How do you play?

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Hello,

The one thing that I usually do after a game 'sucks me in' is to get as many info about it as I can. So I usually find a guide, and a few forums as well. why I'm doing this? Well, I don't want to miss anything. Maybe I'm just natural powergamer? Anyway...

The first forums I've found was Interplay(May They Rot In Hell) forums, where I found few answers, but then the forums mysteriously disapperared and no one heard about them ever since.

I was forced to check another place where I could get a few answers and, well, just read about my current passion, Baldur's Gate that is. The PlanetBaldur'sGate forums was the one I found, though it made worse impression on me than Interplay(May They Rot In Hell) - they felt less... 'professional', I could say.

And finally I got here, to find the most professional forums about Baldur's Gate I've seen. Now, I'm not writing all this just to make you feel happy But I've observed an interesting thing: The, how can I say this, 'Role-playing factor'? Let it be this name for now.


I can't say much about the Interplay(May They Rot In Hell) forums, but few things I've readed at PlanetBG surprised me. There were things like: 'I use [mod name I've forgotten] to stock ammunition, because geeting back to FAI just to get more is annoying' or 'Yeah, I use Ctrl+J to skip areas I've covered, why I should walk through it again?' Those aren't 100% word-to-word quotes, but I hope I captured the sense of it.
This surprised me a little, becaus I myself have a quirk to explore whole areas from 'black fog of war', which is taking some time, but I can't help it. But Ctr+Jing and using a mod that allows to stock 100+(?) ammunition type in one slot IS cheating for me.
Then I got here, and read some opinions(Again, quoting not perfect): 'Casting Cloudkill to kill invisible opponents is practically cheating' 'I don't use the Algernon's cloak, because it's overpowered'. The thing that made me writhe this post was in soloing a mage thread. Someone stated that he remembered 10+ Magic Missiles, took Boots Of Speed and killed Sarevok this way. That's Brillant for me(No irony), I can say 'Perfect in it's simplicity'. But what it was? 'Cheesy'.


How different approach to a game people can have! Now, to say what's this thread is about, I'll ask a question: How do you play? Do you restrict yourself from some classes, NPCs, items because they are overpowered? Do you roll two hours to get sum of 98? Do you re-roll for HP? Do you choose a class that's most suitable/overpowered for a game or do you purely role-play(This is also about quests)?
I'm eager to see your opinions.

P.S. What's 'Cloak of Cheese'?

 

Well... I both use cheese and powergame. I often find I import my character again and again. Dont know why, but I am thinking of starting from scratch next time. During the game itself, though, I use pure rules for everything. I beat Sarevok through brute force etc. None of those cheesy tactics. I think it would feel like an anti-climax to use them. Still, I'm sure plenty of people have diferent playing styles.

As for the cloak of cheese....I can only assumr that is referring to Algaernon's cloak. I never use it myself. I just give it away as part of a quest. I think it ruins the game to use such simple ways to beat enemies.

 

Well I'm always playing a BG game which is most fun for me. The first few games were with the normal recruitable npc's, after that I made some games with a super powerfull characters all created by me via multiplayer, and after that I played some solo games.

The games with NPC I try to 'role' play, imagine who my char is and act accordingly to.

The games with all chars created by myself, I power play, all the quests even for good or for bad. Taking advantage of the system.

Solo games are both ways, I power play them with godlike characters or (as I am currently doing) try purely to roleplay.

I do don the cloak of Algernon but I rarely use it's ability, to be honest I never realized it was so powerful. Never do I cheat, unless forced by a bug.

After more then 20 games however I do use the ease of use mod. If you think about it it does make sense, why can a fighter carry 4 platemail without trouble but he cannot carry more than 40 arrows in one stack.

Cheese tactics after so many games are kind of hard to prevent. I know exactly where every single enemy will appear, with that knowledge in mind it's hard no to save for a major battle or cast protective spells.

 

MAke your scores as munchkin as you want...thats fine. You are roleplaying an extrordinary bhaalspawn....and extrordinary physical and mental attributes are easily justified in a role playing sense. They are not needed to win the game, but make certain parts easier.

Use your metagaming knowledge to save your game if you want, that's understandable. Nobody wants to replay the whole game due to a couple of bad luck rolls...and if you play on the highest difficutly, you can die in almost any fight since monsters hit so hard.

Its hard not to use your familiarity with the game to speed up the tedious parts. For instance you know where traps are, so you don't have to spend large amounts of time, proceeding slowly through forests and dungeons searching for traps. It is very hard to role play this well.

Here are some "thou shall nots":
Don't cast protective spells beforehand. Don't fire off AE spells into the fog of war. Don't hide yourself in the fog of war to separate an enemy group. In other words, allow your enemies to behave as you would behave under similar circumstances.

