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Baldur's Gate is like...

August 7, 2015, 5:11 pm
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Ladies and gentle skunks,

a new forum game arises. In this forum game
I want content of the Baldur's Gate games or the games themselves to be compared to all kind of things
and the next poster must explain the comparison. You may also make comparisons about Icewind Dale if you wish.

For example:

"Baldur's Gate is like a burrito"

Next poster: "They both start with a 'b'.
Irenicus is like a mother-in-law"

And now the next poster would have to explain why Irenicus could be like a mother-in-law.
And so on. The explanations and the comparisons may be as absurd as you wish and hopefully funny ;)
However, please refrain from outright disrespectful comparisons and explanations.
I'd like this forum game to be lighthearted and funny.

You can compare the games themselves or any specific content of them, be it NPCs or certain quests
or areas and so on.

And the next poster has to explain your comparison and
can then post a comparison themselves!
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Cleric/Rogue - Open Lock

August 9, 2015, 4:00 pm
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So this is something that was asked way back when BG:EE got released and it wasn't possible to do back then. So I'm wondering if it's possible now? Seems like a lot of things are getting added/changed with SoD and i was hoping that it would be possible to fix this.

It's annoying that you have to click on the special ability button every time you want to open a lock or pickpocket someone. It would make much more sense if you put the turn undead ability there instead, as you don't use it nearly as much as you use the open lock ability.
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Steam/Beamdog questions

July 28, 2015, 6:59 pm
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I bought BG1EE and found I enjoyed it greatly. Recently I joined the Steam community and found BG2EE as well as IWDEE. I just picked them up a little while ago and meant to ask... I did not see those two titles on my list of games on my beamdog account. Does buying the games from steam keep me from being recognized on beamdog site. Now then... Does buying the game on Steam cut Beamdog out of the financial loop? I would much much rather be handing my money to Beamdog if it were the case that Steam was not giving Beamdog its proper due. I guess I am being picky but I would love to support this company for bringing back something I love, as well as the willingness to add to the series with a certain expansion :). Anyway, I hope to find out where this goes and I apologize in advance if I picked the wrong part of the forum to post it!
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You know you're playing too much Baldur's Gate when...

March 6, 2014, 9:13 pm
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1. You complain to your family about having to live in "such a pissant town"
2. You search for objects at the base of every tree you see.
3. You walk into a complete stranger's house and start rummaging through his drawers.
4. You go into your basement to kill spiders.
5. You buy an Irish wolfhound and name him 'Ruffie'.
6. You tell your boss, "I don't like the way this company is working out. Perhaps better leadership would help."
7. You try to pawn severed heads.
8. All your friends have green circles around their feet.
9. You have a collection of odd-looking sticks which you believe contain magic, but haven't been identified yet.
10. On your resume, your education is listed as 'lore'
11. You demand discounts on the grounds that you are a hero for getting a cat out of a tree.
12. You rest for exactly 8 hours every night.
13. You refer to your luxury car as an 'automobile +1'
14. You divorce your wife for 'incompatible alignments'
15. You find a ring and carry it with you for your entire life in the hopes
that you will meet the person to whom it belongs and return it.
16. You've been wearing a cloak around the office lately.
17. You scan every square inch of the ground looking for hidden objects when on the way to the store.
18. Your wife says, "Something smells. Have you been hanging around in the sewer again?"
19. You're fired from your job for 'laying hands' on the other employees.
20. You are deathly afraid to kiss women you meet at the beach, especially ones with bluish skin.
21. You have nightmares about your 4th grade teacher screaming, "You WILL Learn!!!"
22. You have bite marks all over you from trying to charm squirrels.
23. Your playing sessions end when you say, "Ooops" as you notice the sun coming in the window.
24. You now hesitate or are paranoid about putting on a belt.
25. When you leave your house and want to get back in you need to give a book worth 50 USD.
26. When you're going to the basement you refer to "The Naskel mines."
27. You feel like being controlled by an omnipresent authority figure.
28. Your boss gives you a new assignment and you reply disdainfully, "A waste of my talent..."
29. You order a large steak in a resturaunt, then grab your knife and cry out "My blade will cut you down to size!"
30. Everytime you see a huskie you cry "vampire wolf!" and run.
31. You are trying to change your appearance, but you cant find the "customize" button any where.
32. You buy a hamster for the sole purpose of naming it Boo.
33. When it starts to snow/rain/thunder&lightning out, you complain that you can't find the gameplay menu to disable weather.
34. When something catches the corner of your eyes and you frantically try to hit the .
35. Everytime you dream you wonder why you didn't get a special ability.
36. You start talking to chickens to see if they can talk.
37. You leave a friend at the mall and, upon returning there the next day on another errand, are confused and annoyed he isn't standing right where you left him waiting for you.
38. On your way to school/work you get waylaid by enemies and have to defend yourself.
39. You stand up in the middle of a meeting and start yelling "Less talk and more fight".
40. You are in your car looking at a street map and you can't figure out where to go, because no other sections are highlighted.
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Mage main pc for bg trilogy

