What BG cheats do you use?

messy

1. I sell wands then buy back a fully charged version.
2. I sometimes use Shadowkeeper to give my protagonist a Ring of Regeneration and Boots of Speed. For convenience.

I don't use the profitable sahaugin merchant because it seems like a bug in the game. And besides, at that point in the game I've always got way more money than I'd ever need.

I used to use the giant head statue in Spellhold to get extra xp, then stopped since it seems like another bug.

What cheats do you use?

Zaxares

1. I usually use EE Keeper to edit my stats to how I want them to be. You can call it cheating, but I see it as just skipping the time needed to mash the reroll button until I finally get a high enough total.
2. I spawn in a copy of a Bag of Holding upon starting out. I'm a packrat. I MUST pick up and sell all loot. NO EXCEPTIONS! XD

messy

Zaxares wrote: »

1. I usually use EE Keeper to edit my stats to how I want them to be. You can call it cheating, but I see it as just skipping the time needed to mash the reroll button until I finally get a high enough total.
2. I spawn in a copy of a Bag of Holding upon starting out. I'm a packrat. I MUST pick up and sell all loot. NO EXCEPTIONS! XD

I use those, too! I usually max out three ability scores and make the others 10. Seems reasonable.

And the Bag of Holding is a quality-of-life measure.

Chronicler

Zaxares wrote: »

1. I usually use EE Keeper to edit my stats to how I want them to be. You can call it cheating, but I see it as just skipping the time needed to mash the reroll button until I finally get a high enough total.
2. I spawn in a copy of a Bag of Holding upon starting out. I'm a packrat. I MUST pick up and sell all loot. NO EXCEPTIONS! XD

Yeah, I use an autoroller. As much as I'm generally about keeping things authentic, it's just not worth the damage I do to my real human wrists rolling these characters manually.

Lately what I've been doing is I go for a 93, and give every stat a different number between 13 and 18. So it might go

Strength 16

Dexterity 18

Constitution 14

Intelligence 15

Wisdom 13

Charisma 17

Aerakar

I also use an auto-roller these days, but try to limit it to 5 minutes or about the time it takes to go make a cup of coffee. I usually try to get something in the low 90s like @Chronicler .

I also sell wands to recharge when they get down to 1 if the wand is rare, but not for the non rare ones. Polymorphing and Monster Summoning come to mind in the first game, but I also never to seem to use them anyway!

I always install RR to give all thieves the potential for 3 pips in TWF.

That's about it, honestly. I'm not big on cheats, but also am no purist and do some light modding in my games (mainly SCS for combat and RR for added items).

atcDave

Isn't selling and repurchasing wands actually how its supposed to be done? I mean most PnP games I played had SOME mechanism for recharging wands. A high level PC mage might be able to do it, but a magic vender seems a likely source. Maybe not every Podunk merchant, but at least the magic shops!

Anyway, I pretty much always jump right to EEKeeper right at the start. I pretty much always match my main character(s) to some PnP character I played once upon a time. Recently I've even been just designing concept characters, I just accept any roll from the start and redesign as wanted with Keeper.
Maybe every other playthrough I restore the party's missing wealth shortly after escape from Irenicus' hospitality. I used to figure I had it on account of some sort back in Baldur's Gate. Admittedly, SoD makes that argument a little weak, but I don't care. The whole "start the party stripped to nothing" trope grates on me.

gorgonzola

I use EEkeeper to set the stats of my charnames, but i choose very average values, well under 90, my only purpose is to save some real life time. I use it also to change the NPCs, sometimes only the proficiency, sometimes to change kit or even class, i.e. I had dual Kensai Mage Nalia, but I would never change Aerie to a Barbarian, the new class or kit has to be RP compatible with the NPC. I keep the some xp and total stats value changing the stats only to make the new build legit if needed.
Also I sell the wands to recharge them. I also vastly use my thief or bard to steal from the merchants, but I don't stack more then 1 thieving potion of each type. So if I buy let's say the Robe of Vecna then I sell it to a regular merchant, then to a fence, stealing it back each time, this way I can get most of the better items sold by merchants very soon.
I often turn dragons and other bosses that grant good xp to stone and then to flesh, sometimes multiple times, to farm more xp, but I avoid to use feeblemind that makes it easy, my parties must earn the xp and turning to stone a dragon 10 times while keeping him alive with his 1hp left while he attacks you is a task that imho deserves that xp reward. I also kill many times the vampires from the limited wish for the xp, again it is a difficult and risky task so the xp is well deserved.

chibisensei

1) I add kits to NPCs sometimes eg i make Aerie an illusionist/cleric

2) Wand recharging of course from stores - although I dont think it is meant as a cheat since you are allowed to recharge wands in pnp - its just that BG never implemented this ability or could not at the time

3) Using EEKeeper I sometimes adjust the stats of NPCs party members - their stats honestly could be better in general or be distributed or I just can't be bothered to drink potions of genius when scribing spells

4) If I am too lazy to play from BG1 to BG2 - in character creation in BG2 I just add the items eg Burning earth - so it appears in the first dungeon and not the default equipment

5) save and reloading if you fail at pick pocketing - so you can try and try again until successful - also the stealing exploit to get unlimited gold - although since adding Rogue Rebalancing - it has rebalanced this stealing exploit and pp for the better

6) I make class combinations that normally cannot be made in the vanilla game eg druid/thief multi-class

7) I add convenience items like ammo belts etc - for better inventory management