ToB: Summoning Angel

Jidokwon

Does the summoning angel remember all of the work that you've put into NPCs out of the main party or is that erased and she just summons weak and generic creature clones? I don't recall how this worked in the original game, but I'm hoping the EE version has the sense to remember this.

Edit: After typing this out, I realized most of the NPCs out of party would be rather underpowered for ToB, regardless of the gear and spells that you've passed out, simply from the lack of experience to go around. So, unless the summoning angel remembers them *and* boosts their experience levels to starting ToB range, they'll be underpowered. I'm highly doubting that they put this much effort into development, though, and that she will just summon generic clones. Please, correct me if I'm wrong though.

Gallowglass

No, it doesn't "remember" your prior history (if any) with summoned NPCs, you just get a generic version.

The generic versions are all boosted to 2.5Mxp, but are supplied a few levels lower so that you can immediately level them up yourself, giving you at least a slight degree of control (maybe one proficiency point to allocate manually, for example).

The generic versions all come with their character-specific equipment (if any) and some other basic ToB-level equipment (e.g. generic +2/3 weapons, etc.), but usually no unique named items (although Rasaad has several special items from his SoA questline, and Neera has one item from her SoA questline).

The generic versions of Mages have a fixed selection of learned spells, but far from a full spell-book.

PaulaMigrate

The feature to *remember* your former NPCs including the fact if they are still alive, is a feature of EET, the mod that makes the various game parts into one game. The vanilla game works as described above.

Attalus

I guess I don't get it. Does the OP not bring his/her old party with them into ToB, or is he/she talking about NPCs that were momentarily with the party?

PaulaMigrate

Per default you have your BG2 final party for ToB. With the help of the Fate Spirit (aka angel) you can summon other joinable NPCs into your bhaalplane. The @Gallowglass answer reflects how those will appear, my own answer is for the changes that EET makes to this, in EET you cannot summon anyone who died in any earlier chapter of the game and those you can still summon come as you last had them in your party.
Based on the summoned NPCs plus the one you brought along plus Sarevok (and Irenicus if you have Longer Road mod installed) you can make new party decisions in ToB. Plus new joinable NPCs that appear in ToB if you meet them.

Jidokwon

*nods* I had forgotten that ToB isn't so much as an expansion, like TotSC was to BG1, but an entirely separate game. Once you beat SoA, that part of the game dies and there's no going back to it. It's not a big deal, but I'm wondering how Watchers Keep works. Is it accessible from SoA *and* ToB or is it accessible from SoA *or* ToB. Could I use it, for instance, to "store" out of main party NPCs from SoA and then have access to them in ToB that way. Again, though, most would be pretty underpowered for ToB, but it's possible to keep the levels of a couple up there.

Gallowglass

Jidokwon said:

It's not a big deal, but I'm wondering how Watchers Keep works. Is it accessible from SoA *and* ToB or is it accessible from SoA *or* ToB.

You can access WK from both SoA and ToB in the same run, and you'll find WK in the same game-state when you reach it in ToB as when you left it in SoA. That's how you can carry forward your stash of stored items from SoA to ToB.

Jidokwon said:

Could I use it, for instance, to "store" out of main party NPCs from SoA and then have access to them in ToB that way.

Ooh, er ... I've never actually tried parking retired NPCs in WK, so I'm not entirely sure. If that works, then it probably isn't intended behaviour ... although I'm not actually aware of a reason why it wouldn't work. So good question! I don't know the answer.