August 10, 2015, 8:40 pm
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So after a lot of consideration, and minor power gamey single class playthroughs I think I'm going to do a trilogy run (dragonspear included).

I realize there are ideal pc classes that can aquire super low thaco and ac plus spell immunities, but I crave a run through with more arcane spells but without the exploits of a mage multi class or sorceror cheese.

Would a party with 2 tanks, 2 divine casters and 2 arcane casters (main pc and npc) be a fun playthrough?

I'm planning a good playthroug with:

Bg1:
PC conjurer
Minsc
Jaheira
Khalid
Brawhen
Imoen (thief till max traps then dual mage).

Bg2:
PC stI'll conjurer no dual
Minsc
Jaheira
Anomen
Keldorn
Nalia >>> Imoen.

I always waneed to do a playthrough with more magic and any other playthrough would lead inevitably to more power gaming. I just wanna know if the following playthrough is plausible on normal and fun without power gaming stats like an invincible fighter mage or a suoer low thaco kensai etc etc
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Why good AI is so essential for a tactical RPG and a linchpin for suspension of disbelief

August 10, 2015, 4:11 pm
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[re-edited repost on an AI discussion]

Good AI is not a niche thing.

Many people played BG/BG2 over the past 15 years because SCS and other challenges made it a very rewarding experience for well-thought out gameplay: you won by making excellent tactical decisions. AI consistently killed you, if you haven't.

There is nothing like this anywhere. NOT A SINGLE RPG.

I really would want to play IWD, NWN1/2, Witcher, DAO etc. more often, but they are just nothing gameplay-wise, when compared to BG+SCS.

Pillars of Eternity is just nothing gameplay-wise, when compared to BG+SCS.

(You need reflexes, yes, but not skill and smarts as much.)


Good AI is the linchpin for suspension of disbelief: no other way to take your opponents seriously.

If a game company wants my money and my support, I expect them to deliver good AI in their RPG *FIRST AND FOREMOST*.

I hope Beamdog will consider this in their future developments of excellent RPGs.
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Fighter->Thief or Thief->Fighter?

August 11, 2015, 5:56 pm
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Hello guys!

I was thinking of making a thief dualing to fighter at 13, for max backstab, and dual wielding fighter capabilities. But on every strategy guide I've read, they advice fighter dualing to thief. So, at high level, BUT not counting high level abilities, what would be the advantage of one over the other? THAC0, hit points and such? Also, they speak of kensai/mage. Can kits dual? I thought only vanilla classes could dual. If I just want to backstab anything backstabbable, should I chose an assasin? At what level do they get the x7 multiplier?
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the inventory game

August 11, 2015, 11:14 pm
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Question: did the developers say anything about inventory management improvements?

I would love inclusion of the following storages
- a keychain to gather all the various keys for all the doors (especially bg2). I remember a mod having one that worked fine although it also allowed other items
- a rune stone case. Because there are so many (especially bg1)
- sensible book storage. It's just weird that books fit in scroll cases... mind you, with the small amount of text one could estimate 3-4 pages per book so they should actually have these books count for as many scrolls to fill scroll cases faster ^-^. But ahum.. a magic case to store books would be nice. Now don't mistake me for hauling useless books everywhere but there are quite a few books/tomes that are quest items and need to be dragged a long way, or are useful to hang on to.

Thinking about more realism (don't implement this); some npcs (nobles, rich foes) could be given mini gem bags and coin bags holding at most 3-5 gem spaces for us to steal rather than loose stones and piles of gold. Those would add much flavour to the game. Does not help inventory management hehe.

