13 réponses à ce sujet

[dearlyblvd]

Please, read my entire message or don't answer. I would also like to warn you that english isn't my native language.

I saw Baldur's Gate 2 for the first time on my cousin's house when I was a kid. Loved the game but never had the opportunity to play much. I grew up playing videogames and RPG is one of my favorite genres. In the last years I finished NeverWinter Nights 2, the expansion Mask of the Betrayer, Dragon Age Origins and the expansion and loved them. I always heard about how Baldur's Gate 2 was the best RPG ever and finally, after so many years, I had the opportunity to play it.

I created a sorcerer based on the build of http://www.gamefaqs....-amn/faqs/11588 but unfortunately I wasn't familiar with some aspects of the game, like the AD&D rules, and I tried to find answers for my questions using google, but most of them had several spoilers. I guess that as the game is so old, people don't care about throwing spoilers in every answer possible.

After that, I was having troubles to keep playing, because I think that I know too much. In my opinion, the game is pretty outdated and the weakest parts are the combat and exploring, but for a point&click RPG it's still pretty decent. The graphics are ok and the story/dialogue/quests/items description are awesome. The most annoying thing for me was to get normal items and not know what to do with them. I'm talking about things like gems and scrolls. I didn't know if I was supposed to save scrolls or make one of my NPCs learn them. I didn't know what gems were useful. Of course we aren't supposed to know it in the first time that we are playing, but the management of the inventory is pretty bad if you accumulate these specific items, otherwise it's pretty decent. I could have used BG2 tweaks to add bags of holding, but by the time that I discovered about the mod, it was too late. Also, BG2 tweaks is filled with good content and it's a bit hard to install the exact mods that you want without reading some of the spoilers in the "readme" page. Furthermore, I felt that I missed too much of BG1 because I did not know what happened to some of the joinable NPCs in BG2. I ended up getting BG1 and BGTrilogy.

While playing BG1, the entire saga made more sense to me, as I started as a weak character and my level 1 spells were actually useful. It try to make me think that I'm a weakling and that Imoen looks like an annoying random thief, but of course that isn't the truth. Unfortunately I uninstalled the game before reaching Nashkel because I was constantly thinking about the spoilers. As I played BG2 before, I knew quite a lot about the plot of BG1, specially the ending. I feel that I want to go back and start playing again, but I don't know if it's still possible to enjoy. Would you still enjoy the saga if you were in my situation? Below is a list of spoilers that I know.

Baldur's Gate 1:
- The monster that killed my "father" is my brother
- Apparently my brother's true name is the inverse of his actual name, which leads me to think that maybe he was a human/orc and something happened with him
- We are sons of Bhaal, one of the three gods of death or something like that. I read the book in BG2 about the history of how Bhaal got the powers of the previous god, but I don't remember the details
- The wizard that appears right after Candlekeep probably is Elminster and I guess that he is a non-joinable NPC
- Drizzt probably is in the game. If he is a joinable NPC, he probably won't be in my party for too long.
- Imoen, Minsc, Jaheira, Victoria and Xzar will reappear in BG2
- Xzar probably betrays me, since he appears as a non-joinable NPC in BG2
- Imoen is my half sister
- I won't get to Baldur's Gate until chapter 5
- I will kill my brother by the end of the game

Baldur's Gate 2:
- Drizzt probably is in the game. If he is a joinable NPC, he probably won't be in my party for too long.
- The mage that locked me is called Jon Irenicus and he wants to release my true power
- I will find Khalid dead in Irenicus' Dungeon
- I will find my brother's sword in Irenicus' Dungeon
- Imoen, Minsc, Jaheira, Aerie, Nalia, Anomen, Korgan, Keldorn, Jan, Victoria, Mizzy and Edwin are joinable NPCs. I didn't get Mizzy or Edwin, but I think that Mizzy is some sort of fighter and Edwin is the most powerful mage in the game.
- I will be able to rescue Imoen from the Hooded mages (I don't know how)
- It's possible to "transfer" my original party from SoA to ToB, so I guess that nobody gets killed in the ending of SoA (I don't have any idea of what is the ending of SoA)
- In the ending of ToB, apparently I will become a god. I don't have any idea of how that will happen, my guess is that I will have to kill Bhaal himself
- There is a sword called Equalizer and I can reforge it, probably with Cromwell
- There is a sword called Holy avenger and only Keldorn can use it
- I will face several Dragons

So as you can see, this question is very personal and I'm simply interested in hearing thoughts of other people because I didn't want to give up completely.

