Bad characters you can't resist

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I used Jaheira. I don't think she is second rate. She was by backup cleric and a good second line fighter. I usually kept her back guarding the mages, but when needed she could wade in and get her hands dirty.

 

Hi,

Yep I would class Jaheira as first rate too. She currently has an AC of -10 in my party (chapter 8), she hits hard and can mix it at the front for a short while especially with ironskin. A great mage protector.
With a strength enhancing item and the sling of seeking she can do lots of damage at range.

Her summon spells are awesome especially early in the game before your mages hit lvl 15. Those fire elementals saved me many times. Also, don't forget insect swarm, plague etc - cracking spells for taking out mages.

Shame Bioware screwed the druid xp chart so much, the gap between lvl 14 and lvl 15 druid is crazy, they should have thrown away the PNP one and made it similar to the cleric one at higher levels.

Cheers,

WittyNewt

[This message has been edited by wittynewt (edited November 06, 2001).]

 

I forgot about her summoning. Very nice. It gets even better later.

 

there are no second-rate characters. Its about managing power, not how much you have.
People often complain their party sucks,but that may be only because of their lack of good strategies and tactics. Each char that can join your party is the best at what they can do. Don't complain of poor followers, before you question your own leadership.

 

my favourite ever party consisted of Haerdalis, Jaheira, Aerie, and Cernd with my PC being a fighter/thief

there really wasn't much i coudn't do with this party, they all fit into their niches so well that at no point in the game did any single character become too dominant in the game, but collectively they complimented each other extrememly well - hardly second rate

 

As you may or may not know I am a big Anomen fan. He is not second rate! How can you say he is?

 

I can't really rate Anomen as first-rate. Why? Well, other than being the most annoying NPC that ever graced *cough* a CRPG game, IIRC he's a dual-classed cleric. And why is that bad? That's because you already have Jaheira and Viconia. We all know druidic spells rock and Viconia is a great cleric that's tank-able. But Anomen? *sighes deeply* he's just Anomen...

 

I love jaheira. Use her as a secondary first line fighter. She is on the front line, with a ac of –7 by now, and being there she can heal my warriors if need; for me she is a first rate character. An excelente backup fighter and cleric. I don’t like jan, neither imoen because you loose her; nalia is nice, like her, but don’t have a thief on my party, hate that part of the game, I need one of this guys which don’t really like, and yoshimo is death. I like as a front line anomen, but have to replace him for aerie, because my kensai/mage usually is fighting, therefore need a mage.

On the other hand, I agreed with Jerlark386, there are no second rate charaters, all depends on how you use them.

 

Anomen is certainly not second rate!

He can tank better than Viconica and he can progess relatively far as a cleric. Why can't a party have two clerics??

 

Viconia's not tankable at all. She's the best cleric in the game and also has other cool characteristics, but she sucks as a tank. Anomen, on the other hand, is a good tank.

I run with two healers most of the time, just because Viconia, Jaheira, Anomen, and (much as she annoys me) Aerie are all such outstanding group members. But if you try to make Viconia or Aerie your tank, you're a masochist. (-:

 

Hi,

Regarding Aeries tanking abilities.. I was playing through a certain minor castle in TOB chapter 8 the other day and got bored meeting the same old monsters in a number of rooms, a couple of orcs and grogs. Minsc gave Aerie Crom and sent her in on her own to show him what she could do. The rest of us stood and watched.
She was wearing some very attractive elven chainmail and basically hammered on them all and gibbed the lot, got hit once I think, luckily minor damage.

She came back out with a smile on her face, gave the hammer back to Minsc and basically said anything he could do....

Cheers,

WittyNewt.

 

I actually think the developers did a damn good job of balancing the characters; there is a use for each and every one of them, even if the function of some is more immediately obvious than others. Also, none of them are completely annoying. Again, some grate more than others (Cernd banging on about Nature with all that quite unnecessary simile and metaphor is a prime example), but they are all tolerable. Ive read complaints in the past about how little choice BG2 offers in terms of choice of NPCs, quite obviously forgetting how damn huge the game is and how long it must have taken to programme all the conversations/variables etc etc etc necessary for even the amount of characters that made it to the released versions. I think they did an excellent job, personally.

Just thank the Lord that no character in BG2 is as annoying as Selphie from Final Fantasy VIII :flames:

 

i just love killing anomen. i just cant get enough of it. how can you say that jaheirer is second rate. thats like saying drizzt cant kill an orc or that elminster cant cast magic missile or that cyric is a lawful good god or that i shouldnt shut up

 

Nobody has mentioned Mazzy.
IMHO she is the top "second-rate" character in the game. She has mediocre stats, lousy skills and quite frankly, she's dull.
My favourite NPC is Jan Janson. He's pretty good on the back row with his spells and crossbow, but he excells at making me laugh with this ridiculous stories and the way he annoys the other party members. I love the way he takes the p*ss out of Anomen and I fell about when he tried to get Boo away from Minsc (can we have more of that please, Mr Game Designer?).
I need a kick-ass character, but I want one who will make the game a lot of fun.
"JAN JANSON FOR PARTY LEADER!"

 

Actually, I don't think Mazzy is second-rate. If you're playin a 'good' game, you should take her. She can go up front, whack some asses, and fall back to unleash a hailstorm of arrows or bullets. Mazzy rocks!

 

I agree. I think Mazzy is an excellent character. I've even completed ToB with her as my only pure fighter type (my other 'tanks' were Anomen and Jaheira).

She has good stats (Strength is a bit low, but she has the 'strength on one' spell and there are plenty of strength items around). There are plenty of decent shortswords and the Sword of Arvoreen is a keeper anyway. The immunity to stun that it provides totally rocks against all those stupid Symbol/Power Word Stun and Psionic Blast users that you encounter. Naturally, she's sick with the Tuigan, Tansheron, or Gesen Bow if you don't need her to melee.

As for boring, I don't agree with that either. She is well known and has lots of dialogue with NPCs, is one of the few people who can get the last word against Jan, and has amusing dialogues with a lot of other party members.

Aloha
Vormaerin

 

Hmm, I guess I should have kept her around a little longer.
I'll give another chance next time.

 

i'm in love with Jaheira, really, its an elf fetish... maybe I should seek help... lol j/k, seriously though, I don't think I can get through the game without jaheira's harper's call... and thats the only reason I keep her in my party... that and the 100k exp you get from the harper's quest if you are dating her...

 

Jahiera's harper's call is like raising dead, you can substitute it with rod of resurrection, but it seems she's gotten you, so don't bother.

 

I always have Viconia in my party. Equip her with magic resistance stuffs, cast a death ward on her, and she can take out most of the mages in the game.