Thoughts on Jester as CHARNAME's class?

Frogman

I like to play off-the-wall classes/specs in games, so naturally, the Jester appeals to me greatly. i also LOVE crowd control. However, this is my first playthrough of BG2. Two questions:

1) What are your thoughts on the usefulness of the Jester throughout SOA and TOB?
2) Is Jester a legitimate choice for CHARNAME, surrounded by an all NPC cast?

tennisgolfboll

Any class works. Chose what you think is the most fun

nano

1) I haven't played the Jester but I can tell you that being a bard it will be quite good. You can both cast and fight and set traps and I know there are some unique tricks you can do with Jester too. If you want to keep the confusion song, though, don't take the high level bard song ability.

2) Yep. Make sure you cover all the roles with your NPCs if you want a balanced party.

DKnight

derrick4372 said:

I like to play off-the-wall classes/specs in games, so naturally, the Jester appeals to me greatly. i also LOVE crowd control. However, this is my first playthrough of BG2. Two questions:

1) What are your thoughts on the usefulness of the Jester throughout SOA and TOB?
2) Is Jester a legitimate choice for CHARNAME, surrounded by an all NPC cast?

Name your jester Alaros which sounds like a chaotic name.

GamingFreak

at least then he'll have an excuse to choose all the snarky and sarcastic responses.

Skaffen

Jester is certainly viable but might feel a bit passive just standing there playing while others are whacking away with their swords and hurling fireballs. in addition there are at least 2 magic instruments available that cause confusion - which lasts after you use so you are free to act. Comparing to a plain bard I think Jester is slightly better (especially in the beginning) but blade will be stronger and make for a more varied playthrough.

jackjack

Install the Rogue Rebalancing mod for extra joy.

Maylander

I agree with Skaffen, they're a bit too passive in my opinion. Perfectly viable, mind you, but I simply find Blades more fun. At any rate, if you're going with a party of 4+, picking the right party is more important than picking the right class for the main character, so it's all good.

badbromance

Any Bard class is full of win, don't listen to the haters

jackjack said:

Install the Rogue Rebalancing mod for extra joy.

I have recently done this and love it.
I actually prefer the Vanilla Bard but the Jester is still good and gets full lore/pickpockets!

Itstucktwice

Viable? Sure. You can literally beat this game with any class and any setup. In terms of straight up power, the Jester is in every way better than a pureclass bard, but not as good as a Skald or a Blade. His song is a fun change from the normal bard song, and it definitely has its uses. Just keep in mind that an enemy being confused still attacks, and they might attack you anyway.

Fun? That comes down to personal opinion.

As others have said, the Jester will feel very passive to play. His gimmick is in his song which means you are going to be singing a lot, and while singing, you can't do anything else. You are probably going to be singing more than any other bard, because his song is more worth keeping up. If that is something that could be fun for you, I'd say go for it.

If it were MY first playthrough, I would go with a class that has a little more interaction involved, simply because I would personally get bored having a character who just stands there 90% of the time, and throws a spell out here and there 10% of the time. To each their own.

mylegbig

In my current playthrough I found that the song really isn't that useful even at lower levels. Certainly not enough to always have it on. In big fights though, it's sometimes worth it to start out by bringing in your invisible singing Jester. Once some of the enemies are confused (might take a few rounds), you bring in the rest of your party to wipe everything out. You can start attacking/slinging spells with your Jester once the enemies are thinned out a bit.

Overall though, this tactic isn't as cheesey or effective in practice as it seems. The Jester is fun, but enemies often save against the song even at low levels. Even when it works, I find that they attack me anyways. It is good against mages though since confusion keeps them from casting. Another positive is that the song bypasses magic resistance.

Still, I'm having fun with my Jester so far. It's a bit weird to have a PC that lags behind the NPCs in kills and power, but fun is more important.

jackjack

Greater Malison and Doom both improve the chances of the Jester's Song affecting enemies.

Frogman

Big thanks to everyone for the feedback. I've been using Greater Malison which is really helping land the Song on enemies. I wish I understood how far the range went though...because my Jester keeps getting into hairy situations by going in the middle of battle to sing.