Baldur's Gate Noob Questions

The Reputation will stay this low - after all the Officers stay dead :)
But there is no need to kill them - Hold Person, Sleep- and Charm-Spells do the trick, and if you have no suitable spell left, just beat them without a weapon in hand und your fighter will pummel them to unconsciousness with no reputation loss.
Edit: This doesen't work with monks, their fists are always deadly weapons^^
 
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I just avoided all the battles I could and ran to the place I needed to go :D.
 
Okay, I'm a bit stuck at the moment.

I went to confront Sarevok, but the main character dies instantly? I've killed the greater dopplegangers but I can't seem to progress past that because of the insta-death.

I just spoke to Sarevok's girlfriend or whatever, she wants me to defeat him without killing him. Okay, cool. I've killed the people she sent me after, although I left the woman in the top of the Iron Throne headquarters to leave with her life after she gave up in the fight.

What am I doing wrong here? Do I need to go talk to Duke Eltan before confronting Sarevok? When I try that I get attacked by a legion of Flaming Fist soldiers inside the barracks and I can't get past them to get to Duke Eltan's room.

Help?
 
It's a long time since my last playthrough, so I might be wrong:
IIRC the Insta-Death happens when Sarevok kills all (or the two important ?) councilmembers. Keep this guys alive and the game continues. I remember a male Fighter Guy and a female wizard, one of them has to survive.
 
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Fenris said:
It's a long time since my last playthrough, so I might be wrong:
IIRC the Insta-Death happens when Sarevok kills all (or the two important ?) councilmembers. Keep this guys alive and the game continues. I remember a male Fighter Guy and a female wizard, one of them has to survive.
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Yep, you're right. Dang that is a tough encounter, though. Getting through it with all party members alive is almost impossible. Time to dip into my bag of potions, spells and tactics for this one :).

Thanks for your help.

Also, is it normal to have some encounters prove just too difficult for my group? The spider lair in Cloakwood, for example. I simply can't beat that part without people dying.

Edit - Survived it! Somehow...Anyway, I'm a bit conflicted as to what to do next.

Should I complete the expansion? Approximately how many hours do the expansion areas take to fully clear? I'm kind of wanting to hurry up and beat this game and then move to Baldur's Gate 2, but if the expansion is must-play material I will play it.

Probably a foolish question, but is it worth it?
 
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I'd say play BG2 and come back to Tales of Sword Coast later!! ;) Tales of Sword Coast isn't really part of Bhaalspawn story :D
 
Definitely play the expansion areas. They're some of the best areas in the game. In fact, Durlag's Tower is one of the best dungeons in any D&D crpg.
 
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Fluent said:
Also, is it normal to have some encounters prove just too difficult for my group?
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To me it sometimes happens that someone dies and I don't want to reload and do the battle again. So I just resurrect the fallen ones.

Should I complete the expansion?
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I'd say it depends on what you like. If you like dungeon crawling, you definitely have to do Durlag's Tower. As JDR13 said, it's really a great dungeon. My guess it that the tower alone will take you 15 hours. The other quests from Ulgoth's Beard (which are good as well with some twists and turns) aren't that lengthy, so I guess it's 20-25 hours in total. (Wikipedia says it has a scope of 20-30 hours.)

If you are in doubt, go for it. Otherwise when you'll have finished BG2 with the ToB expansion and the story is over, you'll regret that you hadn't spent more time in BG1. ;)
And remember that you can transfer your main character to BG2, including stats and experience points. So if you haven't reached the XP cap of 161,000 already, the additional XP might come in handy. ;)
 
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JDR13 said:
Definitely play the expansion areas. They're some of the best areas in the game. In fact, Durlag's Tower is one of the best dungeons in any D&D crpg.
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Cool, I'll do it!

Morrandir said:
To me it sometimes happens that someone dies and I don't want to reload and do the battle again. So I just resurrect the fallen ones.

I'd say it depends on what you like. If you like dungeon crawling, you definitely have to do Durlag's Tower. As JDR13 said, it's really a great dungeon. My guess it that the tower alone will take you 15 hours. The other quests from Ulgoth's Beard (which are good as well with some twists and turns) aren't that lengthy, so I guess it's 20-25 hours in total. (Wikipedia says it has a scope of 20-30 hours.)

If you are in doubt, go for it. Otherwise when you'll have finished BG2 with the ToB expansion and the story is over, you'll regret that you hadn't spent more time in BG1. ;)
And remember that you can transfer your main character to BG2, including stats and experience points. So if you haven't reached the XP cap of 161,000 already, the additional XP might come in handy. ;)
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Thanks for the advice. I'm going to play the expansion. I had no idea it was 20-30 hours of content! That's insane, but I guess it really qualifies as a true expansion then. Awesome.

As for party members dying, that happens to me but it's too much of a pain to go to a temple (I don't have anyone in my party who can raise the dead). So if I lose party members in a battle, I usually re-load and try again. Some battles just prove too difficult and I lose people no matter what, so it's tough. The game throws some difficult challenges at you, that's for sure.
 
Bring some potions into the expansion areas. A few potions boosting strength to 22-24 and some potions to improve AC or saving throws will help you a lot.
 
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Maylander said:
Bring some potions into the expansion areas. A few potions boosting strength to 22-24 and some potions to improve AC or saving throws will help you a lot.
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Thanks. I bought a bunch of potions to stock up, as well as arrows, bullets, wands and other stuff.

