Baldur's Gate II

[blackfox]

Best. Game. Ever. :smallbiggrin: I just beat Shadows of Amn today with a sorcerer PC and Valygar, Jaheira, Minsc, Anomen, and Imoen. And I intend to play through the expansion, too. Hours of fun/evading homework await.

Who else out there has experienced the awesomeness of this wonderful game?

[Enoxice]

Love it! But as of right now I'm hooked on NWN2. Same vein of games, though.

[Timberwolf]

I have experienced this gem too. Never managed to beat it though, my PC has always blown up before i could. It's been a while but I think my character was a multiclass fighter / thief (might be wrong there) and I think my party was Imoen, Minsc, Jaheira Mazzy and Kelborn at the time. with the option to switch Kelborn for Jan if I needed arcane backup.

[Exachix]

I have it. But I get past where you lose Imoen and I get kinda stuck. As In, I don't know what to do next.. Ah well... I'll work it out when I re-install it.

[Ink]

I played this quite a few years ago, and yes I really enjoyed it. I went through it a couple of times, and I believe my first party had Minsc, Jaheira, Anomen, Aerie, and Imoen, and my PC was a kensai/mage. If you liked Shadows of Amn, I highly recommend the expansion Throne of Bhaal as well. Lots of fun, and it really ties things up quite neatly from a storyline perspective.

[The White Knight]

Played it, loved it, probably going to play it again soon. I just got the expansion not long ago, and I'm dying to try it.

I forget the party I used when I beat it... something tells me I built more than one of the characters by doing the serial multiplayer trick. I know I had Keldorn and Viconia (it was some fun trying to keep the two of them together...), I think I ditched Imoen in favour of keeping Edwin (also fun trying to keep together with Keldorn), and I made my own thief, sorceror, and monk (main character). I want to try another run through without building more than one character myself.

[Maxymiuk]

I got as far as the Underdark before my laptop broke down. I really have to get back to it one of those days...

The really hard part about the game is that the enemy casters are always very well prepared for disabling an adventuring party. A lot of my battles often devolve into exchanging spells while frantically evading the confused/dominated/charmed tanks coming for my casters.


Here's a fun way to break the game. During the Druid Challenge summon a Dryad as your first spell (I believe it's Nature's Call). It'll try to charm the archdruidess and, very likely, succeed. Next, select the archdruidess, who is now your staunch ally. Go to her Special Abilities. Select the Wildshape/Polymorph (sorry, I played a translated version, so I don't know what it was in the original). It should let you select a target. Click on the dryad.

[Arian]

In a previous life, I was a regular of alt.games.baldurs-gate, though I haven't been seen there in a while. I agree on the awesomeness: I loved all the Infinity Engine games, though BG 1 & 2 are favourites. I never really got into NWN ... too much exposure over too long to the other engine perhaps. :smallsmile:

[cupkeyk]

I loved BG2 which I played up until Throne of Bhaal. I was a Swashbuckler, a rogue variant. I had an evil party with Viconia, Korgan, Edwin, Haer D'Alis(bg2)/Sarevok(tob), Yoshimo/Imoen. I cried when Korgan adopted me. I finally have a family...

[Zaggab]

BG2 must the game that I have played the most. I think I have completed it 5 or 6 times, while doing eveything I can.
Then ToB I have completed maybe 4 times.
All in all, I have spent countless hours on it. Atm, it's more than a year since last I played it, so I have forgotten much now. There was I time I knew almost every cut-scene by heart.

[Miklus]

I loved that game too! I had a bad-ass party to supplement my eeeevil main character (Fighter/theif/wizard). I played all the way through from BG #1 to ToB with that character.

Having an evil party get you the funniest NPC interactions (spoilers ahead):

Korgan: He is so nasty, it's amazing. Absolutely nothing sympethetic about him. He brags about releaving himself on the embers of viconia's family members. Later he tells about what happend to his former party members...O.o No, not the ones you get in a fight with over the book, the ones before that. Scary stuff.

Viconia: Lets it slip that her house was behind the mysterious...intimate decease that crippled the fertility of Korgans clan. Those two are fun in the same party, yet the never tries to kill each other.

Amoen (spelling? that male fighter/cleric that looks like George Michael): At first I diden't intent to keep him for long in the party, but he grew on me after his little family affair...and his hissy fit at the paladin ceremony. After he killed keldorn in anger (they suddenly had a go at each other right before the big beholder fight), he was assured a permenant position :) He is highly underestimated in my opinion. Almost as good a cleric as Virconia and a hell of a lot better fighter. The low wisdom (12 i think) does not seem to hurt his spellcasting that much and he has access to both good and evil cleric spells.

Edwin: Wears a rope and mubles to himself about killing all the other party members. Tries to score with Viconia, who thinks he is a nerd. The less said about the "neither scroll" the better. What evil party can be without him???

Imoen: Got in the party eventually, if only for the extra back story.

For most of the game, there was a "guest spot" in the party where I would let the other NPCs join long enough to complete their quests. But Korgan, Viconia and Amoen was always core members. Having two clerics is just so cool, especially when they get to summon those big skeletons. It made my game a lot easier. With Korgan as "tank" and Edwin to break enemy spellcasters defences, the party was all but unbeatable.

I am tempted to play it again, but I know it would take waaay to long and I just don't have the time.

[Maxymiuk]

Speaking of in-fighting, creating a male character and grabbing all the females results in a lot of cat fights and hours (well, minutes) of hilarity.

[Nostrabel]

I really enjoyed it, specially when I played with my kensai-rogue... ooo, sneak attack with kai power... :smalltongue:

[Archonic Energy]

Minsc & Boo shall never be seperated...

so sick it's funny!

oh and Best game Ever.

[The Evil Thing]

I've played through with a sorcerer, monk, paladin and kensai-mage (kensai-sorcerer would win everything).

Thought about doing it with a Gnome fighter-illusionist but never got round to it.


Anomen is a waste of space, Minsc FTW.

[Maxymiuk]

There was the time I tried playing a wild mage.

I stopped after the fireball that was supposed to finish off a group of NPC's mutated into a group healing spell.

[The Evil Thing]

Hmm, yeah, gaming curios to be honest. Strictly niche.

[Don Beegles]

I got it, and tried playing it a couple of times, because I've heard that the story is great, and it's from Bioware, so that's almost a given. The trouble is that I'd played NwN and both KotORs before I got it, so I was accustomed to that sort of gameplay and it didn't really do it to me. I should get back to it, but I doubt I ever will.

[Tom_Violence]

I played through it once, and probably never will again. Not because I don't like it (I've tried playing it through several times since), but simply because I believe that 200+ hrs is just way too much. I don't have nearly that much time, or that much patience, to spend on a game, any game. Especially a game which is made up of so much repetitive combat.

[averagejoe]

Probably the best DnD simulation out there. I only wish I could play it for the first time again. I played a duel wielding half orc barbarian with maxed out con, which basically was THE meat shield. Plus rage, old school, made you so rediculously effective against mind flayers and vampires. I was a little low on spellcasting power in my party, but I was so good at choping that it didn't matter much.

Minsc basically owned all the other characters, including most on other games. Vicconia was one of the strongest, but she was kinda scary :smalleek: and waaay too evil :smallmad:. Plus Boo was just the coolest thing ever. Hamsters and rangers everywhere rejoyce!

[blackfox]

Korgan: He is so nasty, it's amazing. Absolutely nothing sympethetic about him. He brags about releaving himself on the embers of viconia's family members. Later he tells about what happend to his former party members...O.o No, not the ones you get in a fight with over the book, the ones before that. Scary stuff.I've never used him... paladins kind of tick me off. But I ought to try him and Viconia in the same party sometime. I imaging it would be... fairly amusing/freakin' hilarious.

Amoen (spelling? that male fighter/cleric that looks like George Michael): At first I diden't intent to keep him for long in the party, but he grew on me after his little family affair...and his hissy fit at the paladin ceremony. After he killed keldorn in anger (they suddenly had a go at each other right before the big beholder fight), he was assured a permenant position :) He is highly underestimated in my opinion. Almost as good a cleric as Virconia and a hell of a lot better fighter. The low wisdom (12 i think) does not seem to hurt his spellcasting that much and he has access to both good and evil cleric spells.Anomen kind of annoyed me. I never got a chance to do his knighthood ceremony though.


Edwin: Wears a rope and mubles to himself about killing all the other party members. Tries to score with Viconia, who thinks he is a nerd. The less said about the "neither scroll" the better. What evil party can be without him???Edwin rocked in BGI. He's hilarious. I'm playing an evil party next, and he's got a spot in my party already. :smallamused:


Minsc basically owned all the other characters, including most on other games. Minsc + Vorpal sword = PWNAGE! :smallbiggrin:

[Old Book]

Always loved BG I & II, probably my all time favorites. Add the mods (BGTuTu, the BG1 Romance Pack, etc, etc) and you can play it from the start as a single massive game that pretty much trumps everything else I've seen. Just incredible. If you're interested in the mods, I'd google for the Pocket Plane Group (guy who runs it is an ***, but a good programmer and project head) and the Gibberlings Three forums and go on from there. Many hundreds of hours of old school entertainment value there.

[Miklus]

I've never used him... paladins kind of tick me off. But I ought to try him and Viconia in the same party sometime. I imaging it would be... fairly amusing/freakin' hilarious.


I think you misunderstod...Korgan is that gold dwarf from "The Copper Coronet" Inn. He is a CE bezerker, defenetly not a paladin. He is as far from a paladin you can possible get. I never dared to use his rage-ability, I never trusted him enough...

You are probably thinking of Keldorn. Don't get Keldron and Viconia in the same party, they WILL kill each other.

BTW in ToB, if you have a female character, Korgan will confess his love to you...O.o

He says something like: "Even though ye be kind of lanky and have no facial hair to speak off...I lost my me heart to ye. I love ye <insert name>!"

Then you get two dialog options, to confirm his love or shoot him down. Knowing he is a homicidial maniac, both options are really really scary...

And Anomen is a hoot, if you can get him to "flip alingment". I think i screwed up his "family quest", causing all kinds of mayhem. It was a bloodbath in the house where his sister was held hostage. Yosi even shot the cook, causing an instant -3 rep! Then the police showed up...another massacre. This ment Anomen failed to meet the standards for paladin-hood. And thats when he flipped. Yep, he goes CN on you. Be very, very careful with the dialog options here, he might attack. Once you talked him down, he wants to go back and kill all those snooty paladins. I managed to talk him out of this too. But when Keldorn joined for the beholder quest and mentioned Anomens failure, he throws a spaz and kills Keldron. Thats when I decided to keep him in the party :)

Edit: I think maybe Anomen changes stats when he flips...can anyone confirm this? I think his wisdom gets boosted...or is that only if he becomes a good paladin?

[Arang]

I'm currently playing this game for the second time. My party is way too overpowered; they took out the Twisted Rune like it was a bunch of kobolds. Hopefully Kangaxx will prove to be more challenging. :smallsmile:

Current party is three own PCs: a Cleric of Talos, her (supposedly) lover (an Inquisitor) and her brother (or really, half-brother) Thief. The others are Edwin, Korgan and Imoen, with Korgan and the Paladin providing major melee pain (along with the Cleric), Edwin chipping in spells wherever they're needed, Imoen helping out with flanking, backstabbing and stunning (CF) wherever she's needed and my Thief covering them with a steady stream of arrows..

[Om]

I tried to play this again the other week but I just can't go back to 2e. That and the fact that I've already played it to death several times. A pity considering the quality of the game.

[Captain van der Decken]

Love it. I never actually beat it, I was at the end, in hell, I think, after Irenicus when I got stuck.

I finished the expansion though.

My only problem with it is the start. I HATE:furious: that place. I've been through it so many times I never really want to start a new game.

[The Evil Thing]

Jasper is your friend.

[Scorpina]

I love it, very much indeed. My favourite computer game, ever. I've played it more times than can possibly be healthy, and the Baldur's Gate series is responsible for my introduction to Dungeons & Dragons.

My only major beef is with Anomen being the only romance avaliable to female Bhaalspawn. Smarmy git...

[Ink]

Edit: I think maybe Anomen changes stats when he flips...can anyone confirm this? I think his wisdom gets boosted...or is that only if he becomes a good paladin?

Ano changes to LG and gets his Wis boosted to 16 if he successfully becomes a knight in the Order. If he fails his stats remain the same and his alignment flips to CN.
Anomen always annoyed me to no end. Still I think he's about the only decent cleric for a good-aligned party, so not much choice there. It was pretty fun to watch Yoshi teasing him however. Yoshimo was one of my favourite NPCs in Shadows of Amn and I was pretty sad that I couldn't take him to the end. To me Imoen was no replacement for the quick and witty Yoshi.

All this talk makes me feel like playing the game again. I'll have to go dig up those old discs. If I do perhaps I'll get Ano to flip this time, hopefully that'll loosen him up a little.

[Arang]

I have a simple question:

Why are Drizzt and his pals so unimaginably tough? I can understand that they are a challenge (even without a mage), but they're easily tougher than, say, Firkraag and the Shadow Dragon together. Or the Twisted Rune. Or any of the Watcher's Keep seals. Or even (and I shudder as I say this) Demogorgon, even though you are more powerful by then. Drizzt just never seems to die, and he's doing like 40 points of damage on average every round, and they're all hasted for mysterious and inexplicable reasons, and the only piece of loot they have that's really worth having is geared towards good characters who would never get it, seeing as they wouldn't be going through the fight anyway. I tried dropping a Chaos on them, and they all got Chaosed, but I still couldn't kill them before they came out of the thing. :smallfurious:

[Death, your friend the Reaper]

Best. Game. Ever. :smallbiggrin: I just beat Shadows of Amn today with a sorcerer PC and Valgyar, Jaheira, Minsc, Anomen, and Imoen. And I intend to play through the expansion, too. Hours of fun/evading homework await.

Who else out there has experienced the awesomeness of this wonderful game?

I have played this game through and through 5 times, started it many a time without finishing it as well. Although I could never get the hang of being evil, even with "the complete book on BGII" sitting next to my desk.

I have poured many hours into this game and I always recommend it to people. Although there is an option you can get to force people, as in anyone/anyanimal to join you, and if you force the big bad guy (it's been a while since I played this, the C.Ds got scratched.) he shows up as being chaotic good!

Also Minsc still holds a place in my heart as being the best NPC in the world.

[KIDS]

I downright loved the BG2 and together with BG1, can't think of any better games ever made. Plus, after you finish the game making a different character and choosing a different party gives you almost a different game! It was just awesome and, most of all, properly epic.

[JellyPooga]

I really like the game, but it becomes too easy very quickly. The early game is really good...trying to get out of Irenius' Dungeon, raising cash for Gaelen Bale whilst trying to afford some of those nifty magic items as well as trying to get a stronghold and complete lots of quests and earn renown...it's great. But when you've done everything there is to do before going to spellhold, the rest of the game is just easy and altogether too linear. Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but perhaps I should have played it on a harder setting or something, but it just struck me as being a good challenge at the start and a piece of........towards the end.

One of the really dissapointing things about ToB is that Druids are even more nerfed than in SoA. They end up being about 6 or 7 levels behind everyone else (going straight class) and when they finally do get to 3,000,000 xp, they're still behind Clerics on spellcasting and as far as I can tell don't get anything all that amazing for the effort. Having said that, Shapeshifter/Fighters are just stupid (that's the character I completed the game with). Once you get back to the mainland, you can pretty much ditch your party (I did) and complete the game solo with one of these bad boys. (which I also did, more or less). Even without magic items you have an AC of like -5 and have a reasonable Magic Resistance, whilst having a pretty good attack which is enhanced by the Fighter special abilities (whirlwind attack, etc.). Adding in magic items is just silly.

Anyway, I've had my rant, so I'll shut up.

[Arian]

I believe the assumption of the game designers was that you'd go and rescue the unfortunate Imoen as soon as you found it possible for you to do so, not that you'd go there only when you couldn't find anything else to do.

