I imagine this post has been done before and everyone has his or her thought on this game and what they like or don't like, etc.

So before you make any judgement please read this full post to see my point of view and let me know what you think.

Imoen, Jaheria, Minsc, Edwin, and Viconia will be my traveling companions throughout BG1 & BG2.

These are the only NPC carried over into BG2 from BG1 and they are also the same NPCs that are part of the default game from TotSC. This leads me to believe that these are the 5 main NPCs that are suppose to travel with you. However through your sub-quest you tend to swap out the non love interest female to help other NPCs out during your travels.

Now onto the protaginist. I have read many post about what race and class the protaginist should be. And here are a few guidelines that I will go by in my race/class decission. First off you are a spawn of a god Bhaal, who was an assassin. The protaginist should be roughly 20 years of age. What I decided on is a male 1/2 elf ranger. I decided on a ranger over a multi or dualed class Fighter/Thief because in BG2 or using Tutu I will be a Ranger - Stalker. This kit gives me the main abilities of a assassin, stealth and back stabb that are essential for assassins.

The love interest I will have is Viconcia, to change her evil ways in ToB.

The only problem I see with this group is keeping my Rep Points low enough to keep Viconcia and Edwin around besides that I think this group will totally kick but throughout the BG series.

BG:
I will take Imoen right off and head up to the Friendly Arms Inn. I will travel one map location to the right and pick up Viconcia. After that I will pick up Kahild and Jaheria at the frienly arms in. I will than start my travels south. I will only fight any monsters I meet on the main road, this is to keep my level down so when I pick up Minsc and Edwin they are both Level 1 or 2. When I hit the point where you fight 2 Orgillans I will have Khalid killed in that battle. Once I hit Naskel I will pick up both Minsc and Edwin and go witch hunting. I will let Edwin and the witch fight it out.
After that it is time to head to the mines with my group.

BG2: This game has so many character sub-quest I won't even touch this game just yet. My first concentration is to finish BG1 with the group listed above.

hf, with that line up it shouldn't hard at all, but who are you going to romance, Viconia or Jahera?

Keeping your rep low isn't as hard as you might think. Just pick a few choice targets for retribution, and when your rep starts getting up there, blast 'em. :evil:
My personal favorite is Fireballing the first floor of the Burning Wizard in Beregost. Not only do you get to take out that pesky klepto (and three others for collateral damage), but it's ironic too! The Burning Wizard. :lol:

Grillen I am first going to start romancing Jaheria for the first part of the game. I will let Jaheria go to pick up Viconcia and romance her. I am going for both but Viconcia in the end.

Erm, what about Minsc and Edwin beating the crap out of each other over Dynaheir? How will you handle either one leaving or one killing the other?

Kuemper good point.

I will remove Minsc from my ground right after I beat the Knoll Chief. This will allow me to pick him up right after I kill the witch.

Do not remove Minsc at the Gnoll Fortress. I'm pretty sure if you do that, you can never readd him to the group. You'd be better to leave him one screen away if you have to. You may want to try, but I'm pretty sure Minsc will not rejoin the group if you do that.

Also, as for Rep, if we assume you'll stay at 18 (which is the best way to do it for stores and such), whenever you hit 19 or 20, reform your party and kick out Viconia and then let her walk over and talk to you and when you readd her, you'll drop 2 points. You can also do this before getting the Rep Points so that you'll never be above 20.

The problem still exists in BG2 with Minsc and Edwin, and they'll be perfectly happy to kill each other.

Rep in BG2 is not much of a problem; become the slayer and down it goes... But in general, stop being so nice! :p Try and bribe the flaming fist in chapter 7 before running away, that helps as well.

Last night I made my character and picked up all 5 of the NPCs that will be traveling with me. Viconcia was level two when I got her. I find this weird since everyone was level one, even Jaheria.

Here is my character.
Human
Male
Ranger
Str 18/00
Dex 18
Con 18
Int 16
Wis 14
Cha 10

kuemper I got by the Minsc and Edwin situation last night by removing Imoen from my party and than having Edwin kill Dynaheir, since Minsc will do nothing once Dynaheir is in the party.

I did notice one glitch in the game. If you have Edwin with the ring of wizardary and load up a game he looses the extra spell he gets. Instead of having 6 level one spells when I start off I only have 5. I have to take the ring of wizardary off and than put it back on to pick up the extra spells I receive from his amulet.

