I'm Going back In!

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I Finished Baldur's Gate last night so back to the Drow prisons! I'm actually very pumped to start playing this again, I really miss the tactical combat. frankly I was getting very bored with Baldur's Gate (shhhhhhh! Just between us... )

 

I promise not to tell anyone

You know my feelings on its tediousness.
Aimlessly wandering though life .....

 

LOL

The 3rd Cellar of the Drow Catacombs - the wizards rooms - nice design! Its really great to be back in this game. The combat is soooooo much more tactical and interesting than... err... can't say it.

A little banter would have been a nice addition though. I'm surprised how much I missed the moody music too

 

Alright so I'm about 70% done with the 3rd cellar. Its getting more challenging. This is partly due to the fact that I lost a Cleric. I had two Clerics and there is alot of undead in this game. Unfortunately all the locked doors meant I needed a rougue so I had to go add Tudo to my party and that meant losing somebody - so my second Cleric Skylar had to go. I was surprised how much this bothered me since she had been with the party for soooo long. That and the color markings for the characters has changed. Now I have to looks carefully to see who is in round.

Anyway, I plan to go get Skylar for the final battle - its wierd not having her in the party! Tudo is surprisingly effective tough - last night he visibly dodged a Dark Narga's poison attack. There was a cool little dodge animation too

I'll say it again - this game is HOPELESSLY UNDERRATED!!!!!

If anybody reads this - the second half of the game is alot better than the first half. Its too bad so few stuck it out to experience how good POR2 really is. Seriously! Its really good!

 

I totally agree with you Todd!

The game gets better and better as you go on - the artwork, the questing, and the NPC interactions!

 

LOL

I ALWAYS support the underdog!

 

You'd be surprised - there are some fairly active forums for this game out there.

So I ran into 3 Drow assasin archers last night. Holy cow, they pummelled my poor magic users. I had to raise dead twice in one battle! Talk about spell resistence and saving throws - impossible! Can't say I'm looking forward to running into those baddies again any time soon. I think one sword swing got me for 55 HP!

Is there any penalty for raise dead? I'm assuming I don't get XP credit for that character for the current combat scenario, but are there any other penalties? I'm starting to grow accustomed to periodic raisings LOL

 

I had just gotten to the drow catecombs when I had to step away for a while (two months now). I'm glad the action picks up from here on out. The dwarven dungeons were quite expansive and slow to go through (one of the few cases when smaller might have been better).

I think the only aspect I don't like is not being able to pick your own feats and skills -- but then it really hasn't mattered much.

 

The dwarven ruins simply werent as good - and I think that sealed the fate of this game more than the slow undead, initial bugs and missing skills/feats customization. In the end though - I think you are right about the skills/feats. Who wouldnt take Cleave and Greater Cleave? Spell penetration? Uncanny Dodge? Clearly the developers should have given you the choice but at least they picked well. Still lame though.

Truthfully, I cannot image NOT taking a break from this game periodically. While the combat is addictive and the NPC's and quests (after the dwarven ruins) really pick up nicely, its still a massive dungeon crawl and it can get tedious.

Then again, I found Baldur's Gate extremely tedious with all the repetitive terrain and respawns which is why it took me 8 years to finish it.

That's why the fully patch Temple Of Elemental Evil is my favorite game without question. Not too short, not too long, incredible customization and stellar detailed combat. POR2 is ToEE's 300% longer but ultimately lesser cousin.

But there are so great things about POR2. My expectations were next to 0 after what I read online. I'm now convinced that most of those opinions were second hand - POR2 is a "popular" bashing choice for bandwagon bashing. Its practically a sport - the "legend" of the worst and clearly biggest RPG ever made. What a huge waste. The game is so much better than the undeserved crucification it recieved.

 

Yeah, those drow archers are nasty.

Are you high enough level to cast confusion? It stops most of them in their tracks!

BTW, I played this game through, start to finish, with only brief breaks for NWN and BG I. I found it more addictive than either of those 2.

 

Yes I have confusion - but it doesnt seem to work on the Assassin archers due to massive spell resistence (assassins are dressed in all black head to toe, not the regular archers). I'll try again if I have misfortune to run into them. They were a random spawn I think - I was coming right off a battle with an Arch Lich in the south east corner of the 3rd Cellar.

More addictive than NWN? That's not saying much LOL. I can't even get the multiplayer NWN to hold my interest. But yeah, I find it more appealing than BG as well but I'm sure that's a rare opinion.

I don't think I've ever asked you - have you played ToEE? If so did you like it?

 

Hmm. I don't remember having such a hard time with those assassins. How many hitpoints does you mage have? When my sorcerer/thief made it to that point he had something like 175 hitpoints.... yes, there is an exploit that I didn't consciously take advantage of.... really....

If you are wearing CON modifying magic when you level up strange things can happen to your hitpoints.... Sometimes they are lower than expected sometimes they are higher.

Make sure that you've got your fighter wearing high initiative and maximum movement rate magic (keep the encumbrance down). There's a few items that subtract a few hundred from your encumbrance.

Have your fighter close on those archers before they have a chance to get many shots off. The assassins have low fortitude so use magic that requires a fortitude saving throw (finger of death comes to mind).....Again, high initiative on your mage will help a lot here.

Yes, I played TOEE, and I loved the turn-based combat, and the crafting system was fantastic, too! There were bugs, but they were livable. I liked the graphics better than PoR, and the display of area of effects was a little better done. The story line was OK, although I found Hommet a bit slow. In general, I thought it was too short. I prefer the epicness of PoR. Nothing beats going from level 1 to level 32 in a single game! But I'd say the overall quality of ToEE beats PoR.

Yeah, NWN is not turn-based so I constantly hit the spacebar which can be annoying, as it's not very responsive sometimes, yet...

