I have a 5 person team that I made, and I am not sure who I want to join me. I am in chapter 2 with a cavalier, monk, cleric/thief, illusionist, and an archer. I was thinking about Minsc and Jahiera, but a bard looks tempting, especially a skald.

Is there a bard NPC? Is he/she good? Are jahiera or Minsc better?

Er..... some people may disagree with me here, but you will find it interesting - and VERY useful - to take Yoshimo from the first dungeon... http://www.tgeweb.com/ironworks/cgi-...es/biggrin.gif
F.

If I were you I'd use the extra slot to swap around a bit. You see, almost all the NPCs have side quests and you'll miss out on a lot of game play. I f this is the first time you're playing the game, I strongly advice you to start a game with only one selfcreated character. There is a lot of funny dialogue, romances http://www.tgeweb.com/ironworks/cgi-...s/EEhearts.gif and extra quests involved!!! If you're already an experienced player then forgive my patronising you, but it's just that your name sounds unfamiliar.
There is a -male- bard (kit: blade) in the game, but, and this demonstrates my point, you need to recruit another NPC called Aerie first, or you cannot get the quest that leads to him.
Ideally, a game with selfcreated chars should contain about 3 of your own characters and three npcs
Good luck!

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Melusine
http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/memnoch/mel1.gif
Your voice is ambrosia

Minsc and Jaheria are both good! At different points in the game you should
probably test out all the NPCs you can. It will give you more to do and give you a feel for different styles/combos/tactics. I kept virtually the same party throughout and now see that I missed alot by doing so.

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Balance

But if you really want a Bard, get Haer'Dalis. He is a Bard (Blade category), useful for identification, and a good fighter if you use his special skills.
F.

yes there is a bard, but he's not so good, he's a blade (i think)
i like to use minsc as an range attacker, but as you already have a archer you don't really need minsc. i think that jahiera is the better choise.
she is a medium fighter and healer, and you get the druid summon spells. fire elements is the best when fighting smaller undeads, swarms is great when fighting mages...

I would go for Jahiera, though she can be a bitch some times

Who calls Jaheira a b*tch??? http://www.tgeweb.com/ironworks/cgi-.../angryfire.gif j/k
but please keep in mind what I said in my last post, a custom party is NO FUN for a first time through!!!!

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Melusine
http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/memnoch/mel1.gif
Your voice is ambrosia

where did you get that girl with wings picture and go with the provided charecters there much more fun

I suggest you have more rooms in your party, maybe use only 4 pre-made characters? This will allow more party interactions and you can do more NPC quest quickly without having to dump a NPC that you want to keep for long term.

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Long live H22A1!!!!!

Looking at your original party, I'd drop the Illusionist and grab Jan (Illusionist/Thief). I'd drop the Archer for Yoshimo (If you didn't take him in Chapter 1, look for him in the Copper Coronet.

This will give you a lot more versatility to do side quests, not to mention a lot more dialogue (what makes the game really fun at times).

Remember that you can not have more than 6 characters in your party, so you can't add both Jaheira and Minsc.

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"The supreme irony of life is that no one gets out of it alive." Job: A Comedy of Justice

Grab Edwin, then d\l the Collecter's Edition special disc files off the internet and buy the Robe of Vecna. He has the highest INT(18) and has extra spell memorizations, even more than a normal specialist mage. Also, he is a Conjurer, so the only spells you cannot use are divination, but the Glasses of Identification can take care of identify, which is the only Divination spell I ever used. And I think he is cool with his szhizophrenic(SP?) dialogs.

I too do not understand the reluctance about Yoshimo. A lot of the xp points you make in the game come from picking locks and disarming traps. Overall maybe more than anything else. To take full advantage of this you need a thief with good stats in lockpicking and traps. Yoshi is the only NPC thief that can be improved.

A personal note: I found that Jan and Imoen are also competent thieves, they might not be as good as Yoshimo since Yoshimo is pure class theif, but you are better off diversifying their abilities to suit different situations. There are also other means to pick locks and find traps in the game, sure you might loss out on some experience, but this is immaterial consider the potential benefits from diversification.

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Long live H22A1!!!!!

huh? you mean Jan is not as good as Yoshimo on thiefing? I used Jan, and he never failed removing any trap, opening any lock, and pick pocket anything (well, he failed on Bloodscalpe at the end, after 4 picks) anyway, what can Yoshimo do better than Jan?

If that was directed to me then here is what I have to say; Yoshimo's only benefit over Jan and Imoen is that fact that he is single class, which means several things: (the following is generally speaking of pure class vs multi/dual)
1) pure class will level faster
2) pure class will reach higher thief level under exp cap (of course this becomes irrelevant once you take the exp cap away)
With that said, I must also add that you can only be so "specialized" in one particalar class, at one point the rate of the benefit provided by that class will begin to diminish since the thiefing points are also limited (at 200 in general I think, without item enhancement) when comparing to other characters who have several other skills under their belts. I mean, com'on, the locks are not so difficult to pick, and I've found that even Nalia can detect traps. If I have to pick, I will definitely pick Jan or Imoen over Yoshimo due to:
1) emphasis on magic in the game
2) you only need a decent theif, you don't need the best thief to pass the quests in the game
3) Jan is an party animal!!!!


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Long live H22A1!!!!!

lol, hell yeah!

The only thing to do when you meet yoshi in Irenicus dungeons is to let him join...than you send him in the next room with enemys and let him die http://www.tgeweb.com/ironworks/cgi-...iles/smile.gif that what I always do...hehe poor little guy...the first thing he is betrayed... but what else schould you do with a traitor http://www.tgeweb.com/ironworks/cgi-...iles/smile.gif

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My strength and honor
for king and country

the best mage i have is alacho acho
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death is the way of life Killer