@Heindrich, I'll venture that F/M/T's are still amazing with a party of 6. Think about what they lose compared to a fighter/thief - they have to wait a little longer for the extra half attack, and their thac0 is a few points worse. Now think of what they gain - all the mage spells up to level 6 or 7. It's a no-brainer. The combination of fighter HLA's, thief HLA's, and just stoneskin and mirror image alone is off the wall. Besides, there's nothing wrong with having a character that casts lower level spells. After all, you always need someone to cast breach, lower resistance, greater malison, etc., so in a party your F/M/T can do that, freeing time for a real mage. You can't expect multiclasses to do absolutely everything a single class character can do - it would be pretty outrageous if they could. In fact it's pretty outrageous anyway.
@Derilore, if you play with Aerie I'm sure you will find many more things that make C/M's worthwhile - definitely moreso than straight clerics. One build that deserves to be mentioned but wasn't is a dual-class cleric/mage. You'd probably dual at 12 for the best results, or at 9 for convenience. It seems to have everything going for it except an extra spell slot per level. I'm not sure how it compares to kensai/mage, but I bet favorably. If you pressed me I'd still stick with conjurer, but it's a close call.
I find it hard to make a PC conjurer with Edwin in game, but that's another topic.
C/M, yeah i used to use Arie but I'm not much of a fan of her. Although her magic resistance spell combined with her lower cleric lvl is actually pretty damn good for lowering enemy magic resistance.
F/M/C is an interesting pick that I never looked at much. Even in a group I'm starting to think this class could be the most powerful with polymorph.
FMC caps at 18/17/19 so thats 22 str, 22 dex and 25 con maxed out in spider form with 10 attacks and fighter HLA's. So hardiness and critical strike would be useful.
Plus the damage resist is pretty good, 20% faith, 40% hardiness, 20% flail. So 80% damage resist. Depending on gear it's very easy to get a high amount of elemental resist. Robe & Helm alone gives you 45% all. With mage and cleric spells there are plenty of ways to increase it more.
FMC is hands down the best tank. Also a tank that requires the most buffs.
I find this topic fun. Playing through with an character with an oversight that makes them OP is great. Question though... A lot of these are not initially overpowered. A lot of them will be strong-OP by the end of BG:EE right? I realise this post was geared towards BG2EE, but sword spider will only be accessible near the end of BGEE, and avenger needs level 7 for the same.
Sorceror is good at almost any point of the game : BGEE - level 1-3 : sleep will take care of almost everything you can meet then - level 4-5 : scout with invisibility. Cast web twice. Proceed to kill everything at range. - level 6-7 : killing the webbed monsters just gets easier with MMM - level 8-9 : you are now a very strong tank with stoneskin. The web tactics becomes really completely OP with spiderspawn
BG2EE : - level 9-13 : probably the hardest part since level 5-6 do not offer much new possibilities (athough spell immunity and PFMW are godly). Yet, the web/spider spawn/MMM never really gets old. SI+improved invisibility takes care of casters - level 14-15 : summons!! Mordy swords and skellies will rock the battlefield (especially hasted) - level 16-17 : you start to have quite a lot of possibilities to obliterate everything from debuffs (web still works) to summons (spider spawns, mordy swords, skellies) and direct damage (ADHW) - level 18 : the game is over. With timestop and improve alacrity, all the fights are ended before they even start - level 19 : more icing on the cake : summon planetar can solo 90% of the game while you drink beer. Shapechange for brain eating with timestop
Back to the orginal topic, i have discovered recently how OP an assassin dualled to fighter is. Athough it's probably less powerful than an arcane caster for the very end game, it's unbelievably strong from the moment the dual is complete.
At level 11/12 assassin/fighter (it would probably have been possible at assassin 6/fighter 7) i completely slaughtered firkraag with no preparation besides fire protection potions : GMM in scimitar, belm/usuno, improved haste from the ring of gaax (9 APR) + poison weapon = dead firkgraag before the 10 seconds improved haste is over. At level 11, i can also max find traps and set traps (with 3 deadly poison traps).
I'm going to go for sorcerer... The ability to cast any HLA spell at will is, frankly, terrifying. 2 or 3 "Time Stop + Improved Alacrity" per battle... Ouch.
