in 30 or so runs of BG1/BG2 in a time lapse of about 10 years, I've never played with NPCs in my party... I have always either solo'ed or multi-char'ed (6 customs).
It's a terrible thing I know. I'm fully aware I'm missing the incredible banter, interactions, quests and romances... but the rare times I tried having a NPC party it should felt like they didn't ... "belong" to me, then they eventually infected me with restartitis
There are a lot of sections of areas that I pretty much never ever go to in Baldur's Gate 1, so even though I've been playing the game for an extremely long time, I occasionally discover things that I should've discovered long before. For example, I never knew that there was a nobleman's house in the northeast corner of Nashkel until I added a mod that revealed the map of Nashkel and other town areas.
* I never romance any NPC. I think the dialogues are rather boring and bland and it doesn't appeal to me. * I never sleep unless fatigued/completely drained of energy/spells/HP. Trying to keep it at least fairly 'realistic' * I use up all healing spells befire sleeping/resting * I usually go into encounters unbuffed, unless I've died a couple of times in an area a bit to tough for my party and I want to push on without re-routing to another area before. * I try to RP proficiences as much as possible, ie small weapons for shorties and most rogues. I'm a bit influenced by 3E here as well with the different groups of weaponry for different classes and races there. * I use ctrl-j alot. I mean ridiculously alot. If my party is just slightly scattered and ctrl-j rather than walk one character to reach the rest of the group. * I plan to go solo or minimal party almost every playthrough but end up with a 6 man party anyways, 'cause there's just too many cool ones. * I like female charnames and NPC's, 'cause girl power. * I avoid playing human since I think it's the least interresting race in all fantasy settings. * I avoid playing fighters since I think it's the least interresting class in all fantasy settings. * I usually make CHARNAME strong, stat-wise, but tend to give NPC's the best equipment to create a balanced team. No party IRL would like to have a hoarding leader who stole all the best loot and left the other ones vunerable. This means the party spends equal amount of gold on all party-members rather than focusing on making one or two armed to the teeth while the rest are dressed in rags. * My mages always carry the scrollcase/scrolls, my clerics the potioncase/potions and my thief the gembag and gems. Fighters carry the arms and armour. CHARNAME carries quest specific items and the bag of holding.
* And lastly, I tend to try sticking to the CHARNAME alignment, but sometimes I RP that ie Jan couldn't keep his fingers in his own pockets so even when CHARNAME is a paladin goody-two-shoes, we loot and steal alot of shit. I RP Jan approaching CHARNAME by the bonfire, laying down teh lootz in front of him and with the classical Jensen voice telling a long, long story of how he just inherited all of these items from a dead uncle and how they were just delivered by a wyvern flying into camp with a bag of holding in it's beek while CHARNAME was out in the bushes peeing.
I try to avoid going thiefless as much as possible. Some traps are just way too annoying for me to tolerate. Plus, forcing locks with STR is way harder than it should be.
I believe this was written in the description of vanilla baldurs gate but never implemented. Bgee removed the writing rather than making the pnp rules stick here.
Ah, you're right. Upon looking closer, that mod is installed in my supposedly unmodded version. I knew I shouldn't have let my ex-boyfriend borrow my computer. Now I'm concerned that there's other things he changed...but anyhow, thanks for letting me know!
5) I am of the opinion that the Bhaalspawn should have superb stats (but not all 18s for example). They're above average DnD characters. Their Bhaal essence should at least influenced their natural stats like Sarevok's.
Using average or not rerolling/adjusting stats, actually seems less believable to me. They're not average hero Joes/Janes. They're literally children of a deity, their stats should reflect that. Especially when other NPCs have superb stats.
I understand doing it when people want to challenge themselves but for a "serious" playthrough, it makes less sense to me to not have amazing stats to reflect your heritage.
