Zardnaar
Legend
I liked tge early stuff. Art is gorgeous.
Useful for maps and NPCs. I'll see what others want to do.
Open door build advice for BG1?
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D&D General BG 1,2, DiA?
- Thread starter Zardnaar
- Start date
I liked tge early stuff. Art is gorgeous.
Useful for maps and NPCs. I'll see what others want to do.
Open door build advice for BG1?
Paul Farquhar
Legend
BG1 and 2 are well worth playing and the enhanced editions work fine on modern computers. You should also try Icewind Dale. The price point you are quoting seems a little high, see if you can get them for less.
Zardnaar
Legend
It's NZ island tax. GST etc. Think it's closer to $18.
Bit late now bought it
rarely you see 80% off at least of Playstation or Xbox store. Cheaper on steam but only really use the PC for Thrawns Revenge.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Ah well, not only is PC cheaper, the games are designed to be played with a mouse, controller support is a little clunky.It's NZ island tax. GST etc. Think it's closer to $18.
Bit late now bought it
Cheaper on steam but only really use the PC for Thrawns Revenge.
Zardnaar
Legend
Think I have bg2 on steam. Some edition.
I can't sit at a PC to long generally due to injuries.
Chaltab
Hero
Oiof. Relatable. Been doing all my gaming on a Steam Deck since June thanks to a hip issue. I haven't tried running BG1&2 but I've heard the console versions are solid if not ideal.
Zardnaar
Legend
As long as they work I don't care to much.
roger semerad
Explorer
The Baldur's Gate enhanced editions work very well with controllers, don't worry about that.
I'll give you a few ideas and guidelines, but play whatever seems most interesting to you. There aren't any builds or party composition that will get you outright stuck. First, the game expects you to re-roll your main character's attributes until they're really high. You can beat the game with any attributes of course, but it's very normal to have high attributes. Your companions also have pretty high attributes, and the average attributes for companions are even higher in BG2. Having a thief in the party to take care of traps is very important. Dealing with traps without a dedicated thief is more work than it's worth. You won't have enough points into thief skills to dabble in much beyond find/disarm traps and open locks, so don't waste your points early on other stuff unless you have multiple thieves. You will start the game with a thief in your party, so you don't have to go looking for one. A fighter heavy party works well in BG1. It's advisable to have at least two frontline party members that you can just throw at the enemy regularly. Ranged specialists are very powerful in both games, but are outright broken in BG1. If you pick the Archer kit for your main character you will cut through BG1 like a hot knife through butter. Whether this is a good thing or not is a personal opinion, just know that playing such a character will warp the experience. Mages are of course very weak in the early game, and very powerful endgame. There is a magic ring hidden in a lootable piece of scenery in the south of the Friendly Arm Inn that will double a mage's level one spell slots. This ring makes low level mages much more useful in the early game. Sleep is an extremely useful spell in BG1, use it often. When in doubt, fireball; fireball will solve 95% of your problems. There are wands, magic items, amunition, and throwing potions of fireball that fire off instantly and are extremely good at disrupting enemy mages. Also useful for just nuking your enemies outright. Playing a main character fighter/thief mutliclass backstabbing specialist can be a lot of fun. There are a few fighter/thief companions, but none of them are spec'd for backstabbing. If you play a human mage and dual class immediately to fighter at level two, you will have a fighter that can use wands and scrolls at the cost of a few hit points. Don't play a dedicated evil play through, it's poorly implemented and just makes your life harder. Save that for a replay later. If you sell a magic item with charges, that item will appear in the merchant's inventory fully recharged. It will be extremely expensive, but if you have the cash this can be a very powerful quirk.
