Baldur's Gate II Wizardry & 5e

[J-H]

I only have about 15 areas left to write up for the game I'm about to start (level 13 to epic).

I'm already looking ahead to two years from now, when I'd like to try running Baldur's Gate II as a campaign. With existing maps for myself to draw from, encounters already created, and the like, all I have to do is scale magic items back to 5e (+5/+6 becomes +3, +3/+4 becomes +2, +1/+2 become +1s), and adapt statblocks for some specific encounters. I can stick with generic orcs, bandits, trolls, beholders, drow, etc. for most of the game thanks to bounded accuracy.

The one thing that doesn't easily carry over is wizardry. In BG2, a single mid/high-level wizard is a multi-level fight (much of the time) simply thanks to the layered protections. Mantle, Spell Trap, Time Stop, Stoneskin, Globe of Invulnerability, Protection from Normal Weapons/PFMW, and the like are pretty common. It often requires a Pierce Magic->Breach combo taking at least two rounds to take down enemy defenses; add True Sight or See Invisibility on first if the wizard is also invisible.

That many layered defenses are simply impossible in 5e, which makes it very hard to replicate the "a lone Lich is a threat to an 8th level party" effect, short of one-hit "Oh Meteor Swarm" type tactics.

I'd rather stay mostly within the existing rules, but I don't see a way to bring back real spell defense and spell duels without hard-breaking the Concentration mechanic, and also homebrewing up a bunch of spells.

If anyone has thoughts on the topic, or has made a prior attempt at this, please share it!

[Unoriginal]

I only have about 15 areas left to write up for the game I'm about to start (level 13 to epic).

I'm already looking ahead to two years from now, when I'd like to try running Baldur's Gate II as a campaign. With existing maps for myself to draw from, encounters already created, and the like, all I have to do is scale magic items back to 5e (+5/+6 becomes +3, +3/+4 becomes +2, +1/+2 become +1s), and adapt statblocks for some specific encounters. I can stick with generic orcs, bandits, trolls, beholders, drow, etc. for most of the game thanks to bounded accuracy.

The one thing that doesn't easily carry over is wizardry. In BG2, a single mid/high-level wizard is a multi-level fight (much of the time) simply thanks to the layered protections. Mantle, Spell Trap, Time Stop, Stoneskin, Globe of Invulnerability, Protection from Normal Weapons/PFMW, and the like are pretty common. It often requires a Pierce Magic->Breach combo taking at least two rounds to take down enemy defenses; add True Sight or See Invisibility on first if the wizard is also invisible.

That many layered defenses are simply impossible in 5e, which makes it very hard to replicate the "a lone Lich is a threat to an 8th level party" effect, short of one-hit "Oh Meteor Swarm" type tactics.

I'd rather stay mostly within the existing rules, but I don't see a way to bring back real spell defense and spell duels without hard-breaking the Concentration mechanic, and also homebrewing up a bunch of spells.

If anyone has thoughts on the topic, or has made a prior attempt at this, please share it!

I recommend re-designing the encounters from the ground up. The assumptions of Baldur's Gate II system simply won't work with 5e.

For example, unless the difference in power is enormous (like a Lich against a lvl 8 party), a solo boss is not going to be a threat for most parties, unless you give them Legendary Actions and in general Legendary Resistance too, to say nothing of Lair Actions.

The bosses' threat level is also increased when the PCs have spent ressources on the way to reach them.

[king_steve]

I'd rather stay mostly within the existing rules, but I don't see a way to bring back real spell defense and spell duels without hard-breaking the Concentration mechanic, and also homebrewing up a bunch of spells.

If anyone has thoughts on the topic, or has made a prior attempt at this, please share it!

If this is on a wizards home turf and they're paranoid enough, they likely have a number of Glyph of Warding spells around their lair. A spell triggered from a Glyph of Warding will last its full duration if it requires concentration. So, if you think it would be reasonable, the Lich or high level wizard could have setup a number of defensive glyphs around their lair with specific triggers only they know about (remember that finding a glyph doesn't necessarily mean the person who found it knows the trigger or the stored effect).

