Which companions for a 6 fighter party in BG1:EE?
Glawen
Member Posts: 1
Hello Beamdog forums!
I'm coming back to BG after a decade, and I'd like to roll up a fighting-man or fighter-subclass (ranger, etc) as my main character.
Which 5 fighter-y companions can I pick up who will all play nice with each other? I remember having companions leave or kill each other last time because they were opposite alignments, and some fighters like Montaron, Khalid, and Minsc come with baggage attached.
From the companions list, the only ones I'm seeing that come alone are Ajantis, Coran, Kivan, Kagain, Shar-teel, but I think they would likely kill each other or leave. Should I try to grab all good or all evil by killing off Jaheria, Xzar, and/or Dynaheir to get Montaron, Khalid, and Minsc?
I can see a good party consisting of Ajantis, Coran, Khalid, Minsc, Kivan, and Gorion's Ward, but I'd have to kill Jaheria and Dynaheir which doesn't seem very "Good" from a RP perspective. Should I just pick up every fighting-man I find regarless of alignment, let the fight, and keep the victors?
I'd ideally like 5 ranger/fighter/paladins and 1 fighter/thief for lock picking and trap finding.
I'm coming back to BG after a decade, and I'd like to roll up a fighting-man or fighter-subclass (ranger, etc) as my main character.
Which 5 fighter-y companions can I pick up who will all play nice with each other? I remember having companions leave or kill each other last time because they were opposite alignments, and some fighters like Montaron, Khalid, and Minsc come with baggage attached.
From the companions list, the only ones I'm seeing that come alone are Ajantis, Coran, Kivan, Kagain, Shar-teel, but I think they would likely kill each other or leave. Should I try to grab all good or all evil by killing off Jaheria, Xzar, and/or Dynaheir to get Montaron, Khalid, and Minsc?
I can see a good party consisting of Ajantis, Coran, Khalid, Minsc, Kivan, and Gorion's Ward, but I'd have to kill Jaheria and Dynaheir which doesn't seem very "Good" from a RP perspective. Should I just pick up every fighting-man I find regarless of alignment, let the fight, and keep the victors?
I'd ideally like 5 ranger/fighter/paladins and 1 fighter/thief for lock picking and trap finding.
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Comments
You can use the component Allow NPC Pairs to Separate of the mod Tweak Anthology.
Here is the description :
Thus you only need to take care of the reputation.
BG1
- Protagonist, halfling fighter/thief. She wore heavy armor, except when she took it off outside combat to use thief skills. Lots of tactical role-switching.
- Ajantis, human paladin. He mainly stood back and used a longbow.
- Kagain, dwarf fighter. He was a front-line tank, using his regeneration to ease the healing burden.
- Kivan, elf ranger. He was another longbow archer.
- Shar-Teel, human fighter -> thief. She dual-classed at level 6 and optimized for backstabbing.
- Garrick, human bard. He got to protect the party from fear effects with his song, and occasionally use wands and scrolls.
BG2
- Protagonist, halfling fighter/thief. Still in heavy armor and switching roles as needed.
- Keldorn, human paladin. High-powered dispels for those troublesome mage fights.
- Korgan, dwarf berserker. A very sturdy front-liner.
- Mazzy, halfling fighter. The main archer for this party, until she switched over to her melee option at high levels.
- Rasaad, human sun soul monk. Vulnerable to physical attacks, but hits hard and can disrupt spellcasters at range.
- Haer'Dalis, tiefling blade. Again, song support and occasional wand use.
Conflicts between NPCs aren't a simple matter of alignment; there are specific pairs that don't get along with each other for individual reasons. Khalid and Jaheira conflict with Montaron and Xzar because they're Harpers and Zhentarim. Edwin and Neera conflict because her story is all about Red Wizards hunting wild mages. Ajantis and Dorn conflict because ... well, a paladin kind of has to conflict with a servant of supernatural evil.
But a party with Ajantis, Kivan, Kagain, and Shar-Teel? They'll get along just fine, as long as you manage your reputation.
As for the bards, they're not fighters. But bard song buffs the entire party; even basic bard song adds a luck bonus for improved THAC0 and weapon damage. It's a pretty good deal when everyone else is attacking.
And then, once in a while, you'll run into those fights that you really want some extra tools for. Like a scroll of Cloudkill to kill Davaeorn before he can even see you and properly activate. Or a wand of lightning to take out the Dwarven Doom Guards without facing them in melee.
If I could prevail upon you to include just a little bit of arcane magic, consider building your protagonist to be a Wild Mage, Dual-classed to Fighter at Level 2. You're essentially a pure-classed Fighter, but with 3 Level 1 spells per day, full access to almost every Wand, the ability to read useful scrolls while in full armor, the handful of spells & immunities from your Familiar, and certain items (almost all of which are in BG2) that pure Fighters can't use. And if you're feeling particularly reckless, you can use Nahal's Reckless Dweomer to cast literally any Wizard spell (that you've already scribed, of course).
