A few simple questions
Posted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 11:38 am
Since I keep thinking of new bg questions, I figured I might aswell make a new thread with a less confusing title (or off-topic rather) where I'll compile my future questions.
1. I have tactics mod with all of it's components installed, and I recall there being a random wilderness component. The thing is that I'm quite far along on my game and I haven't come across a single one of these random encounters so far. To clarify, I've come across a bunch of wilderness encounters, but I remember them being there without any mods installed aswell. Are these random encounters very rare, do they come into play very late in the game, or what exactly is the deal with them?
2. The second questions contains very long and possibly confusing explanations, so feel free to skip it if you're not very patient.
I'm looking for some pointers to improve my playstyle. While my current play-through with tactics mod is going failry smoothly with core rules and I don't have to re-load that much in most encounters, I still feel like I'm playing quite ineffectively, and it feels like I'm doing so well because of a strong party, rather than because of good strategy. My current party consist of a kensai dual-classed to mage (13/13 atm so I haven't yet regained my kensai abilities), Jaheira, Anomen, Keldorn, Valygar and Imoen.
My main character is currently using firetooth +3 and boneblade +4 in melee, when I get my kensai abilities back he'll use flail of ages and defender of easthaven. Jaheira is currently using mostly her sling (the +5 sling from one of the merchants in the copper coronet) and her +3 club from irenicus' dungeon D) in melee encounters. Anomen uses the mace of disruption +2 with sling of avoreen for ranged combat (he's my tank though so he melees most of the time) Keldorn currently uses mostly his crossbow (with the paralystic bolts from the kuoa-toa, and the silver sword +3 (haven't killed firkraag yet), Valygar dual-wields sanchuudoku +4 (from the kensai/mage) and celestial fury, and imoen currently uses a crossbow +3 (with kuoa-toa bolts that stun) until I'll get the gesen bow for her, and she uses tor'gals claw in melee.
Now, this party works very well and it tears up most enemy groups very quickly, but the thing I'm still unhappy about is my use of spells. For some reason I always feel like I need to save my spells for more critical situations and what happens is that I generally never use spells in encounters where I don't think I will need them, and while the game still remains quite easy, it feels to me like I could be playing tactics mod on impossible instead if I'd learn to use my spells more effectively.
The way I usually play is that I have one character that does most of the tanking, and then 1 or 2 other that tank aswell when it can't be avoided. Then I have 2-4 character in the back stunning and paralyzing enemies with bolts/darts/whatnot and 2-4 characters meleeing (most of the time just anomen and valygar). Depending on the situation I might have imoen start off with a cloud kill, and in the case of a big group of stronger enemies (like in the beholder caverns in the underdark) I might just start off with skull trap, holy smite and death/fog cloud kill all at once. I usually buff up only before the most difficult fights. The only buff that I try to keep on most of the time is protection from evil 10'.
The way I see it the main problem is that I don't like to rest a lot, since I'm afraid the story (the dreams etc.) will go on too quickly. Usually the opposite happens though and I end up in situations where I have no more quests to complete and I still have loads of dialogue I haven't triggered by the time I'm almost through the game. Infact the first time I played through bg 1 I slept once before I was in the last chapter and had to go chase after sarevok below baldur's gate, and so I was forced to sleep like 10 time in a row to get all the dreams to trigger before the game was over.
I have been playing bg for a pretty long time so I know what spells are good to memorize and so on, but generally when I end up resting with my party most of my characters still have over half their spells left (except keldorn who usually has no dispels or true sights left ). It feels like a waste too, but I'm just not sure what to do about it. I mean the most logical answer would obviously be to use more spells, but I just don't feel like using spells in encounters where my party wouldn't take any damage anyway, and even when I take some damage I'll just swap around my rings of regeneration etc. whenever possible to save potions (I know, this is ridiculous, anomen currently has 56 potions of superior healing, and all of my characters have over 20 potions of extra healing (I have the limitless potion/gem/ammo stacking mod installed also)).
