I don't really see MC being as extreme as DC in terms of meta or power gaming. It makes sense to me that you would be able to advance in more than one class at a slower rate, where forgetting everything you've learned for an arbitrary time seems odd, to have it all rush back. Especially when the base class is something simple and transferable like Fighter.
For RP purposes your guy trains physically more than your average cleric, and prays more than your average fighter.
A Cleric can buff themselves into kicking plenty of ass.
Care to elaborate? You seem pretty keen on the single-class. Sell me on it.
Side note, I'm currently also running through the IWD series. For this, I have a party of 4: one paladin(IWD1)/fighter(IWD2), one cleric, one mage(IWD1)/sorcerer(IWD2), and one thief. Everyone is single-classed, nobody is min-maxed, and it's working out quite well. Why? Even though they aren't the most powerful party possible, I have the fighter, backup fighter, archer, healer, thief, shopface, and magic user roles 100% covered...with just four characters.
Elaborate it yourself by simply taking a look at the available cleric spells. There are a few heals and effect removals, a few utility spells like Find Traps, very few offensive spells... and a ton of buffs, self buffs, protections and disablements. That's what clerics do - buff themselves, then kill everything in sight with a mace or hammer. The "everything" potentially being knocked out or held when the "killing it" happens. While clerics can be healers, their real role is to prevent the neccessity of healing.
@Kneller@KidCarnival To be fair, the Cleric's self-buff godhood isn't as obvious in BG1 as it is in BG2. A BG1 Cleric can, however, buff the entire party to 18/75 Strength, buff the entire party with an instant cast +2 to AC, essentially turn himself into a Fighter equal to his Cleric level with Holy Power, Draw Upon Holy Might to give himself an extra 1-2 points in his physical stats (suddenly turning a 17 Str Cleric into Dorn). Even at the lowest of levels, a Cleric with a decent Strength can wreck enemies with Shillelagh, Spirit Hammer, and Flame Blade. Granted, those spells become nearly useless later on (except Flame Blade for smacking through Stoneskin), but before you get your hands on the warhammer +2 or Stupifier they are invaluable, especially Shillelagh and Spirit Hammer for their bonus to attack rolls.
Is a Fighter/Cleric dual-class a much better frontliner than single-class Cleric? Sure, but single-class Cleric gets higher spell levels and HLAs more quickly, and will have more Cleric levels for the buffs that key off of level for effectiveness and duration such as Draw Upon Holy Might and Champion's Strength.
It's not terribly obvious to me in BG2 either, actually. As a character, I love clerics. They're great in PnP, but for a computer game that amounts to a dungeon crawl with a story, one has to look at the numbers.
I think that what a cleric gets is only a partial catch up to a fighter (assuming his buffs survive a dispel). That's fine, though. I don't expect clerics, even buffed, to be better than fighters. Clerics have all that fancy spellcasting to make up for it. However, while they lag behind the fighters a fair bit, they lag behind wizards immensely. Wizards have better crowd-control, damage, debuffs, better everything except for healing. Once again, I don't think clerics should be better spellcasters than wizards as well.
What I'm saying is that clerics don't really shine in any generally applicable area except for healing and party support (buffs, protections). It's a solid support role, but a cleric will hardly, if ever, be the star of the show. As far as I can see, a cleric is the medieval fantasy equivalent a waterboy.
Edit: Also, I don't think the single class gets HLAs quicker. HLAs are based off of total experience, not character level. Even if that were the case, the 64kxp you spend picking up some levels in fighter ends up being a negligible gap rather quickly.
While at the end of SOA an evil Half-Orc or someone using Crom Faeyr can have 25 strength, a Cleric can get it much sooner. And hit for max damage every hit. And still heal/buff/debuff/summon etc. It's a party game and not everyone gets to do the most damage, some trade that in for a lot more utility.
They're not the best for raw damage output, but the raw damage output is rarely the deciding factor in BG2 battles. It may seem that lots of cleric stuff is kind of gimmicky (Chaotic Commands and Negative Plane Protection being flat-out required sometimes), but that's how the game works. And Skeleton Warriors with 90% magic resistance from a level 3 spell is just OP.
