What would be the ultimate character? Including gear and considering max-level and lategame abilities.
My personal favorit is barbarian with the following gear: 2 x black razors Grandmaster armor Boots of phasing And some stuff I don't remember. Ring of gaxx probably.
This would be my super character if I had to choose only one.
Also mage / cleric maybe? With robe of venca, staff of the magi and amulet of power.
Any other suggestions? I'm thinking of buying the steamversion and play though multiplayer with some friends and I'm only going to use one character.
I noticed that you suggest "2 x black razors." You can't get 2 blackrazors in one playthrough legit, I think. So, if you don't want legit, I won't give you legit. Here's my suggestion, which can be done in an unmodded BG2:EE without literally using cheats (you will have to do some exporting characters and stuff).
Step 1: Play multiplayer by yourself and make a Cleric/Ranger. It doesn't matter how good his/her starting stats are. He/she should have two points in Flails and three points in Two Weapon Style. The rest doesn't matter.
Step 2: Import a character or combination of characters that has the following items: Deck of Many Things, 2 Defender of Easthaven, Cloak of the Dark Moon, Girdle of Inertial Barrier, Amulet of Power, Amulet of Cheetah Speed, Boots of Speed, Shadow Dragon Scale, Vhailor's Helm, Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization, 1 Gem of Seeing, 2 Golden Calf Idol (one can be obtained in the black pits 2 if you don't already know), Ring of Gaxx, and some other ring. Equip the stated items to the cleric/ranger.
Step 3: Export your cleric/ranger, than start a single player ToB game with him/her. At the beginning of the game, use the Deck of Many Things and try to draw the throne card. If you don't already know, you can draw that card on the third draw if you have drawn a "bad card" earlier. So reload until you draw Ruin or Donjon, then Sun, then Throne. In total, you will have obtained 1300000 experience points. Export your character, then start a new single player game and repeat the process until you are max level. Make sure to get a few uses of Hardiness.
Step 4: Import your character to a save where you have opened the Machine of Lum the Mad but haven't used it. If you use the right combinations, you can increase each of your stats by 1, and your magic resistance by 5%. Do that until your character has 25 in all stats and 127% magic resistance.
Step 5: Import your character to a save in Shadows of Amn where you have obtained all the tears of Bhaal. You should have a save for both the evil bonuses and the good bonuses. Eventually, your character will have -26 Armor Class, maximum Saving Throws, 127% resistance to fire, cold and electricity, and a lot of health, at the cost of becoming evil (note that this doesn't make you a fallen ranger). You could repeat this to gain an arbitrarily large amount of health if you want to.
Here is the end result: Once you cast Armor of Faith, Hardiness, and Protection from Magical Energy (using the cloak of the dark moon), you have these resistances:
Hey larkus, couldn't a single class assassin use the big metal unit to achieve the same damage without being a multi-class Assassin/cleric? Either way this would not be your every fight type of attack. I would list it under the label cheese if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, it is the most powerful damage combo in the game and it's not cheating but you just wouldn't use this kind of attack unless you were messing around. In the same way that I wouldn't use the big metal unit while seriously playing the game. It's fun to toy around with though.
In terms of simply attacking or casting spells or backstabbing as a thief, I believe the Assassin/fighter could achieve 200 points of damage in one hit which is about 20 points more damage than the Ken/thief. The Assassin would also have poison for his arrows but the Ken/thief would have more hit points and a better thaco.
The main difference is that you can take a small hit to performance and play as a ken/thief from low level. In order for the Assassin fighter to be the best you have to wait until level 21 for the dual class which is really just not that fun to do.
I too would like to know if the assassin can still be dual classed to a fighter with a X7 backstab. Hopefully I am just doing something wrong and it is still possible. I would hate to put all the time in to build an assassin to level 21 and then find out that the X7 backstab drops to a X2 which makes the character useless even with fighter perks.
The Rod of Ram is a 1D6+12+1d4 weapon with a Max damage of 22 against all opponents. Minimum of 14. Carsomyr is 1D12+5 with another +5 to chaotic Evil. so it has a max of 18 for all other than chaotic evil which can match the Rod of Ram at 22. Minimum of 6. So the Rod of RAM has a slightly better max damage most of the time but a much better minimum attack and a much better average. They are both +6 to hit. I will say that the dispelling ability of Carsomyr is great especially if you are solo. The knock back ability of the Rod of Ram is nice especially if you are a back stabber but with only a 15% chance of success.
In many ways the Rod of Ram is just outright better than the ultimate sword for some reason. It's a better melee weapon and it can backstab.
Being a huge fan of the fighter class I always wanted to use Carsomyr but I was shocked to find when looking for back stab weapons that the Rod of Ram is just more damaging by a long shot. Kind of Silly.
If you grandmaster quarter staves and use the Rod it will improve your damage a whole bunch. That dispel ability for Carsomyr is the shit though.
I would probably take both along for the journey and use whatever suits the situation. For a thief multiclass the answer is obvious though because you cannot back stab with the carsomyr and you can with the Rod of RAM. You can buy a rod from a temple in SOA that is almost as powerful. I would say quarter staffs are the highest damaging two handed weapons in the game and the only two handed weapons that can be used for X5 and X7 back stab damage.
EDIT:
I checked the reported bugs list in the BG2EE forum and the assassin multiclass backstab multiplier is confirmed and reported as a bug. It will probably be fixed in the next patch. For now you can work around the problem with EE Keeper. I also tried the big metal unit and it doesn't work. So the assassin/cleric is indeed the only way to achieve that massive damage.
Hey larkus, couldn't a single class assassin use the big metal unit to achieve the same damage without being a multi-class Assassin/cleric? Either way this would not be your every fight type of attack. I would list it under the label cheese if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, it is the most powerful damage combo in the game and it's not cheating but you just wouldn't use this kind of attack unless you were messing around. In the same way that I wouldn't use the big metal unit while seriously playing the game. It's fun to toy around with though.
Yes, pretending to sneak up to an unsuspecting victim as an iron golem would stomp my suspension of disbelief to tiny bits, too.
For a more believable backstab weapon, you can instead use the Black Blade of Disaster: 2D12+5 base damage makes it the second most damaging backstab weapon.
I think it's fun to figure out what the most damage you can do on a backstab is, but it isn't effective.
Backstabbing takes a lot of micromanagement, so many baddies are immune to it in ToB, and what difference is there between x5 and x7, when either will chunk the unlucky recipient anyway?
@bengoshi Thanks for the tag ! It's true that I am a fan of the F/M/T hehe.
I agree about the Half-Elf being better than the Elf for a solo playthrough, I prefer to have 18 Con at the start of the game.
What's so powerful about the F/M/T is the insane synergy between the three classes. People often argue that the F/M/T can't reach 9th level spells for exemple, but who needs them when you can put 7 Time Stop Traps at the start of the fight ? They activate one just after another, which means time is frozen for 70 seconds instantly for example.
Some things to consider : A Thief can backstab, but generally only once per fight. He doesn't have enough THAC0 to hit reliably and his damage are supbar while doing so because he doesn't have Specialization.
A Fighter/Thief is essentially an improved Thief, he hits his backstabs reliably while doing a lot of damage during the process, but also after. He has quite a lot of HP but cannot really tank, because he isn't a Mage.
A F/M/T is essentially an improved Fighter/Thief, you trade nothing except a slower progression, which generally means being behind the F/T of 1 level, which means 1 THAC0 and 25 skill points. But in exchange, you are a Mage. Possibilities become endless, and you can easily use magic to backstab again and again, while being impervious to most attacks.
Hey larkus, couldn't a single class assassin use the big metal unit to achieve the same damage without being a multi-class Assassin/cleric? Either way this would not be your every fight type of attack. I would list it under the label cheese if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, it is the most powerful damage combo in the game and it's not cheating but you just wouldn't use this kind of attack unless you were messing around. In the same way that I wouldn't use the big metal unit while seriously playing the game. It's fun to toy around with though.
Yes, pretending to sneak up to an unsuspecting victim as an iron golem would stomp my suspension of disbelief to tiny bits, too.
For a more believable backstab weapon, you can instead use the Black Blade of Disaster: 2D12+5 base damage makes it the second most damaging backstab weapon.
Thanks for the tip, I'll try that using Kai, the Ken/thief could push his back stab up to 195 points of guaranteed damage in a single attack. Thats 680 points of damage in a round with the assassination ability. Even if you only get 1 back stab a round when you don't use assassination and Kai you are still getting an average of 130 points on the first attack and an average of 34+points of damage X2.5 for the rest of the round so you would average about 215 points of damage every round. That is dependable damage from just your main character every round. Even if you get no backstab at all he will still match a level 40 fighter with an average of 100 points of damage each round. Add in critical hits every once in a while and you could see some serious fireworks. Over 1250 damage if you are using assassination. I do like to add up backstab damage possibilities just to see who could do what but the truth is that both the assassin and the ken/thief do a whole bunch of repeatable and dependable damage that out damages most any other combo. Try using a grandmastered crossbow with 3.5 attacks a round that deals out 1D8+5 damage +2 fire damage and has a minimum of 12 poison damage from the assassins poison weapon ability. Long range automatic sniper rifle with exploding, poisoning rounds. That is a minimum of 60 damage a round and you could go well over 100 points of damage a round from long range with this attack. Poison an entire group during a time stop trap and it's game over.
Gotural, The problem with the F/M/T is that you will not progress very far in any of your abilities unless you solo the whole game or cheat by removing he XP cap. In a party, especially a 6 person party the F/M/T is many levels below every one else and with a party you don't need the diversity of a magic and melee combo. Combining the melee damage of a fighter with the backstab of the theif makes sense to me because your character is up front and fighting so the extra damage is welcome. Casting spells and swinging swords at the same time makes no sense when you have 2 or more level 30 mages in your group. I am not saying anyone is wrong and the game is about playing it your way in the end but to me the F/M/T doesn't make any sense unless you are solo and even then it does have HLA problems. I would rather have the magic come from level 30 mages and the attacks come from fighter a 13/40 fighter/thief combo.
This is a quote from Chris Lee's thief Guide which is probably responsible for me thought process.
=Here's a not-so-fun equation - 2 950 000 / 3 = 983 333. Do you know what that is? That's the Pre-Throne of Bhaal level cap divided by the three classes that'll be splitting the experience. Do you realize how LOW of a cap that is? Your Fighter/Mage/Thief levels will be, respectively, 11/12/14. Sure, you'll be able to cast spells, but only up to level 5. Sure, you can use thieving abilities, but you'll actually have LESS theiving points to use than the highly crippled Assassin. Then again, why bother with putting points into Hide in Shadows when you have numerous casts of (Improved) Invisibility and Shadow Door at your disposal? Why bother with Detect Illusions when you have Oracle?
The Fighter/Mage/Thief lacks a lot in relative power. The Fighter/ Thief elements don't make up for the fact that the mage is never going to be able to cast powerful spells. The Fighter/Mage elements don't make up for the fact that the thief will be missing out on LOTS of abilities. The Mage/Thief elements don't make up for the fact the fighter will be severely crippled in THAC0 and AC. Still, with a loss in absolute power, it gains versatility, which in some ways far outweights any penalty from the low levels.=
This changes somewhat once you reach TOB but at the end of SOA you will be about 4 levels higher than the average character starts at. You will have great diversity but a party will have more diversity with much higher level spells and more damaging and melee.
