Re: Need Spell Caster BG1 - Gems

[me]

Fulcanelli wrote:

> Hey Me.
> Thanks for the info.
>
> You wrote: When I create a character I try to get my ST,DX,CN all to
> 15 or 16
> that the cutoffs for any bonuses, CHR to 15, for the better raaction
> rolls, and better prices, the rest I try to keep at least in the
> average
> range, I don't like (or believe in) knocking some stats down to 3 to
> get the points to raise others to 18. like now I got
> ST16,DX15,CN15,INT13,Wis14,CHR15.
>
> How do I raise those levels, or are these stats I set when I'm creating
> the character? Will having a few drinks at the inn raise any stats? I
> kind of remember something about that from somewhere...
>
> Thanks.
>

It's probably a little late now seeing as you have a char and game
started but like bill said, when you roll you can move points from one
stat to another you just can't make more points, I usually reroll until
I get 86+ total points.
as far as bonuses go IIRC.
15 16 17 18
st +1h +1h/+1d +1h/+2d +2h/+3d thats a + to hit and damage
dx -1AC -2AC -3AC -4AC
con +1hp +2 hp +3hp(f) +4hp(f) (f)fighters only
wisdom will give clerics some extra low level spells

[Fulcanelli]

Roll? You're talking a foreign language to me. My game doesn't have
die. ;)

Looks like I have some research to do! Thanks for the head's up.

[Ken Rice]

In article <1142998384.349714.69170@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.c om>,
fulcanelli@gmail.com says...

>Roll? You're talking a foreign language to me. My game doesn't have
>die. ;)

>Looks like I have some research to do! Thanks for the head's up.

Yes indeed, you do have some research to do.

First, learn the CRPG terminology. (Yes, I saw the ";)".)

The games uses electronic "dice" to determine character attributes. The term
"roll" is used to refer to such number generation. The electronic dice are also
used many other places in the game, such as for determining the damage dealt in
an attack.

--
Ken Rice -=:=- kennrice (AT) erols (DOT) com
http://users.erols.com/kennrice - Lego Compatible Flex Track,
Civil War Round Table of DC & Concentration Camp made of Lego bricks
http://members.tripod.com/~kennrice
Maps of Ultima 7 Parts 1 & 2, Prophecy of the Shadow, Savage Empire,
Crusaders of Dark Savant & Others.

[me]

Fulcanelli wrote:
> Roll? You're talking a foreign language to me. My game doesn't have
> die. ;)
>
> Looks like I have some research to do! Thanks for the head's up.
>
at the new character creation screen there's abilities selection screen
if you don't like the numbers you get you can 'reroll'.
are you using a premade character or making one of your own from scratch?

[Fulcanelli]

IT sure would be nice if all this CRPG termonology was in a single
location. I bet it is. The Wikipedia looks to have a decent
introduction to this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_role-playing_game

I read about this in my manual. I build my characters (in response to
'me') and when I got to that screen of distributing strength, wisdom,
etc. I really didn't tweak anything because I had no idea what chnaging
those numbers would do to the game play. I "assumed" (and we all know
about assumptions!) that the formula presented at this stage was more
or less default. I didn't realize I could keep 'rolling the dice' and
get bigger numbers. The manual has some information about this topic
but who wants to read about the history of D&D when starting a new
game? (Not me.) I'm sure learning all of this will stimulate me in
the future to replay BG and do it right, by crackie. (No, I don't
smoke crack, but I think my neighbor does.)

[Fulcanelli]

Dang, I wish I could EDIT posts here! Sorry. I had some
after-pushing-ENTER thoughts that really belong above.

Now and then someone chimes in with some armchair advice about what I
should or could do in the game. That's fine. I enjoy reading it. IF
I was a scoundrel by nature, I probably would do much better at these
games. I'm not. I basically try to do the right thing, wait my turn,
let people who obviously need to get in my lane (driving) in, and take
my hood-mounted rocket launcher to all those jerks who try to do
anything they can to cut in front of us good folk. ;) Bastards.
Anyway, I'm sure these guys, the ones who will do ANYTHING to get
ahead, play games well, and probably, games were designed with such
players in mind. I mean, come on...games are fantasy anyway, right?

