User manual GAMES PC BALDUR S GATE

[. . . ] Table of Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Manual 1 The Game Guide Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 How to get Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Character Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Multiplayer Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Manual 2 Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate Part I: Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Overview of the Realms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 The Sword Coast. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Candlekeep. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Baldur's Gate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Beregost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 The Friendly Arm Inn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Power Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Major Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Monsters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Part II: Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 AD&D Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Character Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Combat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Experience and Gaining Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Character Attributes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Magic and the Spell System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Spells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Mage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Priest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Magical Items and Treasure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Credits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 1 Introduction Welcome to Baldur's Gate!ow that you've cracked open the box and are ready to slip that first CD into your computer, it seems like a good time to say welcome to Baldur's Gate and the AD&D 2nd Edition electronic game world. Right now there's probably two questions running through your mind what's this AD&D 2nd Edition thing and who's the guy writing this anyway?Baldur's Gate is a huge and varied computer role-playing game but the game didn't happen out of thin air. [. . . ] In addition to explaining the basic mechanics of hitting and missing, there are rules for turning undead, special ways to attack and defend, poison, heroic feats, and more. Remember that we follow a modified round based system as described below. Everyone (characters, NPC's, monsters) is on their own personal initiative rounds. Any time you want you can pause the game (click on the clock or hit the space bar) and assign commands then restart the game by unpausing, in the same way. Personal Initiative Round, Speed factors, and Casting times In Baldur's Gate, to allow for the realtime based combat and movement, each character and monster is on an independent personal initiative round, which is six seconds long. Within the personal initiative round, all of the rules of the AD&D game are used, including speed factors for weapons and casting time for spells. For higher level characters who can attack more than once per round with a given weapon, the speed factor of the weapon determines when exactly in the six second round the attacks will occur. Speed factors are numbers between 1 and 10 (indicating 1/10 of a round and 10/10ths of a round respectively for a character that can attack once per round with a weapon). Casting times for priests and wizards are exactly analogous to speed factors of weapons the casting times are between 1 and 10, and represent how quickly a mage or priest can release a spell (the lower the number, the faster the cast, just as for speed factors). 74 75 Initiative is determined by a combination of ability, situation, and chance. In Baldur's Gate initiative is used as a random variation on how quickly characters can initiate their attacks or spells. Armor provides protection by reducing the chance that a character is attacked successfully (and suffers damage). A fighter in full plate mail may be a slow-moving target, but penetrating his armor to cause any damage is no small task. Armor Class is measured on a scale from 10, the worst (no armor), to less than zero. The lower the number, the better (armor classes less than -10 occur only with very powerful magical armors). Abilities and situations can also affect a character's Armor Class. THACO is an acronym for "To Hit Armor Class 0. " This is the number a character, NPC, or monster needs to attack an Armor Class 0 target successfully. The THACO number can be used to calculate the number needed to hit any Armor Class. At the heart of the combat system is the Attack Roll, the die roll that determines whether an attack succeeds or fails. The number a player needs in order to make a successful attack roll is also called the "to hit" number, which is determined by the computer by taking a character's THACO and adjusting according to the Armor Class of the target. Attack rolls are used for attacks with swords, bows, rocks, and other weapons, as well as blows from fists, and other hand-to-hand attacks. In Baldur's Gate the "to hit" roll is done behind the scenes for you if your character is successful, he hits if not, he swings and misses. is subtracted from the THAC0, giving a "to hit" number of 13. If the fighter rolls a 13 or higher on the twenty-sided die, he hits successfully and does damage. Critical Hits and Misses If a character rolls a `natural' 20 to hit (that is, the attack roll before modifiers are applied is a 20) then a critical hit occurs and damage for that attack will be doubled. A roll of `natural' 1 is considered a critical miss and imposes a time penalty on the character to recover. [. . . ] If you would like information about obtaining a pay-for-play or commercial license to the Software, please call Interplay Productions in the US at (949) 553-6655. Acceptance of License Terms: By acquiring and retaining this Software, you assent to the terms and restrictions of this limited license. If you do not accept the terms of this limited license, you must return the Software together with all packaging, manuals and other material contained therein to the store where you acquired the Software for a full refund. LIMITED WARRANTY If the compact disc or floppy disk(s) should fail after the original 90-day warranty period has expired, you may return the software program to Interplay at the address noted below with a check or money order for $5. 00 (U. S. currency), which includes postage and handling, and Interplay will mail a replacement to you. [. . . ]