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I agree with Vicsun about Mazzy ~ she can be very very deadly. Give her bracers of archery, strength belt, best armor, psionics protection helmet (mod), send her in mindflayer lair with deathblow active ... Archers are indeed powerful!

-kaitsuburi

Originally posted by Luis Antonio
No offense, but yer all a bunch of turnip eating scum...

I hate to be nitpicky, but Jan says, "Take THAT, turnip-hatin' scum!"



@UserUnfriendly, I like your style: if we can't find any weak NPCs, let's make some by hacking them.

Originally posted by Kaitsuburi
I agree with Vicsun about Mazzy ~ she can be very very deadly. Give her bracers of archery, strength belt, best armor, psionics protection helmet (mod), send her in mindflayer lair with deathblow active ... Archers are indeed powerful!

But again...he's not planning to do any of this. He's going to put her up front, as a fighter, without these enhancements. He wants the challenge.

Regarding Nalia, she is not weak, although a little annoying.
She is a "pure mage", but she is a good mage (stat. wise) and mages are powerful. As a mage she is better than Imoen (more exp.). So my suggestion would be take Joshimo and change to Imoen. Having only SoA she will remain at a lower lev. and so less powerfull.
Valigar is very effective (best backstabber of the game) although is not a tank.
If you consider SoA only I don't think that Jan is such a powerfull char. (no spike traps, low-mid lev spells only).
So my suggestion is
Npc, Cernd (without the rebalancing mod), Yoshimo -> Imoen and eventually Jan.

Originally posted by VonDondu
If you want a challenge for your main character, play a Transmuter all the way through the game. I'd be impressed.

Heh..I happen to be playing a Transmuter. Happens to be working quite well, too. So there.

Originally posted by kopywrite
Yowza. Do you have any other mages in your group to provide cover? Or are you soloing? In which case, double yowza...

I have, in my group:

Anomen
Minsc
Jaheira
Imoen
Aerie
And me.

Anomen and Minsc are up front with Jaheira as third front liner.
Imoen, Aerie and my character spell out a lot. Adding to that all the buffs (by Aerie, Anomen and Jaheira) and summons.. I am going pretty well, especially with project image and simulacrum.

-edit- In harder fights I usually have someone (Jaheira, mostly) cast death ward and such on my char anyway. But with project image and simulacrum my character hardly gets into fights at all himself.

Then I'm going to have to withdraw my yowzas I'm afraid...Imoen and Aerie can sling plenty of abjuration magic themselves.

Still, nice group anyway. Three mages are fun.

Originally posted by Therion
I have, in my group:

Anomen
Minsc
Jaheira
Imoen
Aerie
And me.

Well, with a group like that, your main character could be a Raggedy Andy doll and you'd still beat the game. Nevertheless, I admire you for playing a character that most players would never touch.

i learned to never have ha'dalis and the winged elf lady in a party together becuase somehow he convinces her to leave the party and i got really pissed

so i like ha'dalis and hate the elf lady

and i think everybody should keep minsk in your party for his funny outbursts

and cerend really stinks in my opinion

It's because you get pissed HD manages to convince Aerie to leave your party. You have to be real understanding and forgiving

Somewhat of an older thread, but I am new here, and felt compelled to respond.

My first time through the game, I had Nalia in my party, the whining in dungeons was annoying, but definitely less annoying than listening to Jaheira whining about nature, or everything else under the sun, for that matter. I didn't find that +3 club, or any good scimitars during my first run through the game, though the fire elemental summoning, nymph summoning, and insect swarm made her very useful. She made for a pretty lousy tank in SoA IMO, I don't know about Throne of Cheese, nor do I care about that BG-turned-Dragonball fiasco.

Jan Jansen *ROCKS*! Gnome multiclassed mages rock, as they are Illusionists. Maybe his spells are a level or 2 lower than other mages, but he gets more of them per level. Beats the crap out of Yoshimo anyways. He's all the thief you'll need for SoA, his skills are more than adequate as soon as you pick him up, and he can use magic to boot. If you like the sneaky thief thing, what could be better than a thief who can make himself invisible? Also, his spectroscopes protect against critical hits (game engine bug, any item worn in the head slot protects against critical hits), a less important consideration, but it's still another advantage he has over other thieves/mages. Not to mention that he's a hillarious character! Won't hear any complaints from me about Jan!

