Best place to farm xp in BG2?

mforww

^ title!

Just wondering, because I always feel like my party is a little underleveled (particularly by the time I get to ToB). I hate reloading multiple times to win a fight (feels cheesy) so I want to power up a bit.

For reference, I just killed the silver dragon in the Underdark with a party that's all about level 13, but it took a bunch of reloads and me getting off a lucky lower resistance 2x/feeblemind combo.

CrevsDaak

In my last play-through I've ended SoA with 5,4 millions XP per character, really, just do all the quest and you won't need farming.

bbear

@Sylvus_Moonbow‌: You can farm exp from scrolls in Chapter 2 too. Bernard at Cooper Coronet sells infinite level 7 Prismatic Ray scrolls after first slaver quest.

Alkalurops

I've never felt the need to farm with the obsene amount of xp you get anyway (I usually end SOA with about 3mil xp), but if you feel you're underexperienced in TOB, you can always equip ranged weapons (preferably with infinite ammo) and go to the north wall of saradush. At that location your party can safely attack fire giants without taking any damage from the siege weapons.

CrevsDaak

@Alkalurops‌ that was fixed in the EE.

ajwz

First couple of floors of watchers keep is probably easiest, but I've never felt the need to.

Loub

So far I've never finished a run without hitting the level cap by ToB.
Just do all the quests (which are the main source of party exp) and you'll hit obscene levels really quickly - farming exp through monsters is inefficient and, as others have stated here, scrolls are much better for levelling, doubly so considering money largely becomes a non-issue after the fiirst 5 hours or so into the game (in my current run, I have bought all of the important gear from Adventurer's Mart and the bonus merchants and still have over 100k gold in my pockets - and I haven't even finished chapter 2 yet (donating all your starting money to the temple of Ilmater helps, since you can get the 50% discount at stores by only spending around 3k gold - which is far less than you'll be saving)).

By the way, the last few levels feel largely empty, due to the fact that they don't add much to your character other than a few daily uses of HLAs which will rarely be fully spent in a single day - the only exception to this rule is maybe the Mage/Cleric, which grows exponentially stronger after each level, but even then, you'll likely already have all the important HLAs by 6m, including the ever so powerful Planetar.

Kaltzor

If you have a high enough level rogue or have skipped other important things... You could have enough pick pocket skill to steal all those scrolls...

booinyoureyes

I don't usually do this, but on the occasion where I have needed a level up I went to these places (in order of increasing effectiveness)
1. Underdark with the caves and the portals
2. Early Watcher's Keep
3. Stores that sell midlevel mage scrolls
4. the cluaconsole

mforww

Thanks guys, but just to explain a couple of things:
1. I'm playing an evil character, so store prices are really high and I'm more or less broke (and I'd rather not do something gamey like steal a shield and sell it to the fence I just told it from pretending he wouldn't notice lol). Otherwise I like the scroll idea.
2. Unfortunately, by playing evil I missed the Suahagin city and Ust Natha - by cooperating with Bodhi I didn't get backstabbed and obviously my power-hungry PC felt the need to slay the obnoxious dragon who clearly possessed the means of his escape from the Underdark. This sort of cut out a boatload of xp.
3. What is considered "early" for Watcher's Keep?

elminster

Did you go to the Beholder, Mind Flayer, and Kuo-Toa Dungeon's?

Otherwise there should be lots of side quests (which you could technically do in chapter 2/3) in and around Athkatla. Have you stuck with roughly the same party members throughout the game? I'm just trying to figure out why you are so low a level.

Skaffen

I suggest doing the major class sudequests which you normally do in chapter 2. Each gives on average around 200 000 XP for a six man party. If you do them and some of the other cuty side quests you generally reach around 3 mio XP by end SoA.

booinyoureyes

You can recruit npcs to do their quests as well, though I think they kind of vary in terms of rewards.
Kinda off topic, but if you ever want to try a mod there is one that lets you access multiple strongholds

Also if you are in the Underdark you can try to kill ALL the Drow in Ust Natha. It could be worth a lot of XP, but I'm not sure about it.

Blucher

If your party is evil (assuming since you killed Adalon), and strong enough, you could get your rep low enough to trigger the forces of law to come after you.

Alkalurops

@CrevsDaak I can assure you, I tried it in EE and got over 1M xp after a solid hour.

CrevsDaak

Alkalurops said:

CrevsDaak I can assure you, I tried it in EE and got over 1M xp after a solid hour.

@Alkalurops‌ oh, well, I just heard something in the forums or somewhere, I had never really tried.

elminster

CrevsDaak said:

@Alkalurops‌ that was fixed in the EE.

It was reported internally about 5 months ago internally but it hasn't been fixed.

Skaffen

No surprise there then...