Could you evaluate the balance of a party?

Masterteo

As the title says, i'm playing BG2EE with a party of 6 characters that i made and i would like to know if in your opinion it is balanced or not.

Notice : i have already done BG2 SoA and ToB, so this time i allowed myself to add some " bonus and malus" with the character editor.

So, keep in mind that all my 6 characters have "immune to level drain(because it is annoying having to relearn spells" and " 70 resistance to crushing ( Because i really don't like fighting golems and fire giants, so this speed up fights "

On a side note, in ToB i will set crushing resistance to 0 when facing Baltazar and Amelissan.


NOTICE : Difficulty is INSANE, always.


I have :

1- The Bhaalspawn, a human monk. Noting new.

2- Kagemi, a custom character that i roleplay as a female Tanar'ri fighter / mage. She has :

HP : 42

STR : 18/00

DEX : 19

COS : 8

INT : 21

WIS : 12

CHA : 10

And 70 magic resistance, 100 fire resistance and 25 resistance to other elemental damages such as cold, acid...

Oh, and she use only a Katana +3 without a shield, she has the single weapon style.

And from the start as a special ability she has 1 Absolute Immunity and can cast Harm and Cause serious wounds.

( i have fun playing her, especially because it's easy to mess up and get her killed with her low life points )


3- Minsc, with a 2-handed sword. So her deals a lot of damage but he also drop dead faster.

4- Yasraena, a NPC fighter that is sadly overpowered, so i edited her and changed her swords with 2 katanas and lowered her STR from 18/00 to 16

5- Aerie. I play her as a pure cleric, meaning that she use Mauler's arm mace in order to have a STR of 18. And with 18 STR i equip her with shield and heavy plates, disabling her magic.

6- Tashia, a NPC sorcerer.

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So, what do you think of this party, is it balanced ?

i have only 1 mage class, and she is a sorcerer with limited spells.

I have no tanks, because i have Minsc ( with a 2-handed weapon) and a fighter / mage with low healt point that, without her spells, drops in a few seconds. ( Against a long fight like the one with Amelissan, things should get interesting. Probably i'll have to use all splell slots for misleads, ghost armors, etc etc )

Then there is a monk and a pure cleric ( Aerie). And i have to say that it's entertaining this Aerie build, first time that i can send her to fight in melee.

unavailable

This is hard to read. I'm not sure where you're at right now... you've beaten the game with this group and want opinions after the fact? You're still working on it and are in the high level stages? Or are you just figuring out your next new game? What do you consider to be balanced? Because if you're trying to avoid overly powerful characters then I'm afraid you're going dislike Tashia.

Is yasrena also a rogue?

I don't really like monks for the reason that much of your ability comes from gear and monks shun gear. I guess its a decent enough class, and one of the monk kits can detect traps so I can see why you'd neglect a rogue if your sorcerer can unlock them and your monk is probably tough enough to take the pain.

Masterteo

No, let me explain it better.
I am early in the game with this party, i have done only a few side quests and now i'm going to Spellhold. No one of this party is more than level 10-11.
I simply would like a judgement from other players, so that i know if i'm going to regret my choice of a party sometime later.

Tashia is overpowered? I thought that all you need to do was not summon her pet tiger. Is there something about her that i do not know?

Yasraena is a fighter. But with the BG2 Tweaks i can make all character dual class, and she can dual to a thief. In fact, i'm really thinking to dual her to thief in order to increase the difficulty of the game. But i don't remember what's the best time to dual a fighter and get the best bonus...level 13 ?

I like monks, but i usually do pure class monk, no kits. No weapons, only fist.

I like monks because at high level they are fast , deal a lot of damage and can resist enemye's spells.

unavailable

If you're okay playing to level 12 without a rogue then I don't think you'll have any complaints finisihing the game off without them. They don't really get any more dangerous than what you've already survived at bodhis. Tashia is a sorcerer, the baldurs gate equal of the mininukes found in fallout, or the BFG in Doom. Difference is that baldurs gate allows you to rest just about anywhere uninterrupted so you can fire away with the magic any time you want. So yeah, you've got a superweapon with unlimited uses in Tashia.

Masterteo

Mmm... makes me wonder how should i balance Tashia.
I can't kick her because she is romancing my monk.

unavailable

well if you're concerned that tashia might make the game too easy you can simply not select the more powerful spells. don't let her learn anything like improved haste, or protection from magic weapons, or horrid wilting, or time stop or project image.

Masterteo

Well, at least she won't be able to learn too much level 9 - 8 spells.

Okay, i will keep your suggestion in mind. Thank you!

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Masterteo

...if people would understand that we don't read minds.
Things should be explained , especially because there could be people like me who do not grasp english so well

BelgarathMTH

My experience with custom parties is that they always make the game too easy, because of the nearly unavoidable temptation to give everybody 18-18-18 in the first three physical stats. The official npc's have "lousy" stats for a reason.

The original D&D stat system where bonuses only come at 15-18 in a stat was designed by Gygax to try to prevent the min-max mindset in tabletop D&D, and most good DM's only allow players 1-3 rolls on stats, drop the lowest, or some similar system, making characters with more than one stat over 15 extremely rare in tabletop D&D. It was supposed to be about the roleplaying, not the combat.

Things change in a computer version of the game, as there is by necessity a lot more combat, and players can roll as many times as they want to make a combat-efficient character. But the original BG devs were trying their best to make BG play as much like tabletop D&D as possible. Thus, BG is balanced for a party of characters with "normal" D&D stats that are not min-maxed.