Dice+18d6

The one thing I liked is how even in the late game your party was only level 7 or 8. That and the fact that good magic items were kind of rare and unique instead of being found in every trash can.

>Skip it and go directly to Baldur's Gate II.
But DnD is not meant to be played beyond level 10.
World breaks itself part around trying to contain character of that power level.

At least bandits in bg1 stayed level 1 from start to the end of the game.

I dropped it after the die, reload, die, reload, reload, die, reload that was invading the mercenary tower in baldurs gate.
The gameplay just felt like utter shit and the "story" really just wasn't worth it, especially since I learned that there will twice as much die, reload, die, reload, die, reload, die, reload.

...

You're the child of the god of murder. There's not really room for subtlety. The game was an okay vidya DnD simulator, but it's pretty dated compared to the sequel which still holds up pretty well. You can get around some of the dated mechanics with Tutu or that shitty port that came out not that long ago, but the story is just about directing you from one dungeon to another and has the problem of randomized numbers being a little to skewed in favor of randomly killing you so a lot of the early game is just quicksave scumming

YOU MUST GATHER YOUR PARTY BEFORE VENTURING FORTH.

>NPCs are better developed in II
NPCs in BG1 are barely developed.

But story having no pressure is a great thing that most devs can't appreciate.

Like in goddam TES where exploration is a key and there is world ending crisis.
So sure I will explore randomly and ope that someone else deal with dragons/oblivion crisis

Why was this even a thing, from a game making perspective its a fucking slog and from a coding perspective teleporting all the party out would seem easier than keeping track if they're not.

Is this real

Yes.

>invading the mercenary tower in baldurs gate.

What, the Iron Throne's stronghold?

Sorry you're shit, user, I think I've only ever died in there like two or three times max, and that's over the course of I can't even begin to guess how many playthroughs.

That's a mod. We don't judge games based on mods.

Or playing cautiously and knowing when to cut and run. Baldur's Gate introduced me to that concept in video games and in D&D - running away.

I have a mnemonic and everything:
>He who fights and runs away shall live to fight another day, and take revenge upon his foe - so bye-bye now, I've got to go!

No. Sort of. It's from a mod. An extraordinarily unofficial, universally hated mod.

Some people have made custom WH40K My Little Pony miniatures; do you judge 40K as a game based on them?

>Sorry you're shit
There's literally no way to be shit though. The gameplay allows almost no player agency outside the very, very limited party and what spells the casters get.

And mind you I minmaxed the fuck out of my wizards to get there.

You could run away, but few things in the game can really stand up to just kiting their shitty AI while your allies fill them with arrows. It's just a fair amount of things can kill you outright at the start of the game if they land a single hit

Git gud
It wasn't that hard.

Fucking kobolds with arrows were pain and durlag tower was some danger but nothing that you could not overcome with enough patience and caution.
Still kobolds with fire arrows and low level party was all about RNG

The best ways to "Git Gud" in that game were cheesey as fuck like abusing summon monster wands, traps, running in circles, or going down stairs so you only have to fight half as much shit. That's not particularly fun

It was to prevent hide in shadows cheese through the whole level.

Oh sure if I had nothing else to do I could pour hours so that an infinite amount of monkeys could write me up a good, new baldurs gate game.

don't forget about fireballing offscreen monsters

>There's literally no way to be shit though.

Dying multiple times trying to get through the Iron Throne stronghold is a pretty good indicator of you being shit at Baldur's Gate.

As I was learning to play Baldur's Gate, I don't recall dying any more or less often than I did when I was learning to play Ocarina of Time, or Mario.

You scout ahead with your Thief or Ranger. You learn what you're going to be dealing with. You plan accordingly. You remember your buggs. And yeah, you try to choke and bottleneck enemies. It's called tactics and strategy, user.

