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Hi all

Going through BG2 for the second time for fun and to see everything that I missed the first time.

HD - the tiefling bard - he is hilarious - quite fun to have a long. If your PC is female you don't get to romance him right? If so - that's a shame since he has some of the best dialogue but i guess you get that because he is a bard after all. I can't wait to see his romance with Aerie - how soon does it start after you pick HD up? At the moment I am just wandering around the city killing time and some monsters as I wait to hear the dialogue and interaction between the characters (ie still in chapter 2)

Viconia and Aerie - some of their interaction is just great - i'm glad i added Viconia to the party just to see how they would interact. I love how they argue with each other.

By the way does Aerie ever leave on her own? My PC said he would restore her wings somehow and she got real angry - will she leave if she get angry enough? I wonder if she will (by the way I added happy NPC mod for Viconia but i should actually remove it and give the NPC freewill to leave if they want - or just better manage how much rep the party gets).

Romance is fun - some of the dialogue is just great - this is the first time playing with romance (normally I play a female PC - don't really like playing male characters).

If you romance Aerie - when does HD start to romance her? How far along in the romance does the conflict happen between the PC and HD? I really just want to romance Jaheria or Viconia (complex and complicated women are so much more fun to romance) - but I want to see what happens between Aerie and HD and whether or not they will leave together? If the PC decides not to romance Aerie, HD will still have a romance with her is that correct? Will they stay or leave the party if they are together?

If the PC does romance Aerie (but does not sleep with her) and then HD romances Aerie and the characters reach a point where they leave/fight it our - what happens to the other romances that have started or is it all lost when the PC decides to seriously romance Aerie?

Viconia - is quite fun to have in the group - she knocked the elf-hater whats his name out after he insulted her - now that was funny. She also grumbles a lot in Drow and english - muttering once in a while as the party travels from place to place.

I wonder if Edwin will have any interesting dialogue and interactions?

more fun encounters and a question or two

Hi all

Still wandering around in chp 2, we haven't left the city yet. I was trying to see if we could raise 15,000 gp needed for the shadow thieves without leaving the city. And the answer is yes you can (even without using any cheese methods like stealing and selling back to stores). Of course I looted the graveyard - a lot of tomb robbing. I also got a lot of sellable goods from those random encounters when going from area to area and of course I sold a lot of the loot I got from monsters and anything else I encountered. And of course I pickpocketed a lot from people on the streets to make the money. And of course we raided a lot of the houses looking for extra change lying around in the sofas.

Now you might be wondering what my team did for equipment and I have to tell with 4 spell casters (or partial spell casters) on my team there was not a lot of need for expensive armor (the +2 armor from the beginning dungeon and +1 platemail solves all my needs for armor and the bard armor for HD from the prison). And there was only a minimal need for expensive weapons - got some good +1 weapons from encounters and of course the shortbow (and yes I did sell off CF since no one on the team can use it effectively). And with spells well we got enough from random encounters that I have a good supply of spells for my mages. I think the only thing I actually bought was the indispensable monster summoning wand (best wand in the game) - I even used it to defeat the lich in the tavern wall at the gate and the rose sword for my fighter-mage to lower prices not that i bought a lot (and its a +3 blade just in case).

Also this time around I wanted to see if you could play with a minimal of cheese tactics ie. not buffing before an encounter you know that will happen - unless your character happen to be psychic . The encounters are a lot tougher when playing this way (the only buff was for the mages which was armor which lasts for 8 hrs - which is way too long but doesn't provide great protection so I guess it balances out sort of.) The warden in the prison almost whipped our collective butts (6:1 and throw in some summoned monsters and its more like 11:1) and we still almost lost with only one temporary death (we have the wand that restores life).

