Combat questions.

Sedge

I have progress a lot since i started baldurs gate but i always wondered some things about combat.
In my group i have Imoen, the couple from friendly Inn (fighter n fighter/druid) and the new wild mage neera. I am a ranger.

The thing is that during combat i can see how much damage i, wild mage and khalid do but i cant see how much damage imoen or the druid do. Does that mean that their hits do not damage the target?

Moreover, i can see items having +thac0 but i know the lower the thac0 the better, so is it a disadvantage of the weapon? (this may be why imoen does not hit).

And im a bit confused about the druid. I think in my opinion spells in page 1,2,3 are useless. My druid cannot dmg like imoen (or at least i think so), their spells except heal/-armor are useless. Am i that wrong? any tips on how to play the druid? Or any tips in general about my other chars?

Regards - a noob!

atcDave

To determine what is needed to hit on a d20, you subtract the target's armor class from your Thaco. So the plus is actually to the die roll (and the damage roll, it counts twice if you hit). For example; if you have an 18 Thaco, and are attacking an AC 5 target, you subtract 5 from 18 to get 13, which is what you'll need to roll on a d20 to hit (that's a 40% chance of success). If you are using a +2 item, and have a +1 from your strength; that is added to your die roll which means you only need to roll a 10 to hit (55% chance of success).

I'm not sure why no damage is displaying for Jahera and Imoen's combat results. My first guess would be they are not using magic weapons against a target that requires magic to hurt it. It would just display as "0" damage if that is the case. If they are using missile weapons, they need magic ammo. A +1 bow will give Imoen a +1 to hit, and a +1 on her damage rolls, but if magic is required to harm the target (Ghast maybe?) they must use magic arrows too! Good news though, those pluses stack! So if Immy has a +1 bow and is using +2 arrows that's a +3 to hit and damage! Note that Imoen's high dexterity also gives her a +2 to hit with her bow. Archers can be quite dangerous.

Druids can be tricky to use. Personally I don't care for them, but I'm sure plenty of players here will call me an idiot for saying so. Jahera, as a fighter/druid, can function as either a melee or missile attacker. If you want her to use her sling normally be sure you put a second proficiency to it at first opportunity. I prefer to do exactly that and keep her out of the front line (I would say differently in BG2, mainly because of "Iron Skins") so she can provide healing during battle. I think her Cure Light Wounds and Slow Poison are her two most useful spells. I'm sure others will have strong opinions about other spells, but those are her bread and butter as far as I'm concerned, and I would agree with "useless" for most of the rest. Armor is obviously handy too, especially if she is going to melee.

ZanathKariashi

Entangle is situationally useful...but inferior to web in just about every way (it has a bonus so it doesn't work as well as web which has a penalty, it doesn't stop all actions so it's only good against melee enemies. On the other hand, it might be awhile before your mages get web and some crowd control is better then none. Druids don't really get a lot of directly offensive magic, till later. They're mostly buffs, heals, a handful of debuffs, and summons. Insect swarm and it's other version however are nice spells. Call Lightning is useful outdoors but useless in doors. They get some decent stuff like harm (reduces the enemies hp to 1d4 with no save) and slay living later, which is actually useful for a F/D since your higher thac0 makes touch spells MUCH better.

CaptRory

I like to stack those movement restricting spells when I can. Why cast Web when I can cast Web, Entangle, and Grease?

In fact I like stacking spells period. The fight in the bandit camp's main tent I had one guy under the effects of Fear, Sleep, and Hold Person. He wasn't going anywhere.

toshiro

Once jaheria gets to lvl 5 fighter she gets better it's kahlid that sucks he tends to panic a lot when his hp gets around 50%, always dumped him the chance I got, the monk aint no better since armor rating is based on his wisdom not dex, and his strength is pretty bad

Sedge

I always thought of the opposite. Jaheira sucks and khalid is the boss. If i let khalid die where do i get something like a tank like class? Will jaheira leave me as well later on cause of khalid's death?

