Why Minsc will ALWAYS be in my party:
Sharguild
Member Posts: 186
Swords, for EVERYONE!
On play-through number 1,3013, I've realized that regardless of what Character I've created, what change-ups I've made to party construction (good or evil) there is one constant to my play, the Rashemon with a rodent, the Ranger who loves danger, that big galoot who loves to loot, you know him, you love him, MINSC!!!!
(crowd goes South Korean at a Starcraft convention).
Just, ya know, he's THE DUDE. He's the cement that makes the game for me, what it is.
Sometimes Dynaheir stays in the group, other times (sniff) she gets lost in the woods and murdered by Tasloi ( we console Minsc as best we can, he doesn't stay too despondent for long though ( cold-hearted bastich...).
Minsc is my go to guy for ranged, my up close and in yer face pokey stick, my light hearted banter, my reasoning when things turn bleak, my focus as to WHY THE HELL I'M DOING THIS ( ya know, the whole save the world thing).
I honestly have tried, twice, to play without Minsc in my party. Didn't last long. Something, wasn't at first sure what it was but something, was missing. Went back, got Minsc, all was right with the world.
He's my idiot kid brother, my slow witted friend in the fox-hole, my based in reality ( screw the platitudes) confidant. He's the guy that brings me down to earth when this whole god-thing gets overwhelming. He has a moral code that I would lovingly adopt, destroy evil, damn the repercussions.
In BG2 I also ensure my brother in arms in with me. Yes, many occasions I'll take my evil step-brother along but I'll drop a 2nd Mage before I'll drop Minsc.
Dunno, it's just not BG without the big DP ( and Minsc is the definition of displaced...)
M2c
On play-through number 1,3013, I've realized that regardless of what Character I've created, what change-ups I've made to party construction (good or evil) there is one constant to my play, the Rashemon with a rodent, the Ranger who loves danger, that big galoot who loves to loot, you know him, you love him, MINSC!!!!
(crowd goes South Korean at a Starcraft convention).
Just, ya know, he's THE DUDE. He's the cement that makes the game for me, what it is.
Sometimes Dynaheir stays in the group, other times (sniff) she gets lost in the woods and murdered by Tasloi ( we console Minsc as best we can, he doesn't stay too despondent for long though ( cold-hearted bastich...).
Minsc is my go to guy for ranged, my up close and in yer face pokey stick, my light hearted banter, my reasoning when things turn bleak, my focus as to WHY THE HELL I'M DOING THIS ( ya know, the whole save the world thing).
I honestly have tried, twice, to play without Minsc in my party. Didn't last long. Something, wasn't at first sure what it was but something, was missing. Went back, got Minsc, all was right with the world.
He's my idiot kid brother, my slow witted friend in the fox-hole, my based in reality ( screw the platitudes) confidant. He's the guy that brings me down to earth when this whole god-thing gets overwhelming. He has a moral code that I would lovingly adopt, destroy evil, damn the repercussions.
In BG2 I also ensure my brother in arms in with me. Yes, many occasions I'll take my evil step-brother along but I'll drop a 2nd Mage before I'll drop Minsc.
Dunno, it's just not BG without the big DP ( and Minsc is the definition of displaced...)
M2c
14
Comments
I love your simplistic solution to someone who angers you for apparently being a bully... I chunk that ass$%#@!
I might have thought the simpler answer would be ' I don't talk to him".
Maybe that's just me....
Well I guess I am just a big fan who should have a minsc poster on the wall
Really a lot of the back and forth between different NPC pairs is what makes this game so special and keeps the high replay value.
He is awesome! As long as his berserk doesn't run out of control and he chases my pc with a big sharp sword, foaming on the mouth. But everybody has its little flaws. ^^
It feels almost unreal to think that we actually can get new phrases that are as awesome as his "You point, I punch" and "Butt-kickin' for goodness!"
