How’s this party?
ZeroxSP7
Member Posts: 55
1. Human Cavalier
2. Dynaheir
3. Minsc
4. Imoen -> Coran
5. Branwen -> Yeslick
6. Garrick
Address any faults or issues with the party and I’ll respond with how I might compensate or solve it. I’m open to changes or suggestions as well but I feel this party is pretty good. All comments welcome.
2. Dynaheir
3. Minsc
4. Imoen -> Coran
5. Branwen -> Yeslick
6. Garrick
Address any faults or issues with the party and I’ll respond with how I might compensate or solve it. I’m open to changes or suggestions as well but I feel this party is pretty good. All comments welcome.
0
Comments
The biggest thing to watch for ... when you get Coran, he's initially quite poor at trapfinding. He starts with a skill level of 20, and you need 50 to detect the web traps in the very next area. As your plan has him being the only thief, you'll want to invest immediately into trapfinding as soon as you pick him up.
And ... oh yeah, one more thing to note. When you recruit Yeslick, that starts a timer - you need to flood the mine soon, or he'll leave. You have ten days total, with a warning halfway through.
Traveling to the Friendly Arm - the nearest location with a temple that can raise fallen party members - and back to the mine costs you five and a half days in travel time alone. You can't afford to do that more than once.
I would take Kagain over Yeslick any day, Kagain is just immortal almost. 20 con is ridicolous
Dynaheir, Minsc and Garrick are all solid choices. You might need to use potions to increase Garrick's INT for memorising spells though.
Kagain is brilliant, he heals himself and get 4 pips in axes. No need to change Branwen for Yeslick really...she's just as useful and available much earlier.
For the same reasons I'd probably keep Imoen over Coran too. She starts at a lower level as well so you can build her how you like.
Also once you pick up Coran, or any new companion, their level automatically adjusts to yours (or your party’s average level), allowing you to spend new proficiency points and points on thief skills if their new level allows them to do so. I wasn’t sure if anyone was aware of that. It confused me when I was suggested to keep Imoen over Coran. I just wanted to make sure people were aware of that.
The level adjustment only works up to thresholds of 4K, 8K, 16K and 32K. So ideally you'd want to pick Coran up when your main has 32K or just a little over, then rush to get Yeslick so that he'll also join with 32K XP. Try not to earn unnecessary XP over 32K until you have your full party assembled so that they can all benefit from it. If Coran joins with 32K XP, then you can put all his thief points into disarm traps to get it to 70, which should be fine for most traps until he gains more levels. You should still bring a potion of perception for him if you want him to disarm the traps near Davaeorn (and bring a bunch of other potions too if you plan to use him to backstab Davaeorn).
edit: on your way to Yeslick, do Coran quest (kill the wyverns) as he's also on a timer. you can return their skulls to the temple after getting Yeslick and killing Davaeorn though, at least it's never been a problem for me, although I use the sleep on 8 hours at a time option so as not to accidentally sleep 11 days in a row.
You'll likely be at paragon reputation, which would ordinarily block Dorn from joining, but there's a loophole. The first time you talk to Viconia after saving her from overzealous law enforcement, she's willing to learn without a reputation check, and lower your reputation by 2 in the process. Then you exchange her for Dorn, do the quest, and eventually recover the reputation loss when you dismiss Dorn.
The two key items from Dorn's quest, both in the final encounter:
- Albruin, a bastard sword with a bunch of perks. It deals +2 damage more than a standard +1 sword, counts as silver for the werewolf boss Karoug, grants poison immunity, and allows 1/day Detect Invisibility.
- Elven Chain Mail. The best armor a bard can get.
I really don't get the Kagain suggestions here. He's just not a good fit for this party, even if his evil wasn't a severe inconvenience. After all, unlike Branwen or Yeslick, he can't cast spells.
Coran's on a timer to kill the wyverns (really, one wyvern in particular), but after that there's no rush on returning a skull for the bounty. Sixteen days total to get the kill, with a warning halfway through.
Similarly I think Branwen occurs at base level 2, where Yeslick is at least 3/3, from memory....
I'm ready to eat my words if this has changed in the new versions
I agree Kagain would make no sense alignment wise, but I've started using him only recently and have to say he's just brilliant from a gameplay perspective...just very unpleasant as a person
Imoen starts at level 1 if you recruit her right away, or at level 2 if you delay that initial conversation outside Candlekeep. In the latter case, she splits her additional skill points approximately evenly between Move Silently and Find Traps.
