GameBanshee Forums

I've always tried to keep my parties very versatile, since the items in the game are pretty much spread out that way - Carsomyr makes a great paladin, Crom Faeyr and Flail of Ages goes for Fighter/Clerics, Vecna and Power makes an awesome mage, and so on and so forth. I tend to balance it out with a couple of fighter, a couple of casters, both arcane and divine, a thief, if possible a bard, etc. Nothing that's similar, as much versability as possible.

I'm playing one of those parties atm. Inquisitor, Fig/Thi, F/M/C, Archer, Avenger, Sorcerer. However, I had LOTS of more fun in my second last playthrough consisting of three naked sorcs and a F/T/M.

I'm already thinking about quitting my "regular" party and trying out a full-force strenght party consisting of four fighters and two bards. Mislead on the bards and +16 hit/+16 THAC0 for my whole party along with other goodies. I'll also have two Inquisitors in the party for a neat dispel.

So, for the thread, I'm wondering how many of you guys are stuck playing the old versatile balanced party and how many have some fancy setups up your sleeves. If you don't, maybe you should consider it, and if you do, I'd be glad to hear about them.

I can't think of any party that would really be "funny" (with the possible exception of party composed entirely of gnomes who looked like Quayle and were all named Quayle and had Quayle's soundset).

"Extreme" theme parties are about at close as I've ever come to a "funny" party. I've never tried to play the game with a party of pure Thieves or pure Mages, but a "guild" makes sense, and you should probably try it.

A party of Fallen Paladins has already been done, of course, and it was mostly just pathetic instead of interesting.

I once played SOA with a party of troubadours, which started out as an all-Bard party but became more diverse because I felt like it. (A Blade, a Skald, a Jester, Haer'Dalis, Aerie, and Imoen, with interesting relationships already present in the dialogues.) You have to use your own imagination to really bring a party like that to life, though.

Otherwise, a party is a party. You either have a complete skill set (melee, spells, healing, thieving, etc.) or else you learn to live without the ones you're missing, which usually isn't that hard.

Or you could always play one or two players who can do everything, like a Cleric/Ranger and Imoen (Thief dualled to Mage). I tried that once and made it all the way through BG1 and SOA and most of TOB, but I couldn't win the final battle with Ascension installed, so I restarted TOB and added an extra melee warrior--Sarevok. It was only after I formed that party of three that I realized I was pitting my Three Bhaalspawn against The Five (and there was a chance to make one of the others defect, resulting in a battle between The Four and The Four). It wasn't "funny"; it was cool.

Anyway, do you have any more "funny" or unusual parties in mind?

Well, when I say Funny I doesn't necessarily mean "Oh man, that was frikkin hillarious^^^^^^" funny, but rather interesting enough to get me through a ToB-game and not just reroll due to lack of interest. A guild of Thieves sounds very interesting, and well, if they're allowed multi/dual-classing it could become very very dangerous.

A group full of bards, how did that work out? Managed any harder tactics/ascension-fights with them?

And what I'm talking about isn't really using 1-3 characters, because then you're bound to lack certain abilities but make up for it with experience and focus. What I'm talking about are full-fledged parties with so much... well, something... that it opens up new abilities and reveals new challenges.

So far I've not that many groups in mind, and I really want to try out my warrior/bard party before trying anything else. If it works well I might try 4 archers, 2 bards or something similar... Who knows. ^^ Part of why I made this thread is to get inspiration/tips on other funny groups.

An unusual party of mine DOMINATED this game. It went like this:

Gnome Illusionist/Thief
Jaheira (Spectral Brand)
Anomen (Flail of Ages)
Mazzy (Ravager)
Korgan (Axe of Unyeiding & Crom Faeyr)
Keldorn (Carsomyr)

Un-frikken stoppable.

EDIT: I was going to make the protagonist a FMT (so everybody was a warrior), but I wanted a wimp to be guarded by a bunch of toughs.

And um, how is that party unusual except for the slightly unorthodox combination?

That party doesn't seem very unusual to me (other than the fact that Mazzy wielded the Ravager), and I don't agree that an Illusionist/Thief is a wimp (even if he's a gnome).