*Edit* And dual-class is a bit broken in how much you gain for minimal downtime if you dual in BG2. That is another issue entirely.
It seems to me that between BG1 and BG2, the wizards got a hell of a boost while the cleric just puttered along. Wish, Time Stop, PFMW, Breach, etc. I think that some of those spells should have been given to the cleric (the protection and debuffing spells). NPP should have also been made to last more than a mere 5 rounds. If my party is getting attacked by 3-4 vamps, it's going to take more than 5 rounds to take them out.
I'm not saying the cleric doesn't have a couple of good tricks up their sleeve (i.e. the skeletal warriors as a 3rd level spell), but compared to other classes, they're pretty nerfed and can't stand on their own.
A Cleric's best buffs are self-buffs, and the 5th-level ones can put them on par with the Fighter, if not even more adept at murder. They also deal max damage with one of their self-buffs, as Corvino pointed out.
Righteous Magic seems to be the cleric's claim to melee fame. However, for a single class cleric, these buffs (even RM) don't put them on par with a fighter. On average, RM effectively doubles your APR. For a single-class cleric, that boosts you from 1 APR to 2. However, by the time you get it, fighters are probably already at 3+ APR, all the time. Throw haste on top of that and the gap widens. DUHM helps close that gap, but not if the fighter also has a strength boosting item (gauntlets, belt, etc.) On top of that, DUHM is a waste on a single-classed cleric's Con (except for a shorty), and probably isn't going to do much for Dex (maybe 2 AC, tops).
Now, by late game BG2, a lot of the cleric buffs are irrelevant. Everyone is hitting everyone so bonuses to hit and AC are irrelevant. Everyone is also doing tons of damage, so a slight strength boost is a drop in the bucket. Healing spells are generally not combat friendly and regeneration is pretty easy to come by, so as long as you survive an encounter, you can be fully healed with a little patience. IMO, you can really use a single-classed cleric in BG1, it's pretty handy for the first half of BG2, and he can retire by the time you get to ToB.
Now, I'm not trashing clerics in general, just BG clerics. The single-classed cleric in my IWD run is a damn superstar (running with a paly, mage, and thief). While my paly is getting most of the kills, my cleric is a solid backup tank protecting my mage and archer and her cleric spells are indispensable. Of course, classes are more balanced in this series. Wizard spellcasting is scaled down a fair bit and warrior classes don't get GWWs and the like.
I completely agree with @Kneller, clerics simply don't grow well enough in BG2 (and especially ToB). There are a few useful things about them (Turn Undead in particular) but they are nowhere near the level of mages.
That's why I much prefer dualing Cleric into Fighter, instead of the other way round. There's some hassles to go through to be sure, but slapping those cleric self-buffs on a fighter makes a noticeable difference. Of course, that is provided I even take a cleric at all... it's sad, but they get outclassed by mages on so many levels it's not even funny
I completely agree with @Kneller, clerics simply don't grow well enough in BG2 (and especially ToB). There are a few useful things about them (Turn Undead in particular) but they are nowhere near the level of mages.
That's why I much prefer dualing Cleric into Fighter, instead of the other way round. There's some hassles to go through to be sure, but slapping those cleric self-buffs on a fighter makes a noticeable difference. Of course, that is provided I even take a cleric at all... it's sad, but they get outclassed by mages on so many levels it's not even funny
I'm not sure I understand your logic here... why would dualing from a cleric into a fighter be the better choice when dualing from fighter into cleric can potentially give you the most important benefits of a fighter (extra attacks, grandmastery and high HD) and allows your spell buffs, which often rely on CASTER LEVEL to be effective, to grow in power and gain more spells as you level.
Even dualing from fighter at level 7 can turn a cleric into a melee powerhouse. A fighter using a level 3 or level 7 DUHM isn't getting much of a boost.
