Party Combinations

[deathknight]

I am sure this topic has been debated to death so please forgive me for asking again.

I am starting a new group with a kensai/mage as my main character. I am still debating weapons my main will use (there is still the outside chance I may take hammer to wield Crom Faeyr im my off hand).

The party I am tossing around I am worried will be too tank heavy and not enough magic:

-kensai/mage (switching to mage at level 12 i think)
-Minsc (I really cannot have a party without him. The game is mainly for fun
and minsc is a barrel of laughs)
-Keldorn (It pains me every party I have when I cannot use Carsomyr)
-Anomen (If I don't take hammer with my main then Crom Faeyr goes here. Otherwise maybe I take Jaihera)
-Jan/Imoen
-A mage (probably nalia. will I have alignment issues with one of the evil mages and my 2 good party members Keldorn and anomen?)

I am worried I am too light on magic (particularly cleric spells). My last party I played with was very heavy on magic though so this seemed like a nice contrast.

[FallenPaladin]

You've got Imoen and yourself, you should have enough magic. If you think you'll need more take Aerie for both cleric and mage spells (I take her for a love interest mainly), or Edwin if you want a very good mage. I hear he has some problems with Minsc though so be carefull.
A piece of advice from a previous Kensai/Mage (It seems everybody wants to be one these days), do a few quests solo first to build up your Kensai abilities. You'll need to gain experience quickly if you plan to dual at lvl 12. That's 1 million to get your Kensai up to lvl 12 and another to regain his abilities once you've dualed. That's a total of 2 million and almost 2/3's of what a normal character would get. If you don't solo you'll be well into the underdark by the time you become a true Kensai/mage, and still your magic abilities will be way inferior to that of your party, (If you take Edwin prepare to be humiliated).

And if you go along with it, tell me if you managed to take two Keeps.

[deathknight]

Thanks for the advice. The amount of xp to get up to level 12 mage is the thing that has me worried. Since I intend to keep playing this char into ToB though I thought that it would be better to develop my fighting stats a bit further. I hope it works out!

[FallenPaladin]

I would actually advice you to dual at lvl 9. 2 million is too high for me and the advntages aren't that much. The damage and THACO increase is nothing a good sword wouldn't give and the extra Kai attack isn't really that important. Once you get to lvl 7 spells and Tensers transformation your fighter abilities won't matter that much anyway.

[Ravana]

2 mages is fine, actually I'd recommend taking the 3rd mage out of the fray and bringing in a druid in her place, either Jaheira or Cernd. Or if you are going hammers then dropping Anomen, bringing in Aerie in his place, and Jaheira also. That would give you 3 mages, 1 cleric, 1 druid, and 3 fighter characters too.
If this party goes on into ToB then dualling at lvl 12 is not really a problem.
BTW, mixing a party with Minsc and Edwin is not a good idea. I had this combo for a while and I eventually had to drop Edwin as he and Minsc eventually came to blows. They really, really dont like each other.

[Tuor]

You should be fine with one decent mage but if you are going to dual class your Kensai do it at level nine because that will give you enough weapon proficiencies to grand master and put two proficincies in a weapon style (like single weapon for example which knocks two off your armour class while wielding a one handed melee weapon).
You will also be able to regain your Kensai abilities more quickly than if you were to dual at 12th level.

Incidently you don't have to get all the way into the underdark for you to regain your Kensai abilities if you dual at 12th but you will have to do almost all the non plot quests before you sail for Brynlaw and learn every single magic scroll you can beg, borrow or steal to get sufficient xp.

I'd only recommend dualing at 12th if you are going to play two PC fighters and dual classing them both to mage. You do one at 9th level and one at 12th that way your first mage gets established and quite competent before you are stuck with a second low level mage trying to take on beholders, vampires and the like.

[Darviathar]

Originally posted by deathknight: I am sure this topic has been debated to death so please forgive me for asking again. I am starting a new group with a kensai/mage as my main character. I am still debating weapons my main will use (there is still the outside chance I may take hammer to wield Crom Faeyr im my off hand). The party I am tossing around I am worried will be too tank heavy and not enough magic: -kensai/mage (switching to mage at level 12 i think) -Minsc (I really cannot have a party without him. The game is mainly for fun and minsc is a barrel of laughs) -Keldorn (It pains me every party I have when I cannot use Carsomyr) -Anomen (If I don't take hammer with my main then Crom Faeyr goes here. Otherwise maybe I take Jaihera) -Jan/Imoen -A mage (probably nalia. will I have alignment issues with one of the evil mages and my 2 good party members Keldorn and anomen?) I am worried I am too light on magic (particularly cleric spells). My last party I played with was very heavy on magic though so this seemed like a nice contrast.

If you do indeed switch to Mage sometime soon, then your party is fairly well balanced. The only problem I forsee is having only one healer in the group. I've found that healing during combat is important, but resurrecting afterwards is perhaps even more critical. I cannot remember where in SOA I got my first rod of resurrection, but that item is really key if you are only going to have one character that can raise the dead. If you are going for only one healing class, then by ALL means let that one healer be Anomen, and not Jahiera or Aerie. Those two multiclassed characters will level far too slowly to keep your party in shape as you hit the underdark and the later stages of the game. You should not even consider dropping on of your tanks (unless you decide to stay with the kensai and not dual class). As for magic users, Edwin can co-exist with Anomen and Keldorn without a problem. Since I never use Minsc, I cannot say for sure, but it seems as though some friction would likely develop between those two, based on the events of BG 1. Edwin is of evil alignment, and that necessitates keeping your reputation at 18 or less in order to keep him from leaving the group. If you do manage to keep Edwin around, you are in for a treat. His side quest is among the most interesting, his text lines are sometimes hilarious, and last but not least, he's easily the best NPC mage in the game. He is a specialized conjurer, which grants him extra spells at only the cost of a few worthless divination spells that you probably don't even use.

[Gazza]

I've personally played through the game twice and the only mage I ever used was Aerie and even then I hardly used any spells. While it helps to have a magic user in your party IMHO you dont really ever need more than one. Even when I got Imoen back I used her as a replacement for Yoshi, the tratrorus so and so.

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Know thy enemy and know thyself and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles.