Party for a Fighter/mage/cleric
GreenWarlock
Member Posts: 1,354
Kicking off a play through with my second character through BG, I am picking up a Fighter/Mage/Cleric. I suspect this is one of the weaker characters I could be running with, as the absolute level of this character will always be low. However, I am now trying to pick a party around that principle. On the plus side, he has godly stats of all 19s, but for a 21 wisdom and a 6 charisma - the benefit of rerolling stats for hours before kicking off from Candlekeep…
So my first assumption is that I don't want my party to get away from me too quickly, so that I my main PC is nothing but an afterthought. That suggests I should take all the other multis in the game: Jaheira, Aerie and Jan, despite my dislike of Jan's turnips. Dual classes are not slow like multis though, so I am left with two open slots. I figure one of them can go to Imoen, so we can role-play the rescue scenario, and as she is normally a fair few xp behind when you pick her up, and that should be less of a concern with this party. I am thinking of giving the final slot to Keldorn, as Paladins are the slowest leveling fighter types, and he would be an effective front to the party at higher levels, and brings charisma to be the party face. He will also give the party a heroic bent, which is my preferred play style. I can also spin through all of the other characters in the spare slot before we finally rescue Imoen, doing their personal quest while they sign up with level-appropriate xp.
I expect to play the F/M/C as something of a tank, using mage and cleric spells to help me last in the front line, along side Keldorn and Jaheira. I am geared for dualling Flail and Crom, but not sure if there are likely to be gear conflicts by the time we reach the end of the game - will this party work as a unit, with an optimal splitting of top loot? Are there other characters I should be considering in the mix? Are there better ways to make a F/M/C effective?
So my first assumption is that I don't want my party to get away from me too quickly, so that I my main PC is nothing but an afterthought. That suggests I should take all the other multis in the game: Jaheira, Aerie and Jan, despite my dislike of Jan's turnips. Dual classes are not slow like multis though, so I am left with two open slots. I figure one of them can go to Imoen, so we can role-play the rescue scenario, and as she is normally a fair few xp behind when you pick her up, and that should be less of a concern with this party. I am thinking of giving the final slot to Keldorn, as Paladins are the slowest leveling fighter types, and he would be an effective front to the party at higher levels, and brings charisma to be the party face. He will also give the party a heroic bent, which is my preferred play style. I can also spin through all of the other characters in the spare slot before we finally rescue Imoen, doing their personal quest while they sign up with level-appropriate xp.
I expect to play the F/M/C as something of a tank, using mage and cleric spells to help me last in the front line, along side Keldorn and Jaheira. I am geared for dualling Flail and Crom, but not sure if there are likely to be gear conflicts by the time we reach the end of the game - will this party work as a unit, with an optimal splitting of top loot? Are there other characters I should be considering in the mix? Are there better ways to make a F/M/C effective?
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If you're looking for a well-balanced party I'd recommend either running a smaller party with no more than two or three companions, or running a full party with more single classed companions.
In the former scenario, your charname will level up relatively fast so your character doesn't feel that slow in levelling up (a party of three levels up twice as fast as a party of six). You could pick Imoen for both thieving (or when Imoen's gone Nalia, though she'll need boosts to her thieving skills) and powerful arcane magic. Plus a strong warrior such as Keldorn (great against mages) or Anomen (great against undead).
In the second scenario I think you shouldn't look at your singleclassed companions as being 'better' (for being of higher levels). Sure Nalia/Imoen or Edwin if you'd go evil would be the better mage, but you could support them with debuffs for example (Breach etc), so that they can focus on killing enemies. Likewise, Anomen would be the better Cleric, but you could heal an injured party member while he's engaged in battle or confused by an en enemy, etc. If you need someone to tank because your main warrior is taking a beating, your charname can help out. He would fill various roles for and complement your different singleclassed characters.
So I think I am going to go with option 1, that this will potentially be a difficult play through, and let myself be comfortable with the default difficulty, rather than my preferred Core - I am certainly not up to playing at Insanity level yet, or installing SCS or other mods
I suspect my plan will be to hit all the personal quests in chapter 2, but defer the major area quests such as Trademeet and the Dragons until I get back from Spellhold. Hopefully this will net the most party XP (doing *everyone's* personal quest) while not dropping Imoen too far behind. My remaining concern then is whether Keldorn is going to outshine me too quickly with his higher level, and whether I should be dropping someone else into that role. I have a suspicion I am going to need him wielding Carsomyr to make it through the tougher mage fights though.
