Who to choose... (FOR EXPERIENCED PLAYERS)
JoeWalker
Member Posts: 75
I've started a party of good characters and I'm stuck on one point - should I choose Imoen dual classed to thief/mage (If so, at what level should I dual class her?) or Coran (fighter/thief)?
The other members will be me a fighter, Ajantis, Keslick, Kivan and Neera
Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks
The other members will be me a fighter, Ajantis, Keslick, Kivan and Neera
Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks
0
Comments
Also what about losing Coran all together and using Imoen and kivan? Could that work?
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/196164/
I guess it doesn't happen to everyone or else there would be much more noise about it, but it happened to my thief/fighter pc, and the guy who started that bug thread had that happen to Imoen.
So personally I'd just keep Imoen a single class thief in your party.
I'd recommend not dual-classing Imoen, since you'd have no other thief in the meantime. IMO you don't really need that 2nd mage in BG1. I've only really used my mages for magic missiles (to interrupt spell-casting) and identifying magic items, and the Evermemory ring gives Neera enough level 1 spells for the whole party. The rest of the spells are pretty much extras, especially since you already have a cleric in the party.
If you want to use Imoen as your main thief (eventually) and still want to dual class her, you should dual class her after her thief level reaches level 6 or 7 (level 8/7 mage/thief is the "lore" for her, btw). Her thief skills aren't viable at the later stages if you dual class her at level 5. But you should note that she'll need 60,000-90,000 xp for her mage level to overtake her thief level, so you'd need another thief in the party in the meantime...which will be for a very long period of the game. That thief COULD be Coran, but once again there's the concern with finding and disarming traps. Whoever you choose for a second thief, I'd recommend kicking out Ajantis/Kivan. If you use Coran, you don't need another archer (Kivan), and Ajantis is excess to requirements since it seems you have enough meat-shields in the party already.
As a side-note, you COULD use the Knock spell on Neera and bypass the need for a thief entirely (and use errr Animate Dead to set off traps), but if you do that, you'll need to rest a lot...
Edit: Note that, if you want Coran as the only thief in the party, you should rush to Cloakwood as fast as possible. This is so that you get him at a lower level (level 3 instead of 5), so you can make him improve his find traps score. Otherwise, he spends a lot of his thief points on stealth, which IMO is also not necessary. Coran takes a VERY long time to increase his thief levels.
One last thing - If you had to make the decision and it was your game what would you both do? What party would pick and how would you use them etc?
Get Imoen for find traps then dual her to mage. Use Imoen and Coran and drop Kivan.
Most people Dual Imoen at 6, I dual her at 4. Duelling at 6, she ends up with about 2 hp more than she would if she dualled at 5, and also 25 more move silently. Dualling at 5, she ends up with 2 hp more than 4, 25 more move silently and 3x backstab multiplier, instead of 2x. Level 4 is the earliest level to get her to 100 find traps and then dual her.
You could potentially dual her ar 3 (85 find traps) and use potions of thievery for durlags tower. It is personal preference.
The party you have in mind is fine.
My 2 cents.
Personally for good aligned party I'd have a core of 4 (filling the archetypes of fighter, healer, rogue and mage) or 5 at most, leaving at least 1 spot open for any temporary npcs that might need to be rescued or quests done. Evil party can just tell everyone to buzz off, but as a good guy you wouldn't refuse to help out someone you come across in your travels.
Imoen is a good choice for party core, either as single class or dual class.
Ajantis (tank, dedicated talker and party leader, so your PC can buff other stats at the expense of CHA) is a fine choice too.
Yeslick isn't available right away, and you need one cleric in your core asap, so I'd be picking up Branwen and Viconia, both damsels in distress, and keeping one of them for quite some time, probably Branwen.
Neera is fine and romanceable (even if that romance is a bit lame) and you need a mage.
So with PC that already makes 5.
Kivan is a solid pro, you can pick him up right away and he doesn't need any uber equipment to be effective. And he *is* very effective early on, when your other members are at low level. But later on your 2 fighters will be strong enough to make him somewhat redundant. Coran is better archer than him, and is more versatile (thief mode - lockpicks & backstabs, or heavy armor mode), but by the time you get to him you might not really need him full time either.
At PC level 4 you get Coran as F/T 5/5 with 20% Find Traps and 80% Open Locks.
As last resort, you can use Shadowkeeper and move some of Coran's skillpoints to Find Traps.
Coran can get level 8 thief, so with the dex tome you can get around 100 traps / 85 locks. Godo enough. You want to pick him up before you reach level 6 though.
On topic I am not a fan of Coran myself mostly becuase you really do want to hurry and go get him to be able to control his leveling and I like to explore the whole south end of the map before heading to the Bandit camp...
I'd strongly suggest picking between Ajantis and Yeslick. Both have a desperate need for the dex gaunts. Between the two, Yeslick is probably better if you invest both the Dex gaunts and the big fisted belt in him.
If you want to keep two (three? What kind of fighter are you running?) tanks, Khalid is a pretty solid choice, as long as you use remove fear before tough battles. Generally, I find one tank to be sufficient. My no-reload good party is currently Imoen, Ajantis, Branwen, Kivan, and CHARNAME Blade. The blade acts as the low-level sleep tosser until Imoen DCs to mage. That's when I'll pick up Safana (who places points into locks and traps by herself) until Imoen levels back and regains thief. I may swap out Ajantis for Yeslick, I haven't decided. I might have to, if Ajantis gets chunked along the way.
It's worth noting that kivan's combination of strength and dex makes him a pretty decent off-tank in a pinch. You can also easily switch out kivan for Coran when you get into cloakwood, thought I wouldn't do so unless the Dead Shot is available. Kivan can use the comparable and much more common Composite Longbow +1.
There is no way that Imoen is going to get her find traps back in any timely fashion. We've already cleared everything to the south but the sirens, basilisks, and Firewine Ruins. Killing everything on those maps might at best get her up to Thief 5/Mage 5 - still without access to find traps. She needs 40,000 xp to go to mage six, and we've only gotten about 20,000 xp each in the whole game so far.
What good does it do to optimize Imoen for an end game dual class, after you've already suffered through most of the deadly traps in the game?
I'm left with no choice but to try to use Shadowkeeper to fix my mistake - it's really hard to undo a dual class with SK without bad things happening in the character file, so my easiest fix is probably to get Coran and SK his find traps to a useable level.
Bummer.
Bottom line - do not dual class Imoen in BG1 if you need her to be your party traps person.
If you dual her at 5 you want to use Safana for a while, until Imoen gets her trap skills back. Safana can handle both locks and traps, but does not put out of the sort of damage that Coran does.
Of course, I was playing a Mage/Thief who handled the lock side of things, I don't much care for leaving most of the interesting stuff to NPCs.
I guess that gives me a bit of a dirty game now, but oh well, I can live with that better than with the mistake I made in dualling her in the first place.
I often notice the mistake of dual-classing too late. I think it's made by players who are used to playing bg2. In bg1 the levels come slowly. Whether your main character, Imoen or Shar-Teel, dual classing should happen early. People who want to use Imoen as a thief AND a mage always find out she will be only one of these during an important part of the game. Imoen needs to be dual-classed because she's a good mage, with good AC and who can use a bow, not because she's also a thief.
In fact I'm not going to dual anyone ( CHARNAME is a fighter/mage multi class), it's too much of a bore for me.