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

Would also mention that the Bard comes into their own in Throne of Bhaal when you can take the class ability Use Any Item. This meant I was able to use the most powerful sword in the game, Carsomyr, that can usually only be used by a paladin, as well as some other class specific items that had previously been denied to me. If you are not playing a Paladin and don't want Keldorn in your party, which I didn't as he doesn't get on with Viconia, it is always rather frustrating to defeat the dragon and acquire it, only to not be able to use it. I enjoyed playing as a Bard in BG2, even more than my usual choice of Fighter/Mage.

I still think the strongest weapon setup you can go for is Flail of the Ages + Defender of Easthaven, but someone wielding Carsomyr can give a great boost to your party.

If I steal things I try to not aggro NPCs. I'm Neutral Evil which is like the "self-preservation first" alignment. Anomen is Chaotic Neutral if he fails his test, depending how I can stand him (or others), I might add him.

I'll have to increase reputation a bit before I add Dorn and Viconia in BG1. They both bring a reputation hit which might cause the party to fall into "possibility of spawning Flaming Fist" category really fast. I will probably end up with a "not amused" evil party either way since the reputation system is stupid. It's a fame meter more than a reputation one and some evil people might enjoy that everyone think they are heroic figures instead of selfish greedy assholes.

Are there any merchants in Baldur's gate who will buy my ankheg heads?

alas

aye i can only really afford to carry 2 around, but i don't feel like travelling all the way back to beregost just yet, nor carrying them the entire time I'm in Baldur's gate when i could be picking up other loot so I'll probably just dump them >.<

Played through Baldur's Gate for cheevos, and man, that dialogue was really something else. The interactions with the characters, the plot beats. Even using repeated maps didn't dull how fun the story was to play.

"Jahiera, must you be so"
"Bitchy?"

Some of the characters were one-note, but you could at least make up your own mind about them. The writers now demand you worship crap writing.

One hour of hardcore, no reload deaths by Davaeorn the Twitch streamer. Hilarious!

I've finally gotten around to playing the Enhanced Editions. I have to say it is quite surprising how well those games still play after more than 20 years. In almost every single aspect there are now games which do things better, but as a complete package Bg2/TOB still plays in the top league. The new content is a mixed bag though. SoD's story is nice and fits well between the two main games, and its quests are also ok, but man, the character dialogues are really terrible at times. It seems as if the writers were unable to put themselves into the shoes of a variety of players and wrote on the implicit assumption everyone would play more or less like they envisioned it. That extends to most of the new companions, which also come across as one-dimensional. Not that the original characters were necessarily more complex overall (some were, but most weren't), but the new ones talk more, and thus it is more apparent they always talk about the same thing. Main character responses are also, most of the time, too specific to appeal to all but a very small subsete of players I assume. The new companions also tend to be annoying on an unprecedented level. Sorry Neera, I really wanted to like you, but as weird as it may sound, I actually prefer Edwin's company to yours. His arrogance, as grating as it may be at times, at least demands nothing of me I am not prepared to give.

Having said that, I am now doing a second PT of the EEs (didn't yet finish the first one but there you are) with a Fighter->Mage, which, oddly enough, I never played before in spite of the many times I played these games, and I'm wondering which weapon I should specialize in when starting out in BG1. Katana seems the obvious choice because of Dak'kon's blade, but there are no good katanas in BG1 where I'll spend all of my early Fighter levels, and most likely that blade won't be much use as a secondary weapon since its special ability requires you keep it active all the time. Scimitars for Belm and Water's Edge, same problem IIRC. Longwords, opposite problem, the selection in SoA is extremely limited. As opposed to axes, of which again, there aren't any good ones in BG1. So...any recommendations? I prefer one-handed weapons since it's too valuable to be able to wield an additional item in the shield slot. I'd be willing to install mods for interesting weapons as long as they're not so grossly overpowered as to overshadow the original content.