Now that Dorn Il-Khan is in my party, what weapon should my main take?

HaHaCharade

When playing an evil party, I normally do a fighter with Great Swords and Bows. Now that Dorn is here, I'm thinking he'll likely be Great Sword focused. I'm thinking maybe Halberds for my main? There's a +2 one in the game and a +1 one you can get early on, and they do a lot of damage. Additionally, I can still use bows which require two hands.

Not sold on it, want to see what you guys think.

Shar-Teel will have my Scimitar +3... and Kagain will have Battle Axes... best sword I can think of for an evil person after that (not counting crap that might be added in BG:EE) is a Longsword +2/+1 Cold Damage...

HaHaCharade

Now that I think about it, I don't even know if you can get the highest level of mastery in a pole arm... maybe Halberds aren't a good idea due to that... hmm.

FrozenCells

Doesn't make much difference since BG1 only really has generic +1/2 stuff. Halberds are fine. There are a couple of decent staves even.

mjs

in BG vanilla you can't attain grand mastery in anything, only high mastery. the best halberd isn't found till the battle at the top of the iron throne, but they do good damage in general. either that or maybe war hammers or quarter staffs?

HaHaCharade

mjs said:

in BG vanilla you can't attain grand mastery in anything, only high mastery. the best halberd isn't found till the battle at the top of the iron throne, but they do good damage in general. either that or maybe war hammers or quarter staffs?

I think that'll change with BG:EE

ginger_hammer

You could always go with spears as I'm sure they are going to add some new ones in, might be a break from the norm?

Gallenger

Darts... Specialize in darts... you know you want to.

kamuizin

which class you're going for @HaHaCharade?

HaHaCharade

kamuizin said:

which class you're going for @HaHaCharade?

Single Classed Fighter for my main.

mjs

@ginger_hammer i did a playthrough once using pole-arms in BG and spears in SoA and there are some very good weapons out there, chiefly ixil's spike

HaHaCharade

Here's my planned party make-up

Main - Single Classed Fighter - Bows/Halberds???
Kagain - Fighter - Axe w/Shield
Shar-Teel - Fighter/Thief (Dual-Class) - Scimitar w/ Shield
Dorn - Blackguard - Two Handed Sword / Crossbow (if he can use them - not sure)
Xzar - Necromancer/Cleric (Dual-Class) - Hammer w/ Shield also slings for his missile wep
Edwin - Conjurer - Quaterstaff/Sling

kamuizin

Well, it's pretty good, i'm not a huge fan of shar-teel dual class (it seems unlike in roleplay terms as she's more a berserker than anything else) but it's ok, i never thought of dual Xzar so i don't know what to think of that.

By the way you have 2 tanks (Kagain and Dorn), so i have 2 suggestions for you:

- the most common: make him a kensai and play more with the bow than the halberd, when you move for close combat exploit the halberd range of the Halberd to avoid being targeted. If you make a human kensai, maybe later in SoA you could dual him to something (mage, thief... even cleric just for fun if you feel the inclination).

- an most unsual choice: make an ranger/archer, you will have accept some alignment uncoherence at the begin, play evil as usual and become a fallen ranger (i'm very inclined to do the same by the way), in Durlag's Tower, pay for the tourist caravan event, carry some wands of paralisation and kill the demonknight in Durlag's Tower first floor.

"obs: The Demonknight appear quickly in the first floor of Durlag's Tower if you go there with the tourist event, he throw some fireballs to kill everyone and vanish fast. When he appears, mass flood him with as many casts of wand of paralisations you have (use more than one and immediatly after use the wand, pass it to another character to use it again). Proceed to kill him there to get as a reward:

Full plate mail +1, Large shield+1 (+4 vs missiles), Helm of the opposite alignment."

With the helmet of opposite alignment now you can make your ranger evil for the rest of BG game (and with luck the devs maybe work the game to make the helm of opposite alignment an carryable item to BG II, or at least put another there).

In BG II, unfortunally you will have to wait until the hell trials to take the evil paths and get a permanent evil change on the alignment. But BG II EE will still be worked and maybe other options can appear.

Those are suggestions only, just to remember.

HaHaCharade

kamuizin said:

Well, it's pretty good, i'm not a huge fan of shar-teel dual class (it seems unlike in roleplay terms as she's more a berserker than anything else) but it's ok, i never thought of dual Xzar so i don't know what to think of that.

