That game has grown on me so much. I hated BG 1 so much back in the day. I absolutely love it now. It just doesn't fuck around at all.
Also, modern PCs have enough RAM to max out the pathfinding memory allotment.
pathfinding memory allotment?
Yeah, why would you want to do that? One of the best ways to cheese the Drizzt fight is to keep the Pathfinding number low so he can't get around the lake.
I was more wondering what it is. BG tutu is glitched for me for some reason, so I'mplaying normal BG, maybe thats it, but I really do want to know about this pathfinding allotment
Game options can't be changed in game, you have to open it from the launcher. You manually enter how much memory is used for pathfinding.
on a ~1998 PC, your characters will turn around and start walking the opposite direction as soon as anything (such as another character) is in front them. Dungeons were virtually unplayable unless you wanted to micro-manage every step.
That game has grown on me so much. I hated BG 1 so much back in the day. I absolutely love it now. It just doesn't fuck around at all.
Also, modern PCs have enough RAM to max out the pathfinding memory allotment.
pathfinding memory allotment?
Yeah, why would you want to do that? One of the best ways to cheese the Drizzt fight is to keep the Pathfinding number low so he can't get around the lake.
I was more wondering what it is. BG tutu is glitched for me for some reason, so I'mplaying normal BG, maybe thats it, but I really do want to know about this pathfinding allotment
Game options can't be changed in game, you have to open it from the launcher. You manually enter how much memory is used for pathfinding.
on a ~1998 PC, your characters will turn around and start walking the opposite direction as soon as anything (such as another character) is in front them. Dungeons were virtually unplayable unless you wanted to micro-manage every step.
you mean people played without micro-managing every step? i enjoyed the hell out of doing that.
If all this means is that you put down 10 spike traps color me not impressed.
Heh, the first time I played BG2 I killed Torgal by getting Yoshimo to drop a bunch of traps, running int the room and baiting him into charing after me, at which point he got slapped down hard. Good times.
Talking about soloing stuff, I remember playing as a Kensai/Mage killing machine, he only knew buffs and anti-magical defense spells, and could chop anything to pieces easily. In the Underdark, when I took the party into the Mind Flayer area they kept on getting messed up, so after a couple of tries I just left them at the door while Choppy mcStabStab killed his way through the place. I almost felt sorry for the Flayers, I'd run into a room where a few of them would attempt to blast me, the beams would shoot out only for my characters to just laugh it off and commence the killing. That was fun.
Solar on
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
If all this means is that you put down 10 spike traps color me not impressed.
Heh, the first time I played BG2 I killed Torgal by getting Yoshimo to drop a bunch of traps, running int the room and baiting him into charing after me, at which point he got slapped down hard. Good times.
Talking about soloing stuff, I remember playing as a Kensai/Mage killing machine, he only knew buffs and anti-magical defense spells, and could chop anything to pieces easily. In the Underdark, when I took the party into the Mind Flayer area they kept on getting messed up, so after a couple of tries I just left them at the door while Choppy mcStabStab killed his way through the place. I almost felt sorry for the Flayers, I'd run into a room where a few of them would attempt to blast me, the beams would shoot out only for my characters to just laugh it off and commence the killing. That was fun.
There was a defensive spell you could get, I think it was a mage spell. Made all your characters immune to the flayer attack.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
It's called Chaotic Commands, it makes you immune to Mind Blast (and a bunch of other things actually) and basically instantly screws Illithids.
Edit: There are probably other spells that did the exact same thing now I think of it.
It's called Chaotic Commands, it makes you immune to Mind Blast (and a bunch of other things actually) and basically instantly screws Illithids.
Edit: There are probably other spells that did the exact same thing now I think of it.
Chaotic commands prevents the stun but if a flayer still manages to hit you in melee (they have poor thac0, so it's hard for them to hit without stunning you first) you still get drained. Stoneskin and protection from magic weapons block the hits, though, meaning no drain.
