Current Party

[Katherine]

I'm curious as to what sort of parties people play and how they play them. Who's in your current (or most recent) party?

Mine (serial port MP game):
Tiax as my main warrior and leader of the group (chaotic evil)
Yeslick as his backup and constant foe (lawful good)
Quayle just because he's so smart and will tell you so at every opportunity (chaotic neutral)
PC-Invoker (lawful neutral)
PC2-Thief (chaotic neutral)
Xan to round things out with constant complaints and to back up the warriors in tough fights with his snazzy moonblade. (lawful neutral)

This is a really fun party. Tiax has the Gauntlets of Ogre strength, so he's the main tough guy with a +1 mace. Yeslick, who hates him, backs him up. They both carry shields, so no ranged attacks from them.

Quayle mostly just stands around and will only get into the fight if it's going badly. He heals people and uses the wand of heavens in tough situations. I like the way he insults the other party members, basically. "If you ever need any help... you know- thinking... just let me know."

My Invoker and Thief are wife/husband. The Invoker is the main PC. The thief is the only party member with an effective ranged attack (bow).

Xan... He's a good fighter when he casts Armor and goes a brawling. Being an Enchanter, he doesn't have a lot of really great offensive spells at level 6 (I play the specialist mages so they mostly cast only from their specialty), so he will go fight when needed. I also like the way he builds party morale with his pep talk.

I don't reload for bad "level ups" unless the character only gets 1 hp, and even then, I let that happen sometimes (Xan, level 6, has 12hp). I also let characters die if they are smashed into pieces and resurrect the ones that die but aren't smooshed. Unless a party member has scouted ahead, I don't do all the preparation spells and potions for big fights that they wouldn't know about. This group is currently in chapter 7 and buzzing around, doing some of the TOSC stuff before ending the game with a respectable reputation of 12.

Anyway, I've found this game to be much more fun and rewarding than my previous ones, mostly from my approach of very limited reloads and having the really weird NPCs as my group. Okay, that's it. What about your party?

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[Darkheart]

I love using odd collections of NPC. The temptation to use Imoen, Minsc, Dynaheir, Khalid and Jaheira is strong, it fits the story, but MInsc is the only interesting one. I rather enjoy carting a collection of wierdos and malcontents around the Sword Coast. Tiax is a star, truly insane, Viconia should be in prison for something, Edwin is borderline psychotic. Xan I always end up killing, too depressing. I get confused about the last.

[Darkman]

My current party is:

Gaston human male fighter->thief chaotic neutral
Safana (boy was she hard to get early in the game!)
Viconia (plan to romance her in BG2 but currently she has some competition from Safana )
Edwin (never had him before and not sure if I like him yet... although he does have a lot of spells!)

We're looking to pick up Coran in the next chapter [img]smile.gif[/img]

My previous party was:

Yilacia half-elf female conjurer chaotic good
Imoen (don't know why I always keep her around...)
Montaron (halflings are cool and he's no exception)
Viconia (possibly to be replaced by Branwen)
Shar-teel (a GREAT fighter!)

Before these two parties, I've mostly used "normal" combinations of NPC's that usually had Kivan and Minsc and whoever else felt like tagging along to watch the slay fest

[Garnet FalconDance]

Let's see, my first one thru was a gnomish ftr gal--truly extraordinary! I always keep Immy around (though her "you're a queer fellow" is annoying sometimes,others it is too funny!) and love to have Kivan. Jaheira gets on my nerves and if she dies, she stays dead. Khalid is a pretty good ftr if you can stand his rather wide yellow streak. Xan is a wallking advertisement for the need for anti-depressants, Minsc is a little too something for me to have him around long. As for the rest of them....well, it depends on who I have at the moment. I'll usually let them join up for a little while.

(current game male fighter who's not really bright but he tries )) Right now I have Minsc, Edwin and Viconia in a party--and the interaction is well worth listening to! [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] These guys go *off* on each other, esp. Edwin and Hamster Boy. In Baldur's Gate itself there's a guy (Quayle, maybe, i'm not sure which now ) that absolutely hates Kivan--and it's reciprocated. Keeps calling Kivan a lobotomized gibberling [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] . TOO good!

Otherwise, I'm a fighter or ranger-type 98% of the time chaotic good (had a brief go at evil 'fallen' paladin but lost track of the game so set it aside). I am experimenting, however, with other classes now before I go on to SoA.

