15228 réponses à ce sujet

[corey_russell]

Thanks everyone for the condolences. I've already started my next run (name is Yeenter, pronounced Yeen-ter) - will post him once I get somewhere. Early levels always the diciest.

[corey_russell]

@Jabberwok - use of SK is allowed - so per rules you could SK Imoen to level 13 version. This seems unnecessary, though as you can definitely beat the game regardless of which version you get.

 

Reloading for reasons other than exceptions spelled out in the 1st post is not.

[Alesia_BH]

Welcome to forum. And welcome to the challenge, Jabberwock! We hope you'll continue to post here. We'd love to see full reports on your adventures!

 

I'll respond to a few of your comments.

 

I even broke my personal rule about "testing" (i.e. creating a temporary fork from the no-reload tree where I could try things out) to make sure I got it right. 

 

I respect your testing rule. I operate with a similar guideline and I believe everyone here at Bioware does as well.

 

I think this would be a good opportunity to talk about testing for the record.

 

Back in the old forums, many years ago, players would occasionally use what was called a "parallel save." A parallel save was essentially a save featuring a party identical to the one that had been entered in the No Reload Challenge. This duplicate party could then be used to complete encounters repeatedly in order to perfect tactics prior to tackling enemies with the official No Reload Challenge party. Variants of the parallel save approach have been used by players as well, including the temporary fork approach that you mentioned.

 

The parallel save approach, and its variants, were always viewed with ambivalence. The majority of players didn't employ it. At the same time, it was hard to view it as strictly illegal since there is nothing preventing a player from playing another game while completing the No Reload Challenge. 

 

The consensus view that emerged was that it is ultimately up to the player to decide when testing compromises the spirit of the challenge and the integrity of the run. That unwritten rule is still in place today, I would say. That said, players are encouraged to be open and up front about testing. And when developing personal rules in a community environment it often make sense to keep the norms of peers in mind. The norm is to view the adventure as a linear story line and to get one shot and one shot alone at getting it right in a given run. For many of us -probably most of us- it wouldn't feel like a no reload otherwise, even if we respect the right of other players to view it differently.

 

 

I don't want to reload, and I also don't want to play the rest of the run with a gimped Imoen because I forgot to level up Haerdalis before stepping in the door to Spellhold (I remembered only at the moment of entering the dungeon, right before Imoen joined), so was thinking of just adding a level 13 Imoen to my party via a mod. Is that remotely kosher? 

 

That's up to you, really. Within limits SK is allowed, with disclosure. Mods are allowed, too, again, with disclosure. Using SK or introducing a mod ad hoc because you aren't happy with the way something turned out, or because you didn't get something quite right, is a grey area. I, personally, wouldn't do it.

 

In the case of Imoen's level, I, personally, would just play on with the L11 version, comforted by the knowledge that she'd catch up eventually. It's your game and your call though. We all have our norms, but we like to accommodate and are disinclined to judge. Do what makes sense to you and be open about it. I think all of us will respect that. 

 

Anyhoo. Good luck! And again welcome! We hope to have the opportunity to follow your adventures!

 

Have a frabjous day, Jabberwock!

 

Best,

 

A.

[Alesia_BH]

Quick Note on Aphril's Game

 

I wanted to take a moment to talk about Nalia. In particular, Nalia as a thief. I often hear players complain that Nalia's 4 thief levels are inadequate, arguably pointless. I've never found that to be the case. She's no Jan Jansen, but she's perfectly capable of serving as a party's primary thief.

 

As a L4 thief, Nalia has few thieving points. Those points were shrewdly allocated, however. Her Pick Locks score of 60 and Find Trap score of 80 allow her to easily reach 100 in both categories by using potion buffs: a Potion of Master Thievery will get her to 100 in pick locks, a Potion of Perception will get her to 100 in Find Traps. Administered together, she can reach at least 100 in both. 

 

Spoiler

 

The thrifty can have her use Knock instead of a Potion of Master Thievery. The thirty and patient can have her use the Ring of Danger Sense instead of a Potion of Perception.

 

She can't detect illusions, but she does have access to True Sight, which is often just as good. And while she has little skill with mechanical traps, she can cast Skull Trap and Delayed Blast Fireball.

 

The black mark on Nalia's thieving credentials would seem to be her backstab modifier of x2. But that is largely offset by the fact that she has access to better backstabbing weapons than single class thieves throughout most of the adventure. 

 

A party straight out of the Chateau who recruits Nalia at L8 meets a 161,000 XP character who can land a triple digits backstab, even without purchasing a weapon. In the early game, her x2 modifier is almost like a x4 since her best backstabbing weapon, the Polymorph Self: Ogre Morningstar, hits for 4d6 damage, making it about twice as good as the weapons typically used by single class thieves early on.

 

Wielding his personal katana, Yoshimo, BGIIs only single class thief, can't out backstab Nalia until he reaches 660,000 XP points. Nalia may not be the game's best thief, but she's always willing to try. And when she does try, she's not that bad. Yay, Nalia!

 

Best,

 

A.

[Gate70]

Kaxir is back for more punishment. He did quite a lot in BG:EE so arrived with extra XP.

Spoiler

I copied the Final Save across, overwriting his previous one. This seems to have caused a slight issue, where the djinn wasn't in his bottle and handed over a Sword of Chaos as per the original game. The cambion duly handed over a duplicate item (and I was sorely tempted to try and make them both one handed so he could dual-wield them).

 

46 damage to a lesser clay golem seemed quite handy.

Spoiler

50 damage to the Cambion was also handy.

Spoiler

In true dwarven style he looted as much as he could on the way out (although a bit less care than usual saw a couple of empty slots and a key that wasn't needed).

Spoiler

So far he's had three ambushes (Suna Seni, the poisoned harper, the Orog slavers. The circus is back in action, Rayic Gethras is feeling intimidated after his mephits cut up rough, the sewer rakshasa has lost his cloak, the Bridge District smugglers have breathed their last, Sir Sarles has packed his bags, Hendak has taken control of the Copper Coronet and Kaxir has stood waiting for his wounds to heal (constitution 20) before helping the last group of slavers join Captain Haegan in purgatory. One of the two trolls had to be re-caged as a potion of firebreath didn't seem to want to roast them both.

[Jabberwock]

Thanks Alesia and Corey for the comments. I decided to keep Imoen as level 11, although it kills me a bit that 3k exp short on Haerdalis has led to 800k exp short on poor Imoen. Looking at the mage experience tables, it looks like she will be behind 2 experience levels permanently, which basically costs 2 HLAs and about 1 each of spell levels 6-9, including delaying level 9 spells and HLAs to ToB. Painful, but it's my fault and at the end of the day I'd rather try to preserve the integrity of the run vs. take back a mistake that I made.

 

With that issue behind the party, they are now progressing through the spellhold dungeon. Had a surprisingly tough fight against a pack of yuanti mages by the big head that blocks the exit to the floor. SCS takes away all your equipment, and that had a larger impact than I was counting on. I was eventually up against 3 mages and 2 of their summoned efreeti; I prevailed mostly because they ran out of spells. The efreeti ability to turn into a cloud and regenerate is annoying, and never seems to happen to my friendly efreetis, but maybe I'm just not noticing it.

 

I was a little worried about the fighting with the pit fiend at the gate. My fear was mostly around a high level remove magic making H and J too vulnerable to fight it, or a death spell taking out my summons (can't remember if they can cast that or not). Either way, between IH H + J, who both had +3 weapons, and a fire elemental, aerial servant and invisible stalker, the fiend went down before he could do anything dangerous.

[Alesia_BH]

We respect your decision, Jabberwock. You are most welcome here.

 

Please do keep posting!

 

Good hunting!

 

Best,

 

A.

 

 

Btw. I'm with you regarding F/M, F/Is and K->Ms. I strongly prefer F/Ms and F/Is to K->Ms, especially in the solo no reload context.

[Alesia_BH]

Btw, Jabberwock. Please be careful in the upcoming Irenicus fight. If you have the SCS tactical version installed it can be challenging without gear. Don't underestimate it. 

[Alesia_BH]

FYI, everyone.

 

Has the Trilogy gotten longer?

