How many times have you played SOA? What class?

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Three years on and BG2 is still my favourite game. I've played it more times almost than I can remember and I'm about to play it again. How many times have you people played the game, and what classes? What were your experiences?

These are the games I've played:

• Played a party of six self-created characters (Undead Hunter, Inquisitor, Archer, others). I felt like I was missing out on too much and so I restarted.
• Played as a Swashbuckler. The class wasn't as powerful as it looked on paper - not as effective as a fighter-thief. Thief stronghold quite disappointing. This was the only time I played with Edwin in the party and he was hilarious. I've always wanted to take him along since but he never quite fitted in. Maybe next time. Reached chapter 6 and didn't feel brave enough to take on Bodhi. Restarted.
• Played as an Avenger Druid (female). This class was a lot of fun - characterful and nicely balanced. I particularly enjoyed webbing opponents, shape shifting to a sword spider and then taking them on hand to hand. This was the only time that I took Anomen along for any amount of time. I was repelled when he started coming on to me and kicked him out when he murdered Saerk's daughter. I've never taken him along since. Druid stronghold quite good but an absolute pain to reach. I always led from the front and ended up with about 10% of total experience which was not bad for a druid.
• Tried a kensai specializing in - yawn! - katanas. Gave up on my way to take out the slave lords.
• Played as a sorcerer. Possibly a little too powerful but great fun to play. Walking around the Spellhold maze casting death spell after death spell at all the umber hulks, trolls, yuan ti and minotaurs was an absolute hoot. Mage stronghold slightly disappointing - all my apprentices died trying to make a Staff of Power for Imoen and I felt absolutely awful about it.
• Played as a cleric-ranger. Very powerful class and quite good fun. Ranger stronghold very good but bugged - I lost it after completing the second ranger quest as the game engine didn't register the quest's completion for some reason. Shame.
• Played solo as a monk. Very weak to start with - I was chased all over Waukeen's Promenade by Mencar Pebblecrusher - but quickly became more powerful. Eventually I was able to take on anything mano a mano and win easily. I don't think it would have been possible without the Amulet of Power - apparently it's a bug that monks can wear it. Not too much fun - I felt a heel telling Imoen, Minsc and Jaheira where to go and I missed out on the party interaction that makes the game so immersive.
• Played as a fighter-thief using a character that I'd played all the way through BG1. I grew very attached to him. Fighter stronghold was rubbish - nothing happens for weeks and weeks. I don't think that you could complete all the associated quests within a reasonable amount of game time. I never quite made to the end of the game with this character, unfortunately.
• Last time through I played as a cavalier paladin. I decided that the cavalier's advantages just outweighed those of the other paladin kits. It felt good to be a holy warrior and I did no base deeds. Hey, I didn't even take out Mencar Pebblcrusher and co. I enjoyed the paladin stronghold quests but I wasn't able to rest at the Order. I got Carsomyr and I never used it! I used Celestial Fury instead. Also, I finally completed a romance with Jaheira. Total let-down - I don't think that I'll bother again. Also, this was the first time that I took Haer'dalis along and he was totally cool! I'll use him again.

There are still some things that I've never done. I've never taken most of the evil paths in the game and I've never aligned myself with Bodhi against the Shadow Thieves. Also, I've never taken Korgan along - somehow there's never been a place for him. I had Aerie - ONCE! - for about two game days and I found her even less likeable than Anomen so never again. All the times I've played I've never managed to reach the conclusion of Jaheira's Harper quest. Has anybody? Finally, something I've noticed is that no matter what class I play, Minsc always manages to get the highest kill total. Weird.

I'm just about to play the game again and I'm not sure what to play. I'd like to give the Archer a go. Are they as powerful as they look on paper? Also, I wouldn't mind playing a Shapeshifter - the druid was the most enjoyable character that I played. I'd really like to play a bard, mainly for the stronghold. Cleric of Helm looks interesting too. What do people think (other than that I should try playing another game for a change)?