Not to mention:

> Restore/complete Septim dynasty, destroy Mehrunes Dagon's avatar, save the world at level 30
> Level 60 bandits are more dangerous than the elite soldiers of the Daedra Prince of Destruction

Not only is there a pressing crisis that needs to be dealt with, the game immediately devalues it through leveling everything. It's like being on a treadmill with just two settings.

GOD, I remember that drama bomb.

>You remember your buggs

...the heck? I didn't type this.

Oh shit is this a new filter?

Maybe? I don't think I actually typed anything like that, though. I have no idea what it is. It's more like it was inserted in randomly...weird.

>Dying multiple times trying to get through the Iron Throne stronghold is a pretty good indicator of you being shit at Baldur's Gate.
You literally admitted yourself that its all RNG and yeah, it is. That's what I mean, unless you cheese the fuck out of the game and meta everything you're off just as well charging everyone in on a single guy every time or carefully casting colour spray and other stun spells on the dickass "2-hit kill on minsk in bug plate armor with his dinky bow" guy. No player agency.

It's not that good

It's even worse. You cant even kill random people and the camera is SHIT

Only way to have any sense of "progress" on non moded Oblivion was to never gain a new level.
Thankfully there are mods.

Still "level scaling" and threat inflation is another cancer of cRPG, wchich makes me drop most games at their second half when random encounter becomes as strong as previous world ending threats.

You could fight without using cheesy tactics. Just use right spells and if you want to play 15 minutes adventuring day then it is easy from time you get 4 level spells.
Cast stone skin and globe of invulnerability get into room and use wand of lightning/cast lightning bolts, watch the carnage, hit rest button.
And at lower levels it is casting sleep and murdering prone enemies.

Judging from this board it is legit tactics in tabletop and one of main reasons of martial/caster problem.

What's the most OP class and gear for combat?

The story was absolute shit and honestly god forgivingly bland.

I haven't even touched 2 because if its just the same shit as 1 its not worth it.

kensai 6?/mage in bg 2 was a big meme.

Or just conjurer, divination is worthless school and you get extra spell slot.
In BG2 sorcerer sound good as you start with all spells you need cause there is like 3 spells per level that are worth your time.

>You literally admitted yourself that its all RNG and yeah, it is

It's not all RNG, though - you have modifiers to everything you do, pretty hefty ones by the time you reach the Iron Throne and are rampaging through the place.

I never said that it was all RNG. I said that Baldur's Gate, like any game, has a learning curve. But I meant for like the first few levels. If you haven't sorted things out at or around Beregost or Nashkel, then you're just bad at the game.

>you're off just as well charging everyone

And this is proof that you're bad at the game. You're never just as well off doing this, and more than in standard D&D. The game rewards scouting and pattern recognition and patience. Use your thief to creep ahead and see if the enemy has anyone in robes. Target them first. That's not meta knowledge, that's common sense for a world that has mages.

I've killed everyone I saw in 2, how do I get out of the city now?

The revised version is pretty much universally loved, though.

It includes 95% less duergar rape.

Post TOP TIER games better that Memer's Gate

I actually hear the revised version is great for friendshipping with Imoen, rather than romancing her. Like, there's an option to just develop on the fact that you two have been best friends since you were kids.

I appreciate this, if it's true.

>duergar rape

THE FUCK?! That was in the original version? Damn am I glad I avoided it like the plague.

>you have modifiers to everything you do
Barely and outside rare items basically nothing game changing enough to match.

And its all well and good to use tactics but whats the fucking point if your attacks are worth piss on the wizard with a tac0 of -2.

This is a solid 6/10 or 7/10 if you're a D&D junkie

Worth an illegal download

Bows are really good in BG for some reason (I think they have some weird armor rules that make them easy to hit with or something). Otherwise I think the best weapon in that game is probably the greatsword that gives freedom of movement, but there's some really early magic daggers and long swords. Wizards are good if you don't mind resting a shit ton, but you get Imoen right away anyway. Fighter is probably the most useful in terms of balancing easy to find teammates and holes they leave

You mean you don't open up with dispel magic?

