Baldur's Gate and Tales of The Sword Coast

Baldur's Gate was published by Interplay in 1998.
Baldur's Gate is a top down RPG.

Baldur's Gate was created by a then new company called Bioware (founded in 1995).
It is the first game in a series of games, that also include Baldur's Gate 2, IceWind Dale, Planescape Torment.
These games all use the same Game Engine.
Soon after Baldur's Gate's release, "Tales of The Sword Coast" was published as an "Add-on" to Baldur's Gate.
After you have finished Baldur's Gate, you can install ToTSC and play some additional quests, visit some more dungeons and finish the original game once more.
The game takes place in the world of "The Forgotten Realms" and uses the second edition of the "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" rules.
For some good maps of the "Forgotten Realms" world, see: Forgotten Realms Map.
Click on section B2, to see the Sword Coast.
This site also has a more detailed map of The Sword Coast, at: Sword Coast Map.
If you are new to the whole Dungeons and Dragons rules, I have added Dan Simpson's excellent FAQ to my website.
This FAQ explains some of the major ideas/ terms of the Dungeons and Dragons rules.
See:AD&D Rules FAQ

The story

The game takes place in the Forgotten Realms world and more specific in the cities/ lands of the Sword Coast.
Baldur's Gate is a city on the Sword Coast.
When the game starts your mentor and fosterparent Gorion,who has raised you in "Candlekeep", tells you, you and he will move elsewhere because a danger is threatening you.
You will leave, but before he can explain anything, Gorion gets killed.
All he has left you is some instructions to go to the "Friendly Arm Inn".

Basically there are two stories in this game: the story of your main character and the general story of the unrest along the Sword Coast.
The first story is all about your own background and heritage. Gorion is not your real father, but who is then?
Slowly you will find out more about this, especially in the last part of the game.
The second story deals with a strange iron shortage along the Sword Coast. There is a lot of unrest because of this and people blame the neighbouring country of Amn. Since they feel Amn is trying to destabilize the region a possible war with Amn is looming. There are many powerfactions along the Sword Coast, and it is your job to find out who's causing all trouble and why.

Character creation

You can play this game with a party of 6 characters.
When you start the game you can create your main character, and during the game you can pick up 5 other "pre-made" characters.
The character creation gives you the option to either pick a pre-made character, or to create your own character.
If you want to create your own character you can pick everything from race, to class etc.
At first you get to pick the gender, then the race: human, elf, half-elf, gnome, halfling or dwarf.
Which race you chose effects your starting abilities (one race gives high intelligence, another high strength etc) and which class you can play.
After picking the race of your character, you can pick the class: fighter, ranger, paladin, cleric, druid, mage, thief, bard, or a multiclass character (example: a fighter/ mage), and finally you can also play a specialized mage.
In this last class you can pick from 8 different options: from conjurer, invoker, necromancer etc.
After you've picked your class, you get to chose your aligment: from Lawful good, to Chaotic evil, etc.
Next you get your abilities: you can pick the ones the game shows you, or reroll your abilities until they are to your liking.
Next you get one or more skillpoints to divide over your weapon skills: from bow, to short or long sword, to blunt weapon etc.
If you play a spellcasting class your next chose is up to 3 spells, that your character will have when you start the game, and after that you get to pick which spells will be memorized (=ready to cast) once you start the game.
Finally you can chose your appearance, from the color of your clothes, to the color of your hair, etc.
You also can pick from different faces, voices etc.

Once you start the game you will find many characters in different zones that you can invite to join your party.
In picking those partymembers, their class, alignment etc is important.
For example: if you chose a character of evil alignment and your party gets a reputation that is very high, characters of evil alignment will run off.
There are also partymembers that don't like each other, or that will only join when their partner joins too etc.
In short: all those partymembers have a will of their own, which is usually determined by their alignment.

The game

In each city you'll enter and also in most wilderness zones, you'll find NPCs that will give you quests.
Some quests are the simple: "retrieve this and that item" kind of quests, but some have more to do with the main plot of the iron shortage.
During your travels you will meet some "old" familiar faces, like Elminster and Drizzt Do'Urden.
Elminster knew your fosterparent Gorion and will give you some hints at times.
A large part of the game you will enter new maps/ zones and you have to clear each map/ zone, fight the enemies you'll find there and solve quests.
In the meantime as your characters gains experience, you will gain new levels.
Sometimes a new level means you will get an extra skill point to divide over your weapon skills (not always).
If you have magic users in your party they will gain new spell levels and the possibility to cast stronger and more spells.
Spells can be found in the game in chests and on enemies, and can also be bought at shops.
One of the nice features of Baldur's Gate is it's large amount of items/ equipment etc.
Armory, weapons, magic items, all kind of magic jewelry, spells and many different kind of potions etc.
There are many different items and buying/ selling them is a big part of the game.
An archer alone can have many different bows and many, many different kind of (magic) arrows.
You will find a lot of items on different dead enemies, and you can sell these items in the shops in the towns.
These same shops also sell armory, weapons, potions etc.
Most cities also have Inns where you can get information and also spend the night, regaining your health and spells.
Sometimes (usually after you have started a new chapter in the game) you will have dreams that explain something about the major story of the game, or your background.
See screenshot:

You will also at times gain new skills during those nights of sleep.
Often there's a temple too, where you can get a heal or a cure, and buy specific priest scrolls/ potions.
Donating money to a temple, will in the end raise your reputation, but usually solving quests, does this too and much quicker. You can raise your reputation to 20.
Reputation will affect prices in shops and how NPCs will react to you.