Keldorn may outshine you as a warrior and possibly dispeller, but he hasn't got your flexibility. Carsomyr won't dispel Protection from Magical Weapons for example, so he could be required to cast a Dispel Magic. Or you cast a Breach for him, so that he can focus on beating up the enemy. Besides various fights are against groups of enemies. Keldorn is great in taking on one enemy at a time, but your magic (Holy Smite, Web, Chaos, etc) can control or even kill crowds of enemies.
Str 18
Dex 18
Con 18
Int 18
Wis 18
Cha 5
After one round of tomes,
Str 19
Dex 19
Con 19
Int 19
Wis 21
Cha 6
Combine the Str buffs from the Cleric with the combat buffs (Stoneskin/Mirror images/Improved Haste) from the mage and you will destroy everything !
You ARE the party. What do you need a party for?
For me, a large part of the game is the party interactions and the personalized quests. My main concern with this play through is not to be left behind and a minor actor in my own party.
Slow far, slow, but good. Grabbing an hour here or there to play, have fixed the circus/recruited Aerie, cleared the Copper Coronet of slavers, and am now creeping around a graveyard with a loud dwarf and a goth girl. My plan is to by Korgan the Stonefire Axe (after graveyard shenanigans) and head out to the D'arnise keep. I already have a couple of +3 weapons, the Axe will make three, and building the flail 4. That might give me a shot at taking down an iron golem - then we can think about recruiting the a last two party members (Jan and Keldorn) and raising funds to go mage hunting.
As a fighter you won't be much behind Keldorn - mainly your THACO will be a bit worse but nothing too bad, and you'll be 0.5 attacks/round behind him for much of the game (although dual wielding will more than compensate). You'll get HLAs at the same time (and you'll actually get more). Of course you'll lack Keldorn's mega-dispel powers.
Saving and quitting ever hour or so is getting old, but at least the game has not bugged out in an irreparable way, so making progress with the Mac may be possible.
Completed most of the personal quests in chapter 2, with the exception of Dorn (does not fit the party), Valygar (not made it far beyond Athkatla) and Mazzy (also not recruited yet). Edwin has his nether scroll, but has not yet become Edwina, and is lurking around in the Copper Coronet with most everyone else, along with a gaseous Hexxat who I think has bugged into a permanent gaseous form (that plays as an invulnerable character). Since Keldorn object to traveling with such company though, I did not get to the end of her quest line - but did pick up the all important bag.
I have reserved the main quests outside Athkatla for when we return, unless they directly impacted an NPC personal quest. Likewise, Kangaxx, that twisted rune and other liches must wait for my return, along with my hoped-for stronghold in the planer sphere.
Generally speaking, I took too long before picking up Jan, who is now around 450,000 xp behind the rest, with my CharName now just hitting around 1.2M xp, at the start of chapter 4. The party for Spellhold will be CharName, Keldorn, Jaheira, Jan, Aerie and Yoshi - what could go wrong?
Fun spot at the end of chapter 3 is that I have been hoarding cash enviously to buy stuff from Dierdre, but so far my only significant purchase has been a belt of giant strength for Jaheira. So right after we secure passage to chapter 4, but before we leave, I figure it is time to finally sell all that remaining kit I have been stashing at the coronet, to see if I can afford the robe of Vecna yet. Oops - turns out the stashed kit is worth ~160k gp! One quick trip to the template to secure my reputation, and a spending spree to pick up everything I wanted from Dierdre, Joluv, Ribald, and most the high level spells from the back of Ribald's store and the coronet - which I will scribe only after we recruit Imoen.
So heading into chapter 4, CharName is rocking the FoA and Defender of Easthaven, with bracers AC 3 and the robe of invocation from the new quest against the red folks. Aerie has both robe of Vecna and the Amulet of power - although I am tempted to pass said amulet onto CharName for the permanent immunity to level drains, for now CharName is wearing the Sensate amulet, which combined with ring of human influence yield a 20 Cha for great store prices. (I am too lazy to keep changing kit just for shopping). Aerie also has the un-enhanced Mace of Disruption.
Keldorn is still wielding his original kit, and occasionally throws an Axe at undead to see if they go pop. Should be even better with another 180k XP when he can actually take his first pip in axes!
Likewise, Jan is using a Dakkon's Zerth blade unskilled, as it gives him bonus spell slots. Annoyingly, I cannot switch weapons without losing those memorized spells, but we'll see how that goes.
