Need help with character story playthrough BG1ee and BG2ee

athorod

Hi!
I wanna play through BG1EE and BG2EE, but I can't decide on character.

I've read that these classes are supposedly the best, but I'm open to any suggestions:
Multiclass gnome fighter/illusionist or elven fighter/mage
Dual class kensai/mage or berserker/mage

I want to play through the games mostly for the STORY.

That means that I want to play a character which will help defeating combat encounters asap and also be able to enjoy most of the story in the game.

If you have any links to specific builds (including stats to roll for) with spells to choose etc. that would be perfect. Thank you!

A couple more questions...
Now, I've just seen that the BG1EE has story/easy difficulty. Did the original game have that? Will story/easy mode be too easy and can that be changed during the game...?
Should I get Dragonspar as well? Can I play character from Dragonspar in BG2ee?

jmerry

athorod wrote: »

I've read that these classes are supposedly the best, but I'm open to any suggestions:
Multiclass gnome fighter/illusionist or elven fighter/mage
Dual class kensai/mage or berserker/mage

I want to play through the games mostly for the STORY.

These do not go together. Power level should not be a major concern for your character choice, if you're playing for the story. Instead, choose a character concept that you can get a good handle on, and match your class to that. Are you playing a shining hero, or a generally good sort who occasionally falls to temptation, or a power-hungry villain? Are you a straightforward warrior, a rogue relying on dirty tricks, a priest defending the party with divine power, a mage blasting the enemy with powerful spells, or a hybrid combining multiple approaches? There's no one right answer; by the game's very design, you have a great deal of freedom building your protagonist. Your party's a bit more predictable since you're expected to recruit them from among people you meet during your journey, but even then there are far more choices than you can take with you.

Those suggestions - fighter/mage combinations - require substantial understanding of the game systems to play well. They're not exactly beginner-friendly; the archetype relies on defending yourself with spells rather than armor, and knowing how to retreat or refresh your defenses when they fail.

Now, for your other questions:
- Story Mode is an EE invention; it wasn't in the original games at all. It's designed to trivialize the gameplay; your characters are virtually unkillable with massively strengthened attacks. Easy difficulty allows you to die, but still gives you a lot of advantages; the luck bonus means that you'll get massive bonuses to hit, do maximum or near-maximum damage with your weapon attacks, and take minimal damage from enemy magical attacks.
- The difficulty level can be changed at any time by calling up the gameplay options menu. Only the extreme super-difficulty mode (Legacy of Bhaal) doesn't allow you to change it.
- Siege of Dragonspear is quite nice on the story front, though of course it's entirely optional. As it was made much later than BG1 or BG2, you won't see references to its events in later campaigns, aside from one or two lines by the EE-added characters. Go ahead and pick it up, especially if you catch it on sale.

Here's how character continuity works in these games:
- Moving from the main BG1 campaign to SoD, if you have it, is automatic. You just continue playing in the same session, only you're in the new campaign. You do have to choose the right campaign from the main menu selection screen if you want to load a save, though; that'll only show you saves from the campaign you're in right now.
- BGEE and BG2EE are separate programs. To bring your BGEE character to BG2EE, you go through the import process. Choose "Single Player" -> New Game -> Import -> Saved Game in BG2EE, and that'll bring up a list of all your saves from BGEE. Pick one, choose the character in that save you wish to import (recruited NPCs are generally ineligible), and you'll have a mostly built character with just a few details to clean up as you complete the character creation process. Saves from both the SoD campaign and the pre-SoD BGEE campaign will be listed together in this import process; there's no technical difference.
- BG2EE also has a campaign transition, between the main Shadows of Amn campaign and the high-level Throne of Bhaal campaign. Like the BGEE/SoD transition, this just continues straight into the new campaign when you finish the old one. Also like that earlier transition, the saves for the two campaigns are listed separately and you need to be in the right campaign to load one.
- At any stage in all of this, you can choose to break continuity and create a new character at the beginning of a given campaign instead of playing the campaign(s) before it. This will start you at a vaguely appropriate (but still significantly behind what you'd get by playing) experience level.

SixOfSpades

jmerry wrote: »

Instead, choose a character concept that you can get a good handle on, and match your class to that.

Precisely this, although depending on which character concept(s) you like, you could be setting yourself up for difficulty / disappointment. Due to poor implementation and other oversights, certain kits frankly fall short of what they claim to be good at, and are not fun to play, especially in BG1 (whether it's EE or not), and especially for new players. So, some caveats.

