I created this topic to discuss the "philosophical" aspect of the game. We can discuss here questions like:

- is a modification really needed or not?
- is something cheesy or cheeting or just a clever trick?
- game balance
- is an actual gap a bug or a feature?
- and so on ...

This topic will be maybe a bit too theoretical but I do not think it is a problem. We need such a place - as the discussions from the last 2-3 weeks prove it.

Let's stir the pot then... (just kidding )

If you refer to a particular change of a mod, then it's a too general question IMO (unless it's applied to concrete things).

If you mean "mods" here, generally, then my answer is: to each his own. Several players play BG2 without any mods, because they believe mods spoil the feeling of the original game. Others are eager to play mods, as many mods as possible. Some are choosey, have standards or personal preferences (e.g. about difficulty or mod types), others install a lot of mods.

For example, I had a mod called "Volcano! Pack". (If you type "Improved Volcano Pack" or "BG2 Volcano Pack" without quotes to google, you can still find it.) I see it in the installations of many players, yet it's probably one of the most overpowered mods (yes, I tend to conceal that I made it ).

As I've said, it also matters much what preferences the player has. (This would probably require a whole topic itself.) A few important factors: free time, skills, preferences about the mod's type, what causes the most satisfiction when playing a mod (e.g. light play, no difficult battles or difficult riddles, just dialogues, quests, romances; or hardcore play, hard battles etc.) and so on.


Again, if we examine the question generally, this is also something that depends on the individual player. There are some useful guidelines though:
1. Would this be doable in the reality? (No, I don't mean that a troll can be met and slain in the reality.) For example, is it possible to leave an area and rest 8 hours, and the powerful enemies would also wait 8 hours on the other side of the door when they know you're injured and weak... Of course, I know this "reality" approach cannot be applied completely, e.g. characters "don't have to eat" (this is what the official hint says, more precisely "while your character does not have to eat, remember that YOU do. We don't want to lose any dedicated players"), i.e. you don't have to feed your characters in the game. But this is different from the other "unreal" things: this is something that simplifies gaming and increases gaming experience (and it can simply be assumed that they eat when you are in a tavern or inn, or in the wilderness). On the other hand, exploits which would be unlikely or physically impossible in the world of the medieval age or mythology are a different question. Common sense can be used to realize such exploits (such as periodically unequipping and equipping an item that gives a bonus point to constitution in order to heal to maximum HP).
2. Would this be doable in the world of the game? This is what Ryel and many other players call roleplaying. Identifying with the world you're playing in, trying to be in the place of those people and creatures.
3. What does the exploit mean to me? This is strongly related to the question of player preferences. For example, a player who wants to enjoy the game without thinking much and planning does not prefer difficult battles, and either uninstalls the mod, cheats, or uses exploits ("cheese"). On the other hand, a player who wants to improve his or her tactical skills can be his or her own policeman (these are Sikret's words). It also matters how persistent the player is. If the player says "if those guys at BWL can do it, I WILL also do, because I'm not worse than they!".



This is also a partially subjective matter. For example, some people believe that AD&D should be strictly applied to BG2 (despite the fact that BG2 has never meant to follow such a perfect implementation); others believe that AD&D rules must be considered as strict guidelines, so they don't like when they see "illegal stats" in a creature file with editors, or a mod which adds (perhaps balanced but) "illegal" elements to the game. And there are those who believe that total freedom is the best, they have no problems with obviously overpowered elements or irrelevant additions (i.e. additions which don't fit to the world of the game). I find it narrow-minded when people of these different groups start to debate with each other, because they don't realize that "balance" means something totally different for each group, in each viewpoint.

As far as my viewpoint is concerned, I always say that balance should mean relative balance in the world of the game or a mod. As everywhere, all things make sense in their context. So mods should (at least) make sense in their own context. For example, Improved Anvil is not overpowered and not imbalanced at all. On the other hand, a mod which adds one +6 item with 25 special abilities to the game can be considered as overpowered.

So I say that the limit is imagination, and mods should be balanced in their own context. For example, some players say that it's strange that my Grey Clan Episode One mod adds very powerful enemies to the world (enemies with "ToB-levels and powers"). And what's the problem with it? Is the mod doable? It is. For example, the mod's final battle was very easily won by thetruth (one of the most powerful of all tacticians of BG2 and Improved Anvil). Of course, this isn't surprising (it was obviously no match for thetruth's skills), but even those who don't have nearly as good skills as thetruth could won it.

To sum up my viewpoint, I think it doesn't matter what creature, item etc. files hold as long as the game is fun and balanced. I'm sure Bioware developers weren't always just negligent when they gave "illegal stats" to certain creatures; they are there because they are good for gaming experience (a player should normally never learn the values of those "stats"). So, for example, applying "fixes" to these things (and trying to convince everyone that those are bugfixes) is a very narrow-minded approach. And one more argument for "illegal stats"? Who dares to state that a particular powerful enemy didn't gain some special powers during his/her adventures in his or her past? Who are heros? Creatures with "legal stats"? Hardly. Someone could say that powerful creatures were lucky when their "abilities were rolled", but I don't agree with this. I don't really know AD&D and don't care about it (but if it has creatures such as Mind Flayers then it has already become an exclusively business-oriented "industry" like Magic the Gathering, losing all of its good and balanced features, its magic). I just think that imagination has no rules.

Baronius, please wait to my real first post! I am working on it and will be ready soon!

Oh, forgive me! It seems I was too quick, I had some free time for forum posting so I thought I would try to write something useful. (Just a tip: next time, if you want to avoid people replying your first post, either mention it in the post, or write both posts before sending anything and then share them at the same time. Unless it's only me who likes to jump on new topics at BWL!)

No problem. I thought I would be faster.

First of all I would like to point out that I like this game (I mean IA) very much. It gives new and exciting experience to me and I really enjoy playing it. The reason of the criticism here is there to make it even better - at least better to me. I am sure that a lot of people see the issues that I raise in this post in a different way: either they think these are not important or that I am not right. It is not a problem: this topic is here to discuss such questions and to convince each other.

I read Sikret pdf about cheesy and cheat methods and I was really happy to realize that I did not use these technics in my IA game. So, when I dispute some of them here the reason is not that I am not able to play the game without them. I used sometimes borderline solutions but I think they are ok even in the eyes of Sikret (like I withdraw my characters from the Dracolich when he was busy and casting a spell to get a couple of segments to cast healing magic on my characters). BTW, my opinion is that this pdf is well-written and almost all rules are acceptable and valid. In this post I will cover those 3 points that are questionable.

I think BG2 is a role play game that has a tactical aspect because the fights are complicated enough to make it a tactical challenge. But the main priority is on the RPG in the vanilla game. Clearly Sikret intention was to make stronger the tactical side of the game. That is ok but in my opinion when he set up the rules he sometimes forgot the RPG side. Let's go through in this points!

