fighter/mage dual class weapon proficiencies
tonyhawksprostd
Member Posts: 2
Hey y'all! I did a kensai/mage playthrough a year ago or so and got tired of not being able to use gauntlets/helmets and the like and am going to do a base fighter/mage dual class playthrough of all the games.
I'm having trouble deciding weapon proficiency, I started off with two pips in two weapon fighting, two pips in scimitars, and am wanting to add some into warhammers at some point.
The issue I'm facing is that I don't know when or how many to add into warhammers. Should I start adding Warhammer proficiency pips at level 3? or wait until I grandmaster scimitar? At what point should I add my third pip into two weapon fighting? I'm extremely OCD about character building, and I'm not SUPER knowledgeable about ADnD - just enough to understand the mechanics, so I need some help making the right decisions, otherwise I'll just keep rerolling due to bad proficiency choices.
Thank you in advance
I'm having trouble deciding weapon proficiency, I started off with two pips in two weapon fighting, two pips in scimitars, and am wanting to add some into warhammers at some point.
The issue I'm facing is that I don't know when or how many to add into warhammers. Should I start adding Warhammer proficiency pips at level 3? or wait until I grandmaster scimitar? At what point should I add my third pip into two weapon fighting? I'm extremely OCD about character building, and I'm not SUPER knowledgeable about ADnD - just enough to understand the mechanics, so I need some help making the right decisions, otherwise I'll just keep rerolling due to bad proficiency choices.
Thank you in advance
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Comments
If you don't want to go Axes or Daggers and are more or less assured you will stick with melee all of the time, then a blunt weapon is the best choice. Warhammer or Flail are the better options here, but mace is fine too. Club sucks, sorry. Quarterstaff is good too, but can't be dualed obviously.
On character creation, you'll have two extra pips that you cannot further spend on your one weapon choice. If you know that you're going to dual-wield in the later game, then start with two points in dual wielding here. You can unlock that third pip at mage level 12, fwiw. Though it's a minor boost.
Because axes and daggers are so good for this build, I think the Berserker kit is the best choice. The Berserk skill isnt much more than a stat-boost in BG1. But in BG2 its immunities are a huge, welcome gift for a large number of difficult fights.
You don't *HAVE* to build it this way. I'm just listing what's probably the most overpowered version. I think scimitar/warhammer build can work well. The big thing is that you will either have to gain a lot of levels in fighter to get enough pips for grandmastery in both, or settle for not having grandmastery. But you will be a bit more versatile in being able to do blunt or slashing damage, both at good output.
Personally, I like long sword as the main weapon on fighter/mages, along with two-weapon style, and then a few points in scimitar or short sword for the off-hand weapon to get the extra attack - or you can put a point or two into a ranged weapon (instead of two-weapon style) at the start of BG1, and then bring up two-weapon style later on (just use a shield in the meantime). I'm not saying that long swords are the best per se, but they are great in BG1/SoD, and there's lots of different ones in BG2 with bonuses against different enemies, and depending on the party composition, they may end up being the best fit for a fighter/mage. Axes are also really good (especially on a zerkermage), but if you plan to take Korgan in BG2, then maybe it's better to save the axes for him. Daggers on a berserker are pretty great too, but their base damage always gives me pause although I guess it won't really matter much in the end. Nothing wrong with war hammers either (well, there's the low base damage again), but if that's what you planned to use as your main weapon throughout the saga, then I'd have started with that at the beginning of BG1 so that you could have grandmastered it by fighter level 9, and taken scimitars or short swords later to better off-hand Belm or Kundane (but Belm is good for Jaheira, and Kundane is good for Haer'Dalis, so we come back full circle, which is that what weapons are best depends on what party you want to put together).
The dagger of venom in Beregost blows away this difference by itself. With 15!!! extra points of damage potentially, albeit not all added at once. But, against casters, it's actually preferable that way. You have to get the saving throw failure and some enemies are immune, but still.
Secondly, if you have any kind of respectable strength, those bonuses will also make the 2.5 seem paltry. Even if you don't, the game showers you with enough strength potions to basically have a great strength for all the challenging bits of the game.
Thirdly, the dagger has a subtle stat that I had not appreciated for years, especially the dagger of venom. And that's the weapon speed. If you haven't experienced this yet, you should. The zero weapon speed on the DoV means you are always swinging pretty much instantly as soon as you close the distance. Again, critical for attempting to interrupt on casters. But also highly useful for just quickly cutting down enemies before they can even make a single attack. This becomes even more of a factor for stunning type daggers like the Pixie Prick in BG2.
Seriously, if you haven't experienced zero attack speed make a dagger protagonist or try Jaheira or Shar-Teel with this thing. It's shocking the tactical difference it makes.
