Jesus Christ, Overhaul. Seriously? You managed to make an NPC worse than Garrick. Monks are abysmal in BG1 to begin with, so you give him crap stats on top of that? Totally ridiculous.
If monks had access to figher BAB, they'd at least not be dead weight but nope. They run off the Cleric XP table for all intents and purposes. They're the worst. Then you don't even give him a constitution bonus. Sigh. SIGH. I was looking forward to making him work, but I don't see the point. Xan is more durable.
While Rasaad definitely doesn't pull his weight in my party, I have to admit he's not exactly Sir-Dies-A-Lot either.
I find it's best to keep him near the back of the party, so when a fight starts, Khalid stomps up with his shield and sword and the enemy focuses laser-like on his advance. Rasaad, using his faster walking speed, blasts out from behind and joins the fray.
And then usually fails to hit anything, or is beaten to the kill by Imoen or my own character who are hiding at the back and using shortbows. I'll be swapping him out for Minsc eventually, but in the meantime I guess I'll let him tag along and see what his quest is like.
@Tanthalas: So it seems they do. That's good. Note to self.
Still, I find Rasaad to be underwhelming. Just give me 17 dexterity instead of those flimsy boots, or better yet make his stats on par with Montaron.
Hopefully they all get a magical stat buff in BG2:EE because Neera would be fifth wheel mage behind literally every other divine spell caster. The only guy who'd be fine as is would be Dorn. He'd function perfectly well without a constitution bonus to HP honestly.
Neera will be perfectly find as a Mage in BG2:EE because she has INT 17. And a risky way to cast level 9 spells she otherwise can't use. Her low health won't matter since she can use Mirror Image and other protection spells to just not get hit.
I'm glad Dorn doesn't get an HP boost because then he would be as OP as charname.
Funny enough, my biggest concern was that the new NPCs would be *too* powerful compared to existing options. I never anticipated they would design Rasaad as weak as he is.
I figured the innate downsides to monk would warrant better natural ability. I find it very hard to believe that Imoen is more dextrous and Ajantis is stronger than Rasaad.
That said, he doesn't need to have all 18s. Having no con bonus OR middling dex OR middling str would have been acceptable but all 3? That's hard to swallow, especially when his offensive capabilities don't make up for it (at least early on, which is most of BG1).
To add insult to injury, his fast move speed gets him into combat faster (and thus into trouble) unless you micormanage him more than the other characters (which I have since learned to do).
I like his character so I'm going to keep him around, but I spend an inordinate amount of time adapting my playstyle to keeping him alive. It's gone so far as to leave him standing on the side as the rest of the party fights which is really breaking immersion for me.
EDIT: To clarify the Monk class is fine in my books, even at low level, but the slow start of the class combined with low primary stats really makes having Rasaad around a bummer as far as practicality is concerned. He's lucky I like him as a character
As I expected, Monks are kind of weak but I have a side-question, is Rasaad boring personality-wise? I just did the Nashkel mines with CN mage/thief PC and Dorn, picked up Xan, and I could do with an extra sword/fist but Rasaad's opening dialogues seemed to be a) a bit overly religious and b) dull. He's trying to sell his religion in Nashkel so that makes sense but I'm wondering if he ever sort of...talks about himself? Gives opinions on things which aren't Selûne this or that? Darker side to the personality? Interesting banter with certain NPCs? I usually take NPCs from Cloakwood and BG so I'd like to have another early to help out but if Rasaad is just kind of boring and preachy (in addition to weak and not MM-romanceable) I won't bother. Cheers.
While it's subject to personal preference, I personally enjoy him. I think the voice acting is great and he is written well as a pious monk. While I don't see eye-to-eye with him completely, I think his archetype is on the mark.
That said I find him to be my least favorite of the new NPCs, though Neera really hooked me with her witty, bubbly and vivacious nature.
The cool thing about Rasaad is that you can have a dismissive attitude about his religious belief and he won't be offended, instead taking it in stride. He will also explain how he became a monk in dialogue.
I am so disapointed, and more than that, puzzled at the developer intentions, in Rasaad.
Why in the name of Selune isn't he a cleric of Selune? I love his voice-acting, and his personality, and his religious philosophy. I would so like to bring him into my party and enjoy his company. He absolutely should have been a cleric, and I may use Shadowkeeper to make that happen as soon as its use gets stabilized somehow.
