Interesting, so Keldorn uses the same fighting style as Ajantis....
I wouldn't know, I always kill Ajantis.
I don't, I just leave him by the road.
But as he is never attacked by the ankhegs, my only explaination is that they don't like canned food.
And as he turns up in Windspeare, I do wonder how long he waited. Can you imagine? Gets back to the RH,
"so Squire Ajantis, you must have lots to tell us about your adventures at this exciting time on the Sword Coast, Gods being resurrected, almost war breaking out"
"Eh...not so much, found it a bit dull TBH but did meet a farmer."
Interesting, so Keldorn uses the same fighting style as Ajantis....
I wouldn't know, I always kill Ajantis.
I don't, I just leave him by the road.
But as he is never attacked by the ankhegs, my only explaination is that they don't like canned food.
And as he turns up in Windspeare, I do wonder how long he waited. Can you imagine? Gets back to the RH,
"so Squire Ajantis, you must have lots to tell us about your adventures at this exciting time on the Sword Coast, Gods being resurrected, almost war breaking out"
"Eh...not so much, found it a bit dull TBH but did meet a farmer."
I always imagine NPCs being more dynamic. Ajantis for example defends local farmers from bandit attacks and helps guard travelers/merchants who leave Baldur's Gate. Given how close the bandit camp is, that area must be a hotbed of activity. Add in the Ankhegs, and that area is a good area for a paladin to operate out of. Think of him as a Knight Hospitaler until he joins up with you.
Back when level-draining caused spells to become unmemorized, I HATED level-draining. I was so sensitive to level-draining that if a single mage, cleric or druid in my party got drained one level, I'd reload and restart the fight.
I now almost exclusively rely on the AI to cast spells with the exception of dragon fights, lich fights, beholder fights, etc. which I just micro manage with the AI turned off.
I never use healing potions, spells are more than sufficient ...
As a compulsive "Ooh-this-may-be-useful-later-but-I'm-never-really-gonna-use-it" item hoarder, I tend to not use them as well myself. Oh how much easier the game would be if I used consumables, like wands.
I remember I had a run a few years back where I tried to affect "unusual" roles to the NPCs. Not sure if it answers some of your questions, but here are a few ideas.
The ones I remember is Xan used only as a melee specialist (his sword is so badass), instead of relying on his enchantment specialization.
In BG2, that role was filled with Jan Jansen, dual wielding speed weapons and memorizing only self/party buffs. Surprisingly effective, despite his low HP (his personal armour is nice for that, add in Defender of Easthaven once he has Use Any Item for 45% damage reduction).
Aerie could also be used that way, but Aerie could be used any way you want her, she doesn’t complain.
I don’t remember how I used the other NPCs (IIRC, it was the same run that ended up in BG2 being an all-shorty run, with my main halfling barbarian, mazzy as a ranged specialist, and Korgan as a Korgan I guess. Fun banters, that’s for sure).
Another unusual character I have loved was a melee sorcerer. Restricted to touch spells, buffs/debuffs, and polymorph spells. So powerful and fun, I even rerolled it and soloed the game (and actually finished ToB for once).
You could also use shadowkeeper to add STR on Cernd and dual-class him into a fighter, for a badass werewolf (but gimped spellcaster).
For consistency, I’d suggest modifying Faldorn to a Shapeshifter as well in BG1 (she does come with an affinity with wolves).
There are a few similar ideas, with early unusual duals (like spellcaster dualed into fighter or thief instead of the other way around).
If you recruit/create a specialized mage, have him use only spells of his specialist school (don’t play a diviner though), or max 2 schools (limiting your spellbook to only 20% or so spells from the second school).
Or even custom make a team of specialized mage, each attributed to a role (can be a specific school, or a "flavour" like elemental spells, crowd control, mind affecting).
A halfling barbarian using Spears and Halberds. Talk about overcompensating!
A blackguard or wizard slayer using darts is funny too, and also surprisingly effective with their special abilities (poison and miscast magic respectively), and the interesting special darts (stunning, poison...). Also works with an archer kit.
some things that i refuse to do in bg2
1. use the green scrolls of protection and the shield of balduran, it makes the battles more challenging, tactical and fun.
