In Progress Let's (try to) Ironman the Baldur's Gate Trilogy!

[Supercuts]

What up all, I'm here to do exactly what the title says - tackle the whole damn thing without dying once or reloading (decline: with the exceptions of bugs and unknown rules tests). I was drawn to this LP for a couple of reasons: 1) I love these games, but I have never beaten the first one and only gone through the second + expansion once like 5 years ago. 2) I just graduated and I'm going through the job search phase. While fruitful, this entails a lot of waiting on other people and hangin' at home, so I have the time on my hands anyways. 3) After looking through the infinity engine ironman thread here http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/infinity-engine-ironman-extravaganza.22071/ , it doesn't appear that anyone has actually made it through all three games, or even any of them! There are some unverified claims, but I find them suspect at best. This is the real deal, and you can follow me every step of the way.

I should note right off the break that I am not an expert in the engine, nor am I going to try and 'meta-game' (read: use cheesy engine exploits in combat) my way through. I installed an ass load of mods following the GoG guide, but none of them should make the game any easier.

tl;dr ----

BGT, Mutha-fuckin' Ironman

 

[Supercuts]

Character Creation; to the Friendly Arm Inn

Spoiler

In picking an Ironman character, I know I want somebody who won't have to be a tank but who will have some staying power/high HPs. I decided to go with a kensai. I know it's a bit cliche but it's new to me.

That didn't even take too long! Sweet stats! I didn't use a true dump for RP reasons, and I kept Int high in case I go for mage later. He looks tough, but really he's a soft and cuddly neutral good.

Picked up Imoen (I skipped posting about all that Candlekeep crap; nobody cares). In reading up online everyone says to duel her to mage, but right now I need a thief. Her low str means that she has to use ranged weapons, wasting awesome thief backstabs until I have ways to boost her strength.

Picked up these two on the way to Friendly Arm Inn. TBH, I really don't want them for long (I'm not going for evil) but I need the extra bodies so I don't get smoked out by Tarnesh on the steps of the Inn, which is one of the few fights I actually remember. I figure if they die, who cares?

Wow, good thing I took those two devious bastards with me. What you are seeing here (sorry for the poor brightness) is my whole party except Montaron (sp) running with fear - I think it was a horror spell - and Tarnesh dead thanks to the evil bugger and a helpful guard. I should have used Imoen's wand of missiles off the break to interrupt his spell but, alas, I did not. Close call for the first real fight! I have some more to post but I'll wait and see if this gets any interest first. I'll be cross posting in the ironman thread. Plus, I'm looking forward to some good Baldur's Gate is the best/worst game ever debates.

 

[Bulba]

it's pretty easy to ironman as long as you either remember what creatures are around or if you scout ahead

 

[Supercuts]

No way ToB is easy to Ironman, if its even possible...

 

[Shadenuat]

One ambush with archer bandits and you can be fucked

 

[Whisky]

A real iron-man challenge would be playing as a Mage. Potentially one-hit kill bandit archers at Level 1 = fun.

 

[Tigranes]

Or Cloakwood Mines random encounter with ettercaps and giant wyverns and insta-web traps. But hey, a BG LP is always good!

 

[Supercuts]

Thanks for the comments. I'm going to try to get this thread caught up to where I am tonight or tomorrow night so here we go.
And Tigranes you have successfully scared the piss out of me at the prospect of being webbed and devoured by Wyverns.

To Bergost

Spoiler

Ok, we left off with Johnny do-gooder having killed Tarnesh (actually, he ran around like a frightened, roided out 18 str little girl. Montaron did the killing), and now we pick up trusty ol' Khalid and Jahera.

So what was four is now a full six, and I was ready to move on to bigger and better things... but not much bigger.

I was still a bit scared of bandits and the like so I decided to continue with the main quest and beat feet down to Bergost. Johnny promptly wandered into an Inn with an Assassin encounter which I had forgotten about. Result?

Man down! Killed the stupid dwarf but I lost my evil thief in the process. TBH I didn't really mind; I wanted to get rid of him and his shmuck companion anyways. Sheesh, I need to try a different place for a drink!

The hospitality at the next place was even worse! Some drunk started blabbing on about his kid (and I care, why?). But, being a do-gooder, I tried to buy a round for the bar. This bozo gets all uppity and start swingin' at me! Umm, do you not see the big 18/00 str guy in front of you with two swords? Sorry son, you gots ta go.

 

[Thor Kaufman]

A real iron-man challenge would be playing as a Mage. Potentially one-hit kill bandit archers at Level 1 = fun.

Play a mage with two hitpoints
???
get killed by Tanoko's flame arrow

 

[DraQ]

A real iron-man challenge would be playing as a Mage. Potentially one-hit kill bandit archers at Level 1 = fun.

It's only fun if you have actual way of avoiding instakills.
Otherwise it amounts to rolling for game over.

PnP mechanics is p. shit in cRPGs.

 

[Aeschylus]

Well, I could see BG1 at least as p. easy to Ironman, as long as you abuse the Basilisks for easy XP early in the game, and avoid some of the bitchier insta-kill parts of the game. Though the TotSC parts might still be pretty tough. BG2 is fairly easy if you are careful and know what you're doing, and buff for every major fight. ToB... well, depends if you play with Ascension or not. Vanilla it is actually pretty easy with a strong party and MC.

