Which class suits best?

Flashheart

I know this has likely been discussed countless times...but I'm always interested to hear theories as to which class suits the protagonist the best from Candlekeep.

I'm thinking about going through the game as a Cavalier, but can I really justify that from a roleplaying perspective?

I've heard good arguments for the True Bard class...I wonder if we could present good arguments for all classes and kits?

Cheers

FinneousPJ

Of course you can justify anything. Try a search.

zur312

wasn't abdel the save from TOTSC fighter neutral? there was a thread like this

Southpaw

I concur with @FinneousPJ. Some are less justifiable (like perhaps a druid or ranger - see other threads), but with a little imagination, you can justify any class quite well.

For me, a Cavalier Paladin is out of the question :-)

atcDave

Coming from Candlekeep I think Mage, Bard or Cleric is the easiest to justify. Barbarian is probably the hardest.
But anything can be made to work if you're creative. I love the various warrior types the most, so that's what I usually play. I don't let it bother me.

Thrasymachus

Sorcerers (Bhaal's blood = magic power) strikes me as quite plausible (as well as DDs). Mages, bards, and clerics also seem well justified. Avengers, because of their arcane powers, seem the most plausible of the druid kits.

Barbarians, berserkers, and assassins seem least plausible IMO.

zur312

i think clerics are superb
clerics = connection to a god
high level clerics = near god level

arcane casters are more of fantasy gods like elminsters etc. so they are cool too

elminster

Thrasymachus said:

Avengers, because of their arcane powers, seem the most plausible of the druid kits.

In my opinion Totemic Druid are more plausible from a backstory perspective. You just simply connect more with a particular animal that you feel represents your spirit and can therefore summon a spirit animal. Avengers seem like they require more in the way of rituals and would be a lot less inclined to live willingly in an urban environment like Candlekeep.

Thrasymachus

elminster said:

Thrasymachus said:

Avengers, because of their arcane powers, seem the most plausible of the druid kits.

In my opinion Totemic Druid are more plausible from a backstory perspective. You just simply connect more with a particular animal that you feel represents your spirit and can therefore summon a spirit animal. Avengers seem like they require more in the way of rituals and would be a lot less inclined to live willingly in an urban environment like Candlekeep.

Fair enough. I interpret Avengers as quasi-mages (druids with some limited mage training), given their spell selection, but I concede that this may be my own idiosyncratic interpretation of the class. (I also give Avenger PCs a high-ish INT for RP reasons.)

Southpaw

zur312 said:

i think clerics are superb
clerics = connection to a god
high level clerics = near god level

arcane casters are more of fantasy gods like elminsters etc. so they are cool too

ehm...if you are a Cleric, you have to be a Cleric of a god. I doubt any god would like it when their most powerful cleric just takes the essence of a fallen god and ascends to godhood to became...a colleague. Or rival.

zur312

@southpaw it is a great story

Malicron

@southpaw
Agreed. That's why I've never played a cleric.

DJKajuru

Either as a fighting class or magic user ,I find it hard for charname to be a complete ignorant (int 10, wis 10, for instance) - even in real life , anyone whose parents (or foster parents) are cultured tend to learn much in their childhood.

Kaltzor

I think the easiest to justify is a Fighter and Mage...

Fighters are a simple class that just requires the character is strong and know how to use a weapon...

And Candlekeep I do believe has a couple of mages that could've easily taught some basics and lots of books to read from...

ReadingRambo

I've been playing Baldurs Gate reloaded in the NWN 2 engine and there is a ton of prestige classes and such. Out of all of them Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep made the most sense to me. Charname grew up in Candlekeep so it's easy to imagine a young godling with a thirst for arcane power sneaking out at night to read taboo magical texts.

the_spyder

Southpaw said:

zur312 said:

i think clerics are superb
clerics = connection to a god
high level clerics = near god level

arcane casters are more of fantasy gods like elminsters etc. so they are cool too

ehm...if you are a Cleric, you have to be a Cleric of a god. I doubt any god would like it when their most powerful cleric just takes the essence of a fallen god and ascends to godhood to became...a colleague. Or rival.

There are many reasons why a God might accept as a follower, the spawn of another God. In the first place, there is no guarantee that the taint (to call it such) will amount to anything. So a worshiper is a worshiper regardless of who their parents are. Also, if they do amount to something, if they worship the God, he/she effectively usurps to power of the other god by leveraging the off-spring as a disciple.