In Vanilla the Xzar dual-class is excellent. If you give him 3 Wisdom Tomes and 1 Intelligence Tome, he had an 18 Intelligence and 19 wisdom. He can get 6th level Necromancer / 8th level Cleric. Viconia can only get 8th level cleric single classed. And she can only get an 18 wisdom. Plus Xzar still manages a 16 dex. Only thing that sucks is his HP, but whatever.

Shar-Teel isn't thought of too much a thief from RP, I agree, but her High Dex and Strength makes it hard to pass up... plus I can see her backstabbing someone and reveling in it, lol.

HaHaCharade

kamuizin said:

"obs: The Demonknight appear quickly in the first floor of Durlag's Tower if you go there with the tourist event, he throw some fireballs to kill everyone and vanish fast. When he appears, mass flood him with as many casts of wand of paralisations you have (use more than one and immediatly after use the wand, pass it to another character to use it again). Proceed to kill him there to get as a reward:

Full plate mail +1, Large shield+1 (+4 vs missiles), Helm of the opposite alignment."

If you kill him there, I assume he still appears at the end?

Ligg

HaHaCharade said:

In Vanilla the Xzar dual-class is excellent. If you give him 3 Wisdom Tomes and 1 Intelligence Tome, he had an 18 Intelligence and 19 wisdom. He can get 6th level Necromancer / 8th level Cleric. Viconia can only get 8th level cleric single classed. And she can only get an 18 wisdom. Plus Xzar still manages a 16 dex. Only thing that sucks is his HP, but whatever.

Intresting. How do you get a Tome of Wisdom at the right time to Dual Class him? Which one do you go for?

HaHaCharade

Ligg said:

Intresting. How do you get a Tome of Wisdom at the right time to Dual Class him? Which one do you go for?

Have a thief stealth and go into Durlag's tower and grab it. He starts with a 16, and you can dual him once you get a 17 and he gets level 6. The other tomes you get later are just gravy. You can in theory (if you don't mind reloading some if you're discovered or your stealth fails) get it at level 1.

Ligg

I'm wondering what the XP cap will be in BG:EE. Maybe you could wait until he's level 7 and get some 4th level mage spells too.

Also there is a tactics mod were Durlag's Tower won't show on the map unless you've met the people in Ulgoth's Beard. If that get's implemented then would that change things? Unless you make a early move to go up north.

But I agree that Xzar can be one of the best Clerics in the game.

HaHaCharade

@Ligg -- Yeah I'd wait longer in BG:EE... He might also be able to get level 9 cleric, and get those 5th level clerical spells. I wouldn't think the tactics mod would be implemented... but who knows I've been wrong before.

kamuizin

@HaHaCharade, yes, he have to, as he don't drop the soulknife if you kill him at the tower first floor, so you finsh by killing him twice with this metod (in the first floor and at the end of Durlag's maze). I would like for Team BG to change that, make him invulnerable there (as he isn't mean to die there, if you kill him you get like an secret reward), and move the helmet of opposite alignment to another place, but if they don't change this feature, there is where you can get the helmet.

In the past we could roleplay anti-paladins and blackguards by giving the helmet for a paladin (thus making him a fallen paladin) or to a ranger, now the paladin issue is unnecessary but the ranger issue still rings true and you can give the helmet to Dorn* for good parties.


*i hope Team BG to give special banters for the 3 new characters if they use the helmet of opposite alignment, they probally wont but that would be extremly cool.

HaHaCharade

kamuizin said:

@HaHaCharade, yes, he have to, as he don't drop the soulknife if you kill him at the tower first floor, so you finsh by killing him twice with this metod (in the first floor and at the end of Durlag's maze). I would like for Team BG to change that, make him invulnerable there (as he isn't mean to die there, if you kill him you get like an secret reward), and move the helmet of opposite alignment to another place, but if they don't change this feature, there is where you can get the helmet.

In the past we could roleplay anti-paladins and blackguards by giving the helmet for a paladin (thus making him a fallen paladin) or to a ranger, now the paladin issue is unnecessary but the ranger issue still rings true and you can give the helmet to Dorn* for good parties.


*i hope Team BG to give special banters for the 3 new characters if they use the helmet of opposite alignment, they probally wont but that would be extremly cool.

Agree! Maybe request that in a Feature Request. Its a good idea. You don't even have to make him invulnerable, just freeze your dudes until after he does his thing and exits.

ajwz

Personally, I've always favoured the hammer. The once you get from killing Bassilus has always been really under-rated. In addition, hammer proficiency should transfer nicely between bg1 and bg2.

