Anyone else like Nalia?
SharGuidesMyHand
Member Posts: 2,586
In my experience, Nalia seems to be one of the less popular (dare I say, disliked) NPCs in BG2. The typical complaints about her are:
1. She's "annoying."
2. Her thieving skills are inadequate.
3. Her Signet ring prevents another ring from being worn.
4. She's basically just a poor man's (or poor girl's?) version of Imoen.
I won't argue that there are valid criticisms to be made of her, but I think people focus too much on her perceived "flaws" and overlook some of the benefits to her. For example:
-Her Signet ring grants big bonuses for a char whose armor options are otherwise very limited.
-She is, essentially, the second best pure mage in the game after Edwin - yes, even better than Imoen. The reason: Nalia has less exp points spent in her old thief class than Imoen does, so she has the potential to gain more exp as a mage before hitting the level cap (meaning that, ironically, her less developed thieving ability is actually an advantage in this sense). Plus, with Imoen locked away in Spellhold for half the game, you don't get the opportunity to develop her char and spellbook the way you do with Nalia.
-While she may fall just short of Edwin as a pure mage (who doesn't?), I would argue that she is a better and more useful all-around char than Edwin. She has much better dexterity (vital for someone with limited armor options), her greater strength allows her to carry more weight, and (most notably) she has a greater choice of weapons, including bows. She makes a decent and useful archer. Plus, she won't clash with other party members.
-While her thieving skills are admittedly inadequate, they can theoretically be beefed up with potions and used in a pinch, if you ever somehow find yourself in a situation without a thief. Plus, if give her the ring of danger sense, her find traps ability will be just high enough to detect most traps in the game, which is perhaps the only truly crucial skill of a thief (locks can be opened using knock spells - thus, Nalia's mage skills actually offset some of her thieving deficits).
In terms of personality, I think Nalia is underrated there as well (though I may be the only one who feels that way). Yes, I know she can seem annoying with the snotty way she complains about "not doing enough" to help the poor, etc., but I think there's a lot about her character that's actually likable, if not admirable (yes, I said it!). Consider: she was from a wealthy noble family, and could've easily chosen to spend the rest of her life in safety and comfort, living lavishly in her giant castle, but instead she fearlessly and selflessly chooses to risk her life in the slums of the city - knowing full well that this could easily cost her her life, since it also cost her mother's. While she may seem a bit socially awkward at times and unfamiliar with the outside world (her bio admits as such), she's clearly NOT naive and innocent like Aerie, nor is she a wimpy, spoiled whiner like Skie. Rather, in conversations with other chars, she presents herself as genuinely brave, intelligent, and intuitive. Nalia is, in effect, the realization of what Skie merely fantasized about being. As a random example, notice how, when Renal Bloodscalp is explaining his quest to you, Nalia will brazenly interrupt him to ask a question. Renal is actually a bit taken aback by this and stutters as he begins his next sentence (yes, I know this may sound silly to some, but I appreciate subtle character interactions like that). Nalia will also deduce when another char may be untrustworthy, or will provide some inside info or warnings on certain chars (i.e: Firkraag in the Cooper Coronet).
Nalia is also associated with some of the best quests and subplots in the game IMO - especially if your char is a fighter.
All in all, I've always felt a certain fondness for Nalia, even from my very first playthrough of BG2, and I've always regretted any time that I chose not to keep her in my party.
Thoughts? (other than me needing a life, LOL).
1. She's "annoying."
2. Her thieving skills are inadequate.
3. Her Signet ring prevents another ring from being worn.
4. She's basically just a poor man's (or poor girl's?) version of Imoen.
I won't argue that there are valid criticisms to be made of her, but I think people focus too much on her perceived "flaws" and overlook some of the benefits to her. For example:
-Her Signet ring grants big bonuses for a char whose armor options are otherwise very limited.
-She is, essentially, the second best pure mage in the game after Edwin - yes, even better than Imoen. The reason: Nalia has less exp points spent in her old thief class than Imoen does, so she has the potential to gain more exp as a mage before hitting the level cap (meaning that, ironically, her less developed thieving ability is actually an advantage in this sense). Plus, with Imoen locked away in Spellhold for half the game, you don't get the opportunity to develop her char and spellbook the way you do with Nalia.
-While she may fall just short of Edwin as a pure mage (who doesn't?), I would argue that she is a better and more useful all-around char than Edwin. She has much better dexterity (vital for someone with limited armor options), her greater strength allows her to carry more weight, and (most notably) she has a greater choice of weapons, including bows. She makes a decent and useful archer. Plus, she won't clash with other party members.
