Least Effective Parties and Most Effective Parties.
ZaramMaldovar
Member Posts: 2,309
In your opinion what is The Least Effective or Most Effective Combination of NPCs for BG1 and BG2 (vanilla game, excluding EE characters and Mods). Please include PC as well, it adds to the uselessness or usefullness of the entire party
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But I respectfully Disagree.
While wearing most (if not all) non armor/weapon items can be a problem, The Wizard Slayer more than makes up for it with his well....Wizard Slaying Abilities.
I mean, Cumulative Spell Failure? That's awesome
You just have to know how to play your cards right.
And once you're able to physically hit mages, they're dead anyway.
BG1
Garrick
Eldoth
Jaheira (not a bad NPC, but there are better choices in divine spellcasters)
Skie (the main reason being she's not available till Baldur's Gate)
Safana (she's not ineffective, but neither is she all the useful)
BG 2
I changed my mind. Spellcasters are the biggest threat in BG2, so a party of NPCs with low INT is going to be quite challenging. Chaos is going to be a nightmare.
Minsc
Valygar
Mazzy
Jaheria
Yoshima
Not being able to use tons of useful magic protection and invulnerability potions mean that a regular fighter with said potions is better at wizard hunting than a wizard slayer. The miniscule magic resistance just is not enough.
Okay, a lot of Magic Resistance... and by ToB, you can easily get Anomen to match it with the Belt from Trademeet.
I agree Anomen/Aerie are far more effective characters than Viconia however.
I usually have Garrick along until Baldur's Gate. I find him to be a very effective early game character. He identifies, picks pockets, uses wands and the Crossbow of Speed. Late game his THACO just doesn't hold up, cost of identifying is less cost prohibitive, and there are more optimal choices. However, I feel his uselessness is often greatly overstated, imo.
I don't know about the most effective, but my current playthrough in BG2 has been smooth as silk:
Dwarf Swashbuckler: Scimitars + Scarlet Ninja-To
Korgan: Crom Faeyr + Kundane
Minsc: Mace of Disruption/Celestial Fury + Belm
Mazzy: Tuigan Bow/Gesen > Mr. ToB
Aerie: Purveyor of NPP, CC
Nalia: Purveyor of IH, Time Stop, ABDH
Later Korgan and charname have such good saving throws that with IH, I just point and click and the enemies are gone.
I know Aerie and Korgan can fight, but it never happened in my game. I wonder if giving Aeire Staff of Magi early, thereby rendering her invisible helped. Does anyone know if that was it or was it just luck?
Anyway, these discussions are fun to read and think about.
True... one has to lower the Intelligence score via EE Keeper, or let some Mindflayers eat the hell out of his brain to make that happen, but still a fun thought.
Fighter/Mage/Thief solo!
I never saw it that way, I suppose you're right.
The 89,000 BG cap and 2,950,000 SOA cap favors a party. If you have no cap or are playing with the ToB cap, a solo sorcerer makes much of the game trivial.
Currently I am playing Enhanced but Vanilla (which is what the thread is about) means the Original Version of the game (No Dorn, Neera, Rasaad, Hexatt or the areas that were added in Enhanced, No Mods, No Tweaks, Original Limit on Item Stacking, No Shadowdancer, No Dragon Disciple, No Dwarfen Defender, No Subclass allowed for BG1)
Does that help?
BG1
Vanilla Monk PC
Garrick
Eldoth
Quayle (breaks the "no cleric" thing a bit, but makes up for it with his personality, which will lower party morale)
Xan (Since he can't take a hit for beans, and with two bards his magic is less necessary)
Rasaad
Okay, so a party with no thief, no healing until Baldur's Gate and limited by a multiclass after, two monks (!) plus four arcane casters to squabble over bracers and rings of protection, and basically no tank either. Could probably still win fights by spamming Sleep/Blindness and later abusing wands, but still highly vulnerable to all manner of threats.
