Perfect Party TOB #3 – Baldur’s Gate II

This guide is a collection of tips for forming a strong party in the Throne of Bhaal expansion for Baldur’s Gate II. These tips were provided by GameBanshee users.

Overview

My perfect party is pretty basic, and quite small. My main character was an Elf Sorceress (Just prefer to use the portrait of a pretty lady!). She had STR 9, DEX 19, CON 16, INT 16 WIS 16 CHA 9. Alignment Neutral.

My rationale for the stats: STR – TONS of augmenting devices available, DEX – High DEX is good, plus later when you have to sack stats for the Tears of Bhaal losing a point is no big deal since the AC bonus for 18 is the same as 19, but a 17 loses a point of AC from 18. CON – +2 HP per die is max for non-fighters (In retrospect I should have gotten a 17 since you have to sacrifice a stat to get into the dream Candlekeep when you’ve been stripped of your divine soul by Irenicus � Too bad STR wasn’t an option!), INT – Nice to be smart, but not required for a Sorcerer, WIS – Need it at 16+ for the best choices with Limited Wish, and later wish, CHA – Ring of Human Influence is easy to acquire, as are scrolls of Friends.

I chose Neutral to get the bunny as a familiar, 50% detect traps is nice. Infravision and Sleep/Charm resistance is nice too, so I picked Elf for my race.

The rest of my party consists of Valygar, and Anomen. Basically my tanks; with Anomen doing double duty as Healer, and Valygar being my scout.

This party was easily able to handle EVERYTHING I wanted it to in the game. Anomen is a stunningly effective character. Slap the Crom Feyr in his hands, along with the Mace of Disruption +2 (And later the Runehammer +5) and he’s a whirlwind of destruction…especially since he can Max Specialize in weapons thanks to having been a fighter before becoming a priest.

Valygar is fun as he’s already really good with Katanas – Armed with Celestial Fury and his own Corthala Family blade he’s darn rude; plus his stealth is really high, making him an excellent scout. Later on I gave him the Flail of the Ages for his off hand, and set him to work.

The only weakness with the party is the inability to do anything about the traps that might be found. Lack of numbers was no problem since I could summon stuff like gangbusters. My favorite summons has to be Mordenkainen’s Sword – almost nothing can hurt them, and they can damage about anything. In fact when I went after the elder brain in the underdark I simply sent four of them into the room, and waited until everything (Except for the brain golems) was dead, then walked in and pasted the two brain golems. Another interesting thing is that for some reason I could summon them without blowing my Invisibility…might have been a bug though.

The incredible versitility of a Sorcerer is unbelievable, and with the ToB expansion added they get to learn more spells too! Very cool. Dividing the XP among three characters your guys ROCKET up in levels – I was over level 20 before I even got to Suldenessalar.

Were I to add anyone I imagine it would have to be Imoen; she’s thief enough to do what I would want, plus she gets pretty cool in ToB. Half the fun a lot of the times is the weird and wacky dialogue between your NPCs. I must admit that the BEST dialogue seems to have been with the evil party I played though. Korgan and Edwin especially are fun, but that’s another party. 😉

For the nastier fights I made sure to cast Death Ward, Resist Fear, and Chaotic Commands on my characters (Much easier to get the whole party when there are only 3 of them!). They were even able to take down dragons in fairly short order. Another nice thing is that you can give the entire team the really choice items; in fact I had a surplus of good toys, and almost never lacked for cash.

Submitted by: Mark A. Miller