Originally Posted by Boblawblah
on a semi-related note, been playing through BG 1 ee and man, sometimes adhering strictly to d&d rules is AWFUL. Fear? Poison? If you're not prepared ahead of time for those kinds of encounters, they're character/party killing situations. The Fear actually lasts a minute of real time(give or take some amount of seconds). so your character is just running around the map for a solid minute, aggroing everything on that map. I had one encounter where my party collected a conga line of like 20 enemies while they were feared. Also, poison lasts FOREVER, so if you dont have an antidote or a spell, you're done.

Those things work well on the tabletop game, but are awful in video-game form.

I don't think I'd call that "awful in video-game form". The fear effects are fairly easy to handle with a level 1 spell that has a long enough duration to cover you for an entire map. The poison is a bigger issue, especially at low levels, but emphasize the need for preparation.

I definitely struggled with the ettercaps and spiders in the Cloakwood on my first playthrough in 1998... but on subsequent play throughs I brought lots of antidotes and it just wasn't a problem then.

I like a game that rewards careful preparation. It would be a shame to lose that.