Good Party Composition ...

Lucre

By which I mean a party composition for "good" aligned characters, rather than a ... oh, well, I'm sure you now know what I mean.

I'm pretty much fixed on having:
Charname (Good Fighter/Mage multi)
Keldorn
Jaheira
Minsc
Yoshimo until Imoen returns

But I'm not sure about the final slot.

I'm thinking Anomen for a cleric, but I don't particularly like him. Do I already have enough cleric firepower?

Then I'm thinking Rasaad, partly for the novelty factor, and partly for the new EE story line. But I've heard bad things about monks getting weaker at higher levels - is that true (Edit: I mean really high levels, rather than the mid-range, where I understand them to excel)? Perhaps I could take him for SoA, then swap for Sarevok in ToB (and try convince big S to become a nice guy for a change).

Another option is Neera. I used her in BG1, but I'm not sure I like the RNG on Wild Mages, and, anyway, don't I have enough mages? Or can you never have enough mages??

Anyone have any suggestions, recommendations, advice?

Hekatoncheires

You'll get a lot of mileage out of Aerie, a lot of spells per day. it also gives you more arcane firepower.

tennisgolfboll

Aerie is fantastic

Mitchfork

I'd second Aerie if you don't mind her personality. It's worth it to have an actual Cleric for some of the better spells that Druids miss (Protection from Evil 10' Radius, Lesser Restoration, Resurrection, etc.). You'll have 3 arcane casters in the group, but your F/M Charname will probably just be focusing on combat buffs and dispels (like Breach) if you play him anything like I do, so it's still nice to have dedicated casters in Imoen and Aerie.

Coutelier

Despite the claims, Aerie's personality isn't bad at all. If you're a male and don't want to hear her getting all depressed about her past, just tell her so the first time she tries and she's actually pretty quiet, although she gets on well with every other good character.

Jaheira and Aerie can cover most healing needs, and you'll certainly have more than enough arcane firepower (especially when you get Imoen back).

Lucre

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not too worried about the personality. Can't be worse than Anomen, can it?

I must admit I hadn't even thought about Aerie. Presumably (given her strength and constitution) she'll have to stay at the back. Will she be strong enough to do anything from there? I confess I don't know anything much about the cleric/mage multiclass.

Heindrich

Your party is very similar to mine. I also got a F/M Charname, Minsc, Jaheira and Imoen/Yoshimo. Where we potentially differ is that I had Anomen and Aerie.

What I found was that despite having 3 arcane casters and 3 divine casters (Aerie contributes to both counts), I struggled with a lack of high level spells due to a lack of a more specialised Arcane caster cos Charname and Aerie are multi-class, and Imoen was ... away for a fairly long time.

Thus Neera is a pretty good option for a non-evil party to provide a specialist mage so you can access high level arcane spells sooner, which is very useful for the many mage battles you'll encounter.

Also... if you can tolerate his personality, Anomen is an incredibly powerful NPC. He is set up almost perfectly as a Dual-Class Fighter/Cleric, and quickly develops into quite the powerhouse who can summon, buff, heal and go toe to toe with Charname in melee.

Mitchfork

Lucre said:

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not too worried about the personality. Can't be worse than Anomen, can it?

I must admit I hadn't even thought about Aerie. Presumably (given her strength and constitution) she'll have to stay at the back. Will she be strong enough to do anything from there? I confess I don't know anything much about the cleric/mage multiclass.

Nope, definitely not worse than Anomen.

Yeah, Aerie will definitely not be doing much in the way of attacks, ranged or otherwise. But since she has effectively double the spells of any other caster in the game, she usually has something to do all the time. You can also load Cleric spells into Sequencers/Triggers/Contingencies which has neat possibilities and makes her really flexible.

Lucre

Heindrich, how do you find the lack of Keldorn? In BG1 I gave up on spells like Dispel, because it seemed to fail so often, but with Keldorn's strong Dispel, his True Sight, and his melee abilities I'd find it hard to drop him.

Sigh .. I think I need seven in my party.

Heindrich

Hehe I understand... I wish I had 8!

I didn't miss Keldorn too much. I maybe wrong, but I don't think he can Dispel some of the magical protections I had most problems with, those that require things like Khelben's Whip, Ruby Ray of Reversal and Pierce Magic etc... Anomen is more flexible because he can cast a much greater variety of spells, as well as fulfil Keldorn's role as a front-liner. Not having Keldorn does mean the party cannot use probably the most powerful weapon in the game

Carsomyr

, but then again, Anomen is perfectly suited for another very powerful weapon

Flail of Ages

. I wouldn't take both Anomen and Keldorn, cos they both share one obvious weakness, and (I think) there is only one 'cure'.

booinyoureyes

I think Aerie is important to take simply because you won't have much arcan magic before spellhold. I like having three casters (or one and two halves).
Another option if you are okay with Jaheira doing most of the healing and don't feel like you need a pure cleric would be Haer-Dalis. He's a good utility character and easily drop-able for Sarevok when you get there.

btw... your party is the one I like the most (all the core characters plus the ever-so-cool and ever-so-useful Keldorn)