Baldur's Gate Series

ToB isnt anything spectacular (far from it imho), but if you enjoyed BG2, you will probably enjoy ToB aswell.

I prefer BG1 over BG2 anyway, and by quite a margin tbh.
Though, i prefer FO1 over FO2 in the same way, so i guess its a matter of taste.
 
Well, I'm going for it. I never realized there were so many children of Bhaal until I started ToB. It seems like every other NPC I meet is one.

Seems to be a lot more difficult too. I had to actually fight Irenicus right after several waves of Drow at the very beginning.
 
Batcha said:
ToB isnt anything spectacular (far from it imho), but if you enjoyed BG2, you will probably enjoy ToB aswell.

I prefer BG1 over BG2 anyway, and by quite a margin tbh.
Though, i prefer FO1 over FO2 in the same way, so i guess its a matter of taste.

as with all rpg stories that are driven too far, ToB ends up way too much hack'n'slash and combat oriented. I never even finished it to be honest. I too prefer BG1, because of the graphics, simplicity, exploration and of course nostalgia.
 
aenemic said:
ToB ends up way too much hack'n'slash and combat oriented.

Exactly.
I didnt get a kick out of the combat tbh. I started ToB after my 2nd BG2 playthrough and at that point decided to import my BG1 characters with all the stats maxed out at 25 lol, and play in multiplayer mode with my own gang of melee oriented bullies.
It was so easy that I went through ToB like a breeze. ^^

And yes, nice to see a fellow BG1 fan. :)
 
Well, most high-level RPGs tend to end up really h'n's. Kind of lame actually. But ToB was short and easy enough to sit through just to see the ending. Although honestly the quality of dungeons and battles has got nothing on IWD.
 
ToB is ok. It's mostly uninteresting but I want to finish it since I started it.

It's also not been too hard until now. I've been wiping the floor with everyone until I met this dude named Draconis. I've spent hours trying to kill that prick and nothing works. His human form is a joke but when he turns into a dragon, he goes freaking insane. I'm completely stuck now and like it less and less.
 
What's your party ? With few decent fighters and whirlwind/mass improved haste his dragon form should fall pretty quickly (with a mage providing Breaches (after pierce shielding his spelltrap) from behind). True sight is a must. If you have fighter/thief build and a spare time stop scroll it should be even easier, as far as I remember he is not immuine to this combo
 
If this guy's kicking your ass then I wonder how will you fare against the Ravager. :D

Funny though, I've played TOB unpatched first, and I had a bug with this guy where after turning into his dragon form, the game would not quit the cutscene mode.

And think well before going to this dragon. If your party's underpowered and not able to handle him, set up a good tactic, and use some cheese if you like ;)
 
Xellos said:
What's your party ? With few decent fighters and whirlwind/mass improved haste his dragon form should fall pretty quickly (with a mage providing Breaches (after pierce shielding his spelltrap) from behind). True sight is a must. If you have fighter/thief build and a spare time stop scroll it should be even easier, as far as I remember he is not immuine to this combo

I have Minsc, Jaheira, Sarevok, Aerie, and Imoen. It's probably not the best party but I had absolutely no problems with ToB until this point. Most of my party is immune to things that are supposed to give me trouble here (mind control, level drain, normal weapons, etc.)

Draconis doesn't even do damage to me in his human form, his weapon is ineffective against my tanks for some reason. When he turns into a dragon though he throws my guys all around the place. My mages don't have enough time to cast anything as he quickly knocks away my fighters and then turns around and blasts them away.

I cast true seeing as soon as he turns so he can't escape me but I fail to do any damage to the prick. He casts protective spells faster than I can breach and attack him. Someone recommended casting feeblemind but it doesn't seem to do anything at all.

I'll probably get him eventually but this is definitely the hardest fight I've had yet, mainly because he doesn't follow the same rules as my party.
 
Keep dispelling his protections, he'll eventually run out of spells. If your fighters get blown away, target him again and keep the pressure. Or if you're feeling cheesy, send some summons/projections to make him waste his ability, and then charge!

Be patient, fall back, heal and revive any fallen companions, and charge again. He'll fall eventually.

And as Xellos said, use the fighter special abilities like whirlwind, they'll eat up the stoneskin in no time.
 
Prepare chain contingency with 3 ruby rays or 2 ruby/1 breach shield on Imoen/Aerie with enemy in sight trigger, keep her out of combat until he changes into dragon. Then unload this chain into him. It would probably blow out his antimagic protection. Then normal breach from 1 mage from time to time for stoneskin removal should do the trick.
 
That was maybe the toughest guy in ToB..
Maybe cheesing with summons can help out not to soak the damage with your characters.

There was this really nice sword called Carsomyr, and it had a special ability to dispel when it hits.. I dont recall if it worked against that dragon, but i think theres a good chance it did. So each time you hit him, he looses his protections and stuff..
You need a paladin to equip it but the sword is so damn good that its worth it.. you can even upgrade it to +6.

Btw versatile party with druids, thieves, bards is the most fun to play.
But if youre going for power builds,from my experience nothing beats brute force for boss fights, not even casters.

I had a paladin, kensai, berserker, fighter and sarevok.. had one support character but cant remember who.

The party was like... hacks, wacks, choppin' that meat :lol:
 
Well, the bastard is finally dead. I beat him into the dragon form and immediately sent a bunch of summons forward. While they were distracting him, I retreated fully and then sent invisible Aerie in with cloudkill and pierce magic. For whatever reason, he noticed her even before she started casting but I was able to do it anyway and then lead him back to my group. I then sent everyone toward him and had Aerie cast a couple of Breaches. After that he fell surprisingly fast. I did lose Imoen in the fight but whatever, I'll take it.