Kensai: A kit of the Fighter class. Designed around the idea of the naked swordsman, whose best defense is a good offense, killing his foes so quickly they don't have a chance to hurt him. The problem is that all of these kits (as well as the entire Monk class) were originally balanced for BG2, and did not take BG1 into account at all. As a result, item-limited characters suffer unduly in BG1: Their item restrictions (such as the Kensai's inability to wear any type of armor that a Fighter could normally use) hit with their full force from Day 1, but their bonuses are based on the character's Experience Level, and you'll be well into BG2 before your character's Advantages start to balance out their Disadvantages, and your character finally becomes good at their job.

Archer: A kit of the Ranger class. Designed around the idea of the expert marksman, specializing in ranged combat above all else. Essentially the same problem as the Kensai, during BG1, and in BG2 they get a whole new problem: Archery is nerfed in BG2, with significantly more types of enemies requiring magical weapons to hit, and/or being resistant/immune to missile damage. Also, BG2 is an absolute candy store of wickedly cool & powerful melee weapons . . . the new ranged/thrown weapons, by contrast, are markedly lackluster, and the wider selection of magical ammunition is similarly not that impressive. The Archer is still perfectly playable, especially in BG2, but it's also best avoided until you know what you're doing.

Monk: Designed around the idea of the unarmed Shaolin warrior, defeating foes with disciplined kung-fu instead of physical attachments. Sounds really cool, until you realize that NO armor and effectively NO weapons means that, for the entirely of BG1 and about the first 1/3rd of BG2, you are effectively dead weight for the party to carry around. Only in mid-to-late BG2 does the Monk finally get genuinely good at punching & kicking--and especially against spellcasters, because he suddenly gets high Magic Resistance for some reason.

Wizard Slayer: A kit of the Fighter class. Does not do what it says on the tin, in fact it does the exact opposite. Designed around the idea of hating magic and defeating those who practice it, this kit was incredibly poorly implemented: Their melee attacks causing spellcasting failure sounds nice, until you realize that, in BG2, any mage who can be hit with a physical weapon is about to die anyway, whether their attacker is a Wizard Slayer or not. WizSlayers can still hit enemy Priests, sure, except their spellcasting failure effect doesn't disrupt Priest spells, only Wizard spells. And their vaunted Magic Resistance is an absolute joke when you consider that there is one kit in the entire game who is expressly prohibited from using most of the vast arsenal of BG2 items that are specifically useful in fighting spellcasters . . . and that one kit is the Wizard Slayer.

Beast Master: A kit of the Ranger class. You are a friend to animals! Raised by wolves/bears/ferrets/whatever, you live as one of them, and can call them to your aid! And bizarrely, you have decided that because they don't use metal weapons or armor, neither should you. (I guess you never noticed that they don't use wooden or leather items, either.) So, you're doomed to suffer under very burdensome equipment limitations, in exchange for . . . a pet that you hardly ever dare let out of your backpack, and a couple of summoning spells that are useful for, at best, cannon fodder. There are a couple of good weapons & acceptable armors, in both BG1 and BG2, that Beast Masters can use, that make them almost half-decent to play . . . but while Monks and Wizard Slayers can eventually get good at at least one of the things they can do, the Beast Master never gets good at anything.

Shapeshifter: A kit of the Druid class. You're a frickin' werewolf! In this case, the kit's in-game description is perfectly accurate, but I'm listing the kit here because the combat effectiveness of the Wolfwere / Greater Wolfwere forms varies dramatically, depending on whether or not you're running an un-modified game. The Shapeshifter's WW/GWW forms were intended to give the character flexibility, more effectiveness as a front-line brawler in situations where one's spells had run out, or wouldn't be useful. But in the original game, the combat stats of these forms still weren't really useful, or at least not useful enough to balance out the lack of armor in your humanoid form. So, various mods came out, boosting the aforementioned combat stats, and hoooo boy are some of them overpowered. Depending on which mod you have installed, your Druid could easily be doing more damage than your most dedicated Warrior-types, and they're actually regenerating lost health faster than most enemies can damage them, and they're not even blocked from casting spells while in their wolf forms. So, yes, hella powerful, and use that for your first game if you really want to, but it's really going to screw up your perception of what the overall game balance is supposed to be like.

Every Specialist Mage: No, the Invoker is not a wizard who specializes in blasting foes with elemental damage, nor is the Abjurer one who primarily casts protective spells, etc., etc. For whatever bass-ackwards reason, Wizards of the Coast (and, by copying them, BioWare) decided that instead of basing the specialist mages around the one School of magic that they like, they should base them on avoiding the School that they don't like. This works about as well as you'd expect: The Illusionist has no reason to cast spells from the Illusion school over any other, she's simply barred from learning any Necromancy spells. That's like having a university where all the faculty are organized like, "Oh, I'm a History professor, but I don't actually teach any History courses--in fact, I mainly teach Mathematics. I'm only in the History department because I can't speak a word of French."

