13 replies to this topic

[MechanicalMarz]

Greetings everyone! This is my first post so please be gentle with those +1 noob basher stones!

I've been playing with the infinity games since BG 1 and from time time I fell in love with them again, and have this urge (I think you are all familiar with it) to waste my every avaible second on it.

So my question is, after the N+1th playthrough, how do you play the game?

You play it through from beginning to the end, roleplaying every little action or you ctrl+y your way through it?
How do you test/try out a new mod (be it an npc or some other thing) from a player's perspective?
How is your "fun playthrough" looks like?

That's all for now

Cheers,

[Scipio]

Congratulations on your first of n+m posts at SHS where n = number of times you look at each thread and m = any arbitrary integer.

I don't play BG1 much, although I did greatly enjoy BG1 Tutu. I always seem to have a BG2 game going, usually to try a new mod or two. I usually do most things and engage in most dialogues with people who've conversed with my PC a thousand times already. One day one of those merchants is magically going to have a special offer on +23 swords.

I always play with a good PC and recruit good characters. It requires extreme effort of will not to include Aerie and Jaheira. It is equally difficult not to be a Beserker because of the way they can wade through vampires and hulks without blinking. No matter how determinedly I may plan to go through the game with a party of four or less, I somehow end up with six.

Admissions: I have never taken Haer'Dalis, Valgyar, Cernd, Jan or Mazzy all the way through the game. I have only once tried an evil party and I stopped halfway through the game. I have never played as a bard, ever. I am a sorcerer right now for the first time and after only a few hours of playing time I am thinking again that it's much more fun to be a heavily armoured MBT with HEAP or HESH.* It's a pity a fighter can't dual into a sorcerer.

This time round I am going to go all the way to the ToB showdown with this sorcerer plus Keldorn, Mazzy, Anomen, Haer'Dalis and Jan. It already feels like a new version of BG2. After just a few hours I am wondering if I should have played as a sorcerer long ago. With five lots of Minute Meteors he's already blasting opposition out of the way. He's anything but a tank, obviously, but he makes a fair Bradley armoured fighting vehice with low-calibre automatic cannon.

Bioware NPC preferences:
Fighter types, Keldorn before Korgan, Mazzy or Sarevok.
Ranger, Minsc before Valgyar.
Druid, Jaheira before Cernd.
Cleric, Viconia before Anomen (which means Minsc rather than Keldorn in the gang!).
Mage, Imoen or Nalia before Edwin.
Bard, who needs one?
Multiclass, Aerie before Jan.
Thief, Yoshimo until I save Immy.

Three or four of these first choices usually accompany any mod NPC or NPCs. I have three new girlfriends: Saerileth (angelic paladin) and Yasraena (gorgeous Drow fighter) as tanks and Fade (seriously sexy Tiefling) as a thief. Fade is a darling. I am old and crude enough and sufficiently unbothered by political correctness to say that my PC enjoys getting his leg around a bit of tail; Fade is the first girl who's ever wrapped her tail around my leg.

* MBT with HEAP or HESH: Main Battle Tank, which could be a Leopard 2, Challenger 2 or M1/A2 Abrams, firing High Explosive Armour Piercing rounds (Carsomyr or the Equalizer) or High Explosive Squash Head (Crom Faeyr)

[Eleima]

Although I too have a similar urge, I have to admit, and I'm a bit ashamed about it... at this point, I've played BG2 sooo many times, I get a lil "ctrl+y" happy. I still play from beginning to end, and do about 90% of the quests, though.
Mostly, when I'm playing BG2 is to test new mods I've uncovered, mostly romances (there are just so many out there, I haven't played 'em all yet).
To test a new mod, I'll mostly just use one of my characters (I have six or seven different girls that are always saved and ready for a new adventure) that fulfills the requirements and just play. I try not to tweak the timers too badly, except when I'm *really* in a rush. I always have Anomen in my party either to experience the romance conflicts or to romance him (tried the CN romance for the first time a couple of weeks ago, imagine that! An old timer like me! Guess I just couldn't bring myself to let him murder poor Surayah before, and even this time, it did not sit well for me, I felt guilty for days! ).
A "fun playthrough" must include Dungeon Be Gone, with Jasper to whisk me to the end of Château Irenicus, just can't stand his dungeon anymore. That's for starters. After that, it's pretty much a party of 6, romance, and loads of banters, and interaction! Oh, and I *never* take Jaheira along, I *always* have Minsc and Boo along for the ride. Bg2 just isn't BG2 for me without Minsc and Boo and Minsc and Boo!!
In a nutshell, I guess that mods is why I keep coming back to this game, so I think this is a good time for me to send a big "thank you" to modders everywhere.


