Weapons for a trilogy Berserker->Druid?

masteraleph

Caught in the paralysis of choice.

Berserker (9)->Druid dual is going to be my next playthrough- I've never really given enough thought to druids, and their antimage stuff sounds fun. With that said, I'm trying to figure out where to put proficiency pips.

Berserkers get 7 total pips from 1-9. Druids then get 2, and additional pips at 4, 8, and 12; anything after that is going to be late BG2, so I'm discounting it for now (as opposed to 4 and 8 which would be in SoD- stopping leveling from 4-9 and then leveling at 10 for the appropriate pips wherever I want them, and 12 in very early BG2), for a total of 12 pips- is this correct?

One possibility is to do quarterstaffs- there are good ones easily available in BG1 and BG2, and the Staff of the Ram is something to behold. Also makes it easy in BG2 to start the day with the Staff of Arundel (though is that always the last spell slot?) for the extra spell slot, if that works. Downside is no shield in BG1, at least without the Staff Mace, and in BG2 lower attacks due to a lack of dual wielding.

The other would seem to be dual wielding. Working backwards, I'd eventually want 2 pips in dual wielding and 2 in scimitar for Belm. That leaves 8 total pips to distribute around clubs, darts, daggers, scimitars, and slings, with a goal of grandmastery in one weapon.

I could go for Grand Mastery in Scimitars- there are several +2 ones in BG1, and a +3 one and a nice offhand +2 one in SoD, and of course there's always killing Drizzt (though you can only use one of his scimitars IIRC). Problem is that in BG2, other than Belm, there's not much in the way of good Scimitars other than Spectral Brand, which can be a pain to get. It does, however, do elemental damage, which is really nice.

Could go instead for GM in daggers, which gives a nice built in throwing weapon too. Dagger of Venom is beautiful in BG1, Dagger +1 is available from the get go with high charisma, and there's a Silver one available to help with Werewolf Island. I don't believe there are any +3 ones in BG1. In BG2, there are several very nice throwing ones, and Dagger of Venom is available again (though unfortunately not as powerfuldue to better enemy saves). There are a few nice options like Pixie Prick, but nothing super powerful until maybe the Dagger of the Star.

And finally, Clubs, which are nicely Crushing. No great ones in BG1, though The Root of the Problem is available in SoD and does count as +3. There are very nice ones early in BG2, but they max out at +3 (other than the Club of Detonation, but I like to play in a party). I suppose there's always installing Item Upgrade for that silly one that combines the two in the druid area, but that feels a little like cheating.

Anyone have any light to shed? How would you distribute your 12 pips on this build?

jsaving

Staves or spears would be my choice for a saga run-through, though for BG1 it wouldn't be a bad idea to put two pips in dagger so you can sword-and-board with the dagger of venom.

ilduderino

I would go staves, in both BG and BG2 you can immediately buy +3 and +4 versions respectively, you have almost no npc completion for them as a weapon class, the endgame staff is awesome and the other options available to druids are pretty underwhelming (but for a couple of spears)

Balrog99

Staffs and 2-Hand Weapon (1 pip is enough). Then pump spear for the remainder. Impaler is really good, but there are just too many interesting staffs to go with spear first...

velehal

From the powergaming perspective the best choice is gramdmastery in scimitars and dual wielding. Belm in the off hand is better than any two-handed weapon. Druid can´t use any super powerful weapons like FoA or Crom but Spectral Brand is fine.

jsaving

Disagree, belm is nice but druid-usable one-handers are just not strong enough to push dual-wielding over spears and staves.

sarevok57

in the underdark there is a +3 scimitar in the drow city ( you have to break into that house that requires a wardstone from the liches lair )

staff isn't too bad for bg1 because you can get the staff-spear +2 which is actually a pretty decent weapon ( and if im not mistaken can be brought over to bg2 and begin in the starting dungeon ) but when it comes to druid only 2 handers for SoA, the impaler is just a monster, that extra 10 damage a hit is killer

so if you plan on running over to spell hold right away, i would go with spears ( i've even had barbarian runs where i used impaler, it was great )

but if you plan on doing a bunch of questing in bg2 before going to spell hold, then staff will probably be the go to

also if you can manage it, when you dual at level 9 to druid, i would suggest keeping that druid level at 3 until you can skip to level 10, because then the 2 proficiency points you would get a level 4 and 8 can go towards a mastery, instead of 1 slot proficiency, this can still work in SoD because you only need a total of 375 000 xp to make it work

in fact, now that i think of it...

