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paedraggaidin: Oh man, this was me ten years ago when I first picked up BG1. I almost gave up after the wizard guy at the Friendly Arm killed me for the fifth or sixth time, and after I got wiped out by a horde of gibberlings in the *first* area of the world map a few times....

My strongest advice is, ranged weapons! Once all or most of my first successful party had them, things got much smoother.
This is true, but never underestimate the power of a good tank. In my current game, I'm at/near the Cloakwood areas, and my MC has an AC of -6 and a -11 or -12 against arrows. He takes all the aggro while the NPC's pick off from a distance. With high con he has great HP, and due to being a Cavalier, he has immunity to Fear and other effects.

The only thing mages can do to him is stun or rigid thinking. I once watched him massacre Branwen with no possibility to stop him...
Thanks for the responses, good info and advice! I'll look into adding the infinite ammo and bags of holding this weekend, but I'm guessing it may be too late in my game for it to "work".

I haven't had as much time as I'd like to progress very much since my first post, but now have nearly all my characters at level 6. I've seen some information about some players reaching level 40, and that seems nearly unbelievable to me considering how much play-time it's taken me just to reach 6! I've also read that the original non-modded game had a level cap of 7, and that seems like it would have been disappointing to me if I'd played it with that restriction. As I said, the most enjoyable feature of nearly all RPGs for me is carefully choosing which skills to improve at level-up for each character. If it was limited to 7 (one more level-up in my current game), I would not be happy. Thank the gods for mods!

I actually already had 3 ranged characters, 2 fighters (tanks?) and 1 mage, and definitely see the benefits. I've equiped my fighters with bows, too, when I felt it necessary, but that has been very rare.

I may find it unrealistic as I progress, but for now I've decided that I want to clear ALL available areas before going to the bandit camp to progress the main plotline. That should grant me at least a few more level-ups. I'm currently about half-way through Durlag's tower/dungeon.

Anyway, despite all my earlier complaints, I am enjoying it very much! Unless some HUGE disappointment rears its head, I'm definitely planning on continuing on to BG2.

Again, thanks for the tips, comments, advice, etc.!
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nogwart: I'll look into adding the infinite ammo and bags of holding this weekend, but I'm guessing it may be too late in my game for it to "work".
FYI I added the four "infinite stacks" tweaks(ammo, gems & jewelry, scrolls & potions) from the tweak pack with no observable problems. This with a level 5-6ish party, at the very beginning of chapter 5 around the first time they entered the city of Baldur's Gate.
Adding them must work no matter when you do it then. That is good news.

The original experience cap was 89,000 with mostly meant level 7 (if you start with a new character in BG2 they have 89,000 XP). It seems pretty incredible how we can gain millions of XP in BG2 given how slow the pickings are in BG1 - but I look forward to finding that out when I start a proper BG2 game. Just need to finish my BG1 game first (am on hiatus now).

I'm using Minsc as the tank. He now has -10 AC (IIRC) and -20 on missiles. He's basically unhittable with arrows and pretty hard to catch toe-to-toe too. So him going forward while the other five are hailing arrows and bullets work like a charm. It often works against mages too actually as especially Kivan (with 4-5 THACO) can often hit and therefore interrupt spellcasting.

Good to hear you are liking it more as you play more. That seems to be a pretty common impression.
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paedraggaidin: Oh man, this was me ten years ago when I first picked up BG1. I almost gave up after the wizard guy at the Friendly Arm killed me for the fifth or sixth time, and after I got wiped out by a horde of gibberlings in the *first* area of the world map a few times....

My strongest advice is, ranged weapons! Once all or most of my first successful party had them, things got much smoother.
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Hawk52: This is true, but never underestimate the power of a good tank. In my current game, I'm at/near the Cloakwood areas, and my MC has an AC of -6 and a -11 or -12 against arrows. He takes all the aggro while the NPC's pick off from a distance. With high con he has great HP, and due to being a Cavalier, he has immunity to Fear and other effects.

The only thing mages can do to him is stun or rigid thinking. I once watched him massacre Branwen with no possibility to stop him...
There's a possibility in stopping a character which is become incontrolable by something like Rigid Thinking, Confusion, Chaos or Dire Charm, by casting Dispel Magic on the uncontrolable character. Beware though, as it dispels the buffs and protecetions cast on nearby party members as well. For Dire Charm, Remove Magic works best, as it only effects enemies (and your Dire Charmed character gets a red circle, so he's an enemy at that time), but it's only available if you had the 'add BG2 scrolls to BG1'-tweak from SCS. It's a BG2-spell.
Post edited October 06, 2011 by DubConqueror
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nogwart: I've seen some information about some players reaching level 40, and that seems nearly unbelievable to me considering how much play-time it's taken me just to reach 6!
One thing to keep in mind that the classes level up at different rates. I think that a single class thief or bard are the only characters that can actually reach level 40. I'd have to check an experience table to be sure though.
Thieves and bards reach level 39 pretty early (6 million xp or so) but don't hit 40 until the level cap, which is weird. Fighters and clerics hit 40 at the level cap evenly. Mages, druids, and rangers/pallies hit the level cap in their low 30s. However this is only applicable for ToB. Also note that there are LOTS of "xp cap removers" that work in a variety of different ways, some better than others.

I personally use a mod I made myself that changes the cap to 10 million, which allows everyone to get to 40, but it also makes multi-class characters much more powerful in the endgame at the expense of single-class characters. I honestly wouldn't recommend any sort of xp mod to a new player... I only use it because I've played BG so many times that single classes are boring to me.
*semi-spoilerwarning*

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nogwart: Thanks for the responses, good info and advice! I'll look into adding the infinite ammo and bags of holding this weekend, but I'm guessing it may be too late in my game for it to "work".

I haven't had as much time as I'd like to progress very much since my first post, but now have nearly all my characters at level 6. I've seen some information about some players reaching level 40, and that seems nearly unbelievable to me considering how much play-time it's taken me just to reach 6! I've also read that the original non-modded game had a level cap of 7, and that seems like it would have been disappointing to me if I'd played it with that restriction. As I said, the most enjoyable feature of nearly all RPGs for me is carefully choosing which skills to improve at level-up for each character. If it was limited to 7 (one more level-up in my current game), I would not be happy. Thank the gods for mods!

I actually already had 3 ranged characters, 2 fighters (tanks?) and 1 mage, and definitely see the benefits. I've equiped my fighters with bows, too, when I felt it necessary, but that has been very rare.

I may find it unrealistic as I progress, but for now I've decided that I want to clear ALL available areas before going to the bandit camp to progress the main plotline. That should grant me at least a few more level-ups. I'm currently about half-way through Durlag's tower/dungeon.

Anyway, despite all my earlier complaints, I am enjoying it very much! Unless some HUGE disappointment rears its head, I'm definitely planning on continuing on to BG2.

Again, thanks for the tips, comments, advice, etc.!
Not very wise to play Extra content thus Durlags tower even before you do the city itself, as Durlags tower is made for higher chars you should do all extra content (ulgoth beard durlags tower etc) after Sarevok escapes from the big meeting in the end and before you kill him. But its your call, if you fond the reload-blues go on ahead :-)
Post edited October 07, 2011 by pzrshrek
shouldn't you have put a spoiler warning there? It's his first playthrough.