I do intend to play though with a tripple class in the near future and maybe my opinion will change like some of the others in this forum. I can see how rewarding it would be to let one character mix all of those abilities and take care of things without messing with other character types.
Even in a 6 man party, the F/M/T will outperform any other builds in melee if given enough micro. Except some Poison Weapon users early in the game.
And on the contrary, combining spells and swinging swords at the time is extraordinary powerful and makes sence. Firstly because you cannot cast more than one spell per round (or potion, etc), which means a pure Mage spends a lot of time doing nothing (or attacking with a sling/darts which essentially means doing nothing) so by alterning casting and fighting on the same character, you can actually perform nearly like two characters, with only one. And also because you won't need some spells (damage types spells for example) if you can actually fight back in melee when you need it. A F/M/T for example won't need True Sight because he has Detect Illusion, and won't need Melf Acid Arrow or Melf Minute Meteor because he can fight.
And the difference between a single and a multiclass isn't that huge because of the way the experience required increase for the first ten levels (it essentially doubles every level). For example, if we take some extreme exemples :
At 405,000 experience. A single class Mage is level 11 (since 375,000 xp) and has acces to level 5th spells.
At 405,000 experience, the F/M/T is level 8/9/9 and also has acces to level 5th spells. But is also a better warrior than a single class Fighter or Paladin/Ranger (both would be level 9 as single class). He only loses on 1 THAC0 but in exchange has Stoneskin / Mirror Image etc etc etc. And he is also a better Thief than a Thief because he can hide with Invisibility spells, and use Knock on locks. Which means he can focus his skill points somewhere else.
I'll have to try it for myself but I appreciate the effort to describe the benefits. It is good for me to have someone point out things that are not always obvious. I am not a very perceptive person sometimes.
What about your armor class? do you just use stone skins? I figure the armor will disable all of your mage and thief abilities which is fine but you put a bunch of XP into earning those abilities so I wouldn't want to waste them. What about thaco and weapon specialization? How many attacks do you get a round? I would imagine you hardly have any of the amazing theif and fighter HLA's.
My Ken/theif that I was testing with the other day had a -22 thaco and a -18 armor class with 3.5 attacks a round with a grandmastered two handed sword. He has an additional +4 to hit and Damage for being kensai and all of the best thief HLA's. The only downside to him is that he cannot specialize in long range weapons so he gets one attack less than the assassin or fighter classes in ong range. The assassin/fighter really is my favorite damage dealer that I have played so far. it's a pity that you have to wait so long to unlock his true potential. I think the game is more fun with a lower level multiclass.
I always use Spirit Armor (4th level spell which also gives a -3 bonus to saves vs spell which is huge) which sets AC to 1 like a full plate mail. Then I equip myself like a normal Fighter. Then I add the spell Blur (-3 AC and -1 bonus to all saves) and Improved Invisibility (-4 AC and saves). Technically, a F/M/T always has a better AC than a F/T with the use of arcane magic.
The F/M/T get as much attacks as others multiclass with Fighter. And 1/2 less than a Fighter dualled into Thief. But he can cast Improved Haste multiple times per day with ease, with great duration so he is going to have more APR than anything non-Fighter+Mage.
The F/M/T gets his HLA at 3M total XP like everyone else, so he gets just as much HLA than a F/T multiclass.
With the spell Mislead, the F/M/T can backstab for every attacks, every rounds while staying invisible, delivering 8 attacks per round, every attacks are critical hits (thanks to the Critical Strike HLA) and backstab thanks to Mislead.
He generally cannot be hit by anything except critical hit because his AC is extremely low and even if it happens, he has both Mirror Image and Stoneskin up at every time to protect him.
He is also really resilient to spells, because he get the best saves from his three classes, then a -5 bonus from Blur and Improved Invisibility and another -3 bonus vs spells from Spirit Armor (total -8) which means it is really easy to get something like -10 or even -15 to saves vs spells. Plus he has Spell Immunity, Spell Turning, Spell Deflection, Spell Deflection, Protection from Energy, etc.
In the end, the F/M/T is invincible, has all the utility (lockpicking, find traps etc) and has the highest damage per round against foes vulnerable to backstabs.
After all these years I've come to this conclusion. The ruleset used in Baldur's Gate, the 2d edition, heavily favors multiclasses characters, and the more classes you have, the more power you get. Because you don't really sacrifice anything to multi. It's even worse in PnP, because in PnP, there is no XP cap, multiclass can get kits, and Grandmastery.
This thing about a FMT is, just like a FM, you're not using him as an offensive spellchucker, that's what single classers are for. You're using him as an arcane warrior: a character who does most damage with swords, and the spells are there to help you melee (blur, mirror image, stoneskin, haste).
Most of these spells are relatively low level, so being a triple classed FMT is fine.
It's also a great character because ALL builds reach a point of diminishing returns (where going up a level really doesn't give you much at all). Since the FMT advances slower, that boring point of diminishing returns is farther away.
Thanks, when I start one of these characters I will check back here and use some of these tips to try and get the most out of the character.
I am not sure I understand completely though. I mean, your FMT would have lower level spells and lower level skills than a pure class at any given time in the game. Even at the end game. Why would it not be better to simply let pure class mages do the magic and fighter/thief do the melee damage? In a solo run I understand the benefit of having all of the various skills but it seems to me like you are a master of none and with a well balanced party you should have all of those skills working at the same time and pushed to the highest level of ability. When you are casting level 5 spells and using 1or 2 thief skills, the pure classes would be casting level 8 spells and using all thief skills to the maximum. Unlike a game with no XP cap you do have one in this game which will forever keep you under the performance of the other classes would it not?
I do see what you are saying with the grandmastery and use any item type of character. I get that you are still working off of your ability scores which have nothing to do with class. Many classes have perks that meld well together and some of them make each other useless, for example casting invisibility could make your thief skills less important. I guess you can pick and choose how long you want to spend casting spells and on what and it seems like your limitation regarding high level mage spells would not really matter since the ones you have are just icing on top of the fighter/thief cake.
On the other hand I wouldn't want to spend 3 rounds casting spells to get my armor up when I could simply run into battle with the same AC by using armor. I like being able to start the battle with a single 500 point blas in the first round without any thing to slow me down. If you don't want to waste half of the battle casting spells just to get your self in order than you would probably have to dedicate a bit of pre-buff time I would assume. I don't want to spend 5 minutes before each fight trying to buff my character to the point where he can match the other classes just to have limited mage abilities on top of it. That is my worry. Do you have to constantly cast a group of 10 spells on yourself every time you enter an area?
I will definitely give it a shot though. I am still not sure what I am going to use this next play through. I have been messing with classes in EE keeper just trying to get a peak at what characters are generally going to be like before I commit to one of them. You have peaked my interest though. I may try the FMT on my next game.
With the spell Mislead, the F/M/T can backstab for every attacks, every rounds while staying invisible, delivering 8 attacks per round, every attacks are critical hits (thanks to the Critical Strike HLA) and backstab thanks to Mislead.
Ok that is awesome, I have to try this. Thanks for your input. Isn't the critical strike a fighter HLA only though and don't you have to use like 3 HLA points just to unlock it? Can you gain HLA's for all of the classes that you you are? How many points do you get per a class? Is it because the multi-class will allow them all to be used since you are all of them at once?
The multi-Class is incapable of using the kits isn't it? So you couldn't for example, use a Kensai/M/F. That would be a little too crazy right? I think I will build one up tonight in with the console and see whats what.
I gotta say that my mind =blown at this point. I played D&D between the ages of 13 and 16 but I was never the DM. I used the second edition rules so I eased right into these Infinity engine games. I was pretty surprised to see that the fighter thief dual class was allowing more power for some slight inconveniences and I appreciated the added abilities of the kits even though they added yet more inconveniences but the triple class style of play will completely change the way I play the game unlike the dual class options I had played previously.
I don't know if I will like it but I am going to give it a shot. I can't believe how well thought out the gameplay in this game is. Bioware should have stuck with D&D in my opinion. Sure this game is not perfectly balanced but they pushed these characters to retarded levels of power and still managed a ton of gameplay variety. Even after 10 years of playing it I just found a whole new dimension to the game that I didn't even know existed. It's probably because the game was plenty fun the way I was already playing it so I just never pushed myself to check it out or play what I considered a class combo with obvious limitations. Still, the FMT will prove interesting. I have seen mention of the elf as a good character race. Any other ideas?
BTW thanks for your time Gotural.
EDIT:
Just used mislead and greater whirlwind. That's like 10 quintuple backstabs @ 130+ points a hit in a single round and you can just keep going and going. I'm not even gonna do the math but that is well over 1200 points of damage without critical hits in a single round=WTF. I don't think this will be a challenge at all. I must admit that this is more OP than anything I have ever seen.
EDIT Again:
lol, I might just go back to single class characters. SCS and ascension on insane would not even be fun because it would be way too easy with this character. I would be forced to tell all of the NPC's to go away because they would just drag me down. While I love this game and all of the great options, this class is clearly an oversight. It just goes way over the line and doesn't make any sense. You can just walk though the dungeons and kill everything with a backstab and nobody will even know that you are there.
With specialization in quarterstaffs and Using improved haste and the Rod of RAM+6 with the gauntlets of extraordinary specialization I get 6 attacks a round that can do 23 points of damage. Add the end game strength bonus of +11 and you get 34 points of damage a round. Using a backstab X5 gets you 23 X 5+11=126.
126 damage six times a round thanks to "mislead" for a total of 756 X2 for a critical hit on all 6 attacks thanks to critical strike = 1,512 points of damage in one round. I know black blade of disaster improves the number of attacks per a round to 7 and I am sure there are other weapons that probably hit faster that could improve the combo more. It doesn't do the most damage per a hit but it's stupid powerful and could be used on a whole group of enemies at once.
If you led someone into multiple time stop traps it wouldn't even matter if you could backstab or not because you could just greater whirlwind everyone to death with the Carsomyr+6 or with your fists for crying out loud. Assasination will land you 630 points of damage without having to sneak in behind your enemies and greater whirlwind with mislead will push you up to 1,260 per a round using the Rod of Ram with my current test settings. Mislead makes backstabbing as easy as a normal attack with a sword. Having the ability to cast improved haste on yourself as a melee basher is nice but being able to cast mislead on yourself=gameover.
So I have been playing a FMT for a little while now. I installed ascension/redemption and SCS while playing on insane with the most punishing SCS options. So far I am having a good time.
It's become obvious though that the OP I was experiencing was from simply mixing magic combos with melee damage which came as a surprise because I had never done that before. In the end those super combos can be applied to other character classes.
In the same way that a FMT may use a timestop scroll, a Ken/theif could use a mislead or a timestop scroll. It is more annoying to use scrolls than to have the spells memorized but it is just as annoying to have to cast multiple protective spells in each area just to match the armor of a Ken/thief.
A Ken/thief still has more hit points and does more damage with a better thaco and he doesn't have to mess with spells for things like armor and his armor cannot be dispelled. He can still use spells to cheese the game engine but he is limited to what scrolls he can buy. He can cast the same protective magics on top of his armor and use the same timestop and mislead spells to cheese the game with unlimited X5 backstab. The ability to memorize spells is convenient but I still think a ken-thief is capable of more damage and is less of a hassle over all to micro manage. The lack of grandmastery for a FMT also sucks pretty bad.
I do like the FMT's ability to mix the thief and fighter HLA's and I also like that you don't have to give up a profession and start over as a new character in the middle of the game like you do with a dual class character. A FMT Could also give up his magic and use armor just like a Ken/Thief if he wants but why waste all of the XP on that mage class if you are not going to use it?
