I remember that Coran/Xan are quite useless in BG1 while Viconia is a must! I dropped Jahira for her.
I'll replay the games, using just another PC instead of 2-3.
Also I remember where the confusion comes from: Xan and Coran die in the book. But I remember they never came with me in the kobold mines.
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia My DMGuild work!
Xan's in the bottom of the kobold mines; Coran was in the NW forest (can't remember its name!) near the bridge, if I recall correctly...
I've never played with BGTutu yet (found out about the mod after I'd done playing both last time), but apparently Xan becomes a sorcerer. That would be cool (I like sorcerers better than mages- no need to mess around with spellbooks...).
I picked up Viconia once or twice, but she was just too weak for me to bother- and someone who wasted cure spells due to spell resistance was a REAL nuisance!
His only real danger is if stupidity is contagious and lethal. In which case, we’re all dead…-Gertrude
Yes, the resistant was a real nuissance! And I think Xar is found early on... Isn't he the necromancer you pick at the beginning of the game? The crazy one?
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia My DMGuild work!
Nope, you're mixing up Xzar and Xan. Xzar was the nutter with Montaron, who makes a brief appearance in BG2. I had him in my first successful party- he was a lot of fun, with his mad laughter and strange comments.
Xan was the depressed elf a la Marvin the Paranoid Android who kept saying, "We're all doomed..." He was so very different...
His only real danger is if stupidity is contagious and lethal. In which case, we’re all dead…-Gertrude
The one with the moonblade? I dropped him as soon as possible!
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia My DMGuild work!
If you get the Sex-Change Belt from the Ogre in BG1, then put it on, then import your character to BG2, you can have gay and lesbian romances with Anomen or Jaheira/Aerie/Viconia, respectively.
...
..
.
Er. Not that I tried it or anything. Or even thought about it particularly much.
@ HumanBing- I found a mod or something which let you be romanced by all PC's, male or female. It was very, very odd- but very funny- to play a male fighter called 'My lady' by Anomen...
His only real danger is if stupidity is contagious and lethal. In which case, we’re all dead…-Gertrude
To Llana: Where can I find those interesting mods you're talking about? I think you mentioned a mod that allows you to use BG2 mechanics for BG1.
Is there a mod that improves the graphics? I play now BG1 again, and the graphics are worse than BG2.
HBD: I had a dwarf fighter/cleric, Imoen and a fighter in my party (The F/C and the F were PCs) I pawned the mage that troubled you in front of the Friendly Arm before he had time to cast a single spell.
No offence but he is very easy. The ogre with the two belts is far more difficult. I didn't have to load the game, but he dealed quite much damage to my chars.
Some tips when making chars: Don't think Pen&Paper wise.
1. Think: What I need most? Cleric and fighter... so get a figher/cleric.
2. Think: What is my Character? Not a wizard? Drop intelligence to 8. Drop Charisma to 9. Biff up constitution and strength for fighters and also dex for the main character.
3. Reroll your char until you get a really good one. 2nd edition was heavily based on very high stats and the game assumes you'll play as the 95% of the people play. I.e spend 30 mins to get a good char.
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia My DMGuild work!
alhoon wrote:
HBD: I had a dwarf fighter/cleric, Imoen and a fighter in my party (The F/C and the F were PCs) I pawned the mage that troubled you in front of the Friendly Arm before he had time to cast a single spell.
No offence but he is very easy.
Of course I could have beaten him if I min/maxed my character into a killing machine.
That wasn't my goal.
My goal was to play as a cleric for BG1 and then dual class him over in BG2 to a mage.
Your solution technically works because it stays within the game's parameters and allows progress past the bottleneck challenge. However, I would say that it is functionally suspect because it relies so heavily on character choice at the start of the game. What's the point of having so many non-fighter/cleric PC options if I may as well abandon them all when Tarnesh frags my party?
That's just for Tarnesh. Another major beef I had with the game was that the wandering encounters were way too powerful and there's no way to avoid them if you have to go from area to area. They just pop up and if you're lucky, your party is reduced to near-death and survives.
