another boring party recomendation thread and why

Gilgalahad

I know three's a ton of these, but none seem to satisfy me and I may have to end up making a few new characters of my own. I've done my 1st play through in the same order I always did in old vanilla. Go all the way to Candlekeep part deux, then do both ulgoth's beard quests and now doing durlag's tower before returning to bg and finishing it. I did it with me(paladin), imoen, minsc, branwen and 2 of the new chars, neera and rasaad. Now that I'm finding rasaad being less and less useful as the game gets harder and although I had fun with neera(until she did 3 straight wild surges fighting greater wyverns and forcing 3 reloads) on my next game I need to shake things up while not going with my boring old standard cannon party. This is like playthrough 15 since I 1st bought the game eons ago and now with EE, time for something new(ish).

I plan to do another go with this

me(paladin of course, I never get tired of paladins)
Imoen but this time wait to change her to mage after lvl 7 thief not 6(I ended up with 95 lp but only 75 for traps and some of the later traps were giving me fits unless I sucked down potions which got expensive after a while.
Jaheira(what can I say, I love the sassy, bossy hag)


After that I'm stuck. I always prefer branwen over yeslick as she's a pure cleric vs him being warrior/cleric, but tired of branwen and I never have nor will I ever play evil (I just don't have it in me to play evil)so scrap viconia as a cleric and all the other evil chars. Doesn't leave much. Minsc I know is my sentimental addition, but I always hear that Kivan is a kick ass archer and a ranger to boot and having 2 rangers...nah! Sorry boo.

So ok, add Kivan I tell myself and that's 4, i'll need a good temporary thief until imoen returns from her thieving hiatus and I heard that safana is probably the best bet, so adding her as a temp, still leaves me 2 holes to fill once imoen regains her theivery. A 2nd mage is always a good option but I dislike most of them or played them enough(dynaheir, quayle and xan) and a dedicated healer would complement jaheira.....but that leaves poor me as the only good melee fighter(though I know jaheira can hold her own). So AAARRRGGHH!!! maybe I should, as mentioned go against the grain and make 2 chars of my own, another mage and maybe a better version of Yeslick as fighter/cleric. This used to be so easy.....then I got old and now I just can't make up my bloody mind without risking my last 3 remaining grey cells. HEWP!

mumumomo

Yeslick is better than branwen IMO and make a very good tank if hou give him the gauntlets of dex.
Kivan is is very strong with a bow. Coran is even better and double as a thief.

SionIV

Yeslick is one of the best characters in BG1. Throw onto him Gauntlets of Dexterity and then use DuHM.

Great stats with the gauntlets + DuHM and then shorty saves on top of that. Give him a full plate or Ankheg plate (should have at least 2-3 full plates and 1 ankheg by the time you get him) a large shield +1 and the warhammer +2.

He could pretty much solo the game on his own with the gauntlets of dexterity.

Save a few of the strength and heroism potions you get through the game and give them to him for the harder boss battles, he can easily become a tiny dervish of destruction.

Blackraven

Instead of creating a Mage character yourself maybe you could add Garrick? As a Bard he could give your arcane backup in battle, use wands, ID stuff, and have him use the light crossbow of speed reasonably effectively.
As to your melee character/healer, like @mumumomo said Yeslick is a very good character. His stats are fine, he comes with a nice Dispel Magic special ability, he can buff himself if necessary to be stronger in battle.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't roll one or two extra characters yourself, but I don't really see the need to. BG1 (unlike BG2) has a wealth of NPCs to pick from.

Juris

Go evil. Dorn and Baeloth are a lot of fun and you can pick up the added EE content with Dorn (Baeloth is new but doesn't add much beyond a few jokes). Obviously Viconia and Edwin are strong too. And Monteron is a great thief and fighter. All you need is a fighter....

Gilgalahad

Ok that's more than enough info to make a decision. Thanks for the input e1. I'll start with me(paladin), imoen and jaheira, add branwen to enhance jaheira's weak early healing and replace with yeslick with the recomendations, add the archer i'll stick with kivan. I know lots of people hate Garrick, but I did always use him is my main id'er of items except this run since I botched him out of forgetfulness. He'll give give me some casting assist as you said blackraven with the proper gear and I forgot he can use wands. I see your point about coran mumumomo, but I need a dedicated thief until I get imoen back and from what I heard, safana makes a better thief and I can get her relatively early. I'll have to do a bit of juggling to get minsc temprorarily even though I don't technically need him till the rescue after which I can dump them both back in town.

Frosty

Dynaher can dual class to cleric if you have her use two wisdom tombs. you can get one from dulag tower and one from Baldur's gate on your first visit. That may bring a refreshing change to her. Safana can dual to mage if you give her the intelligence tomb found in Rage fists tower.

Gallowglass

@Gilgalahad - you don't necessarily need a pure thief if you manage the timing carefully.

If you rush through the main plot to the end of Chapter 4 (Cloakwood) without exploring the side areas and without doing side quests (except such as are necessary to secure your chosen NPCs), then you can finish Cloakwood with Imoen still at level 6 (i.e. not yet dualled, so she was able to deal with the traps in the Cloakwood Mine) and Coran already in your party and also at level 6 in Thief (and you put all the thieving points from his one level-up into Find Traps). Then before proceeding to BG city, you can go exploring around the wilderness and do lots of side-quests - there are very few open-air traps in the wilderness, so the lack of thieving ability isn't critical during this phase. Whilst doing this, Imoen will (quite soon) hit level 7 of Thief and dual-class to Mage, but (later, about when you finish the wilderness areas and are getting ready to go into underground dungeons or into BG city) Coran should also reach level 7 in Thief, so you can again put all his new thieving points into Find Traps, which leaves him with 74 in Find Traps. That's then enough Find Traps to deal with most of the traps you'll meet until you get Imoen's thieving abilities back, and you can give Coran a Potion of Perception for a temporary boost to his Find Traps ability if you find yourself in a place where that's necessary.

I agree that this isn't an ideal solution, but it's workable when you're short of a party slot for a pure Thief. It's what I'm doing in my current run.

Of course it's much easier for Evil parties (but which nevertheless include Imoen), because you can have Montaron from Chapter 1 and therefore can easily guide his development into useful Thief skills to cover for Imoen's downtime.