Is Dorn Special?
Melicamp
Member Posts: 243
This may have been brought up about 60 times (sorry) but Dorn is a Blackguard and a Half-Orc... if you try to make a Half-Orc Blackguard as your CHARNAME, you can't. Only humans can be it... so I'm just assuming he's unique, lol.
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The restrictions of race/class combos are sort of silly in 2nd edition, and are fortunately mostly lifted in 3rd edition. In the meantime, while the PC may still have to follow these restrictions, it's fine for some NPCs to break the rules.
The protagonist is actually unique too mind you, gaining all those twice-a-day abilities which last the first game and most of the second.
Don't forget Haer'Dalis! He's of a race that's not even available for PCs.
Drizzt is a card carrying member of http://www.lifelock.com/ and very sensitive about identity theft.
(Although I don't know, have they actaully tested for human DNA?)
Faldorn summons dread wolves, Quayle casts invisibility via special ability, Tiax can summon ghasts, Branwen can create spiritual hammer, Yeslick can cast dispel magic, Eldoth has poison arrows, Coran and Kagain have illegal stats and Coran has illegal weapon proficiencies, Alora has her rabbit foot, Imoen and Shar-teel can dual class, Safana has charm ability, Viccy has globs of magic resitance, Minsc has berserk and illegal stats (and Boo, how can I forget Boo!?), Dynaheir can slow poison, Edwin is the best mage thanks to his amulet, Neera comes with her dowry err gem bag, Dorn has illegal class, Rasaad has his spiffy boots...Garrick has...um, unless I am horribly mistaken, nothing. Khalid too, although he has lower morale than most, which is his quirk, I suppose. Jaheira has nothing but gets 'Harpers call' spell (and can get a certain other Harper related powerful item) in BG2 at least. Xzar and Montaron are just generaly so awesome that they don't need quirks. Heh.
I find him not bad at all. His most important bonus is that he's available to be included into the party since the very beginning of the game when everyone is at the 1st level.
So you get a bard - a high lore ability and free pick-pocketing skill - very soon so that it can save you money and spells.
Of course, it's a very minor pro but there're no any other ways to have a bard at the 1st level except when the main character is a bard.
As a bard though, he's decent enough. He'll help you from the start in contradistinction to Eldoth who'll be available much later.
And he has a fine voice:))))
Besides, most npcs have unique stats/abilities. And if I could, I would rather have Dorn as a pure fighter since his blackguard class only serves to set him back in BG1 to me.
Eldoth comes much later, is evil and hence no good fit for some parties. His ability is nice but weird. How would someone with 12 dex even become proficient with a long bow? Can be fixed with gauntlets, but in many evil parties, Kagain as tank benefits more from them. The scimitar prof is nice; an evil party has enough rp reasons to kill Drizzt or steal from him. But spear? What the hell, Eldoth? Other than Garrick, Eldoth also gives a shit if you do his quest. He'll stay and never complains even if you go nowhere near Skie. That's convenient, but I prefer NPCs to follow through with their conditions.
All in all, both have their pros and cons and entertaining voicesets.
Garrick and Eldoth are very much playable and have interesting quests, but are anything but high-tier... and come on, Eldoth, why do you even make poison arrows if your Dex sucks, I can't give you gauntlets every time. >:C