None of this shows that 2E has any form of level scaling, because it doesn't because 2E suffers the exact same problem 3E does: That spellcasters scale on an exponential scale in power with level and everything else does not.
I always thought the point of it was that the spellcasters weren't likely to survive long enough to reach the exponential levels of power. Hell, I had a caster in 2ed that I never even named because I rolled the lucky 1d4 and came up with a 1 (he ended up being my highest level mage ever lol).
I don't know how other people feel about the reason why some people prefer 4ed over 2ed (or whatever), but for me, personally, it comes down to a complete lack of knowledge about 4ed, hearing rumors that 4ed is just based on WoW (and seeing information that seems to support the idea), the fact that 2ed was the only thing out the last time I played PnP aaaaannnnddd.....
that I never viewed the system as something akin to chess, where certain moves were always destined to be used with specific pieces in specific situations. As a DM I almost never designed straight up fights between two groups facing it off and I rewarded quick and clever thinking. I once had a group of level 8 or so characters scared shitless about a bunch of 4hp kobolds in a mine. I guess in the end I prefer it when the games are less about the mechanics and more about the story and how the players decide to handle a situation. The more detailed the mechanics are, the more tightly they grip what you can do with them. (and if you think songblades can be abused, you don't give them to the party - same with anything else, including certain classes)
In the end, my game of choice was DL:T5A. I suppose it's most suited to the style of play that I preferred.
But, more on topic, old DnD was not suited at all to CRPGs without significant tweaks for the reasons you mention. The improvements made with 4ed seem to be much more suitable. Though I will miss DnD CRPGs from TOEE back to gold box days (I'll stop before we get to the land of the eternal sun or whatever it was called, because I hated that game).
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
4e gets back down to 2e's roots, but far more balanced. The problem is that it follows 3e, which pretty well threw the doors open for customization and non-combat stuff. 4e unfortunately chose to throw the skills out the window as well as the (insane) multiclassing you could do with 3e and its derivatives, like my prefered Arcana Evolved.
It's a decent miniatures system, but my problem comes with the lack of customization and locking players down into their roles and the limited non-combat system.
On the flipside I know several people that swear by it. It's all about your preferences...
Stoneskin and protection from magic weapons block the hits, though, meaning no drain.
Protection from Magical Weapons blocks the drain because the hit doesn't land, but Stoneskin does not. Stoneskin simply blocks the physical damage associated with the hit. Any other effect will occur.
Vi Monks on
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited May 2010
I usually just had chaotic commands and pelted them with ranged attacks. I put protection from magical weapons on the front line warriors eg minsc and keldorn my immortal duo.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
unless you actually go into the mind flayer city there are so few of them around it's not a big deal. I think the only ones you have to fight are specifically weakened which is why you can get rid of them with 1 death spell.
That game has grown on me so much. I hated BG 1 so much back in the day. I absolutely love it now. It just doesn't fuck around at all.
Also, modern PCs have enough RAM to max out the pathfinding memory allotment.
pathfinding memory allotment?
Yeah, why would you want to do that? One of the best ways to cheese the Drizzt fight is to keep the Pathfinding number low so he can't get around the lake.
I was more wondering what it is. BG tutu is glitched for me for some reason, so I'mplaying normal BG, maybe thats it, but I really do want to know about this pathfinding allotment
Game options can't be changed in game, you have to open it from the launcher. You manually enter how much memory is used for pathfinding.
on a ~1998 PC, your characters will turn around and start walking the opposite direction as soon as anything (such as another character) is in front them. Dungeons were virtually unplayable unless you wanted to micro-manage every step.
you mean people played without micro-managing every step? i enjoyed the hell out of doing that.
Is that the path nodes in options? Whats the max because my guys are idiots when it comes to going up stairs, going out doors, picking up loot......
It's a coin toss between the range of Fireball, and the flexibility of Skull Trap. While Fireball certainly has the range, its damage caps out at 10D6 (with save vs. spells for half) while according to the spellbook, Skull Trap doesn't cap out, but will still suffer the half damage of a target making their save vs. spells (a moot point, since Fireball caps out as a level 10 Mage, something you won't be during BG1).
