Theme built parties for different gameplay and strategies.
Skarose
Member Posts: 247
As the Baldur's Gate Series has been out for so many years and so many of us have replayed it to death, I was wondering how many of you have played non-balanced parties. Instead of having a Mage, a thief, a cleric and a couple of fighters, you instead compose a party of all Mages/Arcane Casters or all Warrior types, or one of my favorites, the thieves guild.
I find it interesting to compare and contrast these scenarios with solo runs. Interestingly enough it almost seems an easier run as a solo mage or a solo thief as opposed to a party of mages or a party of thieves. I run the NPC project mod because it makes some of the harder or later game NPCs available earlier in game and perhaps more importantly if your not running that mod you're missing out on so much good stuff!
Some of my experiences:
The Thieves Guild, for this run I like to run a multi or dual class thief and recruit Shar Teel and dual class her into a thief, Safana, Tiax, Montaron, Alora and of course Imoen (Your definitely going to want to dual class her for arcane support.) I like to make sure all of them concentrate on stealth and one other ability. This way you can enjoy the entire party creeping up on the enemy and beginning battles with the mass backstab!
Thieves Guild is pretty fun but it requires that you customize the party NPC AI scripts to (none) and also requires a lot of management (Ensure everybody is in stealth before you begin mass creep etc...)
I am curious about elven themed runs, all shorties, all humans etc...
So what weird and whacko strategies and gameplays have you tried?
What was your favorite? (You tried it and were surprised at how much you liked it or how effective it was.)
What was your least favorite? (You tried it and thought "Bleh, I can't play this trash!")
I find it interesting to compare and contrast these scenarios with solo runs. Interestingly enough it almost seems an easier run as a solo mage or a solo thief as opposed to a party of mages or a party of thieves. I run the NPC project mod because it makes some of the harder or later game NPCs available earlier in game and perhaps more importantly if your not running that mod you're missing out on so much good stuff!
Some of my experiences:
The Thieves Guild, for this run I like to run a multi or dual class thief and recruit Shar Teel and dual class her into a thief, Safana, Tiax, Montaron, Alora and of course Imoen (Your definitely going to want to dual class her for arcane support.) I like to make sure all of them concentrate on stealth and one other ability. This way you can enjoy the entire party creeping up on the enemy and beginning battles with the mass backstab!
Thieves Guild is pretty fun but it requires that you customize the party NPC AI scripts to (none) and also requires a lot of management (Ensure everybody is in stealth before you begin mass creep etc...)
I am curious about elven themed runs, all shorties, all humans etc...
So what weird and whacko strategies and gameplays have you tried?
What was your favorite? (You tried it and were surprised at how much you liked it or how effective it was.)
What was your least favorite? (You tried it and thought "Bleh, I can't play this trash!")
3
Comments
In BG2EE, I also started playing with a gnome fighter/illusionist, and had Mazzy, Korgan, and Jan in my party. I gave him the 'tough guy' default voice and had him wielding 2-handed swords.
My favorite that I'm still trying to get to work is the Pacifist Rogue Rebalanced Skald; the main character isn't allowed to make any kills, while still contributing with spells and the RR Skald song (+ damage, + THAC0, - AC). A party built around APR and to some lesser extent AC is required here.
By the way: the reason that solo runs are considered much easier is 1) levels are important. 2) It's much, much easier to gear up and protect one person almost perfectly ( @Alesia_BH has pretty much turned it into an art form...) than keep 6 people alive. The deaths or disablement of any decrease both your offense and defense to some extent, while a solo character can't be weakened outside of a failed save (which should never even be a possibility, built correctly) or death.
By far my favorite run was with the Party of Spiders. The idea was to run an all-caster party but play them as if they were fighter-types. Spider form was a big part of improving the party's APR, hence the name.
Themed parties are generally a lot more fun, particularly if they interfere with your normal gameplay patterns. It's always fun to try out a new set of strategies.
Spiders, yeah I love spider form for all my mage types, so much fun tearing into an encounter with spiders, although I have a hard time imagining my Characters are good guys when they're all a bunch of spiders munching through people. Praise Lolth! Feed her children!
Also I'd like to go through BG with a standard 4 person party. I'm thinking Cleric, Ajantis, Imoen, and Xan. I haven't decided how I'll switch that up in BG2.
In IWD, I've got plans for a Robin of Sherwood party (Robin leads! Longbows for everyone!) and a knights of the round table run with 4 paladins, a cleric/thief and a wizard. I've also got characters generated for a 4 person standard party with a paladin, druid, swashbuckler and mage.
Edit: Looking at the NPC's in BG2, I think I'd have to play evil if I wanted a standard 4 person single class party. Thief, Edwin, Viconia and Kagain/Korgan. Or I could just relax my self-imposed no multiclass rule and go Thief, Ajantis, Neera and Branwen in BG and Thief, Mazzy, Neera, Aerie in BG2.
