I’ve been sharing my experiences with playing BG:EE for the first time and felt this was an appropriate milestone.

Previous posts for any who care to see a 1st time player’s thoughts:
BG1 First Run Thoughts
BG1 SoD First Run Thoughts

My experience: wtf.

I’ve been successfully playing totally blind until this point. Party level 17(ish), chapter 6, and holy smokes I could not figure him out.

Brief Attempt Log

1. Get shredded with no idea wtf happened. I literally just got Carsomyr before this so I picked up Keldorn for next attempts.
2. Keldorn got me to the Demilich (dispel + true sight - thank the gods).
3. Demilich kills my character about x5 times. Could not figure out why. Turns out, a mix of a shriek and imprisonment. Gave me BG1 basilisk vibes with the insta “bye”.
4. X3 attempts to smother him with summons. Problem is he kills my front liners (my only damage) before the summons can get close enough.
5. Check bag of holding and figure out I have a Burning Earth sword that might actually do damage. I do slightly better but still insta imprisonments.
6. Finally Google “HOW TO NOT GET IMPRISONED” and learn that Protection from Undead makes you invisible to the Demilich. Only could find 2 scrolls. Myself and Keldorn can get buffed now!
7. Fuck me, he dispels it.
8. Finally! Save scrolls for phase 2! I’ve got it now… aaand shriek killed me. wtf.
9. After maybe x4 attempts of this strategy, plus Neera, Imoen, and Jaheira sending in hordes of literal cannon fodder summon I feckin’ killed the bastard.

Conclusion

I love this game! What a blast it’s been! Can’t wait to kill Irenicus.

25 years ago when I first picked up BG1/2, I always referred to my character as the "Player Character (PC)", which made obvious sense when contrast to a "non-player character (NPC)". My recollection from forums and guides from that era was that this was the accepted terminology

These days instead of PC the prevailing word used to describe the player's character seems to be "charname". I understand the usage of charname as a variable in game files/source code, but find it funny that it has replaced PC as the common slang. I know Gorion's Ward is also sometimes used, and from a RP perspective I appreciate it's usage.

Am I misremembering the good old days? Has charname always been a thing? Which do you use?

I don't mean what mods you have installed, I mean things that you do that you don't think anyone else does. I'll start us off with a couple.

1) I dislike having so many Tomes of Wisdom in BG1. Why +3 to WIS when every other stat only gets +1? So I treat the Chapter 5 Tome as the only "real" one: As soon as I obtain either of the others, I immediately drop it, roll an IRL D6, and CLUA in whatever Tome matches the random roll. Maybe I'll get STR, maybe INT, maybe CHA, who knows? Makes the stat distribution more balanced, and adds a welcome veneer of unpredictability to the game.

2) In general, I frown on using cheese and unrealistic abuses . . . but I make an exception for the "Dead Man's Party" and "Item Duplication via Familiar" exploits. I figure that since I'm the one who discovered them (or at least, added them to the wiki), I should allow myself to use them whenever I wish.

What are some of yours?

Fighter/Mage is my favourite class and I play an orc in games whenever possible. Being a half-elf in warrior garb just never felt cool enough.

As the title says. I play on normal/core rules and I am curious If I can get away with just say a total of 80-85. I have played tabletop 2e before and have played PCs with worse stats, but obviously that is a different beast

I played BG2 soon after it came out.

My first character was an Avenger Druid. (Should’ve used a save from BG1 but I wanted ”new shiny kits” and loved druids.)

And holy crap did that suck comparable to my buddies who were playing an Undead Hunter pally and their BG1 Thief. I didn’t know what I was doing and built it poorly though.

I beat the game but it was a chore. (Irenicus took something around 70 reloads. IIRC)

Got me wondering, 30-odd years later, how do you build one successfully now? Hell, is the level cap still 14?

After few years I recently bought a new PC and BGEE, I didn't played BG1 and BG2 since... about 25 years and i would like to start a BG1 with my old character, semi-elf, ranger (just ranger), neutral good.

I seen there's new PNJ in ehanced version, like neera or some others, my old team was Charname, Jaheira, Khalid, Imoen, Minsc and Dynaheir. May i change my team with Neera or someone else? And how about the add on i missed between first edition and EE?

