Baldur's Gate II is one of the best (and also the most illiterate) RPGs ever created. This, in spite of all the flaws it has. Fortunately, there're fixes for a lot of gameplay issues (like priests getting restricted to blunt weapons only, say).

It is also a fairly complex and challenging game, which is why it is so thrilling.

This little document is a guide of sorts to Baldur's Gate II, it's really a sequence of notes pieced together rather than anything else. Still, there it is. There are as few spoilers as possible.

Character Generation

The game has an option to import characters or a party from Baldur's Gate. This actually sort of makes sense, but in case a new character is generated, the following are sensible class choices.

If you want to skip having to choose between Imoen and Jan and someone else in the party, the PC himself will have to be a thief. Multiclassed, of course. Plain base thief class is rather dull. Otherwise the only choice there is in the basic, unmodded game is those two characters, and only Jan is there through the whole game. Lose him and you'd be left with no thief whatsoever, which is why his death line is "Don't forget to raise me", heh.

Stats

All stats have bonuses or penalties if they are over or under 10.

Strength affects base attack (less than 10 gives a penalty, more than 10 gives additional attack points). It also affects how much a character may carry and which weapons and armour can be equipped (don't expect a character with strength 10 to be able to equip a large shield or full platemail).

Dexterity affects thief skills (pickpocket, hide/move silently, open locks). It also affects armour class - a score of 18 gives a nice bonus. High dexterity is required for dual-classing to thief.

Constitution affects the amount of hitpoints/level (penalty if it is less than 10, bonus HP/level if it's over 10), and general resistance to nasty stuff like death magic, poison, etc. It also affects how quickly a character gets fatigued. Characters with weak CON get fatigued rather quickly after haste wears off. They will also get fatigued sooner than others with no rest.

Intelligence is the primary mage stat, and it will also affect conversation options (intelligent characters often get fresh ideas for solving situations, too). Intelligence must be high for dual-classing to mage. Intelligence affects find/disable traps skill (not dexterity).

Wisdom is the primary divine spellcaster (cleric/druid) stat. It also affects Wish spell options, but the mage casting Wish doesn't really have to have high innate wisdom, it could just be boosted with a potion. Wisdom also affects quest/conversation options. High wisdom means high insight for solving quests and dealing with people. Wisdom must be high for dual-classing to a divine spellcaster class (and this includes ranger).

Charisma affects reaction adjustment, it also changes dialogue options (people tend to hate characters with low CHA, and treat high-CHA characters as if they were the aristocracy). It also affects merchant discounts - very high CHA combined with high reputation will drop prices way down to base item cost (or even less).

Bard

"Knave of all trades, and master of none". The description says it all really, the trouble with bards in BG-II is, they're so frustratingly lame in whatever they do. Spellcasting goes only up to level 6, pickpocketing is the only thief skill (no find traps or open locks, heaven forbid), weapon specialisation and dual-wielding really only available at the expense of song quality, etc. It really is better to forfeit this class altogether and concentrate on a more capable multiclass like thief/cleric or fighter/mage.

Barbarian

Much the same as a fighter, albeit with some limitations as to types of armour (no heavy metal for them), weapon specialisation (no mastery), and some slight damage reduction later on. Barbarians may multiclass, unlike monks.

Cleric

The cleric is one of the better classes, as they can turn undead, wield fairly powerful weapons, and cast spells while wearing heavy armour. In Baldur's Gate II, priests are one of the favoured classes as there're mobloads of undead everywhere. In addition, clerics may multiclass, and there's a bunch of nifty options there. The only snag with a cleric character is, in the baseline, unmodded game their weapon proficiencies are utterly daft and lame, nothing but blunt weapons. Also the church stronghold quests aren't anything too thrilling.

Cleric/Mage

Without a doubt the most powerful character class, albeit a bit limited as to having a thief in the party. A Cleric/Mage is simply the best spellcaster, although he'd be reaching the highest levels only with Throne of Bhaal installed because of the 3000000 XP cap in regular BG-II.

The character has to be something other than a human though, an elf or half-elf or gnome works fine. It may come as a surprise, but the game throws in a lot of AC-boosting items, which do not require the character to wear any heavy armour, thus allowing full mage spellcasting. Use Shadowcaster or Near Infinity to alter the character's class to cleric/mage if starting the game with an elf or half-elf (default race restrictions are against them).

Cleric/Thief

Makes a lot more sense than most people think, simply because a Cleric/Thief may cast Sanctuary and move about looting containers or disabling traps/opening locks without monsters or commoners ever noticing that. Multiclassed skill/spell progression is slower than that of a dual-classed fighter/thief or thief/cleric though. But, later on in the game they do get "use any item". Which in the basic, unmodded game also kills off any stupid weapon restrictions.

Cleric/Ranger

Makes a lot more sense than it might seem. This is because rangers gain druid spells, and the engine simply assigns druid spells to rangers. A "real" ranger will be limited to level 3 spells, but a cleric/ranger will get the whole 7-level setup. The result is that a cleric/ranger gets the fancier druid spells, including Iron Skins, Insect Plague, Pixie Dust, Call Woodland Beings, etc. in addition to regular cleric spells. A dual-classed ranger/cleric can also take any ranger kit, like Stalker (backstab and a few wizard spells) and then get rid of the mostly spell-less class. The result is something like a fighter/druid/cleric. Since this character combination effectively is equivalent to a fighter/druid, and with next to no level penalties, druid flies out the window, unless taken specifically for the stronghold quests and shapeshifting. A human dual-classed ranger/cleric makes a lot of sense, as he wouldn't be wasting class levels on a daft fighter class like a multiclassed character would, or just hack dual-classing on any other race character. And yes, you could summon nymphs.

Choice of Church

The churches are optional, and there's not much difference in the game other than the temple priests calling out the PC for the sake of his own church, which is cosmetical. But, the faiths do provide spells of their own, which are cast as innate abilities rather than real spells, so they are added (and are always memorised) rather than replaced. Therefore it makes sense picking up a faith and getting two extra spell abilities.

This is actually quite easy, each church is restricted to alignment. Good=Lathander (technically it's lawful good), neutral=Helm (lawful neutral) and evil=Talos (chaotic evil). Alignments matter, as flock guidance will be of a church's particular alignment. Talos priests are the only ones that get elemental damage spells, but they're just lightning bolts, one/five levels, and frankly at level 20 or even 10 they're mostly forgotten (and it's a finicky spell, a bouncing bolt may fry the caster and the party). The other Talos spell is a lightning shield, which is protection from lightning and missiles rolled into one. It is full protection though. Lathander priests get to cast Hold Undead (which is otherwise an arcane spell) and Boon of Lathander, which protects against level drain as well as granting offensive bonuses. Later in the game it becomes a bit redundant as there's the Amulet of Power, which also wards against level drain, and an optional Mace of Disruption +2, granting level-drain immunity too. But, in fairness, other characters in the party might require the items. Helm priests gain True Sight as an innate ability, one/five levels (the game immediately boosts the PC to level 7, so that provides two True Sight spells/day) and the Seeking Sword, which is a +4 bastard sword in attack, but not damage. The sword isn't anything too special, and it will likely be unused most of the time as it disables spellcasting, but True Seeing is a very important spell ability. Helm and Lathander abilities are really superior in practice to Talos' lightning stuff as spellcasters' invisibility spells and vampires' level-drain are just about the nastiest abilities to be countered.

One more aspect of alignment is the choice of spells: Holy Word/Smite are available only to good alignments, Unholy Word/Blight are evil spells, and neutral priests get all of them in the spellbook.

Druid

Pure druids aren't too fancy. Fighter/druid makes more sense. Cleric/ranger is mostly superior too, as it's basically a fighterish class rolled together with all clerical abilities and druidic spells. As for druids, well, other than taking the class stronghold quests and some class-restricted items, there's not much good out of it. When was the last time you dominated an animal? Shapeshifting is possibly the only other ability druids have, and again, when does it get any use? Plus you do get Jaheira as the resident fighter-druid through most of the game, so it's not too smart playing anything but cleric/ranger.

Fighter

Dumb, dull, and daft. Mostly pointless if it weren't for the stronghold, which is arguably the best in the game. No spells or any special abilities, discounting berserker rage and called shot and the like. The only special bits about the fighter class are the fighting abilities - high attack rates, way above any other class (fighters may reach a maximum of 5 swings/round with grandmastery and dual-wielding), and weapon mastery. The simple workaround for fighter class dullness is to dual/multi-class and add spells/special abilities. It's actually the most sensible choice, as weapon proficiencies are also gained in the other class, albeit slowly, and can be gradually increased to grandmastery with a chosen weapon even if the fighter's dual-classed.

Fighter/Mage

Bioware's own favourite class seems to be the dumb sword-loving type, as the fighter stronghold routine is one of the most detailed and the stronghold quest itself throws a bucketload of diverse, powerful weapons (Elven Court Bow, Frostreaver, Flail of Ages...). Even so, the PC doesn't have to be daft, as he could cast spells just as well. A bit of warning: the stock, unmodded game won't allow dual-classing if the character has more than two proficiency points invested in any weapon (something like three points in dual-wielding is fine though).

Fighter/Cleric

The game already has one, Anomen. Still, it makes sense for the player to be either dual-classed or multiclassed fighter-cleric, as there're plenty of undead and otherwise magically-harming creatures around which priests will have to ward against. Anomen isn't such a great cleric until his quest is resolved, either.

Fighter/Anything

The queer bit about fighter/something is, the game is rigged to block dual-classing whenever there're mastery proficiencies on a character. But, you can invest two proficiency points in any weapon and later boost the proficiencies in the active class, e. g. a fighter-cleric could specialise in warhammer, and then achieve grandmastery with whichever bonus proficiency points he gets once the second class level exceeds the inactive fighter class level. This does mean sticking with a single weapon, but there are some surprising tricks here.

For instance, axes and even hammers come in a thrown variety. So Korgan, whose mastery proficiency is axes, and whose berserker kit forbids specialising in ranged weapons, very elegantly works around it by not bothering with any ranged weapons at all - except thrown axes and hammers.

Daggers may also be thrown, so, rather as a surprise, daggers are an excellent proficiency to focus on - there're thrown, poisoned and boomerang daggers, and there's a bunch of disabling melee daggers as well.

A fighter-priest in the baseline (or even modded) game would be fine with mace and hammer proficiency, wielding warhammers and maces as the mastery class, and perhaps taking something like sling or darts or daggers for a ranged weapon (all of those can be thrown under the protection of a shield).

Fighter kits are mostly useless, as they all have some sort of obnoxious limitations attached. Fighter as a class by itself is dull, its only value is as a combat ability booster, which is why it calls for multiclassing.

Paladin

Not too interesting either, although there're some rather powerful kits, like the Undead Hunter. Paladins also get a turn undead ability, albeit later and slightly weaker than priests. The class itself is limited to humans.

Ranger

The ranger class is a bit weird in that it's basically a cross between fighter and druid, with both sides nerfed. Rangers do get some druidic spells, but only up to level 3, and not too many of them. They can specialise in weapons, but they never achieve mastery. They are, however, natural dual-wielders and they do get a stealth skill. Minsc is the game's official resident ranger, and there's even a second ranger available, too. So the only reason for the PC to be a ranger is to get the stronghold quests, in which case a dual-classed ranger/cleric is possibly the best option. Ranger/cleric is a lot more interesting and powerful than ranger/thief or ranger/mage, and it's a really special case as a ranger/cleric will not "foreclose" his primary class, but rather gain new levels as a spellcaster.

Thief/Mage

Another classy combination, the thief-mage is a versatile character type, though not too strong in terms of melee. Still, you could make the most of it - the game even has two native human thief-mages, Nalia and Imoen, though they're both dual-classed, not multiclassed, which might be the best (slow'n'steady) option. The only "real" thief-mage NPC is Jan Jansen, who's a rather tricky, although useful, character.

Thief/Anything

A thief class also works for a multiclassed character (just set the kit in Shadowkeeper), so a particular favourite is Swashbuckler/Mage or /Cleric, 10 levels in case of a dual-classed character, as this gives one AC and attack point bonus for each 5 levels. Nevermind the absence of backstab, there're three proficiency points for dual-wielding and specialisation in melee weapons. In-game, a mage or cleric will hardly ever get the chance of backstabbing, as a party leader a PC is usually fighting out in the open.

Weapon Proficiencies

The baseline unmodded game is extremely restrictive as to who may wear and wield what. Priests, as an example, get no slashing/piercing weapons, which is stupid. Unlike NWN, classes are pretty much imprisoned within their weapon proficiencies. This can, and should be hacked, of course. Still, here're some general recommendations.

Dagger

This is a quite useful weapon class for thieves and even fighters. Thieves can take it and be happy with it because they backstab (the engine actually checks for weapon size when backstabbing - you can't backstab with a claymore), and there're some useful magical daggers which paralyse targets (Stiletto of Demarchess, Pixie Prick...). For a fighter, a magical dagger is a goodie offhand weapon. It's better than it might seem, as there're thrown/boomerang daggers. Poisoned daggers (thrown) are also fairly common, and are one of the few poisoned weapon types. They are best rationed and left for better targets, but they are there.

Shortsword

Another good choice, there's a bunch of magical shortswords. Unfortunately there're few offensive-effect shortswords, except for the Sword of Mask.

Longsword

The game says longswords are very common out there, and it doesn't lie. Some of the game's most important weapons, Peridan and Daystar, are longswords. They could even be dual-wielded.

Katana

This is where things get quaint. There really aren't too many magical katanas, or katanas at all (the best they get to is +2 and +1), but there is one +3 katana which is worth being the primary weapon through all the chapters, Celestial Fury. The TOB patch also adds a mage-friendly katana, sold by the new merchant at the Adventurer's Mart, so it's a good class for a fighter-mage (or -cleric).

Warhammer

The game's most powerful weapon is a warhammer. There aren't that many of them otherwise, and they aren't too special, but it is a decent weapon class for a priest, or a dwarven fighter.

Mace

Mace of Disruption is worth wielding, and there're a few magical maces (targeted mostly at priestesses) with disabling and beneficial effects.

Flail/Morningstar

Surprisingly, there is a powerful weapon in this class that comes for free (it's not paid for, other than slaying a bunch of trolls and yuan-ti and golems and such). The Flail of Ages does cold/fire/acid damage on top of being a +3 flail. So it is an effective troll slayer. There also are some decent morningstars, so this class can be worth it.

Axes

There're a few magical ones, plus there're boomerang and throwing axes. So this class makes sense, but there's nothing too spectacular among the magical axes, except perhaps for Azuredge, which is the equivalent of Mace of Disruption. There is Bala's axe (dispel on hit), and Hangard's Axe (boomerang). And there're Stonefire and Frostreaver, fire and cold/acid bonus-damage axes.

Quarterstaff

This is a required proficiency for mages, as they'll have to wield the staves of Power/Magi with this. There're some good elemental staves (earth/air/fire). Otherwise there're some druid/cleric staves, and a Staff of Curing, which is wieldable by spellcaster fighter classes too.

Two-Handed Sword

Required for the paladin class, as the Holy Avenger is a claymore. Otherwise this is worth taking for a fighterish character, there're powerful magical claymores floating around: Lilarcor, Silver Sword, Harbinger... Plenty of basic magical claymores too. Because of the strength and protection required though, this is a bit weird for a non-fighter (not carrying a shield and having to hack away at enemies all the time suggests heavy armour and lots of hitpoints). Also: the game will not allow backstabbing with a two-handed sword, so fighter-thieves will have to wield something smallish regardless to backstab. To be effective, this requires the two-handed weapon style proficiency as well, so a fighter type will pretty much have to stick with claymores.