Now it is a bit of a stretch that, once Charname actually reaches ToB, that their god would still feed them power, but you could argue that they are gaining a following themselves and thus are gaining power from a different source. It is also a bit of a stretch if a cleric of Umberlee were to take the Umberlee quest and end up wiping out that temple

EntropyXII

I'm going to go with 1) Mage 2) Bard 3) Thief (assassin if evil) 4) Fighter

All of the above 4 make perfect sense in the confines of Candlekeep. Cleric's make very little sense RP wise. A child of a god serving another god? Nah.

Kaltzor

EntropyXII said:

I'm going to go with 1) Mage 2) Bard 3) Thief (assassin if evil) 4) Fighter

All of the above 4 make perfect sense in the confines of Candlekeep. Cleric's make very little sense RP wise. A child of a god serving another god? Nah.

To be fair, you only get to know the fact that you're the son of a god when you goto The Iron Throne for the second time near the end... So until then you wouldn't know, and maybe CHARNAME doesn't just go "Oh, I'm the son of Bhaal, I'm gonna stop worshipping this god now."

Malicron

Kaltzor said:

EntropyXII said:

I'm going to go with 1) Mage 2) Bard 3) Thief (assassin if evil) 4) Fighter

All of the above 4 make perfect sense in the confines of Candlekeep. Cleric's make very little sense RP wise. A child of a god serving another god? Nah.

To be fair, you only get to know the fact that you're the son of a god when you goto The Iron Throne for the second time near the end... So until then you wouldn't know, and maybe CHARNAME doesn't just go "Oh, I'm the son of Bhaal, I'm gonna stop worshipping this god now."

Not to mention, there are quite a few Forgotten Realms gods I could see quite intentionally helping your rise to power, in the hopes of gaining an ally amongst the gods. Really, it all depends on who, precisely, you're a cleric of.

Schneidend

All classes and kits are equally plausible.

ReadingRambo

Schneidend said:

All classes and kits are equally plausible.

I don't see how a Druid is as plausible as a mage in CHARNAMEs circumstances. That being said, any kit or class could fit with enough imagination in developing the backstory. Also, having fun while playing the chosen class is more important than plausability IMO. But it's interesting to envision what CHARNAME would be like in a novelization, if such a novel existed. All we have currently is a Cursed Tome of Abdel, which subtracts Wisdom and Intelligence when read, but fiendishly mimics the appearance of an actual book.

Kaltzor

ReadingRambo said:

Schneidend said:

All classes and kits are equally plausible.

I don't see how a Druid is as plausible as a mage in CHARNAMEs circumstances. That being said, any kit or class could fit with enough imagination in developing the backstory. Also, having fun while playing the chosen class is more important than plausability IMO. But it's interesting to envision what CHARNAME would be like in a novelization, if such a novel existed. All we have currently is a Cursed Tome of Abdel, which subtracts Wisdom and Intelligence when read, but fiendishly mimics the appearance of an actual book.

I think the biggest problem in taking a game like Baldur's Gate and putting in a different form of media is that the game other than a few events relies on the player making choices... You would need to get all the players to accept one playtrough as the actual story of the entire series to make something people would actually find enjoyable.

Gish

I imagine assassin, like charname has been pulled to murder by his blood and later dual classes to a Mage.
My personal favorite is sorcerer, the divine bloodline sparked magic in charname.
Another I like is the character doesn't feel a particular pull to any class as he may have a perspective different from other mortals. So maybe he seeing the choice in terms of being an outsider reading story that interest him a an art and less bout the people its bring told about so he picks up bard. Maybe blade because the pull of violence is strong

Calmar

I think the fighter class suits best. It's a tough and self-sufficient class that feels at home outside the save walls of Candlekeep, lacks the commitment of classes like cleric or druid, and is able to face off against Sarevok in direct battle, not relying on stealth, or magic trickery. The archetypical hero defeats the villain in a heroic sword fight.

Vishnu

Kaltzor said:

ReadingRambo said:

Schneidend said:

All classes and kits are equally plausible.

I don't see how a Druid is as plausible as a mage in CHARNAMEs circumstances. That being said, any kit or class could fit with enough imagination in developing the backstory. Also, having fun while playing the chosen class is more important than plausability IMO. But it's interesting to envision what CHARNAME would be like in a novelization, if such a novel existed. All we have currently is a Cursed Tome of Abdel, which subtracts Wisdom and Intelligence when read, but fiendishly mimics the appearance of an actual book.

