In the last 10 years I've been playing BG2 off and on, this is the most comprehensive starting guide for meta-gaming in BG2. It helped a lot of folks I introduced the game to better than my middle aged man ramblings ever could. Thanks for the effort and hard work!
Sick guide man I love how this game seems to still have a really active community, BG1 and BG2 are timeless games. I hope newer players from BG3 will try these games too.
Thank you very much good sir :D Feel free to explore the channel, there's a bunch more guides and full playthroughs of all Baldur's Gate games (and friends like Icewind Dale)
Good guide! You can actually get 2 more full plate mail’s (total of 3) from the armorer/fletcher stores in Waukeen’s Promenade, as well as a +2 large shield, and a number of other good items. Another good couple of stores to add to the “shopping list”!
This is great, enjoyed watching! I will do the ultra cheesy infinite gold loop with a fence and the wands and just buy all the scrolls (and other stuff) to level up quickly. Fun to see a different method. Of course that does let me buy some pretty OP items that you can't steal as well. I feel no guilt. 🤣🤣🤣
Very Nice guide :) I would like to add: Playing solo mage / thief and having lawfull neutral for ferret familiar which has 50% pickpocket in bg1, 75% in bg2 and 90% in tob is really fun way to play this game, use ferret to pickpocket charm cloak and buy scroll of stone to flesh, then abuse basilisk xp then you can easy enter bg2 with like 1,5mill xp. And then you will Get inzane xp from learning scrolls and doing thievery in bg2ee ^^ Next step is to find misslead and you will have really fun backstabbing everything over and over again xD
I really like your style of talking, I can follow you easily. Thank you very much for not using curse words like others do. I can't listen to them. You are the best.
Actually, guys, once your mages can cast the fiend spells, or your clerics can cast Sunray, leveling stops being a problem. Casting and killing the summons from a Cacofiend, or Summon Fiend will give you experience. Cast, kill, rest to refresh the spell, rinse and repeat.😈😈😈 (10,000 xp for Cacofiend) Wisdom of 8 with Limited Wish summons a flock of hostile vampires. High enough levels with Viconia turns them into your army with Turn Undead, but even easier, Sunray them for lots of experience. (12,500 for ordinary vampires.) Limited wish gives you 1 ancient (!) vampire, 2 Mature vampires, and 3 adults. That’s a LOT of XP! Edit: I completely forgot how much experience the scroll exploits do. Obviously my tricks are best used when you don’t have many high level scrolls…
Oh that's really cool! I would grind XP in one of the Watchers Keep rooms where some pretty easy to kill guys with 10000 XP would spawn most of the time; sleep, kill, sleep, kill, etc. But that takes a while to get to and isn't trivial; need to be pretty high level already. This loop you posted is way easier early on!
funny, i have no idea what im gonna do with all this info - but i couldnt stop watching😅👍 Baldurs gate was one of my first pc adventure games back in 2000, i was 10 years old back then and these games are still the goat. that oldschool cutscene with sarevok throwing the knight over the ledge of the tower was simply aweinspiring. he was mysterious, powerfull and untouchable, everything i value in a strong antagonist. sarevok was a much better antagonist than irenicus and mellisandre.. sometimes less is more and redundancy is created from abundancy.. thats why bg3 is just falling flat.. there's little to no mystery because its all laid out for you from the beginning... oh no the dream dude was a mindflayer oh i didnt see that coming at alllllll, nooooo🙄
There is definitely something quite special and epic about the originals and also Sarevok. He had such a strong presence and the story for BG1 is very very good. Not something easily matched even nowadays.
Out of all the things you can do, the only one I cant bring myself to do is the removing spells to relearn them for xp portion. Its just TOO exploity for me, even moreso than the money loop (which I also dont partake in). The stealing is fair game though, makes thieves hardcore useful in the game outside of trap disablers and lockpicks
Pretty much where I draw the line as well. Relearning spells not only seems very cheesy, it also is a lot of work xD And the money loop.. yeah, that's just too silly in my opinion. There's already so much gold to be made in the game, if you just go infinite there it loses a lot of the fun of progression.
Thanks great guide. In scs insane first playthrough being under level makes some fights close impossible like spell trap without rubyrays. Unless you already which fight you can take early on going underleveled makes it a very save and reload. Getting protections from remove magics is so important. Getting into the harper hold and getting your entire party buff removed means death.
Yeah, with SCS we really need to change the way we think about fights and also how and when to approach them. Every fight is harder, but those early encounters when our party doesn't have a lot of items or spells, especially when the enemy contains spell casters, can be quite deadly.
Yeah. I *love* SCS, but there are times.... I remember vividly how I *barely* could take out the slavers in the Slums, and on my way back to report, injured and out of spells - the two thugs outside the Copper Coronet killed me, Jaheira and would've slaughtered Yoshimo if the game over screen did't kick in. It's definitely a different experience. On regular Core Rules, you can just about walk around with the advanced AI turned on and win. With SCS, I make it a point to cast Invis on my party prior to travelling the world map, because you can get mauled.
@@CoredumpedGaming Yeah, that thing is a lifesaver. Sadly, Jan doesn't come with that spell on my install. I have the 'level your characters the way you want to' component installed, I wanted to play around with a few kits. Make Imoen a shadowdancer, Cernd a Shaman, Minsc a Barbarian, that sort of thing. All mages come with the same basic spells, and that one isn't in it.
@@CoredumpedGaming Hahaha! Great content as ever mate. I didn't know all that about the ambush encounters. That's gonna be really helpful for my solo playthrough (shadowdancer 13/mage X), which I'm starting up as soon as my cleric/thief multi slays Irenicus. RR really made thieves so much more fun to play.
@@CoredumpedGaming Dink Smallwood is an old RPG game, the first one I ever played (second one was BG1). It's hilarious and has an active mod community. Try it out sometime if it doesn't cost too much!
