Lets Talk Parties

[Raenvan]

I made three parties for the three romances with every possible NPC's. I think they all are balanced in point of fighting/spellcasting skills and weapon selection.

Good alignment party: Human Undead Hunter PC, Valygar, Anomen, Mazzy, Imoen (Yoshimo)and Aerie.

Neutral one : Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief, Keldorn, Minsc, Jaheira, Cernd and Nalia. Since there were so many NPC's on the good side, I had to fill this group with them.

Evil alignment: Half-Orc Barbarian PC, Korgan, Vic, Jan, Edwin, Haer'dalis (Sarevok).

I've already finished the game with the first group and Nalia instead of Imoen, and I found it damned easy, especially ToB. Now I'm working on the second party.

[Quitch]

Well the partyI last played through with was:

Skyhawk - My Ranger PC

Minsc - Keldorn is probably better, but I played through BG using the party BG2 assumes you have, so I had to continue bringing him along. He's still quite good. Great personality, which is the main reason I don't take Keldorn. Too dull.

Jaheira - In BG she was at best average, in BG2 she is a godess. Absolutely excellent in any fight. Not only that, but she brings some excellent advice along too

Mazzy - Bow master. If there's a Mage that needs stopping, she can do that till you get your frontliners in there. Gets better with the Gesen bow, because the elemental damage bypasses Stoneskin

Aerie - Provides access to mage and cleric spells. Balances out nicely when you have Jaheira taking care of the Druid side of things.

Imoen - How can you not bring along Imoen? My favourite NPC. With you from the beginning. She is an excellent Mage, and provides all the thief skills you'll ever need, without you having to waste any XP on them. Not only that, but she contributes to the main plot.

Jan - I use him as my Mage/Thief until I get Imoen. Nice guy, though I dislike having to spend XP on his thief skills. Less irritating than Nalia, who's thief skills don't cut it, and more useful than Yoshimo, because I think pure thieves are a waste of time.

[concluder1]

Shii-Take Half-Elf Ranger duel wielding celestral fury, and kachiko's wakizashi, wearing elven chain, helm of balduran.

Rest of my party.
Minsc
Viconia
Jan
Jaheira

[spork]

You named your PC after a mushroom?

[concluder1]

Yes, they are great when grilled with green peppers, and onions.

[Craig]

My best Swashbuckler/Fighter Sword and shielding(Shield of harmony) the CF I have
-12 ac(!)with only norm armour
And edwin(the burden)

[Rodion Raskolnikov]

Assassin (with amazing stats - has been with me through BG as well - celestial fury and any short bow - Gesen at the moment)
Korgan (Axe +3 and Dwarwen thrower - prof 5 in both axe and warhammer)
Viconia (100% magic resistant with human flesh - well, she's evil - right? - and turning undead like a madman)
Edwin (spells, spells, spells)
Haer'Dalis (just for lore and fun - + he comes in handy if you want to steal)

My first time being evil - and it's a lot of fun for a used to be do gooder!

[Trym]

Anomen - always holds my cleric position. Since he's a level 7 fighter, his THAC0 is better than Viconia's. If you give him a ring of dexterity, his stats are excellent.

Jaheira - the healer of my party, so that Anomen can memorize other spells. The Harper's call spell is useful, too. As well, she's a decent 2nd line fighter (Quarterstaff). She needs strength-increasing equipment, though. As I hate Viconia (really no match for Anomen) and Aerie (low constitution - 9!!! -, as a dual class, she won't be able to gain enough mage levels), I need Jaheira for romancing, anyways.

Keldorn - if I don't play a paladin myself. Carsomyr + 5 (+6 TOB) rocks. His dispel magic abilitiy can make a huge difference battling mages.
If I'm playing a paladin, Korgan - replacing him with Sarevok later on.

Imoen - the only acceptable thief and a very good mage. A level 7 thief sufficies for BG to disarm traps, open doors and chests. The only possible choice: Yoshimo = dead man walking; Nalia's impotent thief; Jan is adecent thief, but can't cope with Imoen as a mage.

The sixth position - Edwin (if you prefer mages)or Minsc (if you prefer tanks).

[ThorinOakensfield]

My latest party.

Halfling swashbuckler- from BG1 with 20 dex. He's my sniper, and with shadow armor, and boots of stealth +20 ex he's got amzing stats at a low level. he'll get the short sword of backtabbing later kudane, and will switch between tugian bow and gesen bow.

