Trophy tips for BG2

[skroq]

Creating what I did for BG1 and BG:SoD for BG2 is a bit complicated, because I don't want to tell you what do do step by step, as for every class it's different. Intead I will give you some pointers for all trophies splitted by chapters, however those trophies can be done in later chapters, so no worries. I will try to list all important things you need to do (only trophy related).

 

Obviously this entire thing is a SPOILER fest, so don't read it if you want to have some fun yourself, before going for trophies.

 

Some pro tips if I may. I always play solo & no reload (death = start over from BG1). I learned to play with barbarian which is almost invincible, his rage ability protects from almost everything.
Weapon: Defender of Easthaven +3 (20% damage less) + bards class resistances (you take 40% damage less at higher levels). For helmet I always use two and switch them. They key to victory when playing solo is to purchase Vhailor's Helm from Adventures Mart, protection from magic and Protection from Undead. Pop those scrolls in the quick access and before the fight summon simularcum and have it cast protection from magic and than from undead (if you will be fighting undeads). That way you can basically go through the game being protected from magic.

Second helmet I use is Balduran's, so whenever I use Vhailor's I put on Balduran's.

 

1st hand slots:
Weapons: Until the end of SoA I use the Celestial Fury katana (main and you can get it very early)

For golems I switch to Crom Faer  (this is obtained close to end game)

For hard fights against melee I use Defender of Easthaven +3

 

2nd hand I use Flail of Agest (after hell I switch to Black Razor)

 

However if you want to easy way - just select story difficulty and you simply can't die, making this playthrough a joke.

Prologue:

- make sure to speak to Jaheira and free her from her cage

- before going through portal make sure to pick up Helm of Balduran

- meeting with Yoshimo, be nice to him and don't kill him (you want to either keep him in your team or meet him in cooper coronet)

- Throught the Irenicus dungeon collect those wand keys in order to disarm all traps in the throne room. I had issues with this trophy popping, because I didn't realize you have to have all wands in your inventtory

 

Wand Collector
Disarm the traps in the lower level of the wizard's dungeon.

 

A Daring Escape *
Escaped from the wizard's dungeon.

 

Chapter 1

 

I would start off with doing the tent quest, here in promenade. Killing the illusionist gets you a ring that sets your charisma to 18. Always use it before you go shopping to lower rates.

Here we will focus on easier quests:
 

Best Friends
Return Wellyn's missing bear.

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Wellyn

No issues, here just kill Lynis straight away in cooper coronet and if it's night time go to the graveyard and you will be approached by Wellyn, just give his bear back to earn the trophy above.
 

New Ownership
Put Hendak in charge of the Copper Coronet.

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Free_Hendak_and_the_Slaves

Complete the quest as outlined in the link, note for solo no reload players there is a deadly trap, which can petrify you. Free all slaves (not limited to Cooper Coronet, but also to the slavers enclave you can reach via severs). You can also give a girl money to earn reputation +1

 

You can visit Shadow Thieves and do Maevar quest in order to get Edwin join you, this is rather easy one apart from killing one Mage in Docks. When you finish it join with Edwin in Cooper Coronet as well as Korgan. Bring them to graveyard and enter crypts. Both of their quests (Edwin to find Netherscroll and Korgan to find Book of Kaza) are in the same location. However for Korgan you will have to go to the roof of cooper coronet to kill the guys who actualy have the book in their inventory.

 

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Find_the_Nether_Scroll_for_Edwin

 

FYI: Some companion quests are triggered in like 10 days or something like that. To speed up the process feel free to travel to Watcher's keep for example and back to Atkhkatla back and forth.

 

The Nether Scroll
Help Edwin track down the Nether Scroll.

 

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Help_Korgan_Recover_the_Book_of_Kaza

If you don't have a mage in your team, don't disband Edwin just yet. We need him for another trophy.

 

The Book of Kaza
Track down the Book of Kaza for Korgan.

 

OK, let's do a misc trophy. Have Edwin (or other mage) and go to Ribald's store on the promenade. Purchase a scroll of Limited Wish from the lady that sells magic scrolls (back corner) and let your mage cast it. You need to follow all steps to make the trophy pop, so be cool to the soldiers and help them retrieve the gong.

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Limited_Wish_Adventure

 

To the Limit
Cast Limited Wish and dealt with the results.

More easy companion quests:

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Jan_Jansen_Summoned_Home

 

Homecoming
Help Jan's loved ones.

 

For the below trophy, simply go visit Jaheira near the Harpers secret base in Docks (if you haven't freed her out of the cage in Irenicus dungeon, she will not appear). Take here and visit nearby inn where a guy name baron Ployer will infect here with curse. You need to find him. Travel to slums and one house after the ship like building (where slavers are) is a house where you will find Ployer and some mages. Kill them, take the hair and rest for 24 hours.

