Completely new player, what class should I choose?
spicyhotmeatball
Member Posts: 3
So in preparation for BG3 I wanted to play bg1+2 for the first time since I've not really played any similar games, the closest would maybe be pathfinder kingmaker and wrath of the righteous. The options I've narrowed down to are fighter, paladin, cleric, thief and shaman. Other fantasy games I mainly play mages/magic users so looking to try something different. Not fussed on alignment restrictions, but do find it hard to play evil aligned roles. As someone who is very new to the combat as well, I'm unsure what class would be best (beyond a basic fighter, I do like a bit of spice in my gameplay). Love some help choosing my bhaalspawn's class!
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I like playing subhuman gnomes and thieves, very sneaky. You go behind and backstab them, its quite brootal.
When you start in Candlekeep, pay attention to the tutorial elements (the green robed monks, just go talk to them all. A couple of fighter types will give you brief “hands on” lessons with the combat system) and it will give you most of the pointers you need to get started.
The usual litany of getting started pointers…
It’s better to specialize in a couple weapons than to be mediocre in several.
Long Sword may be the best weapon choice, there’s a good one available early and there will be plenty to choose from during the whole series.
Buy the best armor you can. Plus shield, helmet, and the weapon(s) you are specialized or proficient in. You won’t generally be short of cash, so remember the mantra “a penny saved is a penny wasted”.
Recruit a balanced party. I usually advocate 2-3 warriors, 1-2 mages, 1-2 cleric/druid, 1 thief. That can be more than six, but that’s fine, multi-class counts as more than one.
Recruit characters of the alignment you are and want to play (at least on the good/evil axis, law/chaos is more of a pure role playing thing). But if you play as a very good guy, evil NPCs be unhappy, some will abandon you. If you play an evil character, good NPCs will be unhappy, some may abandon you.
As you recruit characters of different classes take the time to learn how to use them. Look at how casters learn/memorize/cast spells and what their limitations are. You’ll figure out “best” spells as you go, and best spells will change some as you go and opponents change.
The most important thief skills, at least at first, are find/remove traps and open locks.
Those are the big things I can think of. Beginner questions are exactly what this section exists for, so don’t be shy if you have more!
Out of the list you've said I would say paladin is the most newbie friendly class, followed by cleric. I would also add a suggestion of fighter/cleric multi-class, as a powerful newbie friendly option. I would also suggest against a single class fighter, as that class is strongest when you have some meta-game knowledge about weapons, and I think your playthrough should be as blind as possible. Lastly I'd recommend against a thief for first timers just because of the squishiness in BG1 and the fact that your first companion is an outstanding single class thief.
With paladin or fighter/cleric you can afford to make weapon proficiency mistakes on level up and it's not going to feel like a major loss. FWIW, the very start of the first game has limited cleric options for companions if you follow the main plot and stick to low level areas.
I would also suggest against playing any kind of evil style, and generally speaking you should avoid committing to evil companions in your party. (short term is fine!) The game's reputation system provides enormous rewards for a stereotypical good-guy playthrough, and first time players should stick with that. Another reason to suggest paladins are viable. It always seemed to me like the games were play-tested thoroughly with the paladin class, because the games are very kind to that class on gear and quest options. So expect a solid, fun playthrough for them.
As for cleric or fighter/cleric, there is a fair number of powerful gear options for these two choices. Blunt weapons do very, very well throughout the saga. Being able to equip plate armor is a good boost for first time players in BG1. And these two classes arguably do better from a "powergaming" perspective than paladin.
One final note is that the game over mechanics are slightly different from many modern RPGs. You can survive the death of any of your companions and resurrect them at a temple (or later on with your own spells/items). But if your protagonist falls, that will trigger a game over status. Because of this, it's worth considering a class that stays on the backline, if you want fewer game over/reloads. A backline single-class cleric does very well in this regard.
If you tend towards more of a thief class then a fighter/thief multiclass has the best of both worlds but there are a lot of thieves in the game as companions.
Paladin and its subclasses are always a good class - sword-fighting, unique class abilities, and some cleric spells.
