How do I use Rasaad effectively?

Macona

I’m really struggling to make Rasaad useful. His offence and defence are much lower than other front liners. His improved speed is causing more problems, since it means the enemies tend to target him before the others.

I’ve managed to improved defence a bit by giving him the pick of the magic items (Ring of Protection, The Claw of Kazgaroth & gloves of Dex) but he can only take a couple of hits because of his low HP. I've also given the boots of speed to my main character, so Rasaad doesn't get targeted first as often.

Offence is the biggest problem, and one I don’t know how to fix. My other damaging characters have around 70-150 kills. Rasaad has 25...

MurrayConfederacy

Use his stun fist. Give him a weapon otherwise (better THAC0). Do his quests. Make use of his ability to use priest scolls (monks were ripped from the cleric class IIRC).

Macona

I think his quest is bugged in my game. He hasn't told me to go anywhere or even spoke to me in days.

moody_mage

I would guess his best use is as a flanker, draw the aggro in to your main tank type then have him skirt around the edges (thus utilising his speed) to strike from behind.

Konabuga

I'm not dumping him yet, as I want to play with all the new npc's, but I notice always putting Dorn and my mainchar on the frontline and pulling Rasaad back. I did give him a sword+1, that I got from the Dorn encounter.

He's going to become more useful in BG2EE, as that's when those level bonuses really start to hit.

Pantalion

Effectively?

Allow him to die. Sell his boots.

joshykins

Pantalion said:

Effectively?

Allow him to die. Sell his boots.

Although I hesitate to take Pantalions advise on letting him die, as he may become a very strong character n BG2:EE, but his boots do sell for 12.500 gold!

Konabuga

Wait... what?

JonelethIrenicus

12.500 gold? Playing evil party for the first time so I will get him killed for that kind of gold

joshykins

JonelethIrenicus said:

12.500 gold? Playing evil party for the first time so I will get him killed for that kind of gold

I was very surprised myself! 12,500 gold for boots that add no stats is hard to turn down, sell those suckers!

Zordrath

They actually do add stats, they give a pretty solid boost to your armor. Especially in the beginning, they're some of the best boots you can get, which accounts for the price. However, I'm not sure if they work on anyone else.

Gotta agree with the previous posts though, Rasaad seems much weaker than Neera and especially Dorn. From a pure gameplay point of view, you have much better frontliners available, and Minsc can be gotten in Nashkel already. And it's extremely annoying that Rasaad doesn't keep formation with the rest of the group and always walks ahead... or is there a way to tell your group to stay together?

wissenschaft

The boots are usable by other mages which makes them awesome for Neera. Rasaad needs a magic belt to gain STR 19 to help his accuracy. As for his tanking ability, treat him like a flanking Ranger in light armor.

Andtalath

He is the worst character in the game.
He's even worse then the bards.

Luckily, I've finished BG with a solo character, so it should be fine =P

But, yeah, they failed, hard and miserably.

Monks should be redesigned to be more along the lines of other characters.
1: Make their attack speed count for monk weapons (or at least for staffs).
2: Allow them better armor somehow, in 3.5, they get wisdom to AC which mitigates it somewhat, in Baldur's Gate I'd say let them get a basic +4 better or something along those lines and then slow down their progresson/level to maybe 1/3 instead.

Those two things might make them acceptable, just barely.

Atm?
They are almost as bad as a melee thief and with no functionality barring trap detection and stealth, both which are close to useless, especially for people replaying.