Category: Roleplaying

Report Content

• Soloing - the Introduction
• The Blade Kit explained
• Used Baldur’s Gate II Setup

1. Part 1: Irenicus’ Dungeon
2. Part 2: The Circus Tent & Slums Slaves
3. Part 3: A Tanner & More Slaves
4. Part 4: The Astral Prison
5. Part 5: Daystar & Mae’Var
6. Part 6: Some Beholders & a Lich
7. Part 7: Druid Grove & Guarded Compound
8. Part 8: Planar Sphere & Kangaxx!
9. Part 9: The Shadow Temple

Introduction

With a small group of Forgotten Realms fans at Shrimprefuge, we decided to take on the Baldur’s Gate world using only one character (hence solo). For most of us, this will be the first solo run so I figured we (and other readers) could use a report writeup as the characters progress through the game.

Before picking the class bard and kit blade, I did some basic research on how to play and which strategy should work - and which won’t. The most resourceful report was definatly andijvieschotel’s one from the BioWare forums. Thanks to him, I managed to get through some very otherwise tough portions of the game, especially in the beginning. Let’s get on with it, shall we.

The Blade Kit

For those who are not very familiar with Bards in Baldur’s Gate, here is the official kit description.

The blade is an expert fighter and adventurer, whose bardic acting abilities make him appear more intimidating and fearsome. His fighting style is flashy and entertaining, but is also quite deadly.

Advantages

May use Offensive Spin and Defensive Spin abilities once per day per 4 levels. Offensive Spin lasts 24 seconds, granting the blade +2 to hit, +2 to damage, and an extra attack. As well, all of his attacks do maximum damage for the duration. Defensive Spin lasts 24 seconds, roots him to the spot, but gives -1 AC per level of experience. This armor class bonus does not go over -10.

May place three slots into two-weapon fighting style.

Disadvantages

Only has one-half normal Lore value.
Only has one-half Pick Pockets percentage;
Bard Song does not become better with levels.

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I’m getting fairly tired of defending Arcanum on various *cough, console lovers* message boards and against friends. Everybody seems to prefer Oblivion-style Roleplaying gameplay mechanics. Fine by me, but don’t try to piss RPG Codex members and me off by complaining about the bug fest in Troika’s games. During my more than 5 playthroughs (admittedly never got to the finish, fooling around with different characters is even funnier), I never encountered a single “bug“. Except the obvious not-so-finished questlines in later stages of the game. Point the finger to the publishers, not to Troika.

Because, in Arcanum, everybody reacts on everything in a unique way. No NPC interactions are scripted (as seen in the NPC Interaction tests)! This makes debugging a more than difficult task of course. Read the interview for details. Here’s the most important part, carefully preserved for future quotage:

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Not only heaven, but the Mandate of heaven. Also known as Might & Magic VI. Also known as “oh noes, shitty engine, let’s rate it below 80%”. Also known as “oh noes, can’t move in battle!”. Also known as “oh noes, realistic portraits are ugly!”. Also known as “oh noes, VII and VIII are cheap rip-offs!”. I can keep this up for a few more hours, but I’ll spare you that. So I recently bought the original Might & Magic VI box with a lot of goodie contents (reference, thick manual, cloth map!). I do have to admit I like VII a little bit better, or maybe even VIII for that matter. I started playing Might & Magic thanks to Day of the Destroyer, the 8th revision, which everybody seems to despite.

Well Look at that. A cardboard box! Golden Age.

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Not many first person action Roleplaying games are well known, except the Ultima Underground series and of course the Elder Scrolls games. FP RPGs date back from Wizardry, Eye of the Beholder and Might & Magic, but none of those games actually enable you to swing with a sword in a real time fashion. The Gothic games utilize the third person camera angle, so the only games which might get remotely close to being Arx Fatalis are Daggerfall/Morrowind and Ultima Underworld.

What does Morrowind share with Arx Fatalis? Arx is a FP RPG, combat is basically hit- and run tactics, eurhm… I guess that’s it! Not quite a lot indeed. It is safe to assume Arx Fatalis was meant to be Ultima Underworld III. As Wikipedia states, Arkane Studios couldn’t get the proper license for the name, but in the end that doesn’t really matter. Arx is a pure dungeon crawler, you will never see big open (and mostly empty) spaces as seen in Morrowind. You will never see more than 5 cities with enourmous amounths of NPCs without any realistic conversations. And that’s good.

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Lots of misunderstanding exist for breaking through the spell protections of high level spell casting creatures. This guide is an almost exact copy of zvijers guide at the gone forgotten wars forum, also carried on by “The Hero’s Guide to a Successful adventure“. I found this to be very informative and vital for solo runs. The strategies explain mage protections in weimer’s Tactics modification.
All credits go to Xyx, Alson and Littiz for their Spell Reference Guide!

