Icewind dale II/Infinity Engine Thread

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Selfbump.

I've been thinking of buying planescape: enhanced edition. I heard beamdog finally didn't fuck up one of these remasters. How will the gameplay feel after playing IWD2? I assume it will feel clunky as hell. I hear the plot is great though, which IWD2 didn't have a lot of.

I thought the combat and boss battles were much improved over iwd1. I thought there was more consideration to map layouts and enemy positions in regards to strategy. However I fucking hated the puzzles in the woods, the jungle and so on. Did you beat them without a guide? They seemed ridiculously obtuse in understanding how good puzzles work in game design. There is a lot to love in 2...but overall I won't play it again unless I do co op with a friend bc of the puzzles.

My party will probably get jokes on. I don't know what is best. I just know what I used iirc.

Fighter OR barbarian
Paladin
Rogue
Wizard
Cleric
Druid

>>3990206
I agree with the puzzles part. The "puzzles" sucked. There's nothing satisfying about using trial and error to progress, so I just used a guide for the woods and anything else which seemed like BS. The whole point of IWD was to make a heavily combat focused infinity engine game, so fetch quests and time wasting puzzles seemed like a terrible decision on the devs part.

That party comp is standard fare for these games. I had more or less the same, but swap druid for a monk.

Fighter
Ranger
Rogue
Sorcerer
Cleric
Monk

>>3991463
Is this Icewind Dale EE?

>>3989939
This game uses 3rd edition D&D rules. They are false edition and they are not retro. They were introduced in autumn 2000. Only games featuring True AD&D™ are retro and also real. Everything about Heart of Winter and IWD2 is false. And not retro.

>>3989939
Didn't like it. The level design is really bad, especially the further in you get. The Yuan Ti temple is possibly the worst in any IE game. Every single room looks exactly the same. The combat encounters aren't very memorable, and certainly worse than either Baldur's Gate game. I've never even managed to beat it because I get bored at some point. Last try I got bored right at your screenshot, actually.

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>>3990097
Don't give those Beamdog niggers money. Play the fucking original.

>>3991685
That's Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil. Not infinity engine but still one of the most faithful representations of a simulated DnD campaign.

>>3991702
heh

>>3989939
Cleric, Druid, Rogue 1/Wizard, Bard. No need for 6 party members when those four will steamroll the whole game up to HoF and HoF is shit anyways.

>>3989939
>What did you think of this game?
Shit compared to IWD1 in almost every way. It's not even funny how badly the edition change hurt it.

>>3993030
but 6 party members means maximum fun

>>3993034
Seriously, 3rd edition is just a shit system. Period. You need to reverse a ton of rule changes to make it playable, and you need to ban the core book to make it balanced.

>>3992075
What? I'm confused. That landscape and those portraits are taken straight from IWD.

>>3993665
You're gonna need to explain. I thought the 3e rules were an improvement. Of course wearing heavy armour should limit dexterity bonuses.

>>3993030
>No dedicated fighter
How did you get around that? Summons from your over-leveled casters?

>>3993781
A few Co8 folks have been working on an IWD total conversion in the ToEE engine for more than a year. The Prologue chapter is mostly complete, you can play it and help test if you like.
http://www.co8.org/community/index.php?threads/icewind-dale-toee-total-conversion-open-beta.12019/

>>3993665
Why do you hate 3e so much?

Really interesting information ITT.

>>3991728
Excellent points well-made.

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>>3991728
>The combat encounters aren't memorable

I disagree. There were some epic battles in this game and some very memorable environments. here's an example of both.

>>3990097
I started playing planescape couple of weeks ago. It's not really about the combat and more about the story, you'll manage fine. Worst case just lower the difficulty slider

>>3990097 see >>3995163
PST is an adventure game not a CRPG

Should I play real BG1, BG1 in BG2 engine or BG:EE?

>>3995203
all of them in that order

I love the Infinity Engine games but draw the line at IWD2. The 3rd Edition* rules work fine in Neverwinter Nights, but don't suit the squad-based tactical combat of Infinity Engine. Feats like Cleave, for example, that have an immediate and visible benefit in NWN, don't really do anything in IWD2, and the spell list is a lot more bland and boring.

Plus the game has that horrible thing whereby you get less XP for the same monsters as you go up in levels. Absolutely infuriating - and pointless (the amount of XP required to go up to the next level already increases the higher your level is, so why also decrease the rewards you get for kills?) - undercuts the fun of the game and encourages "level camping" by munchkinners and power gamers.

With that out the way, can we move on to talking about the greatest CRPG and arguably the greatest game ever made, Baldur's Gate 2?

*I know they're only an interpretation of genuine 3E rules. Don't be that guy

>>3995169

Come on, don't be that guy

>>3995313
>The so-called CRPG isn't role-playing. To whom does one role-play in such an exercise?
- Gary Gygax, 2000

Defining characteristics of the CRPG are the wargaming aspects. The storyshit is pure adventure game territory.

>>3995317

When I play Baldur's Gate 2 I take on the role of the character I create. For example, I take on the role of a Paladin, a knight who adheres to the highest ethical standards and I make game decisions in the same way I imagine that knight would - I turn down quest rewards, grant mercy to (some) enemies, am unfailingly polite, save the lives of bystanders, etc. If I play as a Chaotic Neutral bard, I will spare or sacrifice lives on a whim, pick everyone's pockets for kicks, give silly answers to NPCs etc. - many of these game decisions will have serious in-game consequences, ranging from hostile members of the public and high prices in stores, to the presence or absence of entire quests, dialogue, party membership etc. How is that NOT roleplaying? Yes, I'm still obliged to get my soul back off Irenicus, but a pen & paper D&D game would have similar direction.

>>3995362
Roleplaying is improvised acting and requires an audience. You can just as easily pretend you're Q*bert while playing Q*bert, but that doesn't make it a roleplaying game.

>>3990206
Frankly IWD doesn't necessitate you to run broken comps, it's just that both games are very good playing field for when you *do* want to theorycraft and min-max. Which is best of both worlds, really.

For what it's worth, I like your party. Not least because Druids are really good in IWD, compared to BG games, where they are kinda lackluster.

>>3993665
>>3993792
Neutral point of view here. Neutral, as in I enjoyed playing the 3rd iteration of D&D and wouldn't mind playing it again, but I don't think it's my go-to system.

The 3rd edition suffers from bloat, mostly. Core options are extremely unbalanced; you don't see that in vidya mostly because the power of Wizards and Clerics is kinda limited in computer RPGs to the point where they don't immediately outstrip a fighter (whle a Cleric in NWN1 is probably the best melee class, a more pure martial will still contribute to a fight, whereas in D&D 3.5, a Cleric/Druid can make himself a much better Fighter than any Fighter while also often summoning multiple equivalents of a party fighter; a Wizard can simply Fly over a Fighter to shut down his might).

There's a ton of splatbooks, some good, some bad, and there's a ton of internal fighting among 3.X people about which is right or wrong. Some retardo DMs will tell you that Tome of Battle, which introduces Martials with actual powers beyond "hit with axe" is bad because it's "weeaboo" or "unbalanced and makes martials even stronger than casters" (whereas it mostly just bumps up their level to be more competent).

3.X editions are very good for customizers and theorycrafters because you can theoretically make any character you want by just using all your favourite splatbooks, and there's a ton of good content that's available for free. It just requires a lot of effort to get into.

Given that a vocal portion of /tg/ and other communities believe that RPGs should be about "feeling" your character and not being constantly removed from immersion by bothering about rulesets and customization, 3.X is lacking for them - character creation is long, the rulebook enormous and many rules-as-written unsatisfactory. 3.X has a ton of houserules, often stemming simply from DMs forgetting what the rules actually are.

3.X being the most popular system also makes a lot of people never want to try anything else.

>>3995309

I don't get what people see in BG2. I didn't play either BG so I do not have any nostalgia for them, but I picked them up along with PS:T recently and gave them a go. BG1 is enjoyable, a difficult, almost puzzle-like experience where you feel free to go where you wish, but have a clear aim and purpose. BG2 left me bored, you wander around aimlessly and the main plot does not feel urgent in the slightest, and wandering around doing side-quests is not as immersive as in for example Morrowind (a great crpg).

BG1 > BG2

>>3995397

No, because you can't assign Q*Bert a persona and then attempt to play the game in a distinct way appropriate to that persona.

You can in BG2 and many other computer games.

No, I can't "act" when playing a CRPG in the sense that I can't speak in a faggy voice in hackneyed blank verse to an audience of nerds wearing capes and viking hats. But I can choose from a selection of actions within the game appropriate to the role I've chosen. - which is essentially a representation of that within the constraints of a computer representation.

You seem to be conflating roleplaying with acting. - acting is only a subset of what constitutes roleplay gaming.

>>3995362
>If I play as a Chaotic Neutral bard, I will spare or sacrifice lives on a whim, pick everyone's pockets for kicks, give silly answers to NPCs

Fair warning: The definition of Chaotic Neutral as given in BG is a terrible attitude that will give you frowns on most gaming tables, simply because "lol so randumb" / "I shit in the paladin's helmet because that's what my character would do!" facilitates Player vs DM gameplay and unhealthy (not all of them are so) Player vs Player attitudes. Nowadays Chaotic Neutral is a free spirit who looks out for number one without stabbing number two in the neck in the process (which would be Evil), and doesn't adhere to laws while doing so.

>>3993792
But yeah, basically, imagine >>3990206 's party, but on actual tabletop.

Wizard needs to hide a lot to survive at level 1, but he still has options that make him ridiculous and outright win encounters. A simple sniper with a bow on a cliff - an encounter you won't see in a video game - can be a death sentence to a fighter simply because he can just pincushion for free while characters are busy making Climbing checks. A Wizard can simply cast Sleep or make creative use of cantrip illusions (again, not in IWD) to dispatch or delay the sniper.

