What Are You Playing: 9 Years since the Last Dragon Age

[Rodin]

Had a prod at Lords of the Fallen 2023, the reboot/remake/sequel oh whatever nobody cares about the original anyway.

It's a soulslike. Boy is it a soulslike. The map design is like a bucket of sheep guts in a tumble dryer, lots of blood and all tangled up.

Combat is surprisingly not awful though. It isn't good, the adherence to soulslike principles like animation canceling into a block is for cowards is hard to animate and this combat model is stuck at Blade of Darkness from 2001 means it isn't exactly smooth. But the animations aren't as agonizingly slow and exaggerated as is common, so it doesn't feel like controlling an overacting narcoleptic sloth. There's a lot of lunge on the attacks, which makes things both faster and more dynamic because you can cover ground offensively and also slightly spastic, but on the whole I think I prefer it. I definitely do not prefer the lock on, which is awful. It switches targets constantly, loses targets frequently, and exists to cause pain. Definitely something that needs a patch.

This particular souls clone's claim to fame is that there's an entire second world of the dead overlaid on the normal world of the living, which you can look into and/or fully enter at any time. This is useful for solving puzzles as, inevitably, there's different routes available in the dead world. You can only leave the dead world at specific points, and more dangerous enemies spawn in the longer you stay, so you can't chill there indefinitely. It also functions as a second life, if you die in the normal world you get shunted to the dead world for another go, die there and its back to the bonfire.

So after maybe an hour and a half, I'd say it's surprisingly OK for a soulslike. It still has that traditional soulslike unfinished tech demo feel, where I can't help but think the devs still need to come back and add content that isn't just some context-free irrelevant dudes you need to stab, but the stabbing is pretty good. The double world tech is excellent, the art design is good in that vibes-only we don't actually have anything to say dark fantasy way you'd expect, and its tolerably fun. 9/10 on the soulslike curve, so a solid 7 for a normal game.

Serious question: You appear to absolutely hate Soulslikes. You hate things that are core to Soulslike combat, like the deliberate lack of animation canceling. You don't seem to appreciate the particular style of lore-based storytelling that the Souls games use and which other games imitate. And from what you've expressed in this post, you don't like Soulslike map design either.

So why do you keep playing a genre you dislike? I'm not here to sell you on Souls games, it's like the Baldur's Gate discussion up above - different styles of games appeal to different people. But I keep seeing you make very detailed posts about what's wrong with Soulslikes you've played, and you've now picked up a Soulslike even I as a big fan of the genre haven't gotten around to playing yet.

What's drawing you to the games when you don't appear to enjoy them?

[warty goblin]

Serious question: You appear to absolutely hate Soulslikes. You hate things that are core to Soulslike combat, like the deliberate lack of animation canceling. You don't seem to appreciate the particular style of lore-based storytelling that the Souls games use and which other games imitate. And from what you've expressed in this post, you don't like Soulslike map design either.

So why do you keep playing a genre you dislike? I'm not here to sell you on Souls games, it's like the Baldur's Gate discussion up above - different styles of games appeal to different people. But I keep seeing you make very detailed posts about what's wrong with Soulslikes you've played, and you've now picked up a Soulslike even I as a big fan of the genre haven't gotten around to playing yet.

What's drawing you to the games when you don't appear to enjoy them?

I like fantasy games where you run around hitting dudes with swords. Anymore the vast majority of new games that meet that description are somewhere between Dark Souls inspired and actual Dark Souls clone. After a while I tend to forget how many parts of that particular formula (and man does the genre stick to that formula, it's like if FPSs were still 100% Doom clones in 2005) and think boy, hitting some fantasy uglies with a sword sounds fun. Here's a game about doing that, so I give it a try. And... yeah, it's still a soulslike, much to my not great surprise. And I still don't particularly like the formula, but at least this one is, at least so far, actually fun, which elevates it substantially above Elden Ring.

