Full Trilogy playthrough, I want the full experience (have the cake and eat it?) suggestions?

Carolus

I'm an old gamer returning to this amazing setting after a long time. I've played most of the original games at release: BG, TotSC, IWD1 and 2 but never finished BG2.

Now I'm back and looking for suggestions for a comprehensive playthrough. Last time I played I created a full 6 person group from the start and never took any companions. This time around I'd like to experience this but at the same time be able to create at least a few characters of my own. As of now I intend to play it without any mods, unless you make me reconsider.

My initial thought was going for four player created characters since I want to be able to make a small group where I have most of the possible spells and abilities avaliable and a group proficient to handle themselves in combat. This in my inital draft:

Half orc fighter/cleric, (warhammers/flails/two weapon prof.)
My "tank" and getting those priest spells eventually

Gnome Illusionist/Thief (longsword/shortbow) (pure thief instead?)
My thief to find traps/pick locks and hopefully do some damage.

Sorceror, for all those cool high level spells, eventually (wild mage?)

Druid, for all those cool high level spells and shape shifts. (fighter/druid half elf perhaps?)

Does this seem viable? I'd like to pick up some new members and complete their stories, will having two slots free be enough? Will my 4 player team be able to handle BG2 content with some recruited assistance? which weapon proficiencies do you recommend? Any suggestions appreciated.

Best regards, Carolus.

Silver_Arrow

I will assume that you are not picking characters on the role-play basis.

Half orc fighter/cleric: very good, but everything that he can do well the berserker 9 > cleric can do better, period . So, if you're looking for something even more OP, then this is what you'd want to choose instead. You'll have yourself one of the strongest characters in the game. Flails (Warhammers) ,two weapon prof. - sure.

Sorcerer: Many things can go wrong with this class unless you take your time to research sorcerer "must have" spell selection. If you are willing to do so, then OF COURSE YES, TAKE HIM! Otherwise you'd be better of with some mage. If you have a good understanding of spells then skip this comment

Druid or Fighter/Druid: Druids stumble around levels 13-15, so if you want

all those cool high level spells

then I'd suggest you drop the multiclass out of the equation and go for either pure druid kit, like Avenger, or Berserker 9 > Druid dual class.
Note: Fighter/Druid multiclass actually gets even better overall, but that would be way later into the game, more likely in TOB, so no cool high level spells for a long long time.

Gnome Illusionist/Thief: I mean, if you like them go for it. I guess having a sorcerer on the side will compensate for some Illusionist limitations. But !! I assume you will be playing on some casual difficulty settings like core or whatever, so um I doubt you will be actually using all these cleric+druid+illusionist+sorcerer spells in each fight. Therefore, I'd say its a micromanagement overkill, plus lets not forget about 2 more companions. So if it was me, I would actually go for some single class here. I mean, to handle the rest of the content not covered by your other 3 characters you'd need some thief kit. Based on the party composition you can skip the swashbuckler. Pick what intrigues you the most from the rest of thief kits. (Shadowdancer and Bounty hunter are nice)

P.S. If you're willing to squeeze in an extra character and leave only 1 spot for a companion in your party, I would suggest to pick another single class character that doesn't require much micromanagement.
For example:
Dwarven defender, Barbarian: if you want immortal characters
Monk?!?: depends on your taste, maybe you like monks even though that's the weakest pick here.
Archer: would be my favorite pick here, so many people underestimate this beast. Just have him at the back and forget about him. Later in the game open his stats sheet and realize half of total damage and kills is on him Or you could just install an archer thief kit, hence, still have 2 spots for companions, I've heard it's supposed to be good, but I haven't played it, so I can't vouch if this kit will have same damage performance, or worse, or better.

Carolus

@silverarrow

Thanks alot for your comprehensive suggestions! I posted the same question on the Baldur's gate reddit where almost everyone thought that playing just one character and build a group of companions would be a better way to experience the full trilogy and better immersion.

I tend to play good guys in a RPG setting so leaning towards a Paladin or possibly that fighter(berzerker)->druid combo for later stages of the story.

I really like you talking about mircomanagement too, since I think I like not having to care all too much about that in every fight through the game so characters that can handle themselves pretty autonomous might be something I should look into.

jmerry

I'm a bit more flexible than "one created character" myself. Sometimes I've done two, sometimes I've done zero. But never more than two on any serious run. Whatever theme I'm running, it's not usually hard to fill out most of a party with recruited characters, and get the interactions between them as well as their quests.

On that note, the mod "The BG1 NPC Project" is highly recommended. It adds BG2-style banters between NPCS, along with (generally small) individual quests for them, to BG1.

