From BG1EE to BG2

starlord666

Hello. First of all, id like to say Hi and wish everyone a good week, cuz its Monday. Now a little story ahead before i get to the main part of my post.

After nearly 15 years, i installed BG 2 from the original disc i bought back years ago. I know right ? When i was young, i didnt understand English very well, so i couldnt play the game at all. Now after all these years i polished my second language, this game makes so much sense! Last month i purchased BG1EE and played it from start till end in a blast. It was some remarkable journey in my life playing through the whole game. I am a first time in the whole story & D&D rules so it took me time to understand what i am doing. Oh, you should have seen me back the years before when i first started playing the game, how many times my party wiped at the bats in " BG 2" right outside the cells in Irenicus dungeon. I couldn't figure out how the game worked. -.- Now id say i am not a Rookie after beating Sarevok solo with my dual class - Fighter/Thief/Mage in a few hits, lol.

I'd happily share my last save game for everyone who wishes to see, how i beated the game. I admit, i am/was a noob still but id say i fed my main extraordinary. OK, lets just stop right here. All i am saying is - i am really happy playing BG.

Now i just began my journey in BG 2 and i'm having a bit of a frustration. Please no spoilers, as i should try to keep myself from such for the people reading my post in the future. My party consists of 6 people: Me, Jaheira, Minsc, Aerie, Nalia and Yoshimo.

Understand my frustration. Apart from me, i have no idea how to control the other 5 NPC's. I have made both Jaheira and Aerie healers. Minsc is equipped with bow and Yoshimo is melee. Feels like early in the game i'm already facing opponents which i don't understand how to fight except jump with my main, agro on everything and cast some spells from behind with Aerie and Nalie.

Could you guys help me out and maybe give me a few general tips how to move on with them. I already gained a few dislikes towards all 5 of them but i fear as i am nowhere how to get rid of either.

During my first play-through of BG1EE, by the time i had to go to Nashkel my party was formed very well. And i could understand where to go and what to do, while right now, i really have no clue. I am planning an assault to help Nalie with her quest but i dont somehow feel i am ready for it.

Just throw me some tips and hints towards better gameplay if you wish.

Best regards,
starlord666

P.S. My Opera keeps saying there is an expired certificate on this website. Its annoying me as hell.

pukingdog

i get the certificate warning to 8)


i allways play with one or 2 tanks. they are the one(s) who agro everything first so the casters are safe.
1 tank is allmost Always a fighter/mage with stoneskins and blurr.

i have aerie and jahira do heals, anti fear, and
buffing with spells like chant, bless, prot from evil and stuff like that. i love jaheira's insect spells(insect plague can put several casters out of the fight since it spreads to 6 people ) spells like chaotic command to give people some protetion against mind control stuff, remove paralisys or free action for when a partymember is stunned or hold.

pick the rest from what you like.

my mages all have stuff like breach,pierce magic, secret word,ruby ray, and so on for removing protections from enemy mages.
offensive spells like cloudkill, chaos, charm, confusion, abi dalzim and whaever you like more.
for protection they have spells like stoneskins, mirror image, shadow door.
and dont forget haste, very good.

in big fights micromanage everything (use pauze a lot, and issue orders for everyone).

i'm currently running a 4 man party in bg2 soa on core rules.
main f/m , jaheira,aerie and imoen.

f/m is the tank(with tank oriented spells like blurr and stone skinn), jaheira can off tank if necesery.
jaheira and aerie for the druid and cleric stuff.

aerie and imoen for offensive magic.


if you are going for nalia's quest, make sure you have stuff that does fire damage(fire arrows, wands that do fire damage, melfs minute meteor(mage), sword that does fire damage maybe.
Trolls can be downed with brutal force, but only killed by fire if i remember correct.

some stuff i have to rethink (like the maze in watchers keep) but so far i realy like it with 4.

UnderstandMouseMagic

Welcome to the forum.
And I too have the "security" notice. (chrome)

BG2 is a shock when you first start, for a long time I always had this sense of panic about what to do when you first exit the dungeon, so you are not alone feeling like this.

A couple of hints.

Minsc should be your melee fighter, not Yoshimo, he can wear better armour. Jaheira can use good armour so she can melee as well.
You don't say what class you are.

Remember the principles of BG, use missile weapons as much as you can. So Nalia with a bow, Aerie with a sling, while they are not casting spells. Yoshimo with a bow.

Aerie and Jaheira can heal of course, but Aerie can also throw out offensive spells. Spells that can break up groups of enemies alongside Nalia.

Check your scripts which control how your party behaves (the customize button on the character screen). It's easy to forget, I do sometimes. Default means they stand around not doing much, so my advice would be to put them all on "standard attack", (and if needs be in some circumstances, turn off the AI) (then turn it back on again). But at least when you first see an enemy, the NPC will react, either shooting or going into melee. With 6 NPC it's easy to miss that one fighter has stopped fighting after killing the one enemy they were attacking.

The Nalia quest I find hard, but never forget that you can try it and if it's too much, come back later. But it does give good rewards.

I'd suggest the quest you can do from the Copper Coronet, (the slaver quest), as a first. Also at least the first part of Mar Vai and use Yoshimo's lock opening skills to get you some cash.

Good luck and most important have fun.

Skatan

If you solo'ed Sarevok in BG1 I am a bit surprised you find BG2 so punishing. I mean no offense with that, I'm just perplexed by that.