Cleric and Druid start off as multi-threaded powerhouses that can contribute in any mode of battle and start completely outstripping the Fighter and Paladin by level 5. Druid has a feat that lets him spellcast WHILE sustaining his overpowered animal form. Druid can also, by the book, summon any animal that is in the many manuals to 3.X.

Rogue will be mostly used as a skill monkey and picking up a ton of non-combat skills that the party needs, such as Diplomacy. A cookie cutter rogue will contribute to many fights with dual-wielding backstab damage, but he will be completely worthless in a fight against anything that can't be backstabbed, like, say, a ghoul or a construct.

>>3995446
I'm really only regurgitating Gary Gygax's opinion. Also, the definition of roleplay that he uses (a dictionary definition) specifies an acting performance to an audience, the "play" bit being an explicit acting term.

Please look up the definition and etymology of the word roleplay and research the history of D&D. PST is an adventure game, fag.

>>3993792
>>3995450
Now imagine the Fighter and Paladin. They both have very little in terms of skill points, so they have zero out of combat utility. They can't persuade, they have no place in a social, non-combat situation, they are bad at stealth if needed. They can just whack with a big stick. But they have very few options for whacking with a big stick - little to no special moves - and continue to get even less, because they have either none (Fighter) or lackluster (Paladin) class features compared to a Druid that can summon a giant bear and turn himself into one at the same time, immediately reaching the Fighter's expertise. The Fighter lacks versatility even in combat; he will beg the Wizards for utility spells whenever a fight necessitates it, such as when Flight is needed.

In 3.X's early design it was basically stated that while Wizards can be earth-shattering individuals, Fighters are basically a guy that works out really hard at the gym. A level 20 Wizard stops time, a level 20 Cleric literally performs Messianic miracles, a level 20 Fighter can't even Incredible Hulk his way through a brick wall. Pathfinder, the newest 3.X edition, didn't solve that problem; I believe it was Gunslinger that became woefully underpowered and couldn't even get one good class feature because "we had Matt from our office try to do the move the community would like to see on the Gunslinger, and he couldn't, therefore a high level adventurer wouldn't be able to either, because he's just a non-magical humanoid, just like Matt".

tl;dr: 3.X is good if you want a ton of customization and your character to be in at least some way arcane or divine. Then, making a multiclassed, nuanced character can be a ton of fun. There's a ton of cool items and feats you can pick up from many books, and they're all released free. Making a proper Martial character will be a much bigger challenge, ESPECIALLY if you only have the first three books.

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>>3995439

To each his own. I've noticed this board seems to favour BG over BG2. Personally, I think BG2 strikes the perfect balance between a strong story with linear progression vs. the open, almost sandbox gameplay of something like Morrowind. Morrowind is hella atmospheric but has zero personality. All the NPCs spew reams and reams of text but it's all identical, copypasted stuff - whether they're a peasant, a soldier or a kind, with a few reaction modifiers here and there. For all the waffle there's no "character" to any of the characters, nothing comparable to Mr. Meme hamster (pictured).

If you at all like CRPGs you are doing yourself a disservice by not at least trying to persevere in Chapter 2 of BG2. The setting is so full of life and flavour.

Pretty sure you'd have to be actually mentally retarded to prefer BG1 to BG2

>>3993792
>How did you get around that?
...by using the Cleric and the Druid? They're far better at melee than martial classes are if you're not an idiot and think about it. Cleric's also the best archer/slinger in the game if you want ranged.

>>3995493
>>3995526
I loved BG2 even though I hate RTwP. It was just a great game from start to finish, unlike BG.

>>3995526
Why? You can beat it quicker, it has more open zones, it doesn't rely on save vs. death as its primary combat mechanic, and it better equips you with items to immediately address its challenges. Beating Baldur's Gate without save scumming is a reasonable task, beating BG 2 without doing so is a tedious as hell one.

>>3996493
Do you savescum as soon as one party member dies or only when the entire party has been killed?

>>3996332
The math doesn't add up.
The attack bonuses and attacks per round are gonna be pretty bad on those two classes, compared to your fighter, ranger, paladin or barbarian. You would have to rely on self-buffs and the druid's shapeshift, which I guess would be pretty good if he's over-leveled. Still, those animal forms can't hit magical enemies, which will screw you up in a lot of parts.

>Cleric's also the best archer/slinger in the game if you want ranged.
I see no reason why this should be. Explain this.

It's called a fighter for a reason.
>Lot's of HP
>Rapidly progressing base attack bonuses and attacks per round
>Mass weapon proficiency, ability to put three points into weapon proficiency
>Arguably most important: Can dump WIS, INT and CHA to focus purely on combat stats because only has one job to do - fight.

>>3996993
You're massively overvaluing everything the Fighter gets and ignoring just how overpowered buffs/wildshape are. CoDzilla isn't exactly a new concept.

>I see no reason why this should be
Clerics excel at giving themselves lots of damage buffs. Archery's problem is not having damage per hit. Holy Power alone is twice as strong as Weapon Specialization, then they've got multiple strength buffs on top of that and DUHM.

>>3997131
Yeah, but in a normal party, you can give your strength buffs to a fighter. Consider that.

Last play through, for example, by the end my half-orc fighter would be doing 20 - 45 damage per hit with that high-level strength cleric spell on him. Then haste from the wizard and take into account his already naturally very high BAB and attacks per round and you will not find a more effective melee fighter.

I'm not going to entirely disagree with you though, because my dual-wielding ranger was outmatched by my cleric in melee by the endgame, but that's more to do dual-wielded being under powered.

The archery thing makes sense, but the only self-cast damage buff that clerics get that I can think of is that innate ability of the stormlord of talos, which only gives +2. Everything else is part of a group cast spell, which again means a fighter will be better.

>>3997294
not the guy you were arguing with, but now it sounds as if you're saying that a fighter + cleric is stronger than a cleric

>>3996530
If they get gibbed in 2, yes.

>>3997294
A Cleric has plenty of self-buffs such as Draw Upon Holy Might or Holy Power, and those, as mentioned, really outstrip a pure martial. A pure martial does not have anything similar to Blink or Mirror Image either.

Martial classes are at their most servicable as "dips", as in 1 or 2 level investments into a bigger core build. A Cleric is already a great fighter and in many ways more resilient and versatile than an out of the box Fighter. Thus, a Fighter that adds Cleric levels retains his hit points and weapon expertise and picks up those buffs. In reverse, a Cleric who dips into Fighter delays his spellcasting progression a little to pick up more weapon proficiencies and higher HP.

A common synergy, for instance, is a max level Cleric with a single level of Monk. Clerics stack Wisdom. A single level of Monk causes your Wisdom to grant Armor Class. You get tankier, and that single Monk level is also responsible for a few neat little class features and overall better performance in melee.

>>3997294
>you can give your strength buffs to a fighter.
Draw Upon Holy Might and Holy Power are self only. If you're really obsessed with 4 attacks per round and weapon spec, just go Cleric 16/Fighter 4, it gets everything Fighter-unique and gets 16 BAB for your third iterative attack.

But as I said, you're overvaluing shit that doesn't matter. 4 BAB is nothing in a game where HP is high and AC isn't - and Clerics flat out hit harder to the point where an extra attack that is less likely to connect than any of the Cleric's isn't going to make up the difference. This isn't 2E, where Fighters really are inherently better at combat than a Cleric.

>>3993792
They made the rules understandable, but they are very, very, very poorly executed to where wizards are broken, fighters are useless, and thieves get overshadowed by wizards.

>>3996993
>It's called a fighter for a reason.
3E lies to your face intentionally.
>Lot's of HP
2+1/level avg over a Cleric or Druid. Barbarian is a better example with a d12 and Rage, but even then it loses out because it has to compete with defensive spells, healing spells, and in the Druid's case, wildshape healing.
>Rapidly progressing base attack bonuses and attacks per round
Having +1 over 3/4 BAB at 1, 5, 9, 13, and 17 is not rapidly progressing. They're basically the same from 1-5. Even if you don't consider that they only have an iterative over straight 3/4 BAB classes for half of the game's levels and that the 16 BAB iterative is dead weight until epic levels and accessible with a dip, Druids get 3 natural attacks via Wildshape BEFORE Fighters do and thus keep up in attack volume. Plus, the Cleric's heavier hits make them benefit from Haste's extra attack more.
>Mass weapon proficiency, ability to put three points into weapon proficiency
Which gets you... +2 to damage. And the ability to maybe cover an atypical random weapon drop, which is kind of pointless when most of the game's good magic weapons are
simple, axes, or long swords.
>Arguably most important: Can dump WIS,
This is why your dudes are failing saves against Hold Person. Never dump Wisdom, ESPECIALLY on a class with a bad Will save. Failing a Will save might as well render you dead for the purpose of the fight, if not even worse in scenarios like confusion or domination.

>>3997785
>>3997449
>>3997437
Okay, I see.

I just don't like casting spells all the time. Especially in a game where the combat is basically real-time. Pre-buffing is cheap.

>>3997821
Nothing wrong with that. Outside of HoF, IWD2 isn't difficult enough to punish you for playing a Fighter over a CoDzilla. I just think the game is terrible compared to IWD1 and 90% of the reason for that can be pinned on stupid 3E mechanics like full attacks. If both games ran on the same system it'd probably be the better of the two.

>>3997437

The build I used in NWN was...

