Going to roll either pure mage(collector in me wants a spellook with every single spell on it!) or a conjurer. Plan is to summon demon or two and bring 7 hells on Faerun yas! Hmm mayhaps Cleric/Mage just for this purpose hmmhmm
When I was young playing this I would go after the sheer obvious power of the Mage or Paladin, but the bard has become my favorite character by far. The ability to buff the party, debuff enemy casters, and become a melee monster with the spin techniques is ridiculously fun. I usually take them unarmored so I can cast at will. Without a buff or two he can still be turned into Swiss cheese by many an enemy so he has to be watched carefully.
That being said I would probably love playing a fighter/mage multiclass but I have never done it. I love the flavor of the kits too much.
Mostly i play paladin, usually an undead hunter, reminds me of my first playthrough. And i think it fits well into your background being raised by priests, but still focusing on a more direct approach. And Sarevok being your antitheisis is just the cream on top. Even though i'd prefer a dwarf paladin like in NWN, Kagain's portrait just fits too well.
TOTEMIC DRUID YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, ( i love playing this class just for spite and make the crappiest team possible just to see if i can beat the game, hardy hardy har, but of coarse when hair my dallas gets improved bard song, even stinky pc's start kicking butt, man that ability is nice, INFINITE RANGE ye-haw )
Pfft. A cleric-mage multi-class since day 1. Tee-hee. Perhaps the most incredible moment was, when I actually understood that you can store priest spells in a spell trigger/sequencer. Bless+chant in the middle of a fight. Awesome. Or a heal+pfmw+magic resistance? Even more awesome. Or maybe because I grew closer to my poor PC. An ability to draw and write fanfics = FTW.
My favorite is the Strider kit for Rangers with a STR 18 DEX 19 elf. Fun times. Early on I use him as Long Bow user (massive damage even at level 1) and latter switch to dual long swords. It always confounded me that rangers don't get backstab by default and I like the concept of a good align spy/infiltrator. I also like gaining haste at lvl 12.
Sure I could play a fighter-thief but I always felt the Strider was more fun from a roleplaying perspective. Besides, rangers shouldn't be allowed to wear heavier armor, never made sense for what should be a stealthy tracker class in my eyes.
I prefer BG1 even though I like the companions and extra banter in BG2 a lot. Its just that I tend to like low magic settings. Besides, the hardest part of the BG series is starting out at lvl 1 were even animals can kill you. Going for a no reload play through is terrifying in BG1.
Dunno @wissenschaft, BG2 has potental to be a difficult game too, but i assume that magic in BG2 become a lot overpowered, maybe for the lacks of feats in the game, that could help a bit the physical classes. A Balance betwen arcane magic and divine magic (wizards/sorcerers x priests) shoud be done too.
And as you said, i hope that BG come with same number or more of banters as BG2 (and an improvment in BG2 banters too, but this is for the future).
Always played a thief in BG because the attributes that a thief has, I once did have. I have slowed down a bit and I tend to drink a bit, but I still show a touch of dexterity... A bard perhaps...
@kamuizin cernd, jaheira, haer'dalis, jan and arie, that is the weakest team combo you can have in bg II, no pure fighter type, no pure cleric type, no pure mage type i team these chums up with a totemic druid and create the team called " the losers of spite" no one on that team is a power house but its still fun to play, it requires a little pizazz though
@sarevok57, i really agree with jan and aerie. Crend if you use him in the wrong fashion is by far the worse character in the team. But Jaheira and Haer'dalis i disagree (jaheira only in half).
jaheira is a decent fighter and when she hit lvl 5 druid spells, she is a tank with iron skin, and that's a lot. Her druid limits really hurt, unseless you make the trademeet quest fast, what gives belm scimitar and turn the tide, she also can use any armor and she has a decent life pool (but she's annoying).
