These save games for Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal are for the version of
Baldur's Gate II patched up to v26498. I didn't install the expansion pack while
playing through Shadows of Amn and I did not use a XP cap removing utility. This
means that the party did not rise above 2950000 XP in the last chapter of SoA. I
also did not have access to the two bonus merchants in Athkatla, so whatever they
had I never obtained. On the other hand, I continued my party from Shadows of Amn
the right way by playing through the end battle with Irenicus one more time, to
make sure I brought the bonus attributes with me in Throne of Bhaal.

PLEASE BE WARNED THAT THE FOLLOWING TEXT MAY CONTAIN MINOR SPOILERS!

Even though the save games cover my first (and probably only) run through the
expansion pack, I often took a sneak peak in the following excellent sources:

	Dan Simpson's FAQ v8.3
	Desslock's Guide to Throne of Bhaal
	Sean Kepper's ToB guide for IGN/Snowball
	The walkthrough at www.gamebanshee.com
	Bioware's official forum
	The forum at Planet Baldur's Gate

I arrived in the expansion pack with the following party, which I was quite fond
of during the last couple of chapters in Shadows of Amn:

	Palagorn	My character, a Paladin "Inquisitor" imported from Baldur's
			Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast.

	Minsc		Brought him along from the very first dungeon and never let
			him go. I later gave him proficiency for War Hammer and
			gave him the Crom Faeyr.

	Valygar		As soon as I gave him the Celestial Fury and even later let
			him dual wield the Equalizer, he really became outstanding
			in SoA. I immediately dropped him in ToB, though.

	Jaheira		If there ever was a party member I might have let go, she
			was a candidate. I kept her for the early ability to summon
			fire elementals as well as her healing abilities. In ToB,
			she became more interesting with a Greater Elemental summon.

	Aerie		Although on the weak side, she became my favorite magician
			and I also refused to throw her out because of running the
			romance with her. Which, by the way, I managed to complete
			with her loving Palagorn in SoA.

	Imoen		Being a sister and part of my crew in the previous game, I
			always wanted her along. Her thief abilities were more than
			sufficient and she was a good backup mage.

As soon as I arrived in the Pocket Plane I took most of the stuff off Valygar except
his katana, and then replaced him with Sarevok. Sarevok became the only evil member
in my party, but I knew from forums that Throne of Bhaal was designed so that he
would never actually leave in disgust. Besides, I had read a lot about how powerful
he was, so I just wanted this guy no matter what. This was the only change to my
party in Throne of Bhaal.

	Sarevok		I gave him the Silver Sword to begin with, but later he was
			give then Psion's Blade +5 and again later the Ravager +6.

The character I made, Palagorn, was a Paladin "Inquisitor" which I imported from
Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast. I played through Shadows of Amn with the
cap of 2950000 XP. At the time of starting Throne of Bhaal, his abilities were:

	Level			17
	XP			2950000
	AC			10
	HP			125
	THAC0			4

	Strength		19
	Dexterity		11 (meant to use the Gauntlets of Dexterity)
	Constitution		19
	Intelligence		9  (was penalized in a dream in SoA)
	Wisdom			16
	Charisma		20

This includes the bonus attributes gained at the end of SoA. The AC is of course
the base value when completely stripped off all armor. During BG1, TotSC and SOA
I also used various tomes and whatnot, but I won't get into details about that.

I was relatively thorough and investigated more than 90% of all areas, and I
solved about the same percentage of quests and subquests in the game. I never
cheated in the game (other than taking a peak in the guides mentioned above, of
course), apart from two exceptions which is noted below.

In general, I have the following notes about these save games:

  * I won't start listing all the equipment I brought into ToB. Suffice it to
    say that Palagorn has the Carsomyr +5 sword and the Gaunlets of Dexterity.
    I was reasonably thorough obtaining equipments and loot in SoA, so expect
    all party members to have more than sufficient gear.

