GameBanshee Forums

Who do you prefer?

Xan comes with a long life expectancy and a nice Moon Blade but with a somewhat depressing view of his long life and no Magic Missiles, Fireballs or Cloudkills.

Dynaheir comes with long legs and a sexy voice but with the worst spell restriction in the game. (I tend to avoid Minsc, so no problem there.)

Go for dynahier.
As an ivoker, here magic missiles are better.
And Xan can´t even cast them

Invoker spells are my most used spells in the game!!

I would take Dynahair too....... A little gold spend on spells, and you have a well equiped mage!!!!

And Xan, well he might be a good mage, be he is so ****ing annoying.... I can't put up with all his dark visions for more than half an hour!

I like the Evovation/Invocation spells as well (Invoker being my all time favorite kit for a mage). No real finesse, of course (burn or gas everything to ashes) but so very, very effective...

If Kagain insists on staying dead, though, I might take them along both. Will be a bit to mage heavy perhaps (myself being a Bard) and leaves most of the fighting to Kivan alone (Imoen and Branwen being the other party members) but what the heck...

Well... I'm partial to Xan myself. His voiceset and portrait are awesome and that Moonblade is seriously cool. A chronically depressed elven mage with a glowing blue sword... heh, he's so cool. ^_^ Unfortunately, with 7 constitution - which doesn't really do much for his life expectancy - the best thing he can do in terms of non-magical combat is hang back and throw darts or sling bullets at people, as he'd likely get himself killed if he charged into melee, cool glowing sword or not. I don't have ToTSC so the lack of Cloudkill is muted for me, but I don't think the inability to memorize Fireball is that big of a deal... there appear to be plenty of Wands of Fire scattered around... *checks* yeah, the main site says there are six, seven counting the one in ToTSC. The lack of Magic Missile is a major blow as far as I'm concerned, though, since I consider it to be the basic utility all-purpose single-target spell. Too bad the wand only fires a single missile instead of actually casting the spell. I wish he were in BG2 as an actual joining NPC... the tutorial doesn't count... but he'd need higher constitution and a different specialist school first. Elves kind of get screwed as far as specialist school go... too bad they can't become Conjurers or Illusionists. Ah well.

Dynaheir... hm. Her voiceset is okay; not very interesting, but she's quiet, calm, and generally well-mannered, so she never gets on my nerves the way Khalid often does. The guy is just way too jumpy. But anyway. Her Slow Poison special ability has come in handy a time or two, although since Jaheira has several memorized and my protagonist's gained a few of those in the dream sequences it's not as useful as it could be. I'm not too worried about her Enchantment/Conjuration deficiencies, since all I use her for is blasting... Magic Missile and Fireball, with Mirror Image for self-preservation. Wish she had higher dex tho, since her AC winds up pretty high even with the AC6 bracers. I normally wouldn't use her, but Minsc and Boo are too cool so she winds up coming along anyway.

Personally, I like Immie best of all the NPC mages. ^_-

Personality issues aside, I prefer Dynaheir's spell selection to Xan's. If all she had in her spellbook were spells from the school of Invocation/Evocation, they would include: Chromatic Orb, Magic Missile, Shield, Stinking Cloud, Web, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Cloudkill. Those are precisely the spells that Xan can't have in his own spellbook.

If Xan could only have Enchantment/Charm spells in his own spellbook, they would include: Charm Person, Friends, Sleep, Luck, Dire Charm, Hold Person, and Confusion. Not that great, IMO. Dynaheir can't have those spells in her spellbook, as well as spells from the school of Conjuration/Summoning, including: Armor, Grease, Melf's Acid Arrow, Flame Arrow, Ghost Armor, Monster Summoning I, Monster Summoning II, and Monster Summoning III.

Personally, I prefer to have a Conjurer in my group if I have to have a Specialist Mage. But I think that Dynaheir has a better spell selection than Xan.