But, he is a total liability to my party who brings absolutely nothing but minuses. He is total dead weight, absolutely helpless, and would require me to center my whole game around keeping him alive. They could have at least given him a proficiency point in slings or darts so he could contribute something to a fight, while staying out of combat and therefore, alive.
Neera is a liability as well, but at least she can be useful if luck is favorable, so I'm keeping her. Although, I firmly believe she should have been a sorceress. Her story completely works with her being the lone sorceress in a mage academy full of mages. Another job for Shadowkeeper, if some kind modder adjusts both Rasaad's and Neera's character files as well as Shadowkeeper itself to not break them on something as radical as character class changing of NPC's. Really, mods to change the classes of Rasaad and Neera would be the best hope of my actually being able to use them.
I really don't understand why the devs invested so much of this project in their new NPC's, and then gave Neera, and especially Rasaad, the worst character classes and stats imaginable. I just don't understand it.
I'm very sad about this, because I love Rasaad's Indian accent, and so much more about him. I really, really want to use him in my party. But I just can't play the game with a helpless NPC sucking up party resources and xp, and adding nothing at all in return.
There already is a topic on this forum in how to get Shadowkeeper to work with BG:EE. So find it and either buff his stats or turn him into a Cleric.
I'd prefer buffing his stats and keeping him a monk. At least raise his Dex and Con and maybe STR to 17. If his stats were STR 17 Dex 18 and Con 16 he would be pretty decent without making his stats too ridiculous.
Neera is fine as a wild mage. The chances of a surge doing serious harm are low and you can always raise her again. Wild Surges are more often than not hilarious.
this useless bastard dies in every fight , even lowly kobolds and gibberings kill him again and again so he spends most of time being dead and i already spent hundreds of my hard-earned gold coins to resurrect him... i hope his storyline will be really interesting to play to compensate for his total wimpness
@wissenschaft, the whole point of BG:EE was to not have to constantly find mods and Shadowkeeper stuff in. Also, I know from years of experience that changing stats and classes of NPC mods (which is essentially what Rasaad is), tends to break their files - it makes their talks and events not trigger, it makes their personal magic items not useable, it causes stutter bugs, and all kinds of bad stuff.
Also, I don't trust any of our old tools to not break the stability of the game at this point, since it already has very shaky stability in vanilla form.
My point stands that Rasaad should have been a cleric of Selune. His story would work just fine that way. The game already needed a good-aligned cleric. I've been using Gavin and Finch for years to fill the role, so a good-aligned cleric without the use of mods would have been very, very welcome.;
EDIT: And, they could have added a kit of Selune, very, very easily, that would have also been accessible to player characters. I see so many missed opportunities in the creativity department, that would have been implementable with very little technical alteration. I'm very sad about this.
What difficulty are you people playing? He seems fine to me, does his share of killing and easily runs away if he's getting beat on. You don't need 18s to be a good character.
@The_Guilty_Party, it's not his stats that are the problem, it's his class. None of the BG2 classes were originally created to be balanced for BG1. Some of them are overpowered for the game, and others are useless for the entirety of BG1. Monk is one of the useless ones. It can kill just fine, but the problem is, it has no armor, no magic attack (until BG2), and can do nothing that a core character class (fighter, mage, thief, cleric) can't do much, much better.
What difficulty are you people playing? He seems fine to me, does his share of killing and easily runs away if he's getting beat on. You don't need 18s to be a good character.
Trying fighting tougher opponents like Ankheg or Doom Guards or any magical creature and you'll quickly learn why he sucks. 18 Dex + his special boots would have helped a lot with a monks high AC problem at low levels.
Rasaad tends to die quite often, probably because he's always first in battle, and monks are not that great on lower levels. You get gauntlets of Dex early in the game, so that helps a bit. And I have to say I like the voice acting, you can almost hear him reciting koans.
@Imperator, I agree completely. Just from his first few lines of dialogue, I'm already in love with the character. I am so disappointed in his unuseability strategically. Also, you forgot to mention his lousy, pathetic armor class. Any frontliner needs negative armor classes as soon as possible, and Rasaad will never get it, even with his special boots.
I'm glad people don't play the PnP game like people do the CRPG. I mean, has anyone kicked a player from the table because they made a guy with a less than optimal build? I mean, heaven forbid someone roll up a fighter with less than 18/00 STR or something.
Sheesh.
Now, I know a CRPG removes alot of the reason for building a character and not just a walking instrument of death, but come on.
