Selling Valygar is easy. Ranger stealth helps you to speedily plow away some of the tedious aspects of the game. You can sneak ahead on every fight in wilderness areas. In dungeon areas with traps, a leapfrogging strategy of inching your ranger-scout and your trap finding thief is the best, safest way to clear a dungeon. This is especially effective long term strategy on limited reload or no reload challenges.
Seriously, if you don't heavily rely on ranger stealth in your playthroughs, you should give it a chance and Valygar is the top NPC in the game to do this. Once you start doing it, playing without an easy stealth member will no longer seem as fun! You can do it with a second thief as well, but nothing does it as efficiently as a ranger, who also gives you a better thaco and hp piece in combat.
Valygar can be kitted out decently well with his pips, if you grab him early. The EE versions make switching between two weapon and two handed weapons way more effective now, which has greatly boosted Valygar's combat potential. If you grab him at level 8, you can get two points in quarterstaff and one point in two weapon style, by level 15. By about the start of ToB you can max him with a katana/longbow/quarterstaff option from his weapons, with a final point in two weapon style. Dual katanas for regular fighting, quarterstaff for backstabbing and for slash damage resistant monsters. Longbow for a third option. He'll be able to contribute in every fight with that setup with zero tedious weapon swapping.
Unless I'm playing a ranger, or using Minsc, every single good or neutral playthrough ought to be using Valygar, he's a must have for his capacity to play safely but also not tediously.
Dang it! Now you've got me thinking about an all-stealth party. Time for yet another restart...
One word: backstabs. Chunk your foes with Celestial Fury and Crom Fayr, drink an invis potion, rinse and repeat. Why use anyone else? Valygar can take all of Amn by himself.
Yup, Valygar, when properly equipped and trained, can practically hide in broad day light. Knowing what your party is going to be facing hundreds of paces away is a game changer if you haven't memorized the whole game yet. Even if you have, being able to get the drop on the enemy is priceless.
Comments
Dang it! Now you've got me thinking about an all-stealth party. Time for yet another restart...