I'd love to see Bodhi return in ToB like Serevok just not as a vampire i't would be funny to see her and Serevok argue over who had the best scheme to kill the PC
Always felt the lack of a good aligned fighter in SoA, Korgan is awesome but doesn't play well in a good party, and a plain fighter (or maybe a viable Kensai) with grand mastery would be great.
I think you've forgotten about Mazzy, @Foggy: she's a Good-aligned plain Fighter. When you first meet her, her STR is poor for a warrior so her natural role is ranged rather than melee. However, if you give her one of the belts of giant strength (or other STR-boosting equipment), then she can melee very well.
I'd love to see Bodhi return in ToB like Serevok just not as a vampire i't would be funny to see her and Serevok argue over who had the best scheme to kill the PC
I remember when I first played BG2 I saw that Bodhi had a portrait, and the only character's I'd met up to that point with portraits were recruitable NPCs, so I then assumed that I'd be getting a sweet vampire on my team. Alas it was not to be.
Only Mastery? I would have thought Grand Mastery like most F>? Duals.
yaaa he is almost *sarkasm* as good Warrior as minsc, Sarevok, Dorn,Valygar and Korgan.....
Neutral party In bg2= Onward, to futility
Is there a reason Anomen can't go above Mastery? I assumed the whole Charname being able to get GM in weapons after dualing was an engine bug rather than a character quirk, and thus it would work the same for Anomen and other Fighter Duals (like it does for Shar-Teel).
@The_Shairs_Handbook 1. Lawful/Chaotic Neutral Anomen works just fine. So he loses a few bonus spells. He's not a Wizard, destined to sit in the back and shoot lasers. He's essentially a Fighter that can use the Cleric's self-only buffs.
2. Jan and Jaheira are two of the most useful NPCs in the game, and any Blade is going to be powerful.
3. Sarevok doesn't come into play until ToB. That's a good 40 or more hours into a BG2/ToB run. He doesn't count as a BG2 NPC. Baeloth isn't going to be in BG2.
I think you've forgotten about Mazzy, @Foggy: she's a Good-aligned plain Fighter. When you first meet her, her STR is poor for a warrior so her natural role is ranged rather than melee. However, if you give her one of the belts of giant strength (or other STR-boosting equipment), then she can melee very well.
True that, forgot about Mazzy since I rarely recruit her, too cliché a NPC for my tastes. Now that you mention it, she can be a descent melee fighter, and even if there's no real need to equip her with a STR belt since her inner strength spell last a long time, I always felt that she's more of a ranged character without being as good as Minsc, and not really the tank one could hope for, especially with 2 pts in single weapon proficiency which feels like she switch to short swords only when enemies close in her. Short swords that have speed but are limited to +2 til ToB (except Cutthroat+4 after Bodhi defeat, late in SoA). Evil party choices are great with Korgan, Dorn and later Sarevok, all superior fighters and more interesting characters IMHO. All personal taste and finding an NPC lacking or annoying don't mean the fighter role isn't filled, still hoping for more NPC other than the confirmed (evil?) female thief to be added in BG2EE .
@Eudaemonium Concerning Anomen proficiency, he does reach Grand Mastery, always ended up with 5 points proficiencies in either maces or flails/warhammers later around 3.6 million xp. The 2 points he have in spears are a total waste and should be removed in BG2EE and added to fitting cleric weapons, regardless he is formidable fighter, and with the support of his spells and the right weapons (dual Flail of Ages/Crom Faeyr, no need for dual points) he become more lethal than Valygar or even Minsc.
Dear @Schneidend when it comes to Anomen almost everyone 90% of the gamers want to finish his quest successfully.. that means he going to end as LG.... not many people want to fail a quest... anyway the thing is that having a neutral party is almost exremly hard to finish the game.... and your charname don't have the luxery to have any class that you want...
if you don't belive then have a try yourself...and try to have a charname that isn't thief class or warrior class... as you see the selection is very few... I'm just pointing out the weakness if Neutral party and the lack of Good followers when you compare them to good or evil followers
Dear Schneidend when it comes to Anomen almost everyone 90% of the gamers want to finish his quest successfully.. that means he going to end as LG.... not many people want to fail a quest... anyway the thing is that having a neutral party is almost exremly hard to finish the game.... and your charname don't have the luxery to have any class that you want...
if you don't belive then have a try yourself...and try to have a charname that isn't thief class or warrior class... as you see the selection is very few... I'm just pointing out the weakness if Neutral party and the lack of Good followers when you compare them to good or evil followers
I think this stems from the fact that neutral (unless True Neutral) is not really a standing point, but a lack thereof. Neutral NPCs are meant to be usable for both Good and Evil parties, just as when you yourself are neutral you have less problems including both good and evil NPCs, or which ever way you prefer to lean in your party. Neutral NPCs provide an over-lap giving you more options than just black or white.
