Coran versus Imoen

buckbeach

Logically this doesn't seem to be much of a choice. Coran is currently a level 5 fighter, with 3,500 for level 6, and his numbers are very much better that Imoen at level 7 and 16,500 to reach level 8.

I want his fighting abilities and his ability to carried much more weight. So am I missing anything?

Now, please tell me why I feel bad about leaving Imoen on the bridge all alone and without much of her equipment?

mf2112

Because she's your kid sister?

Aethernaut

^ * ding* *ding* *ding*

Coran is cool and all, but this.

Imoen is my kid-sister who, plot-wise, is the closest thing to a family I have next to Gorion.

Coran with his portrait of a guy with non-pointed, elven-like ears can fight Wyverns, break the stat rules and ruin relationships somewhere else.

buckbeach

Uh oh! I hear you.

mf2112

I was reading earlier in elminster's WIP mod Eve of War that he changed that scenario up I think in a good way.

- Lion's Way: Allows a player to reject Imoen during their initial meeting after Gorion's death (she will sneak back in to Candlekeep). If you kill Imoen while in Candlekeep in the prologue she won't appear for this initial meeting. If you reject her initially you won't be able to pick her up again until chapter 6.

Usually if I don't want Imoen I will keep her long enough to get to the Friendly Arms Inn to drop her by Jaheira and Khalid or sometimes I take all three of them to Beregost before dropping them together at the Jovial Juggler. With low level chars every member of the party can greatly increase survival chances. I have everybody armed with missile weapons as soon as I can so she usually fits that right from the start.

alceryes

Take them both.
Coran for sneaky backstabbing and being the best archer NPC in the game.
Imoen for locks, traps, and casting (...and because she's your little sister).

Son_of_Imoen

buckbeach said:

So am I missing anything?

In my opinion, you missed the opportunity to dual-class Imoen at level 5 to a mage and have in her a spellcaster who can detect traps and open locks 40.000 xp later (when she reaches level 6 as a mage). You can still have her dual-class, but it will take 90.000 xp more to have her reach level 8 as mage, for a total of 143.500 xp, if she's 16.500 xp from level 8 thief now (and 13.500 xp got wasted).

Number-crunching and dual-classing besides, it can still be very much fun having two thieves in your party. Thus, your thieves can specialize and you can put points in things you wouldn't think about spending points in otherwise, like setting traps or detecting illusions. Another fine thing is, if you have both Coran and Imoen with good scores in Find Traps, you can wander through trap-ridden areas like Durlag's Tower much more easily.

buckbeach

Obviously I know next to nothing about the game and most likely will never get proficient. There is so much to keep the aficionado interested in the game that I can't get my old mind wrapped around.

I have no idea where or when to set traps or detect illusions. Would like to know a little more about those subjects.

To say I am just stumbling through the game shooting arrows is an understatement, but, still having fun.

mf2112

This button activates the thief find traps and detect illusion (if you have thief skill points in it) skills. Depending on the party I am running, I will max this out next after find traps and open locks.



This button activates your special abilities. Set Traps is under there, others will follow later.


This button is the Set Traps button. Be careful with this unless you have devoted some skill points to it.

JumboWheat01

There are a couple great (if slightly stuck up,) walk-through guides for the series, minus the new-new stuff that just came out in 2.0. Which, with the exception of the shaman class, has changed nothing in the base Baldur's Gate EE games.

Baldur's Gate EE
Baldur's Gate 2 EE

In the first game, you'll never have to worry about your Detect Illusions ability, or at least, darn near never. It's used with the same button that Find Traps is, and if you're using the Find Traps/Detect Illusions function, you can't attack at the same time. Normally you use it to counter hostile Illusions, like Mirror Image, I think.

Set Traps is mostly useful when you know what's coming ahead and can plan for it, like areas that you know will be a boss fight. Stealth close, set up traps, lure boss onto traps, laugh.

And in the first Baldur's Gate game, shooting arrows is bloody effective. Not as such in the second game, but still, quite a good way to go.

buckbeach

Son_of_Imoen said:

buckbeach said:

So am I missing anything?

In my opinion, you missed the opportunity to dual-class Imoen at level 5 to a mage and have in her a spellcaster who can detect traps and open locks 40.000 xp later (when she reaches level 6 as a mage). You can still have her dual-class, but it will take 90.000 xp more to have her reach level 8 as mage, for a total of 143.500 xp, if she's 16.500 xp from level 8 thief now (and 13.500 xp got wasted).

Number-crunching and dual-classing besides, it can still be very much fun having two thieves in your party. Thus, your thieves can specialize and you can put points in things you wouldn't think about spending points in otherwise, like setting traps or detecting illusions. Another fine thing is, if you have both Coran and Imoen with good scores in Find Traps, you can wander through trap-ridden areas like Durlag's Tower much more easily.

What other members do you form the party with if you keep both Coran and Imoen?

Son_of_Imoen

buckbeach said:

What other members do you form the party with if you keep both Coran and Imoen?

I've only used the combo Coran + Imoen once and it was with a Cleric/Ranger, back in the days when Cleric/Rangers had access to all Druid spells (against the rules and it was later fixed by Beamdog). So all divine magic came from my Charname, arcane magic came from Dynaheir and I had Minsc as an additional warrior, no 6th party member (later on in the story I did have a 6th, you'll meet some more people who can join later on).

I can't access the saves no more, I kept the install but I can't get it to open (it was modded using very old versions of mods from the Windows XP days and I can't get the backup I made function to on Windows 10). So I don't know if I dual-classed Imoen, but I probably did, giving me 2 arcane casters. If it's your first playthrough, I wouldn't bother with dual-classing though. Once you dual-class, you lose the ability to use your skills from your first class until you exceed the level of your first class with the second class, giving a downtime for skills of the first class that you can only predict in what part of the game you'll have that handicap if you know the game.

Sorry I talked about dual-classing in my first post, as I said, it's not very feasible for a new player and I didn't realise you were, for which I apologize.

buckbeach

Surely no need for an apology, I appreciate your insight.

I think I will just use Coran for the Wyvern hunt but I for sure miss his fighting abilities, especially his archer skills, when going back to Imoen.

Buck

mf2112

The best part to me about the BG series is the replayability with different NPC's as there is a good selection to choose from. I purposefully choose different NPC's for each playthrough since the styles and banters are very different.

ThacoBell

I always run with Coran/Imoen. My charname is usually built for doing damage quickly. I have a healer/tank in my second slot, usually a two hander damage dealer as a second line fighter to poke. For BG1 I have a single arcane caster. Coran is my main archer while Imoen is secondary and my main utility thief. This party composition usually works really well. But I agree with @mf2112 , have fun and experiment with a bunch of different NPCs.