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I just have a few questions about stuff I read in the manual and in online guides.
1) I read you can play online and make 6 characters [of course you will need to re-roll many times to get good stats] but then the team will have better stats then the normal NPC's that will join the party. Should I do this or should I play the game normally in single player because they say the NPC's in single player have more personality and character and all the alignment stuff etc.
2) If I play normally, I am going to make myself a fighter -human etc. They say Imeon since she/he has a high INT then its a good ideal to dual class him into a Mage after hes gone up 2-3 levels so you can put all the experience or points [or something] into his locate/disarm trap ability because they say stealing and stealth and all that other stuff not as important and then you have a thief with mage powers and his attack is weak. Is this advisable? If I don't dual class him then is their any weapons that don't rely on strength? He does have a good DEX stat so wouldn't he be better with bows?
2b) This is related to the above question. Is Dual/Classing or Multi classing worth it? Also, I want to enjoy the game so going online and seeing the alignment of certain NPC's does that take away the fun of the game? Is their some quests that have amazing rewards but the quests are kinda hidden or hard to get that I would need a guide to figure out how to actually get the quest in the first place [not how to solve it]
2c) Someone mention [mindcrime] about AI abuse like summoning abuse and invisibility/back stab abuse. IN the expansion you can only go invisible when their is a shadow and its affect by shadows. Does this effect these strategies? What exactly is Summoning abuse. I do not priests and Mages can summon. Thanks.
3) What's with this AI ON/OFF thing? Should I just always keep the AI off and whenever I see an enemy just pause the game and issue commands or having the AI on for my NPC Companions will that affect game play at all. I know they might attack and I guess they choose their own spells to use when casting? Whats advisable? If every round is 6 seconds I don't think thats not enough time to issue commands to 6 different characters unless you pause and un-pause every 6 seconds. For those who have played the game...is leaving the AI on and letting them attack and do their thing enough? Is it enough for the warriors but do I need to control the mages etc
Note: I try installing EASY-Tutu but didn't have enough disk space. I am going to play Balder's Gate [I have the expansion installed].
4) I noticed in the expansion that if someone does an area effect spell that you can kinda dodge it. Like if the fireball hits you but it didn't expload in the Original you will get hit but in expansion you can kinda run out of it. Even if you do get hit when trying to run out ,does the computer will still roll a saving throw for you? [ie if saving roll good then in fireball attack dmg is 1/2]
Thank you...
I will see the answers when I come home from work @ 4am lol
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United States12607 Posts
1) I always favored soloing after my first playthrough, but I think that you're better off going with the in-game NPCs than powergaming and making your own uber-party by creating all the characters in multiplayer.
First off, the NPCs are pretty good. Some suck but some are very solid (esp in BG2 where different NPCs have special powerful armor or weapons they can wield). If you're careful about who you admit into your party, you can get a very powerful group without having to create all of your party members from scratch.
Most importantly though, especially in BG2 (or BG1 with the NPC Project) the NPCs really add a lot of plot and interaction to the game. Most of the BG2 and some of the BG1 NPCs have custom quests, and in BG2 you can start romances with several of the characters. Then there's also the issue of alignment and banter, which, since I was never into literal role-playing, I wasn't a big fan of but I will admit adds something to the game. It's kind of cool to be an evil character and have to go around finding similarly mischievous NPCs.
One other thing to consider is that, as long as you meet the NPCs while you are low level, you will get to pick their abilities and skills as they level up (making NPCs pretty much as good as special-made characters). There are also mods to set up the game so that if you're a high-level character you will get to "level up" NPCs when you meet them (rather than the game default, which is to assign the NPCs skills automatically - often sucky ones).
2) I think you're confusing something here. Imoen is the first NPC you meet in the game and she is your childhood companion, a fighter. You will create your own character with his/her own name. Your class is the most important choice you will make, so think about it carefully. If you are playing vanilla BG1 (though you should really research BG1Tutu or BGT if you have BG2/TotSC) then fighters are very powerful. I think magic-users are more fun, though. There's more of a tactical element than just hack-and-slash. If you're playing with BG2 rules and classes, by far the cheesiest, most powerful character you can create is the Kensai dualed to Mage. Read up on that one, it's basically imba. Thieves are powerful too, but mostly for stealth and backstab damage. Traps are pretty insignificant once you have a good amount of HP/high saves and locks can always be bashed in, so those skills are not very important.