1. I play with a CHAR who has a overall score of 90, but don't max his primary stats. My Kensai-Thief has a 15/19/15/14/13/14 distribution. A sword saint with the physique of an Ogre? No thanks. I like the thought of him drawing his strength from grace and speed, even though the game mechanics don't really support it. 2. I change his alignment to CG via Keeper, because of the I like their Bhaal power selection the most. However, my behaviour in the game is CN. Why not just going with CN, and giving my Char CG Bhaal powers via Keeper, especially since I'm not shy to make various other adjustments like giving Imoen the 10 levels of Swashbuckler she had in my BG1 games? I have no idea 3. I'm a collector of unique armor and weapons. Everything with a name and story won't be sold. I even buy armors and weapons I'm never going to use, and have them them improved by Cromwell or Cesp, if possible. 4. In SoA, I store all said equipment by type in my Thief Stronghold, in the section with the many false doors on the first floor. I have a different locker for everything. 5. I always end up with the same group of Minsc, Jaheira(replaced by Sarevok in ToB), Viconia, Edwin and Imoen. However, it's always heartwrenching when I have to give my temporary NPCs like Jan, Korgan, Nalia and Mazzy the boot. I never strip them naked or take their personal equipment, and even buy decent replacement gear for the things I like to keep, before leaving them. 6. I try to play with as few rests as possible, even with nearly exhausted spellbooks. However, I cannot start bigger questlines before that damned quartermaster shows up in my guild to collect his money. The result is me sometimes spending 3 or 4 days in my guild getting the party drunk doing nothing else. 7. I like having challenges in my game, so I play with SCS, some aTweaks components and Ascension. However, I *always* kill Illasera via Time Trap->Kai->Assasination, before she can even draw her weapons. I do it at the start of ToB, and I do it at the pools again. Stupid bitch, feels soooo satisfying to chunk her in one hit. I reload, if I don't chunk her on the first hit.
Why don't you just make sure your rep is at 10 or higher when bhaalspawn power time kicks in? Actual alignment is irrelevant, as far as I know, unless you're a class that requires a certain alignment. Like Kensai, who have to be Lawful. But good/evil bhaalspawn powers are determined by reputation, not alignment. 10 or higher gets you cure light/slow poison/DUHM, and 9 or lower gets you Larloch/vampirism touch/horror (which is utterly useless compared to DUHM).
One that seems to have only cropped up now that the EE is the norm: I have never NOT sent Hexxat out to die in the sun so I could keep the bag of holding her coffin comes in. I do it every time, regardless of alignment. Just the second she trusts me with her source of immortality even though we just met, I feel compelled to betray her. I may be a sociopath.
My quirk is that It completely breaks immersion for me to take an 8 hour nap after every fight. I do whatever I can to minimize sleeping to more realistic levels. Because of this I usually avoid having people in my group that are only effective with lots of sleep (i.e. most pure mages).
In Icewind Dales, my group always has a pure bard, because the regen song almost completely eliminates the need for the group to sleep just for healing purposes. That makes me happy. I also almost always have a second thief in the group so my Swashbuckler can focus on more fun skills initially before worrying about locks and traps.
My other more recent EE related quirk is that I'd rather keep a broken Clara in my group than an overpowered Hexxat.
I cannot do a good version of evil as the mean choices and betrayals are something I can just never get behind. When I play evil, I basically play someone who has no qualms about theft, etc. but then also acts like the Punisher with no qualms about offing anyone who CharName believes deserves it - regardless of alignment. During a playthrough like that, someone like Shandalar who selfishly endangers my life and the life of my companions by hurling us into a maze full of crazy, homocidal wizards is an easy call.
One quirk I have regardless of whether I am playing good or evil is the need to kill every Sahuagin in the city. Do I leave the kingdom in the hands of an insane evil King or the evil and competent Prince who will lead his people to greater evil deeds in the future? The answer is "no." Either for maximum selfish benefit for me or to prevent them from hurting people in the future.
