Black Pits

Border

I've had this (and other EE games) since their release and have never even opened the Black Pits to play. I originally thought (based on the name) that it was an arena-type "minigame" (for lack of better term) in the same vein as Elder Scrolls' arenas. After seeing some comments, it appears my assumptions were off, but I still have no motivation to play it. I'd much rather fire up a game of classic BG. Am I missing out?

By the way, Merry Christmas!

JuliusBorisov

The Black Pits is a separate adventure, where you fight against enemies in the fighting pits.

These fights are rather challenging and interesting. You can go through them if you want to test several builds - you have 6 places in the party, so it's quite to convenient to see how this or that character/class/kit behaves on different levels.

I've liked the Black Pits, even while I'm enjoying playing though normal game.

spacejaws

It has it's own narrative and characters aswell. It's more of a spin off adventure focusing on the area but it's not a brain dead affair. As someone who loves Baldurs Gate and IE game in generally it's pretty refreshing to have more of the good stuff, even if it isn't an epic 50 hour campaign.

Gallowglass

Border said:

Am I missing out?

There's only one way to be sure: fire up BP and find out!

My own view is that it's worth playing once, and I did, and I quite enjoyed it on a one-off basis. However, I've never felt motivated to re-play it, because it doesn't remotely have the depth of story that keeps me interested in BG.

From the attitude you imply, I suspect that (like myself) you might find that it's not really your sort of game. Nevertheless, I recommend that it's at least worth completing it once. Partly this is because it does provide a background story for Baeloth, whom you can meet again in BG (and will also be in SoD), so it adds a little (albeit not a lot!) to your understanding of the main game.

Also, as others have already commented above, it can be used as a quick-test scenario for a character concept which you might be considering for the main game ... I haven't yet used it that way myself, but it's possible that I might in future, and obviously knowing how BP works is helpful for that purpose.

Korbu

I basically used the BP to level up numerous char builds that i was working on, but didn't want to take the time to run each one through the entirety of BG1. I did BP in Multiplayer mode (by myself), so once i capped one char's level, i could export him, and import another char to level and test. I must've done that Fire Giant fight like 150-200 times. Was pretty much the only fight that could even threaten my Lvl 10 Dwarven Defender.

Border

I'll give it a try once all of the family leaves. The wife won't let me ignore them to play BG.

She just doesn't get it....

Border

So the family left today and the first thing I did was fire up the Black Pits. I only played the first 6-8 battles but it was exactly what I thought it might be ght be..... Big dissapoinment.

Good news is that I quickly rolled a 95 Berskerer that I now plan to export to BG and dual to mage. It will be nice starting at level 3 or 4.