Tell us about your adventures in Amn when you were just a meer beginner, unfamiliar with commonly used spells and tactics and such.

1. I took Korgon but he soon became useless. I forgot to equip him with a better weapon than +2 and thus he was always screaming that the "blasted beggar" was immune. Quite amusing when Bernard, the merchant in Copper Coronet, has a nice little flaming +3 axe for sale right from the beginning.

2. Because of stupid decisions, my druid had about 30 hit points by the end of the game. One hit from anything and he was down.

3. Undead was the scourge of my gaming. I didnt know what the hell should I do against their level draining.

4. I came from NWN where killing mages required only a large eneugh weapon or a huge spell. So naturally I failed and failed when the spellcasters where immune to everything.

5. I stopped playing when I reached the quest for the Sigil troupe. When entering the prison plane, I just couldnt kill them in any way :( .

hehe...I was a noob once. but that was a REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAALY long time ago. I got this +1 longsword for my main character (mathyas, for reference.), and I thought i could kill a mind flayer with it (i got to spellhold very quickly). i soon discovered that wasn't a good idea. i reloaded 14 times just to kill it, but it was worth it!!! i found the Flame of the North on it's body, and it proved VERY useful. but that was 12 months ago. but, i couldn't get past the Underdark. so, carrying the same main character name, i started a new game just a couple of weeks ago. I am now in Suldennessalar.

I remember having a monk with high Int&Wis, but almost no fighter recuired Str,Dex,Con.

Uhhh.. ever had a guy with five stars in longswords, using a twohander because it looked smaller? :o

Hehe I was like that but that was back in the BG days :p

My little thief only had about 12 strength ALTHOUGH her dex was at least 16 :D She ended up with like 33 hit points by level seven and it wasn't very nice :(

By the end I was a veteran and when it came to SoA I was just too good :D :D :D

I played so much p&p before ever owning a computer that I knew enough to avoid these things.

P&P teaches you all those things?

I can not forget my first battle with a lich.

'Oo, how can he cast all those stuff instantly...Wow, there are TWO of them! Huh, the screen went black&white? I did not pause the game! What's happening? GAAAH I am DEAD DEAD DEAD! Reload!'

:lol: And now I tackle 'slightly smarter liches' for fun! :rolling:

I didn't know how to deal with mages at first. I came from the old games where mages were wussies when it came to protection from physical attacks and weren't much better defending against magical attacks; they relied on an army of fighters in front of them for protection. So I took the same approach - all I need to do is aim one attack at the mage per round to prevent him from casting spells right?

Wrong. They now have a dozen of protection spells available, and they come solo without fighters to protect them and can still make you reload.

The first character I played was an Elven Fighter/Mage...who didn't cast anything other than Stoneskin because I didn't know what the spells did... >_< Can you imagine? ME???

Anyways...what else...my party was Myself, Jaheira, Yoshimo, Nalia, Aerie and Korgan...only, I got annoyed by Nalia whining so I picked up Viconia. Now, I thought Cleric meant something on par with Fighter...so I had her dual-weild maces and act as a frontliner...while Korgan was hanging back with a Throwing Axe I found. Heck, I thought throwing axes were cool!! :)

Uhh...what else...it was so long ago, I have a hard time remembering! Oh yeah, I didnt know anything about Staff of the Magi, Kangaxx or ANYTHING...I just played through the whole game, meleeing with my Mages and everything till I got to Irenicus at lvl 15!!!! :o Not a fun experience...

I then discovered SP!! After hanging out here for a while, I played a second game, where I was a Sorcerer, and I had Viconia, Edwin and Korgan in my Party.. Oh that one was SOO much more powerful! :evil:

Hehe funny how much more fun the game becomes after a lil' visit to SP :D

I first realized I didn't knew enough when I ran into that lich in the Crooked Crane Inn.

Didn't know what a lich was so I just charged blindly on. Bad idea.

Message: Lich casting Time Stop.

Okay, I thought. This can't be good.

Message: Lich casting Summon Fiend.

Okay probaly not so good either I thought..

After the Time Stop I thought it was an good idea to run. Cause they can't follow me through the door right?