I am so disapointed, and more than that, puzzled at the developer intentions, in Rasaad.
Why in the name of Selune isn't he a cleric of Selune? I love his voice-acting, and his personality, and his religious philosophy. I would so like to bring him into my party and enjoy his company. He absolutely should have been a cleric, and I may use Shadowkeeper to make that happen as soon as its use gets stabilized somehow.
But, he is a total liability to my party who brings absolutely nothing but minuses. He is total dead weight, absolutely helpless, and would require me to center my whole game around keeping him alive. They could have at least given him a proficiency point in slings or darts so he could contribute something to a fight, while staying out of combat and therefore, alive.
I am going to disagree that him being a monk is the problem, because that's half the fun. It's the fact he's a monk with total shit stats that baffles me. Monks are NOT good til late-game BG1, and even then they are still outclassed by just a vanilla fighter. If his physical stats mirrored Montaron (which sadly is just +1 dex and con), at least he'd be a viable choice for a specialist fighter-type who runs in when it's safe and then pummels, then gets back out before he gets overwhelmed. But 16 dex, 14 con? It's just not viable.
And for the record, he comes with proficiency in slings if you pick him up at level 3 or 4 or whatever it is. I legitimately forget people don't do what I do and not pick up any party members til they hit level 2 with CHARNAME and Imoen. You don't even need to do anything really meta-gamey to do that. Just do all the quests you get at the Friendly Arm Inn and Beregost and you can easily hit 2 or 3 with them both. Recovering the ring from the hobgoblins, recovering the belt from the ogre, getting Firebead his book, recovering the scroll from the Ogrillions south of Beregost, and clearing the house of Spiders in Beregost then returning the wine, boots and huge spider to Landrin. All super easy even with just two level 1 adventurers.
I think Neera is a joke but it's mostly because there's no incentive to bring her over Xan. I know you have a raging hate for all things random and therefore Wild Mages but I disagree with THAT being the reason she's not really worth it. Do we really need a fourth moderate/high dex, no constitution, 17 INT mage? We already have Xzar, Xan and Safana (with a bit of work.) And she's still not as good as Imoen.
Neera is hilarious and Memorial to use because Wild Surges are awesome. You can laugh at the epic fails and the odd ball stuff and jump with joy when she over charges a spell.
She may not technically be the best mage but she wins in the fun factor.
I'm glad people don't play the PnP game like people do the CRPG. I mean, has anyone kicked a player from the table because they made a guy with a less than optimal build? I mean, heaven forbid someone roll up a fighter with less than 18/00 STR or something.
Sheesh.
Now, I know a CRPG removes alot of the reason for building a character and not just a walking instrument of death, but come on.
I think that's more of a problem in BG1 really. Even with a min maxed build your main fighter still will get his ass kicked through the hells and back if you don't go for ranged. The game itself isn't balanced at all, especially considering how weak low level characters are. That's probably why most people go for ridiculous stats on their charname lest you sacrifice your soul to Power Word:Reload. And I doubt a real DM would throw half the crap BG1 does while you are still a pitiful level 1 mudfarmer. BG2 on the other hand is a thousand times better on this aspect as don't have to suffer as a pathetically weak low level AD&D character that has to fight cave bears that kill you in 1 hit, clerics that cast hold person at you while you can't even dispel it, hordes of weak creatures that are bound to get a lucky crit and pretty much one shot your main fighter. etc...
@SandmanCCL, I don't think we really disagree all that much. We both seem to be disliking Rasaad's strategic potential, although perhaps for different reasons.
Just to carry on a stimulating "nerd" discussion about it, even if he had decent stats, he'd still have the no-magical attacks problem. Unless there's a magical exotic blade that's been added somewhere that I don't know about yet.
He could at least use +1 and +2 bullets if he had that sling proficiency as a first proficiency. His ability to attack from range should not be dependent upon being found when Charname is higher than first level, since Jaheira has a timer, and practically forces you to head straight to Nashkel if you like to use Khalid and her, as I do.
My problem with his class is that any other class could make a better contribution in BG1. The only unique thing I can see that the monk brings to the table is Stunning Fist, which only lasts one round per level, and might start to become useful at later levels, if you can keep the monk alive that long.
Compare this to the other "quadratic rather than linear" class, the mage/sorcerer. I guess some people might argue that Webs, Hastes (which will not work on an advanced monk, btw), and fireballs, as well as use of wands, at the end of BG1, are equivalent to a Stunning Fist that actually lasts enough rounds to be useful. But at least mages get Sleep spells and Identify spells, and possibly a familiar. Clerics can heal. Fighters can fight. Monks get... what, exactly, at low level?
