Baldur's Gate and Badur's Gate II Enhanced Edition officially just announced

toddw said:
I remember loving these games.... I got stuck on the BG2 expansion though..... eventually came to a big dragon that consistently owned me and I could not get past it. Two wing flaps and party dead, no spells would work on it, and it just crushed what I thought was my badass tank as well as my dual wielder.....
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Big
Metal
Unit


...smash!
 
Starslayer67 said:
The key to beating any dragon in BG2 was always your mages (mages were generally to just about any fight in the game, really). You could fill a Spell Trigger with three Lower Resistances ahead of time and fire that at the dragon in the opening round of battle. By the time you get to ToB, each Lower Resistance negates something like 30% magic resistance or something, so one Trigger was enough to completely eliminate any dragon's MR, leaving it wide open to a follow-up Dragon's Breath, Comet, or Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting. You could be even more unfair and cast Chain Contingency during the battle, set it to cast at the nearest enemy as soon as it was sighted, and then fill it with three Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wiltings. This would of course immediately trigger, and cause 60d8 points of damage to the dragon, killing it instantly. I was able to end several of the dragon fights in all of 10 seconds this way.
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Or you could just finger them like I did on occasion :D
 
Or you could have a high level thief go in, plant a bunch a traps, go rest, repeat 2-3 times, engage the dragon and boom instant death. Cheap I know, but effective!
 
Starslayer67 said:
The key to beating any dragon in BG2 was always your mages (mages were generally to just about any fight in the game, really). You could fill a Spell Trigger with three Lower Resistances ahead of time and fire that at the dragon in the opening round of battle. By the time you get to ToB, each Lower Resistance negates something like 30% magic resistance or something, so one Trigger was enough to completely eliminate any dragon's MR, leaving it wide open to a follow-up Dragon's Breath, Comet, or Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting. You could be even more unfair and cast Chain Contingency during the battle, set it to cast at the nearest enemy as soon as it was sighted, and then fill it with three Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wiltings. This would of course immediately trigger, and cause 60d8 points of damage to the dragon, killing it instantly. I was able to end several of the dragon fights in all of 10 seconds this way.
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man this makes me want to play this game so badly.
 
All I remember is I tried about 20 different strategies to no avail.... also I guess if you know (or you needed to know) exactly which series of spells to cast, which I did not. I tried all I thought would work, but none did. I guess when it comes down to "you must do this in exactly this order" to win is where my gaming breaks down. Which it did, as many hard fights up to that point but I was able to eventually get past them. If I had to know an exact sequence of spells to cast , with no other way to progress.... yeah, not into that.
 
toddw said:
All I remember is I tried about 20 different strategies to no avail.... also I guess if you know (or you needed to know) exactly which series of spells to cast, which I did not. I tried all I thought would work, but none did. I guess when it comes down to "you must do this in exactly this order" to win is where my gaming breaks down. Which it did, as many hard fights up to that point but I was able to eventually get past them. If I had to know an exact sequence of spells to cast , with no other way to progress.... yeah, not into that.
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A Paladin with buffed saves and stats should be able to take the brunt of a dragon attack. There is more than one way to skin a dragon.
 
But all of them required skill and thought to pull off, i'm guessing. And you could have botched characters, yes?
 
From what I remember, all I did was walk in and point my finger.

uber mage + finger of death = dead dragon
 
chockomonkey said:
But all of them required skill and thought to pull off, i'm guessing. And you could have botched characters, yes?
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Yes, you can have complately botched characters. ToB was unforgiving if you didn't have a plan for building a party.

Typically, when fighting a high level monster like a dragon (unless you're incredibly lucky) you'll end up treating the fight like it was turn based. Have a plan and a contingency plan. Also, have a mage or 2.
 
tacosareveryyummy said:
From what I remember, all I did was walk in and point my finger.

uber mage + finger of death = dead dragon
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Yeah, there was a lot of cheese ways around certain bosses. I do commend them for making a mostly secure system of rules and balances with the insanely epic scope of the system. I remember that dragon being a huge pita as well. I see someone referenced the use for the Golden Pantaloons, Iron Golem suit if I remember right? ToB was good, but it was not even close to as good as the original BG2. You were so high level, things just got crazy.
 
setscrew said:
Great game (s).

