Fighter>Druid or Avenger Druid?

alastair93

Yet another of my no-reload characters died. My poor Cleric had just finished BG1EE and then got cocky with a group at the Den of the Seven Vales.

Sooo... I wanted to try out a Druid. I know that people say they're underpowered, but I'm learning to love the challenge of Divine magic classes. I'm coming round to thinking that being a mage just makes the game too easy.

I'm not overly keen on fighting play-styles in my main character, but I can see how a Fighter>Druid (dualled around level 9?) would synergise with the Druidic spells (e.g. Iron Skins). And there would be no loss of Druid spell slots with this build (is that correct? They stop getting spell slots at level 25 right?). The downside would be the regaining of lost Fighter levels once dualled, which could only happen in SoA. This could be painful. Also, it would be nice to play a Druid from the get-go.

The alternative is the Avenger Druid, which has some nice extra spells and shapeshifts. Another advantage is that I can also play as a Druid from the very start. I also like the idea of being very caster-orientated (even if inferior in terms of power to the mage). The downside is that he won't be able to hit anything very hard when his spells run out, or when enemies start saving against everything and he has to rely on melee combat.

Anyone got any ideas to help me choose?

semiticgoddess

@alastair93: The caster-oriented option would definitely be the Avenger considering its smattering of Mage spells. I've done a solo run of BG2 with an Avenger and confirm they are both viable and also fairly squishy if their spells are spread too thin. They're basically slow-leveling cleric/mages that can use Belm... or quick-leveling cleric/mages in BG1, without Mirror Image.

I would recommend the Avenger if you're going to take it through BG1, since otherwise you'd be spending all of BG1 as a normal fighter, if you were to pick a Fighter/Druid dual. But, if you plan on dualing at an earlier level, then a Fighter/Druid could be a good alternative to the Avenger over the course of the saga.

By the way: you can control the bouncing of Lightning Bolts if you fire them directly north or south. No matter what the angle of the wall is, they will bounce right back. You can hit the same enemy multiple times with a single bolt if you do this in a corner. But make sure to step out of the way as soon as you cast it, unless you have Protection from Lightning active.

alastair93

semiticgod said:

@alastair93: The caster-oriented option would definitely be the Avenger considering its smattering of Mage spells. I've done a solo run of BG2 with an Avenger and confirm they are both viable and also fairly squishy if their spells are spread too thin. They're basically slow-leveling cleric/mages that can use Belm... or quick-leveling cleric/mages in BG1, without Mirror Image.

I would recommend the Avenger if you're going to take it through BG1, since otherwise you'd be spending all of BG1 as a normal fighter, if you were to pick a Fighter/Druid dual. But, if you plan on dualing at an earlier level, then a Fighter/Druid could be a good alternative to the Avenger over the course of the saga.

By the way: you can control the bouncing of Lightning Bolts if you fire them directly north or south. No matter what the angle of the wall is, they will bounce right back. You can hit the same enemy multiple times with a single bolt if you do this in a corner. But make sure to step out of the way as soon as you cast it, unless you have Protection from Lightning active.

Thanks for the advice! I think I was leaning towards the Avenger, but just wanted someone to say it back to me.

One of the biggest things to 'get over' in choosing a Druid or Cleric (for me) was facing the fact that despite the protaganist being a child of a deity, he was still weaker than any mage. I found this a little incongruous from a roleplaying perspective.

How did your solo Avenger deal with mage battles, and enemies with high magic resistance/saves? Were they pretty difficult?

DreadKhan

The ability to use Belm is pretty handy I agree, even on a non-fighter Druid, as mook killing will not require spells, and Druids aren't naturally very good at bypassing them in BG2, though Avengers can use Improved Invisibility, meaning if you have enough speed, you can avoid some unnecesary and draining fights.

Vs enemies immune to your spell damage, Druids get some solid summons to work with. Iirc, you won't bump into many powerful enemies with very high MR until well into the main plot, and by then hopefully you have hit Epic Levels if soloing. Energy Blades can certainly help, as can the Elemental Princes. Not much in SoA can go toe to toe with a Prince, especially if you pelt with energyblades. You get 2 apr btw with throwing daggers, so the Boomerang dagger can be useful vs MR foes too. Adding in strength, those 2 hits can deal serious damage, and 2 apr allows for easy kiting. A Fighter Druid GM in daggers will hit very hard with a throwing dagger, but melee daggers are not as good after BG1, though Dagger of Stars with belm offhand would be viable I expect. You likely will use spells vs bosses though.