I can't even clear out a spider lair without losing party members, lol. This expansion is going to be very interesting...
 
It's considerably more challenging than the main quest, so just ask if you bump into any problems. Some of the fights are designed to be very difficult unless you do certain things.
 
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Maylander said:
It's considerably more challenging than the main quest, so just ask if you bump into any problems. Some of the fights are designed to be very difficult unless you do certain things.
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I've found my biggest problem in combat is failing a Save vs. whatever that causes my party to either be confused or fearful. That's why I hate fighting mages, because if I don't kill them extremely quick, they cast that spell that disables most of my party for the duration of the fight. Usually when I get hit with that spell I re-load immediately because I know how it's going to end...

The spiders are tough because of the poison damage as well as there just being way too many of them in that lair. I wish I could overcome that battle but I've basically given up at this point.

I'm expecting some serious challenge in this expansion, so we'll see how it goes. Hopefully I can at least explore a little bit of the tower before meeting my end to some impossible encounter :).
 
No encounter is impossible. Keep in mind that some people do solo runs on highest difficulty, so having a one man party only. Of course these characters are highly optimized, and your party perhaps isn't. But that's typically nothing that can't be changed. ;)

Which companions are you playing with again?
 
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Fluent said:
That's why I hate fighting mages, because if I don't kill them extremely quick, they cast that spell that disables most of my party for the duration of the fight.
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In my experience, archers are mage killers par excellence. Therefore I always have at least one expert archer in my party and give long range weapons as secondary weapons to the rest.


BTW, I am glad to see that your journey towards PC gaming is a very pleasant one and that you are very appreciative of the classics :).
 
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Morrandir said:
No encounter is impossible. Keep in mind that some people do solo runs on highest difficulty, so having a one man party only. Of course these characters are highly optimized, and your party perhaps isn't. But that's typically nothing that can't be changed. ;)

Which companions are you playing with again?
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Solo runs on highest difficulty? That's insane!!

My party is:

Myself (Dual-wielding Ranger)
Minsc
Khalid
Jaheira
Imoen
Dynaheir

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong for some of the tougher encounters. I wasn't able to clear a few areas -
the Wyvern Lair, the spider lair, a few houses in Baldur's Gate.
I try using tactics and pausing frequently, using tactical spells and resting before tough encounters to memorize the right spells, drink potions, etc., but some of these encounters leave party members dead no matter what I do.
 
Asdraguuhl said:
In my experience, archers are mage killers par excellence. Therefore I always have at least one expert archer in my party and give long range weapons as secondary weapons to the rest.


BTW, I am glad to see that your journey towards PC gaming is a very pleasant one and that you are very appreciative of the classics :).
Click to expand...

I'll keep that in mind about archers. My tactics usually are gang the entire party up on the mage immediately, while Dynaheir casts Deafness and Jaheira casts Miscast Magic. If I'm lucky, I can incapacitate the mage before any serious is damage is done.

I usually don't worry about melee enemies. It's the mages that are the real trouble. Oh, and archers who use stunning arrows/darts. They can be trouble, too.

Thanks for the words, though. I'm definitely appreciative of the classics. To be honest, I don't feel like they are weaker games AT ALL because they are older. Sure, they're not all modernized with shiny new graphics and a million cutscenes and what not, but the core gameplay and features of the game are as good as ever, if not BETTER than modern games.

All in all, I would take Baldur's Gate over nearly any modern game I've played. It's that good. Same with Vampire - Bloodlines, Gothic, Divine Divinity, etc. These games are truly great games that I'm thankful I'm finally able to play!
 
Fluent said:
I'll keep that in mind about archers. My tactics usually are gang the entire party up on the mage immediately, while Dynaheir casts Deafness and Jaheira casts Miscast Magic. If I'm lucky, I can incapacitate the mage before any serious is damage is done.
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The problem is that you need to walk to the mages first and in the mean time they can cast spells. Archers can fire immediately and if you have at least 3 or 4 party members firing simultaneously, even if they are not all experts, some attacks *will* hit and they may cause the mage to interrupt their spell casting.

I played Baldur's Gate a long time ago and I don't remember too much but I did play the Icewind Dale series (which are also based on the Infinity Engine) not too long ago and this tactic worked very well.

Fluent said:
All in all, I would take Baldur's Gate over nearly any modern game I've played. It's that good. Same with Vampire - Bloodlines, Gothic, Divine Divinity, etc. These games are truly great games that I'm thankful I'm finally able to play!
Click to expand...
After BG2, next in line should be the other undisputed classics from that era: Fallout 1 & 2 and Planescape: Torment….my all time favourites :).
 
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If you mean the spider's lair in the Cloakwood: When you enter it, just stay close to the entrance, don't let your melee fighters run in. This way half of the enemies won't participate in the fight. If you see you won't make it, just leave the lair. Some of the Spiders will follow you out, the queen will definitely not. Just divide and conquer.
It's of course a little cheesy this way though.

What exactly is the problem with the wyverns and which houses in BG do you mean exactly? What are the opponents?
 
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The spider lair was a bit tricky, try to stay at the entrance to not trigger all spawn. If I remember correctly I used some fire wands and fireballs to soften them up before engaging, for the wyvern lair I had all party member use ranged weapons, also easy to kill Drizzt that way across the pond.
What I also did was use the G3 mods and add some xp after removing the level XP cap:
In the west coast cave near the sirens where the golems are, after each rest the golems respawn so KA-CHING an easy XP exploit after doing that for an hour or 2
 
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