Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

You do not need grandfathered super gear to level here. I do not buy any gear until my toon is upper teens. I use what I can pick up. I do buy shield sword armor at level one. Mundane stuff. The rest is picked up or looted. Smart building. Smart gearing and going places that offer the most while being safe. You can shoot areas that give 50xp/k but if it takes 2 minutes to get the k and you used consumables then it is not as good as rolling through 30xp/k with no sweat. Getting a k/minute or less. I do not spend much time at xvarts at all.

Agreed.

My first toon was a basic warrior build. Regen cloak, tower shield of medium quality +1hander of whatever I could hold and a bow I could swap to (with unlimited ammo of course) was all it took to hit 30 on a warrior.

Above all else though, it takes patience.

I started a completely new character about a week ago. Level 1. I have played him very rarely, but he's level 10 now. Nothing grandfathered or even muled (except an axe, but it's basically a +3 axe and they're easy enough to get relatively cheap). It's a simple fighter build, so no magic except with consumables like potion of barkskin and potion of heroism. I've died twice, I think, but mainly for being stupid one time and the other time was for simply not paying attention.

I haven't grouped up once with him, because I mainly play him in low population hours. So all the leveling has been solo work.

He doesn't have fantastic gear at all, is my point. And it still feels like it's going very fast. I do have knowledge of the server, though, but that is easy enough to teach you.

When I say it is going too fast, I say so because I think people are simply too focused on leveling and not RPing. RP starts at level 1. Not at level 30. Besides, there's a decent amount of XP to gain from just RPing too - which in my opinion is good!

I started another fighter in the beginning of May. This one was from an RCR, I had a few items muled, and it started at level 20. By the end of June, he was level 29. I didn't grind much at all with him. Most of it was RP adventuring. Teaming up with others and doing dungeons while RPing.

So yeah, I do think it is quite fast. Too fast, maybe. At least the pure, mindless grinding way.

It's all about running the quests on a weekly basis (which is how long they take to reset). Use the gold from the easy ones that you barely have to leave the city for in order to buy a nice stack of invisibility potions, which will allow you to pull off some of the harder quests.

Of course, this does require server knowledge, but I believe there is a quest guide somewhere On the forums.

Personally, I like to start in soubar, do the insanely easy lozeng quest and, when a little higher in level, the puddle boots quest (1,250 Xp in about 9 minutes). Head to roaringshore and then to baldur's Gate harbor. Find a good route around the city where you pick up all the quests while completing the easy ones for another 1200 or so xp). 2 invis potions will get you finished with the bilberry quest on that island. From there take boat to "near candlekeep". Few more invis potions will get you through goblin cave quest. From there complete quests in beregost. Try to complete wyvern egg test. If you die trying, no biggie. It ports you back to where you want to go anyway to finish maltz quest. I don't know the exact numbers, but for the quests I find to be worth the time to run, I think it's over 6,000 xp in roughly 1.5 hours. And very little danger to your character.

It's just as stupid and boring as grinding xvarts, but as it's only once a week it's easier to stomach. If you're really a glutton for punishment, you could level up seven characters concurrently using this method. Crafters and loot grinders and what have you. This place rewards those who do this stuff, because all playstyles matter or some such, so feel free to get after it.

You can also roll up a character that does well in early levels, race to level 10, then decide it's not your cup of tea and RCR into something else. Shady as heck, but there you have it.

1-20 leveling should be slowed by half, 21-30 time to level should be cut by 25-50%. End result would be the same or slower to current leveling, but the fact that it currently takes twice ad long to get the last 10 levels as it takes to get the first 20 makes for really uneven experience. 21-30 should be slower than 11-20, even slower than 1-20, but not as ridiculously so as it is now.

As to difficulty, it is difficult as a new player trying to solo with your first PC. Consumables will make it far easier and are relatively cheap. Potions of mage armor, barkskin and shield from sorcerous sundries and heroism from thayan merchant turn CR appropriate areas from dangerous to fairly safe to level in.

