BG 2 bugs? And question about difficulty.

Heindrich

I am playing BG 2 Complete from GOG. No mods.

A few things I've noticed... not sure if intended.

1) All the wands I've picked up so far seem to only have 1 charge, and are worth less than scrolls. -.-

2) My charname was wearing Ring of Magery when I imported him from BG EE. Of course he no longer has the ring, but he still has 8 lv1 spells memorised. I thought he'd lose them after I rest, but it seems he is retaining them. I guess that's a bug and I should manually remove the 4 excess spells?

3) My charname had a familiar on him when I imported him at the end of BG EE. I think BG 2 assumed that his xx hp was his base hp, so he retained his hp and obviously does not have a familiar anymore (so can summon another) so if I want his correct hp, I should download Shadowkeeper and remove 6 hp stats?

Edit: Update. I just downloaded Shadowkeeper to try to reduce my charname's hp by 6. He has 94 currently, which feels too high to be right. However, in Shadowkeeper, it says his base hp is 64 (?!). Now I am afraid to change anything encase it messes up my game. Any ideas why this is?

Wisp

Heindrich1988 said:

1) All the wands I've picked up so far seem to only have 1 charge, and are worth less than scrolls. -.-

The wands you find in the first dungeon should have 1 charge each, if it's them you are referring to.

Heindrich1988 said:

2) My charname was wearing Ring of Magery when I imported him from BG EE. Of course he no longer has the ring, but he still has 8 lv1 spells memorised. I thought he'd lose them after I rest, but it seems he is retaining them. I guess that's a bug and I should manually remove the 4 excess spells?

Do you mean actually memorised or 8 spell slots? If it's the former, it's a known problem with losing a spell-slot-boosting item. Any extra spells remain memorised, by you will be unable to re-memorise them after they have been cast. You can unmemorise them manually if you wish to correct it.

Heindrich1988 said:

3) My charname had a familiar on him when I imported him at the end of BG EE. I think BG 2 assumed that his xx hp was his base hp, so he retained his hp and obviously does not have a familiar anymore (so can summon another) so if I want his correct hp, I should download Shadowkeeper and remove 6 hp stats?

That's basically a known problem. The BG2 import routine does not deal well with familiars, since there were none in BG1.

Heindrich1988 said:

Edit: Update. I just downloaded Shadowkeeper to try to reduce my charname's hp by 6. He has 94 currently, which feels too high to be right. However, in Shadowkeeper, it says his base hp is 64 (?!). Now I am afraid to change anything encase it messes up my game. Any ideas why this is?

HP from CON is applied at runtime. It is not stored in your saved game.

Heindrich

Wisp said:

Heindrich1988 said:

1) All the wands I've picked up so far seem to only have 1 charge, and are worth less than scrolls. -.-

The wands you find in the first dungeon should have 1 charge each, if it's them you are referring to.

Heindrich1988 said:

2) My charname was wearing Ring of Magery when I imported him from BG EE. Of course he no longer has the ring, but he still has 8 lv1 spells memorised. I thought he'd lose them after I rest, but it seems he is retaining them. I guess that's a bug and I should manually remove the 4 excess spells?

Do you mean actually memorised or 8 spell slots? If it's the former, it's a known problem with losing a spell-slot-boosting item. Any extra spells remain memorised, by you will be unable to re-memorise them after they have been cast. You can unmemorise them manually if you wish to correct it.

Heindrich1988 said:

3) My charname had a familiar on him when I imported him at the end of BG EE. I think BG 2 assumed that his xx hp was his base hp, so he retained his hp and obviously does not have a familiar anymore (so can summon another) so if I want his correct hp, I should download Shadowkeeper and remove 6 hp stats?

That's basically a known problem. The BG2 import routine does not deal well with familiars, since there were none in BG1.

