Cheesy tactics

Remove all ads!

People refer to these all the time, and I want to know what you think they are. To me, any tactic that is unrealistic is cheesy. For instance, setting up 5 or 6 traps RIGHT BESIDE Firkraag while he is neutral and then hitting him, turning him to an enemy, and then letting the traps damage him, that's cheesy. But setting those traps up out of his line of sight and then luring him over to them, that's not cheesy at all!

Anyhow, I'll repeat the question -- what constitutes a cheesy tactic to you?

 

Using a bug in the game is just sooooooo cheesy... I don't see why people want to do that

 

basically anything fixed by the TOB patch is cheesy.

anything that you do that would constitute an attack on an intelligent person but get away with here is cheesy. Anytime you summon attacking creatures, reducing resistance, floating off cloud kills, and generally doing things that would piss them off (don't know about you, but if five guys suddenly surrounded ME, I'd be hitting first and asking questions later) is cheesy.

but of course, I'm an idiot.

 

Doing something that a person in P&P would not be allowed to do.

But this isn't P&P, and there is no intelligent DM, so I sometimes take the liberty to "cheat".

When the going gets tough, the tough get going, and the non-tough cheat!

 

Ah, you mean cloudkill and closed door and blade barier and sanctuary... yeah...

(...should not drink so much...)

 

Cheesy tactics are exactly what makes games like this fun.

Really, playing and replaying the game to the point where you've memorized it is in itself a cheesy tactic. You know everything that's coming up and can prepare for and overwhelm your enemies. They don't have the same freedom. Loading up on every single protection you have pre-battle is role-playing. Loading up on the few specific protections and buffers relative to the enemy you're about to face is a bit cheesy, but not totally unfair.

In real life, can you save and reload 50 times when you don't do something perfectly? I think not.

Then there's the taking advantage of bugs in the game for strategic advantage; fake talk, spells that ignore magic resistance, dragons standing there while you spend a week in game time setting traps in front of them, etc.

The game is riddled with cheese. A varitable cheese smorgasboard. But is that so bad? One could argue that the most skilled players of RPG's (or in life, for that matter) are those who seek out the weak points and exploit them.

 

There are two kinds of cheese:

Bad cheese: exploiting game engine's bugs and limitations - infinite XP loops, obtaining forbidden proficiencies (MM6) and that stuff - not much in BG, but for sure there are some

Good, legitimate cheese: finding your easy way around things without breaking system rules. Here belongs disintegrating a dragon, using my favourite set of web, cloudkill and fireballs aplenty after the scout has revealed beholders' location, stupefing a dragon or another tough monster etc etc

Basically cheese might amount to simple, lowly exploits or to quite witty machinations that are barely legal, but still legitimate. It's life, you know. If you find an easy way, you thankfully and dutifully follow and don't whine that it's cheese.

 

This thing goes deeper ... first - you cannot do everything you would do with the "real" situation - you are quite limited with the game system.
E.g. - it is impossible to leave the main char somewhere, and use only the thief for scouting (what would be the only reasonable tactics in many cases).
So why not use the system limitations against it ? Anyway - cheesy is everything that is apparently unreal.
The question is - would be the enemy XY able to see the level 20+ thief setting some small magical trap somewhere behind him ?
Fake talk is cheesy. Going into lich / vampire's lair fully loaded with scrolls of undead protection is realistic.
Preparing 6 traps and the welcoming comittee for the cowled wizards before casting a spell to lure them is ... somewhere on the line, but I just like to see them nailed just after their pompous entry

 

What does "fake talk" mean? Lying? Heaven knows that's real world enough!

 

The "fake talk" strategy takes advantage of a 'bug' in the game engine. Throughout the game you run into situations where neutral monsters/NPCs become hostile and attack. If you pause the game and talk to the target with one character, the rest of your party can attack the target without him turning hostile. He will just turn towards whoever is trying to talk to him, even if that character immediately attacks after the 'fake talk' and even when he's taking damage. Eventually the target will go hostile, but you can repeat this fake talk process until he dies.

I ran into this bug accidentally because I play with autopause when enemy sighted. When a whole party of NPCs is supposed to go hostile, sometimes the game autopauses when only one or two have turned red. The default action for the still-neutral baddies is 'talk,' so in my haste to delegate targets I just click on them. Imagine my surprise when those neutral guys stay neutral even after I'm doing damage to them!

Fake talk doesn't work sometimes and may lead to some enemies becoming unkillable (like Kangaxx). It's almost universally regard as cheap . . . .