Advice on interesting new character

kaffekoppen

While I'm enjoying my current playthrough, I'm also planning the next one. I've played pure mages and pure fighters (a kensai and a berserker anyway). Maybe a dual/multi.

Requirements:
- must be powerful (by end SoA and ToB, early on it doesn't matter)
- must not be a mage of any kind (as I'm doing a mage-heavy playthrough now)
- must be not rely on soloing (I'm running a full party) / XP cap removal or such to keep up

Things I've never played:
- monk: they seem less powerful than my zerker or kensai
- thief of any kind: crappy thac0, low HP, even with backstabs can they really ever keep up with a fighter kit?
- cleric: this one is very interesting to me, but I never played one as their casting isn't quite mage-level and their fighting really isn't up to par

Perhaps some sort of dual or multi cleric. But can they really go toe-to-toe with anything when you get to ToB or are they just back to pure casting?

Any advice/experience on this is appreciated. In case I don't figure it out, I guess I'm rolling another kensai

Thrasymachus

Monks are weak in the beginning but turn into powerhouses later on.

A swashbuckler thief can 'keep up' (well, sort of) with fighters in terms of THAC0 thanks to their bonuses and two-weapon fighting. UAI at higher-levels will help them further.

A fighter/cleric can be a very powerful tank.

Madhax

Try a Ranger/Cleric multiclass.

You've never played a cleric, but your main excuse for that is their lack of fighting prowess and powerful spellcasting. An R/C will let you take advantage of a Cleric's buff magic (such as Draw Upon Holy Might) to devastating effect, since it will compliment a warrior class. You'll get extra APR, free dual-wielding, and some ranger spells in addition to your clerical ones.

With spell buffs, you can sure as hell go toe-to-toe with high-level foes. One-handed blunt weapons have some of the best options in the saga, such as Crom Faeyr and Flail of Ages, and you can wear the heaviest armor as well.

Mitchfork

Pretty much any Fighter multi is going to be effective. I would even hazard to say that a Fighter/X multi is going to almost always be more effective than a pure X. The only compelling reasons I see for picking a pure class are to take advantage of specific kit bonuses. You level up more slowly but generally you'll only be a level behind your other party members because of D&D's quadratic level scaling, so it's not a big deal.

Fighter/Thief gets Fighter THAC0 and can specialize in weapons, granting a damage bonus, so your backstabs are much more effective. You also get exceptional strength to add a little bit of extra oomph in melee (although I think strength modifiers are added after backstab multiplication so they won't be a huge benefit there). You also get both Fighter and Thief HLA's late game which are very good.

Fighter/Cleric is a no-brainer over a pure Cleric in my opinion. You get fighter THAC0 and specialization combined with great defensive and offensive buffs (Draw Upon Holy Might, Protection From Evil 10' Radius, Chaotic Commands, Armor of Faith (at high levels), etc.). You also get a little bit of extra HP from the fighter CON bonus and d10 hit dice.

Some might find it inferior to a pure Fighter in that you miss out on bladed weapons, but there are perfectly usable blunt weapons in BGEE (the Stupefier is like a Celestial Fury Jr.) and in BG2EE they get some of the most powerful weapons in the saga. The only weapons you'll really miss are the good enchanted arrows, but other characters can pick up the slack here.

Fighter/Mage is one of my favorites but if you've already got enough Arcane casters it's totally fine to pass on this. Still, a Fighter that's able to cast Stoneskin and spell protections at will is pretty powerful.

One interesting option is the Ranger/Cleric. Ranger/Clerics get access to all Cleric and Druidic divine spells in the game (they're the only class that can), including the very powerful Insect Plague, Ironskin, and Call Woodland Being (a level 4 summon that can perform level 5 spells). You're limited in weapon selection again, but the Ranger's natural specialization in dual-wielding proficiency is a fun option (Flail of Ages/Crom Faeyr dual is pretty tempting). Half-Elves are the only race that can pull off this multi (humans can dual it though), and I think Half-Elves are one of the weaker races, but this isn't bad at all considering their casting/melee potential. They get the same hit dice, constitution bonuses, armor restrictions, and specialization abilities of the Fighter/Cleric so these guys can definitely perform well in a straight up fight, even without casting.

Never played Monk, though I've heard they scale really well into the late-game... with the exception of their fist enchantment, which caps at +3. Since I haven't played with this class I don't know how detrimental that is.

