Fighter/Mage is my favourite class and I play an orc in games whenever possible. Being a half-elf in warrior garb just never felt cool enough.

I'm playing BG2:EE on Legacy of Bhaal mode with Sword Coast Strategems (SCS). It's really enjoyable. My prior playthroughs on hardcore or insane difficulty + SCS) lacked real challenge.

I had put off trying it due to forum feedback that LoB mode was tedious and for masochists willing to spend tons of time pre-buffing and cheesing each fight with summons. And that the LoB depended primarily on having strong spellcasters as melee fighters would be too "squishy" given enemies' large to-hit bonuses. That has not been my experience.

My approach has been to try to offset the LoB mechanic changes by working to match them with the game's own mechanics. Enemy and non-party modifiers in Legacy of Bhaal mode, per the Fandom Wiki, include:
Enemy HP: (Base HP)*3+80. THAC0 Modifier: -5. Saving throws: +5. Attacks per Round (ApR): +1. Armor Class: -11. Level modifier (spell casting level, turn undead difficulty, etc.): +12 for all monsters.

My party is 4 Kensai, 1 Archer, and 1 Skald. Kensais receive bonus +1 to hit and damage every 3 levels up to +13 at level 39. All with dual wielding and using +1 APR weapons in off-hand when available. The Archer (crossbows and shortbow proficiency) receives +1 to hit and damage every 3 levels up to 18 and then +1 for every 5 levels for a max of +9 at level 34. The skald song (+4 to hit and damage, -4 to AC from level 15) provides further enhancement. This effect could also be provided by a blade or any bard class with the enhanced bard song with the High Level Ability (HLA) available from level 24.

I created a full party (no companions in the game have these classes) with max STR, DEX, CON. Contrary to traditional wisdom, I don't plan to dual the kensais to other classes. Whereas mage damage is relatively strong in the base game, it's much weaker when enemies have (*3+80) HP, improved saves, and higher effective level. There is also less utility to casting debuffing spells on enemies (slow etc.) for the same reason.

Settings: Max HP on level-up. I went with LoB + default SCS settings which don't double the damage to players. You could turn the double damage on as it's modifiable unlike the other LoB difficulty increases. I'm sure it's doable with appropriate tactics but it was tedious when I tried it.

While I'm still in progress (nearing the end of SoA), the path has been straightforward. Many fights are still point and click, with bard singing constantly while the kensais and archer attack.

In time, the bonuses of kensais/archers + skald (or HLA bard) song seemed to overcome the LoB difficulty settings. The game has gone fairly smoothly from about level 12 and especially since 15. Between the kensai/archer class bonuses, STR bonuses to hit and damage (or DEX to hit bonuses for archer), grandmastery bonuses, and magic weapon bonuses, I've never had trouble hitting opponents. Finishing them off with the higher HP pool has sometimes required focusing stronger enemies one at a time, whereas point and click work fine for most trash mobs.

The pure fighter classes (kensai & archer) benefited from higher HP and durability compared to multiclass variants. By mid-game, I wasn't getting hit nearly as much as I expected from reading other forum posts. Likely because the bard song AC bonus (-4) largely offsets the LoB enemy's THAC0 bonus (-5), and a kensai with good DEX, cloak, ring etc. can get AC down fairly.

Some fights I had to skip and return to later when the party was more developed. Like Firkraag and Bodhi. But coming back with improved gear, tactics, and progression, these fights were very manageable. Sometimes, I had to tactically retreat and then return to the fights after recovering some HP with regeneration items, or to pick off pursuing enemies at choke points.

For tougher fights, pre-buffing the best fighters with improved haste (cast by the bard) often made the difference. Scrolls of chaotic command (cast by the archer) were helpful at relevant points to avoid mind control effects.

The bard is the only arcane spellcaster. Key spells include knock, resist fear, improved haste, and breach (which has improved effects in SCS). Also remove curse (the SCS golems that apply a non-healing curse present a challenge). The bard hat (which gives lingering song for 2 turns) helps to keep the bard song up in longer fights where the bard must cast breach on enemy spellcasters. Stocking up on relevant scrolls and potions is also key. This contrasts with accumulating large amounts of money with no necessity to spend it beyond a few key items in my prior playthroughs.

