idle questions
kaelin
Member Posts: 5
Just picked up bgEE again to play and decided to make a new character.
Pally (cavalieer) 2 handed focus, as my character
was thinking
imoen (thief 6/mage x) since... well, thief thief. and to cover any magic dynahar can't do
kivan, because, kivan
minsc/dynahar because, boo
bran because, stray cleric
as a thought, does that party seem good or is there any 'weakness's'? I'm not going for 'max power' but looking for generalized 'overallness'
But yeah, I just was curious. Starting a new game and find myself with quarterstaves coming out the wazoo.
So I decided to decorate all the bookshelves with one.
What do you guys do with yours.. or do you just be a litterer and toss them on the ground?
Pally (cavalieer) 2 handed focus, as my character
was thinking
imoen (thief 6/mage x) since... well, thief thief. and to cover any magic dynahar can't do
kivan, because, kivan
minsc/dynahar because, boo
bran because, stray cleric
as a thought, does that party seem good or is there any 'weakness's'? I'm not going for 'max power' but looking for generalized 'overallness'
But yeah, I just was curious. Starting a new game and find myself with quarterstaves coming out the wazoo.
So I decided to decorate all the bookshelves with one.
What do you guys do with yours.. or do you just be a litterer and toss them on the ground?
3
Comments
Your "generalized 'overallness'" would mean to keep Imoen as a fulltime thief.
If you want a pure thief, develop a plan on acquiring Safana asap. A plan is needed, or else you won't be able to finish her personal quest.
There are enough areas to explore and enough small quests to complete for the party to collect 10,000 XP, but thief 6 means you will need 60,000 XP for Imoen to become mage 7. A long time without access to her thieving skills.
Branwen is great. You can rescue her very early without any real dangers on the way.
Dynaheir is enough as the sole mage of your party.
Fortunately he's already sneaky enough to not need any more points in here if you give him the boots+armour of sneaky sneakiness.
He's also a tad more talkative. Whether it's for the best or not...
I have to disagree with you here. While Coran is an excellent archer (he currently has 1 thac0 for me right now), he leaves much to be desired in the disarm traps/lock pick department. Especially disarming traps. Potions of perception help here, but you will still come across some traps he won't see/will be unable to disarm, particularly in Durlags Tower.
I do think that another mage could be useful if you have Dynaheir, as she can't cast spells like hold person, dire charm, confusion, greater malison, or mental domination. This irks me, but I wanted to have Minsc, and I wanted to keep the natural pairs together.
As far as the OP's original question, Safana might be a better option as far as thief skills, and since you already have one archer in Kivan, she should substitute fine.
Good luck!
now that i've thought about it... if I duel imoen at 6, drop bren and use my main pally as a 'backup' healer with those neat little spells of hers, plus a wealth of potions... pick up another 'nice' thief in the mean time... Yeah i might try that.
And yeah, I agree that the main weakness of the suggested party is the lack of a thief while Imoen's dualing. I also agree that swapping Kivan for Coran is a great way to deal with that problem, as the OP has a decent front line anyway. Coran isn't available until after the bandit camp, though, so don't dawdle too much before clearing the camp or you'll have to do it without a thief.
It is also possible to just dual Imoen and run without a thief for a while. Leaving high-xp, trapless areas like the basilisk area for after the dual will help her get her thief skills back before the areas where it really matters, like Durlag's Tower. The main problem with this plan is that I find Imoen usually hits 6th level somewhere in Cloakwood, which means either wasting a lot of xp just not levelling her up or taking on Daevorn without the ability to deal with the traps in his hallway.
In my playthroughs I either don't take them or try to gather them all into containers I choose as my "home containers", so all "litter items" end there.
As for your party, @kaelin , a party of a cavalier, Imoen, Kivan, Branwen, Minsc and Dynaheir look solid! Go for it and play as you like. 6 levels (or even 5) of a thief by Imoen will be enough to cover traps and locks : )
through the gloves of dex on minsc, since figured he could use it more then my paladin... and my other two archers (imoen and kivan) already have 17 dex... right now i'm finding that the cleric bren is proving to be a weak point... more usefull with a sling/'run in heal' then equipped with a warhammer and wading in beside minsc and my cavalier.
As a side note, is there any vendor that accepts potions or books? i've got a bunch of them (potion of absorbing?)... that i really dont see the need (or the attention span) to use... yet the standard merchant/priest people seem to look at them and say 'yeah, were selling them... no we dont buy them'... so its making me just scratch my head... i hate throwing things on the ground, yet they consume inventory space.
anyways, gotta help kivan find his party he was chasing before going back to beregost to chase the guy referenced in the letter.
Later on, use Doom + Hold Person. Holy Smite is an excellent AoE spell, especially taking into account you have a good party, so it will be party-friendly.
Even later on, Branwen will be able to cast Holy Power and then Draw Upon Holy Magic thus making her much more combat-oriented and deadly.
As for books and potions you can sell them to Thalanryr in the High Hedge.
Dualling Imoen at Level 4 with only 85% Trap-finding should suffice except for Durlag's Tower. Then, for a purist run-through lead with an NPC protected against Electricity and Fire damage, or stock up on some extra potions of healing. In BG2 however, unlike BG1, there are definitely some immediately fatal Traps to run afoul of...
Open locks can mostly be ignored without major consequence, particularly with Minsc in party. If you are unlucky and the Knock spell does not turn up in your playthrough [it is only obtained as a random drop] you will find that Coran [recruited at Level 5 normally] will have a high Open Locks skill. But I still think Minsc's high STR, particularly if supplemented by Potions, will do the job.
Cheers!
http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php/Baldur's_Gate:_Races_and_Stats#Strength
In general, I don't find it a good idea to rely on strength. You don't get very good numbers until well into the 20s. That tends to be potion intensive, and still can't open everything even with the best potions in the game.