Hey, that's not the spirit!! He meant to power game everything, not to use the console!!!
Potato -/- Potaaato.
Not saying it isn't a perfectly valid way to play the game. Merely that if you are "Bending" the rules sufficiently, how is that different from using console commands? Where do you draw the line?
But again, whatever allows you to have fun playing the game is legit in my book. Have at it.
< You can kill Draconis with many things very easily, he is a tough opponent, but he can't reload nor use exploits.
I'd appreciate clarification on this. Draconis can be killed "Very easily"? Short of "Control Y", could you please elaborate? Because either you have a different definition of 'Very easily' than I, or I am missing something. Because.... tough... a-gogo.
Edit: I made a mistake earlier. A 1/1/1 FMT has 12 hp w/o con bonus. It's the average of mage, thief and fighter hit dice, round down times 2.
Thanks all the support. I appreciate all the comments. Originally, I post this thread as a thought exercise, but after reading through all the comments I was super excited to try this new game.
@abacus: Yes, a simple death spell kills anything 8 levels or below. Rarely do enemies cast Death Spell on the party (I never seen this done to my party in the low level challenge where 1/2 party is level 7 or 8). As long as my PC runs away from the summoned monsters (ie boot of speed), he is safe.
@bob_veng: I'm planning to do the twisted rune battle right off the bat. The staff of magi should make me impervious from any mages.
@Irouman: Hey, it wouldnt be fun if I dont go wack some dragons or overcome nasty ambushes? Most likely, I'll avoid some goblins or orc archers, simply because they are not worth the effort.
@FinneousPJ: I believe I have so much metagame knowledge that the number of reloads will be a minimum. I dont reload to get a "perfect" fight. I reload only when my PC/familiar dies (which frankly my PC died pretty often in Irenicus Dungeon because I still need to get use to low hp environment, dying from traps, and crappy thaco).
@CrevsDaak: Thanks for sharing your strategy for defeating Amelyssan. The tricky part is getting her 90 MR to a management number. It takes 6 castings of pierce magic from spellstriking wand to strip off all those MR and the effect lasts for 1 turn. The Big Metal Unit does help tremendously, but is it going to be enough? Now, the similacrum trick is to hasten the process.
@the_spyder: Draconis may appear tough, but he actually isnt that bad in a solo run. I can think of 3 ways of killing him w/o exploits in this challenge. The simulacrum exploit just doesnt burn your resources and it's faster.
@element: I set my initial roll to 90. My PC was going to be either super naive or super ugly. Now he is naive enough to challenge the gods (and may actually succeed!)
I think it will be doable, but I wouldn't try it on anything over normal difficulty. Also I don't find reloading that many times fun Too reliant on good rolls for me to consider it fun.
That said, I have no idea how you would do twisted rune at level 1 like this, all of my even cheese strategies for twisted rune would require things you just don't have... I guess you could do it by using protection from magic + protection from undead?
That said, I have no idea how you would do twisted rune at level 1 like this, all of my even cheese strategies for twisted rune would require things you just don't have... I guess you could do it by using protection from magic + protection from undead?
In my BG2:EE run I destroyed the Twisted Rune with a level ~12 party, poor in equipment, it is pretty easy, set thief traps where Shandalar is going to be (The Lich, I think I've mispelled his name), Skull Traps where the Beholder appears, summoned Skeleton Warriors and a Breah and fast damage dealers over the mage with the Staff of the Magi, then the vampire and the Fighter/Mage got down with Daystar, MMM and various spells more and Stonefire+3, amd the fighter/mage is annoyining but he is easy to kill. Now, this is very complicated with a level one solo run, a nice cheese will be getting Vhailor's Helm (with the Potion Swap trick with Gems, for infinite money) and using it with a project image scroll (or a stack of Project Images ), so basically you have like 5 P. Images casted by a Simulacrum, set traps and then use scrolls of Skull Trap im the same way, you can either use scrolls of Symbol, Stun/Death/Fear.