1. Casting hostile spells from distance (offscreen):
IMHO there are two cases here: first when enemy does not react to your spell(s) - then it is simple cheesy (it should not be used in this case), the other case when enemies react to your spells. I will discuss only the second case. In most fantasy books the Hero, the Leader of Good use this tactics: he/she jump to the orcs from behind, he/she attack the enemies from distance by arrows, ... It is even described in the Dungeon Master Guide and it is called surprise. This is part of every role play game (including of course AD&D). So, from RPG point of view it is absolutely ok, there is no reason against it in my opinion. I think you all played Warcraft or Starcraft or similar RTS. In for example Starcraft (but it is true for other games as well) there is the fog of war effect (similar to BG2) and it is possible to use the "offscreen" tactics against enemies (and they use it against you as well). So, it is used in tactical games. Other interesting thing in this tactics that it can be done in a bit different way. Your thief hides in shadow and go close to the enemy and your mage cast the spell (fg. emotion) to that area from disctance. In this case you see the enemy however your mage does not see it. It can be done also by a Farsight spell and there are other solutions as well. But I think it should be handledin the same way then the general case.

I have read the argument that you should not use it because the enemies also do not use it. But it is not true: in some cases they use very similar tactics. For example the second drow ambush (when they dispel your pretection at the beginning of the battle) is a very good example: they affect you and you have no chance to avoid it (and also this is the reason why somebody use the offscreen tactics). This tactics could make some battles (but only a small portion of the battles) easier but that is not a reason to not use it. When your mage use Ruby Ray or when your tank character persuade the enemies to attack him instead of other weakers characters then it makes some battle also easier but no one calls it cheesy. Of course if somebody use this tactics without knowing the information that the enemies are there then it is cheesy. For example it is cheesy to use it in the first drow ambush because when you enter the onscreen area they notice you (even if you are invisible), so you are not able to spy them (however with a farsight spell it still can be useable, I have never tried it that way).

2. Abusing the area structure:
Honestly speaking I have absolut no idea why it is cheesy. You can see a huge amount of examples in the fantasy literature, it is used in every wars in RL, it is implemented in most fantasy RPG games, it is used in RTS games as well. There are some questionable points in the first point (offscreen tactics) but not here. Yes, it makes some battle easier but again it is not a reason to abandon a tactics. I think every tactical school cover this issue in the most basic course. It is a very basic knowledge and every good tactician know it. Even the bad ones know it.

3. Stealing critical and quest-related items from enemies before they turn hostile:
It depends on the situation in my opinion. For example it is really ok if someone steal the key from the Beastmaster in the Copper Coronet after he gets the info from Hendak. I have never done it but it is a nice solution. Then together with the rescued gladiators you can easily kill him or (even better) capture him - it is not possible in BG2 however but would be a nice solution in a normal fantasy paper-based game. Yes, the game does not allow it for you in several cases but in some - logical cases - it is a valid solution from an RPG viewpoint. You can gain XP without killing the enemies but first of all the XP for the quest is there to solve it and not because you killed everybody and secondly in the game there are cases when you get the XP without killing the enemies. For example the skinner quest can be solved legally in a way that you do not kill the assassins and ghouls in the basement and you still gets the whole XP.

It is strange that a simple cheat is not mentioned in the pdf:

4. Prebuffing before a not known battle:
It is simple cheating. I do it because the game force me to do but it is still cheating. When you (I mean your characters) do not know about a battle and still casts a lot of short-living prebuffing spells then you use an information that only you are aware and not the characters. Of course if somebody is prebuffing before every new area and then continously renew the spells then it is not cheating. But honestly speaking no one does it that way. I know that prebuffing gives possibilities to the players but it is not acceptable from role playing point of view. If we are strict in other cases then we should be strict here. The possible solution would be to remve every short-living protection from the characters before almost every battles and only allow prebuffing when the characters have a chance to be aware of the battle. Of course in most of these cases the enemies should not be prebuffed (except when they are aware of the battles). I have met only two such a battles up to now (second drow ambush and dracolich) and I think there should be much more. That would give the battles a new depth: defense or offense, protect the characters with some spells or concentrate on killing the enemies. That would be a really interesting tactical challenge!

I ask everybody who wants to discuss these issues that please write arguments and not just revelations and statements! Thanks!

Baronius, I have read your post and it was really interesting. I agree with you and therefore I quote only this part because it is suitable for my post:


Yes, when I mentioned "modification" I meant a modification in a mod.

As I know the SI: Divination spell protects against the thief detect illusion ability. If I am not right then please ignore my whole post! Now, I think it is a bad modification. The reason is not that it makes the thief less valuable but that it is absolutely not logical. Spell Immunity is a general spell that protects against a school of magic, and it is absolutely illogical that it protect against something that is not magic. The thief ability is not a magical ability, it is something what the thief learnt and he uses his intelligence and his senses to find illusions. Therefore a spell that protects against a school of magic (and only a school of magic) does (should) not protect against it.

The solution would be to create a new spell (or modify an existing one) that could protect again this effect. How about a 1st level spell that protect against detect invisibility and similar low level spells + thief ability but last only for 3 rounds + 1 round / 3 levels? That is logical and mages will have a spell against the thief ability. Problem is solved and it is solved in a logical way.

Very nice topic! Bravo!

IMO =not the apsolute truth

casting spells from off-screen - pure cheese. I wrote a post some while ago about this and how you'd do if enemies did that to you. I still remember Firkraag from vanilla game falling to wand of cloudkill without ever bothering to see who is using it. You can't expect computer AI to have a sript as smart as a real human player, no matter how good AI is it will probably always be exploitable. as for drow ambush, the thing that you cannot pre-buff actually makes the battle much more interesting than the usual. Besides, they don't cast spells immedialtely, you just get dispelled off-screen. It is insanely hard, usually forces a numer of reloads but is well made. I think it will be nerfed in IA6.