And there's a lot about the genre that I want to like. I generally enjoy the art style, it makes me really wish the titles had the narrative chops to back it up. Lords of the Fallen is a particularly galling example, I can literally step into the land of the dead, a concept with limitless narrative and philosophical potential, and it's just door puzzles? I don't mind the idea of slower, more deliberate combat where each strike matters, I just think the route these games take to get there is substandard and hopelessly conservative. It's 2023, surely we can have something more nuanced than light and heavy strikes by now, right? And mostly I hope that one of these days one of them will click for me, because there's a ton of these things, and I really miss dumb action RPG games about swatting fantasy monsters with swords.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

It's not really that the genre is conservative so much as it's a subgenre of two subgenres of three other genres. That being "Soulslike" as a subgenre of "Action RPG" and "Action Adventure" which in themselves are subgenres of the "Action", "Adventure", and "RPG" genres. If you change some of the conventions like the pacing of the combat or the design of the levels, you can quickly end up with something that isn't a Soulslike anymore and is just a standard action-RPG or action-adventure again. Fundamentally, there's already a pretty thin line separating Dark Souls from something like Legend of Zelda (classic, not the BOTW nu-Zelda). Even FromSoft's Sekiro tends to create discussions about whether it's in the genre or not (personal opinion, it's not).

I can understand and even share some of the frustration there. Despite my love of the Souls games and a few of the derivatives, it'd be nice to see more standard action-RPG and action-adventure games come out that aren't tailgating FromSoft. It seems like we only get FromSoft titles and Ubisoft: The Game anymore. The former comes with all the trappings of a Souls title and the latter tends to make the "hitting things with a sword" part so unsatisfying that it barely qualifies.

[WritersBlock]

Originally Posted by warty goblin I like fantasy games where you run around hitting dudes with swords. Anymore the vast majority of new games that meet that description are somewhere between Dark Souls inspired and actual Dark Souls clone. After a while I tend to forget how many parts of that particular formula (and man does the genre stick to that formula, it's like if FPSs were still 100% Doom clones in 2005) and think boy, hitting some fantasy uglies with a sword sounds fun. Here's a game about doing that, so I give it a try. And... yeah, it's still a soulslike, much to my not great surprise. And I still don't particularly like the formula, but at least this one is, at least so far, actually fun, which elevates it substantially above Elden Ring.

And there's a lot about the genre that I want to like. I generally enjoy the art style, it makes me really wish the titles had the narrative chops to back it up. Lords of the Fallen is a particularly galling example, I can literally step into the land of the dead, a concept with limitless narrative and philosophical potential, and it's just door puzzles? I don't mind the idea of slower, more deliberate combat where each strike matters, I just think the route these games take to get there is substandard and hopelessly conservative. It's 2023, surely we can have something more nuanced than light and heavy strikes by now, right? And mostly I hope that one of these days one of them will click for me, because there's a ton of these things, and I really miss dumb action RPG games about swatting fantasy monsters with swords.

I have a similar frustration with modern metroidvania's I mean when done properly it is one of my favorite types of games, but almost every time I see one now it sadly also tries to be dark souls. (Even if I really do like the art style and atmosphere of something like hollow knight) It was a pleasant surprise when I played record of lodoss war: Deedlit in wonder labyrinth recently and it was not like that.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

I have a similar frustration with modern metroidvania's I mean when done properly it is one of my favorite types of games, but almost every time I see one now it sadly also tries to be dark souls. (Even if I really do like the art style and atmosphere of something like hollow knight) It was a pleasant surprise when I played record of lodoss war: Deedlit in wonder labyrinth recently and it was not like that.

Play TEVI. Play TEVI. Play TEVI.

Seriously, give TEVI a try.

[Psyren]

I have a similar frustration with modern metroidvania's I mean when done properly it is one of my favorite types of games, but almost every time I see one now it sadly also tries to be dark souls. (Even if I really do like the art style and atmosphere of something like hollow knight) It was a pleasant surprise when I played record of lodoss war: Deedlit in wonder labyrinth recently and it was not like that.

I've heard good things about Bloodstained, though I haven't gotten around to it myself. Certainly it doesn't have the "soulslike" tag on Steam, but it does have "Metroidvania."

[WritersBlock]

I meant to mention bloodstained, I got it when it first released and still fire it up from time to time. And yes, its great. And I consider the first curse of the moon game a better Castlevania 3.

And it seems that Tevi game does not come out for a few more weeks. But I did like Rabi Ribi so I may look into it

[ArmyOfOptimists]

There's a demo for TEVI that came out this week. It's worth playing. If you liked Rabi-Ribi, you'll probably love this game.

[Triaxx]

Blank slate as a character is arguably more difficult to make good than one with a predetermined backstory. Lets compare Sole Survivor, The Dragonborn and The Starfielder.

