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Help with Berzerker Druid build

DarkspellDarkspell Member Posts: 18
I'd like some help planning out my character for both games. I'm doing an evil character, by evil i mean with evil party members and taking an evil route because druids must be neutral, and i do not intend to go through either SoD or ToB.

1) How much stats do i have to take initially to be able to dual later, all tomes and stats decreases included?
2) I understand the differences between dual-ing at 9 or 13. but about at 7? Specially if i do not intend to do SoD or ToB.
3) How much proficiency points will i have in the long run? How good will be this build throughout the game, dual wielding or with a two-hander? And what will be the best weapons?
4) If i do the evil route in the Druid Groove quest at Trademeet (i.e. defiling the lake) do i lose my druid powers or something? Same question if i go full evil at the trials in Hell or some other part in the game.

Thanks in advance.
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Comments

  • ElysianEchoesElysianEchoes Member Posts: 475
    edited August 2019
    1) you need 15 strength, 17 wisdom, and 17 charisma to dual. With tomes, you could technically start with 14 strength, 14 wisdom, 16 charisma. Most of those tomes come pretty late in BG1, so if you're dualling at 7, I wouldn't count on the strength and wisdom tomes.

    2) dualling at 7 allows you to get fighter levels back in BG1, and still able to cast level 5 spells in BG1. The opportunity cost is 8 hp and 1 proficiency pip. 7 is enough to get extra 1/2 an attack.

    3) divide fighter level by 3, round down, add 4 for fighter pips. Divide druid level by 4, round down, add 2 for druid pips. How many you get in long run depends on too many factors to really predict. When you dual, how many quests you do, how many people you keep in party....

    Others will need to offer advice on best weapons, but scimitars are often recommend, especially if you're gonna kill drizzt.

    4) I'm pretty sure the evil option for the druid Grove won't even show up unless your alignment is evil, which precludes a druid from doing that.

    Edit: going evil in hell will not take away your druid powers
    Post edited by ElysianEchoes on
    Angulimala
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    1)

    you are going to need a minimum of 15 STR, 17 WIS, 17 CHA, which doesn't leave a lot of room for dumping, especially if you are going melee it would be nice to have that high CON and DEX, INT may seem like a good dump stat but there are mind flayers in SoA that drain 5 INT per hit, pretty nasty

    although if you aren't against it you could give your character the gloves of DEX so you can dump your DEX, the only thing is, there is only 1 such pair which means they can't go to any other team mate, and if you are choosing the evil route, the evil team mates also used their DEX for dump at times, so that can be tricky

    now with that being said, you could either go route 1 for the most horse power you can must doing; STR 18, DEX 18, CON 18, INT 10, WIS 15, CHA 16, this is a whopping 95, so if you dont mind rerolling for an hour, it can happen, now if you choose this set up, and run to BG the city you can grab a tome of WIS there, and with potions of invisibility you can run to durlag's tower and grab a second tome of WIS to hit 17, and the tome of CHA can easily be obtained at level 1 for that 17 CHA

    if you dont want to wait until you hit a roll of 95, then you have no choice but to compromise, plus having that 10 INT is not bad because with the tome of INT you will have 11 which means you can hit by mind flayers 2 times before you kick the bucket

    when it comes to stat decrease, the first one comes from the dream sequence and your options are; CON,DEX,WIS,INT, personally i would just choose WIS ( if your WIS is only 17 then you are only losing one level 3 spell ), or if you are lucky and somehow have more than 11 INT and less than 16, then INT would be the obvious choice, or if you used DEX as your dump stat and are wearing the gloves of DEX then obviously DEX

    the second stat decrease only comes if you choose it, in the hell trials you can either lose XP, -1 DEX, -2 HP permanently for 10% MR or you can have one of your party members die and just use raise dead or resurrection on them and get a +2 AC bonus instead ( for melee types, i prefer the +2 AC bonus, but if you aren't going into ToB, then it really doesn't matter at this point )

