Well that's a useful ability when you ally with a bunch of psychopaths. I wish Charname could get immune to metaphorical backstabs, seeing how everyone they meet seems to have chronic backstabbing disorder.
Well that's a useful ability when you ally with a bunch of psychopaths. I wish Charname could get immune to metaphorical backstabs, seeing how everyone they meet seems to have chronic backstabbing disorder.
It's a trade off for the plot-armor class feature.
It's a trade off for the plot-armor class feature.
I don't remember any such class feature. There is the Power Word: Reload spell-like ability, but what good is that when you can't reload your way out of obvious betrayals? I do everything I can to kill Saemon Havarian every time I meet him, but it just isn't enough.
Note to self: I need to try backstabbing him as we get off the boat at Spellhold. Haven't done that before, actually.
You can kill Saemon in Brynlaw just as you are about to sail off on his stolen ship. Then your party resurrects him. During the fight he tries to escape, but you can kill him as he does so. His corpse teleports and gets rezzed. You can kill him a third time in ToB as he futilely tries to get his revenge by sicing mercs at you. Finally, you resurrect him and let him go...only to set the hosts of heaven on him.
Why kill a traitor once when you can kill him 5 times?
You can kill Saemon in Brynlaw just as you are about to sail off on his stolen ship. Then your party resurrects him. During the fight he tries to escape, but you can kill him as he does so. His corpse teleports and gets rezzed.
Adoy is Yoda backwards. Neera's crazy wizard mentor. His name is Yoda backwards. Crazy mentor. He dies and then his ghost haunts her. HIS NAME IS YODA BACKWARDS.
The use of the charm spell in BG1 allows you to access special dialogue options and info from a great, great many people. The Iron Throne Leaders will confess, The Shadow Druids will reveal themselves, The Thieves Guild will remind you charming is against the rules, etc.
The use of the charm spell in BG1 allows you to access special dialogue options and info from a great, great many people. The Iron Throne Leaders will confess, The Shadow Druids will reveal themselves, The Thieves Guild will remind you charming is against the rules, etc.
Mulahey will explain the entire plan he's been assigned to do, I don't remember exploiting it in other places as much.
Did you know if you steal the potion from the clinic at the beginning of BGEE, go into the house with the Assissin and take the dagger inside the locked chest and the eight gold in the nearby desk...you will trigger an immediate confrontation with a guard?
The reason I know this is because I have the same ritual for starting out that I always use. But something changed in the game and now you get busted for stealing early on whether you were seen doing it or not.
One of the cut quests in Baldur's Gate involved two rather shifty characters, a half-elf named Pilar who was staying at the Friendly Arm Inn - and Gheldehar (an old gnomish cleric that lived in Baldur's Gate).
If you talked to Pilar she would say that Gheldehar has stolen an old ring of hers.
If you encountered him in Baldur's Gate (he was apparently to be found in an alleyway) then Gheldehar would claim that Pilar had stolen a pair of his old boots.
Returning the ring would give your party 100 experience. Returning the boots would give you 400. It's not clear whether it was intended that you be able to do both or not.
Someone probably noticed this before but this is killing me...
No matter how you shift your characters around, they always hold their shields such that the shield is facing you. That means when you make them turn around they literally just shift their shield from one hand to another in less than one second.
Someone probably noticed this before but this is killing me...
No matter how you shift your characters around, they always hold their shields such that the shield is facing you. That means when you make them turn around they literally just shift their shield from one hand to another in less than one second.
That is true but only if you have a free hand... I'm not sure how AD&D rules it but in 3.x, I do remember the FAQ states that switching hand is a move-equivalent action if both hands are occupied, since it is equivalent to drop item on main hand (free) -> switch hand (free) -> pick up item (move).
Then again it's FAQ so apparently nobody ever defers to it
I think you can swap weapons hand to hand very easily if you're dual wielding. I mean, i pulled this off with fencing sabres, why a trained swordsman wouldn't be able to do it as well (unless he's got a flail, a hammer, a scimitar or a morning star, I'd say it's pretty easy to do this, unless there's a big size gap between both weapons).
That means when you make them turn around they literally just shift their shield from one hand to another in less than one second.
All characters in the game are ambidextrous! It amuses me to watch closely and see how thrown items such as darts and axes come from different hands depending on positioning.
According to the Forgotten Realms wiki, Illasera is supposed to be an Elf Fighter 1/Mage 20. Putting aside how that shouldn't be possible, it does continue to beg the question of why she never casts anything higher than a third level spell when you fight.
Also, apparently in the novels that bear no mention, Abdel needed to go Slayer in order to beat her. What a noob.
According to the Forgotten Realms wiki, Illasera is supposed to be an Elf Fighter 1/Mage 20. Putting aside how that shouldn't be possible, it does continue to beg the question of why she never casts anything higher than a third level spell when you fight.
Also, apparently in the novels that bear no mention, Abdel needed to go Slayer in order to beat her. What a noob.
