Opinion Poll
FredN
Member Posts: 596
.....My crew is almost, but not quite, ready to head to Spellhold. Currently I have Jaheira, Edwin, Viconia, Yoshimo, Haer' D'Aelis and myself (Bersrerker-Thief). Not a bad crew, but IMO Haer D'Aeils is the weak link. He is level 15, with 54 HP. Edwin, a level 13 mage, has more health than he does! (60 vs 54). Now, I played a Bardic Blade myself in my last run, and I kicked ass. In this run, the two times I let Haer engage in melee combat he got creamed in 2-3 rounds. Despite his nice +2 weapons and things like offensive spin, his THACO is poor, and he can't take too many hits before falling over dead.
.....He also came poorly equipped as far as gear. I gave him the Bardic Chain mail, bought a bunch of sceolls for him ... his initial spell ability sucked big time ... so now he can cast shield, armor and ghost armor. I also had him learn some offensive spells: magic missile, flame arrow and acid arrow. OH, and I gave him the Harp of Discord and the Crimson Dart, so he can stand off in the rear of the party and not get involved in melee.
.....This is actually working out fairly well, but he is still pretty fragile, and can't take much damage during a fight. So, my question is, should I head off to Spellhold with him in my crew, or should I recruit someone else. I can grab Mazzy, Korgan or Cernd as a replacement. Rasaad is alo available, but he sucks in combat almost as badly as Haer does. I hate Minsc with a deep passion, and Anomen isn't much better, so don't even suggest either of those.
.....He also came poorly equipped as far as gear. I gave him the Bardic Chain mail, bought a bunch of sceolls for him ... his initial spell ability sucked big time ... so now he can cast shield, armor and ghost armor. I also had him learn some offensive spells: magic missile, flame arrow and acid arrow. OH, and I gave him the Harp of Discord and the Crimson Dart, so he can stand off in the rear of the party and not get involved in melee.
.....This is actually working out fairly well, but he is still pretty fragile, and can't take much damage during a fight. So, my question is, should I head off to Spellhold with him in my crew, or should I recruit someone else. I can grab Mazzy, Korgan or Cernd as a replacement. Rasaad is alo available, but he sucks in combat almost as badly as Haer does. I hate Minsc with a deep passion, and Anomen isn't much better, so don't even suggest either of those.
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Comments
Out of the characters you mentioned ...
Rasaad is a monk. Monks scale really hard with levels. They're a bit soft to melee damage - no crit protection - but that's the only real weakness once you level up enough. And if he hasn't joined the party yet, he'll go straight to level 13, nearly at the point he gets permanent magic resistance. I think you're underrating this option.
Mazzy as a fighter with a couple paladin-like special abilities. She has a bow focus, and then you can choose a melee weapon for her to develop. Early on, she'll mostly play archer. At epic levels, she can take to the front lines.
Korgan is simple and reliable. Just a fantastic front-line warrior.
Cernd is either a front-line tank or a back-line caster. He can switch between them by transforming, but that basically costs a round, and switching has limited per-day uses. In the back lines ... you already have two priests in the party. Not so much use for a third. As a tank ... his weakness is that he doesn't hit very hard. Great defenses, but the werewolf weapon doesn't get a to-hit bonus like magical manufactured weapons. And the druid XP table means that his base THAC0 gets stuck for a long time. Defenses? Those are top-notch. Magic resistance, fantastic AC, elemental resistances, and regeneration. Greater werewolf form is an absolute beast of a tank.
But that's a lot of spells Haer'Dalis needs to cast first.
Korgan is basically the opposite. With his dwarven fighter saving throws and Berserker Rage (plus Hardiness later), you can just toss him into the front line and trust that he'll muddle through with a little support. He won't be as good a tank as Haer'Dalis could be—but that doesn't mean much if Haer'Dalis isn't, because you don't want to waste the time it takes to set him up.
Teamed up with Edwin, they have some hilarious banter and is well worth it.
.....Now, I am not entirely decided upon dumping him at this point. He can still function as a support mage from the back of the party; when he runs out of attack spells he can pop off his bard song to buff the front-liners. On the other hand, someone like Korgan would seriously bolster our melee capability. Jaheira is a pretty fair tank/melee combatant, but there are times when I need her to cast a few spells. Her insect plague, for example, totally devastates enemy spell casters. As a Berserker->Thief I can stand in the front lines, but my forte is sneaking around and backstabbing. So Korgan would help out a lot there to bolster our front line. Mazzy, as you correctly point out, is focused mainly on ranged weapons. But as a Halfling, she has some qualities that make her tough, and she has odd abilities like laying on hands. Also, amongst our gear we have the Tuigan bow, which would nicely boost her combat ability. Yoshimo is currently our ranged attack guy, but I think we all know what happens to him in Spellhold.
