Party with mostly ranged attacks. What is cheating?

[ElfBane]

Originally Posted by Illumina Drathiran'ar ElfBane- The bank is next door to the Merchant League, right? I never use it myself, but I do question why "I" threw out some of the more interesting trinkets the party was carrying. If he's hanging on to the Helm of Infravision and a Ring of Protection +1, why would he toss the Ring of Protection +2, the Robe of Good Archmagi, and a fascinating item like the Claw of Kazgaroth into the garbage heap? And that's all I have to say. For now.

Illumina, there is no 'real' bank building that I know of. My tongue was firmly in cheek when I made that comment.

[el_kalkylus]

Originally Posted by Illumina Drathiran'ar I think one needs to draw a distinction between using the CLUA console and such to make the game less tedious at times, and using "legal" exploits that I would consider cheating. For example, I tend to be a sticker about stats. Putting more points into critical stats is one thing- after all, one wouldn't expect someone with a Strength of 9 and a Constitution of 11 to be the warrior type. And nobody's going to study magery with an Intelligence of 12. However, I for one consider a Charisma of less than 8 to be cheating. How on Chauntea's green planet are you going to convince a group of up to 5 other to follow you around and obey your commands if you have the appearance and personal magentism of a mustard jelly? Similarly, a Wisdom or Intelligence score of under 7 (preferably a minimum of 8 or 9) is blatantly unrealistic. If you can't bark out coherent commands, all hope is lost. Every party is different, of course, and a character like Minsc illustrates the personality that comes with Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma of 8, 6, and 9, respectively. It's ridiculous to give yourself a Charisma of 3 knowing that you'll get the Ring of Human Influence to make up for it. You simply wouldn't make it past the Friendly Arm Inn with a stat that low. "We don't serve your kind of rifraff here." So that would be cheating, even though it's legal. Control-J and Dungeon-Be-Gone, however, are examples of things that I would consider fine. Nobody wants to tromp all the way through the Umar Hills every time they want to complete a subquest. However, if you're using Control-J to avoid battles, that would then be wrong. It's been brought up before, but I want to state it for the record- Cloudkilling a group of zombies in the fog of war is fine. They're zombies! Mind flayers, on the other hand, would never stand in a cloud of toxic vapors. And trust me, they know how to open doors. Fireballing groups of enemies in a similar manner is debatable. If you're walking through a populated area or some other place where you wouldn't normally expect a battle reeks of cheese and foul play. However, if you're in a dungeon, you COULD make the argument that you had a thief scouting ahead... if you've played the game before. MAYBE. But I know that when I replayed BG for the first time in ages, you better believe that I had Coran and Imoen in their Boots of Stealth and Shadow Armor (for the latter) checking out the Firewine Ruins for traps and foes. ElfBane- The bank is next door to the Merchant League, right? I never use it myself, but I do question why "I" threw out some of the more interesting trinkets the party was carrying. If he's hanging on to the Helm of Infravision and a Ring of Protection +1, why would he toss the Ring of Protection +2, the Robe of Good Archmagi, and a fascinating item like the Claw of Kazgaroth into the garbage heap? And that's all I have to say. For now.

I agree with all that for the most part, but I don't see the point of having charisma though. It should be sufficient if the leader/protagonist has good/decent charisma.

Here are the stats that my team has (all good aligned except protagonist who is neutral):

* Male Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief - Protagonist (9 str, 19 dex, 17 con, 18 int, 18 wis, 8 cha)
* Female Half-elf Cleric/Ranger (18 str, 18 dex, 18 con, 11 int, 18 wis, 3 cha)
* Female Human Kensai(13)/Mage (18 str, 18 dex, 18 con, 18 int, 7 wis, 3 cha)
* Male Dwarf Kensai (18 str, 17 dex, 19 con, 18 int, 7 wis, 2 cha)
* Female Elf Archer (18 str 19 dex 17 con 8 int 15 wis 14 cha)
* Male Human Inquisitor (18 str 18 dex 18 con 6 int 13 wis 17 cha)

For the protagonist, I wanted 19 dex, 18 int and 18 wis at least because of lore, higher chance to scribe, better AC and better thieving skills at start. Charisma of 8 is the lowest number.
There are 3 uncharismatic characters in my team, but on the other hand we have a not so bright Inquisitor who means well and is charismatic (17 cha!). My female archer had such a nice picture that I put charisma to 14 at least.

