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This thread got me pretty interested so I got BG2. After reading up a bunch, I started a paladin with the Inquisitor kit. I got all my stats except intelligence to 18 by spending a long time rolling. Intelligence is at 4; I hope thats not a big deal. I put 2 points into 2-handed swords and 2-handed weapon specialization and one point into mace and long sword.
I havent gotten a chance to play much yet because character creation took a while and it was already late, but from what I played I felt that the interface and rules were a little overwhelming.
Can someone explain the casting system to me. When it says that a caster can cast 5 times does that mean that you get 5 casts of any spell before you need to rest?
Is my character built ok? Does anyone have general tips that could help?
The amount of spells in the game was really overwhelming as well. I origoinally intended to roll a mage, but I gave up because I had to browse from a list of like 80 spells. I haven't even started looking into the druid or cleric spells either. Is there a website that can explain the spells in simpler terms for me? It seemed impossible to know which spells were useful and which to pass on without already having really good knowledge of the game.
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God those iron mines in BG1 are annoying. There arelike 500 kobolds, I can't rest to get my spells back without 20 more jumping me. I guess I should go back and level up a bit...
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Inquisitor is pretty awesome, you'll utterly roll casters because your class skill dispel magic is instant-cast and rips practically all defenses off.
You'll either want to use 2h swords (there's a particularly good one if you're a Paladin), or dual wielding, so that should be fine.
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Russian Federation1401 Posts
So I followed this installation order and something went wrong. The game wouldn't load. I tried to uninstall everything and start anew. For some reason Bg1 would not load the uninstall program because it said it couldn't find the uninstall file. On a whim I erased manually, but of course now the add/remove programs still thinks BG1 is installed, as well as the boot cd, which only gives me the option of ''play''. I realized later that I changed the directory name of the installation, and that's why it didn't detect the uninstall file (something it did do for BG2) Now I can't fully erase BG1 and the cd detects it as installed. Any help????
EDIT: I tried looking for some trace of BG1 in regedit, but it's not there ...
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On September 30 2010 00:51 allyourbase wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
This thread got me pretty interested so I got BG2. After reading up a bunch, I started a paladin with the Inquisitor kit. I got all my stats except intelligence to 18 by spending a long time rolling. Intelligence is at 4; I hope thats not a big deal. I put 2 points into 2-handed swords and 2-handed weapon specialization and one point into mace and long sword.
I havent gotten a chance to play much yet because character creation took a while and it was already late, but from what I played I felt that the interface and rules were a little overwhelming.
Can someone explain the casting system to me. When it says that a caster can cast 5 times does that mean that you get 5 casts of any spell before you need to rest?
Is my character built ok? Does anyone have general tips that could help?
The amount of spells in the game was really overwhelming as well. I origoinally intended to roll a mage, but I gave up because I had to browse from a list of like 80 spells. I haven't even started looking into the druid or cleric spells either. Is there a website that can explain the spells in simpler terms for me? It seemed impossible to know which spells were useful and which to pass on without already having really good knowledge of the game.
I would seriously consider upping intelligence. Illithid drain 5 INT per hit, and a 0 or negative stat results in instant death. You want at least 6 INT to be able to survive a surprise hit and run your character away if you aren't surrounded, though when fighting them in general you will probably want to down intelligence potions. You should probably down wisdom and up intelligence. Wisdom does nothing for an Inquisitor as he can't cast priest spells anyway. Wisdom affects a few dialog choices, but you can't really go below 13 anyway, so taking that 5 wisdom and putting it in INT will give you 9 INT, which will help quite a bit when fighting Illithid.
It doesn't look like you are playing with mods or a fixpack, so an Inquisitor should be extremely powerful, in fact, you should breeze through most of the mage fights people find so difficult. Inquisitors have an innate dispel magic ability that counts as the wizard spell cast at twice your character level. This means you have a level 16 dispel magic right off the bat. 18+ is usually enough to utterly smash any normal mage's defenses, as they don't cast school protection spells without an AI mod. 20+ dispel magic will consistently tear up Lich's defenses (i think they're all level 23). On top of that you get a true seeing ability, which allows you to dispel annoying stuff like mislead, hide in shadows, invisibility, mirror image, and simulacrum constantly throughout the fight. Also you get some choice weaponry in both BG2 and the expansion. I won't spoil anything but I'll say you will definitely be rewarded by choosing 2H swords. Immunity to hold and charm will also help, the only annoying things you need to protect against after that would be level drain and confusion.
