This is my first time playing these games and I'm liking it very much. I've read through the newbie posts already and got a lot of good info there. I have a few questions:

1. Are magic (or cursed) items that you acquire always shaded blue until you identify them (indicating they are magical; ie, so I won't accidentally sell a sword that looks regular but actual just wasn't identified)?

2. I'm currently at the Friendly Arms Inn about to shop for my brand-new recruits. I have accumulated a bunch of different types of gems, a necklace, a silver ring, etc, all of which are non-magical (well, not shaded blue). Should I hang on to any of this stuff, or sell them to upgrade my characters equipment?

3. I cleared both areas of enemies on the way to the Inn and have several magical items that Imoen can't identify with Lore. Also, in order to make room to carry more items (it's just my fighter and Imoen) I started equipping things to free up slots, and I accidentally turned Imoen into a man via a certain unidentified item (this does not please me). Can I take care of both these issues at the Temple? (identify items and remove curse).


Thanks in advance for any replies!

3.At the Beginning Identifying Items at shops/temples is costly, esp. as many of the early magical Items aren't that precios. I would suggest to change all 1.G spells to Identify if you visit a Tavern and and rest/identyífy a few time using the cheapest room. This way you can spare your money.

Not 100%, but in general, yes all magical items have a Lore score for identifying purposes. Anything shaded blue IS magical and unidentified, and worth (most of the time) hanging on to, if for nothing else but to sell. Remember that any weapon with a + value is classed as magical. You do not need to hold on to any jewels or gems in Baldur's Gate 1, unless you know that they belong to a quest, and even then it's up to you whether to turn them in for XP, or sell them; the former is usually best, but there is one notable exception in Nashkel -- no spoilers! Yes. The temple will offer identification, and remove curses -- you equipped a cursed belt on Imoen. When at the temple, select Imoen and then 'buy Remove Curse, and the belt will be removed. Note that Remove Curse will still be available, but that's because the cursed item is still in your inventory. You only need to pay for it once.

I did once come across a dagger in BG2 which was preidentified on an enemy. I'm still not entirely sure why, but it had a unique name so I spotted it. Other than that, every magic item will be blue until identified, and every unique item for a quest will have a unique name. If you do happen to pick up an item which sounds unique, it might be worth hanging on to or storing somewhere: unless it's a ____'s tears gem, which is actually just an ordinary type of gem. Caught me out a couple of times.

And, as others have said, try to get a scroll of identify if you have a mage, and they don't know that spell, and cast it for identifies on the more important (ie equipable) magic items. More minor ones can wait until you have more free spell slots. If your pc isn't a mage, though, you may want to identify a few strategic items now using shops, until you can pick one up in your party. If your party is just you and Imoen and you've reached the friendly arm, I assume you rejected Xzar and Montaron who you meet on the road?

Thanks for all the replies. I appreciate all the info.

I'm not a newbie to this genre, just these 2 games in particular. Though its been a very long time since I've played a DnD game. When I was a kid I remember playing "Secret of the Silver (something, I can't quite remember the name of it) and a couple others. The really old ones ;) . I played the hell out of Fallout 1&2 back in the day, and was introduced to both ToEE and Arcanum since joining GOG, the former having several playthroughs and the latter about 8 playthroughs (just finished my final one, deciding it was time to move on ;) ......)

Anyway, yes I decided not to group with the 2 evil characters, though afterwards I wished I HAD recruited them, took their things, then booted them. But it was too late and I don't like to reload for decisions I make on the fly unless it's a crucial mistake ;)

After reviewing the other newb posts and getting valuable info from them (thanks to your replies), I rolled the hell outta my fighter until I ended up with strength of 18/81 and 18 in every other category except Wisdom (3). I wanted 18 in INT because I went the BGT route joining the two games (without any changes or tweaks except bugfixes and the widescreen mod as I'm playing this on my bigscreen tv with wireless keyboard and mouse) and wanted to be prepared for whatever creature people have warned about in BG2.

I went 2 stars in Long Bow and 2 in Bastard Sword, bought both in Candlekeep (Compound Long Bow) along with the best armor I could afford afterwards, and Imoen and I are tearing things up haha (again, due to my tactics after reviewing other forum posts). Took out that Ogre no prob (let him chase Imoen around while my man Samson sniped him to death), and the assassin at the FAI I was so worried about ran right up on Samson initiating dialogue, then combat, and I cut him down before he was able to do anything. Piece 'o cake.

Also, I appreciate the majority of this community keeping the newb posts spoiler free as not to ruin the first time experience. Though hints and vague warnings of what to prepare for are appreciated (by this guy at least ;) )

Oh I almost forgot, so cursed items (like the one I have now) are just to be sold for gold? Or are there cursed items which are actually useful sometimes? Just a simple yes or no please, as not to spoil anything ;)


Again, thanks very much to the BG community.

Yes... and no. You asked for it. :D

Just in case, you might want to check that you're on the difficulty you intended to be. It defaults to the second out of 5 difficulty levels, 'normal', for some reason: you may want to play on the 'core rules' level.

Hahaha, you're right, I did. Guess I shouldn't have worded it that way ;)

So, am I right to assume that most cursed items are not worth the penalty they incur despite their good attributes? And maybe a couple in the game are very worth using?

