I just started (first time ever) and was wondering, can you boost passed the max stat limit via spells, bards' songs, potions, rage/enrage, items, etc...even if temporarily? If not, it seems like some advantages would be pointless if you're already at or near a stat max which is affected advantageously.

There are few things that can boost your stats at all. However, for the few that do increase your stats (strength belts, certain shields, certain permanent stat boosts from certain items), they can go as high as 25. You will rarely get that high though.

awesome thanks a lot!

Stats can't go past 25, period. They actually CAN be temporarily boosted higher than that, but they'll be *effectively* 25 even if they're higher.

For instance... you have 18 INT, and drink 4 Genius Potions (+4 each). You're now at (internally) 34 int, but you're still effectively at 25. If you get hit by a mindflayer once (-5 int) you won't see any change, but if you get hit twice, you'll go down to 24. However, it's pretty rare that you would have to worry about "wasted" stat points, simply due to how most of the spells and bonuses operate.

Other than STR and CON there's not much benefit to going past 19 though, so it's not really a big deal. The 2nd edition AD&D system doesn't really reward stat-maxing the same way a lot of other systems do. Your max stats at creation are 18 +/- your racial bonuses, but there's a couple of ways to legitimately raise some of them ingame.

In BG1, I made my Bard PC have 23 Intelligence by drinking a couple of potions, juss to try it, and it gave him the Rigid Thinking icon on his portrait! That was a good laugh!