GameBanshee Forums

So I've been rolling stats in the persuit of the illusive "holy grail" of attributes, yes that's right, the centurion, the big one, 100, for the past six hours.

Somebody please slap me and tell me to stop. My previous roll was 98, and now it seems I've got 98's coming out of my ears. I'm doing a human ranger, so my chances are as good as they get.

But you know, the worst thing is; I think I just went past it. ARG.

I'd be interested to hear about everyone elses experiences with the stat rolling on character creation. What do you set yourself as a minimum? Are you EVER happy? Do you just use Shadowkeeper, like I should? Or do you, like me, feel like a dirty cheat every time you load SK up?

And, has anyone ever rolled 100? I'd love to know how long it took.

Thanks everyone! Back to the rolling... my eyes hurt...

I've considered this question myself...
When I play BG2 I'll roll for a long time, and all the while I'll be thinking I should just use SK, because ultimately waiting for that perfect score to drop is no less cheesy than editing your game.
However, I still roll instead; I think it's because the random chance holds some kind of appeal, you never know what the next dice throw will be.

And to answer your question, my memory is a bit foggy, but I'm reasonably certain I've rolled 100.

I know! There's something pure about rolling the stats isn't there? The music, the numbers, those 18's flicking past, the sound the "reroll" button makes. It's like a drug, seriously, and a class A drug at that.

Whenever I embark on a rolling marathon, I never play the game after I've achieved the stats I wanted. I'm always too exhausted, and the rolling was almost a game in itself.

God. Back to the rolling. Thanks, It's comforting to know that there are other people as weird as myself, sitting here, clicking - it's been over six and a half hours now, on and off. Nice to know that rolling 100 isn't a myth aswell. Need some coffee... all I can see is numbers...

I heard of this shool of thought... never applied it myself, though. The hardest rolling i ever had was for a fighter that was supposed to dualclass into a druid, which turned out to need everything damn near 18
But a friend of mine was so intent on his 18/00 once that he never noticed he really got 18/08... seeing is believing, so believing is seeing, too. :laugh:

I don't really bother. My strength score is usually small, since you can get a strength girdle early on. I always max dexterity, constitution (sixteen to nineteen, depending on race and class) and of course Intelligence and Wisdom, in the case of priests and mages.

Since Strength and Charisma aren't really worth maxing out, I'm left over with a bunch of points that are dedicated to other stats.

In the first Baldur's Gate, I do try to max almost all of the stats that benefit the character class progression (and Charisma for discounts).

For normal builds I usually try to get a random throw that has 3 numbers that are above 15 and no one digit numbers. Then I 'manage' the point. When I do intend to go for the 18/00 strength bonus, I realize I might as well play an orc anyway for such a ridiculously strong figher. With the added strenght bonus, you just as easily get to 19 strength from the get-go, and bypass all that other nonsense. Also goes nice on an Assassin by the way.

Consider the Orc. Or consider that you might pick up a strength belt that pushes you past 18 before long anyway. That's all I say about that.

For my ranger cleric in BG1, I rolled...

STR 13
DEX 18
CON 18
INT 10
WIS 18
CHA 13

Total = 90.

Like Cren said, there's a billion things to get STR to godly levels, so I sap it as low as I can to boost the others.

In BG1/ToSC, I found a tome to boost each attribute once and I found 2 additional tomes to increase WIS. With the Gauntlets of Ogre Strength, I imported into BG2 with:

STR 18/00
DEX 19
CON 19
INT 10
WIS 21
CHA 14

Total = 101, so ya...'rolling' for BG2, I've topped 100

(don't even!!!! That's far less cheese than opening shadow keeper or rolling over and over again liek some slot machine junkie)

I've become a slot machine junkie I'm afraid. I'm still rolling. Been doing it on and off since 16:00. It's now 01:25.

Ridiculous. I'm quite literally addicted. I'm SO stubborn, I won't let the game *beat* me, whatever that means.

Here's the thing; I don't want the hackmaster +12, or the ring of uberness. I want full plate, and a longsword, +1 maybe, and that's pretty much it. I don't want any red stats, you know? I know I'm crazy.

