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On September 22 2011 04:25 Immersion_ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2011 04:17 Xedat wrote:
So if I would start SoA for the first time now, the best class to begin with would be fighter or tief or a dual fighter/tief and then change to mage some point through?
Also is it important to get a balanced party or will you start out with a balanced party and learn what members are useful in what constellation throughout the game? For "Best" yeah, fighter or kensai or swashbuckler dualled to mage are pretty amazing. Honestly, the game offers fun challenge, especially if you don't over abuse, on insane difficulty, but not so much that you "need" character X, just try them all and go with the ones you like really, none of them are that bad (personally I think Aerie is terrible, power wise  , never kept her for ToB though). You need at least 1 fighter based guy, at least one cleric, and at least one mage (no thief is annoying but doable), beyond that enjoy! Oh and also, YES to that comment about Biff the Understudy.
Aerie is one of the best PNJ, I think. if you already have a mage, she has enough firepower to make both an excellent secondary mage, and a very good cleric. I used her in almost every game I did, she is just a spell factory.
But the best thing about Aerie is when you reach high levels, and then you start using contingencies with cleric spell, like 3 holy revenges and stuff like that.
On September 22 2011 05:01 AntiGrav1ty wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2011 04:17 Xedat wrote:
So if I would start SoA for the first time now, the best class to begin with would be fighter or tief or a dual fighter/tief and then change to mage some point through?
Also is it important to get a balanced party or will you start out with a balanced party and learn what members are useful in what constellation throughout the game? Dualclassing requires some experience and patience. The first few levels after switching class can be horrible for someone who doesn't know the quests and the mechanics of the game. If you are new to BG2 you should go for half-elf and multiclass Fighter/thief out of the options you mentioned. Great utility and can fill multiple roles in your party. As for party composition: For your first playthrough you should just try to have a balanced party and take along whomever you like. A tank, a thief,a druid/cleric and always at least one mage. All NPCs are good enough to be in your party. I have played the game with pretty much everyone at least once.
For a beginner, the best party is a combination of all badass motherfuckers, since they provide a balanced and extremely efficient group. Korgan (with dexterity stuff!), Viconia, Edwin, Jan Jansen, another fighter to be replaced by Sarevok and the main character. I personally love warrior mages.
If your main character is himself a strong fighter, get Haer Dalis. At high level, he can be absolutely awesome, even if you have the impression he sucks big time at first.
I also recommend to everybody the Weimer Solaufein mod.
On September 22 2011 04:12 Misanthrope wrote:
I fucking love that there is a poster in here named Biff the Understudy giving advice.
:p Forget about that Baal crap, Biff is the real main character of BG.
For people who don't know it, here is a nice spell combination on a fighter mage:
-> major invisibility
-> protection against magic weapons
-> protection against the energy
-> protection against abjuration
-> protection against divination
-> protection against negative plan (if you fight a shadow dragon or vampires)
and your character is completely invincible. Like, literally. (That was Biff's tip.)
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some notes on NPCs for BGII -
Jaheira is the best tank
Keldorn - one of the best NPCs, will make the game much easier against enemy mages and there will be a shitload of of them
Edwin - best mage
Korgan - awesome fighter/tank, great for beginners
Viconia - great cleric
Aerie - weak for beginner, overpowered if you know what you're doing
Anoymen - never ever get this dude, annoying as hell
Haerdalis - same as Anomen, tries to steal your girl
Jan - fucking hilarious
Valygar - Vin Diesel look alike, no personality
Nalia - sux
Cernd - boring, underpowered char
Mazzy - ok, not too interesting
Imoen - must have if you enjoy story/plot
Minsc - good fighter, u either like him or find him annoying
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On September 22 2011 17:25 hai2u wrote:
some notes on NPCs for BGII -
Jaheira is the best tank
Keldorn - one of the best NPCs, will make the game much easier against enemy mages and there will be a shitload of of them
Edwin - best mage
Korgan - awesome fighter/tank, great for beginners
Viconia - great cleric
Aerie - weak for beginner, overpowered if you know what you're doing
Anoymen - never ever get this dude, annoying as hell
Haerdalis - same as Anomen, tries to steal your girl
Jan - fucking hilarious
Valygar - Vin Diesel look alike, no personality
Nalia - sux
Cernd - boring, underpowered char
Mazzy - ok, not too interesting
Imoen - must have if you enjoy story/plot
Minsc - good fighter, u either like him or find him annoying
Hum, I don't agree with you.
