Oh No! Not another Baldur's Gate thread!

[duke o' york]

eBray take their cut because the sellers have to pay for their items to be listed. You don't have to pay anything to buy the items - well, not beyond the agreed purchase price, and the cost of postage (usually quite high).

[DrSpike]

Ah ok. Maybe I'll create an account later then.

[General Ludd]

Another question:

How are the added weapon proficiencies handled with tutu? For instance, daggers use the shortsword profficieny, rather then dagger proficiency. Is this just a display error, or are the enw weapon proficiencies essentially useless?

[General Ludd]

Nevermind. I checked it myself ( ) by looking at the thac0 and the proficencies seem to work as they should.

[DrSpike]

I also have a query regarding tutu. I presume you can just install the games, then expansions, then the correct patches for the expansions and ignore the patches for the original games. Is that right?

[Jamski]

Yes. 100% correct. If you have BG2 and ToB, install the ToB patch, as the SoA patch will corrupt your game, and force you to reinstall the 100's of Megs

-Jam

[DrSpike]

Yeah, a gamer like me knows the drill but better safe than sorry when the full install takes like 5 hours to do (note: hyperbole).

Just waiting on BG1 now..........probably I'll get it from eBay in the end.

[Jamski]

So... you must be vaguely familar with 2nd and 3rd D&D rules by now Doc. (I would assume) What kind of character are you leaning towards for the big BG run?

-Jam

[DrSpike]

Actually I will open that to the masses.

Also in installing I chose the 'normal' difficulty level from about 5 choices..........I can change it though so I could use some input on that.

I am leaning towards a fighter character, but I haven't read the manual yet to see the advantages and disadvantages of each. Plus KOTOR had no dual classes.

[Jamski]

KOTOR uses a really watered down version of the rules, that's why you got reccommended it as a noob

Normal difficulty is good. You can change it at anytime ingame, but the always getting max HP on level-up helps a noob, and the always copying scrolls is good too. The harder modes are really for those who know some of the cheese.

I reccommed for a first time through take something simple that can't be screwed up :

a) A plain fighter/paladin, using twohanded swords and the heaviest armour. Simple but effective for most of the game.
b) A plain wizard, weak to start with, forcing you to learn all the spells and use the team tactically to keep yourself alive till you become a true force of destruction at higher levels.

Clerics need some knowledge of the spell system, and knowing where the good weapons are, otherwise they are just boring healers, while Thiefs require you to have a basic mastery of the tactics involved in the engine. Its best to use an NPC thief in the party initially, because you can muck about with their skills and if they die, well, YOU'RE still alive

So... either hack them or fry them - your preference. I'd leave the multis for a second run through, after you've had a few people join the party and you have a feel for what your "style" is by commanding the rest of the team. As for dual classing... try it with Imoen in BG1 (classic thief-->wizard dual) and see if you think its a good trade off.

-Jam

[DrSpike]

Ok I'll probably try the fighter/paladin. But I've just installed NWN so maybe we should talk more about classes for that.

[Jamski]

I'm happy to post RPG stuff all day

Now 3rd Edition rules are a bit more complicated when building a character.

Firstly - the most important part of NWN is probably your character. Its a ROLE playing game, and the role you choose has a huge effect on the game you end up playing.

Secondly - its a GAME, and it has rules. A reasonable knowledge of these will show you just how they can be exploited to "überpower" your character.

Thirdly, the game is designed to be balanced. This means a level 20 Ranger should be as powerful as a level 20 Rogue (In theory) What the designers never managed to balance is the fact that a level 19 Rogue with 1 level of Ranger is much more powerful than either.

So... with NWN it pays off to RTFM or ask a few questions so you can plan your character's career. It really sucks if you can't take x feat or you don't get x spell.

For NWN the "classic" class combination would be a Fighter(1)/Rogue(2)/Cleric(x) combining the ability to use all weapons with good combat skills, decent magic and spotting/evading the less dangerous traps. Personally I hate this combination, but its kinda "self-supporting"

I'd dump the Cleric levels myself, and level Fighter/Rogue evenly, bearing in mind the Fighter get bonus combat feats at even numbered levels and the Rogue sneak attack improves by 1d6 at odd numbered levels.

-Jam

[DrSpike]

Fighter/Rogue sounds ideal for me actually. I think I'll go with that, but I am still RTFM as we speak. More complex than KOTOR.

[DrSpike]

Btw on the balance point it seemed to me from KOTOR that the comabt oriented class was much easier to play early on, even if you played the Scout/Scoundrel intelligently. This was partly due to the fact that you start with a dual blaster wielding soldier and another scoundrel.

Later on it was probably closer since the Consular has lots of awesome force powers, but that's mid/late game.

Also in KOTOR I felt the skills were not useful enough to draw you away from the combat class to the classes that get more skills. The amount of feats that the soldier gets just p1sses all over being able to repair a droid once in a while.

By the time you were ruing the soldier's rubbish force powers you had Jolee anyway.

So I don't think the classes are that well balanced in KOTOR.

Or am I missing the point?

[Jamski]

Its not balanced at low levels. At low levels the fighter/soldier simply overpowers the more sneaky/mystical classes. They strike back at higher levels though and eventually surpass the melee clodders. You know, with a sword you can only hit someone SO hard, and normally only ONE person.

At higher levels the Wizard (or whatever) casts one spell to protect himself vs the Fighter's attacks, and then blasts him into dust at his leisure. Or the Rogue simply kills the fighter from behind with a single blow without the fighter being able to react

In NWN you can't rely on the NPCs so much. They seem to be an odd bunch in the original 3 modules and expansions, and in community modules ... well, who knows what to expect???

-Jam