/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5370354
Dorn is worse an NPC than either of these.
Blackguard has been nerfed fairly early into EE patch cycles (along with Assassin, because they didn't bother coding a separate poison ability for a potent martial and for a 1 APR thief, genius move) and aside from that, his stats are much less impressive than either of the two OG characters.
These two are high CON shorties, which means enhanced saving throws, Kagain is a pure warrior (better damage scaling overall, even in spite of Dorn's strength; Strength is, overall. in BG series, one of the easiest attributes to fix, and the half-orc's one niche stops being relevant fairly soon). Montaron has added utility (easier to fit into a party, backstabs in BG1 not outscaled yet) and better proficiencies - for one thing, he's a competent ranged character, which is a big boon in BG1 (magic ammo and the overall benefit from not being in range of dangerous beasts, easier mage disabling, better THAC0, 2 attacks per round early game...).
Dorn, for a warrior, is middling because outside of his unique greatsword (which you will replace with Spider's Bane ultimately) he is lacking Constitution.
Shar-Teel is better than Dorn. She has exactly the same Constitution bonus (yes, 9 Con and 14 Con are virtually the same in the game mechanics), but she's actually capable of being dualled into a Thief (which adds to versatility in compositions), will ultimately do more damage (with greater weapon specialization) and is a capable archer from the start, nullifying the Con's weaknesses by a large margin.
There's never a reason to pick Dorn over any of the other evil warriors, powergaming wise. And personality-wise, well, I can't deny having a weakness for half-orc men, but even I find Dorn overrated in that regard, mostly because his personality is meh and his special status (guy from distant land on a mission that is a complete outsider and has his own special weaponry that doesn't break, lookathim!) is bad.