Exploration, Baldur's Gate 1 Original

Baldur's Gate 1 Exploration Original

Initial Exploration Baldur's Gate

Initial exploration in Baldur's Gate 1 Original is about survival. CHARNAME only has Imoen in the party and both are only first level. Other companions may be picked up quickly, too (Xzar, Montaron and Kivan), but everyone is of low level and so exploration is dangerous, as not only is it possible to run into kobolds, wolves and bears, but also assassins which are a step up from Shank and Carbos.

After Sarevok slays Gorion, the campaign offers many opportunities for sight-seeing and getting in over our heads.

Initially, the world map only shows the location of the civilized settlements, those of the Friendly Arm Inn, Beregost, Nashkel, Baldur's Gate and Ulgoth's Beard - which are greyed out or "ghosted".

This means we have an inkling as to their location, but haven't actually discovered them ourselves. To do so, we must manually walk our party through uncharted territory, map by map, in the required direction, fighting off enemies and questing on the way, in order to reach our destination.

That's called "adventuring", which is sort of what cRPGs are about. 

Having discovered a string of locations, we may "fast travel" back and forth between them, at the cost of fatigue and at the risk of ambush / waylay.

Combat Encounters

Combat encounters in the early stages are fairly tame though there are surprises for new players who, perhaps foolishly, venture off the beaten track. Maybe they pick a fight with a bear on the first map, or explore "too far" east on the second, encountering the ogre? 

Surviving first level can be a challenge for new players; it's probably why the dialogue, chapter narrative, journal and letter from Elminster (looted from Gorion's corpse), all suggest to travel to the Friendly Arm Inn to meet Gorion's friends who we can trust, Jaheira & Khalid. These two can join the party.

Even so, it's not a free ride even if we bee-line to the FAI with Imoen and the Zhentish duo in tow, as we're bound to encounter a gibberling or two, perhaps a ravenous wolf, a stray kobold arrow, or even a nasty bandit waylay if we're unlucky.

Tarnesh

If our squishy, first level, bloodied and battered scrubs survive all that and the Horror-casting Tarnesh on the staircase leading up to the Inn without so much as a reload - the most powerful "spell" in the game - then we can pat ourselves on that back.

Relatively speaking, the Tarnesh encounter is one of the deadliest in the campaign:

In this game, I picked up Kivan at High Hedge, first

Once a solid party has been formed and equipped with the basics, dozens of wilderness areas can be freely explored, in any direction. Cloakwood Forest, the Bandit Camp and Baldur's Gate itself are off-limits (gated by plot-progression), but sensible reasons are given as to why we can't go there (i.e, they're secretive places, Baldur's Gate is closed due to heavy banditry).

Every other area is accessible, if only we're prepared to walk in that direction to find it, cutting a swathe through mobs of monsters on the way [1].

Power/meta-gamers tend to head directly for the Lighthouse map to take out the Sirines and Flesh Golems (2,000 XP), then east of the Temple to take out Mutamin's Lesser and Greater Basilisks (1,400 and 7,000 XP), whereas normal players will most likely quest in and around FAI, Beregost and Nashkel, gaining experience and reputation, and building up wealth more slowly, but with minimal risk.

Brandishing a few enchanted weapons, protected by heavy armors and shields, and with useful spell scrolls successfully scribed to the spellbook and memorized (Sleep, Blindness, Web), new players should feel more confident in exploring outward from the hubs, and further advancing the plot.

Generic Spawns

Generic spawns are mobs of creatures which haven't been individually tailored and placed by the designer. For example, the gibberlings in AR2800 (where we first meet Elminster) are generic spawns (GIBBER2.CRE) whereas the ogre in the east is a specific creature that has been individually tailored and placed (an actor: OGREUNSH.CRE). The number of enemies scales to party level for generic spawns, but not for actors.

Each area (AR) can have many spawn points (x,y coords), and each spawn point can be assigned creatures (CREs). Spawnpoints that are assigned multiple creatures draw one creature randomly from the pool. There are variables that set the spawn rate and the number of spawns as well as the probability of spawning for both day and night intervals.

The spawn rate value represents the amount of seconds before the spawnpoint retriggers. What that means is, if we slay a mob at its spawnpoint, move away and then return to the spawnpoint after an interval, the mob will be there to slay again (though not necessarily the same creature or the same number of creatures). If a party member remains positioned on the spawnpoint, the mob won't respawn.

Amusingly, reloading on the map adds to the spawns. This can also happen in NWN, but it is very uncommon.

In Durlag's Tower, there are auto-respawns of fast-moving greater ghouls that inflict on-hit paralysis, which can be terrifying.

List of Monsters in Baldur's Gate

[1] Air Aspect, Ankheg, Ashirukuru, Baby Wyvern, Bandit, Battle Horror, Black Bear, Black Talon Elite, Bounty Hunter, Brown Bear, Cave Bear, Crypt Crawler, Dire Wolf, Diseased Gibberling, Doom Guard, Doomsayer, Doppleganger, Dread Wolf, Druid, Dwarven Doom Guard, Ettercap, Fission Slime, Flaming Fist, Flaming Fist Enforcer, Flaming Fist Wizard, Flaming Fist Scout, Flesh Golem, Flind, Ghast, Ghoul, Giant Spider, Gibberling, Gnoll, Gnoll Slasher, Gnoll Veteran, Gray Ooze, Greater Basilisk, Greater Doppleganger, Greater Ghoul, Greater Werewolf, Greater Wolfwere, Greater Wyvern, Guard, Hamadryad, Hobgoblin, Hobgoblin Elite, Invisible Stalker, Kobold, Kobold Commando, Lesser Basilisk, Mountain Bear, Mustard Jelly, Ochre Jelly, Ogre, Ogre Berserker, Ogre Mage, Ogrillon, Phase Spider, Phoenix Guard, Polar Bear, Sirine, Skeleton, Skeleton Warrior, Sword Spider, Tasloi, Vampiric Wolf, War Dog, Werewolf, Wild Dog, Winter Wolf, Wolf, Wolfwere, Wraith Spider, Wyvern, Young Wolfwere, Xvart, Zombie.

Next up: Baldur's Gate Waylays.

Baldur's Gate 1 Original (Index) | Baldur's Gate 1 Review (Index).