Personally, I have taken Neera (and Nalia and Immie) through twice, not had this problem and find her charming. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
I like her in general, and even managed one endgame romance run with her but as it comes down to luck with bad wild surges, it is still a little bit of a crap shoot on what happens (no-reloads esp.). I have added the two different mods (and like) that expand her banter with both CHARNAME and NPC's but just don't like the risk involved. She is actually the only arcane user I MIGHT consider using with my now usual druid runs (the 'WILD' bit gets me there) as they generally have neg. views on the arcane and clerics as well(so no Aerie as well.)
But as to the thread topic, Aerie just does not have enough in the way of quest additions in comparison to Neera, and to me, that is more imp. than a power rating.
As Nalia has been brought up, I can see in some of her banters that she has the possibility of going through a change in outlook or even alignment if given a little more attn. in development.
To anyone who takes her versatility as gospel, try bringing her along in a 6-person party as your primary arcane spellcaster, (no Imoen, no Neera, no Nalia, no Edwin), and see how she does.
I’m sure she’ll do just fine except she’s gonna whine more as it’s her duty to patch up everybody’s wounds upon returning to tavern, she also has to stay up late, dragging her fragile body in dim light of candles preparing all necessary spells the team need for tomorrow’s journey when everybody’s sound sleep. She’ll get up early, standing at the tavern doors to make sure everybody receive her divine blessings before they charge their muscles into the next battle. She must concentrate herself in battles, tossing fireballs at enemies, silencing hostile mages, summoning, moving herself quickly across the battlefield to tend to the wounded, she also need to focus her senses looking for vicious traps hidden possibly everywhere at heat of battle and do a bit of shoutings to warn her berserkers in time so that they don’t accidently step on them. Even after so many laborious battles for her, she still has to deal with occasional dry jokes her companions thrown at her:”Hey Aerie, you look super bored sitting in the back line, wanna be a tanky avariel for a change?” Every day is exhausting for her, she don’t even have time to write to Quayle, who deeply cares for her, and soon the party will return to Copper Coronet where she needs to do her chores over again. Burden weighs heavily on her shoulders until the day party meet Edwin and Abdel decides to let him join, at least from then on she’ll have more hours of sleep and leave most of battles to him.
However, the reverse scenario isn’t going exactly the same in which Edwin starts as the only spellcaster in party. Edwin Odesseiron prefers battles to end swiftly and efficiently with the might of arcane power in his hands, he doesn’t take pleasure in obliterating foes, he just wants all to end quickly to save time, after all, that’s not the primary reason why he’s been following you. In taverns, Edwin’ll lock himself in his room all night studying some new-found, forbidden-as-hell magic tomes. Well, at least until there’re some knocks coming from the wooden door disrupting his thoughts and then he’ll shout furiously at the direction :”QUIET you insufferable monkeys go fetch your own diapers, I DON’T HEAL!” It is like that before the party meet Aerie and Abdel decides to let her join, from then on, everybody gets happier
To anyone who takes her versatility as gospel, try bringing her along in a 6-person party as your primary arcane spellcaster, (no Imoen, no Neera, no Nalia, no Edwin), and see how she does.
Actually, this was my standard playstyle for awhile. She is fully capable of the only caster in the party.
To anyone who takes her versatility as gospel, try bringing her along in a 6-person party as your primary arcane spellcaster, (no Imoen, no Neera, no Nalia, no Edwin), and see how she does.
I've done this, with (IIRC) a shadow dancer CHARNAME, Mazzy, Valygar, Anomen, and Jaheira. Replacing V or M with Keldorn would make it easier because of his Dispel Magics and True Sights. It was a challenge, mind, but it made me more mindful of what the divine casters could do.
Yeah, I'm leaning towards making her the main caster in a party of four. I get that it's probably not optimal, but I've done "the practical play through" at least thrice over. I'm feeling a warrior party right now. Bear in mind, there will be rotations. I'll hire on Yoshimo for slaver's bay and some other critical thief areas. I may let Neera tag along until sparks fly with Aerie. Imoen will tag along from the asylum until Bodhi. If I do that, I don't think a "core" party of MC barbarian, Minsc, Keldorn, Aerie will be too difficult. I could be wrong though.
Since you're gonna have Imoen, you definitely do not need another single class mage.
Hands down Aerie wins that contest.
It takes a while for her to come into her prime (2.25m xp onwards, huge change) but she's very versatile even before that.
Just give her the robe of vecna, reflection shield and a sling. And a strength belt once you've got your melees covered for that.
She will singlehandedly take care of any situation you will ever come across.
A cleric with access to mage items like the robe and mage hla like alacrity.. there's just no way any other cleric or druid can compete with that.