It's just become pure roleplay. I basically want to create myself, well, more like some extension of my ego. I want human ranger, 16/18/16/16/18/16. I think, you see, and that's the thing. I don't want to jiggle stats about on anything other than the game. I want to do 15/17/16/17/18/17, and see how it *looks* on that screen, with that music. Only then will I be satisfied. What have I become.

Going to be a long night.

When I first played an older text game online when GEnie was hot **** (that will date it), there were about two dozen stats. Someone had created a script to reroll them for points above a level you set. He got his supremely difficult amount after leaving the thing going for over six hours.

I used it, but accepted the best I could find in less than one.

You're taking this way too seriously, hey. Save yourself hours of not actually playing the game and just cheat - it's just a videogame after all.

I am a roller, dislike the thing about upgrading my stats with shadowkeeper. The only thing I use SK for is to give me the proper weapons at the beginning of BG2:ToB in a multiplayer game and a singleplayer game

Am i the only one who uses SK to tweak avatars and colors to look pretty?

Shadowkeeper is your friend.

If I play using a PC transferred from a P&P game (Skirmish, RM, Flint-Zacharov) I use SK to modify from that; stats, looks, sometimes equipment.

Other times I just roll till I am happy-ish.

Hmm, first time I booted up BG (1), decided on a human paladin (as an ode to my Ultima IV days) -- third roll got me an 18/00 Str, and solid enough stats I kept char.

...BG 2, I must have taken 20 rolls to get a human paladin with 18/00 Str and solid stats (no kidding). (He was a cavalier, btw -- even used throwing axe a la Ultima ).

...is the game biased towards paladins, mayhap?? (It is nice to have the 'talky' high Cha + tank + backup healer all in one char, imo -- boots of speed just make that more fun!)

I do recall the dwarf fighter's 18/00 took me probably a hundred rolls, and I've had 18/97,98,99 coming out my ears at various points. (Haven't tried SK yet....)

I used to do that a lot but nowadays I'm satisfied as long as the stats are decent. You don't really need the stats when you know how to play.

Curry wrote:I used to do that a lot but nowadays I'm satisfied as long as the stats are decent. You don't really need the stats when you know how to play.

Props.

I think that at this point I am less inclined to be impressed with how someone solo'd the game...or how they beat it with the Triple-Death Ascension mod...or with (supposedly) no reloading.

Create a fighter. Pick a dwarf. give him:

STR 8
DEX 3
CON 9
INT 11
WIS 12
CHA 9

Then beat the game and get back to me

I could beat the game with a 1/1/1/1/1/1 squirrel, I mean, come on. Just get me some crackers...

So I've finally settled for a roll of 98. I'm sure that the number that's rolled is the total, which is then divided randomly. Loads of times I got five great stats, with an int of 3 or something. So annoying.

So that was six hours of my life wasted. Oh well. I've just got Mazzy in the temple ruins with a view to having a goody two shoes hack 'n' slash party. Only to decide that I'd have to be BLIND to have a halfling in my party. Same goes for Dwarves and Gnomes. I mean really, I've nothing against the height, but they moonwalk across the screen. Their animations are terrible.

So that was more time wasted. You know what else annoys me? That to cast lvl 9 spells you have to have Edwin. I don't want Edwin. Anyway, at least I've given up on the rolling... that was an addiction.

Honestly, it's not as bad as you think. You would just use potions at the start to gain decent stats. Later on, you would use items. While this does make you less powerful than a normal character (mainly due to at least three reserved item slots), it wouldn't prevent you from finishing the game.

willsanders84 wrote:I don't want Edwin. Anyway, at least I've given up on the rolling... that was an addiction.

I just got Edwin, first time using him. Was able to get Jan pretty quick. Can't remember where Haer'Dalis is (don't tell me). But he is the next priority.

I am going to roll with those 3 and my PC, adding others to complete quests, then kicking them to the curb.

Anyways, Minsc made it perfectly clear when I added him that he will tolerate Edwin for about...um...15 minutes. Poor Minsc doesn't know that I am going to smote him and stick his corpse in the Planar Sphere septic tank. I'm going to give Boo to Jan cause they belong together (skweep!)

A few off topic posts have been removed that would have fit perfectly well in SYM, maybe in one of the pub threads, but not quite here. Rest well.