Turn Baldurs Gate and its sequel into the single best CRPG experience you'll likely ever encounter

Okay, so, I'm making a "proper" attempt to play Baldur's Gate now, and for perhaps the first time EVER in a fantasy RPG I've kicked off with a Mage.

In the VERY early stages, and I've figured out how to memorise a spell so it gets added to your quickbar (I memorised Magic Missile). However, when the party is out travelling if we get besieged by a group of mobs and I cast that spell... then that's it. I can't cast it again.

Do I have to then rest somewhere in order to bring it back to a usable state? If so, what use is that when everyone's getting caned because my mage can't cast anything anymore?

It has me very confused. :/
 
LeJosh said:
Well, never played BG before but just got the discs so going to try this mod out for the widescreen addition. I've kept it at minimum as I would like to play it as it was "sort of" intended, with fixes and BG in the BG2 engine of course.

I have good intentions with my character. ^_^ Just doing the CLI patcher, probably going to take years. :p
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Never set the widescreen mod to anymore than 1280 x 720. The UI will completely mess up otherwise.

I find it completely fine at 1024x768 still, a higher resolution doesnt really help much in this game.

Pestilence said:
Okay, so, I'm making a "proper" attempt to play Baldur's Gate now, and for perhaps the first time EVER in a fantasy RPG I've kicked off with a Mage.

In the VERY early stages, and I've figured out how to memorise a spell so it gets added to your quickbar (I memorised Magic Missile). However, when the party is out travelling if we get besieged by a group of mobs and I cast that spell... then that's it. I can't cast it again.

Do I have to then rest somewhere in order to bring it back to a usable state? If so, what use is that when everyone's getting caned because my mage can't cast anything anymore?

It has me very confused. :/
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You can only cast memorised spells once per day. Pure mages are very poor choices to play as as they have low HP and are very weak early on. Most people who make a mage type character for their main will normally dual from either the Kensai or Swashbuckler kits to make them stronger. For your mage in BG1, you already have either Dynaheir or Edwin to choose from, Edwin gets two bonus spells per level, one as a specialist mage, and one from his amulet making him the best mage in the game, even better than a player made one. Edwin pretty much makes playing a pure mage yourself a bad idea.

To re-memorize spells, you need to click the rest button. The use of this is that you have to be very strategic with your spell use, but once you get a mage to level 9+, they end up becoming the most powerful class in the game.
 
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Pestilence said:
Okay, so, I'm making a "proper" attempt to play Baldur's Gate now, and for perhaps the first time EVER in a fantasy RPG I've kicked off with a Mage.

In the VERY early stages, and I've figured out how to memorise a spell so it gets added to your quickbar (I memorised Magic Missile). However, when the party is out travelling if we get besieged by a group of mobs and I cast that spell... then that's it. I can't cast it again.

Do I have to then rest somewhere in order to bring it back to a usable state? If so, what use is that when everyone's getting caned because my mage can't cast anything anymore?

It has me very confused. :/
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Some good tips here on playing a mage.

http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=665480&forum=19&sp=0
 
I don't know what spells are in BGI as I'v only played the sequal game. The sleep spell has a very high success rate early on in BGII (Not sure about BGI) Not only that but it has an area of effect which is very usefull. If that doesn't work out, try chaos orb/magic missile spam.

As for defence, try and keep a stone skin spell up. (It has an incredible duration and will often last until you sleep by which time it will be ready again).

As for the problem of enemies going for your mage in combat over your other classses. Try and focus down anyone who attacks your mage with all your party members. A good and cheap tactic is to block doors with your best fighters while ranged attack from behind. Consider all options, it is often easy to forget that you are carrying that usefull potion or wand which can turn the tide of a fight.

Don't forget to hit the quicksave button often. :p
 
I really enjoy RPGs and especially those made by bioware, however when I bought the complete pack of BG1+2 plus expansions a year ago, I just couldn't get into them.

I downloaded BG tutu and the widescreen mod at the time and started BG 1 in the BG2 engine. I played it for about 2/3 hours but couldn't get into it :(.

I'm going to try and play through the entire series pretty soon, I know they are quite long so it should be quite an experience if I could just get interested in playing through them.