Monk 1 / Paladin 1 / Cleric +

That way you get the Paladin's Charisma bonus added to your saves, the Monk's Wisdom bonus added to your naked AC, free Cleave and Unarmed attacks, feats for adding Divine damage to your attacks and AC, Turn Undead, etc. Plus almost all the caster levels you can get. Even the Zen Archery feat to become a better Archer than any Fighter based on your WIS bonus.

I've no experience with P&P 3rd edition but certainly in NWN Fighters are shite in comparison to any decent caster build.

>>3989939
How long is this game? I'm about to get into the Underdark, how many more areas are left?

>>3997821
While I'm one of those in the "IWD 2 is boring" camp, you can get out of the buffing trap. Don't use minor buffs. In the BG games, I basically never buff, except for run saving long duration buffs like protection from petrification or free action (even here I usually just use the ring when I get it).

>>3992075
Is it a mod for ToEE...?

>>3989939
>What did you think of this game?
Fucking loved it. Kinda gimmicky in some places, though, and so are some of the items you find.

>What party composition did you use?
Last time I beat it, I did the Core 4: Human (aasimar) cleric of tempus, dwarf fighter, elf wizard, elf rogue (I don't like halflings). Anytime you play a core 4 party in a game like this, you will steamroll it.

>>3990206
you're supposed to use the wilderness lore skill in the woods puzzle, ya dingus. Anyway, if I could figure it out in 7th grade, you have no excuse

>>3993665
fucking know-nothing crybaby nigger millenials, get off the fucking internet
3.x is the only edition worth playing
fucking banning core to make it work, you're literally retarded. Core are the only books I'll play with, because they're the only ones that didn't cater to marxist crybabies like you.

>>3995309
>Feats like Cleave, for example, that have an immediate and visible benefit in NWN, don't really do anything in IWD2

one time I cheated myself a 20th level monk for a solo game, and he had 18 str and great cleave, and it was pretty funny watching him fight the orcs at shanegard ford, because he'd chunk one then the other six surrounding would also chunk in quick succession, like a machine gun

>>3998950
yes

>>3998950
Yeah it was a short-lived mod for toee. Dont bother with it.

>>3998950
That pic was photoshopped.

>>3998317
This is good advice. The buffing game isn't worth it for the most part.

>>3998961
>one time I cheated myself a 20th level monk for a solo game, and he had 18 str and great cleave, and it was pretty funny watching him fight the orcs at shanegard ford, because he'd chunk one then the other six surrounding would also chunk in quick succession, like a machine gun
haha that's awesome chunk chunk chunk

>>3995468
This is terribly inaccurate. Too many people have Dragon Ball Z mindsets when it comes to character classes and so undervalue the likes of Paladins and Fighters.

The Fighter's strength is in his combative versatility. Your beastly Cleric is only going to really have one mode of combat that you sank your handful of precious feats into. The Fighter is going to be able to do just about anything well. He'll be a master of mounted Spirited Charging, unarmed grappling, power attacking two-handed, rapid shooting archery, et cetera. The Fighter is the go-to for the frontline, backline and everywhere between. His prowess doesn't vanish the moment an intelligent badguy simply disarms or sunders a Cleric's holy symbol or a Druid's Holly and Mistletoe. Or walks into an anti-magic field. Or faces an enemy counterspeller. Or gets blasted with Silence. Or a tanglefoot bag. Or a million other scenarios wherein the 'absolute gods of gaming', spellcasters are immediately shut down.

>>4003664
The funny thing is that you think you know what you're talking about. Fighters being versatile is a joke if you think about it for more than a second - being able to build 5 different Fighters that do 5 different things does not make a Fighter versatile when every one of those Fighters does only one thing because they have to specialize if they want to get anything done, and it certainly isn't more versatile than someone who can change their entire spell list on a whim while also being able to beat face. Sundering a holy symbol does nothing that can't be stopped by having multiples stowed away and puts them within reach of a class that can murder them in melee. Putting a Fighter in an AMF is going to turn off the magic items that make them able to do anything. Druid? Still has an animal companion over the Fighter in an AMF. Counterspelling only means something if you're casting directly within LOS of an enemy spellcaster, which means that it means nothing to a prebuffed caster, a caster who beat them in initiative, or someone who just walks behind a pillar to block LOS and casts behind it.

It's far easier to shut down a Fighter than a CoDzilla.

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>>3989939
I know it's cool to hate Beamdog, but I really do want an Enhanced Edition for IWD2, if only to have the UI optimized properly for resolutions higher than 800*600. The only UI mod available only adds decoration to the extra space, where there should be extra quick slots.

>>4003776
The funny thing is that you don't know what you're talking about. It's made all the more painfully obvious by your babby's first powergaming parlance. "CoDzilla" Ha. People still fall for that debunked meme literally decades later?

First, you don't need to build 5 different Fighters that do 5 different things. That's the point of the Fighter. ONE Fighter does all five different things. While you're sitting there and shilling your spell list on an 12th level Cleric, the Fighter has 13 feats, more than double the Cleric's. More than enough to master multiple methods of combat. Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Precise Shot. Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple. Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge. Power Attack, Improved Sunder. Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Improved Disarm. And he only gets more feats going forward.

And while you have this skewered idea of Clerics changing spell lists on a whim...?
>hey guys we can't progress further into this dungeon until we all leave, return to town, visit the temple and get a new holy symbol blessed because the enemy Fighter sundered / Rogue stole / etc. mine
>hey guys i know we're outside the big bad's room, but can we wait 22 hours until my designated time to pray for a new spell list? it's not really optimal for what we have to do now
I think your problem is the same problem a lot of those kids back then had. You keep thinking of it like a video game where you just spam rest to get all your spells back before every single encounter. Fight some kobolds, rest the entire day. Fight some more kobolds, rest the entire day. Fight the last of the kobolds, rest the entire day. Fight the kobold king, nice and rested with a full spell list. My how superfluous the Fighter seems in retrospect when compared to a party of spellcasters with never ending spells on demand!

>>4003776
Also, while it's on my mind, all my keks at the metagaming Cleric with a never ending supply of Holy Symbols. I mean, not that that would actually help him. Spend a standard action to pull a holy symbol out of your bag. The Fighter sunders it with the first attack then proceeds to beat you up with the next two. Repeat as many times as the Cleric has holy symbols.
And the rest of the nonsense too, really. The Druid's Animal Companion is dangerous at low levels, but becomes severely less so at higher levels. It's competitiveness stems from magical uses. Sharing buffs, being granted magical items, etc. Honestly, there's not a lot about the Druid's animal companion that a Fighter isn't able to duplicate anyhow. It's essentially a slightly buffed Handle Animal check, which is in-class for a Fighter. I always found it strange that more Fighters didn't bother to ride Tyrannosauruses when it's well within their class purview. And their Handle Animal to tame isn't limited by class levels like the Animal Companion is.
And blahblah terrain nonsense for LOS. The counterspeller isn't going to engage until there are no opportunities for LoS, you can assume he was invisible and used his surprise round readied to prep counterspell, etc etc. Don't feed me normie scenarios for how you can defeat counterspelling when you know that wouldn't fly with even the least competent first day DM at the helm of an NPC.
>haha Mr. 24 intelligence evil wizard, you failed to foresee the might of my 5ft step behind a pillar!

very interesting

>>4004141
>ONE Fighter does all five different things.
You mean they spread themselves thin and accomplish nothing. What the fuck do you think you're going to do with archery that won't hit anything and a bunch of combat maneuver feats, half of which require a dedicated build to work and the other half of which do nothing?

>>4004391
...do you understand how feats work? You either have them or you don't. You don't need to level up Rapid Shot to make it more accurate, and you don't need to invest Ability Points into Sunder to make it destroy weapons. What game are you even playing?

Let me guess though. Every Fighter you ever built went something along the lines of: Weapon Focus, Power Attack, Cleave, Weapon Specialization, Great Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Sunder, Improved Critical, Improved Weapon Focus, Improved Weapon Specialization, etc.?

Kids like you need to stick with the CoDzilla meme, and the rest of the tier-2 powergamers. You were just smart enough to get past the whole "20 Strength Half Orc Barbarian!" tier, but not smart enough to realize that stacking Weapon Specialization is a waste of a feat. Versatility is a Fighter's strength. If you don't have a ranged means of attack, several different damage types at your disposal, a tower shield for portable full cover, and at least a half dozen methods for solving combat, you're playing one wrong.

Let me guess, you also think Paladins are underpowered despite having a mount that humiliates a Druid's animal companion in every conceivable way, don't you?

>>4004408
Weapon Specialization is an incredibly shitty feat... but it's better than picking up Improved Sunder and Improved Grapple on someone who *can not* abuse size increases any day, and certainly better than picking up PBS, Precise Shot, and Rapid Shot on someone who maybe has 14 Dex. Do you really want to try hitting CR 12's average AC of 26 with your +1 composite longbow?

Replayed both recently. IWD 2 is just a better all-round game than IWD 1.

Ignoring all rules system based stuff: the game is like they took IWD and jammed in all the bits 1 was lacking.
The plot, particularly speaking characters are better. The dialog is better, particularly since there's actually a ton of options depending on the characters used. It has some humour and doesn't take itself so very seriously (like if you for some reason carry that dead cat around the entire game... or even expand on the collection). The fights are more interesting and the early ones in particular manage to be pretty good. There's a better variety of combat encounters and not nearly so many bullshit encounters even once it gets up to high levels. The non-combat stuff is generally better designed and makes use of non-combat skills (barring the stupid puzzle woods where the trick is remember to use a particular skill or get a walkthrough) It tries more interesting things to break up the fights like the weird time distorted area, the infiltration part on the jungle temple (if you want, entirely optional), even just the handful of tasks thrown at the party in the starting area are neat.

