Nice. I'll keep that in mind when I get to Beregost in my current playthrough (my previous playthorugh was the victim of an accidental delete). I do know of the ogre in the NE area of that map (barely beat him with only four characters) and remembered reading the belt is better kept than returned. Since my characters are usually pretty fragile at this point I mostly spend some time hunting Hobgoblins in the northern area of the Friendly Arms, even after finding the Flamedance Ring.

I re-rolled Donovan using the suggestion from NotJabba to up his STR to 18/00 at the expense of a couple of INT. Tonight I'll get started on the Prologue (which should go pretty quickly as many times as I've been through it, heh). Then off to the Friendly Arms.

If I can keep Monteron and Xzar from going hostile, I'll probably go back and explore the first couple of wilderness areas for experience. I don't want to grind too much, but I'd like to at least get a level before going to Nashkel. If not, I'll make a beeline for Beregost to pick up Neera and Garrick or Kagain before going back. I know there's a time limit to reach Nashkel, but it seems to be pretty generous (only ever heard Jaheira grouse about it after the third or fourth game day), so I may as well take advantage of it.

Flynn

I think my party is mostly level 2 (Imoen, Branwen, Ajantis, Minsc, Kivan, and myself as a fighter), and I've been doing fine wandering around the gnoll stronghold so far. Just take lots and lots of arrows, since gnolls only melee (heck, take lots and lots of arrows, period). I don't actually know precisely where Dynaheir is, so I couldn't tell you without looking it up myself. For reference, I haven't done the Nashkel Mines yet, though I did talk to the town guy that asks you to go there.

The stronghold is marked on your map when Minsc joins, and from there you just need to walk across the various areas towards it. Finding the stronghold is a non-issue.

Taking on the Hobgoblins north of Friendly Arms wasn't too bad at level 1 and the ogre with the belt fetish is not too bad if you can hit it with Sleep or Entangle (though I'm really good about accidentally hitting my own party with Entangle at times). Wolves give me some problems, though swarming it with melee works okay. The only other critters so far to give me much trouble in previous games have been the giant spiders in the house at Beregost. The wizards hunting Neera weren't too difficult even without Monteron and Xzar, so that wasn't too bad.

Being a Cleric/Ranger, Donovan can't use Bows or (my preference Crossbows), but I did give him Mace and War Hammer. So, he should be okay working with Jaheira and Khalid in handling melee duties. Imoen, Neera and Garrick will have to handle missile combat, but they should do okay. Plus we'll have Jaheira's, Donovan's and Neera's spells for support. =)

Flynn

I actually slapped a bow/sling on everyone except Ajantis (or whoever has tanking duty, if Ajantis is hurt). Ajantis stands in front with the heaviest armor and shield I have available and tries not to die while everyone else unleashes focused, ranged death. Set the game to auto-pause when enemies are sighted, and you can start targeting as soon as they show up. If enemies are coming from several directions, or if Ajantis starts to get overwhelmed, then someone else (either Minsc or my PC fighter, and Kivan too if things REALLY start getting dicey) steps up to tank as needed. If Ajantis gets too hurt, then he pulls back, takes off the shield, and pulls out a bow too.

While slings don't do as much damage as bows, it is nice that the user doesn't need to take off their shield to equip it. Especially since going to the inventory page unpauses the game, which causes me trouble because the game frequently registers double clicks on the inv page so it takes longer than it should to move equipment around.

I guess all this is to say that you can probably handle the Gnoll Stronghold before clearing the Nashkel Mines, if you want to try and get your party together sooner. It suddenly occurred to me that this might be perceived as pressuring you; since it is your game to play, I'm going to stop here. >.>

Right now, Monteron, Xzar, Imoen and Jaheira have bows and slings, while main and Khalid are tanks. Both are wearing splint with helm and Khalid has a shield. Main has two morningstars equipped and with an 18/00 STR is tearing through opponents. We're clearing the hobgoblins north of Friendly Arms right now and doing pretty well. We just turned in the Flamedance Ring before I finished playing last night.

I think there's one more group of hobgoblins up there to go and then we're going to take on the ogre with the belt fetish next. Assuming Monteron and Xzar don't turn on me before that, it should go okay. If not, we lose two missile users, so it will be beeline to Beregost to pick up Neera and either Garrick (for missile) or Kagain (move Khalid to missile and Kagain to tank).

Edit: BTW - I'm playing EE, so it does pause on the inventory screen. But I'll keep that in mind for when I'm playing vanilla. =)

Flynn

Not maces or warhammers? I don't know if you changed your proficiencies this time around, but morningstars/flails are a separate proficiency from the other blunt weapons. Obviously you're still doing pretty well, but you might tear through enemies even faster with a couple of hammers.

Well, that will teach me. I forgot Flails/Morningstars is a different proficiency group. This padowan has much to learn still. Might have to revisit the innkeep for some maces...

Flynn

Sounds like things are going quite well. I didn't spot the belt-fetish ogre (I was trying to gather my party before doing too much exploring, but I really wanted to stop and help Minsc first), so I can't say anything in that regard.

I don't recall having an in-party issue before I kicked Monty and Xzar out, though I've read that they and Jaheira/Khalid don't get along. I only saw a few insults thrown back and forth.

