Too much magic?

pixie359

Is there a party that has too much magic? I'm currently re-playing BG2 vanilla, with CHARNAME a F/M/T, Jaheira, Keldorn, Jan, Aerie, Valygar. I only have Valygar for the Planar Sphere quest that I'm on at the moment, then I'll swap him out for Haer' Dalis.

I was thinking of swapping one (or maybe even both) of Jaheira and Keldorn out for Nalia -> Imoen.

Previously, I've always played with at least one straight tank, but I'm wondering whether Charname and Haer' Dalis will be enough for that. Am I being stupid? Will my party squishyness become a real problem? Or will my massive casting abilities make that redundant anyway?

Corvino

Jaheira and Keldorn are both pretty tanky. Jaheira is actually one of the most resilient frontliners given her ability to wear nearly any armour, use shields and ironskin herself. Given her summon insects spells, other summons and healing I find her very useful.

I don't think you'll have too much of a frontline/tank problem as long as you keep one of those two around.

Heindrich

Your party looks fine. You can never have too much magic in BG 2!

Dexter

fighter/mage builds are the best tanks inmo, just load yourself up with defensive magics. Of course it requires more micro-management than say korgan, but i think it's more versatile too.

ChildofBhaal599

i personally would keep around a good tank because i can be bothered with so much micro management. it is nice for me to just have a heavily armored tank to send in. however, a mage loaded on defensive spells can always tank with some resting and micro management

CamDawg

Heindrich1988 said:

Your party looks fine. You can never have too much magic in BG 2!

Yeah, this. When you start hitting ToB and every combat begins with 18 rounds of Breach, Khelben's Warding Whip, Spellstrike, etc. you'll be happy to have them.

the_spyder

CamDawg said:

Heindrich1988 said:

Your party looks fine. You can never have too much magic in BG 2!

Yeah, this. When you start hitting ToB and every combat begins with 18 rounds of Breach, Khelben's Warding Whip, Spellstrike, etc. you'll be happy to have them.

Yeah, this. I am currently making my way through ToB at the moment and can attest to the fact that the more spell breakers you have the happier you will be in the long run. My current party has has Korgan as the only non-caster. I also have Charname - Wizard, Jan - Illusionist/thief, Imoen Thief/Wizard, Jaheira and Viconia as Divine casters. Need that extra spell power.

ZanathKariashi

That only happens if you have difficulty mods. The Core game 1 mage is all you need...and even that's not required, just makes a handful of fights a tiny bit easier by allowing you to strip PfMW (but doesn't work against the targets you'd most definitely want to use it against aka Liches). (And it's not even needed in difficulty mods either...just makes certain areas much less frustrating due to it taking 3x longer to crush the enemy when you have to go through 3 sets of instant buffs).

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DJKajuru

I did it once having charname Mage, Jaheira, Aerie, Viconia and Imoen. Tanking wasn't all that necessary because we would always summon elementals and rely on jaheira's defenses.

mylegbig

Dexter said:

fighter/mage builds are the best tanks inmo, just load yourself up with defensive magics. Of course it requires more micro-management than say korgan, but i think it's more versatile too.

Exactly. A while ago when I played a blade (not exactly a f/m, but close enough), he was able to tank the scs shadow dragon just fine while both Keldorn and Minsc got their asses kicked in seconds.

pixie359

Thanks all. I really meant would it be too much magic and too little melee if I swapped out Jaheira and Keldorn for Nalia and Imoen - I know Jaheira tanks well enough. I think I'll do a quest or two to try it out, but I'd be surprised if CHAR and Haer struggle much.

SharGuidesMyHand

Corvino said:

Jaheira and Keldorn are both pretty tanky. Jaheira is actually one of the most resilient frontliners given her ability to wear nearly any armour, use shields and ironskin herself. Given her summon insects spells, other summons and healing I find her very useful.

I don't think you'll have too much of a frontline/tank problem as long as you keep one of those two around.

This.

The last time I played BG2, it was basically just one tank (myself, a barbarian) and a bunch of spellcasters (Imoen, Nalia, Aerie, Jaheira, Anomen, IIRC), and we completely whupped a$$. I would often send my "enranged" barbarian into a mix of enemies all by her loneself, while the others stayed behind and casted an array of horror, fireball, and cloud spells from a safe distance.

CoM_Solaufein

Never enough magic in one's party. Most of my members in my parties are magic users.

SharGuidesMyHand

pixie359 said:

Thanks all. I really meant would it be too much magic and too little melee if I swapped out Jaheira and Keldorn for Nalia and Imoen - I know Jaheira tanks well enough. I think I'll do a quest or two to try it out, but I'd be surprised if CHAR and Haer struggle much.

Sorry, I completely misread your question - I thought you were only swapping out Valygar.

I do believe removing both of them might be too little tanking/melee ability. I would suggest keeping at least one if possible - preferably Jaheira perhaps, since you also don't have any druid casters in your party.

blackchimes

You need a tank, preferably two to create a true "front line". Mages can make good tanks, but they have limited uptime - once their protection spells run out(or are dispelled), that's it.

Meanwhile a Fighter in full armor can stand and not get hit forever.

bill_zagoudis

having a strong warrior is optional

a typical solo run for instance is mage/thief

ZanathKariashi

Or slightly less typical....PURE KENSAI!!!!

Though obviously that requires knowledge of where to get items to cover your bases and consumable use. Which honestly, can replace anything, barring some of the more extreme mods. (even then it's still do-able, but no where near as easy).

