You know, I never understood why the Shield of Balduran is considered "cheese"...
The only argument I've seen for it is pretty much "It makes Beholders too easy", It's a tool made for one job and one job only, killing Beholders. With that reasoning, any weapon\armor that's good against a specific type of enemy is cheese. Clerics and Paladins as a class are cheese because they can kill most undead instantly with Turn Undead.
Yep, same failed logic can indeed be applied to any combat situation in the game.
Casting protection spells for instance can be seen as cheese because those protections make certain encounters trivial. Like basillisks become a joke with certain protection spell.
Isn't the alternative basicly just to throw a dice and hope for the best?
I think, for some people, the cheese factor isn't in how powerful the shield is, but that unless you KNEW beforehand that you had to face an entire lair of Beholders, why would you have purchased it in the first place? Same applies for basilisks and that protection scroll. You only have a limited number of spells at that point, why would you choose something that was so situation specific unless you knew?
For me, I don't go looking for basilisks until I release Branwen from the stoned form. I'm not sure if there's a story how she got that way, but I take that (in my own mind) that she talks about Basilisks in the area and that prompts me to be more prepared.
Same with the shield. I don't buy it until I hear about the cult of the unseeing eye. Then it's pretty much a lock that I will need it.
The other option is that people like to artificially make things harder for themselves, so they call these things cheese. I suppose it might make some people feel better that they defeated the encounter without having taken the 'easy' path. And that's fair. That's why people do the 'No-reload' challenges and the like.
For me, I don't go looking for basilisks until I release Branwen from the stoned form. I'm not sure if there's a story how she got that way, but I take that (in my own mind) that she talks about Basilisks in the area and that prompts me to be more prepared.
LOL. I tend to rewrite bits of story with my own imagination.
@mumumomo@CrevsDaak It is from vanilla. She does not react when she sees him, though. A bit of an anticlimax.
@the_spyder actually no reload is not to feel more superior, i'd think. I am just doing one and it is fun to ponder consequences. I was always running head first before, though. Maybe you already do it carefully :-)
@MacHurto - no offense was intended. I didn't mean that any one philosophy was the reason for different ways of playing the game. if you get a sense of accomplishment off of the way(s) you play the game? Great. If you merely enjoy the story and the game play, but want to add your own challenges? Wonderful. It's all kinds of good. And no denigration was intended.
I will cheese before officially starting a playthrough, so I will do tome runs to boost stats, soak XP to help with late dual-classing, etc.
But once the playthrough has started, no more cheese. No fake talk, no control circlet abuse, no importing of characters halfway through the game for infinite loot, etc.
For items like Shield of Balduran, I'll keep it on hand as an option, but usually I'll end up experimenting with other methods to win, and eventually one of them goes through and I don't have to use it.
So it goes: cheese before official playthrough, RP cheese during playthrough, desperation cheese if stumped (hardly if ever).
As I define it, when I'm satisfied with all the preparation work from charting out my planned path, starting level and stats, boosted my stats to where I want them to be, and start a game without dropping halfway
I typically plan out these things before a game:
1. What party I want (I choose my NPCs before starting the game. No switching of NPCs midway) 2. What items to use for characters (I fill up a spreadsheet listing out which character to use what item) 3. Sequence of adventuring (which map to go and when to do it) 4. Stats I want to have
I will get annoyed if things don't go according to plan, so I have to do the planning and preparation beforehand. And yes, I have OCD. I book my flights 9 months in advance, hunt for hotel reviews and save the links, and keep color-coded, A3-sized spreadsheets of my travel schedule ^_^
My Charname just set eight spike traps under Demogorgon. I cheese through everything, everyone and in every possible way, but right now I feel slightly disgusted with how cheesy that was.
It is very arguable what constitutes "cheese". To call a tactic "cheese" is to express an opinion, not a fact.
Personally, I consider reloading to be the ultimate cheese. Therefore, I will gladly use any tactic I can think of or have read about that will get me through the encounter without having to reload the game.
It seems to me that if a player doesn't do that, then he or she is just reloading over and over until lucky dice rolls occur. Isn't that "cheese"? Or, the player is using metaknowledge to know exactly which potions to drink, exactly which items to use, and exactly which spells to have memorized. That's not "cheese"?
There are actually two dialogues she points out that tranzig turned her to stone.
When you accept her into your party
"I am glad to be part of your war party. I will not make you regret your decision. A word of caution though: beware of the dog that entrapped me in stone. Tranzig he called himself. He was in the employ of a mercenary group, but I do not know the name. I shall see him dead before I see the shores of home again!"
