PrimeJunta

There was a quite a bit in the other thread (not that it went down very well in certain quarters). I don't want to force it, but I'm fairly certain I'll have things to say about it as I go along. Of course if you feel C&C is better for this, by all means move it (and change the thread title).

I've always figured there are two kinds of aligned people: those who are actually ethically committed to their alignment, and those who just are what they are. The paladin is the extreme example of ethically committed. The NE you're describing here would be an ethically committed NE, i.e. a stark staring psychopath. I think a far more common variety of NE is just someone who's selfish, calculating, and constantly looking for an advantage. Not necessarily utterly devoid of empathy or emotion. For example, the poisoned guy offered "his gratitude and that of his friends," which is actually entirely appealing to this type of NE suddenly alone and adrift in a strange and obviously dangerous city -- and after all it's not like taking him somewhere is a huge inconvenience. I read a column a while back by a thrusting business type on how to get ahead. He said "Always buy everybody lunches. They cost practically nothing and people will feel they're in debt to you." That is an extremely Neutral Evil sentiment from where I'm at.

@Malekith Yup, that would be entirely satisfactory. I never demanded that my plan should work, I just hoped the attempt would be acknowledged. That's what quest design is all about.

OK, first interim report. One, I'm having fun again. Two, the evil options have so far been very well catered to. I got the poisoned man quest again, and took him back, asked for a reward for the "good deed." Got a few pennies, but then when that Xzar guy approached me, it's fairly clear there's an evil path to follow here. Me gusta. However, I was on Korgan's quest, and with my paranoia about timers I was totes beelining it. It was a good quest. There was one seriously good fight in the tomb, which took me a couple of tries to win but was challenging in a good way. This time my spell prep was right out of the box; going into a tomb, I had memorized Negative Plane Protections, summons, various direct damage, a Haste, and a Lesser Restoration, and it was exactly what was needed. I also liked that map a lot -- not too constrained and visually very very cool. I'm liking the gameplay with my mage/thief a lot better too. Sneaking and backstabbing is fun rather than teeth-grating, and I'm feeling my three mean tomb raiders are at least as efficient at mummy-punching as my big emo party from the previous attempt. Korgan's writing is also less grating than any of the other party-member NPC's so far, even if the Scots thing is laid on a bit thick. I LOLed at some of the insults. I've also been simply not talking to people to avoid getting overencumbered with quests. I trust both Korgan and Viconia will now stick with me as long as I don't turn into a knight in shining armor. Taking a breather now before deciding what to do next. Someone on the street offered me a government job, would you believe it?

Give it a rest already. I was just unhappy that some of the quests were linear and offered no options other than violence or don't do it at all.

Despite a promising start, my first attempt at enjoying BG2 ended in abject failure as I was unable to play Iggy the Inquisitor the way I wanted to, which was also apparently wrong. The reasons for the failure I listed here. Not to be daunted, I started another attempt, this time tailoring my build to address at least some of the things that were annoying me, and determined to change some things about my play-style as well. I am going with Badiat the Bad Hmm-Hmm neutral evil elven mage/thief. She's good at stealth/scouting, which addresses my irritation with that mechanic ("click-and-wait-until-it-bites"). She's good at magic and has INT 18, which addresses my irritation with the spell-memorization mechanic. Also, I know from before that magic scales up very well in BG2. She's neutral evil, which means I won't be bellyaching about ethical choices or staying in character, and just do whatever. She's a she, which means I won't get the awkward and cringeworthy flirts from fellow party-members. Other things I'm resolved to change, or at least try out: Smaller party, to avoid the herding-cats feel of navigating constrained maps with bad pathfinding (and to level up faster, because multiclass) Different party members, to avoid the same quests. At this point, I'm out of Irenicus' dungeon, where I told Jaheira and Minsc to go fly a kite, and cleared it with Imoen. Didn't fight the cambion because magic resistance and lousy THAC0, but otherwise cleared all the content without much trouble. Rested for 14 days once though LOL. Recruited Korgan from the Copper Coronet, then spoiled myself about where to find Viconia, and recruited her. Korgan glugged one of my speed potions and murdered everyone who needed murdering, so that was easy. Going to attempt Korgan's quest next, with just me and him and Viconia, to stop him from running off on me. I've already leveled up a few times. Will stop by Waukeen's Promenade to pick up some spells, then head off to the tomb. And, Stun, Hiro, and others who think I suck -- I honestly am trying to enjoy this. I believe there's a great game underneat there somewhere and I'm trying hard to dig it out.