If a wizard has a few days to prepare, they could have a very large variety of effects stored up they can trigger to counter things on demand.

This primarily works for a wizard in their own lair because glyph of warding it has a movement restriction.

If the surface or object is moved more than 10 feet from where you cast this spell, the glyph is broken, and the spell ends without being triggered.

So, this is is perfect for a high level wizard to have defensive glyphs to protect against invaders and to have more than one concentration effect going at a time.


A particularly paranoid wizard might even have a room outside their inner sanctum that has something like a chessboard with some animated armors or flying swords guarding the room. That can be interesting for the players to learn about the way glyphs work before encountering the Lich or wizard boss and see if they can figure out some pattern to the chessboard.

[J-H]

There are at least 4 Liches scattered around who this could work for (Daystar, Kangaxx x3). The less...somnolent... high-level wizards that move around (Planar Sphere, Irenicus) are more of a challenge.

Part of it's also that the protection spells simply aren't as good. Stoneskin grants resistance instead of ignoring X number of non-elemental attacks. Protection from Normal Weapons is gone, as is Protection from Magic Weapons. So are Spell Trap and all of the "remove protection" spells that aren't Dispel. There are very few defenses against a barbarian simply wrecking the wizard's face. Unless I add a lot of minions... which I can do, with "permanently summoned X"... but still.

[Houster]

The spell invulnerability and a high level globe of invulnerability replicates said effect. Problem is, it's really high level stuff and both are concentration.

You would have to give your wizards more power than your pc's. Which is by the way exactly what bg2 does- by giving the mages all their buffs in the second the fight starts. That makes them a real threat. Encountered with no spell on- you can easily bash or fire them to death. Only mages with chain contingency(level9) and spell trigger(level 8) can actually do this without the game's auto buff.

So we are actually looking at the same thing because the game is giving a lot of power the player does not have.

Give liches free invulnerability.
Give mages chain contingency or the ability to concentrate on more than one spell, and legendary actions.

Now if this is not your thing-
Think dnd vs video game- the setting is paramount. A flying wizard(through a magic item, not the spell) is a lot more durable than a standing one. A wizard that has his tower a way to teleport him around the field every round, or simply to a high spot that players cant see(lack of sight protects from a ton of spells in 5e).
And so on.

Another obvious solution is tough minions. Golems, demons, more mages can make the fight really tough. Also the ability to constantly summon monsters through a gate or something is devastating(like the final boss fight with ascension in bg2).

So to sum it up-
Above pc powers
Dnd stuff that do not exist on video games(like sight and distance)
Minions

[Droppeddead]

There are at least 4 Liches scattered around who this could work for (Daystar, Kangaxx x3). The less...somnolent... high-level wizards that move around (Planar Sphere, Irenicus) are more of a challenge.

Part of it's also that the protection spells simply aren't as good. Stoneskin grants resistance instead of ignoring X number of non-elemental attacks. Protection from Normal Weapons is gone, as is Protection from Magic Weapons. So are Spell Trap and all of the "remove protection" spells that aren't Dispel. There are very few defenses against a barbarian simply wrecking the wizard's face. Unless I add a lot of minions... which I can do, with "permanently summoned X"... but still.

The glyph idea is really good. Another suggestion for the layered defence is to have minion wizards who cast protective spells on the main boss. If you want to be really mean you can have them be charmed or mind controlled by the big boss. Sure, your players can easily kill that elf who just cast stoneskin on Irenicus, but do they really want to? And don't fprget casting debuffs on the players. Slow and Bane can be really annoying.

Houster summed it up pretty good as well. If nothing else, 5E's action economy makes sure that a lone opponent has to be way more powerful than the party to even stand a chance.