Both are decent, but 2 just does more, better. IWD 1 left me just wanting to get through it for a third, maybe even close to half the game because it wasn't doing much more than the basic go to X and kill everything; where as 2 I want to replay again at some point to try different character combinations and perhaps try completing stuff in different ways since it allows for enough variety in the way you approach things without frustrating you for sub-optimal choices (for the most part).

>>4004417
Why can a Fighter not abuse size increases? Let's go ahead and assume that being a Duergar or the like is off the table and you can't do it innately, the fact of the matter is that Fighters have access to magical items too. A potion of Enlarge Person is cheaper than a potion of Cure Moderate Wounds. And the Fighter doesn't generally need to abuse size modifiers. Assuming something around an 18 Strength, a full BAB and the +4 from Improved Grapple will handle almost every situation where Grapple is necessary. But in those rare instances when he does need oomph, the versatile Fighter has access to potions and the like. The same is true with Improved Sunder. Sundering is an opposed attack roll with the Fighter's maxed out BAB, with a +4 for weapon size and another +4 for the feat. Nine times out of ten, it's not necessary to buff to get ahead of your enemy, unless it's a Cleric that somehow got eight rounds of pre-buffing, in which case the Fighter would just withdraw while all those 1/round level cheese spells fritter away.

Also, why would you give a Fighter who intended to take bow feats only a 14 Dexterity? Doesn't that strike you as wasteful? And CR12's averaging AC 26? Off the top of my head, there's the Frost Worm AC 18, Kraken AC 20, Purple Worm AC 19, Abyssal Greater Basilisk AC 17, etc. etc. And the reality is, most of those wouldn't be something you'd use ranged attacks for anyhow. Fights where the enemy is flying but you can't for some reason, or fights where you can't or shouldn't engage in melee but now are a sizable threat at a distance, etc.

It always surprises me that people advance to the stage where they realize CoDzilla is a good thing, but never apply the same logic to any other class. You went through the epiphany that spellcasters are at their strongest when they're versatile and not just memorizing every slot with Fireball, but you never followed the obvious trail of clues that led to you doing the same with non-casters.

>>4004447
Is the plot better? I mean, IWD does not have a great story. As far as "evil bad guy does evil stuff" fantasy fare, it is really bland and uninteresting. The not particularly story focused BG 1 at least gives you a sinister and mysterious villain and BG 2 gives you the most punchable dickhead to chase down, while giving you lots of side story to explore.

IWD 2....I don't even remember, and I've played it more recently than 1. Something about an alliance of various evil dudes, because they are tired of being oppressed for being evil.

Why are these /tg/ guys talking about pen and paper D&D in a CRPG thread? Gary Gygax confirmed that roleplaying is not possible in CRPGs.

>>4004468
>but never apply the same logic to any other class.
Because it *doesn't fucking work that way*. You have to dedicate permanent resources to something that is not directly useful, and in cases like Sunder, are only useful in a very small amount of situations and can backfire on you if you do something stupid like try and break loot, and while you're at it you're making your ability to hold down your core responsibility worse.

18 STR and Imp Grapple is NOT enough to grapple enemies reliably, let alone dangerous ones.

>>4004517
Because it DOES work that way, you just have to be slightly smarter than a box of hammers. The Fighter's spells ARE his feats. Frankly, I'm curious how you DON'T end up versatile despite your best efforts. Even if you're a retard and focus on a single feat tree, it's maxed by what? Sixth level? And that's taking all the useless feats in the tree too.

Sunder is as useful as the user is intelligent to find uses for it. That enemy Wizard who was too smart to take Eschew Materials because it's a waste of a feat is screwed. Any divine caster is screwed. Enemy humanoids are largely screwed. Remember, the game doesn't end with the Monster Manual.

And grapple is largely used for shutting down enemy casters. And trust me, that 18 STR and Improved Grapple is more than enough in 99% of cases. While you're sitting there raging and leafing through the PHB struggling to find some out to cast a spell that has neither verbal or somatic components (protip: nothing's going to get you out), the Fighter is laughing all the way to the bank.

When the situation calls for it, he can power attack with his greatsword. He can insta-kill the big bad on an open field with his spirited charging T-Rex. He can shoot the enemy Harpies out of the sky. The Fighter can do it all, and on demand. The caster has metagame rest/save to have a snowball's chance in hell of ever matching the raw versatility of the Fighter.

>>4004538
No, you can try to do all of those things and suck at them because you didn't specialize. You can't have a solid magic lance and a solid magic greatsword and a solid longbow on top of all of the other things you need, you can at best have ONE and the others can barely let you contribute. Then taking all of those feats locked you out of the save boosting feats you desperately need because Fighter has shit tier saves so you become a huge liability any time Will saves come up.

>>4004552
Again, what game are you playing? One lance, huh? Alright. So you took Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack and Spirited Charge at first level. Then what? Trample at level 2? Congratulations, you mastered the entire feat tree. Better not spend any other feats because that would somehow... devalue your mounted combat prowess? I mean, do you even listen to yourself? You have no choice but to spread specialization around.

And sure, you'll probably have a "main weapon" for dealing damage, probably whatever you Power Attack with. But a +1 Mighty (+4 STR) Composite Longbow is not terribly expensive. Silver and Cold Iron arrows are not expensive. A single +1 Adamantine Greatsword for sundering is not expensive. Personally, I generally like to have a +1 Silver Morningstar on hand too. You'd be amazed at just how many damage resistances that thing ultimately bypasses, especially when you slap some 100gp Bless Weapon oil on it.

And you're a retard if you think Iron Will is going to make the difference for a Fighter. At 11th level, he has a Will Save of +3. Even with a really good Wisdom at like 14, and a Cloak of Resistance +2 AND the feat? That's a +9. A non-minmaxed spellcaster will be rocking around a 20 intelligence and firing off 6th level spells at a DC of 21 before feat or spell buff adjustment. And see, this is a losing scale for the Fighter. That DC is going to raise faster than his saving throw is. He's just going to fall further and further behind. You want to talk about wasted feats? THERE's your wasted feat.

>>4004581
If you think the answer to Fighters having bad saves is to ignore them, you have bigger problems than just not understanding why a +1 weapon on a Fighter with mediocre stats and the bare minimum to use that combat style is borderline useless.

>>4004596
The answer to any character is not to try and compensate for weaknesses, making the overall character weaker as a result. It's to play up your strengths. I mean honestly, do you stack Strength on your Wizards? Make Charismatic Half Orc Barbarians? Christ, learn to powergame.

>>4004602
Throwing 2 feats at Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will is not going to make a Fighter weaker. Leaving your Will save so low that things 10 CR below you have a legitimate shot at making you fail a save, let alone the Outsiders that swarm the lategame and have all manner of Will targeting save or lose SLAs, all for the sake of taking combat maneuver feats that don't work in all but the most contrived scenarios and would be better handled by just killing them? That is definitely making your character weaker.

>>4004612
Your Will Save is going to be that low regardless. This is part of why people form adventuring parties. Instead of you blowing feats you can't recover and spending several thousand gold to get your saves from pathetically low to just humiliatingly low, and in the process never actually rise high enough to pass the check, you have a buddy cast things like Protection from Evil or Globe of Invulnerability or Mind Blank or the like. And honestly, if your DM is so inept that the only scenarios that aren't you fighting Colossal Dragons every single encounter to where anything beyond "i attack his ac" is an acceptable combat maneuver, that's a failing in you, your DM and the group, not the game itself.

I mean honestly, does he never pit you against other humans? Or let me guess. You're the sort who just uses the entries in the MM as posted because the "advancement" part is too complicated to figure out? Never through any 12HD Nymphs or Bugbears with class levels, huh? Just opened the page to CR, saw they were all Huge+ after a certain point and wrote off everything else? Shame. You're missing like 99% of the game. But I suppose if I was playing with a DM that pathetic, I might not bother with versatility either. Some campaigns reward intelligence, others reward noob players minmaxing a single attack to the highest damage output.

>>4004631
Ignoring your saving throws is a massive noob trap. I don't know who the fuck you're trying to fool, but nobody intelligent would think "I can just ignore this save and have the Wizard cover a fraction of the Will save effects, it's way better than taking the #1 recommended cloak slot item and spending two feats on the class that gets an abundance of feats and most of the feats they can get are barely viable against the enemies they do work against. This is a great idea."

It's also funny that you think advancement of weaker enemies means that combat maneuvers suddenly become viable. What are you going to do, disarm enemies that can afford a thousand locked gauntlets? Sunder the magic weapons that are supposed to be your loot? At best you've got tripping, which already fits into a much better build than suck-at-a-bunch-of-combat-maneuvers.

>>4004650
No, no one thinks they'll ignore the save. They just don't try to compensate for it in the most retarded way possible. A low Wisdom Fighter without multiclassing is not behooved in wasting a feat on it. It's like taking Skill Focus in something you have no ranks in. Now, if you were a Dwarven Defender with a decent Wisdom, sure. Between the racial bonuses, the class bonuses and everything else, at level 12 you could manage upwards of +15 or even higher. THEN it becomes a worthwhile investment. But in the vicinity of +3 - +9? Max? Pointless. That's when you find alternate routes for overcoming Will saves. Not belabor a wasted point.

As to your other stupid questions, you can sunder the locked gauntlet then disarm the weapon. Or disarm the magic weapon you want to sell while sundering the dangerous archer's unenchanted bow. Or grapple down the enemy spellcaster before he can blanket the area in AoE damage.

Again, why are you so stupid you have this "suck at a bunch of combat manuevers" notion? You don't power-up feats. Improved Trip will work just as effectively if you have Power Attack as it will if you have Iron Will. All we're discussing here is how many options you have available to you. And you're arguing for having fewer, and I can't fathom what mental gymnastics you're pacing yourself through that justifies that nonsense in your head.

