Max XP for a party of 6

GreenWarlock

I always play full parties, because I enjoy playing with my loot to much, and the consensus seems to be that a full party will not hit XP cap by the end of ToB, so I'm wondering how much XP a determined party might with, without exploiting infinite XP battles/rest-respawns. For instance, I have no interest in fighting mephits from the infinite respawn portals of Irenicus dungeon until I hit 8,000,000xp ;~)

I think the key observation is that certain properties of the game are keyed off the main char's level - not their xp, but their highest character level. If you hit 11 in Irenicus dungeon before recruiting Minsc (quite possible for Druid or Thief) then he will start with a whopping 1.2M xp - that is quite a start there! Careful selection of characters (Aerie, Anomen, not sure which others) will also gain a significant bonus, while others (Neera, Rasaad) will languish close to the BG1 xp cap, so picking the right party early seems important.

The second idea is that, to some extent, the game scales according to PC level, so hitting high level early will give more difficult encounters with higher XP. The best way to boost XP for the party quickly is to take the mainline quest, where large fixed awards will have you power leveling in no time.

The final observation is to note that thieves get progressively more XP for picking locks/removing traps every 5 levels, so defer as many traps and locks as possible until the thief is getting at least 950/2750 xp per lock/trap. This means running Jan, yoshi or Hexxat as your thief, as Nalia/Imoen will never hit those levels, or playing the thief yourself, which comes full circle to point 1.

So my plan is to play a primary thief, probably a swashbuckler, and speed down the mainline quest. Contemplating dualing into fighter or cleric after getting use any item around 3,000,000 xp, which is character level 24. I should hit this before the end of SoA, which should hopefully mean max scaling for SoA though (this is above the original game's level cap) but not sure if I miss out on further scaling in ToB. Dualing to mage is also tempting, as I then have a legitimate excuse to scribe many more scrolls (erase/scribe churn is also out as an exploit) The trouble here is that I can never hit 25 and reclaim the thief levels, so optimistically assuming I would hit the xp cap, the highest I can dual(to mage) is 22.

So my first curiosity is whether anyone can hit XP cap. If so, the two measures of success are how many chars can hit the XP cap, and how much XP the lowest-xp character can obtain. Any predictions?

(note that I am still some way off starting this run - I will need to play a thief all the way through BG1, and have a few other play throughs queued up, but bouncing thoughts for play throughs will help me pick which happens next )

meagloth

Yeah, people hot the XP cap, I'm sure. I think farming fire giants in ToB is common. If you mean SoA, then I'm sure there are some easy, high-XP monsters to farm. There's really no reason to do the trap thing, even 2750 is next to nothing if you're trying to get a party of 6 to the cap.

bbear

You can farm exp in Chapter 2 SoA by scribing and erasing scrolls. Bernard at the Copper Cornet sells unlimited number of level 7 Prismatic Rays scrolls after Hendak takes control of the inn. You can get unlimited gold by stealing from fence.

FinneousPJ

I think you get about 6 MXP if you don't obsess over completing everything, but complete most quests you come across.

mumumomo

Dualling so late in a full party is not a good idea IMO.
Unless you want to exploit scroll scribing/monster farming, your character will be fully developped at the very end of the game, whatever trick you use at the beginning to speed up the process.

jacobtan

There is another possibility: round up your party based on XP progression.

For example, Haer'Dalis and Viconia reach L39 at 6+ million XP, but reach L40 at 8 million XP. Therefore, if they are going to be permanent members of your party, you can sit them out during certain parts of the game to speed up your leveling, then take them back in. They may never reach L40, but they can reach L39, and the XP that they lose out will be to the benefit of other characters who need the XP more (e.g. multi-class and dual-class characters).

GreenWarlock

So let's be clear about the intent - I want to avoid blatant exploits such as xp farming of encounters, or erase/scribe cycles. I am, at heart, a completionist and wondering how much xp I can earn without exploits recycle exploits - all earned xp must in some way advance the game for a completionist, rather than simple advance an in-game tally. The 'for a completionist' bit is important, going out of our way to disarm every trap and open every locked item is part of 'completing' the game.

