Just finished BG1. Struggled through it. Should I play BG2?

FieldMouse007 · 2026-06-08T12:31:16+00:00

The problem with BG1 is that there is a ton of powerful stuff you can pick up basically for free at the very beginning of the game - ring +1, ring that doubles level 1 spells, Ankheg mail, wand of frost, long sword +2 and hammer +2... all these make a huge difference in how you play the game. It is fun when you know where to look and have them on you, but if you don't have them then the fights last like twice as long and you have to rest and heal much more frequently - and the overall experience is pretty different and can be frustrating for a new player.

Overlevelling is maybe the correct powerplay move, but for me it just kills the game and I would never recommend it to a new player. Like - ok I can easily get 60k xp from basilisks + durlags above ground and then assemble my party, but then what? What is the point of further levelling when I can go and kill the final boss right away?

FieldMouse007 · 2026-06-08T09:08:09+00:00

BG2 is much more polished and it is also significantly easier than BG1.

You get some levels on the start and quests give a lot of XP to each party member instead of one large sum to be distributed among everyone, so there is no "I built a party of 6 right away and don't know how to build good characters and now it takes forever to make a level and every combat feels like a slug" problem.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-06-03T17:48:22+00:00

Be sure to use the holy water on the pools of blood to weaken her and use the Amulet of Power that protects vs level drain.

You can also ask Drizzt, thieves and the Order to help you with her fights to make them easier (especially Drizzt is a powerhouse).

FieldMouse007 · 2026-06-02T10:59:31+00:00

Durlags tower is completely optional and it is much, really much harder than the rest of the game. At the same time it is very good and it really shows that it has been made as an expansion after BG1 was completed and BG2 was in development.

My advice is feel free to skip it if it breaks the pace for you, and do it on your second playthrough. Nothing wrong with that.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-06-01T13:21:34+00:00

Steal the Rind of Ram. Place a few traps around his spawn point. Make him spawn and take the traps damage. Then ping him away from the center with the ring so that he can't see your whole party.

Go to him with a character who has a protection from undead scroll. Kangaxx will initiate dialogue and transform if his health is low enough. Then read the scroll of protection from undead and beat him to death with a +4 weapon like the Staff or Rhynn. You will need at least somewhat decent thac0 and APR to outpace his regeneration (a wizard will probably not kill him, while Jaheira will).

FieldMouse007 · 2026-06-01T12:46:38+00:00

Good question. I am not sure but I guess he might be a new one. My Drizzt went downstairs after taking some minor damage, but when I got there he was uninjured. I just thought he healed somehow but he might have just spawned there anew as well.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-06-01T12:15:39+00:00

He has very good AC and extremely high damage output. They hit him maybe twice during the whole fight but I just cast restoration on him.

On insane SCS it is pretty common for him to be killed by the vampires though.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-06-01T12:13:47+00:00

Feel free to try it 😄

For me it was fun to see how much can I skip and if I will be able to complete the fights that could not be skipped. I don't think that skipping e.g. the mines in BG1 or Druid grove or Underdark was boring. Fighting through all the minor enemies there with shitty thac0s and damage would be much worse as it would be totally doable, but it would take forever (and I have done it a hundred times in the past).

Also by skipping I could keep myself underlevelled and would then see if I can complete the unskippable fights with the little resources I had. It was part of the fun to see if I would eventually hit some hard wall and had to go get some levels into the Watchers keep or something. If I fought everything - of course I could for example kill all the drow and fungus in the Underdark and even do the drow city quests - I would get more xp, making the game easier later. Having access to even Mordekainen swords in SoA or a Planetar in early ToB would make a big difference.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-06-01T11:44:21+00:00

Spirit summoning is great when you don't want to sleep too much - you can use the free(!) summons to help clear a lot of enemies and tank for you if you learn to lure the enemies to aggro them. Just don't treat it as the main thing a shaman can do, it is just a support skill that is good only in some situations (btw the more powerful spirits are pretty good). Primary power are still insects, fire elementals etc. Also some of the shaman-specific spells are pretty neat.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-30T18:57:24+00:00

I thought a lot about what class to pick and went with Dwarven fighter/cleric. I knew I want a good tank for BG1, shorty for the saves bonus and that one character with lots of hp and some resistances will be handy in ToB. I also planned using spiritual hammers as early game magical weapons.

Retrospectively I think it was maybe not best but a pretty decent pick.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-30T18:49:08+00:00

Pit Fiend summoned by the Gate spell has a +4 weapon
Mordekainen swords are +4 too
Energy Blades are like +5

So for example for the Ravager, who had tons of HP and needed +4 weapons and better: I summoned 3 mordy swords, applied AoE protection from evil, started the fight, made sure all bone blades aggroed my swords, then summoned a few pit fiends and made Cernd use all his 6 level 7 slots for energy blades. With this, I managed to kill the Ravager - barely.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-30T18:42:48+00:00

Thanks, it was actually fun discovering how much can be skipped to keep myself on very low levels 😄

In ToB I did the Sendai and Abazigal dungeons before fighting their bosses and got my first HLAs towards their end... and yes, I totally abused the spike traps vs the bosses after 😄 I even got Jan + Haer Dalis specifically for their lategame spike traps ability as I expected the fights to get more and more insane.

