Quantcast
Channel: General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!) — Beamdog Forums
Viewing all 12398 articles
Browse latest View live

Ethics: Helm of Opposite Alignment

$
0
0
If you happen to be of lawful good (or another good alignment) do you believe it is correct to equip an evil character (against their will) with the helm of opposite alignment just to serve your own purposes?

For example, I happen to like Viconia DeVir, but due to game mechanics the only way to keep her in a good aligned party while not breaking self imposed role play restrictions would be to equip her with the helm of opposite alignment. However, if my character is both good and likes Viconia then surely equipping her with a cursed item just to be with her is not right the right thing to do... Oh the dilemma...

Thoughts, opinions, your own examples welcome...

Decoding Twitters!!!

$
0
0
Trent Oster ‏@TrentOster

Boxed-product wise, I don't see retail working well. I see the demand as not uniform and hard to meet with a blanket retail approach.





Edit ***

Im making this a Twitter comment forum, dont think everybody has a twitter account.

If BG3 is to be released what engine would you want?

$
0
0
Personally i wouldn't mind if they just beefed up the infinity engine and used that. i mean i think it's one of the more fitting engines for D&D based games definitely better than some of the more recent engines I've seen used *coughNWN2cough*, What do you guys think?

Artastrophe's Portraits

$
0
0
Just wanted to give forum members a heads-up on a really nice set of alternate portraits by a friend of mine.

I'm likely in the minority, but despite playing BG dozens of times over the years, I've always hated the original portraits. I don't want anime/manga style pictures, but I don't feel the inhabitants of the game should be grimacing, pox-ridden, wart-faced monstrosities either. Alora is a cute halfling, not a withered old hag. Coran should be a gorgeous ladies-man, not a warped Hall-of-Mirrors grotesquery. Even the ones that are not too hideous, like Imoen and Branwen's original portraits, are much too old for the characters they are supposed to portray. Branwen's not in her 40's, and Imoen is not a soccer mom, she's a perky teen, 17-18 tops.

Kaila's portraits are great - classic fantasy but not TOO fantastic. I don't think the anime look suits BG, and while I personally like the Boris Vallejo chainmail-bikini look, that doesn't suit BG either.

I think her reworkings of the classic characters are lovely, and accurate reflect the characters involved. We have Jahiera's trademark scowl, Xzar's unsettling stare and the bug-eyed weirdness of Tiax. Xan and Coran now actually look like high-charisma guys. The females are attractive without being airbrushed supermodels.

Check it out here: http://www.shsforums.net/topic/55677-paintbg-introduction-and-samples/

There's also another pack of her commissions, some of them mine, on DeviantArt:

http://artastrophe.deviantart.com/art/BG-Portrait-Package-145216289

I love being able to play the game with a unified look and art style, whether I'm playing a MP party or recruiting NPCs. There's a full range here, familiars, gnomes, half-orcs, halflings, the lot.

Hope some of you find it useful anyway.

Picking of Pockets...

$
0
0
I'm about to start up a thief who is going to love picking those pockets but its a skill I've rarely used. Besides a ring from Ribald I'm not sure I've ever really used it.

I'm not a big fan of reloads so what kind of score would I need to be relatively consistent with my thefts?

I know I can drink a potion but I don't know where they are or how many are in BG.

I'm going to have another thief for traps and mages for my stealth and locks so I'm fine with overloading on the pickpocket skill.

Also, is there any chance to check the percentage of success before hand?

Thanks!

How cloud-saving will be handled?

Anomen, ugh, where to start?

$
0
0
Okay, so I know this guy is just a character in a video game... BUT....

First off, the guy sounds like a complete geek/nerd/spaz. Honestly, I feel embarrassed if I'm playing this game in the living room with guests in the house.

And finally, one of the things he says is, "Point the sword and I shall strike."

Really? A Got-dang Cleric/Warrior telling someone to point a Sword??? Clerics don't use swords, and probably don't advocate their use. Do they?

Just griefing out loud I suppose.

Link between party size and charisma?

$
0
0
In PnP Player's Handbook there is a link between charisma and attributes such as reaction adjustment, maximum number of henchmen, loyalty base etc. although it does not effect people the person hires with gold or other treasures.

I propose that in order to make charisma a more useful stat (not just a dump stat) there should be a mechanism correlating party size and the charisma of the protagonist.