Apart maybe from the final seal of WK, i don't see any battle that will not be over within 1 timestop though...
Ok... One time stop and the rest in dragons breath or energy blades, or spellstrike, or wish... whatever you like, whenever you like... that's the point really.
So being a bit of a powergamer I always debate and test what classes I want to play. So far I've narrowed down the most powerful classes and could use some more experienced players tips.
Dual Figher/Mage (pref berserker) - With Polymorph self sword spider this guy does 10 attacks per round with any weapon. Still gets access to high lvl mages spells, huge HP (300+ with Tensers). Berserker rage gives nice immunities. All in all a pretty strong class.
Could someone please explain how polymorph spider gets 10 attacks with any weapon. I thought they could get IH with contingency or a sequencer to give 10 apr, but would still be stuck attacking with spider claws. Thanks
if i am correct you can dispell the spider normal attack to recover whichever weapon you have equipped.
1- for me it's cheesy
2- Although it is very strong on a thief/mage (especially assassin with poison weapon) since they don't have access to extra APR, it's actually not that great on a fighter->mage IMO since doing so will actually make you weaker than in your human form : - level 9 fighter + grandmastery + dual wielding + 1 speed weapon + improved haste = 9 APR - you potentially can get much better strength in human form, leading to more damage output - More importantly you can still cast spells
@ abacus, don't get me wrong, sorcerer is my favorite class by far. I was just highlighting the fact than 1 time stop will anyway take care of 99% of the game. And as a sorcerer you can cast A LOT of them (and any other OP combo you may think of)
I prefer playing Cleric/Mage as main character, what to say - strongest spellcaster in game. For fighters i found that combo Kensai/Thief is real thing. I tested it with removed experience cap on original Bg2, Kensai Lvl 39->Dual class to Thief lvl 40. Then give him any weapon and watch like enemies are torn apart with every hit. I also found interesting archer, its just like kensai but ranged. For start give him tulligan bow and unlimited ammo because this basta%^ drains arrows like crazy. Lately im playing monk, and to see how much op he is i play BP2 on medium difficulty (Standard BG2 rules) with party of 6 monks. Real killers, i call them PsychoSquad.
Just for the pleasure of reopening an eternal debate : cleric/mages really don't compare to sorcerers. Cleric spells have almost nothing to offer compared to arcane casting.
The only spell that is really worthwhile is chaotic command. That spell alone does not compensate (far from that) the extraordinary flexibility of the sorceror, nor the much greater number of level 9-10 spells he can cast.
Furthermore, a sorceror is a walking god from 3mxp. At 3mxp a cleric/mage has not even access to level 8 spells...
My favorite thing about Cleric/Mages is loading Divine spells into sequencers, triggers, & contingencies. I agree they can't compare to Sorcerers in terms of raw power. No class can, really.
My vote is sorcerer. I actually prefer dragon disciple because I love the inherent fire resistance. There were so many options, but my favorite is standing in the middle of 4 incendiary clouds with your fire immunity while enemies die instantly all around you. Sendai's enclave, when she releases the slaves...glorious
You guys are focusing way too much on end game. Do not forget, for you to get there you must spent tenths of hours playing the rest.
Kensai13/WizardX kicks ass in ToB sure, but in BG 1 and half of the SoA is an ordinary Kensai. Than he is underleveded Wizard.
Still arcane casters win the contest, but for a change of the pace i will nominate Blackguard. The guy just simply wins over paladin in basicaly every aspect and remains very powerful the entire game.
-Immunities to fear and level drain (non-dispellable) -Lay on hands also deals damage -Poison weapon, to bypass protections and deal ton of extra damage -Good aura with effective level scaling - Gets his own version of Unholly avenger.
He looses practicaly nothing, those two lvl 1 spells are easily supplied by other means or his very own spellcasting.
Plus Kensai=>Mage is actually not that powerful, it was so great in the time of SoA before the expansion because :
a) People started with SoA so they didn't struggle in BG1 with a pure Kensai. b) Without ToB and the HLAs, a Kensai=>Mage was effectively a Fighter/Mage with better use of his fighter levels (better hit points), the possibility to GM and the possibility to have a kit which resulted in far better combat abilities. c) Even a single class Mage or Sorcerer couldn't have level 9 spell (It requires level 18 which is at 3m XP while the cap was at 2.950M) like Time Stop so a Kensai=>Mage didn't lose much on spellcasting.
