So, what're you playing?

[Merusk]

Running a fighter/magic user. Focusing more on abjuration for the tankiness. My main problem is how damn limited you are on the number of spells and that to get anything back you have to rest for eight hours. I'm totally a sucker for the 'too good to use' mental state and there's just so much of it between the spells, wands, potions and scrolls. +1 arrows dropping all over the place though. I'll get you out of jail Imoen, it'll just take a few years.

This is what I meant.  You're coming at it with a modern games/ MMO mentality. Just using the word "tankiness" and focusing on a spell line is the problem.  There are no tanks, it's 2nd ED D&D.  There's melee and "OMGRUNAWAY" casters who should never melee.   (One of the reasons I always despised fighter/mage combos is you were so limited on Armors or you gimped your casting.  Unless you were an elf and had that special elf combat mage armor.)

Abjuration spells are worthless for low-level slots as a mage in BG.  Pick-up Evocation or Necromancy, or even a few conjuring.  The cleric counterparts are almost always better in low-level Abjuration. (And coincidentlly go a long way to why Paladins kick ass. Cleric/ Fighters!)   

The GameFAQS page will be useful here as the game's so old.   JBolton's guide was decent for it's evaluation and summary of good spells for each spell tier: http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/919881-baldurs-gate-ii-the-collection/faqs/11334

Valygar isn't really all that impressive as an archer, actually - he's the stalker build so he's best used as a backstabbing melee character. The best archer NPC is Mazzy (the halfling fighter,) even though she can only use short bows.

I was actually think BG1. :)

Yeah BG1 was go archer or go home.  I think that's why they gimped them so hard in BG2.  My ranger character went from god to nigh-usless until I picked-up some melee skills/ perks.

[Lantyssa]

I remember my archer in BG1 kiting the gnolls/kobolds/whatever and Drizzt when he got pissy about me not helping.

"Dude, I'm level 2.  You're level a bazillion with bad-ass equipment.  AND you're going to attack me while ignoring the guys you were fighting because I want to sit out?  Some great hero you are.  Too bad I have boots of speed, mutha fucka!"

Shame I couldn't use his swords.  The armor was nice though.

[Morat20]

I remember my archer in BG1 kiting the gnolls/kobolds/whatever and Drizzt when he got pissy about me not helping.

"Dude, I'm level 2.  You're level a bazillion with bad-ass equipment.  AND you're going to attack me while ignoring the guys you were fighting because I want to sit out?  Some great hero you are.  Too bad I have boots of speed, mutha fucka!"

Shame I couldn't use his swords.  The armor was nice though.

I laughed when I saw there was a "How to kill Drizzt and take his stuff" guide. And then again when apparently it was popular enough to have an actual "Do you have Drizzt's stuff" check in BG2's when importing a character.

[Hoax]

-MWO, love me some giant robots.
-Warframe, which is fantastic and I keep being amazed we don't have a thread but not being ready to start one.

-Tera, barely creeping along waiting for others to get back in their grooves so we can finish this game. Content-wise.
-STO, sort of, I log in to assign DOFF's and its not a bad game but I'm not ready to find a pvp outfit and beg my way in and learn to min/max it yet and nothing else seems that fun to do with it in the long run.

[MrHat]

-MWO, love me some giant robots.
-Warframe, which is fantastic and I keep being amazed we don't have a thread but not being ready to start one.

-Tera, barely creeping along waiting for others to get back in their grooves so we can finish this game. Content-wise.
-STO, sort of, I log in to assign DOFF's and its not a bad game but I'm not ready to find a pvp outfit and beg my way in and learn to min/max it yet and nothing else seems that fun to do with it in the long run.

Also playing Warframe!

It's good clean fun.

[Hoax]

If you are playing WarFrame, add me in-game: Hoax415 its quite fun to run missions with people you know.

[Shannow]

f13.net: The place I go to find things that suck money out of my wallet, otherwise known as computer games. Gonna have to DL warframe tonight.