A well-written character class is supposed to have something to contribute throughout its career, from levels one to infinity. I just don't see it with the monk class. Any other class has something to bring to the table at level ONE.
You're talking about a class that was shoehorned into an edition of AD&D that didn't come with the class in the first place. (Monk,Sorc, and Barb were added because of the impending release of D&D 3) It's not the game's fault (BG1) that monks don't work all that well.
I mean, just make sure you are placing blame where it belongs.
@Bigity, I agree with what you say completely. Then, why, oh, why, did the BG:EE devs invest so much in a new character with a class that just absolutely does NOT work in BG1?
Comments
Jesus Christ, Overhaul. Seriously? You managed to make an NPC worse than Garrick. Monks are abysmal in BG1 to begin with, so you give him crap stats on top of that? Totally ridiculous.
If monks had access to figher BAB, they'd at least not be dead weight but nope. They run off the Cleric XP table for all intents and purposes. They're the worst. Then you don't even give him a constitution bonus. Sigh. SIGH. I was looking forward to making him work, but I don't see the point. Xan is more durable.
I find it's best to keep him near the back of the party, so when a fight starts, Khalid stomps up with his shield and sword and the enemy focuses laser-like on his advance. Rasaad, using his faster walking speed, blasts out from behind and joins the fray.
And then usually fails to hit anything, or is beaten to the kill by Imoen or my own character who are hiding at the back and using shortbows. I'll be swapping him out for Minsc eventually, but in the meantime I guess I'll let him tag along and see what his quest is like.
I'm pretty sure Monks in BG2 and BGEE use a warriors THAC0 progression.
Still, I find Rasaad to be underwhelming. Just give me 17 dexterity instead of those flimsy boots, or better yet make his stats on par with Montaron.
Hopefully they all get a magical stat buff in BG2:EE because Neera would be fifth wheel mage behind literally every other divine spell caster. The only guy who'd be fine as is would be Dorn. He'd function perfectly well without a constitution bonus to HP honestly.
I'm glad Dorn doesn't get an HP boost because then he would be as OP as charname.
I figured the innate downsides to monk would warrant better natural ability. I find it very hard to believe that Imoen is more dextrous and Ajantis is stronger than Rasaad.
That said, he doesn't need to have all 18s. Having no con bonus OR middling dex OR middling str would have been acceptable but all 3? That's hard to swallow, especially when his offensive capabilities don't make up for it (at least early on, which is most of BG1).
To add insult to injury, his fast move speed gets him into combat faster (and thus into trouble) unless you micormanage him more than the other characters (which I have since learned to do).
I like his character so I'm going to keep him around, but I spend an inordinate amount of time adapting my playstyle to keeping him alive. It's gone so far as to leave him standing on the side as the rest of the party fights which is really breaking immersion for me.
EDIT: To clarify the Monk class is fine in my books, even at low level, but the slow start of the class combined with low primary stats really makes having Rasaad around a bummer as far as practicality is concerned. He's lucky I like him as a character
While it's subject to personal preference, I personally enjoy him. I think the voice acting is great and he is written well as a pious monk. While I don't see eye-to-eye with him completely, I think his archetype is on the mark.
That said I find him to be my least favorite of the new NPCs, though Neera really hooked me with her witty, bubbly and vivacious nature.
Why in the name of Selune isn't he a cleric of Selune? I love his voice-acting, and his personality, and his religious philosophy. I would so like to bring him into my party and enjoy his company. He absolutely should have been a cleric, and I may use Shadowkeeper to make that happen as soon as its use gets stabilized somehow.
But, he is a total liability to my party who brings absolutely nothing but minuses. He is total dead weight, absolutely helpless, and would require me to center my whole game around keeping him alive. They could have at least given him a proficiency point in slings or darts so he could contribute something to a fight, while staying out of combat and therefore, alive.
Neera is a liability as well, but at least she can be useful if luck is favorable, so I'm keeping her. Although, I firmly believe she should have been a sorceress. Her story completely works with her being the lone sorceress in a mage academy full of mages. Another job for Shadowkeeper, if some kind modder adjusts both Rasaad's and Neera's character files as well as Shadowkeeper itself to not break them on something as radical as character class changing of NPC's. Really, mods to change the classes of Rasaad and Neera would be the best hope of my actually being able to use them.