Kurumi

Yup.. like Madhax, I'd also recommend a Ranger/Cleric multi in your case.. or EEKeeper even a Stalker/Cleric multi? .. this way you could already taste a bit of thief abilities, too

kaffekoppen

I'm definitely interested in a figher/cleric type dual or multi. I've just read that it's not really intended that the ranger/cleric has access to both druid and cleric spells. Is this true? I'm not sure I want to play something they may get a "fix" in the future while I'm playing or something. Otherwise, it certainly sounds very interesting. In general though, it's not clear to me if it's best to dual or multi (also with respect to HLAs).

The other idea I had was this (feel free to put on your powergaming goggles and point out the flaws ):
berserker 13 / cleric
flail ***** / dw ***
* in some offhand weapon later

Madhax

It's intended for ranger/clerics to simply have access to a ranger's druid spells. So, yes, they get druid spells, but at a much slower rate than their cleric spells.

In some games, this is properly implemented, and in others, they get druid spells at the same rate as cleric spells. I don't actually know which implementation EE has, but if that bothers you, just avoid using the druid spells. It's not like BG druids have too many powerful spells anyway.

Mitchfork

IIRC Ranger/Cleric worked that way in the original BG1/BG2/ToB so it's unlikely that it'll get patched out. It probably wasn't intended to work that way and it definitely doesn't make sense (you should get Druid/Cleric spells for levels 1-3 only, and only get the Druid spheres when you reach the appropriate Ranger levels for gaining access to those spell levels). I guess some people would argue that it's a cheesy class combo but it's not anything game-breaking really, as there are only a handful of useful Druid spells.

I'd argue that a multi-class Ranger/Cleric is going to be better since the Fighter HLA's are generally very useful but I don't think the power difference is that great. I think multi-classes are more fun to play though since you never have down-time while regaining lost levels. That's just personal choice though.

I've never really dabbled in dual-classing but anything that goes Fighter->Caster is going to get good once you regain those Fighter levels. Figher 13 seems to be the popular powergaming choice so I don't see any reason why a Berserker 13->Cleric would be bad. If anything they have some good complements, since the Berserkers ranged weapon restrictions are made almost obsolete by the Clerics inability to use any ranged weaponry but slings.

Amera

kaffekoppen said:

Requirements:
- must be powerful (by end SoA and ToB, early on it doesn't matter)
- must not be a mage of any kind (as I'm doing a mage-heavy playthrough now)
- must be not rely on soloing (I'm running a full party) / XP cap removal or such to keep up

Things I've never played:
- monk: they seem less powerful than my zerker or kensai
- thief of any kind: crappy thac0, low HP, even with backstabs can they really ever keep up with a fighter kit?
- cleric: this one is very interesting to me, but I never played one as their casting isn't quite mage-level and their fighting really isn't up to par

Perhaps some sort of dual or multi cleric. But can they really go toe-to-toe with anything when you get to ToB or are they just back to pure casting?

Just general advice: dualing at 13 is really painful in a full party because it takes forever to get your powers back. 9 is much more friendly and grants nearly the same power ability, especially since people tend to APR cap with improved haste/whirlwind anyway.

-Monks get passively powerful at the end but start really slow. They are also mostly just a "right-click" class, meaning there's very little micromanagement (which you may or may not like).
-Thieves are excellent in various Multi- or Dual- situations, but the straight kits aren't mathematically as powerful as mages or fighters unless you are soloing/small grouping (and can thus build up kit bonuses much faster). E.g. swashbuckler bonuses are great, but they take a long time to catch up unless you are soloing. The same is mostly true of assassins - they are basically a one-trick pony that is easily out-classed by various F/T multi/duals in terms of damage and utility.
-single-class clerics tend to be good early and mid, but they stop gaining power pretty early in SoA. But they are an excellent compliment to any other class depending on what you want to do.

Some general recommendations you may like based on what you indicated:
Tank: R/C (iron skins)
Melee DPS: F/C multi (if you allow multi-class grandmastery via mods; if not, there's really no benefit to this over R/C other than the ability to pick another race) or F/C dual (good regardless)
Utility: C/M or C/T are amazing one-stop utility characters (I tend to edit Viconia into a C/T because I think it fits her backstory and it makes her more useful long-term).

kaffekoppen

Thanks everyone, R/C looks very promising indeed! I definitely want to try this.