2b. Multi-classing is not worth it. Your options are limited and, unlike dual-classing, your XP will be SPLIT between your levels so you will level faster (and have a lower max level when you hit the XP cap). Multi-classed characters are always weaker than single-classed or dual-classed characters, especially when you have party members to help out.
Dual-classing is definitely something to consider. It is only possible if you are human, and your attributes must satisfy BOTH of your classes. The way it works is you progress in your first (primary) class and then whenever you feel like, you can dual-class into your secondary class. At that point, your primary class becomes dormant and you start out at level 0 in your new class. You lose all of your old class's abilities and skills. The only thing you keep is your HP. Then, once your secondary class PASSES your primary class in levels, you regain the skills of both classes. At that point you are godly, if you progressed far at all in your first class. Fighter into mage is very popular for dual-classing because you will retain the fighter's high HP while you level up your mage, and then once your mage level surpasses your fighter level you will be able to buff yourself and hack and slash everything into oblivion.
Dual-classing is very difficult if you are soloing because once you select your secondary and send your primary class abilities into hibernation, you will be very weak. You have to plan heavily and select low-level areas and quests that will help you level fast once you dual-class. But if you have a party, your party can pick up the slack for you and get XP while you level.
I have to go but I will write more later....I love this series as you can tell and there are some things I neglected so I will re-cover those areas. For now there is only one thing I have to say:
INSTALL TUTU
Higher resolution, better rules, less bugs, you can import your character from BG1 into BG2, more classes, etc. etc. etc. DO IT NOW
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United States24495 Posts
If you are building the new camaro at 4am then I'm not getting one lol
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On September 11 2008 06:39 jwd241224 wrote:
Multi-classed characters are always weaker than single-classed or dual-classed characters, especially when you have party members to help out.
That's simply not true.
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2c) Stealth/hide in shadows is affected by the level of darkness/sunlight but I can't tell you how its calculated. If your skill is high enough, you can hide in broad daylight (though not within the vision of hostiles).
In bg1, if you have multiple mages and/or clerics and/or multiple wands of monster summoning, you can summon ungodly numbers of minions. Bioware disliked this enough that they limited (in most cases) the number of summons allowable in bg2 to 5.
3)Scripts, in general, aren't as effective as issuing commands yourself.
4) If you're within the spell's area of effect, you will be affected by it and get a saving throw if there is one for said spell.
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1. Better in SP since you get dialogues and everything else belonging to the other characters. Even though BG1 doesn't have that many dialogues between the characters, I still like it more than creating all a la Icewind Dale.
2. Imoen? SHE SHE SHE. Do as you like, there are no set rules of what you should do with your party members. there are advantages to having a high level thief aswell, traps are really dangerous in this game and you need someone with hi level disarm.
2b. I don't think it's worth it in BG1 (I'm not even sure both dual and multiclassing is possible there?) since the level cap is pretty low and you need those higher levels to be effective. In BG2 however, both dual and multiclassing can be worth it. I prefer to play around with such things on my other party members though since some of them are naturally dual or multiclassed.
2c. ???
3. AI on and assign behaviour in settings if you are lazy, this works if you are a lot more powerful than your opponents, but your party members tend to favor certain spells and skills in the least effective way so at times you have to turn it off. When you turn it off you have to do everything on every character for yourself which makes you have to pause a lot. Preference.
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United States12607 Posts
On September 11 2008 06:49 Mindcrime wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2008 06:39 jwd241224 wrote:
Multi-classed characters are always weaker than single-classed or dual-classed characters, especially when you have party members to help out. That's simply not true.
Care to explain, or is it too blindingly obvious?
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Came into this thread and started reading the questions thinking *sigh* time to clear a few things up :D, but my fellow bg1 lovers have already really answered most of it.
How can you confuse imoen for a he tho =(, She's such an awesome character.
"Heya, it's just me, imoen"
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On September 11 2008 07:29 jwd241224 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2008 06:49 Mindcrime wrote:On September 11 2008 06:39 jwd241224 wrote:
Multi-classed characters are always weaker than single-classed or dual-classed characters, especially when you have party members to help out. That's simply not true. Care to explain, or is it too blindingly obvious?