Every play through I have to do all 3 quests and eliminate the beholders, illithids, and Kuo-Tao. The same goes for every person, spider and illithid in the drow city. Nobody will miss them and how else will the deep gnomes know a moment's peace?
Like many I have a compulsive need to run through every quest possible nearly every play through, to hoard but not use scrolls, potions, etc., and many other things already mentioned.
3. I'm a collector of unique armor and weapons. Everything with a name and story won't be sold. I even buy armors and weapons I'm never going to use, and have them them improved by Cromwell or Cesp, if possible.
Oh yeah, of course! Isn't that what the Bag of Hoarding, er, Holding is for?
Like AHF, I just can't play evil characters, and I even have trouble playing characters with a Chaotic alignment. I don't really get it, I can totally get behind Sith characters in the Knights of the Old Republic series. Maybe D&D just feels too close to home. I dunno.
I also REALLY like making non-damaging mages, Enchanters, Illusionists, things of the like. I find it oddly fun to be able to mess with enemies like that without doing a single drop of magical damage.
Oh, I should also note, I almost always use the Merchant rooms at inns. I dunno why, but I do.
I also REALLY like making non-damaging mages, Enchanters, Illusionists, things of the like. I find it oddly fun to be able to mess with enemies like that without doing a single drop of magical damage.
So do I! I think that charming, confusing and using illusions is way more fun.
Don't know how I missed this thread until now; it is very cool.
I never ever play evil and absolutely cannot understand people who do. I never 'steal' equipment from NPCs I let go. I'm a chronic hoarder of expendables. I really hate 2e spellcasting so I never play a spellcaster.
But here's something that's always been huge for me which I don't know if anyone else has brought up. In BG1 in the eastern sector of the city, I think, there is a house that you can enter where a butler immediately confronts you. Once you kill the butler and then go upstairs, a man screams at you about entering his house unasked, killing his butler, and attacking him as well for no reason. The reason players enter this house and kill these two individuals is for some really nice magical goodies you can loot from them, of course, but I've always felt it is the height of evilness to do this. So I've never gotten to use that awesome helm you can claim from this guy's corpse.
I never, ever play BG2 without Jan. Ever. I usually spam fireballs instead of formulating an actual, viable strategy. I can't finish a playthrough of BG1 with a single party because all of my favorite characters make a terrible party.
For convenience, I always cheat myself a huge stack of identify scrolls and basic ammunition. I also give myself all the useful containers to make it easier to be an organized pack rat.
Other than healing potions and ammunition, I try to avoid using consumables like wands and scrolls for combat.
I always implement rest limitations on myself. I enter an area fully rested and then attempt a full clear. Extra rests are only allowed for huge dungeons (say, one per floor of Watcher's Keep) and before boss battles.
I love using Wild Mages and find the randomness to be highly amusing. I don't really use the Wild Mage only spells very much, but I like never knowing when a wild surge is going to hit and cause random chaos. I'm perfectly willing to accept the reloads that come along with some of the more debilitating effects.
Single-weapon style for my Fighter/Mage so that I have a "free hand" open to cast Magic.
Equipment that fits the character design and/or looks awesome - regardless of buffs or abilities.
Imoen tags along with me from start to finish. She's like my little sister, I want her at hand to know where she is. And too make sure she doesn't get into too much mischief. Plus she's really the only person outside of Gorion who had an extensive relationship with my PC - being cast out into the wide world, it's nice to have a familiar, friendly face around.