Jaheira sucks. She is not a very good tank: Korgan with increased dexterity is a thousand times better not to speak about Anomen. And she is a mediocre druid.
Cernd is amazing. He won't fight, because he sucks at it, but he has 18 wisdom and is a pure druid. In ToB, he will be a spell factory, and he can cast you an army of elemental and deadly spells (like twice more than useless Jaja).
Keldorn is fine, but not that interesting. If you are a beginner, he is ok, if you know the game well, he becomes pretty useless compared to Korgan. His gimmick spell of divination, you can as well get it with any cleric at all, so that's not really a reason to take a character with nothing thaaat awesome otherwise.
Anomen is the best tank. Why is that? When he becomes Sir Anomen, he becomes an amazing Cleric, and mind, he is not dual class. So he will be a much better warrior than a normal cleric, but get just as many spells. At high level, he can cast the boosts and buffs of a cleric with the efficiency of a warrior. He just rocks.
Imoen is excellent, because she is a good enough thief for the whole game. Jan is hilarious but it's much better to have a better mage, and Imoen is leveling twice faster than him. Nalia sucks, but you take her and change her for Imoen since she is basically exactly the same character, a bit worse.
Haer Dalis is awesome if you really know how to play him. So not a low level.
General thing: do not underestimate magic. When I play, I take at least 4 or 5 mages (Edwin, Aerie, Dalis, my kensai mage and Solaufein in my last game).
The rational behind it is that combination of spell have an exponential effect. Any big fight in SoA becomes a piece of cake when you can cast for example: great malison + slow + 3 times emotion:despair on the enemy group. You can be sure that in the first round, all your enemy will be crying like little girl waiting to be killed in the floor and that if one was exceptionally lucky, he will be slowed down anyway. And that was by using one level 4 spell per character. When you master BG2, you really start to consider that pure fighters are a waste of spell and that one is already a luxury (I haven't taken any non-caster except for a kensai thief for years, even Korgan)
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4/5 Mages is just powergaming... Like playing Fighter/Mage.
You make it sound like you "should" play a Fighter/Mage^or are missing out on something, which is just not true except when you run smaller parties where Dualclasses really shine...
As for the NPC's from my point of view:
Jaheira - Dualclassing "spellcaster"-classes need a lot of exp until they become truely good (it just takes long until you reach high level spells). Dualclassing a Druid is probably the worst Idea you can do in SoA... She becomes kinda good towards the very end of SoA IF you do many sidequests and is ok/good in ToB (well who isn't.. The TOB abbilities are just ridiculous :p). Oh, her Romance takes A G E S and likes to bug out... For most of the game she is just a low level Fighter (with huge weapon restrictions) and a low level Druid (due to the insane experience requirement for Druids to get into the "later" levels where they become truly good).
Keldorn - If your not play a Paladin yourself and if you play good and actually care for the alligment of your NPC's he's really good. Best Paladin subclass, kills Mages and can use the probably best Weapon ingame.
Edwin - best mage + funny sidequest and alltogether a nicely worked out char.
Korgan - awesome fighter/tank, great for beginners and fun :D.
Viconia - great cleric, "best" Romance in the game and iirc unfinished business adds some more Underdark quests for her(?). All she needs is an Item to boost her Strenght a little (which there are plenty) and she becomes truly awesome.
Aerie - weak for beginner, overpowered if you know what you're doing + Romanceable + Whining all the time.
Anomen - Annoying as hell but a good NPC if you "like him or can bear him" :p.
Haerdalis - Good if you know how to use him (he's a kinda "weird" kit for Bards), can be an awesome Tank if you know what your doing.. Else he is and stays terrible  .
Jan - I find him annoying but everyone should have him in his party at least once just to see if you like him or not.. He has TONS of text...
Valygar - B O R I N G and absolutely unneeded.
Nalia - Like Imoen just worse, she actually is not sufficent as a thief while Imoen is.
Cernd - B O R I N G, but a "pure" Druid... So he gets strong later.
Mazzy - A decent fighter. But there is not really much else to her.
