newb keeps getting killed, need help

[mrk0]

So I keep getting slaughtered every so often and it is REALLY getting in the way of my enjoyment of this awesome game.

I've put the difficulty slider all the way to easy, which I didn't want to do, I want to play the game on Normal but its just too hard.

I'm playing as a lvl 9 MAGE and I have a full party. I can't seem to do any quests without hitting a road block where I just keep getting killed by monsters and I can't continue. My spells do very little damage while my party and myself take HUGE hits and die very easily.

The main issue with this game is that since it is so non-linear, I don't know where the hell to go. Which quest do I do first? What quests are do-able at my level? Are there any resources online that have quest lists that correspond to what level you are?

I think my issue is that I am too low level to do any of the quests and there aren't any low level quests that I can see which I can do to increase my level...

This is really really REALLY frustrating for me, can anyone help?

[Nuru]

Set up some basic AI scripts (Melee should use something like Spellcaster defend, etc) and be willing to micromanage. If you get slaughtered that often you're probably treating the game like Diablo or running into things much too high level. For starting out I'd recommend Nalia's keep, the Slavers, the Circus Tent and perhaps the Planar Sphere. Just wander around the city and talk to people, there's plenty to do that won't massacre you.

[galraen]

Which quest have you tried to do and ran into overwhelming odds?

The Circus tent is a good place to start, make sue you save before entering, so if you get the answer wrong (you'll know what I mean when you step inside) you can try again (hint, three's a charm).

Nalia's keep is not too bad next, but there are a lot of trolls which need fire or acid (or Chromatic Orb) o kill off, otherwise they keep regenerating. Also, make a note of what the first person inside the keep tells you about dog stew. Invisibility and Chaotic Command (5ht level Cleric spell) would also be useful.

Talking of Clerics (aka Priests) make sure you have one with you. There are three options, Aerie (she's Neutral Good, you'll meet her in the Circus Tent) who's a multi-classed mage/cleric, slow to develop but becomes very powerful; Anomen a former fighter who's Lawful (good/neutral) good duel purpose dude if you can hack his personality, he's in the Copper Coronet; and Viconia a Neutral Evil straight Cleric, arguably the best Cleric but one dimentional. Both Aerie and Viconia are romance options for male protagonists, with a good male having the opportunity, eventually (in ToB) to 'save her soul'. Anomen (or Analman as I call him) is a romance option for a female protagonist.

[mrk0]

Good info

The quest I was having trouble was clearing out the castle from all those trolls etc.. I think I finally finished it because I found the corpse and looted that thing under the Statue of Tyr.

Anyway, I'm still having a few issues with money, experience and equipment.

most of the quests that I find are easily done at first but soon become very difficult mid-way though and so I have to stop and find a new quest...

I still don't have enough money, to outfit even myself with enough gear etc.. for adequate defense, never mind all my other party members..

Can anyone recommend a good beginner guide or something? I've set all my party members to basic attack scripts like "when you see a bad guy, hit him"... Am I missing something? How do I play to their individual strengths and give them the right scripts so I don't have to mico-manage every single encounter?

[galraen]

I'm afraid the simple truth about the scripts is that they're crap, even the one's made by independent modders aren't much better IMO.

I take it you've never played the pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons, 1st or 2nd Edition, a bit of a disadvantage, but not insurmountable. You should have made a lot of money out of the Nalia quest, in cash and saleable items, enough to trigger a counter offer to the thieves guilds offer to help free Imoen anyway.

Did you find the Ice axe +3, the +1/+4 Hammer and did you figure out how to make the Flail of Ages +3? They are available in the keep, if you didn't have a good search, they are very useful. Even if your main character can't use them, there are joinable NPC's available who can, or if no one in your party can currently use them then stash them (Watcher's keep is a good place for a stash) or sell them. I'd recommend the former if you can. There is a creature in Amn who can only be killed with a +4 weapon, and he has a very powerful artifact, so keep the hammer at least.

As for your mage, the most important aquisition early on are spells, especially Stoneskin.

When you've accumulated a decent amount of cash, and you will, in some versions there's a lady called Deidre in the Advenure Mart in Waukeen's Promenade. She sells a robe called the Robe of Vecna which is a must have for a mage, damned expensive, but worth every penny. Also other very useful
items as well, notably The Shield of Balduran, don't take on Beholders wothout it.

