Party advice

Wolfheart

Thinking of playing through BG2 with a Mage/Cleric. However I'm a tad unsure of what npc's I should use to finish my party.

Cleric/Mage PC, Flail of Ages / Shield of Baldur
Monk Rasaad
Mage Neera Boomerang Dagger, romance target
Thief Imoen/Yoshimo (Imoen will be EEkeeped to a Mage/Thief multiclass to handle thief duties), Bow. Staff of the magi for late game?

My current playthrough has Dorn and while I like him he wouldn't fit with the current party. Hexxat would be an option if it wasn't for her constant "That's right. No one here but us shadows..." whenever she succeeds in hiding. Not to mention her annoying cloak...
I've also used Jaheira, Minsc and Valygar quite a bit.

It feels like I'm missing a melee fighter but I'm not sure what one's are left after crossing away Jaheira, Minsc and Valygar. I don't like that stuckup cleric that's the female romance option (Anomen?). Does Neera and Edwin bicker a lot? And is it at a level that's "safe", aka not ending with them killing eachother?

But magic wise I feel I'm pretty sorted with 1 pure class mage and 2 multiclassed one's.

Madhax

How about Keldorn? He's a stone-cold badass. Not sure how he reacts to Neera's lawbreaking, though.

I actually had my C/M protagonist use the Staff of the Magi for most of the game in my recent evil playthrough. Swapped to Crom Faeyr after the underdark.

Wolfheart

Keldorn,,, He's the paladin in the sewers? That could work,,, And then I have a slot open for quest people. And in the end I suppose I could take Mizzy or whatever that halfling warrior is called in that shadow temple...

ryuken87

Mazzy and/or Keldorn. Both warriors, both good aligned. Simples.

Madhax

Keldorn's not a temporary NPC, if that's what you were implying. His kit is fantastic, and his stats are decent. I have to struggle to find reasons NOT to recruit him in my runs, he trivializes certain encounters.

Wolfheart

No, I know that you can keep Keldorn forever and ever ^^* Its Mazzy I'm not sure deserves a full spot or if she is to be swapped out (or rather picked up last after all npc quests)

SpiffyMcBang

If you need a melee, you'd be better off with Keldorn. Mazzy is designed to make maximum use of the hyper-powered short bows in the game. She can be turned into a mini-tank or short sword dual-wielder, but neither of those roles fit her quite as well. Also, since I noticed you only have four people listed, Anomen is a tremendous tank if you can deal with his personality. As for Edwin, he'll leave the party instantly if you recruit Neera, so that's no good.

In my game at least, Imoen had 100 in find traps and open locks; I think you'd be much better off just leaving her like that and maxing out her mage levels. Get enough mages together, and even the highest resist bosses drop fast with one round of lower resistance spells from everybody. You don't need hide skill if you're going to use her to find traps anyway, and if you're confident there aren't any traps and you want to stealth scout, you can just hit someone with invisibility. Or give your cleric (or Anomen, if you use him) find traps spells, cast invis, and walk around looking for everything.

Ayiekie

Mazzy is awesome and you should use her because she is awesome. Keldorn's probably more actually powerful, if that's more important to you than being awesome, but Mazzy is perfectly capable of holding nearly any type of warrior position competently, especially if gotten early.

And yeah, Neera and Edwin are completely incompatible.

SpiffyMcBang

Ayiekie said:

Mazzy is awesome and you should use her because she is awesome. Keldorn's probably more actually powerful, if that's more important to you than being awesome, but Mazzy is perfectly capable of holding nearly any type of warrior position competently, especially if gotten early.

And yeah, Neera and Edwin are completely incompatible.

Mazzy seemed very awesome in the relatively short time I was able to use her. And yes, I would highly recommend getting her early if you're going to do so. But if you want her to be something beyond competent, archery is her game. If you want her to go melee in something other than short swords, she has to start from scratch with that weapon, and if you roll with short swords her damage is going to be egregiously subpar- low to a point that could be detrimental, not just low from a powergaming perspective.

That said, if you're content with two hardcore melee, you could easily use Rasaad, Keldorn or Anomen, and Mazzy as an archer. That would blend quite well with the C/M, Imoen, and Neera.

Wolfheart

Hmm,,, Think I'll follow the advice and take Rasaad, Keldorn and myself as melee with Neera, Imoen and Mazzy as ranged fighters Not sure who'll be the main tank but it will solve itself out once I get there ^^*

Itstucktwice

I've said it before, but Mazzy is a project. The only thing that holds her back early game is her short sword proficiency. However, fighters get more proficiency points than they know what to do with, and because of that, there reaches a point where Mazzy is just as strong as any other fighter in the game. It just takes her time to catch up.

The one benefit Keldorn has over Mazzy is that he happened to be given one of the strongest kits in the game. (Which is kind of disappointing because unlike a lot of people, I can't stand Keldorn.)

Rann

I can't recall how many times I've played this game over the years, but inevitably I gravitate to having 2-3 mage spellcasters (often Nalia/Aerie/Imoen, but not always) -- in particular, being able to rapid-fire Breach and Pierce magic is a real boon the farther into the game you go. Giving your C-M (Aerie or CHARNAME) the robe of Vecna results in awesomeness -- although mage spells won't be as powerful as pure M-U, the ability to quickly fire off both divine and mage magic can't be overstated (so much so that the artifact had to be "dumbed down."

Yoshimo is the right choice for thief -- he just can't be beat early on, particularly once you acquire Celestial Fury -- and then of course Imoen later.

I second the calls for Keldorn or Mazzy. I have them both in my party now (trying to hew as close to LG as I can) -- I'm about to enter Spellhold with Keldorn (w/ogre gloves), Mazzy (w/hill giant belt), Yoshimo, Aerie, and Nalia (w/Vecna -- trying something different this time). Combined with my own paladin, it's a pretty unbeatable group. Like Itsstucktwice says, Mazzy is a project but well worth it if you stick with her and also give her enough toys to play with. But I don't think she's a tank even then -- I think Keldorn is your best bet for tank still.

nano

@Rann Interesting, how was the robe dumbed down?

Rann

IIRC it used to fire spells in one round. Now, I think it just decreases speed by 4 or something like that.

Rann

(I mean speed factor 1 -- for some reason, can't edit the post.)

Rann

Yep, just checked: "Improves casting speed by 4," and I'm pretty sure that it used to be set to 1 before a patch a long time ago... Before that, Kensai/mages wearing it were small nuclear engines...

nano

Oh my...

Madhax

I don't remember Vecna ever being anything but a straight reduction of 4 to the speed factor, EE or vanilla. You sure you aren't thinking of a mod?

Wolfheart

Madhax said:

I don't remember Vecna ever being anything but a straight reduction of 4 to the speed factor, EE or vanilla. You sure you aren't thinking of a mod?

I can confirm that in vanilla BG2 SOA and TOB the robe of Vecna reduced casting time by 4. With robe of vecna the 5'th level spell Animate dead used to take a little time to cast. Add the amulet of power and you could toss them out instantly. Add IA and you could spew them out :P Robe of Vecna also only (roughly) halved the time to cast timestop, it didn't reduce it to 1.

SpiffyMcBang

I'm pretty sure the original BG devs would have noticed the problems pretty quickly with being able to cast Improved Alacrity and then have Horrid Wilting, Delayed Blast Fireball, and every summon in the book on a 1 cast time.