What do you think about this party?

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 6:10 pm

Paladins were originally based on the romantic story of Sir Galahad as well as historic and mythical special knights from the age of chivalry, so it was deemed that they had to be extremely charismatic and be 'born leaders'.

Dexterity isn't really necessary for melee fighters, sure it helps their armour class, but has no impact on their ability to wield melee weapons.

The problem with Baldur's Gate and SoA is that the Paladin's been somewhat nerfed. for example a paladin should radiate Protection form Evil 10' Radius constantly (PFE itself has been nerfed to make things worse). They should also be inherently immune from to all forms of disease, and when wielding a Holy Avenger (Carsomyr) they should also continually radiate Dispel Magic in a 10' radius, which of course can be a pain as well as a boon. They also would get a personal Warhorse, and a mighty steed it should be, but not practical in BG of course.

There are downsides which haven't been implemented of course. Such as only being able to own what they can carry (bags of holding shouldn't offset this), should only own one set of armour and should tythe 10% of all gold acquired.

A paladin is the hardest character class of all to role play, in fact I've only ever encountered one player who did it well, and he's a legend amongst the AD&D players who remember him.

BG does make it easy to compensate for not starting out with high Strength, Dexterity and constitution. Not only can you increase all of these in BG1 by 1 point, there are also items which allow you to overcome the problem.*

As to summoned or conjured animals, they are real animals. Incidentally the Clerical spell Animal Summoning, shouldn't work in the Underdark as the sort of animals the spell summons couldn't be in range of the spell, but some leeway has to be given otherwise creating the game would be nigh on impossible. So the last comment was just an observation, not intended for once as a criticism.

* This doesn't mean i don't abuse the far too abusable character generation system to get the best attributes I can of course' I am only human after all!

Frostguard · Post by **Frostguard** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 4:02 pm

I didn't know that Paladin is supposed to be this special. Radiating Protection from Evil sounds nice, as it's not such a powerful spell; radiating Dispel Magic seems to be a bit overpowered to me.
It helped me to understand the Charisma part, too.
Doesn't Dexterity modify the number of attacks after all? That would be logical (or maybe Wizardry 8 did this to me).
It annoys me, however, that while Paladin is not such a powerful class, the best weapons (+6, like Carsomyr and Purefier) can only be wielded by them. Especially now that my Kensai uses Bastard Swords.
And if animals are real, why don't they award experience? Maybe because that would be easily abused?

Curry · Post by **Curry** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 4:18 pm

Frostguard wrote:is not such a powerful class, the best weapons (+6, like Carsomyr and Purefier) can only be wielded by them. Especially now that my Kensai uses Bastard Swords.

Thieves (and Thief dual and multiclasses) can choose a HLA that allows them to use any item.

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Thu Mar 01, 2012 9:31 am

And if animals are real, why don't they award experience? Maybe because that would be easily abused?

Precisely, and it's not just summoned animals that pertains too of course. If they awarded XP you could summon and kill Elementals using an elemental staff until the cows come home, or you hit the XP cap. It's bad enough that they give XP for learning spells!

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Thu Mar 01, 2012 3:11 pm

Further thoughts on Paladins, and to some extent Rangers.

When Unearthed Arcana and AD&D 2nd edition came out they got lost in the shuffle for some reason, and got a raw deal IMO.

Why a Kensai and Berserkers can get 5 proficiency slots and not Paladins and Rangers mystifies me. The argument is that they have to learn spell casting skills I guess, but to me that's a false argument, as they don't have to actually study them, they are a gift of the gods or nature; and the few spells they do get aren't really worth that much when they get them, and Enrage and Kai are often more valuable. Enrage is more or less a combination spell that beats what a Paladin can cast, effectively getting offensive buffs as well as mind shield and Energy Drain protection. A Paladin can get the same effects, eventually, but has to cast at least three different spells to do it.

Frostguard · Post by **Frostguard** » Fri Mar 02, 2012 1:34 pm

And do not forget that Enrage protects from Maze, and what's the most important, Imprisonment, too. That ability was the last step that ultimately enabled me to solo Liches with my Dwarven Berserker. With that, he was immune to any spell that the Lich could cast; my only concern was to kill it before the effect wears off.

Frostguard · Post by **Frostguard** » Fri Mar 02, 2012 6:50 pm

And again, some questions.

