What’s the point of Legacy of Baal?

Kandrax

So I recently got this game on Steam, and I usually like to play games on max difficulty for trophies and a challenge but this is just wrong.

I don’t have the time to bow kite one single enemy in circles for 2 hours while I wait for critical hits to actually hit it and chip it’s health away. And if you missclick your movement from getting bored or tired you get instagibbed and go back to the start.

Melee is impossible, anyone entering melee will be instantly killed, CC spells are useless because they get resisted, damage spells are useless because they do no damage in relation to the health pool.

I tried to create a tank for my main character, cavalier, -5 armor, killed by a normal wolf in 2 seconds.

Only thing is to sit there and kite everything with a bow and basically never engage any enemy that has ranged attacks.

So if I need 2 hours to kill a couple of the most basic enemies, 1 by 1 in an open field through kiting, then how are you supposed to play through the actual game?

Does anyone really play this? Is there some secret tactics I’m missing?

jmerry

It's an extra super-challenge mode for players who like that sort of puzzle. It's absolutely not intended as a normal way to play, or even designed to be possible to win at. Starting at level 1 in that mode is particularly brutal. Though people have managed to win anyway...

Here's a thread on players doing things at LoB difficulty. Plus even more challenge on top of that, with mods and self-imposed challenge rules.

Based on your experience with trying this out, I doubt you'll care to play at LoB difficulty. Just stick with Insane difficulty (including the double damage taken), restrict your use of "Power Word: Reload", and maybe shut off a few more tricks that you think are cheesy.

Other challenges are possible too. It doesn't have to be the absolute hardest version of the game to be interesting. For example, I tried out a speedrun challenge - how fast can you beat BGEE based on the in-game time progression? I've done it in under 13 days, documented in another thread on that "challenges and playthroughs" subforum.

Kandrax

I settled for Insane without the x2 damage and max hitpoints on level up enabled, I feel like this is a good trade-off between enjoying the story but still keeping it somewhat engaging.

Legacy of Baal honestly feels like something you would add in an MMO for a day as part of an april fools event.

Somehow I get the impression that melee as a whole is not really feasible in this game, even on lower difficulties. Melee fighters need too much maintenance and micro-management, even with good armor enemies will hit you on 20s, and this chance adds up quickly in case of swarm enemies like kobolds or dogs, and a single hit will take anywhere from 10-30% of your health pool.

There seems to be no damage reduction in this game with heavier armors, it’s either hit or miss but you still take damage like the mage in cloth next to you. A “tank” in an MMO sense feels impossible to do.

I feel like it’s just not worth all that trouble compared to just equipping everyone with ranged weapons and have a kiter.

GraionDilach

TBH, it's a freebie.

This mode comes from IWD1 Classic (where it's called Hearts of Fury), the Bioware Baldur's Gates only had Insane. But considering that the EEs share the engine, it was literally just exposing an already-existing option.

masteraleph

There are ways to do damage reduction at higher levels (specifically in BG2, or as a Dwarven Defender in BG1). But yes, it's not easy, and requires specific items or spells

kaisch006

You’re correct that it’s a pointless mode. One of the. Most popular content creators for baldurs gate, davorean, makes no reload runs through insane mode which is essentially legacy of bhaal. While his insights into the games mechanics are invaluable, I never watch these runs as they’re rather pointless to me. The inflated damage makes the game unplayable as intended. As others have posted the best way to play is insane difficulty with no stat buffs and SCS installed.

sarevok57

i've only played LoB mode once, just to get the achievement and i agree it was quite a tedious and boring experience

what i did was, was play a power gaming group on insane difficulty all the way until the end, and then i imported that team to a new game in LoB mode

so in candlekeep i had a team at max level with all the best items already, and even with that, the game was still tedious because enemies just take FOREVER to take down ( LoB gives ALL enemies x3+80 HP, which in bg1 is kind of unfeasible ) but anyway, i lucked out in chapter 3 when i found a scroll of invisibility 10' radius from a random drop, and it was great, since i already had all the best gear and was max level, i would just invisibility through the whole game, only killed who had to be killed and run pass everything else to get to the last battle

which ironically making the mode even more pointless but it was what it was

LoB mode for SoA on the other hand can be really hit and miss since get much better spells, but the HP that some enemies have is just absolutely ludicrous, thankfully you only need to complete SoA to get the achievement because i could only imagine the absolute horror of attempting to complete ToB on LoB, the amount of cheese required to complete that would be enough to feed the world 10 times over

Lammas

I completed the trilogy a year or two ago solo on LOB starting on lvl 1. My first solo run in years. I was just curious if my knowledge of how to cheese the game would be enough to get me through since I don't usually play quite that way.

But yeah, it's not something you'd want to do as a first timer at all. As a matter of fact it's not necessarily something you'd want to do ever. The mode pretty much requires you to know the game like the back of your hand. I know I won't be doing it again. The mode is not particularly fun IMO.

I do want to mention that outside LOB melee is viable though. Plain ol' fighter is my second favorite class to play in BG1 and if I don't pick up a tanky NPC to allow me to take bows, I'll be the one tanking things myself. That said ranged weapons are generally extremely effective in BG1 so there's that. I find all fighters, melee or ranged, to be the least micro management out of anything.

EDIT: Jeez, it was back in 2018. Time flies.