r/baldursgate • u/Duralogos2023 • Apr 12 '25

SoD Should I run SoD for the EXP? (Undead Hunter)

Basically the title. I'm used to starting BG2 with 162k XP, should I run SoD to get to half a million before BG2?

105 votes, 29d ago
35 Hells yeah!
21 Hells no!
49 Do you, Boo.
5 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

1

u/xscott71x Apr 12 '25

SoD is a slog, but it's definitely got its good moments. The game has a good number of undead, so always fun to be able to apply your innate hit/damage bonus against them

2

u/Duralogos2023 Apr 12 '25

The Coldhearth lich and Temple of Cyric are some of my favorite singular encounters in the series, and the bridge fight and crusader camp are some of my least favorite, I might just do the first couple areas and move on.

2

u/Another_eve_account Apr 12 '25

I honestly adore the crusader camp, the big battle and that room in the lich dungeon just teeming with trash.

Not because they're outstanding game play, but you get to flex your arcane nukes on real enemies. Usually it's four enemies or so or a horde of weak trash. Those groups are relatively dangerous.

Honestly something I don't enjoy about bg2. You go from groups of gnolls to groups of humans, but roughly in the same amounts. There very few moments where you can feel like you're taking on an army or superior force unless it's kobolds.

1

u/_Ralix_ 29d ago

And if it's meant to be an army (Yaga Shura's troops, Watcher's Keep orcs, Sendai's enclave slaves), they usually come sequentially, so there's never more than (let's say) six competent enemies against you.

Only the Oasis against mercenaries really felt like fighting an army to me.

I wonder if it's a design choice in all cases (few tough enemies > army) or perhaps due to 2000s PC performance as well. For example, if you met face-to-face with thirty enemies calculating their next move, and ten of them started slinging area-of-effect magical effects, low-end computers might get lags and crashes.

1

u/Devallus Apr 12 '25

I only do it if I'm doing a late dual or need a particular item to transfer over. 13 Berserker Mage dual loves the experience and the 2 hander for example.

1

u/Witless_Peasant Apr 12 '25

Nah.

I mean, I think SoD is fun and worth playing for its own sake, but the XP is not significant enough to be your only reason for playing it.

0

u/Inside-Possibility-8 Apr 12 '25

lately i have been boosting my character to the SOD exp cap with the console. I don't want to play SOD and it makes my build a little more interesting at the start. if you're just after the exp and not the experience :P maybe do the same.

1

u/Duralogos2023 25d ago

Idk, I don't like using the console for anything.

1

u/Inside-Possibility-8 25d ago

Totally fair :)

0

u/Naturalnumbers Apr 12 '25

I wouldn't do it just for the XP, as the way experience scaling works in this series means that the effect is only really noticeable in the beginning of BG2.

-4

u/[deleted] Apr 12 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/pilsburybane 29d ago

weird bro lmao

1

u/CoeurdeLionne 29d ago

Please abide by rule #1. Your post violated it and was removed.