From my Archer PC in Icewind Dale (2E), I can tell you that 5 points in weapon proficiency is Grandmastery, and affects THAC0 (+3 to hit), damage (+5), attack speed (+3, although I don't know why this is relevant) and you get 5 attacks per 2 rounds (base, so weapon stats might stack). Only fighters can be above specialised (2 points) except the archer, which was a subclass of ranger, and obviously specialised in longbows etc. Feats and the more intuitive armour class etc. were 3E and so on.
2:10 "It says 9 is average and 14 is average" It says that 14 is above average (in a way that doesn't give you anything). 6:00 "Majority of new players will probably take Vhailor with them" On the condition that: a) They do not immediately click on the portal to outlands when it opens. Many never even notice Vhailor. b) They have full party at that time. Not all manage to get Ignus, some might not feel like recruiting Grace and some might have thought that they don't feel like talking to every person in Smoldering Corpse Bar and might never recruit Dak'kon. Morte and Annah are the only two companions who obligatorily join your party. Also many who do leave a party member behind to recruit Vhalinor just reloaded every time he turned hostile. Also some recruited Nodrom and as such had to leave one party member in Sigil before venturing into Ravels maze. That way when they would be back after a specific (not as likely as one might think) scenario of leaving a party member to recruit Vhalinor and then not reloading after he turns hostile, they still could recruit back that one party member they had left in Sigil. Also if you were not to sacrifice modron cube you still could have full party by recruiting Nodrom from cube. He is best example of the fact that many players (like you with Nodrom) do not recruit every single possible party member before going to Ravels maze. 7:11 "Skull Tower problem" Even without the cube and without Morte you can just sacrifice yourself to the Tower 3 times for a total of -45 Maximum HP. It's also worth saying that you can get at maximum 3 answers from the tower but only 1 answer is necessary- finding a way to Fortress of Regrets. Question about what is pillar of skulls is answered by a companion so it's free and optional, question about who are you is optional and question about how to leave Baator is also optional since you only have to ask it if you hadn't asked Forked-Tounge about a way to return to him. Also you get one question "for free" if you tell the pillar about Forked-Tounge. That way you only really need to get -30 permanent HP if for some reason you would like to not sacrifice anything else, still want to hear about who are you and didn't asked Forked-Tounge about the way back. Also a trivia- the pillar asked you to give Grace to them and if Annah would be present the pillar would also ask to have her. However if you actually gave Grace away she would just teleport away and you would get no answers while losing party member. Annah instead would just turn hostile at you so technically you can lose 5 party members at pillar: 1) Don't get Nodrom from the cube 2) Don't ask Forked-Tongue about way back 3) Give morte to the pillar and ask about who you are 4) Kill Vhalinor who turned hostile 5) While asking about way back offer Grace, who teleports away, then offer Annah who turns hostile so you have to kill her and at the end give nodrom cube losing access to Nodrom. 6) You're stuck with Ignus and Dak'kon as your only party members for the rest of the game! 7) ??? 8) Profit! 7:50 "You've been allowed to take every party member so far in this game" If you would find Nodrom in the maze you would be faced with need to switch party members because he would be over the limit as well. You just so happened to recruit the exact amount that would make your party full with Vhailor being the first party member who doesn't fit. 8:20 "Vhailor is voiced by Keith Davis" Some people like me despite watching all My Little Pony episodes and watching a LP of Legacy of the Void still would never know that de Lancie voiced Trias if I wouldn't find that trivia on a wiki somewhere. Not all people can recognize voices. It's kinda amazing to me that other people just recognize voices so quickly. I can recognize voices in Polish cartoons because there is a small bunch of voice actors who voice them and they all voice very strongly and characteristically due to their profession and nature of the media, but that's all. I could never recognize a voice in English video game. 28:15 "Somebody somewhere made a change to a piece of software and I didn't opt into that and it causes me professional problems." You should be more understanding Keith. Haven't you study IT before geology? I have some experience with programming and somewhat it makes me much more patient with faulty software because it's just so hard to do and maintain after all. 33:35 Ignus: I am yours till death comes to us both. Me: Now kiss! Ignus is the only gay romance option after all.
>Also if you were not to sacrifice modron cube you still could have full party by recruiting Nodrom from cube. He has the portal lens, so he still could have - the portal lens does almost everything the modron cube does. But tbh, most things he brings up are actual problems, solutions to which will be invented in the future. But this is still 1999. There is no Bioware formula. No one has figured out companion hubs yet. It will come, with time. I am sad that most of the companion-related content never came about in this playthrough, due to build choices and lack of diligence in dialogue tree navigation.
