Thoughts on Siege of Dragonspear

It was okay, but it was a bit like the OST: conceptually fitting, but average execution. Nothing really convinced me that it added something to the story. Only things that stood out for me were the marching soldiers in BG, which added a kind of scale/grandeur and Captain Corwin, a character I actually really liked.

 

While some things are very well made, I too think that the entire interquel idea was entirely unnecessary. Not to mention that forcing Irenicus on the player throughout the whole game lessens the mystique and sense of dread you're supposed to be feeling from him. Some questions don't need to be answered.

Caelar was entirely lawful stupid and the entire expansion storyline was contrived to the point of being insulting.

I think most of the interesting parts of the expansion could have just as easily been made as additional content for the base game, and you could cut out large swaths of it and be none the poorer.

The biggest high point, for me, is that it does present me with the perfect chance to continue Ayden's storyline in my mod, once I finally get around to it.

 

On the whole, I'm glad to have SoD.

I agree that it wasn't "necessary", since we'd managed without it for many years, but I love playing BG and therefore having more BG to play in each run is a good thing. It's more linear than the other components of the saga, which isn't ideal but does suit the necessities of being part of a wider military campaign in this episode. The storyline feels somewhat contrived, but Beamdog tells us that it's based on the original unpublished Bioware story-notes about what happened between BG1 and BG2, so it's authentic in that sense. It's annoying that Beamdog shoe-horned inappropriate elements of real-world "wokery" into a fantasy setting which was previously free of real-world propaganda, but WotC are now doing the same with the PnP game, so this spoliation by Beamdog was merely a symptom of the wider trend, and it's only a small jarring element which doesn't destroy the enjoyability of the rest of the game.

The main flaw IMO, as also mentioned by the OP, is that the choice of NPC companions is too narrow - for some classes and alignments of protagonist, it's not easy to assemble a plausible choice of party, especially in the first half of SoD. Beamdog should have allowed two or three more of the companions from BG1 to continue into SoD (and to be available fairly early), in particular including at least one more front-line tank option. If it had been up to me, I'd have let Kagain continue (to provide an Evil-aligned front-liner earlier than Dorn), I'd have allowed Tiax to join (instead of making a cameo appearance but refusing to join), and probably one more continuation for the Good/Neutral parties (among whom, Yeslick might be the most versatile addition for party construction).