[MoiMagnus]

1) An extremely powerful wizard probably has a bunch of apprentices that are here to concentrate spells for him (Possibly with rings of spell storing). And to cast counterspells. In fact, almost all the low level spells that don't rely on spell DC should be cast by apprentices.
=> 5e has strength in numbers. Bosses without minions only works if they have legendary actions (which kind of give them multiple turns per turns) and legendary resistance (which prevent stun-lock), otherwise the encounter is likely to be underwhelming, and even with them it's far from certain that the encounter will be interesting.

2) I personally found that the easiest way to deal with boss battle is to significantly plays with the environment. Have lair actions (take inspiration on the dragon's lair action), have complex magical traps, etc. 5e significantly restrict the power of "instantaneous magic", but the amount of powerful things you can do with years and years of research and set up is still unbounded.

[Skylivedk]

Demiplane can solve your issue for the wandering mages. I also recommend having Planar Bound minions and apprentices joining the fight

[Hael]

Yea stacking and combos of spell effects and protections is one of the big differences between Add2 and 5e. The meta game in BG2 was using Breach and things like that, but in the PnP it was even more complex. But in general facing a prepared mage was brutal. Things like stacking mirror image (up to 8 mirrors), blur and globe just made hitting them a party wide ordeal.

[Mr Adventurer]

I recommend re-designing the encounters from the ground up. The assumptions of Baldur's Gate II system simply won't work with 5e.

I second this. Really want to highlight how true it is.

However! Also, don't forget that there's no point at which the PCs should be fighting "a Wizard". They should be fighting an NPC built to the appropriate CR - who might well have spellcasting as a Wizard does, like the Archmage NPC from the MM.

For the truly unique enemies (Irenicus), I'd suggest building the stat block from scratch.

Meanwhile, other workarounds for the lack of stacking spell effects include:

- intelligent magical items that cast and maintain concentration on their spells for you
- potions
- allies, who cast their buff spells but largely stay the hell out of the way

I had some good success on that last one, with a couple of Mages supporting an Adult Dragon.

[Randomthom]

"COOO!!! You're the ones looking for Imoen right? COOO!!! I can hel..."

"I attack the annoying coo-ing guy"...

Ok, that was a joke but do begin to consider how you'll handle the players not doing what you're limited to doing in the game at various points. Killing Saemon, getting into an all-out brawl with the Cowled Wizards etc.

There's also a few points in the game that players might object to along the "why didn't I get a saving throw" that youll need to decide how you want to handle.
Saemon's poisoned food on board the ship that suddenly kicks in when you're being shown around Spellhold.
The Seeming spell placed upon your party and the Paladins upon arriving in the area near Firkraag's lair.

If your players aren't ok with a little railroading then there's a few moments that might jar with them;
The attack by the Githyanki & Sahuagin on the ship that you're not meant to win.

The one elephant in the room is how you handle the core plot point. Are all your players children of Bhaal?

[Mr Adventurer]

"COOO!!! You're the ones looking for Imoen right? COOO!!! I can hel..."

"I attack the annoying coo-ing guy"...

This actually raises a good point: there are a lot of times when the game essentially railroads you through one set-piece or another. We forgive this for computer games, but a party of PCs will be far less tractable, and the players may revolt. Plan carefully.

[Randomthom]

This actually raises a good point: there are a lot of times when the game essentially railroads you through one set-piece or another. We forgive this for computer games, but a party of PCs will be far less tractable, and the players may revolt. Plan carefully.

Just edited my post with exactly that point.

[Amnestic]

The one elephant in the room is how you handle the core plot point. Are all your players children of Bhaal?

I'm currently DMing a play by post game which long term is going to go through all of BG1+2+ToB if it manages to last. 6-7 months since starting, the party's finished Nashkel mines (with a minor detour to the gnoll stronghold) and they're about to track down the bandit camp, so needless to say it's not a quick thing (gonna be here a looooong while), but I did decide from the start to have all the PCs be bhaalspawn, and all of them are/were Gorion's Wards.