>>4004650
>#1 recommended cloak slot item
Just about every other cloak is better than Resistance.

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>>4004662
>And you're arguing for having fewer
Because one option that usually works is far superior to taking ten options and nine only working against the lowest hanging fruit. Fruit that the DM has to make up for you because your shit does not even remotely fly against MM1 monsters above medium and renders you completely and utterly useless by the time you're fighting Balors.

>>4004671
No, they're not. There's a reason they're the go to recommendation for the cloak slot.

>>4004496
IWD2 definitely had better plot. Isair and Madae are quite well done, as are the whole cast of of the Legion of Chimera. Nothing award-winning here in IWD2, but what you do get is definitely nice.

Compared to IWD1's Belhifet, who I can't even remember at this point as having a voice actor, there's no competition.

>>4004673
>>4004675
You guys need to take it to /tg/. None of this is relevant to the thread.

>>4004694
Also I should add that in IWD1, you're not even sure who you're fighting for most of the game, so when they spring Belhifet on you, it's kind of lame and anti-climactic. IWD2 is very clear from the get-go about this Legion of the Chimera business, and fills you in more and more as the game progresses, voice-acted appearances included. The ending is still a little weak though.

>>4004673
Then you use the one option that's far superior, dunce. The point is that the circumstances of what the most superior option is changes in every fight. Honestly, it's like you're advocating a Mage only ever learn Fireball with his third level spells because it's better to have that than waste his time learning to fly or hasting the party.

Hell, lets look at the Balor. I'd certainly rather be at a massive distance, picking his HP apart with Bless Weapon oiled cold iron arrows than absorbing his Vorpal sword and flaming whip with six attacks and auto-grab against his flaming body. But even if I was forced into melee, that +1 Flaming Whip? I'd happily sunder that bitch and shut down half his physical attack options right out the gate. Since we're 20th level+, I can eat that loss of loot revenue easily. Or hell, if I had to engage him in melee at all, I'd sure rather be charging him with that holy oiled cold iron lance and let my Power Attack x3 spirited charge do the talking. And SHOULD he grapple me, have a high enough grapple check that I have a shot at breaking free without needing a 20.

But you're right. Silly to have multiple ways to engage him. Better to just charge in and swing my axe, hoping for the best.

I think the one take away from this for you is that you should stay away from non-casters. I don't know what about them just cripples your ability to powergame, but you become statistic and tactic illiterate the second you step away from anything without a spell attached to it.

How do you guys feel about Planescape: Torment as a game? As in, fully thinking about the gameplay? I'm probably going to start over again and try to do full speech and thief skills because goddamn is this a pain to play as either a fighter or a mage.

>>4004702
Lots of decent NPCs along the way too, like that Drow who wants to save his sister, or that damned gnome with the dirigible. Most of them are not memorable since you interact with them only a few times yet there was still clearly enough thought put into them to stop them being just bland quest vendors.

IWD 1 feels very much like a DM's first campaign. 2 is a campaign by a DM with a good few years experience under their belt and a clear idea of a story to weave in beyond locations and the most generic of BBEGs.

>>4004694
Belhifet/The Narrator was voiced by David Ogden Steiers, of MASH fame.

I think the furthest I ever got in it before my hard drive crashed was an area with Will-o'-wisps after the ice temple. Not because the game it's hard, it's just way too tedious. Baldur's Gate before it spoiled me with NPC bants and meaningful player choices, and it without all that it was hard to care much at all.

That soundtrack tho. Suicidal Gothic Teenager/10.

anyone have that cuckold dialogue from IWD

>>4006218
Take your memes elsewhere. This is a serious discussion.

>>4004468
>Also, why would you give a Fighter who intended to take bow feats only a 14 Dexterity?
That's actually not bad. Level + dex + MW, say 5th for +8...not shabby
However, a fighter should only be using a bow against enemies he can't hit with anything else. Really, his archery feats are for reach weapons, and quick-drawn thrown weapons.

>>4004517
>do something stupid like try and break loot
magic weapons and armor can be repaired for 1/4 their market cost, so it's a decent tactic against a weapon that is especially dangerous to you

>You have to dedicate permanent resources
it never fails. there is always one guy who has to use this argument. You don't NEED to use potions in *most* encounters, just the tough ones, which aren't most.

>is NOT enough to grapple enemies reliably,
it is if they're also medium sized, otherwise you're about on par with them, but so what, I can build a core fighter with a grapple mod good enough for anything within the size limit, even if he's not built just for that, but you DO need to have more than 18 str and be at least large size (trivial with a wand of enlarge person and a mage buddy).

>>4004538
>He can insta-kill the big bad on an open field with his spirited charging T-Rex.
Not really. By mid levels, you aren't insta-killing anything of equivalent CR, even with a spirited charging lance, unless you get a max-damage crit or are a paladin maxing out power attack and using smite evil (and even then maybe not). A 20th level large barbarian with a +5 greataxe and maxed power attack is only doing about enough damage on average to drop CR 9-10

>>4004596
it's true that you shouldn't ignore his will saves, because if he ever comes up against an enemy that can throw weak will save stuff at him, he'd have a chance if he gave half a damn, otherwise every hold person coming his way will lock him out, but he'll never beat the level equivalent will saves without caster buddy help

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>>4004612
>Throwing 2 feats at Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will is not going to make a Fighter weaker.
it absolutely will; even a single-leveled human fighter in core will want more feats than he gets, each of which is better for him than a +2 on his weak saves

>>4004694
>Isair
>voice actor
always made me think of pic related

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>>4007574
>By mid levels, you aren't insta-killing anything of equivalent CR, even with a spirited charging lance
I'm not so sure about that. You figure a Fighter 10 with an 18 Strength wearing a Belt of Giant Strength +4 and just using a +1 Lance with Power Attack will probably one-shot most things his level. That's without using Large Lances, Weapon Specialization, Rhino Hide armor, or any other kind of fuckery.

That's 93-114 damage. At CR 10, a Rakshasa has 52HP, a Formian Myrmarch has 102HP, a Nine-Headed Pyro/Cyro Hydra has 97HP, a Guardian Naga has 93HP, etc. etc.

And of course with a crit, or even mild buffing, all bets are off.

>>4008112
I thought I remembered calculating that for a paladin using smite evil and still not hitting it, but I guess you're right. Dunno what I was thinking.

>>4008112
>That's 93-114 damage.
No it's not

(1d8+1 enhancement+6 STR+10 PA)*3 = 64.5 damage, and that's with about as much PA as you can crank up before you start missing often enough to cut your effective damage in half.

Damage multipliers are additive, not multiplicative.

>>4008385
Forgot to add the +9 from the belt in, but my point still stands.

>>4008385
(1d8+1 enhancement + 9 two-handed STR + 20 PA)*3 = 3d8+90 = 93-114

You do remember that Power Attack does double damage when two-handing a weapon, right?

And assuming no buffs, weapon focus or gear beyond what was posted- a horse and a +1 lance, that's a minimum of +10 to hit. The monsters posted- Rakshasa AC 21 (50%), PyroCyroHydra AC 19 (60%), Guardian Naga AC 18 (65%) etc. Which is all immaterial to the point that a single non-crit, unbuffed spirited charge with minimum gear can still do enough damage to execute them regardless.

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>>4008430
>that's a minimum of +10 to hit
I'm a big fan of mounted Eldritch Knights. True Strike can be cast in Full Plate with a 0% chance of spell failure (it has no somatic components), and as a first level spell is very easy to Quicken. Being able to dump all your BAB into a Spirited Charge Power Attack with a free action +20 to hit every turn is quite nice.

>>4008430
>that's a minimum of +10 to hit.
6 STR+1 enhancement+2 charge is not 10.

>>4008438
>6 STR+1 enhancement+2 charge is not 10.
>still trying to argue bonuses after that public correction
No, but when you add the +1 bonus to attack for being mounted, it adds up to 10.

>>4008442
Not him, but that bonus wouldn't apply to the Hydra, just all the other ones.

>>4008442
If they're smaller than your mount.

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>>4008446
Fair enough. The Hydra was the only listed monster as big as the Fighter's listed T-Rex mount and is exempt from the "higher ground" rule. But even at +9, it's over a 50% chance of hitting which again, is besides the original point being made.

Hardest thread derail 2017

>>4008452
That's a DC33 check to tame that fucker. I think there are bigger issues here.

>>4008457
Not really a derail.

>What did you think of IWD2?
>it sucked because it uses 3E
>why does 3E suck?
>here, this is why 3E sucks
>no it doesn't suck, here's why
>arguing ensues

>>4008474
Yeah, but the parts of 3e being discussed here vs what actually gets used in the game are completely different. If the discussion focused solely on how the edition change effected differences between IWD and IWD2, all good. As it stands, the argument in this thread has almost nothing to do with IWD and would be better suited to /tg/.

>>4008524
desu, you can't have nice chats about 3.5 on tg without being "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 3.5 SUCKS!!!!111!!" to death

>>4008548
Not really, you'll get ignorable shitposting if you're talking about 3.5 in general but you'll rightfully get blown the fuck out if you're being an idiot and jacking off to core 3.5.

>>4008548
AD&D is clearly the superior system

>>3991463
Holy frijoles, is that IWD implemented in the ToEE engine?!

>>4008460
I used to have a Charisma/Handle Animal-stacked Druid that went around collecting the young of every Int 1 or 2 monster I could find to rear into monstrous party members for us. A 33 at level 10 is no problem-o.

