How to best utilize *ToB Spoiler Character*

zwadek

I'm in the middle of SoA, and in ToB i want to include Sarevok into my party. My question is what can I do to unlock most of his potential?
I have some mods installed.
My current party is:
Protagonist: dual wielding Stalker, stars in Long Swords, Scimitars, and by end of SoA he will have two stars in Bastard Swords
Created character: fighter 7 -> mage, dual wielding short swords
Korgan, dual wielding Axes [he will make place for Sarevok in ToB]
Anomen, flails
Jaheira, stars in scimitars and maces (I think about Fulcrum +4 from Item Upgrade mod, which gives GM in maces)
Yoshimo who will make place for Imoen (swashbuckler/mage wersion from Refinements mod) after Spellhold

I don't think of keeping him as Fighter, so I will probably dual him to Thief or Mage.
Going by Mage route he will probably wield Upgraded Soul Reaver from Item Upgrade Mod.
Going by Thief route... I'm not sure, maybe also Upgraded Soul Reaver, or maybe he will gain enough points to dual wield Celestial Fury and Sanchudokku [acid katana from Kensai Ryu mod]. Any suggestions? Maybe some other?
Or maybe let him in Fighter class? How long (plot wise) will it take me to regain his first class abilities?


Things to have in mind:
Rougue Rebalancing is installed
True Grandmastery Installed, so after fifth star additional half attack is gained.
SCS II is installed, so some battles can be quite hard or annoying, especially with enemy mages
Ascension is installed [for the first time], so I know i will face some challenging battles with another members of Five.
No quest-giving mods are installed in this playtrough, so I will be gaining roughly as much XP as in vanillia game.

What do you think, what is more valuable: Fighter HLAs (especially whirlwind), Thief HLAs (especially Use Any Item) or spells from being a mage?

Sorry for bad english

Moved spoiler tag to cover the spoiler. -Jalily

DinsdalePiranha

one word: Ravager +6. (or is that two words?)

other than that, Binky is... well, not the most easily utilized character. going mage dual gives buttloads of survivability, but takes away fighter HLAs. going thief gives nice stuff (time traps!), but enemies look funny at you and you're dead. both of them take (imho) shitloads of time to get back fighter abilities, but at least as a mage you're useful somewhat.

staying pure fighter skips most of these problems, but pure fighters (or anyone without protection spells) aren't really that awesome in ToB - EVERYTHING will hit you. few fire giants look at you sideways? well, you kinda are fucked, they can take down 200 hp in 3 hits on insane, or 6 hits on normal... and they'll hit you.

yeah, ToB is not a good place for anybody who isn't part mage or a ranger/cleric. (or fighter/druid, maybe)

EnterHaerDalis

no valygar or haer dalis?

Itstucktwice

Well his PC is a stalker so taking Valygar wouldn't make too much sense. Throw in that he has the personality of a rock and is about as interesting as a wet carrot and I can see why he isn't in the party.

leeho730

Well you seem like you need a thief character.

Thief HLA is good, and since Sarevok has really good proficiency in two handed sword he can wield carsomyr +6 (with thief HLA), give Ravager to your PC, Staff of ram to Anomen and Jaheira can wield spear +6. The enemy you have to use +6 weapon to hit is immune to backstab anyway so no need to give Sarevok staff of ram.

Spike trap is extremely cheesy, time trap is fun, assassination is very good (but the weapon needs to be backstab-able so might have juggle staff of ram around), greater evasion is kinda ok but avoid death is meh use any item is absurd. Up to you.

karnor00

The problem with dual classing Sarevok is that he starts with 2.7m experience. So in a full party you're going to have finished most of the game by the time he actually gets his old levels back - until that time hes going to be a fairly gimped character. He gets his skills back a bit quicker as a thief, but a bit slower as a mage.

Pure fighters aren't really that bad. Full plate+2 and shield+4 and 18 dex = -10 AC. You've probably got a couple of other items you can give him to push his AC a bit lower too. Fire giants will still hit pretty often, but most other enemies will miss quite a bit.

