What was your most memorable challenge, and how did you defeat it? (Survey #2)

Dee

Tell us the story of a memorable challenge in Baldur's Gate or Baldur's Gate II, and what you did to overcome it.

Was it a fight with a red dragon? A difficult puzzle? Navigating your way through a difficult piece of diplomacy? Tell us your story.

Why are we asking this question?

Throughout the month of December we’ll be asking a lot of questions about your experience with these games. We’ll post a new thread when there’s a new question to answer, and we’ll be reading (though not necessarily commenting on) your responses and discussion.

We're looking for things about Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition that grabbed you, that made you sit up on the edge of your seat, that made you think "Yes, this, give me more of this!"

Me personally, I’m hoping it will make for some interesting holiday reading. But you also never know who might be reading along, looking for ideas…

CrevsDaak

As many players, understanding how Baator THAC0 works, then, why I didn't have a blue bar in some corner reading the word "mana" or something like that.
About battles, as I was unexperienced when I started to play BG:EE, everything was difficult, in BG2:ToB it turned out different, I think it was either the Demons in the Maze Level of Watchers Keep of Irenicus from the final ToB battle with Ascencion AND SCS, what seems to be particularly difficult, since he uses lots of Teleport Fields (2 to be precise) and he has some nasty contingencies on, I like battling demons since I am very interested in the Lower and Upper planes, I dislike enemies being a Human, an Elf a Dwarf and Gnome searching for the Holy Groundhog, because, it is too classic, so maybe battling 6 Glabrezu besides a Fallen Deva and a Fallen Golden Dragon, sound better to me, because I like exotic monsters and the liking (that's another reason why I love PS:T), I also like enemies using good scripts, improved like SCS does, for example, Sirines in BG1 always cast Dire Charm after Improved Invisibility? Where is the fun of throwing fireballs at them all the time? In the case you don't use fireballs and grab the Arrows of Detonation like I do and crush the Sirines and all the freaking monsters that you can met in the whole Sword Coast, another very good thing was the Spirit Warrior you have to control in the Last Seal, in the Watcher's Keep, it was a nice thing to do, it was funny and everything, I liked it a lot, also, I like enemies to be multi-class instead of complete pushers with 127% MR and immunity to everything, so you have to spend 291 Hours in melee, or they are immune to missile weapons and have a deadly melee attack (pesky Battle Horrors! They give lots of good battle XP ), then, I miss the game for being easy somehow, BG1 was easy for me, while BG2 was more challenging, Mind Flyers are particularly difficult, but 3 invisible party members blocking a door and the other three with Melf's Minute Meteors striking those pesky brain suckers? It was a cheesy tactic, and the only way to avoid it is with SCS (yeah, I installed it a few days ago, and I regret not having it from the first day, it is awesome, thanks to DavidW, hope he makes the scripting for the last battle of BG3), I like playing solo runs a lot (I only finished BG1 with a complete party 3 times, while I played like 20 or more solo runs), it is my way of playing, since I like doing that, I know how to beat almost all the enemies alone, so when I have more NPCs, it gets damn too easy, so adding more enemies when you have more NPCs is the best thing to do for sure, like the Illasera battle at the stat of ToB with those Black Ravens.
Hope this is helpful and that you find it interesting, to read.

Dee said:

Me personally, I’m hoping it will make for some interesting holiday reading. But you also never know who might be reading along, looking for ideas…

It was a nice holidays writing for me, I don't have anything to do till March 2014, happy holydays nd hpe you make more of this surveys. @Dee happy holidays, again, thanks for BG:EE and BG2:EE, you've earned them.

Kurumi

Hmmm.. certainly not the most difficult (quite the opposite in fact) challenge, but most memorable one from a recent BG2EE run, because I liked that you had to be careful not to kill a certain King. So after some legal metagaming recon through the use of Farsight, I analyzed the situation and thought that perhaps this would be the perfect moment to try out the Sleep Cloud from the Staff of Air +2.. and indeed.. this worked so well vs. Lanneth and her followers, that to my satisfaction this challenge was easily mastered as planned. As a funny sidenote, Lanneth woke up during the following attack (when her health got low) to say something (I guess it was scripted), but fell asleep again after she finished talking !!