Fighter/Druids would likely be able to just hack down most MR foes though, making them pretty straightforward. A multiclass btw ends up pretty impressive at high levels, Elemental Form and Fighter HLAs is pretty strong. Berserk is really strong too, and combining solid AC with stun immunity can dice through Mind Flayers pretty fast, but I would be very cautious, as a couple crits would still end your run.

semiticgoddess

@alastair93: I don't remember what all I did to deal with mages, but Insect Plague can neutralize most all of them. Energy Blades do work well, but they're not necessary for SoA, as I finished that using the SoA XP cap at level 14. Note that Gnasher and Belm, or Blackblood, are excellent at interrupting spells, as are Fire Elementals. Nature's Beauty and Earthquake are also marvelous disablers.

Another thing: the only reason I was able to beat the final battle at level 14 was because AC modifiers specific to damage types can bypass the AC. Drink two Potions of Absorption, or three if your base AC is poor, and everything in the Hell battle will have to roll a 20 to hit you. But otherwise Armor of Faith spells will work, considering how high your levels will be.

Wowo

What about dualing from Avenger to fighter after gaining your priest HLAs?

Druid starts getting HLAs at level 15 so you can even go to say level 18 Druid and then cap at level 26 fighter with 4 priest HLAs and 8 warrior HLAs.

The trick is deciding on which Druid HLAs you can live without:
- Energy Blades
- Elemental Prince (takes 2 slots)
- Deva
- Elemental Transformation (one? Both?)
- Aura of Flaming Death
- Globe of Blades

I'm curious to know how many HLAs are desirable and which ones are best.

DreadKhan

I've tossed that idea around in my head, mainly for the synergy of Elemental Form with fighter HLAs. Of course, a multi can largely do the same thing, and this would avoid the utterly attocious dual to Fighter. Dualing to Fighter is incredibly tedious in my experience, unkitted fighters just hit things, and a 10th lvl kitless fighter is really weak in SoA, and much moreso when you consider weapons will be Druid Only. So, Belm, Clubs, Boomerang Dagger?? You will need to use a girdle of strength too, as even with the tome, your still only 17 str. You are solo though, nobody else needs it!

Dualing to mage or rogue at even high levels is pretty achievable/bareable, as both csn gain non-combst XP, and mages by level 9 are in pretty good shape. With planning and prep, they can handle most threats safely. Thieves get traps and stealth, both enabling them to get by despite weak clmbat abilities. Fighters just hit things clumsily at low levels, and you'd be weapon restricted.

lroumen

Avenger (or any druid) dualed to fighter can use really nice weapons. Clubs and scimitars are well represented aand you can get them nicely to grandmastery. I never dualed later than level 12 when they get level 6 spells. Then again I never went solo with such a character. Not sure if I would miss the HLAs (or extra resistances). I never missed the level 7 spells much either.

DreadKhan

Druids have great high level goodies. Clerics are eminently forgetable at higher levels.

Seriously, a ring to boost str?? WTH, man. Buffing strength is pretty easy for clerics, so that ring is really rubbing salt.

Wowo

DreadKhan said:

I've tossed that idea around in my head, mainly for the synergy of Elemental Form with fighter HLAs. Of course, a multi can largely do the same thing, and this would avoid the utterly attocious dual to Fighter. Dualing to Fighter is incredibly tedious in my experience, unkitted fighters just hit things, and a 10th lvl kitless fighter is really weak in SoA, and much moreso when you consider weapons will be Druid Only. So, Belm, Clubs, Boomerang Dagger?? You will need to use a girdle of strength too, as even with the tome, your still only 17 str. You are solo though, nobody else needs it!

Dualing to mage or rogue at even high levels is pretty achievable/bareable, as both csn gain non-combst XP, and mages by level 9 are in pretty good shape. With planning and prep, they can handle most threats safely. Thieves get traps and stealth, both enabling them to get by despite weak clmbat abilities. Fighters just hit things clumsily at low levels, and you'd be weapon restricted.

Use the time as a powerful high level Druid to gather all the items needed to be a solo fighter including the Deck of Many Things (for your first million xp) and immunity and summon items.

Even a level 1 fighter is pretty badass with Red Dragon Plate and dual wielding Spectral Brand and Belm.

With the machine of lum the mad you'll have 18 strength. If you choose the evil option in hell it'll push strength to 20, before that you can have 2xDUHM.

Weapon proficiences are tricky. What's best I wonder? Ixils Spike? Club of Detonation? Spectral Brand? Staff of the Ram? Dagger of the Star?

With some careful choices you can GM 2 weapons, 3 pips in a third and 1 pip in basically all others. Certainly one path is dual wielding, another the spear and staff or maybe a mix of the two (staff+scimitar?). Not really sure what is best.

