Fitting ranged weapon for Ajantis?

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I'm redoing the (Easy)tutu proficiencies to with Level1NPCs, and it's been rather straighforward.. up and until I came to Ajantis the paladin.

In normal BG1 Ajantis comes with a star in (Long-)Bow. However, a bow is patently incompatible with a shield, i.e. not usable without several klicks via the inventory screen.

Everything I've read about him, from the stereotypical sword&board holy warrior pally template, to the most obvious use of him as a tank (Kivan, Coran, Khalid and even Minsc make better bowyers than he does), him starting with one-handed sword (normal BG1) to his portrait depicts him as a shield user.

Any ideas why the game's designers thought it'd be a good idea to shower him with proficiencies in single-handed weapons and top it off with a bow he couldn't possibly even use (game-mechanics wise) without forgoing the shield? Just for the sake of being able to "force" him into the ultra-compatibility mode with just about any possible NPC combination, possibly ending up as the party's only ranged attacker?

I know the legal options are darts, throwing daggers, sling and axe, just hoping to hear opinions what people would use and why.

Likewise, Coran's sword & bow combo doesn't make sense - either he can't backstab (2H sword) or can't use his Bow. With Easytutu, I can't possibly fathom him as anything else than a dual-wielding backstabber to conform with his portrait.

 

I am convinced they never really gave a lot of thought to most of the NPCs found in BG1. While a lot of them are awesome and some are a vital part of the story, others just feel sort of thrown in at the last moment. NPCs like Quayle, Ajantis and even Kivan have almost no personality.
The strange and jumbled stats of a lot of them is more proof that the developers didn't put much effort in them.

Also, speaking of strange proficiencies, Safana has a point in spears, madness I tell you!

 

I've never let the few clicks of a mouse stop me from using the weapon I want, when I want to use it. Besides, a warrior only uses a bow for enemies he can't reach with his sword (there's absolutely no problem with this shift in a role playing sense). A round or two of missiles, shift to sword and shield and hack away.

Ajantis could be a cavalier-type paladin. No missile weapons. A throwing axe does quite well for a cavalier (especially Azuredge). Give him sword and shield weapon style and bastard sword proficiency by ToB. Foebane and Purifier just seem to fit in with his personality.

You seem to be too concerned about using the fewest clicks to equip the weapon(s)/shield you want. The weapon choices the designers made are reasonable to me -- you can pause the game to shift weapons around. Sure, I like the system in NWN better where a simple click solves the entire issue; but it's easy enough to do in BG so it's not an issue to me at all.

 

Micromanaging stuff is one thing, doing something repetitively just to get around a stupid game engine limitation is irritation to no end. Plainly IGNORING the off-hand when the main hand switches to ranged or two-handed (except for 1h ranged + shield) would solve this irritation once and for all.

To me, the only reason to change weapon configurations outside what the quick-weapon slots allow for is to equip an "almost never used weapon" for a specific battle, such as Dragonslayer against Dragons or switching Minsc's Silver Sword to Lilarcor when clearing out a horde of Umber Hulks.

 

Ajantis = Paladin = Sword & Shield... give the bows to the wuss elves I say, they're the ones who get the High Dex and to hit bonuses anyway...

Another thing that doesn't make sense is Xan and his Moonblade. With basically no hitpoints and a terrible THACO, what's the point?

 

The Moonblade is the point, more specifically the pointy end in the enemy.

To be fair Xan probably sees it as a mercy blade
"Xvarts attacking!"
"AAAAATAAAAAACK"
"Oh what is the point..." *stabs self*

Maybe they rolled dice to make the characters?

 

I tried to make Xan a F/M/T with a mod, but it still didn't work-out to well, though much better than the base enchanter, at least melee-wise. Changing Ajantis to an Inquisitor is nice change though...

 

Oh well, I decided to go with Darts.

The way I see it, the only thing a Paladin is afraid of is casters, and Darts gives plenty of opportunities (think spray & pray) for interruption. And they have nice, SHORT range so that he ends up standing between the bad guys and the rest of the party instead of hiding in the back ranks together with the mages and clerics.

BTW, Darts +2 together with Specialization and Gauntlets of Weapon Specialization end up giving a dedicated archers (such as Kivan) a run for their money.

 

I usually choose crossbow and longsword/shield for him, but have sometimes chosesn crossbow + 2handed sword, and modified proficiencies with either Level1NPCs, the appropriate SCS or BG2 TweakPack components, or good old ShadowKeeper. Some other mods do that automatically, I think. Though, frankly, the introduction of horses and lances would be the true RP of his character (No, it isn't likely to ever be modded in - no way to do it, I think. Besides, horses + xvarts = TKO as the warhorse freaks out at the funny blue blood squishing everywhere. Hmmm... a Mount & Blade conversion of BG... now *that* is an interesting thought...)

 

Actually, I noticed in the vanilla (unpatched, undebugged?) game if you're high enough level yourself before you get him into the party, Xan has this 3rd level 'wraithform' spell or somesuch which is supposed to give immunity to normal weapons and some other bonuses...tried to cast it but it never worked and since there's not a scroll for it the developers probably skipped that idea...

Mirror image in the original vanilla BG blocked all attacks until the images ran out...so this gave Xan a little bit more chance to use his moonblade in combat. Not a brilliant tanker though, but 50% fire resistance is always handy and if you boost that up to 100% or over and start chucking fireballs..

 

Isn't there just some way to allow or at least simulate quick changing from weapon+shield/2 weapons to 2 hand weapons? Is it possible to create a skill that does that for automatically and all you have to do is click?

 

nope - I think the closest is the AI shipped with SCS/SCSII. Or Yovoneth's AI scripts. These allow switching between weapons automatically, or through a hotkey. I am not sure if they also allow shield equippage/unequippage, but i do know that they do not allow specific weapon selection, arrow selection, or dual-wields. There are some limitations to modding that stuff in, too.

 

In my opinion, the strange stats/items/proficiencies of various BG1 NPCs is exactly part of their charm. NPCs should be unique, not necessarily optimized (as they are in BG2). Conan's sword-and-bow reinforces his swashbuckler image (in clear contrast to his portrait); and Xan's Moonblade, albeit useless, looked cool. And I actually kind of liked Quayle despite his unstoppable uselessness...

Safana's spear is just plain weird, though, considering she can't even use it.

 

What? Safana had a spear? Never in my games....

 

You can pause in Tutu, but you can NOT do so in the original game they were designed for. Hence why he questions the wisdom of that choice.

 

Since the first line in the thread stated EasyTutu the original game limitations were obsolete. Pause is an option. There was no "wisdom" check on the point, just an irratation check as SR states (he simply doesn't want to be bothered with pausing the game to shift his weapons).

 

Oh that much is certainly true. I have never liked optimized characters, which is why it's harder for me to enjoy IWD and NWN. Those games just scream "powerplay me!"

Another example, albeit a BG2 one, is Cernd. In human form he has terrible stats, besides his wisdom, cannot wear armour and fights like a ninny. But when he shapeshifts...
Too bad they forgot to give him a personality.

I for one have always loved oddball characters, Tiax, Xan, Quale. They weren't as good as say Minsc or Kagain, but they good the job done and looked cool doing it.

 

I'm sure there's a thousand and one reasons for a warrior to have proficiencies in both one-handed weapons and bow, that's hardly roleplay vs powergame decision. It's just a major PITA when game engine mechanics/limitations make them incompatible like this.

But in a way, I like how dual-wielding becomes kinda balanced against other options in that you can't no longer take pot-shots at advancing enemy without some micromanagement.