WhiteZinfandelYour insidesLet me show you themRegistered Userregular
You can take improved bard song last out of the HLAs to put off the overwrite for a while. I forget if there are any repeatable bard/thief HLAs, but if there are, you never have to take it at all.
improved bard song definitely nerfs skald since it replaces their song. it's still beneficial up until that point but post HLAs it's like not having a kit. I never liked bards period because they can't even attack while singing, you have to stand there doing nothing. really you can't shoot a crossbow while singing? give me a break.
Seems to be the case where if you start bard song, it lasts through the end of the next round. So, you can sing one round, then next round attack, and keep the buff up? Not really worth it for the most part outside the Skald song. From what I remember of item descriptions it gets a lot more user friendly in Dragonspear with the Bard Hat because it makes the song last an extra 2 rounds. Until that point there won't be much singing going on.
There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life, that cannot be improved with pizza.
improved bard song definitely nerfs skald since it replaces their song. it's still beneficial up until that point but post HLAs it's like not having a kit. I never liked bards period because they can't even attack while singing, you have to stand there doing nothing. really you can't shoot a crossbow while singing? give me a break.
I always thought they were also playing an instrument, on account of the icon. Can you shoot a crossbow while playing a guitar?
Got down to Beregost. Forgot how weird it is, having 4 inns within 30m of each other.
Trying out this Neera addition, not keen on her writing so far it's very...trying to be cutsey quirky and only succeeding at eye rolling. But it's a mage that doesn't suck and isn't Edwin.
And then got wrecked, twice, by the house full of giant spiders which is god damn hard at level 1 because a single hit + the poison damage will kill anyone.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
Our troupe actually finished up in Beregost yesterday! Only died twice to the murderous psycho in the Red Sheaf, then it turned into a giant game of keepaway,with us taking potshots until he finally fell over dead in the alley. Then we went over to Feldepost's Inn, and Fearless Leader had us kill the moron. Which actually seemed to cost us reputation. Don't remember that happening before, maybe something to do with how the battle started? I don't know. Oh well, it balanced out a little against the previous one or two reputation points we gained for running errands up north. (Belt Fetish Ogre was the source of one of our many reloads when we found out just how much a remove curse costs). Khalid has very quickly fallen into the Most Disliked NPC spot on the roster, also known as the Most Likely To Be Found Dead And Removed From Party spot. Probably just in time for us to pick up the new Monk in Nashkel.
Picked up a scroll of sleep from a random drop thank ****ing **** so when we fought the Flaming Fist mercenary group south of town it was almost hilariously easy compared to some of the earlier fights. Khalid Montaron and Jaheira are all decked out in Plate Mail now which should hopefully increase group survival from here. We still haven't cleared the House Of No, as its officially marked on the map now, since nobody has access to any spells or abilities yet which would remove poison, so we'll deal with the spider shack on our way back up north I guess. Only on day 4 though and we're almost to Nashkel. Jaheira and I are the only ones who are level 2, Khalid forced a reload by starting a party fight in Beregost, Neera has managed to switch genders and destroy 1k of the group's gold she's not allowed to use the wild mage special level 1 spell anymore, oh and right before the end of the night, Khalid and Montaron both managed to break their weapons on a single pack of hobgoblins. Tomorrow hopefully we'll reach Nashkel! The Circus and the Mines are calling to me and I'm hoping desperately that we won't die too much to the Kobold commandos.
I'm wondering about pushing kensai to 15 instead of 13 though for an extra round of bonuses. At the cost of what, 1 level 9 spell slot?
Need to decide on my weapons as well. I know it's usually katanas for that spell bonus one, but I'm kind of interested in going 2 handed.
Some of the two handed swords are really nice. Spider's Bane from the Cloakwood Forest, Dragon Blade and the Sword of Ruin from Dragonspear ... heck if I can remember the good two handers from SOA onwards though. Two Handed Style only really benefits from the first pip in, the second one only benefiting you in weapon speed, so that should save you on proficiency slots at least.
There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life, that cannot be improved with pizza.
carsomyr of course, which is locked to paladins and thieves
there's also the silver sword with its 25% chance of instant death, and lilicor which is the earliest available +3 weapon with mental protection. there's +5-6 weapons for everything in tob
carsomyr of course, which is locked to paladins and thieves
there's also the silver sword with its 25% chance of instant death, and lilicor which is the earliest available +3 weapon with mental protection. there's +5-6 weapons for everything in tob
How the heck did I forget Lilarcor? That sword always managed to be sharp and edgy. I'll see myself out.
