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Blind M/T, one of my favourite playthrough for a while

I just finished one of the most fun playthrough I ever made.
Quick Roleplay:
I began the game as a normal Gnome M/T, lived my life and got some experience. And when I decided to deal with this unseeing eye cult, I was seduced by the appealing words of its high priest Gaal. From then, I plucked my eyes, affecting myself with permanent blindness (through EEkeeper). And indeed I saw the truth, or at least the power behind blindness.


As for how to play this, the key is to understand that whether your thief abilities (hide/set trap) work is decided by your sight range. When blinded, unless you are melee with an enemy you will be able to set traps and hide in shadow.
Another key is the use of the otherwise-never-used wizard spells known as far sight and wizard eye. I would set a contingency that would cast Wizard Eye as soon as I am hit, giving me the vision my eyes could not provide. And then the slaughter began. Setting traps almost on melee range, going invisible like a Shadowdancer, that's the true power of the Unseeing Eye.
It went well for me through the entire game, really it did. The most fun trick was using time trap into improved alacrity into tons of damage trap, killing any enemy in a matter of seconds.
It has been frustrating quite a few times, because lacking vision is sometimes annoying and I ended up picking my own guide dog, or in this case, guide bear, grabbing Wilson along.

Really, the power behind roleplay was so very awesome I do not think I'll match that so soon. Plus, Amelyssankilled by a bear and a blind thief is quite a show.

You guys should give it a try, really I hardly ever had that much fun in a BG2 playthrough
JuliusBorisovGoturalgorgonzola[Deleted User]PantalionSon_of_ImoendunbarBlackravenAlexDeLargelunarAerakarAstafasYelocessejgrisbosskCrevsDaak

Comments

  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    I did know the cheese of blinding (but not with permanent blindness) the party's thief, but the idea of a Blind M/T is great.
    JuliusBorisov
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,211
    What do blind mages become when they grow up?

    Craters. Smoking, glassy holes in the ground.
    JuliusBorisovCrevsDaak
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    In a solo blind run an interesting but risky option is to have a cat familiar and use it in combination with far sight and wizard eye. The first spell let you see a smal area, the eye can move but is easily killed, the cat can hide and move but if he dies you have a huge penalty.
    semiticgoddessBlackravenAerakarCrevsDaak
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,211
    Here's a thought:

    The brave blind wizard and his trusted seeing-eye BEAR.

    Oh, yeah! Finally a use for Wilson!
    AerakarCrevsDaak
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Blindness also works great with Bounty Hunters, as it lets them set Maze traps in plain sight. I regularly blinded a Bounty Hunter in my last run of the game in ToB, and it made for excellent crowd control. No other party member did so much to reduce enemy pressure on the party.

    You can also save or even rest in the middle of a fight if you're blind, provided the battle music isn't active (you'd have to wait a moment after hiding).
    JuliusBorisovBlackravenCrevsDaak
  • OtherguyOtherguy Member Posts: 157
    This is a fantastic game. As a single player game everyone should play it the way they want to. This however is cheese in its purest form. How do you explain being able to access abilities that cannot be used when enemies are around just because YOU cannot see THEM? There's a reason shadowdancers have penalties, they are still unreasonably strong. Playing blind thieves, especially thief/mage is just breaking the game.

    SotM is an item that is debatable, I would never use it to gain insta invis every round. That basically takes almost all of the challenge out of the game. Maybe not cheese, but odd decision making from the devs.

    Of course this is just my opinion, but I don't enjoy blatantly abusing game mechanics. And the blind thief abuse is maybe the worst I know of.
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    @Otherguy,
    How do you explain being able to access abilities that cannot be used when enemies are around just because YOU cannot see THEM?
    Maybe because is a lot easier and faster to check if you see them then check if every enemy in the area sees you. This is an old engine, EE developers only made some changes but basically is almost 20 year old, made for PCs of 20 years ago......

    SotM is an item that is debatable, I agree, and not the only one. At least is the loot of a "secret" quest and hard battle. I wander how many of us have discovered it without internet knowledge. Think about the anti beholder shield easily available from the first shopkeeper 90% of new players meet.
    And abusing invisibility is part of the game, just yesterday I told in another topic how I do it routinely with my thieves, from the first dungeon and with no cheat or cheese, using the thief as is implemented but at his full power. The problem is that SotM make it so easy and obvious.

