You didn't spend 3 hours rerolling stats in the character creator until you get the best possible roll, so you missed out on the true Baldurs Gate experience.
Must I? One of these maniacs thinks nobody can tell he's going to betray the party, another is speaking to a hampster, and I swear wolves have already carried Imoen off, so...
@@minscandboo9749 He really is a miniature giant space hamster; Hamsters have a lifespan of 2-3 years, giant space hamsters have a lifespan of several decades, as do their miniature variant.
Wow I'd never think I'd see this game on the channel!? This was my favourite game for a very long time. Most of my free time in 98 went into this game.
The viewers have been asking for literally years at this point, but it's a slightly long winded series so he's been putting it off till he can do it justice. Source: the patroncast
@Victoria Carson Eh. I agree with learning everything, but I never play as a fighter until I've exhausted all other options for the same reason that I don't play humans if I can play as anything else. It's boring when you have all the weapons but nothing flashy. Companions often get switched out, but you have to play with your character until the end - barring one-off companion only quests.
@Victoria Carson The point of DnD is to play the game how you want to play it. Not to be some tryhard spike who just wants to "win the game." DM's hate players like you.
My advice, Jon? Run this as a livestream with a brand new character and take a little bit of mechanics input from the audience. Not spoilers from them, but, as you’ve seen some of the mechanics are a bit obscure and opaque.
Oh I love this game. Play and beat it and every counterpart and DLC on every difficulty. I love that Jon is playing it, but I was cringing the entire time.
@@zidahya I thought about it, even did it on one save. That guy is a stone cold killer. Way easier to just cheat. I wonder if the "gold box" games are available to play. Those are the real origin of computer RPGs. :)
@@buddhabunny4142 Not half as bad as if you provoke Demogorgon after freeing him in the Helm's Deep DLC. The dialogue option may as well be "I've heard the afterlife is nice this time of year"
Jon creating a character: "Thief... sure... magic is hard..." Me: JON NOOOOO MAGIC IS SO OP IN THIS GAME AND IT'S AWESOME. Thieves aren't nearly as OP in this game as they are in later action RPGs. Namely because hiding in shadows is.... difficult. You actually need to be.... in the shadows.
Many A True Nerd resting and using them sparingly. You get more spell slots later too. You can just run them as archers/generic ranged attackers when not casting spells. Ranged weapons are amazing in this game since everyone’s running around with pretty low hp.
Mages in bg 1 are def not op because it such low level game. In bg2 mages and especially sorcerers get hugely op with higher levels. Back in the day played through bg2 with solo sorcerer.
@@ManyATrueNerd Low level magic users are pitifully weak. It works best when you've gained levels and can stock away a few more spells. It works best when you know the game better and can strategize what spells you'll need for upcoming encounters. (Honestly, that's about the only weakness in the BG series.) Starting as a thief or warrior the first time is smart.
Mages can be powerful even in the early game if they come equipped with a good spell selection. The trick is to use them for maximum impact with minimum spell usage. That is to say, use them for crowd control instead of DPS. A first level mage can end a low level encounter with a well placed sleep, followed with a couple volleys of arrows/bolts/stones/darts/whatver from the rest of the party. A third level mage can do the same with web, except more reliably, and so on. The problem is, most mages you find come equipped with lousy spell selections. Especially Xar, who seems to be designed to kill himself as soon as humanly possible.
I am loving the blind run of one of my favorite games. I was not surprised a wolf killed you. Fun fact. The rats in the basement have more effective hitpoints than the endgame boss on legend of baal difficulty due to a quirk of their damage mitigation.
Missile weapon for everyone is essential in BG1. Dual class Imoen into a mage as one thief is enough. Add a script for every character. Find Minsc and Boo.
It's straightforward, just ridiculously counter-intuitive. I struggle to think of any other system where you want both your armour rating and your to-hit rating to be as low as possible
Yes please. Draft Matt, Dan, and Claire and play theater of the mind style. Don't even need to bother with cameras like they did with the fallout board game.
Since Dan's mentioned a distinct lack of interest in D&D I was thinking Jon, Claire, Matt and Upisnotjump, but frankly it sounds a lot of fun any which way
The absolute best part of this game was that you could import characters from this game into the 2nd game. I played this game with EVERY FREAKING CHARACTER so that I could continue those characters in BGII. I LOVED this game. I still have the original disks in a folder with all of the original material and strategy guide.
Pillars of Eternity 1+2 have similar gameplay while looking gorgeous. Highly recommended. When it comes to the classic Infinity games, Icewind Dale is worth a look as well.
I only played this game for about a million hours! So many happy memories. I miss you Imoen, I hadn't realise how much til I heard your voice for the first time in like 15 years!
Love that you are playing this and your perception is keen as always. PS Go look at the ground east of the Friendly Arm in entrance....use shift....there's a treasure there.....
