Barbarian-ish Fighter/Transmuter with unlikely party of four (spoilers)
Lemernis
Member, Moderator Posts: 4,318
This is going to be a mercifully limited playthrough journal commentary-wise, I plan to just hit a few highlights.
I set out to try give myself a bit more challenge so I figured I'd try SCS with a party of three companion NPCs that I don't often use and are not regarded as particularly powerful. And I wanted to try a Fighter/Mage build that is a bit unusual. Anyway, here is the party:
Hector, human CN Barbarian 3/Transmuter
Tiax
Rasaad
Safana as Swashbuckler
As you can see I made some edits made via EE Keeper. I won't bore folks with the details of a few missteps that I made, but I learned in a slightly roundabout way that the way to get a dual-class Barbarian/Specialist Mage is to 1) start with Fighter, 2) dual to Mage, 3) via EE Keeper assign the Mage specialty kit (here Transmuter), 4) use EE Keeper to add the Barbarian Rage innate ability.
Hector is a hulking warrior who wields a haldberd. As I'm playing him, more than half of his spell slots must be filled with Alteration spells--which I'm pleased to find are (at least for me) really fun for a meleeing Mage.
Oh, and Hector loves his cat familiar. He uses her to scout just about constantly. Haven't yet had the cat try pickpocketing, but tonight I'll see how that goes.
I'm just having some powergaming fun for this run, so I'm metagaming and reloading at will.
Hector and Tiax went straight to the bassilisk map in order to level Hector to just shy of Fighter 3/Transmuter 4.
It's a shame that Color Spray doesn't scale to opponents, because it is so darned cool. I'm going to miss using it when enemies start to consistently save against it:
And the Alteration spell Strength is seeing a lot of use as well right now.
So this is a motley bunch, and I am very pleased thus far with the unusual chemistry of this party. The personalities seem to contrast one another well. Tiax and Rasaad adventuring alongside one another is... just special.
In terms of utility they complement one another rather well also. Tiax is a little badass! I mean I know from Cleric/Thieves; but especially with his Summon Ghast ability the little guy is really proving a much stronger contributor than I remember. I'm going to be fascinated to see how well Safana performs as Swashy. I just added her to the party, but so far so good. This is the first time I'm using Rasaad as a Sun Soul Monk. So that's kind of an interesting departure as well. I'm looking forward to when he gets Stunning Fist.
Anyway, I'll just post anything that seems noteworthy about the battles, or otherwise seems worth mentioning. About the only thing to note thus far is the SCS sirines weren't as hard as I expected. I did have to wait out some of their charms on some of the party, but no one was really in any serious danger. And I had Tiax just sneak into the pirate cave and steal the treasure, rather than have the party try to take out the flesh golems.
I set out to try give myself a bit more challenge so I figured I'd try SCS with a party of three companion NPCs that I don't often use and are not regarded as particularly powerful. And I wanted to try a Fighter/Mage build that is a bit unusual. Anyway, here is the party:
Hector, human CN Barbarian 3/Transmuter
Tiax
Rasaad
Safana as Swashbuckler
As you can see I made some edits made via EE Keeper. I won't bore folks with the details of a few missteps that I made, but I learned in a slightly roundabout way that the way to get a dual-class Barbarian/Specialist Mage is to 1) start with Fighter, 2) dual to Mage, 3) via EE Keeper assign the Mage specialty kit (here Transmuter), 4) use EE Keeper to add the Barbarian Rage innate ability.
Hector is a hulking warrior who wields a haldberd. As I'm playing him, more than half of his spell slots must be filled with Alteration spells--which I'm pleased to find are (at least for me) really fun for a meleeing Mage.
Oh, and Hector loves his cat familiar. He uses her to scout just about constantly. Haven't yet had the cat try pickpocketing, but tonight I'll see how that goes.
I'm just having some powergaming fun for this run, so I'm metagaming and reloading at will.