If you'd already done most of chapter 6 by doing it during chapter 3 instead (I think I have the respective chapter numbers right) it's not surprising that you found the rest of the game rather easy and linear. :smallamused:

[Maxymiuk]

I believe the assumption of the game designers was that you'd go and rescue the unfortunate Imoen as soon as you found it possible for you to do so, not that you'd go there only when you couldn't find anything else to do.

But we owe it to Imoen to be as well prepared as possible before putting on the rescue effort. It'd hardly be fair to her if we just rushed in the moment we can and got killed for our thoughtlessness. :smallbiggrin:

[Jade_Tarem]

Most people believed that the game took place mostly in chapter 2 (not chapter 3, if you go to chapter three you have to put up with the annoying vampire attacks, which are way worse than the shadow thug attacks from chapter 2), and they weren't far wrong in that. There were several good reasons to wait.

1. If you wait long enough, Gaelean Bayle drops the price from 20,000 to 15,000 gold - spend the extra on a casting liscence! :smallsmile:

2. Go find your stronghold quest (Planar Sphere for mage, D'Arnise Keep for Fighter, etc.) and all the follow ups for lots of material gain.

3. Doing all the sidequests early is fun! There are more when you come out of the underdark anyway.

4. Do recall that you'll be fighting dragons and drow and demons and IRENICUS between chapters 4 and 6... i never hurts to be prepared.

I tried doing the game with a custom party (single player multiplayer :P) and it didn't work out any better mechanically (the NPC party members tend towards being overpowered). Plus the flavor is better with npc's.

The party I beat the game with (without cheating) was: Ranger PC, Minsc, Imoen, Jaheira, Aerie, Keldorn. A little light on the arcane magic side, but we did fine.

The party I beat the expansion with was: Wild Mage PC (halway full of bunnies!), Minsc, Imoen, Aerie, Keldorn, Sarevok. I know Edwin owns, but I usually ran 20 rep for the price difference and Edwin wouldn't have any of it.

*Sigh* what made the game really great was the easter egg type stuff, though: If you never killed Neeber (relative of Noober from BGI) or found the berjuryll gem in the chickens, you missed out. And the funny dialogue between the endless combonations of party members is incredible. The only thing that BGI had that BGII lacked was the large number of non-quest critical areas to explore. Y'know, just tramping around the woods or whatever? You could find all sorts of awesome stuff like that in BGI.. not so in BGII, and while it streamlines gameplay, i kinda miss wondering if there's a wizard's tower or an ogre zone just out of sight...

[Archonic Energy]

Also Minsc still holds a place in my heart as being the best NPC in the world.

Quoted for Truth.

[Tom_Violence]

Quoted for Truth.

The guy still really gets on my tits.

[Om]

Meh. BG1 was a lot tougher with its party v party battles. Apart from one or two fights BG2 is a walkthrough... something that ToB thankfully corrects.

[Miklus]

BG1 had a lot of good qualities. I also really liked how the maps just sat one next to the other, so you had the feeling you could go anywhere. But more importantly, you had the feeling that your character could die a any moment. The game was HARD and UNFAIR and just surviving was a real challange.

I remember being ambused by bandits on my way down from...that inn where you pick up Jahira and whats-his-face (Khalid!). You are only just begining the game, and suddenly it cuts to a minimap where you are surrounded by a dozen bandits standing in a neat circle around you with bows! You haven't got a snowballs chance in hell with your level 1 party! You run for your life, hoping to get to the edge and jump to another map. Only then do you realize that "Xzar the pincusion" is eating the grass back in some inaccessable minimap. Harsh game...but that just added to the challenge :)

Ohhh yeah, assassins everywhere! Loved it! It makes you feel good about yourself when you suvive your sixth assassination attempt!

[Mauril Everleaf]

This is by far the greatest game ever invented for computer gaming. ive seriously beaten bg2 a dozen times, once with each major character class plus come combinations. Bc i am a 2ed hold over (i actually still use 1ed books which are older than i am) and as far as comparability to the pen and paper versions of dnd, i think this is one of the most accurate.
Granted i do feel a bit railroaded at times, but thats to be expected with any sort of prestructured/non-intuitive game. heck, sometimes i feel more railroaded by my dm than by my computer.
As far as questing goes, i always did all of the quests that were available in chapter 2&3 before i moved on to chapter 4. that may be just my precautious side or my xp greedy side, but it always worked out well for me.
i was always a bit disappointed by the end of SoA, you get all these cool powers and then you dont use them. but since i got ToB its been so much better, makes a heck of a lot more sense too.
no matter what sort of party i played, i always picked up jan. later when i got shadow keeper (after i had beaten the game a half dozen times) i would re-class jan to either just thief or just illusionist (depending on what my party needed), his dialogue was just to great to miss.
now that ive beaten the game so many times that i could do it with my eyes closed, ive sort of put it to rest. but its hard for me to move on to other rpgs bc i just cant get over how much they all suck compared to the bg series. alas...

[Mauril Everleaf]

Just found a site that has a mod for bg2 that allows you to skip irenicus' dungeon. www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&aid=98&itemid=79 (http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&aid=98&itemid=79)

in case that link doesnt get you there, go to pocketplane.net and its the dungeon-be-gone mod

[Kcalehc]

Ah, BGII, one of the games that kept me sane through university (and kept me from spending so much money at the bar too ;) ). I completed the original game twice and the expansion once. I found the early parts tedious to redo so never really played it much after that.

My character was an Undead Hunter Paladin - especially useful against those vampires because of level drain immunity! The party I used was Myself, Minsc, Jaheira, Imoen (or Yoshimo for the bit where Imoen is gone), Aerie and Nalia. Very strong later on with arcane magic, weak on rogue skills but they weren't needed so much I found - also took alot of healing between battles, but potions are a wonder. Fighters keep the enemy busy while the spell casters drop their magic defences then blast them to heck; simple but it works for me ;).

Don't know how to hide it like others so WARNING SPOILER BELOW!

One interesting quirk is that if at the end of the main game, in Hell, you choose all the evil paths to getting the Tears your alignment can change. So I became Neutral Evil Paladin somehow - and with the ability to now control undead instead of destroying them when Turning had much fun (and could still use the big +5 sword because I was still a paladin...).

[The_Shaman]

The GAME. I've started it probably 50 times, although I've only been persistent enough to beat it once. Very few games come so close to perfection - maybe Torment, or KotOR - but I can't think of a better RPG.

I'm playing with a ranger/cleric DC now. However, there are a bucketful of mods, so a lot of nifty cleric spells aren't in the textbook. Well, it's not exactly a loss - I love firestorm, but it's not exactly a ranger thing.

Oh, and if you think the battles too easy, there's one word for you: Tactics.

"All is fair in love, war, and a Weimar Tactics battle."

[Indurain]

I was playing this for a while, but have recently stopped as life began to catch up to me. I really should go back to it. My monk was getting really cool.

And I will restate that Minsc is the best.

"Butt-kicking for goodness!"
"Go for the eyes Boo...go for the eyes!"
"I would rather have given a sword. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach a man to fight and he can chow down on the meaty marrow of evil!"
"Must... get aid soon... Boo is too young to have to avenge me"

Man...why did I go and think about this game again...

[Bloodred]

I played through this a dozen times myself as well. I have done every combination possible.

Recently I played though it solo as a Fighter/Rouge/Wizard using the Shadow Keeper Mod to adjust my Fighter class to Kensai. I made it to the start of ToB but got bored, killing anything was a simple matter. Time Stop, Kai, Assassinate, Greater Whirlwind Strike… I also installed a Mod that allowed me to go to 40 in each class, needless to say it was absolutely insane.
But that’s what I was playing for, I have beaten the game from start to end easily 10+ times(Without any mods). I have such detailed knowledge I even know the exact location of every trap in the game.

Great game. :)

[ambu]

Well that is what I miss in NWN II. The hilarious lines of Minsk ( who truly was the BEST NPC ever) and the lines of the characters (" I am the destroyer of worlds!"). In NWN what do you get? "Follow me" and " I have my eyes on the target". Bliah

[Scorpina]

Yeah, no other game has anything like the dialogue quality of the Baldur's Gate series. Especially in BG II with the interparty banter. I've yet to play another game that has anything even close to that.

[Umbral_Arcanist]

Yeah, no other game has anything like the dialogue quality of the Baldur's Gate series. Especially in BG II with the interparty banter. I've yet to play another game that has anything even close to that.
This game has somewhat spoiled me in that regard....

[Pagz]

Great game, a very great game

I remember AGES ago (well ages ago as far back as a teenagers mind can go :P, I must of been in grade 6 :P) yo around 11 years ago I played and beat Baldurs gate 1, I remember kicking ass (my PC was a bard, and I actually played him as a fighting mage, he was sub-par, but looking back I was a smart ass at games anyway) I remember getting up to Saverok and failing every time, I was getting cut, so I cheated by casting "summon skeletons" and getting them to walk into the fog of war, so that saverok and his men couldnt see the skeletons but the skeletons could see them! It was cheating to the max, but I beat them, however ive never beaten them, again... Im really tempted to beat BG1, expecially since its the holidays for us now! :smallbiggrin:

I beat BG2 with a berserker/cleric, and I found the battle with Irenicus WAY to easy... I mean, the battle went to a few rounds... I dunno why it was soo easy, i got soo pumped to fight them and it was all for nothing... :smallmad: yer BG1 is WAY harder then BG2... well it may just be that i was younger when i played BG1 (I beat BG2 two years ago)

I want to play it from BG1 straight to ToB (I've never played Tob), I really want to play it through as a Bard, just to reminisce with my younger self :smalltongue:
although two builds I was thinking about was the Berserker/cleric (I remember absolutely HATING mind afflicting spells) and having a few cleric spells is always fun (Duel classing was the only thing humans were good for, that and paladins) which would be better? :P

Remember in BG1 how there were the tomes that raised your stats by 1? Man getting that strength to 19 made your char INSANE compared to, say, EVERY OTHER HUMANOID... :smallbiggrin:

Does anyone know if weapon proficiency's from your fighter class worked on your duel classed weapons? Like my Berserker/cleric had 5 slots in "Mace" and I always wondered if It actually made a difference (no im not going to use the flail of ages, too main stream :smallcool:)

so ill take it druid is just never a good choice? I was tempted to play as a druid till I got to 14 then duel classed, but... berserker... :) (HATE MIND AFFLICTING STATUS CHANGES!)

PS. This game rules

Yes so does minsk

I wish I could take HIS ranger class

edit: does anyone know if putting a weapon proficiency on a weapon as your second duel classed class (eg. the cleric when your still trying to get its level over your fighters) stacks with other proficiency's you already have? (eg. i have four on mace, get one as a cleric, when i hit that blissful level when i can use both class abilities will the total proficiency's be five? lol the fact that its 2e when im a 3e boy makes it hard :P)

[Captain van der Decken]

Remember in BG1 how there were the tomes that raised your stats by 1? Man getting that strength to 19 made your char INSANE compared to, say, EVERY OTHER HUMANOID... :smallbiggrin:



There's a machine, in Watcher's keep (ToB) which can do that.
Watcher's keep was good. Especially the mini-adventure thing. That was kinda funny.

[BlueWizard]

When I played I didn't save and go back, so Minsc and many others were dead when I finally beat it!

[Matthew]

The Baldur's Gate series is great.

[Mauril Everleaf]

does anyone know if putting a weapon proficiency on a weapon as your second duel classed class (eg. the cleric when your still trying to get its level over your fighters) stacks with other proficiency's you already have? (eg. i have four on mace, get one as a cleric, when i hit that blissful level when i can use both class abilities will the total proficiency's be five? lol the fact that its 2e when im a 3e boy makes it hard :P)

im ninety percent sure that it does, mostly stemming from the fact that the weapon proficiency system is a bit simplified from the pnp version of 2ed. however, you may need to instal the mod/patch that gives you true proficiency abilities. the grand mastery level (5 ranks) is really nerfed compared to pnp. im not sure of the site that i found that at, just google "baldur's gate mods proficiency" and you should be able to find it. hope that helps :smallwink:

[averagejoe]

And I will restate that Minsc is the best.

"Butt-kicking for goodness!"
"Go for the eyes Boo...go for the eyes!"
"I would rather have given a sword. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach a man to fight and he can chow down on the meaty marrow of evil!"
"Must... get aid soon... Boo is too young to have to avenge me"

Man...why did I go and think about this game again...

Don't forget, from BGI:

"Magic is impressive, but now MINSC LEADS! Swords for EVERYONE!"
"There is safety in numbers, and I am worth two or three at least."
"When the going gets tough, somebody hold my rodent!"

[The_Shaman]

Was it in the normal banter, or some mods, that he offers your character to take a weasel? I also loved it when he was telling Aerie about Rashemen. Ah...

Although, to be honest, I like some of the Ps:Torment NPCs even more. They don't have anything on Minsc for comic value, but they were just involving. That aside, BG II is still my favourite game for overall excellence. I should continue my last character whenever I find a bit more time... I always get started but often decide to make a new character by the end of SoA.

[Om]

Although, to be honest, I like some of the Ps:Torment NPCs even more. They don't have anything on Minsc for comic value, but they were just involving.I thought Morte could give Minsc a run for his money :smallwink:

[Beleriphon]

I thought Morte could give Minsc a run for his money :smallwink:

Thats for sure. I think Torment had far better general dialogue, but its wasn't any where near as entertaining.

My favourite bit with Minsc is getting him out of his cage. I love what happens when he catches on to what you're doing.

[blackfox]

The strange thing is, Minsc used to annoy me when I played BGI... and Jahiera didn't. Most people I've talked to thought Minsc was really cool and Jaheira was a jerk. :confused: But Minsc eventually grew on me.
I think the party I played through BGI with was a mage PC, Imoen, Jahiera, Khalid, the dwarven fighter/cleric, and the elf ranger who wanted revenge on Tazok (can't remember their names.)

[Scorpina]

Yeslick and Kivan.

...I know the game far to well.

[Captain van der Decken]

What kinda annoys me is the lack of evil npcs. Viconia, Edwin and Korgan are the only ones.

[DeathQuaker]

What kinda annoys me is the lack of evil npcs. Viconia, Edwin and Korgan are the only ones.

Don't forget in Throne of Bhaal you also get


Sarevok


Well, you've also got a fair number of morally-neutral characters that work just fine in an evil party. Cernd, Haer'Dalis, Jan Jansen, and Yoshimo--not to mention Anomen if you choose to corrupt him. Jaheira is also True Neutral... though she seems to work slightly better in neutral or good parties.

And Imoen, though Good, is willing to work with you regardless of your alignment, loyal little (foster) sister that she is. Some of the other good characters are also doable (I think the only ones that really aren't are Keldorn, Mazzy (who I've never used), and Valygar--who I believe will at least still go with you on the Sphere quest).

So for an evil party, you still have choices for some very good, strong characters. Viccy's the best cleric, Edwin the best mage, Korgan is a fantastic tank, and you have easy access to all of the thieves except possibly Nalia, who is the worst thief in the game anyway.

[Captain van der Decken]

Ah yes, forgot him. The problem with neutral characters is they leave when your really evil. They just moan constantly if you're really good.
You're right about them being some of the best characters.
Sarevok is reallly powerful actually. High dex, 18/00 str and that strange thing that makes the enemy sometimes explode.

Talking of Yoshimo, and evil characters, I was fighting the slavers, when he suddenly started killing children. I don't know why, but he just did it.

Is there any way you can get Yoshimo to not betray you?

@V I knew Saemon drugs you, was just wondering if there was a way to keep Yoshimo. Probably not, considering he's dead in ToB.

[The Evil Thing]

Is there any way you can get Yoshimo to not betray you?

Don't put him in your party. Either Bodhi or that pirate chap (Saemon, was it?) will drug you instead depending on whom you work for.

[DeathQuaker]

Ah yes, forgot him. The problem with neutral characters is they leave when your really evil. They just moan constantly if you're really good.

You have to work pretty hard to be that evil, though. Many of the things that drop your reputation are "Stupid Evil" things like randomly slaughtering people for no reason. Likewise, your reputation goes up often just for completing sidequests for "helping" people, even if you had no benevolent means or motivation of doing so--just lots of phat loot and Quest XP that's MUCH higher than the XP you'd gain from killing an NPC. You can be pretty evil but keep your rep in a relatively "neutral" area.



