For you, efficiency looks like it is linked with the amount of time in fight because you are talking about damage output per round and the limit of 1 spell per round.
For me, efficiency is not about time, it is more about the amount of risks involved and the amount of damage you will take in a fight.
Not sure where you get the idea from that it's not about time - "efficiency" LITERALLY means "ability to accomplish a task with minimum expenditure of time or effort".
What you're talking about could be called "safety". It's fine if you want to go for that, but I'm not sure that this is an appropriate metric for powergaming. It's great for challenges like No-Reload or things like that, but for objective measurement of "power", efficiency seems much more suited.
And what will do smarter enemies every fights, every rounds ? They will cast crowd control spells at you, that's totally right.
And how long do these spells last ? [...]
You're grossly oversimplifying things. Not every single battle involves CC, not every CC goes off, not every CC actually hits. The ACTUAL time people spend CCed is much, much lower than you make it out to be. You're missing the main point of the entire argument: that in solo play, you cannot afford to take chances on CC because a landed CC *will* kill you; in party play, it will not. That does NOT mean that half the party will spend hours under CC. If that ever happens to you, you are playing poorly.
In fact, having a party actually reduces the effective number of CC spells you are going to face, because there are more hits available to interrupt enemy casters, because you can use party members to bait CC, etc.
And what will you do if the "wrong" character get CCed ? What will happen to your party if your mages are stuck and can't Breach the PfMW of your foe ? If your cleric is CCed and your party is getting eaten by Level Drain ?
If these scenarios ever happen, you are playing poorly. All encounters and AI responses are scripted and utterly predictable. If you just right-click your entire party into the middle of the enemy pile and hope for the best, you deserve to die.
To me, it seems you are taking too many risks. It looks like you are playing the Russian Roulette.
I'm taking CALCULATED risks. Will things go awry every now and then? Probably. But that doesn't matter. What matters is the bottom line, the end result. And in the end, taking risks is rewarded by more efficient performance - and I am including all the bad things that happen in that efficiency summation.
These kinds of strategy won't work for long in a no-reload run, and that's how I define efficiency in Baldur's Gate.
That is the opposite of "efficiency". I do agree that risk-taking is a bad idea for no-reload runs; but those are a special case. No-reload, much like other challenges such as solo, have different parameters to consider. Taking no-reload as the default position however seems to me grossly misrepresentative of the average playthrough.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge."
Right back at ya. You are making assumption after assumption, and stumble from fallacy into fallacy. You should really examine your own points carefully, like looking up what "efficiency" actually MEANS, before throwing condescending quotes around.
no need to take it personally guys, we are just talking about an old game and we all like it, we have different opinions from different experiences and i actually enjoy reading all of your comments, All of you have some very valid points in my opinion ! (even though i am obviously the one holding the truth !!!)
"for objective measurement of "power", efficiency seems much more suited."
If you have a machine gun, and I have a knife but I'm also invincible. Which one of us is the most powerful ?
And it's only your opinion. I don't think a powergaming discussion has anything to do with time, but with power. Are you speedrunning the game ?
In my opinion, a powerful party defeat his opponent everytime, even if they are slower. Efficiency also has to deal with the cost associated to accomplish a task. Risk is a cost, a heavy one. If you don't succeed, you don't accomplish the task, even if you are faster, you aren't efficient. You can reload as you wish, that's another kind of playstyle and another philosophy of the game, to me, reloading and taking risks are the most heavy costs possible, which make them unefficient.
If you wish to prevent any risks while playing with a party, you will need more prebuffing, thus time, and more potions/scrolls thus effort than if you play with only one character, the cost will be higher, which make full party unefficient in my opinion.
Concerning the CC discussion I am, in all honestly, not thinking I am simplifying things. But I may be wrong, what is your setup ? In my SCS game, I am honestly seeing CCs flying all over the place in every fights involving spellcasters. Plus, the AI is intelligent, they will focus on the character that aren't CC and they won't use spells on target which are immune.
Which means that everytime you protect one of your character from X spell, the AI will simply throw this X spell into another character who isn't immune which means that aslong everyone in your party isn't protected from every effects in the game, there is still a chance of failling to CC.
And if that chance exists, there is a probability of losing the game, which, in my opinion, make this playstyle unefficient.
But once again this is only my opinion, because for me Cost (which includes Risk) > Time when it comes to efficiency.
You are right when you say that a CC landed on a solo character = dead, but that's my point, it is not going to happens in solo play because it is easy to makes your only character invincible to everything he/she can encounter while I think it is definitively harder to reach the same point of immunity while playing a party.
"Taking no-reload as the default position however seems to me grossly misrepresentative of the average playthrough." That's very true, but do you think the average playthrough is about going as fast as possible ? I clearly don't think that's any better.
Plus, we are here talking about powergaming, not the average playthrough. We are talking about challenges and hard setups, and what's more of a challenge than a no-reload challenge ?
A level 40 Kensai will definitively kills monsters faster than a Sorcerer level 40, yet he isn't more powerful.
To conclude, I don't see the need for being agressive or your words written in capital letters, this is only a simple discussion about a simple game. And the quote's purpose was in no way to be condescending, it was my way to ask you to ask yourself some questions. "How do I know ?" "Do I really know ?" "How can I be sure he is talking about this and not about that ?"
no need to take it personally guys, we are just talking about an old game and we all like it, we have different opinions from different experiences and i actually enjoy reading all of your comments, All of you have some very valid points in my opinion ! (even though i am obviously the one holding the truth !!!)
You are Wisdom personified Now let's go back to playing
no need to take it personally guys, we are just talking about an old game and we all like it, we have different opinions from different experiences and i actually enjoy reading all of your comments, All of you have some very valid points in my opinion ! (even though i am obviously the one holding the truth !!!)
You are Wisdom personified Now let's go back to playing
i'll give you a tip ! CluaConsole:CreateItem("book08",20000)
- if you don't have the speed boots… Well you get kicked because... you are slow… you know - if you are one of those lazy bards you get kicked ! go sing elsewhere you have nothing to do on a battlefield you gimp ! - You talk too much, you get kicked and then killed ! or the other way around ! - You can't be hasted, you get kicked at double speed. - You can't put more than one * in a proficiency, what the hell are you doing here bro ? Are you on holidays or something ?
When the warriors start getting GWW, do Belm/Kundane/Scarlet Ninja-To lose some appeal?
At this point, do any two handed weapons (Ravager +6 comes to mind, I'm sure there are others) become better options?
Or maybe you might want to drop the offhand weapon for a shield with some good resistances?
Or are you still better off with one of the "speed" weapons in your off-hand since the GWW's are limited?