Thoughts anyone?
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Unpopular opinions

August 12, 2015, 1:40 am
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An idea has come to me to make a thread where we can share unpopular opinions about things in BG and other IE games.

1. Cernd is far from being useless NPC.
In fact, he has tons of high-level druid spells and if CHARNAME is not a druid, than by not having a second class Cernd offers a lot of variety in lvl 6-7 spells if compared to Jaheira. If use the high-level druid spells right, almost any fight in SoA becomes a lot easier.

2. Darts can be a good choice as a ranged weapon for a fighter.
Thalantyr's shop in BG1 has tons of useful darts, Sorcerous Sundries make it even better. There's an unlimited +3 dart on the first level of the Watcher's Keep, available not long after escaping from the Irenicus dungeon. Darts provide 3 APR and with addition APR from specialization and fighter class your darts stay a wonderful weapon from the Candlekeep and to the Hell.

3. 2 thieves in a party is not too much.
I prefer to focus on setting traps and dispelling illusions with one of them and to hide in shadows for backstabs with another. Also, there're Open Locks and Disarm Traps skills. There're always multi-class options available. For example, your character can be a multiclass fighter/thief with amazing backstabs while Tiax or Jan Jansen is focused on setting traps to the place you lure your enemies to. Or maybe a half-orc assassin for backstabs and poison weapon and Hexxat for other thieving skills.

4. Mazzy's relatively low starting STR is not a problem.
She has innate Strength spell, there're lots of STR-enhancing items in BG2, so that leaves you with a shorty fighter (and thus all saving throws bonuses) who has a chance to become GM in any weapon you like (or choose a standard short bow proficiency providing 5 APR with the Tuigan bow).

5. Keep trying using every and each consumables in any fight if you have any.
You won't believe how easier it will become if your fighters nearly always have 22-23 STR for fights and get their saving throws improved drastically. Wands will often be enough to defeat even bosses.

Carry on! Share the things that are relatively not popular among BG fans.
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The Nightmare Mode Thread

February 7, 2015, 12:16 pm
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Post your Nightmare Mode experiences here, from challenges to fun moments.

Here's me killing Niz, the Black Dragon in Suldanessellar.

image

Party
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FMT
Berserker 7/Cleric
Kensai 9/Mage
Inquisitor
Assassin 9/Fighter
Sorcerer

Apparantly Nightmare mode gives monsters 3 * Normal HP +80, so he should have 680 HP. I managed to deal 686, so that's pretty accurate. The reason I used such cautious tactics was to ensure easy tallying of damage.
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How many dragons do you *have* to kill to complete the trilogy?

August 12, 2015, 7:24 pm
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Hey, friends, I was just playing my Might and Magic 8 run, where dragons are made into an extremely sympathetic faction, and the "paladins" are trying to exterminate them, steal their eggs, trophy hunt them, and enslave dragon babies. In other words, the paladins are presented as being like the killer of Cecil the Lion, and are seemingly designed as a nominally lawful good faction that evokes outrage and revulsion from the player, such that the player is almost certain to bring the dragons into the Alliance rather than the paladins.

So, my sympathy with dragons in all rpg's, since they seem to me to be no different than "reptilian big cats", has led me to start thinking about doing my next trilogy + SoD run as a dragon disciple.

That means that I would never kill any dragon unless I absolutely had to in order to keep playing the game.

So, how many story-forced dragon slayings are there in the BG trilogy?

I'm thinking that the only do - or - die dragon in the BG trilogy is Abazigal. Is that right? How many dragons does the game design *force* you to slay?
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Thoughts on EE Content

August 12, 2015, 10:43 pm
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I just finished with the new EE content. I bit the bullet and got both Dorn and Hexxat and did my first ever evil playthrough just for the sake of using them. It was surprisingly satisfying. With that said, my (very late) review:

Hexxat:

Pros:

(1) New cutscenes were well done and were a welcome surprise
(2) I really enjoyed plundering the tombs. The layout was great, the layout made you think, the characters inside were interesting, and the combat was fun.
(3) A pure thief who ends up with a dozen spike traps? Game breakingly fun!

