I dont get why he should be afraid of being a frontliner. Mages are by a huge margin the best tanks in the game: they have spells to get completely immune to damage. Wasting this tanking ability bt using range is not a good idea IMO furthermore longbows are really not so good in bg2 while longswords, while not the best, are decent Dual wielding daystar and namarra, he could get much better damage output than with a bow, unless i am mistaken.
Did you read the entire thread? He only has *** in longswords, and being vanilla, should dual at 7 or 9. By the time he is viable at DWing longswords vs enemies worth noting in BG2, he'll be in ToB. Meaning his THAC0 will likely be a problem.
Mages are better at being a mage if they are away from the front line. You could argue Imoen should wear a girdle of Strength and try meleeing rather than primarily using a shortbow, but most people would opt for the bow, with good reason. She can do more damage melee vs ranged probably, but she can do WAY better casting most of the time and using a bow were physical damage is preferred.
With *** in longswords, will probably do a bit more damage per hit (adding str bonus), but gets 1 less apr until he gets ** in DWing. Heck, he will do more damage period if he mostly uses Acid Arrows vs significant opponents, due to an extra attack. Strongarm does solid damage actually, and is available right away.
If his build was different, sure, he could 'use his mage as a tank', but Korgan with decent gear and his rage will probably be more useful at tanking, and you won't lose spells often in the back row. Berserker Rage is immunity to nearly every annoying effect, and Korgan will have better saves, as well as more HP possibly. If he goes good, he can take Keldorn instead.
Even though the mage IS the best tank in the game, it doesn't mean you have to play a mage as a tank. You're spending a lot of your spells on buffs and protections to be able to tank as a mage, some people running a party might want to use those spell slots for damage or utility instead and have a fighter like Korgan do the tanking.
Korgan might not be as efficient as a mage at tanking, but he's still very powerful, and you'll be able to deal more damage as a mage if you don't have to spend half of your spells on self buffing.
If he duals at 9, he will get 2*in dw at mage 12. not that long if you ask me.
to get better than korgan as a tank a mage just needs to cast stoneskin. i don't see how that means a lot of buffing
So what happens when you're facing 5 enemies? Without any AC buffs your skins will be gone in seconds. So now you'll need to throw in an armor spell of some type, blur and Improved Invisibility to improve your armor. What about magical weapons? Especially those that interrupt your casting with elemental damage? Now you'll need protection from magical weapons. What about other spells? Spells like breach, now you'll need a buff to cover your other buffs to prevent you from getting your spells removed. What if your spells get removed anyway? Then you'll need spell sequencers, triggers and contingencies to put them up again, oh and you'll have had to rest to even put spells into those.
And let's not forget about the elemental damage, you never fight a dragon? What about AoE spells like fireball or cloudkill? Here you'll need one of the many spells to protect you from that, having stoneskin isn't going to help you when firekraag blasts you to high heavens with one breath attack.
And let's not forget Mirror Image! And now when you can deal damage to people attacking you, why wouldn't you? So let's throw in a fireshield or even both!
If you get stripped from protections, or get taken down by something you're not protected against, you'll die in a second. Korgan with his Berserk up and his massive amount of HP will survive, and most of all you won't lose him out of nowhere, you'll see how much damage you take and will know when you need to pull him back or heal him.
Korgan with a cleric placing spells on him will be able to tank very, very well.
Chaotic Command Death Ward Protection from Fire Protection from Lightning Protection from Evil
Now throw in his own Berserker Rage and he'll be immune to pretty much everything in the entire game that could stop him. He'll only be taking some damage and have to worry about Mind Flayers, though with Chaotic Command he is immune to their stun and with a good AC he won't get hit by them enough to worry about intellect drain.
Or just use Teleport Field. It's sort of a trump card against enemy fighters.
And get put down by the enemy spell casters or ranged attackers, or one of those very fast golems that will be sure to put a fist in your face before he gets put away.
Teleport Field isn't meant to deal with enemy casters. I was thinking more along the lines of an alternative to PFMW. As for ranged attackers and golems... few ranged attackers in BG2 are very dangerous, and golems are one of the few consistently hasted enemies in the game.
For most enemies, Teleport Field will prevent about half of enemy attacks, or more if you run around a bit.
I really don t share your concerns: - Breach? Which mage casts breach in the vanilla game? - elemental weapon? Once again, how many enemies uses that against you? - dragons? Come on, there is 5 or 6 dragons in the game. And they are supposed to be among the hardest fights. I am quite sure you can spend 30 seconds buffing before hand. Getting immune to fire is also trivial, while tanking the physical attacks of firkraag without mage spells is much harder.
