Swashy + group = an interesting mix
Sharguild
Member Posts: 186
Don't get me wrong, I love my Swashy and have full intentions of dualing him to Mage in the future.
How far in the future is the internal debate now waged in my mind.
My group is far from uber;
- Immy
- Viccy
- Jay
- Kahlid, and
- Neera
We are not a power group and I assuredly did not want to develop one, been there, done that.
- Immy will stay a Thief and concentrate on disabling traps and locks
- I'll handle detect illusions to 100 then toss in some heavy trapping points
My Swashy will focus on staffs ( 2 points) for Staff of Magi later and learn Longswords and slings, for BG2.
I'm noticing with such a "magic" focused group however that my play-style must develop differently than in the past where having two fighters up front was the norm.
I've known for some time that Khalid is not your first choice for front line. Regardless of his stats, he still seems to get poisoned, or charmed, or hurt far more often than the stats would suggest he should.
I can work with that, he's good with bow and can still swing a good sword when he absolutely needs to.
I do need to control my impulse for letting my MC do front line though and recognize that although I've built him to absolutely suck as a Thief, a Thief he still is, with all that entails.
So, we are still in early game and we all know that Mages are not at their best during this stage.
Nor is a lonely cleric.
But if we look at combos these folk can all work off each other, it becomes clear that together, they are becoming a very scary monster group.
Most just reached level 3 and we are just entering the Gnoll fortress.
When we are done, we will do the Nash mines, at level 4, I suppose.
Ogre Beserkers in twos are beasts right now and so are wolves in numbers, because they are so fast.
But spell selection is so absolutely key, it's incredibly important to compliment each other with spell castings.
"Sleep" of course, "Entangle" "Hold Person","Blind", "Spook" "Doom" "Command".
No Magic Missiles ( of worth) or Chromatic Orbs yet and Webs and Glitterdust are still eagerly anticipated.
Where I'm going with this is identifying how patience is required for some play-throughs and they can be absolutely so much fun when your party is actually in severe danger when confronted by enemies that in the past, with adequate tanks, you just steam-rolled.
Mileage may vary.....
How far in the future is the internal debate now waged in my mind.
My group is far from uber;
- Immy
- Viccy
- Jay
- Kahlid, and
- Neera
We are not a power group and I assuredly did not want to develop one, been there, done that.
- Immy will stay a Thief and concentrate on disabling traps and locks
- I'll handle detect illusions to 100 then toss in some heavy trapping points
My Swashy will focus on staffs ( 2 points) for Staff of Magi later and learn Longswords and slings, for BG2.
I'm noticing with such a "magic" focused group however that my play-style must develop differently than in the past where having two fighters up front was the norm.
I've known for some time that Khalid is not your first choice for front line. Regardless of his stats, he still seems to get poisoned, or charmed, or hurt far more often than the stats would suggest he should.
I can work with that, he's good with bow and can still swing a good sword when he absolutely needs to.
I do need to control my impulse for letting my MC do front line though and recognize that although I've built him to absolutely suck as a Thief, a Thief he still is, with all that entails.
So, we are still in early game and we all know that Mages are not at their best during this stage.
Nor is a lonely cleric.
But if we look at combos these folk can all work off each other, it becomes clear that together, they are becoming a very scary monster group.
Most just reached level 3 and we are just entering the Gnoll fortress.
When we are done, we will do the Nash mines, at level 4, I suppose.
Ogre Beserkers in twos are beasts right now and so are wolves in numbers, because they are so fast.
But spell selection is so absolutely key, it's incredibly important to compliment each other with spell castings.
"Sleep" of course, "Entangle" "Hold Person","Blind", "Spook" "Doom" "Command".
No Magic Missiles ( of worth) or Chromatic Orbs yet and Webs and Glitterdust are still eagerly anticipated.
Where I'm going with this is identifying how patience is required for some play-throughs and they can be absolutely so much fun when your party is actually in severe danger when confronted by enemies that in the past, with adequate tanks, you just steam-rolled.
Mileage may vary.....
1
Comments
I also stated that I have a feeling this could easily become a "monster group" as the game unfolds and levels rise. Right now however, they are a bit fragile.
Again, my emphasis was in stating that sometimes patience is required and developing long-term tactics is of course key.
I think that though to some this is a "given" not all embrace the "patience" portion.......
m2c
Part of the fun of these games is finding strategies for the group you *want* rather than just assembling a crunching kill-squad.
Increasing the brain requirement is part of how I personally keep the game fresh.
Immy as a pure thief is a bit of a waste - but if you have already done her as t>m then having her max out her skills is always useful - you don't have to worry about picking up another thief. You might consider giving her a kit instead if you haven't played with the other kits yet.
You lack somewhat in melee battle - if the battle falls to melee and for an extended time you might be in for some serious hurt but nothing Neera properly decked out with spells and wands cannot pull you out of usually.
Dualing your PC - perhaps 9 if you don't mind being a swash only PC during BG and then being a mage only for the starting chapter and a bit of the second chapter in BG2.
If you are not metagaming or using cheese exploits for xp - then it will be a fun adventure as a newly minted mage until you can reactivate your thief skills.
By the way using staff of the magi to backstab is too cheesy (and takes out all the risk of backstabbing) but you know that already.
As stated, I will keep the group I've got for the duration of BG1 and will keep Immy a Thief for that time-frame as my plan is to dual the MC to Mage.
Now for what I want his Swashbuckling skills to do, I doubt I need to prolong the dual classing for long.
As mentioned, my key focus was to discover the contributions of a high "detect illusion" and trap maker to the party as these are two skills I have not utilized before.
All other skills I will leave to "real Thieves".
So no back-stab, no pick locks, etc.... for my guy.
Yes, I acknowledge that BG2 lacks outstanding thieves ( maybe Hexxat?), but there you have it.
I also realize that whatever build up I provide to my NPCs will be superfluous in BG2 so not to get carried away there.
Focus, as it should be, is on the MC.
I usually suffice with moderate stats on initial roll up on a play through like this as I've power-gamed before and find more challenge in this. So not too many "18's" in my stats, heh.
Also, re; weapon selection, I wish to focus on mage goodies as ultimately that's what he will be,
I wish for this game to be difficult because of who we are, not for what we can or cannot do.
I think for all of BG1 we have a surprisingly powerful party that simply needs to learn to work together and in essence, isn't that why we develop a party at all?
m2c
Plus, he works well with pretty much any party short of Reputation 1 marauding monsters...