Blasphemy I Know - Baldur's Gate City...

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OK, I just have to vent a bit...

I bought the original BG retail years and years ago. I've started it at least 5 times but I've never made it to the city itself - but I've always loved what I've played.

So I *finally* made it inside Baldurs Gate and it felt like a personal accomplishment. But... I can't stand the city.

[SPOILERS!!!]
First complaint - The creature respawning in the sewers? Ugh. Nothing turns me off like cheesy spawning. Its one thing if I'm trying to rest - but quite another if I walk 10 feet down a tunnel and turn back and low and behold 3 new Carion Crawlers! Ugh. Its Dungeon Lords LOL!

And the poison quest? I'm very annoyed with this one. Sorry but it seems like a lame plot twist. First off, I already killed Tenya! Is my game broken now?

Anyone else find the city part of this game to be a chore? I've got a 10 day limit and all these NPC's have these little side quests I could care less about but no real info? I've also lost track of where Scar resides and the damn city is so huge and the map isnt very helpful. I know the Iron Throne stronghold is in the South West and I just got annihilated by 3 ogre mages over there so I think maybe I found it... but I'm too annoyed to play right now

Yes yes I know I'm whining but the game seems to have taken a dive. I'd much rather storm a dungeon fortress like the mines sequence than end the game in this city.

bah. Someone motivate me to finish this thing please! I really want to finish BG and not quit AGAIN!

[ February 24, 2006, 17:16: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Me! That city was a complete nightmare. You pretty much have to wander around the whole place aimlessly opening every door just to find out what *might* be in there. It's very tedious.

 

Aye, and dont forget the MANY doors that face the top of the screen making them invisible unless one hovers the mouse over the innocent-looking roof of the offending building. Of all of BG, the cities is the only element that turned me off. In fact, it soured much of my experience. I ended up charging through the city in order to finish the game, for if i hadn't it would be either collecting dust or I would have worn the first 4 discs into the ground while leaving the 5th untouched (its been a while so if some of the city is on 4, well, you get the idea).

 

I agree with all these comments. I stopped playing for a while after I reached the city the first time. Until my itch to finish the game made me go back and 'finish my chores'.

As for motivation, maybe you could download a walkthrough so you can 'rush' through the city quests to get to the ending.

As far as the poision quest and having killed Tenya, I am not sure. You might be hosed. I hope one of the experts will post on that one. The walkthrough may help to answer that question.

