With the “fix” in ToB of all the damned wands and rods to strip protections.
But still and all, I just played through BGII again, and followed it up by finally getting to DA:O. Much prefer BG.
I much preferred the fist game. The second game had a major problem with the gameplay being completely at odds with the story. The story telling you to hurry, hurry, hurry while the gameplay tells you to take your time, explore, do some side quests. It’s really bad at the beginning because if you hurry to try and rescue Imoen asap, as makes sense, you end up under levelled and under equipped for dealing with the Underdark. Especially if you are a sorcerer as I was. Since nearly everything down there has spell resistance, usually enough of it to need at least 2 casts of Lower Resist before you can have any chance of hitting them with a spell.
And once you have rescued Imoen “rescue Imoen asap” just gets replaced with “retrieve your souls asap” as a goal. Which has the same problem of making the gameplay mechanics of “rest often and waste time on travelling and sidequests” seem really out of place. Lots of games have that problem, of course, but most of them don’t have in game time counters that show up. Noticing that it has been 50 days since Imoen was captured, or possibly hundreds since you learnt you need to recover your souls, really takes the wind out of the story for me.
Plus the exploration mechanics in the first game were a lot more fun than needing to learn about each specific location ahead of time like in the second. The saving throw mechanics from the 2nd edition did not scale very well into the mid levels either. With no spell save DCs non-buff non-summon spells just got less and less likely to succeed as you got further into the game. Which really sucked for me since I don’t like buffs or summons much and had selected pretty much entirely nuke, instant death, and disable spells which all started to become worthless around level 10ish and usually wouldn’t work even with a Greater Malison not much later.
I never even finished the second game. I just lost all interest shortly after finding my way out of the Underdark.
The thing about having that spell was that you could memorize it, cast it on a fighter stack up some potions, and power-level a couple zones. Not every spell was meant to be a game-winner. But you always had the choice to learn it or not.
I also think Vicky was the bomb. You could also get her at level 1 if you worked on it. There was an interesting divide in how characters worked: evil characters tended to be the best sepcialists in the game. The best tank, offensive warrior, mage, and cleric were evil, for instance, although the best thief was neutral. On the other hand, good characters tended to be more generally effective.
So, for instance, you might use Minsc over Shar-Teel, because Minsc was less likely to go down like a chump when actually hit.
That’s funny; I thought that was part of the appeal. Magic is more than just reflavored direct damage. I am playing through Torment now and that is one aspect I really miss. Magic is incredibly stylish and fun to watch, but it lacks the depth of BG2.
It would be more interesting if it wasn’t just a matter of casting the same few spells at the start of every mage fight (Breach, Dispel Illusion, Dispel Magic, etc).
You forgot Lower Resistance and Greater Malison (if you are to have any chance of a spell working).
There also the method of sending low level summons in one at a time until the big bad runs out of spells, and the prot/magic weapons has dropped.
BGII wasn’t perfect, but what game is? It is my most replayed game ever, followed by Daggerfall. For me, it is ‘that good’.
The big problem with BG2 was that the enemy wizards cheated. They were a hell of a lot more powerful than your wizards were allowed to be, because they got a free instant-use Tattoo of Power. This was a “drop every defensive spell possible, as well as several which aren’t, on me right now” effect.
The problem was that later on, you got to the point where their wizards had defenses you couldn’t penetrate, no matter what. At all. Ever. You just had to wait them out, since they could auto-block everything you threw at them. This annoyed me to no end in Throne of Bhaal.
A lot of late game wizards were vulnerable to a breach plus an unenchanted melee weapon. You just had to survive the timestop, 16 symbols, and 4 horrid wiltings they would throw.
Your wizard could always counter with a Robe of Vecna/Staff of Power accelerated Time Stop, followed by your own spell triggers. With Vhailor’s Helm, you could send a copy of your mage to strip defenses, and when he is killed, kick off your main mages storm of spells.
Bioware cheesed their mages to counter players complaints that the fights were too easy because they were using their own cheesy tactics. That said, mage battles in BGII were more involved (if cheesy) and more varied than mage battles in any other RPG I’ve played.
I don’t think I ever cast those spells at all; once the defenses are down, weapons can usually take down a magic-user pretty quickly.
