Suggestion for 6th party member?

[Voy]

Hey, so I'm playing BGT and I can't make up my mind about 6th member of my party so far I have;

Woj - Blade (19-19-16 so I guess he makes a decent 2nd liner)
Jaheira FD
Valygar R
Viconia C
Nalia T/M

Atm I'm doing most quests before rescuing Imoen, I'm entertaining a thought of taking her as my 2nd mage and perhaps taking Yoshimo for my trip there because I have never done that.

What would your favoutire character to be 6th person there
- storywise
- most useful
I'm thinking of perhaps ditching Jaheira - so if you have 2 ppl in mind, she is expandable I guess. I used her in last play-through, but tbh she is kinda useful with fire elementals and iron skins, low ac etc(party is around 12th level).

[MrMermaid]

You seem to be erring on the good side, you have reasonable fighters but no dedicated tank, and you already have a pretty decent mage (Nalia) whose thieving skills, albeit poor, can be easily boosted with some easy-to-find items/potions.

My suggestion is Keldorn (decent melee fighter, awesome dispel and true sight abilities, and most importantly can eventually wield Carsomyr, arguably the best 2-hander in the game), although if I remember correctly he will fight with Viconia eventually, so it's one or t'other. If you were to drop Viccy, Anomen is the only other option for a dedicated cleric (and once he's passed his test his attributes get a lot better). If you keep Viccy, I would then suggest Korgan, as he is simply kick-ass, and you can easily pick up a couple of great axes for him early on. This would however markedly shift the alignment of the group a bit closer to evil.

Yoshimo is also great, has a lot of brilliant banter with every other NPC.

It might help to know which of the two (Jaheira/Viconia) you are intending to romance. It would also help to know on what difficulty you are playing, and how much of a power-gaming team you want, or indeed whether power is preferable to banter/story.

EDIT: If you do go with Korgan, swap Jaheira for Mazzy, and you will have a whale of a time with that party. Great banters and excellent team cohesion/fighting ability.

[Voy]

Interesting ideas, problem with Keldorn is that I dissmissed him to see his family
I've never tried Korgan/Mazzy so maybe at least one is worth trying

I intend to romance with Viccy so I guess Jaheira is expendable, though I'd rather complete the Harpers quest first

I play on standard difficulty- however i have scs1 and scs2 installed; without improved bossess- only smarter general AI, better call for helps etc- it makes magic encounters more difficult since mages start each battle with defensive spell triggers. I guess it makes magical foes substantially harder especially demons as i've noticed :S

I don't think my npc would fight or leave group anyways; i have happy npc patch- so they stay and don't fight each other- only whine

[T2Bruno]

Storywise you take Yoshimo and then take Imoen.

Most useful? Come on ... you're taking Nalia and Valygar ... kinda late to be thinking about useful.

[Voy]

Well I took Nalia because, I wanted to try her out and besides being an awful thief(not hard to remedy by potions) she's a great mage, not worse than Imoen I think. Plus she will may have huge exp advantage over Imoen(well matters only for SoA, but still).

Valygar is quite useful actually and with strength enhancing item he's as good as minsc and certainly less annoying.

but ok I guess you have a point, my point is though they are not liabilities
well what about Cernd? I have rebalancing mod(one that 'repairs' the kit so it is true to the description) - does Cernd still suck with it, anyone tried?

[Blades of Vanatar]

I ignore Nalia's thief abilites, but utilize her thief weapon profs. Add Yoshi. Or add Jan Jansen. Probably my favorite Bioware NPC. Jan, Mazzy and Korgan make for good times. Or download a Mod NPC thief type. Though you will have to start over for that.

[T2Bruno]

Cernd is a god with the shapeshifter unbalancing mod.

[Voy]

Originally Posted by Blades of Vanatar

I ignore Nalia's thief abilites, but utilize her thief weapon profs. Add Yoshi. Or add Jan Jansen. Probably my favorite Bioware NPC. Jan, Mazzy and Korgan make for good times. Or download a Mod NPC thief type. Though you will have to start over for that.