Oh man this would make such a good series, please play more of this. I played this game as a kid in the late 90s on my amd k6 system so this is extremely nostalgic for me
@@alexmbrennan It very much isn't. You get lots of favorable dialogue options in this game that are only available if you pass invisible charisma checks. It just doesn't point out to you when it's happening like Fallout and games like it do. Not to mention the massive percentage-based discount you get on some of the higher-tier unique items. (provided you haven't gone out of your way to be counter-productively evil for no reason and piss off every NPC in the game)
The quest you're thinking of at the end is 'In My Time Of Need', and it's intentionally left ambiguous whether Sadia or the Alki'r are actually telling the truth.
And now, Jon only has to do Baldurs Gate 2, Baldurs Gate 2 throne of Baal, Icewind Dale 1 & 2 and Neverwinter Nights to get his D&D fix for the cold Winter Months. Do IT! I will roll initiative for you!
One one hand, yeah he is making a lot of the basic mistakes, however on the other hand this is the first time he plays the game while I have it pretty much memorized, so I try not to get too worked up about it. However I would like to know what happened that made Khalid fight with his bare hands in the last encounter.
They are fine. Apart from the resolution for text and stuff. He just massively overthinks the fights. At least against simple enemies. You set the basic behaviour of companions and a formation and then rightclick let them sort it out. Not spend 30 turnbased minutes on every rat. So you need much less micromanagement and UI handling. The UI is planned with that in mind. That's the point of pausable real time combat. Unless you get the idea and UI horribly wrong like POE (Spells in submenus, no Hotbar?) which needed a lot of micromanagement despite this combat. That's a bad combination, worst of both worlds, in a rather recent game. They "fixed" that by adding a turn based option not streamlining the UI.... Dragon Age did it well, Kingmaker does, Legends of the sword coast did it very well... BG,2, ID, PST, Arcanum .... all did it well.
It's fun as hell watching MATN discover this old gem, warts and all. I hope he plays some of the other Infinity Engine games. They don't lend themselves well to videos, but his narration makes it entertaining.
Thac0= To Hit Armor Class 0. The lower your targets armor class (AC) the harder it is to hit them. The higher the easier.. if he is wearing leather his ac would be 8. So subtract 8 from the thac0. Roll that # to hit.
The "first quest is about rats" meme might be popularized by this (doubt it though) but its definitely not the first. Amberstar (1992) had sewers and a rat king in the home city as the first quest. Might and Magic 4 (also 92) had an extermination quest as the first too. Slimes and Bugs in that case, but I would let that count. And I am sure that meme had even earlier origins. Rats and bugs fit in well with the "peaceful hometown" theme that would NOT be handled by guards (thiefs and robber), a hunter (wildlife) or other specialists that have more important stuff to do. Its a quest that makes sense to give to an adventurer.
I have a suspicion that exploring a basement with rats early on was a D&D with human DM trope to help new PCs gain XP. So part of the pre-computer fantasy RPG culture.
I've always thought that I would like to create a game/run a campaign where the first quest is to kill the rats. Then you fall through the floor of the cellar, have the whole adventure and finally make it back to town having killed the big bad, only to have the townspeople berate you for having left some rats alive.
Youuu need to do a let's play and keep playing this my guy please omg this game is a gem of CRPGs like many others but this one definitely is the best of them
Last time I played I started with minimum constitution then did a groundhog day themed start where I'd rush to the lighthouse tile and sacrifice Imoen, Monteron and Xzar's lives to distract the sirines long enough to get my character into Black Araric's cave to the north of the lighthouse. Take the manual of bodily health before exporting the character back to the start of the game to escape the flesh golems closing in. Rinse and repeat to 25 constitution, fair 'cuz in-game mechanics but broken that character export/import retained inventory although I could probably have identified and used the book before exporting.
I wonder if this company ever did anything with Star Wars? Maybe a mass requested game for years now that Jon has gone out out his way to not play? Maybe even driven me a little crazy by playing the MMO instead of the classic RPG...
Welp, I am saddened that this cropped up on my feed and then just cuts off after an hour. I was rather hoping for, well... honestly, the entire rest of the series with MATN's commentary would be just fine by me.
So many comments. You're making me feel old, Jon. I tried to buy this game the day it came out but couldn't because the shop had sold out. I managed to get it soon afterwards and it came on five CDs (for you youngsters, they are those shiny discs you sometimes see as coasters or birdscarers and they held 650MB data each). Now you're here talking about it as the ancient past. Watching you play is a mixture of nostalgia since I remember my first play though and teeth-clenching annoyance at all the things you are missing. It's morally necessary so reveal every bit of the map you can reach as there are so many little touches, like the man threatening suicide, scattered everywhere. By the way, my favourite response is telling him to jump (spoiler: he doesn't). Ranged attacks and kiting can take you though a lot of the game, as you already are discovering. The low resolution graphics you comment about (even in the enhanced edition) were touted as one one the selling points of the game, as every map has hand-drawn backgrounds. Of course, viewing them on a 14" screen in 640x480 does allow details to be glossed over. Repeat after me: JaheirA, JaheirA. While we are at it, don't forget she can cast spells as well. I would love to see you complete a blind playthrough of Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. So many other games though so you are forgiven if it just gets a live play.
