Help me choose my Party

Giant2005

I am going a little crazy trying to pick my 5th NPC companion and I could really use some help. I'm going to list the 4 that (I think) I have settled on already just so you can see what the team really needs and also maybe you might think it best to throw one or more of them to the curb.

One thing that is relevant to consider is the fact that in my most recent playthrough, I used Rasaad, Aerie, Viconia, Edwin and Jaheira. My protagonist was a Dual class Kensei/Thief (That hadn't unlocked his Kensei levels yet, so all Kensei was doing was limiting his weapon choices and preventing him from using armor). A big part of the reason why I am playing again is the fact that it really annoyed me that I kept getting a lot of magic weapons that no-one could use - primarily swords. I don't want to run into that issue again.

What I have so far:

Bhaalspawn: Unlike the last game, he already has enough XP to have unlocked his Kensei abilities and also has his hands on Use Any Item. That alone should go a long way to helping me enjoy more of those tasty weapon options. He also has 100% Magic Resistance which is incredibly relevant for me and an ongoing theme with these character choices. Demi-Liches really bother me and I want to be able to use as many characters as I can against them - that means my preference is for characters that can attain high levels of Spell Resistance or can cast Spell Immunity on themselves (And at least one Cleric to Death Ward those relying on Spell Immunity).

Viconia: There mainly because I want to ensure there is at least 1 romance option in the line up and I can boost her Spell Resist up to 100% through items, or at least close enough that she is highly likely to resist. Obviously I need a Cleric for Death Warding too.

Edwin: Easily the best Mage in the game and he can cast Spell Immunity on himself. Even though he is undeniably better, I am thinking that I might eventually switch him out for Imoen purely for character reasons.

Haer'Dalis: I'm not so sure I even like this guy and I have never used him before but he does have some appeal. Firstly he adds a little bit of weapon variety which I missed so much in my previous playthrough and I quite like his natural resistances. Once he gets Use Any Item I might give him Jan's personal armor to give him even more physical resist, or I might be selfish and keep it for my own character. Even if I do keep Jan's armor for myself, I'd like to have someone around to eventually make good use of the Aslyferund Elven Chain as my character will likely already be immune to non-magical weapons. Even if immunity to non-magic weapons is nearly pointless at that stage of the game, I just like the idea of the ability and want someone using that armor - Haer'Dalis is perfect for it. Haer'Dalis can also cast Spell Immunity which means he will be fine for my Demi-Lich woes and he is the best arcane buffer in the game which makes him great support for Edwin's spellcasting.

Dorn: I want a Two-Hander and he is probably the best choice due to my criteria. He can get good Spell Resist due to Carsomyr and hopefully getting Viconia's Spell Resist up would leave enough magic items with Spell Resist left over to do the same for him. Dorn is obviously better for the job than Keldorn because Keldorn will want to murder half of the above people.


Now for those that I am struggling to choose between for the final spot in the roster:

Jaheira: I quite like her and use her a lot. With the above roster I pretty much have all of the weapon diversity I need so her limited weapon choices aren't a problem for me. Some extra Divine Casting probably won't hurt and she is pretty competent on the front lines with a Belt of Giant Strength in her armament. However there is no way that I can see for her to become immune to Demi-Liches and although you might think that isn't much of a big deal, it really is quite an issue for me. Still, if 5/6 party members can handle a Demi-Lich, the odds of her even being targeted go down drastically and it might work out okay.

Rasaad: I really like Monks and their glorious Spell Resistance. I don't really know how available + Spell Resist items are in the game, but I am hoping there are enough to get Viconia, Dorn and Rasaad all really high. Last time I played with him I was pretty gentle and supportive of his actions and I am kind of curious to play with him again to take the other route and see what happens if I make him feel like an absolute jerkoff. Also, I have never played with Dorn before so I don't know if Dorn will object to Rasaad or not. For all I know they might be mutually exclusive anyway.

