A minor idea on how to incorporate all those cool "books" you find in the game

booinyoureyes

I think it would be cool, and would add some flavor, if the more of those books you collect (ie History of the North Part XXXXXXXIIIII) the higher your lore skill will become due to all the knowedge your character has amassed from the various texts he's found during his adventure.

recklessheart

This is a really neat idea, although if it never is implemented I still would like to comment on how much I love that all of those tomes and books are there. They add so much flavour. Plus they're a great way of absorbing lore about the wider-realm if you don't have all the sourcebooks.

booinyoureyes

Agree!
Though I remember once when I was about 13 reading through all of them I found in Irenicus's dungeon, trying to figure out the "clues" to how to escape.
^.^ What a noob I was

Kamigoroshi

Interesting idea, but some forms of restrictions are needed as well imho. For example, characters with an Intelligence score of 8 or lower (as well as Barbarians in general) shouldn't be able to read any form of texts at all, much less gaining a Lore bonus from "reading" them.

booinyoureyes

Of course. I was actually thinking only mages, monks, clerics, especially bards and perhaps some paladins. Characters who would actually need to read.
I also thought it would be cool to have "situational lore"... as in a ranger can recognize certain longbows, a druid can recognize certain clubs or tomes, etc.

Pantalion

What, people don't normally carry around a complete library of all the books in the game just because?

I'm shocked.

FinneousPJ

Interesting idea, but I think the bonuses should be quite small, like 1 lore per book. It might still outshadow class bonuses (except bards), which would be kind of lame.

BTW, @Kamigoroshi, interesting idea as well, but 8 would be way too high. I'd say 4 or less. After all, the average intelligence is 10.5 for 3d6 and the stdev is 2.96, which means 7-13 is what most people have. 4-16 is still only +-two stdevs wide.

Kamigoroshi

@FinneousPJ The in-game description of Intelligence already mentions that a score of 8 or less means that the character is illiterate (making them inable to use scrolls and most wands regardless of class).
I personally feel it would be more immersive if such illiterated characters weren't able to read at all (including stat tomes, books or any other kind of texts for that matter), nor would it make any sense for them to receive Lore bonuses for doing something they shouldn't be able to do in the first place.

On a side note, I remember that characters who had an Intelligence score of 8 or less weren't able to properly speak in Neverwinter Nights. This is of course not doable in Baldur's Gate, but I still enjoyed that feature in NwN1 quite a lot with my countless half-orcs.

Sertorius

@FinneousPJ

At character creation under intelligence it is stated that:

"A character with an Intelligence score of 8 or less is illiterate and cannot use scrolls or most wands regardless of his class."

So a value of 8 would be appropriate. Also, if remeber it correctly from PnP, a value of 9 is considered average for any score for a normal human. A value of 4 is only considered semi-intelligent and 16 is considered exceptionally intelligent, so while two standard deviations doesn't seem like much, the span of the intelligence level is huge.

FinneousPJ

I think that's a bit harsh. It's not like people with less than average intelligence can't read.

EDIT: realistically, I mean.

Naveen

I guess the 8 or less rule is an attempt to make intelligence a not totally useless skill for non-mages. Reading magic or using wands doesn't have much to do with being able to read. It doesn't make sense that someone who spent his first 20 years of life in Candlekeep is illiterate. Even the custom biography for a barbarian says that you didn't like books, not that you can't read. I wouldn't put many restrictions because the idea -although good- is itself quite unnecessary and doesn't add anything important. It's like a little easter egg for persistence, and restricting it to those classes that already have higher lore scores would make it redundant and too much work (besides, later in the game you will be swimming in money, so you can just pay to identify everything)

I like the idea, though, a +1 in Lore seems a nice boost, it's not gamebreaking and you can just ignore it if you want. As long as I don't have to put the book in the quick inventory item and use it (sorry, too much work), it would be interesting.

Baldursgate.wikia says there are around 57 non-quest books (a few more in EE), but I guess most people would only bother to collect and "read" a few (10-25 perhaps).

Sgthawker

On another note, in a Medieval society, many people had no access to books, nor the time to read them anyway with how busy one was with the need to survive, so those with higher intelligence, may just never have been exposed to literacy, whether they may have wanted to learn or not.

booinyoureyes

FinneousPJ said:

I think that's a bit harsh. It's not like people with less than average intelligence can't read.

Huh? What was that? Sorry I couldn't read your sentence.

GemHound

@FinneousPJ look at the scores as potential. If you have a potential of 8 Intelligence, then more likely than not, you will not be able to read.

FinneousPJ

@GemHound Like someone pointed out, with CHARNAME growing up in a bloody library he'd have to really be so stupid as to not be able to learn to read despite the efforts of the best teachers on the sword coast, which I wouldn't consider above 4-ish intelligence.

