I have never used Edwin much at all, because his appearance in BGI is due to his mission to kill Dynahier, Minscs charge. Consequently, adding him to the party before rescuing her results in a showdown that leaves one of them dead, and even rescuing her before adding Edwin ultimately ends the same way. On top of all that, Edwin is a conceited ass and, IIRC, a specialist enchanter. That last makes sense given Dynahier is a specialist invoker, but it means that rather than getting extra invo/evo spells like her, Edwin gets NONE.

I like Viconia, and Eldoth and Skie had their moments in BGI, but for the most part the evil characters just grate on my nerves (though nothing like Khalid and Jahiera; I actually felt a little relieved when I found out Khalid is dead in BGII.) By the way, though it is obviously not an option with an all evil party, apparently it is possible, if you play her romance just right, to turn Viconia from evil to neutral by the end of the game.


Hmm, I did not realize there were that many sets in BGII. Guess I am not the only one who got sick of the interminable delay in parties without them crossing previously explored maps. I have yet to play a monk in BG but have heard they can become game breaking at high levels, yeah. The sad thing is that is probably due to little more than Bioware modeling AD&D 2nd ed. rules pretty faithfully, because I remember people complaining about monks being too powerful in my tabletop days, too.


Valygar is good also though; his ranger class requires it. Neutral good, and somewhat dark, but good nonetheless. Incidentally, I found out something interesting through him in my last playthrough: Apparently, all those "only this NPC can use this item" prohibitions are class specific, which is to say, because my protagonist was also a Stalker I could use Valygars special armor and sword. Of course, that is somewhat complicated by the fact he is one of the more useful NPCs, but that problem can be resolved with the export trick.


Yeah, Viconia is among the more useful NPCs also. I liked Safana and Coran in BGI also; unfortunately, the BGII plotline eliminates both of them early. I could probably tolerate the NPCs more if there were more like that and less the halfling paladin wannabe, or Xan, whose potent moonblade is permanently crippled by the fact he is squishy even by mage standards (I did derive a lot of amusement from his perpetually emo attitude and periodically informing me "we're all doomed...." for no apparent reason.)