Suggestions to a Newbie

Lorick

Hello,

I am going to start to play BG2: Enhanced Edition (I partially played the original BG2 - the non-Enhanced Edition a bit more than 10 years ago) so I am still a BG newbie and I need your advice. My party will be of Good alignment and is composed of :

1 Warrior, my PC Character. He may be Multi-Class, he may be a human but not I am not interested in Dual Classing him.

and my NPCs are:

1 Warrior (or Warrior/Healer of any kind also OK)
2 Healers (main healers - more healers than Warriors)
1 Mage
1 Thief

I play on Normal difficulty, I want an easy to play a character and NPCs, I dot want to invest too much micromanaging every tiny setting detail. I am OK with Multi-Class NPCs.

Any suggestions for a good party with these characteristics? Which NPCs could be best for such a party?

Thank you very much.

DJKajuru

1 warrior
Minsc is the best good melee warrior , he has extraordinary strength, decent dexterity and constution , and is good with a two handed sword or dual wielding maces.

1/2 Warrior healer or healer
For the role of warrior healer or healer there's anomen and jaheira. I would keep both for the spell variety (clerical and druidic ones). It is easier to increase jaheira's strength than anomen's dexterity, and druids level up mid term faster than clerics , so jaheira has more advantages IMO.

Mage
Pick Nalia, and if you feel like it she can be later replaced by Imoen.
There's Aerie who's a cleric/mage but I would keep her as a support character rather than official party mage, same for jan who is an illusionist/thief.

Thief
Yoshimo fills that role well, and can also be replaced by Imoen in chapter 3 . Yoshimo's greatest asset is the set trap and set special trap skills , you should boost his open lock and set trap skills to keep him optmized.

Jan is the best party thief because he is also an illusionist and has excellent skills in disarm traps and open locks .

From these options I would pick Minsc, Jaheira, Anomen, Yoshimo and Nalia. Yoshimo brings extra content for the plot in chapter 3!

Permidion_Stark

For a warrior player character I think a Cavalier (a paladin sub-class) would be a good bet. Immunity to fear is great when you are going up against dragons plus you get immunity to poison and resistance to fire and acid.

For NPCs I would definitely take Jaheira just because she can cast Insect Plague which will basically disable enemy mages.

Sacerdor

So first of all you will have difficulties finding two dedicated healers. You can certainly play that way, but you won't really get everything they have to offer. Viconia is the only pure cleric in the game, but she is neutral evil. Your next best bet will be Anomen, who is a Dualclass Fighter -> Cleric, so you don't really lose anything, but gain some fighter stuff. He makes a good front fighter, but you could also get sling grandmastery with him and stay in the backline. Then you'll have Aerie who is a Cleric/Mage multiclass and Jaheira who is a Fighter/Druid multiclass, who both progress slower in their cleric levels. If you pick Jaheira you'll lose to much if you would use her only for her healing. Aerie makes a great swiss army knife of spells and she can wear Robe of Vecna to speed up her healing spells.

If you have never played BG2 or don't really remember most of the story i highly encourage you to pick Yoshimo for your thief spot. Otherwise i'd rather pick Jan over Nalia, because her thieving skills are limited.

As Mage you should consider using Neera, although she is chaotic neutral. If you hate the wild surges you can pick Nalia if you want.

On the Melee front you'll have Minsc, Valygar, Jaheira, Anomen, Rasaad, Keldorn and even Mazzy and maybe Haer'Dalis to consider. Minsc is a nice choice, because you get him early, he has great strength (can wait for +str item) and decent dexterity (doesn't need the gloves). His problem is that his weapon proficiencies are a all over the place. But since he can't really get GM anyway you have the freedom to put further points into 2-Handed-Weapons or chose a weapon type to dual-wield. Valygar is limited to leather armor, so he's not really a tanky frontliner if that is what you want. Jaheira and Anomen make great frontliners, although Anomen really needs that dex-gloves if you want him in melee range. Keldorn also needs the dex-gloves but as he uses 2-handed-swords his attack range is a little longer, so he can me a "second line" melee aswell and take fewer hits. Rasaad needs some levels until his fists "level-up" but then he's also quite good. Mazzy starts off as a ranged character with heavy points into shortbows, but you can also make a melee character out of her. It takes a while for that, or some sneaky savefile-editing, and she should get your first strength increasing item.