My is the current status for my group.
Abdel - Level 1
Minsc - Level 1
Jaheria - Level 2/2
Imoen - Level 2
Edwin - Level 1
Viconcia - Level 3

I have to say this is the most entertaining group I have ever played. Viconcia and Jaheria don't like each other too much when placed next to each other and the same holds true for Edwin and Minsc. I do have to say though that Edwin is already getting on my nerves but at level one he has 6 level one spells with just one ring of wizardary. I can't wait till I get that second ring for him in Baldur's Gate. I am definitely going to play Minsc more as a Figther/Berserker than a Ranger. His stats don't justify his status as a Ranger and he will be one of my main front line tanks. Jaheria will accompany Minsc in toe to toe battle with the enemies. Mean while Imoen, Viconcia, and Abdel will blind them with ranged attacks and Edwin will blast them with his 15+ Magic Missiles.

[ September 13, 2005, 14:36: Message edited by: Silver Knight ]

So who's the spokesperson for the group? I assume it's not Abdel with his low CHA, so maybe Imoen? But Jaheira with the Tome of CHA would be just as good, and the Tome won't do anything for Immy.

Felinoid

Imoen is the group leader when going into stores. She Cha is set to 18 with the clock, can't remember it's name off hand. When not in stores Minsc leads. I love his comments.

:doh: Right, Algernon's Cloak / Nymph Cloak.

"Yer all buffle-headed!"
"... Swords for EVERYONE." :lol: Classic.

I was told the Nymph Cloak has charges on it and Algernon cloak does not. How true is this?

Yet another myth. The difference is that the Nymph Cloak only works at point-blank range, while Algernon's Cloak is long-range.

Felinoid,

Here is where Abdel and his party currently stands.

Abdel, Imoen, Viconcia, Jaheria, Minsc, & Edwin are now all traveling together as a group. All members are now starting to gain skills that will later on only help their advancments towards Saverok. In their short time together they have acquired some very useful and powerful trinkets. The two up front warriors, Jaheria and Minsc, acquired items that is most useful for them. Minsc finally layed his hands upon a sword worthy of his skills as a swordsman and Jaheria who was hit often, even when wearing plate mail, is now able to dodge most attacks due to her gaunlets she found on a Orgillian she slain during the hunt for the witch. The one person who is definitely benefiting from this group's defensive and offensive physical skills is Edwin; our phsycially challenged Magic-User. His skills combined with the ring of wizardary does make him quite powerful, or at least it will later on when he can actually use these extra spells to his advantage. As Viconcia, Imoen, and Abdel they provide range weapon support for the toe to toe figthers. Abdel of course is so accurate with a bow that most enemies fall before they even can reach Jaheria or Minsc. Their next adventure is to solve the issues in the Naskel mines, which shouldn't be too much trouble for this group. However a few members within this group believe Viconcia should be well equiped with a weapon of close combat and a shield that protect well against ranged weapons and she says this because she feels this way because she would rather be up front and if she dies, she would prefer to die by a sword than an arrow. The quest after the mines are solved is to find the mad cleric.

[ September 14, 2005, 15:57: Message edited by: Abdel - Bhaal Spawn ]

It has been a while since I have posted how my party of Abdel, Imoen, Viconcia, Jaheria, Minsc, and Edwin has been doing. First here is my group and what they currently have for magical items.

Abdel: Two Handed Sword +1, Halberd +1, Studded Leather Armor +2, and 60 Arrows +1.
Imoen: Shadow Armor, Long Sword +2, Bracers of Archery, 40 Arrows +1, and Ring of Infravision.
Viconcia: War hammer +2, Medium Shield +2, Ankhrog Plate, Ring of Holiness and Sling +1
Jaheria: Scimitar +3 (Dritz), Ankhrog Plate, Large Shield +1, Gauntlets of Dexterity, Golden Girdle and Boots of Electricity.
Minsc: Boots of the North, Long Sword +2, Dagger +2, Ring of Protection +1, Girdle of Bluntness and Helm of Infravision, Larger Shield +1.
Edwin: Travelers Robe, Staff +1, Ring of Protection +1, Bracers of AC 7, Ring of Wizardry and Boots of Avoidance.

I have cleared the Mines and now this group is slowly moving north towards the Bandit Camps, but before they do, they just might go back to Beregost to talk to a wizard there who happened to change another adventurer into stone and maybe can provide them with more information on this Tazok character. Abdel and company haven’t really been challenged yet. All these assassins are more of annoyance than anything.

