Aerie ROCKS!!!

[Russ]

Mr. Gottwald, if project image and the sequencers are your only qualification for a competent mage, then you are probably right in not using Aerie. However, in that case, I would also suggest that you probably have an unusual playing style, as well. It also doesn't take into account the long period of time when the characters will be relatively low level, when Aerie's support is a godsend.

I abhor Aerie's personality... every once in a while she says something that doesn't make me want to wretch. But that's just a script thing, and appropriate for the character being portrayed -- she IS immature (that's why her Quayle sent her out in the world to begin with, because the Circus certainly wasn't doing her any good, and she desperately needs to "learn the ropes.").

As a spellcaster, she is unsuited to playing the same sort of role that one would use with Edwin, or Viconia, or even Nalia/Imoen. What Aerie is really good at is support, or, as my twin used to say back in our PnP days, "Swiss Army Mage." Ëven humble spells like "knock" have a purpose, and we've always gotten much more than the textbook mileage out of our spellcasters by playing combinations (say, web+cloudkill).

Healing ability is not to be underrated, either, as that is the determinant of your party's longevity, or adventuring range before resting. Potions eventually run out, and the ability to keep everybody afloat determines how far you go. In her case, it's healing plus bless, chant, fireball, haste, melf's, sanctuary... I suspect that most parties aren't getting much mileage out of fireball because they're not thinking group tactics and tossing off three or even four of them at a time, which, once you're good at judging range, is a great way of turning fights into non-fights.

By and large, I think the urge compare either of the dual-class characters in this week's threads, J. or Ae., to Viconia, is entirely misplaced, and a misunderstanding of their role. You take Vicky when you need a flat-out priestess. You take J. (well, in my case because she's one of my main character's best friends, and leaving her in a dungeon to rot would suck) because you need a druid and fighter. If your party needs somebody to play spellcaster shortstop... Aerie's your gal.

[F. Gottwald]

fair points, but i stand by my words.
i wasn´t saying that mages are hopeless without those high-level spells, but in my opinion without them they have little to offer that a cleric can´t provide.
you will usually not care whether you´re hurling glyphs of warding or skull traps at your opponents, but you will care about the damage those spells do - and aerie is behind single class spellcasters by quite a margin. similarly, while aerie has access to a large number of summoning spells, she can´t utilise the best one of them (animate dad) to full effect.

aerie is indeed marginally useful as a ´swiss army mage´, but i never felt any need for that type of character - 3 fully packed scroll cases will suffice for all the wizard spells you might never need but which might make your day some time and the truly crucial spell effects (like stone to flesh, resurrection, restoration, cure poison) are available in form of items if push comes to shove and shove comes to oops. aerie only really fits the bill if you´re desperate for a cleric and a backup wizard and have only 1 slot left... unless you pick her up for her charm and radiant personality (or as someone to pick on).

a simple example should demonstrate my point: assume you could clone aerie, then compare the 2 of them against edwin and viconia as a team - i could hardly think of a situation in which the 2 aeries would be more useful (unless we get a group of naked dancing aeries as a cheap xena rip-off... but i am digressing). on the other hand, 2 jans could do all sorts of wonderful things that edwin and yoshimo could not because thief and mage abilities wonderfully complement each other (but then, 2 jans would annoy any party enough to be in danger of ending up nailed upside down to the gates of athkatla with a turnip up each nostril or worse).

[Dundee Slaytern]

Therein lies the kicker. Aerie can take on the role of two people. If you cannot have both Edwin and Viconia, then Aerie can compensate; but this is an unusual scenerio since Edwin and Viconia are evil NPCs, and Aerie is a good NPC. So we have to compare good with good.

Anomen, Nalia, Jan, Imoen and Jaheira.

Chances are, people will want to keep Imoen and Jaheira. Minsc and Jan are high contenders as well.

So we have you,
Minsc,
Jaheira,
Jan,
Imoen/Yoshimo
~~blank~~

When Jan is 'discovered', we can kick out Yoshimo. Nalia might be taken if the player is not a Mage. If the player is indeed a Mage, then Aerie will be wonderful as a background spellcaster, since Jaheira is usually used as a tank.

Jan is not the best backup spellcaster, because Aerie beats him flat with her superior selection; but... but... he is an excellent Thief.

[Memnoch]

I'll butt in with another tip (on topic this time )

In terms of relative value, there are probably better single-class NPCs in SoA. Aerie's strength (and Jan, HaerDalis and the other multis) is their versatility. In SoA you want specialists, since they can level up to high levels more quickly and get closer to the XP cap sooner. Multis will not reach the XP cap in SoA, unless you have a 2-man party and pick one of them as a member.

But if you want to develop someone to take all the way to ToB, where racial level limits are NOT implemented and these multis (especially a cleric/mage like Aerie) can reach extremely high levels in ALL their classes when the singles have all virtually maxed out in their single class in terms of skills, spellcasting, etc...

Think of the 7th-level divine AND 9th level arcane spells she'd be able to cast towards the end - not to mention access to the Level 10 and Quest spells like Dragon's Breath, Improved Alacrity (which will apply to BOTH divine and arcane spells), Storm of Vengeance, Implosion, etc.) [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

[ 01-18-2002: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

Aerie can be awesome if kitted out with the right things. I had her wield Staff of Rhynn +4 with girdle of Hill giant strength - combined with bracers of defense AC 3 and ring of protection +2. She was unbeatable later in the game. Only problem is her low hit points. That really sucks.

[Darkscar]

Second best spellcaster in the game ! what ! she is crap! imoen, jaheira, viconia, edwin are much better !