Joinable Npcs, time constraints, levels, & choosing your party?

ou_deis

Is there any time constraint on when we can have npcs join? I read somewhere that at least one npc won't be available if you wait too long, is that accurate? I have a good idea of what I want my "final" party (if there is such a thing) to be, but I also want to try out other characters for a while.

I've read that npcs who you haven't yet added to your party will automatically keep up with your approximate level, but if you've let them into your party and then dismissed them, they'll stay at the level they were at when you left them; and I'm worried that they may then be too low in level for me to bring them back into my party later for higher level quests. Though I guess I could just change that with a mod or EEKeeper so I don't have to worry so much about who I pick, right?

I've also read it's good to get your permanent members early, so you can shape their development. Is that just referring to thief skill points and weapon proficiencies? Or maybe which spell scrolls you have mages memorize?

Now my plan is to have 4 of my final 5 npc's with me, plus 1 npc I'm trying out, then have Viconia be my final lasting member. (I'm playing between neutral and evil, but I want to sample the good-aligned characters on my first play-through.)

However, I'm extremely interested in storyline and interpersonal interactions, and it seems like many of these only happen if you have an npc in your party for a considerable amount of time, so should I revise my strategy? Maybe just focus on a couple temporary npcs I find particularly interesting, or who give me interesting personal quests right away?

And I'm trying to decide whether to make Haer'Dalis or Viconia the final member I add. (But what about Imoen?) However, I guess I'll miss out on whatever interactions they might otherwise have had with the good-aligned characters and Jaheira. Thoughts, opinions? Of course, there are always other playthroughs....

Heindrich

I am in my first BG 2 playthrough, though I think near the end of SoA. I know what you mean about wanting to try out everybody, since all BG 2 characters have so much character and personality, and they all bring something genuinely interesting and useful to the party. You might want to try the approach I developed rather unintentionally.

Most NPCs are associated with a specific quest or region, for example Keldorn with the Cult of the Unseeing Eye, Mazzy with Umar Hills, Valygar with the Planar Sphere etc... I have a core party (Anomen, Aerie, Minsc, Imoen and Jaheira), but each time I go on one of these quests, I pick up the associated NPC and substitute somebody from the main party. If I kept substituting the same character, he/she would obviously fall behind, so I rotate who gets substituted. For example Anomen didn't go to the D'Arnise Keep, Minsc didn't go to the Planar Sphere, and Jaheira didn't go on the Unseeing Eye quest. In this way nobody falls too far behind and I've experienced almost every character in BG 2.

Time4Tiddy

ou_deis said:

However, I'm extremely interested in storyline and interpersonal interactions, and it seems like many of these only happen if you have an npc in your party for a considerable amount of time, so should I revise my strategy? Maybe just focus on a couple temporary npcs I find particularly interesting, or who give me interesting personal quests right away?

Some of the NPCs require a certain amount of time to pass whether they are in your party or not - x number of days from y event. These are a bit easier because you can dismiss them from your party, and then add them again later and they'll be immediately ready to do their next quest leg. For example, Nalia and Jaheira both have quest triggers based on in-game days after completing the previous quest leg. If you drop Nalia off and come back for her later, her next quest leg will queue right up.

Other NPCs require a certain amount of time to pass while they are in your active party - x number of days in your active party. These are a bit more problematic since you can feel like you are dragging them around, and if you ever dismiss them their timer resets. Mazzy and Jan are two like this. You can fudge this a bit by sleeping in the inn repeatedly until their quest triggers.

Finally, you have certain NPCs that will have different dialogues based on what point in the story. Without meta-gaming too much, you may miss out on the best interactions because you pick them up too late, or after you've finished another NPCs personal quest.

I'm assuming you are romancing Aerie since you didn't swap her out of your party in your examples. If that is the case, you want to get Haer'Dalis sooner than later, and keep him in the party. No spoilers.

Real

ou_deis said:

Is there any time constraint on when we can have npcs join? I read somewhere that at least one npc won't be available if you wait too long, is that accurate? I have a good idea of what I want my "final" party (if there is such a thing) to be, but I also want to try out other characters for a while.

Yes. There is one NPC who won't be available. But not if you wait too long, but if you've progress too far in the main story. I REALLY wouldn't worry too much about it though.

ou_deis said:

I've read that npcs who you haven't yet added to your party will automatically keep up with your approximate level, but if you've let them into your party and then dismissed them, they'll stay at the level they were at when you left them; and I'm worried that they may then be too low in level for me to bring them back into my party later for higher level quests. Though I guess I could just change that with a mod or EEKeeper so I don't have to worry so much about who I pick, right?