Oh, and welcome to SHS!!

Edit: Crud, evil Uncle Scippy beat me to it...

Edited by Eleima, 13 May 2008 - 05:30 PM.

[berelinde]

I always talk to everybody and do all the quests. This is mostly because I'm testing out a mod, but that isn't the point. I use CTRL-J a lot, but never CTRL-Y and CTRL-R rarely. I do use DBG, though. I've played the game too many times to find CI enjoyable anymore. That, and I'm usually testing out one or more mods, and none of the ones I've got touch CI.

Minsc and Boo always get a seat in my party, at least for a while, as does Keldorn, and Mazzy. I like taking Valygar, too, though if it's a choice between Valygar and Keldorn, Valygar's staying behind.

I take Aerie only with great reluctance and much grumbling. Viconia and Jaheira pretty much get the same treatment. I'm much more critical of the female NPCs than I am of the males, for some reason. I'm the same with mod NPCs, so it must be me. Maybe I expect less from men? (Sorry guys...)

Believe it or not, I've never played the CN Anomen romance, though I need to at least read it soon for BG2 Gavin's romance conflicts.

Fighter types: I like most of them. Keldorn's my absolute favorite, followed closely by Mazzy, but I also like Minsc, Valygar, Korgan, and Sarevok.
Clerics/Druids: I like druids, but I don't like either Cernd of Jaheira *at all,* so I don't usually have a druid in the party unless my PC is one (I love breaking the rules with my neutral good druid PC). I like Anomen better than either Aerie or Viconia.
Mages: Here, I get stuck. I loathe Aerie and Nalia sets my teeth on edge. And I'm not too thrilled with Edwin's sarcasm, either. Fortunately, I'm very fond of Imoen. And I'll often recruit Jan to fill this role.
Thieves/Bards: Immy always gets a seat. Always. For the first half of the game, I usually take Yoshimo, but I also like Jan very much. And if I don't have Tashia in the party, I need Jan's mage powers.

[Tempest]

I usually avoid ctrl-y, though I do make hefty use of ctrl-r and ctrl-j, but that's because I liberally abuse the CreateItem command in console. I like using LevelOne Npc's in combination with Shadowkeeper so I can take whatever combination of characters for character interaction-Aerie cuts a pretty mean figure as an inquisitor, and I tend to make Valygar a mage for the irony.

[Zyraen]

Personally, I plan my party composition way in advance. I usually first start by deciding my alignment.

Usually if I play Evil it will always be Ariakas heading the team, and Viconia will definitely have a slot. Edwin sometimes, and Korgan sometimes.

If I play Good, I tend to go with Vermithrax my Sorcerer, or Pheonia my Paladin, or if I really feel lazy, I'll take up Stormblade my Reaver (its a custom Kit that combines Fighter Mage Thief AND some Druid / Cleric abilities. Its quite insane). Other times I will use a Fighter/Thief. If I feel very hardworking I'll use Kova the Mage/Thief, since he's probably the hardest to keep alive of all the PCs listed here.

After that, I will select 1 Character to Romance. This can be a Custom NPC or a Bioware NPC.
From there, I will build a party based on what is effective. Usually this will include, for Good parties...

Mages
- Imoen (if I want her I usually do a Spellhold Rush)
- Aerie ( I always have at least 1 half-mage around, to supplement my main spellcaster. plus I tend to use Aerie as a light tank)

Thief
- myself usually, or if I really have to I employ Jan. Jan has horrible stealth/backstab initially though.

Tanks
- Anomen (almost 90% of the time)
- Minsc or Keldorn (I use Keldorn if I cheat and create a pair of Dex Gloves). occasionally Mazzy. Valygar is usually neglected due to my "reserving" Celestial Fury for my own use, unless my PC can't use it

Clerics
- always have 1 Cleric to use Magic Resistance. Awesome Ability. Typically the role is covered by Anomen and/or Aerie

From here, I tend to plan my Weapon Distribution. To me this is always very important as it makes the difference between a fun and relaxing game as my characters CRUSH all opposition to them. Infinite Ammunition is a MUST.