Personally, I always found Megaraptors to be better mounts though. Listen and Spot are about the same as the T-Rex, both have Run but the Megaraptor is much faster, and while they both have Track (and scent), the Megaraptor actually has ranks in Survival to be useful. Not to mention pounce as an ability was just meant to be used with Spirited Charge for maximum damage explosions.

Then again, there's something to be said for a mount with the swallow whole ability.

>>3991463
...wow

>>3991463
can i be in the reply screencap too

>>4008839
Yeah, but that's a *Druid*. They get Wild Empathy and can ignore their physical stats with no repercussions. Completely different from a Fighter who can barely wrangle up 10 CHA. Pets that aren't from animal companion-esque features also have a problem in that they have an action bottleneck due to you only being able to order them to do something one at a time. Not a problem when it's a free action due to Animal Companion, but a huge problem when it's not.

>>3991463
Let's get back to not discussing IWD

>>4008863
>he's never made a high charisma mounted Fighter
Build works just as well with a Fighter as it does with a Druid, since the Fighter has the feats to burn on Skill Focus (Handle Animal) and Animal Affinity. Assuming 32pt buy: 17/13/14/10/08/14, or if you're interested in some Combat Expertise feats down the road: 15/13/14/10/13/14.

Between the 13 Ranks + 2 Charisma + 3 Skill Focus + 2 Animal Affinity + 2 Masterwork Handle Animal Tools = 22 before any magical buffs. 50% chance of taming a T-Rex, and that's assuming you don't have magical Charisma buffs, a Bard helping you with skill checks, another Animal Handler aiding another, etc.

Honestly, the only advantage a Druid has for training animals is with their own Animal Companion. And using the skill will ultimately net you much stronger pets much earlier than a Druid's class skill will.

This is part of the tier of powergaming that starts debunking the old CoDzilla myth.

>>4008978
>15/13/14/10/13/14
Should've been 15/13/14/13/10/14*. Obviously a 13 Wisdom wouldn't help with Combat Expertise.

>>4008978
How does that debunk anything? Druids can do the exact same shit and perform better without having to rely on mounted combat(3 animals commanded/round > 2 animals commanded per round), nevermind that "Fighter can use Handle Animal to gain access to animals better than him even though they're 2 CR behind and by any reasonable metric this should increase party ECL" isn't a glowing endorsement of the Fighter.

>>4008559
this is exactly what i mean

>>4009153
That /tg/ is going REEEEEEE 3.5 SUCKS when they rightfully point out that core 3.5 is a shit game and call you retarded when you inevitably try to say that splatbooks broke the game?

>>4005202
>IWD 1 feels very much like a DM's first campaign. 2 is a campaign by a DM with a good few years experience under their belt and a clear idea of a story to weave in beyond locations and the most generic of BBEGs.

Funny thing is Josh Sawyer (writer of Fallout New Vegas and other Obsidian stuff) reportedly wrote IWD2's story in a day.

>>4009009
Because CoDzilla nonsense doesn't factor in Handle Animal cheese whatsoever. It categorically cannot since Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins and Rangers all get the skill too. The value of the Animal Companion when it's the difference between an unbuffed Megaraptor when everyone else is riding a pair of Tyrannosauruses makes the Companion's "cheesiness" all but superfluous.

And don't argue CR, it just makes you look incompetent. Handle Animal isn't predicated on CR, it's based off of hit dice. You can acquire a Triceratops easier than a Tyrannosaurus despite it having a higher CR. Or even just using advancement dice on existing ones. A Huge Megaraptor has fewer hit dice than a Tyrannosaurus but absolutely blows him out of the water statistically. And of course, ANY of these are miles and miles ahead of the Druid's crappy companion.

>inb4 wildshape nonsense
The only form worth a damn in advanced powergaming is the Ape / Dire Ape because it can still use weapons and armor.

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>>3990097

PS:T is the exact opposite of ID, stellar story, crappy combat. Also, play the original with mods.

Beamdog didn't even manage to scale the UI with the resolution judging from the screens, which shows their colossal incompetence. It's hard to believe they didn't fuck something up, and my money is on the user mods being better.

>>4009251
This is out of the blue, but did you play a Halfling Druid on a D&D chat called IceHaven? I remember one who had a Dire Ape companion that the Druid was always wildshaped into a Dire Ape himself, and he rode around on a tamed Triceratops spirited charging with him and his pet using huge lances. Really threw the balance out the window of games we would try to run.
This whole conversation just reminded me of it.

>>4009269
If he was raping the game, why didn't the DM start putting him in scenarios where he couldn't charge? Difficult terrain, narrow corridors, enemy formations that stop him from getting to the targets he wants to kill, spells, there are a dozen ways to stop an ubercharger, and this doesn't even get to leap over shit in the middle of a charge like those do.

>>4009251
Well, first off, rearing an animal doesn't mean walking up to a fully grown one, using Handle Animal, and suddenly you've got a pet. It means rearing them from infancy and that takes a LOT of time for any animal that you want to be useful. Second, "advanced powergaming" is laughable in the context of core if you're not talking about Polymorph abuse, Divination abuse, or Planar Binding abuse. Abusing Handle Animal in such a way isn't advanced, it doesn't take a deep knowledge of the game to do, it's the kind of That Guy thing that would get you banned from tables instantly like Leadership. Third, flight forms exist and, given that Druids have Natural Spell and are full spellcasters, are much better in melee heavy scenarios than apes in armor wielding weapons.

>>4009324
Nah. Magical Beasts all have the same time listed for training, six weeks. This holds true in every entry from Griffons, Spider Eaters, Pegasus, Giant Owls, etc. Interestingly, animals don't have a listed time. Most DMs generally assume equal or less time to train mundane animals over exotic magical ones, but it seems you went the opposite direction with it taking "a LOT of time."

And I say "advanced" only in relation to your novice's understanding of powergaming. We've already established that you're at the low-tier that's discovered that Clerics and Druids boosting their stats with spells can out-damage a generic Fighter using a single mode of combat. Discovering then that those terribly "broken" animal companions that your CoDzilla meme is based on are in fact laughably weak to what virtually any player can achieve with the Handle Animal skill, marks the next step in your understanding of proper powergaming. I mean, it was a pain in the ass trying to get you to understand why a Fighter's multiple combat options is in itself a form of power, but that requires a bit more abstract thinking that you're clearly not ready for. But the raw statistical numbers for the kind of pets Handle Animal can bring in? That's talking your limited power gaming language. Something you can understand.
Polymorph is another example of low-tier, Divination is embarrassing that you'd even bring it up, but Planar Binding DOES have merit. Only if you can answer "what is the best thing to summon for a 12th level caster and why?". Failing that understanding means you don't know why that's strong.
Also, any DM including and especially yourself that bans the like of Handle Animal and Leadership because they're too poorly equipped to handle players that powergame should abdicate the position immediately. Learn to scale, learn to be as smart as your players, don't just upturn the board and announce house rules to limit them.

>>4009324
Also, kek@flight forms. Remember that Druids have Wind Walk and at that level, obtaining the ability to fly is easier than piss. And whatever spell damage you THINK you're going to do won't compare to a pair of 26 STR huge lance 3d6 x3 charging Dire Apes, with one of them dropping Power Attack and spirited charge on top of a Triceratops's powerful charge, which also scales with Strength and a Druid's buffing spells, combined with ride-by attack allowing a reposition to do so every single round... you're nuts.

>>4009507
You're never going to make me "understand" anything when I know you're completely and utterly full of shit. I've seen people try nearly everything you've suggested and know they don't work in practice if your DM isn't giving you a blowjob not just by the numbers not adding up, but by the fact that you think Leadership is in any way acceptable. You're relying on an extremely questionable interpretation of the rules(rearing time is not the same thing as training time, see 3.0, and even if you ignore 3.0's rearing times of 1 year for magic beasts only, the 3.5 text specifically says *from infancy*, not six weeks, so enjoy your 5 years of raising a bear) and a DM that isn't just not dealing with you, but aiding you.

I mean, who the fuck do you think you're kidding with this? "Fighter is awesome because I can take a bunch of feats, half ass all of them, and tame a tyrannosaurus by level 10 and use the mounted combat tree to miss half the time because not even that can fuck up a 3x damage multiplier with Power Attack!" If I didn't know better I'd call troll.

>>4009248
A good, experienced GM can do in a day or even just on the fly what it takes a new GM weeks of preparation. So I would honestly not be surprised. I mean the overall story is not an intricate weave of plots, it's just a well told linear progression with characters that have at little bit of a hook to them and villains that make some sense and manage to tie-in to the previous game without having been directly part of it.

Most of the hard work of the plot was probably in creating and mashing together the massive amount of dialogue options based on stats, skills, class, race and sometimes items of whoever is talking.
Which was way more work than a fairly straight dungeon crawler deserved.

>>4009568
>I make my players suck me off to get me to adhere to the rules
Frankly, that just makes you a shitty DM. The kind of DM that doesn't allow core rule mechanics because he's too stupid to deal with these things? People like you ought not to be DMs. You want to know how you deal with that rampaging Triceratops multi lance charge of death? The first level spell Charm Animal (and honestly a hundred other things). But that wouldn't occur to you, because you're the kind of novice powergamer that just looks at the raw damage output and screeches "ban it! help! someone stop this!" Nothing in this game lacks a counter. There is no unbeatable combination that requires you to nerf your players. The only limitation is your own intellect.

And it's funny that you actually brought up an old edition to try and validate your objectively wrong point. 3.5 has NO listed time for rearing in the PHB, but it does have a listed time for "training" that's printed quite clearly in the MM. If you want to houserule that shit takes twenty years to grow up, feel free. But the ONLY written and established rule is six weeks per the core books. But again, that just marks what a poor DM you are. You feel like you have to disregard the printed rules to inhibit your players.