There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life, that cannot be improved with pizza.
At the moment I'm just using longbows, because BG1.
There's the old standard of the Zerth blade for the extra spellslots. I remember very few of the end game/TOB weapons other than Crom and FoA (that aren't locked to specific classes).
But I usually end up using 2 weapons and it might be nice to go 2h or shield for once.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
carsomyr of course, which is locked to paladins and thieves
there's also the silver sword with its 25% chance of instant death, and lilicor which is the earliest available +3 weapon with mental protection. there's +5-6 weapons for everything in tob
How the heck did I forget Lilarcor? That sword always managed to be sharp and edgy. I'll see myself out.
And then got wrecked, twice, by the house full of giant spiders which is god damn hard at level 1 because a single hit + the poison damage will kill anyone.
If you stage everyone outside (anyone with missile weapons or magic on the other side of the fence from the door, anyone with weapons standing on either side and in front of the gate entrance) and then send one person inside who pisses off the spiders and then immediately runs back to their position outside that fight becomes significantly more manageable. You can pretty much take them out one by one with no risk to your weaker party members.
On the one hand, ok, its mot much. On the other, now Beamdog wants money for something everyone could get for free since 1998.
What the hell?
Wait, so that's only available through Steam? Not Beamdog? Not GOG? That is very very odd. Also disappointing. I was actually thinking of getting it, but I do not have a Steam account.
There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life, that cannot be improved with pizza.
Yeah Tyranny has the same thing, though no doubt mandated by Paradox rather than Obsidian.
I figure it's a way of giving a little extra money to a game dev you really care about and otherwise easily ignored as meaningless content.
A LOT of games are like this now. X-Com 2 has paid customization options too, despite there being a ton of free customization mods.
The one real complain I have about this proliferation of DLC is that a lot of these DLCs are poorly described, especially on Steam, such that it's a pain in the ass to go through each DLC for a game and figure out which actually has shit in it that I want.
Well, thanks for WAY too much information Mr. Farmer!
Nashkel is a nice little pit stop before the mines but introducing Minsc, Edwin, and Rasaad all in the same general area is almost unfair. The odds of my team replacing Khalid have shot up drastically with us being introduced to the friendly monk and the MINSC. Edwin is an insufferable little **** so we aren't going to be getting him to join the party. Minsc has a time limit for the gnoll stronghold so I got the leader to hold off on recruiting him until after the mines. As things stand right this moment, it looks a lot like Khalid will wind up being replaced with the Monk after the mine business, and Montaron isn't likely to stay in the group long either, at this point. His attitude is finally starting to grate on nerves. Pretty sure he'll be replaced by Dorn but I'm holding off on the reminder that that's going to mean nobody in the group can open locks or do trap work. So who knows? This might turn out okay. Probably not though.
There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life, that cannot be improved with pizza.
If you get rid of Khalid won't you lose Jahera as well?
This was always the problem with Minsc, you have to lug Dynaheir around as well.
Not if they're dead when you boot them.
Tri-Optimum reminds you that there are only one-hundred-sixty-three shopping days until Christmas. Just 1 extra work cycle twice a week will give you the spending money you need to make this holiday a very special one.
carsomyr of course, which is locked to paladins and thieves
there's also the silver sword with its 25% chance of instant death, and lilicor which is the earliest available +3 weapon with mental protection. there's +5-6 weapons for everything in tob
How the heck did I forget Lilarcor? That sword always managed to be sharp and edgy. I'll see myself out.
you're such an ass
That's true, but he is highly edumacated
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
If you get rid of Khalid won't you lose Jahera as well?
This was always the problem with Minsc, you have to lug Dynaheir around as well.
Not if they're dead when you boot them.
you can also take them into a non-party-required room that loads separately (i.e., the Nashkell general store, most other small buildings), then have the rest of your party leave, then remove them
they won't be able to initiate the conversation with your party leader that takes away minsc or whoever
If you get rid of Khalid won't you lose Jahera as well?
This was always the problem with Minsc, you have to lug Dynaheir around as well.
Not if they're dead when you boot them.
you can also take them into a non-party-required room that loads separately (i.e., the Nashkell general store, most other small buildings), then have the rest of your party leave, then remove them
they won't be able to initiate the conversation with your party leader that takes away minsc or whoever
(also Dynaheir is fine)
Her problem is she's a specialist with a bad prohibited school right? Evocation or conjuration or something?