[ 02-20-2002: Message edited by: Garnet FalconDance ]

[ 02-20-2002: Message edited by: Garnet FalconDance ]

[Lemernis]

In my current 'speed game' (http://pub20.ezboard.com/fwanderonswarrensfrm12) I'm using

Jor, CG human fighter
Imoen--dualed to Conjurer
Xzar
Montaron
Kivan
Branwen

That's not especially offbeat, I realize; although near as I can tell most people tend not to use Xzar and Montaron. In any event, the game figures to feature increasingly unusual assortments of NPCs because the speed competition uses a 'no reload' rule. You also have to maintain a party of six, meaning that if a character dies you must resurrect or replace them forthwith. Those elements can lead to some very offbeat party compositions, and I'm looking forward to that. Although I have to say, I do like the strength of this particular party, and the fact that the roleplaying motivations of Branwen and Kivan are neatly woven into the story (in the speed competition we keep journals of our games and some, like myself, write them RP style--I find that almost as much fun as the game, I enjoy the roleplaying/storytelling).

***

I had several Dark Side games going, now on hold, which were designed to use a) NPCs that I had either neglected or never even tried, or b) a custom party created around a concept. Those parties include:

Keldran--TN human male Sylvanic druid (husband of Elissyra)
Elyssra--NG half-elf female bard (wife of Keldran)
Safana
Xan
Yeslick
Quayle

They are in BG city and the druid seems very out of place there, but I really like the party compisition otherwise. I had never used Xan before, and I decided that I wanted to see if I could effectively equip him with his Moonblade. I have all the right gear and spells for him to melee with the Moonblade, but after all that he still only gets one weapons prof for that and will not accrue much by way of THACO and attacks per round (whereas a warrior class will, by comparison). So Xan will never be more than mediocre at best with that sword. I stopped having him use the Moonblade after I realized that. Personality-wise I had hoped he would be a bit more amusing than he is. I now intend to replace him with Tiax, whom I've never used before.

***

Urmbel--TN male gnome cleric-illusionist
Imoen
Xzar
Montaron
Jaheira
Khalid

I don't really intend to finish this game. It's designed just to watch fights between NPCs thar are scripted to hate each other. So far Xzar and Montaron vs. Jaheira and Khalid hasn't taken place. (I've cleared several maps, completed the nashkel mines, even did Ice Island with them; so far just the caustic words back and forth). After that dustup finally does occur I'll move next the the Edwin vs. Minsc and Dynaheir conflict.

***

Zhakhaal--LE human necromancer
Kagain
Viconia
Montaron
Eldoth
Yeslick

My 'evil' party, to which I now always add at least one good aligned NPC just to watch the interactions with the evil ones. An 'all evil' composition was actually pretty lackluster (originally I had Zhakhaal, Kagain, Viconia, Shar-Teel, Edwin, Montaron and they were surprisingly unappealing and boring, or so it seemed to me anyway). They just arrived at the big city. I will do Eldoth's quest with this group, which I have never done before. So I'll be replacing Monty with Skie. After enjoying Kagain's and Yeslick's bickering I'll probably replace Yeslick with Alora as the party's goody-goody. Then after that I may replace Alora with Ajantis.

***

Ajhur Mazaras (protag)--NG human male Illusionist
Thanatos--LE human male Necromancer
Cassandra--LN female elven Enchanter
Gwyneth--TN female human Conjurer
Vyreks--LG half-elven cleric
Lorissa--CG female elven mage-thief

This specialist mage party was one hell of a good time early on--I almost literally felt scared taking them through the countryside at first. The concept for this party is to have them all rely on their own specialization school's spells. They are now around level 6 and have no trouble whatsoever with any run-of-the-mill encounter. I do enjoy combining their various spells during the battles, but this game won't get interesting again until they face some of the game's toughest opponents. I kind of lost interest in them by the time I got them to Cloakwood, but I was playing several parties at the time, and was burning out a bit with BG.

***

Arthur--paladin, large sword
Lancelot--paladin, axe
Gawain--paladin, halberd
Bors--paladin, flail
Percival--LG half-elven (via Gatekeeper) cleric-thief
Merlin--NG human non-specialized mage

Arthurian knights concept, obviously. Beyond that, the knights melee only. They each specialize in the weapons types that tend to be ignored, eg, including spiked and polearm. This game was was great fun until I hit BG city and realized that LG paladins would not be walking into people's houses. I didn't particularly feel like finishing chapters 5-7 with this bunch. I may go back to it at some point, I guess. This in my very first DS game and the party got massively level drained in chapter 5--something you want to be spoiled about, believe me. There is no Restoration spell for vampiric level drain in DS (at least at this time; hopefully Team BG will revise that in the near future), which is a major drag.