What do you think? Is this cheating by giving my partymembers these stats?

[SixOfSpades]

No, it's not cheating, as cheating and powergaming are completely different things. There's even "roleplay" cheating, where if I roll a character with great physical stats but utter crap in INT, WIS & CHA, I will sometimes hack those stats higher because there's no way a character could grow up in Candlekeep and still come out a moron, and if you're going to be party leader or have a Romance, having a sub-par Charisma is something of a glaring flaw. Now, I would mostly only do this for Warrior-type characters, as the mental stats are basically just window-dressing for them: I could hack them all the way up to 25 and the actual impact on the game would still be minimal, the only real effect would be to make me, the player, feel better about using this guy as my personal avatar in-game. I will also sometimes hack certain stats lower: I once built an Elven F/M/T to be a mean, foul-mouthed, ugly little pustule of a fellow, so I gave him the Gnomish Fighter animation instead of the Elven Fighter one, and edited his Charisma (which cannot legally be less than 8) down to 4.

I'm not going to bag on you (any more than I already have ) for building such an obviously powergamed party, as that's precisely your intent: To show a display of pure power. So the criticisms/suggestions I'm about to give are coming directly from my powergaming half.
1. You should pretend that you took this party through BG1/ToSC first. At the very beginning of the game, edit their EXP up to 161,000, and distribute the following Tomes/stats among your party, however you think best: 1 STR, 1 DEX, 1 CON, 1 INT, 3 WIS, 1 CHA.
2. Your F/M/T and Dwarven Kensai have absolutely no need for those maxed-out INT & WIS scores--even for Lore, as the highest Lore in the party is going to come from your Kensai->Mage.
3. Your F/M/T doesn't even need a high INT for scribing scrolls, as that's what Potions of Genius & Mind Focusing are for.
4. The party seems a little low on Thieves, although that's mainly just personal preference. Having the Archer handle Stealth while the F/M/T works Traps & Locks would work out, but I like having a good Backstabber on the team as well, so personally I would make the Dwarf a Fighter/Thief.

[el_kalkylus]

Thanks for your input SixOfSpades. Exactly, I'm powergaming, not cheating. There is a difference. I see your point of stats for roleplaying purposes. I like to think of my partymembers as persons with feelings (or with lack of feelings) as well.

1. You should pretend that you took this party through BG1/ToSC first. At the very beginning of the game, edit their EXP up to 161,000, and distribute the following Tomes/stats among your party, however you think best: 1 STR, 1 DEX, 1 CON, 1 INT, 3 WIS, 1 CHA. 2. Your F/M/T and Dwarven Kensai have absolutely no need for those maxed-out INT & WIS scores--even for Lore, as the highest Lore in the party is going to come from your Kensai->Mage. 3. Your F/M/T doesn't even need a high INT for scribing scrolls, as that's what Potions of Genius & Mind Focusing are for. 4. The party seems a little low on Thieves, although that's mainly just personal preference. Having the Archer handle Stealth while the F/M/T works Traps & Locks would work out, but I like having a good Backstabber on the team as well, so personally I would make the Dwarf a Fighter/Thief.

1. Yeah maybe I'll do that. Not sure if the added bonus will actually add much in terms of power, but they definately will help my cause.
2. Actually I checked the difference of lore between my F/M/T and my kensai/mage, and my kensai/mage need to have more wisdom to ever have more lore than my F/M/T. Maybe when I reach the very end of ToB, the kensai/mage will have more lore because the bonus from 18 int and 18 wis is quite large. My dwarf doesn't need 18 intelligence. That's true I just had some points left over, so I figured I just put them into intelligence. Low charisma and high intelligence sort of go hand in hand. Imagine a narcisstic dwarf.
3. True. I use potions anyway normally. I do get more spells to cast after rest with higher intelligence though.
4. Trust me, with this party you don't need a thief to backstab. Yeah, I use my archer as a scout. I can also use my cle-ran as a scout if I want because she doesn't have to use plate mail since she's rarely targeted. My F/M/T is doing basically everything from finding and disarming traps, picking up stuff, opening chests, and identifying items, so I don't need another thief I think even if it's nice to backstab.

