Choice of clerics
ilduderino
Member Posts: 773
I enjoy planning playthroughs in my head and the parties I will travel with. There is a great choice of mages and fighters and I am happy with Imoen as a thief. Every time choosing the cleric to accompany the group is like eating a frog. I used to not mind Aerie but in recent years she has become an absolute pain. I could never stand Anomen, he is well written but it doesn’t mean I want to hang around with him. I play good, and whilst Jaheira is basically good, I tend to not take neutrals. I would really like to find better options eg in a mod but play on iPad. I guess my only hope is if they ever port Glint into bg2. Anyone else feel the same or who are your go to healers? Can I survive without one?
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That said if you don't like their personalities have you considered at creation making a 2 character party? You have to do it near the very beginning of creation but there is a button called create party. If you wanted to strictly power game, make a multi cleric/war half ogre with flails and probably maces.
I like druids as a class (have taken them in IWD sometimes) but don’t like having neutrals in the party in BG which is why I haven’t taken Cernd and rarely take Jaheira
so when it comes to the "cleric" choice there really is only "2" or what i consider "cleric" type for me to choose from, and as it seems to be these days im leaning more towards aerie these times around ( maybe next month/year i might lean more towards anomen )
for me, i never use jaheira as my "healing" or back row "divine caster" if i have jaheira in the group, she is on the front lines, and she has all battle buff spells, as for cernd, i never use him anymore since the exploit was fixed with his natural weapon being able to be dispelled and being able to equip something that actually did damage, so cernd will forever be on the island of misfit joinable pcs and will never be used again, as for viconia i strictly only use her for evil teams, and i never change her alignment over to good, evil the whole way
although these days i make custom teams 90+% of the time only because i can make more interesting teams because you can only play the same joinable PCs so many times so this time around my team composes of:
cavalier ( melee)
ranger ( melee )
fighter/thief ( melee )
cleric/mage ( ranged )
theif/mage ( ranged )
sorcerer ( ranged )
so worse case scenario you could always make another cleric for your team via the "create party" button ( you don't have to make 6 characters you can only make 2 if you want ) which is pretty much the same as having a modded cleric in game with the only thing being you can actually 100% adjust the stats and weapon proficiencies as you desire ( or even druid if you wish )
I take a cleric along mainly for Chaotic Commands and Negative Plane Protection (although if you have a Berserker in your party these aren't strictly necessary either).
Raise Dead is a useful emergency option, but one that I personally don't use.
the ring you can pickpoket from ribald is really useful, but also items that have a slow regeneration rate like a certain ioun stone are useful as if you equip them while you travel from an area to an other they continue to work so they can heal completely a toon with a lot of hp to recover in every trip that lasts in game hours. take always with yourself every item that makes you regenerate and equip them as the party travels from area to area or when they are doing tasks that don't need that slots occupied by other more useful items.
i agree with @Wrathofrecca when he/she tells: "Rename this to healer", cleric is chaotic commands and other really useful party buffs, druid is insect spells and summons, both can heal but if that is their primary function probably they are misused and used at a fraction of their capability.
i would be worried to run a party without a cleric and to some extent also without a druid, but as i told they almost don't memorize healing spells and very rarely use them. if i have a toon paralyzed and enemies that hit him i don't want my cleric to cast on him a healing spell that can make him survive few seconds more, i want him cast a spell that removes the paralysis so the toon can gulp a potion and run away or i want my mage to cast on the toon an invisibility spell so the enemies stop to hit him. if the cleric would have cast a spell that would have protected the toon from paralysis before he got paralyzed even better, but you can not fully buff every time and something bad can always happen. the main task of a cleric is to try to avoid that something bad happens and to avoid the death of a toon when it happens, healing is only an optional...
I tend to go with Ano here due to liking him with Shield of Harmony and Mace of Disruption as the mainstay equipment on him. You just meet so many undead in this game. Viccy is worthless against the undead, sure she turns them for a little while to your side, but I don't want that. And you can't get anything else until TOB long into the romance with her.
I would go for a cleric over a druid personally as all druids have is Insect Plague, Creeping Doom and such spells. But they are nifty, not essensial. And I would actually value IP over CD due to CD lasting so short. Stuff like that is meant to distract not kill, and I would rather have a Deva or an elemental Prince to throw into the meatgrinder than spending lotsa time summoning forth CD as by then I prefer to be very mobile.
Advantages: ...are there any real advantages to doing this?
a F->C better then anomen is a really good idea, i personally have not problems in changing his own proficiencies as long as i chose legit ones, spears is not so useful, but sword and shield is the very ugly one, as for mlee it gives no benefits and against ranged there are a shield that reflects the arrows to the foe and so many other good ones.
about slings i disagree, a high enchanted sling with a high enchanted bullet used by a char with high str can be quite devastating, my buffed aerie hits for 27 dmg/hit, RM active, 25 str arvoreen sling and +4 bullet, with erinne's one is even more. a F->C dualed at 13 and optimized for sling (gm) has 3 apr, 6 when improved hasted, so can deal more than 150 dmg/round with the sling, few not archers can do better with a bow or xbow...
and my aerie's thaco, late game, with sling is -12. all this with the regular equipment i give to her, on a dedicated build using all the best items you can get better apr, thaco and dmg than that.
dualing before 13 means only to loose 1/2 apr as a cleric has a spell that gives him the thac0 of a fighter of the same level so the spell's thac0 will be better than the one from the fighter side from mid game on.
the problem of a F->C is that he misses the +1 apr weapons, not really that he has to use a sling, when he uses a sling he really rocks...
Druids are in contrast really great in late BG1 and throught BG2, and I'd advise using one instead, though with only a multiclass or shapeshifter, it can be hard to bother with one. An Avenger would have been nice!
Heck, get Rods of Ressurection even, you can even raise dead or completely heal on command. Potions and regen items are pretty useful in fights, so the healer is the easiest character to completely ditch and not notice, especially if you've got a berserker.