Skip to content

Biggest "Exploits" You've Found. Are they cheats or are they cheap?

HaHaCharadeHaHaCharade Member Posts: 1,643
So, like many of you, I've been playing BG for many years. There's some seriously cheesy stuff you can do to abuse a game. Is it cheating? Is it cheap? Wouldn't it just be easier to use EE Keeper, or does doing something solely in the game with Pauses. Reloads, etc., help you sleep at night?

Well.. who are we as mere mortals to judge as such? Anyway... Here's a couple I have. Wondering what else folks have come up with? Who knows, some of these may be so lousy if there is a future patch someday, there might be a desire to fix them.

Before anyone says WHY BOTHER. This is just a fun post, so let the cheese flow.



Baldur's Gate 1

- "Keep Your Rep Up Exploit" - Want to kill an innocent NPC or two, but don't want to take a rep hit? There's a couple solutions here. One is kind of clever, one is downright cheap.

1) "Charm and Killed by Hostiles". The easiest way if you're in an open area. Using one of the Charm Cloaks (or a Charm spell, but must be done BEFORE the spell wears off or they go red) lead the charmed NPC around the map until you catch the attention of some hostile creatures. Let them target the charmed NPC. Don't let the NPC fight the hostiles at all (you control them after all - just walk them back and forth). Let them die. Loot them. No Rep loss.

2) "Magic Missile Hit It and Quit It." No hostiles in an area? Out of Charm Spells? Then simply have a mage (Ex. Edwin) with Magic Missile who will stay in place after quitting ur group. Neera or Baeloth will run back to Freindly arm so they will not be the best choice. Have them fire a magic missile at the NPC in question. Pause while missile is in mid-air. Have them quit the party. Unpause. NPC dies. Edwin is not in your party, you don't lose rep. Immediately talk to Edwin, have him rejoin. Yes, before you say anything, this is downright low :wink: Other NPCs will also NOT go hostile with this trick. After all, your party did not kill them.


- "Infinite Riches of Amn" - Get a Thief, Get Pick Pocket to 50% or higher (Imoen at Level 3 does the trick if you want to burn points here. Just do it with any thief you don't want to use long term really) . Attempt to Camp in Nashkel, out in the open. Have sleep interrupted. Guard will approach. Pick Pocket. Steal spell or gem, let them leave the immediate area, and repeat. This is a SUPER quick way to get all the 2nd level spell scrolls immediately after reaching Nashkel, or a ton of gems/rings (2nd level variety stuff). You can even talk to the guard right after they appear to interrupt them approaching then, save to up the pick pocket chance.


So there's a couple, I'll think of some more.


Comments

  • MelicampMelicamp Member Posts: 243
    You can get pretty much infinite arrows of biting and pearls by camping and repeating at the Pirate Cave map section in BG1. Just camp until you get two sirens, kill them, reload. I think like 50 biting arrows go for about 2 grand each. Also, many people know this but you can camp and repeat in the pirate cave itself and level off the flesh golems that spawn.
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    I can go two ways. Some, I use shamelessly. Others, I patch. I have a tweak mod in development, and four of the components are devoted to patching exploitable bugs I've found in my various playthroughs.

    For example, did you know that the extra strength Wilson gets in BG2 is bugged (wrong timing mode)? If you dismiss him from the party and have him rejoin repeatedly, it stacks with itself. Before long, the party bear has strength 25. That's one of the things I have a fix for.
  • HaHaCharadeHaHaCharade Member Posts: 1,643
    jmerry wrote: »
    I can go two ways. Some, I use shamelessly. Others, I patch. I have a tweak mod in development, and four of the components are devoted to patching exploitable bugs I've found in my various playthroughs.

    For example, did you know that the extra strength Wilson gets in BG2 is bugged (wrong timing mode)? If you dismiss him from the party and have him rejoin repeatedly, it stacks with itself. Before long, the party bear has strength 25. That's one of the things I have a fix for.

