People complained from the very earliest days of BG2 that Imoen wasn't enough of a reason to go to Spellhold. To be fair, the game does offer up the alternative motivation of getting revenge on Irenicus, but some people didn't care about that either as he hadn't actually taken anything from you except Imoen (or Khalid I suppose if you were among the small minority of players who adventured with him). I liked Imoen so it wasn't a problem for me, but I can see how it would be annoying to spend 15K gold on something you don't even want to do in the first place.
I still like my motivation I consider for carrying my aforementioned hot poker after Mr Big, for all the torture and steeling all my stuff. I mean I'm outfitted better at the end of BG than I am in BG2 for quite a while.
Maybe some folks just don't think of that aspect or just don't care about goin after some jackwagon they had a run in with and got their butt kicked ten ways from Tuesday.
For me Imoen was just a distraction and never has been a headcannon motivation.
I've always hated Imoen. Often times I've rescued and wound up kicking her out of the party as soon as humanly possible. She's a very weak character and always winds up dying it seems. I've kept her in my party this go around just to save her soul but she's getting the boot again very soon.
She's a very weak character and always winds up dying it seems.
Then you're playing her badly.
There are no joinable companions in the BG series who are genuinely "very weak" once you know how to play them properly, they vary only from "satisfactory" to "outstanding". In particular, all of the joinable Mages in BG2 are very powerful - BG2 is a very Mage-favourable game (much more so than the earlier episodes of the saga).
I've always hated Imoen. Often times I've rescued and wound up kicking her out of the party as soon as humanly possible. She's a very weak character and always winds up dying it seems. I've kept her in my party this go around just to save her soul but she's getting the boot again very soon.
If your mages die then you're absolutely doing something wrong. The characters most likely to die should be your frontline that's in a position to take damage. People always seem to complain that Aerie/Imoen die a lot but in my experience the ones who die are most often my tanks. If your mage dies it's time to ask yourself "Why did I allow my mage to take that much damage?"
It's not that uncommon to get hit with an area-damage spell like Fireball or Horrid Wilting. In those cases Aerieusually kicks the bucket because her HPs are so low, even with the Cleric HD to help out.
You're supposed to see (or hear) those coming. As soon as people hear "Vita, Mortis..." or "Incertus, Pulcher..." they should learn to expect the worst and respond appropriately.
The fact that the original BG2 took pains to give you audio cues for each unique spell school was one of the things that made it great.
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Maybe some folks just don't think of that aspect or just don't care about goin after some jackwagon they had a run in with and got their butt kicked ten ways from Tuesday.
For me Imoen was just a distraction and never has been a headcannon motivation.
There are no joinable companions in the BG series who are genuinely "very weak" once you know how to play them properly, they vary only from "satisfactory" to "outstanding". In particular, all of the joinable Mages in BG2 are very powerful - BG2 is a very Mage-favourable game (much more so than the earlier episodes of the saga).
The fact that the original BG2 took pains to give you audio cues for each unique spell school was one of the things that made it great.