    2)

    dualling at level 7 is a great choice, because even in BG 1 without SoD you will hit level 9 in your druid class which means you will actually have a level 5 spell ( gnarly ) but also remember, if your stat are lagging behind ( like WIS for example ) and you need some tomes to boost them up ( if you are using the above example to do so ) you want to get those tomes before you hit the 64 000 XP mark,

    now worse case scenario you can actually go pass the 64 000 XP mark and not grow up any more fighter levels just in case you need more time for those tomes, but the longer you wait to dual class, the harder time you might have in gaining XP in that druid class ( for bg1 at least )

    XP wise, if you are a complete completionist and like to uncover every square nano metre of area, you can hit the XP cap of 161 000 XP by chapter 5 after finishing durlag's tower and BG the city, which will leave werewolf island and chapter 6 and 7, so even if you have to waste some XP in that fighter class aka dualling at say 70 000 or even 80 000 XP instead of 64 000 XP you might still be able to hit the XP cap, although in retrospect i guess you only need your druid class to surpass that fighter class and i think druids hit level 8 at 60 000 XP, so keep that in mind

    3)

    this is really up to you, whether you want to do sword and board for the best AC, 2 weapon style for APR, or two handed weapon style for the lulz, its really preference at this point

    for your proficiency build you are going to lag behind a bit once you start gaing druid levels but once you get those fighter levels back you will really start to kick some butt, if you are really hard core, you can use a caveat to make it so you can become a grand master in your weapon of choice, but you will have to remain a druid a little longer aka not kick as much butt until you hit level 9 in druid

    so lets say you want to become a grand master in your weapon of choice, here is how i would do it for your 3 options;

    - single weapon and shield; scimitar, preferably drizzt's frostbrand ( if not there are x2 scimitars +2 in BG 1 )

    so start off with 2 points in scimitar and 2 points in sword and shield style, and for level 3 and 6 of fighter, put those 2 points into scimitar

    then dual at level 7

    for your 2 points here, it is kind of up to you, you wont be able to use heavy shields or armors in your druid class until you get your fighter class back, so i dont know if you want to stay in melee and not be able to hit a broad side of a barn or go into range and chuck spells from the back, so up to you, same with the level 4 point

    but now, this is when things get serious, once you hit level 7 in your druid class, stop leveling up your druid side until you can skip to level 9 ( 90 000 XP ) this will make it so you can put that 5th point into scimitar and really start to kick some serious butt, this will no doubt happen near the end of chapter 5, but hey, you will be awesome from here on in, so its up to you

    - dual weapon style: scimitars again preferably frostbrand and one of the +2 ones

    doing the same thing above, accept now you have to stop leveling up at level 3, and wait until you can skip all the way to level 9, so then you can put that third point into two weapon fighting and that 5th point into scimitars ( at level 1 fighter put 2 points into 2 weapon fighting instead of sword and shield )

    - 2 handed weapon; not really a whole lot of options here, quarterstaves are better in BG 1, spears are better in BG 2, so its really up to you, which way you want to go, so here is how i would do that;

    level 1 fighter; 2 points in the two handed weapon of choice, 2 points in two handed weapon style, then level 3 & 6 add those points to your weapon of choice, and then just like the sword and shield style, dual over at level 7 and once you druid level hits level 7, stop leveling until you can skip to 9 to add that 5th point into that weapon

    for BG 1 the best staff is probably the staffspear ( either pick pocket or kill the succubus for it )
    or the staff of striking which only has 20 charges, so watch out for that

    the best spear is a +2 spear found at the merchant's league in BG the city ( just make sure not to open the mendas quest before you go there )

    for BG 2 the impaler spear is an amazing spear that is found in chapter 4
    while staff choices i guess you can use staff of the rynn from ribald

    so as i said, weapon choice it is completely up to you and your preference

    also, if you dont want to become a grand master and level up your druid levels right away and not have to wait more and have more down time, you can level them up right away, but if you hit level 8 and level up, you WILL NOT be able to put that 5th point into a weapon ( since you have to be a minimum of level 9 to do so ) so if you do it that way, you won't be able to put that last point into a weapon until you hit level 12 in SoA which WILL be the last point your druid gets in SoA

    because the chance of your druid class growing to level 16 in SoA is going to be damn hard to reach, unless you do some watcher's keep or some XP exploits

