Dual classed yoshimo...
DJKajuru
Member Posts: 3,300
Hey there!
In my previous SoA playthrough I was going to have Jan in the party, so I thought "well, this is probably the game where yoshimo duals to fighter from the start". And he is actually quite effective that way ( he's basically a neutral version of Mazzy , with his short bow and katana specialisation).
On the other hand...
"ok, enemies are near, time to scout ! oh wait... he's a fighter now."
"what if we set a trap here! oh, he's a fighter now..."
And he says his famous quote "I'm great at avoidance" ... I'll tell you, it's hard to "avoid" when your stealth is disabled.
"Nothing dangerous, I would hope" ... he still says that, but now he's a bad ass frontliner. Makes no sense;
I know that we are free to dual class most of our npc's , but Yoshi is way more fun when he's a rogue.
In my previous SoA playthrough I was going to have Jan in the party, so I thought "well, this is probably the game where yoshimo duals to fighter from the start". And he is actually quite effective that way ( he's basically a neutral version of Mazzy , with his short bow and katana specialisation).
On the other hand...
"ok, enemies are near, time to scout ! oh wait... he's a fighter now."
"what if we set a trap here! oh, he's a fighter now..."
And he says his famous quote "I'm great at avoidance" ... I'll tell you, it's hard to "avoid" when your stealth is disabled.
"Nothing dangerous, I would hope" ... he still says that, but now he's a bad ass frontliner. Makes no sense;
I know that we are free to dual class most of our npc's , but Yoshi is way more fun when he's a rogue.
7
Comments
Note that you can totally go for a more lightweight fighter configuration once you get your Rogue skills back; you don't have to wear plate. That way you can still stealth, but also enjoy fighter combat bonuses and the HP increase, which are really the biggest draw of the class anyway.
Dualing into fighter also means you can snatch up those APR bonuses at level 9/13, and deal quite a bit more damage in regular melee than a Rogue ever could. And if you do want to backstab - you are just as well-suited for that as a regular Bounty Hunter.
That is, of course, from a more objective, power-gamey point of view. RP-wise little Yoshi is certainly better suited to dance on the head of a pin than to throw himself into the front lines.
I never seriously considered dualing him to a fighter because I figured I'd never realistically be able to get my thieving skills back, or it would be too late in the game to make a difference. But perhaps I missed the forest for the trees: maybe he would find a better niche in my party as a fighter, even without thieving skills?
@mylegbig
Yoshimo's betrayal hit me hard too in my first (current) playthrough. He had all the gear I had intended to give to Imoen, including Tuigun Bow, Ring of Danger Sense, Ring of Invisibility, a lot of special arrows, all my invisibility potions etc etc... Poor Imoen had to struggle outta Spelllhold almost naked.
And my trap detection/scouting strategy degenerated into 'run really quickly around with Charname in Boots of Speed and hope no traps are lethal and he can get out of trouble quickly!'
"This isn't what was supposed to happen to me"-GAME OVER.
So I don't think that works well, but who knows - for casual playback might be OK.
http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?s=c195eca5412193f2141eb4415ded91e4&showtopic=15569
Yes, Yoshi's canon issues leave much to be desired from a typical Bounty Hunter, since it's unlikely he'll reach 21 and become a God without doing every single side-quest possible, prior to Spellhold unless you have ToB, in which case Watcher's Keep makes doing it easy with quests to spare.
SCSII is garbage and should never be used as a basis for determining if a class sucks or not. It's changes are blatantly biased, and totally inconsistent, even by BG standards, which are already pretty darn bad.
Like modifying the Inquisitor's dispel magic to effect damn near everything, but leaving dispel magic gimped, even though the ONLY difference is that Inquisitor dispel has a 100% base chance, while dispel has a 50% base chance, and they're both supposed to be considered 3rd level spells. And dispel magic in general is supposed to be explicitly excluded from any spell/ability that grants immunity to spells of a particular level. Even spell trap and spell shield aren't supposed to be flawless defense, because the dispel gets the chance to attempt to dispel them first, before moving on to other spells if it succeeds, or is blocked from further dispel attempts if it fails, where as normally it's supposed to check individually for each spell on the target but spell shield and spell trap as per their descriptions go first and will block or absorb the offending dispel attempt if they survive the dispel attempt.
And all the scripted BS. It's fine to give them several scrolls to use, tweaking their spell-load out or having a sequencer or contingency readied, but blatantly ignoring the game rules is retarded. Especially when it blatantly invalidates several classes straight out. Every class is useful some in some fashion, but when it comes down to needing 3 mages to counter 1 mage because the 1 mage is getting periodic free-scripted buffs FOR NO REASON....that's when the mod desires a spot in the trash next to the Jail-bait-paladin. I beat the game as a solo Kensai just to wash the bad taste trying to play the mod "the proper way" out of my mouth because it's pure friggin' cheese...and thankfully can't stand-up to just beating the $%#^ out of it with a stick between scripted PfMW.
Yoshi would scout out the area and identify where all the bad guys were. he would then come back and tell the party who would set up the ambush. Korgan would attract the enemy's attention and draw them in, whereupon Yoshi would step out of the shadows and deliver a devastating back-stab. Mayhem and murder would ensue between these two gentlemen with some extra help from Viconia and Jaheira. Meanwhile Jan and Charname are in the background removing protections or otherwise doing ranged damage. When the dust settles, Jan is there to de-trap the chests and open up the locks.
RE: SCS
Read the readme, understand the rationale behind those script changes and please don't throw uninformed generalizations around.
They get those free spells, because they're long durations spells, and every mage worth his salt should cast the likes of armor or stoneskin first thing in the morning.
Every mage with access to minor sequencer, sequencer, spell trigger, contingency and chain contingency gets one, because it would be foolish to not use them.
All of that is standard repertoire for players, why should the NPCs be excluded?
Those battle pre-casts of short duration spells are also a configurable option. You don't have to choose the hardest one (1) [aka I'll always use divination and magical traps in order to be informed about any threats], and could instead go with (2) only for ambushes, or (3) never.
Dispel magic gives you 50% base, +5% for every level above/-10% for every level below the original caster, always 1% failure.
An Inquisitor uses dispel magic at double his own level. Just 10 levels above the original caster guarantee 99% success.
SCS/II even offers the option to nerf an Inquisitor's Dispel Magic to 1.5 instead of 2 times his level.
Moreover, Dispel Magic is broken in the original game, ToBEX (included in SCS/II) and afaik BG:EE fix that.
About the spell shield and spell trap problems, you should post them in feature requests/bugs, as that's no fault of SCS/II.
A single class thief will always get faster to the higher level rewards for disarming traps and picking locks. That's because the median of all levels of a character (dual- or multi-class) is used to look-up which xp reward is given.
And yes, Yoshi is way more fun as a rogue, but if one removes the lock-out period of dual-classes it would be way more interesting options wise.
Then I'd recommend the new Big Picture v181. Big Picture AI is more random and doesn't always use optional actions. Which makes it a bit more unpredictable.