EDIT: I just realized most of the "power" warriors are Kensai > Mage duals, so they won't get Fighter HLAs. And the Inquisitor will be using Carsomyr, so he's already two-handed.
I guess this is why I prefer a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist over a Human Kensai > Mage.
While I almost always play with all NPC's in-game, i do think it's fun to create my own party. Here's my attempt at "perfection":
Male 1/2 Elf Cleric/Ranger: FoA +5/DoE
Female Human Kensai 13>Mage: Crom Faeyr +5/Belm
Male Human Kensai 13>Mage: Axe of Unyeilding +5 /Kundane
Female Elf F/M/T: Angurvadal +5 /Scarlet Ninja-To
I've never had any issue with multiclassed characters being "underpowered" in this game. If anything, I believe them to be a bit overpowered.
Character # 1 can cast all divine spells. I know with Ironskins, I may not need the Defender of Easthaven. I have considered replacing this character with a Berserker 9 > Cleric, for both the immunities and higher undead chunking when it really counts.
Character # 2 & 3 have been explained already. I am unsure if I would change one or both to changing classes at 9 rather than 13.
Character 4 was originally going to be a Fighter/Thief, but I thought I'd add the Mage class into the mix. Now the party will have some arcane magic in BG1, and will never lose thief skills. Since the argument against multiclassed fighters has always been that they cap out so quick, a triple classed character puts off this point of diminishing returns. I also despise erasing a spells in a spellbook just to rewrite them, and now there's a 3rd character to scribe scrolls after the dual-classing begins. Disarming traps and opening locks doesn't add much XP, but it's enough to help a bit over the whole game. Plus, if I go BG1 without my own Cleric (alternate character 1), disarming traps means less damage for me, so less healing needed.
I honestly think all dual characters are bad. Having no HLA from the previous class and delaying the HLA of the second one is really bad. A Gnome Fighter/Illusionist is far better than a Kensai->Mage at all stages of the games except between 2,750,000 and 3,000,000 XP total, at this moment the dual just regained his Fighter abilities, and is effectively a F/M multiclass with a kit and GM. But at 3,000,000 xp it's already over, the F/I starts gaining HLA and the dual is worse once again.
@Klorox Critical strike + Improved Haste is better than GWW for tws. GWW is the HLA of choice for two handed weapons or the "enhanced" FOA +5.
I am like you in that I only play with NPCs.
One thing I would like to ask the Illuminati, why is it taken for granted that you would dual a Kensai? I am not suggesting that one should play with 6 Kensais, but what if you were to replace one K>M with a straight Kensai?
Is there room in a powergaming party for one pure, dwarf Kensai? I mean 6 APR ranged with Dwarven Thrower is pretty nice. When it comes to melee, the Kensai deals out ridiculous damage with IH and CS/Kai. You give up stoneskin, PfMW, etc. but you do have a whirling dervish of destruction. I would likely have to make room for a 2nd row Kensai in a power party. With 10 APR, critical strike, and the attack bonuses a 30+ Kensai possesses, not much lasts longer than one round. What do you think??
I'm back to playing the game, and as always I'm still out to find new and exciting ways to improve performance. I've also added a new mod to my list (Item Revisions) while getting rid of a few old (and largely incompatible) ones like Tactics.
For reference, my mod setup is now thus:
SCS (all max difficulty options EXCEPT: HLAs only to select mages; no Liches in random dungeon spawns) Item Revisions (v4 beta, not v3 release!) BG Tweaks (various other mods that aren't relevant, romance etc.)
Very slim now! I can't wait to add Spell Revisions as well, which unfortunately has no EE support yet (but is promised to get a release this month!), as well as Kit Revisions, which is still in the developmental stage. Most of the old mods are gone now, either by choice (ItemUpgrade, Spell50...) or because they no longer work properly with the most recent EE version (Tactics).
Some things that were lost include the quite satisfying random ambushes from Tactics and the Lunar Eclipse fight from Solaufein. Oh well!
General gameplay rules: single player with game/mod NPCs (no NPC mod installed this time though), but edited to fit my custom party setup. Roll total of 85 for the PC's stats, and 80 for everyone else, +all BG1 tomes (+1 all/+2 WIS distributed at will); some liberty with Paladins though due to silly high minimums in dump-stats (but not too much). Min/max gameplay of course, with RP concerns secondary. Reloads at will (this is not intended to be a no-reload challenge), Insane difficulty. No spell erase/re-scribe XP cheese, nor infinite spawn exploits. All NPCs recruited asap and before scroll scribing takes place, no kick-out-of-party->scribe XP cheese either. And of course full romance unlock, all genders, races, and ages! Mmrawr.
For my setup I was building on the old and trusted, but I decided to add the 6th member for now just to see how things go (and to see more dialogue interactions with the EE NPCs...). This is my party setup:
The weapon choices (primary choices anyway) were of course dictated by the new IR weapons (see: http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?showtopic=15700 - some inaccurate as I'm using v4 beta and not the v3 release that is listed there). I went through the files and sorted things by effective damage output; some old favorites remain at the top (FotA, Foebane, Angurvadal, Carsomyr to name the most relevant ones) but I was mostly very happy to see a much larger variety of viable early/mid game options - which explains why I for the first time am actually using Bastard Swords. Overall damage is lower than before though, as are enchantment levels (about 1 level lower on average due to IR changes). [Note: there is an item in the files called The Brass Blade which is VERY good; apparently it's part of one of the EE NPCs (judging by the item code) but I haven't been able to find anything on whether it's just a file, or actually exists in the game. Anyone know?]
As for classes, I've decided to give divine casters another shot. I went with the B->C oldie-goodie, but I'm not excluding the possibility of trying something like a R->C or R/C eventually. I'm a bit worried about damage output vs. spell utility, perhaps I'll wait with it until Spell Revisions gets an EE-compatible release version. As is druid spells just don't seem to cut it for me, especially with SCS options enabled that make Fire Shield protect against insects (all Liches use FS).
I've also decided to run with two ranged damage dealers. Partly this is because they are SO good in early/mid game (like, stupidly good) and party it's because IR gives some nice powerful options now, such as the +1 APR on Taralash et. al. The Fighter 9 -> Mage is an experiment in particular, to see how well it fares. Would be awesome to dual an Archer, but alas it's not possible (and the old Tactics Generic Archer seems broken to me, both technically and power-level wise). Since Kensai can't use ranged at all and Berserkers can't get GM in them, that left either WS or True Class; I went with the latter for now, but maybe that was an error.