The pre-Baldur's Gate D&D games by SSI (the "gold box" collection) are basically the same gameplay as this, only without the animation, smooth scrolling, epic music, and a lot of time the story was in the adventure journal and not in the game itself due to memory limitations. They are in fact contemporary with Wasteland. So if what you like is wrangling numbers and character position and facing, give them a look.
A 21 year old game that is still well known, loved and used as a benchmark for good RPG is hardly underrated. Unless you are referring to the fact that BG2 usually overshadows it.
Also.... there's a hidden cache of jems in one of the trees on that first(ish) screen. It's literally hidden, I don't think it shows up in the "reveal intractable things" mode. IIRC it was on the left side of the road... while walking up the right side of the map.
Make sure you have THAC0 lowest as possible - it stands for To Hit Armor Class 0. If you notice the armor class goes down the more armor you have that's because once you're being attacked there's a "behind the scene" dice roll for each attack. the dice is D20 and you subtract the armor level from the D20 and that's the number you need to pass in order to have a successful attack. For example if you're thac0 is 12 and you roll 15 than the best armor you can hit is -3 [12-15=-3]. Let's say you fight an enemy which has armor class of 5 than you need to roll 7 or higher to hit him. [12-5=7] - basically. Aim for lower AC as possible and lower THAC0 as possible. Notice when you change weapones if the numbers become red [worse than what you have] or green [better than what you have], check the char sheet for each party member to check what weapons they're best with [Jaheira can use slings and Khalid is somewhat OKAY with a bow] - overall Ranged weapons are overpowered in this game :)
Also it’s best to have a party of 2-4 rather than a full 6 man party since xp is shared, I don’t mean like, kill something, get 30xp so they all get 30xp, no that 30xp would be split amongst your 6 members granting 5xp each, less members, faster levels, any companions you don’t currently have in your party and you level up to say 3, they will be the same level as you (or close to, maybe 2 on the cusp of 3) when you next recruit them
THACO is To Hit Armor Class Zero. The armor goes from 10 worst to -10 best. If your THACO is 12, that means you need to roll a twenty sided die and get 12 or higher to hit your target, if they have an armor class of 0.
Excellent game. I actually like parts of BG1 over BG2. Though I will say Jon (hehe) is a better bad guy than Sarevok. I'm thinking Jon has to play BG2 just because of the main bad guy's name.
So if you played this one are you going to play Knights of the Old Republic? I mean, are you going to play Planescape: Torment? Wait, no, I mean Arcanum, wait...
Hey Jon! You should put your fighters at the top of your list followed by clerics or druids followed by thieves with your magic users at the bottom. Be aware that there are different formations that your characters can use as well. Wedge is great as is the circle with your squishy mages and thieves in the middle.
has attempted several run throughs of just the beginning of Baldur's Gate just to get the basic mechanics down. "Dual classing is probably a terrible idea". Oh John
BG1 and bg2 still my favourite games, Icewind Dale and Planescape also have speshul place in my heart. The music from bg1 and 2 gets me still, and ofcourse MINSC AND BOO. And we all know the joy of rolling endlessly till you got 93
T.H.A.C.0 : To Hit Armor Class 0 (zero) Armor class 12 : 20-12= 8 So you need to roll an 8+ using a d20. Armor class -2: 20-(-2)= must roll a natural 20
Coincidently I just started up Baldurs Gate 2 again today and now I see you bringing up the subject. I have some fondness for BG1 but BG2 is my jam. I had heard of the first game and asked my parents for a copy, lo and behold they by mistake got me the second one instead. Best mistake ever, as I feel the second game improves on everything and holds a dear place in my heart. But where would we be without the first game? And yes, BG1 + BG2 together with Fallout 1 and 2 are probably the best RPGs ever. Throw in Planescape Torment and you have a crazy ride ahead of you. Newcomers who like the footage Jon has put up, or people who have played BG and want some more, these games are in a similar vein and should be of interest; Planescape Torment (If you want BG but with a slice of philosophy) Torment, Tides of Numenera (spiritual sequel to Planescape) Pillars of Eternity (Basically a love letter to BG) Icewind Dale (BG but focused on dungeon crawling) Pathfinder Kingmaker (BG but you run your own little kingdom) Tyranny (BG but you are probably the villain) Dragon Age (spiritual sequel to the BG-series) There might be more I've missed
I find it very hard to believe you've never played the Infinity Engine games. Damn, you're in for a treat! Planescape: Torment next? That's my favorite. 😁
Though to be fair, I think BG2 did top the first game in many respects. But yeah, you're probably right. It is nice to see something nostalgic and realize that it isn't just nostalgia but actually a good game still.
@@jimmym3352 Not even BioWare recognise or acknowledge that mech game/tech demo. And these are the same people who insist that Anthem is still salvageable.
@@DR3ADER1 Those are not the same guys. The only thing 1998 Bioware and 2019 Bioware have in common is the name. Almost everyone who made Bioware great, has left the company
![[TH] FS vs BME - VCT Ascension Pacific - Lower Bracket Final](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wnygqsR2Fig/mqdefault.jpg)
10:30 Jon: _"I am not allowed to communicate with the Cow. Boooo!"_
Alternate Reality Jon: _"I _*_am_*_ allowed to communicate with the cow! Moooo!"_
You didn't spend 3 hours rerolling stats in the character creator until you get the best possible roll, so you missed out on the true Baldurs Gate experience.
