Thoughts and playing the new NPCs (still playing)
magisensei
Member Posts: 316
Hi fellow sell-swords,
I am trying out all the new NPCs with my first run to see how they play out.
I picked up Neera first - and she was interesting if a bit anxious - because she needed help right away. In terms of entertainment, she plays well but in terms of power she is not as reliable as you would like. Yes, she is after all a wild mage and that makes for some randomness and luck to her spells but overall she does cast normally; although I did have to do reload once since she did the "cow-bomb" (that was a first for me to see and just for that I want to see it again this time dropped on a monster) while trying to cast a magic missile - killed the bad guy but also anyone who was too close including charname. Overall, she has proven to be fun and if you are a good or neutral party looking for the best normal mage NPC in the game then its probably her. She has a subquest.
Dorn - has to be one of the better NPCs as well - probably the best. He's entertaining and fun to be with even if he is a bit broody. He is not overpowered - with merely 40hp - but with some good armor and magical items (dex boost item) he makes a very good front liner; plus as a blackguard he has some unique abilities which can be interesting to try out. Of the 4 new NPCs, I am enjoying playing him the most and his quest of revenge resonates with my character as well. Has his own subquest.
Baeloth - the drow sorcerer - he is rather droll and amusing - if he wasn't so overpowered he'd be a great NPC - his ranting when you first meet him -( made me like him) - as I sort of play a sorcerer like that - a bit crazed and a bit conceited in his own powers. Picking him up in chapter 3 makes him almost too powerful since some of the good spells are not yet found or available (at least for me that is - no fireball). If choosing between him and Edwin, I picked the drow sorcerer over him anytime for sheer entertainment value. I am keeping him around for now but once I pick up Viconia so I can keep Dron - off he goes looking for away back to the Underdark - best of luck to him. Has no subquest. But I wonder if I wander over to the Black Pits if I will meet him again?
On a quick side note - having both evil characters in the party is interesting to your reputation - keeping it at a nice 17 but if you release Baeloth and you've paid no attention to your rep (which goes up by 2 when he leaves and you've been following the good path with no rep lost - by chp 3 you should have 20 rep or so) then you will lose Dorn as well - he leaves and unless you find away to lower your rep (without killing someone) he is lost forever.
Rasaad - sadly he is not good enough or maybe you could just call him average - nothing about his stats are great but they are okay - he is a monk and that means no armor and no real magical items to enhance his class abilities. Yes, he can use weapons but with only 1 APR - its rather useless almost. I think the last time I played a monk character was in IWD 2 (3e rules) but that has been so long ago and I seem to remember more magical items for them or maybe I just used a mod to make it more playable but sadly for Rasaad he is just average - you can pick up better NPCs. He does have a subquest.
Overall, I will keep Neera and Dorn for entertainment and play-ability. They both have subquests and are rather good NPCs that can be built to be better.
Overall, beamdog has made better evil characters then good characters - I guess it is more fun to make evil characters
afterall.
I am trying out all the new NPCs with my first run to see how they play out.
I picked up Neera first - and she was interesting if a bit anxious - because she needed help right away. In terms of entertainment, she plays well but in terms of power she is not as reliable as you would like. Yes, she is after all a wild mage and that makes for some randomness and luck to her spells but overall she does cast normally; although I did have to do reload once since she did the "cow-bomb" (that was a first for me to see and just for that I want to see it again this time dropped on a monster) while trying to cast a magic missile - killed the bad guy but also anyone who was too close including charname. Overall, she has proven to be fun and if you are a good or neutral party looking for the best normal mage NPC in the game then its probably her. She has a subquest.
Dorn - has to be one of the better NPCs as well - probably the best. He's entertaining and fun to be with even if he is a bit broody. He is not overpowered - with merely 40hp - but with some good armor and magical items (dex boost item) he makes a very good front liner; plus as a blackguard he has some unique abilities which can be interesting to try out. Of the 4 new NPCs, I am enjoying playing him the most and his quest of revenge resonates with my character as well. Has his own subquest.
Baeloth - the drow sorcerer - he is rather droll and amusing - if he wasn't so overpowered he'd be a great NPC - his ranting when you first meet him -( made me like him) - as I sort of play a sorcerer like that - a bit crazed and a bit conceited in his own powers. Picking him up in chapter 3 makes him almost too powerful since some of the good spells are not yet found or available (at least for me that is - no fireball). If choosing between him and Edwin, I picked the drow sorcerer over him anytime for sheer entertainment value. I am keeping him around for now but once I pick up Viconia so I can keep Dron - off he goes looking for away back to the Underdark - best of luck to him. Has no subquest. But I wonder if I wander over to the Black Pits if I will meet him again?
On a quick side note - having both evil characters in the party is interesting to your reputation - keeping it at a nice 17 but if you release Baeloth and you've paid no attention to your rep (which goes up by 2 when he leaves and you've been following the good path with no rep lost - by chp 3 you should have 20 rep or so) then you will lose Dorn as well - he leaves and unless you find away to lower your rep (without killing someone) he is lost forever.