@Kneller@KidCarnival To be fair, the Cleric's self-buff godhood isn't as obvious in BG1 as it is in BG2. A BG1 Cleric can, however, buff the entire party to 18/75 Strength, buff the entire party with an instant cast +2 to AC, essentially turn himself into a Fighter equal to his Cleric level with Holy Power, Draw Upon Holy Might to give himself an extra 1-2 points in his physical stats (suddenly turning a 17 Str Cleric into Dorn). Even at the lowest of levels, a Cleric with a decent Strength can wreck enemies with Shillelagh, Spirit Hammer, and Flame Blade. Granted, those spells become nearly useless later on (except Flame Blade for smacking through Stoneskin), but before you get your hands on the warhammer +2 or Stupifier they are invaluable, especially Shillelagh and Spirit Hammer for their bonus to attack rolls.
Is a Fighter/Cleric dual-class a much better frontliner than single-class Cleric? Sure, but single-class Cleric gets higher spell levels and HLAs more quickly, and will have more Cleric levels for the buffs that key off of level for effectiveness and duration such as Draw Upon Holy Might and Champion's Strength.
In my opinion, if a singled class cleric had the option of getting 2 points of proficiency instead of 1, and maxed at 1.5 APR instead of flat 1 due to simple Thac0, he would closer to his 3rd+ edition counterpart, and in no need of dual/multiclassing.
Now, obviously he's capable of kicking azz, but that level 7 fighter is just asking to be put in, considering it costs 64k xp, in other words, nothing, compared to the 8 million he will get in bg2.
In PnP 2nd edition clerics were more powerful and had more variation, but the way they are in BG just asks for the dual class cheese.
There are much more arcane spells in BG than divine, compared to pnp.
The Priest of Helm covers that up somewhat with the 3 APR, but he can't cast then. So you're stuck with Lathander for a more battle oriented cleric, and that means you're good :X.
But yeah, i'm with you, clerics kick ass if played correctly, even single class, just that 1 flat APR irks me. I'm pretty sure that in 2nd ED, Holy power and similar spells granted you thac0 and attacks of the fighter, more like divine power of 3rd ED.
But if they gave him that, fighters get the shelf then. Because they can't do in BG what they can do in pnp either.
I'm not sure I understand your logic here... why would dualing from a cleric into a fighter be the better choice when dualing from fighter into cleric can potentially give you the most important benefits of a fighter (extra attacks, grandmastery and high HD) and allows your spell buffs, which often rely on CASTER LEVEL to be effective, to grow in power and gain more spells as you level.
Even dualing from fighter at level 7 can turn a cleric into a melee powerhouse. A fighter using a level 3 or level 7 DUHM isn't getting much of a boost.
You dual at 12, to get the most out of the buffs. Obviously it'd be Cleric of Lathander, for the APR self-buff. That buff is one of the key reasons to dual this way, as you can't dual into a cleric kit. Also, clerics (in any combination) cannot use any of the +APR weapons; that means a Berserker->Cleric can't reach maximum APR, while a Cleric of Lathander -> Fighter can with the CoL kit buff. They can also use GWW, which pairs quite well with the mass of buffs you can stack on yourself (unequip offhand for maximum effect while under GWW). Fighter HLAs in general are better than the cleric ones, as you want to limit your spellcasting anyway (for obvious reasons). Berserker Rage immunities are largely redundant with cleric buffs, and the damage bonus is largely made up for by the CoL kit skill, too.
Keep in mind my elementary caveat, though: these fine distinctions may be hardly noticeable unless you play at the extremes of difficulty; and also, I generally don't take clerics in the first place...
We are the (berserker)clerics! We crucify everything!
For the last time, it's not brown sneakers! It's metal as well :P depending on the armor. Hmph!
And the greaves are thicker on the knee area of the cleric, IF you must know :PP
P.S. On the magma bulwark, the cross is red :P
Okay, the cross being red on the magma bulwark is admittedly pretty rad. Still, I was raised Catholic and have never had anything in the way of faith to a god that is decidedly NOT rad (at least, not as rad as Thor or Bane), so the last thing I want on a power fantasy version of myself is a giant cross.
I am found of the Beastmaster/cleric but I can't recamend it to any one else since just about any warrior/cleric combo is better, but I can recommend the swashbuckler/cleric
We are the (berserker)clerics! We crucify everything!
For the last time, it's not brown sneakers! It's metal as well :P depending on the armor. Hmph!
