Ya but summoning a pit fiend with a good party (sorry Zarf if i'm wrong about your parties alignment).
I dunno, i might spend half a day rolling my stats (which I've done), or just shadowkeepering or Ctrl8ing them in like I do nowadays. But I can't bring myself to summon demons with a good party.
I think there is a fine line between great tactics and total cheese.
I mean, hiding in shadows and backstabbing/firing an arrow isn't really cheesy. That's the essence of guerilla warfare....on the hand, exploits for gold (such as the steal-resell trick) or XP (re-reading scrolls) are pretty cheesy.
Most of summoning is pretty cheesy it seems. I try not to do it in BG1. Even with the summoning cap, summons are strong!
At the very beginning of SoA pausing, dropping all your gear imported from BG, then picking it up again after the torture cutscene has stripped you of everything.
Cast Mislead leave it behind go to monsters cast time stop and improved alacrity wear robe of vecna and amulet of power and cast all of your spells while enemies dont even know you are there.
Cast Mislead leave it behind go to monsters cast time stop and improved alacrity wear robe of vecna and amulet of power and cast all of your spells while enemies dont even know you are there.
I guess people have different ideas of cheese than I do.
I'd characterize cheese as xp/gold exploits that were very obviously not intended to work as they do (stealing/reselling continually, erasing/scribing the same spells over and over), oversights in how spells work (such as the Project Image exploits mentioned), or just plain bugs (force-talking to Firkraag so he won't attack you while you kill him).
Using summons to help your party out by soaking up spells/occupying nasty enemy fighters... I can't really see how that's cheese. Nor how being smart about a tough fight by scouting the enemy positions out and having your mages toss some really nasty spells at the (for the moment) oblivious enemies to give yourself an advantage is cheese. Hell, some people apparently consider it cheesy to buff yourself.
To answer the original question: The only semi-cheese I regularly indulge in is the low-level summons killing powerful mages kind. As in, your mages/clerics/druids memorize a bunch of low-level summon spells, then send summons in one at a time against some really nasty lich. I can admit it's a bit cheesy when a mighty, intelligent Lich blows all his L8 and L9 spells (not to mention popping his Chain Contingency and Spell trigger) to deal with a kobold commando and a war dog.
I'll try and cut back on that in BG:EE, but hell, highlevel casters are scary! It's not always feasible to protect yourself against everything they can possibly throw at you, so then you fall back on what you know works.. which is swamping them in 3HD monsters until they're down to L1 spells.
Half of the stuff here isn't even cheese, it's valid tactics. In my opinion, the big problem with BG is that AD&D 2E rules are just goddamn cheesy and imbalanced. Casters are way too strong, and there aren't "proper" defences against everything, so you just have to take some hits on the cheese shield because it doesn't work otherwise. The game is also very heavy on luck, and on the fact that you often don't know what's coming up (if you didn't play a section already) and have nearly no way of finding out how to prepare. In P&P roleplaying it works out because you are not limited by a game engine, but on a computer it doesn't. So, there really is no dishonour in reload-scumming, big summons or meta-gamed super-spellcasting.
I agree to the extent that you state. But when enemies behave too stupidly to be believed because of the game engine's limitations or 'less than optimal' scripting, and you take advantage of that, in my book that's cheese.
The SCS II mod, for example, does not let you set traps/rest/repeat to kill a dragon. In PnP the dragon should see it. Per the 2nd ed. AD&D Monstrous Manual:
Dragon Senses: All dragons have excellent senses of sight, smell, and hearing. Their enhanced senses enable them to detect all invisible objects and creatures (including creatures or items hidden in darkness or fog) within a radius equal to 10 feet times their age category. All dragons possess a natural clairaudience ability with respect to their lairs; the range is 20 feet per age category. The dragon must concentrate on a specific section within its lair or surrounding area to hear what is going on. Some dragons are able to communicate telepathically with any intelligent creature. The percentage chance for a dragon to speak is based on its Intelligence and age category. Refer to individual descriptions for percentages.
So not to get all pedantic about it... and simply having fun playing a computer game by oneself is what we're basically talking about here, so I'm not even criticizing it really... but just calling it as I see it, for me.