- I never duel-class. Ever. I've never liked the concept or the mechanic, and I personally can't abide giving up the power of one class for nearly the same length of time it took to build the other class. I know I'm missing out a bunch of options and optimizations, but it's just not for me. - I've also never assembled Kangaxx, in any play through. - I don't play evil characters. I tried...no can do amigo/amiga). I know I'm also missing out on a bunch of options there too. - Also, because I never play evil, the only time I have evil characters in my party, they usually don't last long. Once my character figures out they're evil (easy when I have a Pally PC...evil never joins the party), they get the boot. Period. The one exception to that was with my Dwarven Defender play through of BGEE, where I kept Kaigan until he bounced when I hit 19 rep. - I've never beaten the game with a multi-class PC. Restartitis usually kicks in long before I can get the character up to where I want them to be. - I used to never play shorties, but have changed my viewpoint on them of late, particularly with regards to Dwarves. I've come to love dwarves a lot. - The only reason I'd play a gnome would be as a multi-class. See my comment on multi-classes for the measurement of viability of gnome PC game completion. - I've also stopped hoarding, now opting to use consumables when and where appropriate. That choice has changed how I view the single class fighter (DD and Berzerker kits only) a great deal. - Edit entry: CHARNAME gets every attribute boosting tome.
I never head to FAI straightaway. Even if I am planning a playthrough with a party of 4 or more. I know the game powerfully steers beginners to an early FAI but one can also argue that Sarevok et al could have read the letter found on Gorion and therefore FAI is precisely the wrong way to go. At least for a few days. Long enough to draw the enemy away from Jaheira/Khalid and for Charname to reach at least Level 2 usually by dispatching those insufferable Flesh Golems prowling Thalantyr's domicile.
I really enjoy snuffing Ghouls and Ghasts.
There is something very satisfying about playing a pure Fighter class [or Berserker] with 18/00 Strength that can go toe to toe with Ogre Berserkers ASAP. Particularly when backed up by Minsc's zestful combat. Pussyfooting around with a barrage of ranged weapons or a Fireball spam just doesn't quite do it. It is also strangely annoying to have to double-check my spell selections etc. before resting when I play F/M. Simple is Good in combat. Less chance for the dreaded specter of FUBAR.
The Gnoll Fortress is just toooo easy and boring!! Game would be much improved IMHO if there were some object such as a Potion of Explosion that needs to be discovered, retrieved before a low-level party can be successful. Rescuing Dynaheir should be substantially more complicated befitting the dramatic nature of the 'Damsel in Distress'.
I always make the Carnival a major center of operations, primarily because there are so many merchants to whom I can sell Shortbows, Bastard Swords, etc at top dollar. That process of gathering prime loot and selling it off is way more important to me than really makes any sense at all. I mean why not kill an extra Ankheg or 2 and ignore corpses altogether????
I really abhor slaughtering the Xvart village. These days I just put most of them to sleep and block those coming from the Bear cave direction with Grease. Just enough killing to get the Head Xvart to summon Ursa which is always kind of interesting.
Saying goodbye to Jaheira and Khalid, usually after clearing Nashkel Mines and Mulahey, is always a wrench. Doesn't really make much sense. As if there was so much more to learn about them [and the Harpers] that the game just does not provide whether you keep them or not [BG1]
I always make my Charname a strong melee character, yet never a pure class fighter. His strength must always, always, always be at least 18 (to be tome'd to 19 in Ch6). Usually, I end up rolling a Blade, a Ranger/Cleric or a Fighter/Illusionist. I don't know why, but I just can't handle the thought of playing a Charname that's a whimp (which is pretty much what I am IRL at 5'7" and 143lbs ) yet I don't want to make him a gruff, emotionally impaired meathead either.
When rolling a character, I never reduce a stat below 9 if I can only help it. I also like to have a wisdom score of at least 13 no matter what class I'm playing. Of all the AD&D stats, wisdom is the one I most value in real life, so I refuse to dump it even if it adds nothing to my character's abilities.
I never play evil and always want a paladin in my party. In BG1, I always take Ajantis. In BG2, I always take Keldorn. Incidentally, Keldorn is my favourite NPC in the whole series. The concept of a wise man torn between his church's dogma and his own conscience is just very appealing to me. I usually imagine him becoming a mentor of sorts to my charname, a surrogate father, if you will.
