The Most challenging party??

[Chippox of Doom]

Im planning another play through, So i thought in addition to most useless, most fun party threads i thought What are the most challenging party ?

I guess most here has played so many times they can make any of the NPC:s so powerful it ends up easy anyway, But for myself, who only played through like 5 times (altho started 10x more parties and started over after half way through)

If you want a real challenge, without mods what do You think would be the most challenging party?

Who as tank? What PC? Im thinking a Melee type PC, maybe only Aerie for all cleric/heals/mage stuff rest full melee like korgan, mazzy, keldorn and Yoshimo, and later switch for imoen to use mostly thieving too?

What you think?

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Evil Wizard Slayer PC
Minsc
Edwin
Viconia
Valygar
Keldorn

No Thief, an evil PC (i.e. less experience, low reputation, likely to lose the tanks due to reputation, AND liable to miss out on Carsomyr) who can't use magic items besides weapons, armor and healing potions, and a party near guaranteed to try to kill each other.

[koz-ivan]

Evil Wizard Slayer PC
Minsc
Edwin
Viconia
Valygar
Keldorn

in battle that team should rock out loud, plenty of melee capabilities backed by the 2 best pound for pound casters. and has valygar & minsc to scout. only real flaw is the lack of a trap & lock thief.

yes it is full of explosive npc drama though.

for a group that should stay cohesive yet still have challenges:

monk npc (though wiz slayer, or beast master would be a good fill in. wild mage or ever diviner could also present some issues)
heardalis (yes w/ management he has upside - this was the hardest slot to fill for me)

the rest:
mazzy - her starting weapons...
valygar - restricted from heavier armors. (minsc's maces, heavy armor & lack of aerie drama preclude him from joining this august assemblage)
nalia - the only thief, and as a mage has less upside than edwin, jan or immy
*edit* in hindsight as a mage less upside than edwin, as a thief more limited than immy or jan.
cernd - the only real healer on the squad.

this team has serious equipment issues, and structural defects in the healing & in the traps and locks departments. undead will force some creative solutions as well.

despite being fairly balanced though heavier on the melee side - the equipment restrictions leave this party poorly positioned to make use of the "power" soa / tob weapons also starts out lacking physical strength.

[galraen]

PC Wizard Slayer
Keldorn - and don't get Carsomyr
Mazzy
Anomen - make him go Chaotic Neutral and self enforce AD&D rules, i.e. no spells greater than 3rd level
Minsc - again self enforce AD&D rules and play him as a straight fighter, no Ranger abilities
Korgan

No mages, thieves or much in the way of healing

You can slay anything in a straight melee engagement but spellcasting opponents, Beholders and Ilithids will make life tough.

PS Nalia actually has more upside as a mage than Imoen

[koz-ivan]

Keldorn - and don't get Carsomyr

i'm surprised folks think that's really a handicap, yeah it's a pretty sweet weapon, but keldorn still has his instant cast 2x dispel and plenty of other groovy weapons to use.

PS Nalia actually has more upside as a mage than Imoen

yeah that's probably fair. editing prior post.

[galraen]

Yeah not using Carsomyr isn't so much af a handicap, just a slight limitation. I'd suggest playing multi-player and having a second PC say a gnome fighter (Kensai?) specialising in clubs rather than Keldorn really.

[Ares2382]

Evil Wizard Slayer PC
Minsc
Edwin
Viconia
Valygar
Keldorn

No Thief, an evil PC (i.e. less experience, low reputation, likely to lose the tanks due to reputation, AND liable to miss out on Carsomyr) who can't use magic items besides weapons, armor and healing potions, and a party near guaranteed to try to kill each other.

Yeah, last time I checked. Minsc and Edwin will eventually fight each other. So will Viconia and Valygar. And also, Keldorn will eventually threaten to leave the party if you don't get rid of Vicky..... and if you don't he will.

[galraen]

Assuming the player character sides with the evil NPCs, which is logical, then the problem with Ode's suggestion is you wind up with just about the strongest 3 character party you could wish for.

[koz-ivan]

in triple hindsight, immy does have a little more going for her as a mage vs nalia, if you pick up immy early - nalia might have a level advantage - but that gap will narrow once mages get into the linear portion of the xp tables, with nalia being maybe a level higher. (scroll xp can narrow this somewhat depending on party mechanics as well, but this leads more to exploit)

however nalia's got one ring hard locked - and the other slot may need one of the thief boost rings. (50% fire res, +2 to saves and ac + stack with other protection items isn't anything to sneeze at though)

immy is hands free and can wear both wiz & acuity - or one of the thief boost rings. this can swing things in her favor giving her a slight mage advantage over nalia.

[galraen]

I did try PMing the following to you koz-ivan, because it's going off topic, and others would have read some of it before, but the PM text limit wouldn't let me.

To be honest it's pretty much a wash between Nalia and Imoen mage-wise. The ring would give Imoen almost the same spells as Nalia, but Nalia would always hit the next spell level first, often by quite a margin depending on when you pick Imoen up.

However I think the main problem most people, including me, have with Nalia is the bad way Bioware created her, and also the horrible mess they made of her personality.

My problem is I developed an even greater annoyance with Imoen when I first played SoA. The terrible way that Bioware handled the transition from BG to SoA actually caused me to shelve the game for a long time before actually playing through it.

The first party I ran through BG Imen got murdered by Minsc, Minsc the got offed by the rest of the group. I finished BG with Kivan, Branwen, Garrick, Dynaheir and Yeslick, so you can imagine how ticked off I was to be greeted by two zombies and a total stranger on starting SoA!!!

I've never been fond of Ioen since then, even when I played her in BG1 subsequently I couldn't bring myself to do such a bd job of dual classing her as Bioware did. But at least the first thing I do when starting a SoA game isn't to kill her, which except on one occasion is what I always do with Minsc!!! On my evil run through Minsc the Psychopath seemed like a natural fit!

Ron