Talking of Yoshimo, and evil characters, I was fighting the slavers, when he suddenly started killing children. I don't know why, but he just did it.

That's odd. Sounds like a bug.



Is there any way you can get Yoshimo to not betray you?


No. Even if you leave him behind, he is not available for the rest of the game (I believe the idea is Irenicus has him killed). The idea is if you have him with you, he leaves right in time for you to get Imoen back, so you have a smooth party transition without having to leave anyone behind. You trade one thief for another.

[The Evil Thing]

No. Even if you leave him behind, he is not available for the rest of the game (I believe the idea is Irenicus has him killed). The idea is if you have him with you, he leaves right in time for you to get Imoen back, so you have a smooth party transition without having to leave anyone behind. You trade one thief for another.
Yes, but he still doesn't betray you. Unless you count spontaneously collapsing on the Coronet as betrayal.

[Om]

Talking of Yoshimo, and evil characters, I was fighting the slavers, when he suddenly started killing children. I don't know why, but he just did it.
Looks like an area effect spell turned the children hostile.

[DeathQuaker]

Yes, but he still doesn't betray you. Unless you count spontaneously collapsing on the Coronet as betrayal.

The fact is, Yoshimo is a betrayer, and if you keep him around, there is nothing you can do to change his storyline. If you DON'T keep him around, the point is moot, because you never use him, and after you get Imoen back, you never will.

[The Evil Thing]

Furthermore, not doing that reduces the chance for extra quest XP.

[Captain van der Decken]

Looks like an area effect spell turned the children hostile.

Nope, was hitting the slavers with swords. Imoen is a crappy mage and a crappy rogue..:mad:
Most of the multi-classed characters aren't that good really. Despite Having to use them if you want to play a good character. :annoyed:

[DeathQuaker]

Nope, was hitting the slavers with swords. Imoen is a crappy mage and a crappy rogue..:mad:

You need to rethink your tactics, my friend. I always use Imoen--well equipped, she whups butt. She is the second best mage in the game, next to Edwin. She has the highest Int and good spells. She is also good in Con and Dex, making her less fragile than Aerie and I think also even Nalia. She doesn't have the specialist restrictions Jan does. When not casting spells, she's great with ranged fire on her bow, something Aerie and Edwin cannot provide (not sure about Jan).

Nalia's a higher level mage, but Imoen is smarter and therefore has better spell capacity, AND Imoen is a better thief than Nalia.

She's not an uber-thief, but she has all you need to get the job done. The second time I played the game, she was my only party thief after Yoshimo. I believe she had only one item that boosted her pick locks and disable trap skills, and she was more than adequately skilled enough to take care of all the locks and traps in the game, which is all I needed a thief for.

If you find Imoen "crappy" you're not exploiting her potential at all.



Most of the multi-classed characters aren't that good really. Despite Having to use them if you want to play a good character. :annoyed:

Lemme see... there's Imoen and Nalia who are dual-classed wizards. There's Anomen, who is dual-classed to cleric I think. And Aerie who is multiclassed wizard.

Beyond that, you have Keldorn, Valygar, Minsc, and Mazzy, all of whom are single classed and EXTREMELY good at what they do.

Plus for neutral aligned characters, you have multi-classed Jaheira, who is a tank again if you level up and equip her right, Cernd and Haer'Dalis who are single classed. Never used Cernd, Haer'Dalis is a whirling dervish with his blades.

And finally, single-classed Viconia, who is the only evil character easily usable in a good party, especially if you romance her. And she's awesome. Beware Viconia dual wielding Crom Feyr and the Flail of Ages. :)

You have a total of 7 single-class characters you can use as a good player. This is more than the 5 characters you can choose for the party. Your spellcaster list is limited, but you still have a very, very effective party (especially if you yourself choose to play a spellcaster).

So no, you don't have to use the multi- and dual- classed characters.

Plus, the 5 dual- and multi-classed characters you can access are very effective as long as you take care to level and equip them properly. Imoen's fantastic. Anomen is a tank if you can put up with him. Jaheira is awesome, especially as she gets into higher levels and can do some fantastic shapeshifting abilities. You really have to protect Aerie at first, but once she attains high enough levels, her cleric-and-mage combo can take out some combats all by herself. If you find these characters weak, then frankly, you're playing your characters weakly. This isn't meant as a personal insult--you just need to improve your strategy.

[Captain van der Decken]

Oh, no. I do fine with them, but compared to the pure classed characters, I'd definately go for the pures.

Imoen isn't that good a rogue, never seems to have enough points(what were they called again). Even with the best bows I can find, she never seems to hit much.
Anomen, I thought he was quite good. Until I played a pure cleric, and saw the difference.
Jaheira is a fairly good fighter, but the spells are limited( I just use that Summon insects spell mostly)
Aerie, yeah, is fairly fragile.
I guess I should have said aren't as good.

Evil seems to have most of the better characters.
You have the slayer, for one thing.

[The Evil Thing]

You have the slayer, for one thing.
Huh. Whenever I use that I always die in like 4 rounds.

[Captain van der Decken]

Really? I always seemed to last a fair bit longer than that. Anyway, I would usually just kill whoever I needed to kill then shift back. I have vague recollections of being unable to change back after a certain time, am I right?

[Mauril Everleaf]

Really? I always seemed to last a fair bit longer than that. Anyway, I would usually just kill whoever I needed to kill then shift back. I have vague recollections of being unable to change back after a certain time, am I right?

i never thought that the slayer was all that it was cracked up to be. by the time i get around to a place where it would make sense to use it, i dont need it because my stats are about equal (with good rolling and magical items). plus im usually good and dont want to take the rep hit.

[Falkus]

Imoen isn't that good a rogue, never seems to have enough points(what were they called again).

With the right items, she has enough skill points to pick any lock in the game, and disarm any trap in the game. What more do you need out of a rogue?

[Mauril Everleaf]

With the right items, she has enough skill points to pick any lock in the game, and disarm any trap in the game. What more do you need out of a rogue?

agreed. the other theif abilities are virtually useless. the only one that is semi-useful in baldurs gate is the hide in shadows ability, which is easily eclipsed by invisibility spells or potions. set traps is useless, and detect illusion never works. pick pockets is not game necessary, but can be fun.

[Maxymiuk]

<snip> ...and detect illusion never works. </snip>

Er... yes it does. In the stronghold mission, among other places. Good luck getting into the main treasure room without it.

For rogues I prefer Jan Jansen. He's virtually the only rogue NPC aside from Yoshimo that still gains rogue levels (Dual-classing? Who came up with that crap?), he can cast spells, and his dialogues are hilarious.

[Mauril Everleaf]

hmm. i never got it to do anything, leastwise i never could figure out when it was doing something. i just use oracle and truesight and whatnot for illusions. all my years of gaming this and i missed that. huh.

[Varen_Tai]

*gasp!* Traps are useless? Who fed you THAT piece of garbage? Traps rule.

1) They NEVER miss.
2) You can place 7 or 8 in one area. Even many of the big baddies will die or almost die when getting nailed by all the traps set in one area. The red dragon? Place a bunch of traps all around him before triggering the fight and watch his health drop to almost dead in one shot. Granted, there are mods that make trap laying trigger fights as if you attacked, but it's still handy for when you go through that portal with the roguestone. Lay all the traps in that room, walk out, get the lich to teleport in and WHAM! Dead lich. Usually. :)

I hate losing Yoshimo for all the traps he can lay. I used to think they were useless, too, until I tried this. Now I love 'em.

[Mauril Everleaf]

i could never get them to work. i would have over 100% in set traps, go to set a trap and....nothing. it always told me that i failed. i tried with imoen, jan and yoshi. i thought they would be great to use them around bbgs (like casting magic resistance on them, defensive spell, so no agro, but lowers dragons magic resistance) but i couldnt get it to do anything, so i just gave up on them. apparently ive been under untilizing my thieves. ill have to go back and play my theirf game and try these.

[DeathQuaker]

I recall there was one particular trap... and may have been only creatable by the thief kit that Yoshimo was... that did physical damage with no save. You could pull cheese tactics to have Yoshimo lay that particular trap around dragons and the like to kill them quickly. It was super super cheesy though, not really I think what the creators intended when they designed the bosses. :)

And Imoen doesn't need the trap ability. She can cast Cloudkill or a similar area effect spell into an area with an unactivated boss (one that's still "blue") and pull similar cheese, doing about as much damage (and again, probably not what the creators intended :smalltongue: ).

I firmly stand by my statement that Imoen whups butt.

[Shikton]

Just out of the blue... Did anyone here play BG2 on Mplayer?

[Varen_Tai]

Some - it was a little tough to set up the battles, though. When it's just you, you can command all your PCs to work in perfect unison, but in MP, we really had to spend much more time planning things out so that no one got fireballed by accident.

[Captain van der Decken]

I did. Pausing was a pain, as was the annoying ability to take things from your allie's inventory, also, what Varen said.
It was, I found, easier though. Despite the odd argument over gear.

[Shikton]

I kinda meant mplayer as in the program that merged with GSA :P But yeah, MP in general COULD be a little annoying when people paused or whatever. Only in bigger groups though, been MP-ing with a buddy just him and I, and that's been pretty much a walk in the park with a multiclassed character each. As long as you have non-braindead people to play with it's great.

[Mauril Everleaf]

I liked mping, but only when i was using a lan, not over distance. this kept me from all the annoying chat typing during combat and such. i dont do it anymore, mostly because everyone else has moved on to nwn2 os something like that.
Sidenote, in bg2, one of the loadscreen texts says that you can transfer your bg2 character into nwn. has anyone tried this? does it really work? what kind of transfer exchange is there?

[Shikton]

It doesn't work. They scrapped it due to NWN being 3rd ed.

[Mauril Everleaf]

i knew that they went to 3ed, that why i was wondering about conversion of stats, and about feats and stuff. hmm, i wish derian could be in nwn. <sniff, tear>. oh well, i guess ill just have to keep pwning in 2ed.

[Shikton]

The BG series is infinitely better than NWN anyways ^_^

[Tom_Violence]

It wouldn't've made any sense to let you carry on using your BG character in NWN, since by the end of the game you were very high level indeed.

As for keeping Yoshimo, here's a little cheat that I found in a walkthrough (spoiler, of course):

"If you really want to keep Yoshi, have him in your party, then before
you enter the Spellhold, go inside an inn (or any building), put him
near the doorway and drop him from the party (and tell him to wait for
you). Once you finished the whole Spellhold drama, head back to where
you drop Yoshi off, as soon as you walk into the inn (or whatever
building he is in), PAUSE the game and command your character to talk
to him. When you talk to him, talk him back into the party. When the
conversation ends and Yoshi is in your party, he will die from the
geas. Just take him to a temple or resurrect him and he is as good as
new."

As for the question about what NPCs are good, I'll say this much - I've never had any problem with party members leaving, and I'm currently playing through ToB as an evil Assassin with Sarevok, Viconia, and that Paladin guy in my party. Edwin occasionally complains about how nice we are, but no one leaves. Its not difficult at all to keep your reputation properly balanced.

And Anomen is dreadful. Crappy wisdom and dexterity means he ought to just stay at home. :tongue:

[The Evil Thing]

And Anomen is dreadful. Crappy wisdom and dexterity means he ought to just stay at home.
He's also a bit of a schmuck. I can't resist that line "Where did you get that idiotic accent? Reading too many romance novels?" you can say when you first meet him. Even my Awful Good Paladin says that.

[DeathQuaker]

He's also a bit of a schmuck. I can't resist that line "Where did you get that idiotic accent? Reading too many romance novels?" you can say when you first meet him. Even my Awful Good Paladin says that.

I enjoyed killing him. I had him join my party as I wanted a cleric, and after putting up with his daddy's boy whining as a poor excuse for flirting with me, I stuck my blades with him several times. I then asked the outcast, bitter, malicious, selfish, reputation-ruining drow to join as my cleric, and enjoyed her company a lot more. :)

BUT... I have heard that those who keep Anomen around can turn him into a more or less tank. If you can tolerate him, I guess.

[The Evil Thing]

If you needed a cleric that badly there's always Aerie. :smallbiggrin:

Her sidequest is actually fun, too.

[Mauril Everleaf]

I love Aerie. I almost always pick her up. The only reason i dont is if i want to try a different party format. But she is awesome as a caster. I love all the offensive mage spells she has, plus all the healing/buffing she get from being a cleric. toss her the mauler's arm or crom fayr when you get it, and all you need is her and you (as a fighter/thief) to beat the game. Seriously try it.

[Tom_Violence]

BUT... I have heard that those who keep Anomen around can turn him into a more or less tank. If you can tolerate him, I guess.

I'm sure you can, but I doubt any could ever convince me of why you'd ever bother. :smallamused:

But then, I'm the guy that replaced Minsc with a home-made character cos I prefered the personality. :smalltongue:

[Matthew]

I like Anomen. He's not the most entertaining NPC, but then I don't tend to stick with one party composition, so it's no big deal. Aerie and Jaheira can be just as annoying...

[Ink]

I actually found Anomen, Jaheira, and Aerie to be the most annoying characters in the game. Anomen however is a better cleric than Aerie, and yes he does turn out to be a pretty decent fighter and quite a powerful character as the game progresses. His whiny attitude is insufferable though, and when I played a female PC the first time through, I found his pick-up lines so incredibly cheesy I had to wonder what redblooded female would put up with this. Of all the male NPCs a female character could have had an affair with.. Yoshimo, Cernd, Valygar.. they had to go with Anomen? Eep, the game writers were certainly not kind to the female PC.

[Mauril Everleaf]

thats why you find and install the love quest patches. It fixes the bug that if the character you are flirting with dies, the romance is over. im pretty sure it also gives you some bonus male relationship options.

[DeathQuaker]

If you needed a cleric that badly there's always Aerie. :smallbiggrin:

Actually, I used her too in that game, but she levels up so slowly in the beginning I wanted someone to back her up.

Viccy and Aerie in the same party can be very amusing, actually. Viccy picks on her horribly... and Aerie just pouts and pouts... until finally she just snaps and yells at Viconia. Which earns Viconia's respect. :smallsmile:


I actually found Anomen, Jaheira, and Aerie to be the most annoying characters in the game. Anomen however is a better cleric than Aerie, and yes he does turn out to be a pretty decent fighter and quite a powerful character as the game progresses. His whiny attitude is insufferable though, and when I played a female PC the first time through, I found his pick-up lines so incredibly cheesy I had to wonder what redblooded female would put up with this. Of all the male NPCs a female character could have had an affair with.. Yoshimo, Cernd, Valygar.. they had to go with Anomen? Eep, the game writers were certainly not kind to the female PC.

As much as I like the Black Isle/Bioware/Obsidian group of games, they have yet to make, IMHO, a decent male love interest. I imagine it has *something* to do with the fact that the games are written by male nerd boys who have no concept of what a woman (or whoever wants to romance a male companion) wants. :smalltongue: :smallwink: Anomen was the worst, but Valen, Carth, Casavir... are all pretty much awful as well. Either no personality whatsoever ("I will protect you!" *yawn*) or in an attempt to make them "sensitive" make them whiny instead. "Here let me tell you my life story! And now, since you've been polite to me and listened, I love you!" WHAT-EVER.

I heard that Haer'dalis was to be a male love interest but it didn't get implemented. _That_ would have worked nicely, I think. He's a little goofy, but at least he has a better line than, "My daddy's mean to me, so love me."

That said, I have heard some gals actually go for these guys--of course, you can't please everyone. Overall, as far as I've seen, the reception of these fellows has been lukewarm as best. It's disappointing when the female interests including people with nice complex backstories like Viconia, or who argue with you and tease the way REAL loves often do, like Annah.

Granted, given my preferences I'd probably go for the likes of Annah anyway :smallredface: , but I'd like to have a decent guy to flirt with when playing a female PC.

Rant off.

[Logic]

You speak of some characters I have never heard of. Were they in a downloadable mod of somkind?