Haer'dalis... well he's a separate story, i really like him but his abilities are to relative for me to judge, just don't take him on early levels, wait until you're lvl 10/11, so he come with 2 proficience points in small swords.
haer'dalis and jaheira can be okay, but they arent powerhouse hitters, and they have no HPs, yes stoneskin/iron skin is nice and all that jam, but when you are fighting battles when bagillions of spells going off by enemies, and tons of attackers or even huge groups of beholders, they get wittled down so quickly because of their extremely low HP, i am an incredibly lazy gamer, i dont want to buff up every single fight, that to me is a complete pain, and if you have haer dalis on your team you have to do that, his HP are complete garbage, his to hit and to damage is complete crap, and you have to buffy the vampire slayer allllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the time, but when he hits level 24, i give him enhanced bard song, and then he never kills a single monster ever again, enhanced bard song have infinite range, so he can stay at one corner of the map using that and it will reach anybody anywhere, jaheira can be okay as well, infact she is really good at lower levels when she gets conjure fire elemental, but the problem is, is when levels start getting higher, he halariously slow level progression stomps her hard, and she gets weaker and weaker, and needs to be babysat so much just like hair my dallas ( except i guess hair my dallas does get better with level up, being able to actually hit something but still tooooooo much buffing) now, i dont mind buffing when fights are supposed to be hard, but if im fighting 4 mummies and 2 ghasts i dont want to have to buff for 2 minutes every time before i fight that just so he has a chance to not die every 2 or 3 encounters, now that team c-c-c-combo breaker i mentioned earlier, that is by far the weakest team combo possible, yes everyone on it can potentially be good, but those group of chums require babysitting to do so, lets take minsc for example; to be perfectly honest he is not really all that good, but you give him a belt of giant STR and the bracers of dex, and give him a couple of points in two handed weapon style, and he can actually hold up on his own, you can just glee fully through him into battle and its all good, and i think that is the problem i have with jaheira/ haer'dalis, you cant just glee fully through them in ( plus haer'dalis has horrendous stats in my opinion and those HP, oi so low, yes 15% resistance against every thing, but when you are playing the hardest difficulty and everything is doing 60-80 damage to you, having only 60 HP isnt going to save your behind, and stoneskin isnt going to save you from abi-dalzim's horrid wilting) but anyway, i dont want to slam someone's opinion on who is better to have on your team and all that good stuff, but if you're going to have people like jaheira and haer'dalis, they are going to make you work to make them usefull, now cernd isnt really all that bad, when he hits level 13 he gets a nice ac bonus bleh bleh blah blah and all that good stuff, and everyone and their dog knows that he will use whatever weapon you have equipped eventually when he starts to bug out, but he shares that same weakness, no HP, this clown might hit 130 at the end of ToB when i get mazzy to hit 220 or so, that is a MASSIVE difference, on the hardest difficulty you need HP and lots of them, especially in ToB when you can have -26 AC and baddies are still hitting you with 5s and 6s you need that AC to back it up, and not only that, spells, that are doing ubsurd amounts of damage as well, cernd's eau de resistance arent enough to make him survive more than a couple of big spells, but again it all comes down to play preference, some people like pizazz and like combat that way, in general, i like just letting my team loose and having them mop up the floors of all the baddies without me having to babysit them (especially if they are only fighting a group of yuan-ti or so)
Gnome illusionist. Purely because I have an obsession with turning giant creatures into squirrels and laughing at their meekness. I also like the gnomes saving throws.
@elminster, i agree gnomes have AMAZING saves, they are even amazing fighters, because they can have 18 str/dex/con and their saves are legendary, i would love to play gnome illusionist as well except they cant learn abi-dalzim's horrid wilting in bg II
@elminster, i agree gnomes have AMAZING saves, they are even amazing fighters, because they can have 18 str/dex/con and their saves are legendary, i would love to play gnome illusionist as well except they cant learn abi-dalzim's horrid wilting in bg II
It sucks but honestly since I normally have another mage in my party anyways its not that big of a deal.
The one thing that bugs me about BG2 for clerics is that there are not enough debuff spells.
Dunno @wissenschaft, BG2 has potental to be a difficult game too, but i assume that magic in BG2 become a lot overpowered, maybe for the lacks of feats in the game, that could help a bit the physical classes. A Balance betwen arcane magic and divine magic (wizards/sorcerers x priests) shoud be done too.
And as you said, i hope that BG come with same number or more of banters as BG2 (and an improvment in BG2 banters too, but this is for the future).
Kinda surprised I seem to be one of a very few to use fighter/mage. Looks like most people here prefer single classed kits. Also I don't understand why people think Aerie is weak and worthless, to me a cleric/mage is very powerful, and even with her low fighting stats you can use a lot of buffs to turn her into a juggernaut with lots of immunities/resistances.
@Iansounet and @Tanthalas I very very veeeery often end up with Aerie in the party and I love the amount of spells she has. Here as well in most forums I ever looked at she ranks as a crappy character and I never understood why? Someone cares to tell me?
