Jaheira - Druid LV 15

Vitor

Ok, 3.000.000 Experience Points to reach Lv. 15 in Druid.

Will she ever reach LV 15 until the end of Throne of Bhaal?

ScotGaymer

Uh she should.

I recall reaching the 20s in ToB. I think.

DreadKhan

Cap is around 8m, so it is SLOW... but can be pretty strong to use elemental forms with a FD. Sws stacks iirc.

Assume it'll be late though, unless you grind xp.

elminster

She will probably get to that point late in ToB.

TheArtisan

The nice part is that she can still get Druid HLAs through her fighter levels, though she won't have many spell slots to use the spells.

DreadKhan

Well, you're probably going to want to spam GWW while in Earth Elemental form more. Sws!

Mathsorcerer

You aren't still using that ridiculous level progression chart for druids, are you? I updated xplevel.2da so that druids level at the same rate as clerics. There is no reason it should take 450k xp to go from 12th to 13th, 750k xp to get to 14th, then 1.5M xp to hit 15th.
I know why the druid level-ups are like that, of course. In the old days once your druid hit a certain level your character was supposed to found a new circle and you earned your experience doing that. Eventually, you could level up and be in control of a handful of circles and your title became "Great Druid" or something like that. After that, you had to challenge a Grand Druid to become a Grand Druid yourself because there were only so many in the world. Finally, as a Grand Druid you had to challenge the existing Archdruid to become the one and only Archdruid in the entire world.
This sort of limited advanced level scenario is fine for druids since their challenges often did not result in death. It gets worse for the original assassin class--if you want to be a guildmaster (level 10, I think) then you had to assassinate your current guildmaster (who, incidentally, earned his position by assassinating his former guildmaster).

lunar

Do all the levels of the Watcher's Keep, delete/rescribe some high level scrolls with your party mage, kill tough enemies for maximum xp.

rorikon

I never understood why they didn't just change the druid levels in the EEs. The reason it was so wonky in the first place was because Bioware couldn't be bothered to do higher level abilities for druids in SoA (due to some weird pnp restrictions I never fully understood or cared about), so they made it impossible to reach level 15 within the original cap. Presumably when they (kinda) added those abilities in ToB they couldn't change the progression charts without messing up existing characters from SoA. That obviously isn't a problem for BG2:EE, so there's really no need to keep that screwed up progression anymore.

Seriously, does anyone actually LIKE having to earn 1.5 million xp for a single level up?

lunar

rorikon said:

I never understood why they didn't just change the druid levels in the EEs. The reason it was so wonky in the first place was because Bioware couldn't be bothered to do higher level abilities for druids in SoA (due to some weird pnp restrictions I never fully understood or cared about), so they made it impossible to reach level 15 within the original cap. Presumably when they (kinda) added those abilities in ToB they couldn't change the progression charts without messing up existing characters from SoA. That obviously isn't a problem for BG2:EE, so there's really no need to keep that screwed up progression anymore.

Seriously, does anyone actually LIKE having to earn 1.5 million xp for a single level up?

Ah, but that single level up rewards the druid greatly, it opens up so many high lvl spell slots all at once. It is quirky but reminiscent of pnp and makes druids different and unique when compared to clerics who have a steady but boring rise in the priest hierarchy. Hgh lvl druid progression is more like a 'survival of the fittest' concept to me.

elminster

Mathsorcerer said:

You aren't still using that ridiculous level progression chart for druids, are you? I updated xplevel.2da so that druids level at the same rate as clerics.

I didn't do quite this but I instead basically just took its table from level 13 onwards and made it so that it levels up every 400,000xp or so. I think I also adjusted the spellcasting progression tables themselves to a degree, but still kept it so that you get more spells earlier as a druid than you would as a cleric. But yea I've definitely moved away from using the regular druid tables because in the confines of BG2 adventure they are a bit silly. If the druid grove itself gave more quests that gave only you, Cernd, or Jaheira specific amounts of experience then it could be more justified, but it doesn't. PnP is already kind of thrown out the window anyways since none of the kits remotely resemble what they do in PnP (the avenger is only supposed to get a free weapon proficiency slot not mage spells, the shapeshifter gets a wide variety of shapeshifts, and totemic druid doesn't have anything to do with stopping you from shapeshifting).

JuliusBorisov

It's a price Jaheira has to pay for being one of the best NPC tanks in the game. Yes, in my games she tends to reach it only in ToB (or from exploring Watcher's Keep) but still her druid spells at the level 14 provide a solid cover.

Vitor

Yeah... I decided that I will not change Druid progression in my game. It's just that for Druids Lv. 15 is so much awesome, and I'd like to know if she would ever reach it.

I thought that I would end ToB in Level 28 or 29, but it seems it will be closer to Lv. 40, isn't it?

JuliusBorisov

Vitor said:

I thought that I would end ToB in Level 28 or 29, but it seems it will be closer to Lv. 40, isn't it?

It all depends on how you play. If you try to complete everything and kill every enemy you can, the level of your party members would be higher. Also, the size of your party also matters - if you have less than 6 people, the level would be higher again.

And about exact levels... If you follow http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur's_Gate:_Progression_Charts , you can see that the 40th level (with the XP cap) is not available for all classes, so maybe it's more appropriate to talk about XP figures and not levels.

With the normal play, you should reach at least 6 mln XP even with a 6-men party near the very end. Whether you reach more, depends, I think, on how you play.

TheArtisan

I always aim for as much completed as possible and also have several mod quests which give extra experience, and in my latest game at the end of ToB before the final battle my exp were these:

PC: 7894703
Minsc: 7380429
Imoen: 7361753
Jaheira: 7709836
Fade: 7716903
Sarevok: 5837639

So yeah, apparently even with everything completed and then some, reaching the ToB exp cap of 8000000 with a full party seems impossible without unrealistic amounts of grinding where experience can be farmed. Reaching the cap with a party of 4 or less is significantly easier.