BG 2: joinable NPCs mods. Who do you like? [Very mild spoilers]
MatteoTurini
Member Posts: 105
So, waiting for BG1:EE, I installed again BG2. This time, wanting some variety, I picked up some mods that add joinable NPCs (from here: http://www.gibberlings3.net/ and http://www.spellholdstudios.net/shs/modding).
I never tried them, so I decided to just install them all, and see what would come of it.
So far, in game I picked up Chloe, Haldamir, Gavin, Auren Aseph and Darian. Mind that I've not played them in-depth yet (and there's a reason for this... See later).
Generally speaking, the dialogues tend to be quite good, especially Chloe's, Auren's and Gavin's, and the characters well rounded and enjoyable. What I find most annoying, though, is that all of these characters are clearly overpowered (except maybe Gavin), in one way or the other.
Chloe is a kensai and has 13 STR and 16 CON, which are perfectly fine, but she also has 25 DEX. There's an in-game reason for this, and it's also really good for character development, so I could have passed beyond this, but she also has max HPs (84 at level 7) and starts with two extremely powerful weapons (a scimitar+3 with special abilities and a short sword+2 fire imbued). And she is a dual-wielder, that seems to be the main choice of every new NPC... I understand it's the most powerful combination, but after a while, with every NPC dual wielding, it just gets boring.
On the plus side, she has a really strong and interesting personality. So strong that
***SPOILER***
***END SPOILER***
Haldamir is a uber-powerful elf fighter. 18/97 STR, 17 DEX, 16 CON. He starts with 94 HPs at level 7 (10 points higher than maximum). He's a dual wielder. I haven't played much with him, because he's so overpowered that he can compete with a min-maxed CHARNAME. His story isn't very plausible at the beginning, but maybe there's some twist down the road that I didn't wait for, so I can't judge this aspect of him.
Gavin, on the other hand, is a good NPC, but in line with original BG 2 NPCs. He has 16 STR, 16 CON and 17 WIS, and those values are just perfect for a cleric NPC. He starts with 88 HPs at level 8 (8 more than maximum), but he also has a not-removable ring in his inventory (like Minc's Boo and Imoen's belt). He's not a dual wielder, thank Bhaal.
He has an interesting (though a bit too easy, railroaded and somewhat wordy) initial quest and some good dialogues, and he feels like an NPC that would be in line with the original ones (except for the too many hit points).
On the downside,
***SPOILER***
***END SPOILER***
Auren Aseph is a human fighter (with an elven sprite) with 16 STR, 16 DEX and 15 CON. She has 97 HPs at level 7, waaay to many (according to her class, level and constitution, she could hav 77 HPs max, and those would be a lot already). She's obviously a dual wielder...
Judging by the first lines of conversation, she seems like a really enjoyable character, but she's so out of league regarding HPs that I ditched her on the spot (that, and I already and 3 dual-wielding characters...).
Darian is an elven (avariel, actually) LG archer. He has 19 DEX and 17 WIS. I found him when he was a 9 level character, and he naturally had 90 HPs (maximum). He's powerful but, beside his high DEX (that could be ok, given that he's both an avariel and an archer, so there are good story reasons for it) and too high HPs, he's in line with BG 2 characters. Oh, he's obviously a dual wielder...
-
Wrapping it up, I find most of these characters not in line with the original BG 2 joinable NPCs: they are too powerful, they employ special rules (a human starting with 25 DEX, a level 7 fighter with 20 HPs more than maximum, etc..) and they're all dual wielders...
I would have liked to play with them to unfold their stories (some of them seem really, really promising), but they all (except for Gavin) felt too much like the "ideal perfect" character, in some way or the other, and I just can't stand it.
I hope that the other characters will be different.
-
S what do you think? Which characters do you like best? Do you find them over/under-powered, if compared with original joinable NPCs? Let me know!
-
PS: please, don't spoil their stories. If you liked the romance of one of the characters, just say that, don't say why.
Also, this thread is not an attack or a critique to the creators of these characters. This thread is based on what I like in the BG series regarding joinable NPCs, but your mileage may vary: where I find an overpowered NPC, you can see a good fit to your group; where I see a good choice, you can see a boring one. They're just opinions, and they're all fine.
I never tried them, so I decided to just install them all, and see what would come of it.
So far, in game I picked up Chloe, Haldamir, Gavin, Auren Aseph and Darian. Mind that I've not played them in-depth yet (and there's a reason for this... See later).
Generally speaking, the dialogues tend to be quite good, especially Chloe's, Auren's and Gavin's, and the characters well rounded and enjoyable. What I find most annoying, though, is that all of these characters are clearly overpowered (except maybe Gavin), in one way or the other.
Chloe is a kensai and has 13 STR and 16 CON, which are perfectly fine, but she also has 25 DEX. There's an in-game reason for this, and it's also really good for character development, so I could have passed beyond this, but she also has max HPs (84 at level 7) and starts with two extremely powerful weapons (a scimitar+3 with special abilities and a short sword+2 fire imbued). And she is a dual-wielder, that seems to be the main choice of every new NPC... I understand it's the most powerful combination, but after a while, with every NPC dual wielding, it just gets boring.
On the plus side, she has a really strong and interesting personality. So strong that
***SPOILER***
she forces Cernd to leave you to be with his son, without giving you any say in the matter. So, by bye Cernd, if you wanted him to join.
***END SPOILER***
Haldamir is a uber-powerful elf fighter. 18/97 STR, 17 DEX, 16 CON. He starts with 94 HPs at level 7 (10 points higher than maximum). He's a dual wielder. I haven't played much with him, because he's so overpowered that he can compete with a min-maxed CHARNAME. His story isn't very plausible at the beginning, but maybe there's some twist down the road that I didn't wait for, so I can't judge this aspect of him.
Gavin, on the other hand, is a good NPC, but in line with original BG 2 NPCs. He has 16 STR, 16 CON and 17 WIS, and those values are just perfect for a cleric NPC. He starts with 88 HPs at level 8 (8 more than maximum), but he also has a not-removable ring in his inventory (like Minc's Boo and Imoen's belt). He's not a dual wielder, thank Bhaal.
He has an interesting (though a bit too easy, railroaded and somewhat wordy) initial quest and some good dialogues, and he feels like an NPC that would be in line with the original ones (except for the too many hit points).
On the downside,
***SPOILER***
after his quest he says that he has to return to visit his daughter every 15-30 days or he'll leave the group, and that's extremely annoying, especially when you're trapped in a dungeon or you're on some long quest.
***END SPOILER***
Auren Aseph is a human fighter (with an elven sprite) with 16 STR, 16 DEX and 15 CON. She has 97 HPs at level 7, waaay to many (according to her class, level and constitution, she could hav 77 HPs max, and those would be a lot already). She's obviously a dual wielder...
Judging by the first lines of conversation, she seems like a really enjoyable character, but she's so out of league regarding HPs that I ditched her on the spot (that, and I already and 3 dual-wielding characters...).
Darian is an elven (avariel, actually) LG archer. He has 19 DEX and 17 WIS. I found him when he was a 9 level character, and he naturally had 90 HPs (maximum). He's powerful but, beside his high DEX (that could be ok, given that he's both an avariel and an archer, so there are good story reasons for it) and too high HPs, he's in line with BG 2 characters. Oh, he's obviously a dual wielder...
-
Wrapping it up, I find most of these characters not in line with the original BG 2 joinable NPCs: they are too powerful, they employ special rules (a human starting with 25 DEX, a level 7 fighter with 20 HPs more than maximum, etc..) and they're all dual wielders...
I would have liked to play with them to unfold their stories (some of them seem really, really promising), but they all (except for Gavin) felt too much like the "ideal perfect" character, in some way or the other, and I just can't stand it.
I hope that the other characters will be different.
-
S what do you think? Which characters do you like best? Do you find them over/under-powered, if compared with original joinable NPCs? Let me know!
-
PS: please, don't spoil their stories. If you liked the romance of one of the characters, just say that, don't say why.
Also, this thread is not an attack or a critique to the creators of these characters. This thread is based on what I like in the BG series regarding joinable NPCs, but your mileage may vary: where I find an overpowered NPC, you can see a good fit to your group; where I see a good choice, you can see a boring one. They're just opinions, and they're all fine.
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Comments
There are some other mod-NPCs I've tried out but none have been on par with Xan. I haven't actually seen all of the content he has but what I have seen has impressed me.
I like Kelsey, but I think his quest encounters are too hard. When I play with him, I get too tense waiting to get ambushed by full parties of casters (one of whom has symbol:stun), at a random map entrance, when you have no chance to raise defenses.
I didn't like the british accent on the voice actor who did the Xan mod. He gave the whole character a British sensibility, and I didn't think it fit the original character at all. The original was more of a whiny, Eeyore the Donkey voice, which I really liked, and the mod actor did him more like a depressed British noble, i.e., the interpretation was way too serious, and spoiled the comedy relief effect. That's just my own opinion - I preferred the original actor's interpretation of the character.
She has a well-written small side-quest as well, with an extra area.
Statwise, she has high DEX but other stats aren't overpowered. She gets some special abilities (but so do some Bioware NPC's) that I didn't use much however as most of the time I forgot about them. I can't tell if they were overpowered or not.
She was Fighter level 6 Thief level 10 when joining with 77 hp and 220.000 xp to spare for extra levelling when joining me (I don't know how much it depends on CHARNAME's xp, my main character had 500k XP).
As she could have had 88 hp as F6>T10, 77 hp is not really overpowered.
What I like as well, is she dualed at Fighter level 6, where level 7 would have been the power-option, making Amber a handy and versatile party-member, without her being an über-character.
STR 12 INT 14 Tiefling
DEX 19 WIS 12 Dual-class Fighter/Thief
CON 15 CHA 8 Chaotic Good
I might take her again in another playthrough with a male character. If the romance is as well done as the friendship path, it's worth experiencing her for a second time.
Keto is fun to have around because of the banters. She likes telling stories, but unlike Jan, it's not nonsense stories, but more like the stories a medieval storyteller would tell in the long wintertimes sitting round the fire. She likes wine a bit too much, but doesn't act like a complete drunk (luckily), accept for a few hangover-mornings. She does have some nice banters about her less than disciplined lifestyle with Keldorn though (who tries to be a father-figure for her and teach her some disciplined manners).
Alas I haven't experienced her for the whole SOA game, as I dropped her to make room for Imoen (Keto being the least needed character in my party tactical-wise). Sad thing, she left my main character with a drinking habit: the un-removable bottle of wine in Keto's inventory moved to CHARNAME's inventory, being unremovable there as well.
I'll definitely take Keto again some other time, to see her in a whole playthrough. Seeing how useful a Bard's spell can get at higher levels with the PnP Bard's progression tables (as per BG2 Tweaks or Rogue Rebalancing), she can be useful as well as fun in the end.
NPCs that I liked were Fade (as mentioned above, too bad that there's only SoA content for her), and Finch. Mur'Neth is also an original and interesting addition to BG, and Hubelpot is an original addition to BG2.
My absolute favourite would have to be Kivan and Deheriana for SoA+ToB though, http://www.gibberlings3.net/kivan/index.php - great writing and really lengthy story.
*heavy spoiler*
I'm definitely curious about gay romance (well, virtually, IRL I'm straight as ?, straight anyway) and will try out Faren on some later playthrough.
I totally agree with Belgarath in his preference for Xan's original Bioware voicing. To my opinion, the British voice sounded like the depression was acted instead as for real. I liked BG2 Xan's original viewpoints on the main quest, which displayed wisdom as to what's going on as well as sceptism about Charname's rushing in to things. But to me, the aristocratic voice made me feel like he wasn't really despairing like BG1 Xan was. BG 1 Xan's depression felt like 'hey, that's me!'. BG2 Xan's depression felt like listening to an actor who doesn't really know what depression feel's like.
Also worth a mention may be the Solafein mod. I romanced him as a female character but I believe he swings both ways actually. But the thing I really did not like about that mod was all the OP gear you got from killing the people who are chasing him. I remember I got like a +6 long sword with a bunch of other effects from a guy, and I just put it back on the ground after looking at its description, haha.
It's been a long time since I played Solaufein, but I recall it as somewhat connected with Weimer's tactics mod in that it changed up the difficulty a whole lot, both in adding difficult encounters, powerful items, and having Solaufein be a very powerful character himself.