The Sole Survivor is a fish out of water with a goal and backstory that are firmly fixed and unchanged by their actions in the present. Hunt kid, save 'world', sad about spouse.

The Dragonborn starts off as no one. Could be from the Empire could be from Skyrim. Could be none and just wandered into the group at the wrong time.

The Starfielder on the other hand is a little of both. A blank slate who's background you can select for yourself. And that matters but not so much it takes away from your character because they're things you've selected for yourself.

[warty goblin]

I thought Oblivion's deployment of the blank slate character was bordering on the genuinely clever. You aren't the chosen hero so much as the chosen hero's also prophesied fixer. About the only motivation it imposes on your character is that you don't actually want the whole world eaten by demons, the actually destined dude can be an actual character, and you are free to do whatever however you want.

[Mechalich]

I thought Oblivion's deployment of the blank slate character was bordering on the genuinely clever. You aren't the chosen hero so much as the chosen hero's also prophesied fixer. About the only motivation it imposes on your character is that you don't actually want the whole world eaten by demons, the actually destined dude can be an actual character, and you are free to do whatever however you want.

Starfield is remarkably free of motivation, ultimately. The main quest starts out as 'hey, maybe we should look for these funny artifacts' but nothing happens until you've found a whole bunch of them and the quest doesn't really acquire any in-universe urgency until really, really late in the game. Even the other members of Constellation aren't really in a hurry about the whole thing. Typical open world gameplay style, where the player wanders around doing whatever until they feel like finally smashing out the main story, makes more sense here than anywhere else. Heck, several of the faction side missions feel a lot more urgent than the main quest for quite some time.

This also gives the game a lot of room to build in additional faction quests over time, which represent much of the best part of the gameplay, since the universe is very large and has lots of room to throw in new stuff.

[tonberrian]

Playing Super Robot Wars 30. As any SRW player will tell you, sometimes you get rewards for destroying bosses that run away at low health percentages. SRW 30 is a little light on these, but there is a boss that regenerates all the damage it takes until you do the plot thing and trigger its vulnerability. But the Mission for that part of the stage does seem to imply you could kill it then and move on to the next phase, so this time, in a new game plus, I decided to see if I could get enough damage together to kill it between a primary attack and a supporter attack.

Turns out you can, in fact, "kill" this boss that way. But it still regenerates all its health back afterwards, so you have to do the normal way of beating it. All you really get for killing him in one blow is a lot of experience and money.

Also, I overshot my goal. Massively. My main attacker dealt slightly over 2.5 times the target's hp in one hit, and my support attack by itself could have finished it off too. Still, it didn't take that much investment, and now i can use these guys to kill further annoying bosses.

[Rynjin]

Playing a bit of Lords of the Fallen myself, and I have no idea what wartygoblin means by the combat being "not as slow" as Elden Ring. At least the weapon I currently have is ridiculously slow by ER standards, even within the same weapon class (polearms) across games.

At least this game doesn't have the Lies of P issue of only having less than half the moveset of an actual Soulslike. 1H and 2H modes exist, though the game seems to lack backstep attacks, sprinting attacks, and crouching attacks (on account of lacking a crouch).

But it DOES have a kick, and more easily accessible than any Soulslike, so the game is automatically good.

[Rodin]

It's not really that the genre is conservative so much as it's a subgenre of two subgenres of three other genres. That being "Soulslike" as a subgenre of "Action RPG" and "Action Adventure" which in themselves are subgenres of the "Action", "Adventure", and "RPG" genres. If you change some of the conventions like the pacing of the combat or the design of the levels, you can quickly end up with something that isn't a Soulslike anymore and is just a standard action-RPG or action-adventure again. Fundamentally, there's already a pretty thin line separating Dark Souls from something like Legend of Zelda (classic, not the BOTW nu-Zelda). Even FromSoft's Sekiro tends to create discussions about whether it's in the genre or not (personal opinion, it's not).

*nods*

A lot of warty goblin's complaints are things that would drive the Souls community away if you changed them. I like the lack of animation canceling, because once you start introducing that sort of thing you start heading into fighting game/Devil May Cry territory where I need to be a twitch gamer to win instead of waiting and watching the enemy until I can land my big two handed swing without getting punished. The other complaints have similar rebuttals that I won't go into here, but you get the idea. The games iterate on the same ideas while adding small new things and seeing what works - I didn't like Nioh's take on the Soulslike but am adoring Lies of P. Lords of the Fallen looks very conservative, which is why it's on my backburner list - especially since it apparently has some technical issues that may need patching out.