It should be blindingly obvious.
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I confused Imoen for a He cause I haven't even started playing it yet.
As for those people talking about TuTu. I am using my old comp [and I eve mentioned somewhere in my post] that I don't have enough room to install it. I did a Full install of BG1 and ToTSC and I did a recommdend install of BG2 [recommended is required to install TuTu] and the minimun space for Tutu was 1.1 GB and I only had 400 Mb [i had deleted everything on that 4gb harddrive lol]
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Also I have more questions...
Just so people know I will start playing the game today when I wake up.
1)It was mentioned about the benefit of dual-classing and about fighter into mage and if you got your fighter to a high level and then dual classed into a mage you would be powerful after your mage level surpassed your fighter level. What is a high level since the level cap in BG1 is like 7-9 or something like that so basically a level 4 fighter dual classing into a mage and once he reaches level 9 he would be able to use abilities from both classes? Is level 4 considered high?
2) I can understand the benefit of mage + fighter but to be able to use his mage powers he won't be able to wear armor and can only use darts/slings/daggers so he would be weak without armor and if he wanted to attack he wouldn't have his mage abilities cause he wearing armor and using sword or whatever. So does that mean for every big battle you'd switch around his weapons whether you wanted him to use mage powers or fighter abilities?
3) I read about raising dead and stuff and if they have low constitution it affects the chance of a raise dead spell working so basically if i had some character or NPC with a low constitution and he died their is a chance the spell doesn't work. I understand that. Say his constitution was 10 and the chance of raise dead spell of working is 50%...does that mean working at all or each time. I mean could i cast 5 raise dead spells over and over till 1 worked [if i had memorized 5 raise dead spells lol]???
4) Say a NPC leaves my party or attacks me. IN the case he leaves cause my reputation too high [cause he evil] do i lose any equipment i put on him? Say I attack and kill him does he drop items and stuff and i get it all back
5) Say one of my character dies in a battle and it was luck I win in the end and i don't want to reload and stuff would this character drop all the stuff i equipped him with [i.e magical armor and maybe rings of protection] or is that stuff lost forever if he is dead?
Thank you everyone for all your help. I was kinda into RPG's before. I mean I always wanted to play them but never had the chance. I was really interested in the Star Wars role playing game and read the whole manual of it and like 2-3 other ones but I only had my brother/sister who never read anything and are not the type of people to role-play and think and if you make up a game [be a game master] they don't think about 'look' 'find' hide or using abilities and i never had the chance to join a group that meet up and play. I even used to read those books where you make a character and like things happen and their enemies and stuff and you roll dice or whatever and you have a sheet and item thing. Dungeon and Dragon had some books like that.
Anyways, so I think I will find RPG's fun 
Also for the person who asked its BG1 with ToTSC installed. It is not modded. I do not have enough room to install Tutu. However I am going to look for and try to install that mod where the NPC will be a low level so I can guide their abilities and spells.
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On September 11 2008 19:57 Yaqoob wrote:
1)It was mentioned about the benefit of dual-classing and about fighter into mage and if you got your fighter to a high level and then dual classed into a mage you would be powerful after your mage level surpassed your fighter level. What is a high level since the level cap in BG1 is like 7-9 or something like that so basically a level 4 fighter dual classing into a mage and once he reaches level 9 he would be able to use abilities from both classes? Is level 4 considered high?
Dual class sucks in Bg1 imo. Especially Warrior / mage because you need a lot of EXP to be efficient contrarily to a mage/priest who can be a support caster even at low level. Wait a bit and dual class him in Bg2. The ideal level to dual class him is when he wont get the warrior dice ( 10 faces dice ) of hp when leveling anymore but just some +3 hp or something like that. I dont remember the exact level but it happens near level 12 ( just save before leveling ). But you are using ToTSc so i dont know if the leveling rules with level > 12 are the same.
