For me, one of the most frustrating area is the game on any playthrough is the troll mound + surrounding area, but this is main due to the ridiculously bad AI of trolls, how can take between 6-10 rounds of combat to notice they should be unconcious, all the time regenerating and not taking damage from attacks. If I am being attacked by 6 giant trolls the fight ends up being: Target fire a single troll for about 3-5 seconds. Run around in circles with entire party for 10-15 seconds waiting for it to collapse, which is much more likely to trigger when it is "out of combat". Go onto the next troll, while assigning one mage to kill it with acid arrow, because trying to hit an unconscious troll on the ground with and elemental weapon is apparently a huge effort for anybody who isn't a pureclass fighter with flail grandmastery. Repeat ad-nauseum.
Jeez, they really need to fix troll AI before bg2:ee.
@Bjjorick If you go to the poultry shop in Bladur's Gate and talk to the shopkeeper he will tell you something about having trouble with his chickens, which then proceed to spawn and murder you horribly. I'm not kidding, I mean it sounds like a joke but it happened, my cleric in full plate with a tower shield was overwhelmed and killed by crazed fowl.
I didn't realise those chickens could do anything to you. I usually just wander in and hack them into fillets.
@permidion_stark I guess if you were alone, they would prove quite a challenge as there are about 20 of them (10 to 20 at least). If you stop for a min to have a good laugh, it is possible that they could beak you to death, i suppose.
although, death by chicken isn't a story i think i would share with others. Kinda like getting killed by a cow, maybe after the shock wears off.
Only thing i could think of that would be worse would be death by diarrhea. But maybe i've just spending too much in the toilet topic tonight.
Only thing i could think of that would be worse would be death by diarrhea. But maybe i've just spending too much in the toilet topic tonight.
Have you heard of a game called The Oregon Trail? That seems to be a pretty standard way to go in that game. (although it's actually the more severe dysentery)
although, death by chicken isn't a story i think i would share with others. Kinda like getting killed by a cow, maybe after the shock wears off.
There is a lovely short story by Graham Greene called 'A Shocking Accident'. It deals with the subject of unfortunate animal-related death and is well worth a read if you don't know it:
Having to negotiate the spike chamber in order to confront Lassal is very frustrating. Just suffered my first mortality (Viconia) in a very satisfying BG 2 campaign due to those stupid un-disarmable invisible spike traps.
@Permidion_Stark That death by Chicken reminds me of a trap from Grimtooth's Traps. The pit that floods with whipped cream. It's lighter than water, so you can't float/tread in it, even if you take off your armor. And how heroic does it sound to say, "Yeah, I died drowning in a vat of whipped cream"?
@LadyRhian that sounds like the bad start of portraying a supervillain in a comic book based porn movie. Ah the bad things a mind can do to you sometimes.
@Dragonspear Grimtooth's Traps are designed to make parties have very bad days. one is a Mummy with a small barrel of gunpowder in its chest. Immolate the mummy and BOOM!
@LadyRhian oh that does sound evil. Especially since any wizards I run with tend to have a fireball fetish. They treat fireballs like the mythbusters treat explosives. "Did duct tape fix it? No. Ok then fireball it!"
As mentioned above, of course the most frustrating place in BG 1 was Firewine Bridge labyrinth. In my first two playthroughs I remember screaming curses loudly in my bedroom. Then I realised the importance of Thieves.
My most frustrating moment in BG was my first few times I played. I didn't understand English very well at that time, but I did know how to buy a sword. And I knew how to attack a certain yellow robed tutor outside the inn, only to be attacked by everyonein Candlekeep.
I think it was 2 years later that I installed the game again (I don't know why actualy, probably because there was a dragon on the DVD (thanks Packard Bell for the free games). That is where the addiction started.
BG2 just changed more for me, because the was a free novel with the game (Temple Hill), by now I have +200 novels :P
@Dragonspear Everything is better with explosions! :Nod: There was another I remember called "The Hall of the Memorial Carpet. Doors to the Hall open out. Once you are inside, the doors slam shut and a breeze begins. The Hall is covered with a carpet that is red in color with glints of metal. The breeze is from air exiting the room as the ceiling descends... crushing your adventurers into meat intermingled with bits of your metal weapons and armor. And if you pick the lock and open the door, it just means air can exit much faster, bringing down the ceiling that much quicker. SLAM!
@LadyRhian Another nice trap was a maze I heard about. Rumors of ancient and magnificient treasures within it are abound, so the party goes in and finds every corridor with open pits, axes slung into walls with bloodsplatters, acid burns, burnt corpses, crashed boulders, etc. When they finally reach the centre of the maze, there is a singular chest, untrapped. When they open it, the light in the maze flickers, a lot of clicks, schlings and wooshes are heard and all the corridors are pristine again. Good luck getting out! Also, the chest is empty. A good middlefinger to any greedy adventurer.
