Solo or small party BG: EE?

snsdale1

What's the more interesting way to play the game in your opinion? I've just picked up BG for the first time and I'm looking for an experience that would not require a ton of game sense (that I obviously do not have) but also not super boring at the same time.

sarevok57

you are definitely going to want to have some sort of party, going solo without really understanding the game mechanics/ what the game is going to throw at you could make the game extremely difficult

party wise at the least you will want;

someone who can stand their own in melee

someone that has some sort of divine casting ability

someone that can do some sort of thievery

and someone that can do some sort of arcane casting ability

so if you go with a 4 person group, and can fill all those roles you should be good

if you are going to go bigger for party size, its nice to have at least 2 chararcters in melee and the last character can really be anything else

jmerry

One detail on solo play to note: when you're solo, getting charmed is game over. Even when it's just Charm Person, which normally doesn't even make the victim attack you. And a lot of enemies throw Charm around.

When building a party, how much micromanagement does it take?
Conventional melee warriors are pretty low-effort; you can mostly just let them auto-attack. Maybe choose their targets once in a while, or get out where you need to block someone.
Archers take a little more watching; they need to retreat or switch to melee when enemies close on them, and they can easily get stuck without anything in range to shoot.
Skirmishers like dedicated backstabbers are high-effort. That character is constantly running in and out of the fight, to get off a good hit or avoid enemy attention. I wouldn't put more than one of them in a party.
Thief skills aren't relevant to combat; a thief will fill one of the combat roles above, and do things like disarming traps and picking locks out of combat.
Spellcasters ... they don't have a lot of spells when you start out, but they gain more over time. At level 1, you have one or two spells, and the rest of the day you're just using your weapon. Later in the game, you have lots of options and are unlikely to use all of them in a day before you rest. If you're casting spells during combat, that's another good chunk of your attention. If you're casting spells before and after combat, like a buffer/healer priest, that's no big deal.

Also, remember that you can fill out most of your party with NPCs you meet along the way. There are 29 potential allies you can recruit in BGEE, of which more than half are available at places you can just go before any quests. Three of them are in the first area you go to when you leave Candlekeep. Feel free to start with one or two characters, and recruit friends to fill out the rest of the group. This also allows you to adjust your party size as you go, adding more if you feel you can handle it.