Evil npcs are too overpowered?

knight1337

Korgan - best tank
Dorn - best DPS and is a mage killer like Keldorn
Viconia - best cleric
Edwin - best mage
Hexxat - best thief

You don't even need your mainchar for this party lol

shawne

Well... yes. That's kind of the point. Playing Evil means that on the whole you get less EXP, less gold (because everything is more expensive with low reputation) and fewer quest rewards - so the trade-off is that the evil NPCs are the most powerful in the game.

Heindrich

But everything will cost a lot more at merchants, and evil quest choices usually results in less xp. So there is a natural built-in balance.

I kinda like how it's implemented. Going evil grants you more power, but Good has more rewards.

Also, Viconia is not the best Cleric. I think Anomen is much better. He doesn't lose many spells in comparison, and he's an absolute combat powerhouse.

iAmGoatBoy

Pretty much... Dorn has rivals in BG2 but I found him to be completely unstoppable in BG1. With Viccy, Hexxat and Edwin all great within their class, I'd say that evil parties get the best pure-class characters but lose something in terms of versatility, as none of these characters are multi-class and the humans (and technically human vampire) have the wrong stats for dualling.

kaffekoppen

Dorn isn't the best melee DPS either. Sarevok, Mazzy and Korgan are able to do more damage due to having grandmastery (more APR is the most important part). Their strength scores are easily boosted. Of course, Sarevok and Korgan are evil too...

Hexxat is the best pure thief, but let's face it, pure thieves are kind of bad. I'd much rather have Imoen or Jan.

The only evil characters I think are obviously more powerful are Korgan and Edwin.

ChildofBhaal599

not to mention before dorn we had sarevok for best combat powerhouse

just wondering, has anybody put them in a fight yet? before the release many were interested to see who would win

artyom

yeah i think anomen >viconia due to duel class. and jan seems alot more useful to me than hexxat. keldorn's kit seems more useful than than dorns, as well as has more constitution which is the most impoprtant stat because everything else can be easily buffed.

korgan and edwin are the only overpowered ones. Altho iam not sure, keldorn might be more useful than korgan

shawne

ChildofBhaal599 said:

not to mention before dorn we had sarevok for best combat powerhouse

just wondering, has anybody put them in a fight yet? before the release many were interested to see who would win

Sarevok wasn't available until ToB, though.

Pitting the two of them against each other would be interesting, because while Sarevok has the APR advantage, Dorn's blackguard abilities could give him an edge - Aura of Despair plus Poison Weapon would do a lot to swing the battle in his favor.

kaffekoppen

Those are cool abilities for sure, but you only get one Aura of Despair per day and not that many Poison Weapon. Since I don't rest after each fight, this limits their usefulness a lot.

Sarevok has his special ability, he has better stats and he can have grandmastery. With Improved Haste, he's a whole attack ahead of Dorn, and it's so easy to run Improved Haste all the time, as opposed to the blackguard abilities.

Actually, Dorn's protection from level drain turned out to be the biggest advantage when I used him, although it seems he can still be energy drained, which is weird. A group of devil shades just drained him in my game.

jackjack

They're fine the way they are.
They are the lone way the game rewards an evil path. Literally everything else is geared toward goody two-shoes parties.

nano

It's not enforced by the game, but if you try and stay in character being evil is pretty nice. You can chug a few potions and clean out every robbable merchant in the city. Who needs gold then?

element

it bugs me a bit when people say that all evil gets is a stronger party there are a bunch of other advantages too its not all one way traffic although the game is certainly geared towards good I grant you

also I don't think there is a huge amount in it when it comes to party composition especially now you can include Neera in the mix, id say the melee is fairly even personally. my only gripe in this regard is that the pure thief and cleric are both evil as well as both the same sex romances

vangoat

Also when playing evil I find I have to donate quite a bit of money to temples over the course of the game to keep my rep above "despised". I get annoyed with merchants ripping me off with their prices so then I go around a burgle everyone til I feel better

Skaffen

Jaheira is a better tank than Korgan but he absolutely rocks and out-damages Dork quite easily with more tankiness to boost.

Dork is the best archer though with poison weapon, crossbow of speed, bolts of biting and improved haste or or whirlwind.

Archaos

Skaffen said:

Jaheira is a better tank than Korgan but he absolutely rocks and out-damages Dork quite easily with more tankiness to boost.

Dork is the best archer though with poison weapon, crossbow of speed, bolts of biting and improved haste or or whirlwind.

Not sure if it's a mistake or you're calling Dorn, "Dork", on purpose. Dorn the Ork perhaps?

booinyoureyes

there is no karma

Skaffen

@Archos Pure Purpose, he's so stupid evil that I can't stand to ever take him again.

kaffekoppen

Being evil is kind of what being a blackguard is all about. I'm not sure that makes Dorn stupid.

No, if anything makes Dorn stupid it's his sword. Get it?

Taear

I think it's easier to make a party as an evil character, I wouldn't say they're necessarily more powerful. They definitely have better proficencies though, I'll take Korgan's axe proficency over Mazzy having short sword any day.