I don't think it will cause any real issues storywise up until the very end of the Throne of Bhaal when the decision on ascension comes up. That's a bridge I'm not worried about crossing 'til I get there though.

I think having them all be bhaalspawn is important personally, though your mileage may vary. All my players are at least vaguely familiar with the games which might impact it. If none of your players know anything about BG1+2...hmm...I'd probably still do it honestly.

[J-H]

This actually raises a good point: there are a lot of times when the game essentially railroads you through one set-piece or another. We forgive this for computer games, but a party of PCs will be far less tractable, and the players may revolt. Plan carefully.

"COOO!!! You're the ones looking for Imoen right? COOO!!! I can hel..."

"I attack the annoying coo-ing guy"...

Ok, that was a joke but do begin to consider how you'll handle the players not doing what you're limited to doing in the game at various points. Killing Saemon, getting into an all-out brawl with the Cowled Wizards etc.

There's also a few points in the game that players might object to along the "why didn't I get a saving throw" that youll need to decide how you want to handle.
Saemon's poisoned food on board the ship that suddenly kicks in when you're being shown around Spellhold.
The Seeming spell placed upon your party and the Paladins upon arriving in the area near Firkraag's lair.

If your players aren't ok with a little railroading then there's a few moments that might jar with them;
The attack by the Githyanki & Sahuagin on the ship that you're not meant to win.

The one elephant in the room is how you handle the core plot point. Are all your players children of Bhaal?

Yes, good points. The party may be able to shake off the Seeming near Firkraag, in which case they have allies and still a reason or two to go after Firkraag.
The Spellhold food represents a two-part magical poison, so I'm fine with that working as-is.
If they choose to not talk to Gaelan, he'll just send a messenger later. I think they'll want some contacts.

A CW brawl can totally escalate out, but the cowled wizards in this adaptation will have to have minions, either golems, summoned creatures, or a humanoid armed force to screen for them in melee. I'd run it with a stacking set of reinforcements (1 teleports in 1 round, 2 teleport in the 2nd round, 3 the 3rd round, etc.). A smart non-murder hobo party will eventually flee the city, chased out, and will have to buy their way back in, or be disguised. Could be a good complication.

With the Gith/Sahuagin attack, the party actually wins the fight. The problem is they lose the ship.

Here's what I have planned for the Bhaalspawn.

Spoiler

Show

2 players (minimum) or more, but no more than 50% of the party, are Bhaalspawn. They each start with 3 Taint points. They lose one point of Taint when killed (including petrification) or when they fail a Death save, and permadie if they ever hit 0 taint points. Each taint point gives them access to a 1/day cleric spell, typically along the lines of Shield of Faith, Cure Wounds, Inflict Wounds, or Guiding Bolt.
This makes them want to avoid death substantially, but makes it "survivable" instead of game-over for the party. If the entire party has no Bhaalspawn, that is a form of loss. This also heavily penalizes leaving them bleeding out.

Additional Taint points are gained by killing other Bhaalspawn, or by gaining 1 point of Proficiency Bonus (so +4 over the entire game)
Additional taint points c an be used to either upgrade an existing spell to 3rd level, or to swap one of the original spells out for one of higher level. Bhaal spell level jumps are 1st to 3rd, 3rd to 5th, then by one spell level each up to level 7.
There are very few Bhaalspawn out there to kill.

PCs can be OCs or can play as the original NPCs. If they play as the original NPCs, they follow a roughly pregenerated character build, but in return they get additional ties to the game world, starting gear, and sidequests (loot availability) to develop their character and background with. Minor modifications to player taste are OK. The NPCs may start with a higher point buy value to incentivize this, if needed.

If someone wants to play Yoshimo, I'll take that player aside and discuss Yoshimo's eventual fate, and if they would be willing to switch over to Imoen mid-game. It could be a pretty epic unexpected betrayal for those not familiar with the story.

[Mr Adventurer]

I definitely would just make Yoshimo as he is in the game: an NPC which the players may choose to trust, or not.

