Making Imoen somewhat efficient in combat
Moonheart
Member Posts: 520
I'm a bit disappointed with Imoen.
She's a nice character, at the very center of the story, with a nice background too... so I have hard time to -not- take her in the party, and if you want a pure support she's very fine, being able to deal with all traps and locks of the game, and casting a few spells...
But... in combat, I just don't know what to do with her:
Did someone found a way to make her truly contribute efficiently to the battles?
She's a nice character, at the very center of the story, with a nice background too... so I have hard time to -not- take her in the party, and if you want a pure support she's very fine, being able to deal with all traps and locks of the game, and casting a few spells...
But... in combat, I just don't know what to do with her:
- Her spellcasting ability is sup-par to the one of almost all other companion mages: Neera, Aerie, Edwin and even compared to Nahlia, she lose
- Her martial ability is completly crappy, very low THACO, bad proefficiency choices. I gave her the Gesen Bow, but with it she's just doing something like less than of 10% of the damage the other companions can do.
- She cannot hide in shadows, so no backstab and her modifier is low anyway, so it's useless to even try.
- Even if you overstuff her, she's awfuly fragile if targeted by enemies
Did someone found a way to make her truly contribute efficiently to the battles?
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Cast strength spell or equip a giant str belt.
Equip off-hand a +1 attack weapon like Belm or Kundane. A pip in two weapon style helps.
Cast phantom blade or black blade of disaster
Cast improved haste.
Cast mislead.
Cast tenser's transformation for hitting things easier, or time stop for free hits. Backstab and chunk every enemy.
I've always used her more as a mage who is able to use bows and can cover traps and locks. For me the major issue is how quickly I go to Spellhold to get her, otherwise she could be severely underleveled compared to the rest of the party. But I've never found her actual mage skills to be less than any of the other magic user companions.
I don't think Imoen was designed to be extremely effective in physical combat, she was intended to be a spellcaster who can use a bow when her spells run out.
She's not an Edwin or a Neera but she does her job rather well and the conveniency in that she does everything you need a thief for compensate for this.
As they said before, Imoen is excellent as a backup mage. In fact, her role is quite necessary, since someone has to cast a greater malison while you cast chaos . Or someone has to cast a protection while you cast an offensive spell.
If you wish for her to be combat oriented, her thac0 can get quite low with a magic shortbow and arrows+bracers of archery (which can be found at chapter 2) , and she has enough spells that can boost her combat skills such as haste , strength, luck, illusions that avoid attacks, stoneskin...
As you can see, she is only considered inferior if you need an ultimate spellcaster, but BG2 has only got Edwin for that matter, and he sucks at combat or disabling traps.
Okay, lets say you do want Imoen to be in melee and not range or magic support then of course there are spells and potions to assist assuming you have already given all your strength items to others.
1) potion of strength - raises her STR 18 all day long; potion of defense as well if you have them (taken before a battle)
2) assuming you want her to melee and not use bows - phantom blade or black blade of disaster (but if you can cast blackblade then you can use energy blades as well) - but you want melee so lets get phantom blade - as you won't get blackblade for a while.
3) self buff is critical of course - the usual - stone skin, blur, mirror image, one of the armor spells (optional), and improved invisibility - and of course everyone gets haste - although Imoen can cast improved haste on herself
- if you want a bit of cheese then mislead is always great to use - after casting mislead can invisibility on your clone and viola no need to protect it anymore.
- all self buff spells should be in a sequencer and contingency for ease of use - after all if you are casting each of the spell individually the battle will be over.
4) last spell is tensers transformation (cast last) - as it gives you fighter Thac0 - just what you need to hit consistently.
- if you have chain contingency/spell trigger you can you stick in wraithform along with tensers transformation increase her offensive and defense at the same time.
5) help from others - cleric can always cast a bless to help or chant.