The big benefit is whirlwind attack. 10 attacks/round with whatever weapon you want to use. Even with a fairly ordinary (by ToB standards) +5ish weapon when you add strength and specialisation bonuses you're looking at about 200 damage/round. Comparing them to mages, even the best magical abilities only do around 70-100 damage/hit and typically offer a save for half damage (although admittedly these spells are usually AE).

zwadek

@DinsdalePiranha
oh, my mistake, it is actually Ravager +6 ( I play non-english version of the game and that two-hander was translated to equvalent of Soul Reaver )

Valygar is fascist to mages and since i will probably have half of party being mages i don't see him fitting into a team. And like @Itstucktwice noticed I am stalker. "There can be only one!"
And I hate bards.
Imoen refinements version) is pretty good thief and with all those trinkets that adds +% to thievery I think she will handle most of trams and locks. And if she don't well we have knock spell, detect traps spell and other spells that will protect character who will walk into a trap that can not be disarmed.

leeho730 said:

... The enemy you have to use +6 weapon to hit is immune to backstab anyway so no need to give Sarevok staff of ram.

Which one you are refering to? Cyric? Melissan?

Djimmy

One simple rule: Never dual Sarevok.

leeho730

final boss... but please correct me if i'm wrong...

valky

leeho730 said:

Spike trap is extremely cheesy, time trap is fun, assassination is very good (but the weapon needs to be backstab-able so might have juggle staff of ram around), greater evasion is kinda ok but avoid death is meh use any item is absurd. Up to you.

Those cheese-traps are removed/replaced in RR, which he has installed ^^
Cheese-trap now deals physical (piercing) damage, and you get a revised AoE (with knockback/-down) & Acid trap too. The latter both deal alchemical damage and completely ignore magic resistance.

So they aren't really that bad :P
Evasion & Gr. Evasion also seem to be more useful now. One gives you roughly immunity for 5 rounds to nearly any AoE (dragon stuff included), the other +5 AC / +5 saves for 5 rounds and immunity to backstab.

Am still in SoA with my current party, so need to check the RR's HLA myself first too.

+ dualwielding Celestial Fury and Sanchudokku is extremely OP. The passive-procc of the 2nd weapon is nearly as cheese as the old spike-trap. It's considered a free-casted melf's acid arrow against any attacker of you (magic included) and does NOT allow a saving throw! (it also bypasses resistance but not immunity...really; nuff said ^^)
edit: and with SCSII I guess, you will see quite a few attack and spells made against you. That combo should beat any 'common' 2-handed weapon from vanilla. And am currently trying to figure out, if it'd be better to give Keldorn in my game another weapon without the dispel-procc. It eats my own debuffs off as well...so a decent casted Greater Command or any other nasty debuff effect just went *pooof* cause of that sword. Or at least a decent 2nd weapon to switch for...

[cause you were referring to Soul Reaver +6, that is basically Carsomyr +6 only nastier, thanks to the stacking thac0 debuff]

edit/edit: I'd go thief, you only need 1.8M XP to unlock the old class. Thanks to RR you can place 3 pips in dual-wield in your thief class. He already has full access to 2handed weapons + 2-handed-swords, so you can completely focus on getting your dual-wield up and running and katanas.

I also 'heard' with item-upgrade there is quite a nasty armor you can built, which allows you to use your thieving skills...

DinsdalePiranha

zwadek said:

@DinsdalePiranha
oh, my mistake, it is actually Ravager +6 ( I play non-english version of the game and that two-hander was translated to equvalent of Soul Reaver )

ah, I've been wondering what could Soul Reaver possibly be

@karnor00 and about AC: the problem with even -10 AC is that... well, you'll still get hit, just enough to mess you up. badly.

at the end of fire giant area, there are about 8-10 of them in the same room, and all attack at once... I had to fire 6 horrid wiltings at them just to keep my FMT main alive, who had -8 AC, along with mirror image and stoneskin up - if I didn't kill them all in less than two rounds, the bastards casually managed to rip right through that, and straight up murder me, faster than I could fire off a sequencer... that's over 20 successful hits with the protection spells up.

fire giants are hardcore.