    I think I did hear that, yeah that's obvs broken for sure!
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    i think one of my favourite exploits is killing drizzt at level 1, and thankfully there are still many ways to do it, some harder than others

    its funny, back in the day you could just use invisibility and surround drizzt with your team and have one or two characters whack him from long range but then beamdog specifically gave drizzt "can see invisible creatures" strictly for that exploit alone

    and to be honest, in my opinion exploits are definitely cheap and cheating, but the game doesn't care how you play it, so there is no repercussions for your actions and at the end of the day it doesn't really matter as far as the game is concerned

    but imagine if you were playing actual PnP style, there is no way something like that would fly with a DM worth their salt, ( because computer AI can only do so much ) while a human mind is far superior in "thinking outside the box" that if an exploit did happen in a game it probably wouldn't happen again ( because the DM would learn from it quickly )

    for example, another great exploit is fighting kangaxx, which is super easily barely an inconvenience, all you need is 1 holmes with a weapon that hits at +4 or better vs undead and a scroll of protection from magic and you basically cannot lose

    in game, the game itself doesn't spot anything out of the ordinary and allows such shenanigans, but if this were a real PnP situation, the DM would at least make kangaxx fight other team mates instead of just trying to unload on a fully protected character in which it couldn't possibly damage

    so the way i look at it, if a human DM would allow it, i wouldn't consider an "exploit" cheating or cheap, but if a human DM wouldn't allow it, then it is definitely cheating or cheap
  • HaHaCharadeHaHaCharade Member Posts: 1,643
    sarevok57 wrote: »
    i think one of my favourite exploits is killing drizzt at level 1, and thankfully there are still many ways to do it, some harder than others

    its funny, back in the day you could just use invisibility and surround drizzt with your team and have one or two characters whack him from long range but then beamdog specifically gave drizzt "can see invisible creatures" strictly for that exploit alone

    and to be honest, in my opinion exploits are definitely cheap and cheating, but the game doesn't care how you play it, so there is no repercussions for your actions and at the end of the day it doesn't really matter as far as the game is concerned

    but imagine if you were playing actual PnP style, there is no way something like that would fly with a DM worth their salt, ( because computer AI can only do so much ) while a human mind is far superior in "thinking outside the box" that if an exploit did happen in a game it probably wouldn't happen again ( because the DM would learn from it quickly )

    for example, another great exploit is fighting kangaxx, which is super easily barely an inconvenience, all you need is 1 holmes with a weapon that hits at +4 or better vs undead and a scroll of protection from magic and you basically cannot lose

    in game, the game itself doesn't spot anything out of the ordinary and allows such shenanigans, but if this were a real PnP situation, the DM would at least make kangaxx fight other team mates instead of just trying to unload on a fully protected character in which it couldn't possibly damage

    so the way i look at it, if a human DM would allow it, i wouldn't consider an "exploit" cheating or cheap, but if a human DM wouldn't allow it, then it is definitely cheating or cheap

    hear hear. I will say my favorite way to kill drizzt is just making the game how it used to be, by lowering pathfinding so that he can't circumvent the water, and then you can just range him to death
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    With a party, you can just have him chase one party member in circles while the rest pelt him with ranged attacks. It takes a long time, but it works. His boots aren't actually boots of speed, after all - they do something to his speed, but it's the same modifier type as Grease in 2.6 and only six times the value.
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    sarevok57 wrote: »
    i think one of my favourite exploits is killing drizzt at level 1, and thankfully there are still many ways to do it, some harder than others

    its funny, back in the day you could just use invisibility and surround drizzt with your team and have one or two characters whack him from long range but then beamdog specifically gave drizzt "can see invisible creatures" strictly for that exploit alone

    and to be honest, in my opinion exploits are definitely cheap and cheating, but the game doesn't care how you play it, so there is no repercussions for your actions and at the end of the day it doesn't really matter as far as the game is concerned

    but imagine if you were playing actual PnP style, there is no way something like that would fly with a DM worth their salt, ( because computer AI can only do so much ) while a human mind is far superior in "thinking outside the box" that if an exploit did happen in a game it probably wouldn't happen again ( because the DM would learn from it quickly )

    for example, another great exploit is fighting kangaxx, which is super easily barely an inconvenience, all you need is 1 holmes with a weapon that hits at +4 or better vs undead and a scroll of protection from magic and you basically cannot lose

    in game, the game itself doesn't spot anything out of the ordinary and allows such shenanigans, but if this were a real PnP situation, the DM would at least make kangaxx fight other team mates instead of just trying to unload on a fully protected character in which it couldn't possibly damage

