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fable wrote:So basically Minsc only has one thing to offer my parties.

Doesn't he get bonuses against an hereditary enemy, being a ranger?

Yes, he gets bonuses against Vampires (Uhh, how much can Minsc see into the future )

Well, this is my most recent party...

After finally beating the mind flayer area, I went and picked up Keldorn and later on, Edwin. I removed Korgan and Valygar from the party.
One question before, I saw that Valygar has the Priest scroll enabled, can he learn priest spells? What's the deal with him?.
I now have the "issue" with Minsc and Edwin as the latter always teases him and makes him angry. Will this go violent afterwards ?
My party's REP is now 17, will Edwin leave if it goes higher than this ?

Finally I have a good spell-caster on board, I'll see how it goes from here on...
BTW, if I don't pick up Edwin from the thieves guild, where can I find him later, if at all ?

Thanks !!

I'm not usually fond of goody-goody Paladin-types, but Keldorn can wield Carsomyr a +5 sword that dispells mage-buffs on hitting (and find/use Purifier). his dex is poor, so either potions of agility or gauntlets of DEX are needed to give him the AC he deserves. as an alternative, nip down to Watcher's Keep and get him his bracers for extra HP. Keldorn is good in places like WK and if you give him speed - he is a good smacker of naughty monsters.

Minsc - very funny to have in the party and less of a swot than Keldorn - his rages can be useful, but he hates Edwin - who killed his witch, Dynahir. If you want Edwin, you don't want Keldorn or Minsc in the party.

Valgyar - a bit bland on the character front - and I can't remember his conflicts (he's Good alignment) - but OK as a fighter. rangers get priest spells at particular levels - it is easy to forget and Minsc also gets them.

Korgan - annoying little runt with a big personality problem. has conflicts with most other NPCs, but if you have an evil party, then he would be a good choice as front-line tank.

Party Alignment Issues

I always used to stick with G/N parties and avoided Edwin and Viconia BUT there are quite a few neutrals - like Anomen and Jaheira who can get along with Evil characters. Viconia does not act evil, just a bit grouchy, but Korgan is probably a Neb in waiting.

Jaheira - at lower levels, her fighting seems a bit limited - but she is a true warrior-druid and get her levels to the 12/13 region and not only can she repair damage to the party, but she can summon and fight. I have her with the girdle of hill giant strength (19) and the sling of seeking which gets STR bonus which I use with +2 bullets and she is good artillery. very good.

Anomen - he may be a cleric, he may be miserable, but he does his job well. I have got him to lvl 15 which is in 'auto-explode' territory for many undead. he has the hammer of thunderbolts and gets stuck in to melee. before, his morale-failure has sometimes seemed a problem but at lvl 15 it just isn't happening like it was. a straight cleric who is advancing without multi- and he gets up there. his quests leave him becoming Sir Anomen and the extra point of wisdom is helpful.

Mazzy - I have sometimes had Mazzy in the party for a bit of a change. I can't say that I formed much impression of her, but recall that the tuigan bow suited her.

as for Spellcasters - Nalia is handy because of the thieving - she advances normally because her thief was dualled to mage. Aerie is high-maintenance emotionally, but her multi-class clerical abilities complement her mage ones at a higher level - skeletons, protected from evil, hasted and made invisible - by one person - that's handy. I like doing that to groups of gauth/beholders.
even better when they are skeleton warriors though. ogres work too.

Xandax wrote:Yes, he gets bonuses against Vampires (Uhh, how much can Minsc see into the future )

I think his racial enemy was determined by what happened to his witch, Dynaheir. In BG1, Dynaheir was taken captive by gnolls, so Minsc's racial enemy was gnolls. When we meet Minsc in BG2, he is enraged because Dynaheir was killed right in front of him, presumably by vampires (possibly Ulvaryl). That might be why his racial enemy changed to vampires. (Plus the fact that having him in your party gives you a little more edge over the vampires you fight in Chapter Three and Chapter Six.)

liorde wrote:One question before, I saw that Valygar has the Priest scroll enabled, can he learn priest spells? What's the deal with him?.