What's the reason for the limit on 50% of the party as Spawn?

[Droppeddead]

I definitely would just make Yoshimo as he is in the game: an NPC which the players may choose to trust, or not.

+1 on this one. Turning NPCs into PCs is seldom a good idea. It takes away a lot of the player's agency which is never a good thing. Overall I'd either let all the PCs be bhaalspawn or none of them. I'd also make sure that the campaign doesn't follow the plot completely since that would just make it very weird and railroad-y. Use the game as a foundation for your campaign but be allow for players to step out of bonds. For example, make sure that there are more than one way to get to the Spellhold and so one.

[J-H]

I'm not a fan of having true NPCs in the party. Yoshimo looks like a great long con, as long as the player running him is onboard with it. I think it'd have a lot of impact, like it did on the first run through the game.

Other ways to Spellhold are easy enough to come up with, but ALL of them will be risky. Saemon is the "safe bet" compared to letting the CWs teleport you (straight into a cell), hiring other pirates (sea battles along the way), or some other method.

The limit on Bhaalspawn is to:
1) Preserve some of the feel of impending godhood as being special. There shouldn't be that many Bhaalspawn running around in one city randomly becoming friends.

2) Have some of the NPC-targeted quests/motivations still be there for the party to help root them in the area and give them connections in Athkatla, and reasons to not speed through to Spellhold. I'd make sure the players are all aware of the general ties the BG2NPC characters have and what the general issues they'll face are. They'd have been swept up into Irenicus' dungeon more recently via Bodhi's thieves (although Keldorn being caught like that is a harder sell). They still have full agency, but with the knowledge that they have a house, or a family somewhere on the map, etc.

3) Create some degree of tension about who actually gets to ascend. If we get all the way through the campaign, defeat Amelyssan, and then last two spawn of the god of murder turn on each other to see who will become a god, and who will just die... that would be quite memorable, and fitting.

4) Maintain a real possibility for the party to fail by running out of Bhaal taint.

[Mr Adventurer]

I'm not a fan of having true NPCs in the party. Yoshimo looks like a great long con, as long as the player running him is onboard with it. I think it'd have a lot of impact, like it did on the first run through the game.

That's the thing about RPGs, though - in my own first BG2 playthrough, I took Yoshimo with me to escape the dungeon, then never used him again - so his betrayal was very low impact on me. It's a fun thing to think about in terms of a story but really hard to make happen in a game. I'd suggest you drop it altogether, then. It doesn't add much to the overall plot.

Other ways to Spellhold are easy enough to come up with, but ALL of them will be risky. Saemon is the "safe bet" compared to letting the CWs teleport you (straight into a cell), hiring other pirates (sea battles along the way), or some other method.

How will the characters be able to make this determination in the game?

Hell, what's to stop them learning it's location and going there on their own?

The limit on Bhaalspawn is to:
1) Preserve some of the feel of impending godhood as being special. There shouldn't be that many Bhaalspawn running around in one city randomly becoming friends.

Why not? They are drawn to each other anyway, and that's actually a key plot point in ToB.

2) Have some of the NPC-targeted quests/motivations still be there for the party to help root them in the area and give them connections in Athkatla, and reasons to not speed through to Spellhold. I'd make sure the players are all aware of the general ties the BG2NPC characters have and what the general issues they'll face are. They'd have been swept up into Irenicus' dungeon more recently via Bodhi's thieves (although Keldorn being caught like that is a harder sell). They still have full agency, but with the knowledge that they have a house, or a family somewhere on the map, etc.

Surely you'd be better off letting people play whatever characters, and taking inspiration from the computer game to weave those links in?

3) Create some degree of tension about who actually gets to ascend. If we get all the way through the campaign, defeat Amelyssan, and then last two spawn of the god of murder turn on each other to see who will become a god, and who will just die... that would be quite memorable, and fitting.

How does an upper limit do that?

4) Maintain a real possibility for the party to fail by running out of Bhaal taint.