shawne

The bottom of Watcher's Keep. I'd met one false Imprisoned One after another, and had no idea what to expect. And then Demogorgon - one of the few characters I actually recognized from D&D lore - appeared and shredded my party like wet tissue paper. It took me a few tries to find a strategy that could keep my party members alive and do enough damage to Demogorgon, but when I finally defeated him... I felt like I'd earned that victory, even though it cost me two party members (who I chose not to resurrect, as a tribute to the toughest bastard the game ever threw at me).

elminster

I had Rasaad fight a chicken once. He lost.

forktheworld

I first played the game when I was about 13. I had grown up actually sitting around and watching my father play the first game, so I was fairly familiar with the basic mechanics (THAC0, armor class, lower level spells, etc.). I loaded up Shadows of Amn thinking that I could handle whatever the game threw at me, and I started out pretty well. I picked up my favorite characters from the first game, Minsc and Imoen, and some new faces such as Aerie, Yoshimo and eventually Mazzy and fought through several chapters of the game without unreasonable challenges. I managed to take down a certain red dragon without too much trouble, and the Underdark only resulted in a few isolated problems (I'm looking at you, Illithid lair before I knew what Chaotic Commands was). However, when I got to the second to last level of Watcher's Keep and I suddenly spawned a battle with a marileth, a hive mother beholder, and several other uber-level monsters, I had met my match. It literally took me at least 20 reloads and countless searches for walkthroughs on the interwebs before I was able to deal with the sheer power of the balanced party I was being confronted with. Once I finally managed to figure out how to deal with high level mages and spell protections (again, I was like 13, I was convinced that I could just beat on everything with weapons until it died) and win the battle, it was as though I had just won life. I would say that was the most memorable challenge I had in the game world, and it was as simple to solve as memorizing a few Ruby Rays of Reversal and a couple of Khelben's Warding Whips.

CrevsDaak

@elminster that is the type of posts of @booinyoureyes.
And mine.

Faydark

I think overall, the most challenging fight for me in BGEE (I haven't played BGIIEE yet) has been Silke, when I'm doing a solo full playthrough.

Usually when I attempt it, I am only level 2 or 3. This particular playthrough, I am using a wild mage CHARNAME. I think I have attempted this battle about 20 times now.

If I start out by casting Blindness.. it does no damage to Silke, so she goes improved invis and then proceeds to kick my butt once she regains sight. I would have thought that Blindness should last longer, but it always seems to wear off in short order and she fries me with a lightning bolt.

If I start out by casting magic missile (wand or spell), then I interrupt the Imp. Invis cast, but she gets to cast lightning before I can do anything in round two.

If I start out by attacking with my best thac0 weapon (sling at this point), then I usually miss and die from lightning bolt, or hit, interrupt the improved invis then die from lightning bolt.

If I skip trying to interrupt the improved invis cast, then she fries me with the lightning bolt because I can't hit her with anything due to the imp invis.

And then there's the wild surges to contend with.. they are almost universally bad at this level

I'm sure there's many players laughing and snickering at me right now, "what a noob".. but I'll figure out something eventually .

With any of my normal parties (4+ characters), the most memorable battles are with:

Neera's final battle with Ekandor is always fun - I really want that Stoneskin scroll.. and if you don't kill Ekandor quickly, he uses it on himself and you get nada. Not to mention those dudes with the spears seem to just love targeting my least armored characters and ignoring whoever else is attacking them etc.. fun fun fun!.

Dorn's final battle outside the BG gates - I find this fun, usually play it on two "fronts", handling the demons and Simmeon with my tanks, and taking out the casters with my "DPS" simultaneously. With summons, there's usually a lot going on at the same time and it feels "epic".

Aec'Letec - taking out cultists while "handling" Aec'Letec took a fair bit of coordination. I try not to use "cheese" like a lot of strategies in walkthroughs recommend (eg casting disabling spells and aoe damage spells and exit doors etc).

