Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2

I've procrastinated on completing my playthrough 15 of Baldur's Gate 3. The reason isn't obvious. I'll get into it in a future post. One of my procrastination tools is playing through some of the original BG games: Baldur's Gate (1998), Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000), and Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal (2001). I'll refer…

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BG3 – You can be Arctic Druid Angela too Three

Let's take our minds off of Armor Class and Spell Save DC with a story. The events and images are a blend of my most successful Balanced-mode test and the Tactician-mode tests, as I describe in my previous post. A story If something illegal happens within sight of a witness (and there were plenty of civilian witnesses…

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BG3 – You can be Arctic Druid Angela too Two

This post is a follow-up to my previous post on recreating the character of Arctic Druid Angela. If you're like Guard Wulf and are bored by system stuff, skip ahead to my next post, in which I tell a story using pictures. Originally I wrote this essay and the pictorial as a single post. It got a…

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BG3 – You too can play Arctic Druid Angela

Warning If you're tired of my continual references to Arctic Druid Angela, well, too bad. This post is neither a culmination, catharsis, nor an intended ending to her story. On the other hand, if you're curious about what the fuss is about, you're in the right place! Context When I write up playthrough 15 of Baldur's Gate…

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Baldur’s Gate 3 – Playthrough 8’/2.5 – Reality

Now for a dose of reality Video games are not Barbie dolls. When you start a playthrough, the game offers you a choice of which character you want to play: an Origin character or a character of your own design. That's the character who's supposed to be the protagonist of the story. The game is not designed…

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Baldur’s Gate 3 – Playthrough 8’/2.5 – Drama

Kill Wyll Let me get this out of the way first: When I'm writing about our attempts to get Wyll out of the picture, I'm writing from an imaginary perspective as a "Wyll-hater", as I was when I role-played the character of Wicked Sandalwood. In reality, I have no antipathy for the character. I have great respect…

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Baldur’s Gate 3 – Playthrough 8’/2.5 – Renewal

What does 8'/2.5 mean? I could no longer play with Real Angela on a game she hosted, but what about a game that I hosted? Real Angela was willing, but she had her own exploration through BG3 and didn't want to spoil that. She said she'd join me for a part of a playthrough I hosted if:…

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Baldur’s Gate 3 – Playthrough 8’/2.5 – Druid Angela and Mor’lith

Confused? I don't blame you. Aside from the opaque nomenclature ("8'/2.5? What does that mean?") the situation behind this playthrough started off tangled and gets more tangled as we go along. On the one hand, it's a story of two friends who would like to occasionally play Baldur's Gate 3 together, but can't do so freely due…

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BG3 – Summoned creatures, throwing potions, and consoles

I have a general disclaimer associated with my series of Baldur's Gate 3 posts: Anyone looking for tips how to solo Honor mode is probably looking in the wrong place. For this post, I'm weakening that disclaimer. The disparate topics I'm going to discuss are advanced enough that folks pursuing playthroughs at higher difficulty levels might find…

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