Baldurs gate 2

[Anonymous No.7272019]

About to start this bad boy for the first time.

Any tips/tricks I should know beforehand?

[Anonymous No.7272025]

>>7272019
Uninstall and play the non-enhanced version instead.
And don't pretend you were playing the original version, you don't have that kind of initiative.

[Anonymous No.7272030]

>>7272025
>And don't pretend you were playing the original version
Haha got me there.

Any tips on character creation?

[Anonymous No.7272038]

>>7272030
eat shit

[Anonymous No.7272059]

bump

[Anonymous No.7272064]

Try not supporting Beamdog in future, idiot.

[Anonymous No.7272084]

>>7272064
no money was given

[Anonymous No.7272113]

>>7272030
>Any tips on character creation?
Import your character from the first game

[Anonymous No.7272454]

Start with BG1.

[Anonymous No.7272467]

>>7272025
Enhanced versions can be configured and fixed up to get rid of the stupid stuff.

>>7272030
If you're playing a fighting class, don't bother with trying to get a perfect 18/00 strength roll bonus, 18 is good enough, just take whatever roll bonus you get, because you have opportunities to increase your strength to 19 later anyway, which is better than 18/00.
If you really wanna minmax, just reroll your stats for at most 10 minutes until you get like 85 to 90 (if you're lucky enough to get that) points and then distribute them as is useful for your character.

>>7272084
Good.

>>7272454
This also.

[Anonymous No.7272492]

>>7272030
What class are you playing?

[Anonymous No.7272682]

Skip BG1

[Anonymous No.7272693]

>>7272025
where can one get non enchanted version?

steam and gog sells only enchanted

[Anonymous No.7272696]

>>7272467
>just reroll your stats for at most 10 minutes until you get like 85 to 90 (if you're lucky enough to get that)

Are you serious? I refuse to play anything that is lower then at least 94

[Anonymous No.7272756]

>>7272696
Many classes don't require many stats. What you need depends on your class, but for a thief, for example, you only need 18,18,16,10,10,10. Even if you go for 18 CHA for roleplaying, that's not 95+.

[Anonymous No.7272786]

>>7272756
>having less int then Imoen

kek

[Anonymous No.7272912]

>>7272693
Literally 12-15 bucks new on Amazon.

[Anonymous No.7272959]

>>7272019
You WILL be guilty of a number of crimes unless you:

1. Roll 18/00 strength

2. On a dwarven fighter

3. In the non-enhanced version

Do not let anyone trick you otherwise

[Anonymous No.7273081]

>>7272492
Im thinking of fighters. Something with easy gameplay?

[Anonymous No.7273104]

>>7273081
Str 18/XX (don't worry about percentile, you're going to use items to boost it anyway)
DEX 18
CON 18
INT 10 (extra points in here can give you extra defense against mindflayers, but so does just drinking a potion before battle)
WIS 10 (Actual dump stat)
CHA 10 (I usually put excess points in CHA for RP)

[Anonymous No.7273120]

>>7273104
For weapons a fighter kind of has to choose what to specialize in, unlike a paladin which can just take everything.
Here are good options for heavy specialization that I like:
Longsword (Daystar is insanely good)
Katana (Celestial Fury)

Enough points to be proficient in scimitars is good for the offhand weapons that grant extra attacks. Don't heavily specialize in them over your main hand.

[Anonymous No.7273457]

Ignore those who say bg1 is required for bg2

[Anonymous No.7273509]

>>7272025
what's the deal with the enhanced versions of the BG games and PT? wasn't it just like everyone got triggered by trans characters or something

[Anonymous No.7273561]

>>7273509
BG1 EE replaced the cutscenes with inferior beamdog versions, BG2 EE is basically just the same game with many needed QOL features. Overall there's no reason to not use the EEs, if you don't like the added beamdog content just don't use it.

[Anonymous No.7273589]

>>7272019
If you want to dual spec figure out your stat requirements to do it before you start or else you'll be editing hex manually in Linux, or using a pleb helper program in windows.

[Anonymous No.7273724]

>>7273120
>Katana (Celestial Fury)
If he is gonna continue into ToB, this is a terrible advice because katanas are shit later on. The safest choice is always longswords.

[Anonymous No.7273807]

>>7273724
I don't really give advice with ToB in mind. It isn't that good, I rarely replay it, and honestly, +3 weapons are fine against most enemies in the expansion anyway.