The one extra quest I inserted was the slaver stockade to grab Celestial Fury for Yoshi - however I have a bad feeling about this guy, so quietly swapped him back over to his original katana and left Fury in the coronet as we depart for Spellhold.
From this point on is mostly new material for me, I think I made it to spell hold only once before, around 8 years back, before restartitis claimed every other game, and I really don't remember much of what follows so it should be an interesting time. Unless that dreaded restart disease calls me to kick off on one of my other playthroughs parked up just after Irenicus dungeon, will see where we finish the weekend ;~)
My main struggle is being the worst combination of gamer - the completionist and the pack-rat. As the Watcher's Keep bug means it will not be available to me until ToB, I have no potion case, nor ammo bandolier, and trying to preserve every last non-magical bolt and arrow, even the useless clubs and staves, has been trying, but with two gem bags, one scroll case, dragomir's bag, and the bag of holding picked up in the asylum, I just about made it through - by virtue of selling all the Drow kit that would not survive to the surface as I finally ran out of capacity. I now have a ridiculous number of crossbow bolts stashed at the Copper Coronet.
After emerging from the under dark, I am given the quest to retrieve the Rhyn Lanthorn from Bodhi, and encourage to recruit allies for the task. I am really into unfamiliar territory now, as my previous BG2 games faded into restartitis around the time I set off for the asylum, but this does give me a good RP excuse to finish the remaining chapter 2/3 content looking for allies. So far, I have just Drizzt's band and the Radiant Heart.
First order of business was to manage my inventory back at the Coronet, followed by a trip to the Umar Hills to find Valygar. and so secure the planar sphere. I have just finished that quest line as I post this, and am now the proud owner of a shiny metal ball. The field trip to find a power source was probably the purely moment of joy in the game so far, taking one-man party to the extreme. Fighting ambi with flail of the ages and defender of east haven, I stacked pretty much every power-up I could think of on CharName, with out actually expending potions or items, finishing off with improved haste and just let him fly around the level to see if he could clear the plane solo before time expired. It was a resounding yes
Final actions of the day were to head to the Radiant Heart to swap Valygar back for Keldorn, and a quick trip to the Temple of Ilmater on Waukeen's Parade seeking redemption for yoshi. Not quite sure where to head next.
I get the impression that as my PC is triple-classed, his absolute level is low so encounters are not scaling up as far as they might. In the quest for more XP (vital to the multi class) I am thinking of hitting the fixed encounters around Athkatla that do not scale, namely the liches, kangaxx, and the twisted rune. Alternatively, I might head out to the Windspear Hills and slay a dragon, as there is rumor of a certain sword for Keldorn. But thinking of Keldorn, I have still not really done his initial recruitment task with the unseeing eye, and that might open the temple quest line to upgrade the pretty mace that Aerie is running around with - hopefully with a little more effect now that she picked up some gauntlets in the sphere. Any which way, it looks like Trademeet's genie problem is going to the back of the queue.
Currently the main char has > 885k xp x3, or just over 2.65 million. Aerie lies second at just over 2.5 million, and poor old Imoen picks up the rear with just under 1.7 million. She is still the only caster of 7th level spells though, so not too shabby.
I will admit some parts of the under dark were frustrating - mostly because I wanted to be out of there sooner before my packs burst, but also I was not yet ready for some of the difficulties, that will be much smoother with a second play through (next character). Coming out of the far side where I can mostly cruise around and enjoy myself with less danger, I expect to enjoy filling in the shopping list until it is time to head back for Irenicus, and it gets real again, real fast!
I am amazed(?) to see that despite you realize that your character can solo everything with ease you have enough willpower to continue dragging your useless party everywhere.
I know that since i did realize that (a loooooong time ago), i was never able to play with a party anymore
I am curious to see how the game develops from here. The main PC is still in the sweet spot in terms of level, where most of his levels come from the xp doubling each time, rather than the fixed cost that takes over between 200-400k. He is maybe a level of two beyond that, but also has a small xp lead on the rest of the party, who are mostly also multis, so he still feels in touch. Now that Imoen has hit 7th level spells, we might start to notice her pulling away, but mages level slowly. Similarly, Keldorn is mostly held back by relying on his original named equipment, but now we are back in Athkatla we can go shopping - we have the technology, we can rebuild him.
If the party contained Edwin, Korgan, Viconia and Hexxat, I am sure he would be feeling fairly useless himself by now. Might be interesting to try that play through as a follow-up, see how much the experience differs.
