Im bad at BG, a few questions.
Fake_Sketch
Member Posts: 217
I've always been bad at 2nd edition games. I've been able to complete them several times but with specific strategies (TRAPS EVERYWHERE FOR BOSSES), so I want to ask some questions to you guys to play a bit better:
- Why do they always say that Dual-Class is OP (For example, berserker-mage)? If that is the case, when do you know its good to go Dual?
- Why do they say that Dual-Wield is OP?
- I plan to use the following party in BG EE: Me (Human evil blackguard), Kagain, Edwin, Faldorn, Viconia and Safana. ¿Any tips?
- Why do ppl care about rangers and paladin spells? By the time you get them they are useless next to your dedicated divine spell casters...spells.
Edit: If Neera is neutral shell take the place of Edwin.
- Why do they always say that Dual-Class is OP (For example, berserker-mage)? If that is the case, when do you know its good to go Dual?
- Why do they say that Dual-Wield is OP?
- I plan to use the following party in BG EE: Me (Human evil blackguard), Kagain, Edwin, Faldorn, Viconia and Safana. ¿Any tips?
- Why do ppl care about rangers and paladin spells? By the time you get them they are useless next to your dedicated divine spell casters...spells.
Edit: If Neera is neutral shell take the place of Edwin.
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Comments
Dual wield is not particularly "OP", but it's a very interesting option. Late SoA weapons are more interesting than shields. In BG1, you'll want ranged weapons.
Your BG1 party sounds fine to me. My only advice to you: drink your potions and use your wands. There's plenty of them.
Ranger and paladin spells can be a nice bonus. Some useful low level spells: doom, draw upon holy might, detect invisibility, armor of faith, chant, summon insects, protection from evil 10' radius, etc.
2- I disagree that Dual Wield is OP. Actually, if I go the fighter/barbarian route in BG:EE, I'll go with 2h swords. Bows are also very good, but it's easier to find great archer NPC's in both BG1 (Kivan and Coran) and BG 2 (Mazzy for the win). If you tailor your main character to go dual-wield with say, long swords, he can become deadly as hell. Minsc can be tailored to dual wield maces too.
3- For MY STYLE of playing, I'd switch Faldorn out for more muscle. Since you seem to be more evil-centric, get Shar-Teel, for sure. It pains me because I LOVE Bard and Druids in tabletop D&D, but in BG, they are simply... not good. Specially Bards.
Another fun option: Ditch Safana and Edwin, get Xzar and Montaron! You get a slightly worse mage in trade for a slightly better rogue. And much better party interjections! (despite Safana being hot and everything...)
4- I don't care much. They are useful. By the end of BG2, it's cool to have Minsc with utility spells like Bless and Cure Disease in order to have your main Cleric get better spells and more heals
My tips: Be organized with your inventory and use potions. Scout ahead all the time with a thief. Save all the time, literally every minute. Always play BG at a slow, careful pace. Read everything. Drink your beer. Enjoy this masterpiece of a game very much.
2. Duel wielding is not OP. It is extremely underpowered until you put 3 points into it and then only really comes into its own right at the end of BG2/ToB. People often make characters based on how powerful they will be at max level, which will only occupy a tiny fraction of the time in game.
3. Try using one or more of the new characters like Dorn or Rasaad. Keep your reputation below 19 by killing people you don't like but make sure to do it out of sight of others.
4. Rangers and paladins have access to a few combat buff spells which are effective even at higher levels such as armour of faith and barkskin to name but a couple. They are not that powerful at all but still make a nice little addition to your combat buffs and are therefore worth using.
Dual wield is pretty strong when fully invested in, mainly because you get good damage output combined with the nice status bonuses you get from weapons but shields often lack.
Paladins and Rangers casting is pretty useful. It's not as powerful as pure casters but unique self-buffs like draw upon holy might, armour of faith and utility spells like prot from evil 10' & negative plane protection are good.
But that sort of thing really doesn't come into play until BG2, and really it's BG2 where Dual-classing has the biggest advantage.
In BG1, it's mostly because you can start as a Fighter, gain a couple levels, then dual into whatever you actually want to be and end up as a Mage, Priest or Thief with higher hitpoints, lower THAC0 and better weapon proficiency without losing much XP (as in, you'll still be able to hit the same levels as a pureclass, in roughly the same amount of time).
So, yes, Dual-classing does give you a significant edge, but it's not like it's required to create a powerful character or anything.
2. Dual-wielding, as others have said, isn't really OP. It's great in the sense that it allows you to potentially use two powerful weapons at once, but the THAC0 penalty keeps it from being too strong. I'd say that in BG1 especially, it's not gonna be OP, and if anything, might be too weak if you're not a Ranger.