Hi, amazing video, first1 :-) Second, which mod have you installed, cause your spells in spellbook have different (and i think items also) colors. They are looking much more beautiful. Can you tell here please ?
Hello, first - thank you :D second - The mods I use that add a lot to the game can be seen here (along with a tutorial on how to install them) - ruclips.net/video/Dpumgv99_iI/видео.html the mod that changes the casting animations is the Tweaks Anthology, I use Icewind Dale cast animations for the spells. The spell menu that I use is from Bubb's Spell Menu extended, which you can see here - ruclips.net/video/ceSuvPXkQXA/видео.html
Even if you're roleplaying good, nothing is stopping a thief from sneaking off and doing things on his own. Perhaps an Inquisitor might be a RP reason for a thief not to be able to sneak off, unless ofcourse the thief is immune in some way.. aka the cloak of nondetection. Ofcourse if the thief does something bad it will rp wise be visible to a Paladin, or rather, a Paladin should know if someone is lying.. anyway.. a thief might loot the Shadow Thief HQ, thinking it free loot which comes from illicit practices.. where a Paladin and rest of the goody good party wouldnt touch a thing.. a thief, a neutral good or chaotic good one, has rp-wise options for thieving, considering the betterment of himself and/or party. Greater good stuff
Oh for sure, the good thing about this is that one can find all kinds of reasoning to do most things in the game :D personally I never limit myself too much because of it but I know some people like to really stick to a certain alignment and never do anything outside of it.
You should try a solo level one Thief Mage playthrough from bg1ee through ToB, I am and it is VERY fun to do. The first dungeon is a real problem, getting the portal key on insane is nearly impossible , and don't over think the mephite portal room, keep your familar bagged if you use one.
On base BG2EE, I play a solo thief mage and have 25 intelligence (from seven play throughs on bg1ee tomes) and yes, you can still fail to write a spell on insane difficulty.
My dood. Great video. Your rolling "r"s crack me up. "Not now woman" lmao. But, PLEASE! @ 1:15:16 you displayed the spells by level in a little chart looking thing, i would really like to know how you did that.
Thank you :D For what you are mentioning, it is a mod, you can check it in action here: ruclips.net/video/ci09KChWcHk/видео.html and there are links in the video description for where to get it and also how to install it (as well as other mods). Enjoy!
One thing I do is pause the game whenever I'm not doing anything as otherwise the potion (or any buff with a duration really) keeps on ticking. Maybe you had some idle time unpaused and that cut into the potions duration?
You can totally use Jan to go on a stealing spree, or any thief really. The main advantage for not using Jan for this is that you can pick him up at a later point to bump up his experience when you recruit him (assuming your character has reached the proper experience threshold).
I mean no special tricks like going invisible or being able to lay down traps, stuff like that :p Naturally the berserker has a very good ability for combat, not so much necessary for what's shown here.
Hexxat is a better Thief to do the stealing with....bring her on and she auto-levels...load her up with pure Pick Pocket 55 + 25 = 80....1-2 less Thieving potions ;)
Quite sure. I also play exclusively no reload at this point and if I plan on nabbing some scrolls (or whichever other reason that makes me think about ambushes) I always take this into consideration precisely for that reason, setting up the initial routine.
@@CoredumpedGaming Hmm all right, I'll trust you :P Do you happen to know if you steal the Talos necklace or Lathander statue before actually getting the quest if you get the 20k xp? Because if so that could be a super easy threat-free 50k xp once you take it back to MaeVar.
@@ComeToJesus For years I've been stealing the necklace before even seeing MaeVar for the first time. But recently I've found out that you also get an additional XP reward for stealing the trinket while having the quest active.
@@ComeToJesus sorry for the late delay answering this but managing replies to comments is for some reason a really hard thing to do on youtube :/ a lot of times the notifications don't come through... I see you already got an answer to your question though, thanks for the info mr. @Николай Захаров ! It really would be great if that were possible though :D
"Very nice clock that gives us discounts at stores" WE ARE STEALING EVERYTHING. I suck at math but i belive that having a DISCOUNT on a FREE product aint that usefull
Yes, you can get Jan earlier and have him do the thieving, the problem with that is that if you go for Jan, you risk getting ambushes along the way, ambushes which you can't really fight by yourself and also would prefer to not skip the loot from. To note though, that by using Yoshimo, you are not wasting any experience. Because the only experience that matters is the one on your main character. So if you pick up Jan at lets say 750.000 experience on your main character, he will also join the party at 750.000.
I think my question fits the topic. Do you know a mod that deactivates the theft function at dealers and shops and thief portions cannot be stacked? Because such exploits ruin the game.
Yes, I'm pretty sure it is either the "tweaks anthology" mod or even "SCS" that have modules for exactly that. I feature both mods in my mod installation guide
@@CoredumpedGaming I use Tweaks Anthology for my BG2 and BG2EE games but unfortunately there is no such Moduls. SCS I am not sure. I just used it one. But I guess there is no such funktion.
@@CoredumpedGaming Tried this method, it gives so much headstart its insane, imho it makes early game too easy. With normal party on lvl 7 i had problems with skeletons in Korgan quest, now they were just deleted;p. Dont know about mid or late game, didnt got there yet. Just started my second play through with scs this time. But ueah ,got kinda mixed feelings about this, wouldn't recommend for new players that just starting with bg series, it ruins early game gradual climbing to power.
I played this game very, very loing time ago. But dont you actually want companions to be as low level as posssible so you can actually customize them better? If you pick them up too late, they will already have proficiency points assigned and not always in a way you would prefer.
It's a trade off pretty much. It's not that many proficiencies that get added with those level ups and from the top of my head the only companion that has some really crappy proficiencies is Anomen. Giving them a boost of xp is a lot more worth it (efficiency wise) than being able to customize 1 or 2 proficiencies. Nothing wrong with picking them up early naturally, the idea for this guide is simply focused on trying to level up quickly.