Okay, two votes: one for new thread, one for not. I vote new thread, so I'll make one. :sigh:

Anyway, forget Iggy the Paladin. I started over. Elven mage/thief, longsword+longbow (duh), neutral evil. Since I had to crawl through Irenicus's digs again, I decided to make it at least a little different, so I told Jaheira and Minsc to go boil an egg and did ith with Imoen only. Didn't fight the cambion because lousy THAC0 but cheerfully murdered everything else. Leveled up like blue blazes, and it's actually more enjoyable to play with just two toons since the pathfinding doesn't trip me up so much. It was not bad actually; let rip with spells at every occasion, then rested for 14 days to heal up. Lots of backstabbing also. I'm hoping this build addresses a few of the secondary issues detracting from my enjoyment: Stealth, because she actually can into sneaking. So far, much less irritating. A couple more thief levels and it'll be fine. Roleplaying aspects, because neutral evil can basically do whatever. So far the evil dialog options were not bad actually. Choice acknowledged there at least. Spell memorization, because INT 18 makes it much less annoying. I will also see how it feels with a three-member party: fighter and cleric in addition to me. I will probably spoil myself a bit to see where I can pick up Viconia since I remember what a prat Anomen is, and recruit Korgan Bloodaxe from the Coronet to take point. That ought to make the pathfinding less annoying and ought to let me level up nice and fast too, which is always good for a multiclass. Shall I continue the commentary here, or make another thread?

You guys are really good at rationalizing away the huge plot holes, area design inconsistencies, and quest omissions though. If you get to do that, then I get to say that my god ordered my paladin to go undercover and eliminate both groups of thieves. Neener neener.

I don't care when it's IWD, as it's clear from the start that it's a linear dungeon crawl. I do care in a quest-based game. If there's no choice and no acknowledgement of choice, I'm just a glorified errand-boy.

BG2 doesn't let you play a one-dimensional LG-bound freak. If that's how far your definition of Paladin class goes, it's probably a bad idea to roll a paladin in any game. But don't be so upset - it's a very common mistake. Many people think that playing a paladin is about casting Detect Evil before talking to anyone and, in general, smiting some "evil" at every corner. "Hey you! You, crossing the road in the wrong place! Feel my holy wrath!" If you read this thread, you'd find out that I attempted to have my paladin infiltrate the Shadow Thieves and Mae'varis's outfit in order to rat both out to the Cowled Wizards so they would take them down. The game did not let me, and several people on this thread objected loudly that a paladin couldn't do that to start with. One of them went as far as to say that accepting to work for Bloodscalp would have been an automatic fall from grace in PnP. I.e., it's not my idea of what a paladin can or can't do that you're arguing with.

Fuuuu... fine, I'll give it a shot. Despite it not being your thing, going with a mage/thief. Neutral Evil just to be a not-paladin and see if the game has more to offer on that side.

Looked at Assassin. How do you get around the lousy THAC0?

@Sensuki Thanks, those links worked. Any thoughts on mage/thief? One of my annoyances was scouting; Nalia was terrible at it and Yoshimo wasn't so good either. I'd like to have hide/move silently/find traps high enough for my scout that I don't need to do that click-wait-click-wait thing to successfully stealth. OTOH thieves aren't much fun in combat because of the THAC0. Don't want to dual-class, I hate hate hate the part when they're baggage.

@Sensuki Tried downloading the Gibberlings mods, but the Download button goes to the forums. What gives?

Thanks, but nope. I don't want tips on playing an Inquisitor, as I certainly won't roll another one. I'd just have to slog through the same content again. Also, since the game doesn't offer choices within quests, I'd rather play as a class/alignment who doesn't often (in-character) need to turn down quests. I also don't want content spoilers, so thanks but no thanks on the video. Suggestions that would be helpful: "Play as [insert class/alignment]." "Don't take quest Q until you're level L." "Check out area A in district D first." (You mentioned the Temple District.) "You can safely ignore the events E, F, G you experienced in Iggy's playthrough."