Lucky for me I am kind of enjoying the micromanaging element since it adds a little extra to the gameplay in some ways. I am using a 6 person party so my character is lagging behind everyone else in the party when it comes to power but that is forcing me to utilize the party in new ways. It is definitely one of the most OP classes in the end game but after a little while to think about it. I think a ken/thief is still up there with the FMT. They both have things that are more convenient and less convenient at times and they both can abuse the game engine pretty hard. The FMT can't match the Ken/thief for overall damage though. Maybe more convenient mass damage but with less convenient protection. I wouldn't really say one is better than the other. They are both way OP and they both have ups and downs. In the end it comes down to a little more damage/a little more convenience and both are pretty close to the other overall. I will also admit that being able to hit harder and do more damage doesn't really matter when you reach a level of power that can destroy anything. The slight trade in power/convenience may make the FMT more desirable for some. Personally I will not know what I prefer until I have beaten the entire trilogy with this character.
I much prefer the FMT in the original Baldur's Gate though. I don't like playing with a Kensai fighter because of the lack of long range and no bracers or armor. At the very least a FMT can use armor if he needs it and can still use long range weapons which will make for a large difference in the first game. Given all of the extra difficult options I have added to my game, I may end up giving my FMT grandmastery simply because it is an enjoyable part of character progression and the extra damage will not change much with the game so amped up against me. I don't see a point in getting rid of the XP cap though because I have a six person party so I will never break the 8 Million mark. Solo is cool but a six person party adds much to the game. A 6 person party is what sets Baldur's gate apart from so many other modern games that focus on 3 or less characters all the time.
If I were starting SOA I would probably go with a Ken/Thief but if I was starting the original Baldur's Gate for a trilogy run, I think the FMT may be the more enjoyable option.
I would also like to give a shout out to the plain fighter/thief. The fighter/thief will allow you to grandmaster swords and long rang weapons. It will allow you to play the first game as a straight fighter which is nice and you can dual at level 9 right out of Irenicus dungeon without any draw backs. You will level up so fast that you won't have to deal with the single class thief for very much of SOA either. The fighter/thief won't get the damage and thaco bonuses that a Kensai/thief would get but he would have that grandmastered bow and could match a FMT in damage.
I like the idea of having a few spells in quick spell slots and a scroll case that has some spells like timestop or mislead so that you can pull off that ultimate backstab or buff extra defensive magic over your armor for an extra tough fight. I think I would prefer that than to waste all that XP on a mage ability when your character doesn't need offensive spells due to melee damage and doesn't need defensive spells if he simply uses armor. The scrolls can be used for that extra exploit that a timestop or mislead will give a fighter class but keeps the game cheese more in check. You also get the ability to enjoy reaching that level 40 in the thief class with all of the fighter hitpoints and grandmastery. It makes for a very powerful character that does not require much micro and is very enjoyable for the majority of the series.
I don't think armor is as big a deal as you make it out to be. A Ken/Thief may be able to manage a bit better AC for certain segments of the game, but AC is less important than flat out damage negation, which the FMT gets in spades through Mirror Image, Stoneskin, and Protection from Magical Weapons. The K/T can mimic that by using scrolls, but that's a lot of scrolls you're talking about.
Personally, I'm a bigger fan of Fighter/Mages or Blades than FMTs, but that has more to do with not being willing to consistently go out of my way to backstab than any real power differential.
Personally, I'm a bigger fan of Fighter/Mages or Blades than FMTs, but that has more to do with not being willing to consistently go out of my way to backstab than any real power differential.
I can't speak for any other FMT users out there, but I like to play my FMT like I would play a FM, just with some thief skills too. I go for locks and traps first, and then detect illusion. Eventually, the stealthy skills will get added, but I'm not a huge backstab er.
Anyway, the point is the FM aspect: the FM will be able to cast Mirror Images and Stoneskins a little quicker, and a few more times. But it won't really matter much.
If you're insisten to going FM over FMT, you're better off with a Gnome IMHO. Shorty saves and an additional spell because of being a specialist mage really tip the scales over a tall FM IMHO. A gnome will only miss Ghost Armor.
Yes, the fighter mage gets the big hit points and grandmastery with the defensive casting bonus which is nice. No backstab and no thief HLA's is a bummer though. You may not like to backstab but it really is the most damaging attack in the game. With assassination you dont't even need to sneek up behind them for X5 damage multiplier and with the spell mislead you can just greater whirlwind and critical strike everything into oblivion with X5 damage 8 to 10 attacks a round. Same attacks as any other class just multiplied X5. Some of the HLA traps are pure destruction as well. The use any item HLA allows you to use carsomyr and if you want to be bothered with stealth then you can limit yourself to specific types of armor or pull your armor off for normal backstabs all day long. Having the set traps ability is nice too. Lock picking and find traps can come in handy in a solo game as well.
If you have a -14 armor class, and 50% magic resistance ect, with all of the abilities from various items and you simply cast mirror image and stone skins I don't think anything is gong to hurt you. you would only need to cast those two scrolls in situations where you would actually need it. Most of the time you could just wander around with your armor on and be fine. It's ok if you take a little damage every once in a while anyway that is why you have 260+ hit points. Just my opinion though. I do very much like having the ability to cast improved haste on myself and not having to worry about spell scrolls. I just don't think you would need more than a handful of spells if you were using the best items in the game and you would only need them every so often for a defensive buff or the ability to exploit the backstab damage multiplier. Offensive mage spells should be cast by pure class mages in your group with level 9 spells and mage HLA's. A thief with the use any item HLA should be able to handle the spells that have to do with him.
All classes have obviously been thought out and balanced in a way that there is probably no clear winner. Depending on how you like to play it is probably between a fighter/thief, a fighter/mage, a fighter/mage/thief or even a fighter/mage/cleric. Dam good game system.
EDIT:
btw the berserker mage is a total bad ass too.
For a solo run I do see that the FMT would be the best though. It allows you to make up for weaker damage by using backstab and it allows you to make up for some lost level 9 spells by using thief HLA's. Other than that you would have the melee power of the fighter and the protection of a mage without slow character progression since your character would hog all XP from the game. Removing XP caps and playing mega mods would slant even more toward the FMT and being able to disable traps would be pretty major.
So yeah I have come to the conclusion that the assassin/fighter is still the king of damage. Using a mislead scroll and then using the greater whirlwind ability with a grandmastered rod of ram+6 will push more damage then any other class combo in the game. The assassin can also grandmaster long range weapons and add poison damage to them for the most damaging long range attacks in the game. I don't think the assassin is as fun to play as a fighter/thief but he does end up king of damage at the endgame. If you don't include mislead or the assassin cleric damage combos the assassin/fighter still pulls in 200 damage a hit just inching out the Ken/thief.
A Fighter/thief is probably my favorite class so far. It is easy on micro and less crippled than the Ken/thief or assassin/fighter. While both of those class combos will do more damage at the endgame they are both weaker and less fun to play for the majority of the game.
FMT seems like the best character for a solo run due to it's vast amount of abilities but I disagree that it is a more powerful character in a group. Weather it be the start of BGEE or the end of TOB a FMT doesn't do as much damage and requires more micro. The FMT will be less powerful than many NPC's throughout the game simply because the character will lag behind all pure class NPC's until TOB. Personally, I am not seeing enough pay off for spending 1/3 of the game's XP for mage spell casting. As I said before the pure classes will do more spell damage and the defensive spells that a FMT can use will have limited use on someone who can use any armor and item combo in the game.
It does have benefits but with the fighter thief being able to use scrolls for those few times when you really need the extra magic protection, or the extra cheese of a mislead spell, I prefer the fighter/thief for the extra HP and the extra damage that grandmastery provides. The fighter/thief is not behind power and levels the entire game but instead just a fraction of SOA and you can use the best that the fighter and thief classes offer with no drawbacks other than the lack of fighter HLAs because they complement each other perfectly. You get the THACO and grandmaster damage of a fighter with the backstab and use any item ability of the thief. You still hit level 40 as a thief and have all of the benefits of a fighter.
My opinion of course. Maybe I will find something I like better down the road. Some sort of magic heavy class that complements the other like the fighter/thief does with melee. Probably not though, I think a thief/mage would just be a more focused jack of all trades. I don't think there is getting around the fact that melee is melee and magic is magic. They can complement each other but you will always run into a wall with these characters that mix the two. A wild mage is probably the king of the magic world but with some draw backs with dependability. If I am going to use magic I would rather just throw away the armor and stay off the front line. Why waste time casting armor when you can stay back and just kill everything in the first couple rounds? Let the enemy fall on your fighter tank's armor. It takes time to cast defenses and take down enemy defenses. Using a massive chain contingency is probably the best bet for protection but you can only cast so many of them.
After I finish my current playthough I might roll up a wild mage and team up with Neera for a magic heavy play style. Magic shines the best when you are using offensive spells that damage entire groups. They might not do 200+ points of damage seven times a round but they damage everything on screen at the same time. Everything is balanced.
Any dual from Fighter to anything else can't compete on damage with any multiclass character. A Kensai>Thief for example don't have the Fighter HLA. It will get outdamage by a simple Fighter/Thief multi.
And anyway, when you can hit for two thousands damages per round with backstabs, or four hundreds damages per round versus foes immune to backstabs, the +7 damage bonus from Kensai doesn't count anymore. You can already annihilate everything in a few seconds. You will even kill enemies way faster as a F/M/T because you can cast Breach / Dispel Magic / True Sight etc to strip your foes of their protections, leading to much faster fights.
And with the use of long time buff (Stoneskin which lasts for 12 hours) and Contingency / Spell Sequencer / Spell Trigger, you will always be prepared and buffed to fight anything.
IMO the lack of the first class HLA makes dual class poor powergaming choices.
At the start of the game, they are average because they are single class, Berserker are strong, Kensai much less so. F/M/T or F/M is already godmod because it can cast Sleep and can specialised in ranged weapons, making half of BG1 trivial, then use Mirror Image / Haste / use wands / etc making the rest of BG1 trivial as well. Then when the Fighter duals, he become extremely weak for quite some time (A Fighter 13 dualled into Mage needs 1M5 XP to progress to Mage 14 (which means a total of 2,750,000 XP)) while the F/M/T or F/M are already invincible with Stoneskin / Improved Invisibility / Blur / Mirror Image / PfMW / Improved Haste. They can also protect themselves from spells with Minor Globe of Invulnerability (extremely strong, it allows for some extremely efficient strategy like casting multiple Webs or Skull Traps spells into the melee without running the risk of being affected), Minor Spell Deflection / Minor Spell Turning. They can cast Breach / Secret Word / etc to dispel their foes's protections and most importantly, they can cast Spell Immunity which is a vital spell to many encounters in the game.
When the Fighter has completed his dual, he is a bit stronger than a multiclass, because he is effectively a multiclass character with Grandmastery, better hitpoints and a kit. But the difference between a "god", and a little bit stronger "god" is not very important in my opinion.
But this only lasts for 250,000 XP in the case of a Fighter dualled to Mage. Because 250,000 xp later, the multiclass are reaching 3M total XP and are starting to earn HLAs. The dual will only earn his HLA much later (at 4,350,000 total XP) and won't be able to chose into the Fighter pool, which means they are going to be really crippled when it comes to fighting.
