Small Party Playthrough Idea, Need RP Advice
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In a nutshell, I want to play through BGEE with just a F/M/C and Imoen and then take a small party through BG2. The RP Idea is that Gorion's death and the slew of assassins coming after them makes Charname paranoid and unwilling to rely on anyone except their childhood friend. Charname is good aligned, just suspicious of anyone who tries to get too close.
The abduction by Irenicus, however, lances the unrealistic notion that they are safe like that, and Charname realizes that going after Irenicus alone is not feasible. At the same time, they are unwilling to trust their safety to anyone who does not seem to be both completely trustworthy and reliable. Leaving aside the metagame knowledge that most NPCs will not turn on you aside from specific circumstances, who would fit that bill in BG2? This is particularly tricky with the Thief NPCs, because Charname knows how vital having a Thief around is, but Yoshimo and Hexxat don't appear trustworthy, Nalia doesn't appear reliable (a bit too naive and unskilled), and Jan appears to be neither. I may go with Yoshimo just for the ease of handing him off for Imoen, but I'm having trouble justifying it.
For other NPCs, I'm thinking Mazzy and maybe Rasaad. Keldorn and Jaheira are both nominally trustworthy, but have other loyalties that may conflict if they take an unkind interest in Charname's heritage. Valygar's deep suspicion against mages similarly makes him suspect in Charname's eyes. Nalia and Aerie both seem too naive and untested; they don't seem like they would betray Charname, but they might fail at a crucial juncture due to inexperience. Aside from that, the Neutral NPCs generally appear flaky, and the Evil NPCs have obvious issues. Is there anything I'm overlooking?
The abduction by Irenicus, however, lances the unrealistic notion that they are safe like that, and Charname realizes that going after Irenicus alone is not feasible. At the same time, they are unwilling to trust their safety to anyone who does not seem to be both completely trustworthy and reliable. Leaving aside the metagame knowledge that most NPCs will not turn on you aside from specific circumstances, who would fit that bill in BG2? This is particularly tricky with the Thief NPCs, because Charname knows how vital having a Thief around is, but Yoshimo and Hexxat don't appear trustworthy, Nalia doesn't appear reliable (a bit too naive and unskilled), and Jan appears to be neither. I may go with Yoshimo just for the ease of handing him off for Imoen, but I'm having trouble justifying it.
For other NPCs, I'm thinking Mazzy and maybe Rasaad. Keldorn and Jaheira are both nominally trustworthy, but have other loyalties that may conflict if they take an unkind interest in Charname's heritage. Valygar's deep suspicion against mages similarly makes him suspect in Charname's eyes. Nalia and Aerie both seem too naive and untested; they don't seem like they would betray Charname, but they might fail at a crucial juncture due to inexperience. Aside from that, the Neutral NPCs generally appear flaky, and the Evil NPCs have obvious issues. Is there anything I'm overlooking?
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Comments
As for a thief, I think Nalia would fit your theme better than Yoshimo. Yes she seems a little naive, but she demonstrates a good amount of courage and potential. I personally like Aerie too, but it sounds like your character would not give her the time to develop into a "reliable" companion.
Ironically, Rasaad's being on the outs with the Sun Soul Monks when you meet him in BG2 might make him appear more trustworthy, given that he's obviously willing to defy them for the sake of personal concerns. He's obviously capable, and his heavy reliance on the protagonist as a moral compass suggests that he'd be unlikely to turn on them.
Nalia and Aerie would both be great companions if my character were a little more willing to look past first impressions and give people a chance to prove themselves, but I see the reaction being "these people clearly have as little idea of how the world works as I did prior to leaving Candlekeep, and I've no interest in shepherding them through their realization." (Normally I'm a big fan of Aerie and try to include her in most of my good parties).
Meanwhile, I see your question is RP-related. If the CHARNAME is paranoid and unwilling to rely on anyone except their childhood friend, then he has only 4 choices, IMO:
Imoen - who can be closer to him than a sister?
Jaheira - Gorion told the CHARNAME to go to Jaheira at the very start and after that she's the closest friend to him after Khalid's death.
Minsc - with whom the CHARNAME travels from reaching the chapter 2 in BG1.
If you think you really need a thief, then Imoen is the best bet. Go for her as fast as you can (going solo it won't be difficult) and then show the whole Amn what two Bhaalspawns can do!
