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Best class for BBoD

I wanna do a class that ultimately uses the Black Blade of Disaster, doesnt matter if its a backstab or just plain rushing in and wacking stuff.
Any tips on the class as well as a explanation why would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

Comments

  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,881
    Black Blade stats: long sword, enchantment level +6, grants grand mastery to wielder. Deals 2d12+5 slashing damage (before modifiers), gets +5 to hit, target saves vs death at +4 or is disintegrated, 11% chance of draining the target by four levels and healing the wielder by 20 HP.
    Against all this power ... it lasts 18 rounds per cast, and it's a 9th level spell. The scroll is not available in the SoA campaign until chapter 6, where there's a single scroll in Ribald's special store. In other words, you won't be using it at all until very late, and even then you'll have sharply limited uses. Kind of hard to build around like that.

    If you're a pure mage, you're really not suited to hitting things in melee. One attack per round, and you'll only survive if you've got your defensive spells up. So ... not great there. This is a spell that you'll probably want some sort of multiclass with.
    Bards? Nope; they never get 9th level spell slots. And there just aren't enough scrolls to use the spell that way.
    Fighter/mage? Certainly a possibility. This is your best bet for charging in and hitting things with the sword, as the fighter gets +1 APR for grand mastery as a warrior and up to +1 for warrior levels.
    Mage/thief? Another good one; rather than lots of attacks, you go for a few big attacks with backstabs. Only Shapechange/Iron Golem backstabs can compare to the damage you get here.
    Cleric/mage? If you've built a cleric/mage, why aren't you standing back and casting spells? No particular synergy here.

    Now, there are some ... loopholes. Or maybe bugs, depending on how you look at them.
    - The Black Blade is a one-handed weapon, and it lacks the "Forbid off-hand weapon" flag so you can dual-wield it with something in your off hand. Moreover, because it's created in the magic weapon slot, it ignores dual-wielding penalties; you'll swing both weapons with no attack penalties. Stick Belm or Kundane in the off hand before casting the spell, and you get an extra Black Blade attack every round with no penalty even if you haven't invested into two-weapon style at all.
    - If you cast Black Blade (including from a scroll) and then dual-class to something else while the spell is active, you gain grand mastery in long swords. Permanently. Even if that was something like a mage/thief combination that has no business taking grand mastery in anything. It's supremely impractical with how late the scroll comes, but it's there.
  • UnderSpellUnderSpell Member Posts: 6
    edited July 2023
    Im torn between something like shadowdancer and mage/thief .
    Shadowdancer can use his clones and scrolls for multiple attacks of BBoD in a way. A scroll of tensers and a scroll of BBoD with 2 clones both with belm in offhand would be what? 4 attacks of bbod? would be pretty decent after all im not looking for anything game breaking just fun and ofc not be useless lol.
    Then theres the mage/thief who i kinda wanna avoid because of the 6 mil hla mage slots but still i could do Project image than tensers and stoneskin from spellbook and BBoD from scroll (also forgot on both chars evan later down the line cuz of UAI the gauntlets the give 1/2 apr are usable so therer that)
    Ive looked for a discussion about a similar character on both forum and reddit and couldnt find anything, maybe it wasnt tried or maybe it was so bad that nobody tried idk lol :)
    Thats mainly why i posted i got this idea that i wanted to see if it was viable.
    Thanks for the reply. @jmarry
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,881
    UnderSpell wrote: »
    Then theres the mage/thief who i kinda wanna avoid because of the 6 mil hla mage slots...
    Dual-classing is a possibility as well; that gets you to 9th level mage spells a lot faster.

    If you're casting the Black Blade on a clone, that clone pretty much has to be a simulacrum or equivalent - they're the only kind of clones that can attack. Which makes it a lot harder to cast from spell slots, due to the inherent level drain. Unless it's a fighter -> mage dual with a relatively low fighter level; the simulacrum level drain calculation is much more favorable to them due to a bug. (The drain for dual-classed characters is calculated based on the first class, where "first" is determined by the name of the multiclass.)
  • OlvynChuruOlvynChuru Member Posts: 3,079
    jmerry wrote: »
    Cleric/mage? If you've built a cleric/mage, why aren't you standing back and casting spells? No particular synergy here.

    The synergy is that clerics get the spell Righteous Magic, which makes Black Blade of Disaster deal maximum damage. Iron Golem fists would still deal more damage, but Black Blade of Disaster doesn't prevent spellcasting.

    The best class for Black Blade of Disaster would probably be a fighter/mage/cleric in IWD:EE (only in that game can a fighter/mage/cleric reach a high enough level to cast Black Blade of Disaster). Combining Black Blade of Disaster with maximum damage from Righteous Magic AND a fighter's attacks per round would allow for obscene damage.
  • KhyronKhyron Member Posts: 635
    By the time you get the spell and are able to use it, you have so many other alternatives that it really comes down to wether or not you -really- -really- wanna go that way.. you can, but it's a bit of a strange route. I can think of other spells i'd rather use the 9th slot for.

    If I wanted a playthrough where the BBoD was an important ingredient, I'd look at making a tiny mod that adds it to an already existing item, as a 1 once per rest charge.. then you could use it on any character.. or make a new item.
    Or use EE Keeper to add a stack of 5000 scrolls and do it that way.
    Place it late enough in the saga and it's not really -that- cheaty.. place it in Chateu Irenicus and it kinda is xD
  • BardsSuck_BardsSuck_ Member Posts: 133
    edited July 2023
    @jmerry

    He can chain contigencies with priest spells, the sky is the limit. I say have fun.
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