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I'm a loser... and you can too! --BG bad habits thread

FinnTheHumanFinnTheHuman Member Posts: 404
in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
Hi all,
I love BG series, but sometimes I can't help but think that playing it is just reinforcing some bad personality traits. I'm flawed, no big deal. But just for fun, i thought we could share our bad habits that BG brings out. I'll go first. Hope I'm not the only poster.

Charname always seems to be the biggest baddest character in the party. All +20 stats, cheese tactics galore. I don't really want a challenge. Just looking for some fantasy to stroke my fragile ego. How bad is it? Well, while in a romance with Viconia, Aven the Human would never let her cast energy blades, because there is a bug (on the ipad at least) which would keep her APR at 10 after they were used up. So after she was done mowing down enemies with the blades she'd keep mowing them down with slings and maces. Usually I'm fine with cheese. But when a NPC is it's wielder? No, not cool.

Comments

  • drakirdrakir Member Posts: 61
    Interesting topic.

    I can relate to the notion that you want charname to be the most powerful character.

    I usually try to play characters that relies on their abilities more than items, and care more about their ethical values than getting cool magical items.

    It usually comes creeping in gradually, but somehow, it always ends up with item micromanagement and loot hoarding OCD to the point where it doesn't make sense anymore, sprinkled with vague RPG excuses that allows me to make the choices that gives me a crapload of expensive and rare magical items. I'm about halfway through ToB right now, and I have close to 200 000 gold, most of the best weapons in the game(including the ones I have no use of, but gotta catch 'em all).

    To let go of all meta/powergaming crap, and play Baldur's Gate in a zen-ish non-materialistic RP-ish fashion, that's the dream.
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 6,002
    in retrospect whose charname isn't going to be the best? the fact that charname gets special abilities in bg1 ( plus possibly all the tomes go to charname as well), slayer form in bg2, and hell trials in bg2 charname will always be on top, I think for that reason charname will always get the most love, so if charname is going to get all that cool stuff, you might as well go with the flow and keep cranking charname's awesomeness

    although when I play, when it comes to item management I always even everything out on my characters,
    all the melee guys have the same AC ( if not, then their AC is off by one point between them)
    some items will always go to certain character classes regardless of charname or party make up ( amulet of power/ robe of vecna/ cloak of mirroring always go to the "main mage" of the group)

    one party habit I have is I always use the same team make up no matter what my team is made of and it goes as thus:

    3 melee guys of some sort, fourth guy will be the "cleric" using sling, 5th guy will be the "rouge" using bows, and 6th guy will be the "main mage" using throwing daggers

    I had 1000s of play throughs and ever since the beginning 99.999% of the time, this is how my teams are made up

    next, im a silly hardcore power gamer, 75-80% of the time I make my own 6 PCs, I like the customization I have to make my own team, and plus every once in a solar eclipse if I want to commit mass BG genocide I will have a team better adapted at surviving the constant harassment of law enforcement ( had a BG2 run wear I killed absolutely everyone in chapter 7, - to make up for the fact that I had no mage and I wanted an XP boost- and unfortunately I didn't find any cool items, although I made around 500 000 GP from all the full plate mails and treasure from the law enforcement ninnies)

    even when I play a single player game, I will do my best to power game my team up as much as possible, although I think everyone does that anyway, but even with that being said I do my best to share all the goodies along the way so no one gets hit too hard and suffers greatly for it ( although charname ALWAYS gets the ring of gaxx, but back in the vanilla bg2 days when you could get 2 of them I would always give the 2nd one to another melee guy whose saves were suffering a bit )

    another bad habit is the "even though im a good guy, if I can have your XP without losing REP, your XP is mine" if I play teams with good alignment I will take down anybody who doesn't drop my REP, must power game......