 

 

http://www.ign.com/a...nsion-announced

 

http://www.siegeofdragonspear.com

 

My vote is that we classify this as optional mod content, not cannon, for the purposes of the challenge.

 

Best,

 

A.

[Blackraven]

Looks great!

25 hours of extra content... I wonder what the consequences for SoA will be XP-wise. It'll probably get lowered somehow.

Classifying as optional content sounds good to me.

[Alesia_BH]

Looks great!

 

I'm intrigued. I'll almost certainly buy it.

 

 

 

25 hours of extra content... I wonder what the consequences for SoA will be XP-wise. It'll probably get lowered somehow.

 

That's a good question. It will be interesting to see how that's handled. 25 hours of game play and the XP that comes with it would have the potential to throw off balancing.

 

 

Classifying as optional content sounds good to me.

 

 

Yeah. It seems like an easy call to me.

 

Best,

 

A. 

[Alesia_BH]

Interesting article on Siege of Dragonspear.

 

http://www.pcgamesn....iowares-classic

 

Quotations worthy of note

 

On Context: “Baldur’s Gate 1 ends with you as the hero of Baldur’s Gate. Baldur’s Gate 2 starts with describing these dark circumstances that forced you to leave, and we just got intrigued by that. It’s like, hmm, what dark circumstances?”

 

On Length: "substantially longer" than Throne of Bhaal"

 

On XP Balancing: "As you might expect, the sudden appearance of a whole new campaign in the middle of the Baldur’s Gate saga makes for some major levelling issues. Beamdog will update Baldur’s Gate 2: Enhanced Edition for the release of Dragonspear to smooth the transition. But if a player goes out of their way to overlevel, squeezing every last drop of XP out of their enemies before porting over their character, nobody’s going to stop them (“I think that’s one of those things that Baldur’s Gate fans have enjoyed”)."

 

This is off topic, really, but it seemed interesting enough to share. If we'd like to discuss at length, we can start a new thread.

 

Best,

 

A.

[Grond0]

On XP Balancing: "As you might expect, the sudden appearance of a whole new campaign in the middle of the Baldur’s Gate saga makes for some major levelling issues. Beamdog will update Baldur’s Gate 2: Enhanced Edition for the release of Dragonspear to smooth the transition. But if a player goes out of their way to overlevel, squeezing every last drop of XP out of their enemies before porting over their character, nobody’s going to stop them (“I think that’s one of those things that Baldur’s Gate fans have enjoyed”)."

Who will be the first to import a level 40 character to BG2 ...

[Alesia_BH]

Who will be the first to import a level 40 character to BG2 ...

 

 

 

Yeah. I question whether they're going to get the balancing right. It's a potential issue.

 

Best,

 

A.

 

Btw. Saros may have accumulated 8m XP in vanilla BG1 before. I know he reached the level cap in the Chateau. He was an infinitely ruthless and infinitely patient XP farmer.

[Jabberwock]

Party finished Spellhold, and the Underwater City. I was prepared for a difficult fight with Jon, and worried about a loss so deep into the game. My plan was to open with AoE disablers on the shadow clones, while Viconia cast firestorm on Jon. Then H and J could focus on taking down the clones while Jon was invulnerable, and Edwin could try to keep casting cloudkill on Jon to disrupt his casting. I was fully prepared to use slayer form when Jon became vulnerable to take him down as quickly as possible.

 

The opening went as planned... and then one of the insane mages (I assume) knocked down all of Jon (and most of my party's) defenses with a dispel. Jon was left, as best I could tell, with just spell turning up (maybe a few others, but he definitely lost both stoneskin, his globe, and his improved mantle). Surprised by this fortuitous turn of events, I immediately slayer changed and charged Irenicus with charname. Jon got a PfMW up at badly injured, but a secret word + breach took down his spell turning and PfMW. He then went down rapidly, leaving me to breathe a sigh of relief at what turned out to be an easy fight.

 

Edwin got level 7 spells; I've given him ruby ray, mass invisibility, a spell sequencer and M's sword. Underwater City went quickly; with the cloak of mirroring moved to ToB there's not much point to it other than the XP but at least it is easy. 

