SCS main component is not about difficulty, it's about leveling the playing fields, opponents get what you get, deal with it. Tactics is a bunch of very difficult fights separated by walk-in-the-park fights with dumb enemies with very low stats and no abilities.
You're lucky the mod (SCS) doesn't remove Carbos' and Shank's special dagger that only deals 1 point of damage (how's that for RP that they are equipped with such weapon?). Save or die situations happen all the time in the game, there's now one in the opening and it's a valid option to run to the guards if you are not confident that you will make it. There's even a component to remove the tutors so that you understand it's not a tutorial anymore.
I think your issue here @JoshBG is just that you didn't understand the mod design before installing it. Hint : It is not about abiding to Bioware's design choices, otherwise the mod wouldn't exist.
I want to throw a modicum of support to @JoshBG. I actually feel the same way he does, that SCS increases the game difficulty through absolutely artificial means that require, and I mean require intimate metaknowledge of the game in order to win encounters.
Once you have won BG a time or two, you have uneraseable foreknowledge of everything that will happen in it. You cannot erase this foreknowledge, no matter how much you might wish to, in order to reproduce that giddy, adrenaline-pumped, "first time" feeling. SCS attempts to reproduce that "first time" feeling through its various artificial enhancements.
The first time I tried it, I had exactly the same reaction as @JoshBG. I thought, "This is really crazy. It's just changing the nature of the game I love into something entirely different, sort of as though it were Diablo played with a critically sub-optimal character build. There's no way to deal with any of this except by using foreknowledge of exactly what is about to happen. This is just the opposite of what I want in an RPG. It's the opposite of what I want in a hack'n'slash like Diablo. It's more like the expansion maps of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, with all of their artificial difficulty.
All of that said, I know better than to express my opinions of SCS very often on these or any other BG forums, because it is always flamebait to say what I really think about SCS. Even when I say it as now, I try to use non-provocative and non-emotional language. SCS fans, who are most of BG's hardcore fans, are very defensive of their beloved SCS.
And really, what is the point of arguing about whether SCS is a good mod or not? Some people love it and wouldn't play without it, and some people don't much care for it. You say "ta-MAY-toh", I say "ta-MAH-toh." "It takes all kinds to make a world."
I prefer mages and clerics always autocast spells before combat. I do the same. You cant just instapwn mages with this choice. Both your and the opponent's mages get to cast their spells and its up to you how are you going to survive that. You wont cheese the game defeating every mage in the first 2 seconds. This requires diffirent preparation and mindset compared the the vanilla game thats all.
Ofc no reloads will require a lot of game knowledge in case mages autobuff because you have to expect the next mage battle.
Yes... all those potions and wants and even scrolls become worth keeping. At least the important ones. I would never play BG2 again without SCS, spell revisions and g3 tweakpack. SCS for challenge, spell revisions for better balance and fairness between casters, tweakack to remove frustration and add some better neat things like max hp both for you and the AI, or true grandmastery.
I still think if you're willing to accept failure or reloading as a potential outcome of being unprepared then SCS does support roleplaying.
Two pretty rough guys get sent in to assassinate a welp with no real combat experience. The likely outcome of that is death, and it'll probably happen the first time you meet them if you get unlucky with the poison. But you can't realistically treat it as a tutorial scenario with SCS. Vanilla it's a tutorial for first timers and insultingly easy for anyone else. Nobody's a first timer installing SCS though. Or at least, it's not intended for people who don't already have experience with the game.
So as a class without the THAC0 and/or AC to stand up to this guy, realistically, and roleplaying, you might just get the hell out of there instead of being a hero.
It doesn't really work. My character was a swashbuckler, and I didn't "roleplay" a coward. Both Shank and Carbos are(should've been) some level 1 trash. So "Ruuun" is even more ridiculous. If you're making them trained assassins, at least adjust their dialogues.
Well, for me Shank and Carbos are more like henchmen, used to kill people, but mostly commoners, they're not skilled assassins or mercenaries like the ones CHARNAME will face later in the game... On the other way, CHARNAME at the start of the game is simply a person with an attitude which has been given very basic training, never faced a real challenge, never risked their own life, AND CHARNAME is still a lvl.1 wimp, so for me Shank and Carbos are a challenge for CHARNAME and they have a real chance to kill him, as CHARNAME is weak and doesn't expect a threat inside Candlekeep.
EDIT: damn, I missed page 2 of this thread... I feel a little Off-Topic, now...
That Shank and Carbos discussion here is not very insightful for me. Cool, I know what SCS does to them. But what component does that, is the component optional or not, is left here.
Comments
You're lucky the mod (SCS) doesn't remove Carbos' and Shank's special dagger that only deals 1 point of damage (how's that for RP that they are equipped with such weapon?). Save or die situations happen all the time in the game, there's now one in the opening and it's a valid option to run to the guards if you are not confident that you will make it. There's even a component to remove the tutors so that you understand it's not a tutorial anymore.
I think your issue here @JoshBG is just that you didn't understand the mod design before installing it. Hint : It is not about abiding to Bioware's design choices, otherwise the mod wouldn't exist.
Once you have won BG a time or two, you have uneraseable foreknowledge of everything that will happen in it. You cannot erase this foreknowledge, no matter how much you might wish to, in order to reproduce that giddy, adrenaline-pumped, "first time" feeling. SCS attempts to reproduce that "first time" feeling through its various artificial enhancements.
The first time I tried it, I had exactly the same reaction as @JoshBG. I thought, "This is really crazy. It's just changing the nature of the game I love into something entirely different, sort of as though it were Diablo played with a critically sub-optimal character build. There's no way to deal with any of this except by using foreknowledge of exactly what is about to happen. This is just the opposite of what I want in an RPG. It's the opposite of what I want in a hack'n'slash like Diablo. It's more like the expansion maps of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, with all of their artificial difficulty.
All of that said, I know better than to express my opinions of SCS very often on these or any other BG forums, because it is always flamebait to say what I really think about SCS. Even when I say it as now, I try to use non-provocative and non-emotional language. SCS fans, who are most of BG's hardcore fans, are very defensive of their beloved SCS.
And really, what is the point of arguing about whether SCS is a good mod or not? Some people love it and wouldn't play without it, and some people don't much care for it. You say "ta-MAY-toh", I say "ta-MAH-toh." "It takes all kinds to make a world."
Ofc no reloads will require a lot of game knowledge in case mages autobuff because you have to expect the next mage battle.
Yes... all those potions and wants and even scrolls become worth keeping. At least the important ones. I would never play BG2 again without SCS, spell revisions and g3 tweakpack. SCS for challenge, spell revisions for better balance and fairness between casters, tweakack to remove frustration and add some better neat things like max hp both for you and the AI, or true grandmastery.
Well, for me Shank and Carbos are more like henchmen, used to kill people, but mostly commoners, they're not skilled assassins or mercenaries like the ones CHARNAME will face later in the game...
On the other way, CHARNAME at the start of the game is simply a person with an attitude which has been given very basic training, never faced a real challenge, never risked their own life, AND CHARNAME is still a lvl.1 wimp, so for me Shank and Carbos are a challenge for CHARNAME and they have a real chance to kill him, as CHARNAME is weak and doesn't expect a threat inside Candlekeep.
EDIT: damn, I missed page 2 of this thread... I feel a little Off-Topic, now...