Skie Silvershield & unlikely comrades

recklessheart

So I have just concluded by second run of BG:EE, transitioning swiftly into BG2:EE. Despite my playthroughs of BG in the past, which no doubt exceed being counted on both hands, I find there are still companions in BG1 that I have yet to play with. Acknowledging this, I took both Xan and Skie with me on my most recent run.

I don't know about you, but don't you find that even if on paper your characters don't seem the best, sometimes they just really outperform themselves? Although she arrived in my party significantly later than my other primary companions, Skie racked up a ton of kills with her shortbow by the end of the game. She's probably the least convenient of all the NPCs in the game to recruit, and I doubt I will ever use her again, but she gets a good review from me!

I can't help but feel she has a very sad story. A naive, fairly dumb girl, yes, but at times between her complaints that she hasn't had a hot meal in ages or that she has a headace, occasionally she will quietly state "I want to go home." And the way the voice actress does it genuinely makes you feel a little bad for taking her along! Her lines are probably annoying to most people, but so acclimatised to the command dialogues of most party members I am that I just found it a good change of pace to acquaint myself with a new voice. My one regret is that when her father is killed at the end of the game, she seemingly has nothing to say on the matter. Admittedly she is such an unlikely companion to the protagonist as they attempt to overcome Sarevok that the developers might not even have thought of it, but it still seems a pity.

Have any of you ever played with Skie? What do you think of her? While we're at it, it might be interesting to compile a list of companions that you have never brought with you into the final battle (regardless of which playthrough you are on).

Here is mine:

Neera;
Yeslick;
Garrick;
Eldoth;
Quayle;
Tiax;
Faldorn.

ZaknafeinBaenre

i'm trying to remedy this actually by doing a playthrough with totally different party members. Don't forget Xan though. I never use that guy

recklessheart

@ZaknafeinBaenre

I have to say, I do not love Xan. Mechanically, I don't hate him: he is a challenge, and despite common expostulation on the forums, I find he does just find in melee with the right bracers, spells, and allies to cover him. I was playing a Sorcerer, so there was nothing exemplary any of the other mages could have brought to the table anyway, except for Edwin, so I thought it was high time to take him along. Yeah, his personality just sucks.

ZaknafeinBaenre

I don't mind his doom and gloom, for me i just don't find him useful, and the fact he's given a +3 moonblade is a nod to his uselessness by the creators. It's on par as a weapon with drizzt's scimitars, but Xan's attack abilities are so crappy that it hits like a dagger.

Awong124

I had Skie in my party for my first playthrough in BGEE and I loved her. She was my main backstabber. I liked her more than Imoen to be honest. She only had 15 CON so she didn't take full advantage of the HP bonus, but Buckley's Buckler solved that problem. Buckley's Buckler seemed custom made for her. She also killed Karoug for me with her Critical Hit Quadruple Backstab doing 62 damage.

http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/13292/karoug-didn-t-know-who-he-was-messing-with

recklessheart

For the people in that thread who were interested to know (I can't reply in it, I assume because it is archived?) I collected Skie at level 6, and it seems as though her skill points are distributed evenly being the 'Potion of Perception' stats, if you'll accept the crude definition, with a preference for Open Locks and Pick Pockets.

Viconia_DeVir

While I bear no particular ill-will towards the elg'caress, I first found Skie Silvershield to be a snivelling and pitiful creature. What hardships did she suffer to prompt such complaints that the rest of us did not bear beside her? What trials had she undergone in her brief lifespan prior to her travels, save a position of comfort and a life of opulent safety? Her witless recitations of the many and minor indiginities that befell her quickly became grating. Though many will think me bitter for such judgement, I saw little to admire or acknowledge beyond a pampered rivvil princess unaccustomed to even the smallest of trials.

And yet - looking back on our journeys, I wonder at what I myself might have been too inexperienced to discern. For all her lack of preparation for such a life of hardship and travel, Skie still had the urge to peek beyond her cozy confines. To step over the threshold of the gilded parlours she was so accustomed to, and taste the freedoms that lay beyond. That she did so at the behest of a wandering mountebank was regrettable, yet still I find myself wondering if Skie would have had the wherewithal to find another means of escape, had Eldoth simply never chanced upon her. Perhaps so, and perhaps I will not think the less of her, denied the opportunity for so much as she was.

Once she'd taken the measure of such escape and found it ill-fitting, it was a different story, of course - but still she plodded dutifully along, sniffling and murmuring to herself. One can hardly deny she had resolved herself to made the best contributions she was able, and I can hardly condemn any who search for different experiences and who must therefore leave a once-comfortable home behind them, hm? Perhaps it was Shar's will and my privilege to witness such a deeply affecting loss, though one could hardly recognise it at the time for all the bemoaning of the latest trivial catastrophe to befall the wael.