So...yeah...everything is actually optional as long as you do SOMETHING.... Even bards, as badly screwed as they are, can still own just by virtue of being a not-quite Fighter/Mage that can pickpockets.

pixie359

I realised that while I kept writing Keldorn, I meant Anomen. Ah well, thanks all.

Corvino

Anomen!? Yuck. Just no. Even if it leaves you with no tanks, naked and in the middle of a mind flayer city he has to go. Right now.

pixie359

He has gone, as has Valygar. I'm now F/M/T, Jaheira, Haer'dalis, Aerie and Jan. I'm wondering whether to go Nalia -> Imoen, for the consistency in party balance, Yoshimo -> Imoen for the storyline, or Party Of Five for the experience points.

SharGuidesMyHand

pixie359 said:

He has gone, as has Valygar. I'm now F/M/T, Jaheira, Haer'dalis, Aerie and Jan. I'm wondering whether to go Nalia -> Imoen, for the consistency in party balance, Yoshimo -> Imoen for the storyline, or Party Of Five for the experience points.

Where are you now in the game? Have you rescued Imoen yet?

pixie359

Not yet - I've got few quests to do first, like Nalia's Keep, Firkraag and the Unseeing Eye. Maybe halfway through chapter 2 in terms of quests, but I haven't sought any interesting one off fights with liches, twisted runes or guarded compounds yet, so plenty of xp left to play for.

Corvino

I've never actually played an F/M/T. Aside from the ridiculously slow levelling, what're they like? I'd guess a F/M with lower HP but more versatility, and requiring a smaller party.

Gallowglass

I wouldn't worry too much about XP, @pixie359: XP will come in due course, so even with a full party you all ought to reach the XP-cap by the time you get to the end of ToB.

I reckon it's always easier if you've got at least one solid tank in the party, but yes, Jaheira is probably adequate for that. Certainly in SoA she's up to the job ... maybe she's a little lightweight to be ideal as the main tank once you get to ToB, but certainly do-able with good kit and suitable buffing spells. (Of course you can win the game with no real tank at all, but it's definitely more work that way.)

I don't think you need to bother with Nalia for party balance - four of your existing crew are arcane casters, which is ample. So I'd take Yoshimo for storyline ... but heck, it's your playthrough and your call.

pixie359

I quite enjoy the F/M/T. I guess it will happen more as the game goes on, but I've not felt that I'm that far behind the other arcane casters yet, but then I suppose they are all multis as well.

You can play almost any role - I have gone for sneak skills, so I can run in, backstab for huge damage, use an invisibility ring and backstab again, or stand toe to toe with my stoneskins and mirrors etc stopping me getting hit, or I can stand at the back like a normal (if weakened) mage.

I think they probably really shine in solo or small group runs - this guy with a ranger/cleric is probably all you need.

karnor00

Incidentally you can come back and do almost any of the chapter 2 quests in chapter 6 if you want to get Imoen as soon as possible. I think the only restrictions are that a couple of the NPC quests can't be done in chapter 6 if you sided with Bohdi in chapter 2.

PawnSlayer

The Shadow Thieves/Maevar's Guild would be the obvious one, but that's one I find myself doing early anyway (aside from anything else, I can't recall the enemies scaling so it helps to boost my experience so that I can fight stronger foes in other questlines that do scale)

the_spyder

the_spyder said:

CamDawg said:

Heindrich1988 said:

Your party looks fine. You can never have too much magic in BG 2!

Yeah, this. When you start hitting ToB and every combat begins with 18 rounds of Breach, Khelben's Warding Whip, Spellstrike, etc. you'll be happy to have them.

Yeah, this. I am currently making my way through ToB at the moment and can attest to the fact that the more spell breakers you have the happier you will be in the long run. My current party has has Korgan as the only non-caster. I also have Charname - Wizard, Jan - Illusionist/thief, Imoen Thief/Wizard, Jaheira and Viconia as Divine casters. Need that extra spell power.

ZanathKariashi said:

That only happens if you have difficulty mods. The Core game 1 mage is all you need...and even that's not required, just makes a handful of fights a tiny bit easier by allowing you to strip PfMW (but doesn't work against the targets you'd most definitely want to use it against aka Liches). (And it's not even needed in difficulty mods either...just makes certain areas much less frustrating due to it taking 3x longer to crush the enemy when you have to go through 3 sets of instant buffs).

I wasn't saying that you NEEDED more than one mage, merely that having more is not a hardship. My party waltzes through most battles (provided I am prepared for them) with very little in the way of combat might other than summonables. I throw loads of arcane and divine battlefield control spells, summons and save or die spells and hey-presto. Battle is over. Not to mention being able to cast multiple protection removal spells in a single round.

Another bonus to having more spell power is never having to combat a creature where I don't summon several creatures to aid my cause. This, if nothing else, draws spell casters away from my core group as often as not. And i don't have to heal them when it is all over. Particularly in certain sections of Watcher's keep, this strategy paid heavy dividends.

Also, TOB, at least early on, can be brutal on tanks. I went into this one cave full of fire giants and got pounded by something like 8 of them at once. They were doing something like 30 points of damage per round, per giant against Korgan, Jaheira and Viconia (my 3 front liners) despite Vicci having something like a -12 AC and the other two not far behind. We won the battle, but not before taking a bunch of punishment. I played it again (for an unrelated reason) only this time with my spell casters throwing around Finger of Death and some other high level spells and it was almost a cake walk.