Help for Beginners

[Heroic]

Need some help, is it better with more party members or less? because the EXP points will be split up i think, so i need longer to level up. but its harder with less members of course. what should i do?

is there a good way for beginners to start questing. i am now in beregost and did some quests, but i barely survive an attack. few days ago i ran into some trolls or something by the temple near beregost and they extremely kicked my ass. so i stay in beregost now and dont know what to do.

when i travel further to nashkel, i think the battles will be even harder, but i dont know how to level up to get better and stronger, because it takes a lifetime to get some EXP.

[scotty2hotty]

Did you do the quest at the friendly arm?. Also its probly better to have all 5 members with you so you can survive.Dont be afraid to venture out,you will eventually build up enough exp.

[scotty2hotty]

What kind of charecter are you playing?. you need a good fighter in your group, like jaheria

[Orbit]

Do the Friendly Arm Inn quest like scotty said. Also, while it does seem odd that experiance splits between party members, for a beginner I would recommed you pick up a full party(6 characters) as soon as possible. This game is difficult at the beginning, but I promise that if you stick with it and start questing and leveling you'll get the hang of it.

When you've never played one of these games before everything turns into a learning experiance. Basically just look things up when you have questions or ask here. Remember to avoid frustration by hitting "Q" (Quicksave) all the time. Many people neglect ranged weapons which really kick ass in this game. Give Imoen a short bow and plenty of arrows and watch her one hit gibberlings from a distance.

[Florb]

What I recomend you do for leveling up is take a full party of six to the area east of the Beregost Temple. Head a little north once you zone in and a Ghoul by the name of Korrax will talk to you. Agree to have him join you and make your way around the area. (he moves slow, but you need to make sure he is up front.) You will find several basilisk throught the map. Have Korrax tank them and keep all of your party members ranged. Eventually Korrax will turn on you, but he has always lasted long enough to clear the entire zone for me. I do suggest you take a couple stone to flesh scrolls just in case. Also, there is a party of adventurers in the center of the zone that will challenge you to a fight you may want to avoid fighting them until you have killed all the basilisk.

After that travel to High Hedge and buy a scroll of magic protection and a potion of absortion then go south to the Red Canyon's. Once there head west and zone to the Lighthouse. There are several Sirines here. Use the scroll of magic protection on a single tank and send him in to fight them and keep everyone else ranged. The scroll will last long enough to kill all of the Sirines. After they are dead go to the flesh golem cave on the north side of the same zone. Use the potion of absorbtion on the tank and use the same tactics (Please note that Flesh Golems can only be harmed with magic weapons!)

Usually after doing all three of these things my party is level 4-ish. Best of luck!

[Heroic]

ok thank you all, i will try to use some of your hints.

i'm a paladin, because i wanted to use some magic. jahera died, but i didnt care because she always was the first who died in a battle, and she never made big damage.

i did some quests at the friendly arm, and i think i return there and pick up those two guys, the sorcerer and the little one, i left them there.

[scotty2hotty]

LOL, forget the two you picked up they are useless , jaheria is important and she can heal. She will get better as the game moves along, as soon as you find a good melee weapon for her . I use a club & sword & shield style for her. Im also a paladin or a cavalier. I also rescue the female cleric branaverer or what ever her name is.She will turn out a good healer down the line.

[Florb]

Postat inițial de Heroic:

ok thank you all, i will try to use some of your hints.

i'm a paladin, because i wanted to use some magic. jahera died, but i didnt care because she always was the first who died in a battle, and she never made big damage.

i did some quests at the friendly arm, and i think i return there and pick up those two guys, the sorcerer and the little one, i left them there.

Paladin's cannot reach a high enough level in BG1 (without using mods to remove the xp cap) to cast spells.

[sjamesashton]

No matter what class you pick, you will eventually be able to cast two Cure Light Wounds (for 8 points each) - which helps, but is nowhere close to what you need. As a Paladin you get a once-a-day Lay Hands ability that gradually increases from 8 to 15 points, but again not nearly enough. You will NEED to grab all the healing potions you can find (and they sometimes come as a stack, keep them stacked because once broken up they won't restack any higher than 5).
Keep a stack of Antidotes too, because poisons work too fast to wait until the fight is over to use a spell, and if the caster is the one that got poisoned the spell usually fails.

So check the various walkthrough instructions and grab a Cleric AND Jaheira (or lots and lots of potions).

