Evil-aligned Party for SoA

Revi · Post by **Revi** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 5:39 am

My evil party has finished all of Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast except for Durlag's Tower, the demon boss in Ulgoth's Beard, and the final Sarevok encounter. In other words, it's time for me to start thinking about a party setup for Shadows of Amn.

Here is the setup I currently have in mind:

Morth, tiefling berserker
Callisto, human berserker
Valen, vampire fighter/thief (romantic interest)
Viconia, drow cleric (alternative romantic interest)

Who should I add to this to make the party complete? Do I really need a mage? I don't like mages much, for all the micromanagement they bring.. not that I can't handle it.. but it's so repetitive.. :laugh:

NPC's I have up for consideration:

Korgan, dwarven berserker (awesome character, but we already have plenty of melee power)
Edwin, human mage (the best spellcaster in the vanilla game, but I don't like pure casters much)

Any other good suggestions for a 5th/6th member?

EDIT: Feel free to suggest any character from a mod, as long as it's a solid mod with lots of banter (like Valen, Tashia, Sola

)

CoM_Solaufein · Post by **CoM_Solaufein** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 8:31 am

I always have a mage in my parties. I would say Edwin. You have two heavy hitting fighters, a thief and a cleric. All that is needed to round it out is a high level mage.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 9:08 am

I personally think Edwin is excellent in an "evil" party. If you don't like pure casters, use Shadowkeeper to edit his attributes. Consider taking away points from CON and putting them in WISDOM, to make him a multiclass cleric/mage. (Though admittedly, his actions don't much wisdom, at all: he lives entirely in his ego.) Or give him the Gauntlets of Dexterity, and edit him to have a point or two in bow proficiencies: Edwin, the mage/archer.

Revi · Post by **Revi** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 3:19 pm

I suppose you are right, there isn't really a way around Edwin. And I think his bloated ego is quite funny, so I guess that will have to make up for my dislike of pure casters :laugh:

HandsomeDevil · Post by **HandsomeDevil** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 1:24 pm

I don't see how you can get around having a caster. My many aborted attempts on BG2 (I have never finished it and I've had the game for several years) have always ended with me annoyed that I couldn't get the magic oomph I needed. I wanted a pure caster. In fact, that's the only reason I'm playing a sorc now - I don't generally go for magic types but I need better casting and there don't seem to be any good/neutral NPC pure casters.

If I ever finish this with a neutral or goodish party, I fully intend to start up an evil party and get Edwin as my primary arcanist.

And I'm dying to play with Korgan in my party. He seems to be a kick-ash MF.

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 3:01 pm

HandsomeDevil wrote:And I'm dying to play with Korgan in my party. He seems to be a kick-ash MF.

Oh, he is kick-ass.

There are also some great party interactions with him, including one event where he even takes interaction for the group, briefly--with very athletic results.

Berethor · Post by **Berethor** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 5:50 pm

I've always wanted to have both Korgan and Edwin in my party, but I've never been able to successfully play an evil party. That's mainly because of the fact that Evil characters (for some reason) don't realize the benefits of having a high reputation and therefore they leave once it hits about 18.

Since there's no real way to lower reputation (short of stealing) before *spoiler*

Spoiler

you get Slayer Change

, you really have to be careful before you leave for Chapter 4.

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 6:18 pm

Berethor wrote:Since there's no real way to lower reputation (short of stealing) before *spoiler*
Spoiler
you get Slayer Change
, you really have to be careful before you leave for Chapter 4.

There is one other way:

Spoiler

add Viconia to your party.

Berethor · Post by **Berethor** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 6:35 pm

True enough, though that is really just a one time thing.

To add insult to injury for evil characters, many quests in the game force reputation points on you. I've counted at least 8 points from quests before Chapter 4 so far, and I haven't even finished a few of the larger quests yet (Windspear, Trademeet, Planar Sphere etc.).

I think I'll try it someday, but right now I'm hooked on my Ranger/Cleric and his romance with Viconia, though I had to use Shadowkeeper to lower my reputation before it got to 18 (i.e. breaking point with evil characters).

Revi · Post by **Revi** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 6:13 pm

I've just finished this game, and I ended up playing through SoA and ToB with a very different setup of NPC's than I originally had in mind. The reason for this was my instant dislike of Valen and Callisto (I had never tried them before). They both seemed too powerful and different from the standard npc's for my taste.

So instead I rolled a fighter/mage and a rebalanced swashbuckler to aid Morth in his quest to become the new lord of murder. I also changed Viconia to fighter/cleric, so she could wield the Flail of the Ages / Crom Faeyr combo for me. The final team setup was:

Morth - tiefling berserker
Siris - elven fighter/mage
Viconia - drow fighter/cleric
Sephire - human swashbuckler

Korgan was with us for a while, but removed later on because he felt too much like luggage. True, he is a very powerful fighter, the berserker kit is awesome, and his greedy bastard character cracked me up more than once, but my main character was far more powerful.

HandsomeDevil wrote:I don't see how you can get around having a caster. My many aborted attempts on BG2 (I have never finished it and I've had the game for several years) have always ended with me annoyed that I couldn't get the magic oomph I needed.

