What do you consider cheese?

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Heck, I always get frustrated feeling I'm cheating or something when I have 6 players in the game. I have my PC(druid), Imoen, Edmund, Korgan, Kelorn, and Viconia. So far, we just mow the sheet outta everything. I'm quitting it to redo as a different char and not sure who to take with. It does seem way too easy with a party of 6

 

@Tony - The only problem with playing through with a smaller party is that you gain exp a lot faster, so you're just as powerful anyway

 

I usually consider cheese to be anything which breaks the previously stated rules of the game. Using physical mirror to cast multiple celestial beings and stuff like that. Overpowered or cheap items,spells, and abilities I just tend to refer to as "lame". For instance every mage and definetly every lich in the Tactics mod is lame. The Robe of Vecna with Improved Alacrity and Time Stop is also lame but fun nonetheless. And finally, the lamest of the lame (drumrole please) stoneskin + Pro. Magic Weapons. These two spells should be mutually exclusive in the same way that mantle and pro. mag. weapons are.

 

So if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, eats bread like a duck, has the word "DUCK" stamped on its duckbill, and is in a big pen with the sign "DUCKS, $2 APIECE", then it isn't a duck? Cheese is something that shouldn't be the way it is (by design; something that shouldn't be the way it is by mistake is a bug). Putting cheating into the definition of cheese is getting it very very backwards.

By definition, MM, a nerfed spell would be cheese; an un-nerfed spell...is just a damn good spell. That said, the skin spells may be somewhat cheesy (and I don't remember seeing Ironskins anywhere). Looking at Stoneskin's description in the PHB, it looks like attacks, not hits, are what bring down the skins. Of course, that's just one interpretation.

 

I use SK alot but I don't consider it cheating because most of the changes I make are purely cosmetic. If feeling that the normal color selection in the game is inadequate or that a kensai is alot cooler if he looks like an elf mage is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

 

gatsbygoon,

I wouldn't consider cosmetic changes cheating, as it doesn't interfere with gameplay. And since avatars are not one of the greatest qualities of IE Games (IMHO at least), I consider editors a blessing. My female fighter/thief from IWD would always be switched to the thief avatar (much cooler, hooded and all).

Anyway, to stay on topic:

I gotta say I'm a bit paranoid with cheese myself. Cheating is just out of the question (not even CTRL+J which a lot of people seem to think as harmless).

Anyway, what I really wanna talk about is foreknowledge. I'm guilty of it and no doubt, it's betraying roleplaying. But after I'm at the planar sphere and Tolgerias kills me for the 12th time, I decide that there's more to life than that and buff up before opening the door. And in this particular case, he is really not what you're expecting to find --> different from buffing up before speaking to Firkraag because you don't know if he'll decide to kill you right there.

Actually, I don't know if that's something most players avoid doing, but preparing for battle and spreading summons around a dragon before engaging him should be considered major cheese. You'd really believe a dragon would just sit there watching you prepare for battle and not realize what's going on? Except the black dragon (whose name I can't spell) who can't see you if you're holding that wardstone.

About Protection from Undead: it would be less cheesy if it worked like invisibility (only you couldn't dispel it). Undead creatures would ignore you... until you attacked or cast an offensive spell. That way you could cast protective spells and/or prevent your PC or some other character from getting killed or imprisoned... without being able to kill a demilich without a scratch using Korgan or Minsc or whatever.

EDIT: UAI = my Skald wielding Carsomyr = MAJOR FUN. Cut him some slack, he is the most powerful Bhaalspawn, anyway.

 

Cosmetic changes are cheating, but they're good cheating. If they'd had the time, I imagine the creators of the game might have worked something in to let you choose your appearance better. But regardless of that and because it doesn't affect gameplay or break the rules, it's harmless cheating, which is the good kind.

 

-Well, cheese would be everything and nothing wouldn't it? Take foreknowledge for instance. If you ever dcide upon what NPCs to take along, what weapon you want to use and so on before you've reached the point in the game where you can attain that NPC or item then that's using foreknowledge but everyone does that. It's simply impossible to "forget" everything about the game and start playing it as if it was the first time you did so. Just avoid the things "you" think are cheesy and don't try to rationalise something as fully cheesy because you are always doing something that someone else sees as cheesy and so this is a neverending discussion that will never go anywhere.

