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The most cheesy gear item of BG2

MoonheartMoonheart Member Posts: 520
Ok, let's do this for items too.

Disclaimer: 'Cheesy' is a subjective term, so anyone will have a different opinion... that's why a poll can be fun, everyone can have its own reason to declare something cheesy.

Also, I'm aware that more items could be put in the options but the forum won't let me put more than 10, so... let's do with those ones

  1. The most cheesy gear item of BG265 votes
    1. Vhailor's Helm
        4.62%
    2. Robe of Vecna
      30.77%
    3. Shield of Balduran
      21.54%
    4. Cloak of Mirroring
      12.31%
    5. Celestial Fury
        1.54%
    6. Staff of Magi
      13.85%
    7. Crom Fraeyr
        1.54%
    8. Carsomyr
        6.15%
    9. any +1APR off-hand (Belm, Scarlet Ninja-to)
        3.08%
    10. the dreaded Wand of Cloudkill !
        4.62%
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Comments

  • RelSundanRelSundan Member Posts: 918
    edited June 2016
    My opinion: I don't think none of these items are really overpowered, or cheesy. Ok, maybe the shield of Balduran but what the heck, the beholders ain't even fun fighting.

    Otherwise, most of the items you have listed are High power weapon and equipment that is either expensive in the stores, or Hardly acquired (staff of magi, carsomyr.) But I would not call them overpowered really, because they wont win the game for you.

    Robe of Vecna have some really great enchantments, BUT it is nothing gamechanging. Like Staff of Magi, it is powerful, but it won't make you automatically win.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    I now tend to use the SCS component that moves Robe of Vecna and Vhailor's Helm into ToB, as well as prevent Simulacrum from using quick slot items. The increased speed of casting is too much for SoA, while your copy using PfM scrolls without losing them and using wands of spell striking without taking charges is something that makes the game easier in times.
    jtthBlackorb
  • magisenseimagisensei Member Posts: 316
    Robe of Vecna is rather cheesy but is not fully exploited until you get time stop + improved alacrity so it is only partially cheesy before you can cast 9th level spell.

    Staff of the Magi is a bit cheesy, especially the equipped invisibility if beamdog had made the invisibility a charge instead it would un-cheese it quite quickly and just make it powerful. A lot of the cheesiness depends on how you use the item. Of course if you play and don't want to use the invisibility just don't un-equip and re-equip it. If the mage in the twisted ruins actually used it effectively then most of us would not be getting this amazing staff without spilling a bit more blood. The staff becomes a lot more cheesy if you are using a fighter multi/dual (especially if you grandmaster in staffs) so you can use the dispel on hit. Read if you want to experience a little cheesiness using the staff
    To experience the cheesiness of using such a great staff have your mage equip it and walk through the beholder lair firing cloudkills and then going invisible.


    Vhailor's Helm - is cheesy, a free simulacrum that a fighter who is not even a mage can use + the cheesiness of the simulacrum itself -- which should have been fixed makes it cheesy for any fighter class mixed or pure. Such a powerful item and then only thing you have to give up is gold not much of a sacrifice to make.

    Wand of Cloudkill - wand of cheese especially for monsters that don't want to move - sigh one of these days a developer will fix the AI and the monsters will actually move if hit with a cloud kill and open doors to leave a room full of poisonous gas. Not only is it effective for almost everything in SoA, its cheap, with a ton of charges and there are so many of them. Don't want to get a scratch in the game buy a wand of cloud kill and you will almost win all the fights without taking a hit.

    Celestial Fury - for almost the best weapon in the game (actually probably the best weapon before chapter 6) it sure is easy to get - plus it is way too powerful with its stun lock and other bonuses - they should really nerf this weapon. Becomes a lot more cheesy then it already is when you dual wield it especially with something that gives an extra attack - its a katana (should be a two-handed weapon) and you should not be able dual wield it.

    Crom Fraeyr - powerful especially if you are dual wielding but only ever so slightly cheesy - the game should make the parts harder to get and possibly make it so it cannot be dual wielded.

    Shield and Cloak of cheese - obviously are much to cheesy to be used.

    Carsomyr - a little cheesy given the right circumstances: its a holy avenger but the dispel should have a save and really it should be much more difficult to get - would the developers kindly make the dragon more dragon like. As a holy avengers its an artifact like the Staff of the Magi - luckily it is only cheesy if you bring a long a paladin otherwise its a souvenir for the mantle piece. But the 50% magic resistance should be nerfed a bit. And any thief using UAI to wield this should be struck down with lightning by whatever paladin god is looking down.

    Not listed but fits in nicely is the wand of monster summoning - really free canon fodder for free - with 50 charges you don't even need to recharge it more than once. Almost as cheesy as the cloudkill wand.

