Party and their proficiencies

goblinsly

Hello, i am ready for a new playthrough with SCS mod. I decided to go with this party:
- berserker 13 / mage (decided to dual at 13 because otherwise i get to high thaco)
- minsc (i always pick him)
- Yoshimo (for traps/locks and quest)-> imoen (i always pick her)
- jaherae (cool combination)
- aerie (never played her before, i wanna try cleric/mage)
- haerdalis (never played him before, want him for that use any item)

Now how to assign proficiencies to them ? What i got so far is this:

- berserker/mage - longsword (for that MR lowering sword), katanas (celestial fury), else is a blank
- minsc - 2 handed sword, flail, halberd, what else ?
- imoen - dart, bow, short sword, dagger (she will use only ranged weapons)
- jaherae - club, what else ?
- aerie - dart, bow, short sword, dagger (she will use only ranged weapons)
- haerdalis - starts with short swords, i want 2 handed sword for Carsomyr and Gram, bastard for Purifier, basicly i want him to have high MR, also warhammers since he will need that 25 strength for lower thaco

Also i am deciding between making sword of gram and swort sword of mask +5. Both drain levels which could come in handy but u can only make 2 of those items. This time i will play without ascension, next time i will play with ascension and i noticed level draining could be usefull for yagashura in last fight, so what do u say ?

tbone1

There are some darn nice axes that are available early. Minsc and HD will get enough points to spread around they could be an option.

tbone1

Oh, and consider darts, especially for Jaheira. They get a base of three attacks a round, making them good for spell disruption; they are cheap; they let you use a shield; and magic ones are quickly and readily available, with some nice bonus effects. I consider druids pretty inferior to clerics, but darts go a good way to mitigate that, especially when comparing a fighter/druid to a fighter/cleric.

goblinsly

I will make sure to incorporate axes and darts. Any thoughts on sword of gram vs sword of mask +5 ?

proghead3

I always plan every item slot before every run. (Do I have OCD? Maybe...) I find Jaheira is tough to pick a weapon for because druids have suboptimal choices (still decent though). Her best weapon choice is Spectral Brand, but it is not guaranteed, which makes it off limits to a no reload player such as myself. (Jaheira has a very limited number of proficiency points, so I can’t afford to waste them on a weapon that may be unattainable). Aerie’s and Imoen’s weapons aren’t terribly important because they won’t be killing anything with them (generally they individually have ~3% of kills in my runs, and those are likely due to spells). Of course one of them should use SOTM as a defensive tool.

My recommendations:

Haer’Dalis: Crom Faeyr paired with Scarlet Ninja-To (use any item). Crimson Dart.

Imoen: Staff of the Magi. Tansheron Bow.

Aerie: Runehammer paired with Shield of Harmony. Erinne Sling (with bag of unlimited bullets). Runehammer comes really late and requires a strength belt, but provides fear and level drain protection (it’s not for attacking!). Another option is to simply carry an elemental staff (which will probably be the best option through most of the game). Not many desirable weapons for casters in the game.

Jaheira: Staff of the Ram. Sling of Everard paired with Shield of the Order or Darksteel Shield. She requires a strength belt.

Minsc: Axe of the Unyielding paired with a shield or bonus attack weapon. There are also good throwing axes, so you get a lot of mileage out of axe proficiency points. Ravager is another solid choice of weapon.

Berserker: Flail of Ages paired with an extra attack weapon. Since fighter duals don’t have access to whirlwind attack, I strongly prefer an extra attack weapon over a shield. Gesen or Firetooth for range.

goblinsly

Interesting choices, i have to say i would never think of it like that.
Scarlet Ninja-To is insanely good for main weapon of haerdalis. Crom Faeyr is an obvious choice since his thaco kinda sucks.
In my previous runs i always did minsc with crom Faeyr and flail of ages. But this time i might actualy have him do sword and shield because with SCS he is simply so fragile, he can tank 2 or 3 hits before he has to run away. Not sure if the shield will solve that but i plan to make him a little more usable with that flail that gives resistance, his HLA that gives resistance and that level 1 spell for that. We shall see.

proghead3

A few more comments I forgot to bring up last time:

While carsomyr is an elite tier 1 weapon, it isn’t great on Haer’Dalis. He will get only 1 attack per round with it (or 2 with haste or 2 with improved haste). Compare this to, say, Crom Faeyr and Scarlet Ninja-to which gives 3 attacks (or 4 with haste or 6 with improved haste).

The gram sword and sword of mask aren’t tier 1 weapons, I would try to avoid them if your goal is optimization, as their effects are kinda weak.

The Defender of Easthaven you mention is phenomenal. I’m currently running a fighter 9 > cleric dual wielding FoA and DoE and he just massacres everything in sight... which is great!

I think in order to make a tank that evades blows in ToB, you would need to stack most of your best AC items onto one or two characters. Generally I have Mazzy at a base AC of -14 or 15 at end game (not including all the damage type modifiers). It “feels” like she takes less damage when getting attacked by fire giants and the like, I’m not sure that is even enough to reliably dodge blows in ToB. I’ll need to pay closer attention during my next run through of that section.

Arunsun

Jaheira can make very good use of scimitars too (Belm,Spectral brand...), and as it was mentioned above, darts. I'd add throwing daggers to the lot. The Boomy dagger can be acquired pretty early, and Firetooth is just bonkers. Plus these apply strength damage so you get a great damage output once you have a belt.