They only keep up with your level to a very certain extent. Each NPC has several different versions of themselves which are generated when you first encounter them. Roughly, they tend to not be higher than level 13 or no lower than level nine (this differs depending on their class, obviously multi-class would be lower etc).

ou_deis said:

I've also read it's good to get your permanent members early, so you can shape their development. Is that just referring to thief skill points and weapon proficiencies? Or maybe which spell scrolls you have mages memorize?

The main reason for this is weapon proficiencies. If you grab pure fighters such as Korgan early, you'll get the chance to customize what proficiencies he'll invest in when he levels up later. if you grabbed him late at higher levels, it'll take slightly longer to train him to level up and get the proficiency slots in the weapon style you want him for.

For other classes that cannot go beyond one or two slots in weapon proficiences, it really doesn't matter that as much. As for thief skills... they tend to level up so quickly anyway and you do not need that much stealth/find-traps/picklocking skills for it to be useful. So unless if you are reallly itching for a early high detect-illusion/set traps focused thief, it doesn't really matter all that much.

For mages, i don't think it matters at all and in-fact, if higher level versions means having more spells scribed in their book, there may actually be a minor advantage in grabbing them late.

kaffekoppen

It also has to do with their hit points. If you play on normal or below, HP rolls are maxed, but they aren't if the character levels up outside your party. So they actually get weaker every level you wait to get them (until they stop rolling for HPs at 10). It's incredibly unintuitive and I never understood why it was designed that way.

I'm not sure if their rolls are entirely random though. So far I've only seen "not so bad but not great" rolls (for example, I recently picked up Korgan at level 8 with 100 HPs, which means he missed out on 20). It's easy to suspect something funny is going on behind the scenes when I've never, ever seen a decidedly bad roll.

Still, it's mainly fighters who suffer here as well as with the weapon proficiencies. I always get fighters as early as possible and worry less about the rest.

kamuizin

ou_deis said:

Is there any time constraint on when we can have npcs join? I read somewhere that at least one npc won't be available if you wait too long, is that accurate? I have a good idea of what I want my "final" party (if there is such a thing) to be, but I also want to try out other characters for a while.

Yes and No. There is in fact, events that can lead to make an NPC unavaliable to you. Of course saying the wrong phrase (or right based on your roleplay) to an NPC will make him attack you and after killed you obviously can't recruit that one anymore.

Other times during their personal quest you can fuck up something (evey without even realise) and then you lost the NPC forever.

BG2 list:

Keldorn -

If at the end of keldorn's wife quest you make the nice thing to do and let him go to take care of his family, you're going to lose him forever.

Anomen -

while he normally does not answer well to criticize, in the last event of his personal quest, if you are too nice or too harsh to Anomen, he will leave forever (with your gear by the way). I don't remember the right answers, but if you have him in the party in this event, research the right answer before choose.

Jan Jansen -

If you kill the deep gnomes patrol (even if you can't avoid) in underdark Jan will leave or turn hostile, don't remember which one

Aerie -

If you get sex with Aerie in the first opportunity in her romance, not only the romance will be screwed but also most of the banters in this following branch of the fallen romance will lead to her leave the party

Korgan -

If you disagree with him when he tell the tales of how he tortured his previous party, he will mock you, if you hit back the mockery he will defy you, if you accept the challenge and does not retreat what you told him, he turns hostile and leave the party (which means losing the NPC)

Edwin -

do not turn edwina to the red wizard that hunts for him, otherwise you lose the NPC

.

Viconia -

you have a set of time after you spot viconia bound to the pire in the government district with the fanatics surrounding her, otherwise she will be killed and you can't recruit her anymore

.

Jaheira - If she's not in your party, do not talk to her with 6 or less in reputation, otherwise she will summon some harpers and will attack you.

Hexxat -

take her before chapter 3 end or you can't have her anymore

BG list is more simple, only one NPC has a momentum to be taken, but others are only accessible after a certain point of the game:

Yeslick -

take him in the party while you're inside the cloakwood mines, cos if you flood the mines without taking him, he's gone forever (fleed or dead in the flood, but not accessible anymore)

Other NPCs -

Alora, Tiax, Quayle and Skie are only accessible after you get access to baldur's gate city in the game. Coran is only accessible after you reach cloakwoods 1. Eldoth is only accessible after you reach cloakwoods 2. faldorn is only accessible after you reach cloakwoods 3.

ou_deis said:

I've read that npcs who you haven't yet added to your party will automatically keep up with your approximate level, but if you've let them into your party and then dismissed them, they'll stay at the level they were at when you left them; and I'm worried that they may then be too low in level for me to bring them back into my party later for higher level quests. Though I guess I could just change that with a mod or EEKeeper so I don't have to worry so much about who I pick, right?