Inquisitor as always remains a given, even with SCS-nerfed dispel. Doubly so with the new setup, I feel, because Carsomyr is pretty much the highest damage weapon in the game now (vs. evil opponents anyway, which is 90+% of the game). I went down to x1 dispel with SCS to curb my power a bit, and so far I feel it's alright. Some mage fights become annoying, and Liches in particular are very tricky, but it's nothing I can't handle. I get the feeling that my old reliance on Inq dispels (and my defense of them) was largely due to a lack of skill; now that I've gradually reduced the power of the dispel over time, I've gotten more used to alternative strategies that don't rely on it too much.
Kensai->Mage is what it always was, a walking talking powerhouse in every respect. I maintain that it's the best class/class-combination in the game, by a fair margin. Offensively and defensively, nothing I've seen so far comes close. Only took 1 this time around, but it's already becoming clear that he's on his way to become the dominating force in the party (Archers dominate early/mid game still, though).
Kensai->Thief is very similar, high damage output and the thieving skills I don't like to do without. I suppose one could, if one can stand the annoyance of traps/locked things, but I've also started utilizing backstab more (another of my old weaknesses/laziness). IR adds a nice +1 BS multiplier sword that works wonders in one-shotting the unwary, and though it requires a bit more micro (and thus less overall damage/time efficiency) there's situations in which it's quite good.
I'm about halfway through SoA at this point, and doing quite well. It's difficult to say how much of an impact the 6-member party has vs. my old preferred 5-member setup, though. Duals are still fairly easy to get to regain old levels (with appropriate metagaming), and there's always been the issue of very high levels not scaling too well anyway. Perhaps I might need to revisit the issue in more detail, or perhaps I've simple gotten too used to the more difficult early/mid game fights and don't feel the XP loss anymore. Is the loss of Tactics TorGal to blame? That was always a big part of my mid-game... SCS one seems a little weaker, or is it my imagination? No sudden mid-city ambushes by random NPC parties also make things a lot less dangerous, those guys were the real deal. Want that back!
I suppose the true test will come on the actually difficult fights, like Kangaxx, Irenicus in Hell, perhaps Demogorgon, and of course Amelyssan. How well will two ranged DDs fare there? I'm stockpiling Bolts of Lightning already, and that interesting new IR sling bullet that deals crushing damage (many enemies are resistant/immune to piercing/missile damage type). Will my cleric actually be useful, or will I just lament the fact that she's not a 3rd mage to throw around Breaches and Improved Haste? I do love Draw upon Holy Might...
I'll try to get some game time in while IRL things are slow, hopefully I'll complete the playthrough before the new IR/SR mods come out and I have to start all over Will keep things updated, for those who're interested. If you have questions, specific or general, as well as comments and opinions - give, give, give!
Do your mods allow backstabbing with a bastard sword?
No change to backstabbing behavior iirc. I switch weapons for backstabbing, either to a valid 1h (secondary proffs are Katana on my K->T) plus the +BS multiplier sword or (eventually) to Staff of the Ram.
I want to try a party with 2 ranged dealers myself (ws -> thief and archer).
Tell me how you are doing with it, mainly in the end of the game. I feart this kind of toons lose way too much utility after the middle of soa, even if I love ranged char in the 1st place.
Middle of SoA is still firmly in my Archer's hand. It's really the end of SoA and ToB where problems arise, mainly from enemies highly resistant to missile and/or piercing damage.
But in early/mid SoA, the ranged guys just DESTROY things. Doesn't help of course that the +APR bow/xbow are so stupidly easy to get Also the ammo is proportionately a lot more damage in the beginning, until the melee guys get their proper weapons.
WS as a ranged guy is something I am considering. I was never really that much in love with WS - if you hit mages they tend to die anyway, and lots of enemies have scripted spells with SCS that don't care about the spell failure. But given that it's basically the only fighter kit that is any good at ranged... I think I'll try it out in my next playthrough.
I was thinking about a pure kensai ranged toon as well (dwarf, since you get the throwing hammer so early in bg2) to change things a bit, but it looks like a worst archer in the end, even if the dmg output in tob would be quite the same but, since the point of ranged is to make things ez since the middle of soa, I don't see it too much effective.
BTW, I'm starting a new run and I want to try smthing different. A blade, just to play smthing I'm not used too (yet to choice the difficult).
-Blade basically gives me the UAI toon to run with, so I'm not sure if I want to add a thief in the mix -Blade needs 2 apr weapons, so If I add a 3rd melee toon I will have to make some sacrifices for the inquisitor, like he will be prob stuck with carsmoryr forever
Some ideas that has come to my mind:
Figher/illusionist with "whatever"+belm: since he will be the only toon able to srly switch mh weapons something different from a kensai can be funny + WS (not sure when to dual this) /thief: to try a different ranged toon and still have detection trap avaible, even if not a must have.
any idea? I would like to maximize a blade in a party, since he's not rly viable unless you "build" around him.
-Blade needs 2 apr weapons, so If I add a 3rd melee toon I will have to make some sacrifices for the inquisitor, like he will be prob stuck with carsmoryr forever
Being "stuck" with Carsomyr? Yeah, what a sad fate :P Carsomyr is a ridiculous weapon (particularly in the unmodded no-save-for-the-dispel version) and Inquisitors can just stack up on GWW to get their APR. Really no need to go with an APR weapon when you can use Carsomyr
Figher/illusionist with "whatever"+belm: since he will be the only toon able to srly switch mh weapons something different from a kensai can be funny
I'm pretty convinced that the bonus of having an Illusionist is not worth the loss in Kensai damage/THAC0 bonus and Kai. It's not much, but neither is the gain from being a specialist mage - doubly so because as an Illusionist, you do give up non-trivial spells like Skull Trap, Horrid Wilting, etc.
WS (not sure when to dual this) /thief: to try a different ranged toon and still have detection trap avaible, even if not a must have.
This is something I've tried before, and never really found overly useful. The main reason of course is that WS is inherently flawed: once you're actually HITTING a mage, it's basically dead or nearly dead. The whole trouble with mages in BG2 is that you're NOT hitting them because of their many many defenses. This issue is of course further exacerbated by scripted spells added via certain mods, that often cannot be interrupted by the WS spell failure.
any idea? I would like to maximize a blade in a party, since he's not rly viable unless you "build" around him.
Sorry, I am one of those people who never play bards because they are basically useless (barring cloned Song cheese perhaps). You can definitely "build around them", as you put it, I have to ask WHY you would do that? Seems like a lot of effort for very little gain, if even any at all. They have fun and RP value of course, but that's not part of the powergaming discussion is it
So, I played my 6-party main game until the end, now! Or, well... AN end. I can't finish the game Apparently my BP Ascension is the culprit, causing a game crash at a certain point. I'm looking into the issue but until it's resolved, I can't do the Ascension ending - and I'm not really interested in the regular ToB ending because it's a cakewalk. Anyway, I could play without a hitch up until that point, and that's probably enough to draw conclusions.
