GameBanshee Forums

Never gamed bg2 before, so after being through every nwn and da series there is I thought I should give bg2 a try to see what I'm missing. So far I have failed bad, unable to kill anything stronger than muggers and two skeleton warriors at the graveyard district felt like a boss battle. Aerie, Nalia and Korgan have left me cause I need to REST to be able to cast my weak cleric spells and to properly heal which passes time.. Failed character. So far the experience with other rpg's (even ones on D&D rulesets) has helped naught. Can't seem to google up any good guides aswell, all of them expect some level of experience with the game or guides how to twink up a level 40 kensai to backstab 100+ damage to everything - it doesn't help me at all. I've tried to give bg2 a try for 4 times already, 3 times I didn't even get out of Irenicus's first dungeon. I'd appreciate any kind of help . Also I know nothing about the benefits of multiclassing. Also I like elves.

(using G3's fixpack and widescreen mod)

Ok, let's start from the beginning.

1. Somewhere in game options, there's a button "rest till fully healed" or something like that. It's description is a little confusing, but if you uncheck it, each rest will only take 8 hours. This means you won't be sleeping for months in a dungeon, although with serious wounds you'll not wake up fully healed, either.

2. Remember the game is over when the main character dies - others can be raised. Make sure everyone is using correct weapons for their proficiencies. Take a good look at all available spells and abilities, read their descriptions - usually fear and confusion effects kill of early parties and these can be prevented with magic.

3. Save often.

4. Some side quests are easy ways to get experience, others are unexpectedly hard. Explore carefully and save often.

5. Try to determine what kind of strategy fits you best. Here on the forums we've got some users who go for "micromanaging" - carefully combining actions, spells and whatnots, tailoring them to each situation. So, mages and clerics. Not everyone likes that - personally, I prefer sneaking around and backstabbing when necessary, so it's thieves and rangers for me. Others still just get a party of armor-clad tanks and charge. See what suits you and make up your party accordingly.

6. Save often.

Remember that you can pause the game and give orders while the game is paused. By default it's [SPACE]

Round = 6 seconds of real time, unpaused. You can drink a potion or cast a spell every round, and the amount of your attacks is per round. So 6 unpaused seconds.
Turn = 10 rounds.

That should be about it.

Save often is a good advice, but PAUSE often is an even more important one.

Don't worry about time limits, take your time. There are still enough NPCs who'll stay with you and the game can be even soloed.

There's a difficulty slider in the game, choosing the easiest difficulty helps.

BG2 uses different rules than NWN, good NWN builds are usually bad BG2 builds. Maxed physical stats can help a lot.

What character are you playing, race, class, stats ?

Do you have the ToB expansion installed ?

This is a post on character creation (and other elements of the game) that I wrote quite a long time ago.

http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=54676


Hopefully it's of some use (..now I don't even understand half of what I wrote back then).

Dont see any problems to someone who has played NWN. The only two differences between the games are basically that there are no attacks of opportunity, so it is very possible to navigate around the battle (use it fully to kite) and that armor doesnt penalize AC bonuses, so dex 18 and fullplate bonuses stack. Thats about it. Oh and anything but warrior classes have only 1 base attack per round, no matter what. Making a pure cleric a pretty weak class.

Rest less use tactics more.

Korgan left for the Graveyard
Aerie went to the Circus
Nalia went to the Stronghold

You will find them there, they have timed side quests. Once completed they will never leave.


edited:

Also I know nothing about the benefits of multiclassing. Also I like elves.

Yes, make a multiclass, fighter/cleric will do. Unlike NWN multiclassing is very easy, since its a one time decision and you dont have to calculate or time anything. Making in particular the cleric much better, since it gives him fighting ability. And elven fighter/mage multiclass completely pwns this game. If you want some olde 3d edition divine glory, make a cleric/ranger multiclass. You will not be disappointed too.