 

For the underdark, I'm mostly worried about a few key fights in Ust Natha, as well as dealing with the silver dragon. I'm leaning towards skipping the beholders, because they are awful and I'd hate to lose the run to a mistake there given I don't recall there being any important rewards from that section.

 

I'm planning on turning in the eggs to the dragon for the enormous XP reward, and then ambushing her with a timestopped mindflayer during the exit fight. I'll see how that goes, but as long as I am careful to get my party clear of the defending drow + demons, I don't think there is much downside risk outside outside of a tough fight on my hands that I will no longer have help for. My worry is mostly that she'll throw up a PfMW or similar. 

[Aasim]

My vote is that we classify this as optional mod content, not cannon, for the purposes of the challenge.

Yes. Unlike apperantly a majority of BG players, I don't really like what I see. 

 

25 hours of extra content... I wonder what the consequences for SoA will be XP-wise. It'll probably get lowered somehow.

I don't think it will be an issue. Maybe 2-3 extra levels will be available. I hope at least....if they pump up the areas with numerous high XP creeps, that would be bad for SoA gameplay.

Then again, 25 hours is an awfully long time....

"lowering XP" upon SoA transition would make no sense at all imo. (mass level drain? I've noticed the dragonic creature in trailer has level drain...)

I did play Neverending Journey mod once (upon transition in BG2, you go to play some Icewind Dale 1 parts).

After finishing it (the first part of the mod) I got back to Irenici dungeon at level 13 or so (with a full party). Not gamebreaking imo, but it's noticable, especially for casters which can get high-level magic quickly.

 

Btw. Saros may have accumulated 8m XP in vanilla BG1 before. I know he reached the level cap in the Chateau. He was an infinitely ruthless and infinitely patient XP farmer.

.......made my morning.

[Alesia_BH]

Unlike apperantly a majority of BG players, I don't really like what I see. 

 

 

I get that.

 

Here's how I see it. I can put on my purist-elitist hat and shake my head disapprovingly, or I can put on my goofy-enthusiast hat and be oh-so-excited to have another BG adventure to look forward to. Since I'm free to choose which ever perspective I like, I might as well go with the one that will bring the most joy, and it's pretty clear to me which one that is. I'm going with the goofy-enthusiast hat. Yay, Minsc! Yay, Boo! Hooray for new adventures. Snobbery just isn't as fun. 

 

 

I don't think it will be an issue. Maybe 2-3 extra levels will be available. I hope at least....if they pump up the areas with numerous high XP creeps, that would be bad for SoA gameplay.

Then again, 25 hours is an awfully long time....

 

I don't know. 25 hours. And given that its their first shot at full fledged original content, they're probably going to aim for a satisfying RPG experience, meaning steady progressive accumulation of power. 

 

Note also that if they level characters substantially in SoD and rebalance BG2:EE, that could incentivize purchase of SoD for BG2EE players and vice versa. Note also that if the rebalancing efforts are limited to, say, the Chateau that would make BG2:EE much easier and modern gamers do like easy. Getting the balancing wrong may be good business in a sense.

 

I'm not inclined to assume anything. I'll know when I try it.

 

 

 

 

.......made my morning.

 

 

 

And you haven't even heard the funny part yet. He did it in Improved Anvil. Repeatedly. Version after version. He'd find an XP exploit and milk it, trivializing the game. Sikret would get furious and close it. A new version would come out and Saros would find another one. They had a Batman/Joker dynamic for years. The XP farming was part of it, but just a part: it went far beyond that.

 

Best,

 

A.

[Blackraven]

 

And you haven't even heard the funny part yet. He did it in Improved Anvil. Repeatedly. Version after version. He'd find an XP exploit and milk it, trivializing the game. Sikret would get furious and close it. A new version would come out and Saros would find another one. They had a Batman/Joker dynamic for years. The XP farming was part of it, but just a part: it went far beyond that.

 

Best,

 

A.

 

And this in turn made my early morning

[Gate70]

Kaxir was feeling chuffed, having used Azuredge to scare off Lassal and getting far enough into the vampire nest to retried a mace. With that done he ran into Sansuki, but only one vampire turned up to be axed. Kaxir rested and set off to sort out Neb after selling some identified trinkets, only to run into another trio of vampires. One was axed and their leader Tanova badly wounded but she had time to cast a domination and the dwarven save vs spell of 3 was not enough to save him.

