GameBanshee Forums

OK.... NOw my actual party is
-Me (shapeshifter)
-keldorn
-viconia(i use the happy script)
-jaheira
-yoshimo(gonna switch for Imoen when i get her back)
Now I dont know what should my sixth member be...Jan,Valigar or Korgan??
What do u think?

P.S And PLEASE dont say Aerie. I'm sick and tired of her...

Minsc? I dunno. Someone beefy, anyway.

If you want to be strong, take Korgan. If you want to be weak, go for Jan. Valygar - middle ground but definitely more on the strong side.

Actually, what the jaker meant to say is if you want to be a regular player of bg2, take korgan. if you want to cheese it big time, take jan.

I can't beleive how nasty jan can be.

use mislead, and lead false image away from jan. send real jan with kundane in one hand, and either scarlet ninja to or belm in the other. I am not sure whether ninja to belongs to katana or scimitar prof, jaust make sure he has prof in correct weapon. have him cast imp haste befoer all this. now backstab. if mislead is really as fast a shutter effect invisibility as every one claims, multiple backstabs should be possible.

Aerie?

I Keldorn weilding the Avenger, because if he doesn't take Korgan, but if he is take aerie because you don't have any magic!!

Let me write that last reply again!
If Keldorn isn't weilding the Avenger, then take Korgan for some tanking, but if he is, than take Aerie for some magic

Take Aerie, while you journey together she can tell you about her people, herself, her wings and the eternal pain she endures, which she'll be only too happy to share with you.

Take Aerie

ARGG! not again...well every1 seem to apreciate Aerie

...yeah yeah shes great but god I've never ever had a worse companion since...well since never she's the most anoying npc in BG1,TotSC,SoA and ToB (never tried Sarevok but I'm sure he's more endurable than her)

*in the middle of a battle*
Aerie : Ohhh Jaheira the sun on your hair makes them look pretty...

Well, your crew kinda could use a lil magic but if you hate Aerie take Edwin...hes kinda mean but hes not to shabby from what i heard.

Valygar ALLLL the way. He's absolutely brutal with the Impaler +3, everyhit is at least 20 damage. Probably get more kills than my kensai/mage if given the chance. Plus he can backstab (although not with the Impaler) and he's a damn good archer as well.

Seeing how you have Keldorn in your party and he's the only paladin available to you, it's really not a good idea to get Korgan, because sooner or later they get into a slap fight.

Valygar also gets great proficiencys right out of the can, Katana++, Spear++, Long Bow++, really all you need to do is give him two slots in Two-Handed Weapon for the Impaler, doubling his chances for criticals. Total killing machine.

Korgan has waay to many slots wasted in the axe. There's very little reason to go over 2 points for any weapon in BG2, and absolutely no reason to go over 3 points.

You might also want to give Anomen a consideration, give him the Crom Faeyr and you can pretty much forget about any of you other characters getting a kill again. But you get that so late in the game and his WIS is so poor in the beginning and only adequate after his test, it's a tough choice, add that to the fact that you already have Viconia as a cleric.

Hrm, I just realized that you have absolutely NO mages of any kind...I got shapeshifter confused with illusionist. Still I'd take Valygar anyways and kick Jaheira out since you're already a druid and Jaheira's fighting skill is trash and her casting skill is garbage. Keep in mind that you can only kick her out of your group once, if you kick her out a second time, she leaves for good.

[ 09-19-2001: Message edited by: Yuusuke ]

Ok...after some toughts i decided that my final party should be (drum roll..) :

-Csadar(Me) *Shapeshifter*
-Keldorn(My main tank with Holy Avanger)
-Valigar
-Viconia (I'll romance her instead of Jaheira)
-Jan (sorry Jan hater but I love him )
-Imoen (for roleplaying sake plus she a good mage)


So that's it I think ill do pretty well both in SoA and ToB. I heard that you can do some pretty neat tricks with Jan plus (I never get tired of saying that) he the best Npc I ever had! As for Jaheira well you are right she sucks, period. I only kept her cuz shes with me till the beginning and all...(I'm a big sentimental )

Aerie is the best....

quitch, I am signing you up as a member of the aerie fan club...

I have discovered I get the most impatient with inept chars in the game, I kept being disapointed by minsc becasue of his sucky arrior skills. I think yuusuke has a point, tho. 2 profs is really all you need for a secondary wep, but 3 is the best selection for primary. you get that wonderful increase in attack speed, and this is where minsc and keldy is sucky. besides, with tob installed, jan can use holy avenger for you, for hte dispell magic effect.

I personally prefer remove magic, or a nice inc. cloud. always seems to work for me.

well, my next party will include jan for cheese...

and I am one of the most vocal jan haters around!

well, his amazing ability is really the reason I will put up with turnip jokess, and except maybe for viccy, only jan can get from aerie a whole body blush....

