With the Enhanced Editions to Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 now out, and Gog.com having sales on both the originals and the Icewind Dale games, it seems like a good time to create a thread about our old friend the Infinity Engine.

I have Icewind Dale 1 from a long time ago, but never got too far with it back then. Other games like Diablo II and Star Trek Elite Forces caught my attention, and the old school D&D ruleset of Icewind felt too cumbersome for me. I tried installing ID1 again a few weeks ago, but could not get it to work on my Windows 7 box. So I finally broke down and bought it and ID2 off of Gog.com a few days ago. While I was at it, I discovered that Steam had a sale on the Baludur's Gate Enhanced Editions, so I bought those two. I wound up getting all four games for under $20.

I decided to start at the start, so so I rolled a toon to pwn Baldur's Gate 1. Terra started out as a regular Ranger, and I experimented with her using dual swords and a longbow. I found I liked the bow better, and thought about restarting her game to specialize as the Archer subclass. But I found EE Keeper, and instead I used it to change her class and move around her proficiency points a bit.

So far BG1 has been a blast. I still think the old school D&D rules are cumbersome and clunky. Especially where magic is concerned. I hate that memorizing spells business and having to rest to be able to cast them again. I much prefer mana point systems for mages. But gripes aside, it is still a good game, even after all these years. It feels a lot like the original Fallout rpg in its look and feel - the same isometric view and sprites. BG1 just has more party members and the D&D rules.

I have been using BruceVayne's soundsets in Oblivion for years, and many of them are BG characters. So now it is a kick to finally hear them in their original settings. I especially love Imoen and Viconia's voices. From "Good on you if you saved the day!" to "Nightsinger, give me power!". So far those are my two favorite NPCs as well. I loved Minsc in the tutorial, but have not found him yet - he's clear across the map from where we start!

My current gang is Terra (the PC), Imoen, Viconia, Neera (she's a new EE added NPC), and Kagain. I am a little light on the muscle, and am looking for another good melee fighter. I'd like to hire the new half-orc NPC Dorn, but I have not gotten the encounter where it happens yet. OTOH, the team is strong in ranged attacks, and when we all focus our fire on one target we can usually kill it on one round. Unless it is a boss. So fights against ordinary critters often consist of mowing them down before they can even reach Kagain.

So far I am not thrilled with Neera, but for now she is the only mage in town. I'd like to hire the new Drow mage the EE edition added, but he doesn't appear until 5th level. It is funny, my party seems to be going to the evil end of the spectrum. Maybe I should use EE Keeper to change Terra from Neutral Good to Neutral Evil!

Well, I've fired up Baldur's Gate again. I've taken a few attempts at completing this in the past, but I've never managed to get as far as the actual city of Baldur's Gate

But, at least it lets me plan my party:

Callidus (No surprises there ) Elven mage/thief
Jaheira (Khallid is going to have an unfortunate "accident" )
Kagain (You just can't kill this guy, he's part troll)
Viconia (Damn useful, and funny as hell when in a party with...)
Kivan (Expert archer)
Imoen (She's going to become a conjurer later on)

I had a lot of sucess with this party on my last run, setup in the T formation: Jaheira, Kagain, and Viconia up front as a wall for the other three, all of whom carried bows.

So far... I've just rolled up my character, and dived into shadowkeeper to change his appearance, because I prefer him to look like a mage than a thief. So he looks like a human mage, despite being an Elf

@SubRosa



If you don't mind spoilers:



Kagain is a blast, he was also a member of my mostly evil party years ago, it's a shame they didn't bring him back in BGII, because many NPCs return in BGII. I don't remember the details but IIRC he regenerates health because of very high constitution.

I love Kagain. He's the archetypical crotchety old Dwarf. I put him in platemail, and he's built like a brick shithouse. He is almost as fun as Khelgar from NWN2.

I finally made it to Nashkel. There I recruited Minsc ("The squeaky wheel gets the kick!"), and found the Ankheg Platemail in the fields. I gave the armor to Minsc, since the green fits a ranger, and as a front-liner, he seemed like he would probably need it. Especially seeing that he does not use a shield. Now we are on the way west toward the Gnoll stronghold, to rescue Dynahair. I think I will give Neera the boot then, and try out Dyna.

I have also already modded the game (a few nights ago in fact), to change Viconia's portrait to one with greyish skin, like she has in BG2.

Who needs a shield when you've got a miniature giant space hamster? Minsc and Boo.