Imoen - Well, she is important to the story. A good enough Thief for all of SoA (dunno about Tob) and a good mage.
Minsc - Decent fighter with some hilarious lines.
The "strongest but still comfortable to play party" is probably:
Edwin
Korgan
Viconia
Imoen
X (basically unneeded, pick who you like but remember that the rest of your party is like pure evil.. Except Imoen which does not care :p)
HC (totally free to pick because you got everything important allready in your party). Whiteout Imoen a Thief is needed or at least really nice to have --> Swashbuckler or Fighter/Thief ).
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On September 22 2011 18:48 Velr wrote:4/5 Mages is just powergaming... Like playing Fighter/Mage. You make it sound like you "should" play a Fighter/Mage^or are missing out on something, which is just not true except when you run smaller parties where Dualclasses really shine... As for the NPC's from my point of view: Jaheira - Dualclassing "spellcaster"-classes need a lot of exp until they become truely good (it just takes long until you reach high level spells). Dualclassing a Druid is probably the worst Idea you can do in SoA... She becomes kinda good towards the very end of SoA IF you do many sidequests and is ok/good in ToB (well who isn't.. The TOB abbilities are just ridiculous :p). Oh, her Romance takes A G E S and likes to bug out... For most of the game she is just a low level Fighter (with huge weapon restrictions) and a low level Druid (due to the insane experience requirement for Druids to get into the "later" levels where they become truly good). Keldorn - If your not play a Paladin yourself and if you play good and actually care for the alligment of your NPC's he's really good. Best Paladin subclass, kills Mages and can use the probably best Weapon ingame. Edwin - best mage + funny sidequest and alltogether a nicely worked out char. Korgan - awesome fighter/tank, great for beginners and fun :D. Viconia - great cleric, "best" Romance in the game and iirc unfinished business adds some more Underdark quests for her(?). All she needs is an Item to boost her Strenght a little (which there are plenty) and she becomes truly awesome. Aerie - weak for beginner, overpowered if you know what you're doing + Romanceable + Whining all the time. Anomen - Annoying as hell but a good NPC if you "like him or can bear him" :p. Haerdalis - Good if you know how to use him (he's a kinda "weird" kit for Bards), can be an awesome Tank if you know what your doing.. Else he is and stays terrible . Jan - I find him annoying but everyone should have him in his party at least once just to see if you like him or not.. He has TONS of text... Valygar - B O R I N G and absolutely unneeded. Nalia - Like Imoen just worse, she actually is not sufficent as a thief while Imoen is. Cernd - B O R I N G, but a "pure" Druid... So he gets strong later. Mazzy - A decent fighter. But there is not really much else to her. Imoen - Well, she is important to the story. A good enough Thief for all of SoA (dunno about Tob) and a good mage. Minsc - Decent fighter with some hilarious lines. The "strongest but still comfortable to play party" is probably: Edwin Korgan Viconia Imoen X (basically unneeded, pick who you like but remember that the rest of your party is like pure evil.. Except Imoen which does not care :p) HC (totally free to pick because you got everything important allready in your party). Whiteout Imoen a Thief is needed or at least really nice to have --> Swashbuckler or Fighter/Thief ).
No, no, you don't need to play anything.
I just play with a ton of mods who increase a lot the difficulty of the game so I go for the strongest team. Also, when you can cast 6 spell at once, you find teams with regular warrior really boring (left clicking an enemy is so boring comparing to choosing an amazing, deadly and sophisticated combination of spells).
Agree with the best comfortable party. X, I recommend Dalis or Cernd. Remember that there are a ton of druid spells you can't get with a cleric.
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If you're trying to build the "best" party I personally think that you're missing the point.
It's dungeons and dragons, the point is to play a character and make decisions that the character would make; not what makes the game easiest.
You'll get more enjoyment that way and get into the story more.
If you wanted to min/max the game I'm sure 99% of the people on this forum could work out how to do that and own everything easily.
Edit: For instance a rogue is really fun to play but isn't super-effective in combat. Especially if you go for lots of stealth and pick-pocket. But it's FUN!
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On September 22 2011 19:36 Klive5ive wrote:
If you're trying to build the "best" party I personally think that you're missing the point.