"Fighter half-asses his feats!" Again, you prove that you don't even understand the fundamentals of the game. What is wrong with you that you understand (or claim to anyhow) that a caster's versatility is their strength, but don't understand the same applies to a Fighter? I mean that honestly. Where is this disconnect. Multiple people broke down the math for his ranged combat, grappling, mounted combat, all within the same purview of a Fighter and all were overwhelmingly effective. But you see these irrefutable numbers and just... it's like your mind shuts down. I do actually call troll at this point.

>>4009595
When you can stop arguing that ignoring saves is anything but the most retarded idea ever in a game where spells and SLAs are everywhere by the midgame, stop pretending that I didn't point out that there were multiple ways to stop a charge monkey with no effort, stop arguing that leaving Leadership unbanned is a good idea even though it is far and away the best feat ever printed for 3.5 to the point where it doesn't even matter what's going on, if it's on the table, there is no reason other than your DM's sanity not to take it regardless of your Charisma, stop arguing that rearing takes six weeks due to something 100% unrelated to rearing despite the rest of the game(and 3.0!) and basic fucking logic(newborn bear + 6 weeks and rearing check = fully trained adult bear?) pointing to a very different conclusion, and stop pretending that the numbers you've been posting for your Fighter are even close to good when mounted combat is the only thing you even come close to doing anything against CR appropriate enemies with? I'll maybe start listening to you. Until then I'll just continue on thinking you're completely fucking retarded because even a passing familiarity with optimization outside of core would let you know that oh shit, you're being retarded.

icewind dale the computer game

>>4009663
No one said to ignore saves, we all just ridiculed your idiotic notion that a Fighter should waste feats on it when it wouldn't make any kind of difference. Protection from Evil is a first level spell you can get from a thousand different sources that blocks compulsion and charm effects. THAT makes more sense than wasting a feat to bring a Fighter from a 95% chance of failure to 85%.

And trying to stop a charger by metagaming and constantly throwing him into narrow corridors, fabricating pillars everywhere and blocking all forms of flying is you being a shit DM. There are better ways to deal with clever players than outright cheating them like you advocate. Be better than you are.

Leadership doesn't need to be banned if you're not incompetent. What exactly about the feat upsets you so much? You understand that a fourth level Bard can outdo everything that feat does, right? The only people who ban it are people who are so ignorant of game mechanics that they actually believe it's not just a wasted RP-flavor feat and think there's some mechanical benefit to it.

Also, quit advocating that we use AD&D, or first edition or any other edition in this discussion about 3.5. The core books explicitly state six weeks. Not a year, not six months. If you want to make the argument that there's not a concrete time, fair enough, there isn't. But arguing that the one the books offer is wrong and trying to substitute an entirely different edition's rules in? Seriously, fuck off.

Alright, you think Mounted Combat is the only good one. My Fighter grapples your Mage and moves to pin. You cannot cast a spell with verbal or somatic components. What do you do?

>>4009251
Why do you assume you have access to dinosaurs to tame in the first place? The vast majority of P&P campaigns don't feature wandering tyrannosaurs.

>>4009752
Dinosaurs were just a convenient example. Everyone knows what a Tyrannosaurus is. The math holds true and is actually even more effective in the case of animals, dire animals, magical beasts, abberations, outsiders, etc.

You'll find Rust Monsters can ultimately be ten times cheesier than dinosaurs and require far lower checks to acquire. Also, advancement on animals are unbelievably powerful. Take a wolf. +2HD only adds +2 to the difficulty for Handle Animal, but unlike Animal Companions, it comes with a +8 STR bonus, +4 CON, +2 Natural Armor, +2 BAB, and a +8 additional bonus on its auto Trip checks.

A T-Rex is actually a very unoptimized example, but you can't compete with the images it evokes as a pet.

>>4009695
Disregarding that "Fighter starts within charge range of a Wizard that has no defenses up whatsoever and wins initiative" is an incredibly stupid scenario? It depends on the level. Mid-level, they can't really do damage while in a grapple, so most likely, sit back and let the rest of the party kill you/your party while you disable yourself for free pinning me. Also, you would've been better off hitting them anyways - higher chance of a kill, which would let you move on to the rest of the party.

High level? Better hope he didn't have Freedom of Movement somehow or didn't have Shapechange up because if he did, you just wasted your time.

>>4009853
Alright, so you acknowledge that grapple completely and utterly blows out your caster and that the only hope he has is that someone else saves him. Or that he happens to have prebuffed with a non-Wizard or 9th level spells in apparent metagamy anticipation.

This tactic cost the Fighter two feats. As you start hitting higher and higher levels, sure, generic monsters tend to get bigger... but other adventurers? They generally stay the same size and casters of all stripes are equally screwed by it. And so this tactic never stops being useful.

Now, Spirited Charge is all well and good for dishing out huge amounts of damage and I can appreciate why on your current level of powergaming that's something you understand and recognize. But all the methods at a Fighter's disposal have their place. He won't always be able to lock down a more dangerous enemy with grapple, but sometimes he will and it will be invaluable when it does. He won't always be in a position where the only way he can attack is with his Mighty Composite Longbow, but in those situations, it's better that he has the feats to make the attacks and damage worthwhile. If he's in a position to sunder the big bad's holy symbol and remove spellcasting as an option, he should.

Do you get it? It's about maximizing your options. You only hurt yourself when you decide that a Fighter has to be swinging a power attacking greatsword and doing nothing else. It'd be like playing a Mage who only ever learns fire-based evocation spells.

>>3989939
>So I just finished this game, and I have to say, it was pretty good. It's definitely the most well-made infinity engine game in terms of combat
Yep, it's a really fun game.

I never got the autistic fury from people who see a dungeons and dragons video game devolve into a discussion about dungeons and dragons mechanics.

>>4010410
>>4010413
>exactly one minute apart

I just started a playthrough of BGI-II-TOB using TuTu

What's with all this autistic screeching and the deleted posts?

>>4010162
Please link to the posts you're describing.

Speaking of furious, Heart of Fury was very challenging.

>>4010969
>Please link to the posts you're describing.
Sure:
>>4010410
>>4010413
>>4010829

>>4010971
Wow, just checked this thread in an archive. I see what you mean now.

>>4009906
Actually, I don't, I was just pointing out that the scenario was implausible and that there were still ways out of it even if the rules worked the way you think they do. Please go and read the rules on pinning until it sinks in that you don't have the attacks to pin until round 2. Well, unless you were able to full attack, in which case why didn't you just kill them instead of wasting your time with this bullshit?

>>4010969
HoF didn't feel challenging so much as it felt like it forced me to put up with massive enemy HP and damage and use stupid cheese strategies that don't make any sense, like making enemies chase after someone with a billion AC buffs instead of the characters they could actually kill.

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>>4011145
I asked for links, visited an archive, then posted a response to whomever provided me the links. I don't visit /v/. You should have more faith in your fellow man.

>>4011121
Are there any CRPGs with decent enemy AI? I feel this way about pretty much every CRPG battle.

>>4011153
BG2 with SCS and tactics

>>4011161
>SCS
Been meaning to try that.

>>4011153
Retro? Not really, BG2+difficulty mods boils down to stupid cheese a lot of the time. PoE, though, engagement is an actual mechanic to keep enemies fighting instead of them actively deciding it's a great idea to fight guys who they have no chance of killing. Too bad the game is boring.

D:OS also had okay AI outside of random derps like enemies accidentally wandering back and forth, shooting the ground with special arrows sometimes, and focusing summons a little too hard. That has more to do with pathfinding issues and not taking the terrain into account, but they definitely aim for the targets they can kill/disable if they're given the chance. Game's fun as fuck, too.

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>>4011170
>says BG2 boils down to cheese
>praises PoE's broken engagement mechanic
who could be behind this post

>>4011170
Forgive me, but what is D:OS?

>>4011175
I'm not saying that engagement is good, but it's SOMETHING that gives enemies a mechanical incentive to attack someone they otherwise wouldn't. It's not even the best mechanic I've seen like it.
>>4011176
Divinity: Original Sin

>>4011194
Engagement could be annoying with how pervasive it was, but I found the fact that every enemy is a psychic who knows the defenses of your party more frustrating. Having even a dumb animal instantly turn to attack a rogue the instant you enter melee is silly, and made playing fragile melee characters without reach weapons really tiresome.

>>4011243
Honestly, I found that to be more of an issue of not having skills to deal with it. Wouldn't be a problem if a Rogue could dart in, stab, dart out to avoid attacks but instead it's something else entirely.

>>4011170
>Retro? Not really, BG2+difficulty mods boils down to stupid cheese a lot of the time

Maybe outdated shit like Tactics. SCS actually fixes AI scripts.

>>3998961
>fucking know-nothing crybaby nigger millenials, get off the fucking internet
>3.x is the only edition worth playing
>fucking banning core to make it work, you're literally retarded. Core are the only books I'll play with, because they're the only ones that didn't cater to marxist crybabies like you.

I hope you are just a punk kid. Otherwise I'll feel really sorry for the society in general.

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>>4012018
>2017
>people still don't realize you can play with tactics and SCS together

>>4012229
it's just mentally and emotionally tiring seeing an endless stream of mouthbreathers talking shit about a great game, simply because it's popular and they're brainwashed by the vocal minority

Most of them have never even read the books. You'd be suprised how many people have only ever looked at the SRD.

>>4014518
>it's just mentally and emotionally tiring
...from seeing people tell you to ban core because of problems that are mostly localized to core? Stop taking someone not liking something you like so seriously, or failing that, go get your head looked at.

