look at the other 2 paladins in the bg universe, none of them have dexterity, so why not join them and have no dexterity, and someone else up there is right, having hp is usefull because enemies LOVE to critical hit A LOT, even if your dexterity was 6000 that still doesnt stop a kobold from dealing12 or so damage on a critical hit, but i guess it could also depend on what difficulty you are playing on, you can fight one ogre beserker on the hardest difficulty and he can get 2 criticals in there and deal up to 60+ damage, and also someone else up there also said that rolling high for paladins is extremely easy and it is, i was playing bg1 2 days ago and on try maybe 5 i rolled 95, and with the bg II engine paladins seem to roll 90+ without breaking a sweat, but if you dont want to roll over 90 then i would definately go with con over dex
If your constitution is 19 or 20 (as typical for a high level warrior), you will receive an extra 5 HP per level, up to level 9. After that, none. This means that the total benefit of your constitution score (compared to an average score of 10) is an extra 45 HP, which really makes a difference. It will net you an extra 25% to 50% survival time in fights.
A dexterity score of [18..20] gives you an extra 4 points of AC (again, compared to a score of 10), which, depending on what kind of enemy you fight, what their THAC0 is, and your AC score, may give you up to an extra 0% to 400% survival time. Typically, on average, 4 points of AC will give you about +100% survival time when fighting weapon-wielding enemies, but won't do you any good against mage opponents.
Case in point, just roll until you can max both out. In the long run strength becomes the least important score because the artifacts you'll find will raise it above any natural score you could have achieved with a paladin (without becoming fallen).
Constitution, simply because your character will last longer vs. spells and poison. Damage dealing spells are usually far more dangerous than weapon attacks. Con gives you more time to react to damage.
If your paladin is going to be using a lot of ranged weapons (which I doubt) you may want to go with dexterity instead because it increases ranged thaco as well as AC.
I think it wouldn't take too long to get the 93 roll required to get 18-18-18-8-13-18. However, it may be difficult to get a good Strength modifier with a roll that high.
There's a way we can break this down, depending on what Strength you're willing to settle for, and how long you're willing to roll:
18/00 Strength: It would take a long, long time to max out all physical attributes if you're looking for strength this high. I agree that either Dexterity or Constitution has to be dumped. DEX can be dumped to as low as 7 with no penalties. CON can be dumped to as low as 9 with no penalties. Therefore, it's an easier roll if you dump DEX. Without gauntlets, which bonus is more valuable? +40% HP, or +4 AC and +2 ranged THAC0. I think the answer is easily DEX. However, as has been mentioned, the Gauntlets of DEX changes things. The penalty of using the Gauntlets of DEX is that the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise can't be used. The new question becomes: Which is more valuable; +1 THAC0 +2 Damage, or +40% HP. It's also worth noting that with the CON tome, that bonus becomes +50% HP. Personally, I still prefer the THAC0 and Damage bonuses. If racial (halfling,dwarf,gnome) saving throw bonuses were a factor, my opinion would change. But of course, Paladins can only be Human. So, I'd go with 18/00-18-7-8-13-18. The 18 Charisma is an optional bonus. This is the exact build I choose when making a Paladin, except I don't care about RPing, so I dump INT to 3. Aiming for that extra +5 INT makes this roll take a lot longer.
18/91 Strength: It's doable to achieve the 18-18-18-8-13-18, but it'd take a while. Like I said, I'd ignore INT and dump it to 3, and that roll is pretty easy to get. If the above roll proves too long a task, it may be an option to slightly reduce both DEX and CON, rather than dumping one entirely. If one has to be dumped however, dump CON.
18/76 or 18/51 or 18/01 Strength: I definitely think 18-18-18-8-13-18 is achievable now. I wouldn't accept any less if Strength is this low.
I'm just not that bothered about HP. Out of the above options, I'd aim for 18/00 STR and dump CON.
EDIT: If you're only gonna roll 3 or 4 times, then 18/00 strength is out of the question. Just go for 18/51+ STR and, yeah, still dump CON over DEX if you have to.
I always liked avoidance over mitigation: Taking zero damage is better than taking lesser damage.
Higher STR on a melee character means you'll hit more often. Which means the mobs will die more quickly. Which means you will take less damage.
The bonuses of a higher CON only last until level 10, iirc. The bonuses from high STR or high DEX last the entire game.
The only time I'd choose CON is if I were playing one of the shorty races, because they get additional saving throw bonuses based on their CON score.
