How do you use a F/M in the party?
gorgonzola
Member Posts: 3,864
How do you use a F/M in the party?
He is mainly a Fighter, always on the front lines, that use his magic to protect and buff himself and sometimes to breach and debuff the enemy, or is mainly a Caster that use at his best his immense arcane power with some added bonuses from his Fighter class and weapons? Or he use the two classes in a more balanced way, sometimes focusing on casting and some other times on fighting?
He is mainly a Fighter, always on the front lines, that use his magic to protect and buff himself and sometimes to breach and debuff the enemy, or is mainly a Caster that use at his best his immense arcane power with some added bonuses from his Fighter class and weapons? Or he use the two classes in a more balanced way, sometimes focusing on casting and some other times on fighting?
- How do you use a F/M in the party?51 votes
- He is mainly a Fighter.50.98%
- He is mainly a Caster.3.92%
- I use him in a balanced way.31.37%
- I never use F/M13.73%
4
Comments
Take off the full plate armour - cast Shield, Mirror Image, Strenght if needed, Minor Spell Deflection, Improved Invisibility - put on the full plate armour and let him fight.
In BG2:
Cast all available self-buffs, starting from the Spirit armour, physical and magical protections, and let him fight, renew the spells during fighting. Fight withour armour, let your spells do everything.
To me, if you don't use a F/M as a fighter whose defences and attacks are improved by spells, you use this character wrong.
I'd say that I probably use fighter 80% and mage 20%, if I had to put numbers on it. For most fights I just run with Stoneskin and IH and that's largely it, only for challenging, special encounters do I even break out the heavy casting.
Although, come to think of it, I don't play much of any fighter types. Maybe it's just that thieves and spellcasters do smaller, weirder things, and I like making small weird things into really big things.
I had some parties, like the one with FMT, FM (multi), Aerie and Haer'Dalis, where at some points the FM was the best caster, as the charname FMT was dropping and recruiting the other 3 quite often, making some quests with only 1 or 2 helpers to optimize the leveling, but also there the FM was often in mlee, as was often in mlee Aerie after reaching the rank of main caster in the party (she was recruited only after a couple of quests and reached the level of the FM only at the end of chap2 of SoA).
The spell slinging was used to immobilize enemies, with ranged attacks from the party providing the damage.
Ironically, I always used the mage/thief in melee.
And that's how you play a F/M kids.
Seriously, I tend to make them dual-wield so they dish out high damage while Stoneskin/Blur/Mirror Image/Improved Haste are active and cast Magic Missiles or another spammeable spell in between attacks (in BG2).
In BG1 I usually equip them with a bow and cast Sleep, kite enemies abusing of Grease, Magic Missile and attack to maximise my damage at lower levels (I abuse of sleeping so I almost never run out of spells :p).
If you use it more as a caster it's like having a Fighter Cleric that spends his time healing instead of tanking.
Also I think low level F/M are not that good for melee, for instance I played a F/M in IWD, frankly he wasn't that useful until the end of Dragon Eye and would get himself killed so easily.
at low level keep, it as a caster using long range weapon. When you have stoneskin and haste, it gets more interesting.
I imagine a low-level F->M dual gives you a more durable caster, who plays mostly like a mage.
At level 7, we start getting multiple attacks, at 9 we have maxed HP benefits and likely full mastery of a single weapon. At 13, we have maximum number of Fighter attacks, and probably do not want to play on until we max out THAC0 before dualing! If I want to re-activate fighting fighter skills in BG1 I dual no later than 7th, and 5th if I want to hit level 5 spells in the first game.
As a dual, I will spend a (large?) part of the first game as a pure fighter, than another significant chunk as a pure mage, but with the extra fighter durability. Or I would not even get to experience magery if I want to dual at 9th or later in BG2EE.
As a multi, I spend the whole game with the benefits of both, and can well imagine using the more blended approach suggested above. THAC0 continues to progress to the end of the game, but we don't get beyond basic weapon specialization.
On the whole, it seems that the dual class is more about producing a durable spell-caster, than a true warrior-mage, and the F/M multi gets to shine in a unique gameplay style (although Blades may be in the same space?)
Something else to explore if I ever get any game-time back...
a few of the reason why I don't have a level 12/13 kensai then go into mage is because I will lost a little bit of spell casting when it comes to ToB and the amount of XP to get my kensai levels back will take a long time before I can use them again, and if I have to wait almost all of SoA to get my kensai levels back, then whats the point really?
and then if I play F/M/T im basically just being an arcane archer, I go with bows and arrows, have the convenience of thief skills ( so then I don't have to drag any other thief hybrid around) and wizard spells just for the extra kick in the pants
but for F/M I rarely if ever choose that class, and if I do, its going to be a ranged caster ( no doubt with throwing daggers) but if im going to do that, I find a kensai dualed into a mage is much more effective at that than a F/M would be for that role
Seriously though, I frequently gear my F/Ms with the Robe of Vecna and Amulet of Power. Generally the other casters won't be casting in melee to need the faster spells, but this lets the F/M pull off things like Breach and CC spells (or GMs for softening other targets for other party casters), just like I would any other mage, but generally it's not necessary to waste spell slots on the trash, so a Spirit Armour spell and occasional stoneskins is more than enough.
