A Question About Divine Magic

Apocrypha

So I decided to pick up and dust off the Baldur's Gate series after a four-or-five-year hiatus (imagine my surprise when I learned about EE). Got through the first game no problem, planning my playthrough for the second, and I had a quick question.

Basically, here's my team for SoA:

Reya (my CHARNAME): Wild Mage, main offensive spellcaster
Yoshimo/Imoen: Bounty Hunter/Thief->Mage; both will handle traps, Imoen will become a secondary spellcaster
Minsc: Ranger, tank
Jaheira: Fighter/Druid, off-tank and offensive divine caster
Aerie: Cleric/Mage, defensive divine caster and summoner
Haer'Dalis: Blade, melee DPS, could tank if needed with Defensive Stance

That sixth slot is going to be rotated a lot so I can get all NPC quests done, but that's the final party. Going into TOB, I wanted to pick up Sarevok. Logically, I should drop Minsc for him since they fulfil the same roles, but RP-wise I have a hard time imagining him abandoning his new "witch", while I can think of a couple of reasons for Jaheira to leave. So she's the one I was planning to swap out.

My question is, will Aerie be able to handle all the healing herself? I'd imagine she would, being able to use Triggers and Contingencies and such to stack healing, buffs, and summons, but as I said, it's been a while since I played so my memory is a little shoddy, and I thought I'd get more opinions.

DregothofTyr

Aerie can definitely handle all the healing herself. Depending on how much damage you take, you may have to rest more often, but it shouldn't really be too much of a problem. One thing you could do is make Haer'Dalis your tank; with stoneskin and other defensive spells, it's possible to completely avoid taking damage, which frees up Aerie to use some of the really cool but underutilized non-healing cleric spells. Anyway, yeah you don't need more than one healer, but it can be nice to have. It just means resting more often or finding a way to mitigate damage.

meagloth

You'll be fine. Druids don't really have many good spells so both arie and jahiera will be healing. Also, you said the sixth slot will rotate. I take it you mean hear'dalis? You have a full party.

Blackraven

By the time you want to swap Jaheira for Sarevok, your party will be very high level, with each party member except Imoen sitting on circa 3 million XP, depending a bit on how thorough you are. At that point Aerie will have lots of divine spells, and thus definitely enough healing spells for your party. Besides, healing potions abound, so by all means don't stockpile them but use them when your health is getting low.

The only drawback IMO of having Aerie cast healing spells, is that everytime she casts a divine spell, she can't cast arcane spells during one round. (Characters can only cast one spell per round until Improved Alacrity.) Generally arcane spells are more useful to end/win battles, so you might not be using Aerie optimally at all times. It's technically better to have Jaheira pause her fighting for a moment to cast a heal or other defensive spell, and continue fighting after that, all of this within the same round. (Attacking and casting a spell can be combined in one round.)

jackjack

Based on my experience, you don't need more than one divine caster, and in spite, or perhaps because of her multiclass, Aerie is all you will ever need. In my opinion she is the best Cleric in the game - and I say that as someone who cannot stand her.
Drop Jaheira like a bad habit once you get to ToB - she and Sarevok both serve strikingly similar roles by that point anyway.

Apocrypha

@meagloth: Yes, I meant Haer'Dalis. He's going to be in and out of the party as I swap him for NPCs to do their quests.

@Blackraven: I'm aware that using Aerie as mostly a divine caster means not using her to her best ability, but since I already have one pure mage and one part-mage, I thought I'd be settled in the arcane spellcasting department. I suppose HD technically counts as an arcane spellcaster, but as a Blade I'm not going to be pulling him out of melee too often for spells.

Thanks for the advice, everyone!

FinneousPJ

I feel like Jaheira to Sarevok is a downgrade at ToB levels, unless you're dualing him to mage or something.

lunar

Healing or divine magic is not that important at high levels, you should have two rod of ressurections and be able to summon Planetars at that time. Planetars can cast heal, restoration and raise dead, plus they have dispelling vorpal swords, tons of resistances and immunities, and they hit like a truck.

Really you can drop Aerie instead of Jaheira, Aerie won't be contributing much to the offensive abilities of your party. She can't cast enough Horrid wiltings or Comets or Dragon Breaths. She is an excellent defensive/buff character though. A planetar can subsitute for Aerie effectively when her buffs and heals are needed, plus a planetar can actually fight and kick some major butt. Aerie needs tons of buffs and special equipment to be a viable melee combater, and even then she will be lackluster in combat. And with the lowest hit points she is a liability to fall to a single horrid wilting, symbol:death and power words. She is always the first to fall when other characters are at %50 or more hp from an area effect.