Nowadays, Kensai=>Mage is a pretty poor powergaming choice, I would even say that duals in general are pretty poor powergaming choices. Not having the HLA from both classes, having the HLA from your second class very late (you have them at 3M xp in your second class, not total xp so a Kensai13=>Mage has his HLA at 4,250,000 xp), can't equip the gauntlet of extraordinary specialisation (for the Kensai) and struggling all of BG1 and early-mid BG2 with a really subpar character. Plus the Fighter classes have really amazing saving throw at level 21+ so stopping your Kensai at level 13 is a waste AND it forces you to be Human, which is .. simply bad from a powergaming point of view.
I've never played one, but for me the only way to play the (arguably) most powerful class, i.e. Sorcerer? Random spell picks.
People complain about the cheese of traps, about casting a priest's Magic Resistance spell on a foe, or about the Cleric/Ranger's druid spells, but in my view all this pales to carefully planning your Sorcerer's spell progression and spell picks. Interestingly, I think I've never seen anyone criticizing this imo completely out-of-character use of the Sorcerer. The Sorcerer is supposed to be an arcane caster who doesn't study or specialize or plan. (They can't even scribe scrolls even if they try.) The magic simply comes to them, spontaneously. If there is one aspect where randomness (rolling the dice) makes sense in this game, it's the Sorcerer's spell picks.
The issue with randomizing your spells picks is that there is A LOT of crappy spells in the game . Basically, if you get lucky you end up with a god. If not, with a nearly useless one.
Also, it's not necessarily about planning, some spells are obivously better than others and i don't see why a semi-intelligent sorcerer would not pick them (like sleep, web, MMM, stoneskin, time stop,...).
Actually (and this is why sorcerers are great compared to mage) there is very rarely more than 5-6 spells per level which are worthy of being picked.
@Arizel : the blackguard is great, thanks to poison weapon which is very very OP but the dual assassin-fighter is better IMO thanks to : - traps - grand mastery
@gotural : i completely agree with you. With the 3m cap duals were much better than multi thanks to the ability to chose how your xp will be shared. With the 8m cap : - you actually don't care how the xp will be shared - you get much more HLA = stronger character - you have no downtime - you can pick much better race
The only thing going for duals are kits and there is a few which are very interesting mainly assassin and berserker.
For me swashbuckler-> mage and kensai->mage (while obviously OP when dualled) do not really compare to a thief/illusionnist or fighter/illusionnist
The issue with randomizing your spells picks is that there is A LOT of crappy spells in the game . Basically, if you get lucky you end up with a god. If not, with a nearly useless one.
Also, it's not necessarily about planning, some spells are obivously better than others and i don't see why a semi-intelligent sorcerer would not pick them (like sleep, web, MMM, stoneskin, time stop,...).
Well to me it just doesn't feel right. Picking spells is what a regular Mage or Specialist Mage does when visiting the High Hedge or the Sorcerous Sundries with some spare gold. These are conscious, deliberate actions. In my concept there is not much conscious or deliberate about the Sorcerer's magical prowess.
Of course, random picks would imply suboptimal spell picks and progression, though my guess is that in the end the result will likely be somewhere inbetween what you call 'a god' and 'a nearly useless' character, and that's fine for me. Maybe I'll try it someday.
Given that Ranger/Cleric is considered by many to be so cheesy, who would you put in second place on the divine list?
I guess Fighter/Druid (TOB) and Fighter/Cleric (SOA) are considered second best behind the Cleric/Ranger.
I'd like to think the Cleric/Thief is up there as well, but I find it very difficult to rank classes in terms of power (moreso than in terms of their fun factor).
@Blackraven i understand your point now. I thought you were speaking about metagaming (which is really not needed to pick the right spells) but actually you were speaking about the whole class concept
@jackjack : Runner up for divine casting would be fighter/druid IMO : - druid spells from level 5 (start of BG2) are much better than cleric ones (iron skin, insect plague, nature's beauty) - cleric/thief really like offensive capability. They are the ultimate support class however.