So yeah, "mostly" they're fighters, but that means they have most of their spellslots available for going nova in major encounters, laying down damage and summons just like the rest of the mages.
The FM has +1.5 APR, can put 2 pips in Dual Welding (the blade is the only bard that can do it) for an other possible APR, use fighter THACO table and not rogue one and can specialize in weapons. This is not a bit better, is a lot better. As a mage he can reach level 9 spells against lev 6 and at the same level have more spells per level.
The bard level faster, have less spells but better spells as his Skull Traps, Fireballs and Dispell magic benefit of his higher level for the first half of the game. And he get UAI, HLA traps and his song, high lore and pickpocket. The blade is more similar to multi FM as he can dual weld, but his spins are an unique feature that make him a different fighter.
They are both effective characters but the FM usually is good "as it is", the bard only if you equip him with the right items (to counter his lower THACO and APR) and is less intuitive to play, the player have to get used to him before he can really shine.
In my experience they are 2 classes very different, not much in what they can do, but in how they do it and how you have to play them.
I used to hate the whole f/m combo until I started using this forum. Now it is one of my favorite classes.
With some pros, better final THACO, fighter HLA, no down time and depending on when you dual +0.5 APR.
And some cons, no GM, slower mage progression, less HP.
Both the choices are good, and dualing at lev 7 or 13 or in between make the comparison with multi different. Player choices but every dual from 7 to 13 and the multi are good.
I never put armor on my fighter/mages. The versatility of being able to re-buff in battle or switch playstyles on the fly is far too useful. If he's threatened by physical attacks he has stoneskin and PfMW which is all he needs anyway. The difference between a dual- and multi-classed fighter/mage's casting prowess isn't that great anyway, if you know the right spells to use. I do occasionally use offensive spells on my fighter/mages, though a lot of the time they're either in sequencers or area of effect. I used to dual-class but now I'm an advocate for multi-class fighter/mages all the way.
I see some uses of the armor. In BG1, where there are no stoneskins or PFMW, or if the FM has run out of protection spells and you don't want to rest for some reasons and don't need his debuffing, disabling and damaging spells. I never do it as I don't play BG1 and never let my F/Ms go out of protections, but I see how this can be useful in some situations.
With this said though, I seldom use F/M since I think they are almost too good. I tend to use Blade's or T/M's alot.
In BG2 however, it's versatility all the way from the get-go. Melee, archery, spell-disrupting, crowd control, debuffing enemy mages. The only way I limit him is leaving the spells that have significantly increased effect per caster level: the damage/level and spells that let the enemy save. I always use the Add Save Penalties for Spells Cast by High-Level Casters component of Stratagems, so those spells I have cast by the higher-level caster.
When I started playing Baldur's Gate, I used to spend hours and hours on comparing experience and spell tables of the Fighter-Mage and Blade, wondering what character I would like the most and would be the most effective as my Charname. With more experience in playing the game under my hood, I realise the main difference is not in how many spells can be cast at what experience level, but in what you use them for:
The Blade, though reasonable at melee, will take more micromanagement to be effective and is more dependent on items. Plus being able to put just one pip in each weapon, he diversifies more by nature. The Fighter-Mage, with better Thac0 and attacks per round fights well any time, whereas the Blade is deadly with an offensive spin and a good tank with defensive spin, but only a few times a day, so for the thougher battles only. What the Blade does better however, is allowing his party-members to excel: mages needn't use spellslots for identify, Thieves needn't put points in Pick Pockets and everyone can benefit from the Bard Song (though singing is not a very effective means of using a Blade, I mostly use it when enemies are harder to hit and I'm out of spins and out of spells for that day, so the best damage output achieved is buffing the warriors).
But like I said in the middle paragraph of this post, spells that deal damage per level and spells that give the enemy a chance to save, penalized if the attacking spell comes from a high-level caster with Sword Coast Stratagems installed, are better cast by high-level caster and in that respect the Bard shines, with higher levels for his xp than other caster in the party. Making the Blade fit more roles than the Fighter-Mage and making the first slightly more beloved by me, despite my first ever AD&D character being a Fighter-Mage and being in love with Fighter-Mages since.
tl;dr: versatile, versatile and did I mention versatile?
And for the second level you immediately get 2 spell slots. Nor only Mirror Image, but also Blur are available as soon as you reach lvl 2 spells. Or two Mirror Images.
The third level lets you choose not only Spirit Armor, but also Minor Spell Deflection.
The fourth level lets you add Improved Invisibility to Stoneskin.
It's a tremendous benefit.
Add to that better saving throws!