More of a BG1 build, but pretty hilarious to dual an Assasin to Fighter and out Zal Zal himself! Not much can survive 4 poisoned Stun darts in BG1, and you are totally capable of taking down a party of enemies this way. Damage total is pretty impressive actually, due to so many apr.
Stupid Arrows of Blasting, stealing all the BG1 Assassin thunder... 2 never miss poison fireballs is just cruel! Has this been 'fixed' (read nerfed) yet?
Kensai to thief is pretty solid, though you'll run out of good scrolls to cheeseball with.
For cheating builds, always been curious about using Elemental Forms with a Kensai Druid multi. Gww with the Earth Elemental would be cute.
Gotural, My point was that any magical abilities a FMT has will end up slowing him down from fighting and will slow his character progression at the same time. I don't consider a Ken/thief locked down because he can't cast improved haste on himself. He has multiple mages that can do it for him. I tested with two handed swords but the more attacks you get a round the more that damage bonus will rack up. 7X9=63 plus the raw damage of the extra attack would put the ken/thief at about 80 points of damage more every round. Backstab multiplies that damage bonus X5 so it can get really ugly. This is significant melee superiority and will be very noticeable at the mid point of SOA.
The robe of Vecna is great for a powerhouse mage because they can get a timestop off before enemy protections go up. If the robe of Vecna can cast and allow melee damage in one round then it would eliminate a round of casting from one of my casters and give the FMT limited use of his magic ability so that would be beneficial for sure. I'm not sure that extra round would make up for my mage being deprived of using it though but I will test it out when I get to SOA. Most spells have casting animations so it will usually slow you down no matter what but I will look into it when I get there. If you have any other tips let me know, I want to get the most out of this dude during SOA.
The fighter doesn't have to pre-buff and his armor class and protections are so high that nothing can hit him and nothing can disable his armor. They had to do something to balance it out. In TOB many enemies will be able to get through a fighter's protections like you said. A fighter will take damage if they don't pre-buff but they have enough HP that they don't really have to worry about it. A FMT will pre-buff and then keep track of their protections while a fighter will keep track of his damage and then have healing spells cast after the battle. It all balances out eventually.
Any character can cheese the system and most likely you will never know what your maximum damage is without calculating it out in the real world because nothing will survive a cheese attack long enough for it to finish. I was aware of "mislead" but I always used it to distract enemies while my mage cast multiple spells. I was unaware of the backstab exploit that it causes until you pointed it out. Some things like that will make the game extremely stupid because you cannot even be seen by the enemies and you can simply walk though entire dungeons killing everything. If you explode a guard, the next guard will just stand there like he didn't notice. The AI is incapable of dealing with cheese on that level. Casting A timestop inside of a timestop ,ect is truly overkill and pointless. I would say that it is probably an oversight by the devs. I remember simulacrums casting more simulacrums into infinity, obviously nothing is going to stand up against an army of characters.
EDIT: One last thing, your picture... you said this was your first playthough, that is pretty hardcore man, I don't think I have ever run into someone who played the game solo as a FMT on their first playthough lol. That's bad ass.
DreadKhan, I was thinking of a Kensai/druid combo the other night. Would be a funky combo. Maybe something to try when I get bored. Those druid HLA's are pretty great. Would be useful in a solo run to be able to summon some of those elementals
The Assassin fighter at level 21/22 is pretty crazy. Using poisoned arrows with the grandmastered, upgraded fire tooth was very rewarding. If a group gets stuck by a magic spell like paralyze or web you can poison everyone so fast and it really makes you feel powerful. The Assassin/fighter was my second build back in the day and is one of my favorites for endgame. True pain in the but during SOA though. Don't know if I would ever do it again. I remember being a weakling fighter in the middle of some tough fights. Minsc was dual wielding CF and FOA so he was dealing some serious damage but he couldn't take it. He would get blasted to pieces without my main character their to coddle him.
I did a Kensai->Druid once. Barkskin and Ironskins do a decent job of shoring up your defenses and you can dual wield the Club of Detonation with Belm; it's nowhere near the power level of the classic Kensage though (and I generally prefer multiclass characters over dual class anyway).
Well, the problem with the dc id you have to dual so early to not lose your sanity regaining fighter abilities, so Berserker is almost certainly better... but if you say 'eff it!' and dual late, you will get more synergy for that 1 apr Earth Elemental Form. GWW sets it to 10, sws helps and you could have used Ironskins I suppose. Its more a fun but good idea vs gamebreaking.
@Klorox This rule isn't included in Baldur's Gate because it is in real time. In PnP that's true, you either chose to attack or to cast a spell. In Baldur's Gate, you can actually attack 9 time per round and still cast something.
A round is divided in 10 little fractions of time. The casting time of a spell represents exactly that. Magic Missile has a casting time of 1, which means that under the effect of Improved Alacrity, you could actually cast 10 Magic Missile in one round. The longest casting time in less than a round is 9, which represents 9/10 of a round. If the casting time is longer, it is a full round.
The same thing works for attacks, if you have 2 APR, you will actually attack every 5 fractions of time to make 2 attacks every 10 fractions of time. If you have 5 APR, you will attack every 2 fractions of time.
This already means that you can actually cast a spell with a low casting time (2 or less) like Mirror Image / Blur / Stoneskin / Shadow Door / PfMW / Mislead / etc, all extremely potent and powerful spells, and you still have 8 fractions of time in your round to perform 4 attacks (in this exemple the character has 5 APR).
But what happens when your character goes beyond 5 APR ? As you are aware of, 5 APR is the normal limit of the game, the only way to go beyond that is to use some Haste / Improved Haste spells or the Whirlwind / Greater Whirlwind HLA. If your character goes beyond 5 APR, he will actually starts to attack every 1 fraction of time, which means he will attack as fast as a Mage casts a Magic Missile.
But if your character doesn't have 10 APR, he cannot attack 10 times in a round. So the game actually makes your character attack as long as he have APR available, as fast as a character with 10 APR, then, when he used all his attacks for the round, he'll stay idle for the remaining time of the room.
And this where all the overpowerness of the F/M, F/M/C and F/M/T starts.
Which means the character will actually be able to attacks 8 time per round, AND be able to cast a spell with a casting time of 2,1 or 0 every round. Thanks to the Robe of Vecna and the Amulet of Power, he will actually be able to cast a spell with a casting time of 7 (reduced to 2), 6 (reduced to 1), and 5 to 0 (reduced to 0). This means a F/M/T or a F/M or a F/M/C can actually casts spells like a Mage / Sorcerer every round, while still fighting at his full 8 APR which is DOUBLE the rate of a normal Fighter. And this is why these characters are completly OP, because they don't chose to fight, or to cast spells, they can actually do both at the same time, they can actually perform as well as a Mage, and outperform heavily a Fighter, at the same time, with only one character.
The only limit is the amount of micromanagement you can afford to give to your character.
And this is also why Speed Weapons are in my opinion strongly overrated.
A good F/M or F/M/T or F/M/C will actually wants to cast something every round. There is ALWAYS something useful to cast every round, be it a Breach, a Remove Magic, a Dragon Breath or whatever. So actually reaching 10 APR with a speed weapon isn't worth it, because to fully utilise the character, you'll need to stop attacking a small fraction of time every round to cast something.
8 or 9 APR is actually perfect for these characters. I would heavily prefer to dual wield some stronger weapons than some Speed Weapons.
And this is why IMO the F/M/T is the clear winner in every situations, he is a F/T with more damage, more resilience, and he can still cast a spell every round while outperforming the F/T in sheer melee.
Even if we take the perfect moment of the saga for the F/T, at 2,5M XP, the F/T is level 13/15 and reached his second 1/2 APR at level 13 while the F/M/T is level 11/12/13 and doesn't have his 1/2 APR from level 13. But even there, the F/M/T can actually already cast some 6th level spells, including Mislead and Improved Haste. A single class Mage could cast spells up to the 8th level. I would definitely prefer to be limited to 6th level spells and to be a F/M/T who can destroy anything in melee than to have 8th level spells and to only be able to cast.