I really don't understand why the devs invested so much of this project in their new NPC's, and then gave Neera, and especially Rasaad, the worst character classes and stats imaginable. I just don't understand it.
I'm very sad about this, because I love Rasaad's Indian accent, and so much more about him. I really, really want to use him in my party. But I just can't play the game with a helpless NPC sucking up party resources and xp, and adding nothing at all in return.
I'd prefer buffing his stats and keeping him a monk. At least raise his Dex and Con and maybe STR to 17. If his stats were STR 17 Dex 18 and Con 16 he would be pretty decent without making his stats too ridiculous.
Neera is fine as a wild mage. The chances of a surge doing serious harm are low and you can always raise her again. Wild Surges are more often than not hilarious.
Also, I don't trust any of our old tools to not break the stability of the game at this point, since it already has very shaky stability in vanilla form.
My point stands that Rasaad should have been a cleric of Selune. His story would work just fine that way. The game already needed a good-aligned cleric. I've been using Gavin and Finch for years to fill the role, so a good-aligned cleric without the use of mods would have been very, very welcome.;
EDIT: And, they could have added a kit of Selune, very, very easily, that would have also been accessible to player characters. I see so many missed opportunities in the creativity department, that would have been implementable with very little technical alteration. I'm very sad about this.
Sheesh.
Now, I know a CRPG removes alot of the reason for building a character and not just a walking instrument of death, but come on.
And for the record, he comes with proficiency in slings if you pick him up at level 3 or 4 or whatever it is. I legitimately forget people don't do what I do and not pick up any party members til they hit level 2 with CHARNAME and Imoen. You don't even need to do anything really meta-gamey to do that. Just do all the quests you get at the Friendly Arm Inn and Beregost and you can easily hit 2 or 3 with them both. Recovering the ring from the hobgoblins, recovering the belt from the ogre, getting Firebead his book, recovering the scroll from the Ogrillions south of Beregost, and clearing the house of Spiders in Beregost then returning the wine, boots and huge spider to Landrin. All super easy even with just two level 1 adventurers.
I think Neera is a joke but it's mostly because there's no incentive to bring her over Xan. I know you have a raging hate for all things random and therefore Wild Mages but I disagree with THAT being the reason she's not really worth it. Do we really need a fourth moderate/high dex, no constitution, 17 INT mage? We already have Xzar, Xan and Safana (with a bit of work.) And she's still not as good as Imoen.
At least Dorn is a straight hoss.
She may not technically be the best mage but she wins in the fun factor.
And I doubt a real DM would throw half the crap BG1 does while you are still a pitiful level 1 mudfarmer.
BG2 on the other hand is a thousand times better on this aspect as don't have to suffer as a pathetically weak low level AD&D character that has to fight cave bears that kill you in 1 hit, clerics that cast hold person at you while you can't even dispel it, hordes of weak creatures that are bound to get a lucky crit and pretty much one shot your main fighter. etc...
Just to carry on a stimulating "nerd" discussion about it, even if he had decent stats, he'd still have the no-magical attacks problem. Unless there's a magical exotic blade that's been added somewhere that I don't know about yet.
He could at least use +1 and +2 bullets if he had that sling proficiency as a first proficiency. His ability to attack from range should not be dependent upon being found when Charname is higher than first level, since Jaheira has a timer, and practically forces you to head straight to Nashkel if you like to use Khalid and her, as I do.
My problem with his class is that any other class could make a better contribution in BG1. The only unique thing I can see that the monk brings to the table is Stunning Fist, which only lasts one round per level, and might start to become useful at later levels, if you can keep the monk alive that long.
Compare this to the other "quadratic rather than linear" class, the mage/sorcerer. I guess some people might argue that Webs, Hastes (which will not work on an advanced monk, btw), and fireballs, as well as use of wands, at the end of BG1, are equivalent to a Stunning Fist that actually lasts enough rounds to be useful. But at least mages get Sleep spells and Identify spells, and possibly a familiar. Clerics can heal. Fighters can fight. Monks get... what, exactly, at low level?
A well-written character class is supposed to have something to contribute throughout its career, from levels one to infinity. I just don't see it with the monk class. Any other class has something to bring to the table at level ONE.
I mean, just make sure you are placing blame where it belongs.
Wimpier than Garrick? Flimsier than Xan, it cannot be true I say!