I posted this in the BGT Forums at Spellhound Studios, but those forums are very slow. Maybe someone can help me here...I'm looking for a recommendation, not asking help to fix a problem.



Baldur's Gate (but not modding) noob here, so I apologize in advance. I tried playing BG2 when it first came out years and years ago, but I didn't have the patience for it when I was that young. Also I apologize for this verbose post.

I recently purchased BG1 and BG2 from GoG so I can use this mod. After spending days looking at all sorts of other mods, I've finally compiled a list of about 15 of them: no content-adding mods (like new NPCs or quests) but many mechanical and balance improvements (based on all their other games, Bioware has always been TERRIBLE at balancing anything). This way it's a somewhat close "vanilla" experience, because I've never played the games before.

One of my main questions is: for the Def Jam experience fixer, I found the recommendation to install it, but not what to set anything at. 75%? Full xp for kills but 50% for quests? I have no idea. So I just went with setting everything to 75% (I HATE the feeling of being over-leveled in RPGs).

The issue is now, after getting all the mods to work (HUGE pain) and playing for about 7 hours (I'm at the third Cloakwood segment) I feel like I'm under-leveled for everything. In fact, with Sword Coast Strategems installed (just AI improvements, none of the tactical challenges) certain portions of the game, like fighting 5 druids of the shadow at once, feels entirely broken at my level. I feel like I'm leveling up too slow.

But I also feel like I'm leveling too fast. If I remember properly, in Shadows of Amn your character starts at level 7 or 8. But I'm already at level 6 in my main at Cloakwood. I have no idea how long Baldur's gate is, but I assume I'm not that far.

How is the transition handled? Will I be level 20 and stupidly powerful at the beginning of BGII? Will I get de-leveled to 7? I've heard that characters get far too uber by Throne of Ball without any mods installed, so I WANT Def Jam installed, but I also don't like feeling underleveled in BG1. What is the recommended solution to this?

Thanks for all the hard work on BGT, though. I would never have bothered with BG1 if it weren't for this mod (and might not anyway if the leveling progression is as whacked at it seems)

Thanks for any advice in advance!

I don't know how the transition is handled, as I've not played it through with BGT from BG1 to BG2.

As for your character, it really depends:

Are you playing with a full party of 6?
What class(es) is your character?
Have you done a lot of exploring and cleared out other areas? If an area is too hard, which can easily become the case in this series, you can always go elsewhere and do some other quests/exploring and gain some more levels.

I can't recall for certain, but I believe even with BGT your level/XPs is/are capped in BG1 anyway unless you select a specific option to have it uncapped, so you should have no worries about going into BG2 with that character.

My main character is a Bard, a Skald. But this is using the Rouge Rebalancing mod, so Bards are actually useful.

Full sized party, using the "cannon" party, so Minsc, his witch, Jaheiera and her husband, and Imoen.

I've cleared absolutely every area I could go to, with the exception of the "something" Tower, which is near Firewine bridge and Gullykin. The Enemies there right at the beginning can 2 shot Minsc at level 6, so they were impossible to beat. Was planning on coming back later. This is why I feel like I am screwed...I can't go anywhere else to level. It's either here or Cloakwood, where my whole party gets CC'd with insect swarms and charms in seconds by the 5 druids, and then annihilated.

Everything up to this point has been pretty much a "just right" challenge, so I thought I was going fine.

Can someone else comment about how the transition is handled in BGT? Coelocanth, you mentioned there is a hard cap...but vanilla SoA starts at level 7, so does that mean I'm capped at 7?

The whole thing makes no sense and there's no documentation on it anywhere, with or without the mod.

Remember, I'm fuzzy on whether or not BGT affects the cap, but if it holds, you're capped at 161,000 XP in BG1. The rebalancing may be what's making those druids too difficult, but I think you should still be able to take them.

Here's a few things to consider, if you haven't already: Check your spell lists and see what you have that could possibly help vs what they're throwing at you, and buff your party up as much as you can before the battle starts (haste, potions of STR, maybe have some dispels handy for when they hit you with bad mojo, etc.) As well, check your gear. See if there's anything you can upgrade to get yourself better attacks and defense. Use summons to distract the enemy as well. They can be a great way to absorb spells.

That's all I can think of offhand.

Thanks for the reply, but it doesn't really help. My questions aren't really about strategy, they are more global in terms of the game. Let me ask in a different way:

How "should" I configure Def Jam when installed? What is an optimal XP reduction in all categories, assuming I'm not a powergamer but I also have no desire to nerf myself to inflate the difficulty? Again, besides Unfinished Business for BG 1 and 2, I have no quests added to the game.

Also, since a character should be level 7-ish at the beginning of Amn, why does it make sense to be greatly more than that in BGT? I don't want to be over-leveled.