 

Lt Aegisfield turned up for the inquiry and wondered why Kaxir hadn't used a potion of clarity or invulnerability that were tucked in his potion case.

(I was too slow to react, nothing at all to do with just 2 hours sleep after watching the Beamdog Twitch...)

[Grimwald the Wise]

Quick Note on Aphril's Game

 

I wanted to take a moment to talk about Nalia. In particular, Nalia as a thief. I often hear players complain that Nalia's 4 thief levels are inadequate, arguably pointless. I've never found that to be the case. She's no Jan Jansen, but she's perfectly capable of serving as a party's primary thief.

 

As a L4 thief, Nalia has few thieving points. Those points were shrewdly allocated, however. Her Pick Locks score of 60 and Find Trap score of 80 allow her to easily reach 100 in both categories by using potion buffs: a Potion of Master Thievery will get her to 100 in pick locks, a Potion of Perception will get her to 100 in Find Traps. Administered together, she can reach at least 100 in both. 

 

A.

 

You are of course correct. If you use level one NPCs she becomes multi-class which I don't like, but it does make her an even better thief though a poorer mage.

If using that mod, I suppose that she should be changed to a half-elf to make her multi-classing legal.

[Alesia_BH]

Aphril, Elven Sorcerer: Ruhk Transmuter (or We Have Aerie, and You Don't)

 

Heading into the 2003 NCAA women's basketball championship, UCONN's coach, Geno Auriemma, promised victory. When asked why he was certain his team would win he smiled, and then, referring to his star player Diana Taurasi, said "Because we have Diana, and you don't."

 

Heading into the party's fight with Ruhk Transmuter, that's kind of how I felt. SCS Ruhk Transmuter is dangerous. On insane he's quite literally doubly dangerous. And given that Aphril and Adara are both at L13, rakshasa spell immunities were sure to be a problem. Ruhk Transmuter had so many advantages that it was hard to imagine the party emerging unscathed. But victory was never in doubt. And why? Because we had Aerie, and he didn't.  

 

The Ruhk fight is a minor encounter. Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable battle, so I thought I'd cover it in some detail. I hope no one minds.

 

By the time Aphril, Adara, and Aerie had reached the Windspear Hills they had parted ways with Nalia and each gained a level. Aerie's level up brought Harm; Adara's, Spirit Armor, Spell Shield, and Globe of Invulnerability; Aphril's Fire Shield: Blue, Spell Shield, and Spell Deflection. All highly valued spells.

 

But even with their new spells, Ruhk would present a challenge. Their current full buff regiment includes Stoneskins, Protection from Evil, Protection from Cold, Protection from Fire, Protection from Lightning, Protection from Magic Energy, Chaotic Commands, Resist Fear, Spirit Armor, Spell Shield, Spell Deflection, Blur, Mirror Image, Improved Invisibility, Globe of Invulnerability, Spell Immunity: Divination, and Spell Immunity: Abjuration. Against Ruhk, who casts Cloudkill and illusions, they'd have to add Spell Immunity: Evocation and True Sight. Ideally they'd also have Breach. Do the math, if you like, but you probably don't have to: something was going to have to give.  

 

Aerie had a bottleneck at L4 and L5 on the priest side and at L5 on the mage side. Aerie allocated her priest L6 to Harm, her two priest L5s to Chaotic Commands, and her three priest L4 to Protection from Lightning, while her three mage L5s went to Spell Immunity x 2 and Breach. The plan was to have Aerie land a Harm and then let Aphril and Adara deal the finishing blow, aided by an Aerie Breach. Comprehensive specific protections along with SI:Ev, locked in by II, SI:A, SI:D, Spell Shield, and GoI, would keep Adara and Aphril safe. Aerie, in contrast, would be vulnerable, since she'd lack SI:Ev, Spell Shield, and GoI, meaning Cloudkill could injure her immediately and a Spell Thrust could compromise her. But all she need to do was land her Harm, cast her Breach and get out. Surely she could do that.