Is there any difference between playing a Good character and an Evil one? I know there is a Reputation stat, and that the Evil characters will bolt from your party if it gets too high, and the Good ones will leave if it gets to low. But is there really an Evil path to quests as opposed to a Good one?

BG I is a long time ago, so I'm going partly by BG II. A low rep stat will hurt your ability to get good deals in town. At lower ranges, some merchants may not even deal with you. At even lower ranges, guards, soldiers etc will attack you. As far as quests, there are some choices you can make in how to do them. Ultimately though, you're on a train to kill the Big Bad - he'll want you dead whether you're good or evil.

Just to see what it is like, I created Scáthach, a Lawful Evil Elf Kensai. Here she is. I think I'll use EE Keeper to give her a katana to start with, since I have no idea where to find one in BG1.

I also found this cool portrait pack for the Enhanced Editions, with hundreds of new portraits. Scáthach's portrait is from there.

I know the last time I played BG II, I was able to import a clipped screenie of Buffy's face and bring in her 'Innocent' voice set. That is a great portrait of your kensai!

My recollection of the good/evil thing was that the games are heavily biased towards the good player. A totally evil party won't be able to buy/sell anything, or stay at inns. Camping out all the time isn't viable, because of the frequency of interrupted sleep, and its effect on spell recovery. The attacks by guards etc. on evil characters isn't offset by any less attacks by anyone else.

Mixed parties break themselves up, as conflicting characters won't work together. I don't recall if there any points where the story-line is actually blocked for the evil player option, but that's possible - I never got far enough with an evil character to find out.

I got the impression that the evil recruitable characters were there to be used as short-term solutions to specific problems, You'd have them join, use their special talents to solve some quest situation, and then let them leave again (or leave them dead when they're killed). You'd want to play as a core party of three or four good characters, with a variable addition of "evils" to go that way. They often come in pairs, and you'd need both for stability.

So far Scáthach's game has been going rather well. I was worried at first about the Kensai's inability to wear armor. But going with an Elf - with the Dexterity bonus - has definitely helped. Between the 4 point bonus from her Dex, the Kensai's 2 point AC bonus, and another 2 point bonus from the Single Weapon proficiency, Scáthach started out with an Armor Class of 2. A +1 Ring of Protection found early on got that down to an AC of 1. That is a point better than Kagain in plate mail and a medium shield. Only Viconia has a better AC, with a -1 (wearing spint mail and a small shield).

Yesterday Scath made her way to the Friendly Arm Inn, and temporarily recruited Jaheria and Khalid for the extra muscle. I left Montaran and Xvar alone. Those two get on my nerves. Evil is Cool after all, and those two are not. Viconia was added soon after. She quckly proved her worth by practically putting down the Ogre Girdle Thief single-handedly. Jaheria got whacked by the spiders in Landarin's Beregost house, and I did not bother to pay to get her raised. I recruited Kagain shortly after, and then gave Khalid is walking papers (but this time I remembered to take all of his stuff first! ).

So now Scath's party consists of Kagain, Viconia, Imoen, and Neera. I found a ring that doubles the number of spells wizards get. I think it might only be the 1st level ones. But it has proved very valuable. I have been getting better with Neera too. I got rid of her staff and gave her a sling, to keep her from running up into the fight. Her chromatic orb can be devastating, so can her color spray. The trouble with the latter is not hitting the party with it too!



It wasn't easy, but managed to do the same for Scath. I found a 'Sassy' voice from this voice pack. The sound files have to be in a .wav format, so naturally the pack has them all as .obb files. So I had to convert them all. Then I had to rename them all. I found found that BG1, as 10 Custom voice slots left open. So rather than editing any .2da files, you can just rename your files Custom0a, Custom0b, and so on. Then just copy them to the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition > Lang > en_us > sounds folder. After that is appears as Custom0 in the voice selection menu. If anyone reading wants to create a new voice set for BG1EE, you need the following files:
XXXXXXXa.wav : Battle Cry
XXXXXXXb.wav : Becoming Leader
XXXXXXXc.wav : Tired
XXXXXXXd.wav : Bored
XXXXXXXe.wav : Badly Wounded
XXXXXXXf.wav : Selected 1
XXXXXXXg.wav : Selected 2
XXXXXXXh.wav : Selected 3
XXXXXXXi.wav : Action Acknowledgement 1
XXXXXXXj.wav : Action Acknowledgement 2
XXXXXXXk.wav : Action Acknowledgement 3
XXXXXXXl.wav : Being Hit
XXXXXXXm.wav : Dying
XXXXXXXn.wav : In Forest
XXXXXXXo.wav : In City
XXXXXXXp.wav : In Dungeon
XXXXXXXq.wav : Daytime
XXXXXXXr.wav : Nighttime
XXXXXXXs.wav : Rare Selected 1
XXXXXXXt.wav : Rare Selected 2
XXXXXXXu.wav : Rare Selected 3
XXXXXXXv.wav : Rare Selected 4
XXXXXXXw.wav : Reaction to Party Member Death

XXXXXXXa.wav would be Custom0a, and so on. Your second voice pack would be Custom1a and so on, etc...



