Newbie Questions

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I've got some basic newbie questions.

I've started playing the game as a Swashbuckler. I've finished Irenicus's place, and moved into chapter 2. After freeing Hendak, I'm moving into the sewers. My party consists of Minsc, Jaheira, Yoshimo and Aerie.

I find that I'm getting beat up after just about every fight. I tend to be a charge right in type of guy. The first fight in the sewers, we were wiped out by a small group of hobgoblins (mainly because they held my main four, leaving only Aerie plinking away with her sling). Do most people rest after every fight? Usually, it takes me 16 hours to rest and heal back up to full. Is there any time limit on the game, or is it okay to spend days like this?

Who should I look to include in my party? I want to stay with good characters, so I don't plan to take Korgan except for his quest. I can probably dump Yoshimo, since I'm a thief. I already told Nalia that I didn't want her to join and to meet me later. I'd appreciate any suggestions about who to have join me.

Is it necessary to use lots of spells and strategy to succeed at this game, or can the old hack and slash method prevail? Would I be better off restarting as a barbarian? The main reason I chose a thief type is because I wanted to be able to find traps with my main guy.

Thanks for your help.

 

Well, I'm not much more advanced than you (still haven't completed the whole thing), but here're some thoughts:

The hack and slash method will only work in some battles, and those numbers shrink as you get higher in level. You'll hit plenty of magic users with hold/confusion/maze spells, so you have to learn to cope with those. You have enough good magic users (Aerie, Jan, and Jaheira are the best) to be able to keep your party good. Learn how to use their spells dispel magic, remove magic, miscast magic, breach, and other spells to remove protections from mages. There are also items and spells in the game that protect you from being held or charmed.

As far as resting, it's ok to rest after large battles. Just find a safe place to do it in (if you can't find an inn, find a room with a door you can close) or you'll likely end up waking up with a spear in your ribs.

Using a thief as your main character isn't bad, but there are plenty of people (Imoen, Jan, Yoshimo, Nalia) who can detect traps for you. So just play what you want to play.

 

What I do is to form a party into formation with fighters in front and magic users in back, send a quick character into the nearest occupied room, and lead monsters to your formation. Mages and Clerics can negatively enchant and hurt the monsters or enchant your fighters before the monsters close the distance. Charging in, I nearly always get my sh*t kicked.

 

It depends on the level of your party. You will have to learn how to assess a situation as soon as you get enemies in sight. By assess I mean you have to figure out which party member is best suited for which enemy/enemies. I, too, put fighters in front and clerics/mages in back. As far as having Aerie simply using her sling, I believe she would be more of a commodity if you have her learn more healing spells and offensive clerical and mage spells. One cast of Holy Smite can do a world of damage to some Hobgoblins when used at the right time. Jaheira also has many priest spells she can memorize. The more healing spells you have memorized the less time it will take to heal your party. "Always proceed with caution"

 

When facing a pack of hobgoblins, the first thing that you want to do is killing the shamans. So use yer main attacks on the shamans first of all... And that´s my
tip o´the day.

 

Play your characters to their strengths. Make use of Minsc as your hack n' slash man. Consider Valygar, Anomen, Keldorn, or even Cernd to have a place in your party as a fighter companion alongside Minsc. Jaheira can play it both ways, with the right equipment and the right playing style you can turn her into a lean-mean fighting machine but she can also heal and casts some other druid spells (i.e. entangle, call lightning, resist fire/cold, insect plague, etc.) Yoshimo the bounty hunter=>hide in shadows, traps, backstab. Aerie can give you a mix of cleric and mage spells, as you play on you will get a feel for when to have her cast something and when it is best for her to sling or staff it (or even turn undead ), and this depends on how often your rest (to heal and rememorize spells)
Oh my here I was mentioning fighters that could be in your good party and I didn't mention Mazzy. Don't forget her. Play your characters this way and you get the best of all worlds=> hack n' slash, strategy, spells, mop it up.

[This message has been edited by Big B (edited August 21, 2001).]

 

* Party composition *

If you like to "charge right in" your current party is not at all good.

Do not be fooled by the Swashbuckler abilities, this does not make you even close to as good as a multiclass Fighter/Thief. You are still a thief and only mages are worse in melee than a thief!

Both your protagonist and Yoshimo are thieves and you can not rely on them in melee. You can set traps, provide missile support and at least Yoshimo can backstab. IMO a Swashbuckler who doesn't dual class is a very weak character.
Aerie is obviously never meant to be in melee.
Jaheira is only ok in melee if you improve her strength!
This leaves you with pretty much only one "tank", albeit a good one: Minsc.

Who to include?
Keldorn is the most natural choice and you can pick him up right away.
Valygar or Mazzy are other good choices.


* Spells and strategy *

Yes, you need to develop a style which includes spells in battle. The less fighter type characters you have the more important this is.