Well, basically, why does running out of taint mean failure? By the time you get to the endgame, there are lots of ways of keeping the characters in the loop without slavishly adhering to the route of the computer game.

[J-H]

I think we have fundamentally different approaches... but will try to answer anyway.

Spellhold is on an island known to be frequented by pirates, so they have a limited number of captains who can sail there. I assume that a wizard prison is warded against Scrying, so they can't Scry and use arcane or druidic teleportation. Magical flight and shapeshifting don't have long enough durations. I guess they could buy their own ship, but they'd have to hire a captain (golly, I know a captain who has a habit of unfortunately losing ships through circumstances that are by no means his own fault at all).
I'm having trouble coming up with any other ways for a mid-level party to get there.

I could let them build "whatever" and add the links in (if a halfling, Trademeet family, if a drow, DeVir, etc.)... but going with the pre-made names and histories reduces my prep time. The current campaign I am writing content for is probably 300+ pages, and I'd be running BG2 as a deliberately prep-light campaign aside from rejiggering the wizard encounters. If the players don't like the idea, I won't go with it.

If they have no potential Bhaal heirs in the party, they can certainly keep going, BUT they won't have the pocket plane (meh) and will have a harder time finding and reaching the Abyssal Throne. It's doable, but will require extra effort on their part. If they get that far, there will absolutely be a ticking clock. Amelyssan the Black is not going to sit around waiting for them to show up if they aren't carrying any of the divine energy she needs to ascend unopposed.

[iTreeby]

Any wizard that is paranoid enough to have multiple Glyphs of warding is also going to have Guards and Wards permanently cast as well. If a wizard is ducking into a fog shrouded corridor branch of a Corridor (attack with advantage because he isn't affected by the fog) there is a significant chance that the party will be unable to chase him due to be living that they went the wrong way. Like if you fully take advantage of Guards and Wards, it's a huge power boost.

[Mr Adventurer]

I think we have fundamentally different approaches... but will try to answer anyway.

Spellhold is on an island known to be frequented by pirates, so they have a limited number of captains who can sail there. I assume that a wizard prison is warded against Scrying, so they can't Scry and use arcane or druidic teleportation. Magical flight and shapeshifting don't have long enough durations. I guess they could buy their own ship, but they'd have to hire a captain (golly, I know a captain who has a habit of unfortunately losing ships through circumstances that are by no means his own fault at all).
I'm having trouble coming up with any other ways for a mid-level party to get there.

A ship Captain is just a person with a ship and a crew - both very easy things for mid-level parties to get, or enslave, or trick, or create.

They don't need to scry anything to find the location - they can just ask one of the frequent pirate visitors. Or, "ask", using any number of methods available to mid level characters.

If there's a Druid with them, or another way of getting the spell, Air Walk (Druid 6) lasts 8 hours of 300 feet per turn terrain-ignoring movement. How far is it?

I could let them build "whatever" and add the links in (if a halfling, Trademeet family, if a drow, DeVir, etc.)... but going with the pre-made names and histories reduces my prep time. The current campaign I am writing content for is probably 300+ pages, and I'd be running BG2 as a deliberately prep-light campaign aside from rejiggering the wizard encounters. If the players don't like the idea, I won't go with it.

Fair enough.

If they have no potential Bhaal heirs in the party, they can certainly keep going, BUT they won't have the pocket plane (meh) and will have a harder time finding and reaching the Abyssal Throne. It's doable, but will require extra effort on their part. If they get that far, there will absolutely be a ticking clock. Amelyssan the Black is not going to sit around waiting for them to show up if they aren't carrying any of the divine energy she needs to ascend unopposed.

Eh. Those things are only true if you want them to be. It's easy to think of work-arounds. This isn't a subject the game really addresses so there's lots of blank paper to fill. Off the top of my head, it would make just as much sense for a Taint 0 character to have residual sympathy to get to the pocket plane, or for the Solar to be able to reference a part of the rules to grandfather in the companions of an epic Bhaalspawn. You're right that it wouldn't be as straightforward, perhaps not as easy, but the fewer arbitrary restrictions you can place on the course of the players involvement in the plot, the more scope the game has.