(Also does no harm that the PC has godly stats to keep up as the levels go by, all 19s from BG1, with 21 Wisdom, and 2 items giving me a 20 for my dump stat in BG2 (cha)).
- only arcane casters continue to really progress after 3m (apart from HLA)
- you will have as much HLA as any other character
So FMT should be compared to FT. and FMC should be compared to FC. Mages levels are just a bonus.
That way at the xp cap.
you will be a fighter level 18. from level 20, fighters do not gain anything excpet for HLA. Overall you will end up being 2THACO behind a single class or double class fighter. Since your thaco will anyway be deep in the negative, this has no impact at all.
For cleric, you will end up at level 19. Since spell level is anyway limited at 20, the drawbackis not significant. The main issue will be the small number of level 7 spells (especially compared to a single class cleric). But the level 7 and 8 spells that you get from mage more than compensate that fact.
Overall you will end up being as good at fighting as any fighter and almost as good as divine casting as any cleric. Plus you will cast arcane magic.
It's actually the same with FMT : as good as any fighter and as good as any thief with arcane magic as a bonus
If you want really powerful arcane magic however, then triple class are not the way to go.
Regarding your aerie/jan question : in a 6-man party, 6Mxp (needed for level 9 spells) is usually reached very late in TOB (unless you are completionnist)
I think the fear of characters leaving the PC behind is not so much that there is little effective advancement beyond the 3M xp point, but that I will need 8M+ xp to hit the same peak, which means that they might leave me behind for maybe half the game, and with a party of 6 we are unlikely to hit the 8M xp cap anyway. Hence playing for a party to mitigate that risk - all the multi-class NPCs and swapping out the singles any time I need to bring in an irregular NPC for some character specific content. I am at the point where, if I am right about such a risk, Imoen and Keldorn will come to the fore in the next couple of levels (and Imoen is already 1M xp behind the main PC!) Sadly, play time will be limited for the next few weeks, so it may be a month or more before I know how this plays out!
Thanks for the suggestions though, I have no real experience of the game beyond Spellhold so this is all new territory for me now, so insight into mechanics (and no plot) can be helpful
I am just short of 4,000,000 xp for the final battle putting me at the ominous level 13/13/13 - still no 7th level spells (neither arcane nor divine) but I am now have full attacks as a fighter, still leading with ambi-flails (FoA and Defender of Easthaven).
My trip through hell was trying for my soul, and after calmly talking things through with a golden dragon, I was tempted beyond my means with a black sword - one that I could not even use! (I had planned to turn down the sword, but my character has filled all bags with every named item from his time in Athkatla, refusing to sell a single one - so adding Black Razor to the collection is inevitable. In fact, I ran out of money to buy everything I wanted from Diedre after clearing out Joluv, but miss only 3 items. I made sure to buy all 9th level spells from Ribald, and the Helm of Brilliance. I sold a large number of gems, most of my non-magical jewelry and most of the unused potions to the 'shop' in Suldanessalar, along with any magical arrows, bolts and darts they would buy - keeping only the arrows of slaying and dispelling. Some of that ammo sold for a pretty penny (had been stashing it all game) but ultimately I am about 35k short of owning it all - even after selling off any scrolls that I will not be able to scribe after potions of genius (saving the scribing until starting ToB).
After giving in to the first temptation, it is a sorry tale of depravity, gaining +2 con and +2 strength, and refusing to sacrifice of my own essence for the final tear. My final stats are 21/19/20/19/21/21 (with Cha boosts) which looks suitably deific - especially with Watcher's keep entirely deferred to ToB.
For the final battle, Keldorn is 19th, rocking Carsomyr, Jaheira has her first couple of HLAs, notably the whirly attack. Jan can use any item, although has nothing interesting yet, wielding twin scimitars (Dakkon's for the spells) and holding Black Razor as an option (unskilled). Aerie has so far put all HLAs into more spell slots, and probably has second-most XP on the party, but will not quite land 16th level cleric before the end of the game, coming within 10,000xp of the goal.
Imoen has just hit level 17, so no HLAs or 9th level spells for the final battle for this group!
The final battle goes poorly, with everyone but CharName and Jan taking to an early grave, led by Aerie (who thus fails to level up). With Irenicus allies finally slain, I Raise Dead Aerie, who then Raises Keldorn. Both of us have Wondrous Recall memorized, which brings us the necessary raises for the other two, so I promptly re-equip the entire party and wait for our regens to leave us mostly healthy. Cheesy, but I appear to be an infinitely patient CE now.