The underlying reason for most world events seems to be "Diddily, diddily, dee."
Most people seem to only pay attention to the diddilies when what they should really look out for is the dees.
Breaking News: Comedian Jack Dee Did Diddle his Neighbour Dudly.D.Didle in a deadly dispute over dead man's deeds. Dee Diddled Dudly's Deeds.
Hey diddly doodly
@@MysticTroll I think Flanders would say Hi diddly ho, but dont mix your memes!
"Double-check I know the names: Khalid, Jaheiree. Look for people called: Jalid, Taheiree"
Jon's stat: Long-term memory +10, Short-term memory -10
I almost choked at that point
That was a joke I think
Tee-hee-ree
Jalid and Taheiree, friends of Goree-on.
You must gather your party before venturing forth.
Must I?
One of these maniacs thinks nobody can tell he's going to betray the party, another is speaking to a hampster, and I swear wolves have already carried Imoen off, so...
@@mysticmallachi777 You must gather your You must gather your You You
YYYYYYou must gathYou must gather your party before venturing forth.
@@Condorito380 best comment on all of youtube
YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS!
"I was just spectacularly lucky, and should not have been running around randomly." The new motto for MATN.
Hmmm something about that profile picture seems familiar
@@jadesabre6893 It's from the Starlight Brigade music video.
Keith look at the person you just replied to and then think about what you said.
@@namavoid3266 Bah, it wasn't their icon when I commented, I swear.
Keith I changed it to this like a week ago but it’s TH-cam so idk
"Finally I will be the one laying traps" *play clip of john dropping like 50 mines in fallout*
GO FOR THE EYES JON, GO FOR THE EYES!
Squeak
Squeaks at Boo.
Your time to shine, eh?
Minsc And Boo KICKING BUTT FOR GOODNESS!
Minsc and Boo! *_BUTT KICKING TIME_*
now you have no excuse not to play star wars knights of the old republic
This just makes me want to see a MATN DnD campaign.
A 'kill everything murder hobo' one shot would be hilarious
oh boy
as someone who's played through these games many times
good luck jon
LMAO when he didn't reroll, even once?! Nothing like starting with a nice 87
That is what we all say to our-self on a new run of Balder's Gate. "Good luck me....(oh god not again)"
@@niccolemanz oh god, its only 78, this physically hurts
I giggled when he bewailed 8hp, thats amazing for a lv1 gnome.
Yeaaaaaah 78 on a first blind run and non-multi classed thief
"One of them has a hamster." That was the Ranger wasn't it?
Boo the hamster... Minsc lol.
A miniature giant space hamster
that was minsc and boo and you should be ashamed for not knowing that vital piece of D&D lore
@@minscandboo9749 He really is a miniature giant space hamster; Hamsters have a lifespan of 2-3 years, giant space hamsters have a lifespan of several decades, as do their miniature variant.
Yes, as far as I know
And Tali qoutes him in Mass Effect 2 when she sends out her drone
Unfortunately in his rush to not explore the inn Jon missed the best and most potent magical pants of all time. 😉
It is actually pretty OP if you manage to get all the parts
Jon: " I dont know what THACO is, but I think I don't want my enemies to have much of it."
😬😬😬
to hit armor class 0
You want them to have lots of THACO
@@jonkerr7959 very good 🙄
@@jonathanboram7858 I'm beginning to think neither of you read my comment correctly.
Ben Scott
🏌️♀️🎴🐯
Squints and sees some evil facial hair, continues to refer to the necromancer as 'she'
DaWombatGaming I’ve met many an evil woman with facial hair. Usually the more they have, the more unpleasant they are.
Wow I'd never think I'd see this game on the channel!? This was my favourite game for a very long time. Most of my free time in 98 went into this game.
Me and you both buddy.
@Trebonius Flonius ditto!
@Trebonius Flonius Well, Deus Ex came out in 99 and that took over for me. I still have both of those games on nearly every compute I own though.
Yes! This and BG II: Shadows of Amn are what got me into gaming AND D&D as a kid. Just fantastic fantastic games. :)
"I've never played Dragon Age." JON! My dude, this needs to be fixed immediately! Preferably on video...
I mean but still that red queen looking lady should be a boss somewhere.
The viewers have been asking for literally years at this point, but it's a slightly long winded series so he's been putting it off till he can do it justice. Source: the patroncast
I never got far through dragon age so i'd love to see a whole series
@Victoria Carson Eh. I agree with learning everything, but I never play as a fighter until I've exhausted all other options for the same reason that I don't play humans if I can play as anything else. It's boring when you have all the weapons but nothing flashy. Companions often get switched out, but you have to play with your character until the end - barring one-off companion only quests.
@Victoria Carson The point of DnD is to play the game how you want to play it. Not to be some tryhard spike who just wants to "win the game." DM's hate players like you.