It definitely does seem to be geared toward the Good side. But it doesn't seem that hard to keep your reputation up high enough to avoid people attacking you on sight either. You just have to do a few quests to get Rep points. Usually that means big experience point rewards too. Scath returned Joia's ring. It didn't net her any money, as selling it would. But OTOH, Joia "paid" for it with a hefy amount of xp, which is worth more than gold. It also bumped up her Rep a point. You have to kiss a few babies in between stealing their candy. It has worked for politicians for millennia.

At the moment I am thinking long term for party members to be Dorn and Kagain for tanks. Viconia has the cleric spot sewn up. I will try Edwin on as a wizard, but I'd also like to give Baeloth a try too. He looks cooler. That would leave Imoen as the only Good character. I don't want to lose her, because I love her voice.

Ahh, this is really a good idea. I have Baldur's Gate on my old computer, I think I got it from Gamestop.com, actually. It was my 2nd PC game. I was really into it for about a month, and then I got distracted. By the time I returned to BG, I couldn't get it to work. Then I got into Arena, and then Oblivion ....

I do want to give BG another try at some point, though. I need something other than Elder Scrolls. I might have to start all over again with the install.

It's a fun game for me, as a former table-gamer. I know what you mean about the spell memorization part; when we table-gamed, we primarily used a different system of rules from a gaming company called The Fantasy Trip (TFT), which has been out of business since the early 90s. The way TFT does it, I believe spells used up Intelligence or Strength instead of the way DnD does it. We did use DnD to 'enrich' our gameworlds, though. DnD has a heck of a lot more creatures, friends and foes in its encounter tables. More rules to flesh out environments, more potions & spells, that sort of thing.

Like I said, I'm glad you're doing BG. Maybe I'll join you.

Scathach and company have been roaming around east of Beregost. While in the Temple area they came across a pack of dread wolves, worgs, and vampiric wolves that were particularly difficult. Here is a somewhat long vid of the battle. It is a little small, but that is what you get for an old game. I have it on the highest resolution possible.




D&D was my first table-top RPG, back in the misty dawn of time my teen years. Back then it was AD&D, and there were no 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th editions yet. The people I gamed with used the rules as a basic framework too, then added on a lot of house rules. The magic system was the biggest difference, as we used a system where you got a number of mana points per level equal to your intelligence (or karma points equal to your wisdom if you were a cleric). Every spell had a certain mana or karma cost. So you could keep casting whatever spells you wanted, until you were out of mana/karma. Then you had to wait a certain amount of time to get those points back. I think it was 1/3rd your total every 8 hours. So after a day you got it all back.

But I moved on from D&D after a few years, to games like Marvel Superheros, West End's Star Wars (this is before it got turned into a d20 system game), Champions/Fuzion, Call of Cthulhu, and my favorites: Shadowrun & Earthdawn. Then after a long time I joined a bunch who were doing Earthdawn, and they wanted to try out D&D again. By then it was the 3rd Edition. I thought it was alright. A big improvement over the old AD&D I started with. Especially with all the perks. Though I still liked other games better. It is funny, because D&D is definitely the most widely known role playing game there is. Yet I would say it is easily the worst of the bunch. Maybe I am being too harsh. I should just say it was definitely my least favorite of all the RPGs I played for any length of time.

But to Baldur's Gate. Back in the day it was out I was under the impression that it was a much more linear styled game. Now that I am playing it, I can see it has a wonderfully open, sandbox-styled game world. It has to be the most open-world Bioware game I have ever played. Most of their games are semi-linear, in that they start with an introductory section, or a Chapter 0. Not just the tutorial, but a first act that gets the story of their main quest going. Like the city of Neverwinter in NWN1, the Endar Spire/Taris in Kotor 1, or the character origin/Ostagar in Dragon Age Origins, etc... Then they tend to throw out about 4 or 5 different 'hubs' you can visit in whatever order you like. But you have to go through them all no matter what, and once you are done with them, there is no point going back, because there is nothing to see or do there anymore. Then once all of those are done you are ushered into the final act, which is usually shorter than the middle hubs, but big on action.