Now there is no threat of leaving any precious loot behind, we proceed to the bottom of the map again to chase down a lone Irenicus, who puts up a brief struggle but with 3 of us hitting with whirlwinds, he is going down fast!
And so, our trip to hell is complete, and yields surprisingly little XP - defeating Irenicus, the bane of our existence all game long, the hardiest foe we have faced, being worth exactly 0xp.
I have just started out on ToB, but it is a brief trip before the first crash-to-desktop. Thank goodness for auto-save. The plan is to drop Keldorn for Sarevok, now that I am CE it is hard to justify brining a paladin along for the ride, and dualing Sarevok to Thief will eventually bring me Use Any Item and restore the use of Carsomyr. I was just puzzling whether to level up to 18 before dualing (I think yes) before the game crashed out though, and I ended up penning this instead.
Not sure how much of ToB I want to risk with an unpatched Mac version of the game, although I am not sure if many ToB issues are fixed in the current patch anyway. Will probably take a run through Watcher's keep to help level Sarevok and buy my final stat boosts, but defer on the rest of the game till a patch hits the Mac App store (am tentatively guessing around November, hopefully will be surprised for the better).
Not sure whether to pick up another char for BG2 at that point, complete another of my mid-game BG1 runs, or finally switch back to Mass Effect, where I am long overdue playing the ME3 DLC (before EA withdraw it).
There were a few to many crash-to-desktops, but I am playing with regular save/restarts to avoid the total-reset bug anyway, so I never lost too much that way.
I took a quick look at Dorn's quest line and the starting quest looked very bugged. I did not get far before losing progress in what looked like a dead-ended bug. As I already had a reasonably high reputation, I opted against following up on the reload, and suggest that Dorn might be better left alone until the patch is available.
Due to her disagreement with Keldorn, I did not have a chance to pursue the Hexxat quest line to the end, but it seemed to be working fine.
The patch notes for the unavailable patch seem to have quite a few issues with the new PCs in the under dark, with a few infinite dialog loops occurring. As I did not take any of the new characters that far, I had no problems - so I don't know how much that would turn into an issue in practice. Certainly had no trouble completing the remaining material otherwise, and look forward to seeing how many of their quest lines I can pick up again in ToB.
In icewind dale, where you could reach 30 level to ALL multi classes of one one character, you could get the max benefit from this class. Also, there, a fighter mage cleric had been both my character of choice and preference, and a powerhouse without equal.
For party, you need a thief certainly (or even better, fighter thief, for more wicked melee and backstabs), a leader, like bard or paladin, and perhaps one warrior for tanking. A second mage wouldn't hurt either. And your romance, or Sarevok, or if you can afford, both...
I think that most player (myself included) would make the FMT far superior to the FMC.
What would be your reasonning for the FMC being better than the FMT?
In my mind
FMT can :
- disarm traps
- set traps (horribly OP)
- backstab (horribly OP with mislead or assasination)
- use any item (carsomyr for example)
FMC can :
- can do a lot of buffing, mostly of little consequence save for the always useful chaotic command
And the trade-off for not disarming traps is an even slower level progression too. The level progression really does leave me wondering what the ideal role of the F/M/C is. Solo, you are doomed by traps, and even at level cap lack the killer blow, not hitting 9th level arcane spells, nor capping Thac0 as a fighter. In a competent party of 6, you will left significantly behind in level - forget even managing a dispel, for example.
That leaves a small, focused party where the F/M/C buffs and tanks, and we have both a thief and a mage along for the ride. This combines the fighter's plain tankiness with the self-buffs of both the cleric and the mage, with the necessary support to handle the parts that cannot be straight tanked.
I'm still enjoying my party of 6, but it is not a natural home for the FMC. I swapped out Keldorn for Sarevok just as he was getting overwhelmingly better (on less xp) so am back to the fore as the natural leader of this party - although the two humans are each a million or more XP behind, and the remaining party are all multi class, so slow enough in their own right. If I were to go again, it would probably be the smaller party, and maybe Edwin/Hexxat, for all my distaste of evil playthroughs - FMC is not emerging from Hell as a saint!
UAI is actually not that useful on a FMT since they can already use 99% of the item of the game. The only worthwhile ones that i see are carsomyr and the purifier.
However backstab and (especially) set traps are incredibly powerful tools that are MUCH stronger and versatile than any divine buff (that, and buffing is dull).
I agree for your view of the role of the FMC in small parties. For agood aligned party something like FMC/Jan or Imoen/Keldorn would be very strong. But even then, i think a ranger/cleric would perform better.