As real as possible

[The Riddick]

Some days ago I read a thread about trying to play as real as possible, and by this I mean, not resting after every single battle, not having characters with INT and CHA subhuman ( 2, 3 and so on) and some other things. Well, I tried, but I found that it is really difficult, almost impossible to play like that. And as an example you have the terrible battle where your party get the Holly Avenger. I ended with almost no spells of any kind, so low in potions that I didn´t have more than 10 between all my guys and the fella with more hitpoints was, of course, my fighter/barbarian dwarf, with 62. My wizard, rogue/fighter and monk were under 10 hp, and my palladin and druid/fighter close by. In THIS situation it´s totally necessary to rest, doesn´t matter if you just rested prior to the battle, right guys?.
The problem with trying to play a computer RPG as a normal RPG is precisely that... that is not a normal RPG!. In a normal RPG you can always find something else to help you, an itinerant cleric that will heal you, nice NPCs that will gladly heal you for free, because, c´mon!!, you just saved Kuldahar and their Tree from total destruccion and Iselore still wants you to pay for the healing?, looks to me like the D&D version of Mr. Scrooge, or someother thing that the Game Master decides can heal the group. Anyway, what I want to say is, yes, play as realistic as possible, as a matter of fact, the game is funnier that way, but sometimes the realistic way just has to go down the loo, because everybody wants to finish the game, right?, and you don´t finish it with a dead party.

[wanderon]

Well I play what I like to consider reasonably challenging and non-exploitive play myself and while i do indeed find it more difficult I also find it more fun.

My "normal" play style includes:

Absolute minimum reloads - In ID2 this means reload only if the entire party is killed (or in the event of game crashes/glitches)

This eliminates what I see as a cheesy practice of reloading a battle until you "get it right" (no one in the party dies). There is a provision in the game for raising your dead and I use it sometimes having to gather all the gear and stash it in some container so it will be there when the party returns if most of the party was killed.

As for resting - I do so when it seems appropriate. If the party is so badly beat up after a battle that the healers cannot bring them back up to snuff without resting then we rest. I almost never use potions to heal after a battle - I save them for "in battle use" as that seems to make more sense to me. Would a party of adventurers be more likely to use up all thier emergency supplies just to be able to move on if a days rest would heal them without using up those valueable supplies?

If everyone is in decent health but the mage is out of spells I generally don't rest - I let the mage use his ranged weapon or scrolls and we carry on. An exception to this might be if I had a premonition that a very hard battle might be just around the corner...I'm not quite perfect after all...

I also use no hacks/cheats/console/editors/mods etc. altho I do play mods (campaigns) in NWN and may be changing my tune on that as time moves on...but at least until I have beat the game a few times as it was designed I likely wont use any mods anyway.

I also try not to abuse any in game "exploits" and try to be "fair and balanced" in character creation and not min/max (no more than -2 from any racially adjusted starting stat).

I sometimes play with NO reloads - and highly recommend this to anyone who has completed the game already and wants a new challenge. If the entire party dies - game over. It adds a whole new level of excitement to every single battle and this just increases as the game moves on - altho in all fairness it is somewhat of a letdown to get quite a ways into the game and die over some stupid mistake but on the other hand if you put it in perspective its also much more rewarding IMO to take a party even as far as the Ice Temple without a single reload than it is to do so when you can reload anytime you get in big trouble...

So I say - play as you wish but make sure you have fun doing so...

[Luvian]

I always play characters with balanced stats. I don't think I ever did a fighter with lover than 12 int and cha.

I don't rest except when my characters get tired. I don't prebuff. My spellcasters never change their spells unless they find an upgrade.

I think the extra challenge is really fun, and it never stoped me from completing a BG or IWD game.

People keep powergaming, min maxing, pre buffing, and abusing the engine, then they complains games are too easy and need extra difficulty mods. Why not just play the game as it was meant to be played instead?

After such an epic fight as you described, I don't think it's unrealistic to rest. Your characters almost died, obviously they'll need time to heal.

It's legitimate to have your party rest when they nearly died. Even if they're not that tired it can be assumed they are tending to wounds, resting, ans such. I know I would. It's NOT legitimate to cast all your most powerfull spells against those 3 goblins, then spend 8 hours resting to get them back. It's even less legitimate to reload if that now spell less party get ambushed while trying to sleep.

If you want another variant of the realistinc game, try one of my favorite, the no rez game. If a character die, you delete him. I think it make your characters more interesting, and fights more intense. When you can just rez your characters you tend to sacrifice them for nothing and take uneccesary risk. If you know they will be deleted if they die, you'll play them in a more realistic way. If you want something a little easier, you can create a new character once you reach a town.

