Oralaina

You seem to be misunderstanding. If what he is saying is true, then they don't SEEM to outright cheat--they ARE outright cheats. He's claiming they literally have more abilities, stat points, etc. than is actually possible to build. If that's true, then it's not a case of "making a challenging enemy". It's a case of breaking the ruleset to generate overpowered enemies as a cheap and lazy way of creating challenge. On the other hand, this isn't exactly unheard of in IE games. BG's enemy wizards and their five contingencies, NWN 2's beserker boss with Deathless Frenzy (which player barbarians don't get), etc. Huh. Yeah, I can see what you guys are saying. There ARE ways to avoid outright cheating--the easiest being, rename the buffs they're using so "no, no! they totally aren't the same ability! look, the name is different, and they stack with things that the other ability doesn't!" The other thing to note is, I don't think NPCs have the same six-stat array that player characters do. So stats being higher than usual may just be a result of "uh gee what's a good endurance value for this guy? maybe this? yeah this." Yah, there's a lot of dev tweaking in the boss stuff. The point is to make an encounter where the party is totally at a disadvantage - unless the party is run by someone who thinks out of the box. The devs really can't micromanage those out-of-the-box sorts of scenarios. That being the case, what they do with boss encounters is make them so OP that people get mashed, and then don't stop to think before they say "wow.... WAY OP boss.... what were they thinking???"

Are you using something special in the way of a mouse? Do you have a bunch of buttons mapped for some other game?

Eh, NPCs have always been able to "cheat" - from back in the D&D/AD&D tabletop era when I started roleplaying to now in MMOs. NPCs/bosses are not bound (and have never been bound) by the rules by which the PCs are required to play.

You're joking? Oblivion was magnitudes better in so many ways than Morrowind, not all of them graphically. Heresy! Really, though. Oblivion was a great game, but it greatly changed a number of game mechanics that had until that point been staples of TES franchise. They're both good games, but Morrowind is the far, far superior "Elder Scrolls" game - at least for those of us who grew up with Daggerfall. Well, that's true. But I for one DID "grow up with" TES games beginning with Arena. And by the time Oblivion came along, it was a breath of fresh air to me. It's a given though that gaming preferences are generally very specific to each person.

Oh please - do NOT apologize for your English. I talk to, and read posts by, Americans every day who could not possibly do as well as you did - since most of them a: can't spell; b: can't string two thoughts together and make sense; and c: never bothered to pay any attention in English classes throughout 20+ years of schooling. Very interesting post. I agree about the dragon music for sure! I agree with most of your other points - leaving the companions out of it. I've never been happy with "premades" in any game starting with BG. I started playing the SSI Gold Box games (first computer in 1984, first Gold Box game in 1985) and if you remember those, you made your own entire party, so they WERE "you" in a way. (Prior to CRPGs, I spent a lot of time with D&D/AD&D tabletop games - I GM'd so "playing" was rather foreign to me except from the perspective of deus ex machina for however many NPCs were necessary.) BG was a disappointment to me because I seemed, to begin with, to have to deal with premade NPCs. Hate to tell you, but Imoen was not then nor is she now nor will she EVER be a shining light of "favorite" in my book. After a bit of digging around, I discovered that I could use the "server" option, and make my own party, like I did with the Gold Box games. So BG 1 was a fun game after all, and I roleplayed all 6 girls in my mind the way I wanted them to be - which did not include the "child of a god" storyline. Right now in this game, I'm making my own party members (and thanks to the devs for providing that option) which is working out well for me. The major issue I have with all games these days is that I need to roleplay in my own mind the entire time I'm in a game - and how I play things out almost never has any relationship to the "story" the devs find it necessary to insist on. And that's a thing that leaves me thinking that the open world MMOs actually are a better fit in some ways - though there are issues with them as well. The game is fun. More fun that BG 2, or NWN (not the AoL one, obviously). I'm looking forward to the White March.

6, I think. Or maybe 4? It's 6. It's 4 on Hard.

Well, you could consider it an alternate spelling/pronunciation of Cadfan.... an honorable Welsh name in song and story, not to mention a saint.

I don't do vids because my bandwidth is so limited. Thanks for the link, but really can't use it. So far I'm okay with the game, but the forums *rolls eyes* - I've done better with generic google searches, which is downright silly. *sigh* No, it is NOT "just like every other forum". It's worse than most. Making a new thread for every newbie inquiry is - so '90s....

