At last I have my party formed! The tough part was doing Minsc's mission: rescuing Dynaheir (then, sadly, marching her naked into battle and getting rid of her).
My problem is that I'm doing this as early as I possibly can, and my party is still pretty weak. My protagonist is still Level 1 because she's a multi-class. I'm glad she's a mage, but she only has two spells at the moment, and the second one is only because of the wizard's ring.
So, I had to wipe out the Xvart village because I needed the special items from the cave behind their village. That wasn't too tough. The sleep spell works wonders at this stage in the game (when it doesn't miss the target). I took down the bear very easily with a "command" spell from Viconia.
My major problem was crossing a bridge and dispatching a polar bear, which is a far stronger enemy that I really can handle at the moment. The FAQ said to use the Entangle spell, but Jaheira at first kept missing. Finally I realized I could aim it at the ground and hope the bear would walk into it. Finally it did, but I found that I needed two spells to hold it. Even then it took plenty of time to kill it.
And then I tried to get the Frost boots from the nobleman who gave me the quest to kill the bear. He would only give me 50 coins because even with Ajantis's charisma at 17, it wasn't high enough, apparently (I've been unable to pickpocket the charisma robe in Beregorst--I need to find a potion of master thievery for that and I haven't got one yet). The FAQ said to just kill him, but I did that and my reputation took a five point hit. I wound up at 7, disliked. Traveling on I ran into Laurel (who's supposed to be on our side) who immediately attacked me. All my good characters were complaining loudly, and I think were on the verge of leaving.
So clearly, killing the guy wasn't a good idea. I just went back, did it all again, took the 50 coins and didn't get the Frost boots. I don't recall even having to use them much in my previous game, and there might be more somewhere else. One hopes. I tried knocking the guy out with fists, but that killed him anyway. Couldn't pickpocket them because Imoen's skill isn't high enough.
After that the quest wasn't all that difficult because of my lovely sleep spell. I got the guys at the bridge with one spell and grabbed the nice item they have. After that it was just using sleep spells on the gnolls. You can sleep in the gnoll stronghold, oddly enough, so I just kept loading up on my sleep spells and finally got through it. Once I found Dynaheir, however, I had already killed all the enemies in the area so I couldn't just march her up the stairs to her demise. I left poor Ajantis, who didn't understand why I disbanded him temporarily, at the stronghold and had to travel to the area to the north to get her dead.
One nice thing happened. We were in a rainstorm, and she got hit by lightening. Ha ha! Didn't quite kill her though, so I marched her up to a ogre I found by his fire and had her attack him. He did her in quickly enough and I just left the area with my party, went back to the stronghold and picked up Ajantis, and I finally am back in Nashkell.
Next job, the carnival. Then back to Beregorst to get that verdmanten cloak. Then I can clean up the wilderness areas at my leisure and rack up some experience. My protagonist (Emerald, always Emerald) and Minsc are still Level 1. When I get them to Level 2 I'll tackle the Nashkell mines. By then I ought to have Imoen up to 100% find traps skill.
But I now have my party solidly secure. I've got Ajantis, Imoen, Jaheira, Viconia and Minsc, with his hamster. I am enjoying Minsc.
So now I can get on with the game at whatever pace I choose! Hooray!
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