This is hardly surprising. Kivan has proficiency in Long bow, Two weapon style and Halberd. Um???? Which of these is not like the other two? Unless he is wield a Halberd in each hand?
I think that Kalid also had some funky proficiencies to begin with as well. And as far as I know, none of the early companions has proficiency in Long Sword. The most common (as far as I know) used weapon in the game. But that may have been under the assumption that the PC would want all of the best long swords (Grey Wolf's sword for instance).
In the original version, one of the big reasons for Shadowkeeper was so that you could fix these little things. Not that you needed to Powergame, but.... If you train heavily in a two handed weapon (or two), when do you have time or inclination to train in two weapon style?
Khalid's "funky proficiencies" as you say it are the same in BG1.
If your recruit him when you first arrive at the FAI, he has Axes * great swords ** and bows *
So, according to bg1 proficiencies he could use bastard swords, two handed swords, scimitars and long swords.
Considering giving him the long swords ** proficiencies is a good choice because, if your PC is good, you can either use other weapons (Scimitars of cheese, ...), or, if your PC uses longswords, you can give ** in Axes to Khalid, so that he's still good.
Also, his starting gear is a longsword, so that's why they gave him these proficiencies (and believe me Khalid with **** in longswords + gauntlets of ogre strenght is awesome).
Level 1 Thief: + Crossbow (maybe shortbow, if CHARNAME goes longbows) + Clubs (can be handy to have a blunt weapon proficiency for those resistant to piercing and/or slashing)
Level 4 Thief: +++ Dagger
Level 8 Thief: either: ++++ Dagger (an extra +1 THAC0 / +1 damage / -1 speed with each hand) (seems bettee than +++ 2 weapon fighting (an extra + 2 THAC0 with off-hand only)) or ++ crossbow
Will have her dual-wiedling +2 Dagger of Venom and +2 Heart of Gollum, also perhaps equiped with Light Crossbow of Speed
I will also have Monty in my party, will probably have him on Find Traps/Open Locks (the Set Traps), Shar-Teel going Move SIlently / Hide in Shadows for scouting and backstabs.
The rest of the party will be: CHARNAME neutral evil Jester (Scimitars and Darts, then Shortbows or Longbows, then maybe single weapon fighting) Dorn (Two handed Sword and Two Handed Fighting, then Lonbows for Composite Bow) - will replace Kagain, who I will take early on Monty (Short Sword, Sling, tjhen Quarter Staff) Viconia (Mace, Sling, then Hammers, then Flails) Neera (Staff, then darts) - Edwin is better, but would like to use her for a change
Wow, @Oxford_Guy - your party (except PC) and distribution of pips and weapons for Shar-Teel are exactly like mine;)))))
I know if you skip leveling 4-5-6-7 Thief till level 8 Thief for Shar-Teel she'll be able to have GM in daggers. I've found it too late.
I don't see how, unless you mean dualing from fighter at level 6, that combined with not levelling the thief levels between 4 and 7 would make that build really uninteresting for me, she'd be powerful at the end of the game, but nerfed for most of it, and I want to make use of her for scouting and backstabs (and nasty ranged dagger attacks) much earlier on.
You skip levels 4-6, not level 7 (You need to not get the pip at level 4 until you hit level 7 since you dualed at level 6). So you have to go from 2500(level 3) to 40,000(level 7).
If you've planned ahead and really want to grand master her in daggers or longswords. The trick is to save the Basilisks, Flesh Golems, Sirens, 5,000 xp named siren west of High Hedge, etc... and then drop everyone but you and Shar-Teel from the party, and rush her 37.5k xp really fast.
Shandalar would be easy for 26,000 xp with a wand of paralzation, even if CHARNAME cant use the wand, bring a mage with you, get them to get Shandlar paralyzed without making him agressive, then drop the mage from the party and Shar-Teel gets 13,000 right there. (Wand of Paralzation doesn't make Shandlar go agro).
That is 74,800 xp by my count right there (Shandlar, 3 flesh golems in cave, 2 flesh golems in High Hedge, 6 sirens, named siren, 7 lesser basilisks, 2 greater basilisks, mage with the basilisks). Divided by 2 is 37,400, so you are basically done. That should take 30-60 minutes to wrap up if you know the areas / fights and all this can be done before you even go to the Nashkal Mines so you can enjoy her for most of the game.
Throw in cheesing Drizit with just Shar-Teel and Charname in the party and you have some wiggle room on some of those fights I listed.
Not that you would NEED to do that, I was just pointing out there is a fairly quick way to get her to 6 Fighter / 7 Thief and on her way to grand mastery at the next level, fairly early in the game and without spending too much time.
Personally, I wouldn't do that because that sounds like way too much work. If I wanted grandmastery that bad I'd just drag her along and let her be a deadweight for a while, or just dual her at 3 and get high mastery.