My advice, Jon? Run this as a livestream with a brand new character and take a little bit of mechanics input from the audience. Not spoilers from them, but, as you’ve seen some of the mechanics are a bit obscure and opaque.
I absolutely adored this game when it first came out. I am going to have my head in my hands watching this, aren't I?
MonkeyThief86 Oh man. Not one reroll.... otherwise not terrible!
Oh I love this game. Play and beat it and every counterpart and DLC on every difficulty. I love that Jon is playing it, but I was cringing the entire time.
Yes. Yes you will.
"I'll be just tossing you at the enemy, so I can get away." Chaotic? Yes. Good? Ummm....
Jon has his own special alignment, Chaotic thinks-he-is-Good.
Never clicked so hard in my life. This is my childhood.
Weirdly enough, after more than 20 years I had decided to replay this game only few months ago!
And the second one is ever better. This is the first game that I "hacked" so that I could get Drizzt Do'Urden's swords.
@@buddhabunny4142 You could have instead "hack" Drizzt do pick up the swords from his cold body...
@@zidahya I thought about it, even did it on one save. That guy is a stone cold killer. Way easier to just cheat.
I wonder if the "gold box" games are available to play. Those are the real origin of computer RPGs. :)
@@buddhabunny4142 Not half as bad as if you provoke Demogorgon after freeing him in the Helm's Deep DLC. The dialogue option may as well be "I've heard the afterlife is nice this time of year"
Jon creating a character: "Thief... sure... magic is hard..." Me: JON NOOOOO MAGIC IS SO OP IN THIS GAME AND IT'S AWESOME. Thieves aren't nearly as OP in this game as they are in later action RPGs. Namely because hiding in shadows is.... difficult. You actually need to be.... in the shadows.
How do you get around the magic 'ammo' thing - it felt like my mages ran dry almost immediately...
Many A True Nerd resting and using them sparingly. You get more spell slots later too. You can just run them as archers/generic ranged attackers when not casting spells. Ranged weapons are amazing in this game since everyone’s running around with pretty low hp.
Mages in bg 1 are def not op because it such low level game. In bg2 mages and especially sorcerers get hugely op with higher levels. Back in the day played through bg2 with solo sorcerer.
@@ManyATrueNerd Low level magic users are pitifully weak. It works best when you've gained levels and can stock away a few more spells. It works best when you know the game better and can strategize what spells you'll need for upcoming encounters. (Honestly, that's about the only weakness in the BG series.) Starting as a thief or warrior the first time is smart.
Mages can be powerful even in the early game if they come equipped with a good spell selection. The trick is to use them for maximum impact with minimum spell usage. That is to say, use them for crowd control instead of DPS. A first level mage can end a low level encounter with a well placed sleep, followed with a couple volleys of arrows/bolts/stones/darts/whatver from the rest of the party. A third level mage can do the same with web, except more reliably, and so on. The problem is, most mages you find come equipped with lousy spell selections. Especially Xar, who seems to be designed to kill himself as soon as humanly possible.
I am loving the blind run of one of my favorite games. I was not surprised a wolf killed you.
Fun fact. The rats in the basement have more effective hitpoints than the endgame boss on legend of baal difficulty due to a quirk of their damage mitigation.
"I don't know what THACO is"
Don't worry Jon, no one else does either.
It stands for "To Hit Armor Class 0" for anyone curious.
Missile weapon for everyone is essential in BG1. Dual class Imoen into a mage as one thief is enough. Add a script for every character. Find Minsc and Boo.
That's just a stupid meme, THAC0 is easy to understand for anyone who didn't drop out of high school.
It's straightforward, just ridiculously counter-intuitive. I struggle to think of any other system where you want both your armour rating and your to-hit rating to be as low as possible
To hit against armour class zero - the Best of all the AC's - roll required on a single standard 1x d20 hit dice... Sorry I'll get my hat.
This has kinda got me wanting to see Jon play some actual D&D
A chaotic good bounty hunter Gnome thief would be welcome in many a D&D troupe to be sure.
Would be great to see him and Claire join a troupe
Yes please. Draft Matt, Dan, and Claire and play theater of the mind style. Don't even need to bother with cameras like they did with the fallout board game.
Since Dan's mentioned a distinct lack of interest in D&D I was thinking Jon, Claire, Matt and Upisnotjump, but frankly it sounds a lot of fun any which way
I saw Baldur’s Gate and assumed D&D
I was correct
Now I need Jon to play D&D with Matt and Dan
And Claire
And Rebecca
Yes
And Tabby
David Farrey
She can be DM
Can you imagine Jon dming.... Convaluted stories and very precise checks everywhere
All monsters would have poor perception though
Jamie Vs The Internet
That’s why you leave the dm job to Tabby
The absolute best part of this game was that you could import characters from this game into the 2nd game. I played this game with EVERY FREAKING CHARACTER so that I could continue those characters in BGII. I LOVED this game. I still have the original disks in a folder with all of the original material and strategy guide.
11:02 "Okay, no shop yet." He says at the first shop.
