A Tale of Hope - BG1 Original Saga playthrough
Permidion_Stark
Member Posts: 4,901
It has been a while since I played Baldur's Gate 1 and I thought I would give the original saga a spin for old time's sake. I'm playing a completely unmodded game (unless you count using an IWD portrait and voice set for my charname) and it will be a no re-load run.
I decided to play as a paladin. One of the good things about being a paladin is that it doesn't take long to roll a pretty impressive set of stats:
I then swapped them around until I got this character:
I put two pips in large swords, one in axes and one in spiked weapons:
And here she is standing outside the Candelkeep Inn, wearing the traditional swimsuit and long evening gloves, ready to start her adventure:
I named my character Hope, partly because I hope this time she will survive and partly because the IWD voice set I am using includes the line 'I'm prepared . . . I hope.' I think of her as an earnest young woman who wears a perpetual worried frown and who treats life like it's a test rather than an adventure. She is painfully aware that she is not very smart. Certainly she is nowhere near as clever as her happy-go-lucky friend Imoen. But on the plus side she is a lot more law-abiding than her light-fingered companion.
Anyway, it is now time to head into the inn and do some shopping (personally I am not sure I would want to frequent a pub that sold weapons to its customers but I guess they do things differently on the Sword Coast).
I decided to play as a paladin. One of the good things about being a paladin is that it doesn't take long to roll a pretty impressive set of stats:
I then swapped them around until I got this character:
I put two pips in large swords, one in axes and one in spiked weapons:
And here she is standing outside the Candelkeep Inn, wearing the traditional swimsuit and long evening gloves, ready to start her adventure:
I named my character Hope, partly because I hope this time she will survive and partly because the IWD voice set I am using includes the line 'I'm prepared . . . I hope.' I think of her as an earnest young woman who wears a perpetual worried frown and who treats life like it's a test rather than an adventure. She is painfully aware that she is not very smart. Certainly she is nowhere near as clever as her happy-go-lucky friend Imoen. But on the plus side she is a lot more law-abiding than her light-fingered companion.
Anyway, it is now time to head into the inn and do some shopping (personally I am not sure I would want to frequent a pub that sold weapons to its customers but I guess they do things differently on the Sword Coast).
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We are now a party of two. Hope has gained 345 experience from fetching and carrying and Imoen has got 9 experience, presumably from turning down beds or possibly cleaning the stables:
Now our two young heroes are equipped and ready for action:
It’s been a LONG time since I’ve looked at those original screens, it’s disorienting how much things have moved around.
It does look very different doesn't it. I'm very fond of the original game though and it is great to be playing with the original sprites again.
The speed hasn't bothered me so far. But then, I have only just left Candlekeep!
She and Imoen return to the site of the previous night's ambush and proceed to loot the corpse of Gorion (it's what he would have wanted - probably) but all they find is a letter that tells them very little, a dagger and a handful of gold. Shortly after they run into a wolf, which on the Sword Coast is a vicious animal that attacks on sight and at this stage in the adventure is more than capable of prematurely ending a no-reload run. Fortunately, Imoen's short bow and Hope's trusty longsword see them victorious:
Things then start looking up for our dynamic duo because by pure luck and not because I knew it was there, Imoen finds a diamond hidden in the bole of a tree:
And things get even better because they then meet a couple of helpful fellows who offer to travel with them. To many they might seem a bit suspicious but Hope is happy to accept any help she can get. This means she fails to cast Detect Evil upon them. But then she isn't very bright and Xzar says as much:
Hope also forgets that she is supposed to be meeting Khalid and Jaheira at the Friendly Arm Inn and agrees to go to Nashkel with her new-found-friends.
So now we are a party of four:
But before she could try it on she found herself attacked by another wolf. Fortunately, her new comrade Xzar was able to display his mastery of the arcane arts by casting Larloch's Minor Drain at it.