 

Restored
Find a way to break Jaheira's curse.    

 

Anomen is easily missable Do not take revenge and after doing the quest wait 10 days for your acceptance trial.

 

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Anomen_Returns_Home_After_his_Sister's_Death

 

I Dub Thee
See Anomen join the Order of the Most Radiant Heart.

 

Before we head outside of Athkatla we can do another easy quest in the Bridge District.

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Solve_the_"skinner"_murders_in_the_Bridge_District

I don't remember where the trophy pops, but I don't even think you need to get down to where Runic Assassins are. Also a bone golem spawns there, which are this point is a deadly encounter.

 

The Great Detective
Solve the Skinner Murders.

 

Right, for the next few hours we will be fighting mostly trolls, so make sure you have some acid/fire weapons (there is a sword of flame in cooper coronet). I think easier is Trademeet + Druid Grove compared to Nalia's castle. Although there is a very good weapon in Nalia's castle to fight trolls, so you can decide Anyway, so I travelled to Trademeet (unlocked after speaking to a guy / boy in city gates as far as I remember). Do the main quest there and also speak to Djinis, there is a separate trophy for killing on Rahaksa.

Be cool to Cernd (the imprisoned Druid), we will need him for a trophy. You can tell him to wait at the druid grove and watchi him take leadership winning a fight with a rival druid.

 

Fang and Claw
Put a stop to the strange animal attacks at Trademeet.

 

Rahaksa is in the house in Druid Grove, she summons some friends for help. Take her head to Djinis for XP.

 

Trade Must Flow
Break the trade monopoly in Trademeet.

 

OK, go with Cernd back to Athkatla and do his quest.

 

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Cernd's_Child

 

Reunited
Reunite Cernd with his estranged family.

 

Now we can continue fighting trolls, let's do Nalia's castle quest. Make sure to join with her when clearing the castle off trolls and she must be present during the fight with Torgal for her quest to appear.

After liberating the castle, few days later her quest will trigger.

 

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Nalia_abducted_by_Isaea_Roenall

 

Absolute Power
Help Nalia prove the corruption within the Roenall family.

Be sure to crete flail of ages, which is one of the highest DPS weapons in the game (especially when you upgrade it in ToB).

 

Let's get rich now. The easy way is to go to Temple District and enter sewers. There will be a strong party down there which will want to rob you, lure them one by one and kill them one by one. Protection from Magic is important here, as the mage casts finger of death among other spells. Once they are done visit hidden place here (not the Illithids, the other one where HaerDalis is). Free him, kill the wizard and take his stone.  I believe this trophy popped while I freed Haerdalis, but if it doesn't it will pop later. So visit Five Flagons Inn and do a quest and save the actors.

 

Planehopper
Rescue Haer'Dalis from a grim fate.

 

There will be a lot of magic items here, which where you bring to sell, you should have over 50K gold. Pop up your ring of charisma and go to adventures mart.

Make Save:
Sell all your items including inventory, so that you have enough money to buy:
Shield of Balduran

Sword of Balduran

Armor of Balduran

 

If you are a fighter as main pop those on as well as the helmet and trophy will pop. I was playing Barb and he cannot wear plat armor, so I had to create a Fighter (Dwarven Defender for example) for another playthrough (I did it during my LoB difficulty).

 

You must wear all those 4 items as main character for this trophy to pop.

 

In Balduran's Image
Don the sword, shield, helm, and plate of Balduran.

 

Reload the save and this time buy only :
Shield of Balduran

 

With that item, you are invincible against observators, gaunts and all those deadly orbs, so you may as well do the Unseeing Eye quest. You will meet Keldorn, which has another companion quest.

 

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Keldorn_Wishes_to_Visit_His_Wife_and_Family

 

Family Matters
Help Keldorn settle matters with his family.

 

Destroy the cult (be sure to pop Protection from Undead once you drop in the hole) and shield of balduran while fighting observators. Use the wand on the chief orb and finish it off with flail of ages.

 

Close the Eye
Destroy the Cult of the Unseeing Eye.

 

Let's do a Lich run now (you can actually do it much earlier to obtain the Ring of Gaxx). A little preparation, I assume you have protection from Undead. Now we need a weapon to hurt the skull and he is only vulnerable to weapons +4 and higher. Fortunately there is one in the City Gates (Sunblade +2: Daystar), Inn - hidden door. There is a lich there with a sword which acts like +4 weapon against evil creatures. Enter the crypt being protected from undead kill the lich and go to Temple District, Sewers and you pass a grave when doing the Unseeing Eye quest. Free the lich and kill him. Make sure to take his golden bones. Next run to Bridge District and visit another crypt with Lich (watch for traps). Collect the bones, rest & prepare and to go Docks. Now visit Kangaxx himself and pop Prot from undead. Keep hitting Lich and Demi Lich with your Sunblade and it will be dead within a minute. To make thing easier you can drink potion of storm giant, might and oil of speed.