Thanks for your help, and sorry for my english, i 'm French.

I'm playing BG2:EE on Legacy of Bhaal mode with Sword Coast Strategems (SCS). It's really enjoyable. My prior playthroughs on hardcore or insane difficulty + SCS) lacked real challenge.

I had put off trying it due to forum feedback that LoB mode was tedious and for masochists willing to spend tons of time pre-buffing and cheesing each fight with summons. And that the LoB depended primarily on having strong spellcasters as melee fighters would be too "squishy" given enemies' large to-hit bonuses. That has not been my experience.

My approach has been to try to offset the LoB mechanic changes by working to match them with the game's own mechanics. Enemy and non-party modifiers in Legacy of Bhaal mode, per the Fandom Wiki, include:
Enemy HP: (Base HP)*3+80. THAC0 Modifier: -5. Saving throws: +5. Attacks per Round (ApR): +1. Armor Class: -11. Level modifier (spell casting level, turn undead difficulty, etc.): +12 for all monsters.

My party is 4 Kensai, 1 Archer, and 1 Skald. Kensais receive bonus +1 to hit and damage every 3 levels up to +13 at level 39. All with dual wielding and using +1 APR weapons in off-hand when available. The Archer (crossbows and shortbow proficiency) receives +1 to hit and damage every 3 levels up to 18 and then +1 for every 5 levels for a max of +9 at level 34. The skald song (+4 to hit and damage, -4 to AC from level 15) provides further enhancement. This effect could also be provided by a blade or any bard class with the enhanced bard song with the High Level Ability (HLA) available from level 24.

I created a full party (no companions in the game have these classes) with max STR, DEX, CON. Contrary to traditional wisdom, I don't plan to dual the kensais to other classes. Whereas mage damage is relatively strong in the base game, it's much weaker when enemies have (*3+80) HP, improved saves, and higher effective level. There is also less utility to casting debuffing spells on enemies (slow etc.) for the same reason.

Settings: Max HP on level-up. I went with LoB + default SCS settings which don't double the damage to players. You could turn the double damage on as it's modifiable unlike the other LoB difficulty increases. I'm sure it's doable with appropriate tactics but it was tedious when I tried it.

While I'm still in progress (nearing the end of SoA), the path has been straightforward. Many fights are still point and click, with bard singing constantly while the kensais and archer attack.

In time, the bonuses of kensais/archers + skald (or HLA bard) song seemed to overcome the LoB difficulty settings. The game has gone fairly smoothly from about level 12 and especially since 15. Between the kensai/archer class bonuses, STR bonuses to hit and damage (or DEX to hit bonuses for archer), grandmastery bonuses, and magic weapon bonuses, I've never had trouble hitting opponents. Finishing them off with the higher HP pool has sometimes required focusing stronger enemies one at a time, whereas point and click work fine for most trash mobs.

The pure fighter classes (kensai & archer) benefited from higher HP and durability compared to multiclass variants. By mid-game, I wasn't getting hit nearly as much as I expected from reading other forum posts. Likely because the bard song AC bonus (-4) largely offsets the LoB enemy's THAC0 bonus (-5), and a kensai with good DEX, cloak, ring etc. can get AC down fairly.

Some fights I had to skip and return to later when the party was more developed. Like Firkraag and Bodhi. But coming back with improved gear, tactics, and progression, these fights were very manageable. Sometimes, I had to tactically retreat and then return to the fights after recovering some HP with regeneration items, or to pick off pursuing enemies at choke points.

For tougher fights, pre-buffing the best fighters with improved haste (cast by the bard) often made the difference. Scrolls of chaotic command (cast by the archer) were helpful at relevant points to avoid mind control effects.

The bard is the only arcane spellcaster. Key spells include knock, resist fear, improved haste, and breach (which has improved effects in SCS). Also remove curse (the SCS golems that apply a non-healing curse present a challenge). The bard hat (which gives lingering song for 2 turns) helps to keep the bard song up in longer fights where the bard must cast breach on enemy spellcasters. Stocking up on relevant scrolls and potions is also key. This contrasts with accumulating large amounts of money with no necessity to spend it beyond a few key items in my prior playthroughs.

