About a week ago I bought BG1 from GOG.com. Got it working well in widescreen thanks to the Conservative Modder's Guide posted by Xenobrain. Not knowing that BG2 was soon to be released, I started playing. Now I find myself in a bit of a pickle.

I've rescued Dynaheir and cleared the Nashkel mines. I've also thoroughly explored nearly every zone south and west of Beregost. I have not done many of the quests in Beregost, however, nor have I dealt with the areas north or east of Beregost (except for the area immediately around the Friendly Arm).

Currently I'm in a bit of a bind that I may need a cheat to remedy. I can't get into the Red Sheaf because Xzar and Montaron decided to park themselves pemanently in front of the entrance when I told them they were no longer needed.

My question is: Should I continue my vanilla BG1 game? Or should I just give up on it and start again with BGT?

I don't really know how much of BG1 I've got left to go, though I suspect there's quite a lot. I'd just as soon finish what I'm doing if I'm near the end. But if I'm still near the beginning, I think I'd prefer to start again with the BG2 engine since I'm finding some aspects of BG1 (*cough* pathfinding *cough*) a bit of a drag.

If you've played BG1 before, please let me know what you think.

I'm considering BGT as my means of combining the two. I'm assuming that this will work properly with BG1 and BG2 both purchased from GOG.com?

It sounds like you're not far yet. Have you tried to add Xzar and Montaron back to your party and dropping them off somewhere else?

Personally I'd restart with Tutu. I remember being aggravated by the pathfinding in BG1, but it's hardly a problem when you run the game with Tutu. Not to mention all the other improvements! I think BG1 is a fine game, but BG with Tutu is a fantastic game. It really does make a difference. Adding the NPC project mod also IMO makes the pacing better, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

With the characters blocking the door, you could indeed just rerecruit them into the party, take them somewhere else and dump them again (naturally after robbing them blind of every item they have and leaving them in the woods in just their underpants) then come back to pick up your other members. Or you could just kill them, they're evil after all

If you've finished the nashkel mines & gotten dynaheir, I'd say you're about a quarter of the way through the game. Its a fair bit to lose but then you might be able to make a better character knowing what you know now. Are the saves definitely not compatible with BGT?

Thanks for responding, Raggie.

I tried what you suggest, but Montaron doesn't want to talk to me, and Xzar is positioned behind him so it's impossible to click on him (they're both under the awning on the porch in front of the Red Sheaf entrance).

Between that headache and BG1's rough edges, I really am leaning toward starting over. Especially if, as you say, I've still got a ways to go. I'm thinking of trying Trilogy rather than Tutu, however, since it sounds like the former offers a greater sense of continuity, which is something I'd appreciate.

I'm planning on sticking pretty close to vanilla, but I'll have to look into the NPC project.

I agree with Raggie, you should really consider Tutu instead. While it sounds cool, BGT will alter the original experience drastically, most notably in that you can carry across characters from BG1 to BG2 that were not in the original BG2, and the fact that they have added in a new sequence inbetween 1 and 2 to carry you across that wasn't there, the level cap is now up to BG2 levels meaning that you may end up leveling too fast or not being high enough level when you get to BG2 if you don't know what you are doing, etc.

Maybe after you have played both games through you might want to consider BGT but for the first playthrough you really should try to experience the original story first. While Tutu does alter the game by running it in the BG2 engine and such like, the overall game experience is still maintained unless you add other mods, some of which you can without changing the experience too much but it is still your own choice.

Just my opinion of course.

Aliasalpha,

I did try killing them, but since that involved attacking them in cold blood on the streets of Beregost, it made everyone in town hostile to me. I guess the gentle citizens of Beregost find evil characters who loiter in front of an inn less objectionable than good characters who haul off and kill others for no reason. Heh.

Based on the information I've been able to find, my saved game won't be compatible. But you're right, I'll probably be able to come up with a better character. Still, it'll be a shame to lose the 18/82, 18, 18, 15, 15, 17 paladin I managed to roll up. Sigh.

A quarter of the way, huh? Hmm, the loss may indeed be less painful than the prospect of playing the rest of the game with the BG1 engine.

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Flintlock,

I really don't know much about Tutu and Trilogy. I picked Trilogy because the continuity it offers sounds appealing. For example: I've killed Edwin in my current BG1 playthrough. If I were to import my paladin into BG2 and Edwin were to show up there acting like that had never happened, it would bother me a bit. I get the impression that Trilogy is supposed to prevent that sort of thing.