abusing area - imagine this - 2 enemies (for example, take elemental golems) are standing on a narrow bridge. Behind them, thus out of your reach are 2 high level figh/mages beating the crap out of you. That wouldn't be fair. and that's how enemies usually fare when you do that.
But, I do believe that in IA final battle it is completely justified to abuse it. It is used in strategy games, but IA is more of a tactical thing. Defeating hard battles usually is much more dependant on what you do in a round and not if your enemies can reach you or not. besides, if they can't reach you, you can't reach them also. I remember a line from "call of duty 4" which says "tracers work both ways":) . for surprises, I think backstab is a very nice surprise and is as such covered in BG

stealing quest items - I too never use it, but it is probably a nice RPG aspect of the game

prebuffing - remember that mage Edwin sends you to kill? (Rayic I believe). In vanilla game you needed something like this (with no mages in party, just cleric) - remove fear because he casts symbol fear, free action for symbol stun(or PW, don't remember), death ward for FOD and disin, prot fire for sunfire. After ALL THAT he'd cast remove magic (finaly!) and then try to charm you and start castin mm like there's no tomorrow. He usually died after his pfmw expired if you don't bother switching to normal wpns. well, if you know in advance what tactiscs/spells enemy uses you can buff up perfectly, and yeah, I agree that's perhaps cheese. But since your fighters and clerics usually get dispelled asap perhaps it's less cheese in IA, and is a thing (amongst others) which makes mages so powerful compared to any other class in the game. But I find that much neccesary for most of the battles, thus reducing the number of reloads greatly as you get to know the game better. I don't believe any IA player ever managed to defeat, for example, Twisted rune battle without at least one reload, and even I know the battle pretty well, it still forces reloads. You just don't know what's coming. But I do think that it's impossible and would ruin the game if enemies chose tactics and spells at random, due to the fact that some spell combos just work very good and enemies already do use them. IMO, clerics do as much they can offensively in IA, ther's really no going beyond that (well, maybe energy blades). as for non-buffed enemies (dracolich), I agree, it would be nice. But not for all battles. Draco is alone, and you're probably playing with a 6 persons party... you can buff some your chars, kill his protections and attack him phisically all in one round, making it a walk-over..

Again, a very interesting topic! Hope to see more interesting posts here soon.

Very true. This answer is valid for the case of abusing area structure as well. The general short answer to the question why doing these things is cheesy is simple (as others have mentioned as well): Don't use such methods against the enemy, because the enemy doesn't use them against you. Play fair.



This part is not 100% accurate. As mentioned in the pdf file, there are cases in which the enemy has a large avatar/animation and can't follow you into a narrow passage; hence the cheesy player can hit-flee-heal-return-hit-flee continuously or just stand far and use ranged weapons. In such cases, abusing the area structure is a lot cheesier. But it's still cheesy even against enemies with small/normal avatar size.

I'll join in for some musing.

I've read Sikret's Cheat, Cheap and Cheese document and there are many obvious things that I agree with, but also some things that I don't fully agree with or would rather envision them worded differently.

Examples:
Pt 2. Don't use game editors
I would not use game editors to buff my characters with XP, items, statbonuses or check on enemies. Sikret also says that you should not give your character illegal classes. Whereas I agree that kitted multiclass characters (save Gnome, illusionists) is wrong, I do sometimes feel like playing something really different. A dwarven sorcerer, a kobolt cleric, an elven paladin... I see little wrong with such adventures. So, if I want to play such a character I feel fine with using an editor to change my protagonist or an NPC into something else. If I do know how to script it, then I try to keep the use of editors to a minimum by editing the character generation and leveling files (ab***.tp2 files, clab****.tp2 files). For example, I can add a component in the paladin CLABfile to change the race into an elf at level 1 and adjust the minmax stats in the abclsmod.tp2.

Pt 9. Stealing plot items:
I do think that it should be possible to lift characters from their possessions, but doing so is highly dependant on my protagonist. If I play as a thief I do feel that there ought to be quest solutions where you can simply steal the items/proofs/documents/wardstones that you need to progress. You're a stealth character, so you are allowed to abuse it. However, if I'm not a thief or a clear thief-like person, then I often won't use stealing in my game at all, or if I do, it's highly dependant on the NPC that I have in my party.
Nalia... she's too goody to steal items all over town. No chance that I'll use her for it ever, not even plot items.
Jan, he's more a mechanic, disabling and setting traps, opening locks and dispelling illusions.
Imoen... not much of a debate anymore. I would use her for stealing from the rich, but not from clearly poor or lawful people.
Haer'Dalis... now there's a character that I would use for stealing everybody he encounters. If only he were any good at it.

Pt 10. Killing a sure enemy before he turns hostile and starts to fight. And Pt 1. Hostile Spells from a distance.
Depends... If I scout an area and find a suspicious party, then I'll cast a detect evil to see what they are. If I'm (lawful) good I may decide to jump them, since the world is better off without evil people. If I'm neutral, I may cast a protection spell such as bless and some long lasting armour/stoneskin spells. If I'm chaotic or evil, I'll jump on them anyway. In any case... if I decide to jump on them, then yes I will cast a hostile spell from a distance. If that happens to kill the quest, lower my reputation or whatnot, that's what my protagonist has to live with. It may seem cheese, but I think surprise fights are allowed in a roleplay-type context. This does not mean that I'll always do these things on every encounter. In certain quests when you know that there are going to be future foes around (such as an infiltration quest as in the bandit camp in BG1), my protagonist will have to find a way to "play along" and not confront every foe in sight.

Pt. 4. Abusing the area structure
I'm all for area structure. If you're under arrow fire, you're not going to stand in the clearing. I'll be ducking away behind doors. If a dragon is going to blast my party with his dragonbreath, I'll be hiding my weaker ones behind a rim so he can't see them and doesn't target them. I see no problems with area "abuse". How am I ever going to hide my thief for backstabbing if foes can see him? Invisibility spells and potions aren't aplenty. I feel that I can quickly sneak around a corner, hide and come back into the fight to stab. Using invisible characters to block foes and then abusing the area structure... well that's of course a different issue and I wouldn't be doing that bit. However, if it's logical to use the area structure, do so.

Pt 6. Erasing known spells to learn them afresh
Different wording... don't do this just for the XP. If Haer'Dalis has certain spells memorised that are useful but I find a new useful item I may sweep a spell, only to find myself wanting it back and relearn it later in the game.

Can this be added to the debate?

Cheesy foes!

Prebuffing foes (Forcespell)
I don't fully favour this. If they know you're coming (samia, drow encounters, bountyhunters) or can know that you're coming (a boss in a stronghold such as the tob baalspawn), let them prebuff to an extent (i.e. limited amount of buffs and not always the same ones). If they don't know that a powerful party is coming to clear them out of their hiding place or they first send you away (beastmaster), don't prebuff them (i.e. den of 7 veils, sewer party). Contingencies are always fine in such encounters though.
Forcespell prebuffing is introduced to counter player prebuffs, but it's idea far from flawless and can become a drag on gameplay. If I scout out a party, they don't see me and I want to engage with a surprise attack, I certainly prebuff... however when they forcespell prebuff right after I "surprise them", I find that they are majorly cheating in its purest form.


Certain foes carrying too many high level scrolls or just too many scrolls.
Whereas it may end up in very nice combat, I don't think that there should be so many foes that carry 5+ scrolls of ruby ray, breach, timestop, protection from magical weapons or whatnot. It only provides the party with too many spell scrolls to cast for their own. I would change it so that they carry only 1-2 scrolls of these spells max and these should be high priority use as well. That way, the party really needs to work hard to get them (i.e. get a quick kill). If really you want scrolls to be found, maybe a trapped chest near the foe would be an option (and the foe going hostile when the chest is fondled with).