On September 11 2008 19:57 Yaqoob wrote:
2) I can understand the benefit of mage + fighter but to be able to use his mage powers he won't be able to wear armor and can only use darts/slings/daggers so he would be weak without armor and if he wanted to attack he wouldn't have his mage abilities cause he wearing armor and using sword or whatever. So does that mean for every big battle you'd switch around his weapons whether you wanted him to use mage powers or fighter abilities?
Yup. IF you are fighting crappy ennemies ( but several of them ) you dont really care of your position / weapons / armor. You char will have enough hp anyway. Just cast a zone spell then finish them with your weapons. Vs larger deadlier opponents, and "bosses" you will have to switch to ranged weapons. I think bow or crossbow are a good specialisation for a dual warrior/mage.
On September 11 2008 19:57 Yaqoob wrote:
3) I read about raising dead and stuff and if they have low constitution it affects the chance of a raise dead spell working so basically if i had some character or NPC with a low constitution and he died their is a chance the spell doesn't work. I understand that. Say his constitution was 10 and the chance of raise dead spell of working is 50%...does that mean working at all or each time. I mean could i cast 5 raise dead spells over and over till 1 worked [if i had memorized 5 raise dead spells lol]???
I'm not really sure because usually i just load when i lost a char but If i remember when the spell fails your character is gone for real :O.
On September 11 2008 19:57 Yaqoob wrote:
4) Say a NPC leaves my party or attacks me. IN the case he leaves cause my reputation too high [cause he evil] do i lose any equipment i put on him? Say I attack and kill him does he drop items and stuff and i get it all back
Yes you lose everything he wears or has on his bag  . If you attack him he will drop it. ( You can steal too ).
On September 11 2008 19:57 Yaqoob wrote:
5) Say one of my character dies in a battle and it was luck I win in the end and i don't want to reload and stuff would this character drop all the stuff i equipped him with [i.e magical armor and maybe rings of protection] or is that stuff lost forever if he is dead?
Nononono when one of your char dies it is like when you kill a monster, it will drop his items. Btw if your main character dies it is game over 
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Thank you for the fast replies. Anyways I installed some MOD's. I installed one that fixes the skill and abilities/proficiencies of some of the NPC's and another one that does alot of stuff like editing the sounds and portraits and fixing the inventory and adding boots so characters can move faster outside of battle + lowering NPC's levels when meeting them [I wonder if this Mod will affect the other one that edits the abilities + proficiencies of 6-7 of the NPC's.
It also gives Max HP every level up and makes learning spells easier. There was other things that make Baldur's Gate easier like removing evil reputation and other stuff but I feel that takes fun out of the game and didn't want to make the game totally different. I feel the HP thing and NPC' stuff will help me since I am very new to playing RPG's.
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On September 11 2008 20:54 Boblion wrote:
The ideal level to dual class him is when he wont get the warrior dice ( 10 faces dice ) of hp when leveling anymore but just some +3 hp or something like that. I dont remember the exact level but it happens near level 12 ( just save before leveling ). But you are using ToTSc so i dont know if the leveling rules with level > 12 are the same.
There's actually two schools of thought when it comes to dualing warriors. One says to dual at level 9, as that is the last level of d10 hit points, has a weapon proficiency point and allows you to get your abilities back rather quickly. The other school says to wait until level 13. Level 12 has a weapon proficiency point, but level 13 brings an extra 1/2 attack.
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I miss the days of Mplayer and original bg2 online =(
Was part of MDC, if anyone was around at that time, lemme know ;P
As for dualing, i always dual on 9. Main reason being it's far quicker to get skills back. Waiting for 13 for half an attack is kind of pointless imo.
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ok... this got me very interested in the game, where can I dl it ? Just from any torrent site or is there a special place ?
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On September 12 2008 01:09 Xeris wrote:
ok... this got me very interested in the game, where can I dl it ? Just from any torrent site or is there a special place ?
It isnt a freeware. I think you can dl it but it will be long ( Bg1 = 5 Cd + 1 Cd for expo, Bg2= 4 Cd + 1 Cd for expo ) + there lots of mods to DL ( at least Tutu ). Many hours of solo play . ( 100+ hours for BG1 + BG2 if you try to do all the quests as a beginner ? ).
You should try to buy it imo. Dunno where you can find it nowadays but it wont be expensive.
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edit: nvm, misread something
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... oh shit, and double posted :D
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EPT