Wrong. The pit fiend did. And slaughtered all the barguests and the bartender before it turned to my little pityful party.

And I charged blindly on again because I had some of those nice +1 weapons from Irenicus Dungeon, right? And those two guys are separated now, so it is an easier fight, right?

Wrong. My weapon has no effect messages all over the screen and we were slaughtered.

I just sat there and thought what the hell happened here?

Of cause I did that when I ran into my first beholder too. But that's another story....

Well, in my first playtroughs I used to give my characters weapons that they had no procifiences in. It just looked so much cooler to have everyone Dual Wield katanas... And my tactics were pretty much "CHAAARGE, blood, death, slay them all!!!"
Protip: mages don't survive against demons in melee.

I can not forget my first battle with a lich.

'Oo, how can he cast all those stuff instantly...Wow, there are TWO of them! Huh, the screen went black&white? I did not pause the game! What's happening? GAAAH I am DEAD DEAD DEAD! Reload!'

And now I tackle 'slightly smarter liches' for fun!:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
My only true noobie moments were in the original Baldur's Gate (though mages baffled me at first), but I'll still bring up two points about it.

(1) At level six (which is when I stopped playing that game) my mage had a full... eight hit points. Needless to say that coupled with his matching strength score meant he was a behemeth :D

(2) When I finally got to the Duke's coronation ceremony I couldn't figure out what was going on. Whenever I would start getting some damage on Sarevock some guy named Wininsky Petrolate would flamestrike my character, killing him. I used everything that could possibly help (potions of magic resistance/immunity) and still couldn't do anything. So I abandoned ship on that game...

[ October 23, 2006, 01:21: Message edited by: ChickenIsGood ]

level 6 with only 6 hitpoints and 6 strength. Now that's what I call impressive.

Almost all of my noobishness happened in BG1, but I do remember the first time I thought I could easily take out a Lich. He kicked my butt and only half woke up to do it.

How would you be a lvl 6 mage with only 6 hit points??? I thought every mage started with at least 4 right, unless your CON score was just as low as your strength ...

Even then you probably gain AT LEAST 1 hit point per level so you should have more than 6?!?!

I did some rather silly stuff back in BG too but I was never quite as bad as some examples above. Mainly because I had actually read the manual before starting.

@Silvershield: A mage rolls a D4 for hitpoints. If you have no bonus to HP or, even worse, a penalty, then it is quite concievable to have 1 HP per level.

That would ONLY work if you started the game with ONE HIT POINT! You would also have to have a really really really low consitution score (like 3 or so). But I don't think you can start the game with 1 hp?

Sorry I'm off topic.

I remember the first time I picked a normal mage and chose friends as my first spell. It didn't make Shank or Carbos like me though :cry:

Hmm, yes I forgot that you'd recive maximum hitpoints on character creation. As you cannot have a -2 penalty according to my book (which makes sense considering the 1 damage Flame arrow that always gets you when just out of Candlekeep), then you would have a minimum of 7 HP on level 6.

Hmm, yes I forgot that you'd recive maximum hitpoints on character creation. As you cannot have a -2 penalty according to my book (which makes sense considering the 1 damage Flame arrow that always gets you when just out of Candlekeep), then you would have a minimum of 7 HP on level 6.I already realized I made an error and corrected it. I really had 8HP with the matching 8 STR. Probably just had 6 in my head because I wrote my level just before them...

My actual stats were 8 STR 18 DEX 8 CON 19 INT 12 WIS 18 CHA with 8 HP at level six (Gnome Illusionist). That HP should be impossible if you do indeed get maximum at the start as 8 CON recieves no penalty according to the game manual. So now I'm in a great state of :confused: Either I was level five at the time (likely) or something with the game was wrong, because I had 8 HP at the time...

Oooh, I just remembered another tale of noobishness... It was in the Nashkell Mines, where you cross the trapped bridge. The only problem was I didn't realize back then that stuff other than chests were trapped yet, so my internal dialogue was something like this...

"Argh the heat from the lava killed me"

*reload*

"Just gotta run faster this time. Died again, and the lava acted faster :confused: "

*reload*

"Hey I got across this time, TAKE THAT HEAT DAMAGE!!!"

