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Well, bear in mind this comes from a truly chaotic neutral Blade with Imoen (Yoshimo from the exit of Irenicus' dungeon to Spellhold), Anomen, Keldorn and Aerie. The new haste bug really reduced my role in combat (offensive spin = 2 attacks primary hand 0 attacks offhand...thxbug)

Imoen has some utterly hilareous lines with Anomen, Keldorn, and Aerie. The one about the cookies prompted a CN Bard the following two lines:

"Well, it wasn't so bad once I realized all the slayer wanted was a really good sandwich..."
or
"You should take this more seriously Imoen."

I mean, what choice did I have?

The routine with her and Keldorn are well worth it, as is the bit with Anomen - high level single-class clerics dominate undead in a wicked way (Only reason why I kept him around aside from the "Har har, you're just a knightling comapred to Keldorn" side of things...). The temple where you learn more about Yaga-Shura was a matter of a 5 on 1 fight along with the slight delay from activating Turn Undead and the large mass of chunky body parts that proceed to go flying - twice.

That being said, I didn't care much for the ending for Imoen, but that's just me maybe. A few of the things were appropriate though.

Of all the endings though, I have to admit Keldorn's was by far the most fitting end, especially given his chat with Anomen about "The Dance" (gruesome tale, but well in line with the character) and other conversations from the beginning. I did the whole SoA-ToB route, there's two bits with Yoshimo that really rounds out Keldorn as a person - The family and poetry ones, along with his treatment of Anomen (later Sir Anomen).

Aerie was a bit flakey from the get go, and I just dragged her along for sport really. I think she cast more Stoneskins than anything else. There's only so much "I...I...I...I'll not let you hurt my friends" a bard can take.

Aside from the personal humor I derived from dragging Anomen around, his ending was well done IMO. Even though I think he would only be half the knight Keldorn is.

Gameplay wise, I found it really annoying. Oops, he's immune to Time Stop. He's immune to magic. He's immune to this. He's immune to that. He's also immune to this other thing. He instantly kills these things, those things, and does all these other things. Oh, and he summons mass hoards to protet them, including Level draining monsters (personally level draining monsters should only have a chance to drain, not this 100% of every hit. Negative Plane protection has such a crappy duration...ahwell, I'm ranting). A lot of "counter cheese" from the boss guys in my books. I honestly wouldn've laughed myself silly had the Solar, after summoning You-Know-Who, decided to say something like:

"You know what? You're an ass (lastbossname)."
*chop* *hack* *chop* *splat*
"Ok, so, you want to be a god or what Sargon?"

Add that to the "almost neverending hoarde of annoying critters" routine during some parts of the game, I found most encounters annoying rather than entertaining. At least bards seem to be everyone's favorite target - which of course is downright stupid from a tactical standpoint. Who else can have stoneskins, protection from magic weapons, mirror images, and a -30 AC? So while a dozen or so demons try to wail on me, my faithful companions can easily go about relieving them of their lives.

Of course, there were a few real priceless combats - some of the challenges. Draconis managed to get himself stuck in the pillar area along the walls of Ab's lair, thanks to a well timed (and totally unintentional) use of Smite. While I doubt I could do it again it was quite in line with my luck:

Draconis "I will crush you, I am a dragon, and I will kill you stupid little Bhaalspawn and your friends...just...as...soon...as...I...get...un...STUCK!!!"

Demogorgon, Nalmissra, Sendai, Yaga-Shura, and Balthazar were all good "fun" fights, but some of the others were just downright frustrating - Ab was a real pain in the you-know-what, but ultimately fell to the uber-spike-trap cheese, although somewhat fitting in my books. Big dragon, big feet, leeeeetle trap with BIIIIG spike through heart - that'll teach you to stomp around and cause earthquakes!

