Rajaah's CRPG Blog

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Rajaah

Rajaah

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Chris said:
I did a Aerie and Jaheira playthrough, it's very dangerous lol. Good luck getting them both to the end.

Aerie gave birth to my child but I had to follow a guide to avoid all of the possible incidents. The child is -1 inventory space on her lmao.
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Aerie was my "love interest" for most of BG2 and hooked up with the hero towards the end. (Right after I turned down sex with the dark elf chick, maybe jealousy is what really did it for Aerie)

Then she got kidnapped / vamped and I thought she was actually gone forever. I was kinda pissed after putting work into her (so to speak). Then I looked it up and found out how to revive her and went and got it done. Was easy because I already had the Temple Ruins unlocked / cleared from doing that whole sidequest earlier, just had to warp over there and make my way to the statue.

Chris said:
Icewind Dale is excellent, play it after BG2. I had Heart of Winter, I think it's similar to the BG1 expansion Tales of the Sword Coast where it's random improvements and more side quests.
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Yeah, Icewind Dale is the plan for next. Gonna try to finish off FO1 and run Throne of Bhaal (including Demogorgon) before the 19th, cause after that it's Final Fantasy time and I'm taking a CRPG break for a bit. Whenever I resume this though, Icewind Dale is definitely next up.
 
Chris

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Rajaah said:
Aerie was my "love interest" for most of BG2 and hooked up with the hero towards the end. (Right after I turned down sex with the dark elf chick, maybe jealousy is what really did it for Aerie)

Then she got kidnapped / vamped and I thought she was actually gone forever. I was kinda pissed after putting work into her (so to speak). Then I looked it up and found out how to revive her and went and got it done. Was easy because I already had the Temple Ruins unlocked / cleared from doing that whole sidequest earlier, just had to warp over there and make my way to the statue.



Yeah, Icewind Dale is the plan for next. Gonna try to finish off FO1 and run Throne of Bhaal (including Demogorgon) before the 19th, cause after that it's Final Fantasy time and I'm taking a CRPG break for a bit. Whenever I resume this though, Icewind Dale is definitely next up.
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Didn't know that you could revive her, I just took her out of the party for the trigger that kills her! No idea why the guide didn't mention revival lol.

Also wasn't sure if you had to choose between Aerie and Jaheria?
 
Rajaah

Rajaah

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Chris said:
Didn't know that you could revive her, I just took her out of the party for the trigger that kills her! No idea why the guide didn't mention revival lol.

Also wasn't sure if you had to choose between Aerie and Jaheria?
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I don't know about Jaheira, I booted her pretty early in BG2 for someone else. Didn't like her new portrait at all (her BG1 portrait is quite hot).

The Versus Books guide not mentioning anything about being able to revive Aerie was pretty weird. The rest of the time, that guide was awesome.

Reading their Throne of Bhaal guide now and it's also very good, though unfortunately much lighter on the late-90's humor and dirtiness compared to their BG2 guide.

Looks like TOB is only 3 chapters. Two long ones and one short one, plus a large optional dungeon that I'll definitely do. On paper it seems like it won't take a super long time so I might get it done by the 19th after all.
 
TJT

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Jaheira is the hardest one to romance. You only have a few convos to start it and you have to make exactly the right dialogue choices for it to happen.
 
Caliane

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Gavinmad said:
straight outta canon
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ha. i forgot about that.

Its funny, watching a streamer who plays crpgs. he's been playing BG2. and he was commenting on how it just feels different and wishes someone would use the ruleset to make a modern game. but it was making me laugh because like 3minutes earlier he was going on and on about failing to scribe scrolls into Imoen's spellbook, and how it was bad design.

yes... all those "immersive", "gold/exp" sinks have been stripped from the game as unintuitive or too harsh, tedious, etc...