Also your comparison to korgan is biased : he is by far the best non-mage-tank in the game.
Finally dont forget he will play a fighter dual, with more than 100hp and 4apr. He is very far from helpless, even in the very unlikely case he gets stripped out of his protections (+ contigency+pfmw=unkillable in melee and really not resource consuming). Bottom line IMO, fighter 9/mage dual is a better tank than korgan (at least in vanilla) who himself is a much better tank than all other npc in the game
There are tons of monsters that can one way or another deal some kind of non-weapon damage, or have a side effect that bypasses Stoneskin.
Nobody has ever Breached you???? Are you sure about that?
Keldorn is extremely competitive with Korgan, due to high MR, and his poweful armour. Anomen is a pretty decent tank, might need to prepare a bit, but AoF, Regeneration and DoE = harder to kill than some Greater Werewolves. Haer Dallis has access to many great mage buffs, and Defensive Spin is sturdy. Cernd is actually a nice, strurdy tank in GWW form. My point being there are plenty of reliable options to frontline. At lvl 12 mage, he is rocking *** longswords and ** in TWF, right? That sounds good to you?? He needs GM, which is MANY levels away with TWF, yet he can have maxed bows at that level, and essentially be on easy street.
There are tons of monsters that can one way or another deal some kind of non-weapon damage, or have a side effect that bypasses Stoneskin.
Nobody has ever Breached you???? Are you sure about that?
Keldorn is extremely competitive with Korgan, due to high MR, and his poweful armour. Anomen is a pretty decent tank, might need to prepare a bit, but AoF, Regeneration and DoE = harder to kill than some Greater Werewolves. Haer Dallis has access to many great mage buffs, and Defensive Spin is sturdy. Cernd is actually a nice, strurdy tank in GWW form. My point being there are plenty of reliable options to frontline. At lvl 12 mage, he is rocking *** longswords and ** in TWF, right? That sounds good to you?? He needs GM, which is MANY levels away with TWF, yet he can have maxed bows at that level, and essentially be on easy street.
Until the mage reaches level 17-20 the blade is actually a more powerful tank than the mage, because of the higher level and the most important protection spells are level 2-6.
Finally dont forget he will play a fighter dual, with more than 100hp and 4apr. He is very far from helpless, even in the very unlikely case he gets stripped out of his protections (+ contigency+pfmw=unkillable in melee and really not resource consuming). Bottom line IMO, fighter 9/mage dual is a better tank than korgan (at least in vanilla) who himself is a much better tank than all other npc in the game
PFMW has a short duration and requires a decent spell slot. Real practical solution there! (Well, if you don't mind loopholes, we already discussed a reasonable way to keep recasting it indefinately) He can instead concentrate primarily on being a Mage with the ability to use a bow, rather than as a really combat-inept version of a Fighter/Mage Multi.
He won't be hitting reliably, even with a speed weapon. Low THAC0 and not enough pips. Even a lvl 13 Kensai dual has issues hitting the tough stuff. In vanilla even.
In ToB, some of the toughest enemies will have AC around -10. What would be this fighter's THAC0? Zero?
A level 13 Kensai should have about -5 THAC0 with a +3 weapon, 19 STR, and two proficiencies in the weapon. It might not have 95% hit chance all the time, but it should be able to hit quite reliably.
In ToB, some of the toughest enemies will have AC around -10. What would be this fighter's THAC0? Zero?
A level 13 Kensai should have about -5 THAC0 with a +3 weapon, 19 STR, and two proficiencies in the weapon. It might not have 95% hit chance all the time, but it should be able to hit quite reliably.
And all of those tough enemies can be killed by spells in one way or another. So when he faces an enemy where he can't fight efficiently with his weapon, he can fall back on his spells.
In ToB, some of the toughest enemies will have AC around -10. What would be this fighter's THAC0? Zero?
A level 13 Kensai should have about -5 THAC0 with a +3 weapon, 19 STR, and two proficiencies in the weapon. It might not have 95% hit chance all the time, but it should be able to hit quite reliably.
Compared to either a FM multi or pure warrior, the THAC0 will be so low that relative efficiency suffers. Using a dualed F to M as a glorified decoy is profoundly wasteful. You know as well as I that
average damage per hit * average number of hits = average damage per round
If your number of hits changes much (ie 60% hit chance vs 95%) you will see a a big drop off in damage. If you are hitting only 50% of the time vs 95%, thats about 47% less damage per round, if they are hitting equally hard. Its not efficient, and thismis ignoring the added power of HLAs like Critical Strike. Or the slightly more unusual WW combined with using the FotA +6 with SWS. And as noted, if you melee, you have a much higher likelihood of being interrupted during a cast. Ranged is a very good choice for dualed to mages.
