Blovski

Um, the summoning items are all extremely powerful gadgets (obviously). You save a *lot* of money by only equipping one character and not spending a couple of thousand on getting custom NPCs at the start and by being able to sell everything but the kitchen sink. Don't see how this screws over solo play.

Can't disagree. Unlike the classic IE games the defensive wizard spells aren't overpowered and weird enough to break the game by being applied to allies and I think there's a good argument to be made that things like Endure Elements are just not worthwhile picks atm because a wizard isn't ever going to use that cold resist on themselves.

Yeah, also, with soloing the game at 50% more XP now. That'd be a *lot* of development if you want to cater to absolutely everyone. I sort of agree you hit the cap a little early but I understand why you need limits both from a reasonable use of development time and a credible endgame challenge thing.

^ Also worth noting that BG 1 may have had 25 companions but really who ever used Quayle, Tiax, Elona (the halfling thief, is that her name?) or Skye. A lot of them came so late in the game that it was completely impractical to use them. Hell, even the Cloakwood ones (mad druid lady, Eldoth, Coran) would come when you already had a full party. I think Garrick had such abysmal stats that noone in their right mind would take him. Lots of the other ones were redundant (I mean, really, two good and two neutral pure thieves...). In short, it's nice to have the variety but the old I.E. games' lack of a stronghold type feature (Throne of Bhaal was the first game I can think of that really had this) to leave and pick up companions resulted in much less of the variety being a reasonable choice.

As a full party on hard the camping limit is my favourite balance thing about going up difficulty. I can see it'd be a pain if you're taking a caster on solo.

Icewindale 1's plot has some really compelling bits imo. Probably not as deep as Baldur's Gate in terms of how it interacts with the characters and the setting but still pretty solid. IWD 2 had its problems but there's at least one absolutely amazing bit.

Beat it at level 2-3ish (couple of custom companions lagging behind) with a full party. Shades made for tough fights. I had a couple of potions of endure elements, priest blessings, a scroll of fan of flames that proved instrumental.

Well the article I've never written about BG 2 is that all of the companions, and especially the ones you take from the first game, are traumatised in some way or other. Even the comedy relief gnome has a subplot which is equal parts deliberately obtuse ridiculous fetch quest and dealing with domestic violence. The gradient of darkness from BG -> TOTSC (especially Durlag's Tower) -> BG 2 results in a completely different tone, even with the same archetypes. It really is the textbook example of how to make a faithful sequel that nonetheless differentiates itself from the first game.

I took a Barbarian (and loved it; they may not be your tanks-in-chief but christ alive can they kill a lot of mooks quickly - add armour with retaliation and late-game fodder basically just dies as you walk through it), Eder, Sagani, Pellagina, Hyrcanias and Durance on my first playthrough (I switched it up with Grieving Mother, Kana and Aloth as well). Didn't have tons of problems, though I'm definitely feeling the benefit playing with custom characters on hard for my second shot. Personally I reckon two tanks is definitely enough if one of them's a fighter. I was largely working with my barb and Eder tanking and Pellagina and Sagani's fox companion as the backups if enemies slipped past.

'Developer Obsidian might be better known nowadays for South Park: The Stick Of Truth'... I've never felt like that's Obsidian's best-known modern title.

