#--all that said i'm such a casual that i play on the lowest difficulty lmAO

[sovonight]

I'm sure you get a million asks like this about your ocs but I gave Baldurs Gate a shot after seeing your posts and man I love Xan so much. hes so pathetic and soppy and sad I say this in the most loving of ways hes so funny. my poor little meow meow of an elf. thank u for exposing me to him. as an aside tho I'm really curious; what class is Radri, and who else did you have as companions? :-0

yesss you get it! he's so pathetic (affectionate)

radri's a swashbuckler--and the swashbuckler page in the wiki begins with reasons not to play swashbuckler lol--but it’s cool and it’s been her class for so long that i couldn’t imagine changing it, for better or worse. it's like the same reason xan stays an enchanter in my games even though you can mod him out of it--i know people hate enchanter for the lack of evocation spells, but it would feel dishonest to change something so fundamental to him

in bg1 my companions were:

imoen: she’s the only family radri has left from candlekeep, she had to come along. also in bg1 i put so much focus on lockpicking for radri that she could barely disarm traps at all--so i had imoen put all her points into disarming traps to make up for it. i'd have them go around and tag team all the trapped and locked chests together… not very practical from a gameplay standpoint, but touching for me haha

jaheira and khalid: radri listened to gorion’s last advice for her, and wouldn't have thought for a moment of trading these two out for anyone else. also, i love how the npc mod adds a cautionary conversation between khalid and xan, and all the guidance conversations from jaheira. i just think they’re sorely needed in the party dynamic

xan: i think part of radri fell for xan the moment he said "shall we face the impossible together?" xan's also probably the first elf she's met--or at least spent a significant amount of time with--so there's that element of reconnecting with what should be her culture. she does get a little insecure about her lack of elven identity though; xan’s kind of oblivious to how his eagerness to share his culture with her makes it feel like their shared race is the only reason radri stands out to him, even though that isn't true

branwen (temp): picked up as a convenient 6th member after xan was recruited. i think every single companion liked her, but--

viconia: radri took one look at her, subconsciously went “she’s just like me,” and took her in. radri's at her most trusting and hopeful when it comes to viconia; she'll excuse viconia's antagonistic behavior no matter what by saying viconia will grow accustomed to surface culture soon, though in the meantime everyone else quietly misses branwen. i’ve gotta say though, it’s easier to justify viconia in bg1 than it is in bg2

in bg2, i still have jaheira and viconia, am unfortunately still taking minsc from the intro section (i don’t really like him, he’s just too loud for me), and previously had keldorn but recently had to switch him out for anomen. then there’s xan, of course, though i hate that he starts out with dart proficiency. like, darts can't even go into ammo slots so i have to sacrifice inventory slots every time i try to stock him up with darts--and when he inevitably runs out of darts, 3x faster than anyone else with bullets or arrows, i have to manually put more darts into his hand bc again they don’t go into ammo slots

then when he runs out of darts completely (which is almost all the time) i have to have him stand off to the side and micromanage him in order to make sure he remains disengaged from melee combat in-between casting spells (because of course he’ll try to walk in with the moonblade). sometimes when a fight's tough and i already have to micromanage everyone else and he’s already died 3 times bc he insists on walking forward i just move him into the other room while the fight goes on. i know i could probably mess with the ai to get him to stop doing this, but as annoying as it is i do think it’s kind of in character at the same time--in bg1 there’s an exchange where he absentmindedly starts to say "there's no better death than dying for the one i l--". which, on one hand, deathly romantic, but on the other hand sir take a time out and think on how you're going to learn to use bullets after this bc at least that way you'll share ammo with half the party

yknow, in bg1, his default ranged proficiency is in slings. i don't see why the author wanted to retcon him into using darts to the point of even making him mention it in an anecdote. is it a hotness thing? are darts are hotter than slings? was it like "i'm sure the player would rather hear that xan threw a dart at an enemy than hear that he slung a bullet"?