Skip to content

NPC Starting Experience?

ReiRei Member Posts: 66
in Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
I realized after playing SoD, any NPC I would recruit in BG2EE started at 500k exp. Then after messing around a bit and getting to ~1.2M exp, I went and recruited Neera. She started at 1M exp.

I've read about these kind of thresholds in BG1, where the first time you interact with an NPC, the game checks your experience and determines the NPC's starting experience based on a set of thresholds. E.g. average party exp of 100k or more? Start at 100k. 200k or more? Start at 200k. And so on.

These thresholds were decently documented in BG1 but I can't seem to find any similar info on the BG2 NPCs.

The Neera issue gave me an idea for a power game-y (or cheesy) run, where I solo things up until 1M+ exp and only then recruit a couple of NPCs. Wondering if the other NPCs scale the same way as Neera.

Anyone got any info on this?

Comments

  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,964
    edited June 2016
    pretty sure your level is what matters and that was matched to the 1M mark there
  • ReiRei Member Posts: 66
    But what are the thresholds? Is it 500k, then 1M for every NPC? Is 1M an exception for Neera because you don't recruit her until you go out of Athkatla? Are there more thresholds? 750k? 1.5M? Etc.
  • mf2112mf2112 Member, Moderator Posts: 1,919
    It seems like I saw something on a BG1 post for this where someone stated it went up by these intervals: 1K, 2K, 4K, 8K, 16K, 32K. If BG2 holds that for 256K, 512K, 1024K, 2048K then it would seem to match what I have seen so far anecdotally.
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    I could be mistaken but in my experience it was about level more than experience points.
    Yesterday for example, I started a multi C/T run and I recruited Dorn, he had ~400k exp and was level 9 while I had much less (about 230k) which made me 8/9 as a C/T.
  • mf2112mf2112 Member, Moderator Posts: 1,919
    Found it, I knew I remembered a good discussion on it. https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/49007/npc-starting-xp-adjustments/p1, good comments there by Dee and AlexT to clarify it.
  • NuinNuin Member Posts: 451
    The old NPCs spawn different level version of themselves depending on the average level of the party. Because of this, specific classes like single class rogues, bards and druids can get significantly more powerful version of NPCs to spawn earlier because these classes can reach level 13 or so faster than other classes.

    The new EE NPCs starting level depends on your PC's total XP, with higher level versions spawning every several hundred thousand XP you earn. I've never bothered to learn the exact thresholds though.
Sign In or Register to comment.

2025 Overhaul Games, a division of Beamdog. © 2025 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Baldur's Gate, Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Forgotten Realms, Baldur's Gate, Wizards of the Coast and their logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries, and are used with permission. Hasbro and its logo are trademarks of Hasbro, Inc. and are used with permission. © 1998 BioWare Corp. All Rights Reserved. BioWare, the BioWare Infinity Engine and the BioWare logo are trademarks of Bioware Corp. Black Isle Studios and the Black Isle Studios logo are trademarks of Interplay Entertainment Corp. Atari and the Atari logo are trademarks owned by Atari Interactive, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.