The Dev Team Thinks of Everything/Baldur's Gate

• In Baldur's Gate (1 & 2), it is more than possible that a devious player may have killed a character before they have divulged plot specific information. In these cases, a robed character named "Biff the Understudy" will appear and say the required lines.
  • In part 2, Biff the Understudy gets a real role as he is asked to replace the lead actor of a troupe who has been kidnapped (thus giving you the quest to rescue him). Naturally, Biff stinks up the whole play with his wooden, talentless performance.
  • Furthermore, Baldur's Gate II features the character Arkanis Gath, who will appear and instantly kill off your party if you for some idiotic reason attack a plot-sensitive NPC and make it impossible to proceed with the main story. You can't save once he appears either, so it keeps you from screwing up.
• Also in Baldur's Gate II, if the player is an elf named Drizzt with low reputation, then when you meet the actual Drizzt Do'urden he'll challenge the player for the honor of his name.
  • Likewise, if, in BG1, the player kills Drizzt and takes his loot, he'll recognize it as his when and if he meets the player in the sequel. He'll also be much more hostile than normal.
• A sidequest in the first dungeon of BG2 gives a + 2 greatsword as the reward which the item description identifies as Sarevok's weapon from the previous game, greatly depowered by his death. Keeping hold of it until you can recruit Sarevok in ToB (long past the point where it's been superseded by better weapons) nets the player some extra dialogue and repowers it to a respectable Infinity-1 Sword.
  • This one is a case of the dev team thinking of it after the fact. It's not in the vanilla game, but in the Ascension mod David Gaider helped make after the game was released.
• During a heavy rainstorm, there's a chance a party member wearing plate or full plate will be struck by lightning. Very surprising the first time it happens to you.
• Though BG2 is designed to be played with a party of six, there are a few (though not many) places where the developers acknowledge that there can be solo playthroughs, for example when you are dragged down to hell it says somethings along the line of "as you fall, you feel a force pulling around you. If others had fought with you, they might have been dragged down as well, but you are alone."
• In the expansion, Forgotten Realms historian Volothamp Geddarm will offer to read a profile on any of your party members. A character traveling alone has the option to say "Clearly I'm not traveling with anyone," or something along those lines.
• In the first Baldur's Gate, your party will encounter a pair of assassins early on who will issue a threat and then walk away and disappear from the zone. They are strong enough that they will usually be able to get away even if your party attempts to engage them. Later, one shows up again with the news that he managed to secretly poison your main character, trigging a timed mini-quest to get the antidote before the poison ends the game. Trying to kill the poisoner when he shows up again will effectively break finding the cure, making the game Unwinnable. However, if your party is able to deal sufficient damage to kill both of the characters at their first meeting (multiple wands of fire and necklaces of missiles help substantially), the quest will never be triggered (not even by a Biff the Understudy).

---

Back to The Dev Team Thinks of Everything