I would not recommend the monk for Baldur's Gate 1 since monks only become powerful during mid to late-game in BG2/Throne of Bhaal expansion.
Does this means that Rasaad isn't any good in BG1:EE?
Monks can survive all right in BG:EE, but need a little help to do so. I don't think that equates 'not any good' so much as 'less of a power player'. Some people take Xan every playthrough, while I'm completely un-tempted. Similarly, some say Garrick can be used pretty nicely, when I think he's very weak.
Recommendation: play with him and see if his strengths and limitations suit your play style and party. Unless you don't want to, in which case, don't. CHARNAME is king of all (s)he surveys...
Some people take Xan every playthrough, while I'm completely un-tempted. Similarly, some say Garrick can be used pretty nicely, when I think he's very weak.
Hah, you just described my every playthrough of BG! I love Xan for his personality, his glowing sword, and his cc spells, even if he has low hp, and I love Garrick for his bard song and lore skill anytime my PC isn't a bard. I pretty much use them both anytime I'm not doing a canon run.
You can drink potions of genius to learn more spells, irregardless of your intelligence, and they will stay memorized even after the potion's effects wear off.
Truuuuue, but just having 19 Intelligence saves on headaches. If a player is anything like me they'd end up hording scrolls at a certain point and waiting til they had one of everything left to learn to chug a potion and have a Scroll Cram Session.
I do the same. In my last no re-load run, after getting to BG2 and dual classing my kensai into mage, i really wanted to have as little downtime as possible before i regain my fighter class, so i made Jan drink a few potions of master thievery, stole all the scrolls from the Promenade merchants, gave them to my main, dismissed my entire party, locked myself in a library, chugged a few potions of genius, and within 5 minutes, i went from lvl 1 mage to lvl 10 mage hahaha.
Yeah, but to be honest it's a bit abusive. I would love to see a rule that allows you to learn only 5 spells or so before requiring to rest. This way it would be a tad more realistic and you would also require A LOT more potions of genius to do what i just did.
Charisma is the only stat in BG1 that effects quest rewards....and it pretty much needs to be 18 to have any effect at all (and there's only....6 quests....if memory serves that use it).
There's also a few places where your reputation matters. Though generally keep it above 12 and you should be ok.
Ranged weapons will be your friend for most of the game.
buff and debuff magics will hurt the enemy a heck of a lot more then direct damage spells will. While some spells like fireball are useful...they rendered unnecessary by easy access to wands that are just as good and leave spells slots for things like slow, haste or dispel (not to mention sleep is a death sentence for mooks).
I have a question! i can`t understand to the end such problem for me as: Armor class of my character is 6, when I take a lether Armor my Armor class becomes 4! it is good or bad?
THAC0 is what you need to roll on a D20 to hit an AC of 0. If the AC is higher than 0 you don't need to roll as well to hit it. If the AC is a negative number you need to roll better to hit it.
Saves are similar. In order to make a save you have to roll equal or higher to your save score for proper save type. A lot of spells just say save, but some have a bonus or a penalty that's add to the roll attempt.
Say you have a 10 save vs spells. And someone casts blind on you (no bonus/penalty)...you need to roll a 10 or higher to save. In the same example..someone casts charm person on you...you roll 8....but still save..because charm person has a +4 bonus to save attempts. Then someone casts slow and you roll a 13...and fail..because slow has a -4 save penalty.
Pay VERY close attention to whether abilities have any bonus's or penalties. Chromatic Orb, looks pretty nice on paper, lots of progressively nastier effects as the caster's level goes up...but...it has a +6 save bonus...so it's extremely unlikely for anyone to actually fail against the spell (and the damage it deals is otherwise crap), unless they're VERY low level, and even then they're more likely to succeed vs casting casting blind, which has no bonus/penalty, or god forbid, Sleep..which has a nasty -3 penalty, but only effects enemies up to a certain level (which includes pretty much every non-boss, smaller then an ogre in BG1 (plain ogres can also fall to it).
Read the spell descriptions. Some spells are only effective against low level creatures, while those with higher intelligence or levels will not be as affected. Not to get too bogged down in the details, sometimes the best thing to do is trial and error, you'll soon figure out which spells work best on different types of enemies.