And the greaves are thicker on the knee area of the cleric, IF you must know :PP
P.S. On the magma bulwark, the cross is red :P
Okay, the cross being red on the magma bulwark is admittedly pretty rad. Still, I was raised Catholic and have never had anything in the way of faith to a god that is decidedly NOT rad (at least, not as rad as Thor or Bane), so the last thing I want on a power fantasy version of myself is a giant cross.
I agree that the cross could have been avoided, since, although it's a bit altered, it still points to something we know, and evil clerics would arguably not involve themselves with something like that.
Although, on the other hand, the cross is an execution symbol that existed before Christianity, which means it would probably fit better with a crusading paladin, and maybe a cleric. Death to the infidels and all that.
I'm not sure I understand your logic here... why would dualing from a cleric into a fighter be the better choice when dualing from fighter into cleric can potentially give you the most important benefits of a fighter (extra attacks, grandmastery and high HD) and allows your spell buffs, which often rely on CASTER LEVEL to be effective, to grow in power and gain more spells as you level.
Even dualing from fighter at level 7 can turn a cleric into a melee powerhouse. A fighter using a level 3 or level 7 DUHM isn't getting much of a boost.
You dual at 12, to get the most out of the buffs. Obviously it'd be Cleric of Lathander, for the APR self-buff. That buff is one of the key reasons to dual this way, as you can't dual into a cleric kit. Also, clerics (in any combination) cannot use any of the +APR weapons; that means a Berserker->Cleric can't reach maximum APR, while a Cleric of Lathander -> Fighter can with the CoL kit buff. They can also use GWW, which pairs quite well with the mass of buffs you can stack on yourself (unequip offhand for maximum effect while under GWW). Fighter HLAs in general are better than the cleric ones, as you want to limit your spellcasting anyway (for obvious reasons). Berserker Rage immunities are largely redundant with cleric buffs, and the damage bonus is largely made up for by the CoL kit skill, too.
Keep in mind my elementary caveat, though: these fine distinctions may be hardly noticeable unless you play at the extremes of difficulty; and also, I generally don't take clerics in the first place...
So it boils down to the apr when all is said and done... I guess that makes sense and I can understand why that route can be desireable. Thanks for pointing that out!
I simply can't roleplay Berserker / Clerics....I mean, Clerics seem to be the passive priests who are calm and always praying, while Berserkers seem to be chaotic psychotic warriors...total juxtaposition imo...
Clerics are not passive priests, they can be evil murderous warpriests too.
So, we have an evil murderous warpriest who buffs himself and smashes things to oblivion through the power of his dark or whatever faith, but that particular person has a problem with his temper as well :P.
But yeah, seriously, he's just a warrior that is fueled by his rage, that happens to be a battle inclined priest.
I don't know why you think clerics are passive and calm. Clerics of Tempus or Bane or Nerull want a word with you
Keep in mind my elementary caveat, though: these fine distinctions may be hardly noticeable unless you play at the extremes of difficulty; and also, I generally don't take clerics in the first place...
What do you do for vamp protection without NPP before you can get IMoD or the amulet?
I simply can't roleplay Berserker / Clerics....I mean, Clerics seem to be the passive priests who are calm and always praying, while Berserkers seem to be chaotic psychotic warriors...total juxtaposition imo...
Easy. Berserker/Clerics are Berserkers who have been born again.
Since we've already gone off topic...I really wished they finished Icewind Gate. Forget BGEE, BG's characters and story through the superior and more balanced IWD system. That would have been great...
I'm sorry to say, though, nothing has come about this thread to dissuade me from thinking that BG clerics are disadvantaged.
What do you do for vamp protection without NPP before you can get IMoD or the amulet?
What I do against everything: kill them before special effects become an issue ;P My parties tend to be min/maxed towards a very aggressive playstyle, vampires rarely even live long enough to get hits in (rushing to get Azuredge and Daystar helps, too).
The only enemy I'd actually like NPP against is the shadow dragon, but I can live without it. I tend to tank dragons with a mage anyway, so I can just give them Amulet of Power and negate most of the drains.
Every time I play cleric, it seems like I'm casting like five spells in total: Armor of Faith, DuHM, Righteous Magic, Chant, PfE10'R. I rarely even bother with Chaotic Commands, even though it's obviously powerful... and basically none of the higher level spells whatsoever. What is worth casting there (assuming a fixed Greater Restoration, see above)? Anyone have some secret tech?
