What do you consider cheese?

Remove all ads!

Other than obvious bugs (eg. fake talk), what items and tactics do you think are just too sneaky or overpowered, to the point of being considered cheesy? My big ones are:

Shield of Balduran - more like Shield of Beholder Immunity, though I don't feel too badly about this one, since Beholders are sickly powerful in this game.

Cloak of Mirroring - nothing needs to be said about this one. Wouldn't be as bad if the enemy AI was smart enough to not cast directly at someone wearing this, but it's not.

Scroll of Protection from Magic/Undead - there should be some challenge in fighting liches, vampires, the Twisted Rune, etc.

Use Any Item - I was originally going to just say Thieves with Staff of the Magi and Cloak of Non-Detection (which makes it trivial to backstab any non-innately-seeing-through-invis creature to death), but I personally feel this HLA is cheesy in general.

Setting traps, Skull Traps, using Magic Resistance, etc. on a neutral target that you know is going to hostile.

Getting enemies stuck in doorways.

Resting all the time - learn to maximize your spells rather than throw out your whole spellbook every battle!

Robe of Vecna - way more powerful than what should be merchant-purchasable.

All my opinions of course. I'm sure I missed some - feel free to add to my list or disagree with me or whatever.

 

I agree to some extent. I have uber difficult mods to make up reasons for these equipments.

Shield of Balduran-It is cheesy against beholders, yes. But in my game smarter beholders do not use their rays to the person holding the shield. Instead they come and bite, and poison, they are still nasty!

Cloak of Mirroring-In SoA it was extremely cheesy, reflecting spells BACK. Now it only absorbs, which is a good thing.

Scrolls-Well pro from Magic scroll is so rare as it should be. But you can buy tons of Pro from Undead scrolls. Good news, improved Kangaxx has a way around, and Bodhi is immune to it!

Use Any Item-No I don't think it is that cheesy, it is a cool rogue ability.

Setting traps-If you are killing dragons, demogorgon, demilich with these sure it is cheesy.

Resting-well I see no cheese here, unless you rest after every battle.

Robe of Vecna-I agree. This is one bad cheesy item. And I LOVE it!

What about multiple Project Images via Chain COntingencies, my army of Planetars, endless spells via wish, or other fun stuff?

 

Cheese is this really yummy stuff you get when bacteria get crazy with a bottle of milk...

Okay okay...in BG2 terms, I'd say NONE of what you have outlined above is cheesy.

Do you know what IS cheesy though? Improved Irenicus...stuff that completely BREAKS the game is cheesy...stuff like UNLIMITED spell casting, PERMANENT Improved Alacrity...all of that is cheese. Because the enemies are supposed to be hard...they cheat. And that is cheesy.

For ONCE I would like to see a boss fight which did not rely on cheating in order to be fun and challenging...Tactics wusses out IMO. There is not ONE good fight in there which doesn't need cheating to be fun.

Oh, and btw I am a COMPLETE fan of Ascension!! Now THAT is something worthwhile...

 

My own definition is pretty simple. Cheese is anything the game engine allows that you know no human Dungeon Master ever would.

For a couple of examples:

Casting Simulacrum or Project Image, then using the image to cast a spell from a scroll, without consuming the original scroll.

Stacking potions of Mater Thievery to increase pickpocket skills to ridiculous levels. Other potions don't stack. Strength of 67, anyone?

 

I don't think that Shield of Balduran is cheesy. It is useful only in some situations. How will you kill Beholder type creatures if you don't have it?

I don't think Prot. from Undead/Magic scrolls are cheesy against liches. Well, then we can also say Spell Immunity:Abj. and Berserking are cheesy against liches. How do you plan to survive Kangaxx without one of these?

Every item/spell/ability is cheesy against something in the game according to your definition.

Also cheese depends on your game style. If you solo with a class except mage, thief and berserker, protection scrolls are the only way to defeat liches. If you are a thief UAI or traps are the choices which you also defined as cheesy.

Even if you don't solo you will need one of these items/spells/abilities to finish the game.

 

Well said. With that in mind...

