Does Minsc Need Time Off
Ulfstein
Member Posts: 10
Hello guys, I recently started playing again and wanted to play the canon party, so naturally I picked up Minsc. Unfortunately, I am at a cross-roads. At level 4, Minsc only had 20 max hit points while every one except the mage is in the 30s. he has apparently rolled a 1 for all his hit dice each level. At level 3 I was forced to take him off the front lines and relegate him as an archer which he did superbly; however, i stumbled upon Coran. Since I plan to dual class Imoen, and Coran can fill both the role of a thief and a better archer than Minsc, I was forced to abandon Minsc to the way side. I heard that if you level a couple times you can come back to a previous party member and find their data file has switched to a predetermined one to match your level, for instance if i get to level 6, there is a level 6 file for Minsc.
So I must ask, If I go away for a while and return will he progress to match my level? because i desperately need another front line fighter.
So I must ask, If I go away for a while and return will he progress to match my level? because i desperately need another front line fighter.
0
Comments
It's true that there are various versions of the recruitable NPCs at different levels, so that you can recruit them at a level roughly similar to your protagonist's level. If you ignore a recruitable NPC when you first see him but later (a level or two later) pass through that area again, then you'll sometimes notice that he looks different because his armour has changed, since it's now a higher-level version of the character wearing better equipment. (It's only a noticeable change in a few cases, not all.)
However, once you've gone ahead and recruited a character, then you've fixed which version of the character is active, and his future development is your responsibility. If you park him somewhere and come back later, even very much later, then he'll have the same level (and equipment) as when you left him. (I do vaguely recall hearing somewhere, as you also heard, that a former party member will level up to keep pace with you while resting out of the party, but that's not true.) So no, unfortunately you can't fix Minsc's unlucky rolls by resting him, you're stuck with him as he is.
Nevertheless, all is not lost, since you've now got Coran instead. Not only is Coran a superb archer, but he's also a very good melee fighter. Of course he needs the Gauntlets of Ogre Power to really shine up front, but even before you get those (in Chapter 5), he's better at melee than you might expect if you've never used him in that role. (Obviously you don't keep him in his thieving leathers for this, you give him Ankheg plate and other suitable front-row equipment.) And as you say, when dual-classing Imoen, Coran can be your substitute Thief, although when you've got him in heavier armour this will require micro-managing his armour on and off when you need him to pick a lock etc. (Note that trap detection still works even with heavy armour on, but you have to take the armour off for a moment to disarm the trap.)
However, since you were (until this point) running with the canon party, I don't quite understand why you have a shortage up front. You've presumably still got Jaheira and Khalid with you, both of whom are capable front-row fighters. (By the way, what happened to Dynaheir? If you dropped Minsc, then normally Dynaheir would leave with him ... unless you resorted to some trick such as leaving Minsc behind a closed door, so that he can't make his leaving-speech to trigger Dynaheir's departure.)
So i guess its not very canon any more, but i tried lol
Still, with a Berserker protagonist and Jaheira still beside you, that's a solid enough front row, there shouldn't be a problem.
I'm not sure why you're dying so much. Are you rushing through, and thereby tackling some of the tougher areas at lower-than-expected levels? Or have you cranked up the difficulty setting to maximum?
For Nashkel
Between the carnival and an assassin after the mines, I had 4 deaths and the death of a bystander
For Cloakwood
I have ended up selling all my +1 items and my ring of divine spell slot just to pay for all the rezzes. I'm level 5 about to enter the cloakwood mines. The main problem with this area is that I've had several double ambushes of ettercaps where i would try to walk to one area, get ambushed, then try to continue to that area only to get ambushed again and having to use antidotes like they are candy. Eventually I got to a point where i could manage these ambushes systematically but it was still costly
I wasn't intending to plug myself, but if you want to see what i am doing wrong, I have the Nashkel portion uploaded if you look up "Aidan Hodge Gaming baldurs gate"
Is this your first time playing BG? I'm guessing it may be just inexperience with the way it all works, naturally that makes it much tougher.
I'll go look at your upload soon.
Hmm. I'll assume that inviting viewers means that you're inviting comment on your playing-style (which might otherwise be a rude thing to criticise).
Since you're trying to micro-manage combat anyway, turn Off the Party AI for better control. While you're at it, turn on more auto-pause conditions to give yourself more chances to notice quickly when someone is under-employed.
Pick up more loot! I saw you walk away from several hundred GP-worth of loot, maybe even a thousand or so. With your resurrection rate, you need the money. And that might let you keep some of that good equipment which you've had to sell to fund resurrections!
Pay more attention to what you're carrying. Sometimes you had better equipment in your inventory than what you were using - e.g. Minsc should have been using that Large Shield instead of a Small Shield, it might have saved his life!
Several times you died by not thinking through your tactics. If enemies pop up beside your squishier characters, then of course attack with your warriors, but move the squishies away to ranged distance before telling them to join the attack. And when you're in a place where you can predict that you'll probably be attacked (e.g. Mulahey's lair), use the terrain defensively - don't stand at the "crossroads" where you can be attacked from all sides (as you were, and half your party died).
Buff! Don't just load up your Mages with attack spells, give them some defenses as well ... Shield is good at low levels, for example. And when you can predict danger around the corner, buff up with both Mage and Cleric spells before rushing ahead.
Explore more! You could have been better equipped (and richer) if you'd searched for the goodies in some of the areas you rushed through.
Stop trying to rest in dangerous places. Well okay, sometimes you may have to, but a couple of times you even commented in your voice-over that you knew it was foolish but then did it anyway, and predictably got jumped by enemies.
As far as mulahey's lair. I actually don't remember why i laid myself out like that. Normally I stick to one alcove and have a melee character block the entrance. Probably could have done that at the far right or in mulahey segment itself.
As for the small vrs large shield. I have the small shield for role playing reasons. I was going to mod the large shield sprite so that it would display as a round shield, but didn't want to mess with the game for a lets play. I think i give up that idea in cloakwood somewhere, but i really did hate the outdated opinions dungeons and dragons had in regards to shields and weapons in comparison to the knowledge we have today.
This was also partly a consequence of my role-play, that I always try to rest in the inns, to mark completion of a (partial) expedition, rather than freely resting throughout the game - although I will often take a rest or two in a well-defended corner of a dungeon, where returning makes little sense compared to camping overnight to finish the job.