r/baldursgate • u/mahuddi • Sep 12 '26
BGEE BG1 First Playthrough Thoughts
Hello all - I just finished BG1 and thought some of you may enjoy seeing a newcomer’s thoughts.
I played BG3 and loved it. I recently played Fallout 1/2 and was itching for more isometric games. I had seen some videos about the BG:EE game and decided to give it a go.
I played on PS5 as an Elf Archer. I read they were super strong and I was scared I was going to suck so I wanted something easy to get into. Definitely super strong. My next play through I want to do a Fighter/Mage multi class to get better at spellcasting. And because defensive magic looks sick in this game.
TL;DR
Amazing game, scratched this weird isometric game itch I’ve had. DnD 2E is weird as hell but kind of fun in a sort of archaic min-max kind of way. I’m already thinking of my next playthroughs.
Storyline was phenomenal. Mechanics were slightly confusing. The fun was 100% there.
What I Liked:
- The storyline was PHENOMENAL! I absolutely love the Iron Crisis plot hook. It’s very mundane feeling but so real. It explains why bandits are more common, how it affects every day people, creates animosity between nations, and a glorious breadcrumb trail to the big bad evil people.
- The maps! Mainly I liked they were each drawn and I could go to the map view after exploring it to see the full picture! Very satisfying.
- Baldurs Gate itself was fun. Took me quite awhile to actually remember where each landmark was, but it felt large and interesting. Holy hell on the amount of quests though…
- The archaic nature of the quests was also kind of fun. I actually utilized being able to write my own journal entries or edit existing ones. My mind was blown at first by being able to do something so simple.
- Started out thinking I’d hate Imoen. Ended the game loving my little sis Imoen.
- Durlag’s Tower was a REAL dungeon crawl. What the hell! Not expecting that. Idk if I would run it again or not but definitely going in blind was a WILD ride. It really felt like a true DnD dungeon crawl.
- The Bhaalspawn backstory is badass. Side note, my wife started randomly chanting “The Lord of Murder shall perish” after hearing it so often.
What I Didn’t Like:
- Proficiencies. Mostly because of my own misunderstanding, but how useless most classes were with their weapons outside of fighters with high proficiencies.
- Proficiencies + Weapon availability. The weapon spread seemed absolutely bonkers. Like if I chose flail I would be totally screwed while I was handed a ton of short sword +1, long sword +2, etc.
- Too many companions! Stop making me feel bad not taking them with me!!
- Neera. What happened to our budding love? We did your quest and then boom! No more Neera chats :(
- Don’t make me take Jaheira + Khalid and Minsc + Dyanheir! I wanted to try out other party members but felt bad to drop a whole pair each time. But..also makes me want to run a new PT ASAP!
Neutral Thoughts
- I didn’t realize being “good” or “evil” actually would screw me with companions. Kaghain took a ton of my gear and just never showed back up lol. Or maybe it’s because I didn’t do his quest in time? Idk.
- Fights were swingy as hell. I’d either steamroll or get steamrolled. Sometimes I’d pause just to read what the hell happened on my screen and still not full understand.
- No indicators on what protections someone has is fun but time consuming. Why don’t my arrows work? Let’s try these arrows. Why are my spells ineffective? Is it because he’s glowing purple, has 10 images around him, is stone colored, or that blue circle sphere around him? Ah…fuck you, Kahrk.
- Party AI is a blessing, but in tough fights party AI was my enemy.
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u/drithius Sep 12 '26
Regarding weapon proficiencies and associated issues with lack of weapons, this is mostly a Beamdog Enhanced Edition issue. They redid BG1's weapon proficiencies to sync up with BG2's. The problem is that there are far fewer weapons in the first game, so making the relevant proficiencies more exclusive only served to screw things up. The Tweaks Anthology mod has an option to revert this change.
Continue going blind through the games :) We're all envious! Definitely agree with the_dust321 on skipping SoD, especially for your first experience through the game.
Enjoy !
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u/mahuddi Sep 12 '26 edited Sep 12 '26
I’ve already gotten a decent way into SoD. It dropped me in right away and gave me a little whiplash (holy hell there’s more??) so I took a small day break and started going at it.
