Question about SoD

Arthas

I refuse to play Sod because playing it makes no difference in BG2 - Soa and ToB as if you have never played it at all.

I sort of like it (even if I hate very much the railroading that happens in the final judgement against <charname>) so I am wondering...:

Will installing

Skie - the lost girl soul (by Lava del'Vortel)
and
The fallen Light by Aionz

be enough to actually fix my gripes with the game?

joluv

It makes a difference for what items appear in BG2.

Isewein

You could always treat it as torture-induced partial amnesia But I feel you! Same problem I've always had with the large quest mods that ship you off to Icewind Dale etc.

jsaving

Beamdog wasn't allowed to alter BG2's storyline, only explain how CHARNAME got from BG1 to BG2. If that isn't interesting to you, you'd probably be best-off not playing SoD, though again that wasn't Beamdog's choice so you might consider giving it a shot and seeing what you think of the game.

gorgonzola

to play or not play SoD makes also a difference in the starting xp in bg2.
this and the added items affect the balance making the beginning of bg2 more easy.
i don't own SoD, so i have no direct experience of it, but i have enough bg2 runs and experience to judge how the things are easier with like 400K xp more, as i don't always do the easy bg2 quests at the beginning. On the items i try to not get spoiled until i will buy and try SoD, so i never read that forum section, but from what i have been spoiled reading this one i would say that they also affect the balance of the beginning of SoA.

RP wise as it has been told bg2 can not be changed to take in account the SoD happening, but it is not a big problem for me. I started to play bg2 and at that moment i had no knowledge of what happens in bg, still the very few hints given in bg2 are enough to make it RP sound even ignoring what happens before.

but the player's taste matters a lot both for the mechanics and RP matters.
and SoD adds content and to avoid it cause there is no reference to its happenings in bg2 or cause the balance of the early bg2 is affected comes to the price of loosing that new content.

Grond0

It's true that SoD makes little difference to BG2, but I'm not sure why that is such a problem. Effectively Beamdog have just replicated the type of transition that was previously there at the end of BG1, i.e.
- the PC itself is transferred with stats and XP, but not items or reputation.
- other members of the party are not transferred at all, though some of them can be found in the game in a new incarnation.
- a limited number of items can transfer between the games.
- there's very little content in BG2 that is affected by what happened in the previous game.

If you want the games to be more seamless you might want to look at the EE Trilogy mod.

Gatekeep3r

As mentioned before, it mostly only changes the starting XP in BGII. The first chapters in an unmodded BG2EE will be easier.

I liked SoD because it was finally something new, but the writing was horrible. Railroading is something you never do in a D&D universe.

ThacoBell

@Gatekeep3r Not even the first chapters. Only the first couple quests that don't scale. Anything past the copper coronet slavers quest or circus tent won't really be any easier.