Build keep or hire adventurers?

[doctoruniverse]

I dont wanna know any story part but I am conflicted about if I should hire adventurers early or keep the gold for keep. 

 

I played the game before and made it to level 8 or 9 and I noticed that hiring adventures at level 8 and above cost a fortune. 

 

Any advice would be appreciated. 

Edited February 22, 2016 by doctoruniverse

[why]

If you're worried about gold at all, I'd get the joinable NPCs.  They're free.  Plus, they work out just fine.  Not as fine tunable as an adventurer, but they provide dialogue and, if you toggle to reset them to level one when you meet them, there's plenty of room to modify them however you want.  Yeah, you'll end up with skeletons with Kana, but no biggie.

 

By late game, I was swimming in coin.  Probably not an issue unless your PC enjoys a profligate lifestyle.  In my latest game, I had every upgrade, all of the cool hirelings for my stronghold, and every unique item upon which I had come during the game.  With a little management, it's not hard to keep your cash.  However, if you're switching in adventurers, I would do it early because, as you say, they become quite expensive later on.  Also, unless you've really f'd up a character or something, I wouldn't spend money retool characters at the inn.  I had a few sub-optimal choices on my PC, some for RP reasons and some because of a sub-optimal mind, and it didn't really slow me down much at all.

[Sonntam]

Better hire adventurers. By endgame you will build up keep to maximum anyway and swim in gold (I went into last mission with 100k gold). Adventurers are more useful than the keep, too. 

[PugPug]

They are cheaper to hire at low level, so if you are going to, do it ASAP. I just started a new playthrough and hired a rogue, since it takes quite a while to get Devil of Caroc and I wanted a mechanics expert I wouldn't have to respec later.

 

But they are completely optional, and while the upgrades at the keep won't break the bank if you adventure while they build, they are kind of expensive.

[Skladzien]

They are cheaper to hire at low level, so if you are going to, do it ASAP. I just started a new playthrough and hired a rogue, since it takes quite a while to get Devil of Caroc and I wanted a mechanics expert I wouldn't have to respec later.

 

But they are completely optional, and while the upgrades at the keep won't break the bank if you adventure while they build, they are kind of expensive.

My mechanic expert was always Aloth (he starts with mechanics on 1) and it is not a problem really...

[jsaving]

I dont wanna know any story part but I am conflicted about if I should hire adventurers early or keep the gold for keep.  

Depends on the kind of player you are.  If you like to have an optimized party, it will always be better to hire adventurers ASAP because the freely recruitable NPCs like Eder and Aloth don't have great attribute allocations, nor do they have unique abilities like BG1/2 NPCs did (Minsc's berserk rage being one of many examples).  On the other hand, the game is quite forgiving of mistakes on normal or even hard difficulty so there isn't a need for optimal characters unless you're planning to do a PotD Trial of Iron run.  You'll also miss out on some amusing party banter and personal-story quests if you fill out your party with hirelings. 

[Kinowek]

After playing through Pillars a couple of times, I'd say just build the keep and forget hiring Adventurers.  There are plenty of joinable NPCs available and the game doesn't require min/maxed characters to complete at any difficulty level.  Adventurers also have no banter, as others have said.

 

You will use up all your extra (non Keep) gold buying up every unique weapon from random and fixed merchants, if you're like me, and must possess every single magical sword, club, dagger or what have you. Then buying extra regents to enchant every one of those items...

Edited February 23, 2016 by Kinowek