I've finished Baldur's Gate without making Imoen a mage since I had plenty of spell power. Baldur's Gate 2 has cruelly wiped out my wizards and now I have none. After getting out of the immediate predicament at the start, I've lost Imoen because she's being held for being a mage (although she isn't). She's advanced to 11th level as a thief, and assuming I get her back it would take forever to catch her up as a wizard. Is this important to the game since the dialogue makes it seem so. At this point do I need to use an editor to make her fit Baldur's Gate 2? I guess this is what I get for modding the two games into one.

Firstly, you can start by thanking the (from what I have heard, admittedly) hack who wrote the Baldur's Gate adaptation; that thing is the reason that BG2 considers it "canon" that you traveled with Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc, Dynaheir, and Imoen, and that Imoen became a spellcaster. Aside from that, I don't think her being a caster has all that much of an impact beyond her getting chucked into Spellhold for casting magic; then again, I never really got that far into BG2 when I realized that I was expected to do nothing but sidequests before moving on to the main plot.

Secondly, if you do find Imoen again, she will be a thief who has dual classed into a mage; this means that any further levels she gains will be as a mage, as there is no way to dual class again, let alone to your last class. If you are dead set on her staying a thief, you will pretty much have to use a save editor. Maybe you can just pretend she was using a wand against Irenicus or something if the inconsistency bothers you (then again, using wands never gets the cloaked wizards involved when your party does it).

Good catch. I missed that.

Thanks for the information.

I was primarily worried that this would cause problems because the game assumes Imoen is now a wizard with the appropriate abilities. She was my only thief in Baldur's Gate (with tons of traps) and since I had two wizards, it never occurred to me to dual class her into a mage. Assuming I get her back, it would take "forever" to catch up to her current thief level of 11...so hopefully I won't need to do it.

Keep in mind that BG2 throws XP at you like snowflakes fall in winter -- you will have no trouble leveling her up. If you do want to dual Imoen -- there's no reason you shouldn't, seeing how she has more than enough Thief skills to tackle anything the game throws at her, and there is no point (other than HLA Wear Any Item) having her go for extra levels for backstab with a STR of 9, AAAAAND she's the best Good aligned NPC mage in the game -- you need to aim to rescue her ASAP. That means forego all of the sidequests you can... all of them. Do one (I suggest the Fighter Stronghold) just to get the money needed for the trip to free her. Don't be sidetracked. This also makes sense from a story standpoint: she's your character's life-long best friend, been with you since Candlekeep, has been captured, by forces unkown, and she needs you to stop thinking about rescuing kittens and get her the hell out of there! Once you have her, it is only a matter of accruing 750,000 XP to regain her thieving class. It may sound like a lot, but in BG2 it really isn't. You will also have a ready-made stand-in if you do the aforementioned Fighter Stronghold.

Edit: If you do go down that route, making her your primary spellcaster, be brutal and save the best spell scrolls for her. Get a scroll case quickly. Don't forget potions for boosting her INT for learning expensive spells.

Or just save scum. Seriously, when failure to learn the spell consumes the scroll as opposed to merely meaning you have to wait another level to try again (which is 2E RAW), there is no shame in countering that absurd house rule.

Hickory- I've just finished the circus quest & added Aerie to the party, but I'm going to follow your advice and make a beeline to rescue Imoen ASAP. I guess I now have a bounty hunter to handle thief duties for the time being. He's not all that great, but he will do for now.

Sure, and break every other rule that doesn't suit you, why no? It's a rule, like it or not. Baldur's Gate, being an Infinity Engine video game, is not governed by 2E RAW. There is no mechanical way in the IE to use a scroll and have it lay dormant until you next level up. Even if there was, it's still a BG rule. There's no point playing a game (seriously) if you don't abide by the rules as they're set down. Good on you. Have fun. :)

Well, I have no idea where the Fighter Stronghold is, so I'm doing other things. As soon as I get 20,000 GP, I'll go for Imoen and make an honest woma....I mean mage out of her.