One battle that was crazy for us was the twisted runes encounter. This was very difficult using non-cheese tactics (no shield of B, major buffs, traps or pre-summoning of monsters or using green scrolls of protection or potions of magic resistance) and only minimal buffs (armor, stoneskin, and protection from evil 10' - hey thats buffing you say, but hey - if you get teleported to a strange area wouldn't you buff in some way beyond mage armor). Sent out my scout and whammo the battle started - I have to tell you this encounter was deadly 3 temporary deaths before I got to the the final mage with the staff (I used the wand again and raised everyone for the final encounter)- and this was quite a battle - she summoned a djinn which we could not permanently kill (would become gas form after taking a certain level of damage and later reappear) - after finally killing her - we took her staff and left our summoned monster to deal with the djinn while we made our escape. I think we should have left the staff for when we were a bit higher in level (average level 9-10) but without it Aerie was too vulnerable to attack (the best defensive weapon for a mage is the cheesey staff of the magi and its equipping of invisibility - Aerie does not attack using the staff or its abilities - no spell trap or lightning fireball or dispel - she uses it only for defensive purposes buts already enough cheese).

So here we are with the gold needed to pay the shadow thieves with many of the encounters outside the city to do and a few of the smaller side quests still to do as well - still a lot of game playing left when we get Imoen back from spellhold. We are wondering how smart it is to go at level 9/10 but we can't just leave Immy to be locked up in prison and to be experimented on by Incarious (or however you spell his name). We are wondering also if we shouldn't help Nalia before leaving since her quest seemed rather urgent at the beginning of the game and to get the good flail from her keep before leaving.....

Now the question remains who to bring with me on this journey to spellhold. Should I drop Misnc? or HD or Viconia? hmmmm it will probably be Misnc although i would like to bring Boo with me.

A question for those who did a romance - if you said you liked Aerie (we had a conversation and my character said he liked her and would like to travel around with her or something to that affect - it all seems very innocent still) but nothing as yet happens between the two of you - can you still romance other characters? or is too late for the other romances?

how much is too much cheese

Hi all

I am still going through what is essentially my second time through the game and I was wondering what everyone thought of some of the mods that add new items and equipment? I added item upgrade and freedoms reign and virtue just to try out new equipment and see if it would unbalance my game and the way I played it.

After playing it with these two installed the conclusion was it a bit unbalanced. Not a lot but enough to annoy me a little. The unbalancing came not from the power of the weapons gained from the encounters - although they tended to be on the higher ends of magical weapons (+3 and up weapons) but the fact that when I sold these weapons and there was a lot of them (just consider the bandits in the temple sewer - whose equipment after being sold was more than enough to pay the 15,000 gp you needed several times over) I had too much gold too spend - and as such unbalanced the game - equipment should be somewhat hard to come by and gold should be at least moderately hard to accumulate. With two encounters with freedom's reign installed my team had more gold then they knew what to do with - and as such made the game a lot less fun - the struggle to pay for equipment was eliminated - and as such made the role playing that much less entertaining.

Now for item upgrade mod - interesting mod - some unique items to upgrade - although not overpowered they can be useful if used in moderation to save space - so you can wear other equipment - I consider this mod to be a bit cheesy - so i recommend using it when you want to but staying away from the more cheesy item upgrades that are available i.e. upgrading the robe of the good/evil/neutral magi - so you get extra spells, and a throwing spear that is as fast as a longbow (very cheesy); and some of the upgraded weapons get too powerful for BG2 - but may prove useful in ToB. Overall not extremely cheesy if you limit what you upgrade.

After playing with these two mods I will take out freedom's reign and virtue - as everything is way over powered and I will keep item upgrade for some cheesy space saving (nothing that upgrades weapons or adds things that the original game does not include).

As for my team and I we are still in chapter 2 at the moment but we should head out to save Immy any moment now as the 15,000 gp is ready and the team is more or less prepared to tackle Spellhold and the Underdark.

As for the romances which I am trying this time around - so far nothing is really happening although my PC did buy a necklace for Jaheria. The dialogue and interaction between Viconia and the other potential romances is still quite entertaining - never know where it is going to go. As for Aerie romance - my PC said, "I don't like her in that way but I don't want to hurt her" - after Viconia made some brutal comments - and Aerie said "I wasn't the man she thought i was" - does this mean the end of the Aerie romance? She has been rather quiet of late - with only her usual dialogue of " I'm glad you brought me along..." - no romance dialogue anymore it seems - but it is still early in the game.