The final battle with Sarevok - It has been years since I last did this battle (back in Vanilla BG, when TotSC was just released), so my first BGEE attempt had a lot of reloading involved as things went terribly wrong.. but eventually I developed a plan and got through it.

recklessheart

I think one of my favourite things in Baldur's Gate was the mage battles. The fact that you could pit two mages against one another and not have anyone take a modicum of damage for several rounds was great. It really felt like a battle of intelligence, with two mages trying to outstep their opponents through the clever use of disabling spells, protective magicks, summoning powerful planar creatures, and relying on unexpected contingencies to foil your enemies plans even when they seemed to have you down for the count. The rest of the party were better off hiding out of sight - putting yourself between the arcane barrages of two high level mages is asking for death.
These kinds of strategies were dropped in later games, perhaps with people finding the multiple dispelling spells confusing and superfluous, but I really really disagreed with that. In IWD my mages cast stoneskin, mirror image, and need pretty much no other buffs to get through the game because the foes were set up in such a way that it did you no help to protect your party from powerful magic. Equally, the loss of spell sequencers and contingencies made these strategies fairly impossible due to the inelegant 'all weapons on the enemy spellcaster' strategy. It made the party mage feel relegated to being necessary only for the occasional enchantment and for blasting magic, which while being very useful, felt dispensable very often compared to BG2, in which the mage is the only party role that it is thoroughly foolish to ignore.

In terms of specific encounter, the dragons never kidded around. Although they were exceptionally powerful, my only gripe was that at least one of them should have played up the 'dragons are natural masters of magic' card and thrown in some curve ball high level arcane spells, therefore making the player unable to adopt the same strategy against all dragons.
The best encounters usually consisted of party-reflective opponents. Enemies such as those encountered in the Mithrest Inn; the random group of adventurers waiting for you when you leave Ched Nasad; all of the assassination attempts in BG1; and also the Tethyrian army in ToB, because sometimes it is nice to tear your way through a ton of enemies and feel absolutely awesome afterwards.

My most memorable challenge was in Waukeen's Promenade: a group of Githyanki showed up to take back their silver sword, and in self-defence I used magic, only to bring upon my party the final group of Cowled Wizards, with all of their fury. Not only was my party contending with Githyanki that were good in melee and range, but now a swarm of summoning and high level attack magic launched at me from behind a myriad of magical protection. Lightning bolts were going everywhere, potions were being chugged like vodka cokes at a university party, and I had to micromanage all six of my party members at all times to have any chance of keeping up with my opponents' assaults. Even then it required multiple reloads, but not once did I consider trying to deal with the Githyanki without casting spells, because the challenge of both enemies at once was just too enjoyable, even on the attempts when I failed.

RnRClown

Durlag's Tower, without the internet, nor any friends who owned Baldur's Gate to call upon. I installed Tales of the Sword Coast prior to finishing the main game, and thus ventured to Durlag's Tower a little earlier than may have been expected. I had a moderately powerful group, with an average understanding of how to play.

It was challenging, to say the least. I eventually became lost in the tower. I couldn't find a way out, and I had no prior save to roll back to. The traps. The enemies. The riddles. The chess board that stifled me for what felt like weeks! I honestly felt trapped! I longed to see the sun light just one more time. I was in that tower for close to a fortnight. I had to load the game so many times. I eventually navigated the chess board, although I know not how, simply that I did and was ecstatic to leave it behind and never look back.

I also recall a brutal time of it facing up against a group of Dwarven warriors, or warders. They were as unforgiving as the chess board, but I was not stalled by them for as long. The chess board brutalized me as I kept persisting to play by whatever rules that section had seemingly implemented.

What saw me through was persistence. What it taught me was the importance of tactics, through swift situation assessment, and efficient action/reaction. It was a trial by fire in learning to appreciate casters, both divine and arcane.

I have never been back to Durlag's Tower, as I earmarked it as end-game content from there on out. I have not reached the end-game since, for varying reasons such as hardware failures, bugs, and save file corruption.

A notable mention could go towards the time where the group became overrun, and out of desperation I cast sleep and grease, for seemingly the first time. From the brink of almost certain victory half the enemy found themselves unconscious, while the other half were slipping and falling uncontrollably, and that victory became mine. I used to look at such spells with befuddlement as to their inclusion, because they didn't do damage like magic missile and fireball. Yet through fresh eyes their usefulness improved tenfold. If the damage spells didn't deplete all hit points, I was still in trouble. With those disabling spells I could negate enemy attack and then focus on hit point deduction.

