How good is Jaheira?

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I suppose we all know how good most of the NPCs are. Like Korgan is A, Jan probably a C, Cernd is E. But I've seen very different opinions on Jaheira. How good is she?
Personally I found she is not the one who dies the most, but pretty useless. I use to use Jaheira and Hae-dalis as my two front guy. One with ironskin, the other with stoneskin, should be invinsible, but things didn't work that way. What do you think?

 

If you use her properly, she can be quite good, but personally I usually take Viccy or Annoyme over her.

Once you get into ToB, you might find her to be a bit weak because of the slow levelling.

 

She's a good character, one of the few that are always in my parties.

She hands out ranged damage with slings, then switches to scimitars/clubs if I'm lacking in tanks and then uses druidic spells in certain cases.

Definitely a keeper.

 

Don't know how you use her, but she has the most death in my party...

 

She seems to be prone in my games to getting petrified, which sucks if you are romancing her, as she leaves once you restore her!

I like her combination -- with heavy armor and ironskins, she can become quite formidable in melee battle, and by ToB, her spellcasting (especially the summoning) is very helpful. She is a bit of a snot, though, and while I gave a few tries at romancing her, I'd rather have someone who didn't formerly act as a kind of mother figure.

I take her along about 50% of the time -- depends if I am playing a good game, a neutral one, or a game with other goals (ie -- romancing Aerie, doing a speed run, trying a game sans a particular class, etc.)

 

Neutral Good leaning with slight lawful tendencies


Usability: A, B sometimes

She doesn't hit as often as pure warriors, but has nearly the same amount of spells as a full-time druid. If you buff her nicely with her own spells and she will be the last or among the last ones to fall. To hurt her, the opponent needs to dispel her ironskin(s) or stay alive hitting her the required amount of times or use non-physical damage she's not resistant to. Dispelling takes an inquisitor or a very high-level blade (cheap thief's level-ups make him a nice high level caster of what he can cast). Staying alive takes own stone/ironskin or enormous HP & AC or (more advanced) some fancy spell-based protection system, preferably in contingency slots or sequencer.

What's more she can also reduce the damage taken somewhat with the armour of faith spell or endurance ability. Barkskin too seems nice on higher levels.

That's probably all as far as protection is concerned.

Melee-wise she delivers nice damage and eventually reaches the highest thac0 warriors can get. Very late in ToB she is indeed a drop-dead sight

Her elemental summoning spells from ToB can't be underestimated. Elemental princes, hehe. 16 dice. That's enough to weaken severely any tough monster wannabe and even totally nuke some of them into oblivion. Pity though that 16d1 can result in something like 40 or 50.

 

Uh, DMC, I am confused. Why is Imoen a better mage than Nalia? The rest of your points make logical sense but this one confuses me. Is it because of their initial spells? THAT problem takes a few thousand gold to make irrelevant, and you have to spend that gold anyway on either of them, so enlighten me, please!

I know, , sorry. I'll make another point about Jaheira -- the fact that she can wear any armor and still cast druidic spells makes her useful. Not irreplaceable, but useful.

 

I don't think Jaheira was ever intended to be a front-line fighter, despite the fact that she can wear armor. Her weapon selections are so limited that to put her up front is just asking for trouble. She's a very good secondary fighter, both with her fighting skills and her spells.

In regards to her slow advancement -- she doesn't advance any slower than any other multi-classed character. Now she may advance as a druid slowly, but druid advancement has been discussed ad nauseam. If you want a straight druid, pick up Cernd or create one. As a fighter, she advances as quickly as any other fighter multi-class, so I fail to see the argument. If I'm not mistaken, regardless of which class she levels up as, you can select HLAs from either pool. If true, then I still can't see the argument.

As someone said, it's how you use her. If you don't like her, don't use her.

 

Jan is no C. Second only to Edwin as a spellslinger, and the best thief in the game.

Jaheira is undisputably the suckiest NPC you're going to get. Her spells are pathetic, and she will never do anything of note with a weapon. She also dies quite quickly and you frequently hear her death moan, sounding like she's being impaled by... never mind. Pissing and moaning to the last. Even if she could hold her own, I wouldn't have her because she reminds me of granny porn. Look at her portrait and tell me she hasn't had several facelifts. She's ugly, whiney, snotty, she needs laxitive, and is overall a bee-hotch. She's always picking fights and pushing you around, and acting like she would actually EVER be fit for leadership. I usually kill her when I can.

