Finally Made a NORMAL and successful Party this playthrough
DKnight
Member Posts: 307
I used to get through the past 4 times with a 2 person defunct party that relied on me backstabbing enemies and letting my npc warrior finish them off. It worked well until I tried my char as a ranger and it didn't work so well 
I tried this time to forget using a rogue of my character with melee. I used crossbows exclusively and let imoen do the same with bows. I let traps be my set me up for those 2 characters seeing as I am a bounty hunter. Monty and Sharteel are the 2 fighters I use with Monty the defensive fighter and shar teel the damage dealer. The whole party is currently ready to go to Duchal Hall and surprise Sarevok with a bolt to the chin
Its definitely a good feeling that you have created a somewhat decent party of 4. Forget the 2 man commando team of the past-this is where its at.
If it wasn't for this forum and other games I would have never understood why the power of the team will almost always outweigh the power of a lone commando.
What was I thinking the past 4 playthroughs.
I tried this time to forget using a rogue of my character with melee. I used crossbows exclusively and let imoen do the same with bows. I let traps be my set me up for those 2 characters seeing as I am a bounty hunter. Monty and Sharteel are the 2 fighters I use with Monty the defensive fighter and shar teel the damage dealer. The whole party is currently ready to go to Duchal Hall and surprise Sarevok with a bolt to the chin
Its definitely a good feeling that you have created a somewhat decent party of 4. Forget the 2 man commando team of the past-this is where its at.
If it wasn't for this forum and other games I would have never understood why the power of the team will almost always outweigh the power of a lone commando.
What was I thinking the past 4 playthroughs.
0
Comments
My jester's run was all based on outrageous NPC personas: Minsc, Xan, Tiax, Alora, Xzar. I ended up getting creative to make Tiax one of my off-tanks (ankheg plate armor, buckler of dex +1, additional magic items as needed), and figured out ways to get the most of my arcane casters. Honestly though, if the enemies weren't too important we'd just shoot them dead, the ones that got close my jester and Minsc would take two-handed swords to (Minsc got Spider Bane +2, I got the ring of free movement and The World's Edge +3). Maybe I should turn up the difficulty, because I did moderately well just *fighting* as my jester.
My first swashbuckler to beat BG:EE took a team where the only spellcaster was Jaheira, the battle with Sarevok was a glorious throwdown of melee.
I recently did a speed run (and by that I mean "speedy for me in RL hours") using a Berserker7->Thief8 that I imported from The Black Pits (cheeky I know). I soloed the game just to see if I could, it took 35 days in-game and if I had cared about carving that number lower I could have paid money to make priests heal me or use a lot more healing potions. It was kind of a rush but it lacked all of the roleplay elements I usually enjoy out of BG, so it was a very different experience for me.
Anyhow, I have a lot of other concept parties and each one makes playing the game a new experience. An archer who demands her other party members must be able to use bows (if you want spells you have to use Garrick or Eldoth), a beastmaster who only takes outdoors-y types, a lawful neutral dwarven defender who only takes neutral NPCs, etc. There is so much variety involved, and sometimes the game turns into an interesting puzzle to solve. "How do I get this party to function?"
2-Most of the time from my days when I played that game, I remember that it seemed to matter very very little having a priest to heal in combat. Outside combat it was useful but healing in combat is pointless. The time that you get to that character to heal the death spell will kill you anyway.
My thoughts are that if I used any spell caster in that game, I would choose a mage, sorcerer of the like rather than the priest. Priests are useful and really good in turn based party games but real time is different.
I found priests to be excellent in turn based party games and terrible in real time ones. The reason why is you need damage now and hard. Bless is somewhat useful but in Bg2, most of your fighters should be hitting most anything in their path without it. You have access to +4 weapons in early game making fighters and marksman powerful with fighters being the greater.
That is just my take on it. If you have any advice on spell casters to avoid (other than Imoen and Nalia because they are the same class) that'd be cool. I wish they kept Imoen a thief rather a hack so that we can choose someone over traitor.
3-To satisfy everyone we need at least 3 more thieves added to the 2nd game. You only get 1 with yoshimo and he is a traitor that dies. So you get none. Imoen and Nalia can't be considered thieves.
4-The good news is we are getting 1 more which is good. I hope that they add at least 1 more to the game as I don't always like being forced to choose a thief for PC but thats just me.
You'll also have very limited means to dispel negative effects (confusion, charm, slow, etc) and illusions (mislead, invis, improved invis, etc) which can be very difficult when contingency's are in play, which all high level enemy spell casters will have access to. Priests aren't all about healing, in or out of combat. Another thing to keep in mind, is if you are going to use priest healing spells in combat, use the best bang for the buck. The level 6 priest spell Heal, while it takes a full round to cast, is a FULL HEAL, meaning it will take your fighter from 1hp, to 100hp in 1 round. This could be a game changer if you pull it off. You can also store the heal spell in a chain contingency, allowing a mage/cleric to heal themselves to full after being reduced to 10% health.