PS: @OperativeNL I faced a similar choice as you recently when rolling a paladin. He has solid scores where he needed them in every area except CON. I think he would have played fine (I decided to reroll, and shortly wound up with 18/34, 18, 18, 10, 14, 18).
For the end game, constitution is a better bet. Enemies will eventually have ridiculously low THACO's and your armor class won't really matter.
With that said, you have the vast majority of the saga in which an AC bonus from maxed dexterity will be felt. Not taking hits > ability to take 1 or 2 more hits. Pick dexterity to benefit for most of the saga, pick constitution to have more staying power against the heavy-hitting final few baddies of TOB.
I would choose to max con for any fighter/paladin class. maybe at the start of the game the -4 ac from max dex is the better option but come midway through bg when your in cloakwood getting poisoned by almost everything that +4hp per level will really come in handy. also the tome of bodily health can increase your con to 19 giving +5hp per level, up to level 9. whereas increasing Dex from 18>19 does not increase/decrease ac. you will also have the gloves of dexterity at this point anyway.
there is always potions of agility and fortitude for all the hard battles, but i believe there are more potions of fortitude hanging around/ they are easier to find, infact i think the bandit camp alone has like 3 or so
Incoming critical hits should not really play a role in this discussion. All of the traditional tank classes can wear helmets which cost 1 GP and provide immunity to critical hits.
I'm starting to think that no matter what, I can't really leave the option of magical items out of the equasion. I mean, I'd end up using a strenght belt or dexterity gloves anyway after a short while. So it does become a situation like Giosanti described above me: which item becomes less unfortunate to not be able to wear? I guess there are some pretty good gloves out there that I wouldn't be able to wear once having to use the dexterity gloves to make up for a dexterity lower than 10. I'm not too familiar with the items that will boost constitution to 18 or 19 while worn, and what items they are going to prevent from being worn instead. I'm still set on having a natural strenght of 18/xx, 19 with tome.
It feels like the extra HP and dexterity aren't really going to matter in late-saga anyway, though dexterity perhaps a bit less so than the HP. In early game however, I am still undecided. A fighter with no HP/level bonus just feels wrong. And I woudln't know how to boost my constitution in the early game. On the other hand, a paladin tank in heavy armor, with a large shield, with high DEX, wearing boots of avoidance and anti-piercing belt would be quite something, too. Nearly unhittable. And having a low DEX makes using a two-handed sword much less feasible. Though I guess I can't avoid the fact that I'd be wearing the gloves of DEX 18 pretty quickly anyway.
Pick constitution, dump dexterity to 3. . There are gloves which set DEX to 18, so your missing out, but not much. And in bg2 dex becomes largely unimportant.
The 4 AC from 18 Dex does help, there's no question here, but even with 10 Dex, Full Plate is pretty sweet.
With Full Plate alone, you'd have 1 AC, with -4 vs slashing, -3 vs piercing, and -3 vs missile.
I must admit though, I like shooting the bow.
Also, like what was mentioned, certain fights will be more challenging with no Dex, since if someone can only hit you on a 20 if you had 18 Dex, it could be theoretically extended to a hit on a 16+, giving the enemy 5x the chance to hit you if you have 10 Dex. In later fights, the chance will increase from 10%-30%, or 20%-40%, 50%-70%, 80%-95%, and then finally there will be no difference at all, although this is extremely rare, considering most enemies don't go far below 0 thaco even in SoA.
That being said, I am more like most on here, I would prefer 16 Dex and 16 Con, rather than 18 in one and 10 in another.
I choose dexteritiy any day over constitution. Agile people and acrobats in general are a joy to watch in RL too. There was a fight in K1 were a little nakmuay knocked de f*** out a realy heavy guy (mighty mo) with a jumping kick... that was unbelievable. But most of you guys only do math in that regard it seems;)
We must choose? The only thing we must do is gather your party before venturing forth. The rest is just icing.
Probably the one line in the game which immediate gets a response of "ok now which one of you is stuck behind a building/fence/wall/or has decided to stop arbitrarily while the rest of the party continues forward".
@elminster Last time that happened to me, my npc took the longest way taking like 5 minutes than without any knowledge of the spot. He died cause of a trap -_-
For the question : Rather sounds weird but I would go for CON. First because "Ressurection" below less than 10 is like 30% of succes if I remember. Second, because a barbarian without high hp is like... a mage without spells
I have always played a Paladin through BG1 and BG2 - I didn't make a choice as I maxed out both (she's a fighter, right?) but if I HAD to choose, it would be DEX as the advantages of bonuses for 18 CON would diminish in BG2. As someone else has said earlier, it is relatively easy to get at least 90 rolled for a Paladin and getting 95 doesn't take too long...
