The New NPCs - Impressions?
SuperFeature
Member Posts: 35
We've had some time now with these new NPCs and I was wondering what the community thought about them?
So far I've only really gone through with Dorn and I find him to be a very interesting character and fits in well with the original cast. He is memorable, more so than some of the original NPCs.
Comments on them?
So far I've only really gone through with Dorn and I find him to be a very interesting character and fits in well with the original cast. He is memorable, more so than some of the original NPCs.
Comments on them?
4
Comments
I like Neera a lot more in BG2. Her story is much better fleshed out, I haven't had a chance to try her BG 2 romance but her BG1 romance just kind of... ends... randomly.
I haven't really tried Rasaad. I got him once, about 10 minutes later he got shot in the face by a kobold and killed. I may have dumped him in the tunnel and moved right along. I hear he is a lot better in BG2 however.
As a straight thief, Hexxat feels a bit weak in the end-game, but that's what eekeeper is for... And seeing as her quests mostly involve stealing stuff, it makes sense RP-wise.
I've got Neera and Rasaad in my current group and haven't got too far, so I can't go into too much depth at present... But if their quests involve as much depth as the baddies' then they should be good.
Dorn's worse, though. I couldn't find Rasaad's personality behind the exposition, but I don't remember any of his lines making me wince.
Rasaad's main power is his quests in BG2. The most interesting from all new NPCs. But I still cannot tolerate a monk in my party. Just not for me. In the same time, I always take Rasaad only to go through his quests.
Neera is a solid NPC. Very much in the line of original NPCs. The only thing I don't like about her is her voice. Interesting quests in BG2, just second to Rasaad's. And of course, wild surges. Cows and fiends are excellent.
Hexxat... Well, I've liked her story the first time I had her in the party. That plot turn was nearly as Yoshimo's one. But I will unlikely take her again. I just cannot drop Jan no matter what reason there's, even if it's a hot dominatrix.
Overall, I think Beamdog's new NPCs are 8/10.
Rasaad - develops from a feeble lightweight in BG1 to a one-man army by the end of BG2, has a strong story, extensive and well-developed quests in both games, and moderately good character development. I haven't yet tried out his romance option. Fits into both games fairly well, and is overall the best work among the new NPCs.
Neera - develops similarly to other Mages (i.e. useful throughout, but especially in the later stages), has a very strong story, has a medium-sized but poorly-developed (linear and dull) quest in BG1, extensive and much better-developed quests in BG2, and some (but not a lot) of character development. I haven't yet tried out her romance option. Fits into both games very well, a decent job of work (especially in BG2).
Dorn - starts as a really heavyweight warrior in BG1 but ends as either an average warrior or a weak warrior by the end of BG2 (depending upon quest choices), has an okay story (but inadequately fleshed-out), has a minor quest in BG1 (although well-developed so far as it goes), has much more extensive quests in BG2 (but not as credibly-developed as Neera's or Rasaad's BG2 quests), and significant (but unhelpful and poorly-explained) character development. I haven't yet tried out his romance option. Fits into BG1 pretty well, a less comfortable fit in BG2. Decent work technically, but attempting in BG2 to squeeze an over-ambitious story (a whole separate game-of-his-own story!) into a mere side-line from the Bhaalspawn story, so it loses credibility.
Hexxat - starts in BG2 as a useful Thief but (as is pretty inevitable for a single-class vanilla Thief) ends as a lightweight who doesn't really pull her weight in the party, has a feeble story (very little is really explained), has extensive but distinctly-repetitive quests (although tolerably executed), and slight character development (although too much is unexplained to see much character). Her romance is feeble, irrelevant to the rest of the story, and bizarrely makes it harder (not easier) to keep her in the party. A weird and poorly-explained NPC with quest-locations which (except for the first) are completely disconnected from everything else in the game, she doesn't really fit in at all. Fail.
As for the other NPC's I don't feel strongly one way or the other about them. They distinguish themselves in the first game if only because few other NPC's say anything in that game. In the second game they have less in the way of dialogue compared to your average original NPC (and the writing quality I would say is generally on par with the average NPC in BG2). I don't really feel strongly about any of them though I probably enjoyed Dorn and Neera's questline the most.