  * Although I brought the Golden Pantaloons with me when importing into SoA,
    I never got the Silver Pantaloons in SoA since it involved an evil deed. I
    realized my error too late, and to make up for it, I used a CLUA command
    to get the Silver Pantaloons as soon as I began ToB. This was the first of
    two deliberate cheats I performed.

  * I read a lot about Sarevok changing his alignment to good during ToB, and
    decided to try going for it. I refrained from letting him swear the oath
    and tried to act good during his questionings. However, I also read in a
    forum that the dialogues were to appear at random (often not at all), so
    I activated the cheat mode and hit ctrl+i a few times to provoke the right
    dialogues. I also got a few others along the way, but nothing substantial.
    In the end of chapter 9, however, Sarevok was still evil and I couldn't
    advance any other dialogue with ctrl+i. Somehow, I must have made a wrong
    answer along the way. Not that it made any difference since I played at
    the normal difficulty level, but it still bothered me a bit. Anyway, that
    was the second and last of the deliberate cheats I performed.

  * I completed the end of SoA by only performing good deeds in Hell. In other
    words, Palagorn (the Paladin) is still lawful good in ToB.

  * For temporary storage, I only used the coffins in the Pocket Plane. However,
    I kept hold of most of the special gear in a Bag of Holding (on Palagorn)
    to improve my chances of having Cespenar find something to improve. I went
    back and let Cespenar make new stuff fairly often.

  * My party was mostly good and I continued the reputation at 20 from SoA, much
    to Jaheira and Sarevok's regrets.

  * As mentioned earlier, I never had access to the two bonus merchants in SoA
    in Athkatla, hence never got the Robe of Vecna. Too bad.

  * I went through Watcher's Keep in its entirety right after beating Sendai, but
    before going to Abazigal's Lair. In level 5, I only placed one globe in each
    of the tubes, skipping out on some of the spawning battles. This was quite
    an exception, as I usually tried to clear out all fights in ToB.

  * When playing Deck of Many Things in Watcher's Keep level 3, I won both the
    Wish spell and the weapon before losing the last fight. I gained the Emperor
    card in the last game, giving me magic resistance for 7 days.

  * I was thorough enough to pick up all hint scrolls for Machine of Lum the Mad
    in Watcher's Keep level 4 and made use of all the bonus combinations. Figured
    that it would be most prudent to distribute the good stuff for the party
    members that needed it the most, so I distributed it as follows:

	Palagorn	Got CHA +1, the mace weapon and 5% magic resistance.

	Sarevok		Got DEX +1.

	Aerie		Got INT +1, WIS +1 and CON +1.

	Imoen		Got STR +1.

    Please note that all my tanks already had various belts and gloves to raise
    their STR considerably, so I really didn't need to boost them further.

  * I chose to kill demogorgon rather than seal him off. My party didn't have too
    hard a time killing it. Neither of the dragons gave me too much trouble either.
    In fact, I personally found the fight against Sendai to be a lot harder.

  * Money is absolutely no problem in these save games. I often had beyond 200000
    and even 300000 GP, as the result of looting everthing so thoroughly.

  * You may wonder why I gave Sarevok such a lousy piece of armor. There is a good
    reason. Continuing from SoA, I managed to get a total of five sets of Boots of
    Speed; apparently the maximum amount. For sarevok, however, I found a piece of
    armor that, while not exceptionally protective, also gave him permanent haste.
    Right from the first Baldur's Gate game I always wanted to have the improved
    movement speed on all party members, so this is how I played most of ToB. What
    is important to know, however, is that this ONLY improves movement speed! In
    battles you will still gain additional attack speed by using the Haste spell.

  * I followed the tips by Dan Simpson in his FAQ to give good answers to the Solar
    in the Pocket Plane. The very last quicksave in the archive is a save right
    before facing Melissan for the last time. After beating Melissan, you have the
    choice of becoming a good god or a mortal.

The last save game states 105 days and 21 hours.

JCH, 21 September 2003
