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Old 01-18-2013, 05:10 AM   #1
Loki
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Loki Play's Baldur's Gate for the Millionth Time: Enhanced Edition

First I played it back in probably 1999. My cousin bought the game and he was pretty enthusiastic about it. He told me a lot about how you were basically given a lot of freedom. "Some guy might ask you to help save his princess. Well you could. Or you ignore the idiot. Or you could murder the princess! It's all up to you!"

Okay, not exactly, but you were definitely given a good bit of freedom compared to a lot of other games at the time. You also had insane amounts of character customization from races, classes, ability scores, and all that crazy AD&D rules shit we didn't understand at the time. I was 13 at the time and I didn't know anything about Dungeons & Dragons.

Stories of my early experiences with Baldur's Gate: (Skip if you want to get to this LP)
Spoiler: show
I tried to play, but Character Creation was pretty confusing. I didn't have the internet at the time so it wasn't like I could go online and look stuff up. The handbook tried to explain, but it was hard to really comprehend, although I did love that book.

It was really my first major experience with fantasy world. The book was great because it was both a technical manual with great detail about the world, the creatures, and the setting for the game, but was written as though it was a character in the Forgotten Realms world: Volo. And even Elminster the Master Archmage would write notes about Volo's (accurate or possibly inaccurate) descriptions of various beasts, locations, weapons, and magic. It was really cool.

Anyway, as I was just a teen, I got lost really easily with what I was supposed to do. Honestly, the game was difficult to keep up with. The quests and journal were impossible to sort or manage and it was pretty ridiculous to know what your objectives were. I usually just spent most of the game murdering guards and trying to steal stuff from people. Soon I would grow tired of that and stop playing.

But each summer after school ended, I would try to pick up the game again. Usually I found the manual, looked it through again, and began playing on a whim. Eventually I got out of the first town and started the actual adventure XD.

It wasn't any easier outside of the starting town though. I think the next few times I dropped the game was due to dying out in the wilderness. Possibly a lucky crit or an unfortunate encounter with like a dozen bandits all shooting arrows. It was pretty aggravating because I was still young and didn't have a perfect understanding. It felt unfair, but looking back, it was what made each playthrough unique.

I think I was 16 when I finally started to get the hang of the game for the most part. I remember I made a warrior-type class- most likely Ranger. I left the first town. Got that first thief, picked up the halfling and the insane wizard, and eventually found my way to Friendly Arm Inn and recruited my dad's two friends: the warrior and the druid. They all wanted me to investigate the troubles, so I did.

I go down the mines and I'm in pretty big trouble. I didn't really properly prepare and ran low on supplies really quickly. There were a lot of monsters and even though they were weak, all my ammo was being thrown at them. Traps didn't help either. Eventually I had to tell my party to rest. When they awaken, my halfling and wizard begin insulting the warrior and the druid. They insult them back. Eventually it became fighting words! My party was fighting each other! I panicked and started to click on them frantically in hopes to somehow command them to separate and break up the fight, but it's too late. A third of my party was killed by the other third. I freaked out. I stopped playing.

It took another little while (same summer though) before I picked up the game again. I eventually realized that the halfling and wizard were evil while the warrior and the druid were good. And they hated each other. So I started again. This time I didn't pick up the crazy guys and found a different guy. He had a hamster. We went down the mines. Once again the party wasn't doing as well as I had hoped. Weapons broke. Ammo was running low. And then suddenly, Hamster dude spazzes out and attacks the party. He hit the warrior so hard, my warrior ran away in a total panic and died. I think we then put down the hamster dude. This really freaked me out. I made sure they were all good aligned. Their random banter seemed quite friendly. I just had no idea what was going on.

I think the next time I picked up BG again would be winter break. I think I saw my cousin again, he came back from college and I asked him about Baldur's Gate. Mind, I never actually gave the game back to him after he lent it to me. =x

He pretty much told me that each character in the game had their own goals. Usually they would join you, but also ask a favor of you to secure loyalty. If you didn't help them, they would get impatient and possibly go berserk. This kind of blew me away, that a game had characters with such personality and depth. That was when I fell in love with WRPG genre. And I've played this game so many times since.


Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition isn't entirely new. It's basically BGTutu, a mod which used BG1 and threw it onto BG2 and let you play BG1 with BG2 upgrades. You're actually totally free to try it as BGTutu is totally free. But the stuff that is new is a nice addition. So as I've played BGTutu before, I decided if I was playing BGEE, I would have to be something new to the game, not the same BG2 Class Kits. So that means the new class: Blackguard.

My usual playthroughs have been on Good aligned characters. I liked most of the good NPCs and high reputation was typically the better choice in BG1. While nothing is really stopping an evil aligned party from doing just as well, it became much more management to keep your reputation below 18 (evil companions will leave your party if you hit 19+ reputation). Also, Paladins were really strong IMHO and they were only Lawful Good.

Blackguard represents something completely new and different from my usual experience, so let's see how it goes.

Scarlet, Human Blackguard's Character Sheet:
Spoiler: show


Gorion approached Scarlet and tells her they needed to leave their home, the Library Fortress of Candlekeep. Gorion gave her 170 gold and told her to gear up at Winthrop's Inn. He doesn't respond to her inquiries about where or why they must leave, but tells her it's urgent. She complied with her foster father's wishes. She sees Imoen outside with a concerned look, but ignores her. She has a trip to prepare for.

She meets with Winthrop, who jokes about how his inn is cleaner than an Elven Arse. She ignores the comment and buys a set of Splint Mail, the best armor Winthrop had for sale. Unfortunately this leaves her a bit short on cash. She buys a Long Sword and tells him she'll return soon.

She sneaks into the back and breaks into one of Winthrop's locked drawers. She knows he keeps a few gold pieces there. Prying the lock with her new sword, she finds a decent bit of coin and a pair of mage scrolls. She has no use for them and no one in town would likely buy them. She takes the coin and decides to also goes up to the guest rooms. Maybe some guests have some coin lying about.

The guests are mostly asleep. She walks in and finds a few gold in their drawers and a silver necklace. She goes back to Winthrop and buys another Long Sword and Shield. First she tries the Tower Shield, but didn't care for the weight. She settles for the Kite (Medium) Shield. Scarlet was more accustomed to using dual-wielding blades, but with her foster father's nervous tone, she thought the shield may at least keep ease his mind and keep him from nagging her.

Spoiler: show


(More to come)
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Old 01-18-2013, 12:21 PM   #2
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Awesome. Does this D&D system have feats? Which ones have you taken? (sorry if you already listed them off)
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Old 01-18-2013, 01:58 PM   #3
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All versions of Baldur's Gate (and Baldur's Gate 2) had no feats. It was based off of 2nd Edition Rules, which had no feats. You just gained certain powers/abilities/stats at certain levels based on your class/kit. I don't think Blackguard gains any abilities after the initial ones, but there's always BG2:EE to add a bunch. I know Good Paladins gain Cleric spells at like level 9 or something, but this game is capped at level 8 with 161K exp.

In fact, 2nd Edition rules are quite complicated and ambiguous on many things. THAC0 is considered one of the more confusing rules they put in (although, this eventually evolved and was simplified in 3rd edition and continues to be used in 4th). They didn't have Ability Score Modifiers either, this came in 3rd edition, although the way 2nd edition rules worked was somewhat similar. Looking back, it's not that hard to see how 2nd Edition evolved into 3rd Edition.

A good site to check is Play It Hardcore. They have a pretty decent guide to most of the rules and given advice on character creation.

Meanwhile, if you need a guide on finding your way around, Dudleyville is pretty damn good, even if it isn't for Enhanced Edition.

Game update later.
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Old 01-18-2013, 07:40 PM   #4
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THAC0 wasn't difficult to understand. It's just that children were too inexperienced to get it, and Hasbro/WoTC decided that appealing to kids was more important than fat fantasy geeks, so the game was simplified to the point that the rules were insultingly retarded.

I'm disappointed that 3.0+ classes were added into BGE. Not that it hasn't happened before, since SOA introduced a lot of 3.0+ material, but did the name have to be so bland? "blackguard"...I mean ugh.

...

My BG experience is sort of similar to Loki's, but not. I got the game in 2000, which was the best year of my life where I was awesome in school, the weather was great, I went on the best vacation ever, I first discovered forums, and I got to play Baldur's Gate every day when I came home from school.

