Mage before fighter.

Lateralus

Usually, when deciding on a dual-class build it is more beneficial to start with the class that has higher HP. Also, if you're going to use that character in BG2, spell casting should become your main focus of expertise because it scales way better than hacking and slashing.

But, if you want to be a fighter for the long haul, here's a nice way to provide some spice to your build!

Start as a specialist mage, I prefer being an illusionist but there are a few other good options besides that. Advance to level 3, then quickly dual over to fighter!

Here are the pros:

3 first level spells a day (6 with RoW)
2 second level spells a day (3 with amulet)
Get a mage weapon proficiency for free, I like daggers!
Good starting saves, a couple of which the fighter class can not top until they reach the sequel!
Wand and scroll use
Familiar, +12 hp.
No fighter kit restrictions (berserker fatigue, limited equipment, etc.)

Cons:

27 less hp (but only 15 less if you use a familiar!)
No fighter kit perks (rage, ki, etc.)


Some first and second level spells are very useful throughout both games, like: identify, friends, invisibility, knock, prot. petrification, and mirror image. You can take your armor off and get buffed before a tough encounter, or 2 or 3 knock spells a day pretty much covers everything you wont be able to bash open with your 19+ str later in the game. A ring of wizardry only makes things better, you can get as many as 6/1st and 3/2nd with the ring and amulet!

Give all the parties extra arcane scrolls to this character, and they wont go to waste!

Wands can make BG1 too easy, especially if you like to sail the sea of cheese. As much as I love berserking, I would trade that and 27 hp for wand use alone.

You're still going to get your 6 weapon pips and get to master weapons in BG2. I'd look like this:

Two-handed sword ****
Two-handed fighting style **
Dagger *

The free dagger proficiency covers your missile weapon, and can satisfy your itch to assassinate with invisibility + dagger of venom. Get those mages tweaking and then break out the two-handed sword. Let's see them mirror image their way out of that...

Bottom line, this is a mostly GOOD DEAL and a FUN build. Hardly revolutionary, but still thread worthy IMHO. Enjoy it!

Blackraven

@Lateralus, well put. I've contemplated the idea of dualling a Mage into Fighter myself, though I've never done it. (I was going to roleplay a mage Charname who was to be very impressed with Sarevok, and much less so with Gorion after the confrontation between those two. He would dual to Fighter soon after that decisive moment.)

Blur is btw another nice spell to use.

Lateralus

Blackraven said:

@Lateralus, well put. I've contemplated the idea of dualling a Mage into Fighter myself, though I've never done it. (I was going to roleplay a mage Charname who was to be very impressed with Sarevok, and much less so with Gorion after the confrontation between those two. He would dual to Fighter soon after that decisive moment.)

Blur is btw another nice spell to use.

Nice RPing hook!

Gallowglass

Ah yes, @Lateralus, I rolled up one of these a few weeks ago, although I haven't yet taken her out for a run.

I had pretty much the same idea as you, except that in my case I've rolled her as a Conjurer (rather than Illusionist) for those first 3 levels before she'll dual to Fighter, and I'm thinking more of a dual-wielding build than a two-handing build.

As you say, it looks like an interesting way to make a Fighter who can self-buff (Blur, Mirror Image, etc.) at the cost of some XP. I reckon it ought to be a fairly interesting trade-off to play.

dunbar

@Lateralus, thanks for that it's given me food for thought.

Gotural

If the character is charname it can get even better !

For this example, I'll assume Charname has 19 Con thanks to the Tome

Two levels of Fighter give you 30 HP while two levels of Mage give you 12 HP at max. Throw in 6 HP in bg1 with the familiar, 12 more HP in bg2 with another familiar and a mage 2 dualled into Fighter is effectively an improved vanilla Fighter ! You can even get some more HP with the ToB familiar later on.

I really like this idea overall, and I'm definitely using it for a latter playthrough.

karnor00

Another downside is no exceptional strength. You'd need to wait until post-candlekeep for the +1 strength book, or use gauntlets of ogre power.

moody_mage

Surely the duration on those spells will be so short as to be useless?

Gallowglass

decado said:

Surely the duration on those spells will be so short as to be useless?

The duration will be 9 rounds for Mirror Image and 10 rounds for Blur, which is more than enough for most fights. Even in boss fights which can sometimes take longer, 9/10 rounds is still a significant portion of the fight, so I reckon the extra protection will be quite useful.