    The good and the bad of this game is that each one can blatantly abuse game mechanics or not as he wishes. Or find creative and challenging ways to use them in a less then obvious way.
    The same with items, the OP ones and some others underrated but tat in some situations can work wanders.

    To take almost all of the challenge out of the game is easy with bg2, as is easy to make it one of the most challenging CRPG. Player's choices, player's freedom.

    Playing blind thieves, especially thief/mage is just breaking the game. Playng them just one time can be also a lot of fun, I don't see any wrong in doing it.
    Noobaccasemiticgoddess
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    I did *actually* know this :smile:

    Do you actually know that the true game engine name is "Karma", the only real NPC name is "Maya", the true game manual is "Veda"? :wink:
  • OtherguyOtherguy Member Posts: 157
    I do love this game. I have precious little time to actually play it however (kids, wife, house, work, rl basically). I try to play it the way I feel is "realistic". Because of this I really like SCS, the AI now behaves a lot less stupid. No more cloudkill from just out of sight or leaving friends to die or other silliness. Try not to close doors though, because again, limitation of game mechanics...

    And if the game engine is old and easily abusable. Just do not abuse it. I do not think anyone considers force talk/attack legit for example. This is not different. Not even Daredevil can HiPS!
    gorgonzola
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    Try not to close doors though, because again, limitation of game mechanics...
    or modder's choice, with Tactics mod they remain "magically open", your only choice is to open them or not.
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    I was going to post a lengthy defense of exploits, but I decided it would be easier simply to say that exploits don't hurt anyone. In a single-player game like BG2, the only person they impact is the player, who will only use an exploit if they like the exploit.

    @Otherguy: Your post comes off as judgmental. You say "to each his own," but the words you use to describe exploits are very distinctly negative:
    Otherguy said:

    Of course this is just my opinion, but I don't enjoy blatantly abusing game mechanics. And the blind thief abuse is maybe the worst I know of.(italics mine)

    You also ask for people to justify their exploits:
    Otherguy said:

    This however is cheese in its purest form. How do you explain being able to access abilities that cannot be used when enemies are around just because YOU cannot see THEM?

    Nobody asks for a justification for something unless they think it's wrong.

    I like using exploits. They're crazy and silly and fun.
    gorgonzola
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    @Otherguy : A commonly agreed idea amongst us members of this forum is that one should play this game (or any game, at least single player ones) the way one wants.
    In my case, well, I enjoy playing it as a challenge, and sometimes I do a solo/No reload playthrough. I also enjoy finding the limits and specifics of the game, sometimes to hilarious and/or overpowered results. Just look for the various topics I made concerning Slayer Form and how to cheese it. Lastly I also enjoy roleplay playthroughs. I recently made a Druid/Wilson/Neera playthrough focused on Nature and all that, it was pleasant as well.
    This particular playthrough with my blind M/T was mostly of the second type, and a touch of the last, and I do not consider it as an achievement of any kind.

    That's what's great about BG2. An almost unlimited replayability under very different aspects. I would never spam invisibility with SotM, use blind thief trick or infinite slayer form trick on a challenge run, because it would indeed remove the challenge. But if a challenge is not what I am looking for, why bother with self-inflicted rules?
    gorgonzolasemiticgoddessJuliusBorisov
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    @Arunsun: I'd consider it a stellar achievement. Using an exploit might be easy, but inventing an exploit is impressive.

    Exploits don't always remove the challenge. There are lots of other ways to add to the difficulty to compensate, whether by using an unorthodox party, playing no-reload, limiting resting, using difficulty mods, playing Nightmare mode, or some other weird modification. I used the blind thief trick extensively with a Kensai/Thief, but it didn't remove the challenge from the game, since it was a no-reload Nightmare mode, and there's no one single exploit that can solve every problem. Though some of them can get close.
    gorgonzolaArunsunJuliusBorisov
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864

    Using an exploit might be easy, but inventing an exploit is impressive.