So, in summary:
If you feel like you might want to play a Kensai: Play a Berserker, Cavalier, or unkitted Fighter.
If you feel like you might want to play an Archer: Go pure Fighter.
If you want to play a Monk: Get used to the game first, then play a Monk . . . in BG2 only.
If you want to play a Wizard Slayer: Play an Inquisitor.
If you want to play a Beast Master: Play a Totemic Druid, possibly Dual-Classed to Fighter.
If you want to play a Shapeshifter: Get used to the game, then carefully choose a mod that suits your style, then play a Shapeshifter.
If you want to play an Enchanter: Play a Conjurer, with a backup Mage (multi-classed, or Bard) to fill in the spells you can't cast--both of them.
If you feel like you might want to play a Necromancer: Play a Conjurer, with a backup Mage to cast both of the spells that you can't.
If you feel like you might want to play a Transmuter: Play a Conjurer, with a backup Mage to cast both of the spells that you can't.
etc., etc., etc. . . .
If you want to play a Diviner: I suppose if you're absolutely dead-set on casting a bunch of Divination spells per day, you should play an unkitted, generalist Mage. But don't you dare play an actual Diviner.

athorod

Thank you for comprehensive feedback!

I guess I'll really need to have a long and hard think on what I actually want to play.

atcDave

Yeah I’d just chip in to agree with the others.
Just know that choosing a class that seems fun to you is the MOST important thing. But keep in mind that some are going to lead to a much more difficult playthrough than others. Ideally, you’ll want a class that’s fairly easy to play on your first go through (Paladin (any kit), Berserker, maybe a cleric or fighter-cleric) then choose something more challenging later.

sarevok57

here are a *couple* of pointers i would give a new player...

*holy moly this was way longer than i anticipated, grab something to eat and drink while reading this one, because you will be here a while

character

i would go with human fighter, for your first choice, no kits, nothing special just fighter, in fact "cannon wise" i believe fighter was the choice for the game, it may be cliché, but ironically the human fighter can be quite versatile, even if it isn't built in a power gaming way

with that being said, here is what you will want to think stat wise;

STR
this is for you melee to hit and to damage ( and damage with thrown weapons )

you want this to be at minimum of 18, 17 STR only gives +1 to hit, +1 to damage, which is basically nothing, even 18/01 gives +1 to hit, +3 to damage and once you find the tome of STR and give it to your main guy, it will increase to 19 STR which gives you +3 to hit, +7 to damage which is huge
*all warrior types when it comes to STR on character creation get a value of 18/xx if you put an 18 in STR, the higher the xx, the higher the to hit/ to damage potential, if you can, hitting at least 18/91 is preferred, but if get a rocking total ( like 90+ and get a lower xx, then no worries because the tome of STR will set it to 19 anyway )

DEX
this affects your AC and your ability to hit with range weapons

if you even want a bonus to either AC or missile weapons you need at least 15, which gives you +1 AC, and then you get +1 for AC for every point up to 18 which gives you +4 AC ( very useful ) missile weapon wise, i believe the bonus starts at 16 with +1 to hit, and 17? ( 18 ) is +2 to hit, and 19 is +3 to hit, then 21 is +5 AC/ +4 to hit and 24 is +6 AC and +5 to hit, so if you can you will want at least 17 here if you can muster it, because again, there is a tome of DEX so if you start with 17 it will increase to 18, and if you are focusing a melee mostly this will be a great boon

CON
this affects your HP

again just like DEX, you will not see a bonus until you hit 15 which gives +1 HP per level, and again you will get +1 extra HP per level up to 19 which gives you +5 hp/level ( this is also retroactive if you increase your CON with the tome ) if somehow you can get above 19 CON ( starting at 20 ) you will start to SLOWLY regenerate HP, not entirely useful in combat but its a nice side affect, and the higher your CON gets from there, the faster you will regenerate, also the next HP bonus for high CON is 21, which is +6 hp/level and 24 which is +7 hp/level, so again if you can hit a 17 or 18 here, that will give you a great HP pool and giving your character the tome of CON will just make it that much better

INT
this affects your lore and the ability to get hit by mind flayers

first things first, realistically unless you are doing it for RP purposes, worrying about lore for a fighter is pointless, your mages/thieves will be arguably be better at it no matter how high your INT is, but what is important is if you wish to transfer over to BG 2 and are going to be in melee with mind flayers ( they aren't the most common of enemies, but they can be a problem when fighting in melee ) mind flayers if they hit will drain 5 points of INT, and if your INT hits 0, you die, so even if you have 10 INT you can realistically only survive one hit, so if you can you want to have at least 11 or 16 INT so you can survive 2 or even 3 hits, not one thing you can do is, is on character creation, set your INT to 10 or 15 and then give the tome of INT to your character to increase it to 11 or 16, ( if you direly need to put the points else where ) or if you really want to give your tome away to another companion ( since its not really useful anyway to a fighter unless its for RP reasons ) just make sure to start with 11 or 16

