How much do you need Charisma, Wisdom and Intelligence?

[Aksolotli]

Pretty much title? Do i wanna keep rerolling for perfect character or just dumb those three as low to get melee stats good?

[voehringer_nitron]

Charisma is mostly for getting lower prices in shops. Sometimes people will be more willing to tell you information, or offer a better reward, but not often. You can get the Ring of Human Influence (sets CHA to 18) from the Circus Tent quest at the end of chapter 1. Give it to a mage who knows the spell Friends, and you can get it even higher. This is probably the most common "dump stat" if you aren't a Bard, Druid or Paladin, which all have high minimum charisma scores.

Wisdom gives Clerics and Druids extra spell memorization slots if it's 13 or higher. At 18, you can have 2 extra first, 2 extra second, one extra third and one extra fourth level spell. Shamans, Rangers and Paladins do not get bonus spell slots. A high wisdom can also help a mage/sorcerer get better results with the spells Limited Wish and Wish, but this can easily be achieved with potions readily available at most Temples. The casting success chance and bonus to saving throws on mind affecting spells mentioned in the (original) manual are not actually in game.

Intelligence affects the chance that mages or bards successfully copy a spell scroll into their spell book, the number of spells per casting level, and the maximum spell level you can scribe (casting is not affected by this). Again, you can use potions for a temporary boost for these. Attacks from Mind Flayers (also known as Illithids) drain your Intelligence scores temporarily, and if it reaches 0, that character dies. Any character with a score less than 9 is illiterate and cannot use any of the green scrolls, such as protection from magic or undead.

Intelligence and Wisdom both provide adjustments to your Lore score, which is for identifying items. But between temples/storekeeps, the Identify spell and the Glasses of Identification, this is not a huge benefit. There are a few places were having a high intelligence or wisdom might give you some more dialogue options for alternate solutions to quests, like the Spectator in the Sahuaghin city, but they are few and most can be handled by having another party member do the talking.

If you have any plans on dual classing (humans only), you will need 15+ (starting class) and 17+ (second class) in one or more stats, based on which classes you are combining. It will say during character creation which stats are required.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Uhm, it's your choice entirely - but depending on whether you are willing to accept random numbers or whether you insist on getting very high or maximum attribute bonuses, perhaps also depending on difficulty mode.

More generally, you read up on what effects an attribute has and how it affects your character and class, and then you decide.

"Melee" is just a fighting style, it doesn't imply anything about a character's class. For example, clerics can be heavy armored frontline warriors and benefit from Wisdom because of spell bonuses. Charisma affects the party leader and talker in various ways. Intelligence is helpful versus enemies that drain intelligence.

--> https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Charisma
--> https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Intelligence
--> https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Wisdom

[Wicket W. Warrick]

For a warrior class you don't need them too much, and I would rise charisma, intelligence and wisdom in order.

[Finrod]

INT 19 allow to bypass the limit in the spell learning for wizards

[Hamish]

Well it really depends what class you have... For example, Fighters are definately better with maxed out str/dex/con but a mage would benifit much less. As for rolling, you only do it once, regardless of your class, a 92 is normally 20-30 min of rolling that will give you 4 18s and 2 10s in stats of your choice... Personally think it is time well spent.

[AlexMBrennan]

a 92 is normally 20-30 min

You can learn how to use a memory editor in 5 minutes which might be a good investment if it saves you 30 minutes every time you make a new character.

[Hamish]

AlexMbrennan at my age learning to tie my Taekwon Do belt properly is a challenge... no idea what a memory editor is nor where to get one, or would I want on.

[hellminister]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

a 92 is normally 20-30 min

You can learn how to use a memory editor in 5 minutes which might be a good investment if it saves you 30 minutes every time you make a new character.

or again use ctrl-8 with debug mode activated in the ability step of the caracter generation... 18 everywhere

[Hamish]

hellminister that takes the fun out of rolling hahahaha

[AlexMBrennan]

no idea what a memory editor is nor where to get one, or would I want on.

It's a tool which edits memory locations just like a text editor edits text files.

For example, scanmem[linux.die.net]

[Hamish]

thanks, I won't be using something like that as I don't understand it at all.

[Wicket W. Warrick]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

a 92 is normally 20-30 min

You can learn how to use a memory editor in 5 minutes which might be a good investment if it saves you 30 minutes every time you make a new character.

EEkeaper as well is sufficent, you can also boost further, but most players (me, for example) consider this as a cheat, while rerolling in game not, since it is a funtion of the game itself, and give a limit to raise stats.

[Hamish]

Aye that was drummed into me too, rolling within the game is fine using things to get high rolls is cheating... plus it's nice when you finally get that 92+, even better when you get that 92 with 18/93 strength! It's part of the game

[JC]

Originally posted by Hamish:

Aye that was drummed into me too, rolling within the game is fine using things to get high rolls is cheating... plus it's nice when you finally get that 92+, even better when you get that 92 with 18/93 strength! It's part of the game

Going for high STR is pretty pointless. In this game if you have 18, you goto 19 with a +1 buff.

If you play through BG, there is a tomb that gets you to 19, and in BG 2 there are tons of buffs to str so your over 20 anyway.

I typically go with Good enough, because magic is far from rare in this game. The only time it really maters are certain dual classes or maybe a paladin, Outside of that even a single 18 is good enough with the rest average stats.


BTW, you can set chr to 18 with an item, int and wisdom to help with saves but no where near the magic buffs you can get. I don't use dump stats with 3's.. I try to make a Real character,... a fighter for example, 18/15/16/8/12/10 would be just fine and that could easily be done of the first roll.

[Hamish]

@JC I agree, getting the 18/93 was just pure luck with my 92 roll, I would have accepted 18/51+. I remember in the original Baldur's Gate, if you equipped and item with -1 strength, your 19 would drop to 18/xx whatever you had at generation, but now it's a flat 18 in Enhanced Edition meaning the percentile is less important than before. I still like rolling a 92+ though, it is an insignificant proportion of the game if you start from BG1... and having all the tombs on top makes it ace.