Side Content in Siege of Dragonspear

[Dragon Master]

It's amazing how much better the side content is in Siege of Dragonspear from the main story of it, at least in my personal opinion.

Just today I fought a bunch of trolls and bugbears, snuck past a large green dragon, went into an old temple of Bhaal that had been turned into a temple of Cyric, which had just been taken over by a Mind Flayer. I also previously did a favor for a dwarven liche and joined forces with a vampire.

After successfully fighting the mind flayer and convincing a shadow demon to kill a tribe of Bug Bears, I got greedy and tried to rob the green dragon's treasure hoard, woke it up and had fight for my life against a boss I think is tougher than the boss of the game.

I somehow survived and got green dragon scales.

Why does it feel that the side content is so much better than SoD main story?

[Tyler Durden]

I enjoyed my time with it

[fauxpas]

Because you enjoy the combat system and level design, which I personally didn't but even I have to admit it's better than the writing.

[red255]

Zaviak's vision quest has alot of stuff to it. (Zaviak is in the wild mage camp in BG2 so he's apparently a Wild Mage)

not sure why people get butt hurt about SoD's writing, its mainly linear, there are alot of hidden secrets in the level design, alot of things you get early that are useful later.

in the first dungeon there is a secret note, that allows you to get a +3 shortsword after a bonus fight in the temple of Bhaal later. various caves with secret's you can find and get treasures

if you side with the dwarves and kill the lich, you get a 3 use item to kill the lich with. if I use 2 uses on the lich, I can use the third use on the lich in Zaviaks vision quest in the end of Neera's questline area

there are just tons of things hidden in the linear structure of the piece.

I mean what was so good about the writing of the original Baldurs gate? is nostalgia just clouding your eyes?

but yeah I found there was an amazing amount of loot hidden in the game. Oh theres a really epic piece of armor hidden in dragonspear castle the ghost sometimes tells you about.

[AlexMBrennan]

Zaviak's vision quest has alot of stuff to it.

It's also a textbook example of a quest that can only be completed by buying to walk-through (the only way to find the best reward is by trial and error, so you have to beat the game, then restart, then pick correct reward)

if you side with the dwarves and kill the lich, you get a 3 use item to kill the lich with. if I use 2 uses on the lich, I can use the third use on the lich in Zaviaks vision quest in the end of Neera's questline area

The issue here is that you are a lvl 7 fighter who cannot possibly hope to defeat liches, dragons or mindflayers so the cheat to let you win.

Also, it's really rather weird for the player to go from killing doppelgangers in BG1, to killing dragons in SoD, to killing goblins in BG2 - that is a very weird progression. If you are making a game that takes place before BG2 then the smart choice would have been to use BG1 enemies instead of level drained ToB enemies (Siege of Dragonspear has giants serving as trash mobs ffs).

[red255]

I mean siege of dragonspear ends with a fight vs a devil in his plane, and you win. its a tough fight mind, easier if you've been preparing for it. but I would say thats an EC 20 encounter with an EC 10 party. you should not win without ample preparation.

I didn't have nearly as much problem with than as the problem of going from level 8 to level 10.

I mean BG1 its level 1-8, BG 2 is level 8-18, TOB was 18-28 ish. ten ish levels per area.

SoD so as not to ruin BG2's experience only gave you 2 levels. but thats rather painful for a twenty hour campaign where I'm going to lose most of my gear anyways and All I carry with me is my experience. couple of stat increasing tomes, nothing major maybe just some +5 HP tomes.

things to carry forward since I'm not getting any XP or anything major to use in future campaigns, the temptation to just export my character and move on was high because of that.

Zaviaks vision quest was more of a plop down a save, use the item and then consider whether it was worth the charge.

