PrimeJunta

Yeah. I thought Skaen was really refreshing. You have a blood-soaked cult doing unquestionably nasty stuff, but the reasons for the stuff make perfect sense. Plus, it's not like the people they want dead are any better.

It depends on what you think of as IE wizardry. I suspect a lot of people went through these using nothing much more complicated than Fireball. I've been mulling that idea of mine about counterspells. It ought to be possible and not even terribly difficult to mod P:E's spell system like so: Extend spell durations so counters become necessary. Add "X counters Y" effect to spells where appropriate, e.g. "Fleet Feet -- counters Slowed and Hobbled" Modify the AI so it'll use the counters sensibly Where appropriate, add dedicated counters or dispels It wouldn't be the same of course but it would be more interesting I think.

I kinda agree with this. Clearly BG2 is a game where the real appeal is learning to master it. A game with static content -- same areas, same quests, same enemies, same placed items -- is not an ideal format for this IMO. At least I do not find it engaging to run through the same content multiple times. Procedurally-generated content is different every time and it keeps fresh. It ought to be possible to combine human-written and procedurally-generated stuff. For example, human-written party members, main antagonists, and some other NPC's, in a procedurally-generated world, with main story arcs human-written but the intermediate quests procedurally-generated, or at least heavily "randomized." These characters could have their own story arcs that take them into particular areas search for particular McGuffins, but the areas themselves could well be procedurally generated. Dwarf Fortress with some character writing on top.

@Stun: How can you tell that a weapon's gonna cut through any or all of those protections? Trial and error, or is there a rule to it? Elemental damage? @Malekith: Do they have more than one Death Spell? If not, it should be easy to just summon another one. I haven't actually experimented with traps at all. Only put points into Set Trap at my last levelup. Should probably study up and explore that mechanic somewhat. I have been backstabbing. I'm probably missing something as I'm not finding it all that useful. The damage is somewhat underwhelming compared to the time it takes to apply it. Should I be using it in magefights as an opening move?

Every secret underground cult worth its salt has a secret handshake. The Skaenites deserve one too. How else are they going to recognize one another?

One more thing: there's one way I can tell I'm getting better at this. I'm using up most of my spells. I rest when (1) I'm running low on potions -- I like to keep about 3 Extra Healing per head --, and (2) Viconia's out of heals. Before, I usually had most of my spell battery still unused at this point. Now, I've usually used more than half, and most of the ones I've used are the higher-level ones. I'm also getting further between rests. I think I rested three times in the Sphere: once before the halflings (changed my loadout to be more anti-caster), once before the demon hunt (got several demon hearts! I think I'll have them pickled and exhibited on my wall), and once before the Tolgerias fight. I can tell that overcoming my hoarding instinct -- for spells, consumables, what have you -- is also contributing greatly to the fun.