On a note ranger/cleric is indeed cheesy and yet it is significantly weaker than a fighter/mage which people do not consider cheesy For me, all multi can be considered OP (or cheesy), especially when you reach extremely high xp count.
Of course, random picks would imply suboptimal spell picks and progression, though my guess is that in the end the result will likely be somewhere inbetween what you call 'a god' and 'a nearly useless' character, and that's fine for me. Maybe I'll try it someday.
Hmm, this sounds intriguing. How does one go about this? At mod perhaps?
@Arizel : the blackguard is great, thanks to poison weapon which is very very OP but the dual assassin-fighter is better IMO thanks to : - traps - grand mastery
Not realy. Blackguard beats Assassin/Fighter in many important aspects such as: -No downtime period. You play as blackguard all the saga, not spending nearly half of it as low Thac0 1APR assassin and than underleveded fighter. -More hitpoints. D10 versus D6 not to mention CON bonus. Blackguard can have 58 more hitpoints. - Useful spellcasting buffs (DuHM, Armor of Faith etc.) - Neat aura (-4 to AC,DMG and Thac0 for group of enemies without save rocks) - Other useful paladin bonuses (saving throws, Dark planetar HLA, Absorb health, etc. )
Well to me it just doesn't feel right. Picking spells is what a regular Mage or Specialist Mage does when visiting the High Hedge or the Sorcerous Sundries with some spare gold. These are conscious, deliberate actions. In my concept there is not much conscious or deliberate about the Sorcerer's magical prowess.
Of course, random picks would imply suboptimal spell picks and progression, though my guess is that in the end the result will likely be somewhere inbetween what you call 'a god' and 'a nearly useless' character, and that's fine for me. Maybe I'll try it someday.
I like your concept. The ideal solution would be some sort of compromise. I.e. the game gives you offer from two spells and you pick one. Or the game picks for you, but you can reroll 3 times.
I consider the following classes (all of them classes with wizard spell access) to be in the top tier of power:
Strong melee character with magic support: Kensai/Mage, Berserker/Mage, multi Fighter/Mage or Fighter/Illusionist, Fighter/Mage/Thief
Strong magic character: Sorcerer
Contrary to public opinion, I am not particularly blown over by sorcerers, but they are indeed one of the best classes. As pure casters, they are significantly more powerful than most wizards because of their magic spamming potential. Only wild wizards can really come close, but they can be quite unreliable. Fighter/Mages are a different category altogether - they cannot spam magic the way sorcerers can, hence they need to rely on melee with magic as support, and for strong opening/closing moves.
In practice, both sorcerers and Fighter/Mages are effective at high levels, but need to be played differently. Sorcerers are easier to play (unload magic, reload magic, unload magic, repeat ad nauseum), and Fighter/Mages require more skill in spell selection, scouting, and the like.
Actually, the best way to "balance" some of this is to have the Dead Magic Areas and Wild Magic Areas that the Time of Troubles introduced (as well as the spell changes that the Underdark and various Outer Planes, etc, introduce).
That would tend to contain the power of higher level Magic based classes (which is necessary IMHO).
And there should be more Sharn and Phaerimm for high level parties (totally missing from BG).
Of course, random picks would imply suboptimal spell picks and progression, though my guess is that in the end the result will likely be somewhere inbetween what you call 'a god' and 'a nearly useless' character, and that's fine for me. Maybe I'll try it someday.
Hmm, this sounds intriguing. How does one go about this? At mod perhaps?
Not sure if there's a mod available to facilitate this. I would count the number of spells you can pick from and use the WotC dice roller to decide which spell you get. An example: your Sorcerer reaches level 3, which allows him to pick his third level 1 Spell (the first two are picked at character creation). Now there are 19 remaining spells avaible. You could roll 1d19 to decide which spell you pick, or maybe roll 1d20 where a lucky 20 = player decides.
I like your concept. The ideal solution would be some sort of compromise. I.e. the game gives you offer from two spells and you pick one. Or the game picks for you, but you can reroll 3 times.
