Best NPC Team

Remove all ads!

Another idea for next time round (getting ahead of ourselves here, as you havent even played it once ), especially if you're not an archer that time, is to take Mazzy. She tends to be a bit underrated as she is a fighter with low strength, but she is the best NPC archer in the game, has some nifty abilities and apparently (although I havent tried this) develops a nice love/hate relationship with Korgan, despite their polar opposite alignments. She's one of my favourite characters and I cant recommend her enough.

 

Please take the following with a ton of salt (and the above posts as well) -- these are all our personal opinions, and there is no "perfect party."

I (without naming NPCs specifically) like going with a party built the following way:

1-1.5 divine
1.5-2 arcane
.5 thief (at least)
fill the rest with tanks (I prefer a berserker and a paladin, if possible)

I count multi-classed characters as .5 of a class, as well as the "old" class in a dual class combo (but I count the "new" class in the dual a full 1). It's also a good idea to vary the types of weapons your characters can use, because there is a lot of magical stuff out there, and you want to be able to take advantage of this.

Now, to name a good party, IMHO:

Protagonist: Multiclassed Fighter/Mage
Jaheira
Anomen
Imoen
Keldorn
Minsc or Mazzy

Protagonist: Fighter/Cleric multiclass
Jaheira
Imoen
Keldorn
Jan
Minsc

Protagonist: Archer
Jaheira
Imoen
Keldorn
Aerie
Minsc

As you can see, I'm a huge fan of a certain few NPCs (and yes, I do switch it up when I don't feel like going for "the perfect party" -- which is impossible as noted above). I don't like leaving Minsc, Jaheira or Imoen (people who were with me in the first game), and Keldorn is cool, and can use the greatest weapon in the game.

 

Minsc, Keldron, Jaheira, Aerie, Yoshi/Immy, Archer.

You can let Aerie go once for a period of no more than three days and still continue the romance.
You will find that Jaheira leaves your party during the course of your romance and you have to go and get her back. You can take your time, it wont hurt the romance.
You will also get an option to let Keldron leave for a period. You can take your time as he will wait for you.
Minsc, Yoshi and Immy will never leave your side of their own accord and will always be ready to rejoin your party.

Most NPCs will need you to help them by doing their quests before/as soon as you make them a member.
If they dont start off on that note then it might be a while before you get their quests. If so you might want to dump them real soon. You dont want them soaking up your XP do you?

 

Well...for anyone new to Baldurs Gate, there is a rather standard party configuration you should go with, to keep things smooth.

3 Tanks/Fighters/Sword swinging stuff killin' dudes
1 Thief
1 Mage
1 Cleric/Healer

Almost all parties are modifications of this configuration, such as making one of the characters a Fighter/Thief to save a party slot and get another mage or cleric instead.

What you need to do however, is see what your class is, and get the rest of the NPCs accordingly.

This will result in you having the "Best NPC Team". Atleast, while you're new to the game.

Once you have a couple of playthroughs under your belt, you can go it with anyone you like, and know what you're doing!

 

Many thanks, to all who responded. You've given me lots of good party-building advice. You guys on this forum are wonderful and quite generous with advice to newbies.

By the way, I like the suggestion to include Mazzy. I haven't even gotten to her in the game yet; but from what I've read about her character, she seems like a fun NPC to bring into the party.

Thanks to all.

 

It's a shame there are no NPC Barbarians, Monks, or Sorcerers.

I have been shuffling NPCs in and out continuously in my first game and I have had no problems so far in getting them to come back. They're all waiting in the Copper Coronet at the moment and I go back and get them if I think they'll be useful for whatever we are doing. I like to have only people in my party most of the time, going up to 5 whenever we acquire a new NPC whilst on a quest. My current core 4 characters are:

A PC Kensai
Minsc
Anomen
Jan

These 4 cover all of the main character roles nicely. 3 melee fighters, 3 ranged fighters, 1 divine spellcaster, 1 arcane spellcaster, 1 thief. It then doesn't matter what skills the 5th character brings.

 

You could always just, by ignoring alignments, go with the best there are.

Yourself as Thief - the only way to get a pure thief.

Edwin - unarguably the best mage in the game, due to the fact he is the only pure one.

Viconia - unarguably the best cleric in the game, for the same reason that Edwin is the best mage. She is the only pure cleric.

Korgan - a pure tank. Nearly unmatched for damage, with a high dwarven constitution.

Keldorn - one of the most powerful fighters in the game, with his Inquisitor powers and the ability to use his pally sword a major plus.

Minsc - A big lug who can hold the front line as good as the next guy. Third in the list of strongest fighters.

 

Well, if you want a hack 'n slash party that rushes up to every enemy they see, then take Minsc, Keldorn, Korgan, Anomen, and Mazzy.