Has someone actually said that Viconia is a weak character? Since when? She has _65%_magic_resistance_! Even without that MR, she is a very powerful ally. As a single-classed cleric, she hits level 15 pretty quickly, skeleton warriors, anyone? I'm playing my third time through, with both Viconia and Aerie in my party. Viconia can memorize nearly double the amount of clerical spells that Aerie can, and she isn't many levels above Aerie. Not only that, but when she turns undead, she can actually charm them, so that they fight for your party. I can't say that this ability has been overly useful, but when combined with 65% MR and all of her spells, she's a very strong cleric, IMO.

I only ever had Valygar for the Planar Sphere quest. His crappy AC turned me off, but not as much as his uninspired voice acting. The reason I got rid of him though, was that there just wasn't a place in my party for another tank, and I don't use backstab. I hear he can become quite powerful though.

I tried Mazzy for a short while (oops, I said the "S" word!), she seemed to be very good for bow support. She had 4 attacks/round with the Tansheron's bow, and seemed to be able to make 30-40HP damage/round consistently. The shortbows in SoA are far superior to the longbows, as you can get Tansheron's bow fairly early, and most of the toughest baddies need +3 to hit, and with Tansheron's bow the arrows count as +3 to hit, unlike normal arrows, which when fired from a +4 bow still won't damage vampires and the like. Strength 15? has anyone noticed Mazzy's innate abilities? She can cast the strength spell upon herself (18/50), as well as hasting herself... those abilities aren't bad. She can also heal herself. Unfortunately, I was using her mostly as an archer, which was boring, and also she is a rather absurd character. She's a *hobbit* and she challenges an *ogre* to an unarmed wrestling match... ok... She is a force of righteousness and all that, and yet she lets a stupid ogre taunt her into fighting unarmed where she is clearly at a disadvantage... not a very smart force of righteousness, now is she? Or when she says to Aerie "I would much prefer your company to a man who would stoop so low as to help a halfling onto her horse". Well I suppose that it would be better just to attach a ladder to the saddle then? She's definitely a halfling with a chip on her shoulder, and perhaps a bit deluded?

Haer'Dalis is a butthead! Period. He's a moron, and I hate the way that he tries to be cool by trying to sound poetic. He needs a slap in the face. His whole troupe of bards are nothing but scoundrels. They trick you into murdering a mage and stealing that astral travelling stone. Yes, there is the peaceful way of doing the quest for the mage so that he will release Haer'Dalis, but you still must *steal* the stone from him. In his dialogue with Yoshimo where he tells Yoshimo something like "I have conned people before, and I know you are up to something", yeah, very true! He conned your party!

I don't play with Haer'Dalis because he is a self-centered jerk, not because of his abilities, which I am certain are more than adequate. I couldn't believe it when I heard that Aerie is so stupid that she falls in love with him and leaves the party with him, just because he flatters her with his bad poetry or something? Puh-lease! KILL HIM! The whole thing is screwy from the beginning too, since if you have Aerie in your party, at some point you will receive a message that her "uncle" Quayle will want to see you, and when you go to see him he begs you to go on the quest to rescue numbnuts. You can't avoid him! Kill Haer'Dalis! Kill Raelis Shai! I WILL CRUSH!

Imoen is a very decent character if you get her back early, I suppose. But that voice acting makes me cringe. "Maybe... it was because Bodhi was undead... or maybe... it's because I keep forgetting my lines and have to look at the script all the time..."

Yeah, so anyways, none of the NPCs truly sucks gameplay-wise, though Aerie's low HP and the fact that she doesn't really shine in anything could make her significantly weaker than the others, I guess, though as a backup cleric and mage she does quite well. As for Jaheira, I agree with the person who said she's strong in the beginning, but becomes somewhat crappy in the end. Lack of weapon choices makes her boring to play with too, IMO.

least fave character..

Anomen- he constantly dies, I use Jahiera instead as my cleric, (she is often my healer, and she does not to bad with fighting usually, she also has raise dead which is handy), He is also really wordy, seems to hate anything I decide or do, says I'm no good as a leader, complains how weak I am doing these mini quest compared to his "battles" and then gets me into trouble.


In my opinion all he did in my party is cause a nuincence. I'm sorry If you don't feel the same of if you think I am bieng too harsh but this is how I felt

Back to the subject of bad characters...


You could try an "only weapons" game. On insane mode. That definately increases the difficulty of the game.

Spam removed. Guys, if you want to start a discussion of something other than the topic, start a new thread.

The worst NPC??? Wow...that's a hard one...I'd say Yoshimo, since, despite being the game's only "pure" thief, he's just about useless, at least without working too hard on him...I can understand taking weak NPCs to have the "challenge", but Yoshi's just obnoxious!

