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I know that my reply is a bit tardy on this somewhat old thread, but ...

I've always been a fan of Nalia, simply for being the closest thing to a good-aligned pure-ish mage. I've always ignored her thief levels and just was happy that she could use a shortbow, rather than getting stuck with darts, or a sling.

However, the NPC Kitpack mod over at G3 adjusts a number of the official NPCs to slightly better repretentations of what they "should" be. And included in this is tweaking Nalia (and Imoen) to being Adventurer-kit (additional thieving skill points & no backstabbing) thieves dualed to mages. And while I haven't seen how Imoen's skill points were re-apportioned, Nalia's thieving skill points are well adjusted towards Find/Remove Traps and Open Locks... enough so that Nalia is sufficient to dealing with most traps and locks. It doesn't hurt to have her carry some potions of perception and Master thievery, for dealing with those tougher traps and locks.

For the most part, I found that this mod made Nalia good enough for traps and locks in SoA, at least prior to heading to Spellhold. I'd gather that Imeon, having more thieving levels would probably be even better in this regard.

Of course, if you're looking for a more hardcore thief, not just a traps and locks specialist, you'll need to look elsewhere.

Lark wrote: Protect Aerie with Stoneskin all the time, that should take care of any surprises by annoying thieves.

Best regards,
Lark

Amen. I play sorcerer PCs or magic-heavy parties mostly. Stoneskin and Mislead contingencies are absolute essentials. I'd rather give up the Staff of the Magi or even the Robe of Vecna than make a SoA/ToB run without either of those 2 spells

I'm a little late chiming in on this party as well, but just HAD to say something about Nalia. Next to Minsc she is probably my favorite NPC. If I don't play a mage or mage combo, she will be in my party. Even if I do she still might be. I too like how quickly she rises in level and even if my PC is a mage/sorceror she will be at least equal. Two arcane casters is devastating. On the down side, with her mediocre wisdom, you need to have a good supply of potions of insight (at last!! a use for those wretched things) , if you want her to cast a decent limited wish spell.

If you complete all of the quests and side quests before going to Spellhold, Nalia will be pretty potent. Imoen will be at least 2 or 3 levels behind her (how does Imoen even get to 11th level while in Spellhold anyhow? "scratch head" ) So to keep Imoen on par with the party, you have to wait on a lot of the quests and side quests until you get back. That's a lot of neat and/or helpful items that need to be left behind. Either that or just accept that Imoen will be behind.

Nalia does have poor thief skills, but she is a very potent mage. The few theief levels she has does not hurt her advancement and allows her to use differetn weapons than your pure mages. I am currently playing a six mage party and it is pretty fun. Nalia due to her special ring has a good AC and functions well as a good fighter. The shortsword which gives haste is a good early pick. She also comes with the spell PROJECTED IMAGE like Jan does meaning you don't need a scroll to give her ethis spell. This way your first couple of projected image scrolls can go to yourself and Edwin. Aerie has Similucrum I think which is great with the Staff of Thunder. I am a little weirded out by the general dislike of Aerie. She has more spells than Edwin! She fills the cleric role (like Jan fills the thief role) so you can run a mage full party. She gets Slay Living while you are still trying to get enough exp to get sixth level spells. She can raise dead, etc. Despite her low HP, I find she is an excellent secondary fighter. Spiritual Hammer is awesome early on. She has a spell which raises her HP by 1 per level and gives her fighters thaco. I would say that Aerie is the third most potent character in the game if not teh second, depending upon how you rate here and Edwin. Yourself as a wildmage is obviously tops.

A currently move in the wedge formation (prior to Imoen) with Jaheira at the point and Aerie and NAria on her flanks with Jan, Myself, and Edin in the rear.

Limitedwhole, I never really liked Aerie all that much, in spite of always playing good parties. To be honest, the biggest problem that I had was that I never had a slot for her in my parties. I'd always take Nalia and would always rescue my "sister" Imoen, so I didn't need a 3rd mage in my party. And I'd often have Anomen in my party cuz he's frankly a much better tank and cleric than Aerie.

However, in the party before my most recent one, I was forced to use Aerie as my only cleric, due to circumstances largely beyond my control. (Anomen walked out on my female PC whom he was romancing, after killing Saerk, and I'd had to dump Jaheira, due to an annoying and unplayable game bug. And I didn't want to have an evil cleric, Viconia, in my party.) While Aerie turned out to be a useful character, I was always having to be extremely cautious with her because she was my *only* healer. IIRC, party consisted of my Ftr/Thief PC, Keldorn, Mazzy, Aerie, Nalia, and eventually Imoen. To be honest, this party felt too weak for my tastes in the tank department, particularly in the final battles of TOB, where offensive spellcasting isn't quite as useful as in other parts of the game. Still, Aerie held her own, once she was properly equipped (the Mauler's Arm mace is an absolute must-have item for Aerie in SoA to give her a usable STR when she'd forced into melee).