ZanathKariashi

Nah, the leaving thing only happens if one leaves due to you kicking them out, having the other die is actually one of the ways to free up characters when you only want one of a pair (about the only legitimate way actually, since the non-fatal version is abusing the game engine).

atcDave

Yeah I usually take away Khalid's armor and don't do any healing on him. It gets rid of him fairly quickly and leaves me with Jaheira.
There are much better tank options. Minsc being the most obvious. He's an excellent tank. Of course you do have to run to rescue Dynaheir right away if you recruit Minsc. She's an okay Mage, but probably not needed if you've recruited Neera. But that's fine, she gets the Khalid treatment and goes down even faster...
Ajantis is another excellent tank for a good aligned party (he can be recruited at the southwestern corner of the farm area just north of the Friendly Arm Inn. Just skirt the edge of the map and you can avoid those nasty Ankhegs that a first level party isn't ready for yet). Even Kivan can be used as a tank (found on the road to High Hedge), his strength is excellent. He doesn't have a great constitution, but he does have a high dexterity. So just give him good armor (like the Ankheg plate) and he can tank with the best of them.

valky

I agree with Ajantis, he loves to wear the dex-gauntlets + the cursed str-belt
Currently AC -9, if I'd switch the ring he 'd get another point and the Durlags Shield just another. And -11 AC in BG(1)EE is quite something.

Madhax

toshiro said:

the monk aint no better since armor rating is based on his wisdom not dex, and his strength is pretty bad

Hold up. Unless BGEE adjusted something or Rasaad has special rules attached to him that I'm not aware of, this isn't true. Monks in both BG and IWD2 gain AC from their dexterity, just like other classes. In 3rd edition, like in IWD2, they also get AC from their Wisdom score, but this isn't a feature of the Baldur's Gate monk. A BG monk simply starts at 9 AC and gains more and more bonus AC as he levels up, it is helped by dexterity and unrelated to wisdom.

Andtalath

Khalid has the best fighter stats in the game if you give the gauntlets of ogre strength to him.
Until then, he just soaks up damage and is useful with a bow.

Fighter/druid is a nice combo, however, not for damage in BG1, but a single fighter/priest (that means cleric or druid) can provide all the healing you need and can still do something else, making them by far superior alternative to anything else.
You could use the werewolf druid to about the same effect though, they are pretty nice but they don't scale all that well.

And, yeah, the monk is a terrible class in BG1, you can get them halfway decent by the end, but they are FAR behind a fully equipped warrior.
A monk gets 2 attacks with 1d10 damage, no enhancements to that, even with a 19 strength (possible if MAINCHAR is monk and uses a strength book) he only deals 8-17 damage, with weapon specialization gloves this would go up to 10-19.
Meanwhile, a fighter with two weapons deal about: 1d8+7(str)+3(specialization)+2(gauntlets of expertise)+3(weapon bonus damage) and has +5 better to hit (specialization and weapon enhancement, can be raised to +3 with scimitars and two-handed sword and short sword), meaning 16-24 damage which hits more consistently.
On top of that they can also specialize in a weapon type, meaning double chance for crit (and AC if you like solo weapons) or +1 atk per round or more AC vs missiles if you're a sucker.
If we accept that each +1 to hit is equal to 5% more damage (true as long as both don't consistantly hit) total damage would be (not real damage, just the proportions of it):
Monk:20-38
Fighter solo weapon: 40-60
Figther dual weapon: 56.8-85.2
Also, their AC is VERY much better.
The monk ends up as level 8, meaning 6 Base AC, this has to compete with the Full plates effective AC of -2 (except vs bludgeoning where it only gets 1 and slashing where it gets -3), this barrier can be mitigated by the level 4 spell spirit armor, but that is very annoying to use due to the amount of travelling you do in BG1.
So, in effect, there is a 9 point discrepancy in AC and between 41 and 62 points of damage per round difference.

Oh, and the monk can't even hit dangerous enemies since they are immune to his damage until a level he can't reach.