@bbear I think you should record this run, many people will get interested.
@CrevsDaak: I'll think about it. I never have recorded videos before and I dont think I have the hardware/software.
It doesn't take much. Apart from Fraps, which isn't expensive, everything else I use is free. Other than that u don't even need a good microphone cos Audacity can remove white noise.
I can send u the details of my setup if u are interested in doing this. I'd certainly be interested to see how u get past certain enemies with a lv1 character.
Edit: actually if u dont plan to provide commentary, u don't even need a headset at all.
Here are the images I saved when I played Chateau Irenicus. The first spoiler contains the initial character stats. The second spoiler are snapshots of my character's journey in the dungeon.
Near-dead encounter with the mephits ambush. Lol, I was being cheap and only use a single fireball scroll. Not sure how my PC did 18 damage to the Cambian with just bow and arrows. My familiar did all the kiting. Stumbled upon an amusing bug. Not sure whether this is replicable or has been fixed in BG2EE. Apparently I was low on hp and my familiar decided to kick the bucket. As you can see, I have -10 hp and my portrait was grey. After I became "undead", my PC was impervious to the spike and poison traps. Power-word Reload. Chapter 1 Inventory at the end of Chapter 1. I'm not sure how the golden pantaloon spawned behind the portrait, but I took it anyway. I didnt import my character from BG1.
@the_spyder: Draconis may appear tough, but he actually isnt that bad in a solo run. I can think of 3 ways of killing him w/o exploits in this challenge. The simulacrum exploit just doesnt burn your resources and it's faster.
Just goes to show. I can't beat him with a party full of mega-equipped party members (well, I guess I did once, but...).
There are certain encounters that seem easier with fewer party members, or even solo. More party members means less xp per character, and more squishy characters not protected by the best gear around.
Don't get me wrong, I think solo is harder overall, and solo'ing at lv1 is crazy But there are circumstances where having 1 Fighter/Mage/Thief with Cloak of Mirroring and everything else OP would be easier than managing a full party.
There are certain encounters that seem easier with fewer party members, or even solo. More party members means less xp per character, and more squishy characters not protected by the best gear around.
Don't get me wrong, I think solo is harder overall, and solo'ing at lv1 is crazy But there are circumstances where having 1 Fighter/Mage/Thief with Cloak of Mirroring and everything else OP would be easier than managing a full party.
Yes. Agree. I cried so hard when Draconis just wont let poor Aerie hide at a corner. He had to acid breathed and chunked her.
If you're going to do this I/we want videos of it. Maybe not the whole saga but at least the major parts of it (final battles, boss battles, watcher's keep). It would be very very interesting to watch.
@Heindrich1988: I tried recording using the fraps demo. They are 30 sec in avi format, but the size is about 400 MB each. Is this normal or the demo requires a lot of memory?
I was experimenting this with the twisted rune battle. I recorded about 10 videos. So a 5 minute video would need 4 GB?
It depends on specific settings, but yes, Fraps recordings are very high quality, but produce huge files. My 1hr 52min video for the battle vs Melissan was 82GBs. If u bought the software, there is no limit to how long u keep recording, except of course when u run out of disk space.
Uploading such huge files would be impractical, so I compress and edit/process (cut into Youtube friendly parts) with Windows Movie Maker, which is free. That 1hr52min raw data ended up as 4 videos which were 1.27 GBs in total.
I find that small parties (2-3 characters) are easier to manage than larger parties (5-6 characters). You also level faster getting access to more useful spells sooner. Solo is to me more difficult when fighting certain foes or groups of foes. It quickly becomes a game where I enable pause-when-spell-cast, something I normally never do.
I always used microsoft encoder to record, but I guess that is windows media expression now.