By nature, I try to do the right thing and even bring goodness and
positive energy into the world through the games I play. Sick, huh?
The last character I tried was a paladin. Good guy. When I got to
Nashkel, I met the man who thought I was Graywolf (I hope I'm using all
the right character names...forgive me... I will donate more gold in
one of the temples in the game.) I don't thieve enough in this game,
thinking that if I rip off an important character, one that I don't
know could be an important character, that it will have an effect later
in the game, even though my main character is not the thief. Someone
suggested I steal goodies from that character who is looking to give
away 200 whatevers. I got back to Nashkel and after a save, wanted to
see what happened if I did as someone suggested and tried to steal the
doneros. I sent Iomen and I don't even remember if she was successful
because the whole town suddenly turned on me. It was comical Being
the nice guy that I am, I didn't try to slaughter any townsfolk before
myself being sent off into oblivion: I just quit that game.

However, even though I am unknowledgeable and unskilled at certain
(most) aspects of this gaming, it became clear to me that when someone
has successes with the game, it might be the result of a long list of
things that person has done. I think by basically trying to play this
game on the light side of things, that went I sent a character to do
something basically evil, that the game was programmed to react in a
certain way.

Maybe after I finish this game, I might try playing it as a total
scoundrel, out for bootie, and see what happens. However, I fear that
this might have dire results in my personal life and that I might
become a real life scoundrel.

This is a very well written and clever game. I sort of wish I had been
into gaming back when it first hit the shelves.

[Kharsis]

Fulcanelli wrote:
> Dang, I wish I could EDIT posts here! Sorry. I had some
> after-pushing-ENTER thoughts that really belong above.
>
> Now and then someone chimes in with some armchair advice about what I
> should or could do in the game. That's fine. I enjoy reading it. IF
> I was a scoundrel by nature, I probably would do much better at these
> games. I'm not. I basically try to do the right thing, wait my turn,
> let people who obviously need to get in my lane (driving) in, and take
> my hood-mounted rocket launcher to all those jerks who try to do
> anything they can to cut in front of us good folk. ;) Bastards.
> Anyway, I'm sure these guys, the ones who will do ANYTHING to get
> ahead, play games well, and probably, games were designed with such
> players in mind. I mean, come on...games are fantasy anyway, right?
>
> By nature, I try to do the right thing and even bring goodness and
> positive energy into the world through the games I play. Sick, huh?
> The last character I tried was a paladin. Good guy. When I got to
> Nashkel, I met the man who thought I was Graywolf (I hope I'm using all
> the right character names...forgive me... I will donate more gold in
> one of the temples in the game.) I don't thieve enough in this game,
> thinking that if I rip off an important character, one that I don't
> know could be an important character, that it will have an effect later
> in the game, even though my main character is not the thief. Someone
> suggested I steal goodies from that character who is looking to give
> away 200 whatevers. I got back to Nashkel and after a save, wanted to
> see what happened if I did as someone suggested and tried to steal the
> doneros. I sent Iomen and I don't even remember if she was successful
> because the whole town suddenly turned on me. It was comical Being
> the nice guy that I am, I didn't try to slaughter any townsfolk before
> myself being sent off into oblivion: I just quit that game.
>
> However, even though I am unknowledgeable and unskilled at certain
> (most) aspects of this gaming, it became clear to me that when someone
> has successes with the game, it might be the result of a long list of
> things that person has done. I think by basically trying to play this
> game on the light side of things, that went I sent a character to do
> something basically evil, that the game was programmed to react in a
> certain way.
>
> Maybe after I finish this game, I might try playing it as a total
> scoundrel, out for bootie, and see what happens. However, I fear that
> this might have dire results in my personal life and that I might
> become a real life scoundrel.
>
> This is a very well written and clever game. I sort of wish I had been
> into gaming back when it first hit the shelves.
>
The game - as is D&D/AD&D on which BG is based - is definitelt set up
to make playing good and neutral aligned characters easier. An Evil
character can be done but it takes a lot more work to be anything but a
pyschopath.

Play the game how you want to - there is noright or wrong way to play
it. The inpotant thing is to have fun. You can always strat a new game
or eload an old one to try something different.