As for casting, anytime they say "per day" they really mean "in between rests." You can't rest safely everywhere though, so you will often have to manage your spells. For instance if you are fighting a bunch of vampires you'll probably want a priest to have a bunch of anti-domination, restoration, and sunfire type spells memorized in advance. If you are fighting Illithid you'll want as much chaotic commands as you can get, etc. As for absolutely essential spells generally you want to stay away from spells that are completely negated with a saving throw, as most high level enemies will make the save, but there are many encounters with loads of low level enemies so you can still use them if you like them. Almost all spells are somewhat viable in the vanilla game though, but I'll list some of the abusable/overpowered ones off the top of my head.
+ Show Spoiler +
Magic Missle: It's a basic level 1 wizard spell that should become a staple. Does good guaranteed damage with no save, and hits 5 times, which gives it a good chance to bust through magic resistance.
Invisibility: Always useful.
Haste: Cast this on your party to make battles easy.
Skull Trap: This spell is superior to fireball as an AOE in many ways. It does magic damage which is harder to resist, and it has no cap on its damage so at higher levels it does much more, and it acts as a mine so you can set them up in advance and lure enemies into them with summons. The only downside is its range. You need to be careful not to fry yourself with it as its AOE radius is very close to the max casting range.
Stoneskin: Absorbs hits, the most essential mage spell in the game.
Contingency: Extremely powerful, and doesn't count as a spell cast, so you can cast spells instantly if you use it in battle.
Time Stop: Pretty self explanatory.
Improved Alacrity: Remember the Phoenix overload ability from early in the beta? This is basically that. With the Robe of Veccna equipped you can unload your entire spell book with this spell.
Dragon Breath: The game becomes easy mode with this spell. Every non fire proof enemy will die in a few casts as it goes through magic resistance.
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On September 30 2010 01:48 SF-Fork wrote:So I followed this installation order and something went wrong. The game wouldn't load. I tried to uninstall everything and start anew. For some reason Bg1 would not load the uninstall program because it said it couldn't find the uninstall file. On a whim I erased manually, but of course now the add/remove programs still thinks BG1 is installed, as well as the boot cd, which only gives me the option of ''play''. I realized later that I changed the directory name of the installation, and that's why it didn't detect the uninstall file (something it did do for BG2) Now I can't fully erase BG1 and the cd detects it as installed. Any help???? EDIT: I tried looking for some trace of BG1 in regedit, but it's not there ...
It works fine for me with window 7 
You need the ToB disc to play and start the game from BG2, not BG1. You are using a cracked version ?
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Russian Federation1401 Posts
On September 30 2010 03:09 Boblion wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2010 01:48 SF-Fork wrote:So I followed this installation order and something went wrong. The game wouldn't load. I tried to uninstall everything and start anew. For some reason Bg1 would not load the uninstall program because it said it couldn't find the uninstall file. On a whim I erased manually, but of course now the add/remove programs still thinks BG1 is installed, as well as the boot cd, which only gives me the option of ''play''. I realized later that I changed the directory name of the installation, and that's why it didn't detect the uninstall file (something it did do for BG2) Now I can't fully erase BG1 and the cd detects it as installed. Any help???? EDIT: I tried looking for some trace of BG1 in regedit, but it's not there ... It works fine for me with window 7 You need the ToB disc to play and start the game from BG2, not BG1. You are using a cracked version ?
what matters is that I can't uninstall BG1. In any case I know how to solve the problem now but I can't because I have a bigger one. I've decided to leave it be, replay BG2 only, and format the hell out of it after I buy a new computer.
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On September 30 2010 02:33 Aquafresh wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2010 00:51 allyourbase wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
This thread got me pretty interested so I got BG2. After reading up a bunch, I started a paladin with the Inquisitor kit. I got all my stats except intelligence to 18 by spending a long time rolling. Intelligence is at 4; I hope thats not a big deal. I put 2 points into 2-handed swords and 2-handed weapon specialization and one point into mace and long sword.
I havent gotten a chance to play much yet because character creation took a while and it was already late, but from what I played I felt that the interface and rules were a little overwhelming.
