1. Anomen should be given dual-wielding proficiency to increase the number of attacks.

2. Minsc should be given single-weapon style proficiency to operate Celestial Fury and be able to switch to bow easily, unless you have some other fighter thac0 character able to wield katanas. With Minsc already having mace proficiency, this tactic will work with mace of disruption, or axe may be selected for Azuredge.

3. It's not a bad idea for Imoen or Nalia to hone longsword ability. Angurvadal +5 giving 22 STR to the wielder will increase their hit probability by something around 10.

4. Jaheira isn't meant to dual-wield. She's meant to be untouchable with huge armour class from dexterity, armour and shield as well as generic immunity based on ironskin. Late in ToB, Ixil's Thorn is meant for her.

5. Valygar isn't supposed to be katana boy till his last breath. Ravisher halberd with 10% decapitation chance is far better in his case.

6. Aerie isn't the character with the lowest life expectancy. Contrary, she's the character with the best protection available. Give her the improved chainmail from Suldanesselar and a shield of at least +4, cast stoneskin and forget about melee/ranged issue. As for protection from magic, she has the best of the two worlds of divine and arcane.

7. Robe of Vecna is meant for Aerie. Imagine full heal at speed reduced by 4 from robe of vecna and additional 1 from the amulet that also protects from draining.

8. Aerie is a better fighter than Anomen if properly prepared. This is owing to the undisputable fact that her dexterity doesn't suck and that she may wear STR-increasing items rather than DEX-increasing ones. She has all the best mage protections like stoneskin or mirror image (sorry, Anomen, you should have thought more about your carreer progression). Anomen has more HP, but Aerie in any case will have better AC and the said total immunity (stoneskin, mirror image, shield from magic missiles etc). She benefits from spells raising priest or mage's HP or thac0 to warrior level, which is not really worth the effort with Anomen. Ultimately she may cast Tenser's Shift on self after casting all the buffs desired.

Of course Anomen is a better fighter on the menial day to day battle to battle basis, but he's not all that wonderful anyway.

9. Cernd is no better than Jaheira. Of course the Great Overpowerment Point happens earlier, but Jaheira delivers pretty nice damage herself at the price of a few spell slots and ultimately receives all the combat abilities of a warrior that are available to non-pure-class-fighters. Plus, she's able to survive when her ironskin is over or removed.

10. Viconia might be the best priest in the game, but for sure isn't the best priest character in the game. See Aerie, Anomen and Jaheira sections above for further reasoning (spell slots isn't everything, briefly said).

11. Similarly Edwin might be the best mage around, but not the best mage character. Potion of Genius raises INT to above the whatever-allowance level for any mage NPC. In all other areas Edwin sucks proudly. He is also socially impaired and has a charming personality rivalled only by Anomen's one.

12. Nalia doesn't suck and isn't the second Imoen. She's another mage to your party with also some hobby abilities that not all of them wizards possess. Never too much magic ;)

13. You don't desperately need any single class fighter NPC in your party. You are perfectly able to finish the game easily with an all casters party.

[ July 09, 2003, 00:16: Message edited by: chevalier ]

Neat, nice, sweet. You really like Aerie don't you lol.

Bah, Edwin has me in fits. You gotta love him :)

I agree wholeheartedly with all points about Aerie. With Crom Faeyr and a decent shield, plus spells like Tenser's Transformation, Stoneskin, etc, she becomes awesome...but still with low HP.

Nalia and Imoen definitely should invest in Longswords, but I think Bioware made it so that Longswords is "reserved" for the PC. Only one NPC has points in that (I think) and that's Keldorn, and the level 13 version too.

With the Shapeshifter Rebalancing Mod, Cernd can dispense butt kicking for goodness (neutral-ness, actually)

Edwin gets +3 spells per level. And that is a LOT.

chevalier you are right about aerie and you are not. i agree to all your points BUT i don't see were you need aerie in there. she herself is a piece of junk concerning her attributes. sadly, aerie sucks at last, just look at her rat-like hitpoints, it is better to create this char by yourself.

hm and edwin is surely no second anomen. you get some nice comments from him and he will answer instead of you in some case, all with his 18 INT and mage profession (beholder/sahuagin for example). no other mages do as he does. and you forgot his amulet.

You complain about Aerie's stats yet praise Edwin despite his stats being worse than any other NPC? (76 out of 83.0625 avg to Aerie's 82 out of ~83. Moreover in a game where 75-80 should comprise an average PC) Not to mention if her hit points were rat-like then Edwin's would be insectoid at best.

Aerie's stats are fine, especially considering her abilities.