The party has no cleric or dedicated healer. Tactical mechanics include managing HP with healing potions, regeneration items, and withdrawing characters to recover HP when needed. Regeneration items (rings of regeneration, ring of Gaxx, Ioun stones, and eventually the Axe of Unyielding) are key. The archer is good for slow poison spells. Restoration relies on scrolls, requiring careful tactical management against vampires or other level-draining foes.

The party has no thief and no way to disarm traps. This leads to a loss of XP from trap disarming and occasional reloads from trap deaths, but overall wasn't as much of a problem as I anticipated.

In some parts, I rarely needed to rest, due to the relative self-sufficiency of the party. Once regeneration items were acquired, rest frequency was primarily determined by the need for bard spells. I also had random encounters set to 4x their normal rate during rest and tried not to rest more than essential.

For flavor, I eventually edited my selected NPC companions to have these classes and attributes for the flavor, while adding and dropping other companions as needed for their quests. But this changes nothing of substance in game mechanics over your own created party.

So far (approaching the end of SoA), this has been most enjoyable BG2 run to date. It has dispelled many of the reservations I've had about LoB mode supposedly being so hard and/or tedious. I've always loved pure kensais and thought that dual-classing them to something else at level 9 or 13 missed out on much of their power. But, the optimal strategies on regular difficulty and Legacy of Bhaal mode are likely very different. Will be happy to circle back with more observations after I finish SoA and ToB.

Because so many of you read the paladin revamp and did discussion of it, I know you appreciate the hard work of modders, let alone mod analyzers like me or Smoldering Bar (if only I could make a good-looking website...)

So it was days ago but to help jog your memories heres' the paladin revamp writeup i worked hard on: https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/s/nCokU27kTo

Advantages:
– Immunity to Charm, Poison, Fear and Morale Failure.
– +3 bonus to hit and damage rolls against all fiendish and draconic creatures.

This is the stuff that gets carried over although draconic and fiends does mean it matches the improved Icewind Dale list so for example, any Wyvern fights are that much more tolerable.

– May use the Challenge ability once per day. Gains an additional use every 8th level.

CHALLENGE: The cavalier marks a targeted creature with a Challenge, reducing both the target's and the cavalier's own Armor Class by 10 for the next three rounds. The cavalier deals additional unmitigated magic damage to the Challenged target. Additionally, the Challenged target can be seen within the fog of war and cannot turn invisible for the duration.

 1st-11th level: 1d6 damage

 12th-19th level: 2d6 damage

 20th+ level: 4d6 damage

Challenge is interesting. Early on the -10 AC is a death sentence! It offers no save so you will shred that AC and the likes of Sarevok cannot dodge your team attacks at all! It’s incredible!

Later on, -10 AC means almost nothing because you have crit strike and buff spells up the wazoo. But… at lvl 20 irreducible 4d6 isn’t horrible. I believe it can go through spell protections since I smacked liches with it. Even then some like Abazigal are easy pickings. Early on the -10 AC for yourself is a game over if you don’t have a team, but as the game goes on? Your AC doesn’t matter and you have damage resistance instead. That’s key to why this is still valuable

– 3rd level: Gains Aura of Chivalry.
AURA OF CHIVALRY: The cavalier exudes an aura which inspires their allies to fight at the best of their ability. All allies within visual range of the cavalier become immune to fear and morale failure and gain bonuses in combat.

 3rd - +1 to THAC0.

 11th - +1 to THAC0 and Damage.