Here are a couple of low to mid level spells. Start using as many of these as possible:
Hold Person (Cleric - level 2)
Chant (Cleric - level 2)
Negative Plane Protection (Cleric - level 4) - Helps when fighting vampires!
Protection from Evil 10' Radius (Cleric - level 4)
Chaotic Commands (Cleric - level 5)
True Seeing (Cleric - level 5) - Helps both against mages and backstabbing thieves!

Insect Plague (Druid - level 5) - This spell is excellent against mages!

Magic Missile (Mage - level 1)
Horror (Mage - level 2)
Web (Mage - level 2)
Fireball (Mage - level 3)
Haste (Mage - level 3)
Stone Skin (Mage - level 4) - Protect your mage!
Chaos (Mage - level 5)
Breach (Mage - level 5) - When you can't hit enemy mages this will help you!


* Resting *

I rest whenever I feel I need to rememorize spells or when someone is fatigued. Better to rest one time extra than risk an ugly defeat.

[This message has been edited by Earl Grey (edited August 21, 2001).]

 

The reason yer resting so long is that you prolly dun have alot of healing spells memorized. There are literally no level 1 druid spells I use so I just fill those up with lesser healing. Also you may want to find some multiclass people for your party to fill in holes. Heres my party Me a Kensai/thief Jaheira Jan(imoen later) Minsc Keldorn and Aerie. Rushing in and fighting -will- work as long as you have some backup people who can magic missile/breach If yer gonna do it that way I reccomend at least 2 more tanks (Eg keldorn and Korgan. You can afford to dump yoshimo since you yourself are a thief. Also make sure you get minsc some good weapons/armor. Lastly charging in makes things alot harder in the long run, You may want to play puppet master and get a few backup casters.


Ah hell this is all jumbled. The info here is pretty easy to pick up though if you want more help we can arrange a time to meet on irc.

[This message has been edited by Talwin (edited August 21, 2001).]

 

I've seen your party members, and frankly, the party could improve. Obviously, you can dump Yoshimo, and that would leave you with 2 extra party members. If you want muscle in your group, get valygar (talk to tolgerias in the government district), keldorn (in the temple sewers), korgan(in the copper coronet), or mazzy (umar hills). (Anomen is also somewhat acceptable) I also suggest more spellcasters in your party. Get Edwin (go to the shadow theif guildhall) and Viconia (gvmt. district). Holy Smite and Fireball are good spells for killing the hobgoblins also.

 

Newbie newbie yes! I sincerely recommend you read some excellent good guides about walkthrough/class/spells which can be found at this sorcerer's place or try this website (www.gamefaqs.com).

 

Don't ever think any of the NPC's are bad. All the NPC's are good, it's how you play them. Sure they have downsides, they should, nobody's perfect. Don't just drop somebody because you don't think they are good, play who you want to play. I'm playing 4 players right now on core. It's me DC R/C, Valygar, Mazzy, and Aerie. And we are in the Underdark and kickin' tail. You can play anybody well you just have to find out their hidden strengths and what works for you. The only thing that gets me is Aerie's constituion of 9. But hey I get over it, the benefits of having her in the party outweigh the costs.

 

With the exception of Aerie all your guys are good. I think mazzy is oft underrated there are some good shortswords out there and shes a damned fine fighter. Valgyar is cool too R/C could prolly solo the game so no complaints there, and very few people dislike minsc as a character.

 

I know I had problems with the sewers early on in the game, you may want to build up experience someplace else before returning. Perhaps visit the shadow thieves and do those quests since you're a swashbuckler. Also have you visited the Copper Coronet? There are a few quests you can find there that I'd recomend doing before heading into the sewers.

Also, I've played a straight swashbuckler all the way though the game and was surprised by how powerful it got. I'd suggest putting 3 points in dual wielding and finding a couple good swords to equip. As for a party line-up, I'd suggest at least two fighter types, then at least one character for each other main class; mage, cleric and thief. If you have multiclass/dualclass some characters can fit more than one roll.

 

If enemy spellcasters are a problem, you want to target them first; remember any time they take damage, there is a change they will lose the spell they were casting. Yourself and Yoshimo will be able to target them with missile fire, and magic missiles from Aerie will be very useful due to their very short casting time - usually you can cast a magic missile before any other spell the enemy is preparing. Obviously you only have a few of these, so be sparing with them. Jaheira's Insect Plague will stop all enemy spellcasting (make sure you target the enemy spellcasters first), but it takes a long time to cast, and is a high level spell so you might not have it yet.
The number of people you have targeting mages should depend on the circumstances - if there is one weak enemy caster with lots of melee soldiers, you don't want to have half your party fighting the mage while the soldiers gang up on your tanks. Minsc is clearly the best fighter and Jaheira can be made into a good tank, and either of the two scouts can support with missile fire (even Aerie can, though she won't hit many times). Assuming you're playing a good party, I'd take another strong melee person - Keldorn or maybe Anomen; Mazzy might be good, but she is better as a missile fighter, when you probably need another front rank warrior. Perhaps Anomen would be better, because as a cleric he also comes with lots of healing spells, cutting down on rest periods. You just have to deal with his annoying voice.