(though that might have been a bit of retarded play on my part, I could've just used a time trap and kill half of them without taking a scratch, but... point is, they're a wee a bit dangerous.)

ryuken87

I can't really give any specific advice given all the mods you have installed, but seeing as you already have two mages, two priests and a fair amount of melee I think dualing to a thief rounds off the party the best and gives you a wider range of options in any given fight. There is of course the issue of the whole dualing process, as I think Sarevok starts at level 18 meaning you would require 1.98m exp to get your levels back which is a lot but not nearly as bad as a mage, I imagine it will take you 40-50% of the game.

I'd put some points in staffs for backstabs, some points in dual wielding and some points in another couple of weapons.

Fighter HLAs isn't that big of a miss. Hardiness is the most important but you can get some damage resistance from Jansen Adventurewear and other sources or use some scrolls in the tough fights. Improved Haste > GWW.

@DinsdalePiranha Or you could have used PfMW and been immune to their weapons. An AC of -8 is pretty irrelevent at that stage.

DinsdalePiranha

ryuken87 said:

@DinsdalePiranha Or you could have used PfMW and been immune to their weapons. An AC of -8 is pretty irrelevent at that stage.

yup, though I ran out of 'em at that stage... point is, no matter how good your AC is (unless maybe if you really push it to the extremes), there are more than enough enemies in ToB who doesn't really care about little things like these and will mess you up.

valky

ryuken87 said:

Fighter HLAs isn't that big of a miss. Hardiness is the most important but you can get some damage resistance from Jansen Adventurewear and other sources or use some scrolls in the tough fights. Improved Haste > GWW.

Adventurewear shouldn't be needed, if I got it right he has also ItemUpgrade installed; he can built right at the beginning of ToB:
Incarnadine Elven Chain - (AC 0, 25% Fire Res, can cast spells & use thievery); which eats off 1 red dragon scale + the elven chain from the start of ToB.

Though the mod itself is a bit cheesy, but not as much as Imp. Anvil, which wouldn't work with mentioned mods anyway. I think it makes it a decent choice with a full SCSII install and some encounter are 'really' hard.
And with the 2 mentioned Katanas I'd go dual-wield and with UAI still 'd have the option to switch for ie Carsomyr or whatever else he had in mind.

[Deleted User]

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valky

Is Imoen enough to be the sole thief mainly for detrapping/lockpicking (or knock should work too)? Can't remember her stats, but there are quit a few items to buff her.
Fighter gets decent HLA and so does the RR-revised Thief..so it's a hard decision :P And he could wear some items, the pure fighter can not.
In the end it's a matter of personal preference; my current party is keldorn, mazzy, fighter->cleric, Kova, Kiyone & Tyris from NPC mods with roughly the same mods installed. Having an Archer NPC is OP on its own ^^

Really looking forward to BG2EE's possibly new NPCs, the current basic ones already bore me...

zwadek

@valky I forgot to mention, but I don't have HLA tables from Rougue Rebalancing, only class revisions. HLAs in my install are altered by Refinements mod.
I was little confused with this Ravager/Soul Reaver misunderstanding. What I had in mind in my first post was imp. Soul Reaver +6 which comes from ItemUpgrade mod. It is a two hander which combines power of Soul Reaver +4 (found in Kuo-Toa tunnels) and Carsomyr (additional ingredients are Heart of The Damned and gold)
I also see dualling CF and Sanchudokku extremely overpowered, I have done that on my solo (Morituri kit) run, and that is the reason I didn't specialise my main char in katanas in this playtrough (BGEE imported character) and if it possible I would want to avoid using them.
I am sure that I would not have any problems on vanilla run through ToB, but SCS II gives me a real pain from time to time. I am in underwater city now, and had battle against ~10 Sahuagin spellcasters at once, and every one of them were casting all those contingiences, mantles, stoneskins, fire shields, so I ran out of breaches, spell thrusts before disposing half of them, not mentioning regular Sahuagin fighters spawning from time to time. And I know, that in ToB things will get even more complicated.