Then just try resting awhile. If you're disturbed (overwhelmingly likely) your party will be finished off. I believe I have made these points before in an earlier post. This lack of scalable random encounters suited to your party's level is another reason I think BG1 is poorly designed compared to its successors.
Given that Ultima IV (in my opinion, the second best singleplayer Computer RPG ever made - beaten only be Ultima VI) had scaled random encounters to suit the power of your party way back in 1986, it's unforgivable that 12 years later BG1 decides to follow the "no choice, no escape" type of tedious encounters that plague Japanese RPGs like Pokemon and Final Fantasy.
Most of the mods are for BG2, and I cannot recall offhand the name of the mod in BG1 that speeded up party movement, but I'm sure that it'll be in the first one.
One that I was intrigued by was Icewind Gate 2- this enabled you to play BG2 with IWD2's system, translating BG2 into 3e rules. The original planner, Weimer, gave up on it himself (real life'll do that to ya ), but apparently someone's gotten it as far as a beta version. I have no idea as to what it's like, or how buggy it is, but you might check the forums to find out.
My husband knows the creator of the Fade mod on Spellhold. When he first moved to Canada, he was listening to her wav. files to help her with the vocals. I've not played it myself but he enjoyed the NPC- a tiefling (well, actually fey'ri) thief.
Be really careful in noting the order to install the mods and patches, however; some of them apparently are quite finicky with each other. And warning- Weimer's game mods are for power-gamers! I tried one (Solaufein), and gave up before finishing the game- I don't like having to cheat EVERY step of an NPC's story.
His only real danger is if stupidity is contagious and lethal. In which case, we’re all dead…-Gertrude
Thanks Llana. I'll try them ASAP. Unfortunately that's in a month.
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia My DMGuild work!
I'm sorry I found this so late, but let me reply.
HMB, I really feel sorry that you feel that way towards BG1. I really, really loved the game to the point that I'm currently playing it now.
Well, my experience with it had no flaws. I always played a mage in BG1, and though the fights were difficult, I always got them eventually. That's what makes the game interesting. I never really got Xzar and Montaron, so I guess I got past by Tarnesh with a magic missile and Imoen's arrows. The secret, if I recall, is to strike very early at Tarnesh with her arrows. Remember, if he's hit, he fails his spell and basically can't strike back at you. All those assassination attempts actually were a motivation for me to play the game. For me, the hardest fight I still remember was with the Amazons after Nashkell's mines: difficult, yes, many TPKs, but I eventually did it. And that's that success after persistence that really makes it worthwhile.
For comparison, I'm playing BG1 again, but this time with many mods. Actually, I'm playing BG1, TotSC, BG2 and ToB (hopefully) over BGT. I have added DSotSC/NTotSC and several other mods, and I must say that after so many months playing I find that is not exactly satisfying. The problem is that these mods will make your characters so powerful that when you go back to the original areas there is no real challenge anymore. And that detracts from the game. It's too late to change, though, so I'll endure it and hope the difference will be less marked in BG2.
Regarding the Ankhegs and other "unbalanced" fights, in reality you are not supposed to go north before going to Nashkell: every NPC tells you that, the story you're supposed to tackle suggests you that. Of course you should have some measure of freedom, but this is a Computer Game, not a table-top with a human DM.
I know there are games that were designed with that freedom in mind, like The Elder Scrolls: Arena (yes, I'm that old, and I never played the rest of the series), but even in these you should expect not to visit some areas before time. You can expect that what you learn from many failures is actually a fair bit of common knowledge that your characters can garner from the world around them, but that can not be easily modelled in the game.
Well, that's it. If any of you decides to play BG1 again, I can give help. Back in the days, I finished BG1 and TotSC with my mage, Khalid, Jaheira, Imoen, Kivan and Branwen. I've got a different set of characters now, though: Jet Lay'a instead of Branwen (mod) and a second PC (multiplayer) instead of Kivan. My main PC is still the same, though. I'm currently doing TotSC, go to Candlekeep again and wrap up NTotSC to finish BG1. I expect then to move smoothly to BG2 and really play that game. I never played it to the end, I got lost with so many quests to do and then I married, which effectively made me stop playing games for a long long while.
). 