WIS
this affects your lore

if you are only going to stay as a fighter through out the whole game, this can be your ultimate dump stat, having this at 3 or even as high as 18 will make absolutely no difference in the beginning, middle or end of your character ( unless you wanted to dual over to cleric or druid, but if you stay fighter the whole way, then it doesnt matter at all ) this is also good because *spoiler warning here* - and the reason why i am not hiding it, is because this is super important - there will come a time in BG2 where you must sacrifice 1 ability score by 1 point permanently and you can only chose DEX, CON, INT or WIS, so wisdom would be the best choice here, plus there are a total of 3 tomes of WIS in this game, so even if you go as low as 3 you can still crank it up to 6 by the end of BG1

now if you are RPing for lore for some reason here is how it works for both INT/WIS;
1-6; -20 penalty
7-9; -10 penalty
10-14; +0 bonus
15; +3 bonus
16; +5 bonus
17; +7 bonus
18; +10 bonus
19; +12 bonus
20; +15 bonus
21+; +5 bonus per point

so what this means is lets say you have 11 int and 3 wis your TOTAL lore would have a -20 penalty ( +0 for int, -20 for wis ) which means you will not see a lore bonus for your character until you hit level 21 then you will finally have 1 lore

but lets say you have 15 int and 10 wis, your lore will be +3 ( +3 fore the 15 int, +0 for the 10 wis ) so at level 1 you will start with 4 lore, now lets say you are level 7 with 15 INT, that will make your lore 10 ( +7 for a level 7 fighter and +3 for 15 INT ) and then you read the tome of INT and increase it to 16, this will now make your lore 12 instead of 10

this means that once your lore is set at level 1 it can retroactively increase ( from increased ability scores pass 14 ) or decrease if ability scores hit below 10

CHA
affects prices at stores and reaction adjustment from NPCs

if you plan to make your character the main character of the group the leader i would highly suggest having at least 17 CHAR, having high CHA and high rep will make sure you always get a positive reaction from NPCs, which can give you better rewards on some quests, in fact if you can start with 18 CHA and get the tome ( which you can easily find even at level 1 ) and bump it up to 19 CHA, you get a huge boost to your "reaction from NPCs" score, so even if you REP is suffering a bit you will still be getting positive reactions from NPCs

also, i believe once you start hitting 15+ on the CHA you start getting a discount to buying items at stores which maxes out at 20 CHA for 20% off

plus i also heard that it helps team morale stay higher if your highest CHA character is leading the group, and after the bajillions of play throughs i had through out the years it does seem to make a difference on morale where characters will keep themselves together much better with a high CHA leader than a low CHAR leader

but if stores prices dont matter and getting better rewards doesnt tickle your fancy ( from memory i dont believe there is any reward so good that only have a mammoth CHA is necessary to get said item ) then you can have it around 9 or 10, especially if this character isn't going to be leading the group, although watch out on going to low with the CHA though, because if your CHA goes below 9 you start having a chance of getting negative reactions from NPCs, and if your reaction adjustment is to low, some NPCs might not even talk to you or even give your rewards for quests so make sure to keep it at minimum of 9

plus in SoA in chapter 1 you will find a ring that when worn, sets your CHA to 18, so there is that to think about

one last thing about ability scores; dual classing

if you go the human route, you can dual class your character, now for a beginner this might be a bit overwhelming and i would suggest just staying with the one class but if you want to give it a try here are some things to remember;

first ability scores matter, if you start off as a fighter you will need to have a minimum of 15 STR ( which should be no problem ) but then depending on what you want to dual class to, you other ability scores will need to a minimum of 17 as follows;

mage- 17 INT
thief- 17 DEX and cannot be lawful good
cleric- 17 WIS
druid- 17 WIS/CHA and must be true neutral

for fighters, those are your only 4 options, and for these ability scores, these are base scores, not boosted scores from items and spells ( although tomes are okay since they increase the base, so if you wanted to be a fighter/wizard and started with 16 INT, you could read the tome to increase it to 17 INT and be able to dual class )

now mechanically this is how dual classing works;

first you must be at least level 2 before you can do it, then once you reach level 2 or higher you choose new class to level up in ( when you choose this new class you will only ever level up in the new class and your first class will never level up ever again ) once you choose your new class you will begin your new class at level 1,

and all the abilities and benefits of your first class will be disabled except for your HP

once your new class reaches 1 level above your original class all your abilities will reactivate and you will gain the benefits of both classes,

although note* class abilities that share stats ( like saving throws, weapon proficiencies and so on ) will over lap and not stack with one another once the first class activates

