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Does Minsc Need Time Off

Hello guys, I recently started playing again and wanted to play the canon party, so naturally I picked up Minsc. Unfortunately, I am at a cross-roads. At level 4, Minsc only had 20 max hit points while every one except the mage is in the 30s. he has apparently rolled a 1 for all his hit dice each level. At level 3 I was forced to take him off the front lines and relegate him as an archer which he did superbly; however, i stumbled upon Coran. Since I plan to dual class Imoen, and Coran can fill both the role of a thief and a better archer than Minsc, I was forced to abandon Minsc to the way side. I heard that if you level a couple times you can come back to a previous party member and find their data file has switched to a predetermined one to match your level, for instance if i get to level 6, there is a level 6 file for Minsc.

So I must ask, If I go away for a while and return will he progress to match my level? because i desperately need another front line fighter.

Comments

  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    Seems like Minsc has been extremely unlucky with his HP rolls, poor chap.

    It's true that there are various versions of the recruitable NPCs at different levels, so that you can recruit them at a level roughly similar to your protagonist's level. If you ignore a recruitable NPC when you first see him but later (a level or two later) pass through that area again, then you'll sometimes notice that he looks different because his armour has changed, since it's now a higher-level version of the character wearing better equipment. (It's only a noticeable change in a few cases, not all.)

    However, once you've gone ahead and recruited a character, then you've fixed which version of the character is active, and his future development is your responsibility. If you park him somewhere and come back later, even very much later, then he'll have the same level (and equipment) as when you left him. (I do vaguely recall hearing somewhere, as you also heard, that a former party member will level up to keep pace with you while resting out of the party, but that's not true.) So no, unfortunately you can't fix Minsc's unlucky rolls by resting him, you're stuck with him as he is.

    Nevertheless, all is not lost, since you've now got Coran instead. Not only is Coran a superb archer, but he's also a very good melee fighter. Of course he needs the Gauntlets of Ogre Power to really shine up front, but even before you get those (in Chapter 5), he's better at melee than you might expect if you've never used him in that role. (Obviously you don't keep him in his thieving leathers for this, you give him Ankheg plate and other suitable front-row equipment.) And as you say, when dual-classing Imoen, Coran can be your substitute Thief, although when you've got him in heavier armour this will require micro-managing his armour on and off when you need him to pick a lock etc. (Note that trap detection still works even with heavy armour on, but you have to take the armour off for a moment to disarm the trap.)

    However, since you were (until this point) running with the canon party, I don't quite understand why you have a shortage up front. You've presumably still got Jaheira and Khalid with you, both of whom are capable front-row fighters. (By the way, what happened to Dynaheir? If you dropped Minsc, then normally Dynaheir would leave with him ... unless you resorted to some trick such as leaving Minsc behind a closed door, so that he can't make his leaving-speech to trigger Dynaheir's departure.)
    JuliusBorisov
  • BillyYankBillyYank Member Posts: 2,768
    No. Once you've taken him into your party, you've locked him into that state. For a situation like that, I'd probably just use EE keeper to raise his HP a bit, maybe add 12 to his total to make it like he rolled 5's instead of 1's.
  • UlfsteinUlfstein Member Posts: 10
    Khalid, Tyr put his soul to rest, met an untimely demise to a winter wolf. Dynaheir... a Kobald ambush. We shouldn't have tried to rest in the mines, I knew we shouldn't have. So far my front line is my berzerker, jaheira, and branwen. Neera is my mage now.

    So i guess its not very canon any more, but i tried lol
  • UlfsteinUlfstein Member Posts: 10
    BillyYank said:

    No. Once you've taken him into your party, you've locked him into that state. For a situation like that, I'd probably just use EE keeper to raise his HP a bit, maybe add 12 to his total to make it like he rolled 5's instead of 1's.

    unfortnately its a lets play run, so I'm hesitant to modify things which is kind of embarrassing because i successfully managed to strike out with Neera: I want to reset the dialogue when I meet the halfling so it looks like I recovered it, but i think whats done is done
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    So somewhere along the line you've also lost Imoen, and now Coran too? It sounds as if your party is a pretty dangerous place to be! Or do you still have them but didn't mention them?

