Hey, im finishing BG1 and going to play 2 after (no SOD until finish 2, i think this is the correct option).
Im thinking about what vompanions to pick and have a little FOMO-thing. Dont want to miss any content so...
Do you change a lot the companions? Do you bench them when finish their quest-line (if there is anything like this in BG2)
How do i know where to go with each companion... In Deadfire i love that the add a portait of the companion with content in each mission... Really want some guide or hint about this in this game but dont want to spoil anything reading a walkthrought
No point on FOMO because you will MO a lot and that's how the game is supposed to be played. If you follow guides for strongest weapon/armor/build ánd overpower enemies isn't as fun and rewarding as finding stuff by yourself, but as a consequence you miss a lot
Sorry but whats "MO"? My english is not very good
Miss out. You used the acronym yourself FOMO
XD im an idiot... Thanks
they mean you'll miss a lot anyway, the game is supposed to be played multiple times so you can experience it all
for example, it's unlikely a good aligned pc would bring around an evil companion wizard to his group
but if you really want to do it, do as other people suggested: make a party of fixed companions, like 4 or 5, and use the free slots to recruit others, finish their quests and rotate when it's over
Ok. Thanks a lot for your explanation
This is the way!
I agree with going straight to BG2
I watch films in the order they were made, same with playing games. Surely no-one starts their Star Wars journey with the Phantom Menace.
I would include SoD in your second playthrough.
As for companions, just play it as you see fit, with as little prior knowledge as possible. Try not to chop and change too much though, the beauty of these games is the replay-abilty.
Younger people absolutely start from episode 1 these days. What a terrible choice, though.
You’re going to have a GREAT time no matter what you do with your companions. I won’t tell you anything to ruin your experience, only that I know that there are two companions I pretty much never left out of my party.
Enjoy one of the best games ever made, my friend!
Nah, you just take different companions in your next playthrough.
BG1, SoD, BG2, ToB
In BG2, I usually have a main 5 and rotate the 6th for quests as needed, then settle on a 6th. Sometimes I just pick my 6 and don't do the other companion quests that need them.
I changed mine quite a bit, and paid the price. My companions were under leveled as a whole,
The key issue is that when a companion first joins your party their experience level is adjusted to match your party (roughly and with a cap). This experience adjustment only occurs once. So if you bring someone along and then dump them, and return to them later they can be under levelled.
For your first play through, I’d just encourage you to pick the companions you enjoy and experience the game in a way that makes all us veterans jealous.
If you decide on doing subsequent playthroughs (and we hope you do), then you can focus on other aspects of the saga and try something different.
Don’t spoil your first and only chance to experience this with fresh eyes.
No, I always choose who I will have in my party and this determines the kind of game I'm going to have, and usually also the kind of main character I make. So I will decide to make, for example, a "nature" party with a lot of rangers and druids, or a "holy" party with paladins and other good-aligned characters, or an evil party with backstabbers and murderers and Haer'dalis, usually, because he gets along with everyone :D
Of course, it helps that I know the game well so even if these parties lack some skills or options I know how to work around them, but overall, I think this is the best way to enjoy this game - as a specific story of these specific people who went through these specific adventures. Other people's quests I just don't do, and accept that they're not part of this particular story.
most of the companions have some sort of minor sidequest so it would be very hard to juggle to see EVERYTHING but in most cases it'll be just a quest somewhere you're going anyway or a minor followup after x days of recruiting them.
the only significant stuff you'd miss is from the new companions Beamdog added (Neera, Dorn, Rasaad, Hexxat) which is of mixed quality (as are the companions themselves)
all the companions offer a lot more character than in BG1 so you'll have a good time regardless. for gameplay purposes I would definitely recommend keeping party members you like and complement each other rather than trying to juggle them all - you'll end up with some of your party underlevelled otherwise. It's a very replayable game so you can easily come back to it later to play through with all the NPCs you shunned first time because they were evil, or the one you didn't take because they were the same class as you.
In addition to all the answers you got so far: Companions have banter and mini-relationships with each other. Some hate each other and might even start a fight if left in the party together too long, some might flirt with each other (which might even impact your own romance...) - and in some (rare) cases, a third companion might even butt in for one reason or another. So on top of the characters own content, there are a lot of interpersonal combinations that would make you 'miss out' on content too.
If that content is worth doing a full new run for? Depends on how much you like the game. But it absolutely means that you WILL miss out on content even if you change your team like a working girl at the docks..
