+1 Books - spread the love or pimp myself for BG2?
ginger_hammer
Member Posts: 160
I remember giving these books to party members who needed them instead of my character. Then I regretted it when BG2 came out and I imported my character.
So is it best to use them on my char even if the benefit isn't great?
So is it best to use them on my char even if the benefit isn't great?
Post edited by ginger_hammer on
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Your fighter type characters will almost definitely want the str, dex and con tomes. If you're something like a mage however, boosting your con up past 16 or your dex past 18 will have little to no affect on your character itself. Going up to 19 int with a mage though will allow you to memorize every spell in a level without chugging potions of genius, and increasing your wisdom means that you get better options with your wish and limited wish spells later in BG2.
I believe I outlined in another thread as well where a good cleric or druid can complete the entire saga with a staggering 23 wisdom out of a possible 25.
I would also say you should always use the charisma tome on yourself. It doesn't even benefit any of the NPCs.
The mental stats, eh. Really depends. Obviously if you're a wizard you'll want to use the INT tome on yourself and if you're a cleric or druid, you'll want the wisdom tomes. But for other people:
-Do you care about Lore, and if so would increasing Int by 1/Wisdom by 3 affect it anyway? If you have 9 or 14 int, you should use the INT book on yourself to remove the penalty/give you +5 lore. 7/12 wisdom respectively for that stat.
-How close are you to equipping Valygar or Keldorn's personal gear? If you have 18 dexterity and 11 wisdom, you can don Valygar's leather armor. It's a godsend on any multi-class mage or a bard because it allows you to use spellcasting through it and unlike every other armor which does the same, it comes with neat bonuses. Keldorn's armor is significantly less awesome but it's still a good, free piece of full plate with additional bonuses that you can get easily. You need 15 str, 17 con, 12 Int and 18 Cha to use it. If only it were worthy of needing such absurdly high stats.
But if you're playing Vanilla BG1, it is better to shadowkeeper Immy, Jaheria and Minsc to have the same stats that they posess in BG2 from the start if you do so.
The theory being if you can kill Sarevok without losing a party member, the improved stats will carry over when you import a session, and you'll get the bonuses from the Tomes.
Why is this better? Well there are many items which increase strength in BG2, so by giving Minsc the Strength tome, he gets buffed to 19 Strength and no longer needs strength buffing items during BG2.
If you buff Jaheria's DEX and CON after changing her stats to BG2 stats then she's going to be a great tank, not just an OK one. She becomes a lot more useful honestly, and balanced as a character. (Because her fighter side sees returns)
And if you buff Imoen's INT to 18 she gets maximum spell memorization when she becomes a mage.
No matter what happens to you in BG2, this keeps for a much stronger party, if you pick up Keldorn for example, now he can have a strength boosting item since Minsc won't need one to get over 18 Strength, and you'll still be able to pursue Crom Faeyr without losing too many items. (Which could give anyone else in the party 25 Strength!)
Also, this doesn't lead to cheese if you're playing on Insane. Sarevok is no cakewalk on that setting even with a party with stats like I've described and maxed out in level for BG1...in fact if anything it lets your party compete just enough that smart playing will see you through, but it won't be easy either way.
You should look at the stat tables before deciding whom to use the tomb on, if you want to know the effect it has and than decide who benefits from it. If there's no benefit for CHARNAME, the most beneficial is to give it to a character who does benefit.
For instance, if I play a Fighter class, I give WIS tomes to Branwen as adding to her WIS adds to the number of spells she can cast, thus helping CHARNAME in combat, which adds to CHARNAME's survivability and the xp he gathers. So in some situations, your main character is most helped by the tome by letting someone else use it.
@Debaser - thanks although I think I'm going with an evil party this time as went good the original time.
@Son_of_Imoen - yep will have to bring up those old tables I remember from ages ago - forgot how great the whole character creation is while thinking of party composition.
If you take the time to adjust stats in BG1 they will carry on if you beat the game without a death in the party. If not...you will have to adjust them.
(This goes double for Imoens Thieving skills which get really weird from Vanilla BG1 to BG2.)
If going Evil, it's probably best to think about Viconia and Edwin...Boost them, keep track of your boosts and adjust them both in BG2 since their stats will change a bit. This way they get a bit of an extra boost. But you really don't need more than 18 Int so I'm not sure what you'd want to give to Edwin.
Otherwise it's better to really be selfish I suppose. =P
Shadowkeeper is a program that you could use to edit your BG1 or BG2 save files.
This time around that cleric is Viconia, so I hope they're gonna consider this improvement, when they adjust her stats in BG2.
And if they don't, I'm gonna do it manually.
Watch the fact that they are discussing of Baldur's Gate Trilogy (BGT), a mod where you characters follow you during the three games.
In current Bg1 & Bg2 behaviour, it is not possible for your companions to follow you !