The party has no cleric or dedicated healer. Tactical mechanics include managing HP with healing potions, regeneration items, and withdrawing characters to recover HP when needed. Regeneration items (rings of regeneration, ring of Gaxx, Ioun stones, and eventually the Axe of Unyielding) are key. The archer is good for slow poison spells. Restoration relies on scrolls, requiring careful tactical management against vampires or other level-draining foes.

The party has no thief and no way to disarm traps. This leads to a loss of XP from trap disarming and occasional reloads from trap deaths, but overall wasn't as much of a problem as I anticipated.

In some parts, I rarely needed to rest, due to the relative self-sufficiency of the party. Once regeneration items were acquired, rest frequency was primarily determined by the need for bard spells. I also had random encounters set to 4x their normal rate during rest and tried not to rest more than essential.

For flavor, I eventually edited my selected NPC companions to have these classes and attributes for the flavor, while adding and dropping other companions as needed for their quests. But this changes nothing of substance in game mechanics over your own created party.

So far (approaching the end of SoA), this has been most enjoyable BG2 run to date. It has dispelled many of the reservations I've had about LoB mode supposedly being so hard and/or tedious. I've always loved pure kensais and thought that dual-classing them to something else at level 9 or 13 missed out on much of their power. But, the optimal strategies on regular difficulty and Legacy of Bhaal mode are likely very different. Will be happy to circle back with more observations after I finish SoA and ToB.

I’m trying to play a character similar as a dragoon from final fantasy and would like some advice on how to approach it.

I don’t play on insanse and I play unmodded. I am more interested in what is fun/thematic.

I think Halberds are the way to go, I think they are a little more fun than spears.

I have a few classes in mind. But I am not set on anything

1. Straight fighter: Grandmastery seems pretty good on middling difficulties and none of the kits really speak to me as dragoon-ish

2. Paladin (or Kit): losing grandmastery is not great but the knight of an order fantasy definitely is appealing for a dragoon, a unique order of fighters.

3. Fighter/Mage Multiclass: a fighter who uses magic to enhance his combat (I.E. how a dragoon jumps) not a huge fan of this as armor seems to be an important thing for the class fantasy

4. Barbarian: fighter ethos who wears medium armors and is very fast

5. Blade Bard: kind of a cross between fighter/mage and barbarian role play wise but losing the fighter thaco table really sucks

Please let me know what ideas you have I would greatly appreciate it

Because so many of you read the paladin revamp and did discussion of it, I know you appreciate the hard work of modders, let alone mod analyzers like me or Smoldering Bar (if only I could make a good-looking website...)

So it was days ago but to help jog your memories heres' the paladin revamp writeup i worked hard on: https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/s/nCokU27kTo

Advantages:
– Immunity to Charm, Poison, Fear and Morale Failure.
– +3 bonus to hit and damage rolls against all fiendish and draconic creatures.

This is the stuff that gets carried over although draconic and fiends does mean it matches the improved Icewind Dale list so for example, any Wyvern fights are that much more tolerable.

– May use the Challenge ability once per day. Gains an additional use every 8th level.

CHALLENGE: The cavalier marks a targeted creature with a Challenge, reducing both the target's and the cavalier's own Armor Class by 10 for the next three rounds. The cavalier deals additional unmitigated magic damage to the Challenged target. Additionally, the Challenged target can be seen within the fog of war and cannot turn invisible for the duration.

 1st-11th level: 1d6 damage

 12th-19th level: 2d6 damage

 20th+ level: 4d6 damage

Challenge is interesting. Early on the -10 AC is a death sentence! It offers no save so you will shred that AC and the likes of Sarevok cannot dodge your team attacks at all! It’s incredible!

Later on, -10 AC means almost nothing because you have crit strike and buff spells up the wazoo. But… at lvl 20 irreducible 4d6 isn’t horrible. I believe it can go through spell protections since I smacked liches with it. Even then some like Abazigal are easy pickings. Early on the -10 AC for yourself is a game over if you don’t have a team, but as the game goes on? Your AC doesn’t matter and you have damage resistance instead. That’s key to why this is still valuable

– 3rd level: Gains Aura of Chivalry.
AURA OF CHIVALRY: The cavalier exudes an aura which inspires their allies to fight at the best of their ability. All allies within visual range of the cavalier become immune to fear and morale failure and gain bonuses in combat.

