Baldur's Gate The Baldur's Gate Series Thread

[Jasede]

Next you guys will defend classic D&D ability score rolling. 3d6, in order, no rerolls. There's your character. Woops.

 

[Average Manatee]

Ability scores are actually important and define what a character can do. Health is irrelevant and high health is just a crutch.

I'd predict that you could start a BG2 newb off with 200 HP and they'd still die 90% as often, because the extra health is meaningless if you don't prepare your defenses properly and just a minor extra buffer if you do.

 

[Jasede]

Given enough time I could beat BG 2 solo with 1 HP.

That's not what it is about. Rolling for HP is a shit system because you're only going to gain a small amount of levels and there's an unlikely, but tangible chance of you rolling 1 HP over and over again. And no constitution bonus is going to make up for that.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Next you guys will defend classic D&D ability score rolling. 3d6, in order, no rerolls. There's your character. Woops.

Well that worked in P&P because you didn't want to spend three hours waiting to get started because some players couldn't decide what sort of character they wanted to play.

Given enough time I could beat BG 2 solo with 1 HP.

No you couldn't.

 

[Jasede]

Don't see why not; I beat it solo as every class before. With enough save-scumming it should be possible to avoid most damage / encounters (and handle what's left with spells & summons).

 

[Average Manatee]

That's not what it is about. Rolling for HP is a shit system because you're only going to gain a small amount of levels

In BG1. In BG2 you gain plenty of levels.

and there's an unlikely, but tangible chance of you rolling 1 HP over and over again.

There's an unlikely, but tangible chance of rolling 1 on your to-hit for an entire game

Statistically the chance of rolling 1 HP for each level you gain up to level 10 is 0.000000093%. So lets ignore this because it's dumb and your lack of knowledge of statistics is dumb.

And no constitution bonus is going to make up for that.

Certainly it will.

Some quick math:
Variance of an 8-sided die is (8^2-1)/12 = 5.25. 10d8's variance is therefore 52.5, and the standard deviation is sqrt(52.5) = ~7.25
You are 95% likely to be no more than 3 standard deviations below the average, so the maximum penalty we can expect a player to be at is ~22 HP below average.
Average HP of a lvl 10 fighter with 18 con = 95.
Minimum expectable HP of a level 10 fight with 18 con = 73
Therefore, the minimum HP fighter is suffering about a 23.2% penalty on health.

Now, what makes up for that?
- If the enemy can hit you on a roll of 15 or higher, a single +1 AC is approximately a +20% bonus to survivability. If the enemy can hit you on a roll of 18 or higher, +1 AC = +50% bonus to survivability. So lets say that the penalty could be counteracted by about +1-+2 AC. Same goes for saves.
- If you are against enemies with instant death attacks or disabling spells, your health is useless. No one cares about HP if your are stunned, or held, or confused and hitting your own party.
- We can also look at the difficulty sliders. Hard gives a +50% bonus to enemy difficulty. Very Hard gives a +100%. Your maximum expected health penalty is therefore about half of a single tick on the difficulty slider.
- We can also look backwards. What could make a 95 HP fighter go down just as easily as a 73 HP fighter? A single critical hit, dealing max weapon damage * 2, is at least a +20 damage boost if not far more for bosses. Therefore unless you are prepared to save-scum every time any enemy gets a crit, because its "not fair", you need to not worry about health, but statistically it's basically identical.

Furthermore, we have to remember that you have 6 characters. That's 6 set of 10 rolls for HP. Since HP is in many ways a shared resource as far as your cleric is concerned (people with high health can be healed later and allow you to heal low health people first), we should consider it all as a whole. In this case, the 95 percentile will hit at around a 11.2% penalty to party-wide health. Even assuming that only 3, maybe 4 people of the party are tough characters meant to take a hit, I think we can see how the penalty is quickly becoming a laughingstock.

Now lets talk about what MAX HP gets you.

Level 10 fighter with Average HP: 95
Level 10 fighter with MAX HP: 140

Oh, but its just fine to get 50% more HP than the game intends. Not imbalancing at all.

