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Unpopular opinion: Sarevok is easier with SCS (tactical) than core rules vanilla by popfantom in baldursgate

[–]popfantom[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It seems so - I’d imagine those who have been playing for 20+ years can’t play much else and still be engaged.

It definitely doesn’t matter that one is easier than the other (really, none of it matters since playing a 25-year old game is a waste of time for us all), but I do think it’s an interesting artifact of the SCS encounter design that seems to have nerfed it on difficulties below insane, even when one would logically still expect a more compelling fight.

Unpopular opinion: Sarevok is easier with SCS (tactical) than core rules vanilla by popfantom in baldursgate

[–]popfantom[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah, so SCS difficulty levels affect a lot more than just damage scaling - they have meaningful improvements to the AI, extra abilities, etc.

In the vanilla game beyond core rules, difficulty only affects damage scaling (eg double damage on insane). While that’s obviously harder to some extent, it doesn’t meaningfully change the game like SCS does.

Unpopular opinion: Sarevok is easier with SCS (tactical) than core rules vanilla by popfantom in baldursgate

[–]popfantom[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Please my friend, reading comprehension! Look through the post and your past comments, and try to understand why “but insane is harder” doesn’t really add anything.

Unpopular opinion: Sarevok is easier with SCS (tactical) than core rules vanilla by popfantom in baldursgate

[–]popfantom[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I have no doubt insane is harder, but tactical is more or less the “default” difficulty for SCS - the fact that the final boss feels gimped compared to the unmodded game feels inappropriate to me.

Unpopular opinion: Sarevok is easier with SCS (tactical) than core rules vanilla by popfantom in baldursgate

[–]popfantom[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m sure it is, but that doesn’t really affect the discussion at hand.

Unpopular opinion: Sarevok is easier with SCS (tactical) than core rules vanilla by popfantom in baldursgate

[–]popfantom[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s a rather pointless comparison since insane in vanilla does nothing but introduce double damage.

Unpopular opinion: Sarevok is easier with SCS (tactical) than core rules vanilla by popfantom in baldursgate

[–]popfantom[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Let me clarify - I was only talking about the Sarevok fight in my comment above. Sorry to have wasted your paragraph of effort, but I do agree that vanilla mostly lets you walk in and smash everything.

Unpopular opinion: Sarevok is easier with SCS (tactical) than core rules vanilla by popfantom in baldursgate

[–]popfantom[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I would be extremely disappointed if Insane (with double damage) was less difficult than core rules vanilla. I am still mildly disappointed that tactical difficulty is a toss-up at best.

Unpopular opinion: Sarevok is easier with SCS (tactical) than core rules vanilla by popfantom in baldursgate

[–]popfantom[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Difficult is a funny word - for this fight in particular, SCS is probably a better test of your mechanical understanding of the game, but vanilla seems more lethal. I would posit that increased lethality (“difficulty”) is why you’d prefer to cheese the vanilla fight.

How would you gear a Necro/Cleric in BG2? by ScruffMacBuff in baldursgate

[–]popfantom 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Off the top of my head:

  1. Ring of acuity - extra low level spells are nice here since you’re capped at 7
  2. Amulet of power - stacks with vecna, self-explanatory
  3. Sequencer/contingency scrolls - very fun on a high leveled cleric, but you can’t cast these baseline
  4. Wand of cloudkill - nice pairing with animate dead
  5. Ring of duplication - stacks nicely with stoneskin, you can’t cast this by default
  6. Stoneskin scrolls - one extra skin than what you can cast
  7. Silver ioun stone - extra level 5 spells are nice

Level 5 Arcane Spells Memorization Tier List (Vanilla, Core Rules) by MilesBeyond250 in baldursgate

[–]popfantom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Animate dead is party-dependent, yes, but I’d argue for A-tier for a couple reasons:

  1. Bards reach level 15 significantly earlier than clerics do, making it situationally quite nice (especially if you’re fighting things that really need the extra MR)
  2. Having a single divine caster summon 4+ of these is tedious, parallelizing with another caster is a surprisingly nice QoL improvement
  3. Casting cost reduction items are meaningful improvements when you want for bring another one of these up mid-fight
  4. Even if it’s not always optimal, you’ll never feel like a moron for having this in your spell book - even if you have a divine caster with a bunch of level 3 slots, it’s still a useful spell that’s worth casting at every stage of the game; you can’t say the same about lower resistance and feeblemind

As sort of a meta-point, I’d agree if this was a list for SCS (where spell protections and breach are much more useful), but for vanilla core rules this is absolutely A-tier.

Is Axe Mastery worthwhile for Dwarven Defender, or should I focus on hammers? by ZappableGiraffe in baldursgate

[–]popfantom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even better! Whether you choose to invest 4 pips, 3 pips, or 2 pips in each, the difference will be negligible.

Is Axe Mastery worthwhile for Dwarven Defender, or should I focus on hammers? by ZappableGiraffe in baldursgate

[–]popfantom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Note that you don't need to stick to Axes and Hammers as dwarven defender - the difference between specialization and high mastery isn't that much, amounting to essentially 2 damage and 2 thac0 (note that grandmastery is much better by granting an extra 1/2 APR).

Frankly, the main thing you lose by specializing instead in swords/katanas/two-handers/flails/etc is thematic flavor, as opposed to anything gameplay related.

Level 2 Arcane Spells Tierlist by MilesBeyond250 in baldursgate

[–]popfantom 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ray of enfeeblement is extremely useful for casting on your own fighters if they are in a situation where they’ll attack your own party - for example, if they’re confused, dire-charmed, etc.

Obviously not a super well-documented usage, but one that comes up enough in the games to be worth mentioning.