Difficulty and leveling up

I am new to computer RPG, after a 10 year hiatus from far too much AD&D, and am curious about BG2's assignment of HPs. I am playing the core ruleset and seem to be continuously disappointed with some of my NPC's HPs (esp. Jaheira's).

Question - when does BG2 make the HP assignment - when you get the XP for the next level or when you hit the LevelUp button? I have only tried once or twice with no apparent change - to save game before hitting level up - typically with same response.

Also - aside from HPs - are there any variables in other attributes you get at each level, or is this basically a set factor dependant on Level/Intelligence/Wisdom/etc.?

I'm not sure about when the register your HPs. My guess is at the level up button.


However, I did notice some differences in leveling up. For some reason, my mage I created gained new spell levels going from 9th to 10th. However, Edwin did not. So perhaps being the main character makes a bigger difference then an NPC when leveling.

[Memnoch]

Your HPs get determined when you hit Level Up.

check the wisdom stats on both your mage and edwin, if you look at the tables in the manual (in your bg2 directory, on page 230 or 250 or something) you will notice that higher wisdom stats give bonus spells in leveling up.

hit points are given to you when you hit the level up button, and if i'm correct, everything that changes your stats only comes about when you hit the level up button. higher constitution values give bonuses to your hitpoints, and also keep in mind that character classes earn hit points differantly. remember the D10 or D6 that is used to refer to a creature's powess? a fighter is a D10 creature, and therefor gets anywere from 1 to 10 hit points when it level ups, as well as hit point bonuses if the constitution is high enough. jahera and mages are lower dice values, a mage is a D4 and therefor gets only 1 to 4 hit points per level. also, since spell casters concentrate on intelligance and wisdom stats, their constitution stats most likely will not be high, and therefor wont get much of a bonus (if any) when they level up. this is also why level drain is so devistating because when you loose a level, you loose the points gained from that level AND the bonuses from that level.