Whether the extra protection is worth the sacrifice of some HP ... well, I'm not certain, I haven't yet taken this character out for a run and tested her. My suspicion, however, is that the self-buffing ability will often save more HP than it costs. In due course, I'll try it and see.

Lateralus

@karnor00 , yes that is probably the going to be the case, I doubt the game is going to roll a % STR for me when I hit level 4 as a fighter. But, here's the funny thing, you can cast the strength spell 2 or 3 times a day to self buff before a fight! I think that gives you 18/50, which is a little bit better. Also, as a member of the fighter class all potions of strength can be used during tough fights. That should be enough help to bridge the gap, granted it does take some managing.

@decado , they are not useless. Blur lasts for 10 rounds. Strength is 30 minutes. Mirror Image is 6 rounds. So if you used all 3 before a fight you would have enough time to make a dent before your defenses dropped and you have to rely on your awesome armor class rating. ;P A lot of good spells have a set duration and don't rely on the caster level at all. Web or Stinking Cloud run for 1 turn whether you're level 3 or level 30. Protection from Petrification lasts for an hour. Friends is 6 rounds. Luck is 3 rounds, invisibility is 24 hours, etc..

Considering this build from a strictly game beating perspective, you have to ask yourself if this build is more useful than the fighter kits. For me it comes down to wand use. An 18th level kensai is way more deadly than a vanilla fighter, but for all his martial prowess he still can't wear armor or paralyze a more powerful foe with a flick of a wand. Berserkers Rage is in my humble opinion the best kit ability of any class in the game, from start to finish. But they still can't soften up a demon with a nice 8d6 frost attack from long range, or summon a horde of gnolls to tank it for several rounds before moving in. With the aid of wands, the vanilla fighter would beat the kensai or berserker every time.

DreadKhan

For solo, 3rd, for invisibility and knock. Familiar, wands and scrolls will be great the whole game, and make SCS mages in BG2 more manageable, until you run out of scrolls. But anti-spell wands will arrive by then, making tjings more doable.

In a party, I suspect dualing at 2nd might be good enough, unless you skimped on thieves (ie leave imoen a thief to max disarm traps, then dual without replacing her). Loss of kit sucks, but wands, scrolls, Staff of the Magi (is the best artifact in the game still buggy?) Etc are all powerful boosts.

Lateralus

A little off topic but I must say I am very pleased with Illusionists, generally speaking. First of all, their default colors are a very deep blue and a light blue, the best I've seen! I rolled a 95 point character in under 50 rolls, that has to be rare! After I read all of the magical tomes in the game I will have:

19str
19dex
19con
16int
12wis
18chr

I went the cheesy basilisk route to level up fast and I liked the way my paper doll shaved his mage beard off after hitting level 4, and ripped the sleeves and lower portion of his robes off. Basically, going hulk. Once you hit level 6 as a fighter the ill effects of having low HP are a none issue, becasue 60 HP at level 6 (18con) isn't super, but it certainly isn't terrible either. So far I like it, the versitiliy keeps it interesting and it feels like I'm playing an Eldritch Knight, hacking away with weapons and slinging spells.

Lateralus

Not to toot my own horn but I has to say this has been the most fun I have had playing BG1. This character Emanon (noname spelled backwards) is SO cool. The only hinderance are traps, so I have to bring a rogue sometimes. Scroll drops, well they bring on a whole new meaning. In many ways this build is more powerful than a high level mage because you can't get interrupted while reading scrolls. So my spells never fail to cast. The role play perspective is tremendous. Chaotic neutral, so I have my cat--Mr. Bigglesworth--steal with his 15% PP and fail, and then I kill the would be theft victim in defense of my beloved familiar. My targets are very select, the cat smells treasure. Algeron, the bounty collector in Nashkel, etc.. This keeps my rep balanced so I can mix up my Bhaalspawn powers and stay in character. I also love the notion that Emonen tried REALLY hard to be wise like Gorion. Even with a 15 INT he gave being a mage his all. But, like the alignment states, gave it all away to do something radically liberating, and did the polar opposite of his repressed upbringing. Became a fighter. Still, those mage roots have saved his bacon more than that +1 Katana in one hand and Dagger of Venom in the other have.

DreadKhan

Fun is what its all about! What level did you dual, 3? 4? Did you take a specialty?

Lateralus

3rd level illusionist.

FinneousPJ

Does taking a specialist mage limit scroll use? If so, I don't see the point (except RP of course). Only two extra spells (1st & 2nd level) isn't worth losing a whole school over.