Soo, guys -- your turn. What did I do wrong? Collecting some of the suggestions: "You should have played to your paladin's role by not accepting quests unsuited for him." (Stun, archangel, Hiro Protagonist II) Fair point. My expectation though was that the game acknowledges my choice of class/alignment not only by having content suitable for him, but by offering suitable choices within the content it offers. It did not do that, and I consider that a fairly major flaw. Also, because of BG1, I'm paranoid about quest timers related to party members, which is why I felt extremely pressured to take Yoshimo's quest. Yoshimo being the sole party member who's only a little irritating. "You should have installed mods." (Sensuki) Fine, I'll do that if I start a new game. "You should have played the quests in a different order." (Sensuki) Fine, but how am I supposed to know which order I'm supposed to play them? ("By playing it repeatedly.") ("But I much prefer the feeling of discovering new things to playing through stuff repeatedly.") "You should have played more." (jones) If I'm hating it, why should I continue? "You're wrong, the game is awesome and if you're not having fun it's your fault." (Mr. Magniloquent, Hiro Protagonist II) Thank you, that was helpful. Any others? Honestly, guys -- I wanted to enjoy this, I thought I was going to enjoy this, and up until the beholder quest and subsequently being swamped by events and quests, I was enjoying it. About that "playing it repeatedly thing." One thing I do not particularly enjoy is tearing through the same content I already did again. Not unless there's a materially different way of tearing through it. I.e. I don't relish facing the same monsters again and fighting them in the same way again, not unless I find a materially different way of doing it. Now you know how I tried to play this. Your turn: how should I have tried to play this?

Nah. I've played enough to know that it's not up to my standards. Can you define your standard? And not in vague terms. But using specific examples from crpgs? I'm not trying to flame you, but I can't figure out what you would be comparing this too. I can list cRPG's I've thought have been worth playing for various reasons: PS:T, IWD, Fallout 1/2/NV, Arcanum, NWN: MotB, NWN: SoZ, Gothic 2, Morrowind, The Witcher/2, KOTOR/2, ToEE, Jade Empire, Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall. I can also list cRPG's I've thought have been more frustrating, dull, or otherwise flawed than enjoyable: Oblivion, IWD2, DA:O, DA:I, ME1-2-3 (occasional moments of brilliance aside), FO3, Gothic 3. I can't define it any better than that. BG1 and 2 are both in the second bin. It may yet move into the first. I haven't ruled out another shot at it.

If it's BG/2 with better writing and my pet annoyances removed -- and so far it appears to be just that, more or less -- then I'll certainly love it.

By "filler combat" I mean stuff like facing mob after mob of goblins, then orcs, then barbarians etc., where each fight is won by repeating the same tactics as before. There is very little character customization in IWD as it uses the AD&D2 ruleset. No modal abilities.

Nah. I've played enough to know that it's not up to my standards.

You were saying that I didn't like IE games. That's not true, I liked IWD and PS:T a lot. I also liked some things about BG1 and BG2, even if in BG1 it was about fifty-fifty between the positives and the negatives, and BG2 about 30-70 positives-negatives. Namely, I liked the exploration of BG1, and I like the sheer breadth of stuff in BG2. (I also found it a good deal more engaging than BG1, generally speaking.) I think I would like BG2 a great deal if only the Athkatla pacing was changed to be more like BG1, the quests were spread out so that the lower-level ones were easier to discover than the higher-level ones, and you could not unknowingly take on timed content while another timer was running. I do like it that it's possible to go straight to a higher-level quest, but that's a decision I want to make knowingly. I'm sure it would be entirely feasible to mod that BTW. With those adjustments, I could put up with the other irritations, I'm pretty sure.

Thank you. Point conceded, I was playing my paladin wrong.

What, IWD and PS:T aren't IE games now?

@Shallow IWD1 is IMO much better than IWD2. It has less... make that, almost no filler combat, the maps are far more polished, and it maintains tension better. You can design your own party in BG2, via the multiplayer feature. I remember doing that. @archangel I've DM'ed every D&D version from the original to 3.5e. Never in Forgotten Realms though; I always made up my own worlds, although one of them "imported" most of the Al-Qadim setting content. I just re-read the paladin description from 3.5e PHB, and it does not say anything about lying. At all. Or am I missing something? I'm looking at pages 43-45. All it says about the paladin's code of conduct is "Alignment: Paladins must be lawful good, and they lose their divine powers if they deviate from that alignment. Additionally, paladins swear to follow a code of conduct that is in line with lawfulness and goodness."