Who knew that the canon party could be so extremely powerful
Stormvessel
Member Posts: 654
And all this time... I've been under the impression that the canon party sucks. Hundreds upon hundreds of hours logged - and only recently, on my most recent playthrough, do I decide to go with the canon party. So I thought I would create a thread (since this subforum is pretty quiet anyway) that could one day possibly inspire new players to go ahead and use the canon party because it's actually incredibly good. Because as it turns out, there are items in the game that can benefit any party - and indeed I've used them again and again...but these items happen to be just what the doctor ordered for the canon party in particular. And the viablity just shot up 1000%.
Here it is - just how strong this party can be...these items are a must:
Charname (mage/cleric is ideal for this party)
Minsc -full plate, the world's edge.
Dynaheir - robe of good archmagi
Khalid - Hands of Takkok, Varscona and high mastery in long swords...it's just too good
Imoen - Army Scythe, shadow armor, stealth boots
Jaheira - cursed belt of strength, dexterity gauntlets, staff spear, ring of sune
It never occured to me before to use Jaheira as anything other than a rock slinger. But she actually has a use. Can't use divine wands with the belt but she'll hit like a truck. I also had no idea that Khalid could be that good but he is a fighter and lacks only strength - give him the hands of takkok and there it is. As good a fighter as possible.
Has anyone played this way? Perhaps you have another way of making the canon party better? Please share if you have any thoughts. I'm actually interested in other player's experiences with the canon party and other ways to make it good.
Here it is - just how strong this party can be...these items are a must:
Charname (mage/cleric is ideal for this party)
Minsc -full plate, the world's edge.
Dynaheir - robe of good archmagi
Khalid - Hands of Takkok, Varscona and high mastery in long swords...it's just too good
Imoen - Army Scythe, shadow armor, stealth boots
Jaheira - cursed belt of strength, dexterity gauntlets, staff spear, ring of sune
It never occured to me before to use Jaheira as anything other than a rock slinger. But she actually has a use. Can't use divine wands with the belt but she'll hit like a truck. I also had no idea that Khalid could be that good but he is a fighter and lacks only strength - give him the hands of takkok and there it is. As good a fighter as possible.
Has anyone played this way? Perhaps you have another way of making the canon party better? Please share if you have any thoughts. I'm actually interested in other player's experiences with the canon party and other ways to make it good.
6
Comments
Canon party's definitely got all your bases covered though. Some people aren't fans of Khalid and Jaheira but they get the job done.
That said, re: canon party, once I broke the trend of using the canon party, choosing other party members became much easier. With the introduction of Siege of Dragonspear, the links to BGII become less dependent on having had the canon party together in BGI, which is another reason I love that expansion. Added bonus of that...getting to explore some of the very well developed character mods that the community has created, with two particular favorites being the recent Drake and Sirene mods. The one exception to expunging the canon party, for me, Imoen. There is always a place at the table for Imoen in my games.
I don't think I have ever managed to play through BG with the cannon party. I'm aware that it makes a good party, but my patience with them runs out because of their personalities. I can manage just about two at a time at most.
Once you meet Xzar, Edwin, Kivan, Viconia, Branwen, Xan, Coran, their atttractiveness starts to fade fast.
I think also because I played BG a lot and didn't get BG2 for some length of time (1/2 years after release), the idea of "the cannon party" has never really figured for me. I never expected those five to turn up in BG2.
But I think the fact that the optimal evil party being much stronger than the optimal good party is probably a design choice because of how much harder it is going around with <18 rep. Playing evil it's almost a must to quaff those thieving pots (or powerword: reload for softcore players) and do that silly little sell/steal back cheese in Nashkel, otherwise you're going to be short on gold the whole time.
Being a cleric thief, as you pointed out, alleviates this headache. The problem with cleric/thieves is that gnomes have one fewer point of wisdom and orcs, your only other choice, lack the shorty saves and are butt ugly. And I wouldn't dream of playing a cleric without the shorty bonuses (and gnomes have the worse shorty bonuses). But with with 3 wisdom tomes, lum's machine, Deck of many things, and helltrials as a good charname, starting with 17 wisdom is perfectly fine. Even with a gnome, you'll be swimming in extra spell slots by the time you finish the trilogy.
Personally this is how I set them up.
Minsc: Gauntlets of Dex with the stupifier mace and a shield. I do keep the two handed sword "spiders bane" around in case I need someone to go wondering through web spells. Full plate. Goblet from Durlog's Tower and composite long bow.
Khalid: The cursed belt gives him high strength and doesn't effect his character at all. I give him Varscona long sword and the crossbow of speed. Full plate and shield.
