F/M vs. F/illu ?
Sacerdor
Member Posts: 16
While i really enjoyed my Berserker 13 -> Mage, i hated the long downtime. I really wanted to experience the game without this downtime. Any thoughts on Fighter/Mage vs. Fighter/Illusionist Multiclasses ? Are the saving-throws and the additional spell-slots worth the loss of two of the best AoE spells (ADHW and Skull Trap) ?
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Fighter/mage/thief is also entertaining if you're in the mood for something different.
now with ADHW, it does kind of hurt not being able to use that spell, but with a multi-class fighter/mage, you will need to be at the 4.5 million XP mark before you will even get the opportunity to use the spell ( while ironically a fighter 13 dualled over to a mage will get it much quicker by 1 000 000 XP )
so by the time you get level 8 slots in your multi class character, you are no doubt going to be around the half-way mark of ToB
now with that being said, what are good replacements?
we have;
symbol stun; a beautiful crowd control spell ( and can work on single enemies as well ) that comes with a delicious -4 penalty to the save, so it has a good chance of working, but the caveat is if i recall correctly, it can also hit party members, so make sure your front line is either immune to stun or has some killer save vs spell
power word blind; another great crowd control spell, and one gnarly thing about this spell is that there is no saving throw, so as long as you can beat the MR it eyes wide shut for the baddies on the other side, although this one has a caveat as well and that being; it does indeed hit party members to, so some micromanaging will be needed with this
incendiary cloud; now with the obvious given that this spell hits party members, it is actually quite easy to be immune to since it does fire damage, and do your convenience your said charname can memorize the level 3 spell protection from fire ( which has a sexalicious duration of 10 rounds/level ) to make your front line be immune to fire and then just become a walking fire ball of destruction, a most intriguing strategy to use against those baddies not immune to fire
bigby's clenched fist; now although this spell per se doesnt do mammoth damage like IC or ADHD, it does have an effect that is quite nice, and that is the paralyzing effect, because as the saying goes; a none moving enemy is a dead enemy, and if im not mistaken this spell comes with a saving throw penalty which is nice and i think i goes for a round or so... or i can just read up the spell and apparently the first round there is no save and it paralyzes the victim, and its not until round 2 before they are allowed a save with a penalty, and this spell will last up to 4 rounds if they fail their save, and it does damage while they are paralyzed, not too shabby
so with that being said, losing ADHW isnt a complete game breaker, and if you made it far enough that your fighter/mage is finally able to cast level 8 spells, you have no doubt have found ways to getting around using ADHW
but with that being said, i would not suggest being a illusionist/fighter unless you actually want to be a gnome, if this is RP wise, choose the race you want to be first before worrying about losing necromancy spells or not
and if this is about; if i am an illusionist will this cripple me because i can't use necromancy? the short answer is; no
the long answer is; noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
your play style, if you want to run a 6 people party or a smaller one, which other npcs you want with you and the role that the f/m or f/i has in the party.
a dual from fighter to mage, even a lev 13 one, in end game is more a mage then a fighter, in many situations is more effective to have him cast a pi and then unleash the whole spellbook, thing that he can do many times/day. he will lack of the thac0 of a proper fighter and of the fighter's hla, but will only be a little back compared to a single class mage.
a multi is a competent fighter trough all the game, but at best is a good secondary mage.
both the multi and the dual are really powerful, but are different kinds of beasts that to really shine need to cover different roles in the party. the way the dual does it is fighter, then downitme then he reaches his peak, being very strong as fighter and as mage then in the late game his fighter part begin to loose power, gm does not compensate the 8 less thac0 points and the missed hlas, but as mage is unstoppable.
the role of the multi in the party is much more linear not only because there is no down time, but because both his classes continue to improve till the end.
this is why i think that missing the necromancy spells is not a problem, the role of a multi fm is not to drop damaging spells, is to use the spells to protect and haste himself and destroy the enemy defenses, his own weapon is the way he does damage. this in a large party where imoen, nalia or neera probably will be the main mage end game.
in a little party, let's say maximum 4 memebers, the multi level up much faster, all the party members do it, but each member has to be more versatile and cover more roles, so maybe aerie will be the main mage as she can also cover the role of divine caster and if needed of tank/fighter. also there to be a multi illusionist has advantages, basically for the 1 more lev 8 and 9 slots that allow when is needed more powerful mage combinations. at top level the gnome can have let's say an improved alacrity memorized to use effectively the pi, a planetar that is also useful for the pi and a CC that can be really useful in some situations. the not gnome multi has only 2 lev 9 slots so has to chose if to memorize spells useful for the pi or spells useful while not using the clone.
i use a lot the skull trap and i don't use so often the adhw, are both very good spells but is perfectly possible to live without them, probably the gnome is the most powerful multi, even if i probably would chose a F/M, slightly less powerful, but slightly more versatile.
