Let's Play Baldur's Gate 2, and reflect on Pillars of Eternity

[Sensuki]

I've never had that rough of an experience with any of the encounters in the IE games. I think it might just simply be party composition for you. Nalia as a functional character isn't that great. She should only be used for her Mage part. If you want a thief you have Yoshimo and Jan Jansen to choose from (never played BG2:EE so not sure about the new chick). Regardless Yoshimo and Jan are both good party members, functionally and Jan has hilarious dialogue.

 

When I was like 14, I always used Aerie because of waifu, but yeah now I usually roll with Viconia and Edwin instead. Who are also both good functional characters. Nothing wrong with Aerie though, finished the game like 10 times with her in my party, maybe more.

 

I quite literally just bulldoze the Beholders with one character usually, a few potions and maybe a pre-buff or two (Death Ward etc) and an Oil of Speed or something and just hammer on them. Seems to work quite well, unless you get Held (come in with an insta-Remove Paralysis). Hasn't been an issue for me because I understand how to manipulate AI targeting.

 

You should go do the Guarded Compound, the fight on the top floor of that building is good fun, and has good loot

Edited January 10, 2015 by Sensuki

[Stun]

Funny thing about those companion timed quests.

 

-When a game doesn't have them, it gets criticized for its bad writing and its lack of urgency. And companions are dismissed as "not having lives/issues of their own."

 

-But when a game puts them in, suddenly it's: "I can't stand this quest-dumping design" and "Sheesh, I only have 5 party members, how come this stuff is happening so frequently?"

 

 

Thing is, I see both sides of the argument. But both sides are whinging over nothing. Companion quest urgency in BG2 is an illusion. Don't want to go visit Aerie's annoying foster daddy? Don't. Eventually (after like, a few weeks) Aerie will leave your party. And...So what? Just go back to the circus tent and re-recruit her. Problem solved. On the other hand, Urgency, when done right, is a wonderful thing, but it's also the ultimate Role playing tool and thus it's up to the player to Role Play that Urgency, and BG2 caters quite well to players who do. (for example, The Rescue Imoen quest. it can be done fairly quickly because the game lets you raise 15,000gp without ever leaving the copper coronet.)

Edited January 10, 2015 by Stun

[Sensuki]

Better yet - install a mod that prevents them from leaving, and problem solved

[PrimeJunta]

Okay, more derp.

 

Decided to push on a bit, to see if it gets more fun. Picked up Yoshimo, continued with his quest. Snatched the amulet. Got a task to kill a perfectly innocent wizard. I told Edwin I'd do it (being undercover and all), and, resolved to find another way, went to see the wizard. No options allowed: it's either get out or fight him. Thought I'd report to the Shadow Thieves boss to see if he could arrange something: again, no dice. 

 

I.e., the game is railroading me into murdering someone. Me, a paladin. It's either that, or drop the quest. More not-fun.

 

If this was a PnP game and I went and murdered the wizard, that would be an automatic fall from grace for Iggy the Inquisitor. Since it isn't, I did so anyway and hope the game doesn't implement that little bit of DnD goodness. If it does, yay, automatic restart, which I won't do after this time investment.

 

Then, somebody abducts Nalia and I get attacked by random vampires. Guess if I had Negative Plane Protection memorized? Level drain is so much fun. Whoopee-doo, I have to stop what I'm doing and go chase after something else again, then rest-spam to get the level drain restored.

 

This is... not fun. The game is pulling me in two opposite directions: on the one hand, it's instilling a sense of urgency with all these timed events, and on the other, it's stopping me from pursuing them by throwing yet more events at me.

 

I don't care if you call it "content density" or something else, this blows.

 

Edit: Annnd, sufficiently pissed off at it at this point to quit. We will see if that fades enough for me to get back to it. Enjoyment level went from A+ to D- really fast.

Edited January 10, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[Stun]

You mean it's like real life? True story. My Car's license plates expire this month. I wanted to go yesterday to get my car inspected and re-new the plates. But I couldn't, because I had to work. And now it's Saturday and the DMV is closed for the weekend. Guess I'll have to postpone that quest... until later.