I came to a point wherever I'm playing a full party of 6 characters and Charname is a F/M/T, in something like 70-90% of the situations, the optimal way to play is to let Charname solo the fight while the 5 others watch, they would only slow him or endanger themselves.
It sounds to me like you still play the game solo even when you have a 6 person party. You have a mage who can't cast high level spells and a fighter who can't grandmaster his weapons all in one character fumbling around trying to do both jobs at the same time while hogging all of the best items in the game. That is the most unoptimized character choice you could make for a party. At best, you are exploiting an item that is found half way through the second game and is built for a mage to give yourself a theoretical melee advantage. It doesn't sound like it would be very fun and I highly doubt that the robe of vecna could be micromanaged in that way with a 6 person party. Your main mage would miss out on the robe and you would have to micromanage every tenth of a second while controlling 5 other characters just to get one of your limited level 6 spells off each round. Every item you take from your party makes your group weaker and you can't use both magic and melee at once in any practical way so you are wasting your potential, XP and abilities. It is great to use that XP and gain those abilities when you are solo but it has no place in a party.
I am not trying to be rude here but I think I have made some good points in my case against the FMT and you have no argument other than "the FMT can cheese the game and beat it by himself so why even play with anything else." The FMT is an inferior fighter and spell caster the entire game with slower level progression, less hitpoints, less damage per hit, less APR, lower level spell casting at any point in the game and a level 8 spell cap with inferior thaco. Any character can have improved haste cast on them either before a fight or in the first round and you are going to have more than one melee character in a party so you will still have to waste rounds casting improved haste on your fighters regardless. Comparing a FMT with improved haste vs a fighter without improved haste makes no sense at all. The fighter is superior with or without haste.
The FMT has a wider array of abilities in return for the harsh penalties mentioned above but those abilities serve no purpose in a group that already has all abilities at a higher level of progression at any given time in the game. Exploiting a single item doesn't change the fact that the FMT is a limited character class at it's core. The FMT is pretty much made for solo and is the exact opposite of what you would want in a party. He is like a ball hog on a sports team. It doesn't matter how good he is because he can never be better than a party and when you put him in a party he just drags the party down and turns it into a one trick pony.
A party has much, much more power when it is utilized properly and they won't have to cheese to get to that power level. That is the point I have been trying to make. I typed out 3 reports worth of content trying to explain why a FMT is a great solo character and not a good party character in a way that was not rude and clearly got my point across. Every time your response has been that a FMT using cheese tactics can just beat the game alone with infinite damage so who cares.
If 70-90% of the time you would rather solo the game and let your party stand there and watch then I would say that you have the wrong character class for a party or you don't know how to utilize your party correctly with that character. Either way you just proved my point further. A party could cast 3 level 9 spells and get 27 melee attacks with +7 per a hit on the main character in one round with no cheese and no HLA's. A FMT could cast 1 level 8 spell and get 8 attacks a round with no bonus to damage and you would have to use a cheesy exploit just to pull that off for the last 25% of the game. Why would you prefer to use that one character over a party 70-90% of the time?
The reason why your characters are holding you back is because you have focused everything on one character who can't take advantage of everything at one time. Your character is still behind in levels and HP and your party is weak to the point of being useless as a result. If you use mislead to run through dungeons backstabing a blind enemy then yes your party will be standing around useless because you are not playing the game the way it was intended. A mage can cast an infinite number of simulacrums that can cast an infinite number of times using magic and melee for infinite damage every round. That doesn't make a pure class mage the best character. It's just an exploit.
To be clear here, I am playing the game as a FMT because you convinced me to. I am open to suggestions still but you have lost me with the last two posts you have made. I have nothing left I can say other than, I respectfully disagree at this point. I don't think any item will make up for the character's core problems when used in a party and while the fighter HLA's are a nice benifit at the end game they certainly don't make up for the FMT's lack of fighting ability. The damage difference is large (about 80 points a round) and it just gets better and better the more attacks you add on. By the time you are using backstabs and HLA's the Ken/thief will be doing 300+ more damage a round without having to raise a finger. It doesn't hurt that the Ken/thief has an extra +4 to hit on each attack either.
If I experience different results than what I got the first time and with the testing/statistics that I am seeing, then I will come back here and admit my stupidity on the subject, after all it is just a game.
@the_sextein I understand your point. However, the topic is about the best possible character build. You argue the K/T is best, but if you need a party to supplement him with this and that, is he really THE BEST build? Isn't that more "the best party"?
it doesn't say "the most self-sustainable build" or "who would win in a deathmach". the best build just means the build with comparatively most advantages and least disadvantages when compared to others when put in the same set of circumstances, and that could be either solo play, or a 6-member party.
an ability to synergize well with other party members can also be a comparative advantage that only comes to play in a party environment.
A FMT would beat a FT in a one on one fight but if you use a party then your character will never be facing enemies alone so your solo abilities are irrelevant.
You have to point out what circumstance you are talking about. 95% of the player base will probably never even play the game solo so the best solo character wouldn't be the best character for the majority of players. I get your point though. Me and Gotural are in agreement when it comes to solo and 1on 1 dominance.
@bob_veng If every poster just sets up his own set of circumstances, there is no discussion. There has to be a common framework.
broadly speaking it's true, but practically there aren't that many possible sets of circumstances that it would render the discussion futile and absurd - there's still lot's of common ground since a great number of people (probably most of us) have played both solo and with a full party, or a reduced one.
I am not trying to be rude here but I think I have made some good points in my case against the FMT and you have no argument other than "the FMT can cheese the game and beat it by himself so why even play with anything else." The FMT is an inferior fighter and spell caster the entire game with slower level progression, less hitpoints, less damage per hit, less APR, lower level spell casting at any point in the game and a level 8 spell cap with inferior thaco. Any character can have improved haste cast on them either before a fight or in the first round and you are going to have more than one melee character in a party so you will still have to waste rounds casting improved haste on your fighters regardless. Comparing a FMT with improved haste vs a fighter without improved haste makes no sense at all. The fighter is superior with or without haste.
Uh, can a pure fighter cast stoneskin? Or mirror image? Or protection from magic weapons (in ToB)? I can't see how a pure fighter can be superior to a FMT when a pure fighter can't cast spells or use thief skills. I also can't see how a pure mage can be superior to a FMT when a pure mage can't fight well or use thief skills. There's no way a pure fighter is more powerful than a FMT, no matter how unoptimized the FMT's equipment is and regardless of whether you are soloing or not. One may argue that a pure mage is overall better than a FMT, but they are still comparing apples and oranges.
His point is that a mage can cast imp haste on a pure fighter. Not everyone likes soloing the games. @the_sextein is of the opinion you can't really ignore the party aspect of the game. Its a good point, since an indivual in a party can certainly do more than a solo can, arguably making them more powerful.
A Kensai/thief can probably use scrolls, fwiw, meaning they are potentially very powerful. The short supply of scrolls is problematic though.
I am talking about a fighter/thief dual class who has access to the thief abilities and scrolls. However, I have beaten the game on insane with a vanilla fighter and never had a problem without stoneskin, mirror image ect. because I was using a party.
In a party you have real time strategy elements (RTS) that add a whole new dimension to the game and will allow many of your characters to go without pre buffing all the time. A Mage could stay back and not pre-buff at all because the enemy is falling on your 3 melee character's armor. Or maybe your mage will cast stone skin and mirror image on himself and lead the enemy on while your thief disappears and backstabs from behind. In this case the thief will not need any pre-buff. All three mages could improve haste all 3 melee characters in the first round. The mage doesn't really need the haste because his spells will take a round to cast regardless.