You ask why, i ask why not. Whos going to tank then, Garrick ? Imoen ? Dyna ? Kagain is a godly tank that doesnt needs spells, and you get him way faster.
Viconia is another talented early option (her MR is a real bonus) but evil. Jaheira is very good and occurs early but comes as a pair with Khalid, so would need splitting up. Quayle, Faldorn and Tiax are all novel but occur too late in the game for me. Quayle has a tremendous set of spells to choose from, Faldorn can cast Level 5 Druid spells when at max level and Tiax can summon undead as a special ability.
To be honest, I've often found Coran is a solid replacement for a ranger type in your party, as opposed to being your primary thief. His high investment in the stealth skills means he can get to 100% hide in actual darkness pretty quickly. Often right when you recruit him if your party is already at a decent level. A pretty good perk to have honestly, and an OP skill in BG1, where almost no enemies can detect invisibility. And it gets even stronger with the boots of speed, which are soon after you recruit him.
You might want to consider a party where Coran is replacing Minsc, not so much Imoen. And perhaps an Imoen/Garrick combo for your mages or Imoen/Xan. But, all depends if you're dead-set on Dynaheir. I've just found using Coran the way some people often use Minsc or the way everyone would use Kivan -- i.e. focused on longbow usage, and stealth scouting, is often his best role. With some other thief -- Imoen or Safana I guess, dealing with traps at least, if not also locks.
The real point here is that running multiple thieves in your BGEE party is fantastic. When you have more than one thief to spread the skills around, you can do more of the fun stuff like backstabbing and setting traps and just plain sneaking around. And that fun stuff is also powerful stuff.
But it's also fine to run Coran as an archer with extra utility skills, and not add any more thieves to the party. You don't have to put more points into stealth to get good use out of it, since you usually have the luxury of time and can wait until you pass a skill check to head out.
Regarding that mage combo of Dynaheir and Garrick ... there are a lot of powerful enchantment spells at spell levels 4 and 5. Dynaheir can't use them, and Garrick only reaches a single level 4 slot at the XP cap. But there's an alternative - you can have Garrick cast those spells from scrolls. Especially Greater Malison and Chaos, which have scrolls available in large numbers at Sorcerous Sundries.
As for the spider area, I think he can disable all the traps there with disarm traps at 70, but just in case, just give him the ring of free action (from Dushai in Ulgoth's beard via pickpocket or kill if you don't mind a rep hit), cast invisibility on him, disable Party AI so that he doesn't auto-attack enemies and thereby break invisibility, then walk around the spider area disarming the traps or setting them off. Then turn Party AI back on and go get Spiderbane for Minsc.
As for tanking, Yeslick with heavy armor, dex gauntlets + Draw upon Holy Might + summoned skeletons is a perfectly fine tank - better than Kagain if you factor in his skeletons. Plus there's the Cavalier main, and Minsc too if you give him a shield and mace (I always get his longbow to 2, then maces to 2 so that he can tank or dual wield when not using a 2H sword or bow - very versatile companion). Sure Kagain is a great companion too and I often take him myself, but you'll get more out of a fighter/cleric in the party. And Yeslick's low int is no big issue, it'll go to 6 anyway once you give him the big-fisted belt; yes you lose wands of heavens and fear on him, but you gain a much better fighter than Branwen with shorty saves. The main issue with him is that you get him so late that often I feel like just keeping Branwen instead.
Down in the mines, 50 is enough for almost everything ... but there's one Glyph of Warding trap in the final hallway leading to Davaeorn that's at difficulty 90. If you dumped two level-ups into the skill, Coran will still need a potion of perception to catch that trap.
I support this, Coran is broken op, Minsc feels underwhelming.
In bg2 Minsc has great lines, bg1 not so much, not worth taking IMO.
Do you like Kivan ? I never picked him...have to try him sometime.
Dynaheir’s great strength is as an Invoker she has improved defensive and offensive saving throws when using/receiving Evocation spells, so at higher levels when she’s dishing out Lightning bolts and/or fireballs she’s heinous. Probably my favourite Wizard in BGEE.
PS Coran is not a better backstabber than Imoen when maxed out at least in terms of damage: Imoen can reach level 10 max with a modifier of x4, while Coran can only reach x3 at level 8. It’s possible his Thac0 may be better though.
Obviously Kivan, Khalid and other Minsc alternatives have their advantages and disadvantages too, but I wouldn't say that Minsc is any worse than them. Maybe you could argue that Dorn is better, but if we are not including evil companions in the discussion, then he's out anyway.