Article Index

1. Spell Protection Categories
2. Remove Magic VS Breach
3. Smarter Magics: Unable to defeat?
4. Beating difficult Mages without magic
5. Cheesy ways of getting rid of Liches

Last Update: February 02, 2007, at 11:35 PM

Spell Protection categories

So What is spell protection? Spell protection is in 3 catagories…spell protection to protect you from physical damage, like stoneskin, and protection from magic weapons. It is also elemental protection, like protection from cold, and protection from the elements. And last, protection from spells, like spell trap and spell shield. So, to be able to punch thru protection spells, you need in your arsenal spells that can destroy all 3 types of spell protection, right? Wrong! Now due to the way the game works, protection from spells is incredibly easy to get around…simply hit the target with area effect spells…like my favorite, incindiary cloud, or abi dahzim’s horrid wiltings…since a protection from spells DEPENDS on the enemy casting a spell directly at you, like polymorph other, or magic missile, if your enemy hits you with a area effect spell, or just plain bashes you with this big hammer, all the protection from spells in the game wont help you at all…so this means that the spell turning, spell trap, globe of invulnerability and spell shield that enemy mages put up are completely useless…you hit the mage or spell casting monster with an area effect spell, or holy avenger, and all the protection from spells it casts does nothing…
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Party Numer TWO - 06 Jan. 2006

Download savegame here!

Savegame #2, 06 Jan. 2006 (Warning: mods required, see below)

Attitude: Xandarr, my main character. I decided to create a melee divine spellcaster, for the very first time, since I’ve been using Arcane Magic way too much. I ended up with three members who are able to cast divinity spells, which is awesome. Xandarr is also the main melee mob killer, besides Keldorn. He performs this job very well using two maces or a flail, fully buffed up with his own spells. Type: Human Chaotic Good, Cleric/Ranger Name: Xandarr Strength: dual wielding melee combat, maces/flails, divine magic	Attitude: Ah, my beloved Inquisitor. I love this guy, especially when he’s wielding the Holy Avenger, the +5 two-handled sword carefully preserved by Firkraag. The only paladin in the game. His only weak point is the low DEX, but that can be easily fixed by a pair of gauntlets. Keldorn’s True Sight and Dispel Magic are very powerful and useful too. Type: Human Lawful Good, Inquisitor Name: Keldorn Strength: melee 2-handled swords, crossbows, innate abilities
Attitude: I never picked up Valygar, besides the planar sphere quest. My party is always too full. Instead of creating the cheesy Kensai/mage I’m used to, I am doing fine unlocking Valygar’s true powers: also katana’s of course. Give him a pair of haste boots and some buffs and watch him kill. As a ranger, Valygar can also cast some useful (divine, again) spells. Radical Enemy is a plus! Type: Human, Chaotic Good, Stalker Name: Valygar Strength: dual wielding melee combat, katana’s, special abilities	Attitude: Cernd is the only Druid/shapeshifter in the game and it’s time to spread the word: shapeshifters are powerful if you use the right strategy. Partially thanks to the shapeshifter fix modification, of course. And Cernd has access to some pretty powerful spells, and can serve as a backup healer. Yes. Type: Human, True Neutral, Shapeshifter Name: Cernd Strength: melee (shapeshifted), divine magic
Attitude: I cannot live without a proper backup mage, whether it’s a silly Illusionist or not. I did not rescue my sister yet, so chances are I’ll ditch Jan in the future. I know all his silly stories and he was never really useful, except as a backup. But I need some thief abilities (my previous main char was an assassin). Type: Gnome, Chaotic Neutral - Illusionist/thief Name: Jan Janssen Strength: Magic: Illusions, ranged - crossbows	Attitude: Ah, the main damage output has finally arrived. There is sadly no sorcerer present in the unmodified version of BG2, and I cannot live without Kelsey anymore. He never ever let me down: whether it’s spamming fireballs or lowering mage’s resistances and breaching their shields. Less spell picks, more spell memorization slots. That’s a pretty good deal. Type: Human, Lawful Neutral Sorcerer Name: Kelsey Strength: Arcane magic.

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• Party Number ONE - 31 July 2003
  Download SaveGame #one
• Party Number TWO - 04 June 2004
  Download SaveGame #two
• Party Number THREE - 21 January 2005
  Download SaveGame #three

