critique my party please

doctordog

So, I posted earlier regarding alignment and have decided to remain good/neutral for the rest of the game.

Currently have: Minsc - full plate mail, gauntlets of weapons expertise, composite long bow, warhammer+2 and spider's bane sword

Kivan - long bow of marksmanship, long sword+2, chainmail+2, bracers of defense ac7

Imoen - short bow, studded leather armor, bracers of archery, boots of stealth

Mia (my mage) - adventurer's robe, bracers of defense ac8, cloak of the wolf, boots of avoidance, wand of sleep, wand of fire

Level 1 spells: magic misslex2, protection from evil, grease
(not using: sleep, friends, charm, armor, burning hands)
Level 2 spells: web, mirror image
(not using: agannazar's scorcher, stinking cloud, horror)
Level 3 spells: lightning bolt, dire charm
(not using: fireball, ghost armor)

Dynaheir - Knave's robe, sling+1, wand of lightning, wand of paralysis''

Level 1 spells: magic misslex3, burning hands, chromatic orb
(not using:)
Level 2 spells: mirror image, invisible, stinking cloud
(not using: horror, resist fear, protection from petrification)
Level 3 spells: fireballx2, skull trap
(not using: fireball, skull trap)

Branwen - plate mail armor, ring of holiness, sling (not using Flail+1)

Level 1 spells: healx2, entangle, protection from evil, command, sanctuary
(not using: shillelagh, remove fear, magic stone, entangle, detect evil, bless)
Level 2 spells: hold personx2, barkskin, chant, aid, resist fire/cold
(not using: slow poison, draw upon holy might, silence 15", find traps, know alignment)
Level 3 spells: rigid thinking, miscast magic
(not using: animate dead, dispel magic, strength of one, remove paralysis, gylph of warding)

Sorry, I know that's quite a lot of info.

Anyway, I've just reached the third section of the cloakwoods and have the option of taking on Faldorn and/or some guy who wants to kill a dragon (can't recall his name).

I feel a little bit overwhelmed by the magic sector of my party, even though I like a strong magic emphasis. Typically, I will scout ahead with Imoen while invisible, then for larger groups of enemies try and hit them with a fireball and/or web and/or stinking cloud from the periphery of their vision. I rely on ranged attacks and magic missiles, lightning bolt etc. but use Minsc for c2c when things need to get dirty. I find it frustrating trying to use crowd-control spells in combat since fireball obviously damages my own party, skull trap is slow and usually gets interrupted mid-casting etc. The wand of sleep is quite good though.

I have just started using Branwen and find the sheer volume of her spells a bit overwhelming. I like entangle, but haven't had a chance to try out hold person, miscast magic or rigid thinking since I'm mostly fighting spiders and shit. I also used chant, aid and protection from evil on my party before the encounter with that fat guy in the cave recently and found it useful.

So at this point, are there any redundancies or spells I should swap in/out? I feel like Mia and Dynaheir overlap in a lot of ways but like having two offensive casters. I assume Branwen will become more useful when battling other magic casters. I mainly keep Imoen because she's a thief but don't see the big deal really.

I'm wondering if I should take on Faldorn and swap out Kivan or maybe Imoen. Also, is that dude who wants to kill the dragon (again forget his name - he's in cloakwood pt. 1 I think) any good? Failing that, is it worth taking them on, completing their quests, then swapping back for your old members? Will the old members still be wherever I leave them?

One more random question - since special arrows are so expensive, should I be investing in them? Normal arrows seem to work fine for most purposes. Sometimes I'll switch to ice/fire/biting ones that I pick up when fighting special enemies.

Thanks for reading this!

doctordog

oh yeah, and when using your cleric to cast defensive spells like barkskin etc. do you usually do so before entering combat and is it best to use these on your weakest characters?

