Fav NPC's ?

I had a party like that going before I dropped it to reconfigure Co8 with Temple+. Didn't get a chance to see Ronalds reaction to the Orc prisoners. Elmo, Fruella, Meleny, Wonnilon and Ronald would be a good party with an appropriate face man.

 

I picked up Wonnilon on my recent playthrough, having started with 4 PCs but finding myself a little 'light' on combat ability at that stage in the game (my cleric was adding wizard levels to gain access to Theurge and had thus ditched heavy armour and d8 hit dice, while my Eldritch Knight to-be was still a straight wizard). The main annoyance I found is that you can't level him any way other than Rog/ Ftr alternately without falling foul of XP penalties, though the upside is that he does gain feats at a rate that means you can give him point blank and precise shot to go with his crossbow. He currently has a great cleaver with Thundering plus aligned damage, and a beefed up Iolo's Joy from the Moathouse Respawn quest. He does okay, especially when flanking, without setting the world on fire.

 

Oh. A rare side of her. Got to watch for that.

 

Thank you that you like Ronald so much! Alleluia!

I made and voice acted Ronald. ShiningTed helped tremendously with coding and implementation. I think Ronald is the most complex ToEE compnaion so far due to all the dialog and voice acting for everything (including omitted lines due to engine constraints)!

Baldur's Gate was my inspiration. I started with something I thought needed doing (a Cleric companion) and just expanded the concept from there. I haven't updated him to account for Welkwood Bog, Verbobonc, nor any 'new content.' Maybe later.

Regarding NPCs I'd like to bring along, it's normally Burne due to his starting with fireball casting abilities, and he's one level away from learning a feat and casting level 5 Wizard spells. Craft Wondrous Items, anyone?

Otherwise, I generally don't like long-term NPCs. I generally prefer smaller parties since they're easier to manage and outfit. My most recent game completion had an Elf Wizard and a Human Cleric of Pelor (Strength and Good domains). We crafted a lot and ended at Wizard17 and Cleric18. The game needs more content for me to be serious about coming back with a new party, though.

 

Ronald is one of the best NPCs. A well built cleric and a good addition to a party. Your two PC party is a good idea but I would have been tempted to give your cleric four levels of fighter to get the extra feats including weapon specialization. I occasionally like to hire NPCs and keep them for the long haul. Build them up from scratch and have some fun with them. Ronald again comes to mind. He fills a much needed void in the NPC pool. If you or someone wanted to hand make an NPC ranger your efforts would not go unappreciated...

 

I was more interested in the spells and self-sufficiency. Early game martials rock. Still, I'd normally rather have the extra casting since holy word destroys armies around my party (especially with only 2 members and the Good domain for +1 caster level) and I can get the feats - though more slowly - on a full caster. Holy word and many other spells have no martial analog.

I considered making a Ranger, but I'm unsure how I'd handle it. Where to put him? What race? (Probably Human.) How to distinguish him from the tens of martial characters already available? Ronald was a conceptually simple matter: In a game that starts you in a town with a temple as a major focus, and with no prior recruitable Clerics at this point, adding a NPC Cleric made sense. A Ranger just feels to me at present like, "Why?"

 

Good question. Lot's of traveling. A good amount of outdoor activities. Bandit activity in the area may attract a ranger. Beyond that you do make an excellent point. Also Elmo was originally a ranger in the pnp module, at least from what i hear.