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Baldur's Gate EE difficulty issues: Insane vs Legacy of Bhaal, mods?

randomhero890randomhero890 Member Posts: 86
in Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition
Ok, this is ticking me off. I bought the EE edition of BG1, BG2 and Siege of dragonspear (which I'm hearing SoD kinda sucks but ok)

So I tried my first playthrough on BG1 with a custom group of chars (fighter/mage/thief, cleric/ranger, and a sorcerer). I'm glad that the game allows you to create them versus having to do that old weird trick of making them in multiplayer and then switching the game to single player. Since I remembered a bit about the game and am used to the AD&D ruleset, I put the difficulty to "hard" initially

Pretty soon the game had no challenge (without even seeking out the best gear). I didn't realize you could adjust the difficulty with a slider in game, so I just restarted

Second playthrough attempt I went with just a main char (cleric/ranger) and the rest of the chars were the storyline chars. This time I put the slider to the "insane" difficulty. Even with me ignoring most of the side quests and trying to rush through the storyline quests, the challenge started to diminish pretty early on. So then I decided to try the legacy of bhaal mode

I restarted again in Legacy of Bhaal mode, this time with a custom party of level 1 chars (same makeup as first game). And oh my goodness, we were getting destroyed, just a single diseased gibberling or a wolf could wreck my group unless I cheese-kited it across half the map. At first I thought this version must be made to import chars into, so I exported my level 3-4 characters from the previous game into a new Legacy of Bhaal mode game. NOPE, still doesn't matter, a group of hobgoblins would destroy us unless I spammed them down with summoned monsters for like a 20 minute fight

You know what my biggest gripe about legacy of bhaal is? Any spellcasting class is WORTHLESS. The mobs have so much hp that a 5dmg magic missile barely scratches them. The best way to do ok (I got to the nashkel mines before getting too frustrated and bored) in legacy of bhaal mode is to use all ranged classes and lots and lots of summoned monsters. Just fill the screen with summoned monsters and shoot the enemies from max range for like 30 minutes per enemy, since each enemy has like 150+ health. I also got tired of having to carry around 500+ arrows at all times and going through 100 arrows per fight :(

I wish legacy of bhaal had a difficulty slider, because the concept is neat, I like the improved monster THAC0's and better saving throws, but the health is a bit ridiculous. I wish insane mode wasn't so easy, and I'm wondering if there are any mods to help boost the challenge of insane mode? I heard about the SC tactics mod? I might try that, but I do like the original AI allowing me to position chars behind my tanks and stuff, I'm hesitant to try a mod that will make all the enemies ignore my summoned monster tanks and just rush my cleric for example, is that what that mod is going to do? Also, I'm not used to mods in general, and don't want to mess up my EE install of the game. Any suggestions?

Comments

  • GallengerGallenger Member Posts: 400
    edited July 2016
    As long as you aren't playing with a super stacked char with a roll of 94 or something insane *ought* to be reasonably difficult (with the increased damage turned on) mainly because any hit you take should pretty much instantly snuff whatever character took the hit. But SCS mod does add a different sort of challenge - mainly it lets the AI use the items in its inventory (scrolls, wands etc) instead of just having them and never using them and so on. It also makes some of the monsters and fights tougher (generally by leveling them up - either by adding more monsters or adding hit dice to opponents).

    But with difficulty mods you're always going to run into Goldilocks's porridge, because every party is different and has different capabilities so while one group may walk over a particular encounter they'll get shredded in another and so forth.