[amanodel]

Bestest game ever. I played it through several times. Mostly to score with every possible female NPC.

First I went with Aerie. With a little patience it can turn out to a nice romance. Very annoying at the start, tough.

Then I tried Viconia. Skills in reverse psychology helps you a lot. She was totally into me until the underdark, where sadly she just wanted to run away. Is there a way to continue the romance with her?

Then, gathering all my strenght, I choosed Jaheira. The hardest one, since she's got many sidequests, dropping him out from the party repeatedly. We were into something, when suddenly the game ended. The party was so strong that I finished the game before I could sleep with Jaheira. I tried it again several times, but some bug caused the conversation to stop every time. Does anyone have a save of a game when you're in love with Jaheira?

The most fun was a party with Me, Minsc, Aerie, Jaheira, Viconia, and Hear'Dalis. The three girls make a real cat-fight over you. If the timing is right when you dump Aerie for Viconia or Jaheira, Aerie will start a romance with Haer'Dalis. The whole party's like a big family. Jaheira acts like a mother to me, Aerie becomes Minsc's new witch, I score with Viconia, and Aerie with Haer'Dalis. I was a swashbuckler, so it was a relatively weak party, and the tactics were "let Minsc do all the fights", but the conversations made me cry, really.


Mauril: do you know the link of the patch that fixes "love bugs"?

[DeathQuaker]

You speak of some characters I have never heard of. Were they in a downloadable mod of somkind?

No, I was mentioning male "romance" options in other Bioware/Black Isle/Obsidian games.

Valen is from Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark
Carth is from Knights of the Old Republic
Casavir is from Neverwinter Nights 2.



Then I tried Viconia. Skills in reverse psychology helps you a lot. She was totally into me until the underdark, where sadly she just wanted to run away. Is there a way to continue the romance with her?

Viconia is tricky.

Most folks make the mistake of sleeping with her the first time she offers, thinking "Oooh score!" when she's feeling vulnerable and is hoping she can make it appear she's merely using you rather than truly having feelings for her. Refusing her allows you to show more respect for her in the long run, and if you do it right, you should be able to romance her all the way through to the end of Throne of Bhaal (where if you're Good, you can shift her alignment up to Neutral).


I tried it again several times, but some bug caused the conversation to stop every time. Does anyone have a save of a game when you're in love with Jaheira?

No save, but if you look around there are ways to fix the bugs in the Jaheira romance. Just Google around a bit. There's also a Console command that can allow you to turn on a romance if you screwed up and shut it off.

[Jerthanis]

As much as I like the Black Isle/Bioware/Obsidian group of games, they have yet to make, IMHO, a decent male love interest. I imagine it has *something* to do with the fact that the games are written by male nerd boys who have no concept of what a woman (or whoever wants to romance a male companion) wants. :smalltongue: :smallwink: Anomen was the worst, but Valen, Carth, Casavir... are all pretty much awful as well.


I actually liked the Valen romance quite a bit, at least, quite a bit more than the generic drow assassin girl. (Valen was the Tiefling in HotU right?) Because he was self depricating and no nonsense. He did a bit of whining, but I forgave that when, despite not having any ranks in persuasion, and without his true name, he still refused to turn against me at the end, despite the promise of true acceptance within the demonic ranks, and a real place for himself with respect. He gambled on the protagonist and won, despite no guarentees that it would lead to his happiness. I also KINDA liked Carth, but I guess I still liked Bastilla better, and Bastilla was kinda annoying, so you're probably right about that one. Anomen's a great partymember, and I like leading him through the troubled time in his life to becoming the person he wants to become, but damn, his romance is freakin' ANNOYING!

[DeathQuaker]

I actually liked the Valen romance quite a bit, at least, quite a bit more than the generic drow assassin girl. (Valen was the Tiefling in HotU right?) Because he was self depricating and no nonsense. He did a bit of whining,

He wasn't too bad (Anomen is definitely still the worst). What I didn't like about Valen was he was very... "Here's my life story. Now I love you." You didn't really interact with him--as long as you asked him about himself and answered politely, he declared his love for you. Felt very stilted and one-sided to me.

I didn't keep him with me through the end; dropped him eventually for Aribeth, and talked her and Nathyrra into staying with me with my Mad Bard Persuasive Skillz.

I never tried the Nathyrra romance.

[amanodel]

Viconia is tricky.

Most folks make the mistake of sleeping with her the first time she offers, thinking "Oooh score!" when she's feeling vulnerable and is hoping she can make it appear she's merely using you rather than truly having feelings for her. Refusing her allows you to show more respect for her in the long run, and if you do it right, you should be able to romance her all the way through to the end of Throne of Bhaal (where if you're Good, you can shift her alignment up to Neutral).

I actually made that mistake, but later it can be made up by doing that the fouth time. After the first three times she went all offensive on me (and changing her emotions drastically), true, but after "taming" her, she admits she truly loves you. The conversations after the first two times are wonderful displays of her nature, it'd be a pity to miss. Anyway, I do have saved games before the large events of the game (conversations, of course, it's good to see all the possibilities), so I'm gonna check out dismissing her the first time. Thanks for the advice!

(actually I think that my way was good too, and only the end of the game caused thinks no to work. At least Viconia said she leaves me because she loves me too much. Stupid quests between the really important events of the game...)

By the way, do you know what's the final of the Aerie-Haer'Dalis romance? The game ended before it could finish. :( I was at the part where Aerie becomes confused abou the chaotic ways of the tiefling.

[Ink]

I think a Yoshimo romance would have been interesting, it would have made the betrayal doubly betraying.

Hmm, I never had Aerie and Haer' Dalis together, I never knew that they had a romance. Haer' Dalis was indeed supposed to be romantic prospect for a female PC, but was later scrapped. Most of the romances turn out to be more like psychiatrist therapy sessions though, I mean how many times do you have to listen to Aerie going on and on about her wings? Anyhow I don't see the romances as a big deal, I enjoyed the game with or without them.

[DeathQuaker]

You can find a bunch of Romancing Guides (and lists of NPC interactions in general) here: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/index_tips.php

Nice if you don't want to have to play through the game again to see what all the options are.

[amanodel]

Well, the game is enjoyable without the romances as well. But it'd be boring when you play it though the tenth time just to kill Irenicus. And it really makes you feel you're roleplaying, not just whacking monsters with pointy items. Character interactions are very detailed in BG2, and no game developed since got even near in that aspect. Yay for therapy sessions! :D
:eek:"I lost my wings!"
:furious:"I hate everyone!"
:annoyed:"Khalid wants us to get together, but I can't do that!"

Hilarious. Once I'll get the mood, I'm going to surpass my hatred towards Anomen and start a female PC :)

Hey, DeathQuaker, thanks for the link!

[Mauril Everleaf]

i think you can get the romance mods at www.gibberlings3.net (http://www.gibberlings3.net), i know that i got a whole bunch of stuff from there, and i think that was one of the mods i got (i virtually have a whole new BG2, same skeleton, different construct built around it)

[Tom_Violence]

I'm yet to see any particularly convincing love interest in a game, and frankly, I'm happy with that. Very happy. It would freak the **** out of me if it was any other way.

I think the way that dialogue, especially between party members, is done in games at the moment will always prevent anything particularly immersive from happening.

[Captain van der Decken]

I don't think I've ever tried the romances, despite playing through it several times with Jaheira and Aerie in the party.

I just started multiplayer, with only 3 characters, fighter/rogue, rogue and an archer, and it doesn't seem any harder than normal. Although resting usually takes about 2 -3 days.

Anyone else like Lilarcor? Only found it fairly recently, thought it was pretty interesting.

[Morty]

Anyone else like Lilarcor? Only found it fairly recently, thought it was pretty interesting.
I've sold it as soon as I've found it. It is a +3 sword, but it's annoying like +11. That voice is annoying, and speeches too.

I don't think I've ever tried the romances, despite playing through it several times with Jaheira and Aerie in the party.
Romance with Aerie starts preety much itself... if you don't say anything like 'shut up and bugger off' it'll resolve sooner or later.
By the way, I've heard many complains about how Jaheira romance is hard to resolve, but I've found hard to screw that romance befor Jaheira starts to freak off when I try to remove her from the party. I made new character once to try Viconia romance, but I gave up.

[DeathQuaker]

I'm yet to see any particularly convincing love interest in a game, and frankly, I'm happy with that. Very happy. It would freak the **** out of me if it was any other way.

Despite the fact that there's relatively few talks in the game, the Annah romance in Torment is pretty convincing. Only one I've really seen though. They did it right in 1999 and should've just let it be after that, maybe.

OTOH, the Viconia romance is pretty well written. But we have to put up with the Anomen romance in the same game.

I am fine with romance subplots, but I think that you should have a clear opt in the beginning of the game to turn romance scripts on or off.

And/or likewise, when a party member starts flirting with you, the choices shouldn't be only

1. Yes, tell me more!
2. Go **** off and die.

There should be a way to turn them down gently without being a jerk about it.



I think the way that dialogue, especially between party members, is done in games at the moment will always prevent anything particularly immersive from happening.

Banters and such are improving as scripting can become more sophisticated. Although they're relatively few in NWN2, the ones in that are pretty well timed (I have a feeling they intended to put a lot more immersive dialogue in the game and just ran out of time).

My one issue with the Baldur's Gate II banters is that while well written, they can sometimes pop up at the most bizarre times. Viconia starts teasing Aerie while we're in the midst of running away from werewolves. Jaheira needs to know *right now* my random opinion on something, when I'd really rather focus on getting through the Underdark alive. (Jaheira gets particularly frustrating because whether you're romancing her or not, you get her Harper sidequests and related dialogues, which tend to pop up at extremely inconvenient times. The reason, in fact, why Jaheira's romance is apparently difficult is because you have the romance banters and the Harper quests, and they don't always all trigger unless you just spend a lot of time wandering around. I've never actually romanced Jaheira but I've seen enough to know how tedious it can get... and all over a woman who is your father's contemporary... granted, I guess Viccy and Aerie are technically much older, but still...)

[amanodel]

Lilarcor? The bestest sword evar! Especially kick-ass in the early part of the game. I couldn't imagine Minsc without Boo and Lilarcor... The total mental disase squad. "Mmmm... tastes like chicken!" It's even useful later on the game, thanks to the mind shield ability. Sure it's good not having been charmed or confused by every damned caster you come across.

You sold Lilarcor?! For mere gold ?An outrage! Don't you have a thief in your party to steal all the items you neeed? :)

(What I'm realy interested in, is what happens if one collects the golden body parts from the liches. I couldn't find the third one.)

And yes, there's nothign like a Jaheira romace issue, a some harper agents, and other assassins find you just when you finally step out from the underdark. Such a bug I had to re-start an entire session. If you don't have a high reputation, and confront the harpers, they attack you. In the underdark exit area, there are a bazillion war elves, some of which are rather important story-wise. Now, the harpers attack you. They have an elf in their lines. The elf army leader clearly states that should you attack any elves there, he'll kill you outright. So you now have an entire harper squad plus an entire elven army at your back, including important NPC's, just when all your equipment goes into dust. But it worths it, Jaheira is the sweetest girl from the lot. The Viconia romance teases you, it's still good, a pity it ends sadly. The Aerie romance is only interesting (tough still annoying) when you have Haer'Dalis in the group. The choices "tell me more" or "go away", can be frustrating sometimes really, but it's still the best I've seen in any PC games.

[Morty]

Jaheira's romance almost killed me once- I was attacked by bandits who took Jaheira as hostage during the rest. I killed them, and second after the last bandits was sent into the ground, Harpers attacked me, and my party was unprepared AND wounded by bandits. Sweet(I didn't finish the romance anyway). Jaheira is good NPC, but having her in the party is hell.

[averagejoe]

Lilacor is the best sword ever. I love the mind shielding, which is so essential and worth it in that game, and I love the quirky, "My uncle was a +12 Hackmaster" comments. And, yeah, perfect fit for Minsc.

Am I the only one who enjoyed Jan's long rambling tales about turnips and griffons?

You know what's a good and fast cure for those annoying harper agents? Half orc barbarians. Those guys were rediculous in BG2, and made short work of whatever. Really, the only reason to even have casters is to de-buff enemy casters and heal your half-orc and Minsc. I honestly never found all that baggage that comes with Jahira to be annoying at all. It doesn't take a few seconds, then you're on your merry way.

[The_Pope]

I've done practically everything in that game, including all the romances. You know looking back, thats seems a mite pathetic. Hell, I love the game, so what.

Aerie was a tad whiney for me, Viconia was way too much "Oooh, watch me be a bad girl....WAAHH, its not working out!" and Anomen's made me burst out laughing due to all the corniness. Though, the description of the marriage was pretty funny thinking Elminster performed the ceremony. He's such an old coot. Otherwise the whole thing was vomit worthy.

Though, it is totally worth it to have Anomen and Jan in the same party. Jan completely rips him a new one.

And am I the only one who is saddend when having to kill Bohdi?

[Logic]

I don't remember Lilacor. I probably sold it several times, never figuring out it was intelligent.
Where was it found?

[Ink]

Lilarcor is found in the sewers under the slums, if I'm not mistaken. Bloody annoying sword, but I had Minsc use it for the longest time.




(What I'm realy interested in, is what happens if one collects the golden body parts from the liches. I couldn't find the third one.)


The parts are in a house in the bridge district, the cult of the unseeing eye under the temple district, and a house in the docks district. If you assemble them all together the lich comes out and attacks you, and you get a spiffy ring off him.

[amanodel]

Thanks Ink, I missed the Docks one uhtil now :) .

Yay for Lilarcor again! It can be found in the sewers, while on your way to solve the slavers quest from the copper coronet. You have to gather some items, and play a ridiculous riddle and then you get Lilarcor. "Sissy fighter, your grip's all wrong!" I figured out that if someone who has mental scores higher than Minsc, he can get more options when talking with him, altough my PC fighters weren't the sharpest ones neirther :).

One thing beats the half-orc barbarian in my opinion, the half-orc battlerager! A party of a half-orc PC, Minsc and Korgan pretty much chops down everything in two seconds.

And yeah, Jan Jansen is a prerequsite of any good adventure. He's picky on everyone, but his lines on Anomen and Minsc made me cry.

[Om]

The parts are in a house in the bridge district, the cult of the unseeing eye under the temple district, and a house in the docks district. If you assemble them all together the lich comes out and attacks you, and you get a spiffy ring off him.Toughest fight in the game if I remember correctly.

[amanodel]

It requres boots of speed, magic resistance, good hiding spells, and tons of patience, but they can be killed for the fourth or fifth time without losing any important members of the group :)

[The_Pope]

It requres boots of speed, magic resistance, good hiding spells, and tons of patience, but they can be killed for the fourth or fifth time without losing any important members of the group :)


Or you can be a cheap ass like me. Just take Jaheira or any other character that can use quarterstaffs appropriately and buy the Staff of Rynn +4 and 2 scrolls of Protection from Magic from Adventurer's Mart. Then once you're in Kangaax's lair, position all of your party members save for Jaheira (or whoever) next to the exit against the wall, and take Jaheira to wake up Kangaax. Throw on the Protection from Magic, and just whack the hell out of him with the Staff and he cant hit you with any spells. He dies, demi lich pops up, and his spells still dont work. If the duration of the scroll runs out, put on the second one. He goes down so fast.

[amanodel]

That's wasting material... I'm just too much of a cheapskate to use items without permanent or infintie uses. Or to sell items, anyway. Potions, wands, scrolls... I save them for a "worse time" and actually never use them :) I collect them at the copper coronet, and at the end of a game every stash, sack and table is full of my gadgets and/or useful stuff. I'm mad :)

[Logic]

Oh, the riddle in the sewers gets you Lilarcor? Never did complete that. Was it difficult?

[amanodel]

Not at all.

