Thieves (single class or otherwise) are the most useful and "necessarry" class in the game.
I must really have rubbed you the wrong way in that thread.
Oh no. I am thouroughly enjoying everything about that thread. Healthy debate is actually fun. I have actually been seeing a lot of people down on pure thieves in general, so I thought it would be a good unpopular opinion.
I realised a few months ago (yes, it took me decades) that BG2SoA is an unnecessary chapter to the charname saga. It could just as well have been sold as a mere addon with some quests. The main storyline for the protagonist is fleshed out in BG, hell (due to the weak plot line that gets us there after SoA) and Throne of bhaal. I guess that makes the end boss of SoA as insignificant as the one in SoD...
I realised a few months ago (yes, it took me decades) that BG2SoA is an unnecessary chapter to the charname saga. It could just as well have been sold as a mere addon with some quests. The main storyline for the protagonist is fleshed out in BG, hell (due to the weak plot line that gets us there after SoA) and Throne of bhaal. I guess that makes the end boss of SoA as insignificant as the one in SoD...
The most important thing SoA does, story-wise, is introduce us to Viekang.
It's like how people complain about The Phantom Menace but don't stop to think that if it weren't for that how are we supposed to know who Jar-Jar is?
Edit to Add: the Phantom Menace thing was 100% a joke, but the Viekang thing was only 72% a joke and 28% serious. After all, the Baldur's Gate Trilogy is first and foremost the story of Bhaal's progeny and the chaos they leave in their wake, and Viekang is the only Bhaalspawn we meet in SoA.
Well, I did have a small post that SoA was relevant in that Irenicus needed a divine soul (probably) in order to bypass the gods-bestowed curse on him and Bodhi. I don't think any ordinary soul would do.
I never use dual-/multi-classing because I think it's overrated :^)
But a dwarf fighter/cleric is great RP fun AND you don't have any romance brouhaha to deal with. In old PnP games I'd roll up a priest of the battle god, which bybhouse rules meant that not only could I wield a battle axe, but I had to wield a battle axe. Those kinds of things made for interesting games.
When you think about it, SOA is where we first learn for certain that the essence of Bhaalspawn rejoins Bhaal when they die. We have the statue bit at the end of Baldur's Gate, but I don't think that explained it all. So there's some easing into the revelation that the children were part of Bhaal's resurrection plan. And if you like the idea of Alaundo's prophecy singling out Charname as a Chosen One, then surviving the loss of your soul and coping with that and the Slayer is also developing that idea a bit in advance.
I really don't see why the slayer change needed to be introduced in the first place. None of the other spawn have it so it makes no sense that the protagonist has it.
And as I understand SoD, irenicus choosing the bhaalspawn was just chance. He might just have picked something else instead. There is no hard link to the bhaalspawn in general. He just needs a random victim so he can kill a tree... Whoopee
I really don't see why the slayer change needed to be introduced in the first place. None of the other spawn have it so it makes no sense that the protagonist has it.
And as I understand SoD, irenicus choosing the bhaalspawn was just chance. He might just have picked something else instead. There is no hard link to the bhaalspawn in general. He just needs a random victim so he can kill a tree... Whoopee
And a gratuitous Chosen One addendum to a prophecy we'd heard already was necessary? Because from where I'm standing, that turns the "Screw destiny" conclusion of the first game into, "You thought you'd screwed destiny, but turns out your destiny is to screw destiny, so really, you didn't screw it at all!"
The oft-used nickname for adventurers as "murderhobos" is earned and justified.
Hey, now, I resent that! The last tabletop campaign I was in, our party had a home base we always came back to, so we weren't murderhobos. We were simply murderers.
I realised a few months ago (yes, it took me decades) that BG2SoA is an unnecessary chapter to the charname saga. It could just as well have been sold as a mere addon with some quests. The main storyline for the protagonist is fleshed out in BG, hell (due to the weak plot line that gets us there after SoA) and Throne of bhaal. I guess that makes the end boss of SoA as insignificant as the one in SoD...
Unless you run with the idea that Irenicus was set up by the Gods as a fall guy to drive the Charname to reach their full potential.
I mean it's a bit odd the elves, at Ellesime's bidding, let him go after being cursed, to wreck havoc in the non elf world. And Ellesime is a grandaughter of a God(?), she was probably in on it. And very suspicious nobody will tell you anything outside Suldenesselar, they might all be in on it.