Jeeze, kid. Git gud. Also Magic Missile does work to interrupt casting, and it's worth noting that per AD&D rules any Spell Resistance applies against each individual missile, rather than the single casting of the spell, so even against something you suspect has high spell resistance Magic Missile is still good since with 5 missiles it's likely at least one will get through and disrupt casting.

You could have the best AC possible for your class and easily get killed by a greater doppleganger if you fight it without abusing the game's mechanics and weren't very lucky. Baldur's Gate really hinged on doing meta shit for the harder fights

I think dwarf cleric was the big thing. Since good fight/cast blend

>Magic Missile does work to interrupt casting
>Magic Missile
>not using Melf's acid arrow
acid arrow stopped that fag casting till the end of the fight.
But MM have an advantage of instant cast.

Is there any way to progress in the story if you systematically kill everyone?

You mean you don't open up with dispel magic?
Wow it lasts five seconds, wow whats that theif with all my good gear, you only hit him once for 1 damage how good game design yes.

I don't recall greater doppelgangers giving me all that much trouble.

I really do think you're just bad at the game, user.

>Wizards are good if you don't mind resting a shit ton
Even without wizards you are bound to rest a lot, even with your dedicated healer.

Maybe you were just lucky?

Maybe you are the biggest pleb of all time.

>Wow it lasts five seconds

Dispel Magic permanently removes spells that a mage has cast upon himself provided it falls within the spell's purview; you have to re-cast the spell if you want it applied again.

>wow whats that theif with all my good gear, you only hit him once for 1 damage how good game design yes.

By the time you're encountering mages that are troubling enough that you have to plan around them, it should actually be mathematically impossible for your thief or, in fact, any of your characters, to only deal 1 damage.

Yeah no shit, but the damage was still not worth ass.

>Maybe you were just lucky?

Consistently, over like 20 years of playing and God knows how many total finished games?

I'm not saying that I NEVER died to greater doppelgangers (I mean, I'm actually not even all that great at BG. StarFox 64, that's my jam...but even then sometimes I'll screw up and do worse than I should have), I'm just saying that they're hardly game-ruining challenges and contest that they're impossible except if the RNG favors you.

When you have six characters wailing on a single mage, that mage should die inside of 6 seconds unless it's a boss.

If it doesn't, it's not the RNG, it's you.

Wow you're a liar then!

little liar pleb.

Good tactics there bub, you must be good at the game.

Its like you want to be stunlocked and killed by everyone else.

As you like.

Regardless, the main draw to BG isn't even the mechanics, it's what I outlined here,

I'm not saying they gave me trouble. I'm saying you're fundamentally misunderstanding the mechanics of the game if you don't understand why they could give someone trouble. They were permanently hasted and took casters down in two or three hits. The fight the person is talking about in the Iron throne is really only doable if you fireball/a bunch of other area spells into a crowd (that you shouldn't know is there without savescumming) or you run down the stairs and kill the enemies only a couple at a time since the AI can't really handle them doing anything else. Like I said, it's cheesey

Oh, there's multiple mages?

Thief scouts ahead to find them, then returns to the party. Then come the fireballs. So many fireballs. All the fireballs. Tremendous fireballs - the best fireballs.

Which is legitimate tactics too, and not meta-knowledge. Mages are dangerous, anyone in-universe would know this, and so want to take them down before they can cast spells.

Shame the mechanics ruins that too.

Its like the saying goes "Planescape torment WOULD be a good game if the game part was cut out"

Actually I've never played Torment. I tried playing Icewind Dale, but got bored with it.

>Thief scouts ahead to find them,
Do you know what I just remember me hating: The conversation you're forced into with the guys up top reveals the character who goes first.

Oh and they got high perspective or whatever the fuck the stat was. Cause the guy who you planned to go in later was spotted as soon as he got close.

