I vote Aerie!!!

She is so cute and realistic... almost real (sad?)

Best NPC in the game is very hard indeed. But I think my choice would be sarevok. I am glad they brought him back. He has cool dialog and he is very tough. His Deathbringer Assault is brutal and hey he IS your brother in the game. As far as his realism he is just like an older brother, he treats you like shit until you actually grow up.

The best NPC for what? for funny lines, for strength or for both.

for funny lines jan.

for strength aerie or minsc or saravok (all good)

for both minsc

just my twisted little point of view

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http://members.aol.com/lasttrueprinc...ages/bruce.gif

(from the words of Anorath, a Kensai/Mage who started back in Candlekeep as a plain fighter)

Hmmm, that's a tough question, my friend. I have met many allies and friends in my journeys and grew very close to them. In my youth, there was my best friend Kivan (who taught me to use a longbow), my right hand man, Minsc (what a character he was). There was my friend and lover, Jaheira (a bit abrasive at times, but a warm, caring woman, none the less). And of course, my sister, Imoen (beautiful, but naive).

As I travelled to distant, unknown lands, I met others that aided me in the fight against evil and the wrong doings of my half-brothers and sisters. I met a sweet elven child named Aerie, but I had to part ways with her quickly (boy did she complain alot). I met a very beautiful woman by the name of Viconia, a beautiful, exotic creature (a Drow elf, I believe), but sadly she did not seem to fit in well with the group (Jahiera didn't like the way she looked at me).

But to answer the question put forth, I would have to say, my half-brother Sarevok. For in the end it was he and I together that wiped the taint of our father, Bhaal from this world. Admittedly, I was never too sure of what to expect from him, but he suprised me greatly when he decided to become a force of good and fight by my side. I only wish he had seen the error of his ways sooner. I could have used his help against that mad elf, Irenicus. http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...es/biggrin.gif



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-Immoral

Sarevok no contest... Well, maybe a little contest... Minsc and Jan were cool too...

Pure Offensive Weapon Power: Sarevok

Pure Offensive Weapon Power and Good Dialogue Combo: Minsc

Best Dialogue: tie between Jan, Korgan and Edwin(Korgan won because Edwin and Jan withdrew after he threatened to cut off their heads http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...iles/smile.gif)

Best Spellcaster: Aerie(If given the right equipment of course)

Best Spellcaster and Fighter Combo: Jan or Aerie

Best Allround Character: Jan, Aerie or Jaheira

Worst Character: Cernd, he can use no armor and only druid weapons, and there aren't that many special druid spells for him to have to make up for it.


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Best Comments from Volo in Saradush: Edwin, Korgan or Sarevok

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Best NPC Ending Story: Edwin, Korgan, Jan or Minsc.

Well... Kivan and Sarevok I think.
The BG1 characters was better than many BG2 I think.
Ajantis better than Keldorn, Kivan better than Valygar, Imoen better than Imoen...

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We call him Bobby Corwen
http://www.finalfantasy.nu/forum/minichoco.gif

Yeah! I remember what you reminded me of now - the end of The Secret of Monkey Island 2, when Guybrush the pirate finds out his ghostly nemesis, the pirate LeChuck, is in fact... his older brother! Heh heh, what a guy.

"I... am your brother!"
"No... no, that's not true! THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"
"Search your feelings, you know it to be true..."

Who am I goin to pick hmmmmm, is it Cernd, no. Haer'dalis, no. Or maybe it's TIAX. Yes Tiax, who would have ether thought of a mad gnome who believes he is destined to rule all the planes and ascend to take Cyric's place. His speeches are so funny, Jan is a funny guy too but Tiax,is on a whole other level.I really wish they didn't kill him off.

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"In Ankh-Morpork curiosity killed the cat, tied weights to its legs and then threw it in the river."

Tiax, warmaster of clan HADB

[This message has been edited by Sigmar (edited 08-10-2001).]

With raw power you can't go with Sarevok. He is just cool, and his deathbringer assualt is surprisingly effective. He gets a little annoying with his reputation complaints. (Made me want to chop him into bits!) Minsc is also good too, you just need to give him the right stuff.

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Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I just don't have to listen.
http://train.missouri.org/~prestons/.../flamedrag.gif

BG1 Imoen. In 2, she's such a whiner. Although she and Nalia did have some interesting dialouge in the Fire Giants lair once...I also liked Minsc, in both. He does have some cool dialog. I really liked his comments to Aerie after we started TOB, about performing her witchly duties...

