Baldurs Gate 2 Did It Again

[SplaTtzZ]

Heh, I'd play multiplayer with you guys but I'm unsure about connection speeeds from Europe to Australia. But i always thought you could pause in the multiplayer games; I'm sure i remember seeing it somewhere that the host can pause whenever he likes and also assign that ability to other players.

 

Sparhawk if your looking for some extra tools that might add more life to the game you should try looking for a group called TeamBG. I'm not sure if they're still around but a while back they had a website devoted to developing tools for the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games. They had things like savegame editors, you could create items, creatures and even areas, and edit all your characters statistics etc. They also had custom items, races and kits available. I think alot of their stuff can be found at www.sorcerers.net

 

Much of the items can be used for cheating and whatnot, but i remember i used one savegame editor to change my assassin's appearance from his normal avatar to the model used by the shadow thief assassins; it looked awesome. You can make your characters look like Bodhi, Irenicus, Sarevok or even a goblin.

 

I can't think how hard it would be to solo the Baldur's Gate games. I mean, christ, how the hell would you fight Abazigail in ToB as just a lowly friggin thief? Hell I had trouble using 4 fighters and 2 mages, i don't even want to think what it would be like trying to do it on my own. It'd probably take 3 times longer to finish the series.

 

Nyarlathotep, Torment is hard to find but well worth it if you like epic rpgs.

[Nyarlathotep]

I know. That's why it bugs the hell out of me that I can't find it, along with Thief II.

[angua]

There's a little bug in multiplayer: if one of the players pick up an item in the inventory right before the server is saving and tries to put it back while the screen is greyed out, it can happen that the item gets duplicated (but it can also happen that it is gone completely, so be careful...)

[sparhawk]

They had things like savegame editors, you could create items, creatures and even areas, and edit all your characters statistics etc. They also had custom items, races and kits available. I think alot of their stuff can be found at www.sorcerers.net

 

I don't want to cheat. this XP bug I foudn accidently and didn't know about it. I just kept talking to the guy, because I thought the quest finish wouldn't be triggered.

 

Much of the items can be used for cheating and whatnot, but i remember i used one savegame editor to change my assassin's appearance from his normal avatar to the model used by the shadow thief assassins; it looked awesome. You can make your characters look like Bodhi, Irenicus, Sarevok or even a goblin.

 

There is another nice exploit that also lets me use a limited form of magic. But I can only use magic that affects myself this way. Still I can also cast fireball at myself and have the monsters be affectect, but of ocurse I get the damage still.

 

I can't think how hard it would be to solo the Baldur's Gate games.

 

Not sure about the higher monsters, but I already did a lot of quests with my Thief. Only issue is that it gets quite boring when I have to fight. Yesterday my chara managed to stun his only oponent, and then he stood there, slashing at the immobile enemy for at least 2 or 3 minutes without hitting him.

[sparhawk]

Great! So far I was soloing quite well, and now I can not start the Planar Prison Quest because the people who should trigger it are not there. They should be down in the Five Flagons basement after I released this Haer Dhalis(?) guy, which I did. I have a journal entry that I should talk to this woman there, but nobody is there. Normally, when I go down there, the actors should be there and the bountyhunters should come and take them, leaving the portal open. Nobody there and no portal either.

[oDDity]

Sounds like that German version is quite bugged and full of exploits etc.

I've never run into any such things with the English version.

Maybe you have to have the planer gem with you, that you get where you rescue the bard.

[sparhawk]

I kicked him from my party and he took the gem. But last time he also wasn't in my party and it worked. Only difference was that I didn't invite him in my party and immediatly rejected him, while this time, I did. I guess I will look if I can find a cheat tool or something to see if I can reset this quest somehow.

[oDDity]

YOu should make use of all the save slots, and make incremental saves. IT helps a lot for situations like these. ANyway, I thought you were soloing, so what do you mean by 'party'.

[sparhawk]

I took him into my "party" and immediatly kicked him. I had the impression with some other character, that they have to be in my party for some reason, so I take them in, and immediately fire them. At the beginning, when I freed Jaheira, I got 3000XP for doing so, while just freeing her gave me nothing.

 

I also planned to take some characters along just to get their quest started. We will see. I still count this as soloing, as I don't use them for any support. Or do you think that this wouldn't be true soloing. Playwise it doesn't matter, as I still play alone without any other characters.