One fantastic bit of cheese is using scrolls of protection from magic to utterly neutralise casters. They remove all magic on a target including protections and prevent spellcasting. Kangaxx is a little bit easier with no casting ability or protections.
For double strength cheese use a simulacrum to cast the scroll so you don't waste them. They're pretty rare.
Yes, of course. The AI should be much better, and obvious cheese like trap abuse and fake talking should *not* be possible. Personally, I don't use such things, but even though they're there, the game is still hard. Also, imagine all those high-level casters casting intelligently... maybe Beamdog could call it "Masochismo Mode"
Yes, of course. The AI should be much better, and obvious cheese like trap abuse and fake talking should *not* be possible. Personally, I don't use such things, but even though they're there, the game is still hard. Also, imagine all those high-level casters casting intelligently... maybe Beamdog could call it "Masochismo Mode"
Well, that's actually what the SCS and SCS II mods do. The enemy spellcasters behave a hell of a lot smarter than in the vanilla game. It is harder, but that forces more ingenuity out of you tactically. Once you play with those mods installed it's hard to go back to vanilla again.
One fantastic bit of cheese is using scrolls of protection from magic to utterly neutralise casters. They remove all magic on a target including protections and prevent spellcasting. Kangaxx is a little bit easier with no casting ability or protections.
For double strength cheese use a simulacrum to cast the scroll so you don't waste them. They're pretty rare.
Of course one of the biggest cheese tactics using such a scroll is:
Defeating Irenicus becomes a lot easier with it - you can even cast it on him (major cheese)
I seem to remember that there are about four such scrolls in the game?
I have a really cheesy tactic to beat almost every beholder in the underdark (except for the Elder Orbs, which can cast True Sight): 1) Cast Improved invisibility on a cleric 2)The cleric casts Blade Barrier Everything dies . The enemies come closer when you hit one of them, and they will die without even knowing who killed them
I only played unmodded BG1 & BG2. Ahead of certain battles I position my party so that not the whole enemy group is visible on the map (i.e. some opponents remain hidden by the fog of war). Not all groups are connected, so you can lure them in smaller chunks. But that is more like exploiting the weak AI.
Other than that. Stinking Cloud + Web + Cloudkill + lots of animated corpses.
I rarely play with dedicated tanks. Although meatshields are useful in certain situations. I tend to have as few party members in melee as possible and the rest will use ranged weapons (bow, xbow or slings) or spells. But generally the party members that have aggro and are in need of healing or that can't survive a savage beating will start kiting (if possible) while the rest just ranges.
Sometimes I also use narrow passages with the meatshields blocking the way. In the second line there are the healers to heal the meatshields. The rest is using ranged weapons or spells.
@ajwz i find no issues or cheesyness with at least 3 items on your list. The rest i agree as they pretty much cover what i see as cheese or exploits.(though to be honest i've use a few cheesies myself when it comes to those bloody, was it iron golems? in BG2. The shield of Balduran vs beholders is using an item for what i feel it was meant to do....protection from beholders. I found no issue with your summoning elementals/critters to combat ennemies you're not equipped to kill. Again you're using things in an inapropriate manner...to me at least. If i'm ata stage of a game where i need X type of weapon to kill something...and i don't have it, i look for alternatives like summoning something that has the same effect or result as X. Or running away chicken feathers flying till i DO get X unless i have no choice and at a plot point i can't avoid.
Many years ago there was a poll conducted by a gm who hosted many pnp d&d sessions and was disgusted with his players when they encountered a beholder with nothing but their smallclothes and hands available(the entire scenario he set up was a few pages long which i won't replicate here). He was curious as to what others would say. Suffice to say his party of bravos all died horribly lol. He asked what people would do in that scenario...A) fight to the death, B)find anything to use in your environment and fight to the death C) cheat/cheese your way out or D)run away and fight another day. The amount of people who responded A and C was staggering. Just an interesting and humourous anecdote i wanted to share and bore E1 with.