[Lavindathar]

Both games I have completed with, have been with the idea of taking a character to BG2, so no "interesting" partys have been made!

I've only made partys that are as strong as possible:

i)Lavindathar - Fighter
Branwen
Edwin
Kivan
Imoen
Khalid

This party was the first game I played, so I stook to people I found,,,and I experimented with lots of NPC's also, i.e - Edwin, Garrick and Dynaheir all spent time in my party...I also left Jaheira and ran on this game (i was new)...It produced a good game, that wasn't a walkthrough!

ii)Lavindathar - Halfling Theif
Jaheira
Khalid
Kivan
Dynaheir
Minsc

This game was a bit different, as I found it much easier, completing both the game + TOTSC, and I did virtually every fight/subquest on the game. I decided I wanted to try Jaheira instead of Branwen (although I did miss animate dead), and I also wanted to try out Minsc! I also tried Minsc and Dynaheir instead of Imoen and Edwin. I found this game a walkthrough, and I believe it to be a very, very strong party!

[Mortis]

My first attempt at BG 1 went like this

Mortis (Conjurer)
Imoen
Yeslick
Minsc
Dynahier
Quaele (whatever his name is)

Went through the game alright but upon reaching the end was dismayed to discover that my team was pretty useless at the final battle for obivous reasons

Team 2
Cora (paladin)
Imoen
Khalid
Minsc
dynahier
Yeslick

Had a bit more success with this team, more fighter orientated
Currently im playing with a mix match team to test out other chars

Mortis ( Conjurer)
Imoen ( Dual class theif/illusionist)
Safana
Minsc
Kivan
Branwen

Seem to be goin alright at the min, but as was said earlier i tried to get safana straight after doin the Friendly Arm Inn. Not an easy task, enter the invisibilty spells for searchin the maps

[Chris77Se]

My first and second (completed) games were (I restarted several times):

me (1st ranger, 2nd Paladin)
Khalid
Jaheira
Branwen
Xan
Imoen

I currently playing:

me (M/T)
Ajantis
Imoen (dualed to a Conjurer at lvl 1)
Branwen (had Viconia for a short time)
Kivan
Yeslick

[Midget Gems]

Hi Katherine, I like the look of the party you are playing - lots of wacko NPC's with a bias towards magic users - it reminds me of my own Midget Gems party. I used :

Ivor = Bard
Tiax (good leader once he has the gauntlets)
Quayle (smart guy who lets you know it)
Xan (life's a bitch and then you die)
Alora (tries to keep everyone happy - no chance)
Garrick ( The Mighty Garrick - need I say more)

This party can only play the last few chapters but it's fun and a real challenge. When the going got tough there would be 4 people with Mirror Image plus a bunch of summoned skeletons and the enemy wouldn't know which target to aim at.

On previous runs through the game I have played a Good team, an Evil team and an All Girl team.

For my latest attempt I had the crazy idea of having a 'Non-Playing Captain' - so I've gone for a cross between Snow White and the Fellowship of the Ring. My character is a young Princess who can't / won't kill anyone, so she has to get the NPC's to do all the work, while escorting her to BG city.

I chose to play as a Bard so I have 'Bard-Song' selected all the time, she is also allowed to do a little magic (just so long as she doesn't hurt anyone) and she has Algernon's cloak to help persuade people to help her. Playing the role of the 7 Dwarves are Kagain and Montaron, with Yeslick, Quayle and Tiax pencilled in for later (oh dear, that's only five). In the mean time Xzar and Kivan are helping out. Highlight of the trip so far was meeting Greywolf, he was much too strong for this party, so I charmed him and fed him to the wolves. Next stop is the Bandit Camp, but Kivan is getting too powerful - I may have to replace him with someone weaker to keep the party on their toes.

Ps. This is the first time that I've played Xzar - so what am I supposed to do with a mad mage with proficiency in daggers, but no Mirror Image and almost no HP ? Just stand back and listen to the music!

[Katherine]

quote:

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Originally posted by Midget Gems:
it reminds me of my own Midget Gems party. I used :

Ivor = Bard
Tiax (good leader once he has the gauntlets)
Quayle (smart guy who lets you know it)
Xan (life's a bitch and then you die)
Alora (tries to keep everyone happy - no chance)
Garrick ( The Mighty Garrick - need I say more)

For my latest attempt I had the crazy idea of having a 'Non-Playing Captain' - so I've gone for a cross between Snow White and the Fellowship of the Ring. My character is a young Princess who can't / won't kill anyone, so she has to get the NPC's to do all the work, while escorting her to BG city.

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Oh, how neat. It sounds like you're a really fun player.

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