Current Events > Ivynn plays Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition because why not

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm interested in BG3 but I never played BG1 or 2 so I figured I might as well. I've known about the BG series, but never got into it. I watched a friend play BG2 as a kid but that was back when I mainly played jrpgs and was intimidated by wrpgs (looked too complicated for baby Ivynn's small brain). But now I'm a big adult with lots of wrpg experience under my belt (hell, I might prefer them now).

It's also nice to go back to classic Bioware. It'll be interesting to see the series that inspired one of my favorite games, Dragon Age: Origins, in full.

I'm going in completely blind so I don't know what to expect. Any tips or things to look out for would be appreciated.

---

I played about 25 hours and it's legit good. Really need to beat it sometime. I like d&d style video games

I need to get back into that game >_> One of those "quit playing one day and never turned it back on" stories for me

---

Making my character now. Since it's a first run, I'll be basic af and roll a human fighter.

---

I wish I liked RPG's. They are, by far, my least favorite and least enjoyable gaming experiences.

---

Hexenherz posted...

I need to get back into that game >_> One of those "quit playing one day and never turned it back on" stories for me

That was me with Divinity Original Sin lol. I'll go back. Someday.

Hope I'm not the same way here. But it's a possibility. >_>

---

Oh, make sure you carry extra weapons with you in the beginning.

---

CommunismFTW posted...

I wish I liked RPG's. They are, by far, my least favorite and least enjoyable gaming experiences.

I was this way until last november. Sorry, November 2019. Went on a disgusting RPG kick after deciding to replay kotor 1 and 2. Went on to do all of mass effect, all of dragon age, fallout new vegas, tried out fallout 1, 2, and baldurs gate for 20-30 hours each. Sunk 40 hours into witcher 1. They can be really fucking immersive man, and immersion is king for me, wrt games

hey nice, it's my favorite game series - the whole Infinity Engine series is fantastic.. after many years of playing them I finally bought Divinity Original Sin to play just in preparation for BG3. Haden't played anything by Larien yet but I can definitely say I'm super pumped about BG3 now :3

• If it's the EE edition you can tab to highlight items on the ground or doors
• archers melt things in BG1 but not so much in BG2
• BG1 starts off with your weapons breaking, but enchanted stuffs (they'll be highlighted different and need to be identified first) never break
• you can get a set of angkheg armor pretty early on in a field outside of a certain town, you'll have to look for it
• magic missile is the shit for shredding through mirror image illusions
• sorcerers get more spells per day but they can't learn spells from scrolls, only wizards can with the caveat that they cast way less of them (I say this because mages kick ass, never travel without them or at least a cleric)
• quicksave often
• make builds according to favored stats
• the lower your AC class, the better (this is to say your armor should be making your defense rating lower in value to the negatives)
• THAC0 works the same way, you should never use a weapon you're not proficient in cause it's sort of a waste

---

Oh right this is d&d game so I gotta choose an alignment. Think I'll go with Neutral Good. Should be flexible right?

---

Socrawheeze posted...

I was this way until last november. Sorry, November 2019. Went on a disgusting RPG kick after deciding to replay kotor 1 and 2. Went on to do all of mass effect, all of dragon age, fallout new vegas, tried out fallout 1, 2, and baldurs gate for 20-30 hours each. Sunk 40 hours into witcher 1. They can be really fucking immersive man, and immersion is king for me, wrt games

I guess ultimately I prefer games that are quicker and to the point. If there's a bit of padding or depth I'm okay, but my cutoff for a game is if its over 15 hours long I probably won't play it. I don't like stats systems or dice rolls; if a weapon is +2 attack but +3 elemental and the leather armor is ~rare colored~ I just tune out, start drooling, and turn off the game and play something else. I dunno what it is about those kind games that are like eating cold, raw steak to me.

---

Ivynn posted...

Oh right this is d&d game so I gotta choose an alignment. Think I'll go with Neutral Good. Should be flexible right?

no one likes a centrist

---

First. Go in ready to have a tough time early on. The game will not hold your hand at all. You can easily die in the first areas of the game. You will be very weak and squishy until you get a few levels under your belt. Even as a warrior, but especially as a caster.

An effective tactics in BG1, especially early on, is to have a party member kite enemies around while the rest of the party focuses them down with ranged weapons. You can phase this tactic out as you get more buffs, better gear, more crowd control, etc.

Missile weapons will always have their place, but they really shine in BG1. Midway through BG2, they will start to lag behind melee weapons and spellcasting.

Arcane casters are a bit more complicated than the other types of classes and they start out among the weakest, but they are late bloomers. They will eventually become the most powerful type of class.

Unintuitively, a lower armor score is better. The lower your armor score, the hard it is to hit your character. There are only a few items that really reduce the damage you take when hit.

Between the melee weapon styles, only Two Weapon Fighting and Two-Handed Fighting are really worth it. Generally, I would say that TWF is better, because magic weapons become so strong that having the effects of two can be a huge advantage. That said, THF is still worthwhile as there are a number of very powerful twohanded swords, halberds, and quarterstaves. Not really many notable spears, unfortunately.

A balanced party is a strong party. You are probably better off having a rogue, a couple warriors, a divine caster, and an arcane caster or two. It can help to pick a couple multi-class or dual-class characters who can fill multiple roles.

The Tab key on your keyboard is essential. Holding it down will high-light things you can pick up or open, like chests or dropped loot. Very handy.

I don't know if you want any suggestions about your character class or party members.

You don't need to be super attentive to the stats in something like Dragon Age Origins, perhaps the best RPG of all time. You can set the options to auto build your companions and just play rule of cool.

Take it from someone who fucking hates medieval fantasy - Dragon Age Origins is fucking good

Oh, in BG, at character creation, you roll for stats. If you care about having higher stats, you can spend a long time rerolling.

Alternatively, you can just dump whatever stats aren't beneficial for your class.

That said... don't dump Intelligence too much. There is a type of enemy in BG2 that drains your Int stat every time they hit you in combat. If it reaches zero, the character dies.

Thanks for all the advice so far, all!

Esrac posted...

First. Go in ready to have a tough time early on. The game will not hold your hand at all. You can easily die in the first areas of the game. You will be very weak and squishy until you get a few levels under your belt. Even as a warrior, but especially as a caster.

No kidding. A freaking bear killed me in two hits lol. That's when I realized I forgot to buy armor so I actually restarted. I spent like an hour in Candlekeep just screwing around, trying to get used to the playstyle so I'm still pretty early story-wise.

Also I wasn't aware you could have such big parties. I'm so used to 3-4 party member limits. Just collected Khalid and Jarawhatsherface and now have 6 people. And it looks like there's room for more according to that right side column. Hope this doesn't get too overwhelming.

Also, apparently I need to pay attention to the character alignments or party members will actually turn on me? I plan on being good so I guess the Necromancer and I aren't going to be friends for long.

---

IIRC 6 is the limit, there's just a lot of unused space in that column.

Also don't remember alignments being too serious, I play as a good guy but haven't had anyone outright leave my party.

That being said the side characters do have their own side quests and if you're too slow doing them sometimes they'll get pissed off and leave or attack you.

---

Ivynn posted...

Thanks for all the advice so far, all!

No kidding. A freaking bear killed me in two hits lol. That's when I realized I forgot to buy armor so I actually restarted. I spent like an hour in Candlekeep just screwing around, trying to get used to the playstyle so I'm still pretty early story-wise.

Also I wasn't aware you could have such big parties. I'm so used to 3-4 party member limits. Just collected Khalid and Jarawhatsherface and now have 6 people. And it looks like there's room for more according to that right side column. Hope this doesn't get too overwhelming.

Also, apparently I need to pay attention to the character alignments or party members will actually turn on me? I plan on being good so I guess the Necromancer and I aren't going to be friends for long.

Eventually misaligned npcs will cause problems. There is 2 ways that I remember this being an issue

1. Your character gains and loses reputation as you do certain quests. More rep is basically for good characters. Less rep is for evil. Evil and good characters eventually start complaining and will leave the party if they don't match your preferred rep

2. Besides involving you, they also can come to blows with other npcs. A good and evil npc might suddenly attack each other and fight to the death

Usually you want all good, all evil or a careful neutral mix in your party

Alignment/Reputation level does matter a little.

Rangers/Paladins are locked to certain alignments from what I recall and if your reputation gets too low from evil acts you fall and lose all your abilities. Certain party members don't like reputation being too high - 19/20 will make evil people leave and too low will make neutral/good people leave. There are easily installable mods to get around this if you want to use the evil members in a high rep party (which you likely WILL reach if you do quests and don't want to murder someone to lower it)

Disable spells from your mage are great as well. Throw them down and then have everyone attack with ranged weapons. You'll want a thief in you for most dungeons to deal with traps/locks as well. Imoen can pretty much handle it all for you if you keep her/level her up, but are several other thieves if you want to get rid of your childhood friend.


---

Trying to be good. Helped defend a girl from some thugs but it turns out these thugs weren't thugs and this bitch really just wanted me to kill an innocent merchant. Lost 2 reputation points. Oops. Well at least I have 300 good and gems to sell.