@DreadKhan: I don't believe I was disagreeing with you. I just wanted to stress that a dual-classed F/M would be capable of hitting enemies in ToB, even if it couldn't match a single-classed fighter in terms of APR, THAC0, or damage output. My point was that the OP wouldn't need to worry about ending up with a gimped character in ToB.
Unless I am mistaken 3* gives the max thac0 bonus, which is what the original poster benefits most from if he duals early. He can add 2* to get some extra damage and an extra half attack but seeing he plays vanilla I highly doubt that is necessary. It comes more to the player whether he uses spells a lot (~each round) or weapons. If it is spells then grandmastery is just going to be cutesy and maybe it's better to take another specialization in a weapons with a different damage type (blunt I suggest) for when the slashing and missile damage fail.
Even 2* in a weapon is fine -> see paladin and ranger. No need to maximize everything.
@semiticgod sorry if I came across too harshly. I really was disapointed when I found how drasticly reduced my Kensai 13 Mage truly was in ToB (back when it first came out!), after steamrolling through SoA, and a vanilla fighter would be even worse. Hate to see a new player end up putting all his eggs in the DWing basket when archery will probably make a more serviceable character.
This thread did get me thinking a bit though. A dualed FM, unless dualed very late, really has more synergy with ranged combat, but because I would always kneejerk to Kensai or Berserker, it never really occured to me how decent a run based on that could be. This also would favour an earlier dual, IE vanilla figter at 7or 9, probably using a shortbow and likely a staff. Bows are amazing in BG1, so that will be a breeze, and SoA gives you Tuigan and Gesen Khan's bow. You would just play as a mage in ToB for any challenging fights, and make use of your shortbow to clear mooks.
Of course a Berserker or Kensai can throw, and get str bonus to damage, but apr for axe is a bit lower, and daggers cap at +3 for throwing. Then there is still slings, which deal crazy damage, but low apr is a problem.
I play mostly solo arcane caster and i am 99 percent sure that i have never been breached. I have been dispelled though (dragons) However this might be because in late soa and tob a solo sorc is so powerful that enemies often don't even have the chance to cast a single spell.
Regarding spell resources: - stoneskin/improve invis: nothing great on level 4 apart from these 2. - PFMW: Heavy competition here with improved haste but there is no need to memorize 4 PFMW. Just use it for emergencies (1 slot); or even better cast it through contigency (no spell slot used).
Anyway i think we all agree that he will end up playing as a mage, relying on melee/archery only for trash mobs. Therefore the choice is mainly cosmetic and certainly not a critical one.
I don't know if vanilla critters ever cast Breach (they really should), but SCS2 features Breach prominently. Though the danger I've faced when getting Breached has less to do with losing PFMW and more to do with losing 10 other buffs (Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, Blur, Stoneskin, etc.).
Comments
Wasting this tanking ability bt using range is not a good idea IMO
furthermore longbows are really not so good in bg2 while longswords, while not the best, are decent
Dual wielding daystar and namarra, he could get much better damage output than with a bow, unless i am mistaken.
Mages are better at being a mage if they are away from the front line. You could argue Imoen should wear a girdle of Strength and try meleeing rather than primarily using a shortbow, but most people would opt for the bow, with good reason. She can do more damage melee vs ranged probably, but she can do WAY better casting most of the time and using a bow were physical damage is preferred.
With *** in longswords, will probably do a bit more damage per hit (adding str bonus), but gets 1 less apr until he gets ** in DWing. Heck, he will do more damage period if he mostly uses Acid Arrows vs significant opponents, due to an extra attack. Strongarm does solid damage actually, and is available right away.
If his build was different, sure, he could 'use his mage as a tank', but Korgan with decent gear and his rage will probably be more useful at tanking, and you won't lose spells often in the back row. Berserker Rage is immunity to nearly every annoying effect, and Korgan will have better saves, as well as more HP possibly. If he goes good, he can take Keldorn instead.
Korgan might not be as efficient as a mage at tanking, but he's still very powerful, and you'll be able to deal more damage as a mage if you don't have to spend half of your spells on self buffing.
not that long if you ask me.
to get better than korgan as a tank a mage just needs to cast stoneskin. i don't see how that means a lot of buffing
And let's not forget about the elemental damage, you never fight a dragon? What about AoE spells like fireball or cloudkill? Here you'll need one of the many spells to protect you from that, having stoneskin isn't going to help you when firekraag blasts you to high heavens with one breath attack.
