Playing BGII for the second time

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HB, have I ever mentioned that you should use Haer'Dalis? Blades rule!

 

If you end up playing a third time I suggest making it a point to grab up Cernd so you can experience him.

 

I can see Boo sitting on that purple, target tattoo and holding that ioun stone high.

You can still complete the quest without Cernd in your party.

 

You need at least one druid in your party to complete this quest, don't you? If you've already dropped Jaheira off you might have to go back and fetch Cernd.

 

He doesn't need to actually be in your party. just go along with you without being a member and he will do the fight all on his own without your worrying about the whole needing a druid thing.

 

Actually, you don't need any druids in the party at all. You can get Cernd to do it on his own if necessary, without ever accepting him into the party. But still, if you're going to drop Jaheira, you might as well replace her with Cernd. IIRC, he should be way up in the top middle of the Druid Grove map (you'll pass him eventually, so don't worry about going straight there) despite your claim of doing it alone.

 

Ah, yeah. I usually take Cernd for the quest, I'd forgotten about that.

 

I'm doing the Druid quest myself right now--Jillina, (my enchantress PC), Minsc, Sir Anomen, Aerie, Jan, and Cernd--while Mazzy's spending some time at home looking after her sister. I'm surprised at just how well this team is clicking! A good tactic I've found is, if I can get surprise, to send in Aerie, Jilly, and Jan to launch simultaneous fireballs, emotion, and chaos spells. Then Anomen, Minsc, and Cernd go in to finish the job--Bada boom...Bada bing...no more bad guys

I thought at first that this would be a pretty weak team, but it's doing surprisingly well--so far...

I've become very favorably impressed with the enchanter specialty mage--as well as with how much fun it is working Aerie, her, and Jan as a team. If you do a third run through, give the enchanter a try.

 

Hmm enchanter is a weak choice I think, since there is no enchantment spell higher than level 5 (and this is a shame, hmm can someone code a Mass Dominate spell, Level 9, CT: 9, save vs spells for -2, 1 target/round, 30 feet radius, 1round/level duration,), and missing evocation spells is a bummer, though you have other support-mages. If you are having fun, that is the only thing matters! Good luck and safe journey!

 

Splunge, yeah - just what I need a Blade! Not. That's too much like hard work.

Anyway, I tried to do the Druid thing but it seemed impossible. Whenever Jaheira was just about to win, Faldorn would miraculously heal and turn into some sort of invincible cat thing that killed her in three hits.

So after about 10 attempts, I've given up and gone to help Jan with his family problems. Sorry, Trademeet, but you're stuck with your problems.

The main issue I have with this game is that if you did not have walkthroughs or forums, you simply would not end up doing 90% of this game. After 1.5 quests, I now have enough cash to go and get Imoen. If I did not know better, I'd be off to do that now.

The only way to actually go and do all the other quests is to either wander aimlessly until you stumble over quests or to psychicly know that, for example, there is a quest in the Temple District. Finding all the quests, whilst fun, just seems to be completely artificial from a role-playing point of view - or impossible withhout help from other people.

Anyway, that rant aside, I will carry on and see if I can do better for Jan that I could for Trademeet. Also, Mazzy is a dead-shot with her bow, but she sure does churn through the arrows. I'm sure she had 300 arrows at one point but now they're all gone.

 

Jaheria vs. Faldorn can be very bad. Jaheira's died plenty of times for me, too. The best offense I can suggest is to have "Pause when enemy sighted" option checked in the options screen. This will have the action pause when J and F are in the pit. If you can hit the space bar faster, then do so. Have J cast Insect Plague immediately, then Barkskin. It's what F does, so it must work.

Another idea is to cast Insect Plague, Barkskin and have J change to a black bear. IIRC, black bear gets 2 attacks per round which is better than J's 1/rd with a staff.

You can always prep J beforehand, unless it bothers you to act in advance, though J would understand a challenge was coming and would prepare anyway.

 

There are actually a few rumors and such that will lead to the quest in the Temple District, and if you're a Cleric, Gaelan Bayle will drop the hint.

I don't think its fair to say that without walkthroughs and forums you'd miss 90% of the quests, but I think its fair to say you might miss a lot of the cool items. For instance, there is absolutely no way I'd know about the Improved Mace Of Disruption without them. I don't believe there is a single hint in the game that Illithium has any use besides being the preferred medium of Sir Sayles, and it would never have occured to me to haul 200 pounds of the stuff over to Cromwell to see if he could do anything with it - and even if I did, I might not have the MoD with me at the time. And I can definately see roleplaying it the way you did the 1st time through, and leaving Firkraag in his lair, which would mean missing out on Carsomyr. In that case though, knowing anything anything about RPGs, one might guess that if you do actually kill a Red Dragon, there is probably something good in his hoard

 

Three attacks, but if you need to shapeshift, use the brown bear form, it's slightly better. 1D6 instead of 1D4 on the claw attack among other things.

