barrier to entry
Personette
Member Posts: 1
So I bought Baldur's Gate after reading about the social justice controversy stuff--I wanted to support the diversity and inclusivity. I figured even a primitive game could be fun if it had a great story.
But I just cannot figure this game out. Steam tells me I've spent six hours at it so far and I'm still confused all the time about everything. I'd make a list of all the things that baffle me but it would be a huge wall of text. For a sampling: everything stat related (what is a THACO?), managing inventory (my backpack says it holds 1600 pounds so why is it full at 60?), I invited someone new into a full party and, as far as I can tell, the guy I dismissed is now gone permanently (What?).
I think it comes down to this: I've never played Dungeons and Dragons. I assume that this game was intelligently designed so I'm guessing it's targeting D&D players who start with a really different knowledge set than I did.
I've played a lot of games where if I just keep at it, the mechanics become really natural and intuitive. But by the six hour point, usually I'd feel at least a *little* more oriented/capable. With Baldur's Gate, I just feel like I'm hitting my head against a wall. I turned the difficulty down to Easy, figured I'd just romp through a bit and catch the flavor, but it didn't help.
So this is sort of an exit interview/feedback/data point. I came in with a ton of goodwill, I love fantasy RPGs (at least the more modern ones; Dragon Age, Witcher...), and I just can't hack it.
I'd try another Beamdog game if they ever came out with something new. It's okay if I'm not the right audience for this one.
But I just cannot figure this game out. Steam tells me I've spent six hours at it so far and I'm still confused all the time about everything. I'd make a list of all the things that baffle me but it would be a huge wall of text. For a sampling: everything stat related (what is a THACO?), managing inventory (my backpack says it holds 1600 pounds so why is it full at 60?), I invited someone new into a full party and, as far as I can tell, the guy I dismissed is now gone permanently (What?).
I think it comes down to this: I've never played Dungeons and Dragons. I assume that this game was intelligently designed so I'm guessing it's targeting D&D players who start with a really different knowledge set than I did.
I've played a lot of games where if I just keep at it, the mechanics become really natural and intuitive. But by the six hour point, usually I'd feel at least a *little* more oriented/capable. With Baldur's Gate, I just feel like I'm hitting my head against a wall. I turned the difficulty down to Easy, figured I'd just romp through a bit and catch the flavor, but it didn't help.
So this is sort of an exit interview/feedback/data point. I came in with a ton of goodwill, I love fantasy RPGs (at least the more modern ones; Dragon Age, Witcher...), and I just can't hack it.
I'd try another Beamdog game if they ever came out with something new. It's okay if I'm not the right audience for this one.
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Comments
You're right, this is a pretty involved game with a ruleset that's not necessarily intuitive. I promise it's worth the hassle! To answer your THAC0 question,
AC (Armor Class): Lower is better. It determines how often attacks hit you.
THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class Zero): Lower is better. It determines how often your attacks hit others.
Specifically, when checking whether an attack hits, a 20-sided die is rolled. A roll of 20 always hits, and 1 never hits. Otherwise, the attack hits if the roll is at least (Attacker's THAC0 - Target's AC). So if someone with THAC0 15 attacks someone with AC 5, the attack will hit as long as the roll is at least 15 - 5 = 10, i.e., there's a 55% chance it will hit. (There can be modifiers to this, but let's keep it somewhat simple for now.)
Your pack is limited both by weight and by number of items. And yes, some party members will leave permanently if dismissed. Which character was it?
I think you're probably on the verge of having a much better feel for the game, so I encourage you to stick with it and to keep asking questions on the forum. Good luck!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1skil_G19ymIplOdfU8y6NWLTLkHUBwZsTihb3oFk5bU/edit?pli=1
The fact that you are having trouble with the inventory tells me you are either younger than me or never played Diablo, which will probably require some adjustment. I've got several friends that hardly delve into RPGs and have enjoyed BG (some even more than I did, I fear), I suggest that you give it another try. If not today, maybe in a week, for many of us it has been an 18 year ride so far. In my case, I started as a 12 year old boy with no grasp of negative numbers
Pft. Give it six weeks at least.
I've spent hundreds of hours on these games and I still get confused about THAC0! But yeah, it's okay if you don't care for the game. It's not for everyone.
Inventory
Each item you carry, regardless of size takes up one slot in your inventory. Your sac can hold 16 different items only. Once you try to pick up a 17th item, the game will say your inventory is full.
Some items, like potions, ammo and gems are stackable. This means you can have two or more healing potions taking up the same inventory slot if you wanted.