But BG is apparently from before Bioware locked themselves into that pattern. It is more like a Bethesda game, in that after the introductory act, you are tossed out into a wide world. Even though you are strongly prodded to go a certain way, and meet certain people who prod you very unsubtly to go to another certain way, you really can say "F that" and do whatever you want. Which is pretty much what I have been doing. I have also found that enemies do respawn after you clear out areas. Not all of them, but there will be critters roaming around when you go back to a place you emptied out previously. So you could just wander around grinding your toons to become uber pwnage I OWN YOU N00BS! if you want to. I think that is what really draws me. Not the grinding toons, but the open world. It really does make an excellent alternate to a Bethesda game.

Ha ha your mana points system almost sounds like a mod. It's the earliest version of mods.

We also had our own table-mods, one of my favorites was a system of Feudalism a friend worked up after studying Medieval Feudalism in high school. We also had rules for various drug effects (it was possible to find pot and coca leaves and alcohol, magic mushrooms, etc.). We also had a system for personality types. Some personalities were more prone towards drug addiction. Or womanizing. Or wh0ring, etc. Lying. Cheating. Looking back on it, it seems like everything we learned about the world around us (Earth, that is) could possibly wind up in our game, in some distorted way.



Interesting. See, I've never played a Bioware game before until BG on PC, did not know any of this. I tried playing Dragon Age 2 (the game a lot of ppl don't like) but it didn't really grab me, so after an hour of gameplay I took the disc out of my Ps3, and fired up Oblivion.



Yeah, buff those toons, let's go pwn some NPCs! .. Yeah, it is very open world. Bioware must have been so different back then, before they were bought out.

Just before my BG game wouldn't run any more, Lopov found a site which features cheat codes. I normally don't cheat, but one of the issues I had with BG was poison. I've never seen so much deadly poison in a game. It's not like in ES, where a poison will have very minor effects, the poisons in BG can frickiin' KILL you. A lot of enemies carry it too.

So if (when) I return to BG, one of the only Cheats I'm going to employ is a supply of Antidote potions. Because if the enemy can carry THAT much poison, I want to be able to combat this. I'll just RP it as one of my characters knows how to brew these antidotes up.

They are still good games. Well most of them at least. I loved the Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights games. Dragon Age Origins was decent too. But if you play one, you kind of already know how to play the others. They have the same basic UI, same 3rd person isometric view. Same way of splitting the game between tactical and campaign maps, Same point and click to move and attack, and so on. I never needed to look at the manual for DAO, as I had already knew how it worked from playing KOTOR. I never tried out DA2. The negative comments about it are so pervasive, that I would rather try one of the horde of other games out there which I have never played.

Mass Effect 1 did not do much for me. It didn't have the same cookie-cutter UI and set of game rules the other games had. But it came at the expense of gutting out just about everything that made those games interesting to play. In the end I only finished it because I wanted to see how the story worked out. The gameplay itself left me massively underwhelmed. I played Mass Effect 2 about the same way you did DA2. After about a half hour or an hour I said "F This!" and went back to playing Oblivion!




I know what you mean about the poisons! That is what killed Jaheria - spider poison. It does 2 points of damage every turn, and it never stops! Imoen got killed by a spider poison too. But I drew the line there. I fired up EE Keeper and opened up a save from just before she died, and used it to set her back to full health and turn off the poison. Unlike a Beth game where you can just turn on the healing spout until you are back up to full health, in these games healing is hard to come by. Your cleric has a couple of heals, and you might have a few potions, and that is it. So you have to save them up for when you really need them in the middle of a fight, and rest up all the time between battles.

I think i will try your idea out, and say that Viconia knows how to brew antidotes. Having once served the Spider Queen, I imagine that poison was an ordinary fact of life she had to look out for, like we watch out for cars when we cross the street!

Just had a great moment. Scáthach and company were attacked by half a dozen Hobgoblins. Not too dangerous, but there were a lot of them. So I decided to lead with a color spray from Neera. One of those random, wacky Wild Magic moments happened, and instead of a color spray, she cast a fireball (a spell she does not know btw. That is what makes wild magic, well... you know). Boom! She one-shot kills every Hobgoblin.