 

A Battle for the Ages
Defeat Kangaxx the demilich.

 

Now we can deal with Twisted Rune, which just so it happens is right next door from a Lich which you killed in Bridge District. However to unlock the door, you need a one of those Rogue Stones. Also the door is trapped with disintegration trap. Make sure you have Protection from Magic and from Undead ready. When you will enter pop protection from Magic and walk near the table, Lich will show up. After a short dialogue a fight will break, so quickly run near the door and send your similarcum (or summons) where the deadly team is. The mage there will summon a demon, which will end up fighting with everyone there. What I do is wait a bit (all the times stops pass) and I put on enrage (there is a vampire there too), shield of balduran and I kill the orb, as it dispels protection from undead. Next you can pop protection from Undead and kill everyone there.

 

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Twisted_Rune_Building

 

Twisted Victory *
Found and defeated the Twisted Rune.

 

We should be ready now for some Dragon hunting. Before we head to Umar visit Tolgerias in Gov. district (inside the main compound), he will ask  you to hunt down Valgar and just so it happens he is there in the northern part of the map. I think I joined him and visited the sphere located in the Slums district of Athkatla. Just a side note, you will find one of the components to create Crom Faer, gloves of ogre strenght. Get out of there alive and you will get another trophy:
 

Heart of the Abyss
Discover the secrets of the Planar Sphere.

 

Back to Umar, visiting another house there (south-western corner) and checking journal you will be pointed to a shadowy forest nearby. There will be a temple there and a lot of undead, my recommendation would be to use Protection from Undead from the very beginning. If you are high level enough a lich or two may spawn there (near the lava river).

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Investigate_the_Deaths_in_the_Umar_Hills

 

One very imporant thing, you will meet Mazzy Fentan - free her and let her join you. She must be present for her quest to spawn (at least I read that somewhere, better to be safe than sorry), when you kill the shadow altar boss. Before we do that, we have a shadow dragon to slay. Make sure you are protected from acid and level drain. Killing the draon will get you some nice loot and a trophy:

Shadow Dragon Slayer *
Slew the shadow dragon, Thaxll'ssillyia.

 

and resolving the issue in Umar nets you another trophy:

Light in Darkness
Find the source of evil in the temple ruins outside the Umar Hills.

 

Keep Mazzy with you and travel back and forth to spend some day in order to make her quest spawn:

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Save_Mazzy's_Sister,_Pala

 

Very easy one and a trophy:

Sisters
Help Mazzy Fentan's sister.

 

OK, now the Red Dragon. You meet with Lord Jerdan Firkraag at the beginning of the game, he is in the cooper coronet and he offers you 10K gp for hunting some monsters and marks the location of his lair on your map. Go there and another big quest will start. If you are high enough level, there will be some powerful enemies spawning there for example Liches, so make sure you have protection from undead handy. One important trophy related thing is to collect a sewer key from the For the final dragon fight you can send Conster upstairs and tell Firkraag you will return for him. Actually it gives you time to prepare yourself for a bit of a fight. Make sure you are fire protected (obiously), but don't buff yourself too much as he dispells everything shortly after battle starts.

 

Killing him gives you best two-handed weapon in game, red dragon scales and some gems and most imporantly a trophy:

Red Dragon Slayer *
Slew the red dragon, Firkraag.

 

Killing the mage upstairs and freeing the kid nets you:

 

No Child Left Behind
Find and return Garren Windspear's missing child.

 

Let's continue with the story, you should have well above 15K gold now.

Make Save

 

Visit Bodhi on the graveyard and agree to join her against Shadow Thieves.

 

Picking Sides
Raised enough gold to hire assistance.

 

Do missions for Bodhi until you reach a Spellhold.

 

Across the Sea *
Set sail for Spellhold.

 

Friend of Darkness *
Allied yourself with Athkatla's vampire guild.

 

Reload your save and this time go to Slums and before talking to Gaelan Bayle, visit Cooper Coronet and join with Yoshimo. Next join with Shadow Thieves and do their missions.

Keep Yoshimo in your team, we need him for trophies. Once you again reach Spellhold you will unlock:

 

Shadow Ally *
Allied yourself with the Shadow Thieves.

 

Continue with the story and once you enter the Asylum, Yoshimo will admit bis betrayal unlocking:

Friends Like These *
Discovered a traitor in your midst.