Those are good ideas. I think you don't always get two spells at level up (often only one), so if you want a compromise you could allow yourself to roll at one level-up and pick at the next level up. Personally I like your second option better, though I'd be stricter: one reroll only. And to spice things up, you don't get to store your rolls. So if you roll Glitterdust the first time, and you decide to reroll for a spell you'd prefer (such as Inivisibility, Mirror Image or Stinking Cloud) and then get Deafness, you'll be stuck with Deafness.
Hm I've just got my new dwarven Skald going, but the more I'm talking about this random Sorcerer concept, the more I want to try it myself. I like the idea of having to make the most of what you get. Besides, it also drastically improves the replayability of the Sorcerer I reckon.
@Blackraven I think you could have like sorcerer archetypes that you pick at char creation. For example, a fire archetype would have a high likelihood of receiving fireball (and other fire spells), but the rest would be random. Or maybe you would be guaranteed one spell per spell level that fits your archetype, or something...
Hm I've just got my new dwarven Skald going, but the more I'm talking about this random Sorcerer concept, the more I want to try it myself. I like the idea of having to make the most of what you get. Besides, it also drastically improves the replayability of the Sorcerer I reckon.
I agree. I also like the fact that this new way of playing a Sorcerer would differentiate more from a Wild Mage. I think only the Wild Mage should get to pick what spell to spontaneously cast, at a risk. While the Sorcs drawback should be random spells. You won't get all bad spells, and if you get one you don't think you'd like, I think, would be fun to actually find a use for. As someone that still believes in random HP rolls, no matter how low, I'm really liking this concept. Yeah I want to do this.
Comments
@Derilore, if you play with Aerie I'm sure you will find many more things that make C/M's worthwhile - definitely moreso than straight clerics. One build that deserves to be mentioned but wasn't is a dual-class cleric/mage. You'd probably dual at 12 for the best results, or at 9 for convenience. It seems to have everything going for it except an extra spell slot per level. I'm not sure how it compares to kensai/mage, but I bet favorably. If you pressed me I'd still stick with conjurer, but it's a close call.
C/M, yeah i used to use Arie but I'm not much of a fan of her. Although her magic resistance spell combined with her lower cleric lvl is actually pretty damn good for lowering enemy magic resistance.
F/M/C is an interesting pick that I never looked at much. Even in a group I'm starting to think this class could be the most powerful with polymorph.
FMC caps at 18/17/19 so thats 22 str, 22 dex and 25 con maxed out in spider form with 10 attacks and fighter HLA's. So hardiness and critical strike would be useful.
Plus the damage resist is pretty good, 20% faith, 40% hardiness, 20% flail. So 80% damage resist. Depending on gear it's very easy to get a high amount of elemental resist. Robe & Helm alone gives you 45% all. With mage and cleric spells there are plenty of ways to increase it more.
FMC is hands down the best tank. Also a tank that requires the most buffs.
Are any of these viable from early/mid BG:EE?
BGEE
- level 1-3 : sleep will take care of almost everything you can meet then
- level 4-5 : scout with invisibility. Cast web twice. Proceed to kill everything at range.
- level 6-7 : killing the webbed monsters just gets easier with MMM
- level 8-9 : you are now a very strong tank with stoneskin. The web tactics becomes really completely OP with spiderspawn
BG2EE :
- level 9-13 : probably the hardest part since level 5-6 do not offer much new possibilities (athough spell immunity and PFMW are godly). Yet, the web/spider spawn/MMM never really gets old. SI+improved invisibility takes care of casters
- level 14-15 : summons!! Mordy swords and skellies will rock the battlefield (especially hasted)
- level 16-17 : you start to have quite a lot of possibilities to obliterate everything from debuffs (web still works) to summons (spider spawns, mordy swords, skellies) and direct damage (ADHW)
- level 18 : the game is over. With timestop and improve alacrity, all the fights are ended before they even start
- level 19 : more icing on the cake : summon planetar can solo 90% of the game while you drink beer. Shapechange for brain eating with timestop
Back to the orginal topic, i have discovered recently how OP an assassin dualled to fighter is.
Athough it's probably less powerful than an arcane caster for the very end game, it's unbelievably strong from the moment the dual is complete.
At level 11/12 assassin/fighter (it would probably have been possible at assassin 6/fighter 7) i completely slaughtered firkraag with no preparation besides fire protection potions : GMM in scimitar, belm/usuno, improved haste from the ring of gaax (9 APR) + poison weapon = dead firkgraag before the 10 seconds improved haste is over. At level 11, i can also max find traps and set traps (with 3 deadly poison traps).