    Also wand of fire - really free fireballs - just spam them if you want and soften your foes.

    If the mages in the game used it half as effectively in the game we'd be running away more often or getting a lot more bloody to defeat them.
    catsarekacamp
  • DevardKrownDevardKrown Member Posts: 421
    APR items.... just add a sprinkle fighter to something and suddenly you have 5 APR ...o-o
    jackjack
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,211
    Robe of Vecna certainly has a lot of potential, but I find that Vhailor lends itself to more abuse.
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    The Wand of Lightning is stronger than that entire list combined.

    The Wand of Lightning can duplicate the effects of (1) any quick slot item or (2) any on-self spell or item. At the beginning of the game, this means firing off a 60d6 Sunfire spell or a Mass Cure spell for 6d8+60 HP. At the end of the game, this means casting Wish 6 times at once.

    Besides those two extremes, it has many other uses as well, from creating extra copies of the Book of Daily Spell to generating the Death Ray Zorcher (by far the highest-damage attack in the entire saga, dealing thousands of damage in seconds) to duplicating kit abilities like Boon of Lathander and Called Shot, allowing a Generic Archer->Mage to drain 6 Strength per hit. There are more uses for the wand than I can describe.

    No other item has as much damage output as the Wand of Lightning. No other item is as versatile as the Wand of Lightning. And because the WoL trick doesn't take charges from the wand and you get a free copy in Chateau Irenicus, the Wand of Lightning, unlike all the other items on this list, costs you no money and requires zero risk to obtain.
    PteranArdul
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    @subtledoctor: For what it's worth, the poll description didn't specify whether the choices were supposed to be "cheesy by design." It just said cheesy. For the purposes of the poll, at least, I don't think it matters. But I do agree that the Shield of Balduran and Staff of the Magi were deliberately made overpowered--justifiably so, given what Beholders are like in BG2, and given what you have to do to get the SotM. Cheese was very much the point.

    That said, the Wand of Lightning isn't the only thing that was accidentally cheesy. I doubt the devs intended that Firkraag could be killed offscreen by Cloudkill charges, and I'm sure it's a bug that clones were able to bypass summoning and trap limits. Not all the items in the poll are cheesy by design. Some were mistakes!

    I also wouldn't say BG2 items and spells are much more cheesy than BG1 items and spells. BG1 might not have had the Robe of Vecna or Project Image, but it did have the Cloak of Algernon and Sleep, both of which are equally game-breaking in BG1 (and are also easier to get!). The real reason BG2 has more cheesy items is because BG2 has more items overall, not because the devs were more loose about limiting cheese. BG2 has more underused, merchant-fodder items as well. For every Belm, there is a Rashad's Talon.

    I actually think it speaks to the complexity and intricacy of the game that the most powerful items in the game range from the clearly and intentionally overpowered Carsomyr, to the surprisingly and accidentally overpowered Wand of Lightning. If you think about it, the Wand of Lightning trick is a very minor bug. All it does is fiddle with targeting. The true power of the Wand of Lightning lies not in the item's stats, but in the player's inventiveness.
    PteranRelSundanArunsunJuliusBorisov
  • PteranPteran Member Posts: 388
    Could you WoL a Time Stop spell for 6x the duration?
    semiticgoddess
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    @Pteran: Unfortunately, no. The time stop effect doesn't stack. You can, however, cast Time Stop several times from a scroll, and it will keep refreshing the timer, which you can use to wait out enemy spell buffs, even if most of that time is lost to you as well. Not the best use of a pricey Time Stop scroll, but it works.
  • jackjackjackjack Member Posts: 3,251
    This thing is just ridiculous. Joke item that completely breaks the game.
    JuliusBorisov
  • magisenseimagisensei Member Posts: 316
    There is a difference between cheese and game exploits of the engine. Using the wand of lightning to do crazy thing is a game engine exploit meaning that if you had a DM ( the rules of ad&d do not allow these things to happen) you couldn't do these things but even with a DM if the pnp version had an equipped invisibility on the Staff of the Magi the DM couldn't really complain although he might find a way to disable its cheesiness.

