How does one define "Cheese" in BG [Spoilers]
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Using a perfectly viable protection scroll isn't "cheese" worthy in my opinion.
Basically it is cheese if you put on boots of speed and run around getting Drzzts to chase you while the rest of the party pelts him with arrows. Is it preparation? Yes. But you are using the lack of proper AI to your own advantage.
Same with the situation you describe. Knowing that Kangaxx will continue to attack past the point where he knows he can't harm you is cheese. Same with Beholders in my eyes. Even protection from petrification against basilisks seems a bit cheese. But you can do it.
Stupid adventurers are dead adventurers.
Cheese is when you take advantage of game flaws like AI pathing. Surrounding Drizit with invisible party members or kicking them out is cheezy. He would push them out of the way and kill you. Running around with the boots of speed, using an invisibility potion or sandthief ring, and backstabbing him isn't cheesy to me. As as long as I have the charges on the ring or the potions in stock to take my one shot at backstabbing him and then running off, reinvising, and trying again, is actually legitimately possible within the game world.
I consider Algorians cloak when it had infinite uses to be cheesy, whether it was on purpose or not doesn't bother me as much as no magic items in that world have infinite uses or are suppose to. The way Algorians cloak works now I don't think using it in battle is anymore cheesy than using charm or dire charm. If they make their save you can't do it again and have to make due without.
Again, my argument comes back to what should be possible within the game world, a cloak that can cast charm once a day isn't unrealistic vs one that has no limits which is.
I don't mind metagaming as much as some people do. I find it hard to gauge based off lore / int / wisdom if my group would know that a Demon Knight is going to spam fireball and power word kill so I better cast death ward and raise my fire resistance to 100%.
Taking advantages of spam loading is cheesy.
This all being said I'm not saying don't take advantage of pathing bugs or spam loading, depending on my play through or how I'm feeling I do this a ton, some play throughs I refuse to.
Speaking of which, in BG:EE, is it still possible to use AoE spells on enemies that are offscreen, and have them just sit there and not come after you?
The problem with Protection from Undead scrolls is that they are far too inexpensive and easy to obtain in a game where you fight so many undead.
The problem with Kangaxx is that while his offence is devastating if you're unprepared, it's completely one dimensional making him trivial once you do protect against it.
But then I also feel it is cheese when players and monsters both tend to target caster types on sight, ignoring someone with 3 feet of steel hacking away at you.
But yeah, any time you are using mechanics of the game against the intent of the encounter, that's cheese. It might be Innovative cheese, but cheese none the less.
"I wear the cheese. The Cheese does not wear me."
Just tried it on the group of 3 sirens on the beach. They came and found me and started spam casting charm at me.
@the_spyder
I tried the run around with boots of speed earlier while other party members fired at him and occasionally Drizzit would change target and attack them. However, I could continue the cheese by pausing and moving the boots of speed to the new target.
On that note. Equipment changing like that would probably also be considered cheesy, because how did I teleport the boots off my feet and on to the feet of a guy 20 paces away?
Still, it's more or less a single player game; if one decides to abuse the rules given to him...why not. If he/she has fun with doing so, I wouldn't sentence them.
I try (after some cheesy mechanics) to avoid them, which sometimes is hard....as some are programmed the way, that you either use them without any thought or can't beat them the easy steam-rolling-way - without any thought given...like the Beholder Dungeons. (=shield of cheese anyone?)
THat said, I'm proud to have robe of vecna, but I usually play with 2 mages or 1 multi+1 full mage so I know of the difference in the casting speed. And Vecna itself is very very cheesy....
but it does beg the question, why doesn't Drzzts have the "Bracelets of speed" to counter with? Maybe he hasn't gotten to that point in his own personal timeline.
As for the Sirens, I was intimidated by them the first few times. When I went back just recently, I totally owned them. The way I did it was to use monster summoning. They can spam charm all they want. But they will not charm every single monster you summon. And the charms don't last that long. And any charmed monster is not going to have a prayer of hitting -5/-6 AC warriors to any effect. So basically they were wasting time trying to charm monsters while my tanks were taking them out. If one gets charmed, pop on a hold till he gets free of it.
1) Get one NPC to enter the hidden room
2) When the lich starts to cast spell, get out of the room
3) Get inside the room again
4) Repeat as necessary. Have some snack or coffee for some of his protection spells to wear off
5) Once his spells run out he'll walk to the NPC to get ya
6) Whack him
7) PROFIT
Using the scroll of protection from magic *on* Kangaxx, preventing him from casting and removing all his spell protections is most definitely cheese.
For most of the battles you can scout ahead, suss out the encounter, and it makes sense to prepare for the worst.
And yeah, I whole heartedly agree. Scout out every single encounter. It's the only way to survive. Particularly when you get to BG2.
(1) If you are using a non-gamebreaking spell or item as it is intended and not exploiting bad AI or pathfinding, that isn't cheese.
Example: Using protection from petrification against basilisks. WTF else are you going to use this spell for? You are using it for its purpose as foreseeably intended.
(As an aside, the scroll of protection from magic does work differently in BG2 than in BG:EE. You could use it on an enemy in BG2 which prevented them from casting spells. You can't do that in BG:EE).
(2) If you are using bad AI or pathfinding, that is cheese.
Example: Kiting or walling Drizzt in (with NPCs) is cheese. Casting durable AOE spells out of sight while the opponents sit there and die is cheese. Stepping out of a doorway when an opponent is casting a spell on you so they lose the spell is cheese. Etc.
(3) If you are using a bug, that is cheese.
Example: In BG2 using wands of cloudkill against magic immune opponents or using the 'potion switch' exploit to get your barbarian a familiar is cheese. Using a familiar to pickpocket and carry items your PC can't carry because the script doesn't pick it up when carried by the familiar is cheese.
(4) Using overly powerful tactics that are foreseeable and/or likely intended uses of the tactic are up for debate. As per (1), it isn't cheese by the player but whether the item, ability, etc. are inherently cheesy is debatable.
Example: Is the protection from undead scroll so powerful that it is inherently cheesy? Is the projected image spell so powerful it is inherently cheesy? Is the shield of balduran so powerful it is inherently cheesy? Etc.
There are other items that can't help but be cheesy, though. The Robe of Vecna, for example, is so ridiculously powerful that I feel guilty ever using it.
For me, protection from petrification, protection from level drain and whatever that spell is that gives 100% protection from mind flayers attacks are all cheese. However, they are acceptable levels of cheese. It is a game after all. So I absolutely use them but acknowledge that I am using cheese tactics.
If you buy them/memorize them with the express purpose of using them in the next area you go to, because you know exactly what's there, that might be considered a cheese tactic.
However, if hapen to have one on you at the time, or memorized it as a just incase, without actually knowing you're going to use it, that would be much less cheese.