 

Later on you will be able to kill Yoshimo, be sure to pick up his black heart (needed for another trophy, so keep it). Once you are in the Asylum Dungeon you will meet with Imoen. Join with her and keep until a trophy for rescuing her pops, which I think will be in the Underdark. But before that happens, once you kill Irenicus and the assassins:

Make Save

There are two ways of getting out of Spellhold, one with a help of Saemon and the other using a portal in the Asylum. What I did first is I agreed to go with Saemon in order to pop:

Took a Chance *
Took another chance with Saemon Havarian.

 

Reload your save and get the key from Irenicus room and use it on the other level of Asylum to open portal doors, this will take you directly to the Underdark.

 

Unknown Risks *
Risked the mysterious portal in Spellhold.

 

This way, we will be not visiting Saughin City, which isn't needed for any trophy. If you still want to go there do the trophies in opposite way, so first use the portal, reload and join with Saemon. Anyway, we should be in Underdark and a trophy will unlock if Imoen is alive and with you in the Underdark.

 

Inmates Running the Asylum *
Rescued an old friend from Spellhold.

 

Don't disband Imoen, we need her until Throne of Bhaal for another misc trophy.

Visit the nearby duergars (dwarfs) who sell a Scroll of Freedom. Buy it and have Imoen cast it. A mage will appear, go talk to Vithal. You don't need to finish his quest, just speak to him to pop a:

Freedom
Free the mage, Vithal, in the Underdark.

 

Visit sfirneblin city (come as a friend option), kill the balor for them and as a reward you will get a gem which will enable you to visit Adalon. Start the quest here, she will cast an illusion for you and your team to appear as Drows. Play it cool until the end if drows will attack you, you will miss out some trophies. Focus on main story here so visit Soulafein, go save Faere, kill Observator, don't kill Sfirnebli (you can send Soulafein home and ask the sfir people for their helmet), next task is to bring a powerful creatue part (my choice was the orb's eye as with the Shield of Balduran and protection from magic you are invincible against beholders and there is ESP amulet there - the best one in game, trust me, remember to take it too for making your life easier if you are not playing as barbarian).  Finally Faere will ask you to visit her and task you with killing Soulafein.

Make save:

Kill Soulafein, steal the real eggs, give Mother Faere's fakes and real one to Faere.

 

Double Cross *
Double-crossed Matron Mother Ardulace in Ust Natha.

 

Adalon will dispell the illusion if her eggs are destroyed, so everyone will attack you. You may as well pop invisibility and escape. Go and kill Adalon (which is not an easy task as she is really powerful and does a lot of Ice damage, so be parepared). Killing Adalon nets you:

Silver Dragon Slayer *
Slew the silver dragon, Adalon.

 

Reload the save.

Now, don't kill Soulafein, steal real eggs, soulafein will appear before the temple and give you his fake eggs.

What you do is:
Fake eggs from Faere - put in the egg containers where the golems were

Fake eggs from Soulafein - give them to Faere

Real eggs - keep with you.

 

After the grand finale and both priestess dead a trophy will unlock:

Triple Cross *
Double-crossed Phaere in Ust Natha.

 

Give the eggs back to Adalon and she will travel with you near the surface, fight your way through some drows and once outside another story related trophy will pop:

 

Return to the Surface *
Survived the perils of the Underdark.

 

After the whole Elhan dispute you can travel back to Athkatla! Drizzt and his buddies will greet you, you can ask them to help you with Bodhi, which is OK. 

You should be powerful enough and with ESP amulet, we can visit Temple District and than sewers to discover a secret doors on the norther side. There is a hidden mindflyer liar, which we need to enter. A trophy pops upon entering, no need to visit it - unless you want a component for Crom Faer (STR25 hammer). I highly recommend forging the hammer for the LoB playthrough.

 

Don't Mind Us *
Found and destroyed a hidden mind flayer lair.

 

Another super easy trophy is taking the black heart of Yoshimo to Ilmater temple in Waukeen Promenade.

 

Peace At Last *
Put Yoshimo's soul to rest.

 

OK, time fo the finale! We are almost there. Before going to graveyard cast a Protection from Undead and you will be greeted by bunch of Vampires, kill them and do the same to Bodhi and whatever moves there. 2nd to best ingame bracers are in the blood pool. Killing Bodhi isn't difficult when you are invisible to her.

 

Staked *
Defeated the vampire queen, Bodhi, and return the Lanthorn.

 

Take the Lanthorn to Suldanessellar and get all the quest items here (horn, harp, sword, talisman). There are a lot of baddies here and Crom Faer is really handy in this location. Next prepare yourself for a black dragon fight, visit his location top left corner. We need to kill him for a trophy. Make sure you are protected from magic as he cast some nasty Druidic spells. Kill him and loot his dead body, he has a chalice we need.

