What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[Meiousei]

I don't know what's more annoying: FF14 Pugilists/Monks or WoW Monks. Curse you, monk rotations. Also, Magic might give some pointers on Pet Battling (He's really into it.)

FFT WotL: I reset my game in order to try melee and that other mode, for the extra gear. I made it through to Chapter 3 underleveled though, I'm barely 25. I wonder if I can end up finishing the game far more underleveled than I was on my first run.

[Sierra]

Planescape: Torment: Had to cheat a bit and use an FAQ on the whole convincing Ravel's daughter thing. I apparently missed a key bit of dialogue and, as a result, had no idea what to do next. Derp. I also cheated after annoying the Lady of Pain, but seriously, fuck that section. Current party is Annah, Morte, Fall-From-Grace. TNO is a fighter because I didn't find the Wizard trainer. I am currently hunting for the gate. It is not going well.

Wizard trainer is in the bar with the burning man, which is called, I think, The Burning Man. Should grab him before you leave the city because you won't be back for a while, and it's worth prying his personal story out during the training.

I've tried to get the Lady of Pain pissed off just to see that section but she never responds.

~

BG1: An inscription on a tombstone:

"Here lies Andrew,
the quality of his armor was not assured."



I am still stupidly obsessive about map clearance. I wish I wasn't, because BG1 has a lot of basically content-free wilderness areas where you just fight mooks and get an inflated XP count. First legitimate game over (plenty of earlier resets due to allies dying, mind): let the sexy nymph give you a kiss for no apparent reason y/n? Guys what do you think I did.

Sirines are damned annoying. Encountering them basically goes like this: Cid is blundering around in the dark dispersing FoW like a nitwit, doot dee doot dee doot, ohshit enemies out of nowhere! Try to pummel them with spells but they're already sanctuaried/invisible, start plinking away with missile weapons and oh god they charmed Minsc eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead. Then I reload and chuck Horror/Entangle at them from offscreen. Problem solved. I tossed the former at Dynaheir on a whim and it turned out to be pretty rad? I never actually bothered with status in BG2 outside of combo spells like Chromatic Sphere, but the actual damage spells are so bad when you don't have a pile of levels under them that this turns out to be a pretty useful alternative as a low-level PC.

Kitty is pretty much obsolete already, sadly, save for the HP bump, being amusing, and occasional scouting (which matters when you haven't played the game before and don't know where everything is). I will keep using him anyway. I'm running with Imoen/Minsc because I intend to use them through the whole show, Dynaheir because Minsc combo platter, Jaheira/Khalid because I haven't found anyone more useful yet (I'd like to toss Khalid but he takes his wife with him, the jerk). Long run I plan to go Imoen/Minsc/Viconia/Edwin/open fifth slot for NPC quests and/or whoever is new to ToB. No Edwin for BG1 though because he disappeared after I refused to help kill Dynaheir.

[AndrewRogue]

BG1: An inscription on a tombstone:

"Here lies Andrew,
the quality of his armor was not assured."

=(

[Grefter]

Khalid is one of the better fighters in the game (shut the fuck up Super).  He is the one capable of the best AC and his biggest downside is low Str which is easily fixed with the Gauntlets of Ogre Strength and any time before those drop you don't need that much of a stat advantage.  He pinch hits with a bow better than other fighters as well and both of you playing BG1 can probably vouch for how centralising bows are in it at this point.

Sirines are a thing, the ones in that area in particular are out of nowhere and kind of brutal.  I pack a Potion of Clear Mind just for them.  Throw someone with a Tower Shield and immunity to mind effecting spells and you can pull all their Charm charges and then move in to clean up.  They will probably maintain target the whole time and have such good AC vs ranged that you don't need to worry.  Two similar alternative strats are, if you don't have the potion, just do the same thing with your party a mile away.  Charm will wear off eventually while your dude just sits there.  Problems are that sometimes the Sirines don't stop attacking charmed character so a crit from Arrows of Wounding will hurt (probable wipe at low level), if you don't get all the charges of Charm in the first 2 charms (if not all Sirines do it at once because of range issues) they can run out of arrows and start meleeing which doesn't have nearly as much AC boosting gear to get around and IIRC has the Int damage effect of Mind Flayer or something (doing this involves waiting through 2 full lengths of Charm duration which is zzzzzzzzz).  Finally, you are using Minsc, do the above but with Berserk, he is immune to charm then.

Wowwwwww I hadn't even been talking about Dak'kon that he missed.  Dak'kon can't train you to be a Mage until you have been taught by an NPC, Mebbeth is the earliest trainer.

Faqing the Player Maze is fine.  Maze is boring. 

[Fenrir]

If you want a PRO TEAM Dynaheir should probably go away because micromanaging two mages is terrible.

Meanwhile anything with a bow rocks. I think my Kivan had 50% of every kill endgame, with Minsc having like 15-20%. The only reason I didn't go all bows in the solo is the taco penalty bows get at melee range, but it doesn't matter in a normal game.


