Another run through BG1: suggestions please :-)

Remove all ads!

thanks Bluerose. I'll try that in a few minutes...

a few minutes later...

Thanks again Bluerose, works beautifully. What an elegant solution :-)

I'll update tomorrow.

 

That's Tutu spawning, it's not dependent on difficulty. I like Tutu.

 

IIRC, it's the other way around: in SP, you cannot pause on inventory screen, but in MP you can.

 

Greetings. An update on last night's session:

So my party walks into the mines and right up to Mulahey's front door, no hassle. The confidence was high after waltzing through the minions. Met up with Xan and ridiculed him for getting caught by such a bunch of wimps, then I fought Mulahey...

Before the fight I arranged my party such that my mage was right at the entrance to Mulahey's cavern, with the thief and f/c just in front of him since I vaguely recalled that Mulahey has minions that suddenly spawn after dialog. I placed my main protagonist (MP) near the entrance of Mulahey's little cave and allowed Mulahey to walk over and protest. So I thought my party was just going to pummel this guy, and then...

The minions spawned and the fight began in all earnest. I set my MP on Mulahey, casting sleep on the kobold minions with the mage. This worked well since the sleeping kobolds blocked most of the skeletons, however there was still enough space for them to come through one at a time. Set the thief and f/c with ranged weapons on the skeletons coming through and flanking my MP, then suddenly, my MP is held. Rushing my f/c up to help out the poor bugger, he gets blocked by a skeleton attacking the MP, meanwhile Mulahey is pummeling away. So I cast magic hammer for the f/c and proceed to nail the skeleton, while my MPs hitpoints start to drop. In the meanwhile I let my mage bludgeon sleeping kobolds with his quarterstaff, while the thief was helping the f/c with the skeletons. The blocking skeleton dropped in a heap of bones, so the f/c rushed up to the MP and cast a heal spell. Sent the thief up to Mulahey so long while the healing was on. Got one or two shots in at Mulahey while my MPs hitpoints dropped to about 5! Then suddenly my f/c is held as well. CRUD! I had no other option but to be rude, so I let my mage use the wand of ice and froze Mulahey like a popsickle. He died instantly. But I still had a bunch of skeletons to deal with, using a thief and a mage. The mage ignored the sleeping kobolds and assisted the thief in crushing skeletons. They did quite well. By the time my MP was free from the hold there were only a few kobolds left, which were summarily dispatched. Phew, close one :-).

The party took a well deserved rest in Mulahey's cave. The egos and confidence were bruised but still good. The party left the mines by going the short way, the exit near Mulahey's den. Popped out on the map in the area immediately east of the mines. Wandered which way to go in order to get back to Nashkel, so the party headed west. And two ankhegs pop up. Eish! My party has been avoiding these buggers thus far, and for good reason. Oh well, the fight was on, so went berserk and rushed the MP up to meet them while the rest hung back and used their ranged weapons. My MP took some really nasty hits and crumpled into a sorry mess on the floor. RELOAD! This time the party headed north east instead, only to be intercepted by a party consisting of what looked like two clerics (or druids) and two assassins. The fight didn't last very long since my tactics were not adequate. RELOAD! Well, this time I knew what to expect, and that bunch of tarts fell quickly. I made sure the spellcasters didn't get any spells off by rushing the MP after the one and the f/c after the other, peppering them with ranged weapons from the mage and thief the moment they started waving their fingers around suspiciously. My tactics worked out because the assassins were unlucky enough not to get enough damage in at my MP and f/c before the spellcasters dropped. My party won this fight, but not very convincingly. Egos bruised, confidence in the pits and badly in need of assistance, my party ran like puppies with tails between their legs back to Nashkel.