She's actually is a fighter (20)/mage (1). It still makes no sense but I've corrected the wiki all the same.
Illasera might just as well be F1/M1, for all the good it does her. In all these years of playing, I don't recall Illasera ever managing to hit me with either a weapon or a spell, not once.
How she ever qualified to be one of the Five completely mystifies me, considering that the others are all much more credible opponents, far superior to feeble Illasera. Even little Chinchilla is a (significantly!) tougher opponent, so why didn't they offer him a place among the Five instead?
For Illisera, she isn't mechanically the toughest. But she is a tracker and a hunter of people. Apparently she is really good at it to, being able to overcome the wards of an elven city and broke into their sacred grounds. That is impressive. Furthermore, she could do major damage to the majority of people in Faerun.
If your goal is to kill ALL the Bhaalspawn, no matter where they hide, then she is great to have around. Joe Schmo is a street performer with bad nightmares. He is just another person living in the wrong part of town. Jun Skolskn is a Dwarven artisan living in a fortified hold that he doesn't leave. He loves making weapons and dreams of using them.
Sure, you could send a dragon, or a giant, at them. But cities are defended. Non-bhaalspawn will defend them. You could invade with drow, but that would be a military campaign. You could send monks, but they tend to stand out and don't have much experience outside of their order interacting with people.
Illisera breaks into both places, kills whomever needs to die, and gets out quietly. Regardless of how secure the defenses are. That alone makes her very useful.
She just made the mistake of underestimating Charname and his epic level comrades...
What good is a tracker if they neither have powerful backup nor can bring down a kobold warren by themselves? Because however good she was at tracking (we don't see her in action, and it's not like everyone and their grandma haven't been able to track us with ease in the past), she's still rubbish as a killer. And if tracking alone was what the others used her for, then they really should have provided some monks or drow for backup, especially against someone as powerful as the PC.
she was meant to be harder. but as some players would be starting tob fresh [ who even does that?} they toned her down.
Bear in mind that ToB came out about 9 months after Shadows of Amn was released. This was back in a day when having a 20gb hard drive was probably standard (it's what I had back then anyways). Just for space reasons people may not have even kept the game installed (and as a consequence may have not kept their saves).
Having the option of starting the game in ToB made sense since it let players (including reviewers) who didn't still have their saved games with the option of more quickly finishing the series.
Personally, I wish on difficulties above normal she would have been more challenging. But I can see why they would want to avoid making her too powerful.
Comments
Note to self: I need to try backstabbing him as we get off the boat at Spellhold. Haven't done that before, actually.
Why kill a traitor once when you can kill him 5 times?
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Elminster's_evasion
(I know I shouldn't be surprised but still)
Neera's crazy wizard mentor.
His name is Yoda backwards.
Crazy mentor.
He dies and then his ghost haunts her.
HIS NAME IS YODA BACKWARDS.
The reason I know this is because I have the same ritual for starting out that I always use. But something changed in the game and now you get busted for stealing early on whether you were seen doing it or not.
If you talked to Pilar she would say that Gheldehar has stolen an old ring of hers.
If you encountered him in Baldur's Gate (he was apparently to be found in an alleyway) then Gheldehar would claim that Pilar had stolen a pair of his old boots.
Returning the ring would give your party 100 experience. Returning the boots would give you 400. It's not clear whether it was intended that you be able to do both or not.
No matter how you shift your characters around, they always hold their shields such that the shield is facing you.
That means when you make them turn around they literally just shift their shield from one hand to another in less than one second.
What the heck, guys? Are y'all secretly jugglers?
Then again it's FAQ so apparently nobody ever defers to it
Also, apparently in the novels that bear no mention, Abdel needed to go Slayer in order to beat her. What a noob.
How she ever qualified to be one of the Five completely mystifies me, considering that the others are all much more credible opponents, far superior to feeble Illasera. Even little Chinchilla is a (significantly!) tougher opponent, so why didn't they offer him a place among the Five instead?
It ended badly, and I didn't touch BG for a few months.
If your goal is to kill ALL the Bhaalspawn, no matter where they hide, then she is great to have around. Joe Schmo is a street performer with bad nightmares. He is just another person living in the wrong part of town. Jun Skolskn is a Dwarven artisan living in a fortified hold that he doesn't leave. He loves making weapons and dreams of using them.
Sure, you could send a dragon, or a giant, at them. But cities are defended. Non-bhaalspawn will defend them. You could invade with drow, but that would be a military campaign. You could send monks, but they tend to stand out and don't have much experience outside of their order interacting with people.
Illisera breaks into both places, kills whomever needs to die, and gets out quietly. Regardless of how secure the defenses are. That alone makes her very useful.
She just made the mistake of underestimating Charname and his epic level comrades...
Having the option of starting the game in ToB made sense since it let players (including reviewers) who didn't still have their saved games with the option of more quickly finishing the series.
Personally, I wish on difficulties above normal she would have been more challenging. But I can see why they would want to avoid making her too powerful.