Comments
For RP purposes your guy trains physically more than your average cleric, and prays more than your average fighter.
Side note, I'm currently also running through the IWD series. For this, I have a party of 4: one paladin(IWD1)/fighter(IWD2), one cleric, one mage(IWD1)/sorcerer(IWD2), and one thief. Everyone is single-classed, nobody is min-maxed, and it's working out quite well. Why? Even though they aren't the most powerful party possible, I have the fighter, backup fighter, archer, healer, thief, shopface, and magic user roles 100% covered...with just four characters.
To be fair, the Cleric's self-buff godhood isn't as obvious in BG1 as it is in BG2. A BG1 Cleric can, however, buff the entire party to 18/75 Strength, buff the entire party with an instant cast +2 to AC, essentially turn himself into a Fighter equal to his Cleric level with Holy Power, Draw Upon Holy Might to give himself an extra 1-2 points in his physical stats (suddenly turning a 17 Str Cleric into Dorn). Even at the lowest of levels, a Cleric with a decent Strength can wreck enemies with Shillelagh, Spirit Hammer, and Flame Blade. Granted, those spells become nearly useless later on (except Flame Blade for smacking through Stoneskin), but before you get your hands on the warhammer +2 or Stupifier they are invaluable, especially Shillelagh and Spirit Hammer for their bonus to attack rolls.
Is a Fighter/Cleric dual-class a much better frontliner than single-class Cleric? Sure, but single-class Cleric gets higher spell levels and HLAs more quickly, and will have more Cleric levels for the buffs that key off of level for effectiveness and duration such as Draw Upon Holy Might and Champion's Strength.
It's not terribly obvious to me in BG2 either, actually. As a character, I love clerics. They're great in PnP, but for a computer game that amounts to a dungeon crawl with a story, one has to look at the numbers.
I think that what a cleric gets is only a partial catch up to a fighter (assuming his buffs survive a dispel). That's fine, though. I don't expect clerics, even buffed, to be better than fighters. Clerics have all that fancy spellcasting to make up for it. However, while they lag behind the fighters a fair bit, they lag behind wizards immensely. Wizards have better crowd-control, damage, debuffs, better everything except for healing. Once again, I don't think clerics should be better spellcasters than wizards as well.
What I'm saying is that clerics don't really shine in any generally applicable area except for healing and party support (buffs, protections). It's a solid support role, but a cleric will hardly, if ever, be the star of the show. As far as I can see, a cleric is the medieval fantasy equivalent a waterboy.
Edit: Also, I don't think the single class gets HLAs quicker. HLAs are based off of total experience, not character level. Even if that were the case, the 64kxp you spend picking up some levels in fighter ends up being a negligible gap rather quickly.
They're not the best for raw damage output, but the raw damage output is rarely the deciding factor in BG2 battles. It may seem that lots of cleric stuff is kind of gimmicky (Chaotic Commands and Negative Plane Protection being flat-out required sometimes), but that's how the game works. And Skeleton Warriors with 90% magic resistance from a level 3 spell is just OP.
*Edit* And dual-class is a bit broken in how much you gain for minimal downtime if you dual in BG2. That is another issue entirely.
I'm not saying the cleric doesn't have a couple of good tricks up their sleeve (i.e. the skeletal warriors as a 3rd level spell), but compared to other classes, they're pretty nerfed and can't stand on their own.
Compared to single class thieves and fighters, clerics do well.
Righteous Magic seems to be the cleric's claim to melee fame. However, for a single class cleric, these buffs (even RM) don't put them on par with a fighter. On average, RM effectively doubles your APR. For a single-class cleric, that boosts you from 1 APR to 2. However, by the time you get it, fighters are probably already at 3+ APR, all the time. Throw haste on top of that and the gap widens. DUHM helps close that gap, but not if the fighter also has a strength boosting item (gauntlets, belt, etc.) On top of that, DUHM is a waste on a single-classed cleric's Con (except for a shorty), and probably isn't going to do much for Dex (maybe 2 AC, tops).