Furthermore, Skull Trap can be used in a lot of good combinations. Worried about being chased? Drop a Stinking Cloud and then keep a Skull Trap near the edge of it in case some melee-based monster gets too close. or aggro a monster from a distance with a bow, down a corridor full of Skull Traps. Running with a Wild Mage and Dynaheir, I can cast six Skull Traps a day, making any narrow corridor, or spots where you just know an enemy will spawn, a breeze.
One of my best BG memories involves Skull traps and delayed blast fireballs. I have having trouble the the final group of nasties that spawn when you activate the final seal in Watcher's Keep. So I placed around 50 of each trap around the spawn points (they persist through resting, and you can use project image for extras) and then activated the seal. Suffice to say, everything went boom.
If all this means is that you put down 10 spike traps color me not impressed.
Heh, the first time I played BG2 I killed Torgal by getting Yoshimo to drop a bunch of traps, running int the room and baiting him into charing after me, at which point he got slapped down hard. Good times.
Talking about soloing stuff, I remember playing as a Kensai/Mage killing machine, he only knew buffs and anti-magical defense spells, and could chop anything to pieces easily. In the Underdark, when I took the party into the Mind Flayer area they kept on getting messed up, so after a couple of tries I just left them at the door while Choppy mcStabStab killed his way through the place. I almost felt sorry for the Flayers, I'd run into a room where a few of them would attempt to blast me, the beams would shoot out only for my characters to just laugh it off and commence the killing. That was fun.
Sending Yoshimo into certain doom is kind of a guilty pleasure of mine.
Har'dalis, on the other hand... well he's too good for that, nothing less than my own blade is good enough for him
override367 on
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DunxcoShould get a suitNever skips breakfastRegistered Userregular
It's a coin toss between the range of Fireball, and the flexibility of Skull Trap. While Fireball certainly has the range, its damage caps out at 10D6 (with save vs. spells for half) while according to the spellbook, Skull Trap doesn't cap out, but will still suffer the half damage of a target making their save vs. spells (a moot point, since Fireball caps out as a level 10 Mage, something you won't be during BG1).
Furthermore, Skull Trap can be used in a lot of good combinations. Worried about being chased? Drop a Stinking Cloud and then keep a Skull Trap near the edge of it in case some melee-based monster gets too close. or aggro a monster from a distance with a bow, down a corridor full of Skull Traps. Running with a Wild Mage and Dynaheir, I can cast six Skull Traps a day, making any narrow corridor, or spots where you just know an enemy will spawn, a breeze.
One of my best BG memories involves Skull traps and delayed blast fireballs. I have having trouble the the final group of nasties that spawn when you activate the final seal in Watcher's Keep. So I placed around 50 of each trap around the spawn points (they persist through resting, and you can use project image for extras) and then activated the seal. Suffice to say, everything went boom.
It's a coin toss between the range of Fireball, and the flexibility of Skull Trap. While Fireball certainly has the range, its damage caps out at 10D6 (with save vs. spells for half) while according to the spellbook, Skull Trap doesn't cap out, but will still suffer the half damage of a target making their save vs. spells (a moot point, since Fireball caps out as a level 10 Mage, something you won't be during BG1).
Furthermore, Skull Trap can be used in a lot of good combinations. Worried about being chased? Drop a Stinking Cloud and then keep a Skull Trap near the edge of it in case some melee-based monster gets too close. or aggro a monster from a distance with a bow, down a corridor full of Skull Traps. Running with a Wild Mage and Dynaheir, I can cast six Skull Traps a day, making any narrow corridor, or spots where you just know an enemy will spawn, a breeze.
One of my best BG memories involves Skull traps and delayed blast fireballs. I have having trouble the the final group of nasties that spawn when you activate the final seal in Watcher's Keep. So I placed around 50 of each trap around the spawn points (they persist through resting, and you can use project image for extras) and then activated the seal. Suffice to say, everything went boom.