Aerie: A divine support alternative to Jaheira. Unlike Jaheira she can cast Spell Immunity so I have no issues with her exactly but with Edwin and Haer'Dalis, I feel like I already have enough Arcane Support. Unlike what seems to be the majority however, I do actually quite like her as an Arcane Caster. Her ability to wield a shield and helmet are huge advantages to me and she makes a credible Divine Caster too due to being able to cast faster via the Robe of Vecna.

Imoen: She can cast Spell Immunity but other than that, I have a hard time justifying her involvement mechanically. I just want her around because of who she is and am seriously considering throwing Edwin to the curb for her sake (I will probably end up doing something similar with the ToB companion when I get that far). Still, she kind of sucks - I might actually consider editing her somewhat to make her more comparable to Edwin and make myself feel better about downgrading in such a manner. I'm just not quite sure about how to do that exactly.



As you can see, the four in the maybe category aren't exactly the types to get along with those that I am kind of favoring already so you might want to suggest someone like Korgan instead. If you can make a good case for Korgan then go ahead and I already considered him but he didn't make the short/er list. As for how much the characters don't like each other or how much they like me for doing pleasant/unpleasant things, I don't really care. As long as it is possible to get by without them trying to murder each other or me, I am okay with it. So please don't let party dynamics taint your advice unless some of the possible combinations up above are certain/highly likely to result in murder.

sarevok57

well if you really want a demilich killer, then korgan is your man, his berserk ability makes him immune to imprisonment ( and magic resistance doesn't do squat to magic resistance) plus being a fighter if you really want to flip his weapon proficiencies around then go for it, they gain weapon proficiencies every 3 levels, and in retrospect that is relatively quick,

like mazzy for example I always give her axe proficiency as soon as I get her and she usually still hits grand mastery at the end of SoA,

and speaking of axes, there is one really REALLY sexy axe in ToB so sticking with axe for korgan might be a good idea,

plus with you being a kensai I would assume you are dual wielding? so I would think you would give all those sexy swords to your main guy, but again if you want to share the sword love to someone else, have korgan start getting some prof points in the sword of your choice,

also korgan gets dwarven saving throw bonuses, which is very VERY helpful, luckily dorn does as well since he is a paladin kit and paladins get +2 to all saves, so having another character with great saves is always nice

plus korgan has good HP, by the end of the day, you need HP to survive and bringing on characters with weaker HP you will see them fall more often, if korgan is using the mits of dexterity and his berserk ability, he is the pinnacle of tank, being immune to a bunch of annoying garbage with great AC and with great damage ability

now haer dalis, you will have to watch out with him, first I don't think he can wear jan's armor even with UAI, I just made a swashbuckler in ToB and I had UAI and I couldn't wear cernd's or rasaad's gear, plus haer dalis' gear might conflict with your main guy's gear ( unless you plan on having haer dalis cast prep spells before EVERY fight, and trust me, he probably will be buffing a lot just to stay alive, and also make sure to have tensers transformation with him, the double HP thing is very usefull - just be aware that you wont be able to cast spells in the duration of teners trans. -)

now for a last option, im looking at your composition here, and usually how I do it I will have 3 melee guys and one sling guy, one bow guy, and one dagger ( boomerang and or firetooth) guy so based on what you are doing now you might already have 3 melee guys ( charname, dorn, and haer dalis) so korgan might be a little much and I would assume viconia is a sling wielder and Edwin will use the ballin' returning daggers
so that leaves a bow guy,

and it just so happens that mazzy has 5 profs in short bow, so she can start using the gesen bow right away and kind of tear it up from long range, plus she comes with 18 dex so she can have a great AC right away, plus her invoke curage ability rocks, it gives immunity to fear, +1 to hit and +1 to all saves for the whole team, plus she comes with lay on hands twice a day ( which is very useful, especially at higher levels) the only problem is, I don't know how compatible she is going to be with dorn ( if im not mistaken she will be fine with viconia and Edwin) but dorn I have no clue