With the expanded exp cap however, it made some of the earlier stages in SoA a lot easier. There was a nice touch of irony when Yoshimo fell to a Deva summoned by Keldorn, or the ENTIRE Twisted Rune was wiped out by a single Pit Fiend (Possible before, but funny as sin to watch happen). It feared the rogue, toasted the Beholder, Vampire and Mage before the Lich thoughtfully mazed it - enter Keldorn's Dispel Magic, Holy Avenger, and it wasn't pretty, and I was out of there before the Pit Fiend reappeared.

Then there was the whole "Talk to Irenicus' pet Dragon Naked and then attack and win that fight" bit, but that's going to be my leeetle secret - no traps, no cheese, no cheats, no beneficial spells, songs or summons up before attacking. Just me, Imoen, Keldorn, and Anomen.

All things considered, ToB was fun for the most part, but a lot of relying on "tried and true" Boss encounter stuff is getting old for me (of course, I'm also getting old...). The riddle puzzles in SoA were nice (the Unseeing Eye was _very_ well done IMO), and I would've liked to see a few more "brains over brawn" but maybe that doesn't sell as well.

Bugwise, I was annoyed when I finally realized I wasn't swinging my offhand when hasted or in an offensive spin. Totally messed up my combat style. The failure to learn from the 3rd party patches what needed to be fixed was a big mistake as well - you always have to fix the OLD bugs before you put NEW ones in...everyone knows that

I finally finished the whole shebang--took about 2 weeks for ToB. I thought the story for it was well-written and there was a bit of new NPC interaction that I enjoyed. (Adult diaper rash) I agree with most everyone's posts about the battles. The one thing I'm esp. disappointed about is that it was so short--granted, ToB is an add-on, but it cost damn near as much as BG2 and took maybe a tenth of the time to finish. Seemed like it was more battle after battle, and not as much exploring and tough decision-making as in BG2--it was more like BG1 in that way. Ah well, I just have to wait for the next cool thing that Bioware is coming out with.

Originally posted by fable:
<STRONG>Fighting Bhaal, even if it had made sense in context, you'd have lost. You were a god wannabe; he was a god. Immortality tends to lend an edge in personal conflicts.</STRONG>

actually, CYRIC is the god, bhaal's just a dead one, not a good anymore. Remember? cyric killed him?

It would've been really cool to fight a dead bhaal nevertheless BY YOURSELF. no party members, and what challenges and spells and skills he poses depedns on your class/level. Obviously a cleric is going to fight a defensive game, where as a fighter, it would be a good ol' fashion brawl. i suppose.

I just gotta say that I find myself continually comparing the end of the Baldur's gate saga to the end of Planescape: Torment. IMHO, the standard for a successful closure remains Torment. ToB does not touch me emotionally in the same way as Torment did. Keldorn's post-ToB story
came close, but that's about it.

LMAO @ Sargon the Blade!

On a personal note, I loved the game. Had a lot of fun and enjoyed it immensely.

One thing that I would like to be changed is the fact that a lot of monsters can still see you when your invisible so you can't backstab them. Pretty crap if you ask me. Makes my assassin a trapper and that's about it. *sigh*

Originally posted by Vehemence:
<STRONG>One thing that I would like to be changed is the fact that a lot of monsters can still see you when your invisible so you can't backstab them.</STRONG>

That would be the cheese of all cheeses, of course. Imagine just strolling through the game without anyone ever seeing you. Staff of the Magi comes to mind.

If an Assassin reads a scroll of Mislead, he gets near-unlimited backstabbing opportunities. Do those "see invisible" creatures see through Mislead as well?

Originally posted by Xyx:
<STRONG>That would be the cheese of all cheeses, of course. Imagine just strolling through the game without anyone ever seeing you. Staff of the Magi comes to mind.

