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(rant) Drow equipment disintrigration

metalmunkimetalmunki Member Posts: 67
in Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
So I'm mostly through Ust Natha, and I completely forgot about the Drow equipment disintegration until now, and I've already sold the gear it replaced somewhere along the line.

OK sure, I'll just use EEKeeper to fix it, and I don't think the Drow weapons should carry over when the time comes but does anyone else find this 'SURPRISE, DICKHEAD!' moment really inelegant design?

Some kind of warning from Adalon before you venture into the city would seem appropriate, or how about as a reward from her quest being a batch of Darkoil for a single Drow item of your choosing?

I can't be the only one that doesn't carry around masses of equipment just in case and just sells replaced stuff for instant profit/inventory space?
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Comments

  • dunbardunbar Member Posts: 1,603
    Oh how the young are spoilt these days.......
  • metalmunkimetalmunki Member Posts: 67
    edited June 2016
    Shandyr said:

    mf2112 said:

    I sell all the drow stuff back to them, funny how they never ask where I came up with all of it and how it still has bloodstains....

    I'd expect that to be common actually in Drow society...

    Oh I sell the bulk of it, it's just a crossbow and a piece of armour I've been using. I imagine I'd be a lot more screwed if I hadn't done every single side quest and got every piece of loot on the surface I could in Chapter 2, so I've got mostly better weaponry.

    Never noticed it in the item description, as I usually read those. Not sure why I would've glanced over it specifically with this stuff, possibly because they aren't unique items and are pretty plentiful so my brain just goes: 'standard' like finding two-handed sword+1s on Skeleton Warriors.
  • metalmunkimetalmunki Member Posts: 67
    dunbar said:

    Oh how the young are spoilt these days.......

    I've got no excuse, I'm a player from when the original came out. But I've played BG2 exactly once on release and forgotten most of it, while BG1 I've played through dozens of times.
  • NuinNuin Member Posts: 451
    It's not like you're the first person this has happened to, and it's going to keep happening every once in a while. Thankfully everyone who plays BG2 inevitably develops packrat syndrome, so most unique items remain safely stored in the Bag of Holding somewhere. Besides EEkeeper, you can just buy new equipment for everyone after you leave the Underdark.
  • ameliabogginsameliaboggins Member Posts: 287
    in a magical world there should be a way to fix this. Might be expensive.....probably requires magical melding with diamond dust or something.

  • JouniJouni Member Posts: 50
    ameliaboggins said:

    in a magical world there should be a way to fix this. Might be expensive.....probably requires magical melding with diamond dust or something.

    The fix is to use ordinary magic when creating the items. The magic in Drow equipment is inherently tied to the Underdark. If you take the items away from the Underdark, they're no longer magical. The materials used are lightweight and durable but vulnerable to sunlight, because they're somehow aligned with darkness.
  • ArthasArthas Member Posts: 1,091
    honestly I find it elegant design: asking the players to read item description and aprpeciate the beauty of all different items.

    I don't agree with you @Jouni : if it was tied to underdark, drow wouldn't do raid on the surface, because their armor would just turn to dust.
  • JarrakulJarrakul Member Posts: 2,029
    In PnP, it actually takes several days for drow equipment to disintegrate on the surface. So short raids aren't a problem, but they certainly can't orchestrate full-fledged invasions.
  • JouniJouni Member Posts: 50
    Arthas said:

    I don't agree with you @Jouni : if it was tied to underdark, drow wouldn't do raid on the surface, because their armor would just turn to dust.

    Remember that we're talking about the 2E Drow, which are much closer to Gygax's original dark faeries than the "humans with pointy ears, weird skin color, and a funny society" in 3E and later. The original Drow were not creatures of the mundane world, and their magic didn't work there that well. Their power was tied to their realm, and they rarely had any contact with the outside world. Forgotten Realms and 2E made the Drow more common and mundane, but much of the original lore still remained.

    The whole "turns to dust" effect is a simplification that makes sense in computer games. It would be much more annoying to have equipment that slowly loses its magical properties outside the Underdark, and/or slowly deteriorates when exposed to sunlight.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    Jarrakul said:

    In PnP, it actually takes several days for drow equipment to disintegrate on the surface. So short raids aren't a problem, but they certainly can't orchestrate full-fledged invasions.