And at last, when you have only one active class, you don't progress much anymore into the late game. What's the difference betweend a level 20 and a level 40 Thief ? Nothing except some HLAs limited to the Thief pool. The same is true for Fighters, a level 40 Fighter is the same character than a level 20 Fighter except for 60 HPs. Because saves, THAC0, APR, etc, don't progress past the level 20.
Which means a Kensai dualled to Thief is a worse Fighter than a F/M/T, an equal Thief and isn't a Mage.
Dualclass characters are still pretty strong of course (A simple Fighter 9 => Thief is incredibly stronger than a single class Thief for example), but this topic is about the best possible character build, and dual are so far behind multi that they can't compete (IMO).
Thanks for that Gotural, I think some of my opinions are based on my play style being particularly focused on vanilla fighters and mages. Maybe my differing opinion is from a lack of experience trying to mix the two properly.
When it comes to HLA's I agree that the FMT getting both fighter and thief skills is fantastic but I am not sure that it turns the tables because the Ken/thief is still getting the extra kit damage and grandmaster damage the entire game of BG and SOA before the HLA's are handed out and even then, the theif HLA's can compete with the fighter. Critical strike which takes three HLA points to earn and greater whirlwind which needs 2, are the only two fighter HLA's that are all that amazing really. You could get the same number of attacks in a timestop trap with improved haste as you could with grater whirlwind for example and then you get the bonus to hit and damage on top of each hit with the Ken/thief. Special attacks aside the ken/thief will hit harder all the time with backstabs and normal attacks and he gets an extra 1/2 attack each round. Not to mention his Kai ability which he has from the start of the game.
While it is true that a FMT can cast breach ect, to burn down the enemy's defense it's not like your pure class mages couldn't do the same thing. If you are solo I agree the FMT is the best choice but I am not convinced that the casting ability is really all that worth while when you have a full party. I wouldn't want to waste time casting all of these spells when I could be running up to the enemy and bringing my blade down on them just as my pure class mages bring down the defenses. The only time I can see magic really helping a Ken/thief is when a spell can only be cast on the caster like mislead, timestop, or mirror image but those can be handled with scrolls for the times when you really need them. I have beaten the game on insane with vanilla fighters that did just fine with items and armor. Adding magical protections is not really needed but it could be done on top of armor for even more power if you wanted to spend the time buffing before a fight. Pure class mages could help or you could scrolls. The Ken/thief would also have more hitpoints so he could take some extra damage.
At the start of the first game I think you gain power faster with a straight fighter then you do with a multi because you are gaining the hitpoints and saving throws faster and you can get that third proficiency for more to hit and damage early on. You couldn't cast sleep or haste but you would have mages that could while you were hacking away at the same time. I think the vanilla fighter can compete with a pure class mage in the first game. It's around level 13 that the fighter starts to take a nose dive.
I agree 100% with you regarding the classes not improving past level 20 but the slow progression of building 3 classes at once when you have 5 other team members is a burden. I don't feel like my FMT is on the same level as my FT was when playing the game last. For example, a pure class mage is casting level 5 spells in the first game and the FMT is at that same casting level late into the second game.
Still, maybe it is my lack of experience with the class that is making me feel this way. I will try using the casting ability the way you have described and see if it helps me out. I am going to take my time on this one and try to really get my hands dirty with this character. Sometimes it's just a matter of time spent with a class I believe. Thanks for the reply and your tips.
EDIT: I'm going to start all over with a new FMT and really take my time with it so I might not be back for a while lol.
So I rolled up a half elf FMT and I am early in the first game. It's going to be a while before I will get to the good stuff but...
I do know the statistics of what my character will eventually become. I am starting to think that my differing opinion is not based on my play style or the character class at all. I think that my idea of the best character for a party is simply different.
I don't think there is any denying that a FMT would kick the snot out of a FT. I know that having magic abilities will allow the character to bring down enemy defense and also make them helpless while they get melee bashed to pieces. I am aware that the FMT allows the player to enjoy all of the major abilities in the game at one time. Is it the best character? Probably, and is the the FMT best equipped for a solo run? Yes, and it could take any other character class combo 1 on 1 in a fight to the death as well. Even in a party of 3 or 4, I can see his diversity being useful to add magic or thieving support when needed while still being a great fighter.
My problem with the FMT in a 6 person party is that I simply do not see the need for magic at all. If a FMT casts haste on himself and then sleep on the enemy and then runs up to the enemy and melee attacks them to death, the FMT just wasted 2 attacks. Why not run toward the enemy while one mage casts haste on you and the other casts sleep on the enemy? Then a third mage could even bring down enemy defense. The casting of spells by your FMT has simply delayed the death of your enemies by melee attack. In the time you spent casting haste and sleep you could have already ran up to the enemy and killed them. That ends the threat of being attacked much faster and makes your group more powerful. If you have 2 or 3 level 30 mages that have more spell slots and can cast more powerful spells at any given point in the game, then why would you waste your melee attacker's round casting spells as well?
The FMT may be the ultimate character but is he what a party of 6 actually needs? All mages end the game with the same hitpoints and the same spells that do the same damage. The main character of a group would not add anything to the group if he were a spell caster. What a group needs is what the game does not offer through NPC characters. You have plenty of magic, what you need is a melee character that can do more damage than Dorn and other melee bashers. How do you do that? You combine the fighter with the thief. The fighter/thief does not lag behind levels the entire game and he doesn't waste time casting spells that magic users should be casting. He doesn't even need his thieving abilities. All he needs is access to the thief HLA pool and backstab on top of his fighter skills and fighter hp. This makes the fighter more powerful without sacrifice.
If the FMT had grandmastery he could match the fighter or a fighter dual in melee but he doesn't. He will hit for less damage the entire game. From normal attacks to backstabs to HLA's the FMT is an inferior fighter just like he is an inferior spell caster because he cannot use level 9 spells. Not only that but he will lag behind in levels the entire game which will hurt his HP and off balance the character allowing other pure classes to have better abilities at any given time in the game. There is no point in denying this. It was intentionally set up this way to balance the character and give other classes a reason to exist.
That is why I think the fighter/thief is a better choice for a 6 person party. What the party needs is a character that does the most melee damage hit for hit and does nothing but melee without the need for babysitting.
You could dual class a vanilla fighter into a thief at level 9 and he would reach a level 10 thief at what? 375,000XP? Sure, this character would not be as powerful as a level 13/14 FT and he would certainly be way weaker than a level 13/14 Ken/thief but he would still get the same number of attacks and do more damage every round with more hitpoints than a FMT the entire game. It would take you maybe an hour in SOA to actually gain back your fighter abilities doing this and you would still be the better melee character.
The FMT does gain the fighter class HLA's which will give him about two additional abilities of worth for the last 10% of the game but greater whirlwind does not allow the character to do any more damage then a thief HLA and it does not give the character any real edge in melee combat. If the FMT does 7 damage less than a Ken/thief each hit then he is doing about 25 less damage every round. That is 35 less damage every backstab and 122 points of damage less every round of backstabbing for the entire game. This doesn't even take into consideration that you would get an extra 1/2 attack each round as well as the Kai ability. At the end of the game a hasted Ken/thief could get 10.5 backstabs in during a timestop trap with mislead cast. This would result in 367.5 more points of damage in a single round and these attacks could be spread out among multiple enemies.
The only instance that I can see that would ever allow a FMT to do more damage would be if he used improved haste, mislead, critical strike in combination with a time stop trap. Believe me when I say that I can't wait to do this for myself. From what I can tell it would be 26X5+10=140. 140X 9 attacks=1260. Then you would get double damage for all attacks in the round with critical strike for a grand total of 2520 points of damage. This is pure awesome but you have to admit that it is impractical. You will need to spend 5 points in your fighter HLAs and more in your thief HLA before this is even possible. This ability will be available for the last 5% of the game and nearly impossible to pull off under any normal circumstance.
Is the FMT a better character class? Yeah probably and he is probably more fun to play for experienced players as well but is he the best choice for a 6 person party? I don't think so.
I am going to enjoy playing this character and it may end up being my favorite overall but it doesn't really change my opinion or the statistical facts. If you think that a party can never have enough magic or that the difference in melee damage doesn't matter than that is your opinion and why we disagree. In any case I have enjoyed this conversation and I have learned some great things from you guys so thank you for that. I respectfully disagree that a FMT is the ultimate character in a full party. It's debatable in a small party and undeniably the best solo. What fun would the game be if all party combinations were dominated by one character anyway?
How come a FMT won't get 9th level spells? Is that under the ToB cap?
IMHO, a FMT should be a fighter first. Like any other FM, the spells are there to make you a better fighter than any single classed fighter!!
Stoneskin, mirror image, blur, ect. Haste helps when you know a big fight is coming. An occasional magic missile helps when there's a spellchucker across the room you need to interrupt, or when said spellchucker has his own mirror images active. Honestly, most of my first level slots are for identify spells.
It's a different style of play. There's certainly nothing wrong with a fighter/thief. And if there is any kit out there a player is fond of, dual classing with that kit makes a great character too.
The spells will give you benefits to armor though they are not really needed. With a ring of free action and the best plate armor/items in the game you will be pretty much invincible without having to pre-buff or worry about spells being dispelled or wearing off. Characters that can get through your -16 armor class and magic resistance will have 260+ hitpoints to drain so you really won't have to worry about anything 95% of the time. Your mages can buff your fighter before a fight. Only a handful of spells cannot be cast on your fighter by other casters. They are almost all buff spells like Blur, Spirit armor, mislead, ect. These would need to be cast using a scroll and the fighter thief use any item HLA will allow the use of scrolls for that very reason. Everything is balanced in a funky, hard to follow kind of way.
I would use the Girdle of initial barrier for + 5 to all saving throws and 50% magic resistance. Use Carsomyr for 50% magic resistance and it's ability to automatically dispel enemy protections with each hit. Combine those with magical full plate+2 in SOA and +3 in TOB. Shurrupak's full plate will give you a +1 to dexterity and 20% fire resistance with a -2 armor class. Throw in the helm of baldrin for more HP and armor class /saving throws plus the gauntlets of specialization/extra specialization. I use the boots of avoidance for the +5 vs missile damage though sometimes I use the boots of speed for backstabbing or boots of phasing for the armor bonus. The amulet of selderain will give you 10% magic resistance and +1 to saving throws. Then toss in the cloak of the sewers and a ring of free action with the ring of gaxx and you should have a -14 to -16 armor class with protection from pretty much everything. If you are a Ken/thief then you will have an additional -2 to your armor class which should put you around -18. None of this requires pre-buff and none of it can be dispelled. Grandmaster your weapons with 260 hitpoints, you will be a true tank. You could always keep a blur, mirror image, and mislead scroll in your quick spell slots for extra protection on those really tough boss fights.
The FMT won't get level 9 spells because there is not enough XP in the game to unlock those abilities in a 6 person party. If you use a small party or you solo then you could gain the XP but you would need to remove the XP cap because it's set at 8 million per a character which limits a FMT from gaining level 9 regardless of how you wish to play.
Many people will give themselves grandmastery and remove the XP cap while solo playing and simply enjoy the character without limitations. Adding in new adventures with mods helps with this. You can use King Diamonds level 1-50 abilities mod to achieve this. I may do this myself with a mega mod down the road but for now I am going to play by the rules and add in all of the difficulty enhancing mods just for the challenge.