Ack nooo! I don't want to hear anything about TOB yet...I think I'll go and buy that today, to cut down the risk of hearing more about it before I actually play it

And sorry UserFriendly but Jan is kick ass. He has some of the greatest scripts in the game. They true key to appreciating Jan is not listening to what HE says, that's where alot of people get caught up and end up hating Jan. But to truly appreciate having Jan in your party is to watch the REACTION of the other NPCs to what he says.

Here's a few good ones:
Jan with Hear'Dalis, these guys were just made for each other.
Jan and Mazzy, great fun.
Jan with Minsc.
And Jan with Yoshimo.

As to the speed boost...there's no attack speed increase at 3 slots is there? I thought the third slot is THAC0 and the fourth was the speed boost. Unless there was a change in ToB...but wait...I don't want to know about that yet...well it's okay, since it's not plot or character related.

@Csadar:

Congrats on your good choise of NPCs in the end. Contrary to Yuusuke, I'd recommend a weapon suitable for backstabbing instead of a spear for Valygar. If you still want a two handed weapon, go for a staff.

Could be 4, I actually think its 3, right?

one for proficient, 2 for specialized, 3 for mastery, 4 for high mastery 5 for grand, right?

What ever will give you the speed bonus.

that extra speed is so nice, and as for the damage increase due to grand mastery, they are simply not worth it, cause there are so MANY nice whack tools in the game, you're actually better off giving lorgy high mastery in axe, via shadow keeper, and spreading the points in two handed or halberd.

My fighters are giant swiss army knives, with blades for every enemy type.

As far as I know, Keldorn and Viconia might come to blows.

The way I see with going for the Impaler for Valygar vs a backstabable (not a word, I'm sure) weapon is his backstab multiplier is only 3x. And in order to backstab more than once, you'll have to run him around the corner or keep drinking invis poitions after every backstab. You might only get 3 or 4 backstabs done at 3x even in a long fight.

But with specialized in Two Handed Weapons you get double the chances for a critical hit (which I believe are 2x damage), plus he can spend more time doing regular attacks that do 1x damage. With the time you spend getting him to go around a corner, hiding, and coming back for a backstab, you can get probably 3 regular attacks out of him without boots of speed. And each of those attacks have double the chances of being a critical hit. Plus it never hurts to have an extra pointy stick jabbing the ribs of mages to keep them from casting spells during the thick of combat. And it cuts way down on having to micro-manage your guys in combat. And I'm pretty sure that the d20 for BG2 is loaded, because it gives out alot of criticals, way more than I ever encountered during pencil and paper games.

Plus if you roll a critical miss with backstab, you probably just used up three rounds for one attack.

I also wanted to address the speed factor, I think the speed factor doesn't affect the number of attacks, only the initiative. You can switch a weapon with a speed factor of 8 and a speed factor of 0, but the number of attacks has not changed, only the order of the attacks.

Keldorn and Viconia do get into a fight, eventually. In a wierd twist of fate, Viconia won, since Keldorn at the time was using a crossbow instead of the Carsomyr, and Viconia had the Improved Mace of Disruption and creamed him. But after I reloaded a previous game, they seemed to have decided to back off, and haven't gotten into a fight since. I guess it all depends on luck.

Unless it was changed in a patch or the game's discription is wrong, the speed factor is at High Mastery. It goes:

1) No penalties.
2) -1 to Thac0, +2 to damage.
3) Extra -1 to Thac0.
4) -2 to speed factor on the weapon.
5) Extra +1 to damage.

P.S. Did I mention that Valygar with 2 points in two handed weapon skill doubles the chance for critical hits? Just kidding.

@Yuusuke:

I'm pretty sure Valygar will still do more damage when dual wielding Celestial Fury and the Corthala Family Blade than when using a Spear. You have to admit that while x 3 isn't the world's greatest multiplier, it sure is better than x 2. And while Two Handed Weapon Style gives more chance to critical strikes, dual wielding gives more attacks per round. Should you still want a two handed weapon, a Staff *has* to be the better choise since it, besides the positive side of using a two handed weapon, *also* allows you to backstab. The Staff of Rhynn is a great weapon easily obtained from start in SoA. And the Staff of Ram is one of the best weapons i ToB.

[ 09-20-2001: Message edited by: Astafas ]

Dimon, keldy and viccy will try to kill each other eventually, which naturally, viccy will win.

at least in the way I tend to tank her...


but it should be possible to keep them from bashing...

for aerie and korgy, go into shadow keeper, and after korgan joins your party, with aerie, a new global var will appear, called

korganaeriegrump


when ever korgan makes aerie do the full body blush, it will increment by 1, at 2, aerie will give you her ultimatum.

so i deincrement back to zero.

there should be a global var created when viccy joins a party with keldorn, so do a bit of research and figure it out.

frankly, I will never have the problem as I don't caare for keldy, and viccy can replicate the most valuable keldorn perk, high magic resist with holy avenger.

she already has 65% magic resist, so load her up on dispell magics and true sight, and you'll never notice the difference.

besides, with human sskin armor, and few other trinkets, read the stats.... she can reach 100% magic resist, which is major mojo.

too bad you cannot do this with an evil sorc...sigh.