minsk and other problems

[pschub]

I had minsk in my party for a bit but he soon grew impatient as in his estimate I did not get dynaheir soon enough and I had to kill him in order to not be killed myself. I am having a great deal of problems with making any progress in the game, although I am I chapter three. I have been unable to defeat greywolf or get to the area where dynaheir is, enemies pretty much decimate me. My strategy is to have my party---> Myself a fighter with super high stats for my level, Khalid and Jaheira, and Xan and Xzar)hang back and try and take out the enemies with arrows and bullets. I really like the game but need help playing it as I pretty much suck!!

[Lemernis]

A few item location spoilers below:

Well, actually your party is pretty balanced with two fighters, two mages, and a priest. You want to get a thief in there too--sounds like Immy and Monty may not be around anymore, so perhaps you can try Safana. She's on the coastal map with the lighthouse.

Re: party composition, since you have a mixed alignment party you might seriously want to consider swapping Kagain and Branwen for Khalid and Jaheira, and lose both Xan and Xzar and replace them with Edwin and Kivan:

you (fighter)
Kivan--bow
Kagain--axe
Edwin--sling, Magic Missile
Safana--start with crossbow, but then bow
Branwen--sling, Entangle

The basic strategy you described above should be very successful for low level encounters such as band of hobgoblins. You really shouldn't be having much problem at all there. I'm assuming it is the higher level encounter such as Graywolf for which you need to rethink strategy.

First, If you don't have have ToSC then get it, it improves the game in a big way--more spells, new items, four excellent new quests.

If you have Tales, go get an "Easter egg" item that is hidden in the game and that you would never find in a million years of searching for it: the Ring of Wizardry. It doubles a mage's number level 1 spell memorization slots. (With your current party I would give it to Xzar.) The coordinates of the Ring of Wizardry: outside the wall of the Friendly Arm Inn at the foot of a blue tinted pine tree at x 2552, y 3758. If you press the L key anywhere on the map it shows you the coordinates of your cursor; x = 0 and y = 0 at the upper lefthand corner of the screen and the numbers are highest at the bottom righthand corner. Search very slowly and carefully, as it consists of only a few pixels.

I would recommend that you get a thief in your party and pickpocket Algernon to get his cloak. He's the fat guy walking around the second floor of Felderpost's Inn in Beregost. I would recommend quicksaving beforehand, as the attempt may fail. (If you wanted to get the cloak without resorting to reloading you could have Xan charm him when he goes hostile and try again.) When someone is wearing his cloak and you click on the pouch icon on the bottom row of buttons you see his cloak appear as a useable item--with it you can cast a charm spell that is very powerful. They may save against it (although it generally succeeds) but targets remain charmed thereafter, the spell does not dissipate after a certain amount of time (whereupon targets of the Charm and Dire Charm spell often turn hostile--although under your spell they are aware that you have charmed them and are generally pissed about it). You can even leave a map and return to it and generally they will still be charmed. This cloak is a very, very, powerful item. With it you can for example have a thief who has donned it stealth and sneak up on a band of enemies and charm one of them; then they will begin attacking him and draw much of the fire as your party launches its attack.

If you stick with your current party:

Khalid:
IMO Khalid does best in the long run as a swordsman, so I put all of his additional profs into large sword (he can earn up to four stars). Give him the guantlets of dexterity (the ogres guarding the bridge to the Gnoll Stronghhold have them) and have your mage cast Strength on him prior to any big battle. Because of his moderate strength I would equip him with anhkeg armor. There is an "Easter egg" suit of ankheg in a field on the west side of the Nashkel map at x 187, y 2747. Here again, you have to search very slowly and carefully. You can also pay the Taerom Fuiruim at the Thunderhammer smithy to build you a suit for 4000 gp if you bring him an ankheg shell (the head of an anhkeg). It will take 10 days for him to have it ready for you.

Xan and Xzar:

With a mage casting Sleep and Horror upon the enemy you will be amazed at how the enemy will crumble before you--it will almost become too easy. Get both of your mages using these spells! (You can buy them from Thalantyr at High Hedge.) Stinking Cloud is also very effective. Once you get a thief or ranger in the party you can have him or her stealth, scout ahead to reveal an enemy party, and then have the mage cast this in a sneak attack; then pick them off with ranged weapons and spells.

