PrimeJunta

On the crit path I struggled a bit with one of the fights in the courtyard. Other than that, the fights have been relatively easy. Relatively. I've found them quite enjoyable though. If you want seriously tough ones, go off the crit path. I've hit one fight that seems unwinnable -- or close to -- at my level; will come back for it later.

@Dynellen I only ever used the "Thief Controlled" script in the IE games because clicking on stealth/traps all the bleeping time is no fun.

Yeh you need more might. Also, don't solo the bear. Get some help first. Even power-built rogues are pretty awful at toe-to-toe combat, you need someone to tank for him at least.

@Robik The temple dungeon is extremely hard for a solo level 2/3 character, or even with PC + Aloth + Edér immediately after you recruited them. Do something else, find a couple more companions, gain a level or two, then come back. I.e. the problem isn't the camping supplies, the problem is that you're attempting an optional dungeon above your level. Which is fun if you want the challenge of course. (I'm finding Hard just about right actually. I haven't had to backtrack to rest yet, unless you count backing up out of a "no camping" area once to camp a level above. Reached a boss fight with virtually no spells left and three characters at "red" health...)

Sensuki's already made a comprehensive and long guide for beginners, but I thought I'd jot down some quick notes based on things I've noticed people asking on these forums. If the thread doesn't catch, then let it fall into oblivion, natch. Minor spoilers follow, not tagged as such because the forum is. If you wander off the signposted critical path, expect to be stomped. If you are, retreat and go somewhere else to come back later. For example, the Eothas temple dungeon in Gilded Vale will murder you hard if you go in alone at level 2. The best form of defense is a strong offence. Tiptoeing generally doesn't work. Hit 'em hard with all you've got, and (usually) try to take out the toughest targets first. Aloth's initial spell selection is just sadistically bad. When you beat another mage, take his grimoire and copy in better ones ASAP. When rushed by a mob, try putting Aloth in the front and blasting with Fan of Flames, then running back and intercepting with Edér before he gets engaged. Look for easier-to-use AoE damage and crowd control spells quickly. Use everybody's per-encounter abiltiies every encounter. srsly Pick talents and use weapons which bypass damage reduction. Many of the tougher enemies have high DR and you won't be able to put a scratch into them if you don't. Understand how Accuracy works. Wailing away with light weapons, low accuracy, and low or no DR bypass will not work: you'll miss and graze a lot and the grazes will barely do any damage. If you have low accuracy, at least try to do massive damage and have DR bypass so the grazes will hurt. Alternatively, stack accuracy with Talents or by using a single one-handed weapon. Understand the Defenses. If you're not doing any melee damage the enemy's Deflection is probably too high, so you need to buff your Accuracy somehow -- or debuff its Deflection. There are plenty of spells and abilities that do just this. Pay attention to the Defense each of your spells or specials targets, and select them based on your enemy's weaknesses. They're displayed in the box at top left when hovering on an enemy once you've fought them for a bit. Master the opening salvo. Firearms are available early and they pack a punch, but the reload time is so slow they're only useful at the beginning of a combat. A salvo from three characters can often take down an enemy at the outset. Casters are especially vulnerable. If it still feels frustratingly hard, turn down the difficulty.

The only way to remove the Maimed effect is by resting. Healers can't do it. Healing magic can only restore Endurance in combat anyway; there are a few talents that can restore a piddly little amount of Health but they're really not worth the cost IMO.

Josh said they want to do this for the expansion/sequel, but there wasn't time or budget for it in the main game. (Personally I prefer to play the game myself.)

I played Trial of Iron/Hard for my first try too, just for lulz. Did not try again after this. There are just too many cool ways to get pwned if you stick your nose where it doesn't belong. I will very likely do a Trial of Iron run later at some point, but not before I know what's where.

I switched off the dialog hints immediately. It's quite interesting to see the disposition I'm developing. It's a surprisingly even mix of things. I absolutely do not want to turn that into a minigame, so I'm really happy I have the option to have them off.

Yeah I'm digging the companions too. They get the job done. If I graduate to PotD though I might want to make minmaxed ones. Tried playing BG2 with a minmaxed party at one point too. It was much more effective and much less fun.

I dig the humor. Even the fourth-wall breaking humor.

I'm getting by surprisingly well with Escape and Shadowing Beyond actually -- the latter is in-combat stealth, although limited to 2 per rest. My main problem is still that with the FX and low camera angle it's sometimes hard to see what's going on. The trick in the melee phase is to have him only attack toons already engaged by someone. The damage is rather impressive once you've got a status effect in place which enables Sneak Attacks. It does "feel" more like a BG2 kensai though -- lulzy damage, limited specials, but fragile and high-management. I enjoyed my experiments with a kensai though, so...

I'm playing a rogue and having a quite a lot of fun with it actually. It's not the same as in BG2 but it's fun. Sneak forward, fire a Crippling Strike with an arquebus, run back, switch to a melee weapon, fight. Shadowing Beyond and Escape also see a fair bit of use as I strike and retreat. I like the versatility of the P:E rogue actually. It's not locked into the backstabber/utility character role. The class also complements the first five companions well.

Chanter is def. more blade-esque as they, well, chant -- but you might also want to consider the cipher. No chanting, but pretty wack gameplay: you do regular combat with "soul whip" enabled to charge up your Focus, then use Focus to fire off some fairly badass spell-likes. You could easily make a dual-wielding flashy type for that.