First of all, I am once again reinforced in my belief that 6-person parties are NOT the way to go. While it's definitely true that since enemy HP don't scale, additional characters add more power, there are some issues with it. XP is one of them, naturally. It actually doesn't matter TOO much in endgame - after all, whether you're lvl30 or 35 isn't that big of a gap, due to scaling tapering off past a certain point. However, during early/mid game it's a HUGE issue. Being 2+ levels behind a smaller party makes itself felt in a big way, not to mention all your duals regain more slowly etc. It is my belief that this trade-off is too steep, and that the gain in power at endgame is not enough of a reason for the headache. There other more minor issues, too. Crowding, for example; not a power issue per se but a major annoyance (for me anyway), having everyone get stuck and stand in each other's way all the time.
The other thing I was anxious to test was ranged damage. For the first time I was running with two ranged DDs this time around, an Archer and a Fighter->Mage. The latter was also intended as a test for slings. Having two ranged proved quite powerful in the early game, as expected - nothing like mowing down hordes with ridiculously low THAC0s and terrific damage. That tapered off, though, which was also entirely expected. It wasn't as bad as I feared, though. Even in ToB there aren't TOO many enemies with ranged resistance/immunity, though there are some (Abazigal I think also has a whopping bonus -10 missile AC to boot). The absence of more powerful arrow on the other hand made itself more felt, and the damage advantage the ranged had quickly turned around when the melee got to their sicko endgame weapons. On that note, though, I have to say that the IR-modified longbow from Watcher's Keep is SICK (Taralash+5, has +2 movement rate, +1 APR, 20% chance to halve target's movement, +5THAC0/+6 damage) :P The main issue of course is the lack of more damaging ammunition, meaning you rely more and more on the Archer's kit damage bonus to increase your output - which, of course, my F->M was lacking entirely. Which brings me to the second test: I could not make slings work. Their damage is great, as is them scaling with STR - but their low APR just didn't do it for me. I don't know if it's just some change with IR or some other mod, or whether I simply didn't put it on the right class (F->C better for DuHM? F/C for DuHM + GWW?) but they just did so much less than a bow/xbow. The F->M ranged didn't impress me much in general. I think that if I'm going with dual ranged again at some point, I may go with double Archer. IF...
The rest of the classes performed pretty much as expected. Inquisitor is cheesy as ever, and I'll probably stop using it for a while. Making every mage fight trivial as soon as the dispel hits is not fun (and that's with SCS nerf to dispel power), as is True Sight making all thieves into punching bags by taking their stealth away (lots of chain-invis fights with SCS). Add to that the power of Carsomyr... Well, yeah, Inquisitors are pretty good The Kensais of course are the same they've ever been, no big surprises there. K->M is simply a mainstay at this point, and basically the core of most of my parties. They have everything you need in one lean, mean package, and I don't see an alternative that could come close in power. What was intended to be a challenge to the Kensais was the Berserker->Cleric (another old-time favorite). I really, really want to make Cleric work somehow - and yet I keep failing. I just can't seem to find the appeal of divine spells, aside from basically two or three of them (DuHM, Righteous Magic mostly). The rest seem just such useless utility that is not worth the investment in any way. Some of the spells look nice on paper, but there's just no real practical use for them that is in any way as or more efficient than, say, Mage alternatives. Maybe I just need to wait with this until Spell Revisions v4 is finally released. Don't get me wrong, though: B->C is definitely powerful. I just don't feel it's more powerful than alternatives, and it doesn't seem to have anything going for it that you can't (or won't) do without. Similar problem with the Kensai->Thief. For a long time I've been running without thieves, simply brute-forcing traps and locks as needed. But I have to admit, it is quite convenient not having to do that... Also, I've tried to make myself use backstab more and better, and I think I'm getting the hang of it. There are several points in the game where you can just WRECK things with well-placed backstabs, though to be fair there also are many enemies you can't BS at all (pun!). I think I'll try a thief out some more, but I'm still not convinced it has a spot in a "perfect" setup. We'll see.
Well, that's it for that test! I'm waiting primarily for the new releases of IR and SR now (which are overdue! Silly mod creators and their "personal lives", pff!), as well as a working Ascension (either a fix for my issue with BP or, ideally, the proper one). Until then, I'll focus a bit more on the party size issue. My next playthrough is probably going to be 4-man, then I'll try some 3/5 to try and figure out the best balance between XP and power gain.
BONUS! (Spoilered for size and readability)
Since someone mentioned it, I decided to throw in a quick "unfair" party, i.e. one that does blatantly disobey standard rules. In this case, I decided to allow dualing INTO kits (from true class only), and this is what I ran with:
Fighter 9 -> Swashbuckler Fighter 9 -> Wild Mage Cleric 2 -> Archer [one of my mods disables cleric weapon restrictions for dual/multi class]
I took them almost through all of SoA, just to get an idea of how this idea was working out, mainly for entertainment value.
One thing I noticed is that somehow, coding gets screwed up when you dual into kits. You do get MOST of the kit effects, in particular the ones added via affect flags; but some are missing, presumably because they are hardcoded. For example, the Archer does get the dmg/thac0 bonuses based on level correctly, and also the Called Shots - but you cannot exceed 2 pips in bows/xbows, even though you should be able to (had to manually fix each time via EEK). Same with the Swashy - you get the bonus AC and damage, but your backstab is NOT disabled (I simply chose never to use it, no big deal). At least the Wild Mage seems to be working properly, getting all the special spells, wild surges etc.
As for the power level, let me just say that the F->Swash is ABSURD. The damage/thac0 bonuses just keep stacking and stacking, and with the quick thief level progression you very quickly reach a point where you become a killing machine. At max APR you dish out shattering amounts of damage, and of course you hit EVERYTHING. It got especially silly once I got UAI and was using Righteous Magic via the IR Paladin Bracers... not to mention I also had Carsomyr lying around for giggles whenever I needed it. The other two weren't that silly. The C->Archer was funny because you can "cheat" in some extra proficiency points at very little cost (1500xp), but having all divine spells (and lots of them, thanks to the WIS bonus) isn't actually that big of a deal when you're capped at lvl 3. Still strictly better than a plain Archer, though, because you really do get it all for free. The F->Wild Mage was AMAZING fun, and I'm profoundly disappointed that you can't do that in a legit way :P It is also powerful, though - IF you are lucky. A spell I found myself using a lot was Incendiary Cloud, which is quite the thing to have access to at low levels. I popped two of them into the TorGal room and basically everything died, it was quite the sight. Early Improved Haste is also useful, as is lots of dispels of any type you need at the time. You do get a lot of misses also, though, mostly in the form of it simply not working. So far I haven't had a fatal wild surge (either directly or indirectly), but I know it's possible. Of course, as good as "abusing" Nahal's for high-level spells at low levels is, it remains highly unreliable. A fun thing, definitely (VERY fun!) but perhaps not as objectively "powerful" as one might like.