Something along the lines of:

Charisma Score 9+ 5 Party Members
7-8 4 Party Members
5-6 3 Party Members
3-4 2 Party Members
1-2 1 Party Member

Thoughts and opinions welcome

Baldur's Gate: A Journal attempt in novelistic style. {{}}

$
0
0
It is a near Universal axiom expounded by all the Ancient Doctors of Literature that great care should be taken in fashioning the first sentence of any opus, even one of such a humble form as this, a Journal. I disagree, holding that the second, in moving away or outward from the first, reveals without insisting upon the point somewhat of the Nature of Life itself.

Within that moving away and outward, what some have called the Universal "On", shadow of the Demiurge, is where I deem our interest should be lodge. A difficult housing indeed but, even so, I have endeavored to begin. And you shall be the Judge.

I remember first strangely, a simple rabbit in a dewy morn, small and grey, that roused me from a low crouch deep in some thicket where, mindless and staring, I had endured the long, slow gathering of light, as Day, unstoppable in its course, unfolded. The rabbit nosed its way about, some 20-30 yards away ~to my left as I looked to the South~ as if nothing was amiss. As if Meaning itself was still an easy assumption. Hopping softly about as it nibbled, now here, now there and briskly looked about.

It occurred to me that if I could carefully make my way to the road that must surely lie not far ahead, without disturbing the rabbit unduly, then that would be a good beginning to what might prove a very long day. But it was not so easy. My normally limber and quite capable physique was a clenched mass of tension and the newly purchased Splint Mail, which had pleased my vanity so greatly just yesterday, was still an unfamiliar challenge to movement. And the new Longbow, a quiver-full of arrows and last, but not least, Bessie, my War Hammer.

In spite of myself, I almost laughed out loud, forgetting a moment, the pain, the fear, the emptiness... Bessie! I had actually christened the Hammer ~with water from Oghma's Temple, no less. Bessie..!

And I became calm. My ability to focus returned.

Surveying the ground I picked out a likely route and moved forward, imagining myself to be like the Rangers I had enjoyed reading of in my latter years at Candlekeep. I actually covered a good 15-20 feet before the rabbit in question, deigned to notice me. It did not flee, merely moving somewhat further away with what seemed a deliberate nonchalance. And it then returned to the business of eating...

I cannot convey how strange that was! A clear joy took hold of me after such hours of terror endured in the night. I forged ahead to the road, The Lion's Way, which was indeed close by and turned to look once more for my disdainful brother, the rabbit, as if to bid farewell. But it was gone and my seized gaze soared over the forest verge as if an eagle had taken flight from my forehead to the place where Gorion's body now lay.

Alas, for Lord Gorion, Master of Candlekeep Fortress, Guardian of Lore, mighty of mind and magic, now, in a moment, gone beyond this frame called Life. For Gorion was surely dead. I shuddered to remember how helpless he seemed at the last, his magic exhausted, having vanquished all of his foes -but one, a tall weirdly armored figure who felled my Foster-Father of 20 years with a single powerful blow from his sword.

The spell or instinct which had held me transfixed in the hiding place from which I had witnessed the furious battle, knowing myself profoundly outclassed, collapsed at once and, heedless of danger, I fled, judging that, if there were others unseen watching for me, my best hope lay in immediate escape and distance.

What are some examples of "Cheesy" play in BG-TotSC. Also what is "Kiting"?

$
0
0
Not quite sure what folks mean by "Cheesy" . For example, what about dismissing most of your NPCs temporarily when Charname cashes in Bassilus Quest for XP gain ?

New characters or not?

$
0
0
Hello everybody, I just want to have your opinion about something I thought. It's about the Baldur's Gate's characters. I guess at least once, when you made a new party, you allready had on mind the characters who will join your party until the end of the game.

For example, allright, I'm a warrior neutral good, so I'm gonna take Khalid and Jaheira (for its healing spells), Imoen (thief abilities), Minsc (good fighter) and Dynaheir (wizard spells). Then in BG2 I'm gonna replace Khalid and Dynaheir by Valygar and Aerie..... well it's an example but I guess it happens a lot when you allready know the game and depending on your alignment, you know what will be your team.

The thing is that I hardly believe they will replace the original characters because of their stories (the best example is Imoen because she is linked with the main character) but do you think that it could be more interesting to have several new characters in this game?

It may be a pipe dream but

$
0
0
Do you get to meet you patron denon/devil if you play a blackgaurd?

Anyone tried pickpocketing Drizzt yet?

$
0
0
Just wondering if it works...and if you can pick him for everything like TOTSC.

Next Patch ETA?