Also, while all companions have some sort of (mini)sidequest going on at some point, some are flat out more 'there' than others. Telling you which have more or less content might be spoiling too much, so I won't - but let's just say there's a reason I usually end up with an all women plus one asshole mage team xD
Also², some characters might feel like the 'core' group (namely Imoen, Jaheira, Boo and his stupid sidekick) since you start with them in tow from BG1 (and they actually are canon) ... but still, don't be afraid to ditch them entirely. Took me a while to have the heart to do it, but once I did, it was liberating..
I rarely change companions, because when I play BG1/BG2 my main focus is to create a journey and roleplay my character, which means I try to keep or switch party members when I feel it makes sense to my main character
That said, no one should tell you how you play these kind of games. They are one of the best CRPG and I guess one of the main reasons for that is the potential to roleplay in them, giving this feel of a tabletop adventure handcrafted to you! Have fun and gather your party before venturing forth <3
The fun is seeing how different companion compositions interact. Don't try for everyone. Try for people you like.
I do tend to rotate companions out at certain points in BG2 because it just seems to make sense for their story and helps free up room for others. At the very least, I can usually expect to "drop" Minsc, Airie, and Harry Dallis with the "lore" being the later two romance and the former is her body guard -- they basically go on their own adventures.
Keldorn retires for story reasons.
Cernd retires for story reasons.
Yoshi retires for story reasons.
That generally leaves (for a good party, anyway) Jaheira, Imoen, Anomen, Jan, Mazzy, Nalia, and Valygar. I usually don't take Jan unless I'm desperate for a dedicated thief (rare), and Anomen is... kind of annoying. So Jaheira, Mazzy, Nalia, and Valygar tend to make up my core party once others have retired, plus Imoen later on.
It's a solid group that basically covers everything no matter what your own class is, and you get to have the other characters around long enough for personal quests and (for Harry and Aerie and Minsc) some interpersonal relationships to develop and conclude.
The main issue, if you are wanting to actually wait for those things to trigger, is to just rest often and travel a ton -- don't be too efficient at questing -- so they actually engage in their dialogue or start their personal quest. Cernd is a good example of one that I don't tend to keep in my party for very long, and once his personal quest is done it just seems weird to keep him around so I try and get him in and out ASAP. Same with Keldorn.
I always have my main crew and then a rotating spot so I can work through almost all of the companions and do their quests. I then go forth with my final full group when Im ready
Just use 4 companions you like, for a fixed party of 5, and then use the last spot to switch in companions for their quests. You’ll be able to do all the non-romance companion quests that way. And then you’ll have a free spot for a new TOB companion.
yoshimo edwin anomen keldorn jan or cernd
i feel like they embody the vibe bg2 sets out to achive
you can dual yoshi to fighter once you get his set traps dialed up at lvl 11 and give him spear (unicorn) and small bow (gessen)
Storywise you should do SoD before BG2. Also some SoD items can be import into BG2.
Storywise? No absolutely not. I somewhat enjoy SOD and have played it three times, but it is written with players that have already played BG2 in mind. It reuses a lot of BG2 assets without plomp or fanfare, taking away a lot of meaningful firsts in BG2 to create some minor (admittedly interesting) combat encounters. The foreshadowing makes the opening worse as well.
u/laz_Zack, A player that recently played through BG1 and SOD for the very first time just posted this review only a day or two ago:
https://backloggd.com/u/Laz_RPG_ADV/review/3780572/
I advise u/Revanroi3 to read that review instead of listening to any of us old grognards since that person actually was in a similar situation.
Thanks, will do
I read that you can screw balance with the exp gained in SOD... And that the story can be better if you already have done with bg2. You think i should go SOD before bg2?
IMO the first concern is a pseudo-objection for people who do not otherwise enjoy SoD and want another reason to dislike it.
The tutorial dungeon will be easier, but the tutorial dungeon is already designed to be easy unless you're cranking up the difficulty slider or modding. Once you get out of that portion of the game, people will be tripping over themselves to offer you easily achievable quests to quickly level you up. In other words, you will be at SoD levels of experience within a couple of hours of gaming no matter what you do because the game wants to get you quickly to the point where there are 250,000 XP or so between levels so that you can begin tackling the harder stuff and level up more slowly.
I actually think it's more of a problem (and I still don't think it's a real problem) for experienced players who can use game meta-knowledge to tackle quests in the most optimal way (i.e., in order of what is easiest to hardest to achieve). For that person, the path of least resistance will have even less resistance for the first few hours of the game. However, the game is huge, and those first few hours are a pretty insignificant percentage.
I'll leave others to discuss the SoD story, as that's a discussion that tends to generate more heat than light.
EDIT: I will offer one unique advantage of playing SoD for most newer players. It's good at forcing you to grapple more with the actual mechanics of the game in a way that will pay off in BG2.