Fighter Stonghold == De'Arnise Keep.

If you've moved out of Waukeen's Promenade you would have ended up in the slums. Hint: the first place for all adventurers is the local tavern. ;)

You are right that it is a limitation of the engine, hence why I am counterbalancing it by save scumming. I supposed I could always save scum and keep the scroll for another level if I failed the roll the first time around to be a little more in the spirit of 2E RAW, though. As for it being a BG rule, I am fine with deviations from the original 2E rules so long as they in some way improve the game, and a lot of the deviations the IE makes are questionable at best. For instance, having the scroll go up in smoke like that only serves to make things needlessly punishing, especially for some of the rarer scrolls *cough*breach*cough*.

Then, on the other end of the spectrum, there's the mess they made of the resurrection system that, oddly enough, was detrimental in that it made things too easy; fun fact, under 2E RAW, a character's constitution has a lot to do with coming back from the dead. The original constitution number is the maximum number of times someone can come back, each time they do come back they lose a point permanently, and once it gets below a certain level, you have to roll d100 to see if the character survives the resurrection (which gets harder the lower your constitution gets). Naturally, all of that was contingent on finding a cleric who could cast the spell needed (which required thousands of gp worth of diamond dust), having enough money (that diamond dust doesn't grow on trees), and the cleric actually wanting to bring the character back (which, if you have a nasty reputation as a heartless asshole, won't always be the case).

IE games, on the other hand, made coming back guaranteed (which was a nice touch, admittedly) so long as you had an intact body and gave the paltry sum of a few hundred gold pieces to the local priest who could care less if he was bringing back Bhaal himself; it was so effective that it raises a plot hole by making the player ask why in the hells they didn't try to raise Gorion, or anyone else who died in that game. Whereas 2E made death actually have lasting consequences and plugged plot holes like that, BG makes it easy as a way of counterbalancing the questionable encounter design (seriously, who throws this much combat at a level 1 party without trying to get a quick TPK?) . Still, I have heard rumblings of a mod that addresses this to a degree, so I may need to look into it the next time I take it into my head to play BG2.

Everybody should play the game in a way that is the most fun for them, I totally agree on that. I am one of those odd people who are happy to play by the video game rules -- no reload challenge make it fun for me; save scumming makes for a very dull game, and I would lose interest very quickly.

I concur, insofar as when the game rules are sensible, I play by them, and when the rule in question serves no discernible satisfactory purpose, I ignore it. The scroll rule makes no sense because the prior rule already makes being a mage difficult, and having failure to copy a scroll consume the scroll only makes it harder than 2E originally intended. With the death issue, I can understand if the characters are in any way integral to the plot or are otherwise interesting (PST) or if the game is a hack and slash with no real opportunity to recruit anyone else (IWD), since story and game respectively are kind of screwed if the characters start dying and ruining any themes the game is exploring by having a character arc locked off due to permadeath or wrecking the dynamic of a combat game without having any reasonably leveled NPCs to conscript; BG doesn't have any of that going on, and seems to make death easy so as to compensate for the encounter design that no self respecting DM would ever throw at a level 1 party.

But yeah, good luck to OP :)

Coincidentally that is the quest I ended up with before reading your clarifying post (I didn't recognize it as the Fighter Stronghold at the time), and I picked up Nalia. Good thing she has some thief abilities because Yoshimo is really whining and will probably leave the party soon.

It's pretty hard to take a direct path to Imoen since the events in the game (Boo, Aerie's uncle, demon led thieves & Shadow Guild shenanigans etc.) keep distracting me. Which brings up a new question: Will I lose out on quests that are currently being tossed my way after rescuing Imoen? Yes I want her ASAP so I can level her up as a mage, but not at the cost of losing out on opportunities. I'm not in the habit of playing games multiple times and would be a bit miffed if I missed out on some fun because I rushed it.