SoB - You also should not be fighting half a dozen beholders at one time. Beholders are very territorial, and none of them get along with the other species, so you never ever see three beholders and three gauth just chillin' and waiting for you. I consider it a trade-off. COUNTERED CHEESE.

CoM - Immunity to directed spells... Depends on the campaign, and with one so spell-heavy it might be allowable. But any good spellcaster would use things like Heat Metal, or area effect spells, or pretty much anything they could do to get around your immunity. But with the crappy AI, it's just too powerful. CHEESE BY DEFAULT.

Scrolls of Protection - They do what they say they do, what they should do. There aren't that many of them to be a viable standard tactic. The only cheese comes in foreknowledge fo liches and such to use them to your greatest advantage, rather than perhaps wasting one or two on battles that aren't that hard. NOT CHEESE.

UAI - *pulls out the High Level Campaigns book and studies it* Not in PnP + rediculously powerful = CHEESE.

Setting traps and buffing around a neutral character - Again this goes to foreknowledge. Using foreknowledge is cheese, being genuinely suspicious of someone is not. It's all in how you use it. NOT CHEESE.
Example: My first time through ToB I set traps at the foot of the stairs to Abazigal's Enclave that saved my ass against Draconis. Not because I knew I was going to face a dragon at the entrance (big surprise, in fact), but because I was pretty sure I was going to have to make a tactical retreat at some point and I wanted something ready. I still do the same thing, on tradition, which is borderline but not quite cheesy since I had a reason the first time and presumably would have the same reason the next time if my memory was removed.

Getting enemies stuck in doorways - This is tactics, not cheese. If they're stupid enough to be in a place where they can't get through a doorway AND not have a missile weapon to hurt you with, then they deserve to die. NOT CHEESE.

If you're talking about the invisible character doorstop, however, yes that is cheesy. Any character with an INT over -5 would flail at whatever force was stopping them. CHEESE.

Resting all the time - Depends on the DM, so it's rather questionable. Some DMs would allow you to rest after every battle, and some would vindictively spring attack after attack on your camp in an attempt to keep you moving for a while, explaining that "perhaps you shouldn't use up all your spells so quickly". (I admit nothing. ) CHEESE???

Robe of Vecna - If your only beef with this is that it shouldn't be purchaseable, then fine, make it cost an enormous treasure haul and consider it the spoils of whatever long dungeon crawl it took to acquire the funds. (Oh wait, it does cost an exorbitant amount.) Anything Vecna-related is an artifact, and I do agree it shouldn't be purchaseable for any amount, but removing it from the game is a bit too far. Moving it to a treasure horde in the later chapters of SoA, OTOH...

Spell abuse - The word "abuse" just screams CHEESE!

Foreknowledge - Touched upon in some previous points, this is the second biggest, smelliest block of limburger in the game (behind spell abuse). No DM worth his salt would use an adventure so many times that you can memorize it, much less an entire months-long campaign. If you use something again, you change the challenges/monsters around at random so they can't get used to them. Since BG2 does not have this capacity, it is the player that is charged with not abusing this information. If s/he does, well... CHEESY CHEESY CHEESE CHEESE!!!

 

Stoneskin is cheese.

If you had to buy ingredients and spend some time to use it it might be balanced, but being able to make your mages immune so easily (especially in combination with mirror image) isn't balanced, especially since the low casting times allow recasting in battles.

Mislead is cheese.
Contingencies or spell triggers are also cheese, far too powerful.

 

Stoneskin requires diamond dust, but I'd say 1 diamond = 10 dustings or more, so just dropping a few diamonds (which are in plentiful supply even in SoA) would take care of that.

The quick casting times of 1 are in the PnP version, so that's not cheese.

Mislead should be treated like Shadow Door or Improved Invisibility: one backstab and you're found out though still invisible. This example falls under spell abuse.

Contingencies are perfectly legal, though they also require components. 100gp worth of quicksilver for Contingency and 500gp worth of quicksilver + a >1,000gp value gem for Chain Contingency (from the Tome of Magic). Triggers and sequencers, OTOH, I haven't been able to find.

 

I agree UAI is cheese so perhaps any item not normally uable by the theif would function at half effeiency. Their talents have enabled them to overcome the inital barriers/restrictions but they would still not be proficent with is as the native class/alignment.

