Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[GarfunkeL]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZwN7pzcUcs

Escape from Pit of Moander. Action! Drama! Suspense! Girls in revealing fantasy armour!

Can it get any better?

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Why not in ToEE? Infinity, enginewise, was nothing to write home about and it required that stupid RTwP-system slapped over D&D.

I preferred IWD 2 because of the RT pause system. If a giant tried to rush your entire party in IWD 2 you could get off a bunch of shots before he was close enough to spit on you. So the smart giants threw boulders. In ToEE the Giant could score the initiative and cover the distance without one shot.

Scouting and most simple party based tactics worked better. They were far more functional. I know ToEE had a lot of advantages but for me the fundementals of RPG combat is group tactics and ranged weapons. ToEE was better with the individual shit and melee but who wants to face D&D monsters in melee? Would like ToEE's death system though.

 

[GarfunkeL]

ToEE was RT as long as combat was not initiated, like in PnP. So as long as your scout remained hidden, he/she could scout as much as you wanted. No fear there - and there wasn't any fucking cutscenes which would magically transport your party infront of the big bad with zombies spawning behind you and shit, like in da - APPARENTLY.

The old argument "if XYZ was rushing, you could do something about it" is such an old strawman that I puked a little in my mouth to see a Codexer use it in 2009. in ToEE, you had to plan your actions in such a way that the giant would not be able to rush you on its next turn - or if it was, you had someone with "ready vs approach" along the path.

For crying out loud, TB means that you have to plan for more than the next 10 seconds, while the RTwP-retards seem to giggle and applaud how tactical their system is because they can REACT DURING THAT FUCKING 10 SECONDS FFS! No question about planning/preparing for beyond that 10 seconds, noooo, that would be too much to ask.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

ToEE was RT as long as combat was not initiated, like in PnP. So as long as your scout remained hidden, he/she could scout as much as you wanted. No fear there - and there wasn't any fucking cutscenes which would magically transport your party infront of the big bad with zombies spawning behind you and shit, like in da - APPARENTLY.

The old argument "if XYZ was rushing, you could do something about it" is such an old strawman that I puked a little in my mouth to see a Codexer use it in 2009. in ToEE, you had to plan your actions in such a way that the giant would not be able to rush you on its next turn - or if it was, you had someone with "ready vs approach" along the path.

For crying out loud, TB means that you have to plan for more than the next 10 seconds, while the RTwP-retards seem to giggle and applaud how tactical their system is because they can REACT DURING THAT FUCKING 10 SECONDS FFS! No question about planning/preparing for beyond that 10 seconds, noooo, that would be too much to ask.

Giants can nearly outrun the extreamly short arrow range and many other creatures can as well. The only way to prepare for them was to ready a couple fighters and hope for a wicked opertunity combo. Unless you had two godly archers and some splendid intititive rolls that creature was going to cover that ground. What fighter is going to stand and wait for an attack of opertunity against any kind of huge beast? Conan?

I have only partial understanding of this 10 second thing. I guess thats the usual time in which you can implement an initial strategy in a RTS or an infinity engine game. Luring someone into an ambush, flanking, or attacking and running can happen quickly. That doesnt have to be your entire battle plan. In tougher battles it cant be. Of coarse you can plan beyond that.

 

[theverybigslayer]

Pool of Radiance:

What can I do with my money? It weights a lot. Is there something useful for it or I have to drop it? I have bought every useful thing already in the shops.

Level drain, is it temporary?

 

[GarfunkeL]

Level drain, you need to use restoration to cure it.

Money, there is no use. there's the hidden jewel shop but even that's not really worth it since you don't need money except for leveling and identifying magic items after you've got the best non-magical kit - which doesn't take much money at all.

So drop most of it, buy some expensive baubles which you can sell if you need more cash when leveling and that's about it. You can't bring your gold with you to Curse anyway.

 

[theverybigslayer]

Thanks for the reply!

|^^^^^^^^^^^^^^| ||
|...BEER TRUCK..........| ||'|";,___.
|_..._..._______===|=||_|__|.....,] -
"(@)'(@)"""**|(@)(@)*** **''(@)

 

[Thrasher]

Buy the fine bows and that's about it.

 

[Murk]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZwN7pzcUcs

Escape from Pit of Moander. Action! Drama! Suspense! Girls in revealing fantasy armour!

Can it get any better?

I had been lurking this thread a lot and not posting much, but this was awesome. Made me chuckle throughout it.

