Should I take Imoen with me? (Spoilerish)

De_Priester · Post by **De_Priester** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 9:05 am

Right now I have what I consider to be the perfect party, Keldorn and Minsc as tanks, Jaheira for buffing, healing and casting those handy dandy summons (and yeah she can tank a little), Aerie for her healing and mage spells (and romance) and my all time fuzzy favorite Jan Jansen the best thief ingame and obviously not a bad mage either.

I'm at that point in the dungeon where I've got the choice to either take Imoen with me or send her to the copper coronet. I don't know if she has any influence in the TOB storyline or anything major in SOA itself (Finished it once before dun remember if it was with or without her). Anyway she seems very weak especially since all my other partymembers have been with me since day one so to speak and they got the gear and the experience to whoop some buttocks, imoen on the other hand is a bad thief and a crappy mage, dunno if she improves swiftly though....

So anyway what do you all think?

Thanks up front.

Raumoheru · Post by **Raumoheru** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 10:14 am

i personaly think drop Jaheira for Imoen cuz Aerie can do the job better then Jaheira

EDIT:

or since Jan Jansen is a theif mage drop him for immy who is also a thief mage

De_Priester · Post by **De_Priester** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:18 pm

Problem is if I drop jan now he is gone since he doesn't go home but sticks on the same spot.

And Imoen as a thief? She is kinda low level.....

moltovir · Post by **moltovir** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 1:55 pm

If this is your first playtrough or you've never had her in your party before, keep her. She's an integral part of the storyline. If you've already played the game till the end with her in your party, dump her for whoever you want. Just make sure you had her at least once, so that you experienced the whole storyline.

Whatever you do, don't dump Jaheira

And don't use her only to buff! She can be one hell of a frontliner if you know how to use her... an she can make short work of mages.

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Wed Dec 22, 2004 12:02 am

Imoen is the one must-keep character in all my parties. Everyone else is negotiable, but she isn't (and she does improve quickly, btw). And her thieving skills are sufficient to deal with 99% of the locks and traps in the game, with items she can deal with any of them.

Most of the times I've played through, I've played with -exactly- the party you're describing, but before I go to Spellhold, I say farewell to Jan, pick up Yoshimo, and put Imoen in his place when the time comes.

Qwinn

VonDondu · Post by **VonDondu** » Wed Dec 22, 2004 4:33 am

[QUOTE=De_Priester]I'm at that point in the dungeon where I've got the choice to either take Imoen with me or send her to the copper coronet. I don't know if she has any influence in the TOB storyline or anything major in SOA itself (Finished it once before dun remember if it was with or without her). Anyway she seems very weak especially since all my other partymembers have been with me since day one so to speak and they got the gear and the experience to whoop some buttocks, imoen on the other hand is a bad thief and a crappy mage, dunno if she improves swiftly though...[/QUOTE]
If you have the party you want, then you should send Imoen to the Copper Coronet. You rescued her, and now you can move on to other things. Unless you have a mod that gives her more dialogue, she doesn't have any more banters in Shadows of Amn, and in Throne of Bhaal she's no more special than any other NPC. So you don't need to worry about "missing out" on anything if you decide not to take her.

Having said that, I disagree with your assessment of her. She's a dual-class character, and like any other dual-class character, she won't advance in her first class anymore, but she'll advance in her second class as fast as any single-class character. A relatively small amount of her experience is devoted to her Thief class (40,000 experience points), so in a way, you can think of her as a single-class Mage who can pick locks, detect traps, and wield a bow. That makes her better than any single-class Mage you could roll up. Are all single-class Mages "crappy"? You be the judge.

Is a 7th level Thief a "bad thief"? Well, compared to the only thief in the game who can continue to advance in level, maybe she lacks skills. But have you ever tried to backstab anyone with Jan? It isn't worth the effort, and if you can't have your group launch a better attack than that, then you need to rethink your strategies.

Jan certainly has a lot of thieving points, and it's nice that he has the ability to set traps and detect illusions. But Qwinn is right about picking locks and detecting traps. I estimate that over 75% of the locks and traps require less than 70 points to unlock/detect, and over 95% require less than 90 points. I can think of only three chests that require over 100 points to unlock, and I can only think of three traps that require over 110 points to detect and disarm. (There might be more, but that's all I can think of.) So here's the score. Imoen can't backstab worth a flip, but neither can Jan (I wouldn't even try it in Throne of Bhaal). Imoen can pick about 99% of all the locks and disarm about 99% of all the traps that Jan can. Personally, I wouldn't call that a "bad thief". You don't need a "great thief" in this game, because it simply doesn't require much of a Thief.

Have you ever played a game with Jan and Imoen side-by-side before? She advances a lot faster as a Mage than he does. As a specialist Mage, he gets one extra spell per level, but he can't cast spells from the school of Necromancy such as Skull Trap, Finger of Death, Horrid Wilting, etc, and as a multi-class character, he can't cast as many high level spells as Imoen can. While Imoen is casting 9th Level spells and spells like Horrid Wilting, Jan is limited to 7th or 8th Level spells. Personally, I'd rather have Imoen in my party. Granted, she's not a single-class specialist Mage with an amulet that gives her two extra spells per level, but neither is Jan, and you can't make one of those without cheating.

Imoen is definitely not a "crappy Mage", unless you think that all Mages who aren't named Edwin are crappy.

In short, if I had to choose between Jan and Imoen, I'd pick Jan if I wanted the best possible thief, but I'd pick Imoen if I wanted a better Mage (without giving up the ability to get past nearly all of the locks and traps in the game). But if you prefer Jan, for whatever reason, then stick with him.

De_Priester · Post by **De_Priester** » Wed Dec 22, 2004 7:20 pm

Well I think Jan is a comedian to have around, he manages to piss off keldorn and he saves me a lot of money

(I kinda stole everything worth mentioning in the game and sold everything I didn't need but did steal to the thieves

) imoen didn't have much appeal to me, she might become a better mage than jan but jan has some nice gear on him and well the pickpocket and conversations make him a nice partymember. For me it was the question if I would be missing out with imoen on conversations and quests. I have no problems with any of the fights (except for Firkraag he was a mean biggeh whom I had to take out the cheeeeese way CLOUD CLOUD DEAD).

Thanks for the information I got what I needed

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Wed Dec 22, 2004 9:09 pm

She doesn't have any banters in SoA, no (other than those that come with the banter pack mod), but she does have a few lines to say along the main quest, particularly when you confront Bohdi later on.

Qwinn