Well, you could have fun with Cliff Racers.

On default difficulty, if you just want to get rid of them, just create an item with a Drain Health 45 points effect on use, which is just enough to kill regular Cliff Racers.

On the other hand, you could, say, create a spell that absorbs health in a large area, shoot it at a swarm of Cliff Racers, and you will be rapidly healed (even if the spell's magnitude is low). Or, absorb speed from the swarm and run away at high speed.

Or, hit them with a short duration levitate spell, which will take away their ability to fly when it wears off, causing airborne cliff racers to fall and possibly die from the fall damage. (Disclaimer: I did have the game crash once when I did this in a populated area.) The Cliff Racer will still look like it's flying (because that's the only animation they have), but will behave as though they're not.

Also, don't forget that Racer Plums (guess which enemy drops them) can be used to make Levitate potions.

Yes, that is exactly while putting things intricate factors within a system/gameplay element into numbers to compare it with other established values can make a game of what was previously broken from the ways you describe.

And there are like a million ways that you can improve these two systems so they feel more fluent together. Look at Men of War: Assault Squad GOTY Edition as an example of a almost perfect genre blend. So good in fact that its becoming a little bit difficult to destinguish between the genres that define the game and just see one genre. If a programmer spends a year or so making up a principle to quantify the quality of any set gameplayelement through values the entire team can use such a thing to streamline development, kinda like business management that holds everything together but for the game and its elements instead. I'm fairly sure that some AAA game devs may already use at least similar system of what I'm describing already. I remember a gamedev video about Ubisoft and they did quite a similar thing back in 2012/2013.

This only stems from my understanding of sandboxing when it comes to experiment with gameplay elements though. If something feels off, you still have those numbers you can orientate yourself with so game developers can find the best sweetspot of a gameplay element. (aka: is that sword hitting with the right "oomph"?)

However, if the lead designer themselve doesn't want to change anything and the game seems ripped apart by its own gameplay elements too harshly (which leads to the game becoming too "erratic" in its presentation, ripping the player out from their suspense of disbelieve and knowledge/understanding of the game) than the game is indeed undoubtly fucked :D! Some games do this sort of thing right though, like the X series, which has many different cluttered UI elements but the game also enables players to approach the game in ways that they want to play.

I tell myself the same thing to. Maybe one day...
Thanks for this and the other tips. If I do have time to get back to play it one day, I'll keep these in mind.

I've been doing the same the last few years too. :) When I finally beat the original BG (after several restarts over a decade or so, abandoning the game several times), I proceeded to play and finish IWD, BG2, and now IWD2 is pretty near the end I guess (I think there is one more chapter after this,6 chapters?).

Last but not least, I'm going to play Planescape Torment. Really looking forward to it, let's see how much I enjoy it (people praise its story, but frankly I seem to enjoy the most the combat in Infinity-engine games, like the tactical battles in IWD 1-2...).

Not sure what after that. Neverwinter Nights games, Arcanum etc.

Yes, 6 chapters.

Do think you'll be disappointed if you go into PS:T looking for good combat though.

And both NWN and Arcanum are good follow-ups, but in different ways. If you can deal with the bugs and are willing to step away from D&D rules and related lore, as a game, definitely Arcanum. But NWN has D&D rules and lore, if that's what you're after, and can draw you in early on and then maybe again all the way in HotU if you get there, but in between, once the fact that the original campaign was really just a method to show off the capabilities of the editor really strikes you, and mostly through SoU as well, it's not much to write home about.

I get the impression that the combat in that game is still better than the combat in Ultima 7.

Oh Planescape Torment is pretty incredible. The writing and especially music is phenomenal. However the gameplay is very much still the same, for better or worse :P Still, I envy you that PS:T is all that stands between you and a completely playthrough of all the infinity engine games:)

I bounced off of Arcanum pretty hard (I think the game was just too massive for me and I wounded up getting bored off my ridiculously powerful gunslinger character) but did manage to finish Neverwinter Nights. If you want to check out the latter then please learn from my mistake: don't build a character focusing on critical hits and sneak attacks. A significant portion of the enemies in the first expansion are immune to both crits and sneak attacks!

But if you're taking suggestions, how about Wasteland 2:DC if you haven't played Fallout 1 and 2 yet (I seem to recall you playing Fallout tactics at some point?) It kind feels like a mix between neverwinter nights and fallout, which somehow, miraculously works briliantly

About the gameplay, some months ago I recall reading someone complaining about Icewind Dale 2 how it constantly has battles which require lots of attention, planning etc. To me however, that is exactly what makes these RPGs interesting, the difficult fights which require some planning like which spells to use, how to approach the fights (like whether use lots of summoned creatures or area damage spells etc.).

I guess to me these RPGs are a bit like RTS games, tactical combat simulations. I don't care as much about the story or lack there-of, even if I did enjoy the story and characters in e.g. Baldur's Gate 2.

I've finished Fallout 1-2 and Tactics(modded version) and was planning to proceed to Fallout 3 & New Vegas at some point.

Other RPG series that I am supposed to go through is Gothic/Risen/Arcania/ELEX. So far I've finished only the first Gothic game, I enjoyed it overall. I just bought ELEX a couple of days ago. :)

Elder Scrolls is on a limbo for me. Finished Arena, I got stuck in Daggerfall (those damn mazy dungeons) and not sure whether to try to continue it or abandon it and proceed to Morrowind etc. Not sure if I'd end up with similar issues with the later games. Then again, as I don't have Skyrim yet, proceeding with that series is not high priority at the moment as my series is incomplete anyway (ie. I'd have to stop at Oblivion anyway).

Thanks for the tip for NWN. When starting a new RPG, I usually check some FAQ to make sure I don't make any grave mistakes in character creation and development, like how in e.g. Gothic 1 concentrating on archery is a bad idea (while apparently in later games it is a viable route).

The problem with mazy dungeons goes away after Daggerfall. Morrowind's dungeons, from what I can tell, are rather small, and Oblivion has a nice usable automap in them (and they're still not even close to the size of complexity of Daggerfal's dungeons).

Honestly, I think I prefer RPGs that are designed in such a way that it's not possible to make grave mistakes, or that grave mistakes are easily fixable (for example, replacing your characters with new ones at the guild, using a growth system that doesn't make it harder to learn new tricks later on (SaGa games are often a good example of this, though not always perfect, and Final Fantasy 2 also happens to be a good example), or simply offering few or no choices in character growth (Dragon Quest 1 and 2, also DQ4/5 (though you can choose your party in those games, and it's easily changeable), Final Fantasy 4 (2D versions only)).

Absolutely, that really should be a must, to not end up with a character / party that just can't advance anymore, with no way to fix it on the go.

And it's something that modern RPGs tend to fail at. In particular, skill points systems run into this issue; at higher levels, it's harder to gain levels and hence harder to get more skill points, so you can't easily develop a skill that you've ignored throughout the game and that turns out to be rather important.

Incidentally, one of the games I mentioned that handles this better, Final Fantasy 2, is known for having some serious game design and balance issues. In particular, having poor evasion will make the endgame extremely frustrating, but you can fix that by removing your armor, giving everyone shields (buy some if you got rid of the ones you found), and then just spend time leveling up your shield skill, which doesn't take that long when your skill level is low. It doesn't matter if your other skills and stats are high; you can still raise your shield skil level easily if it's low.

If the game used a modern skill point system (and let's assume the game doesn't have a respec feature, and there's no level draining or similar mechanic), then you would have to level up to get more skill points to raise your shield skill. Unfortunately, if you are already at a high level, doing so would require a lot of experience points, and if you're at the level cap, would not even be possible.