Hector and Tiax went straight to the bassilisk map in order to level Hector to just shy of Fighter 3/Transmuter 4.
It's a shame that Color Spray doesn't scale to opponents, because it is so darned cool. I'm going to miss using it when enemies start to consistently save against it:
And the Alteration spell Strength is seeing a lot of use as well right now.
So this is a motley bunch, and I am very pleased thus far with the unusual chemistry of this party. The personalities seem to contrast one another well. Tiax and Rasaad adventuring alongside one another is... just special.
In terms of utility they complement one another rather well also. Tiax is a little badass! I mean I know from Cleric/Thieves; but especially with his Summon Ghast ability the little guy is really proving a much stronger contributor than I remember. I'm going to be fascinated to see how well Safana performs as Swashy. I just added her to the party, but so far so good. This is the first time I'm using Rasaad as a Sun Soul Monk. So that's kind of an interesting departure as well. I'm looking forward to when he gets Stunning Fist.
Anyway, I'll just post anything that seems noteworthy about the battles, or otherwise seems worth mentioning. About the only thing to note thus far is the SCS sirines weren't as hard as I expected. I did have to wait out some of their charms on some of the party, but no one was really in any serious danger. And I had Tiax just sneak into the pirate cave and steal the treasure, rather than have the party try to take out the flesh golems.
Post edited by Lemernis on
10
Comments
Absolutely fantastic idea! Looking forward to your journal.
Figured I'd just walk up to Tarnesh and Color Spray 'im.
Then do him the indignity of letting Rasaad finish off his sorry unconscious behind.
Later on I was trying to help Drizzt but he didn't seem to get it (despite having nearly full magic resistance--C'mon Drizzt, really?). Yes, I did reload after this. ;-)
'Tis your lives to waste!
But that's alright, I had originally envisioned him as a Barbarian anyway. I'm okay with him not having immunity to the mind control spells after all, since it increases the challenge. I can still get the Greenstone Amulet of course.
For the toughest fights Hector buffs with Amor and Shield. Most of the time he does fine without them, though. Before long I'll have him wearing the robe of the Neutral Acrhmagi, so his AC will then be down around 0, IIRC.
I'm so used to relying on the staple disabling spells (Blind, Sleep, Charm Person, Glitterdust, Horror, Hold Person, Emotion: Hopelessness, Domination, Confusion, Chaos) that it's refreshing to paint from a different palette.
For reference sake, here is the list of spells from the Alteration school, which Hector uses for more than 50% of his spells slots (at least half per spell level and more than half overall):
Burning Hands
Color Spray
Shocking Grasp
Knock
Strength
Haste
Melf's Minute Meteors
Slow
Fireshield
Otiluke's Resilient Sphere
Polymorph Other
Polymorph Self
Stoneskin
Teleport Field
Wizard Eye
Lower Resistance
As we know, Color Spray is inferior to Sleep but it's just such a great spell animation that it's a blast to use (for my taste anyway). With a party design like this I can easily avoid incurring friendly fire. The others simply hang back and use ranged weapons until Hector is done casting it. I particularly enjoyed using Color Spray at the gnoll stronghold and xvart village. Also, it seems that ogres and ogrillons are rather susceptible to it (although maybe they are to Sleep as well).
Burning Hands is turning out to be slightly better than I thought. I usually don't bother with it. But it does a good bit of damage.
I haven't used Shocking Grasp much because I've been so keen to use Color Spray whenever possible. But I think I'll try mixing it in more now.
Hector just earned a level 3 slot, so now he'll be using mainly Slow for his level 3 slots. That and Melf's Minute Meteors, perhaps. Once the party reaches chapter 4 he'll get a Haste scroll.
Level 4 for Alteration spells looks really fun, what with the two Polymorphing spells and Teleport Field. I almost never use these spells. I'm looking forward to that.