1. Since I installed the expansion, the game seems to be broken more and more. Time to time, it stops responding, usually when I win a battle. At a certain place (Guarded compound), where a bunch of monsters are summoned - I ran away, cast a Death Spell at them from afar, killing all but the Glaberazu. I killed it "manually" and the game stopped responding. It happened once again, and I succeeded for the third time. There were occasions similar to this. The computer is likely not to be the culprit (Windows 7, theoretically virus-free, all security checks resulted the best).

2. I was trying to sell a Halberd +2 to Bernard (the one that belonged to the Minotaur, I don't really memorise the complete names but some of the descriptions, unintentionally), and he said he didn't accept fenced goods. I don't really understand.

3. Is it possible to solve the Animal Trouble of Trademeet without a Druid? As I am leading a party of six now, neither druid but all created by me (Multiplayer), I have no intention to swap any of them. I suspect that the answer is no but I pretty much hate when a quest is literally shoved into my face if it's an NPC-specific one (essentially forcing me to use a certain NPC for a while at least).

4. A similar question about Valygar and the Planar Sphere. In fact, all I am interested in are the Gauntlets of Ogre Strength, for some obvious reason.

5. Curry, are you completely certain? Not that I don't trust you but this just seems overpowered (even though I saw the ability myself, I just never tried it). A backstab with a Carsomyr sounds fearsome.

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Fri Mar 02, 2012 9:14 pm

Frostguard wrote:And again, some questions.

1. Since I installed the expansion, the game seems to be broken more and more. Time to time, it stops responding, usually when I win a battle. At a certain place (Guarded compound), where a bunch of monsters are summoned - I ran away, cast a Death Spell at them from afar, killing all but the Glaberazu. I killed it "manually" and the game stopped responding. It happened once again, and I succeeded for the third time. There were occasions similar to this. The computer is likely not to be the culprit (Windows 7, theoretically virus-free, all security checks resulted the best).

Did you install the patch? If you haven't do so

Have you installed ToB after installing mods for SoA? If so you may have to either put up with the problem or do a full re-install.

Frostguard wrote:2. I was trying to sell a Halberd +2 to Bernard (the one that belonged to the Minotaur, I don't really memorise the complete names but some of the descriptions, unintentionally), and he said he didn't accept fenced goods. I don't really understand.

It's a bug, no one will buy it as I recall, just throw it away.

Frostguard wrote:3. Is it possible to solve the Animal Trouble of Trademeet without a Druid?

Yes, after you've spoken to Faldorn(sp?) go outside and speak to Cernd, you don't even have to take him into the party, just use the correct dialogue options, the right ones should be obvious.

Frostguard wrote:4. A similar question about Valygar and the Planar Sphere. In fact, all I am interested in are the Gauntlets of Ogre Strength, for some obvious reason.

You either have to have Valygar in the party to open the door into the sphere or his body. Once inside you can dismiss him and go get the party member you removed to make room for him (don't open any other doors first though), if you have the body it should disappear, but if it's in a bag of holding it probably won't, don't worry, just dump it or keep it as a souvenir.

Frostguard wrote:5. Curry, are you completely certain? Not that I don't trust you but this just seems overpowered (even though I saw the ability myself, I just never tried it). A backstab with a Carsomyr sounds fearsome.

You can only backstab with a weapon a thief can normally use, so you can't backstab with Carsomyr, and you'll be pretty useless with it too; as a thief you'll get just one attack (without improved haste) and your THACO will be poor. Use any item for weapons for thieves and bards is way over rated. If you're a fighter dual classed to thief and spent proficiency points on two handed swords then obviously that negates the latter part, but you still won't be able to backstab with it.

Frostguard · Post by **Frostguard** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 9:29 am

Thank you for the answers. I did not install any mods, but I didn't patch it, either (though the DVD is from 2009, I don't know if patches are necessary in this case).

Thanks for the answers. I think this will be the first case when I Shadowkeeper for actual cheat and manipulation (besides bug-countering): I think I'll just edit Valygar's Body in, as I have no intention of killing him.

And yes, this Thief ability looks much less appealing now.

galraen · Post by **galraen** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 11:46 am

The one p[oint I neglected to ask is; have you defragged your Hard Drive lately? If the main drive has become too fragmented it does make it harder for virtual memory (page file) to work efficiently. How I could have not asked that first time escapes me as I was in the middle of conducting a very long overdue defrag on my desktop when I answered!

Frostguard · Post by **Frostguard** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 12:33 pm

Apparently, the computer defragments the Hard Disk automatically. Last time I issued a defragmentation it indicated a defragmentation of 3%.