How do I powergame a blade?
Sloty1984
Member Posts: 147
Which proficiencies are best?
Which spells do profit most from the high level bard?
How do I best use the two spins?
Which hlas are most important?
Which spells do profit most from the high level bard?
How do I best use the two spins?
Which hlas are most important?
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For spells as mêlee some inspiration... mirror image, blur, stone skin, one of the armor spells, improved haste, protection for normal/magical weapons, (minor) globe of invulnerability, improved invisibility (until you get dimension door or mislead, which are sequentially better).
Use dispel or remove magic since bard levels are generally higher than pure mage levels. Damage spells are often also better if they scale by level.
For the spins, you have to see what works best. I usually take defensive if I split the party and I have no main warrior with the bard, otherwise I use offensive.
Use any item foremost. The rest as you think they will help. You cannot really plan HLAs (except for ignoring the less useful ones).
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/87082/solo-blade-on-insane
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/87715/bp1-my-solo-blade-on-lob-difficulty
In older game versions, Mislead allowed bards to cheat the action economy by having the clone sing while the real bard did other stuff. This is no longer an option in patch 2.6; the clone can't do anything but walk around and act as a decoy. Which doesn't make it a bad spell - a character with a Mislead clone up is invisible, and has invisibility re-applied to them immediately if they do anything that would break invisibility. There are lots of ways to abuse that, though you don't have access to backstabs to really break it.
The proficiencies ... it doesn't really matter. Well, if you're playing from level 1 you probably want access to both ranged and melee options early. But once you get a few levels under you, you'll have plenty of choice at all times. With no ability to specialize, you'll just pick up whatever strikes your fancy, that someone else in the party doesn't already have dibs on. About the only recommendation is to take dual-wielding before too long, because you can and it's how you get enough attacks per round for your melee ability to matter.
As for the party questions .. just play something already. There are many, many ways to build a solid party in these games.
Does the flail of ages still prevent improvet haste in the later levels?
A omen will romance female humans, Half-elf, elf, halfling. Thus quite diverse.
Jaheira the same but male.
I personally think Anomen is the more sturdy character as fighter/cleric due to his priest spells. A fighter/druid is nice but misses some combat spells.
Considering the romance, I like Jaheira more. She is less obnoxious although she can also drone on about Khalid.
CHARNAME Blade
Jaheira(which weapons would you give her)?
Mazzy(which weapons to give her)?
Nalia
Jaheira is fine, and I'd give her scimitars for weapons; however, I'd choose Anomen over her any day.
Mazzy is fine, but she is only an unkitted fighter that can't dual class. Korgan would be a better option here (Foebane main hand and Crom offhand)
Nalia is meh. Thief options within the game are mostly mage/thief types which I'm not a fan of. If having to choose between any of the stock NPCs, I'd choose Jan.
I still think that Mazzy is a fine warrior.
Jaheira I would use with scimitar and clubs. Anomen would be flails and hammers if you would have gone with him.
For thieving I would also go with Jan. He has the benefits of being talkative throughout the game and he actually progresses as a thief. If you want high level spells faster then Nalia is fine, but there are more pure mages like Edwin or Neera that have their charm.
Power gaming is more about which class combination you pick. Generally, a berzerker like Korgan fits better than a pure warrior like Mazzy. And custom npcs would also suit more.
I noticed that you ask many questions, which is fine, but that gives me the feeling that I should advise against a small party.
As for high-enchantment short swords, you can buy the +4 ToB short sword as soon as you gather the cash for it (a lot of cash). Other than that, there's a +3 as a reward for the thief guild quest, and a vanilla +4 in chapter 6.
Here's a complete list of all short swords that are anything other than plain +N weapons in BG2EE:
- Sword of Arvoreen: +2, immune to slow and stun, can slow enemy movement, halflings only, Mazzy starts with it.
- Entropy: +2, poison, Haer'Dalis only.
- Chaos Blade: +2, drains enemy DEX, Haer'Dalis only.
- Kundane: +2, adds 1 APR.
- Ilbratha: +1, can cast Mirror Image 1/day.
- Short Sword of Mask: +4, upgrades to +5, chance to entangle on hit, chance of level drain after upgrade.
It's not a long list. And it's severely lacking in the kind of on-hit abilities that you want in a fighter's weapon. There's not even any elemental damage.
- Arbane's Sword of Agility: +2, immune to Hold Creature and Paralyze, Haste 2/day
Which is a nice weapon (and you get it early in the game and for free).
And regarding Mazzy: I think the Short Sword of Mask in the main hand and Kundane in the off-hand is a fine choice, including from a powergaming perspective...
If you upgrade to +5 AFAIK is still possible to haste the welder, all you have to do is equip an other weapon, get the haste and then equip FoA+5, the toon will be hasted, protected by the free action and the weapon will have more damage compared to the +4 version. It requires some micro managing but you get all the best of the weapon.
If you give the flail to someone that has warrior's HLAs yes, but if a Blade, Anomen or someone that has not access to whirlwind uses the flail the Free Action of the +5 FoA prevents Improved Haste from working (unless the trick of un equipping it is used).
But also for Warrior types the whirlwind rounds for each rest are limited and you don't have many of them until the toon reaches very high levels while IH lasts many rounds and if the toon has high base APR can be sometimes the way to go as the Warrior can spend more HLAs in Critical Strike and/or Hardiness.
I see the Whirlwinds more as a backup tool if my Warriors spell buffs are dispelled or if the party is ambushed and can not buff before the fight or as a tool for the ones that use 2Handers as they can not dual weld so their APR is lower, specially if they use a vorpal weapon or a 2Hand Weapon with bonus damage as the Impaler or the Staff of the Ram.
In this particular topic we are talking about how to powergame a Blade, so the whirlwind is not an option.
I do want to note that you likely have multiple HLAs before you get FoA+5
When you get out of the Underdark, I think the best weapon set up for a blade is Crom Faeyr in the main hand (25 STR *really* boosts that THAC0), and any of the speed weapons in the off hand (Belm, Kundane, SNT if you have UAI).
Blades are great though with all their defensive magics and they are the best single class tanks for that reason.