Good/ Strong Party Make-Up..?
erogers016
Member Posts: 1
Hello, I used to play this game a long time ago. I just got the enhanced edition and was wondering if this party make-up would be sufficient. Oh and it's a Good Aligned party...:
Main: Paladin: Cavalier: I always like the Paladin kit and will use him as my main tank. Is the Holy Avenger the best way to go for a Paladin? Or is there any weapons worth duel wielding for them?
Aerie: I know she whines and is very weak at first. But I remember her becoming a beast with all her Cleric/Mage spells by the end of the game.
Neera: I know nothing about her other than her being a Wild Mage. I know Edwin is stronger, but I was to be a good party, plus like I said she's a new NPC.
Jan: I never played with this charecter. I've read alot of good and interesting things about him though and he seems to be a fairly competent thief/mage. I know Nalia is a weaker Imoen and I just don't like Imoen, she's one charecter that actually annoys me.
Anomen:I'll do his quest the right way making sure he gets knighted. I'll also give him the gaunlets to bump up that Dex. I was thinking of duel wielding him with the Crom Faeye and maybe a strong Mace or FoA. Use him as my second tank along with using him as a another healer/buffer.
Last person is in the air; it comes down to either picking Valygar and Mazzy. I played with Valygar once and loved him duel wielding his Katanas, plus his backstabbing is nice. I just like his charecter in general. I never played with Mazzy though and I read that she's a pretty underrated as a NPC. I'll probably end up duel wielding her too along with using her badass bow skills. Either one of them will be pretty much clean up crew for my other two tanks.
So that's my potential party ideas, I feel as if it is failry balanced with enough magic and fighter units. So let me know your input please!
Main: Paladin: Cavalier: I always like the Paladin kit and will use him as my main tank. Is the Holy Avenger the best way to go for a Paladin? Or is there any weapons worth duel wielding for them?
Aerie: I know she whines and is very weak at first. But I remember her becoming a beast with all her Cleric/Mage spells by the end of the game.
Neera: I know nothing about her other than her being a Wild Mage. I know Edwin is stronger, but I was to be a good party, plus like I said she's a new NPC.
Jan: I never played with this charecter. I've read alot of good and interesting things about him though and he seems to be a fairly competent thief/mage. I know Nalia is a weaker Imoen and I just don't like Imoen, she's one charecter that actually annoys me.
Anomen:I'll do his quest the right way making sure he gets knighted. I'll also give him the gaunlets to bump up that Dex. I was thinking of duel wielding him with the Crom Faeye and maybe a strong Mace or FoA. Use him as my second tank along with using him as a another healer/buffer.
Last person is in the air; it comes down to either picking Valygar and Mazzy. I played with Valygar once and loved him duel wielding his Katanas, plus his backstabbing is nice. I just like his charecter in general. I never played with Mazzy though and I read that she's a pretty underrated as a NPC. I'll probably end up duel wielding her too along with using her badass bow skills. Either one of them will be pretty much clean up crew for my other two tanks.
So that's my potential party ideas, I feel as if it is failry balanced with enough magic and fighter units. So let me know your input please!
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Comments
Your party will work absolutely fine. You have some of the more powerful characters in Aerie, Jan, and Neera, and if you can stand Anomen's whining I suppose he is alright, too.
The last slot can go to whoever. I would suggest picking who you think you like best. Mazzy is underrated for sure, but Valygar is quite alright, too. Either will work fine, so it's up to your preference.
Take as the last NPC the person you want more from the RP/fanbase point of view.
Who do you fancy more? Maybe you'd like a druid magic in your party? Then Jaheira or Cernd can be options as well. Don't like Jaheira's long wait for the druid levels? Can't stand Cernd? Then how about Rasaad? Don't like monks? Then indeed choose either Valygar or Mazzy. Mazzy has awesome special abilities making her a semi-pally. Valygar can backstab wonderfully and his additional Stalker spells are interesting.
I'd take Cernd because I love the 6th and 7th level druid spells and HLAs.
Rasaad is also worth considering. He's weak in BG1, but in BG2 he'll eventually become one of the strongest NPCs in the game.
About your party, I'm with @Lord_Tansheron here and agree with him. Personally I would keep the sixth slot open and switch out NPC's over the course of the game for their individual quests, rather than having one permanent member. I always try to make the core party 4-5 to be able to do that.
Of the choices you list yourself, I'd pick Mazzy. Your cavalier could use the backup since I'm not a huge fan of tanking with Anomen. I prefer to use him as secondary fighter (protect the backline mages) but not at the forefront. Jan, Aerie and Neera will need a whiny, obnoxious fighter-cleric to guard them while they sling spells, hehe
If not Mazzy or Valy but still a permanent member, I'd go with Kel or Cernd. Both offer plenty to any team. Kel might be overkill with your CHARNAME; but once again, it would fit the overall profile of your team RP wise. Cernd offers alot as a single class druid and is often considered a weak (if not the weakest) NPC. I disagree and love to use him. I remember in an older version of the game, pre 1.3, where one could glitch the game and get him to use Belm in the offhand, giving him 4 APR and still being able to cast spells while staying in Werewolf form, heh.. That was a blast b ut of course ridiculously OP.
Have fun!
Sure a Wild Mage is a bit of a gamble, but you should give it a try! They can be very, very powerful and quite a lot of fun, too.
You can always reload until it works, but that applies to most any character. You can also reload until Firkraag fails his save against Finger of Death, or reload until your cleric lands a hit with Harm, or reload until Demogorgon starts rolling critical misses.
Can you still stack Chaos Shields in EE? They were stackable in vanilla if you used sequencers or Chain Contingency. At epic levels with three Improved Chaos Shields, you get a 100% chance of a successful casting with NRD.
One more thing. I hear people mention using NRD to cast Limited Wish to recharge NRD. But Limited Wish only restores one level 1 spell, and another level 2, 3, and 4 spell slot, which means an NRD Limited Wish won't give you more castings of NRD than it takes away unless you make sure your level 2, 3, and 4 spell slots don't get in the way.
[spoiler]
If you make a quick calculation, a level 14 wild mage with the wild mage robe and both chaos shield would have a 69 bonus to its Wild Surge throw which makes it a 70% of casting the spell normally, and 83% of casting it without negative effects (among those last 13% some are bonuses)
With Wild Mage Headband which you get in ToB, once you reach level 25 (which you should get not so late in ToB if you did most sidequests in SoA) you get a 100% chance that your spell will work properly/better than expected. That means you can have another 6 level 9 spells without having to memorize them. Just like a sorcerer, but you can choose from all the level 9 spells you ve learnt.
I was under the impression they are no longer stackable, but I think someone much more knowledgeble than me can answer with certanty. Perhaps someone like @elminster?
That's on lower levels. On high levels, you can get surges to near 100% success, as @Arunsun said, making Nahal's a ludicrously powerful tool. Note that spells cast via Nahal's ignore the 1 spell/round limit. Machinegun-style lvl9 spells without Alacrity? Yes please.
All that being said I still favor F->M duals of course. But if I had to go with a pure caster, it'd probably be a Wild Mage (the adventurous can also Keeper a F->WM dual for the lulz).