Definitions and a conundrum

[Salles]

Salutations, and Happy New Year everyone.

Allow me to start with a breif introduction.
Most of my recreational time on the PC is spent behind a wheel playing motor racing simulatons. However, several months ago one of my friends introduced me to Baldur's Gate. It was highly addictive, and even more frustrating because my adventures were limited due to one of the 5 CDs going AWOL.
After seeingn the game in the bargain bin in December, it wasnt a hard decision to purchase myself a christmas gift.
I'm enjoying it so much, I'm going to treat myself to BG2 for my brithday.

As a relative noob to Baldur's Gate, and the whole RPG genre, I was hoping I could get some definitions of terms such as 'THACO', 'Lore' and 'Backstab Damage'.

However, the main reason I've registered here today is because I'm having a bit of trouble establishing my desired party. After farewelling Monty and Xzar (and leaving my skull to him in my will), I have gone to the Gnoll fortress with Edwin, with the intention of having both Edwin and Dynaheir as members of my party, (See '6' here). However, the upon the inevitable confontation all of the options leave me with only one of them. What must be done to make Edwin stay with the party and 'keep and eye on' Dynaheir?

Cheers.

[Curry]

THAC0 = To hit armor class 0
Lore = higher lore better chance to identify items with just looking at them
Backstab damage = damage you do when you backstab

What comes to your problem, I believe it's your charisma that decides if you can have both of them?

[UncleScratchy]

THACO explained (I hope)

THACO (To Hit Armor Class 0) is the number that must be rolled on a 20 sided computerized die (aka a d20 die that can generate a value between 1 and 20) to be able to successfully hit/attack an Armor Class 0 target. The number rolled on the virtual die is called the "To Hit" number. When someone attacks a target (creature, human, monster) the computer takes the attacker's THACO and subtracts the target's Armor Class (AC) from it. The number derived by this is what must be rolled on the dice for a successful hit. If the number equals or is higher than the require "To Hit" number the attack is successfull and damage is done. Any number lower than that is registered as a complete miss. A roll of a natural 1 is considered a "Critical Miss" and the attacker is penalized by a time delay for its next attack. A roll of a natural 20 is called a "Critical Hit" and the damage from that attack is doubled. Regardless of AC a roll of 1 always misses and a roll of 20 always hits. For example if your char's THACO is 18 and the targets AC is 5 then the computer subtracts the 5 from 18 giving a "To Hit" number of 13. Your char has to roll a 13 or better on the virtual die to do damage to the target. If you look at the various types of armor you see that the better the armor the lower the AC number. So a plate mail wearing enemy (AC 3) instead of leather armor (AC 8) will result in a higher "To Hit" number.

That part is pretty straight forward. Now comes the variables (Modifiers and Magical Items) that alter these basic rules. For example, a char's strength can modify the die roll thus improving the chance to hit and the amount of damage done by melee weapons. Note that Critical hits and misses are "natural" rolls - i.e. the die roll before any modifiers are applied. A STR of 5 modifies the probability of a hit by -2 and if this weakling can hit something the damage is penalized by -1. A STR of 8 to 15, on the other hand, is neutral (no effect) with respect to hit probability and damage modifiers. A STR of 18, however, adds +1 to the probability of a hit and +2 to the damage. For fighters with STR of 18/01-50 the adjustments are +1 and +3 respectively while a STR of 18/51-75 gives adjustments of +2 and +3 respectively and so on. These STR adjustments keep improving up to a max STR level of 25 (godly stats to say the least). In BG1 the highest you can get is 19 STR (with the Tome/Manual) for modifiers of +3 and +7 respectively. Potions or spells can temporarily increase the STR for a limited time improvement. The other variable is Magical Items. A +1 sword for example improves the chance to hit by +1 and if the attack is successful the damage inflicted will be increased by +1. For ranged weapons it is the char's dexterity (instead of STR) that modifies the probability of a hit. DEX does not, however, affect the a amount of damage done.