When charmed
"I have not much to tell you. I was in the employ of an adventuring group that dared to attack unarmed merchants. I battled them bravely, but a dog named Tranzig entrapped me in stone. I shall see his head leave his body if it is the last thing I do! "
Cool. New stuff I did not know. I guess I just never paid that much attention to her intro speech or I'd have picked up on that. Ah well, I guess I am going to have to find another 'Reason' to be adequately prepared for basilisks.
I am mostly a 2, although in BG2 I find myself dipping down into the 3's from time to time.
Why I still like BG1, it's easy to 2 or 4 the whole thing. BG2 however, has much more content and challenging scenarios, which is equally good.
The amount of deadly encounters in BG2 are just too numerous. I find myself hitting that L key way more than I'd like to admit. Heck, just a band of lowly sewer kobolds have the power to end your group with 1 lucky confusion spell.
Here is an example of why I'm a 2. Last night I finished the Unseeing Eye quest at a pretty low level. No shield of Balduran, but I did use the power of stealth to justify my meta. I would find a number of these deadly little gauths while scouting for traps. Once the whole place was cleared I let loose a duo of earth and air elemental to safely clean the place out. Cheesy?
I did break one of my rules with scribing scrolls that I'm not too proud of. I generally let scribe failures go as is, but when I failed to scribe the last glitterdust in the game, after quaffing a potion of genius and mind focusing (98% to scribe scrolls) I fail... Come on... Really? Yeah... L
The only cheese I use regularly is meta-gaming: knowing what I need to prep for a certain encounter. 'Encounter X will come, so I will need to memorize spells Y, Z, etc.' even though the character wouldn't know.
Lots of easy-kill tactics I don't even know, except the off-screen nuking I sometimes use (but usually aimed by scouting, so it's RP-ed a little).
you can send summons to attack beholders. the beholders are scripted to cast on party members. so having no party members in sight means that beholders will melee any summons. that leftover wand of monster summoning now has a great use.
lets say there are enemies on the other side of a solid wall and farsight has confirmed there are. you can use the wand of lightning glitch to not only duplicate summons, but as long as your last cast was on a party member on the friendly side of the wall, the other summons will end up on the enemy side. this isn't the cheesiest part either, have your fighters/rangers defend the summons on the other side being attacked. party members will shoot through solid wall to attack enemies and will attack enemies until they are dead, even if the summons die. since this cheese does not deplete charges of the wand, you can 'wish' your figurines back so that entire rooms of dangerous creatures can be killed without ever opening the door. this also works with horrid wilting - your last cast on friendly side will not harm the friendly, resulting in the other 5 horrid wiltings detonating on the other side of the wall. the cheese thickens: you can leave items on the ground that scrolls normally cannot target. by using the wand of lightning glitch, you can use summons/horrid wilting on the items left on the ground and target enemies from across the map as long as your last cast is on a nearby friendly.
more obvious uses include lightning charged attribute tomes. since you can charge a tome 6 times, you can effectively boost an attribute by 6 per tome. since there are 3 wisdom tomes, you can have all 12's in everything but wisdom (wisdom can stay 3) and by the end of bg1 have all 18's in all stats except wisdom, which will have 21.
SPOILER at the start of bg2, you are in a dungeon with imoen. imoen has a special belt that keeps her from dying. this imoen is removed upon exit of the dungeon. if you have another player join and take control of imoen, if during the narration 'the tower slopes upward to the welcome glare of daylight...' the other player leaves, once loaded top side, true imoen with her belt will stay in the party. this imoen Will get the experience once you enter bodhi's dungeon. however, her script will still make her leave party if she takes enough damage to die. during dreams and hell trials, this imoen cannot be immobilized. in the hell trials, you can choose selfish and she'll be fine. in fact, she can't be immobilized, so SHE can choose the selfish path for you. if imoen is taken into TOB, her scripts are changed but her items are not. that means that imoen can permanently stay at 1 hp with almost nothing able to kill her except mind flayers. imoen can tank 10 fire giants at 1 hp and kill them by herself.
yoshimo should leave the party before going to spellhold. cast feeblemind on yoshimo. finish spellhold and return. the script to kill him is replaced. cast heal on yoshimo, he will return to the party as if nothing has happened. unfortunately, TOB knows something is up and will remove yoshimo.
I won't use traps because i find them to be so powerful to the point of breaking the game.
I'm having a hard time playing with an Inquisitor nowadays (or Keldorn) because their dispel magic is just over the top.
