Party Setup and Romances
Veristek
Member Posts: 114
Hi again,
Based on the feedback I've gotten in my first thread, a few questions have popped up about party makeup and the issue of romances. Here's the basics:
My CHARNAME is a neutral fighter / mage so he can tank, cast magic, and be part of a Good or Evil party.
I completed Neera, Rassad, and Dorn's sidequests and "friendship" talks in BG 1, then built up Neera and Corwin's romances in Dragonspear and ended up going all the way with Corwin. She's a badass archer. Then I imported my Dragonspear save into my current BG 2 game.
In BG 2, I plan on collecting every NPC and doing all their sidequests to experience all their content.
So here are my questions.
1) I was advised that Jahiera's romance takes forever in real time. That implies traveling back and forth or resting repeatedly won't advance her romance. Only real life time does, which might mean I'll finish SoA long before I get her romance completed. If so, is there any way to speed it up? I don't fancy leaving BG 2 running overnight everyday while I sleep just to advance her romance.
2) I'm trying to think of a good final party for each alignment after I collect all the NPC's. I was advised that I need to get my preferred NPC's and keep them together for as long as possible to get the most EXP and interactions for them.
Good Party:
CHARNAME = Fighter / Mage
Mazzy = melee + archer role
Keldorn = melee + dispel
Yoshimo --> Jan = thief + mage role
Aerie = cleric + mage role
6th slot open
Evil Party:
CHARNAME = Fighter / Mage
Dorn = Melee
Korgan = Melee
Hexxat or Jan = Thief + mage (Jan)
Edwin = Mage
Viconia = Cleric
3) I've tried to compress more roles (note Jan and Aerie) into as few people as possible in the Good Party to free up a slot or two to add extra NPC for banter, dynamic, and experimentation. In this party, I'd have 3 melee, 1 archer, 3 mage, 1 thief, and 1 cleric role with 6th slot still open. The Evil Party is straightforward and only "overlap" is Jan as a thief + mage if I don't use Hexxat.
If the parties I listed are subpar, are there better alternatives? Or am I missing anything in these compositions?
For Good Party, if I sacrifice Jan to put in Imoen or Nalia, I'd get a thief who can't use thief HLA or play with setting traps or do good thief stuff. Imoen has 95% in open locks and find traps, which I find a little blah, why not 100% in each at least? I got Imoen to 100% in both in BG 1 before dual classing her to Mage. With Jan, I could max every thief skill and use all thief HLA while having him toss mage buff spells while CHARNAME and Aerie can throw the spells Jan can't.
Not sure what to do with 6th slot. Put Imoen in there for story purposes? Shoehorn in my romance interest if not romance Aerie, or play with Minsc, Anomen, Haer'Dalis, Valygar, Cerrod, etc?
For Evil Party, I'd be stuck with Viconia as romance because no room for Neera (because of Edwin) or Jahiera (no free party slot), and Aerie is Good Party. Evil Party won't have a good archer, while Good Party will have Mazzy in that role.
Feedback? Comments? Insights?
Based on the feedback I've gotten in my first thread, a few questions have popped up about party makeup and the issue of romances. Here's the basics:
My CHARNAME is a neutral fighter / mage so he can tank, cast magic, and be part of a Good or Evil party.
I completed Neera, Rassad, and Dorn's sidequests and "friendship" talks in BG 1, then built up Neera and Corwin's romances in Dragonspear and ended up going all the way with Corwin. She's a badass archer. Then I imported my Dragonspear save into my current BG 2 game.
In BG 2, I plan on collecting every NPC and doing all their sidequests to experience all their content.
So here are my questions.
1) I was advised that Jahiera's romance takes forever in real time. That implies traveling back and forth or resting repeatedly won't advance her romance. Only real life time does, which might mean I'll finish SoA long before I get her romance completed. If so, is there any way to speed it up? I don't fancy leaving BG 2 running overnight everyday while I sleep just to advance her romance.
2) I'm trying to think of a good final party for each alignment after I collect all the NPC's. I was advised that I need to get my preferred NPC's and keep them together for as long as possible to get the most EXP and interactions for them.
Good Party:
CHARNAME = Fighter / Mage
Mazzy = melee + archer role
Keldorn = melee + dispel
Yoshimo --> Jan = thief + mage role
Aerie = cleric + mage role
6th slot open
Evil Party:
CHARNAME = Fighter / Mage
Dorn = Melee
Korgan = Melee
Hexxat or Jan = Thief + mage (Jan)
Edwin = Mage
Viconia = Cleric
3) I've tried to compress more roles (note Jan and Aerie) into as few people as possible in the Good Party to free up a slot or two to add extra NPC for banter, dynamic, and experimentation. In this party, I'd have 3 melee, 1 archer, 3 mage, 1 thief, and 1 cleric role with 6th slot still open. The Evil Party is straightforward and only "overlap" is Jan as a thief + mage if I don't use Hexxat.
If the parties I listed are subpar, are there better alternatives? Or am I missing anything in these compositions?
For Good Party, if I sacrifice Jan to put in Imoen or Nalia, I'd get a thief who can't use thief HLA or play with setting traps or do good thief stuff. Imoen has 95% in open locks and find traps, which I find a little blah, why not 100% in each at least? I got Imoen to 100% in both in BG 1 before dual classing her to Mage. With Jan, I could max every thief skill and use all thief HLA while having him toss mage buff spells while CHARNAME and Aerie can throw the spells Jan can't.
Not sure what to do with 6th slot. Put Imoen in there for story purposes? Shoehorn in my romance interest if not romance Aerie, or play with Minsc, Anomen, Haer'Dalis, Valygar, Cerrod, etc?
For Evil Party, I'd be stuck with Viconia as romance because no room for Neera (because of Edwin) or Jahiera (no free party slot), and Aerie is Good Party. Evil Party won't have a good archer, while Good Party will have Mazzy in that role.
Feedback? Comments? Insights?
0
Comments
C:SetGlobal("JaheiraRomance","GLOBAL",1)
For future romances, just change the name to whoever you're romancing.
Some people shy away from this thinking, wait a second, FMTs can't ever cast 9th level spells and are therefore obviously inferior to FMs. But this is not the case. The point of combining F and M is to meld the mage's unparalleled defensive buffs with the fighter's strong melee output to give you the best tank in the game. But those buffs are mostly mid to low level spells ending with protection from magical weapons, which you can cast almost equally well whether you go FM or FMT. There are also great synergies with M and T, such as not needing to put any thief points in stealth skills (because you can cast invisibility) and being able to backstab more or less at will (again with invisibility). Combining that with the high APR of a fighter gives you not only an exceptionally versatile character but also one of the game's strongest.
If you were to make this change, then your Imoen/Nalia issue disappears because you can use them instead of Jan. Or, if you're in the 50% of the player base that finds him endearing rather than the 50% that thinks he's got some of the worst dialogue in the game, you could carry Jan in the party alongside Imoen/Nalia.
I would struggle to leave out Imoen, the story almost requires it of you and it makes little sense for a good npc to do so, as you have come to rescue her and she is in a bad way when you find her. Likewise, as a good pc, I don’t like to drag Keldorn away from his family.
Your PC, Imoen, Aerie and Jan would be very mage heavy but very powerful late game. Mazzy is always a welcome party member and underrated. Valygar is fun with Mazzy.
You could drop Jan for ??? in Throne of Bhaal and duel ??? to a thief, I often do as he comes back online fast as a fighter thief dual and he takes care of thief HLAs and can cheese the holy avenger for dispels. To be honest if you want Jan mainly for the high level abilities he won’t add much in Shadows of Amn. I would take Jaheira as a great mage killer, tank and healer. Plus her and Aerie will fight over you ?
A quick clarification. I started my CHARNAME in BG 1, tne imported the game into Dragonspear, then imported that save from Dragonspear to start BG 2. So I'm stuck with him as a Fighter / Mage.
My issue with Imoen / Nalia is how they cannot increase their thief skills. If I want to pickpocket or play with setting traps, or more backstabbing stuff, I'd need Yoshimo, Jan, or Hexxat depending on if I go Good Party or Evil Party.
I kicked Jahiera after the Irencius battle / Imoen abduction, and before leaving the Promenade map. She went to Harper Hold, where I can safely pick her up and start her romance anytime I'm ready for her. Tested and it works.
No good archer in the evil party? I happen to see Korgan. Give him the Dwarven Thrower. It is one of the best ranged weapons because it does crushing damage and adds your strength damage bonus. For elemental damage and arrows of dispelling you can employ somebody else.