Out of interest, if two players made Spawn characters and died without resurrection before getting to Spellhold or whatever, would you end the campaign there?

[J-H]

In BG2, Spellhold is about a week away by sailing vessel.
If the party can get there with a 6th level druid spell, that's fine. Kind of the bigger concern would be them getting out of Spellhold and back to the mainland, bypassing the underdark (and the optional sahuagin city). The Underdark section is important, because it takes Irenicus time to set up his drow-aided attack on Suldanesselar, make the attack, and send the Rhynn Lanthorn to Athkalta with Bodhi. If the party goes "Welp, teleport!" and arrives back in Athkatla before Irenicus hits the surface... I can deal with that, but it's inconvenient.

At least one of my likely players has played the game, and will likely help keep the group mostly on track, if only because the Underdark is a great place to get some great loot. I kind of assume that all the magical radiation (which gives drow MR and makes their weapons so good) may block teleport anyway. Any drow cities will certainly be warded against intrusion via magical transport.

If the Bhaalspawn all die pre-Spellhold? They still may want to rescue Imoen... or maybe not. In that case, Bodhi will either ship them there (if they ally with her) or will escape to there. She's annoying enough that they'll want to kill her either way.
At that point, they can tool around Amn until word arrives of an Elven city falling, and then Bodhi returns, juiced up, and I think they will fall back into that quest.

Killing Irenicus would be a reasonable stopping point to cap the game off, and there would be no reason to go into Throne of Bhaal. By that point, the party should be level 15-20, so no worries if the game "ends" then.
ToB will require more modification because it is more of a railroad slog, anyway. It's not nearly as fun.
There are also other end states available, especially if they are using some of the tied-to-the-city NPCs. Valygar and reforming the City Guard, rooting out corruption, and the like.... Nalia and improving the Keep... taking on the Cowled Wizards... etc.

[MaxWilson]

This actually raises a good point: there are a lot of times when the game essentially railroads you through one set-piece or another. We forgive this for computer games, but a party of PCs will be far less tractable, and the players may revolt. Plan carefully.

I would recommend discussing this in advance with the players and preparing a solution. One that I have used successfully is "karma." The idea is that sometimes the DM will simply override the dice, and will keep track of those things to ensure they balance out. If you should have made your save against poison but the plot makes it necessary for you to fail, you'll fail but the PCs get a karma point. They can later use these karma points in their favor: if a bad guy wizard who's way out of your league hits you all with a Hold Person V and the whole party is paralyzed and about to die, spend four karma and four failures retroactively turn into successes. Or maybe they decide to spend only one karma for the party Abjuror to retroactively succeed on his Counterspell against the Hold Person--be generous here with what you allow.

This means that a player who does the "right" thing but gets railroaded anyway still gets a reward.

[Houster]

The way I see it- its dnd. Not a video game. Let them succeed the poison save. Now they still have to fight irenicus- who will have to know a way to know if the poison took or not. I am sure he has contingencies in place for that, in a world where all poisons have a chance for not working. Hell just get rid of the poison and swarm them with vampires, maybe some of them even escape and try to free the others... etc etc. If they players are dynamic, their foes are also dynamic.

[Droppeddead]

I'm not a fan of having true NPCs in the party. Yoshimo looks like a great long con, as long as the player running him is onboard with it. I think it'd have a lot of impact, like it did on the first run through the game.

So no need to have any NPCs in the party. My point is that if you take one of the NPCs from the game with prewritten goals and motivations you take away agency from the player who plays that character. It's much better to let people play what they want as long as it fits the story.

Other ways to Spellhold are easy enough to come up with, but ALL of them will be risky. Saemon is the "safe bet" compared to letting the CWs teleport you (straight into a cell), hiring other pirates (sea battles along the way), or some other method.

