Choosing Your Comrades: Like Assembling A Rock Band, But With More Violence

[Fri]

So... replaying BG2 again make me wonders

I love to play RPGs, both in console and PC. And one thing always bothers me in every RPG.

Which party members should I use!? There's always this limited slot and heck lot of people who want to save the world with me.

And three things to make it worse:

-In Strategy/RPG games like Shining Force, Fire Emblem, or FF Tactics. You usually got dozens of interesting comrades but very limited party slot.

-Games like Baldurs Gate, Kotor, or Planescape Torment. Your party member will banter, interact, and basically make you sorry why you don't bring that guy and that girl together in that quest later on.

-And last but not least, how your unused party member usually don't get leveled up so can't use them later.

There's some subversion of course. Like KOTOR, where everyone will level up though you can't get them interact without bringing them in your active party.

Or Star Ocean, they won't level up if you don't fight with them, but they still interact eventhough they're not in your active roster.


Assembling an adventuring Party is just like assembling a band. Chemistry matters. Sometimes it's more interesting having people who banters with each others. Though, sometimes you just want to have the ones with best skills. But sometimes, you just can't leave that childhood friend that hang with you from the beginning.

I can think some 'classes' of party members now:

-Members who hang with you from the beginning.

-Members with most interesting personality/banters/interaction

-Members with best skills

-Members with some sort of 'personal quest' that made more sense than 'hey, I like you. Let's save the world together.'

There must be more of them, but those are what I have in the top of my head.


I usually stuck with people who hang with me from the beginning. I don't have the heart to kick them out. Though that make me miss a lot of interesting interaction (in game with intraparty interactions) or good fighters.


So, how do you usually choose your comrades?

[Cubey]

It depends, varying from game to game.
In titles where switching party members is easy, for example Fire Emblem, Super Robot Wars and most jRPGs, I change my party on a regular basis, making sure that each member is on roughly equal level and if someone wasn't present on the previous mission/quest/dungeon run, they have a chance to come on the next one.
However, if switching your party is more troublesome, like in Baldur's Gate where it requires going to wherever you left your teammates to put them back in the party, I stick with one group and don't change anyone in it, unless I have to due to plot or subquest requirements. I may change to different party members during the next run to see what I missed, but I sure as hell don't do it mid-game. Too much hassle.

As a rule of the thumb though, I pick my party members for their personality or history, not combat effectiveness. It isn't a MMORPG, where you need a tank and a healer - as long as my group can kick enemy arse, and it usually does, I go for the most interesting and not most efficient.

[Cespenar]

-Members who hang with you from the beginning.

-Members with most interesting personality/banters/interaction

-Members with best skills

-Members with some sort of 'personal quest' that made more sense than 'hey, I like you. Let's save the world together.'


Most of the time I use these exact criterias too. Maybe overlooking the third a little bit, since I believe myself to be somehow able to pass whatever the game throws at me with what I have in my hand.

As a couple of examples, my first party in BGII consisted of: Me, Jaheira, Minsc (these two for the "beginner's bond"), Edwin, Jan (these two for the hilarious banters), and Anomen (both good banters and strong in-game). But I began to get annoyed by Jan, and swapped Imoen with him as soon as she came. Of course, there's no perfect party in BGII, so I had to replay the game a couple more times to see everyone and hear their banters.

In KotorII, I went with Kreia and Handmaiden, the former because it felt necessary, and the latter because she felt a little more fleshed out as a character. And partly because I don't like any gunslingers in my Jedi party.

In Torment, I took everyone except Nordom and Vhailor, because I couldn't find them in my first run :smallbiggrin:. Luckily, the remaining party banter was more than sufficient.

[Cubey]

For Planescape: Torment, I went with everyone but Vhailor and Ignus. BG 2 was trickier to choose, but it helped that many people in this game annoyed me for some reason. They could be more likeable in the English version, but for example Jaheira is an unbearable bitch and I never tried to have her in the team.

[Om]

So, how do you usually choose your comrades?In good games (a la Planescape or BGII) I pick the most interesting characters regardless of their skills or uses. In poor games (a la NWN2 or Mass Effect) I grit my teeth and go for the most functional and least annoying

[Hoggy]

As I'm playing through Suikoden V right now, I'm going to say it's incredibly incredibly hard to pick a team of 6 (well, at least 1 is always chosen for you) from a cast of 108. Fortunately, I'm not big on the recruiting, and have narrowed down 7 people (6 and the main character) that I keep with me all the time.

The party:
The Prince - You can't drop him, so I went ahead and beefed him up so he's almost useful!
Georg/Kyle/Galleon/Miakis - All were high level when I got them, all are Queen's Knights for the fun history part, and they all look cool while kicking ass.
Belcoot - I liked him first time I met him, plus he's a useful character to have.

That's the usual six. My substitute for when one of them is out for whatever reason is Zerase. She has 1337 majikz.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I just choose the funniest, silliest characters out there. My PC is the one who does most of the fighting anyway, so why not listen to Jan complain about turnips or have HK-47 offer to terminate some meatbags?

I don't like switching members of my party very much - I find the one I like and I keep it that way. I really, really hate the parts where the game forces you to use certain henchmen.

And also, I really, really hate "evil" NPC's. For one, 90% of the time it seems like they were put there so people playing an evil character could go out and make themselves an evil party. They just seem really... artificial (knowing a lot about personality psych doesn't help with this). HK-47 is the only exception I ever made, and even then, he got kicked out as soon as he stopped amusing me.

[Geno9999]

Usually choose the one who is effective at the current situation (not the best fighter per se.) For example, I have to fight an attack force with a lot of Mages, so I pick units that have high magic resistance (such as other Mages, Pegasus Knights.) or, If there's a lot of lance users an the enemy's force, I bring out my best axe users or have all my sword users carry lancereavers.
So really, it depends on the opposing force. However, If I have a character who's better at doing what I want him to do than another of the same class (or different tier), I tend to use him more often, unless the difference is small (eg. Zihark and Edward) I try to level up the lesser to see if he's the better choice.

[Triaxx]

I found the best party in BG2 was a five character party with the six being whoever's quest I'm doing until I head through the main campaign.

[Fri]

But, what about games without intra party banters like.. say, final fantasy?

How do you choose your party in final fantasy 7, for example? Do you simply pick the best ones? Or the coolest ones?

[Morty]

Depends on the game. If the roleplaying aspect is rich, I usually have one heck of a time choosing my party, like I had in BG2- luckily, this game provides us with allies who have both interesting personalities and are good in combat. It wasn't a problem in Torment though, as there aren't many of them there. If the roleplaying aspect isn't as good, I choose them based on their skills, like I did in NWN.
Neither was the case in BG1 though, because I played this after finishing BG2 and I decided I want to have the exact party setup you start with in BG1. It worked.

[Drascin]

But, what about games without intra party banters like.. say, final fantasy?

How do you choose your party in final fantasy 7, for example? Do you simply pick the best ones? Or the coolest ones?

The ones I like better from their talking parts. For example, In FFVII I almost always took RedXIII with me because his introduction had been just awesome, as were his scenes in Cosmo Canyon. Before she got stabbed, Aeris too came with me a lot, because she was nice and I liked her. And then Barrett, because he was a cool and empathic character.

On the other hand, I positively refused to use Vincent and Cait Sith, one because of the whole stupid wannabe vampire thing, and the other because, well, you know, traitor and all.