So I bought BG2 during the sale months ago and every time I try to play it I never get past the first dungeon. There's a few things I don't really understand and would love to get some advice on.

- How should I dole out the weapons/armor that I find in the first golem room? Should I see what their proficiencies are and equip them depending on the one with higher +?

- Some general tips on which class should use which armor/weapon would be nice. I've never played D&D so I'm not sure if there are set rules in place for stuff like that.

- When I need to heal should I use potions, spells, or sleep? I noticed that you can only use the heal spell a few times before it disappears.

- I really want to pick everything up, but there's only limited space. Which things are useful? Should I just throw out every weapon that I don't use? What about the ammo/arrows. How many of those should I carry? Also there are gems. Should I keep them all?
(On a side note, when I got to the library I really wanted to keep all those books, but obviously that would be impossible.)

- I clicked the formation to try and get my melee in front, but I don't think that is working. Are the formations useful? How does it choose the white dot vs the grey ones? Or should I micro manage them while paused?

- Any other general advice I should know about for the rest of the game?

First off, weapons should go to characters that have proficiencies in them. i.e, give Minsc a 2h-sword, Jaheira should get a Quarterstaff (and later a Scimitar + Shield, or even a Sling + Shield), Imoen should get either a dagger or a Short-Bow.... since Imoen's a thief who dual-classed into a mage, I'd recommend sticking her with short-bows, so she can stay safe at a distance and fire off spells as well. Your protagonist character is proficient in whatever you choose, so choose carefully, and go into accordance with your class.

Armor works like this: The lower the AC (Armor Class), the better it is. Low AC prevents your character from getting hit by physical/missle attacks easier, so give your front-line characters some powerful armor. A note about mages, though, and all mages who are also part fighter, cleric, or thief: armor prevents mages from casting spells, so watch for that.

Also note that there is a set number of spells healers and wizards can cast before requiring rest. This is the spell memorization system, and is important to learn. I recommend doing the tutorial from the single-player menu at the starting screen. Resting is important to both heal and re-memorize spells, so feel free to do it often... though sometimes enemies might ambush you when you're trying to rest up.

Make sure you sell off any gems and unnecessary items... but hold on to magical items and weapons, especially magic weapons... like "+1" or "+2" weapons.... unique items should be held onto as well, as they might be important to a quest or might be involved in creating a powerful weapon/armor.

Also remember if you have any mages in your party to go to their spell rosta and select spells for them to use. Mages have to ready spells (and then rest) from their list of known spells before they can use them - though once selected they remain available until you change the selection (remembering that you have to rest between uses for each spell - but nothing stops you putting the same spell down into two rosta slots - thus giving you two uses).

As said resting is an important step and should be done as often as you need to - though try not to get too weak when in dungeons - because as said some will have spawns that attack you as you sleep. Also as far as I can recall whilst some subquests trigger based on time expired in the game (these are mostly character interaction events and not critical to progressing the game main story at all) the game has no time limits imposed - so nothing stops you resting as much as needed even between rooms.

Also - if you ever use fireball - stand your party well back before unleashing ;) (first time I used that when I played the game first it took out most of the party 0 because they were all rather too close! IT was ages before I used the spell again).


On the subject of items - when it comes to looting - most regular gear (ie standard weapons that don't have a +1, +2 or a funky name and story) is cheap change 0 a few gold coins at the most. So don't go mad trying to collect it all up - though try to ensure that you never wander out of dungeon or fight without something - load up and dump the less important stuff as you go. Note keep an eye on weight limits - if a character gets overburdened they'll slow and then end up stuck (unable to move from the weight).

Also a tip for when you are out of the starting area - take up quests and save often - but if you find that an area of a quest is beating you back, don't worry. Just leave the area (remember the lack of time limits) and take up another or - the more fights the more levels and gear you can get letting you move back to the first quest a little stronger (and maybe a bit wiser in battle as well). Note that not all the quests you get when you start are aimed for the starting party - some are a lot harder than others at this stage.

Thanks for the tips guys. I also noticed this thread http://www.gog.com/en/forum/baldur_s_gate/first_playthrough_taking_gameplay_tips and will be reading through that walkthrough when I get some time.

Just try not to get too bogged down with walk through - they really only want to be used when you get really stuck with things - otherwise they can spoil a lot of fun in a game.

I'd say give one a quick read at the point when you come out of the starting dungeon as the game can somewhat throw a new player at that point (it becomes very open and loses all sense of a linear game at that point for a while). In addition make sure you keep a good save method up, this helps a lot in this game. A simple single save file is ok - but with Baldur's Gate I prefer to keep two running saves per game and save alternately to each one. That means I can go back a step if I find that I've suddenly walked into something rather daft or taken a wrong turn.

I know having multiple saves is a good idea and I really need to get in the habit of doing it. There's 2 times I remember where that would've saved me a bunch of time. I was playing Resident Evil Code Veronica once on Dreamcast and saved in a room that like forced me to fight a bunch of creatures with low HP and no herbs. And another time I relied on Fallout 3's autosave to do my saving and got saved into a room with a security bot that just chased me and killed me no matter what I did.

Useful tips:

Read the manual from cover to cover. Seriously. If you've never played D&D, you'll be pretty lost unless you do. The BG2 Manual is truly excellent.

If any of your stats gets to zero, you die. Period. Vampires will level drain you (permanently) on every hit, and unless you have Negative Plane Protection, you'll be in a world of hurt. Note that losing levels like this will also wipe some of your memorized spells, which is a bummer. You can ONLY get the levels back with a Restoration spell. Also, mind flayers will drain 5 Intelligence per hit temporarily. This will kill Minsc in two hits. Stock up on potions of genius before you go messing around with the flayers.

Clay golems can only be harmed by magical weapons that do crushing damage. You will want, if possible, a spare enchanted blunt weapon for each of your characters. The "Lesser Clay Golems" in the starter dungeon are an exception to this. They can be hurt with anything.

Protection from Undead scrolls make it so that undead can't even SEE you. This can make swarms of vampires, liches, etc. into easymode fights. Be warned, however, that there are a few places (the Graveyard in Chap 3 AND Chap 6, and the Temple of Amaunator) where undead won't initiate dialog with you if the scroll is active, which can lead to unintended results.

If you're going to stash an item away for later, like a component for Cromwell, stick it in a container. If you leave it on the floor, it'll vanish after a few days, which can deprive you of a lot of different things, depending on what you lost. Game-critical items will persist forever, though, so you'll still be able to finish the game.

Enjoy!