@@Kammereer Well he played it blindly and I think that's what really matters. It's really neat that he thought about Mebbeth before Vrisca though. We wouldn't have consoling Mebbeth at her deathbed if he would, since he didn't thought about visiting Ai-Vene, Martha and her specifically. Still I think that he clicked one wrong dialogue option so that he couldn't give her the black-thorn seed. Or maybe that's because it was in his quick-slot?
Yeah Torment and Baldurs Gate 2 both start off in a pseudo-open world city dense with sidequests and such. Then you follow a person for plot reasons which devolves into a giant sidetracking quest through a batch of linear levels before briefly returning to the open world prior to a final confrontation. Which leaves both really having questionable middle points that feel more then a little like padding and a lack of ideas.
It's less padding or running out of ideas, and instead that is just how RPGs were designed. These are not short games, and reaching these parts are usually there to drive the story forward without any obstructions to set up the final parts of the game. Of course the irony about this is exactly why they are always criticized for it, they change the style of the game and isn't what the player wants from it. A setpiece or dungeon is fine, but when you run around hours through linear maps that are highly limiting then that's not exactly the most exciting thing in comparison to everything else. And in this game where combat isn't exactly what the player wants to see all the time since it's the wakest part of the game, making this one mega battle gauntlet really didn't help it's case.
Damn shame more people don't play this game these days, it's such a masterpiece of writing and world building. Probably my number one favorite game of all time. So many great plot twists just like this one.
After I played it 23 years ago, I was reading a forum and people were saying about a party member called Vhailor and I had no memory of even meeting him. Is he a mandatory character to speak to, or can he be skipped?
28:06 "Someone out there made some kind of change to a piece of software and it's gonna cause me problems now professionally, without me opting into that problem" That's basically a Windows issue, right (with automatic updates and whatnot)? I kinda wanna tell you to just use Linux instead, but I do know most game devs only care about Windows compatibility (that being said, there are tools that allow you to play Windows games on Linux, like Valve/Steam's Proton, Lutris, and so on - they usually rely on a compatibility layer software called Wine).
From my Archer PC in Icewind Dale (2E), I can tell you that 5 points in weapon proficiency is Grandmastery, and affects THAC0 (+3 to hit), damage (+5), attack speed (+3, although I don't know why this is relevant) and you get 5 attacks per 2 rounds (base, so weapon stats might stack). Only fighters can be above specialised (2 points) except the archer, which was a subclass of ranger, and obviously specialised in longbows etc.
Feats and the more intuitive armour class etc. were 3E and so on.
"New existential crisis; who dis?" Is one of the funniest things Keith's ever said 😂
2:10
"It says 9 is average and 14 is average"
It says that 14 is above average (in a way that doesn't give you anything).
6:00
"Majority of new players will probably take Vhailor with them"
On the condition that:
a) They do not immediately click on the portal to outlands when it opens. Many never even notice Vhailor.
b) They have full party at that time. Not all manage to get Ignus, some might not feel like recruiting Grace and some might have thought that they don't feel like talking to every person in Smoldering Corpse Bar and might never recruit Dak'kon. Morte and Annah are the only two companions who obligatorily join your party.
Also many who do leave a party member behind to recruit Vhalinor just reloaded every time he turned hostile.
Also some recruited Nodrom and as such had to leave one party member in Sigil before venturing into Ravels maze. That way when they would be back after a specific (not as likely as one might think) scenario of leaving a party member to recruit Vhalinor and then not reloading after he turns hostile, they still could recruit back that one party member they had left in Sigil.
Also if you were not to sacrifice modron cube you still could have full party by recruiting Nodrom from cube. He is best example of the fact that many players (like you with Nodrom) do not recruit every single possible party member before going to Ravels maze.
7:11
"Skull Tower problem"
Even without the cube and without Morte you can just sacrifice yourself to the Tower 3 times for a total of -45 Maximum HP. It's also worth saying that you can get at maximum 3 answers from the tower but only 1 answer is necessary- finding a way to Fortress of Regrets. Question about what is pillar of skulls is answered by a companion so it's free and optional, question about who are you is optional and question about how to leave Baator is also optional since you only have to ask it if you hadn't asked Forked-Tounge about a way to return to him. Also you get one question "for free" if you tell the pillar about Forked-Tounge. That way you only really need to get -30 permanent HP if for some reason you would like to not sacrifice anything else, still want to hear about who are you and didn't asked Forked-Tounge about the way back.
