Baldur's Gate 2 Walkthrough Guide

Welcome to my walkthrough guide for Baldur's Gate 2, a BioWare cRPG of 2000.

You spent your youth in the library fortress of Candlekeep, under the kind tutelage of your foster father, Gorion. Imoen shared this home: a kindred spirit, her background was as mysterious as your own.

Gorion's murder brought answers to your questions but his killer, Sarevok, was revealed to be your brother. You and Sarevok were a product of the Time of Troubles, a chaotic period, when gods were made flesh and forced to walk the earth. One such deity foresaw his own death and walked the land before the Cataclysm. He left a score of mortal offspring intended to be the fuel for this rebirth. The god was Bhaal, Lord of Murder, and you are one of his children.

Sarevok sought a war of sacrifice to prove his worth, believing he could become the new Lord of Murder. You killed your brother, sending his taint back to Bhaal. You were the hero of Baldur's Gate but some suspected you shared the same lineage as Sarevok. You departed soon after, under circumstances much darker than anyone would have believed.

They came as you rested, figures cloaked in mist that clouded your thoughts, blurring the lines between consciousness and dreaming.

There was no malice or hatred, no mention of an old score: only quick capture and the promise of grim deeds to come...

Irenicus Dungeon Level 1 Walkthrough

We begin Baldur's Gate 2 on Irenicus Dungeon Level 1 of Chateau Irenicus. The campaign kicks off with a scripted cutscene showing an unknown mage (later revealed to be Irenicus) striding into a dungeon to perform arcane experiments on his captive, CHARNAME.

Suddenly, a golem minion stomps in to announce an intrusion to the complex. Now distracted, its supremely confident master dimension-doors out of the dungeon to deal with the stealthy intruders (later revealed to be Shadow Thieves), one of whom he casually disintegrates on his way out.

When the clamor of battle dies down and the coast is clear, Imoen sneaks into the dungeon to unlock your cell and free you. She has been tortured by the mage, too. Her plan is to team up, grab the weapons in the adjacent room, and flee the dungeon immediately. Sounds like a good plan to me.

Jailkeep golem BG2

Ok, your items have been taken from you. Forget about them: with a few trivial exceptions you won't be getting them back. Besides, you are going to find much better gear than what you had in Baldur's Gate.

Head to the adjacent storage room, speak to the golem, and pick the place clean of loot.

Chest: Helmet, Leather Armor, Studded Leather Armor, Small Shield, Splint Mail, Chan Mail Armor, Buckler.

Helmets are essential for negating the devastating double damage inflicted by critical hits. Have everyone in the party wear them if they can.

Table: Jail Cell Key, Longsword, Short Sword, Quarterstaff, Mace, Axe, Spear, Halberd, Warhammer, Two-Handed Sword, Katana. Stash in the wall (FT: 1,750 XP, OL: 400 XP): Golden Pantaloons, Dagger +1, Potion of Healing x3.

The pantaloons only appear if you imported with them in your possession. I consoled mine in. Please note that I won't be recording other loot that appears as a result of importing, because I didn't import. It's trivial, anyway.

The golem guards a door that opens to a passageway leading to a dead end (i.e, a magically-warded door). Slay the Smoke Mephit for 420 XP.

Ignore the small room to the north. It is where multi-player characters appear. It is also unlikely that you will use this particular teleport portal to access the Upper Dungeon. Most people take the one in the north. Please refer to the map for portal locations.

Jaheira & Minsc

Use the key to free Jaheira from her cell. Now, enrage Minsc to have him break free of his adjacent cell. You will learn that Khalid is MIA and that Dynaheir is dead. As with Imoen you may ditch both companions in these initial dialogues, before they get to join. If so they will orchestrate their own escape: Minsc goes to the Copper Coronet in the Slums district and Jaheira goes to the Galvarey Estate aka Harper Hold in the Docks district.

• Quest: Find a way to release Jaheira from her cell (3,000 XP).
• Quest: Find a way to release Minsc from his cell (3,000 XP).

Note that Imoen, Minsc and Jaheira are part of the Baldurs' Gate canon party.

Prologue Lower Dungeon map (AR 0602)

At this point I suggest you ensure your party is equipped appropriately (armor, weapon) and that you have relevant spells memorized and ready to cast: AoE disablers and debuffers such as Web and Slow, direct damage AoEs such as Skull Trap and Fireball, single-target disablers like Chromatic Orb (at this cast level it Stuns the victim!), and stock-standard buffs and cures that keep you on your feet and fighting. Arcane spellcasters should self-buff with Mirror Image and Stoneskin in order to mitigate damage entirely. Check your Bhaalspawn special abilities (such as DUHM) and don't forget to use them.

