Canonical BG2 Party

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From BG1, we know that the canonical BG1 party consisted of Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, Dynaheir, and Imoen. It also suggests that you played a good aligned character in BG1. (I would go so far as to suggest they expect your PC to be a paladin or fighter.)

While necessarily speculative, what do you think the canonical party is of BG2? (Note: I know there is no official canonical party, but what I'm asking is what do you think Bioware was expecting us to pick up as our party in our first playthrough when we didn't know what we'd encounter?)

My thinking is that it would certainly include the returning characters of Jaheira and Minsc. As Imoen is such an integral part of the storyline, she'd have to be in at as well, and they expect that you'd take Yoshimo with you to Spellhold and then pick up Imoen. So that leaves two spots open.

After leaving Irencus' Dungeon, the game certainly prods you to the Copper Coronet. And I think there's definitely at least one more character that's part of the cannonical party here... Nalia. After losing Imoen, you are without a mage, unless your PC happens to be one. She'd be a logical addition.

So we're left with one spot, and while this is probably the most controversial, I'm guessing the last is Anomen. He's the only male romancable character, he makes every effort to join with the group, and like Nalia, he initiates dialogue with you when you approach him. You're also assured to have an open slot in your party available when you meet him, so there would be no reason for a good-aligned party to NOT take him.

So you'd have:

PC
Jaheira
Minsc
Nalia
Anomen
Yoshimo/Imoen

Now I admit that I don't find this particular combination ideal, but it is workable, no matter what class your PC is. The potential flaws I see that would cause you to break from this on your first playthrough would be:

1. Your PC is a thief. There would be little need to keep Yoshimo around. You'd probably drop him in favor of the first good (or perhaps neutral) NPC you came across. That could be Keldorn, although I suppose Valygar or Mazzy are also a possibilities depending on what quest you took on first.

2. Your PC is a cleric, or a cleric multi-class. That would also prove problematic as Anomen would suddenly become a fairly unappealing choice - there's no real reason to have three divine casters in the party. I think that he'd be replaced by Keldorn, Valygar, or Mazzy.

 

IMO both games were written for a paladin main character -- with a decent amount of flexibility for other choices as well. With the assumption the cannonical party is led by a good protagonist, you don't include evil (especially if your main character is a paladin). I think the game dumps you next to the circus specifically for a good party to get a mage replacement for Imoen in Aerie. Aerie has the second most dialog options (with Viconia third) and the "love triangle" with HD is an interesting side note in the game -- the amount of writing for Aerie tells me the designers intended Aerie to stay in the party.

So, I'd say:

PC
Jaheira
Minsc
Yoshimo/Imoen
Aerie

The last slot is left open to allow for other NPCs to join as part of their quests. Anomen would take the place of either Aerie or Jaheira for a female protagonist as that romance progresses during his quests. I think the designers only wanted five to finish SoA and have Sarevok join in ToB. It is certainly possible for Mazzy or Valygar to take the place of Jaheira for an all good party, but what (truly) good character is going to keep Keldorn? Come on, the guy belongs with his family.

 

I think you’re more likely to do Circus Tent before going to Copper Coronet, meaning that Aerie is the first one you’d pick up after leaving the dungeon with Jaheira, Minsc and Yoshimo. And it would make sense to take her since (1) you’re now missing a mage, and (2) between Jaheira and Aerie, you have a druid and a cleric. In this case, Anomen makes no sense for the sixth spot; Nalia might make sense as she would add more mage abilities, although her low-level thief abilities would be unnecessary with Yoshi.

Edit: ninja'd by T2!

 

Hmmm... You know, I completely forgot about the whole encountering Aerie first thing. And yeah, having a mage and cleric together in one character is a sound argument for taking her along, as is the fact that you'd only have a party of four at that point.

I also agree that the game intends for you to take Sarevok in ToB, and that would be easily accomplished by only having five in SoA. However, I don't see that as particularly realistic. I mean, I never considered only taking along five characters on my first playthrough with the expectation that I could leave open a space for a potential additional character in the expansion. And I think that most people would think the same thing.

In that case though, I'd have to think that you'd go with Nalia most of the time over Anomen in the CC. It would be your first choice, as you don't have room for both of them, and with Jaheria and Aerie already present as druid/cleric multi-classes, Anomen is superfulous. Nalia is basically an Imoen clone (just with lower thief skills). The other thing that pushes me in that direction is that if you picked a fighter as your character (something I think is likely), then you can immediately access your stronghold quest.