And what, pray tell, do you lose in this exchange? Approximately 10 maximum hitpoints. And that's only in BG1, where your Familiar grants you just +6hp. By the time you hit Throne of Bhaal areas, your Familiar will give you +24hp, so you'll actually be ahead of your pure-classed Fighter counterpart. So really, the only downside is that you must be Human (no Saving Throw bonuses, which can be quite hefty), and you can't take either of the good Fighter kits (Berserker or Kensai).
And it beats the crap out of carrying a near-useless Bard around for the entire game.
So, quite usable, just with some extra role-playing drama every now & then. Other pairings are not so forgiving: Having Khalid & Jaheira in the party alongside Xzar & Montaron, for example, will eventually trigger a dialogue that causes all 4 of them to go purple-circled (meaning, you cannot control them in this state) and attack each other. Only when the combat is over can you click on them again. If this happens, the only remedies are to Reload (which just postpones the dialogue for a bit) or (potentially) to Raise the slain party members. Theoretically, if the dialogue has occurred once, it might not be coded to happen again. But an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure: In the K&J vs. X&M fight, the dialogue is started by Xzar & Jaheira, not Monty or Khalid. So if you remove either Xzar or Jaheira, the other three should be able to coexist rather peacefully. For a player who wants to concentrate on Warriors, the choice is obvious.
Some other mentions:
Montaron: Coran and potentially Shar-Teel are far from your only options when it comes to Fighter/Thieves in BG1. Halfling F/T is a very solid build, and Monty's stats are quite decent.
Coran: I for one always hack his stats to be legal, every time I use him. I'm amazed that not only did Beamdog let him keep his 20 DEX, they even translated his original Bow*** into Longbow***, when clearly it would have been more balanced to give him Longbow** and Shortbow*.
Kagain: Obviously a worthy Tank due to his regenerative CON score, but he shouldn't be combined with Ajantis or especially Yeslick. Who also should not be combined with each other. Not just because of party conflicts, but because there is only one copy of a specific pair of Gauntlets, which they will all absolutely need if they want to be a durable Tank, or an effective ranged attacker. (And, yes, I always allow Kagain to keep his 20 CON, in spite of what I just said about Coran. The difference is that even with "just" 19 DEX, Coran is still a very effective Thief, while Kagain with a legal 19 CON is just another lackluster Fighter. To really be worth much of anything, he needs that 20.)
Shar-Teel: There is definitely something to be said for having two Thieves in the party, especially in BG1. Stealth, Find Traps, and Open Locks are all basically mandatory, so the only way you'll ever get any real use out of Pick Pockets, Set Traps, or Detect Illusions is to have your second Rogue develop those skills.
Ajantis: Me hating his soundset is just personal opinion. Less subjective is the fact that he has placed his starting weapon proficiencies to Specialize in the only melee weapon type that does not have a version higher than +1 anywhere in BG1. So I always hack his proficiencies by at least 1 point.
Minsc: I tend not to use him much, as Kivan is much more useful. But he's still solid, especially if you use the mod that gives him his BG2 stats (+1 to both DEX & CON).
Yeslick: Fun fact--he is the #1 best choice to wear the primary loot from Rasaad's quest. Of course, this is only due to the fact that Yeslick naturally has only 7 INT (even lower than Minsc!), which I for one regard as a grave oversight/bug, as his quotes never show him to be the least bit lacking in mental faculties.
Two points. First, that's not allowed in the standard rules; wild mages don't get the option to dual-class. Second, there's a much bigger disadvantage: if you're a mage -> fighter dual class, you can't be a thief. And there aren't any fighter/thief companions in BG2. The closest you can come is Yoshimo, and he's certainly not a permanent solution. A part-thief protagonist is near-mandatory here, if you want to continue into BG2.
The bards were my solution to a variant rule that completely banned casting spells (from spell slots). If you're allowed to make use of fighter/caster combinations, they're obviously very good.
But you know . . . so what? Wild Mages definitely should be able to Dual: It's not like dual-classing makes less sense for them than for any other mage. If anything, it makes more: "After accidentally teleporting myself 9 feet into the air and subsequently landing on my ass for the 4th time, I've decided that a change in career is definitely in order." So WM->Fighter should be legal, and for a slightly different take, it shouldn't even have to be: It's my belief that the protagonist, being who he is, should have a somewhat greater flexibility than the other recruitable NPCs (especially considering the traits & abilities some of them have), and therefore doing things like using EEKeeper to make changes that are technically illegal, but still balanced, seems perfectly justified to me. Maybe that means hacking your Mage(2)->Fighter into a Wild Mage(2)->Fighter, or maybe take a sightly different tack and go Mage(2)->Berserker, which would be even more powerful. (Almost as strong, in fact, as the plain old Multiclassed Fighter/Mage.)
That is very true. But the OP specifically mentioned only BG1, not 2. If he'd hinted at progressing into BG2, I'd definitely have remarked on the necessity of including a Thief/Mage in the party, or playing a Fighter/Thief oneself. Or, alternatively, getting creative: On my own Warrior-only party, our Thief was Montaron. At the correct point in the game, I "Raised" him by Saving the game, moving the file into the Multiplayer folder, creating an exact copy of BG1 Montaron, Saving again, & moving back into Single Player. The most powerful spellcaster in the group was actually Valygar. (How's that "keep me away from any filthy magic" working out for you, Mr. Corthala?)