any advice on playing this game?

[Rosebourne]

Like I know the basics make stats of int/wis and be a mage to get the most out of the story, but i'm wondering what other things should someone know before going in to get the most out of their experience?

[StockyBaldy]

1. Have some patience at the start of the game in The Hive, the beginning is usually infamous for not being that fun to go through and this is where first-timers stop their playthroughs the most.

2. Morte, the first companion of the game, has an ability called "Littany of Curses." Use this whenever an enemy is fleeing so that you can finish them off without having to chase them all over the map.

3. Save often, the game can sometimes be a little difficult.

4. Don't forget to acquire the "Raise Dead" ability for your main character at the beginning. I didn't realize I skipped out on this the first time I played and because of it I greatly suffered where I shouldn't have.

That's all that I could come up with, hopefully it's useful.

[figmentPez]

Copying and pasting from a post I made on Reddit (some things have already been said):

1. Litany of Curses. I'll go further than Bald Man and say to use this early, use it often. This is the #1 ability in the game, and it's useful for far more than just keeping enemies from fleeing. It lowers an enemies attack, it lowers their defense, and it enrages them to only use melee attacks. (In fact, there are only two times you shouldn't use it. One is that it's ineffective against the undead. Two is that it can cause one boss to glitch.)

2. Choose which of the three classes you want The Nameless One to be (fighter, thief, mage) and look to get trained into that class ASAP. Some people will tell you to level up fighter first, then switch to mage or thief, but only do that if you're looking to grind, grind, grind for XP. Mage is probably the class the game pushes you towards the most, and it's my favorite, but all three are good.

3. Talk to everyone and, talk to everyTHING. There are items you can talk to or interact with when they're in your inventory. Talk to your party members when they're in your party; talk to them again after major story events. Heck, talk to yourself when you get to that point in the game!

4. Save before talking to people, same way you might save before combat in other RPGs.

5. Wisdom is the most important, since a lot of stat checks are against that, and it also gives an XP bonus. There are also a number of intelligence checks in the game, but how much you pay attention to that depends on how much you want to meta-game. Same goes for Charisma, which is, I think, the third most checked stat, though it doesn't need to be as high, generally. (Intelligence and Charisma are the easiest stats to temporarily boost.) Overall I wouldn't worry to much about the specifics. You don't have to power game and unlock every dialogue option to do well in the game.

6. Don't rush to complete quests. There's no time limit forcing you to run across the map as soon as someone tells you to do it. Explore along the way. Get to know the starting area of the Hive.

7. Take time to learn how the interface works and what you can do with it. Most of the options will be familiar since you've played BG2, but some things will be in different places.

8. Rings don't depreciate in value when you sell them repeatedly to a vendor, but everything else does. A bronze ring will sell for 40 copper to most vendors, and will continue to sell for that much. A bronze bracelet, however, will start at 60 but drop to 45 after you've sold one, then to 30, and finally bottom out at 15. If you want to maximize your cash flow, save up common drops like copper earrings and bronze bracelets until you can sell a whole inventory full at once. Selling 20 bronze bracelets all at once for 1200 copper is a lot more than selling them one at a time for a total of 390 copper. (Find a favored container somewhere to store stuff you aren't using. Don't carry around vendor trash if you don't have to.) This leads to some difficulty in deciding when to sell less common drops, like certain types of weapons, but I think if you just stick to hoarding the most common stuff in the game it'll be enough of a bonus. (Copper, bronze and silver jewelry are the most common drops. Along with a couple items that are spoilers, but drop in a farming location and are worth a TON for the first sale.)

Originally posted by Byzantine Fisherman:

- After joining the Godsmen tell Bedai-Lihn that it's meaningless

That's not the only way to join that faction, and it's possible to get locked out of that whole group by accident fairly early in the game. Way too many spoilers are involved, and nothing that happens is all that amazing, and some of it may be at odds with how a player might want to shape their TNO.

- Become a disciple of Aoskar in the Alley of Dangeous Angles

That's not the only way to have what follows happen. In fact, there are a number of possible ways, and doing multiple of these leads to bad things. (If you pay attention to the lore of the game, as conveyed to you by NPCs, what these things are will be made readily apparent.)