Please help me

[Ivychari Meyu]

Ok, I've been playing BG2 off and on for about a year now. HELP! I'm tired of using the cheat codes and I want to play- FOR REAL!

Ok, a feq questions. Jaheria. Arie. They suck! What spells should I get for them, which should I keep memorized? Which should I have 1 or 2 of memorized for occasion? Seriously now, cuz all the ever have for me is a few red spells and a bunch of useless blue ones that I never use cuz I fight a lot and they run out after every battle.

Ok, what do I keep on my guys? Like which potions to save/use. Which spells not worth memorizing but worth having scrolls of. Scrolls of resurection? Restoration?

Ok now, healing. Minor healing spells just don't cut it. Neither do medium, and my characters only ever have a few major ones memorized. If I use all the minor/medium ones they have no room to memorize anything else. I never have enough potions, and its so f***ing expensive. Healing potion, 500 GOLD!!!!!! WTF!!!!

Ok, I think that pretty much coveres it. Another thing- I'm always bogged down with quests. Oy Vay...What should I do? I'm in the middle of one quest and 2 more come along! Ba!

Please help me, I've tried everything. Please Obi-Wan, you're my only hope.

[PeeWee]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ivychari Meyu:
Ok, I've been playing BG2 off and on for about a year now. HELP! I'm tired of using the cheat codes and I want to play- FOR REAL!

Ok, a feq questions. Jaheria. Arie. They suck! What spells should I get for them, which should I keep memorized? Which should I have 1 or 2 of memorized for occasion? Seriously now, cuz all the ever have for me is a few red spells and a bunch of useless blue ones that I never use cuz I fight a lot and they run out after every battle.

Ok, what do I keep on my guys? Like which potions to save/use. Which spells not worth memorizing but worth having scrolls of. Scrolls of resurection? Restoration?

Ok now, healing. Minor healing spells just don't cut it. Neither do medium, and my characters only ever have a few major ones memorized. If I use all the minor/medium ones they have no room to memorize anything else. I never have enough potions, and its so f***ing expensive. Healing potion, 500 GOLD!!!!!! WTF!!!!

Ok, I think that pretty much coveres it. Another thing- I'm always bogged down with quests. Oy Vay...What should I do? I'm in the middle of one quest and 2 more come along! Ba!

Please help me, I've tried everything. Please Obi-Wan, you're my only hope.

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LOL, had a mouthful there aye princess?

It's early here so excuse me for being brash and blunt....but a year goes by and you don't have the slightest clue? Gah, talk about bad.
And excuse me if I use your post as THE example of what using cheats can do to a person over time.

There is help.
I't almost a pity ya know if I can be honest here. Blue spells AREN'T useless nor are the red ones. I still can't get over how this post just seeps frustration. It's messing up my line of thought too early.

But anyways.... onward.

If you think Jaheira and Aerie suck, don't play them. Simple.
If you like em and wanna try different combinations, try having Jaheira use insect plague, DOOMS, blue buffs - and have her melee or use ranged attacks with a sling.

With Aerie, use stoneskin , acid arrows, melfs meteors, chromatic orbs, breach, glitterdust, haste, and other things for offense and defense. I would suggest getting the better gear for them but... nope, not right now since it ain't important and it's gonna put you back into your previous phase(cheating). I also don't know where you are at in your game...so many times ppl want help and state this and that and a shitload of WTF!!!! but never the vitals.

If you don't have the time or patience or the capability to understand, then make a party, start over and play it normally and LEARN on your own without cheating.

AND about heals... don't buy the healing potions if you are not going to cheat. Save all the greater healing potions you can. Sparingly use them during your tough fights. I would rather memorize heal spells and then rest, cast heals, and then remem other spells, rest, and be done with it.

That's me tho and so far I've managed to do aight. About the fights, Don't use scripts. Micro manage all your characters so you get to see first hand what each spell does. Read the text box below.
Don't drink every blue potion there is right off. Try different methods to win. this way you have the potions for the harder fights later on down the road. Carry only what you need.