Wisp

Having two mages is fine, even great. Even if they cast the same spells, having twice the "bandwidth" is a big deal. However, since Dynaheir is barred from Enchantment and Conjuration spells, you may wish to have your protagonist pay closer attention to those schools. Enchantment is a hugely useful school and Conjuration isn't too bad either. Most/all of the Enchantment school is party-friendly, unlike Evocation.

I wouldn't bother with Faldorn or Coran unless you really want either of them. Their quests can be done without them in the group. It's just their quests in the sense they will get uppity and leave if you dally too much before completing them. Your current party is fine.

Special arrows are great for those occasions when it's a fight of consequence. But you find a good number of them. 'Course, archers spend a good number of them too. It's not like you have to blow all your money on arrows. Buy if you need to.

doctordog

Thanks for the tips. I suppose I shouldn't mess with something that's working, but I always get excited when I come across a new playable character.

The only thing I'm confused about is Imoen: maybe I'm not using her correctly, but most pickpocket attempts either fail or the person isn't carrying anything and I have no idea how to backstab. Granted, I haven't reached Baldur's Gate yet, but how do I make the most of a thief?

Also, I may be mistaken but I don't think I've come across the opportunity to pick up many Conjuration/Enchantment spells at this point. The only place I know that sells spells is High Hedge.

BelgarathMTH

Most of the thief skills fail regularly until you get them into the 90's. Make sure you're not spreading Imoen's points too thin. She really has to concentrate on one or two things. I always build her detect traps and her open locks.

You can carry a second thief to concentrate on the stealth action. Both Move Silently and Hide in Shadows are added together and divided by two to get the percent chance of success. It doesn't work reliably until both scores are around 80 or higher. If you're building a stealth specialist and backstabber, you really want both those scores at 100.

To backstab, the thief must do a successful Hide check. There will be a little message in your actions window that tells you "succeeded" or "failed". The thief's avatar will become translucent if successful. Position the hidden thief behind the enemy to be backstabbed. Walk right up just behind their back - they can't see you. Then left click to strike. The thief must still make a roll to hit, so it really helps to have good Thac0. That's why a lot of people like fighter-thieves, and why Shar-Teel makes such a good thief dual class.

If you want to pick pockets, it doesn't hurt to carry a third thief to focus on that. Garrick the bard is decent at it, as well. Remember, less than 80 or 90 skill means frequent failures, and you take a reputation hit and risk the ire of the Flaming Fist every time you get caught.

Wisp

doctordog said:

The only thing I'm confused about is Imoen: maybe I'm not using her correctly, but most pickpocket attempts either fail or the person isn't carrying anything and I have no idea how to backstab. Granted, I haven't reached Baldur's Gate yet, but how do I make the most of a thief?

Most people don't carry anything that can be pickpocketed. You also need enough skill (100 is sufficient for anything but stealing from stores), but you probably know that. Pickpocket isn't the best skill in BG1.
To backstab, you have your thief go invisible and get in behind the target. A successful attack with a suitable weapon under those circumstances is a backstab. However, due to Imoen's low strength she isn't the best stabber of backs.

doctordog said:

Also, I may be mistaken but I don't think I've come across the opportunity to pick up many Conjuration/Enchantment spells at this point. The only place I know that sells spells is High Hedge.

Yeah, with the notable exceptions of Sleep, Flame Arrow, Hold Person and Dire Charm, most of them are not available before the latter half of the game, or outside of TotSC areas.

Thrasymachus

Thieves are a "big deal" because they are necessary for disarming traps and picking locks. You may not have encountered too many of those yet, if you've mainly been wandering around in the wilderness, but they will become quite frequent very soon (in the Cloakwood Mines and beyond, especially in Durlag's Tower). Imoen's thief points should be spent on traps and locks at first. Max those out before worrying about pick pockets, hide in shadows, etc.