 

```Some Spoilers```

I don't remember Tenya having anything to do with you being posioned. So she's a priestess of Umberlee. Big deal. Like there aren't 6 or 7 running around the temple. The only time Tenya came into play in the city was when dealing with Varci Roaringhorn. You can get the boy's body back through Tenya.

As for the respawn in the sewers - bugs show up when no one is around. They do it IRL, so it's fine with me when they do it in a game. Just squish 'em for more XP.

I would recommend you d/l a walkthrough for the city. I still have to poke myself to remember: I have to go through the middle to get anywhere.

 

Jalantha Mistmyr is the one who helps you with the poison quest, not Tenya. And even if you've killed Jalantha (and probably wiped out the other priestesses in there too), you'll find the scroll you need on her corpse. Just take it to Lothander at the Blade and Stars.

I hate the sewers. I only go down there once when I'm ready, and I don't stop for **** until I've cleared the whole damn thing.

Actually, there's five of them, and the Iron Throne building is the big-a$$ tower just to the north of it at the upper left corner of the same area. A strategy I like for those idiots involves two items:
1. a Cloudkill scroll
2. a Ring of Invisibility

(Item 2 can be skipped if you've got a M/T, an F/M/T, or want to waste some Potions or Invisibility spells/scrolls.) Cloudkill kicks the hell out of those pr!cks, and if you can sneak in and then stealth/invis. after casting, you can just sit there and listen to them die. I usually have to do it at least half-a-dozen times on each run-through before it stops being so deliciously fun.

The city is a dull part, but you get past it, and you don't really NEED to do everything in it.

 

Me too. About the "funny" poison quest:

I killed Mirek the first time I met him.
So I was doomed before the the poison quest even started.
I was pretty surprised when I was told that my party's food was poisened during a rest, because the last rest was many days ago and many miles away.

A warning: You don't get cured of the poison if you drink Mirek's andidote.
You only get cured when he attacks you after talking to you. How ... !
You would have realized this anyway when your party suddenly died because of that poison and probably enjoyed reloading and doing the lovely city again.


About handling the city:

You'd best download a city map where the locations are marked. Else an advice like "Just take it to Lothander at the Blade and Stars" might grant you happy searching hours.

I would enter each house in the city one after another instead of running around quest-driven (exception: poison quest).
You'd better explore the city in chapter5, since it gets even more annoying in chapter7.

 

More annoying?!?!?

Chapter 7?!?!? Oh no!

[SPOILERS]

Ugh. I just want to finish this thing. Is it just me or is this portion of the game too open ended? I'm reading the walkthroughs and I'm realizing that my explorative type of adventuring has ruined so many quests. For example - I already sacked the theives guild - but I'm supposed to go there later to find out the location of Sarevok? I just hope the game didnt let me break the main arc!

So here is my "intended" sequence starting tonight:

Poison quest - I havent sacked the Umberlee temple thankfully. Go to temple, priestess makes me get a book elsewhere. Get stupid book, make her happy, get half of antitdote. Go to Blade of Stars and get Merek to attack. Kill Merek. Get rest of stupid antitdote.

At this point can I go strait to Eltan and get the Iron Throne Candlekeep quest and do Chapter 6?


I've hit the max XP threshold. Let me fight the big boss already

 

No such thing.

Don't worry about it. Remember that set of stairs in the center room of the guild that you couldn't go down? That's where you're headed, and you'll be sent there by 'magic'; it doesn't matter if you've killed everyone in the entire east-middle section of the city, someone will still show up and tell you that Sarevok went down the stairs.

And for another thing, I wouldn't call wanton destruction "explorative"; I hope you're playing an evil character or a holier-than-thou pally for an actual reason for taking out the thieves.

There's more to the game than "sacking", you know. And since you clearly didn't read my previous post, I'll say it again: It doesn't matter if you've killed the Priestess of Umberlee, because even if you do she'll drop the scroll you need for the quest. In fact, I would recommend killing her so that you can keep the Tome of Wisdom instead of giving it to her (or you could just pickpocket it after you give it to her).

Also, you take the scroll to Lothander at the Blade and Stars (in the upper left corner of the southeast sector), and then you have to go find Marek at the Blushing Mermaid (northeast sector; you have to enter from the north-middle sector to be on the correct side of the wall, and the entrance will be right there). I'm pretty sure Marek will still be there even if you killed him before (I think I did that the first time too ), so don't worry about that. Give the programmers some credit for anticipating these things; they made a good game.

Yep. In fact, you can do that from the moment you enter the city. Everything else is optional.

 

Yes my main character is a Palidan and killing the thieves was "in character" as far as I was concerned. Believe me I don't kill everything - it has to at least look at me sideways first - then of course it is "Heretic! draw steel!".