Two-Handed Weapon Style

This style is the companion to two-handed swords and quarterstaves/halberds (any two-handed weapon), and it is required to make the most out of a two-handed weapon. Investing points in this style makes sense for a fighter type, as they'd score critical hits more often and get speed improvements. As an example, once Minsc has the Lilarcor sword, this is the proficiency for him to train, and then he'll get gradually better with the Lilarcor and eventually the Silver Sword, enough to approach Death Spell efficiency with the gith sword, heh. So again, this is a proficiency worth considering and taking for a strong character at ease with a two-handed weapon, one who has enough protection from heavy armour too. Its effect is improvement for a two-handed sword wielder. If you find a character wields nothing but a two-handed weapon all the time, this is the proficiency to take.

Crossbow

There're lots of magical bolts, and there're crossbows of speed, which add an extra shot/round. Still, it's not too great a proficiency for a fighter-class character, who may wield bows (and shoot magical arrows). But the game does throw in a lot of bolts of stunning and biting and whatnot - obviously there for Keldorn and Jan.

Shortbows

There're lots of good magical shortbows (surprise, surprise). Must be because the two dual-classed mages have the proficiency. One of them adds an extra shot/round, and the two others shoot unlimited electrical arrows. There's no shortage of magical arrows, either, and the shortbows are fairly quick to fire, usually faster than longbows.

Longbows

Composite and a few magical longbows require a higher strength (15 minimum for Strongarm), so this is a class best left for a fighter type. There is a single magical longbow which comes more or less free, bundled with the Flail of Ages. A longbow is best wielded in the company of a two-handed sword, as both can be carried at the same time.

Slings

Well, now you can make enemies suffer the slings and arrows. Seriously though, there're plenty of magical slings which offset the halved damage compared to bows. And, slings can be wielded with a shield. Which again, offsets the limited damage.

Darts

Darts of Wounding are relatively common. Magical darts are getting tossed at every corner in major quest areas. Darts can also be fired relatively quickly, and they allow wielding a shield.

Single-Weapon Style

Works for characters incapable of wearing shields, like thieves and thief-mages, this grants a bit of an AC bonus. This is also a good choice for a character specialised in a single-handed weapon and running around with a bow, as it allows carrying both at the same time (and getting a shield-like AC bonus in melee). Note that dual-wielding disables any AC bonus from Single Weapon.

Two-Weapon Style

Dual-wielding, in other words. This is great for a thief or fighter-mage, as it offsets the limited number of strikes/round they get. Also a cleric, ironically, as priests are decent fighters, but they often are limited as to the number of hits they can get. For a thief, this is possibly essential, as it allows them to get more backstab hits and potentially disabling hits with a magical weapon.

Abilities

Animal Domination/Charm

This is available to druids/rangers only. In some quests it might even make sense - for instance, charming a bear somewhere in Umar Hills and feeding him to shadows, pardon, using him as meatshield. Dominating animals wherever they are next to enemies, pretty much.

Bardsong

This gives bonuses and immunity effects (for some varieties of nordic skaldsong) to the party. And again, it's not quite as useful as it may seem. Priest spells usually are more effective, this is because a bard has to stand still while singing, so he's out of combat really. In addition, the only bard available in the game is of the Blade kit, a dual-wielding fighterish type, so his song never improves and is stuck at the same (low) level. So unless your own character is a bard, don't bother.

Detect Illusion

This skill can act much like the arcane/divine true-seeing spells do. It is engaged with the same button as "detect traps". A skill check of 100 makes it as effective as true sight. Though slower (the delay's the same as in discovering a trap with a skill difficulty of 100).

Find/Disable Traps

This is really two skills rolled into one, as it's engaged by the "detect" and "thieving" button once a trap has been detected.

Open Locks

Obvious.

Pickpocket

The PP skill is tricky. Sometimes the target may detect the theft and go hostile, so the game must be quicksaved before any stealing attempts. PP is also used for stealing from stores, in which case the check must be above 100, and the higher, the better. There's a couple potions and specialised gloves which help here.

Shapeshift

Druids have this ability. Some items and spells also provide shapeshifting forms. The main use for this is to compensate for a character's deficiencies, e. g. troll and werewolven forms regenerate, so Cernd can, in theory, shapeshift to werewolf to compensate for his awful AC and lack of Iron Skins up to a certain level. At really high levels (above 3000000 XP) druids may also learn shapeshifting to elemental forms, which are really quite useful (fire elementals are 100% to fire, as an example).

Set Traps

Does anyone ever use this? In fairness, thieves do get the time-stopping trap later on, so this skill might be good for that. As it is though most players simply rush through battles, without ever trying to bait enemies into walking over traps.

Stealth

In addition to thieves having their usual move silently/hide in shadows abilities, rangers get a fixed stealth skill. Which is a combination of both, and it improves each level. Rangers have to wear leathers for this to be effective (without penalties if modded). Stealth isn't quite all it's trumped up to be. This is because in reality thieves/rangers will need to have skill checks above 100 for stealth to even start approaching invisibility. Otherwise they can't quite hide effectively in daylight or just any kind of light - they need shadows/darkness. The main use for stealth is to backstab, for thieves, and to break pursuit and scout for rangers. The trouble with stealth is, it's a question of whether to invest skillpoints for thieves or not. For a thief/spellcaster, the answer is obvious - don't bother, as Sanctuary and Invisibility, especially the Improved kind, do the job all the time. For spellcasting thieves, stealth is only worth it as a tertiary skill investment after find traps, open locks, pick pockets, and detect illusion, and only because of backstabbing. It's all the worse because they really are two separate skills for thieves, requiring double investment. Rangers get their stealth level boosted automatically with each level-up, so there's no worry there.

Turn Undead

The ability which makes priests so important. This acts different depending on alignment and level.

Up until twice the level of target undead creatures, turn undead spooks them if successful. At twice the HD level of undead, the priest will either dominate or destroy the undead outright. Evil priests dominate; everyone else destroys undead. Dominating undead is typically just about as useful as the wizard spell Control Undead: it's there, but what's the point? Aside from dominating enemy summoned skeletons and turning them against the summoners, this has very limited use, as an evil priest(ess) will simply turn the undead against their own kind, but why bother with that when a good/neutral cleric of the same level simply explodes the bloody creatures?

NPCs

Note: because of the amount of undead and the main quests being fighting powerful undead, there must be a cleric permanently in the party. Jaheira on her own just won't do. Aerie, Anomen, or Viconia must be in the party and get enough experience to reach highest attainable levels, that is, if your own character is not a cleric. Even then, two priests are better than one. Three are even better, particularly if the PC is something like wizard/cleric. This is because higher-level priests may cast Chaotic Commands and Death Ward, both spells are required in many areas. Remove Fear and Paralysis are needed often, too, and Jaheira doesn't get those spells (neither does Cernd or any other druid, unlike cleric/ranger though, a class that does get druidic spells).

Note: the only real thief available throughout the whole game is Jan Jansen. Nalia is a joke, her thief levels are there for the weapon/armour proficiencies. Imoen will require boosting with Ring of Danger Sense and potentially potions if she is to do any serious tasks, and she's useless as a pickpocket, so Jan will have to be there in the party unless your own character is a thief. He is quite useful as a thief/illusion breaker, particularly at higher levels, and he is an illusionist, so he's worth investing experience. His only flaw is a low HP count, but do consider that unlike a plain thief (like Yoshimo) he may cast Stoneskin and a couple armour spells plus invisibility spells and anything an illusionist can learn. So it's not like he's going to be a frontline fighter, and for the few cases when baddies do pick on him he's got some protection.

NPCs MUST be with the party from start to finish, or they won't get enough experience to turn the final fight around. This means that once you've gotten comfortable with a character, he has to be stuck with till the final glorious victory. A particular dilemma here is Edwin (or Nalia, if you're so inclined) against multiclassed mages. Time Stop and Horrid Wilting (or some other nasty level 7/8/9 spells) are crucial in the one final battle against Irenicus. Otherwise the party might get munched on. Multiclassed mages (Aerie, Imoen, and possibly the PC) simply may not get enough experience to cast level 9 spells (Imoen usually only achieves about a couple level 8 slots).

For NPC quests, Minsc can be safely kicked out of the party, as he has no personal quests of his own (or breakable romance). Note: for NPC quests, not main quests, as Minsc is a very efficient tank fighter and his absence makes things a lot harder. Running around town talking to people though doesn't require his presence (usually).

The choice between dual-classed and multiclassed NPCs is a simple one: multiclassed NPCs can gain levels in both of their classes, albeit slowly; dual-classed NPCs are stuck with whichever levels they have in their original class. Which is lame. NWN fixes this, but botches up a lot more instead (like having no party whatsoever, no control over henchmen skills and spells, etc.).

As an example, Nalia is stuck with her mostly useless 4 levels of thief, whereas Jan may gain both thief and mage levels, albeit at half the speed with which Nalia gains her wizard levels. In other words, a dual-classed character will level up quicker in her active class than a multiclassed character will in his two (or even three) classes. Multiclassed characters level up half as fast (or twice as slowly) as dual-classed characters, but they will never suffer having to abandon the first class' higher-level spells or finding themselves in a situation where their thief skills fail (as it usually happens with Nalia). On the other hand, a dual-classed fighter/something makes a lot of sense, as the fighter classes are there mostly for weapon/armour proficiencies. The dilemma here is, obviously, that Jan is a lot more useful as a thief, and he'll eventually pick up on spellcasting, but he needs all the XP he can muster to feed both classes. So that usually means Nalia is kicked out of the party and is there only for her own quest.

To avoid fights, kick characters out of the party, then take them in again. For some reason characters aren't as prone to in-fighting then.

NPCs are best kept in one's stronghold, in one spot. Otherwise running off to remote provincial holes and inns and the graveyard and whatnot becomes tedious. Mazzy might be an exception, as her quests are all local to Trademeet. Nalia might also be kept inside the castle for a fighter character (well all right, that is a stronghold as well, though in the case of fighter, druid and ranger, strongholds are not a good place to gather unengaged NPCs, as they're too far away from the city), next to the majordomo.

The author's own "all-star party setup" is:

PC - cleric/mage Minsc Jaheira Imoen (swap for any other character previous to her rescue) Jan Aerie

This is an all-spellcasting party, and it makes sense keeping it that way from as early as possible. Jan gets to be quite the superthief/illusionist arch-mage eventually towards TOB; Minsc becomes a super-stealthy claymore wielder (Silver Sword/Lilarcor), swappable for dual-wielded maces; Jaheira is a near-untouchable fighter with serious spellcasting capabilities, Imoen works as the party's slowly but surely improving mage, and Aerie backs the PC up as a cleric/mage, with spells for any occasion. This is a surprisingly versatile configuration, as an example it allows either Aerie or the PC to de-paralyse held/stunned characters, the whole party can be protected with Chaotic Commands/Death Ward, and the two priests in the party eventually can turn-kill most undead.

Aerie

As noted before, cleric/mage is the most powerful class combination. And, of course, Bioware had to throw in a very nerfed cleric/mage, as Aerie has a painfully low constitution and requires constant babysitting by frontline fighters, and protection with both spells and items. She's particularly vulnerable to bouncing lightning bolts (off traps as well), death spells (because of low hitpoints, spells like Power Word Kill and Death Spell will automatically off her when her HP are below 60 - which may happen in a battle all too easily), Horrid Wilting, petrification, etc.

The first item she has to get is a simple helmet, to prevent critical strikes on her. The first scroll to be learned is Armour.

Fortunately, all of this can be countered one way or another: the cleric stronghold quest gives a CON-boosting item (albeit temporary-action), Protection from Petrification is a 1st-level spell, one of the main temples sells Boots of Grounding, which halve electrical damage, and since she's a cleric as well as mage, she can wear helmets and wield shields, some of which reduce lightning/fire/cold damage (the dragon and defence series).

Ironically, Aerie bleeds less than, say, Anomen, as she may cast Stoneskin. Even so, she is best kept out of any frontline battles. Stoneskins do go down rather quickly, and she doesn't get such a good AC early on. Spirit Armour, either Aerie's own or somebody else's, helps.

Death Ward is usually necessary when she's at lower levels and her HP count is below 60, as Death Spell and similar will kill her outright. So no running around liches.

Some people hate her for her endless reminding of her lost wings, particularly frequent in a romance, and her "capricious maiden" attitude - but all of that can be influenced by the right choice of conversation.

Overall she's a great, even powerful character if played right, that is, cared for and protected. Eventually she'll get to have huge quantities of spells and magical abilities if, and only if, you stick with her throughout the whole game, as that will make her gain the necessary experience to slowly but surely pump up the character/spell levels.

She's a rather better fighter than some players might think, as she can learn Melf's Minute Meteors and then fill most (or all) of the 3rd-level mage spell slots with that. The Meteors make her an excellent pseudo-archer.

If played right, she's simply the best cleric in the game (Anomen initially has lower wisdom, and even though he may gain character levels quicker, he doesn't have the arcane spellcasting).

Aerie does not have any quests of her own, and can be safely left out of the party when necessary, unless she's in a romance with the PC, in which case she must always stay with the party.

Anomen

Just like his name suggests, his own quest is of a difficult nature and must be solved correctly for his wisdom to get raised to a decent level, for a cleric.

There is a stupid design blunder in his hookup conversation - there's an option to reprimand him for a silly accent coming from "reading too many romantic novels". How would he get an accent from reading? No doubt the dialogue writer was trying to blueprint a "watching too many TV serials" cliche, but it just doesn't replicate...

His personality, and particularly his selection/action sounds are a tad obnoxious, and it's understandable he's not liked by many players. However, he does specialise in warhammers, and that automatically makes him a Crom Faeyr wielder, meaning, golem/troll slaughter later on in the game. Being a cleric/fighter, and a dual-classed one at that, he's automatically a valuable NPC, as there're lots of undead swarming about. Being dual-classed, he'll level up as cleric only, which is a major plus, as he won't be wasting experience on useless fighter levels. But he does get the bonus swings/round of a fighter character, which is valuable.

He may also wield the Mace of Disruption, though that is best left to either priestess or even Minsc (dual-wielded with another mace).

His wisdom is low until he gets knighted, when it is boosted (finally providing a decent amount of spells). That takes ages though, and in game terms that means that'll happen only if you stick with him in the party.

If you do stick with Anomen, he will gain cleric levels faster than anyone, except perhaps Viconia. But then his fighter levels are a plus, as he's also better in melee. And eventually he'll turn-kill undead instead of dominating them, which is a plus.

Cernd

The game's only pure druid, some say he may become a powerful spellcaster later on. That is, if you bother with him. He's pretty much a sitting duck until he may cast Iron Skins. As a shapeshifter, he may not wear any armour. This is actually solved in the same way as with mages: give him bracers and rings/amulet of protection. His own cloak already gives a +1 AC bonus and +1 to saves, which is not enough anyway. There're lots of specialised staves, like the Staff of Thunder and Lightning, Staff of Curing, and the various elemental staves, that make decent weapons for him.

Apparently Cernd is the game designers' go at making a standalone "divine mage". However, what works fine for versatile and mostly offensive wizards, doesn't a good divine spellcaster make. The spell mix is the snag - Cernd may only cast offensive Call Lightning outdoors, and as a fighter he's really lame, even as a ranged fighter since he cannot cast Meteors. Jaheira is a lot more versatile as a fighter/druid, although she does gain spell levels a lot slower. She may wear heavy armour, and her dexterity gives her a decent AC bonus too, so she's a fine fighter, which Cernd is not. Having a pure wizard (Edwin) and a pure druid and a somewhat fragile thief/mage and a fragile cleric (Viconia or Aerie) in the party can be a recipe for disaster in the tougher fights.