If an Assassin reads a scroll of Mislead, he gets near-unlimited backstabbing opportunities. Do those "see invisible" creatures see through Mislead as well?</STRONG>

I'm sorry, but I fail to see your logic that invisible = cheese? The very definition of invisibility states that you are not visible. Hence them not seeing you

At no point in my post did I say being invisible for the whole game. Simply that if I decided to hide in the shadows or become invisible, that I wish not to be visible, thus allowing me to sneak up behind my enemies and smack... backstab that son of a ... for a lot of damage. Essentially rendering the assassins primary weapon, the backstab, useless.

Negating invisibility by making your character visable by means such as true sight etc, I have no greavance with. It is only the innate ability of a large quantity of ToB bosses and baddies to see that which cannot be seen that is the source of annoyance.

Thus, addressing this annoyance would see me a happier man.

@ Vehemence: I see your point. Still, if not even the bosses could sense your presence whilst invisible (doesn't necessarily mean seeing you), you'd pretty much be untouchable to all but the spellcasters. In D&D3, several of the bigger creatures (Dragons et al) have the Blindsight ability, which allows them to locate invisible creatures, among others. This might mean by sense of smell, vibrations, sonar...

Besides, don't Thieves get a special ability that let's them backstab while visible? Or doesn't that work on bosses either? That would be rather cheesy of the designers...

Then again, Assassins are not alone. Spellcasters face the problem of increasingly magic resistant foes with safely negative saves.

ToB seems to go easy on warriors, though. Everything can be Greater Whirlwind Attacked. Not much immunity to magical weapons. Stupid AI for enemy spellcasters (as ever). Imagine enemy Mages with Protection from Magical Weapons, Stoneskin and Spell Immunity - Abjuration in their triggers...

The ability which allows thieves to backstab while visible is called Assassination. The bad thing is you can only choose it once and it only lasts for one round. I don't know why, but my assassin with a THAC0 of -1 would never hit anything in one round, he'd have a success rate of 1 hit every 3 rounds. Pretty annoying.

IIRC, Draconis had a protection from Magic weapons cast on him. Kinda made the bugger a source of annoyance for a while.

I tend to agree with you though on the fact that Fighters got the longest straw. Greater Whirlwind really kicks booty!

The moment you start making creatures immune to abilities (like backstab), you're taking away from the character in my books. Let them be backstabbed, just reduce the damage or multiplier (something like half or quarter damage from backstabs).

The immunity to Time Stop is by far the stoooopidest thing, and I only used time stop traps (and mostly to divide enemies up), rarely the spell given the usual high magic resistance. Mages were relegated to summoning, stipping defenses via spellstrike/breach (if Keldorn was otherwise occupied) or vaporizing mass hoards to lemmings that were sent after you. The occasional Dragon's Breath or Comet (I too fall into the camp of, WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S IMMUNE FROM A BIGASS ROCK FALLING ON HIS HEAD AT HIGH SPEEDS?!?!) to knock back the guards or spread foes out. Exploding traps work well to do this, don't take up a spell selection, and while the damage can be resisted, if they can be knocked back, they are. Pretty sure some creatures can't be knocked back no matter what so exploding trap or dragons breath wouldn't matter. Having an extra spellstrike or imprisonment (take THAT stupid minion of a Bhaalspawn!) on the other hand, but traps cannot be set in the presence of baddies so...

[ 07-20-2001: Message edited by: Sargon the Blade ]

all in all i liked tob, i felt it did an good job of closing out the series.

i will have to echo some of sargon's comments:

the lack of backstab for a class that was always melee weak, made my assassin into a poor archer / support char firing off spells from wands ect. ect. it seemed like the char i had been building up since jono's dungeon suddenly became much weaker just as i was expecting to see a much improved char. (i expect things to be much diff w/ my elf f/t.)

class balance gets thrown off big time. my party of assassin, minsc, jaheria, aerie, nalia + imoen, had very few problems w/ soa but tob really kicked thier butts. only a poor romance path choice saved that party, the loss of aerie was filled w/ saravok and combat all of a sudden became much easier.