    Fenghoang
  • NuinNuin Member Posts: 451
    For the record, simulacra and the like have always been cheesy - it's even cheesier in PnP. "Balancing" it for game purpose makes zero sense, better to add extra enemy tactics that allows them to use it too.
    semiticgoddess
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
    jackjack
  • XeroshiXeroshi Member Posts: 182
    edited June 2016
    "Lets jump into its mouth and hope for the best!"
    -My friend steven
    he proceeded to roll two twenties. This story had nothing to do with my choice other than he jumped into a beholder. But the shield takes away the challenge of beholders
  • DJKajuruDJKajuru Member Posts: 3,300
    Oh come on guys, it makes you invisible as many times as you want !
  • StefanOStefanO Member Posts: 346
    edited June 2016
    This discussion about "cheasy" and "overpowered" reminds of an old pun regarding mathematical theorems:

    Every proven mathematical theroem is trivial

    Applied to this discussion

    Every succesful BG tactic is considered cheasy

    "cheasy" is sometime used to differenciate between advanced and not so advanced players and has the potential to be implicitly insulting.
    Jarrakulsemiticgoddesskid_combo
  • RelSundanRelSundan Member Posts: 918
    DJKajuru said:

    Oh come on guys, it makes you invisible as many times as you want !

    Yes, but you can't attack, and also, many enemies can see through illusions, if not dispel them.
    jackjack
  • JouniJouni Member Posts: 50
    • Vhailor's Helm is not cheesy. Simulacrum is just fairly standard high-level summoning-type spell. I haven't used it for years, so I don't remember whether it duplicates magical items. If it duplicates, then it's obviously a bug or a design flaw.
    • Robe of Vecna is not cheesy. It's just a nice robe that makes spellcasting a little bit faster. The real culprit is Improved Alacrity, which should not exist.
    • Shield of Balduran is not cheesy. It reflects a narrow range of attacks back to their source, just like many other items and spells. The game just has a bug/design flaw that makes the shield protect from attacks coming from any direction.
    • Cloak of Mirroring is cheesy. It grants a complete immunity to a wide range of effects permanently.
    • Celestial Fury is not cheesy. It's a nice sword, but there is a saving throw for the stun effect.
    • Staff of Magi is a bit cheesy. The invisibility effect should take the use items/cast spells action for that round. True Seeing and similar effects should also negate invisibility completely instead of dispelling it once per round.
    • Crom Faeyr is not cheesy. It's a weak clone of Mjölnir. You can't even use it as a throwing weapon.
    • Carsomyr is not cheesy. It's a good weapon for paladins, but the are many other equally effective weapons. Use Any Item is cheesy, however, because it allows the thief to use items that are forbidden for metaphysical reasons.
    • The +1 APR weapons are not cheesy. Dual wielding large weapons is cheesy, however. It should come with major penalties to to-hit, damage, AC, and charisma. Fighting is something you do with your body, not with your hands.
    • Wand of Cloudkill is not cheesy. It's an AI bug.
    RelSundanPteransemiticgoddessronaldo
  • BlackorbBlackorb Member Posts: 62
    edited June 2016
    Robe of vecna no other item in game has had as much impact for me, also it is kind of cheesy that it works for divine spells too not that i mind :p
    jackjack
  • RelSundanRelSundan Member Posts: 918
    Jouni said:

    +1 APR weapons are not cheesy. Dual wielding large weapons is cheesy, however. It should come with major penalties to to-hit, damage, AC, and charisma. Fighting is something you do with your body, not with your hands.

    Almost nothing in Baldur's gate is realistic, it is a game. You are not overpowered because you can dual wield big swords. 3* in dual wielding obviously teaches good tactics when fighting with two swords effectively without tiring to fast. It is fine imo.
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    @Jouni Improved alacrity is balanced without robe of Vecna.
    semiticgoddessjackjack
  • JouniJouni Member Posts: 50
    RelSundan said:


    Almost nothing in Baldur's gate is realistic, it is a game. You are not overpowered because you can dual wield big swords. 3* in dual wielding obviously teaches good tactics when fighting with two swords effectively without tiring to fast. It is fine imo.

    This is not about realism. It's about trying to shoot bows from arrows.

    Using two weapons should not give you any additional attacks, because you still have only one body. It should give you an advantage by allowing you to attack from either side, but only if you are well trained. Having two big sticks in your hands should negate this advantage, because the weapons would interfere too much with each other.

    The main advantage of dual wielding in BG2 are the immunities and other indirect bonuses from the off-hand weapon. This goes against the spirit of how magic items work in AD&D. Carrying a sword around isn't enough to gain its powers. You have to wield the sword as an extension of yourself. When dual wielding, only your primary weapon is really an extension of yourself. You can switch the primary weapon quickly, but you lose the powers from the other weapon by doing so.
    Arunsun said:

    @Jouni Improved alacrity is balanced without robe of Vecna.

