Ok... due to a virus I lost my current game so I'm starting a new one. I have a Swashbuckler dualled to cleric at lvl 10, and I'm just oustide of Irenicus Dungeon. I plan on adding Edwin to my party, and wonder who else should I get. I was thinking about one or two of the followings :
- Cernd
- Haer'Dalis
- Mazzy
- Nalia
- Valygar (But he doesn't love Edwin )
Hes looking for a 3 person party, so with your thief/cleric and edwin, i would have to take... from that list, I would say mazzy because youd have to have 2 tanks to keep them away from edwin while hes casting... otherwise they will always make short work of him.
EDIT: You may want to grab valygar right away, then head for mazzy in the you know where place, so you can have help until you ge to mazzy fentan.
"To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." -Sun Tzu, the Art of War
Well, if you actually want a tank, Mazzy is the only one on your list. Valygar is a great scout and puts out lots of damage, but he isn't teally a tank. HD can tank in a pinch, with spell protections and defensive spin. Cernd and Nalia just bug me.
Have you also considered MOD NPCs or hacking the Bioware ones? I just made Edwin into a Kensai/Mage multi, it really suits him
I have given up all lesser evils as inadequate to my purpose.
If you define tank as someone who can take damage and dish some out, then Mazzy is the only one on your list.
While I would play all the rest of your list before Mazzy (that righteous little wench), I wouldn't consider any of the others a tank. All the rest would require some sort of buff prior to battle.
My favourite tanks are Minsc, Anomen, and Korgan, who coincedentally all have 18/xx strength and can all carry a shield & wear full plate.
In most games a "tank" is a heavy melee who can take a beating well in a "typical" group combat situation.
So in BGII, that's most Rangers (though not really Stalkers, Archers and Beastmasters), Fighters (but less so Kensai), Paladins, and the like - mostly including single, dual and multi-class. Low AC & high HPs are the prime criteria for being a tank.
Minsc, Keldorn, Mazzy, Korgan and Jaheira are the stock Bioware tanks, IMAO
I have given up all lesser evils as inadequate to my purpose.
As a note - when Nephtu says, "conventionally", he is referring to the use of the term in the MMORPG world. You can use the word however you want to, of course, but when most online RPG gamers see "tank" they think, "good damage taker, moderate damage giver".
Note that the moderate damage output is usually there in games tuned for "class balance"; in these systems, the flimsier the melee class is, the more damage they can do.