[Anonymous No.7273817]

>>7273807
I'd also add that you do get enough points to just pivot into a different weapon.

[Anonymous No.7274104]

>>7273807
>>7273817
I always liked ToB. The epic scale of it is awesome and you can do some stupid shit with all that equip and levels you can get in the expansion.
Also +3 weapons are not enough against enemies where it counts. At the point you get far enough in ToB you can probably kill random mobs with looking angrily at them but you need some cool deathstick to fight them dragons and demiliches.
As a fighter you have 17 proficiency points which is not that much actually, and it's also achieved near level cap. I guess you want 2 points in two weapon style and/or single point in two handed weapon style or single weapon style. That leaves you with 15 or 16 points which allow you to reach grandmastery with 3 weapon types and considering the way ToB works, it's probably best to reach grandmastery with at least two melee weapons and one ranged weapon type. Wasting some of those points on a weapon type that you will probably never use is kinda eh. I always found myself starved for proficiency points with fighters.

[Anonymous No.7274119]

>>7274104
Is Flail of the Ages +5 a good weapon in ToB? I seem to remember it has basically al status effects and a +5 enchantment (once you add the two extra heads, since the SoA version is only +3).

[Anonymous No.7274127]

>>7274119
It is fine. I would tend to give it to party member though. I've never had my MC use it.

[Anonymous No.7274142]

>>7272682
Funneled.

[Anonymous No.7274150]

>>7272696
desu I just skip the formalities of wasting my time rerolling and just add the attribute points I want to my character with Keeper (staying within legal limits)

[Anonymous No.7274153]

One thing I really dislike about BG2, compared to 1, is how needlessly granular all the weapon proficiencies are. You have per-weapon proficiency, instead of per-weapon-class, and each point invested offers a lower increase in bonuses compared to 1.

[Anonymous No.7274160]

>>7274119
Yes it's good. One of the problems is that the electric head is held by Abazigal, which is kind of a problem (in SCSd version at least). But it does OK damage and the slow is nice.
Although truthfully, I always end up using other weapons on my PC. Mainly the Angurvadal long sword because it has better weapon type, grants immunity to level drain and also nicely raises your STR which means more damage without needing to use potions.

[Anonymous No.7274167]

>>7272064
>beamdog
I heard that company was guilty of a number of crimes.

[Anonymous No.7274171]

>>7274153
It was done to tone down fighters.

[Anonymous No.7274172]

>>7273104
>Str 18/XX (don't worry about percentile
Disregard this. The majority of gameplay has you fight without strength boosting items until well into the game. It only takes 5 minutes to roll a perfect 18/00. Don't listen to this mindless beamdog shill!

[Anonymous No.7274184]

>>7274172
It is true that you can buy the 19str belt right off the Irenicus' crib but that is better given to some other character like Jaheira or some other fighter who can't start with 18 STR. Doing this raises the damage of the party considerably.
18/00 is kinda hard to pull off if you wanna reach 90+ roll. I always go for at least 18/76.

[Anonymous No.7274186]

>>7273081
Fighter is a good all rounder. If you're playing BG2 or EE, you can play as a Berserker kit, which is a Fighter class that trades being able to master ranged weapons for some nice bonuses, for instance the Enrage ability, which for a number of turns gives you:
>a temporary HP boost
>immune to Hold, Charm, Sleep, etc, anything incapacitating
>boosts for fighting (I don't remember the exact ones but basically more hurting enemies)
Being immune to Hold, Charm, etc, for a few turns is extremely valuable, because that means you can brutalize enemies which rely on crippling unsuspecting and unprepared players with such status effects, like Ghasts, or Sirens, and you can show those bitches who's the boss by smashing them into pieces when they thought you were easy pickings.

You can use Enrage 'once per day' (or, after you've slept 8hrs), as you level up, you can use it more times per day. You get a brief debuff after the powerup is over(temporarily minus 10hp, which if you have less than that, knocks you unconscious and leaves you vulnerable to be killed easily, so be careful), but you should really have already gone Rick Taylor on your enemies by that point, so that should be good.

