I've finished the game several times now and it seems quite a few others have here as well. Anyway I was just curious how other people have tackled the quests. Do you follow the critical path and get imoen then do the other quests or do everything you can before going into chapter four or something in the middle. On this my third game I'm doing everything in chapter three except for the hidden temple and Windspear hills. I'm goin to save those places till the end. Anyone who's been there knows why. I want lots of items and experience before challenging mind flayers. I'm no to concerned with Imoen not getting as much experience as she'll just be along for sentimental reasons anyway because I'm good. Anyway I just want as many different peoples approaches to the quests and reasons why as possible. This will probably help first timers decide on a course of action too.

So far I have finished two games and I found the side quests had more monsters and the monsters were more powerful when I did them after pursuing Imowen. I've proceeded to gather the gold for galen by: doing nalia's quest, all of trademeet to buy some magic, bridge distric murders, and the mimic blood in umar hills. I then followed the shadowthief string till I went to spellhold, where im crawling about now. I plan to do the sidequest after I get back from deepdownland in the hopes that they are bigger and badder than doing them before the asylum. I'll soon find out if the underdark is any easier or harder(relatively) since this will be the lowest level(10-11 currently) I've done it out of the two games played previously where I did most of the major sidequests first.

I do as many sidequests as I can in chapter two / three before going to rescue Imoen. Seems like that's the way the game's plot is supposed to go (listen to the dialogues, for instance; sounds a bit strage when Viconia asks you about your family and how you'll rescue Imoen when she's standing right next to you).

Perhaps, although the plot definitely pushes toward raising that 20,000 gold for galen and following through after Imowen. Some of the quests dialogue may lean toward completion early in the game, as I recall for most of the overland side-quests there wasn't a time frame suggested.

Anyway I recomend playing more than once for those of you who haven't. Enjoy the variety of class(s), Npcs, dialogue/Alignment choices, tactics and doing quests at higher/lower lvls as the monsters are stronger/weaker depending on your party's lvl.

I try and do as much as I can in Chapter 2 before moving to Chapter 3, because I really want to buff my party up. Chap 2 is where I try out a lot of the NPCs, I usually have only 4 permanent NPCs with me, the fifth is usually a rotator until I get to Chapters 4-6 where that slot gets taken, then I've got my party for the entire endgame. Then Chap 6 I do the mopup stuff before Chap 7 which isn't really all that long.

BUMP!!!!!!!!