DreadKhan

The problem with the lvl 1 fighter will usually be hitting things, but yeah, if you use the Deck, and don't mind reloading, that could work. 1m is enough to actually hit things reliably, but I'd rather stick to kiting with throwing daggers until you can get back your Druid powers. That will be a truly rough slog though I still think, for one, how do you get Negative Plane Protection? Can't use the mace, or Amulet of Power. Killing Bodhi will be seriously unpleasant, but at least she's Undead, right? Prot from Undead might be pretty important. Ravager? I think that might be immune to level drain maybe.

My biggest concern with the equipment is in part the order of quests... many will be extremely difficult for a pure fighter many levels behind the curve, and you have to do lots of quests as a Druid to reach the point you can dual. Getting needed gear pooled before the dual is obviously required though. So you'd need to decide what you will be using in advance, and how to go about getting it as a Druid, and hopefully, leave some quests 'almost done', to get the first few Fighter levels. Boots of Speed seem REALLY useful here.

Hell trial adds 2, but thats really late obviously. Using DUHM only works until you go to Spellhold, though you get Ravager instead, so you might actually need to be using that for some fights. Which would definately be a big change, as most people avoid that ability in favour of, well, anything else at all, ever.

For weapons, I suppose it depends on many things, but you might get some good mileage out of staffs, though pure fighter using staves isn't exactly ideal in many circumstances. You'd need the Staff of the Ram to be effective, the +4 one will be too low damage output wise in most circumstances. After you get your levels back, you can use the Druid staff from Suldaneselar, which would let you use whatever armour you want, a big advantage if you go evil, and use the Human Leather to pretty much guarantee saves.

This brings me to a much stranger run idea, Shapeshifter to Fighter. Can you wear any armour, even after dualing? Yikes. GWW with fighter THAC0 and HLAs might actually be effective though, as you should be impressively durable already. Neither here nor there though, we're talking Avengers.

Reticent

Don't forget the spell Pixie Dust. In a party it is quite inefficient as a mage can do similar with a lower level spell slot, but as a solo druid having easy access to long duration invisibility is pretty handy.

Wowo

DreadKhan said:

The problem with the lvl 1 fighter will usually be hitting things, but yeah, if you use the Deck, and don't mind reloading, that could work. 1m is enough to actually hit things reliably, but I'd rather stick to kiting with throwing daggers until you can get back your Druid powers. That will be a truly rough slog though I still think, for one, how do you get Negative Plane Protection? Can't use the mace, or Amulet of Power. Killing Bodhi will be seriously unpleasant, but at least she's Undead, right? Prot from Undead might be pretty important. Ravager? I think that might be immune to level drain maybe.

My biggest concern with the equipment is in part the order of quests... many will be extremely difficult for a pure fighter many levels behind the curve, and you have to do lots of quests as a Druid to reach the point you can dual. Getting needed gear pooled before the dual is obviously required though. So you'd need to decide what you will be using in advance, and how to go about getting it as a Druid, and hopefully, leave some quests 'almost done', to get the first few Fighter levels. Boots of Speed seem REALLY useful here.

Hell trial adds 2, but thats really late obviously. Using DUHM only works until you go to Spellhold, though you get Ravager instead, so you might actually need to be using that for some fights. Which would definately be a big change, as most people avoid that ability in favour of, well, anything else at all, ever.

For weapons, I suppose it depends on many things, but you might get some good mileage out of staffs, though pure fighter using staves isn't exactly ideal in many circumstances. You'd need the Staff of the Ram to be effective, the +4 one will be too low damage output wise in most circumstances. After you get your levels back, you can use the Druid staff from Suldaneselar, which would let you use whatever armour you want, a big advantage if you go evil, and use the Human Leather to pretty much guarantee saves.

This brings me to a much stranger run idea, Shapeshifter to Fighter. Can you wear any armour, even after dualing? Yikes. GWW with fighter THAC0 and HLAs might actually be effective though, as you should be impressively durable already. Neither here nor there though, we're talking Avengers.

Yep human leather was my plan. Quest order is indeed the trick. I've managed to get the deck of many things but the actual demon fights are too tricky to complete to continue watchers tower so I'm really umming and ahhing about what quests to do next.

I'm considering doing spellhold now and leaving most other quests until I return. How much xp is in spellhold roughly?

I'm kind of leaning towards scimitar and club for weapons. Blackblood breaks through stoneskin nicely and spectral brand is a decent weapon.

DreadKhan

Gnasher is an unusual damage type iirc, so its very useful vs casters too. Spellhold and Underdark is a ton of xp potentially, gotta be 1m total, even with only 1 party member.

Spectral Brand is better than it gets credit for being I agree. I've never iced anyone with it, can you accidently freeze gear if the cold damage kills them? That and Belm would give a lowish level warrior some firepower.