New characters are useless

Leonidas

What's the point in adding new party members if they are all useless? I mean the half-orc and the drow have good stats, but evil alignments, hence they are unusable in a good party (meaning for about 90 percent of all people playing the game). And the wild mage is completely useless in combat.
I was really looking forward to having the new characters in my party, but it's impossible due to their alignment.
I mean what's the point, evil players already have Edwin and Viconia!
So I'm stuck again with Minsc/ Kivan/ Branwen/ Imoen/ Dynaheir, which is regrettable, because I bought all the additional characters as well.

FinneousPJ

They aren't useless. You're probably using them wrong.

Leonidas

FinneousPJ said:

They aren't useless. You're probably using them wrong.

I can't use them because they're leaving my party. I have 20 rep. As I said, the stats are good, but their alignment sucks. The sun monk and the mage have good alignment but crappy stats and are useless in combat. All the evil characters have killer stats like 19 strength and 19 int while none of the chars with good alignment has stats like that.

elminster

Neera is useless in combat? She starts with more spells than any other mage. That includes Sleep (which neutralizes probably 80% of the games encounters).

Kamigoroshi

I...I never knew that about 90 percent of the players run with purely Good aligned parties...
Clearly you're describing a world vastly different from mine and its BG community.

baldurskjd

Typically evil npcs have better stats due to the challenge of running an evil party.

elminster

Leonidas said:

All the evil characters have killer stats like 19 strength and 19 int while none of the chars with good alignment has stats like that.

That would be the tradeoff and its consistent with the original games NPCs. Evil characters tend to be stronger with the tradeoff being that you can't have higher than 18 reputation or they will leave.

Viconia has 50% magic resistance (which none of the good aligned NPC's get) and 19 dexterity
Kagain has 20 constitution.
Edwin can memorize more spells than any other mage (and has 16 constitution).
Xzar (with the appropriate tome) can dual class into either a thief or a cleric.
Shar-Teel starts with 18/58 strength (in the original only Minsc's is better) and can dual class into a thief.

FinneousPJ

@Leonidas Ah yes, I meant Neera mostly. Wild mages are the best mage specialization. Rasaad isn't great until BG2, but you can make him useful with for example the STR-boosting belt from his quest. The evil characters go with an evil party, that much should be obvious.

TJ_Hooker

Just because evil characters don't fit into your party doesn't make them useless. That's like if someone decided to do an all mage playthrough and then announced that all non-mage NPCs are useless. Also, for the most part it doesn't take much to have an evil character in a good party, just a bit of reputation management to keep your reputation below 19.

I'm not sure what makes Neera so terrible, but yeah Rasaad's weakness has been brought up before. In general, monks are kinda lacklustre at low levels, which is exacerbated by his sub-optimal stats. But people have come up with a number of strategies to make him usable.

meagloth

It's not a new character problem. All evil characters leave if your rep is to high. The new ones are no different. You have to play evil to have them, or at least manage your rep.

dunbar

The fact that many of the new characters are evil-aligned simply addresses the dearth of such characters in the original version, brings balance to the game and added flexibility to the way you structure your party.

lunar

Neera is far from useless. She has all the useful low level spells, comes equipped with a magical quarterstaff and a very coveted gem bag. She also has very good dexterity which is better than con in bg1, for mages at least. You can use her like a regular mage with+1 spell per level %95 of the time. Only %5 of the time each time she casts a spell, something wonky will occur but if you are lucky it can even be extremely beneficial like restoring spells, curing hit points, petrfying/blasting enemies, a random item in your inventory, etc. If you keep casting nahals reckless dweomer with her you are risking doom as her caster lvl is so low, a favourable result is less likely. In bg2, at high lvls and with chaos shields active, reckless dweomer spell becomes much more stable and all that powerful.

Rasaad starts out a bit weak, I admit, but all monks do. Once he has leveled up to a comfortable zone in bg1, and especially in bg2, he performs amazingly well in combat, as all monks tend to do.

Archaos

Because YOU have not found a use for them in one playthrough, doesn't make them useless.

"Minsc is useless because I already have a Half-Orc Barbarian, derp."

atcDave

@Leonidas I also have no use for evil aligned characters, but many players do. And Neera is really an excellent addition to any party and the game. She is fun and effective. You just have to know that sometimes things will go spectacularly wrong with her around. I wouldn't recommend Neera (or any Wild Mage!) for a "no reload" challenge; but otherwise she's well in keeping with the spirit of the adventure.

But even without the new characters the EE extras add a lot to the game for me. It has been a very nice refresh of a favorite old game.

element

Mechanically they are very good

I actually agree though op the new chars imo should have been 2 neutral one good and one evil to maxamise how many players will actually use them. Dorn and Hexxat may as well not exist in my game(and i'm sure many others) and tbh even if I do get round to playing evil I still probably wouldn't use Hexxat. The two evil characters were a total waste of time for me if I could I would uninstall them from my game(no hyperbole). For me the only new character is Neera as she is both fun and not broken, Hexxat and Dorn are pointless and I haven't even managed to actualy get through Rasaads content so he may as well not exist either

dunbar said:

The fact that many of the new characters are evil-aligned simply addresses the dearth of such characters in the original version, brings balance to the game and added flexibility to the way you structure your party.

unless you want an actual thief for good/neutral parties or a neutral fighter then your still just as screwed

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Lewis244

My most current play-through of the game was with an evil party. I was a cleric/thief and used Dorn as my heavy hitter, and he did and amazing job of it. Not to mention an interesting side quest. I also used Neera on an older play-through with a Dwarven Defender, and she did just a good a job as any of my other mage options could have. Just because the new NPCs don't fit into your current game doesn't mean they're useless.
Also, like someone said in this thread, it's a lot more difficult to play with an evil party then it is a good one, in most scenarios, so the extra points certain evil NPCs get (like Kagain's 20 CON and Edwin's 16) make things a little easier for you.