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Irenicus Dungeon SCS note: With the "Make the starting dungeon slightly harder" component installed, your first attempt to rest in the Prologue is treated as free; that is, on-rest spawns are totally suppressed. This is your chance to memorize spells and trigger the three-way banter with Imoen, Jaheira & Charname. However, each attempt to rest thereafter spawns four hostile Duergar (grey dwarves) with 100% probability, yielding 420 XP each, 23-87 GP, and basic weapons, armor & ammo.

In keeping with its Chateau encounters in general, the SCS spawn is nerfed compared with the Tactics mod (there are no mages); nevertheless, enforcing punishing on-rest ambushes is rare and welcome.

Off-hand, the only other component I know of that restricts resting is "Prevent resting in the illithid city".

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Scout ahead of the party using conventional stealth, Invisibility, Sanctuary and Wizard Eye so that you know what's coming; then, have your tanks attract and absorb the aggro so that your squishy party members are free to cast spells and fire projectiles from the back row.

Make sure your thief is disabling the traps & picking the locks. This results in 33,350 utility XP over the course of the Prologue (17 traps & 9 locks).

You may like to refrain from having Imoen scribe any scrolls to her book. Why? Because she leaves the party for Chapters Two & Three. Save the scrolls for your post-Prologue casters. Besides, by the time you catch up with Imoen in Spellhold you should have scroll cases full of spells for her to scribe...

Scavenge for potions & oils. Potion of Healing (9 HPs), Potion of Extra Healing (27 HPs), Oil of Speed... with the resting restrictions imposed by SCS, such items suddenly become sought-after.

Regularly tap the Tab key to highlight "interactable" objects on the playing field such as doors, containers, NPCs and items on the ground. Content is EZ to miss, otherwise.

I recommend you turn on Auto-pause: On Enemy Sighted. It can be a lifesaver if you're a bit slow to hit the spacebar.

Ok! The object of the Prologue is to escape the dungeon by fighting through whatever stands in your way and negotiating an assortment of tricks & traps. Sounds EZ, right? Well, let's do this!

Take the jail's southern exit to find a passage littered with the corpses of would-be assassins. Yep, their mark got the better of them...

The Bug Zapper

Standing in the center of the next chamber is a lightning contraption that is conjuring mephits and emitting electrical bolts at intervals. You will need to stand close to its control device, hover the cursor over it until it changes to the "manipulate" cursor, and then click the panel twice in order to shut it down (+2,000 Exp, 420 XP per Mephit).

Objects may be "manipulated" while under the effects of stealth or invisibility. This means you could have a party member sneak into the chamber and shut down the machine, without drawing aggro.

Djinn Aataqah

Make your way west and into the crystalline cavern, where Aataqah the genie will spawn and force-talk you.

Take your pick:

• Fob the genie off. He will take his leave and you may carry on.
• Listen to the genie's hypothetical situation and choose to act nobly. The genie will cast Limited Wish to heal your party and then conjure a hostile ogre mage. In my modded game this elusive bastard fired a Minor Sequencer loaded with Melf's Acid Arrow straight at Imoen. Slay it and the genie will congratulate you (3,500 XP, 650 XP, 20 GP).
• As above, but choose the cowardly act. The genie will conjure a pack of morale-failed gibberlings for you to mop up, none of which yield experience points when killed (3,500 XP).

Either way, the genie advises you to seek out Rielev. We'll be catching up with him soon.

Click on the pools to experience some flavor-based visions...

Ok, take the passage directly west and slay the goblins guarding its dead end (a second warded door).

Next, backtrack and take the southwest passage, slaying more as you head west along it.

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SCS note:

Duergar x7 (420 XP ea, 23-87 GP ea).

That's right, the goblin spawns of the base-game have been replaced by tankier grey dwarves. Most of the time the spawn consists of two axe-wielders and two crossbowmen.

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Lesser Clay Golems

You will come to a junction of three doors - one leading south, one north and one farther west. Continue west, open the next door you see, and force-attack the two inactive golems standing in that chamber (it's better to deal with them now rather than later, when the alarm goes off).

Lesser Clay Golem x2 (2,000 XP ea).

Rielev & Energy Cells

Follow the passage north (slaying yet more duergar just around the corner) and open the door to find Rielev suspended in a life-support unit. Probe him for info about the master and then accept his request to remove the Energy Cells from his unit, thereby ending his suffering.

Quest: Free Rielev from his life-support (1,000 XP).

Activation Stone

Loot the table in here for the all-important Activation Stone: a plot-critical item!

Barrel: Potion of Extra Healing x2.