 

I'm quite surprised how far I already am. I never thought I would get through the Eyless Cult quest, when I saw all the hordes of enemies waiting down in the pit, but I realized, once I figured out how to defeat them, that it is almost easier this way, then having more people in the party. Still I miss all the XP from the monsters getting killed, because I can't take on the beholders, but in some dungoens I managed to kill all enemy monsters despite being alone. It's just a bit tedious sometimes. But now I found a strategy how to do it. Only problem I have is, that I put a lot of points on the pockepicking in the beginning, because I figured it would be helpfull to steal stuff as I can't make so much money alone, as I can't carry so much, so I have to carefull select what I take with me, or sometimes going back and fetch the rest. Having a high pickpocket skill is pretty worthless. Stealing from the people in the streets yiedls some money, but I still get caught almost evertime in the shops, where it would make most sense, so it's almost worthless. If I had known that before, I would have takee all these points on traps, because now I have to build this up as they are much more usefull to have.

 

When I get into a fight, it's pretty boring, because they tend to slash air as much as hitting the enemy, but otherwise, it's quite fun to play a thief solo.

[oDDity]

The best guy to steal from is the shop owner in the adventurers mart. You get a ring of regeneration off him. Just swallow a potion of master thievery first and that's puts you pick pocket skill way up.

There's also a lame exploit in SoA where you can set as many traps as you want.

In Throne of Bhaal you are limtied to 5 or 6 traps in any area.

[Lord Vergider]

I got lazy and didnt want to read all these posts but id like to mention that a human kensai, dual classed to mage at level 9 is wicked sweet. the main disadvantage of each is no armor so by combining the same disadvantage you get lots of advantages. with 18 dexterity, ring of protection, the ioun stone that gives +1 ac and 2 stars in single weapon style, you get good ac and unrestricted mage spells. if you get Baldurs gate tutu you can play bg1 with the bg2 engine so you can play BG1, BG2, and BG2TOB all the way through with your kensai/mage. Im nearing the underdark with my kensai/mage and it rocks. also, if you dont like the "no ranged weapons" for te kensai, guess what: ranged weapons with melee ability (like throwing axes) can be used as ranged weapons! you can pierce mage shields with magic, cast protect from normal weapons, or even better, use the level 6 spell "Tenser's trasformation" it makes you into a fighter by doubling hp, adding AC, more hit and damage etc. turning your fighter mage into a MACHINE! if only barbarians could dual class.

 

also if you are part or full mage, you can use 2 magic missles in a minor spell sequencer, and 3 lightning bolts in a spell trigger, and you will deal huge damage in the time it takes to cast 2 magic missiles

 

Kensai/mages are defnitly among the best clases. you have enough hp to survive traps and you can use knock to open doors so they are good for solo or team.

[sparhawk]

Actually it went quite smooth with my pure Thief in single mode. I was a bit dissapointed when I reached the highest level (22 or 23 it was) and there it was capped, because I was not even halfway thorugh by then and lost interest. Well, there was not much that I could have achieved anymore, because I could even kill a dragon on my own. Once I figured out how, it was quite easy though. I can't play it at the moment, because I had to reinstall recently, and on my last backup, BG2 was not yet installed. And I didn't feel like installing it again, after playing it for so long, but I guess when I next play it, I will try a pure mage in single mode. I'm sure that a fighter would be rather easy, but a mage should pose some challenge.

[oDDity]

What you should do is get Throne of Bhaal. THe level cap is a lot higher and there are a lot harder monsters, plus you can't lay a million traps in an area to kill everything.

YOu should also think about installing the mods from www.weidu.org - some of these are made by people who worked on the original game. They make the game a lot more challenging, some later battles are insane, and even getting out of the first dungeon becomes a hard task.

The default settings in the game are for noobs. These mods make the game the way it should be.

There's an ease of use mod, which fixes various gameplay and game mechanic issues for hardcore players, and also you can get more playable party members, like Valen the vampire or Solaufein the drow.

THere are detailed readme files for all the mods at that site.

[sparhawk]

Thanks for the tips. I bookmarked this site. But I don't want to play it right now, because it takes a lot of time, and I rather want to use my time working on the mod for now. So it was not such a bad thing that I had to reinstall a backup, because as long as BG2 was installed, I started to play it and spent a lot of time on it.

[oDDity]

I know the feeling, I must have played it through at least 15-20 times, and it's a very long game as you know.

It's one of those games that never loses its appeal, and that's a sign of quality if nothing else.

[sparhawk]

I think I never ever played a game where I just finished it, and immediately started it over again. Not even Thief I think, even though I played that also quite a lot. Most games don't really offer new challenges when you play them again, so I usually only play them because I like the gameplay. BG2 was the first IMO that really added different challenges.

[thelvyn]

Man I am gonna have to look for my bg2 and tob cds now. I shuold still have bg1 and icewind dale as well or I did. Havent seen em in a while though.