 

[Murk]

Why not in ToEE? Infinity, enginewise, was nothing to write home about and it required that stupid RTwP-system slapped over D&D.

I preferred IWD 2 because of the RT pause system. If a giant tried to rush your entire party in IWD 2 you could get off a bunch of shots before he was close enough to spit on you. So the smart giants threw boulders. In ToEE the Giant could score the initiative and cover the distance without one shot.

Scouting and most simple party based tactics worked better. They were far more functional. I know ToEE had a lot of advantages but for me the fundementals of RPG combat is group tactics and ranged weapons. ToEE was better with the individual shit and melee but who wants to face D&D monsters in melee? Would like ToEE's death system though.

I'm a ToEE veteran of many many MANY playthroughs and I've gone through with every kind of character imaginable. In your example of a Giant rushing your party and the tactics applied - obviously the difficulty of the enemy will change, as will your party's power functional power level, entirely depending on the combat system in use. However, to bring up an example to counter your own example of archers wearing down a giant before he gets close - assuming you were using a party of 5 or more and at least 2 were archers, in ToEE you would have to score initiative (as per D&D rules) or enter battle yourself with haste cast or something, and have your archers ready against the giant either approaching or attacking - and a smarter route would also be to have a warrior with a reach weapon or with the enlarge spell ready for approach as well. This way you would have your fighter stop the giant and have your archers pelt him with arrows while your warrior then fights toe-to-toe (bad idea) or goes for a hit and run tactic (good idea) allowing for additional tactics/skills, like magic (Tasha's Hideous Laughter, woohoo).

In Icewind Dale 2 (or any other IE game for that matter, but IWD2 is my favourite of them) you would basically rely on a "archers weaken giant enemy for fighters to then kill off without taking too much damage" strategy. That's not to say it's lame, but it's nowhere near as intricate, precise, or tactical as the ToEE variation where you really must compete against a giant in the PnP way - that is, outsmart him/her using superior intelligence and planning. The game was originally set up for a motley brand of clever adventurers to go up against physically over powered enemies that are shallow fighters. There should very rarely be a case of "we take turns hitting each other till one falls" and in ToEE, you could very easily avoid that (admittedly I did often take that route when surrounded by Bugbears), where-as in the IE games you couldn't. At most you could activate a buff, use a crowd control spell/ability, or just keep on hacking/shooting.

 

[theverybigslayer]

POR:

I have a 6th level cleric, he can't level up more, so I should dual-class...but I see no option for that.
Can I dual-class in POR?

 

[Jim Cojones]

You can't.

 

[GarfunkeL]

All your characters hit level-ceiling way, way before you run out of content. And since there's random fights you can grind...

I guess that the devs wanted there to be a way for you to get new party members up to speed so if you lost a party member, you could always replace them.

 

[theverybigslayer]

Thanks.

Now I have a very serious problem, I don't want to leave here this great treasure because I am greedy!!! :D
That was an epic fail as well when I got everything from the trash bins in Arcanum

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

I'm a ToEE veteran of many many MANY playthroughs and I've gone through with every kind of character imaginable. In your example of a Giant rushing your party and the tactics applied - obviously the difficulty of the enemy will change, as will your party's power functional power level, entirely depending on the combat system in use. However, to bring up an example to counter your own example of archers wearing down a giant before he gets close - assuming you were using a party of 5 or more and at least 2 were archers, in ToEE you would have to score initiative (as per D&D rules) or enter battle yourself with haste cast or something, and have your archers ready against the giant either approaching or attacking - and a smarter route would also be to have a warrior with a reach weapon or with the enlarge spell ready for approach as well. This way you would have your fighter stop the giant and have your archers pelt him with arrows while your warrior then fights toe-to-toe (bad idea) or goes for a hit and run tactic (good idea) allowing for additional tactics/skills, like magic (Tasha's Hideous Laughter, woohoo).

In Icewind Dale 2 (or any other IE game for that matter, but IWD2 is my favourite of them) you would basically rely on a "archers weaken giant enemy for fighters to then kill off without taking too much damage" strategy. That's not to say it's lame, but it's nowhere near as intricate, precise, or tactical as the ToEE variation where you really must compete against a giant in the PnP way - that is, outsmart him/her using superior intelligence and planning. The game was originally set up for a motley brand of clever adventurers to go up against physically over powered enemies that are shallow fighters. There should very rarely be a case of "we take turns hitting each other till one falls" and in ToEE, you could very easily avoid that (admittedly I did often take that route when surrounded by Bugbears), where-as in the IE games you couldn't. At most you could activate a buff, use a crowd control spell/ability, or just keep on hacking/shooting.

