Korgan: somewhat overrated

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I'd like to point at two shortcomings of our favourite evil dwarf, that I was forced to notice when using him.
If you have an evil party with just Korgan as a fighter, you're in for a hard game.

- Korgan has 5* in Axe. There are good +3 axes in SoA, but axes are slashing weapons, and hard foes in the game are well protected against those weapons, as opposed to blunt weapons, such as the best weapon of the game (I think), the Flail of Ages (see armour modifiers: you have a -4 malus).
He also has * in Warhammer, but a really handy blunt weapon for a warrior is the mace of Disruption +2 (for a cleric, it's rather pointless). It would be the more useful as the evil party can't use Azuredge. Against undead, you're a bit powerless. Conclusion: his proficiencies suck.
It's very sad that the place where you get a nice axe and a nice hammer for him is also the place where you find the FoA. For this reason, I like to create a fighter PC to handle the FoA and the MoD.

- Korgan has DEX 15. It's fine for a normal RPG, but in BG2, it's short. It's a 3 AC malus vs. 18 (the warrior you would create). You don't want to visit the Underdark without the gauntlets of dexterity. On the plus side, nobody else in the party should want them (like Anomen or Keldorn in the good party).

Because of those two points, Korgan isn't the invincible but evil warrior he's been made out to be.

 

Thank God for that! I've been worrying about this. I'm glad you've set my mind to rest.

[Look, if you've got nothing constructive to add to a thread, just don't reply in it. The same goes for everyone else. -Tal]

 

Dangit barmy! now i have to clean pepsi off my keyboard. . . AGAIN!

 

Well...Korgan is still the most powerful frontline fighter the party can take in SoA. Five pips in axe makes him nigh unstoppable, and you can always invest his extra points in something non-Hammer-y if you don't like Crom Faeyr, considering how early you can pick up Korgan.

Don't get me started about Minsc. Yeah, Minsc has marginally higher strength, but I'll bet that in a fight Korgan can rip Minsc up. He can only get two points in any weapon anyway. Mazzy is an archer. Valygar relies on backstabs, and can only go head-to-head reliably with the munchkin CF. With the right spells, Anomen might be able to face Korgan - but Korgan will probably still kill him dead.

I don't see the problem against undead. Yes, he can't use the MoD, but he can just keep hitting them until they die. Besides, you can always use Clerics to get rid of them with spells like Sunray (False Dawn, Repulse Undead, Holy Smite, etc). If you play an evil party, Viconia can control a horde of them and make them fight each other to death. Hell, you can be cheap and grab Daystar if you want.

Dex 15? Yes, that's a problem. Korgan seems to die more often when getting swarmed, but that's what shields (and other party members) are for. Usually, he does't need to be defensive, because he tends to kill enemies faster than they can kill him.

 

If you just have one frontliner, you're in for a hard game. Surely this is obvious?

Yes, blunt weapons tend to be better in BG, that's just the way of it. It doesn't mean that non-blunt weapons are bad, though. Two fine axes available early on do elemental damage (useful against both trolls and mages) and you get get a hold of throwing axes. I've never seen a throwing mace before, on the other hand. So the proficiencies are not quite optimal for the best weapon in the game. So what? We'd complain if he was too perfect.

Maces would be nice, but Crom Faeyr is a better weapon in most cases than the Mace of Disruption. It is not necessarily true that maces > hammers. You can get him very early on- if it bothers you, put his first star into maces. Additionally, you do not need an insta-kill weapon to fight the undead. Even ignoring the abilities of high-level clerics, grand mastery in axes, a good axe and perhaps a haste spell will be more than enough for most encounters. He even has Berserk, so doesn't need NPP cast on him.

Why would it be sad that you can get multiple good items in one place? It just makes the Keep a bigger target to hit early on. Your conclusion is, as far as I can tell, a load of rubbish.

It isn't too bad until you get hold of the Gauntlets. I'm not too sure what the problem is here- you say he needs them and that no-one else will want them. Seems like perfect supply and demand to me. Oh, and the Underdark is most definitely do-able without them. My last game was with an evil party, did not have the Gauntlets and had SCS installed. We went through the Underdark without missing them. Korgan was even wielding one of those axes you seem to despise.

 

Why would you think the MoD+2 is pointless for a cleric? With a couple of buffs, Viconia can clear the entire vampire den (chapter 2) single handedly with it.

