Ascend to Godhood

Today, I finished the Baldur's Gate 'trilogy' again. I don't know for sure how many times I've played it through now, for I've lost the old saved games except for 2, but it's probably getting closer to 10. Needless to say I like the game(s) pretty much.

I've installed BG1Tutu mod, which basicly ports Baldur's Gate (and Tales of the Sword Coast) into Throne of Bhaal's engine, and allows you to play BG1 with all the goodies of its sequels, including all the classes and their kits, like the barbarian I chose this time. Neutral evil as his alignment and half-orc as his race, Ardak cleared his way from Candlekeep all the way to Throne of Bhaal, to keep Bhaal's divine essence and ascend to godhood as a new deity.

BG2 part of the trilogy seemed easier than ever this time. Playing Shadows of Amn with only 5 characters pushed me little bit ahead in levels, but I think taking Valen in the party is what made things so easy.

Valen is originally one of Bodhi's vampires, but is turned into a joinable NPC by Weimer's Valen mod. Valen is... well, overpowered; a fighter/thief with high ability scores and full equipment. As a weapon she uses her claws, a +1 'dagger' that drains 1 level with each hit. And the claw upgrades as Valen gains levels, becoming finally a +5 weapon that drains 5 levels (!) with each hit. As soon as she got the first high level abilities (Use Any Item), I equipped her off-hand with Scarlet Ninja-to +3 (a monk-only weapon) that gives +1 attack. With 4,5 attacks per round, Valen quickly annihilates anything without negative plane protection.

The cute little vampire has some weaknesses too, though. For starters, as undead, she is vulnerable to attacks like the sunray spell, which surprisingly many casters seemed to have in the game. Might've been 'cause of Valen mod itself. Also, sunlight weakens her pretty much useless (but doesnt' kill, because of her armor). Valen likes to aggro guards and clerics everywhere she goes as well. And then there's the party of vampire hunters that comes after her at some point. The fight against them is quite hard (Weimer likes 'em so), and I had some serious trouble beating them with Valen left untouched - the bastards had protection from undead on!

Ardak's party also included Haer'Dalis, a thiefling wannabe-fighter bard. He wasn't very powerful until he got the high level abilities. With the help of Use Any Item, I equipped him with the greater werewolf claw (usable by druids only) I got off Cernd. The claw is created by the werewolf ability of shapeshifter druids, and is what shifts the druid into a werewolf when it's equipped. I don't know if any 'physical' claw is created without the werewolf fix from BG2tweak pack. But as greater werewolf, Haer'Dalis becomes quite good! He never gets the Greater Whirlwind ability like proper fighters, but with 4 base attacks +1 from Offensive Spin, he's finally more than dead weight in ToB. Cheesy as hell though, lol.

With Sarevok as the 4th melee character,  and Edwin & Viconia throwing Energy Blades from the back, I walked through ToB so easily that I think next time I have to play with harder difficulty, instead of Core Rules I usually do. Well, it depends bit on the party setup, of course.

Things I found out for the first time in this playthrough:

1) A cellar beneath the duchal palace in Baldur's Gate I. There even was a movie when you enter the area! I had no idea it was there until now, when one of the dopplegangers decided to panic and flee there.

2) Sarevok's deathbringer assault. He apparently has a passive ability with a small chance to do some extra damage with each attack. Learned this when I noticed him doing over 100 damage with a single attack at some point.

Also, should be mentioned that the game decided to give Ardak an extra 50 hp at some level up (I think it was 9). Dunno if it was a bug or what, but with that and barbarian's high base health, Ardak had 263 hp at the end (level 36). That's huge!

Next, I will give BG a small break, and instead pay a visit to Planescape: Torment. Played it through once some years ago and haven't touched it since. I didn't like its user interface - the radial menus are damn annoying imho, but the story and the dialogue are something awesome. They are what makes the game truly the best computer role-playing game I have ever touched. Sadly, the plot is slightly spoiled now for me but it's been so long that I've probably forgotten most of the stuff. G3's widescreen mod is apparently supposed to work with Torment too. And it'd better, for I'm not gonna suffer from the horrible resolution the game originally supports.