    I always kill drizzt, and its quite simple for why I do so
    1- its a huge XP boost when you are level 1
    2- those items are so damn good, especially when you are level 1

    after when I learned how to kill drizzt years ago, I have killed him in almost every game I have ever played for the above two reasons, but once in a huge while I will actually let him go, if im not mistaken, out of the 1000 or so runs that I have played where I have slayed drizzt, I only let him live twice from what I can remember, once back around 8 years ago or so, and once again I believe around a couple years ago ( because now a days having characters that are going to export over into SoA having proficiencies in scimitar are going to miss out on some of the easier access, earlier, better weapons in SoA, so the urge isn't as high as it used to be)

    in bg1, I 99.9999% give all the tomes to my charname, and in reality why wont you? SoA and ToB are much bigger than bg1 so in terms of usefulness you might as well give them all to charname anyway, especially when the select PCs who do go over to SoA wont have the stat upgrades anyhow, but then there is that 0.0001 % and who is that you ask? its when I play sorcerers, in reality the only real stat a sorcerer needs is WIS, INT and CHA don't effect spell casting what so ever, STR is only useful if you are using throwing daggers or slings and even then STR still isn't useful unless you have 19 or higher, and its quite possible to live without CON or DEX as well ( if enemies cant damage you, then what is the point of HP or AC?) so if I play a sorcerer I give some love to the other (N)PCs for the lols and give out the tomes to them

    when it comes to 2 handed weaponry, I ALWAYS choose two handed sword, because A- they look cool, B- they are slashing weapons and C- they seem to get more love than other two handed weapons when it comes to neat attached abilities, now every once in awhile at the tail end of ToB I will use the ravanger+6 but for the first 95% of the series im using the two handed sword the whole way, I tried using the halberd a couple of times, but it just doesn't have the same feel as the two handed sword does for me for some reason

    I don't know if this is a bad habit or not, but every time a party member starts a romance with me, I shut them down hard and fast right away, I remember back in the day when I was 13/14 and stumbled upon a romance ( I think it was with aerie) I thought that was a neat little game gimmick back in the day, but now adays, I couldn't be bothered with PC simulated 1s and 0s trying to give me a love interest, if people like that stuff, then by all means have fun with it, but now adays PC romances make me feel bloated and I couldn't be bothered, as a great warrior once said; less talk, more fight

    in ToB especially, I always try my best to see how much gold I can achieve in the game without using outrageous exploits or cheating, and usually I will hit somewhere around 1.2+ million GP, I remember once back in the vanilla days I hit 2.1 million in ToB, but for the life of me, I don't remember how I did it, right now as it sits in bg1ee I hit 610 383, and in ToBee I believe my best so far is just a hair over 1.5 million, although that genocide team might be able to topple the 2 million mark, and the question is; why do I do this? maybe its to OCD, maybe its for the lols, or maybe its just a reason to play the series again and again just to see what number I can hit

    if I can remember more then I might add to the list....
  • FinnTheHumanFinnTheHuman Member Posts: 404
    I maybe have only done a dozen or so playthroughs, but I always seem to take the same paths in the game. Same few kits, same NPCs. I've never done the Palidin, Ranger, or Bard strongholds in BGII. What's that, metathesiophobia: fear of change?

    Heaven is a place.
    A place where nothing
    Nothing ever happens
    --Talking heads
  • jinxed75jinxed75 Member Posts: 157
    sarevok57 said:


    in bg1, I 99.9999% give all the tomes to my charname, and in reality why wont you?

    Your Sorcerer logic applies for any other class, too. What's the point in boosting the WIS of my fighter char from irrelevant 10 to irrelevant 11, when my party Cleric would gain additional spells from it?
    I always give the tomes to the party member who draws the biggest benefit from it. That can be my charname or not.


  • FinnTheHumanFinnTheHuman Member Posts: 404
    edited February 2016
    There are no judgements in group. This is a safe place. :wink:
  • OlvynChuruOlvynChuru Member Posts: 3,080
    I often cheese Firkraag using the glitch where you have one character try to talk to him, run away, and repeat the process while the other party members attack him and he doesn't fight back. I just want to get Keldorn his supersword!

    However, I never do this to Nizidramanii'yt or any of the dragons that come after him. I feel like by that point in the game, if I don't think I can beat a dragon fairly, I should not trust my thoughts.
  • EmpyrialEmpyrial Member Posts: 107
    My charname gets every stat bonus and the best gear that gives him even a marginal improvement. Sure, I might have Aerie or Edwin in my group but you can darn well bet that my FMT is wearing the robe of vecna and the amulet of power. And he clearly took the wisdom upgrades - after all, he's going to need that when he's a god, right?
  • wraith5641wraith5641 Member Posts: 500
    Resting too much, especially when I'm in a place where I know there are lots of tough fights. If I can't haste before every tough battle, I don't even risk it.

    Quick Save

    Rest

    "You were awakened by monsters."

    Quick Load

    Rest

    "You were awakened by monsters"

    Repeat 10 times until healed

    Carry on

    It's bad, I know. But I play solo, so having access to a lot of my abilities and spells is usually very important.