If Charname had simply carried on after BG moseying around not doing much, the "five" would have eaten them for breakfast.
Well, I did have a small post that SoA was relevant in that Irenicus needed a divine soul (probably) in order to bypass the gods-bestowed curse on him and Bodhi. I don't think any ordinary soul would do.
I wouldn't exactly call it unnecessary.
I totally get how Charname is crucial to advancing Irenicus' plot. I just don't get how Irenicus is crucial to advancing Charname's plot. And insofar as the BG Trilogy is supposed to be the story of Charname, SoA fails. BG1 is the story of Charname. ToB is the story of Charname. SoA is the story of Irenicus.
Human or Half-Elf with 15 strength, 15 Dexterity, 10 Constitution, 12 Intelligence, 15 Wisdom, 15 Charisma.
Fighter 5 (but not farther than 8th) Dual into Thief 5 (but not farther than 9th) Dual into Druid and then you become a bard.
Also this implies a half-elf wishing to become a Bard can dual class.
Closest thing to its recreation is the Fochlucan Lyrist in 3.5 which is a Bard/Rogue/Druid prestige class.
@Vallmyr Yup, that's the one I 1st knew in the early 80's. Very rare using the old dice rules for generating PCs. VERY powerful and most often had the most HPs as well. When 2nd ed and BG used arcane bards it seemed pretty strange at first.
I totally get how Charname is crucial to advancing Irenicus' plot. I just don't get how Irenicus is crucial to advancing Charname's plot. And insofar as the BG Trilogy is supposed to be the story of Charname, SoA fails. BG1 is the story of Charname. ToB is the story of Charname. SoA is the story of Irenicus.
I think the problem with this line of argument is that it conflates the story of Charname with the story of the Bhaalspawn. If the games teach you anything, it's that you're not your family, so that's wrong-headed from the start. That it continues Charname's story beyond the confrontation with Sarevok is enough, really. And there are things that are learned and developed. In the classic AD&D tradition, as you become a higher-leveled character, you get a stronghold to manage, which in the old days was the implied destiny of pretty much any character that made it to level nine or so. You get companions that are fleshed out more, and you may even fall in love with one of them. You face new challenges, new trials, new revelations about yourself and what it means to be tainted by Bhaal. You're not complaining about the story not being about Charname. You're complaining that it's not about Bhaal. As soon as you disassociate those, I think the problem disappears.
Well, I did have a small post that SoA was relevant in that Irenicus needed a divine soul (probably) in order to bypass the gods-bestowed curse on him and Bodhi. I don't think any ordinary soul would do.
I wouldn't exactly call it unnecessary.
I totally get how Charname is crucial to advancing Irenicus' plot. I just don't get how Irenicus is crucial to advancing Charname's plot. And insofar as the BG Trilogy is supposed to be the story of Charname, SoA fails. BG1 is the story of Charname. ToB is the story of Charname. SoA is the story of Irenicus.
You understand me implicitly. This is the point I was trying to make. You explained it much better.
You get companions that are fleshed out more, and you may even fall in love with one of them. You face new challenges, new trials, new revelations about yourself and what it means to be tainted by Bhaal. You're not complaining about the story not being about Charname. You're complaining that it's not about Bhaal. As soon as you disassociate those, I think the problem disappears.
I think the problem becomes bigger. I am starting to complain that they had a great idea for a villain and had to write him injustably into every piece of the bhaalspawn saga. Irenicus is just too weirdly entwined to the bhaalspawn. In bg1 you had dreams about your own destiny but in SoA the one that seemingly teaches you about your inner self is the envisionment of Irenicus. That bit makes no sense to me. If they had chosen a different avatar the dreams would have made more sense and it would have felt more like a personal advancement and learning but now it comes across as a forced attachment to the main villain.
I ask, why does everything have to advance a plot? Life happens, sometimes as in RL everything that happens does not advance a job, marriage, school, etc. Sometimes one runs into events (AND other ppl, in particular) that have to be dealt with before we get back on track (or shows us where that track is).
Books often do the same thing with a main character getting left for a chapter or so before we get back to the main focus. Personally, I like the reprieve from 'bhaalspawn warpath' stuff all the time to doing something else. SoA has plenty of opportunities for that, esp, with strongholds.
I ask, why does everything have to advance a plot? Life happens, sometimes as in RL everything that happens does not advance a job, marriage, school, etc. Sometimes one runs into events (AND other ppl, in particular) that have to be dealt with before we get back on track (or shows us where that track is).
