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How long do you wait for the "premium" equipment?

Rik_KirtaniyaRik_Kirtaniya Member Posts: 1,742
Well, well, so this has been a singularly bothersome question that haunts me everytime I'm starting a new playthrough of Baldur's Gate 2. You know, there are a number of "quality items" that you get access to immediately after you escape from Irenicus' Dungeon, mainly all the stuff at Adventurers' Mart and the Copper Coronet, and a few other places here and there. A little later you also get access to stores in Trademeet. All together, that's a pretty large stock of quality equipment, and some of them are highly overpowering (Robe of Vecna and Vhailor's Helm, and so on). Now all you need is money, and money is very easy to get in-game.

I mostly get tempted to take Jan, give him a few potions of master thievery, and then sell-steal-repeat at any fence, generally the Black Market Thief in the Shadow Thieves guildhouse, to generate a huge sum of gold, and then, buy everything off every place. (I don't steal from honest merchants.) Well, whether you call this cheating or cheese or some silly bug or anything, it can be done in the game. And since it can be done, one may do it. And so, effectively, you have all the money you need to buy anything and everything you find in the stores.

This is where my question comes. There are several things in the balance. Ethics, challenge, enjoying the game, and balance itself. (Maybe there are more things as well which have escaped my notice.) You can either get all the things you can buy and start the game with a Robe of Vecna, Sling of Everard, Azuredge, Vhailor's Helm, and so on, or you can restrict yourself so as to avoid those until a certain (??) point.

So I want to ask you all frankly, what do you do? Get or wait? Or maybe, what do you get and for what do you wait (and for how long, if yes)? Or something else?
JuliusBorisovAerakar

Comments

  • OrlonKronsteenOrlonKronsteen Member Posts: 905
    It depends on the mood I’m in and what alignment I’m playing. If I’m playing good I don’t steal and have to earn the money legitimately. Sometimes I buy those items asap, other times I forget anout them and wait until late chapter 2. If I’m playing evil, I usually let Jan Jansen’s kleptomania go to work early game. However, I limit the amount I steal and avoid the steal-resell exploit as it’s simply too broken. I’ll at least let him pickpocket guards and hit up a store or two.
    Aerakar
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    In most games I play solo and don't allow recruitment of NPCs, so stealing is out. I'm not a great fan of stealing and selling anyway, but do it occasionally as a specific treat for a thief-type character. More often though, with any character, I don't buy anything other than containers until reputation gets up to 20 - that provides a bit of extra challenge for the early game.
    AerakarJuliusBorisov
  • Jaheiras_WitnessJaheiras_Witness Member Posts: 614
    Use Item Randomiser mod and your problem is solved.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    I roleplay it. I take quests in an order that makes sense for my charname. So no going somewhere to get a specific quest. Either I stumble across it while exploring, or I follow up on leads given to me by npcs. So I get my super powerful items whenever I happen to stumble across them.
    Aerakar
  • dunbardunbar Member Posts: 1,603
    I tried the stealing/selling thing once and found that it actually made the game less enjoyable. There's a certain satisfaction in finally being able to buy something that you've been saving up for and there's also the balancing act of deciding when to "gear up" each party member.
    compleCCityStummvonBordwehrThacoBellAerakar
  • borntodieborntodie Member Posts: 199

    I mostly get tempted to take Jan, give him a few potions of master thievery, and then sell-steal-repeat at any fence, generally the Black Market Thief in the Shadow Thieves guildhouse, to generate a huge sum of gold, and then, buy everything off every place. (I don't steal from honest merchants.) Well, whether you call this cheating or cheese or some silly bug or anything, it can be done in the game. And since it can be done, one may do it. And so, effectively, you have all the money you need to buy anything and everything you find in the stores.

    Is there a risk that you are caught in the act? I always thought there was, and I have never stolen from merchants because I play no-reload, or at least minimal reload. A hostile black market thief means you lose all future support from the thief guild, right? Or am I mistaken? Because such a risk would be reason enough for me to earn money the 'honest' way.
  • Rik_KirtaniyaRik_Kirtaniya Member Posts: 1,742
    borntodie said:

    I mostly get tempted to take Jan, give him a few potions of master thievery, and then sell-steal-repeat at any fence, generally the Black Market Thief in the Shadow Thieves guildhouse, to generate a huge sum of gold, and then, buy everything off every place. (I don't steal from honest merchants.) Well, whether you call this cheating or cheese or some silly bug or anything, it can be done in the game. And since it can be done, one may do it. And so, effectively, you have all the money you need to buy anything and everything you find in the stores.

    Is there a risk that you are caught in the act? I always thought there was, and I have never stolen from merchants because I play no-reload, or at least minimal reload. A hostile black market thief means you lose all future support from the thief guild, right? Or am I mistaken? Because such a risk would be reason enough for me to earn money the 'honest' way.
    @borntodie There's a certain level of pickpocketing skill beyond which there is no risk. B)

    I don't remember the exact skill value required for the Black Market Thief, but something above 200 (or maybe it's even less, I don't remember) is completely safe. Completely. ;)
  • compleCCitycompleCCity Member Posts: 52
    My own point of view differs from that of many gamers, including you, Rik: I see any exploit mechanism as a pure cheat. So, for me the decision would be: do I want to cheat, or do I not?