Foe mages using very similar spell scripts:
A very high amount of mages in IA now use a combination of stoneskin, improved invisibility, immunity to divination, followed by the casting of emotion, chaos, deathspell and sometimes some other area disable spells followed by flame arrows and they all carry breach/ruby ray. A large amount of high level mages also favour the use of chain contingency triple abi-dalzim. I think the variety of mage behaviour should increase. Whereas these spells are powerful I don't expect every mage in the world to know them or to use the same combination of spells. There may be some copy-cats out there, but I'd be more happy if there was some uniqueness to it.


PS: feel free to remove comments/suggestions if they're too much off-topic

I think battles would be far too easy if the enemy didn't prebuff. The same would apply if contingency-type spells had to carry defensive spells rather than offensive ones. Personally I don't really care about any justification for enemy prebuffing. As far as I'm concerned any 'unfair' advantage the enemies gain is offset by the intelligence of the player.

I agree about this.



lroumen, how much of the mod have you actually played? I find there is more variation in spell casting later on.

This is generally a valid and true point. But in this particular case, I don't even agree that enemy prebuffing should be considered 'unfair'. As far as you can do the same thing, it's fair.

As mentioned by others and by me in my previous post, abusing area structure and casting spells from distance (offscreen) are both cheesy and unfair actions exactly because the enemy doesn't do the same with you.

Play fair. Fight fairly. Don't try to find a way to justify cheesy actions with imaginary scenarios which never actually happen in the game (ex: being attacked by arrows when standing in the clearing and such things; we don't have any such battle in IA).

Thanks.

No, I do not think that it is a valid argument. For example enemies can reduce your fire resistance while you are not able to do it. So, is it cheesy from their side? I do not think so. They have much more special abilities then you and therefore it is valid that you use tactics that they are not able to use. Firkraag is another story: I have written in my post that whenever the enemies do no not react to your spell it is cheesy and should not be used. That is very clear I think.


I did not complaint about it. However I do not understand why you do not complaint that enemies do something that is cheesy. Because it is cheesy definitely.

Why the hell would it be not fair? This is a fair tactics and I would be very happy to see that enemies use it. There are very rair occasion where you (or enemies) can use it and it would be nice to see that they use it. And again: this is not a reason that they do not use this tactics. That is your advantage. Their advantage is their superior abilities.



I agree with you. I have also never use it. You can ask while I complaint: the reason is that it is a theoretical topic.


I do not understand completely your words here. I have written in my post that it is necessery in the game and I am forced to use it. But it is still cheesy in the case when you do not know what is behind you. One very good example is the first drow ambush. You are in a cave and nothing happen at all. You walk there and suddenly they attack you. If you buff when you leave Sahuagin city then it is ok if you still have those buffs. It is even valid that you renew those buffs. But it is not fair that you do not buff before entering Underdark but then suddenly in the middle of the cave you buff. That is absolutely unfair, if you do it in a normal paper-based adventure and I am your DM then I would be really angry and I would ask you why the hell you buff when nothing happened. And I would be sure that you looked at my paper and therefore you cheated. Yes, prebuffing is necessery in that battle but it is unrealistic and it is a real cheat.

The vanilla game also force you in some cases to do it but not too much cases. IA force you to do it (to cheat) before almost every battle. I think battles can be tuned to avoid it: make the enemies weaker but dispel your short-lasting buffs. That is a fair solution. And by the way, tell me who enjoy prebuffing? It is really monoton and their is very little fun in it (only fun is to optimize your spells to allow maximum prebuffing and to find out what is really needed). But you have to do it hundreds of time and it became really boring. That is the only apsect of IA that I do not like. And it can be avoid if prebuffing is not allowed, enemies are retuning to the new conditions (I mean weaker enemies and less prebuffing). That way you do not have to repeat the boring prebuffing process (and you do not have to cheat) every time and the figths would be still fun. Maybe more fun because you have to make more decision.

The only problem that enemies have powers and abilities that you can never archieved. It is of course not a problem but your advantage is that you can do tactics that they do not use. BTW, enemy spellcasters do not renew their buffs and therefore you should not do it because it is not fair. I do not think it is really valid argument.


I do not remember too much cases like this. There is one well-known example in Nalia castle but I am pretty sure that it was the intention of the creators of the game to make this door so small. That is very clear I think. I do not use this trick in my IA game however. I cannot recall now any other cases but there could be more.

No humanoid enemy has such an ability. Actually, only red dragons, demon lords and noble efreets have the ability to lower fire resistance. If this is your argument, then keep it only to justify yourself against those rare and few enemies (though I don't agree with your argument even for those enemies, because they don't use them against you before you are actually engaged in combat).



This is not true (except for vert particular monsters for whom it is justified to have abilities you don't have-- see above)

Firkraag does react properly against hostile spells from distance. Kerkes was talking about the vanilla Firkraag to make a general point.



Who says that enemy spellcasters do not refresh their protections? If they have the spell among their memorized spells, they will use it. If they do not have it, it means they have something else instead which they will use. So, there is no problem if the party refreshes any spell, because the enemy does so as well if he has the spell memorized.

If you remember, a while ago and in a different topic I told you that you are too hasty to make general suggestions and objections without finishing the mod for even one single time. At that time you seemed to agree with me, but now I see that you are repeating it.

Hi guys, I'm quite new to the boards but not new to the game.

Regarding abusing area : Imagine a mithril golem (for example in Firkraags dungeon) unable to get out and hit you. The cheesy tactic would of course be to buff your toughest fighter and keep him upfront while your priests/clerics heal him, buff him and cast zone of sweet air (for golem cloud). This is of course due to the avatar being to big. Is it possible to re-write the pathing so the golem (mithril in this case) has a lower collision-size? The explanation to why the golem is able to get out of the "tiny" hole in the wall could be that it just razes it as it goes through the wall with immense force. This way, lots of problems regarding area-abuse would be solved.

I use it sometimes also but not in the meaning as Sikret mentioned. For example in my IA game I gave all my characters maximum HP. You can do it in two ways: lowering difficulties or edit your game in SK. I did the later one because I forgot to reduce difficulty of my game for the party creation (because I play on hard difficulty during play - even in IA).

I agree with it. When I see that enemy cast for example dispel magic (or other area spell) to one of my characters then I move him away to avoid dispelling spells from my other characters. This is a tactics that enemies do not do and it is cheesy therefore. At least based on Sikret's definition.


I am sure that Sikret mentioned here a different htink. You did not read it carefully. He spoke about when you remove a spell and then relearn the same spell again. That is definitely a cheat.

I have no problem that they prebuff because you can prebuff also. The problem is that you can prebuff when you have no chance to do it.


Maybe they learnt magic in the same school.

You misunderstood me here. The point is not that they are humanoids or not, the point is that they use something that you do not do. The same is with casting offscreen: you do something that they are not able to do. But the best example is the second drow ambush: they dispel your protections. This is very-very similar to the offscreen casting (you do something before they can react to it). Please do not misunderstood me: I am not against it, I have no problem it. I just would like to make clear that the "they do not use it, so you should not use it" is not a valid argument.