I haven't played either game in forever (since they originally came out - definitely looking forward to the new release) but if your constitution is 18 then it isn't that hard at some point to make it 19 or even 20. Once you get to 20 I believe the character starts to regenerate which can be very cool. This may only be a BG2 thing but I still think it is worth mentioning. I usually play a fighter type in both computer games and PnP and strength and con would be the 2 main attributes I would focus on.
I'm going with the ones saying that it's better to even them. Although I do vote for CON. It help against traps, spells (and dragonbreaths:) ) not only against weapons. DEX is definetly better for low lvls, but for that you can get a shield, dex gauntlets and later very decent armors. You can't really boost your health points... On the other hand, if you have decent DEX stat, a magical full plate, some other +AC item (cloak of sewers in BG2 for example), and maybe a shield (although I can't imagine why would any paladin want to skip 2handed weapons...) you can hold the ground for a veryvery long time.
So all in all, depending on your roll, I would try to reach 16 from both stats, get a good STR, and if you have any points left, put it on CON.
But it also depends on what role would you like to play. Charge in and stay alive while the archers/mages kill the monsters, or you want to decapitate as many fes as you can?
For the question : Rather sounds weird but I would go for CON. First because "Ressurection" below less than 10 is like 30% of succes if I remember. Second, because a barbarian without high hp is like... a mage without spells
If the protagonist dies, the game is finished anyway, so resurrection is not really an issue here... Or is this changed in EE? Was there any discussion about it?
Comments
A dexterity score of [18..20] gives you an extra 4 points of AC (again, compared to a score of 10), which, depending on what kind of enemy you fight, what their THAC0 is, and your AC score, may give you up to an extra 0% to 400% survival time. Typically, on average, 4 points of AC will give you about +100% survival time when fighting weapon-wielding enemies, but won't do you any good against mage opponents.
Case in point, just roll until you can max both out. In the long run strength becomes the least important score because the artifacts you'll find will raise it above any natural score you could have achieved with a paladin (without becoming fallen).
If your paladin is going to be using a lot of ranged weapons (which I doubt) you may want to go with dexterity instead because it increases ranged thaco as well as AC.
There's a way we can break this down, depending on what Strength you're willing to settle for, and how long you're willing to roll:
18/00 Strength: It would take a long, long time to max out all physical attributes if you're looking for strength this high. I agree that either Dexterity or Constitution has to be dumped. DEX can be dumped to as low as 7 with no penalties. CON can be dumped to as low as 9 with no penalties. Therefore, it's an easier roll if you dump DEX. Without gauntlets, which bonus is more valuable? +40% HP, or +4 AC and +2 ranged THAC0. I think the answer is easily DEX. However, as has been mentioned, the Gauntlets of DEX changes things. The penalty of using the Gauntlets of DEX is that the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise can't be used. The new question becomes: Which is more valuable; +1 THAC0 +2 Damage, or +40% HP. It's also worth noting that with the CON tome, that bonus becomes +50% HP. Personally, I still prefer the THAC0 and Damage bonuses. If racial (halfling,dwarf,gnome) saving throw bonuses were a factor, my opinion would change. But of course, Paladins can only be Human. So, I'd go with 18/00-18-7-8-13-18. The 18 Charisma is an optional bonus. This is the exact build I choose when making a Paladin, except I don't care about RPing, so I dump INT to 3. Aiming for that extra +5 INT makes this roll take a lot longer.
18/91 Strength: It's doable to achieve the 18-18-18-8-13-18, but it'd take a while. Like I said, I'd ignore INT and dump it to 3, and that roll is pretty easy to get. If the above roll proves too long a task, it may be an option to slightly reduce both DEX and CON, rather than dumping one entirely. If one has to be dumped however, dump CON.
18/76 or 18/51 or 18/01 Strength: I definitely think 18-18-18-8-13-18 is achievable now. I wouldn't accept any less if Strength is this low.
I'm just not that bothered about HP. Out of the above options, I'd aim for 18/00 STR and dump CON.
EDIT: If you're only gonna roll 3 or 4 times, then 18/00 strength is out of the question. Just go for 18/51+ STR and, yeah, still dump CON over DEX if you have to.
I always liked avoidance over mitigation: Taking zero damage is better than taking lesser damage.
Higher STR on a melee character means you'll hit more often. Which means the mobs will die more quickly. Which means you will take less damage.
The bonuses of a higher CON only last until level 10, iirc. The bonuses from high STR or high DEX last the entire game.