Pfff try it when you've dualled Yoshimo to a fighter with 4x backstab. Sad times. I think in terms of thieves BG II is arguably making up for the first Baldur's Gate, where you have no less than FOUR straight thieves (with a *lot* of skill overlap and two of which come so late in the game as to never logically get taken), none of which are evil. Tis worth mentioning that the thing I miss most in PoE, aside from you know.. some better and more class abilities, is that we can't dual class and that elves/dwarfs etc don't get specific multi-class (with no penalties) options. This cuts down your party composition options severely imo. Yoshimo was absolutely awesome as fighter/thief dual class and Imoen wasn't so bad either as Thief/Mage, since INT did get you massive stat boosts for Thief skills and was nice to have on a Mage anyway. And in DnD you could boost thief skills via spells. Which meant you had more option to get past a trap. In PoE though the writing imo put itself in a dead-end when it comes to Rogues. Class wise the class is ok I guess, backstab is neat does good dmg and when the Thief damage skill isn't entirely broken anymore maybe the class is even useful, but lore wise it makes no sense to even have a dedicated Rogue as an option. Seems to me that is only "in" because Obsidian figured that they can't break the Fighter/Mage/Rogue system from DnD without getting some ire from fans. Imo better to have a "Rogue" (ie, mechanics and sneak) on a Druid. Makes lore wise even less sense, but at least you get a Rogue that can make some serious difference in battle. This wishy washy approach to Rogues and the entire stealth mechanic is also plainly visible in the game. There are no rooms that fully 100% trapped in such a way as to literally stop your progress (Irenicus Dungeon in BG2 had more traps than PoE has in the entire game). And let's not even begin to mention that traps in PoE are completely inconsequential.. yeah they can kill one of your dudes or gals, but in BG2 a trap could imprison you, curse you and level drain you, and reversing THAT was not done via resting ;p in BG2 trap finding and disarming was a major part of the game, if you ran through certain traps with your tank your tank would find itself a km under the earth, quite literally (tis was Imprison does ,p) or as a stone stature, pretty to look at but not very useful to draw aggro ;p In PoE though, these states do not literally not exist. So traps are.. not really scary. Even in Expert mode, my solution to traps was to just use a level 1 adventurer.. yes I am evil. ^^ Dual classes were very nice but I see why they wouldn't fit into PoE's systems. Dualled Avenger druid/Fighter was delightful. Having played BGs 1+2 with no thieves (and also solo'd it with a swashbuckler), I'm really glad they haven't got any Tower of Durlag places that just kill you without a thief and I always felt like the AD&D games put you in a very awkward position where thieves were a necessity rather than useful (hence, Imoen and Nalia are so popular because they can thief *just* enough to meet your requirements rather than having interesting skills like dispel illusion and stealth for backstabs). It was interesting having workarounds with resistance/scrolls if you knew what the trap would be. I kind of think the traps and endurance system combined leave you just facetanking traps you can't disarm with your stupidly high con character of choice. I do think there's room for a good Rogue NPC in the world.

House Doemenal as well, I believe.

1. Kinda agree on openness, though with BG 2 it's more the ingenious having Spellhold + Underdark as a cutaway that's made it so replayable for me. There are more companions than Planescape had and though that game's not *as* replayable as BG 2, I think it holds up. 2. Yeah, a bit, but not a game-ruiner for me. 3. I think it's better than the first Baldur's Gate was on release and I think it benefits from the accumulated ideas of a load of other RPGs (bits of interface and ideas from, say, KOTOR 1 & 2, Lionheart, Jade Empire, Planescape etc etc) since BG 2 to make it a strong game in its own right rather than just a BG 2 clone. For me personally BG 2 might be the most mechanically perfect game I have but I'm really delighted that this one is as good as it is. I'm interested to see what a modern approach to patching will do for it.

No. 1: The thing this game escapes is the Fallout 1/2 (and it's probably the same in Lionheart) trap where picking bad stats would not only make you ineffective but also lock you out of all the good perks. This was a terrible system. It also avoids the AD&D problem (PS:T, BG games, IWD 1) where all of the emphasis was on high-end attributes being absurdly and clearly better than an interesting spread. No. 2: stealth gives you extra loot and stuff at least. I quite like it. Reminds me of the Lionheart system. No. 3: Hence, having a diverse party. My tanks generally have almost no problem holding up a frontline and I'm playing with the companion NPCs so much less specced for it. Cf. BG 1 or summat where your Wizard would be royally buggered and resting every two minutes until he reached all the high-level defensive spells and then he'd be practically immortal. No. 4: ugh. Ugh. Turn-based and RTWP have very, very different applications and feels. For instance, turn based works for Fallout because in a post-apocalyptic world you don't really want the player to have the same sense of empowerment and confidence that you do in a fantasy RPG. Similarly with the new X-COM. This is exactly why I think it's a terrible idea for Planescape 2. Is an ageless immortal really going to fight some generic civilians in neat little agonising turns, taking tons of time just because that's the game system that was chosen. No. 5: The spell system would tack on more nicely to slightly longer fights. Instant spell times seems silly. Allowing some pre-fight buffs with potions, spells and scrolls would help a lot imo. No need to have buffs on every encounter on a map - I mean, really, what's the point of a vancian casting system if you're going to undermine it that much and what's the point of having the rest mechanic if you can just buff once every area.

I've been hugely enjoying my Barbarian. Can't wait to try more classes properly.

Eh, it comes in a tad early but it's nowhere near as bad as the first Baldur's Gate was in terms of that. Kinda petulant to act like this is some decision against completionists rather than the same awkward compromise between endgame challenge (for instance, soloing SoA or Tutu with a TOB level cap was just too easy), development time, leaving room for expansion and so on that it's always been.

Pfff try it when you've dualled Yoshimo to a fighter with 4x backstab. Sad times. I think in terms of thieves BG II is arguably making up for the first Baldur's Gate, where you have no less than FOUR straight thieves (with a *lot* of skill overlap and two of which come so late in the game as to never logically get taken), none of which are evil.