Room for New Characters?
Illustair
Member Posts: 878
What did you do to give room to play the 3 new characters and still make sense storywise? *spoilers* Imoen is a must-have I guess. 4 slots left..so, who do/did you drop? Shouldn't Jaheira and Khalid also be a must-have...right from the start they were introduced as your new guardians, and not to mention the sequel assumes you have had shared a great deal of time with them. Or do you just switch from one companion to another ever now and then?
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Anyways, on topic. I picked up Neera and Dorn who replaced Khalid and Jaheira in my party. I kept Imoen and then sought out Viconia and Kivan. My charname was a berserker (planning to dual to mage in BG2) and my party steamrolled all the content in BG:EE. Charname chunked Sarevok in his 3rd or 4th strike, poor guy had barely two rounds to live.
Letting Dynaheir die eh? I can't remember...what was assumed of her in Baldur's Gate 2? This is part of the beauty of BG, but also a dilemma for me. You got to love the characters esp Viconia and Edwin, but you just don't have enough room for them.
@Eidolon
Imoen? What? No. And reputation of 3 for that matter.haha
@Rapscallion
I might just drop Khalid and Jaheira too; in my case though, I'll switch players back to them every now and then. So I can stay true to the story. This will be bad for exp though.
I always find a way to kill Dynaheir. Never liked her character. Since I plan on only taking 1 new npc per play through, that makes enough room.
@fredamora
Right now (as I plan to begin yet another evening with yet another reroll of yet another potential protagonist) I'm pretty much committing to Imoen, the 3 new NPCs, and possibly Viconia. But I still talk to Khalid and Jaheira and more or less say "Hrmph. Gorion's dead. I ain't gonna follow his lead." And Jaheira will be like, "That's a stupid idea, but whatever." And Khalid will be like, "Gorion would be proud!" just dripping with sarcasm. And Dorn will be like, "more ale, maggot!" And then tavern brawl.
Well, okay, maybe not the last bit.
I had Branwen with me for a while and wanted to finish the game with her in party even, but seeing how little the old companions have in the way of banters and interjections I figured I might as well pick up Viconia whom I also like, with the added benefit of 50% magic resistance.
Blade (CN) CHARNAME (male half-elf)
Dorn (NE)
Viconia (NE)
Coran (CG) - though I used Safana earlier on
Imoen (NG) - dualed to mage at level 5
Neera (CN) - romance interest for CHARNAME
Works for me
I temporarily removed a member to do Rasaad's quest.
I played with the secret NPC in only one game, then gave up because it became too easy, never again...
In order to maintain reputation as an evil party, I've found that it is necessary to pay attention to your reputation and donate coins to temples...unless you don't mind constantly fighting Flaming Fist and Amnish soldiers the entire game. Sometimes I even let it go to 8 or 9, knowing that I'm going to do something preemptively bad. The beginning is the most difficult if you get Viconia and Dorn (and do evil things).
EDIT: Donation guide: http://www.playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur's_Gate:_Donation_Guide
My current evil party:
NE Assassin (Charname)
Kagain
Dorn
Viconia
Edwin
Imoen (dualed to mage at level 6)
Dorn is a must for all of my evil parties. His story is great and his strength is a huge bonus. I did use Coran for Cloakwood. I reasoned that I needed to *use* a scout for the forest...it worked amazingly well, and since Imoen was dualed at that point, his disarm traps were just good enough to do the work. I think Fighter/Thief might be better than the archer kit (My last play-through was with an archer). Because he did so well...I spared his life after making good coin off of the wyverns.
By the way...despite what a lot of naysayers say, assassins are very fun as long as you have another thief to do the traps and locks.
@Illustair Hopefully I wasn't derailing the thread. If I was going to do a cannon party (which I will soon), I would just cycle the new characters and do their quests before maintaining the final cannon team vs Saravok. Of course, I'd only do "secret NPC" and Dorn's quests if I played as a neutral [EDIT: or evil; subsequently, only Rasaad as good or neutral) charname...which I might do...
BG2:EE's going to be even more interesting, though: I'll have to take Neera back since Baeloth won't be returning as a party member, and if the last new NPC is who I think it is, this will be my first playthrough where I don't use Imoen at all...
In a classic good playthrough I go with Imoen (dual to mage at 5 or 6), Khalid, Jaheira, Ajantis and Kivan for righteous banditstomping. Neera would probably be the only potential swap, but I don't think she's altruistic enough to fit in.
Also, I always throw the canon BG story out of the window and RP my own. (As a small side note, I just always have to kill Garrick, after killing his mistress...)
The usual party:
Viconia
Dorn
Edwin
'easter-egg guy'
Kivan
It's a shame that Kivan is not of evil alignment, for he is pretty nifty with a bow...
Kivan does indeed fit well in an evil party, it's just too much of a wiredance with his alignment. (House rule treats NPC rangers and paladins like charnames, so for me, there is a risk he'd fall at some point.)
- So I use Imoen up to the Friendly Arms Inn where I drop her off.
- Then I join up with Khalid, Jaheira, Montaron and Xzar, where I drop them off in Nashkel after finishing Nashkel Mines. I do the quick side quest to save Dynaheir with Minsc and leave then in Nashkel.
- Then I recruit Branwen, Xan, Ajantis, Kagain and Kivan to complete the Bandits where I then drop them off at the Temple.
- I then go after recruiting Coran, Safana, Faldorn, Viconia and Yeslick to finish the Cloakwood Mines where I ditch them outside.
- Then I pick up Eldoth and Garrick to go 'rescue' Skie from Baldur's Gate while stopping by Shar-Teel. I go do the whole get arrested part of the plot, get out of jail via Shar-Teel then quest a bit until either Shar-Teel or Eldoth dies from each other. Then I ditch Garrick and Skie, with (Shar-Teel or Eldoth) off somwhere.
- Then I recruit Alora, Quayle, Tiax and Edwin to go do some Ulgoth's Beard quests where I then ditch them.
- Then I go to recruit Minsc, Dynaheir, Jaheira and Khalid, further up north I pick up Imoen and then I finish the game.
I don't know where the 4 new ones fit just yet.
Usually I just keep the same group throughout BG1 and in BG2, have a fixed group of 5 people (Minsc/Jaheira/Viconia/Yoshimo, then Imoen) with a rotating 6th slot for other NPCs and their sidequests, until I finally settle down with Sarevok in ToB.