An old hand's epic journey through BG2...

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Ok, I haven't played BG2 in the longest time, and I thought that now would be a good time to give the game another runthrough. This thread is going to be similar to Harbourboy's thread awhile ago as he chronicled his first runthrough of the game. This time however, I'm going to be playing with 14 mods installed, no cheats enables, and no use of shadow keeper. The mods are: (in no particular order)
Oversight
Kivan
Kelsey
Saerileth
Banter pack
Npcflirt pack
Crossmod Banter pack
Quest pack
Romantic Encounters
Unfinished Business
Dungeon-be-gone
Item Upgrade
Ease of Use
Tactics

I have yet to create a character, but seeing as I will have Kelsey, Kivan, Saerileth, Aerie, and Jaheira in my party, I was think of being one of the thief kits. I'm open to suggestions for what kit I should go with, along with any additional mods that I should install. I'm also open for suggestion for my romance....I do have the E-O-U mod installed, so a multiple romance isn't out of the question.

Let the discussions begin!

 

Well, if you want to play as a thief, you may want to get Rogues Rebalancing and Song&Silence mods. They do add lots of goodies for thieves. (items, abilities, kits, etc)

And you should definitely have Blucher's Expanded Thief Stronghold mod too, it add nice new quests to rather dull thief stronghold. Greatly reccomended!

Improved Anvil mod is all new and cool but is for hard-core players definitely. (and it is nigh uncompatible with Item Upgrade mod) Just an idea though.

 

Swashbuckler. You don't need a sneaky backstabber in your party with that group. I think a swashbuckler would fit well with the group.

 

I was considering the Expanded Thief Stronghold mod, but due to the fact that the romantic encounters mod changes some things that the ETS mod would also change, I can see nothing but bugs come from this mod.

While I like the Swashbuckler’s benefits, I also like the Bounty Hunter's special traps...but those become less effective later in the game.

 

What about a halfling fighter/thief instead?

 

If I were going to do a multi-class, I would have chosen a fighter/thief already. No, for this epic journey, I want to be a thief kit...and I think I've decided to go with the Swashbuckler. Taking in to account that a Swashbuckler is a swordsman, I like the advantage of the dual weapon style.

I went ahead and created my character just a few minutes ago. After a dozen re-rolls, I came out with:
STR: 17
DEX: 18
CON: 14
INT: 11
WIS: 10
CHA: 14

I'll post agin soon with the happenings of my party.


Well, one the overly-lame and overly-long opening cutscene finished, I grabbed Jaheira and headed for Jasper St. Baird to warp us out of Jon’s dungeon…leaving Minsc behind to rot. I have the faster ch1&2 cutscenes component, so the new dialog between Immy and Jon was quite funny. It seems, all Jon wanted was for Immy to sign his shirt.

I took a few steps south, and a blurred version of Kivan approached me. The three of us go some gear at the Adventurer’s Mart and headed for the circus tent to get Aerie, some exp points, and a reputation boost. One of the mods obviously made shadows a little tougher, because my PC, Aerie, and Jaheira all got confused. Kivan was able to take care of the shadows while the rest of my party decided to run around like idiots. Anyhoo, that was the hardest time I had completing the quest since the first time I played the game.

I’m pretty much broke at the moment, since I bought a gem bag, a Katana +1, and a bunch of Arrows +2. I pressed my luck, and headed straight for the fight waiting for me at the Den of Seven Vales to get some good loot and some cash…err…I mean gold pieces…and ended up getting my beaten to a bloody pulp. Obviously, my little party isn’t strong enough for that encounter…

So I decided to get some easy exp by clearing out the Copper Coronet. I finally had 5000gp to appease the Cow Wizards, so I ran over to the Government District to pay up so they’ll leave me alone. Along the way, I freed Viccy and accepted the Valygar quest.

And that’s when I decided that it was a good time to quit for now. I need sleep.

[ September 02, 2007, 23:09: Message edited by: Kitrax ]

 

Yes it must be tactics which made shadows cast nasty spells. Beware, all undead will cast annoying spells such as blindness, spook, horror, confusion, and even, Wail of the Banshee. Fun!

Your character is human, I think? What's his alignment? Not good, I think. And one bad news. You may not be able to romance Saerileth with that PC of yours. (if it was your plan, wink wink ) Saerileth is an extremely picky lass who will not fall for guys without at least 16 CHA. Just so you know.

 

Saerileth is very powerful, and would bring in tons of extra xp and good items. however, I don't really like to have her if not romancing her because, personally I don't like her "personal episodes"~~
swashbuckler can be netural good which can romance her; yet, the CHA is not enough.

anyway, this swashbuckler, if human, can dual to fighter later on, would be insanely powerful.

also, sorry if you've already known this, since you get UB, if you didn't ditch Minsc that early (or you just leave him rot), his nice little quest will take care of the cow-wizard business, plus some nice rewards.

 

Well...to clear up a few things.

My intention here wasn't to powergame or whatever. I am not going to romance Saerileth...even though I could (ring of Human Influence). I romanced her the last time I played, so I think I'm going to romance either Jaheira or Aerie. I took Saerileth simply because I wanted a good non-Bioware tank.

Anyhoo... I played for a few hours last night. I got the first part of the harpers quest out of the way. I used the new dialog option to double cross Xar at first, and then double cross the Harpers. Jaheira didn't like that idea and turned hostile. So I reloaded and just double crossed Xar. Kivan had some humorous interjection during the process.

After that, I cleared out the graveyard district which added a new quest to the spider hive area. Apparently the drow chick (Pi'-what's-her-face) isn't all bad. So I decided to help her out for some easy exp points, she *did* make a good case. My good instinct told me to kill her afterwards because she's a drow...but seeing as she's not doing any harm, I let her live.

Since I had to go to the sewers once, I headed back and did the seeing eye quest...and once again got beaten to a bloody pulp by the onslaught of beholders. I had the 'Always toughest spawns in dungeons' *and* 'smarter beholders' installed, so after having to reload twice, I went and spent every last gp on the Shield of Balduran, and then was able to finish that quest.

As of right now, I've done the first part of the cleric stronghold, and I'm about to head back over to the docks to start the shadow thieves’ quests.

 

that ring won't help; actually it will break the romance. CHARNAME needs to have high enough CHA without any item enhancement.