.....Decisions, decisions. Once we set off to Spellhold, I can't run back to Athkatla to swap out team members at will. We are going to be stuck with the group I choose for the next few chapters.
Well, you asked!
I know you are being facetious here, but I have indeed played good/neutral parties. The last one had MC (half-orc berserker), Keldorn, Anomen, Jan, Imoen and lastly Jaheria as our Jack-of-all-trades. But for some reason, the evil NPCs seem to have far more intriguing personal quests. Persuading Keldorn not to retire pales in comparison to Dorn's totally epic assault on Elysium. OK, admittedly Jaheira's Harper quest line is pretty epic, but she is ... in theory at least ... neutral in alignment.
Certainly they get more attention here. But no worries for me, most often I’m running the primary tank as my PC.
And I usually switch Jaheira to NG, I think that’s really how she’s written anyway. That does make her the best developed of the Good NPCs. Or maybe Anomen, but I don’t like him much. Nalia has a fun little adventure (I don’t mean the family Keep!). Aerie and Valygar both have nice adventures, but I think you don’t actually need their participation to do their adventures.
>Nalia has a fun little adventure (I don’t mean the family Keep!)<
.....Once the Keep has been liberated from the trolls, there is that bru-ha-ha with ... what's his name again? Roanal? I'm too lazy to go look his name up. Or are you referring to something else even beyond that? Nalia does have the potential to be an even better mage than Imoen if you keep her around for the entire adventure, but Imoen is my (adoptive) sister, and also a better back-up thief, so I usually go with her as my mage if I don't recruit Edwin. Edwin is not so much evil as narcissistic, conceited and totally pragmatic.
.....Neera has a decent enough quest vs the Red Wizard enclave, but she has that wild surge thing going on. I can compensate for that by giving her a bunch of wands, and a ranged weapon like the boomerang dagger, and never, ever letting her cast any actual spells. Alas, she is also a total airhead. Once she gets the Robe of Goodman Hayes, she might be useful in the Wild Magic rooms of Watcher's Keep, but if I recall correctly, there are only 2 of those so I usually don't bother recruiting her just for them.
Still Haer Dalis can be very strong and useful to the party, even in mlee. To be so you have to give him the best equipment, let's him DW with Bomerang Dagger and Kundane for 4APR (5 under offensive spin, 8 IHasted), later use Firetooth and/or the Scarlet Ninja Too, give him the best strength item to improve his Thac0 and dmg, buff him with his defensive spells, Blurr and Improved Invisibility to lower his AC, Mirror Images, Stoneskin and the Mantle line spells to avoid damage, Spell Immunity Abjuration to avoid that his buffs are dispelled, use the spins when needed and if you import of cheat in the Bard's Hat he can sing as he fights giving to himself and the party a massive buff once he gets HLAs, Tresset's Tweak that enlarges the song area is recommended, IMHO Beamdog went to far into nerfing it.
Korgan is a point and click, and enrage when needed, toon, Haer Dalis needs a lot of buffing and the right equipment, but he can be a really good party member if you don't mind buffing and micromanaging, I was really underwhelmed many years ago when I played him the first time, then I learned how to make him shine and he is often in my parties.
IMHO Neera is the best mage by far, this is why.
Edvin's advantage is that he has more spell slots, but is it really and advantage as in most of the game the party can rest as much times as they need to recharge the spellbooks? It is true that having more slots gives more flexibility as you con "configure" your mage for different tactics or have space for some life saving spells like invisibility 10 feet radius if something goes really wrong.
Neera has something unique, the dwehomers, from the moment she is able to cast PI she becomes the goddess of magic as her clone can spam the dwehomers at the speed of a mage under improved alacrity casting all the spells she knows, even the ones she has not the level to cast, if you can get an ADHW scroll in chap 2 she, at lev.14, can spam 6 HDHW in no time (wearing the RoV) and up to 12 in a single battle using both her PI clones. That is REAL power.
To use a wild mage needs some care, that is sure, but I never had to reload due to a bad surge, thing that is very likely if you spam dwehomers trough a mage and not its clone so Edwin is the best until that moment then she has the edge.
You can stick him on the front line each time you want if you know how to buff a Cleric. The lev.13 Cleric Anomen of the party I am playing now when buffed, improved hasted and DW FoA and Defender of Easthaven has 6 APR that hit for granted 29 damage (+ the elemental ones from FoA) with -5 MH and -1 OH Thac0, has 150HP (I don't play with maxed rolls on level up, if you do it he has even more), -9 AC and 35% mlee damage reduction. Buffed and with the Sling of Seeking with +2 bullets equipped he has 4 APR for granted 25 damage. Viconia can buff the same but she will have less HP and can not get more then 4APR mlee and 2 ranged, she is the one that I send to the front line only on an emergency when I play her, still she is very useful for her MR and her ability of using undeads as party helpers that in some dungeons can be a really interesting tactical option.