    4)

    if you do go the evil way of the trademeet quest then yes, you will lose the druid quest ( the evil way is to level the forest and build a high way through it ) plus you get way less XP doing it that way anyway

    but if you turn evil from the hell trials then you will be okay, its only paladins and rangers that suffer from the alignment change in the hell trials
    SkatanbutteredsoulAngulimala
  • DarkspellDarkspell Member Posts: 18
    You're awesome. Now if i could waste a little more of your time with some questions i came up while browsing others forums and guides:

    1) What are the best scimitars you can get in Bg2?

    2) Berserkers can cast spells while enraged right? It sorta doesn't make sense, but the guides out there assume it works.

    3) What kind of druid spells do i gain at 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 WIs? I really only want insect plague and iron skins, so i might want to run with the fewest wis possible so i don't lose my sanity rerolling stats.
  • ElysianEchoesElysianEchoes Member Posts: 475
    3) The full wisdom bonus spell table can be found at https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Wisdom

    You need 21 wisdom to get even 1 bonus level 5 slot, which is the level of those two spells.

    masteraleph
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    1)

    that your berserker will actually be able to use:

    the trademeet quest you can find:
    scimitar +2
    belm +2 ( gives an extra attack per round )

    in chapter 5 in the drow city; scimitar +3

    there are other ninto-jos and wakazakis but you will not be able to use them because of the druid class

    2)

    personally never tried it, but as far as i know you should be able to

    3) to start, as far as i know, wisdom has no effect in terms of highest level spell you can cast ( aerie can cast level 7 spells with 16 WIS ) and as soon as you dual over to druid, i dont think the game checks your WIS anymore, so if it were to somehow drop after you dual over, you should be good, but for spell wise, this is what you get:

    WIS 13; +1 level 1 spell
    WIS 14; +1 level 1 spell
    WIS 15; +1 level 2 spell
    WIS 16; +1 level 2 spell
    WIS 17; +1 level 3 spell
    WIS 18; +1 level 4 spell

    you will need a WIS of 21 before you start getting bonus level 5 spells, but the only way that is happening is if you start with 18 WIS, also remember, you MUST have at least 17 WIS to dual into a druid
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    heh, @ElysianEchoes beat me to it
  • DarkspellDarkspell Member Posts: 18
    edited August 2019
    Wow never figured out a forum in bg at this age would answer me so fast. Thanks guys.

    So scimitars kick ass in BG1 because you can get Drizzt's... but in BG2 you can only get +2 early or +3 late with no extra enchantments... are there any others cool druid weapons for dual wielding?

    Also the trademeet option is that Belm is a scimitar +2, or besides Belm there is another regular +2 scimitar in Trademeet?
  • ElysianEchoesElysianEchoes Member Posts: 475
    sarevok57 wrote: »
    heh, @ElysianEchoes beat me to it

    But you could answer his other questions, while I could not. Yours is the more valuable response ?
    sarevok57Skatan
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    Darkspell wrote: »
    Wow never figured out a forum in bg at this age would answer me so fast. Thanks guys.

    So scimitars kick ass in BG1 because you can get Drizzt's... but in BG2 you can only get +2 early or +3 late with no extra enchantments... are there any others cool druid weapons for dual wielding?