Rangers can cast 1st through 3rd Level Druid spells starting at 8th Level. That's a skill that is often overlooked or under-utilized. For example, Armor of Faith is a great spell for a tank.

By the way, Minsc has Stealth just like Valygar or any other Ranger, so he could scout if you wanted him to. Most people choose not to play him that way, but you could put that on his list of skills, too.

Good replies

Very helpful.
Trial & error I guess will have to be my guide.
Edwin is going to give me major headaches I think...
Next run through the game perhaps I will make my own characters.
I heard it is possible, I dont really like having pre-made characters on board.
If it is possible can someone please enahnce on this?

Thanks!

You basically enter multiplayer mode, and create/store characters in that fashion.

But I would urge you to try using the game NPCs, first. They are so well-written, and add so much flavor to BG2, with their party dialog, special items, comments in battle, and occasional attempts to take over decision-making. Well worth it. They're considered among the finest aspects of BG2.

Got a point there...

Just remembering Minsc say: "Don't teach my hamster to suck eggs..!" for whatever that means, makes me laugh.
Well, this is only my first time through the game, and definitely not the last.
I have made many mistakes here and I try to fix them as I go along. What fun would it be if I did everyting right... right ??

liorde wrote:Just remembering Minsc say: "Don't teach my hamster to suck eggs..!" for whatever that means, makes me laugh.

It's based on an old European folk saying, "Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs," which meant, "Don't you try to teach somebody something they've been doing for many, many years." Substituting hamster for grandmother is both funny in itself, and gives an inside into just how Minsc regards Boo's timeless wisdom. A very disturbing insight, I might add.

I'm still not convinced about Valygar, he has 3 useless spells, all the wrong proficiencies, bad racial enemy (compared to minsc) and his backstab is only 3x later on you'll be using greater whirlwinds which can do alot more dmg, therefore you won't be using his lame backstab past mid SoA if at all before that.
and whats more disturbing he can't use the best armour's.

Missles are'nt dangerous, haste is easly aquired as I tend to have 3 mages 2 with 5 casts of haste, 1 with 5 casts of slow so his extra few hastes are useless

now as for Minsc's rage, it is the worst rage in the game I'll give you that. it has two uses however; Vampires: equip him with MoD +2 rage preferably away from your party, and watch the carnage there is no better way to describe it. Secondly after Minsc got Kangaxx to his name whilst using MoD it also became clear to me that his rage has great anti-lich potential something valygar could never do.

and of course the deciding factor for me is personality, Minsc is simply fun Valygar is boring

Jedi_Sauraus wrote:I'm still not convinced about Valygar, he has 3 useless spells, all the wrong proficiencies, bad racial enemy (compared to minsc) and his backstab is only 3x later on you'll be using greater whirlwinds which can do alot more dmg, therefore you won't be using his lame backstab past mid SoA if at all before that.
and whats more disturbing he can't use the best armour's.

Missles are'nt dangerous, haste is easly aquired as I tend to have 3 mages 2 with 5 casts of haste, 1 with 5 casts of slow so his extra few hastes are useless

now as for Minsc's rage, it is the worst rage in the game I'll give you that. it has two uses however; Vampires: equip him with MoD +2 rage preferably away from your party, and watch the carnage there is no better way to describe it. Secondly after Minsc got Kangaxx to his name whilst using MoD it also became clear to me that his rage has great anti-lich potential something valygar could never do.

and of course the deciding factor for me is personality, Minsc is simply fun Valygar is boring

Spells: He's a more useful than Minsc's. It should be easy to agree on that. He has more choices on which to cast and can cast more.

Profeciencies: Wow!! You think katanas are useless? One of the two best weapons in SoA possibly ToB as well is a katana.

Backstab: Just try it. With the aforementioned katana there's a good chance that the poor mage is either dead or stunned. Before battle has even started.

