The Chill Hobgoblins of BG1 actually have a motto.
"Chill: By Force of Arms," is revealed when you click on the gauntlet banners in the back of Tazok's tent in the bandit camp. The other set of banners is, of course, "Blacktalon Mercenary Guild."
- The body of Joseph, the dead miner in the Nashkel Mines whose ring can be returned to his wife, has the name "DEADFUCK.CRE" in the game files. - Sarevok's mentor, Winski Perorate, is named for BioWare developer John Winski, and the word "Perorate" means to "to speak at length." - The inventory icon for the head of Neb, the child-murdering dwarf, appears to be a scanned photograph of someone. Given that "Neb" is "Ben" spelled backwards, I'm guessing it's a picture of BioWare developer Ben Smedstad
Did you know that while BGEE has XP caps, IWD is actually level capped?
This means multi classes can get 30/30/30 in theory (although that can't actually really happen) while everyone else stops at a single 30.
This CAN actually happen if you exploit bonus XP from HoF and rest-interruption encounters for hours upon hours of grinding. Not that I had done it, but the thought crossed my mind...
The fastest exploit for gathering XP in IWD is to import characters into a save game right before you complete the Ice Rose quest, then export them and import them again, gathering the biggest XP reward in the game over and over.
The fastest exploit for gathering XP in IWD is to import characters into a save game right before you complete the Ice Rose quest, then export them and import them again, gathering the biggest XP reward in the game over and over.
Don't you get more experience for talking to Kieran Nye after killing the assassins?
Well, I just completed both quests in the original non-enhanced game (without Trials of the Luremaster installed) and they both give 630000 experience on the normal difficulty setting, at least in that version of the game. I don't know if that's the case in the EEs.
Did you know that the item restrictions of the wizard slayer stay in place after dualling into another class even while the WS class is inactive?
Example: a WS can't use the wand of sleep, a thief can. When the WS dual-classes, the thief won't able to use this wand, even while the levels of the WS are not back.
It's the same with other kits that have penalties (Kensai and Beast Masters, for example).
@JuliusBorisov Does that also apply if the Wizard Slayer -> Thief chooses the Use Any Item HLA?
Speaking of dual-classing to thief: Bodhi won't ally herself with a single-class thief but she will ally with a multi- or dual-classed thief. However if you dual-class to thief and have NOT gotten your original levels back, she regards you as a single-class thief and refuses to ally with you.
I'm reading up on my new responsibilities and the mod etiquette and so forth, and the stuff that gets people banned and posts deleted is pretty awful. You see some bad stuff here and there on the fora, but the mods cleaned out much nastier content.
I'm reading up on my new responsibilities and the mod etiquette and so forth, and the stuff that gets people banned and posts deleted is pretty awful. You see some bad stuff here and there on the fora, but the mods cleaned out much nastier content.
Yeap... now you know how much work is done here... and just how much discussion is involved in getting anyone banned. We try to clean up quickly but we also try to be fair
Did you know you don't have to ally yourself with the Githyankis in the Mind Flayer base, you can kill the githyankis and try to escape on your own, small groups of illithids will periodically teleport to you.
I only discovered recently despite having played through it so many times.
Did you know you don't have to ally yourself with the Githyankis in the Mind Flayer base, you can kill the githyankis and try to escape on your own, small groups of illithids will periodically teleport to you.
I only discovered recently despite having played through it so many times.
The icons for the Symbol spells in IWD2 use Chinese characters, though several are a little inaccurate--possibly because they were actually drawn from Japanese, which shares many symbols from Chinese but which does not have the same meaning for each one.
Symbol of Death uses the standard word for death, 死, si. Symbol of Pain uses 痛, tong, which means pain. Symbol of Stunning uses 晕, yun, which can mean dizzy, to faint, or to lose consciousness. Symbol of Fear uses 害, hai, which means harm. Symbol of Hopelessness merges two characters in one (which confused me for a long time), using 无, wu, and 望, wang. Wu means to lack, and wang means to hope, but wang doesn't refer to the feeling of hope--it just means to hope something will happen, to look forward to something. That is, it's not the opposite of despair.
The icons for the Symbol spells in IWD2 use Chinese characters, though several are a little inaccurate--possibly because they were actually drawn from Japanese, which shares many symbols from Chinese but which does not have the same meaning for each one.
Symbol of Death uses the standard word for death, 死, si. Symbol of Pain uses 痛, tong, which means pain. Symbol of Stunning uses 晕, yun, which can mean dizzy, to faint, or to lose consciousness. Symbol of Fear uses 害, hai, which means harm. Symbol of Hopelessness merges two characters in one (which confused me for a long time), using 无, wu, and 望, wang. Wu means to lack, and wang means to hope, but wang doesn't refer to the feeling of hope--it just means to hope something will happen, to look forward to something. That is, it's not the opposite of despair.
Going to shed more light on this because I can:
死 + 痛 - means exactly what they say: 'death', 'pain', no problem here. The rest is where it gets a little tricky.
晕 by itself means 'faint, dizzy‘. However, when combined with the character 击 - ji, 'to strike', you get the phrase 击晕, which translates into 'stun'. This is because not every English word can be translated to a single Chinese character.