Can someone explain the casting system to me. When it says that a caster can cast 5 times does that mean that you get 5 casts of any spell before you need to rest?
Is my character built ok? Does anyone have general tips that could help?
The amount of spells in the game was really overwhelming as well. I origoinally intended to roll a mage, but I gave up because I had to browse from a list of like 80 spells. I haven't even started looking into the druid or cleric spells either. Is there a website that can explain the spells in simpler terms for me? It seemed impossible to know which spells were useful and which to pass on without already having really good knowledge of the game.
I would seriously consider upping intelligence. Illithid drain 5 INT per hit, and a 0 or negative stat results in instant death. You want at least 6 INT to be able to survive a surprise hit and run your character away if you aren't surrounded, though when fighting them in general you will probably want to down intelligence potions. You should probably down wisdom and up intelligence. Wisdom does nothing for an Inquisitor as he can't cast priest spells anyway. Wisdom affects a few dialog choices, but you can't really go below 13 anyway, so taking that 5 wisdom and putting it in INT will give you 9 INT, which will help quite a bit when fighting Illithid. It doesn't look like you are playing with mods or a fixpack, so an Inquisitor should be extremely powerful, in fact, you should breeze through most of the mage fights people find so difficult. Inquisitors have an innate dispel magic ability that counts as the wizard spell cast at twice your character level. This means you have a level 16 dispel magic right off the bat. 18+ is usually enough to utterly smash any normal mage's defenses, as they don't cast school protection spells without an AI mod. 20+ dispel magic will consistently tear up Lich's defenses (i think they're all level 23). On top of that you get a true seeing ability, which allows you to dispel annoying stuff like mislead, hide in shadows, invisibility, mirror image, and simulacrum constantly throughout the fight. Also you get some choice weaponry in both BG2 and the expansion. I won't spoil anything but I'll say you will definitely be rewarded by choosing 2H swords. Immunity to hold and charm will also help, the only annoying things you need to protect against after that would be level drain and confusion. As for casting, anytime they say "per day" they really mean "in between rests." You can't rest safely everywhere though, so you will often have to manage your spells. For instance if you are fighting a bunch of vampires you'll probably want a priest to have a bunch of anti-domination, restoration, and sunfire type spells memorized in advance. If you are fighting Illithid you'll want as much chaotic commands as you can get, etc. As for absolutely essential spells generally you want to stay away from spells that are completely negated with a saving throw, as most high level enemies will make the save, but there are many encounters with loads of low level enemies so you can still use them if you like them. Almost all spells are somewhat viable in the vanilla game though, but I'll list some of the abusable/overpowered ones off the top of my head. + Show Spoiler +
Magic Missle: It's a basic level 1 wizard spell that should become a staple. Does good guaranteed damage with no save, and hits 5 times, which gives it a good chance to bust through magic resistance.
Invisibility: Always useful.
Haste: Cast this on your party to make battles easy.
Skull Trap: This spell is superior to fireball as an AOE in many ways. It does magic damage which is harder to resist, and it has no cap on its damage so at higher levels it does much more, and it acts as a mine so you can set them up in advance and lure enemies into them with summons. The only downside is its range. You need to be careful not to fry yourself with it as its AOE radius is very close to the max casting range.
Stoneskin: Absorbs hits, the most essential mage spell in the game.
Contingency: Extremely powerful, and doesn't count as a spell cast, so you can cast spells instantly if you use it in battle.
Time Stop: Pretty self explanatory.
Improved Alacrity: Remember the Phoenix overload ability from early in the beta? This is basically that. With the Robe of Veccna equipped you can unload your entire spell book with this spell.
Dragon Breath: The game becomes easy mode with this spell. Every non fire proof enemy will die in a few casts as it goes through magic resistance.
Thanks, this advice is really helpful. I guess I will reroll and make sure to get more intellect. I'm pretty pumped to play after hearing so much about the game.
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^
You don't need a lot of Int for a paladin, wisdom more important for druids/rangers/pala/priests.
Int is for mages 
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On September 30 2010 03:41 Boblion wrote:^ You don't need a lot of Int for a paladin, wisdom more important for druids/rangers/pala/priests. Int is for mages
I only have 4 though, which apparently means that I will get 1 shotted by Illithid.