fighter 1 - 2 points in two handed wep style
2 points in staff
fighter 3 - 3rd point in staff
fighter 6 - 4th point in staff
fighter 9 - 5th point in staff
dual over to druid
druid 1 - 1 point in spear
1 point in something that isn't; staff or two handed weapon
gain enough XP to grow to level 10
druid 10 - 3 points in spear
SoA
druid 12 - 4 points in spear
near the end of SoA
druid 16 - 5 points in spear

so with that i would go with staves for bg1/SoD and then once you hit SoA and 5 points in spear switch over to impaler until you get the upgraded version of staff of the ram in ToB and then you should be good to go, unless you want to use ixil's pike +6 ( or is it spike? ) instead, although i'm not a fan of the free action effect, but the pin effect is pretty decent i suppose

jmerry

There's nothing wrong with the one-handed weapons. Daggers don't do much damage, but that's not much of a concern when you're stacking strength and proficiency bonuses, and they do have a lot of powerful on-hit effects. Also, the magical throwing daggers give you +1 APR when wielded in melee and have very good damage. Magical clubs are sparse, but they're very powerful at dealing damage - the Club of Detonation +5 is one of the top three damage-dealers in the game, alongside the Staff of the Ram +6 and the Flail of Ages +5. Scimitars give you a +1 APR weapon that can go in the off hand, plus an excellent all-round endgame weapon in Spectral Brand.

Basically, look at the rest of the party you have planned. Are there any weapons you're likely to give to other party members? If so, avoid those. Other than that, just pick something and go with it. They'll all work.

masteraleph

Not sure about the BG1 party, though for that time, as a Berserker, the PC will probably be doing most of the melee stuff vs others at range. In BG2 (with All Things Mazzy,) Mazzy with a shortbow, Keldorn with, well, you know, Viconia with various blunt weapons will all be permanent members. Yoshimo/Imoen as the 4th member, and then a generally open slot (but generally a mage until spellhold) for picking up folks as needed/useful.

jmerry

Keldorn and Viconia? That's not going to work. Those two will fight each other, to the death.

If you want a full cleric to go with Keldorn, it's Sir Anomen. Just don't let him fail his trial, or that version will fight with Keldorn.

Mazzy will need a melee weapon to switch to when the situation demands it, and she'll have plenty of room to develop her mastery of it. She starts with one point in short swords, but don't let that discourage you from pursuing anything else; she can reach grandmastery in any weapon by level 21.

masteraleph wrote: »

...Keldorn with, well, you know...

Ah, dual-wielded long swords and bastard swords with crossbows for when ranged combat is a good idea. An excellent combination.
Just your friendly reminder that Keldorn has plenty of proficiency points to spread around, and he has to spread them because he can't go beyond specialization in any weapons. Carsomyr is a fine weapon, but it doesn't overshadow the many other endgame possibilities. And as paladin-specific weapons go, I prefer Purifier.

Grond0

You've already referred to the value of the dagger of venom in BG2. You also mention the Pixie Prick, but I think underrate just how good that is. In the EE (unlike the original game) enemies have to make an unmodified save vs poison or fall asleep for 2 rounds - which is almost bound to be a death sentence. That's a tough save to make against someone attacking at say 3.5 APR (dual-wielding Belm, but before applying any haste effect). Casters can use PfMW to stop it hitting, but stoneskins or mirrors will be pretty much useless against it.

When you add in the value of ranged attacking with the extra APR and strength bonus, GM in daggers looks like a pretty good deal to me ...

masteraleph

jmerry wrote: »

Keldorn and Viconia? That's not going to work. Those two will fight each other, to the death.

If you want a full cleric to go with Keldorn, it's Sir Anomen. Just don't let him fail his trial, or that version will fight with Keldorn.

Mazzy will need a melee weapon to switch to when the situation demands it, and she'll have plenty of room to develop her mastery of it. She starts with one point in short swords, but don't let that discourage you from pursuing anything else; she can reach grandmastery in any weapon by level 21.

masteraleph wrote: »

...Keldorn with, well, you know...

