The main reason people say they don't like ToB is because they play Watcher's Keep during Shadows of Amn. If WK was only accessible in ToB, then ToB would be much more popular.
A balanced party is always going to be stronger than a solo character. Six times the XP means less than six times the power and versatility. HLAs are unbalancing, but not so much that they make solo runs easier than party runs.
The easiest difficulty setting in IWD is Easy, not Insane. The biggest threat in IWD, unlike the BG saga, is raw damage, not disablers or instant death effects. The bonus XP from Insane does not compensate for your party having half its normal staying power.
In Heart of Fury mode, damage spells like Fireball are still useful in IWD. This is because enemies in IWD come in such huge numbers that area-effect damage spells significantly shorten the fight. Spread out across 10 enemies, a single Fireball does 200-300 damage total. That makes a huge impact regardless of the difficulty setting.
Humans are overused in fantasy and sci fi. It almost seems like we just have to have a damned human main character in every book and game that come out nowadays and I'm sick of it. Although I don't think Markus Heitz is a great writer I enjoyed his Dwarves series just for the sheer lack of humans in them, actually now that I'm thinking about it the protagonist dwarf did grow up amongst humans and wasn't very dwarflike in beginning and oh bugger it, this is exactly what I'm complaining about. So far the next Mass Effect is going to have us stuck as a damned human again, the Inquisitor in DAI was going to be locked to human, until there was a huge fan outcry.
It is said that most people will play human if given a choice, this is something I have never understood. Every other option always seems more interesting to me, I think the only time I ever played a human over other races by choice was my first run of BG2 and that was because I wanted to play a paladin and paladin orders are racist or is it specist in this case?
Sci Fi and science fantasy are even worse, just look at Star Wars half the damned universe is inhabited by humans.
Bah humans are boring. I want some games where I can play a demon or a dragon or a lovecraftian horror, not a possessed human or half dragon and definitely not a human running away from a lovecraftian horror. Hell a game about a talking raccoon and a sentient tree would even be fine at this point.
- Jan Jansen is the most BG1-like character in the sense that everything he says is in wall-of-text format. But he's also the second most annoying NPC in the game.
- May actually be a popular opinion but Aerie takes the annoying cake. "Hey guys, remember my wings? I used to have wings. I wish I still had wings. I miss my wings."
- Baldur's Gate 1 was very boring compared to its sequel. Minimal character interaction until they're ready to kill each other, and the story was more or less a typical fantasy story.
- Fighter/Mage (or any variation) might be the most powerful setup in the game but it's also among the least interesting. And they always end up the same way, dualling katanas
- The most interesting to play classes are the ones with quirks to them, such as the Monk kits, Barbarian, Wild Mage, or Cleric/Thief etc. Some of these limit your gear and weaponry and can force you to play the game a different way than you have in the past.
Minsc should have kept his racial enemy as Gnoll for those epic level gnolls guarding Thay that you come across in Mask of the Betrayer.
@Ygramul , Minsc? Mask of the Betrayer? Huh? Did you mean to say Throne of Bhaal?
I assume he meant that you encounter them in NVN2, but since they are in Thay, it would have made it very plausable for Minsc to have them as favored enemy in BG, which would suit the quest for freeing Dynaheir perfectly.
I like Aerie. Both her personality and her abilities.
@nonnahswriter reminded me why Aerie is the best BG2 romance back in @LadyRhian 's RP thread. SHE'S SO FREAKING CUTE AND ADORABLE HNNNNGGGG
In my BG1, SoD, BG2 run I'm going to romance Neera because I've fallen in love with her after RPing as her and there is no Alora romance (MY TRUEST OF LOVES!) but my run after that is going to go back to Aerie.
I like Aerie. Both her personality and her abilities.
@nonnahswriter reminded me why Aerie is the best BG2 romance back in @LadyRhian 's RP thread. SHE'S SO FREAKING CUTE AND ADORABLE HNNNNGGGG
In my BG1, SoD, BG2 run I'm going to romance Neera because I've fallen in love with her after RPing as her and there is no Alora romance (MY TRUEST OF LOVES!) but my run after that is going to go back to Aerie.
Well I mean, if you expect a realistic romance sub-plot in a video game that isn't freaking The Witcher series (and even then it only really went through like, EXTENSIVE complications in regards to the difference between physical and emotional relationships from the second game onward), then you're gonna be disappointed for the most part. It's there for flavor text and a touch of immersion so that your companions aren't just cardboard cut-outs.
Real life relationships would be sooooo much easier with a multiple-choice menu... and the ability to reload!
It would have been awesome to go down a romantic route with one person, try it out just to see how it was, then roll back time and pursue another as if the first one hadn't even happened, yet still have the memories from it.
The FW190 was a pretty good fighter that truly dominated for less than a year before being eclipsed by superior allied types from Spitfire Mk IX to P-47D to LA-5.
Dang, right thread, wrong forum...
Depends on version I think.. superiority of P-47, La-5 is discutable against A-8 or better versions. La-5 over 5 km is becaming useless.
Invoker is THE primary adventuring wizard in my eyes. And because of that, I feel that a PC will always be better than Edwin, because they can be an invoker, obliterating fodder instead of summoning it. Dragon Disciple is a close second.
A true undead hunter paladin likely wouldn't use Carsomyr, and likely bring Keldorn along. Purifier is technically the holy avenger that undead hunters are supposed to get, and then you could have Casomyr and eventually a Purifier +5.
I view my personality as a cross between a Paladin/Invoker, with bits of Ranger and Bard for flavor.