Books often do the same thing with a main character getting left for a chapter or so before we get back to the main focus. Personally, I like the reprieve from 'bhaalspawn warpath' stuff all the time to doing something else. SoA has plenty of opportunities for that, esp, with strongholds.
There's a good argument to viewing SoA as the "training montage" of the trilogy. Like in Rocky: he starts out as just some schlub, then he goes on a big training montage with inspirational music, and now suddenly he's ready to achieve his destiny.
In movies, training is dull and usually relegated to a 2-minute montage so we can get back to the whole "advancing the plot" business. But in games, training is fun! No need to abstract it away!
The problem is that the training montage can be an element of a story, but it isn't the story itself. A good story has a beginning, middle, and end. Training Montage can only fill one of those roles, (the middle).
If you view the entire Trilogy as one story, that works. If you view the Trilogy as standalone stories, it doesn't. A really well-written trilogy can have three works that both stand on their own *and* collect into one overarching story. Baldur's Gate... doesn't. BG1 stands on its own and advances the larger plot. ToB advances the larger plot, but doesn't stand on its own.
BG2 stands on its own if you view it as the story of Irenicus, but doesn't advance the larger plot. And it doesn't really stand on its own as the story of Charname, since it has neither satisfactory beginning nor ending.
Overall, I think the praise the series gets for its storytelling is overblown. Its biggest strength in writing is the personality and the detail, not the big-picture story. It also deserves the hype for the idea of a story that was so epic it carried across multiple games, but like any new idea, its successors have come along, pointed out its flaws, and shown how to do that much better.
(Seriously, there aren't any flags that carry over from BG1 to BG2. BG2 is forced to infer what you did based on what you had on you when you imported and what dialogue choices you self-select. Think how much better the storytelling in the BG Trilogy could have been if it had had the opportunity to learn the lessons of the BG Trilogy!)
I think the problem becomes bigger. I am starting to complain that they had a great idea for a villain and had to write him injustably into every piece of the bhaalspawn saga. Irenicus is just too weirdly entwined to the bhaalspawn. In bg1 you had dreams about your own destiny but in SoA the one that seemingly teaches you about your inner self is the envisionment of Irenicus. That bit makes no sense to me. If they had chosen a different avatar the dreams would have made more sense and it would have felt more like a personal advancement and learning but now it comes across as a forced attachment to the main villain.
I blame Siege of Dragonspear for this. I'm pretty sure there's some dialogue option in Spellhold where Irenicus admits he has no idea what you're talking about when you mention him appearing in your dreams. Anyways, if you think back to the ones from the first game, the figures change all the time - Gorion, Mulahey, the bandits, lots of weird metaphorical stuff, Gorion and Ulraunt, and finally Sarevok. The dreams change according to what happens to be on your mind, and in SOA that happens to be Imoen and Irenicus. It's only SOD's retconning that makes it seem more like one of Irenicus' conspiracies at work.
SoD enforces the dream weirdness but it always felt to me that they did not match the bg1 style dreams. Indeed Irenicus mentions that explicitly which only emphasises the difference.
I've always thought the dreams came from Bhaal, and @Abi_Dalzim's explaination that the "essence" uses what's currently on your mind as a metaphore is correct.
SOD throws that out of the window, can't we just ignore it?
Irenicus only says he doesn't know what happened to you in the Spellhold soul-stealing dream; he doesn't say anything about the pre-Spellhold dreams. Those dreams make perfect sense as Dream or Nightmare spells cast by Irenicus himself in an attempt to mold you, just like the dreams in SoD.
You'll notice that Irenicus narrates the pre-Spellhold dreams, while he has no speaking role in the other dreams.
And in the post-Spellhold dream (not counting Ellesime's since I'm pretty sure that was something else entirely), the subject shifts to the Slayer. I think that's more evidence that things just change depending on what you're dealing with. The early ones might have been Irenicus himself, but there's no real evidence, and I don't agree with Beamdog's interpretation.
I'm surprised stuff like that becomes a matter of interpretation in a way. I mean Gaider or former bg2 staff should have easily been able to clarify that in 15+ years since SoA was released. Not everything needs to be explained either, but with the addition of the SoD dreams, the actual nature of those dreams becomes a lot more important for the continuity.
When using the paired NPCs in BG1: If you get one killed, the other should permantely leave the party to grieve. Unless the surviving NPC is Montaron, Xzar, or Eldoth.