The problem is that all games are not always 100% suitered to fun.. Some have an artistic vision, a locked story arc or overall theme that may conflict with 'fun' gameplay. Like mask of betrayers spirit eater mechanism. Where the story and its branching and consequences are more important than 'fun'. Bethesda games are good examples of a company who's sole mission is fun. Obsidian is not... Now if that's not your kind of thing, cool no problem. But playing beyond the ending here or in bg 1 or 2 or throne of bhall, planescape, mask of betrayer and you know all the games Pillars is similar too is not done.. Because it conflicts with the primary function of the game - the story telling. *redacted* No reason.... yet.... to be so.... obnoxious.

I suppose.... by dvd patches, you do NOT mean physical media for those of us with limited download bandwidth..... right?

Some of us are VERY new to this game. In order to find information on the forum, we have to either dig through a bajillion posts (half or more of which don't pertain to the "early game" - that is, prior to White March) or depend on a search function that's.... ineffective.... at best. Could your website folks PLEASE separate the forum by "specialty"? That is (leaving the entire beta backer stuff out of it for obvious reasons) the main game (prior to the White March), the xpac/dlc (whatever y'all are calling it) White March, and "new" beta stuff for 2.0. The mishmash right now is MORE than annoying.

Can you do that? I'm really curious now. Yes, you can. I did so, and now my nitnoidy soul is very happy.

I'm not.... for one thing, I have to micromanage my downloads because my bandwidth is severely limited; and for another thing, I'm still trying out race/class combos to see what I like best (so far it looks like either an orlan or elf ranger). Maybe I'll wait until part 2 or something....

Oh dear. Well, I just left him alone both times - I never use spears, so didn't want it, and since I don't routinely kill things in games if they don't attack.... *shrug*. Okay, I guess it's no big deal - though I don't remember a skuldr before you get to the xaurip. Then again, my memory's not all it used to be! Thanks to both of you for the info; too bad there's no way to get rid of it out of the stash section though - I'm a neatnik. Oh, hmmm. I guess I could go back to Cilant Lis and give it to the xaurip now....

Hmm. Well, I wasn't fatigued at that point, and I've already finished the main quest (mostly - haven't actually gone to the final yet as I want to wait to get the xpac) - so I assume these are supposed to be part of the Watcher syndrome then? I didn't actually get much about these figures, though the main quest info does talk about visions and so on. Since one does have "soul visions" with fair frequency during the MQ parts of the story, I didn't consider these ghostly figures to be part of that. I actually thought they were a foreshadowing of something.... In any case, thank you very much for your reply. I'm thoroughly enjoying the game - just started a new playthrough.

Okay, took me a while, since I've had other things going on. This is in Black Meadow at the Destroyed Cart, while on the quest The Smith's Shipment.

So starting a new playthrough. No problems with anything (LOVE the ranger btw), get to Gilded Vale and start emptying stash for coppers. I looked over the items first and sorted by Enchantment High to Low just in case I had anything really great (not really). Get to the quest items screen, and the only thing in there is a hunk of Skuldr meat. Never seen that there before, and I don't have a quest or task regarding it. And I can't move it out of there. Any ideas, and thanks in advance!

You're joking? Oblivion was magnitudes better in so many ways than Morrowind, not all of them graphically.

Heh, not to mention that you have to be able to access the relevant part of the map - which in this case requires you be in Act III....

After playing MMOs for many years, this was one of the things I'd totally forgotten about playing "closed world" games: that in order to find your way off a map to some other area(s), you have to find all the exits from the map, obvious or not.

I tend to be lazy about saving these days, but I still hit autosave. However, it can come back to haunt you in situations just like these. I don't even mind games that don't let me do my own saves as long as I can quit and save wherever. I don't like feeling like I have to play another twenty minutes to get to a save point or lose the last fifteen minutes of progress. <.< Eh, I (as I said) am a save-game slave. I started out with SSI's Gold Box games, and while I have played MMOs (where you don't have to "bother" since the database handles it for you), I still tend to "oversave". Hey, nothing is ever wasted. Especially if you have multiple terabytes of space.

Oh, thanks then! I'll go see if I can get a screenie tomorrow (eh, it's late here and I'm OLD) and post it - assuming I'm free to do that now. Thanks for your help, and have a great night!

Okay, thanks Cantousent. But I guess you don't know what I'm talking about with the ghosts? Or is that something that's a huge spoiler and no one talks about it?

It's really hard to live in the back of beyond, where the only "broadband" I have is wildblue satband - with extremely limited download bandwidth. It would be really cool if there was some other way to get all these many gigs of content.

Wow, glad to hear that there could be an issue with this. Of course, I save every few minutes, so probably won't have the issue. Seriously, I'm a save-game slave. I'm only into Chapter 2, and have 453 save games. For this toon.