Party Members that are safe to swap out?
Gromitt_Gunn
Member Posts: 1
Hi there,
I first fired up BG back in the day, but only played through once and honestly don't remember too much of the story beyond hanging out with Imoen, and Boo going for the eyes. I just bought it on Steam, and I've decided to go through my first run-through as a dwarven Fighter/Cleric with a mostly neutral/good aligned group (specifically, the core group from the original story - me and Imoen, Khalid and Jaheira, Minsc, and the invoker whose name escapes me).
I'm a big quest completionist / explorer type of gamer and I would like to experience as many of the NPC side quests as possible as I go through BG1 without destroying my core party. So I guess I have two questions:
a. Of my core group, are there one or two characters that are safe to swap out - i.e. that will always be available for me to pick back up in some sort of easy accessed location?
b. Are there any evil-aligned NPCs whose party interactions could make someone in my core group abandon the party for good?
There's a really high likelihood that I will play through a couple of different times to see the story from different perspectives, so if I am better off just never interacting with some or all of the evil-aligned NPCs the first time through, it is not the end of the world.
I first fired up BG back in the day, but only played through once and honestly don't remember too much of the story beyond hanging out with Imoen, and Boo going for the eyes. I just bought it on Steam, and I've decided to go through my first run-through as a dwarven Fighter/Cleric with a mostly neutral/good aligned group (specifically, the core group from the original story - me and Imoen, Khalid and Jaheira, Minsc, and the invoker whose name escapes me).
I'm a big quest completionist / explorer type of gamer and I would like to experience as many of the NPC side quests as possible as I go through BG1 without destroying my core party. So I guess I have two questions:
a. Of my core group, are there one or two characters that are safe to swap out - i.e. that will always be available for me to pick back up in some sort of easy accessed location?
b. Are there any evil-aligned NPCs whose party interactions could make someone in my core group abandon the party for good?
There's a really high likelihood that I will play through a couple of different times to see the story from different perspectives, so if I am better off just never interacting with some or all of the evil-aligned NPCs the first time through, it is not the end of the world.
0
Comments
Good aligned characters will leave when your reputation drops below 5, and bad ones leave at around 18.
Xzar and Montaron will fight with Khalid and Jaheira.
Edwin will fight with Minsc and Dynaheir.
Dorn can be triggered to try and kill anyone in your group, but you have to egg that along. If you have NPCProject (doubtful) Shar-Teel may attempt to kill Coran in a certain instance, but you can stop her.
If you have SCS installed, there's an option to make all characters wait at inns when you dismiss them. Otherwise, NPC's waiting around for you can be an iffy progress... some do, some don't.
When I abandoned the walkthrough for the TotSC expansion content and endgame content, I had much more fun, and consequently I am/have been playing BG 2 totally blind, and having a great time at it. So great that I don't care about what content I may have missed out on.
So my point is that don't worry about being completionist. Baldur's Gate is worth a few full playthroughs anyway. Also aside from the BG EE new NPCs, most of the NPCs in BG 1 don't have much interaction or quests anyway. BG 2 is the one where all the characters really come alive, and I have enjoyed the company of most of them (non-evil ones) in my first playthrough by rotating out some party members and using the NPC directly related to an area or questline. It is not the most optimal way to play from powergaming perspective, as some xp is 'wasted', but it is the most fun method for me to experience as much as possible, without consulting a walkthrough.
When I try to dismiss Khalid or Jaheira, Jaheira will leave, Khalid will stay.
I then can recruit Khalid back, but Khalid alone.
???
From my experience of about 4 starts-to-BG, once the 'quests-lite'/initial requirements of characters is fulfilled, they WILL wait where you leave them, with few exceptions. None of the exceptions are in your core party.
I KNOW that Imoen will hang around and wait for extravagant lengths of time, probably forever. I KNOW that, once Dynaheir is 'no longer an issue', Minsc will wait for you wherever you leave him. I believe that, once she is a loner, Jaheira will remain available - but I think she will walk off and return to the FAI while you are gone.
If the partners are still in the group, dismissing one will cause the partner to separate as well, but I believe that each pair will remain available as described above, i.e. Dynaheir/Minsc wherever you leave them; Jaheira/Khalid will return to the FAI.
@Gromitt_Gunn
a. Of my core group (me and Imoen, Khalid and Jaheira, Minsc, and the invoker whose name escapes me - Dynaheir), are there one or two characters that are safe to swap out - i.e. that will always be available for me to pick back up in some sort of easy accessed location?
No, they will always wait for you where you have left them.
b. Are there any evil-aligned NPCs whose party interactions could make someone in my core group abandon the party for good?
There're indeed some NPC pairs that just cannot be in the same party. The time between them seeing each other in your party and having a conflict differs based on which particular NPCs we're talking about and/or the charisma of your party leader.
For i.e., if you're travelling with Edwin and take Neera, the conflict will happen immediately; in the same time, if you travel with Xzar, Montaron, Khalid and Jaheira, these two pairs will fight each other not immediately but after some time, usually at a completely wrong moment for your playthrough
See http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/22880/npc-conflict forconflicts among BG1 NPCs. For BG2, check http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/514266/#Comment_514266.
You can always check http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/12045/npc-interaction-and-banter-guide-ok-finished/p1 to find out what the most funny and/or dangerous party compositions are.