First off, interim report on today's session. I gave some orders at the thieves' guild, then, curious about that government job, I went to see the wizard at the ministry. Took on a simple enough bounty on some nobleman that had annoyed them. Followed the breadcrumb trail out of Athkatla to the Umar Hills place where there was that rather easy quest, faffed about a bit there, running some errands for the mayor but not going to that temple, and eventually found him in a shack on an escarpment. He explained that the Cowled Mages were really after his blood in order to get into something called 'the Planar Sphere,' so naturally I murdered him and used his corpse to get in there myself. Then all kinds of fun ensued. This was probably my favorite part of the game so far. Great set-piece battles, great variety, exciting maps. The only thing I didn't care for in the Sphere was the puzzle with the symbols on the floor. I couldn't find any clues to it, so I just trial-and-errored it. Got it right on my second try, but that was pure luck. Anyway, that was grand. Oh, and, I beat that necromancer without prepping for it. Had used my anti-caster spells against the halfling mages, so I had to fall back on scrolls. Fortunately I had one scroll of Breach and another of... something or other, and Viconia hadn't used up her Aerial Servant, so it wasn't that hard even if it took me a few tries. (Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting... ouch.) Also Viconia finally got some gauntlets that put her STR up to 18/00 so she can equip some decent heavy gear. With her self-buffs she becomes a quite a force of destruction in melee as well, if necessary. That makes me happy. Don't care much for the Thieves' Guild gameplay. The gold amounts are so piddling that I don't have much incentive to care. I'm up nearly a thousand GP though with two rounds of it. That's almost 1/50 of my current bank balance, so woo-hoo. It does put a gentle time pressure on other questing, though, which is good because it makes me watch my resting. I had to "cheat" (by my twisted standards) in the Sphere once, because I got caught with my pants down by that annoying Cowled Wizard, so I reloaded, loaded up some casterfight magic, and proceeded to reduce them to their component atoms. (That one was a legit suckerpunch. Took me completely by surprise, and I honestly can't imagine how I could've been expected to prep for a casterfight there. I didn't get mad though 'cuz I'm starting to accept that that's just the way this game rolls -- Stun describing it more like basketball than a movie was... enlightening.) Some further comments. One. This style of playing is growing on me. I've stopped caring what my characters are "supposed" to know, and prep according to what I know. It is more fun this way. Two. A long time ago, Stun insisted that you do not need metagame knowledge to play this, that there are no suckerpunches, and if I think so, that's just because I suck. I still disagree with him about that. In fact, I'm starting to feel more and more strongly that metagame knowledge is the whole damn point. You play and play, practice and practice, learn more and more, and it gets easier and easier. Some of that knowledge is in-game. Most of it is metagame: who's gonna attack you where, where the traps are, where you're gonna find the cool gear that makes life easier for any given stretch of it. Three. I am beginning to see the appeal of that. It's the same appeal as in NetHack, where you play over and over and over, get deeper and deeper and deeper, and find all kinds of tricks and twists that let you survive. (I have a "but" on that, but I'm pretty sure you guys can already guess what it is, so I won't repeat it here.) As to save-or-die... it has its place. There is such a thing as too much of it though. I still think the IE engine gameplay would be more enjoyable if somehow the order of things -- specifically magic -- mattered a little less. As it is, the magic system mechanically favors the attacker: if you get your attack to bite first, the other guy is not going to be able to cast, and you win. Which is why they put in all these spell triggers and contingencies, to make things more interesting. I'm going to have to do some research on mage battles in BG2 actually. I found one obvious way to beat them -- send in a summons, preferably immune to as much stuff as they'll lob at you, so they'll fire the offensive spells at them, during that time zap Breaches and what have you at them, then send Korgan to finish the job. Easy-peasy. But since Stun, Sensuki and others have said that there are many, many other ways to do them, I'll have to study up a bit. 'Cuz I'm getting curious. I'm a little concerned about this in P:E actually. If it won't have similar things, suppressing mages will be trivially easy -- you just assign someone to a high-Interrupt, fast attacking ranged weapon, ideally give him a few Interrupt buffs or talents, and plink away. No way they're gonna get a spell off. That's certainly the way it works in the BB's only magefight. (Except that if you're rocking firearms, you'll also gib him in the first volley.)

I agree it's not necessary. That wasn't my point. (It appears I was wrong about how universally discoverable it was.) It was, however, the first IE tactic that I figured out. It was with a bear wandering just outside Candlekeep. Then the ogre with the girdle fetish. Then others. I kited pretty much every creature that was either (a) slow or (b) solitary. You can kite wolves just fine as long as there's only one and there's some object like a tree to run around. My point is that if the game has obviously discoverable easy but dull exploits, then a lot of players are going to discover them and look no further, instead refining their ability at that particular dull and easy exploit. Therefore, the game should (a) minimize the number of easily discoverable but dull exploits, (b) incentivize the player to play in a way that's fun rather than dull, and © point the player in the right direction. Of these, IMO (b) and © are far more important than (a). I think both BG's would have had far more Stuns and Sensukis and far fewer Gfted1's without changing a damn thing about the mechanics, if only they had paid more attention to (b) and ©. This would not have limited the grognard battalion's options the least, either.

@Jarmo Not sure I want to play IWD2 again. I have a half-finished game waiting to be resumed somewhere. Those waves after waves of identical filler enemies wore me down, even though some of the setpieces were as good as anywhere (the battle of the bridge was particularly memorable -- as indeed were the fights in the starting town). I'll keep playing BG 2 for a while -- not sure I'll finish that either; I really couldn't care less about Irenicus and Imoen at this point, but I do want to see what else is in Athkatla -- and then maybe Heart of Winter which is one module I never tried. (I think it's the last major IE game/expansion I haven't played to date.)

Flashback to 1984 or thereabouts. Our first ever AD&D session. I was voted DM. We spent an entire Sunday lovingly crafting our characters. Even carefully drew portraits to the best of our ability. Then we set out for Adventure, using some prepared module, don't even remember what. Miraculously the party survives the first encounter with goblins or something. There's a chest. The thief checks for traps. I secretly roll, like, a 3. No traps found. He opens it. "As you open it, a small needle flicks out of the lock and jabs you in the wrist. Roll a saving throw against Poison." It's another 2 or 3. "Uh... well, you're dead I guess. Wanna roll a new character?" That... was not fun. It is also conceivable that at least a part of my aversion for save-or-die mechanics can be traced down to that incident. Young minds are impressionable after all.

Fair enough. Perhaps I'll come to like it too, eventually. Not convinced yet though. Edit: ninjae'd, that was in reply to Save or Die.

What about if Finger of Death too two rounds to act, and you had one round to apply a counter before dying, after being zapped? "Hit by Finger of Death? Apply Kevorkian's Arcane Defibrillator, level 3, mages only. Now for sale at well-stocked magic merchants!"