Unlike Loki, I always played an evil character, based on "D'Sparil" the Serpent Rider from the fantasy FPS Heretic. For someone who obeys the rule of law as religiously as I did, and is fundamentally a good person, being able to go all out as an evil being in such an interactive universe was absolutely liberating.

I usually roamed the wilderness and tried to kill characters who were mages or had good-looking armour. The game was heavily biased toward good characters so a mix of vile murders and picking up trash really worked well. I really wanted my character to get into the chainmail trousers of Officer Jessa Vai in the Jovial Juggler.

In fact, my battle with the final boss was practically scripted. Montaron, the halfling thief Loki mentioned, was still in my party and was one of my best fighters. He hid in the shadows and managed to backstab the final boss, but also scored a critical hit, inflicting 70 damage. The final boss took one swing at him, also getting a critical hit, and exploded him (exploding = -10 HP, permanent death). My other characters blasted him with monsters and magic and tried to flee, but ran into traps and were cut down by the Battle Horrors that were lurking by the sarcophagi of the underground temple. The final boss is 95% Magic Resistant, so you had to use Fire Arrows (a conjuration spell, treated in BG1 as an actual arrow and not a magic attack) to do any damage to him, aside from luck-based magic spam. My warrior Shar-Teel clashed swords with him and was the last ally to be cut down. Finally, it was just the boss and D'Sparil. D'Sparil would run around the room, summon monsters who would get chopped, and (lacking magic) would rush in from time to time and try to get in a lucky swipe with the quarterstaff. A single hit was fatal. I got in two lucky shots after all my party had been killed and finally managed to slay him when I was almost out of magic wands.
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Old 01-20-2013, 04:30 PM   #5
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THAC0 is confusing because it used a contradiction for math. The lower your THAC0, the better your to hit chances are. The higher your armor, the more likely you'll get hit. It's as easy as saying "The color of yellow is blue." THAC0 also adds an extra step. What do you roll? What are your bonuses? What is your THAC0? What is the AC of the target? Apply the AC to the THAC0. Does your roll beat it?

The system used in 3.0 and since is as simple as it needs to be. What is your roll? What are your bonuses? Is that higher than the AC?

As for 3rd edition rules vs. 2nd edition, I find 3rd to be the best overall. You might see something as retardly simplified, but I see 2nd edition as needlessly complicated.

And that's an argument that goes on forever. You can probably find someone still arguing about how 1st edition rules were the best and how all editions after it sucked balls. Or you know, you could stop thinking the first time was the best time and realize how dumb shit was.
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Old 01-24-2013, 10:34 AM   #6
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My story: I used to play Baldur's Gate into the wee hours of the morning with my online best friend (who I have sadly lost contact with ). I was an invoker with black and red robes, the coolest colour scheme there is. Imagine how badass the Canadian flag would look if it was red and black instead of red and white? Anyway, my friend was a thief. One day, we were exploring some random part of the overworld, and I said, "Hey look, there's some stairs over there." We descended the stairs seeking treasure, and found ourselves in some crazy dungeon that was way too much for us to handle. We foolishly decided to descend deeper and deeper into the dungeon, and we were eventually beset on all sides by monsters and kept dying. Now, I think we were not aware of the fact that you could sleep in hostile territory, so we thought we were trapped and there was no way for us to escape the dungeon with our low hit points and exhausted magic spells. After loading the game enough times however, we actually managed to make a daring escape, and made it back to the stairs, but the monsters actually followed us up the stairs, and they teamed up with beasts in the wilderness to murder us just before we could break free!

I tried to get my friend to try again, but he was convinced that we were done for. And that was the last time we played. After that, my innocent observation of, "Hey, there's some stairs over there" that eventually led us to our doom became an in-joke between us, and he never let me live it down.
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Old 01-24-2013, 06:01 PM   #7
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Haven't posted in a while because I haven't played in a while. Until last night... a terrible night.

Let's just say, they call it WILD MAGE for a reason. This was technically a HARDCORE run, so death is death.

Okay, so here's the screenies from Prologue to Beregost.

Spoiler: show

First Blood! Carbos!

Spoiler: show

Some people may not know, but Dragon Age Origin's makes reference to Baldur's Gate in the Human Warrior/Rogue origin. Giant rats in the pantry came from rats in the warehouse. Also, I'm fairly sure Baldur's Gate was referencing Fallout as the first stage of Fallout was a cave filled with nothing but rats (although I think those rats could kill you). A reference to a reference! Now you know!