I think I'd better stop here because I think I'm making less sence by the minute. I'd really appreciate some pointers if someone has the patience to read through this wall of text.
1. I have tactics mod with all of it's components installed, and I recall there being a random wilderness component. The thing is that I'm quite far along on my game and I haven't come across a single one of these random encounters so far. To clarify, I've come across a bunch of wilderness encounters, but I remember them being there without any mods installed aswell. Are these random encounters very rare, do they come into play very late in the game, or what exactly is the deal with them?
2. The second questions contains very long and possibly confusing explanations, so feel free to skip it if you're not very patient.
I'm looking for some pointers to improve my playstyle. While my current play-through with tactics mod is going failry smoothly with core rules and I don't have to re-load that much in most encounters, I still feel like I'm playing quite ineffectively, and it feels like I'm doing so well because of a strong party, rather than because of good strategy. My current party consist of a kensai dual-classed to mage (13/13 atm so I haven't yet regained my kensai abilities), Jaheira, Anomen, Keldorn, Valygar and Imoen. My main character is currently using firetooth +3 and boneblade +4 in melee, when I get my kensai abilities back he'll use flail of ages and defender of easthaven. Jaheira is currently using mostly her sling (the +5 sling from one of the merchants in the copper coronet) and her +3 club from irenicus' dungeon
D) in melee encounters. Anomen uses the mace of disruption +2 with sling of avoreen for ranged combat (he's my tank though so he melees most of the time) Keldorn currently uses mostly his crossbow (with the paralystic bolts from the kuoa-toa, and the silver sword +3 (haven't killed firkraag yet), Valygar dual-wields sanchuudoku +4 (from the kensai/mage) and celestial fury, and imoen currently uses a crossbow +3 (with kuoa-toa bolts that stun) until I'll get the gesen bow for her, and she uses tor'gals claw in melee.Now, this party works very well and it tears up most enemy groups very quickly, but the thing I'm still unhappy about is my use of spells. For some reason I always feel like I need to save my spells for more critical situations and what happens is that I generally never use spells in encounters where I don't think I will need them, and while the game still remains quite easy, it feels to me like I could be playing tactics mod on impossible instead if I'd learn to use my spells more effectively.
The way I usually play is that I have one character that does most of the tanking, and then 1 or 2 other that tank aswell when it can't be avoided. Then I have 2-4 character in the back stunning and paralyzing enemies with bolts/darts/whatnot and 2-4 characters meleeing (most of the time just anomen and valygar). Depending on the situation I might have imoen start off with a cloud kill, and in the case of a big group of stronger enemies (like in the beholder caverns in the underdark) I might just start off with skull trap, holy smite and death/fog cloud kill all at once. I usually buff up only before the most difficult fights. The only buff that I try to keep on most of the time is protection from evil 10'.
The way I see it the main problem is that I don't like to rest a lot, since I'm afraid the story (the dreams etc.) will go on too quickly. Usually the opposite happens though and I end up in situations where I have no more quests to complete and I still have loads of dialogue I haven't triggered by the time I'm almost through the game. Infact the first time I played through bg 1 I slept once before I was in the last chapter and had to go chase after sarevok below baldur's gate, and so I was forced to sleep like 10 time in a row to get all the dreams to trigger before the game was over.
I have been playing bg for a pretty long time so I know what spells are good to memorize and so on, but generally when I end up resting with my party most of my characters still have over half their spells left (except keldorn who usually has no dispels or true sights left
). It feels like a waste too, but I'm just not sure what to do about it. I mean the most logical answer would obviously be to use more spells, but I just don't feel like using spells in encounters where my party wouldn't take any damage anyway, and even when I take some damage I'll just swap around my rings of regeneration etc. whenever possible to save potions (I know, this is ridiculous, anomen currently has 56 potions of superior healing, and all of my characters have over 20 potions of extra healing (I have the limitless potion/gem/ammo stacking mod installed also)).I think I'd better stop here because I think I'm making less sence by the minute. I'd really appreciate some pointers if someone has the patience to read through this wall of text.