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All elf party

I recently decided to start over with BGI and then follow up with the rest of the saga.

I figured I wanted do do something different then I did before. RPG style / themed party / anything that would be sort of sticking out. Note I do prefer to make all NPC characters.

Even though shorty saves always seems appealing - I just always seem to dislike having short characters in my team.

So I went with a full elf ( or half elf ) set up

Protagonist - Elf sorcerer ( a bit silly as the DUHM will be mostly wasted )
Half Elf - Cleric/Mage
Half Elf - Ranger/Cleric
Elf - F/M/T
Elf - F/M/T ( these are twins )

Both FMT's are skilled in shortbows, even at level 1 they are super deadly with the +1 from being an elf and ** proficiency points. Melee they will stick to swords and maybe scimitars. But they will be archers untill they can backstab.

I figured I always wanted to try a FMT. But then it struck me that the thief skill progression would be really slow, so instead of adding another Thief I duplicated the character. One will focus on locks, the other on finding traps. After that building up the backstab skills. Eventually they will be dual backstabbing, dual trap laying...


Any ideas how I can further improve the set up?


Greetings










Comments

  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    edited September 2018
    There's not much to improve really. Personally I would never use so many multiclassed characters, but to each his own. You will steamroll BG1 easily with this setup since if you roll them all you won't even need any items to gain the good stat bonuses, unless of course you don't max them out.

    If I can give any piece of advice it's that you won't have anyone really to utilize some of the better weapons in the game and you have quite alot of overlap. This won't really hamper you though. An example is that you have noone that will wield the excellent spider's bane 2hand sword for freedom. That sword and the ring of freedom on two fighters is an excellent combo with a couple of webs thrown around. You FMTs can still do that though, of you so wish. Personally I would be way to lazy to use dual backstabs and would rather go traps on one of them and BS on the other. There's a sandchief ring for invisibility for the one rogue who will not put points in stealth while you wait to gain access to the spell Invisibility (I tend to not use potions so much, but that's just me). Also there's plenty of good qstaffs in BG1, so one of the FMTs could perhaps focus on 2hand weapons and the other on swords. The first one uses backstab with staff+3 and the other one perhaps Varscona/drizz'ts scimis or the two Rasaad's talons that are available. Also the cleric/ranger can use staffs, but I would probably rather use that character as the tank using shield and staffmace +2 or the druid's club you get in cloakwood. The cleric/mage can use bassilus' warhammer if caught in melee and slings on primary slot. The sorc can use darts of stunning etc in between spells. With haste you will have enough APR to finish battles in 2 rounds. Also, for the FMTs, have one use longbow and the other shortbow so you can use both deadshot and the other bow which name I have forgot now. You don't have anyone using the xbow of speed, so switching one FMT for a Blade or Skald could have been a decent choice, if you're interested. The skald song is of course great, but the blade's offensive spin and xbow of speed with lightning bolts are also very, very good.

    Anywas, just some random ramblings you can freely choose to ignore :)

    Edit: two clerics are a bit redundant IMHO and switching your cleric/mage for a Avenger druid would still give you two chars who can cast web (sorc+avenger) but also letting you have a SC druid to reach level 5 spell slot and can pump out nymphs for healing and all other goodies the druid gets.
    butteredsoul
  • butteredsoulbutteredsoul Member Posts: 168
    edited September 2018
    Half-elf!?!? How dare you! Where is your elf loyalty??

    I like the twins F/M/T idea. Especially if they’re inbred.

    What about surrounding them with some pure elf weirdos like:
    A diviner!
    A Priest of Talos for that crazy nature fury
    A beast master for some fur-ball friendliness
    And the rarely seen but universally mocked elf barbarian!!!

    If you don’t like this suggestion I understand. I’m the guy who ran a halfling wizard slayer grand mastered in halberds through the game 15+ years ago. He and Mazzy were pretty cute together, though.
    DreadKhan
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    interesting that both FMT are using short bows, i would skill them with long bows, and especially if one of them has 18 STR then they can use the composite long bow +1 which is the most damaging bow in the game and you can in theory get it a level 1, and then i would have the other FMT use dead shot or whatever it's called

    and then over time in BG1 i would start giving proficiency in short bows so when they warp over to bg2 then they can use all them cool phantom bows

    and with elf FMT if you have 19 DEX, you shouldn't be strapped for thief points, i hit 100 % disarm traps, 90% open locks, and 80% pick pocket with some points to spare

    so you could set it up that one of the FMT does the DD/OL/PP and the other one can focus on trap setting and illusion detecting or stealth even in SoA when you hit 660 000 XP you thief level is going to be level 11 and you should still be good for points, its just that after level 11 in the FMT setup it will take another 660 000 XP before you thief level goes up again
  • SringootSringoot Member Posts: 3
    The shortbow was following the bg2 shortbow is better then longbow theory. Also with thief characters, short bows seem to fit better. I might change one to a longbow though.

    I might toss in one of the above proposals ( butterdsoul ) - if the set up turns to be too dull ;)

    The thief points work out niceley. Assuming they're both getting the two stealth perks, this leaves 5 skills to be divided among them. One taking detect traps and detect illusion, the other open locks and pick pockets. The set traps will be a lategame addition to both. I'll also keep detect illusion and pick pockets low, no real need for these to be high.

    The real good thing about this twin multi thieves is that after playing my party for half an hour ( clearing the basiliks in bg1 ) I'v reached thief level 3 so my open locks and detect traps are both 100 ( or really close to it )

    The points of level 4 and 5 will go to the hide in shadows and move silently, making them effective backstabbers at level 5, with the x3 multiplier kicking in.