    Also the trademeet option is that Belm is a scimitar +2, or besides Belm there is another regular +2 scimitar in Trademeet?

    for weapons, you can also try daggers or clubs, surprisingly enough, SoA has some decent clubs, like blackblood +3 which deals an extra 3 acid damage per hit ( found at the end of the trademeet quest from a merchant ), and during the trademeet quest there is a +2 club that deals X amount of damage over time per hit, so you could go with that ( only problem is, there are only 3 magical clubs in BG 1 - with the +1 club being available basically any time, while the +2 club is found in chapter 4, and the other one is found in chapter 5 )

    daggers on the other hand, not really too many good ones, plus they deal piercing damage, and some enemies are immune to that type of damage, although if you wanted i suppose, you might be able to dual wield the "boomerang" daggers since their base damage is 2d4, never tried it though, so its up to you

    and for the 2 scimitars around trademeet, here is more exact place they are found:
    belm +2

    when you go to the druid grove, its inside a hay bail inside the weird whacky building to the top right - there is also a cow in there, and there will be an ogre mage in there as well if you are doing the "retrieve buddy buddy's gong limited wish quest"

    scimitar +2

    one of the djinni's in trademeet is holding it, you can either kill them for it, or i believe they give it to you if you bring the rakshasa head to them as well, either way, you need to get rid of them somehow to complete the trademeet quest

    if you do decide to kill them, make sure to have some protection from petrification on, just a tip ;)
  • DarkspellDarkspell Member Posts: 18
    Okay really last question: what is best way to kill drizzt? I'm playing the EE version and it seems so many tricks i've seen online do not work anymore.
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    okay, there are 2 ways; the cheesy kill him at level 1 way

    or

    the fair and kill him at a higher level like you "should" way haha

    so lets do both

    the cheese way:

    so this is going to require a little bit of finesse, as you probably notice when you encounter Drizzt, he is surrounded by gnolls, now, if you are agile enough you can walk around the gnolls ( only seeing the gnolls and not drizzt )

    and if the gnolls see you ( make sure your AI is off ) they will come after you for half a second and then go directly for drizzt

    now drizzt will not attack the gnolls unless he sees you are starts dialogue with you

    so if you can do a complete circle around the gnolls - make them see you, but make sure drizzt doesnt see you - the gnolls should be able to finish him off for you ( this may take some time, depending on how fast the gnolls get critical hits, Drizzt has around 92 or 102 HP i believe )

    *sometimes i noted that you have to keep your ACTUAL screen locked where drizzt is, if you move your screen away, i noticed he will sometimes attack the gnolls, so keep this in mind if its not working

    i do this every time at level 1 without fail, pretty nice gear for level 1

    plus doing it this way you will not lose REP for him dying but you dont get his XP either

    so.... if you want XP and lose REP here is:

    cheese tactic #2:

    make sure to have a team of at least 5 members ( 4 member of which that you do not want ) go to drizzt's area attack the gnolls, and once you are done fighting the gnolls, DO NOT talk to drizzt afterwards

    instead, take your 4 team mates and surround drizzt completely so he cant move ( sometimes when he wonders around you can use the scenery to get him stuck and you can use only 3 members, but whatever it takes so he can't move at all make sure to do that )

    now, once those team mates are in place, make them all leave your party ( but make sure your CHAR is directly beside them when you do, so they dont move from their position ) obviously there are some team mates you cant use like; dorn, aerie, baeloth i believe because they will go to the friendly arm inn when they leave

    so if done so correctly, you will now have 4 team mates who have left your party, and now they are still surrounding drizzt so he can't move

    grab all the halberds that you can next

    now, go grab the actual team you want to use come back to this area and drizzt should still be trapped around said team mates

    if so, equip your party with either reach weapons ( two handed weapons ) or missile weapons if you want ( bring plenty of ammo, i would suggest not using magical ammo ) and place your melee guys on the other side of the reformed party member and have everyone attack

    if done correctly drizzt will stand there taking it until he dies

    no doubt you will only be able to hit him with 20s, so this might take a little while

    but eventually he will fall

    *note

    if you come back and for some reason drizzt made it out of that "reformed party trap" just bring those team mates back on, and then retrap drizzt and then bring back the team you actually wanted to use and carry on as normal

