Hey all, I finished my first playthrough of BG1: EE about a month ago but all the way to the end of the game, I had some issues with Rasaad. As this was was my first play through of BG1:EE, I wanted to check out the new content. Neera's voice was annoying as hell so I booted her. The other 2 new NPCs were evil so I skipped them cos BG doesn't really handle "evil" well so this left me with Rasaad.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but from IWD2, I thought monks were supposed to be defense oriented front liners, hard to hit but able to use their abilities to hit stuff hard (at higher levels). Considering BG is a low level campaign (thus, less spell casting and therefore, less summons), I thought Rasaad would still be able to fill the former part of that role, he couldn't. So now I'm wondering what the point in using him was. Has anyone got any suggestions on how he was supposed to be used?

I tried to be patient but the only thing he was good at doing was getting his arse kicked, all throughout the game. I tried giving him the gear best suited to him and even then, his end game gear was quite minimal. He had the boots he started with, the bracers from his quest, the big-fisted belt, ring of princes, ring of free action and Rashid's Talon and a sling. He also had one proficiency point in one handed weapons. Was there any better gear for him to improve his effectiveness in BG1?

Also, in BG2:EE, is he effective at all there? In IWD2, you had to babysit monks somewhat so I'm just wondering if Rasaad is the same. If so, any gear recommendations for Rasaad in BG2:EE? I'd rather not have to babysit him all game again.


Personal quest spoiler alert, contains ranting, and not really relevant to the question I'm asking but I need to get it out of my system

The new areas for Rasaad's quest, erm, okay, so we got a snow palette but I can't really care about that considering how many times I've played through IWD.The monastery interior didn't really have anything special either, except for a table you could loot from the other side of the wall. The only thing this new area did for me was made me realize how little credit I gave Durlag's Tower. Durlag's Tower has lots of lore, puzzles, treasure, traps and varied enemy encounters. This new area was just a few maps to beat up some weak enemies............bleh!

Seriously, what the hell was up with his quest story!??!? Okay, it made sense about him and his brother getting separated and it bugged him but when you finally meet him, the dialog just goes straight up balls retarded. Some of the dialog in the original BG wasn't that great either but this........

Essentially, Rasaad was blamed for abandoning his brother when it was quite clear from Rasaad's story they were in a hopeless situation. Also, because Rasaad was holding back in their sparring matches, his brother feels inadequate and grumpy which is of course, again, Rasaad's fault. There is other stuff but for fucks sake, this is behavior I would expect from an angsty teenage girl, not a disciplined and dedicated monk. But of course, about the sparring matches, Rasaad's brother didn't call him on it and ask for a rematch because...........magic flying potato.

Then he goes off about how he found truth in the darkness of Shar and all the revelations it gave him like.........windmill. He never says anything concrete about what he found out, just how wonderful and cool it was, which in real life is a tale tale sign that a person is full of shit. Of course there are no dialog options that gets Rasaad's brother to expand on his points or call him on his bullshit, you just have to take it at face value and reply with things like "No, Shar is bad, be good again" or "Forget your brother, he's lost"......................*facepalm*

Then predictably, Rasaad and his brother have to fight to the death because........pink fluffy bunnies...........or maybe it was just a pathetic attempt at creating emotion. Dunno about you guys but when the quest was over, the first thing I thought was "Was Beamdog really charging $2.00 for this crap at one point?" Sure, some of the dialog in BG is garbage but Beamdog took it to a whole new level of stupid.

Yeah, I know I'm late to the party on this but I just had to get it out of my system. I'm guessing the quests for the other 3 NPCs are just as retarded. Anyone care to confirm?

End of spoilers


Oh, and one more thing. Are the gauntlets of dexterity not in the EE version of the game? I was pretty sure a named Gnoll by the bridge near the Gnoll stronghold dropped them as loot. I had Ajantis in my party and wanted to give them to him but instead some weapon expertise gauntlets dropped. I wasn't able to find the dexterity gauntlets anywhere in the game either.

I gave the Gaunlet to Minsc like i always do in EE. So its there.

I agree, Rasaad is pretty weak. But I use him to open the map quickly.

I haven't played BG:EE and don't intend to do so...but I did once play a monk in vanilla BG2. They're pretty weak even for about the first third of BG2, but eventually (about level 13 iirc) become insanely powerful (they get an instant death ability "Quivering palm" and their attacks begin to do lots of damage).

Oops, I did indeed mean the two-half ogres by the bridge. In the orginal BG, the Gauntlets of Dexterity were always here but not in my first play though of EE, I just thought that was weird.

Back the first question,

So, I'm guessing Rasaad is wasted potential in BG1:EE? Thanks for the info, I'll still give Rasaad a chance then when I start BG2 ;)