Items like the robe of Vecna will make sure your mage gets the first cast which could allow a timestop at the start of a fight and will allow the enemy defense to be completely destroyed while all of your fighters slam the enemy without hesitation. Two of your fighters would still have improved haste and the third one could use greater whirlwind if the extra damage is really needed. With all 6 characters hitting at full strength simultaneously you may destroy the enemies (or the most dangerous ones) fast enough that you won't take any real damage even without protection. The damage that the enemies deliver will be spread out among six characters and most fighters have nearly twice the hit points so they can take some damage anyway. The fighter was designed to survive in a party without casting ability so it doesn't matter. Your main fighter thief will have 100% magic resistance and a -16 to -18 armor class that can't be dispelled and doesn't need pre-buff. If you want you can have your mages pre-buff your fighter and use scrolls and wands for the handfull of spells that they can't cast on you. It's not hard to collect 4 or 5 blur and mirror image spells for the main boss fights in TOB though they are totally unnecessary. The possibilities are endless in a party.
You can play however you like. I played solo with a FM for the challenge after I had beaten the game with a party many times. I was actually surprised that it's not really that hard because you hog all the XP which will make you a much higher level than you are supposed to be vs the enemies you are fighting. You won't do as much damage as a party would but the enemies will have a hard time hitting you and you will have access to abilities and spells earlier in the game than a party would.
Both ways of playing are fun but the game really shines when you have party of 6. You get the band of brothers element and the romances plus the RTS elements and you still get to enjoy the thief, cleric, mage, and fighter all at once but you can push them further without restriction unlike the muli-class characters. In a party the triple class characters will lag behind in every area and serve no real purpose.
I believe the game was made as a party game first and foremost,(Imoen, Minsc, and Jahiera in the first dungeon of SOA pretty much proves that the story cannon was setup in this way.) I think the 6 person party is what actually sets this game apart from modern RPG's like Skyrim. I am glad they included the FMT and the FMC and I am glad that the game will allow you to solo but I have always preferred a party. I am not saying you shouldn't solo if that is what you like and I am not saying the FMT is not the best solo. I am simply saying that the FMT is not the best at everything and it was intentionally set up that way to keep the game from being boring. If like me, you enjoy playing with a party then your character of choice will not be a FMT if you are looking for the best character class.
A party is completely different than solo and needs a totally different approach. If you think the FMT is the best at everything simply because he is the best solo then I disagree. If you have actually played a party in an efficient manor then you will know what I am talking about. In any case, I think I am done arguing my point. If you seriously read all that I typed and you still disagree then that is fine. I realized that the majority of posters in this thread were at odds with what I felt so I typed out my thoughts and feelings on why I disagree rather than trolling the board without any real argument. I enjoyed the conversation but I am tired of it now so please continue without me.
Best character build is a rather nebulous debate. Solo? Party? Etc. Etc.
Ever since the game was released, I've run through it with each class just trying them out, trying to see who did the best for me and I liked most. Frankly, I'm surprised it took 3 pages for Swashbuckler to get a mention, although am baffled why you'd ever dual it at all (doesn't add anything to the character imo). Fighter? Why, grand mastery doesn't outshine the kit bonuses you give up, swash gets WW attack in it's HLA pool, and once you do, nobody does anything else in melee.
Magic-based characters I've found are great in normal BG2, but tend to stumble once you get into ToB territory. Lots of dispels, enemies with gobs of hp and saves, relying on metagamed knowledge, and resting after each fight (often several times a fight) bogged down my enjoyment and playtimes for each run through. Not to mention it doesn't take much effort to get to a point where your gear overshadows your buffs and melee can run through things faster than relying on spells to beat encounters will.
Out of everything else, to me, just a plain straight Swashbuckler (halfling for saves) is the funnest and best performer of the lot I've tried. The kit bonuses easily put it in top tier melee alone - AC max is easily achieved, to hit/dmg bonuses easily trump grand mastery weapon spec and penalties whirlwind attack gives you (making it as good as greater whirlwind). Toss in thief HLAs and you're golden. You end up with a character that stalks around with full thief skills, whirlwinding himself through encounters who has a gob of cheese traps and UAIs scrolls as he needs to.
No need for magic bogging it down or sitting around spam invis potion/backstabbing, just pure buttkickery that takes you through the game solo from 1 to 40 for me.
Plus it satisfies my need to sneak around, robbing everything blind like a badass burglar.
Honestly, I can't believe it. Five pages of debate, and only one mention of a monk, not including mine. I don't know if there's something against monks in video games, but they totally rock. A monk may not be the most powerful kit or set-up, but it sure is one of the easiest classes to solo. That's right, SOLO. Played in parties, monks are pretty useless, compared to a regular fighter. I don't know why people even bother. However, the trick is to play it SOLO. The only time you start hitting bumps is in ToB. Admittedly, in early SoA, monks are hard to get going. However, once they hit level 20, they start SNOWBALLING. Good damage, great survivability, great mobility, stealth, a monk is a amazing all-rounder. This is the only other class, other than a sorcerer or F/M, I've played that's been able to solo dragons, Irenicus, Drizzt and co., and any other boss(except Kangaxx) without cheesing. TBH, I've had an easier time soloing these bosses with a monk than killing them with a party. Especially Drizzt.
Ranger 9/ Cleric++ They are not gear dependent so anything that can hit your target will work fine. The ranger allows you to duel wield the biggest baddest blunt weapons in the game, light armor allows you to stealth, druid spells, and a racial enemy! Rangers rock!.........Now at lvl 9 switch it to a cleric.
Army of undead of bears, insane offensive buff, and boosts that make you immune to just about everything........ So now you are a summoning healing armored tank that duel wields a pair of cinder blocks at all in it's way. Blade barrier/ Globe of blades for both a wicked appeal and crazy defensive damage, surrounding a 25-str/stam/agil duel wielding powerhouse immune to almost everything?..... Awesome. hit energy blades and ramp it's attack to 10 per round.......epic.
white dragon scale armor and Crom Flayer/ Flail of ages. ring of Nax, ring of lathander. and then anything else that tickles you're fancy.... You will not be disappointed.
Honestly, I can't believe it. Five pages of debate, and only one mention of a monk
Monk was one of my first solo attempts, simply because it seems to have it all. My problem was with it was I couldn't get it to defeat Demogorgon or Amelyssan alone.
@FinneousPJ Dual can put 3 points in dual wield. Humans have no level limit. Ranger multi has diminishing xp returns at higher levels. The only real perk to multi is the natural resistance of half elves. Those become quickly obsolete after lvl 20 cleric.
@Oakin Multi can also put 3 pips in DW. No race in BG has a level limit.
The real perk of multiclass is warrior HLAs, most notably GWWA & Hardiness. These outweigh high cleric levels IMO, since a level 35 cleric is pretty much the same as a level 25 cleric.
the most powerful character I ever played was an archer. The ranger archer kit that is. While everyone else was meleeing and spellcasting, he was staying safely in the background and shooting deadly arrows. He basically dealt damage as a good melee fighter, without the danger of getting hit himself! If anyone misses BG1 times in terms of archers being badass, try the archer kit.
Towards the endgame of ToB I had: upgraded Taralash bow (increases movement speed cumulatively), Armor of Thorns (leather armor with great AC that deals damage to the attacker), Amulet of Cheetah speed (increases movement speed cumulatively), Montolios Cloak (to increase off-hand THAC0 for the rare cases of dual wielding scimitars or katanas) and Boots of Speed. I was outrunning everyone easily, even hasted characters were too slow. So I never really needed to go into melee. Having grandmastery in bows and using GWW + aimed shot + arrows+3 = cheese for everyone. A LOT of Stoneskins go down in a matter of seconds, without ever being close to the enemy. The speed at which I could just kick away all the Stoneskins was comparable to having to cast Breach manually without Robe of Vecna.
I don't like multi- or dualclass. It feels like I get to enjoy the fruits of it only in solo playthroughs or towards the very last part of the game, which makes it a boring choice for me. If I solo the game, than with more challenging, like a human mage.
True. Archers can be really powerfull with gww. Imagen firetouth + 5 and poisoned bolts. What is that? 10 attacks with at least 20 damage each and poison. I think you would kill most dragons in one round :P
There is no real reason you can't do an early dual @cyberhawk and a gnome illusionist multi is good from Candlekeep until the very end. I/C is an incredible general caster who's divine casting helps offset the loss of necromancy (You can still cast Animate Dead!), F/I is an amazing warrior, and makes a solid dedicated archer from Candlekeep until late SoA, and is just plain awesome as at melee anyways with buffs, and I/T is about as good as it gets for backstab and UAI cheese. Its surprisingly how little you miss fighter abilities if you build a good I/T.