Anyways, as said above: Yoshimo is not a tank, so don't put him in the front. Jaheira is an excellent tank and Minsc is a decent one as well. Give them the best armor you have, shields and one-handers at the start. You can switch later on, but try to get as good AC as possible. Jaheira can also summon decent weapons. Don't heal during fights since it takes to long and gives too little, so keep Jaheira fighting instead.

As said above, going to the Copper Coronet and begin a slaver quest there is a very common early quest. It's very easy and will give you a few decent items to start of your journey. Helping Nalia is a good early quest as well. If you take it slow and steady, all areas except one is very easy. But you can always sneak through this particular area and return later when you are stronger if you need since it's not mission critical.

Next up, go to the Mithrest inn in waukeens promenade, go up to the second level and you will find a party there. Plan ahead, sleep and prepare spells, then go get yourself some new equipment. Watch out for a sneaky backstabber. This place can be cheesed if you are into that (AoE from out of sight etc).

In between areas in the city, you will encounter a fairly strong party. If you are feeling insecure, try to rest before leaving one area and going to another to not encounter enemies with 4 HP and a depleted spell book.

Then go down the sewers in the temple district. down then left. Sneak ahead and you will see a party standing about. They are mean, mean bastards and they are wearing your new equipment Again, cheese them from out of sight or pull them using an archer etc. This party is strong so don't rush just in.

Now you are fairly good equipped, you will have items to sell for gold and you should have some decent spells to boot. Now you can choose to just wander about the town, like going to the docks, doing the quest you encountered when reaching temple district or leave town for a while.

Personally I like going to Trademeet early on. The quests are very easy and you get access to very good equipment there. Also without spoilers I can tell you Jaheira can find two near end-game weapons there and your mainchar can find a good armor.

I hope you think this is a decent level of info without spoilers.

Borek

They added quite a lot of Scripts to the AI which can make it a lot easier to control a party. if you look at the scripts for each character you can select which skills they use and what type of actions they will perform. Of course this only helps if you do not want to use pause and micro-manage the party actions. If you want to use pause to manage the party then i would advise turning off the scripts for each character to prevent them casting spells or using abilities when you may not wish them to do so.

As for the Storyline in BG2 then the game is designed so that you have a huge number of side quests available, it is entirely up to you if you want to do them or stick to the main aim which is to track down Imoen. Even though the game suggests that you should find Imoen quickly it actually doesn't matter how long you wait.

Regarding the Party you have formed i see no problems except equipment, spells and learning some of the more common encounter types and how to react to the higher levels compared to BG1, mostly dealing with spell casting enemies.

Some good tips i would give are:

Use Yoshimo (or Bhaalspawn if it's a thief) to scout enemy encounters whilst hidden to reduce the unexpected nature of fights.

Keep any wands you find on your mages/clerics and use them until they have 1 charge left, you can right click on some wands (wand of fire is prime example) and select from several spell types, each have their own charge total. Example is wand of fire that has Aganazers Scorcher and FireBall as it's 2 options, so if you find a wand of fire with 10 charges, it'll actually have 10 AS and 10 FB charges, and you can use 9 of each type without the wand being used up. If you sell the wand to a merchant you can buy it back (for much more gold, or steal it with a thief for free) and it'll have 50 or 100 charges!

As a rule spell casting enemies are the most difficult to fight, a high level thief can be used to sneak in and backstab them to take them out the fight. However you will need to do this before the mage has seen any of your party and protected itself with spells. Yoshimo is going to level up fast as a thief and before long will reach 5x Backstab modifier, equip him with the Girdle of Giant Str from the Adventures Mart in Waukeen's Prominade and a good weapon and *most* of the time he will 1 shot kill an enemy mage. Just be sure to send in the rest of the party to clear up anything else as he is quite squishy against fighter type enemies.

Potions can make an enormous difference to some encounters, If you are struggling against Golems for example, you can use a potion of Absorption on your main fighter/tank, plus the Girdle of Bluntness from Irenicus' starting dungeon for a total of -14 to their attack roll since they deal blunt attacks! Obviously potions are limited so best not to use them unless you really need them, but once used they typically last 1 or 2 hours, so it is wise to prepare to perhaps fight 2 or 3 encounters rather than just 1 under the effects.

In BG2 archery is no where near as effective as it was in BG1, it is still useful, but Acid Arrows do much less damage, however they have the advantage of still damaging enemy spell casters who are protected by the stoneskin spell, this can prevent them casting spells if the arrow lands during an attempted spellcasting.

Because archery is a lot less effective you may want to use Minsc as a melee tank rather than an archer. Jaheira is also a very effective Melee tank once she gains 5th level spells and can cast Ironskin, which is the druid version of Stoneskin.

unavailable

Make sure to read the books in Baldurs Gate because the main narrative doesn't do a good job of explaining why the gods and why they're such a big deal.

fateless

unavailable said:

Make sure to read the books in Baldurs Gate because the main narrative doesn't do a good job of explaining why the gods and why they're such a big deal.

There is actually a lot of FR lore from the p&p game in the books. Far more than most would expect really but in a format that you can read it or ignore it as you wish.

unavailable

There are couple of books that directly relate to the player character. Not sure I remember the title, but I think they're called "the fateful coin", and "history of the dead three". Also there are other games like planescape: torment, and the mask of the betrayer expansion which I believe is now bundled with Neverwinter nights 2 complete edition. They're both a lot more philosophical and story oriented than anything from the baldurs gate games. Can buy both of them cheap from gog.com

fateless

I want to say somewhere in candlekeep you could read a bit deeper into some of the prophesies of Alaundo as well.