Sure, that's a fair point. I like it.

The limit on Bhaalspawn is to:
1) Preserve some of the feel of impending godhood as being special. There shouldn't be that many Bhaalspawn running around in one city randomly becoming friends.

Except that there was literally hundreds of hundreds of bhaalspawn. And you yourself said that all the PCs were wards of Gorion (which makes sense). Why would it change if there are two or four BS in the group? If you want to add some in-group tension, have it so that people don't really know which of them are the actual bhaalspawn (basically making them all Imoen). A justification for that could be that since they've spent so much time together growing up, the bhaaltaint as "infected" all of them.

2) Have some of the NPC-targeted quests/motivations still be there for the party to help root them in the area and give them connections in Athkatla, and reasons to not speed through to Spellhold. I'd make sure the players are all aware of the general ties the BG2NPC characters have and what the general issues they'll face are. They'd have been swept up into Irenicus' dungeon more recently via Bodhi's thieves (although Keldorn being caught like that is a harder sell). They still have full agency, but with the knowledge that they have a house, or a family somewhere on the map, etc.

Again, having NPCs being played by players is usually not a good thing. The will basically be extras to the main characters story which is a fantastic way to turn people off one gaming.

3) Create some degree of tension about who actually gets to ascend. If we get all the way through the campaign, defeat Amelyssan, and then last two spawn of the god of murder turn on each other to see who will become a god, and who will just die... that would be quite memorable, and fitting.

Can be solved differently and doesn't really need to be solved. Also you add the factor of having half of the party be completely pointless to the story. By making only a few of the PCs bhaalspawn you will put the spotlight on them alone and the rest will just be sidekicks delegated to less important roles. Especially if you give the BS special powers. Most players wouldn't enjoy such a game. (In fact, you could probably do a very nice campaign about BG without ever having to include the bhaalspawn at all or at least not having any of the PC be bhaalspawn.)

4) Maintain a real possibility for the party to fail by running out of Bhaal taint.

There are plenty of other ways to fail without this.

[J-H]

We'll see. I'll run it by the players when the time comes.

[Klorox]

OMG, PLEASE keep us updated on how this runs.

Question: why has Irenicus captured the PC's in your game?

Question: why start at level 13?


IMHO, this game works so much better in older editions, as it was intended, but the story itself should still work brilliantly.

I really hope you post updates or record the sessions somehow. I'm very interested in reading this.

I tried running BGI in 5e, it worked well, but that's before you're really powerful.

[J-H]

It'll be a couple of years before I start. The game kicking off in 2 weeks is the one starting at level 13.

BG2 would probably start at level 2 in Chateau Irenicus for that "desperate early game" feeling, with everyone hitting 3 by the time they're outside. There's plenty of space to hit 17-20 in BG2... probably on a milestone basis of 1-2 sidequests = a level.

I'll probably go with the canon reason they are imprisoned + "Irenicus needed more bodies" for the locals" + "experiments, hunger, and imprisonment have drained you" to explain why these experienced adventurers are not already 5th-7th level.

Speaking of drained energy, I'll want to make the vampires more dangerous. Easy enough to do.

[Droppeddead]

It'll be a couple of years before I start. The game kicking off in 2 weeks is the one starting at level 13.

BG2 would probably start at level 2 in Chateau Irenicus for that "desperate early game" feeling, with everyone hitting 3 by the time they're outside. There's plenty of space to hit 17-20 in BG2... probably on a milestone basis of 1-2 sidequests = a level.

I'll probably go with the canon reason they are imprisoned + "Irenicus needed more bodies" for the locals" + "experiments, hunger, and imprisonment have drained you" to explain why these experienced adventurers are not already 5th-7th level.

Speaking of drained energy, I'll want to make the vampires more dangerous. Easy enough to do.

So will they still have gone through BG1 in their backgrounds, just that they won't have to play through that storyline? Or is that not going to be part of your game?