Alignment no issue

ilduderino

What party would you pick if alignment was irrelevant and you don't feel obligated to take anyone (looking at you Imoen, Khalid and Jaheira). I always play good parties but if I could take any alignment and go for the "best" party (balanced and powerful) I would probably try:

Edwin - best spellcaster by a league, never use him as he is evil and wants to kill Dynaheir
Yeslick - Fighter/Cleric is a powerful combo, though he requires the dexterity gauntlets and so I can't take Kagain (who I am told has a low breaking point like Khalid and Garrick?)
Shar-Teel - holds the frontline with Yeslick, can be dualed to a thief if needed and can attack from range
Coran - archer extraordinaire and covers thief duties
Kivan - can cover the frontline or snipe as needed

Would probably throw Baeloth in if the PC is a fighter (probably a swap for Kivan)

PK2748

Quayle over Edwin for me any day. Better survivor, better gear options and I love control spells. He has so many spells! In BG1 necromancy is nothing special either

Coran I agree.

I'd back up Coran with Montaron. A belt of super strength and a +3 sling, specialized and racial bonus. Might even come close to competing with Coran with the right gear.

Faldorn is wildly underestimated. Iron skins, elemental resistance gear, decent armor and seems pretty solid to take on first strike tank duty. Plus an effective summon

Then probably Dorn

No matter what character you want to play your team can tear down anything

ilduderino

Thanks for the reply! Dorn is a great choice, just forgot him as I haven't downloaded him yet.

Faldorn always struck me as terrible due to her stats. Cool to hear a different perspective on her. I can see her being used as a spellslinger but I guess her AC is bad due to armour limitations and her dexterity? But iron skins would be very handy

Mortaron seems decent too but I have never used him. Handy to have him from scratch so he can be optimally skilled. I tried Quayle, he is a spell powerhouse but his low stats and annoying personality led to him being benched. Maybe I should give him another go.

It does seem that evil characters are better bar Coran and maybe Yeslick and Kivan. Maybe this is just a case of the grass is greener though

PK2748

Faldorn can wear Ankheg plate and supplement her with dex and strength gear. Iron skins, good thaco, a certain Mary Sue scimitar and other gear for ridiculous levels of elemental resistance? Makes a pretty decent tank, a good healer and even insect swarms for the last fight. With gear the inky stay that really matters is wisdom for a Druid and she has a 16.

As for mechanically best I don't think evil has the best anything:

Viconia or Yeslick? I'd take Yeslick in every straight up fight there.

Coran or Montaron? The right gear could maybe make it competitive but not really

Edwin or Quayle? I know I am probably out of the mainstream here but at BG1 levels illusionist is better than conjurer to me and one extra spell a level doesn't beat shorty saves, cleric gear and the addition of cleric spells.

Jarrakul

I'm thinking Coran, Kagain, Shar-Teel, Edwin, Quayle, Viconia, with one character swapped out for Charname depending on Charname's class.

JustLeft

Viconia, Branwen, Edwin, Baeloth and Imoen.

Clerics can use Animate Dead to cover for the lack of front liners. I usually play FMT or CR so I can assist.

ilduderino

Liking both those parties! May try taking Viccy with the helm of opposite alignment to see how she plays. Not sure I can bring myself to kill Dynaheir to keep Edwin!

That's really good to know about Faldorn. Putting her in ankheg plate makes sense but I never thought of it. I am a big fan of Yeslick but he demands the dex gauntlets whilst Viccy doesn't (and they both need strength gear), giving more choice for the other companions. I think Kagain pips Khalid and Dorn pips Minsc. But I agree re Coran, Kivan is also very good and I can see how Quayle could be very powerful. In BG2 Rasaad comes into his own but he is a dead weight in BG1 sadly

PK2748

Yeslick can specialize in sling and with the strength belt, buff spells and multiple attacks absolutely wrecks Viconia, dex gauntlets or no. Damage and hit points and even wisdom clearly favor Yeslick

Kagain is better than Khalid, but again I think Yeslick is better than Kagain if you want to set him up as your front line. Kagain needs gauntlets for dex and belt for strength too, but Yeslick has illegal high hit point rolls that make him comparable to Kagain plus buffs. I love Yeslick's versatility.

Dorn is really the only evil character who in BG 1 clearly dominates the competition in my opinion


My current party in my current play through though is Minsc, Faldorn and Alora. I want one more but can't figure who I want to add. No mages. I hate mages

JustLeft

I like Alora, she is like a hyper kid but she is the very last NPC possible to recruit. Even with BG1NPCs and SCS, I don't think I ever saw her outside of the museum.