Playing a bit of Lords of the Fallen myself, and I have no idea what wartygoblin means by the combat being "not as slow" as Elden Ring. At least the weapon I currently have is ridiculously slow by ER standards, even within the same weapon class (polearms) across games.

At least this game doesn't have the Lies of P issue of only having less than half the moveset of an actual Soulslike. 1H and 2H modes exist, though the game seems to lack backstep attacks, sprinting attacks, and crouching attacks (on account of lacking a crouch).

But it DOES have a kick, and more easily accessible than any Soulslike, so the game is automatically good.

Lies of P's moveset issues aren't as bad as I initially thought, because it has mixups that don't exist in regular Souls games. R1 - R2 in Dark Souls would have you do an R1 followed by an R2. R1 - R2 in Lies of P has you do an R1 followed by a unique R2 because you are starting the move from a different body position. This is often useful - use a stab R2 in a cramped corridor where your R1 would wallbonk, then follow up with the backhand R1 before going into the stab again. The whole thing feels a lot more fluid than the mainline Souls games and closer to something like Sekiro.

A 2H mode would be very nice, and would open up even more options with the mixups, but I'd estimate that the actual moveset difference is around 75% instead of 50%.

[Anonymouswizard]

I find Soulslikes to generally be more reliant on tight timing than something like Devil May Cry, although that might be due to how their boss fights drag on and can give surprisingly short windows for drinking estus, which got both better and worse when DS3 sped everything up.

Hell I can semi-reliably activate Witch Time in Bayonetta when I can actually see the enemy. The reason I've not beat the game is more one corridor in like level 13 where the game gets really stingy with health drops. Meanwhile in DMC3 I got all the way to mission 19, because while I can beat any of the bosses going in with a full healthbar the game only has green orbs for every other fight in that one.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I find Soulslikes to generally be more reliant on tight timing than something like Devil May Cry, although that might be due to how their boss fights drag on and can give surprisingly short windows for drinking estus, which got both better and worse when DS3 sped everything up.

Part of it is also probably overall game philosophy. DMC is about enabling the player to be ridiculous, while Soulslikes say "prove that you deserve this win, just try and beat me". Timing windows in DMC are about creating flow, timing windows in Soulslikes are about scraping every tiny advantage you can out of the fight.

[Rynjin]

Part of it is also probably overall game philosophy. DMC is about enabling the player to be ridiculous, while Soulslikes say "prove that you deserve this win, just try and beat me". Timing windows in DMC are about creating flow, timing windows in Soulslikes are about scraping every tiny advantage you can out of the fight.

Yeah, Devil May Cry games aren't designed to be difficult...sort of. The games can definitely BE hard (especially 3, 3 is the ballbuster of the series), but the difficult thing in DMC is not beating the content, it's beating the content WHILE LOOKING COOL. You can beat basically everything in the game with no difficulty by going slow and getting a D rank in every fight but that's...not very fun, and it takes a while.

[LibraryOgre]

I've been playing Sid Meier's Pirates, and I have discovered save scumming on it, which makes me happy.

[InvisibleBison]

I'm giving Baldur's Gate 3 a second chance, with a bunch of mods installed to smooth over the rough edges that drove me away before. So far it's looking good, though I haven't really gotten far enough into the game to determine anything for sure.

[warty goblin]

I'm more or less enjoying Lords of the Fallen. I do have to question why jumping is like this (answer, Dark Souls did it this way)? Why, given that jumping is like this, is there platforming (answer: Dark Souls did it, Dark Souls is perfect, therefore this must also do that. Amen.)? And really, how how the hell did nobody play this part, go "this sucks" and either get rid of the semi-precision platforming in a game with controls so tanky they make PS1 Lara Croft blush, or at least bind jump to one of the several basically unused face buttons? The Y button is right there, doing nothing. B is criminally underutilized as well. Just make jump a normal command!

[ArmyOfOptimists]

I'm more or less enjoying Lords of the Fallen. I do have to question why jumping is like this (answer, Dark Souls did it this way)? Why, given that jumping is like this, is there platforming (answer: Dark Souls did it, Dark Souls is perfect, therefore this must also do that. Amen.)? And really, how how the hell did nobody play this part, go "this sucks" and either get rid of the semi-precision platforming in a game with controls so tanky they make PS1 Lara Croft blush, or at least bind jump to one of the several basically unused face buttons? The Y button is right there, doing nothing. B is criminally underutilized as well. Just make jump a normal command!

