First time playing who should be my Main out of these choices

[John Hammond]

Ifan, Fane, Lohse or Red Prince? Rest will be companions.

[Syrris]

What are you looking for most in the main? Subplot size/depth, personality elements, integration into the world, unusual mechanics, etc? The recommendation will differ accordingly.

[John Hammond]

From what I've read in other threads companions offer more interesting interactions over being a main. I hear Ifan is fairly generic so I was leaning towards him as a main, but if there's a more interesting character choice to use as a main then I would consider it. I just settled on these 4 as they are the most appealing origin choices at first glance for me.

[Astral Projection]

Red Prince is awesome as main.

Suggest installing the Party Size Evolved mod. You can have all 6 main characters in your party.

[Singrave]

Lohse or Fane.
They have best stories.

[LaserGuy]

Ifan and Fane are both the most intimately involved in the main story. You'll get more out of it with one of these two as your main, or at least in the party. Lohse and Sebille both have decent stories and make good mains or side characters. Red Prince and especially Beast probably have the least to offer in terms of story. Red and Sebille are the only characters who have conflicting objectives though, which can make things more interesting now and then.

[Yeti.^^]

Originally posted by Astral Projection:

Red Prince is awesome as main.

Suggest installing the Party Size Evolved mod. You can have all 6 main characters in your party.

Which , in turn , breaks the balance horribly.So don't do that , at least there's replayability value.And for my 2 cents , i love Fane the most as main , Lohse/Sebille the second.

[Memoria of Silenti]

Lohse Conjurer, can even honour mode if you are careful.

[ElectroRanger]

Main ifan and fane required for respective achivememts. Besides that:

Red Prince has less than great source skill but gets his own summon later. Also, pretty funny if you don't take his arrogance too seriously. He kinda earned his status...

Lohse has a pretty heartwarming reward if you finish her quest, but careful! Can get slightly dangerous around certain npcs. Source skills seemingly useful but kind of has a chance of not being as beneficial.

Fane is VERY important overall in the plot, has a VERY useful source skill, is undead (no bleeding, heal poison but blessed surfaces will usually be bad for him). Best as both main and companion.

From my run so far:

Sebille will actively seem to mess up certain quest encounters, least for Red and Ifan. Recommended for the not too heroic or outright genocidal players. Source skill is self only, not the most greatest but good in a few critical scenarios.

Ifan Ben-Mezd seems to have a stoic aura about him. Pragmatic attitude, might come off too generic for special dialogue choices. Source skill seems meh from just its looks. Mandatory for achievements but has a few of his own interactions with people accross act 2.

Beast appears to be very talkative with dwarves so far, it's pretty fun. Source skill along with racial abilities make for a good standing as either battlemage or shadowblade so thats nice.

[John Hammond]

Thank you all for the advice. I feel like I have a decent idea now. I do want some challenge so I'm sticking with 4 party and going in on classic first run. I'll do tactician when I'm more familiar with the mechanics.

[GordoBoy]

Originally posted by Space Pirate Captain Ben Dodgers:

Thank you all for the advice. I feel like I have a decent idea now. I do want some challenge so I'm sticking with 4 party and going in on classic first run. I'll do tactician when I'm more familiar with the mechanics.

In all truth tactician is not as hard as it seems once you learn the wonders of summoning and thievery, nothing like having 8 people to fight, a bag full of goodies, the best armour around, and all the skills needed.

[ElectroRanger]

Originally posted by GordoBoy:

Originally posted by Space Pirate Captain Ben Dodgers:

Thank you all for the advice. I feel like I have a decent idea now. I do want some challenge so I'm sticking with 4 party and going in on classic first run. I'll do tactician when I'm more familiar with the mechanics.

In all truth tactician is not as hard as it seems once you learn the wonders of summoning and thievery, nothing like having 8 people to fight, a bag full of goodies, the best armour around, and all the skills needed.

Still, enemies do in fact go much more merciless on you, i.e using chicken claws in almost any fight on start. It should be almost mandatory to new players to go on classic to familiarize with the game.