 

Sixth spot - Sarevok?

 

I think Viconia, instead of Anomen.

 

I always thought both games were setup for the Protagonist to be a F/M myself. Especially BG1. If not a F/M, I would say plain Fighter. But F/M makes more sense to me. You don't get a mage-type caster until you encounter Garrick in Beregost, who was weak and his quest wasn't a guaranteed given either. He has a proposition for money and it ireally is a setup, so teh good-aligned probably wouldn't work with him. Then you encounter Xan, another weak character, a whiner and is useless with his Moonblade as he has no HP or Melee power. It then took a bit of adventuring to get Dynaheir in the party. Only evil aligned party PCs would meet a Mage early on in Xzar.

I agree with Aldeth's assumption of teh BG1 party, but another warrior was not needed. More Magic was.

As for BG2, I believe that F/M is again the expected class. This time either Multi or Dualled. Hence that is why they chose the Level 7 Fighter starting XP. Perfecrt Level to Dual from and be the end of Chateau Irenicus you are jsut about at level 8 Mage. To me Yoshimo, Minsc and Jaheira are no brainers. So is Immy after spell hold, obviously replacing Yoshi. I thnk the other 2 spots were for Aerie and Keldorn. Otherwise, why have Carsomyr as the best weapon in the game? Keldorn and Minsc can handle all of the fighting that you need. Jaheira supports this as well. No need for the PC to be a warrior type.

 

But they already had an awesome Pally in the game. Keldorn. That is who I think they made Carsomyr for. Lilacor was for Minsc. For the comic relief edge that both bring. Celestial Fury was for Valygar. The Flail of Ages was for Anomen. The Mauler was for Aerie or Vicky, Tuigan Bow for Yoshi, etc...

In BG1 I actually started as a Dwarf F/C.

In BG2 I will admit my first play through was a Cavalier.

 

True, but when speaking of the first playthrough, you wouldn't know that there would be a great paladin in the game. My first class in BG1 was a fighter, and in the BG2 it was a berserker (dwarf, so I guess technically a battlerager).

 

I wouldn't go for Nalia in the party. She's basically an Imoen clone as said so why have two characters the same?

 

Beyond the obvious Jaheira, Minsc and Yoshimo picked up at Irenicus' Dungeon, I'm not so sure who would be canonical. Many plausible remarks have been made already for various characters.

But Nalia is very plausible as canonical edition precisely because she's an Imoen clone. Without knowledge in advance of the game it makes perfect sense to think: well, now that Imoen's gone not knowing if and when I'll have her back Nalia is a perfect replacement in the same role to take along. I'm sure I did.

I started BGII in spring this year without advance knowledge besides some spoilerish bits I picked up by being around on the fora as a Tutu player, and my first-time party was: [me, Blade], Jaheira, Minsc, Yoshimo, Nalia and Aerie. The reason I took Aerie is, she was the first I'd meet after Imoen got taken away, so she fitted both the role of Cleric (Jaheira can't cast Hold and Silence) and Mage at the same time. Even though I got more mage power with Nalia, they supplemented eachother well. This party seems quite canonical to me.

 

No, you wouldn't know there was a great Pally, but you wouldn't know any of the NPCs except for what was listed in the manual so I don't really see the releveance??? And when reading the manual and Cavalier showed the bonues vs. Dragons and Demons, it made my brows raise. Dragons and Demons oh my! Then I saw Undead Hunter and thought Vampire, Mummies, Liches... and possibly even Draco-Liches, but I was dissapointed in that regard. But then I saw the XP list and thought wow, 9th level Mage spells. Don't get that very often in PC games. Warriors that are 7th level play just like 20th level. Not so with Mages. High Level Mages are just awesome. to me, there is nohting like it.

 

Because we were talking about the first playthrough. You wouldn't be able to say, I don't need a paladin because there's a great one I can get. I don't know about you, but on my first playthrough I was much more confident that I could find a mage I liked more than a paladin I liked. (As an aside though, the biggest argument in favor of a F/M multi-class is that there is no NPC with that combination in any of the games - not that you'd know that either your first time through.)

Also considering the first playthrough, 9th level spells weren't even AVAILABLE in SoA even as a straight mage, never mind multi-classed one. If you had a full party, a multi-classed mage would need nearly 6 million XPs to be able to cast 9th level spells, which is about the total you'd reach by playing through both SoA and ToB. With just SoA on your first time playing, a F/M wouldn't even to be able to cast 8th level spells, as he'd be limited to 1.5 million XPs per class.