 

Yeah Minsc got my highest kill total also! Alot was due to the fact that, around the first few quests of the game, my pally was using Sarevok's sword before I had assigned proficiency points to a Two-Handed-Sword. Once I got p-points and was using longswords before that, my kills from then on were as good as Minscs.

I've only played it once through, and I just finished it on Saturday. Just loaded ToB today!

I'm using my favourite class, Paladin.

In a couple months, I plan on restarting this game, maybe be an undead hunter or a wizard slayer. Yeah this game rocks!

I wish when I purchase NeverWinter Nights, that I can find a way to import Minsc, Jaheira, Aarie, Anomen, Imoen, Valygar and Nalia into it! That would rock so hard! Get my crew from BG2 into NWN and make my own adventures! Or get other peoples adventures from here and use the BG2 people to fight and win!

The characters in BG2 are a big part in why this game is so rockin!

 

I've lost count of the number of times I've played through BG2.

I shall try to list my PCs then:

Shura, Lawful Neutral Kensai dualwielding katanas. Not terribly effective since it was my first time through. Brought along Minsc, Jaheira, Yoshimio(Imoen), Viconia and Nalia. Romanced Viconia and told Jaheira to shut the hell up. I beat SOA and then saved the game. An awesome experience.

Azena Zanken, Lawful Evil Kensai/Mage dualclass. Virtually invincible and took out Dragons, Liches and Irenicus by himself. Brought along Edwin, Haer Dalis, Viconia, Yoshimio and Korgan. A bit too easy actually. I beat the game too quickly to get any romancing done.

Cassorn, Lawful Good Paladin (Yes! I beat the game with a paladin! ) With Carsomyr, the game became so easy it was ridiculous. That item is overpowered. I simply breezed through this game because I wanted to see the 'good' path of BG2. Along the way, I sent Aerie buck naked into a horde of gnolls. I guess they had their fun...

Rasveltor, Chaotic Evil Sorcerer. Ah. This was fun. I brought along only Yoshimio and Viconia for healing. Early in the game, I had Korgan tank for a while. Wiped out Cowled Wizards, along with half of Waukeen's Promenade in a spell battle...


I can't tell you much about the rest, 'cos they don't belong in this forum (hint, expansion of BG2).

I hate to break this to you, Neeraj but you can't import your character to NWN. NWN is also a single character game, meaning you only control your PC and have one henchman that is AI controlled. It's still a great game, though just not as good as BG2.

 

My first time through was with my monk, with Keldorn, Valygar, Edwin, Aerie and Jan(Imoen).

Second time with a kensai/thief with Jaheira, Minsc, Viconia, Edwin and Jan(Imoen)

My third time is with a solo sorcereress(not done yet, but it is being worked on)

 

I started a separate game for each stronghold, plus an extra one to get all of the romances, kits, and NPCs in.

Good NPC party: Imowen, neutral good male helafling swashbuckler, with Keldorn, Valygar, Anomen, Nalia, and Aerie.

Neutral NPC party: Zap Branigan, true neutral male elven fighter (grand master of both longsword and longbow), with Jaheira, Cernd, Haer, Yoshimo/Imoen, and Jan.

Evil NPC party: Voltaire, neutral evil male half-elven bard, with Sarevok, Korgan, Viconia, and Edwin. Also added Hobbes, a neutral evil male halfling thief, and Koveras, a clone of Sarevok standing in until I can get the real deal. Sided with Bodhi!

Another good NPC party: Neomi, neutral good female human priestess//thief, Minsc, Mazzy, Anomen, Yoshimo/Imoen, and Nalia. Once a month, we have to take about five days in a row off....

Good MP party: Austin Powers, neutral good male half-elven Skald, with Ajantis the Cavalier, Kivan the Archer, Yeslick the Priest of Lathander, Alora the rogue, and Dynaheir the gnomish Illusionist.

Neutral MP party: Susan Ivanova, true neutral female half-elven Avenger, with Khalid the dwarven Kensai, Jaheira the elven Wizard Slayer, Garrick the Bard, Safana the halfling rogue, and Xan the gnomish Illusionist.