For your maincharacter i'd say your best options will be:
- Berserker: nice immunities, GM, high thac0
- Paladin kit: i'd take Cavalier over Inquisitor, but you could also make an improved Keldorn
- Fighter/Mage: involves some spellcasting
- Fighter/Thief: If you want to have some fun with backstabs, but lacks tankieness until you get to HLAs
- Dwarven Defender: That little guy so so tough, but only 4 points in Axes and Warhammers
- Fighter/Cleric: use those nice cleric selfbuffs to enhance your fighter

After all i'd say you shouldn't really use 2 dedicated healers. Let them do stuff while no one needs to be healed. Some nice group combinations would be:

Cavalier PC, Minsc, Anomen, Aerie, Neera, Yoshimo
You could try out if Anomen works better for you in melee or with a sling. You would have Minsc dual wield, because your maincharacter would use the 2-handed swords.

Berserker PC, Jaheira, Keldorn, Aerie, Nalia/Jan, Mazzy
Your main character could use Flails, Jaheira will take Scimitars or Clubs and Keldorn 2-handed swords. Nalia can't clear all traps and open everything, but she progresses faster than Jan. If you use a group like this you have room to try out Mazzy with her bow.

Dwarven Defender PC, Minsc, Jaheira, Aerie, Yoshimo, Nalia
This seems to be the party you'll stumble into and it works quite nice. When you add Yoshimo, Nalias low thief skills won't matter. But Neera would still be a better mage.

What i would consider for a group of 6 is:
- How do you want to distribute the weapons you find ? Don't have 2 Characters use the same type.
- Have at least 2, but not more than 4 characters that do melee attacks (if you have 4, be sure that at least one of them uses 2 handed weapons or is a monk)
- Have at least 1, better 2 arcane spellcasters. More won't hurt either.
- Have 1 character that can disarm traps and open locks.
- Have 1-2 clerics or druids, i'd prefer multi- and dualclasses over Viconia
- Only use 1 melee character that really needs dex (Keldorn, Korgan, Anomen)

jsaving

Fighter/mage combines the extraordinary defensive buffs of a mage with the high APR of a fighter and is probably the single strongest character in the game. It's also one of the few iconic D&D builds that goes entirely unrepresented among the game's joinable NPCs making it a very solid choice for your main character. If you like you can also add thief to the mix, giving you the game's most versatile character while freeing up the party slot you're currently planning to use on a thief.

Other slots:

1 warrior - Easily Keldorn in my view as he brings not only solid melee DPS but can also dispel magic at twice his caster level, which is among the strongest abilities in the game.

2 healers - You have a lot of solid choices here. Anomen and Jaheira are easily the best healer/tanks while Aerie has the game's best casting versatility (and is also very solid defensively when used as a damage-absorber on the front lines).

1 mage - Easily Edwin if you are looking for raw magical power, though mages are so strong in this game that you will be fine with Nalia or Imoen if you so choose.

1 thief - Singleclass thieves are a waste in this game, they are not remotely durable enough to be solid frontline characters and you do not need the abundance of thief skill points they offer. If you went FMT for your main character then you can fill this slot with whoever you want, either Kagain/Minsc for extra melee damage or Mazzy for who is arguably the game's most interesting NPC personality. If you went FM for your main character then you probably want Jan in this spot.

Lorick

Thank you very much for your useful suggestions

ithildurnew

The last 2 responses have some good information/suggestions. [edit] except for the suggestion to put a guy with 10 DEX in heavy armor in the back using a sling...

gorgonzola

aerie is super strong, but needs an advanced player to shine, i would say that for a first run is likely that only the 10% of her real potential get actually used.

anomen is really strong both as cleric, basically good as a single class one, can make undeads explode and if correctly buffed is really strong at mlee (hint: holy power, righteous magic and draw upon holy might, in this order, very important, give him the thac0 of a fighter of his cleric level and up to 25 str without using str items)

jaheira is a good caster and fighter, i almost have her dual welding with the sword that grant +1 apr (attack/round) off hand, with the insect spells, perfect against mages and dragons. when she gets iron skins she can tank pretty well.

thief, you can use him to open doors and find/disable traps, and then even nalia is good enough, or learn how to properly use traps (please not on known spawn points or near still blue enemies ) and backstab.
i find stabbing really fun and potentially a well used stabber can clear whole dungeons alone. easier that to learn to use properly a mage, the in game magic system is really complex, that cam come later, as you probably will play the game more then once, in a single run you only scratch the surface of this fantastic and extremely complex game.

mage, you should have at least one real one, and as you play good your only options are imoen and nalia, as imo neera as wild mage is not user friendly, if you don't abuse on the power of reload.

i agree with what was told in the previous posts.