BG is bloody hard I thought I have up in end and still haven't returned to it. What's the best class for a noob ?
Any class is going to struggle at the start of BG1.
For normal party play, its best to pick a tanky class for your main character on your first playthrough, either a fighter or a paladin.
I'd recommend a Paladin as they get a lot of nice bonuses and add a lot of useful abilities to your group.
For the rest of your party, its a nice idea to read up on some online guides to the NPCs to get an idea of which ones to use. For a solid group in both games, this would be my newbie guide to NPCs in each game for a first time playthrough:
BG1:
Jaheira
Khalid
Minsc
Dynaheir
Imoen - dual class her to a Mage at around level 5 or 6 thief once she has at least 95 detect traps and 70 open locks. Dont get either one of them to 100 as you will eventually get a dexterity +1 tome to use on her which gives +5 to both open locks + find traps. 75 open locks is all you need as you will have enough potions and the knock spell for the few rare locks that need more than this.
BG2:
Keldorn
Minsc
Jaheira
Aerie
Jan Jansen
The main weakness with this group is that all your casters are multi classes, which means they will have slower level gains. However they all have unbeatable solid combinations:
- load Jaheira full of Iron Skins, Insect Plagues, Miscast Magic, Dispel, and keep one or two Call Woodland Being memorised, with healing kept as a second priority. Iron Skins = near invincible tank and Insect Plague / Miscast Magic / Dispel = harassment for enemy casters.
- Use Aerie as your primary healer + buffer with defensive mage spells (stoneskin, mirror image, and shadow door keep her immune to most stuff, letting her heal uninterrupted). Also stick the missile reflection shield, robe of vecna, and spell reflection cloak on her. She will also be able to carry a load of magic missiles and fireballs plus any other damage spells that you may want.
- Jan Jansen = Imoen to the power of 10. He does all your thieving, but can also get to high thief levels for HLAs like use any item. Use him as your primary nuker, and try and get him the staff of the magi so he can backstab all day long with its permanent invisibility, though this staff requires the hardest battle in the game to acquire.
I started with an archer because I always like to play that type of character but it looked like it was going to be quite boring in combat which is why I made a mage.
Oh, if your planning on playing a caster, never play a pure mage. Play a Kensai dualed to a mage at level 9, or a swashbuckler dualed at level 10. Pure mages are weaksauce compared to the level 9 fighter or level 10 thief dualed variants. For a player divine character, a level 9 Berserker dualed into a Druid is immensely powerful (Clerics dont get Iron Skins, and Druids level up to level 10 very very fast to regain the inactive levels).
On the other hand, if you want a real hardcore challenge, play a pure Druid
The reason for dual classing is that characters in BG and BG2 gain the most HP for their first 9 levels based on their first class. Taking 9 levels of any fighter class and then dualing into a caster gives you a lot more HP, plus better ability to hit with weapons (very very handy for summoned weapons and shapeshifts). Also for dualing to a mage, the Kensai gains -2 AC and is still able to wear mage robes after dualing and access to the awesome Kai ability (works great with minute meteors and energy blades), and a level 10 swashbuckler gains -3 AC, and +2 to hit rolls (brilliant for minute meteors and energy blades again
). In the case of the druid, dualing from a level 9 Berzerker allows you to wear heavy armor as well, and you gain a lot of useful front line melee abilities.
