best group format

alestus

wanna know how people form their group

I myself have it like this at the moment:

my char - assassin
Ajantis
Khalid
Jaheira
Viconia
Neera

considering replacing Khalid with Baeloth but not so sure if that's a good idea

You

Ajantis is paladin, Viconia and Baeloth are drows, will they fight each other to death?

Lemernis

Looks good. That's a solid party. You got melee, healing, thieving, and spellcasting pretty well covered.

You can use Viconia on the front line along with Ajantis and Jaheira. That's plenty of peeps. So you can certainly afford to swap Khalid for Baeloth if you want to try him out and get some more spellcasting firepower. Khalid is force-paired with Jaheira, but there are ways around that.

I like playing mixed alignment parties myself. I never play the same party twice.

KidCarnival

There are several groups I like, it depends on my charname.

Neutral evil assassin usually goes with Xzar (dualed to cleric), Edwin, Kagain, Dorn - 6th slot is Branwen or Viconia on lower levels until Xzar gets useful as cleric; then I often switch the pure cleric out for Eldoth as support caster (for the spells Edwin can't learn).

Neutral evil jester is similar; dual Xzar to cleric (and cover divination with his mage levels), keep Monty as thief/frontline support, Kagain, Edwin, and either a second thief (dualed Shar-Teel; Monty handles traps/locks, Shar-Teel backstabs) or recently Baeloth if I feel like depending more on magic.


I see no reason why you shouldn't replace Khalid with Baeloth, except I'm not sure if Ajantis will recognize him as evil now. The patch notes say that Baeloth now gets the rep drop like Viconia and Dorn, could be he always fell or now falls in the category of potential targets for Ajantis. As far as I remember, Viconia for some reason didn't, but she was the exception. If you're ok with a small risk that Ajantis might attack Baeloth, go for it. (If anyone has tested or looked that up, I'd be interested in knowing - does Ajantis attack Dorn or Baeloth?)
Also keep in mind you need to make sure you remove Khalid safely (let him die, petrify him, lock him in a house) to not also have Jaheira leave.

Oxford_Guy

My current mixed-alignment party is:

CHARNAME (CN Blade)
Dorn
Viconia
Imoen
Kivan (will replace with Coran)
Neera

KidCarnival

I ran my blackguard mixed, with a party of more or less 5.

LE Blackguard - tank/dd
Xzar - dualed as usual, with Viconia on lower levels
Edwin
Kivan as second frontliner with halberd
Coran as thief/archer (he's so freaking useless in melee... I had Safana for a while and they shared thief duties, but when I decided to settle for Coran due to bow prof being more useful than darts, I shadowkeepered the skills to traps/locks, where he had locks/pickpocket before)

As 6th members, I had:
Viconia
Safana
Tiax
Quayle (who ended up as the 6th in endgame, and it's not the worst thing to have an illusionist)

With my current assassin, I also run mixed, with the main reason of using NPCs I usually don't take along and seeing if they may be options for my usual parties.

Neutral evil assassin
Edwin & Kivan (melee oriented) as "permanent" party members.
Had Neera before recruiting Edwin; completed Adoy's map, then made the mage switch
Had Ajantis, traded him in for Dorn after mage switch to reduce risk of him killing Edwin
Have Rasaad to complete his quest; semi-permanent since the quest triggers late.
Have Viconia, will replace her with Yeslick soon (unless Kivan kills her first, then I take Branwen until I get Yeslick)
Have Dorn, will replace him with Eldoth after completing questline to get Elven Chain
After Rasaad's quest, I'll trade him for Faldorn for level 5 druid spells

So the final party will be: charname, Kivan, Edwin, Yeslick, Eldoth, Faldorn.

Lemernis

Yep, to echo what @KidCarnival said, not all NPCs get along. But that's all part of the fun, at least for me. Mix them up at your own risk in that respect.

The other thing to bear in mind is that if your reputation reaches 18 evil NPCs will leave. So you can do things like get caught stealing to lower rep. Killing anyone that doesn't have a red circle under them (aka innocent) will usually (always?) result in an 8 point rep loss. (Edit: Okay, it's variable, see @KidCarnival's post on this below.)

You may already know this, but to remove a paired NPC have the main character take the NPC alone into a building (or building floor) that you don't need to revisit (i.e., don't use an inn or a store), and remove the party member there. The removed NPC will stay put there. Actually, you can also have other party members with you when you do this--just not the other member of the pair that you wish to keep (that character should remain outside). Whenever those two members of the NPC pair see each other they will seek to rejoin.

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Wowo

1 main tank (Khalid, Ajantis, Kagain)
2 damage dealers (Minsc, Shar-Teel, Kivan, Montaron, Dorn, Coran)
2 healers (Jaheira, Branwen, Viconia, Faldorn, Yeslick, Quayle, Tiax)
2 arcanes (bard, sorcerer or Mage)

I guess that adds up to 7 but there's always overlap and charname fits in wherever.

