@badbromance: or, y'know, pick up Aerie. with the number of regen items and healing potions strewn across the land, it's not like you need more than a multiclassed cleric... and if her personality annoys you, well, that's what shadowkeeper/lvl1 npcs are for, Viconia makes a way cooler Aerie, just take away her magic resistance.
on topic: Monty and Xzar, alive and well. with bouts of extreme harper murdering, because fuck those meddling fools.
@badbromance: or, y'know, pick up Aerie. with the number of regen items and healing potions strewn across the land, it's not like you need more than a multiclassed cleric... and if her personality annoys you, well, that's what shadowkeeper/lvl1 npcs are for, Viconia makes a way cooler Aerie, just take away her magic resistance.
on topic: Monty and Xzar, alive and well. with bouts of extreme harper murdering, because fuck those meddling fools.
Or I could y'know play whatever I like AND pick up Aerie as well if I so choose
Yeslick is a cool dude and similar to others you rescue has a motivation to come after you, multiclass F/C is much better than anomens sad dual class and a Dwarven priest is a great character to use to add fluff, colour and lore for the setting in a fun way.
im surprised by the amount of xan votes.. i always found him extremely annoying, and i was disappointed whenever i started BG2 and noticed branwen had been cut completely out (excluding the tutorial).
im surprised by the amount of xan votes.. i always found him extremely annoying, and i was disappointed whenever i started BG2 and noticed branwen had been cut completely out (excluding the tutorial).
There's something to be said for both of them - while bg2 has anomen, aerie and viconia as clerics, only viccy is pure classed. while anomen is viable for a good-aligned party, Branwen would be awesome for those people that want a pure class cleric in their party, even if she is of the true neutral alignment.
For Xan it's pretty much the same story - in bg2 you only get a pure class wizard of the evil alignment - edwin. xan being lawful neutral would fit a lot better in a good party. Honestly i feel like nalia is a good replacement for him though, the 4 thief levels she has don't cost enough exp to make any real diffrence in abilities end-game.
In the end i guess it's all down to more people having played with Xan in their parties, playing through the game xan is pretty hard to miss, while it's easy to overlook branwen.
Eldoth to have an allrounder evil character. Also give him the Jester kit; as evil bard, he should mock the enemies (and Haer'Dalis). Or give him a class change to Swashbuckler, to have an evil thief. Would work with his personality either way.
My fave would be - change the Xzar/Montaron quest slightly, so it is possible to save Montaron. What the hell, Xzar is a necromancer. It's no stretch at all that he could revive Montaron when you return the body. And voila, you have 2 more recruitable evil NPCs, a mage alternative to Edwin (as much as I like him, it would be nice to have options for a different party type) and a *gasp* fighter/THIEF, which is what BG2 really needs.
I also wouldn't mind Branwen, simply because I'm so used to fill up evil parties with her and with the very limited evil options, I'll have to do that in BG2 anyway. I don't like Viconia as cleric; way too squishy, and Branwen would also make a good option for a romance. I'm not overly interested in those myself, but I can understand how annoying it is to only have elvish romance options. (Eldoth could get a romance quest for female charnames, because I also understand how crappy it is to only have Anomen as option.)
There are already suspiciously many guys from the north showing up in Amn. It would really stretch credibility if everyone you met in Baldur's Gate was hanging out in Amn the time you're there.
im surprised by the amount of xan votes.. i always found him extremely annoying, and i was disappointed whenever i started BG2 and noticed branwen had been cut completely out (excluding the tutorial).
There's something to be said for both of them - while bg2 has anomen, aerie and viconia as clerics, only viccy is pure classed. while anomen is viable for a good-aligned party, Branwen would be awesome for those people that want a pure class cleric in their party, even if she is of the true neutral alignment.
For Xan it's pretty much the same story - in bg2 you only get a pure class wizard of the evil alignment - edwin. xan being lawful neutral would fit a lot better in a good party. Honestly i feel like nalia is a good replacement for him though, the 4 thief levels she has don't cost enough exp to make any real diffrence in abilities end-game.
In the end i guess it's all down to more people having played with Xan in their parties, playing through the game xan is pretty hard to miss, while it's easy to overlook branwen.
I think that Clerics are not an issue in BG or BG2. I found loads of them and they are all useful to have in a group. The biggest issue is there are not thieves in BG2. That means you have to Use Imoen as your thief or play as thief/part thief yourself. It is very restrictive IMO. Usually I just use Imoen and get by as best I can, but it's limiting. Jan is a fairly good character I guess. I'd still prefer a fighter/thief like Coran.
Anomen is really a pure cleric as he dual classed very early in the game. If you complete his quest a certain way he becomes good aligned as his wisdom is set to 18. That makes him the best cleric in the game as he can get grandmastery in blunt weapons.
@UnknownQuantity His wisdom becomes 16 if you pass his test, not 18.
Oh well. He is still a beast IMO. In bodies layer all I had to do was turn undead and everything exploded. He always seemed to have plenty of spells as clerics level up so fast in BG2. He also has access to some of the best weapons in the game.
Comments
on topic: Monty and Xzar, alive and well. with bouts of extreme harper murdering, because fuck those meddling fools.
while anomen is viable for a good-aligned party, Branwen would be awesome for those people that want a pure class cleric in their party, even if she is of the true neutral alignment.
For Xan it's pretty much the same story - in bg2 you only get a pure class wizard of the evil alignment - edwin. xan being lawful neutral would fit a lot better in a good party.
Honestly i feel like nalia is a good replacement for him though, the 4 thief levels she has don't cost enough exp to make any real diffrence in abilities end-game.
In the end i guess it's all down to more people having played with Xan in their parties, playing through the game xan is pretty hard to miss, while it's easy to overlook branwen.
My fave would be - change the Xzar/Montaron quest slightly, so it is possible to save Montaron. What the hell, Xzar is a necromancer. It's no stretch at all that he could revive Montaron when you return the body. And voila, you have 2 more recruitable evil NPCs, a mage alternative to Edwin (as much as I like him, it would be nice to have options for a different party type) and a *gasp* fighter/THIEF, which is what BG2 really needs.
I also wouldn't mind Branwen, simply because I'm so used to fill up evil parties with her and with the very limited evil options, I'll have to do that in BG2 anyway. I don't like Viconia as cleric; way too squishy, and Branwen would also make a good option for a romance. I'm not overly interested in those myself, but I can understand how annoying it is to only have elvish romance options. (Eldoth could get a romance quest for female charnames, because I also understand how crappy it is to only have Anomen as option.)
Anomen is really a pure cleric as he dual classed very early in the game. If you complete his quest a certain way he becomes good aligned as his wisdom is set to 18. That makes him the best cleric in the game as he can get grandmastery in blunt weapons.