How is the character progression in this game?

[Sugar Show]

can I make squad of full warrior or I must pick different characters each with different classes?

[Armanz]

You can theoretically finish the game with any setup you want to. It makes life much easier though to have at least 1 Mage and at least 1 (or ½) Thief. Cleric/Druid is optional but 1 (or ½) of either is definitely helpful as well.

[wendigo211]

People, myself included, have soloed the game with multiple characters so you don't really need any particular class. That said, to solo the game, you really need to metagame, so it isn't something that a new player could do. Additionally, because the game splits XP between party members, solo characters level faster and that sometimes leads to encounters being easier solo than with a full party.

To a large degree BG2 is the Mage show. Spells just get more and more powerful and you need to strip magical defenses from enemies (or wait out the duration) before you can hurt them. For a new player, I recommend a balanced party (at least one Mage, Cleric and Thief). I wouldn't say you couldn't beat the game with a party full of warriors, but I would consider it one of the harder options.

[Sugar Show]

I see, I see, so "Full warrior squad" is new player challenge? I'll do it.

[Leeux]

Keep in mind that in these rules a fighter/mage is arguably (IMO at least,) more powerful than a pure fighter.

[Sugar Show]

Mix classes? Oh boi, I want pure warrior, warrior/mage , warrior/thief and warrior druid, can be ?

[echoes222]

Originally posted by Sugar Show:

Mix classes? Oh boi, I want pure warrior, warrior/mage , warrior/thief and warrior druid, can be ?

then it's not a challenge at all as some of pre-made characters are mixed.

[Sugar Show]

so what can be challenging for new player?

[Leeux]

A good challenge could be play with less party members, i.e. a trio, or duo, for example. And you can come up with some good combinations of class/archetype to have all bases covered... specially if you don't want multiclasses.

It'll require less (or even no) metagaming knowledge than doing a solo run, but it'll be difficult enough to give you a good challenge.

Playing ALL fighters can be difficult too (but boring IMO, but that might be just me,) specially middle to late game BG2... but you'll have to reach that stage first and for most part of BG1 you won't notice much difference at all.

You can chose to play a 6 party in Insane... which increases damage received to player party and also increases HP values of monsters, and occasionally adding more units to a pull too. But that'd depend on what you consider "challenge", in my case I'd consider this last option less interesting, since it's just extra mob HP and care taken not to get hit too much... and not much more.

Legacy of Bhaal is a complete different beast that require specific tactics to tackle, and even if you can do it with a L1 party starting from scratch, is painful and completely tedious when you aren't exploiting the game loopholes... and is mostly intended as a kind of meh way to implement a NG+ mode, where you're kinda intended to start by importing high level characters from a past game, for example.

[Bob Rooney]

1. buy the game... even better : get baldurs gate 1 first to fully understand the story and the mechanics
2. play on normal
3. see how far you get with any party combination.

no need for artificial "challenge" because if you're not familiar with the game, the ruleset of the old ad&d, the micromanagement and the navigation, the game is challenging enough... especially if your doing quests or go to areas that you're supposed to go to in the last third of the main campaign. it doesn't hold your hand, no questmarker leading the way, possible permadeath for your companions if you dont play strategically etc

if you beat this on your first playthrough without problems ( which you will 100% not ) then challenge yourself however you want.

[Giblets]

I honestly don't see how you can solo this game.. one person against 6/7 monsters or more with spells being cast at you. even full parties can get slaughtered within seconds.

[Zotliatlicor]

Originally posted by Giblets:

I honestly don't see how you can solo this game.. one person against 6/7 monsters or more with spells being cast at you. even full parties can get slaughtered within seconds.

The whole point is that theese fights, and a lot of the fights are a lot easier when you are solo. But it also depends what class you play.

Solo Paladin is a very different thing than Solo Sorceror.

A group of enemies with mages and clerics in them are no problem for a sorceror, but i imagine it is impossible for a pure Fighter

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by Giblets:

I honestly don't see how you can solo this game.. one person against 6/7 monsters or more with spells being cast at you. even full parties can get slaughtered within seconds.

Solo Fighter is easy in BG and SoD, but hard in BG2 because casters are more of a threat. Berserker Rage helps because of all the status immunities. You also have the Cloak of Mirroring that you get in the Sahaugin city and the Cloak of the Sewers (Mustard Jelly Polymorph). Finally there are potions and scrolls of protection from magic. The Inquisitor (Paladin kit) is pretty good against casters in BG2 because of the 2xlevel Dispel Magic it has..

Mage is really easy in BG2, because of buffs and your summon army including simulacrums and projected images who are also casters. It's a bit tougher in BG, but probably still the second easiest solo because of scroll/wand abuse.

Thief is really hard until you get HLAs and then it gets easier, Shadowdancer has the easiest time in BG (Aec is the only enemy in BG who can detect a stealthed Thief). Swashbuckler is probably the best for SoD and BG2.

I've never soloed a Cleric so I can't really comment.

A lot of the fights in BG2 can be trivialized by having the right wand/potion/item. So a lot of soloing is planning a path through the game to get those items before you need them.

In my experience, the easiest solo through the saga is probably Berserker dualed to Mage at level 13. Swage (Swashbuckler dualed to Mage) is also pretty good. A lot of people like the triple class characters, Fighter/Mage/Thief and Cleric/Fighter/Mage, but in my experience the double class characters, Fighter/Mage and Mage/Thief in particular, are stronger because of the level 9 mage spell access.

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by Giblets:

I honestly don't see how you can solo this game.. one person against 6/7 monsters or more with spells being cast at you. even full parties can get slaughtered within seconds.

There are ways to break the game since this is AD&D where you can become literally invincible against certain attacks and tactics that exploit AI are not uncommon, especially when using traps. Leaving the area and resting is one way to cause all the mage buffs the enemy just cast to disappear and since it was scripted they won't recast them when you come back. Summons are OP as usual in any AD&D game and you can flood corridors and fights with them, especially when some of them are immune to nonmagical weapons and can handle most battles on their own. Bosses can be one shot killed with something as simple as Chromatic Orb 5% of the time when they fail their saving throw. It's all about understanding the mechanics and the opposition.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Sugar Show:

so what can be challenging for new player?

Quite some stuff, if you don't know the games yet:

- being overwhelmed with the rules / keep in mind that the game's PDF manuals are more than a hundred pages huge, and I'm not talking about basic things like THAC0 or AC, but spell protections and counter-spells, enemies with innate abilities
- the chosen difficulty mode
- accepting mostly random, not 18+ attributes, missing various bonus options and spell level dependencies
- spending lots of cash on expensive items before discovering which ones are worthwhile
- trying to dual-class characters and then facing the long "downtime" of the first class
- dual-classing characters but messing up their skills
- using multi-class characters where a team of single-class characters would be the better choice
- lack of meta-gaming where it would be helpful

That said, I would not suggest a party of six fighters. Rather, choose a cliche party to cover most roles (warrior, thief, arcane caster, divine caster, paladin, druid, ... and so on) and jump into the game a Core difficulty or higher.