I’m getting this urge to completely nerd out and do a monster playthrough of both Baldur’s Gates and expansions. It’s like a siren song.
I’ve done the canonical “good” team several times, and this time I’m thinking of going through the first game with an established center of my character plus Imoen, Edwin and Viconia. This would leave the remaining two slots open as floaters and let me just rotate in whatever NPC looks interesting at any given moment. I’ve never even had guys like Eldoth, Xan, Tiax or Faldorn in my party. Anyone ever tried this? How did it work out and was the endgame doable or was the party too weak? Can I make it with only one tank or will an army of hobgoblins push past my character and slaughter my defenseless support class party?
More importantly why do I get these lemming urges to play ancient games and suddenly I have to load them up and play them obsessively for months on end? Does anyone else do that?
I’m still playing Heroes of Might and Magic (version 3) and Civilisation (version 4).
There’s a lot to be said for a game without bugs, where you understand the interface really well.
I actually got as far as Vault City three months ago. I had this idea that I was going to play a max charisma character, get the most possible followers and lead my little army to victory. FO2 combat AI does not support this dream in reality, but it was worth a go.
NPCs weren’t core design in Fallout, and FO2 relied on the same code. The NPCs were kind of shoe-horned in post-engine, and the work was really really good, but eventually there were problems. You can’t directly control them, for instance. But the most infamous is that your party members have no concept of friendly fire. You’ll do lots of reloading as a result of one team member emptying a clip into the back of your head, or blowing the guts out of Myron, or whatever. Then the guy that got shot would turn on the shooter, etc. Max NPC followers being five, at max you have the greatest likelihood of any given firefight descending into absolute chaos. Funny the first few times, not so funny when you forget to save.
It will work, but it was just beyond my frustration tolerance.
You load up Baldur’s Gate because Neverwinter Nights, while flashier, lacks the depth. No one makes games like Baldur’s Gate and Fallout, and it is a shame.
After getting through the game a time or two, not I use a few ease-of-play mods, especially towards inventory management.
And one tank is fine. The trick, which you likely already know and use, is copious amounts of summoning spells and crowd control spells. Low level crowd control and ranged weapons works wonders. Better than a magic missile any day. Tank is usually more handy in boss fights, because bosses have good saving throws and tend to shrug off control spells.
There is a similar problem in Baldur's Gate 2. With area effect spells. If you have non-party NPCs, and any of them get caught in a fireball or something they will automatically blame it on your party and either attack or leave.
This happens in the vampire tomb, you can have Drizzit and his pals, and the Thieves Guild join you, no problem. Not the Radiant Heart paladins though, one of them has a sword that occasionally causes a fireball centered on him. Everyone around him, including the paladin himself, takes damage, and his AI causes him to blame you. As soon as this happens, all allies who aren't in your party take off. Quite a problem if you have had to reload several times already trying to get past the whole vampire fight.
Heck, I’ve done a BG run through with a ‘bard party’. My main was a bard, and I took Eldeth (and thus traded Imoen in BG for the rather worthless Skie) and Garrick.
That was actually a fun party personality wise because of the love triangle bit. But, yes, it is possible. If you have only one warrior, just pick a stronger pure fighter type - with an evil party you really have more options for this, you have the Dwarf and Sharteel.
I recommend Edwin and Viconia very much for a non-good party. They are very strong in their class. I’d actually also recommend taking a look at Monteron and Xzar (One is a fighter/thief and the other a mage). They are hilarious - you find them right at the beginning - and they are a ‘pair’.
With Monty, you’ll be able to control his thief development almost as well as Imoens - so he’s good if you decide to go all out evil and drop Imoen in an Inn along the way to start her life as a pink haired serving wench until you meet up with her again in BG2 and in sorrow try to mend your wicked ways (at least, that’s how I played it).
I sort-of-recently reloaded it, but as is my trademark, I never finished. I was enjoying it, though. Had three tanks (fighter-mage me, Minsc, & Khalid), a crappy wizard (Dynaheir) who I want to trade out for someone else but I have to kill her off first or Minsc will freak the fuck out and bail, Jaheira (because she’s actually pretty good with a nice sling and some +1 bullets, and I want to keep Khalid) and the ever-annoying-but-useful Imoen. I always play as Chaotic Good or Neutral, so I can never have the hilarious bad guys, but I love them so.
anyway, I think what stopped me dead in my tracks was Durlag’s Tower. I hate those freakin’ dwarves. >_<
I replay BG2 frequently, especially when I want a break from WoW. I’ll admit I’ve become somewhat addicted to finding interesting mods, especially for new NPCs.
One problem with Neverwinter Nights 2 is that you can’t use all the old strategies, because it’s impossible to co-ordinate the way you could with Baldur’s Gate. You can’t root-and-nuke, because you have to keep pulling your idiots out of the way. Instead, you have to set the game to prevent fireballs from hurting friendly targets because you can hardly make use of them on distant targets. You can now assign tasks to NPCs, but since there’s no autopause feature, you will often miss when it’s time to assign a PC a new task, wasting a lot of precious time. Controlling characters is awkward in the interface, which makes it hard to do the catch-me-if-you-can with all the monsters chasing one character while the other characters stand in a circle and pelt it with missile fire. Nor does round-the-corner-and-hide backstab maneuver work very well.
But perhaps more importantly, the stories seem kind of linear and weak in the newer games.
agreed. even BioWare’s newer games are progressively more dilute. I guess they do this to appeal to the masses rather than a niche market (which I’m convinced gamers who really care about story, immersion, and realistic dialogue choices are)… I know plenty of people who won’t play a game if they think it’s “too involved”, and think I’m weird for wanting to.
that said, I still play their newer games and will continue to do so until someone comes along who knows how to make a better RPG. someone needs to step up, because with EA helming BioWare, I can’t imagine their offerings will improve.
Ooo, what love triangle? Do the bards start fighting over Skie? This is the sort of neat stuff I want to discover. And yeah, I gotta take Tiax and some point, because he rules all. And Quayle. What do you neeeeeed.
Yes, from what I remember, Garrick crushes on Skie and he and Eldoth exchange words! (I’m totally on Garrick’s side on that one, Eldoth’s a jerk) It’s cute! But, like most BG1 stuff is pretty short compared to the wonderfully full dialogue we get with romances and other stuff in BG2.
It was totally reason enough for me to take them though and fun - but I was going ‘Bard themed’ and was having a blast with that anyway - having a ‘weaker - fluffy’ party ripping through a dungeon is fun!
(But probably not a reason to take Skie - unless you’re like me and use gatekeeper to change her thief skills to more appropriate stats - I just remember she didn’t have enough in find traps and open locks - the two important thief skills in BG1.)
I don’t recall my exact party arrangement, but I believe it was me, Imoen, Branwen, Minsc and possibly Dynaheir. But I might also have had Jaheira and Khaled on some play-through. I had Garrick for a while, but I hated him and I was already the party’s bard, but if you tried to get rid of him he’d be such a whiney baby about it that I arranged for him in a fit of impulse to walk singly into a lightning bolt trap. We all mourned him deeply – we drowned the vales with our tears.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the Giant Space Hamster that he claimed Boo to be was actually a creature from Spelljammer. The Spelljammer campaign I played in just never ran into them.
But, yes, it is possible. If you have only one warrior, just pick a stronger pure fighter type - with an evil party you really have more options for this, you have the Dwarf and Sharteel.
(I’m totally on Garrick’s side on that one, Eldoth’s a jerk) It’s cute! But, like most BG1 stuff is pretty short compared to the wonderfully full dialogue we get with romances and other stuff in BG2.