Anyway, this just as a bonus thing, something a bit less serious! :P
Why running a Bard? Too try something different, Even if not top per se.
As u did a run with a supporter ranged Mage, smtimes u want To esperiment a bit.
For example, I played a lot in a Powergaming nwn2 server where basically 90% of the popolation runned the f/m combo couz, well, not dispellable mirror immage is op (ninja Class banned btw).
Then I found a beasty ranger/Bard build with 26 bab using sling, not dispellable cleric spells and Song of requiem to tank up. Was op as Mage? Nope, but my toon min/max and build was unique in the whole server and powerfull to the Point that Bards went from unplayable to nerfed (requiem while invi got the hammer).
Im a specialist of bards in 3rd edition and I wanted to see if I can make them work in bg2 as well.
I dont play unmodded but I will not nerf the song on simulacro cheese couz i dont want to Micro like crazy for the whole run, Even if I will NOT use more then 1x Song up.
After a lot of brainstorming, I wanted a set up that can switch between ranged and melee couz the "1 Less" +1apr off hand while bard is in melee is a serious problem and I didnt feel that confident to go for a pure support toon, given that I already dislike 5/6 man parties.
Basically, since Im a decent thief user I will try to use the kensai with 2h any time I will be able to backstab and go melee with the whole party, otherwise I will leave 1 toon with utilities arrows and go 2wfighting with the thief as well.
From my gameplaying experience, beating Black Pits2 on Hard and almost completing SCS Ascension (can't beat last 1\3 part of last battle to many variables to have some fun for me), decided that my personal best are:
inquisitor (in BP2 most of time he only dispels enemies and then running rounds trying to survive xD Sometimes he was lucky to even land a GWW from a crossbow to mage. He is necessary in hard game)
kensage (no comments, just look at my nickname, lol). another dps powerhouse like fighter\illusionist
berserker>druid (good dps and defense from stoneskins, becomes even better with spell revisions installed) cleric\ranger. Surprisingly most of his time he is spellcaster than killing machine.
BTW, Blade is definitely weakier than f\m, even baggy spins can't help him much.
Comments
But you can still throw your familiar at irenicus' face with smite ;D
I'm sad
What you're talking about could be called "safety". It's fine if you want to go for that, but I'm not sure that this is an appropriate metric for powergaming. It's great for challenges like No-Reload or things like that, but for objective measurement of "power", efficiency seems much more suited. You're grossly oversimplifying things. Not every single battle involves CC, not every CC goes off, not every CC actually hits. The ACTUAL time people spend CCed is much, much lower than you make it out to be. You're missing the main point of the entire argument: that in solo play, you cannot afford to take chances on CC because a landed CC *will* kill you; in party play, it will not. That does NOT mean that half the party will spend hours under CC. If that ever happens to you, you are playing poorly.
In fact, having a party actually reduces the effective number of CC spells you are going to face, because there are more hits available to interrupt enemy casters, because you can use party members to bait CC, etc. If these scenarios ever happen, you are playing poorly. All encounters and AI responses are scripted and utterly predictable. If you just right-click your entire party into the middle of the enemy pile and hope for the best, you deserve to die. I'm taking CALCULATED risks. Will things go awry every now and then? Probably. But that doesn't matter. What matters is the bottom line, the end result. And in the end, taking risks is rewarded by more efficient performance - and I am including all the bad things that happen in that efficiency summation. That is the opposite of "efficiency". I do agree that risk-taking is a bad idea for no-reload runs; but those are a special case. No-reload, much like other challenges such as solo, have different parameters to consider. Taking no-reload as the default position however seems to me grossly misrepresentative of the average playthrough.
Right back at ya. You are making assumption after assumption, and stumble from fallacy into fallacy. You should really examine your own points carefully, like looking up what "efficiency" actually MEANS, before throwing condescending quotes around.
If you have a machine gun, and I have a knife but I'm also invincible. Which one of us is the most powerful ?
And it's only your opinion. I don't think a powergaming discussion has anything to do with time, but with power. Are you speedrunning the game ?
In my opinion, a powerful party defeat his opponent everytime, even if they are slower.
Efficiency also has to deal with the cost associated to accomplish a task. Risk is a cost, a heavy one.
If you don't succeed, you don't accomplish the task, even if you are faster, you aren't efficient.
You can reload as you wish, that's another kind of playstyle and another philosophy of the game, to me, reloading and taking risks are the most heavy costs possible, which make them unefficient.
If you wish to prevent any risks while playing with a party, you will need more prebuffing, thus time, and more potions/scrolls thus effort than if you play with only one character, the cost will be higher, which make full party unefficient in my opinion.
Concerning the CC discussion I am, in all honestly, not thinking I am simplifying things. But I may be wrong, what is your setup ? In my SCS game, I am honestly seeing CCs flying all over the place in every fights involving spellcasters. Plus, the AI is intelligent, they will focus on the character that aren't CC and they won't use spells on target which are immune.
Which means that everytime you protect one of your character from X spell, the AI will simply throw this X spell into another character who isn't immune which means that aslong everyone in your party isn't protected from every effects in the game, there is still a chance of failling to CC.
And if that chance exists, there is a probability of losing the game, which, in my opinion, make this playstyle unefficient.
But once again this is only my opinion, because for me Cost (which includes Risk) > Time when it comes to efficiency.
You are right when you say that a CC landed on a solo character = dead, but that's my point, it is not going to happens in solo play because it is easy to makes your only character invincible to everything he/she can encounter while I think it is definitively harder to reach the same point of immunity while playing a party.
"Taking no-reload as the default position however seems to me grossly misrepresentative of the average playthrough." That's very true, but do you think the average playthrough is about going as fast as possible ? I clearly don't think that's any better.
Plus, we are here talking about powergaming, not the average playthrough. We are talking about challenges and hard setups, and what's more of a challenge than a no-reload challenge ?
A level 40 Kensai will definitively kills monsters faster than a Sorcerer level 40, yet he isn't more powerful.
To conclude, I don't see the need for being agressive or your words written in capital letters, this is only a simple discussion about a simple game.
And the quote's purpose was in no way to be condescending, it was my way to ask you to ask yourself some questions. "How do I know ?" "Do I really know ?" "How can I be sure he is talking about this and not about that ?"
Thank you for your time and attention.