Sling of Everard, Haegan's Axe upg to Rifthome Axe (if evil) or Azuredge (if good)
Firetooth Crossbow, Crimson Dart (for the Mage), Tuigan Bow upg to Tansheron's Bow upg to Gesen Bow

I usually cheat and get 2 Slings of Everard, because of Anomen always requires a sling to himself, and I usually have another Cleric (Aerie). That's my only concession really, apart from my mandatory Bag of Holding and Dungeon Be Gone. I also plan all my Melee Weapons so I can decide who to specialise in what. I'll talk more in terms of Biowares for ease of Reference. +3 and better Weapons are a precious commodity in BG2 and I also always plan out what progression with which to obtain them. Some +2 weapons are a priority as well, in dealing with Vampires early. Typically my progression is roughly as follows

(Azuredge if money is no issue) Blade of Roses, Lilarcor, Short Sword of Backstabbing, Flail of the Ages, Celestial Fury, Carsomyr, Hammer of Thunder +3, Staff of Magi, etc.

Other items of note are
Amulet of Power - must have. one out of only 2 permanent Negative Plane Protection in BG2 SoA
Mace of Disruption - must have. always given Illithium upgrade, usually given to Anomen. If not him, then to Minsc. They both start with Mace Prof
Shield of Balduran - for dealing with Beholders
Cloak of Mirroring - overall goodness
Belm +2 - useful for offhand wielding with the right proficiencies in place
Daystar +2 - handy little sword
Robe of Vecna - not much to say about this one. just... WOW.

Eventually, my party is equipped with everyone able to shoot, and that's the most important thing for me from there we will proceed to wipe out even the toughest foes by running around them. I will also always reserve the last 2 inventory slots for normal weapons, very handy to strip a mage of Stone Skins even while his Prot from Magic Weapons is still active. Although at higher levels I tend to have my 1.5 mages, 1 will shoot Pierce Magic (the higher level mage with Robe of Vecna) while the other fires a Breach (which will go off just a bit later)

I tend to use Backstabs and AoEs liberally, with lots of reloads especially if my thieves get fireballed. I use Ctrl-Js a lot, MoveToAreas when I get tired of moving from place to place, and in tough fights I abuse the in-between-area mechanisms as a auto-save feature and also as a get-away feature. I also tend to try to do all the quests, but sometimes so quickly I barely realise what I'm reading because I tend to take the quests too much for granted.

Edited by Zyraen, 13 May 2008 - 08:14 PM.

[Sammi Somara]

I think the game is only fun if you roleplay it and do everything. Perhaps even try to complete quests in different ways, develop a different character.
As for strategy, I like magic. I really like magic. Summoning stuff to help fight is fun, and when all else fails I use my 'okay everyone cast magic missile at once except Xan because he cant so he'll cast flame arrow' strategy.

[Choo Choo]

My party composition usually (always) looks like this:
Linjo, neutral good elven kensai
Minsc
Anomen/Khalid (depending on game)
Jaheira
Xan (yay mods - I also change his class to sorcerer)
Imoen/all other NPC's to make their quests/Yoshimo/Imoen

I don't know. I like to have at least two arcane spellcaster and two healers, which I get with this combination - I dual Imoen to mage in BG1 as soon as she has a fairly high open lock/detect trap. This way I also have four fighters - Linjo duals long swords, I give Minsc as many profiencies in Halberd as possible although I usually let him use a two-handed sword in BG1 and SoA. Anomen maxes out Warhammer, Khalid has a bastard sword + shield, Jaheira uses a club in BG1 and a spear in BG2. Xan has his moonblade. Imoen has a bow and a short sword.

Strategy works. Boom.

I also do every tiny little side quest. I tend to reach the experience cap in BG1 around the Cloakwood. Ok, maybe not that early, but.. fairly early.

Edited by Choo Choo, 13 May 2008 - 09:13 PM.

