Favorite class and noobish questions

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I'm having a surprising amount of difficulty with this game. What exactly is Thac0? And what class would you recommend for the best experience? I can't help but reload a hundred times until i'm satisfied with a character. Also, is this game just naturally difficult or am I doing something wrong? The first wizard you meet at the Friendly Arm inn kills me unless I run inside and get Jahiera and Khalid, and the assassin you meet after that I can't beat at all.

 

Yeah, BG can be quite nasty in that way. Especially at the very early going, you'll want to run from certain fights. Also get ranged weapons, they rule supreme in BG. That goes both ways, so if you encounter some kobolds with ranged weaponry early on, you might want to run if you don't have a character in your group that has a low enough AC to be able to avoid being hit too much.

 

And increasingly shallow ones as well. I play almost exclusively RPGs, and haven't enjoyed any of them past the PS1.

Ranged weapons rule supreme? Thank god my elven fighter has ** in bows

 

The game can be beaten by any class of character but warriors are the easiest. IMO BG1 (and SoA and ToB) were practically written for a paladin and I think paladins have the easiest time if you can handle always 'doing the right thing'. Not everyone like being the hero who puts everyone of ahead of themselves (and there are serious consequences for both paladins and rangers if they act "evil").

Elven fighter with a bow is extremely effective -- get the bow to *** at the first opportunity this will give you +4 to hit and +3 damage with a bow. I assume your other weapon proficiency is in large swords and get *** in that after the bow. Sometimes it's helpful to have proficiency in blunt weapons, but I think the bonuses for *** far outweigh the benefits of proficiency in a blunt weapon for BG1. In the opening chapter buy the equipment you want Imoen to use (if you're going to keep her) in addition to your equipment.

BG1 is basically a turn based game and you'll have far more success if you approach it as one. In general I've found the AI sucks. Set the game to pause for as many things as you like -- "upon detect enemy" is a great one. You then direct the characters to attack the primary target. Try to hit an enemy mage in every round, it will break their concentration and they cannot cast a spell.

Keep track of where your allies are. When battling mages everyone needs to be somewhat spread out. You want them within striking range near that assassin. If you're a warrior, give yourself the best armor available (similarly if you're not a warrior still give yourself the best armor you can wear). Your game ends if you die, but not if your companions die so you need to do everything to make it toughter for you to die.

Save often, in different files. I typically use one save at the beginning of each new area I enter and make another save when I go to another area (you should have plenty of spots to save new areas). Use the quick save before talking to someone or after a battle.

 

Well Damedog any class can beat both games-BG1 & BG2.

A question for you is how far do you intend to go? If you pick a class just on what makes BG1 easier you may miss out in BG2.

Mages are harder to use in BG1 (still useful though) but easier to use in BG2.

If you use BG1 character developer you can pull a trick with a human by dual classing. Make a fighter, thief, or cleric so you can use better weapons and (sometimes) armor-then dual class to specialist mage (gives an extra spell per level but you have to pick a category of spells you'll focus on-and thus one you won't use as well).

The tricky part of this is you have to make sure you have a high enough number in whichever attributes relate to the type of specialist mage subclass you may want. You can check on this in early character development by seeing what which ones each specialist mage class requires and then going back in character generation and giving yourself high points in those attributes while using fighter & so on.


Otherwise tutu is a mod you can use that allows you to use BG2 subclasses (undeader hunter paladin, bounty hunter thief, stalker ranger & on) in BG1 by using, I believe, the BG2 character generator.

The downside of this is you won't be able to Dual class to a specialist mage so no Fighter (level 3)/Necromancer (level 4+), Cleric/Enchanter, Thief/Illusionist, and the like.

Neither the BG2 character generator nor tutu do those.





THACO is an old D&D term (used in the game as well) and the lower the better (more likely your PC is to hit with a weapon).

AC (armor class) is the same but works to block weapon hits-so lower is better again.

T2 is very correct to advise you to make use of pause.

Some of the fights will be hard-I got killed at least a few times by that very bounty hunter (not the BG2 subclass) mage. I grew my party prior to when he attacks which helped a bit.

 

OK, with the first wizard, he only activates once he sees your character, so provided you spread your characters out before you engage him, and have a ranged character or two, you should be OK. If you took Monty with you, he can hide a backstab him, which usually kills him immediately. Or if you brought the wizard with you - (Xzar IIRC - he can cast chill touch, and that can be cast prior to him casting mirror image if you have the game set for "pause when enemy sighted".

The second assassin I believe is the cleric you find upon arrival in Nashkel. She's a PITA because she casts fear. Well, assuming you have a druid or cleric in your party, you can cast resist/remove fear. Both have durations on them, so you should be able to cast them as soon as you enter the inn, so even if your spell fires before hers, the duration will still be active.

 

But if I protect from fear, she charms me or holds me or something!

My gaming pride was wounded, as i've never had such trouble in a DnD game, until a particularly lucky reload and a few potions later I was able to beat her with a simple sacrifice of an annoying Imoen. I guess BG2 won't make too much sense for him

 

Bard song also protects against and removes fear. Horror is a popular spell in BG1.

 

You don't have to kill her, but if you want, I suggest using Jaheira's entangle to hold her and attack from distance, so she doesn't even start casting.

You can also recruit some more NPCs, the fight (well, about any fight) is easier with a party of 6.

 

Thanks for the advice everyone. How hard is it to become fallen in this game, and what is the number you get next to 18 strength (18/15 or 18/00)?