It's dungeons and dragons, the point is to play a character and make decisions that the character would make; not what makes the game easiest.
You'll get more enjoyment that way and get into the story more.
If you wanted to min/max the game I'm sure 99% of the people on this forum could work out how to do that and own everything easily.
Edit: For instance a rogue is really fun to play but isn't super-effective in combat. Especially if you go for lots of stealth and pick-pocket. But it's FUN!
Believe me, I've played this game something like 30 times, so I had my role play D&D fun enough to know every line of dialogue (that is including playing a psychopath party trying to transform Atkhatla into a ghost city).
When you've played the game so many times, warriors become dead boring, because you don't have much to do with them. So I play with mages where I can experiment with new spell combinations, where I can be creative and have fun in every fight.
Now, if you think 99% would manage to kill Illich with Weimer's Tactics, you are wrong. It took me three days.
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How much harder does the sword coast stratagems 2 mod make this game? I know from experience just how cheesy and unfair that the "tactical" challenge mods can be, and as a result I don't know if I want to fight improved mages, beholders, boss fights or anything like them. I have just installed the spell changes and the general AI improvements which improves enemy AI targeting, calls for help, gives them potions and so on so I guess that I'll just wait and see how much of a challenge it provides
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On September 22 2011 19:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Now, if you think 99% would manage to kill Illich with Weimer's Tactics, you are wrong. It took me three days.
I was talking about standard mode.
On September 22 2011 19:45 Billy_ wrote:
How much harder does the sword coast stratagems 2 mod make this game? I know from experience just how cheesy and unfair that the "tactical" challenge mods can be, and as a result I don't know if I want to fight improved mages, beholders, boss fights or anything like them.
It just depends on your personality. To beat with hard mods you need a huge amount of game knowledge. I think you have to really get into the game to enjoy that.
You can make the game hard enough by purposely "gimping" your characters. Make choices that they would make not what gives the most xp. Then you go into boss fights undergeared, underleveled and with "interesting" spell/skill sets. That makes the game harder by itself.
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On September 22 2011 19:48 Klive5ive wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2011 19:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Now, if you think 99% would manage to kill Illich with Weimer's Tactics, you are wrong. It took me three days. I was talking about standard mode.
Standard mode becomes boring if you get good at that game and knows it inside out. Even without powergaming, any decent player can kill Amelissane without even feeling threatened. And there are sooooo many good mods who add a lot to the game.
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On September 22 2011 19:45 Billy_ wrote:
How much harder does the sword coast stratagems 2 mod make this game? I know from experience just how cheesy and unfair that the "tactical" challenge mods can be, and as a result I don't know if I want to fight improved mages, beholders, boss fights or anything like them. I have just installed the spell changes and the general AI improvements which improves enemy AI targeting, calls for help, gives them potions and so on so I guess that I'll just wait and see how much of a challenge it provides
Mages are such a pain with SCS. Auto buff, smarter casting etc... Regular fighters aren't really harder but things can get messy with all those dual classes at the higher levels.
Still more "fair" than tactics but some fights can be pretty hard.
Also there is a really annoying component with ennemies always spawning if you sleep in dungeons 
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Ive played this game inside out , and i can give you my take on the Characters:
Kheldorn: Not needed , Sarevok and Korgan are stronger fighters, and a Thief with the right skills and Use Any Item can abuse the shit out of Carsomyr better.
Minsk: Not needed , can not learn the really overpowerd Priest spells , and his chief asset (th high strength) gets nullified by Items later
Edwin: Good mage , But he cannot wear the Amulet of power , which totally sucks , since wearing the Robe of Vecna and the Amulet would give you a casting time modifier of -100%
Aerie: Strongest Regular character if you know what your doing , give her the amulet of power and Vecnas Robe , and she can cast 30+ spells during a single Timestop
Hear`Dalis: Mediocre Character , self created bards can be much stronger , his main failure are his low hitpoints which make him fall far too easy in the later game
Viconia: Good Priest , Nothing too special about her , but i think her Romance plot is the best.
Imoen/Nalia: Basically the same character, you need one thief in the party , Imoen is a bit stronger, but both pale in comparison to...