Eudaemonium

I think the freshest one was on my BGIIEE play through, when I unexpectedly teleported into the Twisted Rune (never fought them before), completely unprepared, no buffs, and I'm pretty sure at least someone was fatigued, and managed to pull off a victory first time.

I quickly got Viconia casting Protection from Evil 10' Radius and Edwin hasting everyone. My F/T downed an invisibility potion and managed to chunk the Vampire with a lucky critical hit. I can't remember how I took the beholder out, but it was probably due to Dorn and Korgan rushing it and getting some lucky hits. Hexxat took out another of them, and eventually it was just the Lich and the mage with the Staff of the Magi. This is where it got funny. Dorn got mazed, and the mage gated in a Pit Fiend that then decided to snack on the Lich rather than my party, meanwhile I was trying to figure out some way of dropping the Lich's protections. I'm not entirely sure how I won in the end, but I did and I felt damned proud.

Coutelier

Well, much of Durlag's Tower was a challenge the first time I did it. Especially since I don't like to leave a dungeon until I'm done, so by the end the party was running a little low on some supplies and inventory space was a little tight.

I remember the level with the wyvern-y things and the fireball chamber at the start. Now, my strategy when exploring dungeons is to always turn left, so I went all the way round and attacked the wyverns from behind. That was a tough fight. Then I restored the statues to flesh, and since the wyverns were gone I sent them into the room with the skeleton archers with just my MC (the rest of the party stayed where they were). When they turned hostile, I ran back and they followed me through the fireball chamber and were killed, along with quite a few skeletons as well. I liked being able to use the terrain to my advantage.

Irbis

In Black Pits 2.
The battle with Fallen Devas. Took like 5 tries.
Clay Golems battle was hard too.
Bear in mind i was soling BP2 with a Sorcerer.
Demiliches was not fun or hard. Just damn cheasy, boring and anoying.

Drugar

I've never had a battle where I had to pull out everything I had like the one with the Lost Followers in IWD2.

Normally I buff up for big fights, but that battle forced me to use every trick, spell, summon and potion I had. By the 8th reload, only the psychotic acid drinking, lava bathing duergar and my gnome illusionist were left, who was running arround with Haste, throwing out every spell she could.
When that final force missle took him down, I litterally stood up and cheered.

Party vs party fights are always more interesting to me than party vs monster fights because the two sides complement eachother so well. Not that taking down a dragon isn't fun (it is!) but in the end I always feel it requires less tactics than when you're facing a group. The fight was chaotic and insane and I loved it.
Not unimportant, it also left my paladin with a unique upgrade, bonus charisma (and possibly wisdom). Likewise, the optional Black Dragon fight in IWD2 left your party with 5 acid resistence. I like these rewards more than 'just another magic item' because it adds something unique to your group.

Later on, I heard a Protection from Undead scroll basicly nullifies the entire group. Laaame. Hard way 4evah!

Adul

For me, the most memorable challenging fights in the BG series have always been the mage fights in BG2. I just love how many spells there are and that almost everything has a counter. It's like a really complex game of chess.

Pibaro

My most memorable challenge in BG series was my first time facing Aec'Letec.
There was many memorable things I still remember after 14 years in that fight.
Trying to kill all the cultist before being killed by the demon... it was impossible at that time for me. So after several tries I used Otyluke sphere for the first time in my game... and it worked.... I was so excited... But it wasn't enough. I had to figure out a way to prevent that horrible gaze. I had no idea what kind of power it was, I just knew that many party members were transformed into zombie (or something like that).... and I noticed that small icon on the portrait.... I tried every dispel magic I had, but no way... I coudn't restore them before they were turned.
So I tried many potions (at that time I used to sell almost all the potions I found) and finally I could win the battle.
It was epic.....

I had other epic battle, but most of them were too confused... I remember the first time I killed sarevok... all my party members died, and I still don't know how I killed him.

My conclusion is that the best challenges are the one you can't win just hackin' and slashin' , or using the usual spells, but when you are forced to use potions, staff, secondary spells etc.
And with not too many enemies. I find too many enemies togheter making battles a bit confusing.

But the best thing ever was installing SCS. The enemies AI given by SCS is priceless. The best part of SCS isn't fighting big bosses, because every single small encounter is worth of at least some kind of brain-using.

Kaltzor

I don't know what's my MOST memorable... But I've had a few quite interesting ones...