 

[Jasede]

I only play Baldur's Gate solo, and you're willfully misunderstanding me if you don't get what I am driving at, even if I am not being very clear or exact in my language. I'm not really going to argue this further. Rolling for HP with straight dice is not a good mechanic. It makes encounters more difficult to balance, it's frustrating to players and it leads to grave differences in the HP of characters with identical CON and class levels, but different rolls. Also in BG 2 it's quite possible to finish the game only earning 3-5 levels, if, for example, you play a Druid. (But they had a crazy dumb XP curve).

Defending random HP rolls in a video game is nothing like defending to-hit rolls. You make far more to-hit rolls in a game than you roll for HP. A string of bad HP rolls, while it will likely average out, does not feel good and only encourages reloading. Further, it makes encounters harder to balance. I'm all for traditions but we should never try to defend the stupid ones.

 

[Average Manatee]

I only play Baldur's Gate solo, and you're willfully misunderstanding me if you don't get what I am driving at, even if I am not being very clear or exact in my language. I'm not really going to argue this further. Rolling for HP with straight dice is not a good mechanic. It makes encounters more difficult to balance, it's frustrating to players and it leads to grave differences in the HP of characters with identical CON and class levels, but different rolls. Also in BG 2 it's quite possible to finish the game only earning 3-5 levels, if, for example, you play a Druid. (But they had a crazy dumb XP curve).

Defending random HP rolls in a video game is nothing like defending to-hit rolls. You make far more to-hit rolls in a game than you roll for HP. A string of bad HP rolls, while it will likely average out, does not feel good and only encourages reloading. Further, it makes encounters harder to balance. I'm all for traditions but we should never try to defend the stupid ones.

The fact that you yourself admit that completing BG2 with only 1 HP is not only possible but quite doable goes to show that BG2 doesn't care about HP when balancing encounters. HP is a non-factor compared to good defense and tactics as far as encounter balance is concerned.

Furthermore, you are using the fact that you *might* (emphasis on might, it's incredibly unlikely) suffer a -23% penalty to *justify* a +50% health bonus. You could have a rational argument if you were taking 4.5 HP for level in place of d8, but you aren't. You are trying to take 8 HP per level instead of d8. This is outright cheating. No different and no more justifiable than straight consoling in new items or stats.

 

[Jasede]

For the record, I never used any HP reroll mods, nor am I in the habit of reloading bad HP rolls (in a game that's this easy). But I still insist it's a bad mechanic as it encourages and rewards reloading. It's like random loot in chests.

I can tell you first-hand though that rolling low/min HP in P&P and in online D&D feels like absolute shit and I'm very much in favor of houseruling HP (not necessarily max).

 

[Average Manatee]

So houserule your P&P games. BG has houserules for HP. Its not even some press-this-to-admit-you're-a-noob button, houseruled HP is defaulted to on for normal difficulty. Just don't pretend that Max HP is anything other than a player cheat.

 

[Lhynn]

So houserule your P&P games. BG has houserules for HP. Its not even some press-this-to-admit-you're-a-noob button, houseruled HP is defaulted to on for normal difficulty. Just don't pretend that Max HP is anything other than a player cheat.

Its not a player cheat. You didnt even get your math right, fighters and other classes gain HD till level 9, only mages and rogues do till level 10 (which ends up working towards rogues and mages advantage). Fucking educate yourself before posting.
Other than that both sides are follow to the same rules of maxed out hp, so it actually works in favor of enemy creatures, which are easily more plentiful.
It arguably makes fighter classes stronger (hp, as of its most important stats left to luck strikes me as shit), which could certainly use boost against casters in BGII on both sides, so it works towards balance as well.

The only problem i got with maxed hp rolls is having to deal with retards like you. Oh and before any other fucking retarded manchildren has any bright ideas like saying "reload if not natural 20", it is not applicable because to follow the same logic im following youd have to reload when the enemy also gets less than a natural 20.

I fucking swear to god, i wasnt expecting more than a "you max rolls for both sides? interesting, bet it should change the dynamic of the battles somehow". not the "lololol, cheater easy mode" inane and uninformed response you assholes gave.

