Speed run with my boyfriend, -almost- min/maxing a 6man party (unmodded)

B4nJ0

So, I finished my 1st run with my bf (we had a lot of fun with RP, 0 rush, ez mode and the team was 1+1 pc and 4 npcs).

Now, since he's "going deep" he asked me to do a rush unmodded run in min/max mode while wating for bg2 and big mods (tactics, eclipse etc) to finally have some fun in hard encounters


General rules for the run:

- Mobs 200% dmg
- Avarage hp rolls
- minimum reload
- 1 bag of holding (we will put here ONLY named items and try to collect them ALL)


With this is mind I was thinking to do a team spllited of 3 melee // 3 ranger characters.


Melee:

- Shapshifter Human
- Inquisitor Human
- Blade Half Elf

Ranged

- Archer Elf
- Sorcerer Human
- Swashbuckler Gnome


What in my mind created this team:

- I wanted to try unmodded shapeshifter (with dispell bug and +3 staff) to see how it's scale vs a modded one (the umodded bg kit is horrible in the whole saga no matter what so require some fix if you wanna go for it). *staff/*2HandedwFighting

- Inquisitor are just my fav toon and they are OP so always worth including. I will go for "Must have" stupifier main /+2mace off so **maces/**2wFighting. It's the only 2wf in the whole grp but I honestly hate 2wf in bg:ee and IMO better criticals without thaco penalities is way better then the horrible off hands avaible. I just wanted to have a 2wf toon for the animation so this is my call.

- Blade: spider bane abuse (never done and look funny), so *great swords/*2HandedwFighting then *scimitar/*1HandedwFighting for scimitar (drizzt) swap.

Archer: a random ranged dps. I will max out longbow pips. A little question: I have no idea if at level one is better to put the 2 extra pips in sling (switch to sling/shield when needed while keeping free dmg bonus of the archer) or going *longsword/*1HandedwFighting to use greywolf sword in melee.


- Swashbuckler: why gnome? For con saves and no dex malus, also It will be the xbow user so I would dislike create an halfling since I hate to skip free weapon prof :P this is mainly a trap find bot since in bg1 they are needed. At better level he will go deep in clubs (I love crush dmg and staff is reserved for the druid, so I chosed to go with the new bg:ee club^^) to achieve *xbow/**clubs/*1wfighting.

-Sorcerer: my bf loves to spam spells, and since we are missing kensai/mages in bg1 a good buff bot would be more then ok ( the dmg spells will be bspammed with the bard given the faster level progression for the spells check). This will come with *sling//*dart


To be honest this is basically a 4man party with 1+1 utility toon, but I think this can do ok in bg:ee. I don't like thieves in modded game so I had no idea what to pick in an unmodded run, keeping in mind that I could not use staff to backstab (gogo little wolf!) but I still needed a stupid slot for that useless 100find trap // 90 open lock char.

leddyhs

Looks fun. A few alterations though:

An elf swashbuckler gets up to 21 dex passive with the tome and the Kiel's buckler. And 24 dex with DUHM should he be your protagonist. That means 6AC bonus from dex alone, 2 from the kit, 2 from defender, 1 from balduran cloak, etc. It becomes pretty tanky.

Bard is the only class that has 1 apr and access to the Crusher halberd (+2thac0/+6 dmg!, sets APR to 1). So if you plan on having a bard for your group, use that Halberd in conjunction with your Spider's Bane trickery!

The archer kit only starts to pay off in BG2, so if you're doing a BGEE speedrun, something like Swash/FT dual is much better. If you want the ranger(fighter with druidic stuff) theme with more points in slings, do a fighter druid dualclass (out from a druid into a fighter) so you get both the minor druid spells and +++++ in slings in BG1. It also feels much more rangerish with all the totemic druid summons. :P

sarevok57

when you say the shapeshifter is horrible in the bg saga no matter what, are you talking about the vanilla shapeshifter? because the vanilla shapeshifter can be amazing, after a while his natural attack goes away and he starts using the weapon in his weapon slot ( so staff of the rynn/ staff of the woodlands) and then once he hits level 13 dual him over to a fighter and put all your proficiency in quarter staves and two handed weapon style, and he will freight train baddies

B4nJ0

@Leddyhs

Ty for the insight, atm we just switched to scs couz the game was too EASY no matter what. We are running a 5 man party since I feel sorcerer are useless most of the time with inquisitor (not unbuffed via scs) and a bard. 4 man party was prob better but I hate to out level the contest in the mid stage of the run.

We kept the swash gnome couz I dual class all the time in bg2 eclipse, so I wanted to play a different race for once (no reason to play a full swash, this kit demand dual into fighter even in bg1 but who cares^^)

We dropped the shapeshifter couz I installed the scs fixpack for him (a mistake, I don't like it at all) and I had no reason anymore to go for him.

We added a kensai half orc (again, if we will do a run in bg2ee we will just keeper into human for dual at 9).

The archer is still here, I believe that in bg1 unmodded is just the best dps class overall, still a good dps/utility hero with scs arrows nerf.

On blade topic. Ty for the suggestion of crusher in normal situation and bane for spins, I will try this out. BUT notice that crusher atm is bugged so spinning with that weapon will set your apm at 2 so if you are going to use this combo keep in mind that is a bit cheese IMO.

New party (main bard)

Swash gnome: *xbow, **staff, *2handed W fighting
Bard half ellf: *halberd, * 2H sword, *2 handed W fighting, * ???
Kensai half-orc: **** scimitars, **2 W fighting
Archer elf: **** longbow, *longsword,*1 handed W fighting
Inquisitor human: **maces, * 1 handed W fighting, *** ???


We have just a couple of ??? pips not yet given, but I guess we will go both for extra ranged dps or for something fun.

@Sarevok57

Shapeshifter unmodded is quite good IF you are going to dispell the weapon (claws) you are using. You can cheese this out at lvl 1 with an inquisitor and then go for druid 13/fighter xx with rynn. BUT this is NOT how the kit is supposed to work, for this reason I entered the topic "legit" kit= trash and I was brainstorming about modded kit (+3claw, reg, spellcast while shapeshifted etc etc) vs dispel bug (STAFF and heavy heavy hitter bot).

Awong124

B4nJ0 said:

Now, since he's "going deep"