-Just play the game as you see fit and avoid what you see as cheese, it's as simple as that.

 

I don't really see why foreknowledge is an issue at all. The first time you reload a fight you have foreknowledge of the fight. Unless you decide to ironman the first time you ever play, you're going to have foreknowledge. Its just inevitable.

 

im suprised no one has mentioned thieves in general

Who can kill SulJon in 2 seconds without lifting a finger? a thief

Who can kill the mighty Chromatic Demon with a flick of several switches? a thief

Who can equip heavy armor, the fortress shield, and Angurvadel in one fight and in the next take Quietus and improved Valygar armor? a thief

see my point?

 

Yes, cheese is inevitable. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't avoid those you can. Foreknowledge may be unavoidable, but using it isn't unavoidable most of the time. Saying "I can't avoid foreknowledge so I might as well use it for everything" is just a cop-out. But regardless of what I or anyone else may think, it's your game to play as you see fit.

 

Anything decreasing stats permanently is cheesy. Like Rod of Terror with RoHI. Luckily it's easily avoidable, but sooo tempting.

Machine of Lum the Mad is super-cheesy. 100 000 exp and decrease dex & int in random! Luckily the designers had the wisdom of not making the machine decrease str, con, or wis. That would've been so cheesy it would've stunk to high heaven. Dex and int increases aren't that useful after all.

And no, you don't have to use them, but they're there and they're easily exploitable. That's cheese for you, you don't have to have anything to do with it, but it's tempting and tastes so good.

 

The same goes for my Jester, it's not that he is going to be as good as Keldorn with the big sword anyway (that wouldn't be quite the same story with a Blade).

 

What about reloading all the time?

Last time I went through BG2 I thought the game wasn't hard enough at times. Maybe it was because I tend to reload other than dealing with disasters. Specially when party members died.

I can count on my fingers how many times I actually took a dead party member to a temple for raising (using spells don't count). Usually I'd just reload, except if it was a VERY difficult battle.

Not to mention when I was unhappy with some answer I gave to some NPC and ended up reloading just to make sure I'd get the best possible ending to a quest.

Anyone thinks that's cheese? I'm thinking of playing a non-reloading game (except if CHARNAME gets killed, of course) this time.

 

It's great and frustrating at the same time, I remember a game in which I wanted to have Jan in my party and the little fella got diced permanently while completing the Unseeing Eye quest... I was able to find a back up spellcaster but I sure did miss the banter.

What really annoys me is being "mazed" (it's one of the reasons why I like the Berserker Rage ability) there is nothing worse than facing the game over screen simply because Charname was targeted by this spell...

[EDIT: I meant "imprisonment" thanx G... still, maze is the bane of soloers (look at Daie d'Malkin's post for instance)]

[ June 21, 2006, 22:15: Message edited by: Caradhras ]

 

@Hethan, If you aren't playing tactics then I'd say you ought to ironman. I've never done it but I'm going to. It must be so intense. You would never go into a fight without death ward and pro-petrification. And if you get into a tight spot, you know you're going to be a little more creative than you would be otherwise. I'm looking forward to it, anybody have a suggestion of what character class I ought to use, besides a mage.

And getting mazed doesn't end the game, getting imprisoned does.

 

I think I'm definitely doing it. For the first time I'll actually fear for the lives of my NPCs (instead of just getting annoyed when they die and I have to reload or spend lots of coin raising them).

About imprisonment: if I'm not wrong there's a mod that corrects imprisonment so it's not considered death by the game engine anymore, thus not ending the game when it happens to PC or disrupting romances when it happens to the applicable NPC. But that's off-topic, I guess.

 

Reloading is cheese. You think you could do that in PnP with a DM? A do-over of a section of the campaign? Not a chance. That said, it's still widely used and accepted cheese.

 

Reloading is just a fast way of saying "I'm dead and I've started back from the beginning again and done all the same things I did before and I'm back to the place where I died again." It's a time saver as much as anything.

 

I played SOA through with CHarname and Viccy only.

Charname was Dominated (not by Viccy though, steady guys), and Viccy was Mazed.

Game Over

What the hell? They're both coming back! Why?

That's cheese.