If you get rid of Khalid won't you lose Jahera as well?
This was always the problem with Minsc, you have to lug Dynaheir around as well.
Not if they're dead when you boot them.
you can also take them into a non-party-required room that loads separately (i.e., the Nashkell general store, most other small buildings), then have the rest of your party leave, then remove them
they won't be able to initiate the conversation with your party leader that takes away minsc or whoever
(also Dynaheir is fine)
Her problem is she's a specialist with a bad prohibited school right? Evocation or conjuration or something?
the opposite
she's an invoker, so she can't use enchantment spells, which means all the charms, confusion, hold person, etc.
and in bg1 that's probably the best stuff but she can do work with direct damage
I'm in the Candlekeep catacombs in my playthrough, I think I'll make it to the end, albeit slowly. I've got to get out and do at least some of the expansion content though, as well as Rasaad and Neera's bits.
If you get rid of Khalid won't you lose Jahera as well?
This was always the problem with Minsc, you have to lug Dynaheir around as well.
Not if they're dead when you boot them.
you can also take them into a non-party-required room that loads separately (i.e., the Nashkell general store, most other small buildings), then have the rest of your party leave, then remove them
they won't be able to initiate the conversation with your party leader that takes away minsc or whoever
(also Dynaheir is fine)
Her problem is she's a specialist with a bad prohibited school right? Evocation or conjuration or something?
the opposite
she's an invoker, so she can't use enchantment spells, which means all the charms, confusion, hold person, etc.
and in bg1 that's probably the best stuff but she can do work with direct damage
Whereas people shit on Xan for not being able to cast Evocation spells. It just means he's summoning monsters and holding/charming/sleeping everything instead for your party to instagib.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
I'm not sure how exactly the Wild Surge Table works but Neera's unique spell is theoretically the most overpowered part of the game. With Evermemory still sitting in the trees outside the Friendly Arms, that's double the amount of ANY SPELL that she can cast. Including the Level 7 spell she shouldn't be able to cast until Shadows of Amn at the earliest. The downside being at low levels the spell is effectively a Wild Surge Generator with lots of bad things happening to good peopledecent people standing anywhere nearby. When you're level one and Neera casts Fireball instead of Sleep in the middle of the party, things get bad in a hurry.
There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life, that cannot be improved with pizza.
I know that in SOA they adjust the amount of monsters in each location to the party's level, but can anyone confirm if that is the case in Original as well? My group just finished up the Nashkel Mines earlier today and we only ran into 3 or 4 kobold commandos, tops.
Compared to how I remember the Nashkel Mines from my earlier playthroughs being full of fiery arrow'y death, this runthrough seems to have come out almost obscenely tame by comparison. I'm not sure if that is because of difficulty, complete lack of level grinding, multiple PCs or what but the difference between swarms of kobolds and swarms of kobold commandos is night and day for difficulty. Even if the PCs would be higher level for the commandos.
Khalid only had his morale break once! Once!
There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life, that cannot be improved with pizza.
I just finished the mines as well. The game in general seems easier than I remember, though I do have 3 people with large shields, some plate mail and bracers of dexterity for Minsc so most of my group are 0 or less AC for missile attacks.
There's a lot of stuff more annoying than I remember. Party members just staying where they are when dismissed is dumb. I've lost Kivan forever because I recruited him immediately but he leaves if you don't complete his quest and that isn't even available until chapter 4. A lot of the voice clips are really irritating as well, thankfully you can turn them off now.
I've kicked out Khalid and Jaheira, I'm now using Imoen, Minsc, Dynaheir, Ajantus and Rassad. I'll replace Imoen with Coran when I meet him and at some point replace M+D to make room for the newer characters. Rassad probably won't last long though because low level monks are pretty bad.
For kobold commandos, you may be thinking of firewine bridge instead? I remember that having a lot of fire ammo spam.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
There's a lot of stuff more annoying than I remember. Party members just staying where they are when dismissed is dumb. I've lost Kivan forever because I recruited him immediately but he leaves if you don't complete his quest and that isn't even available until chapter 4.
There are a lot of NPC mods to fix that. BGTweaks does, at least.
As for scaling, there is encounter scaling in BG, but I don't know if it's active in the Nashkel Mines. It's used mostly in random encounters.
Edit: Using NearInfinity on an unmodded BGEE, I see only 2 Kobold Commandos in the Nashkel Mines. It's possible that more might be spawned via scripts, but none of the Nashkel Mines areas have BCS scripts attached (one does, but it's just a chapter-change script) that could do so, so they'd have to be scripted in some other weird way.