 

Black Dragon Slayer *
Slew the black dragon, Nizidramanii'yt.

 

Once you have all the necessary items visit Rillifane temple and place and don't fight those guys inside. Instead quickly put chalice, sword and talisman on the table. An avatar will be summmoned and he will deal with everyone here and majority of enemies outside. You should be ready to visit palace, place horn and harp on the statues and make sure Imoen is well and alive before going down the stairs.

Ok now, kill the 3x parasites and their guardians, cast protection from magic and kill Irenicus.

You will be now in hell. Do all the trials, some give you very good stats upgrades.

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Tear_of_Bhaal

 

After using the 5th tear on the portal, Irenicus (slayer) will appear along with some demons. Win the final fight to pop:
 

To Hell and Back *
Struck down Jon Irenicus and reclaimed your soul.

 

Well now, welcome to ToB! You will start in a nice quite forest with some statues. Interact with one and soon you will meet Illasera, your first Bhaal sibling. This one is really a joke, so kill her quickly and you will be teleported to pocket plane.

 

Hell's Pocket *
Found your way to the pocket plane in Hell.

 

Soon you will meet Sarevok, your dearest brother. Since you stil have Imoen you can "convince" her to give part of her soul to restore Sarevok.

 

A Sister's Sacrifice *
Convinced Imoen to restore Sarevok with her soul.

 

one more trophy for you, when Sarevok offers to join you - agree.

 

Welcome, Brother *
Recruited Sarevok.

 

From here on we have just one missable trophy in Abazigal's lair. It's a bit pointless for me to explain a story related quests, so allow me to list those.

 

Kill Yaga Shura.

 

Felling the Giant *
Defeated the fire giant Bhaalspawn, Yaga-Shura.

 

Visit Abazigal's lair and make sure to visit the crazy mage in the eye caverns. Help him with his quest and retrive scroll of reversal before! talking to the green dragon. Don't fight the dragon, instead free her with the scroll:

 

Green Dragon Saviour *
Used the scroll of reversal to free the green dragon Fil'Yissetat.

 

Now, enter Abazigal's lair and kill the him.

 

Dragon's Demise *
Slew the blue dragon Bhaalspawn, Abazigal.

 

Right, now time for Sendai:

The Seven Statues *
Overpowered the drow Bhaalspawn, Sendai.

 

Than back to Amkethran and visiting Baltazar gets you:

 

Solar Supremacy *
Defeated the monk Bhaalspawn, Balthazar.

 

Back to pocket plane, now you can do the 2-5 trials (5th is with raveger - hardest enemy in BG series only +4 weapons hurt him).

Once you finish this trial, don't worry that trophy didn't pop upon his death. It pops once you enter the throne.

 

The Fifth Challenge *
Struck down the Ravager.

 

Now for the final boss fight, there are 4 phases each time you need to defeat pool guardians and unlink one of the three pools powering up the throne. So a very important thing before you unlink third and last pool:

MAKE SAVE

Now proceed and kill Amelyssan and once Solar asks you for your decision whether you keep the power or not, choose to be a new God of Murder:

 

Sieze the Throne *
Destroyed Amellyssan the Blackhearted and took your place as a god.

 

Reload the save, kill Amelyssan again and this time reject the power.

 

Heavy Is the Head *
Destroyed Amellyssan the Blackhearted and refused the power of Bhaal.

 

Now, we now have one trophy left, completing the main game on LoB Difficulty. What I did was I played with a newly created fighter (just so he could wear Plate of Balduran) and 5x Babrs. Reading the comments, some people had issues with this setup, so thanks to @maisie666 he said to have a sorcere as main  and level him up until you get to summon planetar. Planetars basically solos the entire game, you dont even need to help him.

 

" Summon Planetar.  Just keep pushing it ahead into enemy groups and stand around out of sight until it kills everything.  I pushed it into the chapter 6 bodhi boss fight room and closed the door behind.  It also fills the role of level 7 cleric with raise dead and restoration.  It can also summon other high level summons as well. "

 

Beating Irenicus in hell unlocks:
 

True Lord of Murder
Complete the game on Legacy of Bhaal difficulty.

 

and a new shiny platinum:

 

The Ultimate Adventurer
All achievements completed

 

 

 

 

Edited November 5, 2019 by skroq

[maxijodi]

?

[skroq]

Got plat, i will work on the trophies shortly. Road map for this game is complicated, so instead i will make pointers for each trophy

[maisie666]

Nalia must be in the party when you enter the basement.  i lost a hour trying to work that one out.  And promise to help Jan at the end of his quest.  Take yoshimo to spellhold. 

 

 Thanks for the guides, the SOD one was invaluable.