Yes, I know it or at least I was sure about it (I did not kill Firkraag yet). I did not say anything like this in my post, it was just a general comment that such a case is cheesy.


Then in that particular case I was wrong. Wow! I made something like 10-20 comments and I was not right in one case. But what about the others? You did not react to some important comments of my like for example prebuffing.

It's basically a game-engine issue. The scripting language for IE AI is very limited, and doesn't really have any spatial awareness. You just can't tell the computer things like "see if the enemy can reach you; if not, shoot with abandon" or "get the golems to hold off the enemy fighters". (You can occasionally fake it in very specific areas, but you can't do it generically). Shame, but there you go.

Ok, so this is true. You told it in a complicated way but it is still the truth. But this was not the main issue in my comment. Please when you comment my words then try to comment the whole meaning and do not rive a sentence off from my text and concentrate only on this small portion! That way you do not answer the matter, you only answer to a - usually falsely interpreted - small part of it.

Yes, I am aware of this problem. But there are several narrow corridors in the game where the game can set up the enemies in front and mages in the back and therefore can use this tactics without any problem. Not too much cases but again you are not able to use this tactics also not too much times. As I remember I never used it in my IA game.

And I said that it is not true unless for very few and particular monsters. I also added that even those monsters don't use those abilities before the battle actually begins (= they play fair with you). But I also said that if you think that your argument is sound (I don't think that it is sound, but if you think so), then just use the argument to justify casting spells from distance against those few enemies. You can't use that argument for all cases and against every enemy. The enemies who have abilities which you can't have are very rare. You can't make a general argument for all battles and all enemies just because a few dragons and demons have special abilities.

They don't do any such thing. It's an invisible trap which does that with your protections. <sigh>!



I did react. I said prebuffing is fair, because you can do it as well. If you don't agree, then let's agree to disagree and leave it.

I told you once and I repeat again here that in order to be able to give any useful suggestions to me, you need to have a good idea of what is going on in the game when IA is installed. You really need to complete the whole game for a couple of times.

It does not matter how you implement it in the game, only the result count. But agian before you misinterpret my words: I have absolutely no problem with it. It is just an example to argue against my opinion.


You told that "enemy prebuffing is fair because you can do it", but ok I did not read it very carefully and it can be interpreted also in the other way aroung (you can prebuff because they can do it). I will cover it in a new post because I forgot to mention something yesterday evening. BTW, you still not react on some of my others comment (like thief special ability). Of course you do not have to react to them, but would be nice because I am interested in your opinion.


And I repeat it again that you were right in one case but not right in other cases. In one of my comment this is true but not in the other 10-15 cases.

You thought that those drows had a special ability to dispel your buffs and wanted to make an argument that in addition to the dragons, demons, etc, there are also these drows who have such special abilities.

I explained that you were mistaken. The dispel protection effect in that area is not applied by those drows. An invisible trap (probably set by a divine creature long time ago) does that. So, the assumption that those drows had such a special ability was refuted. That's all.

Read my previous posts again; if you don't agree with me on any given point, that's fair enough. We can agree to disagree.

The main practical consequence is that articles submitted to the "Academy of Tactics" have to follow the criteria mentioned in the "Cheat_and_Cheap.pdf" very accurately. We already have a couple of submissions which will be uploaded to the academy as soon as we find the time to completely examine them.

Journals sent as forum topics including players' experiences don't need to follow those criteria very strictly. We can tolerate some minor deviations from the content of the "Cheat_and_Cheap.pdf" document in such fan-written journals as long as they are not submitted to the academy.

It is the previously promised post. I wanted to write it yxesterday but I forgot to do.

As I mentioned earlier Sikret made the mod more tactical. And I am sure that most of our different opinions can be derivated from the different viewpoint how we see the game. I see it as an rpg that has a tactical aspect and Sikret view it as a tactical game that has some rpg aspects. Maybe I am wrong but I have some reasons to think it is right.

First example is the prebuffing. My main reason was that it break the rule of a role-play gfame because you heavily use an information that is not known by your characters. I emphasized it more than one time and the strange think was that Sikret did not react to it. I cannot be sure about his reasons but I still pretty sure that he did not answer it because he see the game in a tactical point of view. In a tactical game it is not a problem but in an role-play game it is a serious cheat. Additionally he argued that you can do it because they can do it and of course it is a good reason in a tactical game and not really a strong reason in an RPG (at least in my opinion).

He did not react also to the IA: Divination vs. thief's detect illusion argument. I think he did not react because he thinks it is not important. Yes, in a tactical game it does not matter but in an RPG game reality and the credibility of the game world is very important.

Third example is his missing reaction to steal important items issue. He used to argue against it in Ryel's topic and it was very interesting to read. I realized our different viewpoint while I was reading that topic. He was not really able to formulate why the quest item should not be stolen and he ignored or RPG-based reasons of Ryel. In a tactical game of course it is evident that you should not do it but in an RPG it is absolutely not clear. It is interesting that it does not mean that he avoid seeing it as an RPG because the new quests I have already done have really nice RPG contents. The discussion with Dracolich is brilliant and one of my favorite in the game (and the whole quest is really fantastic and has a good feeling). Also I had a very good feeling when the girl whom I saved from drows come to me and say thank you. These are very nice RPG moments of the game ans they easily match the standard of the vanilla game. So, for me it seems that when he thinks about tactic and battles then he avoid seeing it as an RPG and see it only as a pure tactical game.

It does not mean that his view (or my view) is wrong. I think that most players think BG2 is an RPG and only partially a tactical game but everybody could have a different view of the game. I was pretty sure when I start this discussion that we will not agree and my reason to think it was this different view of the game. This is so different then we will never agree. But I still think it has a reason to start this discussion because here we can clearify our viewpoint. Which is very important even if nothing changes. I did not use cheesy and cheats methods (based on his pdf), so I play the game as it was intended but I will continue to find all "philosophically" false or wrong issues (IMHO of course) and report them here.

@Vuki

I REALLY am looking forward to your post on final IA battle

@other people visiting this great thread

I do belive that enemies should have abilities you do not have. Since you do also. No enemy has "conatct with nature" I believe. More important, no enemy has fully functional several billions of braincells to use. Take that noble djinni guy. Imagine him without his extra ability, and your guys running about with 100+fire resistance, add red dragon plate, helm, two rings of fire res etc., than even remove magic won't touch you. And I do believe he doesn't cast remove magic (even if he does, you can have mages take it). What fun is he then?

for prebuffing, I find that a bit annoying too, but have spell deflection, turning and SI in quickspell slots (usually far more useful then stoneskin). I'd personaly hate enemies standind behind golems (happened to me once in sewers hidden door from which you get key from tazok). Played that battle for 1min and reloaded because the cleric and figh/mage were beating me so so badly, not to mention that it's a BAD thing to be "emotionalized" in front of a golem.

