Permament ability scores increases?

AntaraReis

Should we expect tomes or other boons that permamently increase our stats?

AlexT

No.

Permidion_Stark

Boo! I love a good tome.

Jarrakul

Probably for the best. There are a lot of stat boosts in the game already.

Ammar

I hope not for the player. Though a +1 int for Immy would be nice given the new level 9 int requirement.

It could also be a way to explain the stat increases many of the NPCs have between BG 1 and 2.

doggy

The tomes are mine alone. And also everything good from the machine of Lum the mad. With a nice roll about and above 90 I would feel too op. So that's a no.

Gallowglass

Ammar said:

I hope not for the player.

Agreed.

Ammar said:

Though a +1 int for Immy would be nice given the new level 9 int requirement.

Convenient, but no. I think the starting stats of original characters in BG2 probably count as part of the "original content" which Beamdog aren't allowed to change.

Ammar said:

It could also be a way to explain the stat increases many of the NPCs have between BG 1 and 2.

YES! That'd make a great deal of sense, and improve the coherence of the continuity, which is what SoD is meant to be doing. Come on, @AlexT, let's have some Tomes (or equivalent mechanism), not available to our protagonist but instead used to explain the stat boosts of Jaheira, Minsc, etc.

Grum

Yes! But with downsides!

Ex:

Tome of Blood: +1 strength, +1 AC (hit more often and harder, but get hit more often)

Tome of Glibness: +1 Charisma, -1 Int and Wis (Silver tongue but lose the self control and knowledge of how best to use it)

Tome of Shadows: +1 Dex, -1 Con (Meld into the shadows at the cost of your own life force)

Etc.

The stat increases aren't auto choices, they come with downsides as well

Jarrakul

I do love me some mixed-blessing items, permanent or otherwise. BG needs more of those, I feel.

Permidion_Stark

I was really disappointed when I discovered there were no tomes in BG2. One of my favourite bits of BG1 is getting hold of a tome and getting a stat increase. It is like leveling up but way better.

In fact, I do a whole character build based around the tomes. I start out with a a Lawful Good fighter with 10 WIS and I play her as a squire trying to become a knight. Once she has got hold of all three Tomes of Understanding (one of which is pick-pocketed for her by Imoen or Alora - and she honestly doesn't have the faintest idea where it came from) I Gatekeeper her into a paladin.

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Grum

Permidion_Stark said:

I was really disappointed when I discovered there were no tomes in BG2. One of my favourite bits of BG1 is getting hold of a tome and getting a stat increase. It is like leveling up but way better.

In fact, I do a whole character build based around the tomes. I start out with a a Lawful Good fighter with 10 WIS and I play her as a squire trying to become a knight. Once she has got hold of all three Tomes of Understanding (one of which is pick-pocketed for her by Imoen or Alora - and she honestly doesn't have the faintest idea where it came from) I Gatekeeper her into a paladin.

That is awesome.

GreenWarlock

I love the tomes in BG, finding the first Cha tome, useless as it is, is still one of the most memory highlights of my first play through almost 2 decades ago.

That said, the stat boosts available by the end of BG2EE are pretty solid, and adding even more would start to get silly. As others noted, NOT being able to spend them on the main PC would be a way around, retaining most of the fun. I suspect the decision to simply not boost stats further is probably the better one though.

The one thing I /really/ miss from the vanilla games though is the 'cheat' of dropping kit at the start to import tomes for NPCs into BG2. I would love it if there were some way to transfer unused tomes in the PC's inventory into locations scattered around BG2EE. Even better would be retaining boosts on NPCs from the first game, so we would not be artificially saving them when they could easily be used, but that goes beyond what info is already exported in a final save today - the PC inventory is available as part of the import, even if it is immediately discarded.

Matthieu

typo_tilly said:

Maybe they'll add a cooking tome? n.n

Don't you have one in ToSC?

billbisco

I would like to see some tomes in SoD. Every BG game has had something that permanently increased stats

Kamigoroshi

Personally, I'd be more interested in permament ability score decreases. Something like that would actually be refreshing. Not to mention being a nice way to add a little spice here and there for the hardcore roleplayers amongst us for developing our character personas.

Arcanis

Kamigoroshi said:

Personally, I'd be more interested in permament ability score decreases. Something like that would actually be refreshing. Not to mention being a nice way to add a little spice here and there for the hardcore roleplayers amongst us for developing our character personas.

Like the one in the Spellhold dream? ^_^
It always made me think for a looong while which one to pick there..

zol

Grum said:

Yes! But with downsides!

Ex:

Tome of Blood: +1 strength, +1 AC (hit more often and harder, but get hit more often)

Tome of Glibness: +1 Charisma, -1 Int and Wis (Silver tongue but lose the self control and knowledge of how best to use it)

Tome of Shadows: +1 Dex, -1 Con (Meld into the shadows at the cost of your own life force)

Etc.

The stat increases aren't auto choices, they come with downsides as well

Nope:

Tome of Blood = +1 Str (who cares about +1 AC that much closer to finale and even much earlier?)
Tome of Glibness = -1 Int and Wis (so many charisma boosting items in the game)
Tome of Shadows = +1 Dex (-1 Con not valuable that much if this will increase your Dex)

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Matthieu

Guess the Iraqi chef that poisoned 45 militants of the Islamic State used that recipe.

blackchimes

Ammar said:

It could also be a way to explain the stat increases many of the NPCs have between BG 1 and 2.

I was under the impression that BG:EE already used BG2 stats for NPCs.

elminster

No. Though Quayle does get a boost to dexterity in BGEE compared to what he had in the original BG1.