Racial Enemy: Really that doesn't worry me very much. It's a very minor advantage if you ask me.

Armours: Already said it: There's some great armours that Valygar can use and if Minsc want's to use anything better he has to sacrifice his ability to sneak. Besides, Valygar has better dexterity.

Misiles: You need to try using Mazzy. Anyway misiles is the fastest way to attack a caster for someone without spells. That's useful.

Kangaxx:So many other foes than Kangaxx. And since we all know he's there anyone can come up with a tactic to easily beat him.

Vampires: Just about anyone with the Amulet of Power and a good anti undead weapon is great against vampires.

Personality: A matter of taste.

Bottom line: If you can't make Valygar be very effective then you need to go over your strategies. I stand by my opinion that Minsc is just about the weakest tank in the game. Still if you want a tank he's plenty good enough. But just about any of the others could do better.

Anyway this is silly for me to discuss since all a tank really needs to be able to do in my games is to be able to withstand damage. Most things are killed by my arcane casters anyway. And this being the case my very favourite tanks are Jaheira and Haer'Dalis. Just about nothing beats a tank with Stone/Iron Skin.

depends how you look at it, yes that Katana is good but we will also agree I think that FoA + Belm is the better combo

Spells: I only ever use armour of faith. And IIRC there's no bonus at wisdom 14 either way I always have more than enough AoF for any hard encounter. and as I also mentioned unless you take only 1 arcane caster you will always have enough haste (which affects the whole party) the other Stalker specific spells are debateable at best but IMHO not usefull

with enough time Valygar can also specialize in maces/flails but for SoA this makes Minsc slightly better. Though the Katana Belm combo is nice, a slight + goes to minsc.

Kangaxx: I disagree that he's easy....... unless you resort to cheese like setting traps where he appears. I tend to roleplay meaning up until I'm betrayed I consider the golden skull a wrongfully imprisoned neutral. meaning no buffs before the fight. it all depends on what strategy you consider acceptable from the cheese standpoint. My standards in that regard are avg/ high.

backstab: never really tried it but how usefull could +3 really be ?? eitherway it becomes obsolete as soon as you get greater whirlwind. If you sneak up to someone will you do more dmg with a 3x backstab or 10 attacks?? espescially if you consider that unlike a thief, rangers have no weapon restrictions so potentially useing crom to do this.

armour wise: no diffrence in ToB where everything hits you anyway but better armour for Minsc all through SoA best leather is only a +1 AC

the only real diffrence is the +2 in dex valygar has over Minsc giving him a bit more AC which is easly countered by Minsc's better armour, which can also have other net benifits aside from the AC

after reading all your arguements, my conclusions are as follows

They are essentialy the same in the long run, but minsc will make chapter 2 alot easier. by chapter 6 the proficiencies will be the same.

I however will always choose Minsc for his personality, or rather for having a personality to begin with. GO for the eye's boo however if you hate his voice set and need a ranger valygar can be an acceptable choice

liorde wrote:After finally beating the mind flayer area, I went and picked up Keldorn and later on, Edwin. I removed Korgan and Valygar from the party.
One question before, I saw that Valygar has the Priest scroll enabled, can he learn priest spells? What's the deal with him?.
I now have the "issue" with Minsc and Edwin as the latter always teases him and makes him angry. Will this go violent afterwards ?
My party's REP is now 17, will Edwin leave if it goes higher than this ?

Finally I have a good spell-caster on board, I'll see how it goes from here on...
BTW, if I don't pick up Edwin from the thieves guild, where can I find him later, if at all ?

Thanks !!

Edwin will, in fact, leave if your rep goes above 17 (although once you get to ToB, that changes- he won't leave, he'll just complain). Also, you're going to have problems at some point between Minsc and Edwin, and iirc Keldorn and Edwin will also get into a fight.

SSoG wrote:Edwin will, in fact, leave if your rep goes above 17 (although once you get to ToB, that changes- he won't leave, he'll just complain). Also, you're going to have problems at some point between Minsc and Edwin, and iirc Keldorn and Edwin will also get into a fight.

