The O.C. - Newbie Thoughts

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No, I'm not going to a detailed analysis of my first proper run through this game like I did for BGII because this game does not lend itself to that sort of analysis as well as BGII did.

But as I am part way through this game for the first time, I do have some preliminary thoughts to share:

1) The whole 3-D thing took a while to get used to but now I think I have found the camera controls I like the best and I've gotten used to it.
2) It's all a bit dark for my liking and I sometimes have trouble seeing what is going on, even with a torch
3) Many people have complained about the terrible plot but I haven't found it to be too bad so far. Really, the plots of BG, BGII, and IWDII are hardly gripping epics anyway.
4) I much prefer the 3e rules which allow far greater customisation of your character
5) I really like the prestige classes
6) I don't think the O.C. will have much replayability. I can imagine replaying BGII because there are different paths and stronghold quests and NPC combinations to take. The OC does not really have that.
7) The NPCs are nowhere near as memorable as in BGII.
8) I have difficulty constructing many useful 2 man party options because of my refusal to travel without a thief and without a melee fighter. This is OK at the moment because my PC is a Rogue / Ranger / Shadowdancer but would be a pain if I wanted to be a wizard.
9) The sidequests in this game are no sillier than the BGII ones so far.
10) There are less uber magic items in this game than in BGII which is good because you have to rely more on your character's abilities than on finding a cheesey katana.

Overall, I am enjoying this game much more than I thought from everyone's negative comments on these Boards. I am currently about 1/4 of the way through Chapter 2 so I will await to see if it continues to be enjoyable or goes downhill from here.

 

I second most of your comments. Given your current thinking, I would recommend that you give serious thought to trying SoU and HotU when you finish the OC. Those games feature a memorable henchman and HotU, especially, has a great plot and is much better than the OC in every way.

I understand your feeling that you need a Rogue and Fighter-type in your party, but do not rule out a Wizard. Start with a level of Rogue to give good base skills and the ability to remove difficult traps. Then take Wizard levels. The high INT of the Wizard gives lots of skill points and big bonuses to important Rogue skills like Search and Disable Device. The Wizard skill points should allow you to keep your key skills at acceptable levels. Another option would be to take the Craft Wand feat and make yourself some wands of Knock and Detect Traps. Many people denigrate Detect Traps claiming that a decent Search skill is just as good. This misses the point that Detect Traps also disarms all the traps that it detects. With those two wands, all a Wizard would need is a decent Search skill and then a Rogue becomes superfluous.

As far as having a fighter-type, I have posted in another thread some of the ways a Wizard can become a very potent fighter.

Finally, if you get and install the PRC, you can have the best of all worlds. My favorite is Rogue 4 / Wizard 6 / Arcane Trickster X. This character will get full Rogue abilities (including increases in Sneak Attack damage), will have full casting progression, and even gets 3 attacks by 20th level making him a decent melee machine if you take the two-weapon fighting feats and use the proper buff spells.

 

Taluntain,

You are absolutely correct that a Pixie familiar is sufficient to handle all of the Rogue problems a Wizard may face. I should have mentioned it, but I never use my familiar and forgot about it.

The Pixie is a great Rogue, but she dies quickly in a fight. She will also take XP away if she is around during a fight. You could summon her to deal with traps/locks and then unsummon her before going into a fight. While that is probably the best strategy it involves more micromanagement than I prefer in playing the game. By putting Rogue skills on my character I may not be optimizing my skills, but I am making the game easier for me to play. Having a level of Rogue also gives some UMD skill and access to Rogue only items, some of which are pretty nice. To each their own.

 

Can you link me with your "review" of the BGII ?

 

Melhisedek - there are three threads in the BGII:ToB forum covering my first effort through that game. They all have the word "newbie thoughts" in the title so you can search for that.

Good point about the pixie. I hadn't thought of that and is a good solution to my issue. I also did not know that the Detect Traps also disarmed them.

Another minor gripe - I wish it didn't take so long to disarm traps and open locks. It seems to add up to a lot of wasted game time while you wait for that process to happen.

Another good point - Hide in Plain Sight is a great ability.

Another gripe - the henchmen AI is terrible. Granted it is a bit more realistic that you can't control your NPC fully (otherwise they are just another PC) but they can be very annoying when they do dumb things that get themselves killed (like firing their arrows in close combat or not running away to cast spells)

 

Harbour Boy,

You are correct about the henchman AI, that is why I solo all the time.

I agree, Hide in Plain Sight is awesome. I have run a Wizard / Rogue / Shadowdancer and it is a great deal of fun. A Wizard / Monk / Shadowdancer with a Pixie familar would also be very interesting. Using the PRC, I have posted a Wizard / Harper Mage / Shadowdancer build over on the Bio boards. My greatest disappointment is that NWN only allows three classes; a Wizard / Rogue / Shadowdancer / Arcane Trickster would be the best.

 

yeah - the henchman AI is appalling, but you can mitigate some of its worst excesses by using the voice chat commands, some of the more useful key combinations are VEE - follow me, VWE - attack, and VWX - stay there (good for archer henchmen)

alternatively, if you can get a few friends together to play the game either online or on a LAN with, you can do away with henchmen completely and can in my opinion have way more fun

 

The henchmen are pretty much worthless with the exception of their special items; I recommend hiring them every chapter so you can obtain and upgrade their items, as they are usually worth the time spent obtaining them. My first go-around was with a Barbarian/Fighter, but he got boring right after I finished the Tower of the Arcane Brotherhood. I prefer arcane casters or rogue/fighters the most, but clerics and druids can be amusing as well. Unfortunately, I do not possess the expansion packs - Khemsa, is the PrC compatible with the original NWN?

