Going with the Bodhi?

[Jeff]

I am curious to find out if anyone accepted Bodhi's offer and went against the shadow thieves? I have gone this route and I would like to know if it causes me any problems down the road. So far besides killing alot of shadow thieves I haven't seen any problems. Two other quick items. Is Kheldorn(sp) willing to join the party and is it worth it to use him instead of Amonen(sp again)? The other item is that I ran into RejicHidesman in Trademeet dusted him is that the end of that side trek or is there more? Thanks,

Jeff

i know allot of people dissed anomen and keldorn, but i took the time to develope them and they turned out to be very powerful characters to use. anomen is a relatively powerful cleric, and even though viconia is a more powerful cleric, anomen gets most of the bunuses of a fighter and after a few levels gets low thaco. since he is a dual class fighter, he could wear any armor, and therefor had an awsome armor class, and anomen also gets over 100 hp relatively early in the game. my only beef with anomen was that since he is a cleric he is restricted to using only blunt weapons, so until the under dark he was usuing the flail of the ages, but once you put the crom fuer on him he turns into a steam roller of destruction.

i love keldorn, and find him perhaps one of the most useful good npc's he has. at first he seems to suck being a palidin and only being able to cast dispell magic and true sight, but after you see him tear down a mage's defences with is very fast dispell magic (it is an inate ability, casting time 1, cannot be silenced, acts at double his level for deturmining its chance at dispell). he is also a true palidin, and can use the holy avenger. i was able to kill fricrag right after my mage got level 5 spells, so i went for most of the game with keldorn welding that +5 bruiser of a weapon the best use for keldorn is straight up anti magic. if someone casts a dissabling spell on my party, he can get rid of it in a second. many a time i was hit with spells that would normally screw me (such as chaos) but keldorn would get rid of the effects so fast my party wouldnt' miss a beat.

[Melusine]

When you hook up with the Thieves, the final quest is to kill Bodhi, when you choose Bodhi, you will have to kill Linvail. Therefore, I too went for an alliance with Bodhi as I knew you are going to have to kill her in the end anyway, and as I wanted to collect as much XP and items as possible. It has no negative effects on the rest of the game, and NPC's will still join you. I think that the tasks you are asked to perform might differ somewhat but I'm not sure. Saemon will turn against you later in the game than would be the case if you went with the shadow thieves. I'd say go ahead and go for the nice vampire girl(?!?)
I think Keldorn is better as a fighter (with Holy Avenger), but Anomen's cleric spells are quite useful so it would depend on what the rest of your party looks like. I played as a cleric so I preferred Keldorn over Anomen, but if it's the other way round (and you don't want Viconia) you should stay with A.
If you've killed the Tanner in Trademeet, you have to cast restoration on the girl whose skin he took and the quest will be fulfilled

[Hoggar]

It seems to me that joining Bodhi is an easier trek. The last fight with Linvail was slightly bothersome, but killing loads of thieves is much easier than fighting leveldraining vampires. Not that that is a very relevant fact since you have to nail Bodhi later, but still.