Buy a few spell containers and gem bags for when you go venturing and get loot.


The list can go on and on and on and on when it comes to giving advice.

The best advice I can give here is to : Read Some FAQ's
like this one -

http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/dosw...nd_dragons.txt

Found by going here---
http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/

and then hit BGII and then read the D&D FAQ.

And the last part of the advice is to restart a game and play the beginning thru and READ thru your spells and everything else like your character report and item descritions, SAVE in different slots OFTEN, AND don't be afraid to try an area again.


But I've spent too much time here as is, got to get the coffee and smoke for the morning. Give up the cheating and it will be a much better game FOR REAL!!!!!(used your line there princess)

G'luck and if you have any more questions and can detail them more than your attempt now, I may be able to help you. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Ivychari Meyu]

Um. Meyu is a male name. So is Ivychari, so why you're calling me princess is beyond my comprehension, truely.

I didn't go looking for cheats, my friend introduced me to them early on, and the game got boring so I played ON AND OFF (key words here) for about a year. Total play time? Maybe about 3 months. Only had three parties.

My problem is, they memorize only a couple spells. So few. Tsk.

Anyway, thanks for the help, despite your utterly rude way of putting it, I'm not going to start a flame war. I forgive you of your shortcomings, and thankyou.

BTW When I took the game out of my closet it was covere din dust. Tee hee.

[andrewas]

Great peewee, nice way to welcome a new user.
*sigh*

To answer your questions:

Jaheria and Aerie can be _incredibly_ powerful, but only if you know how to use magic effectively, and only if you give them decent equipment. If you dont like them - and they are not the easiest character to use - then drop them and get replacements.

potions - keep potions of fire,cloud and storm giant strength. frost of hill I would dump, and straight strength potions I woudnt even dream of using.

Keep healing potions, elixirs of health, antidotes

GRAB OILS OF SPEED!

Potions of genius can be valuable for mages, and for fighting Illithids (although you wont run into them for a while yet)

Potions of invisibility can be a godsend for everyone.

Certain special potions will be essential at various times, youll know them when you see them.

The rest I usualy just dump. look at the description though, i might have missed a useful one or two out.

Spells - keep several magic missiles, melfs acid arrows memorized at all time. beyond that, experiment and keep what you like. You can delete spells from your book, and use potions of genius to allow you to scribe as many as you want, so dont worry about that.

Priest spells - I usualy dont use these much, and jsut memorize all possible healing spells. when I do use them I use things like doom(i know -2 to saving throws dosent sound like much, but it does stack with multiple casting, so this spell _rocks_) and the varius enhancements (chant, bless, haste). Priest scrolls are rare, so keep them when you find them.

Quests - these almost never have a time limit, and outside the underdark youll always be warned about hitting the limit, so dont worry about leaving these things for a while. in some cases ive left them for a few hundred days and then remembered them all of a sudden just prior to the final battle.

One last thing, take your cheat-codes and burn them. The game is far more fun if you do it honestly.

[Me of corse]

I have to agreee with all the advice given I just have very Little to add myself. When you read spells try to think of good combinations to exploit and try disable spells instead of constant damage you'll do more damage by combinding disable spells with buffs you'll find alot of battles easyer. One other thing is combinations of equiptment like giving a theif enough resistance to fire that you can use him as a light in a sence to hit enemys with a fire ball from farther away and not hurt the theif and he's right there to back stab what ever's left.. not to mention you fighters charging in while you spell casters mess the enemy up while there still reeling from the sudden attack

[Ivychari Meyu]

Hey thanks! I really appreciate all the advice, and yes, I got rid of the codes..except for the jump one...cuz I hate walking really far in parts of the game I know are empty.

Miscast magic and dispel magic sound like good spells, and I'll get a breach. Chromatic orbs looks good, so does Fireball.