    so the way i look at it, if a human DM would allow it, i wouldn't consider an "exploit" cheating or cheap, but if a human DM wouldn't allow it, then it is definitely cheating or cheap

    hear hear. I will say my favorite way to kill drizzt is just making the game how it used to be, by lowering pathfinding so that he can't circumvent the water, and then you can just range him to death

    ah yes, i remember doing that back in the vanilla days

    party at the small "island" in the middle of the lake, pelting him with ranged ammunition haha
    jmerry wrote: »
    With a party, you can just have him chase one party member in circles while the rest pelt him with ranged attacks. It takes a long time, but it works. His boots aren't actually boots of speed, after all - they do something to his speed, but it's the same modifier type as Grease in 2.6 and only six times the value.

    hmm, interesting, i always thought he was too fast to kite, based on his booties that he is wearing
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    edited December 2021
    sarevok57 wrote: »
    hmm, interesting, i always thought he was too fast to kite, based on his booties that he is wearing

    That might be new in 2.6, actually. In older versions, his boots were +20% to speed, and I think his custom animation moves at the same base speed as player sprites. In the new version, he's close enough to the same speed as a PC that he can be kited.
    You do need a party for it unless you have someone with increased speed, though. You're definitely not fast enough to open up distance and take shots with the character being chased.

    Drizzt also has a casting of Entangle memorized, which he'll use if the nearest enemy is at medium range. You need to be careful not to get caught by that - because if you do get caught, he'll catch up and kill you easily.
    Post edited by jmerry on
  • HaHaCharadeHaHaCharade Member Posts: 1,643

    sarevok57 wrote: »
    sarevok57 wrote: »

    hear hear. I will say my favorite way to kill drizzt is just making the game how it used to be, by lowering pathfinding so that he can't circumvent the water, and then you can just range him to death

    ah yes, i remember doing that back in the vanilla days

    party at the small "island" in the middle of the lake, pelting him with ranged ammunition haha

    Yeah you can still just go in and edit the Baldur's Gate file in Docs and scale back the pathfinding, kill him, then just set the pathfinding to the new number again.
  • DinoDinDinoDin Member Posts: 1,567
    One of the most overpowered exploits that I rarely see mentioned here is using Gorax and the basilisks to quickly level up. Truly cheesing this -- i.e. with just one party member -- can erase the difficulty for about the first 2/3 of the game. The basic gist is go to Mutamin's garden section, recruit the ghoul, then kill as many basilisks as you can before he turns hostile.

    It's not an exploit I enjoy using, but if you want to blitz through the first half of the game, it's right there. And it's not even a truly unfair exploit. That is, you're not abusing the game engine or modding it or even really abusing the enemy AI. Does require a bit of care obviously.
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    DinoDin wrote: »
    One of the most overpowered exploits that I rarely see mentioned here is using Gorax and the basilisks to quickly level up. Truly cheesing this -- i.e. with just one party member -- can erase the difficulty for about the first 2/3 of the game. The basic gist is go to Mutamin's garden section, recruit the ghoul, then kill as many basilisks as you can before he turns hostile.

    It's not an exploit I enjoy using, but if you want to blitz through the first half of the game, it's right there. And it's not even a truly unfair exploit. That is, you're not abusing the game engine or modding it or even really abusing the enemy AI. Does require a bit of care obviously.

    coincidentally i also figured this out recently on my couple of last play throughs, i wasn't aware that gorax was such a beast, the only baddies that even try to damage him are the greater basilisks, but as long as he can paralyze quickly its GG, even with the fight against the gnome ( who somehow casts the horror spell, despite being a gnome.... ) is cake

    good stuff
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    It's not that Korax is so powerful - it's that basilisks are very weak to melee (their gaze is treated as a ranged attack). As long as you're careful, a cat familiar can easily slaughter them. You just need petrification immunity on whatever's in front.
  • HaHaCharadeHaHaCharade Member Posts: 1,643
    Is Gorax, Korax's half-brother?
  • gladosglados Member Posts: 30
    i have a dedicated guide for that on steam. it's in russian tho
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    Is Gorax, Korax's half-brother?

    hahaha, somehow i missed that
Sign In or Register to comment.