---

OK, this is getting annoying. I'm telling my ranged fighters to fight at range but they insist upon getting up close to the enemy and dying.

Xzar, you literaly are dead in four hits, why aren't you staying behind like I tell you to.

---

Ivynn posted...

OK, this is getting annoying. I'm telling my ranged fighters to fight at range but they insist upon getting up close to the enemy and dying.

Xzar, you literaly are dead in four hits, why aren't you staying behind like I tell you to.

Did you change their script? It's somewhere in the customization tabs for each character in the character profile menu.

---

An_Actual_Chad posted...

Did you change their script? It's somewhere in the customization tabs for each character in the character profile menu.

^this

annoying af

current party TC?

---

An_Actual_Chad posted...

Did you change their script? It's somewhere in the customization tabs for each character in the character profile menu.

I thought I did. But maybe I didn't do it right. I forgot how complex these games used to be. >_>

RedJackson posted...

current party TC?

My character, Imoen, Xzar, Montaron, Khalid, and Jaheira. I met Neera but I didn't have room for her.

---

Ivynn posted...

My character, Imoen, Xzar, Montaron, Khalid, and Jaheira. I met Neera but I didn't have room for her.

You could dump Monty and Xzar, grab her, then go north of the Inn and grab Ajantis the paladin for now. I really like the wild mage kit, and when you get a wild surge that goes your way, sometimes it's hilarious.

---

Get rid of Monty and Xzar, they suck.

When it comes to scripts, keep an eye on the right side.

Sometimes you end up having "Prefer Melee Weapons" selected on your range guy.

Also you can have your thief set to automatically detect traps, which you definitely want.

---

Thinking this should be my next game to try to finish. I've started it so many times but never get far, making notes of tips from this topic

---

I just turn off party AI and micromanage the party.

If you dump Monty and Xzar, I'd recommend Minsc and Dynaheir. That'll get you another burly front line fighter and a decent mage. You can find in Nashkel to the south and he'll task you with saving Dynaheir from some Knolls.

Esrac posted...

he'll task you with saving Dynaheir from some Knolls.

Gnolls.

Gnolls are bipedal hyena-men.

Knolls are the hills in which bipedal hyena-men live.

---

Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I'm clicking the "prefer ranged combat" but only Imoen listens. Xzar is still suicidally punching the enemies.

synth_real posted...

You could dump Monty and Xzar, grab her, then go north of the Inn and grab Ajantis the paladin for now. I really like the wild mage kit, and when you get a wild surge that goes your way, sometimes it's hilarious.

I kept them because I wanted to finish taking them to Nashkell. But I'll ditch them once that's done because they're annoyed at me doing quests for people lol.

DrizztLink posted...

Get rid of Monty and Xzar, they suck.

Yeah, they aren't impressing me so they may get the boot. Probably should have said no to them joining me but I didn't know how often I'd be meeting potential party members.

Esrac posted...

I just turn off party AI and micromanage the party.

Maybe I'll try that, could be the only way Xzar survives for now.

Also I have not been finding healing items and none of the inns sell them. Are they supposed to be rare or am I not doing it right?

---

Ivynn posted...

Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I'm clicking the "prefer ranged combat" but only Imoen listens. Xzar is still suicidally punching the enemies.

Does he have ammo?

Gotta load up the proper ammunition in the spot above weapons. Arrows for bows, bolts for crossbows, bullets for slings. Thrown weapons I'm less sure on, I don't use them unless they're magic.

Ivynn posted...

Also I have not been finding healing items and none of the inns sell them. Are they supposed to be rare or am I not doing it right?

You should find a fair few potions looting people but check temples.

---

DrizztLink posted...

Does he have ammo?

He's a mage, shouldn't he like, shoot magic or something...?

I just realized I don't know how magic works in this game.

But no matter, I ditched his ass and Monty went with him. I have Minsc now...who apparently has a...space hamster? Is Commander Shepard's space hamster from ME2&3 a reference to this? That's hilarious.

I rescued Dengaheir and am now exploring the Nashkel carnival before going into the mines. Got my butt kicked by this crazy mage who was trying to kill another mage.

---

For ranged weapons, almost all of them require ammo.

It's the three spots at 11 o'clock on your inventory screen.

If a Mage is using a sling and has no bullets, he can't use the sling.

Magic works (for most) by memorization.

The book and scroll buttons on the left menu are for Mage and Cleric/Druid spells.

They're organized into levels. Mages learn by memorizing scrolls, Cleric and Druid automatically, Sorcerers at level up.

Pick the spells you want for each level, then Rest.

