Which recruitable NPCs are recruited least often?

Grinkles

I am thinking of replaying the game for the umpteenth time and thought it would be fun to build an unconventional party roster that one would not expect to see together, providing alignment conflicts don’t get in the way. With that goal in mind, which recruitable NPCs in Baldur’s Gate (including Enhanced Edition characters) are perceived to be the least popular or least frequently used among players?

For example, I suspect Xan might be near the bottom of the list in terms of recruitment rate. He seems to be snubbed by some players because the role he’d fill will have already been taken up by either Xzar, Dynaheir, or Edwin. Being an Enchanter, he also loses out on the flashy evocation spells that many consider to be cornerstones of the Mage class, such as Magic Missile and Fireball. His defeatist remarks probably don’t help his public image either! For these reasons, I'd guess that he'd be among the least often used NPCs. (Don't get me wrong, I always personally liked the poor guy myself!)

Bigfish

The late game crew of Eldoth, Skie, Tiax, Quayle, and Alora don't seem to get picked up that often.

Raduziel

Xan is very, very useful if used right. Hold Person, Dire Charm, Confusion, spells such as these can turn every battle in a piece of cake. He's more useful then Xzar or Dynaheir IMHO (Edwin keeps ahead because of his tons of daily spells).

There was a discussion, not long ago, where people were answering your question. Based on it I've decided to run a campaign using only the NPCs I always reject. Tiax is really surprising me.

Mathsorcerer

If you give Xan a Robe of Fire Resistance, Batalista's Passport, and a Wand of Fire he becomes highly dangerous as he walks into a crowd of enemies and throws a fireball at his feet.

I don't think I have ever used Kivan, Eldoth, Skie, or Yeslick.

Pantalion

Bigfish said:

The late game crew of Eldoth, Skie, Tiax, Quayle, and Alora don't seem to get picked up that often.

This. And for the record, I'd be amazed if people didn't love them some Xan. Dynaheir and Xzar are scrubs in comparison.

Dynaheir: Enchantment spells win entire engagements, even late BG. Chaos and Emotion wreck entire groups just as hard as Cloudkill can, if not harder, Sleep dominates the early game in a way Magic Missile never could, and Wands of Fire will do a better job at nuking than spells will throughout.

Xzar: No mirror images? No improved invisibility? Xan can drop both and stoneskins to be vastly more survivable than Xzar could ever be.

Bigfish

I've never had issue with Dynaheir. I know there is a lot of good stuff in enchantment, but it never seems to be critical in as much as if I'm hauling her along, I'm doing a canon run with Imoen, who will dual class and cover those few spells Dynaheir misses out on. There aren't even THAT many encounters that are trivialized by enchantments that aren't also made just as easy with 2-3 other methods of blowing things up. Long term it would be an issue since spells like Greater Malison are essential, but at the end of Baldur's Gate, you're talking a handful of group fights where any sort of AOE bomb works just as well.

Same thing with Xzar. I don't use Mirror Image or Improved Invisibility all that much on my mages because encounters tend to be so short as to not be worth using the spells. I mean they're great if you're building a character concept around them and you're trying to preserve the impending game over that is CHARNAME, but getting poked with sticks is almost never a problem for my mages. And if it is, its an ambush or something popped up next to them and ate them whole immediately anyway.

The only mage that is THAT much better than everyone else is Edwin, and that' only because he gets so many spell slots that you can basically forget about thinking "should I save this for later" because he's probably got 2 more memorized anyway.

kansasbarbarian

This is interesting. In my new berserker run I am taking Xan, Garrick, Eldoth, Faldorn, and Skie who I have never taken despite playing this game since 1998. I have tried everybody else. Probably my favorite one was an all shorty run with my DD, Yeslick, Quayle, Tiax,Kaigan, and Alora. The banter that there was was hilarious.

Raduziel

Don't Yeslick and Kagain attacks each others throats?

In my current run I was using Quayle and Tiax. Quayle started to bully Tiax so I get rid of that pompous bastard in favor of Viconia (but I'll probably trade her for Faldorn later).

And I'm very impressed with Tiax's performance. He is a hell of a thief, despite his "low" Dex and multiclass, and can help buffing the party as a cleric.

GreenWarlock

For Kagain/Yeslick, play the PC as party leader with a ridiculously high Cha, and maybe tolerate a reload or two (but not too many). I think I saw them square off once in my shorty run, and restoring the last auto-save put us back on track. I like to play minimal reload, rather than no reload, as I have not yet beaten the game enough times to /need/ the no-reload challenge. Of course, each time I leave Candlekeep I tell myself, this time ...

Grinkles

Some good info here. I should've known that the late-game crew would top the list. It makes me wonder how popular they'd be if they didn't come with the disadvantage of arriving so late in the game. I also had no idea that the Elvish Eeyore (a.k.a. Xan) had so many people in his corner.

I'm surprised I haven't seen Safana mentioned. Maybe she was just "unpopular" in my mind because I personally never knew about her when I used to play the original game as a kid. Guess I never gave the lighthouse area a thorough enough search until I came across her name in online guides! Funny the way the mind forms assumptions in that way. For all I know, recruiting Safana may be one of the first goals on many players' lists as soon as they leave Candlekeep, especially now that the games secrets are all laid out in FAQs, wikis, etc.

GreenWarlock

I haven't managed to make Xan work for me yet, which is a sure sign that I have not got the idea of mages yet. He is a paradox to me, with one of the best weapons in the game restricted to him, yet a THAC0 and Con too low to make good use of it. He does not have enough spells, when you recruit him, to reliably disable enemies all day either. Safana suffers from mostly being not quite as good as Imoen, which blunts her appeal unless you want another thief after Imoen duals.

Yeslick, OTOH, is one one of my staple characters. He is the perfect bearer of many stat-boosting items found throughout the game, especially with EE. Alora is the character I miss the most - she just occurs too late to be useful unless I make a specific point of charging through the game to recruit her. I am sure she would be much more popular if you could recruit her earlier. Tiax rules, 'nuff said! Quayle, as a cleric/illusionist, is one of the better spell-casters in the game, despite no Wisdom bonus. He also gets a mild Dex boost in EE, which may be enough to persuade doubters to give him another try.

I can't speak to Eldoth and Skie as I so rarely play evil, they have never had the chance to party for me.

ljbo

@GreenWarlock

GreenWarlock said:

Alora is the character I miss the most - she just occurs too late

You could try installing the BG1 NPC mod. It lets you move Alora to a location accessible early in the game.

thelovebat

Bigfish said:

The late game crew of Eldoth, Skie, Tiax, Quayle, and Alora don't seem to get picked up that often.

Pretty much. Skie and Alora have some decent enough stats, but by the time you can get them you have to be quite a few chapters into the game, and you'll have already had access to a few nice thieves for much of the early-mid game. Developing characters the way you want especially thieves and thieving skills is why adding a thief character later in the game are mainly just good for pickpocketing or dumping points into a single skill your current thieves haven't focused on, for situational use (though picking up a Bard can give you pickpocket if you level them up). Eldoth and Tiax just don't have great stats/abilities in general that stack up to other NPCs, and it takes a while before you have a chance to get either of them. Eldoth can make poison arrows but only he can fire them and his lower Dexterity doesn't help him make use of those. Tiax gets a free summon ability, but by the time you get to pick him up your spellcasting will have dwarfed a decent single use summon and his stats are crappy.

Quayle is one who can be fairly useful, but he's held back because you don't get access to him soon enough to build up his spellbook, and like a number of the other late game NPCs you can get he's crummy in melee combat. His stats also aren't ideal, but he's one of the few multiclass spellcasters you get access to NPC wise and the only multiclass mage (unless dualing Imoen to mage).

But as always the usually prohibiting factor is already having built your party and tailored it the way you want, so having 5 other already developed party members to suit your needs leaves little room later in the game to suddenly change things up and not getting to develop the late game NPCs the way you want, and their HP rolls the game gives them as they scale to your level aren't all that good so they're a bit squishy to add at that point too. If you could get access to some of them in the wilderness areas instead of being locked out of getting them until a certain chapter then they may be more useful, but some have a reason story wise for why they're in that location so it wouldn't work for all of them.