Cernd does have a dagger proficiency, so he may throw daggers, poisoned or boomerang.

His awful dexterity actually gives him an AC negative, which is compensated by the cloak.

Until spell level 5 and Iron Skins, Cernd can change to his werewolf form to regenerate. It's a bit lame, but it is a workaround for lack of armour.

Unlike mages, he can wear helmets, which is why giving him an AC-boosting helmet is a must.

Edwin

Munchkin evil power-greedy wizard with hilariously sarcastic selection/action sounds. Edwin is the best arcane spellcaster NPC, and of course he comes with quirks of his own. One is his somewhat insolent/arrogant attitude to the world at large, particularly colleagues. Edwin and Minsc do not get along as Edwin constantly taunts Minsc about the loss of Dynaheir (whom he was originally hired to hunt down).

Edwin is the proud possessor of a spell-bonus amulet, which gives him a revolver capacity for spells. No human-generated character may come close.

Edwin's a specialised mage, a Conjurer. Which is his main quirk (Divination opposition school) - the other one is leaving the party whenever reputation goes above 18 - though only when removed from party or when party reputation is boosted with him present. It really doesn't befit a sibaritic opportunist like him to leave a successful, well-known, and wealthy party.

Edwin rather clumsily hits on Viconia (of all the girls!) and, of course, gets rebuffed by her.

He has a standard dexterity of 10, which makes his armour class rather poor. He requires spells like Spirit Armour, bracers, and rings/amulets to boost AC, and of course, the first spell he has to learn is Stoneskin (it is a tad queer he doesn't know it).

He is a bit tricky to keep in a party later in the game (reputation 18+) without Viconia, so in a fashion they come attached. Even then he will fling himself out whenever reputation goes over 18 (or 20) - usually right away, so quests can get annoying. In theory though he may become the uberspellcaster at highest levels, so if you can manage to keep him around Minsc and Viconia in the same party, and still squeeze in Imoen, who's family after all, it might just be worth it. Almost.

His main value is reaching level 9 spells. This is crucial for the final battle. For this to happen though, you'll have to put up with him through the entire game, and somehow insure Minsc and Edwin don't duel to the death. A simple workaround is kicking either one out of the party - just make sure reputation is 18 or less in the case of Edwin..

Haer'Dalis

A tiefling bard whom you have to free twice. Which is a bit excessive, hence he tends to burn his money (and possibly liver) in the Five Flagons inn afterwards. The snag with Haer'Dalis is, he's "...master of none". He is a knave of all trades, sure enough, a tad slippery, though a bit more of a decent sort once he's in the party. A poet and all that, though roguish. And he doesn't really specialise in anything, which makes keeping him around a bit tedious. He can cast arcane spells, but only up to level 6 (he may still learn high-level spells, though that's useless for anything but XP boost). He cannot memorise as many spells as a real mage. He can sing and boost the party's morale, but a full-time tank is more useful than him giving Bless-like bonuses (he's a Blade, so his bardsong isn't that great). He cannot wear heavy armour and he has mediocre HP (somewhat like Aerie, only a bit more), so he's not too good as a frontline fighter. He has some - mediocre - pickpocketing skills, but a real thief is obviously better at it. And on top of it all he's going to go all insolent and demand apologies if you have never let him in the party (what for?). So in the words of Xan, "what is the point?". His only real benefit is damage resistance - as a tiefling he's partially immune to fire, cold, and electricity. He also gets the "rockstar treatment", in that there's special spellcasting armour, and a harp or two here and there, which may cast confusion and such. All of that still doesn't justify spending valuable quest experience on boosting his levels.

Imoen

Some of the quests (like the starting Throne of Bhaal one) gain a lot from having Imoen around. She's also quite the good mage once you rush her through the grand level-up dungeonry of Spellhold and Underdark and so on and so forth. She is, unfortunately, not specialised, so she won't be able to cast as many high-level spells right away, she'll need more experience. But she may wear armour, like elven chainmail, and wield some thief weapons. She's a fairly good archer, and sometimes she even backstabs. And she even has fairly decent (though not exceptional) thieving skills, enough to coast over with some tricks. So basically everything adds up to keeping her in the party. The big question is whom you'd have to throw out. If Yoshimo was around previous to Imoen, he's automatically swapped for her. Otherwise there'd be a dilemma, but regardless she will have to go through Underdark to make her a skilled mage. The main trouble with Imoen instead of a thief in the party is, her pickpocketing skills are awful. Meaning, you'd likely have to pay for stuff in the Drow/Duergar/Svirf stores. She'll also need the Ring of Danger Sense, so make sure the mage stronghold quest is done before going to Spellhold.

Jan Jansen

Another nerfed character, Jan is so weak the game designers even gave him special robes which effectively boost his HP by 25% - though only when hit by physical damage. He's still awfully vulnerable to all sorts of elemental and magical damage. Jan is the only real thief in the game - the only other single-class thief won't be there through the whole game, and the two others really are mages with some static thieving skills.

He is, however, the best thief in the game. Strange as it may seem, as he won't give the impression of a "serious" character.

One of Jan's flaws is his being an illusionist/thief, meaning, he cannot cast necromantic spells. At least one of those spells, Spirit Armour, would've helped him a lot. The other, the Death Spell, is sort of essential for getting rid of summoned creatures, and of course there're the various higher-level instakill spells. Hold Undead is another spell which he loses.

The first spell he has to learn is Armour, to compensate for lack of money and his awfully low naked AC. He already knows Stoneskin and three(!) invisibility spells - plain invisibility, invisibility 10" radius, and Improved Invisibility.

He comes with no melee weapons whatsoever, which is an obvious prod towards keeping him in the ranged role.

Naturally he needs the Melf's Minute Meteors, although his crossbow combined with his own bootlegged Flasher Master Bruisers is good enough for most ranged fighting. Flashers can stun enemies, so they're often good for clearing mobs soonish or even turning a battle around. Swap his crossbow for something better as soon as possible though, as it's simply too heavy to lug around for a weak character.

Eventually his pickpocketing skills can be boosted enough to allow carefree pilfering of most stores in the game, with or later on without potion boosts. Even at his lowest levels he's competent enough to disable most traps and pick most locks.

A good tactic for Jan is to work as a scout under invisibility, detecting and disabling traps along the way.

As with other mages, Jan should never walk around without Stoneskin on, and he needs protective gear.

The curious bit is, with the exception of Edwin (aided by his munchkin amulet), Jan gets the biggest number of spells/level. He's specialised, an illusionist, hence he gets one extra spell/level, which the likes of Nalia and Imoen do not. The game, by the way, is rigged unfairly to recognise only illusionist wizard classes - any other school, when multiclassed, will be stripped of its bonus spells/level.

Do not invest any skillpoints in hide/move silently, Jan has invisibility for stealth. Stealth makes sense for backstabbing, but Jan is not the kind of character who can backstab freely - he's too fragile for melee. Later on, he becomes a rather competent mid-level wizard in addition to being a skilful thief. Jan's skills are pick pockets, find traps, and open locks. Also detect illusions, though that's not as necessary with lots of priests in the party who may cast True Sight. Find traps and open locks are primary, once they're at 100, pick pockets is the way to go, at least way up to 150. The remainder goes into detect illusions, which is a skill he starts with a decent score in (around 70).

Jan's detect illusions skill is very helpful, particularly at low levels, when the other spellcasters have no True Sight. He successfully dispels werewolves in the circus even when he's a level 7 mage/thief. There's also one quest where he recognises rakshasa illusions right away.

Some people hate Jan for his banter and stories, but that sort of attitude's a tad off really. Some of his banter is hilarious, like the one with Aerie where he tells a fake story of drunken god Oghma in somebody's backyard. He also has the uncommon talent of getting along with anyone in the party, even Korgan, who's not the friendliest type. He's quite kind to Aerie, and there're some funny goings-on with Minsc and Boo. Other NPCs simply don't take him seriously, by the looks of it. Not seriously enough for a fight, at least - he's treated as a jester. He won't ever leave the party either, unlike a certain haughty wizard.

Keldorn Firecam

Keldorn's main role is as Carsomyr wielder when and if you do acquire it. There's not much else for him to do, perhaps cast Dispel Magic/True Sight from time to time on enemy mages, and just act like a tank.

His low dexterity (9) is a bother, as it gives a slight negative to AC and overall doesn't let him have a great armour class. A shield may help. As a paladin though he's stuck with a claymore, particularly the holy avenger, Carsomyr, which is a two-handed sword.

A workaround for not having Keldorn is having a multiclassed (not dual-classed) thief/something, as thieves get the "use any item" ability, though only once they've acquired more than 3 million XP. A thief wielding the two-handed Carsomyr is weird, but it works (more or less).

Keldorn is a bit of a racist, as he won't stand Viconia in the party and will attempt to kill her.

Korgan Bloodaxe

Evil dwarven fighter with really high constitution, which gives him more than 100 HP even at lower levels.

Strangely, Korgan tends to get hit more than Minsc, with the same or even better AC. Combined with his requests of a salary the next time he rejoins the party after his quest is done, and the usual evil high-reputation intolerance, that makes him something of an annoyance.

He also terrorises Aerie something awful, tries to pick on Viconia, and is pleased by one of Jan's made-up stories. He does admire Minsc for a "dwarven" fighting ability. So he's not exactly all-bad-evil (neither is Edwin), but he does have a short temper and isn't too useful as a character because the good-aligned rangers and fighter/cleric may cast spells, which he cannot.

There is a lot of fancy axes in the game though, clearly designed for Korgan. Like Bala's Axe (in the Planar Sphere, an anti-magic axe), Azuredge (sold by Bernard), Hangard's Axe (thrown/melee), etc. So if you do stick with him, there's all that.

Mazzy

A crazy-speed halfling shortbow archer. She's almost a paladin: because of the D&D 2.5 rule limitations, she couldn't be a paladin and a halfling, so she's a fighter with some limited spell abilities instead.

She's not too great in melee, being limited to shortswords initially. She is, however, a great archer - but then this is sort of redundant when mages in the party may cast Melf's Minute Meteors and a lot of spells in addition. Again, as with some other NPCs, she's only good for her own quests.

Minsc

...is the tank ranger who gets progressively tankier and - surprise - stealthier as he levels up. Later on he'll gain a lot of super-powers, like power and death attack. He's also the choice two-handed sword wielder, and by design he comes with mace dual-wielding, which makes a lot of sense against clay golems. He can also gain proficiencies with other weapons, though given the amount of powerful two-handed swords, that and two-handed weapon style are the proficiencies he ought to learn. His stealth ability gets ridiculously high - up to about 200 in the high levels. Since he may also cast Sanctuary as a first-level spell, and he will get a couple 3rd-level spells (including Miscast Magic and Cure Serious Wounds) later on, he's rather more than a simple tank fighter. Combining Minsc with Lilarcor gives him a limited mind-affecting spell immunity, most importantly against confusion, so he can shred yuan-ti mages and myconids. He can also wield the Silver Sword, which is a munchkin living-creature murder weapon.
The armour that's rewarded by the Umar Hills' main quest is a suit of leather, so Minsc can wear that for scouting tasks.
Armour of Faith is a good spell to cast before battle, and Minsc may also memorise Find Traps later on, which is rather useful.
Note: the default mid/high-level blueprints for Minsc exclude the Sanctuary spell. Rangers do get Sanctuary, and his low-level blueprint has no spells at all, so he'll gain Sanctuary if the PC was of a level low enough at the beginning of the game. Otherwise you could just give the spell to him with Shadowkeeper.

Nalia D'Arnise

One of the most useless/redundant characters, Nalia has no role apart from providing the fighter stronghold and a "get rid of a pompous asshole" quest of her own. This is simply because she's a blueprint of Imoen, only weaker. Her thieving abilities are worse than Imoen's, as are her stats, and frankly, her character. She's not as nice to have around as naturally-charming Imoen. She's not a specialised mage like Jan, so she gets one less spell/level. She's mostly useless as a thief, failing to pick some locks and disable some of the nastier traps in her own home castle. So in the end it's best just to have her long enough for her own quest to trigger, and of course if the PC has fighter levels, she'll always be around in the castle.

Valygar Corthala

A ranger counterpart to Minsc, things get a bit redundant when the two are in the party for the mage stronghold quest, though that also shows that Minsc is technically a more powerful character thanks to his heavy armour proficiency. Valygar's leather-only limitation is frustrating. Not being proficient with blunt weapons makes him rather useless against clay golems (Minsc dual-wields maces). He's really a bit of a fifth wheel with Minsc in, as he's basically a glorified fighter, though he's interesting to have around as the silent-yet-witty type (sometimes his lines are surprising/shocking, even). The sneaky suspicion is, he's there in case you'd somehow manage to off (or get rid of) Minsc. His class kit is "Stalker", which makes him marginally more useful than a plain ranger when facing spellcasters (he gets Minor Spell Deflection at higher levels), unfortunately being limited to leathers only pretty much nullifies the advantage. His class enemy is golem, which would've been all the nicer if he had blunt weapon proficiency, so again, it's more or less pointless. Usual strategy is to have him for his own quest only.

Viconia de Vir

One more "weak" character, Viconia is a powerful spellcaster when played right. Viconia has a fairly high magical resistance, which saves her hide (and the party's, possibly) when facing other spellcasters.

Viconia has two strangely useful abilities: one is her turning - she can dominate undead. The second "ability" is dropping the party's reputation by 2 whenever she's in. This is a bonus of sorts, as evil characters won't leave the party automatically when kicked if party reputation is above 18. This also means she can join a party with the maximum reputation of 20 and stay. Note that you will have to keep her in a party to preserve any evil NPCs always, otherwise they'll just leave with whichever fancy and expensive gear they've got. Also note that she will leave herself whenever the party gains a reputation point above 18 with her in the party, so the party may never finish any reputation-boosting quests if the reputation is already 18.

An annoyance of Viconia's (or not, depending on level and how it is played) is her dominating undead instead of turning them. Where Aerie at high levels can simply turn-kill undead (including her own summoned skeletons), Viconia dominates undead instead. In theory, this allows dominating vampires and even liches, in practice the best it'll ever get to be through most of the game is dominating zombies and ghouls and summoned skeletons (effectively nullifying enemy spellcasters' Animate Dead). She'll have to be really high-level for the ability to be really useful, and even then, turn-killing makes more sense. A vampire, as an example, is effective when fighting living beings, but most of the time they could only fight other undead because of the kind of dungeons they're in. So a conventional cleric like Aerie or Anomen deserves the XP, rather than Viconia, as they'd be able to turn-kill undead instead of dominating at really high levels. This isn't a rule, obviously, as Viconia may also fit a party, but you do have to make a choice early in the game as to which cleric will be with the party for the rest of the game.

Viconia's romance is a tad tricky, though in the Throne part of the game she can be led to becoming neutral rather than evil (a case of too little, too late). What is a bit of a shock is that she won't fall in love with anyone elven, by design. So no hopes for any drow fanboy characters.