 

Oh yeah, latest gripe. The inventory system is annoying. I don't like having to do a jigsaw puzzle in order to fit everything in. It takes ages and sometime results in my character dropping her weapons on the ground when switching weapons via hotkeys if there isn't a big free space in the inventory (e.g. if swapping out a bow for a dagger). Very annoying. It's also pretty silly that carrying a box in your inventory allows you to carry more items. All that achieves is having to push more buttons to get at stuff.

 

The limited space can be annoying, but give a load of stuff to your henchman and snap up all the bags and boxes you can find. And be mean about what you pick up (that's the hardest part after BG packrat customs)

Ah- you can't get to your henchman's pack in the OC. Sorry. Something to look forward to in the expansions though!

 

Hi Harbourboy. It seems we are both playing through for the first time. I"m an hour into act 2...
Ya I abandoned the game a few times cuz of the 3D camera thing but I got used to it also. Got no problem with seeing though...turned the gamma up and some equipement sheds light. The plots good so far but the NPC/RP aspect ain't so hot IMHO. Reminds me of D2 in some ways. As far as the theif thing goes I've been playing a Barbarian using the NPC theif (Tomi I think....they call him Grin). Before I started act 2 I switched to the Sexy Bard NPC (Sharwyn?) figuring I could now steamroll traps and she has open locks, plus she is a possible romance (I think), and she has bard song and heal. Well I had major problems killing the monsters. She died or got real hurt and I had to run a few times plus there was a chest we couldn't open. I reloaded/replayed with Tomi and VIOLA I was strong again. It showed me just how much he helped with his sneak attack. Maybe he is better because he had real in game experience and the Bard had to train? As far as replayability I'll probably play it once more with a Spellcaster of some sort. Might be fun online if you have the right person/people to play with. I hear the expansions are better...

 

Erm...limited inventory space? What are you talking about? Your inventory is around six times larger than shown, HB. See the tabs on the side of the Inventory screen? Click on one of those, and it'll open a new "layer" of inventory space for you to fill. You'd have to collect every single piece of junk you found in order to fill the whole thing up.

Isshy, Sharwyn's AI is just really crappy - her main offensive tactic is to run up to enemies and engage them point-blank with her bow. Deekin's a much superior bard, though you only get him in SoU and HotU.

 

Bovine_Knight – I am using all the inventory tabs. I’m selling stuff after completing each area and I have two bags of holding (which hardly hold anything) but I still run out of space. The problem is more that there is often space available but you have to reshuffle the items in order to create a contiguous gap in which to fit them. It’s a bit like having to constantly defragment your inventory hard drive, but manually. Also, I have no idea what is junk and what is an essential plot item so I pick every thing up. I also use the Recover Trap option a bit so my inventory is full of traps as well.

I’m now in Neverwinter Woods and have reached level 10 (Rogue 7 / Ranger 2 / Shadowdancer 1). I have to admit that those Troll caves got a bit tedious after a while, but the graphics in the woods (with the shafts of sunlight) are quite nice.

 

Bovine Knight,

Sorry, you need both expansions to use the PRC. But if you like NWN, then you will be even more happy with SoU and thrilled by HotU; well worth the investment.

 

@ HB

The cheap magic bags are good for simply having a bit more space and grouping together e.g. scrolls, wands, traps, quest items neatly. Also, make a habit of using (minor) traps liberally - aside from being one of the things that makes rogues damn fun they're in endless supply and few people buy them.

I know what you mean about picking up everything you see - I think it comes from being raised on early adventures. (I carried around that letter from the mailbox in front of The White House in Zork for most of the game.)
I remember seeing in a user made mod, there was a coffin to one side of a corridor with a body in it:

"Corpse.
This is a 100 lb. cadaver. It serves no purpose. It is not a quest item. It will not unlock any secret dialogue. But you will carry it around with you nevertheless through the whole dungeon and back just in case."

I did - and I'm proud of it.

 

The magic bags do allow you to store more, but they are still a pain. You still have to arrange everything precisely to fit it all in, and you still have to click several times to get in and out of them.

Why not just have one inventory screen where every item is represented by a small icon so you can see everything at once?

I'm almost about to reach level 11. I wonder what class I will level up in this time.

 

Because clearly, that would be sensible

I think some people prefer the Deus Ex like 'real' inventory better than a Baldur's Gate style icon system. (But not many in this forum, I'd guess...) and Bio wanted to show off the nice item graphics they'd started making.

But on average, I think you can carry as much (a little more, perhaps) as a standard BGII char, which isn't nearly enough for most of us D&D packrats. It does get better in the XPs when you can use your henchman's inventory.

 

Anyway, enough griping about inventory. The coolest thing I have found recently is a ring of regeneration. That works so well with Hide in Plan Sight because I can just hide for a few seconds to gain back some HP to help survive those battles where Linu dies in the opening moments.

I'm also up to Dexterity of 24 which rocks. I'm so glad that the stat enhancing items stack in this way. It is much better than the BGII system of setting a stat to certain level.

 

There was a potion in BGI that gave +3 to WIS and INT...but I digress. Well, if you pick up everything, then yes, you're not going to have a lot of space. I just drop things I think are worthless (i.e. copper necklaces, mundane weapons/armor, etc.) and have never gone beyond three inventory sectors full. On an unrelated note, I just got NWN Platinum! Mwahahahaha