I always choose Aerie as my love interest. I know some folks out here hate her for being emotionally distraught and whiny, but I just find her endearing. Out of all the romanceable NPC's, Aerie is the only one I could see myself dating in real life. Sure, she starts out traumatized and needs a lot of shouldering, yet she eventually grows out of it and ends up confident and pretty damn powerful in the end. I also like that she doesn't play any petty ego games like Viconia and Neera.
Gameplay-wise, I try to avoid reloading as much as I can help it. I pretty much reload only if my charname snuffs it or someone I really like (Keldorn, Aerie) gets chunked. I also try not to be too much of a completionist. Obsessively scouring every house, barrel and haystack for a couple of gold pieces just kills my supension of disbelief. Then again, I love exploring and in most of my playthroughs, I end up playing completionist anyway and hating myself for it.
Comments
It's a terrible thing I know. I'm fully aware I'm missing the incredible banter, interactions, quests and romances... but the rare times I tried having a NPC party it should felt like they didn't ... "belong" to me, then they eventually infected me with restartitis
* I never romance any NPC. I think the dialogues are rather boring and bland and it doesn't appeal to me.
* I never sleep unless fatigued/completely drained of energy/spells/HP. Trying to keep it at least fairly 'realistic'
* I use up all healing spells befire sleeping/resting
* I usually go into encounters unbuffed, unless I've died a couple of times in an area a bit to tough for my party and I want to push on without re-routing to another area before.
* I try to RP proficiences as much as possible, ie small weapons for shorties and most rogues. I'm a bit influenced by 3E here as well with the different groups of weaponry for different classes and races there.
* I use ctrl-j alot. I mean ridiculously alot. If my party is just slightly scattered and ctrl-j rather than walk one character to reach the rest of the group.
* I plan to go solo or minimal party almost every playthrough but end up with a 6 man party anyways, 'cause there's just too many cool ones.
* I like female charnames and NPC's, 'cause girl power.
* I avoid playing human since I think it's the least interresting race in all fantasy settings.
* I avoid playing fighters since I think it's the least interresting class in all fantasy settings.
* I usually make CHARNAME strong, stat-wise, but tend to give NPC's the best equipment to create a balanced team. No party IRL would like to have a hoarding leader who stole all the best loot and left the other ones vunerable. This means the party spends equal amount of gold on all party-members rather than focusing on making one or two armed to the teeth while the rest are dressed in rags.
* My mages always carry the scrollcase/scrolls, my clerics the potioncase/potions and my thief the gembag and gems. Fighters carry the arms and armour. CHARNAME carries quest specific items and the bag of holding.
* And lastly, I tend to try sticking to the CHARNAME alignment, but sometimes I RP that ie Jan couldn't keep his fingers in his own pockets so even when CHARNAME is a paladin goody-two-shoes, we loot and steal alot of shit. I RP Jan approaching CHARNAME by the bonfire, laying down teh lootz in front of him and with the classical Jensen voice telling a long, long story of how he just inherited all of these items from a dead uncle and how they were just delivered by a wyvern flying into camp with a bag of holding in it's beek while CHARNAME was out in the bushes peeing.
Cheers,
//Skat.
The alignment restrictions tied to Assassins is due to the Rogue Rebalancing mod.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/8255/assassin-allowing-good-alignment
2. I change his alignment to CG via Keeper, because of the I like their Bhaal power selection the most. However, my behaviour in the game is CN. Why not just going with CN, and giving my Char CG Bhaal powers via Keeper, especially since I'm not shy to make various other adjustments like giving Imoen the 10 levels of Swashbuckler she had in my BG1 games? I have no idea
3. I'm a collector of unique armor and weapons. Everything with a name and story won't be sold. I even buy armors and weapons I'm never going to use, and have them them improved by Cromwell or Cesp, if possible.
4. In SoA, I store all said equipment by type in my Thief Stronghold, in the section with the many false doors on the first floor. I have a different locker for everything.