My F/M/C ended up missing Jaheira in BGEE. Somebody had a full war party on her and Gorion a few hours out of Candlekeep, so she made the assumption that their whole itinerary was compromised and set off in another direction to try and throw the assassins off the trail (with limited success). Minsc seemed a bit too unstable to trust with her life either, so she ended up doing all of BGEE with just Imoen. Between her trusty Stupefier and the liberal use of Wands of Fire (both by her and Imoen, since I dualed Imoen), she didn't have too much trouble. Karoug was a bit touch and go until I remembered that he's vulnerable to Wands of Paralyzation and had Imoen chug Invisibility potions for chain backstabs with the Flametongue.
If you're interested in taking Yoshimo I think it could make sense from an RP perspective. A suspicious character might agree to take him along when they first meet just to avoid leaving a potential enemy lurking behind. If Yoshimo then proves himself during the fight to the surface a grudging amount of trust might begin to build. And, given the character's fears, Yoshimo's storyline could make for some fun RP moments.
Chapter 1, part 1
Selene and Imoen stood in silence, Selene reading the note found on Gorion's body while Imoen read it over her shoulder. They had already scavenged the battle site for any usable goods and piled some stones over Gorion's body in lieu of burying him since they had no shovels or picks. There was a pregnant silence broken only by the sound of Selene crumpling up the note as she finished reading.
"So..." Imoen said after a long pause, "we going to the Friendly Arm Inn then?"
"No."
"But the note said..."
"I know what the note said! Gorion even told me as we were leaving that Jaheira and Khalid are trustworthy and I trust him, but we're not going."
"But why?"
"Look, Imoen, look to the west and tell me what you see."
"Uh, Candle-"
"Candlekeep! Yes! We got ambushed, by a bloody war party, within sight of Candlekeep! I got attacked by two assassins before we even left! Somebody has it out for me and they knew when I'd be vulnerable!"
Something in Imoen's expression penetrated Selene's head and she suddenly realized that she was screaming at Imoen with her hands clenched into fists at her side. Selene took a deep shuddering breath and wiped her eyes before unclenching her hands, which wouldn't stop shaking. "Whatever Gorion had planned, someone found out. For all we know the people who were after me read this note and put it back so that we'd find it, because Gorion didn't kill them all."
Imoen hugged Selene tightly, rubbing the back of her head as she cried softly into her tunic. "So where do we go?"
"Most of the supplies we were carrying are gone, so we can't get far. It'll have to be Beregost. Hopefully that will be safer." Selene broke the hug and shouldered her pack, "C'mon, we'd better get moving."
In BG2, you might want to consider either soloing or maybe taking Keldorn and going straight for Imoen. The problem is story-justifying doing all the side quests in BG2 that you might want to do after rescuing Imoen. You could try to spin it that losing your souls only begins to affect you very, very slowly, such that you have time to take side quests and try to gain more power and better gear before moving against Irenicus in Suldanesselar, or you could do what @Heindrich did with his lawful character in his video let's play run and say that your character wants to keep her promises made to questgivers after leaving the Underdark.
Also, you could use EEKeeper to change Imoen to a straight thief or a multi-class thief-mage to get her thief skills up a little higher if you wanted to.
For chapter 6, I'll probably lean on the idea that the effects of losing your soul take quite a long time to become pronounced (do we ever get any kind of sense of how long Irenicus has been running around soulless?). There's also the fact that the last time you faced Irenicus you needed a passel of crazy mages to even have a chance, so gathering additional power may seem like a safer bet than rushing off after him too quickly.
I don't think I'll mess with Imoen's stats at all; her thieving skills are good enough for traps and locks, and that's generally all I use thieves for unless my protagonist is a thief (and even then...). Besides, having a person level up exclusively in Mage is going to be handy, since it'll be ages before Selene can even use 7th level Mage spells.
Not quite a day later, Beregost...
The bounty hunter finally went down under a hail of sling stones and arrows in the midst of the wrecked inn. He had barely gotten through declaring his intentions when Selene had hit him with a blindness spell. What followed was a flurry of destruction as he proceeded to rampage around the inn, stumbling into tables and swinging wildly in the hopes of hitting either of his opponents, while Selene and Imoen desperately tried to keep their distance and bring him down with sling and bow. Thankfully, everyone else in the inn quickly realized that this wasn't an ordinary bar fight and got themselves out by the quickest means available.
Imoen and Selene both tried to catch their breath amidst the wreckage. There didn't appear to be an unbroken piece of furniture anywhere in the common room. "Okay," Selene panted out between breaths, "so maybe Beregost wasn't the safest place we could have gone." Imoen stared at her in disbelief for a long moment before a chuckle escaped her, which soon led to both of them giggling hysterically. Once they had both regained control of their senses, Selene tossed one of their sacks to Imoen, saying "Head into the larder and fill up our packs. I think we'd better disappear for a bit, to throw off any other bounty hunters and to wait for this to blow over. I'll leave some gold on the bar to cover the food and the damages." She looked around. "For some of the damages, at least."
