What's your strategy of getting followers?

I must admit that knowing that your followers can eventually level up to 50 regardless of what level you get them at, makes the game a whole new experience. I'm not afraid to kill anymore. I am not afraid of completing quests too early. I am in Dernhom and I'm already level 10, and it seems like I will get both Dante and Vollinger before I even reach Tarant. Not sure if its a good or a bad thing though. By the time I get Magnus I'll be like 10 levels above him, and when I get Chukka he will be waaaaaaaaaaaay behind the rest of us. So I'm a bit confused whether its best to still refrain from levelling up, or should I just go on and grow in levels?
What's your strategy? Do you try to get your followers as early as you can- or do you level up without much thinking forward?

 

I haven't gotten many followers in a while. Except Virgil, or Dante, maybe. I always make my scores to where they will be suitable for multiplayer too. I don't get followers in multiplayer so I don't put points to charisma. I like being a loner anyway.

 

My understanding is that followers who are under 50th level continue to level up after you reach 50th. Or as the patch textfile puts its:

"By popular demand, you can continue to gain experience at level 50. At the point where you would normally advance to the next level, you will remain at 50 but any followers will level up. Then you are reset to level 50 and can continue to advance. In this way, you can eventually level all followers to 50, no matter what their level when they joined you."

So you really don't have to debate whether to acquire followers now, or later.

 

I'd still try to get followers that are my level if it's not too much trouble. It takes a while to get all your followers to get to level 50 when they're far behind to start with.


MatahChuah

 

NOOOO, we've created a murder quest finishing monster! AHHHHHHH!

Dude, I guess you could still chill a little bit, because they will end up at level 50 closer to the time you end up there, but it really doesn't matter.

 

The problem is that I'm used to going into the BMC when all my party is already equipped with Pyro axes, but if I only get Magnus that late, he won't have the time to learn to make featherweight axes. Unless, of course, I go on a killing spree in the sewers of Tarant :lol:

 

Well, that, or go trolling the countryside for encounters. Considering the number of aggressive beasts and characters you meet when strolling around, it's amazing the land is considered wilderness, rather than suburbs.

 

I your looking for a Feather-Wieght axe you can always force Caladon to get to the Dwarven smith.

 

I'm a fan of having followers arrive when you happen to encounter them. It's not like anyone has to be anywhere near level 50 to beat the game. I've never seen higher than 42.

 

I tend to favor large groups so I usually develop my charisma early and get as many followers as early as possible. I usually get Sogg in Shrouded Hills because I like him and he's a pretty good fighter. Then I'll pick up Magnus and Gar as soon as I can after I get to Tarant. I usually gain enough experience doing the quests for Madame Lil and the other stuff around Tarant, like cleaning out those sewers that it's no problem to get Magnus up where he can make the featherweight axe by the time I'm ready to leave. I usually kill time - and a LOT of critturs - while I'm waiting for the 5 days to pass for Ronald to pay up on his debt. Clearing out the Boil can really rack up some experience, too.

I don't usually keep Dante and I've only gotten Vollinger as a follower a couple of times recently, so I don't know how they work out later on. Jayna isn't that great, so I don't really bother with her any more. I wish there were a couple more really good followers available, like maybe someone in Ashbury, other than stinky Geoffrey, or maybe in Stillwater or some of the other places. Being able to keep Cynthia Boggs might not be too bad, but it can't be done, as far as I know.

So I guess you could say my philosophy is summed up by get your followers as soon as possible, but don't worry about it if you can't.

 

I usualy get the followers at or close to my level. A techie will get Janya & then head to Tarant for Magnus. I will sometimes hit level 11 inside the BMC mines, then head out to get Dante, & back in we go. The long pause is waiting for level 21 before the IoD. This is sometimes filled with forcing Qintarra for Jormund at level 19.

But I have a few PCs who care little about follower's levels. In those parties a spread of 10 - 12 levels is not uncommon.

 

For what it's worth, I suggest avoiding followers who use magic aggressively in battle. They partake of the general follower AI, which means they're preternaturally stupid: give that kind of people magical abilities, and you're asking for trouble. I just roll my eyes every time one of 'em casts a few spells, then slumps down from fatigue, instead of using a properly imbued magical weapon they've been given. :roll:

 

Who are you talking about when you refer to "followers who use magic aggressively"? Here's what I've experienced thus far (just finished T'sen Ang) with magic NPC's:

Jormund: never got him to cast a single spell (so I dumped him)

Perriman: heals well, but hasn't used any offensive spells yet

Z'an Alurin: only had her in my party for a short time but she's already fired off some lightning bolts and used her earth spells to good effect. Maybe she's a good candidate for being an "aggressive" user.

Raven: just added her but from what I've read elsewhere in this forum, she sounds like dud in the magic department.

Other opinions?

 

Dante is an excellent magic follower. He is mostly a melee fighter, but uses some support spells and can occasionally cast a fireflash or summon a Fire Elemental. And, of course, he is the best healer.
Waromon uses Entangle quite skillfully.
Perriman Smythe sometimes bothers to cast Flash or something from Fire.
Jormund is more of a burden than a useful follower.

 

can you do the meta trick on boggs?

 

Others may have found Dante helpful, but I've seen him repeatedly cast defensive spells before collapsing on the ground from fatigue: big help, that, at the start of a battle. :thumbdown: Raven should only be used if you don't mind having the equivalent of a chaos mage among your forces.

 

Can you elaborate on the "Raven as chaos mage" scenario? That doesn't sound good at all. Maybe I should dump her now, since when I regain Virgil I'll need her spot.

Without too many spoilers, can folks tell me if Raven is important for storyline after she joins? I really like voiced characters who actually have interactions with others in the course of adventuring (something I really appreciated about BGII but have seen less of in Arcanum). I'm predicting that Z'an's visions might make her a better choice than Raven in this regard.

 

Well, if your a guy she might fuck you. I don't know how high in terms of story line importance you rate that, but besides that I really don't see how many followers are too vital to the story after you get them. Most of it their story is as you get them or like 5 minutes after. Virgil is an exception though.

Raven's awesome, speedy fire support man. Give her that bow from the master quest and she'll shoot like 8,000 people before you can blink. Of course she'll need a shitload of arrows, but still.

In terms of magic, that is what were talking about right, sshe heals me every once in awhile, Virgil and Dante do that most of the time though. She does kind of annoy me because she likes the spell Body of Water, which she uses somewhat intelligently, ie. only in tougher battles and only on herself, but then I have to trade with her and get her to reset her inventory so she equips stuff again. Not really a problem, just kind of annoying.

In one of my hacking sprees I gave virgil all the spells and, to my shock, discovered he's actually competant at something. He really has a knack for using stuff you don't expect him to use. During the game he had his own Familiar, Disintergrated a Yeti, Flashfired a bunch of Orcs, evil racist that he is, and summoned a vorpal rabbit to very very coincidentaly fight the vorpal rabbit that had just killed Dog and was currently beating the shit out of me. He did alot of other stuff too, but most of it I don't remember either because it wasn't interesting enough to, or it's just faded into the blur of too many beer pong matches.

 

I use Dante in every game, whether I play a tech or a mage. Not even once have I seen him collapsing. He does cast Body of Air on himself though.

Even with Ellumun's bow, she doesn't need THAT many arrows. Give her a thousand (which is 4-5 visits to the general store), and its enough for her till the end of the game. Besides, she can heal.