5. I always end up with the same group of Minsc, Jaheira(replaced by Sarevok in ToB), Viconia, Edwin and Imoen. However, it's always heartwrenching when I have to give my temporary NPCs like Jan, Korgan, Nalia and Mazzy the boot. I never strip them naked or take their personal equipment, and even buy decent replacement gear for the things I like to keep, before leaving them.
6. I try to play with as few rests as possible, even with nearly exhausted spellbooks. However, I cannot start bigger questlines before that damned quartermaster shows up in my guild to collect his money. The result is me sometimes spending 3 or 4 days in my guild getting the party drunk doing nothing else.
7. I like having challenges in my game, so I play with SCS, some aTweaks components and Ascension. However, I *always* kill Illasera via Time Trap->Kai->Assasination, before she can even draw her weapons. I do it at the start of ToB, and I do it at the pools again. Stupid bitch, feels soooo satisfying to chunk her in one hit. I reload, if I don't chunk her on the first hit.
In Icewind Dales, my group always has a pure bard, because the regen song almost completely eliminates the need for the group to sleep just for healing purposes. That makes me happy. I also almost always have a second thief in the group so my Swashbuckler can focus on more fun skills initially before worrying about locks and traps.
My other more recent EE related quirk is that I'd rather keep a broken Clara in my group than an overpowered Hexxat.
One quirk I have regardless of whether I am playing good or evil is the need to kill every Sahuagin in the city. Do I leave the kingdom in the hands of an insane evil King or the evil and competent Prince who will lead his people to greater evil deeds in the future? The answer is "no." Either for maximum selfish benefit for me or to prevent them from hurting people in the future.
Every play through I have to do all 3 quests and eliminate the beholders, illithids, and Kuo-Tao. The same goes for every person, spider and illithid in the drow city. Nobody will miss them and how else will the deep gnomes know a moment's peace?
Like many I have a compulsive need to run through every quest possible nearly every play through, to hoard but not use scrolls, potions, etc., and many other things already mentioned.
I also REALLY like making non-damaging mages, Enchanters, Illusionists, things of the like. I find it oddly fun to be able to mess with enemies like that without doing a single drop of magical damage.
Oh, I should also note, I almost always use the Merchant rooms at inns. I dunno why, but I do.
I never ever play evil and absolutely cannot understand people who do.
I never 'steal' equipment from NPCs I let go.
I'm a chronic hoarder of expendables.
I really hate 2e spellcasting so I never play a spellcaster.
But here's something that's always been huge for me which I don't know if anyone else has brought up. In BG1 in the eastern sector of the city, I think, there is a house that you can enter where a butler immediately confronts you. Once you kill the butler and then go upstairs, a man screams at you about entering his house unasked, killing his butler, and attacking him as well for no reason. The reason players enter this house and kill these two individuals is for some really nice magical goodies you can loot from them, of course, but I've always felt it is the height of evilness to do this. So I've never gotten to use that awesome helm you can claim from this guy's corpse.
I usually spam fireballs instead of formulating an actual, viable strategy.
I can't finish a playthrough of BG1 with a single party because all of my favorite characters make a terrible party.
Stats that make sense - no 3 CHA/INT nonsense.
Single-weapon style for my Fighter/Mage so that I have a "free hand" open to cast Magic.
Equipment that fits the character design and/or looks awesome - regardless of buffs or abilities.
Imoen tags along with me from start to finish. She's like my little sister, I want her at hand to know where she is. And too make sure she doesn't get into too much mischief. Plus she's really the only person outside of Gorion who had an extensive relationship with my PC - being cast out into the wide world, it's nice to have a familiar, friendly face around.
---
Some others, but I'll think of them later.
- I've also never assembled Kangaxx, in any play through.
- I don't play evil characters. I tried...no can do amigo/amiga). I know I'm also missing out on a bunch of options there too.