Magic

As in all AD&D games, magic spells are divided in two groups: Mage and Priest spells.
There are many classes that can use magic, like: Bards, Mages, Priests, Druids etc.
In creating your character you can also pick a character that combines classes.
Like: Mage/ Cleric, Fighter/ Druid etc.
The mages and priest spells in the game are divided over 5 levels: each level has a series of spells.
When you start the game your character will have only some spells (if you start with a magic using character).
Priest spells are added to your spellbook without having to buy/ scribe them. During the game you will be able to buy new mage spell scrolls or find spell scrolls in chests etc.
When you find or buy a scroll of a spell you dont know yet, you must scribe that spell to your spellbook.
Spells dont use mana.
Before you can cast a scribed spell, you must memorize the spell. Each time you gain a new level, you can memorize some extra spells in your mages or priests book.
After casting the spell, it disappears from your memorized spell slots and you must memorize the spell again. This happens automatically during resting.
You can memorize the same spell more then once. For example: if you use magic arrow mostly as attack spell, you can memorize this spell as often as you have spell slots for that level of magic.
Mages can also specialise in a school of magic. Like: Abjurer, Enchanter, Necromancer, to name a few.
Mages that are specialised in a certain school get one extra spell per level, to memorize.
They can't learn/ use spells from other magic schools though and they cant be used to create multiclass characters.
The spell animations/ graphics look very good in this game.
See screenshot:

The casting time of spells takes a bit too long (IMO).
Usually when a fight starts you'll have your mage cast a spell and see him mutter some strange words and rub his hands, but by the time he finally casts his spell the monsters are already killed by your fighters.:P

Gameplay

The world of "Baldur's Gate" is made up of different maps/ zones.
You can travel through the lands by clicking on the zone you want to go to on one central Map.

The Gamescreen, is made up of 90% or so of your actual screen.
Besides that: on your right hand you will see character portraits of your partymembers.
If you left click on such a portrait, you will access the inventory screen of that character.
You can of course scroll through all your characters inventory screens this way.
There is also a rest and partymode button on your right hand.
When in a wilderness or dungeon, you can rest, and regain spells etc.
If monsters are too close or approach you, your rest will be interrupted.

On the left hand of your screen, you'll see a menu with different buttons.
By clicking on the option/ button of your choice, that screen will open.
There are (among others): a map, your journal, your mages book or priest spells etc.
The game has a journal that adds all important information.
You dont have to write down much, while playing the game.

At the bottom of your screen there are buttons too. You can either be in "partymode" or in one of your "character's mode". If you are in partymode, there are options to define the formation of your party: that way you can position your weakest characters in the back of your party, and your fighters in front.
Besides that, there are a halt, guard and attack button.
Once you go in "character mode", you get a lot of different buttons to control the character of your choice. There are quick weapon, spells, special skills, abilities and quick item-use buttons.

Combat is real- time.
However: since the fighting often happens against groups of enemies and the situation gets chaotic soon, you can create your own "turn-based" combat by often using the "spacebar" on your keyboard, during a fight. This will pause the game.
While the game is paused, you can select a character, ready and aim a spell, for example.
If you access your inventory however, the game will no longer be paused.

There are an unlimited amount of save slots, which makes it easy to save the game as often as you want.

Some thoughts about Baldur's Gate:

When Baldur's Gate was published, RPGs were once again becoming rather popular and BG I was the first in a series of games that all used the same game engine: Baldur's Gate II, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment.
All these games were created by Bioware and published by Interplay.
The games are very popular among RPG fans, and after the way in which the Ultima series had been rather disappointing after Ultima 7, BG and the later games were the new series of "real" top down RPGs.
However, I personally am not very positive about Baldur's Gate.
I started playing it first when the game was published and quite frankly stopped playing it soon because I found the game extremely boring.
The slow movement of the characters, combined with the (IMO) lack of any interesting story (really, iron shortage is interesting but to base a whole storyline on it…), and most of all the way in which you had to clear "zone" after zone with the same monsters over and over again, made the game boring and uninteresting to me.
I finished the game recently after I got the hint to simply fix the gamespeed to a higher level (which makes the characters walk a bit faster), but I still find the game boring and tedious.
Some of the dungeons are fun and the beginning and the end of the game are fun too, but the rest of the game is not.
I'm not a fan of hack and slash RPGs, but I think the story and quests in BG aren't special/ good enough to make up for the lack of action in the rest of the game.
The Add-on "Tales of The Sword Coast" is a bit better (IMO).
At least it has more dungeons in it and most of all: some puzzles.
But all of that is just a matter of personal taste: I just really enjoy "non-linear" RPGs with a LOT of puzzles, and a really good story.

Walkthrough and patches

I have added the following Baldur's Gate FAQ to my website, since it is not only (IMO) the best walkthrough that can be found about the game, but it also lists so much more.
Like: items, spells, strategy hints, npcs and much, much more.
See: Dan Simpson's Baldur's Gate and ToTSC FAQ

If you bought the older version of the game (with the 5 CDs), you'll need a patch. There are many different patches available for the game and which one you'll need depends on what version of the game you have and if you start with having ToTSC installed.
See for info on the correct patch you need: Interplay's official BG page

Links:

BioWare This is BioWare's official website. There's a lot of info about the game, patches, support and three messageboards where you can ask all your BG questions.

Interplay's official BG page Here you can find support for the game, patches, screenshots and much more.

GameFAQs Baldur's Gate Page Here you can find: walkthroughs, faqs, character creation guide, item list, npc list etc.

Back to my homepage: RPG's on the NET