I fail to see how a 'refresh' will encourage a large scale repurchase for many users.

How will the new graphics change game play? Will they alter the game play for console users (i.e. PC users screwed)?

Looks like a dash for the cash with no significant contribution to creative endeavor. Similar to what Hollywood has been doing for the past six years.
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imagine if they put in full voice acting
 
I'd rather replay an updated game that I love than play most of the new stuff that comes out these days (cash grab or not).
 
toddw said:
All I remember is I tried about 20 different strategies to no avail.... also I guess if you know (or you needed to know) exactly which series of spells to cast, which I did not. I tried all I thought would work, but none did. I guess when it comes down to "you must do this in exactly this order" to win is where my gaming breaks down. Which it did, as many hard fights up to that point but I was able to eventually get past them. If I had to know an exact sequence of spells to cast , with no other way to progress.... yeah, not into that.
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Yeah, I feel you on that. To be really good at BG2 unfortunately meant you had to be fairly familiar with the AD&D ruleset, as well as what the monsters were generally like. If you didn't know dragons had high MR (and how MR worked in AD&D), for example, I can see completely flailing trying to understand why the hell none of your spells were working. I only figured out my way of easily killing dragons, as well as a lot of other enemies, after reading some tips in CGW back in the day (which mentioned Spell Trigger and similar) along with obtaining and reading a 2nd ed. D&D PHB.
 
ALso heard that these games will see iPad. I'd gladly play them on the tablet. Especially as modern day tablets are more powerful then computers on which BG were created.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
If everything was voice acted, they would have to pull half of it. No way they could budget a fully VA'd BG or BG2. Nor would I want them to.
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The cool thing about reading text, is that like a book it invokes your imagination as a character's voice. Too often is voice acting just lame and can ruin the immersion.
 
chockomonkey said:
The cool thing about reading text, is that like a book it invokes your imagination as a character's voice. Too often is voice acting just lame and can ruin the immersion.
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Since voice acting became the norm, we don't see as many dialogue options in games. Mass Effect has 3, usually. Planescape Torment could have 10+ per response. VA is fine in games like this, as long as it is supplemental.
 
Yeah my characters were probably botched. I really only had one "good" mage and honestly focused on melee characters. Mind flayers were a bitch until I figured out their "secret"... yeah, I can see where ToB required knowledge of D&D rules... of which I knew very little. Some fights were just ridiculous.... but eventually, through trying various times I was able to get that 10% chance-to-hit or what have you.... eventually, anything with magic was a bitch because you had to know what they were, what they cast, and how to counter it very specifically... again, that's where the game broke down for me. I could no longer muscle through....
 
toddw said:
Yeah my characters were probably botched. I really only had one "good" mage and honestly focused on melee characters. Mind flayers were a bitch until I figured out their "secret"... yeah, I can see where ToB required knowledge of D&D rules... of which I knew very little. Some fights were just ridiculous.... but eventually, through trying various times I was able to get that 10% chance-to-hit or what have you.... eventually, anything with magic was a bitch because you had to know what they were, what they cast, and how to counter it very specifically... again, that's where the game broke down for me. I could no longer muscle through....
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Haha, I was in the same boat. I played my first game of D&D about 3 years ago. Everytime we would do something, I would be like "oh, so we do this and this like in BG2?" and everyone is like "nope, that is 2.5, no longer relevant!". I remember making a mostly melee party like you and trying to brute force things. Sometimes I would use magic spells and just go by their descriptions (like dispel magic or breach sounded like something to remove protection). This will get you a long way but it can be quite a pain on the harder dragons and Irenicus.

It is fun understanding the rules and replayin the game. You think back about how you once understood the game and its just a completely different experience. I guess it goes to show how great of a story it had; You didnt even know what to do but you still played it.
 