I'm not sure what's neutral about slaughtering paladins.
1. Neera is possibly my least favorite character of the bunch. Her stats are fairly poor (14 con means no bonus hit points), her kit can be bothersome, and I find the voice acting work done with her to be bottom rung. She's a mediocre mage, the use of potions of genius are recommended when trying to scribe particularly useful spells because I find even with a 17 she fails to learn spells quite often (maybe I'm just unlucky). Her high dex will give her a decent AC for a mage, which can be handy in BG1 for the first few levels, but becomes pointless very early on since without any armor she will get hit very often so a mage cannot rely on an AC to avoid damage, making this "perk" moot. Her 14 con means she doesn't get any bonus hit points, she is stuck at 1-4 hit points each level (much like Xzar but she doesn't have any style to make up for it).
The Wildmage class isn't really for me. I know some argue it is amazing because you get the extra spell slots of a specialist mage without losing access to a school of magic. I find the chance that your mage can nuke all your gold, or summon in a cacodenom at level one to murder your party and an entire town a higher cost than not being able to cast identify. Some will say "Oh, well just reload the game when that happens" to which I say, what is the point of playing the class if it's biggest feature is a hinderance and makes you have to reload the game when it occurs? Why would someone want to play the class if the whole point of it is that sometimes these goofy wildsurges happen, it makes you slightly annoyed and then you have to replay the last encounter and hope it doesn't happen again. What is the appeal in that? Her quests seem goofy and really kind of annoy me.
The idea of a wild mage can be cool, but it seems beamdog just wanted to make it the comic relief class. Literally everyone in the games that is a wild mage, that they introduced, is a comic relief character... apparently going to clown college is a requisite for being a wild mage. I also think the voice acting, which seems rigid at the best of times and completely forced at the worst, is probably the worst job done in any bioware game. Ever. Not even just her, but other NPC's during her quests. While the quality of the new voice acting overall isn't as good as the original saga, Neera and her quests clearly stand out as the worst to me. "Away with you, you pompous creep!" "What? Not again!"
2. Hexxat is also not a great addition, I'm not entirely sure which one I like less, Hexxat or Neera. It's a close call. Her stats are sometimes good, sometimes not so good, single classes thieves become less useful the higher level you get, and she doesn't have much in the personality department. While BG2 was missing more evil NPC's, and missing thieves in particular, I don't feel Hexxat was the answer. When wearing her cloak, which reduces her stats, she's pretty garbage. 14 strength means no bonus to hit or damage, and 16 dex means a slight bonus to hit with ranged attacks. She is outshone by Yoshimo in both of these regards. When you take her cloak off she has a good dexterity and strength, very good. While she can't get too much use of the strength because of her class limiting her to 1 APR, she can backstab alright. Sadly she has her weapon proficiencies in some kinda crappy weapons for backstabbing. Also, she has a whopping 14 constitution which means she has no bonus to hit points, which means a stiff breeze will knock her over which means getting close enough to backstab can be very risky. Yoshimo again outshines her here, he can dual class to a fighter meaning he can be a decent on the frontline. While his 17 strength, and 18 dex aren't as good as Hexxat's stats uncloaked, they don't require annoying micromanaging like Hexxats. I hate havint to go into her inventory to put on/off her cloak all the time. I know it's not big, it takes a second or two, but when you do it like twenty thousand times over the course of the game it gets repetitive and annoying.
So, being a single class Thief Hexxat will max out all of her useful thief abilities roughly 2/3 of the way through SoA, after that her additional thief levels are kind of a waste. She has a few innate abilities which are alright. Blood Drain seems to get resisted a lot but when it goes off it's pretty handy. Domination is a decent ability, glad she has it. Children of the Night is kinda crap. It summons some fodder that get 1 shotted very early into BG2, usually not even worth the round to summon them. Hexxat, I find, usually just gets thrown on the back line and fires her bow and lets everyone else do the heavy lifting. I can have Imoen or Jan do it just as effectively plus they have some spells and actually contribute from time to time.