Viconia's best spells are Animate Dead and the usual array of priestly protection spells, also since she gets lots of spells she can fill most of the 2nd-level slots with Hold Person and then auto-cast them with the right AI scripts, making battles a lot easier. She can also wield the Mace of Disruption and possibly Crom Faeyr and some of the nicer morningstars/flails - like the Flail of Ages and Wyvern's Tail, though she may require some external strength-boosting to equip the heavier weapons and armour. Her initial armour ought to be the Mail of the Dead, which, combined with magical small shields and her high dexterity, can boost her AC to a really competent value. Just like Aerie, she needs all the protection she can muster - though unlike Aerie she cannot cast Stoneskin, so she tends to bleed more unless kept as a ranged sling flinger.

And you can always temporarily kick her out of the party when buying expensive items.

Viconia loves to hate Aerie and just about anyone else, being a bitter and fate-bitten drow exile. So Aerie and Viconia in the same party will sooner or later produce a typical "Viconia taunting Aerie to vent off" show. Which isn't too appealing, though they never seem to duel to death, Aerie putting up with anything instead.

Keldorn and Viconia in the same party=trouble, Keldorn will eventually issue an ultimatum and/or duel her to death.

Yoshimo

Only hire him when going to Spellhold, he's a waste otherwise. Jan is technically superior in everything, especially pickpocketing, and he gets spells and more skill points/level. Lower HP is not such a problem for Jan as he may cast armour spells and Stoneskin.

His being a Japanese thief wielding a katana with funky humourous lines is foolbait.

Yoshimo's trip to Spellhold is worth 200000 XP later on - just visit a temple of Ilmater and talk to a priest once you're back in town.

Spellcasting

Baldur's Gate series, unlike its successor NWN, is relatively full of magic and rewards a competent mage. In fact, having spellcasters in the party is a must. A party consisting of fighters only will rather quickly hack each other to death under confusion/chaos/domination, all while suffering enemy acid arrows and missiles.
The main flaw of Neverwinter Nights, by the way, is the game having only the main character and no party. Originally the most there could be was one henchman+familiar+summoned creature. Eventually it's gotten more or less fixed with the "max. henchmen" command, which allows setting high values, but the main campaign is still botched up thanks to it being too dumb - enough for a daft fighter player (with AI escort) to hack'n'slash through. The most efficient playing style is for the party to be protected against anything: armour, stoneskin, damage resistance, etc. all given by items, spells, and abilities if possible. Note that turning undead is also a form of defence - a competent cleric may turn a battle's tide by scaring or destroying undead outright. After defensive spells come offensive spells, which are usually strategical (e. g. throw a Cloudkill or Ice Storm into a room full of nasties, remove magic from a lich to turn his fiend on him) or tactical (off that wounded enemy by casting that Magic Missile after a Horrid Wilting).
Priests, particularly clerics, are essential for proper defences. The more, the merrier - the game knows this and throws three clerics in: Viconia, Aerie, and Anomen. With two level 5 slots on each once they level up, there's protection against mind-affecting spells for the whole party, of which there's aplenty, coming from wizards and creatures alike. Druidic spells are somewhat more geared towards nature and offensive spellcasting, but druids can also cast the spells that matter, Death Ward and Chaotic Commands, plus they get Iron Skins, which clerics do not. No turning undead though. Or Free Action/Remove Paralysis, which are also important. Some protective spells are arcane-only, like Protection from Petrification. This means the party has to have both wizards and priests.
Finally, there has to be a primary wizard, whose task later in the game will be casting Time Stop and Horrid Wilting. This must be a pure mage in the party from start to finish, or from as early as possible, to insure he gets all the experience needed. If you cannot put up with Edwin (and past reputation 18, Viconia) in the party, then ideally the PC himself would have to be a mage. The other option is Nalia, a somewhat uncomfortable character as well, but she won't ever gain the same amount of spells/level as Edwin.

Essential Spells

Level 1

Armour

Do not let a mage leave home without this spell. It sets base AC to 6 - without which things get very hairy very quickly. Stoneskins protect against actual hits, but there're only so many of them (1/level), and a low AC pretty much insures enemies bash through stoneskins quickly.

Find Familiar

A spell the player ought to find and learn and cast as soon as possible, as it gives a much-needed permanent HP boost. And a familiar, of course. Most familiars are pickpockets, and most work as decent scouts too, plus you can speak to NPCs by possessing the familiar. It's a minor detail, but a nice one.

Magic Missile

A spell that turns mages into limited archers, this is rather useful for finishing enemies off and killing the weak types, though even goblins tend to survive a hit at lower levels. At higher class levels this is best replaced by...

Chromatic Orb

...which is a spell that makes things occasionally easier. At higher levels, this either petrifies or kills enemies outright, though they have to fail a ridiculously low saving throw first. Once characters have base AC 6 or better, through bracers or whatnot, the entire level 1 spell slots can be filled by either missile spell.

Sleep

Another spell which can make battles easier, if only against weaker enemies, as sleep has no effect on enemies with class level 4 or higher, usually.

Charm Person

This has a couple quest uses, such as de-charming Glaicus.

Burning Hands

Works for killing off trolls, but it really is too much of a bother for what it does, and level 1 spells aren't infite.

Friends

Boosts base charisma to 18, which is very useful for talking to people or buying stuff with a discount.

Protection from Evil

Unlike NWN/3rd ed., this does not grant immunity to mind-affecting spells. This is required for summoning fiends.

Reflected Image

Fairly useful.

Shield

Cast this before engaging enemy wizards keen on hurling magic missiles, as this spell grants immunity to magic missiles.

Protection from Petrification

A goodie spell, useful against petrifying traps, of which the game designers were rather fond.

Bless

Good for casting immediately before combat, this gives +1 to attack.

Remove Fear

Priests must have at least one instance of this spell memorised.

Sanctuary

This spell is actually superior to the level 2 arcane Invisibility in that it allows the caster a certain freedom of action: he may, as an example, pick locks and open containers and pilfer them. Thus it's a favourite spell of cleric-thieves. It also works for scouting when rangers finally do get it. The only downside is, it doesn't last long. The usual application is for casting healing or defensive spells while in combat, but there's a couple interesting uses besides that. For one, Sanctuary is not disrupted by anything that does not do any external actions, thus allowing spells like Melf's Minute Meteors and True Sight to be cast. Two, Sanctuary does not prevent Turn Undead from working, which is weird really as the undead are supposed to see who they're fleeing from. Anyway, you can actually cast Sanctuary on a priest and have him move around turning (possibly destroying) undead. A cleric-thief will even be able to disarm traps, so a funny combination is Find Traps/Sanctuary/Turn Undead.

Armour of Faith

A spell which is quick to cast, and thus must be cast before moving to battle.

Level 2

Blur

Useful AC-boosting spell.

Strength

This helps fighter/mages. Also useful for casting on any melee characters, as it improves their chances of hitting in combat, as well as boosting damage dealt.

Find Traps

This is a spell to be used in conjunction with a real thief running side-by-side with the priest or ranger who cast it. The spell only shows traps, it won't disarm them. It also works for a cleric-thief.

Hold Person

This is a level 2 spell for priests, which is why level 2 slots ought to be filled with this and a single Find Traps spell for an offensive priest(ess). It's a level 3 wizard spell. Note that most anything worth holding will usually save, monsters have to be held with a separate arcane level 5 Hold Monster spell, undead have to be held with a level 3 spell Hold Undead (available only as a priest of Lathander ability to a cleric), but the spell works nicely against dafter enemies like thieves and fighters. Spellcasters usually have their saving throws high and are competent enough to avoid holding.

Melf's Acid Arrow

This is useful for casting on enemy spellcasters, particularly priests, as they're less likely to have magic resistance. For every round an arrow lasts, it has a chance of disrupting spellcasting. Cast this on djinns to disrupt their attempted invisibility or fireball-flinging.

Level 3

Melf's Minute Meteors

This must be the spell for which Melf is worshipped, as it's just about the best and most useful level 3 spell. It creates a few of those meteors, which set a mage's strike bonus to maximum (5 strikes/level), which also, funnily, affects the offhand. So if the character has anything equipped in the offhand, it will strike with the offhand melee weapon ranged!

Ghost Armour

A level 3 arcane spell, this is a goodie one, particularly for illusionists, who cannot cast Spirit Armour. Doesn't last too long though.

Dispel Magic

Usually this is good to have for attempting to remove any nasty effects on the party as a last resort (protect them with spells like Death Ward and Chaotic Commands first, failing that, Dispel can be cast, but it may also remove protective spells). However, this also works for dispelling any magic on neutral creatures and for attempting to remove area effects, which doesn't quite work on gas clouds, but it does on stuff like grease and web. It works as an offensive spell for removing any enemy spellcaster enhancements, but one has to be cautious to keep distance and not affect one's own party.

Remove Magic

The same as Dispel, but it removes only hostile magic effects, ignoring one's own party. This must be memorised for dealing with enemy spellcasters, as it will usually remove at least low-level defences. A particularly fun application is removing Protection from Evil off high-level mages summoning fiends, as the fiend or demon or whatnot will happily turn on the summoner, thus making your own work easier. The game is bugged when it comes to Remove Magic scrolls, Ribald was meant to sell them as well as some other merchants, but he has an incorrect (non-existing) scroll blueprint in his store. So just give yourself some scrolls with Shadowkeeper or add the scrolls to stores with Near Infinity.

Level 4

Ice Storm

The first real lasting area-effect spell, this rains down huge icicles. Works for offing lower-level mobs.

Stoneskin

The staple of any wizard's magic. Never let a mage out into a dungeon or even streets without this one.

Improved Invisibility

Another essential level 4 spell which every wizard ought to have. The main use of this, besides the very temporary invisibility effect, is to foil enemy spellcasters. This is because even though improved invisibility (lamely) wears off on an action, the character's still partially-visible, and not targetable with spells. A smart tactic is to have an improved-invisible character walk next to an enemy spellcaster and cast his own important spell while the enemy mage is busy casting his divination spell. The AI scripts are rigged to fire off True Sight and such once the creatures hear an invisible enemy come close, you see.

Spirit Armour

A higher-level mage armour spell, it's good memorising this if only to lessen the chances of stoneskins wearing off quickly. But, it really is worth memorising it with two stoneskin spells already there, or if the character's AC is fairly low. Spirit Armour also gives a bonus to saving throws, so it has a secondary anti-ability/spell bonus. Note that the target creature must roll to save against this spell, and on failure there's a random amount of damage dealt when the spell expires. This makes it a bit of a risk to cast on non-party NPCs, as they could turn hostile.

Level 5

Lesser Elemental Summoning

The worse of the elemental series, this is nevertheless worth trying for some fights, particularly against mages (fire elementals are immune to fire damage, obviously). The trouble with these spells is their short duration, 1 turn+1 round/level, three rounds of which are spent mind-wrestling the elementals.

Animate Dead

One of the best summoning spells. This is because the skeletons created by the spell are immune to most anything: death magic (except Death Spell/Death Fog, which break summoning links), anything mind-affecting (confusion, charm, etc.), paralysis, etc. etc. They're even resistant to cold. The lower-level skeletons are so-and-so fighters, however they are armed with magical maces, so they can damage golems, and they aren't as bad as fodder, guaranteeing a lot of spells are expended by wizards unless they cast death spells first. Starting with level 15, a single Skeleton Warrior, largeish, wielding a claymore, is summoned, and those are pretty similar to the typical grave guards. Not immortal or too resistant, but they are quite capable of dealing with regular enemies. And, those work like a charm against illithids and beholders, allowing the party to fire ranged weapons from the backs of a pair or more warriors. This is a level 3 spell for priests, and a level 5 spell for mages. Even so, this is one of the better level 5 summoning spells for arcane spellcasters.

Chaotic Commands

One of the clerical spells of choice, this is required protection against mind flayers, beholders, umber hulks, and any wizards, as they often like to cast confusion and chaos. Vampires also, as they have domination spells.

Cloudkill

Creates a toxic cloud which lasts for a few rounds, depending on casterlevel. It will also kill low-level enemies like kobolds, orcs, goblins, etc. instantly. Never, ever cast this into a spot with a commoner, as neutral creatures are offed just as well, damaging reputation. Cloudkill doesn't distinguish between friendly or hostile, and it will also upset any summoned creatures, even if they are immune to its effects (swords and nishruu are an exception, as the nishruu are healed by any magic, and swords are constructs).

Monster Summoning III/II/I

The main purpose of the three monster-summoning spells is to supply fighting fodder. Nothing but that, as the creatures in Baldur's Gate II usually make short work of those monsters, and the spell doesn't last long enough regardless. Any elemental or even skeletons usually make better servants than whatever the monster series of spells can muster. The third spell in the series isn't completely useless, as it sometimes provides a little mob of its own to distract enemy mobs with. A good use for this is as fodder for an enemy mage with death/confusion spells.

Spell Immunity

This is a very interesting spell. Its main drawback is its being personal-range. Spell Immunity: Abjuration counters Imprisonment. Spell Immunity: Necromancy counters most death spells (but not Disintegrate). Spell Immunity: Divination counters all scrying spells, so it works nicely in conjunction with Improved Invisibility, turning all enemy spellcasting attempts (except area spells) void. In a way it's even better than Spell Turning, as the AI will stutter trying to target an improved-invisible character and expend True Sight and the like.

Level 6

Death Spell

Memorise before engaging any summoners. This works for killing off any summoned creatures in an instant, as well as any creature with less than 60 HP. Very comfy for killing low-level mobs.

Death Fog

Cloudkill and Death Spell rolled into one, however Death Spell and Cloudkill are more useful separately most of the time. Why? Well, the trouble with Death Fog is, it instakills all summoned creatures, hostile or friendly. So it's a nasty way of wasting one's own Mordenkainen's Swords, as an example...

Summon Nishruu

An awesome spell which demonstrates just how daft the AI is. Summon one into an area with an enemy spellcaster, and waste his spells on the nishruu. The thing may also eat spells and charges off a wizard, but it is rather fragile and can be destroyed by enemy fighters, so watch out - fighters are best drawn out and/or removed before a nishruu is cast to where an enemy spellcaster is busy. Nishruu must be summoned after an enemy spellcaster has fired his Death Spell though.

Level 7

Mordenkainen's Sword

Summons a self-propelled magical sword. Which is a real munchkin, as it cannot be affected by most weapons at all. It can, however, be killed with a Death Spell or Finger of Death. It's also vulnerable to magical damage from Missiles, Horrid Wilting, and such.

Mass Invisibility

Useful for warding the whole party against spells and spell-like abilities, as enemy mages cannot target invisible creatures (until dispelling invisibility). Mass/Improved Invisibility does not wear off after attacking/casting spells, which is why it's useful in the role.

Level 8

Horrid Wilting

The level 8 spell of choice, this is what most spellcasters will be filling their level 8 slots with. One discharge is usually not enough to kill higher-level creatures, so an ideal tactic is Time Stop+as many Horrid Wilting spells as possible. Or store them in a chain contingency.

Level 9

Time Stop

Just about the first and only level 9 spell any wizard has to find and learn.

Essential Items

A note on pilfering: stores can be pilfered, but this requires a fairly high pickpocket skill (usually above 100). Only Jan, out of Bioware NPCs, can ever reach a skill check high enough, also thanks to his Techno-gloves, which give a high skill bonus. The higher his level, the better his pickpocketing skills, obviously. At thief level 14, even with detect illusion/traps/open locks at 100 base, he gets a base pickpocketing skill check of 125, with gloves and potions boosting it beyond 150. So he has no difficulty stealing from any store. Not every store can be stolen from, temples are surprisingly hardy and don't even have the option.