Glyphic said:
Or you could have a high level thief go in, plant a bunch a traps, go rest, repeat 2-3 times, engage the dragon and boom instant death. Cheap I know, but effective!
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That was one of the keys to killing the demi-Liches, too. Drop as many high level traps as you possibly could on the spawn point and have 2 thieves positioned right behind that spot ready to backstab. Making it out of those fights without one of your characters being instantly killed was insanely hard. You pretty much better have Wish ready to go after that fight.
 
huxley said:
I guess it goes to show how great of a story it had; You didnt even know what to do but you still played it.
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Reminds me of my first playthrough :) I was so completely lost on the rules, but so enthralled in the game that I couldn't stop playing :p However, as I played through, and played through it again, I slowly picked up on the subtleties of the ruleset.
 
Domingo said:
That was one of the keys to killing the demi-Liches, too. Drop as many high level traps as you possibly could on the spawn point and have 2 thieves positioned right behind that spot ready to backstab. Making it out of those fights without one of your characters being instantly killed was insanely hard. You pretty much better have Wish ready to go after that fight.
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Demi-Lich I beat with a good ol' ass whoopin. He did banish two of my characters to the center of the world though :p
 
Much to my immense shame, I never really did play the BG series (was way more into FPS games back then). So I'm looking forward to this Enhanced Edition to give it a go...for the first time!

I didn't first play D&D until 3E, either.
 
Mr. Wolf said:
I never played BG or BG2, so I'm definitely interested in this!
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beware_the_black_sheep-852x480.jpg
 
Domingo said:
That was one of the keys to killing the demi-Liches, too. Drop as many high level traps as you possibly could on the spawn point and have 2 thieves positioned right behind that spot ready to backstab. Making it out of those fights without one of your characters being instantly killed was insanely hard. You pretty much better have Wish ready to go after that fight.
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Setting bunch of traps was always cheesy. A few was ok for role playing.


Kangaxx Imprisonment Counters = Immunity Abjuration, Berserker Rage, Scroll of Undead, Spell Trap, Shield of the Archons, and Death Ward ( in IA )
 
Shame about it being an iPad exclusive.

EDIT: Oh nevermind. Apparently you can play it on PC, they just don't care to mention that on their website, just a tweet in passing.
 
NKDietrich said:
Shame about it being an iPad exclusive.

EDIT: Oh nevermind. Apparently you can play it on PC, they just don't care to mention that on their website, just a tweet in passing.
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I cant blame them for making the iPad version. It does make me very apprehensive about the overall project though. I went from excited, to not really caring much at this point. The enhanced edition will already break mod compatibility. If it doesnt have a lot of fix-ups for the PC, its probably not worth playing tbh. I'll wait and see but I'm not really hopeful.
 
I was at Walmart yesterday and saw a boxed Bioware collection for $19.99 with all of Balder's Gate 1 and 2, all of Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment, and Telemental Evil but can't remember if it had Neverwinter Nights, very good deal for $19.99 but I have most of them already so didn't buy it.
 
kontact said:
I was at Walmart yesterday and saw a boxed Bioware collection for $19.99 with all of Balder's Gate 1 and 2, all of Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment, and Telemental Evil but can't remember if it had Neverwinter Nights, very good deal for $19.99 but I have most of them already so didn't buy it.
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No NWN :p

But you can buy the NWN pack for $30.
 
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NKDietrich said:
Shame about it being an iPad exclusive.

EDIT: Oh nevermind. Apparently you can play it on PC, they just don't care to mention that on their website, just a tweet in passing.
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No. PC is the main platform. iPad support just happens to be their latest newspost.
 
northrop said:
No NWN :p

But you can buy the NWN pack for $30.
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That's the one, I looked on Amazon for it to check and it never came up but all the other Bioware games did. I should maybe by it to make installation simpler. My BG is the original 5 disk version and is a PITA to install and I don't have the add-on for it either.
 
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LeninGHOLA said:
No. PC is the main platform. iPad support just happens to be their latest newspost.
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I can't find mention of a PC version anywhere on their site. I had to check their Twitter feed to see that there would be one. Doesn't really bode well.
 
After going through that Bioware collection NWN will probably be a colossal letdown anyway. Other than being in true 3D (and graphically better as a result), they don't improve upon much of anything in the older games.
 
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