For the evil party -- Edwin, Viconia, and Korgan -- an obvious choice for [charname] is a fighter/thief. A fighter/thief can tank fairly well (especially by chapter six) and can be protected from level drain (with UAI). You now have a second character (besides Viconia) to go after the vampires. Does anyone really care that Korgan isn't a vampire slayer? His specialty is killing ... everything else.

Of course, if you give Korgan dual welding he can use the MoD in his off hand for the protections even without proficiency in maces. He'll still kill the vampires, you just won't get the insta-death.

 

- Barmy Army; martaug: thanks for your attitude. People like you encourage others to share their opinion.

- Decados: your tone is offensive too. What's the point? We're discussing an old game.

- I had an evil party, admittedly too low level (<15), with a PC fighter thief and our valliant Korgan trashed by Drizzt & co. Oh, I forgot, of course, the evil party wouldn't attack Drizzt.

- The problem against undead is obvious when you do Korgan's quest early. Mummies are especially resistant to damage, and Skeleton Warriors will just slice up our dwarf. Wait! Of course, you do that much later, when Viconia can turn anything, no matter that your recruited Korgan to do his quest.

- The MoD+2 is pointless for clerics because clerics turn undead, they don't fight them. If you use it just for protection, it's a waste of a great weapon.

- You get Crom Faeyr very late in the game, and the MoD very early. Therefore, it's better to have the Mace competency at once, and develop hammer at your leisure.

- Only 1* in mace makes, in effect, a huge difference in fights. I tried.

- "Well...Korgan is still the most powerful frontline fighter the party can take in SoA."
No, it's Jaheira, didn't you know?

 

Your tone is no better than anyone else's, Massacre. Yes, we are all stating opinions, but the reason you are getting responses like these is because it sounds like you are stating facts and an inarguable conclusion. You aren't, but that is how you are coming across.

So you are judging Korgan as not good enough, but admit you were at an insufficient level?

I've never had a problem doing Korgan's quest early on and I don't like powergaming. A decent enchanted weapon, Berserk and either a Haste or Strength spell (or both) should be sufficient for Korgan to do some serious damage. Do you have another front-liner warrior in the party, or is Korgan trying to fight alone?

Ignoring the fact that clerics are capable of fighting as well as turning, there is a bit of a flaw in the thinking here. Either the cleric is high enough level to turn the undead properly (control or chunkify), in which case who has the weapon is irrelevant, or they can only invoke fear, in which case there is nothing wrong with them stopping turning and lending a hand in hitting things.

Yes, mace proficiency earlier than hammer would be useful but it doesn't take long to get another star to place. Anyway, if we are complaining that Korgan's weapons are not optimal for in-game efficiency, should we not be moaning that he doesn't dual-wield Flails and Katanas? The point is that he does not have to be the best with the best weapons to be a viable character. He is still stronger than any other SoA fighter.

See my first point on tone- you aren't going to get anywhere by bringing grudges from previous threads over and being sarcastic.

 

I was beng entirely serious and take offense at the assumption that I was somehow jesting. Barmy never jests.

 

Aye, a grave, yet sensitive soul ye are, Barmy.

 

In my opinion, Korgan is a melee monster! I try to take him in every game I play. He's the ultimate front line fighter and can dish out damage better than most other character's in the game.
I never had a problem with his proficiencies. He's a fighter, so he gets a whole crapload. He starts with grand mastery in weapon class that is both ranged and melee. So what if it isn't a blunt weapon, he's got a star in hammers if you need one.
It seems you're upset he doesn't have 18 Dexterity. He's a dwarf and can only get 17 anyway. In my opinion, 14-16 is sufficient; so 15 is a right good amount to me. I save the Gauntlets of Dexterity for a character that would need them more.
On a side note, with an evil party, I shoot for the Underdark early so I can get Imoen earlier. So I get there about Level 12 and can't say I've ever come across a part I couldn't beat. Perhaps you need more experience with the game.