Heindrich1988 said:

Edit: Update. I just downloaded Shadowkeeper to try to reduce my charname's hp by 6. He has 94 currently, which feels too high to be right. However, in Shadowkeeper, it says his base hp is 64 (?!). Now I am afraid to change anything encase it messes up my game. Any ideas why this is?

HP from CON is applied at runtime. It is not stored in your saved game.

Thanks.

1) I thought I did pick up a new wand outside the dungeon, but I'm not 100% sure. I'll pay more attention for wands later. So after the prison, future wands should have more charges right?

2) The spell slots are gone, but there's 4 extra memorised spells that I can still use, and after each rest session, the 4 extra spells are still there.

3) I see... so if I set a new hp through Shadowkeeper, say 88, will that overide my current hp? And will it affect my future hp gain as I level up?

On a related point about hp... Whilst watching the Let's Play series I mentioned earlier, I realised that 'Normal' difficulty is actually kinda an easy mode, cos u will never get chunked and always successfully memorise scrolls... which makes my charname's exceptional intelligence completely pointless. My party's hp levels are also starting to get absurdly high (except for poor Aerie)... and I think it'd be a bit weird for a party of human-sized characters to have 300+ hp. Minsc is already on 91, and gained 11 last level, so I am guessing he will hit 300-ish by level 30?!

SO... I am thinking about switching it to Core Rules. But aside from hp rolls, learning scrolls and getting chunked (I reload if I lose a character most of the time anyway cos I can't fit all their gear on somebody else.)... is there anything else that would make Core Rules too difficult for a non-power gaming noob like me?

SionIV

1.) The only wands with 1 charge are from Irenicus Dungeon.

zur312

no on level 1-9 or 1-10 characters gain their dice hp + con on levels above they gain 3 hp for fighters 2 hp for non fighters and 1 hp for mages i think

example
level 9 dwarf fighter max hp 15*9=135
level 10 dwarf fighter max hp 15*9+3=138

Wisp

Heindrich1988 said:

2) The spell slots are gone, but there's 4 extra memorised spells that I can still use, and after each rest session, the 4 extra spells are still there.

Are the spells still memorised if you cast them and then rest?

Heindrich1988 said:

3) I see... so if I set a new hp through Shadowkeeper, say 88, will that overide my current hp? And will it affect my future hp gain as I level up?

If you change your HP with SK, it's just that. You gain HP normally from there on. It's just added to whatever HP you gave yourself with SK. But if 94 is your HP with CON and 64 is the HP displayed in SK, you'd want to give yourself 58 HP instead. The HP you get from CON will be added on-top. SK creates copies of your saves and you can always experiment until you get it right.

Heindrich1988 said:

On a related point about hp... Whilst watching the Let's Play series I mentioned earlier, I realised that 'Normal' difficulty is actually kinda an easy mode, cos u will never get chunked and always successfully memorise scrolls... which makes my charname's exceptional intelligence completely pointless. My party's hp levels are also starting to get absurdly high (except for poor Aerie)... and I think it'd be a bit weird for a party of human-sized characters to have 300+ hp. Minsc is already on 91, and gained 11 last level, so I am guessing he will hit 300-ish by level 30?!

SO... I am thinking about switching it to Core Rules. But aside from hp rolls, learning scrolls and getting chunked (I reload if I lose a character most of the time anyway cos I can't fit all their gear on somebody else.)... is there anything else that would make Core Rules too difficult for a non-power gaming noob like me?

Core is basically normal. It's what corresponds to Normal in BG1 (and the internal name of Normal in BG2 is EASY, with Easy being EASIEST). There is nothing in Core that makes the game harder, just an absence of things that make the game easier. But your INT is not wasted even if you continue to play on Normal. The number of spells you can know varies with your INT. If you have less than 19 INT, you can't learn as many spells as you could otherwise (unless you raise you INT to >= 19 first).