I can't really figure out how many there were in the original BG, but various walkthroughs from those days hint at there being a plethora.
I just finished the mines as well. The game in general seems easier than I remember, though I do have 3 people with large shields, some plate mail and bracers of dexterity for Minsc so most of my group are 0 or less AC for missile attacks.
There's a lot of stuff more annoying than I remember. Party members just staying where they are when dismissed is dumb. I've lost Kivan forever because I recruited him immediately but he leaves if you don't complete his quest and that isn't even available until chapter 4. A lot of the voice clips are really irritating as well, thankfully you can turn them off now.
I've kicked out Khalid and Jaheira, I'm now using Imoen, Minsc, Dynaheir, Ajantus and Rassad. I'll replace Imoen with Coran when I meet him and at some point replace M+D to make room for the newer characters. Rassad probably won't last long though because low level monks are pretty bad.
For kobold commandos, you may be thinking of firewine bridge instead? I remember that having a lot of fire ammo spam.
Rassad's quest provides a glove set that increases his chance to hit but absolutely the monks at low levels are underpowered. They turn into yet another class to stand back and do ranged attacks with.
I think you're right that I might be misremembering where the most kobold commandos are and were. I know Firewine has a lot of them, I just thought the mines had quite a few as well. If the game actually is that much easier, all the better. Easier to drag new players through and into the game. Then hit them with the dragon fights later on.
There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life, that cannot be improved with pizza.
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KakodaimonosCode fondlerHelping the 1% get richerRegistered Userregular
Got down to Beregost. Forgot how weird it is, having 4 inns within 30m of each other.
Trying out this Neera addition, not keen on her writing so far it's very...trying to be cutsey quirky and only succeeding at eye rolling. But it's a mage that doesn't suck and isn't Edwin.
And then got wrecked, twice, by the house full of giant spiders which is god damn hard at level 1 because a single hit + the poison damage will kill anyone.
Yeah. I wasn't impressed with the Neera addition, but at least it was better that Saerileth.
I know that in SOA they adjust the amount of monsters in each location to the party's level, but can anyone confirm if that is the case in Original as well? My group just finished up the Nashkel Mines earlier today and we only ran into 3 or 4 kobold commandos, tops.
Compared to how I remember the Nashkel Mines from my earlier playthroughs being full of fiery arrow'y death, this runthrough seems to have come out almost obscenely tame by comparison. I'm not sure if that is because of difficulty, complete lack of level grinding, multiple PCs or what but the difference between swarms of kobolds and swarms of kobold commandos is night and day for difficulty. Even if the PCs would be higher level for the commandos.
Khalid only had his morale break once! Once!
Let me tell you about the time Davaeorn had a squad of Battle Horrors hanging out next to him.
There is definitely scaling in BGO.
I know that in SOA they adjust the amount of monsters in each location to the party's level, but can anyone confirm if that is the case in Original as well? My group just finished up the Nashkel Mines earlier today and we only ran into 3 or 4 kobold commandos, tops.
Compared to how I remember the Nashkel Mines from my earlier playthroughs being full of fiery arrow'y death, this runthrough seems to have come out almost obscenely tame by comparison. I'm not sure if that is because of difficulty, complete lack of level grinding, multiple PCs or what but the difference between swarms of kobolds and swarms of kobold commandos is night and day for difficulty. Even if the PCs would be higher level for the commandos.
Khalid only had his morale break once! Once!
Did you happen to run any mods in your earlier playthroughs? Even basic fixes/tweaks and such? One of the most commonly-run components of the Tweak Pack for BG1 is a Nashkel Mines kobold mod, which adds a metric shitload of kobolds to each encounter, so you're fighting like 15-20 in each group, with multiple commandos in each. If you happened to go from that to a vanilla run, it'd be a stark difference.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Pretty sure the only "mod" I ran in original baldurs gate was me using gatekeeper to try to get good stats without clicking reroll for several days straight.
Of course then I got to shadows of amn and found the glory that is the pocket planes modlist.
It was all downhill from there.
I never did bother with increased difficulty mods though, since I was never that good at the game to begin with. I brute forced almost every problem, when finesse would have worked with half the effort. It's one of the reasons I'm happy just playing support even if it is with a player who has no idea wtf they're doing. Forcing me to actually problem solve rather than endless save scumming. Well, that and I can't wait for SOA and all the twists and turns that take place.
There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life, that cannot be improved with pizza.
