Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn/Irenicus' Dungeon

After character creation, there is a slight pause before the initial starting cutscene. The game can be paused here. The most obvious use would be to drop all items if importing a character (either new game + or a full series run with a single character). A single spell could be cast before the cutscene plays, if desired. This brings up issues about when the timing will officially begin, as currently the first cutscene is not counted against a player's time.

Dungeon Level 1

The portal key in the mistress' room is required to proceed, so any route must be centered on getting the key. The mistress' room is full of traps, including a long duration poison. Mirror images will absorb a trap if they are hit. Any character can use the portal to the second floor at any time, as long as someone in the party is in possession of a portal key.

PC Jelly

One strategy is to use at least 7 mobs (NPCs + summons) and the PC to wall jump into the mistress' room.

• This requires the character to be a single class mage (unless imported) to have access to a polymorph self spell.

Sounds Familiar

Alternately, the PC can wall jump over the locked door to the sewer room with a more accessible Find Familiar spell. The PC then runs to the Mistress' room by conventional means.

• This route is slightly slower.
• This route does not include inviting Jaheria and Minsc.
• This route only requires the PC to cast a level 1 spell, so any class with arcane spells can be used.

Dungeon Level 2

Yoshimo will quickly initiate dialog with the party. He may be invited to join, which is recommended (more party members will almost always save time).

Route 1

In the next room are Mephits and Mephit Portals. The exit door can be unlocked by destroying all Mephit Portals, or wall jumped.

• Mephit portals are 100% immune to magic, and cannot be hit with bare fists (attack range is too short). They have 27 hit points each.
• After that room there is a Mephit that can cast a stun or blindness. There is a hidden floor trigger that will sometimes spawn goblins near this Mephit.
• There is a trap on the bridge after the very next door that does a large amount of physical damage.
• There is a shadow thief ambush just before the sewer hallway. This can be avoided by being invisible or hidden, or by talk locking the visible shadow thief before he initiates dialog.

Route 2

It is also possible to wall jump from the Mephit room to the sewer hallway near the exit. It it unknown exactly how many mobs are required to jump the wall, but it's somewhere between "a lot" and "a whole lot."

Route 3

There are a series of glitches can be used to skip the entire second floor. Explanation is as follows:

• Upon entering the second level of the dungeon, cast Farsight at the exit to the surface. Send the entire party back through the portal, to dungeon level 1.
• Next, a glitch is used to split the party between the first and second floors of the dungeon. Re-enter the portal, but this time pause the game during the "Loading" screen (not the autosave). The PC will remain on first floor, while the rest of the party will be on the second floor. Before unpausing the game, give the PC a command to move. This will break the teleport that would normally occur.
• Next, give someone an order to exit the dungeon (by clicking on the dungeon exit you uncovered earlier with farsight). Have the PC run down to Irenicus' dryad concubines, and refuse to help them. The dryads will charm Minsc, and he will be teleported to coordinates near the dryads. However, since Minsc is on the second floor of the dungeon, he will be teleported to the correct coordinates but on the wrong map. This happens to put Minsc at the dungeon exit. Since a party member was given a command to exit the dungeon and a party member exists at the exit, the game decides this is a legitimate exit attempt and the whole party (except Minsc) is taken to the rubble in Waukeen's Promenade.

Exiting the Dungeon

There is a two minute cutscene upon leaving the dungeon in which no actions can be performed. It is possible to break this cutscene to avoid it entirely.

Method

• A party member must be near the PC. Just before exiting the dungeon, the party member near the player character should be kicked out of the group. Ideally, after the autosave there will be a small pause, followed by the party member's dialog. This breaks the cutscene and allows actions to be performed immediately upon entering Waukeen's Promenade.
• If the party is given a command quickly after exiting, Imoen will not leave the party. Waukeen's Promenade will not have the fog of war removed. Irenicus and the shadow Thieves will not appear and fight.
• If the party is not given any commands, the cutscene tries to play itself out, although you can still perform any action. Waukeen's Promenade will have the fog of war removed. Imoen will be removed from the party and destroyed. A copy of Imoen will be created, and she will participate in the fight.

Warning of Difficulty

This trick is incredibly difficult to replicate, especially during a speedrun. It is unknown exactly what causes this to work sometimes and not others, but factors seems to be:

• Party positioning
• Camera positioning
• Certain maps (The map is created upon entering the level. Sometimes a certain map will cause the game to crash 90% of the time when this trick is attempted, and the trick will not work the remaining 10%).
• Time between kicking out a party member and exiting the dungeon.
• Time paused after giving the command to exit the dungeon.

Things that do NOT seem to have any effect are:

• Computer/CPU speed
• Cached data (playing the game from a cold boot vs having certain areas loaded in RAM)

It is recommended to make a small animal sacrifice to improve odds of success with this trick. Any rodent or livestock will do. Also, do not drink red Mountain Dew Game Fuel between attempts, as this trick has never been successfully performed while under its influence.

Keep in mind that a certain save game will give a 95% success rate when the exact same commands are given (load, pause, wait one second, exit, unpause). Nothing outside of that save game seems to affect its success rate.