    I don't know if that's a reflection on me personally, but I know it's a reflection of the way I play all video games. I hate being weakened or handicapped, unless I purposely handicapped myself to make the game harder.
  • RaduzielRaduziel Member Posts: 4,714
    edited February 2016
    ClearArea(). Everywhere.

    I share loot very fairly. I even give it for chars who are out of the party (using EEKeeper mostly) "just in case" I need them eventually.

    I never sell potions and scrolls and named magical items. Except for the Infravision ones.

    I always recruit every NPC even if I don't play with them.
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 6,002
    jinxed75 said:

    sarevok57 said:


    in bg1, I 99.9999% give all the tomes to my charname, and in reality why wont you?

    Your Sorcerer logic applies for any other class, too. What's the point in boosting the WIS of my fighter char from irrelevant 10 to irrelevant 11, when my party Cleric would gain additional spells from it?
    I always give the tomes to the party member who draws the biggest benefit from it. That can be my charname or not.


    because my warriors have 5 WIS at the start of the game, then they get bumped up to 8 WIS so in SoA I take a 1 point WIS hit, and have 7 left over, that gives me a -10 penalty to lore ( instead of a -20 pentaly to lore with 6 WIS) and since my warrior will no doubt have 16 INT he will start to get a lore bonus at level 6, is it even remotely meaningful to have such a measly lore bonus? hell nah, but do I love doing it, hell yeah, I guess that is just another bad habit I have, where even my inept warriors must have a lore bonus, so then my dim witted sheep can identify bullets +1 :)

  • ajwzajwz Member Posts: 4,122
    FinnTheHuman said:

    Hi all,
    I love BG series, but sometimes I can't help but think that playing it is just reinforcing some bad personality traits. I'm flawed, no big deal. But just for fun, i thought we could share our bad habits that BG brings out. I'll go first. Hope I'm not the only poster.

    Charname always seems to be the biggest baddest character in the party. All +20 stats, cheese tactics galore. I don't really want a challenge. Just looking for some fantasy to stroke my fragile ego. How bad is it? Well, while in a romance with Viconia, Aven the Human would never let her cast energy blades, because there is a bug (on the ipad at least) which would keep her APR at 10 after they were used up. So after she was done mowing down enemies with the blades she'd keep mowing them down with slings and maces. Usually I'm fine with cheese. But when a NPC is it's wielder? No, not cool.

    protip- stop clicking reroll
  • GrumGrum Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,100
    I very rarely, if ever, use contingency. I know how powerful it is...I just tend not to use it.
  • mashedtatersmashedtaters Member Posts: 2,266
    If my Charname was me, I would be a murdering, self-righteous, nosy, manipulative hoarder.
  • TStaelTStael Member Posts: 861
    It genuinely thought finding workable tactics with the two beholder lairs in BG2 was quite hard, when I first got sucked into BG-series.

    Also, snuffing dragons can be challenging.

    I have to confess that after having found a tactic that work for me for these two type of foes, respectively, I have not really bothered to try to find alternative ones.

    This said, I am a passionate hater of the "modern style" scripted fights, which would have a single workable tactic, more or less.
  • JarrakulJarrakul Member Posts: 2,029
    I want to be in the thick of things. If my charname isn't either dishing out death at an alarming rate, or absorbing hits like a brick wall, it just feels wrong. Makes it weirdly hard for me to play anything without at least a dash of fighter, to the point where 7/10 characters I've run through BG1EE are some flavor of (possibly multiclassed) warrior. And of the other three, one is a frontline dragon disciple and another is a frontline cleric of Lathander. The last is a skald, specifically so that I would let the NPCs do the fighting for once. Pre-EE playthroughs were similar, but if anything, even more tightly fighter/ranger/paladin.
  • PteranPteran Member Posts: 388
    Like @Jarrakul I too have a problem with needing to be in the thick of things. I'd say 95% of playthroughs pre-EE were a F/M multi or a monk. Since getting the EE's I've avoided those classes like the plague, forcing myself to try different styles.

    I also like to give my PC every stat boost available, even if they don't benefit from it. If I'm going to be the next God of Murder, you better damn well believe I'm going to be as stacked as possible.
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    Another "must be in the front line" player here.
    I cannot get past needing to open chests/doors myself. I tend to start the game solo to get some quick leveling up in BG.
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