Surely this isn't news to you, judging by your portrait choice, but some multi-classes are great early, especially if you have good enough stats. If you have Jaheira in BG1 stats, yeah, it'll be a slog sometimes.
I copied this from a response I made in another thread regarding favorite characters. I figured I should post it here since my opinion has changed some since I posted in this thread last. I have finished my playthrough of the trilogy using the FMT so....
The half orc fighter/thief multi-class is my favorite in the game. He ends the game with a natural 24 strength and 23 constitution. Not only does he level up faster than the FMT the whole game but ends up with a +5 thaco bonus and a +1 damage bonus over the FMT. He also has two extra HLA abilities.
However I must admit that if you play on insane difficulty with SCS and all of the improved enemies are enabled, then a FMT is the better pick because those extra protective spells are no longer an unnecessary, tedious process. If you go up against 5 dragons at one time and they have 500 hitpoints each, you are going to need some serious protection. In fact I don't know if I could beat the game on insane SCS without a F/M or FMT. Then again I am not the most skilled of players.
For me, the half orc F/T is the best balance of character progression and power when playing the vanilla game or even SCS without all of the improved enemies and tactics battles.
My latest playthrough was with a FMT and I must admit it was an eye opener. The FMT is very powerful but you are dealing with slower character progression and a large loss to thaco in exchange for magic. Since your magic users will have more spells and access to higher level spells at any given point in the game, the FMT usually only benefits from protective spells.
In the vanilla game even on insane difficulty you will not really need these extra protective spells considering you have a -17 armor class and 250 hitpoints. On top of that you could always use the ring of mirroring to cast mirror image on yourself and the boots of gargoyle to cast stoneskin on yourself. You also have the ring of gax to cast improved haste and your other party members could always cast improved haste or improve invisibility on you.
To me, casting these spells is not needed and becomes tedious on all but the absolute hardest of difficulty settings. However the FMT's extra protection outweighs the FT's extra damage abilities and character progression when the chips are truly down. This is something I didn't realize until I played through with the FMT with the difficulty pushed as far as it can go without being impossible. I had always played the game vanilla on insane or SCS on core rules and to me the F/T is the better character. However, Last time I pushed it to the limit with insane SCS and all of the hardest options enabled and it made me appreciate the FMT's protective benefits. Both characters are a joy to play as and I will probably play through the game with each character type at least once more each.
In the vanilla game a warrior that does more damage per round is the more powerful character in my opinion. This makes the Pure class Kensai or Kensai/theif dual very powerful with the fighter/thief multi being a very powerful compromise that is more fun to play as. With SCS on insane, the enemies deal a bunch of damage and have enough hitpoints to last much longer. This makes magical protection more important than raw damage output. So FMT wins in this scenario.
I'd like to bring exploits into the equation. If we have no limits on which tactics to use and all we're concerned about is power, then the game balance shifts dramatically. I assume the player is using SCS and we're prioritizing the late-game status of the character.
The Hotkey Trick: First, in vanilla, but not EE, all classes can cast Contingency and Chain Contingency via hotkey. Mages, sorcerers, and bards can cast Nahal's Reckless Dweomer via a hotkey. Also, Wild Mages may stack Chaos Shields via a Chain Contingency. This means a Wild Mage may use the NRD hotkey trick to gain infinite spells, permanent Improved Alacrity, and immunity to wild surges. This means you are permanently blessed with immunity to all spell schools, all weapons, all of the elements, magic damage, all physical damage, invisibility, and if you want, you're permanently under the effects of Time Stop.
Permanent Time Stop makes a far superior character than any other possible build. The only enemies who are immune to it use magical weapons and cannot bypass PFMW, nor can they Breach it during Time Stop. Other mage types can use the NRD trick, but their spells will sometimes fail due to wild surges. EE is a different story, of course, because NRD cannot be mapped to a hotkey in the first place.
Other exploits also bend the game and twist the balance in favor of certain builds.
The Wand of Lightning Trick: The Wand of Lightning lets you duplicate the effects of various items and spells by 6. You target your own character with all 6 lightning bolts from the wand, and then either switch out the wand for another quick item, or use an on-self spell, before unpausing. The WoL trick can duplicate the effects of Boon of Lathander, Armor of Faith, Blur, Sunfire, Spell Immunity, and Poison Weapon, among other things. Note that Spell Immunity, Blur, Armor of Faith, and many other things no longer stack in EE, and Sunfire no longer bypasses MR in EE. If you have the Tactics mod and dual-class from Generic Archer to Thief or Mage, you may stack Called Shot with the WoL trick. An Archer/Thief can summon a Clay Golem via the Golem Tome, equip flashers, cast Called Shot 6 times at once, and kill any enemy, even those protected by PFMW, spell protections, and any resistances, by hitting the Clay Golem with 3 or 4 flashers. The resulting Strength drain is instantly fatal to all creatures, regardless of immunities.
The Scorcher Loop: Agannazar's Scorcher and Lightning Bolt can instantly kill any enemy not immune to the spell, if they're combined with Spell Turning effects. Even Nightmare mode dragons in SCS will die instantly if you combine the WoL trick with the Book of Daily Spell on the Spell Turning page. You can use Lightning Bolt instead of a scorcher spell, or the Ring of Energy, only if you're not using EE. The Cloak of Mirroring, pre-EE, also works with lightning bolts. The scorcher loop makes other forms of damage irrelevant in many cases, particularly since you can duplicate the Book of Daily Spell either by using the page turn function on a clone which you then kill, or by using the WoL trick on the page turn function, and therefore get near-infinite uses of the scorcher loop, limited only by your scorcher spells and Wand(s) of Fire.
The Mirror Image Trick: @Arunsun's Mirror Image trick allows you to maintain Slayer form indefinitely, which shifts the balance in favor of melee-oriented classes. It also works with the Ravager form from the Ascension mod, though testing in EE found that the Ravager form's MR does not stack with items or monk MR, unlike the Slayer. The Ravager does, however, get 50% resistance to all forms of damage, which does stack with the Defender of Easthaven, barbarian resistances, and Hardiness. Monks may achieve undispellable immunity to magic at 2.7 million XP; other classes may reach it in Chapter 6 or Hell. Fighter-types and priests may achieve near-immunity to magic, and virtual immunity to weapons, using the Ravager form. If we stack Hell bonuses, a Ravager fighter, bard, or thief could attain immunity to magic and the elements, and get undispellable and un-Breachable 90% resistance to physical damage. Immunity to Imprisonment, however, could only come from scrolls (easily duplicated if we're importing characters to stack Hell bonuses), Slayer form, or Berserker rage.
In EE, the best would likely have fighter or thief levels and rely on Ravager form, with duplicated scrolls of Protection from Magic to prevent Imprisonment. The exact class is barely relevant by that point, but I suppose a Barbarian, with its base 110% resistance to physical damage (50 from the Ravager, 20 from DoE, 20 from another DoE, and 20 from the kit) and strong THAC0, would be marginally better at surviving Nightmare mode than any other class, since another character with only 90% base resistance might not survive if it rolls, say, 5,000 critical misses in a row.
EDIT: The remaining issue would be Mind Flayers and SCS vampires with CON drain. For them, the Barbarian lacks PFMW scrolls, but Greater Deathblow, Smite, and the Mace of Disruption would work in PFMW's place. Rage would also offset the CON drain somewhat. These two examples would show the strength of a character with thief or mage levels.
I notice people here discuss the strongest classes strictly in terms of their power at max or close to max level. But you have to take into account the entire journey. I much prefer to have an overall strong character throughout the course of the whole trilogy, instead of sacrificing a lot just to be a little bit tougher in late ToB (for example dual-ing kensai at level 13 to a mage or thief).