I've often found Kivan to be a "must have" in almost all of my good playthroughs. Technically Coran is probably the better archer/scout, but Kivan's early availability makes him better imo. Faster leveling also means a better thaco (a major issue in BG1 is your low thacos).
Due to the massive amount of hiking, wilderness clearing, etc, I often find it's a huge advantage to take a dedicated stealth character in the party. This really depends on one's individual play style, but I tend to try not to cheese and try to "role play" in my playthroughs, so having a dedicated scout is key.
Kivan + Zhurlong's boots can get a pretty high hide in actual shadows around level 3. Don't cash them in early! Don't throw heavy armor on Kivan! This just helps make the first half of BG1 a lot less dangerous. And it tends to be more effective than using two thieves. Combine that with the fact that he can use the composite long bow +1, or the dead shot, and he's often the MVP of any good-aligned party imo. At least until you get to the city. Coran does outclass Kivan in this role later in the game due to higher dexterity, the +3 stealth leather armor and the greater thief versatility, but more often than not, I still take Kivan.
His only knock is the halberd proficiency investment. The Chesley Crusher is just kind of wasted on him with the limited attacks per round and there are no other good options. Plus the damage type is a poor alternative to arrows. You do get two more pips over the course of the game to invest though. You can go either quarterstaff to give yourself a good blunt option (+3 option for sale in Ulgoth), or you can invest in longswords and just rely on the +2 and harrower dual wield to take on missile resistant enemies. Depends on the rest of the party.
I don't even mind his quest timer, as that forces me to try and be a bit efficient in the early part of the game, and thus to "role play" a bit more.
(You need 80 points of PP to have a chance at an item in the gauntlet slot. Which probably means feeding a master thievery potion to Garrick.)
On Kivan's melee switch, I usually just give him two-handed style. The +1 halberd found in the same area as the Chesley Crusher is good enough for the early game, especially since it's the backup plan to his longbows.
This is cheating.
In the aforementioned no-spellcasting run, I got through BGEE on one instance of paladin Lay On Hands (Ajantis), two instances of Bhaalspawn Cure Light Wounds (the protagonist), and small amounts of regeneration on the front lines (Kagain, protagonist with 18 base CON + tome + occasional use of Buckley's Buckler). Plus healing potions. That was barely enough to keep up.
So healing spells are basically required. You need a cleric or druid or shaman, and they'll spend a considerable portion of their spell slots on healing spells. Druids are a little better at hit point healing than clerics (faster access to higher spell levels, plus the best healing spell at level 4 in the form of Call Woodland Beings), but at the cost of reduced utility in their non-healing spells. Level 2 druid spells are particularly useless.
Clerics do have a number of good spells beyond healing; I'll list a few:
- Command. Level 1, knocks a creature unconscious for a round if they fail the save. No save if they're level 5 or lower. Since this has an extremely fast casting time, it's easy to slip in even if your cleric's on the front lines fighting.
- Remove Fear. Level 1, removes any current fear effects and grants immunity to fear for an hour. In an area. With minimal casting time. Enemy mages in BG1 are extremely fond of Horror. You won't need to memorize any with your Cavalier protagonist, but most groups would want some of these.
- Bless. Level 1, buffs the party with +1 to attack and damage. Can't hurt to throw on just before a big battle. But don't try to mix this in in the middle of combat; it's very slow to cast.
- Armor of Faith: Level 1, boosts the priest's resistance to all damage. Pretty useless at BG1 levels, but it becomes a staple in high-level play.
- Hold Person: Level 2, renders humanoid enemies helpless if they fail a save, lasts long enough for you to beat them down. At a middling casting time, it's tricky to mix this in in the middle of combat.
- Silence, 15' Radius: Level 2, shuts down spellcasters unless they make a very tough save. Another one with middling casting time; this is a great way to open a battle in which the enemy has spellcasters, but not so good later on when you're engaged in melee and risk disabling your own side.
- Chant: Level 2, buffs nearby allies with +1 luck and +1 saves, weakens nearby enemies with -1 luck and -1 saves. With the long casting time, I use this like Bless as a pre-battle buff and skip the enemy portion.
- Draw Upon Holy Might: Level 2, buffs the cleric's physical stats. Unfortunately, Yeslick doesn't get much out of this one; going from 15 strength to 16 or 17 is a very minor benefit. You'd have to feed him one of those STR 18 potions for the strength boost to make a real difference, and why would you do that when you could just feed him a giant strength potion and get to 19+ STR with no additional spells needed.
- Animate Dead. Level 3, summons a skeleton to fight for you as cannon fodder. Probably the best value for its level among summoning spells. Though I never use it on good clerics because of the flavor.