so for example, if you were a level 3 fighter and had 3 proficiencies in longsword then dualed over to thief and you put one proficiency in longsword when your fighter abilities come back once your thief hits level 4 you would still only have 3 points in longswords not 4, same with saves if your fighter side had a save vs death of 10, and your thief side has a save vs death of 15, once the thief level surpasses the fighter level, you will have 10 instead of 15, but once you level up your second class higher you can eventually go pass what your first class had

this also affects HP, so for example if you dualed a fighter a level 3 and then turned to thief, you will not start gaining HP until your thief level hits level 4 and you will gain the thief HP pool, not the fighter HP pool, and since thieves arent "warrior" types, they only benefit from a max of +2 hp per level

if this sounds a little over whelming dont worry, for a first play through i wouldn't worry about dual classing, but if you really really want to try it out, these are some things to remember

so at the end of the day your stats should be around something like this;
STR; 18/01+ ( preferably 18/91+ if you can, and remember 00 actually means "100" which is +3 to hit, +6 to damage )
DEX; 17+
CON;17+
INT: 11/16 or ( 10/15 )
WIS: lol
CHA: 9-10 or 17+

tome wise, you definitely want to give the STR, DEX, and CON tomes to your main guy, and CHA tome if your CHA is 18, if you are satisfied with your INT and WIS ( and possibly CHA ) there is no harm in giving them to your team mates for their appropriate boosts, divine casters get more spell slots with higher WIS and wizards get better chances to learn spells and the amount of spells they can know, and also get lore bonuses so again up to you, although with CHA in the cannon team the only character that really benefits from it is imoen, so if you dont give it to her you might as well give it to yourself

now, weapons

to be perfectly honest it doesnt really matter what weapons you choose ( especially if you transfer to BG2 ) since you can beat the game with any weapon choice, so its really up to you, i had a figher/druid dual wielding clubs and he was still able to kick some butt and takes some names, but here are some pointers though for certain "weapon paths" you can take;

melee and ranged;
this weapon path works really well with the fighter, were you specialize in a melee weapon and in a range weapon, at level 1 you get 4 points to put into weapons so there is no shame putting 2 points into a melee weapon and then 2 points into a ranged weapon, then once you hit level 3 and 6 you can put 1 more point in each so you have 3 points in both weapons

speaking about weapon proficiencies;

fighters can go pass 2 points in a weapon, which makes it so they get better to hit and to damage, although unless you are going for grand mastery ( 5 points in a weapon ) you only really need 3 to get good bang for your buck, especially at lower levels, fighters throughout the saga get lots of proficiency points so there is tons of time to hit 5 points in your weapon choices, even for multiple weapons, the only big thing though about having 5 points in a weapon over 3 points is that you get an extra 1/2 attack per round with said weapon, but again you dont really need to worry about this at lower levels

melee only;

there are 3 paths you can take here;

2 handed weapon style
2 weapon style
weapon and shield style

here is what is recommended for each;

2 handed weapon style;

at level 1 you will want to chose the 2 handed weapon you will be using for most of the game, with that choice put your 2 points into that weapon and then put your other 2 points into two handed weapon style, this will make you much more effective with handling two handed weapons, then as you grow in levels you can get putting more points into your 2 handed weapon, hitting harder and more often, if you want to diversify a bit, you can always put a point or two into a crushing weapon ( this is mostly for undead which takes full damage from crushing weapons and in BG2 clay golems can ONLY take damage from crushing weapons ) but its up to you, if you want to max out your 2 handed weapon first then put some points into your crushing weapon afterwards go ahead

2 weapon style;

at level 1 you will definitely want to put 2 points into 2 weapon fighting, because if you do not, your penalties are going to be huge, with 2 points you will have no penalty with the main hand and a -4 penalty with the off hand, even at 3 points the only difference is that your penalty with the off hand will be -2 instead of -4 so up to you if you want to put that 3rd point into it, if not you can always wait until bg2 since you will have plenty of time to max out weapons

now when it comes to your main weapon i would suggest putting 2 points into that, and then at level 3 and 6 if you want to crank out more points into that weapon so be it, or if you want to diversify a bit, you can put 2 points into another weapon, or you can have 3 points in your main weapon and 3 points in two weapon fighting for your best "to hit chances" unlike in 3rd edition or higher, it doesnt make a difference what is in your off hand, so for example wielding 2 longswords will give you no less in penalties than wielding 2 short swords, the only purpose of putting points into different weapons is either for a crushing type for undead and golems or for weapons abilities ( but realistically that is only really needed for BG2 more so than BG 1 )

weapon and shield;

much like the other 2, i would suggest choose your weapon of choice and then put 2 points into sword and shield style ( and despite the title, it doesn't have to be a sword, just a melee weapon with a shield ) for every point you put in sword and shield style you will get a +2 AC bonus ( max +4 ) vs ranged weapons, in BG1 and in ToB this is very VERY useful, in SoA its a bit meh, but you will have plenty of points anyway so no biggie, then as usually once you hit those higher levels you can either max out your main weapon or diversify a bit into another one, up to you