Kharsis

[Billy Yank]

On 22 Mar 2006, Fulcanelli proved he could speak with the pompitus of love:

> By nature, I try to do the right thing and even bring goodness and
> positive energy into the world through the games I play. Sick, huh?
> The last character I tried was a paladin. Good guy. When I got to
> Nashkel, I met the man who thought I was Graywolf (I hope I'm using all
> the right character names...forgive me... I will donate more gold in
> one of the temples in the game.) I don't thieve enough in this game,
> thinking that if I rip off an important character, one that I don't
> know could be an important character, that it will have an effect later
> in the game, even though my main character is not the thief. Someone
> suggested I steal goodies from that character who is looking to give
> away 200 whatevers. I got back to Nashkel and after a save, wanted to
> see what happened if I did as someone suggested and tried to steal the
> doneros. I sent Iomen and I don't even remember if she was successful
> because the whole town suddenly turned on me. It was comical Being
> the nice guy that I am, I didn't try to slaughter any townsfolk before
> myself being sent off into oblivion: I just quit that game.
>

The first time I played I made the mistake of leaving the party AI on, so
my party members attacked on their own unless I gave them different orders.
In one of the later chapters of the game, certain law-enforcement officers
attempt to bring you in. Since they're red-circled enemies at that point,
we attacked and killed one of them. Immediately, our reputation drops 10
points and the townspeople around us turn red-circled (they're unarmed, so
they don't attack). Imoen, under AI control, whirls around and kills some
poor slob with a single arrow. Reputation drops another 10 and Imoen turns
to the PC and says something like: "I guess you're not the boy I grew up
with anymore." and leaves the party.

I didn't restart that game, I just reloaded from my most recent save. Use
the "Q" key for quicksave often. If you run the setup program, you can
remap keys for some commands. I like to set the "L" key for quickload to
speed up the process.

--
Billy Yank

"God loves you. Unfortunately, the alien overlords who put you on this
planet are using you to test cosmetics."
-Dogbert

Billy Yank's Baldur's Gate Photo Portraits
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2xvw6/

[Billy Yank]

On 22 Mar 2006, Fulcanelli proved he could speak with the pompitus of love:

> I read about this in my manual. I build my characters (in response to
> 'me') and when I got to that screen of distributing strength, wisdom,
> etc. I really didn't tweak anything because I had no idea what chnaging
> those numbers would do to the game play.

The basics of stats:
Strength is good for fighters
Dexterity is good for thieves
Intelligence is good for wizards
Wisdom is good for clerics

Everyone needs constitution and charisma is nice to have but not really
neccessary.

Check out the tables in the back of the manual on pages 77-80.

--
Billy Yank

"God loves you. Unfortunately, the alien overlords who put you on this
planet are using you to test cosmetics."
-Dogbert

Billy Yank's Baldur's Gate Photo Portraits
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2xvw6/

[Fulcanelli]

Billy Yank wrote: >>Check out the tables in the back of the manual on
pages 77-80. <<

I reread the section last night. A lot of it doesn't make all that
much sense to me. I get the basics, I think, but miss on some of the
application and maybe the ramifications of what is said there. The
'saving throws' is pretty confusing to me. Don't ALL games have built
in processes for determining outcomes of actions? I don't see that
this game is any different, other than they call the process 'roll of
the die.' By calling it that, the game claims to be true to the D&D
name. I'd like to figure out here what I can do that will play to my
advantage. However, I'm not in a frame of mind now where I want to
start a sixth character, re-distributing my abilities

Bill Yank wrote: >>During character generation you can move points
around. There are potions that can temporarily raise stats, and there
are books that can raise a stat
permanently.<<

A book that can do that? Just from reading it?

Also, Mr. Yank was talking about rolling the die until he got 86+
points. There is a control to roll the die, and I can repeat as
desired until I get what I want? I missed that. Perhaps there is a
button that says something like "roll the die," no?

I'll have to play around with the AI on/off to see what gives with
that.

Learning all this is totally unfair. With so much new knowledge, how
can I move the game forward, knowing I'm missing so much because I
didn't know these things when I set my character up??? ;)

[me]

Fulcanelli wrote:
> Billy Yank wrote: >>Check out the tables in the back of the manual on
> pages 77-80. <<
>
> I reread the section last night. A lot of it doesn't make all that
> much sense to me. I get the basics, I think, but miss on some of the
> application and maybe the ramifications of what is said there. The
> 'saving throws' is pretty confusing to me. Don't ALL games have built
> in processes for determining outcomes of actions? I don't see that
> this game is any different, other than they call the process 'roll of
> the die.' By calling it that, the game claims to be true to the D&D
> name. I'd like to figure out here what I can do that will play to my
> advantage. However, I'm not in a frame of mind now where I want to
> start a sixth character, re-distributing my abilities
>
In the game 'O' will bring up the options screen,not at my computer with
the game right now, but IIRC under game play there's options for what to
display in the dialog/consloe screen under the main game window, one is
die rolls or something like that. I enable that, that way you will see
player attacks monster: roll 12 (+ or - x) hit or miss
the game 'rolls' a dice for you (generates a number), and uses that to
determine what happens.
Watching the + or - you can determine if you have any problems or
bonuses with a character, may be they got weakened or something.

the saving throw is used to determine if you dodged the effects of the
attack. like saving against a fireball you only got hit by part of it
rather then the full blast. Or maybe with real/modern analagies, you got
shot in war, but saved, so the bulletproof vest stopped the bullet, or
failed the save and the bullet went around the vest, or the hand grenade
that went off was just a little too far away to do full damage or just
blew up in the wrong direction so you missed the full impact of it.

