Baldur's Gate

I decided to play Baldur's Gates again because I have some free time. A quick search showed me that EE ones got some engine update. I know that EEs are fucking retarded, and I'm going to ignore their companions and DLC if I play them, but is it worth playing EE version because of the engine update? What exactly does it do, and how does it affect mods?

If you ask me, the games looks even worse in EE

What class are you going to run?

Haven't decided yet. Probably a wizard or a druid kit

It is mostly the characters which look different in the engine whilst they have also changed the journal to be a bit more convenient and put HP bars over enemy heads instead of the wording like "badly injured". Maps as well are a lot more fluid and different levels of zoom. There is also a bit of balancing put in but added difficulty levels to put it back to normal just make sure you look at the difficulties in the options if you play it so you can decide what you want. Personally I don't mind the updated engine though I thought the game was more than fine without the update. I hadn't played BG until I had played the EE (before the update) so I am not a good reference for a true comparison because I have never played the original release. I came across hardly any bugs though and one of my favourite party members is only in EE (Baeloth) he was an extremely fun person to have in the party. I also use the half-orc Dorn Il Khan as well for a frontman warrior, I usually go evil so… People bitched and complained about the new characters having shitty writing and story but honestly I think that is a serious over reaction, all in all they probably have less than 1000 words said and much like the rest of BG the writing is pretty cliche and minimalistic. I am probably going to go through BG again as well once I finish my run of New Vegas and I have no compulsion to get the original release over the EE, if you don't like the update you can always go to an earlier version.

BG:EE doesn't allow you to sell directly from gem bags unless you also install Dragonspear, so you're getting the extra content whether you like it or not. And you can't completely avoid the new content, sometimes there's forced encounters if you wander too close.
The UI is also different, and EE doesn't have access to all of the 1pp mod updates from what I understand.

Long story short, is better to play the classic with all the mods the autistic dedicated fanbase made.

Curious to know because I haven't played the original but what encounters are forced that aren't in the original? I honestly can't remember very many forced encounters except for maybe 2 which are like a 2 minute battle just to introduce you to some of the new characters.
You can sell gems out of the gem bag btw and the UI is the same if you haven't got the update and if you do it changes the UI to the same as BG2 except for the journal which is streamlined. Have you actualy played it user?

EE adds literally nothing worthwhile.

EE gives you easy install. Some of the EE content is pretty unavoidable, but you can just tell the NPC to fuck off and resume your normal questing.

The latest version fucks up the UI to make it more mobile friendly.

Stop nigga, go play arcanum

I bought the original version of BG1 and 2 when it was still a new release, but I pirated the EE edition because I don't feed jews.
The EE edition has widescreen support, a few new npcs like an antipaladin half-orc you can pick up early game who is OP. There is also some map features and loot buttons that come with EE that did not exist previously. They most likely add stuff like stacking and such that previously required a mod.

The main difference is the difficulty. If you play this game on core rules prepare to get recked. My platemail wearing con18 guys often and randomly die to things like level1 kobolds who get a lucky crit with a regular shortbow. After dying thus about 10 times in an hour I decided to go with "normal" difficulty".

No. Just play the originals in GemRB with mods.

Hope you like borderlands tier outlines and characters.

Fuck me, why? Single class wizards are OK, I guess, but say thief/wiz or the godly cleric/wiz (or cleric/ranger) will outclass the living hell out of them. Druids plain suck.

If you don't mind completely breaking the game, there's a hilarious glitch you can do only in BG2 with the wand of lightning.

Get a wand of lightning, target 6 things, pause the game before it fires, swap another item with the wand of lightning in your inventory, unpause, and you'll use that item 6 times. Use this glitch to shoot 6x wands, heal 6x from potions, achieve 100% resistance from a single protection from X scroll, fire off 30 magic missiles from a magic missile scroll, shoot 6 fireballs from a fireball scroll, drain 12 levels from a energy drain scroll, etc.

Alternatively: Get a wand of lightning, target 6 things, pause before it fires, cast a spell that automatically targets yourself, unpause, and you'll cast that spell 6 times. You can't stack buffs with this glitch, but you can do things like shoot 6 sunfires that don't even damage yourself, cast 6 sunrays, cast limited wish/wish 6 times, summon 6 mordy swords, and cast 6 misleads as a bard and have them play improved bard song for +24 thaco, AC, damage, saving throws..

Druids have the best summon spell in the game. Planetar is a bit more versatile with spells, but elemental prince is more resistant to unsummon effects and better in melee.

If you're basing your entire playthrough on a HLA meme that's not ((use anything)) you're really doing something wrong.Especially if they're dogshit tier summons Druids have precisely two things going for them: (iron) skins and insect plague spells. And a ranger/cleric gets to use both.

There's also druids having bugged shifts, bugged XP levels, how some of better their better abilities depend on outdoors only, having the worst proficiencies or the class kits in the game or how they don't get to use metal gear.

Single class Kensai just destroys everything I'm even bored waiting for my F/M to come online seems to take a very long time to get powerful.

But why? Kensai is only ever good when some form of dual class cheese is involved hell, fighter is only ever good later on when some form of dual class cheese is involved.

You only need decent gear and haste for most of the original content. There's some shit in the underdark and certain undeads but all that's perfectly manageable if you're stockpiling your scrolls and shit.

IIRC original Baldur's Gate's UI was quite different from BG2. Because you started with EEs, which used BG2's UI the last time I played it, you only know BG2's UI


Mostly because of roleplaying. I also heard Totemic and Avenger druids were pretty gud but I never actually played them, I wanted to try them. Also druids aren't that bad, in first BG at least. IIRC because of exp limit in the first game, they get stronger healing spells than clerics because they level up a lot faster in early levels. Also you don't really need to powergame in BGs because of all the bullshit companions and items you can get, the game is quite easy

((Spirit animal)) is just a flavor of summon (dire)shit but without the immunities, damage reduction or mage raping. The Avenger though, is some kind of awful. I mean why would you take draconian penalties for a couple of wizard spells? Especially since there are objectively superior gish choices of f/m or bard, with summons and all.

If you want to roleplay there's always the option of playing said thief or a bard character and having the unlock all strongholds mod/tweak.