Basically, this idea is so basic the mod makers for BGT certainly had to have thought of it...playing through BG1 + the Sword Coast only to end up at level 25 and start the next game at triple the XP you should be makes no sense. I don't want to be overpowered to the point of no fun.

It's odd that there is no post in any forum that google could find about this topic. It seems like such a basic question to me, yet no one talks about it. Both Tutu and BGT have NO documentation or comments about this fundamental issue.

I guess most people don't care about BG1, only 2, and/or are powergamers who revel in being overpowered?

Are BGT and Tutu not designed to be balanced at all and I should just forget it and start playing BG2 only?

Thanks for any more advice.

I played through vanilla BG for the first time recently, and after clearing out all the areas, I just barely missed getting to max experience. The game bumped me up to 161k in SoA. I don't know if BGT naturally decreases experience gain, but without that mod you should be well-leveled, assuming you clear out areas.

Also, people may want to be overleveled, or feel that with a party of six, they won't get too far ahead of the max.

Sorry if my advice doesn't apply to BGT.

With a party of 6 I typically end up with roughly 250-300 thousand XP per character. The XP cap for BG1: TotSC is 161000 XP. But a significant portion of this XP comes from Durlag's Tower and the other TotSC areas, so a DEFJAM setting of 50% might give you some problems around the middle of the game.

Have you played BG1 without Tutu/BGT? It is a difficult game and you may well find that it "makes sense" to be higher than level 7 there as well. But I wouldn't worry about being over-levelled. Finishing BG1 with 300k XP makes you level 8-10 rather than level 7-8, but it's not a big deal as the difficulty quickly catches up.

Hmm I seem to be getting some conflicting viewpoint here.

Irrbloss, wouldn't a setting of 50% (of what? quests or kills or both?) just break everything else? Like it would take me twice as long as to get to level 2 than normal? I dont want to fight the end boss at half level and then make it back with the TotSC content.

Also, reading the readme of DEFJAM (http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=110&Itemid=83) I just realized that it says that is works for BG2 specifically, nothing to do with BG1 or BGT (only that it's "compatible"). Anyone know for sure?

I don't think you need to worry that much about becoming over- or underpowered, because you have the setting just right when you get 75% of xp for quests and kills, for completing BG1 at a balanced level, if you explore all areas. I might apply DefJam at 75% myself when I try a new install, it's a clever idea (or you have done a very lucky guess at getting it just right).

As Irrbloss said, with a party of 6 you get 250.000-300.000 xp under your belt if you explore everything, do all quests and kill all enemies. You might end up overpowered for the endgame with 100% xp (I usually do only 1 of the TOTSC expansion areas for that reason, not all 3). With 75% xp, doing everything, you would end up just above 161.000 xp, thus preventing you from becoming overpowered.

I don't know how BGT handles the XP cap though, I'm a devout Tutu player (BGT puts me off by having for to easy encounters when starting off - I like the death around every corner feel of Tutu, where you have to be scared of gibberlings because they come in packs of 6 at your 1st level character). But I'm sure with BGT also, at the start of BG2 xp gains are so much more than in BG1, a difference of less than 100.000 xp between underpowered or overpowered at the end of BG1 is quickly 'leveled out' compared to the balance between xp and difficulty in BG2.

I would advise to keep both quest and killing difficulty at 75%, as it's quite balanced that way. I would set them at different values only if you want to adjust the style of playing to making it more or less combat-orientated, not to adjust difficulty level. Both at the same level keeps the game most balanced.

If you feel like doing more research yourself, you should know that there's just over 1.500.000 xp to be gotten in BG1+TOTSC without additional quest mods. Divide that by the number in your party and check the progression tables in the manual or at [url=http://www.playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur%27s_Gate:_Progression_Charts]http://www.playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur%27s_Gate:_Progression_Charts[/url] to see at what level a certain class would end up with.

And I hope someone will post you a reply how BGT handles the XP cap.

DEF JAM's changes are global. I.e. saying it' a BG2 mod is equivalent to saying it doesn't work on the BG1 engine. It works equally well on Tutu, BG2 and BGT .

BGT doesn't do anything in particular with the XP cap. You play under the ToB cap (8 million) and when you make the transition to BG2 you have whatever XP you had in BG1. It does have its continuity thing, however, in that your party members also transition into BG2 with whatever XP they had in BG1.

I understand that, but you seem to basing your question on the fact you're having difficulty with one encounter. Therefore, I figured it may help if you try different strategies. If you can't get through an encounter, it doesn't necessarily mean you're underpowered. It could quite possibly be simply a case of not having tried a particular strategy.

As far as being overpowered for SoA, as others noted, you really don't need to worry about it if you're a level 'ahead' of the curve. It will even out very quickly.