There aren't enough evil characters in SoA. there are some cool characters, but there are not enough of them to really optimize a decent party. has anyone else found this to be true?

Yeah. Its really hard to get an evil group. The best you can do is.

Korgan-Evil
Edwin-Evil
Viconia-Evil
Jan-
Jaherie- Neutral
Anomen(if he fails his quest)- Neutral

Poss group

Swashbuckler
Korgan
Anomen
Viconia
Edwin
Nalia

I've tried this and it works ok but it doesnt work too well. This group performs resonably well in combat although I would dump Nalia for Jan. You notice how useless she is compared to Edwin.

Warby

Yes, there are only three purely evil NPC's but they far outshine any of the others. Korgan is the only fighter with grand master specialization. Edwin and Viconia are the only spellcasters with 18 prime reqs. Vicky also has mr and very high dex. That makes up for it pretty good I think. I think the developers wanted to discourage people from playing evil characters by minimizing their availability, but they beefed up the few evils in the game sufficiently to satisfy powergamers (who are more likely to play evil parties).

I don't usually play evils but my one neutrally aligned party consists of:
H-Orc Kensai TN
Minsc CG
Korgan CE
Viconia NE
Nalia NG
Jan CN

Balanced alignments. Generally they get along pretty well. No scuffles and no one has left so far

[ 09-11-2002, 04:36 PM: Message edited by: Lharae ]

For a truly evil experience try downloading the Valen mod from WeiDU. She's a vampire multi-classed fighter/thief. Be careful, though; she will get you in trouble if you're not ready to part with the gold to keep your rep up. The URL, if you need it, is http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~weimer/bgate/weidumods.html

What's wrong with just four characters in a party? You, Viconia, Edwin, Korgan. Why not?

I agree tancred, a four person party could actually work out quite nicely if you have the abilities and necessary capabilites to beat the game between the four characters. In fact, with Korgan as a tank, edwin as a spellcaster, supplemented by vicona, and vicona as maybe a back lines fighter proficent in a missle weapon maybe, the PC could be a fighter/theif or whatever is necessary to efficiently get over, under, around, and through the various worlds within amn.

There's nothing wrong with just four characters in a party, but it may not fit everyone's playing style. In addition, depending upon your style, it limits the choices of what you can be. Suppose you decide that you really need a thief, yet you don't want to play one. Perhaps you decide you really need two front-line tanks, but you're playing a sorceror and you don't want Viconia up there with her low hit points. You could make more than one character, as per a multiplayer game, but it limits some of the inter-party dialogues.

While there are magic items available that would alleviate some of the above, they do cost money and the player does not start out with a lot. It just would have been nice if BIS had given the evil PC a little more choice.

Jaheira is True Neutral, maybe she can be in a party of evil?

The problem is, she acts like a good - aligned person.

If possible get Edwin in your group. Anomen is a good idea. Jan is usefull as a thief. There are no pure theives. Korgan is good. Jaherie is not too bad.

Warby