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Hi Everyone

Last played soa abt 3 years back.
As of now, it is still the BEST RPG imo.

Suddenly have the urge to replay it again.
The last time round, i completed the game with a kensai and a full party of npcs.

A little info:
i have always prefer melee/ranged to magic in rpg/mmorpg.
i have tob installed.

This time round, having read thru the forums, i decided to try a kensai/mage(kensai lvl9) but it seems like the guides and discussion are all about kensai/mage going solo.

My main concern:
I wonder how it would be if i were to play a kensai/mage in a party of 4(all npcs).
1. Will this cause my kensai/mage to not reach it max level?
2. Izzit ok to go thru a game without a thief to detect/disarm trap? Will this affect a lot of exp?
3. if anyone can suggest the 3 npcs to compliment my kensai/mage, that will be v cool.

Thanks all

1.no, you'll actually reach the SoA XPCap long before the end of SoA if you play with less than 6 party members.
2.annoying but works. no.
3. Jan, Anomen and Mazzy or Keldorn or Korgan

thank you kmonster for your quick reply.

wow.
your suggestion is almost the same to what i had in mind.

Kensai/Mage - The damage dealer
Keldorn - For his melee abilities and to get the best 2h sword.
Plus he has to stand in for me while i am going thru my mage intial phase.
Jan - I would prefer traps to be detected and disarmed plus he has some decent magic.

Which leave the last spot in question - Anomen or Jaheira?
The last spot have to go to a healer who has to be able to take care of him/herself so that leave me with these 2.
With the other 3 spot already fixed, which would be a better choice?

Anomen
+ Can use fail of ages

Jaheira
+ Can raise dead
+ Romance

Go with Anomen

Would personally go with Anomen.

The best thing about Jaheira is the very specific druidic spells at level 5 and 7. However, the level 5 (insect plague) which is suberb again enemy spellcasters is not that necessary when you have 2 mages yourself + Keldorn's dispell/true sight spells.
Further, Jaheira is a multiclass druid, which means she will have 1 level 7 spell only until she reaches 6 million XP. In a party of 4, that's 24 million XP...as you can imagine, you'll probably be in TOB before you get to this amount.

Anomen has more HPs, is decent in melee due to his 7 fighter levels and is a cleric, meaning he'll be taking care of all your undead problems with his turn undead ability.
Further, since he's a dual, he'll level up fairly fast as a cleric and thereby get a lot more level 6/7 spells quicker.
As you note yourself, he can also use the nice blunt weapons which currently have no place in your party.


While Jan has a ton of banter with everyone and their mother, believe Anomen and Keldorn have a bit between themselves as well, which makes for a nice story I suppose.
Regarding Jaheira as a romance, trust me, it takes an age and a half to complete, it's buggy, and although the end item is nice, it's not all powerful and definitely not worth the trouble if you ask me ; )

If I were you, I'd do her Athkatla quests (pick her up after you've had the 'poisoned man' quest) and then leave her at that. That will give you a nice item for your PC, as well as an interesting sight into Harper politics, heh.

I have just started playing SoA again and I am also going with a kensai. Female kensai, that is. Neutral evil.

So if I want a 6 member party, with the possibility of romancing, who would you suggest? I have finished the game with Anomen, Jaheira, Minsc, Imoen, Edwin and Aerie as much as I recall, so unusual character combinations that I haven't tried before are most welcome.