[ October 23, 2006, 01:50: Message edited by: ChickenIsGood ]

:lol: That's good chicken :D

Didn't you notice the 'trap sprung' dialogue? Hehe ;)

Believe it or not I didn't realize it was a trap untill the third or fourth time I did the mines.

Take on the twisted rune early. What a disaster.

Mine was at Windspear Hills,my first encounter with vampires...They hacked my party to pieces...Worst thing is Pc was a barbarian so all i had to do was push the rage button to avoid level drain...But i didn't know even that :(

I remember once thinking in Irenicus dungeon that I would slay as many mephits as possible to get some extra XP... It worked fine until I got surrounded and my PC got knocked out so it was Yoshimo alone against a horde of beasties... :shake:

First time I played Tutu, I was in for a bit of a shock when the creatures I just hacked away were respawned... Well playing a first level party and facing bandits by the dozen (the ones equipped with bows) can be a traumatic experience (hopefully I got used to it).

Oh and Wild Magic... First time I played a Wild Mage I didn't notice that much of a difference until I got some real special results with wild surges... Of course in the middle of a fight (I can't remember the name of the NPC, it was the party of adventurers in the inn near the 7 vales IIRC, the party led by a dwarf which I usually take on right after leaving Irenicus Dungeon) my mage got turned into a wolf, held and cast a fireball centred on himself. I didn't expect so many wild surges...

I didn't have many surprising experiences playing BG1 (I played PnP so I knew how the rules worked) but I do remember the first time I tried to kill Drizz't... I also have fond memories of the first time my party hit the REP 1 level, what are these Flaming Fist Mercs doing? :lol:

Ahhh yes, the first time I took on Drizzt! Such good memories! I remember just sitting there thinking ... WTF JUST HAPPENED?!?!?! :lol:

Quote by Silvershield: "Hehe funny how much more fun the game becomes after a lil' visit to SP "
I assume you mean Sorcerers Plane, as in here, right? Wanna make sure I'm not missing anything. :)

Secondly, I am on my second time through BGII, and haven't gotten super far (just took the De'Arnise Keep.... I'm gonna have to return to slay those f'in Golems & a couple Umber Hulks, but I got the magic!)
I know the Kangaxx fight is coming soon, & I know I killed him the first time, but don't remember how.
Who is the master Lich-Slayer & what tips can I glean from you?

Oh, & I remember my first time through BGI, I picked up Xzar & Montaron at the very beginning. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why Imoen kept saying "Stop Touching Me!!!!". Hilarious! Those little pervs. :)

"Cool, slings use BULLETS! I can take on any of these medieval *****es!"

*turns to face dragon*


*charred bones found three days later*

When I finally got to the Duke's coronation ceremony I couldn't figure out what was going on. Whenever I would start getting some damage on Sarevock some guy named Wininsky Petrolate would flamestrike my character, killing him. I used everything that could possibly help (potions of magic resistance/immunity) and still couldn't do anything. So I abandoned ship on that game...Hehe that was so confusing...I attempted the same thing, trying to kill Sarevok faster, thinking that would do it...eventually I pulled the tried-and-true method of running around, hacking at random people. For some reason, this actually did the trick :confused: It appears Bhaal favors those that act randomly :D

Quote by Silvershield: "Hehe funny how much more fun the game becomes after a lil' visit to SP "
I assume you mean Sorcerers Plane, as in here, right? Wanna make sure I'm not missing anything. Yep, this is SP. Or, more specifically, the Board's O' Magic on Sorcerer's Place.

know the Kangaxx fight is coming soon, & I know I killed him the first time, but don't remember how.
Who is the master Lich-Slayer & what tips can I glean from you?
There are several ways to do this. Bear in mind that you need +4 weapons to damage his demilich form. Additionally, remember that Kangaxx will target the closest party member, so if they are immune to his spells, then all of the party should come out safe. If a party member is a Berserker (eg Korgan), then they should use this to remain immune to Imprisonment.

If this is not the case, then the next easiest trick is to buy a scroll of Protection Against Magic and cast it on the character fighting Kangaxx. You should be able to defeat the Demi-lich with ease this way. There are two scrolls for sale at the Adventurer's Mart.