I'm just wondering have you guys any tips for basically a complete noob at these games.

Which is the best/easiest class to start off? What places should I avoid? What party members should I focus on? Which spells? etc.

I read a few guides last time before I started but they didn't really help :(
 
Okay, giving it a proper go again - as an elf marksman ranger (level 4/5 and thaco 8 *** :P). Teamed up with the 'canon' group to make it more interesting - Minsc slashing things with a two hander,

Khalid (after some intervention from shadowkeeper to lose the ******* sword and dual wield profs in favour of long sword and sword and shield - may change l.s. in favour of scimitar once i slash drizzt) is my tanky type

Jaheira as my healer (the agony! lol)

Dynaheir as the mage (the mod i'm using doesn't appear to give access to bg2 spells though and conjuration is still locked for her together with enchantment)

Imoen currently as rogue (to get 75 in traps, locks and pickpocket) and then mage from level 5 onwards

Gonna be certainly interesting. Cleared Firewine without major hangups, although the ogre mage outside was a right pain with his protection from missiles (still using regular arrows :( ).
 
tehtom said:
I really enjoy RPGs and especially those made by bioware, however when I bought the complete pack of BG1+2 plus expansions a year ago, I just couldn't get into them.

I downloaded BG tutu and the widescreen mod at the time and started BG 1 in the BG2 engine. I played it for about 2/3 hours but couldn't get into it :(.

I'm going to try and play through the entire series pretty soon, I know they are quite long so it should be quite an experience if I could just get interested in playing through them.

I'm just wondering have you guys any tips for basically a complete noob at these games.

Which is the best/easiest class to start off? What places should I avoid? What party members should I focus on? Which spells? etc.

I read a few guides last time before I started but they didn't really help :(
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It's best to have a read through each class desciption and choose which class suits you best. My advice is to make sure you have these key spells in your roster, in no particular order:

-Magic missile
-Sleep (As I said in my above post, it lands very often on lower level oppenents and has a large area of effect that excludes your own party members).

-Chaos orb (Very good intant kill at higher levels)+(Works well in conjunction with Greater malison).

-Greater Malison (This increases your chance of landing other spells on enemies).

-Stone skin (Great duration for a low level spell).

-Summon skeleton(Great for summoning en mass, with added bonus of stronger skeleton at higher level).

Things get complicated with enemy mages but sooner or later you will come across them and they will come packing with a combo of low-high level defensive spells. One of the main problems you will have is trying to tell what defensive spell they have on them and then figuring out which counter spell to cast. My advice is to remember what the spells look like for example the blue shimmering orb is a globe of invulnrability.
 
Incoming a world of pain :( I have now cleared all the maps available to me in act 2 (pre nashkel mines) aside from:
the mines
the faire
durlag's tower
ulcaster ruins
and Imoen is still about 9k experience away from reaching level 6 as a wizard and unlocking her rogue skills, meaning I have no rogue to deal with the traps in the three dungeons available to me now...

EDIT: Nvm, cheesed it :P Killed Drizzt then 2 manned initial mobs in durlags tower courtyard until Imoen got to level 6 wizard. Ready to rock the socks of nashkel mines now ^_^
 
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I really want to start playing Baldurs Gate II again, I got the pack with the expansion pack too. Never did get to finish it.
 
OK, I installed everything as described and got to the Freindly Arm Inn to pick up Khalid & Jaheira. However, I cannot use the rest button with them in the party. If I click the button or try to rent a room at the Inn, the game instantly crashes to desktop. If I kick K&J out, (leaving just me and Imoen), then the rest function works.

Any ideas?
 
What's the deal with dual classing Imoen?

Is it just a case of getting her thief abilities to a point that with a theif pot they're maxed out so that you can then just level her up as a wizard?
 
Jokester said:
What's the deal with dual classing Imoen?

Is it just a case of getting her thief abilities to a point that with a theif pot they're maxed out so that you can then just level her up as a wizard?
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Pretty much this. By level 5 she should be good to go. On a side note, didn't realise the mod that I used still kept the 161k exp cap on bg 1 :( I have now finished Durlags Tower and about to hit werewolf island (then go to Candlekeep and carry on with the story, but am already capped with my entire group...damnations!
 
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