Idea:The "who killed whom?" competiton. spoilers.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

No problems, mad=dog. As I said, my RANT wasn't generated towards you at all. It was just a culmination of comments made by several different members over a period of time.

I see newbies come here and start a thread with the statement "Is this cheating?" My answer is always, "So what if it is? If you are happy with your character and your game, then what difference does it make what anybody else thinks??"

And yet, I still see some of the veteran members who have played the game until they know every encounter backwards and forwards come in and say "Well, you do what you want to, but if you REALLY want fully ENJOY the game - you should avoid cheap tactics."

Hey, guess what, I REALLY ENJOY NOT BEING KILLED!!! So if I'm less experienced and have to use a "cheap tactic" to stay alive, then that is what I will do.

I do understand - to a degree - where the veterans are coming from. While I haven't played through the entire game more than once, I have done the encounter with Improved Ilyich 4-5 times now. Each encounter was a little easier than the last, so now I'm testing different classes to see how their abilities and skills stack up in a tough fight.

I tried a Jester class, because I thought his Bard Song would be able to Confuse at least some of the group, and I might be able to actually take on Ilyich and his crew head on instead of using "bait and trap" tactics. Then I discovered that a bard can't take any other action while singing his song. Well, that just ruined the effectiveness of the Bard Song Ability for me. As far as I'm concerned, the Bard Song is worthless. I can get the same basic benefits from a Defensive Harmony spell and my cleric will still be free to help fight the enemy instead of standing off to the side chanting continuously.

And if I'm doing the Bard Song incorrectly, then PLEASE feel free to tell me so.

I don't mind advice or suggestions about my tactics. I certainly don't mind somebody suggesting a BETTER way to kill an enemy. I just get tired of hearing some members take a bit of a snobbish attitude and say "Well, you can do that if you want...but it is usually considered cheesy". Big Whoop-De-Doo. So that member thinks my tactic is cheesy. Golly, I'm crushed.

I see now what you were saying earlier about making the monsters more powerful to make the game more challenging. That was great example of the thief having his PickPocket skills buffed up, but STILL being worried about whether or not he should go through with it. That definitely adds a serious edge to the game, but to be honost, I wouldn't enjoy a game like that very much. I would HATE to get far into the game and then be sent all the way back to Character Creation because of one mistake or bad decision.

I suppose going back to the last AutoSave wouldn't be so bad,though - and would make players consider their actions a lot more seriously than they do now.

I admit that I use the Save function more than I probably should. I definitely Save after every major battle, but I also tend to Save before any Big Decision (such as whether or not I should try to rob Bertram(?) at the Coppor Coronet or just pay for the stuff I want). So I will usually Save and then try the theft to see what happens. If I mess up, no problem, cause I can Rewind back to just before I screwed up.

Of course, I justify that type of action by marking it up as a learning experience.

For instance, I DID decide to steal what I wanted from the Coppor Coronet when I was playing my assassin (after all, that just seems natural). I had Yoshimo do the dirty work because he had a better percentage in his PickPocket skills. By Saving te game and Rewinding when he messed up, I learned that he needs to drink AT LEAST 3-4 Potions of Master Thievery before he even THINKS about trying to grab the stuff. Now, the next time I am in that situation with another character, I may use the Save, or I may just gulp down several potions and take my chances.

Another example of using the Save function for Roleplaying purposes came in my most recent game. My PC is a female Kensai and I downloaded the Kelsey Mod as a romance option for her (and so I can learn a little bit about playing a sorcerer). After adding him to the party, we went by the jail and saw a drow elf about to be burned at the stake. I was in a bit of a quandry because drow are usually evil and I had no way of knowing whether or not she deserved the punishment she was about to recieve. While I was trying to decide what to do, the cleric cast Pillar of Fire and killed her. I Reloaded the game and went through the scenario again. The drow is evil and my character is Neutral Good, so would she even bother to interfere, or would she just let "justice" take it's course. Each party member had an opinion to offer, but the one that convinced me I SHOULD intervene was Minsc. If a ranger felt it was wrong to kill the drow, then that was good enough for my character. Now if she had been LAWFUL Good, I couldn't justify her intervening. Because the drow has supposedly been found guilty "by the law"..and Lawful Good characters usually adhere to the laws of the town or city they are in, even if they disagree with them. Now I admit that killing an innocent person would be a case where an LG character could go against their code and "break the law"...but my PC simply doesn't have enough info to justify that decision if they are LG.

Well now I'm beginning to Ramble instead of Rant, so I'll quit typing (for now anyway ).

I do want to apologize again if you felt I was directing my comments towards you personally. I certainly didn't mean for it to sound that way, although I realized that it DID sound like that when I re-read my post. So the fault is mine, not yours.

And I think I have exceeded my Thread Derailment Quota for today, so we may need to start a new thread if we are going to continue this type of discussion.

[mad=dog]

Funny. Seems like both of us had some bottled up opinions and simultaniously triggered them. .

Bard Songs are practically redundant. I don't know why they bothered with it. It would be better if they made a minor PERMANENT effect due to pure inspiration.
I must admit I like Blades at lot. Shame they got their spell progression slaughtered.

"I would HATE to get far into the game and then be sent all the way back to Character Creation because of one mistake or bad decision."
So you would think per intuition, but you'd be surprised at how often you make the right choice when the consequences are dire. Problem is that in BG this kind of roleplaying isn't rewarded (it would be in Pn'P) and mindless slaughter is.
Using autosaves would be a nice way to practise. If you die you can try again, perhaps with a lower difficulty, until you find the right order of affairs with the least risk.
After playing CRPGs for a while (Daggerfall AFAIR) we switched back to Pen n' Paper. After a really bad decision one of my players said the immortal words "Oh, I wish I could reload".

[Assassin]

Why do soem people call the use of some tactics cheese? Because the AI is not equipped to handle those tactics. Not to mention that there might not be a way to stop it due to the way it is set up.

For example: Setting up 10 000 000 000 Skull Traps so that a Red Dragon will just so happen to blunder into them. =/ Can the default AI handle that kind of tactic? Not really, not unless you give it a type of script that detects when certain spells are used, or the Red Dragon goes hostile after a certain number of rounds.

Setting up 10 000 000 Spike Traps next to a neutral dragon. Come on now. It's almost impossible to block traps in the game because of the way that Traps are set up.

The list goes on and on.