Off-topic and Chatter: The Jolly Boar Inn > General Gaming - The Arcade

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms (Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights, etc)

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Jubal:
So, I've been diving into this world lately with a playthrough of Baldur's Gate 1 EE, which is interesting. Some initial thoughts:


* Timescaling is amazingly janky: most of the game is completed best rather slowly, with lots of resupply trips and a need to head back. Most quests are not time limited so this is fine, except that a lot of the companion quests are very time limited
* Getting side characters resurrected, and dying myself, happen a lot: it definitely feels like a game where to have a "smooth" run you need to know what's ahead to an extent that you can't know intuitively, because the range of protections available are so situation-specific (I can for example protect my party from fire, or have good shutdowns on enemy wizards, or protect from evil, or protect from petrification, or have lots of poison removals available, but I can't protect from all possible options at once).
* I wish I could set it to have a quicksave when I rest. Worst moments have been forgetting to save and then needing to roll way back, or having to push through the end of an area and leave with basically no loot because I'm carrying two dead characters' worth of gear and can't come back later.
* It's really cool seeing the influence on later games. Pillars of Eternity I guess is the most obvious of games I've played or seen recently, but also Minsc and Boo being referenced via Mass Effect's space hamster was quite a fun realisation.
* Partly because it's so influential, bits of it feel almost generic, which is a pity but also inevitable.
* In terms of RP it's a bit limited but nice enough: I guess most stuff has "good options" vs "bad options" with some mercenary/greedy options in there, but some of the other things about how I imagine my character don't come through so well. My Gorion's Ward (main character, that is) is a dwarf cleric called Carduelis, who's I think of as more a 'cleric of the people' type rather than someone especially dedicated to any particular deity, though it's hard to bring that out.
* I'm running with Khalid (Tank), Jaheira (Combat damage), Neera (Mage), Imoen (Range damage/trap finder), and Branwen (Secondary Tank/Healer). Generally enjoying this as a comp.
Generally I'm enjoying it, anyway - there seems to be a lot of sidequesting around the main plot and I suspect my builds aren't ideal, but it's fun to worth through :)

What're other people's experiences with these D&D RPGs?

Pentagathus:
Planescape Torment has an absolutely phenomenal story, would definitely recommend it. Haven't really played any other of these style of games, the gameplay itself isn't really interesting for me.

Jubal:
Yes, psyanojim has told me to play PT a few times and it's definitely on my list :) And yeah, I sort of like the semi-tactical gameplay but it's definitely a bit, uh, unpolished in some of these older bits of the genre.

dubsartur:
What operating systems is it available on?

I played Baldur's Gate II through several times, and Neverwinter Nights until I got stuck at a dragon fight.  Good times!  From my memory, core AD&D 2e is not a system where its easy to accidentally build a weak character like GURPS or 3e D&D.

Spritelady:
Ooh which dragon fight did you get stuck at in Neverwinter Nights? I remember being very frustrated by one in one of the games, then going back much later and loading with a very advanced character, just so I could absolutely wipe the floor with the dragon in revenge!

I've always loved Neverwinter Nights, my dad and I used to stay up late and play it every summer when I was off school or home from university. Sadly, it's become much harder to do non-local multiplayer now, so that's rather come to a halt.

Where can one acquire Baldur's Gate? I've heard a lot about it but not had a chance to play it yet.

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