Best one-run guide to Baldur's Gate Trilogy

I have a compulsive need to write down things I have painstakingly assembled in my head, even if nobody else cares. This is in that vein. I've played the BG trilogy through 4 times (good guy fighter-cleric, neutral fighter-druid, bad guy kensai-mage, neutral Barbarian in a deliberately bad party). Here are my thoughts on how to do it if you only want to play through once and want some respect for roleplaying i.e. you won't kill Drizzt the lvl 14 ranger with your lvl 4 party by abusing the video game format, and you won't mix-and-match good and evil party members who really don't belong together.

My suggestion is that you play a neutral good or true-neutral berserker in BG1 who dual-classes into either a cleric or a druid in BG2 depending on who you want to romance, or rather, whether you take Jaheira, Anomen, or Viconia in BG2. I prefer to play male and romance Viconia (deepest romance IMO, but only if you're playing good, and Jaheira is so fucking annoying), which means I dual into a druid.

Now a lot of the power gamers will tell you that fighter-druid is a weak class and will direct you to Kensai-Mage or Beserker-Mage. That's wrong. They don't think about things in the context of the game itself, only PvP. They also think in terms of max, but this is a 200 hour game, and you won't spend much of that maxed out. The two most annoying things in the game are groups of mages and the spell imprisonment (notably cast by demi-liches and high level mages). The only thing that makes you effectively immune to imprisonment is the rage ability of the berserker and barbarian. That alone makes them superior to Kensais. The most effective way to deal with groups of mages is the druid spell insect swarm. It is straight savage, and doesn't give a shit about mages' contingency-cast protections.

Power gamers will also tell you that the high-level druid elemental summons (the princes) aren't as powerful as the cleric/mage summons, namely the Planetar and Deva. True, but you can't summon 2 planetars simultaneously. You can, however, summon a planetar and an elemental prince.

So all up, you should have a druid in your party. Jaheira is pretty decent, especially in BG2 where you do everything in melee rather than range. So if you're taking her then you should be a cleric. If you're taking Viconia or Anomen (both clerics), then you should be a druid.

IMO, the arcane spellcasting companions are much better than the divine spellcasters, and you don't need arcane casters at all in BG1 (though dynaheir is fine to keep Minsc for the laughs), which is why you should dual into a druid/cleric. Imoen and Jan Jansen are both excellent in BG2, and I suggest only using 5 core party members for most of BG2, which means you only need one of them. In contrast, Jaheria, Anomen, and Aerie have terrible WIS, which makes them poor spellcasters, and Viconia has terrible STR and CON, which makes her bad in combat until you get items late in the game. As clerics don't really have enough good damage spells to play a pure spellcasting roll, this limits Viconia a lot. I will come back to party composition later.   

I would suggest specialising in staffs if you are a druid. There are many great staffs in BG1/2 that you can get early (unlike scimitars, though note that +2/+3 staffs are in Tales of the Sword coast areas), and the Staff of the Ram +6 is one of the best end of game weapons for all you power gamers. Alternatively, you can dual-wield scimitars, but this is a long term plan because it requires a lot of pips and scimitars are rare (if only ranger-druid was an available dual class). I would suggest pumping staff and 2-handed weapon style while you are a fighter, then once you dual to druid in BG2 you can put points into scimitars and 2-weapon style until your levels synch (you can get both Belm+2 and Scimitar+2 in Trademeet/Druid's grove). As a druid, Viconia/Anomen will swing hammers and use Cromfaeyr. Crom makes a huge difference to Viconia as you can combine with the girdle of fortitude (the belt's effect lasts for 8 hours!) to make her a tank (18+ across all physical stats).

If you go cleric, then you put your points into hammers (no +2 flails/morningstars in BG1) and two-weapon style until you dual, at which point you put points in flail and sword-shield style. You want the flail pips so that you can use flail of ages (with a shield!), which you get very early in BG2. Then swap to dual wield hammers in Throne of Bhaal once you have Cromfaeyr and the Hammer of Clangeddin. The Flail of ages becomes less good in ToB because its freedom of movement ability negates haste, which is the most powerful buff in the game. Freedom of movement is also basically pointless in ToB because you will likely save against all hold-type spells. Shields also become kind of pointless in ToB because everyone has a THAC0 of -100 so it's all about damage per second.

A quick word on stats. The maximum I've ever rolled is 90 total attribute points (and I've rolled for at least an hour total). Anything above 85 is worth keeping if you can't bothered hitting re-roll anymore. Obviously you want to prioritise WIS, STR, DEX, and CON, but note that Druid dual class needs CHA 17, so you might need to drop DEX to 10 or thereabouts to get the necessary points (then use the gauntlets of dexterity). There are numerous ways to boost stats over the course of the trilogy, so you don't need to max everything to 18, but I think you want 17 WIS to ensure that you get level 9 spells when they become available (you will get +2 WIS during the game). I think it is lame from a role-playing point of view to have less than 9 (or really 12) INT and less than 9 CHA unless you are role-playing being ugly for some reason (like half-orc or drow). Whatever, it's not so important. Get DEX to 18 if possible - it will help a lot in BG1. Neutral good is the easiest alignment to role-play (but Druids need to be true neutral!), and you must be human to dual-class.

