Am I missing something?

[Grissally]

Why is this game so Hard??? Me and 2 of my buddy's are having trouble getting out of the prison. Traps kill us all, Flying creatures of Death and fire and lightning and Rainbow power are near impossible to kill. Goblins, Dwarfs, Golems are easy. But those winged death bringers are just unkillable. Everything misses. What am I missing? Can anyone help please.
Is there a way to Disable Traps? and Is there a better way of healing than using spells, resting using spells etc. And how in Gods name do you kill those flying bastards?

[ChevyNoel]

What are your classes and how are you equipped/built?

This game has a steep learning curve compared to most modern RPGs.

Are monsters unkillable because your attacks do no damage or because you can't hit? Make sure your characters are using weapons they are proficient with. Are you maybe dual wielding with no points in two weapon style? Things like that can give big penalties to your chance to hit. You might also be getting hit by debuffs like blind, that lower your chance to hit. If you hit but have no effect, the monster might be immune to weapons lower than a certain bonus (+1, +2, +3, etc).

Go through your mage and cleric spellbooks. Spells, when used properly, can make the game a lot easier.

Thieves can disable traps, but you have to put them in detect mode, which should be on their quickbar. Detecting isn't instant so you might want to pause every once in a while so your character will have enough time to roll to detect nearby traps. Thieves can also sneak, which can be helpful for seeing what enemies are ahead, so you can come up with a plan before they are hostile. Sneaking also allows thieves to backstab for massive damage.

IIRC, at least one of the rooms has an object that generates the mephits, and you have to shut it off so they stop spawning.

You can often lead monsters away from each other by alerting them only at the edge of their vision, and walking away as they follow, so you don't have to fight an entire group at once.

[Chavinchi]

#1 You might be fighting dust mephits which use a spell that blinds you, causing a penalty to attack rolls. That's probably why you keep missing them Still, the first dungeon provides a good tank, a Thief and a healer--you should be able to overwhelm them if you draw them out one at a time.

#2 Turn on Imoen's detect traps ability, then use her thieving skill on them when they show up.

[Merlanni]

The game demands people to think, not to click. Fire memphit? Ice. Iron golum? Bludgening not swords. A wizard? kill it with extreme haste.

The game forces you to pause it and think, to plan things.

Form a party with a mage, a thief, a cleric, and fighter. Add an extra fighter and cleric later.

[Dustpuppy]

There are two mephit rooms where you win by not killing the mephits. The first is lightning right after you exit the cages, just click on the lightning pillar a couple times and they'll stop spawning.

The second room is after the portal to the next level, there will be four circular cages and four mephits. If you listened to what YOSHIMO said you will realize you need to destroy the objects (deliniated by a red circle when you hover over them) in the middle of the cages. The mephits themselves are invulnerable.

Disarm traps is a theif ability, you have to begin detecting traps by clicking on the icon on the bottom bar of your screen (it looks like four inward pointing L ) then after detecting the trap click on the disarm traps icon (you can hover over your ability icons to see what they do) and click on the red area over the trapped object or path. When you perform another action, including disarm traps, you will stop detecting traps.

As for fighting, I stronly recommend using one tank and equiping other characters with ranged weapons. Bows / Shortbows get an extra attack per round which is very helpful early on, mages should use slings to avoid running into combat.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

You think this is bad...should see the first game.

2nd edition is all about understanding the system and it's quirks and rules.

But no...BG2 doesn't hold your hand at all. It's the middle part of a saga, and assumes you know what you're doing (or played the tutorial at least).

Honestly not sure though why you're having trouble with mephits...they're a joke. Even the goblins are arguably tougher.

Heck, Minsc can solo the whole prelude if you just toss the best gear on him and 2hded sword.

When it comes to magic though.

Buffs > Debuffs => Summons > Damage > Healing.

While the game rarely puts you in a situation where you can't just spam rest, you'll have a much better game experience if you read the spell descriptions carefully and learn to be very efficient with your spell usage.

Haste for instance is a HUGE force multiplier, giving everyone an extra attack and speed boost. And it lasts a decent amount of time. Enough to blow through several rooms easily (though using it more then once will fatigue the affected...but unlike IWD, the fatigue penalty is never more then -1 luck). Summons are nice for a distraction while your heavy hitters zip in to slaughter the enemies from behind. Web is one of the best spells in the game, especially when you're packing a lot of ranged weapons or have something that gives freedom of movement/web immunity.

[Grissally]

Originally posted by ChevyNoel:

What are your classes and how are you equipped/built?

This game has a steep learning curve compared to most modern RPGs.

Are monsters unkillable because your attacks do no damage or because you can't hit? Make sure your characters are using weapons they are proficient with. Are you maybe dual wielding with no points in two weapon style? Things like that can give big penalties to your chance to hit. You might also be getting hit by debuffs like blind, that lower your chance to hit. If you hit but have no effect, the monster might be immune to weapons lower than a certain bonus (+1, +2, +3, etc).

Go through your mage and cleric spellbooks. Spells, when used properly, can make the game a lot easier.