 19th - +2 to THAC0 and Damage, +1 to Luck

So the Cavalier’s aura is different. It has no charisma stipulation and at 3rd level it kinda sucks because remove fear is one of the easiest spells to make room for in a priest spellbook! Heck if it weren’t for the fear immunity aura, this would be sorta whatever. The aura used to have something more and scaled to 24 but that was years ago and it seemed stronger. Now? It’s nice! At 19 the damage is not unwelcome. 3 Thac0 for all at least helps rogues a bit. That’s welcome for sure. Auras are strange because who is affected isn't always clear in the description. In this case, the Cavalier might be void of his own luck if you read it wrong. In the case of most paladin kits the class itself tends to get most of its buffs before the aura kicks in.

– 9th level: Gains Heroic Inspiration.

HEROIC INSPIRATION: When the cavalier's maximum hit points falls below 50%, all allies (except the cavalier) within visual range gain an additional +1 bonus to hit, damage and saving throws.

An interesting way to share some blessings. Another extra aura but be careful relying on this unless you can juice your damage resistances.

Disadvantages:

– Does not gain Charisma-based Divine Grace bonuses.

– Does not gain Aura of Courage.

– May not Turn Undead.

– May not use ranged weapons and incurs a -4 penalty to hit if wielding a melee/ranged weapon in ranged mode.

Turn undead is irrelevant. And the wording of Divine Grace might be confusing but basically it means you don’t get extra saves from looking gallant. Odd for a cavalier but perhaps for the best. You may notice the extra penalty however on throwing weapons. You don;t get to cheese the game with throwing axes. Although you may still want to get Azure Edge. Frankly you will by then have some DUHM and good warrior levels with which to fish for undead slaying. You can still smite evil which is a nice bolster to damage. If there’s any kit that plays mst generic paladin it’s this one. With the race modifiers you can safely dwarf it up.

Use the challenge to strip dangerous enemies of their unbeatable AC, you can use this on Drizzt and pelt him with your archers! Or Aecletec. Or you can use it willy nilly later on and you remember that you aren’t AC Stacking because Gromnir's men hit on a 3 as is so why bother not going for DR instead. Even with -10 penalty to offset your penalty of -4, you wind up at +6 ranged thac0 essentially vs challenged targets. Its a risky venture especially if archers are about, so be wary of that.

The difference 10 AC shredding can do to an enemy is immense... early on anyway. It doesnt matter if Abazigal practically has -30 for most parties because you can soup yourself up as is... of course your AC matters even less!! Drizzt is hittable when you put his AC at -6 instead of 16. So bring by Coran or Khalid (assuming you don't kit him) or maybe you have a real archer mod like Emily or Liltun or you rekitted Kivan because his BG2 mod does so. Nevermind any of that, you also have a Plus to hit aura going to essentially make it 11 at this point. Remember this will stack with bless, bard song and spells like emotion hope/courage if your mod install enables those to really give you the power to kill a good boyscout drow. Just remember to be a boyscout yourself before you take the plunge because when you fall... you don't wanna fall!!!

Of course, the biggest loss is something unmentioned: The loss of Fire and to a lesser extent acid resistance. Almost feel like it should've been in the aura but I get why not. The class is good but it’s not the class that screams the strongest. You will see.

I think it can be fun, funny enough a thiefly party will appreciate the luck aura! So don't give up hope!

Still, it's more interesting of an idea for a gallant cavalier than what we got!

Next time I promise I'm gonna branch and look at some other mods/modders work. Ever wonder what a Charlatan can be like? Yes, it DOES make Eldoth more interestingly exact to his true self! Or maybe something else... maybe you want to see a ranger turn into a Werebear?

I’ve played with mods on others playthroughs but I started a coop playthrough with a friend, completely vanilla. Sometimes we can see eachothers dialogue options and dice rolls, but other times at random we cannot, and also sometimes can’t give eachother things like guidance or bardic inspiration. Is there a fix for this? What are we doing wrong.

Hi,

I've been trying to figure out how to use a Weidu log file as input to Weidu in order to batch install mods. I've looked around but can't figure out how to point Weidu to the input mods list file?

Anyone know how to invoke Weudo Mac and MWL so that they use a list instead of the terminal?

Thanks a lot

I just took out Bassilus and every skeleton dropped a guard's ring, never seen anything like this before.