>>4014741
>Stop taking someone not liking something you like so seriously,
I wouldn't, if they'd ever leave me the fuck alone. I can't have a single fucking discussion about 3.5 anywhere on the goddamned internet without "REEEEEEEEEEEE" shit. So get fucked, faggot.

>>4012373
But why would you?

Tactics is a hodgepodge of bullshit fights. The spaghetti thrown at the wall sometimes sticks, and Tactics does reward mastery over the game, but it's still a fundamentally different playthrough than just a standard run or even an SCS-enhanced game. I can enjoy it for the novelty, and it's a bit of a pioneer, but still.

>>4014784
I call bullshit. You can have a conversation about 3.5 just fine. You, on the other hand, want a conversation about core 3.5 only and shit your pants whenever anyone so much as insinuates that core 3.5 isn't perfect or that playing without it is better.

>>4014804
>want a conversation about core 3.5 only and shit your pants whenever anyone so much as insinuates that core 3.5 isn't perfect or that playing without it is better.
you weasely faggot
You know damn well all that ever happens is people bashing anyone who likes core or says anything good about it.

>>4014803
i don't quite understand the mindset of evaluating tactics as a wholesale mod, when every selected encounter is by your choice. if you pick the joke encounters, then expect spaghetti.

My character in BG1 is a Gnomish 2 Cleric/2 Illusionist, my party is Viconia, Kagain, Khalid, Jaheira, and Imoen who are around levels 3-4.\

For the life of me, I can't beat the bandit camp. What quests should I do, or what monsters should I grind? I've tried rest spamming to get bandits but it takes forever to get an actual level.

>>4015885
>rest spamming to get bandits
Low strategy. The real meta is in travel spamming to get things like winter wolves, ogre mages, bears

>>4015885
Did you clear out the lighthouse area with sirens, and the basilisk map? Those are two of the biggest early-game sources of XP.

>>4015927

I guess I'll do those next. Viconia's a higher level cleric than me and I don't think she has protection from petrification yet.

>>4004101
>playing at anything higher than 800x600

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>>4015989
That might be because Protection from Petrification is a first level Wizard spell. You can buy a cheap one from High Hedge to scribe.

>>4014893
I like 3.5 core.

>>4016118
But do you like 3.5 core while proclaiming that core's problems don't matter/don't exist, that everything outside of core is shit, and that everyone who doesn't like core are Marxist niggers?

>>4015989
basilisk map has a ghoul, who will be your friend, and will tank everything

>>4015885
Wand of monster summoning
Wand of paralyzation
Wand of sleep
Wand of fireball
Wizard's spell Web
Cleric's spell Command
Bows or slings for everyone

That's all you need to beat the vanilla content.

>>4016126
>core's problems don't matter/don't exist, that everything outside of core is shit, and that everyone who doesn't like core are Marxist niggers

You say that like it's not true.

>>4016969
And this is why nobody even tries to give you the benefit of the doubt.

>>4017012
You seem upset.

>>4016126
I like core while proclaiming that core's problems don't matter/exist. First, there exists nothing in the game that there aren't multiple counters for. Second, and more importantly, it's less about the mechanics and more about the players. Savvy powergamers can make anything powerful and bad players can make anything awful.

This thread alone showed why the skill Handle Animal was ultimately stronger than the Druid's strongest class ability, and Druid's are generally hailed by some of the poorer initiated as one of the most broken features of the core game.

>>4018235
You didn't show shit aside from you not knowing the limitations of the skill you're jacking off to, you crying about situations where a Huge mount isn't available being unfair and shit DMing even though a DM should be using terrain by default and that being functionally unusable in dungeons is a natural consequence of their size, you assuming that animal advancement is there for you to use and not something that's a DM tool, and that you equate rearing time to training time when training time is for teaching tricks to animals or training them for a purpose.

And animal companions aren't the Druid's strongest feature, not by a long shot. That's spellcasting. But hey, you want to pretend that core is totally fine and balanced despite "everything can be countered, therefore everything is balanced" being blatantly fallacious on multiple levels? Go ahead and make a Monk that can compete with a Druid on anything that isn't move speed and Reflex saves.

>>4018613
>crying about situations where a Huge mount isn't available
Literally never happened?
>shit DMing even though a DM should be using terrain by default
Hey, just because you're the kind of DM that will make every random encounter in the plains suddenly have pillars erupt out of the ground 5ft adjacent to bad guys every single fight doesn't make you a bad DM. I mean, it contributes, but it's not the SOLE reason you're shit.
>being functionally unusable in dungeons is a natural consequence of their size
These are arguments you should've made and didn't. If you want to retroactively pretend now that you did, sure. But what exactly are you trying to prove? The charge vs fly debate precludes dungeons anyhow. How is flying better than charging in a dungeon where the ceiling is too low to fly out of combat? C'mon now.
>assuming that animal advancement is there for you to use
...you're aware that the entries in the MM represent the smallest and weakest of every monster-type, right? Just like a level 1 is the smallest adventurer-type? It's as easy as telling your DM "I'm going to track a bigger wolf than these emaciated tiny ones." "Okay, roll Survival."
>That's spellcasting
Except his spellcasting is categorically weaker than Clerics and Mages. His ace was the built-in animal companion. That's the core of the CoDzilla nonsense. Do I have to school you on your own brand of babby's first powergaming?
>Go ahead and make a Monk that can compete with a Druid
The 1-7th Monk grapples the Druid and wins the fight. GG EZ
>"everything can be countered, therefore everything is balanced" being blatantly fallacious
Name something that can't be countered and I'll concede the whole argument to you. Go on. Don't even bother responding to the rest. Prove everyone wrong and show us the unbeatable combo. I'm waiting.

>>4018629
Whether something can be countered is useless information on its own, it's how easy it is to counter them that matters. Ex: Grapplers, counterspellers, and golems are theoretically the counter to Wizards that you'll see people talk about all the time... but for a grappler to shut down a 7+ Wizard who has DD prepared, they have to hit them with a touch attack, which can be a problem if miss chance gets involved, succeed at the grapple roll, which isn't a problem in and of itself, the Wizard has to fail his Concentration check to cast DD, and then in the next round, the grappler has to succeed on a second grapple check. None of those except for DD's Concentration check are a problem by themselves, but when they all add up, the odds of the grappler actually shutting down the spellcaster go pretty low to the point of it not working at all after a certain level, and certainly lower than the chance of inflicting enough damage to make them reconsider being on the battlefield. Counterspellers? They dedicate their whole round to countering a single spellcaster's single spell because it's a readied action, with all the problems inherent to readied actions in 3E already, and don't work reliably if the spell they're using to counterspell is Dispel Magic. From my perspective, an enemy spellcaster doing nothing but waiting for a Wizard to cast is a win/win situation: they aren't fucking the rest of the party in the ass Golems? Spell Immunity is infinite SR and their saves are shit. They're neutered by Wizards who know what they're doing with no effort.

Now compare that to a Fighter getting Greased. It's targeting his weak save and a skill that's double whammied by the class we're talking about: he doesn't have it on his skill list AND it takes armor check penalties. They're going to get stuck in place unable to do anything but plink away at enemies with ranged damage.

That Monk scenario is utter bullshit, by the way.

>>4018714
So you admit that there's nothing that isn't counterable. Neither your omghaXX0rz Mage by virtue of grapple, or grapple in and of itself. You've almost achieved true powergaming enlightenment.
>They're going to get stuck in place unable to do anything but plink away at enemies with ranged damage.
Remember how you groused about the Fighter taking ranged feats? Although personally, I don't know any Fighter worth his salt that doesn't immediately seek out and obtain a means of flight. 99% of any caster's arsenal is predicated on the "I fly out of his range!" tactic.

So, you were challenged to come up with an unbeatable tactic and couldn't. Can you even name a tactic that's difficult to deal with? Something one of the "unbalanced" classes can do that the "weak" ones can't easily cope with?

>>4018791
Won't happen. The fact is that skills trump everything else in the game, even spells. Handle Animal has already been discussed, but the really killer is Use Magic Device. A 10th level anything without the skill could still easily have hit high enough cross-class points to auto-activate any Wand or Scroll, and since 1's aren't automatic failures, you've just coopted all the spellcasting from every caster class.

The end result is that casters are only as strong as their class abilities. For Sorcerers and Wizards that means Familiars, Clerics have Turn Undead, Druids have Wild Shape and Animal Companions and Bards have their Bardic Music. It ends up, obviously, with Bards at the top of the heap.
>b-but the resource cost
Bringing us back to skills. The absolute most broken aspect of the game are the social skills. Like with UMD, a cross-classed anything can achieve absurd results with the likes of Bluff, Diplomacy, Forgery, etc.

The true powergaming redpill is in understanding that every mechanic in the game is exploitable. No one class, skill or ability is uniquely broken or unbalanced. It's purely about the skill of the player. That's all.

>>3989939
How's the npc mod for IWD 2?

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I want to get back to Arcanum and finally finish it but I remember that you need a shitton of pan patches and mods to get it working properly. Any recommendations ?

>>4019151
https://www.gog.com/forum/arcanum_of_steamworks_and_magick_obscura/must_have_arcanum_fan_patches_widescreen_and_more/page1
First post

>>4019151
i have the gog version, and it has a folder called patches with all the stuff >>4019153 mentioned.

/vr/ - two gay virgin grognards autistically arguing over whose neckbeard is bigger and more shit-stained

Sure is [Deleted] in here.

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sometimes I like to enter threads I have no idea about just to witness manchild neckbeard bickering over ancient vidya from an unbiased perspective. top kek.

>>4020331
you're late

>>4020337
I warosu'd it.

>>4020359
i can't believe warosu is fucking dead