Jan Jansen: Almost a must , best Thief you can hire ,he levels fast , he has good stats , hes a better mage then Imoen , and he can lay those traps as well as anyone. Give him two rings of fire resistance , the club of detonation and have him run into combat with improved haste. Just keep him away from teh rest of the party in those cases ^^
Korgan: really Strong fighter , he has good Hitpoints , and his high Axe skill makes him a killing machine since theres a lot of very strong magical axes in the game.
Sarevok: I always get him in throne of baal , Silver Blade with Improved whirlwind instakills just about anything on him.
Cern/Jaheira: Cern is just roundabout better , some druid spells are just nasty powerful (natural beauty) I usually get another mage instead tho.
Valygar: Average fighter with all around good stats, better then Minsk.
My Party would be
HC: Mage
Jan Jansen
Aerie
Korgan
Valygar/later Sarevok
Viconia or Cernd
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For me "Ascension's" Amelissan did it when it comes to difficulty... Improved Abazigal (the Blue Dragon?) fight was pretty much "all I could take" (its Abazigal + another (green?) Dragon + some Wrmys + a ton of lesser Wyrms + Salamanders and I don't know what else...), my party consisted only of my HC Fighter/Thief, Sarevok, Imoen and Viconia... Espeically because I won that fucking fight 3 times but every time Abazigal towards the end Imprisoned Sarevok and even "Freedom" did not bring him back -.-. With a "better" group it probably would not have been that much of a problem, but with only one mage things get messi fast if that key spell gets resisted or something else bad happens...
Everything else was nice in Ascension tho.. Nothing to hard but just way better than "normal" ToB which tends to get really mindless Hack'n'Slay (well my party first party was pretty melee heavy including a Monk-HC... So it wasn't even necessary to use much more magic than to break the defenses of enemy Mages/Whatever  ).
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don't want to quote too many posts to point out where i disagree so i'll just give my take on the npc-s.
aerie - amazing. a must for every good party. best support caster by far and in tob she becomes the best offensive caster in the game.
anomen - worst cleric in the game. decent ranged attacker once he gets energy blades. also annoying. no reason to pick him over aerie or viconia.
cernd - decent caster and a decent fighter early game. the only reasons to pick him over jaheira is faster access to insect spells and fire elementals. she still gets them fast enough imo. later in the game he just pales in comparison.
edwin - best mage in the game. period. not using ammy of power is not so much of a problem. if any other mage could use his ammulet (well, jansen can), he would use it over ammy of power.
haer'dalis - amazing character. best tank in the game by far. he can get -30 ac + mirror images and 100% magic res. sick. good melee dps (better than any pc bard because he's "cheating" and has ** in short swords), good support caster, second best dispeller in the game.
imoen - ya, she's the "main" npc, but i never play with her because nalia is the same thing but is with you from the start and ends up with more xp. yea, her and nalia are basically the same and they are tied for the second best mage in the game.
jaheira - druid spellbooks are weird in a way that they either have amazing levels where you don't know what to pick, or have leves without a single useful spell. that makes their power oscilate as they level up. jaheira is a fighter too which means she can always be somewhat reliable. give her the +4 staff from ribald (or pitchwife if you have weimer's item upgrades installed) and she can still kick ass instead of just summon elementals and insects. once she gets nature's beauty, she becomes an amazing crowd controller. overall an awesome nps if you can stand her whining.
jan - silly, but somewhat useless until tob. he's only worth it if you like to cheeze with traps, otherwise use nalia/imoen
keldorn - a must have in every beginner's party for well known reasons. the true sight is great if you are using scsii or tactics because it goed trough protection from divination.
korgan - nothing special about him except the rage ability which stops nasty disables. if only he could use the paladin swords, he would be an amazing mage killer... sigh. still a better fighter than most single-class npc-s.
mazzy - boring and useless. the abilities she gets are crap and her stats suck. just use korgan or keldorn.
minsc - a good tank if you don't want haer'dalis. dual wield doe and foa, cast shield of faith and hardiness, charge. he's also a good melee dps char.
nalia - best good mage if you ask me. less maintenance than imoen, essentially the same.
sarevok - best fighter in the game, you can also dual him to a mage. words can't describe how good this guy is. i always play soa with 5 chars so i can pick up sarevok in tob.