 

In any case, Yeah, if you wish to remain true to the Paladin role playing, there's really no rational way to justify doing the Mae'var quest at all. So I'd skip it. And Edwin is quite evil himself. A true paladin wouldn't associate with him. Minsc and Jaheira should have told you that.

 

But for what it's worth, Rayic Gethras is NOT an innocent. He's one of the Cowled Wizards. You know, a member of the group that captured your sister because Irenicus demanded it.

Edited January 10, 2015 by Stun

[Sensuki]

Sounds like you need to take a vacation to the Umar Hills instead, and leave that busy city behind , or maybe Trademeet.

Most of those vampire encounters don't require you to engage in them. There's one where a vampire charms a Shadow Thief to attack you, and then the one after that they attack you. I think there might even be a couple more instances after that, but it only occurs during Athkatla night. On most playthroughs I haven't actually even gotten up to the scripted encounters after that.

 

What's more if you are level drained, there's the Temple of Oghma in the Docks, and a Temple of Waukeen in Waukeen's Promenade, a Temple of Ilmater in the Slums (and maybe the Bridge District?) and there's the Temple of Lathander, Helm and Talos in the Temple District. If none of your characters died to the level drain, just simply go to the temple and pay for Greater Restoration - problem solved.

 

But yep, stuff happens all the time in BG2 during Chapter 2 in Athkatla. There's heaps of messengers, heaps of interjections and lots of companion side mission stuff. I think it's great, and it truly does take a while to get through it all - there's so much stuff to do.

The events do pile up, and you just have to work your way through them one by one.

 

I do play the game for the combat/exploration and I don't pay too much attention to role-playing or dialogue. I know what all the 'win' dialogue options are, that was just BioWare's style back then (Icewind Dale 1 was the same, tbh - always an optimal choice). So when people show up and ask me to do stuff I just enter through the dialogue, and then continue on to what I'm doing.

Also by now, I would have gone over to the Adventurer's Mart to buy the Sensate Amulet (I think that's where you get it) which makes your Cleric immune to level drain

Edited January 10, 2015 by Sensuki

[Luckmann]

[...]

 

Also by now, I would have gone over to the Adventurer's Mart to buy the Sensate Amulet (I think that's where you get it) which makes your Cleric immune to level drain

The Sensate Amulet gives Protection From Evil, not Energy Drain, afaik, no?

Edited January 10, 2015 by Luckmann

[PrimeJunta]

You mean it's like real life? True story. My Car's license plates expire this month. I wanted to go yesterday to get my car inspected and re-new the plates. But I couldn't, because I had to work. And now it's Saturday and the DMV is closed for the weekend. Guess I'll have to postpone that quest... until later.

 

In any case, Yeah, if you wish to remain true to the Paladin role playing, there's really no rational way to justify doing the Mae'var quest at all. So I'd skip it. And Edwin is quite evil himself. A true paladin wouldn't associate with him. Minsc and Jaheira should have told you that.

 

But for what it's worth, Rayic Gethras is NOT an innocent. He's one of the Cowled Wizards. You know, one of the guys who belongs to the group that captured your sister because Irenicus demanded it.

 

The Cowled Wizards represent the law in Athkatla. Use of magic is forbidden. Imoen cast spells. They were perfectly within their rights to take them both to Spellhold. I have no quarrel with them at all. /Lawful Good

 

Again: my intention was never to do what Edwin says, but instead negotiate with Gethras or, alternatively, the Shadow Thieves guildmaster to keep the thing going. Not possible. That's a badly-designed quest: on-rails, forcing you to act against type (unless you're actually Evil), with the only option to just leave it hanging. BG2 is at its best when it offers lots of ways to do things, and clearly at its worst when it puts you on rails and forces you to play against type.

 

Playing as a paladin was clearly a mistake, since the game doesn't actually let me play as a paladin. 

 

It would be a shame to end this Let's Play on such a sour note, so I'm going to take some deep breaths and get back to this tomorrow. But right now it's looking pretty unlikely that I won't drop this fairly soon.

