Okku or One of Many?

[Beren]

Leave aside the roleplaying choice involved for the moment ...

On a practical level, who do you find more useful?

Pros for Okku:
- Plenty of steady damage over the long haul
- Claws and teeth take on adamantine properties at higher levels
- Mammoth hit points

Cons for Okku:
- Inflexibility compared to One of Many
- Poor saving throws during what is an epic level campaign
- Rarely if ever inflicts critical hits, despite having the improved critical feat, at least in my experience.
- Can only equip an amulet and two rings.

Pros for One of Many:
- Can change class between Barbarian, Rogue, and Warlock, immense flexibility
- The Child has good skills distribution, and can usually score 100+ damage on a sneak attack
- The Brute is no slouch when it comes to damage

Cons for One of Many:
- Can't equip any items at all
- Some people may not like the Mad Woman's choices of evocations
- For some people, the Mad Woman may not be accessible until too late

Not meant to be exhaustive. If you have others to add along with your opinion, by all means.

[Marceror]

I always go with Okku, and probably always will.

First off, I never seem to choose tank characters for my main character, and Okku fills that role nicely.

Okku is available almost immediately.

His resists can be bumped up a fair amount with items.

I nearly always handle the roguish abilities with my own character, so I wouldn't need OoM for that, plus you have to do a fair amount of questing before you can bring him into your party.

I have no interest in using OoM as a barbarian or a warlock... just preference.

From a roleplaying perspective I just really don't ever do the evil thing.

[Paracelsi]

I prefer Okku. I don't find One of Many that useful, but if I could bring another party member along I'd swap either Kaelyn or Gann for One of Many.

[Dr_Asik]

I have no experience with Okku, but I've never found myself wishing for a better tank, even before unlocking OoM's Brute form. Kaelyn did perfectly fine. The game really isn't that difficult, at least on normal.

Towards the end game I started really capitalizing on OoM's Child form because all you have to do is place him behind ennemies and he sneak attacks constantly for massive damage. Much better damage than in his Brute form IMO. The Brute is the least useful of his forms: the Mad Woman's Eldritch Doom is basically guaranteed damage over an area and OoM can cast it constantly.

[Marceror]

Originally Posted by Beren

Cons for Okku:
- Poor saving throws during what is an epic level campaign

One thing that should be considered here, is that once you get your approval rating high enough with Okku, which isn't all that hard to do, he gains a +6 to will saves, and becomes immune to fear and mind affecting spells. Between that perhaps some equipment to boost his saves, his saves aren't that bad. You can also cast Greater Reistance on him to boost his saves by 3 for 24 hours.

@Dr_Asik
I'm am a fan of your Let's Plays. What can I say, the "most boring commentary on the internet" appeals to me.

I'm particularly enjoying your Baldur's Gate let's play. Great game, and you are doing an excellent job bringing everyone along with you on the let's play. I'm impressed that you appear to "practice" before you record, so that you have a very clear idea what you're going to do. Must take a hell of a lot of your time. Makes for a nice final product though.

I've also watched a lot of your IWD2 Let's Play as well as your Mask of the Betrayer Let's Play, which I've been watching a couple of "episodes" a day of as of late. In fact, you inspired me to start a new MotB campaign just last night.

Keep up the good work!

[Dr_Asik]

Originally Posted by Marceror

@Dr_Asik
I'm am a fan of your Let's Plays. What can I say, the "most boring commentary on the internet" appeals to me.

I'm rather amazed that anybody at all watches my LPs. Nonetheless, comments like this (and an ever-growing number of subscribers) is why I keep at it. So thanks!

[NguyenGiaThai]

I dislike playing evil, so I havent tried One of Many yet.

But I find these advantages of Okku:

With the massive amount of HP each enemy possess, melee troops become very necessary, like Summons. They got so-so HP so you need to babysit them. Okku got massive HP so he can survive for awhile before you must heal him. With Nature's Avatar, Awaken, Flame Weapon, Greater Fang/Magic Weapon, you get a formidable fighting machine to keep enemies off your casters' backs.

Kaji, Safiya's familiar, is adequate rogue. He cant recover traps, but he can disable traps and open locks. Especially with buffs like Greater Heroism and Greater Cat Grace. A single stoneskin keep him alive through the most grievous trap, then we can resummon him as needed. So there's not much need for rogue in your party unless you like backstabs. Therefore you dont have much need of OoM first form.

Not that I used Okku much. Safiya, Gann, and the Cleric can summon nearly as good but disposable creatures, plus their spells. I used Okku for certain events only.