Mortianna

HaHaCharade said:

Here's my planned party make-up

Main - Single Classed Fighter - Bows/Halberds???
Kagain - Fighter - Axe w/Shield
Shar-Teel - Fighter/Thief (Dual-Class) - Scimitar w/ Shield
Dorn - Blackguard - Two Handed Sword / Crossbow (if he can use them - not sure)
Xzar - Necromancer/Cleric (Dual-Class) - Hammer w/ Shield also slings for his missile wep
Edwin - Conjurer - Quaterstaff/Sling

An evil party without Viconia?!? *gasp*

kamuizin

I found that option very interesting, for old players new play method are essential. Never thought of Xzar being able to dual to cleric.

HaHaCharade

Mortianna said:

HaHaCharade said:

Here's my planned party make-up

Main - Single Classed Fighter - Bows/Halberds???
Kagain - Fighter - Axe w/Shield
Shar-Teel - Fighter/Thief (Dual-Class) - Scimitar w/ Shield
Dorn - Blackguard - Two Handed Sword / Crossbow (if he can use them - not sure)
Xzar - Necromancer/Cleric (Dual-Class) - Hammer w/ Shield also slings for his missile wep
Edwin - Conjurer - Quaterstaff/Sling

An evil party without Viconia?!? *gasp*

Haha yup

CaptRory

Viconia isn't evil! She just needs more hugs!


Apparently true since you can turn her to Neutral in the Romance. XD

Mortianna

@CaptRory So I've heard. But why would anyone NOT want Viconia to be evil?

Quartz

My only suggestion on your party make-up is actually to just pick up Montaron and forget about Shar-Teel. He is quite excellent, and Shar-Teel is an annoying whore anyway.

Oh, and for any doubters on the Xzar dual-class ... it's definitely epic.

Mortianna said:

@CaptRory So I've heard. But why would anyone NOT want Viconia to be evil?

Umm, me. And I play lots of Evil parties. She isn't even convincingly evil from the first place. I would rather have her be herself instead of the wall she puts up. Have you ever played through her romance? The "evil" Viconia is a lie from the beginning.

kamuizin

Viconia romance sucks, it's by far the wrost romance in the game, that was just another evil punishment made in the game. She isn't evil, otherwise she wouldn't endanger herself by refusing to kill the human baby in underdark, she could even not agree with that act, but put herself in harms way by morality, definetly not evil. She's just a soft woman that play evil and reckless to impress people around her, pretty much like a tennager in school.

Even Aerie has more guts than Viconia.

Of course for me the best romance is made by Anomen whom is obvious TOTALLY more evil than Viconia, just see that in revenge patch he kill Saerk daughter, an innocent girl just to make a point and make Saerk suffer the same pain he had when he discovered his sister was dead.

HaHaCharade

Quartz said:

My only suggestion on your party make-up is actually to just pick up Montaron and forget about Shar-Teel. He is quite excellent, and Shar-Teel is an annoying whore anyway.

This is true. I just can't get past her huge strength though... Monty is great with dialogue too, and I feel less cheap keeping him in a party that contains Xzar. Bah. We shall see.

Quartz

@kamuizin - Whatever, I enjoyed her romance because it was ... I don't know, REALISTIC? Because it's just like you say, "She's just a soft woman that play evil and reckless to impress people around her, pretty much like a tennager in school." Then you have your influence on her to stop being fake, and suddenly she's more open and honest and a better person. How can you complain about that romance "sucks"?

In other words, I pretty much agreed with your post entirely, sans the "it sucks" part. That is personal taste and (I mean this humorously, don't be offended) your personal taste sucks. Your observation skills? Excellent. Your personal enjoyment? Couldn't care less. But other people might care, so no problem.

HaHaCharade said:

Quartz said:

My only suggestion on your party make-up is actually to just pick up Montaron and forget about Shar-Teel. He is quite excellent, and Shar-Teel is an annoying whore anyway.

This is true. I just can't get past her huge strength though... Monty is great with dialogue too, and I feel less cheap keeping him in a party that contains Xzar. Bah. We shall see.

Monty has a decent strength, he does good enough, then you get him all the way to Baldur's Gate ... proceed to give him Gauntlets of Ogre Power and laugh maniacally as he slaughters everything.

On top of that, he gets bonus HP. Shar-Teel doesn't. Oh, and once again, his personality is amazing, Shar-Teel is just an annoying whore. My goodness I can't wait for Dorn to be around, no more Shar-Teel for me. She's excellent statistically but she annoys the hell out of me.

kamuizin

It sucks cos it frustate me, every time i make an bloodthirst evil bastard and i just want a sadistic woman at my side, everything i get is viconia. At least now we can make a bloodthirst bastard woman and we can have dorn for that !