    I utterly agee!!!
    And every time an exploit is nerfed my heart bleeds, not for that exploit, but for the ones that have to be discovered and are nerfed before they can see the light.

    semiticgoddess
  • BillyYankBillyYank Member Posts: 2,768

    You never actually left Kalah's tent. :worried:

    I assume you guys all knew that, right? You've reached the game's secret ending? The winged elf is a lie! (Black Pits 2 is just an allegory for the inescapable doom of the main game. You see that, right?)

    It's worse than that:

    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/672086#Comment_672086
  • OtherguyOtherguy Member Posts: 157
    I agree that in a single player game everyone should play the game exactly how they want. I tried to make that clear from my posts.

    Inventing an exploit is creative. I cant really argue with that.

    It reminds me a little too much of the pull one enemy at the time or AoE out of field of vision or countless other "tactics" commonly used by pretty much everyone that I knew played the game back when it was released.

    I love playing games at the hardest difficulty and going at it no-reload. Not by choice really but if I reload, sometimes even if it's due to a bug, I tend to restart. After SCS I don't feel ready for insane or nightmare (that I don't really know how to start) using in game NPCs. Core is enough and feels very "right". Made it til chapter 4 after doing all the chapter 2 quests with a FMT using Aerie, Jaheira and late addition Keldorn and Imoen (I've NEVER been able to ditch her). This is with sort of limited resting and without using what I consider exploits. Died a few times getting there, maybe not always the charname but a gibbed "needed" party member (jan ofc) can also make me restart. Beholders have killed me 2/3 times and a lich I didnt know could spawn gibbed jan (with a flame arrow or something silly) in umar hills the other time.

    I usually try to avoid separating enemies unless by accident, guarded compound is a special case because if you walk downstairs when the mage casts time stop only a few of them follows. But why wouldnt you run from a time stop? Especially when I normally do that encounter at level 12-14. I dont trap the area downstairs either, you can justify it I guess, but I can't justify it to myself. So I dont do it.

    Lengthy post and I am sorry for that. But my point is that if I cant convince myself that a tactic is "legit", I just dont use it. To each his own of course. I just feel that BG2 is a better game when taking this approach.

    To the real veterans who have played the game no-reload with SCS, tactics, ascension using a solo naked bard I understand you just want to play in new ways to keep the game fresh or something, but that will never apply to me.
    semiticgoddess
  • luskanluskan Member Posts: 269

    Enemies aren't there if you can't see them. You blink, and they disappear.

    Reminds me of Doctor Who...
    image
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    @Otherguy , I think that every well seasoned player knows how to beat the game in many ways, knows a lot of cheap and cheesy tactics but doesn't have to depend on them.
    And he sets his own rules, not game rules but rules for the player, to keep the difficulty and the fun at a certain level. You have your rules, good ones imo.
    Some well seasoned players sometimes like also to massively use cheese, to experiment with it and possibly discover a new one. Some, not all.
    Newbies are in a different position, often they have to depend on cheese and cheap, sometimes they even have to use ctrl-Y to kill a monster after being defeated a lot of times, if they want to progress. When they will become more experienced they will stop such things, as soon as they realize that using such things spoil the fun.

    And every player has his opinions on what is fair, separating enemies is a guerrilla tactic used also in real life, to do it against weak enemies with a strong party is lame, to do it against strong ones in a no reload solo is just don't be idiot, to use the brain. Is what a commando would try to do in real life.
    Trapping the lower level of the guarded compound, as you know that your enemies wait upstairs, you guess that they will be strong ones, and also they did, is only to prepare a safe retreat if things get bad.
    Trapping a spawn point that you know only using metagame or a blue circle dragon is cheap.
    And you are not the only seasoned player that refuse to use hard settings as a mean to rise challenge, @Alesia_BH, that is a well known soloer in the BG2 community, come to my mind.
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    While we may discuss about what is legit and what isn't in terms of chilling for hours and it would be thrilling, I believe we are drifting from the original topic. Would you guys mind focusing back on the topic, and, if needed, make another topic about cheesing and how to rise challenge etc...?
    gorgonzola
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    I will do it. Even if what we are discussing is related to a negative judgment of an user about the matter of the original topic, so somehow is topic related. But I admit that the thing has gone too far.....
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