I also read that the pure Mage class is less powerful than the Sorcerer. To make it stronger, I need to multiclass/dualclass, usually starting as a fighter or kensai. Is that true? Can't I play with a pure mage from the beggining of BG1 to the the ending of BG2? What are good starting stats for a pure mage that plans to use the Wish spell in BG2? Is it a good idea to dualclass as a fighter/mage or kensai/mage if I plan in playing with a 6 character party? Where I can find links for those builds (pure mage, fighter/mage, kensai/mage)?

Thanks for the help and please AVOID ANY SPOILERS that I didn't mention

Edit: Also, what mod I should use to remove the respawn system of monsters in BG1? (I read that Tutu has it, but I definitly have to play with BGTrilogy, because I'm using a translation and it doesn't work on Tutu)

Modifié par dearlyblvd, 16 octobre 2010 - 06:47 .

[Chebby]

Well *some* aren't really what I'd classify as spoilers. You want my opinion? Of course you'll enjoy it. You should just play it. Anyway, about combat being weak, combat is actually quite strong, but you'll need to become familiar with it.

Anyway, yeah... Just because you know some aspects of the game doesn't cloud it all in dust; you don't need to go entirely clueless into the games to enjoy them. Many people have completed the game multiple times and they're still perfectly content to do it all again.

[zhokar]

You don't "need" any special character. Fighters and Clerics are very forgiving in my opinion. As far as mages are concerned, you can really pick any. The problem ist just knowing which spells are useful in which situation and knowing exactly what they do. Most players here started out knowing nothing about the mechanics, I guess. Just dive in, it's just a game after all.

Modifié par zhokar, 17 octobre 2010 - 12:09 .

[Carinna]

Yeah, I always hated that if I just wanted a little bit of help with something it was nearly impossible to keep from getting completely and totally spoiled.

The good news:  You aren't completely spoiled.  There are still probably things you don't know about either game and I did see at least one thing that is wrong in your list of spoils.  There may be more; I haven't completely gotten through BG1.  Someone else also mentioned that some of what you list are not really spoilers; for instance, if you had played BG1 first, would you have expected characters deaths that were irreversible to happen no matter what you did or how you played (or how many times you played)?  I would not have, so I wouldn't count people not dying that way as a spoiler, really.  Now if someone told me, "X gets killed permanently," then that would be a spoiler.

The bad news is that neither I nor anyone else can answer your real question, which is, "Is it possible for YOU to still enjoy the game?"  Keep in mind you are asking on a message board kept alive entirely by people who have played the game many, many times.  Of course we are all going to say yes, because obviously it's still possible for all of us to enjoy the game.  Whether you can depends on your own tolerance for spoilers.  Because you had to ask the question, I'd think you would be less tolerant than we are; I get the impression if we said, "yes, you know absolutely everything and there's nothing to find out left," you'd never play it again.

However, I can think of something you have not been spoiled in yet (and neither have I, completely):  The NPC interaction.  NPCs talk to each other (at least in BG2 they do; BG1 is not so good about it), and they have different things to say depending on who else is in the party with them.  They also have different comments to make about quests and such if you, for instance, take only one of them along.  I've got a mod installed for BGT that adds comments like this for BG1; not sure it will work in your language, though (if it will, get it).

You also know some "facts" (like Drizzt appears), but you don't know things like how deep the mines are and what is around the next bend there, or where quest item X is located.  Once you play through you know this stuff and we keep playing anyway, but most of us would really like to be able to erase that part of our memory temporarily.  You still have that advantage; you aren't all that spoiled.

But as I said, some people have no tolerance for any spoilage.  If you're one of them 20 of us saying play it anyway won't magically make it enjoyable for you.  You'll have to decide for yourself.

[Mech04]

Let's see if I can give you answers to your questions...



1: Scrolls: There's... two different types of scrolls, let's call them arcane and divine scrolls. Arcane can be learned by mages and sorcerors while divine can be learned by Priests, Clerics and so forth. Druids can learn... I think some of the divine spells, but they also learn the nature sounding ones, like "Entangle" "Swarm" and so forth.



I teach the spells I can to my casters and, because I'm something of a packrat, hang onto all the other scrolls "just in case". If you've learnt the spell, you shouldn't be afraid of using a scroll of it in combat.



2: Gems are, for the most part, just an easy way to get some gold. You might get the odd quest from an NPC asking for a specific type (I can think of one in Baldur's Gate), but other then that they can nearly all be sold for profit. There's also a few ways gems can be used in Throne of Bhaal, but I'm pretty sure you don't need to hold onto any from SoA. The only ones I would hold onto are Rogue Stones.



