Throne of Bhaal Replacement TC!

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Completely agree that TOB allowed you to level up far too quickly. Levelling up in BG1 and SOA happened very, very slowly. Often you could spend hours (of actual time) playing the game without any of your characters gaining a single level. Even a soloist seemed to take forever to move up through the levels.

Yet in TOB you seem to be gaining a new level, and a new ability, after almost every fight.

The XP given for some of the fights is downright ridiculous. The duergar beserkers you fight in Sendai's enclave are worth 12000 XP each. Why? A couple of hits and they're gone. A party of around level 30 (which is what you'll be at that stage) will just wade through them and probably gain a million XP in the process. Enemies as easy as this shouldn't give such massive amounts of XP when you kill them.

So maybe a way round this would have to be found. Either half XP awards given (not a favourite of mine) or just increase how much XP is needed to advance a level. Move the gap between XP levels from 200000 to 500000 and the later stages of the game would be a real challenge as the party would be approaching them at a far lower level and have access to far fewer of the HLA.


As for allying yourself with the Five? Nice idea. I kind of wish I'd thought of that myself.

 

Although this topic has reached 60 reples (!), the only conclusion that I have drawn is that everybody has his own view of what the third part of the trilogy should be. This is really getting confusing...

 

Ask 100 people for their replies and you'll get 100 different responses. It's often the way these things go.

 

What trilogy are you talking about.

 

@mind flayer: well, at least you know there's interest! If you build a TC, you won't have a problem finding people to play it...

In the end, my advice is simply to be strategic. A TC is a *huge* project of course, and the more you can figure out ways to use work that's already been done, the easier it will be. Recycling Athkatla for the TC seems like a good idea to me; with the addition of new sidequests, with townspeople reacting to you like a famous, heroic, or downright freightening and scary figure, etc., it would seem like a whole new area. And who, while playing ToB, hasn't wished they could visit Athkatla again? Developing Calimshan would also be a cool project, and I'd love to see it, but it would be alot of work! Maybe we could have both, but you'd need a pretty big and dedicated team...

 

Hmmmm... If this gets done, it will easily be the best MOD thingy out there.

Could you import monster graphics from PS, or anything else? I know you can import IWD2 Graphics: I just slaughtered a bunch of treants(sp?) from IWD2...

And, if possable, you could make it so that 'overpowered' weapons wouldn't be so overpowered: lvl 60(?) enemys with uber-gear, V.S. you, who have to fight those impossable powerful foes to get over powered Items... And you could (hopefully) increase the xp cap so you can go very high indeed. Elmister? Bah! CHARNAME!

 

I don't know much about level design, but could the textures from Athkatla be re-used to create Calimshan, it would save a lot of time and still look very nice. Calimshan would be very cool to visit in ToB

 

Better still, would it be possible to re-use the landscapes from games like IWD 1 & 2 as well BG 1 & 2 to add a bit of variety to Calimshan? If so, you could well end up with a TC which is larger than the original game.

 

Sarevok - The BG Trilogy of course. Throne of Bhaal was intended for BG3, but something went wrong and it ended up 2,5 (!)

I could use Athkatla, and Baldur's Gate I's graphics, but IWD1 and IWD2 graphics are a bit out of the question, since they are snowwy (out of climate).
As for textures, I got lots of them, so I doubt it would be tough for me to build up Calimport in 3dsmax. The real problem is finding the time to build such a large project.

 

The largest completed mod is TDD which from what I hear is rubbish and it's 300MB, SoA with ToB together is over 2.0 gig so as well as asking for something that big been a huge ask, it would probably take a over a year not that many people would want to download it and if it turns out anything like TDD it will be a complete waste of time.

 

TDD was not that bad, and it wasn't built with the equipment IE mods have today, so you couldn't expect them to do miracles. I think CBisson has released larger mods (Check the Bodies, Shadows over Soubar) that are as large or even larger. It would be a pity to turn the topic into yet another "TDD is rubbish" thread, so dropping the thing would be best.

 

I think a TOB replacement mod is a great idea, and there are lots of excellent suggestions here. Besides being totally disappointed that there was no BG3, I for one couldn't stand the way they messed with Sarevok's and the PC's mothers. There were clues about these women in BG1 that they basically threw out the window to streamline the whole thing, and it turned out rather nonsensical.

 

Yeah, the whole linkage(is that the right word) of the plot and your past at the end of ToB seems a bit rushed. It would be cool to explore that whole thing a bit more, and If you choose to include Melissan, try to give her a bit more depth, for I was dissapointed at the end of ToB with Melissan being blah blah blah. Another thing I thought of would be each person in your party having a conversation with the PC and telling the PC what they are doing next.

 

Well personally first time through ToB I was too busy struggling to stay alive to notice the finer details but that isnt here or there.

What about those seven guys that were sitting around the table in the end SoA movie? I know, I know, they were going to be the original bad guys for ToB but were either replaced or whatever, but maybe they could still be used in a mod? I think if the five and Mellisan won't be included these people(?) would make good replacements.

Also Mindflayer I don't know how much of a help it might be but what if we all set up some polls in SP and other sites? (I'm aka Xavier in the TBG forums) but I'm aware this could only add to the confusion, since it would be hard to make any definate judgements out of votes given the sheer size of the D&D world and how varied the preferences are, and we would have to be extremly careful not to make any of the questions conflict with each other.

 

@david w: well, you forgot one thing: you are wearing god-like powerful magical item at that time (Cloak of Reflection, Holy Avenger etc), so its not at all impossible to beat Irenicus. Now, suppose that a level 6 guard can have +1 equipment, and your main character is immune to it (thank to the Hell test), how can he even hurt you? His commander can, but you can kill him with a blast, and ignore the rest of his troops. Even if you are an AI or not.

My 2 cents

 

GI, I thought this debate had died out a long time ago.

But okay...

You say what if the PC has these uber-powerful items and what if the PC is immune to normal weapons?

Fine.

What if: the enemy all have magic weapons? The enemies have spells that can harm the PC? The enemies all have special abilities?

And so the debate goes on...

 

Deities & Demigods was originally 1E book. Did they also do a 3E version of it? In the 1E version, many gods had levels in multiple classes, and greater gods commonly exceeded 30 levels total.

But all gods also had other powers that made them essentially unbeatable, regardless of level. For instance, if I recall correctly, they could teleport/blink at will with no error, so that they could: almost always avoid getting hit in combat, regardless of their AC; materialize with a weapon strategically positioned inside a character's head or chest cavity; etc.

All that to say that I don't think an encounter with a god would be a reasonable ploy unless CHARNAME first ascended and had similar abilities. But how could such a thing ever be coded and scripted? I say avoid it -- way too many complications and/or compromises that would stretch the credibility for role-playing purposes.