Even though you can hold 16 items, your character may not be able to carry all the weight and this is where size comes into play. Obviously full plate armour weighs more than a gold ring and the game notes the weight of each item you carry. If you attempt to carry more weight than your strength allows, you will be slowed down even to the point of being unable to move.
Balancing the weight of all your characters inventory and determining what items are worth more to sell is part of the
hasslefun of the BG series.THAC0
The big one.
Thac0 stands for To Hit Armour Class Zero.
Armour classes (AC), in AD&D range from -10 (the best) to 10 (unarmored). The lower the AC the better.
The game generates a number between 1 and 20 and adds the AC of the person who is being attacked to that number. If that new number is greater than the attackers THAC0. The attack hits.
So assume you have a THAC0 of 20 and are attacking a creature with an AC of 5. You need to "roll" a 15 or higher to hit the creature.
It is worth noting however that a roll of 1 always misses regardless of a person's Thac0 and a roll of 20 always hits.
Dice
Whenever you see #D#, the D stands for Dice and how it is being rolled. This is usually to calculate damage, but it is used in other areas.
1D6 means the game is rolling a die to generate a number between 1 and 6.
2D8 means the game is rolling 2 dice from a range of 1 to 8 and adding both rolls together to get a number between 2 and 16.
1D4+1 means the game is generating a number between 1 and 4 and adding 1 to it for a number between 2 and 5.
Party Composition (NPCs)
You are only allowed to have 5 other party members (NPCs) at a time. Each person you meet will have a different alignment. There are nine alignments on two different axis (Good, Neutral, Evil / Lawful, Neutral, Chaos) but in BG, you only have to worry about the Good/Evil axis.
The game incorporates something called Reputation. It is generally how well you are received by other characters in the game such as merchants and quest givers. If you do something nice for a person, your reputation may rise. Do something bad (rob, kill etc), your reputation may fall.
Good NPCs like when you have a higher reputation while evil NPCs like when you have a lower reputation. If your reputation gets too high, evil players will leave you in disgust. The same is true with good NPCs if your
reputation falls too much.
Neutral characters prefer if you are good, however won't leave you as quickly if your reputation falls.
If you dismiss a character when your reputation is at one of the extremes, they may leave you for good as they didn't enjoy traveling with you. Usually however, they will stay exactly where you leave them unless they are one of the new EE NPCs (Dorn, Neera, Baeloth or Rasaad) who will go to the Friendly Arm Inn or Nashkel.
If a NPC leaves for good, don't fret, there are many more NPCs waiting through out the game waiting to travel with you.
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The community is also here to help. If you have questions, don't be afraid to ask. One of us (or more) will answer you as ASAP.
Have some Koooooooool-Aid...
Is that what you want?
RUN!
They are like good fantasy books and will explain a lot of things to you.
Also, I suggest going through https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/1992/basic-game-tips-for-new-players - the thread contains advice for new players.
Inventory as you can see is limited - it has 16 spots which you can use to fill in with whatever items you can carry. Some items are stackable - like ammo, scrolls and potions if they are the same kind. Your characters strength determines how much you can actually carry because everything has a weight in the game - for example if you have a STR of 9 you can carry about 50 pounds of inventory - anything more than that will result in being encumbered and as such your character or NPC will have to drop some items or be considerably slowed down by the weight they are carrying.
Some NPCs will always join your party regardless of if you drop them and pick them up later while some will only stay once and then leave forever if you dismiss them and some will leave to be found at a certain inn waiting to be picked up again - usually its the Friendly Inn. NPCs in the game are meant to assist you but they also have things that must be done - consider than a character you don't have full control over.
Stats - are fixed in the BG universe because they are based on AD&D 2nd edition rules - max stat for a human character is 18 for each stat - certain races will have "+" or "-" to these stats based on their race. Having 18 in everything would make your character almost a genius in everything, gifted beyond belief - as you might have noticed most NPCs will only have high scores (17 or 18) in a few areas. Unlike modern rpg these stats do not rise after you have made your initial character (although in the game you might find some magic to raise it by a point). Stats determine how powerful your character is - certain stats will help certain character classes more than others - for example a human fighter would have max stats in DEX, STR and CON and then maybe a bit in CHA but INT or WIS is not really needed and can be lowered (8-10 maybe lower if you are not role-playing); for a wizard his best stat would be INT as a mage needs to be smart to do spells and max his spell slots; in general having a high DEX for all classes is good and helps with armor class; having a high CON (this stat determines how much HP you have in your starting class) is good as well but for non fighters having 16 is the best for them as they get no bonuses for having anything higher unlike fighter classes; having a high (16+) STR for a non fighter also means you can carry more stuff which is useful; lastly CHA (charisma) is useful for dialogue choices - you get choices based on CHA of the lead character - 18 is best for all the best dialogues and choices - plus it gives you the largest discount when shopping - the PC doesn't have to have the best CHA as long as someone in the party has it and you are willing to shuffle your party formation when you shop.