I find Hexxat's quests kinda boring... "Oh goody, another dungeon delve!" You basically get ferried off to crypt after crypt, finding artifacts in really cool places (I think you go to Kara Tur for one quest) but because you're stuck in a crypt it might as well be in Athkatla because you don't get to see any of the new location. On top of all that Hexxat is a very dull character, with a dull series of quests. She delivers her lines without any gusto or emotion, and seems pretty monotone (and I thought I was done with brain washed zombies when I finally picked her up.) I haven't done her romance, perhaps she actually develops as a character then but even if so she is a very dull character to anyone who isn't a female who chooses to be in a relationship with her. If they wanted to make a very unlikable NPC then they succeeded with Hexxat. She's "evil," she's uninteresting, and she becomes annoying with her micromanaging.
3. Rasaad is alright. In BG1 bringing Rasaad with you is a liability. His quest line is kinda cool, and you get some interesting options as you progress through it. His stats leave something to be desired but aren't really all that bad. The issue with Rasaad is that you get him in BG1 and he is a monk. The Monk class doesn't fare well in BG1 because all of its abilities scale with level, and before say level 7-8 you are pathetic. Rasaad lives up to this standard. He is a liability in any group in BG1. you will always be better off taking someone else over taking Rasaad. He has very high AC meaning he will get hit and he will get hit often, on top of that he comes with pips in melee weapons. You do not want Rasaad anywhere near melee for about 90% of BG1. His fists, the only weapon he can use that gives him more than 1 attack per round, cannot strike as if they are magic for the entire first game. There are a decent number of enemies he cannot hurt in that game without using a weapon and when he does so he fights like a cleric, only without all the other things a cleric can do. Your best bet is to give him a pip in darts and sit him in the backfield. This is something that he doesn't excell at, anyone can do it really, but it's one of afew sure fire ways he wont die in every second encounter you come across. In BG2 he comes into his own, he gets a lot of attacks per round and can really pump out some respectable damage. His AC will eventually be pretty darn good but AC is less and less important later in the game. His Sun Soul Monk powers are alright. Being able to deal fire damage is good killing off downed trolls for example. I'm not a huge fan of the monk class but after BG1 Rasaad is a decent addition to a party.
I thought Rasaad's quests were fairly well done. I'm not thrilled that he was a follower of Selune within the Sun Soul Monks, a group I generally associate with Lathander mostly. But I assume the choice was made because of the polar opposition to shar. Still, Selune is the goddess of the moon, you wouldn't really think of her as a big part of the SUN soul monks, but Rasaad and the other Sun Soul Monks in his quest line seem to favor her over Lathander. You can get some pretty good items in his quests (big fisted belt in bg1 immediately comes to mind) and there's a decent amount of content in them. In the quests in BG2 you get plenty of options for just how to tackle the challenges and in the end you can make Rasaad stay a devout follower, to questioning his faith in the order, to basically breaking away from it. All in all Rasaad is a decent NPC, I only wish they came up with a way to make him useful for BG1.
4. Dorn is probably my favorite of the new characters. He is what he is, and people seem to love him for it. His stats make him a great fighter in BG1 and a pretty decent fighter afterwards, and his class is pretty good throughout the saga. Beyond that his quest line gives some decent options, and fleshes him out fairly well, though admittedly he is fairly sterotypical and doesn't require much attention to figure out what he is all about. Dorn has the best strength out of any of the NPC's in either game. He also comes stock with a +1 greatsword, which is basically a +2 greatsword due to its abilities, early in BG1. He is a lawn mower of destruction in BG1. If your charname is a support character, like a cleric, mage, thief, or bard then Dorn will have the most kills in the party easily. He dishes out damage, it's what he was built for and he does it better than any other NPC in BG1. In BG2 he is toned down, not because his stats change or anything like that, but because a 19 strength and a +2 sword isn't as hard to come by.
The blackguard class is a decent class. Being immune to fear is very handy in BG1 (most mages lead with horror) and being immune to level drain is handy in BG2 (sooo many vampires.) This bonus is useful through the entire saga. Rebuking undead is situational, I typically don't find too much use for it personally. Absorb Health is good little ability. The fact that it damages and heals makes it twice as good as lay on hands, and it fast a fast cast time which can be key in interrupting enemy spell casters. Poison Weapon is pretty good, like absorb health it can be helpful in interrupting/shutting down enemy spell casters, beyond that it can help with dealing out some pretty decent damage. Aura of Despair is ok, it scales with your level making it fairly useful through the saga, but at higher levels the penalty to hit and damage isn't really big enough to make too much of a difference, and the fear ability wont work on most enemies while the -4 to AC can be good for letting your THAC0 starved clerics and rogues get a few hits in on a hard to hit enemy.