Personally, I finally started on temple of elemental evil. I have a bunch of games on GoG on constantly forget about... and in fact have had ToEE installed ready to go for like 2 years...
radial menu is wow. Lack of hold alt to see interactable is rough. Talking to npcs, requires you to select the character you want to talk to talk, so they use bluff/diplomacy, etc. its not shared. I have no idea how active searching versus spot checks work in it atm.. whats the radius on either... do I need to be stopping and actively searching constantly?
 
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Chris

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Caliane said:
ha. i forgot about that.

Its funny, watching a streamer who plays crpgs. he's been playing BG2. and he was commenting on how it just feels different and wishes someone would use the ruleset to make a modern game. but it was making me laugh because like 3minutes earlier he was going on and on about failing to scribe scrolls into Imoen's spellbook, and how it was bad design.

yes... all those "immersive", "gold/exp" sinks have been stripped from the game as unintuitive or too harsh, tedious, etc...
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Games need horrific bullshit for you to deal with, just look at Elden Ring. It's memorable.

First thing I remember about Baldur's Gate is installing 5 fucking discs, missing constantly, turning it off and making fun of it at school.

I sure as hell remembered to come back to it though, and again as an adult multiple times.
 
Rajaah

Rajaah

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Chris said:
Games need horrific bullshit for you to deal with, just look at Elden Ring. It's memorable.

First thing I remember about Baldur's Gate is installing 5 fucking discs, missing constantly, turning it off and making fun of it at school.

I sure as hell remembered to come back to it though, and again as an adult multiple times.
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What horrific bullshit does Elden Ring have?

I forgot about how Baldur's Gate was a bunch of discs. I remember watching other people play BG1 in...1997? Maybe 99. Then in 2000 or so my mom bought BG1, BG2, and Icewind Dale. I remember a bunch of discs and thinking it must be the best game ever to have all those discs. Expected it to be like a visual masterpiece. Then once they got running I was super underwhelmed by all of them and wanted to play EQ instead.
 
Chris

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Rajaah said:
What horrific bullshit does Elden Ring have?
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...the entire game!

They start you in sight of a boss you can't kill, with quest markers to go immediatly to the first boss through an insane gauntlet which includes a giant and ballista snipers. Oh and how about that trapped chest to the Caelid mine with the lethal spider things.

This was my first 30 minutes. I loved it though.
 
Caliane

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did some searching. apparently TAB is supposed to highlight interactables in Temple of Elemental evil. but, only works for some people.
 
Tuco

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Rajaah said:
What horrific bullshit does Elden Ring have?
Click to expand...


But seriously, elden ring has kinda ruined a lot of open world games for me. Hogwarts legacy felt flat just because none of the enemies seemed threatening or an obstacle to overcome. They were just... Part of the narrative
 
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Rajaah

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Working on Fallout, in Necropolis now. Looks like this is a pretty short game. There are 3 main quests in the game and each one presumably only takes a few hours if you know where to go. You do the Water Chip quest first, then the other two in any order, then done. So I'mma try to knock this off before I get back to Throne, also gives me a break from BG. Finding this a lot less fun than BG overall but it's okay as a sort of period piece of late 90's nuke fears.

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This Desert Eagle is sexy. Sold all my extra stuff to get it. I know I saw someone else who sold magnum rounds earlier but can't find them. My main issue right now is ammo scarcity. I'll probably just need to avoid more fights.

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Man, this overseer guy gives me the creeps. In any case, water chip got. I pretty much beelined through Necropolis (getting lost about 8 times on the way). Never even met Set, and didn't have to fight anyone on the way out cause I just booked it past them as they aggro'd. That's one main quest down, two to go.

Level 6 now. Got Small Guns to 125% and I think that's probably sufficient. Energy Weapons is sitting down at 10% and not tagged, hopefully I'm not hosed in the endgame. Kinda regret tagging Speech instead of Energy Weapons. Then again, Speech has probably saved me some trouble that I don't even know about yet.

Also got Lockpick to 100%. I've got 40 points left over. Any suggestions? I could work on Science next. If it's like FO3, I might need high Science to do some things. Or maybe start dumping into Energy Weapons now?

