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These games cheat a lot

JidokwonJidokwon Member Posts: 397
in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
There seem to be a lot of abilities that enemies use that you don't get saving throws for. Quivering palm, poison, beholder abilities, just to name a few. I'm guessing this is why so many cheese tactics were developed. Are there truly no saving throws for these or are there just a lot that are hidden?

Comments

  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741
    Magic resistance still works...
  • KaltzorKaltzor Member Posts: 1,050
    edited January 2014
    Beholder rays I do believe do not have any saving throws, however if you have someone who can use any kind of one handed weapon and medium shields, you can just get the Shield of Balduran for those... It's really perfectly fair because stuff like no save petrification is bullshit anyways.

    Poisons should have a Save vs. Death for it...

    Personally I don't really consider the games to start really cheating till ToB... And the Drizzt encounter in SoA...
  • O_BruceO_Bruce Member Posts: 2,790
    Some Beholders' rays have saving throws against them, thought. Just not damage-dealing types.
  • DexterDexter Member Posts: 253
    Rare, magical creatures like vampires, beholders, flayers, dragons, liches... they all have special abilities that players don't have, but don't give up! There's always something you can do. Quivering hand? death ward (cleric lvl4) protects you from death magics. Beholders? Those are scary, but there's shield of balduran...
    The best advice would be level up a couple of level before fighting those nasty creatures
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    Most of those do offer saving throws actually, it just doesn't show you when you fail. I agree beholders are lame.
  • abacusabacus Member Posts: 1,307
    I hate Illithids... I really do... Still never manage to get past them without multiple reloads...
    I hate them sooooo much
  • GamingFreakGamingFreak Member Posts: 639
    Only one other character, Bondari, has managed to master the art of Power Word: Reload. It's a dangerous art with high risk of producing large amounts of Cheese.
  • ajwzajwz Member Posts: 4,122
    2nd and 3rd ed are really messy in their logic systems about damage types, immunities, and saving throws. No arguments here that the system could do with a clean up.
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    That1Dude said:

    But charname has the greatest cheating power of all! Power word: Reload Think of all the thousands of times those vampires/mindflayers/beholders have successfully beaten off a high leveled adventuring party only to have time reset to an earlier point after which they lose to a lucky critical.

    We have CRTL+Y also, besides all the console commands.
    Yeah, I eneabled the console for the first time this week, MAH-velous CRTL+J!! I love it! (And using CRTL+Y on Flaming Fist pansies >.< console couldn't be better!)
  • Sucky_McWorthlessSucky_McWorthless Member Posts: 5
    I pretty much can't play the BG series without CTRL-J anymore. Also, 6 boot01 commands as soon as I get outta my cell, cause if I'm not jumping around, I'm sprinting.

    But yeah, the Shield of Balduran is a must buy for me, since beholders are annoying, closely followed by illithids. Stahp eatin mah braihns plz.
  • KidCarnivalKidCarnival Member Posts: 3,747
    nano said:

    KidCarnival said:

    nano said:

    I agree beholders are lame.

    ಠ_ಠ
    Don't you mean
    ಠಠಠಠ
    ಠ ಠ ಠ
    ಠ _ ಠ ?

    I stand by my words xP
    I didn't want to flaunt it.
  • BigfishBigfish Member Posts: 367
    Kind of makes you wonder if they have adventuring schools. You know, since there are no reloads in real fantasy life. Otherwise, how the heck is anyone supposed to know all the nasty things that can and will kill you unless you knew to bring your beholder ray reflector or your wooden stakes or your silver weapons?
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    Have you ever played a P&P RPG? Most of the times you don't know what you'll face. It's not uncommon to run away from somewhere you found something your group just isn't equipped to face. With luck mst of your group survives :)

    Anyway in P&P RPGs it's not uncommon that a group will gather rumors about the place they are going to explore and try to equip themselves with the proper equipment. Groups of powerful adventurers have a tendency of just going wherever they wish, trusting their power will protect them. That overconfidence is one of the major causes of death to high level adventures...
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited January 2014
    @mlnevese, normally I'd agree with the philosophy of wise retreat from what you can't handle in a D&D game, but in the case of SoA, the times you encounter beholder lairs, you *can't* retreat. There's no way out but to go past at least some groups of beholders.

    I suppose the gauths at the bridge before the Temple of Amaunator might give you your one hint that you need a way to reflect those rays. It's not obvious from that, though, that gauths are beholder-kin. I believe the needed shield says "reflects beholder rays", not, "reflects beholder and gauth rays."

    I suppose one could put two and two together from the name of the quest, though, as long as one had already played D&D. I think the BG Trilogy was probably written with the assumption that the player was very familiar with D&D.

    The first time I played SoA, I didn't see that shield in the Adventurer's Mart, and I had to suffer through many, many agonizing reloads getting through the beholder lairs one lucky save game slot at a time.

    But, once I saw the shield, I knew "I've got to have this!", because I knew what beholders and gauths were from my p&p days, and I knew I was going to have to fight several dozen of them from my first SoA run.

    Speaking of which, was the shield even there when SoA was released? I seem to remember someone saying it got added with the ToB expansion the next year.

    What was really intense was having to fight through all the beholders' "cheating" when you *couldn't* "cheat", except through extensive reloading.
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    @belgarathmth I completely agree it's possible to miss the clues and retreat becomes impossible in some situations in Baldur's Gate. It's easy to miss that shield as well unless you have the habit of reading every item description when shopping :) I was just refering to what a P&P group usually do. Actually I believe the Beholder Lair situation in a table would cause a TPK...
  • HerrderGezeitenHerrderGezeiten Member Posts: 139
    edited January 2014
    Yes they have,...

    Defence Against the Dark Arts (sometimes written as DADA) is a mandatory subject taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in which students learn how to magically defend themselves against Dark Creatures, Dark Arts and against the other Charms.
  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741
    @belgarathmth

    The shield was part of the collector's edition, and more and more I'm finding myself too lazy to use it, rather just relying on brute force to kill beholders... I might actually do unseeing eye early next time to avoid so many beholders before cloak of mirroring...
  • DragonspearDragonspear Member Posts: 1,838
    I'm on my evil playthrough atm (waiting for my will to wizard slay kick back in.........damnit you'd think it would. Just Watcher's keep, Chapter 7 and ToB left), and plan on using excessive amounts of skeletons and spiders (finally i can use summon cheese since I'm using Edwin. Doesn't feel right summoning on most other characters).
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    Nice, Harry Potter vs a beholder... place your bets! I hope Harry's plot shields are in place because that antimagic ray is going to suck.
  • zur312zur312 Member Posts: 1,366
    resist from magic vs beholders
    stone skin/mirror image/iron skin vs high damage physical
    resist from fire vs fire (lol)
    amulet of power vs undeads + weapons for destroying undead like mace of disruption easies vampire fights
    chain contingencies with rubyrays vs high level mages
    aoe damage vs well defended mages works most of the time
    mordekainen swords vs mages and if you need tanks
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