I guess that a lot of my dislike/distrust of Aerie has come down to my playing style. I tend to prefer somewhat melee heavy parties, and like to have everyone by my mages to be very capable tanks. But I have a hard time thinking of Aerie as a "capable tank".



Regarding Nalia, when you're looking at NPCs who will have MILLIONS of XP over the course of SoA and ToB, thinking of 4 levels of thief which required a piddling 5,000 XP as making Nalia a "horrible Thief/Mage" is just silly. She's a Mage who essentially took a night course in basic theiving skills. Also, as I note above, if you use G3's NPC Kitpack mod that tweaks a number of the official BG2 NPCs, Nalia and Imoen will have their thieving skills tweaked to be more efficient for Mage/Thieves, and will get the "Adventurer" thief kit, which gives some skill point bonuses, exchange for losing backstabbing, which neither should be even considering anyways. I played my entire previous party with this particular mod installed (among others) and found that Nalia was a surprisingly effective traps & locks thief for most of SoA, and anything that Nalia couldn't handle, Imoen absolutely could.

I never said Aerie was a "capable tank", I said she was a good scondary fighter.

Five trolls spied with wizard's eye. Cast Web and CLoud spell. One troll slips through. Jahera tanks. Nalia flanks. Aerie casts spiritual hammer and flanks. Dead troll. Second troll slips through. Repeat. Three die in cloud. Net spell use.

1 Web, 1 Cloud, 1 Spiritual hammer.

Righteous magic anyone?

on Aerie

Aerie starts off pretty weak, but you can get the belt of fortitude fairly early, which boosts her HP. If you buy her Mauler's Arm, she's then a medium-skill fighter.
However - it is later in the game that she can shine a bit - combining clerical and magic, she can have excellent contingencies and spell-triggers and her buffing is pretty good. the various transformations can beef her up too.

my problem if that she is 'needy' and gets the hump with Jaheira - J has some pretty useful battle-ground druidic spells AND she gets competent as a fighter - give her Belm off-hand and Spectral Brand right hand and she can sever a few limbs in a fight. she's also good artillery if you use a girdle plus the sling of seeking. I usually start her with insect plague or entangle then let her sling her hook.

when Aerie does that area-effect battle-mage bit, she gives it web, stinking cloud and cloudkill - to disable then hurt. if you haven't got a girdle, she can use 'strength' to improve STR, but she's not as good artillery as Jaheira.

Aerie depends on spells and equipment to survive encounters that Jaheira would get through much easier - often needing to rest to restore Aerie is wearing, but played the right way, she can be very effective. saying that, she is inherently a low HP character and area-effects can finish her off, unlike either Jaheira and Nalia.

pro-Aerie : can combine clerical and magical in one NPC
con-Aerie : HP, slower gaining high level spells, physically weak, blunt weapons only. needs to be protected from level drain.

Nalia starts off as a weak dualled thief/mage, but becomes a strong mage with a few extra HP & thieving abilities & greater weapon choice.

Jaheira - starts off using druidic powers as party healer, gets reasonable level of combat spells and becomes a mid-order fighter. the limited weapon choice is annoying at times, but staves, scimiters and sling can be OK.

a bit tardy here as well but this does surprise me as nalia was in my party as well. i basically linger around so long that getting imoen would be MIA for too long so nalia became the replacement... and yes, her trap finding skills were handy as i hate wasting spell slots on detect traps and stuff and my only other option was to (assuming im a mage) run my familiar in front of me.

I never used Aerie ( i don't like her face to begin with) but I do enjoy Nalia. She's a good wizard though I admit that I mainly use her at first to feeblemind dragons. Her thief skills aren't that great but with some potions and a knock spell we get by. I keep trying to get rid of Imoen but she keeps telling me she doesn't think its a good idea for her to leave the party
True, Nalia is a bit..well. A bit peculiar at first, but she does get better over time. I never pair her with Jaheira in my team though ( i never keep jaheira if I can help it) since Jaheira's 'i know better than all of you' attitude triples when Nalia is around. I was absolutely in stitches though when suddenly, late in the game, Nalia turned to Minsc and they began a conversation about the pros and cons of owning a hamster when living as a force of good. So I keep her most of the time.

Plus, I like torturing Isaea.

If you expect Nalia to be a superthief, you'll be severely disappointed. She's only got four thief levels and that won't change. The way to think of Nalia, is as a Mage with some nice rogue perks. She gets a small HP boost from her rogue levels and give her a shortbow (tuigan bow) and a shortsword and she can do some damage. Nothing huge, but it makes those fights where you want to save spells go by a bit easier. Her thief skills aren't good, but down some master thievery potions and she should be able to get through that chest you NEED opened or disable that instant-death trap, so that's again pretty useful. However, Imoen IS better, and I believe the gamedesigners did that deliberately.

The reason why you don't see her in party threads is probably just because she's annoying to have around. Very naive and she's a bit of a spoiled rich girl who wants to rebel, quite immature. I wonder if sending her in against the baalor alone would scare some sense into her.