Chapter Two: SOO much to do w/ many ways to go wrong

[PeeWee]

Hi,

I've had BGII for almost a week now and I play a half ogre bounty hunter. Yes, I've done it all wrong so it seems now. I've already spent tons of hours playing and have only made it into chapter two. I dread redoing it all.

Here, I've saved many times to try out the various npc's in my group. Just recently, I've read one walk through. It seems that there are just way too many sub quests and "guild" quests here. I wanted to do it right but am not sure which is the best thing to do. I've read that from certain actions you take, you could lose an npc for good.

Aerie and Nalia were in my core group for the most part until Nalia stayed for too long and her strong hold was under seige and she left. Can anyone tell me if I will get her back later on or if this is something that was my mistake in not finishing up during a certain given time.

I've mainly spent time rescuing the prisoners to get Hendak to be the inn's keeper. I've done the sewer quest for the talking sword.
I talked to Renal Bloodscalp at the thieve's hall but haven't yet initiated that quest for my guild(for the rogue).

I ventured into the inn at the docks to find out some guy hates Jaheira and poisoned her for yet another quest. I reloaded this to not have her go into that inn. I left her outside and took all my others to fight the mercenaries/thieves in the secret room for the goods. This is where I lost Nalia from spending too much time exploring.

After that, I tried to get to her upkeep to see if I could handle the situation there. Fighting there was too tough and it didn't follow with some of the information in the spoilers. BTW, not much was said from what I read so far from the sites. I don't want to ruin the game by knowing ALL the things to do, but I also don't want to create all dead ends down the road in a game that seems to give you that choice if you aren't very careful.

SO, I let Nalia go back to her upkeep and just got Anomen to tag along with my party. Went to try and do the Aerie's uncle quest. Then another subquest pops up and yet another. That's not to mention that I've had about 5 imcomplete so far. ONE of the things I'm asking here is are most of them based on a time limit?

I need to finish the harper house quest with finding out what happened to the thief inside. I'm almost finished with that one. Then I know I need to find the actor for the bard quest. Then the skinner's quest. Then sooo many others just by people confronting me.

Also, I decided to run thru the bridge district to find this door I picked. WAS NASTY! Elemental Lich I believe it was gave me the best fight I've had so far. He left and left me with a pit fighter to go against and an efreeti.

How the hell do you quickly dispatch an efreeti? That fight took me about an hour to do. In the end, I lost my ranger from a disintegrate. POOF, he was gone. Does anyone have information on this as to what quest it is for and if I will get him back? I did obtain a golden rib cage from the crypt. Any ideas on it?

I ran an alternate path for the saves for this part. I'm thinking of not even going this route yet. The ranger Minsc was my best fighter. I already lost Nalia which proved VERY useful with her AOE spell cloud kill.

To sum it up, I'm asking for any information related to what happened to Minsc when I fought the elemental lich and what is the golden rib for. Is Nalia able to rejoin later on? And basically what is pertinent to do before I leave chapter two? I'm going to do the ployter/poison solving quest, the skinner, harpers/thief, rogue GUILD, maybe the graveyard/book one, visit nalia's place for exp, and explore more of the area.

I've done the circus, slaves, quest with riddle for talking sword, taken the poisoned guy back to harper house at docks, bought my magic license, and so far made sure anomen hasnt visited the merchants house that will stop him from receiving knighthood. I also know to successfully get the book keldorn wants from the graveyard, I will need Edwin.

Thanks for the time reading this. Any information will be helpful.

PeeWee

[fable]

To sum it up, I'm asking for any information related to what happened to Minsc when I fought the elemental lich and what is the golden rib for. Is Nalia able to rejoin later on? And basically what is pertinent to do before I leave chapter two? I'm going to do the ployter/poison solving quest, the skinner, harpers/thief, rogue GUILD, maybe the graveyard/book one, visit nalia's place for exp, and explore more of the area.

Yes, that chapter does offer an immense variety of activities--one of the real pleasures in the game, IMO. [img]smile.gif[/img] As for your questions:

If a party NPC's picture disappears from your group (which I think you're saying happened), then they're absolutely, positively gone. No resurrection possible. If they're just dead, they can be raised, but when the picture vanishes, it means the body has been so badly dismembered or simply disintegrated that no reintegration with a soul is possible. Sorry.

Nalia will rejoin you, if you ask. Of course, you shouldn't choose answers to her that really tick her off, or she won't.

The important task in chapter 2 is to find enough money to buy the help of the Shadow Thieves, who will find Imoen and Irenicus. This information (and other quests) should be in your quest book. Keep track of that thing: it's highly useful. Note that you don't have to immediately pay off the Thieves once you have the 20K they've asked for. You could do other quests, if you'd like. Or, later on in the game, you could come back to town and finish off some.

