Some n00b questions, (16 years after release!) partly 2e related, some small spoilers.
Gespenst
Member Posts: 31
Hi guys, better late than never huh? I had a few questions regarding the game mechanics. The only versions of D&D that I've had any experience with were 3e and 3.5e and my memories of that are somewhat hazy.
When I made my character (a Cleric) I got really lucky with my roll I ended up with 17 strength, 17 constitution and 18 wisdom so I figured I'd keep that, put a point in con and then the rest into wis. But at this point I'm starting to think that gaining stat points as you level was a 3e thing. ^^; Is that the case or does it take more levels than I thought to get one?
Speaking of levels: are thieves the only ones who have skills? (we've got pickpocket, move silently all that sort of thing but no one else has had anything)
This one's about the game in particular: Do you lose access to quests as you progress through the story? I picked up a quest to kill a Necromancer in chapter 1, looked him up and decided I didn't want anything to do with him just yet there was also a quest to do with a woman by the name of Silke that caused a TPK so I decided to leave that one for later and a quest about a former guard captain that I just didn't deal with yet.
We were about a week into the adventure when Jaheira started griping about us taking to long to get to Nashkel so I was worried that she'd leave the party and take Khalid with her so I high tailed it over there and completed the mines (just!) at level 3 - basically skipping all of chapter 1 and 2. It was only after I beat the last guy that I noticed that all my quests had disappeared. Can I no longer head back and do those now?
When I made my character (a Cleric) I got really lucky with my roll I ended up with 17 strength, 17 constitution and 18 wisdom so I figured I'd keep that, put a point in con and then the rest into wis. But at this point I'm starting to think that gaining stat points as you level was a 3e thing. ^^; Is that the case or does it take more levels than I thought to get one?
Speaking of levels: are thieves the only ones who have skills? (we've got pickpocket, move silently all that sort of thing but no one else has had anything)
This one's about the game in particular: Do you lose access to quests as you progress through the story? I picked up a quest to kill a Necromancer in chapter 1, looked him up and decided I didn't want anything to do with him just yet there was also a quest to do with a woman by the name of Silke that caused a TPK so I decided to leave that one for later and a quest about a former guard captain that I just didn't deal with yet.
We were about a week into the adventure when Jaheira started griping about us taking to long to get to Nashkel so I was worried that she'd leave the party and take Khalid with her so I high tailed it over there and completed the mines (just!) at level 3 - basically skipping all of chapter 1 and 2. It was only after I beat the last guy that I noticed that all my quests had disappeared. Can I no longer head back and do those now?
1
Comments
I think the first thing you should do is to download and read the game manuals from here: http://www.baldursgate.com/manuals.en.html
They will help you to understand stats/abilities much better.
Answering your particular questons, I have to say that gaining stat points as you level up is not what you get in BG. A lot of classes/kits have abilities: Turn Undead for Clerics, Song and Pickpocket for Bards etc.
Regarding quests: you should play the game as it is: do it as you wish, taste yourself what consequences every quest has, how your party members react to different game episodes. There're nearly no quests that you cannot do later in BG1. There're a few exceptions, like the quests in Nashkel Mines and then later in other Mines (I try not to give you spoilers).
thieves' skills are the only type of skills you get to distribute points for on level up, but some other classes have access to some of these skills too: rangers have stealth and bards have pickpocket. monks have stealth and find traps
you don't loose access to quests as a rule but there might be some cases i can't remember right now.
the quests didn't disappear after doing the mines. you just have to flip pages back in the journal to the previous chapters to see them.
Which is okay, too, especially since you don't need to exit through the backdoor but return to the main entry. Note that in many playthroughs, Imoen gets dual-classed into a mage no later than as soon as reaching level 3 and having found and disarmed the traps in the mines. At level 4 it would take longer for her to reactivate her thief class. You can, and you can even turn back and forth pages in your Quests journal.
For a cleric I would go for 18 str, 18 dex, 16 con and 18 wis if possible.
You don't need more than 16 con for a non-warrior class unless you play one of the shorty classes (dwarves, halflings, gnomes), as they get bonuses in saving throws.
You will find a few stat tomes in the game that can increase your stats, but beside those you will not gain anything.
apart from thieving skills, there are skill-like stats that improve on their own:
additional attacks - strike an increasing number times in a round (monks have the best, warriors also have it)
backstab - increasing damage multiplier makes you more deadly when attacking from behind while hidden (assassins have the best, thieves and stalkers have it too)
turn undead - annihilate increasingly strong undead (clerics and paladins have it)
lore - identify increasingly powerful and obscure items without the spell (convenient but unnecessary, bard has by far the most)
there are also class abilities which improve with levels, and which you get more uses of. there are also unique character powers.
but you are right, there isn't much way to actually customize your character during the game.
the most customizable class is sorcerer. he gets to pick his repertoire of spells on level-up and can't learn new spells in a different way.
but generally, the game is not about "building" the character like in fallout or diablo, it's about making an initial choice and then roleplaying the character according to it.
after level 20 (normally in the throne of bhaal expansion) the game compromises this idea and actually gives you 'High Level Abilities' that are like typical CRPG skills. each level, you can pick one from a pool, some are dependent upon another etc.
every class has them and the pool is class-specific. unfortunately only warriors face a real choice as you'll see.
One other piece of advice, assuming you decide to go back and start again. While you don't get stat points on level up, there are several places where you can get increases to your stats. You will find items that will do that. With that having been said, since you are playing a Cleric, your CON won't help you beyond 16 (unless you are a short race). So if you start out with 15 and find the item that increases it one, you are gonna really be in the best situation you can be.
Good luck.
...hm.
Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have quit out of the tutorial when I realised that there were in fact UI tool tips they just took a while to show up either. Ah, that's where I was going wrong. I didn't realise that those were buttons. She cast improved invisibility and then chain lightning twice killing the main character. I guess she won initiative and with the invisibility buff I don't think I managed to hit her. Somehow I didn't really notice that. I guess I saw it I just didn't think about it. I don't think anyone actually *liked* 3e but 3.5 was great, although it too had it's issues.
Then again if it replaces THAC0 with regular AC and attack rolls maybe it'd be more convenient. For some reason my brain just shuts down when thinking about THAC0 even if later versions are just the same thing but with positive numbers. Yeah, I wanted to go to 18 con because I thought it'd give me 4 more HP every level (3.5 again, I think) and I didn't prioritize a high dex because I thought that the heavy armour my character would be wearing would give her a penalty to dex (which doesn't seem to be a thing here either).
I really didn't want to restart because I was enjoying my first time through the game and odd character rolls are sort of a part of D&D the way I see it but looking at my THAC0 I'm not so sure. <_<
The only thing is... have any of you played XCOM? Either the more recent or the original versions? Those games have a way of building a narrative through the gameplay that I really like (like the desperate battle when the ED-209s first appear in XCOM 2012) and I've already had many moments like that that I don't want to lose.
Anyway, good luck.
http://i.imgur.com/cXIejaM.jpg
Everyone who came dual classed gains levels in both classes but she seems to have stopped gain levels as a thief. I can't figure out what I'm missing.
Edit: That's because Jaheria isn't human. She's a half-elf. Jaheria is multiclassed, not dual classed.
Not sure I see the appeal in making Imoen a mage that being the case. Oh well.
Under original DnD rules up through 2e (at least), ONLY HUMAN characters may DUAL-class. DUAL-classing is essentially giving up on your first career choice part-way through, and deciding to devote all your attention to becoming a different profession. Your chaotic, confused little human mind, knowing that you only have one short human lifetime to master your newly (re-)chosen calling, sot of back-shelves those incompatible skills from your initial studies.
IMPORTANT: A DUAL-classed human CANNOT earn any more skills/abilities/etc from the first class once s/he gives it up for another class / life-direction. A DUAL-classed human cannot USE any techniques/skills from his/her earlier class UNTIL their achieved level in the 2nd class EXCEEDS the higest level s/he earned in the original class. AFTER you get your new class HIGHER than your original class, you will finally have learned how to integrate your earlier learning into your new life, and you may use any of your former classes skills, AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL YOU ACHIEVED IN THAT CLASS only, forever. (In some cases, such as what max armor you may wear, "highest level achieved" is simply a toggle; "no, you may not" becomes "yes you may wear any armor you want again".
The only way that the 1st class significantly carries over into the earlier, lower level "learning" period of the new class is that the character retains all Hit Points achieved in the original class. At the same time, although Hit Points are being rolled in the background at each level-up in the new class, s/he will not add any usable additional hit points until the total Hit Points in the new class exceed the Hit Points earned in the initial class.
NOTE: There are NO beginning companion NPCs in BG1 who are DUAL-classed. Very few of the NPC companions CAN dual-class for the simple reason that most of them are NOT HUMAN.
The characters you encounter/recruit who have abilities from two classes are all MULTI-classed demi-humans. That is a different method of progression not available to human characters, with (somewhat) similar results.
(In addition, there are some other limits on being eligible to dual class which I won't go into here. Suffice to say that Imoen is far and away the best candidate for the flexibility benefits of dual-classing among the recruitable NPCs. There are only perhaps two others that could be chosen for dual classing at all, without some stat altering artifacts.)
MULTI_CLASSING:
ONLY NON-HUMAN (demi-human) races may MULTI-classes. Think of it as a cultural difference because they (generally) have longer lifetimes and don't feel as much pressure to master one field quickly.
MULTI-classed non-human characters begin the game with 2 (or 3) classes, with all the skills and limits of those classes. Generally that means they can use the most favorable saving throws and armor, and they can only use the more limited set of class weapons.
MULTI-classed non-human characters divide all experience gained (XP) between their declared classes evenly. They advance in each class only when the XP assigned to that class reaches the standard required amount. Essentially, they just tend to advance in levels roughly half (or one third) as fast as a single classed character, but the loss of power-gain from advancement is generally balanced by the power-gain from character flexibility and play-options.
(A 26th-ish level elf Fighter/Mage with Mirror Image, Blur, Stoneskin, Haste, Robes of Vecna, Longsword +4 and attacking with the warrior-only Greater Whirlwind High Level Ability is an awesome thing to behold.)
***Spoiler Alert (Minor)***
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
***Spoiler Alert***
If you are roleplaying or semi-roleplaying with an eye to how the story runs on into BG2, it may be important to you to dual Imoen, since she ALWAYS begins BG2 as a nicely capable dual class Thief/Mage.
(NOTE: If you play the separate BG1 Tutorial, Imoen is a dual-classed Thief/Mage there.)
Somewhere between Thief levels 6-9 (opinions vary), a Thief character will have achieved all the uniquely Thief skills that are needed to support the party(s) in this saga. Some would argue that the most essential skills can be achieved to an adequate level, allowing for future temporary potion enhancement, by level 3-4.
So in the dualed Imoen (who you WILL have as a pre-scripted DUAL-class in at least significant parts of BG2/ToB), you have a character who can do all necessary party-support Thief actions (*cough* keep them out of traps *cough*), and also become a rather awesome Mage, to buff the party and toss offensive spells. Oh, and she can make herself invisible and start any rough stuff will a backstab with a nasty mage-prohibited weapon.