XP when swapping characters out

[Whale hunter]

Hey guys, am I same to swap in and out all the characters so I can complete their quests? Or am I going to lose a ton of XP on those that I’m leaving behind? Or do they get auto levelled when I pick them back up?

[Wicket W. Warrick]

They mantain the XP that they have when they left.
The best that you can do is getting a party to 32k XP before starting rotating character. New ones will join at 32k.

[Whale hunter]

Ahhh so I’ve pretty much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ my game by sharing out the xp over all the characters so they’re going to be massively under levelled?

[Whale hunter]

What do you mean by 32k?

[Whale hunter]

Is there anyway to fix this? I don’t really fancy replying the last 30 hours :(

[Whale hunter]

Problem solved, just read that I can abuse mage scrolls, so I can continue to use every character in the game and then lick my “final” party. Then abuse some scrolls to make up for all the lost XP

Problem is they have so many great characters! It makes it so tough in choosing who to take. I feel like I HAVE to take Jaheira and Imoen once rescued, that only leaves me 3 slots! You can’t really leave Edwin as he is such a beast! And I feel that leaving Carsomyr in a bag to gather dust is just wrong, so does Keldorn come? But what about Anomen etc etc. I like so many of the characters.

I have never played EE, this is my first play through in 20 years so there’s like 6 new guys to pick up who I haven’t even heard of.

I feel good knowing I can use them all, run their quests and still cheese some levels at the end

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Whale hunter:

I feel like I HAVE to take Jaheira and Imoen once rescued,

Hard to comment on. Jaheira is key to some content due to her background and the Harpers being active in Athkatla. However, those events are all part of the side-quest distraction in BG2, which is a bummer. It's quite a desperate scenario for most companions due to their personal matters. If taking into account the Jaheira romance option for a male PC, it requires strict role-playing, or else it will be nothing else than annoying.

As such, when it's about the romances, I prefer playing two specific types of PC. With any alignment, a female human/half-elf, and Anomen will start courting her. His personal quest with consequences makes it a good option for role-playing him in mutually exclusive ways.
The second choice is Viconia for a male PC, and her alignment change option gives incentive to role-play it out in alternative ways, too:
--> https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Romance

Last but not least, I've given the enhanced edition's new companions a try with regard to their romance options. Such as with a female Sun Soul Monk as partner of Rasaad and continuing from the first game. Sort of works, provided you are into monk role-playing. Neera as a geek girl wild mage is a viable option if strictly role-playing Gorion's ward as a very young and chaotic adventurer.


With some careful meta-gaming, you can replace some of the story companions just for their personal quests. Mazzy, Cernd and Valygar, for example. Edwin, who is a forced encounter for everyone, is more a choice for an evil aligned PC - I wouldn't mix good/neutral aligned guys with evil guys. That's stuff for another playthrough.

[Zotliatlicor]

When You first add a companion to your group, they will automatically get xp that are as close to your own, up to 1.5 million. So the entry about 32 k is wrong. You will get both Minsc and Jaheira at the starting Xp you get yourself which is close to 90.000. You start at 89.000 in SOA. This puts Minsc and Jaheira at either 64k or 128k. i tend to go and do stuff with Imoen alone untill i get 128k ++ xp and then go release them.

The intervals go something like this: 64k - 128k -250k - 500k - 750k - 1mill - 1.250 mill and 1.5 mill.

This means if you get Edwin, or anyone really, very very late in your game he will start at 1.5 million XP. You can plan around this. Imoen will also start at this 1.5 million "Unless" you get to Spellhold really really fast. Which is very hard to do.

Whatever your companions xp at start (first time joining) they will stay at the xp they have when you rotate them out of your party. If you have console enabled it is very easy to make all the companions XP the same as yours, i suspect many do this. But you really do not need to. All your Companions will reach close to max level anyways, there is simply soooo much availible xp in this game.

Once you start TOB your main is likely to be well above 3 million Xp if you do everything in SoA, maybe even over 4. And Sarevok that you can get once in TOB starts at 2.750.000 XP. So he is behind, just as Imoen was in SoA. This does not matter at all, as Sarevok is the strongest fighter in the game and he will be a good asset. Once you hit 3 million it is a matter of the HLA abilities you pick.

[Wicket W. Warrick]

Originally posted by Whale hunter:

What do you mean by 32k?

Sorry, that's if you start with BG1, follow Zotliaticor.

[Kamuizin]

Originally posted by Whale hunter:

Hey guys, am I same to swap in and out all the characters so I can complete their quests? Or am I going to lose a ton of XP on those that I’m leaving behind? Or do they get auto levelled when I pick them back up?

You can near conclude quests (make everything but don't finish the quest), sum up some of those, then when you pick your core companion back, you just deliver these quests and fast xp him.

This requires a bit of micromanagement and i, personally, don't have the patience for that. Even if you do nothing, eventually the xp between your characters will reach an equilibrium value. 100.000 xp difference may sound big to a lvl 10 character, but it meant nothing to a lvl 25 character.