    Of course the availability of so many "premium" items right at the start, with the simultaneously existing restriction of not being able to buy them all at once due to insufficient monetary budget, is a game balancing mechanism. You might have one OP-hero in your party, but not a party of OP-heroes from the start.

    Option 1: Stay faithful to roleplay, earn the money you do need for story-advancement, and only then start to go shopping – those items that are still useful at that point of time.

    Option 2: Fulfill all your wishes … and cheat the money you need, or even the items themselves. Why bothering with exploit mechanisms if there's a savegame editor or a console?

    Those are the two I decide between.

    By the way, Rogue Rebalancing – IIRC – disables this exploit.
  • borntodieborntodie Member Posts: 199

    My own point of view differs from that of many gamers, including you, Rik: I see any exploit mechanism as a pure cheat.

    But where do you draw the line between "exploit" and "strategy"?
    ThacoBell
  • compleCCitycompleCCity Member Posts: 52
    Can't tell exactly. Most of what is listed here, I don't use – as far as I can tell, at least. (I haven't read the article en detail, as a matter of principle.) There may be exploits that I haven't identified as such and am using. But there's also a number of things where I restrict myself during gameplay because I think they might be exploits/bugs/inconsistent/non-RP/…
  • BorekBorek Member Posts: 513
    By and large, unless i am NG, LG or LN, i will rob everywhere, being kidnapped and tortured tends to focus the mind and lives are at stake, not least of which is my own.
  • QuickbladeQuickblade Member Posts: 957
    sarevok57 said:

    borntodie said:

    My own point of view differs from that of many gamers, including you, Rik: I see any exploit mechanism as a pure cheat.

    But where do you draw the line between "exploit" and "strategy"?
    here is where i draw the line:

    Exploit: a deliberate action that was not intended by game play mechanics and reproduces an unintentional result that rewards the player in a way that was not designed

    Strategy: a deliberate action that was intended by game play mechanics and reproduces an intentional result that rewards the player in a way that was designed

    aka: stealing from stores to get items for free ( based on the fact you had enough pick pocket skill ) and then selling stolen items back to stores who buy stolen items - there is nothing in this example that goes against the mechanics of the game hence this is a 100% legitimate way of doing things - it may be considered straight class cheese, but legitimate none the less
    I would argue that stealing from fences who buy stolen goods, then selling the stolen stolen goods, ad infinitum until desired is an exploit, fixable by making fences not stealable shops.

    But from normal shops that don't buy stolen goods, go hog wild, steal them blind.
    compleCCityThacoBell
  • compleCCitycompleCCity Member Posts: 52
    Agreed with both of you, sarevok57 and Quickblade.

    There's a difference between
    sarevok57 said:


    […] stealing from stores to get items for free […] and then selling stolen items back to stores who buy stolen items […]

    and


    […] sell-steal-repeat at any fence […]

    (Fist time I try quoting here and it isn't shown correctly in the preview, so no idea how this will look like …)
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714

    borntodie said:

    I mostly get tempted to take Jan, give him a few potions of master thievery, and then sell-steal-repeat at any fence, generally the Black Market Thief in the Shadow Thieves guildhouse, to generate a huge sum of gold, and then, buy everything off every place. (I don't steal from honest merchants.) Well, whether you call this cheating or cheese or some silly bug or anything, it can be done in the game. And since it can be done, one may do it. And so, effectively, you have all the money you need to buy anything and everything you find in the stores.

    Is there a risk that you are caught in the act? I always thought there was, and I have never stolen from merchants because I play no-reload, or at least minimal reload. A hostile black market thief means you lose all future support from the thief guild, right? Or am I mistaken? Because such a risk would be reason enough for me to earn money the 'honest' way.
    @borntodie There's a certain level of pickpocketing skill beyond which there is no risk. B)

    I don't remember the exact skill value required for the Black Market Thief, but something above 200 (or maybe it's even less, I don't remember) is completely safe. Completely. ;)
    Unfortunately, no. There will always be 1% of failure.
    compleCCityThacoBell
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    compleCCity
  • jsavingjsaving Member Posts: 1,083
    For me, I draw the line when you break either the internal logic of the game world or the internal logic of how a reasonable NPC would behave.

    If there's only one ring of Gaxx in the world, for example, finding a clever way to loot it twice doesn't carry with it an in-game reason for why a second ring would be there. It just means BioWare or Beamdog made a coding mistake, so I'd view that as an exploit.

    Similarly, while there's an in-game mechanic for pickpocketing merchant items, selling them back crosses a line because a reasonable NPC would surely notice the purchased items are identical to what he believes he currently has in stock, which would then cause him to see he no longer has those items, which would then cause him to go hostile. For that reason, I don't consider the pickpocket-sell-repeat technique to be "earning" gold but rather exploiting the game's primitive AI for NPCs.

    I'm not sure this is a very common approach, though. Some other players I know tend to see the game mainly as a test of their own ability to maximize gold/XP/whatever under the code provided by BioWare/Beamdog. In that way of thinking, if you as a player solve the "puzzle" of how to obtain two rings of Gaxx or infinite merchant gold, then the in-game rewards for those actions are rightfully yours and if the devs have any objection to that, then they should have done a better job coding the game. (Some would even say the devs are validating those strategies by not issuing a patch to block them, though it seems more likely to me that the devs simply want to accommodate varying playstyles.)
    ThacoBellcompleCCityAerakar
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