All female party
Cvijeta
Member Posts: 417
Possible or not. I was thinking Aerie, Jaheira, Mazzy, Viconia and Nalia.... Later Imoen instead of Nalia.... Thoughts and what class should I play in this case....
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Jaheira and Mazzy imo are awesome in combat...Mazzy can be also an excellent archer
You have cleric stuff with Jaheria Viconia and Aerie
And last but not least rouge stuff with Nalia/Imoen
I'd suggest a fighter-like character, since you already have a lot of magic in such a party...I'd say monk
Have fun!
But, would a bard charname be good idea....or not....
But there's going to be diminishing returns on that divine might in a way that there wouldn't be with Arcane magic. Three mages deal 3x as much damage as one mage. Three priests don't leave your party 3x as buffed.
Because of that, I'd be more inclined to keep Nalia and ditch Aerie or Viconia. Keeping Viconia gives you a tankier, more durable party. Keeping Aerie lets you go really, really nuts with arcane spells. (Plus gives you access Holy Smite and Spell Sequencers with Cleric Spells in them.) You wouldn't even need to pre-commit to anything; by the time you reach Spellhold you should have a better feel for who is most expendable among Nalia, Viconia, and Aerie.
With Mazzy your only "true" fighter, (Jahiera has fighter levels, but her druid half means weapon restrictions), she'll pretty much have her pick of weapons. The more I've played BG2, the more I have come to appreciate what a beast Mazzy is. Especially once ToB came out, I tended to skip her since she's specced as an archer and archery isn't all that great in ToB.
That's fine as it is, but I'd been ignoring the fact that archery is still *beastly* in SoA. Recently I've been grabbing her early, sneaking into the first floor of Watcher's Keep to get the unlimited Quiver (not necessary, but eases inventory management), handing her the Tuigan Shortbow, and letting her go nuts. It's not at all uncommon for Mazzy to account for 50% of my kills from Chapters 2-5, and she's the ultimate mage-interrupter. And by the time archery starts to lag in effectiveness, you will have gotten enough proficiency points to spec her into melee and let her transition seamlessly into her end-game configuration.
It used to be an interesting debate whether to rush Mazzy to get her at level 8 or to intentionally wait a bit and grab her at level 9. At level 8 she had 5 stars in Shortbow and 1 star in short swords. At level 9, she magically got an extra proficiency point, giving her 5 in Shortbow and 3 in short swords. Basically, you're getting a free proficiency pip, (cool!), but it locks you more into short swords, (less cool!). The enhanced edition fixed this, though, which means there's no reason not to rush to grab her so you can assign that proficiency point yourself.
A party fresh out of Chateau Irenicus should have no problem getting to her right away. Go to the Government district and talk to either the boy from Imnesvale or Tolgarias to get Umar Hills on your map, and then you can fight your way through to Mazzy or just use Invisibility spells to avoid the combat. Kill a couple shadows, including her jailor, and she's yours.
As for how to spec her, I usually give her Halberds. If you get her at level 8, she can get Grandmastery in Halberds by level 21. But with no other "true" fighters, I'd probably be more tempted to forget about Grandmastery and work on dual-wielding. By level 18 you can get two pips in two-weapon fighting and two pips in the weapon of your choice.
Flails are good because there's two end-game viable choices, (FoA and Flail of Easthaven), which stretches your proficiency points further. Axes are also good; there's only one real end-game axe, but there are a lot of great mid-game ones and you can use Kundane, and by the time you're level 30 or so you can start putting points into something else to upgrade your off-hand weapon. Like I said, she pretty much gets her choice of any non-scimitar weapon she wants.
As for your PC's class, I'd say nobody with Divine or Arcane magic unless you really, really want to steer into that skid. (A Blade or Sorceror plus Imoen, Nalia, and Aerie would be kind of ridiculous if you didn't mind insane amounts of micromanagement.) Given that the female NPCs tend to be light in the HP department, you could roll a tank like a Berserker, Inquisitor, or Cavalier to handle the primary front-line duties and let Jahiera/Viconia serve as secondary melee while Mazzy falls back into her ideal Archer niche.
The other tempting route would be to get a rogue of some sort so you'll have access to the Thief HLAs, (specifically, Spike Trap and Use Any Item). I already mentioned a Blade, which would be the way to go if you like Bards. A Mage/Thief would be less melee-oriented, but otherwise pretty similar. Otherwise, I'd say a Bounty Hunter or a Fighter/Thief would be good calls.
