Rajaah's CRPG Blog

Hateyou said:

Get some blue blockers man. Staring at a flickering screen for baldurs gate amount of hours a day isn’t good for sleeping.

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I probably average 2-3 hours a day for games outside of weekends, but yeah, staring at a screen is bad especially right before bed, which is when I do it the most. I think most of my insomnia is due to existential dread and/or being fired-up and wanting to do things. Probably manic/depressive, bipolar, and OCD. They gave me adderall a few years ago and I had to stop it pretty quickly because it'd make me stay up 2-3 days. Which can be useful under the right circumstances but it's a great way to make yourself really sick.

BALDUR II UPDATE:

-Reached the first town finally. I have a bunch of blue items to identify and no money to do it!

-I like that there's a large overweight woman in the first town as the merchant and general information person. It's good to see people of all sizes being represented in the game, makes it feel a lot more like a real world which is what it's supposed to feel like. A pleasantly plump merchant feels not at all out of place in a bustling medieval town. Funny how it hits so much differently than if I see the same thing in modern media and it means something completely different about glorifying unhealthiness or whatever.

-Minsc continues to be an absolute joy, what a funny guy. Yoshimo also works well as the cautious voice of reason in the group. And then there's Jaheira, the resident bitch. Aside from her we have the makings of a solid group here. No clue who else is gonna end up in the party, and that's fun. I don't think I ever mentioned it but I liked the orc in BG1 (Dorn, IIRC) and hope he shows up again. Imoen also has a spot if she returns, but it seems like she's more of a story character who comes and goes rather than a permanent fixture.

-Miss my cheetah boots that I think doubled runspeed in BG1. Feels so slow walking around normally now.

-Now I'm in an evil tent that takes me to another dimension with riddle-bearing genies. The one about the age of the prince and princess had me stumped, I really thought they were the same age but I was wrong. Still, even this evil juggalo tent can't compare to the horrors of being Viconia's Simp for all of SoD.

TJT said:

Use the Potion of Master Thievery on the shopkeeper once you're out of the tutorial dungeon for a solid item. The shopkeep having it is so strange that I can only presume the developers knew some cheeky fuckers would immediately start robbing everyone they possibly could.

The theft system in BG is quite good, its just often unnecessary because so little counts as being stolen.

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Is the shopkeeper Mira? What's she supposed to give you? It took a few reloads but I got the potion/pickpocket to work and all I got was 1 gold so I reloaded.

Pretty much unsure what to do, got Aerie (new character alert) and got everyone shields. Journal isn't giving me any clues, only entry that isn't (finished) is "help the 3 dryads in the woods" so I guess I'll do that. BG1 always had me on a new mission and I never had to wonder what to do next, just check the journal. I guess I'll just wing it. I normally HATE being "lost" in games but being lost in Baldur games is totally fine cause I end up stumbling right into new things that are going on. Fantastic games. Not sure if I would have appreciated them nearly as much if I played them in 1999. Was way too wound-up in the Final Fantasy / Chrono Trigger archetypes back then. Wasn't even interested in Dragon Quest yet (which was ironically a gateway for me to get into more CRPGs and WRPGs due to its similarities to those...ironic because DQ itself was the gateway from CRPG to JRPG for people in the 80's)

Twilering said:

For movement speed buffs, checkout the level 3 wizard spell "haste". It gives everyone in the area increased movement speed. Very nice spell to prioritize. The only downside is it makes everyone fatigued after it runs out and everyone in the group starts yawning and complaining.

I believe the game tells you where to go but if you're truly lost, then try this tip.

Spoiler

Go to the Slums district and to the tavern called the Copper Coronet. Inside you'll find new party members as well as start some major quests.

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Oh nice, thanks. Everyone yawning and complaining wouldn't be that out of the ordinary as it is since I spend so much time with the game idle while I cook or whatever.

Here's the 7th Man in any good party:

TJT said:

This place.

