Eye of the Beholder 2 Walkthrough - Character Creation
By Daniel D'Agostino, 2011-09-10 / EOB2 Walkthrough / EOB2 Info
The Character Creation process
You can create your own characters by selecting the "Start a new party" option in the main menu. This will take you to the character creation screen. This is where you select the race, class, alignment, gender statistics, portrait and name of each of your four characters.
Changing characters
In Eye of the Beholder 2, you start with four characters, but you will encounter a few NPCs that will be able to join your party. You can have a maximum of six characters in your party. Although you may drop one or more of your original characters in favour of a new NPC you meet, the better experience, statistics and spells that your original characters possess will normally make you keep your original party.
Why character creation is important
There are many reasons why it is worth customising your characters, and there are many useful tips that can help you make a good selection. Here are a few.
- It is worth modifying your characters' attributes to their maximum allowed values. While purists will shun this facility and opt to reroll instead, maxing your stats will make it a little bit easier to get through this difficult game.
- If you have multi-class characters, experience is shared between classes for each character, meaning that they will level up slower than single-class characters. You definitely want a single-class mage, to be able to access the higher-level spells, but it is ok to multi-class the rest.
- Paladins can cast cleric spells from level 9 and above. Your paladin starts at level 6, so it will be a while before he can cast any spells, but they will be useful in dire situations that you will inevitably face.
- Elves cannot be brought back to life if they die.
In my case I went for a human paladin, dwarf fighter/thief, half-elf cleric, and half-elf mage. You generally want two good fighters at the front, and a cleric and a mage to back them. A ranger/cleric instead of a single-class cleric would also have been a good choice, and would provide a third fighter to replace one of your main ones if they are paralysed or badly beaten. It is also useful to have a thief in the party as you will be able to pick locks.
You can choose any name you like for your characters. I opted for names from Tolkien and Warcraft settings.
Organising your characters
Some additional points:
- You can show your hit points as numbers by turning off bar graphs from the Preferences menu.
- Notice Khelben's coin in your main character's inventory - this is the coin Khelben gave you in the Introduction.
- The Scribe Scrolls option allows you to copy a mage scroll into a mage's spellbook (actually, into the mage's memory). Clerics don't need to do this as they acquire spells as they level up. As you start out, you can scribe the scroll of Magic Missile in your mage's possession.
- Pray for spells to choose what spells your cleric will be able to cast.
- Memorize spells to make a similar selection for your mage.
- Rest to gain the selected spells.
- The two characters at the back (generally spellcasters) will not be able to reach the enemy, so arm them with ranged weapons such as daggers, rocks and skulls. A bow is also a good choice, but pure spellcasters can't use them.
- It's up to you whether your front characters should use a shield. This will give them added protection, but will dedicate a hand to holding the shield rather than attacking. I normally prefer to have all hands available to attack. Note that the left (lower) hand cannot carry heavy weapons, so short swords are usually the most natural choice.
- Needless to say, your cleric and mage should have a cleric's holy symbol and a spellbook in their left hand, respectively. You need them to access your spellcaster's spells. Note that spells will still work if they are removed from the spellcaster's hand, but there is no other way of opening the spell list.
You are now good to go! Khelben teleported you in the forest near the Temple Darkmoon, so that's where you'll have to start.