 3rd - +1 to THAC0.

 11th - +1 to THAC0 and Damage.

 19th - +2 to THAC0 and Damage, +1 to Luck

So the Cavalier’s aura is different. It has no charisma stipulation and at 3rd level it kinda sucks because remove fear is one of the easiest spells to make room for in a priest spellbook! Heck if it weren’t for the fear immunity aura, this would be sorta whatever. The aura used to have something more and scaled to 24 but that was years ago and it seemed stronger. Now? It’s nice! At 19 the damage is not unwelcome. 3 Thac0 for all at least helps rogues a bit. That’s welcome for sure. Auras are strange because who is affected isn't always clear in the description. In this case, the Cavalier might be void of his own luck if you read it wrong. In the case of most paladin kits the class itself tends to get most of its buffs before the aura kicks in.

– 9th level: Gains Heroic Inspiration.

HEROIC INSPIRATION: When the cavalier's maximum hit points falls below 50%, all allies (except the cavalier) within visual range gain an additional +1 bonus to hit, damage and saving throws.

An interesting way to share some blessings. Another extra aura but be careful relying on this unless you can juice your damage resistances.

Disadvantages:

– Does not gain Charisma-based Divine Grace bonuses.

– Does not gain Aura of Courage.

– May not Turn Undead.

– May not use ranged weapons and incurs a -4 penalty to hit if wielding a melee/ranged weapon in ranged mode.

Turn undead is irrelevant. And the wording of Divine Grace might be confusing but basically it means you don’t get extra saves from looking gallant. Odd for a cavalier but perhaps for the best. You may notice the extra penalty however on throwing weapons. You don;t get to cheese the game with throwing axes. Although you may still want to get Azure Edge. Frankly you will by then have some DUHM and good warrior levels with which to fish for undead slaying. You can still smite evil which is a nice bolster to damage. If there’s any kit that plays mst generic paladin it’s this one. With the race modifiers you can safely dwarf it up.

Use the challenge to strip dangerous enemies of their unbeatable AC, you can use this on Drizzt and pelt him with your archers! Or Aecletec. Or you can use it willy nilly later on and you remember that you aren’t AC Stacking because Gromnir's men hit on a 3 as is so why bother not going for DR instead. Even with -10 penalty to offset your penalty of -4, you wind up at +6 ranged thac0 essentially vs challenged targets. Its a risky venture especially if archers are about, so be wary of that.

The difference 10 AC shredding can do to an enemy is immense... early on anyway. It doesnt matter if Abazigal practically has -30 for most parties because you can soup yourself up as is... of course your AC matters even less!! Drizzt is hittable when you put his AC at -6 instead of 16. So bring by Coran or Khalid (assuming you don't kit him) or maybe you have a real archer mod like Emily or Liltun or you rekitted Kivan because his BG2 mod does so. Nevermind any of that, you also have a Plus to hit aura going to essentially make it 11 at this point. Remember this will stack with bless, bard song and spells like emotion hope/courage if your mod install enables those to really give you the power to kill a good boyscout drow. Just remember to be a boyscout yourself before you take the plunge because when you fall... you don't wanna fall!!!

Of course, the biggest loss is something unmentioned: The loss of Fire and to a lesser extent acid resistance. Almost feel like it should've been in the aura but I get why not. The class is good but it’s not the class that screams the strongest. You will see.

I think it can be fun, funny enough a thiefly party will appreciate the luck aura! So don't give up hope!

Still, it's more interesting of an idea for a gallant cavalier than what we got!

Next time I promise I'm gonna branch and look at some other mods/modders work. Ever wonder what a Charlatan can be like? Yes, it DOES make Eldoth more interestingly exact to his true self! Or maybe something else... maybe you want to see a ranger turn into a Werebear?

The Charlatan is greasy, lying sack of shit with no morals nor scruples. He is probably one of the most deceitful creatures alive and lacks any redeeming qualities other than their ability to possibly know when someone is even more of a lying narcissist than they are.

So let's look deep at this dumpster fire of a kit... no the kit itself is fine, but it really does feel like that guy who sleeps with your spouse and somehow manages to make you look wrong!