EDIT: a berseker9->mage is a really powerful fighter trough all soa and can still fight effectively for a great part of tob, even if will miss more then the lev 13 dual. looses 1/2 apr but with the right weapons selection and dw has a lot of apr.
the down time is minimal with a couple of tricks and reaches high mage levels way before the lev 13 dual, as has 1M xp more as mage.
it is a viable alternative to a multi if you don't want long down time and you don't mind to have the toon shift from main fighter and secondary mage to main mage and secondary fighter.
is possible to pull it out even in a 6 people party, using a power leveling tactic (basically soloing until you get the xp to recruit the npcs at the maximum possible level, and without triggering any quest xp, then having only charname and few selected party members in the party for the fights but all the party every time you trigger a quest reward), and abusing some ways to get more xp, basically scribe and erase scrolls (i never do it), turning to stone and flash many times dragons and everything that worth it (i do it, but every time is a fair fight, to feeblemind them and profit is too easy and lame for me, i must feel that i have earned the xp, risking and pulling a good tactic that lead to a stone lizard without killing him as after the first time he start with only 1 hp an the single lucky hit of a summon can end the game) and using the limited wish to have vampires spawn, more than 50k xp each time ( if you survive...). also to have many mod quests helps, as well as going to wk, that i usually do in chap 2 soa.
it is possible, but doing it probably has no sense as a charname with 6M xp and other 5 toons in the 3-5M xp range in late soa make the game too easy.
i had some multi with lev 9 spells in soa, but usually in 2-3 people parties and with a hard modded game (tactics mod), so some challenge is preserved.
with a f9->m is much more easy.
the multi in a small party probably should reach lev 9 spells at some point of tob, not at the beginning, but still in time for the most demanding fights.
4M + 411K + X (Rasaad's quest) + Y (Neera's quest) + Z (because you spend part of the game with a 4-men party) roughly equals 5M, does it not?
I have not played the EEs thoroughly enough to have a good feeling for what kind of XP you can wring out of them. It is somewhat embarrassing, since I still consider myself rather knowledgeable about the series.
also i have little experience using the ee npcs so i did not factor in their quests in what i told.
playing the original game before tob was introduced my charname mages was hitting the xp cap near the end of soa. at that time i missed some optional quest, ie never discovered the twisted rune or did the limited wish quest, and i did not do all the npc quests, but the xp cap at that time was 2.95M.
so i would say that what i tell and what @Humanoid_Taifun tells is quite compatible, probably i was not missing the whole million he tells, but we are close.
Unless you mean you're not having fun with the B>M and want to choose between a F/M and a F/I.
In which case, F/I is so much better. Having extra spell slots matters most at lower levels, when you have less mage levels total, and the extra +1 slot per level really helps that along. It allows you tha tmuch more flexibility in accommodating all the protection, disabling, attack and support magic you can have at your disposal with fewer slots from leveling up due to split exp. The extra slots are really noticeable stacking with with somehting like the Ring of Wizardry in BG1 (where you get an extra 2 lvl1 slots for being a specialist mage). And then you get the shorty saves (Spells is very common and nice to have) while the ability mods are largely pointless due to the way they actually work in BG2 (no casting failure, wisdom means nothing to non-Wishing non-clerics, etc).
Your major losses are actually Skull Trap, Animate Dead, and Death Spell as an illusionist. Wilting is just not as powerful in the hand of a multiclass mage and better left to your single-class mages or better yet, Sorcerers, who can spam it endlessly with Project Image + Wish. Not only can they cast it earlier, they'll do more damage with it too at the same amount of experience until capping out (or beyond, if you install Spell50), which is more appropriate of such a high level spell. It can be replaced with Delayed Blast Fireball if you really want the instant high AoE damage in lvl 8. I usually use level 8 for other things than Wilting though, like Spell Trigger, Incendiary Cloud, Pierce Shield, and Protection from Energy.
Losing Skull Trap hurts the most. Hopefully you won't be the only mage in your party so you can still plant some down ahead of tough encounters. As for you yourself, in combat you can use Fireball about as effectively (it's faster too), for AoE damage or use the freed up slot for Haste or MMMs. A Fighter/multi throwing MMMs can be devastating even early on, the damn things are +6 hit weapons and do a good chunk of damage between the physical and fire. being able to spam like 40 of these in a fight is no joke.
Losing Animate Dead means no skeleton warriors for you, but a cleric or other mage can handle this for you. In fact letting a cleric be in charge is better as they come at spell level 3 for them, and they hit 15 faster than a mage.
Death Spell can be really handy in some situations (summons, umber hulks, mind flayers, trolls, trivial fights you don't wanna participate in, etc) but it's hardly the worst loss you take. You can sub in Death Cloud for the anti-summon or Cloudkill for the instant slaying of trivial enemies if you really want to. I usually fill level 6 with Protection from Magical Weapons/Energy and Pierce Magic though.