I was one of those people who played BG2 before BG1, and my oh my, I did NOT know how to play the game. My first PC was a female elven mage called "Glor", (no idea where I got that name...), whose stats were those of the random roll when you create charname.
I started the game with the "find familiar" spell, and well.. that probably wasn't the best for my charname. Being the new player that I was, I thought that there was no consequences for summoning your familiar over and over and watching it die. So, my once hardy elven mage slowly lost more and more constitution, until I reached the point where my familiar dying meant instant-death for charname. I stopped using the spell after that...
I never gave up or reloaded on this game, though - I stuck through to the very end. I must say, though, that Irenicus and his Power Word Kills were very much a pain in the finale, having a ~20 hitpoint charname, and not understanding that I had to keep charname outside of Irenicus's sight.
Those could just be her hips. She doesn't even seem to have any real belly fat. She could just be muscular/stout. Wow, okay. I'm stop overanalyzing a single panel of a funny comic.
My first character was a human ranger named Hanslow Tinderbow back in 1999 when BG first came out. I went with 2 pips in bows and large swords for proficiencies and never regretted it! I didn't find out until later that the reason the game was such a cakewalk for me was that ranged was so killer in BG1. He didn't die until I made it to Sarevok! Pretty impressive for my first time. I'm pretty sure I must have one-shot Tarnesh because I didn't know what a bastard he was until I tried some other characters. As a noob I didn't even take Xzar and Montaron with me because they were 'evil'! I pretty much went with the storyline so no excursions to the far sides of the map. I didn't even know about Mutamin and his basilisk friends until much later when I read a walk through online. I also wound up with the canon NPC's and never even tried any if the others. In retrospect, I think it was just the bow skill that kept me alive for so long. That and Minsc was a kick-ass companion. I pretty much had Jaheira and Dynaheir only using slings, Imoen only used her shortbow and because I used charisma as a dump-stat and always had Hanslow in the number one spot, Khalid was usually running around screaming like a little girl! Man how I hated him. Good times...
If we want to talk about her proportions, perhaps we could criticize her for her gigantic eyes, which are more than 50% wider across than her mouth. Or her feet, which are only an inch longer than her ankles.
Speaking of which, has anyone noticed the unrealistic body standard set by the average stick person? Don't even get me started on the lack of racial diversity in stick figures.
If we want to talk about her proportions, perhaps we could criticize her for her gigantic eyes, which are more than 50% wider across than her mouth. Or her feet, which are only an inch longer than her ankles.
Speaking of which, has anyone noticed the unrealistic body standard set by the average stick person? Don't even get me started on the lack of racial diversity in stick figures.
Whatever do you mean? Stick people are the ubermensch! No skin color, no boobs, no difference in eyes, they don't wear fancy clothes, no hair, no tattoos, no piercings, they're not over or underweight (by their standards anyway), their facial expressions never change (which means they must be contented, right?), and their heads are huge compared to their bodies which means they must be highly intelligent. We should all aspire to be stick people!
If we want to talk about her proportions, perhaps we could criticize her for her gigantic eyes, which are more than 50% wider across than her mouth. Or her feet, which are only an inch longer than her ankles.
Speaking of which, has anyone noticed the unrealistic body standard set by the average stick person? Don't even get me started on the lack of racial diversity in stick figures.
Whatever do you mean? Stick people are the ubermensch! No skin color, no boobs, no difference in eyes, they don't wear fancy clothes, no hair, no tattoos, no piercings, they're not over or underweight (by their standards anyway), their facial expressions never change (which means they must be contented, right?), and their heads are huge compared to their bodies which means they must be highly intelligent. We should all aspire to be stick people!
I've often thought about how you could make some kind of Nostalgia difficulty mod to emulate that first time you went through the game. Based on my own experience the mod would look something like this:
All companions have randomized stats and class (I didn't have a clue who they were)
No stats rerolling at character creation (I didn't know it made any difference)
No journal or spell descriptions (took me a while to find those)
A significant part of all text is replaced with gibberish (my English wasn't too good when I was 10)
Angry parents will occasionally barge in and tell you to stop playing that damn game (......)