The party then headed south and after defeating a lone Xvart and a couple of Gibberlings they entered the pleasant town of Beregost and were treated to one of the original cutscenes, which brought back many happy memories:
However, they resisted temptation and did not dally with these damsels of the dark and instead headed on into Feldepost's Inn, where they were able to gain 900 xp by calming a fellow called Marl, who had been spoiling for a fight:
They then took a bit of a detour heading east out of the town where they met an elf ranger named Kivan. They weren't sure whether to take him in the party but the fact that he sounded like Clint Eastwood swung the decision and so our merry band was up to five by the time they took the road south to Nashkel. At this point they were attacked by a couple of angry ogrillons (note to self: Google 'what is an ogrillon?' I have been playing the game for close to thirty years and I have never bothered to find out).
On the body of one of the creatures Hope found a letter that, with no thought of a reward, she felt she must deliver. Imagine her surprise when this simple act of charity resulted in her gaining a magical ring! But alas, our heroine proved to be butter-fingered as well as not very bright and promptly dropped the ring on the floor:
Fortunately, Hope noticed the loss of the ring before leaving and was able to pick it up and bestow it on her little friend Imoen to help keep her safe from the perils to come.
The party gained 650 xp plus a Helm of Infravision, which does nothing at all in the game but which for some reason is still worth 400 GP.
Proceeding through Nashkel, a big-boned chap named Oublek mistook Hope for the famed bounty hunter Greywolf. Being a law-abiding type Hope set Oublek right and turned down a reward she had not earned:
Hope then engaged in a long and tedious conversation with Noober, the village idiot.
This earned the party 400 xp, which is the same experience as you would get for killing 57.1428571 kobolds, which makes the conversation seem a might less wearisome. Sadly, the experience gained did not allow anyone to level up. A shame because leveling up by talking to Noober always pleases me.
Hope then went wandering through the farmers' fields until she, totally by chance, happened upon a hole in the ground that contained a set of Ankheg plate armour and a pearl. Hope didn't much fancy wandering round dressed in the carapace of a big insect so she gave the armour to Kivan because he is a ranger and the colour suited him. She was hoping that he would still be able to use stealth while wearing the armour, especially since it weighs no more than a set of studded leather, but sadly his stealth button was disabled as soon as he donned it.
I am enjoying the run so far and haven't run into any problems. I know people say that the walking speeds are very slow in the original game but I honestly haven't noticed this. The screen does feel small and this does mean your field of vision can feel a bit constrained but I am playing withe the 'auto-pause on sighting an enemy' function engaged so I haven't run into any problems so far.
The most noticeable difference is that you cannot pause the game on the inventory screen so you have to make sure everyone is properly equipped before going into battle. If you need to pass someone a healing potion there is no way to pause the game mid-fight in order to do it. However, I don't mind this, it just means you have to plan ahead a bit. And to be honest at this point in the game all the fights are the same: I send Hope, my tank, ahead to engage the enemy while the rest of the party rains down missiles from a distance. It's not subtle but it is effective.
Another noticeable thing is that the stacking limits are very tight. You can only put twenty arrows in a slot, which means much of my archers' inventories are taken up with spare arrows. Throwing daggers (which Xzar is using) are even worse, with only ten to a slot.
Finally, there is no indication of the number of charges left in a magic item. Imoen has been merrily firing Magic Missiles from her wand but I have no idea how many she has left. I think the only way to find this out is to go to a store and see how much they would be willing to buy the wand for. I have a feeling that each charge equates to 25 GP but I may be misremembering that.
Finally, finally, stores are far more particular about what they will buy than I had remembered. For example, Taerom Fuiruim at the Thunderhammer Smithy in Beregost will buy jewels but won't be jewelry. Weirdly, he is also unable to identify a ring of protection, and it feels like that would be stock-in-trade to such as him.
Although the Identify doesn’t sound right? Are you sure you have enough money when you tried?
