You have to choose the first option, only take the 2 companions and kit them out, you should also try to avoid the orcs, worked for me and got a claim on Moria

also you will br thrown into defensive wars so fight those, make sure you get extra knights and do all that prep you need to do to get advantage and you should be fine i think

I really don't get the point of even putting Balin as an option if no matter what you do it is far more likely for you to die. Making people save scum over and over just to have a chance at being able to play is an odd choice. I get he dies in canon but if we are going purely on that logic then the mod should always end with the Ring being destroyed.

For reference I tend to have to reload/start over several dozen times just to try a Balin play through.

Originally posted by Macilnar:

I really don't get the point of even putting Balin as an option if no matter what you do it is far more likely for you to die. Making people save scum over and over just to have a chance at being able to play is an odd choice. I get he dies in canon but if we are going purely on that logic then the mod should always end with the Ring being destroyed.

For reference I tend to have to reload/start over several dozen times just to try a Balin play through.

I think as long as you do the steps above you have like a 70%-ish chance to win it, iirc, its not 100% but its not very low chance