 

This wasn't a good plan. Lacking Holy Power and Righteous Magic, Aerie couldn't land her Harm. Lacking True Sight, Aphril and Adara couldn't connect with their meteors. Lacking multiple breaches -and with no way to remove a Minor Spell Deflection due to rakshasa spell level immunity- Aerie's Breach couldn't work. And without the SI:Ev that had been crowded out by Breach, Aerie could be injured by a Cloudkill. And that she was: Aerie took 10 damage from a Cloudkill. She was forced to exit the field. Meanwhile, Aphril and Adara found themselves in a stalemate with Ruhk: he couldn't penetrate their defenses, but neither could they his. Aphril, Adara, and Aerie were forced to withdraw, rest, and plan anew.  

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

A second attempt with a slightly modified plan in which Aerie made room for Holy Power, True Sight, and SI:Ev also ended in stalemate, illustrated here by Ruhk tossing a Secret Word into a Spell Shield, while Aerie, Aphril, and Adara whiff with meteors.

 

Spoiler

 

Oh, but never fear. Aerie would still be the hero. Frustrated in her attempt at a quick victory, Aerie chose to settle in for the long fight. Swapping Harm for Wondrous Recall let Aerie make room for True Sight, Righteous Magic, and Chaotic Commands. That allowed her to run the full Holy Triumvirate in Polymorph Self: Flind form against an illusion free Ruhk while the entire party enjoyed disabler immunity. Given that Aerie would be fighting toe-to-toe with a rakshasa in this plan, ProNW was tempting, but running SI:Ev along with SI:D and SI:A was deemed more important. That turned out to be the right call.

 

True Sight stripped Ruhk's illusions. Aerie's opening swipe with her flind halberd disrupted his ProMW cast.

 

The party's Abjuration school defenses and save buffs shut down Ruhk's casting. Aerie's AC buffs prevented him from landing consistently, while her illusions and Stoneskins absorbed rare hits. It ended with yet another damage free melee victory for Aerie.

 

Lesson learned: Never bet against Aerie's team- even if she has to change the playbook.

 

Best,

 

A. 

[Grimwald the Wise]

FYI, everyone.

 

Has the Trilogy gotten longer?

 

 

http://www.ign.com/a...nsion-announced

 

http://www.siegeofdragonspear.com

 

My vote is that we classify this as optional mod content, not cannon, for the purposes of the challenge.

 

Best,

 

A.

 

It has got to be optional as not all of us have EE. Mind you, as more mods become available, I might just buy it.

[Grimwald the Wise]

Kaxir was feeling chuffed, having used Azuredge to scare off Lassal and getting far enough into the vampire nest to retried a mace. With that done he ran into Sansuki, but only one vampire turned up to be axed. Kaxir rested and set off to sort out Neb after selling some identified trinkets, only to run into another trio of vampires. One was axed and their leader Tanova badly wounded but she had time to cast a domination and the dwarven save vs spell of 3 was not enough to save him.

 

Lt Aegisfield turned up for the inquiry and wondered why Kaxir hadn't used a potion of clarity or invulnerability that were tucked in his potion case.

(I was too slow to react, nothing at all to do with just 2 hours sleep after watching the Beamdog Twitch...)

 

You go and die, just when I arrive in Amn. Mind you, you'll be back before I finish, if I finish.

[Alesia_BH]

@Jabberwock. Nice work! Keep it up! Feel free to post some screenshots.

 

@Gate70. Condolences. Playing BG sleep deprived is like getting drunk at a class reunion: it's all fun and games until you're dominated by a vampire.

 

Best of luck with your next attempt!

[Aasim]

Good stuff Alesia. SCS Rukh is fairly dangerous oponnent - a possible skull trap sequencer is always dangerous (maybe not so much with vanilla Inertial Barrier, but he can have other sequencered nastiness, like a triple Flame Arrow or similar.

On a sidenote - SCS is blantantly cheating with sequencers/triggers. Example - if you have a high MR character mages are likely to have Lower Res in trigger. This may be a very valid reason for SCS players to take Viconia in party for example - better 3xLower Res at Viconia than 3XChain Lightning at protagonist.....   ).