[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by mad=dog: Ultimately you'll have to ask yourself if it isn't better to challenge yourself by not saving than using (rediculously) powerful monster foes. You get an enormous sense of danger and accomplishment if it's back to casa Irenicus when you die. Or alternatively your last autosave. I have yet to finish the game this way. An awful lot of the game is designed to accommodate reloads or at least it seems like it. Regardless my congratulations. You set your goal and you met it.

I don't fully understand the last part of your statement that I highlighted, mad=dog. It may be a mis-type or part of the language barrier, but the last part just doesn't make sense to me.

As for having to ask myself if I'm satisfied with my tactics, the answer is "Of course I am." I play the game to satisfy ME and nobody else, so I honostly don't care one bit if somebody else considers my tactics cheating, cheesy, or anything else. I'm married with 3 kids and I simply don't have a whole lot of free time to play on the PC under the best of circumstances....so I haven't played through the game 20 dozen times like some others here. In fact, I've only completed BGII ONCE - and that was with a Wizard Slayer that I dualed to a Thief (which many consider cheesy). I have two games currently in progress - one with an assassin and one with a kensai that I will most likely dual to mage.

I gave my Wizard Slayer an awesome item from Arundor's Abode because it (a) fit the character kit perfectly, and (b) helped compensate for the severe restrictions the kit has on magic items it can use. I also gave my assassin a non-standard sword that I designed (but another member actually created) that fits his persona perfectly. In the meantime, I have an elven ranger in BGI that I plan to import to BGII eventually. I gave him (and the rest of the party) elven chain mail and I plan to use the PAUSE/FREEZE trick in the opening scene of BGII that allows you to keep your items from BGI because I feel my elven ranger deserves to have his elven chain mail.

On the other hand, I created the Skald with the sole purpose of seeing if I could defeat Ilyich and his crew with a solo character using nothing more than the items I found in the dungeon. I also created a female elven fighter/mage for the same purpose in case I wasn't able to defeat Ilyich with a bard. I don't have a problem with Saving the game after killing some of the members. Watch any movie where one guy (or gal) has to kill an entire group of enemies (Die Hard comes to mind off the top of my head). Does the hero just charge into the group's HQ with guns blazing? Nope. He tries to pick them off one or two at a time. And when he DOES kill off one or two, he doesn't get and rush right after the rest of the group. He usually takes what he can use off the ones he killed, then falls back to regroup and reevaluate what move he should take next. That's basically what I did.

Besides, like I said, it took many attempts before I actually managed to get my spell off on Karamazov AND have her fail her Save. The idea of having to go ALL the way back to the beginning of the fight from that point and start over from scratch just doesn't appeal to me. And - as I said before - I just don't have that kind of spare time either.

I don't mean to RANT, but I really do get peeved when I see veteran members here take a condescending tone towards others because they used tactics that are considered "cheesy" or they maxed out their fighters physical stats and gave them Grandmastery in a weapon only because they know they will find a powerful version of that weapon in the game. Well so freakin' what??? If somebody else wants to play a shapeshifter druid that never attacks with anything but a sling, fine, go ahead...but don't take an attitude with me because I max out my tank and give them a heavy duty warhammer in each hand so they just pulverize the enemy.

Each person has to decide for themself what brings them the most enjoyment from the game. Aside from that, I really couldn't care less what anybody else thinks of how I play the game. Sure, it's nice to get the praise from other members for defeating a particularly powerful monster - but I am just as satisfied with my tactics and accomplishments whether I receive the praise or not.

Just as a point of clarification, I am not directing the RANT specifically at you, mad=dog, and I sincerely apologize if it comes across that way. I've never seen you make the type of post I'm ranting against (and I certainly didn't take your response to my post in that manner). But I have seen those types of posts here frequently in the past (by many different members) and my RANT is directed at those posts in general rather than being directed at any specific member.