Ahhh, what a wonderful nostalgia hit!
as much as this game is aged and hard to play, i would still absolutely love to see jon play more
"Proper fighter. You are my new best friend Khalid" hahaha, we'll see how long that assesment stands :D
Fights the urge to crap himself at the sight of his own shadow with an 80% success rate.
I steadfastly refuse to believe that anyone calling themselves ‘many a true nerd’ doesn’t know what THAC0 is.
How times have turned.
Anyone else's eye twitch a little bit when Jon equipped the belt without identifying it?
Jon: (switches Jaheria's weapon): Hmmm, THAC0 of 22 seems better than 20.
I'd love to see you do a full playthrough of this and KoToR. Though you might need to do a little reading up on D&D mechanics for both of them.
so, speaking of Dragon Age, I'd love to see a MATN series of Origins
M Lipton I can’t believe he hadn’t played it before, it seems like EXACTLY his kind of RPG
Ah THACO the only dnd rule I can never understand even after told what it is istill forget it
4 years later we got Baldur's Gate 3 and it won game of the year, heck it even beat a Zelda game. This just shows how evergreen this system is
Pillars of Eternity 1+2 have similar gameplay while looking gorgeous. Highly recommended. When it comes to the classic Infinity games, Icewind Dale is worth a look as well.
Jon playing Baldurs gate? Yes Please!
I only played this game for about a million hours! So many happy memories.
I miss you Imoen, I hadn't realise how much til I heard your voice for the first time in like 15 years!
Nice to see that Obsidian is still using a lot of the mechanics from Baldur's gate on their RPGs today, like PoE and Tyranny.
Love that you are playing this and your perception is keen as always. PS Go look at the ground east of the Friendly Arm in entrance....use shift....there's a treasure there.....
Oh man this would make such a good series, please play more of this. I played this game as a kid in the late 90s on my amd k6 system so this is extremely nostalgic for me
Played these two to death back in the day. A real time sink. 👍 Jan Jansen & Minsk are tow of the best companions in any game ever... 💯
BOO!
@@Azaghal1988 GO FOR THE EYES BOO!
*checks contacts’ names to ensure no mistakes when remember their names, immediately makes mistakes*
You forgot to spend 45 minutes brute-force clicking "Re-Roll" when you made your character.
Gods I loved the tutorial. I'll say this for the first time ever, and I mean ever; series please!
"This probably the worst character."
*Makes an above-average character set up.*
Yes, all the best players max out charisma because that totally isn't a useless dump stat...
@@alexmbrennan It very much isn't. You get lots of favorable dialogue options in this game that are only available if you pass invisible charisma checks. It just doesn't point out to you when it's happening like Fallout and games like it do. Not to mention the massive percentage-based discount you get on some of the higher-tier unique items. (provided you haven't gone out of your way to be counter-productively evil for no reason and piss off every NPC in the game)
Yes, please give this one a go on a stream! I just love watching Jon come to grips with this game's systems.
The quest you're thinking of at the end is 'In My Time Of Need', and it's intentionally left ambiguous whether Sadia or the Alki'r are actually telling the truth.
And now, Jon only has to do Baldurs Gate 2, Baldurs Gate 2 throne of Baal, Icewind Dale 1 & 2 and Neverwinter Nights to get his D&D fix for the cold Winter Months. Do IT! I will roll initiative for you!
watching him play is tearing me apart, but in all fairness this game's ui and controls haven't aged the best
One one hand, yeah he is making a lot of the basic mistakes, however on the other hand this is the first time he plays the game while I have it pretty much memorized, so I try not to get too worked up about it. However I would like to know what happened that made Khalid fight with his bare hands in the last encounter.
@@artur6912 i didnt notice but my guess is his sword broke, what with the bad iron going round
They are fine. Apart from the resolution for text and stuff. He just massively overthinks the fights. At least against simple enemies. You set the basic behaviour of companions and a formation and then rightclick let them sort it out.
Not spend 30 turnbased minutes on every rat. So you need much less micromanagement and UI handling. The UI is planned with that in mind. That's the point of pausable real time combat.
Unless you get the idea and UI horribly wrong like POE (Spells in submenus, no Hotbar?) which needed a lot of micromanagement despite this combat. That's a bad combination, worst of both worlds, in a rather recent game. They "fixed" that by adding a turn based option not streamlining the UI.... Dragon Age did it well, Kingmaker does, Legends of the sword coast did it very well... BG,2, ID, PST, Arcanum .... all did it well.
@@ddddoublerainbow Oh yeah, I forgot that was a thing in the first one
It's fun as hell watching MATN discover this old gem, warts and all. I hope he plays some of the other Infinity Engine games. They don't lend themselves well to videos, but his narration makes it entertaining.
"Magic is good, but now Minsc is in charge! Swords for everyone!"
Thank you for following your alignment on the choices you make.
Thac0= To Hit Armor Class 0. The lower your targets armor class (AC) the harder it is to hit them. The higher the easier.. if he is wearing leather his ac would be 8. So subtract 8 from the thac0. Roll that # to hit.
Don't worry about not knowing about THAC0 John. Half the people who played AD&D didn't know what it was either.