-Silvanerian
Thanks for your reply which is very clear and concise.
My party will be:
1. Windour - Kensai/Mage
2. Keldorn
3. Anomen
4. Jan

-C-K'R[PhoEniX]
Well..., i have only ran thru soa once so i can't give u much advice.
My party then was an all-good team:
1. Kensai
2. Minsc
3. Keldorn
4. Anomen
5. Aerie
6. Jan

As mentioned, i am a more melee person.
Therefore, for this game, my tactic:
1. See enemy
2. Cast as many summons as possibles, set them in
3. 1 to 4 charge in; 5 & 6 ranged weapons
4. If i can remember, 5 & 6 will do some magic attack
5. 4 & 5 standby for healing

I doubt these are very good tactics but does managed to finish the game.
It is best you wait for better advice from more exp players.
As of now, i am still not very sure about the combat mechanics of the game.
tsk tsk

Windour wrote: -C-K'R[PhoEniX]
Well..., i have only ran thru soa once so i can't give u much advice.
My party then was an all-good team:
1. Kensai
2. Minsc
3. Keldorn
4. Anomen
5. Aerie
6. Jan

As mentioned, i am a more melee person.
Therefore, for this game, my tactic:
1. See enemy
2. Cast as many summons as possibles, set them in
3. 1 to 4 charge in; 5 & 6 ranged weapons
4. If i can remember, 5 & 6 will do some magic attack
5. 4 & 5 standby for healing

I doubt these are very good tactics but does managed to finish the game.
It is best you wait for better advice from more exp players.
As of now, i am still not very sure about the combat mechanics of the game.
tsk tsk

Thanks for the tips, but I'm in for something different this type. My tactics were pretty much the same as yours, and like I've said, I've already played with Minsc, Anomen and Aerie, and maybe an evil party would do better with my neutral evil kensai?

C-K'R[PhoEniX] wrote:I have just started playing SoA again and I am also going with a kensai. Female kensai, that is. Neutral evil.

So if I want a 6 member party, with the possibility of romancing, who would you suggest? I have finished the game with Anomen, Jaheira, Minsc, Imoen, Edwin and Aerie as much as I recall, so unusual character combinations that I haven't tried before are most welcome.

As a female character, your only romance option is Anomem.

bipbap wrote:As a female character, your only romance option is Anomem.

Oh crud. Think he'd get along with my character's evil personality?

C-K'R[PhoEniX] wrote:Oh crud. Think he'd get along with my character's evil personality?

Possibly. There's a quest with Anomen that you might find useful. Its a spoiler, so I won't say anymore unless you want me to. That information is available elsewhere on this site anyway.

There are some great evil characters in the game, if not a wide variety. Jan, Korgan, Viconia, Edwin just to name a few. Do you want to roleplay more or are you trying to powergame more?

bipbap wrote:Possibly. There's a quest with Anomen that you might find useful. Its a spoiler, so I won't say anymore unless you want me to. That information is available elsewhere on this site anyway.

There are some great evil characters in the game, if not a wide variety. Jan, Korgan, Viconia, Edwin just to name a few. Do you want to roleplay more or are you trying to powergame more?

Well, I'm not a fan of powergaming, but since I haven't finished BG2 as many times as I'd want to, I guess you could say I'm into balanced gameplay. Roleplaying can't hurt.

C-K'R[PhoEniX] wrote:Well, I'm not a fan of powergaming, but since I haven't finished BG2 as many times as I'd want to, I guess you could say I'm into balanced gameplay. Roleplaying can't hurt.

In that case, the NPC's we've talked about would make a pretty good party. Korgan is one of the best front liners available. Edwin is probably the best mage. Jan has a fun personality and covers thieving and secondary mage. Anomen annoys some people, but I found he gets pretty powerful and can be a good number 2 front line. And Viconia is the only pure cleric in the game. You may find this lineup is cleric heavy, so you could substiture Viconia for almost anyone else, since you already have the bases pretty much covered.

I don't know if you are into mods at all, but there are a lot of NPC mods out there if you want something besides what the game offers.

Plus, with this party, I think you get some pretty good character interactions and NPC specific quests.

bipbap wrote:In that case, the NPC's we've talked about would make a pretty good party. Korgan is one of the best front liners available. Edwin is probably the best mage. Jan has a fun personality and covers thieving and secondary mage. Anomen annoys some people, but I found he gets pretty powerful and can be a good number 2 front line. And Viconia is the only pure cleric in the game. You may find this lineup is cleric heavy, so you could substiture Viconia for almost anyone else, since you already have the bases pretty much covered.