Remember, you will need something like WinRAR to extract the file…

Party Numer ONE - 31 July 2003

Attitude: This was probably the easiest char I’ve ever played in wizardry 8… And he’s quite boring too. Well they are excellent professions early & mid-game those fighters, but tend to be very boring late-game because everything is maxed. They level fast too. He liked to whack every living being he saw - poor Crock… Type: Male Lizardman Fighter Name: Slickrokka Rwhak Strength: melee combat, sword & shield	Attitude: I was very disappointed when this guy reached level 10 (in Trynton). He just missed 75% of the blows and his magic was quite weak. The problem was not the profession “priest” but me assigning wrong skill points, hehe… Well the first time everything goes wrong I guess. Type: Male Dwarf Priest Name: Borlak Torgal Strength: Divinity, melee combat using mace & shield
Attitude: Holy crap this guy can really dish out some serious damage! He single handly managed to disable several enemies before the others even reached them. The thieves daggers, 10% kill is very powerfull. Including the x5 backstab multiplier and locks & traps. He levelled quite fast too. Amazing easy! Type: Male Hobbit Rogue Name: Bilbo Balings Strength: melee combat, dual daggers	Attitude: The ranged char. Nothing much to say except her scouting skill was very very handy. I really love to scout around and the “Found something!” sound coming out of your boxes is quite satisfacting. Later I found out there also excists “Find Secrets” - and because the ranger never did great damage; she won’t go along with me the next few times… Type: Female Mook Ranger Name: Mokka Uruk-hai (lol you got that) Strength: ranged combat, bow & scouting
Attitude: She was the most deadly character I think, it’s a long time ago. I do know her magic spells were quite great and effective too. But after level 15 she didn’t really learn any interesing new spells and became quite boring. Because the samurai also uses wizardry, I won’t have another mage in my next parties… Type: Female Faerie Mage Name: Elunah Flyby Strength: Wizardry, throwing & sling	Attitude: Everyone and their grandmother were talking about the famous “know-it-all” guy, the bard. Yeah whatever I tought, but I still wanted to try it out just to be sure nobody was making a fool out of me. Well I have to say she did quite well, especially after finding some nice lutes which is quite easy to do. The +STAT item gear you can aquire makes it even better! Type: Female Hobbit Bard Name: Vanessa Sjilitor Strength: Music & melee combat, not sure

Conclusion - My first attempt to Wizardry 8 failed, just like all of you guys, hehehe. I lost track of my character progression tables when I came back from Marten’s Bluff and stopped playing for a while. After “researching” some, the second try was a very nice attempt to ascend. Or let’s say better than the first one, hehe. The fighter & rogue were good but boring, the mage had too less spells, the priest couln’t hit anything and the ranger didn’t damage anything. They are all around level 13. Actually I’m lying right now; this is not the first party. I did 2 parties before, but they aren’t even worth this page, go figure.

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• Party Number ONE - November 2004
  Download SaveGame one
• Party Number TWO - 01 February 2005
  Download SaveGame two

You will need something like WinRAR to extract the file…

Party Numer ONE - November 2004

[ Top ]

Level - 25.
Laprovski - Male Dwarf - Raised by Monks
Skills - Technologist: firearms, gunsmithy, electricity & explosives
Stats - First PER Second INT Third DEX

After a few tries, this dwarf managed to get himself to Tarant. There, the beautiful game acutally started with so many options - especially for technology! The dozens of shops give you plenty of possibilities and you’ll never run out of your own gadgets. This was the *decent* first-try char, but actually I would like to have a few things changed - that’ll be for the next few plays. He has 2 degrees in electricity for the “charged rings” which raise your DEX by 2 each and since I didn’t have enough that’s good. The backup plan is throwing but I didn’t get enough points and a decent non-bullet-consuming weapon… Explosives for the damage & pushing monsters backwards, works really nice. Prowling is good too but your followers tend to disagree, heh.

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A few days ago, Obsidian’s modular Roleplaying game Neverwinter Nights 2 was released. NWN is well-known for its overwhelming amounth of fan-made modules and even whole Community Packs. This is the result of BioWare’s powerful Aurora Engine toolkit, which came packaged with the game. So actually it’s not that strange the game gets so much attention - take a look at UT2004’s numberous modifications or Total Conversions: with UnrealEd this is all possible.

BioWare’s previous critically acclaimed Roleplaying game, Baldur’s Gate II, did not feature any toolkits when it was released in 2000. BG2 used Planescape Torment’s and Icewind Dale’s Infinity Engine to render scenes. (Acutally the Infinity Engine was first used in BG1, released in 1998. Black Isle did Planescape in 1999) Thanks to BG’s widely accepted “Best RPG Game ever” state, fans started engineering tools to hack the file system used by this engine. Various File extractors and speech decompilers started showing up and before you know it, complete Conversions for Baldur’s Gate became available! Let’s dig really deep and list a (short, can’t possibly list everything) couple of popular modifications for Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn, and for the expansion pack, Throne of Bhaal.

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RPGs aren’t that rare anymore (good ones are), especially not on the console. Developers like to copy previous used techniques and concepts as it reduces the effort needed to finalize their own product, ànd this gives a familiar look which mostly means guaranteed sales. But are these mechanics good enough? Do they work? Are you roleplaying or watching a scripted scene full of soulless characters? Let’s have an in-depth look at nowadays Roleplaying Games with their biggest strengths and weaknesses.

There is so much to be seen and done in a typical RPG, it’s impossible to write a short article about. Instead, let’s review some of the basic and most used aspects of computer/console Roleplaying games. Below is a short breakdown of several concepts. They will get updated regulary, hopefully.

1. NPC interaction techniques | Watch NPC reaction videos! >>
2. Correct Item Placement
3. (Over)world systems and travelling
4. party building
5. member customization
6. battle sequences: random or not?
7. do’s and don’s of level grinding

I should warn you however, before you continue to read one of the article’s contents. Some negative criticism can be rather subjective. If you disagree and would like to enlighten us further, please do leave a comment as everything is of course open for discussion. Oh and there could be slight spoilers present without my direct knowledge. Sorry about that.

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