Items you never use because of their aged cheddar scent
Xanthul
Member Posts: 57
I was wondering what items you people discard in your playthroughs because you consider them gamebreaking. For me, it's quite a few ones - mostly those that confer powerful permanent buffs and weapons with over the top on hit properties:
- Cloak of Mirroring, Shield of Balduran: Permanent reflect makes some of the most potent enemies in the whole saga a joke. I'd rather die 15 times in a row trying to defeat beholders honestly than use these items.
- Staff of the Magi: Permanent invis and a bugged Spell Trap, enough said.
- Carsomyr: Maybe I could live with the MR, but the dispel on hit makes this a no-go for me.
- Vorpal Sword (vorpal weapons in general): Killing things with a random hit doesn't provide me with any feeling of achievement.
Other items are on the line for me but the fun factor makes me use them still, though I might add them to the forbidden items list if I want to run a particularly challenging playthrough:
- Robe of Vecna: Fun times with Improved Alacrity but it makes most casts instant which is kind of dull.
- Flail of Ages, Celestial Fury: Powerful on-hit abilities, these are the most potent weapons that I allow myself to use.
- Ring of Gaxx: I only use one (I never pickpocket, doubly so for items that are supposed to be unique) and it's well earned so I just go with it. Also, it's just an overall powerful item but it doesn't make the character absurdly overpowered in any particular aspect.
Do you have such house rules or do you just use whatever your character can find and equip?
- Cloak of Mirroring, Shield of Balduran: Permanent reflect makes some of the most potent enemies in the whole saga a joke. I'd rather die 15 times in a row trying to defeat beholders honestly than use these items.
- Staff of the Magi: Permanent invis and a bugged Spell Trap, enough said.
- Carsomyr: Maybe I could live with the MR, but the dispel on hit makes this a no-go for me.
- Vorpal Sword (vorpal weapons in general): Killing things with a random hit doesn't provide me with any feeling of achievement.
Other items are on the line for me but the fun factor makes me use them still, though I might add them to the forbidden items list if I want to run a particularly challenging playthrough:
- Robe of Vecna: Fun times with Improved Alacrity but it makes most casts instant which is kind of dull.
- Flail of Ages, Celestial Fury: Powerful on-hit abilities, these are the most potent weapons that I allow myself to use.
- Ring of Gaxx: I only use one (I never pickpocket, doubly so for items that are supposed to be unique) and it's well earned so I just go with it. Also, it's just an overall powerful item but it doesn't make the character absurdly overpowered in any particular aspect.
Do you have such house rules or do you just use whatever your character can find and equip?
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Comments
By the way, is your avatar kindred's portrait?
Regarding my avatar, I can't really remember where I got it from, I know that I used it for the longest time in a NWN server called Soul Forge where my main character was a Barbarian orc but I can't remember anything else, sorry.
Same goes for the Vorpal sword. Any enemy immune to instant death is also immune to Vorpal Sword and Ravager's death effects. It just makes cutting the chaff a lot easier. By the time you get the Silver Sword or Ravager, anything that the instant death effect would really be useful on is immune to it. It's only really helpful against the fire giants.
About Vorpal effects, I guess you're right and it only really helps against normal mobs, I guess I could use them to fight big packs and then switch to another weapon for the bosses. I might give this a try in my next games, thanks for the heads up.
These are the weapons that I'm thinking of:
Flail of Easthaven -- I know a lot of people like to use this as an offhand to get that 20% damage reduction.
(In general I feel like a lot of the "Bonus Merchants" items are tacked on and not very well balanced, particularly this one)
Also, I think there are two swords in BG2 that give an extra attack for free (Kundane and something else?) which can be abused in the offhand to give the extra attack to your mainhand weapon instead. I think this is because offhand weapons are hardcoded to do just 1 attack per round so the extra attack transfers to the main hand. So you can attack more often with the +12 hackmaster in your main hand.
I guess there aren't many weapons that are properly balanced for my low magic tastes.... Examples of weapons I like are Lilarcor, Varscona, Dragonslayer, Blade of roses... Weapons with small bonuses that add a lot of different flavors and choices.
I don't find it "boring" to use the same weapon for a long time. In fact, to me it's a big plus. I feel like D&D characters as opposed to a lot of other fantasy worlds get attached to their weapons. Like, it's part of their character. What would Drizzt be without his scimitar and armor mystically forged by his surrogate dwarf step dad? He doesn't need a new godly weapon every couple of books.
Unfortunately, Bioware had the habit of adding ridiculously overpowered bonus and DLC items to almost all of its games (They did the same thing with KOTOR and DA:O, where DLC items allows your party to become very powerful almost from the start). For my money, you're better off without them.
For the topic, I'll say: I really like the Item Randomizer mod from Gibberlings3. Not being able to depend on the Ring of Wizardry, Girdle of Piercing, Ankheg Armor or Gauntlets of Dexterity early on makes a huge difference and, for me, makes the game more fun.
Rules: Use only standardized weapons/armors/items
-weapon such as short sword+2 is ok, but not the named weapon like Ilbratha+1 short sword that gives mirror images
-may only wear 2 of the following (ring/amulet/belt/boot/cloak)
-potion is ok, wand cannot be recharged
belm is fine when not abused as a the off-hand cheese, but another example would be:
sleeper +2 flail and pixie prick +3 dagger in the off-hand
target must make a saving throw vs poison or fall asleep for 2 rounds (pixie prick)
& any human/demi-human must make a saving throw vs poison (with +4 bonus) or fall asleep for 18 seconds (sleeper)
seperately acceptable, cheesy together