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Baldur's Gate 1.0
By Lugnutz

Section I:    Introduction / Basics
Section II:   Prologue
Section III:  Gathering Experience
Section IV:   Chapter 2
Section V:    Chapter 3
Section VI:   Chapter 4
Section VII:  (Most of) Chapter 5
Section VIII: TOSC
Section IX:   Chapter 6
Section X:    Chapter 7

After reading this and something is still not clear enough,
Lugnutz87@hotmail.com can get you in touch with me and I'll change whatever needs to be done.

Copyright 2003 by Sean Burns

This walkthrough may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission.
Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright.  This took me too long to write for anything cheap like that to happen.

Section I:  Introduction / Basics

A quick note as to why I've done this.  I've had this game since it first came out, and its still one of my favorite games to play, even after all this time.  I've looked around at other walkthroughs, and
I've never really seen any that cover everything I think they should.
I don't put every quest here, only the ones I recommend you do.  So here goes.

A few basics about your party:

1.     Character Creation:  Most of this is common sense, but I'll go over it anyways.  First off, make sure you max out the stats that are appropriate to your character (Strength for fighters, Intelligence for
Mages, ect.)  Always max out dexterity and constitution.  That will lower your Armor Class and maximize your Hit Points.    Take a look at the tables in the manual before you finish picking your stats.
Intelligence is useless for anyone but Mages (and Bards to a lesser extent), so always lower it as much as you can.  Charisma is only useful for the leader of the party, so have the most Charismatic character 1st in line.  The introduction part of the game only has your character though, so try not to have your charisma too low.  Also, if you are planning to use your character in BG 2, keep in mind your
Wisdom, because that can affect your Saving Throws if your wisdom is high or low enough.  Another thing to keep in mind:  There are tomes to raise statistics; one for each stat except for Wisdom, which has 3 tomes.  If you're planning to play your character in BG 2, give all the tomes to your main character.  If not, give them to whoever will benefit from them the most.

2.     Basic makeup:  The basic setup of your party should be as follows:  A thief, a cleric or druid, 2 pure (single or very early dualed) specialist mages, and the rest fighters.  You can also combine the cleric and/or thief as a fighter/cleric or fighter/thief.  That will make things even easier for you.

3.     Useful Mage Spells:  There are a lot of different spells available to you, but there are only 2 or 3 that are very handy per spell level.  Feel free to try any that strike your fancy, but you'll want these eventually.  The all caps ones are the ones you want to have memorized the most.  The regular text ones are useful, but not very frequently needed or something similar.  Make sure you find these spells as soon as you can for your mages.

Level 1:    MAGIC MISSILE - Great for disrupting spell casters.  Easy damage with multiple hits for magic resistance issues or
Mirror Image.
IDENTIFY - Umm, yeah.  No explanation needed

Level 2:    MELF'S ACID ARROW - Decent damage, and the acid splash is great for spell casters.  They are always hit with the acid damage, disrupting them continuously.
STINKING CLOUD - Disables groups of enemies, and it doesn't affect your skeletons you send in to fight.  You can pick off disabled enemies with arrows and bolts.
Protection from Petrification - Basilisks will turn you to stone quite frequently.  This spell makes them easy pickings, and good experience too
Invisibility - Good for scouting and sneak attacks.

Level 3:    FIREBALL - This is what you want mages for.  Great area damage.
HASTE - Doubling the amount of attacks you get can only help.
Slow - This would be a priority one, but enemies have a tendency to save from the effects.  Still, when it works, it's very helpful.

Level 4:    EMOTION - Your enemies lie down and let you hack them up.
What's not to like?
OTILUKE'S RESILIENT SPHERE - Very helpful when you have multiple powerful enemies.  Killing them off one at a time is usually the best way to go.
Confusion - Similar to emotion, but now they wander around.
Sometimes they'll fight back, which is why I prefer
Emotion.

Level 5:    CLOUDKILL - Does extreme damage.  Try pairing it with
Stinking Cloud.  It's almost unfair.
Chaos - Pretty much the same as Confusion.  I had to pick something for Specialist Mages who can't cast Cloudkill.

4.     Useful Priest Spells:  Same deal as with mage spells, only now you don't have to find any scrolls.  One thing to consider:  I always recommend you give spells that mages or priests can cast to the priests, i.e. Remove Fear and Dispel Magic.  The mages can cast the damaging spells instead for better overall results.

Level 1:    CURE LIGHT WOUNDS - You're going to get hurt.
REMOVE FEAR - Useful for preparing for fights where you might have Horror cast on you.  It works to prevent it if you cast it before the fight.
Command - Very useful for low level clerics.  Higher-level enemies will pretty much always save against it, but in the beginning it will be effective.

Level 2:    DRAW UPON HOLY MIGHT - Helpful for when you need your cleric to fight hand-to-hand.  Makes Fighter/Clerics very dangerous
SILENCE 15' RADIUS - Mages don't fight very well.  Any time you force them to fight, you win.  It sucks when it happens to you though.
SLOW POISON - This spell usually negates poisons, so keep it handy.  You'll save a lot of lives that way.
Hold Person - If you have a high-wisdom cleric, you might have enough room for this spell.  Being able to bypass
THAC0 makes even mages do some damage.