[foodgeek]

Jaheira is important. she is a good character (you maybe were using her wrong) and she is a SEQUEL character (BG2). She can wear armor, fight, and heal, and uses different weopons than other characters (and you can get her scimitars later). go back saved games and get ehr back.

I'm a NG R/CL and just restarted. I have khalid and Jaheira. I'm going for Minsc and his mage ward next, but am debating taking the paladin instead of one of the warriors (I probably won't). There is a good guide here: http://www.neoseeker.com/resourcelink.html?rlid=268243&rid=228969 (third version coming out soon to reflect the new kits and such.)

[RaymondQSmuckles]

I've started this game so many times I've probably logged enough hours to have supposedly completed this game by now. But, like OP, I keep getting beaten down early and often before hitting Beregost.

I see people talking about having a "full party", but I haven't met anyone other than the first two people who join the group. Is the pattern to this game to talk to every single person you ever meet in the hopes of uncovering quests that allow us to level up sooner, as well as get a full complement of team members?

I certainly have not been agreeing to every single thing people want of me, nor have I been talking to every single person. Is that how to play this game and have any chance of success?

[Uncle Buttcheeks]

you could always cheat. real thug asses use cheats.

[voehringer_nitron]

By first two, I guess you mean Xzar and Montaron, on the first map.You can find Khalid and Jaheira, at the Friendly Arm Inn. Ajantis, a Paladin is at the farm to the north of the inn. Kivan, a Ranger, is at High Hedge, west of Beregost. You can find Garrick, a bard, and Kaigan, a fighter in Beregost itself. Shar-Teel, a fighter is on the map to the east of the temple of Beregost. These are some of the more readily reachable party members.

Stay around the early areas, fighting things like kobolds, bandits, wild dogs, gibberlings and such. Not a lot of XP by themselves, but not very difficult to fight You'll probably want to use mainly ranged weapons. If you have a mage that knows Sleep, that can put a lot of enemies out of comission, though you will need to keep resting to re-memorize. Theres also a technique called kiting. Try and get the enemies to go after one character, prefereably with a low Armor Class and lots of HP. Have them keep moving and changing directions so the enemies follow them to try and attack. The rest of your party can fire ranged weapons.

[Sildywen]

I remember playing the original and the enhanced is fairly close to what I remember, tho it still takes a long time to get to level 2. When your doing your inital travels, stay on the road while traveling between Friendly Arm Inn and Beregost, as the mobs will seldomly appear on them.

Personally, I would not expect your character to survive too much exploring until after you beat the Naskell Mines, and start acquiring the magic + 1 weapons to save a ton of grief. The main reason why is that at best a level character will have between 4 - 12 hp, note not counting a high constition which yeilds +4 bonus at 18, which translates to dieing quite often by one hit from practically every mob you meet. As other posters have said save often. Oh, and reguarding companions take as many as you comfortable with. There are some NPCs people cannot stand and others that you will want every time you play. I kept rotating out my 4th and 5th NPCs to do some of their quests.

Naskell Mines is mostly kobolds if memory serves right with 1 ghoul, not overly hard if you play carefuly. The kobolds are in the same boat health wise as your character and will drop with 1 or 2 hits from most weapons. The only thing you might want to do before heading to that cave is to have a spare weapon or two for your fighters since normal weapons break or fall to the iron curse all the time. After the mine the game starts getting easier ,but will still be challenging.

Not sure yet if this enhanced edition still has the Ankheg Armor, which is a nifty green plate armor, forgot if its stats are for full plate or not. Either way if its still in the game you just need to kill the ankheg one zone north of Friendly Arm Inn to get its shell and then head to the smithy in Beregost. It also requires some gold, but I have forgotten how much.

[voehringer_nitron]

Ankheg armor costs 4k. But Ankhegs can be rather tough at low levels. Their acid spit can deal a lot of damage. Theres a free set in one of the fields in Nashkell. HIt tab to highlight the "container" its in

[RaymondQSmuckles]

Postat inițial de voehringer_nitron:

By first two, I guess you mean Xzar and Montaron, on the first map.

Xzar and Montaron? I've never once met those two. I've only ever met Khalid and Jaheira, plus the young girl that tags along from the very beginning. I had no idea there were so many other characters that were available to join the party. I'm clearly "doing it wrong" with this game, right from the start. Maybe my gaming sensibilities and expectations have shifted too much since this game's heyday.