    either one of these should work if done correctly, i have done both, but i like the first one more since you dont lose REP for having the gnolls kill him

    now if cheese isn't your thing, here is how you can kill him legitimately

    so first, some things to now about this guy:
    HP: 92
    AC: -16
    MR: 98%
    Damage resistance: 30%
    Save vs Death: 1
    Save vs Wand: 3
    Save vs Spell: 5
    APR: 4.5
    Thac0 main: -4
    Thac0 off: -2

    okay, so some things we notice is that his AC is absolutely ridiculous and same with his MR, and even if you can bypass that MR he can't fail any save that requires a save vs death save, and his to other saves are pretty good

    so first off, i would say you want to be either at the 64 000 xp or 75 000 xp mark before you try, or whatever xp mark it takes to make sure your warriors are level 7, for those attacks per round ( my best is around the 55 000 xp mark, so you can go lower, but its up to you )

    next, if you can, you want to equip blunt weapons, but only if you can equip good ones with full proficiency because his AC vs blunt weapons is only ( lol ) -14, while if you can resist, try not using slashing weapons because his AC vs those is a mind boggling -18 ( this is due to his chain mail ) vs piercing and missile, its -16

    so with that being said, what thac0 do you need to start hitting him with 19s? they are as follows;

    blunt weapons; thac0 5
    slashing weapons; thac0 1
    piercing/missiles weapons; thac0 3

    when it comes to offence you really want to make sure you can hit this guy with better than 20s, because its going to be a race to see who finishes off who first, if you must, its better to have one "super character" that can hit him with say a 14, than 5 characters that need 19

    but even with that said, if you have a super character with great to hit against him, it doesnt hurt to have everyone else attack as well, especially if they can start hitting with better than 20s

    when it comes to magic, realistically its going to be a no-no, with that 98% chance to resist, it will not be reliable, plus he will probably make his save, although if the planets align, and pigs start flying, and if you can hit him with a hold person/monster or wand of paralyzation then its game over for drizzt, but out of the 1000s of times i killed this guy ( oops ) i only had a hold person spell land on him once,

    so stick with cranking up that melee

    ideas for upping your melee; potions of heroism ( these are plentiful ) potions of cloud giant str ( there is 3 of them at the sorcerous sundries in BG the city, i think the potions of heroism can be found here as well )

    those 2 potions should give you some nice melee ability, if you want you can use potions of storm gian str and potions of power, but those potions are VERY limited and i usually save them for the sarevok fight

    plus off coarse you want to make sure you use haste in battle, you want as many apr you can manage

    fighter/clerics can do pretty decent in this battle because a potion of cloud giant str mixed with draw upon holy might puts your str to 25 and plus they can only use blunt weapons, so thats a bonus

    now hopefully you can get your offense cranked, lets talk about defence

    luckily in the EEs, they seriously calmed down drizzt's offence, but he is still no push over with those bagillion APR and the fact his thac0 is still damn good

    so you want to make it so whoever drizzt is attacking has the best AC possible against drizzt's madness

    so you will want to wear items like;

    golden girdle ( gives drizzt a -3 penalty to hit )
    full plate mail ( gives drizzt a further -4 penalty to hit )
    drink enough potions of mind focusing to bring your DEX to a minimum of 24 ( for best AC bonus from DEX )

    all the "AC" items that you can to the guy going toe to toe with drizzt
    potion of defence will give you 1 more AC than full platemail which is good

    spell wise if you have them;
    defensive harmony; gives a +2 AC bonus
    improved invisibility; gives drizzt a -4 penalty to hit

    realistically you want to make it so drizzt can't hit whoever he is attacking, so if you can make it between AC and penalties that drizzt can only hit you with extremely high numbers, then you will be better off