I do consider myself a pretty good player, but I do known that I never use anyones 100% potential with spells and item combinations, but still....Aerie Rocks!!!!!
Aerie stats are crap, and she's a little annoying (if fact sometimes i like her style, a fetish with the voice maybe? Dunno). Well, she doesn't come along with anomen (he kills her, and she doesn't even react, what a pussy... in the good sense of the word, as a weakling... just to ppl know), and normally i always pursue a chaotic neutral anomen when i play the game, that's another negative point, too.
The only stat that Aerie is really missing is CON, but its not really important for my playstyle (where she's a ranged character) so that's why I personally have no problems with using her.
aerie can be a good character, but she is weak as ballz, yeah she can cast cleric and mage spells and all that good stuff, but 16 wis and int is just plain brutal and HP, HAW, lets see, in ToB she might hit 70, and thats giving her HP items? even when she is in ranged combat baddies still seem to find ways to do damage to those back team mates, and hitting level 9 mage spells for aerie wont happen till the tail end of ToB, if you grinded spiders in SoA and ToB you might have them by bhaalspawn 4, and that is serious grind, i think the most xp i ever had without grinding is 7 000 000 and that is doing absolutely every quest in SoA and ToB and doing the higher XP ones, in terms of sheer power, aerie has none, and that slow level progression, oi that hurts, but can she be usefull? the answer is yes, does it take forever, the answer is also yes anomen and imoen are both better at being a cleric and a mage, plus their former class is still usefull, aerie's cleric and mage class are both pretty watered down due to low ability scores and slow level ups ( 30 HP when she joins your team in the circus, rock on rambo)
aerie can be a good character, but she is weak as ballz, yeah she can cast cleric and mage spells and all that good stuff, but 16 wis and int is just plain brutal
Wisdom and particularly Intelligence does nothing for casters in BG though. They could be both set to 10 and the only thing Aerie would be missing is some extra low level divine spells.
int determines how many spells you are allowed to know, if she had 10 int she could know 3 spells per level? and having 18 wis for clerics is a million times better than clerics not having wis, those low level spells can come quite in handy
Comments
...I can't decide:l
When I was young playing this I would go after the sheer obvious power of the Mage or Paladin, but the bard has become my favorite character by far. The ability to buff the party, debuff enemy casters, and become a melee monster with the spin techniques is ridiculously fun. I usually take them unarmored so I can cast at will. Without a buff or two he can still be turned into Swiss cheese by many an enemy so he has to be watched carefully.
That being said I would probably love playing a fighter/mage multiclass but I have never done it. I love the flavor of the kits too much.
Even though i'd prefer a dwarf paladin like in NWN, Kagain's portrait just fits too well.
I would name Nalia, aerie and mazzy, but i think this is a very complex theme and maybe ppl don't agree with me entirely.
Or maybe because I grew closer to my poor PC. An ability to draw and write fanfics = FTW.
Sure I could play a fighter-thief but I always felt the Strider was more fun from a roleplaying perspective. Besides, rangers shouldn't be allowed to wear heavier armor, never made sense for what should be a stealthy tracker class in my eyes.
I prefer BG1 even though I like the companions and extra banter in BG2 a lot. Its just that I tend to like low magic settings. Besides, the hardest part of the BG series is starting out at lvl 1 were even animals can kill you. Going for a no reload play through is terrifying in BG1.
And as you said, i hope that BG come with same number or more of banters as BG2 (and an improvment in BG2 banters too, but this is for the future).
A bard perhaps...
jaheira is a decent fighter and when she hit lvl 5 druid spells, she is a tank with iron skin, and that's a lot. Her druid limits really hurt, unseless you make the trademeet quest fast, what gives belm scimitar and turn the tide, she also can use any armor and she has a decent life pool (but she's annoying).
Haer'dalis... well he's a separate story, i really like him but his abilities are to relative for me to judge, just don't take him on early levels, wait until you're lvl 10/11, so he come with 2 proficience points in small swords.
Here as well in most forums I ever looked at she ranks as a crappy character and I never understood why?
Someone cares to tell me?
I do consider myself a pretty good player, but I do known that I never use anyones 100% potential with spells and item combinations, but still....Aerie Rocks!!!!!
Sometimes a little diversity is what's needed though, I am a fan of hers.
I had completely forgot about INT limiting the number of spells you could write to your spellbook.