I won't use Robe of Vecna or Vhailor's helm
I'll use the Shield of Balduran but when i buy it i'll also throw a die and randomly remove a stat point to balance it out. If i'm playing a Fighter i'll probably not use it, as i might end up losing a STR or CON. If i'm playing a cleric i'll use it. It has to be CHARNAME and not any NPC's.
I won't use cloud kill and lock the door to a room, but i'll use Mislead and backstab because that's clever mechanics.
I always play No-reload games so there really is only one chance or way to do a fight, this limits the cheese in my opinion.
I do use protection from magic scrolls because they are so rare. I very rarely use protection from undead scrolls as i find them very cheesy and they are everywhere. I might use one if i have to get Mazzy early in my games.
You know, I'm reminded back when I started DMing and even now how I'd have people make characters who have insanely powerful builds that basicly destroyed everything unless I threw challenges far too strong at them and that forced the other players to suck. I could, of course, counter their ability specifically but thats a whole other problem since I'm basicly making their character useless. It also ment I had to plan near every encounter around them or make all encounters a breeze.
Essentially what I'm saying is I'm okay with cheese in a video game...sometimes, but in a table top game it really is kinda annoying.
Comments
The only argument I've seen for it is pretty much "It makes Beholders too easy", It's a tool made for one job and one job only, killing Beholders. With that reasoning, any weapon\armor that's good against a specific type of enemy is cheese. Clerics and Paladins as a class are cheese because they can kill most undead instantly with Turn Undead.
Casting protection spells for instance can be seen as cheese because those protections make certain encounters trivial. Like basillisks become a joke with certain protection spell.
Isn't the alternative basicly just to throw a dice and hope for the best?
For me, I don't go looking for basilisks until I release Branwen from the stoned form. I'm not sure if there's a story how she got that way, but I take that (in my own mind) that she talks about Basilisks in the area and that prompts me to be more prepared.
Same with the shield. I don't buy it until I hear about the cult of the unseeing eye. Then it's pretty much a lock that I will need it.
The other option is that people like to artificially make things harder for themselves, so they call these things cheese. I suppose it might make some people feel better that they defeated the encounter without having taken the 'easy' path. And that's fair. That's why people do the 'No-reload' challenges and the like.
Maybe i read it somewhere and assumed it was from the vanilla game
@the_spyder actually no reload is not to feel more superior, i'd think. I am just doing one and it is fun to ponder consequences. I was always running head first before, though. Maybe you already do it carefully :-)
But once the playthrough has started, no more cheese. No fake talk, no control circlet abuse, no importing of characters halfway through the game for infinite loot, etc.
For items like Shield of Balduran, I'll keep it on hand as an option, but usually I'll end up experimenting with other methods to win, and eventually one of them goes through and I don't have to use it.
So it goes: cheese before official playthrough, RP cheese during playthrough, desperation cheese if stumped (hardly if ever).
I typically plan out these things before a game:
1. What party I want (I choose my NPCs before starting the game. No switching of NPCs midway)
2. What items to use for characters (I fill up a spreadsheet listing out which character to use what item)
3. Sequence of adventuring
(which map to go and when to do it)
4. Stats I want to have
I will get annoyed if things don't go according to plan, so I have to do the planning and preparation beforehand. And yes, I have OCD. I book my flights 9 months in advance, hunt for hotel reviews and save the links, and keep color-coded, A3-sized spreadsheets of my travel schedule ^_^
I cheese through everything, everyone and in every possible way, but right now I feel slightly disgusted with how cheesy that was.
Personally, I consider reloading to be the ultimate cheese. Therefore, I will gladly use any tactic I can think of or have read about that will get me through the encounter without having to reload the game.
It seems to me that if a player doesn't do that, then he or she is just reloading over and over until lucky dice rolls occur. Isn't that "cheese"? Or, the player is using metaknowledge to know exactly which potions to drink, exactly which items to use, and exactly which spells to have memorized. That's not "cheese"?
...Cheese, feh. I find it more satisfying to beat the game without cheap tactics.
When you accept her into your party
"I am glad to be part of your war party. I will not make you regret your decision. A word of caution though: beware of the dog that entrapped me in stone. Tranzig he called himself. He was in the employ of a mercenary group, but I do not know the name. I shall see him dead before I see the shores of home again!"
When charmed
"I have not much to tell you. I was in the employ of an adventuring group that dared to attack unarmed merchants. I battled them bravely, but a dog named Tranzig entrapped me in stone. I shall see his head leave his body if it is the last thing I do! "
Why I still like BG1, it's easy to 2 or 4 the whole thing. BG2 however, has much more content and challenging scenarios, which is equally good.