I think the biggest problem in taking a game like Baldur's Gate and putting in a different form of media is that the game other than a few events relies on the player making choices... You would need to get all the players to accept one playtrough as the actual story of the entire series to make something people would actually find enjoyable.

And in order to keep things interesting, some NPCs must die and you're bound to always annoy someone with that.

Schneidend

ReadingRambo said:

I don't see how a Druid is as plausible as a mage in CHARNAMEs circumstances. That being said, any kit or class could fit with enough imagination in developing the backstory. Also, having fun while playing the chosen class is more important than plausability IMO. But it's interesting to envision what CHARNAME would be like in a novelization, if such a novel existed. All we have currently is a Cursed Tome of Abdel, which subtracts Wisdom and Intelligence when read, but fiendishly mimics the appearance of an actual book.

To be a Mage you study magic. To be a druid you study another kind of magic and the natural world. Giant library, powerful people visiting to look at books that CHARNAME can talk to and get some pointers from. Literally every door is open to CHARNAME.

Vishnu

Schneidend said:

ReadingRambo said:

I don't see how a Druid is as plausible as a mage in CHARNAMEs circumstances. That being said, any kit or class could fit with enough imagination in developing the backstory. Also, having fun while playing the chosen class is more important than plausability IMO. But it's interesting to envision what CHARNAME would be like in a novelization, if such a novel existed. All we have currently is a Cursed Tome of Abdel, which subtracts Wisdom and Intelligence when read, but fiendishly mimics the appearance of an actual book.

To be a Mage you study magic. To be a druid you study another kind of magic and the natural world. Giant library, powerful people visiting to look at books that CHARNAME can talk to and get some pointers from. Literally every door is open to CHARNAME.

Druids in D&D learn while being in a druidic community/magic grove if I remember correctly. It's not something you teach or learn reading books.

Fredjo

For those who say such and such class doesn't fit into the BG scheme that much, consider the many unthinkable life experiences of the people around you, one would think that in the history of the mankind all life experiences had already been lived through and yet, one always ends up astonished while reading about someone extraordinary. The potentially low probability of a certain life adventure to happen doesn't make it less real or "in-character", it just means that such person have an extraordinary life. And providing such life for my BG CHARNAME makes the story even more interesting.

Flashheart

I've been thinking about the current residents of Candlekeep.

The Wiki states that the Gatewarden asked Obe to train Gorion's Ward. It states that Obe is a resident of Candlekeep and that he's a powerful Illusionist. Obe asked Canderous, Mordaine, Arkanis, Deder and Osprey to help - can we assume these people are also residents of Candlekeep?

If so, we can also assume that if we befriended any of these guys we could train in any of fighting, thieving, clerical and/or mage skills.

I think it's safe to say that with the amount of tomes available in Candlekeep, a Bard class is easy enough to justify. A Sorcerer with innate Bhaal spawn abilities and some Mage training around the edges also seems highly plausible.

In regards to the Monk class, I read this from a Forgotten Realms description of Candlekeep:

"The central tower of the keep is surrounded by beautiful grounds that descend to a ring of buildings along the inside of the massive outer walls: guest houses, stables, granaries, a warehouse, an infirmary, a temple to Oghma, and shrines to Deneir, Gond, and Milil. Order is kept by the Gatewarden’s five underofficers: four Watchers, who take turns patrolling the monastery and watching land and sea from its tallest towers, and the Keeper of the Portal, each of whom has twelve monks (all experienced warriors) as assistants."

I guess any one of those could teach Monk skills.

The Barbarian class is interesting, When Gorion saves you from sacrifice, did your mother actually provide any education, or did she leave you feral. If so, did Gorion and the residents of Candlekeep hone you into controlling your rage? Seems plausible.

This leaves, Ranger, Druid and Paladin...

I believe that the player would need to have left Candlekeep for a period of time to achieve these classes. The Forgotten Realms article states that visitors to Candlekeep cannot stay for more than a tenday, and may not return within a month. More digging methinks.

Kaltzor

I think the only kit that's actually really hard to justify would be Shapeshifter druid kit... I mean, how many werewolves visit Candlekeep get on a regular basis?

FinneousPJ

@kaltzor You just need the one werewolf