 

Edit: One more thing, to Sensuki and others suggesting which quests I should do/should have done earlier. How am I supposed to know that? 

 

Again, I'm getting a ton of content dumped on me with no indication about the challenge level. I'm just following the various signposts the game gives me. This is completely different from intentionally going off the beaten path, and I find it both un-fun and unfair. Like a juvenile DM with self-esteem issues who gets off on murdering his PC's.

Edited January 10, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[500MetricTonnes]

I think he's stuck in the Beholder Lair until he gets through it now

 

This is actually an optional quest too, has nothing to do with the main plot. It's part of the Cleric Stronghold though I think.

 

But yeah I think experiences may differ if you're playing BG2:EE, I have not played it because the modded original is better IMO.

 

I believe the original BG2 scaled some encounters to your level - at a low level, the Temple Ruins contained Mummies and Skeleton Warriors, at a higher level it would contain Liches. Likewise, going through areas at high levels would often cause Iron Golems to be replaced by Adamantite Golems

 

Other points for the OP:

 

- You are not "railroaded" into killing the Cowled Wizard during Renal Bloodscalp's quest. You can simply say "No, I'm not doing this." Sure, you won't finish the quest, but there's nothing forcing you to complete it. And keep in mind that you are doing a quest for a thieves' guild, which means you're likely going to be asked to do some morally-dubious things.

 

"Railroading" is something like KotoR2 having my Exile go off with Mira despite the fact that there's a bounty on Jedi and she identifies herself as a bounty hunter.

 

- IWD did feature Beholders, in the Trials of the Luremaster add-on. And it gave no hint that you would be facing them, either.

 

- It was unclear whether you killed Kangaxx, or just one of the Liches guarding his bones? I don't want to spoil too much, but the real Kangaxx is much more than your run-of-the-mill Lich.

[Sensuki]

And you'll no doubt come back here raging about him if you just fought a normal lich hahaha.

[Sensuki]

How am I supposed to know that? 

By playing the game multiple times BG2 is a game that takes many playthroughs to fully experience, and as you play it more, you will learn how to play it more optimally. The Guarded Compound is a bit of an easter egg place. I never visited it on my first playthrough. On my second I went inside the bottom floor, but for some reason never explored the top floor, and on my third playthrough I finally went upstairs and was like "Well! That escalated quickly".

 

I also did not know about the Twisted Rune until I read something about it online. I think I'd played the game 10 times or so at least before learning about it.

 

It's very much a trial-and-error game, and that's one of the things I think makes it a lot of fun, and have a lot of replayability. It's a much different beast from J.E. Sawyer's "controlled player experience" and if I had to choose, I'd probably pick BG2's style over that, and refine it even more.

 

Again, I'm getting a ton of content dumped on me with no indication about the challenge level. I'm just following the various signposts the game gives me. This is completely different from intentionally going off the beaten path, and I find it both un-fun and unfair. Like a juvenile DM with self-esteem issues who gets off on murdering his PC's.

I think you might be just a bit sour from the Beholder area. Seriously, stuff everything and just go do Umar Hills and Trademeet or something. You'll feel much better after those.

[Stun]

The Cowled Wizards represent the law in Athkatla.

That means exactly nothing. Especially to a Paladin. It's like going to some drug infested slum in Colombia or some other cesspool in Central America and declaring that the warlords that run the place represent the law.

 

But you're right anyway by pointing out that aspects of Mae'var's/Renal's quest aren't exactly kosher for a Paladin. Because they simply aren't. But don't pretend that you were forced or "railroaded" in any way. The whole thing is a side quest, and you can easily skip it and STILL streamroll through the entire rest of the game with no lack of super-overpoweredness. (both XP-wise and loot-wise)

 

PS: Wait you're a Paladin. Try entering Rayic's home and casting Detect Evil. I might be wrong, but I'm fairly certain he'll glow all shiny and red.