Fighter/Cleric is a good Multiclass, let's you fight pretty hard, harder than the typical Cleric, while also being able to use some good Cleric spells, either buffing or healing yourself, or buffing or healing your party, as well as some nice spells to tell undead creatures to go fuck themselves.
Of course, a straight Cleric will always be a better healer and buffer, in fact even if you do roll a Fighter/Cleric, it's a great idea to pick up a Cleric party member, because they can support the party with their own better healing and buffs, and the two of you can get a lot of useful things done.

Another classic is Fighter/Thief, if nothing else for the simple joy of Backstabbing with lots of strength and weapon proficiency, which can make for some brutal results.

[Anonymous No.7274190]

>>7274171
Except fighters don't need toning down in BG2, since it's high-level D&D, so magic goes off the rails pretty quick.

[Anonymous No.7274191]

>>7274172
Idiot. You can buy the belt of giant strength at the Adventurer's Mart; literally the beginning of the game after the prologue. You also should have played BG1 so that your character is STR19 and doesn't need to worry about it.

[Anonymous No.7274193]

>>7274167
They are, but thankfully OP didn't pay them any money. I also gave a copy of the games to my friend, along with patches and instructions on how to unfuck the bad things they did with them.

It's a fixer upper way of playing the game.

[Anonymous No.7274203]

>>7274172
>It only takes 5 minutes to roll a perfect 18/00
What if I want lots of other attribute points to put into things like Charisma or other non-primary stats, without also having to spend lots of time rolling to get that at the same time as 18/00? It's statistically very unlikely that I'm gonna get +90 attribute points along with 18/00 Strength in just 5 minutes.

I'll never understand why you (and I know it's you), always hype rolling 18/00 as if it's critical for playing the game, there's a million billion ways to boost yourself temporarily to 19 or higher Strength in both games, along with wearable items that boost Strength and even permanent Strength boosts.

[Anonymous No.7274206]

>>7274191
This too, if you played BG1 first and imported your character from the Last Save, which you SHOULD, you would already have at least 19 Strength already.

[Anonymous No.7274215]

>>7273120
I love Daystar so fucking much, not only is it SO satisfying to gangbang that Lich at a low level and take his sword as a trophy, the daily use of Sunray is such an excellent utility for fighting any other undead, including his Lich pals.
It's a sacred sword glowing with sunlight, for combating living dead horrors, that can atomize or seriously harm even strong vampires.

[Anonymous No.7274252]

>>7274191
>>7274203
The answer is very simple: because it takes 5 minutes of your time and gives you benefits for the majority of BG1 playthrough (you obtain tomes very late) and the whole irenicus chateau as well (+firkraag dungeon or sth, you need to obtain money for the str belt somehow).
The arguments against 18/00 are weak. Int is an objectively useless stat that only matters for the spells-per-tier amount cap. You will never tank mindflayers directly because there are protections for that (in SCS tanking directly is straight up not viable, you will die as they blink to you). In BG1 you will never ever find int useful for anything.
Cha is a worthless stat and should be always kept at the minimum, (going off of objective usefulness, not RP purposes.)
So that just leaves Wis but fighter/cleric is a boring class anyway and not worth splitting XP. You should be playing the game with pure classes on your first playthrough anyway. Especially BG1. (Unless you're enough of a flaming homo to play Paladin, but I pity you if that's the case.)
Everything else you can up high enough to get the best benefits while retaining the most important early game stat at 18/00.

[Anonymous No.7274267]

>>7274252
And let's also not forget that BG is a party game where you manage a PARTY and split gear accordingly, and very often you'll be running out of encumbrance for which it's much more to your leisure to give the item to a weaker party member than the brawler sporting a mighty 18/00 already.

[Anonymous No.7274275]

>>7274252
>because it takes 5 minutes of your time
You didn't read my post, did you?

[Anonymous No.7274289]

>>7274275
This is absolutely verified information and I've even timed myself how long it would take to roll 18/00. It takes a few minutes on average and is truly trivial to obtain. You have no excuses not to do it.

[Anonymous No.7274294]

>>7274289
What you don't get is that he doesn't want to dump other stats.

[Anonymous No.7274296]

>>7274289
And you'll get 95 attribute points total to spend during?

[Anonymous No.7274308]

>>7274294
Such a statement simply translates to: "I want to play like a dumb idiot with an inferior character for no reason".
If we are going to have a civil discussion on why a certain playstyle is objectively superior, we need to accept the measurable worth of these properties.