Edit: And I don't understand about the Thief/warrior thing. In BG II you have Jan who is a good thief, you have Jaheira and Anomen who is a dualed fighter and you also have our favorite Yoshi. In BG I you have several thief choices.
@Stickan still thats not the point... Yoshi dies and Anomen turns into LG and joins... and that Shapeshifter follower isn't really good.... the only good followers are jan and that blade follower...And that halfelf druid who lost his man Khailid is not to bad but not so good either...
and same thing can be said about good and evil parties they can add neutral followers in their grupp... so shouldn't there be added little bit more Neutral followers in BG2???
many people say we want evil or good followers but isn't neutral followers the best choise to add to the game.. I mean everyone can use a neutral follower... but the same thing can not be said about good or evil..
If baldurs gate have a weakness is that they don't have a neutral stand of point... most of the Biowere games didn't have that in earliers years... you couldn't achive neutral ending in Bg games, Star wars Knight of the old republic, Jade empire and so on... everything was and is so black and white..... you couldn't walk the middle ground...
Well certainly if Overhaul are going to stick to their announced intention of adding only one further NPC to BG2ee, then making it an Evil character would be a blunder: most players (and especially new players) play Good or at least more often play Good, so an Evil NPC is not an enhancement to most people most of the time. If there can be only one more, then the maximum usefulness to the maximum number of players dictates that it ought to be a Neutral character.
Of course the proper solution is to give us several new characters of various alignments and classes, and I suggested an ideal list of additions earlier in the thread. However, I'm sure we all realise that developing new characters requires a significant investment of limited resources, so we can't realistically expect many new NPCs. There's a severe shortage of NPCs in original BG2, much more so than in original BG1. The three new NPCs which will be carried forward from BGee will certainly help to address that, but are still leaving several glaring gaps, and one further NPC is not enough to fill out the range adequately. I reckon Overhaul ought to try to find resources to build at least a couple more NPCs than they've currently announced. They've managed to do this pretty well with BGee (which now has an adequate range of NPCs, IMO), but BG2 started with fewer NPCs than BG1 and (on current plans) will still have fewer in BG2ee, and that's definitely not enough for the game to reach its full potential for flexibility and replayability.
If baldurs gate have a weakness is that they don't have a neutral stand of point... most of the Biowere games didn't have that in earliers years... you couldn't achive neutral ending in Bg games, Star wars Knight of the old republic, Jade empire and so on... everything was and is so black and white..... you couldn't walk the middle ground...
well in many games the storyline revolves around being the protagonist, the catalyst and the force of change in the story
there wouldn't be much of a story if you shrugged your shoulders and went "yeah leave it like it is"
@The_Shairs_Handbook If you want a Neutral party, then don't have Anomen change alignments. Or have him change. It doesn't matter. The beauty of Neutral and Good NPCs is that they only Break at low Rep, so their individual alignments don't even matter.
EDIT: I'm not saying Neutral couldn't use more NPCs, but this idea that Anomen isn't useful or can't remain Neutral is hogwash. Unless you've been playing this game a long time like most of us forumites, you're not going to necessarily know that killing the girl will cause him to fail. I didn't when I first used him.
O would say Genasi or Aasimar as new race (They are common in Abir-toril) Genasi is the most common race of calimshan... humans are minority in there
Uh, what? For starters Genasi and Aasimar are not common in the Forgotten Realms setting at all. They exist, sure, but to call them common is a huge over statement.
Also, the breakdown of races in Calimport, the biggest city in Calimshan (as per the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting), goes as follows: Population 5,339,520 (94% Humans, 2% Half-Orcs, 2% Halflings, 1% Half-Elves). So, needless to say Calimshan is clearly not predominantly Genasi... they don't even make up 1% of the total population of the country's largest city.
Granted this is as per the 3rd edition book whereas BG is 2nd edition but if such a staggering change in population make up occurred I'd be shocked.