In D&D it's a pencil and pape game (p&p) you used various sized dice to
determine what happened, thus the carry over of dice rolls.

As you gain levels you saving throws get better, and you chance to get
hit get better, you improve some automatically.



> Bill Yank wrote: >>During character generation you can move points
> around. There are potions that can temporarily raise stats, and there
> are books that can raise a stat
> permanently.<<
>
> A book that can do that? Just from reading it?
>
> Also, Mr. Yank was talking about rolling the die until he got 86+
> points. There is a control to roll the die, and I can repeat as
> desired until I get what I want? I missed that. Perhaps there is a
> button that says something like "roll the die," no?
>

Yes, during char gen lets say you want a fighter and you get 10 st but
18 int, fighters don't need int but need strength so I would move the 10
to int and 18 to strength.
right under the list of stats is a reroll button.
If you add up the total of stats I usually try for the 86+ range, I
figure your probably a cut above the average person, but probably not a
super man with all 18+'s.


There are 9? magic books, scattered around the game, that have to be
identified, the will have names like manual of bodily health, tome of
insight, tome of clear thought, manual of quickness of action, tome of
leadersip, manual of gainful excercise, each will raise one stat by one
point then will disappear. They can be used only once just put them in a
quick slot and use it.


> I'll have to play around with the AI on/off to see what gives with
> that.
>
AI won't effect die rolls, or stat generation, it will affect the
behaviour during the game, with AI off the characters will do nothing
unless you tell them to do it, most use 'default' AI script which is
something like 'see enemy attack', I keep that one on and give them
ranged weapons the will automatically shoot at enemies when seen, the
only thing I usually do is direct them to attack a particular enemy,
like everyone attack the same target, don't spread you shots around.

> Learning all this is totally unfair. With so much new knowledge, how
> can I move the game forward, knowing I'm missing so much because I
> didn't know these things when I set my character up??? ;)
>

That's probably why most people play it several times. :)

[Billy Yank]

On 23 Mar 2006, Fulcanelli proved he could speak with the pompitus of love:

> I reread the section last night. A lot of it doesn't make all that
> much sense to me. I get the basics, I think, but miss on some of the
> application and maybe the ramifications of what is said there.

The main thing to look at are the bonuses and penalties. For example, look
at Dexterity. Bonuses start at 15 and penalties start at 6, so if you want
those bonuses, you must have at least a 15 Dex. If you're building a
character who will primarily be an archer, you want at least a 16 dex for
the missile attack bonus. This is why Imoen is so good with her bow at the
start of the game.

If you're not going for the dex bonus then you should realize that there is
_no_ difference as far as the game is concerned between a dexterity of 7
and a dex of 14. So you can drop your dex all that way down and use those
points elsewhere. You can come up with similar ranges for most of the
other attributes.

> Also, Mr. Yank was talking about rolling the die until he got 86+
> points. There is a control to roll the die, and I can repeat as
> desired until I get what I want? I missed that. Perhaps there is a
> button that says something like "roll the die," no?
>

The button says "Reroll", IIRC. There's also a button to save the current
roll and recall the saved roll.

> Learning all this is totally unfair. With so much new knowledge, how
> can I move the game forward, knowing I'm missing so much because I
> didn't know these things when I set my character up??? ;)
>

<geezer>
Ahhh cut yer whinin, whippersnapper. In my day we played D&D with chisels
and stone tablets. We rolled savin throws with oddly shaped bits of wood.
And we LIKED it!

Young people today with yer computers and yer loud music .. grumble
grumble....
</geezer>

--
Billy Yank

"God loves you. Unfortunately, the alien overlords who put you on this
planet are using you to test cosmetics."
-Dogbert

Billy Yank's Baldur's Gate Photo Portraits
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2xvw6/

[Fulcanelli]

LOL, there Billy Yank. Me, young? Why...thank you! I haven't heard
anybody yank me with that one for a VERY long time. ;)