Edited January 10, 2015 by Stun

[PrimeJunta]

- You are not "railroaded" into killing the Cowled Wizard during Renal Bloodscalp's quest. You can simply say "No, I'm not doing this." Sure, you won't finish the quest, but there's nothing forcing you to complete it. And keep in mind that you are doing a quest for a thieves' guild, which means you're likely going to be asked to do some morally-dubious things.

"No thanks, I won't complete the quest" is an extremely unsatisfying choice for a game to give to you. It is just a badly-designed quest.

 

"Railroading" is something like KotoR2 having my Exile go off with Mira despite the fact that there's a bounty on Jedi and she identifies herself as a bounty hunter.

Or, to pick another example, have some git show up to arrest Nalia and not give me the option to fight him then and there. Poof, she's gone.

 

- IWD did feature Beholders, in the Trials of the Luremaster add-on. And it gave no hint that you would be facing them, either.

I was referring to the vanilla campaign, not HoW. I just finished that a few days ago.

 

- It was unclear whether you killed Kangaxx, or just one of the Liches guarding his bones? I don't want to spoil too much, but the real Kangaxx is much more than your run-of-the-mill Lich.

Dunno, the tooltip said "Kangaxx." I assumed that was him. Maybe it was just one of the liches guarding his bones. In any case I reloaded to a save before that point.

 

@Sensuki: Yes I am. I haven't even heard about Trademeet yet. We'll see tomorrow.

[PrimeJunta]

But you're right anyway by pointing out that aspects of Mae'var's/Reenal's quest aren't exactly kosher for a Paladin. Because they simply aren't. But don't pretend that you were forced or "railroaded" in any way. The whole thing is a side quest, and you can easily skip it and STILL streamroll through the entire rest of the game with no lack of super-overpoweredness. (Iboth XP wise and loot wise)

Yes, it is a sidequest. A badly-designed, linear sidequest, omitting many easy possibilities for alternative solutions, and offering no options for playing different alignments.

 

What should have been possible? Talk with the wizard. Charm the wizard. Stage the wizard's death. Tell the wizard Mae'varis is after his blood and have him take him out. And so on and so forth. Both original Fallouts and FO:NV had similar setups, and they always took care to cover at least most of the things a player was likely to think of. Bad quest.

 

Again: if the best option is not to take or complete a quest, that is indicative of shoddy design.

[Luckmann]

The Cowled Wizards represent the law in Athkatla. Use of magic is forbidden. Imoen cast spells. They were perfectly within their rights to take them both to Spellhold. I have no quarrel with them at all. /Lawful Good

 

Lawful Good has nothing to do with following laws. That said, I really hate the premise for the main plot in BG2 partly because of this reason; it is entirely possible that you just don't care about Imoen, yet the game not only pushes you towards pursuing her, but flat-out assumes that you want to do so.

 

Again: my intention was never to do what Edwin says, but instead negotiate with Gethras or, alternatively, the Shadow Thieves guildmaster to keep the thing going. Not possible. That's a badly-designed quest: on-rails, forcing you to act against type (unless you're actually Evil), with the only option to just leave it hanging. BG2 is at its best when it offers lots of ways to do things, and clearly at its worst when it puts you on rails and forces you to play against type.

 

Playing as a paladin was clearly a mistake, since the game doesn't actually let me play as a paladin.

It offers you the option to refuse, or even go in there guns blazing and just up and kill every last one of them. Athkatla is corrupt to the bone, and you being caught choosing between two really bad options (working with vampires or working with Shadow Thieves, the latter obviously presented as the lesser evil) is meant to reinforce this. However, I just feel it ends up tying into the previous issue of assuming you want to do either.

 

That being said, I would have liked it if it was possible to go somewhere, such as the guard, and tell them this or that, and "resolve" the quest that way, even if all they do is tell you to sod off (since the Shadow Thieves is in power in Athkatla, to a degree - which isn't actually covered very well in the game). But again, *that* being said, if you have such issue with the quest based on the character you are playing, I find it remarkable that you even associate yourself with Edwin, a man you should know by now is a Red Wizard of Thay, well known to be a nation of evil, godless wizards whose chief export includes fireballs, their chief import being rashemen slaves.