I've often thought about how you could make some kind of Nostalgia difficulty mod to emulate that first time you went through the game. Based on my own experience the mod would look something like this:
All companions have randomized stats and class (I didn't have a clue who they were)
No stats rerolling at character creation (I didn't know it made any difference)
No journal or spell descriptions (took me a while to find those)
A significant part of all text is replaced with gibberish (my English wasn't too good when I was 10)
Angry parents will occasionally barge in and tell you to stop playing that damn game (......)
Dexterity is a dump stat (cause what? you think I'm planning to do card tricks?). Wolves are the size of T Rex and have the same amount of teeth. Tarneshh makes Irenicus look like an amateur Whining children will occasionally barge in asking to be fed, watered, put to bed, dressed, played with ect.
Paladin for BG and Druid for IWD. That happened, I played IWD first, so, though still consider my Druid the "main" and "first" I cared about each party member and technically each of them was "the first".
After IWD it took me some time to grasp the idea in BG1 of not created but "collected" party, that was quite irritating. I found out that Paladin made the pain easier when not enough companions were available, and for some time after that I considered party without a paladin not strong enough.
Started with a generalist Mage at around the age of 14. Went into the circus, heard from Aerie that there were illusions everywhere, used Detect Illusion spell--as was logical to my mind--and was very miffed that the tent didn't disappear.
TBH, I'll be dawged if I can even remember. PnP I can, but I think it's do to the fact that the D&D game was so new to me back, err, 35+ years ago, it was hard to forget. A human mage and a H/Elf F/C. The fighter cleric put on a helm of alignment change and eventually killed everyone else off at a point when the group was severely wounded when running through the series of Against the Slave Lords campaign modules.
I think it was an H/Elf avenger I first finished the series with, then a gnome shadowdancer. The gnome stayed on the good path and the avenger went the evil path after the Hell Trials.
PnP: Raduziel, a Human Illusionist. Killed by a critical hit from an ogre's halberd that unfortunately hit me instead of one of my Mirror Images. Replaced by Raduziel, a Half-Orc Fighter/Thief that survived through Ravenloft and found his way back home to Mystara. He is the one that tackled a lich.
I love Ravenloft. I hate Mystara.
BG1: Raduziel, a Human Fighter - killed by Tarnesh. Finished the game next with Raduziel, the Elf Ranger. Kitted all my way through the game.
Fun fact: For a long time I hated Kivan for "stealing my idea". I was a sponsored child.
BG2: Raduziel, a Human Sorcerer. Chain Contingency + AHW (enemy sighted) and rest abuse led me all the way to Hell.
Fun fact: I never actually ended the saga, as I can't stand ToB. My next run I'll try it with Ascension.
@Raduziel Ascension is a good addition to your mod setup, but don't forget about Wheels of Prophecy.
Of course, even with those two mods, ToB is for a large part long corridors of hostiles that you need to kill and kill and kill and kill. Sometimes the corridor is desert. Sometimes the hostiles are spiders. But that doesn't change the nature of things. I tend to abandon my games in ToB too.
PnP: Raduziel, a Human Illusionist. Killed by a critical hit from an ogre's halberd that unfortunately hit me instead of one of my Mirror Images. Replaced by Raduziel, a Half-Orc Fighter/Thief that survived through Ravenloft and found his way back home to Mystara. He is the one that tackled a lich.
I love Ravenloft. I hate Mystara.
BG1: Raduziel, a Human Fighter - killed by Tarnesh. Finished the game next with Raduziel, the Elf Ranger. Kitted all my way through the game.
Fun fact: For a long time I hated Kivan for "stealing my idea". I was a sponsored child.
BG2: Raduziel, a Human Sorcerer. Chain Contingency + AHW (enemy sighted) and rest abuse led me all the way to Hell.
Fun fact: I never actually ended the saga, as I can't stand ToB. My next run I'll try it with Ascension.
@Raduziel Hmmm, I am sensing something in common with all those characters but can't quite put my finger on it.
@Raduziel Ascension is a good addition to your mod setup, but don't forget about Wheels of Prophecy.
Of course, even with those two mods, ToB is for a large part long corridors of hostiles that you need to kill and kill and kill and kill. Sometimes the corridor is desert. Sometimes the hostiles are spiders. But that doesn't change the nature of things. I tend to abandon my games in ToB too.
What exactly does Wheels of Prophecy do? The impression I get from the readme is that it just allows you to change the order of certain events. Am I missing something?