[Nuuskamuikkunen]

I had the most epic battle of all time ever on my first runthrough of BGT! (yeah I'll get ontopic soon, but I haven't told it yet )
So I was playing a Geomantic Sorcerer and I tried to roleplay the BG1 section as best as possible, which meant I didn't clear many wilderness areas at all and only did the Werewolf Island part of TotSC (for the first time though!), and even that was a stretch, roleplaying-wise. My party of 6 arrived at the undercity just nearing the BG1 xp cap (!), so obviously I thought there was no chance in hell I was going to win this, which was disappointing because I had said to myself that I was going to take one char through BG1-ToB for the first time ever (I've never completed ToB).
Cue the battle and Semaj released some multi-target death spell. Xan snuffed it. I released some cloudkills, summoned a dryad and some skeleton warriors who were swiftly dispensed with, however I disabled Semaj (the mage) for most of the fight with (I think) a Chaos spell. I took Angelo down with ranged weapons and some magical evocation (minute meteors) and blinded/doomed/enfeebled Tazok. Jaheira was going toe-to-toe with Tazok, thinking her chances were pretty good but alas, she got her ass kicked unfortunately and died. Eventually, Yeslick and Khalid took him down, leaving just Sarevok and several Battle Horrors who had spawned. Then out of nowhere, Semaj rejoined the fight and Yeslick acted as the bait to Sarevok while Khalid fired biting arrows and I magic missiles at the mage, and he went down but not before damaging us a lot. Then a battle horror blocked Yeslick's retreat and Sarevok strolled up and casually cut him to pieces, leaving my geosorcerer and Khalid (fighter/mage) to battle it out with Sarevok.
I had to use a touch of cheese, in the form of using my boots of speed to outrun sarevok and fire off minute meteors, whilst Khalid fired some elemental arrows at Sarevok, but we got him down to Badly Injured before he smashed Khalid to smithereens. Then it was 1-on-1: the two Bhaalspawns against each other, all their comrades fallen in battle, like something out of a movie. If I was a mage I would have lost, but having a nice supply of magical missiles and meteors allowed me to keep damaging Sarevok and eventually, as I was about to give up, he fell. First time I'd completed BG1 with TotSC and also first with BGT. After the battle I went back to the temple of Helm and resurrected everyone, yay. Well I had to run my ass past some battle horrors before that. No time for a dramatic monologue.


Anyway, I usually play with a party of 6 or solo. I roleplay but often make allowances where I'll do things to get items/xp I want even if it wouldn't make perfect roleplaying sense to do it at that time, or at all. In BG1 it really varies, sometimes I do many wilderness areas, sometimes I do less than 3. I love Cloakwood and try to do most of the things in there, although I missed the spider's den last time because I didn't have a thief and those ettercaps and their webs are expletitively annoying. Even though I haven't completed either game many times (5 for BG1, 2 for SoA, 0 for ToB), I do know the first half of the games inside out, so usually on each runthrough I'll try and do something a bit different, whether that's try something in a different order or an alternate ending to the quest, anything.
I use lots of mods, usually takes an hour to get a list of them all, get them into (what I hope is) a bug-free order and install them all. Was a complete nightmare with BGT, I can tell you, but only found two bugs so, wheeee. This is the first time I've completed the game with a non part-warrior class. I DESPISE the fact that only warriors get more than 1 attack per round, it makes every other character fucking awful in combat, like how is that necessary, both triple the attacks per round and +5 to hit and +10 to damage and -2 to speed and a better THAC0 Rate than, e.g. a thief?? They're supposed to be worse but damn, that difference is unbelieveable, it means I almost always play fighter/<insert class>, 3rd edition rules are a big improvement in this one area. Especially because druids are my favourite goddamn class concept, but they suck in combat and their spells don't make up for it! Only to lvl7! GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
I used to always play CG elf ranger/fighter-thief/fighter chars in the past, but now it's usually TN/CN multis and I'm much more accepting of neutral/evil chars (I love Korgan and want to fondle his low-hanging axe) and that is more interesting to play because you can do more morally dubious things and therefore get different quest endings and stuff, which is nice after many years of doing the same quests the same way.

