Help me shop?

ElysianEchoes

So, for the first time ever, I've escaped the Underdark in BG2! I've never kept a character this long before. I haven't been playing as a completionist, so I probably left a lot if good stuff behind . . .

Anyway, I finally got a chance for inventory management. I have about 100k gold to get some upgrades before going after Bhodi. I also have a bunch of magical weapons/armor I just haven't been able to bring myself to sell, so I could get some more money for an important enough item.

So! Any suggestions as to what I should shop for?

My Charname is a shadow dancer. My companions are Anomen, Korgan, Cernd, and Imoen. I'd probably leave Cernd behind, but I'm too dependant on insect spells lol.

gorgonzola

Sell and buy each wand you have, to have plenty of wand charges to spend is still powerful while end game is no more so.
The Trademeet merchant has some useful items, also the str belt and the shield that reflect back ranged attaks from Ribald are very useful.
The Robe of Vecna, Defender of Easthaven and Shield of Balduran are must have items, even if i personally never use the shield.
Probably you have money for all that, if not the trademeet guy is not hard tp steal from

Dharius

Your party sounds good to me, perhaps another member could be picked up? Or wait until the beginning TOB to pick up a decent warrior that comes along, and will interact with Imoen?

Don’t ditch Cernd - as you said he has very good spells which make him more useful than people think

@gorgonzola already explained what to get - wands with many charges are indeed very useful in all IE games.

jmerry

gorgonzola wrote: »

... Defender of Easthaven ...

I don't see any flail users in that party; the only party members who can even use it are Anomen and Korgan, who are almost certainly focusing on maces and axes respectively. When gold-limited, focus on items you're actually going to use.

Now, the Joluv item that looks good for this party? The Staff of Arundel, for Cernd. It's built for a casting-focused Druid, which he is. Just note - if you shapeshift with the staff equipped, you'll temporarily lose those extra spell slots. Any spells memorized beyond your maximum (one 6th level and one 7th level, if you haven't cast any yet) will be forgotten.

If you've collected tokens to build various items, now's the time to visit Cromwell. That's a substantial chunk of gold, so stick to the ones that are worth it - this party isn't going to be using the Silver Sword unless you pick up that ToB warrior, for example.

The big-ticket spending items, that you probably can't afford, are the 8th and 9th level scrolls in Ribald's special stock. It's worth picking up a few that look good, but the whole list can wait; there's a ToB merchant that sells all the scrolls, and he can even be stolen from.

Buying wands back can be very expensive. Either choose a merchant with cheap prices (Bernard) or a merchant you can shoplift from. Imoen's not much of a pickpocket; you could always pick up Jan temporarily if you want to go shoplifting.

ElysianEchoes

Thank you for the replies, guys!

Well, I had sold most of my wands to ribald. So they ran me about 10k each to get back. Didn't know about Bernard. Got the robe of vecna and am close to broke. And I didn't have enough pieces of anything for Cromwell.

Maybe I should part with some of my "just in case" items.

jmerry

Ribald is one of the worst choices to sell to if you're planning to buy things back; his cost multipliers are 30 to sell to and 165 to buy from, or 55 and 165 for the special stock. Bernard, after freeing the slaves in the Copper Coronet, has multipliers of 30 and 100 - so it costs about 60% as much to buy an item from him as to buy the same item from Ribald. Buying prices are then further modified by reputation and the party leader's charisma, but the cost ratios between merchants stay the same. Sell prices are reduced if the merchant already has some of the item you're selling, so if you're selling something like a big stack of gems it pays to do so all at once.

Now, if you're selling some expensive stuff that you're never going to buy back, Ribald's special stock will give you the best prices around.

joluv

Sling of Everard.

jsaving

The items listed by @gorgonzola plus the throwing axe of disruption from the Copper Coronet are must-haves in my view. Also, Vhailor's Helm can be handy for melee types and the Sensate Ring is decent in the hands of a divine caster.

gorgonzola

Sell and steal all the wands from a merchant that let you steal, not bernard, you can get a lot of money from that.

You can even repeat with a fence to double the income. Be aware that the wands will be flagged as stolen, so no one will buy them in tob, but you should have enough charges to end the game without recharging them again.

iosfrustration

If you're up for a spot of powergaming (and lets face it, we all are on out first play through) then buying Vhailors helm from Deidre at Adventures mart is about the most fun you can have

Getting a scroll of improved haste and having imoen memorise it will be even more fun

Vhailors helm allows fighters to cast "simulacrum" which creates a slightly lower level copy of which ever character is wearing the helm.
So now you have TWO of that character, both of whom can move, attack, cast spells and use items. The copy is a slightly lower level than the original, which is a major pain for spell casters, but makes no real difference to fighters

With a decent archer (Mazzy) and either the Tiguan shortbow, or shortbow of Gesen and you'll be squirting off 5 arrows per round. - now you have TWO archers squirting off 5 arrows per round each. Then you can get Imoen to cast improved haste on them so they are firing 10 arrows per round, each... The major problem here is that you tend to run out of arrows quite quickly

or Combine that helm with Korgan dual weilding axes (again with Imoen casting improved haste) and you'll have two Korgans, both attacking 8-10 times per round, both almost imune to everything with awesome saves and dishing out massive damage...

Oh also the clone that the helm creates can use items without destroying the original. Got some awesome scrolls that you want to cast but dont want to lose? Get the clone to cast them!