It's a coin toss between the range of Fireball, and the flexibility of Skull Trap. While Fireball certainly has the range, its damage caps out at 10D6 (with save vs. spells for half) while according to the spellbook, Skull Trap doesn't cap out, but will still suffer the half damage of a target making their save vs. spells (a moot point, since Fireball caps out as a level 10 Mage, something you won't be during BG1).
Furthermore, Skull Trap can be used in a lot of good combinations. Worried about being chased? Drop a Stinking Cloud and then keep a Skull Trap near the edge of it in case some melee-based monster gets too close. or aggro a monster from a distance with a bow, down a corridor full of Skull Traps. Running with a Wild Mage and Dynaheir, I can cast six Skull Traps a day, making any narrow corridor, or spots where you just know an enemy will spawn, a breeze.
One of my best BG memories involves Skull traps and delayed blast fireballs. I have having trouble the the final group of nasties that spawn when you activate the final seal in Watcher's Keep. So I placed around 50 of each trap around the spawn points (they persist through resting, and you can use project image for extras) and then activated the seal. Suffice to say, everything went boom.
I did that as well on my old PC. It locked up.
"To much death, does not compute..."
My computer was fine with that.
But it was not fine with 100 of each on demogorgon (whatever he was).
Anzekay on
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HedgethornAssociate Professor of Historical Hobby HorsesIn the Lions' DenRegistered Userregular
That game has grown on me so much. I hated BG 1 so much back in the day. I absolutely love it now. It just doesn't fuck around at all.
Also, modern PCs have enough RAM to max out the pathfinding memory allotment.
pathfinding memory allotment?
Yeah, why would you want to do that? One of the best ways to cheese the Drizzt fight is to keep the Pathfinding number low so he can't get around the lake.
I was more wondering what it is. BG tutu is glitched for me for some reason, so I'mplaying normal BG, maybe thats it, but I really do want to know about this pathfinding allotment
Game options can't be changed in game, you have to open it from the launcher. You manually enter how much memory is used for pathfinding.
on a ~1998 PC, your characters will turn around and start walking the opposite direction as soon as anything (such as another character) is in front them. Dungeons were virtually unplayable unless you wanted to micro-manage every step.
you mean people played without micro-managing every step? i enjoyed the hell out of doing that.
Is that the path nodes in options? Whats the max because my guys are idiots when it comes to going up stairs, going out doors, picking up loot......
I've always heard to set path nodes to 32000. But that was the going advice five or six years ago; I don't know whether it accepts higher values than that or not. If you're curious, add an extra zero or two and see what happens.
That game has grown on me so much. I hated BG 1 so much back in the day. I absolutely love it now. It just doesn't fuck around at all.
Also, modern PCs have enough RAM to max out the pathfinding memory allotment.
pathfinding memory allotment?
Yeah, why would you want to do that? One of the best ways to cheese the Drizzt fight is to keep the Pathfinding number low so he can't get around the lake.
I was more wondering what it is. BG tutu is glitched for me for some reason, so I'mplaying normal BG, maybe thats it, but I really do want to know about this pathfinding allotment
Game options can't be changed in game, you have to open it from the launcher. You manually enter how much memory is used for pathfinding.
on a ~1998 PC, your characters will turn around and start walking the opposite direction as soon as anything (such as another character) is in front them. Dungeons were virtually unplayable unless you wanted to micro-manage every step.
you mean people played without micro-managing every step? i enjoyed the hell out of doing that.
Is that the path nodes in options? Whats the max because my guys are idiots when it comes to going up stairs, going out doors, picking up loot......
I've always heard to set path nodes to 32000. But that was the going advice five or six years ago; I don't know whether it accepts higher values than that or not. If you're curious, add an extra zero or two and see what happens.
Well I typed in 600000 and got 400,000 so that seems to be the max. I'm sure that'll help with a few of my frustrations
unless you actually go into the mind flayer city there are so few of them around it's not a big deal. I think the only ones you have to fight are specifically weakened which is why you can get rid of them with 1 death spell.
