Seeking some spoiler-free tips for a noob

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fisrt, a little introduction hehe, meet Vanilla

she was destroying bg1 with icing death and twinkle. now i'm getting my arse kicked in SoA lol.

I'm now frozen with indecision choosing when to dual class to mage (either 9th or 13th) and where to put my next proficiency point.

1. If dualing at 13, can i get my kensai abilities back during SoA? preferably before* being overpowered for SoA content.

also*
So far i've taken 3 points in scimitar and 3 in dual wield.

2. Do you think I'd regret putting points into some throwable weapon category?

3. if so; what else would you recommend without naming specific weps

4. If not; what's a good throwable category that i won't regret later.

Thanks, i know this is all really old to be avoiding spoilers, but I'm enjoying the hell outta the story, discovering items, and being a noob in general. However, I've already read/spoiled too much by trying to find these topics elsewhere. I just want to avoid some major regrets later hehe.

I gotta quit re-rolling and just get this saga beat!

 

1. Normally you'd be able to get somewhere upwards of 3-4 million xp in a six man party in SoA. That'd give you enough time to reactivate your Kensai levels. If you do all the quests that you can, get all the xp you can, you'll normally be fairly overpowered by the end of SoA.

Some other considerations: While your Kensai levels are inactive, you'll only be able to put proficiency points in mage weapons. Putting a pip in dual wield while a mage would be a wasted pip. Don't put pips in ranged weapons as a mage either, you won't be able to use them due to the Kensai limitations.

As such, it's probably preferable to dual at level 9, as you'll not be able to reach the experience cap in ToB with a full six man party, so you'll be lagging behind in high level spells if you dual late. The difference in fighter level 9 and fighter level 13 is 1 million xp, the delay is significant.

2-4. I would've recommended some points in a throwing weapon in BG, but it's useful for a mage that would normally spend much of her time in the back of the party as well. There's a rather limited selection of throwable weapons, axes is generally a fairly safe option, with some choice both early and late game.

For other weapon proficiencies (you'll have enough points to max at least two types, aside from the dual wield, and then have a few points to put in another category), you could stick with axes, there's some very choice melee axes in the game. Otherwise, the various types of swords generally have a good selection of weapons in the game world. Except for short-swords. Longswords are the most common and prolific weapons in the game world.

Have fun with your first playthrough!

 

If you're dualwielding, any sort of physical ranged attack is out of the question - you'd be doing a whole lot of inventory micromanagement to be able to switch between melee and ranged, and it gets tiresome very fast.

However, as a Kensage, you kinda go around the problem by using your spells for whenever charging into melee would cause a tactical hassle.

 

I generally consider flinging spells also to be a lot of micromanagement

But you're right, switching between ranged and melee is quite cumbersome. On the other hand, there are occasions where you'll want a ranged option, and switching for just a few cases is not too cumbersome, in my experience.

 

i read that, '...you don't become the full-fledged kensage until 2.75 million exp'

and that soa original cap was, '...2.95 million without ToB installed'

another guy says, 'I usually finish the game (tob) between four and six million'

Hmm, you're probabaly right.

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i really won't be switching to ranged once i get the kensai abilities back.

right now looking at taking a point in daggers (for throwing in the meantime), since it seems to be the only choice lol

 

Um, create a separate save before you leave Athkatla to rescue Imoen.

Holy Chapter 4 hell.

"I'm ready to leave now," I said.

Question:
if an ally is level drained at level 10, and i just go forth and get lots* of exp before curing it, will he (potentially) jump to 11 or w/e as soon as he's cured?

i.e. still gaining hidden xp while drained?

 

They still gain XP but they can't level up. You also gain the exact number of levels (and the equivalent XP) back after getting cured.

 

trouble with balor quest for the gnomes in underdark? nope!



bwahahaha

 

Lol, fat lot of good that magic resistance did him.

 

This was one of the things I loved most about BG2. Gambling with Chromatic Orb's effect and winning even with that +6 bonus to the target's save =
Interestingly 4E's Chromatic Orb is similar to BG2's in that it boils down to whether you make that save or not.

Makes one wonder why some people thought "fixing" it was a good idea. Ah well.

 

And no matter how good their saves, a critical miss will always fail.

 

Nice one henkie.

 

Yeah, I had to spend a good few minutes after that, chipping away at the resultant statue's health until she died. My druid/shifter was not a good fighter

 

This is totally random, but every time I click on the update alert I get taken to the top of the thread, and I keep having the same thought about the character depicted in the first post.
Shouldn't she be a plain fighter without any kind of kit at all rather than a kensai with a name like "Vanilla" ?

 

Actually, she was a plain fighter on my first playthrough of bg1 hehe. Then in bg2 i was underwhelmed by my choices of mage npc's. That's what led to the re-roll with dual classing and after some reading i chose kensai, but kept the name.

But vanilla likely means something different to me anyway. After years and years of watching everquest change, i fell in love with BG partly because it reminded me of "vanilla eq"

 

DC 18?! Now I don't regret never having used a shifter before.

 

Well, in BG1, unless you use TuTu or Trilogy (or apparently EE), you don't exactly have much choice in kits save for mages.

That said, I found that Imoen, Edwin, and Jan are sufficient for mages.
I personally thought there was a dearth of good thieves. Only Yoshimo and Jan.

In BG1, Dynaheir, Xan, Zar, Edwin, Quayle, and if you dual her Imoen were quite enough.

It always seemed like there were far fewer NPCs to choose from in SoA,
Isn't it 16 in SoA and 27 in BG1? They should have had more NPCs, so you could try out all the nifty kits, especially the less useful ones for the main character that cannot be killed.
They should have made every type of paladin kit recuritable at the Order of the Radiant Heart, a bunch of bard kits recruit-able instead of just a blade (maybe let you recruit Gherrick), and let Quayle join Aerie on your adventure. Also some evil fighter kits to try out the wizard hunters.
In addition to the stalker kit, you should have been able to recurit a beastmaster and an archer.
Tiax of course could join you so you can serve as his hand of murder as he takes over the world.

 

I avoided Edwin so i wouldn't have the problem i had with xzar and montaron in BG1 hehe. And I wasn't sure how long until i got Imoen at the time.
Jan is cool but only gets half xp toward mage levels. Same with Aerie plus she's annoying imo.

You're absolutely right about thieves. Jan is a must. Although at the time I thought Yoshimo would be all i needed. Good times [=

 

There are some advantages and disadvantages. The petrification DC does get better with more Shifter levels, but it'll mostly be an interesting thing to try at lower levels. A shifter is very versatile, but not very powerful. The drow and minotaur forms are decent fighters, but never more than that, not even in their epic forms. Dragons are fun, of course, but your claws hit as +0 weapons, meaning a lot more DR to overcome. You get hide in plain sight in the epic kobold form, but the kobold form is otherwise pretty weak.

Overall, you can do lots of different things in many different ways as a Shifter, but you'll never be very good at them. Still, I found it a lot of fun.

There are far less joinable NPCs in BG2 than in BG1. I haven't played vanilla BG1 much, but as I recall they didn't have much in the way of banter, just some floating text messages every now and again. So far less NPCs in BG2 but with far more characterisation. I think I'd prefer the characterisation.

 

This part of the thread really should move to the NWN forum, but it seems that the shifter has the same problem as the bard or in previous editions a F/M/T or C/F/M in the infinity engine games. Jacks of all trades, master of none. Even at high levels it sounds like the shifter is mediocre at best for any one thing, and therefore doesn't do well against anything with level parity.
You wind up needing to be a bully, only picking on lower-level threats.