I'm building Shar-Teel as an archer, but she's keeping those proficiencies in long sword and dagger. Why? Flametongue and Werebane. My last playthrough I ended up on Werewolf Island with no one proficient in daggers or bastard swords and no Flametongue. Never again.
@Kaigen: OMG, that happened to me on my previous playthrough. Okay, not strictly true, however the only one who could use daggers was Eldoth, who was a trueclass Bard, not even kitted, and barely proficient. It was the definition of pain.
This playthrough I only have Shar-Teel who can use daggers, but she is a High Master at them now. I still have to fight the Loup Garou, though...
@quartz ok that was easy. Just duplicate your baldur.exe file and rename it bgconfig. It doesn't actually use any info from the file, just uses it as a marker to id the game.
Comments
Khalid's "funky proficiencies" as you say it are the same in BG1.
If your recruit him when you first arrive at the FAI, he has Axes * great swords ** and bows *
So, according to bg1 proficiencies he could use bastard swords, two handed swords, scimitars and long swords.
Considering giving him the long swords ** proficiencies is a good choice because, if your PC is good, you can either use other weapons (Scimitars of cheese, ...), or, if your PC uses longswords, you can give ** in Axes to Khalid, so that he's still good.
Also, his starting gear is a longsword, so that's why they gave him these proficiencies (and believe me Khalid with **** in longswords + gauntlets of ogre strenght is awesome).
Level 1 figher
+ Long Sword
+ Dagger
+ 2 weapon fighting
Level 3 fighter:
++ Dagger.
Level 1 Thief:
+ Crossbow (maybe shortbow, if CHARNAME goes longbows)
+ Clubs (can be handy to have a blunt weapon proficiency for those resistant to piercing and/or slashing)
Level 4 Thief:
+++ Dagger
Level 8 Thief:
either:
++++ Dagger (an extra +1 THAC0 / +1 damage / -1 speed with each hand)
(seems bettee than +++ 2 weapon fighting (an extra + 2 THAC0 with off-hand only))
or
++ crossbow
Will have her dual-wiedling +2 Dagger of Venom and +2 Heart of Gollum, also perhaps equiped with Light Crossbow of Speed
I will also have Monty in my party, will probably have him on Find Traps/Open Locks (the Set Traps), Shar-Teel going Move SIlently / Hide in Shadows for scouting and backstabs.
The rest of the party will be:
CHARNAME neutral evil Jester (Scimitars and Darts, then Shortbows or Longbows, then maybe single weapon fighting)
Dorn (Two handed Sword and Two Handed Fighting, then Lonbows for Composite Bow) - will replace Kagain, who I will take early on
Monty (Short Sword, Sling, tjhen Quarter Staff)
Viconia (Mace, Sling, then Hammers, then Flails)
Neera (Staff, then darts) - Edwin is better, but would like to use her for a change
Looks reasonable?
I know if you skip leveling 4-5-6-7 Thief till level 8 Thief for Shar-Teel she'll be able to have GM in daggers. I've found it too late.
You skip levels 4-6, not level 7 (You need to not get the pip at level 4 until you hit level 7 since you dualed at level 6). So you have to go from 2500(level 3) to 40,000(level 7).
If you've planned ahead and really want to grand master her in daggers or longswords. The trick is to save the Basilisks, Flesh Golems, Sirens, 5,000 xp named siren west of High Hedge, etc... and then drop everyone but you and Shar-Teel from the party, and rush her 37.5k xp really fast.
Shandalar would be easy for 26,000 xp with a wand of paralzation, even if CHARNAME cant use the wand, bring a mage with you, get them to get Shandlar paralyzed without making him agressive, then drop the mage from the party and Shar-Teel gets 13,000 right there. (Wand of Paralzation doesn't make Shandlar go agro).
That is 74,800 xp by my count right there (Shandlar, 3 flesh golems in cave, 2 flesh golems in High Hedge, 6 sirens, named siren, 7 lesser basilisks, 2 greater basilisks, mage with the basilisks). Divided by 2 is 37,400, so you are basically done. That should take 30-60 minutes to wrap up if you know the areas / fights and all this can be done before you even go to the Nashkal Mines so you can enjoy her for most of the game.
Throw in cheesing Drizit with just Shar-Teel and Charname in the party and you have some wiggle room on some of those fights I listed.
Not that you would NEED to do that, I was just pointing out there is a fairly quick way to get her to 6 Fighter / 7 Thief and on her way to grand mastery at the next level, fairly early in the game and without spending too much time.
Personally, I wouldn't do that because that sounds like way too much work. If I wanted grandmastery that bad I'd just drag her along and let her be a deadweight for a while, or just dual her at 3 and get high mastery.
This playthrough I only have Shar-Teel who can use daggers, but she is a High Master at them now. I still have to fight the Loup Garou, though...
Mistake ;-)
Thanks.
I was missing this step too and because of that proficiencies were shown by NI as hexadecimal codes instead of names.