Depending on party composition, it's quite possible to brute force your way through most of BG1 without really getting a handle on how to leverage consumables, magic, buffing, and debuffing. SoD is (at heart) more straightforwardly combat focused, making a kind of swarm and auto-attack playstyle less viable. Obviously this doesn't necessarily describe every new player, but SoD does have several encounters that force you to come up with solutions to combat problems that may be outside your comfort zone.
It also doesn't give you as easy access to the optimal characters exactly when you want them, allowing you to experiment more with different classes and abilities (as you either go with a smaller party or rotate your team a little before you settle on a final crew).
I dislike SOD but apart from disliking it, I think there’s a big change with the extra half million xp you get in SOD, which is that your companions scale to it when they join. So it ends up being 3 million extra xp at the beginning of the game. If you don’t think that matters that is fine. Maybe you do like it. I kind of like it because I have munchkin tendencies and therefore I don’t want to skip SOD even though I find it tedious because it simplifies the dual class process tremendously. But to say it is not game altering is not correct imho.
My point isn't that it is game altering. I'm willing to concede that. My point is that it is game altering in an insignificant way since 1) it only alters portions of the game that were already designed to be easier; 2) it alters a tiny fraction of the game (since it's such a small portion of the game where you will notice the difference -- i.e., when you reach the point where there are much bigger XP gaps between levels); and 3) the game wants to get you quickly to that point anyway so that you're ready to do tougher stuff without giving up because you're in over your head.
I also don't find the scaling companion argument terribly compelling because I just don't think an extra level on companions in the early game is enough of a power differential to worry about. Martial characters will have one better THACO and spellcasters will have 2-3 more spells. This hardly seems game busting to me. Also, personally I'm usually running a small team at the beginning of BG2 precisely because I want to take advantage of the scaling abilities of companions when they join (though admittedly I'm modding the game and not playing on core difficulty).
All of which is to say that while I disagree with you, it's more a question of degree and importance than thinking you're wrong. I think you're right to emphasize that it will change the experience of BG2 for the first few hours. However, I also question whether a novice player would actually notice the difference even if it were possible to go in blind both ways and compare the experiences since they will be unlikely to playing optimally anyway -- which is to say that the power differential will be more noticeable to someone who understands how to best leverage small advantages.
I will also concede that there are at least stretches of SoD that I find a little tedious as well, though I strongly suspect that percentage is much lower for me than you.
Yeah I get your argument. It could be because I played a thief —> mage that the power spike by the time I hit the underdark seemed like a lot. Only way to be sure is to play again with a straight from BG1 character. I guess I have to do another playthrough. Damn it. I was hoping to avoid this he said very insincerely.
Any single-classed or dualed mage is going to have a huge power spike at that point in the game. That's the point where mages start to transition from important party members to demigods.
If you don't care for SoD, the one dual that is arguably more irritating to play SoD than not is fighter (who are we kidding -- berserker) to cleric (assuming you're optimizing and dualing at 9). This is because the level advancement table for cleric means that not only do you never recover your fighter levels, but you really spend all of SoD as a pretty minor role player in your own party because you're always way behind everyone else in terms of power -- but without the benefit of enemies who are affected by your bread and butter cleric spells that you would be using in low levels of BG1.
You ameliorate some of the SoD frustration by dualing at 7, but at that point, why wouldn't you just play a different PC and take Anomen in BG2?
Thanks for your response. With yours and others insights i think will play SOD before BG2
Seasoned players are not in the position to know if you should include SoD in your first run of the saga or not. They (me included) played BG for the first time like 20 years ago
Instead seeing SoD as a stand alone title, you should treat it like a mega fanmade mod or something. It has nice item and encounter design, but adds story and XP where there should be none. So your level and knowledge would be higher as expected at the start of BG2. On the other hand you could do so many side quests in BG2 (act 2/3) ... that makes you overleveled for the main story anyway
No, the exp from SoD will not mess up the balance, because you get it in BG2 anyway and even much faster. Only if you play as a mage, you'll enter BG2 much more powerful.
Im playing sorcerer with SCS and a few more mods (in BG1, want to do the same in bg2). So maybe be more powerfull will not be as much impactfull as in vanilla game
As a sorcerer, you unlock 2 level 5 spell slots at the end of SoD. You probably want to take Breach and Spell Immunity. This will make it easier for you to complete quests in Athkatla.
Do not be afraid of playing SoD before because overleveling: in SoA spawns are somehow scaled to your level to keep the challenge, because you can do the same quests at different levels depending pf your choices.
Spawns yes, scripted encounters mostly no. Yes, you'll get a nameless Lich and two mummies in a random corridor in a dungeon, but the bad guy in the end will then die in 2 combat rounds, tops. The average difficulty might be fine, but the game does get easier where it matters most.