Legit one of the biggest things I like about the Enhanced Editions of BG over the originals is that you get to see the total point value for your stat rolls at the bottom of your stat spread. So much easier than having to do the mental math of "okay do I have enough points now... nope, reroll."
Of course it's all better than in unmodded Wizardry 6 where it took me literal hours just to roll enough stats for a character to start in the class I wanted, never mind actually have good stats on top of it.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
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Seems to be the case where if you start bard song, it lasts through the end of the next round. So, you can sing one round, then next round attack, and keep the buff up? Not really worth it for the most part outside the Skald song. From what I remember of item descriptions it gets a lot more user friendly in Dragonspear with the Bard Hat because it makes the song last an extra 2 rounds. Until that point there won't be much singing going on.
If it makes you feel any better, Deadfire is a full sequel, not an expansion!
Tyranny's getting an expansion though. Or a paid DLC. Unclear which.
I always thought they were also playing an instrument, on account of the icon. Can you shoot a crossbow while playing a guitar?
Trying out this Neera addition, not keen on her writing so far it's very...trying to be cutsey quirky and only succeeding at eye rolling. But it's a mage that doesn't suck and isn't Edwin.
And then got wrecked, twice, by the house full of giant spiders which is god damn hard at level 1 because a single hit + the poison damage will kill anyone.
Picked up a scroll of sleep from a random drop thank ****ing **** so when we fought the Flaming Fist mercenary group south of town it was almost hilariously easy compared to some of the earlier fights. Khalid Montaron and Jaheira are all decked out in Plate Mail now which should hopefully increase group survival from here. We still haven't cleared the House Of No, as its officially marked on the map now, since nobody has access to any spells or abilities yet which would remove poison, so we'll deal with the spider shack on our way back up north I guess. Only on day 4 though and we're almost to Nashkel. Jaheira and I are the only ones who are level 2, Khalid forced a reload by starting a party fight in Beregost, Neera has managed to switch genders and destroy 1k of the group's gold she's not allowed to use the wild mage special level 1 spell anymore, oh and right before the end of the night, Khalid and Montaron both managed to break their weapons on a single pack of hobgoblins. Tomorrow hopefully we'll reach Nashkel! The Circus and the Mines are calling to me and I'm hoping desperately that we won't die too much to the Kobold commandos.
Some of the two handed swords are really nice. Spider's Bane from the Cloakwood Forest, Dragon Blade and the Sword of Ruin from Dragonspear ... heck if I can remember the good two handers from SOA onwards though. Two Handed Style only really benefits from the first pip in, the second one only benefiting you in weapon speed, so that should save you on proficiency slots at least.
there's also the silver sword with its 25% chance of instant death, and lilicor which is the earliest available +3 weapon with mental protection. there's +5-6 weapons for everything in tob
How the heck did I forget Lilarcor? That sword always managed to be sharp and edgy.
I'll see myself out.
There's the old standard of the Zerth blade for the extra spellslots. I remember very few of the end game/TOB weapons other than Crom and FoA (that aren't locked to specific classes).
But I usually end up using 2 weapons and it might be nice to go 2h or shield for once.
you're such an ass
If you stage everyone outside (anyone with missile weapons or magic on the other side of the fence from the door, anyone with weapons standing on either side and in front of the gate entrance) and then send one person inside who pisses off the spiders and then immediately runs back to their position outside that fight becomes significantly more manageable. You can pretty much take them out one by one with no risk to your weaker party members.
It's a portrait pack.
It has 6 portraits. For 2 $.
On the one hand, ok, its mot much. On the other, now Beamdog wants money for something everyone could get for free since 1998.
What the hell?
I figure it's a way of giving a little extra money to a game dev you really care about and otherwise easily ignored as meaningless content.
A LOT of games are like this now. X-Com 2 has paid customization options too, despite there being a ton of free customization mods.
The one real complain I have about this proliferation of DLC is that a lot of these DLCs are poorly described, especially on Steam, such that it's a pain in the ass to go through each DLC for a game and figure out which actually has shit in it that I want.
Nashkel is a nice little pit stop before the mines but introducing Minsc, Edwin, and Rasaad all in the same general area is almost unfair. The odds of my team replacing Khalid have shot up drastically with us being introduced to the friendly monk and the MINSC. Edwin is an insufferable little **** so we aren't going to be getting him to join the party. Minsc has a time limit for the gnoll stronghold so I got the leader to hold off on recruiting him until after the mines. As things stand right this moment, it looks a lot like Khalid will wind up being replaced with the Monk after the mine business, and Montaron isn't likely to stay in the group long either, at this point. His attitude is finally starting to grate on nerves. Pretty sure he'll be replaced by Dorn but I'm holding off on the reminder that that's going to mean nobody in the group can open locks or do trap work. So who knows? This might turn out okay. Probably not though.