    Still, with a Berserker protagonist and Jaheira still beside you, that's a solid enough front row, there shouldn't be a problem.
  • UlfsteinUlfstein Member Posts: 10
    ah yeah, Imoen is still there trying out some spells, unfortunately Neera isn't the best tutor, while Coran just smokes some tobacco in the background shooting arrows at stuff in his leisure.
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    Well fine, that's a pretty solid team all round.
  • UlfsteinUlfstein Member Posts: 10
    If thats a solid team,i'd hate to see a weak one. I think a nation is about to launch a crusade against the cleric of Nashkel for all the gold i've given him for rezzes. Eeven the Friendlly Amns economy is solely based on the reliability of my deaths coming out of the cloak wood (just cleared it, only have the mines let) its crazy how the difficulty spiked.
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    Well heck, your team has all the bases covered! You have a temporary weak spot that Imoen isn't yet a good arcane caster and hasn't yet got her Thief levels back, but there's always that problem when you dual-class anyone. Apart from that temporary issue, it's an excellent team.

    I'm not sure why you're dying so much. Are you rushing through, and thereby tackling some of the tougher areas at lower-than-expected levels? Or have you cranked up the difficulty setting to maximum?
  • UlfsteinUlfstein Member Posts: 10
    I wouldn't say i'm rushing, but i'm doing an organic run, meaning I i'm not going anywhere unless there is a reason to do so, I'm also not picking up things at random such as the ring of wizardry. Difficulty level is middle hence why minsc rolled 3 1s in a row instead of the default middle-left with its maximum hit dice and 100% spell memorization.

    For Nashkel
    , I had 10 deaths between minsc quest and the mines. 4 were from ambushes. 3 were from the end of chapter fight because Minsc who was in charge of protecting Neera and Imeon had his sword break (should have brought a back up) and his and Imoens bow were useless for taking out the skeletons after the kobolds were dealt with thus all three to wiped leaving Jaheira and my main to clean up the mess after they were no longer entangled.

    Between the carnival and an assassin after the mines, I had 4 deaths and the death of a bystander


    For Cloakwood

    I have ended up selling all my +1 items and my ring of divine spell slot just to pay for all the rezzes. I'm level 5 about to enter the cloakwood mines. The main problem with this area is that I've had several double ambushes of ettercaps where i would try to walk to one area, get ambushed, then try to continue to that area only to get ambushed again and having to use antidotes like they are candy. Eventually I got to a point where i could manage these ambushes systematically but it was still costly


    I wasn't intending to plug myself, but if you want to see what i am doing wrong, I have the Nashkel portion uploaded if you look up "Aidan Hodge Gaming baldurs gate"
    Ardul
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    Wow, yes, that's a lot of dying! On Core difficulty, no, it shouldn't be so tough.

    Is this your first time playing BG? I'm guessing it may be just inexperience with the way it all works, naturally that makes it much tougher.

    I'll go look at your upload soon.
  • ifupaulineifupauline Member Posts: 405
    Good Riddance.
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • UlfsteinUlfstein Member Posts: 10
    hopefully it get easier from here at least lol.
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    Okay, I watched all three parts of your Let's Play for Nashkel Mine.

    Hmm. I'll assume that inviting viewers means that you're inviting comment on your playing-style (which might otherwise be a rude thing to criticise).

    Since you're trying to micro-manage combat anyway, turn Off the Party AI for better control. While you're at it, turn on more auto-pause conditions to give yourself more chances to notice quickly when someone is under-employed.

    Pick up more loot! I saw you walk away from several hundred GP-worth of loot, maybe even a thousand or so. With your resurrection rate, you need the money. And that might let you keep some of that good equipment which you've had to sell to fund resurrections!

