Imoen survey--spoiler

[Kay]

I am so ashamed of myself...
I have been playing this game for years, with several characters, and I have NEVER taken Imoen out of spellhold (bad, bad bhaalspawn). Anyway, inspired by someone else's idea of playing with previously overlooked characters, I am planning to pick her up, but I'm just wondering...
is it WORTH it???
I mean, just how bad is she? Taking her through the beginning was painful enough...
any opinions?
fyi I have TOB installed and am also taking:

Korgan
Anomen (poss. switch with Sola in UD), if I can stand him for that long. If not, switch for Valygar.
Cernd
Haer'dalis
Yoshimo (to switch for Imoen)
PC: female transmuter

[Black Baron]

Imoen is indeed worth it. She has good thief abilities (apart from stealth and trap setting), and she can turn out to be a very nasty mage. She will save you "jan jansen party slot"for example.

[Dragonshadow]

She is worth it. She has cool spells, cool hair and cool theif abilities.
What is wrong with Jan Jansen?

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

Roleplaying reasons alone make me almost always take her with me. However, if you want a more pressing reason, consider this: Despite being dualed, Imoen is the only thief I ever really need in the party. Nalia can't do that for me... She dualed at too low a level to be useful as a thief. True, Nalia will be a higher level mage when she hits the XP cap, but she can be more "painful" than Imoen. Jan is a mage, yes, but he trades spell power for thief skills... which Immy has enough of. Aerie is powerful but is also multiclassed... Granted, her multiclass is one of the most powerful, but she's not a pure mage... and she, too, can be "painful". Edwin is the best, true, but if you want a good-aligned party, your best bet is Imoen.

[Feral]

Imoen makes me feel far too guilty if I leave her in Spellhold, so I usually (assuming that I have an open slot or someone I can do without) lead her out and then dump her (she's much more cheerful about that option). That's not to say she isn't a good NPC (far superior to self-righteous, annyong Nalia), but I don't want to always have her along.

[Ed: Also, unless you go to Spellhold relatively early on, Imoen will barely be getting level 9 spells by the second half of ToB.]

[ 07-08-2004, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: Feral ]

[Black Baron]

Nothing is wrong with JJ, he is inferiour to Immy in the arcane, and she got very imporant thieving abilities nearly maxed up.

[Sir Degrader]

Get The Darkest Day, and (after installing patches [img]smile.gif[/img] ), get Adario and Edwin. Adario is a kickass thief/fighter, and Edwin is a kickass mage. Imoen just can't compare to that, I hate her.

[Kay]

Ha! Feral--I always use that same trick
Thanks...I will give her a shot. I suppose with all the "extras" I can pick up during the game, her thieving skills will improve...and she can't possibly die any more frequently than Jan...
can she?

[Cerek the Barbaric]

I rescued Imoen with my first party and took her with me through the rest of SoA. My PC was a Wizard Slayer that I dualed to a thief, so I didn't need any of her thieving skills. She does become quite powerful and I would never have been able to defeat Irenicus in Hell without her spells.

I currently have two evil parties in BGII and one good aligned party (but that game seems to be "buggy"). Still, the PC in that one is a female kensai, so she will definitely want to rescue her sister and take her along for the rest of the adventure.

[SixOfSpades]

Provided you haul ass to Spellhold, Imoen is superior to Nalia in all things except Nalia's Ring. Although the NPCKit changes that a bit: Nalia can be given the "Adventurer" kit, which makes her as effective a Thief as Imoen was.....and Imoen can be tweaked into a Conjurer, as well.