3. Your party sounds pretty good. More muscle could be good, but a Blackguard and Kagain would be enough to hold the line. Shar-Teel would be a good option, though. Two Priests (a Cleric and a Druid) seems a bit redundant, and as Viconia is largely better than Faldorn, and as Shar-Teel is available much earlier than Faldorn, it seems like a good swap.
Another option, which would be preferably in my books, would be to replace Safana and Faldorn with Montaron and Xzar. Monty is possibly the most versatile NPC in the game, and you could use him as both a thief and muscle (slap some Full Plate on him, then take it off whenever you need to look for traps). Xzar isn't as good a mage as Edwin, but why not take both? Even at low levels, spells like Sleep, Horror, Colour Spray, Spook, etc absolutely dominate. At higher levels, having two Spec Mages means slinging off a whole bunch more Fireballs and Cloudkills - in other words, incredible power and easy victory. Xzar's restriction on Illusion magic makes him a bit harder to keep alive at first, but give him the Boots of Avoidance until he can cast Stoneskin and he'll do okay.
(Yes, two pure-class Priests is redundant but two pure-class Mages is incredible power. Welcome to Baldur's Gate).
4. To me they're trivial until BG2, at which point they start to get access to some pretty nice stuff. A Paladin can cast Draw Upon Holy Might and Holy Strength... Mmmm...
As far as BG1 goes, it's basically only good for the ability to cast Armour of Faith - which, admittedly, is a huge boon. Sanctuary can be fun too, I suppose, and helpful in a pinch. They can also be good to load up on spells you need but don't really care about, to let your Priest cast more fun stuff (i.e. shunt all the Cure Light Wounds to your Paladin or Ranger so your Cleric can cast buttloads of Doom)
Also, I would say they're much better for Paladins than for Rangers. Rangers can only cast up to level 3, Paladins level 4, and especially when it comes to self-buffing, Cleric spells are better than Druid.
Here are some basic tactical suggestions for BG1:
- ranged weapons to disrupt enemy spellcasters (Kivan and Coran shine here)
- at least two solid tanks on the front line; three is better
- for the toughest battles use buffing potions and spells and Haste
- mages cast spells that disable mobs, eg, Sleep, Glitterdust, Horror, Emotion: Hopelessness, Chaos
- mages target the most powerful enemies (their spellcasters and tanks) with Spook, Blind, Hold (clerics can cast this too), Slow, Confusion, Feeblemind (priests can use Doom, Summon Insects, Rigid Thinking, Insect Plague)
- mages take control of enemies and make them attack their comrades via Charm, Dire Charm, Domination; once charmed have enemies drop all their gear; if they are spellcasters use up their most powerful spells
- mages and clerics can also cast Grease, Entangle, or Web; then Stinking Cloud, Cloudkill, Ice Storm; then pepper the enemy with arrows, fireballs, and incendiary potions
With a party of 6, and with the XP cap, level 5 spells probably won't be available. But you can still do a lot with level 1-4 spells.
Dual wield is very powerful for two reasons. The first is that it grants an extra attack. In BG, extra attacks are hard to come by and require many levels to get even for warriors. Further, if the extra weapon is something that has a magical property - such as '1 extra attack per round' - you can get multiple attacks from the offhand. Belm +2 scimitar, if I'm not mistaken, does this. Because your Strength bonus to damage gets insanely high, an extra attack is deadly almost no matter what weapon you use! Dual wield is also normally the best option because shields are usually of poor quality and two-handed weapons are usually not that outstanding.
Have high dexterity so you can give the gauntlets of dexterity to Kagain. This will make him a superior tank. Have Kagain buffed by Edwin's strength spell at all times. Get to Safana early, because she develops awfully on her own and takes all the wrong skills. Faldorn is not a great character and is later in the game, so be prepared to have an intermediary until she arrives. Viconia is great no matter what and easy to use.
The spells of paladins and rangers in general are pretty useless. Paladins do get some decent ones, but Ranger spells (aside Armour of Faith) are pretty awful. If you're looking to rectify this, there's an awesome mod - Spell Revisions - that you can explore.
Especially in BG1 and its expansion, shields are immensely helpful with their AC boost if you want to use them. I however would suggest a 2her so that you can stand behindish kagain while he tanks. PERSONALLY I'd hold off dual wielding until late BG2 or Throne of Bhaal. That's just my personal opinion.
Having 19 STR (without the STR tome yet), 20 CON and 19 Dex sure helps though.
My normal parties depending on my main character are
1. PC half-elf blade(good enough for arcane caster), Montaron "tank" and a thief in same guy and Viconia for divine caster.
2. PC elf assassin(thief), Kagain "tank", viconia for divine and edvin for arcane casting.
3. PC evil fighter/cleric (divine caster and a tank), Montaron for thiefing and for secondary tank, xzar for arcane casting.