Also, to the person who said she'd be one of the last, or the last, to die:

If your mage isn't the last to die ALWAYS, you're not playing him correctly.

But hey; don't think too much on my opinions. I'm the Idiot of the Week.

 

I see. Thanks for the data. All I'll say is that you don't have to erase spells to improve a mage's selection -- potions and levels that don't have a lot of spells in the book, for instance.

There is no such thing as the worst NPC to have -- it all depends on how you play. I've used Jaheira as front line fighter successfully. It's all in your style, your skill, your imagination, and your combination of players.

 

Jaheira = strong MC combo, although is slightly low on the strength which is easily corrected with a belt. Mildly annoying weapon restrictions but there are some really good daggers, staves and spears throughout and some fine scimitars in ToB. You can configure almost type of weapon using profile you like, 2h, shield or dual wield, even lamo ranged if you so desire.

Fighter/Druids are an overpowered combination par excellence...ironskins, regeneration, heal, chaotic commands, buffs, summonings, offense. What's not to like?

 

In my oppinipon she and Edwin are the two most useful NPC's in the game; I simply don't get the people claiming that she dies all the time, in my game she was practically always the last one standing...

With the hill-giant strenght girdle and belm she was a better *fighter* (not including her spells) than Minsc in the first half of SoA and in ToB they were equal (still not counting spells - only meelee skills!).

Her ironskins more than compensate for her mediocre hp, in ToB she is practically invulnerable and were always protecting Valygar, a good fighter who, with his leather, tended to die seeing the shadow of a firegiant.

If you're still not convinced then I've had a semi-solo game with her and a fighter/mage and since that game was probaly the easiest I've ever played, I sent Jaheira solo against all dragons, it was only Abazigal that for some reason kept winning... Draconis and the red dragon (is it Saladrex?) in WK never did any damage to her at all, and Firkraag only around 20. Both Firkraag and Thax'something, she killed before reaching level 14 as a druid.

She DOES NOT SUCK by any means or any time in the game... I found she was worst in the first dungeon, but using her shapeshifting helps.

 

It all depends on how well you know druidic spells. I can tell you I know a good deal of them, but when I see what some of them tree-huggers (legitimate ones) do! Eh...

Weapon restriction doesn't suck all that much.

Longswords, two-handed swords, maces, flails and morningstars are needed for other characters and there aren't many people to use scimitars or spears. Early in SoA there aren't any nice ones, but you can buy the staff-mace (or whatever it is in English version) +2, 2d4+2 1H. Doesn't lower AC like taking 2H staves.

 

I've noticed that the more evil you are the more summoning you use What's the fun if you hide behind swarms of creatures teleported from their peaceful realms to get killed for you, heh...

Of course I summon elementals or devas a few times, but well... taking damage is part of fight, heh.

 

I like Jaheira. Sure she's not the best of fighters, but she's a good Druid. And besides she's been there since BG1 so i always keep her in my party

 

I'm surprised that Beren has not answered yet!

If I could answer that in one word I would say "very".

As for the 3 vanilla female romances I think that she is the most realistic.

And she truly is a damn good fighter/spellcaster. She gets Ironskins and Harper's Call, so I reckon she is good. She is of course a better warrior than Aerie or Viconia.

Besides she has a great voice and wonderfully involving romance. She's not my sweetheart but she is still really good. I like to have her around mostly.

Give her Belm or Blackblood and she is way cool. Yamato is also a good weapon. Staff of the Ram or Ixil spear.

She's good. Her biggest "failing" is the incredible wait to level up from level 14 to 15 druid.

 

To be honest, I like the Harper's quest, but I usually dump her after I kill the Galvin (sp?) guy and get the Ring of Wizardy. But when I did have her, I bought a sling from Bernard and she only used that.

Frankly, for her to be worth keeping, she needs to be given equipment that enhances her abilities. Yes, I know, everyone needs this stuff to be good, but face it, all Minsc really needs is decent armour and he is set, Jaheria has to be the one who gets the belt, otherwise all she is gooing to do is be a druid, period. She will not be able to tank and if she does, good luck killing stuff when you have a 15 strength score.

Anyway, I have never used from start to finish, but I do have her in a group right now and I intend to play all the way through with her this time (for the first time). So amybe my opinions will change once I see her in the late game.