I'll give you a few ideas and guidelines, but play whatever seems most interesting to you. There aren't any builds or party composition that will get you outright stuck. First, the game expects you to re-roll your main character's attributes until they're really high. You can beat the game with any attributes of course, but it's very normal to have high attributes. Your companions also have pretty high attributes, and the average attributes for companions are even higher in BG2. Having a thief in the party to take care of traps is very important. Dealing with traps without a dedicated thief is more work than it's worth. You won't have enough points into thief skills to dabble in much beyond find/disarm traps and open locks, so don't waste your points early on other stuff unless you have multiple thieves. You will start the game with a thief in your party, so you don't have to go looking for one. A fighter heavy party works well in BG1. It's advisable to have at least two frontline party members that you can just throw at the enemy regularly. Ranged specialists are very powerful in both games, but are outright broken in BG1. If you pick the Archer kit for your main character you will cut through BG1 like a hot knife through butter. Whether this is a good thing or not is a personal opinion, just know that playing such a character will warp the experience. Mages are of course very weak in the early game, and very powerful endgame. There is a magic ring hidden in a lootable piece of scenery in the south of the Friendly Arm Inn that will double a mage's level one spell slots. This ring makes low level mages much more useful in the early game. Sleep is an extremely useful spell in BG1, use it often. When in doubt, fireball; fireball will solve 95% of your problems. There are wands, magic items, amunition, and throwing potions of fireball that fire off instantly and are extremely good at disrupting enemy mages. Also useful for just nuking your enemies outright. Playing a main character fighter/thief mutliclass backstabbing specialist can be a lot of fun. There are a few fighter/thief companions, but none of them are spec'd for backstabbing. If you play a human mage and dual class immediately to fighter at level two, you will have a fighter that can use wands and scrolls at the cost of a few hit points. Don't play a dedicated evil play through, it's poorly implemented and just makes your life harder. Save that for a replay later. If you sell a magic item with charges, that item will appear in the merchant's inventory fully recharged. It will be extremely expensive, but if you have the cash this can be a very powerful quirk.
J-H
Hero
I found BG1 to be much harder than BG2. Traps are more frequent and deadly, characters have fewer hit points, and characters miss a lot more often. I only beat BG1 once.
I have solo-beaten BG2 with every character class, but not TOB. The easiest BG2+TOB party I ever played had no full casters; it was all fighters and rangers and paladins. Very few enemies survive being hit 50 times in one round. The NPC Paladin has the ability to cast True Sight and a high-level Dispel, and there's a weapon he can pick up that makes it even better.
For Baldur's Gate I, you may want to pick your class based on what companions you want. There are many rogues, several wizards, some fighters, a few clerics, and one druid.
I don't know about magic weapon availability, but if I had to pick one character to run through the whole thing with:
Non-caster: Fighter, with a high strength, dexterity, and constitution. Switch-hit between ranged weapons in BG1 and Two Handed Swords in BG2. You should have enough ability points to Grand Mastery bows in BG1, then do the same in BG2. You want bows in BG1 because it gets you 1 to 3 rounds of free attacks against many enemies, and you want fighter because you level up faster than paladin or ranger and can attain Grand Mastery for more attacks per round. Also, ranger and paladin have more secondary attributes that make it harder to max str/dex/con. If you have to pick one stat to not max, pick Str. There are more +STR items than anything else in the game.
Caster: I'd either go straight wizard (don't pick the subclass that blocks evocation), or I'd do ranger dual-classing into cleric. It's a long haul dual-class because you want Ranger 9 (+1/2 APR, max hit points), so you don't do the dual class until BG2. This gives you an archer all the way through BG1, with some minor healing abilities. A ranger dual-classed into cleric gets access to the entire druid spell list as well as the cleric list. Insect Plague or Creeping Doom are the best anti-caster spells in the game, and druids also get Ironskin, which is basically Stoneskin, giving you immunity to CL/2 weapon attacks (bypassed by elemental damage). You end up limited to bludgeoning weapons, but some of the best weapons are bludgeoning. Despite being a full caster, I think this character ended up being a gish, casting "BUGS BUGS EVERYWHERE" before charging in and dual wielding a certain hammer and flail combo for a lot of damage.
For BG1 perhaps. For BG2, the individually strongest party members are evil. Evil is a quick and convenient path to power, and you don't have to fight nearly as many level-draining enemies. If you go evil in BG2, be sure to get Edwin the Nether Scroll.Roger said:
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