Jahiera: Hands of takkok with +2 club from the cloakwood forest and a shield with full plate and sling.
Imoen: Shadow Armor and dagger of venom for backstabbing. Short bow +2. Buckler for up close protection.
Dynaheir: Cloak of Good archmagi and rings that grant extra spells. Sling and +3 staff from Durlog's Tower.
I find that Jahiera provides some divine buffs and healing plus she has powerful druid summons and plenty of tank ability. She is one of the best characters in my opinion. Her summon "woodland beings" will provide massive healing power to the group and provide backup in battle. Give it a try if you haven't used it yet. I would memorize as many of these as possible.
My last few runs I have used a neutral FMT as my main character with a cloak of neutral archmagi. I use bows, katana and scimitars. I start out with full plate with a shield and eventually switch off to stoneskin, mirror images, spirit armor and dual wielding. This gives me four characters with 18 strength and full plate armor or in the case of my FMT superior magic protections later on in the game. My main character and dynaheir handle magic and they get druid backup if needed. Also Imoen if dueled to a mage can add even further magic support. This set up allows my main character and Imoen to split thief abilities and makes dual classing Imoen a snap.
Using a druid with healing potions is not as good as having a cleric but I prefer to do without a cleric these days. If my main character uses the crossbow of speed then I will give Khalid a normal bow but I use EET and SCS which changes Khalid so that he doesn't have pips in any long range equipment at the start. As a result, he could go with bow or crossbow so the crossbow of speed works just as well and since my main character is an elf and gets bonuses from bows I usually go with a bow on my main character.
I try to work with whatever proficiency points they have so that they are more efficient as soon as possible. This helps on the higher difficulty levels. In BG2 I do a bunch of two handed weapons and dual wielding but in BG1 I think the single handed weapons in combination with a shield is more effective. Don't underestimate the armor class bonus of a shield. In SOD you will have +3 and +4 armor class bonuses with some passive buffs added on from using a shield. It makes a pretty big difference in my opinion.
Giving the Gauntlets of Strength to another party member can be worthwhile if you choose only to rely on Khalid to dodge blows and soak up the rest of them. At the end of the day, he's still a Fighter in BG1, so he'll rack up plenty of kills. He isn't the best in the game, but as a baseline he's far above average.
Jaheira also makes a great tank, although she lacks some of the best Druidic utility spells to help her do it in this game. Her Dexterity and Constitution are also not as high as they become in BG2, which suggests that she is likely intended to be the off-tank for Khalid in this game, taking any aggressors that try to bypass Khalid and offering some healing and support meanwhile.
Imoen handles all Thief things and ranged weaponry; Minsc handles the majority of the melee damage dealing, aided by Khalid and Jaheira since they're up there anyway.
Dynaheir, like Minsc, provides firepower, although she does this somewhat more literally. She handles the classic role of the Mage, bring fire and lightning to the field, but can handle almost everything in BG:EE thanks to the addition of the BG2 spellbook (Glitterdust compensates a lot of what she had lacked in BG1).
I think that this party allows the protagonist to be of literally any class and find a good use. Frankly, this party can handle the whole game without the protagonist, which means s/he can do whatever he wants! An archer is probably what this party lacks, so the protagonist could do that - or, indeed, ignore the first part of what I said, make Khalid do that, and have the protagonist take point.
As a fun aside, you could also try the alternative canon party--
Ditch Khalid for Viconia, who can tank just as well as he, sacrificing some damage dealing capabilities for a divine spellcaster that advances more rapidly than Jaheira and has access to a slightly different spellbook.
Ditch Dynaheir for Edwin, who can excel beyond her in pretty much every aspect of the role, with the exception of providing a decent lore score. The less reliable nature of his Evocation spells is arguably compensate for by the sheer amount of them he could memorise, if you're truly committed to having the classic Mage on your team.
This set up can handle everything the canon party can, and stick around when you venture into BG2! A shame, however, that Edwin and Minsc will dash the dream of the alternative canon party before the day is done...
Dualing Immy works, I find, if I beeline through both mines before switching her over. That includes not clearing Cloakwood until after the dual. Then I do all optional areas. In other words, it coincides with getting Yeslick asap... but I understand that this is a no-Yeslick thread.
My opinion of Dynaheir went up dramatically once I learned that specialist mages get a -2 save penalty against spells from their favored school, given that web is (inexplicably) an evocation spell. Dynaheir slinging super-webs and Minsc with his free-action-granting two-handed sword are just made for each other. By far the best character synergy of any of the forced pairings.
Imoen is probably my only constant.
Also, love the username.