The usual party selection issue..

Remove all ads!

Con should handle the saving throws vs. stuff disintigrate and finger of death, while Dex should increase the saving throws vs. stuff like fireball and lightning bolt no? at least that's how it's set up in 3.0-3.5, but I would assume it'd be the same way 2ed even if the saving throws are named differently.

 

Wow, you sound almost exactly like my current playthrough (well, almost -- my F/T doesn't use any ranged weapons, and I'll not accept Sarevok later on). Don't worry, F/T doing the CF battle at level 9/11 wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I used a few invisible potions and the ring of invisibility, which greatly helped reduce the slaver crew to a manageable number. Only took one reload (to decide which staircase would be easier to attack from -- for me it was the left).

The 4-person evil party has so far been my easiest, and among my most entertaining playthroughs. Geez, I missed so much by being a Paladin-addict...

Anyway, enjoy your playthrough. Replaying this excellent game is giving me quite the appreciated break from my MMORPG addiction.

 

Omni. No they are not handled by different stats you have. They actually come off a chart and depending on your class and level you have a certain number to roll against to say if you saved or failed. Then different things you can have either modify certain ones specifically or all of them across the board. Your initial Saving Throw number is not determined by your stats at all in 2nd Edition.

In Second Edition however There are two things to note about saving throws and your Stats. Dwarves get a stat bonus for high Constitution against poison and magic, I think gnomes had some kind of bonus as well against magic or something that was based on how high your con was.

Then there is Wisdom that gives you a bonus against certain things trying to alter the mind. Not illusions however.

 

Incidentally, illusions were cancelled out by uber-intelligence. A character with INT 19 could see through any 1st level illusion, INT 20 could see through 2nd level or below, INT 21 could see through 3rd level or below, ... and INT 25 could see through 7th level or below. As you can see, having a gnome PC from BG1 with 20 INT would make Mirror Image completely worthless, but would require a significant amount of coding to effect it.

 

I liked Grey Elves and the Aranea out of the Red Steel boxed set. Penchant for wizards and both were capable of a starting Intelligence of 20.

 

Halflings get the same CON-based saving throw bonus vs wands, spells and death that dwarves get. Don't forget the small folk!

High wisdom is supposed to give you immunity to specific spells, in addition to the saving throw bonus. Shame this wasn't implemented, it would've been quite handy.

 

I picked up Haer'Dalis temprary, though decided to keep him. If it be him or Kelsey who's gonna have to leave in ToB is yet to come. I really like Haer'Dalis for his personality, his tales and so on. He's a great character to bring along. Too bad he ain't much of a fighter though. I'm planning on using him as I used my Skald once, too boost his close-combat capability. Lots of protection and transformation spells. I'm really enjoying myself now

 

Oh, also - if you really hate Anomen, it can be somewhat amusing to take him into an evil party and force him to fail his test. Mmm, that's good schadenfreude.

 

You are indeed correct that I missed the halflings. They didn't get protection from Death magic though. Only the two categories of

Wands/staves/rods, and spells.

Though something I had not remembered at all is that the halflings get the poison saving throw bonus for high con just like dwarves do as well.

 

Don't poison and death magic just use the same saving throw?

They're lumped together for the purpose of racial saving throw bonuses in BG2, anyway.

 

Their lumped together. get the same basic number to start from.

The thing is that in Second edition table top you don't modify the number you need to roll actually. You modify the roll itself. So say you have an 18 or 19 constitution dwarf rolling a saving throw against a wands affect. He's a level 3 fighter so his saving throw number is 15. He then rolls an 11. Now normally this would be a failure. But he has a +5. This modifies the roll from 11 to 16 and he's made his save.

It doesn't help you any though when somebody casts finger of Death on you though. Which would take priority over other saving throw categories that might have.

Incidently this is why in Second Edition bonuses to your saving throws were listed as +'s instead of -'s.

 

Dwarves get a bonus to save vs spells, wands and poison. Same for halflings. Gnomes get a bonus to save vs spells and wands only. No poison/death bonus.

Proof? Have you read Ice Wind Dale series?

A female mage uses a wand of lightning on Bruenor (dwarf), he is not greviously wounded as the author says:'since the dwarf-kind is resistant to spells and magical effects' or something like that. So we can assume that Bruenor made his save vs wands, with the help of his racial bonus, and took half damage only.

Something like this happened to Regis as well in the first book. The bad guy used his own amulet's charm person power. Author again says that 'since halflings are resistant' thing, and Regis is not affected, thus making his save spells, with racial bonus.

Who says that fantasy books do not use the rules of P&P? What do you think?