Description (copied from Youtube): This is the infamous Twisted Rune encounter in BG2. Your party fights against a mid level party comprises of a Lich, Vampire, Beholder, Mage and a Fighter. Here, I show that victory is achievable with a solo level 1/1/1 FMT with some minor preparations. The necessary items and equipments are: one oil of speed, 2 scrolls of protection against undead, a fire wand with at least 10 charges, 1 arrow of dispelling, 1 ring of invisibility/potion of invisibility and some magical enchanted weapons.
The video quality is poor. I use ezvid to do the video capture and I'm not sure how to add the audio. Also, the blinking problem is very severe. Not sure whether this is the conflict of the widescreen mod or the video capture problem.
I decided against using fraps because I dont think the price is justified for a few video captures. Fraps is definitely better in terms of quality and ease of use. However, you need to use third party software to compress video size to manageable value.
I've used Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) for streaming before, but you can save directly to disk with it so you might try using it if you'd like to record video. It's not quite as plug-and-play as FRAPS but it's free and the output file doesn't need to be compressed like a FRAPS video.
@Mitchfork: When I tried recording with OBS, I got the game audio but a black screen. I think the reason why is the OBS does not support Window XP.
Edit: I just found out my operating system is Windows 7. Lol I'm a noob.
OBS allows me to video capture using the standard 800x600 resolution. My processor cant handle video capture of 1600x900 and I believe this is why I got black screen last time. The video now has audio, but the blinking problem still persists.
@Mitchfork: When I tried recording with OBS, I got the game audio but a black screen. I think the reason why is the OBS does not support Window XP.
Edit: I just found out my operating system is Windows 7. Lol I'm a noob.
OBS allows me to video capture using the standard 800x600 resolution. My processor cant handle video capture of 1600x900 and I believe this is why I got black screen last time. The video now has audio, but the blinking problem still persists.
I'm not too video-savvy so I can't offer a huge amount of tech support, but if you're getting flickering in the source image that may indicate that you've still got processor speed issues- is the blinking just in the video file or does it happen while the game is being recorded?
EDIT: Another question- how many cores does your processor have? Again, I'm not an expert, but I'd think that if the computer is trying to run capture and program on the same core you'd definitely get issues switching from one process to the other.
Might want to check the OBS support forums for help if you really want to use it.
If the software you're using does compression on the fly like you suggested that's a huge strain on your system, and no wonder you're experiencing issues. The reason that FRAPS deals in raw video is precisely this.
Comments
Not saying it isn't a perfectly valid way to play the game. Merely that if you are "Bending" the rules sufficiently, how is that different from using console commands? Where do you draw the line?
But again, whatever allows you to have fun playing the game is legit in my book. Have at it.
I'd appreciate clarification on this. Draconis can be killed "Very easily"? Short of "Control Y", could you please elaborate? Because either you have a different definition of 'Very easily' than I, or I am missing something. Because.... tough... a-gogo.
Thanks all the support. I appreciate all the comments. Originally, I post this thread as a thought exercise, but after reading through all the comments I was super excited to try this new game.
@abacus: Yes, a simple death spell kills anything 8 levels or below. Rarely do enemies cast Death Spell on the party (I never seen this done to my party in the low level challenge where 1/2 party is level 7 or 8). As long as my PC runs away from the summoned monsters (ie boot of speed), he is safe.
@bob_veng: I'm planning to do the twisted rune battle right off the bat. The staff of magi should make me impervious from any mages.
@Irouman: Hey, it wouldnt be fun if I dont go wack some dragons or overcome nasty ambushes? Most likely, I'll avoid some goblins or orc archers, simply because they are not worth the effort.
@FinneousPJ: I believe I have so much metagame knowledge that the number of reloads will be a minimum. I dont reload to get a "perfect" fight. I reload only when my PC/familiar dies (which frankly my PC died pretty often in Irenicus Dungeon because I still need to get use to low hp environment, dying from traps, and crappy thaco).