Mage armor - costs about 50 gold and lasts 30 minutes giving +4 armor AC.
Barkskin- costs about 100 gold to give +3 natural AC lasting 90 minutes
Heroism - +2 AB and saves for 50 minutes, costs about 130 gold
Shield - +4 shield AC and immunity to magic missiles for 5 minutes, costs about 150 gold


Going from memory here but the prices should be close. Areas of appropriate CR are balanced for group play, but consumables can make up the difference if you can't finds a group.

I am not so sure if you should make the level 1-20 leveling any slower. It has been faster in the past, and a lot of builds can struggle to level up simply because they gain certain key abilities at level X, Y, and Z.

Are you currently level 15, or are you lower than that right now, OP?

I ask because maybe we can help direct you to an appropriate new area that will be fresh and offer a better balance of challenge vs exp/loot.

I know that up until around level 12 or so I thought the server was a straight line from BG to Beregost (lol).

Once I started exploring more I learned that there are quite a few areas of similar CR to play around with.

I'm sure we can help guide you to ones appropriate for your build and level.

So gimme them specs!

I know not where the hell this "fast xp" that you speak of comes from. Ok, well, I do. It requires a few sacrifices, the primary of which is, you know, your soul. Some folks are driven, and guided on by progression. I can't stand it. I swear I'd rather open an artery than do the endless grind. Which means it took me a year to hit max level. But then, I RP. It is my guiding light, and the final boost to RP xp was a godsend (It really is amazingly good xp these days, by the way.) So yeah. Between weekly quests, and lots of fishing, getting involved in DM events and basic RP, I left the grind to others, and my 20s moved faster than my teens did.

You speak of soul but you fish and quest ? Do you even know what a soul is at this point ?

Anyway there are multiple venues for exp, no need to kill yourself by doing what you hate, change and explore ! If you feel exploring alone is too dangerous then talk to other PCs, get a group going or listen to advices IC. And you'll always get that RP exp doing it ..

I'm all about that fishy-rp.

I just completed my weekly quest run which was a little bit more interesting since I was taking exact notes regarding gold and experience rewards. I did 21 quests (surface) and took best XP options in conversation when available. I made :

10.575 XP
4925 GP
+ Potion of Heal and Silver Necklace & Ring

That's from bare quests. When you take into account RP and combat XP (especially for lower levels) and chests you can make about 12k of XP and GP while on a run. It is boring as hell and it will take you several hours (if you know what are you doing) but it is worth it.

Valefort wrote:You speak of soul but you fish and quest ? Do you even know what a soul is at this point ?

Anyway there are multiple venues for exp, no need to kill yourself by doing what you hate, change and explore ! If you feel exploring alone is too dangerous then talk to other PCs, get a group going or listen to advices IC. And you'll always get that RP exp doing it ..

Fairly certain it got left in a smoking heap at the Xvarts the first time I made a character here.

But I wholeheartedly agree- there are multiple avenues of XP out there, so there's ways to get it aside from doing the relentless, soul-devouring grind. And yes, RP out everything, because that XP is delicious.

Do quests whenever you can... just the handful i do on the surface and upperdark gets me about 10k xp and doing all of the ones on the server (assuming you have the time and patience) will prob get you a lot more then that. It only takes me about a hour to do all of them.

Character idea: Joe the Fisherman. Druid maxes Survival. Fishing build. Forms the Fishing Guild.

Babuguuscooties wrote:Are you currently level 15, or are you lower than that right now, OP?

I ask because maybe we can help direct you to an appropriate new area that will be fresh and offer a better balance of challenge vs exp/loot.

My current character range is as follows

Dwarf Defender tank just got to cl 13 (this is my main)

Aasimar Cleric healer is cl 12 and will be Hierophant (Yes I know healers are mechanically useless because every self heals etc, or so I keep being told but I like playing healers so nurr)

Arcane Archer who is cl 6 or 7

Babuguuscooties wrote: I know that up until around level 12 or so I thought the server was a straight line from BG to Beregost (lol).

Yes this is the funk I find myself in at the moment...

Babuguuscooties wrote: Once I started exploring more I learned that there are quite a few areas of similar CR to play around with.

I'm sure we can help guide you to ones appropriate for your build and level.

So gimme them specs!

That is my hope with this thread is to get some constructive tips to correct errors in my approach on this server keeping in mind that I know nothing beyond Beregost and BG really.