I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why Imoen kept saying "Stop Touching Me!!!!". That was Xzar. ;)

Heheh. Funny tales guys :)

My worst tale of noobishness is actually that I couldn't beat Tarnesh, the mage assassin on the stairs of the Friendly Arms Inn in BG1.

I was used to Diablo hack and slash type games so it didn't occurred to me it could be a good idea to have a strategy and some micro management.

So Tarnesh just beat my party about 20 times by casting Horror and taking my party members out one by one.

My BG1 box stood a long time on my shelf after that....

Hey guys. I'm new here but I've been playing BGII for a very long time. This would be the seocond game fourm I'll registered at, the first being Age Of Kings heaven. Anyway, I though that I would tell you some of my noobish mistakes.
Some might not be to you guys I'm not sure but what ever.

- Not getting that +2 2hsword in the first level of the dungeon at the start. Or getting the +1 dagger.

- Taking Korgan on a good party. I didn't relise he was an evil bugger and he annoyed some of my other party members.

- Going to that island after paying the 15,000 gold, way to early.

- Taking on that big dragon in the ruiens and later tring to take on that big red dragon. Bot at way to low levels.

That just a few things that I've learnt from.

I've been playing 5 years and this still happened to me today unfortunately...
I was roleplaying as much as I could and accepted Xzar and Montaron into my party. We went to the friendly arm and met Jaheira and Khalid, as Gorion said they were trustworthy and my character is a bit lost and confused. They joined up too and both couplets wanted to go to Nashkel, so fair enough I began the journey.
Jaheira got nailed by kobolds and died, so Khalid "left" to mourn her and we continued south. Then Montaron goaded the Flaming Fist mercenary south of Beregost and he attacked us. Montaron died and Xzar turned on us, so me and Imoen were forced to kill him aswell.
Me and Imoen arrived in Nashkel, two lvl1 swashbucklers and went to the inn for some rest. The much higher level cleric promptly slaughtered us without taking so much as a hit herself and that was that.

Mine would be in totsc, where my 1st party of level 6/7 people went to werewolf island, with NO magical ranged weapons, and only 1 or 2 magical weapons which hardly hurt the werewolves.
They are stuck there forever.

On my first run of SoA I found the Lich underneath the Crooked Crane inn almost immediately. The more I attacked the more pissed off he got. Then he hit the timestop and I was like omg wtf I did NOT pause this my game must have frozen....wait...that bastards still moving... Lich casts meteor swarm...oh ****...time stop ends...reload or quit...I decided to take a break after that.

edit: lol didn't read the posts until after I posted mine...apparently me and Ironhawk have the same bad luck :(

@LoS_DrIzZt4:

Glad I'm not the only one :)

@LoS_DrIzZt4 & Ironhawk Skylord

That dude also molested me in my first runthru. And I had the same thoughts about timestop... wack, wack, wack ... dead

My first time with that lich Minsc nailed it with Azuredge -- but not before the time stop. Nobody died (although everyone was single digit hit points), but I had a damned pit fiend following me from screen to screen until the spell expired (or it got distracted by peasants -- I really don't know).

I guess that was my Sir Robin adventure.

My experience is even worse. First time I played SoA I didn't know what the orange funnel thingy on my character's portrait was (since there was no such thing in BG1, IIRC)... until I found out my main character only had less than 40 max hp. At first I thought it was my chars ability or some such, harhar.

And I remember when I did my best to avoid Noober (just 'coz my friends say you'll get stuck with a dialogue with him)... I even cast invisibility on my party to get past the annoying guy. I had to load a number of times, especially when I see him starting to trail my party.

I couldn't get the dog stew to work in De'Arnise Keep the first time through. You see, as adventurers, we are used to taking too much. Looting, pillaging, stealing, taking treasure. There's little need to drop anything, so when I had to drop the dog stew on the ground, I was stumped. I had my character stand on top of the "container" and drop the stew on the floor, but it didn't work. I tried dropping it this way all along that squiggly corridor, but it didn't work. So I gave up and thought it was screwed up. I didn't realize they meant put the stew inside the container that is the floor!