[HaemishM]

Khalid is such a shitty fighter though, especially compared to my guy who I munchkinized the shit out of.

Khalid really is a useless fucking dolt isn't he? I thought it might just be me, but now I see him sucking monkey ass and constantly needing heals is by design.

[Shannow]

I must admit I usually munchkin out BGII and create 4 of my own characters then just keep Minsc and Jaheira for the laughs and the sex.

[Fabricated]

Khalid really is a useless fucking dolt isn't he? I thought it might just be me, but now I see him sucking monkey ass and constantly needing heals is by design.

I honestly think he was meant to be a ranger while Minsc was meant to be a fighter considering their stat rolls/personalities/etc and someone at Black Isle was drunk and switched them.

That's my theory at least, because Khalid is bad at fighting and has the special bonus of having a pretty high chance of panicking when he gets low on health.

I'd let him die and kick him out of the party for someone not shitty but doesn't Jaheira eventually bail if you kick Khalid out, regardless if he is dead or not?

[MrHat]

f13.net: The place I go to find things that suck money out of my wallet, otherwise known as computer games. Gonna have to DL warframe tonight.

Its free!

[Ingmar]

Khalid really is a useless fucking dolt isn't he? I thought it might just be me, but now I see him sucking monkey ass and constantly needing heals is by design.

I honestly think he was meant to be a ranger while Minsc was meant to be a fighter considering their stat rolls/personalities/etc and someone at Black Isle was drunk and switched them.

That's my theory at least, because Khalid is bad at fighting and has the special bonus of having a pretty high chance of panicking when he gets low on health.

I'd let him die and kick him out of the party for someone not shitty but doesn't Jaheira eventually bail if you kick Khalid out, regardless if he is dead or not?

Jaheira will leave immediately if you boot Khalid, yes. The other paired NPCs all act like this as well IIRC. With regard to Minsc and him being a ranger, rangers in 2E and prior had no special reason to be anything but a melee fighter. It's only in 3rd edition where they differentiated them by giving them the 2 weapon and archery style choices. So, him being a ranger isn't especially weird.

[satael]

Khalid really is a useless fucking dolt isn't he? I thought it might just be me, but now I see him sucking monkey ass and constantly needing heals is by design.

I honestly think he was meant to be a ranger while Minsc was meant to be a fighter considering their stat rolls/personalities/etc and someone at Black Isle was drunk and switched them.

That's my theory at least, because Khalid is bad at fighting and has the special bonus of having a pretty high chance of panicking when he gets low on health.

I'd let him die and kick him out of the party for someone not shitty but doesn't Jaheira eventually bail if you kick Khalid out, regardless if he is dead or not?

Jaheira will leave immediately if you boot Khalid, yes. The other paired NPCs all act like this as well IIRC. With regard to Minsc and him being a ranger, rangers in 2E and prior had no special reason to be anything but a melee fighter. It's only in 3rd edition where they differentiated them by giving them the 2 weapon and archery style choices. So, him being a ranger isn't especially weird.

Minsc was a ranger since he had an animal companion.

[Shannow]

Still probably the greatest NPC character in a computer game I have ever seen.

Also the guy who does the voice of Minsc is PROLIFIC.

Actually prolific doesn't really do it justice. Jim Cumming's IMDB page

[Merusk]

I must admit I usually munchkin out BGII and create 4 of my own characters then just keep Minsc and Jaheira for the laughs and the sex.

My reason for never doing this is that NPC dialogs are lost when you do.   There were some pretty extensive interactions/ commentary for a game of its time.  Or hell.. for a game of THIS time considering how gimped the ME2 interactions were.

[DevilsAdvocate25]

Still probably the greatest NPC character in a computer game I have ever seen.

Also the guy who does the voice of Minsc is PROLIFIC.

Actually prolific doesn't really do it justice. Jim Cumming's IMDB page

Minsc is Winnie the Pooh!

[MisterNoisy]

Started Defiance, which is silly and fun at the same time.  Not a lot of depth as far as I can see, but it lets me shoot things for an hour or so a night.