Funny, I never had any trouble finding quests in BG2. The opposite is true: the first time I played the game I was a bit frustrated with having so many quests, since just by walking through Athkatla there were about a dozen instances of folks running up and giving them to me.

 

Hitting the space bar fast or enabling the pause option does help. Also, before going into the fight, I have Jahs throw on ironskin and barkskin--and, depending on the alignment of my character/party, I might have haste put on her as well--I roleplay it by saying that she does know that this is coming and that Faldorn is not going to fight fair, so why should she?

I also have a summon nymph spell prepped as well as insect plague and a couple of flame blades. Once they're in the pit, Jahs immediately casts insect plague, followed by summon nymph and then flame blade. While this is going on, Faldorn is generally buffing up--although if you're too slow, she might get off an insect plague of her own. Generaly though, just as she's about to attack, the nymph gets her with a hold spell and then its just hacking at her until she goes down.

 

If you let Cernd handle it, he always wins. He shapechanges to greater werewolf form and rips Faldorn a new one with no trouble at all. Seriously, go back and let him have a shot; it's damn near free quest XP just for escorting him there and watching, and it sets the other quests in motion back at Trademeet.

 

That fight is always dumb I thought... Faldorn never becomes the panther when she fights Cernd :-|. I mean why can't it be a real fight????

Felinoid's right though, there's no need to do it yourself, the only thing you miss out on is the xp for actually killing her, but you get enough from quest xp. Then again you could always go back when you have a higher level druid.

 

Actually she can become the panther against Cernd. I think without him in the party it's scripted. (much like the fight between Gorion and Sarevok. Which i watched do over 150 damage to sarevok one time.) But if you actually have him in your party she should do it once most of her hp is gone if he doesn't kill her too fast. i found out because he missed his role to disrupt her insect plague and had to chug a couple of healing potions which meant to quit hitting her. I got him when he only had his werewolf form though because I picked him up like first thing in the game.


As for finding the quests. Most of them are just standing around begging to be found and will jump at you when you hit the right area. Trademeet is the only on that really doesn't but you can run across it in other ways.

And Role play wise as an adventure (And even in real life too) your in a strange new city. you don't know where anything is. Your going to look and around and explore. All I did was explore area's and I found most of the quests. Though I agree about the improved Mace of Disruption. Not only did I not find the mace my first time through but the Mace does not trigger the conversation with Cromwell about making it better. Only the Ilithium triggers it. Even if you don't actually have the mace at the time.

Carsomyr I only got because my first time through I wasn't going to screw with any dragons until maybe one of the last things when I was feeling confident. But I was playing a Paladin and during their stronghold quest you have to go back and kill him.

The Slaver's compound I actually went into the wrong building because I forgot where I wanted to go for the Paladin stronghold and only remember that it was at the bottom of the temple district. wandered in. got attacked. killed them and never bothered to go upstairs because I left to continue what I was doing and totally forgot their ever was one.

Missed the Sphere quest because I was nice to Valygar. Missed the Illithid layer in the sewers because I didn't manage to reveal that hidden locked door for it my first time through. Both of which meant I never got Crom Faeyr.

Found the Twisted room in my vast exploration of like most every door but said "Heck No!" and never went in that door again.


it took me like half the quests or so to finally have the money to go after Imoen though. I wasn't about to fight no crazy mage that kidnapped me naked and I kept buying this piece of equipment or that one. Usually buying two or three versions as I bought the smaller one then upgraded(wasn't the smartest use of my money). Managed to get the staff of Rynn early on and loved it. Specially since without forward knowledge of brynnlaw the game lead me to believe that I was being shipped across the water to a dungeon and not a town and there was the real idea of if my equipment isn't good enough then I'm screwed. And I can't save Imoen if I'm screwed.

 

Hmm, all sorts of new stuff is happening to us and I'm not sure whether it is:
a) stuff I missed last time
b) new stuff from Unfinished Business
c) stuff that is new because of different party members
d) stuff I've just forgotten.

For example, I don't ever remember fighting a "Beastmaster" in the Copper Coronet before and I've never run into the Squisher before.

Anyway, you are all right that in trying to Jan's race against time quest, I have run into several other quests that all seem to be equally urgent. Luckily, Anomen, Korgan, and Jierdan don't come up and talk to you so you can easily leave them aside until you're ready.

So Jan is temporarily out of the party whilst we do his quest, but Nalia has joined so we can go and save her house after we've finished with Jan. Not sure who will drop out for that. Jaheira is still the most superfluous party member (she doesn't do anything) but I'm scared she'll yell at me if I sub her out.

 

The Beastmaster is always there, and Gorf the Squisher is a Mazzy-specific encounter. Any others you'd like cleared up?

 

You might not have fought the beast master because I never found anything that actually gives any clues to the CC's backroom dealings. You have to like want to take up the one guys offer for the extra carricular activities and go hunting for it.