It is true that a larger weapon is going to be slightly better at cutting down some of the large, bullet spongey enemies in the game that take multiple rounds of hits to down. But the tradeoff for the quick-strike ability as well as the versatility with throwing makes dagger a strong competitor.
I would reinforce what agent said about party composition. That truly is the key. I do think BG2 provides you with enough Axes fwiw to fill out Korgan and an Axe protagonist, but you'll have to purchase some for sure. The higher end ToB options become a little scarce though. This is often what I do when planning my own runs, is think of the companion weapon needs first, as they tend to be less flexible.
That being said, I do think it's a grave mistake to pursue two types of slashing or piercing weapons with proficiencies. The most common weapon immunity in the saga, aside from enchantment level, is piercing/slashing immunity or resistance. Generally speaking, if your frontline guys primary weapons are piercing or slashing, your secondary weapon should ALWAYS be blunt damage. Look, you can beat the game not doing this, of course, but you will make your run a lot more enjoyable, imo, if you do. Even as early as BG1, you are facing a fair number of piercing/slashing resistance with the skeletons. And some very tough ones in Durlag's Tower, fwiw. I think it's far better and more fun to have your frontline guy prepared for the worst as opposed to trying to pursue a secondary weapon purely to get one extra attack per round or something like that.
Daggers do have a subtle drawback to counter their quick attacks - low reach. You have to get in closer with a dagger before you can attack than you do with other melee weapons.
I believe that for a F->M in BG2 also using the staff is really good, you can buy a +4 one at the beginning and later use the one of the Ram, but you can also use the SotM with that super useful dispel on hit, going invisible at will is also super useful. So I would spend at least one of my mage pips in staves, that pip will also be useful vs the foe that you can only damage with crushing damage and a certain demi lich...
Choosing dagger as proficiency to bring to GM gives you also GM with the ranged weapon.
You will probably give the RoV to your main mage as you will have to get am other capable mage, to cast while in mlee is not optimal, so you will probably go to the battle with some sequencers ready to add something arcane to your raw mlee damage, and you will rely for protection on bracers and spells.
You will have to rely on your natural str when ranged or with the staff, but as most of your work will be mlee it is not a problem.
If your role late game will be the main mage of the party this build is still good, the only problem will be the limited range of the returning daggers, you will give Crom to some of your fighters and take the RoV, for you STR will still be relevant as returning daggers use the STR damage bonus also ranged as well as the returning axes, but a good belt will suffice.
With this build you can cover 3 roles: mlee (4.5APR), ranged (3.5 APR) and caster, is powerful and versatile.
If you go for GM in axe you still have the synergy of having GM both for the ranged and mlee weapon, but you will loose 1APR, to balance that you will have a good ranged axe vs undeads (if you will have the right alignment and if so you can not have the berseker kit) and a vorpal one in the end game, but the regular throwing axes weight a lot so until you will find the returning one in SoD you will be limited ranged by how much of them you can carry with you without over loading yourself.
So I would probably go for daggers, 3 pips in DW and the rest of the pips in staves, you will have to spend a pip in something other the mage can use, probably dart or even better 2H weapon style to get that +2 at the speed factor with the SotM.
Chaotic evil human berserker with a 96/22 roll, so str 18/22, dex 18, con 18, int 16, wis 15, cha 11.
Yeah, the low specialty strength sucks, but it took a long time just to roll a 96 total so I had to take whatever specialty strength I got. Int will be 17 after the int tome, so good enough to dual and later it'll be higher for level 9 spells, plus there's always potions of genius and mind focusing for scribing spells. Wisdom will be 18 after the 3 tomes of wisdom for Wish, and cha will be easy to boost with equipment, potions, and Friends spell (important for SoD where you get frequent stat checks). I mean, it'll be 12 after cha tome, 14 with Algernon's cloak, 20 with Friends, plus you could easily boost it even further with potions of persuasiveness and various gear. In BG1 I took Imeon along early on for her charisma to get better prices and reactions (for example to get 6 antidote potions from Landrin). Later Baeloth with Algernon's cloak will be our frontman when shopping (+ Friends spell from scrolls for the big purchases when necessary).
I started with 2 in daggers + 2 in two-weapon style.
At levels 3 and 6 I put 2 more into daggers to get it to 4.
I'm now in Chapter 2 of BG1 with 32K+ XP (soloed Mutamin's, etc.) and I've put my party together (Kagain, Montaron, Branwen, Baeloth and Edwin - might change Branwen to Vicky just to have a fully evil party) - also took in Khalid and Jaheira temporarily just to assign their proficiency points in case I take them in SoD (not sure it's worth it as maybe this may mean that they show up with worse gear and Jaheira will maybe have worse stats), but hopefully this way I can get Jaheira with 2 points in scimitars in early SoD and I normally give her the dex gauntlets and big-fisted belt anyway.