^Yess, I could not figure out the trick of dog stew in my earlier rusn too. Always cooked it, and carried it for the rest of the game! :heh: Battling the Umber Hulks in the old fashion is more fun to me anyway!

I do both, Silverstar! :p

<--- XP whore

I can't remember my noobish experience too well(Because it was something like 6 years ago, when I was in highschool). I played a straight up fighter though, wearing the green armor and wielding a +4 shortsword (I spec'd for 3 slots in 6 weapons by the end of the game, not knowing what I was doing). His name was Bert and he beat the game in 3 days... somehow... I remember not liking losing my romance, but I couldn't figure out how to bring her back and picked up viconia instead.

My first time through was with a Kensai. This was just when the game was released (been a while) and I didn't know about level drain. I actually finished the game with Anomen at lvl 2. I just kept wondering why his spell slots were decreasing. Suprisingly enough though, no other character got level-drained through out the entire game. Now that's something I cannot achive nowdays.

I didn't know anything about D&D and began playing SoA as if it were Diablo. Big mistake.

My first character was a female elven thief who was iced 3 times by the mephit in Irenicus' Dungeon above the room with all the gear ang golem. I didn't get it and stopped playing. The second time I played I knew what D&D was and had read a lot about BG. This time through was a succes.

I could not find the entrance to Nalia's stronghold at my very first time. Travelled around the keep, found no open entrances, and went back to Amn.

'We will come back when you are open!' :p

I think that my next worse would be when I got sunfire with my sorc....ohh whats this do...I clicked it figuring that it was a target spell....and killed most of my party. I now read spell descriptions.

Now I remember, I had no idea how spell turning worked, or even what it was....so I always targeted mages with magic missiles, flame arrows, and the like, and I was quite shocked when all the spells returned to me! :lol: I was even killed once or twice like this! Not the brightest start eh?

Then I was made punchison by the very first goblin archers in the first dungeon in my very first games, times and times again. I thought they had awesome THAC0, they never missed! Now I tackle Improved Ilych&Co with ease. :heh:

My very first character, a cleric, he had the crappiest stats you can imagine, gotten from the first roll. He was throwing darts (back in SoA, clerics could use normal darts due to a bug) but he had no proficiency in it! :spin: I managed to kill Firkraag with this crappy character's party! Har har! My friend (who also sucked at playing at that time, he had to kill Firkraag with Wand of Cloudkill cheese) joked and asked if I had killed the dragon with darts or what.... (infact, a Holy Smite did the final blow) and I was sooooo happy ahh the newbie times, always nice to remember! :roll:

When I first began BG, I didnt notice the reroll option on the abilities screen at character creation. My first character had the worst stats ever, only being able to max out INT as he was a mage.

I also didnt know how to use a mage properly so that character was next to useless.

When I first started playing I had no idea what THAC0 meant. I cant even remember whether I thought it was good for thaco to be high or low. And I didnt know what 1d6 + 1 or 5d6 meant, so I had no way to work out what did more damage.

I remember trying to battle the dragons. I think I gave them indigestion at least...

Jokes, they eventually died. I didnt use protective spells, I just charged.

When I finally got to rescue Imoen, I was going to sub Nalia for her. Then I opened up her character record and saw that Imoen hadnt advanced a single level (which should have come as no surprise). So I left Imoen to her fate and left with Nalia.

I still dont know how I got through the mindflayer city...

When Adalon teleported me to the end of the kua toa dungeon, I went the wrong way, and promptly arrived back in the underdark. After a bit of searching, I concluded there was nothing I could do, and gave up.

Two tales from me. I remember fighting the mage outside of FAI at the start of BG, I'm thinking, hehe, I killed the two assassins that came after me, this should be no match for me. Then, all of a sudden there is four mages standing in front of me. Ok, but they shall all fall to the mighty Templar. I got really screwed when I couldnt click on the rightmost mage, so I stood there, not knowing how to kill this guy, and all of a sudden my character gets a yellow square.. Insignificant, I'm thinking, until I realize I cant move him around anymore.. He is running away. He is.. No, he died..

The other tale is from my first run in BG2, where I killed Cromwell, not knowing he could forge Items for me.. Why did I kill him? Because he had a gem, a spell scroll and about 50 g in a chest in his house.. And he noticed me trying to take it.