I also added Korgan to the team for the first time - he really is a brutal mercenary at times - you can see his somewhat callous attitude but I guess you expect that from a mercenary (who is evil). Overall for the brief time he was with the team he was a bit amusing and really quite powerful even without making his AC better than what he started with.

Moving on to other matters... what does everyone think of changing the classes of NPCs? For example making Minsc a barbarian instead of a ranger - it fits with him being from Rashamon still. And maybe making Viconia a multiclass thief/cleric or maybe just a fighter (who specializes in bows) - on the surface she has to find alternative/extra skills in order to survive in a world that is hostile towards her just for being a drow - so adding a class (or two) seems to fit in with her need to survive on the surface - without changing her basic clerical nature (unless you feel like it - exiled from the Underdark - she moves a way from clerical powers and gods because of the harsh lessons she learn from Lloth and her priestess). As for everyone else - I would leave them as they are - okay maybe changing Nalia a little so she is a bit more useful as a thief or just making her a pure mage maybe even a wildmage - considering her character (helping the poor eventhough she is a noble sounds "crazy" and wild - or at least her Aunt would say that - also given that she is sneaking around it sort of makes sense that her spell craft would be more unstable - since maybe her Aunt would not approve of a calling such as thief or wizard and as such forbids her from learning from a master of the art). So what do you think?

I've tried almost all the NPCs that I did not get around to in my first time playing BG2, only Edwin remains to be added to the team to see how he interacts with everyone. Hopefully it will also prove interesting.....

I will of course try the different combination of NPCs just to see which ones are the best for entertainment and my style of playing rpgs.

If Aerie said that, then I'm pretty sure the romance is over.

As for changing the classes of NPCs, I have changed Jaheira to a Ranger/Cleric from her original class, since it fit my party better and I wanted her in the party. Also, she fits me as a lot more Neutral Good than True Neutral.

Nightmare wrote:If Aerie said that, then I'm pretty sure the romance is over.

As for changing the classes of NPCs, I have changed Jaheira to a Ranger/Cleric from her original class, since it fit my party better and I wanted her in the party. Also, she fits me as a lot more Neutral Good than True Neutral.

Hmmm ranger-cleric sounds like an interesting class to play with - I was wondering does the ranger-cleric loose all missile weapons (except for sling)? I remember playing a ranger-cleric multi in IWD1 and I think I could still use crossbows or maybe I am confusing it - is the ranger-cleric limited to sling as a missile weapon in BG2?

Ya, Jaheria as a neutral good makes a lot more sense if you read her dialogue and action in the game - plus she is a harper and they all tend to be goody-goody after all.

Ah well the romance is over with Aerie - oh well - my PC was going for a romance with Jaheria so it does not matter - but who would of thought one comment would end it. My PC said something similar to Viconia when she flirted - and it seems to have not deterred her so far....

copper coronet fun encounters

Hi all

Here is a fun encounter from the copper coronet. When we entered the first time we bumped into some ruffians to the left of the entrance. Now my PC who is rather civil and polite for the most part preferred not to engage in this pointless name calling with them and so after 4-5 dialogue exchange Minsc got really mad on my behalf (after they called me gutless etc) and started a tavern brawl. The short of the story is that Minsc whipped the floor with them and this proved interesting and fun (and no loss of rep either) - a new way to handle a minor encounter without the PC being the aggressor. Has this happened to anyone else? It just shows you what can happen in the game if you play a bit differently (no in your face aggression and sword chopping).