Korgan- the tank. I'm going to put his *'s into sword and shield style and war hammer, so he can wield, either crom fayer, frostvearver, the throwing dwarf hammer, and the fireaxe.

Keldorn- although i may have a problem between him and korgan, things are fine right now. he gets 2 handed sword, heavy crossbow(i don't need a light one because my theif's the sniper), and 2 handed weapon style.

Anomen- the 3rd fighter type and the healer + undead fighter. with his superior thaco, because he was a fighter, he's really good with the mace of disruption. Plus he's the healer, and after passing the test he'll get plenty of spells.

Nalia- my first mage. she'll deal with all the lesser used spells, which i only need occasionly.

Edwin- he'll get the major spells. acid arrow, fireball, cloudkill, etc.

The only thing i worry about is the realtionship between the lawful good guys(keldorn and anomen) and their evil party member(korgan and edwin).

my theif in TN so he can take people with both alignments.

[Bruce Lee]

I have to say that my fighter based party is working like a treat. I just mow through everything. They all have good saves aswell so no problem there either. I'd say that your bg2 party is only as good as its weakest member.
I found that a fighter/theif can wear full plate mail +1 and still open locks and remove traps and pickpocket. Since I don't use hide with that character this was very useful.

[manovick]

To the guy with the all-fighter party:

Have you fought any dragons yet? Or any liches? I'm just curious, because I thought of doing the same thing, only I was worried there would be some opponents who would be difficult to beat. BTW, who do you get rid of in ToB to get ToB guy? I would say Minsc.

[Xyx]

Originally posted by Tom Bombadil:
<STRONG>To the guy with the all-fighter party:

Have you fought any dragons yet? Or any liches? I'm just curious, because I thought of doing the same thing, only I was worried there would be some opponents who would be difficult to beat.</STRONG>

Seems to me that a sound beating is the easiest way to beat every enemy in the game.

The game offers you protective equipment of such effectiveness, that spellcasters hardly pose a threat after a while. Armed with the Shield of Harmony, Ring of Free Action, Cloak of Mirroring and (occasionally) either the Ring of Spell Turning or the Book of Infinite Spells (for Spell Turning), and finally some Paladin's Resist Fear, no spell in the game can touch you.

[Bruce Lee]

Originally posted by Tom Bombadil:
<STRONG>To the guy with the all-fighter party:

Have you fought any dragons yet? Or any liches? I'm just curious, because I thought of doing the same thing, only I was worried there would be some opponents who would be difficult to beat. BTW, who do you get rid of in ToB to get ToB guy? I would say Minsc.</STRONG>

Dragons have never been easier. Liches always die to mace of disruption or sunray.
I played the second half of the game with all characters on standard attack. When I fought the black dragon I measured the time it took for me to kill it: 10 seconds. Pretty good, and I hardly had any injuries to my party. Like Xyx said there is planty of good equipment to go around.
If you like hack and slash I recommend it. You should have an Inquisitor in you team though.

[Lady Pantea]

Originally posted by CtrlAltDel:
<STRONG>Lets first start with talking about your party in SoA, maybe how your party progressed.

I started over not too long ago, and here is what i have

Me (kensai (not dueled yet)
Minsc
Jaheira
Anomen
Yoshi
Aerie

i just got rid of Nalia and have the keep, just knew that i didnt want her later on in the game so no reason for her to suck up xp now.

Other characters that interest me are Jan, and Keldorn. There is Edwin and Korgan, two great guyz but i'll have to lower my rep to actually get them to stay with me.

Just like to see who you like playing with.</STRONG>

Elven archer
Minsc(&BOO) Dw Stone fire axe and skull crusher (Mace of dis. against undead)
Anomen The CF
Valygar CF&His family blade
Imoen
Jan

[Dour von Zlo]

Just entered Spellhold with myself (well-sorted PALADIN), MINSC, JAHEIRA (who's starting to bug me) and NALIA. Had no problems up to now, until I picked up Imoen and somehow lost Nalia (see another thread).
Problem is that Minsc is getting a bit redundant now - Sir DVZ is more than capable of mashing most nasties in a hand-2-hand, while Minsc just sits at the back with the girls and twangs a few arrows. Don't wanna get rid of him 'cos anybody with a painted head is hard to kick out.