Oh, the acorns are used to save the Dryads you meet in Irenicu's dungeon (quest). You have to deliver them in the Windspear Hills (one of the areas outside of the city, to the far east) but this is usually done a little bit later.
There is no special condition to do it. When you enter the bridge district you must speak to the guard and learn about the murders. Then you talk to the beggar to have him give you the piece of leather he found, then speak with the prostitute, then the merchant, prostitute again and you should at that point know who the suspect is. With that information you go into the tanner's house and confront him. Was there a step here that maybe you missed?
I'm planning on making a berserker in bg1 and dual class into mage in bg2 If i understood correctly, i could do the scroll learning being alone in the party and that would result in even more xp once i start getting companions, correct?
Correct, you basically get all the scrolls you can, reach the level you want to dual class at (I have a preference for level 9), tell your companions (if any) to wait a bit while you stay in the party solo and learn all the spells you can. Given that experience is divided between the members in the party, solo grants you the most experience. And then, when you recruit a new companion, they will join the party at the experience threshold that matches the experience level of your main character, it's a pretty nice boost for both your main as well as the joining companions.
@@CoredumpedGaming only thing i can't get a straight answer from forums is, does the extra experience apply to new companions? or do the ones waiting at the inn also get it? cause i also want to dual class yoshimo to fighter to make him stronger while i still have him
Sorry for delay in message, youtube is not very good at notifying me on replies :/ the experience will only count for new companions. Any companion you had previously added to your party will only receive experience while in the party. If you bench them to read the scrolls, scroll exp will not go to them. There are mods that change this behaviour however.
If you don’t interact with Jaheria at all in the initial dungeon will she still be at the Harper Hold available for recruitment so that I can get her at a higher exp cap?
No, she will be gone for good. You need to free her from her cage and as soon as she joins the party, pause the game and kick her out. Then she will be waiting at the harper hold
Hello, no mods required for custom portrait or voicepack. For these you either make your own or download from somewhere what you would like to use. Info: forums.beamdog.com/discussion/77446/how-to-use-custom-portraits-bg1-bg-ee-bg2-bg2-ee-iwd-iwd-ee-iwd2 www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/mmgb8r/custom_sound_sets/
I love that component myself. Viconia is really better as a cleric/fighter, and abusing the Girdle of Fortitude gives her enough Constitution to be acceptable.
I have actually have that currently installed and didn't even know that it boosted up the companions exp if I had already picked it up before lol. Caught me quite by surprise when I re-added Yoshimo to the group and he just leveled up to 500k and I was like "waaaaaaaat"... Had to cut that out of the video :p That is for sure a useful option, and honestly I don't find it to be "too powerful". In any case, I want the guides to be able to work for anyone, regardless of they want to install mods or not. But thank you for pointing this out :D
It is from a mod yes, Tweaks Anthology provides some quality of life features like that one, where it makes unique items look "unique" and also help distinguish stuff like scroll cases so you can organize a bit better
Looks like this game is pretty broken. Very confused why the enhanced edition didnt fix that stealing nonsense. Or the mod you have installed for that matter. Changing the potions of master thievery not to stack would probably do it? Doesnt seem to be the most difficult thing to do does it
If you don't enjoy the way stealing was implemented in the game originally or the way these potions stack there are multiple options. If you want something to enforce that in the game you can install the mod component to not allow potion of thievery stacking. You can also simply not do it as a self imposed rule. I have playthroughs where I set that restriction upon myself, especially if playing a lawful character where I simply don't steal anything, does make the game more challenging that way, which is also fun. I think beamdog didn't "fix" the potion stacking in the EE simply to preserve the original behaviour which I imagine a lot of players enjoy.
@@CoredumpedGaming Its alright, I keep forgetting it is a roleplaying game and not at all focused on 'meta' behavior. But now Im not sure I want to play this as I will always know that I play sub-obtimally cause I could have gotten this item or the exp for free but I had to force myself not to do it.. Its like imagine having an exploit that you can do in Diablo 2 where you can loop thievery and selling with Akara in act 1 so you can have infinite gold and then go gambling as much as you want.. Would probably be patched the next working day. Not sure how an exploit like this wasnt patched out after 20 YEARS here. But again - one has to roleplay I guess.
I think this wasn't patched because it was intended behaviour. We can argue if it makes sense or not however :p I totally understand what you're saying btw, I've spoken that same argument for other games I've played, though I normally only worry more about that for games that have a multiplayer component. I would look at it from a different perspective however - you're not playing sub-optimally, you are imposing an additional challenge on yourself to make the game more engaging. And if you want to do it, as long as you have fun with the game, it's also fine. I can tell you that even though doing this gives you a significant boost, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't change that much. You are able to make a tremendous amount of gold in this game so you will reach a point where you can purchase anything you want, though it may take you some time to reach that point of course. If you're new to the game my suggestion is give it a go, have fun with it, find what works for you and go from there. As you said, this isn't really a game to metagamed. You can, but in my opinion that would greatly defeat the purpose of the game and everyone would always play a berserker/mage.
@@CoredumpedGaming I'm giving it a go! Just fetching acorns for the dryiads now xD thx for your responses. Will you still be uploading content for BG games in the future? Have a good one mate
Planning on it if time allows :D BG are my favourite games so I hope to make some more videos for it. Currently finishing up Rogue Trader and Pathfinder Kingmaker and the next project is Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. Have a good one!
Lucky you! That one is the easiest one, just make sure to go during the night time when the priests are sleeping :D I think it depends on your alignment
Edited: if you want to get jaheira later and have her get bumped up to your experience level, when you first talk to her in the dungeon, agree to take her into the party and as soon as she does, immediately pause the game and remove her from the group. She will be waiting for you outside the harper hold in the docks district and will get upped to your experience threshold :)
@@Tirax13 no, it's not something that anyone needs to be extra skilled at doing, it's quite easy. Simply as soon as you see her portrait join the party, you pause the game and remove her. That's it. You can just make a quick save before you recruit her to test it out. I have not yet made a video about this. Let me know if you were able to get it done :)
@@Tirax13 you HAVE To recruit her, if you dismiss her immediately with dialogue instead of booting her right after recruiting her, she is removed from the game.