Edit 2: Or maybe go neutral + Viconia, instead of Branwen and Aerie. I'd have to watch my rep, but that would be an interesting challenge to keep those parties together. I'd probably have to take someone other than Ajantis, maybe Kivan... I've never taken him before.
In BG2 I've had a party in mind for quite some time but haven't yet played it:
Charname Archer, shapeshifter or totemic druid
Jaheira
Cernd
Valygar
They should be, obviously, a bunch of treehuggers since I tend to look upon rangers as some kind of forresters.
I like werewolf form served with some cheese, so I have a character rolled but he's dorment, waiting for a few other runs to be completed first. I've also experimented creating 'illegal' chars such as a fighter(7)->shapeshifter which is equally dangerous both in and out of werewolf form.
I tried a run with as much arcane as possible, but got tired of it before completion. I've also tried to play without arcane using Kel, Anomen, Minsc, F/T charname, Mazzy and Valy (iirc, 'twas quite some time ago), but same there, got tired and started something new.
I guess the moral of the story is that I tend to lose interrest when playing to specialized parties.
Also note that this was pre-Enhanced Edition era, so I didn't have kitted monks unfortunately.
Another one was a ranged-only party setup :
My character, an Elven Fighter, using the Longbow of Marksmanship
Imoen with a standard Shortbow +1
Kivan with the Eagle Bow
Coran with the Composite Bow +1
Garrick with the Crossbow of Speed, with the ability to swap to the Crossbow of Accuracy, IIRC
Yeslick with the Sling +3
It's an interesting challenge since for the most part, you can build up any party you wish to use. It was also in the classic Baldur's Gate + Tales, so I hadn't picked Archer, which I'd definitely go with on the Enhanced Edition.
Here, I picked Garrick, the least obvious one of the party members, for his fast leveling up. Besides, I didn't really need tanky party members, as we (usually) destroyed anything before they could swing at us.
After hitting Baldur's Gate, it's Detonation-arrow-fest. Pretty fun!
Cavalier Charname
Inquisitor (Keldorn)
Fighter/Cleric (Anomen)
Fighter-paladin (Mazzy)
Thief/Mage (Nalia) <-She is all about helping the poor and unfortunate
Ranger (Minsc) <- The most righteous butt kicker of all!
Very close combat heavy party. So full of goodness that it'll make your teeth hurt. Lacks in having a really good thief, and is pretty light on the magic front.
But...watch out evil. Heroes coming through!
Also, an extra note: 3/6 party members are nobles here. Which makes the noble NPCs who look down on you all the more funny.
Skald (fast attack speed with shortbow from Copper Coronet for finishing,,bard song - bonuses to hit,,spells like "blindness" or that dust, decreasing their defense...)
Anomen
Viconia (both as a melee, buffed, and that spell "Harm" i think, - after succesfully touch - 1 hp)
Jan Jansen (two handed staff, invisibility, mass invisibility - bonus to hit, etc.)
Everything based on spell Harm...
I found it funny to kill 2 strong creatures by touch : )
Next tactic:
Assasin Dualed to Fighter with Bows (poisoned bow,,one hit to every enemy with the same short bow from Copper Coronet : )
Thats the other thing I enjoyed.
PC Priest of Talos Level 3 / Thief Dual Classed - Pickpocket / Trapper / Semi-Caster / Utility / DPS
Kagain - Dual Wield Axe DPS / Tank
Vynd - Trap Finder - Trapper / DPS
Branwen - Main Healer / DPS / Defensive Caster / Semi Offensive Caster
Neera - Caster / Ranged / Offensive Caster
Viconia or Faldorn - Always open to which one i'll chose.
I play this as a set trap / ambush party works well if done properly.
That said, this party composition could potentially face a strain on blunt damage, without respeccing some of the NPC's. I play with a several installed mods, one of which adds an additional unique long sword, but not having Ashideena in the mix seems suboptimal to me, unless you opt for an NPC that specs WH. I'm playing an elven ranger who uses elven Thaco bonus weaponry only.
Barbarian
Fighter
Fighter/Thief
Swashbuckler
Thief
Cleric
It worked really well the only thing lacking was mage spells. However some one said I should have used a Gnome and role played it as a Gnome pretending to be a Halfling Cleric that wanted to come along for the ride.
Indeed, a Discworld-themed party is an interesting idea. Xan modded into Rincewind (as a Wild Mage for the appropriate unreliability of spell-casting), Minsc modded into Cohen the Barbarian (with Boo modded into Death-of-Rats), Montaron modded into Corporal Nobbs, Jaheira modded into Granny Weatherwax, Kagain modded into Carrot Ironfoundersson (gotta be a Dwarf!), and so on ... the possibilities are endless.