Ok, it is generally accepted across most posts(but not all), that Aerie is high maintenance, and slightly annoying(sorry anybody who likes her), so if you ditch her where can you find another neutralor good NPC with her abilities?

If you want a cleric who can fight, pick Anomen, although he is kind of a pest too. Or Jaheria also possess some healing abilities, and she can fight too.
If you want a better mage, there are Nalia and Imoen.
These characters also tend to level up faster due the the dual class factor.

Aerie's an excellent character who can use spell triggers to sling not just mage spells, but clerical ones, too. But she takes a little strategy to use properly. Anomen and Viconia are much more straightforward in the clerical side of things, Edwin on the mage side. Up to you. I'm used 'em all, and adapt my gameplay to fit the different folks: fun. :D

i like aerie. I never found anything too wrong with her. sure she isn't great but she's decent. better than hearing anomen talk about how he defeated a red dragon with a paper clip and a shoelace

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Harry:
i like aerie. I never found anything too wrong with her. sure she isn't great but she's decent. better than hearing anomen talk about how he defeated a red dragon with a paper clip and a shoelace<hr></blockquote>

LOL!
SPOILER:
He boasts about killing 20 fire giants, then Jan mocks him with his long story of Ano the dung Orc and see Anomen reacting to that story! Highly recommended.

Oh, BTW, I found her useful at what she does.

IMO I'd go with Jan. Hes got some cool stuff and he is, without a doubt, the funniest character in the game. Once you play with him youll probably ask yourself why you didnt add him sooner.

Aerie is the second best spellcaster. Great with a sling.

Jan (annoying as hell) seems pretty good. Will try a game with him in the group. Be careful if you have both Minsc and Jan in the group.

Oooooh, he defeated a dragon with a paperclip and a shoelace? He's just like MacGyver. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I like Aerie. If you aren't romancing her, let her down gently. She'll stop whining pretty quick if it doesn't get her any attention.

She's a fine back-up mage, and enough of a Cleric for any party I've played.

-- Nifft

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Jan:
Aerie is the second best spellcaster. Great with a sling.

Jan (annoying as hell) seems pretty good. Will try a game with him in the group. Be careful if you have both Minsc and Jan in the group.<hr></blockquote>

From your name I thought you were a Hard core Jan Fan I guess I shouldn't judge a book by its cover

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by D*Ranged:


LOL!
SPOILER:
He boasts about killing 20 fire giants, then Jan mocks him with his long story of Ano the dung Orc and see Anomen reacting to that story! Highly recommended.

Oh, BTW, I found her useful at what she does.<hr></blockquote>

haha yeah i know. like when you first meet him or something like that he tells you how he defeated a band of frost giants while his cowardice comrades hid.

Aerie is a useful character but she's not enough as a pure mage or cleric. If you dont have a cleric pick Anomen, as a mage Imoen or Nalia is nice. And you can use her as a backup cleric/mage she's the only cleric/mage in the game and she becomes unbelieveable powerful in ToB. (Think about a level 25/25 Cleric/Mage!!!)

Jan is greattt I'm another Jan fan [img]smile.gif[/img]

BTW, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I read somewhere that if a "cleric" summons a creature from a plane, there is way less chance that the creature will turn on the caster than if it were a mage summoning without the planar protection.

Is that part correct?

I think Aerie is a solid character. And if what I typed is correct, it's just another bonus to playing her. In my party she is the one casting most of the defensive spells before the fights and she is the one who lays down the breach for my peewee, minsc, anomen, and jah to attack. This is all in chapter two still. To round it out, I'm deciding on getting another mage along with her. That's in the time to come. I've had Cernd in the party and he's too much of a hassle to deal with when I can simply use Jah. It's either he transforms and attack or he casts extra spells that Jah has. He's out since Minsc can berserk and TO ME, that's better than some regen.

Picked up Viconia and right off, I didn't like all her remarks. I aptly dumped her at the coronet. She has a high wisdom tho...so I'm sure I'm not seeing her potential yet. My choice for playing Aerie probably stems from already buying her all those high dollar spells too.

With her having the wands/spells/mini sequencer and a -3 ac, she can fill the shoes of many classes. Well rounded in my opinion.

I like Aerie, and also Viconia, so I have them both. Maybe you'd want to think it again about Viconia, she gains really good spells at higher levels, and with her magic resistance she's perfect.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by PeeWee:
BTW, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I read somewhere that if a "cleric" summons a creature from a plane, there is way less chance that the creature will turn on the caster than if it were a mage summoning without the planar protection.
<hr></blockquote>

The cleric "convinces" the creature to side with him, so - if you are summoning elementals and the like - there is no chance of it turning on you (unless you attack it - ?). A mage has to do mental battle with the summoned, so it takes a short time and there's a chance of it turning on the caster. (BTW, I'm not sure about Planetars, Demons, Pit Fiends, etc., this is true for Elementals.)

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Kaz:


The cleric "convinces" the creature to side with him, so - if you are summoning elementals and the like - there is no chance of it turning on you (unless you attack it - ?). A mage has to do mental battle with the summoned, so it takes a short time and there's a chance of it turning on the caster. (BTW, I'm not sure about Planetars, Demons, Pit Fiends, etc., this is true for Elementals.)<hr></blockquote>

Some of the others are gated in, different from being summoned in. And with Viconia, I may reconsider once I go linear with the story line. Her 18 wisdom compared to Anomen's 16 is telling me alrdy her spell book is gonna be better than Anomen's.

Oh, one question with this game, if I picked up npcs at lvl 9 and dumped them at lvl 10 to progress with my party to lvl 15, do the npcs not in your party increase any small amount in levels?

Some console games I've played before had this small adjustment where npcs increased some levels to "fit in" if you decided to pick them back up.

If you want some who is good why not try the Droe elf [img]graemlins/elf.gif[/img] ,
or if you are that far Imoen.I had a bad experiance with Aerie to be onest, my anomen failed his test and so aeria fell out with anomen because she got him angry, from then on she didnt follow orders.hope I helped. [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img]