2 or 3 "Time Stop + Improved Alacrity" per battle... Ouch.
1- for me it's cheesy
2- Although it is very strong on a thief/mage (especially assassin with poison weapon) since they don't have access to extra APR, it's actually not that great on a fighter->mage IMO since doing so will actually make you weaker than in your human form :
- level 9 fighter + grandmastery + dual wielding + 1 speed weapon + improved haste = 9 APR
- you potentially can get much better strength in human form, leading to more damage output
- More importantly you can still cast spells
don't get me wrong, sorcerer is my favorite class by far. I was just highlighting the fact than 1 time stop will anyway take care of 99% of the game. And as a sorcerer you can cast A LOT of them (and any other OP combo you may think of)
Cleric spells have almost nothing to offer compared to arcane casting.
The only spell that is really worthwhile is chaotic command. That spell alone does not compensate (far from that) the extraordinary flexibility of the sorceror, nor the much greater number of level 9-10 spells he can cast.
Furthermore, a sorceror is a walking god from 3mxp. At 3mxp a cleric/mage has not even access to level 8 spells...
I agree they can't compare to Sorcerers in terms of raw power. No class can, really.
Kensai13/WizardX kicks ass in ToB sure, but in BG 1 and half of the SoA is an ordinary Kensai. Than he is underleveded Wizard.
Still arcane casters win the contest, but for a change of the pace i will nominate Blackguard. The guy just simply wins over paladin in basicaly every aspect and remains very powerful the entire game.
-Immunities to fear and level drain (non-dispellable)
-Lay on hands also deals damage
-Poison weapon, to bypass protections and deal ton of extra damage
-Good aura with effective level scaling
- Gets his own version of Unholly avenger.
He looses practicaly nothing, those two lvl 1 spells are easily supplied by other means or his very own spellcasting.
a) People started with SoA so they didn't struggle in BG1 with a pure Kensai.
b) Without ToB and the HLAs, a Kensai=>Mage was effectively a Fighter/Mage with better use of his fighter levels (better hit points), the possibility to GM and the possibility to have a kit which resulted in far better combat abilities.
c) Even a single class Mage or Sorcerer couldn't have level 9 spell (It requires level 18 which is at 3m XP while the cap was at 2.950M) like Time Stop so a Kensai=>Mage didn't lose much on spellcasting.
Nowadays, Kensai=>Mage is a pretty poor powergaming choice, I would even say that duals in general are pretty poor powergaming choices.
Not having the HLA from both classes, having the HLA from your second class very late (you have them at 3M xp in your second class, not total xp so a Kensai13=>Mage has his HLA at 4,250,000 xp), can't equip the gauntlet of extraordinary specialisation (for the Kensai) and struggling all of BG1 and early-mid BG2 with a really subpar character.
Plus the Fighter classes have really amazing saving throw at level 21+ so stopping your Kensai at level 13 is a waste AND it forces you to be Human, which is .. simply bad from a powergaming point of view.
People complain about the cheese of traps, about casting a priest's Magic Resistance spell on a foe, or about the Cleric/Ranger's druid spells, but in my view all this pales to carefully planning your Sorcerer's spell progression and spell picks. Interestingly, I think I've never seen anyone criticizing this imo completely out-of-character use of the Sorcerer. The Sorcerer is supposed to be an arcane caster who doesn't study or specialize or plan. (They can't even scribe scrolls even if they try.) The magic simply comes to them, spontaneously. If there is one aspect where randomness (rolling the dice) makes sense in this game, it's the Sorcerer's spell picks.
Basically, if you get lucky you end up with a god. If not, with a nearly useless one.
Also, it's not necessarily about planning, some spells are obivously better than others and i don't see why a semi-intelligent sorcerer would not pick them (like sleep, web, MMM, stoneskin, time stop,...).
Actually (and this is why sorcerers are great compared to mage) there is very rarely more than 5-6 spells per level which are worthy of being picked.