My party finally reached 5th level. It certainly takes a while to level up in this game. My guess is because experience points are divided out among the party. So the larger the party, the less xp each character gets. With that partly in mind I have been keeping the group down to 5 members. 6 people seem to get in each others way more too. I briefly had 6 when I recruited Safana. But I didn't like her voice, so I let her go before even finishing the same level I found her on.

Anyway, since I am high enough level now, I went and recruited Baeloth in Larswood. I have to say, he is a hoot!. I love his voice acting. It is sort of like Dr. Smith from the original Lost in Space, but less cowardly, more bloodthirsty. One of his battlecries is "I'm going to work out some anger on you!" So as much as I have grown fond of Neera, I decided to let her go in favor of Baeloth. So now Imoen is the only Good member of the party.

He's also damn powerful. He starts with a ring that gives him extra spells, and I gave him Evermemory. Now he has something like 24 first level spells he can cast. Or since he is a Sorcerer, he can cast any 1st level spell he knows 24 times.

I have to say, I am liking the Sorcerer class. Not having to memorize spells is great. It is such a pain in the rear to have to change the spells Neera knows whenever I have to identify items, rest so that she can use them, then rest again afterward so she can change back to her regular loadout. She is supposed to be able to cast any spell she knows when using Nahal's Reckless Dweomer, but I have found that is not the case. She knows Identify, and it never appears in the list of spells she can cast with it.

Wow, they must have done some adding and blending to BG I. Originally, the 'class kits' like Sorcerer, Archer, Kensai etc were not added till BG II. That is great news though. Yes, the Sorcerer class solves the most annoying aspects of the regular D&D mages.

Besides the bug fixes and upgraded screen resolution and widescreen support, one of the good things about the Enhanced Editions is that they were able to take the 'newer' things from BG2 and put them in BG1. So you can play all the special classes like Bards, Barbarians, and so forth, and all their various sub-classes. There are even some new classes, like Blackguards. As I understand it, gameplay-wise it is just like playing BG2.

You should give the Enhanced Editions a try.

Oh that sounds great! One of the reasons I didn't go back to BGI after II was because I got spoiled by all the gameplay improvements in II.

I understand that back in BG1 when you slept you did not get back all of the hit points you had lost, and how much you did get back was based upon the quality of the room you rented. But in the Enhanced Editions one sleep period either outdoors or at an inn will heal you up to full. At least so long as your sleep is not interrupted by an attack if you are outside. You can still pick from the 4 types of rooms at the inns, from Peasant to Royal, but it does not make a difference which one anymore.

There are also new NPCs to play with too, like Neera. I have to say I like the Wild Magic. It adds a lot of spice to wizardry. There is a new place called the Black Pits, which I have not tried yet. It is separate from the rest of the game world, but I understand you can export your character from there to the main game.

One of the downsides is that many of the old mods made for the original games do not work on the Enhanced Editions. Or they need a lot of work on your part to mod the mods to make them compatible. Like I had to do with that voicepack I created, or the new portraits.

Thanks for some of those pros and cons. When last I played BG II, I had a few mods (eg: widescreen) and had it going pretty well. I had a great editor that allowed me to tweak any of the characters (NPCs and Player Character) all around, add abilities etc.

The EEs have native support for widescreen displays, higher resolutions, and a lot of bug fixes. As I understand it, they took a lot of the fan made bug fixes and incorporated them. Baldur's Gate EE Keeper will let you edit your character and all of the companion NPCs, whether they are currently in your party or not. There is a spell, creature, and item browser, but as far as I can tell they are read-only. However, the character editor allows you to add or remove any item or spell to or from any character.

There are a couple of mods for Baldur's Gate 2; BGTutu and BGT, both of which allow you to play Baldur's Gate using the engine for BG2, giving you all the improvements from the sequel.

I think the reason I backed away from BG II the last time I took a TES-break to play it (maybe a couple years ago?) was because of a known bug where when you go to talk to someone you can't and get a spiel 'so and so appears busy'. Apparently the bug was introduced by the Throne of Baal expansion. There is a fix for it, but it is also known that the fix generally doesn't fix it - and it didn't fix it for me.

I think if I were to go back to BG, it would be back to II and without the ToB expansion - I didn't really care for it anyway. I know I enjoyed a couple mods to make the game look better on widescreen and an editor to tweak characters or respec them.