You play BG1 as a berserker specialising in crossbows and staffs/hammers, then dual class shortly after starting BG2 after you get 1 more weapon specialisation pip (level 9, or you can push it to 12 to get 5 pips). You want crossbows because BG1 is all about ranged attacks (everyone has armour that is bad against piercing and will try to close to melee, giving you free attacks as they advance) and nobody else has crossbow proficiency. Levelling up in fighter gives you more rages (but you don't need more than 2), hit points, and weapon specialisations. It also means that you won't totally suck after you dual class. Hit point gainz really drop off when you get to ~140HP (lvl9 IIRC), which is all the more reason to dual class right there.

Let's talk companions. IMO, the best party in BG1 is you (fighter), Imoen (thief), Jaheira (healer), Khalid (bows), Branwen (if you use hammers b/c she uses maces) or Yeslick (2nd healer), Kivan (bows/speers). You could also use the canonical party and replace Branwen and Kivan with Minsc and Dynaheir. I don't like this because mages suck in low-level BG1, and because Minsc and Jaheira both like the gauntlets of dexterity. Khalid is actually the best companion because he can wear good armour, swing longsword +2 with 2 proficiency, and shoot the longbow of marksmanship with 4 proficiency and huge DEX. Khivan then rocks the composite longbow +1, Imoen the eagle bow and shortsword, you the crossbow of speed, and yeslick/Branwen act as tanks with plate armour. If you have minsc, he rocks the throwing axe and handaxe, or tanks with spider's bane (2 handed sword). The only magic you need is fireball and can do it with oil of fiery burning or whatever it's called. Just save them for particularly hard battles (like the floor of ogre mages, or the top of the Iron Throne) where you want to throw 6 to commence proceedings (you can dual Imoen to a mage to use wands once she hits 100 locks and traps). You want a full suite of 6 party members in BG1 because levelling is slow, the level cap is binding, and you miss so much that it's all about volume of shots.

In BG2, you level faster, the cap is not binding, and your THAC0 is decent, so you want to play 5 core party members +1 companion who you have just to do their personal quest. This means you will mostly have 6 people, but only 5 once you leave for spellhold (i.e. about 40% of the game). This will let you hit the level cap. I suggest not going to spellhold until you have done every other quest except the cult of the eyeless (which is much easier once you get the cloak of mirroring in the underdark and a huge pain until you do). Until you go to spellhold (take Yoshimo with you, this is important) you use yourself (fighter-druid/cleric tank), Anomen/Viconia/Jaheira (fighter/healer), Jan (thief/mage), Valgyar (DPS fighter with the awesome celestial fury), and Minsc (DPS fighter with talking 2H sword and then vorpal). You drop Jan before leaving for spellhold because he gets replaced by Imoen (or you can keep him and have a larger party if you like mages). You can also go without Valgyar or Minsc if you want a small party, but I don't think it's necessary to hit the cap.

Mages really hit their stride towards the end of BG2. Up until then, it's all about casting a million buffs and then running a large squad of fighters in to butcher the enemy. Yes, mages can potentially clear rooms faster, but you need to sleep constantly for that, and I always think resting in a dungeon is poor role-playing. In ToB mages get dragon's breath and horrid wilting and become superior to fighters, but that is a long way off. In ToB the 6th party member is Sarevok (with Halberds) because he's awesome and you can dual him to a mage immediately, buy a million scrolls in Saradush, and level him up real fast. Keldorn is really good in BG2 with guantlets of Dex because he swings the awesome Palladin only sword Casomyr, but I feel bad keeping him from his family. Like all paladins he's also kind of annoying.  

Most hard fights in BG2 go like this: cast summons (create undead/summon planetar/summon elemental prince), mages cast blur, mirror image, and stoneskin on themselves while druids/clerics cast iron skins. Mages then cast haste, protection from evil, and true sight on the party, while clerics cast bless and, if necessary (vampires/umber hulks), negative planar protection and/or chaotic commands. Berserkers rage or just hang out. You're now all set to charge in. If you want to go extra, you can cast things like bull's strength and draw upon holy might. I tend to skip these because they don't last very long so you're casting them all the time. Anything that lasts a minute or more per caster level is worth it. A round per level (6 seconds) is too short unless it's an early level spell that you have 10 of, like bless. 

Fighters spread out to pound face prioritising mages, then clerics, then archers, then fighters (except celestial fury guy, kill him immediately) while your druid casts insect plague on the mages and your mages spam breach on anyone with protections against melee damage. This works against pretty much everything. It's all about the buffs and insect plague. With true sight up and breaches being spammed, there is no way to avoid taking damage from your fighters, and because there is effectively 4 of them with haste they apply a lot of damage. If you're fighting something that casts imprisonment, your main char rages and charges with haste. Everyone stays back so that the enemy casts at your mainchar, who is immune to everything. Your mages spam breach and dispel magic. The enemy will die to your hammers before the rage wears off. If they don't, they will at least have exhausted their imprisonments (except demi-lich, who has unlimited) and your other characters can come in and pound face. Against a demi-lich, send your berserk mainchar in 2 seconds earlier than everyone so that he gets targeted, then run everyone else in so that you apply enough DPS to kill the lich before the rage wears off. 

That's all I have to say really.