A different kind of warrior/cleric dual
Kneller
Member Posts: 438
I had to stop playing my Cav. The moral dilemma between choosing between thieves and vampires just broke immersion for me. I'm playing Minsc, Jah, Yoshi>Imoen. The party is clearly missing a proper cleric, so I figured I'd slip Charname into that role but dual into it. I'm not really into the Beserker thing that's so popular. Regardless, I'm also using SK to kit my cleric. I'm thinking Lathander, for the renewal theme and hating undead making the choice between thieves and vamps pretty fluid.
A couple things to iron out. I could do a ranger to a cleric, less for the Druid spells (which I wouldn't use, I have Jah for that) and more for the two free pips in TWF. I don't think I'll even get the cleric spells if I dual at level 7.
Then there's gear. Flails (FoA) and Hammers (Crom and Runehammer)? I can also put two pips in maces by level 7, or put the final pip into TWF just to max that out and then put a pip into something else. Or, I can dual at level 9, for an extra pip and not have to choose. But is it worth the wait? Side note, I'm not feeling L13 for the extra half attack.
However, I'm tempted to dual at level 7, where I will be at the start of SoA. The idea being that my character was preserved (partially?) by Lathander during his imprisonment which is what triggered his conversion. I know it's a little too RPish for a crpg, but if I didn't play that way, I'd be sticking with the Cav.
TL;DR:
Making a dual warrior->cleric (of Lathander)
1) What class? Fighter for quicker progression, Ranger for free DW.
2) What level to dual? 7 for the extra attacking and good timing (RP-wise), or L9 for the pips.
3) Weapons? I have Flails? Hammers? Maces?
4) Any other build suggestions?
Thanks.
A couple things to iron out. I could do a ranger to a cleric, less for the Druid spells (which I wouldn't use, I have Jah for that) and more for the two free pips in TWF. I don't think I'll even get the cleric spells if I dual at level 7.
Then there's gear. Flails (FoA) and Hammers (Crom and Runehammer)? I can also put two pips in maces by level 7, or put the final pip into TWF just to max that out and then put a pip into something else. Or, I can dual at level 9, for an extra pip and not have to choose. But is it worth the wait? Side note, I'm not feeling L13 for the extra half attack.
However, I'm tempted to dual at level 7, where I will be at the start of SoA. The idea being that my character was preserved (partially?) by Lathander during his imprisonment which is what triggered his conversion. I know it's a little too RPish for a crpg, but if I didn't play that way, I'd be sticking with the Cav.
TL;DR:
Making a dual warrior->cleric (of Lathander)
1) What class? Fighter for quicker progression, Ranger for free DW.
2) What level to dual? 7 for the extra attacking and good timing (RP-wise), or L9 for the pips.
3) Weapons? I have Flails? Hammers? Maces?
4) Any other build suggestions?
Thanks.
0
Comments
2) I would strongly suggest lvl9 in terms of mechanics, you have XP in spades and it's virtually free. Get out of Chateau Irenicus and you're practically there already. RP-wise, both options can be explained. I like your born-again variant, but you could simply argue that it took a while to find what direction to go in with your new lease on life - maybe a visit to the Temple District has something to do with it?
3) Flails is an obvious choice given how powerful Flail of Ages is. I personally don't like Clerics with Crom Faeyr, since the STR is so redundant with DuHM. Also doesn't look like your party has a great FoA-wielder in it, and missing out on this little gem is such a waste, right?
2) That's fair, I can see that being a possibility. The only thing those two extra levels will get me are an additional pip, though.
3) I'd clearly take flails. Like I said, I feel that it's a no brainer. You have a good point about DUHM. I kinda figured that once I get Runehammer, it would take DUHM's place.
Upon reflection, I'm toying with the idea of doing a F/C multi. My reasoning is that if I stick to a 4-person party, I'll only be a level or two behind where a single class cleric would be in a six person party. The problem with that is that I would have to eschew an arcane caster until I get Imoen back. Having a 5th player would slow my progression down too much. However, a ranger, a F/C, a F/D and a Thief are going to have some trouble without arcane support, particularly against mages. While I do want to try and get Imoen back as fast as I can, I will have to do some local quests to beef up enough to rescue her.
If it were the case that you could not add extra pips with you non-fighter levels, and so had to grab everything before dualling, that might be a different matter. Note that I think it is a huge bug that this is allowed, much bigger than the ranger/cleric spell issue, but no-one else seems to think it is even noteworthy.
This is also why I lean to fighter over ranger - the fighter pip bonus will keep on giving all the way to the end of the game, the low-level ranger adds nothing of note, unless you are drawn to the idea of an archer with a sling...
I think the multi would be better, though, but only if I could keep the party to 4 people, and I would want to use Minsc, Jah, and Yoshi>Imoen. That's a pretty long stretch without arcane magic.
Now, the advantage to the ranger over the fighter are the free TWF pips, as I would likely go that route. By level 7, you're looking at specialization in three weapons and two pips in TWF (that last potential pip is probably not worth it. However, I'm not feeling good about it, as it's kind of a munchkin move.
Pick Flails, use FoA+5 and DoE+3, use your Cleric spells to increase your Str to 25 and purge the world of all evil!
http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/Walkthrough2/items/flails.php
It would not be the best choice mechanically but I think it would be very cool RP-wise to have a character focused on defense like that.
I also remember this flail being only +2 and I was surprised when I picked it up with my Blackguard ...
