Together Retro: Baldur's Gate

[Nemoide]

I can tell that I am SO CLOSE to the end. But I can't keep playing tonight.
Let's see if I can finish tomorrow! If not -- THE WEEKEND.

I'll share my thoughts on the overall plot of the game once I'm done.

[Hatta]

Apparently rings of protection can't be used with enchanted armor. Is that a D&D rule or did they make that up for Baldur's Gate? I don't remember that being a problem in Pool of Radiance.

[NebachadnezzaR]

Yeah, I just realized that when I couldn't equip a plate armor+1 on a character :/

Anyway, I ended up getting detoured from the city, wandering through the fields up north and into Ulgoth's Beard. Picked up some quests (did a really weird on where I got teleported to an island) and I finally entered Baldur's Gate. I hope the city isn't too confusing to explore and navigate. What I liked most so far was the wilderness areas, and I can see growing bored with the urban setting.

[MrPopo]

Apparently rings of protection can't be used with enchanted armor. Is that a D&D rule or did they make that up for Baldur's Gate? I don't remember that being a problem in Pool of Radiance.

It's a simplification of the AD&D rule. The actual rule is that if you're wearing magical armor then the ring of protection does not give an AC bonus, but you can still get the saving throw bonus. Similarly, only the strongest ring equipped applies, so in that case it makes sense to block the player (as the other ring is completely wasted being equipped). So technically the game is screwing you out of the +1 to saves from having both a ring and armor equipped, but in practice it's not an issue.

[Nemoide]

FINAL BOSS. I HATE HIM.
Some of my characters are still level 6, so I've left the final area to go in search of side-quests, aided by GameFAQs walkthroughs. Seriously, the final battle is way harder than I would like. I enjoy challenges, but with the awkward "real-time but requiring you to pause constantly" mechanics, it just doesn't feel like a fair fight. I've looked up strategies online and they seem to indicate that you can draw the "underlings" out to fight them individually, but I'm not able to. Every time I get close enough to SEE a character, it's inevitably just the final dude who instantly rallies everyone to battle. I DO NOT KNOW HOW HE CAN SEE A CHARACTER WHO IS INVISIBLE AND WEARS A CLOAK OF NON-DETECTION! COME ON!

So I'll be sidequesting. I apparently missed a dungeon in Ulcaster. I wish I could get to the locations from the expansion. I hope basilisks randomly spawn, because I'll probably have to kill a lot of those guys.

FRUSTRATION.

[MrPopo]

Yeah, the final boss is pretty insane because his aggro range is huge and his underlings do a lot of damage. And you can't just bum rush him because he has too much HP to burn him down fast.

My suggestion is to look over your entire suite of buffs and debuffs you have available for your characters and use all of them. They make such a huge difference.

[Ivo]

About the final boss... A possible suggestion.

This may be a bit cheap way to do it, and I may misremember the effectiveness... But I remember being relatively simple to spam the *heck* out of summoning wands (I had a collection of them somehow) and using a army of mooks to keep the enemies busy while your ranged damage dealers work on them.

[Nemoide]

Yeah! I beat the game! SPAMMING THOSE SUMMONS. Kind of cheap, but I guess it works? I'll be starting the expansion-areas soon.

So overall, I think it was a pretty decent game. I had fun with a lot of parts and it held my interest more now that I'm an adult than it did when I was a teenager. But the game has some flaws. Maybe I'm just not into this style of game, but I don't think the story was anything to write home about.
I mean, it starts off with a great Nietzsche quote, a cinematic of a mysterious figure in dragon-armor with supernatural strength killing a knight and throwing him off a tower, a backstory hinting at a mysterious past for the main character, as you watch your adoptive father killed... and then you suddenly go from "discover your past and find out what Gorion wanted you to do" to "let's find out what's up with the iron shortage" and "let's stop those bandits."
Things get tied up at the end, but for most of the game it feels like you're just wandering around looking for bandits to fight or help out some villagers with their small-town mining woes. On the other hand, once you get to Baldur's Gate, I found everything a lot more interesting.

The whole "Bhaalspawn" thing isn't implemented very well, IMO. First, I had this, spoiled for me just from buying the official releases of the first two games and seeing what they came with. When you install the expansion it gives you a "Mission Pack Save" with a sample party and if you load it, there's an introduction about how it takes place before your battle with "your murderous half-brother"
Actually, during my main playthrough, I MISSED the scroll from Gorion explaining that the PC was the child of Bhaal by going up a level in Candlekeep and ended up getting arrested instantly. When I got to chapter 6 or 7, it mentioned it in the story-narration screen. I still had a save in which the character was in the library, so I did get to read it, but really, that kind of story element should be an explosive reveal, not some 'well, if you feel like reading a scroll, you'll see it.' Maybe this kind of thing has been ruined for me by over-the-top JRPGs?

ANYWAY - I'M GLAD IT'S OVER... EXCEPT THE EXPANSION!
I'm not going to be jumping right into Baldur's Gate II, but I will at some point; I want to import my final save!

[MrPopo]

So I feel that Baldur's Gate 1's story is pretty weak compared to Baldur's Gate II. And BGII fleshes out your party members much more. They get personal quests, you get romances, and they start to interact with each other much more.l

[Nemoide]

I've officially given up on trying to get to the expansion areas with my original party. Nothing seems to work - the only thing I haven't tried was deleting the "Mission Pack Save" and re-installing it. I've reinstalled it, patched it, loaded my "Final Save" loaded my last actual save... I just couldn't get to Ulgoth's Beard! So I'm playing it with the "default" party the game makes for you with the Mission Pack Save.

I think I'm already most of the way done with it. I've been to ice island and werewolf island... all that's left is Durlag's Tower! Then this game is getting put away in a drawer were I will probably never play it again!