Pure mage or mage/cleric
Valferys
Member Posts: 47
Just an opinion question:
Would you rather pure mage build or mage/cleric build?
I played around with both briefly just to see them, and wonder what other people tend to gravitate toward? I know in BG2 you get Aerie, but I never really liked her, personally... I found her severely annoying... On a full playthru (BG - BG2) I would almost rather have my own mage/cleric... Would also negate my need for characters like Branwen, Jaheira, Edwin, allowing me to take characters I never have taken before...
How do the two builds work for others? Is it too diverse to multi-class, or should you stick with one of the two, either mage or cleric? Just completed BG1 playthru with Shadowdancer, and I am always thieves/rogue builds, so contemplating something different, maybe...
Would you rather pure mage build or mage/cleric build?
I played around with both briefly just to see them, and wonder what other people tend to gravitate toward? I know in BG2 you get Aerie, but I never really liked her, personally... I found her severely annoying... On a full playthru (BG - BG2) I would almost rather have my own mage/cleric... Would also negate my need for characters like Branwen, Jaheira, Edwin, allowing me to take characters I never have taken before...
How do the two builds work for others? Is it too diverse to multi-class, or should you stick with one of the two, either mage or cleric? Just completed BG1 playthru with Shadowdancer, and I am always thieves/rogue builds, so contemplating something different, maybe...
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Comments
That said, I do tend to play more plain Clerics or plain Specialist Mages more than a Cleric/Mage, but that's because of my class purist nature. But I have a great love and respect for the Cleric/Mage.
1. The Elven chain is only available through Dorn, so if you have some kind of repulsion towards him that shouldn't factor into your considerations.
The relative advantages come this way - you'll get more powerful spells earlier, and more mage spells in general, as a pure class mage. So if you *really* want to be slinging fireballs and so forth around the multi-class may prove to be a bother. If you just want experience the multi-class - Quayle is the way to go. Why? Because you get Quayle late enough that he's already getting higher level spells so you didn't have to suffer through the early portion of the game.
But the advantage of having both is pretty nice because you're making yourself, likely, a redundant caster. Your party will still likely carry additional divine and arcane casters, and so you've got some relative freedom to invest in handy spells that maybe your regular caster doesn't have the space to fill. The cleric/mage can really add some flexibility to a party. For example, casting doom and then any spell that requires a save... like blindness. That can make for interesting times!
As far as stats, if you intend to play into BG2 you'll want 18 Wisdom for BG1 because you can get your WIS score to 21 that way - meaning you'll get bonus 3rd and 5th level cleric spells. Which is mighty handy.
INT at 18 is nice too because you can bump it to 19 permanently and set yourself up for easy street as far as how many spells you can have in your book.
If you're going to nix stats. 16 con as Jumbowheat suggests - also Cha is not that important unless you really want to have a mixed alignment party or have a shopping fetish. STR can also be nixed unless you're soloing, because you'll always have some mule to carry the goods for you and you're likely not engaging in melee very often so it isn't necessary to have STR - I find a str score of 10-12 is usually good enough for holding all the wands + scrolls + magical items + potions that I want to have on a caster of that type.
Stat wise Wisdom is your friend, more wisdom = more spells ...intelligence is less important 16 is enough. Con is always good but because you're a cleric multi you'll get extra HP compared to mage anyway. The main ones are Wis and Dex.
I would like to point out though that sorcerer is better than everything in my humble but totally true opinion
Edit: When I say 16 is enough int, starting on 16 in BG1 is enough because tome can boost to 17 and if need be you can get another point from watchers keep. but you won't need 18 int for a long time....unless you're starting from bg2 in which case may aswell go 17/18 to start.
Because it's the only character that's immune to Tarnesh
(These are not my preferred levels for dualling, I'm just pointing out what's possible.)
The multi have a great versatility for the reason @Mush_Mush told, but also because with the right buffs, some of them cast on self, can be also a very good front liner. Cleric's thac0 is the second best after the fighter types (including rangers and pallies in the latter), and a cleric has spells to increase the STR up to 25, the thac0 and the damage. The mage's part give stoneskin and other protecting spells. My Aerie often go mlee, once she has the level and spells to do it, DW for 3 APR hasted and 4 improve hasted. If gnome even better, trades one more spell/level and ST bonus for a barred arcane school, that your main arcane caster will anyway cover.
But a mage reach lev9 spells at 3M XP, the M/C needs the double, in a 6 people party the M/C will reach it in late ToB. The single class mage will lack the versatility of the multi, but will be a much better pure caster. Not only at that point, but also earlier, he will have more damaging or lasting spells, when level matters, have earlier the strong skeleton summon and the mordy sword, the ADHW, Time Stop and so on. He will be the perfect main arcane caster but nothing more than that.
In a 5-6 people party they will cover 2 completely different roles, the mage will be the main caster, the multi will be really versatile mixing arcane and divine casting and, when needed, transforming himself in an untouchable mlee damage dealer and tank, but will be a secondary arcane caster, you will need some other mage to cover the role of main caster. In smaller parties, 3 or eventually 4 people, the things change and a C/M can also be the main arcane caster. To play around with both briefly in BG1 is not enough if you want to go trough the whole saga, you get just an idea of what they are at low levels.
I tend to use very often C/M, using Aerie that I don't dislike, as my ideal party is a 3 people one and for me a 5 people one is really crowded, and usually if I want a main caster charname I go sorcerer or F(7-9)->M.
Chose C/M if you want versatility and you plan to have also a better mage (leveling faster).
Chose Mage if you want to have faster leveling and a mage that gets really strong in mid SoA and that in ToB, not only the last couple of battles, can summon planetars, unleash a whole spellbook using PI + IA +RoV at a cost of a lev7 spell and so on.
