Oralaina

St. Elcga's favored are Honest and Diplomatic.. Oh, right. Came back to fix that after I looked again this morning. You beat me to it. I tend to use all four of those, sort of interchangeably. Some quests seem to fit better with some dispositions than they do with others.

Um. A paladin (unless of the evil variety) would NEVER advocate sacrificing anyone to the blood pool. Eww. I favor St Elecga - fits my inherent need to play LG and matches the dispositions I usually wind up using - Rational and Benevolent.... um, can't remember what the other one is., not in game sorry!

Yeah, I read really REALLY fast (1500 wpm).... Stuff like this drives me NUTS. I don't want to hear the voice acting for various reasons: first, it's so damn slow; second, I'm roleplaying a whole other game in my head, and this junk doesn't fit; third, I just don't think the VA adds anything to the game (personal opinion of course); fourth, I HATE chit chat and conversation IRL, and it's even worse in a game. Just TELL me what's going on and let me click through the screens as fast as I can read. I know I'm a minority there.... but it's an ongoing issue for me, has been ever since NWN maybe, not sure now when all that VA stuff started happening.... Don't like it, don't want it, please make it go away....

Hmm. Well, maybe since I'm doing things a bit different order this time is why I haven't found them yet. Thanks guys!

So - WHERE is the spellward amulet then? I'm at level 6 current playthrough, haven't seen it. Also haven't found the Stalker's Torc this time through....

And.... that's one reason I'm probably not going to mess with gog for anything "new" in games. True, I'm not all that happy with steam (I REALLY REALLY HATE game frontend crap, just give me the damn game! - hate the blizz launcher, got rid of trion's glyph won't play rift if trion forces glyph eventually....) but at least it works - for me. I know there are those for whom steam doesn't work very well at all. I'm not one of them, and as long as it works, it works for me.

Did you kill the Sky Dragon in that play through? I had already read of people purchasing the eyes from the Curio Shop, but it has never happened to me—and I kill the dragon every time. My theory is that you can buy the eyes from the Curio Shop if you don't kill the Sky Dragon, to compensate for your choosing the peaceful solution (otherwise, people going peaceful would be locked out of upgrading their weapons to Superb, which would be tantamount to punishing them for choosing not to fight.) Of course, as I'm unable to say no to a good dragon fight, I could never put my theory to the test Nope, didn't kill her. I don't like to kill the dragons.... First playthrough I didn't have WM yet so it didn't arise. I think it's a nice thing then, if they did it that way on purpose so people like me could still have a couple of the best weapon upgrades.

On my second playthrough, I was able to buy two of them from the woman in the stronghold curio shop. Hope it wasn't a one-time glitch or something!

Well yes, it's a lack in our western language (IE English - as derived from Romance and Germanic linguistic roots). Until the world as a whole produces a world language, we'll be dealing with a broken wheel. I'm SO not going into the entire background on this forum - for any number of reasons.... Suffice it to say that I'm old, and I've spent 60 years or so looking into the reasons for gender bias. But this is not the forum for that discussion. As long as game developers offer options.... I'm good with that.

*laughing* I don't know. Since I can type (on my physical keyboard) around 160 wpm on a BAD day.... well, you see where I'm coming from. Seriously, I've been typing since 1963. Believe me, getting 120 wpm (with no errors) on those kludgy antique typewriters was a FEAT. Really. Today's keyboards are.... um.... I'm not sure.... powder puffs? Hell, I dunno. I giggle when I think about the thumb-talkers today trying to use a manual typewriter..... *shrug* It's just another instance of "I've outlived my entire relevance". Except of course, I'm just NOT GOING THERE.

Interesting question choice....

I just want to see intelligent, voiced swords....

Personally? I think the whole thing should be allowed to die a natural (and hopefully quick) death - at least as fast as I kill Firedorn and the group.... As far as pronouns IRL - I've used s/he and other ones for many many years: himmer, hisser, etc, following in Jo Clayton's capable footsteps. No one should have to be referred to by a gender-spec pronoun in today's world, but I realize I'm pretty alone in that attitude.

Personally, I LOVE the soulbound weapons, and now I make a party composed specifically to utilize them. Maybe they aren't absolutely the "best" weapons in the game, but they're pretty darn good, especially Stormcaller. I set my rogue up to dual wield Ravenwing and the soulbound one whatever its name is (never can remember when I'm not in game) and boy are they cool! I'd much rather make my party to use them than ignore them.... Then again, a caveat: I don't use the premades - I make custom "extras" anyway.

... no, I dispute that. There's a powerful ring of wizardry and a suit of ankheg plate in hidden caches in early game areas. A player could easily hit the gnoll fortress while still at level 1, which yielded Gauntlets of Dexterity and the Charisma manual. It'd also be pretty routine to fight Greywolf or Bassilus at level 2 or so, and both drop +2 weapons with an elemental damage bonus. The examples go on; while BG1's magic items were sometimes easy to miss, there were a lot of them, and they were available from extremely low levels onward. Hmm. It's entirely possible that I simply don't remember correctly. It's also entirely possible that I missed a bunch of that stuff, due to not having played games of that nature for a while by the time it came out.