 

[aleph]

Lhynn just admit you suck at playing BG, it's not much of a deal anyway

 

[pippin]

Just beat Firkraag, bought as many healing potions and summon scrolls and made my clerics and mages at the very back with healing spells and summons, man I love Jaheira's Heal but only have 2 slots for it, kept using Haste potion to attack the dragon and then retreating for healing and buffs and sending summons to distract him a little bit. Took a little bit of time to finish him tho after a couple of tries.

Installed another tweak to enable the portrait for Edwina or something I think. This will probably be my last post in here, Thanks for the tips.

Everybody kept telling me how hard dragons were in BG2, but once you get that Lower Magic Resistance spell (it does something to that effect, at least), they are literally a cakewalk. Like, barely a 1 minute long fight. I only had unfinished business installed.

 

[Average Manatee]

So houserule your P&P games. BG has houserules for HP. Its not even some press-this-to-admit-you're-a-noob button, houseruled HP is defaulted to on for normal difficulty. Just don't pretend that Max HP is anything other than a player cheat.

Its not a player cheat. You didnt even get your math right, fighters and other classes gain HD till level 9, only mages and rogues do till level 10 (which ends up working towards rogues and mages advantage). Fucking educate yourself before posting.
Other than that both sides are follow to the same rules of maxed out hp, so it actually works in favor of enemy creatures, which are easily more plentiful.
It arguably makes fighter classes stronger (hp, as of its most important stats left to luck strikes me as shit), which could certainly use boost against casters in BGII on both sides, so it works towards balance as well.

The only problem i got with maxed hp rolls is having to deal with retards like you. Oh and before any other fucking retarded manchildren has any bright ideas like saying "reload if not natural 20", it is not applicable because to follow the same logic im following youd have to reload when the enemy also gets less than a natural 20.

I fucking swear to god, i wasnt expecting more than a "you max rolls for both sides? interesting, bet it should change the dynamic of the battles somehow". not the "lololol, cheater easy mode" inane and uninformed response you assholes gave.

I like having people tell me to educate myself when they spew incomprehensible and irrelevant dribble afterwards. Try to organize your thoughts better before posting.

 

[GarfunkeL]

"Everybody" are usually retards. Like our dear friend Lhynn above, who consistently demonstrates that he sucks donkey balls in IE games. In vanilla BG2, you didn't even need to reduce the dragons spell resistance because Cloudkill / Ice Storm killed them quickly enough and you got wands/scrolls for the former easily enough.

 

[Incantatar]

BG2 solo with 1 hp? If i'm not mistaken the game would be over after the very first cutscene.

 

[Melcar]

You could beat the game even before opening the retail box.

 

[Lhynn]

Garfunkel you never fail to shitpost. go fuck yourself.

As for you manatee, its simple enough. Max hp on both allies and enemies alike creates some interesting playing dynamics, most enemies suddenly get a huge boost to endurance, magic is less deadly, which creates a harder game, because magic dominates (and this is an understatement) in the hands of the player.
Following me so far?
The overwhelming mayority of enemies in both games cant cast spells, and they also have another thing in common, they have a failry generous hit dice, like most monster creatures in AD&D. So higher hp ends up working to their advatage.
kay, this is where it can get hard to understand for you.
In a previous post you said a warrior would have 140 hp by level 10, because you were taking into account the D10 maxed hp and a +4 from constitution, when that is in fact wrong, because warrior classes only gain HD up to level 9, the same applies for the constitution bonus. This is what i meant by uninformed retard.

That said, i find it shitty that you have to roll your hp, rather compromise and max it for everyone than give up on playing anything but a mage because the warrior keeps getting oneshotted, or create scenarios where a single direct damage spell will take care of most your enemies. Both can be fun the first time, but they get old fast.

 

[Average Manatee]

Max hp on both allies and enemies alike creates some interesting playing dynamics

Whoa whoa wait. No one said max HP on enemies. Maybe you should define your fucking argument before insulting me for divining it for you.

