POLL: To cheat, or not to cheat?

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Well, i always get the "bags" (bag of holding, bag of gems, and scrolls) early for save space (and get money for items ).
I rarely use the Ctrl-something, I prefeer other ways of victory (hack and slash )

 

I rarely cheat now-a-days. I don't think Ctrl-J is much of a cheat. I don't use Ctrl-Y except in Bodhi's lair where some mods doubles all vampires. (One Tanova is bad enough but two ) I might CLUA in certain weapons, etc. I once Ctrl-Y'd the entire docks district once but reloaded later
And I use Ctrl-Y to bash open locks. Hate when doors get stuck.

 

OH CTRL+Y bash-opens locks too? Didn't know that! Then I can use it!

It really pisses me of when a fighter with 24+ STR (via potions or CF or draw upon holyiest of the mights) can not bash-open a non-trivial lock. It makes no sense to me...

 

I don't cheat on the first playthrough. After that I just mess around with the game however I please. I've obsessively gone through the object files and 'canonised' a bunch of weapons and items. De-cheesed a lot of the TOB content, changed the cloak of spell turning into a cloak of poisonousness, among others. Customised the casting scripts to give my casters the free contingengies NPCs get, and to get them to behave less like morons when I'm not keeping an eye on them. I experimented with things like stat bonuses, immunities, innate regeneration and resistances for the PC at various intervals to simulate 'divine abilities', since my PC is usually some kind of non-caster type. And lots of other stuff which I don't remember.

Personally I think most of the mods out there are essentially cheating just because of how unbalancing they are, e.g. Valen, Solaufein, etc. Really, I think any kind of tampering with the game is 'cheating', no matter the intent, but I also think cheating is fine if it doesn't screw the game up for you. I'd have gotten bored with the game ages ago if I hadn't co-opted it for my own personal amusement.

Elwithral, that sounds kind of like the stuff I used to do years ago with Ultima VII and Serpent Isle. Haha.

 

How do we draw the line between cheesy tacks and cheating? Some items are overpowered (protection from magic anyone?) hence cheesy, but since they are implemented in the unmodded game it can't be cheating?

That's true but it depends on the mods really. If you get more fights (and sometimes very difficult ones) it's only fair that you should get extra goodies, XP and stuff. It's a vicious circle because it only makes your party even stronger.
I'm thinking about the Valen mod, it's a very nice NPC mod. It features special encounters as well (nice fights btw) but the character possess a certain dagger that is too powerful and unbalanced. When I pick her up I always have her drop her dagger somewhere so it won't spoil my game.
I use mods to enhance the game and make it suit my tastes. One the one hand I have the spell 50 mod to boost spellcasters but I also installed the mod component that lower the duration of Stoneskin and Ironskin. I don't play with True Grand Mastery because I think that in this game magic wielders should retain an advantage over tanks. I didn't install the Invisible Cloak of Mirroring Animation fix because I don't want to strut around with such cheesy item in the first place.
What it comes down to is do we need to cheat to have fun? Can cheating be fun?
IMHO minor "tweaks" are more innocuous than good old Ctrl+Y... If you add a minor innate ability to your PC or make a MC with a kit where is the problem? You could use a DC but why not do it if you find DCing stupid (the 'inactive class' thing is preposterous...). Why can't a Wild Mage be dualled? Why can't I make a Halfling mage?
If Jan Jansen can be a Thief/Illusionist why can't my half elf Bhaalspawn be Thief/Wild mage? (both result from the Times of Trouble!)
Why does Edwin get extra spells per level? Why does Jaheira get Harper's Call? Why Imoen is such a bore? Why Sarevok gets the Deathbringer Assault? Why Haer'Dalis is such a proficient Blade?
If it helps to make your character more unique, why not tamper with the rules?
And if you're thinking "man stop that's overpowered!" I'd have two words for you: Ranger/Cleric.
Why these guys are such freaks?

 

Really, I don't get why there's such a great stigma involved in cheating that people have to beat around the bush and argue semantics to justify whatever they want to do. I mean I wouldn't cheat in a multiplayer game, but if it's just you playing, who cares?

 

His magical heirloom necklace, probably because his is a Thayvian Red Wizard.

Uh, because she's a Harper?

She has the personality of a pineapple.

He's part of a specialized order of fighters called Deathbringers, hence the reason.

