If only Kagain had been a recruitable NPC in SoD
gattberserk
Member Posts: 191
I did a clone of him using the 6 custom adventure option in Single Player mode, and this is what will happen for his combat prowress had he been recruitable via legit means,
Every stats about him remain the same and they are based on recruiting him at Beregrost right from level 1 (Hence Grandmaster in his Axe proficiency). No cheating is used.
For Sure he is pretty godly even before I could reach chapter 10 (At Boareskyr), not to mention he isnt getting the best items for fighter (such as Helm + Cloak of Balduran) since that belong to my Charname -GM Dual-Wielding Scimitar Half-Orc Fighter.
I had Coran too and He is also pretty good although nothing too spectacular, yet! (Haven complete yet)
Abilities:
Str: 19 (Big Fisted Belt)
Dex: 18 (Gauntlet of Dex)
Con: 19 (Claw of Kazagoth + Tome of Constitution)
Int: 6
Wisdom: 11
Charisma: 8
Lawful Evil
Fighter (Level 9)
Dwarf
Again, no cheating used. His saving throw are about 0-3, literally demi-godlike.
Every stats about him remain the same and they are based on recruiting him at Beregrost right from level 1 (Hence Grandmaster in his Axe proficiency). No cheating is used.
For Sure he is pretty godly even before I could reach chapter 10 (At Boareskyr), not to mention he isnt getting the best items for fighter (such as Helm + Cloak of Balduran) since that belong to my Charname -GM Dual-Wielding Scimitar Half-Orc Fighter.
I had Coran too and He is also pretty good although nothing too spectacular, yet! (Haven complete yet)
Abilities:
Str: 19 (Big Fisted Belt)
Dex: 18 (Gauntlet of Dex)
Con: 19 (Claw of Kazagoth + Tome of Constitution)
Int: 6
Wisdom: 11
Charisma: 8
Lawful Evil
Fighter (Level 9)
Dwarf
Again, no cheating used. His saving throw are about 0-3, literally demi-godlike.
1
Comments
A dwarf is a good choice for SoD, considering dwarf-specific items there.
And I think a dwarf fighter/cleric may be even more tough as a tank.
Rather it is to replicate that -what if the all BGEE NPCs were recruitable in SoD - scenarios. I am sure all of us felt extremely disappointed when Branwen, Kivan, Kagain, Coran all went missing after the first dungeon. It pissed me off in fact TBH, didnt feel like BG at all.
At the end of the first dungeon on SOD, all of your companions leave you & go their separate ways. Imoen leaves your party even before the dungeon , although Safana will replace her for the dungeon crawl if you have no thief in the party. Only some of the BGI NPCs are recruitable again later in SOD - Safana, Minsc & Dynaheir, Viconia, Edwin, Jaheira, & Khalid - along with the 4 EE NPCs - Rasaad, Baeloth, Dorn, & Neera. In addition, there are 4 new recruitable NPCs - Glint, M'Khiin, Voghiln, & Corwin.
I like Kagain as well though..and other npcs I wish had been written into the SoD campaign.
With Kagain specifically though I see no reason why a local money grubbing mercenary would join a risky expedition^^
Sometime logic doesnt always have to apply. In ToB you are able to recruit every single NPCs in BG2 without having the need to join Charname to fight for godhood. For eg.
If beamdog have done ToB instead, Keldorn would no longer be available for sure, for he need to accompany his family.
It would have been nice if each had approached you, like they do when you tell them to leave the party, and said a proper goodbye.
Especially those NPC who never made it to BG2.
You mention Ajantis, it would have been a nice poignant touch had he said something about looking forward to his future as a knight with what ends up happening.
"I would much rather have seen Beamdog porting BG NPCs to SoD than making new ones *again*."
they only made three new npcs for sod. Voghiln was in blackpits 2. besides safana dyna and khalid all the returning bg1 characters were the ones that came back in 2.
Sure, there's bound to be some members of the community upset at this or that decision, but a lot of the decisions they made in terms of characterization of the original NPCs was incredibly ham-fisted and totally out of character. Even plenty of the BGII NPCs suffered from it.
If you really want further development, well, the way the characters were written by Beamdog's writers may have fit their interpretation, but not that of everyone. It is not so much the quality of writing that is often reproached, but more the fact that the writing does not fit the personality. This second point is much more subjective et dependant on interpretation of the very few banters we got in BG
And no, I'm not saying the original developers of BG and BGII were flawless. Some of their stuff makes me cringe to this day.
I want to like Dorn so badly but every time I try to pick him up it's just a massive cringe-fest for me.
Hexxat, LOL yeah no. Also sad because I liked the idea of an evil single-class thief in BGII.
Often the original "evil" characters say what you'd like to say if you were a complete bastard, and all of us want to be a complete bastard sometimes. But that doesn't mean that what they say doesn't ring true. That's what I find with the Beamdog NPC, little of what they say rings true.
Kagain:
Coran:
I still need to play him all the way through BGII to 100% form my opinion here but his character seems unintentionally at odds with itself for BG1 and SoD.
2. His motives for being with CHARNAME are weeeeaaaak. "Oh you're powerful and there's a lot of bloodshed in your wake, I'll hang out with you even though I distrust everyone." Under the guise of "but I can just walk away at any time, even though I admit CHARNAME is perhaps more powerful than myself." ...Huh?? Not completely unbelievable but what... This doesn't condemn him completely, because many of the original game's characters have little to no reason to hang out with you, but still.
3. I'm still butt-mad (read: butt-furious) that Beamdog promised us an intelligently evil character and his motives for being evil are weak. This is more of a personal expectation problem than a problem with the game itself. It's not like Beamdog pulled a No Man's Sky or anything, one under-delivered promise isn't the end of the world. It's not as if the original game doesn't have plenty of unintelligently evil characters in it.
If you pay attention to his story, the people Dorn originally wants revenge on, they did some pretty damn evil things, or at least such is implied. Which further implies that Dorn was a pretty huge bastard BEFORE he ended up in the Luskan prison.