 

It would be a shame to end this Let's Play on such a sour note, so I'm going to take some deep breaths and get back to this tomorrow. But right now it's looking pretty unlikely that I won't drop this fairly soon.

 

Edit: One more thing, to Sensuki and others suggesting which quests I should do/should have done earlier. How am I supposed to know that? 

 

Again, I'm getting a ton of content dumped on me with no indication about the challenge level. I'm just following the various signposts the game gives me. This is completely different from intentionally going off the beaten path, and I find it both un-fun and unfair. Like a juvenile DM with self-esteem issues who gets off on murdering his PC's.

The way BG2 dumps stuff on you is actually annoying as hell, I agree, and I really, really, really missed the way BG1 was paced by comparison, with you being dumped in a relatively open world and then you slowly explored from there, and it all kinda grew organically. In BG2 you're immediately thrown into the biggest (and only) major city in the game, sink or swim, and it hurls a ton of unconnected quests at you before you can even make your way out of there.

 

There's really no "breathers", and with the sense of implied urgency to many of the quests (but let's be honest, most are implied to not be very urgent), it feels odd to go gallivanting cross-country, from a roleplaying perspective. In many ways, BG2 is superior to BG1, but storytelling-wise (both main story and sidequests) BG1 is massively superior in pacing and approach.

 

Not to mention that BG1 has more and better NPC:s, but regrettably also rather shallow ones compared to BG2:s pretty involved interactions. Xan, Kivan, Xzar, Kagain, Garrick, Eldoth.. *sigh*

 

Instead we got the C-team; Imoen the forced plot device, Jaheira the annoying oedipal mother figure, and Minsc the functionally retarded comical relief engine of offbeat humour.

[Sensuki]

Yes, it is a sidequest. A badly-designed, linear sidequest, omitting many easy possibilities for alternative solutions, and offering no options for playing different alignments.

 

What should have been possible? Talk with the wizard. Charm the wizard. Stage the wizard's death. Tell the wizard Mae'varis is after his blood and have him take him out. And so on and so forth. Both original Fallouts and FO:NV had similar setups, and they always took care to cover at least most of the things a player was likely to think of. Bad quest.

 

Again: if the best option is not to take or complete a quest, that is indicative of shoddy design.

Every game has their share of these. Even Pillars of Eternity

 

When you think of it, that quest is just a sub-quest of the Mae'Var quest, which isn't bad in itself - it has lots of stages, takes you to a few different locations and you do have more than one option in a few of the quests. I think you can also side with Mae'Var, too.

 

Be nice if you could use some Cipher abilities in the dialogue in PE, but so far - they don't let you.

Edited January 10, 2015 by Sensuki

[Stun]

Again: if the best option is not to take or complete a quest, that is indicative of shoddy design.

Not really. Not unless every single quest is that way. Which simply isn't the case in BG2, at all. In fact, it's not even the case in in that very questline. Wait till you see Maevar's final task. There's at least 4 different ways to solve it.

[Sensuki]

Yeah the actual Mae'Var questline as a whole is really good. Maybe all of the sub-quests of it aren't A+, oh well.

[Lord Wafflebum]

@Sensuki

 

Yeep, I had no idea BG2 had mods. I'm going to have to play that game again with mods. I know you posted the mods we should use at a minimum, but do you have any other recommendations? Do you know if Ascension is good to play with?

[Malekith]

Well, that makes it clear that Prime Junta and me have diferent tastes in games  .

The things he dislikes are actualy what i liked in BG2, and the gameplay style he prefers is what i find boring. IWDs combat stands in the middle between BG2 "anything goes, trial and error and puzzle like unfairness" and PoE's "controlled player experience". And i found IWDs combat unremarkable as well (not to the level of PoE's boringness but still).

While i adore BG2 Lich/ Beholder/ Illithid/ dragon fights. Even more so with SCS which turns the hard counters to eleven,makes wizards absolute gods compaired to other classes (much more than vanila game), and turns BG2 combat to my favorite combat from any game to date.