Quickpoints:
- I never use backstabs unless I have a thief'ish character, and even then I do it very rarely, I find the whole "drink potion, backstab, drink potion" to be inherently cheesy. Just because the game lets you, doesn't mean you should
- I take my time with favourite areas (Cloakwood, Underdark, Suldanesselar) and rush like hell through ones I dislike (Irenicus's Dungeon whenever I don't use DBG, Shade Lord temple).
- Minsc is stupid and I will never take him. Ever.
- I always play elves and half-elves, very rarely halflings and dwarves. Never humans, gnomes or half-orcs.
- Tempest, hurry up with Darian, I want him in my part-ay
- I occasionally side with Bodhi, then wipe out the Shadow Thieves in Chapter 6 (I think this is part of quest pack). Then if I'm playing a rather extreme character, the leader of Athkatla better be wary

Edited by Nuuskamuikkunen, 14 May 2008 - 01:22 AM.

[Deathsangel]

Every game I play is almost always different. I roleplay my characters to the end, which means party make up changes with feelings, race, alignment, class.
I play almost every quest, but I am noticing I need more new stuff
I am like Zyraen, I plan my new party, tasks, weapon distribution a lot.
I create PC's to try out new stuff, and even restarted one game entirely as it didn't sit me right in the end... Don't give me more stuff than BG2 gives, rarely use shadowkeeper to give me stuff. No Ctrl + any combination. As I also told in another thread, I take my time and somebody recently gave me the 'completist' as personality trait.

[Cal Jones]

I like BG1 a lot, but find it less replayable than BG2. I've been through maybe 4 or 5 times to date, versus, uh, well I can't say for BG2...enough to have tried all the Bioware romances, the good and evil options, every stronghold and every ToB ending...and that's before I started adding mods.

With BG1 I typically like to play a fighter. Actually, in any game, I like to play a fighter. I just like the idea of hitting things with big swords.
I usually get proficiences in two handers and hallys. Why hallys? Because in the early stages of the game where your weapons break on you constantly, there's a nice supply of free hallys from the gnolls around High Hedge.
In terms of companions I've not tried all that many and do keep meaning to try some more evil ones, though I must admit I don't much enjoy playing the evil path of a game as I tend to feel guilty.
I'll also take up every quest I can.
One thing I don't like about BG is ToSC, particularly Durlag's Tower. Done after killing Sarevok, it feels like a big anticlimax. Done before and it feels as though it's intruding into the main plot. And I really just don't enjoy this dungeon, which is odd as I quite like Watcher's Keep in BG2. Only reason I do it is so I have a better character to import into BG2. And that's it.
On my last run through I decided to get ToSC out of the way before hitting Baldur's Gate itself, to minimise plot intrusion. This makes Durlag's Tower more of a challenge but it's doable. The biggest problem I had was, because I had Coran as my sole thief, he wasn't able to deal with a lot of the traps or locks, and I had to leave some good treasure behind. I also had no mages (so knock was out of the question).
You will have to venture into Baldur's Gate in order to do the werewolf island part of TosC (since you must aquire the shipping charts) and that means you'll have to do the Lothander's Geas quest as well, since you can't really avoid it at that point. Still, once werewolf island is done you can then knuckle down to finding Sarevok and playing out the climax of the game.
Re: playing without mages, it's not that much of a hardship. I came to the decision I'd try a game without mages after Dynaheir kept getting killed in my previous game. I found her to be more of a hindrance than a help. The only problem with a mageless game is that you will have to pay to get things identified. In the later stages, this is no problem at all as you'll have money to spare.
A cleric is a must, though.

BG2, then. I've been through this many times as I said.
I've given all the character classes a whirl and still mostly enjoy playing a fighter. I always play human - I have no real interest in playing other races. I will play either gender. I generally prefer female since I am myself, but have often played male because of the greater romance options.
I usually play out a romance - I had one game recently where I didn't romance anyone and it felt a bit dull. However, I never really warmed to Anomen. It's an interesting enough romance if you can put up with his horrible flowery language, but I just couldn't feel any emotional attachment towards that character (I never could bring myself to tell him I loved him because it just felt wrong to me). I'm now exploring the NPC mods and am grateful to all the people who have come up with nice, romanceable males. I took Angelo on my last game and despite being a crumbly old bastard with dubious morals and questionable personal hygiene, I fell in love with him just a little bit, and he will definitely become one of my staples, at least in the games where I am not trying other mod NPCs.

