If we think about the stat in terms of what you could improve in real life if these tomes were just ordinary books:
Strength You could easily improve your strenght by f.e. doing hard bodily labor, lifting weights, swinging big melee weapons etc. You could do it without any books, but a book would help (nutrition, sleep etc.).
Dexterity You could definitely improve your dexterity without books and I doubt a book would help a lot here. Could you learn to be a ninja by reading? I don't think so.
Constitution Isn't this like the combination of how you're built, your general health and endurance. You could start jogging, eating more fruits and vegetables etc. to raise your constitution. A book would certainly help.
Intelligence It's basically your IQ. If your dumb though luck. Learn to live with it. No book will help your dumb ass.
Wisdom It's your life experience, how book-smart you are, it's your general knowledge about anything and everything. How I see it is the more you read the wiser you become (unless you read Twilight Saga; it will drop you wisdom and intelligence by 2 points permanently)
Charisma Your visual appearance, how you present yourself, how smooth you are. Some people have it naturally and some don't. With books you could learn to behave yourself so you don't immediately get a slap to the face.
These are obviously just my thought that I quickly put in words. Feel free to disagree.
Personally, I thought Twilight was a great tragedy. It was an epic testament to one girl's complete submission to her death drive, following her as she discards every possibility of happiness in a name of a self-destructive desire stripped of all morality, casting away friends, family and ultimately her own soul. There was a kind of haunting beauty to it. A true cautionary tale.
Also, Half Orcs were unavailable in BG1, so the whole 19 STR thing is untrue.
Not saying what I said was true. I really wanted to find the web page for ME, to back it up.
A lot of gossip and wild rumor surround BG. If you have ever heard the story of a random squirrel carrying a ring of luck near Nashkel you will understand...
However, back to you point, it is valid, unless the Half-Orcs were an idea for BG1 but not implemented. Hell perhaps one of the other book should have been a tome of strength...
What? Dam now I have to go around killing every squirrel i see just in case. lol
I like to think of the Wisdom tomes being there to reflect your character's character growth throughout the game. The other stats will all increase by a good chunk, but the main part of the Bhaalspawn's growth is more likely to be becoming more experienced due to the adventures they have been on.
While I understand the sentiment here, it seems counter intuitive considering 'The Slayer' in BG2 and the overall bent of the Baal ethos. Hardly 'The Path of Wisdom' worthy.
In the end, I think Wisdom was deemed to be the least abusable of the Stats in the game. I mean, having 3 Tomes of STR and giving them to a Half-Orc that starts out with a 19 STR would be insanely overpowerful. Same with 3 CON tomes given to Kagain (as for example).
Don't the original tomes require you to spend about a month to get the attribute point to increase? Be thankful this isn't Pool of Radience. I recall a single tome of bodily health. Lol good times.
Maybe I'm too much a power gamer but I can't see wasting a tome on an NPC when I'm going to be importing my Bhaalchild over to BG2. Other than xp and Golden pantaloons, attributes are the only things that transfer to BG2. right?
There is a list of things that transfer over. The pantaloons are among them. Balduran's armor is also. I think the Claw is another. I'd do a search but I think that Dudleyville could tell you the whole list. And there is a hierarchy to it as well. So if you have two items from the list, the higher one will transfer.
But I am of a like mind that all of the tomes go to Charname, regardless of how helpful they might be to another.
Maybe I'm too much a power gamer but I can't see wasting a tome on an NPC when I'm going to be importing my Bhaalchild over to BG2. Other than xp and Golden pantaloons, attributes are the only things that transfer to BG2. right?
Depends how useful the tome is to my character. My arcane casters don't care if I have +1 STR at any part of the trilogy. So, I might as well push a fighter up to Str 19 (or even 20 now with Dorn) and get some benefit out of it during some of my gameplay.
+ 1 str on a mage means more loot you can carry. +1 int on a fighter can get him out of the dumbass realm. +1 con on your bard who has 16 con gives you a little breathing room should your familiar be killed. Any extra point can offset the attribute point you must give up. Also good and neutral PCs have to lose a point of dex on one of the trials in hell. If you make Edwin a 19 int in BG1, he will still have an 18 int in BG2.
Spyder, thanks for that. I would be very interested in seeing that list as well as the hierarchy.
I'm going to be transferring the Chainmail +3 and the Claw on my Bard, I think. I know the Helm of Balduran is amazing, but I detest the look of it on just about everyone.
I'm going to be transferring the Chainmail +3 and the Claw on my Bard, I think. I know the Helm of Balduran is amazing, but I detest the look of it on just about everyone.
These days I tend to play with the "Don't display helmets" Tweak for just that reason. There aren't very many helmets in the series that look good to me.
instead of a bunch of useless crap that is not too hard to aquire in BG2, how about they use some of those items that are NOT available in BG2 such as:
Dagger of Venom +2 Necklace of Missles Kiel's Helm Kiel's Buckler Eagle Bow Greenstone Amulet Ring of Wizardry (and not the one from Harper's quest that is piss poor programmer's copy of the one made for you from your Mage stronghold apprentices but the one that doubles all 1st level spells)
or items that are extremely valuable and useful or that there never seem to be enough of such as:
Wand of Monster Summoning Guantlets of Dex Arrows of Detonation Cloak of Displacement
Instead we get a choice of crappy armor A, crappy armor B, cursed armor, or crappy armor C. and seriously, to get the claw we have to give up the best helm in both games, hands down? You won't find a better helm outside of Icewind Dale(and that one is for halflings only).
What were they thinking when they made these choices, "you know, I'd really like to carry over my cursed missle attracter studded leather," or "...this leather +2 is AWESOME, I don't want to part with it" I know you can put the reflection shield on the guy with missle attracter armor and waltz into an enemy archer camp but beyond that, I just don't see much use for these items. Also, if I have Koveras' ring of protection +1 that means I won't be seeing the helm of balduran? What a load of crap.