With cells and stone in hand backtrack to the junction and take the southern door.

Pickled People

You may use the cells on four of the life-support units to speak with the hapless servants floating within them. Only trivial info may be gleaned but Jaheira and Minsc each get an interjection. Since no experience points are awarded this is strictly flavor-based content.

Mist Mephit, Ice Mephit (420 XP ea).

Crate (FT: 1,750 XP, OL: 400 XP): Quarterstaff +1.
Crate: Composite Longbow, Arrow x5, 1GP.

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aTweaks note: And with aTweaks installed mephits can gate in others of their kind - which means you want to kill them QUICKLY.

A Mist Mephit greeted me by conjuring a wall of fog that inflicted blindness on those who happened to be in its AoE; then, it proceeded to flutter around the chamber like it was on crystal meth, forcing the party to chase it around like a bunch of idiots. So annoying! There is an Ice Mephit in here, too. Mephits just love to blind you. It's their schtick.

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Sewage Golem

Enter the room on the other side of the passage, speak with the Sewage Golem, pretend to be its master, and give it the Activation Stone. The golem will run off to performs its duties, unlocking the doors that prevented you from accessing the central hub of the dungeon, aka the pit.

Upon its return you may probe it about "the guardian", a creature of the pit that feeds on prisoners and guards the way to the master's private quarters. We will encounter this loathsome beast in due time.

Radiant Mephit (420 XP).

Table: Longsword +1, Medium Shield, Warhammer, Scimitar. Chest (OL 400 XP): Scimitar, Dispel Magic scroll, Potion of Extra Healing x3, Spear. Desk: Arrow x4. Cabinet: Flame Arrow scroll, Potion of Healing.

Head back towards Rielev and then north and east to the library, slaying a pack of duergar along the way.

Duergar (420 XP ea).

Library & Duergar Smithy

Now, buff up! This is a tough encounter. Nothing like Tactics' "Improved Ilyich", but still tough. What happens is: at first you're just up against four duergar & three mephits... but then, duergar chief Ilyich marches into the library and orders three of his underlings to join the fray. It seems he is scripted to wander back and forth between the library and the smithy...

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Dust Mephit (420 XP), Smoke Mephit (420 XP), Magma Mephit (420 XP), Duergar x7 (420 XP ea).

 
Shelves: Agni Mani Necklace, Potion of Healing x5, Larloch's Minor Drain scroll, Know Alignment scroll, Oil of Speed, Potion of Extra Healing, lots of books.

Be ready to take on a duergar mage if you chase Ilyich into the smithy. Ilyich will go BERSERK once you have him boxed in. He actually hits pretty hard, but not as hard as my Kensai charged with Kai (I inflict 50 dmg crits.) SCS ensures the mage is more than a handful.. it's their spells, how they use them, how they keep their distance, and how they just keep on casting right down to the last Magic Missile, that forces you to respect even low level scrubs like this. I admit to killing him cheaply: under the effects of invisibility I smacked him down with kai (before he could simulate the pre-buffing that grants him illusions and Haste). And yes, I got a giggle out of doing so.

 
For those who don't know: in the unmodded game Ilyich and his underlings remain in the adjacent smithy, oblivious to the commotion in the library caused by your slaying of the goblins and mephits.

Sneaking into the smithy with the object of backstabbing the mage requires good timing, since your target is constantly pacing back and forth.

 

• Ilyich (520 XP): Chain Mail +2: Mail of the Dead (AC 3), Dryad's Magical Acorns, 87 GP, Bullet x40, Sling, Axe, Medium Shield.
• Duergar Mage (620 XP), Duergar (420 XP).
• Crate: Potion of Extra Healing x2. 

Tables: Helmet, Warhammer, Leather Armor, Small Shield, Quarterstaff, Flail, Sling, Bullet x40, Scimitar, Longsword, Bastard Sword, Short Sword, Composite Longbow, Arrow x5, Club, Flail, Morning Star, Potion of Extra Healing x2. Barrel: Throwing Dagger x20, Dart x30. Chest: Chain Mail, Helmet, Medium Shield, Grease scroll, Axe, Two-Handed Sword.

 
Note how the resting restrictions make healing potions suddenly useful.

Head north from the smithy, past the locked portal and east down the trapped passageway to arrive at a chamber with a strange apparatus at its center.
Proximity Trap (FT: 1,750 XP).

Cambion

Click the apparatus twice to release its prisoner, a fiend that buffs itself with powerful illusions and Haste. My kensai dueled it with ease.

Cambion (6,000 XP), Bastard Sword +1, 145 GP.