I don't know if you are into mods at all, but there are a lot of NPC mods out there if you want something besides what the game offers.

Plus, with this party, I think you get some pretty good character interactions and NPC specific quests.

Yeah.
Even as a non-magic player, i can see that this "evil" setup is very good.

1. Kensai - No.1 Melee
2. Korgan - No.1 Tank / No.2 Melee
3. Edwin - No.1 Mage
4. Viconia - No.1 Healer
5. Jan - No.1 Thief / No.2 Mage
6. Your preference as long as he/she dun clash with the above folks.

BTW, how viable is a 5 -manparty?
Will a kensai/mage be able to max out in a 5-man party? will it take very long compared to a 4-man party?

Windour wrote:Yeah.
Even as a non-magic player, i can see that this "evil" setup is very good.

1. Kensai - No.1 Melee
2. Korgan - No.1 Tank / No.2 Melee
3. Edwin - No.1 Mage
4. Viconia - No.1 Healer
5. Jan - No.1 Thief / No.2 Mage
6. Your preference as long as he/she dun clash with the above folks.

BTW, how viable is a 5 -manparty?
Will a kensai/mage be able to max out in a 5-man party? will it take very long compared to a 4-man party?

A 5 man party is very viable. And in fact, has some advantages. You can rotate a 6th NPC in to do their quests and send them back out again. You already know about the XP advantage. You just might have to take things a little slower, more preparation for battles and rest more. As far as maxing out your experience, I'm pretty sure you can, but I don't have a ton of experience with dual/class, because I lose patience with them during the switchover period. My guess is that it won't take that much longer, because the deeper you get into the game, the more experience seems to get tossed around and since the experience points to level up get farther and farther apart, the lower level characters kind of 'catch up' at the end.

I agree with your analysis of the evil party line up, but I usually put the tank in first and let the offensive powerhouse, your kensai, be number two. In most battles, your enemies beeline for the first person, who is better able to absorb damage. Then the kensai is more free to do damage to enemies engaged with your tank. YMMV.

bipbap wrote:A 5 man party is very viable. And in fact, has some advantages. You can rotate a 6th NPC in to do their quests and send them back out again. You already know about the XP advantage. You just might have to take things a little slower, more preparation for battles and rest more. As far as maxing out your experience, I'm pretty sure you can, but I don't have a ton of experience with dual/class, because I lose patience with them during the switchover period. My guess is that it won't take that much longer, because the deeper you get into the game, the more experience seems to get tossed around and since the experience points to level up get farther and farther apart, the lower level characters kind of 'catch up' at the end.

I agree with your analysis of the evil party line up, but I usually put the tank in first and let the offensive powerhouse, your kensai, be number two. In most battles, your enemies beeline for the first person, who is better able to absorb damage. Then the kensai is more free to do damage to enemies engaged with your tank. YMMV.

Hm, yeah, I think I'll keep my kensai in the 2nd place too. So far I'm almost out of Irenicus' dungeon, and I can already tell kensai is one powerful class/kit. With kai enabled and barkskin, he/she is a killing mashine, and I am barely trying.

I would like to go with the same party setup as Windour, but Anomen seems out of place here and I do want him to romance my character. How long do you think it will take for him to do that before I can rotate him with another character?

C-K'R[PhoEniX] wrote:I would like to go with the same party setup as Windour, but Anomen seems out of place here and I do want him to romance my character. How long do you think it will take for him to do that before I can rotate him with another character?

I haven't played through the Anomen romance, so I can't help too specifically. The other romances started pretty soon after either getting out of Irenicus' dungeon or pretty soon after you let them in the party. They vary in length, but the three female romances (Jaheira, Viconia and Aerie) were all pretty long, so to get to the end you would have to have them in your party for the long haul. There is a slightly spoilerish way to speed things up, at least in terms of the game. And, don't forget, there is a way to 'influence' Anomen during the game. Ask if you want more specifics, or you can search this site's walkthrough and stategy guides as well.

