Good Party Evil Party Members

Hermanson

Hey all, Spent a lot of time researching and planing to find a perfect group to suit me when I play through BG again ^_^

OK so for my first play through I wana have a good group which consists of

Good party
MC Mage (ill)
Imoen thief
Jaheira*/Yeslick ((Druid*/Cleric)/fighter)
Mincs ranger ( fighter)
Khalid fighter (ranger/fighter)
Ajantis? ( paladan)
Kivan?/Coran? ranger (ranger)
Dynaheir?/Quayle? (mage)
* = to be replaced by /
? = on the fence about

I really want Yeslick, Mincs and Khalid since I find then both entertaining and from what I have looked up can be useful in their own ways.

My dilemma here is i don't know if I want Ajantis and Mincs fight and Khalid range OR mincs and Khalid fight and Kivan or coran range. I think I am leaning more for Kivan but wanted to hear others opinions. Only reasons I would consider Ajantis is that I hear Khalid (though he is a fighter) he is good with a bow.

The Idea of a extra mage came to mind so I was thinking yeslick , mincs be fighter and Khalid be range with a extra Mage? If so Dynaheir or Quayle (him since i hear he was buffed alittle with EE...plus his dialog makes me laugh :P)

My Evil Group is abit more solid in terms of what I want

Evil Group
MC (cleric)
Edwin?/baeloth?( Mage)
Savanna (thief)
Shar-teel (fighter)
Kagain*/dorn (fighter)
Xan?/baeloth (Mage/sorc)
* = to be replaced by /
? = on the fence about

My main dilemma here is not sure what of the three spell casters will be kept. I was originally just gonna have Edwin (because come on, am i right?) and Xan (because I have never used him the way he is intended with spells like haste, mage armor, ect...) but then I saw baeloth and heard he was a beast, but never really used him. So I either wana have mad skilled mages or experiment with Xan.

As for the others they seem like good choices, Shar-Teel is a beast all on her own and Kagain seem like a good tank to have . Only reason I wana replace him with Dorn is he sounds awesome and fits more with a evil crowed then a money grabber like Kagain.

Interested to hear from people with the dos and donts of this setup

*Also I am ware that characters like Mincs, Dynaheir and Jaheira,Khalid need to be together but there are ways around that.

Hermanson

And now that I think of it I might replace Shar-teel with Dorn instead because Kagain would be boss with Dex gauntlets.

JLee

@Hermanson If you move this to the General Forum, you may get more attention.

Some thoughts on the good group...

You have probably read this throughout these forums, or perhaps you are already aware of it, but there is an unofficial, official canon party that BG2 assumes you traveled with. If you are planning on playing through to BG2EE and are unfamiliar with it, you may want to use Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir, and Imoen. It is by no means necessary to do so, but the beginning of BG2 assumes you are familiar with the backgrounds of these characters. Again, I wouldn't place a huge importance on that myself, but some people find it a smoother transition that way.

You will be just fine through BGee with one mage. I usually take Garrick or dual Imoen to a mage for extra arcane firepower, but it is not necessary to do so.

Kivan now has a pretty short quest timer. If you do not have a cleric until Yeslick, your rest times will be such that it will be difficult to complete his quest (bandit camp) before he leaves. It may be worth it to pick up Branwen or Jaheira until you find Yeslick. Kivan, Khalid, and Coran are the best good aligned archers (imo) and it is very nice to have at least two of them. They are all pretty versatile too. Coran is a beast with the Dead Shot and Kivan usually gets the composite bow +1 in my parties.

I do like the idea of a small group in the beginning, especially when your character is a mage. If you start with a group of 6 right away, you will level very slowly and every lone Xvart can take someone out.

Anyhoo, that's just my opinion. Good luck with your playthrough. Keep us posted on your travels!

JLee

@Hermanson

BTW, I just saw the date on your post. Sorry I didn't respond earlier!

Thoughts on the evil group with one disclaimer: I rarely play completely evil groups myself, so others will be better informed than I, but here goes...

Kagain is the best tank of the game. I usually load him up with the Elves Bane belt, Cloak of Displacement, and Boots of avoidance and he takes out all the archers by himself.

Dorn is deadly, but a little squishy. He is ideal as a second wave skirmisher after Kagain has drawn most of the enemy's attention.

Baeloth (and sorcerers in general) are very powerful. I also enjoy Baeloths dialogues. However I would not recommend that he be your sole arcane caster. By the time you get him, he already has sub-optimal spell choices.

You could take Shar Teel along and dual her to thief. You could then save a spot in the group to have both Dorn and Kagain.

I find Xan amusing, but he doesn't really fit in with the rest, imo. Edwin probably fits in better with the evil caster type and is very powerful.

I think a group of your Cleric, Dorn, Kagain, Shar Teel (thief), Baeloth, and Edwin should romp and pillage your way through the Sword Coast just fine

You didn't mention Xzar/Montaron but they would also fit in nicely with your game. Since you find them so early you might want to try them out and see what you think. Montaron is the epitome of the evil thief, imo.

Hermanson

@JLee

Thanks for responding

For the good group I decided to go with Khalid as tank (w/ dex gauntlets) and Minsc and Yeslick/Jaheira as damage (but still healing) which will be kinda hard to micromanage because im finding the computers gravities to the squishy members of my group but ill probably have them hang back a lot in harder fights. I also decided to go with Coran but ill have to be sure I don't lose him with this quest timer.

I have never had a Mage MC so it will be interesting to see how that turns out relying on the NPCs to do all the damage soaking...but I was thinking id use Imoen as a dual mage (never done it before) to have the more of the damage spells so my MC has more of a variety of spells.


For the evil I got Dorn and kept Kagain and man....Dorn is a beast and I feel bad to use him almost lol...Between Kagain , Dorn and Shar-Teel I feel almost indestructible :P. He is squishy like you said but the only time he got to very low health was when I did Gnoll Stronghold and had him solo a few groups but he pulled through.

For the evil mage I think I will keep Edwin but once I find Baeloth I will save in a separate file and try the two of them and see if i like it but if not Ill just keep Edwin.

On a side note Safana is turning into abit of a disappointment early in the game so I hope she picks up the slack ( i got her before I did Nashkel Mines) later in the game. Would it have been better to have Shar-Teel as my thief? I don't really see her being better then Safana but I would not know.

I think Ill save Xan for another run but I really wana try him out as a useful character and as for Xzar/Montaron... I don't really like their characters (except I always laugh at Xzar's references :P) so they might have took one for the team at a point or two so far lol...

Corvino

Shar-Teel is a very interesting thief option. If you dual-class her at level 3 she gets her fighter levels back really quickly, as well as the opportunity to have +++ in longswords for serious backstabs.

The biggest determinant of a great thief is how early you get control of them. If you get them early then you can tailor their skills to your needs rather than have the computer put all their points in pick pockets. From this point of view Shar-Teel is ideal, as with a dual class you get complete freedom to allocate skillpoints.

If you use her as a thief you can also open up a party slot by swapping out Safana while keeping Dorn and Kagain.

Hermanson

@Corvino Hmm alrighty then. I never looked at Shar-Teel as that before. The main reason Safana is kinda losing my favor is she ALWAYS complains (which was my bad for some reason i thought she was evil instead of neutral).

Ill defiinetly take Shar-Teel into consideration over Safana.