CluaConsole:CreateItem("book08",20000)
- if you don't have the speed boots… Well you get kicked because... you are slow… you know
- if you are one of those lazy bards you get kicked ! go sing elsewhere you have nothing to do on a battlefield you gimp !
- You talk too much, you get kicked and then killed ! or the other way around !
- You can't be hasted, you get kicked at double speed.
- You can't put more than one * in a proficiency, what the hell are you doing here bro ? Are you on holidays or something ?
At this point, do any two handed weapons (Ravager +6 comes to mind, I'm sure there are others) become better options?
Or maybe you might want to drop the offhand weapon for a shield with some good resistances?
Or are you still better off with one of the "speed" weapons in your off-hand since the GWW's are limited?
EDIT: I just realized most of the "power" warriors are Kensai > Mage duals, so they won't get Fighter HLAs. And the Inquisitor will be using Carsomyr, so he's already two-handed.
I guess this is why I prefer a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist over a Human Kensai > Mage.
While I almost always play with all NPC's in-game, i do think it's fun to create my own party. Here's my attempt at "perfection":
Male 1/2 Elf Cleric/Ranger: FoA +5/DoE
Female Human Kensai 13>Mage: Crom Faeyr +5/Belm
Male Human Kensai 13>Mage: Axe of Unyeilding +5 /Kundane
Female Elf F/M/T: Angurvadal +5 /Scarlet Ninja-To
I've never had any issue with multiclassed characters being "underpowered" in this game. If anything, I believe them to be a bit overpowered.
Character # 1 can cast all divine spells. I know with Ironskins, I may not need the Defender of Easthaven. I have considered replacing this character with a Berserker 9 > Cleric, for both the immunities and higher undead chunking when it really counts.
Character # 2 & 3 have been explained already. I am unsure if I would change one or both to changing classes at 9 rather than 13.
Character 4 was originally going to be a Fighter/Thief, but I thought I'd add the Mage class into the mix. Now the party will have some arcane magic in BG1, and will never lose thief skills. Since the argument against multiclassed fighters has always been that they cap out so quick, a triple classed character puts off this point of diminishing returns. I also despise erasing a spells in a spellbook just to rewrite them, and now there's a 3rd character to scribe scrolls after the dual-classing begins. Disarming traps and opening locks doesn't add much XP, but it's enough to help a bit over the whole game. Plus, if I go BG1 without my own Cleric (alternate character 1), disarming traps means less damage for me, so less healing needed.
What do you guys think?
I am like you in that I only play with NPCs.
One thing I would like to ask the Illuminati, why is it taken for granted that you would dual a Kensai? I am not suggesting that one should play with 6 Kensais, but what if you were to replace one K>M with a straight Kensai?
Is there room in a powergaming party for one pure, dwarf Kensai? I mean 6 APR ranged with Dwarven Thrower is pretty nice. When it comes to melee, the Kensai deals out ridiculous damage with IH and CS/Kai. You give up stoneskin, PfMW, etc. but you do have a whirling dervish of destruction. I would likely have to make room for a 2nd row Kensai in a power party. With 10 APR, critical strike, and the attack bonuses a 30+ Kensai possesses, not much lasts longer than one round. What do you think??
I'm back to playing the game, and as always I'm still out to find new and exciting ways to improve performance. I've also added a new mod to my list (Item Revisions) while getting rid of a few old (and largely incompatible) ones like Tactics.
For reference, my mod setup is now thus:
SCS (all max difficulty options EXCEPT: HLAs only to select mages; no Liches in random dungeon spawns)
Item Revisions (v4 beta, not v3 release!)
BG Tweaks
(various other mods that aren't relevant, romance etc.)
Very slim now! I can't wait to add Spell Revisions as well, which unfortunately has no EE support yet (but is promised to get a release this month!), as well as Kit Revisions, which is still in the developmental stage. Most of the old mods are gone now, either by choice (ItemUpgrade, Spell50...) or because they no longer work properly with the most recent EE version (Tactics).
Some things that were lost include the quite satisfying random ambushes from Tactics and the Lunar Eclipse fight from Solaufein. Oh well!
General gameplay rules: single player with game/mod NPCs (no NPC mod installed this time though), but edited to fit my custom party setup. Roll total of 85 for the PC's stats, and 80 for everyone else, +all BG1 tomes (+1 all/+2 WIS distributed at will); some liberty with Paladins though due to silly high minimums in dump-stats (but not too much). Min/max gameplay of course, with RP concerns secondary. Reloads at will (this is not intended to be a no-reload challenge), Insane difficulty. No spell erase/re-scribe XP cheese, nor infinite spawn exploits. All NPCs recruited asap and before scroll scribing takes place, no kick-out-of-party->scribe XP cheese either. And of course full romance unlock, all genders, races, and ages! Mmrawr.
For my setup I was building on the old and trusted, but I decided to add the 6th member for now just to see how things go (and to see more dialogue interactions with the EE NPCs...). This is my party setup:
PC: Berserker 9 -> Cleric - Flails
Neera: Fighter 9 -> Mage - Longbow, Sling as secondary (to test mainly)
Keldorn: Inquisitor - 2h Sword
Nalia: Kensai 9 -> Thief - Bastard Sword
Rasaad: Kensai 9 -> Mage - Long Sword
Aerie - Archer - Crossbow/Short Bow (switching frequently as needed/available)
The weapon choices (primary choices anyway) were of course dictated by the new IR weapons (see: http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?showtopic=15700 - some inaccurate as I'm using v4 beta and not the v3 release that is listed there). I went through the files and sorted things by effective damage output; some old favorites remain at the top (FotA, Foebane, Angurvadal, Carsomyr to name the most relevant ones) but I was mostly very happy to see a much larger variety of viable early/mid game options - which explains why I for the first time am actually using Bastard Swords. Overall damage is lower than before though, as are enchantment levels (about 1 level lower on average due to IR changes). [Note: there is an item in the files called The Brass Blade which is VERY good; apparently it's part of one of the EE NPCs (judging by the item code) but I haven't been able to find anything on whether it's just a file, or actually exists in the game. Anyone know?]
As for classes, I've decided to give divine casters another shot. I went with the B->C oldie-goodie, but I'm not excluding the possibility of trying something like a R->C or R/C eventually. I'm a bit worried about damage output vs. spell utility, perhaps I'll wait with it until Spell Revisions gets an EE-compatible release version. As is druid spells just don't seem to cut it for me, especially with SCS options enabled that make Fire Shield protect against insects (all Liches use FS).