If you want a stealthy backstabber, drop Kivan and add Coran. (He's the 'dragon hunter'.) Coran is a fighter/thief, and so is better at backstabbing than Imoen ever will be. Moreover, he's a great archer. But I wouldn't drop Imoen (unless you've spent no points on her pick locks and disable traps abilities).

elminster

"Level 3 spells: fireballx2, skull trap
(not using: fireball, skull trap)"

I'm guessing this is a typo

doctordog

elminster said:

"Level 3 spells: fireballx2, skull trap
(not using: fireball, skull trap)"

I'm guessing this is a typo

No, I meant I have 3 slots taken up by fireballx2 and skull trap, as well as an extra fireball and skull trap spare (so could e.g. have 3 fireballs, or a fireball and 2 skull traps).

doctordog

Okay, thank you for the information on thieves guys. It's true, I haven't encountered a tonne of traps and most of the locks I've picked haven't yielded anything mindblowing. Stupidly, I was trying to spread her points evenly across all abilities, but I'll stick to lock-picking and traps. Backstabbing just seemed like a fun novelty.

Wisp

doctordog said:

Backstabbing just seemed like a fun novelty.

It is fun, and very effective too, but in BG1 you can't really do it all with a single thief. It's more of a 3-out-of-7 situation.

Heindrich

Your party looks very good. Kivan is a beast, probably the strongest NPC overall who isn't evil. I missed him much when I had to dismiss him for RP purposes.

Your spread of thief skills for Imoen might become a problem in the long run. Easy mistake to make though. Just make sure you focus on Find Traps for her from now on (until you hit 95, if that's still possible). If it's not, retain every 'Potion of Perception' you find.

Imoen is a good thief, so pickpocketing from the citizens and merchants of Baldur's Gate probably isn't her thing anyway.

elminster

You can substitute Kivan for Coran (guy who wants to kill "Dragons"). Coran is a slightly better archer who also has thieving abilities (I think at fighter/thief level 3/3 he has 3*'s in long bows and 20 dexterity and at a higher level he will start out with 4* in long bows). Honestly though both are very capable archers and its not a huge difference between the two. Especially if you get the lower level Coran (with only 3*'s in long bows).

An alternative to the sleep wand is sleep the spell. The spell doesn't give enemies bonuses to their saving throws. But to be honest at this stage in the game sleep will start losing its effectiveness (if it hasn't already).

I would recommend using animate dead over miscast magic. The saving throws for miscast magic make it less than useful. Animate dead has also been improved in BGEE so that it summons a lesser version of skeletal warriors instead of the old skeletons. They have some magic resistance which you can use to soak up enemy mage attacks.

Are you playing BG1 or BGEE? Protection from petrification should be a level 1 spell (it used to be a level 2 spell in BG1).

zur312

changed spells for more usefull better
horror = great doesn't go on your party and they are very easy to strike from range
sleep = same like horror but don't run lol
fb vs skulltrap = i like fb because my party tank or someone is near 100% fire resistant so i go into enemy fire and blast them with fb
spells from cleric changed to be more usefull

Level 1 spells: magic misslex2, sleep,

Level 2 spells: horror, mirror image, scorcher

Level 3 spells: fb, dire charm


Dynaheir - Knave's robe, sling+1, wand of lightning, wand of paralysis''

Level 1 spells: magic misslex3, , chromatic orb - if high level mage
Level 2 spells: mirror image, invisible, MORE HORROR
Level 3 spells: fireballllllllll


Branwen - plate mail armor, ring of holiness, sling (not using Flail+1)

Level 1 spells: healx2,, command, sanctuary
Level 2 spells: hold personx2, barkskin, aid, resist fire/cold + Fireballs! drap upon holy might!! slow poison(spiders)