Unless you install the Happy Patch that is included in the Ease of Use mod, which I highly recommend.

Jedi_Sauraus wrote:depends how you look at it, yes that Katana is good but we will also agree I think that FoA + Belm is the better combo

Spells: I only ever use armour of faith. And IIRC there's no bonus at wisdom 14 either way I always have more than enough AoF for any hard encounter. and as I also mentioned unless you take only 1 arcane caster you will always have enough haste (which affects the whole party) the other Stalker specific spells are debateable at best but IMHO not usefull

with enough time Valygar can also specialize in maces/flails but for SoA this makes Minsc slightly better. Though the Katana Belm combo is nice, a slight + goes to minsc.

Kangaxx: I disagree that he's easy....... unless you resort to cheese like setting traps where he appears. I tend to roleplay meaning up until I'm betrayed I consider the golden skull a wrongfully imprisoned neutral. meaning no buffs before the fight. it all depends on what strategy you consider acceptable from the cheese standpoint. My standards in that regard are avg/ high.

backstab: never really tried it but how usefull could +3 really be ?? eitherway it becomes obsolete as soon as you get greater whirlwind. If you sneak up to someone will you do more dmg with a 3x backstab or 10 attacks?? espescially if you consider that unlike a thief, rangers have no weapon restrictions so potentially useing crom to do this.

armour wise: no diffrence in ToB where everything hits you anyway but better armour for Minsc all through SoA best leather is only a +1 AC

the only real diffrence is the +2 in dex valygar has over Minsc giving him a bit more AC which is easly countered by Minsc's better armour, which can also have other net benifits aside from the AC

after reading all your arguements, my conclusions are as follows

They are essentialy the same in the long run, but minsc will make chapter 2 alot easier. by chapter 6 the proficiencies will be the same.

I however will always choose Minsc for his personality, or rather for having a personality to begin with. GO for the eye's boo however if you hate his voice set and need a ranger valygar can be an acceptable choice

One last post and I'm done.

Celestial Fury up against Flail of Ages: I said I thought it was one of the two best weapons FoA the other. Which one is better? Debatable. Besides I think it's a bit out of character to have Minsc not wield a large two handed weapon. Silly maybe but this is important to me.

Haste: Having Valygar cast it means my arcane casters have one more damaging spell. Since I kill most things with spells this is an advantage.

Kangaxx: I have yet to hear of a single person that have killed him without resorting to cheese. And from what I heard of your way you also use what I consider cheese. Unless you're telling me all your other characters aren't hiding in a corner while one character that's immune to all the demi-lich attacks take him out then I consider your way serious cheese. Your not taking any risk. However I don't feel too bad about it because I think that Kangaxx is cheesy as hell himself. Why? Only one character has to be imprisoned for me to have lost. Even if I equip all my NPC's with Freedom scrolls and have them drink enough potions of genius to be able to use them if my protagonist is imprisoned no one will think to use the scroll. Not even someone who's in love with my protagonist. Also if I'm doing a romance and the partner get's imprisoned there's a good chance she/he forgets about it.

Armour: Best armour for Valygar in SoA is AC=1. Taking into account his better dexterity that's AC=-1. Best armour for Minsc in SoA is AC=-2. Too little for me to want to sacrifise his ability to sneak over it.

Backstab: It's not +3 it's x3. Opening up a battle with a big boss monster by doing around 50 point's of damage, and possibly stunning it, in one go is not useless. And it's usefull agains many more enemies than just Kangaxx. Also if you haven't tried it you should. I've seen even Jan making enemy mages explode with a simple +3 short sword...

And my conclusion remains. Minsc will actually only have an edge over Valygar until you give Valygar a strength-enhancer. From then on and till the end of ToB Valygar will be more useful and versatile. And I'm done.

Just a second here...