Also had the random idea of a dwarven defender with Crom Faeyr and Axe of the Unyielding (25 str, something like 24 con in ToB + an extra 3 HP/round along with 20% base damage reduction). Sounds like a real beast as well. Well, the game can handle 2 more playthroughs I guess

Madhax

The DD with those weapons certainly sounds powerful, but I always hesitate to recommend a pure fighter. This is a personal preference, but I think the protagonist should always be one of the more deeply strategic characters in a party. A Dwarven Defender, other than their defensive stance and HLAs, is sort of a one-trick pony.

rdarken

Swashbuckler is one of my favorite classes. Thief HLAs are wonderful.

kaffekoppen

Yes, the thief HLAs are great. Just never got a thief that far before.

@Madhax: I understand what you mean. You tend to want to micro-manage your own character more, so it's nice if that character actually has some interesting abilities to use other than just sticking them on an enemy. R/C is definitely more interesting that way.

Dzuk5

i just try new dual class combo thief(shadowdancer)/claric -> level 13/max(39)->(660000/7000000). and for now i like it very much. true only 2 weapon to backstab x4 (club/quterstaf) but you can be into shadow when enemy watches. 25 str with spells trako of warrior. you can spell cast and go for shadow and enemy wil never find you if will going ruff you can go into shadowzone and heal or thinks nowe aproche. im in midel of SoA but i on level 13/12 i could have with spells traco -2 dmg 20-25 kp -10 only 2 atacks per round but i want use him for his cleric spells.

cbarchuk

I think a pure assassin is pure awesome sauce. A thinking mans class.

superliminaldude

This is probably a given, but Kensai/Thief, besides being OP and cheesy, is very fun to play. Before HLAs, once you gain back your Kensai levels you can play a backstabbing thief that will almost always hit and do ridiculous amounts of damage, and then, of course, with use any item, you'll gain a ridiculous armor class as well. I played one with a small evil party (took along Korgan, Viconia, and Edwin), and cruised through the thief levels in no time. Dwarven Defender sounds fun, though, being the tankiest of all traditional tanks.

Amardarial

Dwarven Defender gets stupid tanky with HLA's, you just don't kill him with damage period.

triclops41

Considering that you haven't done much with thieves or clerics, consider a T/C multi or assassin dualed to cleric. Very cool synergies there that most people overlook. T/C dual or multi classes are the best trap finders and have very interesting combat options.

kaffekoppen

Amardarial said:

Dwarven Defender gets stupid tanky with HLA's, you just don't kill him with damage period.

Indeed. I realized they're going to have 40% passive damage resistance with Defender of Easthaven in the offhand. Use your class ability and you have 90% damage resistance! That's only from one item slot though, so if you spend the rest of the slots, you can have magic resistance and a low AC as well, and you're only really missing out on 1/2 attacks per round compared to a pure fighter.

triclops41 said:

Considering that you haven't done much with thieves or clerics, consider a T/C multi or assassin dualed to cleric. Very cool synergies there that most people overlook. T/C dual or multi classes are the best trap finders and have very interesting combat options.

Or even F/T! It's a shame a lot of things are resistant to backstabbing in ToB because it sounds quite fun to make a backstabbing F/T. Maybe a kensai/thief dual? Again, same as with the other dual/multi-classes I'm afraid of missing a lot due to poor THAC0. I'm used to the beastly THAC0 and damage of a pure kensai (chunk or get chunked!)

The other thing that gets me down about dual-classing is the wait after dual-classing. I like to optimize, and it seems like 13 is the best level to switch. That's a looooong wait.

kryptix

The only kensai dual I can really stomach is the kensai 9 Mage because you can drink 3x master thievery and replenish with yoshimo off maevar and the guy above gaelan Bayle then steal all of the scrolls from the scroll mercy and lady yuth and maybe even the fence in the bottom of the bridge then instantly hit level 10 by scribing them all with just your charname's in party. If you want jaheira though you have to be careful because you can only drop her like once.

At the end of the game since you have tenser transform and improved haste etc, 9 vs 13 kensage buffed only differs by like 1 bonus damage and you don't need to go gimped throughout SOA.

I'm debating in this play through if I want to keep jaheira or dump her for imoen but then I'll be running 4 mages and I really love her fire elementals.

Does anyone know if viconia's alignment changes if her turn undead becomes the neutral version?

GamingFreak

Avenger Druid if you want to play something interesting and fairly fun, Ranger/Cleric or Elven Stalker if you want a more "crazy powerful" fun.