Level 5 has only Lower Resistance, which at low levels isn't all that helpful. Lowering MR by 20%, meh. But at least there's no save against it.
I did cause al lot of friendly fire though....
2.) Load save
3.) Select Character
4.) Innate
5.) Kit
6.) Pick Berserker and change From level to level depending on how many rages you want him to have.
7.) Profit
You now have a fighter with the berserker rage. If you pick from 1 to 10 you'll sit on 3 (3?) rages etc. Figure out at what level the berserker gets additional rages and pick the one you want.
Re: this type of build you can only select one kit, though. So for a dual-class Fighter/Mage, when you assign the mage specialization kit that will undo Berserker or Barbarian, changing the starting class to Fighter.
Do you happen to know where the Berserk innate ability is found within EE Keeper? I see only Minsc's there.
I would imagine that just one Barbarian Rage is all a Barbarian would get by level three, no?
Hector dualed at Fighter 3, so it should be consistent with that, i.e., that's as high as the Barbarian features should go for him.
I would guess the 0x00B0 is movement speed and the AC one is backstab immunity, but I'm not sure. You can adjust HP in the abilities screen, so just add 3*2 = 6 HP if you're using maximum rolls.
If you only want the berserker enrage you'll find it on Innate abilities at the bottom of the list under End Spell.
Draw Upon Holy Might
End slayer change
End slayer change
End spell
->Enrage <-
Find Familiar
Flaming Fists
-----------------------------
The 0x00B0 is the movement speed as @FinneousPJ mentioned. The only problem with doing a multi-class Barbarian/something is that you'll have to manually upgrade the HP points as you'll always end up with a fighters 1D10 instead of the barbarian 1D12.
1.) Put her level to 0
2.) She'll level up to 1 in the game and gain all the swashbuckler abilities.
3.) Level her up to the level she should be.
4.) Adjust HP/ Proficiency points/ Thieving skills.
This way she'll have all the abilities of a swashbuckler.
It's the same if you create a T/M and want a swashbuckler then go into EEKeeper and change the thief level to 0, it'll level up to 1 automatically in the game and give you all the abilities of the kit. You just have to change the HP/Proficiency points/ Thieving skills and you're ready for the game.
With classes like Barbarian that only have one or two special abilities that don't increase with level, you can create a low level barbarian and copy the affect abilities. Just remember you won't get the 10%/15%/20% resistance unless you manually copy that as well.
Edit: Guess not. I just tested by having Tiax backstab him and he is not immune.
Save, and open your edited game. Your character will automoatically level up to level 3, where you can pick 5 proficiencies (4 starting profs plus 1 for reaching level 3), your Thac0 will be adjusted as well as your saves, and you get all the innate feats of the Barbarian (including increased movement speed, immunity to backstab etc). Dual your character to mage. Save this game and open it in EEKeeper. There you reduce his HP by one (the single hitpoint you gave him at level 0) and in the XP bar you give your character the XP he had accumulated as a mage. Save and open your edited savegame, where you will level up as a Mage. You'll now have a proper Barbarian->Mage.
The same can be done with Safana, kitting her as a level 0 Swashbuckler.
IIRC, there aren't that many situations in SCS that you have to worry about getting backstabbed. I do recall a few, although it's been a very long time since I played with it installed.
Hector was a total beast with that halberd. It gave me a vision of what he will become Hasted. But the pleasant surprise to this was Blur. It's a spell that I almost never bother with. I think I will start regularly using it for Fighter/Mages.
I might have to go with a five person party. Ideally I want a four person crew that is fairly offbeat, but I have to balance that with wanting to check out the new NPCs. And there's the problem of having both thieving and healing for such a party concept in SoA.
I have yet to play BG2EE beyond a bit of beta testing that RL demands interrupted back when. I think again Rasaad would accompany Hector, since I'll enjoy seeing Rasaad truly come into his own in SoA. Beyond that I'll probably use Dorn, Hexxat (Clara), and... since I need healer and have used Cernd a fair bit in the past... Aerie. (Neera will have to wait for another run.) For Thieving skills I have used Imoen, Nalia, Yoshimo and Jan a lot, so it will definitely be Hexxat.
