Question about level 9 fighter dual-classes
MasterChef
Member Posts: 43
Hi all,
I'm planning on a new run through the trilogy and am thinking of installing SCS for the first time. I've beat the normal game with an Inquisitor and Ranger / Cleric and am thinking about using an arcane main character.
I am currently internally debating between a sorcerer and a fighter / mage dual (leaning berserker). I also plan on using a full team. I find the fighter mage appealing because I tend to micromanage the PC and think the idea of mixing melee and high-level spellcasting will keep me interested throughout the game. However, I am concerned that an early dual will leave my character underpowered in the melee department by the time I hit TOB.
Will a level 9 fighter dual effectively be a single-class mage at that point? Would relying on Tenser's Transformation / Spectral Brand be enough to make up for weak thac0? Thanks for the help!
I'm planning on a new run through the trilogy and am thinking of installing SCS for the first time. I've beat the normal game with an Inquisitor and Ranger / Cleric and am thinking about using an arcane main character.
I am currently internally debating between a sorcerer and a fighter / mage dual (leaning berserker). I also plan on using a full team. I find the fighter mage appealing because I tend to micromanage the PC and think the idea of mixing melee and high-level spellcasting will keep me interested throughout the game. However, I am concerned that an early dual will leave my character underpowered in the melee department by the time I hit TOB.
Will a level 9 fighter dual effectively be a single-class mage at that point? Would relying on Tenser's Transformation / Spectral Brand be enough to make up for weak thac0? Thanks for the help!
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Comments
Your character might be "underpowered in the melee department" in ToB, but it will still be a powerful asset. More to the point, your THAC0 is not going to be that bad. You won't need Spectral Brand or Tenser's Transformation to operate as a fighter. In fact, you're probably better off using other weapons and other spells, and having your Fighter/Mage play as a mage with fighter levels, rather than a fighter with mage levels.
Go for it! A level 9 dual will be excellent throughout the saga.
She also has the legendary 5 APR, which is interesting considering that I wasn't specifically trying to get that.
If you're interested in a more melee-oriented fighter/mage, I'd try a Gnome fighter/illusionist.
If you really wanted an op character, you might want to try dual-classed Kensai/Mage. I've had 2 singleplayer Bhaalspawns with the exact same starting ability stats. One was a multi-class Fighter/Mage, one was a dual-class Kensai(lv9)/Mage. Whilst my Fighter/Mage started to feel quite powerful in mid-game SoA, he never felt out of line with the rest of my party, and was roughly on par with Anomen in a straight fight (if I didn't keep spamming mage protections). On the other hand, my Kensai/Mage has been tearing through everything since he completed his dual-class process, so much so that I stopped dual-wielding with him because it felt wrong that he can rip through hordes of enemies by himself!
- they scale better; fighters don't gain an awful lot past lvl 9, but casters do improve nicely at higher levels. A dual allows you to shift more of your overall xp towards the mage side, where it is more beneficial
- Grandmastery. This is a big part of why duals are so good. Extra APR are the biggest source of additional damage, and the extra damage/thac0 helps a lot in making up for less natural thac0 from fighter levels
- Kit bonuses. Both Kensai->Mage and Berserker->Mage have very good kit bonuses. Even at only lvl9 you have two uses of their respective kit abilities, and they are great.
- Higher spell levels faster. Getting to those important spell levels more quickly is a big deal (lvl 6/9 mostly) in BG2, as spells are what combat is all about - particularly with mods like SCS. You also gain more spells overall (see first point).
That's not to say that a F/M is objectively "bad" or anything. They are still a very nice class, and as you get towards the end of the game they do catch up nicely as level progression tapers off. However for the majority of the game and in the majority of party setups, a dual will overall be more powerful.
