Iron Man Run

Jorkan

I'm was on my 6th iron man run (where I can save games and do not reload) and wiped out my whole party in the Candlekeep dungeons because of a lightning trap. I had my rogue at 100% disarm traps but still couldn't disarm some of those damn traps and had to carefully manuever my party around so as not to set anything off. Stupid Xan hit a trap and a lightning bolt wiped out my whole party after it bounced off the wall a dozen or so times. Stupid unfair traps.

Frostiken

Well he did warn you that your quest was doomed.

CaptRory

Doesn't armor lower your thief skills? Usually I guess it wouldn't matter but if you're just at the edge of being able to do something it would.

Side Question: Would the Boots of Speed give a thief a chance to outrun trap effects like that? Then you could just run away and have your thief far enough in front of the party that they' be out of range too 'cause you know your thief is fast enough to run back for help.

LMTR14

you mean you completed at least one "true ironman" (no reloading except reloading the save game you made when you quit the game previously) run? if yes, wow!

Awong124

CaptRory said:

Doesn't armor lower your thief skills? Usually I guess it wouldn't matter but if you're just at the edge of being able to do something it would.

Not in 2E (what BG is based on). In 2E you can either wear a kind of armor and use your thieving skills, or you can't. Armor check penalties were introduced in 3E to add some versatility.

CaptRory

I thought I read on the boards here they did. Could've been a weird dream though.

Awong124

I've never read anything to that effect. Besides, pure class thieves can only wear leather and studded leather, which shouldn't have armor check penalties anyway. Armor check penalties are only designed for eg. Fighter/Thieves who want to use thieving skills while wearing something like chain or plate mail.

ajwz

It's not written anywhere in game (I might be mistaken), but it does tell you in the manual about it. Armour does have a negative impact on some of your thieving.

Awong124

I tried googling it, there seems to be a lot of uncertainty surrounding this, and I wasn't able to find anything definitive. There does seem to be something in the manual about this like you said, but there are people that say the manual is inaccurate. Some people say regular leather has no penalties, while studded leather does. And some people say neither normal or studded leather have penalties.

I just looked up armor check penalties for 3E, and studded does have a -1 penalty. So perhaps you get a very small penalty for wearing studded leather in BG as well.

Jorkan

LMTR14 said:

you mean you completed at least one "true ironman" (no reloading except reloading the save game you made when you quit the game previously) run? if yes, wow!

I was on my 6th try. I still haven't completed a run yet.

Brude

Awong124 said:

I tried googling it, there seems to be a lot of uncertainty surrounding this, and I wasn't able to find anything definitive. There does seem to be something in the manual about this like you said, but there are people that say the manual is inaccurate. Some people say regular leather has no penalties, while studded leather does. And some people say neither normal or studded leather have penalties.

I just looked up armor check penalties for 3E, and studded does have a -1 penalty. So perhaps you get a very small penalty for wearing studded leather in BG as well.

From what I understand, you do. There's also a penalty to Pickpocketing & other skills, but they're not reflected on the character sheet.

There's a couple of current tweaks mods out there that incorporate a more 3e style, ie you can wear heavier and heavier armor with an increasing penalty to skills.

LadyRhian

In 2e, thieves could also wear elven chain, padded armor, and studded leather. Anything but leather armor or nothing gives significant minuses to thief skills (Elven chain in the -20 to 25% range, padded and studded about -10%). It's in the Player's Handbook. Best armor for thieves starting out is leather- and if you find Bracers of AC5 or AC4, that's even better.

Quartz

Ahahaha, nice! Something like that is gonna happen to me too, I swear ... I'm doing my first iron man run, and so far only Kagain has died twice, raised him twice. No chunked teammates, and no CHARNAME deaths of course as that would end it.

I'm being really cautious, truly. I've avoided picking some fights here and there, and I've actually bothered healing Kagain on occasion, heh...

GemHound

Even though my favorite character is a Fighter/Cleric, my favorite ironman was a thief(soloed). I managed to not only annihilate everything single handedly with the thief, but also managed to kill Sarevok at the end.

The other ironman one that got close to the end was when a arrow of detonation with a quickly cast fireball smacked my leader(Fighter Cleric) two blocks from Sarevok's Keep. That one I wasn't happy with.

I've attempted about 19 other times, only 4 others getting past Candlekeep #2.

Candramelekh

I want to see "iron man" stream

GemHound

Candramelekh said:

I want to see "iron man" stream

@Candramelekh Well, they have a solo blade one for BG2 up there.

The problem with streaming these things is that most end before you get to Chapter 2.

Anton

Candramelekh said:

I want to see "iron man" stream

Agreed! Could someone translate their expirience live?
Twitch?