And her mage class is more than strong enough for crowd control, debuff, buff, etc
Caster level maxes out at lvl 20 (which means spells stop scaling upwards) so at some point she will have max power in two caster classes, with none of the drawbacks.
But it also means you'll want to use Imoen for critical spells that have saving throws and do damage.
Once Aerie gets to mage 20 it no longer matters.
Also, Aerie's romance is actually a journey of character development.. not just higher "affinity"
Absolutely worth a try.
I played with Aerie all the time when I played 25 years ago. She was my favorite NPC. She brings a massive spell battery to the party that allows diverse options in any scenario. She can pump out so many AoEs that she can brutalize any enemy force that you can incapacitate with spells like Web or Chaos, which she can also cast a lot of.
I never got this far, but because she is a Cleric/Mage she can put both cleric and mage spells in a Sequencers, Contingencies and Triggers.
If she casts Holy Power she becomes vicious with a sling.
However, you have to remember that any character with that diverse of a skill set is not going to specialize in anything. Please note: unless you are a better player than I (and you may very well be), she needs specialists to do their special things while she works support.
My core parties 25 years ago always had Jan, Keldorn and Aerie in them. I would mix and match the last two according to my party needs. When I played a half-orc Fighter/Cleric my party consisted of Gorion’s Ward, Keldorn, Aerie, Jan, Nalia and Jaheira. The spell casting ability of this party was devastating.
The problem is, aside from Keldorn and Nalia all my casters were multi-classed. That means slow level progression and comparatively weak Dispel & Remove Magic. Also, you will never effectively turn undead. In the future I plan to play with more single and dual-classed spellcasters, but I will always occasionally go back to play Aerie. She is just that fun.
I’ve not played with Neera yet, but managing her Wild Surges looks more stressful than engaging. I’m kind of dreading playing her, actually. However, her side quest looks like it will be fascinating and the loot & XP can’t be missed. Still, after her side quest I plan to go back to Nalia, although that may change later. I’ve read in multiple places Neera is the best mage in ToB.
********** Question 1 ********** Does anyone have any tips for managing Wild Surges and playing Neera in general.
I don't find the wild surges to be all that intrusive to be honest.. and it's very rare for a wild surge to be so horrible that you want to reload.
You're gonna have to live with the fact that what should have been a Haste spell for your party could end up with you losing 80% of your gold.. or what should have been a Spellstrike on enemy ends up dropping a cow on their head or turn Neera into a dude for 100 rounds.. but that's kind of what you get with wild mages.
For a "no reload" save, then a wild mage would be completely out of the question for me.. but if you quicksave fairly often then just go with the flow. Maybe once every 5-6 hours you'll want to reload because the effects were just too unfun, but most of the time it's just silly shenanigans.
If you use reckless dweomer however, then all bets are off and you can expect mayhem.
I don't find the wild surges to be all that intrusive to be honest.. and it's very rare for a wild surge to be so horrible that you want to reload.
You're gonna have to live with the fact that what should have been a Haste spell for your party could end up with you losing 80% of your gold.. or what should have been a Spellstrike on enemy ends up dropping a cow on their head or turn Neera into a dude for 100 rounds.. but that's kind of what you get with wild mages.
For a "no reload" save, then a wild mage would be completely out of the question for me.. but if you quicksave fairly often then just go with the flow. Maybe once every 5-6 hours you'll want to reload because the effects were just too unfun, but most of the time it's just silly shenanigans.
If you use reckless dweomer however, then all bets are off and you can expect mayhem.
One piece of advice with Neera, and WM in general, focus on offensive spells. Damaging or disabling. Many of the bad results from the WM pool are worse if they are buffing, party-targeting spells. Using Neera to throw fireballs, glitterdust, confusion and such far from the party will also greatly tilt the WM odds against any reload-causing failure.
********** Question 1 ********** Does anyone have any tips for managing Wild Surges and playing Neera in general.
The wild surge effect mentioned by @Khyron above of losing 80% of your gold is one that I dread when playing Neera. What I do is avoid it's detrimental effect on the wealth of the party by having most of that wealth in the form of gems that I don't sell when I find them. I only sell gems just before buying something with it, as wealth stored in gems is unaffected by the Wild Surge.
Comments
But as to the thread topic, Aerie just does not have enough in the way of quest additions in comparison to Neera, and to me, that is more imp. than a power rating.
As Nalia has been brought up, I can see in some of her banters that she has the possibility of going through a change in outlook or even alignment if given a little more attn. in development.
I’m sure she’ll do just fine
Burden weighs heavily on her shoulders until the day party meet Edwin and Abdel decides to let him join, at least from then on she’ll have more hours of sleep and leave most of battles to him.