Evil MP party: Doctor Evil, neutral evil male gnome illusionist (likes to call his simulacrum "Mini-Me"), with Kagain the fighter, Sharteel the elven fighter, Viconia the human Priestess of Talos, Eldoth the half-elven Jester, and Montaron the Assassin. Sided with Bodhi!

Dual-classed MP party: Disturbingthe, neutral good male human ranger//priest, Jar Jar Binks, male half-orc barbarian, Tocatcha, male human fighter//rogue, Michael Nesmith, male human monk, Ittakesa, male human fighter//mage, and Padme, female half-elven sorceress. Talk about powergaming!

Unused kits MP party: Dio, true neutral human male priest//mage, Ash, lawful good male human Undead Hunter, Bruce, chaotic good male half-elven Beast Master, Eriel, true neutral female half-elven Totemic Druid, Calvin, chaotic evil male halfling rogue, and Annica, lawful evil female half-elven wild mage. Not as much of a powergamer group as above, but second to none other.

Shadowkeeper party: Scotty, lawful good male half-orc fighter/priest, Jar Jar Binks, Anomen, Yoshimo/Imoen, Nova, female half-elven rogue/mage, and Padme. I used Shadowkeeper to turn Scotty into as paladin after we did all of the other stronghold quests so he could get paladin stronghold. He's an attempt to enjoy an old PnP character that was a favorite of mine in college. This is probably my third toughest group.

But one misses so much without the NPCs or the romances....

 

Holy mother of whatever... You have good memory, I give you that.

I remember my first game, I played a Cavalier and had Minsc, Jaheira, Aerie, Imoen and... can´t remember my last companion.

But that is the only of my parties I remeber.
I have completed BG2 around 60 times or so atleast though. And I´ve tried every class atleast once.

 

I've played through with Rand, an elven Fighter/Mage and finished the game on my first try.

Then I tried with Elayne,an elven sorceress but I gave up around Spellhold, coz I wasnt very good with magic, etc etc, having never played D&D earlier...though I'm a huge fan now.

I finished the game my second time with Mat, an elven mage/thief... I shadowkeeper'd him to make him a mage/assassin... and he was the most FUN class I've played with.

And you might have noticed, I love roleplaying characters from Robert Jordan's most excellent Wheel of Time series.

And a problem I'm facing lately...I cant seem to be able to play the game without a class which uses magic somehow...either a mage, or a mage/**** multiclass, or a sorc, or a bard kit...etc etc etc.

I've tried playing the game through with almost all the other classes but eventually gave up either by the end of Chateau Irenicus, or at the most by the time I was mid way through Chapter 2. Just can't seem to stick to a class...

Trying to play through the game with a Halfling Assassin this time... but if anyone else had interesting suggestions for classes to play, please do let me know.

 

My first class was a Necromancer. Followed by an Enchanter and Sorcerer (not necessarily in that order). But those early games I messed up for good. Didnt know enough about SoA.

With a Priest of Talos (halfelf) I played through the entire game for the first time. Still wonder just how I did it for I knew *so* little about it all back then. I guess it were the Skeleton Warriors and Minsc/Korgan that made it possible. Edwin, Viconia and Imoen were part of that, too.

It was with a plain bard that I learned the ropes. Proper use of spells, weapons, the importance of good stats and such. Ever since I am a fan of that particular class.
And only a bard kit (a Jester named Phonos) was interesting enough to play through SoA and then complete ToB - all the other games (e.g. Necro, Monk, Assassin) I dumped somewhere in between. Even the Avenger, my second favorite kit, didnt hold my attention long enough to finish ToB.

I think I defeated Irenicus in hell six to eight times. And with one exception it were druid and bard kits.

 

I have no idea. I got the game in early 2002, so I've been playing for a little less than two years. I think probably upwards of 30 times. I played BG1 about 100 times though. I mostly played BG2 with a fighter/mage or mage or fighter (but every other class too).

