Ever Tried To Put Together The Most Underpowered Party For A Challange

Jordoo · Post by **Jordoo** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 11:32 am

Has anyone ever tried to put together the weakest possible party and play through the game as a challange?

Who would be in your weak Party?

Mine would be

PC Druid (take first role for atributes)
Osprey
Garik
Biff the understudy
Tiax
Quale ( just beeting out faldorn since summoning dread wolfs is to powerful for this group)

Jordoo · Post by **Jordoo** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:41 am

I am trying to put this party together but everytime I get Biff the understudy to gion my party the game crashes when I try to save with him in my party. Is there anyway to keep him without crashing the game?

Pellinore · Post by **Pellinore** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:29 pm

I don't remember coming across Biff.. Where is he located?

Denethorn · Post by **Denethorn** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 11:19 am

Biff the understudy is a part of a bug, where an NPC is missing from the conversation and the game just inserts a generic fighter called Biff the understudy

. I don't think there is any way around the crash when saving, however.

kmonster · Post by **kmonster** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 3:38 pm

Tiax and Quayle are in fact two of the most powerful NPCs, far more powerful than Minsc for example. Class is far more important than stat points.

The weakest party possible is probably 5 single class thieves (PC, Imoen,Safana, Alora,Skie) + Biff.

VonDondu · Post by **VonDondu** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 2:02 pm

I've put together several "lame dream teams" as an experiment, but I haven't played with them for very long because I didn't see the point.

My conclusion is that the weakest party would consist of several fighters (or rangers) who have less than 18 Strength and low Dexterity and (most important) don't use ranged weapons. Without a Mage, a Thief, or a healer, the game would be very difficult. Enchanted weapons and strength potions are in limited supply, and some of the melee battles are very tough if your warriors are not buffed up. The idea is that if you set restrictions on your party, you will run into challenges.

If you want to use existing NPCs instead of creating your own characters in a multi-player game, I suggest:

Fighter (PC)
Khalid
Ajantis
Garrick
Kagain

If you can't get by without a Thief or you have to run a six-member party, you can add Coran, but don't let him use a bow. Like all Fighter/Thieves, he can backstab well, but his AC bonus will be cancelled out by his need to wear leather armor, making him more vulnerable in melee.

Jordoo · Post by **Jordoo** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:14 am

I would have a hard time not trying to make even a bad NPC as effective as possible. I was thinking of trying an underpowered group and seeing how strong they became. Most likely any group of NPC's at the experience cap limit would be able to do fine in any situation. I certainly didn't think Tiax and Quale were powerful. Lots of spells for Quale OK I see that but tiax is like a bad cleric and a bad theif. Certainly unbuffed mediocre fighters are very weak as well as low strength single classed thiefs, but both classes can be effective with ranged weapons. Single class Druid is probably the weekest class in BGI not great fighters only leather armor and miss out on most of the good Divine spells.

CFM · Post by **CFM** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 12:33 pm

My lame Dream Team would be Fighter opposites, and no Priests:

PC Mage
Garrick
Dynaheir
Xan
Xzar
Eldoth

AND only rest once per game-day, initiated only between 10pm-2am... may the Force be with you.

kmonster · Post by **kmonster** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 2:45 pm

@Jordoo

Tiax is a cleric. He can summon more than 20 skeletons without resting later in the gamel, protection from evil 10" radius is very userful. No fighter has a chance against him and his skelleton army, even his summoned ghast alone is able to tear most monsters apart.
It's not really important that he doesn't get a few low level bonus spells but his many HP and the AC bonus for high dexterity are very useful.

Tiax's thieving skills aren't useless either. You can use him as backstabber, scout or for the other thieving tasks.

@VonDondu: Your party would be far weaker if you replaced Garrick with Minsc, since Bards can cast strength, haste and other powerful spells.

@CFM: Your party could magic missile anything to dead once the characters gained some levels. With strength and mirror image they can even tank pretty well.

Jordoo · Post by **Jordoo** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 3:59 pm

@kmonster,
Couldn't you backstabe everybody to death with your thief group espesially late in the game as they could all have excellent stealth. Also early on you could pepper the baddies with bows and darts rather effectively. There would certainly be some situations where any group without divine spells would suffer in BGI.
However next evil team I may give Tiax a run at backup cleric/theif and see if I like him deffinately lots of entertainment value.

Jordoo · Post by **Jordoo** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 4:09 pm

Forgot to mention that Minsc or any other fighter could have -12 ac by the time Tiax hade all those spells. Skeletons don't often score hitts against that kind of ac nor do many other summoned monsters. Tiax would still have to be successful with a command or hold person spell so that the skeletons could hit Minsc. But he might just run around the first group of summons with his boots of speed and pummel poor Tiax before he got to cast another spell.LOL
Just a thought.

kmonster · Post by **kmonster** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 5:09 am

Tiax can wear the same armor as Minsc and he also can get spells like DUHM or PfE which improve his AC even further. He also can cast sanctuary on himself which will prevent Minsc from attacking.
Minsc will need a critical to penetrate Tiax and interrupt his hold person spells. Minsc has bad saving throws.
Don't forget that Tiax's spells can also benefit the other party members.

