Rival Adventuring Parties, Baldur's Gate 1 Original

Rival Adventuring Parties, Baldur's Gate 1

Baldur's Gate 1 Original invented rival adventuring parties consisting of enemy characters; that is, pitting the party against other adventuring parties or clans of assassins. At least two of the fights can be avoided through dialogue selections.

Click on the paperdoll images to read more on the dialogue and combat encounters:

Sembian Crew in Under City

Iron Throne Top Brass

Candlekeep Caverns Crew

Tazok's Crew

Hunters from Amn

Waterdhavian Crew

Iron Throne Enforcers

Cloakwood Crew

Iron Throne Bounty Hunters

Iron Throne Assassins

Maulers of Undermountain

The Band of Merry Fools

Dwarven Warders

Note: The stats given in the write-ups are proper adjusted stats, not useless base stats. It is a waste of time giving the reader base stats because that is NOT what the stats are in-game.

The reader will note a few things when scanning through the stats of these party members. The building of the templates is rough around the edges because this was BioWare's first cRPG, and there are tons of NPCs to tailor. Many of the characters simply don't follow the rules. For example, they may not have the strength to off-hand a shield, but they are. But mostly, they are nowhere near firing on all cylinders in terms of power. Many don't wear helmets or off-hand shields when it makes sense to do so. Most don't have healing potions. A 9th level Fighter should have a few healing potions. They use generic scripts for spellcasting. They don't work together. And so on. This was somewhat fixed by DSotSC.

Level Scaling

Generic spawns as well as on-rest spawns & waylays are scaled to both party level and party size, but only the number of enemies scales, not their stats or type; in other words, the nature of the enemy doesn't change: a bandit is still a bandit; though that first level bandit encounter may later present itself as a ten-pack when the party maxes out.

Below left: One lone bandit for a first level player, all alone.

Below right: Eight (max 10) for a full party at max level.

Un-recruited companions also scale to party level in thresholds. For example, a first level party can recruit a first level Edwin with almost nothing to his name (some Exp, a few spells scribed to his spellbook); or a sixth level party can recruit a sixth level Edwin who has already earned over 40,000 Exp and scribed eight scrolls to his spellbook, including Haste (in Dynaheir's case, Fireball).

The intent of companion scaling is to ensure that companions remain somewhat useful in the advent their services are required later in the campaign, but meta-gamers may choose to remain solo or only adventure with Imoen until the sixth level is reached, and only then recruit a party, thereby dodging the experience point leach of having five other companions around for those first six levels (both quest & kill Exp is divided "evenly", more or less, amongst the party members). 

Apart from needing foreknowledge in order to solo the first six levels [1], the downside is the inability to control companion proficiencies and HPs, though it's a small price to pay for such a huge advantage.

Note that it is best to recruit non-mages early (in order to control their and proficiencies and HPs), and mages at sixth level (for spells such as Fireball and Haste). 

[1] Not a problem for meta-gamers, and for Bards and Thieves that's only 20,000 Exp.

Next up: Baldur's Gate Bosses.

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