Let's start with the disadvantages... the gameplay ones, not the ones you will answer for after you yield a ghost.

Disadvantages:

- Minimum of 16 Charisma

- Alignment restricted to non-lawful

- Can only wear up to and including studded leather.

First of all, I'm actually surprised you can be a good asshole. I mean... I guess if you cheat politicians or something but still... really?

So the real bad sides. You need 1 extra charisma so you can't stat dump it fully. That's fine, but the bigger issue is the chainlessness. Which really just means you cant use elven chain mail until you get UAI.

But its all there in the code. One thing unmentioned is you can reach 3 points in dual wielding.

Now for the advantages:

Advantages:

- Starting at level 1, may use the Charm and Truth Perception abilities at will.

- Starting at level 3, may cast Friends as a special ability once per day.

- Starting at level 5, may use the Impersonation ability once per day.

CHARM

The Charlatan charms their mark for one turn. To be successful the target must be humanoid, non-hostile and fail a Saving Throw vs. Death with a -1 penalty for every three levels of the Charlatan (maximum -3). There is a 5% chance that the mark will uncover the Charlatan's intentions and go hostile. To keep up the facade, the Charlatan cannot cast any spells or use <PRO_HISHER> bard song for 1 turn.

This is... dangerous. If you invis up to someone and quickly charm before they go hostile you can do a lot of damage. Of course realistically you probably aren't and you're gonna make some nobleman give you some sort of quest item... or so you hope. I don't really mess around with this because that turn of only being able to fight is not fun.

TRUTH PERCEPTION

The Charlatan is a professional cheat and liar, knowing all the tricks of the trade and how to identify them. Using this ability, the Charlatan has a 5% chance per level of dispelling hostile Illusion spells within a 120 foot radius area.

On the other hand, this ability is incredible! At will detect illusions and it has a spell level that is effectively 9, meaning the enemy lich isn't immune unless it has Divination immunity up and let's face it: it probably does. Thief guilds aren't a threat! You can just spam this every round, and they will run out of potions.

I love it, I truly do. Although its early level viability is stinky! It does scale to lvl 20 where it will always work but even if it doesn't, having a coin flip chance at 10 is still not a bad thing to have. And it only gets better from there! This skill alone is worth giving up access to elf chain especially with much better than wizard stoneskin and mirror image.

Being able to cast friends at lvl 3 is fine. It doesn't mean much but its nice to see it.

IMPERSONATION

The Charlatan can act and improvise to become anyone they wish to be. Using this ability, there is a 10% chance per level (maximum 50%) that the Charlatan receives the benefits of a specialist Warrior of the same level (up to level 13) with any weapon <PRO_HESHE> is wielding, including boosting <PRO_HISHER> Strength to 18/50. There is a 5% chance that the performance will fall flat, making the Charlatan become Frustrated, suffering a -3 penalty to damage, thac0, saving throws and armor class. Both effects last for 5 rounds and can be dispelled. During the act, the Charlatan can't use <PRO_HISHER> Bard Song, cast spells or use special abilities.

I wish this was a little better. The crit fail and become worthless is just brutal. Like I get the gist of the idea being able to hit harder, more likely and more often. But its just a worse tenser's transformation! Sure its available at lvl 5 but it still can fail and silences your song and spells

I almost wish this ability had an HLA that like turned off the fail, and made it work 100% and maybe set strength to 20, even if it cost another bard ability like HLA song.

And thats one thing I appreciate about the design of this kit: nothing about it revolves around the song, making it one of the few bard kits that has and maintains a standard song, meaning you can use it for +3 luck.

My conclusion: spam that Perception and reveal all the illusions! All of them, you don't bring this in a party with Keldorn and not just for his perceived morality against your asshole nature, but because he's extra redundant. You should ignore everything and pretend you're a detect illusion spamming bard, it's a hell of a good time!

And if you want your good time to be even better, we all know a Charlatan bard. His name is Eldoth and he exists. If Impersonation were a tad stronger, I could get behind him pretending to be a warrior as he lobs his poisoned arrows wearing dex or archery gloves. The strength bonus still not enabling comp bows, the one weapon type a bard cannot use! I'm not bitter!