"Smell of a dog, skin of a lizard,
To find the staff, kill the wizard"

Poems like that. This one tells you to kill the kobold mage down there. The others are much worse :)

[Matthew]

That's wasting material... I'm just too much of a cheapskate to use items without permanent or infintie uses. Or to sell items, anyway. Potions, wands, scrolls... I save them for a "worse time" and actually never use them :) I collect them at the copper coronet, and at the end of a game every stash, sack and table is full of my gadgets and/or useful stuff. I'm mad :)

I used to do that a lot. I even started micro managing the shop inventories in BG I...

[Maxymiuk]

That's wasting material... I'm just too much of a cheapskate to use items without permanent or infintie uses. Or to sell items, anyway. Potions, wands, scrolls... I save them for a "worse time" and actually never use them :) I collect them at the copper coronet, and at the end of a game every stash, sack and table is full of my gadgets and/or useful stuff. I'm mad :)

Hehe, hoarders unite.

*whole party in single-digit hitpoints* "Hey, if they're all still standing after the fight, I didn't NEED to use any of those scrolls."

[amanodel]

*whole party in single-digit hitpoints* "Hey, if they're all still standing after the fight, I didn't NEED to use any of those scrolls."

Correction: "if fewer NPCs are down than my avaible raise dead spells, then I didn't need to use any of those scrolls." :)

[Mauril Everleaf]

Agreed. Im such a packrat in that game. even after i had beat the game several times and started using the cheat codes (i know im horrible, it just makes it more interesting sometimes, i mostly just used ctrl+R anyway) i would still horde my potions and my raise deads.

[Om]

I'm not sure just why I horded potions considering that I never used them. I'd be carrying round a couple of stacks of Potions of Invincibility and I wouldn't use one during the entire game.

[Matthew]

Same reason I hoarded all the other stuff, "just in case..."

[Captain van der Decken]

I have a habit of hoarding, but sometimes I use the potions/wands/whatever, usually at an inappropriate time.
e.g.. Drinking invisibility potion with the tank, while powerful mêlée beats up the other player's chars.

[Tom_Violence]

Lilarcor is a good fun sword, who I didn't find nearly as annoying as the man wielding him (Minsc, of course). At least the sword had some funny lines.

As for the romances, what always bothered me about them was how you'd have one 2 minute chat every week or so, of the aforementioned "I like you/Stop talking" variety. And that was basically it. Not exactly engaging, if you ask me. But that does seem to be the conversation standard for RPGs at the moment. Roll on Mass Effect!

[Jerthanis]

Lilarcor is a good fun sword, who I didn't find nearly as annoying as the man wielding him (Minsc, of course). At least the sword had some funny lines.


I dunno, Lilarcor only ever seemed to talk about how dumb he was or how much he wanted you to kill random people... it was like Deadpool without any of the references to other things, metadramatic humor, metacomic humor, utter randomness, affection for classic media, misplaced hatreds, complexes and awesomeness and just having a person obsessed with violence at the end... AND he had a more annoying voice (IMO) Minsc however, had a flamboyant charm that you couldn't help but grin at. The fact that his miniature giant space hamster was ACTUALLY a miniature giant space hamster was awesome. And besides, he had some legitimate depth in the fact that he was estranged from his homeland due to failing his test of manhood was kind of interesting. The first time I played a game where Aerie became his witch I almost felt like cheering aloud.



As for the romances, what always bothered me about them was how you'd have one 2 minute chat every week or so, of the aforementioned "I like you/Stop talking" variety. And that was basically it. Not exactly engaging, if you ask me. But that does seem to be the conversation standard for RPGs at the moment. Roll on Mass Effect!


So very true...

[Tom_Violence]

I dunno, Lilarcor only ever seemed to talk about how dumb he was or how much he wanted you to kill random people... it was like Deadpool without any of the references to other things, metadramatic humor, metacomic humor, utter randomness, affection for classic media, misplaced hatreds, complexes and awesomeness and just having a person obsessed with violence at the end... AND he had a more annoying voice (IMO) Minsc however, had a flamboyant charm that you couldn't help but grin at. The fact that his miniature giant space hamster was ACTUALLY a miniature giant space hamster was awesome. And besides, he had some legitimate depth in the fact that he was estranged from his homeland due to failing his test of manhood was kind of interesting. The first time I played a game where Aerie became his witch I almost felt like cheering aloud.


Ah, but Lilarcor's lines are short and, I think, fairly rare (apart from after every single load). And I much prefered his voice. Hearing Minsc go on and on about how he and his stupid hamster are heroes got on my nerves very quickly. Using the word 'charm' to decribe the guy baffles me no end. :tongue:

And I've no idea what Deadpool is.

[amanodel]

Hey, don't call a miniature giant space hamster stupid! Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!

(btw Deadpool is a halfwit marvel comic superhero.)

[Mauril Everleaf]

Butts will be liberally kicked in good measure for the slandering of Boo.
Jump on my sword while you can evil, I wont be as gentle!

[Captain van der Decken]

Jan: Minsc! Look out behind you!
Minsc: Where? He who sneaks on Minsc loses teeth!
Jan: C'mon Boo! Quickly, come to Jan!
Minsc: Stop it! Boo is not for you, tiny! You'll hurt him!
Jan: He likes me. Gnomes are far cuddlier than oafish humans.
Minsc: No, I know what is best when talking of Boo. If you could hear his wishes, you would agree, but you cannot. The words of Boo are for Minsc alone.
Jan: You can't fault a fellow for trying.
Minsc: I can and will. And another thing; no more sneaking Boo crackers! He is getting rather portly, and the crumbs make for an itchy bedroll.

Lots of them are funny.

[Ink]

Viconia: Minsc, that tattoo on your face. Does it have tribal significance
or did some nursery's fingerpainting class assault you with the
blue pastels?
Minsc: I do not like the tone of your voice, Dark Elf. The face I have is
the face the ladies love! Boo loves Minsc's face, too! Don't you,
Boo?

Aside from NPC interactions, anyone got any favourite moments from the game? I really liked the Spectator Beholder, and I also liked the noblewoman in the Copper Coronet who was looking for her husband. I really snickered at that one.

[Mauril Everleaf]

that guy in trademeet (i think his name was bill, he was over by the hero fountain). if you talk to him long enough he gives you something and you get like 1000 xp. he says some funny things too.
also, from ToB, i love cespenar. "Oooo, shinies!" "Why not you just dump everything out, okay?" "Ah! The flail of many heads! Ouch.....wrong head." Priceless.

[Captain van der Decken]

that guy in trademeet (i think his name was bill, he was over by the hero fountain). if you talk to him long enough he gives you something and you get like 1000 xp. he says some funny things too.



Wasn't there a guy like him in Nashkel? Neb or something. He gives you a rock(Magic bullet) that someone threw at him..

Cespenar was funny.

What? You uses sling? What is you, a big sissy?
Oooo... big weapon, this. You over-compensating, maybe?
What's this? Stale cookie? (munching noises) Ugh... that is no cookie...

[Ink]

"Mm. Cool bastard sword, oh yes. Why bastard, you think? No parent?"
"Ooh, shower curtain! Oh is only a cloak..."
"I keeps looking, but I runnings out of recipes soon. Needs to find Martha, soon. She around Hell somewhere, I thinks."

I found Cespenar a little irritating actually. He's cute and funny in small doses, but after a while his voice just gets to you.

In ToB the Spectator Beholder was really funny again, and I also liked the Bondari Reloads sequence.

[DeathQuaker]

"I keeps looking, but I runnings out of recipes soon. Needs to find Martha, soon. She around Hell somewhere, I thinks."

That one was always my favorite. :smallcool:


I found Cespenar a little irritating actually. He's cute and funny in small doses, but after a while his voice just gets to you.

The problem was if you had the same stuff in your pack, you heard the same lines over and over and over...


I also liked the Bondari Reloads sequence.

That one had me in tears I think. Good times.

Less of a ROFLMAO talk, but this conversation always amused me:



Aerie: Mazzy? Do you think you’ll ever become a true Paladin for Arvoreen?
Mazzy: I am a true sword for my God, Aerie. That is as close as I can expect to come. To hope for otherwise would be foolish and naive of me.
Aerie: Yes, but I was told of a time when halflings were rogues only ... that you would never find one that was a cleric or even a warrior such as yourself anywhere.
Mazzy: That’s true, if unfortunate. But that was a long time ago, Aerie ... things have changed since then.
Aerie: But maybe things could change again? Maybe your people could become paladins and rangers and even mages one day, without limitation. Wouldn’t that be exciting?
Mazzy: Yes, yes, and maybe my people will become skinny, wear shoes, and have big, long skulls. Really, Aerie, you needn’t keep your head in the clouds ALL the time.
Aerie: Well, it was just a thought.
Mazzy: And it wasn’t a bad one. But it’s not likely that the gods are going to revamp the halflings and come out with a ‘third edition’, as it were, now is it?
Aerie: Oh, you never know. The gods do strange things, sometimes.

[Mauril Everleaf]

So i recently downloaded a whole bunch of mods for bg2, one of which puts xan back in and accessible as an npc (you find him in the government district). i had forgotten how awesome he is. and im playing a female thief (for some reason i just see men not being as good as women at this) and his love plot is soooooooo much better than any of the others. so many dialogue options. that and you can initiate dialogue with him. awesomeness.

[Lilivati]

This is my favorite game of all time. :D

Right now I am replaying it again, with a wizard slayer character.

My first time playing through, I ended up past the point of no return and Keldorn and Viconia decide now is a great time to kill each other. One person down before the biggest fights of the game...not good...

[Jerthanis]

So i recently downloaded a whole bunch of mods for bg2, one of which puts xan back in and accessible as an npc (you find him in the government district). i had forgotten how awesome he is. and im playing a female thief (for some reason i just see men not being as good as women at this) and his love plot is soooooooo much better than any of the others. so many dialogue options. that and you can initiate dialogue with him. awesomeness.

I'm playing with that mod somewhat currently, Xan is freakin' awesome, but I'm doing the romance with a female mage/thief, which was probably a terrible idea. The voice acting is a lot different from BG1, but they couldn't exactly hire Jeff Benett to do all their voice acting, so that's forgivable. The writing is surprisingly good at times, and a little forced at others. Xan ends up being the chattiest member of your team though, because he has SO many responses to NPCs, which is great. His dialogues with Yoshimo are always a little odd, and expose more questionably canon Yoshimo development than anything about Xan in particular, and foreshadow kind of obviously Yoshimo's eventual betrayal. And the romance talks 9 times out of 10 eventually mention your nature as a child of baal, which gets repetitive... and his flirtations, which aren't exactly romance talks but are tiny snippets of dialogue, are annoying because they pop up ANY time that's out of combat... but Xan is definately my favorite character in both games.

"We're all doomed!"

[The_Pope]

This one was probably my favorite quote in the game:

"One has much time for conversation while waiting for the ENDLESS WAVES OF BAD DOGGIE WEREWOLF MONSTERS THAT CHEW YOUR TOES WHILE YOU SLEEP!"

Its voice acted and everything. Makes me laugh everytime.

[Nerd-o-rama]

In ToB the Spectator Beholder was really funny again, and I also liked the Bondari Reloads sequence.
"If you do this for me, I shall give you...one hundred gold."

Forget the NPCs, <CHARNAME> for the win!

[kaairn]

This one was probably my favorite quote in the game:

"One has much time for conversation while waiting for the ENDLESS WAVES OF BAD DOGGIE WEREWOLF MONSTERS THAT CHEW YOUR TOES WHILE YOU SLEEP!"

Its voice acted and everything. Makes me laugh everytime.

I love that line, and it's a wonderful throwback to tales of the sword coast. Also I find the fact that Tiax, one of your possible companions from the first game ends up in the insane asylum a brilliant way to finish the character. I always found his comments hysterical

"Tiax will rule ALL!"
"When Tiax rules, breeches shall not ride up so wedge-like!"
"Ya lil' monkey spanker!"

:smallbiggrin:

[Ink]

"If you do this for me, I shall give you...one hundred gold."

Forget the NPCs, <CHARNAME> for the win!

"One hundred gold! We're rich!"
"Wait, I need to rest and memorise Magic Missile!"
:smallbiggrin:

[amanodel]

I just started a game with Jaheira, Minsc, Anomen, Viconia and Jan, but they are already cracking my mind. Must find a way to fit Edwin in :) I think I'll either relase Viconia or Anomen, or both. I can find Anomen annoying sometime (most of the times), but the Jan vs Anomen and the Anomen - Viconia lines are just too goood to forgo them. :D

The PC is a male half-elf blade. Good thing not having to waste spell slots for identify :)


btw one of my favourite conversations is how Minsc gets you a free ticket to the Asylum. It's awesome...

[Lilivati]

I'm trying to use NPCs I haven't yet this time, which is making things tricky. I'm realizing things like you really only have 3 options for theives unless you play one yourself, and two of them are Yoshimo/Imoen. That pretty much forces me to use Nalia given that I'm trying to use new people. You're similarly limited on the clerical front. On the other hand, the game has more mages than I really know what to do with, and I have room for exactly two in my party given that I need two healers to ensure my PC doesn't die. (I'm a hoarder of potions as well, but never the healing ones, and my PC can't use potions of any kind.) One is Nalia, so really it leaves room for one.

I definitely could be making things easier for myself...

[Maxymiuk]

About the best rogue you can get is Jan Jansen. He's good at all skills except pickpocketing, and he's an illusionist to boot.

But if you used him already, about the only other choice aside from the ones you've mentioned is to be a rogue yourself.

And you're right, the game does go way over the top with arcane casters. Of course, this is Forgotten Realms where wizards are a penny a dozen, but still... :smallamused:

[amanodel]

Playing the game through a bunch of times I find that the NPCs are:

NPCs I find fairly useful:
Jaheira: I never played it without her. She's a good fighter, a killer druid. I'd really miss the usefull spells like insect swarm.
Minsc: Strongest guy from the lot, and/but his lines are cheering/annoying. Very cutomizable, he does well both as a stalker or a meatshield. Save for horribly evil campaigns, I always have him around.
Edwin: Strongest wizard, much better than any other. If you like the wizard-y way of battles, then he's a must. He's the only straight-out wizard.
Viconia: Best cleric in a weak body. With a Belt of strenght and some combat spell, she can be a real killer. Her SR makes her far more valuable than it would seem first. It's good to have a smart NPC by your side when you dumped your mental stats.
Aerie: Quite useful wizard/cleric when she not complains about something. Not as powerful or Edwin or Viconia, but she takes up just one space in the party.
Korgan: The best front-line man. Tons of hp, dozens of weapon skills. Not to forget the berserk, it can be really useful versus spellcasters. Plus, he has really good dialogues.

Can be useful:
Jan Jansen: Master of detect and disable traps, altough he's bad at stealing. Can cast rather good, he's a useful addition to any party (If you don't play a thief. If you do, he's of no use, save for the turnips).
Haer'Dalis: The charming blade... Much more powerful than one would expect. Those offensive spins really make him a killer. Plus, he's a living identify scroll. And his pickpocket ability can save you some coins at the merchants, too.

Totally in for rp reasons only:
Imoen: Able to find the majority of the traps as a rogue, bu nothing beyond that. I found her not nearly as a good caster as the others. But she's you lil' sis...
Yoshimo: I'm not a big fan of trapping, I only keep him around for the reason to be able to reaccept Imoen in the Asylum.

I barely use:
Valygar: I found him nearly totally useless, plus his manner is unbearable.
Cernd: Has his uses, but his metaphors are killing me. I found him rather weak, altough the werewolf shapechange rocks.
Anomen: Powerful priest and a fairly good meatshield. A pity I can't stand his mannerism...
Mazzy: Once given some items of strenght, she becomes a really powerful fighter, tough I prefer Keldorn or Minsc.
Keldorn: Powerful meelee fighter, and he can wield the holy avanger! I just don't have the heart to tear him apart from his family.
Nalia: Not a really good thief nor a good wizard, she sunk in the unstable fields of multiclassing.

[Morty]

Edwin: Strongest wizard, much better than any other. If you like the wizard-y way of battles, then he's a must. He's the only straight-out wizard.
What is annoying in edwin is that he has two extra spells per level because of some damned amulet:smallyuk:

Imoen: Able to find the majority of the traps as a rogue, bu nothing beyond that. I found her not nearly as a good caster as the others. But she's you lil' sis...
She's the best arcane caster after Edwin. With her/Jan, Aerie and me(half-elf wizard) it was arcane barrage.