The Pit: Otyugh Guardian

Make your way back to the library and head east down to the pit. The guardian is an otyugh, a gruesome aberration that inflicts on-hit disease and slow. Slay it and loot its corpse for a wand key. Hold onto these keys: they can be used in the Upper Dungeon.

 
Otyugh: 650 XP, Wand of Frost Key, Chest (FT 1750): Potion of Healing x2, Shortbow, Light Crossbow, Bolt x10. Chest (OL 400 XP): Oil of Speed, Splint Mail, Potion of Healing x2. Chest (OL 400 XP): Potion of Healing x3, Helm of Infravision, Clairvoyance scroll.

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Head north along the passageway, slaying more duergar as you go. You will arrive in a part of the dungeon that actually seems comfortable, liveable.

Duergar x3 (420 XP ea).

Master's Living Quarters

Don't be fooled by the appearance of this elegant, elven-styled room - it's laced with traps! Have Imoen deftly disarm them and then loot the place for all its worth.

Proximity Trap (FT 1,750 XP). Cabinet (FT 1,750): Helm of Balduran (AC +1, THAC0 +1) Chromatic Orb scroll. Chest (OL 400 XP): Wand of Lightning Key, Burning Hands scroll. Cabinet (FT 1,750 XP): Metaspell Influence Amulet: The Amplifier (+1 first and second circle slots). Drawer: Air Elemental Statue.

Slay the duergar guarding the Teleport Portal just to the west. This portal leads to the Upper Dungeon but it can't be accessed without the key...

 
Duergar x4 (420 XP ea). Vase: Fireball scroll. Barrel: Armor scroll, Bullet x20.

Dryad Grove

Ok, head east to a beautiful subterranean grove, wherein dryads dwell. Inform Ulene, Elyme & Cania that you have already pried the acorns from Ilyich's cold, dead hands. They will be grateful and further request that you free them from their captivity by delivering the acorns to the Fairy Queen in Windspear Hills. Hold onto the acorns until such a time as we can travel there.

Quest: Helping Irenicus' Captive Dryads (9,500 XP).

You may also slay the dryads for 974 XP ea, Antidote x3, Potion of Healing x3, Dagger x3. Don't expect Vaelasa to greet you warmly in Windspear, though.

Extensive dialogue reveals the name of the master and our captor: Irenicus.

Shrine to a Lost Love

At the southern end of the grove you will discover an elegant, elven suite. Carefully step inside and an alarm will sound... it alerts the golems to your position if you didn't pre-emptively slay them, as I suggested earlier. Now, this place is deadly. Not only is the floor laced with proximity traps - almost every receptacle is trapped, too! Again, have Imoen go to work in here. You will find the Portal Key in the trunk at the foot of the bed. This unlocks the two portals that whisk you away to the Upper Dungeon.

Proximity Trap x4: (FT 1,750 XP ea). Cabinet (FT 1,750 XP): Bracers of Defense AC 8, Potion of Extra Healing, Pommel Jewel of the Equalizer. Chest (FT 1,750 XP): Portal Key. Desk (FT 1,750 XP): Dire Charm scroll. Bookshelf: Potion of Master Thievery, Monster Summoning I scroll.

But first, return to the OTHER locked portal now that you have the statue. This is the one just west of the Cambion's chamber. The door magically unlocks and the statue is destroyed...

Elemental Plane of Air: Malaaq

You will find yourself standing on an immense airship hovering within a dark, windy void. Head forward, take a left, and follow the path to the dead end.
Air Mephit x2, Mist Mephit, Smoke Mephit (420 XP ea). Receptacle: Conjure Air Elemental scroll.
Note: Attempting to rest spawns two mephits with 100% certainty.

Backtrack to the main path and make your way up the stairs to a large platform, slaying the annoying flock of mephits flitting about on it.

Steam Mephit x2, Air Mephit, Smoke Mephit x2 (420 XP ea).

Take the bridge to the left and interact with the flask to have a genie appear out of it. Malaaq will request that you unbind him by fetching another flask. In exchange, he promises to give you some sort of weapon that contains a trace of your essence...

 
Quest: Freeing the Djinn: 15,000 XP.

Now, the other flask is in possession of the dryads. Return to them in their grove and, at your request, they will gladly hand over The Genie's Flask.

Return to the Plane of Air and deliver the flask to Malaaq for a generous 15,000 XP. Now unbound and free of Irenicus, he will gift you Sarevok's sword and disperse.

The Sword of Chaos +2 (two-handed sword, THAC0 +2, dmg +2, on-hit drain 1 HP from target and transfer to wielder). Minsc will gladly wield this.

Return to the teleport portal, step into it, and the party will be whisked away to the Upper Dungeon!

Next up: Irenicus Dungeon Level 2.

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