 

Like most here, I've played more times than I can remember. Some of the ones that I enjoyed the most are:

Neutral Good Sorceress (Xiana) -- this was the first PC I played because I wanted to see how the sorceress differed from a plain mage. In spite of poor spell selection (at the time, I didn't know sorcerers couldn't scribe new spells), I managed to finish SoA. I screwed up the Anomen romance and was floored with Yoshimo (hint: Spellhold). That was a huge surprise to me. Minsc, Jaheira and Aerie were along for the ride.

Neutral Good 1/2 elven archer (Sun'Rae) -- I love rangers and archers, so thought this would be fun too. It was during this game I came to appreciate Called Shot. As I recall, I tried to romance Aerie, but her continual whining must have gotten the best of me as I don't believe I completed the romance. Anomen, Minsc, and Jaheira were along for the ride again as was Viconia. It was here that I discovered that party members will leave the group if reputation went too high. It was a sad moment, but a valuable lesson.

True Neutral 1/2 elven fighter/druid (Elrin) -- I had heard so much about Jaheira's romance (plus had seen her in action) that I thought it only appropriate to not only try one out, but to romance her as well. In spite of all the romance bugs, her's was one of the best romances (if not the best) in the game. This was also the first time that I kept Nalia in my group and scaled back the number of my group (5 instead of 6). Minsc, Anomen, and Haer'Dalis rounded out the group. For a long time after this, Haer'Dalis was a regular member of my group.

Lawful Good Female Paladin (Haruka) -- I was out to rid the world of anything remotely evil with this one. Didn't screw up Anomen's romance this time and it was this game that I really started to understand why Anomen was such a pain. It was almost heart-wretching. It was also this game that I realized just how powerful he becomes. This game also demonstrated just how useful Nalia really is as a mage. Jaheira and Minsc were, as always, a tremendous help.

Lawful Good Male Paladin (En'Dymion - undead hunter) -- here is where I started to tweak some of the game's restrictions. In doing so, Anomen was successfully romanced. I have to admit, though, that Anomen referring to me as "my lady" on occasion was funny. This was one of the few games, as I recall, that I did not include Minsc in the party and replaced him with Jan as I thought the party was too heavy in fighters and Nalia, good as she is, was having diffuclty keeping up with spell support. Jaheira was, again, also faithfully by my side.

There are many many more, but these are some of the ones that I enjoyed the most. Right now, I'm running a chaotic good ranger/cleric and romancing Viconia (again).

 

How do you remeber all of this???
I do remember my first time through, I used a chaotic good Invoker and gave up right next to the Spectator (you know the one )
The class I've played the most is the Sorcerer. I can't remeber the amount of times I've finished the game with one.
My favourite was my Lawful Good Sorcerer (Malovae). From what I remember, he romanced Jaheira and I took Minsc and Keldorn with me... there would have been others but I can't remember

 

Up until I downloaded the patch, I could never complete the harper quest. You shouldn't rush it either and like anything, there are certain events that must occur in order for it to progress. To me if you aren't romancing Jaheira, the quest is somewhat lackluster. It doesn't seem to hold the same significance as it does when you romance Jaheira. Hard to explain.

And the URL for the patch escapes me at the moment. You can do a search of the boards to find it.

 

First time - Priest of Lathander, completed the game, enjoyed immensely. I was hooked.

Second - Same priest. Had slightly less fun. Half way through, destroyed my hard drive (accidentally). Cleric lost.

Third - Cavalier, rejoiced. My perfect class.

Fourth - Same cavalier.

Fifth - Assassin. Got bored mid-chapter 2.

Sixth - Cavalier again.

Seventh - Skald. Got bored.

Eighth - a Stumpy Berserker. He stank, so I gave up.

Nineth - Three solid days playing through over a LAN with the Cavalier.

Tenth - Attempted a mage for the first time. Made a totally magical party. Was incapable of using magic offensively - still used one warrior, backed up with breaches for mages. Didn't last long.