    And Robe of Vecna is balanced without Improved Alacrity. The difference is that Robe of Vecna just gives you an initiative bonus, while Improved Alacrity breaks fundamental assumptions in the rule system.
    semiticgoddess
  • magisenseimagisensei Member Posts: 316
    Nuin said:



    The Staff of the Magi was the supposed to be the player's reward for completing a lengthy quest spanning 6 game chapters (from the Bridge District murders quest to Adalon's involvement with them) culminating in one of the game's most epic and difficult battles - except the thing was never actually finished. Bits and pieces of dialogue/lore about the whole thing still remain in-game, and even the unused dialogue is still in the game somewhere. The original devs then, being the kind of people who hated seeing their efforts go to waste and who actually liked their players for a change, generously decided to leave the Twisted Rune fight in the game as a secret/puzzle.
    What do you know, secrets, puzzles and shortcuts. You know, like a real PnP game. And considering the spirit on which that gesture was made, bashing on the SofM seems rather crude.

    Thanks for the history.

    Just out of curiosity does all the bits and pieces left make enough to remake or implement the actual quest?

    As for the Staff of the Magi it still is rather cheesy, the developers should never have given it equipped invisibility or at least made it a charge.

    True except for Kangaxx all the other demiliches are rather weak although I seem to recall running away once from the elemental lich ( I think or maybe it was Kangaxx) and he followed us into the streets slaughtering whoever was around while we ran for it and we never went back to that district ever again but that was in the original not sure it does that in EE.

    Do scrolls of protection from undead and magic count as gear (they are one use items) if so, they are rather cheesy - kangaxx demi-lich should not be beaten by a scroll that costs a few 100 gold - and once you attack it should allow Kangaxx in his demi-lich form to target you but it doesn't.

  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    edited June 2016
    Jouni said:



    Arunsun said:

    @Jouni Improved alacrity is balanced without robe of Vecna.

    And Robe of Vecna is balanced without Improved Alacrity. The difference is that Robe of Vecna just gives you an initiative bonus, while Improved Alacrity breaks fundamental assumptions in the rule system.
    Well, Robe of Vecna might not be OP on its own (I think it is OP even on its own) but it enables a number of blatantly OP things in combination with other items and spells, improved alacrity is only one of them. E.G.:
    With Hide in plain Sight (Dual Sh=>Mage) or unnerfed staff of the Magi, you can simply use short cast spells (Among them skull traps, sunfire, and various AoEs) and go invisible again with 0 possibility of counter-attack for your enemies.
    With Improved Alacrity, you can spam those short cast spells with no cooldown at all.
    With increased movement speed and robe of Vecna, you may simply do a perfect hit and run with those same short cast spells. I know you can hit and run with ranged weapons as well but your character needs to stand still for a second before he can shoot whatever ammo he uses, which at least offers a small window of action for your enemies. A mage with robe of Vecna and movement speed can litterally walk around, dishing skull traps and fireball with no interruption at all, with no chance for melee enemies to ever catch him while he freely damages them. And this will even work without movement speed. Maybe not as well, but it will still work. You can render enemy melee fighters useless without even casting protection spells or lowering your damage output. If that's not "against the D&D spirit" as you said concerning improved alacrity, I'm not sure what it is.


    Improved alacrity alone, or with any item/spell (besides Robe of Vecna), will be good, but counterable. AoE spell? The enemy can run out of it before it's there. Targeted spell? It may go invisible. Or it may simply shoot an arrow or a short cast spell to interrupt you, if your protections are not properly set. I'm not saying the basic AI will do that. But it could, and will, with proper AI mods. Something potentially very strong BUT counterable is much more balanced than something with slightly less potential but no possible counterplay. Improved alacrity is the former, Robe of Vecna, the latter.
    Oh and I'd also mention you need at least 3M XP to have improved alacrity, and it takes a level 9 spell slot, at least as a mage, while you can get Robe of Vecna after completing a couple of secondary quests.
    semiticgoddessjackjack
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    edited June 2016
    @Jarrakul Wise words here :smiley: . I'd say that what we usually call "cheesing" is cutting the Gordian knot rather than solving it. Of course, it's a solution to the problem, but not necessarily a satisfying one. The issue with trying to point what is cheesy and what is not is that not all of us are satisfied by one method. Some will see no problem to cutting the Gordian knot and will be satisfied with it, while some will try and make even more knots before trying to solve it, and that only would satisfy them.
    Jarrakul
  • JouniJouni Member Posts: 50
    @Arunsun See how all your examples involve BioWare house rules that make it possible to have multiple actions in a round. The old (A)D&D system was never designed for that. You declared your action, rolled for initiative, and performed the action when your turn came. If you add multiple actions per round to that system, everything breaks down. At least if you're willing to take advantage of the loopholes.

    Many things people consider cheesy in BG2 are ultimately either about those house rules or abusing enemy AI. There are much less things that would be cheesy in an actual AD&D 2e game with a decent DM.
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