DinsdalePiranha

@valky: she should be, though you might need ring of danger sense (SoA)/amulet of the master harper (ToB). fixpack gives her back the missing 25 skill points, so she has 100 open locks and 95 find traps iirc, which should be pretty much enough for everything.

valky

@zwadek
Now we are talking :P .. for me the Soul Reaver +6 was not a misunderstanding - using the ItemUpgrade mod myself and I have to admit I HIGHLY looking forward to build that thingie for Keldorn, even as a 'reserve' weapon, when the dispel stuff pisses me off to much. SCSII is all about debuffing/CC and so on and having someone, who permanently get rid off your carefully placed debuffs can be a pain.
On the other hand, against those contingency-whores (sorry) -either cleric or mage- it is OP as hell, even with the modified version (dispel on saving throw). At this point I took the liberty to modify them with the given string from SCSII as well, so they too need a saving throw on their dispel.
And I just realized in NI, that stupid sword doesn't even have the limitation to Paladin anymore...erm LOL? [am just in CHA 3/4, cause of some BGEE experiments ^^]

I haven't triggered the Acid Kensai encounter yet - dunno what else need to be done - so I only checked the values in the editor. Am not really looking forward to it, cause I guess it might made me to dual-wield Mazzy And the upgraded CeleFury is already pretty much hardcore. (first time "tactics" for me - so I was not aware of such an item)
I already try to avoid certain items from the ItemUpgrade thingie, whom I consider too OP (it's really hard!).
But to be honest, I read a lot of discussion about tactics/SCSII, that ppl tend to cheat their character to very strange classes or stats just to beat it that way or use the even more odd Imp. Anvil mod - which I consider a cheat itself.
So having items (in I-upgrade), that give you an advantage for getting rid of something else (ie either Carsomyr+6 or sould reaver+6 or the modified elven chain for 1 red dragon scale - in case you don't do the teeth pass version of tactics) is IMO not really OP (borderline-OP *whistle*)
Or they just use leftover vanilla-cheese tactics, which aren't necessary working in at least SCSII anymore....

That said (+too much) and that item being not restricted to Paladins anymore (honestly:LOL) stay true fighter! Unupgraded CeleFury dual-wielded with whatever weapon (or shield) can be also quite OP, given that the stun also works under some circumstances, where you don't need to do any damage ^^
ItemUpgrade gives you already enough advantages...

@DinsdalePiranha

I c...went with her to Isengard to beat it with rock and stone more than once, but that's long time ago and I try to avoid her as much as I can. I think I played the game 2 or 3 times (at least once only SoA) with either a dual-thief or trueclass thief..so NPC thiefs didn't matter to me or am using in my newer runs a thief NPC mod. And I prefer to have 2 mages..so even in my very first BG2 games one was pushed with all the nifty thieving items (in that case usually Imoen) and one, who was focussed to be a mage.
Oh, Ring of Lock Picks can be acquired in any walk-through as well..though she would have to wield 2 rings if he intend to be the using her as master-thief. Needless to say, ItemUpgrade took the liberty to combine Gloves of Pick Pocketing+Bracers of Defense AC 4+Ring of Danger Sense+Ring of Lock Picks+2 Rings of Protection +1 into 1 item :>
That's why it is a bit cheesy....

zwadek

@valky IIRC to trigger Acid Kensai you have to have in your possession either CF or Malakar +2. For me he allways met me in Promenade. Maybue you arleady upgraded CF and the script doesn't kicking in?
I allways thought that you upgrade Soul Reaver WITH Carsomyr, not vice versa, so this is the reason why it isn't restricted to Paladin class anymore, and if i recall it is usable by evil characters only.

valky

I let myself too easily distract with other things, that's why am not that far in my current BG2 game. And only checked several of those items in nearinfinity. The problem I had, I delayed the mazzy encounter as much as possible, cause my imported fighter needed to catch up all the clerics level compared to Jaheira.
Tried to get the real 5 pips with lvl 9, without abusing that dual-classing lets you advance nonetheless...
So it was just an inventory item for me and not really wielded
Guess I'll encounter him sooner than expected....

And installed for the first time the all-you-can-eat-strongholds, so I wanna experience all the quests just for the kicks.