I did the Black Pits in BGEE with 5 mages and a sorcerer, one of the mages was a Wild Mage and against the fire giant, at the start of the fight I got a wild surge gate, so I not only had a the fire giant who could probably punch a mage down in hit to deal with, but the demon as well... And I won, lots of running around, throwing 3 cloudkills at once to the middle of the arena amd lots of Melf's Acid Arrows were involved...

One time in ToB, in Saradush when I went into the Barracks, the soldiers in there managed to get reinforcements in there so the whole place was full, while they're not hard, but when I got off an Emotion: Hopelessness spell, EVERY single one of them just dropped down to the ground and let me just finish them off, it was quite amusing to see a small army just give up and lie down.

I did once decide to kill Shandalar in BG1... Little did I know what he was like... Most physical damage was absorbed and he kept throwing one hit kill spells and he was made completely uninterruptable when casting spells... But after throwing in some quick Magic Missiles for damage to start with and sending CHARNAME who was a fighter at him who had Protection from Petrification and Death Ward on him, there was enough time to kill him before he either dispels all the protections or teleports away.

Messi

Two fights spring to my mind. First is meeting that adventurer party in the wilderness in BG1. It was really memorable for me for multiple reasons. First of all I simply thought it was really cool meeting another party, and it immediately made the world feel more alive because your party wasn't the only one in existence. Also it was simply cool to do kind of a mirror fight against enemies that had relatively similar resources available to them as you had. I didn't mind the loot either, nor the fact they taunted you! Afterwards you felt kinda badass since you had just murdered a party of adventurers that thought they were pretty badass themselfs.

My favorite fight of BG games is Ascenscion Yaga-Shura though. The best way I can describe it is that to me that fight feels like those big Hollywood trailers with really epic music. You are basically fighting the whole army at once, and their soldiers just keep coming at you, while at the same time you also need to fight this near immortal giant! I also like that the fact that the fight actual lasts a while adding to the overall epicness!

Finally I want to echo the appreciation for the githyanki sword sub-plot. The fights themselfs aren't that memorable, but I really like the Planescape feel that questline has. Being hunted by planetravellers is simply awesome! Also it always makes me wish there was more planetravelling you could do...

Shin

One challenge I like is attempting to build charnames that can solo The Five in ToB (with Ascension+SCS and without the experience boost of soloing throughout the game - usually I will create a custom spell that puts my party members behind long-duration Otiluke spheres so they can't be targeted) - I'm especially fond of taking on Balthazar as his Ascension incarnation has a fairly well-rounded set of abilities without being cheesy (save perhaps for the speed with which he can use them).

With a well-written AI like SCS Balthazar can block your time stops, your magic and your physical attacks, but not all of them at once. And then just when you think you have him, he'll pop Second Wind and heal back to full - great fight.

I also agree that one-on-one mage duels can be great fun with an AI like SCS.

I've also found that this gives me some incentive when replaying the game, building my character and grabbing gear knowing that some very serious challenges will wait later on. It's important for my personal sense of pacing not to feel that all the best moments of the game ("game" as in BG1+BG2+ToB) happen early on.

Roanan

I beseech thee all not to take this tale to mean I have no respect for the game -- I absolutely love true playthroughs and cheat-less challenges and will do all that in a heartbeat -- Let's just say that every once in a while, especially during times of youth or boredom, my Chaotic Neutral side likes to come out swinging. You see, my first memorable challenge began by attacking Gorion in Candlekeep on my very first save as a dumb 11-year-old kid. Needless to say, I did not defeat this challenge. :P

YET.

12 years later, playing BGEE, I decided to get virtual revenge on this invincible lightning-bolter by CLUAConsole-ing a band of 6 hasted, max-statted, über-equipped dwarven kensais to all wail on him at the same time. It was actually much harder than I thought it would be... Since Gorion's very first bolt goes straight for the Protagonist and is an unavoidable insta-kill, and he himself has hundreds of HP, I had to have my CHARNAME stand far out of sight, presumably cheering on his 5 clone-brothers as they attempted to carry out his decade-old vendetta. Eventually... one death in the clone family later... it finally worked. I had killed Gorion.

And then I had nothing else to do but CTRL+J outta there and see how else I could crazify the Sword Coast.