Level 3:    ANIMATE DEAD - Creates a swarm of skeletons to help for the fight.  Useful for providing cover while you shoot your enemies.  Skeletons are immune to Stinking Cloud and all
Hold type spells.
DISPEL MAGIC - Getting rid of your enemies' protection spells just makes sense.  Can also free your party from
Hold Person, Confusion, ect.
Protection from Fire - Any time you know you're going to get hit with fire attacks, this spell makes things easier.

Level 4:    CURE SERIOUS WOUNDS - Take a guess.
DEFENSIVE HARMONY - Helps for fighting high-level enemies by increasing everyone's armor.
PROTECTION FROM EVIL 10' RADIUS - Increasing everyone's saving throws helps against spell casters.

5.     Useful Druid Spells:  Same deal as with priest spells.  I don't use Druids much, but here ya go.

Level 1:    CURE LIGHT WOUNDS- Yet again.

Level 2:    SLOW POISON - This spell usually negates poisons, so keep it handy.  You'll save a lot of lives that way.
Barkskin - Improves the target's AC and saving throws.
Useful if you have a warrior going after a group by himself.

Level 3:    CALL LIGHTNING - Does some serious damage, but it only works outside, and is very slow in between strikes.  Still, druids suck, so this is the best they have to offer.
Hold Animal - You need something for fights inside.

Level 4: CURE SERIOUS WOUNDS - Still going to need it.
Animal Summoning I - You can't summon skeletons, so here is your Druid option.

Level 5: CURE CRITICAL WOUNDS - The only reason to have a Druid.
Animal Summoning II - Better than the Level 4 version (duh).

6.     Different parties:  There are several different parties that you can do to make the game easier/more challenging/more interesting.  You can go by a theme, such as All good, All evil, ect.  One of my most enjoyable games I've played is an all-magic team.  Everyone has to be able to cast a Mage or a Priest/Druid spell at all times (No Imoen getting to level 4 and then dualing her to a Conjurer, for example).
Anyways, I'll list a few types of crews you can use.

1. Best crew:  Dwarf Fighter/Cleric, Kagain, Kivan, Coran, Edwin,
Xzar.  If you max your Constitution and use the Tome, you can have a 20, which gives you regeneration.  Add in Kagain with the Gauntlets of Dex, and you have a pair of wrecking machines.  You'll save a lot of spells and potions by having 2 characters that regenerate their hit points.
2. All Evil crew:  Dwarf Fighter/Cleric, Kagain, Shar-Teel,
Montaron, Edwin, Xzar.  Notice how similar it is to the best crew.
3. All Good crew:  Dwarf Fighter/Cleric, Kivan, Minsc, Coran,
Dynaheir, Imoen.  Imoen should be dual-classed into a Conjurer as soon as possible (in order to get to a high enough level to cast Level 5 spells).
4. All magic crew:  Elf mage/thief, Yeslick, Viconia or Branwen,
Edwin, Xzar, Imoen.  Imoen should be a dual-classed to an
Illusionist as soon as you get her (to keep with the theme).
This game is a lot more difficult, but is very fun!
5. Rogues' Guild:  Gnome Cleric/Thief, Montaron, Coran, Shar-
Teel, Garrick, Eldoth Kron.  Shar-Teel can be dualled into a thief, which will give you a better fighter than the rest of your options you could have instead.
6. All Crazy crew:  Dwarf Fighter (Chaotic Neutral), Minsc, Tiax,
Xzar, Quayle, Safana.  Safana's not really crazy, but she is
Chaotic Neutral, so I picked her.  That would be quite the crew to listen in on.  Especially if you give the main character an opposite voice (female voice on a guy, ect)

7.     Some NPCs are pairs.  If you want to take just one of them, you need to take them both into your party initially, and then kill off the one you don't want.  Take off all their armor and send them off to fight alone.  Then just kick their corpse out of the party, and there you go.  Make any party you like and have fun.  If you find any groups that are interesting, go for it.

8.     NPC starting levels.  NPCs start at levels proportionate to the main character.  Since experience is divided amongst the party, the fewer NPCs you use, the more experience each character gets.  You want to get any NPCs as late as you can get them, especially mages.  The only notable exception is your thief.  Thieves generally add Thief skills to what they are already proficient at.  But the only thief skills you are going to want to add to are Open Locks and Disarm Traps.
So you need to add your thief as early as you can, except for Safana; those are her preferred stats anyways.  The walkthrough is designed to follow this strategy.

9.     Leveling Up.  Save the game before you level up.  When you gain a level, you want to have at least 1 HP less than the max you can get.
Make sure you remember the extra HP you can get from Constitution.  For
Multiclass characters, add the bonus HP to the maximum for the class you are leveling up in, then cut the total in half.  That will be the max HP you can gain.

Section II:  Prologue

This shouldn't be a problem unless you are a mage.  You start off right outside of the inn.  There is a chest just above the innkeeper that has 2 spell scrolls inside of it if you can pick the lock or force it open.  If not, leave it for later.  Head upstairs and the first 3 rooms you go to can be opened.  Hopefully you'll be able to open the chest in the third room.  It has a Potion of Clarity, which will be very useful later.  Head back downstairs and talk to the mage first.
He wants his Identify scroll back.  Talk to the innkeeper and buy whatever supplies you need and can afford.  Make sure to pick up some crossbow bolts.  You'll need them in a little bit.  Head out of the inn and go north.  Talk to the lady and she wants her book.  M'kay, next head east into the first building you see.  The guy in there will fight