, @Kholdstare, well, we obviously don't have the same type, girlfriend, (you like them rough and tatooed?), but it's nice to meet another gay gamer in here.
, @Kholdstare, well, we obviously don't have the same type, girlfriend, (you like them rough and tatooed?), but it's nice to meet another gay gamer in here.
Well met! I honestly don't usually have a thing for the rough and tattooed, but I DO have a thing for monks and well-muscled ones at that. Considering that they hinted pretty hard in the AMAA that Rasaad is being voiced by Mark Meer, I believe he'll have everything I need.
Gotta admit - Super stoked about the Enhanced Edition, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't complain about something! Where's the third NPC? There's three alignments (Good, Neutral, Evil). How come we don't maintain the balance?
They ARE maintaining the balance because BG1 heavily leans towards Good NPCs. Think about it, good parties get Minsc, Coran, Kivan, Ajantis, Imoen, Dynaheir, and even Yeslick is a pretty good choice. Heck, even Khalid isn't too terrible. The only crappy good NPC is Alora. They don't need anything else. Evil's in a pretty similar boat, having by far the best mage (Edwin), as well as some other great NPCs. The only weak links in their chain, IMO, are Tiax and Eldoth (and frankly, I'm doing a playthrough with Eldoth right now, and he's not nearly as bad as people make him out to be).
Neutral? If you were to do a Neutral playthrough, you're in trouble. Branwen is pretty good. Xan is great provided you've got a second mage to balance out his insufficiencies (which Neutral doesn't, unless you count Garrick). Look at the other options, though. Faldorn? Garrick? Skie? (Skie isn't terrible but comes waaaaaaay too late in the game) Quayle?
Safana's not bad. I personally find Jaheira to be mediocre at absolute best, but other people seem to like her. She's certainly a better choice than Faldorn.
Like, as it stands now, you can't even create a well-rounded party out of Neutral NPCs. They're the ones that REALLY need the boost, so the fact that they're getting two NPCs, evil one, and good none makes plenty of sense to me.
As others have mentioned previously in other threads. Considering how many Invoker sticks there are (Wands of Fireball, Lightning and Frost), you really aren't hampered TOO badly by being an Enchanter over an invoker.
As others have mentioned previously in other threads. Considering how many Invoker sticks there are (Wands of Fireball, Lightning and Frost), you really aren't hampered TOO badly by being an Enchanter over an invoker.
That's a great point, actually. But it still leaves Neutral with having two attractive choices for NPC (Branwen, Xan), and then Safana's not too bad as well. Everything else there is a big blegh in my books.
It's even more pronounced in BG2 as well. You have Anomen who if you keep neutral, well he goes chaotic neutral and will randomly pick fights with everyone plus loses out on 4 Wisdom. You have Haer'dalis (admittedly rather good at what he does with Mastery in Short Swords), Cernd (Oh look a druid LOL), Jaheria (Oh look another druid LOL, at least a respectable tank) and Yoshimo (Another one bites the dust).
Compare that to Keldorn, Mazzy, Valygar, Aerie (Best caster in game if you stick with her), Imoen, Nalia (Aka Imoen light and the worst of teh bunch), Anomen (After his quest becomes a beast Fighter/Cleric tank), oh and Minsc.
Or evil
Edwin, Viconia, Korgan
Ok so there aren't a lot of evil NPCs period but still the ones they do have are great ^_^
I don't know if I'd rate Aerie best caster in the game on anything other than a hypothetical level, considering how you need more XP than ToB allows for her to really come into her own, lol. At the same amount of XP it takes for Imoen, Nalia and Edwin (especially Edwin) to be tossing around oodles of Time Stops, Improved Alacrities and Abi-Dalzim's, Aerie is still mucking about with level 7 spells. People say the ability to cast both Mage and Cleric HLAs is incredible - which it is, but I've never seen Aerie reach Mage HLA's by the end of ToB. If you want Aerie to be great, you've gotta do a looooooot of level-grinding.
Aerie is far and away the best support caster in the game - as in, if you've already got a mage and a priest, bring in Aerie and make the rest of your party warriors or rogues, but she's never really a very good primary caster IMHO.
But that's off-topic. Your overall point is completely sound. Neutral does a bit better in BG2 (Haer Dalis and Jaheira are both pretty good, and Jan is a pretty handy guy to have around, what with his whole "I can get Spike Traps" thing), but again, pales in comparison to Good and Evil.
Neutral NPCs in BG1 offer you Faldorn, the most capable divine spellcaster NPC in the game (clerics only reach level 8, druids hit level 10 and therefore get 5th level divine spells). She's probably the best summoner short of Edwin.
They get Quayle, who can have more sheer spells per day than any other NPC and also has a pretty nifty unique ability.
