most challening party of six - what would it be for you?

Lemernis

Many of us have played BG1 using the BG2 engine via Tutu and BGT. But now we will be playing BG1 *officially* with BG2 kits via BG:EE. So with the introduction of kits, what would you consider the most challenging party you could put together?

This may include any assortment of NPCs, a full custom party, or a mix of NPCs and custom PCs.

We all know that some NPCs have been tagged as least effective. And some classes and kits are seen that way too.

So what is your "weakest" (most challenging to win with) possible party?

ajwz

5 dead npcs and a monk

Lemernis

Monk has to be in there somewhere, lol. I tried it once in a BGT game and felt it was not going to be very fun at all as BG1's main character, so I aborted the game after only a few hours. Although I wonder if they will rebalance the class in light of Rasaad.

HaggardBlaze

6 monks

Lemernis

I'm going to say...

PC - monk
PC- jester
PC- beastmaster
Garrick
Skie Alora
Xan meleeing with Moonblade (Oh, what's the point?)

Quartz

Lemernis said:

I'm going to say...

PC - monk
PC- jester
PC- beastmaster
Garrick
Skie
Xan meleeing with Moonblade (Oh, what's the point?)

You can definitely do worse than Skie ahaha. Much as I love her, Safana lacks bonuses to much...

Lemernis

@Quartz

That's probably true. I've barely used her or Alora. I think only once each and I can't even remember how they did.

Zaor

6 mages (Diviners), minimum intelligence con str and dex with proficiency in staves. Have fun. For bonus points, have your starter spells be identify and infravision.

It is worth noting that you will have 5 carrying capacity and will be unable to use your staff.

Quartz

Lemernis said:

@Quartz

That's probably true. I've barely used her or Alora. I think only once each and I can't even remember how they did.

Safana can be made plenty good thanks to being able to be picked up early; you can tailor her stats the way you want. Also, she specializes in lock picking and disarm traps on her own (so picking her up later isn't the end of the world). If you throw an Int tome her way, she can Dual-Class to Mage. She has decent Specialist Mage choices too, having 17 Dex and 17 Cha.

Alora has a great Dexterity and great Saving Throws, but you have to pick her up soooo late, and she dumps a bunch of stat points into pick pocketing, which is not everyone's favorite thing to do.

Skie, also picks up really late, but she has 18 Dex/15 Con. So, not bad. Her stats are rounded when you pick her up, which is interesting.

If I personally had to pick one thief which made the party really challenging; I'd go with Alora.

Djimmy

6 mages casting fireballs from point-blank range

Lemernis

Djimmy said:

6 mages casting fireballs from point-blank range

Six Wild Mages then? ;P

Suiboon

6 wizard slayers.

Hoebagger

Khalid, Khalid, Khalid, Khalid, Khalid, and Khalid.

sandmanCCL

A party of 6 various fighters would be a miserable experience.

If I have even a single arcane caster and a single divine caster, I can pretty much get through anything without worrying too much. When you take away spells, you're screwed. There'd be some encounters in BG2 I think would be impossible.

Brude

sandmanCCL said:

A party of 6 various fighters would be a miserable experience.

If I have even a single arcane caster and a single divine caster, I can pretty much get through anything without worrying too much. When you take away spells, you're screwed. There'd be some encounters in BG2 I think would be impossible.

I haven't played BG2 in a long, long time, but my guess is you could do it, at least with the main plot.

For the first game, it's definitely possible. Although I think you'd have to cheese some encounters a bit (like running away from Daveorn until his protections wore off).

I don't think this would b miserable at all. Spellcasters are underpowered for the first part of the game & only really come into play during boss fights.

Biggest drawback would be the bucks spent on healing pots, and that you wouldn't be able to heal CC'd characters.

Silence

It's hard to imagine any party of 6 being that bad. I mean you can solo the game, after all. But I suppose it's possible...particularly if the sucky characters eat up experience and contribute nothing.

If you ask me, the canon party is pretty bad. I refuse to go adventuring with two couples. Talk about being the odd one out...I have to bring my sister along and pretend she's my girlfriend.

Quartz

Silence said:

It's hard to imagine any party of 6 being that bad. I mean you can solo the game, after all. But I suppose it's possible...particularly if the sucky characters eat up experience and contribute nothing.

Silence said:

If you ask me, the canon party is pretty bad. I refuse to go adventuring with two couples. Talk about being the odd one out...I have to bring my sister along and pretend she's my girlfriend.

Hah, well said. Two couples and then you and your half-sister (who you don't actually know is your half-sister) who probably friend-zoned you loooong ago. :P

ramagons

Zaor said:

6 mages (Diviners), minimum intelligence con str and dex with proficiency in staves. Have fun. For bonus points, have your starter spells be identify and infravision.

It is worth noting that you will have 5 carrying capacity and will be unable to use your staff.

Especially when the arrows start flying around and you don't have mirror image yet. Not even horcruxes could save this party.

Quartz

ramagons said:

Zaor said:

6 mages (Diviners), minimum intelligence con str and dex with proficiency in staves. Have fun. For bonus points, have your starter spells be identify and infravision.

It is worth noting that you will have 5 carrying capacity and will be unable to use your staff.

Especially when the arrows start flying around and you don't have mirror image yet. Not even horcruxes could save this party.

Honestly, that shit would be straight up comical. Running a bunch of lemmings like that into death ... just awesome.

Lemernis

Quartz said:

ramagons said:

Zaor said:

6 mages (Diviners), minimum intelligence con str and dex with proficiency in staves. Have fun. For bonus points, have your starter spells be identify and infravision.

It is worth noting that you will have 5 carrying capacity and will be unable to use your staff.

Especially when the arrows start flying around and you don't have mirror image yet. Not even horcruxes could save this party.

Honestly, that shit would be straight up comical. Running a bunch of lemmings like that into death ... just awesome.

The six diviners roleplayed to cast divination spells before they could cast any others would be tough. But even then you might be surprised. That party could still cast any other school's spells after their specialty school spells were exhausted.

I won the game pretty handily once with a party of 4 specialists (who used their specialty school's spells first), a cleric, and a mage-thief--all of whom used spells almost exclusively. It was very difficult early on, though, as you can imagine.

I think the game could actually be very winnable with an all warrior class party led by a Wizard Slayer. That's a 'concept game' that I'm going to try, eventually.

The six monks would be tough early on, but as they became more powerful they would be devastating.

Dragonspear

@Lemernis

I figure Wizard Slayer, Inquisitor and Assassin but what else would you add?

Lemernis

@Dragonspear

Re: all warrior class party led by Wizard Slayer:

Well, as far as I can see Wizard Slayers don't have any beef with divine magic, just arcane magic. (Amn is the perfect place to find this sort of character, btw!) So I would be tempted to add a cleric or fighter-cleric as well. Just because the game could get pretty darned tedious without a healer. I.e., you'd be spending a lot of time visiting temples.

Actually, if I had my druthers Wizard Slayers would be allowed to don divinely enchanted items only, versus items enchanted through arcane magic, if that makes sense.

I think I would add a Barbarian, just cause I've never played one. Berserker seems to fit well here too, for that matter.

So perhaps

Wizard Slayer (main character)
Inquisitor
Assassin
Barbarian
Berserker
Cleric of Talos

Brude

Dragonspear said:

@Lemernis

I figure Wizard Slayer, Inquisitor and Assassin but what else would you add?

True class Bard. They take half of BG1 to approach being decent. Thief thac0, almost no spells, and a song of dubious quality.

Or just make Garrick your party leader.

Lemernis

@Brude

Lol, I do have Garrick in my party in the post further up.

The Wizard Slayer led party of all *fighter* types is actually growing on me a lot as a real consideration to actually play...

Lemernis

What about Faldorn? Does she suck? Or is she actually okay? I think I only used her once many years ago, and can't even remember what she was like now. I don't recall her not being effective for a druid... But because the game is so city-based by the time she becomes available, she seemed like such a poor fit at that point. I also didn't care for her personality at all.

Cheesebelly

Six Wild Mages!
Rule - use only the Reckless Dweomer

In all seriousness, I guess I'd say :

Kensai
Monk
Wild Mage
Shapeshifter
Beast Master
XXX


I don't really know how to fill up that XXX spot, but the ones mentioned should have a few difficulties. Although having a Beast Master, Shapeshifter, Monk and Kensai all together can still cause the enemies to die quite soon.

I once went with a six monk party from BG all the way to ToB. It's tough... until you hit level 2 with all the monks. From then forward, it gets easier and easier gradually. By the time you hit level 10 in Shadows of Amn, nothing can stop you. By the time you hit Whirlwind HLA... you're invulnerable.

Mortianna

Lemernis said:

So what is your "weakest" (most challenging to win with) possible party?

The canon party, not so much because of their abilities, but more like my inability to stomach them throughout the entire game.

raywind

there really arent any particular worst character if you dont gimp on stats, only one i would count in would be wizrd slayer without that mod that lets you use ranged weapons to add that spell failure.

sandmanCCL

Lemernis said:

What about Faldorn? Does she suck? Or is she actually okay? I think I only used her once many years ago, and can't even remember what she was like now. I don't recall her not being effective for a druid... But because the game is so city-based by the time she becomes available, she seemed like such a poor fit at that point. I also didn't care for her personality at all.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, Faldorn isn't the worst. Single-class druids in BG1 end up with more divine spells per day than Clerics do. The things you give up are largely melee buff spells and in return you can heal better and actually reach 5th level divine spells. There's only two in vanilla BG1 (animal summon 2 and whatever rank of healing is at that level) but if you're using BGT or Tutu, oh man are those two level 5 slots you get going to good use.

Her physical stats are pretty bad but they don't really matter. If you want to use her in melee, shapeshift. Doesn't matter that you have crappy strength and dexterity when you can just turn into a bear and set it to something different.

Keep her at a distance with darts and slings while in caster form, turn into a wolf and nibble at people if you run out of bullets and spells. Plus, her dire wolf ability is pretty awesome especially considering how fast dire wolves are compared to anything else in the game.

Brude

Lemernis said:

What about Faldorn? Does she suck? Or is she actually okay? I think I only used her once many years ago, and can't even remember what she was like now. I don't recall her not being effective for a druid... But because the game is so city-based by the time she becomes available, she seemed like such a poor fit at that point. I also didn't care for her personality at all.

What Sandman said.

Faldorn can get to level 10 by the end of the game (ToSC). She also has one of the highest WIS scores of any divine caster.

Druid casting is more fun if you've got the Spell Revisions mod installed, and I've often thought of hacking Faldorn into an Avenger kit as that seems to suit her personality.

Brude

PS: I think the most challenging NPC group would be the low-CON party: Shar-teel, Viconia, Alora, Quayle, Garrick, Xan etc. Very little room for error.