Ok, Melfs Minute Meteors, Chromatic Orb/Magic Missle (erm..tough choice, damage over possible frozne in place.). Fireball (yeeehaaaw). Miscast magic, dispell magic. Wail of the Banchi, summon Ifriti.

Then on Jahearia, just all those party helping spells. One special for offense, one for defense, but if they have a good skill to some other means I'll use that.

Thanks guys helps a lot.

And one more- Is it ok to have your spellcasters attacking when the enemies aren't worth a spell anyway?

How does the potion of gunius work? Gulp it, memorize spells, then rest? Or is the memorization immediate?


Thanks again!

[andrewas]

Chromatic orb has a save and therefore becomes nearly totaly useless later on - except when combined with DooM and greater malison, which lower saves.

Miscast magic _ruled_ in BG1. Havent actualy cast it in BG2 yet, but it should still be effective. Or does it have a save. Dispel magic is ok, I suppose, but remove magic is better since it dosent remove your own enhancements.

Its OK to have spellcasters attacking when the target isnt worth wasting a spell on, but try to keep them using missile weapons. Spellcasters tend to die quickly in melee. If you must, put up mirror image and stoneskin.

Potion of genius gives you an INT boost. INT determines your percentage chance of scribing a scroll succesfuly, and also determines how many spells of each level you can have in your spellbook. You want to have an INT of 18+ when scribing to get rid of the limit on how many you can have in your spellbook. You want an INT higher than that because theres a chance of failure, and a high INT gives you a better chance.

[PeeWee]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ivychari Meyu:
Please help me, I've tried everything. Please Obi-Wan, you're my only hope.

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Um, I wonder what princess had those last lines. That's not the important thing to me anyways - I read a DC thread and something was far worse there. Misunderstandings can happen all the time as they do now.

Believe me, If I wanted to make YOU the person to attack AS IF YOU were the embodiment of cheating, I would have although it's really sick.

I wasn't as tactful as I normally am, yes that's true...my bad. That doesn't change my view of what cheating leads up to however(now for some crazy reason I still think about your prior post and how it exudes frustration...am I still off my rocker here?)

As far as welcoming a new poster goes, I'm not as friendly but I'm not as bad either. I'm here to discuss BGII and contribute as well as share ideas and perhaps laughs every now and then.

In doing that, I am going to have my demons and things I MYSELF don't really like to see nor be. I've got this bug right now. I keep seeing ppl like sir goulum -yes I call names ..shrugs- talking about cheating and asking questions that just don't warrant much. Have I addressed em in a nasty no no reply. Not really. For those posts I dislike, I don't reply at all.

Now, I'm no advocate of some let's all get along movement nor am I here to bash, troll, or slander. Am I more friendly to a new person than I am to one who posts here frequently???? Would I give mods their props when they provide the same information as another poster - not acknowledging the other poster???

Or do I see it and call it like it is??? Mind ya, I haven't replied back to many of the bad posts.-my opinion on what bad is here- On the flip side of that, I can easily start posting ON-TOPIC threads all about SK and my frustrations with it and BGII...let's see how many "friendly" posts I receive.

I can't force a person to stop cheating. I can't stop a person from doing anything but once that frustrations shows and ya bring it here asking questions with a WTF!!! don't expect me to baby you along the way. I'm old enough to have someone else disagree with my approach too. Not here for popularity points, but I believe I share the same interests as most here.

Right now if ya skim the threads, weed out the posts about cheating and spend some time doing so. I'm not going to ask you why are you cheating or what lead you to it. I'll reply back using what you have said. Remember my word "princess" I said it OFFA what you said. Same for the FOR REAL part. Reread my post again like it matters heh.( this also brings up something confirming quite a few guys here probably won't dare play a female npc for fear they may have another guy either hit on em or address em in a different manner, me I had a female hi elf chanter once in EQ, talk about misunderstandings. And yes, some guys can't comprehend why another guy would play a girl or address another guy in that sense.)