The mage spells will make a fighter a better fighter but they don't need to be cast by the fighter himself. That is my point. The fighter should spend his time fighting, not casting. A solo Character will benefit from the mage spells to make him great but in a party a straight fighter has no real need for the mage skills because he has mages in the party that will bring down defense and cripple the enemy anyway.
One thing I just thought of. I don't think mages are very good for the main character because they all end up the same but I do think mages are more powerful than melee characters. Usually I will use 3 mages and 2 melee characters and then throw in a pivot character. For example, sometimes I will use Jaheira because she can cast healing spells, help with magic by summoning monsters or casting insect plague or simply using her as a basher on the front lines. Some fights need more magic ability and some need more melee.
I believe a FMT would make a better pivot character in a 6 person party than a melee character. Would replacing Jahiera with a FMT be a better idea than replacing Dorn with a FT? Maybe, but...
A fighter/mage might be the better option in this situation especially if you use characters like Nalia or Imoen since they can detect and disarm any trap and unlock any lock either with their thief skills or the spell "Knock". So yes, the fighter mage has his day in the sun as well.
A fighter mage has more hitpoints most of the game and better melee attacks than a FMT. He also is not as slow to progress in his mage spells and can learn level 9. On the flip side, the fighter mage cannot backstab or use carsomyr and he is limited to mage HLA's only but this won't matter for a pivot character. the FM spell progression will still be slower than a pure class mage but better than a FMT. On the front lines he will have more hitpoints and do more damage with grandmastery than the FMT and on the back lines he will be an unlocked mage with level 9 spells and slightly faster progression. I would give the FM the nod as best pivot character in the game. The fighter mage can cast time stop and do 7 attacks a round for 6 rounds during that time stop. With a grandmastered rod of ram the FM could do 1500 points of damage in a single round without having to rely on HLA's or backstabs. Just a straight up 42 attacks in a single round and nothing is immune to it. This could be used on any boss encounter in the game unlike critical strike and backstab. That doesn't even consider in the possibility of a critical hit or multiple critical hits and it doesn't require anything to pull it off either. Just cast timestop and run up to your enemies and wack them to death. With the ability to do less damage per hit and more hits per a round, this attack can be focused on more enemies and is probably the most effective melee attack in the game, very impressive. Of course a FT could match it and FMT could get close by using scrolls but there are only so many timestop scrolls in the game.
For small parties I think that dual or multi is better than a pure class. A pure mage will lose their advantage in a small party. Triple class level progression will not be as bogged down but it will still be worse than a dual but a triple class will bring more abilities to the table which is needed in a small group. I think any dual or multi is equal in a small group. The determining factor of which character would be best in a small group would come down to which NPC's you choose to party with.
So yeah in my opinion: FT= best Melee Wild Mage= best mage(no reason for main character to be one thanks to Neera) FM=Best Pivot character FMT=best solo Best small party=depends on the NPC's, most dual and multi are equal. Most damage in one hit=Assassin fighter Most damage in one round=FMT Most guaranteed damage in one round=FM
Either way I seriously doubt people choose a character and NPC's based on nothing but attack roles and theoretical optimization.
I am not saying anyone in this thread is wrong. I am simply giving reasoning for my way of thinking. It's more about having fun and enjoying the game so if a FMT is more fun then a FMT it is. Personally I can't wait to get my hands on both fighter and thief HLA's at the end of this run. Having access to the most options is what this character is all about.
You should also take into account the usefulness of the Robe of Vecna on a F/M or a F/M/T.
With it you will be able to cast most spells instantly, but you are still restricted to one special action per round, which means a single class caster won't really benefit from it, except when he uses Improved Alacrity, while the F/M/T or the F/M will be able to both cast and fight in the same round. He will be able to get to 8 attacks per round, every round, forever while still casting one spell per round, exactly like a Mage.
This way a F/M or F/M/T ends up like two characters (I would say even more than 2 thanks to the synergy) condensed in one.
I also always stress when going into melee with any non-caster character, because enemies in the late game tends to all have such huge THAC0 and all sorts of nasty effects on hit, like Vorpal Hit, Level Drain, etc, which will hit anything non-protected by PfMW.
The Kensai=>Thief will greatly lacks in damage because he can't self buff himself. +7 in damage won't do him good when he is locked at 9/2 APR with only one backstab. While the F/M/T will get 8 APR with every attacks backstabs + critical while also being invincible to everythings, etc.
The screenshot below represents my first ever run of BG2:EE (and also of BG2), it was nearly a year ago and I definitely didn't know where to look around for good gear, I didn't even know what Mislead did at that time but still, the result is impressive with something like 1800 damage per round, without Critical Strike. What I did here is basically what I did to every single enemy of the game. Nowadays I think I could get something like 5.000+ damage per round if I wanted to squeeze every bits of cheese from the game into the character.
Gotural: I could be wrong, but it should be that if you cast a spell, that's your only action for the round (no matter how fast you cast it). You shouldn't be able to cast a spell AND Attack in the same round.
Comments
Step 1: Play multiplayer by yourself and make a Cleric/Ranger. It doesn't matter how good his/her starting stats are. He/she should have two points in Flails and three points in Two Weapon Style. The rest doesn't matter.
Step 2: Import a character or combination of characters that has the following items: Deck of Many Things, 2 Defender of Easthaven, Cloak of the Dark Moon, Girdle of Inertial Barrier, Amulet of Power, Amulet of Cheetah Speed, Boots of Speed, Shadow Dragon Scale, Vhailor's Helm, Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization, 1 Gem of Seeing, 2 Golden Calf Idol (one can be obtained in the black pits 2 if you don't already know), Ring of Gaxx, and some other ring. Equip the stated items to the cleric/ranger.
Step 3: Export your cleric/ranger, than start a single player ToB game with him/her. At the beginning of the game, use the Deck of Many Things and try to draw the throne card. If you don't already know, you can draw that card on the third draw if you have drawn a "bad card" earlier. So reload until you draw Ruin or Donjon, then Sun, then Throne. In total, you will have obtained 1300000 experience points. Export your character, then start a new single player game and repeat the process until you are max level. Make sure to get a few uses of Hardiness.
Step 4: Import your character to a save where you have opened the Machine of Lum the Mad but haven't used it. If you use the right combinations, you can increase each of your stats by 1, and your magic resistance by 5%. Do that until your character has 25 in all stats and 127% magic resistance.
Step 5: Import your character to a save in Shadows of Amn where you have obtained all the tears of Bhaal. You should have a save for both the evil bonuses and the good bonuses. Eventually, your character will have -26 Armor Class, maximum Saving Throws, 127% resistance to fire, cold and electricity, and a lot of health, at the cost of becoming evil (note that this doesn't make you a fallen ranger). You could repeat this to gain an arbitrarily large amount of health if you want to.
Here is the end result: Once you cast Armor of Faith, Hardiness, and Protection from Magical Energy (using the cloak of the dark moon), you have these resistances:
Slashing: 100%
Piercing: 100%
Crushing: 100%
Missile: 90%
Fire: 127%
Cold: 127%
Electricity: 127%
Acid: 75%
Magic: 127%
Magic Damage: 127%
Poison: 100%
Improved Haste from Amulet of Cheetah Speed lets you kill everyone really quickly, and they can't really do anything to you. Have fun!
In terms of simply attacking or casting spells or backstabbing as a thief, I believe the Assassin/fighter could achieve 200 points of damage in one hit which is about 20 points more damage than the Ken/thief. The Assassin would also have poison for his arrows but the Ken/thief would have more hit points and a better thaco.
The main difference is that you can take a small hit to performance and play as a ken/thief from low level. In order for the Assassin fighter to be the best you have to wait until level 21 for the dual class which is really just not that fun to do.
I too would like to know if the assassin can still be dual classed to a fighter with a X7 backstab. Hopefully I am just doing something wrong and it is still possible. I would hate to put all the time in to build an assassin to level 21 and then find out that the X7 backstab drops to a X2 which makes the character useless even with fighter perks.
Carsomyr is 1D12+5 with another +5 to chaotic Evil. so it has a max of 18 for all other than chaotic evil which can match the Rod of Ram at 22. Minimum of 6.
So the Rod of RAM has a slightly better max damage most of the time but a much better minimum attack and a much better average. They are both +6 to hit.
I will say that the dispelling ability of Carsomyr is great especially if you are solo. The knock back ability of the Rod of Ram is nice especially if you are a back stabber but with only a 15% chance of success.
In many ways the Rod of Ram is just outright better than the ultimate sword for some reason. It's a better melee weapon and it can backstab.
Being a huge fan of the fighter class I always wanted to use Carsomyr but I was shocked to find when looking for back stab weapons that the Rod of Ram is just more damaging by a long shot. Kind of Silly.
If you grandmaster quarter staves and use the Rod it will improve your damage a whole bunch. That dispel ability for Carsomyr is the shit though.
I would probably take both along for the journey and use whatever suits the situation. For a thief multiclass the answer is obvious though because you cannot back stab with the carsomyr and you can with the Rod of RAM. You can buy a rod from a temple in SOA that is almost as powerful. I would say quarter staffs are the highest damaging two handed weapons in the game and the only two handed weapons that can be used for X5 and X7 back stab damage.
EDIT:
I checked the reported bugs list in the BG2EE forum and the assassin multiclass backstab multiplier is confirmed and reported as a bug. It will probably be fixed in the next patch. For now you can work around the problem with EE Keeper. I also tried the big metal unit and it doesn't work. So the assassin/cleric is indeed the only way to achieve that massive damage.
For a more believable backstab weapon, you can instead use the Black Blade of Disaster: 2D12+5 base damage makes it the second most damaging backstab weapon.
Backstabbing takes a lot of micromanagement, so many baddies are immune to it in ToB, and what difference is there between x5 and x7, when either will chunk the unlucky recipient anyway?
I agree about the Half-Elf being better than the Elf for a solo playthrough, I prefer to have 18 Con at the start of the game.
What's so powerful about the F/M/T is the insane synergy between the three classes. People often argue that the F/M/T can't reach 9th level spells for exemple, but who needs them when you can put 7 Time Stop Traps at the start of the fight ? They activate one just after another, which means time is frozen for 70 seconds instantly for example.
Some things to consider : A Thief can backstab, but generally only once per fight. He doesn't have enough THAC0 to hit reliably and his damage are supbar while doing so because he doesn't have Specialization.
A Fighter/Thief is essentially an improved Thief, he hits his backstabs reliably while doing a lot of damage during the process, but also after. He has quite a lot of HP but cannot really tank, because he isn't a Mage.
A F/M/T is essentially an improved Fighter/Thief, you trade nothing except a slower progression, which generally means being behind the F/T of 1 level, which means 1 THAC0 and 25 skill points. But in exchange, you are a Mage. Possibilities become endless, and you can easily use magic to backstab again and again, while being impervious to most attacks.
Gotural, The problem with the F/M/T is that you will not progress very far in any of your abilities unless you solo the whole game or cheat by removing he XP cap. In a party, especially a 6 person party the F/M/T is many levels below every one else and with a party you don't need the diversity of a magic and melee combo. Combining the melee damage of a fighter with the backstab of the theif makes sense to me because your character is up front and fighting so the extra damage is welcome. Casting spells and swinging swords at the same time makes no sense when you have 2 or more level 30 mages in your group. I am not saying anyone is wrong and the game is about playing it your way in the end but to me the F/M/T doesn't make any sense unless you are solo and even then it does have HLA problems. I would rather have the magic come from level 30 mages and the attacks come from fighter a 13/40 fighter/thief combo.