Gonna do the super mutants main quest next and leave the master for last, since he seems to be considered the final boss. And something about being able to one-shot him with high Science by activating a nuke? I might need to do that since I'll likely be level-deficient when I get there if I keep booking it around.
 
Fogel

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Rajaah said:
View attachment 468549
Working on Fallout, in Necropolis now. Looks like this is a pretty short game. There are 3 main quests in the game and each one presumably only takes a few hours if you know where to go. You do the Water Chip quest first, then the other two in any order, then done. So I'mma try to knock this off before I get back to Throne, also gives me a break from BG. Finding this a lot less fun than BG overall but it's okay as a sort of period piece of late 90's nuke fears.

View attachment 468535
This Desert Eagle is sexy. Sold all my extra stuff to get it. I know I saw someone else who sold magnum rounds earlier but can't find them. My main issue right now is ammo scarcity. I'll probably just need to avoid more fights.

View attachment 468564
Man, this overseer guy gives me the creeps. In any case, water chip got. I pretty much beelined through Necropolis (getting lost about 8 times on the way). Never even met Set, and didn't have to fight anyone on the way out cause I just booked it past them as they aggro'd. That's one main quest down, two to go.

Level 6 now. Got Small Guns to 125% and I think that's probably sufficient. Energy Weapons is sitting down at 10% and not tagged, hopefully I'm not hosed in the endgame. Kinda regret tagging Speech instead of Energy Weapons. Then again, Speech has probably saved me some trouble that I don't even know about yet.

Also got Lockpick to 100%. I've got 40 points left over. Any suggestions? I could work on Science next. If it's like FO3, I might need high Science to do some things. Or maybe start dumping into Energy Weapons now?

Gonna do the super mutants main quest next and leave the master for last, since he seems to be considered the final boss. And something about being able to one-shot him with high Science by activating a nuke? I might need to do that since I'll likely be level-deficient when I get there if I keep booking it around.
Click to expand...

If your int/speech/science is high enough, you can convince him his plan is flawed and he'll commit suicide as well.
 
Rajaah

Rajaah

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Yeah there seem to be a bunch of ways to dispatch the final boss of FO1, and I'd expect nothing less. I'm gonna try to beat him in a straight-up fight, but if I can't, I'm going for the nuke option since I've raised Science some.

Anyone know what level Science is needed to activate the endgame nuke? I googled it and found nothing. Even just a vague range would help.

I'm gonna get whatever level of Science I need and then work on Energy Weapons after that. Not sure when my next big play session is gonna be, but it'll be soon 'cause I also have ToB and I'm going against the Final Fantasy clock.
 
Rajaah

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This dialogue is something else, man

Looks like I'm totally hosed by picking Fast Shot as a perk. Being locked out of aim mode means I can't one-shot anything mid-late game with my Desert Eagle, so I keep hitting impasses with foes I just don't have any way to beat. Working on farming money for a Plasma Rifle and trying to get my horrible Energy Weapons skill up in the meantime.

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Got the Power Armor and a rifle. Glad I didn't spend a huge amount on the lesser Combat Armor, cause the Power Armor quest didn't take long and it's way better.

Farming Deathclaws for some extra exp, then I'm gonna do the hydroponic repair quest to upgrade the plasma rifle and the Power Armor.

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Did all that, now I'm doing last two dungeons. Was able to get warped right to the mutant leader and take him out, now I'm lookin for the Master.

Alright, my Speech tag finally paid off, was able to talk my way into being taken directly to the Master, so I didn't have to actually do either of last two dungeons.

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Wow, this guy looks like a real mess. I've seen this image before and I think I assumed it was from "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" or something.

