Statistics – Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II

As in most role playing games, characters in Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II have a set of statistics which determine their skills and abilities. As you gain levels, you will gain points to spend on increasing your primary statistics. Every four levels you gain gives you one point you can spend to increase an ability of your choice (you get one point at 4th level, another at 8th, the third at 12th, and so on).

Primary Statistics

Strength: Strength measures your character’s physical power. Characters with a high Strength have a better chance to hit opponents in melee combat, do more damage when they hit, and can carry more weight than weaker characters.

Intelligence: Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons. The higher your character’s Intelligence, the faster your arcane energy regenerates, and the more arcane energy points you gain each time you advance a level.

Wisdom: Wisdom describes your character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. The higher your character’s Wisdom, the more experience points your character will gain when they kill monsters or accomplish quests.

Dexterity: Dexterity measures your character’s hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance. Characters with a high Dexterity have a better chance to hit opponents with ranged weapons and have a better Armor Class.

Constitution: Constitution represents your character’s health and stamina. A high Constitution means your character will have more hit points and a faster hit point regeneration rate.

Charisma: Charisma measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, and physical attractiveness. The higher your character’s Charisma, the less trouble they will have buying and selling items at the local store… in fact, your character may find the prices quite reasonable indeed.

Secondary Statistics

Experience: This is the total number of experience points your character has. Your character gains experience points both by completing quests and killing monsters. Note that in a two player game, the player that kills a monster gets 60% of the experience, while the other player gets 40%. Both players get 100% of the experience gained from quests, however.

Next Level: This number represents the number of experience points your character needs to reach the next level of experience. Every time you gain a level, you gain more health, arcane energy points to spend on feats and, depending on the level, your ability scores.

Health: Health or hit points (hp) is a measure of how many points of damage your character can take before dying. When a character reaches 0 hit points, they are dead. Hit points are represented by the red bar on the upper left corner of the main game screen.

Hit points can be healed via potions, and they will also regenerate slowly over time. A high Constitution allows you to regenerate hit points faster than normal.

Arcane Energy: Arcane energy is a measure of how much energy a character has to use active feats, spells, or special attacks. When a character has 0 points of arcane energy, they will be unable to use any spells or feats that require energy.

Arcane energy can be recovered via potions, and the energy will also regenerate slowly over time. A higher Intelligence allows you to recover arcane energy faster.

Armor: Armor represents a character’s Armor Class (AC), a measure of how difficult it is to hit and damage a character in combat. The higher this score, the better.

Base Attack: This is the bonus your character has to hit an opponent in combat. The higher, the better your chances of hitting your enemies.

Damage: This is the base attack damage your character does. Once again, the higher the better, much to your enemies’ dismay.