Lots of Experience – Baldur’s Gate II

This guide is a collection of tips for gaining lots of experience in Baldur’s Gate II. These tips were provided by GameBanshee users.

Ample Chef

In Brynnlaw, you must do the Lady Galvena Quest by having the chef knock the guards unconcious with the potion. Then go and kill Gelvena and her “pet mage.” Free Claire and tell her you will escort her to the docks. Go back to Lady’ Galvena’s fest hall and speak with the chef who knocked out the guards. Everyone should receive 2250 quest exp. Speak to her again and she will give everyone 2250 quest exp. This is incredibly cheap but if you are “that close” to gaining some levels and are in the area do this.

Submitted By: David

More Brynnlaw Goodness

After coming to the island of Brynnlaw, I went to meet Desharik. He was supposed to give me some help for passage to the Asylum. After talking to him, he offered to take me there, and this gave me a lot of exp (38,500 per character). Then the game saves automatically and loads the next map. This auto ave is after getting the experience. So all you have to do is reload the autosave and talk to him again (for passage to the Asylum) and you’ll get the same experience AGAIN.

Submitted By: Crovax

Unseeing Eye

During the unseeing eye quest, you have the choice to kill that unseeing eye straight out or use the complete rod for an easy fight. Personally, I think the unseeing eye is an easy fight with or without the complete rod. Besides, the first choice gives you unlimited exp if you’re quick. After you have the half rod from the lost avatar, you can go straight to Gall, the cult leader. Have one of your man stand right next to Gall. Pause immediately right after the dialog and Gall should still appear friendly. Talk to him again and you get another 75,000 exp. You can do this as many time as you want. My best try is 14 times.

Remember to put Minsc away, because he starts to attack Gall after Gall no matter what (He killed Gall while he’s still friendly…). Also remember to talk to the man beside the pit before you do this or else you won’t be able to enter the pit for the other half rod.

Submitted By: Sleepy

Fiend Summonings

This is a tactic only available to parties that are already high-level, but it’s a good way to top up to the experience limit. Get your mages and clerics to memorize as many fiend summoning spells as they can (Summon Fiend, Summon Cacofiend and Gate), and prepare Haste & Protection from Evil 10′ Radius as well. Find a comfortably isolated and safe place (e.g. a dungeon you have cleared – I used the Planar Sphere), cast Haste and Protect. vs Evil 10′ Radius, then either one by one or two at a time cast your fiend summonings Since they’re considered your enemies you can kill the fiends and earn experience, but with Protection from Evil they won’t fight back. Once you’ve exhausted all your fiend summons and killed them, rest your party and start the process over. With a fast mouse hand this all goes pretty fast. Just remember not to summon them all at once or they’ll attack each other, and your party will get caught in the crossfire.

Submitted By: Johnny

Not Unlimited, But Good

In the Asylum Dungeon 1, you can gain quite a lot of experience.

When you have acquired the crystal shard and the withered vampire-hand and click on the blue circle beneath the giant head, every partymember gains 22,500 xp (if I remember correctly).

It is possible, if you are quick enough, to click the blue circle more then once and to gain 22,500 xp for every party-member for every time you click on the circle.

You have to be quite fast to do so as you have to confirm the game-message which states that the way is now open to reach the next level before you can click the circle again.

Submitted By: Harrie Doodeman

Fast XP in the Beginning

As a Mage, summon your Familiar right at the start of the game. Before going through the portal to the second level of Irenicus’ Prison put him in your inventory. You must leave him in here until after the fight between Irenicus and the cowled mages.

Once you get the 34,500 experience for everyone in your party, release the Familiar. For me, every time I have done it, he is still in prison on the second level, walk him out of the prison and you will get the fight again after which you will get the 34,500 experience again. Although this isn’t much, at the start it can mean another level up.

Submitted By: Mal!ce

Elemental Madness

There is a fast and easy method to earn a TON of experience. In the Underdark there are 3 elemental portals. Now, depending on the equipment you have, you can choose any one of these portals for this method. I chose the Air Elemental portal and equipped the Staff of Air that could kill them in a single hit if they failed to save. I killed the first elemental and another spawned, I surrounded that one and pounded away. In a matter of minutes I killed around 30 air elementals at 7,000xp each. This may not seem like a whole lot each time, but I was barely taking any hits from these guys. Well worth the effort to level any characters that are near a level up. I even left the room for a while and continued having my party whack away.

Submitted By: AliveMan

Staves of the Woodlands and Mega Experience

The Avatar of Rillifane is very generous if you know how to deal with him. It’s very easy to get a whole bunch of Staves of the Woodlands if you immediately pause after your feedback screen says “party has gained an item” and then talk to him again. I assume this principle works in alot of situations in the game. But the kicker is that you can get literally as much experience as you want, as well as any number of staves, simply by emulating an old vending machine trick (the one where you tie a string to your quarter and keep pulling it out).

If you’ve played through this part before, you know that Rillifane appears right after you put the three symbols on his altar. But the experience award (68,000 or so per character) is given before he appears. What happens is that there is a tiny window of time between the awarding of that experience and the point when the items disappear from the altar. You can exploit this by placing the items on the altar, thereby triggering the Avatar, then pulling them off before they can disappear. Even though the Avatar goes through his whole speech and the game goes to a movie sequence, if you still have the cup, talisman, and moonblade when the game returns to normal, you can start the process all over again, as many times as you want.

Getting the items back before they disappear is kind of difficult though. Here is the best way to do it:

1. Put all three items in the inventory of one character (mine had the speed boots, but I’m not sure if that makes any difference).
2. Have that character click on the altar, bringing up the inventory exchange screen.
3. Pause the game, then transfer the three items to the altar.
4. Without unpausing, click on the altar again. This will instruct the character to access the altar almost immediately after you unpause in step 5.
5. Unpause then pause again very very quickly, as if you were double-clicking a mouse button. This will bring up what looks to be the same inventory transfer screen, only it is a fraction of a second later and the Avatar should have been triggered.
6. Transfer the items back into your pack. If you have been too slow in double-clicking the pause button, one or two of the items may have disappeared, as they go away one at a time. If this happens, reload. There is a slight chance that you can be too fast, though I think this has more to do with the in-game round timing. If this happens, the Avatar doesn’t get triggered, so just try again.
7. Unpause the game a final time and wait for the Avatar to do his thing. Then repeat, ad infinitum.

Admittedly this strategy occurs rather late in the game, but if you need one of your guys to reach the next spell level before facing Irenicus, this is the way to go. Otherwise, I’ll bet this sort of thing would work elsewhere in the game.

Submitted By: Mike G.

Tanner Quest

If you go into the tanner’s home in the Bridge District, and instead of just talking to him, fight him (like force-click sword on him), then talk to him again, everyone will get 22,500 experience practically forever! For me, this trick ran out far after I had stopped thinking about xp, like two or three levels gained by everybody.

Submitted By: Vladimir Barash

Save Grace Many Times

When the Unseeing Eye is dead, venture back to the avatar of Amauntor. When you approach the temple, a Diseased one will initiate dialog, and force you into the temple. Here you will (if in a nice mode) ask him to speak the name so that avatar can summon the strength to break the rod.

This sequence is in two pieces…

First, the diseased one speaks and you click “end dialog”.
Second, the Avatar speak you get the Saving Grace +3 shield and experience.

This is what an experience-hungry and shield-needing player does:

Pause after the Diseased one has spoken and initiate dialog again with him again. This will bring forth a number of Avatars who will all give the Saving Grace shield, as well as experience.

However.. if you’re too slow on the space bar, the diseased one will disappear.

Submitted By: Mikkel Sander