Imoen or Jan?

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I just can't decide which to keep...

 

well, having suffered an entire game of " you're a queer fellow!" and "i've done had enuff of this".. i now ditch imoen in spellhold... jan (IMHO) is the one to go with

 

I have not the heart to ditch her in spellhold I brought her back to Athkatla, but now I have to decide which of the two to choose...it's a hard choice. Ditching Imoen would be ditching a relative, while sending Jan away would be losing the better thief. Ugh, choices, choices.

 

well, jan is a better theif - handy!, jan can cast spells and is always useful to me in that area, and has much more interesting dialog.. ditch her and take captain turnip

 

I take it you've decided against taking both of them?
That's what I'm planning to do, but if I HAD to choose, I'd probably take Imoen (I know it's controversial, but it's just my opinion).

Edit: War Nerve, that was my reasoning too.

[This message has been edited by Masher (edited November 07, 2001).]

 

jan jan jan!

 

I took Imoen in my first game. She is by far a better mage and has enough theif skills to get you through the rest of the game. I was an Inquisitor then but if your a mage I would take Jan because he is a good theif and you don't realy need another good mage if you already are one.

 

I'm a Cavalier so I don't really have too many magic users, and I can't take them both because my party is full. In my eyes, it's pretty well balanced between Aerie and another mage / thief, so I had to choose between just one of them. I think I'm going with Imoen - not because she's better, but I think it fits the storyline better to have her in my party There's always next time, though.

 

Anyone else notice how the game is kind of designed for you to take Imonem? I mean, after spell hold, there are very few traps in the entire game. Imonem is the better of the 2 since she will become the better mage, but Jan is a lot more fun to have along. reality, you don't really need a thief after spellhold.

 

You're right about not really needing a thief as far as disarming traps are concerned; there are relatively few after Spellhold and you are powerful enough to just walk through them. I still love thieves for their backstab abilities though. Pity neither Imoen or Jan can backstab without potions of invisibility; their hide in shadows scores are pathetic.

Anyways, all of this being the case, I would have to recommend Imoen since she does become the better mage. Even if Jan were the better logical choice, however, I would still have to choose Imoen because of her involvement in the plot.

 

I'm not that far yet...(im a n00b to BG2...i've already beaten bg1 though)..what is the spellhold? i dont care if that part gets spoiled.

 

Spellhold is a prison on an island off the Sword Coast, the deviants and the people who are wished to never be heard from again are sent there. You will get to travel there in between Chapters 3 and 4. That's all I'll say, don't want to tell you anymore as that is sufficient.

 

Jan or Imoen, huh? Depends on how you play the game. If you prefer having a thief who can reach high levels and act as secondary mage only, keep Jan. If you prefer to have another high level mage, and with enough thief abilities for just-in-case, then keep Imoen. I prefer her. Honestly, with her 95 in lock-picking, she can handle just about any trap in the game; anything she can't, there's always Potion of Master Thievery. Advancing a thief past level 12 or 13 is really very unnecessary. Also, due to the exp cap, she can advance to higher mage levels than Jan, who splits his exp points evenly betweem the two classes. Also, Jan is a specialist mage in Illusion, which means he can't learn certain spells, while Imoen is a generic Mage who can learn everything. I also prefer her for story reasons: why go through all that trouble to break her outta jail, and deny her revenge on Irenicus because she's off chillin' at the Copper Coronet?

 

What an interesting question. I took Imoen as she is supposedly my foster-sister the last time, but I hated to do it because Jan is so funny. In the game I'm playing now, I have Edwin, and I think his dynamic with Jan would be very amusing. I wonder though about the story in the later chapters -- when Imoen gets back something that she lost in Spellhold (not to spoil anyone), she has to be there, right? I wonder what happens if she is not in the party when that occurs.

 

Bodhi just says "what are you hiding Imoen from me" or something to that effect. I've never actually heard the Bodhi/Imoen dialogue because that stupid narrow corridor tends to keep Imoen out of the room until after Bodhi starts her speech. Bleh.

Aloha
Vormaerin

 

Imoen doesn't have to be there to regain what she lost; later on you'll be able to meet up with her, and she'll tell you she got it back.

 

I have taken both Jan and Imoen through the entire game (on different outings) and thus I can conclude with a certain degree of authority.

Keep Imoen.

Jan annoylingly dies consistantly and never gets more than about 60 hitpoints - I must have reloaded about 20 times in the final battle with Irenicus just coz the little git kept dying. What's more his opposition school is Necromancy I think which in my opinion is one of the best and in any case he can never advance far enough to be an effective mage. He IS a good theif but the cons outweigh the pros here.

Imoen on the other hand is prevented from being a really good mage by her intellegence and should only be used as an effective secondary mage. Her thief skills should be ok... you've always got spells to help you out with some of the locks anyhow. But she dies a hell of a lot less than Jan and her comments (unlike "Turnip reflex" et al) don't grate on me as much when I hear them for the 200th time.

Personally I wouldn't choose either of them, but its a difficult choice to avoid... given that (SPOILER)
.
.
.
Yoshimo can't go with you that far and there's no alternative theif. The only solution is if you're a thief yourself, then you can just have Edwin as your main mage with some like Airie to backup (I usually just have Edwin with two clerics, preferrably Viconica and a druid, which sorts out my magic).

 

well i was a
fighter and i had
minsc
imoen
jan
aierie(however u spell it)
and jehiera.
if jan, imoen and aierie are all high with magic missles, hardly anything stand upto that except mages with protections.

 

Jan is a funny char, and a decent substitute for Imoen during chapters 2 and 3, but he can't really replace her. His stats aren't particularly good, and he isn't even related to you ^^. Keep Imoen.

 

Hi,

Parvini, not sure why you think Imoens int of 17 prevents her from being a great mage. She is the main mage in my party and is fine.
The manual states that int of 17 allows a max spell lvl of 8.
In my game the int score seems to only prevent her learning lvl 9 spells, she can cast them fine. I just bump up her int with potion of genius when she needs to learn a lvl 9 spell.
She can memorise them and cast them and also cast lvl 9 spells from scrolls with her default int of 17.

I am wondering whether the difficulty setting effects this. I am playing at core rules.

Cheers,

WittyNewt.