Well, if you're roleplaying as lawful good and don't want to steal... through hard work and effort :p Kidding aside, there you would probably not get as much exp as someone willing to steal, you would probably want to either assemble your party earlier and do some of the easier quests or if you are able to, solo some of the quests to get all the exp, but if stealing doesn't bother you, just follow this guide
No reason, it was just a character created to make this guide. I would have it at 19 for a playthrough :D (well, 20 because I would usually import him from BG1 having used the tome of constitution)
I see no difference in just pressing CTRL space, adding enough gold to buy the things you can steal, and buy them. Except thats 1000 times quicker.....
@@CoredumpedGaming It's worse than that, an anonymous source confirmed that when Jon Irenicus found out that Tiny Bane was coming for him he left Fareun!
So, at this point, if this is all a matter of, "getting the maximum of XP", day one of your journey. Because the "goal" is to bump up your new recruits XP, before you "really' start the game, you can just : - Save your Game whenever possible in Irenicus Dungeon. - Quit the Game. - Download Baldur's Gate EEKeeper / ShadowKeeper. - Set your XP to desired threshold. - Recruit Companions. Done. 1min30sec top chrono. Spare yourself the Hassle of going through all of this, and enjoy your run from the get go. _(Just "pretend" you did all of that sh*t)_ 😉🤣
Still a Great Guide, don't get me wrong. I prefered the BG1 Quick Leveling Guide, because it felt more legit. Start the game, go kill some basilisks, etc. You didn't get EVERY SINGLE OP Items at the start of the Game, under the pretext of : "I need this to get the XP" But anyway, I recognize it's still a great guide, and did enjoy the video :)
Well, yeah, you're right xD but this way I feel like I'm just using what the game allows me to do through the use of skills and consumables without cheating in any way. And you also get a lot of very good items and spells in the process. If you don't mind using EEkeeper then for sure it's doable. I usually only use EEkeeper to fix some broken state.
@@CoredumpedGaming Yeah I got you, at the end of the day, you DID use many of the game mechanics to achieve this. So it's not like your "cheating", it is 100% legit. Just feels more like a "Best Early Game Start Possible in BG2" video, rather than the "Quick XP Guide" video it was supposed to be :) But anyway, all good, and quite a creative way to get big bonuses that early in the game ;)
I feel like Edwin is teaching me how to play baldur's gate.
This is one of the best compliments I can receive :D
now that i read this i cant unsee it hearing at u
Aaah that was perfect, hat off to you, sir.
You win the comment section!
'What is it NOW?!?'
I love how quick guides for this game are minimum an hour in length.
A lot of ground to cover :D
In the last 10 years I've been playing BG2 off and on, this is the most comprehensive starting guide for meta-gaming in BG2. It helped a lot of folks I introduced the game to better than my middle aged man ramblings ever could. Thanks for the effort and hard work!
Thank you very much for the king words good sir! It means a lot :D
Sick guide man I love how this game seems to still have a really active community, BG1 and BG2 are timeless games. I hope newer players from BG3 will try these games too.
There have been a lot of new players trying the originals due to BG3 which is awesome :)
BG as narrated by Edwin. Interesting!
:D
This guide is perfect if you intend to dual class. I did this recently on a berserker dualed to a mage. Worked wonders!
1:00:56 we all have a Keldorn and an Edwin sitting on our shoulders, inspiring our decisions haha
If I could like this video a hundred times, I would, thank you a lot, I would love to see more Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 videos from you
Thank you very much good sir :D Feel free to explore the channel, there's a bunch more guides and full playthroughs of all Baldur's Gate games (and friends like Icewind Dale)
Good guide! You can actually get 2 more full plate mail’s (total of 3) from the armorer/fletcher stores in Waukeen’s Promenade, as well as a +2 large shield, and a number of other good items. Another good couple of stores to add to the “shopping list”!
Oh yeah, I usually forget about those shops xD Nice additions for sure!
Thank you! :D
This is great, enjoyed watching! I will do the ultra cheesy infinite gold loop with a fence and the wands and just buy all the scrolls (and other stuff) to level up quickly. Fun to see a different method. Of course that does let me buy some pretty OP items that you can't steal as well. I feel no guilt. 🤣🤣🤣
Go wild my friend :D
Very Nice guide :)
I would like to add:
Playing solo mage / thief and having lawfull neutral for ferret familiar which has 50% pickpocket in bg1, 75% in bg2 and 90% in tob is really fun way to play this game, use ferret to pickpocket charm cloak and buy scroll of stone to flesh, then abuse basilisk xp then you can easy enter bg2 with like 1,5mill xp. And then you will Get inzane xp from learning scrolls and doing thievery in bg2ee ^^
Next step is to find misslead and you will have really fun backstabbing everything over and over again xD
Definitely a lot of really cool and crazy things you can do in this game :D one of the many reasons why it's so great!
Drink all potion and rob all city 😂😂😂😂that kill me o man i love you so much and your work 😁😁😁
Thieves prosper :D
Thanks a ton for releasing this with Timestamps!!
Awesome guide, thanks!! I'd love to see a follow-up some time on the other stuff you mentioned (other good starting quests for easy early XP,).
Nice. I’ve learned some techniques that I had never even considered were possible! 🎉
I really like your style of talking, I can follow you easily. Thank you very much for not using curse words like others do. I can't listen to them. You are the best.
