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Designing the perfect warrior
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One thing I really enjoy doing in RPGs (aside from making "deals" with the numerous "working girls" in Black Isle's games), is character creation. I have created more than 8 characters in Baldur's Gate, even though I only played through the game fully with one, and partway with two others. I even modeled one party of six after characters from Tolkein's The Hobbit, because I really am that much of a geek. As you can guess, someone who so adores creating characters is bound to appreciate more options in creating them, and Baldur's Gate 2 will let you do just that. BioWare is adding over 20 "kits" to the game, so that each character class will have 3-4 kits that can be used, and even if you import your character you can have them modified with the kit of your choice. The kits are just sets of optional rules for your character. Also some other classes have been added, so you can even play an assassin if you like being referred to by a title that has the word "ass" in it twice.
If you decide to make your own character instead of importing one, you will start with 89,000 experience, so you'll be able to keep up with the higher difficulty of BG2. Smedstad tells us new enemies such as mind flayers and beholders are being added to BG's original list of menacing monsters, as well as improved AI to make sure the difficulty stays high. If you happened to play Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast (an expansion pack for the original game), then you'll have a slight advantage in this field, because your experience level could be up to 161,000 points, compared to those of us that only played BG and hit the cap at 89,000 exp. (On that note, the cap in BG2 will be set at 2,950,000 experience points, meaning druids will reach level 14, rangers, paladins, and wizards will reach level 17, fighters level 19, clerics level 21, and thieves and bards can reach level 23.)
It may not be too tough for a game developer to program AI (artificial intelligence) that can outsmart me, but for those of you looking to slake a stronger urge for intelligent virtual characters, BioWare is prepared to adhere to your needs. We had Smedstad run us through a typical battle to show how the AI in BG2 would be used, and it went a little something like this (don't worry, I'm not going to break into a song and dance or anything... just summarize):
You're a pretty tough mage, and decide you're going to summon a demon by casting the "cacofiend" spell. Since you don't want to be transformed to ground beef by the demon in record time, you also cast all of the necessary protection spells to keep your skin firmly attached to your bones. While the demon runs in circles trying to catch its own tail, you engage in battle with an enemy mage, and you start by casting magic missile. The way the AI works, as soon as that mage realizes he is under attack by you, a chain of spells will be set off, in this case: protection from normal weapons, spell turning, stoneskin (a dispel magic spell that will be heading your way) and fireball. Since that mage had turned on "spell turning," a split second before your magic missile would have left a permanent dent in his cranium, the spell was reversed and is now seeking your blood. If your wits match that of the AI, you had probably cast a fire shield and your own contingency spells to make sure you aren't hurt too bad from the other mage's attacks, but unfortunately the dispel magic spell the enemy cast was able to take away your defenses against the demon you summoned… and now your chance of surviving just declined dramatically.
You can see how, even with some pre-planning, the intelligent enemies in BG2 are going to do their best to send you flying to Baator (the Planescape universe's equivalent of Hell) and back. This is just a small example of how a battle may go, and with over 300 spells in the game, it's apparent BioWare has their work cut out for them in programming AI and battle scripts.
Baldur's Gate was flawed in only a few ways, but one of them was the ease in which a gamer could find powerful magic items and weapons, and reach unrealistically high stats or gain levels quickly without too much trouble. There were even cheap methods that could be employed for slaying the Forgotten Realms hero Drizzt, and if you didn't care to use his powerful equipment (or couldn't use it), then you could make a quick buck off of the magic items he once called his own. Smedstad told us BG2 will be balanced so this doesn't happen, and they've made sure all of the quests with a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow will have their own subplots and are going to be extremely difficult. He even said completing these quests would give you something to brag about to friends, but I learned when Baldur's Gate came out that walking up to casual gaming friends and talking about your adventures may not go too well. "Hey, Jake! I found this place on the sword coast where I could kill a bunch of sirens for 2000 exp. each, and then I went and killed this mage in the middle of nowhere for even more exp.! I also found this really cool sword and…" Trust me, you can lose friends that way.
One of the greatest aspects of combat in Baldur's Gate was the pausing system. Instead of just implementing turn based combat like in the real AD&D (kind of tough to roll dice and play in real time…), BioWare made the game real time but allowed you to pause the action at any point to plan out strategies and give commands to your character and your companions. If you had any magic powers, or anyone in your party did, this was a big help. Also, if you're one of those cynics who thinks the combat should be turn based only, in BG2 (as was in BG) there will be a set of "auto pause" variables that you can check. This will allow you to have the game pause on its own every time a certain event occurs, and then you can take your time in responding accordingly.
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