Constitution - Adds directly to how many hit points your character starts with, and affects hit point gains on every level-up after. Again, this attribute is good for every class in the game - but not all classes gain the full bonuses of having a maxed out constitution, most classes actually only benefit up to 16, while fighters, rangers and paladins gain benefits all the way up to 18 and beyond.
Helpfull Thread so far thank you very much. But two Questions are one my mind and i urge everyone here who know, to answer please.
1) Is this CONstitution Cap (16) include Barbarian aswell or not? (Not sure yet but would make no sense to me, since barbarian are still "Warriors" after all.)
2) Is INTelligence really dont affect the Sorcerer and the Damage output of Spells like Fireball or LightningBolt etc?
Constitution - Adds directly to how many hit points your character starts with, and affects hit point gains on every level-up after. Again, this attribute is good for every class in the game - but not all classes gain the full bonuses of having a maxed out constitution, most classes actually only benefit up to 16, while fighters, rangers and paladins gain benefits all the way up to 18 and beyond.
Helpfull Thread so far thank you very much. But two Questions are one my mind and i urge everyone here who know, to answer please.
1) Is this CONstitution Cap (16) include Barbarian aswell or not? (Not sure yet but would make no sense to me, since barbarian are still "Warriors" after all.
2) Is INTelligence really dont affect the Sorcerer and the Damage output of Spells like Fireball or LightningBolt etc?
1) Barbarians can get more HP from having > 16 Con
2) Intelligence has no affect on the power of spells, only on the percentage chance to successfully scribe a spell from a scroll to your spell book (if playing on core rules or higher difficulty) and the maximum number of spells per level that you can have in your spell book, plus a malus or bonus to Lore.
The Mage's class level *does* have an effect on the power and/or duration of many spells, though
Try a variety of different weapons...they tend to be immune to piercing and/or missile damage if memory serves, and some have various resistance to elements or generic magic. Though I've never had any trouble with blunt or slashing during solo games, so..probably those two.
Clerics and druids have spells to produce magic and "magic" weaponry which can help with a lot of things. I don't think flame blade counts as a magic weapon, but it does fire damage which can get around different damage resistances.
Just a quick question: I'm starting to level up a bit, but I don't think I want to keep my party the way it is for the rest of the game, though it's fine at the moment (since I have not yet met that many npc's). How are NPC's affected in terms of xp when they join you later in the game? And how if they rejoin you after you have levelled a bit without them, for instance?
If you've never met them, they'll scale approximately to your level (or maybe total xp on your PC, though being a multi-class does cause them to start at higher levels even if you've never leveled)...can't remember), usually at even levels. Otherwise they never change (and unless they fixed the NPC files you want to recruit thieves ASAP before they put all their points in useless crap).
It's most useful for mages as they'll usually have a lot more known spells, some of which are harder to find till very late in game (and they level pretty slow as well)
maximum attributes are determined by race, not class. a thief can have 19 strength if their race has +1. a fighter can't have an 18 strength if their race has a -1. bonuses from attributes are a different matter though.
also stealth isn't that great, many tough enemies will have a dialog when you see them, which will decloak your stealth scout, so if he is too far ahead he will have to survive alone until he can run out of sight to cloak again. you can't check for traps while cloaked. thieves tend not to have high thacos and damage, so if you have your thief backstab an opponent it probably won't kill him out right unless he was easy enough for your party to kill quickly anyway (barring mage in some circumstances), and then your thief is now surrounded by enemies, which s/he might not not be able to get away from (unit collision if they are too close, plus he is now the subject of agro for the enemy archers).
thieves primary purpose is disarming of traps, picking locks, and finding traps, therefore is utilitarian like a cleric or mage. a cleric/druid at spell level 2 can cast the spell find traps, a mage at spell level 2 can cast knock (which picks all locks in an area at 100% success), a cleric gets animate dead at spell level 3 (in order to trip traps), a mage gets summon monster 1 at spell level 3 (trip traps), a druid/cleric gets animal summoning at spell level 4 (trip traps), therefore a thief can be replaced in a party (though inefficiently).
as a pure thief is less useful later at higher levels (baring HLA which only happens in BG2), multi or dual classing them with a fighter will allow you to have a decent archer while still having access to the utility of thieving skills. likewise a dual multi class thief/mage will allow offensive magical support as well as the utility of thief skills. another option is to mix the thief with a cleric to get another healer in the party while still retaining thief skills. the last way to replace a pure thief which is rather unconventional is to use a mage/cleric and using spell to simulate the thieving skills as written above, the advantage is lots of extra magic support. keep in mind that the more you rely on spells the more you have to rest in order to keep your fighting ability up.
