BG2 Boots of Speed: Should they haste or not?
thesoloer
Member Posts: 77
When I played vanilla BG2 in the past I specifically remember the BoS making your character HASTED, as if they drank the Oil of Speed. Apparently I have installed one of those supposed "fixes" that changed the BoS to the BG1 version where they just increased your movement speed and nothing else. Which version is correct?
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"The boots of speed and the grandmaster armor describes their effects as "increases movement rate" and "Increase movement rate as Boots of Speed", respectively. However, both were trying to apply haste effects instead of just a movement rate increase, which lead to miscellaneous errors (such as haste failing to work) on characters with these items equipped."
Although I often find the boots to be a bit of a hassle, as you either have to keep taking them off and on or start micromanaging a bit to prevent the boot-wearer from ending up way ahead of the rest of your party all the time.
"Boots of Speed for everyone!"
"Boots of Speed: 'The Paws of the Cheetah'.
These enchanted boots were once the property of a deadly assassin fond of chasing down prey. He moved with such speed that his target often didn't have the opportunity to respond, even on horseback. Over time the assassin's fame spread, and though his name was never known, all knew to fear the last words heard by his victims: you can hide, but you cannot run!"
Is there an official consensus on what the Boots of Speed are supposed to do? Or does it vary by edition or something?
To reduce the micromanagement factor commonly associated with these boots, just follow these steps (or a close variation)
Change your hotkeys for some (or all) of the group selections to something easy to reach with your fingers. How I have it:
4 Key = Select all
5 Key = Select Party Member 1
If you are curious, 1-3 is select Party members 1 & 2, 3 & 4, 5 & 6. And 6-0 are the rest of the individual party members, but the important groups selects for this technique are Select all, and Party Member 1. So my index finger is on 4, and pinky on Tab. The pinky can easily switch between highlighting (tab) and quicksaving (Q) while the index finger easily selects the group and PM1.
Just the Tip (i promise)
While scouting, you can easily switch between your leader (who is usually a tank) and the rest of your group with the easy reach of 4&5. So you lead your group with your tanky character, while occasionally pressing 4 to select your whole group and move them to where your PM1 is. This can be done very easily and quickly. I mainly use this technique to keep my mages and other weaklings from drawing unwanted aggro, but also happens to work well with monks and anyone wearing BoS from getting ahead.
So, feel free to leave those boots on. And trust me, it doesn't take long to build the muscle memory and when you do, it wont feel like you are micromanaging at all.
The DMG also mentions that for every hour of fast movement, the wearer must rest an hour. And no more than 8 hours of continuous fast movement are possible before the wearer must rest. Finally they provide a +2 bonus to Armor Class in combat situations where fast movement is possible.
vBG boots set base movement speed to 11 (normal base movement speed is 8, so it's a 37.5% increase in general). There was no ApR bonus.
vBG2 boots used the internal haste opcode, of which there are a couple of ways to apply it--speed increase only (used by the boots) or full haste (increases ApR, used by the spells and potion).
A problem came about because the engine would not allow haste effects to stack. So if you quaffed an Oil of Speed while wearing the boots, it would do nothing for your ApR since the engine already considered you under the effects of haste.
Fixpack (and by extension EE) change the boots to use a straight-up movement speed increase, allowing the application of Oils of Speed/Haste spells to boot-wearers with the expected ApR gains.
What the DMG and other PnP sources have to say really don't come into play here.
Personally, I think they should neither affect APR, nor should they preclude a character from being Hasted. Just put 'em on and go for a run. I like them as is - they feel truer to PnP, and make more sense to me.
And I will forever welcome yet another difference from Diablo and games of that ilk. This is not a hack n' slash game.
Anyway these boots are perfectly fine (i would even say quite OP) as they are now.