    I don't remember. Does BG2 ever explain how the equipment of the drow attacking Suldanesselar doesn't disintegrate upon reaching the surface?
  • rapsam2003rapsam2003 Member Posts: 1,636
    metalmunki said:

    OK sure, I'll just use EEKeeper to fix it, and I don't think the Drow weapons should carry over when the time comes but does anyone else find this 'SURPRISE, DICKHEAD!' moment really inelegant design?

    You do realize that 1) this is from the original game (meaning it was unchanged since then) AND 2) that the equipment itself states it disintegrates in sunlight?
  • NuinNuin Member Posts: 451
    Actually, from what I remember Drow attacks usually happen at night (because their eyes are sensitive to direct sunlight - it even took Drizzt months to adjust and years to finally get used to it).

    The Drow attack on Suldanesslar was not so much a raid as a flat out invasion. They'll have commissioned gear specifically for that (which I think is briefly alluded to in the cutscene where Irenicus is talking with the Drow Matron Mother).
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Basically all of the drow who appear outdoors actually have elven chain mail equipped, not adamantine stuff.
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 6,002
    do you know what ironic? all the drow goodies are made out of adamantine, so you would think that adamantine is much weaker in sunlight because of this, but if you happen to take a trip to suldennessalar ( or however it is spelled) and if your whole team is passed 2 million XP there will be a bunch of golems made out of adamantine lolling all over the place in the day time, not being weakened at all

    or it could just be that drow magic doesn't work that well above ground....?
  • SirBatinceSirBatince Member Posts: 882
    The shop keepers in Ust Natha actually do warn you about this.
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    There was a mod component that made drow equipment disintegrate gradually over days once in the surface. It caused lags in the game with heavy script checks, though. It was not worth it IMHO.
  • AriusArius Member Posts: 92
    meagloth said:

    OlvynChuru said:

    sarevok57 said:

    do you know what ironic? all the drow goodies are made out of adamantine, so you would think that adamantine is much weaker in sunlight because of this, but if you happen to take a trip to suldennessalar ( or however it is spelled) and if your whole team is passed 2 million XP there will be a bunch of golems made out of adamantine lolling all over the place in the day time, not being weakened at all

    or it could just be that drow magic doesn't work that well above ground....?

    Those golems are made of adamantite, not adamantine. Adamantite doesn't disintegrate when exposed to sunlight as far as I know.
    Adamantite is alloyed with 20% titanium, 4% chromium and .01% unobtainium to slow the disintigration process to a slow rust-like reaction. Grade 2 Adamantite is also alloyed with 3% vanadium and .02% manganese making it heat treatable but slightly less disintigration resistant. This is used for specialty bladed weapons and the feet and fists of the golems. The process of refining titanium is incredibly magic intensive making all grades of adamantite ludicrously expensive, and as a results most products branded as adamantite are really made mostly of adamantine and plated with a coat of adamantite.
    where did the metallurgy info come from source wise? 1st I have seen it and I have been playing 2nd ED D&D since it came out.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Man, I remember my first playthrough where that happened to me. Ah, memories.
  • Abi_DalzimAbi_Dalzim Member Posts: 1,428
    Between the magic resistance and the powerful magical equipment that can't be taken out of the Underdark, it seems obvious that the Drow were a concoction of a spiteful GM out to screw his players with difficult yet unrewarding battles. So, yeah, sounds like Gygax's handiwork.
  • NuinNuin Member Posts: 451
    Actually adamantine equipment struck me as an attempt to explain why the drow prefer to just kill each other rather take their attempts to conquer the surface world much more seriously. It also helps establish the Underdark as a separate setting with its own rules and whatnot, despite the fact that technically many Underdark hotspots probably share the same geographical coordinates as many popular FR settings. You want to fare better in the Undardark? Get yourself Underdark gear. Think it through - if you plan on sticking around you'll find Underdark gear very useful, and if we're talking surface raids then drow will be using different gear anyway.

    The drow were created before ECL, something had to be done to keep them in check. After ECL the focus shifted to drow being forced to remain underground due to Lolth's manipulative ways blahblahblah.
  • gorgonzolagorgonzola Member Posts: 3,864
    RP wise it should be allowed to carry Drow's stuff in the backpack or in a bag of holding, to use it night time or in dungeons and not in open areas on plain sun.
    The ferret trick was an exploit borderline to cheating, but the game, as it is implemented, cheats no less, the sunlight has no part in item destruction at all, 2 checks in 2 different areas cause the destruction no matter if sunlight is present at those moments.
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