-While her thieving skills are admittedly inadequate, they can theoretically be beefed up with potions and used in a pinch, if you ever somehow find yourself in a situation without a thief. Plus, if give her the ring of danger sense, her find traps ability will be just high enough to detect most traps in the game, which is perhaps the only truly crucial skill of a thief (locks can be opened using knock spells - thus, Nalia's mage skills actually offset some of her thieving deficits).
In terms of personality, I think Nalia is underrated there as well (though I may be the only one who feels that way). Yes, I know she can seem annoying with the snotty way she complains about "not doing enough" to help the poor, etc., but I think there's a lot about her character that's actually likable, if not admirable (yes, I said it!). Consider: she was from a wealthy noble family, and could've easily chosen to spend the rest of her life in safety and comfort, living lavishly in her giant castle, but instead she fearlessly and selflessly chooses to risk her life in the slums of the city - knowing full well that this could easily cost her her life, since it also cost her mother's. While she may seem a bit socially awkward at times and unfamiliar with the outside world (her bio admits as such), she's clearly NOT naive and innocent like Aerie, nor is she a wimpy, spoiled whiner like Skie. Rather, in conversations with other chars, she presents herself as genuinely brave, intelligent, and intuitive. Nalia is, in effect, the realization of what Skie merely fantasized about being. As a random example, notice how, when Renal Bloodscalp is explaining his quest to you, Nalia will brazenly interrupt him to ask a question. Renal is actually a bit taken aback by this and stutters as he begins his next sentence (yes, I know this may sound silly to some, but I appreciate subtle character interactions like that). Nalia will also deduce when another char may be untrustworthy, or will provide some inside info or warnings on certain chars (i.e: Firkraag in the Cooper Coronet).
Nalia is also associated with some of the best quests and subplots in the game IMO - especially if your char is a fighter.
All in all, I've always felt a certain fondness for Nalia, even from my very first playthrough of BG2, and I've always regretted any time that I chose not to keep her in my party.
Thoughts? (other than me needing a life, LOL).
7
Comments
Like most BG cases, as a character she's got enough personality and background to look like a real life person.
Being able to carry more weight on the other hand is never a bad thing - but between bags of holding and the other containers and party members with strengths of 19 or more once you're some ways into the game, the difference between Edwin's and Nalia's strength doesn't amount to all too much.
As for physical damage, I wouldn't think her damage output with a bow is significantly higher than Edwin's with a sling (both would be extremely low). And eventually you will want to equip something like the Staff of Power with your mage rather than a ranged weapon anyhow. Speaking of which, there is an actual advantage for Nalia compared to Edwin: she'll be able to equip Dak'kon's Zerth Blade, which he cannot, and get some extra spells - though she still won't be nearly as useful as a mage. Some of Nalia's thief skills can periodically be boosted to near-adequate levels perhaps, but the difference between a thief that can handle everything and a thief that can handle some things is rather big in a game with as many traps and locks as SoA. You'd be very dependant on potions and knock castings, and also miss out on exp from locks that were knocked instead of picked and traps that were triggered instead of disarmed. These are the only points I agree with. If you like her character and like having her in your party, obviously that's the most important thing, and should take precedence over stats and skills.
I see Nalia maturing as she levels, but prefer Imoen once freed.
From a purely powergaming standpoint, Nalia's main strength as a character lies in her early game availability and spell selection. She starts with Web, Mirror Image, Slow, Haste, Stoneskin, Polymorph Self and Cloudkill. With these spells you can easily win any sidequest battle that doesn't involve dragons and undead (and for those you have Daystar and wands). She only lacks Magic Missile/Fireball, and you should have more than a few copies of those spell scrolls safely stashed away in your backpack. Not to mention just about any scroll-selling merchant also sells them.
Sure she's not as good of a thief as Imoen, but she's decent, and she's a better mage. She's also available fairly early, which means you can have a pretty decent thief/mage before rescuing Immy from Spellhold.
She is actually very good character filling up the hole from limited choice of mages and thieves in the game. I found her mage skills pretty capable and with such high XP/Level limit in BG 2/Throne of Bhaal, the 4 levels lost to thieving skills are no such pain. Also her thieving skills can be boosted by items/potions. With pure thief, you don´t need to use any of these things as his skills are high enough, so it was the right time to actually use some of the many things you can purchase in the game. She was also pretty strong, didn´t fall that easily.