The Fighter/Thief would give you another character to use all those great end-game melee weapons you'd otherwise have to sell. You could even put two points in 2-handed swords and two in 2-handed weapons and then use Carsomyr once you get Use Any Item, which is pretty beastly. And again, it gives you a good front-liner with a solid HP pool to take a bit of the pressure off of Jahiera and Viconia.
A pure Bounty Hunter would be more Tricksy and less raw power, but would be the ultimate Spike Trapper. Bounty Hunter traps let you cheese a lot of the more difficult parts of the early chapters if you get stuck, and I find they require less "metagame abuse" than regular thief traps since you can throw them. Explore a map while invisible, then when you find enemies, step out of their sight range and throw some special traps at them.
Once you reach level 21, Bounty Hunter traps inflict maze status on enemies, (no save), which is amazing. Maze a group of enemies, then go and set traps where they were and wait for them to return. Mages return first since they have the highest INT, and they get blown up immediately. After that, either reset your traps or else just hang out and battle the fighters and clerics the old-fashioned way.
Kind of a lot of unfocused thoughts, but the party should be totally playable, if very magic-heavy, (and therefore micromanagement-heavy). You're not going to have a lot of interesting inter-party banters, but you'll have a good bit of flexibility in how you go, mostly in the form of what you use as your PC, how you develop Mazzy, and who you decide to drop for Imoen.
Expect issues with Aerie and Mazzy.
The Dace mod introduces a female bounty hunter.
You can easily play any class you want some you are not lacking any of the main responsibilities. Warrior, cleric, Druid, mage, thief. It is all there.
My female only party would be: Mazzy (tank/archer), Hexxat (backstabber/trapper), CHARNAME as multi class cleric mage and Imoen as mage later on.
I really should do that.
@SomeSort
How could you secure Mazzy early and how early would that be?
[Spoiler] on the plus side you get Nalia earlier and will probably have invested a lot of XP and spells into her by the time you find Imoen again. On the downside, Imoen's a better thief, is perhaps more relevant to the main stories and can pick up some bonuses if you keep her in TOB. But practically I think Nalia makes more sense here as a main mage through most of the game, unless you rush to rescue Imoen, which requires a bit of micromanagement [/spoiler]
Overall in your case I'd probably choose:
Protagonist: Female Half Orc F/T, Assassin or Swashbuckler (any alignment) with high STR
Front Line warriors: Mazzy, Jaheira
Mages: Nalia and Imoen (I'd use Neera rather than Imoen but you said you don't want to try EE characters)
Cleric: Viconia (not Aerie as you'll have a lot of mages and for the reason given above)
I'd probably not want to take Hexxat at all - she's ok stats wise but I find her personality and quests (much like Dorn's) far too evil, even by evil standards (but I do like to use Vic/Edwin/Korgan as they seem less evil in comparison).
Mazzy is quite easy to pick up early on in the game - here's the quickest way:
[Spoiler] After leaving Irenicus' dungeon travel to the slums and meet with Gealan Bayle for your main quest. Make sure you have a balanced party of 5 or 6 members (there are four NPCs in the Copper Coronet if you're short). Go to government district and speak to the boy Delon near the central fountain (if Minsc is in the party he automatically speaks with him and accepts the quest) Umar Hills should then appear on your map. The go to the City Gates district and pass through the gates to travel to the hills (you might have random encounters along the way). Once in Innesvale speak with the Mayor to get the quest, then travel to the ranger's hut in the west of the map. Pick up all items in the hut for evidence and directions to the temple ruins. Travel there, meet the wolfwere for more information then fight the shadows at the entrance to the ruins. In the first level of the ruins, take the first side passage from the main corridor and fight the shadows there. Mazzy is imprisoned nearby once freed will join your party to help defeat the Shadow boss at the end of the dungeon. Then travel back to Innesvale for your reward
Going though the game with my solo sorc, I can bypass most traps and locks with the one or more of the following active:
Mirror Image
Stoneskin
Improved Invisibility (+4 to saves)
Spell Immunity (for game over traps like Imprisionment)
With a potion of antidote in a quick slot if it's a poison trap (before getting the Ring of Gaxx).
Knock or bash with high strength to kick it open.
So don't limit yourself to a Fighter / Thief unless you want to do things like backstab or set traps yourself.
It's a risky but very rewarding (and legitimate, contrary to many players' beliefs) skill for a party to have.
My character is a True Neutral 1/2 Orc female Shadowdancer (I want to try the new kit basically) with 19 STR
The party I'm aiming for is: Jaheira, Mazzy, Neera, Nalia, Viconia
I'll see if it works out (never had a party of all one gender before...)
What did your party end up being?
Start with some easy quests like the Copper Coronet and Bridge District Murders and you should get a couple of levels under your belt, and go from there.