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"...and that's the
bottom line, 'cause Robert the Bard says so!"
Robert the Bard TLH

If Aerie is Minsc's "witch", do their NPC endings then change?

Jaheira.

She's very powerful, and could solo the entire saga without much difficulty.

Klorox? Why in the nine hells did you ressurect this thread? It's three years old! :rolleyes: :eek:
Ressurecting threads is against the rules here.

Ye gods, this is the third one in half an hour's span of time.

Sarevok, Sarevok, and um, Sarevok. It's impossible to not like the bad guy of BG1 ;)

Xzar and Montaron, clearly.

Edwin. In both series, he plays the arrogant evil guy, who is actually not much more than a foolish strong mage. Besides his obvious strength as a Red Wizard, he has hilarious comments and throughout the game acts like he doesn't care at all. His arrogant evil attitude sparks life into the game, in both of the episodes.

What has everyone got against Cernd? AC -10 with no equipment, -14 properly equiped, 25 constitution, and unlike Jaheira, can get 6 level 7 druid spell slots by chapter 4. Also, the best bug exploit in the game, with which you can get his AC down to -17 in addition to whatever spells you feel like using on him (which can take him into the minus 20s). Also, very fun to play (he's a god-dang werewolf) and has good dialogue. 'A bird in the hand gathers no moss... or something'. Easily the best tank of any NPC, and the third best spellcaster.

In terms of power, I would say the best NPC is between Korgan, Cernd, Keldorn and Aerie. For general usefulness, Imoen (as good a mage as any, and can handle all your thieving needs). In terms of personality, I would probably go for Mazzy (she's got an English accent, and one has standards don'tchaknow), or Aerie (because she reminds me of Dorothy from Wizard of Oz).

Shapeshifters are very similar to Monks in that they have extremely harsh equipment restrictions, and natural bonuses to make up for that drawback. This seems balanced, but recall that that in itself can be bad for the character: Since the character's power is determined by their level, all Monks and all Shapeshifters are exactly the same. Tell me what level you are and what major quests you've done, and I'll tell you all your stats and what you're wearing. This can make playing a Monk or Shapeshifter EXTREMELY boring.
(Contrast this with, say, a Kensai. You could be a Spear & Staff Kensai, a Katana Kensai, a Hammer & Longsword Kensai, a 2-Handed Sword Kensai....etc. And that's <u>before</u> all the Dual-classing options.)

That was Shapeshifters in general. Now, as for Cernd in particular: His stats frankly suck. Big time. His much-praised 18 Wisdom only gives him a whopping 6 extra spells per day, or something like that, making him only 10-15% more effective than a straight Druid with Jaheira's 14 WIS. Cernd's physical stats mean that he has to decide whether he wants to lose all spellcasting abilities in his Werewolf form, or be pulverized in his Human form.

Now, you say that Cernd is actually an effective party member. You are, therefore, playing with Weimer's "Rebalanced Shapeshifter" component of Ease-of-Use installed. The Overbalanced Shapeshifter is even more grossly overpowered than the BioWare version was underpowered. Over 90% of the enemies in the game have no chance whatsoever of killing you, simply because they can't hurt you haster than you can Regenerate. Overbalanced Cernd is the only NPC in the game who can be a perfectly effective Tank while wearing the Ring of Folly.

Overall, I find it saves a great deal of time and effort to pretend that Cernd doesn't exist, and never has. I understand that Gibberlings Three or PocketPlane has released a mod that tweaks some of the NPCs a bit, including changing Cernd into a Totemic Druid with halfway-decent stats.

I'm not playing with any mods (except the official ToB patch). Cernd has the best AC in the game without any mods. Who cares what his stats are when he's not a greater werewolf? He can be a greater werewolf all the time if he so desires. When he's casting spells he doesn't need to be near the enemy and so doesn't need any good stats other than wisdom. He can be a weapon platform with insect plagues and elemental summons, or he can be a tank - he just can't do both at the same time.

Ok, I'll bite. How do you get Cernd to be powerful?

It's quite easy, he already has a superlow AC when you shapeshift. The AC bonus isn't there for just the weimer version. :D

<span style="color: lightblue">The G3 NPC Kit Pack doesn't touch Cernd, none of the Pocket Plane mods do anything similar. My NPC-Tweak mod changes Cernd into a Totemic druid, but doesn't modify his stats (yet), and I also haven't quite gotten around to changing that cutscene with Faldorn... Cirerrik's site has an override only mod (it might be WeiDU, but it still just copies new files into override destructively last I checked), which does do exactly what you say. [img]smile.gif[/img]

True, perhaps, but Jaheira can--and her AC right now is -17, for me. From what I can see, the only thing that Cernd can do appreciably better than Jaheira is defeat Improved Faldorn due to Weimer's lame-assed "bugfix."