 

To become a fallen paladin or ranger you reputation has to fall below a certain threshold. It's been a while, but I think the magic number is 7. If you go below that, you're fallen.

The number in parenthesis is your exceptional strength score. Exceptional strength is only achievable by fighters, paladins, and rangers, as well as any multi-classed fighter, or a ranger/cleric multi-class (which is probably the most powerful multi-class combo in BG1). I suppose if you started as a fighter, you could also have an exceptional strength if you dual classed.

Anyway, exceptional strength gives bonuses to hit and to damage done. Here's a bonus of how strength score affect to hit and damage:

16 - +1 damage
17 - +1 to hit, +1 damage
18 - +1 to hit, +2 damage
18(01)-18(50) +1 to hit, +3 damage (Kivan has this strength)
18(51)-18(75) +2 to hit, +3 damage (imo, this is the minimum you should shoot for)
18(76)-18(90) +2 to hit, +4 damage
18(91)-18(99) +2 to hit, +5 damage (Minsc has this strenth)
18(00) - it is displayed as (00), but it is more appropriate to consider it (100) is +3 to hit, +6 damage

EDIT: There is also a means of raising your strength score by a single point with an item you find in the game. If your strength is 18 anything (even if it isn't exceptional strength, just the base 18), it will be increased to 19, which is +3 to hit, +7 damage. You can't go above 19 in BG1 or TotSC (other than temporarily with spells), but it is possible in BG2.

 

So can I just donate to a church like in BG2 to get my rep up?

I've heard about that ranger/cleric thing. Why is it so powerful? Because it's a dual-wielding cleric?

 

Yes you can still make donations to increase reputation (up to a point).



Though if you donate to a follower of Talos should that increase or decrease rep....?

 

There are other factors with a R/C multi-class that makes it really unbalancing. For starters, it's your opening stats. The game rolls your stats randomly, but any score that comes in under the minimum required for that character gets bumped to the minimum. Since rangers require a minimum of 13 in strength and wisdom, and 14 in constitution, it's very possible (if you want to power game) to drop your intelligence to 3 (edit: I think 4 is the minimum for a half-elf) and get 18s across the board in everything else.

Also don't forget that you get bonus spells (of which you can select either cleric or druid spells) based on your wisdom score. If you start with a character with a wisdom of 18, you get two bonus first, second, and third level spells. That alone isn't bad.

However, the game also contains tomes that raise your starting attributes by one point. For all the attributes except wisdom (so strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, and charisma) there's one of each. So for whatever your starting attribute points are, you can raise them by one each, assuming you find all the tomes. However, there is a grand total of 3 wisdom tomes. So you can jack your wisdom score all the way up to 21. With the way attributes points work in the game, 21 is beyond superhuman, it's more like god-like.

For points beyond 18 you start getting two bonus spells. And all the bonus spells are cumulative, so you get this in addition to the two bonus 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level spells you already have. It's been a while buy I think 19 gives you an addition 1st and 4th, 20 gives you an additional 2nd and 4th, and 21 gives you an additional 1st and 5th (not that you'll be able to cast 5th level spells unless you remove the XP cap, and even then it will be extremely late game).

So by late game you can be sitting on a whopping +4 1st level spells, +3 2nd level spells, +2 3rd level spells, and +2 4th level spells. That's a freakin' ton of spells. Combined with the special abilities you get for leveling up (which are also cleric-based spells), it's safe to say that if you play a R/C multi-class, you won't have need of any other clerics or druids in the game, which is the final aspect of what makes the R/C multi-class so powerful:

It gives you a ton of party flexibility. By having a tank and a primary healer in one character, it's like getting a extra party member. You don't need Jaheira, Branwen, Yeslick, Viconia, or any other healer. It allows you take on a utility character (like Garrick perhaps), or a second thief, with one specializing in lock picking and trap removal, and the other specializing in hide in shadows and pick pocketing, or an additional ranged character like Kivan or Coran.

(Now I'm getting the hankering to play this game again. One of the aspects I actually like better with BG1 is that there are so many NPCs, the possibilities of ways to construct your party are nearly endless.)

 

Damn it all. I started a game of BG1 this weekend, and it's probably the first time I have done so in years. It's vanilla BG1 (patched, but not modded). I decided to power game, so I went ahead and made a R/C multi-class (named Aldeth of course). Going with the power game motif, I rolled stats for a while, and eventually came up with a character that allowed me to drop intelligence to 8, and raise everything else up to 18. My exceptional strength is just 18 (20), which is suboptimal, but with 18s across the board in everything else, it's more than good enough. (If you're patient enough to continue rolling starting attributes for half an hour or so, you can definitely do better than this. The attributes for this character add up to a total of 98, but stories of people getting totals in excess of 100 are out there. My personal best is a 103, which is just 5 short of the maximum possible.)

Anyway, I wanted a different party this time. My most common party is the "cannon" party of BG1: Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, and Dynaheir. Even though Imoen can dual-class, I usually keep her as a thief in that party setup, but this time I did in fact dual-class her. I picked up Ajantis as my other tank, nabbed the two best archers in the game (Kivan and Coran), and still felt the need to pick up a dedicated thief, so I went with Safana (who I may change out for Alora - haven't decided yet). Holy overpowered.

 

I remember finding BG1, especially early BG1, a lot more difficult than early BG2. I think its because early in BG1, your characters are still very weak, having next to no spells. But you still go up against some powerful enemies. IWD2 is also very difficult to start out with because of this.