This was always the problem with Minsc, you have to lug Dynaheir around as well.
Not if they're dead when you boot them.
That's true, but he is highly edumacated
you can also take them into a non-party-required room that loads separately (i.e., the Nashkell general store, most other small buildings), then have the rest of your party leave, then remove them
they won't be able to initiate the conversation with your party leader that takes away minsc or whoever
(also Dynaheir is fine)
Her problem is she's a specialist with a bad prohibited school right? Evocation or conjuration or something?
the opposite
she's an invoker, so she can't use enchantment spells, which means all the charms, confusion, hold person, etc.
and in bg1 that's probably the best stuff but she can do work with direct damage
Whereas people shit on Xan for not being able to cast Evocation spells. It just means he's summoning monsters and holding/charming/sleeping everything instead for your party to instagib.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Compared to how I remember the Nashkel Mines from my earlier playthroughs being full of fiery arrow'y death, this runthrough seems to have come out almost obscenely tame by comparison. I'm not sure if that is because of difficulty, complete lack of level grinding, multiple PCs or what but the difference between swarms of kobolds and swarms of kobold commandos is night and day for difficulty. Even if the PCs would be higher level for the commandos.
Khalid only had his morale break once! Once!
There's a lot of stuff more annoying than I remember. Party members just staying where they are when dismissed is dumb. I've lost Kivan forever because I recruited him immediately but he leaves if you don't complete his quest and that isn't even available until chapter 4. A lot of the voice clips are really irritating as well, thankfully you can turn them off now.
I've kicked out Khalid and Jaheira, I'm now using Imoen, Minsc, Dynaheir, Ajantus and Rassad. I'll replace Imoen with Coran when I meet him and at some point replace M+D to make room for the newer characters. Rassad probably won't last long though because low level monks are pretty bad.
For kobold commandos, you may be thinking of firewine bridge instead? I remember that having a lot of fire ammo spam.
There are a lot of NPC mods to fix that. BGTweaks does, at least.
As for scaling, there is encounter scaling in BG, but I don't know if it's active in the Nashkel Mines. It's used mostly in random encounters.
Edit: Using NearInfinity on an unmodded BGEE, I see only 2 Kobold Commandos in the Nashkel Mines. It's possible that more might be spawned via scripts, but none of the Nashkel Mines areas have BCS scripts attached (one does, but it's just a chapter-change script) that could do so, so they'd have to be scripted in some other weird way.
I can't really figure out how many there were in the original BG, but various walkthroughs from those days hint at there being a plethora.
Rassad's quest provides a glove set that increases his chance to hit but absolutely the monks at low levels are underpowered. They turn into yet another class to stand back and do ranged attacks with.
I think you're right that I might be misremembering where the most kobold commandos are and were. I know Firewine has a lot of them, I just thought the mines had quite a few as well. If the game actually is that much easier, all the better. Easier to drag new players through and into the game. Then hit them with the dragon fights later on.
Yeah. I wasn't impressed with the Neera addition, but at least it was better that Saerileth.
Let me tell you about the time Davaeorn had a squad of Battle Horrors hanging out next to him.
There is definitely scaling in BGO.
Did you happen to run any mods in your earlier playthroughs? Even basic fixes/tweaks and such? One of the most commonly-run components of the Tweak Pack for BG1 is a Nashkel Mines kobold mod, which adds a metric shitload of kobolds to each encounter, so you're fighting like 15-20 in each group, with multiple commandos in each. If you happened to go from that to a vanilla run, it'd be a stark difference.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Of course then I got to shadows of amn and found the glory that is the pocket planes modlist.
It was all downhill from there.
I never did bother with increased difficulty mods though, since I was never that good at the game to begin with. I brute forced almost every problem, when finesse would have worked with half the effort. It's one of the reasons I'm happy just playing support even if it is with a player who has no idea wtf they're doing. Forcing me to actually problem solve rather than endless save scumming. Well, that and I can't wait for SOA and all the twists and turns that take place.
Of course it's all better than in unmodded Wizardry 6 where it took me literal hours just to roll enough stats for a character to start in the class I wanted, never mind actually have good stats on top of it.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)