Making Nalia a mage dual thief

Remove all ads!

RP-wise, shouldn't Nalia be a Mage dual Thief instead of the other way around? IIRC, she was trained in the magical arts before she started sneaking out to meet the "less fortunate". So I want to change her to a mage dual thief (mage lvl 10 or something like that), but which mage kit do you think would suit her best? Or is this just a stupid idea that is not worth it?

I know it is commonly considered worthless to dual from a spell-caster class to a non spell-caster class, but I think it could be kind of fun. This would also prevent her from being "a worse copy of Imoen". What do you think?

 

It can be cool, at what level do you wish to dual her? Lvl 9 seems nice so she can at least cast a Breach. More than lvl 9 is over kill though.

And, why don't you make her a conjurer, IIRC her CON was high enough. I like conjurers as they lose few spells. And a thief can always later detect illusions which makes True Sight redundant.

An advancing thief other than Jan will be really appreciated. You just gave me a cool idea, thank you, I may just try it on my next run!

Was there a mod for this tweak?

 

Yeah, I think I saw a mod for this somewhere a while ago, but I can't find it now... Don't know at what level that mod had her dualled, or what mage-kit though.

Since you get a 2:nd lvl 5 spell at mage level 10, I thought it might be best (and it doesn't take that much exp to become level 10 mage IIRC). So you would have 3 lvl 5 spells (thanks to mage kit). And you get a more powerful fireball, skull trap etc.

I agree that conjurer would be the "best" choice, at least powergaming-wise, but it would be nice to have a specialized mage who isn't a conjurer, illusionist or wild mage . Invoker perhaps?

 

RP-wise the original dualing order sounds more logical. She learned a little thieving before she was trained in the magical arts. After some training and reaching level5 she remembered her thieving skills again and used them to sneak out to meet the "less fortunate".
If you take the other way she would suddenly have refused to go on with the magical arts training for a rogue carreer. This would surely have lead to big trouble inside her family which would have been mentioned in her background.
Can you imagine her backstabbing with x5 multiplier for 100 damage ?

Best mage kit would be illusionist, since she could use illusion spells for sneaking out of her home and I can't imagine her casting spells of the opposing necromancy school.

She'd need at least 470,000 XP if you want to meet her as illusionist 10/thief 11. (or maybe a mage10/swashbuckler 11 for being straightforward instead of sneaky)
But less mage levels will make her even weaker. (less stoneskins, less XP for using thieving skills, lower average party level, less and shorter lasting spells)

But even with 10 mage levels no powergamer would choose her. Especially in ToB she'd become far inferior to Jan, maybe roleplayers who don't like gnomes or Jan's annoying complains when reputation reaches 19 might take her.
The problem is that mages are overpowered and thieves are underpowered in BG2. Nalia becomes far weaker when you change the dualing order.

But less power doesn't neccessarily mean less fun. Good aligned parties already have Aerie and Imoen and maybe even the PC as mages, the addition of a real thief can yield more options and more fun than another mage.

 

Aye, illusionist may be suitable for her. I always have globs of mages at my party, so a real, high lvl thief with some mage spells can be useful. Who agrees thieves are underpowered in BG2? Once they get cool HLAs and traps they are cheesily powerful..and fun!

 

@ Silverstar

I should have suspected you wanted a mod for this, and not just SK:ing her youself If I had the modding skill, I would make an NPCmod about a wildmage dualled to thief, who stopped wanting to use magic because the strangest things kept happening when (s)he tried to cast spells... (Yes, I know wild mages can't dual in the unmodded game, but there is a mod that allows it). (S)he might not be all that powerful, but I think it would be a very interesting character. And then you would have to convince her/him to allow him/herself to use magic again (you would meet the character before (s)he had regained her/his mage skills).

@ kmonster

Yes, Illusionist would probably be best RP-wise... But she could use invisibility anyway, as long as she wasn't a necromancer, and she could have used knock to open the locks to get out. And she has been away from home a while (not that long though, I admit), so she could have trained her thief skills after she left the keep.

 

SKing Nalia would be rather tiring. I think you should first delete everything about her thief levels, and make her a single classed mage with a kit. It is doubtful that the kit will work. Then load game. CLUA console XP to level 10 or whatever you like. Dual her to thief. CLUA console a little XP too. Pump her skill points into thief skills you want. Will it work in the end?

 

I just knew there was such a mod:

http://dragonshoard.blackwyrmlair.net/mods_download.php?mod=270

Enjoy!

 

Jan's got so many drawbacks and the game really needs another full time thief. There are too few thieves in the game and Nalia was built for the role.

It's simple enough and rule keeping to assume that if the sneaking out came after the magical lessons that the magical lessons would hit a point where they stagnated and she would continue on as a thief. And have you ever noticed that there is really nothing magic related at all in the D'Arnise Keep to suggest she has been in keeping up with her magical schooling in any shape or form? Magic is a life long continuous study the way it is written in D&D. (Well at least 2nd Ed it is.) The whole idea behind the adventuring mage is to gather the funds necessary to continue their studies as well as collect materials to further their knowledge. Though they certainly get more than just that out of it.

The only other real storyline option without putting in an entirely new NPC would be to alter Imoen back to her origional and make her a pure thief again.(This is the way I personally always used her).

Imoen is the one that if anything has the most reason for being mage first and thief second. Since she came out of a mage heavy place as a thief first really there is no real reason RP wise to have her ever gone mage. There is a standing powergaming reason of course which was clearly carried into BG 2 but that's another matter altogether.

 

@ Silverstar: Yeah, I found it too, but I didn't find any readme... I guess I'm just being paranoid, but I prefer not to download stuff if it doesn't have one, so I'd rather just use SK. But thanks anyway!

@ I agree. I've never used Imoen as a pure thief though. Might be because I've never played Bg I.

 

The readme might be in the download. Opening a ZIP or RAR file isn't going to corrupt your game.