Adventurer Mart

The Adventurer Mart is a store located in Waukeen's Promenade. This indoor market is owned by Ribald Barterman and rents space to two other specialty merchants, who are independently buying and selling their own merchandise. Ribald buys and sells a variety of mundane and powerful gear...

baldursgate.fandom.com

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I assume Ribald Barterman is the guy I want to pickpocket. I'll give it a try when I get back on there.


Also...LOL, Ribald Barterman. What a name.

Some great character portraits in this game, Jesus. I think this one is just a townsperson, too. Join my group, pls.


Another good one.

Some screenshots from SoD and the start of BGII:


Avernus, after all the hoopla and hype I gave myself, turned out to be just a few rooms long. Still, cool to actually see AD&D Hell in a game. Also, the dialogue in all of these BG games is a hoot. Always a bit self-aware, usually some light-hearted options.


This guy is sort of the penultimate boss. You can do riddles or whatnot to avoid the fight, or just take him on. Not sure if he's a Pit Fiend or something else.


The final boss Belhifet I'm pretty sure IS a Pit Fiend. He's pretty formidable and definitely a stronger opponent than Sarevok.


Was cool to get Caelar Argent at the last minute (have to have the 6th spot open though). Too bad it's only for like one fight.


This whole trial thing caught me totally off-guard, thought the game was done and then I was Doing Time. Belt seems like an alright dude.


I assume this Hooded Man is the antagonist of BGII, or one of the antagonists. Guy's a real bastard. I kind of liked Skie and figured I'd recruit her at some point, but nope, instead this guy just gets her killed.


Lastly a BGII shot. Minsc with the lines as usual.

This post is a couple days late, and I don't have anything else for the moment. Gonna take a couple days off next week, plus I have all of the first week of April off, so I'll have a lot of opportunities to plow BGII.

Some shots of the Descent Into Avernus module (which is a hardcover book, these modern modules aren't my grandpa's modules)


There's a TON of Baldur's Gate stuff here, so anyone super interested in Baldur's Gate might want to pick this up. There's even a giant foldout map poster of Baldur's Gate itself at the end of the book (I haven't detached it).


Picture of Baldur's Gate. This is sa-weet.


Some bestiary.


Bel is the ruler of Avernus, but you can actually beat him in this module and give control of the plane to Zariel.


Zariel seems to be the big boss of the module, so much so that you don't even necessarily go after her.


Blood War art. Once you defeat the ruler of the plane, demons start pouring in from the Abyss and the plane can end up under the control of an actual demon lord (most likely the gnoll guy, Yeenoghu).

Were there ever any AD&D modules that went beyond this into the second layer? Dis would be a hell of a location for all kinds of stuff.

TJT said:

Adding to the blog here with my degenerate run in Original Sin 2. I think my only real gripe with the game is the EXP pacing is shit and you don't level in any consistent way unless you are either autistically talking to every single NPC looking for exp OR autistically murderhoboing everyone.

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That happened to me once, can't remember what game it was. Maybe Daggerfall when I got hopelessly lost? Only way to level was to just kill everybody, since I couldn't find any actual dungeons to fight in. Eventually I got some resources and found out how to make things happen.

Urlithani said:

Rajaah released the bug and it bit me. I just spent several hours learning how to mod the EE trilogy, and got it loaded up with 55 mods or so. Mostly new areas (Colours of Infinity mods, dark side of the sword coast, northern tales of the sword coast), and some NPC's (Finch, Isra, Keto, Xulaye, a couple of others), plus mainstays like Ascension, SCS, etc.

Couldn't get Item randomizer working to shuffle up the location of magic items which would have mixed it up but oh well.

Edit: Also most importantly is Skip Chateau Irenicus. It teleports you to the end of the dungeon and gives you all the loot and exp you would have gotten along the way.

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Cool. If you want to do something new though I suggest making it a quadrilogy and just running SoD in-between. If you want to get to BG2 quickly, you can just do the SoD main story which doesn't take all that long and ignore all the side-quests and side-areas.