Anomen.

So do I replay the battle and try to keep him alive, or just get over it and move ahead with my party of five? Are there any decent NPCs in ToB? And how soon will I meet them?

duke o' york · March 22, 2004, 08:57

I'll answer for Jamski: Replay it! Replay it as many times as it takes until none of your characters even look as though they've been in a fight!

Drogue · March 22, 2004, 10:04

I've made some progress now. Almost finished City of Caverns, so will be in the Underdark by tomorrow. My party is scarily hard. Imoen with the Staff of Magi, so she's invisible while finding traps, and has a decent load of spells, and the boots of speed. Add Edwin and a main character Kensai/Mage and I have more spells than you can shake a stick at, including 19 magic missiles. In fact, it's so hard, I sometimes just sit back and let my main character do the whole dungeon, since he has boots of speed and does it faster (once Imoen's detrapped it). I have 100,000 GP, about 2.4 million XP each, and almost every weapon I'm going to be using by the end (with the exception of Chrom Fayer and possibly the Equaliser). I've never done past the Underdark (though I have done the Underdark before) so I hope it get's harder at some point. I have all the spells and no-one stays alive long enough for me to use them, even Irenicus.

It's almost cheesy now. I might have to put the difficultly on Unreal

duke o' york · March 22, 2004, 10:13

Or try one of the mods that Jamski's always touting....

Jamski · March 22, 2004, 10:42

Quote:

So do I replay the battle and try to keep him alive, or just get over it and move ahead with my party of five? Are there any decent NPCs in ToB? And how soon will I meet them?

One, right at the beginning, who is a very sweet fighter with possibiliy to dualclass to Mage or Thief. No more clerics though.

I'd say you need Anomen, and the Mace of Disruption (yes, there's ALWAYS undead to fight in D&D)

Quote:

I'll answer for Jamski: Replay it! Replay it as many times as it takes until none of your characters even look as though they've been in a fight!

Ah, you know my philosophy

I don't like my characters to get hit. Or even seen. Try the "Solo Underdark without resting" challenge (helps if you can regenerate) as practice.

Drogue, SoA gets too easy after Spellhold. In ToB the difficulty goes up a bit, but hey, why don't you...

Quote:

...try one of the mods that Jamski's always touting...

-Jam

Traianvs · March 22, 2004, 10:58

Quote:

Ah, you know my philosophy I don't like my characters to get hit. Or even seen. Try the "Solo Underdark without resting" challenge (helps if you can regenerate) as practice.

Most decent mages have True sight cast automatically if you get near them invisible

Well drogue, don't do all the quests in athkatla then if you're going to spellhold, so you will not have so much XP...
The Beholder dungeon (without shield 'o cheese) is so difficult then

Jamski · March 22, 2004, 11:16

Yeah, but its optional

As for mages casting True Sight, what do you think the spell "Undetectability" is for? Remember to cast BEFORE you turn invisible, as you can't target an invisible character.

There's even two cloaks in BG2 and one in BG1 that give you "Undetectabilty" while equipped. Sweet.

-Jam

Traianvs · March 22, 2004, 18:30

!! I have never seen those yet. But then again I don't scroll through every list merchants offer as it's mostly regular shitty weaponry anyway

Btw in the copper coronet there should be a merchant with weaponry (he's non-existant in the normal version, but should be included with ToB and patches I thought), but I can't see him anywhere. Pretty important because I ave been told he sells some nice items! Odd to say the least!

Jamski · March 22, 2004, 20:14

He's included with the disc you got if you preordered BG2. Niether ToB of the offical patchs add him... even Baldurdash doesn't...

Umm... you'll need his NAME to track him down. He's called "Jolev"

I think he's available on http://www.forgottenwars.com

He sells some Icewind Dale stuff, same as Dierdre is selling Planescape:Torment stuff. There is an air of cheese to both stores

Sorry, I don't have the normal merchants installed at the moment.

As for Non-Detection cloaks.

Spoiler:

-Jam

Traianvs · March 22, 2004, 22:49

arf the game keeps crashing on me... getting frustrating. instant reboots and the odd desktop crash

Jamski · March 23, 2004, 03:49

Does it do this after you played a long time? This is a cache size problem. You can make it bigger in the preferences
Does it do this when playing a cutscene, or other scene change? Try installing all the files to your HD.

