Neutral or Evil Half-orc/Dwarf/Gnome/Halfling swashbuckler anyone? We could kill 3 birds with one stone and have a single class thief, a boost for neutral & evil parties and an underrepresented race in one character!
Imoen is a perfect thief until they screw her up for now reason in SOA. Too bad Yoshimo dies because I actually liked him better than Imoen in BG 1. Maybe they could have one of Yoshimo's partners or his son make an appearance to take his place, that would be awesome.
Would like to have a more permanent thief character added for BG2:EE. Neither Imoen nor Nalia are good enough for ToB, Jan can be quite tiresome after too many play throughs, and Yoshimo catches a bad case of death. At times I almost feel required to play a thief myself if I don't feel like having Jan in my party.
Imoen would be fine if her thief abilities wont so ridiculously terrible.
Nalia wouls also be fine if she had 5 rogue levels and all thief points in open locks and find traps.
I seriously have no idea why Bioware initially made them two so terrible for thieving, Jan is pretty much the only valid choice for the whole game, and stat wise thats not bad because Thief / Mage multi is awesome, but he is pretty much the only option unless you use shadowkeeper to fix Imoen and Nalia (which I have tried and it worked really nicely).
I agree with the OP, though. Especially in evil parties, where it seems like a thief of some sort is the logical choice (BG2 evil NPCs are: The absolute best fighter, the absolute best mage, and the probably best cleric), but if you're a thief, you can't take the evil(er) path in Chapter 3!
I'm with this guy ahahah sorry FrozenDervish. I can't help but pick up Edwin and Viconia every playthrough. >_> I will agree though that Anomen is definitely a decent choice too though. But Aerie vs. Edwin, seriously? Look I like Aerie too but ... no. Though I do like to play her sometimes because yes, Cleric/Mages are fun (and she is SO much better than Quayle ever was). But Edwin will always be better
What was this thread about again? Oh yeah. I COMPLETELY agree! I've run a RIDICULOUS amount of thieves in BG2 for all the reasons you said. I very much agree that BG2:EE *needs* another thief.
Perhaps an evil swashbuckler at Brynnlaw that you meet once you get out of spell hold, decent thief to replace yoshimo and evil, win-win. Possibly could have some sort of character connection with Yoshimo which could allow the character to delve more into Yoshi's story.
9th level spells aren't the best at all times as quite a few bosses are immune to timestop, but aerie will have access to sequencer and contingincies with her cleric spells which short her on the mage side but she makes up with by having a cleric side allowing her to fight with buffs, heal, resurrect the dead, blade barrier, implosion, then most low level wizard spells are just as good as the higher ones such as the all powerful breach, and stoneskins. Not to mention aerie will recieve both wizard and cleric hla abilities.
This is all not including how easy it is to rest that if you even go through even a portion of your spells which in all honesty you shouldn't really need to as the amount of spells the base class recieves are ridiculous.
9th level spells include:
Chain Contingency (3 Abi Dalzims at once!), Time Stop (which only a couple of late game bosses are immune to), Improved Alacrity, Shapechange (instant kill anything... including things that weren't meant to be killed), and Dragon's Breath.
Plus, you're forgetting that low level doesn't only mean that she doesn't get high level spells, it means she hardly gets any low level spells. This is exacerbated by Edwin's bonus 3 spells per level (1 from spec, 2 from... Edwin).
Let's take level 25; that's a fairly respectable level for finishing ToB. With the experience it takes for that, Aerie is a lvl 17 mage and slightly higher as a Cleric. At that point, Edwin has 6 level 9 slots. By comparison, Aerie has 5 level 1. That's right, Edwin can cast more Dragon's Breaths than Aerie can Magic Missiles. She's got Cleric spells to draw on, though, right? But Edwin has more spell slots at level 7 than Aerie does including both Mage and Cleric.
This also means that generally speaking, the average player will finish ToB without Aerie ever having access to level 9, Mage HLAs, or large amounts of low level spells.
Aerie is only good as a support caster. You have a party with Anomen and Immy, you grab Aerie so you can have a backup Cleric and Mage in only one party slot. If you ever make her your main caster, you're in trouble. Well, perhaps not - the game isn't exactly hard. But you'd struggle more than you would otherwise.
Nalia is pretty great as a mage (more so in the epic stages, cause she advances faster than Aerie) but she is not very much of a thief at all. The game kept giving you mage/thief characters: Jan, Nalia, and Imoen. It gave you Yoshimo, made you fall in love with him, then killed him utterly.
I think a badass (maybe multiclass) thief is in order. Fighter/thief, or a combat spec-thief (like a swashbuckler) just to add some variety. I like the idea of it being a dwarf, because there are so few dwarves.
A shame Coran can't be brought back, he is one badass thief. Well, mainly Archer, but thief enough for what the game demands.
Dwarf Swashbuckler would be an adequate replacement, I guess. Oh yeah. Make him neutral as a substitute for Yoshimo (although that would be somewhat similar to Jan, I guess).
Fully support this request! I love Jan (some of his lines are absolutely hilarious) but he just doesn't fit as a "Thief". I feel like an evil thief is really missing in BG2 so I would not be surprised to see the developers add one.
I must agree, in perspective, the thief seem to be the only 'wise' choice in Bg2 when it come to start a new game. Adding a duo thief can be great instead of just one.
