Realistic in-game time limit for a fun challenge?

Ziva75

I'm new to imposing any kind of 'challenge' on my playthrough, but the idea of having an in-game time limit intrigues me.

My only problem, is that I have no idea what kind of time limit would be 'realistic'. I always usually go over 200 days, but that's because I'm spam-resting a LOT, and of course I'm allowed to explore every nook and cranny of the game.

Will put on a 10-reload limit as well.

What are some good average numbers for a player new to taking any kind of 'challenge' at all? This would be for vanilla BG EE 1, core difficulty rules.

Drusyc

My non-mage games normally last me ~40-60 days. In my last Half-Orc Swashy run, I dumped most of my thieving points into pickpocketing (since yoshimo/Imoen could cover traps/locks) and that run was under 30 days since I could freely recharge fireball/cloudkill/monster summoning wands, so all Imoen/Aerie needed rests for was to clear the fatigue status.

Not saying this is a fair way to look at the game, but if you put a fair pace between metagame resting and no-resting at all even on hardcore because your thief has kleptomania, well...

maybe 80-90 days? Down to 60 if you RP easy access to gold and your CHARNAME is in a rush to get his/her and Imoen's soul back. The former would be fairer because some battles require a lot more prep than Carsomyr + wands + stolen everything, 'specially in SCS, and even more especially if you limit reloads.

Ziva75

What about for BG 1 though?

And wow... those are some low limits (at least for me). Though again, I bet if I actually 'try' to minimize my playtime, it will shorten quite a bit.

Drusyc

I'm not a major fan of resting in general because although I "metagame" in that my CHARNAMES always have scores of ~92-95 (hours of rolling) and I know the encounters, my mages aren't the focal point of my teams - I run with potions of strength + protection breaking spells.

With BG1... oh, geez. It's been a long time personally. They run "longer" for me because there's more traveling. I ran with the canon 5 + CHARNAME almost every game (I'm boring). Fighter types go through in about 60 days, rogue types in 65-75 and mages are 75+ personally.

Ziva75

hehe wow, good to know. nice to have something to compare to; and yes, I must spam rest a lot.

Granted sometimes I'll rest just to get rid of evening travel.

That1Dude

Wow sounds hard, currently already on 26 days 20 hours on my current BG2 playthrough although I've managed to complete around half of the side quests for chapter 2&3. Could have saved a couple days travel by skipping Neera's side quest, lots of travel time. Gained some time since my charname is a sorcerer that i soloed Bg1 with so he started out at lv 12 or 13 I think.

Severon

I ran a game for BG1 where I did pretty much every quest in the game, traveled and explored each area once and minimised the backtracking so that I should only ever visit each zone once. I roleplayed my rest as well, so that every 16 hours of travel I would have the party rest. Including travel between zones, I would rest once if the journey would likely take too long in one go. I would not rest in dungeons as I don't think you would in that circumstance. I wouldn't rest after every battle to regain spells, meaning I had to conserve spells for when they were really needed.
I think it took about 125 days for the party to get to the end. This also includes a lengthy time at sea when departing from Ulgoths Beard.