I'm pretty sure it's because the only way the game could make mind flayers pop out of nowhere for ambushes was to treat them like summoned monsters that triggered under certain conditions. And the Death spell kills all summoned monsters with no need to check for saves or magic resistance.
I'm playing evil and killing off good npcs left and right. feels pretty good tbh, you also get to kill people like sir sarles. My 3 chars just hit chapter 7 and my chars are at 4.5 million exp from murdering everything.
Hell, my kensai/thief (solo!) went through even the mindflayer city like Grunt through husks, so it's not like you need cheap tactics to beat them.
No, but when you've been breezing through the game and suddenly an NPC or two drops from being mind-fucked it's a pain having to try and micro-manage them in the fight when I could leave them outside and just murderise the hell out of the whole city. My thought process was pretty much "Wait, so now I need to use tactics? Fuck that shit, time for my PC to shine!"
Honestly Kensai/Mage is so hardcore it's just silly. When you've got Celestial Fury and that other magical Katana with haste and all the protective spells everything just dies horribly.
So hey, these collection packs for BG2, do they come with the big blue manual? I remember reading through a friends manual a few years ago, and it was pretty fucking awesome sounding. Plus I figure that there's a lot of shit I'd need to know that wouldn't get explained in the game.
Rizzi on
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Oh yeah, this game's oldschool. No tutorials HERE, no sir. You'll definitely want some kind of manual.
So hey, these collection packs for BG2, do they come with the big blue manual? I remember reading through a friends manual a few years ago, and it was pretty fucking awesome sounding. Plus I figure that there's a lot of shit I'd need to know that wouldn't get explained in the game.
I wouldn't mind getting a hard copy of the manual. The collections probably have just a pdf. Mine did. I do have the actual manual and map for BG1, however. Sadly, the map is starting to fall apart.D:
Posts
I'm enjoying BG1 now that I know to save constantly
Game options can't be changed in game, you have to open it from the launcher. You manually enter how much memory is used for pathfinding.
on a ~1998 PC, your characters will turn around and start walking the opposite direction as soon as anything (such as another character) is in front them. Dungeons were virtually unplayable unless you wanted to micro-manage every step.
you mean people played without micro-managing every step? i enjoyed the hell out of doing that.
If all this means is that you put down 10 spike traps color me not impressed.
Heh, the first time I played BG2 I killed Torgal by getting Yoshimo to drop a bunch of traps, running int the room and baiting him into charing after me, at which point he got slapped down hard. Good times.
Talking about soloing stuff, I remember playing as a Kensai/Mage killing machine, he only knew buffs and anti-magical defense spells, and could chop anything to pieces easily. In the Underdark, when I took the party into the Mind Flayer area they kept on getting messed up, so after a couple of tries I just left them at the door while Choppy mcStabStab killed his way through the place. I almost felt sorry for the Flayers, I'd run into a room where a few of them would attempt to blast me, the beams would shoot out only for my characters to just laugh it off and commence the killing. That was fun.
There was a defensive spell you could get, I think it was a mage spell. Made all your characters immune to the flayer attack.
Edit: There are probably other spells that did the exact same thing now I think of it.
Chaotic commands prevents the stun but if a flayer still manages to hit you in melee (they have poor thac0, so it's hard for them to hit without stunning you first) you still get drained. Stoneskin and protection from magic weapons block the hits, though, meaning no drain.
I always thought the point of it was that the spellcasters weren't likely to survive long enough to reach the exponential levels of power. Hell, I had a caster in 2ed that I never even named because I rolled the lucky 1d4 and came up with a 1 (he ended up being my highest level mage ever lol).