That was my thinking as well, and I'm sure I had Nalia in my first party. In fact, Nalia remained the more powerful mage throughout, as in my first playthrough, I felt like I had to complete all the quests before leaving for Spellhold. So Nalia had way more XPs by the time I got Imoen back.

 

I suspect it's just the way you worded it, but to clarify, 6 million XP for a multi-class is the number regardless of the number of party members.

Anyway, the party of Jaheira, Minsc, Yoshimo, Aerie and Nalia makes sense for the party the developers expected you to take simply because, aside from Nalia, they’re the ones you meet first (assuming you do Circus Tent right away); I think the tendancy for first-time players is to take the first NPC’s you meet, as long as they fit into your party mix. But that brings me to another point – that party is fine if your PC is a warrior, but not so much if it’s something else. Mage? – you can do without Aerie and/or Nalia. Thief? – Yoshi is out the window. Priest? – Jaheira and/or Aerie are superfluous. In all those cases you might want another tank, and Korgan could fit the bill (unless you don’t want an evil NPC) since he’s also in the CC. I suspect, though, that first-timers lean towards melee characters because they’re generally the easiest to get the hang of, and the developers realize this, which is why the NPC’s are introduced in the order they are. (Of course, this logic goes out the window if someone has played BG1, and is maybe importing a PC from there.)

 

Yeah - that was poor on my part. The implication is that if you had a full party, you would have a really hard time reaching that total until quite late in ToB. In fact, I usually finish ToB with right around 6 million per character with a full party. To get up to the cap of 8 million, I'd suspect you'd have to drop the number of characters to at least 4. (Maybe even 3, considering a good chunk of the quest experience points you receive is given to all characters and isn't affected by number of characters in the party. e.g., everyone gets 18K, or 30K, or whatever.)

I brought that up in my initial post - with Anomen as the Plan B option, if you didn't want/need Nalia or Yoshimo, you're stuck with three divine casters. If you played a cleric, you're going to have three divine casters no matter what you do early on. As a cleric, you don't particularly want or need any more than one more divine caster, which means you'll take Aerie OR Jaheira OR Anomen, but not two of them. Eliminating one is easy - if you were a cleric, Anomen is the most redundant, and if you're a druid, Jaheira is the most redundant, but no matter what you do, you're still stuck with three divine casters, and would be most willing to replace one of them when the opportunity presented itself.

 

I got a party of 6 with PC getting to the limit and it's possible w/out cheese. And even w/out kicking people out. But basically I did everything that I could to reach this goal.
I started the game solo. I did all that I could w/out finishing any quest that would give exp to each member - I decided the loss of total exp would not be worth it. Then I hired another 3 people and did everything what I could do in Act 2 except for the Keep. I got Imoen and kept the party of 5 until I met Sarevok again.
I went to WK, I think, before Draconis and for sure after Sendai. I got 8000000 by slightly abusing the Lum machine. If I didn't, I would reach it the level below anyway, but I just couldn't wait.
Oh, I should note that I had 6 mages and used spell learning exp to the max w/out going cheesy IMO. That is - learn spells from the worst the best, when out of space remove the most useless one. So I didn't learn the same things over and over, but got more exp then I would otherwise. And I think I used the moment when Jan left to learn spells in order to reduce sharing.

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Oh, I didn't take any exp from the deck of many things.

 

I don't get it. You say you had a full party of six. But then you say you did a large part of the game solo, and a large part of the game with 4 characters, and then you had 5 for a while, and then eventually 6 in ToB. It seems like most of the time you had fewer than 6, which means most of the time you didn't have a full party.

 

You are assuming that someone's first playthough was automatically when SoA was released. Not the case for alot of players. Many weren't exposed to the game unitll years after ToB. Install both as that is how you bought the game, packaged, you see 9th level spells in the manuals.

Also, Paladins are never a necessity in a D&D game, as there are other warrior types. Fighter is more powerful in any D&D game that utilizes Weapon Spec/Mastery in its game engine compared to a Paladin. IWDI is a perfect example. Mages on the other hand are always(or mostly) a necessity. Just my opinion of course, not saying that is the gospel...

 

You never have a party of 6 straight from the Irenicus dungeon unless you play with custom characters. I don't consider it to be wrong to manage party member joining time to achieve the goal of uneven exp distribution. Yes, most of the time the party had less then 6 members. Still, I call it a party of 6.