BG1

okay, now that you have your character figured out, its team for your team, i would suggest going with the cannon team, especially if you are going the SoD route since your cannon team mates will be there waiting at certain intervals, so this is your cannon team;

you
imoen
jaheira
khalid
minsc
dynaheir

when it comes to recruiting these folks here is how it will go down;

as soon as you start chapter 1, imoen will join regardless of what you say, so easy peezy lemon squeezy

when you get to the friendly arm inn, jaheira and khalid will be waiting for you on the first floor, at the left to the bartender, once they join your group you will have 10 in game days to get to nashkiel and take with the mayor ( who is near the middle of the town in front of the temple ) if you take to long to get there you will get a warning, and if you take to long after that warning, they will leave your team for good, but once you get to the mayor and talk to him, then they will stay in your team indefinitely ( as long as your REP doesnt get to low ) speaking about nashkiel....

after you talk to the mayor, just down the road a bit in front of the barracks minsc will be standing outside looking for some chums to help him find his which dynaheir, accept his offer and start to B-line to the gnoll stronghold and get dynaheir ( although before you go there, gear up from the store first and perhaps grab a sling with some bullets for good ol' dynny ) again i believe you have around 10 game days to get there and find her ( she is in one of the "holes?" in the fortress ) talk to her when you find her and then you no longer need to worry about timed anything, although be careful, with minsc, if you take way to long to find dynaheir ( passed his warning stage ) he will go berserk and attack your team, but you should have plenty of time to get her if you arent screwing around

now when it comes to said team mates here are some pointers on how to use them effectively;

imoen;

when it comes to being a thief she is one of the best ( mostly because of her ability to dual into a mage) although with that said, lets just focus on her being a thief this time around

first is thief abilities, you will want to start getting your lock picks and find traps up, 90 opens any locked item in the game that can be opened with lock picks and 95 in find traps will disarm any trap in the game that can be disarmed except there is one trap in durlag's tower that requires 99(?) i believe ( the trap that is on the object for the level 2 ward stone ) but you can just use a potion for that when the time comes, after you hit 90/95 or even when building up to those values, depending on how you want to use imoen you can start giving her some stealth to be a scout and maybe attempt a backstab or 2, or you can put some points into pick pocketing and knick some goodies from certain NPCs, in actuality there are some one time items that can only be obtained from pick pocketing so it doesn't hurt to have some points in it, although in retrospect a potion of master thievery can also help get the job done if you dont feel like investing in it, or if you wish you can even put points into trap setting, this ability is actually extremely powerful and can be used in "hit and run" techniques, but first and foremost, get lock pick, disarm trap up to 90/95 first and then whatever else is up to you

weapon wise i would just stay with the shortbow for ranged, and melee i would put a point in the weapon style she is using ( whether that be single weapon or two handed weapon ) for melee it doesnt really matter what weapon she is using, as long as she is proficient ( 1 point ) in it

khalid;

pretty simple here thanks to being a fighter, just plate and shield him out and go ham with long swords, although if you want to diversify a bit you can give him another point in longbows and have 3 points in longswords, this will make him a diversified threat in melee and ranged, although you will want to make sure to give him the gauntlets of ogre power once you reach BG the city, since his melee damage will be lacklaster till that point, but once he has those mits, he can wreck some decent havok in melee, especially if he has 3 or more proficiencies in longsword

jaheira;

jaheira is a mulli-class character ( which is different from dual class ) and character that isnt human can multi class which means they grow up in both ( or all 3 classes ) at the same time, the only thing is, is that each class needs to share their XP pool so they will grow up a little slower than single class characters, but in BG1 and even SoD multi class characters are very strong, its not until mid BG2 or so they start to lose their shine abit, but thats for later

anyway, based on jaheira's stats and your team composition she isn't going to be much for a melee character, her AC will be bad and her STR will make it hard for her to hit in melee, so i would suggest maxing out sling and staying as a back row healer, she can heal your team and summon the odd animal and once she is done doing that, she can fire away with sling bullets, which thanks to her fighter side, she can actually hit with some accuracy

minsc;

minsc starts off with horrible DEX which means his AC is going to suffer a bit, but luckily the quest to find dynaheir you will stumble upon the mits of DEX which will set your DEX to 18 when worn ( item from the 2 ogrillions across the bridge in the gnoll fortess area, just make sure to not accept their bribe or else you will lose out on this )

with that being said, thanks to that high str melee is certainly his specialty, but there is nothing wrong with giving him some proficiency in a range weapon if you want a bit more diversity out of him, although with that being said, if you stick with melee you have 3 choices; 2 handed weapon, 2 weapon or 1 weapon ( and shield possibly )