JLee

Leonidas said:

What's the point in adding new party members if they are all useless? I mean the half-orc and the drow have good stats, but evil alignments, hence they are unusable in a good party (meaning for about 90 percent of all people playing the game). And the wild mage is completely useless in combat.
I was really looking forward to having the new characters in my party, but it's impossible due to their alignment.
I mean what's the point, evil players already have Edwin and Viconia!
So I'm stuck again with Minsc/ Kivan/ Branwen/ Imoen/ Dynaheir, which is regrettable, because I bought all the additional characters as well.

These characters were included with the PC version (at least). So, I can understand your frustration that you had to pay for them. With that in mind, I have sympathy for your position.

Rasaad is better written than he is an effective in-game npc in BGEE, imo. He does have an interesting story and becomes a powerhouse in the next game.

I find Dorn unusable. He is the opposite of Rasaad in that regard. He is very effective, but amounts to as many fingernails on chalkboard in the experience, again imo. No disrespect intended to those that enjoy him.

Neera, on the other hand, I find to be terribly effective with respective to both roleplaying and gaming. I mean if you bring a wild mage along, you better be ready for the unexpected

My advice is to play a no-reload/no-res game. That will force you to use many NPCs and will help you to realize that no NPCs are useless. They are all useful in their own ways...

kcwise

You're right, they are useless... USELESS TO RESIST!

They're all fun, and if you use a mod to eliminate the reputation difficulties you can take whomever you like. Slap on the helm of opposite alignment and Dorn is suddenly the nicest Blackguard on the Sword Coast. Have a neutral character do the deed so your paladin doesn't have to dirty his hands with mind control.

But, if you don't like them, that's fine. Happily, all kinds of players are accepted here on the forums! Even Cernd lovers are allowed.

deltago

Wild mage and monk were two of he new classes that were added to BG2.

Having those two classes represent the new characters (as well as black guard and sorc, added to the EE and BG2 respectively) makes the most sense as they were not represented in the previous crop of characters.

As stated by others, monks and to a lesser extent wild mages, tend to be weaker at lower levels, but as they progress so do their usefulness and power.

Stats can be fixed with spells and items and changing one or two characters in a play through can change the tactics you need in battles.

Try leaving your comfort zone of your go to party and leave Minsc and Dyna at the gnoll strong hold and take Neera's and Rasaad for a spin. Then take Ajantis instead of Kivan to tank and let Rasaad handle your archery.

JuliusBorisov

Leonidas said:

What's the point in adding new party members if they are all useless?

Hmmm...

Leonidas said:

What's the point in adding new party members

New personalities, new dialogues, new quests, new items maybe? New party compositions? New tactics?

Leonidas said:

if they are all useless?

Yeah, useless. A blackguard with Aura of Despair and Poison Weapon, coupled by 19 base STR right off can't contribute at all.

A wild mage who can cast 10 Cloudkills in the final BGEE fight is not important.

A sorcerer who can cast tons and tons of spells and has 55 MR and a nice robe is a weakling.

A monk... well, in this case, you should follow this guide: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/21205/i-punch-dopplegangers-aka-bgee-monk-guide and even he will shine!

Selaboc

bengoshi said:

Leonidas said:

if they are all useless?

Yeah, useless. A blackguard with Aura of Despair and Poison Weapon, coupled by 19 base STR right off can't contribute at all.

If you read the other posts in the thread, you'd know that he can't contribute once he's left the party in a huff because rep is too high. If you are playing a pure good-aligned party, the OP is correct, evil NPCs are useless. On the flip side, good NPCs are useless if one is playing a pure evil-alligned party. different strokes for different folks.

DJKajuru

Were evil npc's really made more powerful because of their obvious disavantages, or was it something said in a remote age that became official for the fact of being repeated from thread to thread?

BG1 and BG2 have some pretty powerful good and neutral characters. Guys like Kivan, Jan, Xan, Keldorn and BG2 versions of Jaheira and Minsc have lots of tremendously good abilities as well.

Sure, some evil npc's have superior abilities, but then I'd like to mention the AD&D book "the complete book of Villains" , where it says that a 'recipe" for creating a true villain is giving it one extremelly high attribute or a very special power , so that players would spot him and think "careful, it's the evil Lord Jerk , he's is feared throughout the realms because of his super human strength/dexterity/magical skills"!

artificial_sunlight

@Leonidas‌ try playing a neutral character. You can play with every NPC, kill someone you don't like (I killed Peter of the North, I saved him, he barely thanked me.)

Great fun !