@Goodstave you might don't know this but the common race of calimshan (Based on Turkey)are Genasis (disguised as humans) And one of the common race of Mulhurandi (based on Egypt) are Aasimar... In the case of of genasi In sword coast... they are more common than elves at 2nd edition era most of the elves flees (the Retreat) to Evermeet.. however there are some few elfs left in The Forest of Tethir, also known as Wealdath and High Forest...
.. however there are some few elfs left in The Forest of Tethir, also known as Wealdath and High Forest...
I don't know what source material you're looking at, @The_Shairs_Handbook, but in every Forgotten Realms map I've ever seen the High Forest is due north of Baldur's Gate, beyond the High Moor and not far to the east of Waterdeep, whereas Wealdath/Tethyr is south of Baldur's Gate, between Amn and Calimshan. Not the same place at all!
small information of wind Genasi: Because of their nature as planetouched, windsoul genasi have no true homeland from which they originally come, but like many genasi they are more common than other planetouched (Tefling and Aasimar). In particular windsouls can be found in Calimshan and Akanûl, though the race is found throughout all of the Lands of Intrigue, the Western Heartlands, and the Sword Coast as well.
Like i said before I know alot of 2nd, 3rd and 4th edition....
and about calimshan:
As of 1479 DR, the land of Calimshan has been ripped asunder by the events known as the Second Era of Skyfire. After the Spellplague, the Calimemnon Crystal, prison of the efreet Memnon and the djinn Calim, shattered. The released creatures resumed their hostilities that dated back to the First Era of Skyfire (c. -6500 DR). In the wake of the return of Calim and Memnon, many of the residents of Calimshan, presumed to be human, cast off their long held disguises and revealed themselves to be genasi. These descendants of the elemental powers pledged themselves to either fire or air, took over the cities of Memnon and Calimport respectively, and joined the war between the efreets and djinns
Yes, you are a master of copying walls of text from the Forgotten Realms wiki, but sadly you often don't do it in a context that makes sense. I may not have your vast knowledge of everything, but BG2 does not use the 4th edition, hence any changes in it are irrelevant to BG2.
@kidCarnival.... pleeeeeeeeasee go and get a life... if you don't like what i'm writing then don't read or.. stop following me... you behave like a bully right now... I have been very patient with.... and tried to respect your way of thinking...everything i write you try to discredit it or writing something negative... and please stop answering this comment i'm writing to you right now... the only thing you going to write to me now is something negative... insulting or something worse...
I've played games using 2e/3e/3.5e, but never 4e, so I know very little about 4e.
From what @The_Shairs_Handbook is saying, it sounds as if the Forgotten Realms have degenerated from a plausible and immersive fantasy world (in the earlier rulesets) into absurd nonsense in 4e. But maybe that's just the way it's being presented here, I have no experience of 4e.
@Goodstave you might don't know this but the common race of calimshan (Based on Turkey)are Genasis (disguised as humans) And one of the common race of Mulhurandi (based on Egypt) are Aasimar...
@The_Shairs_Handbook With all due respect, please refrain from mixing real countries and high fantasy settings, since you like reading and quoting wiki so much, you might have found a mention that arabs are a proud people, and middle east people don't take kindly to being compared to genasis diguised as humans, not even to aasimars paladins. You just quote wall of texts and think you're making a point, better speak your own mind lest you be inadvertently judgemental. Also not in wiki but in the game journal: Baldur's Gate adventure starts 1369 DR, 110 years before whatever events you're talking about.
Sorry guys for the thread derailment, but I had to say my piece.
@Foggy... I respect your way of thinking (as a fellow meddle east member) but do also notice that Abil-toril is inspired on many culture and country of earth...
It has been officially confirmed that Baeloth will not be a joinable NPC, but the possibility has been left conspicuously open that he'll appear in BG2ee in some other capacity, so either in a cameo or as an opponent. I reckon he's going to be an opponent, that seems to me to make a lot of sense.
You're missing the point my friend. I'm not from the middle east, but where we're from is of no consequence, for me you're a fellow Baldur's Gate player, I respect you for that. I commented after you breached an universal forum etiquette, you just don't discuss real life race in forums, especially RPG and high fantasy ones.
I'm sure you are a nice person and an intelligent guy that know better than to take it personal: copying text then arguing or braguing about your knowledge with no regards to the opinions of others won't make you any friends in here. Opinion is an analysis based on facts or experience, please do share your own and forget about wiki, most people finds the copy pasting quite annoying. We are all united by the love of the game, let's be constructive and learn from each other, not generic books. I for one would like to see your analysis based on what knowledge you acquired, so it won't go to waste.