 

[skroq]

2 hours ago, maisie666 said:

Nalia must be in the party when you enter the basement.  i lost a hour trying to work that one out.  And promise to help Jan at the end of his quest.  Take yoshimo to spellhold. 

 

 Thanks for the guides, the SOD one was invaluable.

 

Yeah, i too made a mistake with Nalia

i am busy with Icewind Dale lol, i will add bit by bit to the guide

[maisie666]

I got the bg2 plat last night and i m all wiki'ed out, i m going to wait until theres a ID guide before i start.   If you do one, thanks in advance.  Time to meander through Planescape.

 

For anyone struggling with with legacy of bhaal difficulty in SOA.  SPOILER ALERT  This is a Major spoiler that will wreck the challenge of LOB.  

 

Spoiler

Summon Planetar.  Just keep pushing it ahead into enemy groups and stand around out of sight until it kills everything.  I pushed it into the chapter 6 bodhi boss fight room and closed the door behind.  It also fills the role of level 7 cleric with raise dead and restoration.  It can also summon other high level summons as well.

 

 

Edited October 27, 2019 by maisie666

[Zalos44]

Hello Maisie!

 

I have been struggling with LoB on BG2. I have made it to Spellhold for now. Don't you need to be level 20 with a spellcaster to get *that*? How did you do it? Unless you imported a ToB character,

[skroq]

5 hours ago, Zalos44 said:

Hello Maisie!

 

I have been struggling with LoB on BG2. I have made it to Spellhold for now. Don't you need to be level 20 with a spellcaster to get *that*? How did you do it? Unless you imported a ToB character,

You can use other summons like skeletons from cleric. They also have a lot of HP

[maisie666]

I ran a mage and barbarian 2 person party from the start of bg1(mage to spam wands of paralysis/monster summoning) and they were level 21? by the end of SOA where i exported them after getting the xp for killing the dragon in hell.  TOB characters won t export to SOA.   Can you reload and grab Edwin? Viconia is in the govt area and is also pretty useful.  I d say 2 summoners and 4 smashers worked for me.

Spoiler

 

Whats your party composition?   I ran 4 of my barbarian clones, and 2 level 21 mages to start SOA hard mode, so i could spam high level summons to push into enemies and sit back until they were weakened to the point i send in the barbarians.  Planetar killed bohdi and her posse, Irenicus, all the enemies in the elven city.  I just stood back and watched.  Id  avoid  the cacofiend summons etc.  I think it would work fine with lower level summons, just take longer, i agree that skeletons are a good choice.  I summon, and then scroll over to where i think the enemies are and send them over.   The trick is not to let the members of your party engage.  once something dies,  i save, rest if needed and do it again.   If someone dies, just use planetar to raise and heal  them.

 

Other than that i would say is take the portal in spellhold, and get the sungem, get transformed and then head back through the fishfolk and talk your way to the surface skipping the entire dark elf city.  Save at every opportunity.  There is a group invisibility spell for sale at the start of the underdark that helps also.  Sell all drow items before you leave the underdark.

 

I also went straight to the slave lord compound from start, got the good drops, sold them and ran a barbarian with the staff +4 , one with celestial fury, cast limited wish for the awesome sword, so my team was ready to smash from the start and you have the 15000 from selling the rest of the loot within 60 mins of start, then you could grab Edwina and Viconia so if you feel you are at a dead end its not too much to restart. Its kind of tedious on LOB difficulty, and i m glad to be done with it.   I m going to take a couple month break until i start Icewind Dale because of the HOF difficulty trophy and the wiki OD factor.

 

 

Hope this helps

 

 

 

Edited October 27, 2019 by maisie666

[Zalos44]

Omg. I ran through almost an entire ToB playthrough a second time to level up mages and thieves, so that I can export them to SoA with HLAs. Now, I find out that unlike on PC you cannot export from ToB to SoA. WTF?! Is there really no way? That is maddening.

 

Now I'm stuck. I will have to continue with my SoA party (5 barbarians + Nalia/Imoen) which can barely live through any large group of enemies... or restart on easy and grind mages to 20 and then restart LoB... Ugh.

 

 

[skroq]

17 hours ago, Zalos44 said:

Omg. I ran through almost an entire ToB playthrough a second time to level up mages and thieves, so that I can export them to SoA with HLAs. Now, I find out that unlike on PC you cannot export from ToB to SoA. WTF?! Is there really no way? That is maddening.

 

Now I'm stuck. I will have to continue with my SoA party (5 barbarians + Nalia/Imoen) which can barely live through any large group of enemies... or restart on easy and grind mages to 20 and then restart LoB... Ugh.