BG is based on Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition rules - and sometimes these rules require you to read them in order to fully understand them; a few rules are a bit unusual like armor class which goes down into the negatives unlike modern rpg which goes up and things like saving throws which seem a bit arbitrary at times. Googling these rules and reading them will provide some insights into the gaming mechanics of BG.
Unlike some modern rpg BG has a bit more of a role-playing game rather than grab a sword and slash your way to the next monster; picking dialogue will result in different outcomes; smashing and stealing will have consequences in the game. NPCs need to be treated a bit differently as they will get angry and leave sometimes forever.
And lastly in BG it gives you a ton of freedom to explore and adventure through the maps - there is less direction for players in this game than in BG2 or IWD (Ice Wind Dale another rpg game) - it allows you to explore and solve quests as you want almost with very few quests that have time constraints although you still need to follow the chapter progression of the story - ie certain quests must be completed before another area will be made opened to you as part of the main story line - but a lot of the maps are just meant for you to explore and have fun adventuring. You could for example wander the small maps for hours and hours without getting to the map in which the main story quest will be activated. The story and adventuring in BG1 is therefore a lot less linear than many other games.
In BG2 this is not entirely true, if you play that game that I think is the pinnacle of all RPGs, do not start chapter 4 before you've done pretty much all you can find in chapter 2.
I do not agree however that the ruleset is very confusing. The game itself might not give a lot of clues and the progression in THAC0, saves and such is not very logical, there are charts for those if you really want them though. A few hours in you should get a feeling for what's good and what's not, a good archer will hit a lot more than a poor archer and does have a significantly lower THAC0, you will notice that an NPC with a high AC will get slaughtered in melee, where your tank in a plate and shield has a lower AC and can take on quite a few monsters without hitting the ground etc etc. Items and gear are also easy to understand, at least easy enough not to matter too much. Basically you don't need an optimal setup to finish the game. If all else fails just check what the items sell for, if it's expensive it's most likely very good.
THAC0, saves and AC being better low with the rest better high, stats not doing anything for most of the bell curve, wizards with one spell per day and one hit point, as well as a lack of scaling for other classes at high level simply were no defensible game design.
Also, in 5th edition, they kept the best parts of three, and moulded that onto the best part of two. We played it a bit with old timers that had me as the young one, and the last of the second edition campaigns are being converted to 5th now.
Do note that, with the non-weapon proficiencies, part of that was already possible in second. I can distictly recall having a fighter with ancient languages and knowledge arcane.
Also non weapon proficiency was a thing in 2nd edition but it added flavor, it didn't encroach on anyone's "turf" and role in the party they way it did in later editions. You could be a scholarly warrior but you could not be all things to all people and that's why you joined a party
I have always written my own campaigns, with rules on what you could do from where. This did mean you had yo have a story why your dwarf used magic that was usually shunned by that race, but it was not inherently impossible.
I have not found 3e characters to be all-powerful, of course, if you go for it, results can be possible that should not (like high-wis monk/druids with shapechange), but for the most part we used it to define what your character recently experienced, like the necromancer that took a barbarian level because he had been a bear for nearly that entire level.
I had a character that had been swashbuckling more than stealing, so I splashed some fighter in my thief, and we had someone find their priest calling when she was used as a vessel for that god to speak through.
Were those powerful options? No, not at all, but they made the experience gained tangible. In second edition, that could not have been possible.
It is also not possible to do everything at the same time, or you're gimping yourself in high level abilities.
Baldur's Gate skews our view on the old game through endless rerolls and controlling more characters, but I had a mage in my 2nd edition character that had 6 hit points at lvl4, and spent the first two levels more as a slinging fighter than casting spells, and, while I never reached it myself, I have heard another DM complain about the challenge of keeping high level fighters interesting.
I'm not a D&D player, but i loved this game (which is quite far from what i usually play -namely rts and dota-, and i didn't really liked dragon age)
You will also feel the :
"even in easy this game is way too hard"
(I touched the game with a demo of bg1, -which is basically 3 zones, and you never lvlup- so we can more or less say that i truly started with bg2), and as far as i'm concern, the very first level are fucking hard, much more than bg2 for a beginner.
