Playing BGII:EE my way

Two times I tried playing Baldur's Gate II way back, two times I got lost in Chapter 2 and interest fizzled out. Recently, while playing Might & Magic X I got the itch again for some deep party based classic fantasy adventure so I researched Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition and didn't hesitate long. I had BG2 originally with all those mods, but with patch 1.3 the EE seems quite playable. Liking it a lot so far.

Now, the primary reason for why I lost interest originally is that I prefer to play with a fully customized party. No companions in the party, however, makes for a dull afair as there is no party banter. I tried playing normally with companions, but I didn't really care about them that way either. So what's the solution?

In comes EEKEeper (new Shadowkeeper), the well-known savegame/character editing tool, as well as an NPC renaming mod. The latter works for the character sheet and in dialogues, but sadly not within the dialogue texts themselves, but that's not too bad. So now I can do a custom party and still get all the party banter. Awesome!


I'm using sort of a standard CRPG party with six characters. I'm not a fan of dual or multi-classing and prefer specialized archetypes.

1. Kyle Skye, male Human Paladin (Cavalier), PC.
2. Erik Stoneshield, male Dwarf Fighter (Dwarven Defender). Personality: Korgan.
3. Juniper Corndancer, female Gnome Thief (Swashbuckler). Personality: Imoen.
4. Lilyana Featherwind, female Elf Ranger (no kit). Personality: Mazzy.
5. Mistral Thalion, male Human Mage (Conjurer). Personality: Edwin.
6. Aileya Featherwind, female Elf Cleric (Lathander). Personality: Aerie.

Juniper is actually a Sylph, one of the Fae folk. She's loosely based on the thief Selena from Ambermoon. Physically weak, but lightning quick. Fae in the BG games generally look like elves, but I wanted her to be a bit smaller for diversity, so a Gnome it is. Imoen fits well and as she's a fairly central character, I get to see her in action a lot, like in cutscenes.

I didn't have to change Erik (Korgan) and Mistral (Edwin) much at all, they are already archetypical. I don't like that they are evil, but I suppose it makes for interesting party interactions. Mazzy gets to be an Elven Ranger. So short bow & short sword become a long bow and long sword. Aileya is just fine with Aerie's personality, as a pure Cleric, although I kept the mage appearance (cloth caster rather than plate).

I more or less kept the NPC stats for them, with just some minor modifications.


What I really like is that I can find these NPCs just as usual in the game and they just happen to be exactly the characters I want in my party. They can also talk and have some fitting backgrounds. Yay for immersion!

I wish every party-based CRPG worked like that: companions with their own personalities, but still fully customizable (including name changes!) upon recruiting. Best of both worlds.

Nice

One of these days I really must try to get through this game. I can't count how many times it has come up as the best CRPG of all time.

To me, it felt like too much of a good thing - but there must be more to it than that.

Originally Posted by Arhu
I wish every party-based CRPG worked like that: companions with their own personalities, but still fully customizable (including name changes!) upon recruiting. Best of both worlds.

I'm kinda hoping that's how D:OS 2 will work, with the origins stuff. Hopefully one of the stretch goals can be to customize the companions.

Anyway, sorry for the slight OT.

I'd also really like customizable NPCs, though I concede it's all but impossible to write engaging characters without at least knowing stuff like class and gender beforehand.

Obviously, the challenge when writing customizable characters is how to handle stuff like weapons - because if you allow the player to decide whether a character uses a sword, club or even a bow - then you can't ever mention the weapon during a conversation - as it might conflict with the player choice.

So, having full customization is probably going to result in writers who feel held back when writing character-specific dialogue or quests, and I'm not sure that's worth it.

My way!

pibbur, the derailer of threads

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
So, having full customization is probably going to result in writers who feel held back when writing character-specific dialogue or quests, and I'm not sure that's worth it.

BG2 does have a few dialogues like that (references to weapons, class etc.). Originally I wanted to use Rasaad (monk) for my mage as he sounded intelligent too and had a more fitting voice, but after I read some lines of his and Edwin's… I went with Edwin after all. Anyway, there could always be sensible defaults with some deviations.

Luckily, BG2 has a lot of NPCs to choose from.

What I'm wondering now is if I could assign a personality (Keldorn) to my main character so he can actually take part in all the party banter. Anyone know if it's possible?

Did a few side quests, which took me a couple of hours because I'm dilly-dallying so much!

I consulted a walkthrough for the starting phase in order to not get lost completely as I did before. The game doesn't let you take a wrong step without shoving a new quest in your face that absolutely needs to be followed and resolved as quickly as possible. So my usual approach to playing CRPGs doesn't work, which is fully exploring a map before venturing forth. Basically, my short-term goals are these: recruit the NPCs I want (almost complete), secure them (each of them has a quest-line they want you to do before becoming permanent party members), buy them stuff, then follow the main quest some more to get the last party member. Only after that I'll relax and go exploring full-time.


I'm using the following self-imposed rules (first one with EEKeeper, others with the G2Tweaks patch), because if I didn't I'd only reload all the time anyway:

• All party members get the same XP as the protagonist upon recruiting. I'm not a fan of individual XP.
• Max HP on level up. I'd only reload otherwise.
• 100% spell learning. I'd only reload otherwise.
• Happy NPCs (they never get angry due to reputation) - have to do this for Mistral and Erik.
• NPCs don't fight (otherwise the evil/good ones might eventually fight each other to the death).

Still missing my final Ranger and Thief. So far, Minsc and Yoshimo are substituting.


Oh, and the enhanced edition doesn't have loading screens and has no noticeable loading times whatsoever. Entering a new area or loading a savegame is as quick as opening an image file in Windows.

My party. Zoomed in a lot for more of a close-up shot. It doesn't look that blocky normally.



Juniper has speed boots and an item that lets her cast Improved Haste on self.. with both active she really zips across the battlefield like a flash.

Nice. Where did you get those portraits?

Originally Posted by wiretripped
Nice. Where did you get those portraits?

Found them mostly on deviantart. Sources:

1. Knight by Jorsch
2. Alternate Portraits thead on the beamdog forum
3. Mosquitoes Hunter by David Revoy
4. Elder Scrolls Online wallpaper
5. Tornado Mage by WarNick
6. BG:Vidaniel by Smilika

Finished the first (huuuuge!) part, Shadows of Amn. Midway through I found that six character parties are too big for me after all: my Ranger was lacking identity, not having anything to do, really, and the Dwarf seemed a bit redundant. So I did what anyone sensible would do with access to EEKeeper. I tinkered. And now I'm back to my standard LMK+P party.

• Kyle, the Cavalier, is now switching between Carsomyr and Sword&Shield, depending on situation, with access to Swords, Warhammers and Maces.
• Lilyana (Imoen now) became a Sharpshooter, a class kit that is part of a Bard & Thief enhancement package called Song and Silence. Basically she's not a long bow-shooting nature-loving Ranger anymore, but a short bow-shooting Rogue with thieving skills, but no backstabs. So I get to actually use her a lot more often now.
• Mistral (Edwin) is still a thriving black mage.
• Aileya (Aerie) is still a Priest of Lathander.

Thus. Thinking back to Gothic's party size thread, I guess for me the optimal party size is 4 if there is a useful healing system in a game, otherwise 3. But I do really appreciate the option of having more slots available.

This will probably also become my party in D:OS Enhanced Edition, but with Aileya becoming the confident party leader (most points to spare for personality skills) and Kyle being a hopeless romantic.

pre-made companions always were sorta boring to me mechanically, but then I feared a custom made party would be too powerful.