There's 4 archieves of .cre for each NPC, what means the game generate 4 different leveled NPCs for each one in the game (it's something like the same NPC but at level 2,4,6 and 8, but not always in this level order). Based on your level you generate one of these .cre files when you talk with the NPC.

ou_deis said:

I've also read it's good to get your permanent members early, so you can shape their development. Is that just referring to thief skill points and weapon proficiencies? Or maybe which spell scrolls you have mages memorize?

Yes and no, after generate one of the .cre files, it will not change anymore (look the previous answer). Still that's not always bad. For example in Baldur's Gate 2

Haer'Dalis get a specialization ** with short sword if you take him later, which normally is an illegal proficience for bards

, but the cost is that you get their HP random (if you get them in the early levels you can reduce difficult to normal or easy to always get the most possible HP from the level up.

By end, leveling up (grinding) with one or two NPCs instead of six is A LOT FASTER, so if you get to level 4 or 5 before recruiting, all the NPCs you get will be somehow about this level without having depleted the games quest and xp sources.

ou_deis said:

Now my plan is to have 4 of my final 5 npc's with me, plus 1 npc I'm trying out, then have Viconia be my final lasting member. (I'm playing between neutral and evil, but I want to sample the good-aligned characters on my first play-through.)

Understand then that you can't reach 19 or 20 reputation (or the evil NPCs start to leave the party), neither 1 or 2 reputation (or the neutral and good NPCs start to leave the party).

ou_deis said:

However, I'm extremely interested in storyline and interpersonal interactions, and it seems like many of these only happen if you have an npc in your party for a considerable amount of time, so should I revise my strategy? Maybe just focus on a couple temporary npcs I find particularly interesting, or who give me interesting personal quests right away?

For Baldur's Gate? Not much of banters and storyline to enjoy there, the new NPCs will bring new quests but that's all for baldur's gate.

ou_deis said:

And I'm trying to decide whether to make Haer'Dalis or Viconia the final member I add. (But what about Imoen?) However, I guess I'll miss out on whatever interactions they might otherwise have had with the good-aligned characters and Jaheira. Thoughts, opinions? Of course, there are always other playthroughs....

Just a help with this NPC interaction list (with what i know, it's not complete):

[spoiler]

Haer'Dalis - Will romance (briefly) Aerie if she's in the party.
Aerie - Will become Minsc new Witch in Baldur's Gate 2. Will romance Haer'Dalis if not romancing the main char (otherwise prepare for a love triangle for some banters). Incompatible with chaotic neutral Anomen (will kill her). Incompatible with Korgan (never confirmated this one, only heard about).
Minsc - Incompatible with Edwin (will attack him eventually).
Edwin - Incompatible with Minsc (will be attacked by him eventually). Incompatible with Keldorn (will attack him and die of course eventually).
Keldorn - Incompatible with Edwin (see above). Incompatible with Viconia (will give a dead line to her leave the party, after that attacks her). Will teach Minsc to control his Rage (with minsc in the party) for 3 times, every time minsc use rage, after the end of the skill Keldorn will lecture minsc how to control and focus his power and for each time minsc's rage will become more controlable, at the end of the 3° time you don't lose control with minsc rage anymore.

[spoiler]

CrevsDaak

@kamuzin I've heard a rumor in this forums that if you talk to Yeslick but don't add him to your party he goes to a tavern in BG, where you can take him later, I couldn't confirm this but I've heard it many times.

Erinne

kamuizin said:

Jaheira - If she's not in your party, do not talk to her with 6 or less in reputation, otherwise she will summon some harpers and will attack you.

Also, if you remove her from the party after you've killed Galvarey, she leaves permanently and you won't be able to recruit her again.

Time4Tiddy

CrevsDaak said:

@kamuzin I've heard a rumor in this forums that if you talk to Yeslick but don't add him to your party he goes to a tavern in BG, where you can take him later, I couldn't confirm this but I've heard it many times.

Patch notes from 1.0.2012:

* Yeslick may rejoin the party in Jopalin's Tavern

http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/14519/game-update-1-0-2012/p1

This is if you talk to him in the Mines, but tell him you don't have room for him right now. Jopalin's Tavern is in the Docks District.

This is changed from vanilla, primarily because you were put in a bad position - if you didn't have room in your party, you lost him forever. If you swapped out someone else to take him, you lost them forever. No other NPC required that kind of sacrifice.