The amount of deadly encounters in BG2 are just too numerous. I find myself hitting that L key way more than I'd like to admit. Heck, just a band of lowly sewer kobolds have the power to end your group with 1 lucky confusion spell.
Here is an example of why I'm a 2. Last night I finished the Unseeing Eye quest at a pretty low level. No shield of Balduran, but I did use the power of stealth to justify my meta. I would find a number of these deadly little gauths while scouting for traps. Once the whole place was cleared I let loose a duo of earth and air elemental to safely clean the place out. Cheesy?
I did break one of my rules with scribing scrolls that I'm not too proud of. I generally let scribe failures go as is, but when I failed to scribe the last glitterdust in the game, after quaffing a potion of genius and mind focusing (98% to scribe scrolls) I fail... Come on... Really? Yeah... L
Lots of easy-kill tactics I don't even know, except the off-screen nuking I sometimes use (but usually aimed by scouting, so it's RP-ed a little).
Other than that, I try to be mostly vegan.
lets say there are enemies on the other side of a solid wall and farsight has confirmed there are. you can use the wand of lightning glitch to not only duplicate summons, but as long as your last cast was on a party member on the friendly side of the wall, the other summons will end up on the enemy side. this isn't the cheesiest part either, have your fighters/rangers defend the summons on the other side being attacked. party members will shoot through solid wall to attack enemies and will attack enemies until they are dead, even if the summons die. since this cheese does not deplete charges of the wand, you can 'wish' your figurines back so that entire rooms of dangerous creatures can be killed without ever opening the door. this also works with horrid wilting - your last cast on friendly side will not harm the friendly, resulting in the other 5 horrid wiltings detonating on the other side of the wall. the cheese thickens: you can leave items on the ground that scrolls normally cannot target. by using the wand of lightning glitch, you can use summons/horrid wilting on the items left on the ground and target enemies from across the map as long as your last cast is on a nearby friendly.
more obvious uses include lightning charged attribute tomes. since you can charge a tome 6 times, you can effectively boost an attribute by 6 per tome. since there are 3 wisdom tomes, you can have all 12's in everything but wisdom (wisdom can stay 3) and by the end of bg1 have all 18's in all stats except wisdom, which will have 21.
SPOILER
at the start of bg2, you are in a dungeon with imoen. imoen has a special belt that keeps her from dying. this imoen is removed upon exit of the dungeon. if you have another player join and take control of imoen, if during the narration 'the tower slopes upward to the welcome glare of daylight...' the other player leaves, once loaded top side, true imoen with her belt will stay in the party. this imoen Will get the experience once you enter bodhi's dungeon. however, her script will still make her leave party if she takes enough damage to die. during dreams and hell trials, this imoen cannot be immobilized. in the hell trials, you can choose selfish and she'll be fine. in fact, she can't be immobilized, so SHE can choose the selfish path for you. if imoen is taken into TOB, her scripts are changed but her items are not. that means that imoen can permanently stay at 1 hp with almost nothing able to kill her except mind flayers. imoen can tank 10 fire giants at 1 hp and kill them by herself.
yoshimo should leave the party before going to spellhold. cast feeblemind on yoshimo. finish spellhold and return. the script to kill him is replaced. cast heal on yoshimo, he will return to the party as if nothing has happened. unfortunately, TOB knows something is up and will remove yoshimo.
I won't use traps because i find them to be so powerful to the point of breaking the game.
I'm having a hard time playing with an Inquisitor nowadays (or Keldorn) because their dispel magic is just over the top.
I won't use Robe of Vecna or Vhailor's helm
I'll use the Shield of Balduran but when i buy it i'll also throw a die and randomly remove a stat point to balance it out. If i'm playing a Fighter i'll probably not use it, as i might end up losing a STR or CON. If i'm playing a cleric i'll use it. It has to be CHARNAME and not any NPC's.
I won't use cloud kill and lock the door to a room, but i'll use Mislead and backstab because that's clever mechanics.
I always play No-reload games so there really is only one chance or way to do a fight, this limits the cheese in my opinion.
I do use protection from magic scrolls because they are so rare. I very rarely use protection from undead scrolls as i find them very cheesy and they are everywhere. I might use one if i have to get Mazzy early in my games.
Essentially what I'm saying is I'm okay with cheese in a video game...sometimes, but in a table top game it really is kinda annoying.