There is no one point where AC magically becomes crap, of course. It's always a question of how you're getting that AC, and what you could be getting instead. AC isn't as amazing as it is in BG1, but that doesn't mean it's bad per se. It's just that very often, other things are better (like the already mentioned Defender of Easthaven). You have to decide on a case-by-case basis, taking into account all the variables of your own individual setup.
However, an "ordinary" easily-achievable warrior AC of (say) -12 is not much use in the last couple of Chapters, enemy bosses will hit you reliably and even enemy minions will hit quite often. This is why some people allege that "AC is useless in ToB", although that's actually a considerable exaggeration. It'd be fair to say that AC plays a smaller role in ToB than earlier in the saga. No, except perhaps for a solo run.
Items which grant physical damage reduction are rare - there's the Defender of Easthaven flail, and ... er ... I can't actually think of any other (although maybe I'm forgetting some other example). But remember that Hardiness (a warrior HLA) and Armor of Faith (a Cleric spell) also grant damage reduction, so these are important abilities (particularly at high levels).
On the other hand, of course there are numerous Shields, including some which give quite a lot of AC and have useful bonus effects on top. With a full party, there are usually at least a couple of characters who can and should be equipped with a Shield, although not necessarily your main front-liners. Even front-liners are often well-advised to carry a Shield in their pack for situational use, although they're more likely to be dual-wielding (or two-handing) as their default configuration.
[Edit: spelling.]
But you're right, non-item effects make up the most sources by far. Spells, for one, but also class/kit effects like Barbarian or Dwarven Defender. The latter in particular is very popular for reaching immunity or near-immunity.
- IR gives dmg res to armors yes, but not to shields
- IR gives shields much better AC bonuses, but medium/large ones get a small thac0 penalty
- heavy weapons (e.g. flails, bastard swords, katanas, etc.) give a small thac0 penalty to dual wielders yes, but light weapons (e.g. daggers, short swords) give bonuses Well, even Yaga Shura (not your usual grunt) has:
- base Thac0 -5
- STR 23
- a warhammer +3
- mastery
-> final thac0 -15
That means a character with AC -25 has a 50% chance to avoid a hit. You may call it "get hit regularly", and indeed he will get hit, but I call it "reducing incoming damage by half AND lowering by 50% the chance of eventual special on hit effects".
A character with insane AC may not perform best against a boss (where dmg resistance is a must) but against non-bosses even within ToB, AC can play a huge role. Without IR such characters are harder to build (there's no +4/+5 full plates, shields are crap, etc.), but not impossible.
On a side note, base AC is capped but AC modifiers, such as the "hidden" bonuses granted by armors against a specific weapon type, can bypass the cap.
EDIT: @Gallowglass sort of anticipated me while I was writing.
Focus is on bosses because most if not all "trash" mobs that actually attack you are irrelevant (very few exceptions, Fire Giants come to mind).
AC remains a fine thing to pick up on the way, but if you want to actually tank things, you should probably consider more varied strategies.
Also, Baldur's Gate is so different from Neverwinter Nights (the previous D&D game I played), where AC is a lot more valuable - but I'm guessing that's also partly to do with the fact that you get a lot more HP in NWN - where as having a low chance of being hit in Baldur's Gate, might suddenly result in you dying because a hasted enemy got 4 lucky hits in in a row - in NWN that'd probably result in me losing only a small portion of my HP.
In my actual run in the no-reload thread, both my Charname and Dorn can reach an effective AC of -35 and none of them are using shields or sacrificing anything damage wise.
With such a good AC, even bosses will miss except on critical hit and you will avoid all the added on-hit effects, like the fire damage from Fire Giants, the pure magic damage from Mariliths and so forth which means that you will be even more resilient than with Stoneskin or 80%+ physical damage reduction.
The only way I see AC getting bad is if you are playing in Legacy of Bhaal mode and fighting ToB bosses. In that precise case, you will make them miss half the time, which is already good.
And the only reason it could become bad is because of the base cap of -20. If AC wasn't capped, even ToB bosses in LoB mode could miss on everything except critical hits.
I say "usually" because AC is a bit weird in how you get it, since things like body armor don't give AC, but rather SET it to a certain value. So a body armor with AC -4 actually gives -14 AC (on a base AC of 10), whereas a shield that gives -5 AC really just gives -5 AC.
This matters, because all AC before you equalize the enemy THAC0 is effectively useless. If the enemy hits on -15, any point of AC before you reach -15 AC does exactly nothing. Every point after that is effectively 5% damage reduction, true, but that doesn't mean that you can just equate 1 AC with 5% DR because of the threshold value you need to pass. You could calculate the value of total AC (assuming you go past the threshold) against a certain THAC0. That would be a simplification, but let's say for the -15 THAC0 vs. -25 AC in our example (50% chance to get hit), that would mean each point of AC is worth 1.42% damage reduction (35 AC "points" total to get from 10 base to -25, for 50% damage reduction). An item like Defender of Easthaven with 20% damage reduction would therefore "equate" to a bit over 14 AC "points" (!!). You can see why it is a lot more bang for your buck than, say, a shield.
But take that math with a grain of salt. As I said, AC is weird in how it works because items don't just add flat values, and there are actually few DR items to compete with. Still, the principle of the thing stands: DR is, in most cases, a more effective way of reducing damage than AC. It's not straight up "better" per se as in that it could totally replace AC, nor is AC per se "bad" - but when making your choices, keep in mind the various factors that go into it, and adapt them to YOUR INDIVIDUAL setup.