Skald, berserker/mage or maybe even Inqisitor

Cvijeta

My planned party - Korgain, Aerie, Yoshimo -> Imoen, Haer-Dalis, Cernd? Aerie stays, I plan to snub her, also Korgain stays too, Haer-dalis stays too, unless I roll a skald. Is Cernd a good healer/divine caster? It seems like I'm going to miss Harper's hold and divine powerspells... Should I snub Viconia, too?


I need help building my party.

sarevok57

when i build parties, i usually build them as such:

3 guys in melee
1 divine type caster using a sling
1 thief type using a short bow
1 arcane type using a returning throwing dagger

so if you were to go with Korgan, Haer'Dalis, Cernd,Yoshimo and Aerie, i would probably go as follows:

Korgan: pretty obvious, go with axes, lots of great battle axes in SoA, and ToB has one really nice battle axe, although a lot of people like going into hammers and giving him the hammer of thunderbolts, but i still like axe of the unyielding more, so thats more of a preference thing

Haer'Dalis: not really a fan of this guy to be honest, his HP are complete garbage, and he is suppose to be a melee guy? anyways, if you are going to put him in melee you will HAVE to buff him up, or else he will be turned into chop suey, another problem he has is that he won't be able to hit the broad side of a barn even with a belt of giant strength, rogues are still rogues, and a rogue's to hit table isn't all that great, although at level 16 he will finally get level 6 spells, so he can use tenser's transformation which is a MANDATORY spell for blades, also his bard song never improves either ( unless you give him the enhance bard song HLA ) so if you are thinking of using his song all you are going to get is immunity to fear, but on the flip side, if you give him a throwing returning weapon ( like the battle axe from the group of brigards in the temple sewers or the boomerang/firetooth dagger ) then he can be an alright back party range arcane user ( and to be honest, if i brought him along that is probably what i would do )

Cernd: mixed feelings about this guy, his spell casting potential is great, since druids hit level 6 spells very fast so you can summon in fire elementals which are a very good summon especially for low/mid level fights, hell even in higher level fights they aren't bad, his werewolf transformation isn't all the great to be honest, even when you get the greater werewolf one, it's only okay when you get it, and it will NEVER improve after that, which is the big problem, so in all honesty if i had to use Cernd, i would use him as a back row healer/summoner

Yoshimo -> Imoen: pretty simple here, i would continue to give Yoshimo a short bow, and once you transfer over to Imoen keep using a bow and give imoen all those wonderfull offensive mage spells; magic missile, melf's acid arrow, flame arrow, emotion hopelessness, hold monster, chain lightning, finger of death, abi-dalzim's horrid wilting

Aerie: so based on the fact if you are going to have the team as the above, i would make aerie the "crowd control specialist" Cernd can do all your healing, imoen can do all your offensive spells ( since she will be growing up levels faster so she will deal more damage ) so with aerie her cleric book would look like: command, hold person, holy smite, poison, mental domination, flame strike, greater command, bolt of glory, finger of death symbol stun, and then for mage book: blindness/magic missile, glitterdust, slow, emotion hopelessness, hold monster, chain lightning, power word stun/ finger of death, symbol stun/abi-dalzim's horrid wilting, make sure to give aerie the amulet of power and robe of vecna so she can spit fire those spells out faster

so based on that, now it's your character's turn, now based on your team make up, your melee looks to be a little lacking, so based on the above choices i would go with the inquisitor ( which is kind of ironic since you will have a chaotic evil team mate on your team, so make sure to watch out for your reputation, if it gets to low you will become fallen, if it gets to high Korgan will leave your team so you need to keep it between 8-17 )

somethingsnazzy

Bards are not nearly as good in BG2 as they are in BG1. I'd drop Haer unless you want him for some other reason.

Cernd I find to be terrible too. His stats are awful and his shapeshifting falls off. He is a good caster but Jaheira isn't a bad caster if you want druid spells and a druid will never replace a cleric.

Berserker dualled to mage at level 9 is my favorite caster class. Berserk is underrated. It protects from so many effects, including imprisonment (which is rare but has no saving throws and cannot be resisted). At a level 9 dual, you can get nearly 3x the HP as a mage, assuming 18 constitution.

Lastly, it opens up a lot of items. This is particularly important if you want to use two mages. The second best mage gear is usually a very large step down from the best. There is no good defensive staff after the staff of the magi, every robe is mediocre compared to the robe of Vecna, there is only one pair of bracers AC 3, helm options are very limited and will need to be shared with thieves until UAI, etc. With a berserker mage, however, you can stick to Elven chain, Dakkons katana, Defender of Easthaven and use any number of helmets or shields.

gorgonzola

Berseker is fantastic and really useful also for who dual in mage, but the mage is the class that can protect from imprisonment easily so in that build the advantages are others. About the blade I have a different opinion, even if I think that ee needed it a lot, my haer Dalis was able to tank the vampires in the streets in chap 2 soa when I could not use spells, hits well 4 apt using scarlet and mundane, can use the Pally sword and if ranged output is needed mmm are there. Later black razor is his mh weapon of choice. Still I will use bards only in original, but imo he is not so weak also in ee.