Playing with berserk weapon

Artona

I recently started another run of BG saga. This time my CHARNAME, however, is a barbarian. My idea was to create warrior that is exact opposite to Sarevok: our bro is cold, intellectual and collected, and I always imagined that his fighting style reflects that (maximum efficiency with minimal effort). So, my barbarian was intended to be basically savage, raw and wild.
I figured that giving him weapon with berserk curse would be great for roleplay, and currently I'm doing Durlag's Tower, and it's really fun: it requires more micromanagment and planning, but can be very rewarding.
Did anyone else deliberately used cursed item, maybe expect Kargaroth claw? Was it worth it?

semiticgoddess

A lot of mod-introduced items are cursed but have incredible bonuses. In Item Revisions, that sword gives +1 APR.

I installed a crapload of mods on BG2 using BWS and found a cursed +6 short sword named Bertoxxulous for sale in the Promenade for just a few thousand gold.

It even drained 2 Dexterity per hit, just like the Chaos Blade. You could get stat drain kills on pretty much anything. The only drawback was a -1 penalty to Constitution and a lot of alignment restrictions.

sarevok57

way back in the day, when I made dwarven fighter/clerics I used to use kiel's morning star, a +3 crushing weapon is just SO good especially in BG1, plus if you are soloing with a dwarven fighter/cleric, the berserk thing isn't too terrible

Artona

@semiticgod - I'm still in BG1, but I gotta try that after finishing SoD. Thanks .
@sarevok57 - yeah, I use Kiel's morning star as well, and it made fight with SCS Icharyd a joke. I wonder, however, how did you manage to save dukes in Duchal Palace with berserk weapon.

Grond0

Artona said:

I wonder, however, how did you manage to save dukes in Duchal Palace with berserk weapon.

I suspect the answer is - with difficulty . I've done it solo in BGT using Brage's sword, but that relied on being able to go up and down the stairs (which is not possible in BGEE). For a fighter/mage you could make Liia invisible and get away quickly before you berserk, but a standard fighter type would need a huge amount of luck to be successful (by getting several dopplegangers to chase you into a side room without any guards following).

Artona

Whoa, it's impressive that you actually managed to do it at all, @Grond0 . Chapeu bas. I think I'll play safely and remove Kiel's morning star for that fight, especially given that SCS makes it even worse.
It was funny when upon meeting Drizzt I had to cast Web on my barbarian so he wouldn't go attack him. So, as I said, it's very fun.

sarevok57

Artona said:

@semiticgod - I'm still in BG1, but I gotta try that after finishing SoD. Thanks .
@sarevok57 - yeah, I use Kiel's morning star as well, and it made fight with SCS Icharyd a joke. I wonder, however, how did you manage to save dukes in Duchal Palace with berserk weapon.

skellies, lots and lots of skellies, in the original BG1 you could summon more than 5 dudes, so there would be lots o' skellies, tis quite unstoppable

Grond0

Actually, depending on your installation, there is another possible option for the palace fight. If you go invisible immediately after the conversation triggers (but before any dopplegangers appear) that will often disrupt the dopplegangers' AI (you'll still need to get out of sight quickly though to prevent you going berserk). The result of that is that they won't attack, though they will still defend themselves. When that happens there is a chance that Belt and the guards can kill them off one by one. Even if they're not successful in that, if all the guards are killed by the dopplegangers before you re-enter the room you've got a much better chance of killing the remaining doppleganger or two without your berserk rage betraying you.

In basic BGEE the dopplegangers just stand there in that situation. I can't remember if I've done the same thing with SCS, but you could give it a try.