HP does not continue to climb however. Starting after level 9 or 10 (it varies with class), you start gaining fixed amounts of HP each level (3 at most; it also varies with class). High end-game HP amounts are around 200, or a bit less (if memory serves).

SionIV

You might feel like you have alot of health but when you start fighting dragons, golems, statues and such you'll start wishing for even more health. An adamantite golem with great Thac0 and hitting you for 30 damage a hit will quickly destroy minsc. Most dragons in the game will destroy your fighters even when you're drinking potions. A horrid wilting can remove 90 damage from your whole party so Aerie and Viconia would instantly die and the rest would be almost dead aswell.

Heindrich

Wisp said:

Are the spells still memorised if you cast them and then rest?

I think so. I made my escape through starting dungeon, including the weird alternate dimension plane, without resting, so more or less unloaded all my spells for all the battles you fight down there.

Wisp said:

If you change your HP with SK, it's just that. You gain HP normally from there on. It's just added to whatever HP you gave yourself with SK. But if 94 is your HP with CON and 64 is the HP displayed in SK, you'd want to give yourself 58 HP instead.

Any idea how my hp got so much higher than it 'should be'? Does BG EE have a different hp system to BG 2? I thought BG EE used the BG 2 system. Since I can play around with hp without messing up anything else, I'll probably set it to a compromise number around 70, about the same as Jaheira. I am a Fighter/Mage afterall.

I think I'll switch it to Core Rules and see how I fare. The main difficulty I have encountered are enemy casters that use Horror/Confusion type cc spells, causing me to lose control of my party, so hopefully I won't miss the extra hp too much.

SionIV

What is your constitution?

[Edited] :

Mages have D4
Rogues have D6

You'll have + health for constitution.

3-6 constitution : -1 Health = 3 health per level
7-14 constitution : 0 health = 4 health per level
15 constitution : +1 health = 5 health per level
16-25 constitution : +2 health = 6 health per level

For mages and rogues you should get this until level 10 where you get +1 health per level afterwards.

Level 10 mage (7-14 constitution) = 40 health
Level 10 mage (15 constitution) = 50 health
Level 10 mage (16-25 constitution) = 60 health

I might have a fault or two here but i'm pretty sure it should be like that with maximum health per level.

Heindrich

SionIV said:

What is your constitution?

It was 16 to begin with, I found a tome to raise it to 17 for BG EE. At the start of BG 2, I deliberately summoned a familiar and got it killed, so back down to 16.

SionIV said:

You might feel like you have alot of health but when you start fighting dragons, golems, statues and such you'll start wishing for even more health. An adamantite golem with great Thac0 and hitting you for 30 damage a hit will quickly destroy minsc. Most dragons in the game will destroy your fighters even when you're drinking potions. A horrid wilting can remove 90 damage from your whole party so Aerie and Viconia would instantly die and the rest would be almost dead aswell.

I am hoping that there are ways to get around that... and I remember reading that you don't have to fight dragons until ToB...

With the hp thing it's all about getting the right balance. My charname is supposed to be a fast/skilful fighter, but not the tanky man-mountain type. So I try to maximise his AC so he doesn't get hit so much, but if he did, it SHOULD feel painful, which is why I was getting concerned that he had more hp than Keldorn and Minsc.

SionIV

SoA : 4 dragons (You only have to fight 1)
ToB : 3 dragons (You have to fight 2)

[Edited] :

Fighter : D10
Mage : D4
16 Constitution : +2

You get half the health per level and the constitution bonus.

So you get 5 health + 2 for every fighter level and 2 + 2 for every mage level.

9 fighter = 63 health
10 mage = 40 health

103 health if you're multi classed F/M 9/10

I might have something wrong here but it should be correct.

Heindrich

SionIV said:

SoA : 4 dragons (You only have to fight 1)
ToB : 3 dragons (You have to fight 2)

I see... hmmm I guess this game does get a lot harder. Not that it's a walk in the park for me right now. But as I said, my main problem right now is enemy magic, not pure damage, so I feel it's something I can deal with by improving my use of magic.