Those are the most common problems

If its always doing it in different places, then try and see what's making it crash.

-Jam

Traianvs · March 23, 2004, 08:44

No it does not take long before it crashes, that's what bothers me. I don't care if it crashes only after a few hours..

I have done a full install (and using 1024*768 res).
It usually happens when I'm standing still for a time (like when I'm deciding which spells to memorize next, and I'm looking at the descriptions how long the spells last etc

), that usually takes some amount of time and often my computer simply reboots whil I'm doing that)

Jamski · March 23, 2004, 08:54

You know that 1024*768 isn't officially supported...

But I never heard of a game crashing when I wasn't doing anything...

-Jam

Stuie · March 23, 2004, 09:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Jamski
One, right at the beginning, who is a very sweet fighter with possibiliy to dualclass to Mage or Thief. No more clerics though.

I'd say you need Anomen, and the Mace of Disruption (yes, there's ALWAYS undead to fight in D&D)

Ok, I played it through one more time and came out with all six characters.

Now, since you indicate there is an interesting NPC available in the near future (beginning of ToB), I'm wondering who I should get rid of. Here's the current party:

PC (Cavalier)
Minsc
Anomen
Imoen
Mazzy
Aerie

If the NPC is a fighter, it looks like a choice between Mazzy and Minsc. Are there any pluses/minuses for keeping certain NPCs in ToB? Are there any NPC specific quests?

Jamski · March 23, 2004, 09:07

The new NPC = Minsc+massive steriods. Yes, even stronger, with 18 DEX and 18 CON too. And 5***** in 2-handed swords...

Its up to you, there are no NPC related quests like in SoA in ToB, but there are some NPC "chat" developments.

-Jam

Stuie · March 23, 2004, 09:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Jamski
The new NPC = Minsc+massive steriods. Yes, even stronger, with 18 DEX and 18 CON too. And 5***** in 2-handed swords...

But does he have a miniature giant space hamster?

How does ToB handle NPCs that leave your party? Do they stay/go somewhere, or are they just gone?

Jamski · March 23, 2004, 09:23

You get a "pocket plane" from which you can summon any living NPC to help you.

No hamster, but he does have other abilites...

Spoiler:

-Jam

duke o' york · March 23, 2004, 09:27

This mystery character you both seem to be avoiding naming (possibly because Stuie hasn't ever met him) seems incredibly tough.

I'm just wishing that I had taken a fighter instead of a ranger as my character because only having 2 proficiency points seems a shame. Never mind, I suppose I could get someone else in. Do only fighters get more than 2 proficiency stars in weapons? I can't remember and I was only reading the manual on Sunday afternoon.

Jamski · March 23, 2004, 09:31

Only fighters, yep.

They get them more often too.

That's really the only advantage of being a fighter.

Quote:

This mystery character you both seem to be avoiding naming (possibly because Stuie hasn't ever met him) seems incredibly tough.

Without a question the best stats of any NPC in the BG series, a COOL voice set, some great conversations with the PC... not to everyone's taste though

-Jam

Stuie · March 23, 2004, 09:37

Actually I know who it is, and I've seen him before... but he was on the wrong end of my blade that time. I also ran into his ghost near the end of SoA.

duke o' york · March 23, 2004, 09:38

Now I'm confused.

Jamski · March 23, 2004, 09:46

You should be.

-Jam

Stuie · March 23, 2004, 09:57

Wouldn't want to give anything away, DoY.

duke o' york · March 23, 2004, 09:59

I want to know!

Jamski · March 23, 2004, 10:09

If you REALLY want to know, highlight the spoiler below. I suggest you don't spoil the huge bigs shocking surprise that turns the whole BG story on its head.

Spoiler:

Can you resist it?

-Jam

duke o' york · March 23, 2004, 10:40

Well if you're going to be like that, then I don't want to know any more. Delete your spoiler lest anyone else have the whole series ruined for them! I'll just have to find out for myself!

I'll need a copy of BGII first though. Damn!