Thank you very much! Always happy to hear it was helpful and that you enjoyed it :)
Wow, excellent insight and a very practical, street-wise way to get ahead! Thanks! I am too lawful good, but my thief certainly is not… ;)
Thank you good sir! Also, I like the way you think :D
Really nice guide, cudos. I never go down the stealing lane, something I just must remember to do (I get caught up in other stuff).
Looked for a guide like this for months, nice job
Thank you very much good sir :) Hope it was useful!
Let the games begin! Great guide, loved the wand cheese.
Thank you very much good sir :D
Happy to hear you enjoyed it!
Actually, guys, once your mages can cast the fiend spells, or your clerics can cast Sunray, leveling stops being a problem. Casting and killing the summons from a Cacofiend, or Summon Fiend will give you experience. Cast, kill, rest to refresh the spell, rinse and repeat.😈😈😈 (10,000 xp for Cacofiend)
Wisdom of 8 with Limited Wish summons a flock of hostile vampires. High enough levels with Viconia turns them into your army with Turn Undead, but even easier, Sunray them for lots of experience. (12,500 for ordinary vampires.) Limited wish gives you 1 ancient (!) vampire, 2 Mature vampires, and 3 adults. That’s a LOT of XP!
Edit: I completely forgot how much experience the scroll exploits do. Obviously my tricks are best used when you don’t have many high level scrolls…
I would include those things under the "advanced knowledge of game mechanics" section xD
@@CoredumpedGaming When is that guide coming out? 😍😻
Oh that's really cool! I would grind XP in one of the Watchers Keep rooms where some pretty easy to kill guys with 10000 XP would spawn most of the time; sleep, kill, sleep, kill, etc. But that takes a while to get to and isn't trivial; need to be pretty high level already. This loop you posted is way easier early on!
😢😊😊0
super agonizing guide you are awesome :D
Wonderful as always. Thanks!
This is perfect RP wise for my neutral/evil party run I just started on BG:EE 😊 Thanks!
Eheh it certainly is :D
Enjoy!
funny, i have no idea what im gonna do with all this info - but i couldnt stop watching😅👍
Baldurs gate was one of my first pc adventure games back in 2000, i was 10 years old back then and these games are still the goat. that oldschool cutscene with sarevok throwing the knight over the ledge of the tower was simply aweinspiring. he was mysterious, powerfull and untouchable, everything i value in a strong antagonist.
sarevok was a much better antagonist than irenicus and mellisandre..
sometimes less is more and redundancy is created from abundancy.. thats why bg3 is just falling flat.. there's little to no mystery because its all laid out for you from the beginning... oh no the dream dude was a mindflayer oh i didnt see that coming at alllllll, nooooo🙄
There is definitely something quite special and epic about the originals and also Sarevok. He had such a strong presence and the story for BG1 is very very good. Not something easily matched even nowadays.
Out of all the things you can do, the only one I cant bring myself to do is the removing spells to relearn them for xp portion. Its just TOO exploity for me, even moreso than the money loop (which I also dont partake in). The stealing is fair game though, makes thieves hardcore useful in the game outside of trap disablers and lockpicks
Pretty much where I draw the line as well. Relearning spells not only seems very cheesy, it also is a lot of work xD
And the money loop.. yeah, that's just too silly in my opinion. There's already so much gold to be made in the game, if you just go infinite there it loses a lot of the fun of progression.
Stunning video, thank you so so much!
Good to see good old Gate again
Great guide. Thanks for providing a great service.
Thank you good sir :) glad to hear it was useful!
Thanks great guide. In scs insane first playthrough being under level makes some fights close impossible like spell trap without rubyrays. Unless you already which fight you can take early on going underleveled makes it a very save and reload.
Getting protections from remove magics is so important. Getting into the harper hold and getting your entire party buff removed means death.
Yeah, with SCS we really need to change the way we think about fights and also how and when to approach them. Every fight is harder, but those early encounters when our party doesn't have a lot of items or spells, especially when the enemy contains spell casters, can be quite deadly.
Yeah. I *love* SCS, but there are times.... I remember vividly how I *barely* could take out the slavers in the Slums, and on my way back to report, injured and out of spells - the two thugs outside the Copper Coronet killed me, Jaheira and would've slaughtered Yoshimo if the game over screen did't kick in. It's definitely a different experience. On regular Core Rules, you can just about walk around with the advanced AI turned on and win. With SCS, I make it a point to cast Invis on my party prior to travelling the world map, because you can get mauled.
@@redelephantsdotnl yep, jan jansen is a great friend to have early on since he comes with aoe invisibility!
@@CoredumpedGaming Yeah, that thing is a lifesaver. Sadly, Jan doesn't come with that spell on my install. I have the 'level your characters the way you want to' component installed, I wanted to play around with a few kits. Make Imoen a shadowdancer, Cernd a Shaman, Minsc a Barbarian, that sort of thing. All mages come with the same basic spells, and that one isn't in it.
@@redelephantsdotnl ahhh, I see, that is indeed a shame :/ the prices we pay to mod our games sometimes :D
Tiny Bane omfg I'm dying xD
Tiny bane is best bane :D
He was born in the dark, didn't get enough sunlight so he didn't grow up properly :p
@@CoredumpedGaming Hahaha! Great content as ever mate. I didn't know all that about the ambush encounters. That's gonna be really helpful for my solo playthrough (shadowdancer 13/mage X), which I'm starting up as soon as my cleric/thief multi slays Irenicus. RR really made thieves so much more fun to play.
@@dinksmallwood5561 good luck friend :D
Yeah RR really does a lot for them. Even just the items are useful for other classes as well
@@dinksmallwood5561 btw I saw the other day on GOG that they added the game "Dink Smallwood" :D is that related to your name?
@@CoredumpedGaming Dink Smallwood is an old RPG game, the first one I ever played (second one was BG1). It's hilarious and has an active mod community. Try it out sometime if it doesn't cost too much!
Great guide. Thanks for this!
Thank you kind sir :D happy to hear it was useful!