I found battle with Draco to be as fun as it is especially because you have to think who to protect, how, who should rely on saves etc with no prebuffs. It really adds different flavour to battles, and I'm sure that any other player who has played the battle agrees with me. As for getting dispelled with the drow...it's supposed to be an ambush. Add some RPG with that fact, it can be a very fun and exciting battle. Insane, yes, but CAN be fun if you get really lucky. It's not an ambush for anyone who's ever played it, but if it can be simulated, I find this to be the best way. Imagine them teleporting around you with those spiders at a completely random point in that area. This way you know where they are, can memorize Chaotic and free action spells, use optimal equipment etc. Haven't you ever backstabbed a yuan-ti mage before he finishes true sight? Is that also cheese then? IMO, no. I saw him while invisible, he smells something is going on and starts casting, my figh/thief is a bloodthirsty no-good-dooer, and the lizard is gone! I'd say the same thing would go for drow - I think they should know when a party armed to the teeth enters underdark.. It is their home, anyway, and it is supposed to be dangerous, not like vanilla "walk in the myconid park". Loth could probably dispel your buffs if they asked nicely:). Besides, you wouldn't even feel that dispel hurting you if you haven't buffed yourself. So, who is cheating:) the oh so mighty band of a 15.level Bhaalspawn or those filthy drow?! Just joking, but I hope you see my point.
I've given some tought about the idea of no pre-buffs. IMO It would make most of the battles a walk-over (if not ridiculusly easy), and who ever has more mages with improved alcatry wins.
As for IA being more tactical/rpg - I don't know, really. It has both. A read lot of new quests will be added to IA6 so there will probably be much more RPGaming for druid lovers, tree-huggers and other such beasties.
All praise Korgan!!!:)

one other thing.. It is stated in IA readme that "this mod has some of the hardest battles......for experienced players.....etc" Personaly I don't know why Sikret even bothered with blocking possible exploits. What I mean, who actually uses stuff like that? We wanted a challenge, now we have it, and again, some of the threads are crawling with "tactics" such as: set time trap, summon something, attack it so that time trap triggers, kill everything because creatures immune to time trap may not be immune to TS from time trap if they have not triggered it themselves. YIPPPEEE! I laughed my ass of when I read this. I'd actually like that traps be removed from game, along with spell shield, but this is probably for another thread. And magic lasso from planar warden upgrade - save vs.breath at -2 or die instatly due to suffocation and being a coward:)

thieves detect illusion vs SI:div - imo yes, as a hla . I'd keep it this way for ordinary skill. Not to soon, and you don't see mages casting that often later in game anyway. It is a bit overpowered skill early in game.

I agree with Raven, there's much diveristy in IA, even some extra spell-like abilities.

I am also eager to see it.

Yes, I agree with you. Luckily I did not say that enemies should not have such an abilities. This is great and makes the game more interesting. For example the web lariat effect of the spiders is a real fun to watch and I enjoy it very much. The noble djinni fire resistance reducing effect also made my first meeting with him harder and more interesting. This is ok, it is in the vanilla game and it is nice that in IA there are much more similar effects.


Yes, that is the point. It is an ambush and it is very challenging. Maybe too challenging. But you catch the point! Enemies can ambush you. They did not do it too much times but they do it simetimes. This is a tactical manoveur. Now, the question is how can you ambush the enemies in IA? It is really a question, so I am waiting for the answers. BTW, there are other ambushes even in the vanilla game. For example the final fight with Jon is an ambush: he invokes other creatures while you are not able to attack him. (Comment: again this and other similar situations is not a problem. This is great and good to have). So, the question, how can you ambush your enemy in the game?

Yes, I know what you mean. I used to wish Sikret spent the time he spends blocking exploits on making new content instead (I'm sure he wishes he could do it too). But not everyone sees the game the same way; like it or not lots of players will resort to the exploits if they are available, and if I had spent as much time on a mod as Sikret has with IA, I would probably hate to read reports glorifying cheap methods and want to block them as much as he does.




Agreed. Fortunately IA keeps Spell Shield (and its various bugs) largely under control.

Strange, but I have never used in my play (not only in IA) such a cheesy methods. I never heard about for example the project image cheeting (undispellabkle invisibility) or the multiplied bard songs. These are cheats and I have never used them. I also skipped every time the cheesy solutions while I was reading DSimpsons guide (you know, the comments from readers).

I do not know what you are talking about here. Can you explain it to me?


Yes, I agree that thief's detect illusion ability is overpowered in early game. The problem is that the solution for this problem is illogical and bad. Of course from playability it is ok, no problem with it. The problem is that it affect the credibility of the game world, it does not fit to the game logic.

Small spoilers for this battle...

SPOILER!

The thief "detect illusion" ability is a divination tool. It's not divination spell or magic, but it's still sort of divination tool. See the mod's readme about this tweak.

If the ability was a plain divination spell, we wouldn't even need any tweak. It would be blocked by default. The change is called a "tweak" exactly because it allows SI:divination to block a divination tool which is not a spell.

The tweak is fully justified in my book; if it's not logical for you, well, again we can agree to disagree.

Ok, I noticed it. But I thought that Kerkes is talking about something existing but he just wished something.

First of all, the spell description does not reflect it. Secondly, I still think that this not the right spell for it. Simple: this spell stop spells and spell-like effects from a school and this ability is not something like this. Theoretically high intelligence give protection against illusion spells, 19 protects against 1st level illusion spells, 20 against 2nd level and so on (in standard AD&D). I am not sure if it is implemented in the game or not (I think it is not) but the modified version of IA should protect against it also (based on your description). Do you think it is reasonable?

Also, if you apllied such a tweak then you should apply it to all versions: so, it should protects against all spells from the given school, all spells-like effect and all such an abilities. That way it would somehow logical again. Not 100% logical, but at least more logical.

But again, I think we will not agree in it because of the different view. No problem.

@ Vuki

well, I suppose Raven knows what I was aiming at with planar prison warden. And yes, it is something I would wish for. Nghhhhhhh...magic anti-cheese laso o'doom "coward executor". I can already hear Viconia's screaming!!

@Sikret

Please make one for IA6! Will make me wanna run away just for the fun of it

@Vuki

just read your reply on ambushes and such
How to ambush an IA superpowered enemy? Well, I usually use Imoen. Most fun for those rune assasins - prebuff, enter, run like hell, time stop, Impr.Alcatry and watch the assasins get their moisture evaporated:). Ambush? well, I suppose it would be better to call it "surprise" or "flashbang" but it works. you can't use tactics from strategy games like surrounding your enemies, jumping from bushes to slit their throats and other Hollywood stuff from "The Last of the Mohicans" . at least I think so.