Its about the same shit.
Story is at least interesting and isn't just generic fantasy schlock like BG.

I think I remember the fight you're talking about...the second time you're going through the Iron Throne, right? After Candlekeep?

My thief was always able to stay hidden. But then by that point I had extremely high Hide in Shadows AND the Shadow Armor AND I was an elf and so started with higher Hide in Shadows than normal.

Oh you go there a second time, what fucking bullshit.

That's a thing that pisses me off about the story, you're going trough these literally who places of no actual interest dealing with overpowered monsters. Oh and lets not forget the "you have been waylakmefonfdnasfnda" thing, yeah its so fucking funny to meet 15 dragons and their spider men cocksuckers god fucking damn this game pisses me off so much.

Neverwinter Nights 2 ?

Neeshka was cute but the game was about a 6 or 7 out of 10

You can't detect traps if the thief is always hidden, and the places you don't need to detect traps tend to have scripted moments that completely defeat the point of sneaking. The most effective "scouting" in that game was just pulling monsters by being on the very edge of their view while detecting traps and hoping they don't bring their friends (which they usually don't)

> you're going trough these literally who places

The Iron Throne. You think the Iron Throne is literally who. In Baldur's Gate. Even the first time you get there.

...where the fuck is that image I have of the Red Chains...ah, here we go.

IT'S NOT THE GAME'S FAULT YOU WEREN'T PAYING ATTENTION AND JUST CLICKING RANDOM BUTTONS TO MAKE CONVERSATIONS GO BY FASTER, user.

That's not what I meant. Its that the majority of all locations looks like nothing. I don't feel amazement going trough baldurs gate. I didn't feel anything but anger at slogging trough party killing animals.

You know what, I'll take it back. The most fun I had in the game was pretending to be part of the iron throne and manipulating their potential buyers to fuck off instead. Good job baldurs gate, you had one fun moment between Pinguinz of d00m gnome and totally not elmister.

Depended on whether you were going for a Tutu run or a BG1 then BG2 run. Mages were fucking terrible PCs in BG1, and really fucking good in BG2, so a lot of people recommended shit like multiclasses and dual class Fighter/Mages for Tutu runs, so you kinda got the best of both worlds. Been fucking forever since I played though.

Dude, it was a 90s 2D isometric view game. How amazed do you think you were going to be. Its closest relative in terms of graphical display is StarCraft. The engine couldn't handle amazing graphics on top of everything else that was crammed into the game. I mean, the original was already spread out over 5 disks, plus a 6th for Tales of the Sword Coast.

>party killing animals.

Again, this is solely you being shit at the game, to be wiped so often. I don't know what you're doing, exactly, to screw up so consistently over the years, but you're doing something, and dammit you're good at being bad. You can take pride at this.

I never did complete throne of bhaal. Every fight required me to drop 4 or 5 spells to cut through shields before having to sleep another 8 hours to recharge. Was I doing the game wrong?

Not really, ToB was grog af.

You dumb cunt you can do good, interesting locations without graphics.

Fuck you are dense.

The fuck is a tutu run?

Also if I remember correctly Fighter/theif was the optimal tank and damage way thanks to how Thac0 worked.

If "every fight" you mean every fight with a magic user, then you probably have generally the right idea, but you were probably not using the most efficient dispelling spells. Not that I can remember the differences between them anymore. I just played as a monk or fighter to avoid that bullshit. I don't think the strongest forms of weapon immunity lasted very long

Tutu is the mod that lets you use the baldur's gate 2 engine on 1. I'm kind of amazed you haven't heard of it if you've heard of baldur's gate (I hope you weren't tricked into paying for that remake or something). Fighter/thief multiclass was alright at higher levels since thieves get kind of fucked for saves while fighters are one of the better ones for them, but at lower levels you're basically just a thief with more HP that levels up slower

>Tutu is the mod that lets you use the baldur's gate 2 engine on 1. I'm kind of amazed you haven't heard of it if you've heard of baldur's gate
Well I really don't look up mods for games unless they are skyrim levels of boring. I didn't honestly know there was any modding community for the game.
The late levels thing I feel is kinda eh cause when you're actually reaching the ability to multiclass you're kinda in late game.