Hi, amazing video, first1 :-)
Second, which mod have you installed, cause your spells in spellbook have different (and i think items also) colors. They are looking much more beautiful.
Can you tell here please ?
Hello,
first - thank you :D
second - The mods I use that add a lot to the game can be seen here (along with a tutorial on how to install them) - ruclips.net/video/Dpumgv99_iI/видео.html the mod that changes the casting animations is the Tweaks Anthology, I use Icewind Dale cast animations for the spells.
The spell menu that I use is from Bubb's Spell Menu extended, which you can see here - ruclips.net/video/ceSuvPXkQXA/видео.html
Best joke ever: quick leveling guide. Guide is longer than time that You need to play to get that early exp XDXD
Even if you're roleplaying good, nothing is stopping a thief from sneaking off and doing things on his own. Perhaps an Inquisitor might be a RP reason for a thief not to be able to sneak off, unless ofcourse the thief is immune in some way.. aka the cloak of nondetection. Ofcourse if the thief does something bad it will rp wise be visible to a Paladin, or rather, a Paladin should know if someone is lying.. anyway.. a thief might loot the Shadow Thief HQ, thinking it free loot which comes from illicit practices.. where a Paladin and rest of the goody good party wouldnt touch a thing.. a thief, a neutral good or chaotic good one, has rp-wise options for thieving, considering the betterment of himself and/or party. Greater good stuff
Oh for sure, the good thing about this is that one can find all kinds of reasoning to do most things in the game :D personally I never limit myself too much because of it but I know some people like to really stick to a certain alignment and never do anything outside of it.
Let’s goooo new content, noice.
You should try a solo level one Thief Mage playthrough from bg1ee through ToB, I am and it is VERY fun to do.
The first dungeon is a real problem, getting the portal key on insane is nearly impossible , and don't over think the mephite portal room, keep your familar bagged if you use one.
On base BG2EE, I play a solo thief mage and have 25 intelligence (from seven play throughs on bg1ee tomes) and yes, you can still fail to write a spell on insane difficulty.
I'm playing them both on my phone and staying level one, not using the experience I've gained yet.
My dood. Great video. Your rolling "r"s crack me up. "Not now woman" lmao. But, PLEASE! @ 1:15:16 you displayed the spells by level in a little chart looking thing, i would really like to know how you did that.
Thank you :D
For what you are mentioning, it is a mod, you can check it in action here: ruclips.net/video/ci09KChWcHk/видео.html and there are links in the video description for where to get it and also how to install it (as well as other mods). Enjoy!
@@CoredumpedGaming ❤️
I must have screwed up my potions wore off way faster than this even the haste wore of not sure why. Majorly helpful though
One thing I do is pause the game whenever I'm not doing anything as otherwise the potion (or any buff with a duration really) keeps on ticking. Maybe you had some idle time unpaused and that cut into the potions duration?
Great guide, thank you so much. Probably a silly question but why Yoshimo and not Jan?
You can totally use Jan to go on a stealing spree, or any thief really. The main advantage for not using Jan for this is that you can pick him up at a later point to bump up his experience when you recruit him (assuming your character has reached the proper experience threshold).
Doesn't want a class that has special tricks which no other class can use. Chooses Berserker... :D
I mean no special tricks like going invisible or being able to lay down traps, stuff like that :p
Naturally the berserker has a very good ability for combat, not so much necessary for what's shown here.
Hexxat is a better Thief to do the stealing with....bring her on and she auto-levels...load her up with pure Pick Pocket 55 + 25 = 80....1-2 less Thieving potions ;)
You are correct on this. I just can't stand her xD
@@CoredumpedGaming and she is slow and doesnt find traps very well....so good for stealing but not so good on the de-trapping
I see the Black Market Thief is named Marina, is that a mod and does that mod change her or other vendors inventories?
Yes, rogue rebalancing gives them some more uniqueness and some thief related items :)
52:00 How sure are you about this? I didn't know this. I do no reload runs and this would be useful when setting up the initial routine.
Quite sure. I also play exclusively no reload at this point and if I plan on nabbing some scrolls (or whichever other reason that makes me think about ambushes) I always take this into consideration precisely for that reason, setting up the initial routine.
@@CoredumpedGaming Hmm all right, I'll trust you :P Do you happen to know if you steal the Talos necklace or Lathander statue before actually getting the quest if you get the 20k xp? Because if so that could be a super easy threat-free 50k xp once you take it back to MaeVar.
@@ComeToJesus For years I've been stealing the necklace before even seeing MaeVar for the first time. But recently I've found out that you also get an additional XP reward for stealing the trinket while having the quest active.
@@user-zt9ji6do1k Ah shame, you can't get the additional xp without going to the docks and risking ambushes then.
@@ComeToJesus sorry for the late delay answering this but managing replies to comments is for some reason a really hard thing to do on youtube :/ a lot of times the notifications don't come through...
I see you already got an answer to your question though, thanks for the info mr. @Николай Захаров !
It really would be great if that were possible though :D
"Very nice clock that gives us discounts at stores" WE ARE STEALING EVERYTHING.
I suck at math but i belive that having a DISCOUNT on a FREE product aint that usefull
We're not stealing... We're borrowing powerful items to save the world! I fully intend to give them back once we are done with our adventure *cof cof*
Is it possible to get Jan sooner to have him do the thieving? I can't remember. I don't want to waste the xp on Yoshimo if I don't have to.
Yes, you can get Jan earlier and have him do the thieving, the problem with that is that if you go for Jan, you risk getting ambushes along the way, ambushes which you can't really fight by yourself and also would prefer to not skip the loot from. To note though, that by using Yoshimo, you are not wasting any experience. Because the only experience that matters is the one on your main character. So if you pick up Jan at lets say 750.000 experience on your main character, he will also join the party at 750.000.
I think my question fits the topic. Do you know a mod that deactivates the theft function at dealers and shops and thief portions cannot be stacked? Because such exploits ruin the game.