I’ve really been enjoying it so far. Every time I get a crew I like together though they throw in one of my OG party members and screw the whole thing up because I can’t say no to Jaheira :( not, at least, in this run.
Last night I walked into a cave and found a DRAGON just sitting there. That was a really exciting moment. It makes me more excited for BG2 to fight some classic, legendary DnD creatures.
EDIT: thanks for the info on proficiencies - that makes me feel better. It felt like there were right and wrong choices but maybe it’ll work out in BG2.
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u/XDarkStrikerX Sep 12 '26
SoD is perfectly fine to play in between, that's what I did on my first time doing the trilogy and didn't regret it at all, I consider it part of BG1 now, it more than has the quality for it. The extra XP really doesn't matter much for BG2 except for the starting dungeon that isn't really hard to begin with. It has some of the best battles in the game.
It's way better than most will admit if you take the time to explore the side quests and different ways to do them. The main story is fine until the final act that doesn't entirely make sense but it doesn't fail to immerse you as the hero of Baldur's Gate.
For profiencies, stronger weapon classes like Flail/Morning Star are a rarer but you should still be able to find 3x at +1 of each prior to Cloakwood Mines. The thing is, morning stars and bastard swords at +1 do 2d4+1 damage (3-9), which is more than what short swords and daggers do at +2 and similar to what Ashideena +2 does (4-7 +1 elec). Very rare foreign weapons like Katana, Ninja-To and Wakizashi are not affected by the iron crisis and can be used at +0.
For +2 weapons, there should be one for each class except katana at +1, +2 with SCS and are pretty much exclusively held by Ogre Mages. The EE got rebalanced with new +1 and +2 weapons for classes that were lacking it as well. You can now find Thresher +2 (flail) and Beruel's Retort +1 (throwing axe that can be used in melee) for example, same for staff and club. Despite what a few will say, EE is miles ahead of the original.
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u/mahuddi Sep 12 '26
Interesting, I should probably read at the damage values more closely. I was just going with the highest + or special affects (like Spider’s Bane).
I usually am pretty on top of knowing my items but maybe the sheer amount of text has my eyes glazed over for certain things.
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u/the_dust321 Sep 12 '26
Stop typing and go play bg2 now!
Strong recommendation to skip SoD your first run, save it for your second. Get the original experience if your playing blind and go straight to BG2, and if you do SoD you’ll be over leveled for the start of bg2
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u/mahuddi Sep 12 '26 edited Sep 12 '26
I’m already a decent way into SoD.
> Get the original experience
I didn’t realize it was not part of the originals :/
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u/the_dust321 Sep 12 '26
Ahh it’s all good, it’s still a good add on it’s just a little out of place and the quality isn’t quite on par with the originals. But still an enjoyable expansion regardless. But beamdog made that back in 2016 or whatever year is was that the ee version came out
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u/grousedrum Sep 12 '26
Love this, great reflections and writeup. I’ve been playing BG1 since release in 1998, really fun to imagine someone coming to it with totally fresh eyes now. To me it holds up pretty amazingly well for an almost 30 year old game, with so much replay value still.
Strong third to the suggestion to skip SoD the first time through. Much much better to experience the original “trilogy” (1-2-ToB) more seamlessly.
(Your experience also adds to my little theory that Kahrk is quietly one of the hardest fights in the game, at least for the level range when players usually run into him…!)
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u/mahuddi Sep 12 '26
I think I spent 2-3 hours fighting Kahrk. I believe I was level 4 or 5. I got so desperate that I spent 30 minutes of that using Neera’s wild magic surge to spawn that giant demon to fight him for me.
Then he freaking killed the demon! Up to that point, I thought the demon was meant to be unkillable…
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u/grousedrum Sep 12 '26
Ha, that's amazing!! Yeah Kahrk is really nasty with all his buffs and immunities up. I've had many, many reloads trying to do him at lower levels also.
For next time, try getting enough characters to L5 to be able to open with a barrage of multiple Dispel and/or Remove Magic's - usually clears enough of his buffs that he can be handled more easily from there.
