Should i get the spear of withering for Jaheira?
DGDKami
Member Posts: 34
Ok so i just got to Ust Natha, and so far i've been struggling with finding an actuall good weapon for Jaheira. She being a druid means that she can't equip most good weapons even as a fighter. So now i got to the Ust Natha Bazaar and i finally found and +4 weapon she can use, is that a good end game weapon for her?
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if she is specialized in spears, i would go with the impaler +3 just because the damage output is so much more
if she is specialized in scimitars you can actually find a +3 scimitar in the drow city ( just make sure to finish the "quest" and all the tie ins with the golden rope when it comes )
if she is specialized with clubs, the +3 blackblood club from trademeet is best ( it deals +3 acid damage a hit, so that is pretty good )
if she is specialized with daggers, you can either use pixie prick from the planar prison quest ( quest under the five flagons inn ) or again in the drow city if you accept the aboleth's quest you can find a +4 dagger
if she is specialized in quarterstaves you could give her a staff-mace if you want to use a shield or you could use staff of the rynn ( ribald sells it ) or you could use staff of the woodlands ( given to you in chapter 7 )
if she is specialized in slings you could give her the sling of everard +5 ( joluv sells it in the copper cohornet ) or the +4 sling that you can find in the underdark in the beholder cavern
personally i like going with scimitar because then i can use a shield for some killer AC, plus in ToB she can use sprectral brand
Should you use it? Well, that brings up a key point - what do your Jaheira's proficiencies look like? A warrior really shouldn't be using a primary weapon that they're not specialized in. And Jaheira starts with no proficiency at all in spears.
I mean, I've got my current Jaheira with a spear (the ToB option Ixil's Spike +6), but (a) she didn't reach spear specialization until fighter level 21 at 6.5 million total XP, and (b) that's just what she holds when casting spells - her actual fighting "weapon" is fire elemental form (made more convenient and considerably better by a mod).
Before she unlocked that form at 3 million XP, my Jaheira used Belm (+2 scimitar with +1 APR, found in the Druid Grove) and a shield. That worked just fine. On the rare occasions an enemy needed +3 to hit, I usually let her borrow Blackblood (+3 club with 3 acid damage, bought in Trademeet). Jaheira's starting proficiencies bias her toward clubs and scimitars, and the ones you find in the Druid Grove and Trademeet are the best weapons of those classes in SoA.
Once ToB comes along, there are more options. Spectral Brand (found in Watcher's Keep, when you gamble with the cambion at the end of the teleport maze) is an excellent all-round +4 scimitar with elemental damage, and can eventually be upgraded to +5. The Club of Detonation (found in the final seal level of Watcher's Keep, upgraded to +5 immediately in ToB) deals massive fire damage, with the side effect of launching occasional fireballs - protect your party from fire, and don't use it around civilians.
Or you can go with another class of weapon. Daggers offer a lot of good options, starting with the Fire Tooth +3 dagger you can pick up from that same Ust Natha merchant. That's a +3 weapon, with high physical damage, bonus elemental damage, and an extra attack per round. And if you want, you can even throw it. Or there's Pixie Prick (found in the Planar Prison): +3, enemies save or fall asleep on every hit. And for the two rounds they're asleep, every attack on them hits automatically. The damage isn't great, but that's what strength boosts are for.
The biggest drawback of daggers is the proficiency issue; Jaheira doesn't start with any dagger proficiency, so you have to invest twice to reach specialization.
The other two-handed option also has its charms - the quarterstaff. Jaheira starts with proficiency, so investing that extra point for specialization is cheap. Staves offer a range of item charge effects, plus the occasional physical damage option like the Staff of Rhynn (buy from Ribald), staves of striking (buy at certain temple shops), and the Staff of the Ram (find in Watcher's Keep). The upgraded Staff of the Ram deals the most physical damage of any weapon in the game.
Oh, and there's also a druid-specific staff in Joluv's shop. It's not the most convenient, as you lose the benefit of the extra spell slots if you ever switch to another weapon, but it could be interesting.
Those are all melee options, but we can't forget ranged attacks either. Slings aren't good at inflicting special effects, but they do deal a lot of damage - weapon bonuses, ammo bonuses, and strength all stack. Jaheira starts with proficiency there.