[Morat20]

I must admit I usually munchkin out BGII and create 4 of my own characters then just keep Minsc and Jaheira for the laughs and the sex.

Wasn't there a BG2 wildmage kit? I've yet to see a good wildmage setup for 3.5.

And by "Good" I mean "Freaking hilarious".

[Llyse]

Jaheira will leave immediately if you boot Khalid, yes. The other paired NPCs all act like this as well IIRC. With regard to Minsc and him being a ranger, rangers in 2E and prior had no special reason to be anything but a melee fighter. It's only in 3rd edition where they differentiated them by giving them the 2 weapon and archery style choices. So, him being a ranger isn't especially weird.

From memory I kept Jaheira doesn't leave if Khalid is dead and you kick him out. I know it definitely works for Minsc/Dynaheir since Edwin is much much more awesome.

[rk47]

Save game, take off Khalid's stuff and tell his wife to start roughing him up. That's what I did.
But meh, they both suck, gameplay wise.

[ghost]

I bought the new Bioshock.  So of course I'm playing through the old Bioshock.  That makes sense.  Bioshock is a game that I really have a lot of fond memories of.  The story is intriguing and compelling, even if the gameplay is nothing to write home about.  Maybe I'll eventually get to the new one.

[Malakili]

I've been playing some Project Zomboid again lately.  A lot of fun actually. Still very alpha after all this time, but I can't think of a better zombie survival game I've played.  It is REALLY easy to die horribly in this game.

[Shannow]

Sad stories from the Shannow house of gaming:

- My real life soccer injury (strained thumb tendons) is hurting my virtual soccer career. Irony? Really, really fucking pathetic? You be the judge.


- You know that episode of Big Bang Theory where Penny starts playing Age of Conan and it takes over her life? I'm fairly sure my wife is heading down that path, except its.....Wizarding 101...

[Venkman]

Heh, Wizard 101 isn't a bad game. Hard to see how one can get obsessively sucked into it though. But I'm also jealous. The closest my wife comes to gaming is handing me my hat in Collapse Blast.

On ME3 Citadel, though I may jump over to the Dishonored DLC tonight. After that will be Bioshock 1 and then whatever I can get away with doing over the warmer weather when all these chuckleheads expect me to want to be outside and shit.

[Tebonas]

I really need to stop clearing out old discs.

Yesterday I took a quick break from Civ5 to see if Warlords 1 is working under Dosbox, 4 hours later I realize that it still does and my Nostalgia is strong in this one.

[Soulflame]

Warlords 1 was awesome.

[Ingmar]

I always wondered why Jessarton had such shitty infantry compared to everywhere else...

[Tebonas]

Because everybody there who knew anything about fighting moved to Carmel.

[Llyse]

CoH2 Beta, MWO, Blood Bowl and TSW.

CoH2 Beta seems more of the same of CoH plus skins/unlocks -> microtransactions

[Morat20]

Dammit, for a second I was "They're making a new City of Heroes? YES!" and then despair.

[Rendakor]

I thought the same thing; what's the other CoH?

Picked up Lego City Undercover for the 3DS; it's a Lego version of GTA and pretty fun so far.

Also started up POE again; rolled another Witch, speccing for Ethereal Knives this time. Using Fork to support EK is awesome. Not sure I'll ever make it past the second difficulty but the game is still a blast.

[Stormwaltz]

I thought the same thing; what's the other CoH?

Company of Heroes, Relic's WWII RTS.

[Lantyssa]

That's much less exciting.  I'm sad again.  RIP Jersey Girl.

Playing GW2, Warframe, and two .

[Yegolev]

Had a big binge of Path of Exile.  Besides that there is LEGO CITY Undercover (WU), which is funny, plays well, and looks great.

[Sjofn]

Dammit, for a second I was "They're making a new City of Heroes? YES!" and then despair.

Same here. 


I'm mostly dicking around in SWTOR. I dutifully patch GW2 once in a while, but I never actually log in. People in China really, really want to use my account, though.