Rasaad - sadly he is not good enough or maybe you could just call him average - nothing about his stats are great but they are okay - he is a monk and that means no armor and no real magical items to enhance his class abilities. Yes, he can use weapons but with only 1 APR - its rather useless almost. I think the last time I played a monk character was in IWD 2 (3e rules) but that has been so long ago and I seem to remember more magical items for them or maybe I just used a mod to make it more playable but sadly for Rasaad he is just average - you can pick up better NPCs. He does have a subquest.
Overall, I will keep Neera and Dorn for entertainment and play-ability. They both have subquests and are rather good NPCs that can be built to be better.
Overall, beamdog has made better evil characters then good characters - I guess it is more fun to make evil characters
afterall. 2
Comments
So when my party first encountered Rassad it was quite early in the game - perhaps chapter 2 or so and we were still relatively weak - well at least my Kensai was and then you had the mage. It was not a good time for another micro-managed NPC that you had to keep alive for a long while before they got middling useful. So I replayed the scene and this time instead of adding him I bypassed him for later.
Jump ahead 3 chapters - and here we are in chapter 5. Over the last few chapters I've explored and completed a great deal of the quests and adventures. By this time I had a core team of 4 with 2 spaces that alternated starting in chapter 3 so I could meet and play with as many NPCs as possible as we roamed the world.
After entering BG and helping Eldoth and Skie and then booting them out -- they were annoying especially Eldoth - he is lucky I didn't feed him to a basalisk.. I was back to 4 member team: Kensai (me), Dorn, Viconia, and Imoen (who I had dualed and recently got to level 7 so re-activated her thief skills - ya - that took a long time). So I went to pick up a 5th member - and I needed another arcane user - while Baeloth was fun - he had no quests and didn't have the spell selection that I liked so it was Nerra the wild mage.
As a 5 member team we explored Baldurs Gate and completed most of it and as we neared the ending of the 5th chapter with only the major quests in BG I went to pick up a 6th member.
I played this part several times with 3 different NPCs for the 6th person. Yeslick (f/c); Garrick (bard) and finally Rassad.
Yeslick worked out well - I added a middle fighter with cleric power who could heal and buff. He needed his own personal buffs and some potions to really melee but overall he definitely worked out. He was the cheapest to equip really - since I had all the armor and magical hammer already in storage along with some potions - he even used the dex gloves (instead of Dorn for a time to see how it would play out - not that bad.) With slings, hammer, spells and the wand of heaven he contributed to the team. Overall he worked out well.
Garrick - I chose since a bard is always useful - great lore to identify things -( saved time with id of goods) - he could cast some spells and use both wands and range weapons (and melee if he really had too) and he had the bard song so it was a free "remove fear" protection. Of the 3 he was the most expensive to outfit because of the magic crossbow of speed that I had to buy him and the magic bolts - but it was a nice variety of bolts to be had and it changed some of the dynamic of playing him. With song, wands, spells and crossbow he made a good addition that fit well in the 6th spot - a good back up and range fighter with arcane abilities. In one battle Imoen, Neera and Garrick each fired a magic missile (they were level 7 and 6 for Garrick) can you imagine the damage. Overall he worked well.
Rassad - coming to him again I was skeptical from my early play of him - but this time it was way later in the game - chapter 5 and I would skip all the teething pains of the weak levels. When we added him, he jumped to 6th level just like that. I gave him a point in darts. Using darts - there is such a variety and he could fire three of them a round. With points in movement and hiding - he hid amazingly well (the AI does it so well) - and he had 2 attacks with fists. He made a decent middle supporter. He would jump out of the shadows to attack, move at such a speed that many could not hit him if he engaged first and generally made a good middle support. No he is not a tank but then again neither are Garrick or Yeslick. Rassad needed of course some potion help (but they all needed something) - agility and strength potions making him 18 str, 18 dex - allowed for some good attacks and better AC (at 0 ) with no magical protection yet besides his boots (better AC then my kensai had with protection).
I took Rassad through the firewine ruins dungeon, the halfling village, another area I had not gone to yet, and Neera's quest and he worked out well as did Garrick and Yeslick. Overall he get a good grade as a good supporter - with his sun monk abilities he even took down a mage as we mopped out one battle. With darts, fists and sun monk power he played well ( I haven't yet used the fire fists to see how well they work) and did his part - he could both melee and support via range attacks and he had that something extra as well his sun monk abilities.
Overall, Rassad at 6th level worked well for me. He pulled his weight so far but we will see what happens when we get back to BG and try to get the helm of Balduran and see how that battle plays out. But so far so good.
I know what some might be saying - get the dwarf Kagain or Coran - with Kagain you don't need to do much - just armor and weapons and he tanks very well and Coran with his bows really kicks butt. I tried Kagain and he was great at what he did - attacking and tanking-- while Coran was great with bows - I might also try him out for the 6th spot - as I liked him when I used him earlier in the game. But both really are just melee support (although very good melee support) and don't add that something extra that Yeslick, Garrick and Rassad add to the mix.