EDIT: Side note -- if you ever find yourself surrounded by 5 angry warriors, glaring at you, drawing their axes and yelling "KAI!!" in unison... you'd probably better shoot first.

Montresor_SP

Possible Planescape: Torment spoilers...

------------

Problem: Near the end of Planescape: Torment I needed to enter the Mortuary but the game crashed when I talked my way past the guards and entered through the front entrance.

(This is a known bug which sometimes happens when you enter the first floor of the Mortuary, and which I hope will be fixed in a future Enhanced Edition *cough* ... But I digress!:-))

Solution: I looked at my companions, looked at their weapons, thought to myself - "Hmmm, wait - I am immortal..." Said to Morte, Dak'kon & Co, "Guys, I need you to do me a favor!" And Morte said, "How many times must this fool die?" Moments later I woke up on the second floor without any problems, feeling like I'd been strained through someone's bowels, but still able to proceed to the endgame.

Maybe not "memorable" in a heroic kind of way, but an elegant solution to an annoying problem, I think. :-)

booinyoureyes

Kurumi said:

As a funny sidenote, Lanneth woke up during the following attack (when her health got low) to say something (I guess it was scripted), but fell asleep again after she finished talking !!

I literally did this right after escaping from Irenicus. Let me tell you, it was SUPER hard. The initial fight itself, before even getting to Lanneth was difficult for me. Heck, the hardest part was ENTERING that area. But it was actually enjoyable. I enjoyed the sheer amount of enemies and allies, making you weary of using area of effect spells. It made for an interesting challenge.

rdarken

Neera's quest spoilers!

After the Wild Mages at the refuge are captured, going through the hideout was brutal! The final two fights in there (where the slaves come to assist) were so hard. I'm not the best at these games, but fighting a bunch of mages at once like that gave me a lot of trouble.

Embarrassingly, I let the escaped slaves do a lot of the work while I waited for their enchantments to wear off. Jaheira bit it in the scuffle, but after about 10 tries, I decided I was okay with that, especially since I don't like her and was goign to dump her, anyway.

SCARY_WIZARD

That ridiculous slap-fight with Sarevok at the Duchal Palace... All the doppelgangers! Can't AoE them, you risk hurting the nobles. Don't want the Dukes to die...aaand Sarevok is a particularly lovely flavor of turd-burglar in this fight, with an AC of "I HATE YOU". ;___;
This made my last EE playthrough, in which my Blackguard paralyzed him with Stupefier and made him watch as I wasted his allies like he wasted my foster father all the more satisfying. I recall giving him the occasional whack with it. Then, when everything was said and done, came the final poisoned strike. To Gehenna went his soul, and from Gehenna, she will pluck it!

Aaand now, for a late response to Survey #2~

Nalia de'Arnise. Everybody knows that creepy White Knight schtick of mine with regards to this character. And her voice actress.
HOWEVER, I really do like Nalia, and it goes beyond her voice acting. Her plea in the Copper Coronet was enough to make an adventurer still fresh from the horrors of Chateau Irenicus put their feet back on the ground and travel a third of a day to a Keep in a foreign nation. A nation that, as we travelled, bled Maztica, and if it had only one redeeming quality, it would have been in the form of a rich magess who used to be a bit of a footpad. She had her flaws, but so did everybody else.
The de'Arnise Romance mod is fanboy wish fulfillment for me... Otherwise, I would never have created a male CHARNAME, and would continue to emotionally abuse Anomen Delryn.

Quartz

Definitely Durlag's Tower. Between its monsters, traps and riddles, it's nuts! But with a cohesive story behind it and everything, so it truly makes sense.

Dragonspear

The assassination attempt outside the friendly arm inn.

I realize its basic and once you know it fairly simple, but when I first started playing I was using fighter types. I thought potions were best sold rather than used and I encountered this guy. The first few attempts I aggroed him (funny using that word now when I'd never even heard of it at the time) too high up for the guards to help. Waiting for the right RNG to happen so Imoen and I could get through.

Others may be more difficult in the long run, requiring multiple reloads, tactics, internet searching etc. But remembering FINALLY killing that assassin, less than 24 hours after the death of Gorion when Imoen and I were both fatigued. Ya, definitely takes the cake. I think he might be one of the main reasons I pick up Xzar and Monty now (on top of Belt Fetish Ogre).

thene

The Greater Wyverns in Durlag's Tower.