I just got done playing Arcanum 4 times in a row and didn't realize until the final one that some cursed items were actually amazing, which is why I ask this question ;) Well I want to play as close to vanilla as possible (but with better graphics and resolution), so at what difficulty is it in vanilla? I never altered the difficulty setting when I started. If it put me on "easy" I guess I'm a little disappointed (I thought I made a bad ass character lol), but at least I haven't made it very far into the game yet.

What setting of the 5 is the "core rules" setting?


EDIT: I'm busy as hell and unable to play the game for a couple more days, so if it actually says "core rules" setting in game, I apologize for the dumb question ;)

Yes, the middle difficulty is called 'core rules'. The easy option makes certain alterations, like reducing health of enemies somewhat. From what you described of your tactics and what happened in the encounters so far, though, I suspect that you'd have won anyway: just taken a little longer.

One other difference is that the difficulties below core give you the maximum hp possible on level up. If you've managed to level up at all yet, though, then you're better at getting xp than I was!

Oh, and regarding cursed items. I was going to offer a quote from the third edition rules, but can't seem to find it. It was to the effect that cursed items are items with unintended, negative effects. It doesn't necessarily imply that they're bad overall. I'm not going to talk about in game items, as you asked not to, but I'll discuss the examples given in the sourcebooks (which it was assumed when the game was made that players would be somewhat familiar with). One 'cursed' item listed in the third edition examples is a +3 net with a special power, but which can only be used underwater. Other than that, it's not got any disadvantages compared to a normal net. Other cursed items which can be generated in 3rd edition include weapons which can only be used by a specific class/race, and such like. One possibility for a 'curse' is that the item simply looks ridiculous in some way! One webcomic I've seen involved the girdle of gender swapping being used to good effect as a disguise to escape from the villains of the moment (much to the character in question's embarassment). Not something you can do in game, though.

Of course, there are also items which are unquestionably bad, too, as you would expect, such as a -2 sword. As I said earlier, all the items I've mentioned (other than the girdle of gender swapping, which you've discovered already) I've got off the 3rd edition rules. As far as I know, none of them are in the game, though my knowledge of the game's items is far from exhaustive.

One thing to warn you of is that several cursed items, as you've discovered, do need a remove curse spell to unequip. For that reason, unless you have the ability to cast that spell, it is a very bad idea to equip unidentified magic items. I don't think noncursed items give their effects until they're identified, anyway, so there's no reason to other than inventory.

The most important thing to remember, as a player new to this game, is to never equip or use an item that you haven't identified -- you've learned that lesson already. But to answer your question, once you've identified an item it's description will tell you what effect/s it has. From that description you will be able to tell, as somebody not new to these type of games, whether an item could be used to good effect or not, and on that note your assumption above bears out in the main.

Not all cursed items are worthless. I can think of at least one in BG1 where the curse doesn't bother me and which I find useful. I can also think of two more which have both positive and negative qualities (don't remember if they're cursed).

As Hickory said, read the item descriptions and decide for yourself.

I'll add that the main difference between "normal" and "hardcore" difficulty for me was the change in spell effects. In normal, there is no friendly-fire spells. On hardcore, your guys can be just as hurt from a fireball spell as an enemy. It makes spell choices much more tactical than on normal.

I personally haven't played on normal, but I'm pretty sure there's also an XP loss if you play on normal instead of hardcore.

Is that the case in vanilla? I can't remember (only played vanilla a bit once - BGT since then) but in BGT Normal difficulty, the fireballs etc hurt your party too. (NWN2 etc had it different - no friendly-fire under Normal)

I think the lower XP applies to Easy difficulty, not Normal, too. (But I'd have to double-check and I'm at work right now).

Yeah, I've been accidentally "entangling" my party a few times now. Just gonna replace that spell slot.

So I finally got the time to play again. I've got the entire core party now, having just rescued Dynaher. My fighter is level 3 and Imoen is 4. I haven't done the iron mine yet, think I might explore more before I tackle that, not sure. I JUST realized how to navigate in the game during the Minsc quest (I thought all the locations available were already on the world map, did not realize new places popped up depending on what side of the screen you exit).

I have some more questions:

1.) Books. Are these just for story purposes? Do I need to hang on to them? I've already done a quest giving my coin book to someone for a diff book and xp, but lugging all these books around is taking up valuable space.

2.) Is there a place where I can store things not on my party? Like an abandoned house with storage containers? All these damn books.....

3.) Do shopkeepers keep everything you've ever sold them?

4.) Do shop prices ever change (get better) or will they be the same the entire game? I ask because after Minsc's quest I was pretty unhappy to find that all those heavy ass Halberds I dragged back to town were only 2 GP apiece. If they remain the same I'll need to be more selective in what I loot from corpses I guess. My fighter has 18 charisma, btw.

5.) Spells. I've played DnD games before (never 2nd ed. though), but to be honest I never really experimented much with them. I always went basic cleric=heal spells, mage=attack spells, and, especially with cleric, just filled the slots all with the same heal spell. What are some other good early game spells to use? I have level 2 cleric spells so far (bless looks good I think).

I know I had more that I thought up while playing but they escape me now.