BG2 Yattaf solo (still on insane): Sunfire is awesome. Summoning sword spiders is awesome. New Boots of Speed:
I've done like four sidequests and already can afford everything I want (Every spell + Robe of Vecna + Bracelets of 3AC)

[AndrewRogue]

Yeah. I solved the puzzle (got the journal and everything) but felt being forced to try every portal was kinda ass.

[Grefter]

PRO TEAM would be using 2 mages and some kind of cleric.  It is less fun unless you know the interface well though (Seriously, bind keys to Cast Spell and you will learn the icons.)  It is fine in BG1 honestly when your spell pool is quite small.  BG2 with Aerie is completely out of hand.  Scaled up UI helps since you can see more spells at once but wowwww does it suck at the original 800x600 res in BG2 (let alone 640x480 if your PC wasn't good enough...).

If you know the answer you can run to the right ones, but yes, it is butts.  It was Mebbeth you couldn't be bothered with right Andy?  Not Dak'kon?

[AndrewRogue]

I honestly dunno. Don't think I encounter either, unless Mebbeth is the one in the sensorium? Either way, I think I've found the one Fighter trainer and, of course, Annah.

[Grefter]

Mebbeth is not in the sensorium.  She is in a hut in the lower wards.

[Fenrir]

Why a second mage when you can have an archer?
Double Fireball on sight is probably fun but otherwise it's so much less convenient. And it gets in the way of Haste until you have 2 level 3 spells.

New best screenshot:



Jeez Strago, not interested



EDIT:

Playing BG1 then BG2 is the weirdest experience, since BG1 is all about complete restraint and sobriety, with its single digit max level, 4 HP mages and so on, while BG2 is about showering the player with the cheesiest gear and having relatively cheesy enemies to compensate. (Nothing like Sarevok I'll admit)

Basically I just got Vhailor's helm, which can create a slightly lower level perfect clone of Yattaf.
Won against an über Lich Lord by summoning spiders so he could cast all his amazing spells on them and then try to melee freaking Yattaf.

[Grefter]

To be fair that was supposed to be a preorder bonus merchant, everything he has is broken as fuck really.

Pay2win DLC before it was cool.

[Fenrir]

I'd have said
"Ok. I'm not using his stuff then"
But Vecna's robe!!

[Sierra]

Double Fireball on sight is probably fun

Pretty much exactly why I run with two mages. Hotkeyyyyyys. Just watching 2x Magic Missile barrage arc in towards the same target is worth the bother. Also, how anyone deals with liches other than summon spam is beyond me.

Anyway, I ditched Jaheira/Khalid since I knew I'd need to make room for Viconia anyway. Didn't really want to be tied to the two of them since I've used Jaheira a lot for BG2 in the past and decided she could sit this one out. So I run into this random woman in the middle of nowhere who attacks Minsc just because he's a dude. Minsc berserk falcon punches her out in one shot, then she joins the party because what the hell I've got a free slot. Checking out those stats, 9 constitution, bwuh? Woman, you want to build an amazonian new world order, you'd best toughen up. "This is the kind of stupidity you get from male leadership!" <-- Said when the party leader is an 18 CHA female, you'd think she could notice? Oh wait, elf. Maybe not.

Korax, noooo! I needed you to kill all the basilisks for me!

Then I remembered the game had a plot and went to clear out the mine.  Dude says he won't tell me his evil plans, summons some mooks. We beat him up, honor his request to spare his life if he'll spill his evil plans, he laughs and says he won't tell us his evil plans and then he summons more mooks. So that is the last time I spare anybody in this game.

Sometimes bears are all BWOOOOAR and sometimes they just don't give two shits. I don't get it.

[Fenrir]

Don't approach them and they don't care.
Have someone go near them and they go >:-(


BTW for anyone who might know: How bad is the randoms scaling in Icewind Dale 2?
BG2 bad? FO3 bad?

[Grefter]

Scales with same mechanic as BG2 (Party level on spawn).  Scales more granular than BG2 though (BG2 caps out super early).  Is mostly more dudes and higher types of dudes (so not FO3 bad).

I see you have discovered Shar-Teel.  She is decent because holy shit that Str score, but yes, Con leaves a lot to be desired.  Can get away with it since a lot of tankiness comes from raw AC in AD&D, but she works better as a secondary fighter (like you probably used Minsc as with Khalid around).

Request for that final sixth slot in BG2 (if you aren't going to use Sarevok), I recommend Mazzy if you haven't given her a run.  She is a pretty nice character and is mostly a complete package out of the box.  If you are doing ToB you can grab a Shortsword +5 from the shop outside Demogorgon dungeon that will carry her through SoA segments along with any of the many very strong Shortbows.  For giggles you can put any Weapon Spec from there on into Halberd and use the insanely strong but incredibly niche +6 Halberd in ToB.  The existing skills will carry her until you get it (and there is no other Halberd's of interest in the game).

This post made no sense and I apologise in advance.