Dorn is fairly straight forwards. He is a half-orc and he is evil. He falls into both the discriminated against/hard childhood half-orc sterotype and the power hungry evil warrior sterotype. However, since it is so easy to understand Dorn and his motivations I find it lets you actually get a decent feel for the character and it makes interacting with him easier and more enjoyable. Unlike the mysterious Hexxat or chaotic Neera people can understand Dorn which I find helps people relate to him on some level. His quest line is alright. There's some pretty cool fights in there along the way. The biggest beef I have with it is that it can totally gimp Dorn down the road. If he chooses to free himself from any fiendish benefactor he loses all of his powers... and that's it. I understand the loss of his powers, they are being fuled by the pacts he made but to give him nothing in compensation is kinda... meh. The least they could have done was to change his class to Fighter, and let him get grand mastery or something since he lost his other powers. I guess it was beamdogs way of saying you're nothing if you aren't backed by an evil power...
They introduced 2 pretty crappy characters, added 1 decent one and 1 fairly good one. I'm not really sure how I feel about that but it is what it is. In the long run, the new content was't really the major factor in my enjoyment of the EE series. Initially it was the main reason I wanted to buy the games, but after having played them now I can say that the engine changes like the widescreen support and HD are way more worth the cost of purchase than the new content added, from NPC's or otherwise.
Hexxat is interesting enough, I suppose, but it's basically her quests are a long journey of attempted suicide which... sort of makes the romance sort of uncomfortable (So, my dear girlfriend, were you ever going to tell me that your goal for this whole tomb exploring was to kill yourself?).
Neera just annoys me because no, wild magic doesn't work that way. You have to study wild magic. Wild magic is not sorcery. Also, her voice makes me cringe, but that's a personal bias. Her quest is more humor based then the other three, and she sometimes feels like a random teenager who happened to find her way in to the Forgotten Realms, but she's not, well, horrible. Just not my type.
Dorn is just... over the top. His ToB quest especially is so over the top that I actually find it hysterical. While none of the four have a really developed romance, his seems to be the weakest, and it really could have used more lovetalks (and a serves you while you ascended epilogue). On the other hand, if you want over the top evil insanity, he's better at it then even dear big bro. And unlike Korgan, Edwin, and Viconia, who are proud to tell you how evil they are but really do nothing evil unless you direct them to murder a random commoner or something, Dorn is definitely evil. Like, psychopath so. So people who actually wanted a truly evil companion can now be somewhat more happy, I guess.
Rasaad is fun if you can fit a monk into your party. Not everyone enjoys the class since you can't really use them in exactly the same way as some of the heavily armed and armored fighter NPCs.
Hexxat is certainly an interesting character, somewhat in the Angel or Nick Knight style, but she would be a bit difficult to fit into a good party. Perhaps a neutral party could deal with what happens in her first mission. It's unfortunate, because the rest of her story would seem to be a sort of quest to be free of her situation, if in a bit of a fatalistic way.
Dorn is probably my least favorite although I still like the character. He's just so hard to fit into a party in BG 2 if you're not evil, even more so than Hexxat. It's imaginable that a good party would work with Korgan or Edwin briefly since their quests are no more evil than working with the thieves in Athkatla. But wholesale slaughter? Unless you don't roleplay at all, there's no imaginable justification for taking Dorn along that I can come up with. And even if you don't you're likely to have a severe reputation hit for taking him, much worse than anything Hexxat might cause.
I understand that Hex and Dorn were never designed to be for good parties and that's fair since the idea was to give evil parties more members and flexibility, but their quests make them stand out as the only two which you can't easily finish if you're the completionist type.
Overall though, I'd say the new characters are a good addition to the series. I'd like to see Beamdog add a few more once they get through with bug fixing. Maybe a swashbuckler or a dwarven defender.