For the garden variety encounter out in the woods realize that both of these mages have their weapons proficiency in short sword. Since they have no proficiency in missile weapons they will not do much damage with the sling or darts. Throwing daggers are in the missiles class. It isn't feasible to have either of them attack anyone with short swords, of course, as their AC isn't low enough and they lack the protection of armor. You need to have them casting spells.

If you wish you can eventually get Xan using his Moonblade later in the game, when you have money to burn you can properly equip him to use it, combined with the proper spells cast upon him. But prior to that will simply improve his AC by 2 if you have him equipped with it. Since he is unable to cast Magic Missile (Evocation spells are not available to him because he is an Enchanter) I would recommend having him use Larloch's Minor Drain; Melf's Acid Arrow at level 2; Flame Arrow at level 3. Also have him casting Blindness. (When enemies are blinded the best thing to do is immediately get your meleers away from them and pick them off with ranged weapons and spells.) No need to have Xan casting Charm because Algernon's cloak makes that spell unnecessary to memorize. However once Xan can learn Dire Charm then it does make some sense to have him use it, since there is no saving throw against that spell (as there is against Algy's cloak).

Xzar is a very effective mage. For higher level encounters have him cast Magic Missile as his main offensive spell. This spell becomes cummulatively more powerful with each level, so he can keep on casting it as his main spell throughout the game. Also have him use Chromatic Orb, which is a very powerful level 1 mage spell in its own right--it blinds and does 1-4 damage; read the spell description, as this spell becomes cummulatively more powerful with each level. When Cromatic Orb no longer blinds, have Xzar casting Blindness also.

Jaheira:
Jaheria is a respectable meleer actually. If you equip her with a scrimitar (if you have ToSC) and plate armor, a ring of protection, and a magical shield she doesn't do too badly. Remember, though, that she is only moderately strong and dexterous. You can probably use her to better effect as a meleer in low level encounters than hurling slingbullets, although for those fights it doesn't really matter either way.

In the higher level battles you can soup her up to melee pretty darned effectively:

Before any big battle always have her prepare the group by casting Chant (Bless doesn't actually do much, btw--Chant is better), and Aid on a tank who stands to be taking a lot of punishment. Eventually when you get Defensive Harmony have her cast that on the group too--a very powerful spell. If you're going to use her as a melee fighter then Have a mage cast Strength on her, and then have her cast Draw Upon Holy Might and Flame Blade. I would probably use her as a melee fighter as such as a rule. But have her also cast Entangle, Call Lightning (works outdoors only), and eventually Animal Summoning.

Hope this helps. You will probably have an easier time of it if you assemble a different party, but most any (balanced) combination of NPCs can be used well.

[ 01-22-2002: Message edited by: Lemernis ]

[Katherine]

quote:

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Originally posted by Lemernis:
Xan and Xzar:
Try to get a sling +1 and bullets +1 into his hands for the low level encounters that don't really require wasting any memorized spells.

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I thought these guys had their star in 'short sword?' I always equip Xzar with throwing daggers, even tough they are sort of expensive for low level parties. I only have him use them in cases where fights are going to be really close and his spells are exhausted.

Wow, you sure have put a ton of thought into strategy! How long have you been playing this game? You're a fountain of knowledge!

As for pschub's question, I had a lot of difficulty when I first played it too. The missle thing sounds good, just make sure the proficiencies are there for each character when you give them a weapon. Good luck.

Katherine

[Lemernis]

Och--you're right Xzar's weapons prof is indeed in short sword! I'll edit above, thanks! And thank you for the compliment on my knowledge of the game. Heh, be advised that when I get home from work (very late in the evening) I have at times been too tired to check out something that I assumed, and have been wrong about this or that from time to time. The person around here who is every bit as knowledgeable and in some cases moreso--and unfailingly accurate--is Six 'o Spades.

I've been playing BG exactly one year this month. I'm ready for Neverwinter Nights to come out already, as I do not particularly care for BG2. Over the last couple months I've been playing through Dark Side with some parties that I always wanted to try. Afterward I planned on putting the game away and moving on to something else. And yet I seem to just be slipping into the BG quicksand--here I am after a year back to posting as much as when I was just getting into the game, lol!