What I've found from M/C vs M is that M/C is the much stronger defensive and party-protector caster, while pure mages are significantly better offensive casters. M/C's niche over pure mages is that you can have game-saving spells tucked in sequencers or contingencies, negating the long cast times Cleric spells generally have. (Remove Paralysis + whatever is a favorite sequencer of mine in no-reloads). Also something that ought to be mentioned is Shields and Helms: Shield of Harmony, Shield of Balduran, Shield of Reflection all protect against stuff that a single-class mage can't easily protect himself against.
On the flip side, the C/M exchanges that versatility for much slower Arcane spell growth, the +1 spell per level by specialization (unless gnome,) the hardcoded -2 penalty to saves for spells of your specialization.
So if you want the bhaalspawn to be front-and-center, the star of the show in every battle, pure mage is probably the way to go. If you don't mind the bhaalspawn taking a supporting role for the majority of SoA, C/M is absolutely fantastic.
As far as stats for a C/M: 18 DEX, 15 or 16 CON, I'd like 17 or 18 INT, but WIS honestly isn't too crucially important for you, since you have two spellbooks to constantly use your actions on. It's nicer for the early game in BG1, but that's such a short period it's somewhat ignorable. STR and CHA can be fixed through items for carrying/purchasing, so those can be dumped into the 8 - 10 range. Something like 8/18/16/17/14/10 is a measly roll of 83, so it's not out of the question to max INT and WIS either with an 89 or 90.
This is the true power of a high level mage, some of us don't use it as they feel that is even too powerful.
In the case of the C/M the robe and amulet cut also the casting time of the divine spells, very useful as then he can heal fast in the middle of the battle, with minimal risk to get disrupted, and he can use those life saver spells, like the remove paralysis mentioned by @Neverused, very fast.
As I often have both an high level mage or sorcerer and a C/M I usually give the robe to the C/M just for that reason and I move it to the mage before the battles when he need to cast fast or plan to use a Projected Image. You can not do it in the mid of the battle, but is perfectly legit to do it while the enemy is not in sight.
The only things where the single class have a clear advantage is turning undeads for the cleric and reaching lev9 spells at 3Mxp instead of 6M for the mage.
But, as told before, the C/M can use his clerical spells in trigger, sequencers and contingencies and cast them fast with RoV. And can buff himself to become a good tank and physical damage dealer, also the cleric can, but with the arcane self protections is simply better.
And is true that you can not launch 2 spells in a round, but having a cleric and a mage mean to use 2 party members instead of one. You loose one more fighter, or a skald to buff the party, or an other mage, may be a sorcerer (if you use mod NPCs).
You must compare a mage and a cleric with a M/C and a Kelsey or a Keldorn or a Korgan to be fair in your comparison.
Or you can just use your M/C and have 1 less person in the party, so more XP for everybody.
I am not saying that to use a single class mage and a single class cleric is not a good way to go, is viable and funny to play, but to chose that way is more a play style thing, from the power perspective dual and multi is usually the way to go. Just dual early your mage and the cleric from fighter in BG1 and they will be much more effective until the end of ToB, with a GM potential, some more HP and, for the mage, access to all the weapons, shields and helmets. And also armor, when you use Tenser's Transformation. A Tenser transformed mage in full armor and with GM has tons of HP and loose only 1 APR from a proper fighter, the GM helps him also to hit often. A single class mage Tenser transformed usually do very little damage with his 1 APR and as soon as his stoneskin is over can not tank safely.
I've always been very attracted to the "classic four" party - warrior, healer, rogue, and wizard. If I want to go with six, I'll add a druid, bard, and or monk, but those last three are optional utility characters. The classic four can get through any scenario or solve any problem in any fantasy adventure game just fine.
However, if you're running a small party, then yes, it might make more sense to combine your arcane and divine casting into one character ... although even then, that isn't necessarily the best way.
Throughout BG1ee + SoD, he'll be a full-powered Cleric, and more able to fight in melee than most (because Seeking Sword is a +4 weapon with 3APR, which is darn good at BG1 levels!) In BG2ee, he can eventually reach Mage level 29, so he'll be a full-powered Mage, yet with sufficient access to Cleric spells that he can be my backup Cleric at the same time, and will share the special advantage of multi-class Cleric/Mages that he'll be able to use Cleric spells in Mage sequencers. I suspect he'll work out rather well.
@gorgonzola - designing a heavy-duty spellcaster and then comparing on the basis of melee ability is absurd. Once he has dualled, this character shouldn't be in melee, he'll be busy casting. When forced into melee by an ambush, well, he can still summon his Seeking Sword if necessary, but his melee ability after dualling is really pretty irrelevant to the build.
Personally if I have a main arcane caster who is also able to mlee effectively like a F->M or a C->M I try to make the best use of him. As he will dress the RoV he will cast fast the spell he can cast each round and if is useful in the situation I send him mlee.
A buffed CoLathander->M can deal like 150dmg/round, with enemies with high MR like fire giants or drows you can need a lot of spells if you want to take down them magically and just bash them hard is easier and simpler and when I approach invisible a group of Beholders and attack them I want to have them fall fast, or something bad will happen. He can use his sequencers and contingences to buff fast, if he has a couple of fireshields active even better.
My vote goes to mage/cleric multiclass.
Though Stormlord/PoT 9 > Mage 30 is also pretty strong. At Mage 30 you still get the maximum number of spells for mage...along with cleric hit points, Stormlord/PoT bonuses and better divine spellcasting capabilities than a Paladin.
But Cleric/Illusionist only has one fewer arcane casting per level than a Stormlord 9/Mage 30, but with full divine spellcasting. So if you're willing to give up horrid wilting, I'd say Cleric/Illusionist is the way to go.