Never played Dragon Age! I knew you hadn’t put it on the channel but I didn’t know you’ve never played them😱
All three of them are brilliant!
The "first quest is about rats" meme might be popularized by this (doubt it though) but its definitely not the first. Amberstar (1992) had sewers and a rat king in the home city as the first quest. Might and Magic 4 (also 92) had an extermination quest as the first too. Slimes and Bugs in that case, but I would let that count.
And I am sure that meme had even earlier origins. Rats and bugs fit in well with the "peaceful hometown" theme that would NOT be handled by guards (thiefs and robber), a hunter (wildlife) or other specialists that have more important stuff to do. Its a quest that makes sense to give to an adventurer.
I have a suspicion that exploring a basement with rats early on was a D&D with human DM trope to help new PCs gain XP.
So part of the pre-computer fantasy RPG culture.
I've always thought that I would like to create a game/run a campaign where the first quest is to kill the rats. Then you fall through the floor of the cellar, have the whole adventure and finally make it back to town having killed the big bad, only to have the townspeople berate you for having left some rats alive.
FYI this was my 1st Dungeons & Dragons video game and just watching you do this and hearing it all brings back my nostalgia for this game.
This will be terribly fantastic
when you see "13 seconds ago" you know you are early.
Youuu need to do a let's play and keep playing this my guy please omg this game is a gem of CRPGs like many others but this one definitely is the best of them
Last time I played I started with minimum constitution then did a groundhog day themed start where I'd rush to the lighthouse tile and sacrifice Imoen, Monteron and Xzar's lives to distract the sirines long enough to get my character into Black Araric's cave to the north of the lighthouse. Take the manual of bodily health before exporting the character back to the start of the game to escape the flesh golems closing in. Rinse and repeat to 25 constitution, fair 'cuz in-game mechanics but broken that character export/import retained inventory although I could probably have identified and used the book before exporting.
I wonder if this company ever did anything with Star Wars? Maybe a mass requested game for years now that Jon has gone out out his way to not play? Maybe even driven me a little crazy by playing the MMO instead of the classic RPG...
Just found out about your channel and your rome total war series and im devouring it :)
I loved this game and still love it!Thank you for making this video!
finally seeing you play one of these. my day is infinitely better.
Welp, I am saddened that this cropped up on my feed and then just cuts off after an hour. I was rather hoping for, well... honestly, the entire rest of the series with MATN's commentary would be just fine by me.
So many comments.
You're making me feel old, Jon. I tried to buy this game the day it came out but couldn't because the shop had sold out. I managed to get it soon afterwards and it came on five CDs (for you youngsters, they are those shiny discs you sometimes see as coasters or birdscarers and they held 650MB data each). Now you're here talking about it as the ancient past.
Watching you play is a mixture of nostalgia since I remember my first play though and teeth-clenching annoyance at all the things you are missing. It's morally necessary so reveal every bit of the map you can reach as there are so many little touches, like the man threatening suicide, scattered everywhere. By the way, my favourite response is telling him to jump (spoiler: he doesn't).
Ranged attacks and kiting can take you though a lot of the game, as you already are discovering.
The low resolution graphics you comment about (even in the enhanced edition) were touted as one one the selling points of the game, as every map has hand-drawn backgrounds. Of course, viewing them on a 14" screen in 640x480 does allow details to be glossed over.
Repeat after me: JaheirA, JaheirA. While we are at it, don't forget she can cast spells as well.
I would love to see you complete a blind playthrough of Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. So many other games though so you are forgiven if it just gets a live play.
My favourite thing is that the basic gameplay loop of rpgs has stayed exactly the same
You NEED to play D&D Jon! Preferably on live stream. But I swear you will have so much fun it’s been my favorite part of my life for years now.
The pre-Baldur's Gate D&D games by SSI (the "gold box" collection) are basically the same gameplay as this, only without the animation, smooth scrolling, epic music, and a lot of time the story was in the adventure journal and not in the game itself due to memory limitations. They are in fact contemporary with Wasteland. So if what you like is wrangling numbers and character position and facing, give them a look.
6:37 Female voice 3 is the voice of every character I've played, male or female.
Criminally underrated game 👍
A 21 year old game that is still well known, loved and used as a benchmark for good RPG is hardly underrated. Unless you are referring to the fact that BG2 usually overshadows it.
@@artur6912 To be fair Irenicus is just a better villain than Sarevok in every respect.
December, what a great time to play d&d alone.
If I can remember it correctly, there lies a ring of wizardry at a tree in the courtyard...
Also.... there's a hidden cache of jems in one of the trees on that first(ish) screen. It's literally hidden, I don't think it shows up in the "reveal intractable things" mode. IIRC it was on the left side of the road... while walking up the right side of the map.
31:38 THE BEAR IS STILL AROUND!
