so I decided to play Baldur's Gate 2, for the first time. Great game and all but the difficulty is unexpected. More than once I've had to abandon a current quest and go back to an earlier one, or survived some encounters only barely after multiple tries - this really kills the immersion for me. I'm not a total newb at this D&D-style CRPG, having played NWN and NWN2 before (which were admittedly too easy).
Minor Spoilers:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
- Did Nalia's quest as the first quest in chapter 2, could not kill the boss trolls no matter what I tried. Loaded an earlier save, got some more experiences and weapons and such and had relatively little trouble then. but I didn't like this from an RP perspective because that quest seemed very urgent.
- Windspear Hills, barely survived the nest of undead, 4/6 party members are level drained, some severely. only member with restoration spell is drained so... subsequent encounters are kicking my ass and I can't rest safely - yes I know I could probably leave the whole town and get restoration/rest but from a RP perspective I'd rather not do that. pre-drain levels are around 9-11. party make up: main char (mage), minsc, jaheira, aerie, nalia, cernd - nalia I swap around with anomen depending on mood, cernd is there temporarily because of the trademeet quest, in place of yoshi. I know the make up is not optimal, but I would think that an optimal make up should not be required.
- some other encounters that kicked my butt repeatedly before I managed to survive barely, like the temple district sewer encounter with the group of evil adventurers, the vampire encounter in athkatla city (Del), vampire nest in chapter 3 (which I abandoned to complete more side quests in chapter 2, like the trademeet ones and windspear hills)
What am I doing wrong? Should I find an optimal party make up and stick with it? Do quests in a specific order? or just suck it up, ignore the repeated slaughtering and keep trying because the whole game is like that?
Minor Spoilers:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
- Did Nalia's quest as the first quest in chapter 2, could not kill the boss trolls no matter what I tried. Loaded an earlier save, got some more experiences and weapons and such and had relatively little trouble then. but I didn't like this from an RP perspective because that quest seemed very urgent.
- Windspear Hills, barely survived the nest of undead, 4/6 party members are level drained, some severely. only member with restoration spell is drained so... subsequent encounters are kicking my ass and I can't rest safely - yes I know I could probably leave the whole town and get restoration/rest but from a RP perspective I'd rather not do that. pre-drain levels are around 9-11. party make up: main char (mage), minsc, jaheira, aerie, nalia, cernd - nalia I swap around with anomen depending on mood, cernd is there temporarily because of the trademeet quest, in place of yoshi. I know the make up is not optimal, but I would think that an optimal make up should not be required.
- some other encounters that kicked my butt repeatedly before I managed to survive barely, like the temple district sewer encounter with the group of evil adventurers, the vampire encounter in athkatla city (Del), vampire nest in chapter 3 (which I abandoned to complete more side quests in chapter 2, like the trademeet ones and windspear hills)
What am I doing wrong? Should I find an optimal party make up and stick with it? Do quests in a specific order? or just suck it up, ignore the repeated slaughtering and keep trying because the whole game is like that?