[Katherine]

quote:

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Originally posted by Lemernis:
And yet I seem to just be slipping into the BG quicksand--here I am after a year back to posting as much as when I was just getting into the game, lol!

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Well, I am glad you're here. By the way, I made a few necromantic items. Of the 3 that I've made, two have some bugs to work out, but the third is completely functional and I've been using it for about a week now, I guess, with no issues. The latter is Robe of the Necromancer. Basically, I just took a robe of evil arch-magi and altered the stats to give a boost on death save throws and I changed the appearance of the robe a little (I think it looks much better now).

Katherine

[Lemernis]

Thanks again. Ditto.

The robe sounds great. I would love to see that. Once your are sure you have all the bugs worked out are you going to make your items available at Arundor's or Team BG?

[Lemernis]

Oh, I should have said also that eventually Xan and Xzar will earn more weapons profs, I think when they get the first one when they reach level 5 or 6 (thereabouts). Then of course you can put the prof into missile weapons so they can use the sling and darts effectively. (As Katherine mentioned, once those two are out of spells they can still hurl something. It's better than having them just stand there. But until they gain a proficiency in missiles they won't be very effective at it.)

[SixOfSpades]

I ALWAYS equip my Mages with ranged weapons, whether they're proficient or not. Mages have such crappy THAC0 that they're hardly likely to hit the enemy anyway, so I like to give them a Sling just to make sure they're not going to try to enter a melee. A rough-and-tumble brawl is the very worst place for a Mage to be, and all offensive spells where you have to be right next to the guy (Burning Hands, Ghoul Touch, etc.) are worthless. Of course, now that I've said that, Xan with the Moonblade and the right Robe isn't that bad--I've had him going toe-to-toe with Gnolls and coming out only a little the worse for wear--but he's an exception.

I prefer Slings to Darts & Throwing Daggers, because for some reason you can't put extra Darts into the ammo slots, so if your Mage is chucking 3 Darts a round, before you know it he's run out of ammo and is going to run up and try to punch out an Ogre. Bad move. Even in BG2, you still can't put Throwing Daggers in the ammo slots. (But on the bright side, there's at least 1 Throwing Dagger that returns to your hand after you throw it.)

Pschub, don't worry, BG is the kind of game where you start it once, play it for about 5 hours, realize what you SHOULD have done, start over, play for 9 hourse, realize what you should have done THAT time, start over, play for 15 hours, etc. Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it. Your strategy of using 1 guy to run up & attack the enemies hand-to-hand (the type of character we call a "Tank"), while the other members of the party fire ranged weapons, is very sound. Just play with the different party formations (Don't make your Mage walk in front), get the hang of all the spells, and hit Pause more often during a fight and you'll be fine. And just because the plot tends to lead you toward taking certain people into your party (like Khalid and Jaheira), that doesn't mean you have to keep them.

And Lemernis is definitely right: You DO need a Thief. Emphasis on NEED. If you think you're having a tough time now, wait until you run into some nasty traps that will just fry your sorry ass, or until you find a chest that might contain some wonderful magic items--but you'll never know because you're not strong enough to bash the lock open.

Lemernis: Your long post detailing the NPCs and the spells is spot-on, although PLEASE be more careful with spoilers, especially big fat ones like Algernon's Cloak and map coordinates. The game is MUCH better when it's allowed to retain a little more of its mystique; I once accidentally read the exact location of the Helm of Balduran, and my sense of accomplishment from obtaining such a great item was completely ruined. Thanks for the praise on my accuracy, though.

[Lemernis]

Well, I did warn right at the top of the thread: "a few item location spoilers below." I don't write in caps, heh.

[Midget Gems]

Hi guys! I've been too busy to post anything lately (also playing IWD)but that super posting from Lemernis caught my eye. I have been using Safana in my all girl party, which has reached Chapter 7, but I fell-out big time with her 'cos I wanted to give her a bow and she wanted to use a spear!!! So she was doing Traps and Locks but the rest of the time she was standing at the back sulking. But I see now that I should have compromised on a crossbow. Thanks for the advice she may yet get to make a kill after all. Is it level 8 when she gets another weapon point, that I can finally put into Bow skills, so that I get my own way with her!!