The plan:
At level 9: +1 daggers to get it to 5 (grandmastery).
Then dual to mage and put 1 point into quarterstaff (early SoD).
Then I'll level up to mage level 5 normally, then I'll sit there until I can go all the way to level 10 (late SoD) - obviously this part will be a pain in the ass and I'll just have to sit in the back and spam wands while the party does the heavy lifting; having no Stoneskin will make SoD especially tricky. But this way I can put my mage level 6 point into quarterstaff to get it to 2 at fighter9/mage10.
Mage levels 12, 18, 24, 30 will go into quarterstaff and 1 point into two-handed weapon style.
So by the end (fighter9/mage30) I would have grandmastery in daggers and quarterstaff and 2 points in two-weapon style and 1 point in two-handed weapon style. Not sure if this is the play and my plans may change - and not sure if I will even the complete trilogy the run.
I'm playing on SCS/Insane with double damage and BG1 will be a no-reload run (I don't have enough experience with SoD and BG2 to do no-reloads of those).
So the impact of having that /22 will be minimal and will last for a very short time whatever of the 2 games you start into.
By the way if I want to roll good stats, I most often choose to roll average ones, let's say I want a 90 roll with some exceptional STR, or even without it, I simply roll once, set the Con to the desired value and start the game, then I EEkeeper the other stats to 90. The real life time we have is valuable and limited so it is better to actually use it to play the game instead of playing a lame virtual dices game for a very long time, and I don't feel it is cheating as the result is something I can get anyway if I spend enough time rolling, to EEkeeper insanely high stats or something illegal is an other matter of thing, here I spare only precious RL time.
I think that your choice of weapons is very sound but to have your party baby sit you for most of SoD when you sit at lev5 mage is a pain, I would instead pick GM in daggers and 2 pips in DW as fighter, level up as mage normally picking 2H sword at level 6 and then picking all staves points as the dual is complete. This way you trade a painful dual process that makes you a sub mage for most of SoD with getting later GM in staves that, as you will probably fight most of the battles DW Firetooth and Crom to maximize the APR is not a big problem. What you plan is not wrong, it is just that I would prefer to get later +1/2 APR with staves as I wait for the second pip and then for the fifth one then to be a mage that caps at 2 lev 3 spells for the most of SoD and has to use wands (that in SoD are incredibly expensive to recharge unless you stack thieving potions on your mage) to be somehow effective.
As you will not have fighter's HLA so Critical Strike to use Crom in the OH imho is mandatory, F9 Thac0 is crap in ToB and that +3 to hit from 25 STR will help you if you want to be a fighting F>M and not a casting one (that I personally find way more powerful in the boss battles, to be effective physically is good for minor encounters and in death magic zones/vs foe immune to magic).
The biggest strike against Crom Faeyr in the off hand is that it's so good as a main-hand weapon; the last time I ran Korgan, he spent more time with Crom Faeyr in the main hand and the Axe of the Unyielding in the off hand than he did the other way around. Top-tier damage, some of that elemental so it disrupts spellcasters, and instant-kill effects against some annoying enemy types? Yes, please; that's an endgame-worthy primary weapon, available in late SoA. And then you get the 25 strength on top of all that...
In the first part of SoA is certainly useful. Later for a F>M dual at 9 it is probably better Crom as he will have enough spells to protect himself while the +7 Thac0 and +14 damage will help him to continue to hit often and hard.
The problem here is that there are no pips available to spend in katana, getting it means to give away GM in one of the 2 chosen weapons or the pip in 2H weapons that is useful with the staff. It is possible, but dualing at 9 the weapon proficiency choices the player can make are very tight as GM is one of the main advantages of the dual. The Multi, that gets more pips and can not go beyond specialization, has much more options and for him to use that katana is certainly a good choice.
I am all for flexibility, but the multi F/something are there for the purpose, they reach lev 13 Fighter, their Thac0 continues to improve, they get Fighter's HLA and have all the pips that they need to specialize in more weapons. The build Dagger Staff and 2 pips in DW squeezes the maximum from the few pips, a +1 APR weapon that you can find early in SoA and use ranged or mlee, and a good dagger also in BG1, Staff for crushing damage and the use of the SotM to dispel and no pip wasted in the process.
You loose the use of very good weapons like the FoA, but still you get al lot from the few pips.
I would say that given the way I usually play F9>M it does not really matter if I go one way or the other, I surely want to get GM at least in a good weapon, but the task of my F>M end game is not to fight physically, he does it in the lesser encounters, but his real task is to cast spells like crazy. My last F>M, BG2 only, had GM in Katana and was really effective with Celestial Fury in SoA, but later the weapons he was GM in was PI, ADHW, CC and Improved Alacrity so GM in more then one weapon was not really needed. But this is the way I play, and every way is good as long that is effective.
