First time ever playing BG EE
Rokku
Member Posts: 5
I will be playing a Sorcerer. I want to beat BGEE, and import my guy into BG2EE. I don't know anything about D&D, but I love RPGs. I have beat ton of RPGs my favorite of all time being Dragon Age Origins. Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy 4 are close though.
Since I don't know anything about D&D what should my Sorcerer build be in BG1EE.I' am gonna be an Elf I rolled an 89-str 13, Dex 19, Con 16, Int 15, Wis 10, Char 16 is that OK, or how to spend 89 points.
Since I don't know anything about D&D what should my Sorcerer build be in BG1EE.I' am gonna be an Elf I rolled an 89-str 13, Dex 19, Con 16, Int 15, Wis 10, Char 16 is that OK, or how to spend 89 points.
2
Comments
Your stats look fine. Don't worry to much about creating the perfect character. It probably doesn't even exist. Just immerse yourself in the wonderwul world of Baldur's Gate.
What I do recommend you to do is to read on this forum and on other forums which spells to pick for your character, because the sorcerer's selection of available spells is much more limited than that of other wizards, and you're stuck with the spells you pick each time you level up.
You might even be better off playing a mage or specialist mage, so that you can try out all kinds of spells yourself (rather than following other people's "How to build a Sorcerer" guidelines).
Wisdom is extra useful with lore, and in late bg2 there are a few spells that require you to have high wisdom to make best use of them.
Dexterity and Consitution are very good. You don't need consitution higher than 16, no more bonus if you have 17 or higher CON. Though if you have a familiar and it gets killed you will lose 1 CON permanently. Also, higher CON values (20 or higher) will give you very small hit points regeneration rate. Which is actually nice as when you travel between areas you heal up a lot of damage. Obviously, sorcerers can't reach these high CON without the help of some items and occurences in late bg2, but a Dragon Disciple (sorcerer kit) can, if he starts with 17 CON. (since the kit gains CON bonuses at high levels, along with hefty fire resistance)
Spell picks are what makes or breaks a sorcerer. You can play an all stats 3 sorcerer perfectly well if you choose spells well. Alternatively, if you have terrible spell picks, all stats 18 sorcerer will suck. Hard. Sorcerer is an unforgiving class for a newbie character, so definitely look up to ideas and reccomendations for sorcerer spell picks here. (there are a lot of topics about this one)
At low level play, sleep is the king of bg1, while it is of no use at high level play. Having a sleep spell will make you steamroll most of the early bg1, hordes of critters will fall to this spell. (unless they are undead, so stay away from ghouls, ghasts, skeletons, zombies etc) But it will have no effect on anything in bg2 since it can not affect monsters that are higher than level 5.
There are a lot of rubbish spells:Obviously, don't pick infravision, you are already an elf! Shocking grasp and chill touch spells are very dangerous to use for a pure blaster sorc, avoid them as well. Grease is weak too. Color spray is abysmally bad when compared to sleep. (Sleep:huge area effect, very difficult to resist, duration increases with lvl:lasts forever. Color spray:a weird fan shaped area, easier to resist in most cases, only affects 1-6 targets, fixed low duration. Just pitiful. This spell was solely created to be used by invokers since they can't get the more powerful sleep, methinks.) Magic missile, shield, charm person, blindness, identify all can be used till higher levels. Blindness will make any creature a non-valid if it sticks. (can't see you, can'T hurt you) Chromatic orb is a killer at higher levels. (you can kill dragons with it if you are very lucky and prepare with a saving throw debuff) Identify is very convenient to have, and protection from petrification is amazingly useful in one area of bg1, with it you can farm tons of xp. But it will have little value in bg2. These are all but the tip of the iceberg, only a selection from lvl 1 spells, to make choices for your sorcerer. Have fun! :-)
As others have alluded to, I would swap your int and wis scores from a purely functional standpoint.
Generally I would avoid spells that have high saving throws and ones that have level or HD limits to be effective. It is a good idea to have a secondary arcane spell caster in your party. You will have a choice of many of these. They will be able to fill in the gaps and pick up spells your sorcerer will not have.