 

[Supercuts]

To Nashkel
It turns out Bergost, once my Oasis in the dangerous world for low-level characters, has a whole number of ways to kill people. Rather than get fried by the mysterious mage looking woman or turn into spider food near the smithy I decide to head south for Nashkel. At this point I'm aiming to get some beefier characters and maybe tackle the mines. Here's what happens:

Spoiler

My very first bandit fight south of Bergost sees Khalid filled with arrows and Xzar sticking his tail between his legs and running...
Right into a Ghast:

OK, new plan. That Ghast means business, and at low levels his business is eating me. Inspired by Xzar's final heroic act, my remaining trio exits stage North back to Bergost (pursued by a Ghast).
I'm missing the screen cap, but my new plan was to get Kaigan to join me so I can have a real tank in my party, because I'm hemorrhaging NPCs at an alarming rate. So we find the surly dwarf and head back to the crossroads to finish his little quest. Unfortunately, that ends like this:

The observant codexer will notice a pattern by this point - someone dies, everyone else runs like hell. What I need is a few more burly sword arms.

After a brief conference and some stitching up of wolf bite marks, my stingy group finally shells out to resurrect someone. Then we scoop up Ajantis to form a strange yet effective front line - evil fighter and Paladin.

 

[Supercuts]

Well, I could see BG1 at least as p. easy to Ironman, as long as you abuse the Basilisks for easy XP early in the game, and avoid some of the bitchier insta-kill parts of the game. Though the TotSC parts might still be pretty tough. BG2 is fairly easy if you are careful and know what you're doing, and buff for every major fight. ToB... well, depends if you play with Ascension or not. Vanilla it is actually pretty easy with a strong party and MC.

You have given a fair description of everything I have not done. I didn't abuse for exp, I don't know what I'm doing in BG 2, and I have the ascension mod installed. So... yeah.

 

[Supercuts]

Is it better to put everything in spoiler tags or to leave it out? What do you guys think?

 

[Thor Kaufman]

spoiler tags is fine

 

[Lhynn]

Being kensai is actually gimp on BGI

 

[Supercuts]

Level 2 and Getting the Band Together

Spoiler

I'm working to get myself up to date so that I'm playing and posting concurrently. As it is where we left off, I got my fearsome fivesome together and I'm on my way down to Nashkel. Then something magical happened...

Oh thank you Jebus! I made it to level 2! Double HP, here I come!

After that excitement I made it down to Nashkel. But I had some recollection of another assassin in the Inn, so I made sure to pick up Minsc BEFORE going to rest.

As you can see, two of my hitters got held but we made it through the fight just fine. When can I start casting some useful spells again?

At this point I had 4-5 fighter types and I had to clear some room for Dynaheir. Despite his awesome tanking potential, evil Kaigan was clearly the odd man out so I booted him and started making my way to the knoll stronghold. I ran into an ogre mage on the way and nearly crapped myself when he went invisible...

But it turned out to be much ado about nothing. The crew is shaping up quite nicely, but I have a surplus of brawn and a shortage of casting, even considering the fact that I'm about to add a mage. So I doubled back to Nashkel and swapped Jaheira for statue-turned-cleric Branwen. I was able to rescue Dynaheir without a hitch, but on the way back...

Ajantis got himself killed by some knolls. Still, at this point I had a little money to throw around so I could resurrect one character no problem.

*sigh*
As soon as I leave town again.

 

[Aeschylus]

Well, I could see BG1 at least as p. easy to Ironman, as long as you abuse the Basilisks for easy XP early in the game, and avoid some of the bitchier insta-kill parts of the game. Though the TotSC parts might still be pretty tough. BG2 is fairly easy if you are careful and know what you're doing, and buff for every major fight. ToB... well, depends if you play with Ascension or not. Vanilla it is actually pretty easy with a strong party and MC.

You have given a fair description of everything I have not done. I didn't abuse for exp, I don't know what I'm doing in BG 2, and I have the ascension mod installed. So... yeah.

Haha, well, good luck. You can't really abuse for XP anymore with the full party, so you'll have to be fairly careful in BG1 with what quests you do/what order, but as long as you're willing to abuse pick-pocket and the scroll-scribing XP in BG2 after you dual to mage (which I assume you will) then you can get really powerful with basically no risk. As long as you didn't install the incredibly stupid Improved Sendai mod for ToB, then you should be able to do it with some luck.

 

[Tigranes]

It really depends. I've done a semi-ironman LP (BG1 complete, BG2 on hiatus) but my rules were pretty lenient; party members (that I created) get 3 resurrections (if I can afford it and they are not chunked), reload when the protagonist dies unless he was last man standing. Kind of balanced out by the fact that the protagonist was a wild mage and I was playing with SCS. I haven't played vanilla in so long but I imagine with a little bit of cheese BG1 is perfectly doable.

But yes, as the OP is finding out, the biggest threat is actually early stage random encounters...

 

[DraQ]

At this point I had 4-5 fighter types and I had to clear some room for Dynaheir. Despite his awesome tanking potential, evil Kaigan was clearly the odd man out so I booted him and started making my way to the knoll stronghold.

Ajantis got himself killed by some knolls.

 

[Cool name]

What kind of person leaves Kagain for Dynaheir?