Neera or Rasaad?

Vahn995

My current party consists of me (A good-aligned Cleric/Mage multiclass), Jaheira, Khalid, Imoen, Ajantis and Neera. I was wondering if I should take Rasaad over Neera, or some other character, because I already have a mage in the party. It'd be a pain trying to find scrolls for them both.

Chronicler

Two mages is pretty standard, and as a multiclass your player character will lag a bit behind anyway.

If you want Rasaad then go for it of course but if you're just worried about party balance Neera's fine.

jsaving

Minsc would be a standard addition for a good-aligned party, possibly with Dynaheir if you wanted to replace Khalid and Neera both.

Zaxares

I think that you can get away with just 1 Mage in the party in BG1, as you don't tend to encounter a lot of spell-buffed enemy Mages until SoD/BG2 (which is what you normally need two Mages for, to quickly tear down enemy spell defenses). As a Cleric/Mage, the XP cap in BG1 will still allow you to cast level 4 spells (while there are some nice level 5 Mage spells like Chaos and Cloudkill, lower level spells such as Confusion or Fireball can still fill similar niches).

ThacoBell

In my opinion, Rasaad's character has some of the ebst writing in the series. So go for him.

jmerry

But then, how much of that writing will you get in BG1? Rasaad's not all that chatty most of the time; there's his quest, there are a couple of dialogues before that, and the rest of the time he's just another quiet party member. The quest is definitely worth it, but the rest of the time you're looking for his gameplay value to carry you. You do have the option of swapping characters in and out; there aren't as many personal quests as in BG2, but there are still a few places it's worthwhile.

By the way, the best party member to complement him, dialogue-wise? Viconia. Pairing him with a Shar worshipper is definitely an odd couple, but he welcomes the debate.

In combat, in BG1, Rasaad is a warrior with poor AC (no armor), poor HP (1d8 per level, no Con bonus), and equipping a magical melee weapon drops him to one attack per round. He's definitely underpowered. If you've got some experience, you can run with that anyway - but for a first run, I'd take one of the other options.

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Zaxares

Yeah, Monks don't really hit their stride till high levels, but I wouldn't say that they're useless. They struggle the most at mid levels when their Ki strike hasn't really caught up with the "+" they'll need to damage magical foes like demons or undead that you'll start to run into, but you can equip him with a magical weapon (or even magical darts, for greater safety) for those encounters. They make for excellent scouts due to their natural speed enhancement, such as sending Rasaad zooming across the map to talk to a merchant instead of having to send your entire party over. XD

Dharius

Personally I’d take both Neera and Rasaad in most games, mainly because I like both characters and their side quests. So if you can live without Ajantis, I’d take Rasaad instead - they’re actually quite similar in some ways.