Enemies can set an ambush, because the arena is their territory. It's most unrealistic if you expect your party to set an ambush in their homeland.

Almost every method you may want to use and call it your "ambush" against the enemy in enemy's homeland will end up being (at best) cheesy method (if not plain cheat) in my book. This is different for the enemy, because as I said, those ambushes are taking place in their own territory.

A dwarven sorc has +5 to saves unlike human, elf or half elf. That's a major bonus, I believe the game itself does'n allow it because of balance. As for Pt.10 - doesn't it mean you'll be killing them regardless of your aligment?
I believe that not everybody with a decent weapon in this game should be evil buggers who are off to kill somebody walking around. But this game is pretty much like that
@sikret

Don't you consider Time trap to be an "ambush"?

Maybe yes, but I remember that you were the first person to suggest that time traps are cheesy and should be removed from the game.

Actually, time traps are cheesy for three main reasons:

1- The trap's duration is too long for its intended purpose (see below)
2- The trap can be picked more than once as HLA.
3- Some players misuse the trap.

It's mentioned in the time trap's description that thieves typically use this trap for the purpose of gaining enough free time to move to the behind of an enemy to gain a free backstab shot. However, the time stop's duration is too long for this purpose and it actually allows doing a lot more than just moving to behind the enemy. Moreover, setting multiple time traps makes this even worse and a thief can stop the time for a longer time than any mage, which is quite absurd.

Even worse, as you mentioned in one of your posts, some cheap players set traps and then activate them with their own summoned creatures (after making them hostile); or alternatively, they set traps far away and then play 'cat & mouse' with the enemy to lure him into the trap. These two latter methods are not just cheesy, they are cheats.

Two main solutions occur to me:

1- Decreasing the trap's duration dramatically and make it to be picked only once in the HLAs table.

2- Removing the Time Trap from the game and replacing it with a more sensible HLA (honestly, it was never making sense that a thief could stop the flow of time mimicking the effect of a most powerful arcane spell).

I remember that you suggested the second solution and I, too, agree that the second solution is most probably the best. It will give your thief a new HLA which fits better with his class and can be used in fair combat.

I've finished earlier versions. There is some variation because foes are higher level than the earlier mages and have more at their disposal. However, for each "stage" I get the feeling that certain mages are scripted comparable to eachother. There're many spells that are not used very often (especially low level spells). I guess this is not just in IA though, but a problem in many mods. I guess that considering the content that IA adds, I agree that it doesn't need to be changed much. I'll let this rest.

I fully agree with this. It's a type of divination after all, so I can see the reasoning for it to be blocked.

You cannot implement this because each character has a different intelligence score. In PnP you can manage it (especially solo) or in NWN solo, but not in party play such as BG. It would mean that one character is able to see the foe, whereas another character cannot see that foe. You can envision that that character points it out to the others….. but they will simply not see it, so it must be dispelled by a proper spell, not by just having high intelligence.

Weird race/class choices are disabled because they weren't edition 2 if I recall that correctly. I still like to play those bits though .
Dependent on my alignment I sometimes actually reason with foes to talk them out of a fight. Den of 7 veils, sewers party… those fights can all be avoided, so I sometimes do (at the cost of some nice item drops though).




General remark.
I'm a roleplaying person through and through. Because I like a challenge I've come to play IA and I've finished v2, and I've gotten halfway through the TOB part in v4.2 after which I stopped to play the new v5. My roleplaying style is somewhat disabled in IA, since several options are disabled because Sikret thought them not proper. The following are already discussed above:

1. Stealing quest items (I don't really mind this, but from a roleplayer point of view I think it ought to be possible with alternate quest endings, such as lower quest rewards, NPCs or foes leaving the site and hence not dropping their items, or spawning different cre files for the same NPC, one with droppable loot, one with less droppable loot).
My opinion. I don't mind this, but I'd rather see extension rather than blocking.

2. Stealing from shops (though of course selling it to the same shop owner should be disabled. I even feel that Stealing from Ribald should be possible as a result of the Ribald Amnish Guard locking you up in prison or putting you in front of the Amnish Court, followed by Ribald prices going up a 200%… that'd be an interesting implementation).
My opinion. I don't mind this, but I'd rather see extension rather than blocking.

3a. Info gathering through sneaking (I also use detect evil to determine whether they are foes) (Sikret has foes casting True Sight when they think there's a hidden person, though I would make it an Oracle scroll since it wastes their True Sight)
3b. followed by surprise attacking.
Up to a certain level he's correct. You cannot attack foes when they just stand there doing nothing or when they expect you but just haven't seen you due to fog of war. The Firkraag attack when you place traps in his area is a really good example for fixing this (there are more examples but I won't list them). However, in some cases when they don't expect it I think it ought to be allowed to get in the first hits without a big prebuff.
3c. Foes illogically prebuffing
I agree that certain foes can prebuff if they know you're coming or if there is a good reasoning that they might have set a somewhat justifiable perimeter guard (such as spies or invisible wards that you cannot disable). It's just that many foes just aren't aware of your presence and hence should not prebuff or marginally through a contingency.
Don't get me wrong, I do like it that you get a really challenging battle every single time, and in that division IA performs extremely well or I wouldn't replay it. It's just that sometimes I feel it's becoming a bit too common to forcespell each foe and it becomes a bit boring and I let my game rest a while before continuing..... that's my problem with IA.


My opinion. I still don't agree the reasoning that "they can prebuff because you can do it too", because that assumes that you always prebuff and now it forces you to always prebuff. To me it sometimes becomes a drag to do so and I don't think it's the best solution to fix the problem.

Hi Iroumen!

For your point on stealing quest items, I have noticed in the forum certain discussions on stealing Conster's key.

Personally, I feel that this essential quest item should not be stealable. I don't know what happens exactly... Perhaps what happens is that you get to save the child and get away from the mage without killing him? He does have 'Teleport' after all... on a role-playing perspective, it would be rather illogical that you can get away from him.

Secondly, hopefully stealing from shops would be possible once Sikret gets around to doing the Evil Quests

On your third point, I agree that Oracle would be better, since the casting of True Sight takes rather long and an invisible character could still get away.

On your point on illogical buffing... I am not too sure. I think that here, an assumption is (Correctly IMO) made that players always have the option to pre-buff... if the AI is not allowed to do so, the player's pre-buffed characters would just slauter the enemy AI, and this would severely undermine the tactical component of IA. I DO agree that pre-buffing becomes a drag sometimes!

The general problem with the types of solutions you suggest is that the player will simply reload the game after a failed stealing attempt and will continue doing this till he eventually manages to steal whatever he wants.

I understand that each and every player gives me suggestions based on his own playing style and preferences, but I have to make the final decisions based on much more general considerations. I have to consider a lot more possible scenarios for every case than you or any other player uses or encounters in the game.

That's true. You have to put in a lot of effort to make things work without problems or abuse.

