Need party advice for LOB mode.

BraveSirRoland

Hey everyone.I'm new to the forum and wanted to ask for advice from veteran players.I just finished my first playthrough of Bg1 EE. and planning to do a trilogy run.My main is an Archer and I'm planning to include:
Aerie
Keldorn
Jan
Minsc
Haer'dalis
in my company.
Now I played the original games back in the days but I'm unsure if this group has any potential when it comes to banter.Second question:Will this party perform well in LOB mode with some changes?I will eekeeper Aerie to Cleric/Wild Mage and Minsc to Berserker-Mage dual....for reasons
If I remember correctly Archer will hold up well,but I see some conflicting messages in the froum regarding to it's potential.Thank you in advance.

Dunski

LoB is a completely different playstyle where many things that are fine for the base game are no longer viable. While much can be done with cheesy tactics and an excessive reliance on Web or summons, I'll assume that you want to play the game "normally," as in approaching most fights in a manner that at least vaguely resembles the way one would play tabletop D&D (i.e. no spamming offscreen web five times and then plinking everything to death with slings). In that case, here's the truth about LoB:

Melee only works if it has either mage levels or high damage resistance. AC is completely useless, everything has such insane Thac0 that even with -10 AC, you'll get hit repeatedly. A melee character just doesn't work if it can't cast Stoneskin or get Hardiness plus at least one other source of damage resistance. Everything in LoB gets something like -10 Thac0 as well as an additional attack per round, so you can only survive if the hits you take deal little to no damage.

Enemies also get crazy AC and HP. You need practically every member of the party to deal considerable physical damage or you'll be swinging away at things for ten minutes. Blade is garbage, it simply hasn't got the Thac0 to land hits or the attacks per round to deal meaningful damage. Characters need warrior levels in order to pull their weight. Even a fighter9>mage will struggle with Thac0 in the latter stages of the game, so you should dual at level 13.

Fighter/mage obviously works well. A fighter/cleric with Defender of Easthaven is also fine. Dwarven Defender is excellent as well. Anything that relies on Hardiness will work eventually but has a tough time until you actually get HLAs. Archer is amazing because it's ranged physical damage and great Thac0. Skald also works in a fighter-heavy party just because the song buffs everyone's combat prowess.

Spell damage is useless since everything has massively inflated HP, so pure casters struggle. Crowd control spells work fine, but they work just as well when coming from a fighter/mage or fighter/cleric.

The party you've outlined won't work very well in LoB because it lacks tanks and physical damage. Haer'dalis will not be doing any meaningful damage. Keldorn will die almost immediately in every fight. Jan and Aerie contribute nothing to kill speed. By and large, the game's NPC companions are not good enough for LoB.

If you must play with story companions in LoB, I suggest using EEKeeper to make the following party:

1) Fighter/illusionist main character
2) Mazzy changed to archer class
3) Korgan changed to dwarven defender
4) Jan, since somebody needs thief levels. Can swap with Imoen later
5) I guess you can make Minsc a berserker>mage if you raise his intelligence
6) Anomen changed to fighter/cleric multiclass, with flails (FoA+DoE)

That will give you enough damage dealers and tanks while still generally preserving the flavor of the companions (except for Minsc as a mage, but whatever).

BraveSirRoland

Wow thank you, that was very educational.Now that I read a lot more posts regarding LOB it sounds more like a nightmare to play.I think I'll try SCS instead first,it sounds more like a fun challenge than a tedious exp.Now I understand the hype about LOB duo archer setups.They sound very appealing with might oriented gameplay.

Yigor

I'd also suggest Dwarven Defender and Berserker/Mage as tanks. ⚔️

In some situations Berserker is better than Dwarven Defender cuz of mind protections in the state of rage. ❤️‍?

It is possible to improve AC to -20 (at least, temporarily), it would be enough for most of melee fights. ?

Yigor

One more idea: dual-classed Fighter/Mage of lvl 9/X (with X>9) can have grand mastery in bows or crossbows! ?

The same thing concerns a quite exotic Wizard Slayer/Mage! LoL ?

BraveSirRoland

Thank you.Great community here.It's great to revisit beloved classics.I got sick of modern gaming,could barely find one or two games per year that might interest me.

Christian79

LOB is an excercise in patience and cheese mostly. I would go for SCS too. On max difficulty it is quite a challenge but doable without cheese.

Yigor

Christian79 wrote: »

LOB is an excercise in patience and cheese mostly. I would go for SCS too. On max difficulty it is quite a challenge but doable without cheese.

It depends. At low and intermediate levels (for example, BG1 and BP1), LoB is a good training in search of efficient tactics. At high levels it becomes more and more cheesy imho. ?