What Do You Wish You'd Known On Your First BG1&2 Playthrough? (and it was your last)

Crenshinibon · Post by **Crenshinibon** » Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:17 pm

Just a few notes and hints:

You CAN talk with charmed enemies. This can sometimes even update your journal or complete certain quests.

Drizzt can be easily dispatched by a thief or bard, as long as he or she is hasted or has Boots of Speed. After killing him, your reputation takes a heavy hit so make sure than you have enough gold to restore it.

Use wands. They are my best friends and they should be yours too.

Steal Algeron's Cloak or kill Algeron himself as soon as you can. Following that, charms everyone in the temple next to Berghost an kill all of the Nymphs without any consequence. Each nymph gives you two thousand experience, for a total of eight thousand. When soloing, this is enough to get your character to level five.

Get the ring of Wizardry from the Friendly Arms Inn. It's useful for mages but also sells for nine thousand gold. Also, get the Ankheg Plate Mail from Nashkhel - it's a good armor for priests and warriors, but also sells for a fair amount.

When playing a rogue, use the fog of war to your advantage and abuse backstabbing as much as you can.

RPGguy · Post by **RPGguy** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 11:14 am

$%&*!!!

Scar has quest(s) for you. 2nd one is (non-spoiler)...find out why people are missing.

TIP: as soon as you get that quest, go do it and report back right away. Don't stop at McDonald's...do not hit the potty, don't stop at a store to sell some gems.

REASON: the quest is time sensitive. If you blow the timer, the quest busts and you miss out on 3000 XP.

THE CRAP PART: Nothing Scar says, indicates that it is time sensitive. It's just a crap quest that breaks easily.

Sure wish I had of know that. Also, kill the Ogre bounty hunter that approaches you in a certain building within BG. Don't get cute and try to play with his idiocy (as the text options encourage you to). Killing him is worth more than twice the XP and he drops great loot.

Lost out on that as well

Edar Macilrille · Post by **Edar Macilrille** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 12:13 pm

Stworca wrote:
Edit : And don't attack Drizzt, unless You're sure Your party is equipped with best possible gear, with as high levels as possible, as many summons as possible, hasted and ready to take out the most powerfull character in BG1 (by kiting)

I tried cluaconsoling in Drizzt against

Spoiler

Sarevok

once to see who would survive, Drizzt lasted 2 rounds in a one-on-one.

Wulf · Post by **Wulf** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 10:39 am

Oh yeah, and by the way:

You'll want to gather, collect, purchase, acquire, and procure all potions of invisibility as well as all potions of mirror eyes, and use them most economically. There is one very very nasty situation in the game where they come in most handy, where getting in unseen (and becoming unseen again) and having mirror eyes makes all the difference.

RPGguy · Post by **RPGguy** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 3:23 pm

mrdeluxe wrote:You need a good Archer. Take Coran or Kivan.

I had no interest in Coran's build personally. Kivan, you find very early in the game and, as a pure ranger, he is death incarnate with a long bow. By the time he reaches level 8, he's up to 3 attacks per round with an astounding THACO of 3. When it comes to most enemies in BG1, that's an automatic hit practically.

The campaign is mage heavy and, thus, he is a professional spell interrupter. And given the large number of encounters where you simply have no time or opportunity to buff or even react, you will value his aid greatly.

Can't recommend him enough

Edar Macilrille · Post by **Edar Macilrille** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 5:15 pm

Wulf wrote:Oh yeah, and by the way:

You'll want to gather, collect, purchase, acquire, and procure all potions of invisibility as well as all potions of mirror eyes, and use them most economically. There is one very very nasty situation in the game where they come in most handy, where getting in unseen (and becoming unseen again) and having mirror eyes makes all the difference.

I never noticed :-0!!!

Edar Macilrille · Post by **Edar Macilrille** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 5:16 pm

RPGguy wrote:I had no interest in Coran's build personally. Kivan, you find very early in the game and, as a pure ranger, he is death incarnate with a long bow. By the time he reaches level 8, he's up to 3 attacks per round with an astounding THACO of 3. When it comes to most enemies in BG1, that's an automatic hit practically.

The campaign is mage heavy and, thus, he is a professional spell interrupter. And given the large number of encounters where you simply have no time or opportunity to buff or even react, you will value his aid greatly.

Can't recommend him enough

Agree on Kivan, hand him some arrows of Biting and the enemy mage will never get around to casting as the poison does its nasty work to continue interrupting and killing him.

Wulf · Post by **Wulf** » Thu Jan 28, 2010 3:19 am

Edar Macilrille wrote:I never noticed :-0!!!

The reason why this particular very big very bad critter is so difficult to beat is exactly because people tend to run out of these potions by the time they get there.

Sneakiness, in general, is terribly underrated.

Edar Macilrille · Post by **Edar Macilrille** » Thu Jan 28, 2010 5:03 am

I still have no idea what critter you are talking about TBH.

Wulf · Post by **Wulf** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 10:36 am

SPOILER:

Spoiler

Aec'Letec

. The

Spoiler

potions of mirror eyes help deflect his deadly gaze, at least in the un-modified game

.

RPGguy · Post by **RPGguy** » Tue Feb 02, 2010 9:26 am

For all you cleric/ranger users, don't choose GOLEMS as a racial enemy. There's only about 5 golems in the entire game. I chose golems because I remembered some nasty golems in BG2/ToB and those suckers are always a challenge to hit. I plan on importing into BG2

And you can't simply take 'undead' as a catch-all unfortunately.

Since it is such a critical decision you make once, before you start...I would take spiders. There really isn't a better choice for this particular campaign