I've also decided to run with two ranged damage dealers. Partly this is because they are SO good in early/mid game (like, stupidly good) and party it's because IR gives some nice powerful options now, such as the +1 APR on Taralash et. al. The Fighter 9 -> Mage is an experiment in particular, to see how well it fares. Would be awesome to dual an Archer, but alas it's not possible (and the old Tactics Generic Archer seems broken to me, both technically and power-level wise). Since Kensai can't use ranged at all and Berserkers can't get GM in them, that left either WS or True Class; I went with the latter for now, but maybe that was an error.
Inquisitor as always remains a given, even with SCS-nerfed dispel. Doubly so with the new setup, I feel, because Carsomyr is pretty much the highest damage weapon in the game now (vs. evil opponents anyway, which is 90+% of the game). I went down to x1 dispel with SCS to curb my power a bit, and so far I feel it's alright. Some mage fights become annoying, and Liches in particular are very tricky, but it's nothing I can't handle. I get the feeling that my old reliance on Inq dispels (and my defense of them) was largely due to a lack of skill; now that I've gradually reduced the power of the dispel over time, I've gotten more used to alternative strategies that don't rely on it too much.
Kensai->Mage is what it always was, a walking talking powerhouse in every respect. I maintain that it's the best class/class-combination in the game, by a fair margin. Offensively and defensively, nothing I've seen so far comes close. Only took 1 this time around, but it's already becoming clear that he's on his way to become the dominating force in the party (Archers dominate early/mid game still, though).
Kensai->Thief is very similar, high damage output and the thieving skills I don't like to do without. I suppose one could, if one can stand the annoyance of traps/locked things, but I've also started utilizing backstab more (another of my old weaknesses/laziness). IR adds a nice +1 BS multiplier sword that works wonders in one-shotting the unwary, and though it requires a bit more micro (and thus less overall damage/time efficiency) there's situations in which it's quite good.
I'm about halfway through SoA at this point, and doing quite well. It's difficult to say how much of an impact the 6-member party has vs. my old preferred 5-member setup, though. Duals are still fairly easy to get to regain old levels (with appropriate metagaming), and there's always been the issue of very high levels not scaling too well anyway. Perhaps I might need to revisit the issue in more detail, or perhaps I've simple gotten too used to the more difficult early/mid game fights and don't feel the XP loss anymore. Is the loss of Tactics TorGal to blame? That was always a big part of my mid-game... SCS one seems a little weaker, or is it my imagination? No sudden mid-city ambushes by random NPC parties also make things a lot less dangerous, those guys were the real deal. Want that back!
I suppose the true test will come on the actually difficult fights, like Kangaxx, Irenicus in Hell, perhaps Demogorgon, and of course Amelyssan. How well will two ranged DDs fare there? I'm stockpiling Bolts of Lightning already, and that interesting new IR sling bullet that deals crushing damage (many enemies are resistant/immune to piercing/missile damage type). Will my cleric actually be useful, or will I just lament the fact that she's not a 3rd mage to throw around Breaches and Improved Haste? I do love Draw upon Holy Might...
I'll try to get some game time in while IRL things are slow, hopefully I'll complete the playthrough before the new IR/SR mods come out and I have to start all over
Tell me how you are doing with it, mainly in the end of the game. I feart this kind of toons lose way too much utility after the middle of soa, even if I love ranged char in the 1st place.
But in early/mid SoA, the ranged guys just DESTROY things. Doesn't help of course that the +APR bow/xbow are so stupidly easy to get
WS as a ranged guy is something I am considering. I was never really that much in love with WS - if you hit mages they tend to die anyway, and lots of enemies have scripted spells with SCS that don't care about the spell failure. But given that it's basically the only fighter kit that is any good at ranged... I think I'll try it out in my next playthrough.
BTW, I'm starting a new run and I want to try smthing different. A blade, just to play smthing I'm not used too (yet to choice the difficult).
My main idea of the party is:
Blade -> scarlet+belm
bers9/cleric -> Foa+defender
Inquisitor-> Carsomyr+???
I see a lot of problems with this set up, mainly:
-Blade basically gives me the UAI toon to run with, so I'm not sure if I want to add a thief in the mix
-Blade needs 2 apr weapons, so If I add a 3rd melee toon I will have to make some sacrifices for the inquisitor, like he will be prob stuck with carsmoryr forever
Some ideas that has come to my mind:
Figher/illusionist with "whatever"+belm: since he will be the only toon able to srly switch mh weapons something different from a kensai can be funny
+
WS (not sure when to dual this) /thief: to try a different ranged toon and still have detection trap avaible, even if not a must have.
any idea? I would like to maximize a blade in a party, since he's not rly viable unless you "build" around him.
BTW, a Paladin is pretty well off being "stuck" with Carsomyr the entire game.
So, I played my 6-party main game until the end, now! Or, well... AN end. I can't finish the game
First of all, I am once again reinforced in my belief that 6-person parties are NOT the way to go. While it's definitely true that since enemy HP don't scale, additional characters add more power, there are some issues with it. XP is one of them, naturally. It actually doesn't matter TOO much in endgame - after all, whether you're lvl30 or 35 isn't that big of a gap, due to scaling tapering off past a certain point. However, during early/mid game it's a HUGE issue. Being 2+ levels behind a smaller party makes itself felt in a big way, not to mention all your duals regain more slowly etc. It is my belief that this trade-off is too steep, and that the gain in power at endgame is not enough of a reason for the headache. There other more minor issues, too. Crowding, for example; not a power issue per se but a major annoyance (for me anyway), having everyone get stuck and stand in each other's way all the time.
The other thing I was anxious to test was ranged damage. For the first time I was running with two ranged DDs this time around, an Archer and a Fighter->Mage. The latter was also intended as a test for slings. Having two ranged proved quite powerful in the early game, as expected - nothing like mowing down hordes with ridiculously low THAC0s and terrific damage. That tapered off, though, which was also entirely expected. It wasn't as bad as I feared, though. Even in ToB there aren't TOO many enemies with ranged resistance/immunity, though there are some (Abazigal I think also has a whopping bonus -10 missile AC to boot). The absence of more powerful arrow on the other hand made itself more felt, and the damage advantage the ranged had quickly turned around when the melee got to their sicko endgame weapons. On that note, though, I have to say that the IR-modified longbow from Watcher's Keep is SICK (Taralash+5, has +2 movement rate, +1 APR, 20% chance to halve target's movement, +5THAC0/+6 damage) :P The main issue of course is the lack of more damaging ammunition, meaning you rely more and more on the Archer's kit damage bonus to increase your output - which, of course, my F->M was lacking entirely.
Which brings me to the second test: I could not make slings work. Their damage is great, as is them scaling with STR - but their low APR just didn't do it for me. I don't know if it's just some change with IR or some other mod, or whether I simply didn't put it on the right class (F->C better for DuHM? F/C for DuHM + GWW?) but they just did so much less than a bow/xbow. The F->M ranged didn't impress me much in general. I think that if I'm going with dual ranged again at some point, I may go with double Archer. IF...