Characters:

There is always room for Sarevok in my party. I think he's just awesome, and I like his redemption arc. Consequently I usually play through SoA with just five characters including my PC, and leave the empty slot for temporary quest characters, if wish.
Imoen: When I first started playing, I didn't like her and rarely used to take her. However, over time, I began to appreciate her importance to the overall plot and now she always has a place on the team.
I usually take another mage. Often it's Edwin, because he rocks, and he's hilarious. (I am meaning to try his romance as well, though I'll need another tour of duty through BG1 first to get a character with 14 int...my last one had 13, which isn't enough for Ed, sadly).
Jan has often had a place at my side though now I'm always taking Imoen, Jan comes along less and less.
I've never completed a game with Nalia.
Minsc has been through many a game with me but I don't always take him, even if I enjoy him when I do. I do like Valygar a lot so frequently I'll take Val instead. I think he's largely underrated.
Keldorn always used to have a place on my team if I wasn't playing a paladin myself, because he is the only other character who can wield Carsomyr. However, these days I'm more likely to let him go back to his wife - I feel sorry for the poor family! I like him, though - though I generally don't like lawful good types, he's a bit more tolerant than the younger ones like Sir Anomen and Mazzy.
Mazzy is handy but I've yet to take her into ToB. There are characters I like more out there.
As for healers, it irks me that every bloody cleric is a romance character so you always lose out on your only undead-turning character when Bodhi kidnaps them. Which is plain annoying (and why I always carry Daystar and buy the sunray-helm thing from the Adventurer's Mart). I don't always take a cleric - I've been through with just a druid before, though it's more challenging.
I have finished the game with Cernd (just for his exchanges with Edwina, which are hilarious) and he's alright but he won't be a regular.
I generally don't like the evil characters as much, with the exception of Eddy. I've played them through to the bitter end (and have done Viconia's romance, and the friendship mod as well) but I prefer a good or neutral character where possible. I just can't like Korgan - I know he has his fans but he's not for me, killing machine or no.

Tactics:

I'll do everything I can before chapter 4. I know some people want to get Imoen as soon as poss, but to me it feels less urgent at that stage than it does when you're both soul sucked and dying from the inside out. I can see why you'd take on jobs when you were desperately trying to raise cash for your passage to Brynnlaw (and after all, you're not actually aware that Imoen's life is in danger at this point - she's just locked up in prison as far as you know), but I don't know why you'd be running errands for people when you're both about to snuff it.
I also rely heavily on Mordenkainen's Swords in the Underdark and you can't get those early on, which is another reason.

Throne of Bhaal:

Not much to say here as it's so linear, other than that I always do WK in ToB (mostly so that Sarevok can get some experience as he's usually behind the curve at this point...but also for the reasons mentioned above).
I usually take on Abazigal before Sendai as his dungeon has more items I want.
Now that Ascension is installed, I prefer to reason with Balthazar rather than fight him.

Edited by Cal Jones, 14 May 2008 - 04:23 AM.

[MechanicalMarz]

Oh my all these replies makes me a happy panda!

I love to read them through, thanks for all the in-depth replies!

Also, Im purposely not posting in this thread, so more people will reply to the original question, and the conversation will not be carried away!

I loved that battle description by the way....

Would be cool to hear more of them...

.
.
.
Oh wait....

[vilkacis]

^J ^Y ^J ^J ^J ^J ^J ^J ^Y ^J ^J ^J ^J ^J ^J ^J ^J ^J ^J ^J ^J ^Y ^J ^J ^J ^J ^Y ^Y ^Y ^Y ^Y ^Y ^Y... get bored halfway through because over 50% of the time is taken up by either load screens or NPCs rambling on about crap I don't care a bout and have heard 48 times already and the story sucks. Oh, also Clua:AdvanceRealTime, because otherwise banters won't activate without wasting a huge amount of time.

I have never been able to play BG2 without ^J. Got through BG1 without using it outside of towns, but that was all I could take.

I never "roleplay", because the options are so limited it's useless to even try and it eventually just pisses me off when I do.


(...no, I don't play much BG these days. Why do you ask?)

[Icendoan]

Elven stalker. Dual Longswords and Kundane. Done.

Icen