Max HP for both is more reasonable and less cheaty, but even then its rather stupid.

most enemies suddenly get a huge boost to endurance

A completely random boost to endurance, some times actually a penalty. The game intends monsters to be at a certain health which is completely unrelated to their HD. In fact some monsters actually get weaker when you scale their max HP to their HD. Since normal monster HP is not linked to their HD, your whole argument is therefore completely incorrect, illogical and unfounded.

magic is less deadly, which creates a harder game, because magic dominates (and this is an understatement) in the hands of the player.

Untrue. Only direct magic damage gets less deadly, but it wasn't important in the first place. The game is in fact far easier.

The overwhelming mayority of enemies in both games cant cast spells, and they also have another thing in common, they have a failry generous hit dice, like most monster creatures in AD&D. So higher hp ends up working to their advatage.

Incorrect. If you are using magic to augment yourself or otherwise change the course of battle (you are, this is D&D), HP is your time limit you have to get your buffs/debuffs off until you die. Increasing HP therefore increases that time limit. Enemy HP becomes irrelevant once buffs/debuffs are on.

In a previous post you said a warrior would have 140 hp by level 10, because you were taking into account the D10 maxed hp and a +4 from constitution, when that is in fact wrong, because warrior classes only gain HD up to level 9, the same applies for the constitution bonus. This is what i meant by uninformed retard.

So when I'm off by one in a completely meaningless manner that doesn't effect the actually statistics, I'm an uninformed retard.

What are you then when you think normal Monster HP is based on HD when in fact it isn't? Because that's so wrong that you can't even pretend your argument holds water.

That said, i find it shitty that you have to roll your hp, rather compromise and max it for everyone than give up on playing anything but a mage because the warrior keeps getting oneshotted, or create scenarios where a single direct damage spell will take care of most your enemies. Both can be fun the first time, but they get old fast.

Casual.

 

[Lhynn]

Whoa whoa wait. No one said max HP on enemies. Maybe you should define your fucking argument before insulting me for divining it for you.

Max HP for both is more reasonable and less cheaty, but even then its rather stupid.

http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg2tweaks/

• Higher HP on Level Up
• Maximum HP Creatures (the bigg)

Incorrect. If you are using magic to augment yourself or otherwise change the course of battle (you are, this is D&D), HP is your time limit you have to get your buffs/debuffs off until you die. Increasing HP therefore increases that time limit. Enemy HP becomes irrelevant once buffs/debuffs are on.

HP/time limit? what? stoneskin, mirror image, and a whole plethora of spells trivialize hp. coincidentally the enemy has to go tru those protections to get to you, the need to wear them out by attacking/enduring, of course they are going to see a lot better results if their staying power is upped, the player on the other hand can prebuff, as a result hp becomes sort of irrelevant if they cant hurt you.

So when I'm off by one in a completely meaningless manner that doesn't effect the actually statistics, I'm an uninformed retard.

If hp is so meaningless why are we having this discussion? and i wouldnt call a 9%-10% meaningless.

What are you then when you think normal Monster HP is based on HD when in fact it isn't? Because that's so wrong that you can't even pretend your argument holds water.

Monster HP is based on their HD+base value, HD for all monsters in AD&D is d8 unless otherwise stated. their HD also determines their saving throw and other level related stuff like their THAC0.
Yes, you are ignorant.

Painful attempt at being funneh

 

[Average Manatee]

Whoa whoa wait. No one said max HP on enemies. Maybe you should define your fucking argument before insulting me for divining it for you.

Max HP for both is more reasonable and less cheaty, but even then its rather stupid.

http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg2tweaks/

• Higher HP on Level Up
• Maximum HP Creatures (the bigg)

Herp derp. I know what the fucking mod is. You need to *say* what you are talking about, dumbfuck. Not just jump into a conversation with your own bullshit.

Incorrect. If you are using magic to augment yourself or otherwise change the course of battle (you are, this is D&D), HP is your time limit you have to get your buffs/debuffs off until you die. Increasing HP therefore increases that time limit. Enemy HP becomes irrelevant once buffs/debuffs are on.