    ( your combined AC of penalties,modifiers and AC itself vs slashing needs to hit -24 for drizzt to only be able to hit you with 20s, but dont fret if you cant get that low, just do you best possible to do so, every point of AC counts, if you have other abilities or items, or anything that gives you a bonus ( like a berserker's enrage for example ) this would also be the time to use it

    so now, you have the offense in good standings, and your defense is pretty decent, if you follow the above and do your best to crank that offense and defense, you should be able to take him out, you know Drizzt's stat from above, so you can prepare accordingly as well

    good luck
    Angulimalalolien
  • DarkspellDarkspell Member Posts: 18
    lmao it totally worked, Drizzt sit there like "you cant hit my AC hahaha" while the Gnolls pounced him to death.

    Though i can't use one his blades though, being an evil druid and all...
    sarevok57lolien
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    if you are an evil druid then you can wear the helm of opposite alignment to use the defender scimitar
    lolien
  • DarkspellDarkspell Member Posts: 18
    edited August 2019
    by evil druid i mean roleplay. Druids can only be neutral right? I picked true neutral to dual later and also to not get screwed by bad rep at start.
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    Darkspell wrote: »
    by evil druid i mean roleplay. Druids can only be neutral right? I picked true neutral to dual later and also to not get screwed by bad rep at start.

    ah yes, that would be correct
  • butteredsoulbutteredsoul Member Posts: 168
    @sarevok57 is one of the best founts of knowledge of all things BG!! He provided me with excellent insights for my Zerk->Druid (who has yet to druid, but I'm awaiting 2.6).

    Some minor extra info...
    There's a third Tome of Understanding. So technically you can roll 14 wisdom, eat all three tomes, and still dual. The tome is in
    the Candlekeep Catacombs.

    I know you're doing scimitars, but in case any other budding zerker-druids are reading this, mine went Q-Staffs. If you go that route, another great staff is Aule's Staff. It's 1d6 instead of 1d8 like the Staff Spear, but it has an extra +1 to hit and it does crushing damage, which is great for beating on skeleton warriors.

    I hope you have as much fun, @Darkspell , as I've been having. Please keep us posted as to your progress :smile:
    sarevok57
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    A late addition; if you're going down the DW route, I've always liked to dualweild the staff maces +2. They are qstaff proficiency, 2D4 damage +2 with crushing damage. Easily among the best weapons in BG1 and also easily accessable in BG2 (the first one at least). With Qstaffs you always have good options to choose from and you can then move into more twohanding over time, using the staff of Aule +3 / Rynn +4 when you encounter enemies which need high enchantments and DW all trash mobs for more APR.
    ElysianEchoesbutteredsoul
  • Very_BigSwordVery_BigSword Member Posts: 222
    Yeah thats the funny thing about staves - single weapon style, dual wield or sword and shield style with staff-mace, two handed style with the others and all are crushing except the staff-spear. IIRC all can backstab too except for staff of magi. Usable by all classes. Can't "beat" them for versatility.
    Skatan
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    edited August 2019
    A couple minor notes:
    sarevok57 wrote: »
    ...you might be able to dual wield the "boomerang" daggers since their base damage is 2d4, never tried it though...
    No. Throwing weapons can't be equipped in the off hand.
    staves ... Usable by all classes.
    Not quite - monks can't use staves.
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    jmerry wrote: »
    A couple minor notes:
    sarevok57 wrote: »
    ...you might be able to dual wield the "boomerang" daggers since their base damage is 2d4, never tried it though...
    No. Throwing weapons can't be equipped in the off hand.
    staves ... Usable by all classes.
    Not quite - monks can't use staves.

    indeed you cannot equip the boomerang daggers in the off hand, but i just tested it, and you can set the boomerang dagger in your main hand and set it to melee and then offhand with another weapon, and you get +1 APR from the boomerang dagger still, even in melee, most interesting...
    lolien
  • DarkspellDarkspell Member Posts: 18
    - dual weapon style: scimitars again preferably frostbrand and one of the +2 ones

    doing the same thing above, accept now you have to stop leveling up at level 3, and wait until you can skip all the way to level 9, so then you can put that third point into two weapon fighting and that 5th point into scimitars ( at level 1 fighter put 2 points into 2 weapon fighting instead of sword and shield )

