Combat and Game Tips for a Newbie?

[noaxesbb]

Welp, I just got this game from the sale, and I think it was a pretty good deal. However, as soon as I got dropped into the game, I was kind of disoriented. I'm not exactly sure how combat works. I made it to the second area of the starting dungeon in Amn, and then two of my party members got their♥♥♥♥♥slain, followed by me soon after. I want to really like this game, and I've already taken a liking to it, but are there any tips so my♥♥♥♥♥doesn't get slain as easliy? Thanks dudes!

[red255]

Originally posted by amigastar:

Search for "Baldurs Gate II Quest Order" on Google. Helped me to figure out where to go first without being slain.

Enhanced Edition at least on Core Rules seemed to greatly reduce the difficulty of hard ea rly missions.

I went with a figher cleric, and it gives you the cleric strong hold mission which is the unseeing Eye. I took a party it included Nalia for reasons. went thru there summoned some animated dead and had Nalia cast cloudkill and it took care of most of the enemy groups since the skeletons are immune to the poison

has some weaker version of low level beholders only worth 9000 XP which apparently are no match for 2 skeletons and no death spells

so yeah. thats a valid combo, of Animate Dead + cloudkill. Until things get death Spell and will just clear your summons but then you animate dead, send 2 in, and let them get death spelled then send more in.

to deal with trolls make sure someone has fire arrows, without fire or acid arrows, Melf's minute meteors work (fighter stronghold)

If you end up doing Korgans quest first the timer stops as soon as he declares its the southern tomb. probably the same for most timed quests. But fighting undead, you put your own undead in the front who are immune to most of their stuff. then cast the level 3 party haste, Bless, and Chant and your guys should thwack thru everything.

Note you need magic weapons to damage alot of things in BG2, so make sure you get something. Raiding the Graveyard you can pick up some OK things. a +2 battleaxe for Korgan, a +2 Longsword, a random map encounter has a +2 shortsword. the table at the start of the dungeon has an magic weapon for something your main has Prof in. Not really difficult to pick that stuff up.

Do not generally use stuff you are not proficent in, the pips matter. 2 pips in a weapon give an extra half attack per round, making it 50% better than things without 2 pips.

2 pips in dual wielding eliminate the main hand weapon penalties, but yeah the animate dead +cloudkill works for alot of things and the things it doesn't work on animate dead +Haste/Chant/Bless works on. The counter is Death Spell but they have limited death spells so you can just make more.

if you want to cast mage spells in town you can either go to the government district and pay off the wizards for a license, or have Yoshimo set traps on top of the copper coronet and have your mage cast a spell to summon the enemy mages who teleport in where she cast the spell.

Again recommend Cloudkill on herself with an immunity to poison on her, or simply getting out of the area.

Rest, repeat, eventually the cowled wizards stop coming. and you can cast spells without harrasment from then on.

I"ve been recommending cloudkill alot because Cloudkill is poison damage which is relatively easy to make yourself immune to, so you can use it freely.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by amigastar:

Search for "Baldurs Gate II Quest Order" on Google. Helped me to figure out where to go first without being slain.

That's a good way to avoid being immersed in the game aka ruin the experience. A better solution would be reducing the difficulty until you feel more confident and have grabbed some decent gear.

[red255]

Gear isn't really important. I mean it will certainly speed things up, but proper use of spells and tactics you can take down most of the stronger enemies.

like you know you are fighting demons with their charm and confusion....chaotic commands.

or stuff that uses alot of hold. Free action or beserker rage.

there is gear that does stuff but its more the proper buff. most buffs can be found in potion form. potions of clarity, potions of freedom

[Multihog]

^ Yeah, that's true.

[red255]

So yeah As I was saying, General fight, Hit them really hard with a big stick.

if that doesn't work, but its close cast haste, bless, Chant and defensive harmony, to hit them really hard with a big stick.