Shaman class - is a difficult class to use without mods.
As for alignment it only matters in a few instances - play the way you want to role play the characters - for example lets says you want to role play a paladin and then decide to do a bunch of evil deeds (in the eye of your god) then you should lose all of paladin abilities or be forced to pay a huge fine at a temple.
Enjoy the journey through Baldur's Gate.
I'd actually looked into fighter/cleric but wasn't sure since the cleric side as some alignment restrictions, same with paladin. I traditionally play good centric characters, but I want to experience all parts of the game, but it sounds like the game favours more good choices?
Dual or multi classing a thief does sound very handy (and often my second choice after mage), so I'll take a look into that. I do plan to play with mods, but from the sounds of it I might play shaman on another playthrough once I get the hang of the game
You really don't have to worry about roleplay restrictions in the game. Nothing will prevent you from making as many evil choices as you like, even if you're a paladin. You just might suffer consequences of a bad reputation or loss of class skills. But, again, I recommend new players do a "good" playthrough and for a first time player I don't want to spoil anything for you. You'll have little to worry about, and the game doesn't even have any evil-specific quests aside from perhaps companion quests. But you shouldn't worry about trying to complete all the companion quests on your first playthrough, the majority of those quest rewards are quite meager.
The roleplay elements will likely feel a lot more limited than they do in modern RPG's. So a simple, good-ish playthrough will guide you through like 95% of the game's content. As with newer RPG's there really is no way to see all the games' content in a single playthrough. You can do a semi-completionist run and that's a solid goal for your first game. But don't worry about not seeing alternate solutions or certain companion content on your first run. I think you'll have more fun if you don't worry about that.
And here we deal with what is in my opinion the real deal of the topic. Unless you solo the game you actually don't play a single character, but manage a party, your Charname (the main character) must not die or the game is over and you are probably more emotionally invested in him, but functionally works exactly as the NPCs,
Weather you manage to play a party where Charname is a Fighter and you have a NPC mage or the opposite you have any way to manage a Fighter and a Mage, there is no difference.
Certainly you can build powerful Charnames like a Fighter dualed to Mage or Thief, but I would avoid it in the first run, the combat system is complex and the magic one even more, both in the arcane and divine departments, in the first run you will have to learn so many things and adding complication is not worth it, if you will play more then once, get good (knowledge on the combat system, magic, effective tactics, available equipment and so on) then you can go into more PG builds, but not the first run.
So a paladin, a plain fighter or maybe a berseker, that also has some useful immunities when he uses his rage, or a multi F/something is a very good choice, avoiding the problems of a dual, down time and having to deal with the fact that the first class will no more level up after dualling.
And here MY BEST ADVICE, if you follow it you will have a lot more fun: avoid walktroughs, let that everything that happens is a complete surprise for you, it can happen only once in the life, don't waste that chance!
And be sure to have enough saves so if you screw something you don't have to roll back too much to fix it.
You can ask help on the forums if you find some battle too hard for you and you can read about technical information like the one you find on magic in this link https://sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/SpellsReference/Main.htm * but walktroughs are a completely different thing as they spoil all the surprise of playing a big adventure. Maybe you will loose something in effectiveness and power, but you will get a lot of surprise and immersion that you can have only the first time you go trough the saga.
*note: the link is for pre EE games, some things in it are no more possible in EE and the behaviour of some spells has been changed, but it is still the most comprehensive compact and complete introduction to the game magic system that I know, it is meant for BG2 so some low level spells that there are regarded as trash in BG1 work well and are super useful as the enemies will often fail the save, while in BG2 will have better saving throws so usually save, but to read it can change the way you use magic making the party arcane and divine casters way more effective.
Clerics in these games have no alignment restrictions. At least, the class as a whole has no restrictions. A single-class cleric can choose a kit and become a priest of a specific god, gaining some special abilities at the cost of a restricted alignment (at most one step from the god's alignment). But multiclass clerics don't have that option to take a kit, and won't be restricted at all. Feel free to choose an alignment that matches your roleplaying concept.