 

 

 

Does one of your barb have Celestial Fury? This weapon is a must have for any playthrough as it stuns enemies including mages:

http://www.gamebanshee.com/cgi-bin/search/banshee_search.pl?_layout=bg2_items_Page&_cgifunction=search&bg2_items.id=156

 

IMHO one of the best weapons in the game.

[Zalos44]

I ended up restarting a BG2: SoA game and leveled up a sorcerer and a mage to level 23-24. Then, I remade a Legacy of Bhaal game and played with the 2 spellcasters and 4 barbarians. The characters were useless as the Planetar solo'ed the entire game. It took a while to do two playthroughs again, though. Anyway, plat is mine too.

[maisie666]

Glad you made it work.   Its an odd thing, given most BG summons are underwhelming.

[aln15]

I just got the platinum.  I used the five barbarian and sorcerer combo.  Summon Planetar combined with Mordenkainen's Sword is real deadly.  I also used Summon Hakeashar, Wyvern Call, Monster Summoning III and Simulacrum for the more difficult boss fights.  I didn't even have to equip my barbarians with good gear.    

 

Mass invisibility was also a life saver once I got to Suldanessellar.  I bypassed all the golems in the streets.

 

[fbdbh]

On 2/9/2020 at 10:23 PM, aln15 said:

I just got the platinum.  I used the five barbarian and sorcerer combo.  Summon Planetar combined with Mordenkainen's Sword is real deadly.  I also used Summon Hakeashar, Wyvern Call, Monster Summoning III and Simulacrum for the more difficult boss fights.  I didn't even have to equip my barbarians with good gear.    

 

Mass invisibility was also a life saver once I got to Suldanessellar.  I bypassed all the golems in the streets.

 

How does this work? You create a whole party of custom characters you export at the end of the game?

[maisie666]

 i did the game on my first runthrough with only a barbarian and a mage from bg1 and played through in story mode.    Then when its time to start a hard mode run, you can create a party with the high level barbarian duped 5 times using Import character, and a mage.   You can choose Summon Planetar at level 20 mage.  You must export the characters before the final battle before you head to TOB as TOB characters wont export to BG2.

Edited March 2, 2020 by maisie666

[aln15]

On 2/28/2020 at 6:47 AM, fbdbh said:

 

How does this work? You create a whole party of custom characters you export at the end of the game?

 

I did a barbarian in BG1.  I imported my barbarian and created a sorcerer as a party member in BG2 for my story mode playthrough.  I exported my barbarian and sorcerer during the final battle with Irenicus in hell.  I imported 5 barbarians (1 as my main character) and the sorcerer for my BG2 Legacy of Bhaal playthrough.

 

I encountered a lucky glitch with one of my barbarians, which gave him 500 hit points in Irenicus' dungeon.  He eventually dropped to 300 hit points after I saved and reloaded outside the dungeon. 

Edited March 7, 2020 by aln15

[Vern3r0z]

So the trophy for completing the game on legacy of baal unlocked when completing the shadows of amn. I was under the impression that i had to do throne of baal as well.All that time wasted on grinding good weapons just to fight ravager. Is it supposed to work like this?

EDIT: guess i should have read the guide better.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Vern3r0z

[bikeman223]

Found this roadmap to be really useful. I also found this great guide with annotated maps, link: https://sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/Walkthrough2/SoA/chapter-1/chapter-1-overview.php. Just in case anyone wants a resource similar to the one on the Baldur's Gate thread.

[GastNDorf]

Just a little detail, about Jaheira: not only do you have to free her, but you also have to at the very least ask her to join, else she goes away on her own and completely disappears from this playthrough forever. You don’t have to actually let her join, you can just ask her to join and dismiss her outright if your group is full, it works too. Anyway her quest is easy and fast, not even needed to fight if you pay up full price to the mage.

 

Another thing for the armor of Balduran, instead of bothering yourself with having to do a playthrough with a fighter main, you can just have a character carry the pieces in your inventory, export it, create a new game in Throne of Bhaal with a new fighter main and the character you just exported as second, give all the stuff to the main and that’s it.

 

Now, if you want to add some extra cheese to your LoB playthrough, let me introduce you to these couple exploits:

 