Spells like Protection from Evil (basically -2 thaco for evil characters, and +2 saves for spells cast by evil characters), Command (1 round sleep, fast cast time, with a scaling negative to save against it) Faith Armor (scaling damage resistance based on level) Doom (-2 to ALL rolls, including saves, thaco, and armor, with another scaling negative to save vs spell), and resist fear (removal of all fear affects, and prevents fear from being used for 5 turns) are all spells with very nice affects, that are all level 1 priest spells.
Look at a priest as a 'buff-bot' instead of a healer, and you will learn to love them. A fighter/cleric is one of the best class combinations in the game, due to the amount of self buffs that clerics get, and the massive hit points thaco and proficiencies that fighters get.
First off, you forgot Jan. While Jan is an illusionist/thief, he is the ONLY character currently in BG2 that can progress their thief skills throughout the entire game.
Secondly, Nalia and Imoen can make pretty decent thieves especially when you realize they get access to Knock, which means they don't need to worry about pick locks AT ALL. They also get invis, which means hide in shadows, and move silently have limited uses. They also can use short bows and short swords, which a straight mage would not be able to use. Therefore, the only ability you really need to worry about is find/remove traps and pick pockets, as the mage half can cover everything else a thief can do. Luckily, there are plenty of items in game that boost those two abilities. Nalia and Imoen can make pretty decent secondary thieves, and can even be used as a primary thief if you allow them to use the various items in the game that can boost their thief abilities.
With the addition of new thief, we now have 5 'thieves' in BG2, not counting the PC. Yoshimo (which we all know can't be used for the entire game) Nalia and Imoen, (which i've gone over) Jan (who actually comes with some pretty decent thief skill boosting items to begin with, and can level up to increase whatever you want him to do) and the new thief.
Great priest spells that any party could use:
1. Command Word: Die (or Command as I think it is simply called in BG:EE) also known as Command Word: Lay There and Take it. Causes enemies to fall to the ground and become easy pickings, lower level enemies don't get a save vs. this and simply have to lay down and get smashed.
2. Entagle: Druid only, earlier version of Web, combined with ranged attacks this spell makes most encounters versus melee opponents a complete joke.
3. Doom: Great debuffing spell for such a low level, -2 to saves combined with Malison and Greater Malison means you can Chromatic Orb dragons to death.
4. Remove Fear: So many enemy spellcasters use fear to neutralize your party (especially in BG1) this level 1 priest spell (level 2 for mages) not only makes you immune but will still make enemy spellcasters waste a turn casting it on you.
Those are just level 1 spells, there's sooo many more and they only get better with spells like Free Action, Iron Skins and Insect Plague.
Also don't forget about old Jan Jansen. He's a great NPC in BG2 and the only NPC besides Yoshimo (and now Hexxat) who increases his thieving abilities, couple that with arcane spell casting and you've got a solid party member.
Jan Jensen is a good idea and I always forget him because multi class. Still a thief because he levels up as one. So Jan and Hexxat are good. Yoshimo I wont use at all because there is no point in using a traitor that will eventually die. Its sad because if you could resurrect him that would be cool. They did that in a mod and he was awesome.
So 2 thieves. If there was a way to get Imoen and Nalia to have passable thaco I'd listen to that point. I don't think it is. As you can see I don't like spell casters usually. If I were to use any I would just spam edwin with his mass amount of spells. Just not a fan of squishy characters.
I'll probably use Jahierra as a fighter and somewhat ok healer, my character a melee or ranged thief class that acts as backup, rasaad as a fighter as monks usually shine more in 2nd game, and Mazzy as archer as I need at least 1 marksman. I wanted to try a party other than just cranking out minsc and korgan or what not. I never used mazzy but she seems versatile and will be useful Rasaad is the worst fighter in 1st game hopefully he will be better in the 2nd. Jahierra in the 2nd game is my favorite character as she is just awesome in that game.
She's not very good in the 1st as Khalid isn't very good with panic.
Just confused me a little bit there. Mages have the ability to become the most powerful and nigh invincible characters in the entire game. While fighters, clerics, and to a lessor extent, thieves get better AC and thaco, a mage really has no need for those. Stoneskin, like I mentioned earlier, makes them completely immune to X numbers of attacks (X being based on level) Protection from magical weapons, mantle, improved mantle, all prevent any physical attacks entirely, and mages can boost their resistances to a point where elemental damage will actually heal them.
Also, there are mage spells that can boost thaco, and with the few levels of thief that Imoen and Nalia have, they actually have a better thaco then straight mages (like edwin, especially if you use them at range, as Edwin doesn't have a very high Dex score) Tensor's transformation comes to mind, as well as black blade of disaster which all improved a mages thaco to near fighter like status.
Nalia and Imoen (Imoen is far superior to Nalia) are both decent NPC's to pick up. Imeon with her 6 or 7 levels of Thief actually has enough open locks/find traps to deal with just about every lock and trap in the game. Til about the midway point to late game she can do so unassisted, after that you can use potions of master thievery. And unlike Yoshimo or Hexxat she can cast mage spells which, as was pointed out in the above post, can make her quite sturdy and even improve her THAC0 to levels far greater than a regular thief.