Sorry, my apologies. Getting my mods mixed up. Speaking of tweaking NPCs, you might consider offering a "Yoshimo as Monk" option, a lot of people seemed to like that idea.

Jaheira is a much worse druid than Cernd. At 3 million exp, Jaheira has only has one lvl 7 spell, and won't be getting any more until she has 6 million exp. Cernd has six lvl 7 spells at 3 million exp.

I'd be curious to hear how you got Jaheira's AC to -17 without using spells or potions. (You could be using the woodland staff, but it Barkskins the wearer, and you can't cast two barkskins at once. Also, apart from the shambling mound summon and the barkskin, it is a fairly poor weapon).

Given the general freakiness of the Druid EXP table, the comparison can be made to swing any way you want it, just by determining what amount of EXP you want to look at.
For example, a pure Druid spends the majority of the game at Level 14: 1.5 million EXP. Now, Jaheira at 1.5 mil would be Levels 11/13, a single Druid level behind Cernd. At these levels, and accounting for their WIS,
Jaheira's daily spells are: 8 6 6 4 2 2, and
Cernd's daily spells are: 8 8 7 6 3 2 1. Okay, so he can cast the best Lich-killing spell in the game before you're halfway through SoA, which is nothing to sniff at, but can that really outweigh Jaheira's THAC0 and ApR, to say nothing of weapons like Gnasher and Blackblood, and her (very likely) permanent 19 or 18(00) Strength? Considering that Cernd can only shift to Greater Wolfwere once a day, that puts a serious damper on using him as a spellcaster at all.

Full Plate = 1
17 DEX = -2
Helm of Balduran = -3
Ring of Preservation+2 = -5
Cloak of Balduran = -6
Sentinel Shield +4 = -11
Girdle of Glory = -14
That's odd. I've got 3 points of AC I can't account for. I know she's not wearing the Ring of Earth Control or Amulet of Ilmater.....I'll check her gear by tomorrow.

Well, that is a pretty stupid rule if you ask me.

If there is a thread that shouldn't be bumped to the top, then that thread should be archived.

This thread is a good discussion, and there have been good responses after my bumping, relative to the thread subject and not my bumping of it. The only two posts in this thread that don't have anything to do with the subject are your response and Illuminas after that. If anything, these kinds of posts should be "against the rules" not mine.

Sorry, brain fart on my part. Jaheira's AC right now is only -14, not -17.

Klorox, the rules against thread necromancy exist primarily because resurrecting dead threads wastes time and space:

Suppose there was a thread entitled "Can't clear WK Level 2." Now, I would read that thread and try to understand the person's problem: Was it because they don't understand the order in which the rooms must be cleared, or because they can't find the Slime Key, or because they're getting nailed by the Traps because they're temporarily without a Thief, or because they can't kill the Fire Giant and/or Fire Elementals, or because of some bug that makes the Chromatic Demon literally unkillable? And, after reading the guy's post, sorting through the 2 dozen people who give advice on how to beat the level (1/3rd of which is wrong), and finally figuring out what the heck is wrong with this guy's game so that I can tell him how to fix it, it's a genuine pain in the ass to see that I've already answered his questions, way back in 2002, his game is fine now, and the thread was only raised from the ashes because of some bozo who did a search on how to kill the Chromatic Demon and then posted because he wanted to boast of killing it on the first try. Yeah. Extremely irritating waste of time.

As for wasting space, suppose somebody is searching the forum for "NPC quests," and reads a topic where somebody complains about Minsc and Valygar not having any quests. This person happily supplies the answer that yes they do have quests, they're part of Unfinished Business--but they neglect to notice that the date of the post is May 2000, looooong before Unfinished Business was even begun, and of course the original poster hasn't been to Ironworks in years. This new post, which does nobody any good, is now dragged up to the #1 slot in the forum, thus bumping some other thread--which may vary well still be active--off the front page, thus making it less likely to be seen and therefore more likely to die.

I don't see the issue with bumping poll threads such as this one. Better to recycle an existing one than to make 200 different threads all titled something like "What's your favourite/most hated NPC/monster/item?".

[ 10-14-2004, 04:26 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

best npc ever? minsc and boo. dont even argue. in a game where you can solo and still pull it off, power is less important- after all, you're the son (or daughter) of the friggin god of murder. build a party out of fun people, you can pick up any slack they drop.