Me personally, i play No reload, and the main thing you need in a no reload run is, you guessed it, to not die. That means having the most protections possible that can save your ass in any scenario. A lot of folk fawn over the infamous Kensage and i've played him quite a lot myself, he's a cool character, lots of dps. But ever since i started playing Berserker/Mage, there's just no comparison to what the latter brings to the table. You sacrifice just a little bit of dmg in exchange for a shitload of protections, most of them being absolutely crucial - stun/imprisonment key ones- in a SCS No reload run. Plus you get to wear good armor in BG1 (i know i know, shield amulet for kensai is good, but it's a chore to always activate it) and gauntlets all but nullify the Kensai's innate bonuses.
Note: I play with True Grandmastery, so in my game, dual class F/M has quite an edge over multi.
I saw there was quite a discussion about the power of the F/M/T, the main argument being you can backstab for disgusting amounts of damage in ToB. I never played F/M/T myself, but correct me if i'm wrong, isn't any boss worth his salt immune to backstab? So who cares if you can assassinate trash mobs for infinite damage, those don't present a challenge anyway. I can make the same argument about people loving Celestial Fury for it's stun, makes *most* encounters trivial, but 90% of bosses are immune to it (i used to love CF myself, but now it's FoA all the way for it's amazing ability to disrupt SCS mages).
So to sum it up, from my experiences as a SCS No reload player (i got as far as chapter 5 in bg without dying), i recommend Berserker dualled at level 9 to Mage. There is a huge benefit to doing it at 9, besides the obvious ones everyone knows about (and also, with True Grandmastery + Belm Offhand, you get 10 APR with Improved Haste anyway, so no need to go for level 13 dual): You usually just turn 9 (if you did BG1 and imported character) after completing the Circus Quest, meaning you don't have to leave Waukeens Promenade. You can then temporarily kick all the party members and steal all the scrolls in Promenade and then learn/relearn them until you are level 12 mage (750k experience). Then you can go recruit the NPC's you haven't discovered yet and they will be quite high level, starting with about 800k experience on average (Korgan, Jan, Viconia 800k, Edwin 400k in my playtesting). Getting a head start in early-mid SoA, which is one of the hardest parts in the game, can be a huge boon to your no reload chances.
@AlexDeLarge I totally agree with you about having a strong character for the whole game instead of the last 10%.
And despite thinking nearly all the duals are bad mechanically (yes, I think the Kensai 13 => Mage is a bad build overall), I also agree with you that the Berserker 9 => Mage is extremely good.
Because it is super strong at every stages of the game, during BG1, Mages aren't that strong, especially at lower levels and the Berserker is just killing everything, few things are stronger at level 1 than a Berserker with 18/18/18 dualwielding under the effect of Enrage.
So during all BG1 you are a singleclass Fighter which is incredible, then right at the start of BG2 (and it's going to be even more convenient with the release of SoD!) you turn into a Mage, a really, really beefy one.
The Enrage is of course super strong and impossible to dispel, so it is very good for the Mage as a get out of jail free card.
Like you I'm also a SCS no-reload player, and I also agree that the 'strongest build' is not the one that can out damage the others, but also the one with great tankiness, utility, and so forth.
Considering the F/M/T, I'm a huge fan of this class myself, and I think the main reasons are Traps, Detect Illusion and backstabs. You don't need to wait the end of ToB to get incredible backstabs, in BG1, no enemies are immune to backstabs and you can easily get +100 damage with a vanilla setup which is enough to one hit kill anyone beside Sarevok (he has 163 HP as far as I know). In BG2, you can still backstabs a lot of enemies, including Irenicus.
Detect Illusions is wonderful because it bypasses Spell Immunity : Illusion, Traps are good, and HLA Traps are OP.
Comments
More of a BG1 build, but pretty hilarious to dual an Assasin to Fighter and out Zal Zal himself! Not much can survive 4 poisoned Stun darts in BG1, and you are totally capable of taking down a party of enemies this way. Damage total is pretty impressive actually, due to so many apr.
Stupid Arrows of Blasting, stealing all the BG1 Assassin thunder... 2 never miss poison fireballs is just cruel! Has this been 'fixed' (read nerfed) yet?
Kensai to thief is pretty solid, though you'll run out of good scrolls to cheeseball with.
For cheating builds, always been curious about using Elemental Forms with a Kensai Druid multi. Gww with the Earth Elemental would be cute.
The robe of Vecna is great for a powerhouse mage because they can get a timestop off before enemy protections go up. If the robe of Vecna can cast and allow melee damage in one round then it would eliminate a round of casting from one of my casters and give the FMT limited use of his magic ability so that would be beneficial for sure. I'm not sure that extra round would make up for my mage being deprived of using it though but I will test it out when I get to SOA. Most spells have casting animations so it will usually slow you down no matter what but I will look into it when I get there. If you have any other tips let me know, I want to get the most out of this dude during SOA.
The fighter doesn't have to pre-buff and his armor class and protections are so high that nothing can hit him and nothing can disable his armor. They had to do something to balance it out. In TOB many enemies will be able to get through a fighter's protections like you said. A fighter will take damage if they don't pre-buff but they have enough HP that they don't really have to worry about it. A FMT will pre-buff and then keep track of their protections while a fighter will keep track of his damage and then have healing spells cast after the battle. It all balances out eventually.
Any character can cheese the system and most likely you will never know what your maximum damage is without calculating it out in the real world because nothing will survive a cheese attack long enough for it to finish. I was aware of "mislead" but I always used it to distract enemies while my mage cast multiple spells. I was unaware of the backstab exploit that it causes until you pointed it out. Some things like that will make the game extremely stupid because you cannot even be seen by the enemies and you can simply walk though entire dungeons killing everything. If you explode a guard, the next guard will just stand there like he didn't notice. The AI is incapable of dealing with cheese on that level. Casting A timestop inside of a timestop ,ect is truly overkill and pointless. I would say that it is probably an oversight by the devs. I remember simulacrums casting more simulacrums into infinity, obviously nothing is going to stand up against an army of characters.
EDIT:
One last thing, your picture... you said this was your first playthough, that is pretty hardcore man, I don't think I have ever run into someone who played the game solo as a FMT on their first playthough lol. That's bad ass.
The Assassin fighter at level 21/22 is pretty crazy. Using poisoned arrows with the grandmastered, upgraded fire tooth was very rewarding. If a group gets stuck by a magic spell like paralyze or web you can poison everyone so fast and it really makes you feel powerful. The Assassin/fighter was my second build back in the day and is one of my favorites for endgame. True pain in the but during SOA though. Don't know if I would ever do it again. I remember being a weakling fighter in the middle of some tough fights. Minsc was dual wielding CF and FOA so he was dealing some serious damage but he couldn't take it. He would get blasted to pieces without my main character their to coddle him.
A round is divided in 10 little fractions of time. The casting time of a spell represents exactly that. Magic Missile has a casting time of 1, which means that under the effect of Improved Alacrity, you could actually cast 10 Magic Missile in one round. The longest casting time in less than a round is 9, which represents 9/10 of a round. If the casting time is longer, it is a full round.
The same thing works for attacks, if you have 2 APR, you will actually attack every 5 fractions of time to make 2 attacks every 10 fractions of time. If you have 5 APR, you will attack every 2 fractions of time.
This already means that you can actually cast a spell with a low casting time (2 or less) like Mirror Image / Blur / Stoneskin / Shadow Door / PfMW / Mislead / etc, all extremely potent and powerful spells, and you still have 8 fractions of time in your round to perform 4 attacks (in this exemple the character has 5 APR).
But what happens when your character goes beyond 5 APR ? As you are aware of, 5 APR is the normal limit of the game, the only way to go beyond that is to use some Haste / Improved Haste spells or the Whirlwind / Greater Whirlwind HLA. If your character goes beyond 5 APR, he will actually starts to attack every 1 fraction of time, which means he will attack as fast as a Mage casts a Magic Missile.