ZaknafeinBaenre

To find a fondness for Skie Silvershield of all people Viconia, you continue to surprise me. I think your time on the surface has made you weak for these pitiful humans and their pathetic upbringings. While Skie lounged in a tower of excess and comfort, you were being trained by yochlol in the ways of pain and terror. To move beyond one's past is not to forget it.

iAmGoatBoy

I've never used Garrick, Kivan or Tiax, a few others I've only brought along for one or two quests but those stand out as NPCs that I seem pathologically incapable of loving. Tiax I would actually like to play with some day but if I do an evil playthrough, I generally have Edwin and possibly another mage already comfortably entrenched in the party before I meet him.

Garrick is one I will probably never use... don't like the guy plus, my kick-ass Blade PC notwithstanding, I'm pretty averse to bards, especially in BG1 (Haer'Dalis makes it into my TOB team once but mostly stands at the back with Improved Bard Song on permanently).

element

skies fine but pointless for me she's late in the game so I cant get any early use out of her and by the time I can pick her up I could get Alora instead who is one of my favourite npcs and pushes Skie out of contention

mmm I think the only person who stands out as never having made the final battle with me is Coran I don't really know why I quite like him I just rarely use him for very long, I think again it just comes down to liking Alora more and Coran being another late npc sort of makes it hard to fit him in with her especially as I play them both with similar roles. Theres a good chance ive never taken the bards or skie too though I know i've used them all I just cant remember who has or hasn't been taken to the end

Nahkriinaak

Neera is my goddamn homegirl. I can't even count how many times that wild magic thing has pulled me out of a certain loss. I don't even know what's happening or what I'm doing or what spells are being cast, all I know is that I push buttons and she delivers death to everyone that isn't me. I mean sure sometimes I get set on fire or she casts hold on herself, but at the end of the day, I'm not dead.

What more can you want in a companion?

Edit: After reading about all these companions, I've realized that I didn't even know most of them were able to join you. Maybe I should stop killing everyone as soon as I meet them.

iAmGoatBoy

Nahkriinaak said:

Edit: After reading about all these companions, I've realized that I didn't even know most of them were able to join you. Maybe I should stop killing everyone as soon as I meet them.

Lol, I took a while to grasp the "character portraits = playable NPC or major storyline villain" concept too

elminster

I would only really take Skie if I planned on taking Eldoth and Garrick. Otherwise I'd just grab Alora.

Edit: Corrected

recklessheart

@elminster The question, in that case, is more if Silke would take you or not. She's turned on me one of two times

element

silke would have been a cool party member

recklessheart

Preferable to Garrick, certainly. The best thing that guy ever gave me was his portrait.

Awong124

I like Silke because it sounds like she's saying she's "Lesbian Extraordinaire".

jackjack

I like her because she's a level 10 Bard, and goes after what she wants. Oh, to have studied under her…

elminster

recklessheart said:

@elminster The question, in that case, is more if Silke would take you or not. She's turned on me one of two times

Hehe...wasn't thinking there. Actually a funny thing about Silke is if you don't kill her (but still talk to her initially), theres actually dialogue for meeting her in chapter 7 (just prior to Sarevok's coronation). I'm not sure if it actually works, but it does at least exist in the game files.

Edit: weird. Looks like if you help her she stays in Beregost, but she has additional lines in Chapter 7. Except all of them have to do with being at the coronation. So I guess the games original creators never implemented something to move her from Beregost in chapter 7. So thats kind of weird!

Awong124

jackjack said:

I like her because she's a level 10 Bard, and goes after what she wants. Oh, to have studied under her…

Studied "under" her eh?

Viconia_DeVir

ZaknafeinBaenre said:

To find a fondness for Skie Silvershield of all people Viconia, you continue to surprise me. I think your time on the surface has made you weak for these pitiful humans and their pathetic upbringings. While Skie lounged in a tower of excess and comfort, you were being trained by yochlol in the ways of pain and terror. To move beyond one's past is not to forget it.

Ha! Would you have me mewling just as the vacuous Silvershield did, for what befell me? When the glimpse of one's person is enough to be lashed to a stake, open boasts of one's past become a thing carefully considered, jaluk. A memory kept quiet is not necessarily a memory forgotten, hm? Discussion of the brat simply doesn't merit a lengthy comparison with so... intricate a past as mine. I would not name my feelings fondness so much as plain observation. Simple contempt becomes tiresome, though I'll not deny I was brimful of spiteful feeling in those days. Still, one of Shar's faithful must always be peering below the surface for lurking secrets to be turned to our advantage. This was perhaps the downfall of the Silvershield girl; had she even a fraction of my acumen, she would have been able to pierce the clumsy deceptions spun by the minstrel she so worshipped.

Ayiekie

On the other hand, Vicky darling, I can honestly say I've never had to save Skie from being murdered by random townsfolk. Twice. Acumen may be overrated, hmm?

ZaknafeinBaenre

As ever dear Viconia, I stand thoroughly rebuked. And Ayiekie, Viconia returned and murdered every soul in that town. And the cowled wizard enforcers that came after. Shar gorged herself on the sorrow and regret that followed.