KidCarnival

Killing commoners/guards and rep loss depends on your rep at the time. The lower you already are, the less rep you lose. And the higher your rep is, the more you lose. There's a chart somewhere on the forum. I think if your rep is 20, you drop to 10 (-10). I often kill commoners around 15 or 16 and bounce back to 9.

Oxford_Guy

Lemernis said:

Yep, to echo what @KidCarnival said, not all NPCs get along. But that's all part of the fun, at least for me. Mix them up at your own risk in that respect.

The other thing to bear in mind is that if your reputation reaches 18 evil NPCs will leave. So you can do things like get caught stealing to lower rep. Killing anyone that doesn't have a red circle under them (aka innocent) will usually (always?) result in an 8 point rep loss. (Edit: Okay, it's variable, see @KidCarnival's post on this below.)

You may already know this, but to remove a paired NPC have the main character take the NPC alone into a building (or building floor) that you don't need to revisit (i.e., don't use an inn or a store), and remove the party member there. The removed NPC will stay put there. Actually, you can also have other party members with you when you do this--just not the other member of the pair that you wish to keep (that character should remain outside). Whenever those two members of the NPC pair see each other they will seek to rejoin.

Or you can make one of the pair do the "basilisk walk" in Mutamin's garden...

mjs

i like my teams to follow this format

tank
healer
rogue
mage
damage dealer
damage dealer

where the healer doubles as a tank (ala jahiera or branwen) the rogue doubles as something else (ala bg2 imoen, coran, tiax etc) and the damage dealers are either an extra mage or something like a haer'dalis or a monk (for later bg2) or just a superfluous banter character. it gives very flexible and capable parties

KidCarnival

Made some progress with my mixed party (around the assassin charname). I switched out Viconia for Yeslick, and don't understand what's going anymore. Viconia with Stupifier and her 19 dex hit as much as you'd expect... but Yeslick with Ashideena and not-19 dex is a killer. I had planned him as a self buffing tank, but he actually keeps up with Kivan in the damage department. Why?! That should be fun once he gets the ogre gloves for 18/00.

apetersson

dex is only used for ranged THAC0. for the melee weapons the modifier from str is used to determine the chance of hit.

SwordsNotWords

Warrior
Warrior
Healer
Thief
Mage
Mage

KidCarnival

That certainly explains it. I never noticed what a huge difference it can make... I never had Yeslick in the party until now, and my go to cleric, dualed Xzar, sticks to ranged weapons.

RedWizard

Fighter/Mage dual with longbow
Dorn
Kagain
Montaron
Xzar
Viconia

I'll probably kill Xzar for Baeloth in a game to see how he is.

Fiach

I have a few parties on the go, my favourite would be :

PC Cleric
Viconia
Shar-Teel
Dorn
Edwin
Neera.

So, you can get stuck into the action or buff as required.

Fiach

Lemernis said:

You may already know this, but to remove a paired NPC have the main character take the NPC alone into a building (or building floor) that you don't need to revisit (i.e., don't use an inn or a store), and remove the party member there. The removed NPC will stay put there. Actually, you can also have other party members with you when you do this--just not the other member of the pair that you wish to keep (that character should remain outside). Whenever those two members of the NPC pair see each other they will seek to rejoin.

I would like to clarify this if possible please.

I tried this with Khalid, I sent him into Kaigans shop (after recruiting Kagain), disbanded him and a few seconds later, he came out of the shop to remonstrate with me, then buggered off with jahira, now I just send him for a walk towards enemies on his own, witn no gear.

KidCarnival

That is strange, usually NPCs should not be able to leave houses on their own. But neither should monsters, and I once had some gnolls follow me into High Hedge... Best pick a house on one side of a map (for example, the farm in Nashkel where you find the ankheg armor). Send Khalid inside. Move the rest of your party to the main street, then remove him. Even if he, for some reason, can now leave the house, he has no way to get to the rest of the party to initiate the dialogue.

Fiach

KidCarnival said:

That is strange, usually NPCs should not be able to leave houses on their own. But neither should monsters, and I once had some gnolls follow me into High Hedge... Best pick a house on one side of a map (for example, the farm in Nashkel where you find the ankheg armor). Send Khalid inside. Move the rest of your party to the main street, then remove him. Even if he, for some reason, can now leave the house, he has no way to get to the rest of the party to initiate the dialogue.

I've had numerous occasions where monsters follow me into a house, yes, High Hedge was one such instance. But I have had plenty of other such experiences.

Lemernis

KidCarnival said:

Made some progress with my mixed party (around the assassin charname). I switched out Viconia for Yeslick, and don't understand what's going anymore. Viconia with Stupifier and her 19 dex hit as much as you'd expect... but Yeslick with Ashideena and not-19 dex is a killer. I had planned him as a self buffing tank, but he actually keeps up with Kivan in the damage department. Why?! That should be fun once he gets the ogre gloves for 18/00.