    Okay i got this far i'm level 7 fighter 2 level druid with enough xp to get to level 3... do i stop here at level 2->3 or do i stop leveling at 3->4? And how much xp do i need total to get my fighter skills back?
  • ElysianEchoesElysianEchoes Member Posts: 475
    The druid gets a pip every four levels, so it is safe to take level 3 and get your second level spells. Then stop at 3->4 until you get enough for 9.
  • DarkspellDarkspell Member Posts: 18
    You mean level 8? I dualed at 7. And how can i know when i have enough to level straight to the a higher level i want?
  • ElysianEchoesElysianEchoes Member Posts: 475
    I think you have to be level 9 to qualify for grandmastery. If you level up to 8, you won't be able to spend that pip on gm.

    Just watch your druid experience total. When it is over 90,000 you have enough to get level 9.
    sarevok57
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    The level of extreme min-maxing here ... I wouldn't bother. Sure, you can have a fighter 7/druid 9 multiclass in BG1 and delay some of those level-ups so that the 8th level druid proficiency goes to grandmastery. It's not worth playing for long periods of time underleveled, with an incomplete dual.

    More naturally, you can level up normally, spread your first three druid proficiency points around, and put the level 8 druid proficiency into anything other than becoming a grandmaster, now that you've completed the dual and unlocked your fighter abilities. Then, at druid 12 (300K druid experience, reachable on approximately day 1 of SoA), you can put that proficiency dot into becoming a grandmaster with your chosen weapon.

    In the long run:
    Compared to a pure druid, dual-classing from Fighter at level 7 gains you +0.5 APR, 6 proficiency dots and the ability to master a weapon or style, the full selection of armor and shields, and 7 levels worth of increased fighter HP. Three proficiency dots will be allocated as a druid, and the 64K experience cost is negligible. 60K worth of catch-up experience to reach druid 8 will take some time in BG1, though.
    Dual-classing at level 9 increases the benefits to 7 proficiency dots and 9 levels of increased fighter HP. Four proficiency dots will be allocated as a druid, and the 250K experience cost is about half a level in the endgame. Since this dual comes after starting BG2, you can easily cheese the 125K experience of the "catching up" levels with quest/scribing XP and jump straight to druid level 10 after dual-classing. Doing so will cause you to allocate both the 4th and 8th level druid proficiencies as if you were a fighter.
    Dual-classing at 13 gains you nearly the full benefits of a fighter, with +1 APR and 8 proficiency dots. You even gain an improved breath weapon save, 3 points better than a full druid at high levels. The cost, however, is staggering. It takes 1250K experience as a fighter and 1500K as a druid just to reach F13/D14 and complete the dual. That's too much to cheese with noncombat experience, so you will spend a while playing as a druid with extra HP, and won't unlock the full power of your class until well into SoA - probably Chapter 4 or 5. Reaching druid level 15 and the massive increase in spell slots will take 4.25 million total XP, which is nearly the end of a completionist SoA run with a full party. The experience invested in being a fighter will cost you between 2 and 3 endgame levels, although this won't amount to any spell slots at the experience cap. Oh, and there's a very strong incentive to do the Trademeet/Druid Grove sequence early if you're focusing on any of clubs, scimitars, or spears. If you do so before you become a druid, then you won't have the option of running the druid stronghold quests.

    For the best combination of power and minimal downtime in a no-SoD run, I'd dual-class at level 9 - unless you absolutely have to be a fighter/druid for the BG1 climax. With SoD, dual-classing at level 10 serves the same purpose.
    butteredsoul
  • SkatanSkatan Member, Moderator Posts: 5,352
    edited August 2019
    sarevok57 wrote: »

    indeed you cannot equip the boomerang daggers in the off hand, but i just tested it, and you can set the boomerang dagger in your main hand and set it to melee and then offhand with another weapon, and you get +1 APR from the boomerang dagger still, even in melee, most interesting...