Once there, the party was ambushed by some dude (Nimbul I think). I thought: Oh crud, no getting out of this one easily. The fight was on since my MP is just way too proud to merely "give in". Nimbul got his mirror image off, so my party was on the back foot. Surrounded him with my party while each member gripped his melee weapon and swashed away at illusory images. When he had two images left he got a fear spell off. Only the thief failed his saving throw, but this was very quickly countered by my f/c casting remove fear. In the meantime my MP got rid of the last image. My party moved in and mercilessly savaged the bugger, and he dropped quickly after that. Stopped in at the mayor, received the reward, went to the store and sold off excess items, crawled off to the inn and got some rest. Sheesh! Getting into and through the mines was a doddle, getting out and back to Nashkel was tense. Fun, fun, fun :-)

My party left Nashkel and went to the area where they exited the mines, clearing the place out without too much hassle, except for an encounter with that mad mage and his green slimes, and of course the two caves in the area. I had to reload twice before I could beat the mage and his slimes. The mage himself wasn't too tough, since I just aimed all ranged weapons at him from the word go. The slimes were the problem. Once the party was in close it was a matter of bludgeoning away, and hoping to get lucky enough not to get hit too many times by the slimes. Of course, this is very difficult when the slimy buggers slow the party. Well, the third time they all dropped. At the first cave my MP refused to hand the dagger over to the Revenant, so a disagreement broke out. The party managed to knock the Revenant back to hell, earning a nice little XP boost in the process. The second cave was tricky. Waltzed in there to find three ghouls. No problem, or so I thought. My MP was quickly held and cursed by the first hit from the ghoul nearest the party. CRUD! Here we go. So I cast web with the mage, using ranged weapons afterwards on the ghoul which attacked the MP. Unfortunately there was always one ghoul that wasn't trapped in the web, so my party peppered anything that moved while staying out of the web. Thankfully the party made it through this battle ok. The area east of Nashkel was now clear.

From there it was back to the mines in order to retrieve the bounty on Prism. Knowing full well that the party would have face Greywolf (I think that's his name) for maximum XP and also a lovely sword, buffing spells were cast pre-dialog. Good thing too. Greywolf didn't go quietly and dished out a right hiding on my MP. Still, the MP survived well enough to be able to say "You should see the other guy!". The party cleared out the rest of this area, running into two winter wolves [easy money when you have the boots of the north :-)] and some ogre berserkers in the process. The ogres dropped easily enough due to good tactics being employed. Back to Nashkel where the bounty was received, the pelts sold and a few weapons bought.

This is where my game is saved at present. Next I think the party should help old Minsc out, since the rewards in XP and items for this quest are pretty good while the battles are not too tough. I'll update either later on or tomorrow again...

 

My favourite is the Wizard with the slimes. What's his name? NARCILLICUS HARWILLIGER NEEN!!!

 

:-) Crazy name, crazy mage, crazy game. My party found itself in Beregost, confronted Mulahey's buddy, obtained 2x ankheg plate mail, and is now hunting ankhegs. Good strategy and armour make it easier to hunt those beasties :-)

 

Well done! With a low-level and/or bruised party I tend to take the chicken s*** route back through the mines instead of that area with ankhegs, crazy mage and mercenaries. There's an easier way to get ankheg mail .

What are the current character levels?

 

After ankheg hunting and finishing quests in the area as well as saving Dynaheir, my party member levels are: berserker lvl 5, fighter/cleric lvl 4/5, thief lvl 6 and mage lvl 5. One more level up and I'm going to dual class the thief.

 

Do you intend to take a NPC thief or just try to get along after dual-classing your thief? You'll need 90,000 xp to get your mage at level 8 and regain thief abilities. It will take a while, unless you're going to rest in monster-infested areas and/or go hunting basilisks and sirines.

 

Just going to try get along without a thief. I may just have to rest in monster infested areas for a boost, as you suggest...

 

There are many areas you can clean up without a thief. But traps are going to be a problem if you go to some other places without one.

 

Here's a thought: let the thief level up to lvl 7. After that just banking XP and not letting him level up until the mage is at lvl 12 or 13. At this point dual class the thief to a mage, then level up about 5 or 6 levels of mage. This way I can limit the time without thieving abilities in the party. Will the game system let me get away with this, or will I be forced to level up?