Has anyone played without HLA in SoA and ToB? I've been wondering about HLA skills and a lot seem really cheesy. Do the monster/villains get the same access to these skills as you do? (I never played all the way through ToB as of yet.) I think on this play through I will not pick HLAs that are guaranteed cheese - ie. UAI for thieves is too much cheese - thieves should be limited to only using scrolls and wands (not everything in the game - the holy avenger for example should smite a thief for picking it up even) and even then there should a percentage that failure will happen and bad things will happen to you (like when a wild surge hits a low level wild mage and you suddenly find your turned into a cow or something). And of course lets not get started on planetiers/devas - if you where an otherworldly being and was dragged to the material plane to battle you would be pissed off as well - doesn't matter if you are benevolent or not - what right has a mortal to call me to battle for him/her - there should a % chance after the summoning that the summoned being will leave or do something to the summoner after/during the battle. And of course there is greater whirlwind (10 attacks/r) is just ridiculous - god like speed to attack that many times a round - too much cheese - the creators should have limited these things or at least found a way to have some negative consequence for using it e.g. use greater whirlwind - you suffer 2d10 of damage and loose 1 pt of constitution and str for a day (greater/lesser restoration will not restore it) you must rest for 24 hrs to regain it and you cannot use lesser whirlwind without some consequences - if you use it the same day you will suffer permanently 1d10+1 of HP loss (and all saving throws receive a -1 to all saves for the day) - and only a greater wish can restore your loss HP and should you use whirlwind a second time (after using greater whirlwind) in the same day you loss permanently 1 pt of con and an additional 1d10+3 HP and all special abilities that are physical in nature cannot be used for another 24hrs (and you are slowed to half speed all attacks are at 1/r and you suffer -2 to all to hit/damage roles and -1 to AC) and if you are a multi/dual with a spellcaster there is a 10% chance that all spells cast will failure (higher level spell - level 3+ have an addition 5% per level of failure - you should be physically and mentally exhausted after whirlwind and therefore have a higher rate of failure for higher level spells). Some real consequences would balance out HLA and I think make the game a bit more fun.

As you can probably guess I DM most of the games I play on PnP - and the players suffer some funny/silly/painful set backs for trying to break the rules on pnp (bending the rules is ok) with the character that they are role playing. :laugh::mischief:

Even now playing a kensai/mage - my kensai can only grandmaster in one type of sword (long sword) and can only be proficient in any other type of bladed weapon, in addition she cannot be proficient in any type of non-bladed weapons -- I put some limits on my characters so they don't get overpowered in SoA and have fun role playing. Besides what kensai would want to use non-bladed weapons. Of course this makes fighting golems very difficult but isn't that why you added mage power to your sword mastery - to cover up this deficiency in battle.

tomb raiding the fun and unfinished business mod

Hi all

There is nothing like tomb raiding for some quick gold and some antiques to sell. Well here we were in the tomb district and we begun our raid and what did we find out after defeating lots of zombies, mummies and other undead monsters was that taking Nalia or Yoshimo with you well cause you a lot of pain if you don't have potions of thievery with you. After clearing out the undead and removing the traps we couldn't open the crypt - "arggggghhhhhh," the scream of frustration echoed through out the dusty and dank tomb. But luckily Nalia had a knock spell handy so it was alright in the end but for a moment or two there was supreme frustration at both thieves for being unable to open the tombs.

On another fun and annoying note, here we were at Nalia's keep and we were on the final level to rescue her father and there was a chest with a trap. Now you would think the same thing would happen as in the tomb being unable to open the chest but noooo its not. Nalia couldn't de-trap the chest and she tried several times to do so ....."argggghhhh," a small scream from Nalia who could detect the trap but couldn't remove it - so the content of the chest remains a mystery for us and in her own keep as well "sigh".

On another fun note - I am trying out the Unfinished Business and it has proved to be okay with no real problems and some interesting things to do. The Boo kidnapping was interesting if a bit anti-climatic -- no huge battle to get Boo back - which is both good and bad and the riddles were a bit silly but hey its a quest for a kidnapped space hamster so it can't be that serious can it. A nice lite de-tour on a relatively heavy and serious quests from other NPCs. One of the spells added wraith-form spell (level 3) is a bit overpowered for such a low level spell - incredible physical protection and 25% magic resistance - although you cannot cast spells in this form - it is the best defense for the fighter/mage who is more fighter than mage - a bit too cheesy so its no wonder it was removed from the spell list. If they made it such that it had restrictions - such as not being able to have stone-skin activated or other type of spell protection when using it - it might have been more balanced - as it is now it is too powerful to use.

