Advice on Evil Party

powurz

So I finished BG:EE with my Elf Fighter/Mage with a wonky party where I was trying to do Dorn and Rasaad for the first time (Sorry, peasants I had to kill before Dorn left!). I then booted up BG2:EE last night and saw Hexxat for the first time (I told myself I wasn't gonna do BG2:EE until I finished the first one, so it's been installed and unplayed since the day it came out).

Anyway, since it appears that with an evil party I don't have to be a thief or party with Imoen or Jan, I went and lowered my charname's alignment so I can do an evil playthrough with Hexxat. Here come the questions:

1) I would like to have Edwin, Hexxat, Dorn, and Viconia. I feel like those positions are more or less immutable in my evil party (Hexxat because she's new and I wanna see her quest stuff, Dorn for the same reason but also because he's a bamf). This leaves a spot for either Korgan or Jaheira. As an Elf, I'm leaning toward Jaheira for romance purposes unless Hexxat has a romance in store for my charname (Male Elf). However, as a bit of a powergamer I'm not certain where I want certain weapons to go. Which leads to question...

2) Spoilers incoming I guess? To clarify, I have this F/M set up around popping spells like Mirror Image, Stoneskin, Blur, Haste, etc, and going into melee dual wielding the best 1h weapons I can get his hands on, so it's largely a balance around being greedy and distributing items to the party so as to better the entire group.

My usual setups, with question marks for where I'm unsure.

Edwin: Pure Caster Loot (Robe of Vecna, Staff of the Magi, etc)
Dorn: 2h Sword, 2h Style, Longbow, and I guess Halberd after that
Viconia: Shield Style, Mace, Warhammer?, Flail?
Hexxat: Katana?, Dagger?, Shortbow
Jaheira?: Shield Style, Scimitar, Dagger?
Korgan?: Axe, Shield Style, Warhammer?
Charname: Longsword, Katana?, Flail?, Other?

Special consideration given to the placement of Celestial Fury, Crom Faeyr, Flail of Ages, Bone Dagger.

In regards to spoilers, I don't mind being told if I have access to a weapon that should factor into this decision. I just get really uncomfortable when I have two characters that want the same stuff and am prone to restarting. Also, I want to make sure everyone can hit stuff that can only be hit by +3 or greater enchantment asap.

jackjack

Korgan fits in your setup much better than Jaheira, who is likely to storm off in a huff at some point. Definitely give him hammer proficiency. Go ahead and use a shield, but don't waste points in shield style - all it does is lower your AC against missile weapons.
[Spoiler]Hexxat will only romance females.[/Spoiler]

Stasis_Sword

From a mechanics standpoint I'd recommend Korgan especially if you want evil resolutions to quests. I agree with jackjack: Axes and hammers though, I like to dual wield with him.

Here was a recent discussion about hexxat proficiencies you may find useful:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/30154/hexxat-proficiencies#latest

powurz

Thanks for the heads up on Hexxat, Jackjack.

I'm not worried about Jaheira storming off. The only time the group will have a miserable reputation is very early, with the -4 from both Viconia and Dorn. Assuming I do all the sidequests, I'd still have the 15 rep necessary to get a certain item for Jaheira by the time I needed it.

And thank you Stasis for that thread, which answers my questions about what Hexxat starts with (Clubs, really?).

While I'm still not entirely sold on which NPC to take yet, it looks like I can narrow down the weapon proficiency choices.

Assuming I take Korgan:
Korgan: Axes, Hammers, eventually Dual Wield (I like to keep a shield for tankiness until Axe of the Unyielding), using +3 Axes (of which there are several) and Crom Faeyr until I gain access to Axe of the Unyielding and Rune Hammer later on
Hexxat: Use Short Sword of Backstabbing +3 and invest into Short Bow for Tuigan's and eventually Gesen, then Katana for CF, eventually transitioning into Hindo's Doom and Dagger of the Star much later on (with Bone Dagger for Kangaxx)
Viconia: I read somewhere about Mace of Disruption striking as a +3 in EE, which I'm assuming is for more than just the undead. Viconia could probably snipe the Rune Hammer from Korgan as well, if he's not actively using it.
Charname: Longswords for Daystar and Angurvadal, Flails for Flail of Ages, and I guess eventually Scimitars just because? Either Charname of Hexxat could stand to have permanent Negative Plane Protection, so one of them is getting late-game points into that proficiency.

Ultimately, I'm favoring Flail of Ages on Charname because a low Thac0 means the slow gets off that much more.