On the bottom menu while controlling a faster, you'll see a button in the middle that looks like kinda a .:)

That's where spells are. Each use costs one of the memorized to disappear, so if you memorize three Magic Missile, you can cast it three times.

And yes, Bioware and Obsidian and the other offspring of Black Isle have been trying to recreate the magnificence of Boo for decades.

None have succeeded.

---

I understood that for Imouen, hence why she obeyed orders but I assumed mage characters would shoot magic on their own. That's on me for being used to today's more streamlined games. I understand how magic works now. And I got Dengheir a sling so she's attacking at range finally.

This game throws too many party characters at you, man. And they make you feel bad for not letting them join. Wish there was a "We're full right now, but maybe another time" but instead you can only tell them no and they get salty.

Like with Dorn. Just met him and want to recruit him, but I have no space. I'd replace Khalid with him but I like having Jaheira and she goes if Khalid goes. :\

---

DrizztLink posted...

And yes, Bioware and Obsidian and the other offspring of Black Isle have been trying to recreate the magnificence of Boo for decades.

None have succeeded.

I noticed Minsc shouts "go for the eyes, Boo!" in combat which brings to mind Tali's "go for the optics, Chitikka!" which must have been another reference to this lol

---

Ivynn posted...

I noticed Minsc shouts "go for the eyes, Boo!" in combat which brings to mind Tali's "go for the optics, Chitikka!" which must have been another reference to this lol

There's another straight-out reference to it in the Citadel DLC in 3.

And Dorn is a powerful teammate but it wouldn't work out well.

Dude's a Blackguard. Like a demon Paladin.

Evil as shit.

---

I'm itching to play this now. Just got another (I'm guessing) 20 hours of Trails in the Sky SC until I'll be moving on to a new game. I last tried playing last year and I've got a much better understanding of the ways I was going wrong from reading this topic, informative stuff

---

Any characters I should watch out for? Or is Minsc, Dynaheir, Jaheira, and Khalid decent enough to roll with for the rest of the game?

Finished the mines. Really need a way to defend against that one spell that makes everyone panic everywhere. That pretty much ends the battle for me since I can't do anything about it and the enemy just picks off my crew.

Also when am I gonna find an Indentify scroll. Getting the temple to do it for me is getting expensive.

---

Ivynn posted...

Or is Minsc, Dynaheir, Jaheira, and Khalid decent enough to roll with for the rest of the game?

Believe it or not you actually have the party that is considered canon. Thats the exact "official" party. So yea I think you can finish the game with them

Zikten posted...

Believe it or not you actually have the party that is considered canon. Thats the exact "official" party. So yea I think you can finish the game with them

Really? lol Also forgot to say I also have Imoen. Well I have no problem keeping Minsc around, I wouldn't mind replacing Khalid with a stronger frontline fighter.

---

oh yeah also imoen. She is canon too

Khalid and Jaheria can be replaced with any cleric/fighter really and are several of them you can find through the game, as pretty sure they are duo you have to have both of or neither (unless you "cheat" by abandoning them while one is in a building or something) Some good dwarf fighters and a few clerics about for replacements. Ajantis is another good fighter replacement and pretty easy to find. Rhasad? The monk dude isn't terrible good from what I remember in the first game as monks shine at higher levels.

Imoen is great to keep about for thief abilities, and can dual class her to mage potentially - which is a common thing to do with her. Not sure I would recommend it for first playthrough though. She can be replaced with other thieves, but she has some of the better stats and can meet all your needs.

---

Ivynn posted...

Really? lol Also forgot to say I also have Imoen. Well I have no problem keeping Minsc around, I wouldn't mind replacing Khalid with a stronger frontline fighter.

Yeah. I wasn't going to say that, but using a party of Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir, and Imoen in BG1 will give the early parts of BG2 more impact.

Identify scrolls should pop up sooner or later.

Imoen should almost definitely be multiclassed into Mage/Thief, around level 7.

---

OK what the hell

I tried Dual Classing Imoen into a mage and she lost all her thief skills.

I thought Dual Classing meant being two classes at once not one class replacing another.

I reloaded. She's my only thief and I need her skills.

---

It does, sort of.

With Dual classing you lose your old abilities until the new class reach the same level as your old one and then everything comes back. It can hurt without a thief though, but if you avoid places with traps/locks or pick up another one until her thief class reactivates it's manageable. But why I wouldn't recommend it for a first time player.

---

Ah I see. I guess I won't multiclass her then because I don't have room for a new thief. I wish Jaheira/Khalid and Minsc/Dynaheir weren't package deals as I only care about one of the two in both pairs. :p

---

You can cheese it if you want.

---