害 is the same case - as a singular character it translates directly to 'harm' - however, the characters 害怕 is the most common term for 'being afraid'. There are singular characters which have a similar meaning to fear such as 恐 - kong, or 怯 - qie but are closer to terms such as 'dread' or 'cowardice' respectively.
无望 if taken literally would mean something like the 'nonexistence of hope'. So it's quite accurate. The Chinese term for hope would be 希望 - xi wang. The icon always confused me as a kid though since I took it to be a singular character like all the other Symbol spells.
So basically I wouldn't say any of them are inaccurate - it's just impossible to get the exact meaning of some words with a single character - which is weird since Symbol of Hopelessness uses two characters to get the proper meaning.
@Artemius_I: I forgot entirely about 害怕! All I remembered from my old Chinese class was 恐怕 and 怕 by itself. I forgot about 怯, too (we only learned it as 怯怯).
I was skeptical about your interpretation of 无望, thinking 望 wasn't quite analogous to "hope," but I just checked a dictionary and you were right. 无望 is a real Chinese word meaning "hopeless."
In fact, 惧 (To fear, also as a noun, fear) might be the closest you can get.
In the official D&D 3.5 translation, Power Word: Stun was translated as 真言:震 (or 律令:震慑, can't remember which one). So I would've used 震 for stun, but then again I'm pretty sure BG predates any Chinese translation, official or otherwise, of most D&D rules of any editions...
Edit: Why I guess posting at 2am was not the best idea. I should've realized that only it was IWD2 that used the Chinese characters as spell icons. Oh well...
Comments
"Chill: By Force of Arms," is revealed when you click on the gauntlet banners in the back of Tazok's tent in the bandit camp. The other set of banners is, of course, "Blacktalon Mercenary Guild."
- Sarevok's mentor, Winski Perorate, is named for BioWare developer John Winski, and the word "Perorate" means to "to speak at length."
- The inventory icon for the head of Neb, the child-murdering dwarf, appears to be a scanned photograph of someone. Given that "Neb" is "Ben" spelled backwards, I'm guessing it's a picture of BioWare developer Ben Smedstad
This means multi classes can get 30/30/30 in theory (although that can't actually really happen) while everyone else stops at a single 30.
The console, of course, is faster still.
http://www.gamebanshee.com/icewinddale/walkthrough/lonelywood.php
Example: a WS can't use the wand of sleep, a thief can. When the WS dual-classes, the thief won't able to use this wand, even while the levels of the WS are not back.
It's the same with other kits that have penalties (Kensai and Beast Masters, for example).
Speaking of dual-classing to thief: Bodhi won't ally herself with a single-class thief but she will ally with a multi- or dual-classed thief. However if you dual-class to thief and have NOT gotten your original levels back, she regards you as a single-class thief and refuses to ally with you.
And just look how happy he is!
Congrats!
I only discovered recently despite having played through it so many times.
Symbol of Death uses the standard word for death, 死, si.
Symbol of Pain uses 痛, tong, which means pain.
Symbol of Stunning uses 晕, yun, which can mean dizzy, to faint, or to lose consciousness.
Symbol of Fear uses 害, hai, which means harm.
Symbol of Hopelessness merges two characters in one (which confused me for a long time), using 无, wu, and 望, wang. Wu means to lack, and wang means to hope, but wang doesn't refer to the feeling of hope--it just means to hope something will happen, to look forward to something. That is, it's not the opposite of despair.
死 + 痛 - means exactly what they say: 'death', 'pain', no problem here. The rest is where it gets a little tricky.
晕 by itself means 'faint, dizzy‘. However, when combined with the character 击 - ji, 'to strike', you get the phrase 击晕, which translates into 'stun'. This is because not every English word can be translated to a single Chinese character.
害 is the same case - as a singular character it translates directly to 'harm' - however, the characters 害怕 is the most common term for 'being afraid'. There are singular characters which have a similar meaning to fear such as 恐 - kong, or 怯 - qie but are closer to terms such as 'dread' or 'cowardice' respectively.
无望 if taken literally would mean something like the 'nonexistence of hope'. So it's quite accurate. The Chinese term for hope would be 希望 - xi wang. The icon always confused me as a kid though since I took it to be a singular character like all the other Symbol spells.
So basically I wouldn't say any of them are inaccurate - it's just impossible to get the exact meaning of some words with a single character - which is weird since Symbol of Hopelessness uses two characters to get the proper meaning.
I was skeptical about your interpretation of 无望, thinking 望 wasn't quite analogous to "hope," but I just checked a dictionary and you were right. 无望 is a real Chinese word meaning "hopeless."
In the official D&D 3.5 translation, Power Word: Stun was translated as 真言:震 (or 律令:震慑, can't remember which one). So I would've used 震 for stun, but then again I'm pretty sure BG predates any Chinese translation, official or otherwise, of most D&D rules of any editions...
Edit: Why I guess posting at 2am was not the best idea. I should've realized that only it was IWD2 that used the Chinese characters as spell icons. Oh well...