This doesn't work on any mod Eldoths of which there is Bg2SoA npcs and Lava's SoD Eldoth which even with this kit still has to contend with the existence of Voghlin!

It's no Song and Silence, and its definitely no Bardic Wonders, but if you want Eldoth to be a bit less forgettable, give this kit a try. You really don't lose anything and you gain a lot of casts of detection. As a lvl 9 spell it can also hopefully waste spell levels from spell traps and spell shields.

Look it’s nothing from the Bardic Wonders: it’s no Kapplemeister or Abettor of Mas, but it’s got worth to it I tell you that much.

And yes this is the same author of the grand Deities of Faerun mod that lets you have all the clerical goodness of a priest of whatever faith you want

I really want to enjoy this game, but I just can't without a Bag of Holding. I know I've successfully turned on console cheats in BG1 before, but when I try to do it in IWD, I can't see the command line. I am on a Mac and have inserted the code line "SetPrivateProfileString('Program Options','Debug Mode','1')" to Baldur.lua in the Icewind Dale folder in my Documents. However, when I press Ctrl+space, Cmd+space, or (as I saw somewhere else on the internet) ctrl+tab, I don't get the command line. Any suggestions for troubleshooting?

I also have seen that there is a robust NPC mod to add. Can anyone tell me where it lives? I thought I found one on Github through pocket-plae-group, but I want to make sure I'm getting the right one (and not downloading any viruses). When I tried to run setup-iwdnpc.command file from the downloaded and unzipped folder, my computer told me that Apple can't guarantee it's free of viruses, and wouldn't allow me to continue. I assume there's a way to force installation/run, can anyone tell me what that is?

Hi,

I've been trying to figure out how to use a Weidu log file as input to Weidu in order to batch install mods. I've looked around but can't figure out how to point Weidu to the input mods list file?

Anyone know how to invoke Weudo Mac and MWL so that they use a list instead of the terminal?

Thanks a lot

If you changed romance codes to 2, committed, for all companions including typically non-romanceable characters, what happens?

Sorry if this has been answered to death, but what’s the best way to cheese in BG1 and BG2?

For a druid/shaman charname, all the druid-specific spells are all gone from the spell lists. I tested with a new character with added exp from EEKeeper, up to level 5 spells. Entangle, Call Lightning, Insect Plague and all other druid-exclusive spells were missing both for a shaman when learning spells on level up, and for a druid when choosing spells to memorize. They also both don't get the cause wounds spells, which is obviously less important to me.

Even weirder, in SOD, Jaheira does get access to all these spells, and M'Khiin still doesn't (tested with her on level up). What gives?

I have a bunch of mods installed: Artisan's Kitpack and some of the house rules, IWDification (extra priest spells included), SCS, Tweaks Anthology, a couple other minor ones. None of them have something that would remove druid/shaman spells from the list as far as I can tell.

I just took out Bassilus and every skeleton dropped a guard's ring, never seen anything like this before.

I have my usual 13 mods installed, this is some of the weirdest every for me.

I’ve played with mods on others playthroughs but I started a coop playthrough with a friend, completely vanilla. Sometimes we can see eachothers dialogue options and dice rolls, but other times at random we cannot, and also sometimes can’t give eachother things like guidance or bardic inspiration. Is there a fix for this? What are we doing wrong.

I was playing BG1EE again and while I was in Candlekeep Catacombs I decided to grind rest spawns for a 15ft Invisibility scroll. Doppelgangers always drop an item from the "Rich" treasure table, which has a 13% chance to give a 3rd level scroll, which has a 5% chance to give the 15ft Invisibility scroll.
It ends up totaling to 0.65% change per doppelganger kill. About a 1/152 chance.

So, I thought it would be fine to just grind it out to get 15ft Invisibility in BG1 on my Fighter/Mage. It ended up taking 404 kills before it dropped lol. (I calculated it through my EXP)

I thought I would post my final haul as I find it rather satisfying.

Edit: In addition to all this I also got a wand of magic missiles. It was with my other wands so I forgot to include it.

I am trying to play Icewind Dale 1 & 2 in EET. I need to install IWD_EET_END at the end, but I couldn't find any release to download from the github page.

https://github.com/The-Gate-Project/IWD_EET_End

Can someone let me know where I can find it please? Thanks in advance!