WoP goes some way in creating the illusion of free will in ToB. What you do is still essentially the same (besides that extra confrontation with Melissan and the return to the grove), but the railroad tracks are less obvious.
@Raduziel Ascension is a good addition to your mod setup, but don't forget about Wheels of Prophecy.
Of course, even with those two mods, ToB is for a large part long corridors of hostiles that you need to kill and kill and kill and kill. Sometimes the corridor is desert. Sometimes the hostiles are spiders. But that doesn't change the nature of things. I tend to abandon my games in ToB too.
I find ToB acceptable but the 4-stage melissan is something I detest as a soloer
Generalist mage, male half elf chaotic good. Cabal was is name (and this is still my name for all charnames so far), in fact full name was Cabal Gorion ( second used as surname). Ajantis, Khalid, Jaheira, Kivan and Imoen. I used Xans portrait for him, so when I saved Xan for the first time, his secondary portrait was kinda funny for me. That was back in 1999, and I was 16 years old and loved the game from first seconds...
I was probably about or 10 when I started playing and I always loved spellcasters, so when I saw there was a cleric/mage option I jumped at that. I was like "Not just wizard magic but cleric magic too!? That's like DOUBLE magic!!" I didn't grasp that I'd be slower in levelling but that didn't matter as I had double magic! My brother was actually the one to name him something that reflected both his halves. My half-elven (I wanted to be a full elf so bad) cleric-mage was named Phoenix Whitetail. I basically loaded him up with magic missiles and cure light wounds with maybe one casting of command. After all, the only spells that matter are the ones that directly affect life points right? I didn't get too far with him and only finished Nashkel mines once with him. I did, however, learn of a strange third kind of magic. I learned how to export cheat. Well, at one point I got bored and decided to export but before I did I started macing Beregost in the face when I stumbled upon an incredible treasure - Algernon's cloak! This wondrous treasure became the keystone of my future success. So I ended up joining the training party in the basement of Candlekeep and stealing their stuff, most notably the wand of the heavens. I exported and used that, Algernon's Cloak, and save scumming to kill all the high exp targets in Candlekeep before exporting again. Back then the cloak had unlimited charges so I would challenge myself by basically charming the whole town and throwing them at Gorion en mass in a bid to kill him before either Tethtoril nuked me or a lightning bolt got me. I think I succeeded once. Anyway, after farming Candlekeep's mages long enough I reemerged into a "fair" play through with a jacked up level. I got a bit farther but mostly just ignored the plot to explore.
BG 2 came out a little later and I was amazed at the sorcerer because he had even MORE MAGIC. I bummed around with him and ended up playing TOB a lot because I loved the epic feel of the fights. I was horrible at it though and I ultimately only beat TOB once. I honestly found a party of fighters (with Anomen for heals and me for MAGIC) to be my success group. My grandest, most cunning tactic? Use Keldorn's dispel to strip magic defences and then swarm that pesky spellcaster while I threw horrid wiltings around like they were going out of style. Every fight had to have a summoned planetar too.
My first BG1 character was an elven fighter named Juleska (might sound familiar) two pips in bows and large swords. Probably would have been a great first-time character to use...if he didn't die in a half-ogre ambush on the way to the Friendly Arm Inn.
My first BG2 character was a human Kensai named Damian with Grandmastery in Katanas. All I knew of BG2 were the class descriptions I was reading and so this one felt like it had lots of potential. Using no guides, I went all the way to the last fight with Irenicus never knowing of Celestial Fury. I really started to regret my weapon choice further in but the class itself was good enough to get me through.