Seems to me I have a very different style of playing this game than 50% of the expert players. I use my arcane caster to strip away spell protections, and that's about it. The rest of the fight is usually handled by my fighters dealing brutal melee damage with their whirlwinds.

For summons I rely heavily on skeleton warriors, which have some disadvantages compared to mordis, but I find them reliable as a screen to keep enemy minions busy.. the only situations where they've annoyed me a bit are the times they are instantly killed with a death spell. But for me, they're just a luxury anyway. All my characters had great AC's and hp near the end of ToB, and during the final Melissan encounter (for which my thief was not invited) we all had enough Hardiness and Greater Whirlwinds to last us the whole fight.

Not a single encounter in both SoA and ToB posed any notable difficulty for this team. All bosses were defeated without the loss of a single party member, and some of the supposedly difficult encounters in Watchers Keep (including Demogorgon) were finished within the space of a few rounds of combat.

I just finished the game an hour ago. Morth has ascended to Lord of Murder now. One very happy evil guy :devil:

Revi · Post by **Revi** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 6:26 pm

Berethor wrote:To add insult to injury for evil characters, many quests in the game force reputation points on you. I've counted at least 8 points from quests before Chapter 4 so far, and I haven't even finished a few of the larger quests yet (Windspear, Trademeet, Planar Sphere etc.)

Throne of Bhaal is even worse. I cause the destruction of an entire city.. no problem. I murder mercanaries on the streets of Amkethran... no problem. I free a single lousy prisoner... +1 reputation! I barter with a lich for trinkets in exchange for the soul of an innocent, no problem. I resist arrest by a division of the army, then I slaughter the entire company, no problem.

I was carefully roleplaying a 100% evil person in the ToB part of the game, yet I still skyrocketed up to 20 reputation. Luckily I had installed the 'NPCs complain about reputation but never leave' part of the G3 Tweak Pack.

-Revi

Celacena · Post by **Celacena** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 5:09 am

evil party?

Edwin as mage
Viconia as cleric
Korgan as tank
Jaheira/Haedalis if you feel like it

I like Vicki so I even have her in generally good/neutral parties if I don't want keldorn.

Revi · Post by **Revi** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 9:00 am

Celacena wrote:I like Vicki so I even have her in generally good/neutral parties if I don't want keldorn.

Yup, my next playthrough is going to be with a good aligned protagonist, and I am going to explore Viconia's other side this time. I find her the most interesting romance in the game... she is not a whiny, easy girl who needs a comforting shoulder, nor a bitchy control freak or a creepy guy with a beard, but a dangerous and powerful woman who also has weak sides. There's hurt in her past, she can hurt you and gloat over your weakness... or bite back when you get too close. All in all it feels very much like a real person.

*spoiler*

Spoiler

I also love the way you have the option (but are not forced to) change her alignment.

*spoiler*

Berethor · Post by **Berethor** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:42 pm

I've completed the game 3 times now, and I've finished every single romance. There may be some spoilers in this post, so beware.

I find Viconia's to be pretty interesting but I felt as if something was missing. It just ended so abruptly in SoA, so that probably left me feeling a little empty. It's a tough one to beat if you aren't careful.

Aerie's romance was...cute...to say the least, but the two or three week gestation period was ridiculous. Her means of making sure people didn't know she was pregnant were retarded, as were her ways of protecting the baby. And the name...Quayle? Grr...

I like Jaheira's romance the most (especially if you change her portrait back to what it was in BG1). It's the longest and most intricate of them all, and it felt more like a true romance than either of the others (psycho female dominatrix or whiny pig-tailed elf).

That's my opinion on that. On another note, you can put Jaheira in either a good or evil party without consequences since she is True Neutral.

Revi · Post by **Revi** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 6:33 am

I've just 'discovered' Neverwinter Nights 2 (I've played it before, but my pc couldn't handle it so I stopped in frustration), so no more romances for me for a while...

I understand your point, Berethor. And I'll admit the Jaheira romance is well written and intrincate... I just can't really stand her, but that's a very personal thing. I guess that's why they put in these very different romancable characters, to account for very different players

-Revi

HandsomeDevil · Post by **HandsomeDevil** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 9:17 pm

Berethor wrote:I've always wanted to have both Korgan and Edwin in my party, but I've never been able to successfully play an evil party. That's mainly because of the fact that Evil characters (for some reason) don't realize the benefits of having a high reputation and therefore they leave once it hits about 18.

Since there's no real way to lower reputation (short of stealing) before *spoiler*
Spoiler
you get Slayer Change
, you really have to be careful before you leave for Chapter 4.

I just stumbled on another rep killer today:

Spoiler

kill the sleeping dwarf and the others in the "secret" area of Copper Coronet. I was walking through on my way back from the sewers and I noticed the red circle around the dwarf, so I had Minsc gank him. I think I lost 2 or 5 rep points for that.

Berethor · Post by **Berethor** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 4:14 pm

Yeah, I noticed that one before, don't know why I forgot about it.

I guess it's because I'm not really sure why they go hostile in the first place. I usually have to turn off my AI to avoid losing reputation.

=/