 

It doesn't work that way unfortunately. If you dual your character without levelling up you'll lose all the extra XP you didn't use. The XP won't get carried over to your Wizard class (your new class always starts with 0 XP).

By the way, XP limits for level ups are not linear, the more you level up, the more XP you need.

 

Black Alaric's cave is a great place to rest, when you don't want to rest. Too bad it has some traps -which is the case in many of the XP yielding areas. I also remember getting a lot of spawning dread wolves at Ulcaster in a Tutu game.

Like Caradhras said, the xp tables don't work that way. Getting your mage from level 7 to 12 would require almost 700,000 xp (basicly not possible even without level cap and content mods). Your dual classed mage would then leap to level 11, almost to 12 - if this idea would be possible, that is .

 

Well, i suppose I can't have my bread buttered on both sides. I'll have to see where this game goes as far as getting help from an NPC is concerned.

---------- Added 2 hours, 59 minutes and 56 seconds later... ----------

My party found itself at the FAI while dropping of samuel's body, so we picked imoen up. Went off to hunt ankheg again. She is now at lvl 4 while the mage/thief is at lvl 4/6. It's really tough when you 'lose' a higher lvl character to dual classing, I hope this pays off :-)

---------- Added 18 hours, 38 minutes and 20 seconds later... ----------

Imoen is now at lvl 6 with 85pts in lock pick and find traps. The mage/thief is now at lvl 5/6. He may just finish ToSC with his thieving abilities yet. All I've been doing lately is clearing areas and avoiding the main quests, since I'm after the XP.

 

Well, I've cleared out most of the maps south of Beregost. The thief/mage is now at lvl 6/6. Only 20k XP to gain and he get's his thieving abilities back...

---------- Added 15 hours, 26 minutes and 37 seconds later... ----------

Booyaaah! The thief/mage is now at lvl 6/7 with all his thieving abilities and use of a bow. NICE!

 

Dual classed characters are fun indeed.

Did you use the Swashie kit for your Thief/Mage?

 

@Caradhras: No, I used the straight thief kit, since I wanted to preserve a backstab multiplier and also to prevent losing points for lock picking and finding traps during level ups. The result is that my lvl 6/7 thief/mage has 100 points in lock pick and finding traps along with a x3 backstab multiplier. It's working out well so far.

Update:

So my party pretty much just waltzed around clearing areas and all areas south of FAI are cleared. Next action on the quest list is to go to Cloakwood. However, I noticed Durlag's tower which I've never been through, so I decided to let the party play around in the tower before moving on to Cloakwood. Wow! I really didn't know that the tower is so harsh. What a place. It feels as though the party is low-level again :-). So far I've cleared out the first level and it looks as though there is plenty XP to be gained in the tower. This is challenging and lots of fun. I'm happy that I decided to tackle the tower after my thief/mage had regained his thieving abilities. Even my berserker is being stretched to the limits of his superhuman abilities. Toughest battles thus far have been with doom knights and skeleton warriors. There's also a potent trap waiting every few steps and around every corner. What's promising is that my berserker has gained full plate armour +3! I can't wait to find more magical items in the tower since it looks as though there are some really interesting ones to be found. Wish my party luck, for tonight it's up to the next level of the tower of Durlag the demented...

 

Durlag's tower is a lot of fun indeed. Magic items and spells help a lot. I actually like the higher levels but I find the lower levels to be a real pain at times (especially when you've already reached the level cap -you can only unlock the lower levels by going to Ulgoth's Beard first btw).

I understand that you want to retain the backstab bonus, in that case Invisibility can be a really good option to get more backstabs in a fight (especially if hide is rather low).

Swashbucklers don't get a penalty regarding thieving % per level though.

 

To the OP, just curious, but are you planning on using the Tomes (stat increases)?