HP/time limit? what? stoneskin, mirror image, and a whole plethora of spells trivialize hp. coincidentally the enemy has to go tru those protections to get to you, the need to wear them out by attacking/enduring, of course they are going to see a lot better results if their staying power is upped, the player on the other hand can prebuff, as a result hp becomes sort of irrelevant if they cant hurt you.

If you prebuff then it is all irrelevant. Nothing can hurt you.

Without cheesing every fight with endless prebuffing, HP is your time limit to get buffs up before your HP runs out and you die. It's not a hard concept to understand.

So when I'm off by one in a completely meaningless manner that doesn't effect the actually statistics, I'm an uninformed retard.

If hp is so meaningless why are we having this discussion? and i wouldnt call a 9%-10% meaningless.

Holy shit you are bad at math. It's a 1.5-2% difference. Yes, your minor critique really killed the argument.

What are you then when you think normal Monster HP is based on HD when in fact it isn't? Because that's so wrong that you can't even pretend your argument holds water.

Monster HP is based on their HD+base value, HD for all monsters in AD&D is d8 unless otherwise stated. their HD also determines their saving throw and other level related stuff like their THAC0.
Yes, you are ignorant.

Monster HD is completely unlinked from monster HP and other stats in BG. Many monsters in fact have higher HP in vanilla BG2 than maximized HDs would allow. It even says that this is the case if you read the description for the mod, in the very link you provided. No, you are ignorant. So horribly, horribly ignorant.

Painful attempt at being funneh

At least you can be introspective.

 

[Melcar]

I always play with max HP for everyone, because fuck you. It actually makes some of the vanilla ToB encounters a bit harder. Original BG not so much.

 

[Lhynn]

Herp derp. I know what the fucking mod is. You need to *say* what you are talking about, dumbfuck. Not just jump into a conversation with your own bullshit.

Fair enough.

Without cheesing every fight with endless prebuffing, HP is your time limit to get buffs up before your HP runs out and you die. It's not a hard concept to understand.

Casting stone-skin and having the appropriate spells for the enemies you are expecting to face is hardly cheesing, and thats all you need to steam roll everything, if anything other mods to increase difficulty are recommended, and a lot of those give enemies pre-buffing equivalents.

Holy shit you are bad at math. It's a 1.5-2% difference. Yes, your minor critique really killed the argument.

The difference between 140 and 129 is 1.5%?

Monster HD is completely unlinked from monster HP and other stats in BG.

Yes, but we both know the mod uses the maxed HP from the hit dice of the monster manuals, and yes, some monsters have higher hp, but as stated, those are left untouched.
Other than that, random stat rolls on level up are a gameplay mechanic better suited for roguelikes, as it tests player adaptability, but outside of a roguelike environment, all it tests is the players patience. You cant tell me starcraft would be a harder game if units hp was randomized.

 

[Average Manatee]

Casting stone-skin and having the appropriate spells for the enemies you are expecting to face is hardly cheesing, and thats all you need to steam roll everything, if anything other mods to increase difficulty are recommended, and a lot of those give enemies pre-buffing equivalents.

I didn't say BG was some incredibly hard game (without mods). Far from it. All I said is that you are making it easier.

Holy shit you are bad at math. It's a 1.5-2% difference. Yes, your minor critique really killed the argument.

The difference between 140 and 129 is 1.5%?

As stated, the difference between a fighter with average HP and a fighter 3 standard deviations below average w/ 10 HD was a 23.2% penalty. For a fighter with 9 HD its something like a 25% penalty. Don't pretend that you misunderstood the original math post I made, the only percent I gave was the percent health penalty.

Monster HD is completely unlinked from monster HP and other stats in BG.

Yes, but we both know the mod uses the maxed HP from the hit dice of the monster manuals, and yes, some monsters have higher hp, but as stated, those are left untouched.

So monsters gain some completely random amount of HP, with many monsters that were intended to be much more difficult than usual (artifically boosted HP) get no bonus. Meanwhile you give yourself a flat +50% bonus to health just 'cause.