Also, if you put in that many characters with optimized stats built for power, you can make the game too easy. I'm pretty much breezing through things with my current party - that has five out of six characters single-classed, and none of them with the inflated min/max stats that player-created characters usually have. Even Dorn, who starts with 19 strength, only starts at 14 constitution. They've just cleared Watcher's Keep down to the final seal level, while still in SoA, and only that last level, running on no rest since the beginning of the previous level, caused any character deaths. (Anomen got feared and then beaten down by the green dragon. Korgan got focused down by the Aurumach Rilmani during its Time Stop.)

Story-wise, the main plot is heavily focused on that single protagonist. They're the Bhaalspawn, so everything happens to them and they get the extra powers. Recruited NPCs, especially in BG2 or with the Beamdog-created NPCs, have personal quests. And there's no quest content for additional player-created characters.

What sorts of things push me to adding a second player-created character? In my "Kill It With Fire" run, in addition to my Dragon Disciple protagonist, I added an Avenger druid for the BG1 portion, so she could turn into a fire salamander and be another fire-immune front-liner. Casting fireballs into melee was the whole point, and while I could make one melee character fire-immune (Jaheira) with equipment, I needed class abilities that none of the standard companions has for a second.
In BG2, I killed the Avenger off and took Cernd in her place.

HalfOrcBeastmaster

So one suggestion I have, which some might disagree on: Always have a bard in the party. You can make your own, or you can bring in the NPC bards in each adventure. I know Bards aren't much to look at on paper, but in practise they can be very helpful. If you want most of your spellpower to come from mages and sorcerers they can be helpful scroll caddies, the ability to relieve everyone's fear is a great boon against enemy mages who love to spam Horror, their high Lore growth makes identifying items much easier, they are the only ones who can use bard instruments conventionally and they have the same experience growth path as thieves but a much better weapon selection. Also, you'll want to consider the end game, which isn't super important for the whole run but nevertheless, a Bard will eventually gain the HLA Enhanced Bard Song, which gives every friendly unit in its area total immunity to fear, stun and confusion, which is a godsend against lategame mages who are obsessed with casting high-end spells that inflict that on you. A minor but noteworthy boon is that if you find yourself wanting to pick someone's pocket, they can do that too, and having a Bard in the party frees up your thief to focus on traps locks and setting traps.

Speaking of, you might want to consider making that gnome a cleric/thief instead of mage/thief. I mean don't get me wrong mages are strong but having a cleric instead can be a boon for two reasons: 1. Druids get most of the same spells as clerics but are cut off from some very useful ones like Holy Power, Remove Paralysis, Sanctuary and numerous anti-undead spells such as Sol's Searing Orb. By having one of each you ensure you have access to the full range of divine spellcasting tools. And 2. Cleric synchronises with a melee thief build quite well, since you can cast spells from the back to weaken the enemy and when you're ready, cast Sanctuary, sneak around the enemy lines, turn invisible and backstab with a club or quarterstaff for massive damage. Plus if you can get your hands on Drizzt's magic chain mail, it's perfect because it offers a great amount of protection and doesn't disable your thief skills, which is one of the main drawbacks of thief/clerics and fighter/thieves with heavy armour. Plus, with a decent strength score you'll have access to better protection like helmets, proper shields and suchlike, and you can enhance the damage of sling missiles with Holy Power and other strength boosting items.

DinoDin

As another said above, on the Druid class, you should strongly consider single class for the protagonist. Or dual-classed, and dualed at a low level. Unlocking the Druid stronghold in BG2 requires a certain Druid level, and multi classed druids take a long time to get there, making your SoA experience slightly worse imo. Depends how much that matters to you, of course. The strongholds ultimately aren't all that much.

I'll second the recommendation on the bards said above too. Not a great protagonist choice, but great at rounding out almost any party. I almost always play parties with one mage and one bard as opposed to two mages. The number of scrolls and wands and other items that drop simply commands that you have two arcane casters. And a bard gives you more versatility there.

My own personal suggestion for the protagonist is the Stalker kit if you haven't done it. Combines the fun combat role of a thief on top of a solid combat class. You can experience a truly fun evolution across the saga as primarily an archer (BG1), then a sometimes backstabber (late BG1, SoA), then as a dual-wielding menace in ToB. IMHO it's the most fun of the fighter-type classes in the saga. You're constantly unlocking cool rewards across the level-ups from stealth, backstab multipliers, spell additions, best stat progression and later fighter HLA's.

masteraleph

Regarding Druid duals- the 2 main levels to consider are Berserker 7->Druid, which you can complete entirely in BG1 finishing at Druid 9 (tip- either level up to Druid 3 and then not again until Druid 9 to have more freedom with weapon proficiency points, or stop at Druid 7 and then skip to Druid 9, which gives you one weapon point to play with) or Berserker 9->Druid 10, which can be completed entirely in SoD. Berserker 13->Druid 14 is possible, but it uses *way* more xp- instead of finishing your dual at 500k xp as in Berserker 9-Druid 10, Berserker 13->Druid 14 takes 2.75m xp.