Well, i finished Baldur's Gate 1 thoroughly (at long last). I have the Final Save and the 3 characters i created (i played it multiplayer myself solo, because i wanted half my party to be MY creation and not some crappy random npcs without even 18 to their main stat) exported by the game itself after killing Sarevok. The files are flawless and they work perfectly. But...

When i import either the character of my choice directly or first choosing the savegame "Final" beforehand, my main PC always has his hitpoints ruined, lowered to almost half of what they were at the end of the previous game. Yes, i made sure to get max hitpoints per each level up, so my precious fighter boasted 161.000 xp, 8 level and 112 HITPOINTS! When imported to the sequel directly, he has (besides the lost items which is normal, and you can still preserve them by pausing at black screen and dropping them down...) his hitpoints watered down to an aggravating low sum, 81 only!

I have read somewhere that most people get this nerf upon transferring, but i also read somewhere else other's didn't start handicapped in HP; they had their HP pool unaltered. My question is thus; does anyone know if and HOW, you can keep your hard-earned Hitpoints INTACT, upon TRANSFERRING to the sequel? Please?

P.S. Since i am so going to (earn only one level and) dual to mage, i cannot afford to loose even a single, 1, hitpoint! Please, if you know, share.

I've encountered this as well, but as far as I know there isn't a fix. The importing system is largely hard-coded, so I would suggest simply adjusting your hitpoints to their correct level using Shadowkeeper.

To put it simply, the import process seems to somewhat randomize your HP rolls. So if you patiently reloaded to get near to max hp on each level up, your hp will definitely get debuffed.

The only way to fix this, AFAIK, is to use ShadowKeeper to restore your character's hp to their proper amount.

Thankfully i found the solution. I will post it here, just in case. This change in hitpoints is the outcome of game's difficulty. By default, it is set to normal (no permadeath, all spells foolproof learning, max hp per level, monsters 2/3 damage). If you import in a game set to normal difficulty, you are going to have butchered down HP. However, setting the game to AD&D by the rules difficulty, which had been the default one at previous game, you are going to have your HP exactly the same as your exported character file says. I hope to have helped others, besides myself. Now my great fighter is at his best.

I realise this is a reply to an old post, but just for clarity some explanation on (how I think) the system works.

If you import at normal difficulty (core rules) you get your average amount of hit points, which is just between the minimum amount of hit points a player character would get and the maximum.

So for a level 8 pure class fighter with 16 CON his hp would likely be calculated as such:
- fighter class gains up to 10 hit points per level and CON bonus gives us 2 bonus hit points per level.
- maximum hp: 8 * (10 + 2) = 96 hp
- minimum hp: 8 * (1 + 2) = 24 hp
- average hp: (96 + 24) / 2 = 60 hp

So on import the example level 8 fighter with 16 CON would have 60 hp.

For multi class characters the calculation would be slightly more complicated, but the above should give a general impression on how the system (likely) works.

The system is great for core rules, since a player could have been very unlucky with his hit point rolls in the original Baldur's Gate, having very little hit points, which would make the early game of Baldur's Gate 2 a lot harder. Starting out with the average amount of hit points makes the early game for all classes manageable, even if it "screws" people who got very lucky with their hit point rolls. But yeah, play at easy difficultly to just get the max rolls on import, since in Baldur's Gate 1 you'll get your maximum hit points on easy difficulty as well.