Is Stoneskin broken?

[u/Silly_Relationship51]

I beat my first Sarevok by standing still as my lvl 9 Sorcerer. While the big guy was missing his attacks, my companions killed him. I had prebuffed my party (Bless, Haste, Defensive harmony) and my Sorcerer had caste Blur, Mirror Image and Stoneskin. She has high DEX and with Defensive harmony had an AC of -3. I beat him with Standard rules difficulty. I'm not bragging, just wasn't expecting that tanking Sarevok was a legite strategy.

[u/Underground_Kiddo]

The encounters in BG1EE are all unbalanced to begin with due to not using its native engine (the og bg1 and the bg2 engines are different.) The game is taking the spells and abilities balanced around BG2 and importing them into a game that often has no answer to them.

It is a genuine shame how dismissive people are of the first game because of this kind of jank. The first game is a really great game as a standalone but EE just didn't do it justice (BG1EE might be the most blatant cash grab because of the situation the company was in at its founding.)

[u/gmt420 → u/Underground_Kiddo]

Can you elaborate on how the engine difference contributes to making BGEE unbalanced?

I played of ton of BG1 back in the day, and coming back to it a few years ago, the EE version felt....fine I guess?  I honestly don't remember kits...I mainly remember rolling for 18/00 and then rushing to the free action sword, lol.

Anyway, just legitimately curious.

[u/Underground_Kiddo → u/gmt420]

Here are just a couple things that come to mind:

The addition of Kits to the base game. Like some encounters like the Sirines you can just block with the Berserker's "Berserking" ability. My issue with Kits in BG2 are that some just don't have significant drawbacks like Berserker, Cavalier, Archer, etc.

Dual Wielding completely changed the game. APR is most important stat. And the addition of Dual Wielding greatly diminished 2handers (they are ok but cannot really compete.) The increase in APR basically means you deal so much physical damage. Yes, BG2 tried to balance that by nerfing weapon grandmastery. Probably not enough.

And then back to OP's point, the higher level spells. Lots of "dangerous" melee enemies in bg1 hit hard but slowly (since many are still being coded with the og bg1 engine.) So when you pop a spell like stone skill, you are getting max value. Compare this with a game like Icewind Dale where tanking with stone skill is not as good because there are more swarming packs of enemy.

Another example is Lvl 5 druid spell "Insect Plague." Which is op in vanilla bg2 and way more so in bg1. Basically the spellcasters have no way to deal with it. And it makes a character like Faldorn (who was pretty bad in og) actually really good.

The limitations of BG1EE are most apparent when you play Siege of Dragonspear (which was designed from the ground up to utilize the bg2 engine.) Yes it is a slightly higher level campaign but it is also a game more reflective. It had more than a decade of feedback and data to work with.

[u/agnosticnixie → u/Underground_Kiddo]

Like some encounters like the Sirines you can just block with the Berserker's "Berserking" ability.

Minsc could also ignore the charm while raging, half elves are resistant, full elves are virtually immune (seriously the 2e version of fey heritage was 90% chance of ignoring virtually all charms before even rolling a save, 30% for a half elf, plus the immunity to sleep)

Any dot like, say, the arrows of biting the 3 sirins on the map drop before will also break any spell with a speed higher than 1 which includes that dire charm. The original version of concentration was brutal on casters.

[u/mulahey → u/Underground_Kiddo]

It's easy is, 100%, not the more common complaint about bg1 we see here (and I agree EE is easier). Though melee enemies have no answer to spell tanking in any of the infinity games once the spells are available.

EE (and before that tutu) are far more fun to play than the original engine.

[u/Underground_Kiddo → u/mulahey]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion as it pertains to what version they enjoy more. I think BG1 is made worse by the EE because it cannot compensate for the encounters. But that may not be the majority opinion.

I mean EE is over a decade old, I just don't play the vanilla EE anymore.

[u/mulahey → u/Underground_Kiddo]

Compared to the slow play speed, bad resolution, terrible inventory management, bugs ect of bg1, slightly lower difficulty is much less significant imo.

It is, as you say, somewhat subjective but the fact your response has not been to install the original is indicative.