According to Player's Handbook 2nd Edition, 15+ wisdom adds to saving throws against spells that attacks the mind (to a maximum of +4 at wisdowm 18). Also a wisdom of 19+ gives immunity to certain spells, like charm, hold person and so on.
Maybe the NPC Clerics were kind of boring, so this gives you the opportunity to change Xzar or Dynaheir into a Cleric.
Maybe it's to encourage a Cleric protagonist, as using the "canon" party (according to BG2) means that the only basic class not covered is a cleric.
Or a Bard! Because of the correlation between Wisdom and Lore. And the fact that whenever I Bard, my Wisdom is my dump stat, so I can hear Jaheira saying "You Big Dummy!" to my character.
I am considering giving Dynaheir two of these tomes, so she can dual class to Cleric. I've read many people do this with Xzar with good results, but never about Dynaheir.
This could allow me to use the "default party" (BG2) without feeling pigeonholed into the Cleric class (for a sense of balance).
I am considering giving Dynaheir two of these tomes, so she can dual class to Cleric. I've read many people do this with Xzar with good results, but never about Dynaheir.
This could allow me to use the "default party" (BG2) without feeling pigeonholed into the Cleric class (for a sense of balance).
One of the main reasons for this is that you can't get a second tome until BG, which means dualing Dynaheir is a lot trickier. You can dual Xzar early with the Durlag's Tower tome and have his Necromancer levels back by the time you finish Cloakwood. Dynaheir can still be done, obviously, but it's a lot more time-consuming, and you need to make sure she doesn't go over level 6.
Comments
Strength
You could easily improve your strenght by f.e. doing hard bodily labor, lifting weights, swinging big melee weapons etc. You could do it without any books, but a book would help (nutrition, sleep etc.).
Dexterity
You could definitely improve your dexterity without books and I doubt a book would help a lot here. Could you learn to be a ninja by reading? I don't think so.
Constitution
Isn't this like the combination of how you're built, your general health and endurance. You could start jogging, eating more fruits and vegetables etc. to raise your constitution. A book would certainly help.
Intelligence
It's basically your IQ. If your dumb though luck. Learn to live with it. No book will help your dumb ass.
Wisdom
It's your life experience, how book-smart you are, it's your general knowledge about anything and everything. How I see it is the more you read the wiser you become (unless you read Twilight Saga; it will drop you wisdom and intelligence by 2 points permanently)
Charisma
Your visual appearance, how you present yourself, how smooth you are. Some people have it naturally and some don't. With books you could learn to behave yourself so you don't immediately get a slap to the face.
These are obviously just my thought that I quickly put in words. Feel free to disagree.
...Wait, it was supposed to be a romance?
P.S.
Yes i know it was an untrue rumor
In the end, I think Wisdom was deemed to be the least abusable of the Stats in the game. I mean, having 3 Tomes of STR and giving them to a Half-Orc that starts out with a 19 STR would be insanely overpowerful. Same with 3 CON tomes given to Kagain (as for example).
Maybe I'm too much a power gamer but I can't see wasting a tome on an NPC when I'm going to be importing my Bhaalchild over to BG2. Other than xp and Golden pantaloons, attributes are the only things that transfer to BG2. right?
But I am of a like mind that all of the tomes go to Charname, regardless of how helpful they might be to another.
Spyder, thanks for that. I would be very interested in seeing that list as well as the hierarchy.
I'm going to be transferring the Chainmail +3 and the Claw on my Bard, I think. I know the Helm of Balduran is amazing, but I detest the look of it on just about everyone.
instead of a bunch of useless crap that is not too hard to aquire in BG2, how about they use some of those items that are NOT available in BG2 such as:
Dagger of Venom +2
Necklace of Missles
Kiel's Helm
Kiel's Buckler
Eagle Bow
Greenstone Amulet
Ring of Wizardry (and not the one from Harper's quest that is piss poor programmer's copy of the one made for you from your Mage stronghold apprentices but the one that doubles all 1st level spells)
or items that are extremely valuable and useful or that there never seem to be enough of such as:
Wand of Monster Summoning
Guantlets of Dex
Arrows of Detonation
Cloak of Displacement
Instead we get a choice of crappy armor A, crappy armor B, cursed armor, or crappy armor C.
and seriously, to get the claw we have to give up the best helm in both games, hands down? You won't find a better helm outside of Icewind Dale(and that one is for halflings only).
What were they thinking when they made these choices, "you know, I'd really like to carry over my cursed missle attracter studded leather," or "...this leather +2 is AWESOME, I don't want to part with it" I know you can put the reflection shield on the guy with missle attracter armor and waltz into an enemy archer camp but beyond that, I just don't see much use for these items. Also, if I have Koveras' ring of protection +1 that means I won't be seeing the helm of balduran? What a load of crap.
I'd say it's a very important stat.
http://www.forgottenwars.com/bg1/miscellany.htm
Edit: Ops.. Looks like someone beat me to it.
Maybe it's to encourage a Cleric protagonist, as using the "canon" party (according to BG2) means that the only basic class not covered is a cleric.
Or a Bard! Because of the correlation between Wisdom and Lore. And the fact that whenever I Bard, my Wisdom is my dump stat, so I can hear Jaheira saying "You Big Dummy!" to my character.
I am considering giving Dynaheir two of these tomes, so she can dual class to Cleric. I've read many people do this with Xzar with good results, but never about Dynaheir.
This could allow me to use the "default party" (BG2) without feeling pigeonholed into the Cleric class (for a sense of balance).
A priest of Oghma once told me "The wisdom is only possessed by the learned."
It's not quite connected with the topic but is sounds cool. So...