I loved the combo Kensai/thief by the way. The assassin is kind of weak with only 1 attack/round and low hit points compared to kensai level 13 who has 2 attacks/round and much more hit points.

[SixOfSpades]

Originally Posted by el_kalkylus Exactly, I'm powergaming, not cheating.

Well, doing a gem/potion swap or hacking in gold is still cheating, no matter how you justify it. Bad idea if you want to hold this party up as an example.

1. Not sure if the added bonus will actually add much in terms of power, but they definately will help my cause.

Not much in terms of power?
STR: Giving it to anyone but your F/M/T will boost their melee THAC0/Damage by as much as -2/+4, respectively.
DEX: Giving it to your F/M/T will give him 26 extra points of Thieving skills.
CON: Giving it to your Dwarf will allow him to naturally regenerate 1 hitpoint per turn. Give it to anyone else to raise their maximum hitpoints by 9.
INT: Essentially does bugger all. All characters need at least 9 INT to be able to read scrolls, though.
WIS: Give all 3 to your Ranger/Cleric for a total of 6 additional spellslots per day.
CHA: Give it to your Inquisitor & make him the party leader for increased discounts when you go shopping--the discount is capped at 20 CHA.

2. Actually I checked the difference of lore between my F/M/T and my kensai/mage, and my kensai/mage need to have more wisdom to ever have more lore than my F/M/T.

False. In terms of Lore, you have a third of a Thief competing against a nearly pureclassed Mage--that's not a race that the F/M/T can win. Disregarding bonuses from stats, the K->M will surpass the F/M/T by the end of SoA. And the required INT for the K->M is much higher, so you might as well make the K->M be your Loreboy.

3. I do get more spells to cast after rest with higher intelligence though.

No, you don't. You've got INT confused with WIS.

[Kyrvias]

Originally Posted by SixOfSpades No, you don't. You've got INT confused with WIS.

In Baldurs gate 1, and I think it's fine to assume it's the same in 2, Intelligence effects how many spells you can have in your spellbook at any given time. 18 is all of them, etc. Pretty sure the actual table is in the manual, though I'm not sure if it's accurate (some tables aren't). Either way, the numbers are around those.

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

Originally Posted by ElfBane Illumina, there is no 'real' bank building that I know of. My tongue was firmly in cheek when I made that comment.

As was mine. Give me some credit

[el_kalkylus]

Originally Posted by SixOfSpades Not much in terms of power? STR: Giving it to anyone but your F/M/T will boost their melee THAC0/Damage by as much as -2/+4, respectively. DEX: Giving it to your F/M/T will give him 26 extra points of Thieving skills. CON: Giving it to your Dwarf will allow him to naturally regenerate 1 hitpoint per turn. Give it to anyone else to raise their maximum hitpoints by 9. INT: Essentially does bugger all. All characters need at least 9 INT to be able to read scrolls, though. WIS: Give all 3 to your Ranger/Cleric for a total of 6 additional spellslots per day. CHA: Give it to your Inquisitor & make him the party leader for increased discounts when you go shopping--the discount is capped at 20 CHA. False. In terms of Lore, you have a third of a Thief competing against a nearly pureclassed Mage--that's not a race that the F/M/T can win. Disregarding bonuses from stats, the K->M will surpass the F/M/T by the end of SoA. And the required INT for the K->M is much higher, so you might as well make the K->M be your Loreboy. No, you don't. You've got INT confused with WIS.

I read the manual again, and you're right. Intelligence is about how many spells you can scribe, not how many spells you can cast. I don't think 18 intelligence allows you to scribe all spells. You need 19 or more to do so. Doesn't matter though, as you use potions when you scribe.

I want my F/M/T to be my loreboy because he is picking up everything. It's more convenient that way.

Regarding the bonuses from BG1, I am just going to give it all to my protagonist. The dexterity and con will be a good bonus. The strength will not be noticable, since I will use spells to increase strength, or potions or items. The intelligence and wisdom bonus will be good for additional lore. I'm not sure if his chance to withstand spells becomes higher with higher int and wis. Regarding discounts, I use to items and boost myself to 25 charisma with the spell "Friends". I didn't know that the discount was capped at 20. I guess I won't have to bother with 25 charisma anymore then.

Thanks for the info!