As she checked the bounty hunter's body for anything useful, Selene had to admit she was a bit concerned. Or rather, she was worried about how unconcerned she was. "This is only the third person I've killed in my life," she thought, "does it really get easier this quickly, or is there something wrong with me?" Rummaging through the hunter's packs, she found some loose gold, which she placed on the bar, and a bounty notice which promised a few hundred gold pieces for her head. "So that's what my life's worth these days. We'll see about that."
Imoen reappeared with sacks full of food and read the bounty notice over Selene's head. "Welp, I guess that explains the assassins," she said.
"Not all of them, this would be chump change to anyone who could put together the party that attacked me and Gorion, which means..."
"...that that crazy glowy-eyed guy wanted to kill you himself."
Selene nodded. "Or he works for someone who wants to make sure I'm dead. Still doesn't give me any clue as to why, though. As far as anyone outside Candlekeep is concerned, I should be nobody."
Imoen frowned and scratched her cheek. "This whole thing is weird. So where do we go now?"
"Off the beaten path. We'll be too easy to track in small towns like Beregost. We can toughen up and scrape together some resources with which to fight back." They left the inn by the side exit and started walking north. "We'll double back the way we came before splitting off-"
"You!" A voice shouted at them, causing both of them to jump before trying to look suspiciously non-chalant, "HEY, YOU! Yes, you. I don't see anybody else around here. A little help, please?"
Selene pinched the bridge of her nose. "What in the bloody Abyss is it now..."
A week later, on the Sword Coast.
As twilight approached, Selene had made the decision to set up camp under the abandoned lighthouse. "It'll be good to have some walls around us for once," she had joked as they rolled out their bedrolls and got a fire going.
"I don't still don't see why we didn't let Neera come with us," Imoen said, gazing into the fire.
"Why, because you wanted someone else around with pink hair?" Selene replied as she tended the fire with a stick.
Imoen stuck out her tongue "No, because we coulda helped each other out."
"Imoen, we've got Helm-only-knows who after us with bounty hunters up and down the coast, and she had the bloody Thayvians on her trail. That's way too much heat for one group to handle."
"So we just leave her to fight the Thayvians on her own?"
"She'll have a better chance of avoiding them if she's not constantly drawing attention to herself by traveling with a woman with a price on her head. Besides, it's not like we didn't help her; we gave her those extra spell scrolls."
Imoen fell silent still staring at the fire. Selene looked over with concern, wondering why she was bringing this up now.
"What about that cute guy?"
"Who, Korax? I didn't think-"
Imoen threw a handful of grass at Selene's face. "No, I mean Garrick! Why didn't we bring him along?"
"Oh, you mean the naive boy who was unwittingly traveling with a murderous con-artist, and who stood aside and watched while said con-artist shot lightning bolts at us? Not exactly what I'd call a reliable companion."
"Fine, you want reliable?! What about that Elf we met near High Hedge? He obviously knew what he was doing." Imoen's voice was rising, and Selene found hers matching the pace.
"Yeah, and what he was doing was running out of excuses to live and looking forward to the alternative! Why are you so concerned with picking up strangers and dragging them into our problems? We're managing just fine on our own!"
"Selene, that Nereid killed me."
Selene felt like she'd been slapped, and all the fight went out of her. "I got you back," she said quietly, "I'll always get you back."
Imoen's voice softened, "I know you'll try, but people don't always come back. I remember a tugging, like someone wanted me to be someplace else. I don't know if I could have stuck around for you to make it to a temple."
"It all happened so fast. I was right there and I couldn't stop it in time. Having someone else with us wouldn't have-"
"That's not the point, Selene. I'm worried about you. I'm worried about you trying to fight this all off on your own. Just promise me that if something happens to me, or if we end up way over our heads in whatever's going on, you'll find help, no excuses. Even you need someone to watch your back."
Selene sighed. "Alright, if it comes down to it, I'll find help. But I meant what I said. I'm not going to let a little thing like death take my best friend away from me."
"Good, I'm definitely not in any hurry to die. Now, you wanna help me with Silke's spellbook some more? I think I've almost got this Magic Missile thing down."
"Sure, it's better than watching set your bedroll on fire trying to do Burning Hands again."
Reading this makes me say to myself that I need to continue my writing as well. You're good at writing dialogue you know, a very enjoyable read. I like that managed to make Selene outjape Imoen