[StarVid]

Ok, I haven't gotten past chapter 2-3. So please no spoilers. Also, this is probably not going to make a lot of sense unless you are familiar with PnP.

Considering that this is D&D (albeit in a cRPG), I still have a PnP minset that I can't break. In the PnP adventures, a DM was given notes in the beginning on a recommeded party construction, though generally people go with a well rounded party. Ok, so let's look at the start of BG2. You're locked in a cage with Jah, Imoen, and Minsc. And one of them comments to the extent that you have been adventuring since Baldur's Gate and blah blah blah. Which would mean that your final party must have been Imoen, Jah, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir, and you. For this party, in order to have a well rounded party, you'd have be be a cleric or if you dualed Imoen, a thief to cover her while she caught up. This doesn't make much sense because other than healing (which Jah could have done), and animated dead and silence, a cleric was pretty much useles for BG1, and as for playing a thief, the only use to this would be you have two people that could backstab mages, rather than just one.

With regards to plot significance, the important people are Jah, Imoen, and Minsc (though he didn't play a big part in BG2 so I think the only reason they brought him back was because he was so popular). However, it makes sense because Jah is gorion's old friend and Imoen is your old friend so they fit into the storyline, a lot of other NPCs didn't fit into the storyline as they were just people you met along the way. So if you have them, then you can fit three other people in as NPCs (two when you get Imoen back). As far as storyline goes, Yoshimo makes sense, as you meet him in the dungeon, and his connection with the shadow thieves ties into whatever's going on with Irenicus. As for the other two, considering you're dealing with Vampires, and a mage, Anomen and Keldorn make the most sense.

Putting this all together, the point I'm trying to get at is to figure out what your character (your PC) should be in order to fit into this storyline and make a well-rounded party. I do have some ideas, but they don't fully work.

First of all, there are no decent straight mages (that can be your primary) in BG1 or BG2. The only exception might be Nalia (you can easily max her out under the cap), but she's not too essential to the plot line (you do that one quest of cleaning her house) and then she just sits on the backburner the rest of the game, so I excluded her. Therefore, I'm dualing a character to a mage for BG2

Some people say Imoen is a passable thief in BG2, but a lot of people disagree and think she should have been dualed later. Therefore I would say that one should have been a thief in BG1 and then dual to a mage in BG2 at level 10. You get some nice skills and while you catch up, you have yoshimo. But this would involve having two thieves for BG1, which is kind of overkill, and there would have been no point to dualing her to a mage for BG2.

The other option is to play a cleric in BG1, and dual to a mage (about level 11) in BG2. You can still be a full mage, have good hps, and can be a good supporting cleric for Anomen. This doesn't really work because clerics get shafted in BG1. There are nowhere's near as many priest spells as mage spells in BG1 and they just wouldn't be fun to play. They'd sit in back, heal people and once in a while animate some dead or cast silence. I certainly wouldn't send the main PC as a cleric into the front lines of a battle.

I know, some people might think, well, you can play anything, that's why all the classes are open to you. And while technically you can, with regards to storyline, you really can't. (i.e. there's no point to being a druid with Jah along, that's for sure).

In short, I believe that there's a specific storyline, and I'm just trying to figure out what part the PC is to play.

Either that or I'm crazy and don't know what I'm talking about.