My very first character should be a female sorcerer whose name I couldn't remember. She only made it so far as reaching the friendly arms and then killed by Tarnesh, multiple times, before I deleted the game from my iPhone 4. My second character is a mage/thief, because I read a little about the game and thought that an actual mage should be able to make scrolls and potions, so in order to make that ideal mage in my mind I made a mage/thief. She was killed by the spiders in Beregost. Then years passed and I finally installed BG on my computer instead of having to use a terribly small touch screen, I made a male necromancer named Joskane who made his way to the throne of Bhaal, along with multiple mages: Xan, Edwin, Xzar in BG1 and Imone in BG2, a healer (Viconia), a thief to unlock the doors (Yoshimo), and a paladin (Ajantis/Keldorn). Joskane tried to romance Viconia but she died in the Underdark and we failed to find a temple before we reach chapter 6. After we finally revived her the relationship was apparently doomed, for the whole Bodhi encounter was skipped. I loved the spell-casting system of the game before I actually learned to use it. That's why I played a party full of mages. I started a new game in the enhanced edition right after Joskane ascended, paused the game, read through the player's handbook, and realized that if I want to play a party with more than 3 mages and let everyone do their f**king job instead of throwing mmms there's going to be an awfully lot of pausing. So I decided to keep a smaller party, which ended up consists of only 2 people: Charname and Dorn Il-Khan. My charname was a cleric->mage, for Nec is out of question because necromancers can't use project images, but still I want to look like a necromancer, and the priest's skeleton warriors comes in handy. I didn't want to give up too many mage HLAs and 8th/9th slots so I dualed at Cleric 15. So basically my charname can do a mage's job and a healer's job, locks can be knocked and traps can be countered by mirror images, and the skeletons do good physical damage. I just have to reach mage lvl16 first. Fewer partners = more exp. I wanted to play the new EE characters, Rasaad dates girls, Hexxat dates girls, and I certainly don't want another mage because that means charname has to be on front but he has 12 str, so... Dorn Il-Khan. I changed his portrait (don't laugh) and headed down the bloody path. (Turned out I *LOVE* Dorn. Best character ever. Even with his original portrait and epilogues. )
I knew absolute total jackshit about Gygax, D&D, AD&D, rules, saving throws, thac0, pnp (still don't know anything), RPGees, them spells, game mechanix, magics, cheese, bioware, NPC, romances and computer games in general.
I bought my first pc (duron 900Mhz LOL) and started playing my first game and I choose BG2/ToB because I read about it and it was like OMG!! The second best thing since sliced bread!
I started playing BG2 and I hated it. I hated its guts. For two simple reasons:
1) Everytime the fight starts I have absolutely no idea what is going on
and
2) I am always stunned and/or charmed.
so I herd Inquisitor is immune to hold and charm. and that was it! That was the exact moment when my real adventure with BG2 started. so, my first protagonist and I remember this guy was:
1) Paladin 2) Inqusitor 3) Intelligence 3 4) Name Fafik
HEHEHEHEehehe, tactics:
actually didn't use dispel even once
drink healing potions and Carsomyr+GWW everything to death. Worked like a charm!
Comments
I started the game with the "find familiar" spell, and well.. that probably wasn't the best for my charname. Being the new player that I was, I thought that there was no consequences for summoning your familiar over and over and watching it die. So, my once hardy elven mage slowly lost more and more constitution, until I reached the point where my familiar dying meant instant-death for charname. I stopped using the spell after that...
I never gave up or reloaded on this game, though - I stuck through to the very end. I must say, though, that Irenicus and his Power Word Kills were very much a pain in the finale, having a ~20 hitpoint charname, and not understanding that I had to keep charname outside of Irenicus's sight.
Speaking of which, has anyone noticed the unrealistic body standard set by the average stick person?
Don't even get me started on the lack of racial diversity in stick figures.
Dexterity is a dump stat (cause what? you think I'm planning to do card tricks?).
Wolves are the size of T Rex and have the same amount of teeth.
Tarneshh makes Irenicus look like an amateur
Whining children will occasionally barge in asking to be fed, watered, put to bed, dressed, played with ect.
After IWD it took me some time to grasp the idea in BG1 of not created but "collected" party, that was quite irritating. I found out that Paladin made the pain easier when not enough companions were available, and for some time after that I considered party without a paladin not strong enough.
I think it was an H/Elf avenger I first finished the series with, then a gnome shadowdancer. The gnome stayed on the good path and the avenger went the evil path after the Hell Trials.
Bilbow Baggins a dwarven fighter (I was very young...).
I love Ravenloft. I hate Mystara.
BG1: Raduziel, a Human Fighter - killed by Tarnesh. Finished the game next with Raduziel, the Elf Ranger. Kitted all my way through the game.
Fun fact: For a long time I hated Kivan for "stealing my idea". I was a sponsored child.