valygar - good ranged dps char with throwing axes and the 19 str belt. the backstab can be nifty, but it's situational. he can't wear full plate meaning minsc is more useful early on. i rarely use him, i could be wrong.
viconia - wow! where do i start? 100% magic res? check. great stats? check. amazing ranged dps? check. strong dispell? check. badass psycho bitch? check. use her in every evil party!
yoshimo - don't waste xp on him. it's a shame you can't revive him in tob because bounty huneter is an amazing class after lvl 21.
if i had to make a sample party, this is what it would look like:
good - pc half elf ranger-cleric, aerie, nalia, jaheira, keldorn, sarevok. pc is the main tank, arie and nalia offensive casters, jaheira support caster and a dps char, keldorn dps and dispelling, sarevok main dps char.
evil - pc half orc fighter-thief, viconia, haer'dalis, edwin, korgan, sarevok (dualed to mage). haer'dalis main tank and a support caster, pc abuses vhailor's helm for massive dps, viconia ranged dps with sling of seeking + belt (later energy blades) and uses human flesh for magic immunity, edwin abuses his enormous amount of spells/day, korgan wears bracers of dex and throws axes, sarevok is a secondary offensive caster and a secondary dps char.
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On September 22 2011 21:48 GeneralCash wrote:
don't want to quote too many posts to point out where i disagree so i'll just give my take on the npc-s.
aerie - amazing. a must for every good party. best support caster by far and in tob she becomes the best offensive caster in the game.
anomen - worst cleric in the game. decent ranged attacker once he gets energy blades. also annoying. no reason to pick him over aerie or viconia.
cernd - decent caster and a decent fighter early game. the only reasons to pick him over jaheira is faster access to insect spells and fire elementals. she still gets them fast enough imo. later in the game he just pales in comparison.
If you play Anomen long enough, he accesses knighthood, becomes Sir Anomen, and he is then a fabulous cleric, since he has a hundred time better fighting abilities than Viconia, and progresses faster than Aerie.
Anomen is just great, but you have to complete his quest to enjoy him with a high wisdom (and power).
Cernd is way better than Jaheira as a druid since he is mono-class, and has 18 wisdom. At high level the difference is astonishing. Just use it as you would use a mage and don't ever send him to any fight at all.
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Your proposed parties are terrible for beginners, but for diffrent reasons:
Your good party has no sufficent thief, Nalia is not even enough for SoA., let alone Tob You can still do it but it's just beyond annoying. Thats the one reason why Imoen is just plain better (she's good enough for every trap/lock that you "need" to open in SoA). As a "beginner" you want Imoen probably anyway because the story does not make much sense whiteout her ^^.
She has less XP when you get her back if you took yoru time until going to spellhold but there are mods/patches that fix that and are installed in like 2 minuts (including searching one ^^ (google: "imoen xp fix" or something like that).
Your evil party won't get a romance (half-orks don't get any except probably aerie?). That kinda rules it out for me (Half-Elfs and Humans iirc can get a Viconia romance?).
Btw: There are plenty of decently/very good written NPC mods.
Tashia is (Romanceable "good" witch), so you get a very good spellcaster for a "good" party (brings a statue that can summon a panther, nothing really special or useful).
Fade got plenty of nicely written dialogue (Romanceable, neutral, female thief - brings a really good amulet but that’s about it).
Tons others, but some of them are overpowered and/or bring very tough fights with them (the 2 above shouldn't make too big problems).
Btw: I often just use the Shadowkeeper to transform NPC' to classes I "want". It's easy, does not take much time and you can get all of them usefull/fitting your party.
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Alright, just installed BG2 with the Gibberlings Widescreen mod ond a few of the tweaks and fixes from the 2 packs. Thanks for your advice and wich me luck ;-)
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I always chose my party based on story-related reasons mainly. I'd pick characters I thought were cool, with interesting backstories and side-quests.
Obviously I'd try get a balanced party with tanks, spellcasters and ranged attackers, but I wouldnt necessarily go for the most effective in each role. Like if I'd never had Keldorn in my party before, I'd make him my tank even though he's pretty useless compared to some of the others.
The great thing about the game was the perfect balance between story and tactical gameplay, with so many different ways to approach it.