Cons:

(1) You can't RP and take her with anything but an evil party! She straight up murders an innocent girl in front of you. When you call her on it she shrugs it off, and gets snippy with you if you don't write off Clara's death as meaningless. The *only* way I could justify taking her was with an evil character who held onto her coffin/bag of holding to keep her in line and who expressed horror at the notion of her giving up her vampirism (thus making her useless to him). I tried taking her in a second party and just couldn't bring myself to do it, because the dialogue choices would require me to stop RPing the character...which defeats the purpose of the game. What is the point of new content if you can't use it?

* Solution: Only Clara could go through the barrier, so why remove it? Have her go through the barrier, and leave the party behind. Let the player see Clara die. Then Hexxat walks out and claims that she is the same person, and found what she was looking for.

Sure, a smart Charname (or even one of average intelligence) could call her out on the lie. But it creates enough of a suspension of disbelief for non arseholes to take her into the party.

(2) The character herself. You learn next to nothing about her. She is from Maztica...great? No talk of culture, customs, history, background...you learn nothing about her. When I read her epilogue my thought was "Ok...what the heck is this cult, why does she hate it so much...and what does this have to do with anything?" All I knew by the end of the game was that she was a vampire, a lesbian, and didn't like being a vampire...that's it.

(3) The quests had no new loot. Which kinda sucks. Because there are so many great new items in BG2EE, and none come out of her quest. Even things that are just fun...like the amulet of magic missile immunity. Even if it just ended with an upgrade of her cloak.

* L can't make her mortal like he promised. So he upgrades her cloak so it doesn't wreck her during daylight as a consolation prize. Boom! Done.

(4) She doesn't fit well. You fight so many vampires in the series. In ToB you come across a vampire who just assumes you will kill her even though you have a vampire in your party. That boggles the mind! It just seems weird. She also suffers from the Shapeshifter problem, in that she is a vampire who doesn't have the abilities of every other vampire you fight. Meaning it doesn't really feel like you have a vampire in your party.

(5) Missed opportunity. Every other EE NPC shows off a new kit that they added. Why not make her a shadowdancer? Just make her into a shade. Someone who is half-way between the prime and the plane of shadow. Rather than dying at the end of her quest, if she fulfills her wish she becomes a normal thief, just like how Dorn can lose his blackguard powers. Boom! Done! No awkward powers, no jarring 'why spare this obviously evil murderous vampire who killed a party member in front of me when I kill every other vampire for the same reason' issues. A tragic character who *does what every other EE NPC does and shows off a new kit*.


Score: 3/10
- Great new locations
- Alot of fun in the quests
- Bland, unexplained, jarring character
- Horrible way of introducing her into the party


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Dorn:

Pros:

(1) A powerful, useful, and non-overpowered character

(2) (Almost) great buildup of evil! In BG1EE anyone can take him in the party. Well, except a paladin, or some clerics, that is. He is on a quest for revenge against other evil people, and seems loyal enough to you. So why not make use of him and rid the realms of the other horrible people? It is only in BG2EE that his evil ramps up. And the devs explained it and showed his dissatisfaction in the situation. I would have liked it if the build up was a bit more gradual so a neutral charname could fall into it, but you can't have everything.

* I'd have liked to have recruited him by defending him against attack. Bounty Hunters after him, you come and join him in the fight and kill them. Then the tasks start...so it isn't you just meeting him and going "yeah, let's murder a priest." It's "hey, they are after me now too for helping him, and he's useful...ok, we'll kill one guy. In for a penny, in for a pound..."

(2) The final quest was a blast! The artwork was *amazing*, the fights were downright hard, and different from what I was used to. The waves on the beach, the sounds when you stand there? It felt like your character was in heaven. And getting to inscribe other names in the book of retribution? For the first time in any playthrough I felt like Saemon Harvarian finally *really* died. That was great. I'm just sad that nothing happened from putting the demon's name in the book. But that is probably a problem of dialogue not happening in time more than anything else.

(3) Great new loot. Both Dorn's sword and later the 2 suits of great armor.

(4) The epilogue fit, and went well with the story. It shows the bad end he came to without someone to keep him in check, which fit the character and the saga perfectly.

Score: 9/10
- A location that was superbly done
- A hard end game fight
- Great new loot
- A useful character who is worth taking
- Could have used more of a gradual slide into utter depravity so a neutral charname could fall alongside him

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Raasad:

Cons:

(1) BG1EE he is just about completely worthless in a fight. Even at the end of the game all he is good for is having a sling and trying not to get killed. That is...really...bad.