If you haven't already done so, talk to the owner of the Copper Coronet (not Butterbur) until you gain access to the back rooms. Spoiler follows, highlight to read:

Spoiler

Explore the back rooms, and don't take any crap from the guards, eventually they'll attack, kill them off and try the locked doors. A guy called Hendak is who you're looking for, agree to help him, find the key to release him and, after all the fighting has subsided he'll give you a quest to free some more slaves, by going through the CC's cellars. Whatever you do, make sure you have a thief with you detecting traps down there (and anywhere else really, but vital down there).

Spoiler ends

[Celacena]

Nalia's keep is a good place to start, but there are lots of 'running around' quests that don't involve much fighting. also, there is no shame in doing part of a quest to get xp or an item, then moving on to another easy part.

trolls are finished off by most elemental enhanced weapons, fire, ice, acid etc - another poster has mentioned the importance of good home cooking.
remember the cleric spell sanctuary? it may solve a BIG problem or two...

the sewers have at least one good quest.

I find that there are ways to boost characters that some people on here might consider a bit 'cheesy' BUT I would consider reasonable.

one thing that I often do is to steal scrolls from the woman in the adventure mart and the bookseller on the steps in Waukeen's promenade. If you have a thief buy potions of thievery and save the game. boost the pickpocket level to 150 or so (you could get the thieves gloves by searching the copper coronet) - with a high pickpocket skill for a while, you can steal a lot of scrolls for your mage. or other kit from less wary shopkeepers - try the small less affluent ones, they don't catch you as often!

most characters will stay put if you release them from the party indoors - I use Cernd's house in Waukeen as my city base and store gear and NPCs there. stay Yoshimo!

once free of unnecessary NPCs write up all the scrolls - it can be a lot of xp and that will give the mage a better set of options - I suggest chromatic orb, mm, protection from fear, mirror-image, then skull trap (use as missile!), shadow door, invisibility etc - the mage becomes quite useful. arm the mage with some missile weapon and keep them out of harm's way whilst you have more tanky players do the close up fighting.

nalia's place gives decent kit, but you really want to sell things that you don't need to get items from A-Mart, such as AC3 bracers.

trademeet is probably a good quest to follow nalia's, but you may need to go to the Umar Hills and the Temple Ruins first. don't worry if they are tough - just get far enough to get the next area available (the cabin and meeting Mazzy) and move on - come back to such quests afterwards.

if you do meet Mazzy - you might fancy recruiting her - she is a whizz with a short bow and short sword.

another way to get up a bit is to start Watcher's Keep - the shop is well stocked (esp if you have Mazzy!) and the first level rewarding. make sure that you have a thief and cleric for the first few levels of WK if you do it.

there are lots of places where you really don't need naked power to get xp and it is worth speaking to people to find the odd jobs yuo can do.

[Saros]

Too bad you started with a full party, there is a way to join NPCs at higher xp levels, yet this is already pointless to discuss seeing how you've started to play.

Battle-free quests(for a little xp boost):

Graveyard:

- Locate a caretaker for the child, Risa
- Check the open grave(Tirdir), thus starting a quest which will lead you to the Bridge district
- Help Nevil and kill Uncle Lester
- Return Wellyn's teddy bear(at night only). Teddy bear location - Copper coronet back rooms, Luynis. During the day after you've returned the bear, talk to Wellyn's parents to gain more xp.

Bridge district

- Solve the skinner murders. Advice - follow Rejiek to 2nd floor, with a single thief character. The whole room is trapped. Don't go to the basement, the battle is tough for a beginner. Return later with more experienced party. Go back to the captain to collect xp reputation and gold.

- Find the kidnappers who buried Tirdir. After freeing Tirdir(look above), talk to the gravedigger. He'll tell you where the kidnappers are.

Government district - enter the government building to start a whole serie of battle-free quests by talking to Tolgeras the wizard and revealing the location of Umar Hills.

Talk to Jan the Gnome - he's outside the building. Don't let him getting caught by the taxer(use the right phrases). Jan is an invaluable thief/illusionist, I suggest joining him, a better thief you will never have. And the xp reward is good.

Umar Hills:

Talk to the Mayor. After that find Madulf the Ogre, talk to him non-violently. Agree to bring his word back to the Mayor. Do so. Mayor is happy so are you(xp).