This is a quote from Chris Lee's thief Guide which is probably responsible for me thought process.
=Here's a not-so-fun equation - 2 950 000 / 3 = 983 333. Do you
know what that is? That's the Pre-Throne of Bhaal level cap divided
by the three classes that'll be splitting the experience. Do you
realize how LOW of a cap that is? Your Fighter/Mage/Thief levels
will be, respectively, 11/12/14. Sure, you'll be able to cast
spells, but only up to level 5. Sure, you can use thieving
abilities, but you'll actually have LESS theiving points to use than
the highly crippled Assassin.
Then again, why bother with putting points into Hide in Shadows
when you have numerous casts of (Improved) Invisibility and Shadow
Door at your disposal? Why bother with Detect Illusions when you
have Oracle?
The Fighter/Mage/Thief lacks a lot in relative power. The Fighter/
Thief elements don't make up for the fact that the mage is never
going to be able to cast powerful spells. The Fighter/Mage elements
don't make up for the fact that the thief will be missing out on LOTS
of abilities. The Mage/Thief elements don't make up for the fact
the fighter will be severely crippled in THAC0 and AC. Still, with
a loss in absolute power, it gains versatility, which in some ways
far outweights any penalty from the low levels.=
This changes somewhat once you reach TOB but at the end of SOA you will be about 4 levels higher than the average character starts at. You will have great diversity but a party will have more diversity with much higher level spells and more damaging and melee.
I do intend to play though with a tripple class in the near future and maybe my opinion will change like some of the others in this forum. I can see how rewarding it would be to let one character mix all of those abilities and take care of things without messing with other character types.
And on the contrary, combining spells and swinging swords at the time is extraordinary powerful and makes sence. Firstly because you cannot cast more than one spell per round (or potion, etc), which means a pure Mage spends a lot of time doing nothing (or attacking with a sling/darts which essentially means doing nothing) so by alterning casting and fighting on the same character, you can actually perform nearly like two characters, with only one.
And also because you won't need some spells (damage types spells for example) if you can actually fight back in melee when you need it. A F/M/T for example won't need True Sight because he has Detect Illusion, and won't need Melf Acid Arrow or Melf Minute Meteor because he can fight.
And the difference between a single and a multiclass isn't that huge because of the way the experience required increase for the first ten levels (it essentially doubles every level). For example, if we take some extreme exemples :
At 405,000 experience. A single class Mage is level 11 (since 375,000 xp) and has acces to level 5th spells.
At 405,000 experience, the F/M/T is level 8/9/9 and also has acces to level 5th spells. But is also a better warrior than a single class Fighter or Paladin/Ranger (both would be level 9 as single class). He only loses on 1 THAC0 but in exchange has Stoneskin / Mirror Image etc etc etc. And he is also a better Thief than a Thief because he can hide with Invisibility spells, and use Knock on locks. Which means he can focus his skill points somewhere else.
What about your armor class? do you just use stone skins? I figure the armor will disable all of your mage and thief abilities which is fine but you put a bunch of XP into earning those abilities so I wouldn't want to waste them. What about thaco and weapon specialization? How many attacks do you get a round? I would imagine you hardly have any of the amazing theif and fighter HLA's.
My Ken/theif that I was testing with the other day had a -22 thaco and a -18 armor class with 3.5 attacks a round with a grandmastered two handed sword. He has an additional +4 to hit and Damage for being kensai and all of the best thief HLA's. The only downside to him is that he cannot specialize in long range weapons so he gets one attack less than the assassin or fighter classes in ong range. The assassin/fighter really is my favorite damage dealer that I have played so far. it's a pity that you have to wait so long to unlock his true potential. I think the game is more fun with a lower level multiclass.
The F/M/T get as much attacks as others multiclass with Fighter. And 1/2 less than a Fighter dualled into Thief. But he can cast Improved Haste multiple times per day with ease, with great duration so he is going to have more APR than anything non-Fighter+Mage.
The F/M/T gets his HLA at 3M total XP like everyone else, so he gets just as much HLA than a F/T multiclass.
With the spell Mislead, the F/M/T can backstab for every attacks, every rounds while staying invisible, delivering 8 attacks per round, every attacks are critical hits (thanks to the Critical Strike HLA) and backstab thanks to Mislead.
He generally cannot be hit by anything except critical hit because his AC is extremely low and even if it happens, he has both Mirror Image and Stoneskin up at every time to protect him.
He is also really resilient to spells, because he get the best saves from his three classes, then a -5 bonus from Blur and Improved Invisibility and another -3 bonus vs spells from Spirit Armor (total -8) which means it is really easy to get something like -10 or even -15 to saves vs spells. Plus he has Spell Immunity, Spell Turning, Spell Deflection, Spell Deflection, Protection from Energy, etc.
In the end, the F/M/T is invincible, has all the utility (lockpicking, find traps etc) and has the highest damage per round against foes vulnerable to backstabs.
After all these years I've come to this conclusion. The ruleset used in Baldur's Gate, the 2d edition, heavily favors multiclasses characters, and the more classes you have, the more power you get. Because you don't really sacrifice anything to multi.
It's even worse in PnP, because in PnP, there is no XP cap, multiclass can get kits, and Grandmastery.
Most of these spells are relatively low level, so being a triple classed FMT is fine.
It's also a great character because ALL builds reach a point of diminishing returns (where going up a level really doesn't give you much at all). Since the FMT advances slower, that boring point of diminishing returns is farther away.
I am not sure I understand completely though. I mean, your FMT would have lower level spells and lower level skills than a pure class at any given time in the game. Even at the end game. Why would it not be better to simply let pure class mages do the magic and fighter/thief do the melee damage? In a solo run I understand the benefit of having all of the various skills but it seems to me like you are a master of none and with a well balanced party you should have all of those skills working at the same time and pushed to the highest level of ability. When you are casting level 5 spells and using 1or 2 thief skills, the pure classes would be casting level 8 spells and using all thief skills to the maximum. Unlike a game with no XP cap you do have one in this game which will forever keep you under the performance of the other classes would it not?
I do see what you are saying with the grandmastery and use any item type of character. I get that you are still working off of your ability scores which have nothing to do with class. Many classes have perks that meld well together and some of them make each other useless, for example casting invisibility could make your thief skills less important. I guess you can pick and choose how long you want to spend casting spells and on what and it seems like your limitation regarding high level mage spells would not really matter since the ones you have are just icing on top of the fighter/thief cake.
On the other hand I wouldn't want to spend 3 rounds casting spells to get my armor up when I could simply run into battle with the same AC by using armor. I like being able to start the battle with a single 500 point blas in the first round without any thing to slow me down. If you don't want to waste half of the battle casting spells just to get your self in order than you would probably have to dedicate a bit of pre-buff time I would assume. I don't want to spend 5 minutes before each fight trying to buff my character to the point where he can match the other classes just to have limited mage abilities on top of it. That is my worry. Do you have to constantly cast a group of 10 spells on yourself every time you enter an area?
I will definitely give it a shot though. I am still not sure what I am going to use this next play through. I have been messing with classes in EE keeper just trying to get a peak at what characters are generally going to be like before I commit to one of them. You have peaked my interest though. I may try the FMT on my next game.
The multi-Class is incapable of using the kits isn't it? So you couldn't for example, use a Kensai/M/F. That would be a little too crazy right? I think I will build one up tonight in with the console and see whats what.
I don't know if I will like it but I am going to give it a shot. I can't believe how well thought out the gameplay in this game is. Bioware should have stuck with D&D in my opinion. Sure this game is not perfectly balanced but they pushed these characters to retarded levels of power and still managed a ton of gameplay variety. Even after 10 years of playing it I just found a whole new dimension to the game that I didn't even know existed. It's probably because the game was plenty fun the way I was already playing it so I just never pushed myself to check it out or play what I considered a class combo with obvious limitations. Still, the FMT will prove interesting. I have seen mention of the elf as a good character race. Any other ideas?
BTW thanks for your time Gotural.
EDIT:
Just used mislead and greater whirlwind. That's like 10 quintuple backstabs @ 130+ points a hit in a single round and you can just keep going and going. I'm not even gonna do the math but that is well over 1200 points of damage without critical hits in a single round=WTF. I don't think this will be a challenge at all. I must admit that this is more OP than anything I have ever seen.
EDIT Again:
lol, I might just go back to single class characters. SCS and ascension on insane would not even be fun because it would be way too easy with this character. I would be forced to tell all of the NPC's to go away because they would just drag me down. While I love this game and all of the great options, this class is clearly an oversight. It just goes way over the line and doesn't make any sense. You can just walk though the dungeons and kill everything with a backstab and nobody will even know that you are there.
With specialization in quarterstaffs and Using improved haste and the Rod of RAM+6 with the gauntlets of extraordinary specialization I get 6 attacks a round that can do 23 points of damage. Add the end game strength bonus of +11 and you get 34 points of damage a round. Using a backstab X5 gets you 23 X 5+11=126.
126 damage six times a round thanks to "mislead" for a total of 756 X2 for a critical hit on all 6 attacks thanks to critical strike = 1,512 points of damage in one round. I know black blade of disaster improves the number of attacks per a round to 7 and I am sure there are other weapons that probably hit faster that could improve the combo more. It doesn't do the most damage per a hit but it's stupid powerful and could be used on a whole group of enemies at once.
If you led someone into multiple time stop traps it wouldn't even matter if you could backstab or not because you could just greater whirlwind everyone to death with the Carsomyr+6 or with your fists for crying out loud. Assasination will land you 630 points of damage without having to sneak in behind your enemies and greater whirlwind with mislead will push you up to 1,260 per a round using the Rod of Ram with my current test settings. Mislead makes backstabbing as easy as a normal attack with a sword. Having the ability to cast improved haste on yourself as a melee basher is nice but being able to cast mislead on yourself=gameover.
It's become obvious though that the OP I was experiencing was from simply mixing magic combos with melee damage which came as a surprise because I had never done that before. In the end those super combos can be applied to other character classes.
In the same way that a FMT may use a timestop scroll, a Ken/theif could use a mislead or a timestop scroll. It is more annoying to use scrolls than to have the spells memorized but it is just as annoying to have to cast multiple protective spells in each area just to match the armor of a Ken/thief.
A Ken/thief still has more hit points and does more damage with a better thaco and he doesn't have to mess with spells for things like armor and his armor cannot be dispelled. He can still use spells to cheese the game engine but he is limited to what scrolls he can buy. He can cast the same protective magics on top of his armor and use the same timestop and mislead spells to cheese the game with unlimited X5 backstab. The ability to memorize spells is convenient but I still think a ken-thief is capable of more damage and is less of a hassle over all to micro manage. The lack of grandmastery for a FMT also sucks pretty bad.
I do like the FMT's ability to mix the thief and fighter HLA's and I also like that you don't have to give up a profession and start over as a new character in the middle of the game like you do with a dual class character. A FMT Could also give up his magic and use armor just like a Ken/Thief if he wants but why waste all of the XP on that mage class if you are not going to use it?
Lucky for me I am kind of enjoying the micromanaging element since it adds a little extra to the gameplay in some ways. I am using a 6 person party so my character is lagging behind everyone else in the party when it comes to power but that is forcing me to utilize the party in new ways. It is definitely one of the most OP classes in the end game but after a little while to think about it. I think a ken/thief is still up there with the FMT. They both have things that are more convenient and less convenient at times and they both can abuse the game engine pretty hard. The FMT can't match the Ken/thief for overall damage though. Maybe more convenient mass damage but with less convenient protection. I wouldn't really say one is better than the other. They are both way OP and they both have ups and downs. In the end it comes down to a little more damage/a little more convenience and both are pretty close to the other overall. I will also admit that being able to hit harder and do more damage doesn't really matter when you reach a level of power that can destroy anything. The slight trade in power/convenience may make the FMT more desirable for some. Personally I will not know what I prefer until I have beaten the entire trilogy with this character.