    Note to self : one of my arcane casters should be neutral, and one evil ( 2 remain good ) Need to get 4 AC5 robes!

    Thanks for the feedback !





    butteredsoul
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    if you plan on going to werewolf island and "accidently" kill dradeel he wears a robe of the neutral archmagi and you don't lose reputation when he drops, so there is 2 robes of the neutral archmagi at least ;)
    butteredsoul
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    Shandalar drops a robe of neutral archmagi if you 'accidentally' kill him as well. That makes 3 of those. No need for anybody evil!
    Skatanbutteredsoul
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    Balrog99 said:

    Shandalar drops a robe of neutral archmagi if you 'accidentally' kill him as well. That makes 3 of those. No need for anybody evil!

    but you lose REP in doing so, with dradeel you dont :)
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    sarevok57 said:

    Balrog99 said:

    Shandalar drops a robe of neutral archmagi if you 'accidentally' kill him as well. That makes 3 of those. No need for anybody evil!

    but you lose REP in doing so, with dradeel you dont :)
    It would be kind of ironic to kill Shandalar just so you don't need to take an evil mage along for the cloak. However, he's kind of an arrogant douche so I wouldn't sweat the rep drop myself. I actually find it kind of strange that your rep drops for essentially killing your kidnapper...
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    Balrog99 said:

    sarevok57 said:

    Balrog99 said:

    Shandalar drops a robe of neutral archmagi if you 'accidentally' kill him as well. That makes 3 of those. No need for anybody evil!

    but you lose REP in doing so, with dradeel you dont :)
    It would be kind of ironic to kill Shandalar just so you don't need to take an evil mage along for the cloak. However, he's kind of an arrogant douche so I wouldn't sweat the rep drop myself. I actually find it kind of strange that your rep drops for essentially killing your kidnapper...
    @Balrog99 scarcely a kidnapper. He only forces you into the quest if you've already killed his daughters, which is letting you off pretty lightly I think :p.
    sarevok57
  • KronoKenisisKronoKenisis Member Posts: 15
    You likely will have no problems with this setup, except for near the beginning. Early game I can see two issues you may run into - 1) Having your only thieves be triple-classed will definitely slow down the early progression of their skills and you will likely run into locks and things you cannot open naturally. Buy some potions of thievery or scrolls of knock to compensate for this. Alternatively, make one of the twins a fighter/thief and the other a mage/thief, and their thief classes should gain enough XP that they can keep up with their respective skills no problem.

    2) This party has very low survivability early on. With all the multiclassing HPs are bound to be on the low end, and with the restrictions imposed it's difficult to make any of them effective before they really hit their stride - for instance, the F/M/T can't use heavy armor and cast spells/use thieving abilities, so the end result is just a bad fighter if they put on armor or a bad mage if they don't. However, with 4 arcane casters and 2 divine you should have no issues with anything after they can cast level 3 or so spells each - the magic will just circumvent all of the other issues they might have. Before you can just blast everything away with magic you might have to rely on potions and extreme tactical efficiency to make it through some of the fights.

    I might suggest some more divine magic if you can fit it into your setup, perhaps a druid or druid/fighter. I notice there is only 5 total party members so you could fit one more if it works with your role-playing style. Keep in mind that late game into BG2, the way XP works changes so that levels are gained at a flat rate. Before this, multiclass characters tend to be only one or two levels behind single class characters, but late in the game they will fall behind much more drastically. But personally I tend to play with mostly multi-class characters, two of them being divine casters, and things usually work out OK.

    Consider varying up the weapon proficiencies a bit, for the simple reason that it will allow you to get excited at a wider variety of loot. Sure some weapons are strictly superior to others but it's fun to have uses for all that unique weaponry you will find.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Well, 2 19 dex elves with spec in longbow are very strong right away imho, not much they can't drop until you've cleared Nashkel, though I admit you shouldn't explore much until the fmt both reach lvl 2 mage, as they need some hp.

    I would say the party could really use a second tank early, as the cm is squishy early. A pure cleric or berserker even would be a big buff for this party, and its not likely you'll miss the xp cap in BG1, even with 6 members.
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    sarevok57 said:

    interesting that both FMT are using short bows, i would skill them with long bows, and especially if one of them has 18 STR then they can use the composite long bow +1 which is the most damaging bow in the game and you can in theory get it a level 1, and then i would have the other FMT use dead shot or whatever it's called

    and then over time in BG1 i would start giving proficiency in short bows so when they warp over to bg2 then they can use all them cool phantom bows

    and with elf FMT if you have 19 DEX, you shouldn't be strapped for thief points, i hit 100 % disarm traps, 90% open locks, and 80% pick pocket with some points to spare

    so you could set it up that one of the FMT does the DD/OL/PP and the other one can focus on trap setting and illusion detecting or stealth even in SoA when you hit 660 000 XP you thief level is going to be level 11 and you should still be good for points, its just that after level 11 in the FMT setup it will take another 660 000 XP before you thief level goes up again



    Just to back this up, the difference between longbows (especially composite long bows) and short bows as far as damage goes is really noticeable in BG and early BG2.

    I know there are the super dooper short bows in BG2, but I kite a lot early game and find long bows much better.
    Also your thaco is dropping all the time, and that affects whatever bow you use. So a very good long bow archer uses short bows extremely well mid BG2.
    (Went through with the Kivan mod once, it was ridiculous the amount of "kills" he had compared to anybody else, and other than for golems, used long bows the whole game)
    Grond0
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