Mage vs Sorceror: First thing, Baldur's Gate can be finished with any of the classes. Now, the mage is more pure magic then the sorceror. For a basic difference, the mage can learn more spells per level then the sorceror, but he has to learn new spells from scrolls. The Sorceror learns less spells per level, but he can select them from a list, and he can cast the spells multiple times.

The Sorceror is meant to be played more offencively then the Mage. If your a sorceror you would learn spells like Lightning, Fireball (My favorite) and Cloudkill, since you can cast those over and over to deal damage. Buff spells are less useful (Like Shield), but some are worth getting if they can only be cast on the character that cast the spell (Like Fire Shield: Red/Blue).



The Mage ends up with more flexibility in their spell loadout then the Sorceror, while the Sorceror is better at dealing damage. I usually play as a Sorceror, and I find that I often have problems overcoming the magic defence of enemy mages, simply because it takes me more levels to learn the counter then it would a Mage.





Wish: From what I remember, Wish relies on the casters Wisdom to calculate the success of a wish being granted properly, but mages don't need wisdom in their stats to cast spells (Mages need Intelligence, Sorceror's need Charisma, and Clerics/Priests need Wisdom).



Starting stats for a Mage would be 18 Intelligence (so you can learn all of the spell levels) then... gee, I'm not too sure. You'll have to read the stat descriptions in game, but if your starting from Baldur's Gate 1 then I would recommend a bit of Constitution, Mages often start with about 4 hp, which is... difficult to deal with.



Fighter/Mage: The Fighter Mage duel class gives you the ability to wield swords and shields like a warrior, while also being able to cast spells as a mage does. However, you can't cast spells while wearing ANY armour (Be it leather, Chain, Splint or Plate), and you will generally have less health then a warrior would (Due to putting stats into Strength and Intelligence for your duel class). It's certainly duable, but you have to be more careful and I'd say play as a mage who can defend himself better if forced into Melee.



I don't know of any builds for different character types, and I'd personally say make your character depending on what role you want him to fill in combat. It has taken me a number of play throughs before I really understood the tactics required to take down the more nasty monsters, and with DnD, knowing certainly is half the battle. It's quite complicated with all the different shield spells and buffs for this and that. You need to read carefully the descriptions of the spells and try and remember what they help with in combat. One spell I'll recommend is Restoration for BG2. Find it and get used to using it when your level drained.



Back to builds briefly, the only one I can really think of is a Half-Orc Kensai, which uses the Half-Orcs massive strength and the finesse of the Kensai to end up dealing huge amounts of melee damage on criticals. I've never tried it myself as it seemed a bit too odd to have a Half-orc being so graceful.





Er, do mention if I've missed something. I tend to ramble a bit.

[Taura-Tierno]

For me, playing a game like Baldur's Gate is more about the journey than experiencing the story. I mean, the story was great the first time I played it, but I've played it many times since, and enjoyed it just as much.



I remember when I was playing Knights of the Old Republic for the first time, a friend of mine totally spoiled one of the main plot twists for me. I was pretty angry about not getting to experience the full effect of the twist, but the game was still amazing.



So, even if you know some stuff that's going to happen in the game (or all of it) that doesn't necessarily mean that you can't still enjoy the game.

[Chebby]

To give a metaphorical example: No roller coaster is boring simply because you know what's around the bend.

[igneous.sponge]

Yes, I'd daresay it's entirely possible for you to enjoy the games. In my experience, and as others have noted, the real substance of Baldur's Gate lies in the writing, the dialogue, the character interactions.

If you're looking for some good, spoiler-free information, you might want to take a look at this guide, here.

[dearlyblvd]

Thanks for the help guys.

I'm aware that nobody could answer the first question for me, but reading those comments gave me motivation to play again. I also understood that there aren't such thing as "builds" in BG. The difference between a pure kensai and a pure fighter are just the starting stats. The tricky part is if I decide to dual/multi class. I'm a bit disappointed that every guide that I read said that the plain mage is one of the worst classes avaiable. To become stronger, I need to play as a human and dual class to fighter/kensai/wizardslayer. For roleplaying purposes, I wanted to play as a pure magic-user, so I guess that I will have to decide between a sorcerer, a wild mage or the plain mage (probably my last choice in the moment).

Right now I'm reading the guide that sponge sent and I'm surprised about how good it is. I wish that I knew that site before.

Modifié par dearlyblvd, 18 octobre 2010 - 08:19 .