    I find in general, as far as BG1 goes, playing on Core Rules or Hard (with the 50% damage boost) is sufficient for my needs so long as I disallow any reloading (except when the main character dies) and no pre-buffing unless it's patently obvious that I'll have a fight. No edge AoE spells or kiting across the map - just straight up fights lol. Usually that makes for a pretty interesting game over all. Because part of the original difficulty of the game is lost when you know where particular fights are. I know plenty of people who just got wiped out in the old days by Tarnesh in the Friendly arm again and again because they didn't know to expect him or Silke who can pretty much instantly kill at least one party member with her lightning bolt if you let her get her mirror images off lol. I also stick with whatever roll I'm given (but can switch 2 of the scores - I think in third edition that was called an "organic" roll but my memory is foggy) which usually results in a character with enough flaws that the game retains a challenge - plus I find it pretty fun to have to figure out how to get my gimped main char to function lol. For example I'm presently running through on hard with a NE halfling Berserk who stats are: 12/13/15/13/12/10 :( (I switched the 15 to CON for HPs) it's been tough getting him to function since he's patently worse than every NPC you meet - but am progressing nicely lol.
  • randomhero890randomhero890 Member Posts: 86
    Yeah, I was doing the same, using AOE's and summons. The enemies hit hard on insane, but insane wasn't boosting their HP, so I could just either use AoE's from max range like web and stinking cloud, or I would just animate dead and send in stuff to take the hits. My problem with insane mode was that I could still kill the enemies in 1-2 shots from bows. It doesn't seem to do anything to their HP. Whereas bhaal mode does, just by wayyyyyy too much. I wish I could get a happy medium between the two :(
  • randomhero890randomhero890 Member Posts: 86
    Gallenger said:

    As long as you aren't playing with a super stacked char with a roll of 94 or something insane *ought* to be reasonably difficult (with the increased damage turned on) mainly because any hit you take should pretty much instantly snuff whatever character took the hit. But SCS mod does add a different sort of challenge - mainly it lets the AI use the items in its inventory (scrolls, wands etc) instead of just having them and never using them and so on. It also makes some of the monsters and fights tougher (generally by leveling them up - either by adding more monsters or adding hit dice to opponents).

    But with difficulty mods you're always going to run into Goldilocks's porridge, because every party is different and has different capabilities so while one group may walk over a particular encounter they'll get shredded in another and so forth.

    I find in general, as far as BG1 goes, playing on Core Rules or Hard (with the 50% damage boost) is sufficient for my needs so long as I disallow any reloading (except when the main character dies) and no pre-buffing unless it's patently obvious that I'll have a fight. No edge AoE spells or kiting across the map - just straight up fights lol. Usually that makes for a pretty interesting game over all. Because part of the original difficulty of the game is lost when you know where particular fights are. I know plenty of people who just got wiped out in the old days by Tarnesh in the Friendly arm again and again because they didn't know to expect him or Silke who can pretty much instantly kill at least one party member with her lightning bolt if you let her get her mirror images off lol. I also stick with whatever roll I'm given (but can switch 2 of the scores - I think in third edition that was called an "organic" roll but my memory is foggy) which usually results in a character with enough flaws that the game retains a challenge - plus I find it pretty fun to have to figure out how to get my gimped main char to function lol. For example I'm presently running through on hard with a NE halfling Berserk who stats are: 12/13/15/13/12/10 :( (I switched the 15 to CON for HPs) it's been tough getting him to function since he's patently worse than every NPC you meet - but am progressing nicely lol.

    I gotta give you props for inventing artificial handicaps to up the difficulty

    I didnt go nuts with my stat rolls, I think I stopped at like a total of 86. The main thing I did was keep rerolling until I could put my str to 18/91+ to get that extra pt of THAC0.

    Really though, it's super easy with any roll above 80ish to get all the important stats for your class to 18 (for example, my f/m/t had 18/93 str, 19 dex, 17 cha, since he's elf, and 18 int), easy to get by taking con and wis as low as they would go

    Insane is still too easy unless I purposefully gimp my tactics, which has been to use bows from a distance and either summons or aoe's to prevent enemies from closing

    I will install this SC tactics mod when I get home and try that. I think if I can get to max level and have all the best gear I MIGHT be able to play legacy of bhaal after, but it still upsets me that offensive spell casting will be completely useless due to ridic hp
  • randomhero890randomhero890 Member Posts: 86
    Oops switch con and cha in post above, is there no edit button??
  • GallengerGallenger Member Posts: 400
    edited July 2016
    The edit button is to the top right of your post - you have to mouse over your post to see it (it's a little gear-type thing).

    I'm all for players installing artificial difficulty constraints on themselves - it's the poor man's mod! lol
    Post edited by Gallenger on
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