I have to say I'm disappointed that no one has said, "Hey, I wanna play a party of Quayles--that's an awesome idea!" (Or should it be "a covey of Quayles"?) But I guess there's still time.

I'd rather have a bunch of Tiax', fighting among each other for who the REAL ruler of the world is. And by fighting, I don't mean arguing, but rather everyone trying to outspam each other with simple lines about how they rule the universe.

Then I'd make them all mages and the only spell they would have are Confuse. xD

I figured someone would suggest Tiax as an alternative.

Thrifalas wrote:I'd make them all mages and the only spell they would have are Confuse. xD

Sounds like Xan to me. How about an all-Xan party? And with the Xan romance mod, maybe he could even romance himself. That would be so...depressing.

Thrifalas wrote:A group full of bards, how did that work out? Managed any harder tactics/ascension-fights with them?

Nope. I played SOA with that party a couple of months before TOB was released, and I can't remember any mods that were available at the time. (If there were any, I didn't use them.) That was back when Baldurdash was still being developed.

I wasn't very skilled as a player back then, either. I was accustomed to playing powerful characters such as a Berserker dualled to a Cleric or a Cleric/Ranger that didn't require as much finesse and micromanagement as a party of Bards. I had never played a Kensai/Mage, so I wasn't familiar with that sort of buffing, and I wasn't very familiar with Bards before I started that game. I especially had difficulty with melee-intensive encounters such as the Crypt King in the Graveyard District (which I looted very early in the game) and the Demon Knights in the Underdark. Usually, I played my Blade as a "tank" (heavily protected to absorb all of the damage) while the others cast their spells. I didn't try to kill all of the golems in Suldanessellar because there were too many of them for my party to handle. Also, one of the most challenging aspects was finding enough scrolls for them to scribe. But playing with that party helped me to learn a lot about spellcasting. Cheese was still a long way off for me (and I do think that Tactics requires cheese).

I've never had Quayle or Tiax in a party, you meet them far too late in BG1 for them to be of any use, and you don't get them in SoA (same with Alora of corse). So the idea of an all Quayle or all Tiax party never occurred to me.

I have been trying an all Wild Mage party recently, using SK to change some classes, Imoen was straightforward, but Jaheira I ended up turning into a F?M/T, never got out of Chateau Irenicus, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and too boring as a result. I've never played a WM before, and was expecting all sorts of weird and wonderful results, but it seems it only changes the spellcaster's level, unless you use NMD, which is rather cheesy.

I thought my above party is unusual because it's very much tilted towards having tanks, with my only spellcaster being a multiclassed specialist mage.

You mean you don't class Jaheira and Anomen as spell casters? Weird.

galraen wrote:You mean you don't class Jaheira and Anomen as spell casters? Weird.

I meant arcane. And even if you include both of them, the "power parties" I've seen discussed over the years usually use about 75% spellcasters.

Klorox wrote:I meant arcane. And even if you include both of them, the "power parties" I've seen discussed over the years usually use about 75% spellcasters.

I guess it's because your party looks like a pretty standard balanced party to me. I hardly ever have more than one arcane caster, and only if my PC is a mutli-classed character with one arcane class. Druids and Clerics have some pretty powerful spells if used properly, just not over-cheesed like Wizards.

Klorox wrote:I thought my above party is unusual because it's very much tilted towards having tanks, with my only spellcaster being a multiclassed specialist mage.

Don't get me wrong, it's definately not a common party, I just don't think it'll tickle my funnybone as much as, say, a group without *any* casters at all (exclusive bards) or so. :]

Thrifalas wrote:Don't get me wrong, it's definately not a common party, I just don't think it'll tickle my funnybone as much as, say, a group without *any* casters at all (exclusive bards) or so. :]

Hey, that's cool.

I tried all Gnomes once:

Gnome Cleric/Illusionist
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist
Gnome Fighter/Thief
Gnome Jester (used SK)

Lots of fun!

The strangest party and the most boring I had is with:

Mage
Mage
Sorc
Sorc
Cleric
Druid

All pure spellcasters, was not to fun, 4 timestop after one and another...
not much standing after that...

The party I had most fun with was:

Theif(swashbuckler)
Monk
Minsc
Jihera
and... dont remember the name, some mod with a fmt