[Shale]

MOAR FE because I only have time for one game at a time now. C16 was a complete joke. No resets, recruited Devdan because why not, got all the treasure (had to kill the thief to recover one of them, but blitzing through that corridor wasn't too bad). Almost time for a first round of promotions; Oscar is the first to L20, followed by Ike. I tried to hold Ike back so he could kill stuff in C17 without wasting experience, but kept having to use him to swoop in and save casters, or the AI would decide to suicide against him. Oscar is a surprise after how badly he was lagging before but I was able to save-scum a few points of STR from bonus EXP levels, and then gave him the Spirit Drops from the ship to boost him further. He's just too damn good as a tank to bench.

Boyd (capped HP at level 13), Astrid, Nephenee (got Vantage for her! Now I just have to find someone who can hurt her enough to trigger Wrath), Soren, Brom (kinda speed-blessed, relatively speaking) and Zihark are other top performers.

Anyway, after that I took a run at C17, got decently far in the first section, then an archer ran up and one-shotted Mist without a critical. Miracle is friggin' worthless.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Miracle only kicks in Luck% of the time, which yeah sucks. It totally saved my life once when I made a really boneheaded move and had Ike charge a boss who 2HKOed him, though!

[AndrewRogue]

Mazzy is fucking fantastic.

She almost justifies the existence of the short races.

Almost.

[Meeplelard]

Miracle only kicks in Luck% of the time, which yeah sucks. It totally saved my life once when I made a really boneheaded move and had Ike charge a boss who 2HKOed him, though!

Similar situation happened here too, though in my case, it was Ike surviving a Critical Hit that would have killed him that was unexpected!

I wouldn't say Miracle is a GOOD skill, but it does give you that extra RNG push that can save you if you're lucky.  There are only so many skills you can put on a character after all, it makes for adequate filler, though, not something to rely on, more of a "crap, I can't believe I left this character in range of-*Miracle* oh, phew, got lucky there!" thing, kind of like dodging that 90%~ hit from an enemy that would kill you.

[Shale]

I've literally never seen it activate, and I have seen Mist take a lot of fatal hits in this game.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Well assuming she's still tier 1 (which I am inferring from her being OHKOed by a non-crit by a midgame enemy) her luck probably means it kicks in 1/6th at best, and bear in mind that not all fatal hits will trigger Miracle (it can only work if the unit will survive if the damage is halved, and Mist often takes high 2HKOs where the halved second hit would be fatal anyway), your experience honestly isn't that unlikely. As Meeple notes it is if anything slightly more valuable on latergame units who have higher luck and are more likely to be in the line of fire anyway. Since it's 5 CP it fits as a filler skill on infantry units like Ike, Nephenee, Boyd, etc.

That said it still sucks overall - it has saved me once on five playthroughs and it is quite statistically unlikely that I would see it even that often - so mock away.

[Sierra]

Don't approach them and they don't care.
Have someone go near them and they go >:-(

I've had them go hostile from across the screen. I've also had people stand right next to them while healing up from an unrelated battle with no response whatsoever.

I brought Mazzy along for the ride when I ran a goody-two-shoes paladin. She got things done. I will probably grab Sarevok though because new dude (is he the only PC addition in ToB?)

[SnowFire]

On the other hand, a Miracle saved MY Mist on her join map with her starting luck.  Stupid blargh where the space she moved was "safe" but then I moved another unit and then she was just exactly in range then.  Miracle is awesome, hax harder.

Also, funny story.  There are Sorcerers on Apotheosis, the final FE: Awakening DLC map, with Miracle.  And Luck scores between 70 and 99.  And insane Defense.  And Nosferatu.  Awakening Miracle isn't "half damage" it's "keep 1 HP regardless of amount of overkill if you started with >1 HP."  So yes, you can attack into the Sorc, have Miracle trigger, have them drain you for a ton (possibly with Hawkeye = guaranteed hit!) on the counter, and have the double portion of your attack now have to smash through all the drained HP and then another activation of Miracle.  Got the Sorc down to 1 HP, so time to send in another unit?  By the way, they have Vantage too, so time for another 100% hit drain.  (They'd be totally broken, except Brave Weapons + Pair-up Attacks + infinite proc works exist, so you can potentially throw 12 hits at 'em off a single attack.)

[Shale]

I was going to say Bolting, but that works too.

[SnowFire]

Longbows (specifically, the Double Bow) has a bit more kick to it than the long-range spell in Awakening (Mire), but yeah, the long range strat works too.  The Double Bow is also nice in that pair-up attacks still trigger, while they won't with Mire.

And oh yes, I almost forgot.  Those Sorcerers also have Vengeance and enough skill to make it trigger 100% of the time.  With 80 HP, that means if you ram into Vantage while they're at 1 HP, that's an amazing +39 damage.  Yeah, that can OHKO units in classes with low Resistance caps even if their Res is maxed.  On the bright side, if YOUR unit has Vengeance and full health and attacks into that and survives their hit...  mwahaha, now they're the one that's going to be eating insane damage.