I recently decided too blow some more life into my old, tatty and nearly worn out Copy of BG1 and play through it with a solo thief. I succeded felt good about it and then reinstalled SOA and changed my Thief to an assassin. One feature of the thief that i had never used in my previous games of BG was the set snare ability, this soon changed there is no way I would have made my way through the game with out them. With SOA complete I decided to reinstall TOB and for the extra challenge installed the David Gaiders Tougher baddy mods (You know the ones, tougher demogorgon, illasera, gromnir and the others). When I got upto tougher demogorgon I was expecting the toughest fight i have ever had, especially after reading some of the posts on this forum, but instead i dissapointedly watched him drop dead in the first few seconds of the fight. I had set 7 spike traps before the fight and just as the fight was initiated he dropped by them, and set back to the lower planes.

This got me thinking traps seem to be to overpowered in the game, every time I have come across a challenging battle in the game all i have done is set traps and then lured the enemies over. It's kind of stole all my glory from my first solo attempt, I just dont feel like i have earned it.

So what is everyone else's oppinions on the power of traps?

P.S - Here's a quick question, I have heard lots of people say that fire giants are immune to backstab, it works fine for me. Is this prehaps because I am an assassin rather than a plain thief or one of the other kits or because I play on core rules rather than normal or is it just a load of rubbish and fire giants can be back stabbed.

personally, i think the traps are just fine. it offsets the fact that you are a crappy fighter in comparison to warriors, cant use magic, and cant wear decent armor. technically, use any item is a bit overpowered too, but not many people complain about it. im not saying you are complaining however. i think the traps are a good idea, and i invest in them early on. hell, what good is a thief, if he cant SET the traps that he can disarm?

[ 05-07-2002, 09:11 PM: Message edited by: Morgan_Corbesant ]

If you use the traps the cheap way, by stacking them all on top of each other, or setting them where you somehow *know* the enemy will appear, or setting them near the feet of an enemy who isn't hostile *yet,* then yes, Traps are MEGA-cheesy.

If, however, you play nice by Stealthing ahead, seeing bad guys, coming back & laying your Traps at least 5 feet apart, then luring the enemies over them, Traps are NOT quite so cheesy.

Traps will always have their current cheesy odor because they'll hit any enemy within 20-30 feet, and NOTHING can block their attack. Protection from Normal, Protection from Magical, Stoneskin, Absolute Immunity, Death Ward, Protection from Energy........Traps ignore them all.

But then, you're soloing, so do what you gotta do. All the enemies worth Backstabbing are immune to Backstab (especially in ToB), so Traps are the only choice you've got, unless you want to get REALLY unrealistic and start casting millions of high-level spells from scrolls.

try the ascention battle.............haer dalis is a damn good spike trap setter........
see how easily the five laugh off traps.........
have fun