I am really curious how that weak Wild Wage in the Let's Play series managed to get around all these challenges. Her stats really does make my Fighter/Mage look OP lol. I won't watch ahead though cos I don't wanna get spoiler'd.

SionIV

You can run around with a sorceror / wild mage with 3 in all stats while naked and still complete the whole game.

Heindrich

SionIV said:

You can run around with a sorceror / wild mage with 3 in all stats while naked and still complete the whole game.

lol... I guess it might be done if you know the metagame well... but this guy is clearly a noob too. In his first notable battle, he casted 'Entangle' to try to stop a golem, but only succeeded in trapping Jaheira, as well as the Gnoll he summoned.

He is scouting ahead and approaching every encounter with far more caution and preparation than me though. But then he kinda has to when his charname has 28 hp.

SionIV

You should go for 3 steps when you go into a fight

1.) Position

You should position your group so that your tanks are first and your casters / rogues are furthest back. This is very important and will save you when you're in the difficult fights

2.) Buffs

You should look at every character and the buffs you need. If you have a divine caster then you probably want DuHM and protection from evil, chaotic command, death ward and other spells you want to have on you for every fight. If you're a mage then you want Blur, mirror image, stoneskin, improved invinsibility and your other buffs before going into a fight. It takes time but it will make fights MUCH easier.

3.) Look at the enemy.

Is it a dragon? If so what dragon type is it? If it's a red dragon you want to buff up with fire protection and make sure you're immune to fear. Is it a golem? Then you want your mage with buffs forward to take the hits and then use your fighters to beat them down. If it's a clay golem you want to use crushing weapons to deal damage and if it's mage heavy you want to use keldorn to dispel the enemy of their magic buffs.

Position -> Buffs -> Preparation for spesific enemy. This is the reason most people start using SCS and other difficult enhancing mods because it makes the enemy smarter and harder to anticipate and fight.

Heindrich

SionIV said:

You should go for 3 steps when you go into a fight

1.) Position

You should position your group so that your tanks are first and your casters / rogues are furthest back. This is very important and will save you when you're in the difficult fights

2.) Buffs

You should look at every character and the buffs you need. If you have a divine caster then you probably want DuHM and protection from evil, chaotic command, death ward and other spells you want to have on you for every fight. If you're a mage then you want Blur, mirror image, stoneskin, improved invinsibility and your other buffs before going into a fight. It takes time but it will make fights MUCH easier.

3.) Look at the enemy.

Is it a dragon? If so what dragon type is it? If it's a red dragon you want to buff up with fire protection and make sure you're immune to fear. Is it a golem? Then you want your mage with buffs forward to take the hits and then use your fighters to beat them down. If it's a clay golem you want to use crushing weapons to deal damage and if it's mage heavy you want to use keldorn to dispel the enemy of their magic buffs.

Position -> Buffs -> Preparation for spesific enemy. This is the reason most people start using SCS and other difficult enhancing mods because it makes the enemy smarter and harder to anticipate and fight.

Yeah I think I am improving. I no longer just charge in screaming hoping for the best lol. My current approach is to sneak up with Yoshimo to find out what I'm up against. Then cast Improved Invisibility (among other buffs) and open the attack with Web from Aerie and Cloud-kill from Charname.

Knowledge is a huge part of this game (which is a good thing). I don't play D&D, so I'd have no idea how a flesh golem might be different to admantium golem (though the latter sure does sound a lot harder lol), and I cannot tell you how many times I've been caught out by my own spells cos I misjudged their range of effect (yards is kinda hard to work out in a computer game world!), or made mistakes that must seem stupid to an experienced player. Worst one I did in BG EE was spending a good 10mins buffing my party up with various potions and spells, charge in, cast a 'Dispel' to remove enemy caster's protection spells... only to totally debuff most of my party -.-