Very true, I must agree.

Oy. If true, that's really ugly.

I dunno about LotR.... but BOY do I know about wow. 8 years there.... and if blizz hadn't done the idiocy that is wod and no flying in current content, I'd probably still be paying them. But yeah, your point is well taken. If your game (talking to the devs here) provides a limited (as in non-respawning) number of mobs, you simply shouldn't make soulbound weapons which require a given (fairly large, and/or smaller but REALLY SPECIFIC) number of kills which are no longer available to those who have not micromanaged the setup. Yeah, I CAN (and do/did) micro the setup - but I've been playing these games since the mid-80s so I can figure it out before getting into a situation where there's no really good result. Lots of people don't have decades of experience to rely on with stuff like this. [And.... I'd really have much preferred that I didn't have to overthink this - but you (the devs) left me no choice.]

I bet it's high resolve. EVERY time I've thought there was something I was missing.... it turned out that my PC was low in resolve. Seriously, boosting resolve can make a LOT of convo ops available - but jeez.... If not having high resolve (on the PC - it doesn't count on ANYONE else!) means you never get a really great option, HOW is that fun? /grumble

Well, yeah.... but I'm not sure how available those demographics are (as in, does it compromise anyone's privacy etc....) What I really think is that those of us who play this sort of game are a LOT older than those who use "textie" as their communication of choice and/or least common denominator.

....and that's all it is really. On these fora I have found FAR less (actually a vanishingly small percentage) of posters who insist on using "textie speak" in their posts than I am used to on the MMO fora I frequent. Quite refreshing.

Yeah, this game's great for that! And really that's why I wind up with the knights.... When I was much younger I WAS CG. I'm not now.... I'm edging up onto full LG. And yes, the knights have enough ambiguity to create some angst, but still, they're a better fit for me than the other options. [i should enter a caveat: while I think most people roleplay something they may not come anywhere close to being, for me RP is all about being ME in some other world. I've never once since the mid-70s been able to go totally against myself. So back then, I ran CG half-elf mages, rangers, etc. And now, I run LG rangers and so on.]

Yah, this is something that's really pretty annoying for me too. Even if I grit out getting the soulbound weapons WAY too early, I still have a problem with "filling" the kill list....

The flail of ages took forever to build but was one of the only things that could damage the demilich other than magic missiles. But it's why in BG1 when you got out, people tended to get killed by a dire wolf. Especially if they chose a magic caster as their main. Well, also true! I've never done mages as mains - in BG 1 my main was whatever passed for half-elf ranger (I *think*.... been a LONG time) and I made my own party, dropping Imoen (annoyed by stuff like that....) for a "self-made" rogue, and adding also self-made cleric, pally, mage, fighter (classic mix....) I'm pretty sure if it had only been me n Immy, we'd have been dead the second we stepped off the property....

That is a good point. Here is a recent thread started by another recently-returning player, but focused on dialogue options rather than combat. It depends what's more important to you. In the first response on that thread, Boeroer mentions that paladin support/tanks tend to be optimal as mains, since the same stats that are good for conversations will also be good for their combat performance. In addition, a paladin can gain up to +6 Deflection and +12 Fort/Reflex/Will by lining up the conversation choices you make with the dispositions important to your chosen order, but this mechanic only works if it's your main. So if you wanted a paladin in your party at all, there'd be a gameplay advantage to making it your main, and having the cipher role taken by the cipher companion you can find, or by a hired adventurer. However, you've already started, time constraints and all, and the fact that you're (probably) not playing on PoTD, means it's probably not worth it to you to start over for that. Besides, some people have a special attachment to their main, and that's as valid a reason as any for the choices you make in a fantasy game. Lastly, I'd say that the conversation options are never that crucial to the game. Their importance is largely personal and subjective. With dumped Res, you'll miss out on some opportunities to get your way, to make people believe you, etc. In practice, from a gameplay perspective, this will amount to a grand total of a few quests where you can't get the best possible outcome. Like you might be able to squeeze some more money out of a quest giver with higher Res, and there's at least one item I'm pretty sure you can't get without decent Res, but I can't think of any "must-have" awesome items you'd be missing, or any significant ways it would gimp you in the end. Also note that you wouldn't have any more convo options open to you at 10 Res than at 3 — checks are all from 11 to 20. You could get a few points more with an item and buffs, but your score still wouldn't be high enough to justify 7 points invested that would take away from other stats IMHO. All good points. What I'm finding as I replay is that I much PREFER not to kill my way through the story. Of course, you're not going to peacefully clear Raedric's Keep, the Endless Paths or the Battery or Crägholdt. But if I can peacefully resolve (hmmm.... no pun intended) most of the rest of the quests then that's how I want to do it. My rant about games which have no understanding of any way to gain xp other than killing belongs elsewhere - and PoE isn't at all a "main offender" in any case.