Ah, dual-wielded long swords and bastard swords with crossbows for when ranged combat is a good idea. An excellent combination.
Just your friendly reminder that Keldorn has plenty of proficiency points to spread around, and he has to spread them because he can't go beyond specialization in any weapons. Carsomyr is a fine weapon, but it doesn't overshadow the many other endgame possibilities. And as paladin-specific weapons go, I prefer Purifier.

I'm well aware of what happens with K&V- that's why I mentioned All Things Mazzy, which has a component that allows you to make that combination work.

masteraleph

Grond0 wrote: »

You've already referred to the value of the dagger of venom in BG2. You also mention the Pixie Prick, but I think underrate just how good that is. In the EE (unlike the original game) enemies have to make an unmodified save vs poison or fall asleep for 2 rounds - which is almost bound to be a death sentence. That's a tough save to make against someone attacking at say 3.5 APR (dual-wielding Belm, but before applying any haste effect). Casters can use PfMW to stop it hitting, but stoneskins or mirrors will be pretty much useless against it.

When you add in the value of ranged attacking with the extra APR and strength bonus, GM in daggers looks like a pretty good deal to me ...

What are the numbers like in terms of saving throws for BG2? My assumption has been that enemies tend to end up making their saves most of the time, but I don't know what the actual numbers are for that, especially for saves vs poison which don't come up that often.

Grond0

Enemies generally don't have saving throws as good as your PC would have - it would be rare to see something less than 5 for instance. There are some enemies with immunity to sleep, but most are vulnerable. I enjoy seeing tough demons like Balors for example (who have a save of 5) regularly falling asleep.

jmerry

Most monsters use fighter saving throw arrays, and it's very rare for any enemy to have items that boost their saves. That means that their poison/death saves will generally be somewhat better than their spell saves; a Balor saves vs death on a 5 and saves vs spell on an 8, equivalent to a level 13 fighter.

Most monsters that are poison immune - generally constructs and undead - are also immune to sleep. Demons are an exception. Elves are resistant, and that includes drow.

So, compared to Celestial Fury's stun on hit, Pixie Prick's sleep on hit is generally less likely to connect, and more targets are immune or resistant to it. It lasts twice as long, but it's still a bit weaker overall. But that's a really high bar to clear; "not quite as good as Celestial Fury" still leaves room to be a top-tier weapon.

DinoDin

Going to agree with jmerry that your choice should probably most depend on who you want in your party -- who would be competing for similar weapon types. That aside, I think daggers and quarterstaves would probably be the best choices all things being equal. They're just the two weapon classes that a druid can use that are going to be good throughout BG1-ToB. Though daggers might drop off a bit for ToB.

You have the poison dagger in BG1. There's also the d6 dagger that can be acquired pretty early as well. And there's also the easy possibility of scoring a +1 dagger from various places even at level one. Pixie prick is excellent, as Grond0 says and can work for almost all of SoA. Daggers also give your zerker that nice ranged option. So more flexibility. What you lose is a bit of maximum power in ToB.

Staffs are just arguably one of the strongest weapon classes throughout the saga. Again, tons of easy to find +1 at level one. You can buy a +3 in the TotSC village, one of the few +3 class weapons in BG1. You can buy a +4 from the Adventurer's Mart right out of the gate in SoA, again, one of the few +4 weapons available early in that game. And one of the few +6 class weapons in ToB. So you trade not having a ranged option for slightly more power.

masteraleph

In the end, I think I'm going to do something like this->

Starting: Daggers 2 pips and Scimitars 2 pips
Level 3-9: Increase daggers to Grand Mastery (using Dagger of Venom as main hand and shield in the off hand)
Druid Dual Class: One pip in dual wielding and one pip in Clubs
Druid 4-8 (waiting to level up until 10): one more pip in dual wielding and one more in clubs


BG2: over the course of 12-20 go to Grand Mastery in clubs, which won't be hit until ToB. Reward myself with Pitchwife only from Cespenar, which is still somewhat silly but not moreso than most ToB weapons.

butteredsoul

I got into BG2EE doing this. Went Staves 5 in BG1EE with a point in slings for ranged and a point in two-handed weapons. The plan for BG2EE is 5 in daggers for thrown daggers. By the time SoA arrives, I'm guessing I'll be mostly a caster anyway.