Pick Pockets skill check of 200=always succeed, including store pilfering, though only for "regular" stores with a pickpocket skill check of 100 or less. Fancy stores with a high pickpocket check, like, yes, Bernard's wares at the Copper Coronet, will still produce failures. Shadow Thieves' fences and most fences are safe to steal from though.

Jan can reach 200 PP score at level 14 with a potion of Master Thievery.

Chests in stores can be de-trapped and locks picked on them, and this will usually not incur the wrath of the owner. Picking items from said chests though is only safe in the Shadow Thieves' and general quest-givers' areas (apparently they don't mind the player using anything to further their cause). Housewives and store owners elsewhere will go hostile and treat the character as a thief if he ever helps himself to stuff from store or house containers. It's worth disabling traps/picking locks regardless, for the experience.

Scrolls boost experience, so it's generally nice to get ahold of as many as possible, and give characters scrolls of spells they don't yet know. Two little bits worth noticing: one, bards cannot cast anything higher than level 6, but they can memorise high-level spells, so at a certain point in game, when there's an infinite supply of Freedom scrolls at a store, this can be exploited to give the characters a bit extra XP. Otherwise bards can be used as scroll dumps - learning the less critical/surplus spells and boosting party's experience. The second bit is, spells can be erased, so the less useful spells can be re-learned more than once from surplus scrolls.

Discounts are given by merchants according to reaction adjustment. It's basically how much they like the fellow who's talking to them. Alignment might have an influence, but the biggest change comes from reputation and charisma. Charisma can be boosted to 18 temporarily via a Friends spell (what it's good for, heh) or the Ring of Human Influence, Nymph Cloak gives a +2 bonus. Blade of Roses adds another +2, so that's a grand total of 22. Insanely high charisma combined with reputation 20 might even lead to a situation where items are sold (to the merchant) with a price higher than the one the lucky charismatic person buys them back with. Merchant buy price is fixed though, and it's usually a rather offensive markdown.

Aeger's Hide

On sale at the Adventurer's Mart. Studded leather with some extra damage resistance (acid/cold/fire, 15%) and immunity to confusion. Jaheira or a thief or Viconia may wear this, though it might be a tad too low an AC value for Viconia. It does spare an extra Chaotic Commands spell when fighting umberhulks.

Ankheg Platemail

AKA "Viconia's mail". One of the few types of heavy armour she can wear. Not on sale anywhere, but Cromwell can make one out of an ankheg shell. There is one in a building in the Bridge area, locked in a trapped chest (and there's no-one there at night). There're ankhegs in the Small Teeth Pass and in Windspear Hills.
Giving Viconia a platemail of her own costs 5000 gold for the job. Quite the privilege.

Aslyferund Elven Chain (TOB)

Obtained by combining Bladesinger Elven Chain with a scroll of Protection From Normal Weapons, for 40000 gold pieces. It's a crazy price, and it may not even be worth it as there just aren't too many enemies that aren't easily killed that still wield normal, non-magical weapons.
The chainmail itself gives immunity to all non-magical weapons. The Bladesinger Elven Chain is dropped by one of the elves in Suldanesselar (Moonblade wielder, methinks). Scrolls of Protection From Normal Weapons are sold by lady Yuth at the Adventurer's Mart.
It is good standard armour for Aerie, Imoen, or Jan. Or Viconia. But mostly wizards, as they can still cast spells in the chainmail, and it has a very high AC for a wizard-friendly item.

Bag of Holding

The essential item of all items, the Bag of Holding allows storage of stuff. Mods allow "bottomless" (9999 items) bags, the stock version has a limit of items it can store, and since it bypasses encumbrance, it should be used for storing heavy items first (like armour).

Belm, scimitar +2

Found in a derelict (ogre mage's) tower in the Druid Grove area, the tower is NE, almost entirely east, to the east of a bridge leading to an abandoned mansion. There's a cow in there, and Belm tucked in a haystack. This is Jaheira's weapon of choice, as it gives a bonus of one additional swing/round.

Boots of Grounding

On sale at the Temple of Lathander for $not as much. Aerie deserves having a pair, or Jan, or some similarly low-HP character. These boots halve lightning damage; Aerie can be killed by a single bouncing lightning bolt otherwise.

Boots of Speed

The one item that helps a lot. One funny tactic is to have a hasted character run around firing a ranged weapon on a melee-only monster. Careful with a hasted character running ahead of the party though.

Boots of Stealth

Found in a locked desk in Maevar's bedroom, they're one of the rewards for the "double-crossing thieves" quest. These also can be equipped by rangers, so Minsc can use those for scouting.

Blade of Roses, longsword +3

This also gives a charisma boost of +2. Which is sort of useful for a fighterish type, one might assume. Only available after completing the Copper Coronet backrooms quest, and only if Hendak wins (which he usually does).

Bracers of Defence

A must for mages, these are the equivalent of body armour for characters incapable of wearing armour. The lowest is AC 8, and they go all the way up to 3 (expensive, but sold by Ribald).

Celestial Fury

A +3 katana which alternately stuns or (not very often) releases a lightning charge on the victim. This is in possession of yet another evil, slaver party, which has its own luxurious mansion, even.

Cloak of Mirroring

Found on a sahuagin priestess in the middle of the City-of-Caverns. This deflects all spells back to the source. Like Spell Deflection, only permanent. Having a hasted fighter with this and bucketloads of immunity effects (e. g. Chaotic Commands, Death Ward...) guarantees near-immunity to spellcasting enemies, however area effects will still affect the protected character. Give it to Minsc or Jaheira and have them shred yuan-ti mages, as an example.

Cloak of Non-Detection

This cloak is a lot more important than it may seem at first. It is dropped by the evil party at the Den of the Seven Vales inn, at the Waukeen's Promenade. Its main use is for allowing a mage enough freedom under Improved Invisibility, meaning: making it untouchable by enemy spellcasters. This is because Improved Invisibility+Non-Detection is not dispellable by enemy divination spells. A funny use is casting Improved Invisibility on Minsc and then have him shred enemy spellcasters.

Crom Faeyr

One of those "go there, don't know where, bring that, don't know what" quest items.

Component pieces are held by:

Shadow Dragon - ancient temple ruins area. Yes, you'll have to kill the bloody dragon to get the scroll.

The final mind-flayer room container, guarded by an alhoon (undead vampire mind flayer - seriously) at the second secret area in the temple sewers, accessible only after killing Tazok's party in Windspear Hills. This is where the warhammer itself is.

One of evil halflings at the Planar Sphere (Gauntlets of Ogre Power).

One of the demon knights in the Underdark Kuo-Toa caves (west exit), in the eastmost room, spawned by rolling any summoned creature onto the altar of Demogorgon (the altar refers to an "animal sacrifice", but the engine won't distinguish between animal or not, skeletons and elementals work just fine). This supplies the girdle of giant strength.

Cromwell will transform the Hammer of Thunderbolts into Crom Faeyr for 10000 gold.

Crom Faeyr automatically kills stone golems, trolls, and ettins on hit, and grants strength 25. Oh, and it is +5. All of that justifies a couple proficiency slots spent on warhammer for any fighter or priest. You could give it to Aerie, just for laughs. Another configuration is Minsc wielding it in tandem with the Mace of Disruption (+2, preferrably, to avoid level drain).

The downside is, of course, the amount of trouble the party has to go through to get it. And it's not that useful by the end of the game, either, when the party is quite powerful. Still, the crazy lifting power is worth it too (1600 pounds/wielder).

Crimson Chain

Sold by Ribald once you come back from the Underdark, as part of his oh-so-special stash that he charges 50 gold coins just for looking at. That is yet another Viconia armour upgrade, albeit a minor one from Ankheg mail.

Daystar

A +2 longsword that has a very slight chance of casting Sunray on hit, and may cast Sunray once per day as an ability. This is an essential anti-undead weapon, as the Sunray spell kills a crowd of vampires or shadows in one go. It is in a chest behind the lich in the Crooked Crane inn, behind a secret door on the main floor (City Gates area). The chest is locked, so either send a thief in, or cast Knock. It can be lifted from the chest by a character in-between the spells, while the lich is casting, once he's exhausted the first few nasty spells. While at it, you might cast Remove Magic to turn the summoned fiend on the lich himself. Sometimes the lich is daft enough to dispel his own protection from evil by casting dispel on a fodder creature trying to hit him. The trick here, as usual, is to summon fodder to keep the lich busy, and run back to the inn now and then, when it's obvious he's about to cast something nasty. The little backroom is not party-protected, so characters can run in one-by-one. Once the sword is in party possession, it can rather quickly wound the lich, often mortally.

Efreeti Bottle

Summons an Efreet for 10 rounds. Found on the djinni outside of the Dao Djinni tent in Trademeet, while they're still there. Yes, he has to be pickpocketed. It's a little easter egg, sort of.

Gauntlets of Dexterity

The effect is to set dexterity to 18. Found in a heap of trash at the undead settlement under the temple sewers, next to the beholder hive, as part of the temple stronghold quest. In addition to giving the usual archery bonuses, this will also boost a character's AC by a certain amount, depending on how low his innate dexterity is (e. g. Edwin or Keldorn will benefit the most, Jaheira or another dextrous NPC the least).

Girdle of Fortitude

Aerie's girdle. This boosts constitution to 18, providing a much-needed hitpoints bonus. Found on Gaal, head priest of the cult of the eyeless, in the Temple sewers. Killing him is the outcome of offing the chief beholder & co.

Gloves of Pickpocketing

Found next to a retired thief, Yarin, in a Copper Coronet backroom, in his bedside desk (trapped). These are mostly useless unless the player is a thief, or there's a custom mod NPC who has the pickpocketing skill trained, as Imoen, Nalia and Yoshimo are all awful pickpockets, and Jan already has the same bonus from his own Techno-gloves.

Halcyon, spear +1

Found in an easy-to-miss standing sarcophagus in the corridor which leads to the sealed sarcophagus of Nevaziah in the low graveyard crypts. It's where the trap is, at the start of the corridor. It's a +1 spear with +1 point of electrical damage. Good for early in the game though.

Helm of Brilliance

Adds another Sunray to the party's spell inventory, also Prismatic Spray. Sold by Ribald as part of the post-Underdark stash.

Horn of Valhalla

The little thing summons a berserkir. It is made of ever less valuable metal as it is upgraded: from silver to bronze to iron. Found in the fishmonger's house in the Bridge area, trapped to high heaven. Required upgrade components are a diamond and a blue beljuril. There is one loose diamond on a table next to Renal Bloodscalp in the Shadow Thieves' main building, and there is a blue beljuril in the secret golem room in the Windspear Hills dungeon, and another blue beljuril in a chicken (yes, chicken) in the Umar Hills. Talk to the lonely peasant next to the stream north of the inn. The upgrade is done by Maheer, an open-air weaponsmith at the Waukeen's Promenade. He will charge quite a few thousand for the final upgrade, too (one might think twice whether it's worth it if there's not too much money).

Leather Armour

There is a lot of magical leathers in the game. This is really to supply thieves and rangers with armour (Valygar is limited to leathers only). Both rangers and thieves can hide in the shadows while wearing leather armour, so there's Aeger's Hide, Shadow Armour, Armour of the Deep Night, etc. For thieves it sort of makes sense, as they can backstab effectively in leathers, but rangers might be better off wearing heavy armour, boots of speed, and casting Sanctuary. Leather armour is nevertheless something of a naked skin setup, even when heavily enchanted, compared to platemail, and all the worse for scouting areas still filled with enemies.

Light Crossbow of Speed

Sold by Bernard at the Copper Coronet. This is the master crossbow for Jan, as it allows an extra shot/round. Contrary to what the Flasher Launcher description states, Flashers can be launched by any crossbow, and really it'd rather be a quickshot crossbow.

Lilarcor, two-handed sword +3

The weapon of choice for Minsc or any other sword-liker. Lilarcor is a talking sword (calling it "intelligent" is a tad unfair) which adds a dose of absurd humour to the game. It refers to MDK (another Bioware game) and Duke Nukem, among other bits. Lilarcor grants immunity to confusion and charm. Getting it is the main Copper Coronet sewers quest. There's even a little area upstairs with a myconid colony to show off its effectiveness (Minsc can shred the mushrooms pretty quickly with Lilarcor equipped). For the sake of Lilarcor, it is worth giving Minsc a couple extra two-handed weapon proficiency slots, as that improves speed and critical rolls.

Mace of Disruption

A simple mace, wieldable by priests and priestesses, that has the very nice bonus of occasionally destroying undead on hit. They must fail a saving throw though. Found in the vampire lair, in the smaller blood pool upstairs, north of the coffins, past secret walls. Note that you have to pick it up in the first visit, as the second time around in Chapter 6 it's not there. The mace can be improved by rolling it in illithium. This does NOT botch up the temple sculpture quest, and you do get it improved to +2. At Cromwell's forge as usual. Level-drain immunity is a side effect, which is really nice given that the priestesses tend to end up with the mace. See the "Temple Stronghold" quest notes for details.

Mail of the Dead

Found on Ilyich right in Irenicus' lair, this is the poor priestess' armour (Viconia's, until Ankheg Platemail can be afforded). "Ilyich" is an obvious reference to Vladimir Ilyich Ouliyanov (Lenin). That he's wearing the "Mail of the Dead" is all the more hilarious, as he's obviously been dead for some time (message delivered from the past and the dead, heh). Plus, of course, he's leading Irenicus' "free" workers. Pretty telling as to the reality of communism and the USSR - all enslaved by a dwarf controlled by powerful sorcery. There is a hammer lying close by on a table, too. No sickle though.

Melodic Chain +3

Found in the planar prison, on Aawill. A special bard-only variant of elven chainmail. Haer'Dalis sure gets a spoiled rockstar treatment here.

Namarra, longsword +2

This has the interesting ability of casting Silence. The trick is casting silence on the character wielding it while standing next to an enemy mage. This obviously kills the character's own spellcasting, but silences the enemy as well.

Shazzelim +1

An anti-bard scimitar +1, this can be wielded by Jaheira, however she requests it is destroyed by Bernard the Copper Coronet barkeep, for a large-ish reward in coin (and some XP). It really is worth more destroyed than wielded or sold, as there're no hostile bards around whatsoever. The only bard in the game is Haer'Dalis, who could join the party. Sell the bloody thing to Bernard and get a decent magical scimitar for Jaheira instead (the fence on top of Copper Coronet, next to the temple of Ilmater, sells a basic +1 scimitar at night, also Arledrian at Gaelan's).

Shield of Harmony

A small shield, granting immunity against mind-affecting spells (but not psionics!). This is also Aerie's or Viconia's shield of choice, designed to grant them immunity to the nastier creatures' (vampires' and umber hulks') abilities.

Silver Sword

This is the reward for getting used by Saemon Havarian (yet again) and choosing to be shipped to the Underdark by the con artist extraordinaire. This requires stealing, conning, and killing a bunch of pirates along the way, mind it. The whole trip is worth a lot of experience, and it provides a fancy cutscene with immortal githyanki (don't bother killing them, it's a waste of spells/ammo), a few really good magical items, and some hilarious exchanges with a beholder and imps bound into the service of a long-dead drow wizard.

Anyway, the blade of the Silver Sword is Saemon Havarian's reward for outfitting him with a ship (which he manages to sink anyway - this other time it won't ever get to its destination, not that it matters). The hilt of the Silver Sword is on a funky githyanki wild mage who ambushes (or so he thinks) the party on arrival into Athkatla from the Underdark. Just choose to keep the blade, and then kill the githyanki war party.

