And so it ends. The Child of Bhaal series concludes with the kind of aplomb and narrative quality that have made Black Isle RPG's the new benchmark for their genre. Come the final battle the chances are that you'll be commanding six uber-mega characters of ridiculously high levels and sporting spells and abilities which would have made Irenicus tremble.

This godliness has always struck me as a little odd however, and a bit of a sour note to finish on. Firstly, being a demi-god, I guess it's fair enough that the main character gains such miraculous feats. However, can the same be said truly be said for his/her companions. I mean Elminster is generally listed to be of round about 20th level, Drizzt 16th as memory serves me right. This means that conceivably Jan Jansen and Minsc could become far more powerful than either of them by the end of the game. They're not demi-gods though, they're just pawns, drawn together by the presence of the Bhaal spawn. Perhaps it's just me, but sudden godly power lessens the impact of the finale to a great degree. You never truly believe that anything could come close to stopping you. Even the demogorgon is fundamentally beatable, and dragons seem like little more than oversized newts to be quashed, losing their 'oh my god we're all gonna fry' qualities of the original. I guess that what I'm trying to get at is that the Forgotten Realms theselves loses it's air of adventure in favour of throwing 'Diablo-esque' numbers at you. It's as though (in Disney style phrasing) the magics gone. Your men might as well be armed with kalashnikovs and mortars. Sigh. Oh for the days when the snarl of a gnoll or demonic laugh of a djinn sent a shiver down your spine.

Ah, perhaps I'm being over critical. The final chapter has a great storyline (as far as conservative 'he's the one' premises can get), and the increase in puzzles etc. is a welcome addition. And of course the new difficulty patches make things an awful lot tastier. But I still can't help thinking how much better things could have been, with a final fight which was truly awe-inspiring. <Sigh>. Anyone agree with my ranting or am I just being hyper-critical?

Baldurs Gate is a CRPG, so fundamentally it is all about ROLLPLAYING. I agree with you that you end up with huge amount of power... It only make sense that bhaalspawn itself to get all these powers, but your companions be that high powered is somewhat of a stretch for me. Then again, bhaalspawn saga does not even exist in the actual forgetton realms series... To many timeline/event and conflicts for it to actually exist. Anywoot. I find it rather ridiculous that elminster came up to you and said he was afraid to even face you himself. Considering the bugger is like 1000 yearsold!! Here i'll give you the jist of his stats,

Elminster: (sorry its in 3e but the conversation is easy)
male human (CHosen of Mystra) Ftr1/Rog2/Clr3/Wiz20/Acm5/Epic4
Str:13, Dex:18, Con:24, int:24, Wis: 18, Cha:17.

so basically he is really level 35. He get tons of crazy spell like ability from mystra!! oh well, i wont say anymore because it belongs in another forum.

conclusion: yes, you end up too powerful in ToB!

People will have a hard time playing NWN after having all those powerful abilities gone! PLus NWN is 3e!

I even felt guilty about being too powerful, and having stats that were too high. I mean I rolled realy awesome stats and I played through from TotSC meaning there was one tome for each stat except wisdom where you can get three tomes. Thats not to include the permenant stat bounses you can pick up in ToB. After all theses additions your stats well mine anyway are way out there, top all your nifty powers and the rest of it on there and you are pretty damm powerful.
But using the NWN point buy system won't stats become even higher in the longrun??

[This message has been edited by jbigdaddy (edited January 22, 2002).]

Play insane difficulty with the Acsension add-on and improved, tougher bosses and then we'll see how guilty you feel :p.

jbigdaddy, No if you played the 3e PnP the point buy system works fine, ie plus its not all even when you buy stuff. ie, it's not a uniform point buy, because having 18 ability jumps up the point buy. However, if you play the multiplayer NWN which is what it is ment to be, the DM will put restrictions on... if he is a good DM, so no room for rollplayers, just roleplayesr. However, i guess you can do whatever you want int he single player mode.