- Holy Smite. Level 3, deals area damage against evil creatures. The vast majority of your enemies are evil, and your party isn't. While the damage isn't all that high, you're not going to get party-friendly area damage anywhere else for a very long time.
- Rigid Thinking. Level 3, confuses a single target if they fail a save. Similar in utility to Hold Person, but without the humanoid requirement; this can work on the likes of ogres or bears as well.
- Dispel Magic. Level 3, dispels effects in an area. This version is indiscriminate, affecting both allies and enemies. Unfortunately, the dispel has a level check - and at BG1 levels, your cleric is pretty much guaranteed to be at a disadvantage in that check.
Go ahead and try things out. If you don't like how a spell plays, you can always memorize something else the next day.
If you play a Cavalier they're immune to fear. This means you can use Durlag's Goblet for full healing with no consequences. It might also work for Berserkers and Barbarians when they're enraged, but I haven't tried that to see if the fear really does last the full 12 hours as described. I have a feeling that if you're immune to fear when you drink it, then the fear effect is dispelled.
Edit: Blackguards are also immune to fear so it will work for them as well. If you being Dorn along, he's easy to heal using this method.
What does that do? If your current morale is lower than your "morale break" stat, you immediately go into morale failure. And the standard "full morale" value is 10. With the stat at 14, you'll never recover from that panic naturally. Fear protection effects such as the Cavalier's Remove Fear and bard song can override this, and also grant immunity to panic while they're active, but as soon as they wear off that morale break reasserts itself.
Fear protection when you drink from the goblet is sufficient, though; that protection grants immunity to the morale break alteration.
Of course, you also find Kiel's helmet in the same area you find the goblet; the helmet grants fear immunity while equipped, which allows you to use the goblet on any of your helmet-wearers pretty freely.
[Edit: corrected statements about fear protection interaction]
Now just to add to what jmerry said, Draw Upon Holy Might can be very useful on Branwen or Yeslick. Branwen has str/dex/con of 13/16/15, respectively, but if you use her Holy Power ability, she'll gain str 18/00 and fighter thac0, then cast DuHM and her stats will go to 20/18/17 (at level 6+). As for Yeslick, if you give him the big-fisted belt and dex gauntlets, then his stats are 19/18/17, which get boosted to 21/20/19 by DuHM when he's level 6+ cleric; very useful and lasts a full turn.
In addition, some of the weapons that clerics can summon can be useful. Take the level 1 Shillelagh for example. It summons a magical club that does 2d4 damage and hits as a +1 weapon, so decent, but nothing amazing. However, the real benefit is that you can dual wield with a secondary weapon in the off-hand without any dual wield penalties even if you have no points in two-weapon style. In addition, I'm told that summoned magical weapons, at least some of them, can damage certain creatures like greater werewolves, that normally require special weapons, like a silver dagger, so situationally useful, specifically may come in handy on the Isle of Balduran.
At level 4 I normally take Protection from Evil 10' Radius. Defensive Harmony can be good too. Both just buff your party further. So yeah, clerics heal, buff, summon skeletons, and cast Command, Remove Fear, and Silence on occasion. And don't let the name Remove Fear fool you, it's actually protection from fear that lasts an hour, so just cast it before you fight mages unless your cavalier can do the same.
As for druids, they get good once they get their level 5 spells, which won't happen with Jaheira until SoD, and only very late in BG1 with Faldorn. However, if you enable IWD spells (a fairly common mod), then druids become a little better, but still not as good as clerics in BG1.
edit: took out the thing about summoned weapons being able to hurt Karoug. Read it on reddit, but I just tested and it didn't work for me on BG:EE v2.6 (with SCS).
On the cleric list, that's just the single-use melee spells such as Cause Serious Wounds or Slay Living with the "silver" or "cold iron" flags. The persistent Shillelagh and Spiritual Hammer weapons won't work on the lycanthrope bosses. And since you're limited to level 4 spells by the XP cap, that just leaves you with Cause Serious Wounds and its 0 physical + 17 magic damage. Probably better than a charge from a wand of the heavens against Karoug with his 50% elemental resistance, but not worth it otherwise.
If you could reach level 5 spells for Slay Living or level 6 for Harm, those would be a different story.
I think you just answered your question, if you dont like clerics, and prefer auto attack fighters, i dont think you can be convinced.
But priests are op, command in bg1 is broken. Why dont you try Tiax ? Hes still a thief with lots useful tools even if you dont use cleric spells, try different stuff.