2. use my thief to sell and steal many times the same valuable item from a fence, it breaks my immersion, how the fence should not notice that you sell to him the robe of vecna or the same wand 10 times in a row? but as there are more fences i allow myself to sell and steal each item, looted or bought from a store, one time for each fence. actually i do it first with a regular merchant then with the fences. this allows me to have plenty of money to buy all the valuable items i need very soon as well as to have the wands from the starting dungeon fully charged. imo stealing is one of the strongest thief characteristics, it should be the main one as a thief is by definition some one that steals, not necessarily an assassin.
i also don't allow my thieves to stack more stealing potions of the same type, rogue's stealing is super powerful, but the thief has to spend pips in it if he want to use it. a nalia that can steal everything only because she stacks potions has no RP sense.
3. use evil npcs. i can not force myself to play evil, not in the RL and also not in a game. the only exception is korgan, that anyway i seldom use, as he is a mercenary, i pay him to join the party so he will fight, for money, for my good oriented purposes. i also like his stance about slavery, he is evil, blood thirsty, but at least he has some ethics.
4. use metaknowledge, even if i know where all the traps are if i don't have a thief that find and disarm them for me my toons walk right into them as they are not supposed to know about them. if i don't have a scout that can spot the enemies unseen i don't pre buff, if an ambush happens the same. but as i spot the enemy i don't have problems to do a preemptive bombing strike with aoe spells from their fog of war, only a preemptive strike, then i challenge them in a fair way, making them see my party and react. to use the tactical advantage of spotting unseen is a thing, to abuse the poor ai that can not react to enemies not seen, with the enemies that stay idle, is a completely different thing.
5. side with bodhi. i hate vampires, i never had valen in the original game (super strong vampire npc mod) and i always drop hexxat (keeping her bag) as soon as i discover her plot and she kills clara. so as soon as it becomes clear the nature of bodhi and of her guild i chose the shadow thieves, the game compels me to side with someone evil, but i always chose the lesser evil, better thieves and assassins then vampires.
but i would appreciate very much a good way to rescue imoen, when i play a paladin charname i feel that to side with thieves is a real stretch to RP, a pally should not do it, no matter how it cost to him, and should try to rescue his companion in a legittimate way, not breaking into a prison of a more or less legittimate authority to make a prisoner evade.
a mod that would allow to paladins and maybe to other good aligned charnames to have a legittimate reason to break into the asylum, maybe to ask to free imoen, would be really appreciate by me. the radiant hearth order could help in this. then reaching spellhod and finding the things as they are the plot could continue with no problem at all.
some things that i refuse to do in bg2
5. side with bodhi. i hate vampires, i never had valen in the original game (super strong vampire npc mod) and i always drop hexxat (keeping her bag) as soon as i discover her plot and she kills clara. so as soon as it becomes clear the nature of bodhi and of her guild i chose the shadow thieves, the game compels me to side with someone evil, but i always chose the lesser evil, better thieves and assassins then vampires.
but i would appreciate very much a good way to rescue imoen, when i play a paladin charname i feel that to side with thieves is a real stretch to RP, a pally should not do it, no matter how it cost to him, and should try to rescue his companion in a legittimate way, not breaking into a prison of a more or less legittimate authority to make a prisoner evade.
a mod that would allow to paladins and maybe to other good aligned charnames to have a legittimate reason to break into the asylum, maybe to ask to free imoen, would be really appreciate by me. the radiant hearth order could help in this. then reaching spellhod and finding the things as they are the plot could continue with no problem at all.
Back before the Enhanced Editions, when I played on PC and used mods, I remember that there was a mod allowing you to side with the Radiant Heart instead of Shadow Thieves/Vampires to get access to Spellhold.
I don't remember which mod it was, maybe it was the Saerileth NPC mod (not sure if you needed to recruit her, her mod/banter is ... not to everyone's taste).
1. Equipment : when a NPC leaves my party he leaves with his equipment I do not strip him from it
2. Max two weapons (three for a fighter)
3. If a NPC dies far from a Temple, I check if I can wear his body ... if not he is dead and I do not resurrect him
4. Halfling PC always with max strength 10
5. In Good party never enter into a house closed (except Radegast to save the nymph after talking to the noble Lady I do not remember where)
6. In Good party, usually ( not always it depends upon the PC) refusing to do the Thieves guild quests
Why 10 ? Doesn't it seem a bit low ? I mean, if a human fighter can go up to 18/XX, and even considering halflings are "half" a human on that part (highly debatable), a strong human fighter (18/00 STR) can carry up to 400 lbs, which means a strong halfling fighter could in theory carry up to 200 lbs (18 STR).
