Balancing usage of henchman

[Liso]

Greetings all


I am trying to keep an even balance of my henchman. How often I use them and or talk with them.

Neeshka is just so annoying. Is her voice is full of helium of something? However, she is useful. To useful and it is hard to not have her unless I decide to do a combo character with rogue skills. Which I did on my second run through.

Qara. My little fire bug. WOW she has so much anger though. She is also very full of herself

Sand, I actually like that little pointy eared snot. His dry sarcastic humor is awesome.

Casiveer *yawns* uptight to the point he probly bathes with his armor on

The Dwarf (never remember how to spell his name) This little dude is a hoot! I like having him a long. He amuses me.

Bishop, Well. He is a bastage to say the least. For some reason I still like him. lol

The Bard *someone please kill him!"

The druid. *yawn again*

The Gith chick. Someone gave her lots of fortune cookies to read as a child.

Shandra, whiney goody too-shoo's. She needs to hook up with Casiveer

I know some will betray me in the end. On will for sure. Now that I have rambled on what I think about each henchman., Who do ya'll think is best to make sure you have at the end? Thoughs of you that have finished to the end that is. I really would love to hear others thoughts on this.

Thanks
Regards
Liso

[McPhearsom]

Qara: Just too dangerous, she does more damage to the party than to the enemies so I don't use her. Pyromaniacs aren't the best party members.

Sand: Allows me to choose exactly what spells he'll use and how many of them, also he can learn almost every spell so he's useful for all occasions. He also seems to know quite a lot and his sarcasm is amusing.

Casavir: This guy is just dull...

Khelgar: He's hardcore, he'll take on anything and lets you know that. If your character isn't a tough fighter then Khelgar will easily make up for it.

Grobnar: Somewhat amusing...ocasioanlly but overall just a waste of space.

Elanee: I think she's underestimated, spells and wildshape together make her quite good in combat, she's also a good healer and fairly knowledgeable.

Bishop: I'd like him more if he was better in combat, still not the most useless choice and can be amusing. Like he says "someone's got to make up for the paladin".

Neeshka: I don't really have a problem with her, she' can be annoying but not enough to make me hate her. Only issue is that if your character's a rogue then there is little, if any use for her at all.

Shandra: A meat shield, no more, no less. For a fighter she's nothing on Khelgar, but I don't mind the extra company, just as long as she's quiet, which she isn't.

Those are the basic members, the others you encounter later are typically 'needed' due to their knowledge and/or abilities so you don't get as much time to get to know them properly, not like the ones above.

If ind that it's almost impossible to balance the use of the henchmen since you'll generally be using the ones that are best for any encounter and how they react/talk depends on who's there for each encounter, since you can't replay the encounters it's better to build up a good relationship with your favourites than try to get to know everyone, especially if your alignment opposes theirs.

[lurchman]

I love your character definitions. lol! I will say that they could have done a little more work on their character development. Especially with some of the long drawn out marathon dialogue sessions they have. I'd love to lock Neeshka and Khelgar in a room together for an hour. I'd like Bishop more, if they didn't over do his attitude. And if that Zhjaeve says "Know it then", one more time, I'll kill her myself. If I had to drag Grobnar around with me everywhere, I probaly would have quit playing the game a couple of weeks ago. Casiveer is the guy that never gets invited anywhere. You must have the same problem with Qara as I do. That fire burst spell, or whatever it is, lasts forever. You have to wait 5 minutes before you can keep going. I'm ready to make a little spinner to pick which ones I take with me.

[arathalion]

Khelgar, Elenee and the gith cleric. i just like those divine area spells, where the arcane ones tend to kill everything, as apposed to just your enemies, also healing spells are good at the end, especially ones like mass heal.

1:hi, im in the middle of 20 undead, can i have some healing
2:sure

1 is now on full hit points and the enemy only has 4 each... (im actually not sure how the spell works in nwn2... but i know it changed in 3.5 so that might not be exactly right.

[McPhearsom]

Actually it was Qara's fireballs that did the most damage to my party, she'd throw them at EVERYTHING all the time, even at point blank range against a single enemy the rest of the party are already attacking and would sometimes kill herself. I've banned everyone in the party from using any area of effect spells that aren't enemy specific (typically arcane spells). Since Qara doesn't seem to care who she damages she gets left out.

I think our choices would probably differ a lot more if the AI wasn't so stupid, then each character would actually be useful. As it is the only ones who you can leave alone are the fighters and even they seem to like running about, changing target and so on.

Something funny I noticed, If Sand casts dismissal near Zhjaeve, she dies instantly.

[btcentral]

You've just gotta love some of Sand's comments

Originally Posted by McPhearsom

Sand: Allows me to choose exactly what spells he'll use and how many of them, also he can learn almost every spell so he's useful for all occasions. He also seems to know quite a lot and his sarcasm is amusing.

[arathalion]

my mc is a sorcerer. if i ever leave her alone the first thing she does is fireball... again and again and again.

sand does the same if he has area spells... every fight i have i find my party standing in green cloud... not sure which spell though

[btcentral]

Originally Posted by arathalion

sand does the same if he has area spells... every fight i have i find my party standing in green cloud... not sure which spell though

This never happened for me, did you select anything special when leveling him? I just used the default options on for him

[arathalion]

no, i dont mind though... it doesnt seem to have any effect on any of my characters, and i just started a new game anyway.