[The Potty 1]

dearlyblvd wrote...
.. every guide that I read said that the plain mage is one of the worst classes avaiable. To become stronger, I need to play as a human and dual class to fighter/kensai/wizardslayer.

This is lots of wrong. For a start, by the end of the game any arcane build will beat just about any other build going. That said, pure mages are among the weakest of the arcane builds, but probably the most versatile. You can sacrifice some versatility for power by becoming a specialist mage, or you can sacrifice lots of versatility for massive power by becoming a sorceror. Sorcerors are hard for inexperienced players to use, as can be seen by the never-ending 'ultimate sorceror spell list' threads. Wild mages are completely different, here you sacrifice spell reliability for massive power. Secondly, the guide would have said dual FROM a fighter/thief/etc TO mage, to gain extra hit points, better chance of attacks hitting, berzerking, thief skills, etc.

For roleplaying purposes, I wanted to play as a pure magic-user, so I guess that I will have to decide between a sorcerer, a wild mage or the plain mage (probably my last choice in the moment)

If you want to roleplay, then ignore all of the powergaming build topics, and choose a build that appeals to you. Wild mages are fun, if chaotic and dangerous, while personally I love multiclass fighter/thieves for their backstabs. Barbarians and berzerkers are solid problem solvers who can get through just about everything on dogged tenacity. A high level cleric is also loads of fun, can you say turn undead.

[Shadow_Leech07]

dearlyblvd wrote...
I'm aware that nobody could answer the first question for me, but reading those comments gave me motivation to play again. I also understood that there aren't such thing as "builds" in BG. The difference between a pure kensai and a pure fighter are just the starting stats. The tricky part is if I decide to dual/multi class. I'm a bit disappointed that every guide that I read said that the plain mage is one of the worst classes avaiable. To become stronger, I need to play as a human and dual class to fighter/kensai/wizardslayer. For roleplaying purposes, I wanted to play as a pure magic-user, so I guess that I will have to decide between a sorcerer, a wild mage or the plain mage (probably my last choice in the moment).

Right now I'm reading the guide that sponge sent and I'm surprised about how good it is. I wish that I knew that site before.

You cannot dual class to a kit(kensai/wizard slayer). There are "builds" if you wish to call them that in Baldur's Gate, but there is alot of misinformation out there because there are those who casually play the game, and then there are those are no so casual.  I myself haven't really bothered to write a guide namely because I'm too lazy. But I will address something you mentioned. Dual-classing leads to the best optimal build. Dual classing to a fighter is not(in my opinion) the best way to go about things. You begin as a fighter and then dual over to a mage, or whatever else you wish to be.

As for pure magic users, a sorcerer is usually the best choice, and there is a optimal sorcerer spell list thread somewhere here which discusses the optimal choices for a sorcerer, you can always click on my portrait and find it because I was in the thread myself. Choose the list that fits your style. If you're going to start from the original baldur's gate I would choose a list that states as such. Mages are solid throughout the game and probably have a much easier time, they can use wands of monster summoning and all the mage specific items(which are powerful I might add). Now from the start I would say it is exceedingly difficult to kill things however once you gain a few levels it will be easy.

[dearlyblvd]

Thanks for the answers guys.

Modifié par dearlyblvd, 21 octobre 2010 - 06:26 .

[Gorthaur X]

For what it's worth, I played BG2 first myself, and only got BG1 slightly before Throne of Bhaal came out; it didn't keep me from enjoying the first game. As for the builds, don't worry about it so much. Any class can finish the game just fine, pure mages get amazingly powerful, and though dual-classes and sorcerers are even more powerful, I tend to think choosing one of these for your first character will cause you to spend more time worrying about doing things right than actually playing.

[Thrar]

Before you know the available spells well, I'd advise against playing a sorcerer. If you blindly pick a spell at levelup just by its description, it will be hard to find out which work with your party and play style and which don't. You could go by those lists posted, but I think you'll find that they tend to be inconclusive, and any of them requires the knowledge which spell to use when and how in order to get the most of the spell picks.

By playing a regular mage (specialist or not), you can try out all those cool spells you find and figure out for yourself which ones you like and which not. After you've gone through the game a few times, you'll develop some preferences and will be able to understand much better when people are discussing which spells they like to use when.

BG2 is not like Diablo II or similar games where you pick your skills, follow a build and are stuck with it forever or risk that your ability won't be strong enough in the end game. A sorcerer is a bit like this, but with a mage, there is nothing that prevents you from making a 180° U-turn if you realize that you just don't like the spells you're using.