@Stun You can't believe how relieved I am to hear that. Looks like looking things up and asking fellow adventurers for help isn't "cheating" then. Another preconception of mine getting into the way of fun, clearly. BG 2 isn't a game. It's a way of life.

Yep. Incentives are powerful. In Rome 2: Total War, they changed the way mercenaries work. Before, you just bought them once, then paid normal upkeep, and many of the mercenary units were very cool or plugged a hole in what your faction could do (at that point anyway). In R2:TW you pay the full cost every turn. I liked that change a lot. I still use mercenaries, but only when it really counts; then I use them as shock troops since I'll be letting them go the next turn anyway. It adds a new twist to both the strategy and the tactics, and I think it's also more like how real warlords used real mercenaries. It was a dangerous business. (If on top of that they added a mechanic where mercenaries would start demanding higher prices if your general or side got a reputation of having lots of them killed, it would be even cooler.) Edit: and another thing about incentives. I think one reason for the abiding hate between the 'grognards' and the 'casuals,' aka everyone else, is related to incentives in BG1/2 in particular. It's a combination of the "throw him in the deep end of the pool and let him learn to swim" approach on the one hand, and highly exploitable systems on the other. What's the first "tactic" you learned playing BG1? I would bet it's kiting. Have Imoen and PC take turns pulling a bear or an ogre while the other one pelts it with arrows. It's a really efficient tactic in terms of in-game resources, but it's also really dull. The consequence is that lots of stopped right there. Because kiting worked so well, we kited every damn encounter that could be kited, adding twists like pulling enemies one-by-one, and so on. These are all tedious, repetitive, dull, and efficient. Consequently, we missed out on almost all the fun the game's combat could offer. I believe this phenomenon goes a long way to explain Josh's obsession with eliminating exploits and "degenerate strategies." They simply make many, many players miss out on the fun. I also think it would be even better to find ways to direct players to use the fun strategies from the get-go, rather than focus on eliminating the un-fun ones.

@GordonHalfman very good points. I think a lot of the time we have been talking past one another just because we have different ideas of what a "hard counter" actually means. You're also probably right about option (A) and BG2. As Stun is fond of pointing out, there really are lots of ways to do things. You can get into situations where you need to backtrack and come back later. That's not a bad thing at all IMO (except for that ludo-narrative dissonance thing which presents most quests as not something you can just drop and find waiting for you three weeks and five levels later.) I 95% agree about encounter design and challenge also, and I'm not even sure about the 5%. Signposting again. I find it fun to knowingly push somewhere I know will kill me dead if I'm not extremely resourceful. I do not find it fun to innocently blunder into something that kills me dead in no time flat. I.e., the problem isn't the encounter design; the problem is if the game neglects to communicate to me that I'm about to do something dangerous. BG2 does do this kind of communication on occasion -- f.ex. the ex-worshippers guarding one of Kangaxx's sarcophagi warn you that there's something really nasty there, plus there's all the "emanates chilling aura of evil" descriptions and such. I have issues with the times it doesn't do it, like the trouble I had with the beholder cult quest. I don't have a huge problem with level-gating content BTW. NetHack does this; you won't get your class quest until you're a certain level. That makes leveling up to that point an objective in and of itself. Used sparingly, that can work too. Used everywhere, it makes you feel like you're being yanked on a leash. Generally however I would prefer more subtle signposting.

There is a console. I haven't played BB392 on Easy. Normal in BB392 is... kind of hard actually, compared to most modern games. I'd say it's about the same as IWD on Normal with a decent party. Some classes are kind of out of whack though so it's a lot easier played some ways than others.

@archangel Why would it be worse? -- I think it would be better. I like the back-and-forth part of attacks and counters, and immunities make that backward, forth-and-back rather than back-and-forth. As I said elsewhere, I'd also remove dedicated counters altogether, and roll the "counter" effects into other spells. I.e., have every spell do something useful, and also counter something harmful. I think it would make the gameplay more interesting and dynamic, rather than just making the counters a flat resource cost. @4ward There are enemy casters and adventuring parties in the BB who have similar abilities as you do, and the spiders throw webs from a distance. There's nothing in the mechanics that precludes stun/charm/confuse from afar, for sure; whether and how much of that they'll put in I obviously don't know. There's not a whole lot in the BB; there are a couple of enemy casters but they're extremely easy to neutralize so I don't think I've ever been slapped with anything worse than Slow. As to melee enemies: I think persistent effects are out; even petrification is temporary, and I don't know if there's level drain. That's a shame IMO, as they make certain enemies that much scarier and something has been lost if you know you can just wait out any status effect (and waiting it out won't even take very long). The main diff. between P:E and IE combat is engagement, which changes the way the encounters feel a lot. In P:E, there's a rush to initial positions, the front lines engage, and things settle down; then you have a period where you move around your non-engaged toons for maximum effect (circling to the side of the melee with your wizard to blast with Rolling Flame, flanking someone with your rogue to backstab etc) and deal with enemies doing the same (a beetle getting behind your line is Bad News). It's a much more deliberate pace; you can't just rush for a high-value target somewhere in the back without getting clobbered. The grognards on this thread really really love the way movement works in the IE games. Over the past few weeks I've gone from actively disliking movement in the IE games to quite enjoying it. I still prefer the more measured and deliberate pace of P:E though, but I understand why Stun, Hiro, Sensuki and the others are so angry about it. It is a big change, and it's legitimate to expect that something that significant wouldn't be changed in a game promising "combat from IWD." (IWD2 notwithstanding -- it didn't have engagement, but it did have attacks of opportunity which had a similar effect restricting movement.)