When I started going through BGII over and over to test a single new NPC each time, I created my own spells (and spent days just learning the animations and how they change the effect of the spell in the process) worthy of a son-of-a-god and an item that basically negated casting time and restored all of my spells. The graphics were inspired by Irenicus from the beginning of the game. Even though this eliminated any challenge, it never got boring. I sometimes loved to cast time stop followed by any number of all of my attack spells, including comet and dragon's breath, and then watch the room explode.
I suppose that this is probably not quite what this thread is supposed to be about, especially since it goes well beyond cheese...
The lich in the Inn at the Gate District in Athkatla... charge in, summon everything you can, run out, sleep, save, repeat until it's out of spells.
That and the "cloudkill and shut door" tactic always felt so wrong, yet I did that so many times
The easier way to do that is cast Polymorph Self and change into the mold with 100% magic resistance. Then walk near the lich and just wait until he runs of out of spells and then bash him to death. His summons aren't too much of a problem since he usually cast something (like meteor swarm) on you that turn the Pit Fiend, etc. hostile.
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The cheesiest item exploit, IMO, is to take a LN protagonist and cast find familiar. The LN familiar can pick your pocket. Do the Unseeing Eye quest. When you get the all-powerful rod have the familiar pick your pocket until it gets the rod (you probably want to drop everything else you are holding). Kill the Unseeing Eye boss without using the rod. Leave the sewers.
Since the rod is with the familiar, it doesn't trigger the automatic death moment. Once out of the sewers, have the familiar give you whatever it has pickpocketed. Now you have the most powerful object in the game with which you can render anything basically one hit from dead. Up the cheese (as mentioned earlier) by having a projected image or simulacrum use the rod instead.
The cheesiest item exploit, IMO, is to take a LN protagonist and cast find familiar. The LN familiar can pick your pocket. Do the Unseeing Eye quest. When you get the all-powerful rod have the familiar pick your pocket until it gets the rod (you probably want to drop everything else you are holding). Kill the Unseeing Eye boss without using the rod. Leave the sewers.
Since the rod is with the familiar, it doesn't trigger the automatic death moment. Once out of the sewers, have the familiar give you whatever it has pickpocketed. Now you have the most powerful object in the game with which you can render anything basically one hit from dead. Up the cheese (as mentioned earlier) by having a projected image or simulacrum use the rod instead.
@AHF the same exploit works to get Drow items out of the underdark intact. It's not light that turns them to dust, it's the underdark exit map which does a check for them. Familiars bypass this check.
As long as you don't take the drow items back to the underdark exit you can keep them forever.
It's not as OTT as the beholder rod, but it's the same system.
Be level 1 Mage -> head straight for ankheg cave -> chug potion of speed and swipe wand of fireball -> head for the vampiric and dire wolf pack near the temple east of Beregost (I think) -> shoot fireballs into the fog of war -> DING DING DING -> Profit ?
Works great with that eastern basilisk-rich area too - but take scrolls of petrification protection.
Comments
@zarffyn
Ya but summoning a pit fiend with a good party (sorry Zarf if i'm wrong about your parties alignment).
I dunno, i might spend half a day rolling my stats (which I've done), or just shadowkeepering or Ctrl8ing them in like I do nowadays. But I can't bring myself to summon demons with a good party.
I mean, hiding in shadows and backstabbing/firing an arrow isn't really cheesy. That's the essence of guerilla warfare....on the hand, exploits for gold (such as the steal-resell trick) or XP (re-reading scrolls) are pretty cheesy.
Most of summoning is pretty cheesy it seems. I try not to do it in BG1. Even with the summoning cap, summons are strong!
I'd characterize cheese as xp/gold exploits that were very obviously not intended to work as they do (stealing/reselling continually, erasing/scribing the same spells over and over), oversights in how spells work (such as the Project Image exploits mentioned), or just plain bugs (force-talking to Firkraag so he won't attack you while you kill him).
Using summons to help your party out by soaking up spells/occupying nasty enemy fighters... I can't really see how that's cheese. Nor how being smart about a tough fight by scouting the enemy positions out and having your mages toss some really nasty spells at the (for the moment) oblivious enemies to give yourself an advantage is cheese. Hell, some people apparently consider it cheesy to buff yourself.
