Quote:
Originally posted by Gabriel:
Aerie stats may be low but once she reaches reaches higher levels you can combine a few of her clerical and mage spells to turn her in to a virable goddess of battle.
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SPOILER
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All of the mage spells that allow you to store up magic (minor spell sequencer, spell sequencer, contingency, chain contingency, spell trigger) will hold both cleric and mage spells, if the caster has access to them. This allows Aerie to set up some nasty combinations (say, oh, 3 holy smites in a spell trigger?
). Combine this with the Robe of Vecna (casting time reduced by 4 applies to ALL spells cast by the caster, thus speed up her cleric spells, too), and she gets to be really nasty on your opponents.
With that being said, Anomen is definitely your best bet. He is a great backup fighter, and you should DEFINITELY get his proficiency in hammer and flail up (as well as 2 slots in dual-wield). This will take you into ToB to get him maxed out on all three of these, but Crom Faeyr (warhammer) is the best weapon in SoA, and the Flail of Ages becomes an awesome weapon in ToB (it gets upgraded quite a bit). If you have Minsc in the party, ignore maces for Anomen (Minsc is quite good with them, and his racial enemy of vampire ensures that the mace of disruption will do more damage to the many vampires you meet in his hands).
Jaheira is good, but weapon selection in early stages is pretty awful (other than a +2 scimitar of speed you find in the trademeet quest), and her hp leaves a lot to be desired. Aerie has even worse hp, but she is great as a backup to both mage and cleric. Viconia is not bad, but you need to buy her the girdle of hill giant strength to make her effective, and her hp also leave a lot to be desired. None of these characters can be as good with cleric weapons as Anomen can, and other than Viconia, none of them level up as quickly as Anomen does (the other guys are multiclassed, slowing their progression down significantly). If you are playing a sorcerer (i.e. need lots of fighter support), Anomen is your best bet.
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