Yeslick is a Fighter (in addition to Cleric) so he's got much better THAC0 than a pure class Cleric. He's successfully hitting more often. I can't check it right now but a multi F/C and Ranger are probably about on par THAC0 progression-wise.

OzzyBotkins

1 Tank
1 Damage dealer
1/2 Thief
1.5 Healer
1 mage
6th slot open

JuliusBorisov

In my current game I have a party of:

PC Shadowdancer - he can't be classified neither as a thief nor as a tank nor as a damage dealer; he can be called a backstabber + ranged (+4 THACO helps a lot)

Jaheira - with DEX from gloves, club (scimitar) + shield I use her as a tank + a healer (with the Ring of Holiness it's enough to have her as a healer for a whole party)

Dorn - a damage dealer

Imoen - a thief (lockpickting, disarm traps, set traps) + ranged

Neera - a mage

Garrick - a bard (pickpocketing, additional arcane magic and lore) + ranged

I find this party balanced enough and rathe entertaining!

Jaheira with very low AC can restrain monsters so long as I need to kill them with Dorn's two-handed weapons or PC's backstab. She can heal anyone who needs it.

Dorn's strength, damage and THACO are all exceptional.

PC - a backstabber - implements my favourite tactics - cutthroat stealthy assasin

Imoen as a thief is essential to any party and no need for improving her HIS, MS and PP helps to fully upgrade other thieving skills including deadly traps.

A mage is also essential to any party and I simply like Neera as an NPC + she has + 1 spell per level without restricts in any magic school.

And a bard is very helpful for a party, even an unkitted one. Although his song is ridiculous his other abilities more than make up for this. And you know, Garrick is not a popular choice but I find him interesting, I like his voice and he brings a good diversity to our party if compared with the standard variants.

So, summarizing it all, I'd recommend the following group format for BG1:EE: a backstabber + a damage dealer + a thief + a mage + a bard + a tank + a healer - some of them can combine in one person.

Lemernis

@bengoshi Looks like a really fun group! A Bard can be a major asset to the team, properly used.

Gallowglass

@alestus: you have more than enough physical combat power in that party, so yes, I'd swap in more arcane spellcasting. I've completed one run with Baeloth, and he's an interesting character to use, so I recommend him as a one-off experience. However, I'm not likely to use him often in future, because he's so powerful that he makes the game too easy to be a lasting challenge.

That's a good question, about whether Ajantis will fight Baeloth. I don't know, I didn't take both together, that'd be worth knowing. Can anyone report on this?

@Lemernis, @Fiach, @KidCarnival: yes, NPCs and enemies will sometimes follow you through doorways, although it seems rather unpredictable whether they will do so in any particular case. The solution is to close the door behind you (if you have time when an enemy is chasing you, sometimes you do and sometimes you don't), because they never open doors by themselves. For dismissing a paired NPC like Khalid, closing the door always works ... but of course this doesn't apply in the location mentioned, because Kagain's shop doesn't have a door in its doorway, so the answer is to dismiss him somewhere else which has an actual door.

Jullos

Would it be crazy to get Xan and Neera on the same team?

I would go as:
PC multi F/T
Imoen
Khalid/ Maybe Ajantis
Jahira
Xan
Neera

Does that make sense?

Oxford_Guy

Jullos said:

Would it be crazy to get Xan and Neera on the same team?

I would go as:
PC multi F/T
Imoen
Khalid/ Maybe Ajantis
Jahira
Xan
Neera

Does that make sense?

If no one else needs the Dex gloves, I would pick Ajantis over Khalid, though I don't really like having Lawful Good NPCs in my party

Are there two robes of neutral archmagi available? Xan and Neera are both neutral, so if you want both of them wearing these, you may have a problem...

agradine

My plans for my evil party are:

PC F/T (probably focus on bows for BG1)
Dorn (tank)
Kagain (axes!)
Viconia (healbot)
Edwin (spells)
Xan (hilarity)

Obviously the new secret NPC would be a better fit for the Evil Mage #2 slot, but I can't stop giggling over the prospect of the chronically pessimistic Xan being surrounded by evil characters. I plan to use him in melee quite a bit with his moonblade. I expect he'll die more often but that just makes it funnier.

KidCarnival

Oxford_Guy said:

Are there two robes of neutral archmagi available? Xan and Neera are both neutral, so if you want both of them wearing these, you may have a problem...

Nope, High Hedge has one good and one neutral robe. There are 2 evil ones since Baeloth was added, but that's it.

alestus

think i'll try to put Khalid (dont wanna have him killed) in a house somewhere and get Baeloth to join my group. Could be interesting with 2 Drows in my group