Ideally I use my 3 charges.
1, on the gauth for a ring of fire resistance
2. on the djinni in the coalition camp for an extra shop
3. on the lich in the entrance to the fugue plane for a bunch of XP, items and I think a ring of regeneration. and some spiffy crossbow.

you might pick a different 3. rings of fire resistance come in handy for the final fight but I had plenty of potions and scrolls I could have used instead. the Djinni is mostly for some items I think some of them import to BG2. cant really recall. and the Lich is mainly XP i'm not even sure anyone in my party can use the crossbow.

*Shrug* its a quest with choice. obviously you'll have a BEST choice. but if you make wrong choices its not going to screw you too badly.

[Dragon Master]

Originally posted by red255:

I mean what was so good about the writing of the original Baldurs gate? is nostalgia just clouding your eyes?

but yeah I found there was an amazing amount of loot hidden in the game. Oh theres a really epic piece of armor hidden in dragonspear castle the ghost sometimes tells you about.

Well, I wouldn't say nostalgia is blinding me since I'm only relatively new to the Baldur's Gate games. I've only started playing for a couple of months. I didn't have a computer that could run it when it came out.

As for the story, I felt that I liked that in every chapter it was linked. I knew I was wanted dead, but didn't know why as I was just a scamp, a stableboy from Candlekeep pretty much who dabbled in some kind of training. I liked that as our threat level increased so too did the bounty hunters. From pathetic mooks without armor or training wanting easy money to well-trained and equipped adventuring parties.

I liked the Iron Crises plot and how it tied together all the chapters to the reveal that Seravok wanted to cause a slaughter on a godly scale.

I just felt some aspects of the Siege of Dragonspear's main plot were kind of forced. Like having the choice during parley to go with Caelar only to have all your allies veto your choice no matter what. I felt that was kind of cheap.

I'm still enjoying Siege of Dragonspear. I just find myself enjoying the side content a bit more than the main story.

[Tyler Durden]

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

I liked that as our threat level increased so too did the bounty hunters. From pathetic mooks without armor or training wanting easy money to well-trained and equipped adventuring parties.

That was definitely one of my fav things about the original, too. Your bounty price also goes up quite a bit over time if you read the notices, which is a cool thing. Rahvin's party was probably my favourite encounter in the first game.

[Gustuv Wynd]

I was rather disappointed with that dragon in SoD...I had level up about as much as I could and buffed my characters with spells and potions. I took a deep breath and had my fighter attack. Hit pause and queued up a spells for my casters. Unpaused...and it died before most of the spells were finished casting.

[Dragon Master]

Originally posted by Gustuv Wynd:

I was rather disappointed with that dragon in SoD...I had level up about as much as I could and buffed my characters with spells and potions. I took a deep breath and had my fighter attack. Hit pause and queued up a spells for my casters. Unpaused...and it died before most of the spells were finished casting.

I looked up its stats. https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Morentherene

For those who can't be bothered.

Lvl: 14
Hit Points: 112
XP Value: 13,000

Str: 20 Dex: 16 Con: 19 Int: 12 Wis: 12 Cha: 12

Thaco: 6

AC: -1

One of the first spells it does in stoneskin. With the proper buffs and and spells (dispel magic or breach to cancel stoneskin) it goes down very, very fast under concentrated spellfire.

The real trick is to avoid getting poisoned or or have your character frightened.

[Godsarm]

Try using a Protection from Poison scroll, the green ones, for each party member. There's no sense in lugging them around and never using them. If you only use them on the front liner's, they'll get wing buffeted away and she'll target the rest of the party with her breath weapon.

[Godsarm]

Also, Remove Fear, Cleric Level 1 or Resist Fear, Mage Level 2 will stop the Dragon Fear effects.

[Dragon Master]

^_^ nice.

I didn't do any of that. I used Viconia and Edwin to summon a bunch of skeletons and monsters to fight up close while the whole party did range and spell damage.

[red255]

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

[

The real trick is to avoid getting poisoned or or have your character frightened.

Scrolls of protection from poison?

yeah only had trouble with this fight on Insane where there are ALOT more supporting wyverns.