To answer the original question: The only semi-cheese I regularly indulge in is the low-level summons killing powerful mages kind. As in, your mages/clerics/druids memorize a bunch of low-level summon spells, then send summons in one at a time against some really nasty lich. I can admit it's a bit cheesy when a mighty, intelligent Lich blows all his L8 and L9 spells (not to mention popping his Chain Contingency and Spell trigger) to deal with a kobold commando and a war dog.
I'll try and cut back on that in BG:EE, but hell, highlevel casters are scary! It's not always feasible to protect yourself against everything they can possibly throw at you, so then you fall back on what you know works.. which is swamping them in 3HD monsters until they're down to L1 spells.
I agree to the extent that you state. But when enemies behave too stupidly to be believed because of the game engine's limitations or 'less than optimal' scripting, and you take advantage of that, in my book that's cheese.
The SCS II mod, for example, does not let you set traps/rest/repeat to kill a dragon. In PnP the dragon should see it. Per the 2nd ed. AD&D Monstrous Manual: So not to get all pedantic about it... and simply having fun playing a computer game by oneself is what we're basically talking about here, so I'm not even criticizing it really... but just calling it as I see it, for me.
For double strength cheese use a simulacrum to cast the scroll so you don't waste them. They're pretty rare.
I seem to remember that there are about four such scrolls in the game?
That and the "cloudkill and shut door" tactic always felt so wrong, yet I did that so many times
1) Cast Improved invisibility on a cleric
2)The cleric casts Blade Barrier
Everything dies
The enemies come closer when you hit one of them, and they will die without even knowing who killed them
Other than that. Stinking Cloud + Web + Cloudkill + lots of animated corpses.
I rarely play with dedicated tanks. Although meatshields are useful in certain situations. I tend to have as few party members in melee as possible and the rest will use ranged weapons (bow, xbow or slings) or spells. But generally the party members that have aggro and are in need of healing or that can't survive a savage beating will start kiting (if possible) while the rest just ranges.
Sometimes I also use narrow passages with the meatshields blocking the way. In the second line there are the healers to heal the meatshields. The rest is using ranged weapons or spells.
Many years ago there was a poll conducted by a gm who hosted many pnp d&d sessions and was disgusted with his players when they encountered a beholder with nothing but their smallclothes and hands available(the entire scenario he set up was a few pages long which i won't replicate here). He was curious as to what others would say. Suffice to say his party of bravos all died horribly lol. He asked what people would do in that scenario...A) fight to the death, B)find anything to use in your environment and fight to the death C) cheat/cheese your way out or D)run away and fight another day. The amount of people who responded A and C was staggering. Just an interesting and humourous anecdote i wanted to share and bore E1 with.
When I started going through BGII over and over to test a single new NPC each time, I created my own spells (and spent days just learning the animations and how they change the effect of the spell in the process) worthy of a son-of-a-god and an item that basically negated casting time and restored all of my spells. The graphics were inspired by Irenicus from the beginning of the game. Even though this eliminated any challenge, it never got boring. I sometimes loved to cast time stop followed by any number of all of my attack spells, including comet and dragon's breath, and then watch the room explode.
I suppose that this is probably not quite what this thread is supposed to be about, especially since it goes well beyond cheese...
I play AD&D.
8-)
* * *
The cheesiest item exploit, IMO, is to take a LN protagonist and cast find familiar. The LN familiar can pick your pocket. Do the Unseeing Eye quest. When you get the all-powerful rod have the familiar pick your pocket until it gets the rod (you probably want to drop everything else you are holding). Kill the Unseeing Eye boss without using the rod. Leave the sewers.
Since the rod is with the familiar, it doesn't trigger the automatic death moment. Once out of the sewers, have the familiar give you whatever it has pickpocketed. Now you have the most powerful object in the game with which you can render anything basically one hit from dead. Up the cheese (as mentioned earlier) by having a projected image or simulacrum use the rod instead.
As long as you don't take the drow items back to the underdark exit you can keep them forever.
It's not as OTT as the beholder rod, but it's the same system.
And many can't be done with appropriate update/fix...
Btw, enjoy your new Bible: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/SpellsReference/Stuff/Cheese.htm
Works great with that eastern basilisk-rich area too - but take scrolls of petrification protection.