(2) In BG2EE he 'just knew' that Algoroth was behind the Two Fold trust, without *any* proof. How did he know? That part made very little sense.

(3) No way to toggle off monk running speed, meaning that if you aren't careful he'll get himself killed

Pros:

(1) The new locations look great. The temple in BG1EE, the amphitheater, heretic temple, dwarven hold...all well done.

(2) Did I mention a dwarven hold? Finally! I loved it. It makes him a must have for any dwarven playthrough.

(3) Useful new loot (such as the monk gauntlets early in the game, which makes the Saemon Harvarian bug tolerable when using Raasad)

(4) He's a powerhouse by the end of the saga, but not gamebreakingly so

(5) Enjoyable dialogue, as he comes across as a sincerely good person, though not that bright.

Score: 8/10

- Great new locations, including a dwarven hold :D
- Well written dialogue
- Good loot
- Good story
- Horribly weak character in BG1EE, to the point where Garrik is a better choice (at least he can use wands!)

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Neera:

Cons:

(1) The stoner elf. Just listening to him talk breaks any and all immersion. Just...damn.

(2) No mention by any druid or ranger about how the wild mage enclave messed with nature worse than anything else in the saga. Really Jaheira? No mention about how an entire section of forest, and the water that flows to other localities, has been completely and utterly corrupted by uncontrolled magic? Really?!

(3) The cat quest. Try it. You'll see.

(4) Her way of talking can get to some people, as she can sound modern. It doesn't bother me, but I can see how others would be.

Pros:

(1) Wild mages are fun! I'll never forget when a wild surge caused an exploding cow to kill half of Nashkel. Good times!

(2) More wizard fights, which are always welcome because they can be hard.

(3) I liked the arch villain. A wild mage in Thay hunting other wild mages, while hiding her secret? That was a nice twist.

(4) Neera comes across like a pretty realistic person, flaws and all. She was a well written character.

(5) While something of a (fun) liability in BG1EE, but BG2EE she turns into an amazing mage with a huge selection of lvl9 spells...so long as you don't wild surge.

(6) I like systems where magic is dangerous and shouldn't be thrown about without care or thought. The mechanic got that feel down great, where Neera can consistently do exactly what is needed to save the day, but at a risk.

Score: 9/10
- Locations were good, but not up to par with Raasad, Hexxat and Dorn
- Some interesting new loot (robe where you make everything wild magic? That is pretty cool, same with the Brick)
- Some tough fights, though not as new and interesting as what you see with Hexxat and Dorn, but still fun
- With the exception of the stoner elf, well written and well thought out character

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Baeloth

Cons:

(1) Only in BG1EE!

(2) A bit...too powerful.

(3) No new quests

Pros:

(1) Some...dare I say it? Actual dialogue in BG1! For someone who can't have mods because of Iphone use, that alone makes him worth taking.

(2) GREAT voice acting.

(3) A bit...too powerful.

Score: 10/10
- Actual dialogue
- Worth taking as a character
- Best voice acting since we first heard Minsc
- Superbly well done easter egg
- Not enough of him

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Wilson

Cons:

(1) Too hard to get

(2) Not enough dialogue/banter

(3) No equipment! Add in a low dexterity, and high movement speed, and you have a recipe for disaster. I took him once, and he just kept dying. It got to the point where I was just feeling bad for the poor bear, as it felt inhumane to keep raising him just to see him die again. And I very rarely ever have another character die.

* Rings should fit anyone, so why not wear those? Why can't he have a necklace? Or an ion stone? If Wilson was supposed to be like a kensai, then why not allow him similar restrictions?

Pros:

(1) He is a bear.

(2) Good to have with a ranger or druid Charname, because...well...he is a bear.

Score: 2/10
- Good concept
- Poor execution



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Thank you for reading, please tell me why I am wrong.
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From BG:EE to BG.

August 13, 2015, 10:12 am
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So a quick question, did anyone who started playing BG:EE give the original games a try? And if so what did you think? There are many people (me included) that started with the original games and ended up moving to BG:EE, I'm curious if there are any people that did it the other way?
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Trent has nailed it!

August 13, 2015, 12:56 am
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Widescreen - Can You Go Without?