Generally speaking the bigger stick says +X on it, if it says +2 its a bigger stick than a +1, if it says +3 its a good big stick.

summons like animate dead are good to send in 5 seconds before your fleshies to distract the enemies from hitting your guys and instead they hit the skelies so your fleshies will survive long enough to kill the enemies.

you can also attempt to safely debuff the enemies with a slow spell. but that has a save so it might not work. worth doing though. that will get you thru the bulk of encounters. using skellies because they have alot of immunities and last a long time, other things work with varying success.

the skeletons also serve as something you can leave in the combat arena if you need to beat a hasty retreat to prevent being chased.

If you don't have time to prepare for a fight you can still fire off a quick bless,Chant and haste at first action as you pause the game

If you face a wizard and he fires off a ton of spells as his first action he's triggered a contingency spell, your two responses are generally to clear his defenses... which may require a true seeing spell to clear the invisibility and a breach spell to clear the bulk of his defenses. or simply beat a retreat and wait for his defenses to simply wear off.

the most annoying of defenses generally wear off within a couple minutes or hell just take an 8 hour nap. should be golden.

if theres a particularly annoying enemy theres probably a specific spell that neutralizes said enemy. or piece of equipment. if you can't find it feel free to ask.

[wendigo211]

To add to what Red255 said, on hit effects will go through stoneskins and mirror images. So things that apply a damage over time effect or other nasty effect on hit will work on mages who use those spells for defense. Arrows of Biting, Darts of Wounding and a Wizard Slayer's attack can be handy for disrupting enemy mages. Even Ghoul Touch (level 2 necromancy spell) can be used in this manner (although I think anti-magic spells will guard against it).

Note that this will not work with Mantle spells or Protection from Magical Weapons. These spells negate the attack before extra effects are applied, so that nice weapon with dispel on hit never gets a chance to dispel the target (And that Wizard Slayer suddenly feels rather silly for giving up magic items for an ability that doesn't work against almost every Mage in the second half of BG2 and ToB). Note that most of the enemies who cast PfMW are immune to normal weapons as well, so none of your attacks will work against them until you remove the spell.

Another anti-mage strategy you can employ is to use the Mustard Jelly form from the Polymorph Self spell (or Cloak of the Sewers). This form will give you 100% resistance to magic. There are quire a few fights where you can turn into a Mustard Jelly, let the enemy caster exhaust all their spells on you and then shift back and kill them. There are a couple spells that will still affect you while shifted, and it's not a good strategy in the Mage has melee support or effective melee capability.

There is also a finite number of Protection from Magic Scrolls in the game and Protection from Undead Scrolls. Protection from Undead will basically make undead enemies ignore you, and it can be a good strategy against Liches (powerful undead magic users), they'll just stand there doing nothing while you beat them to death. Just be aware that they are a finite resource, and there aren't enough for every Lich battle.

[Kangaxx]

Tips for a newbie! Not "50 ways to kill Kangaxx"!

[Scrotus Gropulonum]

Abuse the pause button in combat. Auto pause on cast or enemy sighting are good options.

[red255]

Not the biggest fan of pause button abuse.

it breaks Immersion. but yeah its useful if you gotta navigate the menus to get to your spell selection or you trigger a pod of nasties and you pause to respond by drinking potions or activating rage.

normally the game AI can activate rage for you.

but sometimes the first enemy action leaves your squad dazed or confused, so you might need to use potions to prevent that or something.

Death is usually not permanent and your clerics will be high enough levels to raise the dead. Hexxat raises herself usually after 8 hours rest. Being a vampire.

In the Tutorial dungeon you get Imoen a mage with enough thief skills to handle traps and locks. she could do other thief skills if you drink multiple potions of master thievery. tip for Imoen, do not give her thief armor because it will disable her mage spells. instead give her bracers or cast armor spell, Normally you give her a shortbow to keep her out of trouble, throwing daggers or darts can also be used.

Imoen is a dual class meaning she leveled up theif to 7 and now all her experience is going to mage. so if the party earns 6000 XP she gets 1500 XP to mage and nothing goes to thief.

You also soon get Minsc and Jahiera.