What I wanted was an elven no melee mystic archer (doh!) who had thieving skills. A dual classed Fighter-thief was good for bow and thieving skills but had no magic, had to be human and the melee skills were wasted. An elven archer (kit) was good but had no thieving skills. That's where the editor and some tweaks helped create what I wanted.

If you want simplicity I would suggest going with the Enhanced Editions. The EE natively combines the two games already, without you having to jump through a bunch of hoops to install this and that separately. They also add a little bit of new content, which you cannot get with the old games. I am not sure if they fix the "person appears busy bug". But from what I read they do contain a plethora of bug fixes from the original games. When it originally came out there were a lot of new bugs but there have been a lot of patches to fix them, and I have never had an issue when playing so far.

If you want more mods, go with BGT or Tutu. Tbh, I have not been very excited about the mods I have seen out there though. The only things I have really wanted with mods were more portraits and voices. I got an old portrait pack to work after some fumbling. Out of the voice mods out there I only found one voice I liked out of about 50 or 60. That didn't work natively in EE, but I was able to create a new voice using the sound files myself. The EE character editor has done everything I have wanted. As you said Acadian, it is simple enough to use it to give a character lockpicking and trap finding skills through it.

Thanks for the additional info. I'll wait until I get the BG bug again, but that EE does sound nice also.

As an added bonus to waiting, over time more old mods will be converted to the EEs, and more new ones will crop up for them. One thing I noticed reading opinions about the EEs is that when they first came out, many people who had tried them said you were just as well sticking with the heavily modded originals. But now that they have been out for a while, and bugs fixed, I see the opposite statements by people who own both. That you should go with the EEs.

In other Baldurdash, Scáthach and company finally made their way to the Nashkel Mines. Just before reaching them they got a not-so random encounter where they met Dorn, the new Blackguard npc introduced by the EE. As far as I can tell, to get him you have first talk to him at the Friendly Arm Inn, and then you will get this encounter when you travel from Naskhel to Naskel Mines.

So that brings the team up to 6 members again. I was thinking of cashiering Kagain now that I have Dorn, but then I noticed he has twice the hit points! I don't want to get rid of Viconia or Baeloth, as they are my sole cleric and mage support. Which just leaves Imoen. To be honest, I am not sure I really need a thief in BG1. So far there have been almost no traps at all that I have encountered. The treasure cave in the Lighthouse area is the only place I recall coming across them. There are a lot of places with locks to pick. But those are usually inside people's houses or inn rooms. Basically straight up thievery. I don't think I have ever had to pick a lock to finish a quest. I have already been thinking of dual classing Imoen since her thieving skills are not really critical. Mostly she is just an archer.

It is a real dramatic change from the Neverwinter Nights games, where a thief is a necessity. In those games traps are everywhere, and nearly every chest is locked. You would never get any loot without a thief, assuming you even managed to walk through a dungeon alive.

I never touched any of the NWN stuff. In BG II, you really do want a thief - but, since the levels are higher it's very easy to do that via dual or multi-class. I found that dual classing a fighter with solid bow skill into a thief worked fabulously - making a perfectly good, but very tough thief/sniper. A mage/thief can work well also.

Dorn looks badass, I checked his pic on the Wiki. Looks like EE adds a lot more companions that I thought, I thought that it's 2 or 3 but there are more. Also, it seems I was wrong when I said earlier in this thread that romancing isn't possible in BGI, they enabled in EE because it says that Dorn will romance the PC.

EDIT: Nope, I read things too quickly (as usual), looks like that he returns in BGII, that's where he can be a potential partner.

There are four new Companions: Dorn, Neera, Rasaad, and Baeloth who was originally a secret npc. But the secret about him is obviously out by now. Rasaad is the only one I have not had in my party, though I have met him. I just didn't need anyone like him. So far the three I have used have been excellent, though Neera's wild magic does come with a learning curve. It does make things a lot of fun though.

I noticed something last night about Dorn. He can carry 500 pounds, or weight units, or whatever they are called. He isn't just a pack mule, but a pack caravan!

Just installed BG1 on my laptop. Now I have to see if any of the save games on my old hard-drives are readable. The old dead machine that used to run it had EIDE only, and the new ones all do SATA only, so it could be tricky.

What you could try is putting the old hard drive in an external drive enclosure, and then connecting that to the new comp.

For s&gs I copied my portrait pack from BG1EE to BG2EE, the exact same files, to an override folder using the same path as BG1. They do not appear when I create a character. However, after I save a game and open it with EE Keeper, all the new portraits are there for me to choose from.