August 13, 2015, 9:53 am
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I started a play-through on the old, charming, vanilla Icewind Dale earlier today, without the widescreen mod, keeping a nice 4:3 scaled picture. It honestly isn't as bad as I remembered it being; in fact, on my monitor (1920x1080) having the widescreen mod makes the game harder to behold. So it got me thinking: do you need widescreen resolution to play Icewind Dale or Baldur's Gate or any old game? Is it worth it for 3rd person games (e.g. KotOR)? What do you think?
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Aganazzar's Scorcher

August 13, 2015, 4:21 pm
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I just did some random testing and found that Aganazzar's Scorcher has more damage potential than any other spell in the game.

No, seriously. Aganazzar's Scorcher, the level 2 spell.

The idea came to me when thinking about the Reflection Shield. I've had a confused clone attack my Charname with a dart while both were using the shield, and the darts bounced back and forth between them until the clone vanished. After confirming that the shield did not, actually, reflect Arrows of Detonation (which would have been awesome), I thought a bit about the other means of reflection in the game.

People may be familiar with the Cloak of Reflection trick, in which two Cloaks of Reflection (via a clone or importing a character), or the Cloak of Reflection and the original Cloak of Mirroring, could be used to bounce Lightning Bolts off against each other indefinitely. I found the trick was wonky and could be broken for a save game, unable to ever restart, and lost interest in it for a while.

The reason these were useful is because the projectile doesn't just damage the target; it has a slight area effect. Bouncing it multiplies the area of effect.

I thought about what else could be bounced, and what other projectiles had this sort of area of effect. I remembered the scorcher projectile, and thought it would be amazing if you could bounce it, but, alas, there is no spell or item that bounces that projectile.

But since it's a spell, it can be bounced via (Minor) Spell Turning. And because it's a level 2 spell, a spell turning effect can bounce it between two characters multiple times. Plus, it can be packed into a Minor Sequencer.

So, I did some tests. I tried using Aganazzar's Scorcher, which deals 3d6 (10.5) damage and hits twice, in a Minor Sequencer and against Minor Spell Turning and Spell Turning. I placed a fighter with high HP and 50% fire resistance in between two characters bouncing the scorcher projectile and took note of how much damage they took.

The most dramatic results came from casting a double Aganazzar's Scorcher Minor Sequencer from two mages against one another. Both had Protection from Fire and Spell Turning active. What happened to the fighter in the middle?

This fighter had 123 HP, and 50% fire resistance. The reaction began, and soon the fighter dropped down to 7 HP. I took note of the number and used CTRL-R to keep the fighter alive.

She then dropped down to 17, 30, and 22 HP. Finally, she died before the auto-pause could kick in, so I raised her with CTRL-R. She died twice more, instantly, without her fire resistance to help her.

I doubled the first four HP losses, plus the first death, since they occurred with 50% fire resistance, and counted the two other instant deaths as equal to only 123 HP, since the fighter had no fire resistance at the time. I put the numbers together. How much damage did this setup do?

It did more than 1,324 damage. It seems like Spell Turning bounces the spell more times than it's technically supposed to, and so the damage multiplies by some ridiculous number.

Testing found that using Minor Spell Turning had a similar but smaller effect. It could deal a couple hundred damage with two level 10 mages.

Unfortunately, it won't bypass magic resistances or spell level immunities, and fire resistance is the most common resistance in the game. But for anything not immune to the normal Aganazzar's Scorcher spell, it's a near-guaranteed kill for everything in between the two spellcasters.
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What character are you In Real Life ???

August 14, 2015, 4:45 am
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I tried to answer truthfully
I Just found an really fun test that tells your alignment and your Class (D&D) again i am stoked;

http://www.easydamus.com/character.html

here are my results

Neutral Good Human Paladin/Cleric (3rd/2nd Level)


Ability Scores:
Strength- 18
Dexterity- 16
Constitution- 17
Intelligence- 17
Wisdom- 18
Charisma- 16

Sheesh! That's a roll of 102, best i ever got was a 99 for my Paladin in BG.


anyone else try this test?
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Is there a deity of home and hearth in the Forgotten Realms?

August 14, 2015, 4:41 pm
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My question is the thread title.

In most mythology, there is such a deity, usually female.

Bastet from the Egyptian and Hera from the Greek come immediately to mind. Heck, even St. Nicholas deified into Santa Claus qualifies as a mythological deity of that portfolio.