But if your character doesn't have 10 APR, he cannot attack 10 times in a round. So the game actually makes your character attack as long as he have APR available, as fast as a character with 10 APR, then, when he used all his attacks for the round, he'll stay idle for the remaining time of the room.
And this where all the overpowerness of the F/M, F/M/C and F/M/T starts.
A normal F/M/T or F/M or F/M/C will have :
1 base APR
+1 dual wield
+1 level 13 Fighter
+1/2 specialisation
+1/2 Gauntlet
=4
With Improved Haste, he will reach 8 APR.
Which means the character will actually be able to attacks 8 time per round, AND be able to cast a spell with a casting time of 2,1 or 0 every round. Thanks to the Robe of Vecna and the Amulet of Power, he will actually be able to cast a spell with a casting time of 7 (reduced to 2), 6 (reduced to 1), and 5 to 0 (reduced to 0).
This means a F/M/T or a F/M or a F/M/C can actually casts spells like a Mage / Sorcerer every round, while still fighting at his full 8 APR which is DOUBLE the rate of a normal Fighter.
And this is why these characters are completly OP, because they don't chose to fight, or to cast spells, they can actually do both at the same time, they can actually perform as well as a Mage, and outperform heavily a Fighter, at the same time, with only one character.
The only limit is the amount of micromanagement you can afford to give to your character.
And this is also why Speed Weapons are in my opinion strongly overrated.
A good F/M or F/M/T or F/M/C will actually wants to cast something every round. There is ALWAYS something useful to cast every round, be it a Breach, a Remove Magic, a Dragon Breath or whatever. So actually reaching 10 APR with a speed weapon isn't worth it, because to fully utilise the character, you'll need to stop attacking a small fraction of time every round to cast something.
8 or 9 APR is actually perfect for these characters. I would heavily prefer to dual wield some stronger weapons than some Speed Weapons.
And this is why IMO the F/M/T is the clear winner in every situations, he is a F/T with more damage, more resilience, and he can still cast a spell every round while outperforming the F/T in sheer melee.
Even if we take the perfect moment of the saga for the F/T, at 2,5M XP, the F/T is level 13/15 and reached his second 1/2 APR at level 13 while the F/M/T is level 11/12/13 and doesn't have his 1/2 APR from level 13. But even there, the F/M/T can actually already cast some 6th level spells, including Mislead and Improved Haste. A single class Mage could cast spells up to the 8th level.
I would definitely prefer to be limited to 6th level spells and to be a F/M/T who can destroy anything in melee than to have 8th level spells and to only be able to cast.
I came to a point wherever I'm playing a full party of 6 characters and Charname is a F/M/T, in something like 70-90% of the situations, the optimal way to play is to let Charname solo the fight while the 5 others watch, they would only slow him or endanger themselves.
I am not trying to be rude here but I think I have made some good points in my case against the FMT and you have no argument other than "the FMT can cheese the game and beat it by himself so why even play with anything else." The FMT is an inferior fighter and spell caster the entire game with slower level progression, less hitpoints, less damage per hit, less APR, lower level spell casting at any point in the game and a level 8 spell cap with inferior thaco. Any character can have improved haste cast on them either before a fight or in the first round and you are going to have more than one melee character in a party so you will still have to waste rounds casting improved haste on your fighters regardless. Comparing a FMT with improved haste vs a fighter without improved haste makes no sense at all. The fighter is superior with or without haste.
The FMT has a wider array of abilities in return for the harsh penalties mentioned above but those abilities serve no purpose in a group that already has all abilities at a higher level of progression at any given time in the game. Exploiting a single item doesn't change the fact that the FMT is a limited character class at it's core. The FMT is pretty much made for solo and is the exact opposite of what you would want in a party. He is like a ball hog on a sports team. It doesn't matter how good he is because he can never be better than a party and when you put him in a party he just drags the party down and turns it into a one trick pony.
A party has much, much more power when it is utilized properly and they won't have to cheese to get to that power level. That is the point I have been trying to make. I typed out 3 reports worth of content trying to explain why a FMT is a great solo character and not a good party character in a way that was not rude and clearly got my point across. Every time your response has been that a FMT using cheese tactics can just beat the game alone with infinite damage so who cares.
If 70-90% of the time you would rather solo the game and let your party stand there and watch then I would say that you have the wrong character class for a party or you don't know how to utilize your party correctly with that character. Either way you just proved my point further. A party could cast 3 level 9 spells and get 27 melee attacks with +7 per a hit on the main character in one round with no cheese and no HLA's. A FMT could cast 1 level 8 spell and get 8 attacks a round with no bonus to damage and you would have to use a cheesy exploit just to pull that off for the last 25% of the game. Why would you prefer to use that one character over a party 70-90% of the time?
The reason why your characters are holding you back is because you have focused everything on one character who can't take advantage of everything at one time. Your character is still behind in levels and HP and your party is weak to the point of being useless as a result. If you use mislead to run through dungeons backstabing a blind enemy then yes your party will be standing around useless because you are not playing the game the way it was intended. A mage can cast an infinite number of simulacrums that can cast an infinite number of times using magic and melee for infinite damage every round. That doesn't make a pure class mage the best character. It's just an exploit.
To be clear here, I am playing the game as a FMT because you convinced me to. I am open to suggestions still but you have lost me with the last two posts you have made. I have nothing left I can say other than, I respectfully disagree at this point. I don't think any item will make up for the character's core problems when used in a party and while the fighter HLA's are a nice benifit at the end game they certainly don't make up for the FMT's lack of fighting ability. The damage difference is large (about 80 points a round) and it just gets better and better the more attacks you add on. By the time you are using backstabs and HLA's the Ken/thief will be doing 300+ more damage a round without having to raise a finger. It doesn't hurt that the Ken/thief has an extra +4 to hit on each attack either.
If I experience different results than what I got the first time and with the testing/statistics that I am seeing, then I will come back here and admit my stupidity on the subject, after all it is just a game.
an ability to synergize well with other party members can also be a comparative advantage that only comes to play in a party environment.
I may be wrong but from the OP I got that he wants the best single character, not the best character given a party with certain supporting abilities.
A Kensai/thief can probably use scrolls, fwiw, meaning they are potentially very powerful. The short supply of scrolls is problematic though.
In a party you have real time strategy elements (RTS) that add a whole new dimension to the game and will allow many of your characters to go without pre buffing all the time. A Mage could stay back and not pre-buff at all because the enemy is falling on your 3 melee character's armor. Or maybe your mage will cast stone skin and mirror image on himself and lead the enemy on while your thief disappears and backstabs from behind. In this case the thief will not need any pre-buff. All three mages could improve haste all 3 melee characters in the first round. The mage doesn't really need the haste because his spells will take a round to cast regardless.
Items like the robe of Vecna will make sure your mage gets the first cast which could allow a timestop at the start of a fight and will allow the enemy defense to be completely destroyed while all of your fighters slam the enemy without hesitation. Two of your fighters would still have improved haste and the third one could use greater whirlwind if the extra damage is really needed. With all 6 characters hitting at full strength simultaneously you may destroy the enemies (or the most dangerous ones) fast enough that you won't take any real damage even without protection. The damage that the enemies deliver will be spread out among six characters and most fighters have nearly twice the hit points so they can take some damage anyway. The fighter was designed to survive in a party without casting ability so it doesn't matter. Your main fighter thief will have 100% magic resistance and a -16 to -18 armor class that can't be dispelled and doesn't need pre-buff. If you want you can have your mages pre-buff your fighter and use scrolls and wands for the handfull of spells that they can't cast on you. It's not hard to collect 4 or 5 blur and mirror image spells for the main boss fights in TOB though they are totally unnecessary. The possibilities are endless in a party.
You can play however you like. I played solo with a FM for the challenge after I had beaten the game with a party many times. I was actually surprised that it's not really that hard because you hog all the XP which will make you a much higher level than you are supposed to be vs the enemies you are fighting. You won't do as much damage as a party would but the enemies will have a hard time hitting you and you will have access to abilities and spells earlier in the game than a party would.
