Jaheira in ToB

Rei

I've never played through all of ToB but just finished SoD and am confident in going the distance this time.

Those of you who have played through the whole game, how does Jaheira play in mid-late ToB and how do you build her?

I usually go for quarterstaves, followed by spears with her. This keeps in "melee," meaning that due to the range she's not quite as in the thick of things as say Korgan or a fighter PC.

This time I'm considering two points in quarterstaves (Staff of Rhynn), one in two handed fighting and then the rest in scimitars and two weapon fighting for dual wielding in the late game.

Is this a good idea? Her hit points aren't very impressive - does she scale well enough with her druid buffs to become a melee power house with something like Belm and Spectral Brand?

TLDR: If you've played through all of ToB with Jaheira, how did you play/build her and how did you like it?

TheArtisan

Jaheira shouldn't have any problems surviving even in ToB. Iron Skins, Armor of Faith, Righteous Magic, Regeneration - she can become a melee powerhouse with her own spells alone. Dual wielding clubs and scimitars works well, or you could throw a shield on her and use her as a tank.

abacus

I often take Jaheira and have no problems using her as an out-and-out front liner... as @Artemius_I says, her spells are defensively robust and she levels as a fighter so she gets all the HLA's and equipment.

The build you suggest (staves & scimitars) is how I usually rig her.

dracostrike

Personally she is usually the only character who can use the Ixil Spike for me and it's effect works against too many enemies to ignore

RelSundan

I go with shield (that proctects against enchantments) and Belm for the extra APR, I give her iron skins and other defensive buffs. Very important, give her a strenght boosting item, I can't recall exactly what belt I gave her (Can check later today) that gave her an extra Thac0 of 5 I think? From -2 to -7, very useful.

Arunsun

Jaheira is a very versatile character and she can fit almost any team:
You need a tank? Give her a scimitar and a shield, buff her with a couple of spells (Iron skins etc...) and you'll have a tank
You need a damage dealer? She's not optimal (compared to Anomen, for instance), but give her spectral brand in mainhand and Belm in offhand and she'll be your damage dealer
You may even have her use Firetooth (the dagger) or a sling and deal a lot of damage from afar while casting spells in the meantime.

I usually don't use Spears (low base damage+ the ultimate spear has an annoying free action effect) but it works as well.


Basically, once you have your team comp in mind, you just have to build Jaheira accordingly.

Jarrakul

Personally, I like building her for spears in SOA, and then into staves later. This lets her use the Impaler and the Spear of Withering, and then switch to the Staff of the Ram when it becomes available. Very powerful.

To be honest, I don't find she needs a shield to tank. Iron Skins is sufficient.

RelSundan

Jarrakul said:

To be honest, I don't find she needs a shield to tank. Iron Skins is sufficient.

Iron skin wears down with hits, like Stoneskin. What this means is that if you give her a shield to improve her AC, the iron skin will last longer which is useful since you can't cast ironskin mid-combat without risking being interupted and loosing the spell, and a round.

abacus

Arunsun said:

Basically, once you have your team comp in mind, you just have to build Jaheira accordingly.

That's an excelent point... as a multi-fighter she gets a good number of pips to spread where you want them, and the specialisation limit (combined with Druid restrictions) means that you don't need to invest as deeply to see rewards.

Clumsy_Dwarf

Because her strength is only 15 but her constitution and dexterity are both 17, I tend to make her a meat shield. Regeneration before a fight as well as a low AC will really smooth out the damage she takes. If she has one downside, she can be a bit of an equipment sink and you have to plan how to use her.

All that said, she is solid and can hold her own up to the end.

MMMMK

Don't overlook her unique position as a Fighter/Druid- that means more than just being a fighter +ironskins and some support spells. Consider some of the unique combos she has available: Harm + Critical Hit, Elemental Transformation + Hardiness + Greater Whirlwind ect.

If all you want is a fighter then a pure fighter is going to be better than Jaheira. Be warned that because she is a Druid multi-class she will gain druid levels very slowly even in ToB, so she wont be a great spellcaster until you really grind her some extra experience. You will still have good access to her Druid HLAs, though.

Jarrakul

RelSundan said:

Jarrakul said:

To be honest, I don't find she needs a shield to tank. Iron Skins is sufficient.