On the topic, BG have no love for half-orcs, and we have no barbarian NPC, would be awesome to have one for the sake of completion.
A bunch of suggestions: Good dwarwen defender - good side do lack a decent tank. Some neutral/good battle thief(shadowdancer or fighter/thief dual or multi) - Yoshimo is NOT an option, you know, so we only get charname for it, no good. F/T/M preferably neutral - should be quite fun npc as well as solid. Dragon disciple - since this class only open itself in SoA.
It has been officially confirmed that Baeloth will not be a joinable NPC, but the possibility has been left conspicuously open that he'll appear in BG2ee in some other capacity, so either in a cameo or as an opponent. I reckon he's going to be an opponent, that seems to me to make a lot of sense.
That's a shame really enjoy him as an npc and was hoping for some extra interaction with him once reaching the under dark but I guess it would be nice to have a special appearance.
Comments
Neutral party In bg2= Onward, to futility
1. Lawful/Chaotic Neutral Anomen works just fine. So he loses a few bonus spells. He's not a Wizard, destined to sit in the back and shoot lasers. He's essentially a Fighter that can use the Cleric's self-only buffs.
2. Jan and Jaheira are two of the most useful NPCs in the game, and any Blade is going to be powerful.
3. Sarevok doesn't come into play until ToB. That's a good 40 or more hours into a BG2/ToB run. He doesn't count as a BG2 NPC. Baeloth isn't going to be in BG2.
All personal taste and finding an NPC lacking or annoying don't mean the fighter role isn't filled, still hoping for more NPC other than the confirmed (evil?) female thief to be added in BG2EE .
@Eudaemonium Concerning Anomen proficiency, he does reach Grand Mastery, always ended up with 5 points proficiencies in either maces or flails/warhammers later around 3.6 million xp. The 2 points he have in spears are a total waste and should be removed in BG2EE and added to fitting cleric weapons, regardless he is formidable fighter, and with the support of his spells and the right weapons (dual Flail of Ages/Crom Faeyr, no need for dual points) he become more lethal than Valygar or even Minsc.
not many people want to fail a quest... anyway the thing is that having a neutral party is almost exremly hard to finish the game.... and your charname don't have the luxery to have any class that you want...
if you don't belive then have a try yourself...and try to have a charname that isn't thief class or warrior class... as you see the selection is very few... I'm just pointing out the weakness if Neutral party and the lack of Good followers when you compare them to good or evil followers
Edit: And I don't understand about the Thief/warrior thing. In BG II you have Jan who is a good thief, you have Jaheira and Anomen who is a dualed fighter and you also have our favorite Yoshi. In BG I you have several thief choices.
and that Shapeshifter follower isn't really good.... the only good followers are jan and that blade follower...And that halfelf druid who lost his man Khailid is not to bad but not so good either...
and same thing can be said about good and evil parties they can add neutral followers in their grupp... so shouldn't there be added little bit more Neutral followers in BG2???
many people say we want evil or good followers but isn't neutral followers the best choise to add to the game.. I mean everyone can use a neutral follower... but the same thing can not be said about good or evil..
If baldurs gate have a weakness is that they don't have a neutral stand of point... most of the Biowere games didn't have that in earliers years... you couldn't achive neutral ending in Bg games, Star wars Knight of the old republic, Jade empire and so on... everything was and is so black and white..... you couldn't walk the middle ground...
Of course the proper solution is to give us several new characters of various alignments and classes, and I suggested an ideal list of additions earlier in the thread. However, I'm sure we all realise that developing new characters requires a significant investment of limited resources, so we can't realistically expect many new NPCs. There's a severe shortage of NPCs in original BG2, much more so than in original BG1. The three new NPCs which will be carried forward from BGee will certainly help to address that, but are still leaving several glaring gaps, and one further NPC is not enough to fill out the range adequately. I reckon Overhaul ought to try to find resources to build at least a couple more NPCs than they've currently announced. They've managed to do this pretty well with BGee (which now has an adequate range of NPCs, IMO), but BG2 started with fewer NPCs than BG1 and (on current plans) will still have fewer in BG2ee, and that's definitely not enough for the game to reach its full potential for flexibility and replayability.
there wouldn't be much of a story if you shrugged your shoulders and went "yeah leave it like it is"
If you want a Neutral party, then don't have Anomen change alignments. Or have him change. It doesn't matter. The beauty of Neutral and Good NPCs is that they only Break at low Rep, so their individual alignments don't even matter.