In BG1ee, his pairing with Dynaheir means that I won't take him unless I want both of them. I've no objection to Dynaheir, but usually I've got some other Mage(s) I want to take instead of her, so therefore I don't include Minsc either. (Yes, I know how to break up a character-pair, but on RP grounds my Good protagonists don't generally like such tactics, and my Evil protagonists don't generally want Good companions.) Nevertheless, my current BG1ee run is a canon party, so I've got both Minsc and Dynaheir.
He's a giant hamster, right?
Now, I'm just starting a run through where my core group will be the first 5 NPCs I run across. I'll only swap them out one at a time in order to rotate in a different NPC for their quest purposes. So, I'm sort of stuck with Minsc, Aerie, Jaheira, Yoshimo and Imoen. OK, since Imoen vanishes at the end of Chapter 1, she will be replaced temporarily by Nalia, whom I refer to as "Imoen light". Nalia can actually function as a thief if you give her the rings of trap detection and lockpicking, boots of stealth, cloak of non-detection and the occasional potion of master thievery.
I must say, I am having serious doubts how far this group can get. Aerie is my only cleric, for example; being dual classed she will never get to the higher levels of either profession, nor will I have any specialty mages. And Minsc and Jaheira as my front line melee fighters? Gonna be tricky.
That said, I do enjoy having Minsc around (especially in BG2) but I do realize he isn't all that great as an NPC mechanically.
Minsc is good in BG1 but falls behind a decent warrior kit in BG2 as a front line fighter. The inability to put more than 2 pips into weapon slots hurts. Even Jaheira outperforms him eventually, due to her IronSkin ability. Get yourself a berserker in SoA and put 5 pips into two handed swords or halberds, and another 2 into two handed weapon style and then compare damage potential. Or better yet, put 5 pips into longswords and 3 into two weapon style and dual wield. Minsc can dual wield also but the lesser weapon proficiency still hurts.
Which fighter kit NPC are you comparing Minsc to? There really is only Korgan and Mazzy, that is comparable right? And Mazzy isn't even a kit (although she has her given abilities).
And comparing any NPC to a charname is pointless, since a charname always has potential to be much better than any NPC (except Edwin and his godlike spellslots perhaps?).
FYI: This is written out of curiousity, not to start an arguement.
Edit: Btw, Minsc with FoA and DoE or similar is just ridiculous in melee. There's not much need to be more OP than that. Overkill is overkill, no need to over do it.
An evil party prior to Ch 4 might have Charname, Korgan, Viconia, Edwin, Hexxat/Yoshimo and Jaheira, since her neutrality lets her tolerate the presence of the others.
Charname was always a warrior type, so we didn't need Minsc's brawn. If I'd had 7 or 8 character slots available, I could more easily have found a role for Minsc.
Right now I am trying a run where Charname is not a warrior kit; that's new for me. He's a swashbuckler who will serve as the main thief. This will let me do mostly without Yoshimo and I am going to keep Minsc around as a front line fighter throughout and see how he performs in later chapters. In fact I'm using several folks as a core group that I haven't taken before. That will take a significant while, however; my main run-through group is only just starting Ch 6, and I'd really like to get to ToB sometime this year
I too have dropped him from the party on occassions since he, like you point out, is outperformed by other more versatile characters. I like chars and NPC's which can fill more than just one role, so some kind of combination of spells, skills and melee/ranged is preferred (like An(n)o(y)men, Jaheira, Kel). Minsc doesn't really do that, but he do fit the role of chunker pretty good. He dish out more dmg per round than most good-aligned NPC's, but as we all know, the evil ones are better (Dorn, Korgan). If your charname is good and not some kind of fighter, he do bring alot to a party. Keldorn + Minsc with Anomen, Imoen/Jan, CHARNAME make a great core team. Swapping the last slot for NPC individual quests. Though of course, Jaheira could be used as well, but it takes at least half of Athkatla before you get ironskins IIRC.