Low Level Questing

CoryNewb

So, I'm having some trouble getting to level 2.... I keep dying places I go. I've gathered a full party, can somebody possibly message me and give me an idea or two of places to do some EASY quests to get back in to the swing of things (it has been a decade since I last touched bg2)

Vencedor

Most of the quests, and pretty much all I can think of in the first few areas of the game, require some combat, but with a full party even at level 1 you should have enough firepower for most encounters in the first few areas. Just quicksave regularly and try different strategies for the fights you find yourself in. I would recommend staying mostly in the areas directly between the Friendly Arm Inn and Nashkel if you're having trouble. Ask around in the Friendly Arm Inn and its accompanying buildings and you'll find some quests that you should be able to do.

Munro

What Vencedor said. The areas in a straight line from the Friendly Arm to Nashkel are more or less safe for low level parties. Quicksave is your best friend, a victory which took 10 attempts is a victory well earned, and isn't exactly uncommon for inexperienced players like me!

LPMalakye

Also it should be noted that the more party members you have the longer it will take to achieve level 2 and leveling with D&D rules is different in the way that you don't just obtain levels quickly by the end of the game you probably won't even reach level 10 i think.

CaptRory

Do you have everyone with ranged weapons? Picking off targets at a distance helps a LOT.

sorcerer_57

Also, if you have it I highly recommend the first level spell "sleep" when dealing with large groups of enemies. (especially gnolls and hobgoblins) Instead of six beasties swinging at you, it brings the number down to one or two. Much easier. Hope this helps. :-D

ZanathKariashi

Level does not matter nearly so much as in other games. Higher levels means more options but ultimately gear and tactics will decide battle outcomes.

Space_hamster

Wander off the path around (carefully!) the first couple wilderness maps before you get to the inn, you may discover some manageable quests/battles to get some much needed experience points.

Tie_Fighter

Try asking around in Beregost for things to do, and I'm sure you can find a bunch of nice opportunities. But watch out, evil lurks around every corner!

Space_hamster

Also explore the maps to the east and west of Beregost...

CaptRory

Go off every edge of every map that will let you. This will help open up areas to explore.

Rann

As mentioned above, using "sleep" is a good option for taking down larger parties of low-level monsters. If you make a beeline for the Friendly Arms Inn and pick up Jaheira and Khalid before questing (as Gorion suggests to you at the beginning, so no spoilers here :-)), her "Entangle" spell is a great option for creatures of 3-4HD like ogres, etc. -- they get tangled up, you turn them into pincushions with arrows, all good.

Ranged weapons rule when you are low-level, so make sure everyone in the party who can use them has them.

Most importantly -- don't hoard potions (and this is a mistake I made a lot during my first run through) -- you'll get more, so go ahead & use the Oil of Speed or Potion of Invulnerability or whatever.

CoryNewb

Slings have made my life much easier. Traps I am still afraid of though

CaptRory

Quicksave often and if you hit a trap, reload and turn on trapfinding =3

Space_hamster

there are various ways to deal with traps:

- have your strongest character suit up with a shield and helmet to lead ahead, if he/she trips a trap, they should survive.
- use a summoned animal to scout ahead and trip the trap

- also be sure to have cure poison potion handy.

tobajas

While sleep was mentioned earlier charm on early levels especially 1-3 can be almost game breaking since 8/10 times the enemies you fight will be charmed meaning all of a sudden you have one extra team member and they one less and even if it's just a single enemy it let's you get in a few free hit's on it while it's charmed.

PS (hopefully not a spoiler)

Early on I always head to the friendly arms inn since you can get a few easy and early quests to do then head of to bergost to get some few more easy quests. Also in the friendly arms inn there is an super easy quest for the area that gives 400 xp + around 250xp for the enemies

tobajas

This on the other hand is an easy way to get in the first 3-5 levels for a full group of 6. Might be a spoiler though atleast a cheap way in the start

If you head straight east from Beregost you'll come to a place called Temple from here just head straight east and usually 9/10 times you'll have no encounters if you do just keep on running or fight if you want. Then when you come to the east edge of the map just head right through to the next area called Mutamin's Garden. Now this area is meant to be quite a hard area but it is actually super easy and done with no problems at level 1 and onwards.

What you have to do is when you get in head straight north and you'll meet Korax a friendly undead who you can chose to attack or not here chose to be friendly. This will make him join your party for a while atleast but whatever you do, DO NOT SLEEP or he will turn hostile. Now you should also have gotten everyone a ranged weapon and lots of ammo it is not critical but it will help alot and let you not have to reload alot REMEMBER to save alot here since the enemies can instantly kill you.

Keep Korax ahead of your party as a scout and eventually he will get attacked by basilisks they use a ranged attack that can instantly petrify your characters but korax is immune to this attack you can not send him into melee which will let your other characters melee aswell but then he will take dmg and might die he does have a high chance of hitting them and will almost always paralyze them so it might be worth it but keeping him in their ranged attack range will let him take no damage and give you all the time you need to kill them with ranged attacks.

Keep away from the middle and the top middle part of the map thought since there are two groups of enemies who will kill Korax quite fast you can scout them out if you want but dont engage them untill all basilisks are dead. This will give you somewhere around 20 000 xp easy if not more when you have cleared these go for the top middle first area first which will hold a high lvl mage and two basilisks this encounter will give around 10 000 xp just focus on the mage with everyone first and this should be a cake walk.

Lastly finish the middle area which is the hardest by far and will give around 3000 xp and your done these two last groups will also give you some nice starting gear or gold which will help out alot.

Also while clearing this area the only thing to fear fom in the start is random gnoll spawns which before were usually around 4-5 but in the new edition it seems to be only 1.

This is seen by some as a cheap way to start of the game but is probably the easist and earlist way to get a solid 30 000 - 40 000 xp without much difficulty.

ZanathKariashi

Gonna have to look into that...charm is supposed to have a pretty crappily high bonus to enemy saves (+3, while sleep has a -3 making it 2x more likely to effect the enemies, if they're within the proper hit dice limit then charm would (it's also effects enemies that charm won't)), which makes it generally suck (the main difference between charm person and dire charm is that dire doesn't have the bonus (bonus = favors the target))

And there's a certain brokenly powerful, easily acquired cloak that makes all charm spells a waste of a spell slot.