@Drugar I like! Another party deathtrap is in (among tons of others) The Tomb of Horrors. You enter a room, and at the far end, you see a flickering glow (as of firelight in a hearth) and the sounds of people eating, drinking and talking. If/when you head towards the light, over the shiny, waxed wooden floor, you trip a teeter-totter trap that dumps you into a pit 120' deep, and then the top of the trap flips closed again.
There is a reason why my group and I nicknamed this adventure "Party-Slayer".
@LadyRhian Wasn't that the adventure where there's the sound of coins coming from a gargoyle's mouth and when you look, a Sphere of Annihilation hits you in the face? Read the log of a player group who did that adventure once, they sent in a herd of sheep before going in themselves. Muuuuch safer.
Always hated the Monty Haul players with uber characters, so I designed a killer dungeon for them with tons of wonderful loot....however they forgot to check for trip wires on their way out the exit tunnel. Razor sharp wires ended up taking off their legs while they were running. Going in was easy.....getting out was near impossible. Umm Easy was a relative term, at time the original Deities and Demi-gods still has unlicensed materials and somehow they ened up battling Elric and Moonglum and Yyrkoon (not in the same encounters)
@Drugar Not quite. There is a demon mouth you can go into that's completely black. It's a sphere of annihilation. There's a room with an immensely valuable gem on the floor, surrounded by ash and the remains of people. If you try to pick it up, it explodes for something like 30d6 damage....
I think my most frustrating moment was probably the time I finished a difficult battle (can't remember what it was) which had taken me forever to beat... and then I hit load game instead of save game. Doh!
Would anybody be interested in seeing how good an AD&D player they are by running through Tomb of Horrors on a thread on this board? (I'd GM since I have the module and suggested the idea). You can pick any BG 1 or 2 character to be, and have a level between 8 and 12. I'll even let you have Max Hit Points per level (Won't really matter, with all the instadeath traps there are), and you can see how far you can make it. 8 characters in the party, but no copies of a character (No 3 Korgans in one party). You can also choose your spells from the BG and BG2 spells.
@ladyrhian i would love to, as i've heard alot of horrible nasty things about the tomb of horrors, but i'll be at work for the next 8-9 hours. lol, if you do it, can one of you send me a link to the topic so i can read through the results?
well sweet, hopefully i'll finally be able to do a run of this dungeon. To the others, this is the basically the biggest challenge to your skills as a dnd player (again, from what i've heard) and if you lose, you'll die a bloody and painful death. Seriously, what more could you hope for from a run?
Comments
If I am being attacked by 6 giant trolls the fight ends up being: Target fire a single troll for about 3-5 seconds. Run around in circles with entire party for 10-15 seconds waiting for it to collapse, which is much more likely to trigger when it is "out of combat". Go onto the next troll, while assigning one mage to kill it with acid arrow, because trying to hit an unconscious troll on the ground with and elemental weapon is apparently a huge effort for anybody who isn't a pureclass fighter with flail grandmastery.
Repeat ad-nauseum.
Jeez, they really need to fix troll AI before bg2:ee.
although, death by chicken isn't a story i think i would share with others. Kinda like getting killed by a cow, maybe after the shock wears off.
Only thing i could think of that would be worse would be death by diarrhea. But maybe i've just spending too much in the toilet topic tonight.
i do pity the person who can't laugh at a good potty joke.
There is a lovely short story by Graham Greene called 'A Shocking Accident'. It deals with the subject of unfortunate animal-related death and is well worth a read if you don't know it:
http://nbu.bg/webs/amb/british/6/greene/accident.htm
@ladyrhian in my case, that would just leave a whoooole lot of vinegar.
I think it was 2 years later that I installed the game again (I don't know why actualy, probably because there was a dragon on the DVD (thanks Packard Bell for the free games). That is where the addiction started.
BG2 just changed more for me, because the was a free novel with the game (Temple Hill), by now I have +200 novels :P
Another nice trap was a maze I heard about. Rumors of ancient and magnificient treasures within it are abound, so the party goes in and finds every corridor with open pits, axes slung into walls with bloodsplatters, acid burns, burnt corpses, crashed boulders, etc. When they finally reach the centre of the maze, there is a singular chest, untrapped. When they open it, the light in the maze flickers, a lot of clicks, schlings and wooshes are heard and all the corridors are pristine again. Good luck getting out!
Also, the chest is empty. A good middlefinger to any greedy adventurer.
There is a reason why my group and I nicknamed this adventure "Party-Slayer".
Wasn't that the adventure where there's the sound of coins coming from a gargoyle's mouth and when you look, a Sphere of Annihilation hits you in the face?
Read the log of a player group who did that adventure once, they sent in a herd of sheep before going in themselves. Muuuuch safer.
Anyone interested?