I'm running SoA and ToB with Ascension and Tactics installed, so far I got three people in my party, and I can't decide on the final one.
ME: Human Totemic Druid
Minsc
Jan (to be replaced by Imoen)
Who should I add?
Thanks in advance!
4-person Party suggestion
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RottingMindz
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:15 am
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Welcome to Gamebanshee.
This probably isn't what you were expecting, but my suggestion is to keep Jan and make Imoen your fourth party member. The Ascension Mod has a special role for her which makes things interesting, and it's always nice to have Jan and Minsc together for the entire duration of the game. Since you obviously don't mind modding the game, you might consider editing Imoen to make her a more effective character. If you do that, I suggest turning her into a Sorcerer. Either way, the idea is that you should play her as a Mage. There's nothing wrong with having two Mages (Jan and Imoen) in your party; in fact, I prefer to have as many spellcasters as I can.
There are two alternatives. The first alternative is to recruit a different character who is an even more powerful Mage. Edwin is such a character (Nalia isn't any more powerful than Imoen, and Aerie is in a different class), but Edwin doesn't get along with Minsc so you should take that into account. You might also consider an NPC mod such as Kelsey, Tashia, or Tsujatha, to name a few off the top of my head.
The second alternative is to add a powerful melee character to your party instead of a spellcaster. I'm not familiar with all of the battles in Tactics (personally, I think most of them are contrived and simply ridiculous), but I have found that melee power is very effective and sometimes indispensible in TOB, especially in the final series of battles when Ascension is installed. If you want another melee character, you can't go wrong with Keldorn, Korgan, or (later in the game) Sarevok. It's debatable which of those characters is the most powerful, but my vote goes to Keldorn. (There's an old message thread in this forum in which we debated the issue.) You might also consider Anomen, who is almost as powerful as one of my favorite characters, the Berserker dualled to Cleric. Granted, he is annoying, but in a one-on-one battle with sufficient planning and preparation, he could match or beat all of the other NPCs.
This probably isn't what you were expecting, but my suggestion is to keep Jan and make Imoen your fourth party member. The Ascension Mod has a special role for her which makes things interesting, and it's always nice to have Jan and Minsc together for the entire duration of the game. Since you obviously don't mind modding the game, you might consider editing Imoen to make her a more effective character. If you do that, I suggest turning her into a Sorcerer. Either way, the idea is that you should play her as a Mage. There's nothing wrong with having two Mages (Jan and Imoen) in your party; in fact, I prefer to have as many spellcasters as I can.
There are two alternatives. The first alternative is to recruit a different character who is an even more powerful Mage. Edwin is such a character (Nalia isn't any more powerful than Imoen, and Aerie is in a different class), but Edwin doesn't get along with Minsc so you should take that into account. You might also consider an NPC mod such as Kelsey, Tashia, or Tsujatha, to name a few off the top of my head.
The second alternative is to add a powerful melee character to your party instead of a spellcaster. I'm not familiar with all of the battles in Tactics (personally, I think most of them are contrived and simply ridiculous), but I have found that melee power is very effective and sometimes indispensible in TOB, especially in the final series of battles when Ascension is installed. If you want another melee character, you can't go wrong with Keldorn, Korgan, or (later in the game) Sarevok. It's debatable which of those characters is the most powerful, but my vote goes to Keldorn. (There's an old message thread in this forum in which we debated the issue.) You might also consider Anomen, who is almost as powerful as one of my favorite characters, the Berserker dualled to Cleric. Granted, he is annoying, but in a one-on-one battle with sufficient planning and preparation, he could match or beat all of the other NPCs.
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RottingMindz
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:15 am
- Contact:
Why the assumption? Maybe I'm a veteran, or maybe I'm a newbie wanting to try something new...Thrifalas wrote:If you are a good enough player to take on tactics+ascension with only 4 characters you should know them well enough to not have to ask about it.And Minsc? A Totemic Druid?
Dude, I'd just love to hear how you beat Ascension final battle with that setup.
Why not Totemic Druid? I just wanna have fun, never played a Totemic Druid before.
Maybe I'll get to the final battle, maybe not, who cares?
Well, it's just that Tactics/Ascension is generally being played to give veteran players a challenge. There are other mods for people wanting to try something new and just have fun.
There are a lot of fights in tactics/ascension that you can't possibly complete without having an extensive knowledge of the game.
I'm not trying to discourage you, the other way around, you're quite brave to do this with only a 4-men group not consisting of either Keldorn, Edwin, Sarevok or one of Weimar's two crazy NPCs.
There are a lot of fights in tactics/ascension that you can't possibly complete without having an extensive knowledge of the game.
I'm not trying to discourage you, the other way around, you're quite brave to do this with only a 4-men group not consisting of either Keldorn, Edwin, Sarevok or one of Weimar's two crazy NPCs.
"There are a lot of fights in tactics/ascension that you can't possibly complete without having an extensive knowledge of the game."
The other part that most people skip when talking about how easily they can beat tactics/ascension is how much game time is spent paused, how much time is spent loading very specific spells into triggers, contingencies and other such insta-cast setups, how much resting is done, etc.
If you don't like to SERIOUSLY micromanage all of your battles, you will not like tactics. If you're used to cruising through large sections of the game easily and only having the "boss" fights be hard, you won't like tactics. If you don't like having to reload freqently and use plenty of cheese just to clear the opening dungeon, you won't like tactics...
I found tactics interesting and a lot of the fights were entertaining the first time, but after the 50th or so battle with Random_group_of_thugs that kicks your butt unless you follow all of the usual time consuming anti caster cheese, a lot of the battles begin to just get irritating.
There are a few shortcuts like I eventually wound up spending most of my time meleeing casters with non magical weapons while Uber_weapon_01 sat in my bag or inventory collecting dust. Carsomyr and Staff of the Magi got lots of use specifically for their dispell abilities, etc.
The other part that most people skip when talking about how easily they can beat tactics/ascension is how much game time is spent paused, how much time is spent loading very specific spells into triggers, contingencies and other such insta-cast setups, how much resting is done, etc.
If you don't like to SERIOUSLY micromanage all of your battles, you will not like tactics. If you're used to cruising through large sections of the game easily and only having the "boss" fights be hard, you won't like tactics. If you don't like having to reload freqently and use plenty of cheese just to clear the opening dungeon, you won't like tactics...
I found tactics interesting and a lot of the fights were entertaining the first time, but after the 50th or so battle with Random_group_of_thugs that kicks your butt unless you follow all of the usual time consuming anti caster cheese, a lot of the battles begin to just get irritating.
There are a few shortcuts like I eventually wound up spending most of my time meleeing casters with non magical weapons while Uber_weapon_01 sat in my bag or inventory collecting dust. Carsomyr and Staff of the Magi got lots of use specifically for their dispell abilities, etc.