Iron skin wears down with hits, like Stoneskin. What this means is that if you give her a shield to improve her AC, the iron skin will last longer which is useful since you can't cast ironskin mid-combat without risking being interupted and loosing the spell, and a round.

This is definitely true, but as the game progresses, the impact of the shield diminishes. It never becomes worthless, but there are a lot of late-game enemies, especially the heaviest hitters, against whom the extra damage from a two-handed weapon or dual wielding will prevent more hits than the shield will.

OrlonKronsteen

Rei said:

This time I'm considering two points in quarterstaves (Staff of Rhynn), one in two handed fighting and then the rest in scimitars and two weapon fighting for dual wielding in the late game.

Is this a good idea? Her hit points aren't very impressive - does she scale well enough with her druid buffs to become a melee power house with something like Belm and Spectral Brand?

TLDR: If you've played through all of ToB with Jaheira, how did you play/build her and how did you like it?

I have used her through the whole series and find her quite capable. I primarily use her for summons, as a front line fighter and an extra healer. The weapon set up you're proposing will work very well. The only thing to consider for it, IMHO, are your fighter HLA's. If you're not using Ixil's Spike, which has free action, I'd think about using Critical Strike in conjunction with Improved Haste as opposed to Greater Whirwind. This will be especially effective if you're dual wielding. Hardiness is a nice HLA as well.

Jouni

I use Jaheira as reserve forces. When the situation demands more melee or ranged fighters, Jaheira can do the job. She's also a decent healer and a summoner, and she can also cast a handful of other useful spells.

Because Jaheira is a druid, she must use a sling as her ranged weapon. There are many good slings in the game, and they can be quite deadly when combined with a girdle of giant strength. As slings can be used with shields, Jaheira is usually the only fighter with a shield in my party. Therefore she will use a scimitar in melee. I usually give Jaheira the armor/helm/shield set from Windspear Hills, which grants her immunity to fire and nice resistances to electricity and cold for most of the game.

My favorite spells for Jaheira are Insect Plague, True Seeing, Mass Cure, Conjure Fire Elemental, Heal, and Greater Elemental Summoning. I rarely even memorize Iron Skins, because Jaheira doesn't get hurt that often anyway.

Arunsun

Jarrakul said:

RelSundan said:

Jarrakul said:

To be honest, I don't find she needs a shield to tank. Iron Skins is sufficient.

Iron skin wears down with hits, like Stoneskin. What this means is that if you give her a shield to improve her AC, the iron skin will last longer which is useful since you can't cast ironskin mid-combat without risking being interupted and loosing the spell, and a round.

This is definitely true, but as the game progresses, the impact of the shield diminishes. It never becomes worthless, but there are a lot of late-game enemies, especially the heaviest hitters, against whom the extra damage from a two-handed weapon or dual wielding will prevent more hits than the shield will.

It is true that, against bosses, the extra AC won't prove that useful but. But against weaker enemies, summons etc..., AC is not that worthless.
But a boss will only land a few AA per round, typically 3, while lesser enemies will be much more numerous, and thus land many more blows, and the best way to mitigate their damage is to lower your AC.

Ironskins + AC is a very good combo to mitigate hits for a long time, and these are surely neither incompatible nor redundant.

Jarrakul

I never claimed shields were worthless. I claimed they mitigated less damage in the late-game than simply killing enemies faster. This is doubly true of swarms of weaker enemies, whose damage is greatly diminished by thinning the horde. Perhaps more importantly, I've never had hordes of weaker enemies kill Jaheira faster than she can chug potions of extra healing anyway, which makes both Ironskins and extra AC kind of redundant in those situations. Unless you run out of potions of extra healing, I suppose, but that's honestly never happened to me in TOB. The things that are a threat are things like dragons and fire giants, which do a lot of damage all at once. And those things also have good enough THAC0s that a shield isn't likely to help much.

DJKajuru

I always have Jaheira in my SoA-ToB party, and to me the trick has always been having her use club or scimitar and the shield that protects from charm spells + full plate for a very good AC and the girdle of giant strength for good thac0/damage. Later, at the end of SoA and begining of ToB, I have her use Staves, there's a very good one in Suldanesselar and the famous staff of the Ram in Watcher's Keep. She does a great job as a fighter and healer .