I dislike how your good party has no one advancing purely as a mage. But since you are not very experienced with the game, you may very correctly judge that having simpler characters will make the game easier. Magic requires study not just from the characters, but also from the player. So this is not a point that you should take to heart. However, do make sure to practice with the spell slingers in your party. What protective spells are sensible against what sort of opposition and how do you protect those protective spells? Also, how can you kill liches and illithids and diseased rats, other than charging them and reloading if that did not work out?
Imoen should be able to fulfill all your utility thief needs. Yes, she may sometimes need a little help with a ring (or a potion), but she will do. Nalia will regularly require the rings (or potions). In the past I have often altered their stats with Shadow/EE-Keeper though to make things simpler.
For backstabs, you also have the option of adding Valygar to your team. As for traps, Haer'Dalis at >3 million XP can demonstrate to you that bards get 100% Set Traps for free.
Didn't know about the ranged axe. Thanks for that tip.
I don't want to end up having to swap rings or gulp potions before going in every room and hallway in every dungeon so I can detect traps. I'd rather them detect as I work my way through the dungeon with minimum of swapping or micromanaging. That's why I like my trap detection at 100%.
For my Good Party, it seems like Aerie is a better choice than Anomen for a cleric role. I already have 3 melee fighters (CHARNAME, Mazzy, Keldorn). If I pick up ??? (whoever he is) and dual him to thief and replace Jan like ilduderino suggested, I'd have 4 melee characters. Anomen would be a 5th melee when he's not casting cleric spells. And if I use ??? and Anomen then pick Jahiera for 6th slot for romance, I'd have 6 melee characters and only 1 mage (CHARNAME). I've read that I will need mages for the later part of SoA and through ToB, so Aerie would fill in for cleric and an extra mage for more mage coverage.
Is there a better way to balance my Good party to give all-around coverage between melee, thief, mage, and cleric roles? Or is my Good party good enough (pun intended) for SoA and ToB?
Imoen will not need to have her stats improved for every single lock or trap. There will be a few incidents over the course of the game where you notice that she cannot open a lock or disarm a trap. But I understand you. As I said, I have altered her stats in the past.
I think your party will work out.
As for tips with mages, I suggest you just play around and if you get into trouble, you can ask for help with specific problems.
1) Is there any way to save Viconia and postpone her romance? I was able to successfully postpone Jahiera's romance by kicking her on the Promenade map after Irencius battle and before leaving that map. Viconia seems to start romance the instant I rescue her from the stake and mob. I don't want to kill her romance potential, but I want to pause it until I've decided who I want to romance.
Is the only alternative to keep her on that stake with the mob for 1 - 2 months of game time until I collect the other companions and finish their quests? Same goes for Aerie and Neera if their romances immediately start upon meeting / rescuing them?
I want to have the time and space to decide who I ultimately want to romance, while shifting around my party without worrying about killing romances that haven't even gotten to the first lovetalk yet.
2) If I collect every character and do their quests, will I be able to recruit them all when I start ToB? I read that you can only bring characters you've actually been with from SoA into ToB. Is that true?
No comment on evil, haven’t been able to stomach playing a full evil team, especially after Dorn and Hexxat.
One of the tweaks in the tweak compendium fixes that so that only living NPCs you actually talked to show up. I understand why, but that really should have been default behavior.
some utter simplification can be:
1. use them to power up your fighters disrupting the enemy defenses, lowering their throws and hasting and protecting your fighters.
2. use them to damage the enemies, it is quite self explaining, even if there are so many ways to do it depending on your level and the particular enemies.
3. kill or disable the enemies with not damaging spells, ie if you manage feeblemind a dragon it will sit like a duck without reacting as you destroy him, if you blind him you can attack him with ranged weapons from far without him chasing you. also death spell kills summons and possibly enemies if they fail a sawing throw. finger of death also kills, many spells from the basic sleep to power word stun also disable enemies.
4. use area of effect spells. this can be done in a very lame way, from the fog of war utilizing metagame knowledge and abusing the fact that the enemy don't see you and takes the damage of your fireballs witout reacting, or in more fair and intelligent ways. if you manage to stack some webs and maybe you add some greater malison and doom is likely that most of the enemies get constantly trapped so don't move, don't attack or cast and you always hit them, independently from your thac0 and their ac (so ie a mage with mmm can destroy a webbed fighter even if he has an outrageous ac that in normal circumstances would cause the mage to always miss) . the key to use the tactics of points 3 and 4 is redundancy, if you base your tactic on a single web, finger of death, feeblemind you are playing at roulette, not at bg2, reloading enought times you will succeed. if you have many of them memorized, possibly by more then one mage, and use lower resistance greater malison and doom before probably you will never or very seldom have to reload.
