Is Throne of Bhaal worth playing?
thesoloer
Member Posts: 77
I've never finished the "trilogy", I always play BG1 and SoA and then stop. I keep hearing people say that ToB is boring and monotonous.
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Comments
Is it as good as BG1 or BG2? No.
But remember that a 'bad' Baldur's Gate is still a good game compared to the rest.
The TOB plot is just lame. You are dragged on rails along the plot while being given +6 Hackmasters every fight and every guard, farmer and bad guy has at least +4 weapons.
1. No
2. Probably not.
3. I'd leave it
If nothing else, it is still part of the same game. Therefore, I think it is worth trying. As was said, even a Bad BG is till better than 90% of the rest of the games out there.
So like I wrote. Play through it once or twice and make up your own mind about it
What I like about ToB is that it does wind up the plot (Alaundo's prophecy) pretty conclusively, whereas SoA in a way is a digression from that plot. Plus it offers an awesome NPC
Is it worth playing more than a few times at the most? No; sadly the story doesn't live up to Baldur's Gate or Shadows of Amn.
I've only played through ToB once. Apart from Watcher's Keep, which I always do in SoA anyway, the expansion lacks the replay value of its predecessors. Like others in this thread, I think the only real reason to play it is to get a proper closure to the Bhaalspawn saga.
I don't think anyone would call ToB a bad game. It is just noticeable less exciting and fun than the rest. Think IWD2 on steroids and you have a fairly good idea.
The game is wonderful right to that point, but then comes "oh no, it'll be go there kill that go there go there kill some more again". It becomes painfully linear, the first part gives many choices, side quests, order of doing things is pretty much up to the player.
Second half of SoA and ToB are stripped of that and I don't like being taken by hand and led through everything by creators.
HLA / Increased level cap - 9/10
Watcher's keep (SoA) - 8/10
ToB campaign - 5/10
While the ToB campaign is bad compared to SoA it's still a decent game if you look at it next to other RPG games. Not to mention there have been worse expansion packs out there. The big problem with ToB isn't that it's a bad game, it's that SoA was pretty much 10/10 and there was no way ToB could hold up that standard.
I would actually like to compare ToB with BGEE.
[ToB]
HLA / Increased level cap - 9/10
Watcher's keep (SoA) - 8/10
ToB campaign - 5/10
[BGEE]
Upgraded GUI and graphics - 9/10
Bug fixes and cleaning up/repairing the game - 9/10
BGEE content - 2/10
I do not wish to bash BGEE with this comparison, it was worth two copies for the upgrades alone. I just don't happen to like the added content. Doesn't make BGEE bad though, i just enjoy it for other reasons.
However, if you are like me and love conclusions (or NEED them) then the game does its job. The encounters are at high levels and therefore somewhat exciting. I like having the super high level spells and the HLAs.
It is not as good as the first two, obviously, but as many said it is definitely worth doing. I'd say it is a bit underrated by the community. There are some very enjoyable fights and pretty memorable moments. Also there is an AWESOME new NPC that you just need to try out.
So I'd say play it once, and see for yourself!!!!!
PS
Confession: I have absolutely no idea what externalization means...
Some of them are: Which races can dual-class, the Barbarian's HP table, several fixes for hardcoded effect opcodes (like Blindness giving -10 THAC0 penalty instead of -4) and additional Actions and Triggers for scripts.
You can find a full guid of what TobEx does here.
Also, new things have been added, the CLSCOLR, for example, to determinte which color is a particular class/kit is going to start with (and another table for the races' colors), which classes/kits will get APR bonus from Specialization or Grand Mastery from their Proficiencies, you can also determine how much penalty to THAC0 you can get with a weapon you are unproficient with and which races are going to use which descriptions.
I think it is the weakest part of the story; too linear, ridiculously high level, too much non-stop combat.
But its not "terrible", and it does end the story.
It's not bad or awful as some people claim. It's not a seperate game. It's a expansion to BG2 and it concludes the story in an epic way.
You can play BG1 without playing TotSC but you cannot play BG2 without ToB because it's an incomplete story. Simple as that.
Sure, you might not want to replay as much as BG2 but it's absolutely worth it to play it once and wouldn't skip it. It's not some random DLC. (While TotSC could be considered a DLC pack by modern standards)
- raising the xp cap in SOA. This one is killing end-game SOA for small groups
- HLA are unbalanced and far too powerful
- level 9 spells are unbalanced and far too powerful
- because of HLA and level 9 spells, it is globally very easy
- extremely linear, simplistic structure (trash mobs, trash mobs, boss fight, rinse and repeat)
- completely unrealistic (every soldier is level 15 and wields a set of +3 items)
- tons of OP items. This removes the special feeling you got from the few available in SOA
What i like in TOB :
- the critical path is short, very short even if you beeline it. This is good because it's value is low
- watcher's keep is good and can be done in SOA
- it concludes the story, which SOA does not do
Play it once or twice and that's it.