Advice on Party Composition for a Paladin Character

Joburg

Hello!
I am returning to Bg2 to finally finish it, last attempt I left it at Chapter 5.

Now I am playing a 2H Paladin and am thinking about the party comp. I don't remember too well about classes etc. so I need some help to balance my party out. Alignment is good because Im a paladin obviously.
I want a 6 party for the dialogs /fun.

My fixed party is this:

Paladin(char)
Aerie (romance)
Imoen (as soon as available, so Yoshimo until then?)
Nalia


What would you advise me to pick for the other 2 party members? Jaheira and Misc would fit I guess but I find them a bit boring... Is there another option providing fun dialog and a balanced party?

borntodie

For party balance, you don't need to worry. You have everything already covered: mages, thief, cleric. You can fill up the party with any characters you like, except Korgan (because he conflicts with Aerie).

For banter, Haer Dalis is an interesting option for the love triangle. Minsc will adopt Aerie as his new witch. Cernd has a lot of banter with Aerie, too.

You can find a list of the number of banters between any two PC's here: https://sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/bg2_npc_banters.php (although it seems to be missing a few special banters such as the HD-Aerie love talk?)

Personally I would go with Haer Dalis and Minsc.

edit: You do not need Yoshimo, because Nalia can fill the thief role before spellhold, too.

Joburg

Thank you for the advice. How cool is it that I have a free choice regarding party balance, yay!

Can I pick Jan Jansen or is he "too evil" for a paladin? Got interesting dialog for sure. Just total thievage overkill.
In that case I would pick Minsc along with him.

borntodie

Jan Jansen isn't evil, he's just... Jan.

Thieving "overkill" is not a problem. Jan could specialize in thief skills that Imoen and Nalia are missing, such as Set Traps.

Balrog99

I like the Keldorn, Anomen, Mazzy combo when I play a paladin. Round it out with Imoen/Nalia and Rasaad for some (mostly) Lawful Good buttkicking!

masteraleph

Jan is chaotic neutral, but it’s more of a personality description and less of a set of vows for him. He’ll get along just fine. I do like bringing Mazzy along as the example of what a paladin should be.

ilduderino

100% Mazzy. She is probably the most “good” NPC. She will get on great with you and also Aerie.

Khyron

I would get Valygar.. he's not super powerfull, but he'll get pips in a lot of different weapons and you currently have nobody to use axe, longswords, bastards words, flails and other Uber weapons.. he'll fight toe to toe, scout, backstab and offer a little flavor

Last spot I would not fill in SoA and get more xp instead..and then pick up.. well.. I'm not gonna give you any spoilers, but at the very start of Throne of Bhaal you'll get another super awesome char.. one you can't go without if you want as much lore and story as possible.

Joburg

Thanks for all the good advice!

Now I will take Mazzy definitely.
So I am at

Char(Paladin)
Aerie
Mazzy
Nalia
(Imoen when available)

For the last free slot I am thinking either Valygar for the use of various weapons...
or my more favorable pick because of her character: Jaheira. Any objections here or a third option?

Balrog99

You could take Keldorn. Since you mentioned being a 2H paladin you could make use of Keldorn's longsword skills until you beef up his bastard sword enough to wield Purifier later. Keldorn's special abilities are very useful to say the least...

iosfrustration

I’ve always wanted to RP an all good band of crusaders.
Traveling the sword coast - pompously righting wrongs, helping those in need even if they don’t want to be helped, generally being goody-two-shoes and poking their do-gooding noses where they don’t belong.

Of course they would be role-played in the most “lawful stupid” manner possible. “halt foul villain and repent your evil ways”.

Party would be
Charname crusader and main DPS
Keldorn backup DPS and mage killer
Mazzy crowd control w/shortbow/haste
Anomen main tank
Aerie mage nuke #1
Imoen utility + mage nuke #2

Nalia is pretty pompous and do-goodery too, maybe she would have a role in the first few acts until Imoen joins up?