I much prefer the FMT in the original Baldur's Gate though. I don't like playing with a Kensai fighter because of the lack of long range and no bracers or armor. At the very least a FMT can use armor if he needs it and can still use long range weapons which will make for a large difference in the first game. Given all of the extra difficult options I have added to my game, I may end up giving my FMT grandmastery simply because it is an enjoyable part of character progression and the extra damage will not change much with the game so amped up against me. I don't see a point in getting rid of the XP cap though because I have a six person party so I will never break the 8 Million mark. Solo is cool but a six person party adds much to the game. A 6 person party is what sets Baldur's gate apart from so many other modern games that focus on 3 or less characters all the time.
If I were starting SOA I would probably go with a Ken/Thief but if I was starting the original Baldur's Gate for a trilogy run, I think the FMT may be the more enjoyable option.
I like the idea of having a few spells in quick spell slots and a scroll case that has some spells like timestop or mislead so that you can pull off that ultimate backstab or buff extra defensive magic over your armor for an extra tough fight. I think I would prefer that than to waste all that XP on a mage ability when your character doesn't need offensive spells due to melee damage and doesn't need defensive spells if he simply uses armor. The scrolls can be used for that extra exploit that a timestop or mislead will give a fighter class but keeps the game cheese more in check. You also get the ability to enjoy reaching that level 40 in the thief class with all of the fighter hitpoints and grandmastery. It makes for a very powerful character that does not require much micro and is very enjoyable for the majority of the series.
Personally, I'm a bigger fan of Fighter/Mages or Blades than FMTs, but that has more to do with not being willing to consistently go out of my way to backstab than any real power differential.
Anyway, the point is the FM aspect: the FM will be able to cast Mirror Images and Stoneskins a little quicker, and a few more times. But it won't really matter much.
If you're insisten to going FM over FMT, you're better off with a Gnome IMHO. Shorty saves and an additional spell because of being a specialist mage really tip the scales over a tall FM IMHO. A gnome will only miss Ghost Armor.
If you have a -14 armor class, and 50% magic resistance ect, with all of the abilities from various items and you simply cast mirror image and stone skins I don't think anything is gong to hurt you. you would only need to cast those two scrolls in situations where you would actually need it. Most of the time you could just wander around with your armor on and be fine. It's ok if you take a little damage every once in a while anyway that is why you have 260+ hit points. Just my opinion though. I do very much like having the ability to cast improved haste on myself and not having to worry about spell scrolls. I just don't think you would need more than a handful of spells if you were using the best items in the game and you would only need them every so often for a defensive buff or the ability to exploit the backstab damage multiplier. Offensive mage spells should be cast by pure class mages in your group with level 9 spells and mage HLA's. A thief with the use any item HLA should be able to handle the spells that have to do with him.
All classes have obviously been thought out and balanced in a way that there is probably no clear winner. Depending on how you like to play it is probably between a fighter/thief, a fighter/mage, a fighter/mage/thief or even a fighter/mage/cleric. Dam good game system.
EDIT:
btw the berserker mage is a total bad ass too.
For a solo run I do see that the FMT would be the best though. It allows you to make up for weaker damage by using backstab and it allows you to make up for some lost level 9 spells by using thief HLA's. Other than that you would have the melee power of the fighter and the protection of a mage without slow character progression since your character would hog all XP from the game. Removing XP caps and playing mega mods would slant even more toward the FMT and being able to disable traps would be pretty major.
A Fighter/thief is probably my favorite class so far. It is easy on micro and less crippled than the Ken/thief or assassin/fighter. While both of those class combos will do more damage at the endgame they are both weaker and less fun to play for the majority of the game.
FMT seems like the best character for a solo run due to it's vast amount of abilities but I disagree that it is a more powerful character in a group. Weather it be the start of BGEE or the end of TOB a FMT doesn't do as much damage and requires more micro. The FMT will be less powerful than many NPC's throughout the game simply because the character will lag behind all pure class NPC's until TOB. Personally, I am not seeing enough pay off for spending 1/3 of the game's XP for mage spell casting. As I said before the pure classes will do more spell damage and the defensive spells that a FMT can use will have limited use on someone who can use any armor and item combo in the game.
It does have benefits but with the fighter thief being able to use scrolls for those few times when you really need the extra magic protection, or the extra cheese of a mislead spell, I prefer the fighter/thief for the extra HP and the extra damage that grandmastery provides. The fighter/thief is not behind power and levels the entire game but instead just a fraction of SOA and you can use the best that the fighter and thief classes offer with no drawbacks other than the lack of fighter HLAs because they complement each other perfectly. You get the THACO and grandmaster damage of a fighter with the backstab and use any item ability of the thief. You still hit level 40 as a thief and have all of the benefits of a fighter.
My opinion of course. Maybe I will find something I like better down the road. Some sort of magic heavy class that complements the other like the fighter/thief does with melee. Probably not though, I think a thief/mage would just be a more focused jack of all trades. I don't think there is getting around the fact that melee is melee and magic is magic. They can complement each other but you will always run into a wall with these characters that mix the two. A wild mage is probably the king of the magic world but with some draw backs with dependability. If I am going to use magic I would rather just throw away the armor and stay off the front line. Why waste time casting armor when you can stay back and just kill everything in the first couple rounds? Let the enemy fall on your fighter tank's armor. It takes time to cast defenses and take down enemy defenses. Using a massive chain contingency is probably the best bet for protection but you can only cast so many of them.
After I finish my current playthough I might roll up a wild mage and team up with Neera for a magic heavy play style. Magic shines the best when you are using offensive spells that damage entire groups. They might not do 200+ points of damage seven times a round but they damage everything on screen at the same time. Everything is balanced.
And anyway, when you can hit for two thousands damages per round with backstabs, or four hundreds damages per round versus foes immune to backstabs, the +7 damage bonus from Kensai doesn't count anymore. You can already annihilate everything in a few seconds. You will even kill enemies way faster as a F/M/T because you can cast Breach / Dispel Magic / True Sight etc to strip your foes of their protections, leading to much faster fights.
And with the use of long time buff (Stoneskin which lasts for 12 hours) and Contingency / Spell Sequencer / Spell Trigger, you will always be prepared and buffed to fight anything.
IMO the lack of the first class HLA makes dual class poor powergaming choices.
At the start of the game, they are average because they are single class, Berserker are strong, Kensai much less so. F/M/T or F/M is already godmod because it can cast Sleep and can specialised in ranged weapons, making half of BG1 trivial, then use Mirror Image / Haste / use wands / etc making the rest of BG1 trivial as well.
Then when the Fighter duals, he become extremely weak for quite some time (A Fighter 13 dualled into Mage needs 1M5 XP to progress to Mage 14 (which means a total of 2,750,000 XP)) while the F/M/T or F/M are already invincible with Stoneskin / Improved Invisibility / Blur / Mirror Image / PfMW / Improved Haste.
They can also protect themselves from spells with Minor Globe of Invulnerability (extremely strong, it allows for some extremely efficient strategy like casting multiple Webs or Skull Traps spells into the melee without running the risk of being affected), Minor Spell Deflection / Minor Spell Turning. They can cast Breach / Secret Word / etc to dispel their foes's protections and most importantly, they can cast Spell Immunity which is a vital spell to many encounters in the game.
When the Fighter has completed his dual, he is a bit stronger than a multiclass, because he is effectively a multiclass character with Grandmastery, better hitpoints and a kit. But the difference between a "god", and a little bit stronger "god" is not very important in my opinion.
But this only lasts for 250,000 XP in the case of a Fighter dualled to Mage. Because 250,000 xp later, the multiclass are reaching 3M total XP and are starting to earn HLAs. The dual will only earn his HLA much later (at 4,350,000 total XP) and won't be able to chose into the Fighter pool, which means they are going to be really crippled when it comes to fighting.
And at last, when you have only one active class, you don't progress much anymore into the late game. What's the difference betweend a level 20 and a level 40 Thief ? Nothing except some HLAs limited to the Thief pool. The same is true for Fighters, a level 40 Fighter is the same character than a level 20 Fighter except for 60 HPs. Because saves, THAC0, APR, etc, don't progress past the level 20.
Which means a Kensai dualled to Thief is a worse Fighter than a F/M/T, an equal Thief and isn't a Mage.
Dualclass characters are still pretty strong of course (A simple Fighter 9 => Thief is incredibly stronger than a single class Thief for example), but this topic is about the best possible character build, and dual are so far behind multi that they can't compete (IMO).
When it comes to HLA's I agree that the FMT getting both fighter and thief skills is fantastic but I am not sure that it turns the tables because the Ken/thief is still getting the extra kit damage and grandmaster damage the entire game of BG and SOA before the HLA's are handed out and even then, the theif HLA's can compete with the fighter. Critical strike which takes three HLA points to earn and greater whirlwind which needs 2, are the only two fighter HLA's that are all that amazing really. You could get the same number of attacks in a timestop trap with improved haste as you could with grater whirlwind for example and then you get the bonus to hit and damage on top of each hit with the Ken/thief. Special attacks aside the ken/thief will hit harder all the time with backstabs and normal attacks and he gets an extra 1/2 attack each round. Not to mention his Kai ability which he has from the start of the game.
While it is true that a FMT can cast breach ect, to burn down the enemy's defense it's not like your pure class mages couldn't do the same thing. If you are solo I agree the FMT is the best choice but I am not convinced that the casting ability is really all that worth while when you have a full party. I wouldn't want to waste time casting all of these spells when I could be running up to the enemy and bringing my blade down on them just as my pure class mages bring down the defenses. The only time I can see magic really helping a Ken/thief is when a spell can only be cast on the caster like mislead, timestop, or mirror image but those can be handled with scrolls for the times when you really need them. I have beaten the game on insane with vanilla fighters that did just fine with items and armor. Adding magical protections is not really needed but it could be done on top of armor for even more power if you wanted to spend the time buffing before a fight. Pure class mages could help or you could scrolls. The Ken/thief would also have more hitpoints so he could take some extra damage.
At the start of the first game I think you gain power faster with a straight fighter then you do with a multi because you are gaining the hitpoints and saving throws faster and you can get that third proficiency for more to hit and damage early on. You couldn't cast sleep or haste but you would have mages that could while you were hacking away at the same time. I think the vanilla fighter can compete with a pure class mage in the first game. It's around level 13 that the fighter starts to take a nose dive.
I agree 100% with you regarding the classes not improving past level 20 but the slow progression of building 3 classes at once when you have 5 other team members is a burden. I don't feel like my FMT is on the same level as my FT was when playing the game last. For example, a pure class mage is casting level 5 spells in the first game and the FMT is at that same casting level late into the second game.
Still, maybe it is my lack of experience with the class that is making me feel this way. I will try using the casting ability the way you have described and see if it helps me out. I am going to take my time on this one and try to really get my hands dirty with this character. Sometimes it's just a matter of time spent with a class I believe. Thanks for the reply and your tips.
EDIT:
I'm going to start all over with a new FMT and really take my time with it so I might not be back for a while lol.