Lately, I've taken to using scripts for most party members then using formations and "go in hard and fast" for all encounters. This really highlights party interdependancy. Its actually quite a fun way to play...will make you appreciate the group dynamics of your party a lot more.

I too usually pick up Algernon's Cloak in chapter 3 or so but I only use it for the CHA boost to get better prices. I've never used its charm ability. I seldom use any charm person or charm animals spells...just not my style of play.

 

I think it must be quasi impossible to strickly role-play a game without using any cheesy tactics whatsoever. Who will never reroll a bad HP roll??

I've only gone through the game once, and I tried to role-play as much as possible. I played a wizard with the following starting stats: 10-18-16-16-10-14 which I do not feel was overpowered - rolled for no more than 5 minutes.

I tried to use my spells only when necessary and I tried resting only when my PC/NPCs were tired, and not before. If I ran out of spells completely, I tried to find alternatives and wait as long as possible before resting.

I obviously had to replay a few battle (ok, more than a few, but not that much!!) and I never cast protective spells or take any potions before the battle was actually engaged.

Will I play the game again? I hope so..... But I'll wait a bit more so that I might forget as much as possible about the game as to try to make it a second new experience - does that make sense?!?! I'll probably play it with a limited party (i.e. less than a party of 6) just to make it a little bit more different with a different challenge.

So that's how I like to play my games. I still try to get the best possible equipement, but without cheating. In fact, I don't even know what this "Alrgenon's Claok" is about..... I do miss a few things here and there, but that's normal with my style of play.

Oh! And one more thing....... I never pickpocket. Some NPCs might have great equipement, but I'll only get it if I had to fight them, and for a good reason.

Those were my two cents........

 

I know that this is off-topic but I need to know... where do you find Alrgenon's Claok and what's so special about it?

 

Ok, it's my turn to answer, then :]

First of all, I roll until I have at least as much as Sarevok have - that's 95 IIRC. Well, I wouldn't want to be worse than him, he has his buddies anyway - and I'm practically always going for a solo game.

I'm playing a solo through whole saga right now, with Ranger/Cleric. Yes, the cheesy class. To be sincere, I wanted to take Kensai->Mage, but TuTu has problems with polish fonts, and reading text full of ^6# is not very pleasant. So I went with normal TotSC. I have sum of 96, and I do reroll for more HP; strangely enough, I never got more than 7 for Ranger and 5 for Cleric. I found thread here on SP about HPs, and something is certainly wrong :]
I rarely do the 'dragging-out-from-the-fog-of-war' thing. It's mainly because I'm too impatient; It's better to cast Prot. from evil and charge. I usually cast the protection spells before big fight, though; On the other side, considering I use only Prot. from evil, that's not so much of a cheese
I don't restrict myself from any magic items I can have. But I don't have Algernon's Cloak - I don't have a thief in my solo party :]

Algarion - IRC, Algernon's cloak can be pickpocketed from Algernon(duh), who is on the second floor of Feldepost's Inn in Beregost. It gives you constant +3(2?) to Charisma, and allows to cast 'Charm' daily(? Not a very precise info ).

 

actually the charm is as many times as you want, at least in my version.

I don't normally use it, but I'm attempting the recently discussed solo mage and I don't know how I'd survive without it. A Swordspider makes a good pet BTW.

 

@ Koki

In response to your hit points issue, I assume you have 18 in Constitution. Keep in mind that when you're leveling up in each class, you are effectively gaining half a level, since you are multi-classed.

Hence, max HP for Ranger with 18 Cons = 14 / 2 = 7, and max HP for Cleric with 18 Cons = 10 / 2 = 5. For a veteran player like you appear to be, you might have already known, but that's not what I understood from your post. Just thought I'd say it just in case.........

 

Actually, there is indeed something wrong with Koki's HP. The Ranger part is correct, but for his cleric part, since he is a fighter-type, you should also count the full con-bonus and therefore the max HP of the cleric part would be 6.

And now, to be on topic. For my choices ingame I try to RP as much as possible. It's only concerning stats and HP that I powergame, by rerolling and reloading. Concerning Algernon's cloak, I use it only to rob the houses of the NPCs. I find this justified in a sense, since there are NPCs that walk in their houses and stay awake 24/7. In that case I charm them with the cloak and do as if they went to sleep so my thief can rob the place. For the rest I only use it for the +2 cha. (and yes, the charm ability has unlimited uses (almost) and that is why it is cheese).

 

@ stormhand

Me? A veteran? Actually, I never completed BG, althrough I started it multiple times. The only time I got to Sarevok, about 6 years ago, I couldn't get past the killers sent by Iron Throne. Ahhh, how lame I was...

Anyway, thanks for straightening the HP issue