[6h0$t942]

You can indeed use mage scrolls. You can also pick a character that starts early in the game and that fits your RP (or whoever your girl of choice is, heh...) and keep them in the party forever, and whenever you add a new character, set their XP to whatever their value is with the console.
Enable console with......
C:\Users\(YOURUSERNAMEHERE)\Documents\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition
File: Balder.lua . Opens with notepad, notepad+
Add this line anywhere...
SetPrivateProfileString('Program Options','Debug Mode','1')

Hit control+ space to open the console once enabled. Bear in mind that the "give xp" command is actually a "SET VALUE" command. So if the character has 300k xp and you type "give 4000" he will have 4k TOTAL, not 304000. So if you want them to have 304k you type in 304000 into the space and it goes from 300k-->304k. And this command will target characters CURRENTLY SELECTED.

I am trying different mod npcs and my playtime is limited, so this is what i am doing. Sirene is pretty cool btw.

[Whale hunter]

There are NPC mods! I never even thought of this, tell me who you have tried so far? I basically love games like this for the NPC's Where do you get them? I NEED to try this out.
The only games I go back to time and time again are RPG's with deep, well written characters.

[6h0$t942]

https://artisans-corner.com/sirene-npc-for-bg2ee/

https://spellholdstudios.github.io/readmes/adrian-readme-english.html

http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/fade

Currently I have fade and adrian in my party, and I had sirene in bg1 and will use her again. They talk with your standard npcs and so far I am enjoying them. I can't certify that you will like them but I do reccomend them. There are some others that i have installed but haven't used yet.

As a side note for Fade, her hide in shadows line that she says is very cool but also very long (00:08 sec), so you may want to modify it. I cut the audio so it's just her giggling. driveletter:\GOG Galaxy\Games\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition\override
"E3FADE21.wav"

Your installation is probably different but that's what her HIS message is called. Listen to it a few times then cut it or remove it imho.
Some mod npcs have crossmod banter.

Also if you use ascension install that first. Also reccomend https://www.gibberlings3.net/mods/spells/iwdification/ . Gives druids useful spells other than iron skin, and a few of the shapeshifts from iwd.

[Axel Firestorm]

Originally posted by Whale hunter:

There are NPC mods! I never even thought of this, tell me who you have tried so far? I basically love games like this for the NPC's Where do you get them? I NEED to try this out.
The only games I go back to time and time again are RPG's with deep, well written characters.

Not a new NPC mod, per se, but the Imoen Romance mod adds a LOT of content for her, and not just romance, either, despite the name. A full friendship path exists as well, so whichever's your preference, you can do. It's very well-written and really brings Imoen to life to make her the second most important character in the saga, as she should be. The romance can be a little tricky to pull off if you've never run through it before since it's not quite the same as the default ones, from what I understand. It adds three new dreams in Chapter 2, which you'll need to see to make the romance possible if you're going down that path.

The right responses to nudge it along aren't always obvious. But if you keep in mind what she's gone through (which the mod develops and expands beyond what the vanilla game does) and don't try to move things along too fast, you'll be fine. Basically, she needs time to sort through everything, so don't try anything romantic while in the Underdark. Wait until you're back on the surface. If you've done it right, you'll know, trust me. She'll prompt you for certain discussions when you get to that point. Once when in the elven camp, and again about a day after defeating Bhodi (you'll need to move your PC and Imoen away from the rest of your party once she prompts you in order for that last conversation to happen).

I've finished SoA with the romance, and it fits nicely as part of the main game. Still making my way through ToB, and there's plenty of content for Imoen and her romance there as well. If you are romancing her, be sure to choose the option to spend some time with her when you go to the inn in Saradush and talk to the bartender to get a room for a nice scene. The mod also give her over 40 different possible endings depending on the choices you make in dialogues and flirts and such and whether you ascend or not, whether she does or not, and whether you're in a romance with her or not, among other things. So where Imoen ends up depends on you.

[red255]

OK, this was march,

comment 1.) the game will typically have you overleveled. various reasons.
a) importing from Siege of dragonspear is 500,000 xp cap, more than 161,000 XP cap so you get a spare 300,000 XP from that.
b.) scribing scrolls now yields 100x more XP than BG1, so you can run around with a thief steal all the scrolls from the vendors and suck down a few potions of genius from any temple, and scribe erase their whole inventory.
c.) XP cap of SoA classically was under 3 million you should be fine with whatever XP you have if you are more than that.

comment 2.) whatever side quests you do with the NPC will likely also add combat strength, likely even more than doing the levels would. on tertiary party member #6.

Comment 3.) aside from the main quest and the watchers keep, which gives huge piles of XP, you should be fine with using guest party members as needed.

yes they will be slightly behind the others in terms of levels, but not significantly enough to be useless.

so long as you keep their gear and whatnot updated.

levels past 4 million XP generally aren't needed, though if you are taking a mage multi class like Aerie she needs 6 million for level 9 spells but thats more a flaw in that character's build.

finally if it makes you happy, the machine of lum the mad, you can quicksave then press random buttons and one of the random effects is +100,000 XP for a particular party member if you REALLY need one member to catch up for your OCD.

or after chapter 7 you can go to the adventurers mart and buy hundreds of scrolls of freedom and scribe erase them for 9000 XP a pop. power leveling your team to whatever level you require.

or a myriad of other XP farms.