[Anonymous No.7274318]

>>7274296
You will never ever need 95 points for anything. You will find the measurable impact of these extra points is minuscule compared to the impact of the most important stat (strength/00) which factors into EVERY encounter unlike an extra spell for a single point over the limit in wisdom, any disposable points in useless strength, immaterial points into dexterity or utterly irrelevant charisma.

[Anonymous No.7274319]

>>7274308
I understand your point but my OCD also won't let me play with characters with stats lower than 90.

[Anonymous No.7274323]

>>7274308
>inferior character
Like someone who dumps a few dozen attribute points for a minute and temporary strength bonus?

[Anonymous No.7274326]

>>7274318
>or utterly irrelevant charisma
>plays with 3 CHA
lmao enjoy playing as an ugly autistic ghoul who can't talk to people

[Anonymous No.7274337]

>>7274326
Well there is also that ring in the circus tent...

[Anonymous No.7274339]

>>7274323
>minute
Way to make a display of your pathetic understanding of averages and completely ignore factual influence on every single combat encounter where the additional stats do in fact matter and a lot.
>temporary
Exiguous attempt at gaslighting and factually false. The bonus is by all means permanent and always observably siginificant considering the items that make up for an inferior strength rating can be replaced with more useful ones.

[Anonymous No.7274542]

>>7274337
There is, but not in the first game.

>>7274339
>gaslighting
lol, you fucking spazz.

[Anonymous No.7274552]

>>7274119
It's the best weapon in the game, but it's also really annoying because it grants Free Action, which means you have to unequip it every time you cast Haste (you can reequip it again so there's no in-game cost, only wasting the player's time). If you're playing on an easier difficulty you might want to leave it at +4.

[Anonymous No.7274580]

>>7274339
The bonus from 18/00 strength is temporary, because as soon as you find the strength tome all 18 and 18/?? become 19.

[Anonymous No.7274602]

>>7274580
>tomes
Look at the OP, anon.

[Anonymous No.7274605]

>>7272019
Crowd control spells are much more useful than direct damage.

[Anonymous No.7274608]

>>7274190
High level fighters in AD&D2e are literally "Fuck your magic, fuck your physical attacks, and fuck your hitpoints", they're invincible, especially if a dwarf.

[Anonymous No.7274636]

Play a dwarf fighter for those sweet saving throw boni. Resisting spells is the only metric that matters lategame.

[Anonymous No.7274637]

>>7274608
Yeah, that's the thing. Yes, Wizards are gods in SoA. But at high level, fighters have a million attacks a turn, pass all saving throws, and do stupid shit like where you give Saervok a vorpal weapon and can auto kill with all those attacks.

[Anonymous No.7275153]

at least 1000 hours in the bg games here, since i was like 10 (i'm 28)
>play enhanced edition. benefits outweigh the negatives (free zoom, aoe looting, easy install on modern pc). ignore or mod out the new characters, of which there are only a couple.
>have a thief in your party at all times, with pick locks and disarm traps
>mage is better than sorcerer for a new player, because a sorc must commit to spell choices. as a noob you won't know the best spells, and will want to be free to experiment
>the game doesn't have many stat checks in conversations like some other rpgs, you can pretty safely dump charisma in favour of combat stats (also there are other ways of temporarily increasing charisma
>there are a million ways to optimise your play, and to cheese the enemies. for first playthrough, just enjoy the game. everyone will be giving you optimal builds and classes and stuff but as long as you keep a well rounded party you'll do fine. just have at least 1 mage, 1 thief, and 1 cleric, and you'll have a shitload of tools for dealing with situations

[Anonymous No.7275420]

>>7274552
I wouldn't go as far as to call it the beast weapon in the game but it certainly is one of the good choices.

[Anonymous No.7275421]

bump

[Anonymous No.7275801]

>>7275153
For me the problem with EE is that I prefer that old pixelated gritty look of the original. I don't like these new smooth colorful graphics at all. It's the same with other games. I'm an absolute boomer I guess.

[Anonymous No.7275959]

>>7275801
Change the scaling options, then. You can turn off basically every EE graphical adjustment in options if you want to. EE looks the way it does because it is meant for tablets, if you play it on desktop, just change your settings.

[Anonymous No.7276082]

>>7275801
EE actually lets you turn off the screen filters as well as turn off a lot of the added visual effects (many which are unneccessary).

[Anonymous No.7276092]

>play as Half-Orc
>roll 19 base strength, bypassing puny 18/00