I know this is not accurate, it is probably way more complicated to compare those two races than just halving their carrying capacity by 2, but 10 seems a bit harsh on max halfling strength.
Also, in that regard, what about gnomes ? gnomes are roughly the same size/weight as halflings, and even considering they might have a more concentrated constitution/muscles than halflings (i never played PnP, so I'm not that knowledgeable about the lore behind those 2 races), you could probably argue that they are somewhat comparable, strength-wise (or I missed something in the lore of those two races). Dwarves, on the other hand, are a bit taller and are specifically described as being comparable to humans in this particular regard of strength, weight, build.
I think, given the way STR bonus are implemented in 2nd edition, 17 Max STR for halflings is already a realistic "malus", since you only start getting advantages from 16 STR onward (outside carrying capacity).
At most, I could understand saying "max 15 STR", but I don't get why 10.
And last, if going this route and considering that a score of 10 is "average", then I'd say that Dwarves should never get more than 8 DEX (I'd describe them as even less agile than Halflings are weak), and Elves should never get more than 11/12 CON.
Although I'd probably agree with you if we are talking 3rd Edition and onward, where you get +1 bonus every 2 ability points above 10.
some things that i refuse to do in bg2
5. side with bodhi. i hate vampires, i never had valen in the original game (super strong vampire npc mod) and i always drop hexxat (keeping her bag) as soon as i discover her plot and she kills clara. so as soon as it becomes clear the nature of bodhi and of her guild i chose the shadow thieves, the game compels me to side with someone evil, but i always chose the lesser evil, better thieves and assassins then vampires.
but i would appreciate very much a good way to rescue imoen, when i play a paladin charname i feel that to side with thieves is a real stretch to RP, a pally should not do it, no matter how it cost to him, and should try to rescue his companion in a legittimate way, not breaking into a prison of a more or less legittimate authority to make a prisoner evade.
a mod that would allow to paladins and maybe to other good aligned charnames to have a legittimate reason to break into the asylum, maybe to ask to free imoen, would be really appreciate by me. the radiant hearth order could help in this. then reaching spellhod and finding the things as they are the plot could continue with no problem at all.
Back before the Enhanced Editions, when I played on PC and used mods, I remember that there was a mod allowing you to side with the Radiant Heart instead of Shadow Thieves/Vampires to get access to Spellhold.
I don't remember which mod it was, maybe it was the Saerileth NPC mod (not sure if you needed to recruit her, her mod/banter is ... not to everyone's taste).
Its called "Alternatives", though you're not actually siding with the Radiant Heart, so much as a rogue Paladin.
my take on halfling's str is that any player should have, and actually have, his way to rp the game.
because some of us have a pnp experience and try to play like if the crpg is a pnp, others read the forgotten realms novels, others are more inspired by the lord of the rings saga, movies or other fictional worlds.
talking of the halflings they are clearly based on the hobbits, and the hobbits are surely a lot weaker then the humans, there a hobbit
fight in the final battle, in spite of having been forbidden to do so, because the hobbits are clearly too weak and not suited to fighting.
and the size is not the reason as in the same fictional reality the dwarwes are small, and strong, and are very good fighters
so probably for those that see the halflings as hobbits in disguise, as the hobbit name is copyrighted, to assume that they are weak has sense.
how weak is a somehow a player's choice, but i would say about the same str of viconia or imoen, that are weak human or drow examples.
mazzy, that is a halfiling warrior, so probably a very strong one, has a str of 15, so other players can assume that for a halfling charname that has a fighting and not casting class going up to that level is not a stretch to rp.
about the lore in different fictional realities let's take the elves, if you compare the harry potter ones to the lotr ones they are completely different, but the ones in the eragon saga are even stronger and faster, so much that a human can not compete with them.
so if a player see the halflings as weak ones with no more then 10 str i don't see anything wrong.
because even if we all are playing the same game, lore wise, i am not talking of difficulty setting and mods that change the game mechanics, each one of us has a personal feeling and way to build in his own mind a world from the in game clues.
like it happens when we read a book compared to when we watch a movie.