Have you played any of the community NWN mods? The ones I've played are much better than the original campaign. Of course, they are free and can be a bit buggy, but next to ToEE and PoR, the bugs are usually minor.

I'm working through the Sands of Fate epic level mods and finished Rick Francis's Eye of the Beholder remake. Both are fantastic! If you like a huge pure dungeon crawl that takes you from level 1 all the way to about level 37, try out Eye of the Beholder. It's probably the most interesting dungeon I've ever explored. Huge variety in settings, creatures, puzzles, and it's challenging!

[ March 08, 2006, 00:27: Message edited by: Thrasher91604 ]

 

I didnt realize you had a 2 man party. I've got a full party so I only got the "Finger of Death" option last night. I took "Control Undead" instead. 3 of my party have HP over 100 but on average my levels at this point are about 14 so I'm not as buffed as you were. I just entered the 4th cellar last night (the prison proper).

The Arrocat den was a blast! This game keeps surprising me. I got whiped out on my first attempt since I was so serverly flanked the first time.

On ToEE, I really miss the combat "pathing" and the pinned pathing nodes for movement, the 5 Step, the more robust attacks of opportunity. I'm get annoyed in POR2 everytime a Mhorg waltzes by my buffed fighters to flank my mage. I scream at the screen "Attack of Opportunity!!!!! Attack of Opportunity!!!!" but the game totally ignores my protests! LOL. I actually thought that ToEE was the perfect length for a "module" approach to releases. Unfortunately Atari murdered that potential - although someone independent is working on "Keep of the Borderlands" so there is a glimmer of hope for more ToEE engined games. Best turn based combat system ever devised. No game compares even remotely.

About NWN - there are just too many things that turn me off. My brother made the mistake of showing me how his 7 year old son was designing levels with the tile editor. I said "hey thanks for killing NWN for me." Now every time I look at NWN I just see the tiles and immersion is totally destroyed. I addition, if I can only control a single character I want total control like Gothic II. I despise Diablo and the wretched influence it has had on control interfaces. NWN may be D&D but it really boils down to "click click click" and hotkeys. It just bores me to tears. With the inclusion of the spacebar pause (although it works 70% of the time) I could manage a much larger party. In the end it feels too simplistic - like err... a 7 year old could design things LOL. I've seen one do it!

 

Yeah I kept my party size to 2 (half-elf sorcerer/thief Avencil, and half-elf cleric/paladin Paranon) so I could max them out at the end of the game. I think they ended at levels 16/15, and 16/14 respectively. I also used a joinable NPC as a pack mule. You can remove them from your party to save the XP for yourself, and they will stay where you left them as long as you don't transition to another a level. When you're ready to move on, just add them back to your party. They're like a bag of holding! Very useful for all those items!

The control undead will help you lots with the unturnable Mohrgs, and with the even more powerful Ravenants. Destruction for your Cleric is also very handy against magic resistant drow.

Yes, the ToEE combat system is certainly the most true to the 3.0 rules. Lots of good stuff there. Loved the 5 foot step and the proper determination of attacks of opportunity. I also think that the lack of attacks of opportunity on enemies in PoR is odd, yet they make them consistently on you. When emenies panic and run, you always get attacks of opportunities, but mid battle they seem few and far between. What's up with that?

Unfortunately, brain-dead combat systems seem to be the way of the future. D&D Online is just a little better than the diablo-esqe WoW clickfest and hotkeying. But nowhere near the 3.5 combat turn-based rules. For some reason simplistic kindergarten R/T combat is all we see on the horizon.

I think the ease of moding NWN is a virtue. That allows anyone with a creative idea for an adventure to share it with the rest of us. The number of community created adventures is staggeringly HUGE!

 

Brain dead combat systems (BDCS).... Oh man you are so right. Funny you mentioned DDO - its the only MMO i've ever considered because you have some control. But yes, the 3.5 thing is joke. I can't stomach the fee anyway though so Im out.

I think the BDCS issue has something to do with the attitude of the hard core RPG'er. They don't like twitch games generally. I've always played FPS's and I like the action. That's why I need a party if I'm pulled away from the direct control.

Hey NWN2 dumped the tile system - at least for the outdoor areas. I'm looking forward to that one - hopefully the mod community will be as strong.

So what about Gothic and Morrowind? I'm a huge Gothic fan. Morrowind was great too but Gothic 2 was amazing.

 

That's an overstatement. Each post (except for the last) has at least a paragraph or two about RoMD.

[And 5 about other games. Is it too much to ask to use another forum we provide for that? -Tal]

[ March 08, 2006, 23:04: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Part of the point of discussing the other games was to compare the combat systems - such as ToEE vs. POR2, and further, how the various games relate in terms of party control vs. single character, realtime vs. turn based etc. Some of it is offtopic but alot of it is related.

But you're the boss so back to POR2.

SPOILER WARNING...
I ran into a very difficult battle last night in the South East corner of the 4th Cellar. There is a circle of death radiating out of a crypt and once you kill a Revenant in the room you are assaulted and outflanked by an Arch Lich, two standard Lich's and a good half dozen or so Mhorgs.

I was well on my way to losing so I reloaded and ended up pretty much on my way into the abyss again. I did waste a bunch of combat rounds trying to figure out the Crypt to see if it was a trigger or something but apparently you just have to duke it out. Trouble is, that's a lot of Lich to deal with - 3 cones of cold per round until I can get my fighters in a position for an attack of opportunity during their cast. Ouch. To top that off, 3 Lichs generally mean 3 Phylacteries to find to destroy their essence no? Otherwise I'll have to fight this hard battle every single time I'm in this region right? Yikes. I need to backtrack to some areas I skipped so I'm guaranteed to be here again...