DreadKhan

Well, its 2 extra first with Evermemory, and really, all he's really losing is Minor Drain to interrupt spells in BG1.

lunar

If only wild mages were dualable, you could dual a wild mage into fighter. The thing is, you can continue scribing high level scrolls to your book and try casting them via NRD all the time. This character will never quite get how high level spells work, will never be able to cast them himself, but he can keep trying via NRD. Ofcourse, since his caster level is so little, most wild surges will blow up on his face (or the partys, or the innocent passerbys) but it is part of the fun. And when he can succesfully cast a high lvl spell via NRD (there are plenty wild surges that cast the spell:spell cast twice, no save, duration halved, +4 to save, spell cast with weird noise, wrong target, caster targeted, etc.) he should feel proud of himself.

DreadKhan

I think if I was doing this, I'd aim to get Necromancy, to use Minor Drain as an interrupt. Its very fast, and the bit of healing syphoned from an enemy mage is just gravy. I do wonder about whats the best prof choices for this builf though. You get 1 pip from mage, and will get lots as a fighter. Daggers are a good choice, since you can use them ranged or melee, but distributing your initial fighter profs is curious.

Lateralus

DreadKhan said:

I think if I was doing this, I'd aim to get Necromancy, to use Minor Drain as an interrupt. Its very fast, and the bit of healing syphoned from an enemy mage is just gravy. I do wonder about whats the best prof choices for this builf though. You get 1 pip from mage, and will get lots as a fighter. Daggers are a good choice, since you can use them ranged or melee, but distributing your initial fighter profs is curious.

My school is illusion, but I go all evil with Bhaalspawn powers so I still get plenty of necromancy spells. I went with the following PIPs:

Katana ***
Two-Weapon Fighting ***
Dagger *

The dagger of venom is a very useful tool, just sucks when they keep saving!

Tehe Celestial Blade is my favorite weapon in the game, and I'll keep backing that up with some of those crazy daggers in BG2.

Scroll hunting is great fun for this build, especially when you do a solo run. Working with what's at your disposal as opposed to what you are prepared to use, brings about a fresh dynamic.

DreadKhan

Yeah, I suppose you'll be buying up tons of scrolls, and using the drops!

Lateralus

I do miss my berserker rage, can't really duplicate that until you get the greenstone amulet. But I mean, even just 2 levels of mage is like getting the Use Any Item/Epic skill at the beginning of the game.

DreadKhan

If you feel adventerous, you could keeper in Berserker Rage. Ideally nothing like Berserker progression, just a couple uses to make your character unique. RP wise, it makes sense as a reason he couldnt progress as a mage.

Lateralus

Naahhh

Fardragon

Why not start out as a wild mage, and fill those level one spell slots with NRD, to make it worth while learning high level spells?

Lateralus

Fardragon said:

Why not start out as a wild mage, and fill those level one spell slots with NRD, to make it worth while learning high level spells?

They got ADD and cant learn more things

jobby

Can you cast wands/scrolls with armour on? If so that sounds like a deadly build

DreadKhan

Meh, your choice. NPCs get little boosts for just this reason.

You can't add new spells to your book?? Thats bug territory methinks.

Lateralus

jobby said:

Can you cast wands/scrolls with armour on? If so that sounds like a deadly build

With the right resources, you can do a very deadly impersonation of a high level mage. Casting high level scrolls and using powerful wands while wearing the best armor, helmets, and shields the game has to offer whilst being impervious to casting interrupts. Fun. It makes you think about when is the best time to use that Scroll of Stoneskin of Cloudkill scroll in BG1. You only get a couple of each.

the_spyder

I'll throw in my pitch for Necromantic spells as well. Laroch's drain adds an additional 1-4 HP. Ok, not a LOT but sometimes that is all it takes (+4 to you and -4 to them makes 8). Also, Ghoul Touch is actually quite useful at lower levels because you can get in and Tank the joik with the touch. Once they are paralyzed, hack away at them.

And if you go to fifth level, you can throw in Vamp touch (you also get it as an ability if your rep is low) into the mix. Just sayin. Death Knight ain't got nothin on ya.

Lateralus

@the_spyder‌ In Bg1 you could dual class over to fighter after gaining 3 levels of necromancer. With the RoW you could cast LMD 6 times and have 2 more uses via BS powers. Use the wand of paralyzation on your enemy, and for the next 8 rounds drain 32 hit points from them and add it to yourself!.

Better practice menacing laughter first, you're going to need it.