Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn

It’s been two years now since the release of Baldur’s Gate. The game won awards for best game of the year from many media sources in the industry, as well as best RPG of the year. Shortly thereafter Bioware and Interplay released an expansion for their hit game which added significantly to the expansive world of Faerun; now, we’re finally getting the true sequel to BG, and an even larger world to game in. So strap on the feed bag, hook up the IV and get ready to kick some monster ass.

I’ll start off by mentioning the new additions to BG2, or at least most of them anyway. Taken from 3rd edition AD&D we are given the option of playing a Half-Orc as a race now in addition to all of the old races available to the player in the AD&D system. The Half-Orc is a strong fighter that has penalties associated with your intelligence stat, but you are very strong or have the opportunity to be very strong and just plough through your enemies as if they were all gibberlings J. A Half-Orc mage is a funny sight to behold, I have to say. On top of the new race from 3rd ed. you now have the opportunity to play three new classes, the Monk, Barbarian, and the Sorcerer. Barbarians are fierce warriors who have special abilities such as Berserk and are very powerful fighters. Monks specialize in unarmed combat but have proficiencies with martial weapons such as the quarterstaff. Sorcerers are kind of like mages in that they cast arcane spells; however, they do not learn spells the same traditional manner as taught wizards are. Sorcerers create magic from within themselves harnessing the magical energies of the world around them. Charisma is the key attribute for being a sorcerer.

With those few new classes explored quickly there is something else for all you diverse AD&D fans out there. Bioware has now added different kits for the other classes in the game now. Now you don’t just have to be a plain old Paladin, you can be a Cavalier or an Undead Hunter. Thieves can be Assassins and Druids can be Shape-Shifters. Kits allow for an optimization of the basic class and have advantages and disadvantages to playing them. For instance, a Kensai (Fighter kit) is extremely skilled with weaponry but cannot use armor. Inquisitors, an offshoot of the Paladin, can cast true sight and a few other spells per day but cannot use lay on hands as the basic Paladin can. Mages have stayed much the same as they were in BG with specialization being their only “kits” as it were. Being specialized as a mage in the game allows the player to gain one extra spell per level but they cannot learn any spells from their opposition schools. Those opposite school spells are basically unintelligible to the mage. A special treat has been added for those who like to play Clerics. When creating a Cleric in BG2 the player can now choose between a basic Cleric or he can choose to be a specific priest of the gods Talos, Lathander, or Helm. There are over 21 kits in the game to choose from. Sorry if that’s not enough J.

Also newly added are the combat ability to dual wield weapons, attain grand mastery with a specified weapon, and a larger selection of weapon proficiencies to choose from. Now you can add a lot of weight to your attacks with specialization and mastery of skills that give you bonuses to attack and damage. The breakdown on the weapon proficiencies is basically now swords and other such weapons are listed individually rather than grouped all in a bunch. So instead of specializing in large swords and having that count for large swords, bastard swords, two-handed swords and other large slicing metal objects, there is now a slot for each of those types of weaponry. A new sword to the BG line, though not the AD&D game itself, is the katana. As an addition to these places to throw your hard earned proficiencies you can now throw a point or two into a specific fighting style e.g. Two Weapon Fighting, Sword and Shield style, or One Weapon Fighting.

Magic has gotten a facelift in more ways than one. Now there are many more spells to choose from than there were in BG. Many of the 5th level and lower spells make a return exactly the same as they were but some have gotten a bit different in regards to what the spell actually does. In Baldur’s Gate 2 with an XP cap of 2,950,000 a mage can memorize and cast 8th level spells with devastating effect and can also cast 9th level spells off of existing scrolls you find throughout the game. In total there are over 180 mage spells in the game and over 90 priest spells so using magic becomes much more fun now and deadly to your enemies. The only immediate problem I had with the magic in BG2 was that when you are in almost any fight with another magic user there is really no need to memorize physically offensive spells as it were. Usually you end up having spells memorized just to bring the enemies spell defenses down. That’s not saying once you get up into higher levels that there is no room to add offensive spells like Ice Storm and other such magic’s but at those higher levels you are also running into more enemies that have higher spell defenses. You have to weigh what’s more important, having Cloudkill memorized or a Breach spell to bring down the combat protecting magics of an evil mage. There are times when you can just overcome the enemy though, and I don’t mean to make it seem as though you can’t get anywhere in the game without using a huge amount of magic. In fact, if your character isn’t a full out mage then you will only find maybe one or two decent ones in the game to be your artillery. And you may not always get along with them J.

A main reason I am going into depth so much on the magic system is because it is over abundant in the city Athkatla (even though its outlawed there). One useful tip for mages, especially when dealing with demons or whatever else you can’t seem to hurt with regular magic, is to remember the Lower Resistance spell. With this spell, which doesn’t take overly long to cast, you can make an enemy who was totally immune to your attacks stand up and take notice of a volley of Magic Missiles raining down upon his head. A spell like this would have really helped out against Sarevok in Baldur’s Gate as he was super magic resistant. I should also note that Clerics now have some really decent offensive magic such as the harm spell, which if the cleric connects in melee combat with the intended target, drops said target to one hit point. Quite a decent spell if you need to kill something real big, real fast. Last but not least, the new Sorcerer class needs not memorize spells. He or she can cast any spell they know with no preparation needed. The only real drawback to this class is that a sorcerer takes longer to progress with spells than a normal mage.

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