As far as fitting in with this party, I like Anomen from a power standpoint. He is a fine replacement for Viconia, especially since you won't be romancing her. You are trading away some divine magic in favor of more melee power, but I think the farther you go into the game, the better that works. From a roleplay standpoint, you have a chance to seduce a goody, goody guy to your own nefarious purposes, which could be fun, since it seems like that's what you are aiming for.

Oh, and one more advantage to Anomen. Since he has more melee ability, he can be a good number two when you dual class to mage and your kensai abilities are inactive. I've actually used him as a tank and had much success.

bipbap wrote:I haven't played through the Anomen romance, so I can't help too specifically. The other romances started pretty soon after either getting out of Irenicus' dungeon or pretty soon after you let them in the party. They vary in length, but the three female romances (Jaheira, Viconia and Aerie) were all pretty long, so to get to the end you would have to have them in your party for the long haul. There is a slightly spoilerish way to speed things up, at least in terms of the game. And, don't forget, there is a way to 'influence' Anomen during the game. Ask if you want more specifics, or you can search this site's walkthrough and stategy guides as well.

As far as fitting in with this party, I like Anomen from a power standpoint. He is a fine replacement for Viconia, especially since you won't be romancing her. You are trading away some divine magic in favor of more melee power, but I think the farther you go into the game, the better that works. From a roleplay standpoint, you have a chance to seduce a goody, goody guy to your own nefarious purposes, which could be fun, since it seems like that's what you are aiming for.

Oh, and one more advantage to Anomen. Since he has more melee ability, he can be a good number two when you dual class to mage and your kensai abilities are inactive. I've actually used him as a tank and had much success.

1. Yeah, the site's walkthrough would provide a perfect response to this, but I am always looking for a non-spoilerish way .

2. Thanks for that roleplay standpoint tip, now it makes more sense lol.

3. Yes, like I've said, I've used Anomen all the way as well and I know how strong he can get. I'd prefer Viconia this time though, she really looks like she could get interesting and I've always overlooked her in the past. Perhaps "milking" Anomen just for some time would be a good choice for my hot human kensai .

C-K'R[PhoEniX] wrote:1. Yeah, the site's walkthrough would provide a perfect response to this, but I am always looking for a non-spoilerish way .

2. Thanks for that roleplay standpoint tip, now it makes more sense lol.

3. Yes, like I've said, I've used Anomen all the way as well and I know how strong he can get. I'd prefer Viconia this time though, she really looks like she could get interesting and I've always overlooked her in the past. Perhaps "milking" Anomen just for some time would be a good choice for my hot human kensai .

1. Completely understand, especially the first time through a section.

3. Sorry, missed that you used him before. I've used both and like both, although for different reasons. "Milking" Anomen would be really 'EEEEvil'.

Have fun stormin' the castle! And everything else!

bipbap wrote: "Milking" Anomen would be really 'EEEEvil'.

Have fun stormin' the castle! And everything else!

LoL thanks! Actually, you've just given me another reason to make my roleplaying more convincing. I usually just can't play evil characters, acting that way is completely senseless to me. But using Anomen, such a pure soul for my character's own good would really make her evil, even though she'll act like an honest and proud kensai mercenary the rest of the time .

if you want some more evil power to add to your party, there is a mod for an npc called VALEN, she is one of bodhis minions, could be fun too and she would fit the rest of your "evil" party.

If you need the link i could sent it to you via pm, just tell me

and one last "advice" remember if you like banter it is always good to mix the alignments of your party.
eg. Jaheira, Viconia and Arie have some really nice banters,
also Vico and Edwin
Korgan is always fun, as Jan is

but be careful several npc dont come along with each other