>(I hope you weren't tricked into paying for that remake or something)
Actually I got both games, plus dlc all in once at a retail place for like 2 bucks.

I agree the Gnoll fortress was bland as fucking fuck and EMPTY! what the fuck all that travel for nothing?

Well, then, I guess it comes down to personal taste. I loved exploring the gnoll stronghold or the xvart village, and I felt a palpable sense of having entered the big leagues when I first set foot inside of Baldur's Gate itself.

I'll agree with you on the xvart village but baldurs gate just felt like one of those shitty 3d stock images made by that program cheap cunts made porn with in the early 2000's.

How do you get to Baldur's Gate early?

I think it might be because after entering the Gate one of the first things you come across is a serious magic shop, Sorcerous Sundries, that blows High Hedge out of the water. So there's a definite sense that bigger things happen in the Gate than outside of it.

Jaheira best wife

Monks were pretty rad in tob

Yeah mage vs mage fights end being very dominant while everyone else kinda loafs around (although I'm a horribly inefficient player so it mite just b me). Comes down to who drops time stop and then spams symbols or whatever first lul

You don't, unless you cheat. Otherwise you have to complete Cloakwood Mines, which requires beating the Bandit Camp (which, by the way, was fun as Hell to go through and pay back those bastards for all the times they ambushed you on the road), which requires beating the Nashkel Mines.

If you are very very careful and lucky you can focus solely on the story missions and not do any sidequests and beat Devaeorn in the Cloakwood Mines, but you'll be drastically underlevelled by the time you reach the Gate.

Ironically you're actually more likely to succeed at such a speed run if you try a solo-run, or only take along one or two NPCs, since there's fewer people splitting the XP and so you all level faster.

Imoen was literally my first waifu (I pretended to be in love with her to make my older brother laugh, and then later started to unironically base my character builds around complementing hers), so I was willing to put up with a lot of shit in order to pretend she loved me back.

But yeah, every scene is horribly written and includes lore-rape along with actual rape.

The redux includes a lot of fanservice-y stuff, like Imoen having a drow fetish and a friendship path with Aerie, but overall it was an enormous improvement over the original. There's pretty much no room for comparison.

Yeah this is also a problem, you get to baldurs gate after getting assfucked by the balding wizard in the rape dungeon (god forbid you tried killing the spider queen) and then you get then you get your chance to go there.

By then you have been trough enough to make "big city" feel like ashes in your mouth. You were waylaid by 4 big wyverns and the worms slaughtering your farmers were no joke. Am I supposed to be impressed by your Le random gnome and annoying ambience?

I killed her when I found that cleric dwarf.
Her voice, her entire character and that shitty husband of hers was just awful.

> YEHSSSS, oh omnipresent authority feegyoor?

Please, stop.
Don't you love it when they have like 2 clicking quotes in a micromanagy game?

Yeah, me too.

>god forbid you tried killing the spider queen

...the fat bitch in the Cloakwood? She dies to like 3 Magic Missiles and a few arrows max, and the spiders drop after one or two fireballs.

Go in, pause immediately, launch two fireballs (make sure the spider bitch is in the radius). Spiders should all be dead except maybe the Sword Spiders, but that's what your hasted melee characters are for, defending your mages while they unload magic missile, and archers as they unload regular missiles. And frankly the aforementioned haste is optional.

This, too, is not meta-gamey at all, since in order to reach the Spider Bitch you had to trek through a bunch of spiders in the forest and then reach a cave that had I think two sword spiders in front of it. Of COURSE there's going to be some kind of Queen Spider in there.

You're just bad at this game, user.