$
0
0
Hi guys,

I bought this on release as I'm a big fan of the BG series and wanted to play through again with some modern interface updates, bugfixes, etc.

It seems however that there are still a glaring amount of bugs, some introduced by the EE, and that playing is quite a pain. Personally I played past Nashkel when the game was first released but stopped as the Journal seemed totally broken.
It really ruined the experience for me, I mean surely it can't be that hard to get a quest to flag as "Completed" when it's, you know, been completed?

As such I've put off playing for so long, I will wait for one more patch then try again.
Any idea of the ETA of the next patch?

The one thing that would make this game way awesome-er


Enemy Number Limit

$
0
0
Perhaps this is something a modder can answer, but I was wondering is there a limit in the engine to how many enemy NPCs there can be in a given area at a certain point in time?

For example in ToB when you fight Yaga-Shura I was fully expecting a truly titanic battle fighting hundreds of low level NPCs to reach him. Instead a handful of NPCs just keep on re-spawning...

Minimal Reload Challenge (Spoiler Warning!)

$
0
0
Alright, after seeing a No Reload Challenge Thread, I decided to make the Minimal Reload Challenge here. Also, the ones on the Bioware Forums haven't recieved much activity recently.

Also, this challenge is for all Baldur's Gate games, vanilla or no.

Major Rules for the Challenge:

1. If your Charname dies, you reload and continue on.

2. If you were doing a No Reload Challenge, then you must post where, and how you died in order to continue onwards.

3. The lowest difficulty that you can start at is 'Normal', and you can go as high as you want in difficulty.

Optional Rules/Challenges(These are optional and you don't have to do them.):

1. You can pay the temples of basically 'ressurecting' you, and you have to look at the Raise Dead spell to determine how much gold you need to donate.

2. No Pre-buffing, even if you know that something bad is coming.

3. Explore Every Area, including Durlag's Tower.

4. Pure Vanilla Challenge.


Alright, you can chronicle your charname's adventures via Journal/Story, story with pictures, video, or a combination of those.

You must name your type (Vanilla, BGT, TuTu, etc.), difficulty, mods, and obviously your Charname. Things that need to be listed with Charname is: Name, Alignment, Race, Class, Stats, Proficiencies, Thief Skills(If applicable), Spells(Again, if applicable).

Also, please keep a record of what party members your using , if any, as well as a reload counter.

That being said, let the games begin.

Will Dragon Disciple get any more feats or abilities beyond level 20?

$
0
0
I noticed that Dragon Disciple won't get any cool abilities beyond level 20. That's kinda unfair isn't it? What's there to compensate for the loss of less high level spells cast per day? I am talking about less Level 7~9 spells and HLAs. More spells cast at these levels out weights all the current feats for DS. Besides, unlike the other classes, Sorcerer's HLA aren't special abilities that cast from a different tab. We use our level 9 spell slots to cast them.
So -1 spell cast per day actually hits even harder at higher levels. Will there be new feats added to DS beyond level 20?

Thanks for reading this. I am a player from Taiwan and sorry if I make any grammar mistakes.

player vs enemy ac/thac0

$
0
0
I have noticed a disturbing trend while playing my max xp fighter/mage/thief: he has a thac0 of 5, ac of -8 (up to -13 against bludgeoning that i noticed, and ranged is really low too). He seems to miss a lot more than a thac0 of 5 should, assuming that npc's don't all have -10 and lower AC (He will hit maybe once every 2 turns against completely unbuffed human mages, and quite literally i don't think I have ever seen him hit twice in a row on ANYTHING). Furthermore, he gets hit QUITE often. I find it odd that one on one, in a melee-off, 5 thac0, -8 ac PC loses to a greater doppleganger, or battle horror, or skeleton warrior. It seems like there must be some sort of bug that is lying to me about my AC and thac0, or there is some extreme bias in the rolls, like a d20 for me is actually a d10, and for my enemies it's 10 coin tosses.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Also, my archer, who has a thac0 of 0 (even though only lvl 7), seems to ALWAYS hit (at ranged), as he probably should. I don't think it's mentioned, but there are steep penalties using ranged weapon in melee that make him worthless in melee. If there is something shady affecting my fighter/mage/thief, then it doesn't seem to be harming mr. archer.

What is the funnest way to play the game?

$
0
0
Preferably focusing around party members and character creations. What do you guys think is the funnest party combinations, and funnest class?

Also only 6 party runs. Imo less makes it less fun and and in some cases too easy.
Viewing all 12398 articles
Browse latest View live