The thieves' backstab will be pretty powerful if you can face your enemies one at a time with preparation, but if they have to fight several enemies without preparation when entering a new area (like the return to UB from Durlag's tower) they'll be in big trouble.
Backstabs don't always hit, you only get a +4 thac0 modifier.
Since Biff can't sneak you can't always use an all invisible tactic(unless you kill him of course).

Jordoo · Post by **Jordoo** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 3:13 pm

Is Tiax casting all those spells while Minsc is swinging at him or is Minsc going to let Tiax buff up first because if so Minsc just drank a potion of involnerability +5 saves plus about 6 other potions to Tiax's 2 spells.LOL
Whats this a Oil of firey Burnig, Necklas of magic missles.HAH-HAh BUTT KICKING FOR GOODNESS. Tiax is after all evil.lol

kmonster · Post by **kmonster** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 12:25 pm

This reminds me on the funny "my dad can beat up your dad" banter you can choose in IWD when you rescue Sheemish.

Jordoo · Post by **Jordoo** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:37 pm

[QUOTE=kmonster]This reminds me on the funny "my dad can beat up your dad" banter you can choose in IWD when you rescue Sheemish.[/QUOTE]

LOL, Yes I have enjoyed it hope you have as well. Sheemish's dad is a pretty tough blacksmith after all.

BTW-Tiax certainly has a much more powewrful class than Minsc, but Minsc I have a soft spot for as he has been on many tours of duty and never once fled or betrayed me. But I promise to give tiax a run with my next evil or nuetral character an max him out, give him a fair shake.

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 3:45 am

[QUOTE=Jordoo]But I promise to give tiax a run with my next evil or nuetral character an max him out, give him a fair shake.[/QUOTE]After playing the game several times with the more obvious partymember choices I 'discovered' the ones I previously ignored. Tiax and Eldoth & Skie are among my most popular NPC's now. I'm really sorry they didn't make it to BG2. Well, Tiax did, but not as a playable NPC.
His soundset is great and a cleric/thief may not be the most powerful class, especially with Tiax' limited stats, but a c/t certainly has possibilities.

kmonster · Post by **kmonster** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 6:04 am

I just can't stand having such a smart character like Minsc taking the lead and tell me what do to.

In BG2 he promised a little boy that we would go to Trademeet(?) and help the people there, and when I wanted to kill the dwarf in the Underdark in order to get the gem for the silver dragon cave, he said "Boo says no" or something like that.

Crazy people who claim to be good can cause more damage than crazy little evil gnomes.

Jordoo · Post by **Jordoo** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 10:55 am

Minsc does have some Great INT and Wis stats! Especially Wis for a Ranger, must have been a really hard hit to the head to lose that much Wis.LOL

But he was in my very first BGI Group and that was my first RPG so he is one of my favorites. I guess in the end I love his stupidity. Even if once in a while a hampster is leading my group around.HEHE

moltovir · Post by **moltovir** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:10 am

Finally I'm back after a loooooong BG absence, I used to post a lot on these boards

The first two parties I finished BG with were heavily melee and archery orientated, but since I like spellcasting so much I've decided to do my third playthrough with a mottley band of mages. Here's the setup I've planned:

Minsc: main tank, has to hold the enemies back while the rest releases a barrage of deadly spells
Branwen: prebuffer extraordinaire and secondary tank
Kalam Mekhar, aka Myself: multiclass Mage/Thief, will mostly use illusion magic to deliver some serious backstab damage
Imoen: second Thief, will be charged with finding traps, opening locks and pickpocketing people. Stealth will be left at base.
Dynaheir: Big balls of Fire!
Xan: my all-time favourite BG character, using my all-time favourite school of magic. He's an expert in controlling the field of battle.

Until I can get this party to level 5 I think I'll have quite some trouble with the game, it's been two years since I last played it and mages just don't cut it that well at the early levels. Having to rest after each Magic Missile becomes tedious after a while...

Jordoo · Post by **Jordoo** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 10:48 am

Give Minsc the ring of Fire Resistance and then cast that Resistance to Fire and cold damage on him or have him drink a potion of fire resistance. Then he can countinue to wack everbody and you can ftarget him for fireballs. Its pretty cool I think with the potion he takes no fire damage.

But with that group you will have plentty of options to mess with once you get them off the ground. It should be fun. Don't forget to pick up a certain Ring early on that is very helpful to wizards.