[Balgin]

Speaking as someone who has played the entire BG series (with the exeption of Throne of Bhall because I don't need to have high level characters to enjoy myself) I'll give a brief run down on Minsc (and a few unneccessary changes to Minsc AND Jaheira in Bg2). Minsc in BG had very high strength, offset by moderately high constitution, this resulted in many players (myself generally excluded) overestimating his abilities and biting off more than they could chew: he would take large ammounts of damage. In addition to this I observed that in BG Minsc seemed to fail more saving throws than he should have done (even with his penalties, if you turned on the dice rolls you'd notice how the computer would always roll low for his saves). I accepted this as a role playing touch to make him the big strong vulnerable fighter. In Bg he hated Gnolls, in BG2 he hated vampires for convenience! Also, in BG2 his brash, confident, loyal personality became replaced with a camp, arrogant personality ("Boo is so very little, and there is so much of Minsc to search"....."We must all get some rest less Boo bite us all in hard to reach places, trust me on this one"... and the change in pronunciation-"bart kicking for gooooodness" instead of the old cheary "but kicking for goodness"). ALso in BG2 Minsc gained an extra point of constitution (a welcome increase, I usually made him read that boo in BG as soon as I got it) but Jaheira gained two or three extra ability points spread out! This was a tad OTT (especialy since she was the most annoying and unwanted original BG NPC, maybe they should have kept Branwen (the ABBA lookalike) instead). Oh, and BTW, in BG2 Minsc can cast his meagre collection of spells.