What´s the meaning of time in BG? Can you take twenty years to accomplish the game... Im pretty sure there are no limits but I want to make sure.

Mages tend to get short of spells quite fast in more dangerous areas, does it make sense to sleep every five minutes or so? What´s your tactic on this?

I´ve had only one mage, Dynaheir, for quite a long time now. I´m about to enter Cloakwood; are there any NPC mages coming up in short time? I want to keep good aligned party. I don´t want to know the location of all NPC´s; that´s why I ask. I have a feeling two of them would be better than just one. I could leave Jaheira or Minsc out.

Yes Minsc.. Why is he taking so much damage? Yes I know why they take damage, but I´ve got about the best equipment you can get to a ranger at this point of the game, but he´s still like "here I am, you can´t miss".

Also, are there more effective ways of healing (mainly spells) than carrying ten thousand healing bottles?

I guess I could get through the game on my own [img]smile.gif[/img] but constant dying gets on my nerves.

Over all, time is unimportant in Baldur's Gate. You have has much time to beat the game as you want. However, there are certain quests that do have a time limit, and in these cases the magic number is usually 10. You have about 10 days to get down to Nashkel before Monty & Xzar and Jaheira & Khalid throw a hissy fit. You have 10 days to rescue Dynaheir before Minsc goes nuts. It takes the smithy in Beregost 10 days to make a certain specialized armor. And so on. Basically you can go at your own pace exploring at your whim, but if someone wants something done you should probably go ahead and take care of it in a relatively timely fashion.

As for mages, well yes young mages do tend to run out of spells easily, which is why they aren't all that effective in BG1. As they gain levels they get more spell slots and their spells are more powerful and effective. But in the meantime young mages can make use of missile weapons and wands to help suppliment their meager spells. If you're looking for a second mage, I will tell you that you kinda already passed up most of the mages by now, but two of them were Evil anyway. There is a Neutral mage that you should have run into in Chapter 2... But he could be hard to obtain at this point so don't worry about going back to pick him up. After you finish the Cloakwood Mines you'll run into a Neutral Cleric-Illusionist gnome who is probably you're best bet at this point. Hope that didn't spoil too much for you. I wasn't quite sure what type of answer you were looking for..

If you give Minsc your best armor and items, he should not be having too many problems, unless he's up at the front lines fighting by himself. Try to have another fighter accompany Minsc in melee combat to help spread out the damage taken. If that doesn't work, then look for the Gauntlets of Dexterity to boost Minsc's natural armor class.

For healing, I highly recommend having a Cleric or Druid in your group. They get curative and holy or nature spells (respectively) that can help protect and heal your party.

Good luck!

With Jaheria in my group I have her with all 1st level spells as cure light wounds.

Jaheira's decent enough as a healer, as far as healers go....her main problem is that her Wisdom is only 14, so she doesn't get many extra spell slots to memorize those all-important Healing spells. Other worthwhile healers in the game are a Fighter/Cleric with 16 WIS, and two straight Clerics, one with 16 WIS and one with 18 WIS.

Mages are indeed weak in BG1. There are a few battles where the right spell at the right time can really flatten the enemy, but most of the time they're just hanging in back, hoping to maybe hit a bad guy with a sling-stone or two. In BG1, I found that just 1/2 of a good Mage was enough for me. (There are 6 Mages in the game: 2 Good, 2 Neutral and 2 Evil. You've probably alreay met 5 of them--the Neutral Cleric/Illusionist that Darkman mentioned is the last one you meet.) Since you're using Dynaheir, you should be aware that her weakness is she can't summon monsters to help out your team. There IS indeed a Wand of Monster Summoning kinda early-on in the game, but it will disappear if you use it all up. Recharge the Wand (Most Wands carry 20 charges, but they aren't fully charged when you find them) by selling it & buying it back.

A lot of people have mentioned that Minsc and Ajantis seem to be taking more hits than they deserve, even with the Gauntlets of Dexterity and all the best Tank items. Shame, really, because they're the best Tanks you can have, unless you youself are the Tank. I can't really answer this one. Healing potions--ah, sweet nectar!