Is it everthing fine?
Hello and congratulations for the wonderful forum.
I've been playing BG2EE for a two weeks(have no much free time to play) and Im wondering if my progression is ok. I made my protagonist archer and even tho many discussions says its a bad choise for bg2, Im completly satisfied by his dmg output and play style. My main fear is about my leveling. I'm in chapter 2 and have completed most of the quests. Im using http://www.sorcerers.net/ as guide when have difficulties about some task. In this site there is a list with all quests in chapter 2 and forward. I noticed that most of the quests are in chapter 2 and Ive already completed them, but my party is relatvly low level. I see ppl complete the game with 6 man party with around 3 - 3.5m exp per hero in youtube lets plays, but my prota is still level 10 with 850k. Im using 5 man party.
My questions are:
Am I doing somethin wrong ?
And if Im not where does all the exp come from?
What is the usual level you complete the game with ?
Thanks in advance!
I've been playing BG2EE for a two weeks(have no much free time to play) and Im wondering if my progression is ok. I made my protagonist archer and even tho many discussions says its a bad choise for bg2, Im completly satisfied by his dmg output and play style. My main fear is about my leveling. I'm in chapter 2 and have completed most of the quests. Im using http://www.sorcerers.net/ as guide when have difficulties about some task. In this site there is a list with all quests in chapter 2 and forward. I noticed that most of the quests are in chapter 2 and Ive already completed them, but my party is relatvly low level. I see ppl complete the game with 6 man party with around 3 - 3.5m exp per hero in youtube lets plays, but my prota is still level 10 with 850k. Im using 5 man party.
My questions are:
Am I doing somethin wrong ?
And if Im not where does all the exp come from?
What is the usual level you complete the game with ?
Thanks in advance!
5
Comments
First of all, don't worry too much about what other people are doing. Playthroughs in BG2 can be *vastly* different from one game to the next, due to various factors (party size/setup, mods, etc.).
Generally speaking though, you gain a lot more XP as you progress through the game. XP starts slow, then becomes more and more plentiful towards the end of the game. Watcher's Keep in particular gives HUGE amounts of XP, so if people do that early on in SoA they will of course be much higher level with a lot more XP.
If you're still in Chapter 2, then 850k xp is COMPLETELY FINE. You're doing very well in that respect, and you'll ear a lot more in the later chapters. It's also totally fine to complete many of the side quests in Chapter 2, you don't have to save them for later (you don't lose anything either way - do it as you like!).
Also don't put too much stock into how people evaluate classes, because that, too, can be VERY different between games. Archers can be EXTREMELY powerful especially in the early and mid game, but there really is no class that is so "weak" you'd have to be worried. Play what you like, how you like it - the unmodded game is not hard enough to punish you for it. Very often when people say "X sucks" or "X is overpowered" or whatever, it's pure hyperbole - the differences are usually not very big.
I have to agree with @Lord_Tansheron that you really can't go wrong with the unmodded Baldur's Gate 2. That's something pretty great about this game; some ways might be "better" or have more "strategy", but really you can play however you want with whatever hero/heroine you want.
Again, 850k experience is great, but if you are worried or want to get even further, just do more side quests before progressing in the story. There are a large number of quests, and most of the ones that can be done wholly within the city are pretty okay regardless of your party.
Also, these forums are a great place for advice; use it as needed
Basically @Lord_Tansheron said it all. I would just add a couple of things:
The new NPC quests do bring quite a lot of Experience and nice items and they are not mentioned in sorcerer.net walkthrough which was made back when the first BG2 was released. I would warn you though, these quests are quite hard and you will have to fight quite a hard fight at least once per quest. But I really advice you do them (bring the NPC in your team as you just have a 5 men team, do his quest, then tell them to go away).
Don't worry about experience, you are doing fine. Most of it will come later in the game. I would just advice you not to go to Watcher's Keep right now, as it brings a lot of experience which would trivialize the game. You might just want to loot the first floor to get the Ammo container and unlimited arrow/bolt quiver.
Last thing, Archer tends to be really potent early game, then fades lategame in terms of damage. But they are still good, mostly because of that called shot. You have made a fine choice, and there are classes much worse than that (Wizard Slayer, Skald,...)
No, I don't think you're doing anything wrong. What I do think however is that you're definitely doing a couple of things right:
Coming here to ask questions. The combined gaming experience of the people here is staggering and you will always be treated with respect, wherever you are on the learning curve and however 'silly' you think your question may be.
Only using a walkthrough when you encounter difficulties. There are many, many different ways to play this game and blindly following a pre-written script is, in my opinion, the least rewarding.
Your XP/level at the end of the game depends very much on how you play, so YMMV.
When I play a completionist game (i.e. doing all quests in all areas and all personal quests for all NPCs) with a full (6-man) party, but without laboriously grinding re-spawns to squeeze out substantial extra XP, then I tend to finish SoA with my party around 3.5M-4M XP each, then finish ToB with my party around 7M-8M XP each (8M is the XP-cap ... I'll hit the cap with my protagonist, but other party members might not quite get there). (I typically clear the first level of WK in SoA, and the rest of it in ToB.)
Of course it's possible to complete the game(s) at very much lower levels if you skip a lot of the content. Many people do.