The atmosphere in that room is incredible. Especially the first time I ever played BG1, it's hard enough to even get in there and then you get the almost surreal introductory speech and insta-death of the skeleton host...and the dead dragon, who's revealed almost archaeologically as you explore the room. The stone warriors add to that. Petrification in BG1 was always scary - there aren't many other forms of instadeath in the game. Dire charms are also fairly unnerving.

And that's before you see those mfing wyverns.

And that's before you veer too far away while running from one of the mfing wyverns and accidentally walk into another one. Heart stops. Reload.

Even once I got the hang of it, the method is bloody and the timing is stressful; you're bringing these poor, brave, ass-kicking heroes back from stone just to use them as cannon-fodder (and then you loot Meiala's corpse and realise she's a Sirene Queen, you just puppeted and killed a Sirene Queen in a dragon's graveyard) while you pelt the wyverns with ranged weapons, and if you keep them alive and running too long they're going to turn on you. And if one of them dies on you unexpectedly, the wyverns will come for you. And if you retreat back through the landscape of bones, you'll be back in the firetrap.

Oh god, did that room freak me out the first time. It's incredible.

(Did anyone else find the other side of this level - the hedge maze - so atmospheric that they accidentally tried to cast Call Lightning down there? Yeah, I felt dumb.)

Sed

I'm still very much in love with Baldur's Gate open areas, the wilderness and all the fun/challenging/random encounters you could find. Rufie, a certain talking chicken, Bassilus, a mad gnome mage and his pet bassilisks etc.

I really enjoyed the creative thoughts behind them, and not just the sometimes extremely challenging fights.

In BG1, I've always felt the chapter 1-4 are the most fun to play. Once things start to speed up in chapter 5 and onwards, you risk missing a lot of the stuff in the city of Baldur's Gate itself.

Adul

@Sed I concur. The thing that I always miss a bit when I play BG2 is the vast wilderness to explore and all the interesting things to discover.

Shin

Since I missed out on the first survey about favourite character, I'll pop in and mention it here instead:

Spontaneously, I'd have to give it to Kivan, as he appears under the BG1 NPC Project in BG1 and then in the Kivan & Deheriana mod in BG2. These two excellently written mods take what is a mostly blank-slate Kivan and turns him into a great character. The way I see it, as far as NPC mods go, these two do pretty much everything right:

- Kivan will banter a lot and comment on several things in the game, including what he thinks you should do, but never try to force your hand or take away control of the game from you a la Saerileth. Likewise his quests are interesting, but never pull you away from the main story.

- He'll also during BG2 comment on things that happened in BG1, which serves to strengthen the connection between the two games and take the player back to what he's been through to get where he is.

- He has (and will create) some personal, unique but not overpowered items like his hood and his +3 arrows.

- Perhaps most of all, if playing a male charname Kivan will become a good friend to you. He'll stand by you, be happy with you and care for you. As there aren't a lot of NPCs that have a deep and sincere male-male friendship path, it tends to stand out even more.

Empyrial

The most memorable fights for me were all low level ones.

In BG:EE, I didn't find Aec'letec all that hard. It's not because I'm awesome or anything, I'm actually pretty bad at this game, but because I got murderized by him a few times before using a few shots from the wand that paralyzes on him. It was kind of a let down to simply freeze him, murder his cultists, then him. I suppose those wands are rather cheesey, but I don't feel like it was game breaking.

Early on, when I have fewer spells and overall less resources I find the battles much more engaging. Timing that magic missile to interrupt a spell felt so important. The battle once you just get out of the Nashkel Mines is a really difficult one in a good way. It's achievable, just hard. I liked all of Durlag's tower too, because of the story behind it that gets deeper the deeper you go.

I find that the battles in BG2:EE are dispel fights. I absolutely HATE how every spellcaster sees you and BAM! Contingency: Immune to Everything lolol activates. Every fight opens with dispels flying around as people try to incapacitate each other, or I try to strip away the wizard's defences so he can get stabbed to death. The focus is always on the wizards and I hate how warriors get trivialized. I feel weird saying that since I play a wizard.