Baldur's Gate I & II - Gather your party before venturing forth

After having played the EA for BG3, I decided to start a new game of the original trilogy. With the standard companions, so I get all the banter in BG2, but with some changes. Mostly just min maxing the stats (keeping overal stat score intact), but some will have their classes changed and even their race. Minsc, for instance, will be a Half-Orc Berserker, Imoen a Half Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief. Gorion's Ward will be a Berserker dual classed to a mage at level 13, for some exquisite power gaming

BG1 will be with the 'standard' party of Imoen (changes as previously mentioned), Khalid (min-maxed), Jaheira (min-maxed), Minsc (as mentioned) and Dynaheir (min-maxed). BG2 will see Khalid replaced with Viconia (now a Drow Fighter/Mage/Cleric) and Edwin (min-maxed).

Will be interesting to see how it plays out with two tripple class multiclasses.

The site still works for me.

At worst, Steam has guides (BG, BG2).

Happiness is a backstab critical with Celestial Fury...

It's not great, but I think it gets more hate than it deserves.

My biggest gripe with it is it tends to break the mods I use.

It's good! It's not up there with BG2, but still good.

Unless you're super married to whatever your idea was prior to it existing as to what happened between the end of BG and the opening of BG2.

DANG! I never realized how powerful traps could be!

My party of 11s and 12s, after bouncing off Firkraag, just tore him apart when my Bhaalspawn (fighter/thief) and Jan Jansen set a half dozen traps around him, then retreated and had Jan throw a Cloudkill at him!

He was dead before it fully registered how much damage he was taking!

Still haven't gone off with Gorion. Did the Tutorial (of course) and spent an hour, I think, doing the small side-quests within the castle walls. Somehow, this game reminds me of Ocarina of Time, but in a good way. Must be the fact that there's sometimes no music except for the sound effects. Anyway, I think I'll be giving updates here and there.

Gorion's dead, Imoen's voice-actor sucks, and I just got two other companions. Also, at the Inn place. I'm guessing this is where you get Jaheira as a companion (I saw some playthroughs of Baldur's Gate II a while back). Anyway, apparently you can go back to Candlekeep? I didn't risk it in the end. Best to do what I'm told in this case.

I like the lack of hand-holding. It kinda reminds me of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask in that sense. It just lets you figure things out. I think more games should to that nowadays. Not that it isn't a bad idea to have games that have more pointers, but you get the point, I'm sure.

What'd you do? Drop a fireball in a populated town?

I've noticed that the game often gets more interesting when you screw up a bit:

So I'm basically just wandering around after hitting Firewine Bridge. (Dunno why people complain about that place; it's a great source of free fire arrows in the midgame.) PC fighter, Khalid, Jaheira, Neera, Imoen (still a thief) and Viconia, levels 5 or 4 depending on progression. Enter an area and spot a statue where. OK, so there are basilisks about. No problem; just have CHARNAME pop a potion of Mirrored Eyes and tank them, while the rest of the party engages with ranged fire. That part of the plan works great.

What doesn't work great is that this turns out to be Mutamin's Garden. (The nice thing about coming back to a game after so long is that you forget stuff.) Could've just run for it, but noooo.... I decide to try and put him down fast. Unfortunately, CHARNAME runs away while other panicked characters run towards the basilisks. Yes, Vicky blew both her MR roll and her save. Long story short, I end up with CHARNAME in the NW corner of the map surrounded by a bunch of gibberlings and a couple lesser basilisks, with at least one greater basilisk still off in the fog of war. He beats them to death, but there isn't much he can do about the GB without another potion. So it's back to High Hedge.

Couple of RE's later, and I'm there. Oops. Turns out Thalantyr doesn't have any Mirrored Eyes left. He's got Protection from Petrification scrolls, but they're the mage variety, not the all-classes variety. (Looks like you can only get the other kind from a merchant at the Nashkel Carnival.) OK, well, Branwen's sitting around in Beregost, and I never did recruit Garrick. He can use the scroll, right? So I go off with Branwen to do his recruitment mission.

Oops, again. Could've Silenced Silke, probably. Didn't try it, and she managed to go invisible and get off a Lightning Bolt. The bolt took out both Branwen and Garrick, and the rebound chunked Branwen. CHARNAME beat Silke to death, sure, but it's not exactly a win. So much for plan B.

So it's down to Nashkel to pick up Minsc and Dynaheir. Plan C finally works... except that Vicky is nowhere to be found. I have no idea what happened to her.

So, on the plus side, CHARNAME got a boatload of XP out of all this and levelled early. On the downside, I am running out of clerics. When I rotate Khalid and Jaheira out of the party, looks like Quayle or Yeslick will finally get a shot.

Mark Darrah

SWAG - "Stuff" We All Get

There isn't much for the first Baldur's Gate but we did send alcohol to the press...