POLL: WHAT'S EVERYONE's VIEWS ON CHEATING IN BG2

[carg]

There are a few cheats from the CLUAconsole I use to make the game a bit faster: I love the CTRL-J to teleport and avoid walking through 5 maps to get back to the city. But I only use it on parts that I already mapped and no story is happening.
Next to that I sometimes like to view the complete map, even parts you can't get to. Just to admmire the artwork. Then I use the ExploreArea() cheat.

Of course, you are the only one you are betraying by depriving yourself of the true challenge if you cheat in a way that you cannot justify before yourself. It is all about establishing a set of rules that you personally feel will ensure exactly that, not
diminishing the challenge and therefore your feeling of accomplishment, and then sticking to it.

And for that reason I do not think that "cheating" is about the use about certain programs. Once again, I do not feel bad about any of the uses of Sk I "confessed to" in my earlier post, but I feel bad about having employed that pathetic, "smart-ass" tactic in the battle with a certain dragon.

Well, Armisael, in that sense the "art of cheating" is all about justification - before
yourself not before others.

This post has turned out way too solemn.

So long,

Ramon

Well, I've used ShadowKeeper just a couple times, mainly to increase my role playing enjoyment in the following ways:
1) The game my wife is playing, she has kept Jaheria. I "fixed" her wpn prof so she didn't "waste" slots in the club.
2) I slightly modified the wpn prof. of my Half-orc Figher/Cleric to include the flail so I could use the Flail of the ages.
3) After I defeated some key monsters, it didn't give me any of the items I was supposed to get, so I added them to my inventory.
4) I have kept Nalia, and it bugs me she dualed at 4th level so I increased her thief level to 8 and lowered her Mage experience by that much.
5) We do have the Versus book. The maps and hints help when you are stuck, but I like it more for the spell, monster, and item listing.

Other then that, it's been plain jane gaming. I get a lot of satisfaction out of having to replay a battle 5 plus times to finally win it. I learn so much when I do so that the next hard battle is easier because my tactics are better. If all my characters where "gods", I don't think I'd have any fun wiping the floor with everyone and cruising through the game.

So long as you have fun, that's what counts.

[IdiotRogue]

No doubt about it, I am an unrepentant cheater. Being an RPG neophyte, I use the ExploreArea cheat. That's it. I got pretty darned tired of bumping into things (particularly those of the deadly variety) early in BGI when I had low HPs. It was not a lot of fun having to reload/restart all the time.

Same with BGII. Also there seems to be a loooong delay before traps are identified. This is more than a minor annoyance in Irenicus' dungeon during the prologue since I never bothered to have Imoen waste a spell slot on detect traps (she was a damned fine little thief for me in BGI, why oh WHY did they dual class her???).

I have used a keeper once to recreate my BGI character after a nasty situation in which I managed to lose all the game files. I had a pretty good fighter (18/98; 18; 18; 15; 14; 12) that took me a TON o' rolls to create. Seeing how easy it would be to create a cross between Stephen Hawking and the Incredible Hulk was interesting but I figured what's the point? It would be zero fun if you knew, regardless of story line, that you'd be the last one standing...

I have not cheated yet, other than read a few posts on how to handle a situation.

Possible Spoiler:

Though, i would like to cheat and here is how - i have lost a few items or more importantly, a person, and didnt have a way to find him - the valythar (whatever) quest to get into the planar sphere - i found him, he joined my party, then died, but i was not paying attention, didnt go back to get him, and then later i found i needed him to get into the sphere (i was hoping just his armor and such would be enough). I wanted to do the quest for exp., see what's in there, and get Crom Faeyr - but alas cannot - there should be a cheat where you can find any item - there should be a console entry that would return the location of an item, not the item itself - then you would still have to run the adventure or spend the time to go get the item, but would not just have it -

this is analagous to real life - there are people you meet that know the location of mythical items, or when a party memeber dies, it is probably pretty dramatic, and the other party members would remember - i have no memory and do not take enough notes - so, there - that seems like a reasonable cheat, but i cannot do it -

also, i too lost the equalizer pommel - but would not cheat to get it - ya loose stuff, big deal - the game is totally playable without.

but on whether cheating is reasonable - sure, go ahead - i am sure Black Isle Studio doesnt care - you will be back all the sooner for their sequels or other games.

If all you care about is just beating the game, then yes, go ahead and cheat. If you are looking at this as a D&D adventure to be played out on the PC (me) then no. But I do think the experience cap needs to go. Without any cheats I maxed out on experience points after killing Bodhi. It just depends on what you are going for.

DK

Hey i remember when i didn't know what ad&d was and this funny thing called Eye of the Beholder appeared on my amiga.
You could cheat right from the beginning on that and put all your stats up to 18. I didn't actually know it was cheating it being my first rpg ever. I would never have stuck with it if it wasn't for that little booster at the start, so i'm all for newbie's getting to cheat a little with stats and stuff.

[Yorick]

Alas poor Amigas, I knew them well Chuck.
I couldn't believe it when they didn't bring out EOBIII on the Amiga. I had to get a graphically deficient PC if I wanted to feed my addiction.

.......Still it's a long time ago now, and I don't like talking about it much.