Also i liked that i had quests piling atop one another every corner, and i was bored out of my mind from BG1 "pacing", which makes BG1 my least favorite among the IE games.

 

Which trully hammers the point that Obsidian cannot hope to please everyone with their IE successor, since there is no such thing as "IE successor".

The IE games were completely diferent from each other, and even if someone liked all of them, they valued very different aspects more than the others.

Edited January 10, 2015 by Malekith

[archangel979]

 

But you're right anyway by pointing out that aspects of Mae'var's/Reenal's quest aren't exactly kosher for a Paladin. Because they simply aren't. But don't pretend that you were forced or "railroaded" in any way. The whole thing is a side quest, and you can easily skip it and STILL streamroll through the entire rest of the game with no lack of super-overpoweredness. (Iboth XP wise and loot wise)

Yes, it is a sidequest. A badly-designed, linear sidequest, omitting many easy possibilities for alternative solutions, and offering no options for playing different alignments.

 

What should have been possible? Talk with the wizard. Charm the wizard. Stage the wizard's death. Tell the wizard Mae'varis is after his blood and have him take him out. And so on and so forth. Both original Fallouts and FO:NV had similar setups, and they always took care to cover at least most of the things a player was likely to think of. Bad quest.

 

Again: if the best option is not to take or complete a quest, that is indicative of shoddy design.

 

No it is not. You took a quest for Thief guild as a paladin. A quest that was not even about greater good. That should have been instant loss of paladinhood there in PnP. The game is nice and didn't do that. After that, it does not need to pander to Paladins with identity crisis.

If you don't want to do it, walk away. I done that plenty of times even in PnP while not playing as restricted classes as paladins, **** money and XP.

[Sensuki]

Yeah PE combat is pretty boring.

 

@Sensuki

 

Yeep, I had no idea BG2 had mods. I'm going to have to play that game again with mods. I know you posted the mods we should use at a minimum, but do you have any other recommendations? Do you know if Ascension is good to play with?

Yeah sure, although you have to beware of mod compatibility as some mods often step on eachother's toes and cause bugs. There is a huge megamod called Big World that actually makes a lot of these mods compatible together, but it takes a long time to install properly.

 

I like Ascension mostly for the Harder Bosses mods that come with it.

 

I also use ToBEx, D0QuestPack, D0Tweak, SPStuff, Spell50 and a couple of other minor mods - some of these mods you have to be careful with compatibility though, I read a guide on the net about which order to install them in, and what components not to use.

 

If you're going to be using a few mods, it's 100% worth googling which order to install them in, because you could run into a gamebreaking bug if you install them in the incorrect order.

 

I think the BiG World manual is the best thing to look up mod install orders for (from memory) but a few forums have guides too.

Edited January 10, 2015 by Sensuki

[GordonHalfman]

I don't really get it, you complain about Beholder's being an example of "hard counters" when you were able to brute force your way through the fight just fine. Then you complain about fighting vamps without negative plane protection when apparently you got through that fight just fine as well and could solve the level drain issue with one trip to a temple. Vampire encounters can also be avoided by not going out at night.

 

Then you complain about not having a Paladin specific solution to the Maevar quest, a quest that starts with you joining a criminal organisation to investigate one of their members for treachery and ends with with you murdering him for his "crimes." It is actually possible to ignore Edwin's quests and just kill him with a backstab or something and take the key to Maevar's strongbox to complete the quest line that way. I don't think you can pickpocket it though, which is unfortunate. But regardless there's no way to square the entire quest line with a lawful good alignment, even if you just assume everyone at Maevar's guild is evil enough to deserve death getting paid to kill them is a pretty... pragmatic interpretation of a paladin's code. 

 

Anyway you're basically describing a bunch of stuff about the game that makes it so awesome. A excellently rendered fantasy city, tons of little encounters, lots of weird and wonderful monsters to learn about, lots of companion quests and interaction, some morally dubious **** for you too etc. 

[Althernai]

"No thanks, I won't complete the quest" is an extremely unsatisfying choice for a game to give to you. It is just a badly-designed quest.