Deathmage: That's what the belt of fortitude is for.

oh yeah ... you compare stats and some added numbers which is ABSOLUTELY not the same. edwin has -18- INT and 16 CON, all other stats 10. well i only miss some DEX points here but CON is more important because mages have low HP anyway so they need all they can get. beside there are bracers of dexterity to solve this.
now to wonderwoman aerie: 16 WIS and 16 INT. oh yes i am so stupid. this is way superior, my apologies. 9 CON. no comment. and don't point on the girdle of fortitude, 8 hours lasting is crap. or do you rest after 8-10 hours ingame all the time ? 17 DEX is nice but with 9 CON you always have to rely on magic defenses even against goblin archers.

i agree with dan simpson to vote edwin B+ (A for evil parties) and aerie C+.

Although this is a personall opinion i do believe that Anomen is a very good choice for a priest and should not be given the dual weapon wielding proficiency since he is pretty good at casting some priest spells at the beginning of the battle and then join the massacre. :D And after all he has a very low AC and even the slightest help is good. I personally have him as a secondary tank so i don't have the stress of extra attacks for Anomen as i have for my character.

First, Ixil's crap is nothing for Jaheira. My J. has Staff of Ram.

Second, there's no point in meeleing with Aerie with her spellbook / holy symbol capacity (and some wand for never resting people) she can cast for hours.
Five magic missiles, flame strikes, flame arrows, fingers of deaths, chain lightnings... blasssstssss themsss to asssshessss...

Your right bloodtitan, he has 74 total, which is even worse. This is not a perfect way to to analyze a character, but it can give a pretty good estimation before considering classes.

Since when does having an 18 INT matter anyway? Now I could be missing something painfully obvious, however the only reason I can see other than as a dual class prerequisite would be your chance to learn a spell, which is always 100% in the default difficulty. Now an 18 wisdom might be nice for bonus priest spells, but I think I can live without it. It's not like she doesn't get enough spells anyway.

Right. Of to hit points:

Edwin = 1d4(2.5 avg) + 2 / level = 6 maximum, 4.5 average.
Aerie = 1d4/2(1.25 avg) + 1d8/2(2.25 avg) level = 6 maximum, 3.5 average.

There you go. Edwin gets one victory, however only on higher difficulty levels. On the standard difficulty he would only be noticably better at high levels. Don't forget priests have spells to raise ones hit points and constitution. They're BOTH completely dependant on spells for combat protection.

B+ and B for them as far as I'm concerned. (He'd be a C if it weren't for that damn nice amulet. :) ) If I really need a power caster, I'd much rather make my own. (See the 74 stat points comment. :p ) Otherwise Aerie or Jan would be far more useful.

[Edit]
Okay I have to be wrong on that INT statement somehow. A 9 INT mage can possibly be just as good as an 18 INT mage by my logic. Other than 15-16 INT as prereqs for specialists, what am I missing?

[ July 10, 2003, 21:41: Message edited by: Alex ]

Intelligence governs chance to learn spells and total number of spells that you can have per level in your spellbook (much more important before the erase feature, but, still, irritating to get the "you've learned the maximum number of spells for that level" message).

that is what i meant dmc. my time with normal difficulty games is long over. if i play bg2 it has to be core minimum, more insane. and with 16 int aerie fails far too often to be worth to pick up. well i am no reload fan. and this amulet of edwin : yes with the 2 rings of wizardry/acuity you get mostly 9 spells per lvl nearly doubleing aerie. my point is i want 2 chars, 1 cleric and 1 mage because they ar way better as soloclass. and if i already have a cleric and a mage, why would i have to get another mixchar of them ? i don't want to disintegrate every goblin, my playing style is melee or range vs. lesser enemies. edwin has more than enough arcane power for a day and i got room to pick a greater variety of npcs.
another important point of CON : saving throws, especially vs poison and disease. hobgoblin archers can poison you through stoneskin spells for example.

well and apologies for my cynism and sarcasm before.

Ahh yes, the Erase feature is your friend. It's not like you need every spell of every level anyway. Last I checked I never used more than 3 different spells per level regularly, with a couple of others used sparingly. With the same equipment (obviously not Edwin's amulet however), Aerie would have 3 spells/level less than Edwin, which is fine with me considering she gets another 7 levels full of spells in return.

Why would poison ever be a problem with Aerie? I'm sure a couple of second level slots or even one fourth level slot (priest, of course) could be spared to negate that risk...

One more thing Alex - a mage with a 16 in intelligence cannot learn level 9 wizard spells, provided you are playing on a minimum difficulty of core rules. Maybe not even level 8 spells, but I'm not sure on that. Definitely not level 9 though.

Methinks Korgan should invest in Two-Weapon Style instead of Warhammers.

Well I am playing on the default level. Not minimum, and I can learn any spell I want.