You guys already mentioned Xan but I will state again Xan is awesome and is easily the best target for buff spells in BG1. His sword is pretty bad-ass.
Branwen is also a pretty good choice. She's better than Jaheira (whom I consider to be good-aligned and would be by 3e rules) at any rate. For when you can get her, Branwen is awesome.
Garrick and Safana both kind of suck, it's true. Skie is also not terribly relevant (though I consider her evil-aligned in terms of party make up for the same reason I consider Jaheira good-aligned.)
Wouldn't mind some more valid neutral-aligned NPCs, especially if we had some sort of fighter in the bunch. But saying there are only 2 good ones is simply not true.
Neutral NPCs in BG1 offer you Faldorn, the most capable divine spellcaster NPC in the game (clerics only reach level 8, druids hit level 10 and therefore get 5th level divine spells). She's probably the best summoner short of Edwin.
They get Quayle, who can have more sheer spells per day than any other NPC and also has a pretty nifty unique ability.
Counterpoints:
Point #1 is invalidated by TotSC, where Clerics can cast level five spells (including the rather handy Raise Dead, which Druids don't get access to). I suppose it will be re-validated by BG:EE, though, where Druids being able to reach level 5 spells sooner means they get all sorts of goodies like Ironskins and Insect Plague.
She is arguably the best divine caster, though. She's just not too good at fighting, which would make me give the edge to Branwen (and probably Jaheira as well). But, as you said, she's a good enough summoner.
Quayle runs into the same problem as his spiritual successor Aerie, just worse. What looks like a lot of spells on paper doesn't really translate into too much usefulness in practice. His slow levelling means that he'll have lower spell levels (both casting level and actual spell levels) as well as less spell slots, and his crappy WIS gives him the worst selection of divine spells (18 WIS gives 6 bonus spells total, +2/level for 1 and 2, +1/level for 3 and 4. Viccy with her 15 WIS gets half of that, Faldorn, Branwen and Yeslick with 16 WIS get more).
So he's casting less spells per level (only in the case of divine magic) and gaining levels slower. When you consider that every other mage in the game is a pure-class Specialist, they'll be leaving Quayle in the dust in no time.
In other words, in a Neutral party, Xan and Branwen would bring a lot more spellcasting power than two Quayles (if you were to clone him, for whatever reason).
Like Aerie, his big edge is support casting. Put him in a party with Xan and Branwen, and he won't be nearly as good as either as them, but you can have him memorize healing spells, so Branwen can cast more exciting things, and have him memorize Invocation spells to balance out Xan. But put him in a party where he's got to carry the bulk of the spellcasting and he'll fall apart.
If I had my way, I'd just change his class. I know there's already a metric ton of thieves in Baldur's Gate, but Illusionist/Thieves are one of my favourite M/C combinations, and IMHO are much more effective than Mage/Clerics - even Illusionist/Clerics
Duel classing is one of my biggest pet-peeves, I don't mind multi-class but duel class when you don't have good enough thieving points to unlock a chest at the beginning of the game? Come on!
And this.
More in general, I'd like to have, when reaching BG2 (or at least ToB), at least 5 single-class good characters, 5 single-class neutral characters and 5 single-class evil characters, overall (including those who can change alignment, like good Sarevok or neutral Viconia). This way I can make a full party without using weird, unpractical cleric/mage mixes and such. The ideal thing would be 6, so I'm not forced in my class choice. But I can live with 5. As long as they're different enough to form an eterogeneous party.
Flavorwise: 1) I like the idea of a female dwarf. 2) A barbarian, a psion and a sorcerer? Just pointing out 3rd edition classes that are missing in BG2 so far, IIRC. 3) I'd kill to have a GOBLIN party member. Any class, doesn't matter. Make HIM a barbarian, for all I care, I'd still use him. Goblins are awesome.
Comments
Neutral? If you were to do a Neutral playthrough, you're in trouble. Branwen is pretty good. Xan is great provided you've got a second mage to balance out his insufficiencies (which Neutral doesn't, unless you count Garrick). Look at the other options, though. Faldorn? Garrick? Skie? (Skie isn't terrible but comes waaaaaaay too late in the game) Quayle?
Safana's not bad. I personally find Jaheira to be mediocre at absolute best, but other people seem to like her. She's certainly a better choice than Faldorn.
Like, as it stands now, you can't even create a well-rounded party out of Neutral NPCs. They're the ones that REALLY need the boost, so the fact that they're getting two NPCs, evil one, and good none makes plenty of sense to me.
As others have mentioned previously in other threads. Considering how many Invoker sticks there are (Wands of Fireball, Lightning and Frost), you really aren't hampered TOO badly by being an Enchanter over an invoker.