I thought turn-undead means my character can turn into an undead creature. :D

I took backstab too literally. I had my backstabbers stand behind intended victim/s before backstabbing. Which is sometimes tedious when the victim/s moves around.

I read the BGII manual before I started!
Despite playing BGII before BGI it still took me about 10 tries to beat Tarnesh outside the Friendly Arm Inn.

Spell turning really had me, it took me like 5 tries to kill the Yaun Ti in that part of the sewers where you get Haer Dalis because the mage kept rebounding my acid arrows and Agannazar's scorchers.

I found the lich in the Crooked crane and thought 'oh **** - RUN'. I then ran out and some guy approached me and started talking, worst of all it didn't pause the game, so I was desperately trying to rush through the dialogue without screwing everything up and hoping my fighters could survive long enough for me to get through the conversation. The person who decided to talk to me ended up getting killed by a meteor swarm (thats what you get for talking at the wrong moment), but not before 1/2 of my party got taken out :) . Power word reload for me.

I remember goblins and mephits being hard for some reason, probably becuase I gave Minsc the bow (he's a ranger after all) and got Immy and my pc thief to tank FTW!!

hehe, my noobishness was proeminent particularly in BG1

i recall i had gotten as far as where the two dukes were under strike by dopplegangers and were eventually slain the both of them before i could rip the beasts to shreds

so each atempt i tried to meet with sarevok nere there a column of flame would strike my character down and since i had no saves previous to the duke casualties i was kind of.... screwd :D

Meh me first game was with a plain bard with bad stats, Jaheira, Mincs, Imoen, and Keldorn. I didn't know anything about protection spell nor healing spell, I only used potions. I used my bard as a melee fighter with a plain +2 sword. I didn't go very far. Than I become acquinted with 3E DnD and my subsequent games were far, far more better.

Ah dopplegangers - I remember fighting a room full of them in BGI, they pretty much slaughted me three or so times in a row - mainly because of all the damn fireballs I thought they were casting. Turns out Imoen had switched to arrows of detonation after running out of +1 arrows. It was way easier after I figured this out :) .

Having been a veteran of the old classic SSI Goldbox games, EOB, as well as a 2E PNP gamer on occasion, game mechanics were not so much of a problem for me.

My biggest folly was not using spells that turned out to be awesome in this game because they sucked in other games I have played. Cloudkill, for example.

In my first run through I remember hating the undead you run into because of level drain. Even though I had just played through as a cavalier, I wanted to turn around and play it right away as an Undead Hunter (another type of Paladin) just to stick it to them. I compromised by playing as a dual-classed fighter-cleric of Lathander, to get the Boon. Much awesomeness followed shortly thereafter.

I also had never faced mindflayers before. That took some reloading!

Now, I could tell you stories about stupod mistakes I made when switching over to 3E rules...

... it's really embarassing but I didnt know what "turn undead" was for... when I found out it either shoo away or kill undead I was like "OH THATS AWESOME!" and started to use it... except... except.. I also used it on golems.. and watched half of my party members die... and yelled "WHY ARENT THEY (Golems) EXPLODING INTO BITS??"

I've found the lich under the CC too soon as well... And when facing Firklag, not realising what "magical resistance" means... And there was the wide collection of spells I hadn't use, saying "offensive spells will do it, I don't need anything else" gave me hard times in mage fights:D

This is my somewhat noobish experience. Forgive me if it's off-topic, but I found it hilarious. I was playing through the beholder's lair in the underdark and got bored... So I came up with an awesome idea :idea: . I decided to set the wild surge so that it would ALWAYS summon demons. So... I did that, got hungry, left the room to make myself a snack, and when I came back, almost half the map was covered with demons! So I'm just sitting there thinking... IT'S PARTY TIME! :banana: So the story ends with me casting protection from evil on myself and friends. Then sat back and watched the beholders get slaughtered. Then, the real fun came as I killed all the demons. Later, I went to the Illithid cave and I got slaughtered. (forgot to cast protection from evil that time). "reload"

[ June 12, 2007, 22:01: Message edited by: Alderamin ]