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On September 30 2010 03:50 allyourbase wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2010 03:41 Boblion wrote:^ You don't need a lot of Int for a paladin, wisdom more important for druids/rangers/pala/priests. Int is for mages I only have 4 though, which apparently means that I will get 1 shotted by Illithid.
You can either have int potions handy when fighting illithid, or simply not initiate with your low-int characters. It is very doable with whatever stats you have really...
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On September 30 2010 03:41 Boblion wrote:^ You don't need a lot of Int for a paladin, wisdom more important for druids/rangers/pala/priests. Int is for mages
Wisdom doesn't do anything for Inquisitors though since they can't cast spells, and the +spell saves that they say you get for high wisdom in the manual is broken and doesn't actually work. Wisdom is only needed for Mages (wish), clerics/rangers/druids and non-inquisitor paladins (extra spells.) I think 15 Wisdom is actually enough to qualify for all the hidden dialog options as well. Much more important to be able to survive Illithid IMO.
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Alright, I've started this game for the 20th time, just beaten the circus for the 3rd time (always quit before then) and I'm getting bored of it again. I think it's cause as soon as I get used to my character (this time a mage) it's like "oooh backstab and traps would be cool" and then "rage as a barb + haste would be cool" and then "omg tank paladin holy warrior would be sweet" and then I re-roll. I think I have spent more time in character creation then on the actual game.
So my question is, how much of the game do you miss playing it through multi-player (In terms of NPC chatter during dungeons - not liking your decisions etc., I guess they have quests? stuff like that [no major spoilers please])? I figure this way I can make all the sweet characters I want, as the NPCs, while well-written, aren't "personal" - at least yet - enough for something I can spend 2 hours deciding what spells to memorize.
Or should I just stick with it?
PS: I understand that you can just get an NPC thief/mage/barb/paladin but they aren't *mine* or whatever.... I dunno I'm new to D&D.
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On September 30 2010 04:01 Aquafresh wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2010 03:41 Boblion wrote:^ You don't need a lot of Int for a paladin, wisdom more important for druids/rangers/pala/priests. Int is for mages Wisdom doesn't do anything for Inquisitors though since they can't cast spells, and the +spell saves that they say you get for high wisdom in the manual is broken and doesn't actually work. Wisdom is only needed for Mages (wish), clerics/rangers/druids and non-inquisitor paladins (extra spells.) I think 15 Wisdom is actually enough to qualify for all the hidden dialog options as well. Much more important to be able to survive Illithid IMO.
o,o
Source ?
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It's hilarious how broken pickpocketing is at 200+. You seriously can get any item you want free.
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On September 30 2010 04:03 seppolevne wrote:
Alright, I've started this game for the 20th time, just beaten the circus for the 3rd time (always quit before then) and I'm getting bored of it again. I think it's cause as soon as I get used to my character (this time a mage) it's like "oooh backstab and traps would be cool" and then "rage as a barb + haste would be cool" and then "omg tank paladin holy warrior would be sweet" and then I re-roll. I think I have spent more time in character creation then on the actual game.
So my question is, how much of the game do you miss playing it through multi-player (In terms of NPC chatter during dungeons - not liking your decisions etc., I guess they have quests? stuff like that [no major spoilers please])? I figure this way I can make all the sweet characters I want, as the NPCs, while well-written, aren't "personal" - at least yet - enough for something I can spend 2 hours deciding what spells to memorize.
Or should I just stick with it?
PS: I understand that you can just get an NPC thief/mage/barb/paladin but they aren't *mine* or whatever.... I dunno I'm new to D&D.
BG2 has some cool banters and NPC related quests so that would be a real shame to not play at least once with the NPCs :/
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On September 30 2010 04:10 mierin wrote:
It's hilarious how broken pickpocketing is at 200+. You seriously can get any item you want free.
Does't work for many good items :p
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On September 30 2010 04:03 seppolevne wrote:
Alright, I've started this game for the 20th time, just beaten the circus for the 3rd time (always quit before then) and I'm getting bored of it again. I think it's cause as soon as I get used to my character (this time a mage) it's like "oooh backstab and traps would be cool" and then "rage as a barb + haste would be cool" and then "omg tank paladin holy warrior would be sweet" and then I re-roll. I think I have spent more time in character creation then on the actual game.