I think a few quests are very good to consider at this point. The first is Nalia's castle--because it has an excellent collection of enchanted ammunition, which is costly to a young group of adventurers. You'll also want to buy or steal the Shield of Balduran, because it's very handly when faced with beholders.

Other quests will yield still other goods. I think there's a set of boots of speed if you take on the dimensional quest to help out the captured circus performers, but that's a tough one. You might consider Umar Hills--somewhat dangerous, but not too bad if you have a good cleric and Keldorn.

The illithium quest is easy. I would suggest you ask the ore merchant for both the fake ore, and the name of her source for the real thing. DON'T have the real thing on you when you speak to the scultpor--store it somewhere, in a chest. (Chests are never stolen from. Except by you.) Give him the fake. Good experience to be had, there.

Don't forget Trademeet! Nice place, good experience, gold and a few nice items await your success with a few quests.

[Aelia Jusa]

Okay first, most quests do not have a time limit. Some specifically say how long you have to do them, others you can spend all the time you want. If an NPC has a quest, eg Nalia or Korgan and begins to complain about not doing it that's when you know you should go do it. You should be able to get Nalia back when you go do her keep quest.

If Minsc was disintegrated then he's gone for good. You can't get back a character killed by disintegration. If you really want him you'll need a previous save. The golden rib is part of a larger quest involving two more liches and I would advise waiting a while since I think you must be a reasonably low level.

You can continue doing sub-quests in chapter 3, then again in chapter 6, so don't fret about getting them all done in chapter 2 if you can't so them. I like to do my stronghold quest early so I can finish up all the quests associated with it after you get it, however if yours is the thieves' guild then there aren't really any quests to do related to it so it doesn't really matter when you do it.

Re Nalia's keep, remember to kill trolls permanently you need to kill them with fire or acid, use fire and acid arrows or melf's acid arrow/fire arrow/scorcher spells.

[PeeWee]

Thanks so much for the replies. My poor Minsc and Boo. I definitely will reload. My first crpg was by darksun called wake of the ravager. Before that on nintendo =p I played AD&D Eye of the Beholder. Then I moved on to playing EverQuest. I still do but it threw off my gaming here. Higher Ac there means more protection where here, less is better. To think I had all my guys in leather for a few lvls, *cackle*. =/

The information on the disintgrate I hold with great value. The added info on the other sub quests from chapter two is highly appreciated too; though, I actually haven't a clue about them yet.

I like playing with others in these types of games since A LONG WHILE back I played AD&D board games( tho I never really made it so far). Really really rusty on the can does and don'ts of the game, but tried to get into a multi-player session to try it out. Seems spy games has merged with the developers of the software that would allow me to do this.

Is there anywhere I can go to read up on how to participate in player character games and to refamiliarize myself with when to use certain spells and when not to? Aye, and I found out first hand how hard one single troll can be if you don't have fire or poison abilities in your group. Can't wait to see what else would give me that line where it says so and so is immune to this type of attack, heh. I did find one of my greater moments so far to be dispelling the elemental lich's protection from evil right after he gated in a creature.

I seem to be going off tangent now by mixing up more questions with my reply to say thanks for the information.

Now to find an IRC channel....

Thanks again, there is a wealth of information here.

PeeWee

[fable]

I'm not quite sure what kind of multiplayer game you're looking for, PeeWee--assuming I understand your questions right--or I'd help out. I used to multiplay a great deal in two of Simutronics' text-based fantasy CRPGs, Gemstone III and Dragonrealms: their visuals, conveyed entirely by words, are fantastic.

As far as BG2 goes, if you have any other questions, just ask. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Kezardin]

Peewee,

as mentioned, you don't need to do all the quests available in chapter 2 during chapter 2 itself - you can also do them in chapters 3 and 6.

The only quests that have a time limit are the logical ones - people who have been poisoned, cursed or otherwise inflicted, and of course the ones the NPC's in your group moan about

As regards the Korgan book quest, you don't need Edwin to do it - however, Edwin does have his own seperate quest-thang in the same area [img]smile.gif[/img]

Kez

[PoesRaven]

Tackling the easier quests are always advisable in Chapter 2 for EXP and cool weapons etc. But some are most definitely best left until chapter 6. Most notably the Twisted Rune and Kangaxx the Demi-Lich (although the Ring of Gaxx is awesome if you can handle the Lich's).
I would recommend trying out all the areas bryond the city limits (windspear hills etc) as they are the most fun and have great rewards.
Also i would recommend tackling your Stronghold before chapter 3.
But it is, as always, up to you as it is YOUR adventure. YOU choose!!