32:00 dont ever use unidentified items, identify them first.. some are cursed and you cant take them off
Make sure you have THAC0 lowest as possible - it stands for To Hit Armor Class 0. If you notice the armor class goes down the more armor you have that's because once you're being attacked there's a "behind the scene" dice roll for each attack. the dice is D20 and you subtract the armor level from the D20 and that's the number you need to pass in order to have a successful attack. For example if you're thac0 is 12 and you roll 15 than the best armor you can hit is -3 [12-15=-3]. Let's say you fight an enemy which has armor class of 5 than you need to roll 7 or higher to hit him. [12-5=7] - basically. Aim for lower AC as possible and lower THAC0 as possible. Notice when you change weapones if the numbers become red [worse than what you have] or green [better than what you have], check the char sheet for each party member to check what weapons they're best with [Jaheira can use slings and Khalid is somewhat OKAY with a bow] - overall Ranged weapons are overpowered in this game :)
Also it’s best to have a party of 2-4 rather than a full 6 man party since xp is shared, I don’t mean like, kill something, get 30xp so they all get 30xp, no that 30xp would be split amongst your 6 members granting 5xp each, less members, faster levels, any companions you don’t currently have in your party and you level up to say 3, they will be the same level as you (or close to, maybe 2 on the cusp of 3) when you next recruit them
THACO is To Hit Armor Class Zero. The armor goes from 10 worst to -10 best. If your THACO is 12, that means you need to roll a twenty sided die and get 12 or higher to hit your target, if they have an armor class of 0.
Excellent game. I actually like parts of BG1 over BG2. Though I will say Jon (hehe) is a better bad guy than Sarevok. I'm thinking Jon has to play BG2 just because of the main bad guy's name.
That would be Irenic(us)
@@Toni-lo9ms I see what you did there
I think he should legally change his name to Jonaleth
Ah, rolling up reminds me of the chaotic stupid alignment.
You should do the BG and BG2 series back to back, and then Throne of Bhaal... that would be a glorious journey.
Best. RPG. Of. All. Time.
I really hope you'll turn this into a full playthrough! It's just too awesome of a game!
So if you played this one are you going to play Knights of the Old Republic? I mean, are you going to play Planescape: Torment? Wait, no, I mean Arcanum, wait...
Hey Jon! You should put your fighters at the top of your list followed by clerics or druids followed by thieves with your magic users at the bottom. Be aware that there are different formations that your characters can use as well. Wedge is great as is the circle with your squishy mages and thieves in the middle.
has attempted several run throughs of just the beginning of Baldur's Gate just to get the basic mechanics down. "Dual classing is probably a terrible idea". Oh John
BG1 and bg2 still my favourite games, Icewind Dale and Planescape also have speshul place in my heart. The music from bg1 and 2 gets me still, and ofcourse MINSC AND BOO. And we all know the joy of rolling endlessly till you got 93
T.H.A.C.0 : To Hit Armor Class 0 (zero)
Armor class 12 : 20-12= 8 So you need to roll an 8+ using a d20.
Armor class -2: 20-(-2)= must roll a natural 20
Coincidently I just started up Baldurs Gate 2 again today and now I see you bringing up the subject. I have some fondness for BG1 but BG2 is my jam. I had heard of the first game and asked my parents for a copy, lo and behold they by mistake got me the second one instead. Best mistake ever, as I feel the second game improves on everything and holds a dear place in my heart. But where would we be without the first game?
And yes, BG1 + BG2 together with Fallout 1 and 2 are probably the best RPGs ever. Throw in Planescape Torment and you have a crazy ride ahead of you.
Newcomers who like the footage Jon has put up, or people who have played BG and want some more, these games are in a similar vein and should be of interest;
Planescape Torment (If you want BG but with a slice of philosophy)
Torment, Tides of Numenera (spiritual sequel to Planescape)
Pillars of Eternity (Basically a love letter to BG)
Icewind Dale (BG but focused on dungeon crawling)
Pathfinder Kingmaker (BG but you run your own little kingdom)
Tyranny (BG but you are probably the villain)
Dragon Age (spiritual sequel to the BG-series)
There might be more I've missed
This series is my favorite of all time! Yay I'm so excited to see Jon play it! XD :D
If you do a full playthrough of Baldur's Gate 2 I will love you long time
I accidentally clicked this video when the banner notification popped up on my phone. So well timed, Jon.
Oh god nostalgia.....these games consumed my life back as a kid. It’s good to have some idea of D&D when starting this game.
I find it very hard to believe you've never played the Infinity Engine games. Damn, you're in for a treat! Planescape: Torment next? That's my favorite. 😁
No way Jon, I would absolutely love to have Ratty the Fearsome in a game I run. Bit murder-hobo-y but she'd fit right in.
The title should be "Bioware's BEST RPG". Bit of a sign when you can't top your first effort. Especially now.
Though to be fair, I think BG2 did top the first game in many respects. But yeah, you're probably right. It is nice to see something nostalgic and realize that it isn't just nostalgia but actually a good game still.
technically their 2nd effort
@@jimmym3352 Not even BioWare recognise or acknowledge that mech game/tech demo. And these are the same people who insist that Anthem is still salvageable.
@@DR3ADER1 Those are not the same guys. The only thing 1998 Bioware and 2019 Bioware have in common is the name. Almost everyone who made Bioware great, has left the company