My thoughts on the lineup

[Guest Tempest]

I've just finished my fourth run of IWD2 with the Npc Project installed (playing all four romances), and after enjoying all the terrific work that's been put into it, thought I'd share my thoughts on the character lineup.

 

Diriel

I hate him, yet that's what I love about him. More than once I felt the temptation to insert a very sharp object into the nearest convenient portion of his anatomy, and the idea that he's going to be romancable scares me, but I enjoyed hating him and overall thought he was a fun addition to the party.

 

Hildury

She definitely seems to be one of the most overlooked characters in terms of reviews and whatnot-a shame, I feel. I didn't take Hildury along until my third run, but I should have done so earlier. Definitely a welcome member of the team-I tend to roll with a very melee-heavy party, and she played the meat shield quite well. I would welcome the flirts perhaps being expanded into a full romance at some point, since I was disappointed by the available romances for men, and she seems a good candidate.

 

Jaemal

I'm of mixed feelings when it comes to Jaemal. On one hand, he's a very useful memeber of the party if you need a spellcaster, and he's basically nice and sweet. On the other hand, I found him (and especially his romance) a bit hard to swallow. I felt there really wasn't a whole lot to him, to be honest. I wasn't surprised once by anything he said, and while the romance was appropriately sweet and rather sad, I walked away from it just feeling kind of eh. He just wasn't that interesting to me.

 

Nikosh

Initially, I felt about Nikosh the same way I feel about Jaemal-a character who tries to be interesting, but just ends up feeling rather bland. But I was surprised to actually find Nikosh growing on me-I really do like Nikosh. Sure, he's a tad sterotypical, but it works for him. He also has the distinction of being on three of my four runs, a feat only Sir Nord shares. Add a little monkeying with Dalekeeper, and he worked just fine as a Lorekeeper of Oghma.

 

Sir Nord

Plain and simple-my favorite character of the bunch. The one run where I didn't have him in my party, I felt his abscence. Strongly written, a very different type of paladin, and one of the more unusual mentor-types I've ever met. Wasn't that surprised by his big revelation, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless. Wonderfully written, and the fact that he can use the holy avenger means he always has a place in my party.

 

Peony

More so than any other character, Peony came within a hair of being left in the mind flayer citadel. It was said in her overview that she was meant to be a brat. That was well said, because she is. She's a solid, internally consistent character with a great deal of flexibility and an interesting enough backstory. Trouble is, it all builds up to a character I would dearly like to throttle. She was annoying, plain and simple. I romanced her my first run of the game, and while there were some very touching moments (the guiding light scene still stands out as one of my favorite memories of the entire mod), her annoyingness more than made up for it.

 

Prachi

A very interesting character, and I wish she was romancable. I don't like monks much, but Dalekeeper took care of that. Prachi fascinated me more than any other character in the mod-she felt very out of place in Icewind Dale, and that very much works in her favor. I'm not clear how much the player influences her (both runs I had with her, I got exactly the same epilogue), but I find her evolution over the game to be quite interesting to watch. Domi, how you could have let her have that comment after the Black Raven monastery and not make her romancable is beyond me. I know you said you probably never will make a Prachi romance, but I can always hope. ^_^

 

Rizdaer

Another character I was fascinated by. I normally hate drow characters whenever they make an appearance in DnD as anything other than villains (I suspect my seething hatred of Drizzt carries over), but Rizdaer is an exception. The romance was... not what I was expecting, and in a good (well, evil) way. A male drow who isn't CG is worth praise for the novelty value alone, and I felt Rizdaer's to be by far the most interesting of the romances. Jaemal's left me groaning every time he spoke, Salomeya made me smack my head against the wall in frustration, and Peony just made me 'accidentally' let her wander into a fireball. Rizdaer hooked my interest and kept it.

 

Salomeya

I found Salomeya a mixed bag of good and bad. She's a very consistent (maybe TOO consistent-see below) character with another stereotype that she runs with and makes work for her. Several times in the campaign, I found myself laughing aloud at some barbed comment she made. Unfortunately, that leads into one of my big complaints about her-she's too good at it. There isn't a moment I can think of where another character ever got the upper hand over her-not even my CN sorcerer with a charisma score in the hight twenties. She's a very one-dimensional character, and once you get tired of that one dimension, I found her to be a very boring character.

 

Valeero

I'll start this by saying that I tend to hate Lathander and Lathandrites-I can't go ten feet in DnD-Land without tripping over him or one of his priests. As such, Valeero had a strike against her off the bat. First impressions only seemed to make that worse-I found her very frustrating and annoying. But like Nikosh, I warmed to her as the game went on, and realized she's actually an interesting and engaging character in her own right. As she's the only character of the bunch who's really suited to be a cleric (prior to Dalekeeper, at any rate), I felt she was a character I kinda had to put up with, and was a little resentful as well. In the end, though, I walked away feeling pretty positively about her-Valeero isn't the most interesting or likable character in the lineup, but she's certainly not bad.

[Domi]

Heya, it's always nice to read the comments like this

 

You can get an upper hand with Salomeya in some of the lovetalks and event-related flirts if you have high intelligence or wisdom. Yep, I know that she is Mary-Sueish in that regard, but I like her that way and I felt it was the right way to go, because I didn't want to handle Salomeya's redemtion arc.

 

As for Prachi, I love the character, but I feel that I bit off a bigger piece than I can chew with her. I simply do not have a good enough knowledge and understanding of culture and philosophy I calim she is coming from to keep writing her. It is already showing, and if I keep adding to it, she'll end up a fraud.