And believe me, classic hits just as hard. Explorer and story on the other hand give you casual handicaps.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by GordoBoy:

Originally posted by Space Pirate Captain Ben Dodgers:

Thank you all for the advice. I feel like I have a decent idea now. I do want some challenge so I'm sticking with 4 party and going in on classic first run. I'll do tactician when I'm more familiar with the mechanics.

In all truth tactician is not as hard as it seems once you learn the wonders of summoning and thievery, nothing like having 8 people to fight, a bag full of goodies, the best armour around, and all the skills needed.

Eh, there are much better and more powerful teams than four summoners. Summoning itself is one of the weakest skill trees in the game, redeemed only by the strength it has if fully dedicated to just summoning exclusively, and only for the early-early-mid game.

[ElectroRanger]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by GordoBoy:

In all truth tactician is not as hard as it seems once you learn the wonders of summoning and thievery, nothing like having 8 people to fight, a bag full of goodies, the best armour around, and all the skills needed.

Eh, there are much better and more powerful teams than four summoners. Summoning itself is one of the weakest skill trees in the game, redeemed only by the strength it has if fully dedicated to just summoning exclusively, and only for the early-early-mid game.

On contrary, I was probably not build savvy, so having Lohse a dedicated summoner/aero/hydro caster proved useful. Really helped in many situations as support fire basically.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by AlloyForce:

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Eh, there are much better and more powerful teams than four summoners. Summoning itself is one of the weakest skill trees in the game, redeemed only by the strength it has if fully dedicated to just summoning exclusively, and only for the early-early-mid game.

On contrary, I was probably not build savvy, so having Lohse a dedicated summoner/aero/hydro caster proved useful. Really helped in many situations as support fire basically.

To be honest, that is one of the biggest pros to summoning, its noob friendly. Since you don't build the incarnate itself, you can't mess it up much. This makes summoning appear artificially more powerful by comparison until you learn more about effective builds.

However, magic's primary strength is AoE damage, which a magic based incarnate has very little of. Single target magic damage isn't going to hit harder than physical would, and magic has resistance to think about. A physical incarnate on the other hand lacks the extra bonuses from gear and stat allocation to match a dedicated physical build. Both types lack the added power of talents like elemental affinity or executioner, further weakening their potential.

Basically, you gain versatility and ease of use at the cost of efficiency and power.

[ElectroRanger]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by AlloyForce:

On contrary, I was probably not build savvy, so having Lohse a dedicated summoner/aero/hydro caster proved useful. Really helped in many situations as support fire basically.

To be honest, that is one of the biggest pros to summoning, its noob friendly. Since you don't build the incarnate itself, you can't mess it up much. This makes summoning appear artificially more powerful by comparison until you learn more about effective builds.

However, magic's primary strength is AoE damage, which a magic based incarnate has very little of. Single target magic damage isn't going to hit harder than physical would, and magic has resistance to think about. A physical incarnate on the other hand lacks the extra bonuses from gear and stat allocation to match a dedicated physical build. Both types lack the added power of talents like elemental affinity or executioner, further weakening their potential.

Basically, you gain versatility and ease of use at the cost of efficiency and power.

Heh, and yet somehow being that I'v beaten the first game on tactician as well and yet I used a newb friendly skill XD

Overall I don't quite always stick to a full efficieny build, but for this tactician run I'm mostly focusing on pure classes (as usual, with few dippings on occasion for certain extra skills),going with a 3 physical and 1 magical damagers, first three are melee ranger and scoundrel, and last sort of just gets any school of magic. Considering later to have scoundrel specialize in a few aero/geo stuff (beast has natural air/earth skills so that's what i go by), red prince with pyro and summon(ranger that also can help with support fodder and haste/peace of mind are useful and naturally gets a dragon/fire skill), and main Ifan with hydro and necro (a mix of paladin/death knight, also hydro improves magic armor restoration which he lacks).

So far I get by with this build, it helped to have 2 chicken claw users on start for sure, but some fights are a bit harder obviously.