In IWD 1, in Dorns Deep you face something like 5-10 Ettins but never more than 2 at a time. I killed them all before they were in melee range. The IE engine was unique in that every time a ranged weapon hit the animations slowed the creature slightly. Also one of the few things 2e had that I prefered was weapon speed. The IE did a great job simulating weapon speed. You could throw like three darts in the same time it took someone to swing a heavy weapon. 3e's answer was weapon finesse which if done right would have worked well because it takes skill to throw darts like a card dealer and to twirl a great sword like Conan but the finesse feat didn't really succeed in capturing that nuance.

Even in 2e an Ettin is a hearty creature with about 70 hp and an AC of 2. I think the fact that they could be guned down so easly had something to do with weapon speed, and that animation. I guess what I'm saying is the IE broke the rules and benifited from it. IWD had less range of fire than ToEE but ranged weapons were more effective. It just broke the rules.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Thanks.

Now I have a very serious problem, I don't want to leave here this great treasure because I am greedy!!! :D
That was an epic fail as well when I got everything from the trash bins in Arcanum

That's only 250 gold pieces.

 

[Murk]

In IWD 1, in Dorns Deep you face something like 5-10 Ettins but never more than 2 at a time. I killed them all before they were in melee range. The IE engine was unique in that every time a ranged weapon hit the animations slowed the creature slightly. Also one of the few things 2e had that I prefered was weapon speed. The IE did a great job simulating weapon speed. You could throw like three darts in the same time it took someone to swing a heavy weapon. 3e's answer was weapon finesse which if done right would have worked well because it takes skill to throw darts like a card dealer and to twirl a great sword like Conan but the finesse feat didn't really succeed in capturing that nuance.

Even in 2e an Ettin is a hearty creature with about 70 hp and an AC of 2. I think the fact that they could be guned down so easly had something to do with weapon speed, and that animation. I guess what I'm saying is the IE broke the rules and benifited from it. IWD had less range of fire than ToEE but ranged weapons were more effective. It just broke the rules.

Absolutley, I agree. Edward_R_Murrow did a great job of illustrating and putting this manipulation of rules due to game mechanics to use in his play through of IWD with this "atheist teenage ninjas", an iron man run. His strategy was mostly behind abusing high speed attacks from ranged weapons, many of which in the game had enchanted +1 attack per round affects. In 2.0 rules, ranged weapons often got more attacks in per turn than melee weapons, and with 6 characters using tactics/choke-holds, could easily gun down approaching melee opponents (which the majority were) very easily.

This abuse of ranged weapon values as nearly impossible in ToEE, especially with factors like attacks of opportunity and the ever apparent difference in how a monster like an Ettin or Hill Giant plays.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Whew, just finished Zhentil Keep in Curse. Damn that beholder was nasty. And lucky for always carrying mirrors - there was a medusa involved!

Did they nerf beholders for BG2, since I seem to remember killing a whole lair of them pretty easily?

 

[mondblut]

Did they nerf beholders for BG2, since I seem to remember killing a whole lair of them pretty easily?

Maybe BG just handles beholders right (can't remember really). They are supposed to have a 90 degree wide antimagic ray wherever they are facing, and that's it. GB games coders didn't bother and just made them totally immune to magic (which they aren't). Which, combined with at will ranged magic attacks, is deadly when used in significant numbers.

Then again, you can't make beholders right without levitation (in other words, 3D). No sane beholder would ever allow to be dragged into melee. A proper beholder just laughs from above while keeping a mage-looking dude in AM ray and pestering the rest with disintegrations and flesh to stones every turn.

 

[janjetina]

In BG2 there was a cheesy shield that reflected Beholder rays back at them.

 

[theverybigslayer]

Yes, I used that shield! (this is the place of the 'I am very smug about this fact' smiley)

 

[heiamll]

i know this thread has kind of died off but if you are going to do a playthrough starting at Pool of Radiance there is an easy way to make the sound better. Using Dosbox you can change the sound from pc speaker to Tandy. There is still no music but the sound effects are much nicer. Heres an example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqslwBHt64w

 

[Zeus]

ToEE was RT as long as combat was not initiated, like in PnP.

You know, that's an interesting way of looking at it.

 

[Luzur]

i remember listening to Popcorn on cd when playing.

 

[Frau Bishop]

Was it dramatic?

I like to listen to amateur folk music to relax while playing. Stuff like this.