Now Jaheira, in bgII ( before ToB) she is pretty good on the frontlines but when ToB comes along she starts to struggle quite a bit because of her druid levels needing OUTRAGEOUS experience, she needs 6 000 000 XP to hit level 15 in her druid class, and although she has stoneskin and elemental summoning the above fighters will still preform better than jaheira when it comes to melee and as you say, her melee weapons are pretty limited compared to a fighter who can use any of them at grand mastery and deal more damage with them as well

now rasaad is an interesting choice, first of all when he hits level 18 he will start to really rock in melee, with great to hit/ to damage/ AC / Saves but unfortunately as I said MR will not stop imprisonment but if you really want there are 2 items in the game that ribald sells that will make you immune to imprisonment and coincidently there are only 2 demi liches in the game

ribald sells 2 scrolls of protection from magic, that makes you immune to ALL magic from enemies and yourself

but other than that, he will no doubt kick some melee butt, the only thing bringing him back a bit is maybe his HP wont be too hot, but if his AC can hit -20 or lower, then he will probably be in good shape if you have plenty of potions of superior healing around

with aerie to be perfectly honest I don't really think you need to bring her along, viconia and Edwin already have a lot of spell horse power coming from them unless you plan on giving aerie just buff and support spells, but one thing is her weapons might conflict with viconia a bit ( since they both can only use cleric weapons) plus when it comes to robe of vecna I would just keep it with Edwin, it will take gratuitous XP before aerie is going to even be able to cast level 8 mage spells, and Edwin will be doing them at a measly 2.25 million XP, plus that is another weakness aerie has, the HUGE XP needed to grow up levels, she needs a whopping 750 000 XP just to grow up 1 mage level, and even her cleric levels need 450 000 to grow up one, but if you really want more spell power than I guess it couldn't hurt

I saw that you were talking about imoen if you do bring her along I would suggest not scrapping Edwin ( he gets +2 spells per level all the way to level 9, that is just so damn good to give up) plus she can use a bow if need be and having an extra caster is always useful, last play through I had both imoen and nalia, and they were wrecking shop with chain contengencies and horrid wiltings, it was good times, plus you could just use imoen for your "buff spell caster" by giving her all the buff spells that she will cast on the party so Edwin can focus on all the offensive spells to lay waste to his enemies

and last but not least, if you already have UAI you might be in ToB? and if you are why not take sarevok, he has huge HP and again you can start giving him in profs in whatever weapon you feel, and by level 30 or so he will hit grand mastery in any new weapon you give him although sarevok and mazzy don't get berserk they still have their perks

so theres my novella I apologize for the length but hopefully that gives some helpful insight on what ya want to do

Giant2005

No I'm not in ToB, I am just starting again. I stopped my previous run through after completing all of the available side-quests prior to giving Galen his 15 or 20k to progress the story. I then exported my character and hit Lum's machine and repeated that process a bunch of times which is why my character has a whole lot of XP (And the 100% magic resist that I was going for).

I was not aware that Imprisonment ignored Spell Resist. I almost sent poor Viconia to her death against the Demi-Lich in Watcher's Keep - I assumed her 100% SR would keep her happy and sent her, Edwin and Aerie against it solo. I guess Viconia lucked out and wasn't targeted.

Thanks for the advice on all of the characters - in particular Jaheira whom you have convinced me to scrap off the short list. I just kicked her out of my team and man was she not happy but the evil streak in me was kind of elated at her reaction. Also thanks for the warning regarding Use Any Item. I was assuming that it was literally any item but the risk is enough that I might be inclined to kick Haer'Dalis off the team too. Although I haven't actually picked him up yet anyway so I'm not sure it counts. The advice regarding Mazzy is of no use to me though - I don't care how well you sell her, she is still a Gnome and will be ignored on that basis alone.

As for the swords thing, I'm not sure my Bhaalspawn will be in too much competition with another dual-wielder. My Bhaalspawn might be able to use and specialize in whatever melee weapons he wants but if he wants to backstab, he is limited to Thief weapons. Which means another dual-wielder can use one of the spare +1 attack weapons in their off-hand while using a non-Thief main-hand weapon (Which tend to be better than the Thief options so it shouldn't overlap).