I was going to vote for Nalia - the classes are too redundant with too many other players, but Cernd's stats are just too pathetic to be ignored. And I'm saying this as a person that loves to play druids!

Bear in mind, an NPC with inferior stats may prove a really good choice if you've played through the game once. They provide an extra challenge. They may even be a good choice the first time around, if you're strong on analysis and realize just how dumb the enemy AI is.

[QUOTE=Nimiety]I was going to vote for Nalia - the classes are too redundant with too many other players, but Cernd's stats are just too pathetic to be ignored. And I'm saying this as a person that loves to play druids! [/QUOTE]

Well, in caster-form, he should be hiding behind your tanks and summons anyway, and in werewolf form he gets a huge boost in stats, so his terrible 'melee' stats don't matter as much anymore...

I can`t stand Keldorn.He is this Paladin and only triying to make evil deeds trough what he sais that is "good".I know that he is quite strong but i don`t like his personality.Keldorn in closely followed by Mazzy,she is a Halfling warrior,and that is not for my taste at all.So i don`t know much about her personality because i never really tried to recruit her.I never recruit them to my team but i still vote for Keldorn.
But let`s not forget Joshimo.He is a traitor and he is weak too.I think that he talks funny,but i can`t stand him...It was a suprise that he was a traitor though.
Last,but not the least i think that Nalia is one of the most pointless charecters in the game.She just isn`t good for anything,but she is funny and i enjoy the personality.

I am not sure if this is the right thread to post some good charecters but i don`t want all the bad guys to take over:So i favor Edwin most.He is really funny and it is so cool how he talks to himself.Especially i like the Dark Elven Village text "A fireball down his throat.yes...maybe two..."That was just so funny when i heared it for the first time that i almost fall off my chair.Furthermore he is the best mage in the game...atleat in SOA because i haven`t played TOB yet.As you can see,i really like Edwin.

@Chekara: I don't think anyone really enjoy's Anomen's personality. Anomen wants to do good deeds just so that he will be recognized; he doesn't really care about helping people, IMO. Rich boys like him in Faerun can't buy fancy cars, so they need something else to show off with. I'm still trying to figure out how he got a strength rating over 18, as his strength is pretty close to that of a 9-foot-tall ogre. I somehow doubt that he has been working hard all of his life...

Didn't the female players of BG2 really get a raw deal, with Anomen being their only choice for a romantic interest?

@Tower_Master: I didn't use backstabbing much, and not too much trapping, and Yoshimo is a weak fighter, got injured too often in melee, so basically he was only used for disarming traps and opening locks, and as backup archer. The best thing about Yoshimo was that he made my choice of who to drop when I got Imoen back pretty easy...

@Nimiety: Nalia's 4 levels as thief don't hurt her maging abilities at all, AFAIK, the exp those 4 levels take is quite puny by BG2 standards. What it does do is enable her to use shortbows and shortswords, giving her a wider choice of weapons. I would imagine that her THAC0 is a bit lower too, not sure about a hitpoint boost. I don't really think of her as a thief at all, to me, she's basically the only single-class (exp not being split into 2 classes) mage you can get before getting Imoen back, who isn't evil. The only mage who is better at spellcasting than Nalia would be Edwin, but he is unsuited to good parties. Nalia is a great choice if your PC isn't a mage/sorc and you are playing on the side of "good". If you can stand her whining about the "less fortunate", that is.

About Cernd: It's not his stats that bother me, really, it's the fact that he can't wear armour. Doesn't he have a Wisdom of 18? A wisdom of 18 means having a lot of bonus spells, so I'm sure he'd do just fine as a healer. I don't take priests into my party for tanking. But then again, I think that Druids' levels cap off at 14 in SoA, so perhaps it would be better only to use him with ToB installed, unless you want a challenge.

@Lonelypilgrim: I didn't see the evil deeds that Keldorn was trying to make. Could you please provide some examples? I didn't exactly see him doing anything evil, though I did question his "lawful" alignment when he was willing to let those nutcases burn Viconia at the stake, without any proof of a crime being committed. His reaction did surprise me. Is your problem with Keldorn due to the fact that you believe he is doing evil deeds, or just that you feel that he is hiding under the guise of being "good"?

About Mazzy: I think that she has a bit of a Napoleon complex. She becomes offended by anything that draws attention to the fact that she is small, and tries to be big through her deeds. She seems to care about the state of the world, but still I think that she's trying to prove something. From a gameplay standpoint, she is the best NPC archer.