[garazdawi]

Originally posted by Curry
Backstab damage = damage you do when you backstab

The backstab damage is indeed the damage done when you backstab ( to back stab is when a theif is in stealth mode and sneeks up to an enemy (you have to be behind him in ToSC IIRC) and then attack). On the character sheet you can see a backstab multiplier, this is the number of times that your damage is multiplied when you do a "backstab", obviously the higher the better. A theif can deal some enormous amounts of damage when back stabbing but there is always a chance that you will be detacted and that can be fatal to a theif....

[UncleScratchy]

Lore

Lore is the ability of a character to identify enchanted/magical items. Everyone has some lore but its often to insignificant to do much good. Bards are the lore masters. They get 10 points of lore per level. So a level 10 bard should be able to identify any item without resorting to a spell or scroll. Mages and thieves get 3 lore points per level and can often identify lesser items (arrows and common +1 weapons come to mind) without using a spell. Wisdom and Intelligence also increase lore abilities at higher levels. At INT or WIS level 15 lore is increased by +3, +5 at level 14 and so on.

[VonDondu]

Perhaps it would be helpful to remember that Baldur's Gate is based on the old game called Dungeons & Dragons, which has lots of charts that determine your chance of success whenever you try to do anything, and in which you roll dice to see whether you succeed. UncleScratchy gave a pretty good description of THAC0, but I also think that you should try to imagine yourself rolling a 20-sided die when you try to hit a monster to get the feel for Dungeons & Dragons.

To keep it simple, the lower the THAC0, the better. For example, if you need to roll an 18 or higher to hit a monster (a 15% chance of success), you're not going to be as successful as someone who has to roll a 4 or higher (an 85% chance of success). See how that works?

You can also keep in mind that the amount of damage you do in one hit is also determined by a roll of the dice. For example, if a weapon does "1d8" damage, that means it does one to eight points of damage. To determine how much damage you inflict on a successful hit, you roll "one eight-sided die", which is where you get the "1" and the "d8" in "1d8". By the same token, if you use an item that does "6d6" damage, the damage is calculated by rolling a six-sided die ("d6") six times and adding up the total.

Baldur's Gate is a visual game, of course, and the computer does all of the dice-rolling for you. But hopefully, this will help explain the meaning of the jargon to you.

"Backstabbing" is when a Thief sneaks up behind an enemy and stabs him in the back. Since the enemy is unprepared for it, the Thief can inflict "double damage", "triple damage", etc. For example, if a Thief normally does 1-6 points of damage with a short sword, you would double that if he has a backstab multiplier of 2x. Backstabbing only works if the enemy can't see your Thief, so you need to "Hide in Shadows" or drink a Potion of Invisibility before you try to sneak up behind an enemy.

I'm glad you enjoy the game. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask. We enjoy the game, too, and we like to help.

[Salles]

Many thanks to all who have contributed.
Quite a complex setup, no wonder I was so oblivious to it all.

Re: My problem acquiring both Edwin and Dynaheir - My PC's charisma is 13, and the party's reputation is Popular (16).
Am I too ugly, or too popular for Ediwn to want to remian?

[Curry]

Edwin will leave if you keep good aligment too long but it wont do a thing when picking up Dynaheir. I believe it's because of your low charisma.

[garazdawi]

I didn't know that you could have dynaheir and edwin at the same time.... if I know edwin right I'd think that he would have gone to another party of adventurers to get them to kill Dynaheir.... the walkthrough does however say that you can keep both of them so it has to have something to do with either your charisma or your rep.

EDIT: omg how many typos :|

[JackOfClubs]

Dan Simpson's walkthrough suggests that you have to rescue Dynaheir before you talk to Edwin in order to get them both in yor party. You may need Minsc in your party as well, but I have never tried it either way.

[Luis Antonio]

Spooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooilers


Minsc and Edwin Odesseiron will fight someday, you may be sure. Avoid keeping them in the same party - let Minsc die, do not ressurect him and pick up another tank.

Ahá! Eddie and Dyna are yours to command.