I finished the Black Pits 1 (for Baldur's Gate 1 EE). It was ok, but nothing spectacular. It is an arena-style mini-campaign. You are given a party of six characters whom you can keep or alter as you desire, the same as when you start a regular game (except you can import or change all six characters). It is separate from the regular campaign, though you can import or export characters between the two.

A note to keep in mind, the first character listed is considered to be the party leader, no matter how you might change the order later by moving the pictures around on the right side of the screen. For the entire campaign, npcs will refer to you by the name and race of that first character listed. So if you are importing a player character, or plan to export your character to the regular game, make them the first character.

There are 15 battles. You fight a battle in the arena, then return to a waiting room with merchants where you can buy new gear, potions, scrolls, etc... If your team members are killed or injured, they will be back up to full when you all appear in the waiting room. You can use the Rest function here so your mages can learn new spells. You are also given an amount of gold that you can use to buy things with.

You get a ton of experience points after every battle. I mean a ridiculous amount compared to the regular game. It is enough to go up a level every other battle. So you will end up at level 7 or 8 with every character in the party. I imported Scathach from my first save at the start of the regular campaign, and she ended up 8th level.

The battles are arranged into three tiers. The first tier battles are pretty easy. After that they get progressively more difficult. After you finish each tier, the vendors restock with newer, more powerful gear. They get +1 weapons at the start of Tier 2, and +2 at the start of Tier 3. You can also go back and refight any battle you want at any time. That is one way to grind up experience and get more money for gear if you want.

Export your character before the final battle. You can then take that character file and import the character into the main BG1 campaign if you start a new game. You start with all the experience and levels you had at the point you exported. That also includes your gear. So you can do this to start the game with a pretty uber character. Of course you will probably never level up even once in the regular campaign, considering how high your starting level will be, and how much xp you will need to make the next level.

This weekend. I'm getting this game on my old computer. I might have to buy it all over again, but I'm really drawn to BG again, after reading your exploits.

It is well worth getting. One of the best games I have played in a while. Definitely get the Enhanced Edition(s). They cost a little more, but $20 a piece is nothing compared to buying a brand new game and all of its addons.

Even on an older comp, they should run fine. I just checked, and BG1EE is only using about a fifth of a gig of memory.

Just out of curiosity I tried starting a new BG1 game with Scathach imported from the Black Pits. The game does not scale its monsters any differently. So the baddies in Candlekeep literally explode after one hit. The bears and wolves in the Candlekeep Coastway take a few hits before going down. But don't seem any different from when you start with a 1st level character.

I did notice that while Imoen was gaining experience points after killing critters in the Coastway, Scathach was not. So my guess is that if you import a character, you don't gain any experience until you reach the same amount you had from the Black Pits. For Scathach that is 161,000, and she needs 250,000 to hit the next level.

So it pretty much looks like if you do import a Black Pits character you will start the game quite uber, and that you will never level again.

I am going back to my regular game with Scathach, where she is about 5th level or so.

Imoen. I remember that name. Is Steam required for this game? .. I have Steam on my old computer, but not on the new one. I can't remember how I wound up with Steam back in October, so I'm thinking it was either from Baldur's or Sims 3.

It isn't required, unless you buy it from Steam! You can either buy it from Beamdog, or Steam. I got the Steam version because I found it on sale a few weeks ago.

See, I bought BG from gamestop.com. And I'm not sure if it's related to Steam or not. I don't remember how I got Steam on my old computer. *shrugs* It was either BG or Sims 3. But never mind. I'm going to try to see if I can get BG started.

Alright I found it. The GameStop icon. Amazingly I also wrote down my password on one of the walls in my room. I do this, ya know, write passwords on a wall near my bed. If I put them in a book, stuff will get lost. Books fall behind things in my room. I put the book in a specific place, and at some point it'll wander. Much better to write User IDs and passwords on a wall. The wall will never wander away like books do.

Hey SR, I see you are here. It's asking me to re-install, and I'm fine with that. But it's asking to put it in Program Files. Probably not such a good idea, right?

Looks like the Gamestop version does require Steam. You will find out when you install it. If it needs it, it will install automagically. I didn't even know Gamestop sold PC games via download. I always think of them as a place for console games.

The Baldur's Gate Wiki has a handy Area Map. So too does Mike's RPG Center. Just click on the map and it takes you to the page on the area. The first site gives you more detailed info on everything in the areas. The second is nice because it has the points of interest clearly marked on them. And of course EE Keeper is your best bet for ubering up your toons...