Also a trivia- the pillar asked you to give Grace to them and if Annah would be present the pillar would also ask to have her. However if you actually gave Grace away she would just teleport away and you would get no answers while losing party member. Annah instead would just turn hostile at you so technically you can lose 5 party members at pillar:
1) Don't get Nodrom from the cube
2) Don't ask Forked-Tongue about way back
3) Give morte to the pillar and ask about who you are
4) Kill Vhalinor who turned hostile
5) While asking about way back offer Grace, who teleports away, then offer Annah who turns hostile so you have to kill her and at the end give nodrom cube losing access to Nodrom.
6) You're stuck with Ignus and Dak'kon as your only party members for the rest of the game!
7) ???
8) Profit!
7:50
"You've been allowed to take every party member so far in this game"
If you would find Nodrom in the maze you would be faced with need to switch party members because he would be over the limit as well. You just so happened to recruit the exact amount that would make your party full with Vhailor being the first party member who doesn't fit.
8:20
"Vhailor is voiced by Keith Davis"
Some people like me despite watching all My Little Pony episodes and watching a LP of Legacy of the Void still would never know that de Lancie voiced Trias if I wouldn't find that trivia on a wiki somewhere. Not all people can recognize voices. It's kinda amazing to me that other people just recognize voices so quickly. I can recognize voices in Polish cartoons because there is a small bunch of voice actors who voice them and they all voice very strongly and characteristically due to their profession and nature of the media, but that's all. I could never recognize a voice in English video game.
28:15
"Somebody somewhere made a change to a piece of software and I didn't opt into that and it causes me professional problems."
You should be more understanding Keith. Haven't you study IT before geology? I have some experience with programming and somewhat it makes me much more patient with faulty software because it's just so hard to do and maintain after all.
33:35
Ignus: I am yours till death comes to us both.
Me: Now kiss! Ignus is the only gay romance option after all.
>Also if you were not to sacrifice modron cube you still could have full party by recruiting Nodrom from cube.
He has the portal lens, so he still could have - the portal lens does almost everything the modron cube does.
But tbh, most things he brings up are actual problems, solutions to which will be invented in the future. But this is still 1999. There is no Bioware formula. No one has figured out companion hubs yet. It will come, with time.
I am sad that most of the companion-related content never came about in this playthrough, due to build choices and lack of diligence in dialogue tree navigation.
@@Kammereer Well he played it blindly and I think that's what really matters.
It's really neat that he thought about Mebbeth before Vrisca though. We wouldn't have consoling Mebbeth at her deathbed if he would, since he didn't thought about visiting Ai-Vene, Martha and her specifically.
Still I think that he clicked one wrong dialogue option so that he couldn't give her the black-thorn seed. Or maybe that's because it was in his quick-slot?
Yeah Torment and Baldurs Gate 2 both start off in a pseudo-open world city dense with sidequests and such. Then you follow a person for plot reasons which devolves into a giant sidetracking quest through a batch of linear levels before briefly returning to the open world prior to a final confrontation.
Which leaves both really having questionable middle points that feel more then a little like padding and a lack of ideas.
It's less padding or running out of ideas, and instead that is just how RPGs were designed. These are not short games, and reaching these parts are usually there to drive the story forward without any obstructions to set up the final parts of the game.
Of course the irony about this is exactly why they are always criticized for it, they change the style of the game and isn't what the player wants from it. A setpiece or dungeon is fine, but when you run around hours through linear maps that are highly limiting then that's not exactly the most exciting thing in comparison to everything else.
And in this game where combat isn't exactly what the player wants to see all the time since it's the wakest part of the game, making this one mega battle gauntlet really didn't help it's case.
Damn shame more people don't play this game these days, it's such a masterpiece of writing and world building. Probably my number one favorite game of all time. So many great plot twists just like this one.
After I played it 23 years ago, I was reading a forum and people were saying about a party member called Vhailor and I had no memory of even meeting him. Is he a mandatory character to speak to, or can he be skipped?
He is skippable. Only benefits lawful fighters.
Did fell not offer the tattoo of torment?
@@michaelsinnreich6626 I think you get it from one of the incarnations? If you're talking about the spell.
28:06 "Someone out there made some kind of change to a piece of software and it's gonna cause me problems now professionally, without me opting into that problem" That's basically a Windows issue, right (with automatic updates and whatnot)? I kinda wanna tell you to just use Linux instead, but I do know most game devs only care about Windows compatibility (that being said, there are tools that allow you to play Windows games on Linux, like Valve/Steam's Proton, Lutris, and so on - they usually rely on a compatibility layer software called Wine).