So to put it all together:
Imoen drinks a potion of strength at the start of the day; and she casts armor spell 1st level
a) contingency = mislead/stone skin/mirror image -- anything that helps with defense
- note all contingency spells are triggered when she sees the enemy
b) spell sequencer = some combination of the following spells: stone skin (assuming that you don't already have it on), mirror image, blur, improved invisibility (not needed if using mislead) and haste and maybe a higher level armor spell -- basically any three that you like not already cast
c) spell trigger = some combination of the following spells: haste (assuming you have not cast it yet), strength (if you don't have her drinking a potion) tensers transformation and wraithform and your chosen weapon (phantom blade).
d) chain contingency = some combination of the following spells: improved haste, tensers transformation, wraithform or whatever else you like to cast to help with melee.
And there you have an Imoen who is now capable of engaging in melee quite efficiently. You just need to remember to do this each day (assuming you fight at least once a day).
- weapons: staff of striking, staff of rynn +4 or the martial staff +3. (the staff of the magi will of course go to your full-time mage) or you can give Imoen celestial fury ( I gave this to Hexxat to use) and it helps with its bonuses in battle.
- equip her with bracers of weapon specialization assuming no one else is using them - anything to help with Thac0 helps
You may have somebody with stupendous strength that can bash things ezpz, but I doubt it and wasting valuable lvl 2 spell slots on knock is a giant pain. Imoen and Nalia both suffer from only having 17 INT so when you finally get to the late game you'll have to use a potion of genius on them to get them to memorize their lvl 9 spell scrolls.
So basically Imoen is decidedly less useful if the player character is a thief of some sort, but generally she's the best thief option for Good aligned parties since doing without trap-disarming and unlocking would put you in a pretty sad situation most of the time, and her having mage spells is an added bonus. She's likely never going to do 30+% of the party's damage but she fills her role well - not everybody *needs* to do tons of dps. The main drawback of Imoen is how long you have to wait on her.
If I run into this issue I typically just give Imoen the XP of whoever she is replacing and call it good.
As others have said, not everyone needs to do huge amounts of damage. But Imoen can be quite effective with the right spells and gear. The only place where I greatly diverge from the previous advice is in the use of Tensers. I don't like using it because of the disabled spellcasting, but to each their own. I find that Haste/Improved Haste or an Oil of Speed is sufficient.
If that doesn't feel good enough , in ToB she gets lots of XP and access to 9 level spells.
For exemple, which weapon to use with her?
Everyone speaks of bows, but won't she do more damage with the Fire Tooth (dagger) and a strength belt?
And what about her THAC0? Is there some trick to improve it?
Those are that kind of thing that I wanted to discuss, not her value as a thief/mage
In any case, playing the game without a thief is painful, to be sure. If you don't like Jan's insane chatter and abomination of a personal quest, Nalia's attitude, or Hexxat's mojo, Imoen is at least bearable. She does not cause conflict with other npcs, she does not leave the party no matter what, she is loyal and always there for you. And she does her thievery duties very well.
My prior suggestion was about how to turn her into a heavy hitter. If you have a powerful pc, and/or the usual suspects like Korgan, Keldorn, Minsc, Big S, etc. you really don't need another heavy hitter. But if you need, she can be capable in that front too, with a little planning.
1. Take off all her clothes and weapons.
2. Have Minsc grab her by the ankles and lift her up.
3. Tell Minsc to use Imoen as his weapon.
4. Enemies will be hit in the fact by flailing Imoen.
5. ???
6. Profit.
1. Take off all her clothes and weapons.
2. ***
3. Profit.
The bottom line is that none of these characters are made to be front line fighters or melee/ranged damage dealers, except maybe Jan by virtue of being a multiclass instead of a dual class. If you're trying to play them as such, you're quite literally missing the point of their primary strength; they are backline support characters that have the potential to bring in some heavy guns with the right spells. However, you can sort of lean them that way with the proper items, which have been pointed out by others here. Still, I wouldn't recommend it. There's no reason to do that to any of them when there are better characters out there for the job.
Basically, you should just equip her with a ranged weapon of some type and load her up with the most useful spells to you at the moment. That's it, really. There's no reason Imoen can't succeed at being a proper mage, and in fact, she's probably the best you got after Edwin. There's also no reason to sacrifice great items on them that are better used by others. Mages don't need fancy gear, and you will never make up that thaco difference.