It's even more pronounced in BG2 as well. You have Anomen who if you keep neutral, well he goes chaotic neutral and will randomly pick fights with everyone plus loses out on 4 Wisdom. You have Haer'dalis (admittedly rather good at what he does with Mastery in Short Swords), Cernd (Oh look a druid LOL), Jaheria (Oh look another druid LOL, at least a respectable tank) and Yoshimo (Another one bites the dust).
Compare that to Keldorn, Mazzy, Valygar, Aerie (Best caster in game if you stick with her), Imoen, Nalia (Aka Imoen light and the worst of teh bunch), Anomen (After his quest becomes a beast Fighter/Cleric tank), oh and Minsc.
Or evil
Edwin, Viconia, Korgan
Ok so there aren't a lot of evil NPCs period but still the ones they do have are great ^_^
Aerie is far and away the best support caster in the game - as in, if you've already got a mage and a priest, bring in Aerie and make the rest of your party warriors or rogues, but she's never really a very good primary caster IMHO.
But that's off-topic. Your overall point is completely sound. Neutral does a bit better in BG2 (Haer Dalis and Jaheira are both pretty good, and Jan is a pretty handy guy to have around, what with his whole "I can get Spike Traps" thing), but again, pales in comparison to Good and Evil.
They get Quayle, who can have more sheer spells per day than any other NPC and also has a pretty nifty unique ability.
You guys already mentioned Xan but I will state again Xan is awesome and is easily the best target for buff spells in BG1. His sword is pretty bad-ass.
Branwen is also a pretty good choice. She's better than Jaheira (whom I consider to be good-aligned and would be by 3e rules) at any rate. For when you can get her, Branwen is awesome.
Garrick and Safana both kind of suck, it's true. Skie is also not terribly relevant (though I consider her evil-aligned in terms of party make up for the same reason I consider Jaheira good-aligned.)
Wouldn't mind some more valid neutral-aligned NPCs, especially if we had some sort of fighter in the bunch. But saying there are only 2 good ones is simply not true.
Point #1 is invalidated by TotSC, where Clerics can cast level five spells (including the rather handy Raise Dead, which Druids don't get access to). I suppose it will be re-validated by BG:EE, though, where Druids being able to reach level 5 spells sooner means they get all sorts of goodies like Ironskins and Insect Plague.
She is arguably the best divine caster, though. She's just not too good at fighting, which would make me give the edge to Branwen (and probably Jaheira as well). But, as you said, she's a good enough summoner.
Quayle runs into the same problem as his spiritual successor Aerie, just worse. What looks like a lot of spells on paper doesn't really translate into too much usefulness in practice. His slow levelling means that he'll have lower spell levels (both casting level and actual spell levels) as well as less spell slots, and his crappy WIS gives him the worst selection of divine spells (18 WIS gives 6 bonus spells total, +2/level for 1 and 2, +1/level for 3 and 4. Viccy with her 15 WIS gets half of that, Faldorn, Branwen and Yeslick with 16 WIS get more).
So he's casting less spells per level (only in the case of divine magic) and gaining levels slower. When you consider that every other mage in the game is a pure-class Specialist, they'll be leaving Quayle in the dust in no time.
In other words, in a Neutral party, Xan and Branwen would bring a lot more spellcasting power than two Quayles (if you were to clone him, for whatever reason).
Like Aerie, his big edge is support casting. Put him in a party with Xan and Branwen, and he won't be nearly as good as either as them, but you can have him memorize healing spells, so Branwen can cast more exciting things, and have him memorize Invocation spells to balance out Xan. But put him in a party where he's got to carry the bulk of the spellcasting and he'll fall apart.
If I had my way, I'd just change his class. I know there's already a metric ton of thieves in Baldur's Gate, but Illusionist/Thieves are one of my favourite M/C combinations, and IMHO are much more effective than Mage/Clerics - even Illusionist/Clerics
More in general, I'd like to have, when reaching BG2 (or at least ToB), at least 5 single-class good characters, 5 single-class neutral characters and 5 single-class evil characters, overall (including those who can change alignment, like good Sarevok or neutral Viconia). This way I can make a full party without using weird, unpractical cleric/mage mixes and such.
The ideal thing would be 6, so I'm not forced in my class choice. But I can live with 5. As long as they're different enough to form an eterogeneous party.
Flavorwise:
1) I like the idea of a female dwarf.
2) A barbarian, a psion and a sorcerer? Just pointing out 3rd edition classes that are missing in BG2 so far, IIRC.
3) I'd kill to have a GOBLIN party member. Any class, doesn't matter. Make HIM a barbarian, for all I care, I'd still use him. Goblins are awesome.
Oh, and I like all of the new NPCs (so far).