10 strength equals 70 lbs carry weight. Given that the inventory is not secretly dropped in combat that sounds quite reasonable to me. I would likely argue that 18 strength is already extreme let alone all the exceptional tiers.
well if we talk of the inventory not dropped in combat i fail to understand how a person that is carrying on his back a couple or more of full plate armors, an halberd, a long bow, some big shields and other bulky stuff can fight properly at all, even if he would have infinite strength to carry them...
i remember that when i begun to play i often packed on minsc, that was my strongest party member, all the plate mails you loot in the firkraag dungeon from those archers to sell them and farm some money.
but a realistic loot carrying, that takes in account the dimensions and not only the weight of the stuff, would make a nightmare to manage the inventory.
it would be a nightmare to have to do multiple trips to a dungeon to collect all the valuable loot. or maybe not a nightmare, but anyway imo it would not improve the game in any way, would only make it less fun to play.
anyway an odd gaming habit, that i don't have, could be exactly to drop all the bulky and heavy stuff you carry just before each battle. rp wise it would be a sound habit.
I always role-played it as inventory being some kind of small, cheap bags of holding, resizing everything but not reducing their weight (contrary to "better" bags of holding)
When I do a role-playing session I actually do not carry more than one armor and a few extra weapons and drop all other large gear. You miss out on some gold but you gain gold so fast that you barely feel it anyway
Okay something i would try for my next playthrough is Spellbooks by alignment Aerie that is a Lawful Good slightly naive and damaged avariel should in my opinion not use harmful spells, but instead usei spells that stuns or capture targets temporarly, and focusing on spells that boost her teammates. Neutral Good and Chaotic Good Imoen and Nalia don't have any problems to launch some magic missiles or two, and nalia does not mind setting slavers a blaze with some fireballs, hovever summoning demons and turn enemies to stone or outright kill them, is something more in character for Edwin if he somehow can gain something from it, meanwhile Jan who is right there in the middle and quite crazy and weird should probably use spells that is decieving or mischiveous in nature like stinking clouds, invisibility, mirror image, and spelltrap.
Meanwhile Clerics should also have alignment based scrolls, Anomen while Neutral may use some sketchy spells in his reportoire, but summong undead may be something quite not in character, when he is knighted though he may only use spells that are in the sphere of Helm and more defensive and anti-undead in nature.
Viconia may be much more offensive in her spell choices and i can see her summoning undead and inflict curses too save her own hide or her teammates if it means she gains something out of it.
Cernd and Jaheira should focus on spells that are mostly in the nature or animal sphere.
Now to my question: Which spells seem to be alignment based?
Comments
But as he is never attacked by the ankhegs, my only explaination is that they don't like canned food.
And as he turns up in Windspeare, I do wonder how long he waited.
Can you imagine?
Gets back to the RH,
"so Squire Ajantis, you must have lots to tell us about your adventures at this exciting time on the Sword Coast, Gods being resurrected, almost war breaking out"
"Eh...not so much, found it a bit dull TBH but did meet a farmer."
Something i'm looking for is odd weapons for characters and NPCS.
Class equipment restrictions
Character specific spellbooks both for protagonists and NPCs
roleplaying tips
and rules to make the game more realistic but still faithful to the fantasy setting.
Feel free to post your ideas here, or inform me of your own odd gaming habbits.
I remember I had a run a few years back where I tried to affect "unusual" roles to the NPCs. Not sure if it answers some of your questions, but here are a few ideas.
The ones I remember is Xan used only as a melee specialist (his sword is so badass), instead of relying on his enchantment specialization.
In BG2, that role was filled with Jan Jansen, dual wielding speed weapons and memorizing only self/party buffs. Surprisingly effective, despite his low HP (his personal armour is nice for that, add in Defender of Easthaven once he has Use Any Item for 45% damage reduction).
Aerie could also be used that way, but Aerie could be used any way you want her, she doesn’t complain.
I don’t remember how I used the other NPCs (IIRC, it was the same run that ended up in BG2 being an all-shorty run, with my main halfling barbarian, mazzy as a ranged specialist, and Korgan as a Korgan I guess. Fun banters, that’s for sure).