So my question is, how much of the game do you miss playing it through multi-player (In terms of NPC chatter during dungeons - not liking your decisions etc., I guess they have quests? stuff like that [no major spoilers please])? I figure this way I can make all the sweet characters I want, as the NPCs, while well-written, aren't "personal" - at least yet - enough for something I can spend 2 hours deciding what spells to memorize.
Or should I just stick with it?
PS: I understand that you can just get an NPC thief/mage/barb/paladin but they aren't *mine* or whatever.... I dunno I'm new to D&D.
Personally I think you miss out on a lot. BGII was one of the first of its kind to have a ton of party banter between NPCs. Modern RPGs that have been influenced by BGII generally have more party interaction these days, but you still miss out on a lot of the games best moments without NPCs, Imoen in particular without getting into any spoilers. To experience the most fun character interactions I'd recommend getting Imoen, Edwin, Jan, and Minsc at some point. Other characters tend to have pretty funny banter with specific NPCs such as Korgan/Aerie Minsc/Viconia, Minsc/Edwin, Jan/anyone. If you really want to keep trying out different player created classes either play multiple playthroughs or start a multiplayer game and control 2 characters. This way you can switch the non main one out when you get bored of him and still carry up to 4 of the regular NPCs.
On September 30 2010 04:10 Boblion wrote:
o,o
Source ?
Open the BG readme.txt file and look at manual errata, they address the error there. The manual states that saves vs mind affecting spells are modified by wisdom, yet the game makes no such modification. You can test this by turning on the to hit rolls and and getting confusion cast on you a bunch of times. You will see exactly what shows up on your character sheet, which does not include a bonus for wisdom.
EDIT: @ alllyourbase
Keep in mind 9 INT allows you to read protection scrolls such as protection from magic or protection from undead. 18/xx STR 18 DEX 18 CON 13 WIS 9 INT 18 CHA on an Inquisitor is certainly possible with a good roll. The benchmarks are 6 INT to survive an Illithid attack, 11 to survive two, and 10 and 15 WIS to get all the dialog options. If you play through BG1 using the BG2 eninge first you can take your Inquisitor all the way from level 1 onward and you will come across several stat raising tomes. You won't run into anything like them in BGII, so BG1 characters will naturally have higher stats than their BG2 counterparts.
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Alright thanks Boblion and Aquafresh, a few more questions as I'm new to D&D/BG2:
-How important is alignment? I picked neutral evil cause sometimes I like to just go nuts and kill a bunch of people but 90% of the time I just do the quests "properly" and save everyone. I speak nicely to people "Cool! I'm seppolevne! nice to meet you" vs. "Peasant scum, lick my shoe!" etc. Will good people leave if I kill everyone? Will evil people leave if I don't?
-What is a good party size? I heard that exp is shared which I guess is counteracted by having more people but have you found a happy medium?
-Anything major I should know about/get/stay away from? Stuff like "breach is your lifeblood" or "halberds are few and far between" or "having 3 int may not be the best choice down the road" or other small tips you may have.
Thanks
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On September 30 2010 04:37 seppolevne wrote:
Alright thanks Boblion and Aquafresh, a few more questions as I'm new to D&D/BG2:
-How important is alignment? I picked neutral evil cause sometimes I like to just go nuts and kill a bunch of people but 90% of the time I just do the quests "properly" and save everyone. I speak nicely to people "Cool! I'm seppolevne! nice to meet you" vs. "Peasant scum, lick my shoe!" etc. Will good people leave if I kill everyone? Will evil people leave if I don't?
One of the few weaknesses of Baldur's Gate is that it is really not easy to play an evil party because the rewards for good characters are just way better ( More rep means lower prices etc ... ). Actually even if you play an evil guy it is usually better to act like a good guy because if you start to kill many innocent people in the cities you will have guards spawning everywhere and you won't last long.
Alignment isn't that important, it will mostly matter for some special magic items ( some can't be used by Evil / good / etc ... )
Planescape Torment is a way better game when it comes down to alignement and the influence of Charisma / Int / Wisdom in the dialogs.
On September 30 2010 04:37 seppolevne wrote:
-What is a good party size? I heard that exp is shared which I guess is counteracted by having more people but have you found a happy medium?
I almost always play with a full party. Yea leveling is a bit slower but a full party is more powerfull, you will get more NPC related quests and many banters.
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EPT