EDIT: I'm not saying Neutral couldn't use more NPCs, but this idea that Anomen isn't useful or can't remain Neutral is hogwash. Unless you've been playing this game a long time like most of us forumites, you're not going to necessarily know that killing the girl will cause him to fail. I didn't when I first used him.
----Zapp Brannigan
Also, the breakdown of races in Calimport, the biggest city in Calimshan (as per the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting), goes as follows: Population 5,339,520 (94% Humans, 2% Half-Orcs, 2% Halflings, 1% Half-Elves). So, needless to say Calimshan is clearly not predominantly Genasi... they don't even make up 1% of the total population of the country's largest city.
Granted this is as per the 3rd edition book whereas BG is 2nd edition but if such a staggering change in population make up occurred I'd be shocked.
In the case of of genasi In sword coast... they are more common than elves at 2nd edition era most of the elves flees (the Retreat) to Evermeet.. however there are some few elfs left in The Forest of Tethir, also known as Wealdath and High Forest...
Read 4th edition of forgotten realms and you will find updated Calimshan...
Also read about this country Akanûl...
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Akanûl
small information of wind Genasi:
Because of their nature as planetouched, windsoul genasi have no true homeland from which they originally come, but like many genasi they are more common than other planetouched (Tefling and Aasimar). In particular windsouls can be found in Calimshan and Akanûl, though the race is found throughout all of the Lands of Intrigue, the Western Heartlands, and the Sword Coast as well.
Like i said before I know alot of 2nd, 3rd and 4th edition....
and about calimshan:
As of 1479 DR, the land of Calimshan has been ripped asunder by the events known as the Second Era of Skyfire. After the Spellplague, the Calimemnon Crystal, prison of the efreet Memnon and the djinn Calim, shattered. The released creatures resumed their hostilities that dated back to the First Era of Skyfire (c. -6500 DR).
In the wake of the return of Calim and Memnon, many of the residents of Calimshan, presumed to be human, cast off their long held disguises and revealed themselves to be genasi. These descendants of the elemental powers pledged themselves to either fire or air, took over the cities of Memnon and Calimport respectively, and joined the war between the efreets and djinns
From what @The_Shairs_Handbook is saying, it sounds as if the Forgotten Realms have degenerated from a plausible and immersive fantasy world (in the earlier rulesets) into absurd nonsense in 4e. But maybe that's just the way it's being presented here, I have no experience of 4e.
With all due respect, please refrain from mixing real countries and high fantasy settings, since you like reading and quoting wiki so much, you might have found a mention that arabs are a proud people, and middle east people don't take kindly to being compared to genasis diguised as humans, not even to aasimars paladins. You just quote wall of texts and think you're making a point, better speak your own mind lest you be inadvertently judgemental.
Also not in wiki but in the game journal: Baldur's Gate adventure starts 1369 DR, 110 years before whatever events you're talking about.
Sorry guys for the thread derailment, but I had to say my piece.
won't quote anything here but here is a good source if you haven't read it..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Forgotten_Realms_nations
I formally request Ripley as a character playing the Warrent Officer class dueled to Alien Killing Machine at level 57.
Ta.
You're missing the point my friend. I'm not from the middle east, but where we're from is of no consequence, for me you're a fellow Baldur's Gate player, I respect you for that. I commented after you breached an universal forum etiquette, you just don't discuss real life race in forums, especially RPG and high fantasy ones.
I'm sure you are a nice person and an intelligent guy that know better than to take it personal: copying text then arguing or braguing about your knowledge with no regards to the opinions of others won't make you any friends in here. Opinion is an analysis based on facts or experience, please do share your own and forget about wiki, most people finds the copy pasting quite annoying. We are all united by the love of the game, let's be constructive and learn from each other, not generic books. I for one would like to see your analysis based on what knowledge you acquired, so it won't go to waste.
On the topic, BG have no love for half-orcs, and we have no barbarian NPC, would be awesome to have one for the sake of completion.
Good dwarwen defender - good side do lack a decent tank.
Some neutral/good battle thief(shadowdancer or fighter/thief dual or multi) - Yoshimo is NOT an option, you know, so we only get charname for it, no good.
F/T/M preferably neutral - should be quite fun npc as well as solid.
Dragon disciple - since this class only open itself in SoA.
Plus he is the only sorcerer for now