Another unusual character I have loved was a melee sorcerer. Restricted to touch spells, buffs/debuffs, and polymorph spells. So powerful and fun, I even rerolled it and soloed the game (and actually finished ToB for once).
You could also use shadowkeeper to add STR on Cernd and dual-class him into a fighter, for a badass werewolf (but gimped spellcaster).
For consistency, I’d suggest modifying Faldorn to a Shapeshifter as well in BG1 (she does come with an affinity with wolves).
There are a few similar ideas, with early unusual duals (like spellcaster dualed into fighter or thief instead of the other way around).
If you recruit/create a specialized mage, have him use only spells of his specialist school (don’t play a diviner though), or max 2 schools (limiting your spellbook to only 20% or so spells from the second school).
Or even custom make a team of specialized mage, each attributed to a role (can be a specific school, or a "flavour" like elemental spells, crowd control, mind affecting).
A halfling barbarian using Spears and Halberds. Talk about overcompensating!
A blackguard or wizard slayer using darts is funny too, and also surprisingly effective with their special abilities (poison and miscast magic respectively), and the interesting special darts (stunning, poison...). Also works with an archer kit.
1. use the green scrolls of protection and the shield of balduran, it makes the battles more challenging, tactical and fun.
2. use my thief to sell and steal many times the same valuable item from a fence, it breaks my immersion, how the fence should not notice that you sell to him the robe of vecna or the same wand 10 times in a row? but as there are more fences i allow myself to sell and steal each item, looted or bought from a store, one time for each fence. actually i do it first with a regular merchant then with the fences. this allows me to have plenty of money to buy all the valuable items i need very soon as well as to have the wands from the starting dungeon fully charged. imo stealing is one of the strongest thief characteristics, it should be the main one as a thief is by definition some one that steals, not necessarily an assassin.
i also don't allow my thieves to stack more stealing potions of the same type, rogue's stealing is super powerful, but the thief has to spend pips in it if he want to use it. a nalia that can steal everything only because she stacks potions has no RP sense.
3. use evil npcs. i can not force myself to play evil, not in the RL and also not in a game. the only exception is korgan, that anyway i seldom use, as he is a mercenary, i pay him to join the party so he will fight, for money, for my good oriented purposes. i also like his stance about slavery, he is evil, blood thirsty, but at least he has some ethics.
4. use metaknowledge, even if i know where all the traps are if i don't have a thief that find and disarm them for me my toons walk right into them as they are not supposed to know about them. if i don't have a scout that can spot the enemies unseen i don't pre buff, if an ambush happens the same. but as i spot the enemy i don't have problems to do a preemptive bombing strike with aoe spells from their fog of war, only a preemptive strike, then i challenge them in a fair way, making them see my party and react. to use the tactical advantage of spotting unseen is a thing, to abuse the poor ai that can not react to enemies not seen, with the enemies that stay idle, is a completely different thing.
5. side with bodhi. i hate vampires, i never had valen in the original game (super strong vampire npc mod) and i always drop hexxat (keeping her bag) as soon as i discover her plot and she kills clara. so as soon as it becomes clear the nature of bodhi and of her guild i chose the shadow thieves, the game compels me to side with someone evil, but i always chose the lesser evil, better thieves and assassins then vampires.
but i would appreciate very much a good way to rescue imoen, when i play a paladin charname i feel that to side with thieves is a real stretch to RP, a pally should not do it, no matter how it cost to him, and should try to rescue his companion in a legittimate way, not breaking into a prison of a more or less legittimate authority to make a prisoner evade.
a mod that would allow to paladins and maybe to other good aligned charnames to have a legittimate reason to break into the asylum, maybe to ask to free imoen, would be really appreciate by me. the radiant hearth order could help in this. then reaching spellhod and finding the things as they are the plot could continue with no problem at all.
Back before the Enhanced Editions, when I played on PC and used mods, I remember that there was a mod allowing you to side with the Radiant Heart instead of Shadow Thieves/Vampires to get access to Spellhold.
I don't remember which mod it was, maybe it was the Saerileth NPC mod (not sure if you needed to recruit her, her mod/banter is ... not to everyone's taste).