I have my usual 13 mods installed, this is some of the weirdest every for me.

If you changed romance codes to 2, committed, for all companions including typically non-romanceable characters, what happens?

I was playing BG1EE again and while I was in Candlekeep Catacombs I decided to grind rest spawns for a 15ft Invisibility scroll. Doppelgangers always drop an item from the "Rich" treasure table, which has a 13% chance to give a 3rd level scroll, which has a 5% chance to give the 15ft Invisibility scroll.
It ends up totaling to 0.65% change per doppelganger kill. About a 1/152 chance.

So, I thought it would be fine to just grind it out to get 15ft Invisibility in BG1 on my Fighter/Mage. It ended up taking 404 kills before it dropped lol. (I calculated it through my EXP)

I thought I would post my final haul as I find it rather satisfying.

Edit: In addition to all this I also got a wand of magic missiles. It was with my other wands so I forgot to include it.

For a druid/shaman charname, all the druid-specific spells are all gone from the spell lists. I tested with a new character with added exp from EEKeeper, up to level 5 spells. Entangle, Call Lightning, Insect Plague and all other druid-exclusive spells were missing both for a shaman when learning spells on level up, and for a druid when choosing spells to memorize. They also both don't get the cause wounds spells, which is obviously less important to me.

Even weirder, in SOD, Jaheira does get access to all these spells, and M'Khiin still doesn't (tested with her on level up). What gives?

I have a bunch of mods installed: Artisan's Kitpack and some of the house rules, IWDification (extra priest spells included), SCS, Tweaks Anthology, a couple other minor ones. None of them have something that would remove druid/shaman spells from the list as far as I can tell.

I am trying to play Icewind Dale 1 & 2 in EET. I need to install IWD_EET_END at the end, but I couldn't find any release to download from the github page.

https://github.com/The-Gate-Project/IWD_EET_End

Can someone let me know where I can find it please? Thanks in advance!

How many of you went into Kagain’s store for the first time hoping to sell some shit and got drug around the sword last against your wills?

Hello everyone, I am quite new to this game (only a few hours in) and I was wondering how parties and companions worked. I just got Neera, but I don't have enough room in my party for her, so I tried to kick out Montaron, who took Xzar with him. I then invited them back as I was scared to lose them and I kicked out Khalid, who took out Jaheira too. I was just wondering if kick companions out, is it permanent, as I couldn't find anyway to bring the companions back without talking to them on the map and then having to kick out other companions. I may just be paranoid, but I'm lowkey too scared of losing the companions to move on😭

Hello!

Je viens de lire plusieurs personnes qui recommandent de faire SoD après BG2EE et ToB. Notamment il semble qu'avoir recruté Baeloth dans bg1 EE créée des soucis avec certains npc? J'ai pas compris ce que j'ai lu j'avoue...

Pourtant il se situe entre les deux chronologiquement, même si conçu bien après.

Pourquoi cette recommandation ?

As of now BG2: Reloaded on the NWN2 engine has started play testing. It's not quite in beta, but the long, long project is finally in the home stretch.

There was a really long stretch where little to no information was coming out and the Facebook page where most of the release information is still silent, even after the announcement that it was playable from start to finish 2 years ago.

But one of the main coders has been active on the nwvault page recently and announced they've started play testing.

Jaheira: revenge for Khalid

Minsc: revenge for Dyanheir

Imoen: you helped me get my soul back, let’s return yours

Jan: here for a good story

Me, checking my pocket to see if I still have my autograph on me: do it for them

I have happy memories playing through BGTutu as a Kensei, god that was fun!

I also had fun doing a huge playthrough of BG2 doing every single classes guild quests, and romancing 3 different people.

I also enjoyed the mods for BG1 and 2 which make your party members react in conversation a lot more. Most of your party members barely speak once they join you in BG1, so this is an extra special blessing that really made the game more replayable.

On the subject of similar games, I loved getting to choose my party members classes that they multied into in NWN2. I also enjoyed changing characters stats in Kingmaker so I could change to what I wanted.