I don't think everything i said was irrelevant though. OP said he is using a full party, so his Charname is unlikely to get to the 8M xp cap without cheating. Furthermore the xp curve in BG2 is not linear (you get as much xp in ToB as you do in SoA, but SoA has MUCH more content), so although you reach around 6-7M around the endgame, you spend most of the game well below that. If you dual-class at lv13, you will spend the majority of SoA waiting to reactivate your fighter levels. Finally the game does not really get harder in ToB in a way that warrants a huge sacrifice in early and mid-game so that you can have an optimal character for the endgame. Hence in a "net-benefit analysis", I think a lv9 dual is the optimal choice.
So now I am waffling between starting a sorc, a berserker-mage and a fighter-illusionist. It seems like the berserker-mage would be most fun (i.e. have the most options during fights) during SOA, but in TOB it looks like the character transitions into taking more of a mage role. My main concern is that I don't want to lose interest during TOB, so am looking for a character that has a varied play style and can still succeed in SSC.
If this is the case, would it just be more fun to play through either as a straight mage (sorcerer) or a fighter-illusionist, effectively specializing in bombardment / debuffs vs hitting things, or is there much synergy with the berserker mage in TOB? Thanks!
Maybe if you want an arcane main character, you'd better try a bard with this context.
@MasterChef - it's hard for anyone else to be sure what will be fun for you. However, I reckon all three of your possibilities are fun. Since you're implying (er ... I think) that this'll be your first time with an arcane caster as protagonist, I'd say don't go for the Sorcerer - they're great, but it's easy to muck up because they're very dependent upon picking the right selection of spells, so first get the hang of using an arcane caster by going through with a Mage-type caster. Both Fighter/Illusionist and Berzerker->Mage are good ... the former plays as a bit of both throughout the game, the latter is more complex, since s/he plays as a pure warrior, then as a pure caster, then as a warrior who can also cast, then finally as a caster who can also fight.
The Bk->M and Kn->M are both popular duals, and certainly many argue for dualling at level 9. Personally, however, since I take every character through BG1 before BG2, I prefer to dual at 7 and completing the dualling process within BG1 (end as 7/8). If I were going to play all of BG1 as a Fighter-kit and wait until BG2 before dualling, then I'd hold on for level 13 before dualling to get the extra half-APR and a better THACO, so that it'd be a significantly more melee-capable F/M once I had my fighter levels back ... but as @Heindrich points out, that'd be late-SoA, which for me is generally a little late for my protagonist to become fully functional. So for me, level 7 ... and that way (if I level-squat), I can even complete grandmastery whilst I'm still in BG1.
A Fighter-kit dualled at for level 7 or 9 is still a melee-capable character (after getting Fighter levels back) for quite a lot of BG2:SoA - look at our old friend Anomen, F7->C, who can melee okay for a large part of BG2:SoA. However, by late-SoA and throughout BG2:ToB, this isn't going to be a character who'll be very competitive in melee. By that stage, he's going to want to stand back and cast spells, or stand back and use a thrown weapon when not casting - note that a dual-classed Mage who has grandmastery in his thrown weapon (e.g. the Firetooth +3 returning throwing dagger) can actually contribute quite usefully even without casting, much more so than a plain Mage. By then, the advantage of having started off with the Fighter-kit levels will be that he's got a lot more HP than a single-class Mage, that he's going to have a better APR and THAC0 with his thrown weapon, and that he's not too awful at melee if forced into it by an enemy appearing right next to him.
@Heindrich - yes, you can reach the ToB XP-cap with the protagonist of a full party, with no cheating and hardly any re-spawn farming, if you play a completionist game, doing all the side-quests and all the NPC quests. I hit that mark tonight, for example, although not until I defeated the Ravager immediately before the big Final Battle. However, it's much harder to hit the XP-cap with the whole party, since you'll usually have at least a couple of companions who are several hundred thousand points (or sometimes well over a million points) behind your protagonist. To cap out the whole party, I reckon you need to resort to substantial re-spawn farming (or abuse the Machine of Lum the Mad).