Talk to Jermien the Wizard. Go to Umar's cave afterwards(little battle here with a Mimic). The Mimic uses Mimic Glue(mass hold effect). Counter this by using things like Arbane's sword or Free Action clerical spell. Attack with 1-2 characters at most. Don't go further in the cave, there are 2 Umberhulks...you don't wanna meet them. Return with the mimic Blood. Kill the stone golem after activation. You get a great shortsword, a lot of xp and after Jermien leaves - some valuable scrolls and potions in the room.

Find Merella's cabin. Find her diary. Just reading it gives you 24 000 xp and a map location.

Find Valygar's cabin. A few rangers guard it. Say them you don't wanna fight, and they'll leave you alone.Enter. Talk to and join Valygar(xp). Go back to the Slums district and visit the Planar sphere. Now that Valygar is in the group, the door will open. Don't enter yet. The quest is for a high level party, but now you can start it. You may after that dismiss Valygar or let him stay.

Easy(little battle) quests:

Copper Coronet - free Hendak and the Slavers. Note: Be very careful in the sewers. The enemies are easy, but the traps are very dangerous. Thief forward! Same true for the Slaver compound.

Harper(Xzar) quest. Starts after returning Rylock's body to the Harper Hold. Xzar will ask you to investigate the disappearance of his buddy Montaron. Return and talk with the Harper guarding the Hold. He'll send you to do battle with Prebek(check, his house is on the map). 2 low-level mages should not be a problem to a team of six. After that, return, talk again to the Harper(xp), he'll let you inside. Find the harper amulet. There's a secret trapped container.
Go to the second floor only with the amulet! Investigate the aviarium(bird Montaron, xp). Check all of the shelves/chests with your thief - items, xp and so on. Go outside and talk to xzar - Quest xp, and items from Xzar(he'll die)

Thief's quest - go in the Thieves' building. Talk to Renal Bloodscalp and follow the quest. I will not give you pointers on this one, it is harder, and the enemies you'll meet are more formidable, yet no match to your party. A lot of xp gained in this quest and most importantly - the best mage in the game joins the party, Edwin.

Trademeet quests - relatively easy. Great rewards. Battle with Faldorn - easy if you use your mages to buff properly the druid challenging her. You have 3 choices - Cernd, Jaheira or your PC if druid. Most important spell to pre-buff - Improved Invisibility(Faldorn cannot see through that). Kill her with Nymphs(who cast Hold person). Use Doom spell on her first.

After that - well, this is the base quest order. Play more - learn more! Good luck. If you have any questions(about special items or spell scrolls or battle strategies) - don't hesitate to ask.

Oh yeah - about money. Here's an easy way to make quick A LOT of money.

Have your thief drink potions of Master Thievery(they stack) while his Pickpocket is 200 or a little more(no higher than 250%!). Go to Gorch or the Black Market Thief. Start selling and stealing your most valuable item. This way you can make enough money to buy everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, you want to buy.

[fable]

Saros, you really should use the spoiler brackets for some of that, just as stated in the sticky thread. You're giving a lot of cheese away without warning.

I'll add mine. Highlight to read:

Spoiler

Note that not all shopkeepers have the same perceptiveness when it comes to shoplifting. Bernard at the Copper Coronet is the best, closely followed by the woman who sells magical scrolls upstairs in the Adventurer's Mart. (The latter is only present if you have one of several mods installed.) They may require two potions of Master Thievery, but most other shopkeepers can be successfully stolen from with only one. It's good to hoard these, since there aren't that many in the game.

Note that you can take those 1-charge wands you found in Irenicus' dungeon, sell them to a shopkeeper, then steal them back, filled. But, once you've stolen something, very few shopkeepers will buy them back from you, later. Gorch in the Shadow Thieves Guild is one of the few. You can resell stolen items to him, then buy--or steal--them back. But it will take at least one potion of Master Thievery to do so.

Also, don't use a wand with one charge left in it. The wand vanishes when down to zero.