its up to you which weapon path you wish to take, personally i like to skill him with scimitars so he can use a shield and get a bit more AC, but if you want you can stick with maces and give him some weapon style points if you desire, although if you are going to be using two handed swords with this guy, you will definitely want to wear the mits of DEX and make sure to crank out two weapon fighting style

dynaheir

being a wizard you definitely dont want her in melee, even with her HP bonus, her HP will be low, and her AC is absolute trash, so keeping her in ranged combat is a good idea, plus perhaps even giving her items that give her bonus AC vs ranged weapons ( like the belt of piercing and the boots of avoidance ) can help protect her from those straying missile weapons that like to take her out

when it comes to spell casting, its up to you, but in actualality being a specialist wizard does do something;

first any spell you attempt to learn from your school you have a +15% bonus ( i believe its 15, might be 10 ) chance to learn the spell, while spells that are opposite of your school there is a 10-15% penalty ( dont remember which one )

but the best part is, any spell that you cast that is from your specialized school enemies get a -2 penalty to their saving throws, so if you can memorizing evocation spells that has saves they will hit a bit harder with her than anyone else, especially spells like web, lightning bolt and fireball, and cloudkill, just make sure your party isn't in the way though with these spells because they will also get hit harder with them as well

but with that being said you dont have to memorized just evocation spells, if you want to diversify up a bit you can, just remember that because of her specialty, she will not be able to learn enchantment spells


so with that being said, you should be fine through out BG1 and SoD, the only difference is that in SoD they will give you safana instead of imoen ( which basically plays the same ) and you might have to use a couple different characters in the start of SoD before you get khalid and jaheira since they join a bit later,

but other than that you should be good

BG2;

when you import to bg2, you have lots of time to customize your team to the way you wish, after completing bg1 you will no doubt have your strategy/ preferred fighting style down so no matter who joins your team, you should be able to eventually customize them as you see fit

although one thing to note about bg2 is that combat is a bit more "chess like" where casters are much more formidable, and even creatures will having more spell casting powers so there are some spells you might always want to keep 1 or 2 around if you can;

true sight;
whether the cleric of mage version, this will dispel and hostile illusion magic for 10 rounds, illusion magic is super strong in BG in general so you should always have this memorized

remove magic;
although while not 100% necessary it doesnt hurt to have around, this spell works exactly like dispel magic except it doesnt affect team mates, this is a great spell to throw into a group of baddies who load up on defensive spells at the beginning of combat to tone down their edge a bit

dispel magic;
again regardless of cleric or mage, this is the spell to cast on the party if they are affected by bad ju-ju, like charms/domination/ hold persons and the like, the only caveat here is that it can also dispel beneficial spells, but that doesnt really matter if your character is held and being used as a pin cushion and then turned to bacon bits

breach;
level 5 wizard spell, this is the spell to cast on casters to dispel all protections that would protect them from weapons basically, it dispels stoneskin, the armor spells, and the protection from weapon spells, always ALWAYS have at least 1 or 2 of these around

ruby ray of reversal;
level 7 wizard spell, this is the spell to cast on casters to dispel all protections that would protect them from spells in general, like globes of invulnerability, spell turnings/deflections/immunities and so on, having one of these around is always nice, just incase for whatever reason your front line is having a hard time breaking through with their weapons

now, again lets go with the "cannon" team and dig a bit on how to use them;

you
imoen/yoshimo/jan
minsc
jaheira
aerie
nalia

your character;

at this point you will know what play style you prefer and your character should be quite sound, although one great advantage about bg2 is that if you desire to start diversifying in other weapons you will be able to grand master more than 1 ( in fact you will be forced to anyway since you can only put 5 points into one weapon ) in fact i believe you can grand master up to 3 weapons up until the end into ToB with 2 points left over, so theres that to think about

imoen/ or yoshimo/ or jan;

this time in BG2 imoen is now a thief/mage, and luckily her open locks/ disarm traps is high enough to get through the entire game, so if you want use her as your dedicated thief you can, plus when it comes to the odd pick pocket there are always potions to raise it when needed

now despite the fact that she can wear armor thanks to her thief class i would suggest not wearing any armor a mage can't wear, because it will disable her mage casting, and you will want her to cast spells, preferably from the back row, imoen doesn't have the HP/AC to go toe to toe in melee, so keep her in the back with a shortbow and blast away with offensive spells and you should be good

although an important spoiler is coming up so beware;

after you finish the first dungeon imoen will be whisked away to chapter 4, so in the meantime you have 2 options here; go and get her as soon as possible sort of speak or just substitute her for someone else like jan for example