KOTOR is really not much like the IE games at all. Other than both being cRPG's, I can't really think of anything much they have in common, especially regarding gameplay (i.e. the stuff that affects difficulty). If you haven't ever played the IE games or even the NWN's, you might want to start on Easy, especially if you have a low tolerance for frustration, 'cuz you will likely get your face pushed in on Normal a lot before you figure it out.

I believe not.

They decided to implement stealth as a game state, like combat. That means everybody's stealthed or nobody is. They've said they want to change this for the expansion, so I get the feeling they're not entirely happy with that decision either. Sometimes decisions like this get made early enough that other stuff gets tangled in it and it becomes hard to change without breaking things; not something you want to do when you're on a tight budget and schedule. Think of it as one of those little quirks that give games character, you'll feel better about it. I also hope they'll change it though. Edit: @Mdalton31 You can't stealth while in combat since both are distinct game states. Combat automatically ends stealth.

Guns are slow. They can be fairly devastating in an opening volley, but you pretty much have to switch weapons after that's been fired. Also I believe the punchiest slow ranged weapon right now is the arbalest. I'm finding a volley from an arquebus and a couple pistols plenty effective though. I have PC, Durance, and Edér rocking firearms, Kana Rua a crossbow, and Sagani her hunting bow. The first three always switch to melee after the opening volley, Sagani sticks to the bow unless forced into melee, and Kana Rua does either-or. The opening volley can make a big difference but this game would not be easy with a party of archers. Mobs all over.

Yeah something needs to be done about Invocations. They are too slow to show up. I'm not as good at this as you are @Voss so I have had a couple fights drag on to the point I could finish things off with a White Worms Writhed or that skeleton summons, but by then it was mostly the mopping-up phase. I love the way Kana Rua is written but mechanically he is somewhat underwhelming, at least with level 1 phrases. The level 2's are markedly better though. Overall I'm enjoying playing with the companions; the less-than-stellar builds don't bother me at all. It's nice finding synergies between the classes; like Sagani's effectiveness got a big bump when I picked Hunter's Instinct for her and Deep Wounds for PC. Suddenly DOT everywhere and she's doing 1.5 x damage, making that piddly little hunting bow into a surprisingly effective engine of destruction.

@Jasta11 and @Suna: budget isn't the only reason they didn't do it. They wanted to be able to keep polishing the text until the last minute. With full voice acting they wouldn't have been able to do that: everything would have to have been set in stone six months before release. Not having full voice means we got much better text. It's also nothing to do with technology. As Josh put it, "if you don't like reading, this isn't the game for you." Lots of us do like reading.

First impressions from the real deal. Playing on Hard. Short version: OOH YEAH BABY! Longer version: I'd been playing the BB on Normal, and the difficulty here on Hard seems... roughly similar, maybe a little harder. To start with I had my behind liberally kicked when poking my nose into areas carelessly, and especially because Aloth's starting spells kinda blow. Once I got to level 3...4 or so, got geared up a bit, and figured out my party's strengths, combat's gotten into the groove and I'm getting pasted across the landscape a whole lot less. Starting to really enjoy the combat. So yeah, that's all good at this point. Except some annoying if relatively minor bugs: for example when I try to open with a stealth attack, not uncommonly PC attacks the wrong enemy. Not the one I clicked on, but somebody else, usually creeping to a really bad position in the process. That usually screws up my battle plan rather handily. Looking forward to how it'll feel later on. At this point I'm thinkin' the IE game combat is more fun, but perhaps that's due to familiarity, and perhaps the perception will shift. But it's not bad at all really. The music: it is absolutely lovely. The only fly in the ointment is the fact that not everything is live; the synthesized tracks jar a little. The looks: gorgeous. The writing: brilliant, moving, touching. A bit more grimdark than I had expected but perhaps that'll change. I especially like the characters. Aloth, Durance, Edér, Kana Rua, and Sagani are all awesome and I'm feeling a bit bad that there aren't slots in the party for the three other companions that are in the game so I'll have to swap someone out. The voice acting: between passable and pretty good really. I usually click through dialog as fast as I can read it unless the VO is really good, and I am doing rather more of that than not. The feelz: this is a big huge whole new world and I love it. It feels sprawling and huge in all directions. Bottom line is, I am absolutely loving it. Clearly Obsidian's best game, and possibly the best cRPG of the decade.

It's true that it's pretty different from IE combat, not so much the pacing but the engagement and use of many active abilities. Personally I like engagement -- although you need two tanks to really make proper use of it -- and the rest takes some time to learn. If you're expecting to play like a master from day 1 just because you finished IWD on Heart of Fury, well, no, that's not gonna happen, it's a whole different system. I don't think it's too fast though, or any faster than the IE games. In fact I believe they spent a lot of time tuning that aspect to be quite close.

Many BG/2 companions were ... not optimally built either. Casters with 16 INT, Jaheira with 15 STR, Viconia too weak to even lift a flail, and so on. I imagine that's to make the PC seem that much more awesome. Plus give a little extra challenge to figure out ways around the limitations, e.g. who gets which stat-boosting item.

You don't lose them, they're still there for the next levelup. It's the only way to get really high scores actually. Second, depends on what you mean by "best." If you mean "get the most options in a single playthrough" I'd guess spreading them somewhat evenly is better, but if you mean "see all the options in a minimum number of playthroughs" then specialize, baby, specialize.

Please no. Inventory micromanagement is so much not fun.