Also I'm quite certain the mod doesn't use the HD from the monster manuals but instead straight from the game. Otherwise that would probably only make the problem worse.

Other than that, random stat rolls on level up are a gameplay mechanic better suited for roguelikes, as it tests player adaptability, but outside of a roguelike environment, all it tests is the players patience. You cant tell me starcraft would be a harder game if units hp was randomized.

What's the primary difference between a roguelike and an RPG in this situation? The fact that a roguelike is slightly harder to savescum? I'd say that health variance has *exactly* the same effect.

You know who else complains about games testing their patience? Newbs, and that's why they play on Easy so they don't have to face a challenge which takes up too much of their precious time. You're just doing the same thing except at the same time trying to justify it as not playing on easy through roundabout methods.

Also Starcraft did have randomized hit chance for units on different levels (Removal of which was a huge negative in SC2). Furthermore WC3 had plenty of randomization. I wouldn't say it made it harder, but it certainly made the game *better*. Removing the randomization and painting over it with a mechanic that hugely favours the player over the enemy would certainly make both of the games worse.

 

[Lhynn]

As stated, the difference between a fighter with average HP and a fighter 3 standard deviations below average w/ 10 HD was a 23.2% penalty. For a fighter with 9 HD its something like a 25% penalty. Don't pretend that you misunderstood the original math post I made, the only percent I gave was the percent health penalty.

Well, apart from the fact that ive seen fighters with 37 hit points at level 9 and that statistics mean nothing against single rolls. The deviation varies with con modifiers, so its kind of useless.
Also how the fuck do you calculate hp against stone skin layers, mirrored images, total invulnerability against damage sources and other stuff that makes hp just another stat instead of the be all end all you are trying to make it be? For warriors and most enemies is a very important stat, but seeing as the opposition gets a bigger benefit than your own team from said boost, i really dont see how the party ends up with an advantage.

So monsters gain some completely random amount of HP, with many monsters that were intended to be much more difficult than usual (artifically boosted HP) get no bonus. Meanwhile you give yourself a flat +50% bonus to health just 'cause.

Also I'm quite certain the mod doesn't use the HD from the monster manuals but instead straight from the game. Otherwise that would probably only make the problem worse.

Nice try, but most difficult fights in the game are against a big bad plus mooks that get in your way, more hp for them makes the fight longer and more difficult than they originally are.

What's the primary difference between a roguelike and an RPG in this situation? The fact that a roguelike is slightly harder to savescum? I'd say that health variance has *exactly* the same effect.

Expendable characters for the most part, the challenge from a rogue like comes from having to make due with what youve got, adapting to whatever random shit the game presents you and dealing with it to survive.

You know who else complains about games testing their patience? Newbs, and that's why they play on Easy so they don't have to face a challenge which takes up too much of their precious time. You're just doing the same thing except at the same time trying to justify it as not playing on easy through roundabout methods.

Ah, the: "You are a noob lololol" argument, how is the game remotely challenging if you have a good party composition and apropiate spells? hp isnt even accounted for in any strategy to beat any fight on the game, stop being fucking retarded.

Also Starcraft did have randomized hit chance for units on different levels (Removal of which was a huge negative in SC2). Furthermore WC3 had plenty of randomization. I wouldn't say it made it harder, but it certainly made the game *better*. Removing the randomization and painting over it with a mechanic that hugely favours the player over the enemy would certainly make both of the games worse.

Dude, we are talking HP, not to-hit, they are two different things. But yeah, in strategy games deterministic systems are needed, otherwise pure dumb luck can trump good planning.

Not only that, in strategy games units are usually plentiful and expendable, so it averages itself out, thousands upon thousands of throws will achieve a reliable average on losses. On a micro level some of those units will invariably lose because of bad luck if random chance is allowed. And because you are facing 1-10 dudes with your 1-6 dudes on BGII random shit has a much deeper and meaninful impact while being completely outside of the players control.

Last but not least, as levels go up you start facing monsters with higher HDs, while you are stuck with what youve got the benefits for them increase as you go along.

PS: sorry, it was a typo, it was 37. Thanks BBMorti