I personally dont see any point in taking more than 1-2 member for one job and if i do take then the second one is multiclass so he/she has some other thing to do and can help in the other if needed.
Thief is the only class that i sometimes feel like i need more than one to get all that i need out of that class one thief for traps/locks/detect illusion and second for hiding pickpocketing and backstabbing.
Final note for those that are again bashing the bard class like in every other thread in these forums BARDS are the best class in game. If you dont believe me make a party with 5 skalds and one fighter/archer cast invisibility on skalds and sing with em and bash everything to bits with fighter 5skalds is same as +10ac +10dmg +10thaco and at lvl 9 skalds get to point where the songs boost +15ac +15dmg +15thaco. Or make a party with 5jesters and same trick and all monsters run and bash each other. AND bards gain lvls faster than mages so those spells that scale on your lvl get better faster like magic missile, skulltrap and many more.
Then the questions you asked
1. I personally dont like duals even when i solo the game BUT they are the best ones for a solo run and not so great at party because or the downtime you have to endure to gain first class abilities back.
2. Dual wielding isnt OP only the weapon combinations are and the fact that mainhand gains offhand weapons bonuses like more hits a round or equalizer THAC0 bonuses.
3. read the rant above again for this ansver.
4. I personally found them pretty useless with party play but soloing they are your savior.
A dual class thief/(mage or cleric) will be useful for the abilities you placed points into - which is usually 100 lockpicking 100 trapfinding. A multiclass thief / mage will lay devastating traps at key points (spike traps anyone?), buff up, go invis, inflict a powerful backstab and then when you think he's all done, having severely crippled the enemy force, he starts raining destruction with his mage spells. And let's not forget the perk of perks that is UAI
A multiclass thief / cleric is even more ridiculous with sanctuary trap disabling or duhm + backstabs from the get-go, again the high level traps, again the UAI and when you think he's all done he reverts to your standard cleric repertoire and wipes the map clean of evil.
Sure, multiclass are slower to level but what they lack (relatively speaking) in power, they make up for in versatility.
- thac0 isn't such a big factor anymore
- lots of weapons with bonuses (2 sets of bonuses is usually better than one)
- Weapon effects proc more until you reach max att/round
Now, I acknowledge that with thieves' faster levelling, they might get a couple HLAs, but that's really it. You probably won't be able to ever have more than one or two spike traps, plus UAI.
For much less XP, a thief->mage would be able to cast Time Stop, Improved Alacrity and easily bring down the same enemies.
I'm not saying multiclass is useless. I love them as much as the next guy. I'm saying that Dualclass can bring down more destruction for much less XP. If you're powergaming, go for the dualclass.
You're a Bhaalspawn. A lot of powerful people want you dead. Say you've just dual-classed. What's to prevent Korgan from killing you and selling your head to that Yaga-Shura guy he heard about for 100,000 gp?
Multi and dual class thieves can wear heavy armours if thier other class permits so, but while doing so cannot use thief skills, hide in shadows or backstab.
However, later on in bg2 you will come across a few medium and heavy armours which are made of exotic materials and are therefore light enough for a thief to use
It also overrides the kits weaknesses, so a Kensai can use armor and a wizardslayer can use magic items.
Yes it does. I think the only thing UAI doesn't cover is if you're too weak to wield the gear otherwise. It doesn't cover strength requirements to the best of my knowledge.
Not that there's much need to wear heavy armors for a Kensai/Thief. They are better off in something that still allows stealth. But you can totally drop into a full plate if you want.
And just to add my voice in, UAI totally allows thieves to use heavy armour. In fact, I would even disagree with @sandmanCCL who says that they're better off in something that allows stealth because by the time UAI comes along, potions of invisibility are plentiful. Quaff it, backstab, have no fear of retaliation thanks to your great AC. Even quaff another one and backstab again.
Potions of invisibility are how my Assassin won his duel against Sarevok
As a pure kensai, that will be a challenge in BG1. Getting the shield amulet or potions or a mage who can cast the 4th lvl ghost armor spell, etc. will be critical if you plan for your character to wade into battle. You will almost surely need a meat shield early in the game to engage the enemies and let you hack on the side (Kensai with 18 dex and ring of prot +1 is a very hittable 3 AC). The early fights against the black talon elite characters are particularly challenging since you have to engage them in melee and they will get multiple shots at you before you get there with arrows that can kill you with one or two good shots (lvl 1 Kensai with 10 hp + 4 for 18 Con can be blown apart with a crit from a single ice arrow).
Kensai are much easier to play straight in BG2 but unless you are soloing BG1 (which is pretty #$&*ing hard with a Kensai or Monk) it is very doable even for people who are only moderately experienced with BG.