- Also, because I never play evil, the only time I have evil characters in my party, they usually don't last long. Once my character figures out they're evil (easy when I have a Pally PC...evil never joins the party), they get the boot. Period. The one exception to that was with my Dwarven Defender play through of BGEE, where I kept Kaigan until he bounced when I hit 19 rep.
- I've never beaten the game with a multi-class PC. Restartitis usually kicks in long before I can get the character up to where I want them to be.
- I used to never play shorties, but have changed my viewpoint on them of late, particularly with regards to Dwarves. I've come to love dwarves a lot.
- The only reason I'd play a gnome would be as a multi-class. See my comment on multi-classes for the measurement of viability of gnome PC game completion.
- I've also stopped hoarding, now opting to use consumables when and where appropriate. That choice has changed how I view the single class fighter (DD and Berzerker kits only) a great deal.
- Edit entry: CHARNAME gets every attribute boosting tome.
I can't play Evil characters. Just... terrible. I want to be the hero, not the villain.
I really enjoy snuffing Ghouls and Ghasts.
There is something very satisfying about playing a pure Fighter class [or Berserker] with 18/00 Strength that can go toe to toe with Ogre Berserkers ASAP. Particularly when backed up by Minsc's zestful combat. Pussyfooting around with a barrage of ranged weapons or a Fireball spam just doesn't quite do it. It is also strangely annoying to have to double-check my spell selections etc. before resting when I play F/M. Simple is Good in combat. Less chance for the dreaded specter of FUBAR.
The Gnoll Fortress is just toooo easy and boring!! Game would be much improved IMHO if there were some object such as a Potion of Explosion that needs to be discovered, retrieved before a low-level party can be successful. Rescuing Dynaheir should be substantially more complicated befitting the dramatic nature of the 'Damsel in Distress'.
I always make the Carnival a major center of operations, primarily because there are so many merchants to whom I can sell Shortbows, Bastard Swords, etc at top dollar. That process of gathering prime loot and selling it off is way more important to me than really makes any sense at all. I mean why not kill an extra Ankheg or 2 and ignore corpses altogether????
I really abhor slaughtering the Xvart village. These days I just put most of them to sleep and block those coming from the Bear cave direction with Grease. Just enough killing to get the Head Xvart to summon Ursa which is always kind of interesting.
Saying goodbye to Jaheira and Khalid, usually after clearing Nashkel Mines and Mulahey, is always a wrench. Doesn't really make much sense. As if there was so much more to learn about them [and the Harpers] that the game just does not provide whether you keep them or not [BG1]
When rolling a character, I never reduce a stat below 9 if I can only help it. I also like to have a wisdom score of at least 13 no matter what class I'm playing. Of all the AD&D stats, wisdom is the one I most value in real life, so I refuse to dump it even if it adds nothing to my character's abilities.
I never play evil and always want a paladin in my party. In BG1, I always take Ajantis. In BG2, I always take Keldorn. Incidentally, Keldorn is my favourite NPC in the whole series. The concept of a wise man torn between his church's dogma and his own conscience is just very appealing to me. I usually imagine him becoming a mentor of sorts to my charname, a surrogate father, if you will.
I always choose Aerie as my love interest. I know some folks out here hate her for being emotionally distraught and whiny, but I just find her endearing. Out of all the romanceable NPC's, Aerie is the only one I could see myself dating in real life. Sure, she starts out traumatized and needs a lot of shouldering, yet she eventually grows out of it and ends up confident and pretty damn powerful in the end. I also like that she doesn't play any petty ego games like Viconia and Neera.
Gameplay-wise, I try to avoid reloading as much as I can help it. I pretty much reload only if my charname snuffs it or someone I really like (Keldorn, Aerie) gets chunked. I also try not to be too much of a completionist. Obsessively scouring every house, barrel and haystack for a couple of gold pieces just kills my supension of disbelief. Then again, I love exploring and in most of my playthroughs, I end up playing completionist anyway and hating myself for it.