Sekiro and Elden Ring both understood that if they were going to emphasize platforming more, they needed a standard jump button. Everything I've seen about Lords of the Fallen makes it look like they got the homework, skimmed chapters 1 and 2, and decided they understood enough to be an expert without reading to the end, i.e. they based their decisions off Dark Souls 1 and 2 while ignoring the decade of improvements made since.

[Anonymouswizard]

Finally caved into nostalgia and bought Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 Enhanced Edition on Steam, although not Siege of Dragonspear. The first game is my childhood, but I never actually beat it or played much of the second. And I got to Act 3 in BG3 and wanted a break anyway.

I considered going with my childhood instincts and rolling up a mage, then remembered that lightning bolts bounce and I really wanted to go for a Priest or Warrior. So I thumbed my nose at canon and made CHARNAME a NG half-elven priestess of Lathander. I'm sure the game will punt me over to LG eventually but I'll try to avoid hitting any of the alignment switch moments. I'm not a ridiculously optimised build (I've got like 17 Strength but 12 Charisma, did grab 18 Wisdom though).

The first thing I noticed was that a lot of things that annoyed me in BG3 don't here. I actively have to scroll the camera to keep up with my characters, but the game's also a lot more zoomed out. Everybody's level 1 and it's going to take a few hours of play to get most to level 2 and that second hit die, but even the two supposed to be hardened warriors aren't depicted as anything special. Maybe at characters don't get to pick a god to follow, but I remember that in the original release literally nobody could. Pretty much the only issue I actually have with it beyond 'RTWP isn't great' is that CHARNAME isn't presented as having to deal with the murderous urges the Dark Urge in 3 gets.

It's not good by modern CRPG standards, but I can certainly see the bits that'll let 2 and NWN move past Ultima and the Gold Box games. It's also a massive, massive nostalgia hit for me.

As to party composition I've got Imoen, Jaheira, and Kalid, and I'm thinking of skipping the other two canon party members in favour of Neera and hopefully a Warrior who isn't a package deal. Mostly because I know Neera has content more like a BG2 companion and I think it would be cool to see it

[Mechalich]

As to party composition I've got Imoen, Jaheira, and Kalid, and I'm thinking of skipping the other two canon party members in favour of Neera and hopefully a Warrior who isn't a package deal. Mostly because I know Neera has content more like a BG2 companion and I think it would be cool to see it

Fun trick, you can 'split' the various package deal characters by using the remove from party command on the member you don't want while they are in a random house or other structure that you never intend to enter again with the party outside, which will prevent the dialogue to have the other party member leave your party and follow their companion from ever triggering (or something like that, I'd probably look up the specifics to check, but I know I used this method to dump Khalid).

[Anonymouswizard]

Fun trick, you can 'split' the various package deal characters by using the remove from party command on the member you don't want while they are in a random house or other structure that you never intend to enter again with the party outside, which will prevent the dialogue to have the other party member leave your party and follow their companion from ever triggering (or something like that, I'd probably look up the specifics to check, but I know I used this method to dump Khalid).

Honestly exploiting the game like that just seems less fun to me than taking the hit of a missing party member until somebody shows up. Sure it's how people will have played back in the day, but the point of the package deals is to mak building an ideal party that little bit less convenient.

Even if you can have a pretty decent party by like the second town if you want.

Like I'm sure I could also recruit Minsc and just not complete his quest, but that seems wrong.

[warty goblin]

Sekiro and Elden Ring both understood that if they were going to emphasize platforming more, they needed a standard jump button. Everything I've seen about Lords of the Fallen makes it look like they got the homework, skimmed chapters 1 and 2, and decided they understood enough to be an expert without reading to the end, i.e. they based their decisions off Dark Souls 1 and 2 while ignoring the decade of improvements made since.

I gotta say "we added a jump button" doesn't sound like a fruitful decade for the genre, improvement wise. Particularly if the end result is Elden Ring's platforming, cause I played that and it ain't anything to bring home to momma.