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However, the reverse scenario isn’t going exactly the same in which Edwin starts as the only spellcaster in party. Edwin Odesseiron prefers battles to end swiftly and efficiently with the might of arcane power in his hands, he doesn’t take pleasure in obliterating foes, he just wants all to end quickly to save time, after all, that’s not the primary reason why he’s been following you. In taverns, Edwin’ll lock himself in his room all night studying some new-found, forbidden-as-hell magic tomes. Well, at least until there’re some knocks coming from the wooden door disrupting his thoughts and then he’ll shout furiously at the direction :”QUIET you insufferable monkeys go fetch your own diapers, I DON’T HEAL!”
It is like that before the party meet Aerie and Abdel decides to let her join, from then on, everybody gets happier
To anyone who takes her versatility as gospel, try bringing her along in a 6-person party as your primary arcane spellcaster, (no Imoen, no Neera, no Nalia, no Edwin), and see how she does.
Actually, this was my standard playstyle for awhile. She is fully capable of the only caster in the party.
Hands down Aerie wins that contest.
It takes a while for her to come into her prime (2.25m xp onwards, huge change) but she's very versatile even before that.
Just give her the robe of vecna, reflection shield and a sling. And a strength belt once you've got your melees covered for that.
She will singlehandedly take care of any situation you will ever come across.
A cleric with access to mage items like the robe and mage hla like alacrity.. there's just no way any other cleric or druid can compete with that.
And her mage class is more than strong enough for crowd control, debuff, buff, etc
Caster level maxes out at lvl 20 (which means spells stop scaling upwards) so at some point she will have max power in two caster classes, with none of the drawbacks.
But it also means you'll want to use Imoen for critical spells that have saving throws and do damage.
Once Aerie gets to mage 20 it no longer matters.
Also, Aerie's romance is actually a journey of character development.. not just higher "affinity"
Absolutely worth a try.
I played with Aerie all the time when I played 25 years ago. She was my favorite NPC. She brings a massive spell battery to the party that allows diverse options in any scenario. She can pump out so many AoEs that she can brutalize any enemy force that you can incapacitate with spells like Web or Chaos, which she can also cast a lot of.
I never got this far, but because she is a Cleric/Mage she can put both cleric and mage spells in a Sequencers, Contingencies and Triggers.
If she casts Holy Power she becomes vicious with a sling.
However, you have to remember that any character with that diverse of a skill set is not going to specialize in anything. Please note: unless you are a better player than I (and you may very well be), she needs specialists to do their special things while she works support.
My core parties 25 years ago always had Jan, Keldorn and Aerie in them. I would mix and match the last two according to my party needs. When I played a half-orc Fighter/Cleric my party consisted of Gorion’s Ward, Keldorn, Aerie, Jan, Nalia and Jaheira. The spell casting ability of this party was devastating.
The problem is, aside from Keldorn and Nalia all my casters were multi-classed. That means slow level progression and comparatively weak Dispel & Remove Magic. Also, you will never effectively turn undead. In the future I plan to play with more single and dual-classed spellcasters, but I will always occasionally go back to play Aerie. She is just that fun.
I’ve not played with Neera yet, but managing her Wild Surges looks more stressful than engaging. I’m kind of dreading playing her, actually. However, her side quest looks like it will be fascinating and the loot & XP can’t be missed. Still, after her side quest I plan to go back to Nalia, although that may change later. I’ve read in multiple places Neera is the best mage in ToB.
********** Question 1 ********** Does anyone have any tips for managing Wild Surges and playing Neera in general.
You're gonna have to live with the fact that what should have been a Haste spell for your party could end up with you losing 80% of your gold.. or what should have been a Spellstrike on enemy ends up dropping a cow on their head or turn Neera into a dude for 100 rounds.. but that's kind of what you get with wild mages.
For a "no reload" save, then a wild mage would be completely out of the question for me.. but if you quicksave fairly often then just go with the flow. Maybe once every 5-6 hours you'll want to reload because the effects were just too unfun, but most of the time it's just silly shenanigans.
If you use reckless dweomer however, then all bets are off and you can expect mayhem.
I’m not nearly skilled enough to look into a no reload game at this time so I will spam the quicksave button.
One piece of advice with Neera, and WM in general, focus on offensive spells. Damaging or disabling. Many of the bad results from the WM pool are worse if they are buffing, party-targeting spells. Using Neera to throw fireballs, glitterdust, confusion and such far from the party will also greatly tilt the WM odds against any reload-causing failure.
Thanks!
The wild surge effect mentioned by @Khyron above of losing 80% of your gold is one that I dread when playing Neera. What I do is avoid it's detrimental effect on the wealth of the party by having most of that wealth in the form of gems that I don't sell when I find them. I only sell gems just before buying something with it, as wealth stored in gems is unaffected by the Wild Surge.
Thanks!