I don't know about that -- I certainly didn't like it, but that quest seems like something like a group of criminals would have people do before they allow newcomers to join them. It weeds out, say, Lawful Good types who would only ever join the guild in order to destroy it.

 

Dunno, the tooltip said "Kangaxx." I assumed that was him. Maybe it was just one of the liches guarding his bones. In any case I reloaded to a save before that point.

I think that's some sort of EE weirdness. Before you get to Kangaxx, you need to find some golden body parts. Also, unless you know exactly what you are doing, he would demolish you even with a much higher level party than yours -- the guy is immune to everything but the kitchen sink and casts an insta-kill spell that ignores saves and magic resistance every few seconds.

 

Regarding your "urgency" complaints: yes, that is a weakness of the game. It does dump a ton of situations on you saying that they are urgent and you have no chance of doing them all promptly. The best thing is to ignore it. The only things which are actually on a timer (that I've ever noticed, anyway) are the party member side quests and even those are quite long. The class quests will wait for you indefinitely.

 

I can't quite sympathize with you about the Beholders. Yes, they are tough, but there's nothing stopping you from blowing all of your resources on them and then going back upstairs to rest and resupply before continuing the quest or going back upstairs to buy the proper spells. Be grateful you didn't do the Planar Sphere quest first...

[PrimeJunta]

But again, *that* being said, if you have such issue with the quest based on the character you are playing, I find it remarkable that you even associate yourself with Edwin, a man you should know by now is a Red Wizard of Thay, well known to be a nation of evil, godless wizards whose chief export includes fireballs, their chief import being rashemen slaves.

Jeebus. I've said several times that my intent was to pretend to Edwin that I'm going along with his request, then go to the wizard, blab about it to him, and have the Cowled Wizards -- who presumably do not take kindly to people hiring assassins to kill them -- take care of the problem. I did not want to associate with Edwin. But the game didn't let me.

 

Let's talk quest design a bit actually, because here the P:E BB is head and shoulders above what I've seen in BG2 so far. Which of the quests I've done to this point have any alternative resolutions? The only possible one I can think of is deciding to keep the Rift Device instead of returning it to the Temple of the Forgotten God. I didn't try that so I don't know what would happen, perhaps there was a genuine choice there. Everything else has been A-B-C linear. The de'Arnise Keep was cool because it had multiple ways of accomplishing those goals and some wack side content (the Flail of Ages and the golems), but the quest itself was as linear as it comes.

 

Consider the BB.

 

 

 

You can side with Medreth, or side with Nyfre, or kill both groups. If you side with Medreth, you can (abilities permitting) trick Nyfre into walking into his trap, or kill her yourself. If you side with Nyfre, you can kill Medreth or (abilities permitting) trick him into leaving. If you talk to Nyfre before talking to Medreth, she'll hire you to snoop around, and if you kill Medreth for her, she'll give you a rather nice piece of armor.

 

Korgrak. You can kill him, convince him to lay low or move away, convince the farmer that you did in fact kill him, and give him a bit of money to get the prize.

 

Blood Legacy. You can approach this in any number of ways: follow the breadcrumb trail, or get into a fight with Trygil from the get-go and end up right in the middle of the Skaen temple, discover Trygil's lies after talking to Korgrak and confront him about it. When meeting the Skaen boss priest, you can side with him and allow his plan to proceed, or you can kill Aelys and then fight him, or if you're a cipher, you can undo the damage he did to Aelys and then fight him. If you allow his plan to proceed, you can rat him out to Harond, or really allow his plan to proceed. The only thing that quest lacks is full reactivity from the start for a Priest of Skaen -- you only get that after fighting your way through the temple, which is a slightly ugly omission.

 

The only perfectly straightforward linear quest in the BB is Dragon's Egg.

 

 

 

Anyway: I understand and to an extent agree about the criticisms towards P:E combat, especially the magic system. However, when it comes to both writing and quest design/reactivity, it appears to be head. and. shoulders above BG2. No contest. Not even close.