What is Tales of the Sword Coast?
Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast (TSC) adventure pack for Baldur's Gate (BG). It is installed "on top" of BG and adds new areas, items, characters, monsters, spells, and quests into the Sword Coast where Baldur's Gate takes place. The adventure pack can be installed while you are currently playing through the game, or it can be installed and played with a game saved after having beaten BG.

How does the adventure pack use my characters?
The adventure pack will simply add areas into the currently existing world. That is, the world map will be replaced with a new world map with areas on it that weren't in BG. With the adventure pack, you will still be playing BG, it will just have a bigger world.

So there are 3 things that can happen:
1) You start a new game: Everything is just like BG, with a bigger world and more stuff to do.
2) You continue a current game: After installation, you load your last save game. Everything will be the same as it was before TSC, but the world map is slightly different and bigger. You can continue with what you were doing before, or head off and investigate the new areas.
3) You want to play with the save game from when you beat BG: You will actually start just before the end of BG. You will have the opportunity to go out and investigate the TSC areas, and then come back and beat BG again.

If you beat BG with the adventure pack installed, the game will end as it would without it.

How much gameplay time and space is added?
There are 4 areas that are being added to the Sword Coast. There is a small town called Ulgoth's Beard, an Island, and the famed Durlag's Tower. All of these areas are complex, having multiple interiors and subterranean levels. Our estimation is that the adventure pack will add roughly 20 hours of gameplay into the world.

Where does the adventure pack take place?
The adventure pack takes place on the Sword Coast in the exact same region as BG. Part of TSC takes place to the west of the city of BG (on the high seas) and some takes place near the Wood of Sharp Teeth.

Is the adventure pack actually Chapter 8 of the story from BG?
No, in fact, the adventure pack cannot be played after BG proper has been beaten. TSC adds areas directly into the BG game world to be played as a part of BG.

Are you planning on modifying any of the rules from BG?
No, not the rules, but there will be some changes to game mechanics. The majority of these things came from feedback directly from the message boards:

Character toolbars have been revised so most have 2 quick weapon slots -- the 3 that don't are: Cleric/Thief, Mage/Thief, Fighter/Mage/Thief
The speed of all projectiles (normal and magical) has been doubled.
Backstabbing now requires the thief to be behind the target.
Web and Grease spells have been changed so they better reflect the area effect of the spells.
All area effect spells have been altered so they only affect people still within the area of effect (ie. you can now run out of the fireball blast radius).
Summoned creatures now start facing random directions.

How will multiplayer work for the adventure pack?
Multiplayer will work exactly the same in TSC as it does in BG. If you have installed the adventure pack however, you will only be able to