How many mages is too many?
Itstucktwice
Member Posts: 182
So I'm about to begin another full playthrough of the whole trilogy, and I find myself running into the same problem that has plagued me since I first played this game all those years ago.
I can't not take Nalia in my party.
Despite what seems to be fairly popular opinion 'round these parts, Nalia has always been my favorite NPC, and I find it impossible to pass on her. The problem is, I also can't pass on Imoen, and I want to finally give Neera a try.
That leaves me with at the very least a 3 mage party before I even consider who else to bring along, and it got me thinking:
What is the most amount of spell casters YOU personally can/will bring while still drawing pleasure from the game. Knowing that each additional mage lowers the difficulty exponentially, where do you draw the line/find the balance?
I can't not take Nalia in my party.
Despite what seems to be fairly popular opinion 'round these parts, Nalia has always been my favorite NPC, and I find it impossible to pass on her. The problem is, I also can't pass on Imoen, and I want to finally give Neera a try.
That leaves me with at the very least a 3 mage party before I even consider who else to bring along, and it got me thinking:
What is the most amount of spell casters YOU personally can/will bring while still drawing pleasure from the game. Knowing that each additional mage lowers the difficulty exponentially, where do you draw the line/find the balance?
3
Comments
Sorcerer PC, Xzar, Edwin, Neera, Xan, Qualye
Overkill.
That said, nearly all my parties will usually have one and a half mage.
By that I mean one who advances only in mage levels (single- or dual-class) and one that doesn't (multi-class or Bard) So for example, Imoen and Aerie, Edwin and Jan, or Nalia and Haer'Dalis.
Personal bias, but I will bend over backwards to have a "balanced" party, ie no more than one of each class with minimal overlap in roles. This is easier to do in the first game than the second, as SoA seems to have so many dual and multi NPCs.
a party of 6 i usually split it into 3 melee 3 ranged one ranged weapon person (usually my theif/or a decent dex fighter) and 2 mages
Main char fighter 13 -> mage, Imoen, Haerdalis, Neera, Jaheira, Jan Jansen.
It should be good challenge until main char get fighters levels back
I once played a game with:
Kensai/Mage
Anomnomen
Cernd
Aerie
Imoen
Jan Jansen
And while certainly fun, to get the most out of this group I needed to manage all of their spells, constantly.
Granted, I also waltzed through Watchers Keep around level 11-12 with these guys. All those summons.
Nalia (my thief), Neera, & myself (CL/MU)...
I'm planning on leaving Imoen in Spellhold
Great tank is Kagain (with dex gauntlets)
PC dwarven fighter/cleric
Jaheria
Minsc
Aerie
Haer'dalis
Yoshimo -> Imoen (I'll prolly take nalia along for a bit depending.
(insert your mom joke)
Do you ever play Evil? Try it this time around. Neera, being neutral, should work in an evil party (though I haven't played with her in BG2 yet so I may be wrong), and this gives you a solid reason to skip Nalia and Imoen.
I'd say that once you hit 4 you probably want at least one of them to be a sorcerer. I don't remember about BG2's scroll availability, but I know in BG1, even having only 2 arcane casters, I often screwed up and didn't learn the spells for my bard first.
I'm fairly certain there is only 1 copy of Spook and 2 copies of Glitterdust in all of BGEE.
PS. @itstucktwice you are certainly not alone in loving Nalia. If you are in doubt, search out pretty much every other post I make on these forums lol
I always feel the need for more tankers when I take three mages.
If I was to use your party I'd make my cleric not squishy and a decent melee fighter, as in take Anomen or make a cleric/fighter of some sort. I seem to have trouble personally with even 3 pure casters, which I'm using in my current game (plus I'm playing a Blade).
Sometimes I may take on a third, but it would have to be a multiclass (c/m,t/m,f/m,etc.)