BG2
Vanilla Druid PC
Cernd
Viconia
Aerie
Hexxat (Don't know if she works with Aerie, since I've never tried)
Nalia
This party faces different challenges, obviously, so it has different problems. There's no tank here besides Cernd (Because I too like to live dangerously), so they'll have a hard time tanking Golems, Demons, and other enemies that hit hard and can't easily be disabled with magic. Of the two thieves, one has relatively meager skills and won't get past a number of traps/locks, while the other has unusually low HP (at least when I used her, she did. Don't know if that was just me) and has her stats nerfed if used in daylight. With the exception of Cernd's Greater Werewolf, there's also a lack of physical offense in this party, which sucks given the number of enemies in SOA who possess magic resistance. Also, there's only two mages, so Stoneskin will only do so much to alleviate heavy physical assault. And leading with your mages like that is generally pretty risky anyways. The Druids could compensate with Iron Skins, but that directly limits their ability to use Insect Plague instead.
To be clear, I don't think either of these parties are by any means unsalvageable; honestly, I don't think it's possible to make a six-person party in either game that can't win, just as any single class should be able to solo the game. That said, they're both kind of frail and don't take heavy damage well, and some fights will become much harder. That's about as ineffective as it can get, I figure.
Edit: Just noticed the OP asked to exclude EE characters. Just disregard the presence of Rasaad and Hexxat, and the overall point still works. Hell, the BG2 team is weaker without a full thief.
Well, it's harder to get by on that when you also lack a thief to disarm traps with.
Listing Vanilla Monk in BG2 is fine, because in Vanilla BG2 you CAN be a Monk
Wait, what? I didn't mention anything about thieves! I'm just saying not to load your holy symbol with low quality healing.
That being said, I think most inefficiency comes from the addition of class kits, and even then, a good majority of class kits aren't terrible if, again, you are patient enough to roll nicely.
I often get the sense that some of the NPCs were created around rolls made before all the game rules were implemented (Coran's DEX and Kagain's CON), creating a higher number of inefficient characters.
Quayle on the otherhand gets access to strong spells like Fireball, Holy Smite, Web, Greater Malison, Glitterdust, Animate Dead (through the cleric spell book) and Polymorph Self.
You are replacing them with a thief yes, but a thief you get very late into the game and one that you likely have very little choice with (in regards to what skills she starts out with). Her starting thieving skills are as follows
Level 4
Open Locks: 45
Find Traps: 30
Pick Pockets: 50
Move Silently: 45
Hide In Shadows: 40
Detect Illusion: 0
Set Traps: 5
Thieving Skills (level 6):
Open Locks: 55
Find Traps: 40
Pick Pockets: 60
Move Silently: 55
Hide In Shadows: 50
Detect Illusion: 0
Set Traps: 5
If you pick her up at level 4 (which would provide you with greater opportunity to specialise her skills) her thieving skills start out pretty lackluster (she will need to use potions to make up for it until you level her up further). If you pick her up at level 6 you have even less levels to work with.
She is also frankly considerably less useful in combat than your two suggestions. She is basically a ranged character in a party that already has two ranged characters (and she doesn't have as much access to wands and has none of the spells that the bards can use). You can use her to backstab but her level 4 version only has 22 health and her level 6 version only has 27 health (by comparison Imoen's level 4 version has 29 health and her level 6 version has 43 health). So if she fails to hit and is seen she can't take much of an up close beating.
As for Faldorn yes she is a healer, but compared to Quayle she is less useful overall. She will eventually get Insect Plague, which is an amazing spell, but that is going to be awhile from when you first pick her up (77,000xp or so).
That said, Level 5 spells are so late into BG1 (especially for a full party) that I don't get why people put much consideration into them when forming a party.
So then ignore anything I wrote about Glitterdust and Holy Smite (plus obviously insect plague). Plus her thieving skills would be a bit different (since she'd only have stealth and none of the thieving skills BG2 introduced).