But, but you want a great combo with a few of each type of character, take Aerie, Jaheria, Yoshi, Keldorn, and Immy, and Sarevok once you get to ToB.

 

I second Jaguar's most powerful NPC's lineup, except for Minsc. In general the evil npc's are vastly superiour to the good ones with perhaps Keldorn being the exception. Edwin is the without a doubt best mage, even if I dont count Imoen and Nalia as non-pure class mages. They are dual-classed for heavens sake! Edwin have an amulet though which gives him extra spells of every level and thus makes him superiour to any mage, heck, I would even say that he rivals sorcerers on pure power. Korgan is one tough little bugger, he can chop through anything and Viconia is the perfect cleric. Her only drawback is that you really dont need such a pure cleric, she will get a gazillion spells, more than anyone could ever need. To those I like to add Jan and then whatever PC you want even if a tank like one fits best among them.

 

Minsc, Minsc, Minsc. That's all I ever hear! I personally don't know why Minsc is all anyone ever talks about. But that's cool. Because he's cool. Especially with Unfinished Business.

Anyway, if you're going 1st time with a party, I would tend to leave Jahiera out of it, because, as this is your first time presumeably, you probably won't know how to play her right. I'd leave her until you're nice and familiar with BG2. Minsc is the easiest character to play pretty much. Just point him in whatever direction and his swordarm with do the rest. Leave Aerie out too as she takes a little expierence with the game too.

For your very first party, I would definetly go with:

Keldorn
Minsc
Anomen
Immy
Aerie would make sense here as a backup arcane/divine, but she's a little tough to play. You may or may not want to take her. Jahiera would also make sense, but again, the same problem. I don't think anyone else would really fit here, so go with another fighter. Valygar would work nicely, but that means you'll have 3 rangers.

I would encourage you to take a fighter/mage for your first run through of BG2. They are the foolproof tanks of BG2. Dual-wielding fighter/mage. Nobody stands a chance.

 

Best first party:

Jan!
Minsc
Jaheira
Imoen
Valygar

 

The easiest is probably

You - Human Kensai/Thief

Party -
Keldorn
Korgan
Valygar
Mazzy
Minsc

 

IMHO, a beginner should just make sure every base is covered:

A pure tank
A priest
A Wizard
a thief

After that, just have some fun.

 

Kensai/Thief... Does he still have the armor restrictions of the Kensai after he dual-classes?

 

Yes he does. No armour, no sheilds and no ranged weapons. You can use throwing daggers.
Even if you havent yet re-activated your Kensai levels.
Kensai/Mages can wear robes.

 

Even without being mages?
What about elven (chain) mail?

 

Kensai can't wear armour. The only exception is robes, and only Kensai/Mages can wear mage robes.

 

All depends on whether you want to powergame or role-play. I'm a believer in roleplaying and the role-breakdown method of party construction, and I think this is the best mix:

2-2.5 tanks (necessary to keep the mages alive)
1-1.5 divine casters (pure or multi - doesn't matter as much as arcane since they access their top spells earlier)
1.5-2 arcane casters (one pure, one multi/dual or Bard class)
0.5 thief (multi or dual is sufficient in SoA)

My personal choices, of course, are affected by my opinions of the NPCs themselves.

My core "Good" party is:
PC
Minsc (tank)
Jaheira (tank/divine caster)
Imoen (thief/arcane caster)

Based on that, I have the basics of what I need irrespective of the PC's class, so it's a case of getting whoever I want to fill out the group's strengths. My first party was as a Stalker, and I had Aerie and Valygar thrown in. Upon reflection, I think Keldorn would have been a better selection than Valygar, but hey, he's cool and a solid fighter.

My current party is a LE Monk, Korgan, Jaheira, Viconia, Haer'Dalis and Edwin. I think HD will get dropped for Jan (sorry, Scythesong) just so I have a thief in the mix. So long as you've got at least one person for any job, you should be fine.

 

My team is:

Me - Assassin
Aerie
Minsc
Natalia
Anomen

My old team was:

Me - Necromancer
Jaheria
Yoshimo/Imoen
Keldorn
Viconia
Haer'Dalis - very under-rated

 

If I'm playing a "good aligned" party, the most powerful would have to be:

PC (completely up to you)
Keldorn
Anomen
Jaheira
Nalia
Yoshimo/Imoen

The only real question here is do you want to have Anomen and Keldorn be your main tanks, or have the PC get involved.

For my evil-aligned parties, it's pretty straight-forward.

PC (need a second main tank, so usually I play either a beserker or a barbarian)
Korgan
Viconia (can tank eventually, but not in the beginning)
Edwin
Jan
Haer Dalis'