Well, finished ToB. Draconis was probably the most difficult fight. Ravager didn't even require any spells, I just beat the crap out of him. The final boss battle was longer but pretty easy as well.

I don't think I'll be replaying this any time soon, if ever but it is a decent game.
 
Baldur's Gate? More like Baldur's GREAT!

Just hearing about the game made me want to try it. The critical acclaim made me certain I would like it. But long ago when the game was new I was busy with other games and whenever they would re-release it I always forgot to look for it.

Last December I finally ordered the BG 1+2 w/ expansions set for $20. I started playing BG 1 about a month and a half ago.

I'm sorry If I go crazy here, but...

This is easily one of the ten best games I've ever played. In fact I'm having trouble comparing it to Fallout...it might be equal to it in my eyes. I still have to replay it (since a large part of RPG fun is in subsequent and different play-throughs), but I already know there are a multitude of different characters and decent story path options.

I could rave for hours about what I love about Baldur's Gate, but instead I'll have to make a game comparison so as to represent things simply.

-It's got less choice and consequences than Fallout, but the world is huger by a large proportion.
-The number of characters is immense and they interact with one another as well.
-Setting isn't as unique as Fallout, but is just as well-worked on.
-Much more tactical than Fallout was I'm sorry to say.
-The only (one and only) game to go last between 50-100 hours for one play-through that didn't have any needed grinding whether it be for experience, money, or rare items. In fact I reached the experience cap around 9/10 the way through the game and not once did I ever do anything repetitive. To think I'm used to doing stuff like that occasionally in good RPGs and here I don't need to at all.

I'm serious I never thought I'd play something like this in this age. I'm practically in Heaven right now.

Now I do face a serious dilemma. Do I immediately go on and play BG 2 with my imported BG 1 character or take a break? Sure I'm extremely excited since I hear BG 1 is about equal to BG 2 just somewhat different and continuing a sequel with the same character is ball-bustingly awesome. However If it is equal I'll end up playing two "top ten RPGs EVAR" back to back and I could end up raising my gaming standards so much that everything will be weak in comparison including the "great" new RPGs I plan to play soon like DA, STALKER, and The Witcher all of which I haven't touched.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller

P.S.

I completed BG 1 and TotSC without a mage in the party. Since I was neutral good and a cleric I didn't just make righteous decisions most of the time, but all of the time. I role-played that doing something wicked would make my character lose his divine magic (since it's granted by God) and hence couldn't do anything evil. Problem was I had to have good party members to fulfill this. There are only two good mages in the game. One was a mage/cleric and I already had two clerics (my character and Branwen) so I turned him down. The other (the one found in the gnoll stronghold) I didn't find until I was in the next to last chapter of the game and as excited as I was to finally have such an important class of character I couldn't bare to get rid of any of my party whom I had kept in their entirety for almost the whole game.

Me, Imoen, Jahiera, Kalid, Branwen, and Kivan.

*EDIT*

Also since my character grew up in a "library" and his life was devoted to study and (being a cleric) religion I tried to role-play that his isolation and heavy book learning left him very naive about the outside world. Made for some fun dialogue in terms of choosing the stupid option even though my character didn't have low intelligence.
 
BG1 was definitely better than BG2 in my book - but I'm in the minority. Most people would tell you that BG2 blows BG1 out of the water.

Unfortunately, BG2 is a lot more linear than the first, and they also removed one of the best features of BG1, IMO: you no longer get to roam and explore freely in the world map. You can only go to designated locations revealed by different quests... and they aren't very numerous locations, at that.

The plot was a tad too.. "whoa, epic!" to my tastes as well: Prepare to have your inner munchkin stroked.

Hell.. stroked? Fellated, really.
 
Black said:
Meh, they all suck.
But Per is mostly useless.
yeah but it has good gameplay. Lacks a bit of dialogues though. The Kharn is better here. But the graphics ... talking about outdated engines ...
 
coliphorbs said:
Unfortunately, BG2 is a lot more linear than the first, and they also removed one of the best features of BG1, IMO: you no longer get to roam and explore freely in the world map. You can only go to designated locations revealed by different quests... and they aren't very numerous locations, at that.

The plot was a tad too.. "whoa, epic!" to my tastes as well: Prepare to have your inner munchkin stroked.

:jawdrop:

They did that? Nowhere near as much free exploration...and an overabundance of "epicness"? That already sounds way different in two bad ways.



:| ,
The Vault Dweller
 
VD, have you met/beaten Drizzt on your playthrough ? And do not worry so much, there is less free roaming in BG2 but on the other hand locations are less empty than some forest locations with wolves etc in BG1. Also, if you want to play the whole saga with one char, BG TUTU is a very good mod, as it allows to play on improved BG2 engine and mechanics (and more races/classes) form the start of BG1. Plain importing to BG2 is just not that good :)
 
Everyone who thought BG1 was weak is wrong, because one of the best things in BG1 is the free-roaming world system, where you hop from location to location, discovering new ones. BG2 is different, it's more focused on the main locations and therefore might not be the best pick to some people. But character interaction skyrockets in BG2, so I think it definitely compensates that.

Also BG1 is much better with certain mods, like EasyTutu and Unfinished Business for BG1. I also recommend it for BG2, though maybe that one in the second playthrough. I also recommend BG TUTU as Xellos said, it unifies the whole saga.

The whole first meeting with the BG series blows your mind off, so take it easy and make the game last.
 
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