Level 3 spells: animate dead!remove paralysis!(undead) glyph of warding is like skulltrap but a little weaker

i think coran(dragon guy) is better than imoen at being archer/thief

sarevok57

I think the team you have is just hunky doory, when you stop fighting spiders, you can do something that will make your team incredibly menacing, since it looks like everyone in your team has ranged weapons, what you can do is memorize as many web spells as possible for your mages and entangle for your clerics on the baddies, and then throw minsc in there with the spider bane sword, first he will be immune to the holding effects while your enemies are stood helpless to your on slaught, since the other 5 team mates can fire missile weapons, also, hold person is a great spell for those it affects, its a save vs spell, so the chance of it working is always better (especially if you back it up with webs, entangles and the such) and speaking about special ammo, when you reach baldurs gate, there will be vendors that sell crap tonnes of that stuff, and since there is crap loads of money in the bg world, don't feel that you need to hold back ( usually when I finish a game of bg, I have around 400 000 extra gold, but I don't really invest in crazy magical ammo, just the +2 ammo, so you should be fine) plus durlag's tower is just littered senseless with magical ammo of all types ( but if you are going to go there make sure you are at least level 6 and have find traps at 100 and open locks at 90, and if your thief skills aren't that high, you will need some potions of master thievery and perception) so yeah, I think your party is great, you have at least one thief for thieving, one cleric for healing, and wizards for crowd control, and at least one tank character to absorb enemy shilliness, and the strategy you are using will work, ( just remember that with free action web and entangle will not hold you) and you should be fine

elminster

zur312 said:

Level 3 spells: animate dead!remove paralysis!(undead) glyph of warding is like skulltrap but a little weaker

I would argue even if the damage isn't all that much different at low levels the fact that a save vs spell means that the glyph does no damage (vs the skulltrap doing 1/2 damage) means its a lot weaker. Also the area of effect for skull trap is slightly larger and it takes a lot less time to cast.

Personally I wouldn't even bother with glyph as a spell. If you are good/neutral just stick to holy smite.

zur312

yeah weaker skulltrap

i forgot you have minsc with spidersbane so web spells will be really good!

lunar

Bracers ac 7 is meaningless on Kivan, since his chainmail+2 is so much better. AC bonuses do not stack from armor and bracers, the best overlaps the worst. So you should give the ac 7 bracers to Mia. Also Kivan should don a plate mail instead of chain+2. Platemail has better AC modifiers against crushing damage, and you can combine a ring of protection+1 with it.

Coran (dragon hunter guy) is AMAZING. His bow skill is superiour to Kivan, he is like a repeating machine gun with a decent bow, :plik: :plik: :plik: his every shot hits and he makes enemies fall in seconds. He also has very good open locks skill, but lacks find traps score. If he is lower level you can train him in find traps. He can replace Kivan or Imoen, but Cloakwood area is riddled with traps so a high find traps skill is nice to have.

Magical ammo is very useful. Acid arrows in particular, deal amazing amounts of damage. (+2-12 damage per hit, IIRC) in the hands of Coran, they are best at what they do:killing stuff.

As for divine spells, barkskin, aid, resist fire/cold spells have so short durations that they are not really helpful. Memorise hold person (amazing against humanoid enemies) silence (golden against casters) and slow poison (life saver against spiders in the Cloakwood and elite hobgoblin arrows). Animate Dead is the best summon you can find, memorise them a lot. Glyph of warding is a bad spell, it allows a save vs spell to negate all damage. Holy smite can be effective against evil enemies, which you face a lot.

Onto the arcane department, blindness is the overpowered spell in the game, if it is succesful the enemy just stands there, and you can take him out with ranged attacks. Magic missile is always good. Mirror image is the essential defense spell, horror and web are nice disablers. Minsc can decapitate helpless enemies in the web with his Spiderbane sword. Stinking cloud is nice as undead skeletons summoned by Animate Dead is immune to its effects, so they can bash the helpless enemies within. Never fight fair. Lightning bolt is very risky to cast in narrow corridors, can kill your whole party easily. Slow and haste are amazing spells. Slow really debuffs a whole group of enemies, while haste gives you amazing tactical advantage and fire power. As for 4th lvl spells, confusion and emotion spells can disable an entire group easily, while Improved Invisibility is the best single target protection buff:+4 ac, saves and to hit bonus, enemies can't target you with spells, pretty amazing!