While I did neglect to mention I'm playing vanilla (trying it once before installing one of the trilogy packs), everything I've seen indicates that all I've said (in this thread, at least) should apply to EE without any issues. >.>

I've only had them turn on me once. I'm not certain why unless my reputation got too high for them to handle, but I'd always heard they'd leave, not attack. So I was pretty surprised when Xzar said something and then I was getting a minor drain spell to the face. Fortunately, I hadn't given them anything worthwhile to hold on to, so after Xzar had spent his one spell, it was four fully armed and armored against a short sword + leather and a dagger. They didn't last long, heh.

Flynn

Operation Rescue Dynaheir was a rousing success! After making it to Beregost and doing some work there, Jaheira reached level 2. We dropped off Xzar and Moteron at Kagain's shop, then took Kagain over to rescue Neera. After that, we did some busy work around Beregost and eventually found the house with the Giant Spiders. As that was Donovan's enemy type (and I'd equipped him with two maces in keeping with his proficiencies), we cleaned them up pretty quickly.

After a brief side trip back to the Friendly Arms (along with grousing from Kagain for our charitable ways), we headed to Nashkel. Found Minsc pretty quick and had to decide if we wanted to go to the Gnoll Stronghold as we were or wait. As wed outfitted Neera with a sling and about 480 bullet stones to go with Jaheira's similar amount, and Imoen had her shortbow with 480 arrows, we decided to go for it. So, we let Minsc join, bidding farewell to Kagain.

Edward stopped us on the way out of town and tried to get us to kill Dynaheir, but we weren't going for that, being a mostly good aligned party. Though that was sorely tested by a very annoying fellow named Noober which wanted to stop us every few seconds with some random gibberish. At one point he'd said something about people throwing rocks at him, not realizing there were at least two members of my group with slings...

We made it to the Gnoll Stronghold with little resistance. We did run into a white wolf that made life interesting for a brief moment until Neera's Sleep spell made it a very one sided affair. Reaching the stonghold we ran into a pair of Ogres trying to shake us down for some money. I was rather surprised at how quickly the group took them down. Thanks to Neera's Identify spell, we found one of them was carrying Gauntlets of Dexterity. Since my main is a melee fighter (dual-wielding maces with 18/00 STR and Plate armor) I gave the gauntlets to him. He now has AC -2, heh.

Minsc has a Compound Longbow, Imoen (now level 2) has her Shortbow. Jaheira and Neera have slings, Khalid has a Bastard Sword and Plate armor. We make short work of the Gnolls inside, taking very little damage overall (the Gnoll Cheiftan and a couple of Gnoll Veterans put up a bit more of a fight). It didn't take long to clear out the place and find Dynaheir. Neera was a little upset that we were kicking her our (taking back her sling, bullets and Imoen somehow ended up with her staff, hehehe), but did say she'd be waiting at the Friendly Arms if we needed her.

So, the party is now complete. Dynaheir has taken possession of Neera's things (though no one could use the staff, so we sold it). We have four missiles and two melees with Plate. Mostly people are still level 1 (except Jaheira and Imoen). We' re currently in Nashkel, ready to decide where to go next. =)

Flynn

Onward, to VIC-tory!

Aye, though the will take some time and doing. In the meantime, I rolled the same character in my BGT install and just finished the prologue. My goal is to assemble the same party, though obviously without Neera. Instead I'll likely keep Kagain and Garrick until I reach Naskel and then drop Garrick for Minsc before ultimately dropping Kagain for Dynaheir at the fortress. =)

Flynn

Why BGT? I mean, I love BGT, but the EE versions accomplish almost the same thing. Are you planning to play them both at the same time, or are you starting over?

I'm playing them concurrently at least through the initial party formation because I've always been curious about the differences. I'm also trying to decide if I want to import into BG2:EE or just use BGT to play everyone through one ginormous adventure. Also, I'd read the Gnoll Stronghold was somewhat easier in BG:EE, so I was a bit curious to see if that's the case. In any case, by the time I've rescued Dynaheir in both games, I should have a pretty good idea of which game I want to continue with. =)

Flynn

So, after playing through gathering the initial party in both BGT and BG:EE, I'm going to stick to BG:EE for now. Mostly at this point due to the EE being slightly easier in combat with its expanded AI scripts. No Thief Ranged script in BGT for example. So far, I've fully explored the initial wilderness areas between Candlekeep, Friendly Arms and Beregost. I'm currently exploring the Nashkel Carnival after a brief foray into High Hedge.

One thing I've found that helps is a mace called The Stupifier. It has a 25% chance of stun with no saving throw (looked it up after finding it on one of the BG wikis). It's apparently only in the EE and it is an awesome weapon in the hands of my Cleric/Ranger. Donovan (main), Khalid and Minsc have Plate, Khalid and Donovan handle melee while Imoen, Jaheira, Dynaheir and Minsc handle ranged combat. Occasionally I will take control of Dynaheir, Jaheira or Donovan if I need healing or spells.

Imoen is level 3, Khalid and Jaheira are level 2, and Donovan went up to level 2 in one of his classes. Dynaheir and Minsc are still level 1, but getting closer to level 2 now.

Flynn