if you are going to go after her right away keeping yoshimo in your team as a replacement for imoen until you hit chapter 4 works, or even you want a thief/mage still jan works as well as a substitute, ( he can be found in the government district) but if you want to take your team and really dont care about imoen you can just use jan instead as your thief/mage, and one advantage he has is that his thief class actually grows levels thanks to hit multi-class, so if you wanted more thief abilities than what imoen has to offer, picking up jan is a good choice, and just like imoen, keep jan in the back slinging spells with whatever range weapon you plan to skill him with, and thanks to his specialty he gets an extra spell per level and any illusion spells he casts give a penalty to the enemy so win-win

if you plan to go the yoshimo route, i wouldnt get to attached to him since he will permanently piece out somewhere in chapter 4 ( although imoen will be right there to replace him ) this route is only advisible for story purposes and infact if you are going for "best story experience" this may be the best way to go

minsc;

since bg1 minsc has had a little bit of an upgrade stat wise, giving him 16 DEX and CON, while not great it was certainly needed, now again melee is where he shines so much like the first game, however you want to style him is up to you, and thankfully because of the higher leveling in BG2 you have some time if you want to dig deeper into different fighting styles, regardless of it being 2 handed, 2 weapon or weapon and shield

jaheira;

she also gets an ability boost, and in fact its a great one; +3 DEX which means her DEX is now 17 which actually makes her an option for melee or ranged since she can actually have some AC, now her STR of being 15 isnt so hot, but that is where a belt of giant str can help out, and luckily you can buy one in chapter 1 at the adventurer's mart which is in the section of town you start off in, although it is a bit costly at 14000 GP base price, but if you want jaheira in melee this will basically be mandatory

when it comes to spell casting, she really shines when it comes to summons, even straight out of her cage she can cast summon woodland beings which is probably the best level 4 summoning spell in the game, then for level 5 spells you can animal summoning 3 and for level 6 you get fire elemental summoning ( which requires no concentration for druids ) or conjure animals which summons 2 mammoth mountain bears that just mess things up

also if you are going to have jaheira in melee it is advisible to have ironskins memorized for level 5 ( this is the druid version of stoneskin for mages ) this will make it so jaheira can take a handful of hits from weapons before she even starts to take damage, absolutely solid, and she can heal on top of that, jaheira definitely shines much better in bg2 than bg1

plus story wise you will be involved with a harper plot with her, and if you succeed she will be rewarded with a very powerful magic item, shazam

aerie;

outside of irenicus' dungeon she will no doubt be the first character that you can find to join your team, she can be found in the circus tent which will be just a hair south east of your starting position in chapter 1, make sure to give her the sword so she can get rid of her ogre form and she will change back into an elf and join your team

now what is great about aerie is she is the best caster in the game being a mage/cleric which means she can have a huge spell arsenal at her hands, although the one thing to watch out for is her hilariously outrageously bad HP, like damn, even in ToB i dont think she hits pass 70 or so ( actually maybe she hits 80 lol? ) anyway so with that you definitely want to keep her in the back with a sling, and set those mage spells to offensive spells, and when it comes to her cleric side, nothing wrong with either going offensive with hold person/ holy smite, or going defensive with healing or defensive harmonies and protection from evil 10' radius or bless and the like, the only draw back to her casting is her INT is a bit low for a mage, so if you are stuggling to learn spells and running out of room to know spells ( because the amount of spells a mage can have in their book is based on their INT ) perhaps go to your local temple and buy a point or 2 of mind focusing or genius, this will help increase your odds of learning spells and allow her to have more spells

also story wise, since dynaheir is no longer with minsc, minsc will actually make aerie his new "witch" in which he must protect, good stuff

also to note romance wise you can have a romance with aerie or jaheira, but not both, and if you are trying to romance both of them, there will come a time where you will have to choose, they choice is up to you, which you choose, even if you shoot the other one down they will stay in your party so you dont have to worry about that

nalia;

when chapter 2 starts you will need to get a huge some of gold before you can go off to imoen ( or irenicus if you dont care about imoen)

this will lead you to the copper cohornet and nalia actually goes out of her way to join your group, its a good decision to let her join because once you complete her quest with her in your group you will get 10650 gold, and you get the option of being the new lord of the keep, which gives you more gold per week, pretty sweet deal

now with combat, nalia is like a watered down version of imoen, she has some thief levels but her thief skills just arent quite up to par to be a dedicated thief, so you might as well make her your "dedicated" arcane caster of the group, using the amulet of power and robe of vecna she will be shooting out spells at warp speed, so make sure to memorize plenty of offensive spells for her, again, being a wizard, sitting in the back is a good option for her so give her whatever ranged weapon you want that she is skilled in and have her chuck spells

ToB

by the time you hit here, you should more than well be on your way on how you work your team, so just keep doing what your team does and you should be fine