The trick is having the party rest somewhere before arriving in town. Otherwise the fight can be tough; the party could stop at the D'Arnise keep, say, cast stoneskins, and from there the trip is only eight hours, so the stoneskins would hold, and nobody would be fatigued.

Half the gith party goes down with a Death Spell, the other half takes something like a couple Wiltings. In the meanwhile they'll be flinging spells themselves, and they don't much care where lightning bolts end up, so there will be casualties among the commoners.

Cromwell will reassemble the sword (magically!) for 7500 GP. It must be mentioned that in the real world a reassembly like this is impossible - a sword that's broken between the blade and hilt will break soonish even if welded. But hey, it's magical reassembly, innit? Cromwell says something about the wrath of Gith, but nothing ever happens with the sword in party's possession.

The Silver Sword is by far the deadliest claymore in the game, as it's a +3 vorpal sword. Meaning, it kills any creature it strikes in an instant (25% chance of death effect), unless it rolls a successful saving throw. At -2. The only other weapon that can be compared is the Holy Avenger, and that one's a +5 dispelling sword.

Sling of Everard +5

Utterly expensive (just short of 20000 even with reputation 20), this is sold by Joluv at the Copper Coronet. This is a bonus item added by the Throne of Bhaal patch. This is either Aerie's, Viconia's or Edwin's ranged weapon of choice. Other than being +5 to attack, it generates an endless stream of +5 damage bullets.

Vhailor's Helm

Another bonus item sold by a new merchant at the Adventurer's Mart, this is very useful for creating magical expendable copies of the party's main tank fighter. Minsc+Silver Sword can be cloned, so you get a less powerful copy of Minsc (with whichever items he has equipped) running around with the autokill sword. A Death Spell legging it around, pretty much.

Wave, halberd +4

The Wave shaft is found on the warden of the planar prison where Haer'Dalis & Co. are being held. The blade is on prince Villinaty in the City-of-Caverns, which is chock-full of items (the Cloak of Mirroring and Cloak of Protection +2 are there too). In case you choose the rebel solution path, the blade can be stolen from him, though it may require a fairly skilful thief (and if the PP check fails, the ensuing slaughter is not such a problem, is it?). The halberd itself has value because of it being an effective *saveless* slayer of salamanders, fire elementals, and efreeti. So if ever those summoned elementals turn on the caster, this is one of the two weapons to deal with them (the other one is the Staff of Fire).

Tricky Quests

Spellcasting in Athkatla is forbidden (without a "licence", heh) only out in the streets. You can still cast spells inside. So when the party doesn't have the required 5000 gold to bribe the wizards, durable spells may still be cast indoors - just have a mage move into any indoor area and cast stoneskin, armour, etc.

Irenicus' Lair

Composite longbows are the only kind of non-magical loot worth lugging out, also the lone katana. And jewellery, obviously.

The jailkeep golem can be killed. It is worth 5000 XP. It won't ever attack or go hostile by itself, even when hit. It is a real clay golem (unlike the "lesser" variety), so it is only vulnerable to magical blunt weapons. Guess what? The game supplies one - a quarterstaff +1 in that trapped crate in the room with jarred creatures. Animate Dead skeletons also work here, as they are armed with +1 maces. A little skeleton like that is capable of dealing 20 HP damage to that golem on a critical.

Life is better without Yoshimo from the very start. Imoen can deal with all the traps and locks in the dungeon, and less people in the party=more XP/character.

Attack the vampire with a purposefully summoned mob of monsters and a blessed party. That reduces the chance of it vanishing instead of dying, the vampire is worth 8000 XP. That vampire is rigged to disappear after killing the thieves.

General

The "evil/neutral mage" quest has a bigger reward when the quest-giver is killed, rather than running his errands. Mekrath is best killed outright rather than getting the paltry reward he gives for returning his mirror. Mekrath himself is worth quite the XP amount, plus there's valuable stuff lying around and on him, like a rod of resurrection and scrolls.

The best strategy is usually to summon creatures as spell/sword fodder, as this enables your own party to avoid the nastier effects and getting mobbed/isolated/hit in melee. Only engage the enemies once they have ran out of their worse spells and are unlikely to hit your own party's weakest characters in melee. Having a couple tanks in front usually helps, Minsc and Jaheira work out fine as they can also cast some protective spells and have effect defences of their own (Lilarcor protects against confusion, and Jaheira may cast Chaotic Commands and Ironskins at higher levels).

General engagement pattern is: kill spellcasters first, then archers, and finally melee fighters, unless they're utterly obnoxious, in which case hold spells might be tried too. Wizards and priests are primary targets as otherwise they'll cast all sorts of disabling/damaging spells and just attempt to turn everything into hell. Archers are important targets as otherwise they'll be nibbling at the party's spellcasters' stoneskins. Melee fighters are typically daft and will just follow the party's characters wherever they go, so they can sometimes be drawn out and destroyed one-by-one.

NPC Quests

NPCs can be kicked out of the party and their quest timers will keep ticking. So you can, say, hire Anomen, swap him for a different cleric, come a week or two later, and have his own quest fire up.

Aerie does not really have a quest when she's called to the circus, it's just a pointer to the whole Haer'Dalis double rescue setup. You can still go and watch the theatre play when she reminds of it, it's worth it and it won't suck the party into a major quest, not until Haer'Dalis is found and rescued the first time. Even that is not to be done immediately, so any pending quests can be resolved first.

Anomen's quest is his knighthood, and also solving the murder of his sister and dealing with his bad-tempered father, who thirsts for blood (only if romanced, by a female PC, of course!). The peaceful path here will eventually boost Anomen's wisdom (to 16 from 12) and let him become a knight, whereas the violent path effectively drives him mad (and now you know who he takes after). If Keldorn's around, he will give advice and try to steer Anomen along the path of righteousness. Anomen then becomes a really good priest, and a boon for the party, if you can stand his selection sounds, that is. Seriously though, he hits level 15 and consequently level 7 spells before Underdark. Which is a reason for leaving him out of it, too - Imoen will need the XP rather than Anomen (it's not like there's that much work for priests in the Underdark, strangely).

Cernd's quest gets activated automatically on entering Athkatla after completing the Trademeet/Druid Grove main quest.

Edwin's quest is getting the Nether Scroll from the sealed sarcophagus in the lower crypts in the graveyard. Once the lich is defeated (he's sort of daft and easy to kill), Edwin'll get the Scroll and attempt to decipher it. The whole setup takes time (a few days with Edwin in the party), but the outcome is hilarious, Edwin's worth having in the party just for the fireworks. The first succesful reading attempt will yield 50000 XP and some character boosts (for Edwin), the second attempt is the beginning of a time of awesomeness for the party. Edwin, by the way, displays the typical high-intelligence, low-wisdom behaviour: he's highly capable of judgment/analysis, but lacks perception and feelings, therefore falling into all sorts of misapprehensive traps.

Korgan's quest is getting the Book of Kaza from the same area, only more to the south. That path is trapped by the way, so a thief and cleric ought to run ahead of the party detecting traps.

Haer'Dalis' quest is a double rescue, after which he finally becomes available. It's worth doing on its own though, for the one very valuable item that comes out of it. It's not an easy quest early in the game, but a mid-level party will have no trouble as long as there're plenty of spells and some tricks (like running away after firing Cloudkill or the like into an area full of nasties). Note that gith warriors in pits can be killed with a single Death Spell or Cloudkill shot, they're fairly low-level. Chaotic Commands (and Lilarcor) also help, so Jaheira and a couple priests in the party are useful (as always). It's rather queer that after doing the whole running around here and there, Haer'Dalis turns out to be such a disappointing - and finicky - character.

Jaheira and the Harpers

This is a complicated affair, the main issue here is, her main, and most rewarding quest path will only activate if the main player is male and in romance with her.

Jaheira may not be kicked out of the party - ever. The few times she leaves by herself the romance/Harper quests won't be broken.

To get to the upper floor in the Harpers' building, you don't necessarily need the Harper amulet (which is tucked away in a desk in the utility rooms downstairs). But then you will get attacked by the spectral harpists, so the best solution here is to get the amulet, talk to them, pick up the (rather cheaply supplied) Ethereal Blade spell from a bookshelf, disable a trap on a chest and loot the whole place clean, then go downstairs, drop the amulet, rest somewhere if necessary, and go back and fight the harpists. One of them tries to scare the party, so cast Resist Fear on the whole party before moving upstairs. They are undead, quite possibly shadows, so Sunray works nicely. Kill'em all for some neat XP (9000 each), pick up the bird, and proceed with the usual dealing with Xzar.

There's an even simpler way of dealing with the spectral harpists, not violent at all: simply turn-kill them with a higher-level cleric (level 16 works for sure).

The Harpers downstairs are all pickpocketable - one has a wand, and all have potions. This does require a PP check of 150 or better, also if pickpocketing any of them fails, Jaheira will go hostile.

The final - very valuable - reward to all the Jaheira/Harper quests takes a long time, and will only activate if party reputation is above 15, ideally 20. Also if her romance is active. Steering along the peaceful path rather than getting provoked into fights by the constant visitations is a must.

Jan's Little Quest

Jan's quest is aiding his former lover. The Hidden can be killed after completing the quest, so long as his escape route is blocked with summoned creatures and party characters, he's worth 9000 XP and is utterly harmless. The bounty hunters in the Five Flagons Inn will cast domination, so make sure Chaotic Commands are cast on whoever enters the room. That Mordenkainen's Sword goes down either with a Death Spell or some (well, quite a lot of) magic missiles.

Wish Spell Quest

Cast the "Limited Wish" spell, and choose "An adventure like never before". The djinni will then make a note with directions spawn in inventory.

This is what the Riatavin mercenary party (capn. Dennis & co.) is for in the Delosar's Inn, so don't bother killing them, at least until after the quest, as the quest has a nice reward (besides XP) which is not on the captain or anyone in the party.

Juggernaut Golem Activated (Umar Hills Wizard Cabin)

First off, run the wizard's errand and get the mimic blood by killing the only mimic around, which is hidden in the Umar Cave.

The key here is boosting the golem's defences: cast Spirit Armour on him, then heal the golem so the cowled wizard eventually runs out of his own defences. Casting dispel magic on the wizard or just on the floor next to the wizard and golem helps as well - though if the characters are low-level, then chances are slimmer of dispelling the wizard's own spells. The wizard has 4000 gold on his corpse, and you can loot the whole place freely once his daughter and Daar are united and flee.

Temple Sewers Battles

Roger's troll goes down fairly easily, for an XP and 500 GP reward. Just make sure the party has fire/acid spells.

The kobold and rakshasa battle in the centre of sewers is solved easily by cloudkilling the kobold mob. Ice Storm also works if there're no higher-level mages around, or a wand of Cloudkill. Once the kobolds are dead, the rakshasa can be mobbed by the whole party. Note that one of the kobolds drops a shortsword +1.

The evil party battle is a bit trickier, but solvable. The key here is downing the wizard first, which can be accomplished with a little spell called "Wizard Eye". Buy/find and memorise Wizard Eye and summoning spells, and a couple Cloudkills or equip Cloudkill wands.
Do not go and talk to the evil party. Summon a crowd of creatures - something like Monster Summoning and Animate Dead works even at lower levels. Animate Dead is possibly better, as the skeletons are immune to a lot of magic and damage types. Fire elementals are good too, as they do fire damage which bypasses Stoneskin, but they're a tad too valuable to expend as fodder. Make sure there're only 4 of them though (the game's summoning limit is 5). Then cast the Wizard Eye spell, and select both the eye and the summoned creatures. Lead the eye and the creatures to the north of the area, where the evil party is. Order the summoned creatures to attack the elven mage. This will trigger hostility, but before your creatures are destroyed, he'll go down to about half his health. What's more important, everybody else will expend some nasty spells - making it less likely for them to end on your own NPCs. Cast Improved Invisibility or Sanctuary on one of your characters (the one with Cloudkill). Summon some more creatures if you can, and keep the party in the corridor where the ammo/scroll stash is, safely out of line of sight of the evil party. A nymph works nicely for attempting to hold enemy fighters and healing your own NPCs - hint.
Do not select the summoned helpers, let them stay with the party. Now move the invisible spellcaster to where the evil party is, make him release the Cloudkill (this may provoke banter with 1000 GP demands for passage) on the evil party - which by now will be hostile anyway and bristling with spell effects - and make him flee back. On the way down to where your own party is, release a second Cloudkill. This should cover the whole northern corridor with two Cloudkill area effects. On the way down to where your own party is, the enemy party will just get hurt badly (at least down to half-health) by the gas. Their mage is usually killed outright as he tries to stand and cast spells, then wander south through the toxic clouds. Try to draw their archer characters (a longbowman elf and an axe-throwing dwarf) out, but beware of the cleric - his blade barrier and hold person spells are dangerous. He can also cast Slay Living, which is a mild death spell. Moving the summoned fodder over the edge of the central pit now makes sense, while your own party engages whoever is daft enough to walk over the pit's edge. Avoid engaging the fighters and the priest in melee as much as possible, as one of them has a nasty poison morningstar, and the blade barrier is a major danger before it expires (which again, is helped by triggering it early on by that eye-and-monsters mob). Also, turning the AI on is dumb, the whole battle is best directed by pausing and giving individual orders.

Haer'Dalis/Raelis/Quayle/Mekrath Quest

The wizard's lab is right behind the evil party in the north of the Temple Sewers. It's hidden behind a secret wall, which a thief or an elven character can detect rather easily. See above for offing the evil party.

Such a long name for what is basically a tiny dungeon run! The key bits are: Mekrath's home is filled with traps - so make sure Jan or another thief is invisible and disables traps on chests and possibly in the altar area before engaging anyone. There is a Yuan-ti-led mob in the wizard's bedroom, where the trapped chests are, too. Note that even Improved Invisibility will reveal a thief picking locks, but not disabling traps. So a cleric/thief with Sanctuary works better here. Toss a Cloudkill or similar spell into the bedroom once the traps are disabled (or just don't touch the chests). The Yuan-ti mage may cast Confusion, so as usual, drive some summoned creatures in or just cast Chaotic Commands on tank characters. You don't actually have to fight the Yuan-ti and salamanders in the bedroom - they could be drawn out to the library, archers and tanks engaging each monster one-on-one. Note that getting affected by Cloudkill will have summoned creatures turned party-hostile, so drawing monsters out is a better tactic.

Mekrath himself is best countered with swarms of skeletons, summoned monsters, Remove Magic, and possibly Cloudkill. Melf's Minute Meteors, Breach, and fighters moving in once he's exhausted his main offensive spells, works.

Theatre/Planar Prison

It might've been a straight dungeon run, but there're certain twists. First, the rooms down below (the ones that suck the suckers in) are only active for as long as the master orb exists. Once it's been burned, the rooms (and whichever loot/XP there is) will be inaccessible. So it might be wise cleaning them out first, then destroying the orb.

Cloudkill works nicely in the sucker rooms. Cloudkill works nicely anywhere - just equip the Boots of Speed on a wizard and have him run around, tossing Cloudkill to off enemy/thrall mages, then have someone stand just outside a toxic cloud to contain the spellcasters in poison and keep them busy. Likewise an improved-invisible character tossing clouds here and there and running away works. The wyvern goes down to a minimum of hitpoints this way, the only creatures that would really have to be fought are salamanders. The warden and the master of pits can be mobbed with summoned creatures first, the warden will exhaust some spells this way. Remove Magic, True Sight, and Spell Breaches help when battling him, otherwise he'll be under protection from magical weapons, etc.

