Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[kcwong]

what did they just take rules from 10 games and mix them into baldurs gate?

They didn't. Where did you get that idea from?

BG and BG2 are both based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). Both had a lot of adjustments to make things manageable on a computer-controlled environment and the real-time with pause system.

It went like this:
D&D -> AD&D -> D&D3e -> D&D3.5e -> D&D4e

BG2 emulated some concept from D&D3e into the game, since 3e was released.

[Old-Man-Gator]

Wizards are called Squits until they can cast ninth level spells.

This is the law.

[Sergius]

Mage level progression in the older D&D editions went something like this:

Early levels - pathetically weak. Has to rely on other party members for protection. They effectively leech off the rest of the party for XP and gold (they don't do anything except needing to be protected constantly and can kill maybe one kobold each day if they learned magic missile. If they learned sleep, they can help defeat a medium sized group of kobolds once a day. Everybody else in the party hates them.

Middle levels - mages are more or less on par with other characters. They aren't so easy to one-shot kill, and they cause a decent amount of damage. They are ok, that's why the mid levels are considered for many the "sweet spot".

Late levels - here is where the leeching of the rest of the party pays off: a single mage can totally obliterate a huge amount of medium level minions, or cast some uber-powerful death or disintegrate spell on a single really powerful opponent, while the fighter keeps killing baddies one at a time. They aren't even needed to tank damage, as the wizard probably has 500 defensive spells cast on himself at all times. So yeah, again, everybody hates the party mage.


I'm not a fan of pen-n-paper D&D and haven't played 4th edition, but the way they handled spells and powers now really looks to me that they are at least trying to make it balanced. Of course, wizard-God-wannabes start crying Help. Police. Murder.

[Mephisto]

I'm a geek so I decided to cheat and see the max number of spells.

The max level is nine instead of the PnP's max of 20, which translates to:

• Level 1: 4 spells
• Level 2: 3 spells
• Level 3: 3 spells
• Level 4: 2 spells
• Level 5: 1 spell
• For a grand total of 13 spells per day

As the highest spell level is five, it seems like a bit of a waste to include pages for all levels up to nine.

[Micro102]

what? but my guy can only cast 2 spells....

[Mephisto]

Spell level is not the same as character level. The stats I gave are the number of spells of each spell level a ninth level elven mage can cast. You seemed to think that high-level mages wouldn't get but five spells, so I went to see how many they actually got.

[Another]

I believe you could only reach level 7 in original Baldur's gate with its level cap of 89000 EXP. (Level 9 mages with ToSC installed.) That left you with maximum one level 4 spell memorization, while you could cast higher level spells from scrolls. I remember that there were at least level 5 scrolls that were better saved up for the hardest battles.

And some NPCs (Gorion?) were presumably high level casters that needed (for graphical effects?) those 6,7,8 level spells. Has anybody tried to anger that NPC in a pointy hat that had a personal brand of beer? (Was he interactable in BG1 or only in BG2?)

In the same vein - a mage in BG2 without ToB couldn't memorize level 9 spells but Time Stop, Imprisonment and Freedom scrolls were present and worth their price. Gate was fun to use near powerful neutral NPCs.

[Kagus]

In BG1, the god-spell was lightning bolt.  That thing could easily be an insta-kill, and you can't dodge it (lots of fun bouncing around with cheats and seeing the bolt just change direction mid-air to houd you once again).

I did tons of mucking around in the early stages of the game, making a new character and trying to kill everyone in Candlekeep.  The guards are seriously tough, and can easily be your doom if you meet more than one at a time.  But the real threat is the courtyard.  There's a mage in there (not Gorion, he's a pansy) who will cast lightning bolt at you as his first move.  For such an early-level char, that pretty much spells your death sentence unless the RNG gods smile on you and roll a minimal amount of damage.  Still though, that pretty much takes out all your health, and he's got five more bolts where that one came from.

Elminster, if I remember correctly, pretty much just casts stoneskin and then starts whacking you with a stick.  The only reason this works is because he can't actually be killed.  Trust me, I've tried.  Several times.

Ahh, imprisonment...  That spell was sick.  Near-instant cast time, no saving throw, no resistance, no nothing.  Not a damn thing you can do except hope someone can cast freedom.

Or reload from a previous save if you're playing singleplayer.  God damn that was lame...

[Sergius]

As the highest spell level is five, it seems like a bit of a waste to include pages for all levels up to nine.

Seems they wanted to keep it open for expansions.

[Kagus]

Okay, back to business...  Have we all decided what TuTu combination we're going to be using?  I'm voting for Vanilla BG1+BG2, since that's what I've got.  Including ToB is an option, but I'd rather wait with that until a majority has said it would much prefer playing with the expansion.

Gonna reacquaint myself with Tutu and get it set up with what I've got now, just so I can get used to playing it again.  Eventually, we're also going to have to figure out how this thing will be set up (Hamachi seems to be the preferred choice, but I have absolutely no idea what would be involved with that).


As I believe I said before, I would most preferably pick some sort of support class.  Either a bard or a cleric (perhaps paladin, all depending).  But I'll fill whatever spot might be needed.

[Future]

Is it possible to attach a poll to this thread to make it easier on deciding whether people want to play the full thing or BG + BG2? also i was thinking of being a mage but then decided that it would slow down the group an sergius's post put me off aswell so im gonna settle with a ranger.

[Mephisto]

I could go either way. I've got both games and expansions installed right now, but it wouldn't take long to uninstall the whole glob and just install what everyone else has.

[IMPORTANT] Don't save inside Beregost. Reason
If the uncorrupt utility linked in that thread doesn't work, I just lost hours of gameplay.

[Dragooble]

i think i would like to play as well. i just need help making sure i have removed all my mods from my baldurs gate 2. also if i can with tutu i'll play as a monk.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I'll have a look for my old copy of Shadows of Amn.
I last played it aged 8.
DnD was not made for 8 year olds, I never got past a load of dwarves with darts in that dungeon.

[Dragooble]

I'll have a look for my old copy of Shadows of Amn.
I last played it aged 8.
DnD was not made for 8 year olds, I never got past a load of dwarves with darts in that dungeon.

did they throw the darts? if dwarves throw ANYTHING at you you're screwed.
everyone knows that.