However, in BGEE mages and sorcerers grow slowly in power. At first you will be very vulnerable. Having characters that can use bows are very powerful in BGEE.
I like to use darts for a sorcerer/mage and your high dexterity will help.
Some spells I like:
Blindness, Sleep*, Magic Missile
Mirror Image, Melf's Acid Arrow, Web**
Melf's Minute Meteors, Skulltrap, Haste
Spider Spawn***, Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility
Breach, Spell Immunity, Animate Dead
Improved Haste...and that should keep you busy for a while
By this point you will definitely have developed a sense of your play style. Sorcerer spell selection threads can get quite long and there are many valid ways to play.
*so powerful in the early game when you are most vulnerable that I would take it, but if you know you will have other people in your party that can cast it, I'd skip it.
**very powerful, but keep you party outside the area of effect. Free action will enable selected part members to move, but enemies (hopefully) will not.
***works very well with web and haste
BTW, if you are spoiler sensitive ( and IMO you should be with this game) there is a new player forum nested in the general one that you might want to use for subsequent questions. Just a thought...
Good luck!!
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/30792/top-tier-mid-tier-bottom-tier-level-1-9-arcane-spells-talking-about-10th-lvl-right-now#latest
There's a good discussion of spells of all levels. As has been wisely said, spell selection is what makes or breaks a sorcerer. The best way to do it is to plan what spells you will pick up at each level in advance, as you only get a limited number of known spells.
As a general rule, try and avoid duplication. You don't need fireball and skull trap because they both do roughly the same thing.
Like DA:O, casters are squishy. There are a number of ways to get around this. The spells Mirror Image (level 2) and Stoneskin (level 4) will go a long way to making you hard to kill. Again, like DA:O, while doing damage can be great often being able to disable or weaken enemies can be better. Have a read of the forums and there are a lot of tips to get the most from an arcane caster like a Sorcerer.
*Edit* - Here's a thread specifically about playing a sorcerer aimed at new players:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/28439/sorcerer-guide-for-starting-bg2/p1
So, a sorcerer shouldn't get both Haste and Improved Haste. Take one or the other.
They also should look to avoid spells that become useless early on, like Sleep (which stops working when enemies hit ~4 hit dice). Let a wizard learn and memorize sleep for the party. Once it's useless, they can memorize other spells (and even drop Sleep from their spellbook if they need the space).
As a new player, you might want to play as a wizard first. Test out the spells available in the game and decide which you fit your playstyle.
Just play the game. On you first run, with a spellcasters your gonna die a lot. Just enjoy the game, and have fun. And quicksave. All the time. Set a little 2 minute timer or something. Just don't forget to save.
It's a classic case of flexibility versus potency. If you try a spell and don't like it, you're stuck, unlike a mage who can just erase it and memorize a replacement. An unkitted mage can cast every arcane spell in the game, (except the "wild mage" spell), and offers a perfect opportunity to learn the magic system, quite possibly the most complex part of AD&D 2E.
Except for Thac0, of course.
What do you lose by going with just Mage, and not picking a Mage school? I wanna try Conjurer, but I' am thinking of going with no school.
As far as choosing between specialist and standard, each specialist school has an opposite school and you won't be able to cast from that opposite school. So if you picked Necromancer, you couldn't cast Invisibility or Mirror Image which are both illusions (Necromancy's opposite). In exchange for that, you get one extra spell per day per level to cast. it's a trade off.
Playing as a generalist, you get to try EVERY spell. So long as you are playing in a party (of other NPCs), you won't hurt for the lack of extra spells and the benefit is you get to try a little bit of everything. And you won't end up with that DoH! moment when you realize that the spell you really want is blocked.
Try as a generalist and just focus your spell choices on conjuration and see what comes. If you like it, on your second run through, try a conjurer. If you don't you aren't limited.