Before going through the portal in the theatre, make sure everyone has Death Ward and some sort of confusion immunity (Chaotic Commands, Lilarcor...) on. Target Aawill and wizard yuan-ti first, they will cast Death Spells and even Fingers, so make sure they're distracted with skeletons or somesuch low-level fodder, and do not engage them with party characters - this prevents the AI from casting death spells on the party, as it'll only consider enemies who last attacked it.

Mind Flayer Lair

This is behind the northeast secret door, which can be opened only with the sewer key held by the chieftain Dig-Dag/Tazok party at the Windspear Hills dungeon.

Under no circumstances let your party get close to the mind flayers, as they'll chew brain bits off characters, literally. Draining intelligence and possibly killing them in a few hits.

Therefore, load up on summoning spells, the bigger/nastier, the better. Elementals and large skeleton warriors work fine. Mordenkainen's Swords are ideal here. This sort of requires visiting the spot when spellcasters are high-level enough, so this area is best left for later in the game (as the entrance paralysis hints).

Use a sanctuaried or improved-invisible character with Melf's Meteors and/or Energy Blades as guide for the summoned creatures. The whole dungeon is a straight run, though you might have to flee and rest in the main sewers area if running out of summoning spells. Make sure there're enough summoning spells or at least items to cover your own retreat, just in case.

Characters with powerful ranged weapons can snipe on mind flayers while the summoned creatures act as meatshields.

Beholder Areas

There're two beholder areas: one is part of the main cleric stronghold quest ("Locate and Destroy the Cult of the Eyeless"), the other is the beholder hive in the Underdark. Beholders have their perks, but they can be completely obliterated by a secret weapon: skeletons. Skeletons are immune to most anything beholders may cast as rays. Of course they're still vulnerable to summoned creatures and death spells cast by elder eyes, but they're quite good for dealing with soldier beholders and gauths. The Underdark part is more difficult as the party gets thrown into a conflict with an Elder Beholder right away, but the Amnish beholders are easily removed with the help of a Wizard Eye and continuous swarming of skeletons by the party's priests and/or mages (Viconia or Anomen are the stars here, as they reach level 15 sooner than others). A level 15 Animate Dead spell produces the large, claymore-wielding skeleton warrior who's quite strong and sturdy.

This is not to say that beholders won't eventually destroy skeletons, but living creatures go down very quickly.

In the under-Temple beholder hive, there's also a mob of blind priests in the very centre of the hive. Those will have to be dispatched by the whole party, but you still could have a character running by the area's edges under Sanctuary or Invisibility with a crowd of skeletons around him. Or cast the Eye.

The Unseeing Eye itself is a mage, and it is primarily a spellcaster. The ancient god's rod acts as a long-distance Harm spell, reducing it to a minimum of hitpoints. All you have to do then is just have some skeletons around it, and shoot a ranged weapon.

Throne of Bhaal makes engaging beholders ridiculously easy as the Adventurer's Mart sells the Shield of Balduran with the Throne patch installed. This little item reflects all beholder rays back on themselves. It is, of course, a tad expensive, which is why the cleric/beholder quest is best done last, when party reputation is high.

Of course the shield won't help against elder beholders in the Underdark hive as the hive master beholder casts Imprisonment, and is overall a very competent mage who'll cast True Sight and death spells and the rest of it. Plus, there're some mind flayers and some drow fighters in the mix, making it all a bit tougher. But then that's what skeletons and summoned fodder are for. Even here, skeletons are key to victory. Another trick is wielding the Celestial Fury combined with the Shield of Balduran - its stun effect works perfectly fine on beholders.

Avoiding Vampires

Throughout chapters 2 & 3 there's a bunch of vampire encounters at night. Going out into the middle of an area is not safe; the first couple encounters are relatively harmless (if you have not bought Shadow Thieves' assistance and sided with them), but later on the vampires will be mopping up anyone who's got anything to do with the Shadow Thieves. These can be avoided, ironically the safest spots aren't inns (which are all in areas of the city where vampires will spawn at night - the tiny City Gates area has no space for manoeuvring whatsoever, as an example). No, the safest areas are Temple (must be that Lathander's dome) and the Graveyard itself. It's even safer down in the crypts, where there could be undead, but not nasty vampires. Of all these spots, the Temple Sewers are comfiest for resting (hey, the game doesn't transmit smell) - once cleaned out.

This matters for insuring the party is properly prepared for a fight - vampires are absolutely rotten enemies (perhaps literally) when it comes to ambushes. The party must be well-equipped with spells, magical weapons, summoned meatshields, Chaotic Commands, Repulse Undead, and so on.

Vampire encounters happen in open areas of most districts (except the Temple) as early as 11 PM and as late as 5 AM. 6 AM is already considered morning and too bright, and apparently 10 PM is still kids' time. If you have sided with Shadow Thieves and bought their assistance through Gaelan, most vampires will attack on sight after doing their dirty work of dominating thieves, etc. The last encounter is Bodhi showing up and shredding some thieves all on her own. Previous to that there is a little fight between Shadow Thieves' more powerful thugs and vampires, which the thugs usually win, so you can join in and help them out for some decent XP.

Druid Grove

Kill the shadow druids fighting trolls before killing off the trolls, while the druids are still neutral. They won't ever turn hostile, they're programmed to do so only after the trolls are killed.

Myconid colonies can be squashed by Minsc wielding Lilarcor, the rest of the party sniping from afar, to avoid confusing fog, if there are not enough Chaotic Commands spells. Summon skeletons to help, as they're immune to mind-affecting spells.

Faldorn can be challenged by Jaheira or Cernd or a PC druid. The fight is one-on-one, inside the small arena, which cannot be targeted by any external spells, so creatures cannot be summoned by anyone in the party except the druid in combat him/herself. The druid duel is done with quarterstaves and spells only, any items are dropped before entering the arena.

A good strategy is thus having Jaheira (or another druid) memorise Flame Blade, Call Woodland Beings, Iron Skins, Summon Insects, Barskin, and healing spells and Sanctuary/Bless. Barkskin is unfortunately too short-lasting, but it can be cast under Sanctuary, as can other helpful spells. Faldorn casts Regenerate, so Summon Insects more or less counters that. The nymph, if lucky, will hold Faldorn, and somehow the AI is so daft, she never counters the nymph. Now the trickery here is to have the party's wizards cast Strength, Spirit Armour, and Improved Invisibility on the druid. Haste will help too. Again, the AI is so daft, Faldorn doesn't even react much to her opponent until after Improved Invisibility runs out. II prevents any spell-targeting, so Jaheira or whoever it is will have a certain freedom of action under II. Flame Blade is rather more efficient than a quarterstaff for the fight, too.

Trademeet Djinni Quest

It's easy to solve, and if Jan's in the party, he sees through illusions immediately. Not so other players, and there aren't many clues as to who's who in there. The rakshasa the djinni look for are in the abandoned mansion, which is northeast in the main Druid Grove area. They will attack if they ever smell the djinni (e. g. if the PC talked to the djinni who've set up camp in Trademeet). They will also shapeshift back to rakshasa form if the Flail of Ages is in the party's possession. Or just hit the "old woman" selling potions. The reward for this quest is activation of all stores in Trademeet, some trinkets from Guildmistress Busya, and a reputation point. There is a weird Shadow Thief fence in Trademeet who you can talk to about all this, and he'll tell you that there is a strange potion-selling witch next to the druid grove who looks decidedly fishy. The fence and his dialogue are hidden in such a dark night-time posterior though that it looks more like an afterthought, especially as the rakshasa will attack whenever the player's spoken to the djinni.

City-of-Caverns

This is one of those "reward for suffering the indignity" areas. Reachable only by Saemon Havarian's stolen ship. More precisely, you'll have to side with the rogue captain after emerging from Spellhold and steal a pirate ship for him. In Havarian's style, you'll get a very tricky reward for this, almost a betrayal as usual with the fellow, but extremely beneficial in the long run.

Anyway, the tricks here are: run the drow chest path with a cleric casting Find Traps and a thief (or both in one). The priestess next to the royal throne room sells quite a few healing potions and some scrolls, nothing too special though. The whole area is a more or less straight battle run. Sahuagin are really low-level, and mobs go down with Death Spells. And yes, the party will end up in the Underdark, eventually, after doing this place's quests.

Underdark

The mind flayers at the western exit are easily defeated with some Mordenkainen's Swords and Skeleton Warriors (assuming at least one of the spellcasters is level 15), guided either by an eye or a priest under Sanctuary (even Minsc will do here, provided he's equipped with boots of speed and Chaotic Commands were cast to ward against psionics).

Elemental gates will spawn quite a few elementals *before* releasing the imprisoned wizard. Just drag yourselves to each gate and whack a few elementals for some 6000-8000 XP each. This is different from the spawning routine with the wizard, so if you haven't slaughtered some elemental mobs before going to the gates with the wizard, you'd be losing quite a lot of XP.

Ust-Natha, the drow city, could be fought and burnt to the ground, but that warrants a massive loss of experience as well as loss of anything sold by drow stores, and quite a lot of loot from the local ruling house and a lich mage. So talking to Adalon and infiltration is a must. For that, go talk to the svirfneblin leader first, their village is in the north of the main area.

The prison thingie is best activated right-to-left. Not left-to-right, as is common for most people.

The drow wizard in there can be cured for a reward, a magical bastard sword and 15000 XP. But, he himself may cast Imprisonment. So he has to be approached by a character with either Spell Immunity: Abjuration, or under improved invisibility. Either that or a summoned creature, though that's risky. Heal cures madness, it's a level 6 priest spell.

There're two places to dump drow armour and weapons: the svirfneblin trader, and the duergar trader. The svirfs have slightly better prices, but the whole dumping operation is best done after the exit's been unsealed and the drow in temple ruins were wiped out. This is a necessity as otherwise all of the fancy adamantine gear turns to dust under sunrays. It's all worth around 30000 GP, if dumped all at once from a bag of holding (bottomless, obviously).

Two of the three external Underdark areas are best done before the "royal blood" quest is assigned by the priestess of Lolth. Then agree to go look for this blood/brain/eystalk of a dire monster, and wander around the city doing local quests. The third area, the one with mind flayers, is best skipped altogether.

The areas are: west - kuo-toa caves; southeast - illithid city; south - beholder caves. It's exactly the other way around as their war parties are arranged in the main area, and thankfully there're no beholders floating around.

In the beholder hive, there is one, nerfed Elder Orb next to the entrance, and a beholder guard next to him. The best tactic here could be just protecting the party from everything and summoning help ASAP, while a single character with Balduran's shield and Celestial Fury engages the Elder. Fingers of Death might also work. There is another Elder Orb, full-power, in the southeast of the hive. That one will cast Imprisonment and True Sight and the rest of it, so expect to expend a lot of summoned fodder here (skeletons and swords are best). The hive is utterly masochistic if you do get a character discovered or vulnerable in some way, so Wizard Eye is a good spell for guidance if there is no Balduran's Shield. The mega-nasties here, by the way, are also illithids, trying to dominate and enslave gauths and beholders to the south of the area. These will eat a lot of summoned fodder, and if a player is ever to approach them, the best tactic is sniping from afar while protected with Chaotic Commands. Otherwise psionics may paralyse a character. Resting outside the area is also a good idea. The hive is, obviously, worth a lot of experience, and characters will level up if it is cleaned out.

Jarlaxle can be killed, by the way, just taunt him enough - and it's best to kill his wizard first, to avoid chaos effects and such. Just mob him with the whole party and cast True Sight and such if necessary. The rogue himself is a simple, albeit slightly beefier, thuggish thief-mage type.

The djinn can be released easily, according to his wish - just cast something like Finger of Death on him. The main trouble is, that is only worth 5000 XP, and the handmaiden will demand 4000 GP. Which is nasty. There's more XP to be had in killing the whole crowd of torturers once the city goes hostile, free of charge, obviously.

Slaves can be bought after the matron mother assigns the "get a monster leader body part/blood" quest.

Cast Freedom on the area where Vithal is (immediately north of the duergar traders) after completion of all the draconic quests and wiping out the drow city, having been shapeshifted back to regular form. That really is ideal, as the party will be fairly high-level.

Stuff can be stolen off Vithal, but he'll go hostile once he tries to reward the party and finds out he has no items on him. Quest experience will still be rewarded though. He's a really high-level arch-wizard, with three Imprisonment (they just love flinging Imprisonment back and forth in this area, don't they?) and three Time Stop spells and quite a few offensive spells. The trick, as usual, is to summon a lot of fodder. And dispel/breach from afar. And keep characters approaching the wizard improved-invisible, so he won't be able to target (only if True Sight isn't active though). Spell Immunity: Abjuration counters Imprisonment, by the way.

Dragons

Offing the red dragon in Windspear Hills is, actually, the paladin stronghold quest. Stoopid as it may seem throwing oneself on a dragon with a sword, there is a lot of help from the game in the dragon's dungeons, in fact complete immunity to fire and fear can be reached for a single tank character thanks to the shield, helm, ring, and longsword conveniently strewn about the upper dungeon. Don't forget that a cleric may prepare a paladin or fighter for battle, casting Champion's Strength, Bless, Chant, fire protection spells, etc. Anomen would likely be very content doing that.

Even so, the simple method for dealing with any dragon (including the fearsome shadow variety in the abandoned temple) is just having high-level mages cast Time Stop followed by Horrid Wilting and/or Energy Blades. The Blades are particularly effective. Having someone like Jaheira or Aerie cast and throw their own Energy Blades helps even more, but the key is having at least a couple mages time-stopping and then wilting/blading the silly lizard into oblivion. Mordenkainen's Swords also help as distraction fodder.

The shadow dragon is simply the worst (level-draining everyone in the party), and that's why that ghost child gives a wardstone for sneaking past him.

Now of course timestopping and such requires high-level characters knowing the bloody spell, so that pretty much guarantees going back to engaging dragons in the finale of the game. But here's the easy recipe.

Shadows and Vampires

Two spells are very effective against those two varieties of undead: Sunray and False Dawn. These are level 7 and 6 clerical spells. There is also a sword, the Daystar, which is held by a lich behind a secret door in the Crooked Crane inn at the city gates area. The sword has a small chance of casting Sunray on hit, and it may cast Sunray once/day as an item ability.

So the master clerical trick is: cast Sanctuary, turn undead, wait until the vampires/shadows are turned, and cast the Sunray right away. A priest is still vulnerable during casting (Sunray breaks sanctuary), but the Amulet of Power and protective spells in case of a Mage/Cleric make fights a lot easier. Although a high-level priest is simply invulnerable thanks to turning if there're no enemies other than undead around.

Sunray destroys almost all shadows right away, doing an enormous amount of damage. Vampires are either killed or badly wounded, depending on their saving throws.

False Dawn has the secondary effect of confusing undead. It doesn't do as much damage as Sunray though, but it's better than nothing.

Temples sell Protection from Undead, which is similar to the priest spell Repulse Undead. Both provide a circle of protection from undead which is centred on the caster, so the party can be set to a circle formation with the caster in the centre. It does not protect against ranged abilities though, so Chaotic Commands have to be cast to ward against domination.

Stronghold Quests

In the baseline game, a stronghold can only be assigned once. So if your character is a fighter/mage, say, he qualifies for both the fighter and mage stronghold. It is your choice then as to where to stay, the keep or the sphere. Every stronghold can be slept in, though in the case of the temple and thieves' guild at least, the party may rest inside only when it's a stronghold. Thus losing the stronghold also forces everyone to move to an inn (or sewers, depending on taste).