But don't worry, once you get a bit more used to it, learn a bit of the mechanics, and want to try a new class, so starting a new game, you'll be like :
"Holy shit this game is way too easy, even in hard, how could i have trouble in first place in easy mode"
But that will also be the first time you'll enjoy yourself doing the same thing again and again (well i really hate repetition myself (which automatically repulsed me from every single mmorpg, some fps, all hack&slash...) but yet I still play this game
In terms of computer based rpg gaming, basically you are comparing IWD2/NWN to BG2 in terms of character creation and there is a big difference; ignoring for the moment the plot and story differences.
While I understand the need for background and experience for role-playing it seems odd that you should be allowed to get a level of this or that just because you experienced it, it removes the uniqueness and dedication to that class by allowing anyone to gain a level in it. In 2e you can flesh out your PC by adding experience (in the background) it just doesn't show up on your stat sheet.
As for re-rolling in BG - you don't have to do that - you can just accept the first roll and reassign your points (as you do in IWD2) - sure a roll of 78 is slightly below average and doesn't make you all powerful but many of the NPCs don't have amazing scores either (accept for a few). An average roll of 84-86 - is more than enough in most cases to do anything and you don't have to continuously roll for an hour to get that number.
As for low level characters in BG1 (or pnp) - the adventure is always tough for low level characters. And yes a mage has it tougher than most with only 1 spell and a sling/staff and low hp but everyone has it tough - a cleric only has a few spells from the start; a kensai or a monk is almost useless for the first few levels - can't punch to hit a side of a barn and a kensai while able to swing a sword the total lack of armor makes it horribly vulnerable, and as such makes you think of ways to compensate for this vulnerability in the early game - that's what forming a party is all about, it allows you to compensate for everyone's weakness and together defeat that bear or wolf that will usually kill your PC if you were by yourself.
I don't think it's the "D&D" aspect of the game that's the problem for you, it's the "roleplaying" aspect.
Roleplaying requires the player to invest their imagination into the playing.
On a RP basis, why would a character hang around waiting for you to take them back into a party after they have been dropped?
Thay have lives, jobs ect. to get on with.
Inventry management, since when has it been possible to take a long hike in the countryside carrying everything you might possible want regardless of weight, size, portability ect.?
And whatever you do take, it needs to be packed carefully, just like those hikers you see trotting up mountains with huge backpacks, I'll bet money they spend hours of downtime sorting out their packs.
THACO, that's just a method of informing the player of what will happen when somebody hits them or they hit somebody in game, without actually having the player or the enemy starting to bleed all over the keyboard.
Again, roleplaying.
What I would suggest is that for a while, you avoid forums. Not because they aren't helpful and informative, but because at your current understanding, you will find nearly all the information too involved, too specialised, too assuming that you know things that so far you simply haven't learnt.
And overall rather depressing because however helpful, it's never nice to find out that other people know all the answers and find what you are struggling with very easy.
Both are perfectly viable ways to play the game, but we're drifting far away from the original premise of the thread, and might be scaring the new guy.
For me, 1st/2nd Edition will always be D&D. This cycle essentially invented the whole idea of a fantasy role-playing game, as well as a fantasy roll-playing game - two for the price of one! The gaming world feels to have been at its largest and most creative, with many different setting rising and falling in this period, and the iconic staples of orcs, dragons, giants, beholders, mind-flayers, etc being written and established. This is a the game that created Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Spelljammer and the other planes, in addition to the Forgotten Realms, and likely more besides.
3rd Edition (and 3.5) is a new game that tries to capture that flavor, without dragging the baggage of a game system that was learning as it goes. The numbers for combat all make a lot more intuitive sense - higher is always better, yet the numbers you roll on the dice are generally the same
4th edition was another reboot, aimed at a different gaming generation. This did nothing for me, and I don't have anything good to say about it as it turned me off too much before I had a chance to learn the redeeming qualities that might let it shine - I'll leave that for others who actually enjoyed it.
5th Edition sounds like another reboot again, but having moved half-way round the world since I last had an active gaming group, I probably won't get a chance to discover this for myself. From everything I hear, it is a step in the right direction after 4th, but I don't know how well it plays for someone who never went through the experience of 4th.
Last comment for Zilber - for anyone of my gaming generation (which I suspect includes magisensei) D&D will always be synonymous with 1st/2nd edition. 3rd edition is another great fantasy role-playing game, just like Earthdawn or Runequest, that happens to share a name with the game we will always love, without actually being it
Which reminds me, I really do need to track down another Earthdawn gaming group - that was a great gaming system/game-world with the right GM...