Creating a full party at the start of the game...

[SixOfSpades]

I agree about the poor selection of NPC's. What, there's only ONE good pure-class Thief in the whole damn game? And they screwed up Imoen's thieving skills so she's not maxed out in ANYTHING? I say they should have made her still be a pure-class Thief, so YOU could decide when to Dual her (which, incidentally, would make Nalia worth using). The only NPCs I really like are Jan, Keldorn, and the one you meet in ToB.....and it looks like Valygar could whip Minsc like a pansy.

(I hope they gave Keldorn a good personality.....otherwise he'll be just like Ajantis in BG1: Give him the Gauntlets of Dex and you've got a kickass Tank, except that he's irritating and can't cast healing spells.)

[Magness]

For those of you that don't like the existing selection of NPC's in SoA, an alternate suggestion that I'll offer is to download the unofficial SoA MOD called "The Darkest Day". I don't have it myself, but I have read its website at teambg.com and it looks really interesting. LOTs of new kits (something like 70 or so new kits) and new items. Many more NPCs, particulary a number of NPCs from BG1 that didn't get included in BG2.

Currently TDD is not ToB compatible, so I intend to wait until it is. Also, I have only a 56k modem and TDD is HUGE (something like 400-500Mb). I'd like to see it added to a PC game mag's demo disk. (This was how I got the official IWD add-on Tales of the Luremaster.)

[andy the assasin]

i don't see whats wrong with imoen, she seems to have enough pick locks and find traps to get you through the game and she advances just as high as a normal mage with her mage skills as she doesn't have that much in her theif levels. This makes her so much better then Nalia as Nalia's theif skills are poor and has equal mage skills. Edwin is easily the best mage in the game though!

[Micah Foehammer]

I like Imoen as well, if for no other reason than she is a major link back to TotSc. What annoys me about the other npcs primarily is that some of the better choices of npcs (Viconia, Edwin and Kargan the dwarf) are all evil. Its really tough to put together a group of good alignment npcs. Its much easier to get an evil party together in SOA.

As for the new kits in the darkest day mod, some of those are really interesting but as of latest update it is still not compatible with TOB only SOA. I am planning on playing TDD eventually but not until it is fully compatible with TOB and not before I play through TOB another time or two.

[andy the assasin]

I went through the game with a pretty powerful neutral party. This consisted of me(true neutral assassin), Minsc (chaotic good ranger, very strong + powerful especially with 2 handed sword), Edwin (lawful evil, extremely powerful conjurer), Imoen (neutral good, v.v. good), vicconia (neutral evil, v. good cleric) and Jaheria (true neutral, very good, especiall with strength modifier)