Practice? Well, tbh, he's not really *that* good; he's only acting!

Basically, if you want to get to the nuts and bolts of it, cheating is anything that is not in the unmodded game. Caradhras said that himself and I think he's right on. Yes, I do feel Weimer's mods (Tactics, Solafein and Valen) are cheating. My definition of cheating is to violate rules dishonestly. Of course, this also means those nice 'bugs' and 'exploits' we're all fond of are also methods of cheating.

 

I use ctrl-J a lot because I get bored tracking around in an area I've already explored. May use ctrl-R to save time. I've played BG2/ToB so many times now I get bored with some of the 'quests' so want to hurry on. Especially in areas where it is hard to rest. "You may not rest here. Find an Inn"

Cheating spoils the game and is easy to misuse. My feelings about what others do in a single player is: Whatever makes it fun for you. It's none of my business.

I do use power word "reload" a lot though.

 

I do not even set up my game for cheats.

 

^You are among the rare individuals then I guess.

 

There's only so much time in a day. You can either watch your little party of guys walk around and around and around or just CTRL+J to where you need to go. You can sit there for hours re-rolling character stats until you think you have a "role-playing" worthy character or you can shadowkeeper those same stats in about 5 seconds. Like others have mentioned, you can sit there casting every last healing spell you have memorized, rest, then cast again for as many times as needed, or CTRL+R. In other Infinity Engine games, there's even more random number generation that you can sit there and waste time on, or just CLUA/edit yourself, like hit points per roll, random occurences (Melicamp the chicken being restored), or random loot (Icewind Dale 1 & 2 drops). Yes, you can sit there like a good little soldier for hours reloading your saved games until you get the best possible result, or you can edit the result in and cut out the hours. These are single-player games where the only stakes are your own enjoyment and your time. Nobody is selling BG2 gold or characters on Ebay or stealing your quests or experience.

Note that there are also "fair" in-game exploits that are arguably cheating, like using SOA fence merchants to get infinite gold by selling something expensive and stealing it back repeatedly. If using something that is just as abusive (but shipped with the game) helps you sleep better at night, more power to you, even though it's easy to earn piles of gold "honestly" in SOA and TOB.

 

Well, I sometimes change Jaheiras profs with Two Weapon Style. It baffles me that some fighter class combinations can only get ** in that proficiency. So if it suits me, she gets ***.

 

Killjoy, neat post there, and I heartily agree with you!

Though I must confess, I did the steal&sell trick...to collect enough GP for the spiffy but way too expensive mod items sold by merchants....ah and I slept really well.

 

Basically that's just doing what thieves does: being a thief...

 

I use the Ctrl+J teleport a lot because charcaters walk so slooooooow in Baldur's Gate II but that's about it. If I start a new Throne of Bhaal game without finishing SoA first I usually summon some items too but you don't really need to cheat in this game really, just look at Jaheira stats, she's a cheater

 

Really? I don't think Jaheira was a cheater...Look at Anomen, he is impossible to dual class into a cleric with that abysmal wisdom. And how can Minsc still retain his title of ranger with that wisdom? Oh and I heard Heardalis was also cheating in his weapon proficiencies....BUT they are all cool (to a certain degree ofcourse, especially in the case of Annoyman.) characters, so once in a while a little cheat can be cool?

I always cheat my way for the avatar of my PCs. I want them look like a cool mage, NOT dumb-ass cleric who looks exactly same as a fighter. ANd when they wear robes, ONLY the color of their clothing changes. Urgh.

Luckily, some mod added a wonderful avatar shifting script, and I used it evr since! Changed Minsc's avatar to half-orc, for example, it suits him better! Don'T you agree?

 

I don't have the cheats enabled, I don't have any mods attached, I simply have the patches installed and play the game that way.

EDIT: I do cheat in that I don't play as an Iron Man so I can quit/reload a save if I screw something up. It's not I'm averse to cheating per se it's just that I don't think it's that great an advantage having them.

 

Most mods aren't about having an advantage, they're about adding content to the game.

If the game hadn't been moddable, I'm fairly certain it would have been forgotten years ago.

 

I only cheat in BG1 with ExploreArea. That's it. I never had a reason to cheat in BG2 because it diminishes the game challenge if you do. Besides it isn't a hard game where cheating is necessary to win.