Hi everyone,

A while ago I discovered Shadowkeeper, so I'm having a lot of fun changing the NPCs around to something new.

My current party is as follows:

Lothar - Thief/cleric dual class
Viconia - Berserker, I changed her alignment to CN and her str to 17, which may be cheating a bit, but meh...
Jaheira (love interest) - Blade, this kit rocks! :) , I switched her wis and int, so she can at least cast some spells.
Kelsy - Sorcerer, unmodded.

I only just got out of jon's dungeon (yay for mods!), and I've just did the slaver quests.

The party kicks serious butt so far, but I feel I'm missing something, I don't know what, but I think it might get tougher later on.

I've been thinking of adding Haer'dalis and either Mazzy or Korgan (changing aligment to CN), but I don't know what classes to give them.

Anyone got suggestions?

Oh and another question, where can I get a good blunt weapon for my cleric? Cause I can't remember any, excluding staves ofcourse.

thanks

My only comment is that you seem to be a little short on healing, having only one healer who isn't dedicated.

Adding in a multiclass ranger/cleric might be a way to go. You get another nice tank this way, another good healer, and you get access to druid spells.

As far as blunt weapons go, there is a nice +2 hammer with lightning in adventurers mart.

Jan or Minsc to hamm it up a bit. I like a game with some fun in it!

I think dual-classed cleric can be enough for healing, so go for straight tanks or pure casters from now on. You have a main arcane spell caster, a suport caster, a nice healer/thief combo, a solid tank. Good mix. Add in Anomen for tank/healer and you will be fine I think. Keldorn is also a solid choice as he is one of the best NPCs out there, who can tank and debuff mages around at the same time!

Thanks for the replies :) .

I have played with Minsc and Jan for too long now, I've grown a bit tired of them. Don't get me wrong, they're great characters, but I don't want them on this run.

Keldorn is my favorite NPC in this game, I usually take him quite often as well. I heard that he fights with Viconia after a while? So that's prolly a bad idea.

The thief/cleric is indeed a dual class, so healing shouldn't be a problem. I'm thinking of making Hear a wild mage and Mazzy maybe like a paladin, undead hunter, or inquisitor.

Only now I've forgot Imoen is still captured! So I might have to make room for her... Baah, I'll just play the game as I go along and see how it goes :) .

Pick up Imoen in Spellhold and you'll be good to go.

Immy is needed for plot and RP purposes, but the party already has a compotent (or so I hope) thief and one big bad main caster (Kelsey) and a nice enough support caster (Jaheira as a Blade-this comes to me as very weird, but..) But you know what I say:'You can never have too many arcane casters in a party!' :)

Your cleric/thief can only backstab with staves and clubs. The Staff of Rynn is the best you can find early on (Adventurers Mart). Two clubs that are worthwhile are Gnasher and Blackblood -- both can be found while doing the Trademeet quests.

The only other weapon my C/T used was Flail of Ages (D'Arness Keep).

Make Mazzy a monk or kensai.
HD could be a Jester ( :D ) or swashbuckler.
Korgan... well the only thing that really fits is a berserker -- or barbarian.

I've decided not to add any more members at the moment. I will add Immy ofcourse when I get to her. Don't know about her class yet though... might make her a wild mage.

This party rocks so far, I haven't had any trouble killing stuff up to chapter 4. The only annoying this is Jaheira has so few spells, must be cause her int is only 16.

As for making Jaheira a bard, why not? Harpers have lots of bards as far as I know and I believe the 1st edition way of becoming a bard is as follows:
Lvl up as a fighter a bit, then switch to druid a bit, then get some special druid training to become a bard.
That's what I've read somewhere, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. But it does prove Jaheira can be a bard :p .

Doh, the flail of ages... completely forgot about that... Is it worth picking up in chapter 6? Right now I'm running around with the mace of disruption and the warhammer +2 +1 electrical.

I'm not much of a thief guy, I only added the levels so I can open locks and find traps. I might play a dedicated thief on another run. It's quite annoying though that the thievery button is on the special abilities tab...

Thanks for the replies :) .

Intelligence has nothing to do with number of spells castable per day, it is set in stone in AD&D rules. INT only limits max number of spells you can learn (scribe in your book), and the chance to learn spells. (it also affects max lvl of spell casting, but this rule is not implemented in BG2)

IIRC 1st edition becoming a bard was even more complex than that. :p

FoA is a very good weapon, and it only gets better once you are in ToB. You can upgrade it to +4 and +5 in ToB, and it becomes a very powerful and useful weapon. Even its +3 version in SoA sure beats pathetic warhammer+2 electirical! Get it ASAP!