Spoiler: show

Shank got shanked.

Spoiler: show

Oh no.

Gorion fought off two ogres, two bandits (new in EE), and kept both a cleric and the armored figure at bay so I could pussy out. Next morning Imoen joined me.

Spoiler: show

Oh no! Daddy's dead! Lemme check his wallet.

Continued on, found Montaron and Xzar. Took them along. Made my way to the Friendly Arm Inn. Found the coward and his bitch wife. Dropped off Imoen with them. Met Landrin about her spider problem... More on that later.

Went to Pedvale and found a damsel in distress. Or rather a Drow in distress.

Spoiler: show


Spoiler: show


Killed that fool 5-0 that was trying to grab her. Took her in. Took the Plate Mail armor off the Flaming Fists corpse as a better reward. Also his super cool looking Helmet. Left for Beregost.

Spoiler: show


Well hello there pink haired WILD MAGE. We killed off her pursuers. More were likely to follow, so she followed me around for protection.

UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS WHERE IT ALL GOES WRONG.

Go into Landrin's House to find GIANT SPIDERS. I tank 3. Montaron engages one. The spider hits me once, maybe twice. I don't think much of it because I still had a ton of HP left. I tell Neera to cast Magic Missile on one, Xzar to Larloch's Minor Drain another, and Viconia to Command Word: Die the one fighting Monty.

But Neera being a WILD MAGE instead casts Fireball! FFS Xzar dies, Montaron and I are at critical and Viconia can't cast Cure Light Wounds fast enough. The last spider survives and hits me. I die.

FUCKEN NEERA!

No screenshots of that horrible mess, was too panicked about being on fire.

>McSweeney

I'm sure I've done worse in real D&D.
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Old 01-24-2013, 08:02 PM   #8
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So Loki, is your lets play going to be a "never save except at the autosaves" kind of game?
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Old 01-24-2013, 08:42 PM   #9
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These are Play It Hardcore runs (self imposed). That means once your character dies, you can't reload any saves with that character. I might go back to Scarlet the Blackguard someday, but not anytime soon.

I think game 1,000,001, I'll try a good Sorcerer. Or an evil Fighter/Thief.
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Old 01-25-2013, 03:52 AM   #10
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I usually play RPGs as a mage, because the magic spells are too cool not to see. Although I do recall playing through Neverwinter Nights as an evil fighter named Grunglefuck The Barbarian.
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Old 01-25-2013, 04:14 AM   #11
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I remember this time I made a ogrillion character named Rallendar the Giant. The ogrillion sprite in BG1 is bugged so if you enter the equipment screen, the lack of a paper doll crashes the program (other avatars lack this problem). So I gave Rallendar some powerful permanent weapon (I think it was Sarevok's invisible sword) and had him wander around.

I role-played him like Lenny from Of Mice and Men. Low intelligence, violent when confused. Rallendar rarely survived longer than the Friendly Arm Inn, because his charisma was so low, people would be rude to him, and he'd get confused and attack them, and all those murderer got the Flaming Fist to jump him faster than a hobo on a ham sandwich.
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Old 01-26-2013, 03:28 AM   #12
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Your character talked like a dimwit if your intelligence was low in Baldur's Gate? I knew that happened in Neverwinter Nights, but I thought it was a new thing. I never played a low intelligence character in Baldur's Gate 1 or 2 though.

Ogrillions were pretty funny. "Youuuu mess with meee, you mess with YOU!"
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Old 01-26-2013, 03:43 AM   #13
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It's more prominent in BG2, and charisma ('social intelligence') plays more a role. You talk to Queen, and if your charisma is really low, your choices end up something like

1. Hey baby, you're a human woman, and I'm a male orc. Could it be anymore obvious?
2. Thok hungry. Thok want EAT!
3. I saw one of those Fire Giants step on one of your loyal subjects. Now he's a loyal pancake.
4. DIE!!

Basically, all bad options.
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Old 02-06-2013, 06:59 PM   #14
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I decided I might try a "LET UPNETWORK PLAY BALDURS GATE ENHANCED EDITION!"

I will stream around 8PM EST and the viewers will chime in about what choices to make with the character. i.e. Character creation, choices during dialogue.

Because I'm lazy, just use the the old Pathfinder Stream to show it.
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