Yes, I'm pretty sure it is either the "tweaks anthology" mod or even "SCS" that have modules for exactly that. I feature both mods in my mod installation guide
@@CoredumpedGaming I use Tweaks Anthology for my BG2 and BG2EE games but unfortunately there is no such Moduls. SCS I am not sure. I just used it one. But I guess there is no such funktion.
Rescrolling looks even more busted if you play serker/mage dual
Because it is :p
@@CoredumpedGaming Tried this method, it gives so much headstart its insane, imho it makes early game too easy. With normal party on lvl 7 i had problems with skeletons in Korgan quest, now they were just deleted;p. Dont know about mid or late game, didnt got there yet. Just started my second play through with scs this time. But ueah ,got kinda mixed feelings about this, wouldn't recommend for new players that just starting with bg series, it ruins early game gradual climbing to power.
I played this game very, very loing time ago. But dont you actually want companions to be as low level as posssible so you can actually customize them better? If you pick them up too late, they will already have proficiency points assigned and not always in a way you would prefer.
It's a trade off pretty much. It's not that many proficiencies that get added with those level ups and from the top of my head the only companion that has some really crappy proficiencies is Anomen.
Giving them a boost of xp is a lot more worth it (efficiency wise) than being able to customize 1 or 2 proficiencies. Nothing wrong with picking them up early naturally, the idea for this guide is simply focused on trying to level up quickly.
Hello mate, could u speed up me a little ? i saw that u told about acorns .. what should i use it for ? could u give me a timestamp for it ?
Oh, the acorns are used to save the Dryads you meet in Irenicu's dungeon (quest). You have to deliver them in the Windspear Hills (one of the areas outside of the city, to the far east) but this is usually done a little bit later.
Why don't I get the same options for my character when trying to do the tanner quest? I simply cannot complete it, no matter what I do
There is no special condition to do it.
When you enter the bridge district you must speak to the guard and learn about the murders. Then you talk to the beggar to have him give you the piece of leather he found, then speak with the prostitute, then the merchant, prostitute again and you should at that point know who the suspect is. With that information you go into the tanner's house and confront him. Was there a step here that maybe you missed?
I'm planning on making a berserker in bg1 and dual class into mage in bg2
If i understood correctly, i could do the scroll learning being alone in the party and that would result in even more xp once i start getting companions, correct?
Correct, you basically get all the scrolls you can, reach the level you want to dual class at (I have a preference for level 9), tell your companions (if any) to wait a bit while you stay in the party solo and learn all the spells you can. Given that experience is divided between the members in the party, solo grants you the most experience.
And then, when you recruit a new companion, they will join the party at the experience threshold that matches the experience level of your main character, it's a pretty nice boost for both your main as well as the joining companions.
@@CoredumpedGaming only thing i can't get a straight answer from forums is, does the extra experience apply to new companions? or do the ones waiting at the inn also get it? cause i also want to dual class yoshimo to fighter to make him stronger while i still have him
Sorry for delay in message, youtube is not very good at notifying me on replies :/ the experience will only count for new companions. Any companion you had previously added to your party will only receive experience while in the party. If you bench them to read the scrolls, scroll exp will not go to them. There are mods that change this behaviour however.
If you don’t interact with Jaheria at all in the initial dungeon will she still be at the Harper Hold available for recruitment so that I can get her at a higher exp cap?
No, she will be gone for good. You need to free her from her cage and as soon as she joins the party, pause the game and kick her out. Then she will be waiting at the harper hold
@@CoredumpedGaming awesome. Thanks. Just wanted to make sure haha.
Awesome, i didnt know you could do that with jaheira. Thanks much for the info.
But, won't that "fix" her into whatever XP threshold you were when you first recruited her?
Which mode for bane portrait and voice?
Hello, no mods required for custom portrait or voicepack. For these you either make your own or download from somewhere what you would like to use.
Info:
forums.beamdog.com/discussion/77446/how-to-use-custom-portraits-bg1-bg-ee-bg2-bg2-ee-iwd-iwd-ee-iwd2
www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/mmgb8r/custom_sound_sets/
Do you consider "Customizable NPCs" SCS component too powerfull to install it? :)
I love that component myself. Viconia is really better as a cleric/fighter, and abusing the Girdle of Fortitude gives her enough Constitution to be acceptable.
I have actually have that currently installed and didn't even know that it boosted up the companions exp if I had already picked it up before lol. Caught me quite by surprise when I re-added Yoshimo to the group and he just leveled up to 500k and I was like "waaaaaaaat"... Had to cut that out of the video :p
That is for sure a useful option, and honestly I don't find it to be "too powerful". In any case, I want the guides to be able to work for anyone, regardless of they want to install mods or not. But thank you for pointing this out :D
so this applicable if you are not importing from BG1
Applicable for both cases :)
How are the scroll cases different colors? That must be from a mod.
It is from a mod yes, Tweaks Anthology provides some quality of life features like that one, where it makes unique items look "unique" and also help distinguish stuff like scroll cases so you can organize a bit better
@@CoredumpedGaming Thanks I'll go check it out!
@pitchforker3304 no problem friend. If you're new to mods I also have a mod installation guide which covers all the mods I use in this playthrough.
Looks like this game is pretty broken. Very confused why the enhanced edition didnt fix that stealing nonsense. Or the mod you have installed for that matter. Changing the potions of master thievery not to stack would probably do it? Doesnt seem to be the most difficult thing to do does it
If you don't enjoy the way stealing was implemented in the game originally or the way these potions stack there are multiple options. If you want something to enforce that in the game you can install the mod component to not allow potion of thievery stacking.
You can also simply not do it as a self imposed rule.
I have playthroughs where I set that restriction upon myself, especially if playing a lawful character where I simply don't steal anything, does make the game more challenging that way, which is also fun.