@CrevsDaak: Thanks for sharing your strategy for defeating Amelyssan. The tricky part is getting her 90 MR to a management number. It takes 6 castings of pierce magic from spellstriking wand to strip off all those MR and the effect lasts for 1 turn. The Big Metal Unit does help tremendously, but is it going to be enough? Now, the similacrum trick is to hasten the process.
@the_spyder: Draconis may appear tough, but he actually isnt that bad in a solo run. I can think of 3 ways of killing him w/o exploits in this challenge. The simulacrum exploit just doesnt burn your resources and it's faster.
@element: I set my initial roll to 90. My PC was going to be either super naive or super ugly. Now he is naive enough to challenge the gods (and may actually succeed!)
I still think you're barking though...
That said, I have no idea how you would do twisted rune at level 1 like this, all of my even cheese strategies for twisted rune would require things you just don't have... I guess you could do it by using protection from magic + protection from undead?
@bbear I think you should record this run, many people will get interested.
I can send u the details of my setup if u are interested in doing this. I'd certainly be interested to see how u get past certain enemies with a lv1 character.
Edit: actually if u dont plan to provide commentary, u don't even need a headset at all.
Initial Stats:
THACO + Thieving Points
Saving Throws + Pips
Near-dead encounter with the mephits ambush. Lol, I was being cheap and only use a single fireball scroll.
Not sure how my PC did 18 damage to the Cambian with just bow and arrows. My familiar did all the kiting.
Stumbled upon an amusing bug. Not sure whether this is replicable or has been fixed in BG2EE. Apparently I was low on hp and my familiar decided to kick the bucket. As you can see, I have -10 hp and my portrait was grey. After I became "undead", my PC was impervious to the spike and poison traps. Power-word Reload.
Chapter 1 Inventory at the end of Chapter 1. I'm not sure how the golden pantaloon spawned behind the portrait, but I took it anyway. I didnt import my character from BG1.
There are certain encounters that seem easier with fewer party members, or even solo. More party members means less xp per character, and more squishy characters not protected by the best gear around.
Don't get me wrong, I think solo is harder overall, and solo'ing at lv1 is crazy
It would be very very interesting to watch.
Yes, but he editted it back down again with Keeper.
I was experimenting this with the twisted rune battle. I recorded about 10 videos. So a 5 minute video would need 4 GB?
Uploading such huge files would be impractical, so I compress and edit/process (cut into Youtube friendly parts) with Windows Movie Maker, which is free. That 1hr52min raw data ended up as 4 videos which were 1.27 GBs in total.
Fraps is outdated!
I always used microsoft encoder to record, but I guess that is windows media expression now.
I should start a new party soon.
Description (copied from Youtube): This is the infamous Twisted Rune encounter in BG2. Your party fights against a mid level party comprises of a Lich, Vampire, Beholder, Mage and a Fighter. Here, I show that victory is achievable with a solo level 1/1/1 FMT with some minor preparations. The necessary items and equipments are: one oil of speed, 2 scrolls of protection against undead, a fire wand with at least 10 charges, 1 arrow of dispelling, 1 ring of invisibility/potion of invisibility and some magical enchanted weapons.
Actually battle starts at 1:55.
The video quality is poor. I use ezvid to do the video capture and I'm not sure how to add the audio. Also, the blinking problem is very severe. Not sure whether this is the conflict of the widescreen mod or the video capture problem.
I decided against using fraps because I dont think the price is justified for a few video captures. Fraps is definitely better in terms of quality and ease of use. However, you need to use third party software to compress video size to manageable value.
http://obsproject.com/
Edit: I just found out my operating system is Windows 7. Lol I'm a noob.
EDIT: Another question- how many cores does your processor have? Again, I'm not an expert, but I'd think that if the computer is trying to run capture and program on the same core you'd definitely get issues switching from one process to the other.
Might want to check the OBS support forums for help if you really want to use it.
OBS is built for streaming, so it has to perform the compression to get something that will be small enough to upload/download.