    It's been around for a while and is my standard setup for swashies and blades, coupled with Belm or Kundane you get a solid 4 APR and can release ie Belm for Jaheira or Kundane for Haer, depending on which NPCs you are rolling with.

    I've faked in another boomerang dagger by force equipping it on the offhand in Eekeeper just to see if I could cheat a dual dagger chucking Kensai, but I guess the animations aren't there to support it so the offhand keeps attacking in melee even if it's a throwing dagger.
    Now that I think about it.. I wonder what happens if I force equip the throwing daggers (unmagical) which cannot be used in melee? Hmm.. gotta try.

    Edit: Nope didn't work either, as expected.
    sarevok57lolien
  • Silver_ArrowSilver_Arrow Member Posts: 23
    With all that being said and with so much detail... My question is - why bother with dual when f/d multi is pure awesomness?

    I understand when its dual f/m for 9th spell level, but what do you actually get with berserker/druid dual?? All that for rage and apr/extra lil dmg from lvl 7 fighter?) negated by worse thac0 and lack of fighter HLAs?...
    All this suffering to end up with something that is not even better than multi f/d..

    So much afraid of level drain, maze, imprisonment?

    OR.. is it all for RP reasons?)
  • Very_BigSwordVery_BigSword Member Posts: 222
    edited August 2019
    @Silver_Arrow the OP stated they would not be doing SoD or ToB, so inferentially they must want to get the most utility out of the druid levels and max those levels within the boundary of the XP cap. For a run that ends in SoA the lower Thac0 score at higher levels is not much of a handicap and HLAs may not even come into it.

    We know what the F/D multi looks like in SoA because Jaheira. I would be more likely to choose the dual myself if SoA is the end game, perhaps at level 9 since Level 10 druid does not need too much XP. 250k as fighter and 125k as druid, too easy.

    Lvl 7 would also be fine since a full run of Bg1 as wise and charismatic berserker is a little dull. RP reason for evil leanings and level 7 dual: sympathising with the shadow druids in Cloakwood due to anger at the Iron Throne and converting to nature worship. Getting 64k XP before Cloakwood three is do-able if you plan for it.
    butteredsoul
  • butteredsoulbutteredsoul Member Posts: 168
    Piggy-backing on @Very_BigSword - even if the OP was going all the way to the end, Zerk->Druid is fun.

    Though one may think the dual is a pain mid-game. But no... it's actually strongest then. Druids are the quickest class to reach level 10. If you switch out of zerk at 9, it takes a measly 125k to hit 10 as a druid. Yep, 125k. Mages require 250k to hit 10 and clerics need 450k(!!). Even thieves need 35k more than a druid to hit 10. It's the most painless lvl 9 dual there is.

    Then you get the perk of being single class: faster spell progression. That means more insect plagues earlier, which makes mid-game that much easier.
    jsavingBalrog99
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    Then you get the perk of being single class: faster spell progression. That means more insect plagues earlier, which makes mid-game that much easier.
    Well, early is a relative term.

    A druid gets their first level 5 slot at level 9, the second at level 10, the third at level 14, and the fourth through sixth at level 15.
    For a fighter/druid multiclass, that's total experience of 180K, 250K, 3000K, and 6000K respectively.
    For a fighter 9/druid dual-class, that's total experience of 340K, 375K, 1750K, and 3250K respectively.
    The multiclass has the first two slots by the time the dual-class starts to progress as a druid, and anything more than that takes a long time either way.
    It's the most painless lvl 9 dual there is.
    A dual to druid at level 10 or 11 is pretty painless, too - just 200K or 300K experience to complete it. That's most relevant for a run with SoD, as coming into BG2 at Fighter 10 makes the immediate dual attractive. Anything more than that? Trouble.
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