I think beamdog didn't "fix" the potion stacking in the EE simply to preserve the original behaviour which I imagine a lot of players enjoy.
@@CoredumpedGaming Its alright, I keep forgetting it is a roleplaying game and not at all focused on 'meta' behavior. But now Im not sure I want to play this as I will always know that I play sub-obtimally cause I could have gotten this item or the exp for free but I had to force myself not to do it.. Its like imagine having an exploit that you can do in Diablo 2 where you can loop thievery and selling with Akara in act 1 so you can have infinite gold and then go gambling as much as you want.. Would probably be patched the next working day. Not sure how an exploit like this wasnt patched out after 20 YEARS here. But again - one has to roleplay I guess.
I think this wasn't patched because it was intended behaviour. We can argue if it makes sense or not however :p
I totally understand what you're saying btw, I've spoken that same argument for other games I've played, though I normally only worry more about that for games that have a multiplayer component.
I would look at it from a different perspective however - you're not playing sub-optimally, you are imposing an additional challenge on yourself to make the game more engaging. And if you want to do it, as long as you have fun with the game, it's also fine. I can tell you that even though doing this gives you a significant boost, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't change that much. You are able to make a tremendous amount of gold in this game so you will reach a point where you can purchase anything you want, though it may take you some time to reach that point of course.
If you're new to the game my suggestion is give it a go, have fun with it, find what works for you and go from there. As you said, this isn't really a game to metagamed. You can, but in my opinion that would greatly defeat the purpose of the game and everyone would always play a berserker/mage.
@@CoredumpedGaming I'm giving it a go! Just fetching acorns for the dryiads now xD thx for your responses. Will you still be uploading content for BG games in the future? Have a good one mate
Planning on it if time allows :D BG are my favourite games so I hope to make some more videos for it.
Currently finishing up Rogue Trader and Pathfinder Kingmaker and the next project is Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous.
Have a good one!
hmm.. i was given another task by Mae` Var.. it`s Talos Necklace should be stolen.. o.O
Lucky you! That one is the easiest one, just make sure to go during the night time when the priests are sleeping :D I think it depends on your alignment
so whats about jaheira ? how do i get here if i left her in the dungeon?
Edited: if you want to get jaheira later and have her get bumped up to your experience level, when you first talk to her in the dungeon, agree to take her into the party and as soon as she does, immediately pause the game and remove her from the group.
She will be waiting for you outside the harper hold in the docks district and will get upped to your experience threshold :)
@@CoredumpedGaming so this needs to be timed very well? is there a video anywhere showcasing this?
@@Tirax13 no, it's not something that anyone needs to be extra skilled at doing, it's quite easy. Simply as soon as you see her portrait join the party, you pause the game and remove her. That's it. You can just make a quick save before you recruit her to test it out.
I have not yet made a video about this.
Let me know if you were able to get it done :)
@@Tirax13 you HAVE To recruit her, if you dismiss her immediately with dialogue instead of booting her right after recruiting her, she is removed from the game.
How does one get ahead as lawful good?
Well, if you're roleplaying as lawful good and don't want to steal... through hard work and effort :p
Kidding aside, there you would probably not get as much exp as someone willing to steal, you would probably want to either assemble your party earlier and do some of the easier quests or if you are able to, solo some of the quests to get all the exp, but if stealing doesn't bother you, just follow this guide
One doesn't in second edition D&D, BG or otherwise. LG is the path of masochism and relative poverty.
Why does your dwarf only have 18 con?
No reason, it was just a character created to make this guide. I would have it at 19 for a playthrough :D (well, 20 because I would usually import him from BG1 having used the tome of constitution)
since you're allready exploiting the game you can aswell add xp via console or eekeeper. same fun and immersion spoiling. but to each their own.
I see no difference in just pressing CTRL space, adding enough gold to buy the things you can steal, and buy them. Except thats 1000 times quicker.....
He got Tiny Bane! This is cheating!
Tiny Bane does have extra style points which may affect trader reactions and prices :D
@@CoredumpedGaming It's worse than that, an anonymous source confirmed that when Jon Irenicus found out that Tiny Bane was coming for him he left Fareun!
Your accent... You portuguese?
Indeed good sir!
@@CoredumpedGaming bom trabalho! Saudações dos Açores!
So, at this point, if this is all a matter of, "getting the maximum of XP", day one of your journey.
Because the "goal" is to bump up your new recruits XP, before you "really' start the game, you can just :
- Save your Game whenever possible in Irenicus Dungeon.
- Quit the Game.
- Download Baldur's Gate EEKeeper / ShadowKeeper.
- Set your XP to desired threshold.
- Recruit Companions.
Done. 1min30sec top chrono. Spare yourself the Hassle of going through all of this, and enjoy your run from the get go.
_(Just "pretend" you did all of that sh*t)_
😉🤣
Still a Great Guide, don't get me wrong.
I prefered the BG1 Quick Leveling Guide, because it felt more legit.
Start the game, go kill some basilisks, etc.
You didn't get EVERY SINGLE OP Items at the start of the Game, under the pretext of : "I need this to get the XP"
But anyway, I recognize it's still a great guide, and did enjoy the video :)
Well, yeah, you're right xD but this way I feel like I'm just using what the game allows me to do through the use of skills and consumables without cheating in any way. And you also get a lot of very good items and spells in the process. If you don't mind using EEkeeper then for sure it's doable. I usually only use EEkeeper to fix some broken state.
@@CoredumpedGaming Yeah I got you, at the end of the day, you DID use many of the game mechanics to achieve this.
So it's not like your "cheating", it is 100% legit.
Just feels more like a "Best Early Game Start Possible in BG2" video, rather than the "Quick XP Guide" video it was supposed to be :)
But anyway, all good, and quite a creative way to get big bonuses that early in the game ;)
@@dexgames4366 true, that would also be a cool title for it :p
And thanks! :D
😂😂😂
Get on with it already!