I'm pretty sure I had the funds to pay for the spell but there is always a chance I messed up. I have got another unidentified Ring of Protection +1 (the one from Mirianne in Beregost) so I will go back later to check.
This netted them 1000 XP, which seems a lot but then I guess you don't run into denizens of the Nine Hells every day of the week. Unfortunately, this was still not enough to level anyone up, so they then paid a visit to the Nashkel carnival, where Imoen gained enough XP to reach level two by helping to kill the Amazing Oopah, who is able to survive exploding into chunks but not being filled full of arrows:
Unfortunately, Imoen only got a 2 (+2 for her CON 16) on her hit die roll and so still only has 12 Hit Points. She decided to put all her skill points into Find Traps because we will eventually have to head to the Nashkel Mines and even though I have played often enough to be fairly certain where the traps are, Imoen is still going to have to spot them.
The next encounter proved that my memory of the game is not as good as I thought because I wandered into the wrong tent at the carnival and found myself walking unprepared into a battle with Zordral the wizard. I had intended to leave this until I had a character who could cast Remove Fear because I knew he would start by casting Horror. The encounter went as I feared it would. Yellow circles appeared around Hope, Imoen and Montaron and they started running around like headless chickens. Meanwhile, Xzar did make his saving throw but was next to useless because he had used up all of his spells on Oopah the exploding ogre. He was reduced to casting Chill Touch from a scroll, a spell I had never bothered to cast before and wasn't sure how to use. I kept trying to target it on Zordral not realising that Xzar had to cast the spell first then make a separate attack once his hands had turned blue. Fortunately, Kivan kept his head and saved they day by hitting ZXordral with a crit that did 20 damage.
Next we went wandering in the gibberling infested hills to the east of the Nashkel mines where we happened to find a Ring of Fire Resistance hidden in a crevice in the rock face. I think this is one of the most useful magic items in BG1 since it gives you 40% resistance to fire and fire damage seems very common. I think this is the only one of the hidden items that I discovered myself when first playing the game so it always feels nice to go back and find it again:
Soon after, Hope suffered the embarrassment of almost getting killed by a couple of Gibberlings:
Having sucked down a Potion of Healing and killed off the last of the 'grass monkeys' Hope and her party happened on Lena, a damsel in distress, and agreed to carry her wounded lover to the Friendly Arm Inn to be healed. Why she wanted us to take Samuel, a deserter from the Flaming Fist, all the way north, towards the Flaming First stronghold, when we could have taken him to the temple in Nashkel, where soldiers from Amn are on patrol is one of those mysteries that may never be resolved:
Hope, weighed down by Samuel's almost lifeless body, was heading back north when she was accosted by 'some geezer dwarf'. Despite her misgivings about talking to strangers in the wilderness she decided to tell him her complete life story and he rewarded her candour by presenting her with a scroll of protection from magic, which was nice of him. She will now doubtless carry this for the rest of the game but never get round to using it.
They then took a bit of an unusual detour and head over to Peldvale:
There they met Viconia, a drow damsel in distress.
Allowing Viconia to join the party not only provided them with a much needed cleric but also gave Hope the chance to murder a member of the Flaming Fist without having to face any consequences. This is something you don't often get to do as a paladin so Hope made the most of her opportunity. And as an added bonus she also leveled up by doing it. Result!
Viconia looks like she will be a valuable asset to the party even if she is only just strong enough to wear the armour she stripped from the corpse of the Flaming Fister:
When she leveled Hope got lucky and rolled a 10 on her hit die so she now has 28HP:
I went back to the Thunderhammer Smithy and checked whether old Taerom Fuiruim could identify a Ring of Protection +1 and he definitely can't. Nor could he identify the Golden Pantaloons that Imoen has filched:
I'm still enjoying this playthrough and haven't run into any glitches. The only things I really miss so far are gem bags and scroll cases because your inventory can fill up pretty quickly.