@archangel Suppose level drain took two rounds to take effect, and slapping Negative Plane Protection on the character in the time window would stop him from getting level drained. Worse or better?

Mine too. Which is one reason I never really developed a huge enthusiasm for the fights. It's just not a fun way to play. It only got seriously fun when I developed quicker and more varied but costlier (in in-game resources) tactics. Another thing that's greatly increased my enjoyment of these games: overcoming my hoarding instinct. Now I'm using consumables a quite a lot, instead of saving them for later. Resting and memorizing another Haste is more efficient in terms of resources than glugging a potion of Speed, but glugging a potion of Speed involves less clicking, has a more relaxed duration, and is more fun. I consider this a bit of a design issue in the games: they do incentivize boring and tedious activities by making many fun activities cost more. I don't think most of us count "time played" as a resource. /bracing for more sneering from @Stun

More musings. I'm feeling BG2 is a lot like IWD would have been if they had put the areas/encounters in a random order. I.e. if you could stumble into Yxunomei or Malavon straight out of Easthaven, by taking a particular direction, i.e. they had left it up to you to discover/decide in which order to do the encounters. I can see why someone would consider that fun. I liked Gothic 2 a lot precisely because it kicked you hard in the groin if you went off in the "wrong" direction, but let you do so nevertheless. However, it did communicate to you quite clearly when you were about to do that. One of my more memorable moments in G2 was in a later playthrough when I snuck to that pyramid to get that badass sword early on, avoiding all the monsters I knew would roflstomp me if I got spotted. But... I do like meself a bit of signposting, and do feel BG2 would be much more accessible without detracting at all from the "hardcore" experience if it had more of that. It's a shame nobody will ever mod that in, because modders are by definition hardcore players and won't need it.

I bet you get a lot of girls with that line.

I could name a few names. They usually show up, throw a hissy fit, and leave.

Or go with Linux.

@Hiro Thanks. I knew about that actually and had the fight proven too tough that's what I would've done. In my first attempt I snuck to the feeding area and figured there's something I could do there, there were dog bones, I had previously seen the kennels, and clicked on the kitchen thing where it mentioned I could make stew, so I had put the pieces together. (I really like dogs though and would have felt bad about it so I kind of didn't want to. There must've been plenty of roasted troll bits lying around; it's too bad there's no way to use those.) My questions e.g. about metagaming it were more general. I beat them easily with Cloudkill last time, but intentionally did not go out of my way to get that this time around, "because my characters wouldn't know about it." I'm getting a feeling that this "because my characters wouldn't know about it" thing is actually detracting from my enjoyment rather than contributing to it.

Annnd... another thing, regarding that favorite bone of contention, hard counters. Specifically: immunities (something you apply before you're attacked, like Negative Plane Protection vs level drain or Chaotic Commands vs confusion), or counters (something you apply after you're attacked, like countering one Charm with another). There's one thing about hard counters in BG2 that I don't like. Namely, that it's so vitally important to get the counter in first, a lot of the time, and a lot of the time, the set-pieces are set up so that things materialize at you out of thin air, more or less. If the attack hits before the counter, it's very often combat over, or at least one or more fatalities. This gives an incentive to apply the immunity before the fight, which your characters couldn't know about but you do because you just died and reloaded. Consider level drain. Negative Plane Protection is a hard counter available at a relatively low level, but in limited numbers. Yet the casting time is pretty long, and because of the high cost of Lesser Restoration (essentially, a rest, and if you're a caster, two rests because you'll need to re-memorize your spells), you really want to avoid getting level drained. My preference is for counters over immunities. I got a huge kick out of the magicfights in IWD's Severed Hand because they worked like this. Someone was Dire Charmed; Dominate them right back, or Hold Person to get them to stay put while it wears off. Immunities should IMO be largely on items, not spells, and these items should be rare. So, another question to the grognard gang: which one do you prefer, immunities or counters, and why?