Armour shouldn't really be an issue for mages, in the same way that bows shouldn't really be an issue for Kensai; if the issue comes up, you're using them wrong. The fact that there aren't *that* many good rings in BG2 ameliorates this, but the more, and the better, the rings introduced, the worse the increase to an already easily available energy resistance, saves and an AC boost will be.
-She is, essentially, the second best pure mage in the game after Edwin
No. Imoen's increased thief level is explicitly, and exclusively an advantage. This is because the level cap is 8,000,000, and mages maximum possible level is at 7875000. This means that 125k Exp is "free". A level 9 Thief dualled into a mage still reaches the maximum level. Imoen really is just plain better, and could be even better if she'd held on for another two levels and dualled at the start of BG2.
-While she may fall just short of Edwin as a pure mage (who doesn't?), I would argue that she is a better and more useful all-around char than Edwin. She has much better dexterity (vital for someone with limited armor options), her greater strength allows her to carry more weight, and (most notably) she has a greater choice of weapons, including bows. She makes a decent and useful archer. Plus, she won't clash with other party members.
Spells are better, and more useful, all-around, than an archer with a base, at cap, THAC0 of 12. Nalia has 18 fewer spells than Edwin, give or take, and half the latter's charm and social graces. Even if he spends just one of those slots per day on a decent Summon Monster spell, he's contributed more than Nalia has when she's putzing around pretending to be an archer.
Plus, if you really want to go there, her being level 31 capped with 5/5/5/5/5/5/5/5/4 spells is actually not that much better than Jan, who reaches Specialist Mage level 20 for 6/6/6/6/6/6/4/4/3, and gets five more HLAs than she does, including in one of, if not the best HLA lists in the game. Plus he's a better thief, better backstabber, better archer, has better base saves (in fact, much better saves, even compared to her with ring), and has a better Wisdom, meaning he's better at using Wishes and Ltd Wishes, making him a much more useful, all-around character than her, plus a better mage in general. She's not even that far ahead of Aerie.
Whilst she doesn't have any "clashes", and Edwin really only has issue with Minsc, she will still leave if you're evil, Jan will stick around forever.
Finally, the fact that Bags of Holding exist means that her carrying capacity is irrelevant.
-While her thieving skills are admittedly inadequate, they can theoretically be beefed up with potions and used in a pinch, if you ever somehow find yourself in a situation without a thief. Plus, if give her the ring of danger sense, her find traps ability will be just high enough to detect most traps in the game, which is perhaps the only truly crucial skill of a thief (locks can be opened using knock spells - thus, Nalia's mage skills actually offset some of her thieving deficits).
Alternatively, get Imoen. Or Jan. If you want either to waste time shooting arrows rather than being competent, they'll do a better job than her at that too. In fact, Jan even gets to grab Elven Chain for armoured casting later on, and won't require you to expend resources on potions to be viable.
Plus, if you give her the ring of Danger Sense, now she can't equip the ring of Wizardry, making her flat out the worst mage in the game.
- Nalia's "Personality"....
Is hypocritical, self-centred and self important. You gain many opportunities to call her on her behaviour, and her steadfast belief that poor people are subhuman, but not nearly as many as I'd like, or would need in order to keep her around, and doesn't have many interesting conversations as other,
- Nalia is also associated with some of the best quests and subplots in the game IMO - especially if your char is a fighter.
She has a lot in common with Firkraag. Both are associated with neat quests, neither are necessary to have in your party for full enjoyment of them.
So yeah, she's not "annoying" so much as uninteresting at best (though her overinflated ego in TOB is rather grating), and she is most definitely a poor man's Imoen.
However as a thief I find her lacking. Her skills are so low as to be allmost useless. I'll take Jan over her any day, I find Jan to be my favorite thief in BG 2.
I also disagree about "hypocritical, self-centred and self-important", but then again I have never expected haters to use common logic. Her attitute towards less fortunate people than her tells us something more and good about her.
She, however, is extremely NAIVE person. If she was real-life, I would have difficult time to put up with her, not to mention making friends with. That's it from me.
The end product is that she acts and behaves how she thinks a good person should behave, and does things that she thinks make her good, without having the true depth of dedication of purpose behind her as one of the more seriously "Good" characters.
Once she hits "Archmage" status in TOB she drops a little bit of that arrogance to take two or three levels in a different kind of arrogance.
I had her in every playthrough
So I'm going to stick to a simple "No...".
Well, would you look at that, you're making some valid points. I take back what I've said. Althought I think your perspective is affected by strong dislike, not other way around.
I do not consider her more selfish than avarege human being, but as I have said, she's extremely naive person, giving away money for beggars isn't smart think to do, especially on the streets of Athkatla. You're right on that one.