Cheesebelly

I could do it in future, and probably will make a thread about it. Don't know if I can make an "Iron Man" but I can try at least something XD

ajwz

I would do, but finding decent recording software which isn't too hungry for space, which I don't have to pay for is a bit of a problem.

Space_hamster

I would think a Blade would make a good ironman

BelgarathMTH

About the topic of the thief with 100 disarm failing to disarm traps - are you sure you weren't trying to move around too fast? Thieves only detect once per round, at the beginning of the round, over a short distance. If you move forward too fast, you will step on traps before they light up red. I always send my thief out alone in heavily trapped dungeons. She moves forward a few feet at a time, stops, waits six seconds, and moves another few feet, wait, etc., etc. It takes a long time and a lot of patience to deal with a heavily trapped dungeon. While she is doing this, the party waits back in a safe area with an ambush formation set up. If the thief encounters any enemies, she simply runs back to the party to spring the ambush.

Another thing you should be aware of is that the thief has to be aligned at the center edge of the red area of trap. With some of the more oddly-shaped ones, it is quite possible to step on the trap trigger while walking toward the center disarming area. I always inch my thief up to the edge of the red area before clicking on disarm. If you click to disarm from too far away, the toon will walk up to the trap too fast, and can very often step on it before disarming.

There's kind of a technique to trap disarming in BG that is unique to the game. You've got to pretend like you're on a bomb squad. Walk on eggshells, hold your breath, and move very, very slowly.

Suiboon

Candramelekh said:

I want to see "iron man" stream

I want to see Robert Downey Jr play BG:EE iron man style on a stream.

Hoebagger

Armor check penalty shouldn't apply to Disable device, Search, nor open lock in accordance with D&D 3.5, I don't recall it applying in 3rd edition either.

Space_hamster

BG uses 2dn edition rules

aldain

LMTR14 said:

you mean you completed at least one "true ironman" (no reloading except reloading the save game you made when you quit the game previously) run? if yes, wow!

It's a shame Bioware killed off their old forums when they recreated their social site. I believe we had 14 or so full threads of No Reload posts. There were several people who made it all the way from Candlekeep to finishing ToB without reloading once playing on core rules (or higher).

It's really only difficult at the start of BG1 when you're L1 and very weak, once you get some levels you can protect yourself with spells against pretty much every detrimental effect in the game.

Cheesebelly said:

I could do it in future, and probably will make a thread about it. Don't know if I can make an "Iron Man" but I can try at least something XD

I'd watch it. I'd like to see a full party run though, solo runs get incredibly boring to watch (use the same 2 broken tactics over and over to kill everything).

And of course it's not true Iron Man unless you use random hitpoints on levelup, chance of failure to scribe scrolls etc. For extra credit, generate your PC's stats using one of the approved 2nd Ed methods instead of rerolling until you get 18 in everything Come to think of it that really does sound like fun... I may do a stream myself if I can get enough time off work.

GemHound

Want to know what is fun? Ironmaning(BG1) a melee Fighter/Cleric. The only problem is in BG2. This is to be on the hardest difficulty right?

Cheesebelly

@aldain : I'll see what I can come up with. Never live streamed in my video-recording career though, so it's something new to say the least! Will probably do it on Twitch but I have the Youtube option now as well. I'll check out which one of the two works best. I hear Camtasia works fantastically in conjunction to Twitch, and since it's one of the three recording softwares I own... :P

Wanderon

Re: 100 in traps - as I recall thats not actually a true percentage more like a "score" - in other words there may be traps that require higher investment - 120 or higher for some comes to mind altho I'm not sure why (haven't played BG since 2006 or so)... on the other hand there may also be traps that are not possible to disarm except by setting them off (especially in an unmodded game)

mlnevese

It is a percentage. Trap difficulty and armor may give a bonus or penalty for the roll. For instance if you have 100% pick locks but the lock gives you a 30% penalty then you have just 70% chance of opening it and would need 130% to be sure to open it your first try.

BelgarathMTH

You guys do know that the no-reload threads are still going strong over on the Bioware boards, right?

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/181/index/3124065/264

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/182/index/3120942/213

Jaxsbudgie

I believe penalties to thieving skills with armour is a component of the Item Revisions mod. However, if memory serves, the penalties applied only to hiding in shadows and moving silently, which is a no-brainer really.

I'd be interested in seeing someone provide concrete evidence that different armour types (available to thieves) give penalties to the other thief skills such as pickpocketing, lockpicking and trap disarming.

Also, as for that lightning trap in Candlekeep, aren't some traps in the game meant to be un-disamable (hahah, terrible grammar).