You guys talk a lot about those patches, MOD's whatever...
I have none of these installed. I have the stock game as it was released on the DVD collection of all BG games. Are these MOD's recommended? I think better if I play the game the way it was intended by the designers, don't you guys think ?
What is FoA, Belm, are these codes ??
Who is the much talked about Kangaxx?
Can Keldorn be a dual-weapon weilder like a ranger? Will he be good at this?

Thank-you.

liorde wrote:You guys talk a lot about those patches, MOD's whatever...
I have none of these installed. I have the stock game as it was released on the DVD collection of all BG games. Are these MOD's recommended? I think better if I play the game the way it was intended by the designers, don't you guys think ?

Just the latest patch and the baldurdash fixpack or the Gibberlings3 one. That's all that's actually recommended

liorde wrote:What is FoA, Belm, are these codes ??

Some really nice weapons you can get. FoA is an acronym for Flail of Ages.

liorde wrote:Who is the much talked about Kangaxx?

If you search the docks district thouroughly you'll find out. Save before entering houses where you don't know what to find.

liorde wrote:Can Keldorn be a dual-weapon weilder like a ranger? Will he be good at this?

Thank-you.

He could easily do well but you'd need to spend some points on the Two-Weapons proficiency and there's a really nice paladins only two-handed sword available so most people don't use him like that.

@ Onkel Bob when I wrote backstab as +3 I meant x3 later on in the same post I refer to backstab correctly as x3. to Illustrate my point on BS being useless, consider 2 situations, #1 use valygar/minsc to sneak up to an enemy mage and backstab get x3 dmg or #2 sneak up to an enemy mage and let lose a greater whirlwind. the math should be really simple plug in any value of x and your comparing 3x vs 9x (assuming for arguements sake that 1 in 10 times you'll miss). Furthermore in 10 hits your also more likely to trigger nasty on striking effects such as stun or slow. Also when making a valid arguement you have to compare 2 identical situations, you said that Jan gets 50dmg per backstab and chunks mages, all well and good but it's not fair to compare Jan's 5x backstab to Valygars pansy 3x and just to clarify I don't consider backstabbing useless, I consider Valygars backstab useless. if I wanted to backstab I'd make an assasin/mage those are quite deadly

oh and on a completely diffrent note when faceing Kangaxx my party is not in a corner, it is spread out but not far apart and close to the liches spawn. if my mage casts a haste from the center of the party most if not all of my party members will receive the Bonus. and also I don't consider sending out a heavly buffed char to battle even when he is almost immune to the attacks of the enemy. the only thing I consider cheese is exploiting the engine, fake talk cloudkilling dragons off screen shooting through doors ect if a dungeon master would allow it it's ok with me

@Jedi_Sauraus

Actually the 50 points was refering to Valygar. I just tried to put it into perspective by pointing out that even a weakling like Jan can make it useful. Besides comparing it to something you'll only get in SoA if you use a small party or if you take on the Watcher's Keep doesn't seem fair to me. And Valygar can use Whirlwind as well.

yep I know no issues here but I get GWW about mid way through SoA depends on your play style I tend to do every possible quest aside from watchers keep (which I do after saradush ToB) before heading out after Imoen I get my first HLA's either late fish city or sometime in the underdark while questing.

Hehe All your arguments for BS makes me want to create an Assasin/mage but I just started a Paladin and am enjoying him oh well next playthrough

cheers

Jedi_Sauraus wrote:

Oh and like already said I prefer Haer'Dalis as a tank. My ranking of Npc's capable of being use in a tank-like fashion would be like this:

1: Haer'Dalis
2: Jaheira
3-5: Anomen, Keldorn & Korgan
6-7: Mazzy & Valygar
8-9: Minsc & Sarevok

I wrote it up that way because I'm not entirely sure where Anomen, Keldorn and Korgan should be relatively, same with Mazzy and Valygar and Minsc and Sarevok respectively.

Anyway that list is entirely subjective and I'm not even going to defend it. Besides I think we have done enough hi-jacking of this thread.