I type a crapload too. Always something to say. I really feel that cheating is bad though and did suggest your thread was what can happen. If I made ya feel bad about it then my bad. If I was pointing out what ya already knew and you didn't like it, then my bad. If I made it seem like my post was a deliberate attack on your character ... my bad. If I failed to mention anything that could have helped you BETTER your game-play, my bad.

If I also failed to show my feelings about the frustrations centered around cheating, then my bad there too. I'll continue to post so long as I don't step on too many toes. I'm sure a mod will be more than happy to intervene(not really) telling me that I can't express my opinions to a poster directly discussing his thread, or past cheating and how it affects him or her now.

But onwards....

Did ya read the information in the link? There's some good reading there about ac, thaco, dex, and how int and wis affects the ability to learn spells.

Jaheira has the nice nice spell.... insect plague takes off damage and also interrupts casting - yes, I'll say it again. It also spreads from enemy targets (up to 6 of them if they are near each other) Anything that does dmg when the saves throw is successfully made is nice to have. Say you want to hit a creature with chromatic orb. The saves is against the effects but not the damage so I have to disagree on it not being good for later on. I'd still use it. In fact I petrified a dragon using it on him or her. It's a great spell for the level it's at. Compare it to other spells of that level. And what I mean earlier about the spells doing half damage, you get spells that gives a npc a chance to make a saves throw, but if successful, that spell does half damage. Way better than using a spell that deals no dmg if the saves throw is made.( my opinion here)

I don't have greater malison yet so I open with dooms to lower the saves. Greater Mal will just be as great to use with them. Then miscast magic is sometimes what I mem. I also get Jaheira to summon her wood nymph. That thing can cast great debilitating spells too. Top this off with a glitter dust for -4 attack for the npcs with miscast magic and you are working up a decent strategy to use through alot of sections of the game.

Watch certain spells however and effects of items. I think one item that gave free action negates spells that hinder "normal" movement like webs and entangles...at the same time I think it negates a haste spell. This part can be bad.

It's good to use mini sequencers. ON Aerie she has a great usage for it. Either double doom early or doom and chromatic orb combo.

Aerie will be powerful later on too with the right gear, she is for me. Makes me prefer a mage/cleric combo if I solo.

If you had to spend money, I'd buy a wand of ressurection, fire and cloudkill. Those things with a few other items can get you easy experience. I am almost hating to bring up cheese here since tis be a delicate matter to some too. NM that. And the armor, I decided to keep regular full plate so that I can wear a +1 or +2 protection item. I am mostly doing it in case I find the +2 gear. Don't sell too much of the gear you finde yourself wanting later on.

Keep those things in some drawer at your favorite place. I've switched out weapons and gear easier like this than having to buy or rebuy them.

And breach is a great great spell. I have found them to be invaluable. I watch my textbox closely to see who has protections on before using it however. If my melee can take the npcs out with lil fuss, I won't cast it nor my other spells.

around lvl 11 -12, Aerie and Jaheira have better spells and more avaiable to em so stick it out. I also keep 3 scroll boxes with me. I put all the spells that Aerie hasn't scribed yet into one box. When I have about 5-6 of them, I gulp a int potion and scribe them all at once. It saves me money and potions, those things are prized.
Same goes for my greater healing potions. They are used sparingly as said in my other bad bad post [img]smile.gif[/img]

I keep greater healing potions, oils of speed definitely ONLY used in dire of emergencies like when my main has no haste and is getting beaten on away from the rest of my party members. Vital to keep your main alive. Str potions I rarely use since I'ma packrat. I like to use them for boss npcs if I have to. Invisible potions are nice to keep on your main too. I use pixie dust as one of those spells memmed in case something goes wrong while I'm exploring with my whole group. Normally explore with Aerie solo using her staff of the magi. I also mem scent of fresh air if that's what it's called. Only used it once but it helped and I didn't have anything else important for the slot.

As for Jaheira attacking, with a proper stick in her hand a shield, she is one my my melee ppl too. After she casts what she can, sh'es in there hitting away.

Welp, that same damn time again... always up late. Have fun this time around and G'luck.