Thieves can disable traps, but you have to put them in detect mode, which should be on their quickbar. Detecting isn't instant so you might want to pause every once in a while so your character will have enough time to roll to detect nearby traps. Thieves can also sneak, which can be helpful for seeing what enemies are ahead, so you can come up with a plan before they are hostile. Sneaking also allows thieves to backstab for massive damage.

IIRC, at least one of the rooms has an object that generates the mephits, and you have to shut it off so they stop spawning.

You can often lead monsters away from each other by alerting them only at the edge of their vision, and walking away as they follow, so you don't have to fight an entire group at once.

We are playing a sorceror for the extra spells. A Monk for stealth and massive damage. And Me an Iquistor with Warhammer skills and mainly tanking. We have been able to Detect traps with the monk and Imhoan (think thats her name) but I am still unsure how to disable them. My inquistor is skilled in 1h with shield. Our mage is doing well at nukeing most of the ranged mobs while I sponge the damage.

[Grissally]

Originally posted by kaiyl_kariashi:

You think this is bad...should see the first game.

2nd edition is all about understanding the system and it's quirks and rules.

But no...BG2 doesn't hold your hand at all. It's the middle part of a saga, and assumes you know what you're doing (or played the tutorial at least).

Honestly not sure though why you're having trouble with mephits...they're a joke. Even the goblins are arguably tougher.

Heck, Minsc can solo the whole prelude if you just toss the best gear on him and 2hded sword.

When it comes to magic though.

Buffs > Debuffs => Summons > Damage > Healing.

While the game rarely puts you in a situation where you can't just spam rest, you'll have a much better game experience if you read the spell descriptions carefully and learn to be very efficient with your spell usage.

Haste for instance is a HUGE force multiplier, giving everyone an extra attack and speed boost. And it lasts a decent amount of time. Enough to blow through several rooms easily (though using it more then once will fatigue the affected...but unlike IWD, the fatigue penalty is never more then -1 luck). Summons are nice for a distraction while your heavy hitters zip in to slaughter the enemies from behind. Web is one of the best spells in the game, especially when you're packing a lot of ranged weapons or have something that gives freedom of movement/web immunity.

Most of the rooms have been easy as hell. But it's just the flying mobs that we are having difficulty with.

[Kromtar]

your talking about the second level of the dungeon? You have to kill the imps in the cages (lower bottem of the toture room) for the flyers to stop respawning. For just normal encounters with imps your fighters should focus on one at a time while the mage focus fires another group or one.

[Grissally]

Originally posted by Dustpuppy:

The second room is after the portal to the next level, there will be four circular cages and four mephits. If you listened to what YOSHIMO said you will realize you need to destroy the objects (deliniated by a red circle when you hover over them) in the middle of the cages. The mephits themselves are invulnerable.

Disarm traps is a theif ability, you have to begin detecting traps by clicking on the icon on the bottom bar of your screen (it looks like four inward pointing L ) then after detecting the trap click on the disarm traps icon (you can hover over your ability icons to see what they do) and click on the red area over the trapped object or path. When you perform another action, including disarm traps, you will stop detecting traps.

Our issue may of been that with the 2nd room (the portal) we couldn;t destroy the portals quick enough compared to the Mephits damage to us and the fact that we were always on our arses being stunned.

[Grissally]

Originally posted by Kromtar:

your talking about the second level of the dungeon? You have to kill the imps in the cages (lower bottem of the toture room) for the flyers to stop respawning.

Ye. Issue is we can't destroy them fast enough.

[Kromtar]

the moment the imps in the cage are dead the rest spawned will die as well, push out of the portal room as quickly as possible or they will trap you in the doorway, bows and magic missle, acid missle spells are great for this

[kaiyl_kariashi]

There's a skill on Imeon's bar that looks like a thief mask. Once you've detected a trap, you click that and then click on the trap, and if she has enough skill, it'll be disabled.

To be perfectly honest...except for Horrid Wilting and maybe Skull Trap, damage dealing spells are a huge waste of spell slots. Especially since once you get out of the prelude, you'll have all the wands of lightning bolt, fireball, cloudkill, fear, cone of cold, etc, that you could ever need. Where as buff/debuff wands are non-existent.

[Kromtar]

you have to kill all four caged imps though.

[Diomedes]

BG2 maybe one of the best games out there but it still has some serious problems.. The two main ones are the fact that the game is horribly balanced with some classes just be flat out bad (like the Druid shapeshifter, which they must have never properly tested). And the random difficulty spikes the game has.. Those can be very intimidating when you first start out.. The game doesn't do a very good job in directing you.. The biggest piece of advice I can tell you is to PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE.. You should be pausing numerous times in each fight to issue orders to your party members..

[Grissally]

Originally posted by Burning Naked Man:

BG2 maybe one of the best games out there but it still has some serious problems.. The two main ones are the fact that the game is horribly balanced with some classes just be flat out bad (like the Druid shapeshifter, which they must have never properly tested). And the random difficulty spikes the game has.. Those can be very intimidating when you first start out.. The game doesn't do a very good job in directing you.. The biggest piece of advice I can tell you is to PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE.. You should be pausing numerous times in each fight to issue orders to your party members..

Playing with 3 others can be fun/difficult all pausing and unpausing because we all panick lol