Jaheira on the other hand, will have good hp and THAC0&AC, fighter hlas, will be able to use cool weapons like scimitars and spears, plus she has some nifty spells which Aerie won't get:Insect Plague, Creeping Doom, summon elemental prince, etc. Aerie can conjure up a deva but a planetar is better than a deva and you can not have both so..you can have Jaheira's elemental prince with your wild mage's planetar though.

elminster

Tough call. Basically I'd throw roleplaying out the window if I were in this situation and I'd probably drop Minsc because I don't see him contributing much that Sarevok doesn't. As you say that brings up issues with Aerie being his witch, but the reverse is true for dropping Aerie but not Minsc.

Dropping Jaheira or Imoen doesn't make much sense from an RP standpoint either. You just went through all this effort to pick up Imoen only to dump her and (from a gaming standpoint) she basically only talks to NPC's (for the most part) in ToB so you are also missing out on most of her conversation. Alternatively you are dropping Jaheira (who like Minsc has been with you for thick and thin) in favour of the guy who killed your step father. That seems like a bit of a stretch. Minsc has some fun lines in ToB but I'd still drop him if I were faced with this situation.

From a powergaming standpoint Minsc is the best to get rid of. Jaheira just got access to level 7 spells. That means that while she can only cast 1 of them (for now) she can get elemental princes who are just awesome (among other things they have dispel on hit). She also has Iron Skins and Armor of Faith that make her particularly good in combat at this stage.

Aerie just got access to level 7 mage spells (spell sequencer for instance) and priest hlas (including Mass Raise Dead, which odd as it may seem is the best mass healing spell). She also will get some boost in terms of mage castings through her mage hla's (until she eventually gets the good stuff very late into the game).

Imoen will be behind everyone else from a total experience standpoint but she will eventually get Time Stop and other powerful spells. So dropping her wouldn't be good. Plus she is your only thief.

Once Sarevok has access to Greater Whirlwind he will do more damage than Minsc so I view Minsc as being the expendable one here.

Apocrypha

@lunar: Aerie isn't supposed to be contributing offensively outside of the occasional summon or Sunray. My wild mage and Imoen should be able to handle offensive spell casting, which leaves only defensive spells. I think Aerie would fit that role best, getting access to both arcane and divine buffs as well as being able to heal. Would I like to have some of the druid spells? Yeah, but we can't have everything.

@elminster: Yeah, my preference for RP is really restricting me here. Imoen is my best friend and sister, Jaheira and Minsc are old buddies, Aerie is a new friend, and HD is her boyfriend. Not a lot of room to wiggle with. I was gonna try to edit Jaheira out of my party after SOA was done and RP it as her wanting to make sure the Harper's little corruption problem hadn't extended past Athkatla and leaving to either check on other groups or report it to the "base" in Berdusk.

If worse came to worse I could try to get Minsc or Jaheira killed in the final fight with Irenicus, but that's coming too close to metagaming in my opinion. "Oh, your friend died, but hey, here's a new guy who can conveniently fulfill (or near-fulfill) the same role!"

abacus

I recently did a similar run with a sorcerer. I actually found that 3 outright casters (Charname, Imoen & Aerie) required too much micromanagement, and was too powerful to be interesting.
On that basis, I'd recommend saying bye to Aerie.

Apocrypha

Just thought of alternately swapping out HD after Saradush (when he and Aerie break up) and getting Jaheira back in the party. RP-justification: to avoid tension between the exes, of course.

Haer'Dalis:
+ Enhanced Bard Song
+ Use Any Item
+ Different Stances allow flexibility in his role

Jaheira:
+ Druid spells
+ Harper's Call
+ Second source of heals/buffs/summons
- Would come in later, thus being behind on XP

Thoughts?

MacHurto

You will only need the ocasional Heal now and then. There are so many potions and bufffs around you dont need two healers. In fact, you dont even need one, given rechargable rod of resurrection ( that can be used as Heal) and planetars.

karnor00

Given that the game can be solod by basically any class/kit, you will be fine with whatever party you decide to go with.

Maybe the events of SoA have convinced Minsc to go back to Rashemen?

jacobtan

Boo craves a wife. And not the ordinary hamster sort. It has to be a Giant Miniature Terrestrial Hamster. Hence Minsc is off to find it.