Best Party for Banter

bleusteel

Sorry if this is an old topic. I searched but couldn't find the exact thing I was looking for.

What is the best BG2ee party for banters?

I've finished the entire saga multiple times and have seen all of the epilogues. Now I'd just like to enjoy some party interaction. My current team is made up of Knights (or wannabes anyway):
Keldorn
Anomen
Mazzy
Aerie
Yoshimo (will be replaced with Imoen)

I'm still in Chapter Two, but it's been quiet. Their temperaments are probably too similar for much interaction?

Anyway, what say you fellow bhaalspawn? What parties have you thoroughly enjoyed?

Wowo

Maybe mixing good and evil characters? Some will kill each other so best avoid those combinations but many will just talk which can be interesting.

sarevok57

keldorn will eventually fight viconia to the death
minsc will eventually fight Edwin to the death

if you want good banters, have jan on your team, he always has something to say
and if you have minsc with jan, jan will try and do some funny things to minsc,
if you have jaheira and aerie on your team and are compatible for romancing ( if you are into the romance jargon) they will eventually argue over each other for you ( but then you will have to choose one over the other)
and if you have aerie and haer dalis on your team at the same time and are romance compatible, haer dalis will actually challenge you for aerie, so if you want a team filled with spice and every thing nice try:

minsc
jaheira
aerie
haer dalis
and jan

best part is, that group is balanced enough that you can play any character class and still make it work ( although you will want to be human/half-elf/elf if you want to participate in all the romance craziness)

bleusteel

Thanks @sarevok57 !

One question:

can you still redeem Yoshimo if he's not in your party? I love his storyline so I always have him in the group.

TheArtisan

No. You also can't get the experience for his heart if you don't bring him, he just dies.

Aramintai

Most hilarious ones come from Minsc+Jan. Jan goes well with everyone.
Edwin comes next - after his unfortunate gender bender accident everyone make fun of him, especially Anomen, Jaheira and Minsc.
Third place takes Mazzy+Korgan combo - his come-ons are hilarious.
And in ToB Imoen has many funny dialogues with almost everyone.

P.S. Just a tip - you can force banter with Ctrl+I if you enable debug commands.

bleusteel

I like the idea and interactions of mixing good + evil but it's so annoying when the evil characters leave the party when Rep gets too high. I completely understand the RP decision behind this mechanic, but managing Rep can be tedious when so many quests increase it.

Has @Troodon80 implemented a Rep Cap in EEKeeper, yet?

Aramintai

bleusteel said:

I like the idea and interactions of mixing good + evil but it's so annoying when the evil characters leave the party when Rep gets too high. I completely understand the RP decision behind this mechanic, but managing Rep can be tedious when so many quests increase it.

Has @Troodon80 implemented a Rep Cap in EEKeeper, yet?

You can always install a mod that prevents evil characters from leaving and disables infightings within the party:
http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg2tweaks/

[Deleted User]

Honestly, the romance that Haer'dalis and Aerie have if Aerie isn't in a relationship with CHARNAME is one of my favorite subplots in the game. It gives both characters a lot of development that you wouldn't otherwise see.

elminster

Jan, Viconia, Edwin, and Korgan would be good.

Troodon80

bleusteel said:

Has Troodon80 implemented a Rep Cap in EEKeeper, yet?

@bleusteel, not sure what you mean?

Nimran

@Troodon80 he/she likely means making an option to set a maximum rep beneath 18 for the player so that he/she doesn't have to worry about being 'too good' for an evil NPC.

Francois

Viconia and Haerdalis have some funny interactions that are worth it.

Korgan seems to like and respect Imoen because she has good come-back for his insults. He hates Nalia for the opposite reason.

Neera has some banter with Viconia, Minsc, Hexxat, Aerie and probably a lot of the others too.

A good thing is to have a romance. That increases the banter and sometimes other guys will participate.

The banter is not as frequent as I would like. There was a command with debug mode in the original game to force a conversation, but it often got buggy and would often produce the same conversation over and over after a while. I never tried on the EE.

bleusteel

Nimran said:

@Troodon80 he/she likely means making an option to set a maximum rep beneath 18 for the player so that he/she doesn't have to worry about being 'too good' for an evil NPC.

Correct! Like a checkbox "enable reputation limit" with a text box that accepts an integer input between 1 and 19. Your reputation would not be able to go above that number. Or maybe below that number for people concerned about falling, etc.

Troodon80

@bleusteel

No such limit at the moment. I wasn't aware that it was a feature people wanted. The current set limit at the moment is 0-20, I think.

bleusteel

@Troodon80 I can't speak for "people," but I would use it. I'm not a big user of mods, except BGNPC.

Even if Rep management doesn't get implemented in Keeper, thank you for all of the great updates to an indispensable tool!

Tenebris

I tend to prefer evil parties when it comes to banter. Korgan and Edwin are fantastic. Throw in Minsc and Jan for some comedy. But, the best line in the entire series is between Korgan and Mazzy (though I don't like her that much. I want to, but I just don't).

SionIV

Can't be a best party for banter without Jan Jansen.

BG2tweaks has a component that prevent party members from fighting each other and prevents them from leaving because of your reputation.

[Deleted User]

SionIV said:

BG2tweaks has a component that prevent party members from fighting each other and prevents them from leaving because of your reputation.

True, although overriding party member conflicts doesn't necessarily give you the best party for banter, because the developers would have assumed that after a certain point those two characters wouldn't be in the same party together.

Getting rid of the reputation checks is great for running a mixed alignment party, though, and those tend to have some of the best banters around (for certain values of best).

That said, there are some same alignment party banters that are great for different reasons. Taking, say, Aerie, Nalia, Mazzy, Valygar, and Minsc can be great in the "Aww, look at how they're supporting each other" sense, as opposed to the "I'm getting popcorn because these two are throwing down!"

ETA: Jan is also great in that party; sub him in for Valygar if you can't stand the ranger.

DrHappyAngry

Aramintai said:

Most hilarious ones come from Minsc+Jan. Jan goes well with everyone.
Edwin comes next - after his unfortunate gender bender accident everyone make fun of him, especially Anomen, Jaheira and Minsc.
Third place takes Mazzy+Korgan combo - his come-ons are hilarious.
And in ToB Imoen has many funny dialogues with almost everyone.

P.S. Just a tip - you can force banter with Ctrl+I

I've gotta say I put Edwin, Minsc and Anomen at the top for my favorite banter and Jan after, but we're pretty close there. Minsc and Shar-Teel have some really funny banter in BG1, too. I only found these on my gather the crazies playthrough.

CaloNord

I think one of the better ones I had was Minsc, Jan, Edwin, Korgan (Helm of Opposite alignment) and Mazzy. That was a curious mix of bastardry, smartarsery, buttkicking and turnips.
Much enjoyed!

steelchaser

I have Neera, Minsc, Amonen, Coran, Jaheira. And for the most part they don't shut up. Coran hits on all the females