And let's not forget Mirror Image! And now when you can deal damage to people attacking you, why wouldn't you? So let's throw in a fireshield or even both!
If you get stripped from protections, or get taken down by something you're not protected against, you'll die in a second. Korgan with his Berserk up and his massive amount of HP will survive, and most of all you won't lose him out of nowhere, you'll see how much damage you take and will know when you need to pull him back or heal him.
Korgan with a cleric placing spells on him will be able to tank very, very well.
Chaotic Command
Death Ward
Protection from Fire
Protection from Lightning
Protection from Evil
Now throw in his own Berserker Rage and he'll be immune to pretty much everything in the entire game that could stop him. He'll only be taking some damage and have to worry about Mind Flayers, though with Chaotic Command he is immune to their stun and with a good AC he won't get hit by them enough to worry about intellect drain.
For most enemies, Teleport Field will prevent about half of enemy attacks, or more if you run around a bit.
- Breach? Which mage casts breach in the vanilla game?
- elemental weapon? Once again, how many enemies uses that against you?
- dragons? Come on, there is 5 or 6 dragons in the game. And they are supposed to be among the hardest fights. I am quite sure you can spend 30 seconds buffing before hand. Getting immune to fire is also trivial, while tanking the physical attacks of firkraag without mage spells is much harder.
Also your comparison to korgan is biased : he is by far the best non-mage-tank in the game.
Bottom line IMO, fighter 9/mage dual is a better tank than korgan (at least in vanilla) who himself is a much better tank than all other npc in the game
Nobody has ever Breached you???? Are you sure about that?
Keldorn is extremely competitive with Korgan, due to high MR, and his poweful armour. Anomen is a pretty decent tank, might need to prepare a bit, but AoF, Regeneration and DoE = harder to kill than some Greater Werewolves. Haer Dallis has access to many great mage buffs, and Defensive Spin is sturdy. Cernd is actually a nice, strurdy tank in GWW form. My point being there are plenty of reliable options to frontline. At lvl 12 mage, he is rocking *** longswords and ** in TWF, right? That sounds good to you?? He needs GM, which is MANY levels away with TWF, yet he can have maxed bows at that level, and essentially be on easy street.
He won't be hitting reliably, even with a speed weapon. Low THAC0 and not enough pips. Even a lvl 13 Kensai dual has issues hitting the tough stuff. In vanilla even.
A level 13 Kensai should have about -5 THAC0 with a +3 weapon, 19 STR, and two proficiencies in the weapon. It might not have 95% hit chance all the time, but it should be able to hit quite reliably.
average damage per hit * average number of hits = average damage per round
If your number of hits changes much (ie 60% hit chance vs 95%) you will see a a big drop off in damage. If you are hitting only 50% of the time vs 95%, thats about 47% less damage per round, if they are hitting equally hard. Its not efficient, and thismis ignoring the added power of HLAs like Critical Strike. Or the slightly more unusual WW combined with using the FotA +6 with SWS. And as noted, if you melee, you have a much higher likelihood of being interrupted during a cast. Ranged is a very good choice for dualed to mages.
It comes more to the player whether he uses spells a lot (~each round) or weapons. If it is spells then grandmastery is just going to be cutesy and maybe it's better to take another specialization in a weapons with a different damage type (blunt I suggest) for when the slashing and missile damage fail.
Even 2* in a weapon is fine -> see paladin and ranger. No need to maximize everything.
This thread did get me thinking a bit though. A dualed FM, unless dualed very late, really has more synergy with ranged combat, but because I would always kneejerk to Kensai or Berserker, it never really occured to me how decent a run based on that could be. This also would favour an earlier dual, IE vanilla figter at 7or 9, probably using a shortbow and likely a staff. Bows are amazing in BG1, so that will be a breeze, and SoA gives you Tuigan and Gesen Khan's bow. You would just play as a mage in ToB for any challenging fights, and make use of your shortbow to clear mooks.
Of course a Berserker or Kensai can throw, and get str bonus to damage, but apr for axe is a bit lower, and daggers cap at +3 for throwing. Then there is still slings, which deal crazy damage, but low apr is a problem.
However this might be because in late soa and tob a solo sorc is so powerful that enemies often don't even have the chance to cast a single spell.
Regarding spell resources:
- stoneskin/improve invis: nothing great on level 4 apart from these 2.
- PFMW: Heavy competition here with improved haste but there is no need to memorize 4 PFMW. Just use it for emergencies (1 slot); or even better cast it through contigency (no spell slot used).
Anyway i think we all agree that he will end up playing as a mage, relying on melee/archery only for trash mobs. Therefore the choice is mainly cosmetic and certainly not a critical one.