5. use your casters to physically attack, mmm work great at the beginning, and with webbed enemies also later, tensor transformation give to your mage the thac0 of a fighter of the same level, at high levels coupled with black blade of disaster and improved haste can be a killer combination. but it also prevent spellcasting so your mage can not cast new protections or do other things (i never use tt, but other do it and in some instances can be useful). remember that a mage can attack both physically and magically in the same round if uses a weapon of good speed and don't cast spells that have too long casting time, your mage can drop a sling shot, for decent damage if you use on the mage the low level spell that grant hours of 18.50 str, and then cast his spell. to do it efficiently autopause on round end is really useful.
6. there are many other ways, i am not talking of single spells or strategies, only of different tactical uses of a spellcaster. to learn to use properly a mage can take literally years of playing.
i would not pick mr tob as between charname mazzi keldorn and when needed a buffed aerie (and her simulacrum at her side) you have plenty of mlee power.
about Yoshimo --> Jan = thief + mage role is much better always jan and pick joshi just before leaving for spellhood. i will not spoil you more but trust me. jan as a dual benefit of every single xp point and the more you have in the party the better is.
about swapping aerie for anomen she is a mage that can do something no other mage in the game can, use both arcane and divine magic in sequencers, trigger and contingiences. to have a healer wearing the robe of vecna to cast healing spells or spells that let's say free one ton from a domination or stun can also be very useful. she has also so many spells/day as she memorizes 2 different spellbooks. anomen is a much better cleric as will get a really effective turn undead way before then a multi, will have more apr and will have better thac0 if not buffed, but will not have the protection stoneskin, mirror images, on self spells that lowe ac and pfmw give to a mage.
about thac0 and damage dealt in mlee (and ranged) keep in mind that a cleric (even a low level dual from fighter like anomen) not buffed is only the pale shadow of a properly buffed one. and as the cleric buffs are level dependent anomen can buff efficiently before.
to give you an idea of how it is important, fundamental, i give you the data for an end game aerie of mine using the very same equipment but buffed and not buffed
hp 68
ac -1
thac0 (dual welding) 4 and 8
damage/hit 7.5 average
2 apr
damage/round if she ever hits, but she almost will ever miss 15
buffed mlee:
hp 117
ac -6
thac0 (dual welding) -8 and -4
damage/hit 24 (every hit, automatic maxed damage roll)
4 apr
damage/round if she ever hits, good chance that she hits 96
buffed ranged:
hp 117
ac -6
thac0 -12
damage/hit 27 (every hit, automatic maxed damage roll)
2 apr
damage/round if she ever hits, very good chance that she hits 54
if she also cast black blade of disaster the damage and thac0 become even more outrageous...
no spell that prevent her spellcasting is used
about viconia is totally possible to avoid the place where you find her tied to the stake so delay her ramance, not sure what happens if you free her, but don't take her immediately. she has tob romance content.
about avoiding to swap constantly the rings to make nalia/imoen able to deal with traps and doors one possibility is install the items upgrade mod and have only the ring that merge all the thieving items and a protection ring fused into a single ring. the dwarf that upgrades some vanilla items will do it for you.
that ring does not alter your power, while many of the other upgrades introduced do it and i don't suggest them for a first run and maybe also never. that ring gives only the convenience to avoid to swap constantly items depending if imoen has to find the trap, disable it or open a lock or equip a protection ring for a battle.
about using mages and divine casters here is your homework
https://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/SpellsReference/Main.htm
it was written for the original and some things in ee are different and some exploit are now closed, but still you can learn a lot on spellcasting and have an idea of what spells at each level are useful
I tend to try to see and do everything possible in each RPG to experience the world the RPG is in. I explore every area if I can, collect items for use or selling (or crafting if that's a feature), see different character interactions and storylines to appreciate them for who they are, do all sidequests I can, etc. That way, I get the most experience out of a RPG and its backstory, lore, dynamics, etc.