If I pick Jaheira over Korgan, then Jaheira gets slightly slower weapon upgrades (until Spectral Brand, which was made for her in my opinion) and Viconia gets the full suite of available Warhammers. As a late game proficiency, Charname could take Axes and pass the Flail to Viconia if it would make more sense in favor of using Axe of the Unyielding.

My concern with the Korgan vs Jaheira issue is mostly about experience gain through all of her quests and romance. Both are awesomely tanky, and both of them become monsters late-game with HLAs and certain items.

Another concern of mine is whether I need to get Rasaad and Neera for just long enough to do their quests for access to any new items. I'm assuming that their new items largely revolve around the NPCs themselves.

Edit: This is why I struggle to finish these games >.> I have beaten the game enough that I have a hard time playing instead of planning for items.

Twani

The new items in the quests are largely most useful for the NPC's theirselves (in BGII- in BGI, Dorn's quest in paticular has items that are good for all), but there are a few items that might be useful. Still, Rasaad's for example has items only useful for the lawful good- not much use to your CHARNAME.

I'd stick with Edwin, Hexxat, Dorn, Viconia, Korgan and do the Viconia romance if you're male (Hexxat if you decide to play female). Jaheira just in general wouldn't fit with that party, even if you kept your rep high, she'd always be complaining with one NPC or another. Korgan will get along with them much better. Still, it is up to you, and if you can keep your rep high enough, Jaheira has no issues with Hexxat or Dorn that will cause her to leave.

abacus

Dorn will keep you warm at night...

Edit: Definitely take Korgan, he's a beast and he's funny. J-dog is whiny and Dorn would probably mince her within ten minutes of them meeting!
As far as proficiencies go, Hexxat will eventually get pips in *all* thief weapons, plus Use Any Item. So she can swing any random stuff you aren't otherwise tooled up for.

*Retreats to bunker expecting barrage of pro-Jaheira abuse.*

powurz

I wound up going with Jaheira, because I can't romance Viconia (dat elf doe) and didn't realize Dorn was up for a romance himself. Right now I'm just struggling with bugged NPC quest stuff, but other than that things are going well.

Ultimately Viconia might be a weapon scavenger, but I'd rather have a romance than not, and there are some XP gains associated with Jaheira in party.

Corvino

Jaheira can be a pain for weapon proficincies. She starts with ++ in clubs though. If you get her Blackblood +3 (+acid damage) from a vendor after the Trademeet quests it'll last her a long time. I'd suggest putting points into dual-wield for Blackblood/Belm and then into scimitars.

powurz

It'll all work out pretty well in the end. I have Jaheira with a point in Daggers so that she can use the more readily available magic daggers until I can get one of the nicer clubs or scimitars out there. Hexxat finally has her point in Shortbows so that her Thac0 isn't terrible, and while she ultimately won't have a katana in SoA she will be fine with the available smaller weapons. The flail will likely see use by Viconia until I get "Dat Hammer" built.

I agree that Jaheira has frustrating proficiencies (I also give her daggers in BG1 for Dagger of Venom) but since I usually do Watcher's Keep, at least in part, during Shadows of Amn (especially with an evil party, where I disregard the main quest for as long as I can), I often plan on getting most of the better endgame weapons as early as I am able.

As far as pro-Jaheira vs anti-Jaheira, I don't mind her romance and her alleged whining because she sees her husband's mutilated corpse ten minutes into the game. If anything, I'm surprised she gets over him as soon as she does. She has a solid DEX stat and her STR score is easily improved with items. One of the biggest reasons I usually take her along is also because Druids have some really significant spell advantages that straight Clerics don't have access to, namely Ironskins, the Insect spell line (I prefer Insect Plague to Creeping Doom most of the time because it lasts longer and I use it primarily to disable), and the HLA summons. Furthermore, it alleviates Anomen or Viconia from having to be the sole bearer of heal/buff spells (I don't know about most folks, but I'm a "rest until healed" kinda guy, and I like having more heals memorized so I don't accidentally sleep for 16 hours).

As far as Korgan goes, I've enjoyed him when I've played with him, but when we're all swinging 10x/round in late Throne of Bhaal, the offensive advantages start to wane compared to multi- and dual-class fighters. I also wish he were more multi-faceted as a character. Dorn, as single-mindedly evil as he can be, has an intriguing backstory (so far) with his patron, and I'm assuming that will unfold more as I continue through SoA and further into ToB.

Admittedly I would normally have both of them in an evil group, and my Charname would typically be some sort of Thief multi- or dual-class, because Hexxat hasn't existed until this point. She really has been a breath of fresh air, and an interesting one at that. If there's anything I'd want more of in BG2EE, it'd be more fun NPCs and interactions among some of the previously existing ones, and perhaps faster ways of obtaining some of them.