When using the paired NPCs in BG1: If you get one killed, the other should permantely leave the party to grieve. Unless the surviving NPC is Montaron, Xzar, or Eldoth.
Minsc and Jahiera don't leave in BG2 to grieve, do they?
If you spend 20k+ gold to buy a Robe of the Archmagi, though, or blow all your money on recharging wands, Kagain should totally leave to grieve.
Speaking of dreams I always liked the BG1 dreams better than the BG2 ones. The Infinity Engine is just not very good for cutscenes, especially compared to the ones used by console games from the same generation (FF7-8, Metal Gear Solid...)
BG1 dreams are just music and text, this is more universal.
Comments
I never use dual-/multi-classing because I think it's overrated :^)
The main storyline for the protagonist is fleshed out in BG, hell (due to the weak plot line that gets us there after SoA) and Throne of bhaal.
I guess that makes the end boss of SoA as insignificant as the one in SoD...
It's like how people complain about The Phantom Menace but don't stop to think that if it weren't for that how are we supposed to know who Jar-Jar is?
Edit to Add: the Phantom Menace thing was 100% a joke, but the Viekang thing was only 72% a joke and 28% serious. After all, the Baldur's Gate Trilogy is first and foremost the story of Bhaal's progeny and the chaos they leave in their wake, and Viekang is the only Bhaalspawn we meet in SoA.
I wouldn't exactly call it unnecessary.
Human or Half-Elf with 15 strength, 15 Dexterity, 10 Constitution, 12 Intelligence, 15 Wisdom, 15 Charisma.
Fighter 5 (but not farther than 8th) Dual into Thief 5 (but not farther than 9th) Dual into Druid and then you become a bard.
Also this implies a half-elf wishing to become a Bard can dual class.
Closest thing to its recreation is the Fochlucan Lyrist in 3.5 which is a Bard/Rogue/Druid prestige class.
And as I understand SoD, irenicus choosing the bhaalspawn was just chance. He might just have picked something else instead. There is no hard link to the bhaalspawn in general. He just needs a random victim so he can kill a tree... Whoopee
I mean it's a bit odd the elves, at Ellesime's bidding, let him go after being cursed, to wreck havoc in the non elf world.
And Ellesime is a grandaughter of a God(?), she was probably in on it.
And very suspicious nobody will tell you anything outside Suldenesselar, they might all be in on it.
If Charname had simply carried on after BG moseying around not doing much, the "five" would have eaten them for breakfast.
Books often do the same thing with a main character getting left for a chapter or so before we get back to the main focus.
Personally, I like the reprieve from 'bhaalspawn warpath' stuff all the time to doing something else. SoA has plenty of opportunities for that, esp, with strongholds.
In movies, training is dull and usually relegated to a 2-minute montage so we can get back to the whole "advancing the plot" business. But in games, training is fun! No need to abstract it away!
The problem is that the training montage can be an element of a story, but it isn't the story itself. A good story has a beginning, middle, and end. Training Montage can only fill one of those roles, (the middle).
If you view the entire Trilogy as one story, that works. If you view the Trilogy as standalone stories, it doesn't. A really well-written trilogy can have three works that both stand on their own *and* collect into one overarching story. Baldur's Gate... doesn't. BG1 stands on its own and advances the larger plot. ToB advances the larger plot, but doesn't stand on its own.
BG2 stands on its own if you view it as the story of Irenicus, but doesn't advance the larger plot. And it doesn't really stand on its own as the story of Charname, since it has neither satisfactory beginning nor ending.
Overall, I think the praise the series gets for its storytelling is overblown. Its biggest strength in writing is the personality and the detail, not the big-picture story. It also deserves the hype for the idea of a story that was so epic it carried across multiple games, but like any new idea, its successors have come along, pointed out its flaws, and shown how to do that much better.
(Seriously, there aren't any flags that carry over from BG1 to BG2. BG2 is forced to infer what you did based on what you had on you when you imported and what dialogue choices you self-select. Think how much better the storytelling in the BG Trilogy could have been if it had had the opportunity to learn the lessons of the BG Trilogy!)
SOD throws that out of the window, can't we just ignore it?
You'll notice that Irenicus narrates the pre-Spellhold dreams, while he has no speaking role in the other dreams.
If you spend 20k+ gold to buy a Robe of the Archmagi, though, or blow all your money on recharging wands, Kagain should totally leave to grieve.
BG1 dreams are just music and text, this is more universal.