2. Max two weapons (three for a fighter)
3. If a NPC dies far from a Temple, I check if I can wear his body ... if not he is dead and I do not resurrect him
4. Halfling PC always with max strength 10
5. In Good party never enter into a house closed (except Radegast to save the nymph after talking to the noble Lady I do not remember where)
6. In Good party, usually ( not always it depends upon the PC) refusing to do the Thieves guild quests
Why 10 ? Doesn't it seem a bit low ? I mean, if a human fighter can go up to 18/XX, and even considering halflings are "half" a human on that part (highly debatable), a strong human fighter (18/00 STR) can carry up to 400 lbs, which means a strong halfling fighter could in theory carry up to 200 lbs (18 STR).
I know this is not accurate, it is probably way more complicated to compare those two races than just halving their carrying capacity by 2, but 10 seems a bit harsh on max halfling strength.
Also, in that regard, what about gnomes ? gnomes are roughly the same size/weight as halflings, and even considering they might have a more concentrated constitution/muscles than halflings (i never played PnP, so I'm not that knowledgeable about the lore behind those 2 races), you could probably argue that they are somewhat comparable, strength-wise (or I missed something in the lore of those two races).
Dwarves, on the other hand, are a bit taller and are specifically described as being comparable to humans in this particular regard of strength, weight, build.
I think, given the way STR bonus are implemented in 2nd edition, 17 Max STR for halflings is already a realistic "malus", since you only start getting advantages from 16 STR onward (outside carrying capacity).
At most, I could understand saying "max 15 STR", but I don't get why 10.
And last, if going this route and considering that a score of 10 is "average", then I'd say that Dwarves should never get more than 8 DEX (I'd describe them as even less agile than Halflings are weak), and Elves should never get more than 11/12 CON.
Although I'd probably agree with you if we are talking 3rd Edition and onward, where you get +1 bonus every 2 ability points above 10.
Its called "Alternatives", though you're not actually siding with the Radiant Heart, so much as a rogue Paladin.
because some of us have a pnp experience and try to play like if the crpg is a pnp, others read the forgotten realms novels, others are more inspired by the lord of the rings saga, movies or other fictional worlds.
talking of the halflings they are clearly based on the hobbits, and the hobbits are surely a lot weaker then the humans, there a hobbit
and the size is not the reason as in the same fictional reality the dwarwes are small, and strong, and are very good fighters
how weak is a somehow a player's choice, but i would say about the same str of viconia or imoen, that are weak human or drow examples.
mazzy, that is a halfiling warrior, so probably a very strong one, has a str of 15, so other players can assume that for a halfling charname that has a fighting and not casting class going up to that level is not a stretch to rp.
about the lore in different fictional realities let's take the elves, if you compare the harry potter ones to the lotr ones they are completely different, but the ones in the eragon saga are even stronger and faster, so much that a human can not compete with them.
so if a player see the halflings as weak ones with no more then 10 str i don't see anything wrong.
because even if we all are playing the same game, lore wise, i am not talking of difficulty setting and mods that change the game mechanics, each one of us has a personal feeling and way to build in his own mind a world from the in game clues.
like it happens when we read a book compared to when we watch a movie.
Although re-reading my post, it does seem a bit judgemental, I apologize for that
I like suboptimal stat distributions
i remember that when i begun to play i often packed on minsc, that was my strongest party member, all the plate mails you loot in the firkraag dungeon from those archers to sell them and farm some money.
but a realistic loot carrying, that takes in account the dimensions and not only the weight of the stuff, would make a nightmare to manage the inventory.
it would be a nightmare to have to do multiple trips to a dungeon to collect all the valuable loot. or maybe not a nightmare, but anyway imo it would not improve the game in any way, would only make it less fun to play.
anyway an odd gaming habit, that i don't have, could be exactly to drop all the bulky and heavy stuff you carry just before each battle. rp wise it would be a sound habit.
Meanwhile Clerics should also have alignment based scrolls, Anomen while Neutral may use some sketchy spells in his reportoire, but summong undead may be something quite not in character, when he is knighted though he may only use spells that are in the sphere of Helm and more defensive and anti-undead in nature.
Viconia may be much more offensive in her spell choices and i can see her summoning undead and inflict curses too save her own hide or her teammates if it means she gains something out of it.
Cernd and Jaheira should focus on spells that are mostly in the nature or animal sphere.
Now to my question: Which spells seem to be alignment based?