I do know the statistics of what my character will eventually become. I am starting to think that my differing opinion is not based on my play style or the character class at all. I think that my idea of the best character for a party is simply different.
I don't think there is any denying that a FMT would kick the snot out of a FT. I know that having magic abilities will allow the character to bring down enemy defense and also make them helpless while they get melee bashed to pieces. I am aware that the FMT allows the player to enjoy all of the major abilities in the game at one time. Is it the best character? Probably, and is the the FMT best equipped for a solo run? Yes, and it could take any other character class combo 1 on 1 in a fight to the death as well. Even in a party of 3 or 4, I can see his diversity being useful to add magic or thieving support when needed while still being a great fighter.
My problem with the FMT in a 6 person party is that I simply do not see the need for magic at all. If a FMT casts haste on himself and then sleep on the enemy and then runs up to the enemy and melee attacks them to death, the FMT just wasted 2 attacks. Why not run toward the enemy while one mage casts haste on you and the other casts sleep on the enemy? Then a third mage could even bring down enemy defense. The casting of spells by your FMT has simply delayed the death of your enemies by melee attack. In the time you spent casting haste and sleep you could have already ran up to the enemy and killed them. That ends the threat of being attacked much faster and makes your group more powerful. If you have 2 or 3 level 30 mages that have more spell slots and can cast more powerful spells at any given point in the game, then why would you waste your melee attacker's round casting spells as well?
The FMT may be the ultimate character but is he what a party of 6 actually needs? All mages end the game with the same hitpoints and the same spells that do the same damage. The main character of a group would not add anything to the group if he were a spell caster. What a group needs is what the game does not offer through NPC characters. You have plenty of magic, what you need is a melee character that can do more damage than Dorn and other melee bashers. How do you do that? You combine the fighter with the thief. The fighter/thief does not lag behind levels the entire game and he doesn't waste time casting spells that magic users should be casting. He doesn't even need his thieving abilities. All he needs is access to the thief HLA pool and backstab on top of his fighter skills and fighter hp. This makes the fighter more powerful without sacrifice.
If the FMT had grandmastery he could match the fighter or a fighter dual in melee but he doesn't. He will hit for less damage the entire game. From normal attacks to backstabs to HLA's the FMT is an inferior fighter just like he is an inferior spell caster because he cannot use level 9 spells. Not only that but he will lag behind in levels the entire game which will hurt his HP and off balance the character allowing other pure classes to have better abilities at any given time in the game. There is no point in denying this. It was intentionally set up this way to balance the character and give other classes a reason to exist.
That is why I think the fighter/thief is a better choice for a 6 person party. What the party needs is a character that does the most melee damage hit for hit and does nothing but melee without the need for babysitting.
You could dual class a vanilla fighter into a thief at level 9 and he would reach a level 10 thief at what? 375,000XP? Sure, this character would not be as powerful as a level 13/14 FT and he would certainly be way weaker than a level 13/14 Ken/thief but he would still get the same number of attacks and do more damage every round with more hitpoints than a FMT the entire game. It would take you maybe an hour in SOA to actually gain back your fighter abilities doing this and you would still be the better melee character.
The FMT does gain the fighter class HLA's which will give him about two additional abilities of worth for the last 10% of the game but greater whirlwind does not allow the character to do any more damage then a thief HLA and it does not give the character any real edge in melee combat. If the FMT does 7 damage less than a Ken/thief each hit then he is doing about 25 less damage every round. That is 35 less damage every backstab and 122 points of damage less every round of backstabbing for the entire game. This doesn't even take into consideration that you would get an extra 1/2 attack each round as well as the Kai ability. At the end of the game a hasted Ken/thief could get 10.5 backstabs in during a timestop trap with mislead cast. This would result in 367.5 more points of damage in a single round and these attacks could be spread out among multiple enemies.
The only instance that I can see that would ever allow a FMT to do more damage would be if he used improved haste, mislead, critical strike in combination with a time stop trap. Believe me when I say that I can't wait to do this for myself. From what I can tell it would be 26X5+10=140. 140X 9 attacks=1260. Then you would get double damage for all attacks in the round with critical strike for a grand total of 2520 points of damage. This is pure awesome but you have to admit that it is impractical. You will need to spend 5 points in your fighter HLAs and more in your thief HLA before this is even possible. This ability will be available for the last 5% of the game and nearly impossible to pull off under any normal circumstance.
Is the FMT a better character class? Yeah probably and he is probably more fun to play for experienced players as well but is he the best choice for a 6 person party? I don't think so.
I am going to enjoy playing this character and it may end up being my favorite overall but it doesn't really change my opinion or the statistical facts. If you think that a party can never have enough magic or that the difference in melee damage doesn't matter than that is your opinion and why we disagree. In any case I have enjoyed this conversation and I have learned some great things from you guys so thank you for that. I respectfully disagree that a FMT is the ultimate character in a full party. It's debatable in a small party and undeniably the best solo. What fun would the game be if all party combinations were dominated by one character anyway?
IMHO, a FMT should be a fighter first. Like any other FM, the spells are there to make you a better fighter than any single classed fighter!!
Stoneskin, mirror image, blur, ect. Haste helps when you know a big fight is coming. An occasional magic missile helps when there's a spellchucker across the room you need to interrupt, or when said spellchucker has his own mirror images active. Honestly, most of my first level slots are for identify spells.
It's a different style of play. There's certainly nothing wrong with a fighter/thief. And if there is any kit out there a player is fond of, dual classing with that kit makes a great character too.
I would use the Girdle of initial barrier for + 5 to all saving throws and 50% magic resistance. Use Carsomyr for 50% magic resistance and it's ability to automatically dispel enemy protections with each hit. Combine those with magical full plate+2 in SOA and +3 in TOB. Shurrupak's full plate will give you a +1 to dexterity and 20% fire resistance with a -2 armor class. Throw in the helm of baldrin for more HP and armor class /saving throws plus the gauntlets of specialization/extra specialization. I use the boots of avoidance for the +5 vs missile damage though sometimes I use the boots of speed for backstabbing or boots of phasing for the armor bonus. The amulet of selderain will give you 10% magic resistance and +1 to saving throws. Then toss in the cloak of the sewers and a ring of free action with the ring of gaxx and you should have a -14 to -16 armor class with protection from pretty much everything. If you are a Ken/thief then you will have an additional -2 to your armor class which should put you around -18. None of this requires pre-buff and none of it can be dispelled. Grandmaster your weapons with 260 hitpoints, you will be a true tank. You could always keep a blur, mirror image, and mislead scroll in your quick spell slots for extra protection on those really tough boss fights.
The FMT won't get level 9 spells because there is not enough XP in the game to unlock those abilities in a 6 person party. If you use a small party or you solo then you could gain the XP but you would need to remove the XP cap because it's set at 8 million per a character which limits a FMT from gaining level 9 regardless of how you wish to play.
Many people will give themselves grandmastery and remove the XP cap while solo playing and simply enjoy the character without limitations. Adding in new adventures with mods helps with this. You can use King Diamonds level 1-50 abilities mod to achieve this. I may do this myself with a mega mod down the road but for now I am going to play by the rules and add in all of the difficulty enhancing mods just for the challenge.
The mage spells will make a fighter a better fighter but they don't need to be cast by the fighter himself. That is my point. The fighter should spend his time fighting, not casting. A solo Character will benefit from the mage spells to make him great but in a party a straight fighter has no real need for the mage skills because he has mages in the party that will bring down defense and cripple the enemy anyway.
I believe a FMT would make a better pivot character in a 6 person party than a melee character. Would replacing Jahiera with a FMT be a better idea than replacing Dorn with a FT? Maybe, but...
A fighter/mage might be the better option in this situation especially if you use characters like Nalia or Imoen since they can detect and disarm any trap and unlock any lock either with their thief skills or the spell "Knock". So yes, the fighter mage has his day in the sun as well.
A fighter mage has more hitpoints most of the game and better melee attacks than a FMT. He also is not as slow to progress in his mage spells and can learn level 9. On the flip side, the fighter mage cannot backstab or use carsomyr and he is limited to mage HLA's only but this won't matter for a pivot character. the FM spell progression will still be slower than a pure class mage but better than a FMT. On the front lines he will have more hitpoints and do more damage with grandmastery than the FMT and on the back lines he will be an unlocked mage with level 9 spells and slightly faster progression. I would give the FM the nod as best pivot character in the game. The fighter mage can cast time stop and do 7 attacks a round for 6 rounds during that time stop. With a grandmastered rod of ram the FM could do 1500 points of damage in a single round without having to rely on HLA's or backstabs. Just a straight up 42 attacks in a single round and nothing is immune to it. This could be used on any boss encounter in the game unlike critical strike and backstab. That doesn't even consider in the possibility of a critical hit or multiple critical hits and it doesn't require anything to pull it off either. Just cast timestop and run up to your enemies and wack them to death. With the ability to do less damage per hit and more hits per a round, this attack can be focused on more enemies and is probably the most effective melee attack in the game, very impressive. Of course a FT could match it and FMT could get close by using scrolls but there are only so many timestop scrolls in the game.
For small parties I think that dual or multi is better than a pure class. A pure mage will lose their advantage in a small party. Triple class level progression will not be as bogged down but it will still be worse than a dual but a triple class will bring more abilities to the table which is needed in a small group. I think any dual or multi is equal in a small group. The determining factor of which character would be best in a small group would come down to which NPC's you choose to party with.
So yeah in my opinion:
FT= best Melee
Wild Mage= best mage(no reason for main character to be one thanks to Neera)
FM=Best Pivot character
FMT=best solo
Best small party=depends on the NPC's, most dual and multi are equal.
Most damage in one hit=Assassin fighter
Most damage in one round=FMT
Most guaranteed damage in one round=FM
Either way I seriously doubt people choose a character and NPC's based on nothing but attack roles and theoretical optimization.
I am not saying anyone in this thread is wrong. I am simply giving reasoning for my way of thinking. It's more about having fun and enjoying the game so if a FMT is more fun then a FMT it is. Personally I can't wait to get my hands on both fighter and thief HLA's at the end of this run. Having access to the most options is what this character is all about.
With it you will be able to cast most spells instantly, but you are still restricted to one special action per round, which means a single class caster won't really benefit from it, except when he uses Improved Alacrity, while the F/M/T or the F/M will be able to both cast and fight in the same round. He will be able to get to 8 attacks per round, every round, forever while still casting one spell per round, exactly like a Mage.
This way a F/M or F/M/T ends up like two characters (I would say even more than 2 thanks to the synergy) condensed in one.
I also always stress when going into melee with any non-caster character, because enemies in the late game tends to all have such huge THAC0 and all sorts of nasty effects on hit, like Vorpal Hit, Level Drain, etc, which will hit anything non-protected by PfMW.
The Kensai=>Thief will greatly lacks in damage because he can't self buff himself. +7 in damage won't do him good when he is locked at 9/2 APR with only one backstab. While the F/M/T will get 8 APR with every attacks backstabs + critical while also being invincible to everythings, etc.
The screenshot below represents my first ever run of BG2:EE (and also of BG2), it was nearly a year ago and I definitely didn't know where to look around for good gear, I didn't even know what Mislead did at that time but still, the result is impressive with something like 1800 damage per round, without Critical Strike. What I did here is basically what I did to every single enemy of the game. Nowadays I think I could get something like 5.000+ damage per round if I wanted to squeeze every bits of cheese from the game into the character.