It goes on. About half of my attempts were using my cavalier, with huge amounts of mods installed, and so I'd play until either a new version of Big Picture came out, I found a crippling bug, or I got bored. Now I usually get midway through chapter three before giving up. I start about once a fortnight.

 

Cavalier isn't the perfect paladin. Iquisitor is! Dispel magic at the bat of an eye (at double his level no doubt!). True Seeing whenever you want. Right on. Paladin's are weak anyway. A nice fighter/cleric are Ranger/cleric is way stronger (not to mention more suited to you, roleplaying wise).

My very first character was a Barbarian with wicked-ass stats. (I think a total of about 92ish.) My favorite PC of all time was a Kensai/Thief that I played with Nalia, Haer'Dalis, Cernd, Mazzy and Minsc.

The worst char I played was a Swashbuckler/Mage named Denethor. I played him like a fighter/mage (which is much stronger). I dualled him at level 12, so he didn't have any of the cool thief abilities like Traps or Detect Illusions. Sometime I'm going to solo a Swash/mage, but dual him at level 16 or something. Maybe I'll use Shadowkeeper to see what he'd be like.

 

@ Shura.


Snap I didn't know that. I thought you can have a whole party. No worries, Bioware always seems to make ridiculously awsome games (though I've only researched the BG, IWD and NWN series').

Thanks alot for the info though!

 

Played BG2 too many times, played every class for a little while. Did TDD (The Darkest Day) Beat the game 3 times with characters I enjoyed. 1st time thru Sorcerer. 2nd Human Fighter(lol my average Joe) 3rd time Dwarven Cleric (my bad ass Priest of Helm) Beat it Multiple times on multiplayer. Archer is a great class. Had one archer take down a pack of umberhulks, each hit doing 21 damage. Haste him. Its all over.

-Lok
"In the darkness drow see clearly"

 

i have had Baldur's Gate II:Shadows of Amn for about 4 years
i have beaten 1 or 2 every year
every time i am either an elven sorcerer
an elf ranger dual weilding magical scimiters(to all Drizzt fans, they are NOT frostband and twinkle )
so i have beaten it about 6 or 7 times so far
and it is still my favorite game by far
Baldur's GateII:Shadows of Amn RULES!!!
SP RULES!!

 

I've just been through again. I tried an Archer character and I wasn't too impressed. I like to lead from the front and the Archer kit isn't good for that - I was getting meleed all the time (excellent stats roll, BTW: 94).

Then I created, I think, the most powerful character I've ever had: a kensai / cleric dualled at 9th level. With grand mastery in quarterstaves (it seemed culturally appropriate), I wielded the Staff of Rhynn +4 throughout almost the entire game. Some of the cleric spells made her supremely powerful: Barkskin for a low armour class (it soon became better than the Amulet of the Shield), Righteous Magic for high strength, extra HP and maximum damage and Draw Upon Holy Might for more of everything: STR 25 (Crom Faeyr? Who needs it?), DEX 23, CON 23, maximum damage. Next comes Protection From Evil 10' Radius which benefits everybody quite nicely. The undead turning is pretty useful as well: eventually you can make vampires explode. Aerial Servant is the best summoning spell: those creatures are hard as nails.

Two firsts in this game: I finally got to the conclusion of the Harpers' Quest (probably because of the Baldurdash fixpack) - somewhat lame ending but a very nice amulet, thank you. Also, I finally got a higher kill total than Minsc - 31% of the total vs. 22%. The cleric stronghold (Temple of Helm) was pretty lame.

I'm inclined to try a kensai / druid next - imagine yourself as one of nature's true elite (and Faldorn won't know what's hit her when you get stuck in with the quarterstaff). The buff spells aren't as good, with only Barkskin available of the ones I listed above, but the weapon selection is MUCH better - I'd love to wield the Spear of Impaling. Ironskins is a supremely good spell for those inclined towards combat. I'm probably going to have to play through BG1 to get the required WIS 17, CHA 17, however.