Fighter Proficiencies - BG:EE vs. BG2

Rei

First post here and I'm not quite sure where to put this, so feel free to move it wherever you'd like.

I was wondering about the weapon proficiency difference in fighters between BG:EE and BG2.

In BG2, the fighter class and all of its kits can acquire grandmastery with any weapon type. However, in BG:EE, only pure fighters, and not berserkers, keinsais or wizard slayers, are able to get grandmastery.

Is this intended? It seems like an odd change.

Personally, I find it hard to justify playing a non-multi fighter when I can't get grandmastery as a berserker, for example. I feel like I'm just so much better off as a fighter/cleric or some other multi-class combination.

What do you guys think?

Dee

Any fighter class should be able to reach grandmastery (although with the XP cap in BG1 you'll only be able to get High Mastery).

ChildofBhaal599

umm... don't all of the kits increase at the same rate as the pure class? also i don't remember ever hitting grandmastery with any of my fighters, unless you removed the xp cap

blackchimes

What moddery is this?

Flashburn

You can't get Grand Mastery in BG1 without dual-classing shenanigans, at least with the XP cap.

Or you might have been trying to put points into a ranged weapon, which berserkers can only be proficient with (*).

Rei

To be clear, it's "BG2 Complete" off GOG.com with no mods and BG:EE with no mods.

Is there maybe a hidden level limit on grandmastery?

I'm creating a new character and at the start I get 4 proficiency points to work with. I can only put a maximum of 2 into a specific weapon type. Will I be able to increase this once I level up more?

Creating a character in BG2, I can dump all my starting proficiencies straight into the same weapon skill (well, 5 of them, anyway).

Morte50

@ChildofBhaal599
All fighter kits get proficiencies at the same rate as vanilla fighers, and other than the Berserker restriction on ranged weapons can get the same degree of mastery. You actually can 'legitimately' get to grandmastery without removing the xp cap by dual-classing to a fighter, though it does feel rather cheesy to me.

Edit: @Rei
Any figher-class can put more pips into a weapon-proficiency later (though you only get 2 more before you hit the level cap), that restriction is just for the newly created characters. The reason you can put in more than 2 in BG2 from the start is that in a sense your character then isn't newly created anymore, you start at level 6/7/8 (depending on class), rather than level 1. Hence the difference.

Flashburn

Rei said:

Is there maybe a hidden level limit on grandmastery?

I'm creating a new character and at the start I get 4 proficiency points to work with. I can only put a maximum of 2 into a specific weapon type. Will I be able to increase this once I level up more?

Creating a character in BG2, I can dump all my starting proficiencies straight into the same weapon skill (well, 5 of them, anyway).

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention:
BGTuTu lets you dump all 4 of your proficiency points into one weapon when you're creating a fighter character. It's a side effect of it using BG2's engine. That was unintended and BGEE has fixed that. You can't put more than 2 points into a weapon at level 1 now, and you can only get to High Mastery (4 points) without dual-classing.

Rei

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Making a berserker is starting to seem more tempting now...

It is annoying how there doesn't seem to be any kind of notification of a level requirement for to be able to advance beyond 2 points.

Dee

The level requirement is "anything but level 1". In fact, if you dual-class from Thief to Fighter at level 2, you can put all four pips into Longsword if you like.

ZanathKariashi

Except that once you dual away from a fighter you aren't supposed to be able to put additional points above proficiency (vanilla BG1 did this part correctly...well...aside from X>Fighter duals (supposed to be capped at **, instead of able to achieve GM)..but since that's horribly inefficient, I'm willing to let it slide). I absolutely despise that BG2 took what used to work correctly and then screwed it up.

Banex

ZanathKariashi said:

Except that once you dual away from a fighter you aren't supposed to be able to put additional points above proficiency (vanilla BG1 did this part correctly...well...aside from X>Fighter duals (supposed to be capped at **, instead of able to achieve GM)..but since that's horribly inefficient, I'm willing to let it slide). I absolutely despise that BG2 took what used to work correctly and then screwed it up.

Doesn't one of the mods for BG2 deal with this,either the fixpack or tweaks.I'm sure you get options for weapon prof in one of them when you install.(can't remember which one it is)