Ouch…I’ve never finished Throne of Bhaal, but I couldn’t remember why. That’s probably why.
Which is probably why they got all those defensive spells in the first place, they would never get a spell off without them. You know, with spell casts being automatically interrupted if you take any damage.
Perhaps, although I’d argue that a magic-user with one or two defensive spells + some minions would be more entertaining than a super-buffed magic-user with no minions.
Ultimately, all I care about is entertainment. If the only way to make a fight last longer is to make it formulaic, that makes it a step in the wrong direction (for me).
But they didn’t make it formulaic. You weren’t locked into playing with minions, dispels, or cheesed-up buffs. The last time I played, I think I was a terrifically munchkinny kensai/wizard. I just shifted up my spells every few rest periods and did things a little differently. Sometimes I was in the mood for Tenser’s Transformation; sometimes I wasn’t. The game admits to several playstyles. It really is up to the player to vary them when he sees fit.
We got BG free with my dad’s computer back in 1999 or so and I played it not knowing anything at all about how to play RPGs or even what they were! I also didn’t have a manual. I played as a mage elf. Stupid in hindsight but somehow (after many, many hours) I did manage to beat the game. 
[SIZE=“1”]I never even learned how to set traps until BGII IIRC. I’m not one for reading instructions or doing tutorials..[/SIZE]. 
If every fight against wizards requires you to cast Breach, I call that formulaic. YMMV, of course.
Man, I loved that game so much - first computer game I ever really got addicted to. Didn’t know anything about D&D, but I played an elf ranger and just got completely hooked. (Except for nearly quitting after the goddam Friendly Arms Inn guy slaughtering me repeatedly) Definitely preferred the first game to the second, the second game sort of removed the fun wandering around fields you could do discovering tiny little things (not even worth calling quests) hidden around the place. Like the time you bump into D’rizzt.
Also, fucking Anomen. Male characters got 3 romance options, and female characters get stuck with the world’s biggest jackass as the only romance? Think I ended up downloading some mods for that one.
I’m pretty sure (but not entirely sure, as I haven’t played ‘pure’ BG in ages) that thieves could not set traps until BGII.
I always felt sorry for female players because of Anomen. Haer’Dalis was supposed to be an option, but got cut under deadline pressure. Mods have added him, and Valygar, plus just about every NPC mod includes a romance option. Sadly, most of them are more poorly written and thrice as sappy as Bioware’s stuff.
5-starred Mazzy with Tugian’s Bow is nearly as fast at dropping Stoneskin as a Breach spell. By ToB, there are two weapons with Dispel Magic on them.
What’s formulaic are the scripts for every magic user. There’s no Necromancer versus Enchanter versus whatever scripts. That would have been nice.
I think they could, at least I remember that a couple guides back in the day recommended killing Sarevok with Traps (after disarming his).
Got a ton of mileage out of Burning Hands in IWD2 however. My main tank was a halfling monk, he’d basically just herd the mobs then Improved Evasion’d through the magical Armageddon (he got handed every last +Reflex save item, natch) 
What somewhat cheesed me off in BG/IWD was how useless the defensive spells were to you - the NPCs could set theirs in contingency easily because they only had to do the one fight. Do the same on your own mage and the contingency will pop for any old goblin. Or you set them to “when at half health” or somesuch and the mobs just one-shot him. Or you encounter a Siren but because the FoV is super short, by the time you’re done casting Mind Blank, half your party’s already charmed.
So basically, unless you know exactly what you’ll fight when, and when that particular spell will make a difference, whelp, stick to skull traps 
And trapsetting was most definitely a BG2 addition. Thieves in BG1 plainly sucked, even more so that the Infinity Engine doesn’t factor flanking. But then, thieves have always somewhat sucked in D&D. Which makes it all the more aggravating that you kinda need one in the party.
Alternatively, a cleric with the find traps spell and summoning spells will do in a pinch for floor traps, while a sorcerer with Knock takes care of all the locks. Which leaves the chest traps for the meat shield’s face, the pockets for the Bard, and the scouting for the Ranger (or the Sorcerer’s familiar, but that’s more risky).
That’s Skull Traps. They did the same damage as a Fireball, but more importantly they stayed up until triggered, forever. So you could cast 5, rest, cast 5 more etc…