Viconcia got her wish though. Abdel and company traveled the lands first up the coast making sure every lady and children were out of harms way. Along the way most of this group was able to pick up Magical Items that will assist them in the heat of battle. Viconcia enjoys her new toy and now stands at the front line toe and toe with Abdel's enemies. Jaheria is now able to keep pace with Minsc, but that of course is due to Edwin enhancing her strenght and from her new found toy, a scimitar that was once yield by Dritz. Imoen said she found it by a Gnoll, Abdel thinks other wise. Edwin finally able to stand his own ground is proving his worth to this group by backing them up with his magical abilities. Viconcia and Jaheria are getting tired of spending most of their free time bandaging up Minsc. Imoen is often seen as of late talking with Edwin about the fine arts of Magic, who know what that is about. Abdel and Minsc having been working together one their close ranged combat and Abdel is learning the art of dual wielding, something he feels will compliment his ability to hide and sneak attack his enemies. Besides that the group over all only have a few quirrals and it is mostly between Edwin and Minsc and Jaheria. But Abdel encourage them to work out there difference. Minsc of course would like to by a sword and Edwin would like to by magic. One day these two will kill each other, but as long as Abdel is around hopefully that won't happen.

Nice roll there, Abdel. A 94 plus an 18/00 STR!

A very nice, powerful party too. Shoulda taken a half-elf though, the avatar looks cooler. ;)

I took human because I heard once you accept the strong hold quest for a ranger and you fall from grace if you dual to a mage and than complete the stronghold quest you get your ranger status back. If not than no real harm. I almost went with a Elf but I had to stick to the specific age grouping and it was either 1/2 Elf or human and given that I wanted to test out the strong hold quest and than dualing idea for myself I decided on a human. With the book of Int. my ranger once in fallen grace should be able to dual to a mage with out too much trouble.

Cool, let us know if that fallen Ranger stuff works!

hmm, you'll also need to bump the wis to 15 to dual, right? :hmm:

To dual from a ranger, you need a 15 STR, DEX and CON, then a 17 in whatever the prime stat of the class your dualling to is (mage- INT). If you can dual it, be sure to post and tell us.

Since there are 3 WIS tomes (assuming he has TotSC), he can get that WIS to 17.

I do have ToTSC and I have to say I have already decided how I am going to distribute the tomes.

STR - Minsc
DEX - Imoen
CON - Abdel
INT - Abdel
WIS - All three going to Viconcia
CHA - Imoen

I am dividing up the tomes as such because when I finally get into BG2 I will use Shadow Keeper to modify any NPC stats to what they were in BG1. I will even reduce them if necessary. I would like to play the game through with the same characters and have the stats the same throughout both games.

I have already picked up the tomes of CON and CHA and have distrubted them as mentioned. The only tome I might change my mind on is STR. But since my character already has 18/00 I am not too worried about giving the Tome to Minsc. My next task after I clear out the bandit camp and the Cloakwood Mines is to go to Durlags tower and complete those areaa. When my group is ready to go into Baldur's Gate they should all be near there maximum levels.

WIS - All three going to Viconcia Bad idea. You'll need at least 15 WIS to dual a ranger, so I'd suggest giving one to Abdel and two to Viconia. My suggestions would be:

STR - Jaheira
DEX - Minsc (boost your tanks AC and stealth)
CON - Abdel (Once you get to the Machine of Lum the Mad, he'll have regeneration. :evil: )
INT - Abdel (necessary for the dual to mage)
WIS - Abdel 1, Viconia 2
CHA - Imoen

...but that's just me. :D

I'm giving Imoen the Tome of Dex because I am keeping her as a Thief and will modify her with Shadow Keeper come BG2. Like I said I want to keep the NPC as they were in BG1. I will add spells to Edwin list because he should have all the spells he acquired in BG1. As for Imoen I will change her to a level 1 mage when I first meet up with her.

Keeping your rep low isn't as hard as you might think. Just pick a few choice targets for retribution, and when your rep starts getting up there, blast 'em.Hahaha this reminds me to the event when I finally destroyed the Mind Flayers and freed the slaves. Viconia was in party and the reputation was increased to 20 or 19 and she wanted to leave the party so I had to kill a leaving slave -- normally I don't support this kind of playing but I was a starter that time.

It has been a while since I have posted where my group was going. Mainly because I lost my game when my old PC when haywire. I started over on the old PC and moved my game to my new PC. I stuck with my original plan of picking up NPC. The only difference this time around is that Abdel is a human ranger instead of the Elf or Half-Elf that I previously started the game with.