Minsc is a Ranger, who is skilled in two handed swords and Maces. and two weapon fighting. Ideally he uses 2 maces but for the early dungeons I get him the sword of Chaos from the djinni and he uses that for a while. Heavy armor disables his ability to sneak

Jahier is a Fighter/Druid. this is a multiclass which means if the 4 man party earns 6000 XP, 1500 goes to Jahiera, 750 to fighter and 750 to druid. Means she levels slower but never stops growing until she hits the level cap at least.

She has points in club and sword and shield style as well as a point in staff and a point in scimitar. Only thing I could really find for her in the first dungeon was a staff. She can also supposedly use spears and daggers but has no points in them.

You dont really find alot of magic clubs and scimitars until you do the trademeet questline. so she used my best hit stuff staff until then.

I think she's designed as a club and shield warrior but most people give her two weapon fighting, once she gets two points in two weapon fighting, which I believe is fighter 12, which is 2 million XP. very far into BG2. she could use a club in the main hand and a second weapon in the offhand.

She can, as a level 5 spell, raise the dead, not ideal but its there, won't work on the player character or imoen because scripts, Player character death causes game over and Imoen death causes her to magically retreat the dungeon for plot reasons. but will work on additional party members you pick up.

I don't recall much in the first dungeon requiring magic weapons to hit, maybe the vampire toward the end in one of the optional rooms. but the circus tent is full of enemies requiring +1 magic weapons to hit or greater. so always prefer Magic weapons,

with ranged weapons you actually need magic ARROWS to hit things. Game gives you tons of magic arrows I normally sell the ammo types I wont use.

Mages get a level 4 spell called 'melf's minute meteor which gives them a +4 weapon which hits nearly anything. they also get enchant weapon spell which apparently turns a weapon into +3 which can temporarily help your heroes hit things.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by red255:

Not the biggest fan of pause button abuse.

it breaks Immersion. but yeah its useful if you gotta navigate the menus to get to your spell selection or you trigger a pod of nasties and you pause to respond by drinking potions or activating rage.

Breaks immersion? What? Are you serious? These games were designed so that the player pauses every .5 seconds unless it's a group of 4 goblins they're fighting. It's borderline unplayable without that. Saying that pausing "breaks immersion" or that it's abuse is absurd to me. The games explicitly recommend the player to spam pause.

[red255]

the game also explictly stated you would be able to continue your character in neverwinter nights.

you should take it with a grain of salt.

i don't pause much. Its not required. why are you pausing so much if its not required to beat the game?

[Multihog]

Originally posted by red255:

i don't pause much. Its not required. why are you pausing so much if its not required to beat the game?

Because I like to play efficiently. The game is designed to be paused a lot. That's evident from the menus alone. It's not some WoW where you can memorize each keybind and use it without thinking, nor is it an RTS; no, you need to navigate through clunky menus or have a few quick slots at best. RTWP is the next thing from turn-based. Turn-based is immersion breaking too because it's not real time? Not everything has to be real time. Turn based/RTWP offer much better tactical possibilities because you can pause and precisely micromanage everyone. It has 0 to do with immersion.

A better question is: why would you NOT pause? There are precisely 0 negatives to pausing, and countless positives.

[red255]

well for one it could turn a 10 hour playthru into a 15 hour playthru.

and for 2 its not needed.

summon, Buff. Move summons in. move men in, win.

you have plenty of time while the summons are being dealt with to handle your menus. if its needed.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by red255:

well for one it could turn a 10 hour playthru into a 15 hour playthru.

and for 2 its not needed.

summon, Buff. Move summons in. move men in, win.

you have plenty of time while the summons are being dealt with to handle your menus. if its needed.

I can't think of a more boring way to play than spamming summons as meatshields. Nice "solution" and pause replacement.

You just take the entire combat system and reduce it to "summon, Buff. Move summons in. move men in, win."

Nope, using pause is the real abuse here.

[red255]

Son, Great military leaders for centuries have boiled down combat to that sort of thing.

the only difference is timing. I feel that you'd patronize napoleon the same way. just because you dont want to give up your pause button.