I'm going to play through all the baldur's gate series before I go off to college next year, and I have a few questions. First of all, I can't decide if I want to play a mage (wild mage in SoA) or a thief (swashbuckler or assassin in SoA). I've tried out both a bit, and enjoyed both, but I'm curious as to how other people enjoyed both classes' staying power and overall fun. Which is more satisfying to play with for you?
Second, I kinda want to do TotSC, but if I do, my character's level will be reset to 89,000 exp and some random hitpoint total going into BG2? I'm kinda shady about how that works
Gracias.
Running through it all...
Are you talking about a solo game or a game with several party members? If you're going to solo the game, I suggest that you play a Wild Mage. If you're playing with a party, I suggest that you create two of your own characters in a multiplayer game such as a Wild Mage and a Swashbuckler (you can save the game and copy it to your single-player saved game directory), and then add NPCs as you see fit.
If there is a class I want to play, I think it's almost as much fun to play an NPC as it is to play a main character. Unfortunately, none of the NPCs is an Assassin, Swashbuckler, Wild Mage, or any number of exotic builds. However, I can edit any of the NPCs with ShadowKeeper to give me exactly what I want. For example, I can make Imoen a Swashbuckler or a Wild Mage. Yoshimo makes an excellent 7th Level Kensai dualled to a Thief (I give him the Monk avatar). Minsc can be a Berserker, Barbarian, or Inquisitor. You get the idea.
When you import a TOTSC saved game into BG2, the character's experience is set to exactly 161,000 points. Your character's Hit Points might be recalculated, a process which appears to be bugged. I usually don't bother trying to import a character; I just create a new one. I usually tweak my characters with ShadowKeeper, anyway (with custom colors and paper dolls, for example, and I give my characters the stats I want instead of rolling for several hours to get the same result).
Besides, BG1 and BG2 are so different, I treat them as two separate games. If you play a dual-classed character, you won't be able to create a character who is optimal in both games. In BG1, you should dual at 6th or 7th level; in BG2, you should dual at 9th level or 13th level or something like that, which isn't practical in BG1. So again, I'd rather just create a new character in BG2 and pretend it's the same character I played in BG1. I don't have any problem pretending when I play fantasy-roleplaying games.
If there is a class I want to play, I think it's almost as much fun to play an NPC as it is to play a main character. Unfortunately, none of the NPCs is an Assassin, Swashbuckler, Wild Mage, or any number of exotic builds. However, I can edit any of the NPCs with ShadowKeeper to give me exactly what I want. For example, I can make Imoen a Swashbuckler or a Wild Mage. Yoshimo makes an excellent 7th Level Kensai dualled to a Thief (I give him the Monk avatar). Minsc can be a Berserker, Barbarian, or Inquisitor. You get the idea.
When you import a TOTSC saved game into BG2, the character's experience is set to exactly 161,000 points. Your character's Hit Points might be recalculated, a process which appears to be bugged. I usually don't bother trying to import a character; I just create a new one. I usually tweak my characters with ShadowKeeper, anyway (with custom colors and paper dolls, for example, and I give my characters the stats I want instead of rolling for several hours to get the same result).
Besides, BG1 and BG2 are so different, I treat them as two separate games. If you play a dual-classed character, you won't be able to create a character who is optimal in both games. In BG1, you should dual at 6th or 7th level; in BG2, you should dual at 9th level or 13th level or something like that, which isn't practical in BG1. So again, I'd rather just create a new character in BG2 and pretend it's the same character I played in BG1. I don't have any problem pretending when I play fantasy-roleplaying games.