PK2748

I'm hoping that with that luck item fixed and working she will be a powerful addition to my team. I expect her to be doing some fun damage with a +3 sling and a belt of crazy strength soon.

jtth

JustLeft said:

I like Alora, she is like a hyper kid but she is the very last NPC possible to recruit. Even with BG1NPCs and SCS, I don't think I ever saw her outside of the museum.

There's an option to put her in Gullykin in BG1NPC and Tweaks. I like her.

If we're just talking about power,

Kivan
Faldorn
Viconia
Jahiera
Edwin

PK2748

I've never understood why people identified Kivan as a powerful character. He's reasonably strong and dexterous but vanilla ranger is mediocre, halberds are a terrible ranger weapon and he doesn't have great hit points. I'm underwhelmed typically

jtth

PK2748 said:

I've never understood why people identified Kivan as a powerful character. He's reasonably strong and dexterous but vanilla ranger is mediocre, halberds are a terrible ranger weapon and he doesn't have great hit points. I'm underwhelmed typically

If he's in melee something's gone wrong. He should have a composite bow or enchanted longbow and he will wreck.

scriver

Yeah. Archery is the most powerful weapon in bg1, any of the ranged specced fighter types (Kivan, Coran, etc) are among the most efficient damage dealers. Even thieves with bows tend to rack up a kill count by the end.

Had he been in bg2, though, Kivan would not been at all as well thought of. Archery is much less powerful there.

PK2748

Khalid and Coran are just both better archers. So is Shar Teel. So I just didn't understand how Kivan gets on any list of powerful characters over them. I don't question archery, just Kivan on a pure power list of any kind

Akuratheunseen

well coran also had the illegal 20 dex originally as well lol

ilduderino

I like Kivan as he doesn't come as part of a package with Jaheira, he can easily get good AC and melee at a push and you get him early and so don't have to rush to make sure he gets good HP. I would like to try Alora but I am unlikely to get to Baldurs Gate before hitting level 5

ilduderino

I play on iPad otherwise I would put Alora in Gullykin

Gallenger

I've always wondered if anything wacky would happen if I stuck the helmet of Opposite Alignment on Dorn lol.

As for Kivan Vs. Coran for example (for best archer in game). Kivan is demonstrably better than Coran at two points basically - any time prior to your going to cloakwood of course lol, and secondly, any time where Kivan is level 7 and Coran is not because of Kivan's superior thaco prior to Coran reaching his 7th level (because Kivan will attack more often due to higher warrior class-type levels until that point).

Kivan and Coran however both will be superior to Khalid or Shar-Teel for quite some time purely because of proficiency (Khalid can be caught up somewhat faster - and can eventually surpass Kivan to a degree if you invest a third pip in bows). Shar-teel takes even longer because she starts with no pips in bows - in fact in EE if you recruit her too late she'll have a pip in Crossbows (which is OK, but since the best archery-type weapon is a bow that's sad for her). Plus Shar-teel misses out on the Elven proficiency bonus to bows which makes her thaco inferior to all 3.

PK2748

Yes but Shar Teel can do level 7 Fighter then dual to level 8 in thief. Have better hit points than Coran and roughly the same as Kivan, three pips in bow and maxed out set traps to kill anyone who comes in too close. In full plate. This makes her wildly more powerful than Kivan by the end game and maybe two points of thaco lower than Coran (or one point lower if you put dex gauntlets on her) and better thaco than Kivan with the extra pip in bows with better thief skills since you can set what you want. Kivan is consistently okay throughout the game but not a powerhouse.

Gallenger

Yeah Kivan mainly benefits from the fact that Archery is just so good in BG and low level D&D in general - if those Kobolds in Nashkel had just slightly better thacos the Nashkel mines would be one of the hardest dungeons in the game unless you really leveled a bunch prior to lol.

ilduderino

I read somewhere that Kagain has the same break point as Khalid and so spends lots of time running away. Does anyone have experience of that? Otherwise he seems amazing.

I can see the potential in Shar Teel but Kivan performs straight out of the box and not sure I would want to carry Shar Teel whilst she makes her way to the eighth thief level (why I also rarely dual class Imoen unless it is very early)

Gallenger

Kagain *does* have the same break point as Khalid - that really only comes into play when you first pick him up (unless you get incredibly bad luck several times in a row on his HP rolls lol) unless the situation is really dire. You can also boost his morale by having a leader with a high charisma, casting remove fear (a good spell to have for much of the early game) or having a bard.

PK2748

The only character I've ever had break morale was Khalid in all my thousands of hours of play.

Dual classing to thief is world's different that dual classing to Mage. Unlike a Mage, a low level thief contributes and doesn't sit around sponging up exp without benefit for five levels.

Jarrakul

I have seen Kagain break as often as I've seen Khalid break. Which is to say, once each in my entire life. I suspect that's because I tend to run high-Charisma charnames, and if I don't, I tend to put a high-Charisma NPC in the party leader spot.