@Arizel : the blackguard is great, thanks to poison weapon which is very very OP but the dual assassin-fighter is better IMO thanks to :
- traps
- grand mastery
@gotural : i completely agree with you. With the 3m cap duals were much better than multi thanks to the ability to chose how your xp will be shared.
With the 8m cap :
- you actually don't care how the xp will be shared
- you get much more HLA = stronger character
- you have no downtime
- you can pick much better race
The only thing going for duals are kits and there is a few which are very interesting mainly assassin and berserker.
For me swashbuckler-> mage and kensai->mage (while obviously OP when dualled) do not really compare to a thief/illusionnist or fighter/illusionnist
pure arcane : sorcerer (wild mage may compete if you are willing to reload)
multi arcane : fighter/illu, thief/illu
Without arcane casting :
with divine : ranger/cleric
without divine : assassin->fighter
Most versatile : FMT
overall most powerful : sorcerer
Generally speaking anything with arcane will end up significantly stronger than anything else.
Of course, random picks would imply suboptimal spell picks and progression, though my guess is that in the end the result will likely be somewhere inbetween what you call 'a god' and 'a nearly useless' character, and that's fine for me. Maybe I'll try it someday.
I guess Fighter/Druid (TOB) and Fighter/Cleric (SOA) are considered second best behind the Cleric/Ranger.
I'd like to think the Cleric/Thief is up there as well, but I find it very difficult to rank classes in terms of power (moreso than in terms of their fun factor).
I thought you were speaking about metagaming (which is really not needed to pick the right spells) but actually you were speaking about the whole class concept
@jackjack :
Runner up for divine casting would be fighter/druid IMO :
- druid spells from level 5 (start of BG2) are much better than cleric ones (iron skin, insect plague, nature's beauty)
- cleric/thief really like offensive capability. They are the ultimate support class however.
On a note ranger/cleric is indeed cheesy and yet it is significantly weaker than a fighter/mage which people do not consider cheesy
For me, all multi can be considered OP (or cheesy), especially when you reach extremely high xp count.
-No downtime period. You play as blackguard all the saga, not spending nearly half of it as low Thac0 1APR assassin and than underleveded fighter.
-More hitpoints. D10 versus D6 not to mention CON bonus. Blackguard can have 58 more hitpoints.
- Useful spellcasting buffs (DuHM, Armor of Faith etc.)
- Neat aura (-4 to AC,DMG and Thac0 for group of enemies without save rocks)
- Other useful paladin bonuses (saving throws, Dark planetar HLA, Absorb health, etc. ) I like your concept. The ideal solution would be some sort of compromise. I.e. the game gives you offer from two spells and you pick one. Or the game picks for you, but you can reroll 3 times.
Strong melee character with magic support: Kensai/Mage, Berserker/Mage, multi Fighter/Mage or Fighter/Illusionist, Fighter/Mage/Thief
Strong magic character: Sorcerer
Contrary to public opinion, I am not particularly blown over by sorcerers, but they are indeed one of the best classes. As pure casters, they are significantly more powerful than most wizards because of their magic spamming potential. Only wild wizards can really come close, but they can be quite unreliable. Fighter/Mages are a different category altogether - they cannot spam magic the way sorcerers can, hence they need to rely on melee with magic as support, and for strong opening/closing moves.
In practice, both sorcerers and Fighter/Mages are effective at high levels, but need to be played differently. Sorcerers are easier to play (unload magic, reload magic, unload magic, repeat ad nauseum), and Fighter/Mages require more skill in spell selection, scouting, and the like.
That would tend to contain the power of higher level Magic based classes (which is necessary IMHO).
And there should be more Sharn and Phaerimm for high level parties (totally missing from BG).
I agree that the Blackguard is very strong, and better than the Assassin dual Fighter.
Personally I like your second option better, though I'd be stricter: one reroll only. And to spice things up, you don't get to store your rolls. So if you roll Glitterdust the first time, and you decide to reroll for a spell you'd prefer (such as Inivisibility, Mirror Image or Stinking Cloud) and then get Deafness, you'll be stuck with Deafness.
Hm I've just got my new dwarven Skald going, but the more I'm talking about this random Sorcerer concept, the more I want to try it myself. I like the idea of having to make the most of what you get. Besides, it also drastically improves the replayability of the Sorcerer I reckon.