It's annoying that as a good character you're forced to use a thief who is also a mage as well!

Lesse

I think they could have made at least one a thief/ fighter or thief/ cleric, sure. But then it would be nice if you could dual class Hexxat to whatever you wanted.

Regarding Dorn, he just seems to be a little over the top to me with all the evil acts. Blackguard sure, but he's not going to get very far doing his thing if everyone wants him dead - a little discretion would have made him more interesting imo.

tennisgolfboll

Korgan is better dps than dorn

Archaos

tennisgolfboll said:

Korgan is better dps than dorn

There's no DPS in DnD. Only DPR. (Damage Per Round, not Second.)

FinneousPJ

That's nonsense. If a round is 6 seconds, DPR is relative to DPS and vice versa.

Archaos

FinneousPJ said:

That's nonsense. If a round is 6 seconds, DPR is relative to DPS and vice versa.

DPS means how much damage is done in a second. Someone might do no damage in a second in DnD but might do more damage in another second, depending on weapon speed and number of attacks per round.

FinneousPJ

The same applies to rounds as well...

ChildofBhaal599

honestly I would like to see the game at least give evil more advantages than good. tempt me to play evil so that I can feel good because I stick to the good path! that is one of the things that I liked about Fallout 3 with the megaton bomb because if you blow it up you get a much nicer house and a lot more money to start with. it would be nice if more games actually tried to make me be evil, despite me getting punished because I end up being a good guy. it makes for better moral choices.

ryuken87

I disagree.
- Viconia, being a single class cleric, is not a powerful character. She has 18 wisdom but that only amounts to a few low level spells which clerics generally have an excess of. Anomen for example, despite his lower wisdom, is a more powerful character with his other stats and fighter levels.
- Similarly, Hexxat is a single class thief which is not a powerful character.
- Korgan is a good tank in some ways due to his immunities and saving throws, but in terms of being a 'classical' tank and absorbing melee punishment, he's nothing special.

elminster

Playing good means you get Aerie (who has the most spellcasting options of any character), Keldorn (whose dispel magic and true sight abilities are just awesome), Valygar (awesome armor and fantastic for backstabbing), Mazzy (best archer and like Keldorn is useful for dispelling or disrupting mages), Lawful good Anomen, and Rasaad (starts off fairly weak but if you get a bunch of the items from his questline and improve his strength he actually gets to be really good).

kaffekoppen

ryuken87 said:

I disagree.
- Viconia, being a single class cleric, is not a powerful character. She has 18 wisdom but that only amounts to a few low level spells which clerics generally have an excess of. Anomen for example, despite his lower wisdom, is a more powerful character with his other stats and fighter levels.
- Similarly, Hexxat is a single class thief which is not a powerful character.
- Korgan is a good tank in some ways due to his immunities and saving throws, but in terms of being a 'classical' tank and absorbing melee punishment, he's nothing special.

I agree very much with the first two, but Korgan does have high constitution and insane shorty saves. He also starts out with high strength and doesn't necessarily require a belt to function. On top of that, he already has grandmastery in axes when you get him, and one of the best early weapons is a +3 axe (Frostreaver). His berserking makes him able to withstand some of the abilities he can't defend against with his crazy saves.

It's the combination of everything that makes him so good. The closest thing to Korgan on the good side is probably Mazzy, and honestly I think she's almost as good. It's the weapon proficiencies that make the difference for me. Short swords and bows vs axes and hammers.

Archaos

ryuken87 said:

I disagree.
- Viconia, being a single class cleric, is not a powerful character. She has 18 wisdom but that only amounts to a few low level spells which clerics generally have an excess of. Anomen for example, despite his lower wisdom, is a more powerful character with his other stats and fighter levels.
- Similarly, Hexxat is a single class thief which is not a powerful character.
- Korgan is a good tank in some ways due to his immunities and saving throws, but in terms of being a 'classical' tank and absorbing melee punishment, he's nothing special.

-Viconia has Magic Resistance 65%, I think? Cannot remember. And Command Undead which makes undead into allies. Also huge Dex which makes a better archer than Anomen and better tank with STR gloves which you find many.
-Hexxat is only Thief in the game except Jan that can advance Thief skills. She levels up faster and has much better STR for backstabs. Plus other minor stuff.
-Korgan only needs a DEX item to make him the best tank in the game. Then give him Crom Faeyr and see him deal as well as take tons of punishment. Plus great HP and shorty saving throws. I'm not sure if there's a better tank than him, without magical means (spells etc).

kaffekoppen

Like I said, I think Mazzy can work almost as well, but Korgan is just perfectly set up for tanking once he gets the gloves. Boosting Mazzy's con is more painful (I believe the con boosting belt has charges), but it can be done.

By the way, I don't know why I've read so many times that AC doesn't matter in ToB. I found that AC *does* matter. I have Korgan running around with -22 AC under bard song (-24 with the Big Metal Unit ) and a lot of enemies just can't hit him.