Both ways of playing are fun but the game really shines when you have party of 6. You get the band of brothers element and the romances plus the RTS elements and you still get to enjoy the thief, cleric, mage, and fighter all at once but you can push them further without restriction unlike the muli-class characters. In a party the triple class characters will lag behind in every area and serve no real purpose.
I believe the game was made as a party game first and foremost,(Imoen, Minsc, and Jahiera in the first dungeon of SOA pretty much proves that the story cannon was setup in this way.) I think the 6 person party is what actually sets this game apart from modern RPG's like Skyrim. I am glad they included the FMT and the FMC and I am glad that the game will allow you to solo but I have always preferred a party. I am not saying you shouldn't solo if that is what you like and I am not saying the FMT is not the best solo. I am simply saying that the FMT is not the best at everything and it was intentionally set up that way to keep the game from being boring. If like me, you enjoy playing with a party then your character of choice will not be a FMT if you are looking for the best character class.
A party is completely different than solo and needs a totally different approach. If you think the FMT is the best at everything simply because he is the best solo then I disagree. If you have actually played a party in an efficient manor then you will know what I am talking about. In any case, I think I am done arguing my point. If you seriously read all that I typed and you still disagree then that is fine. I realized that the majority of posters in this thread were at odds with what I felt so I typed out my thoughts and feelings on why I disagree rather than trolling the board without any real argument. I enjoyed the conversation but I am tired of it now so please continue without me.
Ever since the game was released, I've run through it with each class just trying them out, trying to see who did the best for me and I liked most. Frankly, I'm surprised it took 3 pages for Swashbuckler to get a mention, although am baffled why you'd ever dual it at all (doesn't add anything to the character imo). Fighter? Why, grand mastery doesn't outshine the kit bonuses you give up, swash gets WW attack in it's HLA pool, and once you do, nobody does anything else in melee.
Magic-based characters I've found are great in normal BG2, but tend to stumble once you get into ToB territory. Lots of dispels, enemies with gobs of hp and saves, relying on metagamed knowledge, and resting after each fight (often several times a fight) bogged down my enjoyment and playtimes for each run through. Not to mention it doesn't take much effort to get to a point where your gear overshadows your buffs and melee can run through things faster than relying on spells to beat encounters will.
Out of everything else, to me, just a plain straight Swashbuckler (halfling for saves) is the funnest and best performer of the lot I've tried. The kit bonuses easily put it in top tier melee alone - AC max is easily achieved, to hit/dmg bonuses easily trump grand mastery weapon spec and penalties whirlwind attack gives you (making it as good as greater whirlwind). Toss in thief HLAs and you're golden. You end up with a character that stalks around with full thief skills, whirlwinding himself through encounters who has a gob of cheese traps and UAIs scrolls as he needs to.
No need for magic bogging it down or sitting around spam invis potion/backstabbing, just pure buttkickery that takes you through the game solo from 1 to 40 for me.
Plus it satisfies my need to sneak around, robbing everything blind like a badass burglar.
They are not gear dependent so anything that can hit your target will work fine. The ranger allows you to duel wield the biggest baddest blunt weapons in the game, light armor allows you to stealth, druid spells, and a racial enemy! Rangers rock!.........Now at lvl 9 switch it to a cleric.
Army of undead of bears, insane offensive buff, and boosts that make you immune to just about everything........ So now you are a summoning healing armored tank that duel wields a pair of cinder blocks at all in it's way.
Blade barrier/ Globe of blades for both a wicked appeal and crazy defensive damage, surrounding a 25-str/stam/agil duel wielding powerhouse immune to almost everything?..... Awesome. hit energy blades and ramp it's attack to 10 per round.......epic.
white dragon scale armor and Crom Flayer/ Flail of ages.
ring of Nax, ring of lathander. and then anything else that tickles you're fancy.... You will not be disappointed.
The only real perk to multi is the natural resistance of half elves. Those become quickly obsolete after lvl 20 cleric.
The real perk of multiclass is warrior HLAs, most notably GWWA & Hardiness. These outweigh high cleric levels IMO, since a level 35 cleric is pretty much the same as a level 25 cleric.
Towards the endgame of ToB I had: upgraded Taralash bow (increases movement speed cumulatively), Armor of Thorns (leather armor with great AC that deals damage to the attacker), Amulet of Cheetah speed (increases movement speed cumulatively), Montolios Cloak (to increase off-hand THAC0 for the rare cases of dual wielding scimitars or katanas) and Boots of Speed. I was outrunning everyone easily, even hasted characters were too slow. So I never really needed to go into melee. Having grandmastery in bows and using GWW + aimed shot + arrows+3 = cheese for everyone. A LOT of Stoneskins go down in a matter of seconds, without ever being close to the enemy. The speed at which I could just kick away all the Stoneskins was comparable to having to cast Breach manually without Robe of Vecna.
I don't like multi- or dualclass. It feels like I get to enjoy the fruits of it only in solo playthroughs or towards the very last part of the game, which makes it a boring choice for me. If I solo the game, than with more challenging, like a human mage.
Surely this isn't news to you, judging by your portrait choice, but some multi-classes are great early, especially if you have good enough stats. If you have Jaheira in BG1 stats, yeah, it'll be a slog sometimes.
The half orc fighter/thief multi-class is my favorite in the game. He ends the game with a natural 24 strength and 23 constitution. Not only does he level up faster than the FMT the whole game but ends up with a +5 thaco bonus and a +1 damage bonus over the FMT. He also has two extra HLA abilities.
However I must admit that if you play on insane difficulty with SCS and all of the improved enemies are enabled, then a FMT is the better pick because those extra protective spells are no longer an unnecessary, tedious process. If you go up against 5 dragons at one time and they have 500 hitpoints each, you are going to need some serious protection. In fact I don't know if I could beat the game on insane SCS without a F/M or FMT. Then again I am not the most skilled of players.
For me, the half orc F/T is the best balance of character progression and power when playing the vanilla game or even SCS without all of the improved enemies and tactics battles.
My latest playthrough was with a FMT and I must admit it was an eye opener. The FMT is very powerful but you are dealing with slower character progression and a large loss to thaco in exchange for magic. Since your magic users will have more spells and access to higher level spells at any given point in the game, the FMT usually only benefits from protective spells.
In the vanilla game even on insane difficulty you will not really need these extra protective spells considering you have a -17 armor class and 250 hitpoints. On top of that you could always use the ring of mirroring to cast mirror image on yourself and the boots of gargoyle to cast stoneskin on yourself. You also have the ring of gax to cast improved haste and your other party members could always cast improved haste or improve invisibility on you.
To me, casting these spells is not needed and becomes tedious on all but the absolute hardest of difficulty settings. However the FMT's extra protection outweighs the FT's extra damage abilities and character progression when the chips are truly down. This is something I didn't realize until I played through with the FMT with the difficulty pushed as far as it can go without being impossible. I had always played the game vanilla on insane or SCS on core rules and to me the F/T is the better character. However, Last time I pushed it to the limit with insane SCS and all of the hardest options enabled and it made me appreciate the FMT's protective benefits. Both characters are a joy to play as and I will probably play through the game with each character type at least once more each.
In the vanilla game a warrior that does more damage per round is the more powerful character in my opinion. This makes the Pure class Kensai or Kensai/theif dual very powerful with the fighter/thief multi being a very powerful compromise that is more fun to play as. With SCS on insane, the enemies deal a bunch of damage and have enough hitpoints to last much longer. This makes magical protection more important than raw damage output. So FMT wins in this scenario.
BG2:EE: Barbarian.
I'd like to bring exploits into the equation. If we have no limits on which tactics to use and all we're concerned about is power, then the game balance shifts dramatically. I assume the player is using SCS and we're prioritizing the late-game status of the character.
The Hotkey Trick:
First, in vanilla, but not EE, all classes can cast Contingency and Chain Contingency via hotkey. Mages, sorcerers, and bards can cast Nahal's Reckless Dweomer via a hotkey. Also, Wild Mages may stack Chaos Shields via a Chain Contingency. This means a Wild Mage may use the NRD hotkey trick to gain infinite spells, permanent Improved Alacrity, and immunity to wild surges. This means you are permanently blessed with immunity to all spell schools, all weapons, all of the elements, magic damage, all physical damage, invisibility, and if you want, you're permanently under the effects of Time Stop.