Here is my group.

PC: Abdel
Race: Human
Class: Ranger
Level: 7
Str: 18/54
Dex: 18
Con: 19
Int: 19
Wis: 16
Cha: 10

Abdel is the archer and scout for the group. When properly equipped with the ring of fire resistance, boots of the north and helm of defense he is immune to fire damage. Great against those nasty fire traps. Abdel favorite weapon is his 2 handed swords, Spiderbane, and his long bow, Long Bow of Marksmanship. Normally Abdel doesn’t even get to equip his sword since most of his enemies fall before they can even reach him. He is dead on with a bow, only missing ants from over a mile away. (Thaco of 4).

NPCs
Imoen
Class: Thief/Illusionist
Level: 6/7
She is the main thief who’s tinkers in magic. She provides the group the skills need to remove any traps or open any locks. She does support Abdel in knocking down the enemies with her Eagle bow and supports Edwin in the offensive magic attacks. Imoen favorite weapon is a wand. She sits back as Jaheria runs forth and Imoen will blast the enemies afar with her wand. She knows it is well charged after buying sell one and have the Wizard in high hedge charge it up for her. 30,000+ gold later Imoen is as happy as one could be throwing fireballs at her enemies and watching them burn.

Edwin
Class: Conjuror
Level: 7
Edwin is our man of magical destruction. He provides this group with all the magical fire power needed to take down almost any foe. He is however arrogant at time and has confrontations with Jaheria and Minsc on occasion. Edwin is known for one thing in this group and that is you don’t mess with him, unless you are Jaheria that is. For Edwin can do one thing well and that is bombard his enemies with magic missiles and chances are they don’t even get a chance to attack him because by the time the reach him they fall to his feet.

Viconcia
Class: Cleric
Level: 8
Viconcia is the group healer and protector. She is quite the force in the front line now and she is able to go toe to toe with Minsc in damage, mostly due to her new found GoP. She is however taking a liking to Abdel and his some times barbaric attacks on the weak innocents that insult him.

Jaheria
Class: Fighter/Druid
Level: 6/7
Jaheria is the group leader, or so she would like to think so. She has taken control when the situations get difficult and the group always come out alive, thanks to her leadership. She is not as affect as Viconcia when it comes to spell protection and healing, however her spells do come in handy quite often and because Jaheria knows when to cast them, they always provide the group the extra support when they need it the most. (Waste not tends to be Jaheria philosophy. Meaning if you got a tiny wound, deal with it Edwin). She tends to be up front in all battles, going toe to toe with any melee weapon. Her preferred weapon is Dritz’s scimitar Frost and when Abdel is not out and about scouting ahead Jaheria is well equipped with the fire protection gear since Imoen has this thing with using her wand of Fire and letting fireball after fireball float through the air.

Minsc
Class: Ranger
Level 7
Minsc is well Minsc. He is who he is and that is Adel’s best friend. No matter how much Abdel acts on his father’s powers he inherited Minsc stands by his friend’s decisions. However some times Minsc wonders if Abdel is just testing their friendship, that’s Minsc for you. Minsc is the group tank and destroys everything that threatens his friends and enemy (Edwin). He has no fear and run into all battle, unless Imoen starts to shot some of her deadly fire magic. Minsc learned the hard way not to run into battle when Imoen start to go wand crazy (Thank goodness Jaheria is a waste not person or else Minsc would have wasted away). Minsc enjoys his sword, Twinkle, that Imoen so happened to find on the ground after Dritz left (she gave an item to Jaheria, Abdel and Minsc some thing is fishy here) when all the gnolls were dead. Minsc also adorns full plate armor, a towering shield and a shiny ring that glows that makes Minsc feel all pretty inside. These items allow Minsc to take the front line and protect his weaker comrades and those who prefer to pelt their enemies from afar.

This group together has reached Baldur’s Gate. Everyone in town is asking for their assistance one way or another. Heck one person even tried to kill them, to bad for him. Some people just don’t like guess in Baldur’s Gate. One wizard had the nerve to summon some guards and use his magic on us. Gee, is that the way you treat your house guess? I guess not because now he is pushing up the daisies. Of course his trinkets were well appreciated by Edwin and Imoen, who prowess is catching up with Edwin. I wonder who the really powerful mage here is. My bet is it would be a close one. But enough on that, this group has got to get going and finish their mission and that is find out who is trying to kill Abdel and what in the hell name is going on in Baldur’s Gate.