Anyway, killed the first boss which had a very handy summon an NPC button right out front, which essentially made it easy mode. So it only took me like 12 tries, but it never seemed particularly undoable. And I very much appreciated the summon feature not only being there but being very clearly marked, as it handily shaves off like 30% of the boss's HP. Perfect for somebody like me who finds boss fights the least interesting and enjoyable challenge in a game like this*. Found a second optional(?) boss who unfortunately lacks the summon button - probably so I don't have a large burly man show up and squash all my problems with a hammer - but she seems plenty beatable.

Other things I appreciate: the tutorial is pretty good. The NPCs have now more or less explained the plot (demon bad, creepy blood obsessed church that keeps trying to kill you, also bad. Complex stuff) and I think I can work with this. Gotta find and purify five beacons. Helpfully these are large glowy sky beams, so nice to have a landmark to head towards. A decent map would also be nice, but that's asking a lot.

* I am reminded of a review of Godfall I watched, which bemoaned the feature where if you died in a boss fight you just respawned and the boss didn't reset. The reviewers hated this because it robs you of satisfaction or something. I think it's brilliant because a boss battle is interesting to me once. As a spectacle. After I've seen all the cool moves a couple 2 - 3 times, I'm happy to never see it again. And I will be 100% satisfied with that.

[ArmyOfOptimists]

* I am reminded of a review of Godfall I watched, which bemoaned the feature where if you died in a boss fight you just respawned and the boss didn't reset. The reviewers hated this because it robs you of satisfaction or something. I think it's brilliant because a boss battle is interesting to me once. As a spectacle. After I've seen all the cool moves a couple 2 - 3 times, I'm happy to never see it again. And I will be 100% satisfied with that.

At that point, why even have a health bar? Just remove it and let the player mash a button until the boss falls over. More power to you if you like that, but it sounds like it defeats the point of a game. If you're just there to see the spectacle, there's a wide variety of movies out there to watch.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah, this is the frustrating BG1 experience I remember. It's honestly much, much less frustrating than I remember it being, probably helped by the fact that Infinity Engine games load and save fast these days (and I remember them being quick on the early noughties machine I originally played BG on on). I need to get back into the habit of saving after every combat, but it's still a case of having to fairly painlessly reload the current map. I also forgot about the iron curse and had to run back to town for extra warhammers, it was great.

Rounded out my party with Rassaad, who at this point is responsible for most of my reloads. But hopefully as he levels his lack of armour won't be an issue. I'd have accepted Dorn, but I'm doing a good run and feel he'd leave me anyway.

Which means my party feels much more like that from a fantasy movie or show than the BG3 group does.

[GloatingSwine]

Rounded out my party with Rassaad, who at this point is responsible for most of my reloads. But hopefully as he levels his lack of armour won't be an issue. I'd have accepted Dorn, but I'm doing a good run and feel he'd leave me anyway.

Rasaad will always be an issue in BG1. The monk progression chart wasn't designed to be used before BG2, which means that he can't damage anything that needs +1 or better with his fists until level 9 which you won't reach in BG1, nor can he specialise in weapons because monk (though he'll get an extra half apr at level 7). As you've detected he has no armour because monk, but he's also Dex 16 and Con 14 so he can't dodge hits and he can't take hits.

Even a highly optimised monk has a bad time in BG1 due to not being designed to operate outside of BG2 and onwards, and Rasaad is not an optimised monk.

[Anonymouswizard]

Rasaad will always be an issue in BG1. The monk progression chart wasn't designed to be used before BG2, which means that he can't damage anything that needs +1 or better with his fists until level 9 which you won't reach in BG1, nor can he specialise in weapons because monk (though he'll get an extra half apr at level 7). As you've detected he has no armour because monk, but he's also Dex 16 and Con 14 so he can't dodge hits and he can't take hits.

Even a highly optimised monk has a bad time in BG1 due to not being designed to operate outside of BG2 and onwards, and Rasaad is not an optimised monk.

I mean part of Rassaad's offensive issues can be covered by his quite decent weapon proficiencies, but yeah he does seem bad. I'll probably drop him if I find a decent warrior who isn't evil or if Khalid bites it (at which point I'll pick up Boo and his human companion). A lot of characters also seem to have stats that, while better than what you'd get with RAW 2e, really aren't up to the the challenge.

Khalid is really annoying in that regard due to coming with Jaheira, who's slightly better built and invaluable in the early game.

Part of me wonders if I should have just skipped straight to BG2.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I've been playing Sid Meier's Pirates, and I have discovered save scumming on it, which makes me happy.

I have that in my Steam library and played it forever ago, I should check it out again.