I'm actually starting to think that I might just edit the characters so I can essentially transplant the mechanical benefits from one and put them on another which I want to have around for non-mechanical reasons. Imoen is the obvious example - I think I'll change her from a Thief/Mage to a Fighter/Mage so she can assume the role that I had planned for Haer'Dalis. Since I am cheating anyway, I may as well take that Fighter part and give it the Berserker Kit so I can get the Korgan benefits you mentioned earlier. I'll probably do the same with Sarevok eventually and turn him into a Monk so I can get his story elements and use him to replace Rasaad after I have finished crushing Rasaad's self-esteem. I was also considering giving Aerie the same treatment and essentially just cheating up her own version of Edwin's amulet but I think you have convinced me well enough that even if I did that, Edwin would still be the superior choice.

As icky as the concept of editing the game feels, I think the likely consequence of my indecisiveness would be simply playing a Multiplayer game and filling those gaps with characters of my choice anyway. At least this way I get what amounts to custom created characters with some actual personality to them.

So with that in mind, what do you think of the following lineup:

Viconia
Rasaad (Until I eventually replace him with a modified Sarevok)
Edwin
Haer'Dalis (To be eventually replaced with a modified Imoen when I get around to rescuing her - which probably won't be in a hurry)
and Dorn.

I am a little worried about being light on the Clerical front. Viconia is pretty good and Dorn can provide a little backup, but I doubt Dorn will be much use in that regard and I'd be kind of annoyed if I didn't protect the team from Level Drain and Viconia couldn't sort out the issue due to losing too many of her prepared spells to Level Drain.

Gallowglass

There aren't very many items giving Magic Resistance, and those which do so mostly give only a small amount per item. (The main exception is Carsomyr, but you're wrong to assume that Dorn can use it - it's only for Good-aligned Paladins, not Blackguards.) Those characters which have innate MR (your protagonist, Viconia, Monks and Wizard Slayers) can reach 100% MR (eventually) with a few items, but for anyone else it's very difficult.

Having cheated up your protagonist so ridiculously, the rest of the party are really going to be rather a drag on him. Apart from the few enemies who can cast spells which both bypass Magic Resistance and do something to which you're not already immune by other means (e.g. Imprisonment), your protagonist probably needs no help defeating every enemy on his own, so he'll probably end up spending a lot of his time just nurse-maiding his companions to keep them alive. All you'll really want is some sort of caster to buff him up and to take care of the rare dangerous situations, and who can protect themselves well enough to avoid the need for continual coddling ... which means Aerie.

So I reckon your answer with this protagonist is to take Aerie and no-one else, every other NPC in the game would just be a nuisance being dragged around for negligible added value. (With just the two of you sharing the XP, even Aerie will level up really fast - you should cap out before you finish SoA.)

If you want to enjoy a party game with a full team who are actually useful rather than a tedious burden, then scrap this win-button protagonist and start again with a legitimate protagonist who has weaknesses as well as strengths.

But hey, it's your game, play how you like. If you want to drag along a bunch of pointless hangers-on, then that's up to you, and it really makes little difference which ones you take ... but that'd probably get boring before you reach the end.

Giant2005

Well that was thoroughly unhelpful.

sarevok57

even though you only have viconia, it should still be enough for when it comes to healing, don't be afraid to stack up on potions of extra healing/ superior healing, there are crap loads in the game, and they are great for if you are taking some serious damage and are waiting for viconia in between time casting spells, I usually play power gamer parties and I find that one cleric is more than enough, infact my last playthrough I had my cleric as a human who hit level 13 in its fighter class before it even turned into a cleric, and plus since Edwin cant wear the amulet of power, the only other wise choice is to viconia, which will make her immune to level drain, and it will reduce her spell casting time down by one, making spells like mass cure that much more crucial in the thick of combat