Baldurs Gate question

[The Madman]

I actually played the second one first, and it made sense to me. I did like the first one, though, as it felt kind of closer to a D&D game.

Incidentally, I went with a Monk. By the end of the game, he had quite literally no weaknesses. 80+% magic resistance, 4 attacks a round, armor class close to minus 10, double movement speed, paralysis attacks, and a sword that let me cast mirror image and make it even harder to hit him.

I *love* playing as a mage myself, the progression of power as you level up is just so damn satisfying. Starting as a mage in BG1 you're pretty pathetic. Hell, low level mages are about as dangerous as a slight cold, and just as easily brushed off. And yet once they start to gain access to some of the more powerful spells and abilities in late BG1 and BG2, holy shit, a high level mage is the most powerful thing in the game! Literally earth-trembling 'rain fire from the skies' sort of stuff, it's bloody brilliant.

For a beginner though I'd say go with a melee class. Pretty much any melee class will do aside from rogues. And then if you're a warrior specialize in longswords, and if you're a paladin specialize in two handed swords. Makes the game so much easier and you'll find you're reloading after an unexpected death much less often than you would playing as one of the more, erm, squishy class, which you'll have access to anyway in the form of your companions.

 

[Georgie_Leech]

I actually played the second one first, and it made sense to me. I did like the first one, though, as it felt kind of closer to a D&D game.

Incidentally, I went with a Monk. By the end of the game, he had quite literally no weaknesses. 80+% magic resistance, 4 attacks a round, armor class close to minus 10, double movement speed, paralysis attacks, and a sword that let me cast mirror image and make it even harder to hit him.

I *love* playing as a mage myself, the progression of power as you level up is just so damn satisfying. Starting as a mage in BG1 you're pretty pathetic. Hell, low level mages are about as dangerous as a slight cold, and just as easily brushed off. And yet once they start to gain access to some of the more powerful spells and abilities in late BG1 and BG2, holy shit, a high level mage is the most powerful thing in the game! Literally earth-trembling 'rain fire from the skies' sort of stuff, it's bloody brilliant.

For a beginner though I'd say go with a melee class. Pretty much any melee class will do aside from rogues. And then if you're a warrior specialize in longswords, and if you're a paladin specialize in two handed swords. Makes the game so much easier and you'll find you're reloading after an unexpected death much less often than you would playing as one of the more, erm, squishy class, which you'll have access to anyway in the form of your companions.

My magic preference is the sorceror, actually. Maybe not the most subtle of classes, but most magical defences won't stand up to 10 specifically-not-directly-targetted fireballs. Even more unbalanced in NeverWinter Nights. Have PvP off, and you can just fill rooms with area-effect destruction and not have to worry about allies.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

BG1 Tutu is pretty much the only mod that's 'essential'. Doesn't change anything story-wise, simply imports the content from Baldur's Gate 1 into it's sequels much improved engine, allowing for more class and race options at the start, higher resolution visuals, smoother gameplay and the like.

You can download the Tutu mod from this website.

http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/

The BG1 banter pack which you can find a link to from the above site is also extremely well done, adding more dialogue into the first game to make it more in-line with the second game. And all the characters are well represented, the dialogue sharp, all very well done. But that's optional. I would recommend it myself, but some prefer the first playthrough to be completely 'pure' as it were and the banter pack 'does' change things somewhat, although all in the name of a more cohesive story.

But those are the only two I'd suggest for a first playthrough. Tutu especially!

Enjoy!

hey thanks, this is extremely helpful, i wouldn't have had much clue besides googling where to find it, so thanks for that, and ill definitly do what you said, i love dialogue (im a huge bioware fan, especially of kotor and mass effect, so love seeing and hearing additional banter is always welcome when i play games)

 

[The Madman]

hey thanks, this is extremely helpful, i wouldn't have had much clue besides googling where to find it, so thanks for that, and ill definitly do what you said, i love dialogue (im a huge bioware fan, especially of kotor and mass effect, so love seeing and hearing additional banter is always welcome when i play games)

No problem at all. The BG1 banter mod I mentioned can be found here:

http://www.gibberlings3.net/downloads/

Just a quick note; For it to work you need to have installed the tutu mod first.

Most of it's reading in BG1, it's only in the sequel where you get long lines of voiced dialogue and even then it's only choice lines. But considering the nature of the game it works well enough, and the lack of voice acting means there is a *lot* of dialogue in the game. It puts Kotor and Mass Effect to shame really in respect to volume. And the sheer number of side-missions and optional content is mind-blowing. I've played through Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 numerous times over the course of ten years, and I'm *still* finding new stuff!

 

[Altorin]

Opinions vary, however if you want to play through the whole series with the same character I recommend any mod that lets you use the BG2 kits in BG1. The reason for this is that in BG1 you can't select kits for your character or add them to an imported character in BG2. This puts you at something of a disadvantage unless your multi-classed.

Also for all comments about companions one neat trick you can do is create your own party from scratch by using the multiplayer game option, running it locally, and only using yourself. Now this DOES mean you miss NPC-centric subquests and dialogue, but it can be quite fun especially in BG 2. It's also possible to use a combination of recruits and self-made characters by simply not creating the entire party. This is all without mods (it's just something people missed about the game).

I agree with all of this, except if you want to experience the game in full, at least TRY to use the characters you collect.. they're almost all awesome, and every one of them is worth playing at least once.

 

[GothmogII]

I only ever ran them Vanilla, with no unofficial patches.

just a headsup, if you want to have the canon make sense between 1 and 2, make sure you stick with Minsc, Jaheira, Khaleid, and Imoen. As those characters are the assumed canonical companions of the character from BG1. I won't tell you who those characters are as I don't want to spoil it, but they're generally good aligned.

Don't forget Dynaheir, though, you get her as a matter of course with Minsc. Though, you actually only need to canonically have those people in your party at the -end- of the game, as, BGII assumed you will have met and travelled with most of the recruitable NPC's at one point. Montaron and Xzar are awesome by the by. Murderously insane of course, but awesome. Not a patch on Edwin though! :3