On another note - the spider druid quest in the tomb area was a small quest and makes some sense now - I could never figure out if the spider lair was an ally to Bodhi or just another random monster encounter to make the tombs a bit more dangerous. With UB it allowed for some tying up of loose ends with the spider-lair - and didn't require us to battle tons of spiders. With the spider-quest completed I wonder if the other huge spiders lurking in the area will also disappear? hmmmmm .....going to have to check that out.

The most difficult battle so far in the early stages had to be the tomb with the undead king - he severely injured the lot of us before we could defeat him - a nice little battle that had its anxious moments -- if you are not a little anxious (and worried - and running around getting healed while someone else takes a pounding) in your battles then its not as much fun - who wants super powered characters.

romance in BG2 - spoilers maybe

Hi all

Romancing in BG2: SoA is the topic for this entry. If you've been reading any of my posts you will know that my PC is trying to romance somebody in the party preferably Jaheria. Now here is the progress report on it - tell me what you think since I think I screwed them all up.

I have Jaheria, Viconia and Aerie in my party - all possible romance partners. Now with Viconia and Aerie - there comes a point after getting Viconia that Aerie beings to get really upset about being a ground walker instead of a wind walker - and she gets really upset and starts complaining about her life. Before I can interject, Viconia does and says she really is pathetic and that no one would want her etc etc - love the banter between them even as sharp tongued as Viconia is. Well the long and short of the brief yelling match between them is that Viconia asks what I think - 4 options are given non of which are that great - no matter what you do - one of these ladies will be pissed off at you -- so this time I said I liked Aerie - and kaboooooom - no more Viconia romance it seems - she said my PC wasn't who she thought he was - and therefore it seems its over with her although I still potentially have Aerie and Jaheria. Two out of 3 romance potential is available, right?! Read on to see what happens next...

Now for Jaheria - a more complex romance and a slow start but seems to be a more mature type of romance (she afterall has just recently loss her partner). Now after some small starts and even buying her a necklace my PC thought this is going well with Jaheria BUT and there is always one of those - we travelled to the Druid's Cove to deal with the druids attacking Trademeet and as we rested after arriving there (we've been travelling for 16hrs straight) and no sooner did we make camp when we were attacked my bandits who took Jaheria hostage. Long story short I choose the dialogue that went for a fight and Jaheria was stabbed (lost 70% of her HP) and after we won she was pissed off at me - saying I had almost killed her and she doubted me now (or at least doubted my sanity) and so my PC thinks this romance is over before it even started to kindle. And so another one down - even if my PC was trying to save Jaheria ....hmmm maybe my PC should of just caved into their demands (wanted all my money and equipment -- makes me wonder what if they would really take everything or just take all my gold - we had about 20,000gp) -- but who caves into bandits right....right.... .......... (trials off re-thinking maybe I did it really wrong since they held a potential love as a hostage...sigh........)

And finally we come to Aerie - still a potential romance right? Wrong it seems - she was once again complaining about being a ground-walker and how bad her life is and how about she wants to die or go back to the circus - and as the dialogue went on my PC got two options - both of which were not that sympathetic to her - one said to leave the other said go die if you want to - so choosing one that said go die (rather than leave - since she might leave immediately - but she won't kill herself) and she shut up after I said this. A few days has passed since this conversation and no romance dialogue has appeared for Aerie - so another romance shot in the foot.

Can you beat that? Three romance potential and my PC wanted to try at least one and none of them worked out so far or at all..... "sigh....maybe go to read a book on romance for dummies"..... I also dropped Viconia from the party for a short time to complete some other quests - so even if she returns no romance - even if she didn't end it already. Ah well what to do now about these loss romances? No, idea. Maybe restart the game and try it again with only one romance potential to see if my PC can screw it up again .......