So Artisan Kitpack. Remember how I said I’d cover the rest of the rangers next but then I lied just now? Thise were good times!!!

In all seriousness, I will because Manhunter trap goes brrrrr… but I figure I go with something a little simpler. The paladin! The paladin is less changed than the Ranger which is fine because it doesn't need to be. For the most part you get a bunch of the disease based bonuses from IWD 

CLASS FEATURES:

– May wear helmets.
– May wear any armor and use any weapon.
– May not exceed Specialization (two slots) in any weapon class.
– May achieve Specialization (two slots) in any fighting style and allocate three slots in Two-Weapon Style.
– May use Lay On Hands ability once per day to heal a target for 2 Hit Points per level of the Paladin.
– May cast Detect Evil at will.
– May use the Cure Disease ability once per day.
– May use the Smite Evil ability once per day, causing their next successful attack to deal 1d6 + 1d6 additional damage for every 3 levels of the paladin to an evil-aligned creature.
– May cast Protection From Evil once per day per level (starts at 1st level with one use).
– May Turn Undead as a Cleric two levels lower, starting at level 3.
– May cast priest spells starting at level 9.
– Immunity to Disease.
– Divine Grace: The paladin receives a +2 bonus to Saving Throws, with an additional +1 at 19 points of Charisma and every two points thereafter.
– 3rd level: Gains Aura of Courage.

AURA OF COURAGE: The paladin permanently becomes immune to fear effects and passively grants half of their Divine Grace bonus (rounded up) to all allies within visual range*.*

– 15th level: Gains three additional uses of Smite Evil.
– Alignment restricted to lawful good.

– Hit Die: d10

Smite evil is simple. Although doing an extra 6d6 damage at 18 is pretty nice and evils are common!

It's the aura that matters because the auras define paladins and their kits! Keep in mind only the kitless has the Aura of Courage specifically. Some kits do have Divine Grace meaning charisma builds are important. But only the kitless can share saving throws.

The Aura of Courage is pretty decent if not really good if you can foster its potential. And with the “any race for any class” mod component (some restrictions like Human and elven Arcane Archer Warhorn Shaman race limits on special Eeex fist kits still persist mind you), you can compound even more saves… that said I cannot recommend being a a rizzless dwarf, even if house tweaks let you throw Azure Edges that much better! I’d rather be a halfling and chug potions to offset my strength and have that extra charisma to hit those saving throw milestones. There are less ways to fix charisma penalties than there are strength. There is no “draw upon holy friends” spell which would be worth focusing a spell alot on if you DID but you can’t! In 1 you are gonna go about and you better be a boy scout for a bit: You do a bunch of good deeds or temple donations, reaching at least 13 rep then you give Algernon his whats owed. At that point it's like you’re wearing a cloak of protection as far as saves go, meaning you can wear full plate and a prot ring for lots of saves.

It also enables your charisma buff to reach +3 meaning that your party gets +2. The most important thresholds after that for a party is 23 to be at yourself +50 to let your party get a nifty +3

You likely won't get that in BG1 as the only other items that grant are the helm of glory for +1 and use the tome for a permanent +1 so you have that glorious 19 at all times!

This is why halfling. You are sitting pretty at lvl whatever at 18 con with some extra saves vs everything that matters then you are at 21 for an extra +4. That is very nice for sure! You can offset the low strength more readily with potions or the belt or the casts of good boy DUHM! It really isn’t that big a deal! You are a paladin.

You can find a few more items in SoD with charisma if you’re so inclined.

Then comes BG2… there are a few more charisma items readily available!

First off: You can get Blade of Roses for +2, Balduran Plate for an extra +1 and Hrothgars Axe for an extra +1… you know that joke axe nobody gives a shit about?! Yea that one! This sets you to 23 charisma. If you can do an early Lum for +1 and you really have no choice but to take the good path from Sarevok for +1 more. You can swap out Balduran for the helm of Glory, although at this point it doesn’t matter much. You can of course get the makeshift Algernons cloak from Gorch if you’re so inclined!

