GameBanshee Forums

I recently ran into trouble with my dualed kensei/druid. I tried to find some info in the forum here, but it's all contradictory, and I ended up even more confused than I was before. So here is the problem:

I'm playing a human kensei(lvl9)/druid, and revently cleared the de Arnise keep. For roleplaying purposes, however, I don't want the warrior stronghold, but the druid one. But when Nalia asked me to take care of her keep, all options resulted in either me accepting the keep (not good, since I wouldn't be able to get the druid grove, as far as I know) or in me refusing and Nalia leaving the party (just as bad, since I really want to keep her).

I read somewhere that a dualed PC can only have the stronghold of his first class. Is that true? If it is, my game is screwed anyway, and I don't have to bother about it anymore.

If it is not, does anyone know how I can combine the following points:
- be a kensei/druid
- get the druid grove
- have nalia in my party
- not use any cheats or mods

For instance, could this possibly work?
If I dual-classed, and then cleared the keep while my kensei lvls are still inactive, would Nalia not accept me as a warrior, and just leave with my group? And would I get the grove later on? The problem is that, from what I have read here, you have to be lvl 14 to get the grove, so it's not easy to test whether something works or not.

Hmmm, I would think that you should be able to keep Nalia even if you don;t have the Keep as a stronghold. I beleive that the key is to make sure that she doesn't ask you to be the Lord of the keep. So you have to chose the right dialog path early on, in other words don't ask her what she really wants to ask you when she stops and you get all the choices. I'm not sure however because the Keep is my favorite stronghold and I always take it with my fighter types.

No, I've tried all dialogue options. I either have to accept the keep or she leaves.

I think it's possible to start the keep quest (you have to within a certain time frame of course) but then leave the keep before finishing the quest. I think as long as Nalia has had her conversation with Daleson after entering the keep the timer stops. If this is true then the simple option is to leave finishing the keep until after completing the Trademeet/Druid's Grove Quest.

Hopefully someone else will confirm or contradict me on this, but you could test it out for yourself. Make a test save; enter the keep, talk with Daleson, leave. Travel back and forth between Watcher's Keep and Athkatla or somewhere to pass a lot of time, if she complains and threatens to leave I was wrong.

Did some research and I couldn't find anything difinitive. Weird that she would abandon the Keep to the Roenals if your not a fighter and stay with your group but remain to take care of family responsabilities if you are a fighter and turn down her offer. It doesn't make sense but that doesn't mean that snot how they wrote it.

You could run off and do the Druid grove first or install multiple strongholds.

Thank you all for the hints. Unfortunately, I can't just take the druid stronghold and then clear the keep, because the druid quests start only at lvl 14.

But I noticed something interesting. I cleared the grove with my paladin, and had Jaheira fight Faldorn. After that, when I talked to the new archdruid, he would ask whether there is anyone willing to challenge him. The only dialogue option was (of course) "No, there is no one". But when I quickly cleared the grove with my kensai/druid and killed Faldorn, my dialogue option said "Not yet". So what's this? Does this mean I'll be able to take on the archdruid when I hit lvl 14, even though I already have the keep?

EDIT: No, it doesn't. I just cheated myself to lvl 14, but I still "don't feel ready", appearently. And since I have no savegame from before I killed Tor'Gal, I'll probably have to start again from scratch. Great.

Argh, if this weren't about one of the weakest classes of BG2, but about the famous kensei/mage, everyone would know about it.

Why the obsession with Nalia, do you have the D'Arnisse romance mod running?

No, it's just the way I'd like to play the campaign.

Anyway, I managed. I kicked her out of the party, met her at the copper coronet and cleared the druid grove. Then I went back to the keep to finish the quest and get my reward. Since I already joined the grove, I wasn't offered the keep.

By the way, there's some false information on this forum:
- Dual-classed characters are NOT restricted in the choice of their stronghold (like they can only get the stronghold of their first class or such)
- The quests at the druid stronghold do NOT start at lvl 14, but as soon as you join the druids.

You have to have the keep to romance Nalia!

Galraen I beleive your right about talking to Dalson turning off the timer to do the keep.

- The quests at the druid stronghold do NOT start at lvl 14, but as soon as you join the druids.

I thought that was the case, but you seem so convinced and I wasn't so I didn't risk blundering (again!). Thanks for the confirmation.

a) Interesting - I did not think you could make a kensai/druid - not without using SK.
b) If you have TOB installed with all the patches - once you decide not to take the Keep and Nalia leaves - just go back and pick her up again. I played it that way after finding out that the latest patches disables the ability to get 2 strongholds. And Nalia is part of my team again.

How is it playing a kensai/druid - is it overpowered? Considering the huge XP needed for a druid is it a viable combination to play? What level kensai are you when you dueled to a druid?

Sensei wrote:a) Interesting - I did not think you could make a kensai/druid - not without using SK.
b) If you have TOB installed with all the patches - once you decide not to take the Keep and Nalia leaves - just go back and pick her up again. I played it that way after finding out that the latest patches disables the ability to get 2 strongholds. And Nalia is part of my team again.

How is it playing a kensai/druid - is it overpowered? Considering the huge XP needed for a druid is it a viable combination to play? What level kensai are you when you dueled to a druid?

a) Why not? It's a legitime class combination (Jaheira is a multiclassed fighter/druid, after all). The thing is just that you need rather high stats to do it: 15 in strength, 17 in wisdom and charisma.
b) I admit I didn't try. She just wished my all the best and left, without hinting that she'd return to the Copper Coronet. From the dialogue, it sounded more like she would marry Isaea Roenal.

My kensai was lvl 9 when I dualed to druid. Since druids level extremely fast in the beginning, I got my kensai lvls back in no time. And yes, it's overpowered, although probably not as much as kensai/mage. In difficult fights, throw in a barkskin, mavbe an iron skin, add to that the regeneration ring "borrowed" from Ribald, and the penalties from being a kensei aren't worth talking about. Plus all those other nice druid spells (sometimes I ask myself how I ever managed to progress without insect pleagues). I don't yet know how severely the slower progression in the later lvls will hurt him, but I guess he will still be powerful enough.
I guess I should say that this is a former BG1 character, with all those nice stat-increasing books, granting him a natural 19 strength and 21 wisdom. But personally, I think kensai/anything is just too powerful to be interesting. It always hurts my roleplaying when I remember that I'm playing an uber class. I remember playing a kensai/rogue in the past, who killed Firkraag almost by himself, while the rest of his party was just trying in vain to land a hit on the dragon. Mono-classes are just more interesting, I'd say, and I'm looking forward to seeing how my barbarian will do. Dual-wielding two +3 axes with elemental damage almost since the start of the game should be overpowered enough, no?

Barbarians are pretty easy to play as well. They get either 20 or 25 % resistance to all physical damage somewhere around level 20 so if you give them DoE as one of their weapons and use hardiness your at around 80% resistance to all physical damage plus you've got great imunities when you use your rage.