BG is a different experience for me, because there's a lot more characters to mix n' match than other RPG's. BG 1 had about 30 characters, Dragonspear had 16, and BG 2 probably more than 20. Other RPG's usually have 10 or fewer characters, or just solo or double team (Elder Scroll games).
a low level charname will meet skeletons and low level undeads or a beholder and 2 gauths where a high level charname meets ghasts and mummies or 3 beholders.
so if you spend too much time with the evil party to trigger their quests and banters then swich to the good party you will have an underleveled good party compared to charname and so to the enemies you find.
same if you switch from good to evil.
i am not completely sure if the last threshold to get the npcs at higher level is 1.5M charname xp or 2M xp, but be careful to switch right after one of those points.
a "pro tip" is also to do the quests with the first party, but whenever possible don't trigger the final reward (ie do the tanner quest but avoid to talk to the officer). so as you have your final party you can go and get all the quest rewards getting immediately a big xp boost.
On the other hand there are a large number of spells, from breach to identify, where caster level barely matters or isn't a factor at all. Typically what you'd do is load up Jan/Aerie with those spells while leaving the "blasting" role to Imoen/Nalia/Edwin. The mage class is so OP that you can ignore this and still easily win the game, but if you like to optimize your party then it's something to consider.
125k 8 6
250k 10 8
500k 11 10
1M 12 11
2M 15 12
4M 20 15
8M 31 20
this shows clearly that is true that is possible to have up to 11 levels of difference, but also that it happens at very high xp, for the most of soa a dual mage is not so far behind a single class.
so the spells, that are capped at lev 10 or 20, will not be so much different in effectiveness.
the difference is an other.
in late soa and even more in tob the single class or a dual become a much more powerful mage, even if not necessarily a more powerful toon. jan has backstab, hla traps and uai, aerie has sequencers and verylate in the game cc with arcane and divine magic mixed together (things like clerical magic resistence + doom + gm in a sequencer can make dragons and other magic resistant foe "ready" in a split second, if there is an other mage to cast the gm magic resistance+lower magic resistance+doom is even better) and she can in end game buff herself and her simulacrum to be as good if not better in mlee then any fighter of the game, with 8 total apr, 4 of them with a bbod that deals a kai damage.
the end game power of edvin or imoen will be of a completely different nature, pi destroying everything with improved alacrity, infinite spell loops, deadly cc and on and over.
anyway i suggested to use imoen as 6th member of the op party, not sure if in this or one of the other treads he opened, for that very reason, a party with f/m aerie, jan and imoen, so 3 multi and a high level mage is crazy strong and versatile, can kick every but physically and/or magically almost without problems as the other 2 members are keldorn and mazzi.
If I go with Imoen for 6th slot, then would it be practical to leave her for last? Since I'd be funneling all my exp into the other 5 party members, of which 3 are multi-class (CHARNAME, Jan, and Aerie).
As an aside, I found Imoen and Jahiera's BG 1 portraits more appealing. Their BG 2 potraits look like comic art, while their BG 1 ones look more realistic like photographs or real life. Besides, I find it weird that Jahiera went for all those dreadlocks, ehh, I prefer her BG 1 hairstyle better. Viconia's BG 2 portrait looks better than her BG 1 one, while Edwin is mostly unchanged. Minsc looks at you in BG 2, while in BG 1, he looks down.
about the imoen xp she is basically a single class mage so will level up fast as the xp you gain from quests and kills scale with the phase of the game and even more when you reach tob.
but if you want you can do a couple of things. reach her with many scroll bags filled with scrolls, drop anyone but her and your romance and have her learn and erase multiple times the same scroll (i never do it, but some player use the trick routinely when dual from something into mage to speed up the downtime).
and you can also avoid to collect some quest rewards in chap 2 and 3 so as you come back town all the definitive party immy included will benefit.
there are also other ways to get additional xp, that i don't think that will be necessary for you.
if you want i can tell you of 2 you can do in soa and 1 in wk. but in this case, and also scribing and erasing scrolls, you introduce in the game more xp that what it is intended for, if you start to use such things on the first run you are straight into a very dangerous route...
save the xp of a couple of quests for when you rescue imoen, max 3 quests, and you wil be more then fine,
or let her gain levels naturally, there is plenty of xp from the moment you rescue her to the end of the game...
she will not be the best possible main mage for some time, but she will catch up as the other mages are multi, and in the end will be a super powerful archmage anyway (as long as YOU learn how to play the mages
i write my address in the spoiler, please send 2 fingers there by priority postage, i don't care if you cut them from yourself, from some other person or steal them in a graveyard ( in rl i am a lich)
hehehehe...