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Ok, I want to challenge myself with a difficulty mod, and I'm going with sword coast stratagems because I've heard it has a reputation of been difficult by making the enemies a lot smarter unlike a few other difficulty mods that bend and/or break the rules, Well, as a result of having not played this game in years I'm not quite sure what kind of party to assemble, and I'd consider going full custom but mute characters are a lot less fun, so here is what I have on the drawing board so far...
Me - berserker dual classed to cleric at level 9. He's the second best cleric after viconia, a good tank and hopefully a decent fighter.
2 viconia as main cleric
3 edwin as the dps mage
4 korgan/might kick him out for haer if it's not too late in the game
5 Jan to be replaced by imoen. Nalia might have more exp, but her theif skills are inadequate. Also she's a boring character.
6 Aerie.
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On September 22 2011 22:21 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2011 21:48 GeneralCash wrote:
don't want to quote too many posts to point out where i disagree so i'll just give my take on the npc-s.
aerie - amazing. a must for every good party. best support caster by far and in tob she becomes the best offensive caster in the game.
anomen - worst cleric in the game. decent ranged attacker once he gets energy blades. also annoying. no reason to pick him over aerie or viconia.
cernd - decent caster and a decent fighter early game. the only reasons to pick him over jaheira is faster access to insect spells and fire elementals. she still gets them fast enough imo. later in the game he just pales in comparison.
If you play Anomen long enough, he accesses knighthood, becomes Sir Anomen, and he is then a fabulous cleric, since he has a hundred time better fighting abilities than Viconia, and progresses faster than Aerie. Anomen is just great, but you have to complete his quest to enjoy him with a high wisdom (and power). Cernd is way better than Jaheira as a druid since he is mono-class, and has 18 wisdom. At high level the difference is astonishing. Just use it as you would use a mage and don't ever send him to any fight at all.
anomen ends up with 14 wis, big deal. vicky has 18. she also gets higher ac, higher ac with energy blades, magic res... the only thing he can do that vicky can't is cast holy word. aerie is a million times better. if you want a single class divine caster, get cernd because high level druid spells are better than high level cleric spells. every other divine caster is better than anomen, plus he's annoying as fuck.
yes, cernd is obviously a better druid, but he can't do anything other than cast. jaheira is a good enough druid to do anything you need a druid for (insects, elementals, nature's beauty) while also being a great melee and ranged fighter. good luck getting close in for nature's with cernd who can't wear armor and has low hp.
having a pure casting priest is pointless, even viconia relies on physical damage half of the time. if you want a pure caster, get edwin.
On September 22 2011 22:25 Velr wrote:
Your proposed parties are terrible for beginners, but for diffrent reasons:
Your good party has no sufficent thief, Nalia is not even enough for SoA., let alone Tob You can still do it but it's just beyond annoying. Thats the one reason why Imoen is just plain better (she's good enough for every trap/lock that you "need" to open in SoA). As a "beginner" you want Imoen probably anyway because the story does not make much sense whiteout her ^^.
She has less XP when you get her back if you took yoru time until going to spellhold but there are mods/patches that fix that and are installed in like 2 minuts (including searching one ^^ (google: "imoen xp fix" or something like that).
Your evil party won't get a romance (half-orks don't get any except probably aerie?). That kinda rules it out for me (Half-Elfs and Humans iirc can get a Viconia romance?).
Btw: There are plenty of decently/very good written NPC mods.
Tashia is (Romanceable "good" witch), so you get a very good spellcaster for a "good" party (brings a statue that can summon a panther, nothing really special or useful).
Fade got plenty of nicely written dialogue (Romanceable, neutral, female thief - brings a really good amulet but that’s about it).
Tons others, but some of them are overpowered and/or bring very tough fights with them (the 2 above shouldn't make too big problems).
Btw: I often just use the Shadowkeeper to transform NPC' to classes I "want". It's easy, does not take much time and you can get all of them usefull/fitting your party.
nalia has 5% less trap finding than imoen, big deal. there are items that give trap finding bonus if you really need it, or you can just use potions of thievery. tob has very little traps and nalia can spot/disarm all of them without any help.
the fixpack for soa gives the option of romancing vicky if you really want it, i find romances annoying anyway because i have to know what to say in order to keep the npc. the xp bonus from restoring her heart isn't worth the constant blabbing and having to fight bodhi without a cleric.
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