One tradeoff for such a completionist run is maximizing xp of the played party, vs. playing the personal quest of every character, meaning someone gets left behind for a period. Generally, we will lose more experience as a group by trading out NPC for personal quests (unless we can avoid *everything* but their personal quest - which is tricky for timed events).

I know that solo and small team runs will max easily, solo probably inside the SoA portion of the game. If it turns out that we can max the whole party of 6 (without farming) then the final challenge becomes how much of the game can we have remaining when we hit the max?

FinneousPJ

@GreenWarlock If you can hit max XP by the means you describe, rest assured it will be very late into to the game.

jacobtan

I don't want to sound curt, but if we want to approach this rationally... we'll need to crunch some numbers.

Realistically, by playing the game "normally", you can basically dream of 8m XP with a full party.

a) Consider a party of 6 characters starting at 1.2m XP each. To reach 8m XP for everyone, you need 6.8x6=40.8m XP. To give you an idea of how much 40.8m XP is, it's the XP you get for killing 5100 fire giants at 8000XP apiece, or 1855 liches at 22000XP apiece. Let us not even get started on using mephits at 420XP apiece... it is 97143 mephits :P

b) If you have a solo character that can hit 8m XP in SOA up from 1.2m XP, you basically have only 6.8m XP from the entire SOA portion of the game. Even if we're very generous and say you can have another 6.8m XP for completing all quests and killing all monsters, plus another 6.8m XP for the entire TOB portion of the game, you'll only have about 20.4m XP

c) As a tip of my hat to @FinneousPJ‌, I will add another 1m XP via quests for a total of 6m XP for 6 characters. 26.4m XP. Let's be crazy and say we have 3m XP via quests for a total of 18m XP for 6 characters, we have 20.4+12=38.4m. Still short

Note that we are already assuming that all NPCs are recruited in SOA at 1.2m XP. Anything short of this adds on to the burden. Characters outside Chateau Irenicus will not get the XP from within, NPCs who need to be rescued would be unable to get some of the XP (e.g. Haer'Dalis because he cannot be with you when you clear the Planar Prison), etc.

Thus said, you can try, but if you don't want to farm XP, use scribe-erase cycles and all that, I'd be more than willing to bet all my money on it being impossible. I might not need to work ever again.

NOTE: 6m XP for a full party with conscientious play is about what you can expect for a single run of the entire game. If you want to move from 6m to 8m, you will be about 12m short.

FinneousPJ

@jacobtan You are ignoring the fact that quest XP is not divided by your party.

jacobtan

@FinneousPJ‌ In my original post, I stated that the XP is gained from killing monsters and completing quests, but fine. I'll give another 3m each for quest XP, for a total of 18m

GreenWarlock

Thanks @Jacobtan - that was my original idea, to see how close to the cap we would come. Other folks seemed to think it would be a non-issue, so I started to put in additional ways to measure success, if that should be achieved. My best guess is that we might end up in the low 7-millions, but there is only one way to find out…

Note that, as far as I am aware, Minsc is the only character there is a reasonable chance to recruit with 1.2 million xp, while a few others may come in around the 900k mark - assuming I am playing a quick-levelling character. Generally speaking, it works out better to recruit someone early and have them earn party XP, than to defer recruitment so that they start with a higher level. Of course, I could also so a while until I knew I was high enough level to get the top-level version of each character, but that is subverting the game - I will just about allow my self to solo much of Chateau Irenicus, as that extra thief/druid level makes a disproportionate difference - but should man up the party asap once that level is reached.

meagloth

Yea, Im not much of a powergamer, so I usually finish ToB at no higher than level 27, and that's the fighters and thieves. The mages and multiclasses are still 18-22.

elminster

jacobtan said:

Let us not even get started on using mephits at 420XP apiece... it is 97143 mephits

They had it coming

karnor00

I typically get about 6m xp in a full run through, by doing every quest I come across and not farming respawns. Although that's without planning my party pickup - I tend to pick them up as soon as possible.

So with some planning around when you pick up other party members, I imagine you could get close to around 7m xp.