On Cheesiness

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@ Aahz

Good points there.I agree that the existing mods do not require the use of cheese in order to complete the game.


Although I am sure that mod makers, if they want, can make things much harder. Some examples:


- Making a lich use Shapechange: Mind Flayer + Timestop instead of just casting spells during it

Or imp. haste + Black Blade of Disaster + some Timestops in a row


- A F/M/T using mislead + SI Divination and backstab you to death

- Even worse they could use a sorcerer with the 3 PIs Chain Cont..Now the PIs can do many interesting things:

a)Summon an army of planetars, b) Empty their entire spellbook on your characters, c) Then they could cast on themselves: SI Divination +
improved haste + Shapechange: Mind Flayer + Tenser's Tr. ...


- We haven't (fortunately) seen yet in a mod an enemy Fighter/Mage use the improved haste + Timestop + Critical Strike combo

(PS: I DON'T want to see the above things in a mod )


@ Felinoid

Exactly.


@ Silverstar

Hehe.Reading your posts, I think that you are able to complete the game without using cheese at all

 

A good archer would pincushion a mage that didn't expect to be attacked before the spells would go off. Specially as fast as some of them could concievably fire. Not to mention if a few of them were true to the Archer kit.

Granted no. The enemies now are mostly do the stupidest crap and they are easily defeated. Even just changing the way some of them work would make them a lot harder without needing to add in unattainable cheese.

Sendai's mage form stripping your resistances while the archer pounded into you and the thief went into hiding and backstabbed you would be a nasty fight. Even just having them all target different people would have you making you change all your tactics around. it's not saying you couldn't beat them but it is saying you would have more to contend with without going for the "abuse of the impossible" to get it done.

I understand the system has limits. I understand that it also has it's abuses. But there is a lot of room in the system without going to the point of beyond abusing it isn't there?

maybe I'm losing it but didn't second edition Beholders have an eye that did a true sight like affect or some of them smart enough that they were immune to invisibility or something? Or maybe I'm remembering something out of some damned game. it's hard to say. I think I remember them having some kind of physical bite attack or something as well. Why don't they set in with something like that when their beholder rays are deflected?

Or even attacking my favorite tactic. making enemies more prone to backing out of area affect spell area's. Now it's not always possible for them but many of them don't even try. It's why I like to do it to them. Either that or they run towards me and get slaughtered.

Balthazar's little special guard cronies using a bit of his powers from studying under him is a realistic change to an enemy encounter without getting totally over the top. Though the immunity to time stop kind of sucks. Can't even catch him lucky and have it work.

A lot of the challenges just in the unmodded game could be made a lot harder just with improved use of what they have on the monsters part. But maybe I'm talking about something that is too hard to really code into the creatures.

 

Like Felinoid, there's a distinction I'd make between different cheeses - some are simply overpowered items (which you always have the option of not using) such as the Shield of Balduran or the un-nerfed Cloak of Mirroring, while others are active exploits of the game engine to secure an advantage that should not exist (and wouldn't in PnP), such as spamming PIs and abusing the summons cap. There are some things a game engine simply can't effectively mimic from the PnP game, and there's no DM to step in and prevent it.

If it was in vanilla BG2, I don't have a problem with it (well, unless it's Celestial Fury). Draconis is a good example of excellent AI and use of a creature's abilities to create a really tough fight. I've started actively avoiding use of "reload knowledge" in my games - and it makes the game a lot more fun, since it's not as easy. For that reason, I'm probably not going to go for Kangaxx (unless my Wizardslayer's disruption ability can block the demilich from throwing out Imprisonment, and there will undoubtedly be a few Bondari reloads in the process).

That said, I'd like to see mods with a "smarter" nemesis who (1) knows when to cut and run, rather than stand there and take it (Contingency - Dimension Door, anyone?) and get killed, (2) understandable/explainable rule-bending, (3) some basic preparations (depending on the class of the enemy - Smarter Mages does this), and (4) some protections/scripting defences against some of the more typical cheese tactics.

They don't need phenomenal cosmic powers/to be impossible to beat, just a way to level the playing field - and I'm now sick of Tactics, since I don't play for frustration and it effectively hands the computer a license to CTRL-Y you. Alternately, Prine's idea about denying you the rewards for resorting to cheese/making it impossible for them to harm you has merit, too - it forces you to either play fairly or forsake the loot & XP from the encounter.

@ Aahz - Elder Orbs can be, if only because those suckers occasionally throw out Imprisonment.

@ starwalker -

IIRC, they had the central eye anti-magic ray - and there's no Invisibility effect in BG2 that isn't magical except for Hide In Shadows. Of course, to be truly faithful to PnP, you wouldn't have magic weapon, item or armour effects in that cone, and you couldn't be hit by the beholder's eye-rays there either.

 

While I'm enjoying the greater difficulty presented by the various mods I find myself balancing things out through what may be described as "minor" cheese. Instead of ramping up my stats and abilities to god-like levels I've been making custom items (weapons, armor, wands, etc.) that give my party a fighting chance. For instance, at the improved Chateau Irenicus I got severely pummeled by the new dungeon guardians (Ilyich & friends) at first. There's just no way to beat them all in a straight-up fight, so I planted a wand of aerial servant in the dungeon. I still got creamed a few times but at least I was able to beat them with the help of my elemental pal (I've also created wands of fire and earth elemental summoning, though I try to limit their use).

Additionally I've made dozens of new suits of armor, weapons, etc., with moderately improved abilities so the more difficult fights don't always end with most of my party in little bloody pieces. It's taken some time to find a good balance but I've devised many magic items that keep battles challenging but neither aneurysm-inducingly hard nor ego-inflatingly simple.