[amanodel]

Possibly bad spell selection on my part, but she was beaten up badly eery time I tried her in a duel down in the drow city. Aerie and Jan performed way better, altough that's possible because of different factors. The cleric spells of Aerie, most notably.


She's the best arcane caster after Edwin. With her/Jan, Aerie and me(half-elf wizard) it was arcane barrage.

Not bad. I prefer the martial solution. A combination of protagonist with meelee class, Korgan, Minsc, Hear'Dalis, Jaheira and Keldorn can beat down everything pretty fast. I once played it through with Minsc and Korgan, myself being a half-orc battlerager. I didn't really casted spells with the others, the trio finished off nearly anybody before the first spell was shot.

Once I need to try an archer gang, they say it has big potential.

[DeathQuaker]

Imoen you usually need to keep out of melee combat (but she's a terrific bow user), but she's still tougher than Aerie. And she is a _very_ good mage--I agree, the best after Edwin. I found her indispensable both times I played through, for both rogue abilities and arcane spellcasting.

Thoughts on the others:

Aerie: She's extremely fragile and levels up slowly, but if you keep her protected, at high levels she's amazing with both high-level cleric and wizard spells. Has some good dialogues too (always good to have in the party with Minsc).

Anomen: I enjoyed killing him. But theoretically, an ok cleric and a decent fighter.

Cernd: Never used him. Apparently his shapeshifting can be useful, but overall it seems like most of the characters can do what he does better.

Edwin: Not used him much since I played mostly good parties, but I know he has a solid reputation as a mage, and his banters are hilarious.

Haer'Dalis: A reliable second-line warrior with good support spells. Like all good bards, fills in the gaps of what a party needs. His banters are also interesting.

Jaheira: Jaheira I've found is another good support fighter, but really you can do a lot better with either full warriors or full spellcasters to do what she provides and do it much better. However, she's a source of a lot of sidequests which can net some good XP and story.

Jan Jansen: Never used him, believe it or not, but I understand he's a reliable thief, but is probably one of the weakest mages because of his banned school.

Keldorn: Excellent tank character, all around.

Korgan: Another good tank, for evil parties what Keldorn is to good. And he's funny.

Mazzy: Never use her much--largely because by the time I find her, I'm pretty set in what I want my party to be. I've heard she's a very solid fighter, though. If I were to do a melee-heavy party, she'd definitely be in.

Minsc: Awesome tank, but believe it or not, I get tired of the hamster jokes after awhile. He's hilarious at first, but it gets overdone... especially with everyone out of game always quoting him whenever Baldur's Gate gets mentioned.

Nalia: A mediocre version of Imoen... she's not as good a rogue because she dual classed earlier, and not as good a mage because her int isn't high enough. Good to take for her quests though... someone to take on early and then dump later.

Valygar: Another valuable melee-er... he's not quite the strength tank that Minsc or Keldorn is, but he's overall very solid, and unlike Minsc, actually valuable as a ranger and doing what a ranger does. His stalker kit also enables him to sneak attack, which he actually does better than most of the Rogues because he's built for melee. At any rate, he should at least be taken temporarily so you can do the Sphere quest.

Viconia: The best cleric, hands down. Equipped well, she also manages melee if necessary. Her spell resistance also makes her useful with the many enemy spell casters in the game... a great trick is to boost her SR as high as possible, walk her into a nest of spellcasters, have them waste all their spells on her while your mages send in area effect spells (which she also shrugs off).

Yoshimo: I am not one to use a lot of traps, but his kit's traps are amazing to use against boss fights... if you work it right, it's an awful cheese tactic, but you can kill Firkraag with just his traps and a few Cloudkills. A useful rogue, though I'm always happy to get Imoen in his place when it's time.

[Morty]

Yoshimo: I am not one to use a lot of traps, but his kit's traps are amazing to use against boss fights... if you work it right, it's an awful cheese tactic, but you can kill Firkraag with just his traps and a few Cloudkills. A useful rogue, though I'm always happy to get Imoen in his place when it's time.
Another use for Yoshimo is to multiclass him into fighter- he's leveling up quick, and while weak, can be preety useful until you find some better tank, like Keldorn, Korgan or Mazzy.

[Mauril Everleaf]

-i recently played a campaign where i decided to use mazzy. mostly bc i had never used her before and i wanted to see what she could do. she was awesome! there are some awesome short swords in the game, which i never really used effectively. anyone proficient in them used spells/ranged weapons, so they were there out of convention mostly. giving her arbane at first is awesome, then get her short sword of the mask, or others later on, and she pretty much pwns. while she doesnt deal as much raw damage as minsc or keldorn, her high dex and high hp mean that she gets hit very infrequently and can take many hits when she does. i really liked her, just wish i could have picked her up earlier.
-as far as jan goes, i always pick him up (except for my most recent campaign where i play a thief). he is the best thief you can pick up, his dialogue is hilarious, and he is backed up with good spells. being an illusionist, he cant cast necro spells (which can get annoying sometimes) but he makes up for it with his other spells, crossbow use and thieving abilities.
-Edwin is awesome. love the sidequest where he gets turned into edwina. makes me laugh every time. plus, if you play a neutral or evil character, he is a must for the party.
-Viccy, the best cleric in the game, is someone you cant leave behind. give her mauler's arm or crom faeyr or a belt of giant strength and she pwns. and if you play things right, you can convert her to neutral if you want.
-Minsc and Jahiera are must haves, mostly for plot reasons. it just doesnt feel right to play a party without them. i even have a hard time leaving them when i play evil. Minsc = tanktastic.
-Aerie is my favorite npc. most people dont like her because they see her as weak. but given that she is a buffer/healer/blaster/disabler, i dont see how you can go wrong. sure she levels up a bit slower, but its about the same as jahiera or jan or anomen, all of whom are multiclassed. give her some bracers of defense and a girdle/mauler's arm, and she is just as effective in melee as any of the other non-matials (not that you really ever need to do this, but its still possible).
-Keldorn is a nice addition to any good party. if you play his side quests right, he becomes less of the miko type, and becomes a lot more fun as a party member. plus he gets to use the holy avenger, which makes him a pwn-machine. the same goes for anomen (minus the sword, but he rock with crom faeyr).
-Korgan is really fun to have in the party. even if you arent evil, get him as a bit character for his side quest. he is the best tank for an evil party.
-Nalia is never someone i adventure with for very long. the de'arnise quest is good to have her, and if you keep her long enough, she has a good side quest. Im not sure if this was only from me being a fighter and having the keep as my stronghold (i havent used nalia since) but it was a good one.
-Yoshimo is someone that dump as early as possible. i know that he is going to betray me so i leave him as soon as i get out of the dungeon, ill go grab jan or nalia if i need a thief right away.
-Valygar, Haer'Dalis and Cernd are chracters that i never used. mostly because they are seemingly lackluster, and come from semi-weak classes anyway. Rangers that specialize in melee weapons are not as good as fighters (minsc really isnt a ranger, hes more of a beserker), bards pretty much suck in 2.5e and druids dont really appeal to me. they may be awesome in their own right, but i just have never used them.

[Morty]

Heh, I just thought that it's sad for Aerie there's no Favored Soul class in BG2.

Valygar, Haer'Dalis and Cernd are chracters that i never used
Haer'Dalis would be great, but he has abysmal HP. Once when I was testing something, a hit from catapult in Saradush completely obliterated him. That, and fact that he's using short swords, what caused trouble when I was trying to include him in evil party led by shortsword-using evil halfling swashbuckler.

[Varen_Tai]

Hmmm... See, I LOVE Anomen. I can deal with his personality just fine, and his fighter levels give him weapon specialization even though he levels as a priest. Plus, he didn't take so many fighter levels that he's really slowed down in priest development, so he makes a fantastic divine spellcaster plus he's a great tank. I'll have to try Jan sometime instead of Yoshimo, though Y's traps really do totally rock against dragons, liches, what-have-you.

I usually play paladins, so I'm my own tank, especially with the Holy Avenger. That puts both Keldorn and Mazzy out, and I simply do not have the heart to take Minsc out of my party. I cheat a little and beef up Nalia's Int, making her a great mage, and then I take her and Aerie as my spellcasters.

Perfect Good party! I don't even bring along Imoen when I get rescue her because by the time I get her, I've completed every other quest in the main boards, so Nalia totally rocks. I hear some of the mods allow a romance with Nalia, but I haven't tried that yet though I should. I like her personality. :)

Never tried Viconia, though I suppose I should try sometime, and Jaheira bugs the crap out of me. "Oh, I'm so sad, I just lost my husband! Boo hoo hoo ho--- wait, you're pretty cute. Wanna hook up even though I'm still a widow of only a few days?" Meh. I can see he sure meant a whole lot to you, you wench. And I bet you'd shed just as many tears over me if I die. Plus, she sucks. She can't fight like a fighter or spellcast like a spellcaster of equal level - she's trapped in the mediocre world of crappiness that is the multiclass system of 2E.

Aerie is the only multiclasser I've ever seen worth having because arcane + divine = win. Slower to get the most powerful spells, but no one is as flexible... Perfect backup arcane and divine caster both.

[Scorpina]

Anomen is great, statswise. He's the only Cleric in the game who can really hack melle combat without the aid of Gauntlets of Ogre Power or a Belt of Giant Strength or whatever. On the other hand, he gets on my nerves to no end (and, as I have said before, him being the only romancable male makes me want to stab someone in the eyes with a tuning fork).

I much prefer Jaheira, when I want a Warrior/Divine Caster mix. She's far less annoying, although the Druid spell list in Baldur's Gate is rather more limited than the clerics, and they have fewer choices for weapons. Of course, Jaheira really kicks arse in Throne of Bhaal (and the very end of Shadows of Amn) when you get that awesome druids-only staff (assuming your PC isn't a druid, anyway. Or you give it to Cernd, I always find myself unable to demand that he abandon his poor son...)

All that being said, though, my Divine casting is usally done by Viconia...

[amanodel]

Jaheira rocks. Summon Insects (or insects swarm, I don't remember the proper name) is the single most powerful spell versus spellcasters. And when you give her not too crappy items she can fight really well. Her romance would be the best, altough the fact that she just lost Khalid is a bit odd. Altough if you rest a lot it can be 80-90 days until the romance really starts :)

[Varen_Tai]

Jaheira rocks. Summon Insects (or insects swarm, I don't remember the proper name) is the single most powerful spell versus spellcasters. And when you give her not too crappy items she can fight really well. Her romance would be the best, altough the fact that she just lost Khalid is a bit odd. Altough if you rest a lot it can be 80-90 days until the romance really starts :)

Actually, the single most powerful spell against spellcasters is "Paladin imported from BG 1 with 19 Str, Dex, and Con and the Inquisitor kit wielding the Holy Avenger with two slots in 2 handed weapon style and 2 slots in two handed sword, Boots of Speed, lots of protective items, and Draw Upon Holy Might [pre-Slayer] and True Seeing active." That spell TOTALLY rocks.

Fight really well compared to who? Minsc? Pffft. Anomen? No way. And compared to normal priest and wizard spells, her spellcasting ability is lame.

And you're prolly right about the romance, though. If Khalid hadn't JUST died, I'd be able to stomach it better. And if she didn't totally suck compared to other characters.

[Matthew]

Heh, I use a lesser variant where the Paladin is Strength 19, Dexterity 10 (18 with Gauntlets of Dexterity) and Constitution 17. I can vouch for it being a great spell!

[amanodel]

.. or Korgan berserking. With any weapon. But the summon swarm spell totally rocks. It renders multiple casters useless for more time than you need to slay them all. A pity it doesn't work on liches. And dragons.


Jaheira's real weakness is her weapon proficiencies. The game really lacks powerful clubs and slings. :) She's nowhere in combat prowess anywhere near Anomen or Keldorn, but I found her to be a really sweet back-up fighter / divine caster. And I love her accent :D And the way she talks to the group. She's like our mother :)
Aerie don't do that. Aerie watch out! Viconia, don't talk like that! Shut the hell up, Jan! Don't be silly Minsc! Take a bath, Korgan!
An evil party has a much more friendly atmosphere than any other with Jaheira in it.

But the best is to have all the three females (Viccy Aerie Jeheira) in your party and watch them cat-fight over you :)

[Varen_Tai]

See, since I've beaten the game fair and square already, I don't have much of a problem cheating here and there. If I play it again, I may pick up Jaheira and tweak her weapon profs so she's actually useful, somewhat, just for the interaction fun.

And I confess, I love the paladin SO MUCH that I just have trouble convincing myself to play with any other class. I need to work on that... I hear a straight mage is great fun to play, though that does nudge Edwin out of the party, and goodness knows how hilarious he is.

I still need to try the three-way catfight. How do you respond to each of them? if you start responding well to one, do the others back off or does the romance for each develop normally?

[Maxymiuk]

I recently started replaying the game as a fighter/wizard. Sounds useless (no armor!), until you realize that the various defensive spell effects stack, and you can easily put your AC at -5 or lower from the start.

And yeah, the 3-way cat fight is amusing to watch, seeing as it clearly brings out the maturity level of each character. Jaheira is, indeed, a matron ("Stop bothering our leader with your insecurity bullcrap. We need a plan. We shan't back down in the face of adversity"), Viconia a rebelious teen ("I'm so fiercely independent and superior. You're all idiots. Nobody understands my angst"), and Aerie a whiny child ("Nobody loves me. Life is so cruel. My feet hurt. Boo-hoo").

[Lord of the Helms]

Baldur's Gate is easily my favorite game ever. Awesome NPC interaction and banter, classy story, timelessly beautifully-drawn areas, and some of the best tactical combat I've encountered in any game, ever. The only somehwat dated thing about it is the fairly predictable AI and weak animations.

I played through it thrice. First time around, I took a Cavalier, which to be honest is possibly the biggest munchkin char in the game - tons of combat bonuses, immunities and resistances, all for the price of not using ranged weapons. My party for the largest part of the game was Jaheira (romanced until a Demilich encounter broke the romance script, resumed in ToB; not the most powerful char, but gets through pretty well), Aerie, Imoen(previously yoshimo), Mazzy and Minsc, which got me through good most of the time. Though some of the immunities you can gain throughout are obscene - towards the end, my PC was completely immune to fire without any buffs, had 75% magic resistance and somewhere around 30-60 against most other elements. Add to that huge AC, a +6 Holy Avenger, etc etc etc...

Second time was a Neutral Evil half-elven fighter/rogue ( I to date have NO idea why I didn't go for all-our elf) with Edwin, Haer'Dalis, Viconia, Korgan and Jan. Third time around, CN Wild Mage (can be frustrating, true, but not only does it come in very handy in wild magic zones, you actually have a chance of casting an 8th or 9th level spell using a first level slot, at level 15 or so.). My party had Jan and Anomen (the single greatest combination ever! Ano the dung-orc ftw!), Haer'Dalis, Viconia and I believe Korgan again for tanking. That was my best run through because I used my spells far better than before, taking down even liches and the likes pretty routinely.

Though I have to say, much as I loved the SOA campaign, ToB was a bit of a let-down. The story in general wasn't half so good, the balancing horrendous. I walked all over almost every oppenent, except for two insanely hard fights (Draconis and Melissan) and two properly difficult ones ( Sendai and the mercenary camp). I also disliked how they kept basically bombarding me with XP and some really uber items. Watch's Keep was a lot of fun though, although even worse in terms of XP and items. By the way, the collecting and forging of items was a lot of fun, even if you would eventually get too many of them.

I'm currently playing Baldur's Gate and TotSC with an Elven Ranger and shall probably port him to SOA :smallcool:


set traps is useless

Oh dear no, it's not even remotely useless. It's horrendously powerful, in fact. Once, just for the heck of it, I had Jan set all his most powerful traps (mostly epic traps) in the fight against David Gaider's improved Demogorgon (side note: I recommend getting these improved boss fight mods for ToB if you're looking for a challenge. Some of them are crazy-hard, improved Ilasera especially and also improved Abazigal. Do NOT use improved Balthazar, he is almost immune to ANY damage and takes ages to beat down). The traps took him out instantly. This was of course boring because he couldn't even summon all his hordes of demons, so I loaded and set less traps, instead putting up a real fight :smallbiggrin:

Truth is, if it's you who chooses the fight, traps can take out just about anything.