never missed her cleric skills, why would i? i had three rods o' ressurection, 30 charges and to recharge all i had to do was sell some of the +3 weapons i had that were out classed, + about a million superior healing potions, blessed bracers and hindo's dooooooooom. not to mention daystar, helm o' brilliance, azure edge, mace of disruption + runehammer for those pesky undead.

mages got completely screwed, sure you could use the robe vecana + alarcity if you don't mind 'porting back to your stronghold to refresh spells (or wish).

a few spells were completly bastardized, wish is the prime example, why can't i get aerie some freaking wings w/ this! or the stat bonuses like in pnp. if the designers thought wish was too messy for the game why not leave it out ala dimension door? why have timestop if the only times you really want / need to cast it the opponent is immune?

i did like the fights, the puzzles in watchers keep, and the new monsters.

some of the new battles imo were very cool, the first time sendai pulled the statue trick was priceless, or the tunnel fight, or the first time a man flipped into a dragon, and balthazr was always doing something wierd, (still gotta try the 2.0 version)

ravager was great fun as was the final bit. but it's all "evil meet sword, sword meet evil!"

i'm currently trying a second approach to the game so i guess that makes it a success in my book.

Originally posted by Sargon the Blade:
<STRONG>The moment you start making creatures immune to abilities (like backstab), you're taking away from the character in my books.</STRONG>

Yeah, I don't like that either. It's so cheap! If the designers thought such-and-such was not tough enough, why not add a couple more levels, or give it decent equipment, or *gasp* good AI? Instead, creatures get cheesy abilities handed out that no way near resemble PnP... Only things supposed to be immune to backstab is stuff without vital organs (slimes, jellies, constructs, etc.).

If you look at the enemy scripts you see all kinds of horrible cheesiness. Enemy Mages that get to cast spells without you being able to disrupt them (and I'm not talking about the fake Contingencies here) or without having to memorize them. Why not just make these guys more effective by having them memorize useful spells for a change?

The average enemy character has stats that would make most powergamers drool. Most of those venerable old Mages have Dex 18, for example.

Well, there's the other side of things, that being complex AI is pretty hard to manage.

Even if NPC mages were casting useful spells, like Timestop followed by a nice sequence of spells other than the usual Symbol Fear Symbol Stun and Symbol Death, I suspect we'd simply be talking about how to prevent mages from timestopping or why its wise to have a couple of Monster Summoning I (or wands) around for such fights.

Its hard to force a target selection - either they go after the closest target, most dangerous target (arbitrary), or a specific character with a single minded fury, which as I've mentionned, the -30 AC bard with massive resistances, stoneskins, and other protections via items (and not spells, which can be dispelled), or any other combination, and you end up with a condundrum. If its single minded fury is against a target virtually immune to the assault, then there's the other targets wailing on it with impunity.

It is a catch 22. :\

An adaptive/learning AI (along the lines of Black and White) would be great, but that's dealing with 3 basic things, not the hundreds of spells and possibilities BG2 has. I cringe at the thought of scripting or programming such a beast - mind you my programming skills are a bit dated, 6502 assembler isn't used much anymore so I could be wrong about the difficulty involved. Of course, if you're dealing with a massive number of different possibilities, its hard enough figuring out what kind of combinations the NPC you're scripting for will have to face...ug.

Ugly.

Of course, if we don't aspire to the greatness that we dream of, we'll forever be stuck wallowing in mediocracy.

Of course, I sleep between two rocks

Originally posted by Sargon the Blade:
<STRONG>Even if NPC mages were casting useful spells, like Timestop followed by a nice sequence of spells other than the usual Symbol Fear Symbol Stun and Symbol Death, I suspect we'd simply be talking about how to prevent mages from timestopping or why its wise to have a couple of Monster Summoning I (or wands) around for such fights.</STRONG>

I'd rather be talking about that than about slaying flocks of Beholders simply by standing in their midst with the Shield of Balduran...