Now, by late game BG2, a lot of the cleric buffs are irrelevant. Everyone is hitting everyone so bonuses to hit and AC are irrelevant. Everyone is also doing tons of damage, so a slight strength boost is a drop in the bucket. Healing spells are generally not combat friendly and regeneration is pretty easy to come by, so as long as you survive an encounter, you can be fully healed with a little patience. IMO, you can really use a single-classed cleric in BG1, it's pretty handy for the first half of BG2, and he can retire by the time you get to ToB.
Now, I'm not trashing clerics in general, just BG clerics. The single-classed cleric in my IWD run is a damn superstar (running with a paly, mage, and thief). While my paly is getting most of the kills, my cleric is a solid backup tank protecting my mage and archer and her cleric spells are indispensable. Of course, classes are more balanced in this series. Wizard spellcasting is scaled down a fair bit and warrior classes don't get GWWs and the like.
That's why I much prefer dualing Cleric into Fighter, instead of the other way round. There's some hassles to go through to be sure, but slapping those cleric self-buffs on a fighter makes a noticeable difference. Of course, that is provided I even take a cleric at all... it's sad, but they get outclassed by mages on so many levels it's not even funny
Even dualing from fighter at level 7 can turn a cleric into a melee powerhouse. A fighter using a level 3 or level 7 DUHM isn't getting much of a boost.
Now, obviously he's capable of kicking azz, but that level 7 fighter is just asking to be put in, considering it costs 64k xp, in other words, nothing, compared to the 8 million he will get in bg2.
In PnP 2nd edition clerics were more powerful and had more variation, but the way they are in BG just asks for the dual class cheese.
There are much more arcane spells in BG than divine, compared to pnp.
The Priest of Helm covers that up somewhat with the 3 APR, but he can't cast then. So you're stuck with Lathander for a more battle oriented cleric, and that means you're good :X.
But yeah, i'm with you, clerics kick ass if played correctly, even single class, just that 1 flat APR irks me. I'm pretty sure that in 2nd ED, Holy power and similar spells granted you thac0 and attacks of the fighter, more like divine power of 3rd ED.
But if they gave him that, fighters get the shelf then. Because they can't do in BG what they can do in pnp either.
;/
P.S. Cleric sprite >>>> Fighter sprite FAIL
Enjoy that ridiculous golden cross in the middle of your chest when you wear the fancier armors, brown sneakers, and skin-tight greaves. ;D
We are the (berserker)clerics! We crucify everything!
For the last time, it's not brown sneakers! It's metal as well :P depending on the armor. Hmph!
And the greaves are thicker on the knee area of the cleric, IF you must know :PP
P.S. On the magma bulwark, the cross is red :P
Keep in mind my elementary caveat, though: these fine distinctions may be hardly noticeable unless you play at the extremes of difficulty; and also, I generally don't take clerics in the first place...
Although, on the other hand, the cross is an execution symbol that existed before Christianity, which means it would probably fit better with a crusading paladin, and maybe a cleric. Death to the infidels and all that.
Clerics are not passive priests, they can be evil murderous warpriests too.
So, we have an evil murderous warpriest who buffs himself and smashes things to oblivion through the power of his dark or whatever faith, but that particular person has a problem with his temper as well :P.
But yeah, seriously, he's just a warrior that is fueled by his rage, that happens to be a battle inclined priest.
I don't know why you think clerics are passive and calm. Clerics of Tempus or Bane or Nerull want a word with you
Since we've already gone off topic...I really wished they finished Icewind Gate. Forget BGEE, BG's characters and story through the superior and more balanced IWD system. That would have been great...
I'm sorry to say, though, nothing has come about this thread to dissuade me from thinking that BG clerics are disadvantaged.
The only enemy I'd actually like NPP against is the shadow dragon, but I can live without it. I tend to tank dragons with a mage anyway, so I can just give them Amulet of Power and negate most of the drains.
Every time I play cleric, it seems like I'm casting like five spells in total: Armor of Faith, DuHM, Righteous Magic, Chant, PfE10'R. I rarely even bother with Chaotic Commands, even though it's obviously powerful... and basically none of the higher level spells whatsoever. What is worth casting there (assuming a fixed Greater Restoration, see above)? Anyone have some secret tech?