Paladin / Ranger VS Fighter
Favre
Member Posts: 33
Hey guys,
Just wondering. Why would you bother playing a paladin or a ranger when a fighter does exactly the same thing but better? I mean : less stats restriction and more damage output through weapon specialization.
So my point is, if you want a real holy fighter, do a fighter dualed cleric. More damage and more spells.
The only reason i see somebody playing a ranger is for the archer kit. Otherwise i don't see the point.
What you guys think about that?
Round 1......fight!!
Just wondering. Why would you bother playing a paladin or a ranger when a fighter does exactly the same thing but better? I mean : less stats restriction and more damage output through weapon specialization.
So my point is, if you want a real holy fighter, do a fighter dualed cleric. More damage and more spells.
The only reason i see somebody playing a ranger is for the archer kit. Otherwise i don't see the point.
What you guys think about that?
Round 1......fight!!
0
Comments
Rangers are a bit different - two points in dual wielding for free is neat. Even more so if you go for a ranger/cleric multi-class. You get both cleric AND druid spells (and Iron Skin + Holy Power + Draw Upon Holy Might + Righteous Magic + dual wielding items of your choice... beats all living things)
Single-class wise, I agree that fighters have some advantages in direct combat (keeping in mind also that the paladins get unique weapons only for them, but that's not the point). A berserker can easily fight off a ranger in 1-on-1. Kensai single class is tricky though. On the other hand, Kensai dual (mage, cleric, thief, druid) is very powerful.
Edit : in other words : depends on the context, items and situations. They are all good
Rangers though, aside from the Archer, I agree that they pale in comparison to better Fighter kits (or even the plain Fighter).
In BG2 I can switch to dual weild backstabbing with STR 19 for massive damage. Lets just say I have no fear of mages.
Now if you dual or multi class it removes paladins from the equation in terms if power but a ranger/cleric gains access to druid spells and cleric spells which can put them on par with a fighter/mage and above fighter/cleric and fighter/druid.
Now after that you can do kits where you can get stalker/cleric for fighter/cleric/thief action, or archer/cleric/druid for a ranged kensai/cleric/druid.
I include druid spells in this as that was what was shipped with the game originally and since this is using the BG2 engine it is fair to include this.
So in essence fighter only gets fighter/mage, berserk if berserker, grandmastery, and fighter/thief traps, trap detection, and pick pocket.
So unless you are playing a fighter/mage ranger will beat out the fighter in most cases.
Plus Inquisitor and Cavalier are very small tradeoffs for very large benefits.
The idea of a ranger or a paladin being better than a fighter is simply because they have more of a magical arsenal at their disposal than a fighter. Certain paladin kits for example can tear their way through enemies by dispelling magic, and have immunity to fear. They also have much, much better gear in the BG games. Generally they also have better saving throws as well, particularly as fighters usually skimp on the stats that increase the will saves (arguably the most important ones). A simple fear spell takes a fighter out of the fight for the entire fight, whereas a paladin can both resist it and remove it from their allies.
A dual fighter/cleric may look more powerful on paper, but they actually fill a completely different role to the Paladin. They are still just clerics, and as clerics you want them hurling spells to disable and heal, not fighting on the front lines in danger of disruption or death. The paladin distracts and protects whilst the caster casts - and a Paladin (with kits especially) does this role much better than the cleric. As a Lawful Good in BG1 you will also get free access to Draw Upon Holy Might which benefits the Pally a lot more than it does the cleric (who can probably already cast it well enough)
A ranger.. well they have that extra dual wield spec but it's really only an early game advantage. As the fighter grows they can outdo any possible specialisation that a ranger can. The extra abilities of the ranger are not so useful in a combat heavy game such as BG (their uses are more noticeable in pen and paper though). The druidic spell casting is a nice flavour, but druid spells in general are not as useful as cleric spells and mostly the paladin is better than the ranger. The archer is of course a notably exception, as there are some extremely powerful bows available quite readily. The duelling to cleric to get access to both druid and cleric spells with full spell progression is so obviously not an intended feature I don't even know why people argue it.
The kits of the fighter are all designed to increase their damage output but -massively- reduce their survivability. A fighters job is to soak up the damage and protect the ranged users and casters, so these kits are of a rather questionable use as is. The kensai is a notable exception simply because it's extremely powerful, and most people cheese the restrictions by dualling with thief for use any item, but you can't do that in BG1. Even with the insane damage output the kensai is still instantly reduced to nothing by a single spell that they probably wont resist, and without the gear they are less likely to have equipped magical protection to negate some of the more common effects.
The areas where fighters truly shine are in fights against other physical combatants that have no access to magical abilities, however these fights are generally not very tough. Like the fighter themself a few carefully placed spells instantly win these encounters.
And in regards to roleplay: BG1 doesn't really have much opportunity to roleplay beyond what is in your head. It's okay to say you want to roleplay characters but keep in mind that other people may want to play the game for the battles, which is virtually the whole game. Personally I feel like total cheese when playing a Kensai/Thief instead of a Swashbuckler, for example, so I guess there's a little roleplay in not wanting to feel like a min/maxer.
Powergaming is the difference between surviving the odd 4 bandits with bows random encounter, and utter desolation.
All in all, I am a pretty lazy player. The less i press pause, and the less i doodle about in the spell casting abilities and such (usually have all my casters scripted and let them go about their business), the happier I am.