I would have implemented the stealing from Ribald as a certain event if any attempt was made (regardless of success or failure). I guess nobody would try it in their right mind when they know that you get thrown in jail or somesuch, but it may be worthwile if you gain some favour or attention from the local thievesguild... in hindsight I don't think this is something for IA to implement, but more a rogue rebalancing thing. As such I don't mind the blocking of stealing from shops.

Concerning area abuse.

I'd like to hear more opinions on the matter. I myself don't see many problems with area usage except for when foes cannot reach you because they are blocked by only the tileset itself (the D'Arnise Keep Golem is the only example I know of). However, I don't know what everybody considers unfair or just a bit of smart tactics.


Examples:
D'Arnise keep Torgal fight
I recently completed this fight in various ways.

1. I may op to position my fighters in the doorway to block him and his trolls from going after my mages, as a result, they will all attack my fighters in melee and Torgal will attack them as well.
- My mages cannot cast spells on each foe since they cannot see them all, so the foes are at an advantage too.
- Spreading out melee fighters is in most cases smarter than blocking them, therefore my clerics will be constantly busy healing and buffing my fighters and can do little else.
- Torgal can still use his spell to wreak havoc on my fighters and since the range is wide, also the mages. If he casts it on the clerics that stand in between the fighters and the mages, my whole party will still be affected, so Torgal can still smash hard and turn the tide by my choice to block them.

2. I may spread out my party
- I will lure the melee foes to attack my buffed mages (stoneskin, mirror image, whatever you want).
- My melee fighters will try to assassinate Torgal before he can do any serious damage with his abilities.
- My clerics can use combat spells rather than healing spells, since Torgal and the melee fighters will damage little.

Results:
I took a lot less damage when I spread out and I took out my foes quicker using this method. However, I'm not certain whether it is so much less cheesy. I was using protected mages to avert the damage rather than using the tileset. The general effect is the same. You use some method to block foes from hitting/damaging you.


Now what about this scenario?
Hypothetical fight… what is cheese?
You're in a hallway and a big golem is coming to fight you. You have 4 melee characters and a mage without protection spells. Options I can think of:
1. Will you position each fighter around that golem and attack that golem, thereby preventing him from reaching your mage? (i.e. not using the walls, but all fighters are really fighters)
2. Will you position your fighters to the walls in such a way that the golem cannot squeeze past the fighters+walls to get to your mage? (i.e. using a wall of fighters, 2 options: all fighting or some just blocking)
3. Will you position your fighters in the center of the hallway such that the golem walks towards one of the walls, then position one fighter between the others, thereby surrounding and blocking the golem between the wall and the fighters? (i.e. wall usage, only when fenced in are all fighters fighting)
4. Will you use an invisibility potion or spell with your mage and disappear from the battle? (i.e. remove the mage from the fight altogether)
5. Will you summon additional creatures around the golem to block his path if the fighters fail to do so? The golem will first have to plough through them to get to your mage. (i.e. emergency fix, but even doable out in the open when you're not in hallways and corridors)
6. Will you position your fighters around the mage, thereby shielding him from the golem? (i.e. a wall of fighters, at least 1 fighter cannot reach the golem)
7. Will you just order them to attack the golem, thereby ineffectively blocking him and allowing him to pulverize your mage? (i.e. do nothing, hope for the best
8. Will you run around with the mage, hoping the golem will die due to random hits by the fighters? (i.e. running the mage in circles around the fighters, who hit the golem as he comes past)

As I remember the thief detect illusion ability works in the same way in the paper version. It does not dispel the illusions, it just make possible the thief to see it. But this is not the main point here, the main point is that it works the same way and - at least for me - it is illogical to stop this features (thief and the intelligence both).

I agree with your other RPG-style points. IA makes much more tactical contents to the game and make it really harder. On the other side it removes a lot of RPG points from the game. Most of the cases the only solution to finish a quest is to "enter - kill everybody - collect rewards". In the vanilla game for example you can play a lot of roles, just for example you can be an assassin who sneaks into buildings and kill only the target person. Now there are more then one reasons why these are not possible anymore: first one is that the game is harder. It is ok, if the game is harder then of course you have less possibilities. But on the other hand it is also because of some restriction (in the game itself or in the cheesy rules).

I did not raise these issues originally just to point out that "hey, IA is a shit" or something like it. No, IA is a very-very good mod and it makes the game really interesting. But it is not perfect (for me, so it is just my personal opinion) and it is not perfect because it reduces the role-playing playability of the game. If IA could give the same flexibility than the vanilla game then it would be the perfect mod for me. That is what I am fighting for! Give me the perfect mod!

IA will never be "perfect" in the strict sense of the word, simply because there is no such thing as "the perfect mod". At every given stage, there is still possible to progress and make it even better.

IA is progressing and becoming better and better with every new version; however, I make it better in the way I see things to be better (which may be different than the way you see things; for example my defnition of role-playing is different than yours).

IA testers are also playing an equally important role in developing IA (their opinions and suggestions are very important for me, because unlike the casual player, IA testers have played the mod thoroughly several times and they always know what they are talking about).

I'm reading all suggestions and comments (and I thank you and others for writing them), but as I wrote in my post to Iroumen, there are a lot of general considerations I should take into account before making any single decision.

Thanks again for the comments and ideas, everyone.

@ Sikret

I was referring to the fact that you've nerfed so many overpowered spells/abilities/items (celestial fury comes in mind), so I'm rather surprised about time trap still available. What I woud do is leave as it is but available for single-class thief.It's multi f/t wich are a bit of an overkill during those 1 minute long time stops. The trap itself is also buggy, because it sometimes activates several times.Perhaps adding a new, combat oriented hla for all thieves would also be good. One which could decrease thac0 or AC? In my latest run I went with a f/t and did pick time trap once from hla pool. It can be very overpowered, so I don't use it. UAI is overpowered by itself, and with it you can cast time stop with a thief anyway. Probably the best thing to do would be removing all traps from game, they're way too much cheese. Since you're on a "crusade" vs. cheating you'll probably remove it. That's ok, IMO. The fact that you can kill that demogorgon in vanilla game with Yoshimo lvl 8 with traps pretty much proves that game designers were not aware of how traps are overpowered.
another misuse of time trap not mentioned above: the time "itself" doesn't stop. So it can be used to "expire" protections from mages etc. and the fact that it can be picked more than once isn't actually a problem for anyone who is intented on abusing it. You can rest, set another, rest etc. wishing for rest will also renew it.
I'm pretty sure that in IA6 they're gone.

Yes, I think that is the main point. We see the world in a bit different way. That is not a problem, at least not in our case because we did not argue in a harsh way.


And I really thank you for IA because it gave a lot of fun to me. And I am sure it will be a fun for me in the future too.

BTW, I will try a new party now (to make things interesting) and it wil be a special one. I will write it in the forum when I start to play with them.