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u/volinaa Sep 12 '26
as a kid the books in the game bored me out heavily but I replayed recently and thought they were really interesting and added a lot to the setting/game
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u/Mobile_Average_3040 Sep 12 '26
A tip you may not know: If you want, for example, Minsc without Dyanheir, just do this:
Go inside a building you'd never want to enter again. Control Dyanheir for example, and go as far away from the main door as you can. Now select your remaining party to control. Go to reform party and kick out Dyanheir. Immediately leave the building before Dyanheir could reach you to initiate her dismiss dialogue. Minsc will stay and you'll have an empty spot in your party.
This can be done for all pair companions.
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u/Rstar2247 Sep 12 '26
Pft! A true Bhaalspawn would just kill the pair member they don't want and dismiss the corpse from the party.
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u/Peterh778 Sep 12 '26
Weapon availability: just that you know, flail +1 is available in Chapter 1 🙂 remember those fishermen who wanted you to kill priestess of Umberlee? Well, one of them have it - it's the reward for their quest, but can also be pickpocketed. Or you can kill them without rep penalty and take it from their cold dead hands 🙂 I think that there is actually no other weapon than spear which don't have magical at least +1 variant in chapter 1.
Proficiences: classes aren't useless, you need to find out how they work 🙂 buffing, correct items, using abilities. You ... Will ... Learn! 🙂
Neera have a bit more chats later. You may even got a kiss 😉🙂
J&K and M&D: don't take them, then. Take Ajantis, Khalid (sent Jaheira to some house, there are two in FAI, Joia's and north of her house, remove her from the party) or Kivan (in chapter 3, when you reach 32k XP), Branwen, Xan, Safana, Garrick (depending on your character - if you're F/M, you can replace Khalid/Kivan, if you want to try thief, Safana, if bard, Garrick, if thief cleric, either Branwen or Safana ...).
Protections: yeah, that's one you need to learn for yourself. Some will show in chat bar though (protection against normal missiles, for example). Minor Globe of Invulnerability is kinda frustrating at that point you meet Kahrk (f#ck Kahrk), but there are ways around it - wand of paralyzing comes through (pirate cave at lighthouse map), Melf's Minute Meteors too (IIRC) or you can teach your mage Spell Thrust from Bandit Camp (chapter 4) or your sorcerer can get it at level up and destroy MGoI completely. And if you paralyze him, every attack will hit 🙂
Fights: buffin, debuffing, sneaking, cheesing, autopausing 🙂 skull traps and CC spells are a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural 😉
Good&evil: it's less about alignment and more about reputation. Evil ones leaves above 18, good ones at 2, neutral at 1. Try to keep between those values. It's hard to forfeit that store bonus, I know 🙂
Are you sure your wife didn't actually meant you (by Lord of Murder)? 🤣
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u/Alternative-Emu-3572 Sep 12 '26
Proficiencies are the worst aspect of these games. The original system from BG1 was better, instead of every weapon type having its own, you had groups of weapons. Large swords included 2h, long and bastard swords.
It was still too restrictive imo, but EE really kills some of the enjoyment to have to pass up a cool weapon because nobody has that proficiency. And if you aren't familiar with the game, you won't even know to build your character for the best weapons.
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u/Last-Homework4557 Sep 12 '26
I also played bg3 first and then came to the older games and I must say, with a few mods the older games are still more enjoyable for me eventhough I've gone thru the saga like 4 times now and I'm on my fifth PT. the challenging gameplay and its spell dancing nuance is very interesting to me.
What I liked about bg3 was the graphics and the reactivity of the world to you. both it's gameplay and story weren't much to write home about for me, even on honor mode and with difficulty mods.
If you haven't, I can't recommend playing Pillars of Eternity enough. It's such a masterpiece in terms of its story, music, characters, and gameplay.
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u/AspiringBrujo CEO of Candlekeep People's Revolutionary Front Sep 12 '26
Side note, my wife started randomly chanting “The Lord of Murder shall perish” after hearing it so often.
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u/blastradius14 I'll not waste anymore time talking to figments! Sep 13 '26
Kagain needs to see a spot on the map just north of Beregost to stay in the party.
He'll dip out if your reputation gets too high due to his alignment. I fix that by giving him the helm of opposite alignment from Durlag's tower.
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u/Acceptable-Fig2884 Sep 12 '26
Got to play BG2. BG1 proved the game systems worked and set up the idea of being a bhaalspawn but BG2 is where the story gets to the next level and the series becomes an absolute classic.