I also believe that APR is really relevant when you use a weapon that has a chance to do something worst then damage to the enemy, using Celestial Fury, FoA and the vorpal weapons the more you have attacks the more you have chance to stun, slow or kill the enemy, with the other weapons I am with you @SixOfSpades , there is nothing wrong in trading some damage with more flexibility, it depends also on which other characters are in the party, i.e. if you have Korgan and Keldorn probably they are not so flexible and will stick to Axe and 2Hand Sword so flexibility is important, with more flexible companions is better to focus on GM and stick to 1 or 2 trusted weapons.
It's the single or dual-class fighters that really focus on one weapon. Anomen and maces (or really, your choice of anything he starts with at least proficiency in), Korgan and axes, Mazzy and bows. You'll be able to develop a second weapon over time; a melee weapon of your choice for Mazzy, probably hammers for Korgan, just sticking with initial proficiencies for Anomen. But that's it; you don't get enough points to master three weapons.
Flexible builds that swap between lots of weapons have their place. A Fighter -> X dual class isn't it. You need that extra THAC0 and APR from grand mastery even more than other fighters, because you don't have lots of warrior levels or warrior HLAs to compensate.
And that, I feel, is something of an error pervading this thread: Comparing the Fighter->Mage to a pureclassed Warrior. Of course his THAC0 is never going to match up to an actual Warrior's, nor should it. You should be comparing him to a pureclassed Mage to see what he really is: A Mage who took a year off to study abroad, in exchange for much better combat stats. Look and see how your character's weaker side (Fighter) complements his stronger one (Mage), don't agonize over the fact that his weakness isn't as powerful as another character's strength. That's wanting to have your cake and eat it, too.
You want that extra 1/2 ApR for reaching Fighter 13? Then why the heck don't you earn it, by taking them up to Fighter 13? That's another +1/2 ApR, -4 THAC0, 8 more hitpoints, & 1 point in Save vs. Death, in trade for . . . a single Level 8 spellslot. Okay, you have to "waste" 1 more proficiency point in a Mage weapon, but so what? Your higher base ApR means you're no longer "required" to reach Grandmastery to have more than 2 attacks, so you're free to branch out & try some weapons other than the dozen or so that you take every run. When's the last time you considered Darts, or a Sling? BG2 is a candy store of great weapons, nobody ever said you have to use only the very best ones.
@SixOfSpades as you can see from what I told before I also agree with you, at least from the moment the F9>M gets enough Mage levels to really shine as mage. Still as the dual gets those pips as mage and retains some potential as Fighter even in the end game a build that gives him in the end GM in 2 weapons, with one of them being a +1APR that can perform both mlee and ranged attacks and the other that deals crushing damage is a good build and going to it instead of having less pips in more weapon types can be worth it as long as there is some one in the party that can make good use of those weapon types.
Personally I would not dual in a full saga run, the process of going to a pure Fighter to something in between and finally becoming a powerful Mage that retains some capability as Fighter lasts too long for my taste, I would better pick a multi FM or stick to only one class, but this is what @agentOO0 is going to do and possibly his planned route is the best compromise between getting GM and being able to fight in all situations: mlee, ranged and vs foe resistant to slashing and piercing.
Early game (BG1), daggers are very strong, especially on a berserker that can't put more than one point into bows, since with daggers you can get 4 points in both a melee and a ranged weapon for the price of one, you can dual wield them effectively, and throwing daggers give you 2 base attacks + bonus damage from strength. And then in SoD or early BG2, you'll have grandmastery with them. Also, playing a pure mage in BG1 just feel a little underwhelming when you can have Baeloth and Edwin as companions, whereas a pure berserker is super strong (a fighter that's basically immune to the most annoying spells and effects).
Again, I don't know if getting a second grandmastery in quarterstaff is really worth it for the zerkermage vs putting several points into multiple categories instead like war hammer (for Crom Faeyr) and scimitar (for Belm), or other good secondary weapons, but in the end, this is just a build idea outlined by gorgonzola in this thread earlier that I found interesting and wanted to try out.
For your TS tactic be aware that if the enemies you want to dispel with the SotM are protected by PFMW or Absolute Immunity it will not hit so will not dispel.
Anyway in the BG games many builds work fine and if you want to stick to you original plan of focusing on 2 weapons only and get GM in them you will find it effective and the plus is to have the feel that you have squeezed a lot from the few pips, usually only the pure Fighters reach GM in more then one weapon. It will be more a subjective satisfaction as the impact on the game will be far from game breaking (playing with full party, with small ones or soloing you reach the cap well before so you can benefit from the 2nd GM for a relevant part of ToB).