You may not like it, but this is just what peak performance looks like! Really though at these lvls, 23 should be sufficient even if you’re a dumb human!

After all you get +2 from the hell trials as is (you don't really want to do any evil option because you’ll fall! In turn, this is peak male or female paladinal performance!

So to recap you are equipping: Blade of Roses, Axe of Hrothgar, Helm of Glory, Balduran Plate or Forget the last 2 and use the Dryad Cloak! You are the rizz of all rizz!

And by then you have DUHM so all your strength woes are gone. Or you get a giant belt and relax if you’re a halfling. You need an extra charisma piece for a dwarf unfortunately. But for other races you just get what you get but a halfling just saves vs everything! It’s fantastic!

Is it better than a fighter/mage? Hahaha no. Is it better than some of its kits and the old pure class? I wouldn’t call it the weakest at all, and in some ways both from a gameplay standpoint and role power of this inspiration who gives you the will to resist dark magic! But… it’s still a paladin but now it has a [World of[ Warcraft [or III’s] aura mechanic. It works and your party will thank you for it. So yea get to 23 charisma when you can and most of the gear is adjustable so if saving throws aren’t needed you can do something more useful.

Note some kits do get charisma based save bonuses but only the true class can share it with their squadron

The feel of this class is certainly more of a valiant charismatic leader. You get to be fearless and match into combat. You can give it a try with Ajantis although his BG2 mod offers cavalier and the Kitpack offers Divine Champion. Most Paladin NPC mods like Isra and even Saerileth also offer cavalier!

You could install Sirene as trueclass but cmon the Martyr is her lifeblood! Get with it my guys!

I do suppose Lavas Arkanis mod lets him be a dwarven paladin so I hope you gathered those charisma items so he can aura you up! It’s a fun class and while it’s a simple little aura I’ve literally talked about it for a good third of the runtime of this post

Next time I’ll talk about another kit or item pack. I never said if it would be from this Kitpack or not because I’m chaotic neutral whe it comes to organizational preparation! Have fun! Just remember to get flowers for Algernon before you off him or you will be a rather useless fighter for a long long time! I’m not kidding. Donate to all the churches you can then kill him then donate again especially if you want to recruit some drow (and with modding of course Viconia and Baeloth aren’t the only ones!

I feel like a butt for glossing over Lay Hands and Smite Evil and the imho really good that is an almost unlimited supply of prot evils but this ability is just so worth building around and the others don’t need special considerations!

TLDR: Charisma maxing with no friends challenge.

Hello
I'm planning to do a EE (unmodded) run with a CHARNAME focused on changing shape and slapping enemies with their monstrous appendages (and spells). I've done a bit of research, but still I'd like some opinions before finalizing my choice for the run.

These are the options I'm considering:

Avenger Druid
+ access to extra forms
+ some extra spells
= no Polymorph Self, but can get some forms with the Cloak of the Sewers
- has to spend HLA slots for the late game forms

Blade Bard
+ access to Polymorph Self
+ extra self buffs with the Blade skills
+ can get a Familiar (no Imp tho)
+ can get Thief HLAs
- no 9th level spells so no Shapechange
- Haer'Dalis exists

Dragon Disciple Sorceror
+ access to Polymorph Self
+ access to Shapechange
+ can get a Familiar
+ more CON and Fire Resistance
+ doesn't have to go scroll hunting for spells
= and yet it would be better to bring a second arcane caster in the party
- no Fighting Style proficencies

Mage/Thief multiclass
+ access to Polymorph Self
+ access to Shapechange
+ can get a Familiar
+ can use thief skills
+ can backstab
+ can get thief HLAs
- slower leveling means I have to wait more before being able to turn into ugly things

Are there any other pro/cons I may have missed?
What would you suggest me to take?

Wanna rescue Imoen as early as I can but I also don't want to miss any important story sequences, quests, companions, etc. Is there a list anywhere of Chapter 2 stuff that becomes inaccessible after you rescue Imoen or is everything basically the same after you get her?