So, which deity in FR is the deity of home and hearth? I know that Sharess is supposed to be Bastet reborn into the FR. So, is Bastet the appropriate deity? (Remember, the deity of home and hearth is also the deity of making children happy, healthy, glad, and thriving into adulthood, or at least that's a responsibility of the portfolio in my estimation.)

The only reference I can actually think of from FR lore is that Helm is the protector of children, and "Kind to children" (Neera, NWN2).

Heck, could Helm be the FR version of Santa Claus?

(If you know your history of real world lore and mythology, Santa was originally considered a "deity" of punishment as well as reward - he had a helper, "Black Pete", who would kidnap and kill unruly, disrespectful children. "Black Pete" was probably the source of the "coal in bad children's stockings" myth. Originally, that was meant to frighten unruly children as an omen that "Black Pete" was about to "get them"; that is, Black Pete was "the Boogeyman", and the earliest creators in history of our modern day Santa myth (mostly advertisers who wanted to sell CocaCola, and advertisers who wanted to sell retail goods by early 20th century department stores), created the "coal in your stocking" idea in place of the scarier, psychologically traumatizing "Black Pete" idea from European cultural history. )

Anyway, the childish part of me has always worshipped good old Santa (or Saint Nicholas, or Sinterklaas, or Father Christmas, or Dickens' "Ghost of Christmas Present") as a god, which led me to want to play clerics and mages (and druids) in fantasy games.

So, which deity in the FR corresponds? If the deity of home, hearth, and safe warmth for children is missing in FR, then I think that's an oversight on Ed Greenwood's part.
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'Legitimate' and unorthodox uses of EEkeeper (e.g. changing from multiclass to dualclass)

August 15, 2015, 10:37 am
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I imagine that many people use EEkeeper habitually now, sometimes to the tune of Great Cheese and sometimes to seemingly harmless ends.


Example:

*** Changing from Multi-class to Dual-class ***

In my current no-reload game Dynaheir is a multiclass M/T from lvl 1 onward. (Part dynamics and all that.) When she got to 5/5 I changed her to dual class so that her Thief level stays at 5 and she only gains Mage levels. There is still a downtime: but instead of spending half the game locked out of her Thief levels, she only has to wait till she gets from Mage 5 -> Mage 7.

I hate the down-time of dual-classing and and I prefer to develop both classes, up till the point I continue with one class alone. Same trick can be made for the famously cheesy Kensai/Mage: you can play as a multiclass through 100+ hours across BG1 and the opening of BG2 and then dual-class-continue as Mage alone with only a short down time.


Thank you EEkeeper!



Please share your own unorthodox tips and tricks.
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Mage Kits

August 15, 2015, 8:02 am
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So, here is another one from good ol' Dragon King!

What made bioware do the mage kits the way they are? To this day I still can't wrap my head around it, they all seem half done and uninspiring. Block out a school of magic and get a extra spell slot, the end...

I'll emit, I don't know that much about DnD roleplaying, I mean I grew up on pokemon and o was the only kid I new that played it around where I lived. So the chances to play any table to DnD were about the same as playing tabletop Shadowrun, or world of darkness... Nonexistent.

But even if it is in 2ed, it still makes no sense to me... Why would;
Any mage do the same amount of damage as a invoker with Invocation/Evocation magic?

Any conjure the same number of creatures as a conjurer?

I could keep going with each school but you get my point. I would assume if someone took a lot, you'd gain more then just spell slots, especially when the ingame magic itself is very... Limiting...to say the list. Despite only playing mages -coughwildcough- and sorcerers, I feel no reason to choose any kit other then the one that doesn't limit you completely and still gives you the slot.

Even from a role playing component, the kit choices barely hold any affect. If I want to be a evil necromancer, I could do it with a general mage, be just as evil, focus on the same spells without the label "necromancer" being on my character sheet. Hell, the kit descriptions don't even change when you look at the 'information " page. You still walk the same path as the "rp'd necro without being as limited.

Heck, I looked at some of the other class kita, and some even have freaking special abilities and passive abilities that seperates them from each other. I get that mages cast spells, so specialist shouldn't also get special active abilities, but yea... There is no real trade off, but there is a real limitor.

So, someone please enlighten me here.
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