 

FYI: In my game, I did it immediately after picking up the Complete Evil Party. Edwin, as we all know, can only be received after a number of quests, and he needs to go to the same crypts for the nether scroll anyway. Anyhow, my party was about level 12 at the time - the only other quest we've done, IIRC, is the slaver quest - and by "quest" I mean we helped Lehtinan, and then went to the slaver ship to kill everyone, without even going through the sewers. And while it was challenging, we didn't have much problems. Viconia couldn't turn mummies or skeleton warriors, but she could make them run away. She was also able to control some of the ghasts/ghouls, so we focused on getting the mummies/warriors down. As for damage resistance, I didn't notice anything because Korgan hacked them to pieces regardless. My PC was an Assassin, so Korgan was essentially the only frontliner, and we still faced little opposition. In fact, Korgan even chopped them up when he was level drained to 5. Teamwork is the key.

And if you were to do the quest earlier, you would probably face weaker spawns. Otherwise, if you do get skeleton warriors, you could run away.

As Decados said, Korgan doesn't need to be an anti-undead specialist to be awesome.

What makes you think Clerics can't fight undead? What do you think False Dawn, Repulse Undead, and Sunray are for? So those are quite high-levelled, so what? One lucky smack from the MoD is all it takes to kill them.

Fair enough. So develop that extra * in Mace for Korgan all you like, then. What's the problem?

All the problems you mentioned about undead can be negated by Negative Plane Protection.

 

Korgan doesn't need Negative Plane Protection, he's got Enrage.

That being stated, I don't understand what the problem with him fighting undead is. I enrage him and throw him right at vampires. He holds the most of them off while the rest of the party turns undead and uses magic and attacks.

 

I don't really understand you're arguments.

First off, axes are just fine in SoA. I almost always play evil and take Korgan. I tend to give him *** in dual-wielding, mayby * in Warhammers for Golems. However, you don't need to put a star in Warhammers in order to smack up a Golem. I've never depended on Maces, never will. The only one's I have using Maces are either Anomen who can be buffed to a decent front-liner, or Viconia as a 2nd option to sling. 10 axe hits from Korgan does the job of MoD well.

Second, your PC can always be better than an NPC, mayby with Edwin as an exception due to his amulet. Powergaming is always an option. Compare Korgan to a PC Fighter/Mage and he sucks. Compare him to Minsc or Keldorn and he'd take both 2 on 1.

Third, 15 Dexterity is just fine. If it really bugs you, give him the Dex Gauntlets as mentioned. Keldorn has 9 or 10 Dex IIRC - a real bummer. The only real advantage with having Minsc or Keldorn is that they can wield Vorpal and Keldorn can use Carsomyr. Even then, I don't think the diffrence is that big. I usually take out casters with my own casters anyways - guess it depends on your style of play.

I'd never build my success on a weapon, say Flail of Ages or Carsomyr. I merely see them as assets, treats. Personally I think it's more about mastering the game rather than the weapons.

Finally, he's a Berserker which is a real bonus. Versus Undead there are various options. Playing as Undead Hunter, that amulet vs level drain (name?) and Negative Plane Protection to name three. Korgan is the best NPC frontliner in the game IMO, Jaheira close second and Keldorn third. The best thing about Korgan is that you get him early and can dispose his profs from lvl 8 or so. Keldorn needs the Holy Avenger/Silver Sword to be comparably effective and Jaheira needs buffing which is a slight minus in my book. Korgan's a natural. Use him. Love him.

Cheers.

 

Level drain isn't even that big of a deal for Korgan as long as you've got someone that can restore him afterwards, as he doesn't lose any spells. He can take a few level drains and keep on murdering undead just fine...
"Let's see what yer GUTS be looking like!"

 

That fact that this quote cracks me up every single time he says it is reason enough for me to take Korgan.

 

I think this discussion shows the nature of BG2; people with completely different playerstyles can enjoy the game. You don't like Korgan? Don't pick him up. You love Korgan's quotes and like to have him swing an axe or two on the frontline? Have him in your party all the way.
I don't think there is such a thing as the best melee character, it all depends on player preference. Personally I can't see why people powergame Jaheira, because I can't stand her comments and don't particularly like druids. You could throw stats and spells and other reasons at me all day long, I'll probably never play through the game with Jaheira.

 

Well said Merlac. I've never taken Mazzy or Nalia with me. Just can't stand them. Every character can be over-/underrated. It's too subjective to discuss "who's the best" (my dad could beat your dad), however I do felt I had to give my point of view since I think that he's by far the best fighter in the game. A protagonist frontliner will always outscore him though.

Every character in BG2 is going to have problems with level drain, unless you're a Undead Hunter. It's just not a solid argument imo.