I other news I decided to let Dorn go. I just don't like the 6 character group size. And for all that he's strong, he's kind of fragile. My other frontliners have twice the hit points. So now it is back to Scathach, Imoen, Viconia, Kagain, and Baeloth. So far I have to say Baeloth has been pure awesome sauce. Without the sauce though. He is just pure awesome. Now I know who his voice reminds me of. The Mark Hamill version of The Joker.

Scathach and crew have explorated the entire western half of the map from Candlekeep to the southern map edge. Now I am working on the last few areas in the east, with just Gullykin, Durlag's Tower, and Ulcaster to go. After that I will finally turn north, and maybe get cracking on the rest of the main quest.

Pretty much you are right. Now that I've been PC gaming for about 9 months, I realize how lame GameStop's PC sections are in stores. Tons of Nintendo, Xbox, and PS games, but the PC section usually only is comprised of the very top most popular games for PC. I could find Sims 3 in GameStop, but not BG, or the ES Anthology. So I've gotten in the habit of searching online for PC games.

Thanks for the links, and I can't wait to buff up my toons, grind their stats! I think last time I chose one of the pre-made character guys, but I'm pretty sure BG has a choice to roll our own toon. I forget, but I'm about to find out!

You can roll your own drunks toons indeed!

Just got it from Beamdog. Installing now. GameStop is apparently broken. Wow 2.3 gigs.

Edit: It won't play on my old computer. DAngit. Keeps giving me crash errors. I'll try the gaming one instead, the one I got at Micro Center. I bet it'll work on there.

It ought to work fine on a new box. I am using the Enhanced Edition on my Windows 7 gaming rig, and it runs like a charm.

I tried Durlag's Tower tonight. I understand that it was one of the expansion packs for BG1. I did not like it. It has too many narrow, winding corridors. Trying to get a party of even 5 through the hallways was a pain, as the characters kept deciding to go off in different directions. I only did the outside of the tower, and the above ground levels. After that I left, and headed for Ulcaster. That is the last area left to explore south of the Friendly Arm Inn.

I rolled another toon for BG1 EE. Meet Tuonetar, a Drow Fighter/Cleric. It was not easy making her, as the game does not allow elves to be Fighter/Clerics. So I started her as a half-elf, then saved the game, and used EE Keeper to change her to an elf. They don't have Drow in BG1EE. Viconia and Baeloth are just the Elf race, with an added Magic Resistance bonus. So I did the same with Tuonetar. I also gave her an Animate Dead spell to start with, so she can summon Darryl the Skeleton.

Finally, I took my Viconia soundset for Oblivion, and converted it to work in BG1EE. It works like a charm. I guess this means I won't be using Viconia this time around. That will give me an opportunity to try a different cleric npc, if I bother with another one at all. Since Tuonetar is a Good character for a change, I plan to try an all-good party with her. Imoeon of course, Minsc and Dynahair, and maybe Kivan.

Sounds neat! I don't know if BG I supports it, but a very cool character in BG II is a multiclass ranger/cleric. The big draw here is that character gets access to both cleric and druid spells. Normally the ranger only gets a limited amount of druid spells, but by multiclassing with cleric, it unlocks them all. And the ranger enhances the cleric's melee ability as well. Again, I don't know know if BG I EE will support that; BG I would not but EE seems to be a real hybrid game.

I was experimenting with several classes, including Rangers. But I tend to play Rangers a lot in D&D based games, so I decided to take a break from one this time around. Besides, given her name Tuonetar isn't really the woodsy type. She's more the living dead type. That is why I gave her the Animate Dead spell to start with. That extra party member helps out quite a bit in these early levels.

Tuonetar and Ims mosied south from Friendly Arm Inn and discovered Beregost. There they helped out/enlisted Neera, bringing a (albeit wild) mage to the group. They knocked around the town, killing spiders, surviving assassins, and the lot. Naturally Imoen burgled every house as well!

A trip west to High Hedge found Kivan. He was a bit of a flash in the pan. He died in their first encounter! It was a black bear, and he was dead before I realized it. I didn't much like his voice though, so I left him dead rather than take him for resurrection.

I find that tends to be my biggest reason for keeping or rejecting party members. What their voice acting is like. I just cannot stand Jaheria's voice, which is why I could not wait to get rid of her. The same with Safana the one time I tried her out. OTOH I just love Imoen, Viconia, and Baeloth's voices. Minsc has a really fun voice pack too.