 

I wouldn't mind UAI if it removed some restrictions but not those for items that are usable by only 1 class. Thus a thief could equip a two-handed sword +5 but not Holy Avenger. Other items that he would be prohibited from:
Holy Avenger
Staff of the Woodlands
Staff of the Magi
Montolio's Cloak
Melodic Chain
etc.

It would still be a powerful ability allowing the theif to use different items (and things like wands and scrolls which are available to 2 classes) but you wouldn't see the most powerful Holy sword ever in the hands of a theif.

 

I definitely agree with the sentiment that using foreknowledge in any way is very cheesy. I always kind of considered using PI/Simulacrum and consumable items to be kind of a bug in my eye, though I'm sure it's technically not. It just shouldn't be allowed IMO.

@Felinoid and kmonster - I don't think simply requiring material components for spells would do much for game balance, since money is so easy to come across in this game. That's a completely different can of worms, though. I've only ever played one PnP campaign myself, and though it was a low-level campaign, spending hundreds of gold on spell components every day would not have been close to feasible, though I imagine that depends a lot on the GM too. In this game though, it's not difficult to accumulate a surplus of hundreds of thousands of gold.

I also agree that Beholders are cheesy in this game - how often can they use their innate abilities in PnP? In this game, it seems like they can fire off all their eyes every round...

 

Since when are PnP rules criteria for judging facets of a computer game? The game isn't meant to be a faithful replication of AD&D, I'm sure.

That being said, I feel like not getting a sense of satisfaction out of using a certain tactic/item counts enough as cheese for me. I tossed away the Ring of Regeneration since I kept switching it around to all the characters so they could all heal between fights. It was just too much trouble to switch the ring from Jaheira to Imoen to Viconia to...

 

@Chitinous Shell:

Money isn't that easy to come across. You can get an unlimited amount but this requires using cheese.
You won't have enough money to buy everything useful for your 6 person party if you don't use cheese.

It's a tough decision if you have to ask yourself if you should use a few stoneskins or buy a few spells.

Stoneskin is used very often, if your 3 mages cast it every time after resting you will have spent thousands of gp for it before even starting chapter2. And are there really so many diamonds in this game ?

Not many players would decide to buy diamonds for using stoneskins instead of buying scrolls, weapons or armor, especially from merchants which aren't available forever.

 

The Tactics mod.

* dons Robe of Fire Resistance *

 

Hey do not say anything bad about my Tactics mod. It is my FAVOURITE mod. And it does not smell that much cheese to me. Well I can come up with explanations of the uber power of enemies. Try the same!

Ofcourse if you do not use some slight cheese than your survival chance is pretty diminished in it.

 

-Protection From Undead scrolls are cheesy, but only if you're soloing. I had a solo Monk who could eliminate all 3 of the Liches with only 1 scroll by running as fast as I could between encounters.
-Protection from Magic. These things are just stupid in a game where nearly all of the strongest enemies are spellcasters.
-pickpocketing Gaxx before the battle starts, allowing you to gain 2 Rings of Gaxx.
-Un-nerfed Stoneskin/Ironskin.
-Use Any Item. Definitely.
-Solo Blades, Monks or Fighter/Mage/Thieves

 

I don't think UAI is cheese, just some ways items are used with it (like SotM) are cheese.

UAI is rather balancing. Why should mages be able to use far better armor than thieves or bards for example ?

 

Going by some of the definitions of cheese by other members here on the board...I'd have to say the ultimate cheese would be...

WINNING THE DAMN GAME!!

Seriously, you guys think EVERYTHING is cheese....

Yes, I know I'm just begging to get flamed...but I cant help it. You guys are way too paranoid about cheese.

 

^I totally agree with you. If an item/weapon/spell is introduced by the vanilla game, and you use it to its full potential (which you should and have all rights to do so) it can not be considered cheese. If you do cheating, or cheat poor AI, or mess with the game engine in one way or another, that is definitely cheese and it stinks.

 

All a matter of opinion, of course. Some people (myself included) feel like some items, spell abuses, or whatnot are too powerful, and that makes the game less enjoyable.