I see you have a thing for the little races
I tried Jan and he was funny at times, but him being multiclass bothered me plus he can't use necromancy and I like necromancy

Originally Posted by T2Bruno

Cernd is a god with the shapeshifter unbalancing mod.

Oh yea I just read in that install, perhaps the mod takes it too far(unlimited shape-shifts/casting when changed)- But the idea behind it is good I guess, the werewolf was supposed to be good but somehow it's crap(well not all crap but druids barely hold their own in bg2) Seems like there were several things that were not implemented in the original game... At least it seemed to me that way as I went through like 9 mods I wanted to install
Only this year I bothered to play with other mods than BGT and item stacking.
IMO it's awesome that there were/are so many people that worked hard to bring the game closer to what it should be/and also sometimes bring it away a bit from how it was intended but just to make it tad better. So if anyone here bothered in with that kind of work, big thanks from me.

[kmonster]

Since you're playing a bard mage, bard or thief NPCs will make your PC less useful and jealous.
Take Mazzy and put all her proficiencies into axes (if you're going to use them yourself into halberds).
Another option is the ToB NPC, if you plan doing so don't do much in WK during SoA.

[Rawgrim]

Mazzy has some excelent interactions with Valygar.

[MrMermaid]

On further consideration, I now firmly stand by my hesitant advice earlier: take Korgan and Mazzy. They are great, basically.

[Yoshimo's Heart]

They are also funny together too...

[Voy]

I just picked up Cernd for his personal quest. Btw having 4 ppl cast doom x2 each has a cool side to it, I just disposed of a dragon doing this, 8x doom, 1x finger of death (viconia levels fast yey!). Is there anything that protects from doom? Coz in spell description it says there is no save.

Thanks for replies, I think I won't keep Cernd though
I'm think I'll go with either Yoshimo like T2Bruno said, or Mazzy(as Rawgrim said she is good pairing with Valygar).
Maybe Anomen since I found dex-gauntlets and I hate to think nobody gonna wear em
I'm tempted to try Korgan but he's evil and dwarf :S

Btw is there any place I could stash my items; like my stronghold? They never disappear right? I'd shadowkeep myself a bag but there is a dirty feeling everytime use it

[Blades of Vanatar]

Any container will do for storage. But remember, once you head to the Asylum, you won't be able to get them back for a while... I usually use containers in the Promenade.

[SlickRCBD]

As for using shadowkeeper, you can also use "CLUAConsole:CreateItem("Bag31") for an empty bag of holding. Bags 20-30 have stuff in them that correspond to the bags of holding you get when starting a new game in Throne of Bhaal. This is different from the bag you get in the asylum.

Blades of Vanatar is correct, you can use any container you want anywhere.

[Voy]

Originally Posted by T2Bruno

Storywise you take Yoshimo and then take Imoen.

Most useful? Come on ... you're taking Nalia and Valygar ... kinda late to be thinking about useful.

I did just that
Frankly I wanted later to switch Imoen for Mazzy like rest here suggested but having 3 arcane casters is something hard to give up, so I stayed with Imoen. Having wide range of spells ready for any encounter is really a blessing in this game, having lots of pierce magic/ruby rays(especially having 3 casters fite them at once!) really cames in handy facing Liches and other Highlevel mages.

Blade is a powerhouse with offensive spin/improved haste, I soloed some encounters for fun, like Bodhi and it wasn't even hard. I'm glad i tried to play a game with one. If anyone thinks about it, I guess it's worth it. Now I wait for UAI(last game i was TM so i know what it does waiting to put my hands on crassomyr- obtaining which was surprisingly easy)

Well I guess core rules are easy for most but it's just my 2nd complete playthrough and i don't know the game yet inside out Also I have SCSII installed(but nothing improved) and PnP fiends, which are somewhat overpowered. Even Galabarezu(or smth like that) is a pest now. Demons now go to ether and regenerate back at full health :S- or maybe it is also like that in the original game someone help me coz i don't remember Did Nabbassu gaze change to ghoul in the original game as well?