Comments
Recommendation: play with him and see if his strengths and limitations suit your play style and party. Unless you don't want to, in which case, don't. CHARNAME is king of all (s)he surveys...
The only payoff is the % chance to learn spells off a scroll (as wizard)?
edit: Great thread btw!
There's also a few places where your reputation matters. Though generally keep it above 12 and you should be ok.
Ranged weapons will be your friend for most of the game.
buff and debuff magics will hurt the enemy a heck of a lot more then direct damage spells will. While some spells like fireball are useful...they rendered unnecessary by easy access to wands that are just as good and leave spells slots for things like slow, haste or dispel (not to mention sleep is a death sentence for mooks).
Lower THAC0 is better as well.
THAC0 is what you need to roll on a D20 to hit an AC of 0. If the AC is higher than 0 you don't need to roll as well to hit it. If the AC is a negative number you need to roll better to hit it.
It's weird.
Say you have a 10 save vs spells. And someone casts blind on you (no bonus/penalty)...you need to roll a 10 or higher to save. In the same example..someone casts charm person on you...you roll 8....but still save..because charm person has a +4 bonus to save attempts. Then someone casts slow and you roll a 13...and fail..because slow has a -4 save penalty.
Pay VERY close attention to whether abilities have any bonus's or penalties. Chromatic Orb, looks pretty nice on paper, lots of progressively nastier effects as the caster's level goes up...but...it has a +6 save bonus...so it's extremely unlikely for anyone to actually fail against the spell (and the damage it deals is otherwise crap), unless they're VERY low level, and even then they're more likely to succeed vs casting casting blind, which has no bonus/penalty, or god forbid, Sleep..which has a nasty -3 penalty, but only effects enemies up to a certain level (which includes pretty much every non-boss, smaller then an ogre in BG1 (plain ogres can also fall to it).
1) Is this CONstitution Cap (16) include Barbarian aswell or not? (Not sure yet but would make no sense to me, since barbarian are still "Warriors" after all.)
2) Is INTelligence really dont affect the Sorcerer and the Damage output of Spells like Fireball or LightningBolt etc?
2) Intelligence has no affect on the power of spells, only on the percentage chance to successfully scribe a spell from a scroll to your spell book (if playing on core rules or higher difficulty) and the maximum number of spells per level that you can have in your spell book, plus a malus or bonus to Lore.
The Mage's class level *does* have an effect on the power and/or duration of many spells, though
It's most useful for mages as they'll usually have a lot more known spells, some of which are harder to find till very late in game (and they level pretty slow as well)
also stealth isn't that great, many tough enemies will have a dialog when you see them, which will decloak your stealth scout, so if he is too far ahead he will have to survive alone until he can run out of sight to cloak again. you can't check for traps while cloaked. thieves tend not to have high thacos and damage, so if you have your thief backstab an opponent it probably won't kill him out right unless he was easy enough for your party to kill quickly anyway (barring mage in some circumstances), and then your thief is now surrounded by enemies, which s/he might not not be able to get away from (unit collision if they are too close, plus he is now the subject of agro for the enemy archers).
thieves primary purpose is disarming of traps, picking locks, and finding traps, therefore is utilitarian like a cleric or mage. a cleric/druid at spell level 2 can cast the spell find traps, a mage at spell level 2 can cast knock (which picks all locks in an area at 100% success), a cleric gets animate dead at spell level 3 (in order to trip traps), a mage gets summon monster 1 at spell level 3 (trip traps), a druid/cleric gets animal summoning at spell level 4 (trip traps), therefore a thief can be replaced in a party (though inefficiently).
as a pure thief is less useful later at higher levels (baring HLA which only happens in BG2), multi or dual classing them with a fighter will allow you to have a decent archer while still having access to the utility of thieving skills. likewise a dual multi class thief/mage will allow offensive magical support as well as the utility of thief skills. another option is to mix the thief with a cleric to get another healer in the party while still retaining thief skills. the last way to replace a pure thief which is rather unconventional is to use a mage/cleric and using spell to simulate the thieving skills as written above, the advantage is lots of extra magic support. keep in mind that the more you rely on spells the more you have to rest in order to keep your fighting ability up.