There're some mods out there, in the BG2 tweaks pack, which allow assigning multiple strongholds, either according to the classes the PC has, or all stronghold quests regardless of classes.

Stronghold "conquest" quests are fairly difficult, although they ought to scale according to the party level.

Cleric Stronghold: triggered by the Eyeless Cult

This is a quest triggered by entering the Temple district, where eyeless fanatics are preaching, trying to captivate followers for their own (rather suicidal, by the sounds of it) cult.

This quest is best done last, for the simple reason that it's not too easy, involving beholders. See notes above on how to deal with beholders. You'll need a lot of spells (including summoning spells and Animate Dead), or alternatively try to get reputation 20 to buy an anti-beholder shield (at a discount) sold by a new merchant in the Adventurer's Mart if Throne of Bhaal is installed.

The cleric stronghold isn't really one of the best, however it does provide some nice item or money bonuses depending on faith (either of the three main temples may hire the player - evil, good, or neutral).

Stronghold quests kick in only if the player chooses to accept the temple/faith guidance part offered by a temple's minister that is available to priests. For everyone else this is a regular, although lucrative in terms of money/trinkets/reputation, quest.

Quests are simple faith guidance setups which are available through an acolyte of the temple, and each quest must be solved according to the patron deity's ways, e. g. Talos would rather have a cuckold fulminate his offending wife, whereas Lathander would offer forgivance and marriage dissolution.

The Talos "solutions" are the most hilarious, don't even bother taking a neutral or kind path: other than getting kicked out of church for that, you'd be missing on the true spirit of Talassans, which is as much trouble as possible, and the results are utterly funny, in a dark-humourous way.

Sir Sarles, Illithium, and the Mace of Disruption

There is a little easter egg here, or rather, a slightly hidden path to upgrading the Mace of Disruption to +2, and gaining immunity to level drain for its wielder.

Upon getting the sculpture quest for the church, get both the illithium and the fake illithium from Jerlia and Unger/Neb. Jerlia's alloy takes a whole day (24 hours) to prepare, and she's not around while at it, so that gives plenty of time to do the Unger task-running. When speaking to Sir Sarles, make sure you leave the real illithium somewhere first (like your own chest at the temple). Then present him with the fake. He'll throw you out, but the church will accept the chunk of illithium alloy for a sculpture (they must be secret avantgarde worshippers), AND present the player with the usual item reward. The XP reward is lower (10000 XP instead of 35000) - but this both provides the upgrade for the Mace and supplies the material reward. There is a hint in the description of the fake illithium alloy that Jerlia simply knocked it off some statue or another and melted it, though apparently she had no time to melt it in full. So there might be some statue or another in town which has gone missing or is "being repaired". The best reward choice is the Ring of Holiness, unless the player is a pure or fighter/cleric, in which case the armour might be good too (though there is more +3 platemail armour dropped by monsters later on). It must be said that sticking to the Armour of Faith isn't too smart also because swapping armour is common, e. g. wearing Aeger's Hide for confusion immunity or dragon armour for damage immunity. So chances are it'd be unused anyway. A staff-spear is not unique, there're at least a couple more on hostile creatures, and some sold by merchants. The next quest is bloody. Before getting this last quest, make sure you check out the opposing temple's store first, as otherwise it'll be erased from existence.

Mage Stronghold: Planar Sphere (AKA Valygar's own quest)

This is an utterly obnoxious quest if done early in the game, filled with golems, a beholder, evil cannibal halflings, fishfolk, myconids, lizardmen, magical traps, a high-level sorcerer, high-level cowled wizards, and an entire asteroid filled with at least three high-level demons and their suites. Not to mention obnoxious lesser creatures like imps and salamanders.

And using demon hearts as core reactor fuel.

This is also where the Ring of Danger Sense is, hinting at Imoen as its likely wielder (she is a mage/thief, after all).

The four runes in front of the machine room are simply 1, 2, 3, 4 - somewhat redrawn. The order is north, south, east, west.

A trick to kill the elder beholder and get a nice XP reward is to enable cheats and debug mode in Baldur.ini, then hit [Ctrl]+[J] to teleport a Balduran-shielded character first to the runes area, then to the east of it, eventually falling where the beholder is. And only after the beholder is dead, activate the golem. Otherwise there's a chance of the golem stealing kill experience.

The main quest itself isn't too hard. Lavok isn't such a high-level sorcerer (no timestopping, and only a single Wilting), but a lower-level party might have trouble with the three demons outside the Sphere. They're easy breakfast for a mid/high-level party though, and worth some decent XP. A goodish party can wipe out the whole asteroid in one go. This matters, as once Lavok has been defeated, allegedly he only lives a day or two.

Make sure Valygar is in Lavok's sight when talking to him, as there's bonus XP rewarded for having Valygar talk to his ancestor (rather than killing the ranger, heh).

Better go to the engine room before battling Lavok, as that saves a couple rests. The engine room is the one warded by the four runes. You'll get to talk to a previously met character there, along the way, heh.

The main engine room fight - Tolgerias and his subordinate sorceress - is fairly easy if done right. A good summoned creature here is the multi-purpose skeleton warrior. Conjure one, cast improved invisibility on both the skeleton and a goodish wizard who'll go into the room to cast the one spell which wins this fight: Power Word Silence. Just one is enough - to be cast on Tolgerias. He still has sequenced stoneskin and the like, but once he's silenced, things get really easy. He'll start casting True Sight as soon as the invisible wizard and his skeleton warrior enter the room, so make sure your own wizard casts Power Word Silence ASAP, and he could be protected by Non-Detection too. The skeleton warrior will automatically engage the sorceress, as Tolgerias is neutral at first. If things go well, he should be disrupting her spells and be able to finish her on his own. Meanwhile mob Tolgerias - a couple Spell Breaches here will help bring his protection spells down. Just make sure he's not getting hit by Carsomyr, as that will dispel your own precious Power Word Silence. Casting Dispel/Remove Magic on him is also daft, obviously.

The asteroid is easy, it's all straightforward demon extermination, though having a couple priest[esse]s in the party helps, as the big demons like to stun characters, so Remove Paralysis/Free Action will be needed, also healing spells.

The outcome of it all is gaining some students (all of a sudden) and a fancy task involving imprisoning an anti-magic fanatic. Which is trickier than it sounds - a piece of advice is to approach the fellow's party under improved invisibility, one way or another (Mass or regular spells) and with a good AC to make sure the caster does not get hurt while trapping him in the rune. Note that you could kill everyone there but the anti-magical lord himself, who must be imprisoned in the rune. So careful with death spells, even Chromatic Orb - the AI must stay off for this battle.

The students are easy enough, it's just choosing the least risky task each time. Of course you could try higher-risk stuff, at the chance of either (or two) of them getting killed. Picking the cheapest/easiest task reduces risk. The last task is particularly tricky, and will kill either one or all of them, depending on difficulty. There is the option of skipping the last item creation routine though, and if all three students graduate, there's a reward of 50000 XP and one of them setting up an alchemy shop, generating a bunch of potions every week for the party. The easiest choice for the last task is a Robe of the Apprenti (worth 1 student life), granting base AC 3. It's typically useless most of the game, as there is the Robe of Vecna, which increases casting speed and is the automatic choice for a spellcaster. The staff of power is worth 3 student lives, and the ring is 2 lives. As you can see, skipping the last assignment is the most beneficial choice, in terms of XP rewards and possibly potions, which are often expended in battle (healing potions in the very least).

The Sphere is quite nice as a stronghold: there is a golem that can be assigned either bodyguard or patrolling tasks (not that there's much point of him stealing kill XP in the one quest when enemies barge in) and, best of all, NPCs parked inside the Sphere won't ever go anywhere else. So you don't even get the option of NPCs leaving for their particular homes. So no running around the city looking for them, which is comfy. Just leave them standing around in the entry room, and that's it. Lots of containers near the entrance, too. And no wandering mugger will ever filter inside the Sphere, but any messengers conveniently show up at the external ramp. Everything looks magicky enough as well, not that there's much point to it all - there's not much interaction after the main quest.

With regards to the knights of Solamnia, just shoo them away in the direction of the Order of the Radiant Heart. The other option - talking to Ribald and paying thousands to teleport them back to their world - isn't worth it, all you get is a lame Golden Girdle.

Thief Stronghold: Guild Takeover

This can turn tricky sometimes, and it's not one of the nicer quest series either, as running the guild involves some risky choices and money-funnelling towards the Shadow Thieves at large. It does give you a personal fence though, and the whole ex-Maevar guild building to stuff with loot. Note that the guild can be taken away by Renal Bloodscalp if you fail to pay guild dues in time (and this is suspended only when wandering through Spellhold and Underdark).

And no, there is no honour among thieves, as the main quest itself shows.

The best way to get the trinket from Lathander's temple (which is assigned in case the party reputation is below 10 - the temple of Talos is targeted if reputation is above 9) is to sneak in under Sanctuary and then crack-open the bloody safe chest (it's behind the merchant priest, usually). Alternately hide in shadows might work, invisibility wears off on lockpicking, even the improved kind.

Rayic Gethras isn't as much trouble as his golems. Having summoned creatures, True Sight and Spell Breach spells helps, also Remove Magic. Of all the people, the PC's party ought to have no qualms removing a Cowled wizard, though Aerie, of course, is being her usual self. The best trick here is playing the "wandering fool" and escaping the conversation, then attacking him. The easiest is simply casting Power Word Silence on him and then having everyone mob the poor silly wizard.

Edwin's documents (or "documents") might be a roundabout way of extracting some pocket money. The merchant's (or "merchant's", who is conveniently called "Marcus") price is 200 gold, but he can be intimidated into giving it away (easier for an evil character it seems, as he bluntly refuses to believe a good-aligned character's threats, reputation might have something to do here as well). Or just pinch the docs off him (this is a thieves' quest, innit?). Edwin's remark about the PC having "surged to the vanguard of goonery" might be a reference to the whole "documents" affair having been set up by him.

Do pilfer Gorch's store before doing Renal's final task, as it will be gone later. The thieves inside the building also have some nice items on them, which can be stolen to prevent their use against the party later on. Maevar also has some potions and stuff of his own which can be stolen off him. Needless to say, this is best done with a potion of Master Thievery and PP above 100.

The stronghold quests themselves are straightforward and obvious, but in case you do get doubts, the right choice is docking the dishonest thieves' pay. Also playing it medium-safe with assignments.

Fighter Stronghold: D'Arnise Keep

The one and only way to solve Nalia's tricky family situation is by being a fighter (how cheap, SIGH). This is easily the most interesting and rewarding stronghold, assigned to the dullest and most lacklustre character class. Well all right, a multiclassed fighter is a better choice, still, it's a tad obnoxious that a dumb class such as fighter gets the nicest stronghold.

Which is a whole castle, by the way. Complete with an optional curate. And servants and taxes from surrounding farmlands.

Nalia, by the concept here, is the slightly more fighterish mage (she can wear armour and shoot bows) attached to a dumb fighter character. Obviously she has to be in the party to make running the castle interesting.

The general strategy here is to fork out as much money as possible and make the most popular decisions. In short, care for the people.

A little tactic for delivering umberhulk food is giving Minsc the Boots of Speed, and having him cast Sanctuary. He also ought to wield the Lilarcor. And yes, this is feeding hot dogs to the creatures.

Those umberhulks can be offed with a Cloudkill or Death Spell once they're all crowding around the food. Cloudkill is better as some umberhulks are usually out of a single Death Spell's reach.

Ranger Stronghold

This gets assigned after the Shade Lord is killed. The temple ruins quest itself is straightforward, and it's a fun run for priests, particularly higher-level, who may simply explode the silly shadows, outdoors anyway (the in-temple shadows are more resistant). Ranger/cleric is a quite powerful class here, except perhaps for the shadow dragon, whom you don't have to wake up anyway (let the sleeping dragons lie and all that). Shade Lord has some death spells, so Death Ward is a must; if a spellcaster has Power Word Silence, this is the spell to cast on him early on, as it saves all the trouble, and all the "nasty" shadows and the altar can be bashed by fighters easily. Remove Paralysis/Fear/Free Action are also useful, not to mention ye olde Sunray and False Dawn. Spread the party around, as some of his spells are area-effect, so having archers far to the south and spellcasters approaching only for firing spells is a good idea. The Shade Lord really is a munchkin creature, no doubt the fruit of some sadistic game designer's ill fantasy, as he has a death gaze which can turn any creature into an undead shadow - but this is only activated if he's confused with False Dawn. The only way of avoiding this is having summoned fodder attacking him rather than having the party members exposed.

Umar Hills

The name of Rejiek Hidesman's assistant is Darcin Cole.

Throne of Bhaal Tricks

Here is a bunch of tricks which makes Throne of Bhaal a lot easier.

Saradush

Viekang can be aided by casting Horror on him. Just make sure it's Horror, and not Spook or Emotion, as Spook can turn the whole tavern hostile. Sometimes he saves against Horror, so it may have to be cast more than once. Before sending him on a teleport journey, be sure to pick his pockets - he has some potions and a scroll of spell turning.

There is a free XP mine in Saradush. See those silly archers trying to kill fire giants off the walls? Place your party where those suicidal archers usually stand, equip ranged weapons, and turn AI on. Leave the game running for a few hours or overnight, just be careful with that as eventually the party will end up getting fatigued and incapable of hitting anything, and for some strange reason the game becomes very crash-prone. The trick here is providing endless ammo, either with boomerang weapons (like the couple boomerang daggers, Dwarven Thrower, Axe of Hangard...) or infinite-supply weapons (Tansheron's and Gesen Bow, Quiver/Case of Plenty, etc.). Several characters can have their levels boosted this way, just swap them in the pocket plane.

Lazarus' store is surprisingly easy to steal from. Jan, with a crazy pickpocketing score of 205 when boosted by Master Thievery, never, ever fails when stealing stuff from Lazarus (which is all rather high-end). All those scrolls are worth a goodish amount of experience as well.

Likewise the road merchant's store can be stolen from, and there're some nice scrolls in there. XP++. Besides, he implores to lighten his load. Sure thing...

Ruined Temple of Bhaal

The master wraith fight is made a lot easier by two Sunray spells - one cast by a priest, and another from the Daystar sword. The wraith and devil shades are tough by Sunray standards, as they usually won't die from one spell. Just make sure the priest casting Sunray is properly warded and untouchable by the shadows/wraiths. Breach may be necessary to remove any physical damage resistance from the master wraith.

Watcher's Keep

The whole dungeon is a grand level-up setup affair, so on the one hand it could be done from the first part of the game, on the other it does tend to be hard for a lower-level party, so there's more sense in romping through it in the Throne of Bhaal part.

Level 1

Sunray and turn undead under Sanctuary help getting rid of pesky, yet fairly low-level shadows.

Level 2

In spite of all the intimidation drummed up by the wizards' notes as to how invincible the chromatic demon is, he goes down with Horrid Wilting. It's that easy.

Level 3

Yakman is easily cured by casting a Heal spell, with a 5000 XP/character reward.

Make sure AI is off when landing in the dead magic area with an obelisk in it. Otherwise wizards will simply waste their time trying to cast spells under 100% failure. You'll need a couple or three tanks in the party here to engage demonic creatures. Jaheira counts as a tank at this stage, usually.

Once you get past the dead magic area and into the room with alu-fiends and demons and such, hit the pocket plane button immediately - it will not activate in combat otherwise. This is a requirement to bail out home, rest, and cast protective spells (Chaotic Commands in particular) before heading back.

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