Permanent Time Stop makes a far superior character than any other possible build. The only enemies who are immune to it use magical weapons and cannot bypass PFMW, nor can they Breach it during Time Stop. Other mage types can use the NRD trick, but their spells will sometimes fail due to wild surges. EE is a different story, of course, because NRD cannot be mapped to a hotkey in the first place.
Other exploits also bend the game and twist the balance in favor of certain builds.
The Wand of Lightning Trick:
The Wand of Lightning lets you duplicate the effects of various items and spells by 6. You target your own character with all 6 lightning bolts from the wand, and then either switch out the wand for another quick item, or use an on-self spell, before unpausing. The WoL trick can duplicate the effects of Boon of Lathander, Armor of Faith, Blur, Sunfire, Spell Immunity, and Poison Weapon, among other things. Note that Spell Immunity, Blur, Armor of Faith, and many other things no longer stack in EE, and Sunfire no longer bypasses MR in EE. If you have the Tactics mod and dual-class from Generic Archer to Thief or Mage, you may stack Called Shot with the WoL trick. An Archer/Thief can summon a Clay Golem via the Golem Tome, equip flashers, cast Called Shot 6 times at once, and kill any enemy, even those protected by PFMW, spell protections, and any resistances, by hitting the Clay Golem with 3 or 4 flashers. The resulting Strength drain is instantly fatal to all creatures, regardless of immunities.
The Scorcher Loop:
Agannazar's Scorcher and Lightning Bolt can instantly kill any enemy not immune to the spell, if they're combined with Spell Turning effects. Even Nightmare mode dragons in SCS will die instantly if you combine the WoL trick with the Book of Daily Spell on the Spell Turning page. You can use Lightning Bolt instead of a scorcher spell, or the Ring of Energy, only if you're not using EE. The Cloak of Mirroring, pre-EE, also works with lightning bolts. The scorcher loop makes other forms of damage irrelevant in many cases, particularly since you can duplicate the Book of Daily Spell either by using the page turn function on a clone which you then kill, or by using the WoL trick on the page turn function, and therefore get near-infinite uses of the scorcher loop, limited only by your scorcher spells and Wand(s) of Fire.
The Mirror Image Trick:
@Arunsun's Mirror Image trick allows you to maintain Slayer form indefinitely, which shifts the balance in favor of melee-oriented classes. It also works with the Ravager form from the Ascension mod, though testing in EE found that the Ravager form's MR does not stack with items or monk MR, unlike the Slayer. The Ravager does, however, get 50% resistance to all forms of damage, which does stack with the Defender of Easthaven, barbarian resistances, and Hardiness. Monks may achieve undispellable immunity to magic at 2.7 million XP; other classes may reach it in Chapter 6 or Hell. Fighter-types and priests may achieve near-immunity to magic, and virtual immunity to weapons, using the Ravager form. If we stack Hell bonuses, a Ravager fighter, bard, or thief could attain immunity to magic and the elements, and get undispellable and un-Breachable 90% resistance to physical damage. Immunity to Imprisonment, however, could only come from scrolls (easily duplicated if we're importing characters to stack Hell bonuses), Slayer form, or Berserker rage.
In EE, the best would likely have fighter or thief levels and rely on Ravager form, with duplicated scrolls of Protection from Magic to prevent Imprisonment. The exact class is barely relevant by that point, but I suppose a Barbarian, with its base 110% resistance to physical damage (50 from the Ravager, 20 from DoE, 20 from another DoE, and 20 from the kit) and strong THAC0, would be marginally better at surviving Nightmare mode than any other class, since another character with only 90% base resistance might not survive if it rolls, say, 5,000 critical misses in a row.
EDIT: The remaining issue would be Mind Flayers and SCS vampires with CON drain. For them, the Barbarian lacks PFMW scrolls, but Greater Deathblow, Smite, and the Mace of Disruption would work in PFMW's place. Rage would also offset the CON drain somewhat. These two examples would show the strength of a character with thief or mage levels.
Me personally, i play No reload, and the main thing you need in a no reload run is, you guessed it, to not die. That means having the most protections possible that can save your ass in any scenario. A lot of folk fawn over the infamous Kensage and i've played him quite a lot myself, he's a cool character, lots of dps. But ever since i started playing Berserker/Mage, there's just no comparison to what the latter brings to the table. You sacrifice just a little bit of dmg in exchange for a shitload of protections, most of them being absolutely crucial - stun/imprisonment key ones- in a SCS No reload run. Plus you get to wear good armor in BG1 (i know i know, shield amulet for kensai is good, but it's a chore to always activate it) and gauntlets all but nullify the Kensai's innate bonuses.
Note: I play with True Grandmastery, so in my game, dual class F/M has quite an edge over multi.
I saw there was quite a discussion about the power of the F/M/T, the main argument being you can backstab for disgusting amounts of damage in ToB. I never played F/M/T myself, but correct me if i'm wrong, isn't any boss worth his salt immune to backstab? So who cares if you can assassinate trash mobs for infinite damage, those don't present a challenge anyway. I can make the same argument about people loving Celestial Fury for it's stun, makes *most* encounters trivial, but 90% of bosses are immune to it (i used to love CF myself, but now it's FoA all the way for it's amazing ability to disrupt SCS mages).
So to sum it up, from my experiences as a SCS No reload player (i got as far as chapter 5 in bg without dying), i recommend Berserker dualled at level 9 to Mage. There is a huge benefit to doing it at 9, besides the obvious ones everyone knows about (and also, with True Grandmastery + Belm Offhand, you get 10 APR with Improved Haste anyway, so no need to go for level 13 dual): You usually just turn 9 (if you did BG1 and imported character) after completing the Circus Quest, meaning you don't have to leave Waukeens Promenade. You can then temporarily kick all the party members and steal all the scrolls in Promenade and then learn/relearn them until you are level 12 mage (750k experience). Then you can go recruit the NPC's you haven't discovered yet and they will be quite high level, starting with about 800k experience on average (Korgan, Jan, Viconia 800k, Edwin 400k in my playtesting). Getting a head start in early-mid SoA, which is one of the hardest parts in the game, can be a huge boon to your no reload chances.
And despite thinking nearly all the duals are bad mechanically (yes, I think the Kensai 13 => Mage is a bad build overall), I also agree with you that the Berserker 9 => Mage is extremely good.
Because it is super strong at every stages of the game, during BG1, Mages aren't that strong, especially at lower levels and the Berserker is just killing everything, few things are stronger at level 1 than a Berserker with 18/18/18 dualwielding under the effect of Enrage.
So during all BG1 you are a singleclass Fighter which is incredible, then right at the start of BG2 (and it's going to be even more convenient with the release of SoD!) you turn into a Mage, a really, really beefy one.
The Enrage is of course super strong and impossible to dispel, so it is very good for the Mage as a get out of jail free card.
Like you I'm also a SCS no-reload player, and I also agree that the 'strongest build' is not the one that can out damage the others, but also the one with great tankiness, utility, and so forth.
Considering the F/M/T, I'm a huge fan of this class myself, and I think the main reasons are Traps, Detect Illusion and backstabs. You don't need to wait the end of ToB to get incredible backstabs, in BG1, no enemies are immune to backstabs and you can easily get +100 damage with a vanilla setup which is enough to one hit kill anyone beside Sarevok (he has 163 HP as far as I know).
In BG2, you can still backstabs a lot of enemies, including Irenicus.
Detect Illusions is wonderful because it bypasses Spell Immunity : Illusion, Traps are good, and HLA Traps are OP.
I'm not sure if I saw you on this thread, you should check it out if you didn't! : https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/40393/maybe-this-time-no-reload-thread-merrie-men-of-easthaven-viora-jurs-vs-the-nameless-one#latest
It contains a lot of information about no-reload