BG II - newbie thoughts

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1) As you've probably realized, there isn't really any time constraint to when you rescue Imoen, so you can spend practically as much time bumming around Amn as you'd like; 2) You'll also have the opportunity to do quests again after you've gone looking for Imoen (though this may bother you from an RP/urgency perspective); and 3) the title "Shadows of Amn" is rather funny in Turkish.

 

Cool - we're back down in the sewers after sorting out Keldorn's lovelife. But we had a heck of a fight at this guarded building just above the sewers which was full of all sorts of crazy monsters. Had to reload a million times but came away in the end with stackloads of treasure to flog off.

Down in the sewers, I'm finding that Minsc, Keldorn, and Arya are now awesome melee fighters, especially now that Arya has this cool +3 katana that sometimes does massive damage. She has 0 ThAC0 now. I've also discovered that Minsc is not a bad archer and I've started using him as a disruptor of enemy wizards.

And finally, when I heard that this quest was called "The Unseeing EYE" I was worried that it was going to involve my most feared monster type. Turns out I was right. Time to warm up my Reload finger because it'll take me ages to work out how to fight it (them).

 

So you have found the Celestial Fury now, arguably the best weapon in the game. It is not the damage you should be impressed with, it is the stun ability. A stunned enemy do not strike back.

 

Yeah, that weapon rocks.

Now we seem to have found the two bits required to complete the Unseeing Eye quest and have joined them together but can't seem to find the actual Unseeing Eye itself. We've wandered all around the pit but can't find anything other than some respawning Gauths. Not sure what to do now because we're pretty much stuck if we can't find this damned Eye.

(Note: we did see the Eye once actually after we assembled the thing. The Eye killed us so we reloaded, re-assembled the thing, but he has never shown up again)

 

That sounds like a bug, harbourboy. After you find the second piece and put it together, he should come for you right away. You walk out of that little side room and boom, he's right there.

 

Ah, rude. I'll go back to an earlier save and do that whole map again and see if it works.

 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I hope you are a multiple save maniac (or that you didn't save over your autosave).

 

It won't be that bad because, although it took me AGES to fight the beholders first time around, I will be better prepared this time with the right spells etc so it won't take as long (so long as that damned Eye shows up this time).

Plus it will give me a chance to earn the XP on this level in the right order because I'm planning to dual class Arya to a Thief when she hits 12th level and I don't want to waste any of her XP past 1,000,000. Those 9000xp gauths are just right for inching her to 1,000,000 then dualling before getting any large quest XP.

Arya is dualling to thief because from a role-playing point of view her preferred combat style is more likely to be that of a silent assassin. I'll put all her points into stealth initially so that when she gets her Kensai skills back she should be an awesome backstabber. She is loosely based on a combination of Arya Stark and The Bride and for those of you have read Martin's books you'll remember that Arya did get some special training in stealth as a girl so this fits in nicely. Plus I just think stealth is a pretty sensible way of exploring potentially hostile territory when you have no idea what's around the next corner.......at the moment they just charge around the place and invariably get surprised and killed (e.g. by a Beholder).

 

I've always found it kind of strange that you can hide from beholders, and that you can use invisibility against them. Seems like one of those monsters that should be able to spot just about anything, for pretty obvious reasons.

Have fun fighting the beholders all over again.

 

Don't you hate it when you forget to save or something and you need to do a hard bit of a game (which may have taken 10+gos first time around) AGAIN?! It really annoys me. (Doom 3, Alpha Labs 2 end room) Oh well, it happens.

 

Why not dual at lvl 13 for the extra 1/2 attack?

The thing I hate about dualing is waiting around for 1mil+ exp with a gimped character with lousy THAC0 and no skills, who hides in the back row plucking a shortbow while all the other NPCs get the glory. But hey: that could also be a Tarantino-inspired character! SK her paperdoll to a thief with a hoodie so you can't see her face, change all her colors to black, and call her "the Gimp!" Anomen can hold the chain. But you're right: she will be very powerful once she gets her levels back.

 

Yep, I hate the wait too. And that is the most important reason I would give for dualling as early as possible. True, you get an extra half attack, but you wait all that time to gain enough experience for levels 10-14 (which is extra) to get the attack?

I say dual class early.

 

Well, she dual classed at 12 because:
a) that was when I got the idea
b) she got an extra * on her katana proficiency
c) 13 levels of Thief is considerably less XP to wait than 14.

Dualling to thief is cool because Thieves level up so fast it won't be too long to wait. We've now finished the Unseeing Eye and she's already at Kensai 12 / Thief 8 (that quest has STACKS of XP). At level 9 she'll have enough thief skills for us to finally get rid of Jan Janssen - at which point we'll probably ask Nalia to re-join. That'll probably be the line-up at least until we find Imoen again.

The Unseeing Eye seemed to take so long that we've forgotten what it's like above ground. We'll go and sell all our loot and then decide what we should do next.

 

Sounds like you've got a good juggling act going on. Nicely orchestrated, but let me defend one thing about Jan. He comes out of the box with a great detect illusions skill, which destroys any and all illusion spells and skills in the game (and ignores spell immunity: divination). This may not be a great help to you, but it is absolutely awesome against advanced AI spellcasters (like Tactics). Something to keep in mind if you ever play through with mods.

 

Oh yeah, Jan is a pretty useful character (I actually find his magic crossbow bolts to be very effective) but I think I'm going to need the very best good-aligned arcane spellcaster I can find as the game wears on so that'll mean Nalia and/or Imoen so as we're not going to keep Jan long term we'd better sort out his exit strategy sooner rather than later.

Also, I think Nalia still has an unresolved quest so we'd like to help her sort that out.

 

Sounds like your right in the middle of things just like most of us were. You will find that if you wait to get Imoen and get all the xp out of the side quests it will be worth it in the future. Plus there are some fights coming up where your three tanks up front are probably gonna get chewed up a bit, so keep that quicksave happenin.

 

So, where to now? (fearless leader)

 

@Eric Xanthus
You are right, but as the char is a dual thief it won't take long to build up their own det illusion and you soon get to 100+ in all thief skills. Note I often relieve Jan of his clothes and put them somewhere I can get to later, before getting rid of him, if I've got a thief char... you never know when they may come in handy

 

Aren't Jan's clothes only wearable by him?

I think its time you went away from Athkathla for a while.

 

Even if they are usable only by Jan, UAI will fix that some day. I'm just not sure you'll *want* to wear his stuff once your level is that high.