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Done, defeated the Master head-to-head at level 13. TBH though, when I went to the Overseer to end the game, it turned out I hadn't blown up the Mutant Base. I thought killing the Lieutenant was enough. So I had to get back in there, but couldn't go the same way I went before, so I found the tape, then went down to B3 and ran into the yellow laser walls, then ran all the way back out and got a radio, then ran all the way back and used it but it didn't work... then I realized I'd spent like 40 minutes doddering around since I defeated the Master, and just couldn't be arsed with this shit anymore. So we'll just pretend I figured out how to connect the radio to the damn yellow doors and get back to the lowest floor that I'd already gotten to previously and hit the right switch to blow that place up too. I'm gonna go Youtube the ending.

Game's done as far as I'm concerned. Towards the end I couldn't wait for this one to be over with. Pretty clunky game that shows its age now. Was cool for a while to witness some gaming history, but towards the end I was so ready to be done with it and I kept running around doing busywork to get through this door or that door and damn, this was the closest I got to straight-up croaking in this crusade so far.

Took about 12-14 hours over the past two weeks, so at least it isn't a long game.

Back to Throne of Bhaal, we'll see if I can finish that before the 19th like I'm planning.

Side note: I've discovered that cats really like the music of Fallout 1. It tends to contain a lot of Middle-Eastern sitar and various... I don't know, ambient beta wave sounds that I can't describe. Cat responding to all of it. This is a good example:

 
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Rajaah

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Throne of Bhaal update: Finished Chapter 8, two left. Also did a lot of 9 this week, so I'll be done soon. ToB is super good. Really liking everything about it. It's nice and simple, just some otherworldly planes-related content with a bunch of really hard fights. My only worry is that it'll be over too soon cause it seems on the short side.

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I needed a 6th character since Drizzt didn't join, and right away ToB gives you the best party member in the whole game in the form of one of the previous villains. Good to finally have a dedicated Fighter too.

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Yeah, if only those damn lustful wenches would stop banging deities and birthing all these half-breed demi-god Bhaalspawn.

Main thing I know about Bhaal at this point is that he got around.

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This place reminded me of the Fire Palace in Secret of Mana. Instead of one Fire Giant as the boss, it had dozens of 'em.

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This beholder was hilarious. I spared him and he was basically like "awesome, thanks, I have stuff to do like checking out women at bars"

Gonna do more tonight and on Monday, busy over weekend. Goal is to finish game by Monday night.

Do I need to worry about when to do Watcher's Keep or can I do it any time? Crossed my mind that maybe I should do it before Chapter 10 in case it locks at some point or the overworld becomes inaccessible.
 
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Rajaah

Rajaah

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My God.

Aerie is pregnant.

I'm also on Chapter 10 so I fear I'll save the world and be done before I get to see her birth my daemon chylde.
 
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Rajaah

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Throne of Bhaal beaten (last weekend), so Baldur's Gate series is dooooone.

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Aerie got preggers right before the final battle. She actually broke up with the MC and then they got back together. Didn't play long enough to see the Item Baby.

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Dragon models in this game are pretty awesome.

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This one puzzle in Watcher's Keep was a huge issue. The pillars are color-coordinated and the Enhanced Edition highlights made them all look the same. Couldn't seem to turn the highlights off. So the puzzle was basically incompletable without looking up a YouTube video. Even guides are like "put the appropriate color orb on the appropriate color pillar" so that didn't help.

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Was really cool to see Demogorgon show up as an optional superboss. Can't think of a better optional superboss to drop in on a D&D campaign.

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Final area was this otherworldly place. Chapter 10 was basically just the final battle.

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Final boss was a surprise, I really thought it would be Bhaal. Also surprising is that this fight was actually worse than Demogorgon for me.

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That's it for this one. All 2 and a half Baldur games (3 really, the two expansions were about the size of a game) were awesome and I'm glad I checked them out.

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This guy is rad and I hope he's in BG3.

This pretty much wraps up Phase 1 CRPG Crusade cause the Final Fantasy remaster collection is out. Once I'm done with that (or at least FF1-4) I'll resume this with Icewind Dale, but it'll probably be a lil while.
 
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