BG II - newbie thoughts

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This is great stuff to read.

I'm assuming your PC is Human (I don't think you've mentioned this)?

 

@HB, if you haven't already, I would give the thief the 20 grand or so. then go to the graveyard and investigate. Alot of XP and some treasure to boot. there are also some more quest in here. I agree with joacqin, there are so many quests at once that it can get very hectic and confusing. Stick with one maybe 2 at a time.

 

I'm actually supposed to be Neutral Good. Yes, and human. Generally a good party, except for that brief period with Viconia on board.

 

Harbourboy, what else do you do with human skin? You wear it, of course! Haven't any of you seen the contemporary H.P. Lovecraft rip of Dagon?

 

I am going to spoil HB here, you all have to forgive me. Reijek Hidesman, the bridge killer can be dealt with in Trademeet. No rush though.

 

Recommendation from me:

Go for a stroll into the Temple District for a healing. You may find something to do there.

 

Boo on you, joacquin. HB would have found his way there eventually. These hints are turning into a feeding frenzy of proxy play.

 

Well...that's because we're all taking a personal interest because of HB being a BG2 virgin.

Go on. Admit it. You know you wanna too.

 

Its true, faraaz. We are almost living someone elses life...

Mind you, i'm going to go all the way through ToB for the first time soon...but from what i've seen so far, its all linear *sniff*.

 

We've just been to the graveyard for the funeral but not much seemed to happen so we left and headed back to finish off dealing with those slaves. I like quests like that where everybody gets the quest XP, rather than having to share it around. Arya has now reached level 11 and our reputation is now up to 14.

Our list of open quests is now much shorter and looks more manageable. What to do now? Wel, I guess it must be time to go and find Jaheira.......

Side question: what is that lethal green goop that sometimes falls on you when you trigger a trap?

 

I used to know...but I can't think of what it is right off hand. Nasty little trap though. IRC it not only does a lot of damage, but it also holds you if you fail to make the saving throw.

 

I believe it's "green slime," like when you say "I don't know" on the show "You Can't Do That On Television."

 

I'm not exactly sure what it is, but at the very least it holds you. And yeah, there is something fun in this vicarious BG2 experience...but BOOOO for excessive hinting.

 

We've finally gone to pick up Jaheira but immediately wished that we hadn't because we got fried by some whacko Harpers. It took about half a dozen castings of Power Word: Reload before we got past that encounter. Even with both Nalia and Jan on board we still struggled to deal with those enemy spellcasters who cheat by casting every protection spell in the world instantaneously. We eventually only got through because Arya used that elemental ring to charm the Earth Elemental they summoned and get him to work for us.

Now I'm not sure if I finished that encounter properly because nothing seemed to happen afterwards (no XP, no dialogue from Jaheira thanking us etc). Also, I don't think the Janssen quest ended properly either because it is still showing up as an uncompleted quest in my journal.

Anyway, no sooner did we get Jaheira back when Nalia got swiped by some loser. Now I guess we'd better go after HER, I suppose. Does this Chapter ever end? How many chapters are there anyway?

 

You can make that chapter end whenever you want by giving the thieves your payment for their help. It's as long as you want it to be.

(You are in chapter 2, right?)

 

There are 6 chapters, Harbourboy.
Like Xanthus said you can finish this one in case you have enough gold... oh, and you dont need to go to the thief - there is another option open to you. Its waiting for you among the dead.
The unfinished quests will all still be there for you to solve, no matter if you move on to the next chapter. I would recommend some more xp-hunt though.

 

Righto. Plus I think there are 4 NPCs left that I haven't met yet (I've avoided walkthroughs but I have seen a list of NPCs). I think I have so far not encountered the wizard, the paladin, the bard, and the druid. If I don't meet them soon, they'll be out of luck because I'll probably end up sticking with the guys who have already been out earning XP (mainly Anomen and Minsc).

 

Well, IIRC NPC levels are dependant to some extent on your XP when you meet them. Then again, they still do tend to lag behind your most used characters, and after a while, you get so tired of shuffling your inventory around that it seems like a pain to kick out an NPC who has a working kit of gear for someone carrying almost nothing.

I still wonder why your Anomen subquest hasn't started.

 

In my most current run I had quite a wide XP gap in the beginning but it evens out quite soon. A 100.000xp difference might seem like a lot at first but after a while it will only be half a level and later not even that. Go for the NPCs you like and not for how much XP they happen to have.

 

This game continues to roll on. I got sent on some mission to find a parent for a kid so we went wandering all over the show trying to find someone (still haven't). But in the process we did finally meet the much vaunted Keldorn who has joined the party and also the strange Haer Dalis (who also joined but has subsequently vanished somewhere).

So the current team is now: Arya (approx 900k xp), Minsc, Keldorn, Anomen, and Jan. So what happened to Jaheira? Well, she got miffed when I subbed her off and appears to have stormed off forever. Oh well.

Having three tanks up front is awesome because those three alone seem to be able to carve up anything (especially now that Minsc has abandoned dual wielding hammers and is using a crazy talking sword to match his own crazy personality)

Anomen and Jan are hardly doing anything at the moment although Anomen has been having a few family issues lately. Actually, so has Keldorn - which is where we currently are: off to go and deal with that.

After that, there still seem to be a million quests to do but I'm beginning to wonder if we shouldn't go and rescue Imoen soon, seeing as that is what our main aim is supposed to be. We've easily got enough cash. Oh well, we'll see.