However I'm ambivalent about using Aerie because I want to increase the challenge by having a Fighter/Transmuter cast mainly from the Alteration school--and ideally I'd like for him to be the only arcane caster. For Hector I have been filling each spell level in his spellbook with at least 50% Alteration spells; and he must have more than half of his entire spellbook devoted to Alteration spells. And of course as a Transmuter he cannot cast Abjuration spells (except for Spellstrike which is from both the Abjuration and Alteration schools).
That RP rule that I've been following would be interesting to follow in BG2 because the Alteration spells from level 6 and up include:
Disintegrate
Flesh to Stone
Improved Haste
Stone to Flesh
Tenser's Transformation
Ruby Ray of Reversal
Sphere of Chaos
Shapechange
Spellstrike
Time Stop
Now, he can still cast from other schools other than Alteration (excluding his opposition school), but he can only fill his spellbook with less than half of those spells. If I add another arcane caster (Aerie) who can cast Abjuration spells and freely use all the other schools then that will sort of dilute such a challenge a bit. But I need a healer, and I've used Jaheira, Anomen, and Cernd a lot. Aerie I think I've used only once in all these years.
If the banter between Dorn and either Aerie or Anomen is particularly fun, that might help me choose. Don't spoil me completely of course!
a) start a BG2EE game with Fighter 7 and dual immediately to Mage/assign Transmuter kit; then gain 90,000 XP as Transmuter to get the Fighter skills back
b) replay a BGEE game but dual at Fighter level 6 (32,000 XP) and gain 60,000 XP to get the Fighter skills back; then import the character into BG2EE
c) just import the current BGEE character Fighter 3/Transmuter into BG2EE and accept High Mastery (++++) from Fighter 3/Transmuter 6 until finally gaining another pip at Transmuter 12 (would take around 615,000 XP if he's, say, Fighter 3/Transmuter 9 when imported into SoA).
I really think option (b) is not one I will take, though. So I'd have to weigh option (a), i.e., starting at Transmuter 1 at the beginning of SoA and however long it takes to get 90,000 XP, versus option (c), i.e., enjoying the character with High Mastery (++++) and a full battery of spells until he eventually reaches Transmuter level 12 to achieve Grand Mastery (+++++).
But after plotting it out along the different possible directions, I don't think it's a difficult decision after all. I would go with option (c). I think I could live with Fighter skills at level 3. With all the buffs and using Tenser's and whatnot, he'll still be a total beast.
Note: I never realized that High Mastery and Grand Mastery both confer + 2 to hit. Grand Mastery merely increases weapon speed according to the (original game's) manual.
Is the self-imposed spellcasting rules for the character the main problem that you foresee? (I.e., more than half the spells must be from the Alteration school; and of course he cannot cast Abjuration spells as a Transmuter.)
Or is it that he won't be strong enough as a Fighter 3? I mean, the base thac0 of 18 presents a bit of a challenge, I recognize. But with Tenser's he'll be equivalent to a Fighter at his Transmuter level. Granted, that spell lasts only for 1 round per Transmuter level, though. I can't recall if I can set that up in Sequencers or not...
With Improved Haste he'll have double the APR (even just at Transmuter 9 that'll put him at 6 APR)...
He will of course use the Wave Halberd +4 (eventually). I'm not sure what wearable items will reduce thac0 further... It's been quite a while since I played BG2.
Actually, both High Mastery and Grand Mastery confer +2 to hit. Grand Mastery simply increases the weapon speed (which it has never been clear to me whether that has a meaningful result in combat, i.e., does greater weapon speed actually result in beating the opponent to the punch?).
Anyone know if there a continued thac0 reduction in the Transmuter level progression, however gradual?