If you look at Bg2/ToB, you'll realize that you run into more vampires than you can shake a wooden stake at. If you send in a barebones fighter, he'll get lvl-drained and die within a few rounds.. Where as an Undead Hunter will cut them to shreds with ease. The vampires are very squishy indeed, if you negate their lvl draining.
As mentioned earlier in the thread, an Inquisitor will mop the floor with nearly any mage what so ever, where a fighter could be feared or otherwise put out of action with relatively weak spells that need a will save.
Then there's my favorite, the Cavalier. Resist dragon knockbacks, immune to fear, extra damage and hit rolls towards demons and dragons (the ones you actually need a little more "oomph" in your blows to kill) and naturally heightened resistances to fire and acid, which in my oppinion are among the most dangerous elements used in different magic spells.
Yes, Pallies may lvl slower than a fighter and they don't get as many pips in the proficiences, but to be honest, that stuff doesn't even compare to the benefits of having the Paladin bonuses.
Unless of course you exclusively fight goblins, orcs and other fighter humanoids, where you just need to slice and dice. Mages, clerics, dragons, vampires, demons, mindflayers and all other things magical however, will eat your fighter alive.
Rangers however, have proven to be more alike slinkies than anything. They're quite useless, but it's fun to watch one stumble down the stairs. (Except for the Archer.. which is just too much work, keeping track of magic arrows and bla bla bla.. also, they're sort of useless when mages start casting Protection from Ranged attacks or whatever the hell that silly spell is called, which in my oppinion is just way too overpowered. Sort of makes ranged characters completely and utterly useless in the later stages..)
If you're all about minmaxing however, I guess no melee character is more fun than a fighter->cleric with maxed out proficiency for Crom Faer (spelling?) and a shield, toss up that Wall of Blades spell or whatever and just let an aggressive script maul every living thing in sight.
Or a fighter/mage, wear robe of vecna, cast timestop, cast horrid wilting, use whirwind and hit Melissan 15 times with Angurvadal and make her splat into a million pieces once TS ends.. but that's just stupid and completely and utterly destroys the game and any challenge it could ever muster.
The reason this problem even occurs, is simply because we as players have shown an ingenuity and an honest interest in making the most ridiculously overpowered characters the game mechanics can support.. and it just wasn't ever ment to be that way, from a developers point of view.
To end a long rant, I'd just like to add that Baldur's Gate series is very well cemented in the lore of Faerun and has an immense story arc which the world has not seen any equal of in any other computer game. This encourages me to make a character that seems likely to happen, something that can be intervowen in the story and have a probable reason for even existing. Yes, we play as one of the children of the lord of murder, and in ToB we're being shown some pretty insane powers, but we're still very much supposed to be the underdog, the one who leans on his trusty companions and is hustled from one danger to the other. And while I have experimented with the type of builds I mentioned earlier, I always find they completely and utterly ruin the games story and balance for me.. but that's just my two cents and I'm sorry for the long rant that went a fair bit off topic..
In conclusion; single classed fighters suck at everything but brandishing swords in the general direction of goblins.. and are immensily boring and linear to play, as the one trick pony they are.
*shrug*
Put in other words, their passive abilities caters very nicely to my incredibly lazy style of playing. If there's two less buttons to click, I'll buy it!
And if the bonuses aren't huge, than neither are the tradeoffs. After all, who would question Minsc's prowess as a warrior? And even sans Carsomyr, Keldorn can still bring the pain.
I like to think of them as a Fighter/Priest that's 90% Fighter, 10% Priest.
I've also found that Warriors are quite capable of holding their own at higher levels, especially if they're the diminutive races, who seem to get saving throw bonuses out the wazoo, and that's what'll really help you against casters. Tons of hitpoints, low AC and good chances of making your saving throws leaves characters who can easily bring down AI mages (though really, with the AI being what it is, that's not that much of an accomplishment...)
Still not as powerful as the Shapechange/Time Stop combo, but you know, what is?
None of your examples of powergaming matter really because you're comparing min/maxing perfection with people playing the most bafflingly useless builds possible. There's simply no inbetween in your logic. In BG it isn't "powergame or suck" it's "powergame or do perfectly fine anyway". This isn't a hard game at all.
Seriously. A low cons fighter losing to a bard because the bard throws darts whilst the fighter... just sits there? What about a low cons fighter throwing the same darts back. He will have better armour and still better hp because of higher base rolls, even with lower cons. At worst maybe a -little- less if you are really hurting for it. He'll have better proficiency with the weapons and he'll have a better THACO. The bard flat out loses this fight hands down without spellcasting, but a fighter loses every fight to anything that spellcasts anyway so that's not a fair comparison for powergaming anyway.
Just because you're playing an 18/18/18/18/18/3 character or w/e that doesn't mean your average gamer is going to attempt to struggle through with a 10/6/3/9/11/15 fighter or something
Also regarding the berserker: It's certainly a very, very good tank for 60 seconds (arguably unrivalled, save for an epic level spell flinger). However after 60 seconds its more useless than a base kitless fighter, thanks to being winded. I prefer characters that don't get steep penalties after a minute of fighting myself, but it definitely depends on your playstyle. I personally don't like having to rest lots and lots, since I come from a pnp backround where repeated resting is almost always rejected by the DM. Though this doesn't change that the equipment for a fighter still isn't as good as that for a paladin. The berserker also still lacks the means to fight back against magically protected enemies - he can withstand the attacks but not pierce the spell protections. If your melee tank can break those protections with dispel or w/e then your magic users get to kill them a turn or 3 earlier.