CrevsDaak

FinneousPJ said:

I think that's a bit harsh. It's not like people with less than average intelligence can't read.

EDIT: realistically, I mean.

Still, maybe you do not understand what you read, it should be INT 10, WIS 9. Bitch it, Fighter dumpstats.

booinyoureyes

Sertorius said:

@FinneousPJ

At character creation under intelligence it is stated that:

"A character with an Intelligence score of 8 or less is illiterate and cannot use scrolls or most wands regardless of his class."

So a value of 8 would be appropriate. Also, if remeber it correctly from PnP, a value of 9 is considered average for any score for a normal human. A value of 4 is only considered semi-intelligent and 16 is considered exceptionally intelligent, so while two standard deviations doesn't seem like much, the span of the intelligence level is huge.

Hmmmmm...... Minsc has an intelligence of 8 so that would make him illterate

HOWEVER

@CrevsDaak at the Baldur's Gate meme thread found a creature file for Boo.

His intelligence is 9.

CrevsDaak

booinyoureyes said:

Sertorius said:

@FinneousPJ

At character creation under intelligence it is stated that:

"A character with an Intelligence score of 8 or less is illiterate and cannot use scrolls or most wands regardless of his class."

So a value of 8 would be appropriate. Also, if remeber it correctly from PnP, a value of 9 is considered average for any score for a normal human. A value of 4 is only considered semi-intelligent and 16 is considered exceptionally intelligent, so while two standard deviations doesn't seem like much, the span of the intelligence level is huge.

Hmmmmm...... Minsc has an intelligence of 8 so that would make him illterate

HOWEVER

@CrevsDaak at the Baldur's Gate meme thread found a creature file for Boo.

His intelligence is 9.

So, INT 9 WIS 9, so Boo can use them too, still good for me :P
Also this website rocks
http://www.minscandboo.com

booinyoureyes

@Naveen

Naveen said:

Baldursgate.wikia says there are around 57 non-quest books (a few more in EE), but I guess most people would only bother to collect and "read" a few (10-25 perhaps).

Another neat idea would be if you collect all the in game books, you could give them to cespenar who could make either
A. Some sort of "compendium" item that can cast identify at will
B. A bonus plus 1 to wisdom or even just a tome of wisdom

booinyoureyes

Or perhaps you could add Firebead Elvenhair to the second game. The guy who says "It's hard to find... decent folk nowadays" and wants you to buy a book for him.

He can exchange 1 free identify for 5 books or something like that. It would make it cheaper and be kinda neat.

I mean these aren't game-changing ideas (as I said in the title, "minor") but they would just be cool additions to add immersion to the game with items that are already commonly found.

jackjack

If that bastard shows up in the second game, I'm putting an axe through his skull.

booinyoureyes

haha, why the hate?

GamingFreak

Oh man, I love reading, let's get started right now!

*two minutes later*

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

jackjack

He's always sending me down the street to fetch some book. What's he so busy doing?

booinyoureyes

you would axe an old man for not being able to cross the street because of his arthritis??????????????

I guess its true what they say: "its hard to fiiind... decent fok nowadays"

jackjack

To be fair, I usually just rip him off.

BaldursCat

Or, how about One of the items in The Adventurer's Mart, or some such, is a flatpack 'Billy' bookcase that you can buy and add to you stronghold? In fact, it could be a talking bookcase, as a sort of companion to Lilacor. There should be more sentient stuff in the games in general.

Calmar

Baldur's Gate 3 - Wrath of Lilarcor...

the_spyder

I think it's a great idea. If it were me, it would work like this. Scatter around several (maybe 5) books throughout both games that, when read act exactly like the Tomes and give you a guaranteed boost to your lore.

All of the rest would have a percent chance (based on your INT/WiS value) to increase your Lore. The percent chance should be small so that people don't do what they (and I do it as well) do with scribing scrolls, i.e. reloading until you hit the percentage. Make it 5-10% per book reviewed. That should keep the actual bonus down to a small number of points, but would represent the same idea that the OP suggested.

As for the cut-off point for INT, i see this as less important as, even if the character is illiterate, they could still get someone else to read it for them. And they have to be able to read the notes that are periodically left, so.....

Another way you could do it would be to have each book give a cumulative value such that once you had enough books, you got a bonus. 1 book would do nothing, but 10 might give you a bonus up. Have it set up as a global variable that counts the books you 'read' and gives you either lore or XP bonus for reading them. it could be very easily done.

booinyoureyes

@the_spyder I like your ideas. I think there should be a wisdom and intelligence cut off point though

the_spyder

I'd think it would be something that could be modded (at least the idea of the global variable which increases to the point where you get bonus). but then I think that it would also be a really nice easter egg for the Devs to put in, should they feel motivated. Either way....