    Pay more attention to what you're carrying. Sometimes you had better equipment in your inventory than what you were using - e.g. Minsc should have been using that Large Shield instead of a Small Shield, it might have saved his life!

    Several times you died by not thinking through your tactics. If enemies pop up beside your squishier characters, then of course attack with your warriors, but move the squishies away to ranged distance before telling them to join the attack. And when you're in a place where you can predict that you'll probably be attacked (e.g. Mulahey's lair), use the terrain defensively - don't stand at the "crossroads" where you can be attacked from all sides (as you were, and half your party died).

    Buff! Don't just load up your Mages with attack spells, give them some defenses as well ... Shield is good at low levels, for example. And when you can predict danger around the corner, buff up with both Mage and Cleric spells before rushing ahead.

    Explore more! You could have been better equipped (and richer) if you'd searched for the goodies in some of the areas you rushed through.

    Stop trying to rest in dangerous places. Well okay, sometimes you may have to, but a couple of times you even commented in your voice-over that you knew it was foolish but then did it anyway, and predictably got jumped by enemies.
    JuliusBorisovUlfsteinBelgarathMTH
  • UlfsteinUlfstein Member Posts: 10
    thanks for the feedback. I previously had been using pause every round and was having much success with it, but somewhere along the lines I decided that it was bogging down combat too much for a lets play and changed it. I might change it back. Some of the death were a direct cause of switching from pause each round to only pausing at start.

    As far as mulahey's lair. I actually don't remember why i laid myself out like that. Normally I stick to one alcove and have a melee character block the entrance. Probably could have done that at the far right or in mulahey segment itself.

    As for the small vrs large shield. I have the small shield for role playing reasons. I was going to mod the large shield sprite so that it would display as a round shield, but didn't want to mess with the game for a lets play. I think i give up that idea in cloakwood somewhere, but i really did hate the outdated opinions dungeons and dragons had in regards to shields and weapons in comparison to the knowledge we have today.
  • Eadwyn_G8keeperEadwyn_G8keeper Member Posts: 541
    edited February 2016
    Another point in Coran's favor is that his Thief based Stealth works equally well in Urban and Wilderness settings. Rangers[Minsc-Kivan], if I understand correctly, take a hit to Stealth in Cities/Towns.
  • GreenWarlockGreenWarlock Member Posts: 1,354
    The one major lesson I remember learning from all those darned ettercarp ambushes in Clocked is "just run away". The combat is not worth the risk of the poison, especially when you are trying to advance the game. If I took the combat, as often as not, I would be heading back to the friendly arm inn to heal, after blowing all my neutralize poison spells, rather than actually making it the way to the next map in the sequence.

    This was also partly a consequence of my role-play, that I always try to rest in the inns, to mark completion of a (partial) expedition, rather than freely resting throughout the game - although I will often take a rest or two in a well-defended corner of a dungeon, where returning makes little sense compared to camping overnight to finish the job.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,315

    Another point in Coran's favor is that his Thief based Stealth works equally well in Urban and Wilderness settings. Rangers[Minsc-Kivan], if I understand correctly, take a hit to Stealth in Cities/Towns.

    Can't say I've ever heard of that one before.
    JuliusBorisovGrumEadwyn_G8keeper
  • LateralusLateralus Member Posts: 903
    elminster said:

    Another point in Coran's favor is that his Thief based Stealth works equally well in Urban and Wilderness settings. Rangers[Minsc-Kivan], if I understand correctly, take a hit to Stealth in Cities/Towns.

    Can't say I've ever heard of that one before.
    That is accurate for PnP but the game engine does not recpgnize the difference.
    JuliusBorisovatcDaveGrumEadwyn_G8keeper
  • OlvynChuruOlvynChuru Member Posts: 3,075
    Even if Coran might be a better archer than Minsc, there's nothing wrong with having two archers.
    atcDave
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