The only time I'd choose CON is if I were playing one of the shorty races, because they get additional saving throw bonuses based on their CON score.
PS: @OperativeNL I faced a similar choice as you recently when rolling a paladin. He has solid scores where he needed them in every area except CON. I think he would have played fine (I decided to reroll, and shortly wound up with 18/34, 18, 18, 10, 14, 18).
High Dex Lower Con Elf Vs High Con Lower Dex Orc.
Round one
Elf swings, Orc can't dodge, takes a hit. Orc Swings Elf dodges, Miss
Round two
Elf swings, Orc can't dodge, takes a hit. Orc Swings Elf dodges, Miss
Round three
Elf swings, Orc can't dodge, takes a hit. Orc Swings Elf dodges, Miss
Round four
Elf swings, Orc can't dodge, takes a hit. Orc Swings Hits Elf, Critical hit, Elf dead.
Admit, it's pretty funny.
With that said, you have the vast majority of the saga in which an AC bonus from maxed dexterity will be felt. Not taking hits > ability to take 1 or 2 more hits.
Pick dexterity to benefit for most of the saga, pick constitution to have more staying power against the heavy-hitting final few baddies of TOB.
I'm starting to think that no matter what, I can't really leave the option of magical items out of the equasion. I mean, I'd end up using a strenght belt or dexterity gloves anyway after a short while. So it does become a situation like Giosanti described above me: which item becomes less unfortunate to not be able to wear? I guess there are some pretty good gloves out there that I wouldn't be able to wear once having to use the dexterity gloves to make up for a dexterity lower than 10. I'm not too familiar with the items that will boost constitution to 18 or 19 while worn, and what items they are going to prevent from being worn instead. I'm still set on having a natural strenght of 18/xx, 19 with tome.
It feels like the extra HP and dexterity aren't really going to matter in late-saga anyway, though dexterity perhaps a bit less so than the HP. In early game however, I am still undecided. A fighter with no HP/level bonus just feels wrong. And I woudln't know how to boost my constitution in the early game. On the other hand, a paladin tank in heavy armor, with a large shield, with high DEX, wearing boots of avoidance and anti-piercing belt would be quite something, too. Nearly unhittable. And having a low DEX makes using a two-handed sword much less feasible. Though I guess I can't avoid the fact that I'd be wearing the gloves of DEX 18 pretty quickly anyway.
With Full Plate alone, you'd have 1 AC, with -4 vs slashing, -3 vs piercing, and -3 vs missile.
I must admit though, I like shooting the bow.
Also, like what was mentioned, certain fights will be more challenging with no Dex, since if someone can only hit you on a 20 if you had 18 Dex, it could be theoretically extended to a hit on a 16+, giving the enemy 5x the chance to hit you if you have 10 Dex. In later fights, the chance will increase from 10%-30%, or 20%-40%, 50%-70%, 80%-95%, and then finally there will be no difference at all, although this is extremely rare, considering most enemies don't go far below 0 thaco even in SoA.
That being said, I am more like most on here, I would prefer 16 Dex and 16 Con, rather than 18 in one and 10 in another.
Kivan is a total bamph. Love him.
Last time that happened to me, my npc took the longest way taking like 5 minutes than without any knowledge of the spot. He died cause of a trap -_-
For the question : Rather sounds weird but I would go for CON. First because "Ressurection" below less than 10 is like 30% of succes if I remember. Second, because a barbarian without high hp is like... a mage without spells
I haven't played either game in forever (since they originally came out - definitely looking forward to the new release) but if your constitution is 18 then it isn't that hard at some point to make it 19 or even 20. Once you get to 20 I believe the character starts to regenerate which can be very cool. This may only be a BG2 thing but I still think it is worth mentioning. I usually play a fighter type in both computer games and PnP and strength and con would be the 2 main attributes I would focus on.
Although I do vote for CON. It help against traps, spells (and dragonbreaths:) ) not only against weapons. DEX is definetly better for low lvls, but for that you can get a shield, dex gauntlets and later very decent armors. You can't really boost your health points...
On the other hand, if you have decent DEX stat, a magical full plate, some other +AC item (cloak of sewers in BG2 for example), and maybe a shield (although I can't imagine why would any paladin want to skip 2handed weapons...) you can hold the ground for a veryvery long time.
So all in all, depending on your roll, I would try to reach 16 from both stats, get a good STR, and if you have any points left, put it on CON.
But it also depends on what role would you like to play. Charge in and stay alive while the archers/mages kill the monsters, or you want to decapitate as many fes as you can?