I had also forgotten that the original saga has no 'rest until healed' option (or if there is one I can't find it) and it came as a bit of a surprise when I had rested for eight hours and some of my party were still looking distinctly unwell. It did at least remind me that I need to rent the fancy rooms when you are staying at an inn because you heal faster if you do.
Funny about the Identify, I really don’t remember that, but then I guess I always had someone who could identify stuff in the party.
Your paladin recruited Viconia? A priestess of Shar! I get she’s only average in intelligence, but you play her like she’s extremely low wisdom! She has “Detect Evil” for a reason….
Hope thinks there is a good in everyone. And I enjoy the banter of the evil characters so I am allowing her to recruit them at the beginning of the game because I know they will all leave when her reputation gets too high.
I wanted Viconia in the party because I enjoy hear her bickering with Kivan. They sound like they are either going to kill each other or get a room. Unfortunately, I had forgotten how infrequent the banters are in the original game and Viconia said precisely one thing to Kivan before my reputation hit 18 and she stalked off in a huff, never to be seen again:
Unfortunately yes. She lasted about an hour and then she and Montaron left at the same time (Xzar had already died when I got ambushed by an odd combination of Gibberlings and Hobgoblins). My plan had been to let Montaron go on a thieving spree, get caught stealing and lose reputation that way so that I could keep them for a while. But I had forgotten to do it and I lost them both. Interestingly, Kagain agreed to join even though my reputation was already 20 and only left when I would have gained another reputation point if I wasn't already maxed out.
I have now got Branwen in the party and, being True Neutral, she complains as much as the evil characters did about the choices Hope is making. Branwen seems unusually talkative - presumably because she is not happy - and at the end of every fight informs me: "Our actions are not those of warrior born".
I maybe shouldn't have gone completely unmodded for this run because I would generally use the tweak that allows you to keep evil characters regardless of reputation. I am also missing Chatty Imoen by @AstroBryGuy because so far she has been almost totally silent. Practically the only thing she has said is "yawn I'm gettin' a little sleepy".
I do recall, on very first play, having Jaheira then Branwen for healing, and getting tired of all the complaining so finally created my own NG cleric.
Obviously Minsc and Dyna would fill some holes here. Xan wouldn’t be too hard to get to.
I'm avoiding picking up Minsc and Dynaheir until later (possibly much later!) because once I have picked them up I find it hard to kick them out. The same goes for Khalid and Jaheira but I will have to pick them up before I do the Nashkel mines or they will disappear completely.
At the moment I have got Garrick in the party because someone has to kiss Shoal the Nereid and he seems the ideal fall guy. I have also just recruited Ajantis, someone I never normally bother with but it was him or Safana and you have to draw the line somewhere.
They are great aren't they. I'm really enjoying bringing back memories of when I first played the game. Mind you, I haven't gone fully authentic; I'm playing the version that comes packaged with BG:EE that you can get from GOG.com. So there is no swapping of discs or waiting for screens to load.
I like Ajantis, but he’s one I rarely have spot for.
I was surprised when Safana turned up in SoD. She's comfortably my least favourite of the original npcs. Personally I would have preferred to keep Imoen but if we had to have an alternative thief I would have gone for Alora or even a dual-classed Shar-Teel.
Shortly after Viconia joined the party encountered a talking chicken named Melicamp.
I find this particular fetch and carry quest to be one of the most frustrating in the game. The rewards can be great (2000 xp for carrying a chicken across one map is a pretty solid return) but there is a good chance you end up with nothing at all. Fortunately for me, Thalantyr's antichickenator spell worked this time. I got the experience and three of the party leveled up at once:
I loved playing the original game again. For my money it looks a lot better than the reboot. I much prefer the original sprites and I would give up dual-wielding to get rid of mirroring any day of the week.
I'm now working on an EET set up that will use mods to try to restore the original look of the game as far as possible. And on my next run I won't be letting Garrick anywhere near a Wand of Fire!