Why dont you make them ALL Sorcerers? :evil:

You'll be rocking then!

Personally, I believe that Arcane magic is the most powerful form of fighting in SoA. In ToB, fighters get there rematch. I'd go with another Arcane caster, and since you've decided to bring Imoen - problem solved.

Go for Imoen! However, you'd better go to Spellhold ASAP, since Imoen will be lagging XP way to much if you don't.

1st ed. AD&D required that you start out a fighter for 5-7 levels, then switch to thief for another 5+ levels before finally becoming a bard. 1st ed. bards had druidic casting ability but were not required to BE druids at any point.

Pre-3rd editions of (A)D&D were a huge mess.

1st & 2nd ed. AD&D Gave you a lot of room to use your own imagination, I guess that was a little much for most people.

Uh-oh, smelling explosive argument here...

I usually prefer my parties with at least 2-3 tanking characters, and 1 to 1 1/2 mages. Right now I'm thinking of having Tashia, Nalia (later Imoen) and Haer'dalis in one party and I'm not sure I want to do it... The rest are PC (Ranger DC to cleric), Jaheira, Keldorn and Kivan. Now, I don't want to ditch Kivan as long as arrows are useful (as he rocks with a bow), and need a thief so Nalia'll have to do.

Any advice on how to balance things?

^You really do not need a bard with that group, it is solid enough. Two major casters (one is even a sorceress!), three tanks, of which two are also competent healers, and one solid ranged attacker to stay in the back to defend casters. Looks quite good to me. :thumb:

FoA is a very good weapon, and it only gets better once you are in ToB. You can upgrade it to +4 and +5 in ToB, and it becomes a very powerful and useful weapon. Even its +3 version in SoA sure beats pathetic warhammer+2 electirical! Get it ASAP!When I mentioned the lightning hammer +2 I certainly didn't mean to imply that there weren't better 1HB weapons out there. But in terms of what's available in Athkatla almost immediately after exiting Reni's dungeon, there isn't much, and I think the lightning hammer is among the better early options. In truth, I initially started to to type FoA as my response, but wasn't totally certain that clerics could use flails. And this item involves leaving Atkathla and completing a fairly lengthy quest to attain.

The first cleric weapon I usually go for is a good ole mace +2, because I can lift this item from my buddy Gorch free of charge. From there I can make FoA a secondary goal, then maybe the Mace of Disruption the Hammer of Thunderbolts. My clerics usually, ultimately, end up wielding Crom Faeyr.

Two major casters (one is even a sorceress!)Apparently some is doubting Kelsey's masculinity! :D

I usually avoid assembling crom faeyr... I mean 25 strength IS huge, but I don't want to sacrifice so many strength-buffing items just to make one character super-strong. Then again, my parties are usually heavy on melee types; with more mages or thieves, you won't need so many strength-buffing belts.

Oh, if you have the item upgrade mods, there is one very powerful cleric weapon available even before the asylum - Pitchwife, a mix between the blackblood club (acid damage, sold in trademeet), and the good ole' Gnasher club (splinter damage): it's +5 AND has improved splinters.

There are enough strength-buffing items in the game and think of all of the bothersome golems that crom faeyr will take out for you.

Yeah... but in the SoA part 18-00 or more is still nothing to sneer at.

Korgan... well the only thing that really fits is a berserker -- or barbarian. Heh, my current run I made Korgan a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist. I only just got rolling (I'm off to pick up Edwin the Jerk) so I cannot yet report about how strange Korgan's new race/class appear ingame.

How about Edwin as a jester?

There are enough strength-buffing items in the game and think of all of the bothersome golems that crom faeyr will take out for you. There is no way to assemble crom faeyr before you are throu with Underdark, and by that point there are almost no golems left, except for few in Suldenesellar, which pose no real problems by the time you meet them. So I agree with The Shaman, CF is a waste of too much good items. I rather have two peoples with superhuman strenght, than one with god like.

Korgan as a gnome? Even that's beyond my view of stretching it. Keep us informed how he fares in his new body.

Thanks for all the replies guys, but I've put this run on hold for a while. I've finally found IWD 1 so I'm kinda busy playing that :D .