The 'Silent' type: Pure Thief (we want a good thief after all, all the ability points)
- Move Silently - Hide in Shadows - Set Traps - Can Backstab (the Swashbuckler cannot)
Having these two fellows (that can be brothers/sisters/twin/soldier of fortune/brother in arms/etc.) in our party can be great. Some of us will only take the first one (he have exactly what we need), some of us just the second one (to end a fight before its started ^^) and others will take them together.
Not sure how viable it is, but maybe BG2EE could let us import Imoen from the first game? Then her skills would be assigned to each player's preference.
I'm fully in favour of an additional pure thief character being added though.
Only trouble with allowing us to import Imoen from BG1 playthrough is they would need to change the scene once you break out of Irenicus' dungeon, and I think I read somewhere that they are only allowed to add to the story, not actually change anything already existing.
Edit:
Looked it up and found this under the things they can't change:
1. Altering the dialog of the old joinable characters
-We can't do this
2. Altering the dialog of encounterable npc's in the campaign, including minor ones
-small scale text only changes are possible.
Guess they could just simply add a line or two about her using a wand or something, but I am sure there would be more issues with doing this then the one I stated.
I don't remember 'no rogue' as that big a deal. There was a ring that really raised thief abilities such that Imoen was able to do everything needed in the game for me when I had her back. I'd like a theif - don't get me wront - I just don't think it was game-breaking.
Only trouble with allowing us to import Imoen from BG1 playthrough is they would need to change the scene once you break out of Irenicus' dungeon, and I think I read somewhere that they are only allowed to add to the story, not actually change anything already existing.
I was thinking more about her level and thief skills than class since there are indeed story reasons for her horrible mage dual-classing, but when I think about it, you have to re-assign skill points even for the player character when importing so that wouldn't quite cut it.
Hmm. Not sure how to do it then, unless they change the import mechanic.
Comments
Nalia wouls also be fine if she had 5 rogue levels and all thief points in open locks and find traps.
I seriously have no idea why Bioware initially made them two so terrible for thieving, Jan is pretty much the only valid choice for the whole game, and stat wise thats not bad because Thief / Mage multi is awesome, but he is pretty much the only option unless you use shadowkeeper to fix Imoen and Nalia (which I have tried and it worked really nicely).
Imoen was due to the fact a majority of active posters mentioned they always dualled her in #1.
What was this thread about again? Oh yeah. I COMPLETELY agree! I've run a RIDICULOUS amount of thieves in BG2 for all the reasons you said. I very much agree that BG2:EE *needs* another thief.
Chain Contingency (3 Abi Dalzims at once!), Time Stop (which only a couple of late game bosses are immune to), Improved Alacrity, Shapechange (instant kill anything... including things that weren't meant to be killed), and Dragon's Breath.
Plus, you're forgetting that low level doesn't only mean that she doesn't get high level spells, it means she hardly gets any low level spells. This is exacerbated by Edwin's bonus 3 spells per level (1 from spec, 2 from... Edwin).
Let's take level 25; that's a fairly respectable level for finishing ToB. With the experience it takes for that, Aerie is a lvl 17 mage and slightly higher as a Cleric. At that point, Edwin has 6 level 9 slots. By comparison, Aerie has 5 level 1. That's right, Edwin can cast more Dragon's Breaths than Aerie can Magic Missiles. She's got Cleric spells to draw on, though, right? But Edwin has more spell slots at level 7 than Aerie does including both Mage and Cleric.
This also means that generally speaking, the average player will finish ToB without Aerie ever having access to level 9, Mage HLAs, or large amounts of low level spells.
Aerie is only good as a support caster. You have a party with Anomen and Immy, you grab Aerie so you can have a backup Cleric and Mage in only one party slot. If you ever make her your main caster, you're in trouble. Well, perhaps not - the game isn't exactly hard. But you'd struggle more than you would otherwise.
I think a badass (maybe multiclass) thief is in order. Fighter/thief, or a combat spec-thief (like a swashbuckler) just to add some variety. I like the idea of it being a dwarf, because there are so few dwarves.
Dwarf Swashbuckler would be an adequate replacement, I guess. Oh yeah. Make him neutral as a substitute for Yoshimo (although that would be somewhat similar to Jan, I guess).
The 'warrior type': Swashbuckler;
- Detect Illusions
- Find/Remove Traps
- Pick Pockets
- Pick Locks
The 'Silent' type: Pure Thief (we want a good thief after all, all the ability points)
- Move Silently
- Hide in Shadows
- Set Traps
- Can Backstab (the Swashbuckler cannot)
Having these two fellows (that can be brothers/sisters/twin/soldier of fortune/brother in arms/etc.) in our party can be great. Some of us will only take the first one (he have exactly what we need), some of us just the second one (to end a fight before its started ^^) and others will take them together.
I'm fully in favour of an additional pure thief character being added though.
Edit:
Looked it up and found this under the things they can't change:
1. Altering the dialog of the old joinable characters
-We can't do this
2. Altering the dialog of encounterable npc's in the campaign, including minor ones
-small scale text only changes are possible.
Guess they could just simply add a line or two about her using a wand or something, but I am sure there would be more issues with doing this then the one I stated.
There was gear to make Imoen work for the most part, but only up the end of BG2. She was totally useless as a thief in ToB.
Hmm. Not sure how to do it then, unless they change the import mechanic.