What I don't know is what the ramifications are. Obviously if Edwin doesn't show up in BG2 then I'll miss out on any quests he might have offered me. That I can live with, and it may even motivate me to play BG1/BG2 more than once. But I can imagine there'd be problems if, for example, I were to kill a character whose absence could change the story of BG2 drastically.

So when you say I should try to experience the original story first, what exactly do you mean? Does Trilogy really change BG2 that much? If you can explain without getting too spoilerific I'd be grateful.

if u can try the charm spells or i think it mental dom to move them that might work. if u do BGT u could choose the basic that should be pretty close to normal with the least mods but with the bg2 engine

i'm doing BGT atm still installing it at recommended 101mods atleast lets see how that runs

Can you export the character you rolled up and then import it back into either Tutu or Trilogy (whichever you choose to go with)?

OR he could just enable the debug mode to use the 18 all cheat, then reduce them to these stats (although the 18/82 will change to 18/00)

OR OR OR, he could roll his character with junk stats and then use ShadowKeeper to edit the stats to how they were originally.

Flintlock,

Thanks for the explanation. I'm starting to get a handle on the issues involved. I tend to explore thoroughly, so I'm not likely to go plunging into the BG2 content at a level that's too low. But the removal of the XP cap may well mean I'll be at a much higher level than I should be, and so will find the BG2 stuff a bit too trivial. That's something I'll have to think about before making a move.

Yes, resurrection isn't out of the question in Faerun, and the fact that the writers put in some "Wait, aren't you dead?" options shows that they were aware of the continuity problems they would be creating. It's a shame Bioware didn't include such events in the info saved with the character, but I guess the didn't start doing that until Mass Effect (and even then there were still a few glitches in the system).

Even so, I'm not sure how far those conversation options will go toward smoothing over the continuity problems. I'm not expecting to want to play BG1/BG2 through more than once, since (even wtih Bioware's most replayable titles) I generally don't find enough new stuff on subesequent playthroughs to make the game feel fresh again. Still, BG2 could surprise me, especially if the BG2 engine is as improved as it sounds.

So if I were to decide to do as you say, and play through once with Tutu and then try BGT on subsequent attempts, what would that involve? Would I have to uninstall everything and start from scratch to get BGT working?

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Uereg,

Charm spells! I hadn't thought of that. If I decide to stick with my vanilla BG1 game, I'll have to see if that works. But it's really looking like I'm going to scrap this game and start again using the BG2 engine.

Let me know what you think of BGT once you've gotten into it.

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Korell, BlackAkari, JadedMieu,

I haven't played with the export function at all. Wouldn't it mean I'd end up starting my new game at level 3 or 4, whatever I'm at now? Or is it possible to export just stats?

In any event it seems I've got a lot of options for recreating my character. Thank you all for the suggestions!

No you won't. I always though this is the weakest argument against BGT, as the opening dungeon alone gives you enough experience to get to level 9. The beginning of BG 2 will feel like you are leveling up rapid fire, because the game gives you an insane amount of XP compared to the first game.
And it will export the full character file, not just the stats. That means if you import/export you will start at whatever level you exported at. I would just use shadowkeeper to redo your stats.

I don't quite follow what you're saying, because I have no clear idea where the XP cap stands in relation to the total amount of XP available in BG1. But I'm guessing that it could be pretty low, since BG1 seems to allow an indefinite number of random encounters as you're wandering about the world. So you could presumably get well above the BG1 cap before ever getting into the BG2 content, no?

I'm also not sure exactly what you mean by "enough experience to get to level 9" because I don't know what level BG2 starts you at. Are we talking a level's worth? I can understand that XP comes more quickly in BG2 than in BG1. The question seems to be, what happens if you play the hell out of the latter and start the BG2 content with a character that's already at level 12? Would that have a detrimental effect on the BG2 experience?
Thanks, that's pretty much what I expected. I'll have to look into Shadowkeeper, or use the cheat. It's either that or spend another leisurely night hitting the Reroll button again and again.

My guess is maybe a level, 2 at the very most if you soak up every last XP from both BG and TotSC (and I doubt you'd get 2 levels over the cap, actually). The random encounters really don't occur often enough to net you a vast amount of XP unless you force it by repeatedly traveling to a couple specific areas where they happen more often. But if you just play the game without trying to milk the random encounters, you'll be fine.

He means the game tops you up with enough XP right at the beginning to get your character to level 9 (if you're higher level than that, I assume you don't get any XP boost at all, but I've never tried it). If you were level 12, yes, it would make things easier, but only for a short while. But I doubt you'd get to level 12 in BG1 unless you solo or go with only 1 or 2 other characters.