BG2: Raduziel, a Human Sorcerer. Chain Contingency + AHW (enemy sighted) and rest abuse led me all the way to Hell.
Fun fact: I never actually ended the saga, as I can't stand ToB. My next run I'll try it with Ascension.
Of course, even with those two mods, ToB is for a large part long corridors of hostiles that you need to kill and kill and kill and kill. Sometimes the corridor is desert. Sometimes the hostiles are spiders. But that doesn't change the nature of things. I tend to abandon my games in ToB too.
BG 2 came out a little later and I was amazed at the sorcerer because he had even MORE MAGIC. I bummed around with him and ended up playing TOB a lot because I loved the epic feel of the fights. I was horrible at it though and I ultimately only beat TOB once. I honestly found a party of fighters (with Anomen for heals and me for MAGIC) to be my success group. My grandest, most cunning tactic? Use Keldorn's dispel to strip magic defences and then swarm that pesky spellcaster while I threw horrid wiltings around like they were going out of style. Every fight had to have a summoned planetar too.
My first BG2 character was a human Kensai named Damian with Grandmastery in Katanas. All I knew of BG2 were the class descriptions I was reading and so this one felt like it had lots of potential. Using no guides, I went all the way to the last fight with Irenicus never knowing of Celestial Fury. I really started to regret my weapon choice further in but the class itself was good enough to get me through.
My second character is a mage/thief, because I read a little about the game and thought that an actual mage should be able to make scrolls and potions, so in order to make that ideal mage in my mind I made a mage/thief.
She was killed by the spiders in Beregost.
Then years passed and I finally installed BG on my computer instead of having to use a terribly small touch screen, I made a male necromancer named Joskane who made his way to the throne of Bhaal, along with multiple mages: Xan, Edwin, Xzar in BG1 and Imone in BG2, a healer (Viconia), a thief to unlock the doors (Yoshimo), and a paladin (Ajantis/Keldorn).
Joskane tried to romance Viconia but she died in the Underdark and we failed to find a temple before we reach chapter 6. After we finally revived her the relationship was apparently doomed, for the whole Bodhi encounter was skipped.
I loved the spell-casting system of the game before I actually learned to use it. That's why I played a party full of mages. I started a new game in the enhanced edition right after Joskane ascended, paused the game, read through the player's handbook, and realized that if I want to play a party with more than 3 mages and let everyone do their f**king job instead of throwing mmms there's going to be an awfully lot of pausing. So I decided to keep a smaller party, which ended up consists of only 2 people: Charname and Dorn Il-Khan.
My charname was a cleric->mage, for Nec is out of question because necromancers can't use project images, but still I want to look like a necromancer, and the priest's skeleton warriors comes in handy. I didn't want to give up too many mage HLAs and 8th/9th slots so I dualed at Cleric 15.
So basically my charname can do a mage's job and a healer's job, locks can be knocked and traps can be countered by mirror images, and the skeletons do good physical damage. I just have to reach mage lvl16 first.
Fewer partners = more exp. I wanted to play the new EE characters, Rasaad dates girls, Hexxat dates girls, and I certainly don't want another mage because that means charname has to be on front but he has 12 str, so... Dorn Il-Khan. I changed his portrait (don't laugh) and headed down the bloody path.
(Turned out I *LOVE* Dorn. Best character ever. Even with his original portrait and epilogues. )
I knew absolute total jackshit about Gygax, D&D, AD&D, rules, saving throws, thac0, pnp (still don't know anything), RPGees, them spells, game mechanix, magics, cheese, bioware, NPC, romances and computer games in general.
I bought my first pc (duron 900Mhz LOL) and started playing my first game and I choose BG2/ToB because I read about it and it was like OMG!! The second best thing since sliced bread!
I started playing BG2 and I hated it. I hated its guts. For two simple reasons:
1) Everytime the fight starts I have absolutely no idea what is going on
and
2) I am always stunned and/or charmed.
so I herd Inquisitor is immune to hold and charm. and that was it! That was the exact moment when my real adventure with BG2 started.
so, my first protagonist and I remember this guy was:
1) Paladin
2) Inqusitor
3) Intelligence 3
4) Name Fafik
HEHEHEHEehehe, tactics:
actually didn't use dispel even once
drink healing potions and Carsomyr+GWW everything to death. Worked like a charm!