This party would actually be pretty effective in vanilla, and could probably go the distance in SCS as well. No glaring weaknesses that I can think of.

borntodie

Joburg wrote: »

Char(Paladin)
Aerie
Mazzy
Nalia
(Imoen when available)

For the last free slot I am thinking either Valygar for the use of various weapons...
or my more favorable pick because of her character: Jaheira. Any objections here or a third option?

If you like Jaheira for her character, you should absolutely take her. Her higher level druid spells (insect plague, iron skins) will be very strong later on. Early on she is best used as a support caster, but once she gets a strength belt, black blood and belm, she rocks as a melee tank too.

As I said before, there is a lot of room for variation - most 6 man parties are easily strong enough to waltz through the game. As long as you include all the basics, and you do. So your number one concern should be to pick people that *you* like. You will be looking at them for a long time, after all.

edit: A word about Mazzy, btw. She is good too, but you have to know how.. Try to pick her up early. You want her to be low level when you recruit her, to give yourself more freedom in choosing weapon proficiencies.
She starts out with 5 dots in short bows, so give her the Tuigan and she is a great archer early on. It is the best bow, because it has +1 attack per round. Now have your mage memorize an Enchant Weapon spell. If he casts it at Mazzy, her arrows will hit as a +3 weapon and the spell lasts for a long time. This is much better than switching to a magic bow like Gesen.
Now choose a melee weapon proficiency for her and build it up as she levels. Late game, you will want to switch to melee as it becomes the stronger option. In this particular party, you might consider going for Flails with Mazzy. Flail of the ages is the best weapon in the game, so it's good to have someone who can use it. Alternatively your main could specialize in Flails and Mazzy can pick something else, like Katanas.

jmerry

borntodie wrote: »

edit: A word about Mazzy, btw. She is good too, but you have to know how.. Try to pick her up early. You want her to be low level when you recruit her, to give yourself more freedom in choosing weapon proficiencies.

Not relevant in the EE. You always get the level 8 version of her, and then get a standard joining XP trigger to catch up to the protagonist (up to 1.25 million XP). I just recruited her in my current run, as the last of the permanent party, and got two immediate proficiency points to spend.

borntodie wrote: »

She starts out with 5 dots in short bows, so give her the Tuigan and she is a great archer early on. It is the best bow, because it has +1 attack per round. Now have your mage memorize an Enchant Weapon spell. If he casts it at Mazzy, her arrows will hit as a +3 weapon and the spell lasts for a long time. This is much better than switching to a magic bow like Gesen.

It's not so obvious, because of the way the auto-ammo bows work. The damage of the free arrows stacks with normal arrow damage, making Gesen and Tansheron's the highest-damage bows in the game.

Let's say you're firing acid arrows (1d6+1 missile, 1d3 acid) with Mazzy at level 13+.
Tuigan: 5 APR, 11.5 average damage per hit.
Tansheron's: 4 APR, 14 average damage per hit.
Gesen: 4 APR, 17 average damage per hit.
Tansheron's is essentially even with Tuigan for damage rate, and Gesen is significantly ahead of both. With less damaging arrows like plain +2 versions, the Tuigan bow falls further behind.

Now, I'd still rate the Tuigan bow ahead of all of the longbows. It's also available earlier than the two shortbows that can match it. You're just better off switching once you have one of those.

borntodie

I stand corrected about magical bows, thanks. Note: this only works if you are loading Gesen with real arrows, because then the arrow damage will stack with the 'ghost arrow' damage. It also requires you to cast Enchant Weapon to make sure the arrows can hit tougher enemies.

Joburg

Thanks for the adivce with the bow usage!

I decided to take Jaheira with me as the last char because it's just such a theme character and her skills also fit the group.

Should have said I am playing Inquisitor so Keldon is not needed and Anomen I neither like nor find strong.

Khyron

? Anomen is one of the strongest NPC's in the entire saga..