I don't know how other people feel about the reason why some people prefer 4ed over 2ed (or whatever), but for me, personally, it comes down to a complete lack of knowledge about 4ed, hearing rumors that 4ed is just based on WoW (and seeing information that seems to support the idea), the fact that 2ed was the only thing out the last time I played PnP aaaaannnnddd.....
that I never viewed the system as something akin to chess, where certain moves were always destined to be used with specific pieces in specific situations. As a DM I almost never designed straight up fights between two groups facing it off and I rewarded quick and clever thinking. I once had a group of level 8 or so characters scared shitless about a bunch of 4hp kobolds in a mine. I guess in the end I prefer it when the games are less about the mechanics and more about the story and how the players decide to handle a situation. The more detailed the mechanics are, the more tightly they grip what you can do with them. (and if you think songblades can be abused, you don't give them to the party - same with anything else, including certain classes)
In the end, my game of choice was DL:T5A. I suppose it's most suited to the style of play that I preferred.
But, more on topic, old DnD was not suited at all to CRPGs without significant tweaks for the reasons you mention. The improvements made with 4ed seem to be much more suitable. Though I will miss DnD CRPGs from TOEE back to gold box days (I'll stop before we get to the land of the eternal sun or whatever it was called, because I hated that game).
It's a decent miniatures system, but my problem comes with the lack of customization and locking players down into their roles and the limited non-combat system.
On the flipside I know several people that swear by it. It's all about your preferences...
Protection from Magical Weapons blocks the drain because the hit doesn't land, but Stoneskin does not. Stoneskin simply blocks the physical damage associated with the hit. Any other effect will occur.
Is that the path nodes in options? Whats the max because my guys are idiots when it comes to going up stairs, going out doors, picking up loot......
One of my best BG memories involves Skull traps and delayed blast fireballs. I have having trouble the the final group of nasties that spawn when you activate the final seal in Watcher's Keep. So I placed around 50 of each trap around the spawn points (they persist through resting, and you can use project image for extras) and then activated the seal. Suffice to say, everything went boom.
Sending Yoshimo into certain doom is kind of a guilty pleasure of mine.
Har'dalis, on the other hand... well he's too good for that, nothing less than my own blade is good enough for him
I did that as well on my old PC. It locked up.
"To much death, does not compute..."
My computer was fine with that.
But it was not fine with 100 of each on demogorgon (whatever he was).
Is that the path nodes in options? Whats the max because my guys are idiots when it comes to going up stairs, going out doors, picking up loot......
I've always heard to set path nodes to 32000. But that was the going advice five or six years ago; I don't know whether it accepts higher values than that or not. If you're curious, add an extra zero or two and see what happens.
I've always heard to set path nodes to 32000. But that was the going advice five or six years ago; I don't know whether it accepts higher values than that or not. If you're curious, add an extra zero or two and see what happens.
Well I typed in 600000 and got 400,000 so that seems to be the max. I'm sure that'll help with a few of my frustrations
I'm pretty sure it's because the only way the game could make mind flayers pop out of nowhere for ambushes was to treat them like summoned monsters that triggered under certain conditions. And the Death spell kills all summoned monsters with no need to check for saves or magic resistance.
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Hell, my kensai/thief (solo!) went through even the mindflayer city like Grunt through husks, so it's not like you need cheap tactics to beat them.
No, but when you've been breezing through the game and suddenly an NPC or two drops from being mind-fucked it's a pain having to try and micro-manage them in the fight when I could leave them outside and just murderise the hell out of the whole city. My thought process was pretty much "Wait, so now I need to use tactics? Fuck that shit, time for my PC to shine!"
Honestly Kensai/Mage is so hardcore it's just silly. When you've got Celestial Fury and that other magical Katana with haste and all the protective spells everything just dies horribly.
I wouldn't mind getting a hard copy of the manual. The collections probably have just a pdf. Mine did. I do have the actual manual and map for BG1, however. Sadly, the map is starting to fall apart.D:
Except that there is a tutorial.
It's a separate option from the menu, and has Xan in it.
Let me tell you, after restarting around 100,000,000 times, that god damn mod was a freaking god send.
That's kind of funny, since BG2 actually includes a fairly decent tutorial.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Really? I never saw that.
That was probably too much information, wasn't it.
I've done literally 50+ runs through BG2, bought the game three times, and I did not know this.