Most useless NPC?

[aVENGER2k]

Yes,autopause could be added to my greatest cheese "spells" collection (including the almighty Quicksave and the infamous Archive Save) but as I said before it just depends on the style of play,when I play a fighter heavy party I rarely use it myself.BTW about Anomen,guess I got your nick mixed up with someone else then...

[vixen]

You certainly did my dear. I shall restrain myself from flaming your backside.

[Georgi]

Hehe, I think you have probably been mistaken for Vivien... loyal member of the Harem that she is...

[INEEDHELP]

If i had to make a list of the most useless characters it would be

1. Cernd (too weak overall)
2. Yoshimo (one ass sucking thief, I'd have Jan over him anytime)
3. Nalia (weak mage, even worse thief

What i found to be the best NPCs though are:
1. Minsc (not only the funniest, but the best in the game)
2. Korgan
3. Edwin (best mage easily)
4. Jan (best thief)

The only reason I would have Keldorn in a party is to wield the Carsonmyr. Everyone else is average.

[Irenin]

No way, korgan owns minsc.

[ThorinOakensfield]

Imoen was pretty bad. I dropped Jaheria for her. Edwin does the mage bit better, and Jan does the theif bit better. She never reached the xp cap anway in my game. She couldn't even cast 7th level spells.

[fable]

Nalia may be the weakest character--perhaps. I've yet to see anybody adequately defend her role in a party. Jan's a far better thief, and both Aerie and Imoen are better mages. But I do think it's good that you should be offered a selection of characters, including weak ones, to make choices. I'd rather have twelve varied characters than just five or six guaranteed strong ones. It gives me a greater sense of control over my party.

[StormBringer]

LOL, I think this kind of Post just proves that it is all RELATIVE! There are so many factors in the game. Everything is dependent on your style of play at the particular time, coupled with the SYNERGY of all your party members with respect to one another. I say LOL at the beginning of my reply because I am now just exiting the UNDERDARK, and Nalia is now level 16, and is one of the STRONGEST members of my party!

I mean, it all just matters how you play it. For instance, have you been playing with mostly just 3 characters, or 4, or 5, or 6? the whole game. Did you have Nalia memorize all the good scrolls you found? or did you let Aerie memorize them because you feared Nalia would leave you one day, because of something you picked up on some long-forgoten post you once read that mentioned something about her being Kidknapped? The same can be said about Yoshimo....I've never even met JAN, to my knowledge! The examples are endless.... The fact is, this is a DYNAMIC game....soo many possibilities and outcomes are possible!

I think we each tend to play the game in a certain fashion that is (if even unconsciously) molded by our personal beliefs, prejudices, etc. for the moment. For me, in the game mentioned above, Nalia kicks A**. And the rest of you say she Sucks!? I have her outfitted with the greatest of equipment, etc. that I've found so far. And she's got an unstoppable spell-book! However, for me, she was the most logical mage to "work-on". Aerie started off with a wimpy spell-book, and her HP sucks. My party is GOOD aligned, and my protagonist is a Ranger. Blah, blah, blah,......I could go on and on....the point is, IT ALL JUST DEPENDS..............

[Fatale]

Stormbringer, no offense, but I think most of us like to argue here (well, at least, I do), so I think I'll drag this topic on a bit more ...

Nalia ain't the weakest. She's the next one I pick up after Aerie (which makes her the second character I pick up after the Irenicus dungeon).

Give Aerie good wands, spells, protection, and weapons and she is Death in elven disguise. Ditto for Nalia. Nalia works best with the super short bows they have around Amn (like the Tasheron Bow and Gesen Bow). She can get up to 15 damage points in one shot.

If you got both girls in your party, the experience you get from learning spells are tremendous, especially if you have them regularly gulping potions of genius to boost their learning abilities.

Not only that, once you learnt all the spells, these two mages are deadly in battle with their area and summoning spells.

And Nalia can pick any lock that matters, and once you bring her through the underdark, she is one mean mage to contend with.

To answer the question of this topic, I think Imoen would be the most useless. Even though I gave her all the good spells and equipment I can give, I check her stats after the underdark, and the most powerful she vanquished was a goblin! Eeek! I really thought her better than that!

Or maybe it's just me ...

[StormBringer]

fatale...no offense taken. Actually, after reading my reply/post, I was surprised at how strong my opinion seemed to come across, as typed. I didn't intend for it to, I should have proof-read it before posting. I probably shouldn't have used CAPITALS like that. No big deal to me about everyone's opinions...that what the original post was asking for anyway. I just got a little bit carried away. I just wanted to point out that any character has potential, if focused on.

[Loredweller]

Originally posted by tRiKzTaR:
<STRONG>...It turned out that in all the time Imoen had been in my party, she had only killed 5 (!) enemies - ...</STRONG>

What's of it? My Jaheira (no parties without her) never is very bright in killing, neither is Jan. Altogether, lot of enemies perished through Jaheira's insect plaque and fire elementals or Jan's brush mates. First thing my spellcasters cast is Chaos or Confusion, if applicable. They never have large number of kills, if only above level 12 with Chromatic Orb on weak opponents. It's the team work, and does it really matter who makes the final blow?
L.

[ 05-28-2001: Message edited by: Loredweller ]

[leeho730]

all npc mages whose int is lower than 18... They won't be able to memorize lv9 spells...

[Mr. Sprinkles]

Wisdom draining? i thought Haery's sword only drained Dexterity.

[aVENGER2k]

@Mr. Sprinkles:

Yes,you are right,the Chaos Blade drains 2 points of DEX,while Kachiko's Wakizashi drains wisdom...I guess I got those two mixed up a bit,but anyway,HD's sword is much better cause there is NO save to the DEX loss,and it lasts around 30 sec so you can easily kill some monsters that have low DEX simply by draining it to 0.

[Ben_Albright]

I have to agree with most of the idea that parties match playing styles. I only got insulted when someone said that Nalia is better than Imoen. Both can be 17th level mages with the XP cap and Imoen has more theif levels and theirfore hitpoints and theiveing skills than Nalia. Spellbooks are what you make them. It is therefore impossible for Imoen to be Weaker than Nalia unless one has better equipment than the other.