So how is your love life in BG2: SoA? mine seems to be really dim to the point of being in total darkness. Oh well, better luck next time. :laugh:

surprise surprise

Hi all

Surprises can still happen in bg2 even when you think you can defeat the game with your eyes closed.....

Here we were moving cautiously through the planar sphere and our first encounter with the mad halflings. It was a rather easy battle (using no hit and run tactics or area spells that hit unseen monsters). We battled and we run rather easily which was surprise - I always remembered it as one of the more difficult battles in the game. So here we are all confident - we took out the halfling mages with no damage and only lost one summoned bear to them - so it was a great battle for us. We continued to search for V's mad ancestor and moved deeper into the sphere. Our next encounter were a few more halflings and we thought another easy battle and where we ever wrong. Mere seconds after our encounter it was going smoothly the halfling fighter was dead at our feet leaving us just to mages to deal with - no problem for us we thought since it the previous room it was an easy fight and they had a lot more fighter support. Long story short - we fought and they got really lucky - casting chaos - the whole team accept for Minsc and Jaheria were effected - now that seems good odds still - two powerful npc to take out the mages ( and jaheria had a dispel in her arsenal to remove the chaos spell) - but sadly the dispel did not work and my pc when a little nuts while under the chaos spell and struck down Aerie ...... (sad sigh) ..... and as such Minsc went berserk and killed Valygar ... 2 team mates down cut down by there own team .....sighssss........... and then to top it all off Minsc begins to attack Jaheria and not the remaining halflings.... well after running around so Minsc wouldn't carve up Jaheria - and dodging the whatever spells the halflings through at them the chaos spell finally ended - my pc attacked the halflings - Jaheria raised Aerie - which calmed Minsc right down and we won a battle that was should have been easy but wasn't, showing us that the game can still through your curve balls if you are over confident.

shapeshifting and spells

Hi all

I had a curious thought - if you cast vocalization and then shape shift into something like a wolf can you can cast spells or do you actually need a human throat/mouth to be able to cast spells?

As my party continues its adventure through SoA nothing really new has happened to us. I got Nalia in the party and triggered the last of her quest really quickly - a day after her father's funeral and she was taken to prison - it would have been interesting if you could have blasted her ex-fiancee rather than letting him be tried by her superior but you can't win them all.

Also this time around my party is playing around with more spells and how they all work. Its great being able to cast minor globe of invulnerability and stand toe to toe with enemy mages and see who falls first or runs out of spells first. I am trying for true mage vs mage/spellcaster battle whenever possible to try out a variety of spells (no jumping in hacking away with a sword). So far its been fun - of course if it wasn't for all the wands I am not sure if Aerie could win all her battles. By the way shield of fire spell is quite cool - protects and injures those crazy enough to melee with Aerie (or my pc) - going to have to try blade barrier next and see how it works out - I wonder if you can combine both blade barrier and fireshield and get more damage to enemies???

Back to our journey ....we've just rescued Imoen from spellhold and had her rejoin the party - its good to have her back in the party. I've given her staff of power (which my apprentices were able to make before dying - never had them make the more dangerous stuff - so I did it this time and I lost 2 apprentices - we tried to save them but unfortunately the game does not allow it - oh well.....)

On a side note - my team got the greenstone amulet (the one that offers complete psi, charm, mind and stun protection -- sometimes we get it and sometimes we don't) - it was an averagely difficult spell battle to get - but oh so worth it. It is probably the best piece of jewelery in the game besides that of the amulet of power (the one the lowers casting time and gives negative plane protection) - if you are going to go rescue Imoen don't leave for spellhold without getting it - the only other piece of must have jewelery is the ring of acuity, wizardry and holiness -- all must have for the spellcaster.

We've hit "fish-city" and got the cloak of reflection - another cheesy item - and gave it to Aerie - so now she can do mage battles without worrying about being injured by spells - ya I know its cheesy to do - but the game offers it so why no use it and experiment with more spell battles rather than melee battle.

On to the Underdark and drows ...can't wait........