[amanodel]

Varen Tai: At first the conversatins flow quite normally, except that every time when Aerie tries tospeak with you, Viccy and Jaheira will enter the conversation, usually just to hurt her. The same goes for Jaheira and Viconia, too :) Just go romancing with all of them till you can. When the romances are about to turn serious you'll have to decide wich one to continue. If you don't do that soon enough, or careful enough, the dumped girl runs away and leaves the party. (There are console commands to freeze a romance and only begin it when you finish another, tough that's not that fun, and you'll not have the time for it.)

[The_Pope]

The game really lacks powerful clubs and slings.

Oh I would say not. Right in Trademeet there is the Blackblood Club, which is a +3 club that deals an additional 3 acid damage with each hit. Thats plenty better than any of the scimitars you can get in SoA, and you can get it in the beginning of the game. Then theres the +4 Sling of Arvoreen that can do a sonic boom once per day, course, that there is in the Underdark

[Lord of the Helms]

Oh I would say not. Right in Trademeet there is the Blackblood Club, which is a +3 club that deals an additional 3 acid damage with each hit. Thats plenty better than any of the scimitars you can get in SoA, and you can get it in the beginning of the game. Then theres the +4 Sling of Arvoreen that can do a sonic boom once per day, course, that there is in the Underdark

And let's not forget Everaard's Sling (+5) and in ToB the Erinye sling (+4/+5 after upgrade I believe)

[pestilenceawaits]

Sniff... I still like to throw kobold commandos after my PCs

[amanodel]

+3 club is still a +3 club. It's nowhere compared to magic longswords, axes, polearms, or two-handed swords. The silver sword, dragonbane, holy avanger are a whole lot more powerful than Darkblood, or that other club at the spellhold. The same goes for slings, bows are much stronger.

[Varen_Tai]

My paladin with the HA and Minsc with the Silver Sword = serious butt-kicking for goodness. The two of us usually mop everything long before the rest of the party gets there since both of us have Boots of Speed. Hardly need arcane casters except for dragons and other bosses at that point. :)

[Captain van der Decken]

The advantage of slings is that you can use them while using a sheild- you can play a sword and board and still quickslot a ranged weapon.

Clubs just go up to +3, yeah. Most weapons go up to +5, or even 6.

[Scorpina]

Well if you want good magic items you basically need to be using swords or bows (or warhammers, if your patient enough to wait for Crom Fayer). Things like clubs, spears, halberds and morningstars don't get better than +3.

[Captain van der Decken]

There's a few +4 halberds I think. There's one +4 SoA spear and one +4 ToB one which upgrades to +6. There are more weapons, but I can't recall them off the top of my head. A fair few are ToB only, but they still get better than +3.

[Varen_Tai]

Don't forget everyone's favorite upgradable cheeseball flail!

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

best character by far in the game is minsc with Boo. Especially when he's paired with Lilarcor ,the coolest talking sword ever. He totally makes the game worth it with just him.

[amanodel]

Once I played Keldorn with HA, Minsc with Lilarcor, my berserker with the vorpal. At the end, others got around 10% of the kills (8% of that was Jaheira), while the beforementioned trio made around 30% of the kills each.



Halberds are good. Dragonbane and the Wave really rocks.

[Lilivati]

I have to agree on the three-way catfight thing, it's hilarious. My first run through was with a male ranger, and by the end of it only Viconia was still in the party, and she was not overly fond of him.

I have to confess I get a certain amount of pleasure out of corrupting Anomen- seriously, what kind of messed up guy thought women would go for that?!

[amanodel]

:D Programmers at Black Isles are male. And programmers. Generally speaking, programmers are not really the "latin lover" branch of men :) (Present company excluded, of course).

As soon as I finish with "project: Jaheira", I'm going to create my first female PC and give Anomen a chance. I feel I'm going to regret it :)

[Mauril Everleaf]

well there is the wave halberd (+4), the dragon's breath halberd (+4 +lotsa elemental), spear of withering (+4), ixil's spike (+4 and +6), the ravager (+4, +6 vorpal) to name a few of the pole arms. granted the selection of clubs is rather lacking, but the concept of choosing club as your primary weapon seems kinda lame to me. other useful weapons: Mace (mace of disruption pwns vs undead which you face lots of, mauler's arm: only a +2, but give strength 18 which is up to an additional +2/+3 for a +4 weapon), Flail (i know the flail of the ages is cliche, but that makes it no less awesome), Staff (especially for wizards or druids, their staves are awesome), sling (there are +5 slings in SoA), and the best weapon in the game IMO axes (azuredge, stonefire, frostreaver, hrothgar, rifthome all are +3 but have mega bonuses to damage or some special quality that makes them great).
so, yeah, while there is a better selection of swords and the most powerful weapon in the game (Holy Avenger) is a sword, dont discount the other weapons. plus most of the other chars in the game are proficient in all the swords available, so picking axe or mace allows you to get powerful weapons without hindering your party members for their choice too.

[Scorpina]

:D Programmers at Black Isles are male. And programmers. Generally speaking, programmers are not really the "latin lover" branch of men :) (Present company excluded, of course).

As soon as I finish with "project: Jaheira", I'm going to create my first female PC and give Anomen a chance. I feel I'm going to regret it :)

Well, they managed to make Haer'Dalis and Cernd... would it have been so hard to make them romancable too?

[Foeofthelance]

Hmm. Well after reading the thread, I have decided to give the games a seccond running (beat each one but ToB, but that was only because I didn't finish the final boss or the monks), mostly to kill time.

However, I barely recognize any of the name being thrown around the forum, either PCs or weapons. Sure, the flail I recognize, but thats about it. Whihc means only one thing. Mods and patches!

I want to go full from start to finish, and have Tales of the Sword Coast. Might some body please tell me what sites have the files I need to download? Especially the patch to translate characters over from BG to BG II.

Much appreciated.

[Scorpina]

You don't need a patch to transfer characters over, you can just move a BGI character (or save game) file over to your BGII folder and 'Import'.

[Foeofthelance]

Hmm. didn't work when I originally tried. Maybe I did somethig wrong. Shall try again later. once I've actually beaten BG again. But which mods should I get? This is trickier then modding a car or mech.

[Tom_Violence]

Visit PlanetBaldur'sGate (http://www.planetbaldursgate.com). It'll give you pretty much everything you need, or at least point you in the right direction.

[Foeofthelance]

Thanx.

(Yeah for one word posts bumping up post counts!)


((Yes, I realize the above invalidates itself))

[Shikton]

What's wrong with playing BG vanilla?
PLUS! They should have made Minsc a romancable character. =D How fun wouldn't that be?

[Scorpina]

I think Boo takes up all of Minsc's heart...well, Boo and Dynaheir... and Buttkicking for Goodness...

[Logic]

I hate Planet Baldur's Gate. You can't download anything for free, as Mods should be.

[amanodel]

Haer'Dalis is romancable, only for Aerie. :) you should try the two together in your group. LG + CN = awesomeness!
Cernd? With his metaphors it'd be a really hard time, methinks. :) Not to mention his backgound with his personal quest...

Pretty shame that male NPC's just don't have the charisma and the style. Or if they do, they are married.

Girls, who'd you chose from the list: Anomen, Korgan, Keldorn, Minsc, Valygar, Cernd, Edwin, Haer'Dalis, Jan Jansen, Yoshimo. Who'd you pick?


I've heard that a guy, who were in the original programming group, released a mod on his own. It introduces Soulafein as an NPC character, romancable for both males and females :)

[Morty]

I've heard that a guy, who were in the original programming group, released a mod on his own. It introduces Soulafein as an NPC character, romancable for both males and females :)
Yes, I've seen it too. Nerer tried it, though. I've also seen mod with female NPC(Kensai with awesome DEX) romancable for... females.

[Tom_Violence]

I hate Planet Baldur's Gate. You can't download anything for free, as Mods should be.

What you talking about? Its all free, for goodness sake.

[DeathQuaker]

http://www.sorcerers.net has a bunch of good resources for BG.




Girls, who'd you chose from the list: Anomen, Korgan, Keldorn, Minsc, Valygar, Cernd, Edwin, Haer'Dalis, Jan Jansen, Yoshimo. Who'd you pick?


Haer'dalis. And Valygar, as long as he didn't whine about his family too much. I hate whiny love-interests. Which is why I hate Anomen.


Yes, I've heard about it too. Nerer tried it, though. I've also heard about mod with female NPC romancable for... females.

IIRC, I think there's a bisexual mod for the Viconia romance (which alters a few of her responses, because as a drow noblewoman she would respond differently to a female instead of a male). Which intrigues me, but I'm unlikely to download a mod just for a romance. I do admit to turning romances on via debug mode, though. :smallredface:

[Morty]

IIRC, I think there's a bisexual mod for the Viconia romance (which alters a few of her responses, because as a drow noblewoman she would respond differently to a female instead of a male). Which intrigues me, but I'm unlikely to download a mod just for a romance. I do admit to turning romances on via debug mode, though.
The mod I'm talking about adds Chloe, a female Kensai with awesome DEX.

[Mauril Everleaf]

gibberlings3.net has some really good mods too. thats where i got many of mine. if you are doing bg1, then get the tutu mod, its streamlines transition from bg1 to bg2. also any of the quest packs are good. the downloadable npcs are pretty much hit or miss. the cleric remix (which i think is there, maybe its called divine remix) is awesome. gives you less crappy specialty clerics, plus puts in cleric domains (not quite the same as 3.x ed, more like specialty schools for mages). the portrait packs are nice because they only have so many options to start with, and after playing a while new stuff is nice (which is kinda the point of mods). if you want i can find a list of all the ones that i downloaded, and ill let you know which ones i liked and which ones i didnt.

[Scorpina]

Girls, who'd you chose from the list: Anomen, Korgan, Keldorn, Minsc, Valygar, Cernd, Edwin, Haer'Dalis, Jan Jansen, Yoshimo. Who'd you pick?

Haer'Dalis and Cernd (metaphors and all) would be up at the top for me. An Edwin romance would be interesting, too, especially around the time he gets the Nether Scroll.

And I think maybe Keldorn, if you make him throw his wife in jail or such...

[Logic]

What you talking about? Its all free, for goodness sake.
I go to download the files, and it takes me to a screen that tells me before I can download, I have to purchase a subscription with Fileplanet.

Edit: Never Judge a book by its cover.
Just because they tell you to buy the free version, doesn't mean they don't offer a free service as well.

[Scorpina]

That's odd. It certainly used to be free.

[Tom_Violence]

I go to download the files, and it takes me to a screen that tells me before I can download, I have to purchase a subscription with Fileplanet.

Edit: Never Judge a book by its cover.
Just because they tell you to buy the free version, doesn't mean they don't offer a free service as well.

Patience is, indeed, a virtue. :wink:

Don't worry - I've certainly done it a fair few times myself.

[Lord of the Helms]

Clubs just go up to +3, yeah. Most weapons go up to +5, or even 6.

In SoA, you can count the +5 weapons on one hand, and there are no +6 weapons at all. In TOB, there's at least one +5 weapon of every type except katanas and wakizashis/ninja-tos, but only a handful of +6 weapons (Upgraded Carsomyr, Ravager and Ixil's Spike). There is also a +5 club: The Club of detonation, really really powerful IF used with proper caution.

(see: http://gamebanshee.com/baldursgateii/equipment/warhammers.php )

Btw, gamebanshee.com is one of the best info sites on the game, and offers a few useful downloads (specifically, the merchants Joluv and deirdre as well as David Gaider's improved TOB bosses)

[Jerthanis]

I recently beat Baldur's Gate 2 for the first time with a party of Jaheira, Minsc, Xan (an NPC added with a mod), Imoen, and Viconia in addition to my main character a Mage/Thief (which turned out to be as terrible of a decision as it sounds) Though a better way to describe the party would be "Three Skeleton Warriors, a Nymph and a Wizard Eye" since about the time I hit the underdark I stopped fighting for myself and let summons do it for me. Skeleton Warriors have Magic Resistance and are immune to psionics, hold spells, confusion, charm, domination, level drain and so on, making them ideal cannon fodder, since they were immune to practically everything. A Nymph because it's a 4th level slot to cast a 5th level heal spell and a bunch of save-or-lose type spells, set to autobattle, so I don't have to pay attention to what they're doing for them to be effective. Nymphs practically soloed Torgal and many other difficult points in the early game for me.

Oh, and it's funny how some of the best spells in the game were low level spells. Doom didn't have a save, Chromatic Sphere could insta-kill people and Spook was a save-or-lose that got better and better as you levelled up...

[Mauril Everleaf]

Query about mods. I can't seem to get my Baldur's Gate TuTu to work. It's the mod that upgrades BG1 to fit all of the stuff in BG2. I'm wanting to play a character all the way through, but I want him to be consistent. Any ideas how you are supposed to install that?

[Shikton]

Go download the Easy TuTu if you haven't. That's easier to install, and does pretty much all the same things. I haven't tested either, because no version works with my UK/European version... Only works on the US version. BAH! At least that's what the install program told me.

[amanodel]

Anybody found the power levels of SoA a bit odd?

Aerie is level 7-ish cleric/wizard. Never been out from the circus, cries all the time, but could have defeat BG1 Sarevok singlehandedly.

Anomen, the wannabe knight is more powerful than Keldorn, the veteran paladin of the order.

[Captain van der Decken]

Well, I suppose if Aerie was level 1, no-one would want her, for one thing.

[Mauril Everleaf]

The power levels are balanced, not to the things from previous games, but to the things at hand. Aerie is level 7 because, when you start the game (if you do a new game in bg2) you are level 7, so are Jaheira and Minsc. Yoshimo is the only one that seems out of whack, but he's supposed to be all reknowned and special, so the power levels make sense, sort of. About Anomen being better than Keldorn, level has little to do with power in this case. Granted the fighter cleric pwns all in 3.5 and the paladin kinda sucks (by general consensus, not my opinion personally), the roles are reversed in 2.5. Anything multi-classed is weaker than a true class. The only thing that makes Keldorn weak is his lack of cleric spells, but his True Sight and ability to use Carsomyr make up for that. The power levels seems fine to me. The explaination for why Aerie is such a high level does seem to be lacking though. Maybe since she is Avariel, she had some training prior to joining the circus with Quayle. Who knows?

[Hannes]

Gotta love this game, although I need help on what characters to take with me... I myself am a sorcerer (level 9)...

[amanodel]

Mauril: In BG2 itself, the powers are nearly balanced, just don't go well with BG1 or the character backgounds. For Aerie an Anomen, mostly. The experience points look good with the backgounds of the others.

Hannes: Looking for an Evil or a Good group? Perhaps a Neutral one? For the good group Minsc, perhaps Jaheira for the bonus quests, Aerie, Anomen if you can stand him. For thief either Yoshimo-Imoen or Jansen. If you like brute force, take Keldorn as well. Mazzy is strong, but she is to be found a bit later, so hard call on her. For the evil group, Edwin, Korgan, Viconia. Thief as before.
It's good when you have a good thief and a good trap-expert. It's all found in Yoshimo. Or Hear'Dalis is good with pickpocketing, Valygar is a good stalker and Jansen is a good trap-finder illusion dispeller.

[DeathQuaker]

Hannes: Looking for an Evil or a Good group? Perhaps a Neutral one? For the good group Minsc, perhaps Jaheira for the bonus quests, Aerie, Anomen if you can stand him. For thief either Yoshimo-Imoen or Jansen. If you like brute force, take Keldorn as well. Mazzy is strong, but she is to be found a bit later, so hard call on her. For the evil group, Edwin, Korgan, Viconia. Thief as before.