- Infinite gold: If you didn’t know, you can steal from merchants’ inventories, but not all of them, it works the same as pickpocket, you have to speak to them with a thief or anyone with a pickpocket stat. Also only some merchants can buy stolen items, they’re called fences, most fences are the shadow thieves acting like merchants. Now if you didn’t get it I’ll explain it to you: you can just sell and steal back the same item over and over, provided a high enough pickpocket stat to garantee success. I can give you an easy setup: Jayes in Waukeen’s promenade works for this. He is in an alcove on the right of the southeastern gate, but only at night. I know for a fact he has 50 in pickpockets so your thief needs at least 150 himself to counter that and garantee 100% success. You can sell an expensive item until you got about 40k gold (helm of Balduran if you grabbed it in Irenicus lair), buy the plate of Balduran in Ribald’s store, then sell it repeatedly for 10k each time.  This will get you a million gold in about 5-10 min, allowing you to buy great gear, scrolls and potions you need at Ribald’s, Joluv (in Copper Coronet) and others from the start… And also not having to do quests to pay Gaelan or Bhodi the 15k gold.
If you don’t have a thief, you can recruit Jan Jensen in the government district easily. If your main has at least 1,25m xp, Jan will be capped at that (there may be a slight delay between recruiting and getting scaled up), it’s enough to upgrade his pickpocketing to 150. Else you could get around 120 and use a potion of master-thief.

 

- Smuggle the rift device out of the sewers and use it infinitely: First and foremost, you can only do this with a lawful or chaotic neutral main, which has a class able to use arcane magic or arcane scrolls (it includes thieves if you have the skill « use any item »).

The rift device is a quickslot item which, used on any enemy in the game, reduces its HP to 1. It only has one charge though, and you can never recharge it. You get this from doing the cult of the eyeless quest to full.

For the exploit you first need to summon either a ferret or cat familiar (hence the alignment requirement), who are both able to pickpocket stuff. Put the rift device in a companion’s empty inventory (preferably one that has low or no pickpocket stat, because familiar don’t have a big stat either), pickpocket with the familiar from your teammate, it may take a few attempts (ferret is better than cat if it matters)… When it’s done, let him keep it. When you go back to the sewers first floor, it won’t trigger the instant death because it won’t detect the rift device on your familiar. Once you’re back on the surface, you’re safe to take it back by speaking to the familiar. Careful, you can’t go back in the sewers with the device ever, and your familiar won’t pickpocket it again. If you need to go back there, drop it on the floor or put it in a container, container is safer because it might depop if dropped on the floor and you lose it forever. You can still complete the quest and receive your rewards even if you didn’t give the device back. This item will allow you to 2-shot anything in the game (since it leaves 1 HP), this means all incarnations of Bhodi and Irenicus, Slayers, the dragons etc… You could skip the whole Underdark chapter by using it on Adalon and kill her easily, if you don’t care.
The quest itself isn’t that hard, you could skip most fights running fast, hasted. You don’t even have to kill the Eyeless, just run to the second part of the device, take it and go away (it won’t finish the quest though)

- Now to make it unlimited, since it’s a quick slot item, you only need the ability to summon clones, this can be done in several ways: either use a spell/scroll of project image or simulacrum, use Vhailor’s helm daily power, use a shadowdancer’s shadow twin… The clone will have a copy of the rift device for you to use, which won’t consume the original. Works on any quick slot by the way so feel free to use scrolls and other items infinitely too! Also works with spells though some clones like simulacrum may be limited by a lower spell memory.

 

- Skip some of the trials of Bhaal and get the same bonus multiple times: this one isn’t a big thing but you can skip the annoying ones, like Sarevok’s wraith, the beholder/terror cave or the one in which you either lose stats or a companion in your team. Do one of the easy trials to get the tear, then use it on the door: as soon as you hear the explosion, hit pause, drop the tear on the ground from inventory, and unpause. You get your bonus, can grab the tear back and you can activate the door again with the same tear. After doing it 5 times it will trigger the boss fight like normal. This also allows you to have multiple copies of the same bonus, so you could get say either -10 saving throws bonus on everything (minus is good, -1 saving throw is enough to be immune to effects, unless buffs/debuffs to throws apply which happens very often so you won’t cancel effects 100% of the time, more like 95%), 50% innate magic resistance, 100% resistance to fire/elec/cold (so immunity, >100% the element will heal you instead of damaging)… Well I guess it’s better if you can do that BEFORE your LoB of course, in your first playthrough since the bonus stay on your character forever even exported, just don’t forget you’re limited to 5 activation even if the locks don’t explode.

If you want to combine rewards you can, you just have to do the trial you want the reward from, repeat the exploit the number of times you want, but making sure the tear consumes on the last attempt (say you want 30% magic resistance with something else, you drop the tear twice and let it consume on the third time), then do another trial you also want rewards from. 

Edited January 19, 2022 by GastNDorf

[WiktorM101]

Great guides for all Baldur's Gates. Helped a lot.

It's shame how they handled Throne of Bhaal trophies. I would prefer them as 'DLC' pack with more interesting trophies then mostly story related. I would prefer trophy for Pantaloons over Balduran's set for example. They could add trophy for Watcher's Keep or for Lich side quest or even for Sarevok character development. 

Edited March 28, 2022 by WiktorM101