Actually no, you need a spellcaster to use scrolls. That's why bards or f/m/t are the best classes for a speed run: magic users, thief abilities, better hp than mage.
Actually no, you need a spellcaster to use scrolls. That's why bards are the best classes for a speed run: magic users, thief abilities, better hp than mage.
No good for dealing with traps, though. I was tempted to do a solo run with a Jester, but in the end I'm now doing a no/minimal reload (but not speed) duo run with a Jester and just Safana (for traps/locks).
The speedrun will lead past the Cloakwood mines but I guess you could simply dodge the assassins outside the entrance.
No, it doesn't.
Maybe you should have a look to a good speed run to have an idea
I would hardly call that a good speedrun. Infinite consumables is so very clearly a bug. While perhaps not using a code or a 3rd party program, some might consider that outright cheating. Not to mention that whole dimension dooring into BG city 5 chapters early.
Just make a Inquisitor, take potion of oil speed from imoen, (solo)kill the lothander priest and the sirens, then you done to complete game easy. Imunit to charm and hold rules, since everyone in this game cast hold person or charm.
using those bugs to speed up a run is certainly interesting and sometimes tricky to pull, ans somehow legit for a speed run - nevertheless it would be very interesting to see a proper speedrun without blatant bugusing.
There's a difference between an "anything but outright cheating goes" speedrun and a "I managed to get to Sarevok and kill him in only 5 hours of gameplay!" speedrun. Since Bhaaldog is clearly talking about "legit" speedruns, I don't see how potion-multiplying or finding a way to skip the Cloakwood Mines are relevant.
The key attribute to be measured here is skill in beating the game, not skill in beating the game's mechanics. I once saw a BG2 speedrun where the player bypassed half the chapters by glitching through a wall with Yoshimo polymorphed as an iron golem capable of backstabbing for massive damage to kill the Shadow Thief leader. That guy was a good puzzle solver, but I don't know how good he actually is with the game.
I would hardly call that a good speedrun. Infinite consumables is so very clearly a bug. While perhaps not using a code or a 3rd party program, some might consider that outright cheating. Not to mention that whole dimension dooring into BG city 5 chapters early.
Then you don't know what a "speedrun" is
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedrun "Additionally, games and their physics engines are not flawless and will allow the runner to do unexpected things that could save time. Despite their inherent differences, they seem to share a lot of common traits in this context, such as the ability to disjunct the common sequence of events in a game and thus skip entire parts of it—the act of sequence breaking—and the ability to use programming errors, or glitches, to one's advantage."
A speedrun involves this kind of things by definition.
"While some speedrun rules require that the skipping of such events be avoided, it is often desirable—connate with the act of route planning—to make full use of such possibilities."
Well, I'll have to agree with @Madhax and disagree with Wikipedia then. I consider a "good" speedrun to be a run which finishes the game as fast as possible within the rules, and without (ab)using exploits, potion swapping, etc.
I guess also different people have a different perception about what is "cheese" e.g. I consider surrounding Drizzt with NPCs you've kicked out so that you can target him safely with ranged weapons cheese, but thinking recharging wands and amulets at stores by selling at 1 charge and repurchasing (or even stealing) legitimate.
I think the reason the whole sell-repurchase/steal thing seems legitimate is that you can consider it paying the merchant to refill the wand (maybe through some secret mercantile methods unknown to you). You sell them the goods, the merchant then (in your head) sends them somewhere and pays a fee to re-energise the item and then puts it up for sale. You then return and purchase it again, presumably for an increased price. You can steal it as well, but that doesn't really alter the principle of the thing.
I think the reason the whole sell-repurchase/steal thing seems legitimate is that you can consider it paying the merchant to refill the wand (maybe through some secret mercantile methods unknown to you). You sell them the goods, the merchant then (in your head) sends them somewhere and pays a fee to re-energise the item and then puts it up for sale. You then return and purchase it again, presumably for an increased price. You can steal it as well, but that doesn't really alter the principle of the thing.
That was my thinking, of course if you steal it, the only place you would be able to sell to in order to recharge it again would be at Black Lilly's. For a Bard, using rechargable wands (and stealing or buying them back) is one way to maximise the use of your innate pickpockets skills (for stealing) and/or high Charisma/Friends (for cheaper purchases), and of course a bard can use wands wearing armour...
I had a few folks involved in some "legit" type speed runs about a decade ago - we used the number of game days it took to get to the final battle as the "winning" criteria and just to make it interesting we had a couple of "house rules" to follow:
1) No reloads except game crashes - one other exception was making a save when Imoen joins outside of candlekeep and if your character died and you wanted to restart you could use that save (avoiding redoing Candlekeep)
2) by the end of chapter 2/start of chap 3 you must have recruited a party of six (ie; take a party of 5 in the mines and recruit Xan for #6) and maintain a party of 6 from that point on.
3) If an NPC died they must be resurected or replaced ASAP with a little bit of leeway allowed ( basicly you could finish your current "map" first if you wished )
As I recall the winner was just under 15 game days - well under my best attempt which was 35 game days to the final battle where Sarevok kicked my butt LOL.
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@Bhaaldog Boots of speed? There is no way you will have the time to get them in a good speed run
That's why bards or f/m/t are the best classes for a speed run: magic users, thief abilities, better hp than mage.
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At least not those in the original BG.
Maybe you should have a look to a good speed run to have an idea
The key attribute to be measured here is skill in beating the game, not skill in beating the game's mechanics. I once saw a BG2 speedrun where the player bypassed half the chapters by glitching through a wall with Yoshimo polymorphed as an iron golem capable of backstabbing for massive damage to kill the Shadow Thief leader. That guy was a good puzzle solver, but I don't know how good he actually is with the game.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedrun
"Additionally, games and their physics engines are not flawless and will allow the runner to do unexpected things that could save time. Despite their inherent differences, they seem to share a lot of common traits in this context, such as the ability to disjunct the common sequence of events in a game and thus skip entire parts of it—the act of sequence breaking—and the ability to use programming errors, or glitches, to one's advantage."
A speedrun involves this kind of things by definition.
"While some speedrun rules require that the skipping of such events be avoided, it is often desirable—connate with the act of route planning—to make full use of such possibilities."
And from the OP: Clearly Baaldog is talking about legit tactics only.
What you are talking about is a boring playthrough that simply skips the avoidable parts of the game.
Anyway...
1) No reloads except game crashes - one other exception was making a save when Imoen joins outside of candlekeep and if your character died and you wanted to restart you could use that save (avoiding redoing Candlekeep)
2) by the end of chapter 2/start of chap 3 you must have recruited a party of six (ie; take a party of 5 in the mines and recruit Xan for #6) and maintain a party of 6 from that point on.
3) If an NPC died they must be resurected or replaced ASAP with a little bit of leeway allowed ( basicly you could finish your current "map" first if you wished )
As I recall the winner was just under 15 game days - well under my best attempt which was 35 game days to the final battle where Sarevok kicked my butt LOL.