Good advice; a few additions/suggestions/opinions:

Although Edwin's almost a must for an evil party, if the main character is a sorcerer, he is not as necessary (taking him for the amusement factor is another issue). You absolutely should have Korgan, since you'll need a good hand-to-hander.

Again, I would recommend Viconia for any party, regardless of alignment, and absolutely for either a neutral or evil party. She is worth the alignment drop in Rep (especially since you'll earn more than enough Rep if you want to overcome it), and if you are playing a male and romance her, that usually keeps any good characters who don't like her (i.e. Keldorn and Valygar) from attacking her, and otherwise they don't always attack her anyway. Especially with a full-caster as the main character, having a full-cleric is a very good thing to have.

However, if you are playing a good party and don't want to deal with drow, go with Anomen for your cleric. With a sorcerer main character and a good party, you'll likely end up with Imoen, so you don't need the extra mage spell power from Aerie, and a more focused cleric--plus someone who can fight hand to hand (Anomen) will be more useful.

Regardless of alignment, take Valygar at least to do the Sphere quest, so you can get your stronghold.

And the #1 rule in choosing your party: select the characters you'll have the most fun with. :smallsmile:

[amanodel]

I'd chose my party depending on what gender I've chosen for my PC. I just love character interactions and romances.

My party rule #2 is that there must be someone to romance.
Party rule #3: there must be Minsc.
Party rule #4: there must be someone with maxed out pickpocket skill.
:)

[Chris_Chandler]

I'm running through right now for the Jaheira romance, and it's pretty clear I'm going to need to go back again with a "bad guy" party. Right now It's Minsc, Jaheira, Keldorn, Aerie, and Imoen. At various points I also had Valygar, Jan, and Yoshimo. I'm playing a mage (dualled from a berserker), as chief smashy and freaking illithid slayer.

My 5yo, who occasionally spectates, insists that he's Minsc and dictates what equipment Minsc wears, but usually goes between swinging the flail or Lilacor. It's pretty funny, too, listening to him mimic Minsc.

I prefer having Minsc and Jaheira in the party, for the dynamic, and both are excellent in Melee. I rotate Minsc between a heavy hitter and archery support, depending, and Jaheira as a tank (rarely using her for archery). Keldorn is just great. He's not got Carsomyr yet, but he's tank and damage (with that belf of frost giant strength). Aerie is very good with support, healing and debuffing, and has more spells than she can use. In the vampire hideout I just had her equip the improved mace of disruption cast the big buff and she tanked them all. It's pretty funny, because she's otherwise the backline flower debuffer. Imoen is a solid mage and is passable as a trapfinder - there are enough potions to make it work, though the find-traps spell always works.

Valygar is great, but not as good as Keldorn. Jan was my mainstay until Imoen. He's just stupendous. Great spells and great skills. I dropped Yoshimo for most of the early game but brought him back solely so I wouldn't have to abandon Jan in the Bohdi maze (did that once with Valygar and felt guilty). Yoshimo's passable, but it's just hardwired in me in regard to 2e. In regard to class, don't take a single-classed thief if you don't have to. I didn't have to.

This is my first time through actually messing with a full NPC party - I've definitely shorted myself from a good portion of the game by using and fully built crew. I'm enjoying it much more this go-round. The bad-guy team should be quite fun, once I get there. Korgan, Viconia and Edwin will match up nice with Jaheira and little innocent Imoen.

[Lord of the Helms]

Skeleton Warriors have Magic Resistance and are immune to psionics, hold spells, confusion, charm, domination, level drain and so on, making them ideal cannon fodder, since they were immune to practically everything.

Their only downside was physical weakness.

Mordenkainen's Sword on the other hand was immune to everything, pretty much impossible to destroy or even physically harm, and (especially with haste) did tons of damage. My most important summon, especially whenever I was up against Mind Flayers.



Granted the fighter cleric pwns all in 3.5 and the paladin kinda sucks (by general consensus, not my opinion personally), the roles are reversed in 2.5. Anything multi-classed is weaker than a true class. The only thing that makes Keldorn weak is his lack of cleric spells, but his True Sight and ability to use Carsomyr make up for that.

Personally, I thought the Inquisitor is the only Paladin Kit that is slightly weaker. The Undead Hunter and Cavalier are obscenely powerful.

Oh yeah, as for who to take into your party, I repeat, under all circumstances, go for Anomen and Jan. Anomen is not only a good Cleric, but also makes for a decent combatant (way tougher than Viconia) without buffs and superior to most Warrior classes with buffs. As for Jan - good for ranged combat (and thus stays out of harms way, unlike Joshimo), perfectly sufficient thief skills, and his spellcasting actually isn't half bad either. But most importantly, the banter between the two will have you in tears of laughter over and over and over :smallbiggrin:

[Mauril Everleaf]

Well the banter with Jan + Anyone = Hilarity. Personally, I think, that if it weren't for the theme of this "campaign", the Undead Hunter would be a pretty lame class. The Cavalier is just teh pwnage (sorry, but thats about the only way to accurately describe it). I have Shadow Keeper, so I convert Keldorn to cavalier as soon as I get him (if i get him, that is).

[Logic]

Well the banter with Jan + Anyone = Hilarity. Personally, I think, that if it weren't for the theme of this "campaign", the Undead Hunter would be a pretty lame class. The Cavalier is just teh pwnage (sorry, but thats about the only way to accurately describe it). I have Shadow Keeper, so I convert Keldorn to cavalier as soon as I get him (if i get him, that is).
Shadow Keeper? Converting to Cavalier? You must clarify.

[Varen_Tai]

What do you mean the Inquisitor is underpowered? Are you kidding me? You fight more mages than just about anything else. Being able to True See at will, plus dispel magic like crazy totally rocks. Leave the Undead slaying up to the priests with the upgraded mace of disruption. I always make my paladins into an Inquisitor, and they kick serious butt. Though the Cavalier IS pretty cool, too.

[Arang]

Shadow Keeper? Converting to Cavalier? You must clarify.

Shadow Keeper is a tool that lets you edit your characters and saves. As such, one could convert Keldorn from an Inquisitor to a Cavalier with minimum hassle.

http://www.mud-master.com/shadowkeeper/

[Lord of the Helms]

Well the banter with Jan + Anyone = Hilarity. Personally, I think, that if it weren't for the theme of this "campaign", the Undead Hunter would be a pretty lame class. The Cavalier is just teh pwnage (sorry, but thats about the only way to accurately describe it). I have Shadow Keeper, so I convert Keldorn to cavalier as soon as I get him (if i get him, that is).

As For Jan: Well, yeah, but Jan + Anomen >> Jan + anyone else :smallwink:

The overpowered-ness of the Cavalier is indeed obscene. You gain two useful immunities (poison and fear), two useful resistances ( Acid and Fire), two VERY useful combat bonuses (vs Dragons and Demons, both among the more powerful opponents you'll face) AND remove fear tons of times per level, while losing... the ability to use ranged weapons. Which would really hurt if Carsomyr were a crossbow, I guess.

As for the Undead hunter, he does lose one pretty useful ability, but gains immunity two two of the biggest pains in the ass you'll ever encounter in the game, plus combat bonuses against probably THE most frequent enemy (and one of the strongest, too) in the game.

The Inquisitor is different in that he actually loses quite a lot of useful abilities, but also gains the most powerful abilities ( True Sight once/four levels?!?W000000t!!!!1111, and Dispel isn't half bad either), and his immunities are at least as good as those of the Undead Hunter.

But whichever you go with, in BG 2, Paladins reign supreme. And let's not mention TOB with your Epic "Summon Deva, 5 x a day" cheese that those mages and clerics hate you for so very, very much :smallbiggrin:

[Arang]

Just cast Project Image as a Sorcerer and have it summon 6 Planetars. Repeat up to 8 times per day.:smallbiggrin:

[Mauril Everleaf]

okay, thats pretty sick. but i love the uber-ness of pallies in bg2. makes me sad to see them now that they are ever so nerfed in 3.5 <sniff>

[Arang]

And the great part is that the Project Image ends before the Planetars, so you can just keep churning them out. Any hard enemy will have to beat almost 50 of some of the most powerful monsters in the game before they can get to you. In addition, they have tons and tons of healing, Flame Arrows and other nifty buffs.

And Improved Hasted, raging, buffed Korgan ... he's so powerful it almost isn't even funny.:smallbiggrin:

[Sir_Banjo]

Along with MW2 and MW2: GBL I don't think spent more time playing any other game. Only thing that sucked was that awfully long starting level. If you or anyone else wants to play it again but feels the same as I do, check out this link:

http://weidu.org/ease.html

The patch on this site is reliable and safe (I played the game twice without any issues). The only problems I found are when you download everything but the kitchen sink and try to get them to run at the same time. Used in isolation, or with other patches from this site, you will have no trouble.

I played the party with a cavalier. All the paladin abilities+more for the price of missile weapon proficiency, just brillant.


PS. Glad to know I'm not the only one who lost valuable school time playing this game.

[Shikton]

Gotta say, having a lot of fun with BG2 again now. Installed it and started over after this thread slowly but surely made the urge creep into my mind, but I'm merely in the middle of assembling my party at this point. Evil-ish for once. It will consist of Korgan, Viconia, Edwin, Jan, Jaheira and of course my PC who's a half-orc barbarian who's sporting dual long swords. Great fun!

[Shanrina]

Oh, I love BGII. I only got all the way through SoA once (and never beat ToB because a cutscene didn't appear when it should have so there was no way for me to move further in the plot). I've tried to get through it other times, but like some other people on this thread I kept getting sick of Irenicus's dungeon in the beginning, or after making it past that I got sick of some other quest...probably Nalia's quest because I always did that one right near the beginning. That one time, I played as a female chaotic good blade, but I kept juggling people around so besides Anomen (who I kept because of the romance, and who I actually didn't mind so much except for the romance factor) and Imoen I'm not actually sure who I kept. I do know I didn't keep Minsc, though, because much as I loved his personality he kept dying and my blade (who had about half the hit points, but who was dual wielding two hideously powerful weapons and who had stoneskin and a ton of other protective spells _always_ cast on her) kept showing him up so I probably traded him for another mage.

I must say I'm not sure I agree that multiclassed characters are necessarily weaker, though. Level-wise, sure they are. I really don't think that makes them _worse_, though, because they can do so much more even if they can't do it quite as well as the non-multiclassed characters.

I do have a question about a "bug" that showed up early in the game, though. It helped me instead of hurt me so I'm not too worried, but I'm curious if this happened to anyone else: When I was doing Nalia's quest and my party went from the roof to a library-type place, Anomen would automatically use a Spell Sequencer to cast Invisibility and a bunch of other really nice buffing spells. Spell Sequencer is a mage thing, though, and IIRC (though it's been awhile) most or all of the spells he cast were mage spells. Anyone heard of this before?

[Glyde]

BG1 and 2 are by far my most favorite games of all time (Except for No one Lives Forever and Deus Ex... but that's a given)

I've played through them both a couple times, and have even done a G/N/E party for each using the same chars and a mod called BG2 Tutu, which lets you play BG1 with the BG2 engine.

Favorite character other than Minsc is Keldorn. He's damn epic, and since I can't stand a pally PC, my Carsomyr guy.

[Serenity]

Anyone who even thinks about badmouthing Aerie will have to answer to me. Essential equipment: Robe of Vecna (working on both her mage and cleric spells), Sling of Everard, and Shield of Harmony (throw in the modded upgrade, and she becomes immune to psionics, too).

Imoen gets the Short Bow of Gesen--infinite +3 electric arrows, and she doesn't miss that much. Also my favorite romance--I just wish they'd come out with the ToB portion of the mod soon...

If you want a good male love interest, go download Kelsey. Possibly the greatest mod NPC ever, and fitting almost seamlessly into the game. Also origined 'flirt' mechanic to add depth to romances. The Flirt Pack mod applies it to the original love interests--a must download.

[SandDemon]

If any of you have played GuildWars, you'll know that the game likes to take quotes from other games and make them abilities. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I saw "Go For The Eyes!".....

And I almost cried when everyone didn't get the BG2 reference. :(

[Aoln the Wise]

Could someone help me ?

I know it is possible, when you've got BG1, BG2 and its expansion installed, to program "something" to be able to play the BG1 part with the interface of BG2 ToB (with its options and all) and to choose all the caracters availables with BG2 to start with in BG1 at lvl 1.

If anyone knows how this stuff works, I would really appreciate learning it. Thanks !

[Serenity]

That would be the aforementioned BGTutu, I'm sure. Never played it myself, but a download should be just a download away.

[Scorpina]

It's (probably) available from either sorcerers.net or pocketplane.com. Most mods for BG games are.

[kaairn]

just completed BG1 with BGtutu and the enhanced NPC mod, now moving onto a heavily modded BG2 with the ascension mod, the flirt pack, and a couple of others I can't remember right now... also using shadowkeeper to give my NPC's a power boost and fun kits :smallbiggrin: really enjoying myself. All Hail the Aerie tank :smallwink:

[Umbral_Arcanist]

I always have Viconia in my party because she rocks and with the right equipment is immune to magic/ resistant to almost everything. I've also never had any party problems with her, even with Valygar or Keldorn in the party...

[Ink]

I think there was a pack or something you could download so that the party members would not kill each other and would not leave the party no matter what your reputation.

[Shikton]

I think there was a pack or something you could download so that the party members would not kill each other and would not leave the party no matter what your reputation.

I suppose ShadowKeeper would do that for you. Just change alignment on the NPCs. I think that's possible at least.

[Arang]

I suppose ShadowKeeper would do that for you. Just change alignment on the NPCs. I think that's possible at least.

I think it's more of a scripted event than their alignments. In any case, at least Ease of Use will make sure none of the NPCs fight each other, as well as other useful features (all optional).

[WhiteKnight777]

Ahh... BG II. How many hours of my life I spent crawling through the most beautiful rendition of Faerun ever put into electronic form (Not necessarily graphics wise.. but i've never seen a game that captured the epic feel of the campaign world so very well). I MUST recommend The Longer Road. It allows you to have (and hopefully redeem) Jonaleth Irenicus during TOB. The writing in the mod is both voluminous and breathtaking, and Jon's party banters capture his character delightfully, I feel.

If you want a mod that will make you gouge your eyes out in frustration, get the Planar Sphere Mod. the end boss is so ungodly powerful as to be a joke. He makes Demogorgon look like an hemophiliac eight year old girl with malnutrition.

[Maxymiuk]

Sorry for bringing this thread back from the dead but I kinda got stuck in the game.

I'm in the Underdark, in the Mindflayer tunnels. I did the breakout along with the Githyanki, walked around, killed stuff, freed the slaves from the machine, and manufactured four or so of those collars.

From what I understand now I should use one of those to enslave a mindflayer so that he can open one of the doors for me. The problem is, there's no mindflayers left anywhere. I recall there was one that teleported into the room with the pools of mindflayer potion, but that was before I freed the slaves and made the collars.

So, uh, how do I proceed from here?

[Scorpina]

Note that the door can also be opened by 'godlike strength'. The Slayer is the form of a god, and so can open the door.

[Arang]

Is there any way to kill the Elder Brain if you've killed all the Mind Flayers? As I recall, only Mind Flayers can open the inner door, but the Slayer can open the outer one.

[Scorpina]

I never had any trouble doing it with the Slayer.

[Serenity]

Also, there should be a room where they'll respawn if you wait long enough. Alternately, you could just activate cheat keys and use CTRL-J.

[Tom_Violence]

Also, there should be a room where they'll respawn if you wait long enough. Alternately, you could just activate cheat keys and use CTRL-J.


Seconded. I can't remember exactly how it happens (it must just be a time thing) but in the room where you get the goo to free the slaves, a mindflayer will respawn.

[Nifft]

Wow, good memories.

I enjoyed that game quite a lot. It's actually responsible for rekindling my interest in D&D, and when 3.0e came out, I jumped back in.


Cheers, -- N

[wellington]

Nerdiest joke EVER:

"In Soviet Russia, you have a ball! On Sword Coast..."

[Shikton]

Nerdiest joke EVER:

"In Soviet Russia, you have a ball! On Sword Coast..."


I don't get it :smalleek: