Party Advice? Montaron & Eldoth vs Coran & Edwin

Brude

Running a heavily modded game with SCS (Improved AI, Boss Fights, Smarter Mages and Clerics, More Convenient NPC Locations, etc), Spell Revisions, and Item Randomizer.

This means any mob with a ranged attack ignores my heavily armored fighters and focus fires onto my low hit dice, high AC casters. (During previous end-of-Chapter-Three free-for-all, poor Xan could only cast one spell before he became a bandit pin-cushion). I

It also means I can't depend on getting specific gear at set times (so I'm not starting out with the Ring of Wizardry and the free Ankheg armor, for instance).

Current party: Jaheira, Kivan, Montaron, PC Assassin, Viconia, Eldoth.

I was thinking I'd change up the party and swap in Coran and Edwin later on, for obvious reasons. Stat for stat, this should be a no brainer, right?

But here's my dilemma: This group is surprisingly resilient and effective against groups I struggled against in previous games.

I've got Eldoth loaded up with only crowd control spells (Sleep, Grease, Blind, Horror) and haven't needed anything else. Montaron is doing decent damage. He's not outdoing Kivan, of course, but he's effective with a Heavy Crossbow right now.

If I stick with Montaron & Eldoth, is this going to trip me up down the road? They're working great and I'm having a ton of fun running around Chapter Three, but I'm worried keeping them (or rather: passing up Coran & Edwin's obvious advantages) will gimp me later on.

On the other hand, I'm worried that if I pick up Edwin, he'll spend more time taking a dirt nap than casting spells.

Thoughts? Any advice appreciated!

sandmanCCL

Give Eldoth the gauntlets of dexterity and he's a passable enough archer in his own right. Coran can't forge his own poison arrows. He also can't drop sleeps/hastes/etc. I think Eldoth is one of the more underrated guys in the game. I just wish he didn't force you to pick up Skie. I dislike abusing game mechanics to separate paired NPCs.

I think you could safely drop Montaron from the group in favor of Edwin, though. Your party is rather arcane-light and I hate running that way. For me, it's two arcane guys minimum.

edit: Actually I'd kick Jaheira out of the group. Montaron is a better tank than she is. Don't really need more than a single divine caster in the group. If Jaheira had her BG2 stats, it'd be another story but as is, she's kind of awful in BG1.

awin123

Basically you can play the game any way you choose to play it and with any people you prefer to use.

Tactics, thinking smart and the way you use people will always be more of a factor in BG1 and the peoples classes and stats. Because BG1 is a low magic low level world you don't have to deal with protection from magic weapons, stoneskin or a lot of anti physical spells in general. Wands are by and large as good as a dedicated wizard and most can be used by bards so I suggest keeping the party that you have the most fun with.

Brude

@sandmanCCL @awin123

Thanks for the insights, guys. Just to follow up: I just bought Montaron the Light Crossbow of Speed, so he's sticking around.

Agree with you about Eldoth, sands. Funny that I don't enjoy bard PCs in BG1 but I still like them as NPCs.

Awin, good points but I'm also playing with SCS installed. That means mages have access to higher level BG2 spells like Stoneskin & Globes of Invulnerability. I do agree that you don't need much arcane casting in the vanilla game, if any at all. Viconia can disable enemy casters with. Silence and Dispell Magic & then everything dies in a hail of arrows.

I *am* having more fun with this setup than I've had with just about any other, though, so I'm taking your advice & sticking with it.

Quartz

I gotta agree with Sandman. Boot Jaheira. Good thread though, totally a tough decision, great NPCs the lot of them ... except Eldoth is kinda meh, unless you give him Gauntlets of Dexterity then he's great.

Brude

Quartz said:

I gotta agree with Sandman. Boot Jaheira. Good thread though, totally a tough decision, great NPCs the lot of them ... except Eldoth is kinda meh, unless you give him Gauntlets of Dexterity then he's great.

I agree in principle. My original plan was to swap Jaheira for Minsc or Kagain ... But then I got kind of attached to her. I modded her weapon profs so she's wielding a scimitar & darts, and those extra divine spells (like armor of faith) come in reaaaaally handy on a tank type character.

Eldoth is meh, but he can take a few hits & there's been a couple of times he's *really* come through for me in the clutch. I'm a bit of a fan now.

Plus, I just about fell out of my chair when he openly made a pass at Viconia. Anybody who has the stones to do that can't be all bad.

Jaxsbudgie

Eldoth is aces and has one of the best voice sets. Keep Montaron until Baldur's Gate, boot him out and pick up Skie, she's terribly underrated (being the LAST possible NPC one can obtain) but is actually the second best Thief in the game. You may have to Shadow Keeper or Level 1 NPCs her into something a little more useful than BG1's batshit RANDOM point association.

I'd also ditch Kivan, him and Viconia are going to have issues, plus he's a good guy and your party look predominately evil. Pick up Shar-Teel ... haha actually, if you're running with Eldoth, DON'T. Kagain is possibly a better option ... but then again Eldoth will be hogging the gauntlets. Alright, go with Edwin, agreed with Sandman, I like to have one dedicated full arcane caster at all times. Keep Jaheira until Faldorn, of whom you should have modded into an Avenger to which she becomes totally badass.

So here's how it'll look:

PC - Assassin - stabby stabby with stealth and hide in shadows
Eldoth - Bard - crossbow (with gauntlets of dex), backup arcane and pickpocketing
Montaron > Skie - Thief (sometimes mod her into a Swashbuckler) - shortbow and utility Thief
Jaheira > Faldorn - Avenger - sling (although she should always be shapeshifting) and druidic spells
Viconia - Cleric - slinging or darts with clerical spells
Edwin - Conjurer - slinging or darts and main arcane caster

et voila!

Whenever I play with Eldoth and Skie I normally ignore all those juicy surrounding areas and focus mainly on where I need to go. Once I recruit Skie, it's off adventuring (much to her disdain) and Durlag's Tower, which is always hilarious seeing Skie successfully lead the party past traps and locks in one of the most dangerous dungeons on the Sword Coast.

Xanthul

In my humble opinion, that party lacks at least one (probably two) heavily armored fighter types to soak up the damage. Would you use a shapeshifted Faldorn as your only tank?

Jaxsbudgie

Xanthul said:

In my humble opinion, that party lacks at least one (probably two) heavily armored fighter types to soak up the damage. Would you use a shapeshifted Faldorn as your only tank?

Hmmm this is true, but I rarely use tanking types myself, more of a spellcasting man. Suppose you could swap out Faldorn for a tank type, Jaheira for example.

Brude

Small update, haha: I wiped the floor with those chumps in Tazok's tent. This was much easier than my earlier attempts.

The fight outside was still difficult, just because SCS aggros the ENTIRE camp at once. I actually had to switch the Boots of Avoidance and Girdle of Piercing from Jaheira to Viconica mid-fight, because Viconia was getting focused and nobody was targeting Jaheira at all.

Also, Eldoth is once again my rockstar: Web + Fireball wand + "Molatove Cocktail" potion = Bandit charcoal. Surprisingly, nobody targeted him much at all, even thou Viconia had a much lower AC.

I almost took a screenshot; there were like 20-30 grease-stained corpses on the ground.

Downside: I got cocky and overreached, and those Red Wizards beat the snot out of the team immediately afterwards. Smarter mages = a half dozen immediate protections, Chaos, and Monster Summoning II. ;-;