[wanderon]

I play a variation of that I call a no R&R game where no reloads are allowed and no raising dead but the fallen are replaced by random choices from premade pools of characters at different locations. The characters are ones I have used in other games and exported at different levels with different amounts of equipment.

It makes the game quite interesting since it can easily make the overall party makeup much different than the standard "balanced" party.

You lose a sorc and draw a rogue - you lose a tank and draw a wizzie etc...

As a matter of fact I just made some adjustments to my pool locations and I am getting ready to embark on new No R&R game as soon as I decide what character to start with perhaps I'll post something here about it.

If you are interested in more information on my "variation" you can check here for a list of rules and complete journals of my first such campaign.

http://p081.ezboard.com/fwanderonswarrensfrm24

[Klorox]

Originally posted by Luvian: I always play characters with balanced stats. I don't think I ever did a fighter with lover than 12 int and cha.

I admire your style of play, but I don't think an above average INT and CHA is needed for "balance."

[Luvian]

Originally posted by Klorox: quote: Originally posted by Luvian: I always play characters with balanced stats. I don't think I ever did a fighter with lover than 12 int and cha.

I admire your style of play, but I don't think an above average INT and CHA is needed for "balance." [/QUOTE]They are purely for roleplaying reasons, I like the smart, charismatic warriors, but intelligence is still usefull for warriors, all my warriors have all their skills maxed, and some have been able to afford some cross class skills. There is also the few odd feats that take higher int.

You know, balanced doesn't mean stoping at 10 instead of 2 for min maxing, it mean making real characters. A 18 str 18 con everything else 10 warrior isn't balanced.

[ 02-09-2006, 06:46 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

[Magness]

@Luvian,

besides, a 13 INT opens up the Expertise feat to you, if that's your cup of tea.

I've also played a Fighter X/Rogue ~4 character before who was the team leader and a fairly strong talker.

That said, I have to admit that I've modified the skill cost 2DA file before so that Fighters have all 3 talking skill at in-class cost. I've just never really bought the idea that talking skills should be limited by class, except with certain limitations. (Pallies not using "bluff", perhaps.) My attitude is that unless there's a damned good reason to the contrary, the default position is that the 3 talking skills should be 1 point-ers for everyone.

Besides, I've found that when I allow most talking skills for all classes, I'm not as nearly cliched about who talks for the party. And allowing talking fighters (thru 1 pnt talking skills) creates more of a reason to build smarter, charismatic leader-type fighters. And that ends up meaning that they are more balanced as well. It also gives a player another good reason to play a human fighter, i.e. for the extra 1 SP/level.

Limiting the useful skills for a fighter (for example) only serves to give people more reason to just ignore INT entirely and build heavily min-maxed, braindead tanks.


Back on topic....


@Riddick...

Don't worry at all about resting after fighting a major battle, such as the one against the Lost Followers. That's the sort of battle where it is perfectly OK to head back to town for a couple of days of R&R, healing, and copious amounts of ale.

I think that the general thought about not resting after every little engagement is more about trying to be more realistic when you are exploring around a place like Dragon's Eye's upper 2 levels or the Yuan-ti temple where there's no particular need to rest after any contact with a couple of enemies.

I think that it is largely an issue of common sense. I don't think that you should feel obligated to continue adventuring and exploring until you've run your spells dry and your HP into single digits, etc. Trying to be "realistic" is just about trying to use common sense.

[The Riddick]

That is exactly what I think. It is not necessary to rest after every minor engagement, it will be like reloading your cellphone after every call!!, but sometimes you just have to. Like the other day; I went on playing without resting for so long that suddenly all my guys were complaining about the lack of rest, so into the game I was. Nothing to make you miss a heartbeat as to hear to your warrior saying: "I can´t give another step wintout dropping dead", or something like that, and then everybody went on nagging mode, "we need to rest, let us rest, you maniac dictator!", hahaha, [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Magness]

Yeah, if you are able to push on and get to the point that your party is fatigued, you are either doing very well, or perhaps the game difficullty is too low.

One gripe that I had in IWD1 was that there would be trips between areas that were like 72 or 96 hours long. I didn't mind a 3 or 4 day trip, cuz' it seemed realistic enough. My gripe was that my party would immediately be tired after that trip. Cripes sakes, don't these guys believe in sleeping on the road? Or maybe doing a little healing at the same time?

It's less of an issue in IWD2 because IIRC, the distances between areas isn't quite so long. I have noticed that if you are wearing a regenerating HP item, you will have healed a lot of HP during the walk.

It's too bad that there weren't some random encounters built into the game while you make these longish walks. It would have added a measure and feel of realism to the game.