Loaded Baldur's Gate again - need advice

[Daverino]

I bought BG and TotSC back in 1998 or 99 when it first came out. I played the hell out of it, but I think I only finished about half the game before getting bored and quitting. Honestly, I can't even remember why I quit. I *think* it was because I got to a point where the next boss to beat was massively more powerful than my party and I didn't feel like grinding any more.

Anyhow, that was then and this is now. I'm in the mood to finish up some RPGs I have left on the table and I remembered I had this sitting in the closet. I have one question though: Does role-playing matter in this game? Usually when I play an RPG I decide on the personality of my toon and try and stay faithful throughout. In this case, I felt like a pure neutral thief ala Garrett from Thief. This being an older title, will BG accommodate me? Or will I basically find myself shut out of all the interesting quests and prevent myself from forwarding the plot. In which case, I'll just take all the quests that present themselves for the sake of XP.

I remember KoTR being the first game that really let me role play and choices mattered. That was also BioWare, but it was five years later.

 

[Anteaus]

Like any other game, what you put in is what you get out. RP doesn't really matter in the sense that your going to miss major plot devices, but yes it will affect NPC choices. I could be wrong, but BG games are generally balanced around a lawful neutral human fighter. With good stats, that build will likely give you the most bang for your buck. However, in my experience many people who really love the game are the ones who RP non-standard builds in order to up the challenge.

I personally didn't like BG1 all that much. BG2 and PS:T are amazing. Ironically, Icewind Dale (not Bioware, but same engine) is actually my favorite out of the ADD/Infinity games, even though it doesn't come close to being as good as BG2 or PS:T in total.

 

[Via]

I think only party membership is affected.

I remember a well-geared character unexpectedly left my party on my very first game because I became too "good". I didn't know enough about RPGs at the time to realize that could happen.

And I think that if you become too evil Flaming fist will show up everywhere and fight you (I think, at least).

 

[DaveSimmons]

Like Via said party members do have alignments and will leave if yours is too far away. Besides that, like most other Bioware games they support good, neutral and evil choices.

If you want to play a mage it may make sense to powergame a little and play human, get a few fighter levels, then change class to mage.

In the old D&D rules there was an XP cap rather than a level cap, so a human who dual-classed like that could end up (say) a fighter 6 / mage 9 instead of a mage 10. Cheese tip: for a mage, learning spells grants XP, so if you build up a collection of them as a fighter you can instantly get several mage levels just by reading enough.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Except in computer games, the sorcerer was always preferred over the mage due to the sever limit of number of good spells and the huge bonus to number of spells that could be cast. In pen&paper, the sorcerer was always out-shined by the mages due to the vast number and variety of spells available, especially across multiple game sessions.


That said, I don't remember if BG had the sorcerer class...

 

[DaveSimmons]

I think sorcerer was there, but not great for dual-classing since you couldn't gain XP by reading scrolls.

Also in BG II in particular, you needed that vast array of mage spells over the wimpy sorcerer selection. The boss battles played tactically where you'd set up spell triggers and sequencers to fire off sets of spells.

This is OLD D&D rules (2.0?) not the rules from Neverwinter I or II or DDO.