The rest of the classes performed pretty much as expected. Inquisitor is cheesy as ever, and I'll probably stop using it for a while. Making every mage fight trivial as soon as the dispel hits is not fun (and that's with SCS nerf to dispel power), as is True Sight making all thieves into punching bags by taking their stealth away (lots of chain-invis fights with SCS). Add to that the power of Carsomyr... Well, yeah, Inquisitors are pretty good
The Kensais of course are the same they've ever been, no big surprises there. K->M is simply a mainstay at this point, and basically the core of most of my parties. They have everything you need in one lean, mean package, and I don't see an alternative that could come close in power.
What was intended to be a challenge to the Kensais was the Berserker->Cleric (another old-time favorite). I really, really want to make Cleric work somehow - and yet I keep failing. I just can't seem to find the appeal of divine spells, aside from basically two or three of them (DuHM, Righteous Magic mostly). The rest seem just such useless utility that is not worth the investment in any way. Some of the spells look nice on paper, but there's just no real practical use for them that is in any way as or more efficient than, say, Mage alternatives. Maybe I just need to wait with this until Spell Revisions v4 is finally released. Don't get me wrong, though: B->C is definitely powerful. I just don't feel it's more powerful than alternatives, and it doesn't seem to have anything going for it that you can't (or won't) do without.
Similar problem with the Kensai->Thief. For a long time I've been running without thieves, simply brute-forcing traps and locks as needed. But I have to admit, it is quite convenient not having to do that... Also, I've tried to make myself use backstab more and better, and I think I'm getting the hang of it. There are several points in the game where you can just WRECK things with well-placed backstabs, though to be fair there also are many enemies you can't BS at all (pun!). I think I'll try a thief out some more, but I'm still not convinced it has a spot in a "perfect" setup. We'll see.
Well, that's it for that test! I'm waiting primarily for the new releases of IR and SR now (which are overdue! Silly mod creators and their "personal lives", pff!), as well as a working Ascension (either a fix for my issue with BP or, ideally, the proper one). Until then, I'll focus a bit more on the party size issue. My next playthrough is probably going to be 4-man, then I'll try some 3/5 to try and figure out the best balance between XP and power gain.
BONUS! (Spoilered for size and readability)
Fighter 9 -> Swashbuckler
Fighter 9 -> Wild Mage
Cleric 2 -> Archer [one of my mods disables cleric weapon restrictions for dual/multi class]
I took them almost through all of SoA, just to get an idea of how this idea was working out, mainly for entertainment value.
One thing I noticed is that somehow, coding gets screwed up when you dual into kits. You do get MOST of the kit effects, in particular the ones added via affect flags; but some are missing, presumably because they are hardcoded. For example, the Archer does get the dmg/thac0 bonuses based on level correctly, and also the Called Shots - but you cannot exceed 2 pips in bows/xbows, even though you should be able to (had to manually fix each time via EEK). Same with the Swashy - you get the bonus AC and damage, but your backstab is NOT disabled (I simply chose never to use it, no big deal). At least the Wild Mage seems to be working properly, getting all the special spells, wild surges etc.
As for the power level, let me just say that the F->Swash is ABSURD. The damage/thac0 bonuses just keep stacking and stacking, and with the quick thief level progression you very quickly reach a point where you become a killing machine. At max APR you dish out shattering amounts of damage, and of course you hit EVERYTHING. It got especially silly once I got UAI and was using Righteous Magic via the IR Paladin Bracers... not to mention I also had Carsomyr lying around for giggles whenever I needed it.
The other two weren't that silly. The C->Archer was funny because you can "cheat" in some extra proficiency points at very little cost (1500xp), but having all divine spells (and lots of them, thanks to the WIS bonus) isn't actually that big of a deal when you're capped at lvl 3. Still strictly better than a plain Archer, though, because you really do get it all for free.
The F->Wild Mage was AMAZING fun, and I'm profoundly disappointed that you can't do that in a legit way :P It is also powerful, though - IF you are lucky. A spell I found myself using a lot was Incendiary Cloud, which is quite the thing to have access to at low levels. I popped two of them into the TorGal room and basically everything died, it was quite the sight. Early Improved Haste is also useful, as is lots of dispels of any type you need at the time. You do get a lot of misses also, though, mostly in the form of it simply not working. So far I haven't had a fatal wild surge (either directly or indirectly), but I know it's possible. Of course, as good as "abusing" Nahal's for high-level spells at low levels is, it remains highly unreliable. A fun thing, definitely (VERY fun!) but perhaps not as objectively "powerful" as one might like.
Anyway, this just as a bonus thing, something a bit less serious! :P
Why running a Bard? Too try something different, Even if not top per se.
As u did a run with a supporter ranged Mage, smtimes u want To esperiment a bit.
For example, I played a lot in a Powergaming nwn2 server where basically 90% of the popolation runned the f/m combo couz, well, not dispellable mirror immage is op (ninja Class banned btw).
Then I found a beasty ranger/Bard build with 26 bab using sling, not dispellable cleric spells and Song of requiem to tank up. Was op as Mage? Nope, but my toon min/max and build was unique in the whole server and powerfull to the Point that Bards went from unplayable to nerfed (requiem while invi got the hammer).
Im a specialist of bards in 3rd edition and I wanted to see if I can make them work in bg2 as well.
I dont play unmodded but I will not nerf the song on simulacro cheese couz i dont want to Micro like crazy for the whole run, Even if I will NOT use more then 1x Song up.
So, my party will look like:
Blade
inquisitor (nerf modded ofc)
Bers/cleric
Fighter/illu
kensai/rogue
After a lot of brainstorming, I wanted a set up that can switch between ranged and melee couz the "1 Less" +1apr off hand while bard is in melee is a serious problem and I didnt feel that confident to go for a pure support toon, given that I already dislike 5/6 man parties.
Basically, since Im a decent thief user I will try to use the kensai with 2h any time I will be able to backstab and go melee with the whole party, otherwise I will leave 1 toon with utilities arrows and go 2wfighting with the thief as well.
Lets see how this works out.
inquisitor (in BP2 most of time he only dispels enemies and then running rounds trying to survive xD Sometimes he was lucky to even land a GWW from a crossbow to mage. He is necessary in hard game)
kensage (no comments, just look at my nickname, lol).
another dps powerhouse like fighter\illusionist
berserker>druid (good dps and defense from stoneskins, becomes even better with spell revisions installed)
cleric\ranger. Surprisingly most of his time he is spellcaster than killing machine.
BTW, Blade is definitely weakier than f\m, even baggy spins can't help him much.