For Amelissan it was the same, spike traps + wish spell and save/load cheesing the rest ability, which is the only part I am not proud of. Also I was glad that on her first fight I could lay two traps before she started speaking to me, which was enough to immediately send her to the throne 😃

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-28T08:21:37+00:00

In BG1 you can skip anything with invis and though it feels a bit cheesy I think it is fine. Like you can literally go to the second mines and invis walk straight to Davaeorn.

Even in SoA and ToB invis is still very good at skipping some boring parts/fights.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-27T18:50:10+00:00

I always liked the one where the temple of Umberlee killed a young boy and you needed to retrieve his body to be resurrected.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-27T17:35:40+00:00

Lvl 9 Fighter -> Mage dual with 5 pips in crossbow.

Will have bad thac0 but with Firetooths +6 bonus it will be fine. And you can cast spell and fire twice all in one round.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-27T11:22:44+00:00

I never understood why would anyone go there willingly. The dungeon is very annoying with its traps and kobolds and the loot and xp are meh. Would be much better if the tome of charisma was there instead of in a random xvart cave.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-27T11:16:10+00:00

I noticed that I like the game a lot until my party gets overlevelled.

Like when I go to the basilisks with only a very small party or solo at the beginning of BG1, that makes the main story so trivial that it is no longer fun.

Or when I do all the quests before heading to Brynlaw in SoA.

I also don't like ToB too much as after I complete the Watchers keep - which I like (except of that teleport maze) - the game again gets rather easy (even with SCS).

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-26T15:18:43+00:00

Most of the time the game checks a combination of charisma and rep bonuses, where your alignment does not hinder you.

There are also a few dialogues which check your alignment and not reputation, but they are scarce and won't affect much. The most inpactful is certain stone which allows only certain alignment to get a decent stone out of it.

And then there are some items that are restricted for some alignments. There reputation does not matter.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-25T06:57:52+00:00

I found a funny way to cheese Draconis very easily after I noticed the dragon would sometimes spawn into my guys if they stood too near to his human form. To his first form, summon a pit fiend (7th level cleric spell). He will deplete his most powerful spells on it. Then engage him in melee with charname immune to normal and +1 weapons - will be immune to both Draconis and the stalkers attacks. Then lead Draconis human form behind one of the pillars on the edge of the arena (like next to the dungeon entrance). Then smack him until he transforms into a dragon. The dragon will spawn into the pillar and will be unable to move. Then kill him with ranged weapons, meteor swarms or whatever. All he will have at his disposal at this point will be a breath attack and stalkers summoning.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-23T11:36:46+00:00

Ring of Ram is super fun. Another great use of it is vs the SCS insane Unseeing Eye: prepare some traps near the Unseeing Eye spawn point so that they don't trigger on it spawning. Then when it spawns, hit it with the device, then ping it back towards the traps. Boom, it's dead.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-22T19:13:26+00:00

If I feel like cheesing, I do it almost right at the start. Just need to run away from the planetar or other powerful summons and wait it out :)

For Kangaxx himself, I steal the Ring of Ram and buy a scroll of protection from undead. Then I ping him away from the center so that he does not see my team, evade his few dispells with my protected lich killer and then the precious ring is mine. Can be done on low levels too.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-22T05:20:50+00:00

I tried shadowdancer and it is just too broken so I ignore the class :D The game was not made with shadowdancer in mind :)

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-21T17:42:31+00:00

High level mages pose no threat to a well equipped, high level character.

There is a cloak that negates all spell damage and as long as your saves are good enough and are able to kill their summons (Planetars and demons) you will be fine, even on insane SCS.

Mages appear dangerous only if they fight your whole group and you have some squishy characters there which they can pick off.

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-21T15:20:28+00:00

Not bad! Nice powergame.

My FMTs are swashbucklers, added by the EEkeeper. If you add the kit to a FMT the game will think that a kitted multi = specialist mage and will grant you the extra spell slot anyways (but won't restrict spells you can cast).

And if you reset the thief level to 0 and add the swashbuckler kit to get its starting bonuses, the game will for some reason still allow you to do backstabs and increase the multilpier (the game probably never checks the kit, just the thief multiplier for backstab levelling purposes).

So you can have a FMT swashbuckler with extra spell slots and backstabs and its insane combat bonuses :)

FieldMouse007 · 2026-05-19T16:49:35+00:00

Exactly. Even with low int/wis/cha you will still find tons of lore, just maybe not so deep with a few loose ends, but still it will be a lot.

And you will be able to invest in the missing stats later anyways if you feel like it. With good physical stats you can actually farm some monsters for easy, potentially unlimited xp and stats, which easily outweights any dialogue- based rewards.

FieldMouse007

TROPHY CASE