Evil Party PC

ambibenderix

Hi everyone,
Probably a similar question asked quite some times before, sorry for that.
Still, wanting to play an evil party for the first time, now EE has been launched, with some usual suspects :
Kagain
Dorn
Viconia
Edwin
What would be the most reasonable way to go forth ?
I was thinking of a ranged PC with longbow (liking bows), or instead giving that to Shar-Teel.
Otherwise additional spell casting would be nice as well (to go for abundant magic power for once), fighter/mage perhaps, or sorcerer ?
And what about thievery for an evil party ?

PS, I've played through original BG 1&2 a long time ago.
Always playing a good aligned fighter as PC though, with only very basic knowledge of D&D...

DinsdalePiranha

about thievery: Shar-Teel can be dual classed, she's pretty much the best backstabber in the game.
if you're OK with neutral NPCs too, Safana is quite the thief (traps, lock), and Neera is a pretty awesome mage.
or you might go for Xzar and Monty, they're cool as hell and really good NPCs.

as for the main character... berserker -> cleric maybe? though with Kagain and Dorn (and possibly Shar-Teel), that could be a touch too much melee, the game only gives you proper gear for 2 melee chars, even with BGEE. or if you're set on longbows, fighter -> mage can be a pretty sweet, maybe even an elven fighter/mage. (-> denotes dual, / is for multi)

EnterHaerDalis

My current pure evil playthrough is a halfing assassin. Poison slings and backstab with Quarterstaves.

rest of party is

Dorn
Shar-Teel
Edwin
Viconia
Kagain

Quartz

Fighter/Mages and exceptionally good bow arms are a couple of very popular picks for Evil parties, I've noticed, and for good reason.

DinsdalePiranha

Quartz said:

Fighter/Mages and exceptionally good bow arms are a couple of very popular picks for Evil parties, I've noticed, and for good reason.

yeah, makes sense. just as good parties are seriously lacking in proper backstabbers (Coran can be used as a substitute, but... meh), evil parties have pretty much no good archers - though Monty does make a kickass slinger with a bit of extra strength.

badbromance

You could create a gnome thief/illusionist who can cover your thieving needs and provide spell casting support to Edwin? I think a multi class thief can hit level 8 by the xp cap which means you miss out on 50 skill points. Sounds like alot but you have enough to get what you need and gnomes have decent racial thieving bonuses.

Edit: You will miss out on x4 backstabs but the versatility the combination brings should make up for it

Dragonspear

I personal 2 favorite fits for evil parties are Blades (Compliment Edwin/Xzar nicely and nice utility to boot) or Assassins. Personally I favor the Blade. I do 1 point in longsword and crossbow early and then at 4 and 8 put it into 2 weapon fighting so that by endgame I can dual wield longswords.

ambibenderix

Interesting,
Got it down to 2 suggestions made for the main character.
Elven fighter/mage or Gnome thief/illusionist ...
Which would be the most fun, I'll probably won't have the time to play through more than once :-(

Dragonspear

While the thief illusionist will have more spells, the elven fighter mage will have a much better ranged thac0 if you max out their dex (19) and use bows due to the elven racial that gives them an extra 1 to hit with bows and swords.

ambibenderix

Okay, suppose the elven fighter/mage.
Does it need to be multi or can it be dual ?
Can it be evil, or should it be neutral ?
Last but not least, any general tips on the dual/multi approach (never done that before) ?

Eudaemonium

@ambibenderix Only humans can dual-class, so an elven fighter/mage would have to be multi. Alignment doesn't really matter much other than for RP reasons (and affects starting reputation slightly).

Oxford_Guy

I'm having a blast with this bunch of misfits:

CHARNAME (neutral evil female elf figher/mage, dual-wielding longswords, will move onto Katanas or Scimitars next to prepare for BG2, mostly focuses on buffing spells)
Dorn
Monty (focused on stealth for scouting and backstabs, now moving onto pickpockets)
Viconia
Imoen (focused on open locks, find traps, now moving onto set traps, not dualed) - could also be replaced with Safana if don't want any good NPCs
Edwin

I like neutral evil because it's the easiest evil alignment to RP and I like the Dust Mephit mage familiar (Glitterdust once/day, Glass Dust twice/day, 12 extra HP throughout the series).

I try to maintain my reputation betweem about 6-8. works for me, shop prices aren\t crazy and you don't get hassled by the Flaming Fist, but you can still perform some despicable acts for only a small loss of rep.