[kmonster]

The most important advice is : save, save,save !
Save when you enter a new area, save before starting a battle, save after winning a battle.
The game has many unfair encounters you won't win on the first attempt unless you are a fortune-teller or cheater.
So reload and use the preknowledge you gained to your advantage.
Take your time for combat preparation, get summons and buff up your party with spells like protection from evil 10'. Make sure you cast them in the right order, pause the game to be able to have all casters cast their spells together, else the first buffs will be gone before the battle starts.
Also pause very often during combat and assign commands, none of your party members can afford to waste precious seconds doing the wrong thing. Remember that party members won't act effectively on their own, they are babies you have to sit.
If you tell us which party members you have, you'll get more specific advice how to use them best.

Enemies are stupid in BG2, they usually won't attack your party if you haven't seen them. If you run to the first enemy you see the others will come into sight and attack too, but if you let the enemy come to you instead, you can easily slaughter one after another.

Even the game designers considered the easiest level still too hard in the original game, so they made it a lot easier with ToB. So if you own the expansion and haven't installed it yet, install it now.

[Celacena]

I'd like some cheese please

not a cheesy cheat, BUT the wand of monster summoning gives you the equivalent of Monster Summoning III - so that's elite hobgoblins, ogres, gnolls etc - if you identify it and sell it THEN have enough gold to buy it back full - it has 50 charges. for a low level encounter, the AI and generator do not anticipate the kind of lethality that repeated waves of MS III creatures can do. it's legit, but it gives you the equivalent of a mid-high level spell 50 times. you just send them in and stand back. and when they die, there is loot.


also - the rod of resurrection can be used BEFORE people die - it restores their hit points in full - from infinite range! can't get through a melee to heal somebody? raise them!

being able to sell and recharge (or sell and steal) rods gives 10 Heals per wand. I have 4 kicking around at present - don't ask - that's 36 heals during combat (must save 1 charge) never needed more than a few.
not sure if it restores levels though.

if you wanted some help - why not start a multiplayer and give yourself a higher level character to help out as a mentor to the PC?

a bit cheaty, but I did beam down an established character and let the PC use that person's kit to save on some relatively boring quests.

if you wished, you could load a saved game give the PC loads of great items, export that character, hand over the loot - save, load, repeat. it could mess up game play to do it though - so restrict yourself.

[foot]

Don't play on easy difficulty; it halves your XP intake and consequently makes the game harder in the long run. It's meant to help you deal with single tough encounters, not the whole game.

I do wonder if you've stumbled into the same bug I encountered on my very first BG2 game oh so many years ago (I was a total DnD newb back then). For some reason, all my chars (PC and recruited NPCs) came with single digit HP, which I assumed was normal. Somehow I managed to escape Irene's dungeon and get as far as Bodhi before I ran screaming to the forums for help (anyone remember the original PBG forum, with the frames? Good times).

Failing that, look to indispensable spells such as Chaotic Commands and Haste for the whole party, Stoneskin and Mirror Image for the armour-impaired, and keep in mind that your AoE spells (Fireball, Skull Trap, Sunfire, etc.) will also hurt your mates.

[wise grimwald]

My advice is to read the script of conversations carefully.
There are all sorts of non-too-subtle hints given that way. The use of fire arrows against the trolls is one of them. In addition to the advice already given, I would add, don't waste the fire arrows at the start of the fight, just use them when it says "weapon ineffective". That way, there will be no danger of running out of fire arrows.
Also read the notes that are scattered about in chests, on bodies etc. They also give quite important information.
In addition read the hints that come up on the screen on a regular basis.
If you do this, you will learn most of the points mentioned above for yourself.

[Deadalready]

*Basic Info*

*The game manual is your friend, always read it and keep reading it.
*Most of the equipment you need is found not really brought.
*Mages really aren't that good unless you learn how to play them, I suspect you're using your mages in close combat.
*Equip weapons your characters are proficient with, not what looks cool.
*Pause the game often and think about everything.

A good way to start the way is to get a fighter type or a paladin, they're really straight forward and simple.

[Jedi_Sauraus]

What you really need is a better understanding of arcane magic I'm sorry for pointing this out, but a couple of good mages in a party straight out of chateau Irenicus can defeat

Spoiler

Firkraag the red dragon

Easily one of the hardest encounters in SoA. That being said use spells like haste, slow, stone skin, magic missle, sequencers......... the list goes on you need to experiment to see which spells work best in certain encounters. The haste/slow combo is very good if your getting slaughtered in melee. Your mages overall power will go up exponentially as he gets access to higher levels. You just need to make sure how to use him/her