One other thing, as a low level wizard, you want to grab the spell Find Familiar pretty much as early as you can get it without picking it as your opening spell. A familiar is a little creature that will follow you around (or more often sit in your backpack) while giving you extra hit points, something that a low level wizard needs, BADLY. And can be used for minor tasks. Some allow pick-pocket. Others stealth. Still others provide limited attack values. Just don't let the thing die or you will permanently lose 1 point of CON per Familiar. I've seen people die doing that.
BTW: Conjuration's opposite is Divination, I think. That means you can't cast identify. This won't hurt in the grand scheme of the entire series, but at low levels it's a great spell to have in mid dungeon when you find that magic item that you want to use right away. it also saves some gold early on that you may find a use for. Later on, you will have more money than you need and it's no big deal. But early it can be annoying to have to go back to town just to see what you've got.
The game is so much fun the first few times through -- just play and don't worry about things. Everything will be fresh and difficult and novel to you right now, appreciate that.
Avoid spoilers and forums like this until you have finished the game at least once (unless you are really, really stuck). Mods and metagaming and challenges are for when you are jaded.
If you do have specific questions, ask them in the "New Players (NO SPOILERS)", part of the forum. I did, and the community answered every question I had without spoiling me of the plot, which is really unparalleled in any game I've played thus far.
This link sums up the pros and cons: http://www.gamebanshee.com/baldursgateii/classes/specialistmage.php
If you decide to stick with pure mage, you could also consider playing a Fighter/Mage multiclass elf or half-elf (or use a gnome Fighter/Illusionist multiclass). That way you'll probably have a less frustrating experience in the first part of the game, because mages start out really weak and with very few spells. Fighter/Mages have better health, can use more items/weapons, and will be more useful to your party during a large portion of BG1EE. But, actually I hope you've already started by now, in which case you can simply ignore what I just wrote
Also technically it doesn't mention that specialist mages get +2 to their saving throws against spells of their schools of magic, along with a 15% better chance of learning spells in their school and a 15% penalty for learning other spells.
But otherwise the link is good.
Anyway, @Rokku, should you still want to inform yourself further: this is the better link
http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Specialist_Mage.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/29704/phase-ii-fine-tuning/p5
(scroll down to find a few posts on Dee about this)
As for how much to meta-game, that's always a matter of personal taste even for veteran players. For example, I play a lot of games no-meta-game style and usually also role-play intensive; but also I sometimes play tactical challenges where I do meta-game to beat the band. Both are a great time for me.
Anyway, let us know how it goes!
You might see Edwin again in BG 2 though...
2) There are Boots of Speed in the game, aka Paws of the Cheetah. You can cheat them into your game for everyone with Console or EE Keeper, and it is probably the most commonly cheated items. However I wouldn't recommend it. They actually offer so much of a tactical advantage in combat that they are much more significant than just allowing you to travel faster, and if you gave everyone those boots, it breaks the game difficulty curve.
PC=level 6 exp 57984
Khalid level 6 exp 57350
Jaheira Fighter level 5 exp 30311, Druid level 6 exp 30311
Minsc level 6 exp 56029
Imoen level 7 exp 57067
Dynaheir level 7 exp 60509
Are those good exp levels heading into Baldur's Gate? I have cleared every map already. I Am thinking of multiclassing Imoen into a mage either now or level 8 is that a good idea?
So far I'm loving the game, but it seems very easy right now. I' am playing on normal, as I do all my fight playthroughs on RPGs. I have played, and beaten a ridiculous amount a RPGs though. It seems DAO, and a lot of other RPGs were a lot more difficult on first playthrough. I was worried that since I didn't know ANYTHING about D&D that it would be too challenging. I hope, and have heard that when you enter Baldur's Gate the game jumps in difficulty from then on all the way through the rest of BG1 & BG2. I' am having a lot of fun anyway.
Although...I do highly suggest finding a way to deal with traps while you dual Imoen, because until her level reaches 8, she won't be able to use her Thieving abilities. :S! So naturally, stay out of Durlag's Tower until then!