I'm still stuck deciding on the class I wanna use for a no-reload playthrough with a party. Just so that I'm forced to use other characters that I normally ignore.
Dwarven Wizard Slayer is an extremely fun class, but mine is still stuck in ToB, using only 1 arcane caster.
It wasn't until I ran my Wizard Slayer through BGEE that I learned just how powerful Xan really was.
The FW190 was a pretty good fighter that truly dominated for less than a year before being eclipsed by superior allied types from Spitfire Mk IX to P-47D to LA-5.
Dang, right thread, wrong forum...
Depends on version I think.. superiority of P-47, La-5 is discutable against A-8 or better versions. La-5 over 5 km is becaming useless.
Any "A" series Fw190 will suffer a performance loss at altitude. And I agree an A-8 is more capable than an LA-5, but by the time it entered service the LA-7 was also arriving...
Point remains, I think the 190 is often over-rated as a type. It only truly dominated when it first appeared, until the Spit Mk IX was deployed. Six months.
Comments
Neera and Charname is this most powerful mages in game.
Sorcerer> Edwin!
You mad?
(Except maybe Anomen... Hmmm...)
A balanced party is always going to be stronger than a solo character. Six times the XP means less than six times the power and versatility. HLAs are unbalancing, but not so much that they make solo runs easier than party runs.
The easiest difficulty setting in IWD is Easy, not Insane. The biggest threat in IWD, unlike the BG saga, is raw damage, not disablers or instant death effects. The bonus XP from Insane does not compensate for your party having half its normal staying power.
In Heart of Fury mode, damage spells like Fireball are still useful in IWD. This is because enemies in IWD come in such huge numbers that area-effect damage spells significantly shorten the fight. Spread out across 10 enemies, a single Fireball does 200-300 damage total. That makes a huge impact regardless of the difficulty setting.
@Buttercheese is perfectly normal, just like me.
So far the next Mass Effect is going to have us stuck as a damned human again, the Inquisitor in DAI was going to be locked to human, until there was a huge fan outcry.
It is said that most people will play human if given a choice, this is something I have never understood. Every other option always seems more interesting to me, I think the only time I ever played a human over other races by choice was my first run of BG2 and that was because I wanted to play a paladin and paladin orders are racist or is it specist in this case?
Sci Fi and science fantasy are even worse, just look at Star Wars half the damned universe is inhabited by humans.
Bah humans are boring. I want some games where I can play a demon or a dragon or a lovecraftian horror, not a possessed human or half dragon and definitely not a human running away from a lovecraftian horror. Hell a game about a talking raccoon and a sentient tree would even be fine at this point.
Add elves onto that and I'd cosign so fast. Add Eurocentric concepts onto that and we'd become good friends fast.
@Nonnahswriter
You get it!
Butterknife proficiency is a viable alternative to Bastard Swords.
- May actually be a popular opinion but Aerie takes the annoying cake. "Hey guys, remember my wings? I used to have wings. I wish I still had wings. I miss my wings."
- Baldur's Gate 1 was very boring compared to its sequel. Minimal character interaction until they're ready to kill each other, and the story was more or less a typical fantasy story.
- Fighter/Mage (or any variation) might be the most powerful setup in the game but it's also among the least interesting. And they always end up the same way, dualling katanas
- The most interesting to play classes are the ones with quirks to them, such as the Monk kits, Barbarian, Wild Mage, or Cleric/Thief etc. Some of these limit your gear and weaponry and can force you to play the game a different way than you have in the past.
- Blackguard is life.
If you talk to him with high enough CHA you get to import your party (including Minsc) to NWN and its sequel.
(Wait was this the "Did you know?" thread?)
An enchanter though is just terrible.
I'm liking ToB. I'm liking the difficulty level each fight there has. I find it to be much more challenging than the fights in SoA.
I like Aerie. Both her personality and her abilities.
Some Mod Romances are okay.
Vanilla Rangers and Fighters are awesome.
Monks are the true samurai of D&D
There aren't enough recruitable monk NPCs in D&D based games
Samurai are still cool in D&D
Carsomyr is overrated
offhand Crom Faeyr is near-broken on non-cleric or barbarian warriors.
I like Barbarians more than Berserkers.
Cleric/Thieves are underrated.
Fighter/Clerics are kind of 'meh'.
Ranger/Clerics are fun because they're broken.
I consider Half-Orcs to be the best playable race after Humans.
I guess that about covers it.
In my BG1, SoD, BG2 run I'm going to romance Neera because I've fallen in love with her after RPing as her and there is no Alora romance (MY TRUEST OF LOVES!) but my run after that is going to go back to Aerie.
A true undead hunter paladin likely wouldn't use Carsomyr, and likely bring Keldorn along. Purifier is technically the holy avenger that undead hunters are supposed to get, and then you could have Casomyr and eventually a Purifier +5.
I view my personality as a cross between a Paladin/Invoker, with bits of Ranger and Bard for flavor.
I'm still stuck deciding on the class I wanna use for a no-reload playthrough with a party. Just so that I'm forced to use other characters that I normally ignore.
Dwarven Wizard Slayer is an extremely fun class, but mine is still stuck in ToB, using only 1 arcane caster.
It wasn't until I ran my Wizard Slayer through BGEE that I learned just how powerful Xan really was.
Point remains, I think the 190 is often over-rated as a type. It only truly dominated when it first appeared, until the Spit Mk IX was deployed. Six months.
Not anymore.
Xan is a far more superior mage than Edwin is. Simply because Xan can use Jedi Mind tricks.
Named dragons blows them out the water.