But realistically, the game didn't give me the option not to "cleanse and purify" there. In the Thieves Guild if I got the password wrong I was attacked by the guard, even though the dialog clearly indicated I could walk away after I got the password wrong. Whether that's a bug or not (I'm doing BG1TuTu) alot of the NPC dialog in BG leads to combat a little prematurely in my opinion.

Take Tenya for example. First I initiate combat via dialog options by choosing the fisherman's story, then Tenya breaks the combat by reinitiating dialog before she dies. Accepting her story I start to walk away. Then, I decide to send Imoen (high Charisma) back over to see if I can get a better reaction and more story or maybe heal the poor girl. What does Tenya do? She insults Imoen and resumes the attack. So yeah - redrum Tenya. Options? None.

I was already at the XP Cap so its not like I'm farming XP.

 

I don't suppose you met up with the guy who tells you the password, did you? And yes, that is a bug. I've gotten the password wrong on purpose a couple times to check it out, and I've never had them go hostile. In fact, you could just walk right past them after getting it wrong and they wouldn't say boo; I'm guessing the hostile thing was the Tutu-makers' attempt to impose some sort of reaction for getting it wrong, even if going hostile is a bit overboard.

You wanted more story and a better reaction from a disciple of the Bitch Queen?!? And especially after the long-winded tale she gives you already? Not to mention that your pally ought to have higher Charisma than Imoen unless you're cheating. I have to say that just doesn't ring true.

And get an XP cap remover already!

 

I actually enjoyed the city more than any other area in the game. I like the fact you can do as many or as few of the quests as you want.

For a bare minimum, all you really need to do is rush to Scar, do his quests, do the Duke's quest, and that's it. In fact I don't even think you need to do ALL of Scar's quests (I remember botching one the first time around, and I could still get on with the game). So if you don't like the area, rush through it as quick as you can and be done with it.

Be advised that the game does get very linear afterwards. Quite a contrast with chapter 5.

 

Looks like he must have a 17. But Imoen has a 17, which is why I sent her back. Brenwen (Cleric) also has a 17, I often put her forward with traders.

I Must have gotten my Paladin confused with my ugly elf Cleric in NWN - who has a charisma less that 12 if I recall. I'm playing both games and must have gotten them mixed up. Playing multiple games that are very similar with different rulsets can get confusing.

But anyway - why on earth would I intentionally lie? Its true I roleplay at a bare minimum - but I don't like to kill NPC's unless I have to, more out of fear of breaking a quest than anything.

 

Yep. In fact, if you want you can just flip Scar off as you pass by on your way upstairs to see Eltan. "I'm not going through any pathetic intermediaries; I go straight to the boss!"
......................................................................

No, Imoen has 16 (unless you've given the Tome of Leadership to her instead of your main character for some reason) and Branwen has 13.

I didn't say you were lying, just that it didn't ring true as you told it. That could also mean that there was something I was missing, like your confusing the characters between games (I do that plenty myself, having seven games going at the same time ).

 

I also found the City VERY tedious. Especially due to my completist nature. I broke down and checked out the Dudley walkthrough to speed things up.

BTW City boredom is what caused me to put BG on a 6 month hiatus......

I finished BG and ToSC a couple weeks ago and started on BG 2. The city there is MUCH more interesting so far....

 

Branwen has a 13??? Maybe BG1TuTu reclassified her to a 17 charisma as part of the ruleset change during conversion to BG2.

I'll definately have to double check that - I can't be that crazy and forgetful

EDIT:
Looks like there is no min charisma requirement for a Cleric. Looks like I'm just plain wrong. Oh well.

[ February 24, 2006, 21:27: Message edited by: ToddMcF2002 ]

 

I'm pretty sure he won't. I killed him before too.

@Todd: It's not important that you do all quests, you will get enough XP anyway. Just enter every house and kill everyone who deserves it in order to get the good stuff.

 

I don't know what I was thinking. The charisma values are as expected:

Paladin 17
Imoen 16
Branwen 13
Dynaheir 13

So I've been using Imoen as my party face for no reason LOL.

 

OMG how can you not like tha city ... i LOVE IT! I seriously enjoy doing like a million or so quests a the same time in the city and I love it even better that there's like 6 or so separate areas in the city! But that's me, I like it big and complicated so I guess we're two different people.

Either way, once you get rid of a few small annoying quests, especially the poison one, which you can finish in less than 15 minutes, then you start gettin back to the main quest. And the main quest within the city, i feel, is quite good. So my advice: Just spend a little bit longer performing those tedious tasks and side quests and you'll be fine!

Btw, has anyone really used Marek's potion? Does it actually last for 10 shots or what? Meh, not like I'm ever going to use it but still!

 

Yes, it has ten uses (like charges on a wand). It's rather nice for a little weight leniency, since it only weighs one pound to the equivalent 10 antidotes' 10 pounds. Handy for backstabbing thieves or low strength tanks.

@Todd:
Well, she is pretty in BG1. Then again, so is Jaheira. And now I'm getting off on a tangent...