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Halfling Fighter PC

ConwanConwan Member Posts: 39
Due to the Corona lockdown I picked up Baldur's Gate EE and while I've enjoyed it so far I can't find the proper PC to play with. I've narrowed it down to a Halfling (with a sling focus for RP purposes) and originally I went with a F/T. However, I quickly noticed that I was just playing him as a slinger fighter with only a little bit of stealth in order to scout locations I suspected of having traps. But because I was barely using the Thief side of the multi-class I'm now wondering if I should just go for a fighter.

I already know that the Halfling suffers from a 17 STR and that it makes a fighter less effective (and that slings aren't really that useful compared to bows), but I've tried other races and I always lose heart after an hour or two. I really want to play as a Halfling for RP reasons. Also to romance Aerie later on.

Anyway, the stats:

STR: 17
DEX: 19
CON: 18
INT: 10
WIS: 10
CHA: 18

Proficiencies:

For Baldur's Gate: 5 in Slings and 2 in two weapons (planning ahead)
For Baldur's Gate 2: 5 in katanas (coolness factor and only game 2 seems to have really good katana) + whatever extra

I intend to spend most of EE 1 playing as a slinger who can off-tank to protect Neera and Imoen if necessary and slowly transition into a katana dual-wielder with a slinger as back-up throughout Baldur's Gate 2 EE.

Party:

I've tried to build my party around the Fighter.

Baldur's Gate 1:

- Imoen: thief focusing on picking locks and detecting traps. Not going to dual-class because I don't have enough experience with that yet.
- Khalid: not the greatest fighter, but a tank for the time being.
- Jaheira: Fighter/Druid and second tank. I like her healing, even if her stats aren't that great. What weapons can I even give her?
- Neera: My mage focusing on sleep and missile arrow

Final slot: companions for quests, but probably a focus on Branwen for cleric support.

Baldur's Gate 2:

- Imoen: I checked and she seemed to have 95 in lockpicking and detecting trap. Play as a mage focusing on blindness and those spells.
- Minsc: Mostly as a tank and damage dealer (Two-handed weapon)
- Jaheira: seems redundant, but apparently she's a really well-written companion in game 2.
- Aerie: healer and mage. Also romance option. And apparently one of the best companions.

Final slot: Neera or rotating companions for quests?

So my questions after this info dump:

- Is a halfling fighter/Slinger do-able with these parties? They don't seem perfect, especially with with the three mages in Baldur's Gate 2 EE.
- How important is armor? While a Halfling wearing Full Plate Armor sounds cool I'm not sure if it'd be good.
- Would these teams have enough thief skills? Or would a F/T Halfling fit better?
- If I really should play as a F/T, how do I play it? Like is backstabbing the main benefit or is there any benefit to playing as a fighter-focused F/T?
- What about Swashbuckler? It seems to be a fighter-esque thief.

Thanks for any advice you can give me. Sorry if this is a long list, but as I said I'm new.
AerakarJuliusBorisov

Comments

  • ShangerooShangeroo Member Posts: 84
    1). Yes Halfling slinger is doable. You can give him Everands sling for +5 attacks and you’ll get him to strength 20 by TOB (from Lum machine and Deck of Many Things). Look at Mazzy, when I use her she has grand mastery in bows and does well armed with Gessen now.
    2) if your playing as a ranged fighter you can still use heavy armor or if F/T one of the many leather armor options. Each route will get you to a sufficient AC where armor then won’t matter much.
    3). Yes, at the bare minimum Imoen has enough thief skills to get through the game. If you play F/T, this will be one of the most powerful classes as you can do all sorts of back stab tactics using the F Thac0, UAI lets you use Staff of Magi to turn invisible at will, use traps which are OP (makes many fights end before they even start lol). Heck you could solo the game easily with this class.
    4). See 3 above.
    5). Swashbuckler is probably good for rp fun but I don’t think it’s as good as a F/T.
    ConwanThacoBellAerakarJuliusBorisov
  • jsavingjsaving Member Posts: 1,083
    You only need one thief in the party. Ideally you will multiclass him with fighter for 18/00 strength and extra attacks per round, or you will multiclass him with mage so you can buff yourself enough to stay alive in melee despite having a relatively low hit die, or you will go whole-hog with a fighter/mage/thief for all of the above.

    Thieves ideally serve a couple of roles in the party. One is stealth followed by melee backstabs, which would usually be strong on a fighter/thief with 18/00 strength but will be quite a bit weaker on a 17-strength character. Another is handling traps/locks, though if you are also carrying Imoen in the party then she can do those things for you. Finally you can use a thief for scouting purposes, although in BG1 it's tough to find enough thief points to do that if you are also handling traps/locks.

    Put all of that together and a missile-weapon halfling probably isn't the best possible choice to fill your party's thief slot. But don't lose heart, fighter/thief is a strong combo anyway and you'll eventually receive strength-boosting items that make your initial 17 strength irrelevant. You'd have much lower DPS as a swashbuckler so I wouldn't go that route, though you could consider shadowdancer if you wanted more of mage/thief feel for your character (the only way you can get that on a halfling since mage/thief multi isn't an option).
    Aerakar
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Slings are quite good in the hands of a halfling. Either trueclass or F/T. Its helps that bullets aren't piercing, so they will hit many enemies that would otherwise be immune to other ranged weapons.
    Aerakar
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    Its helps that bullets aren't piercing...
    Not applicable in the BG series. Nearly all missile weapons, including both bow/arrow and sling/bullet, use the "missile" damage type, which is separate from both "piercing" and "crushing".

    Slings suffer a bit in BGEE. It's harder to get the high strength needed for a big damage bonus, hardly anything drops bullets, and enchanted arrows/bolts have better stats than they do in BG2EE. Still, a ranged warrior is a strong enough archetype even played suboptimally.

    While you only need one thief in the party to handle locks and traps, it's not at all hard to find good uses for multiple thieves. My current BGEE run, for example, has both Imoen (Thief 6-Mage) and Coran (Fighter/Thief) in the party; Imoen has mastered Find Traps and put the rest into stealth, while Coran has mastered Open Locks and put most of the rest into stealth. That way, both of them are also decent backstabbers when I want that from them - although they usually prefer bows. Coran even wears ankheg plate most of the time, since I'm unlikely to need thief skills from him during combat.
    If you ever want to run a focused backstabber, I strongly recommend not making them the party's only thief. Have someone else deal with traps and locks, while the stabby one hides all the time. There are two basic ways to use backstabbing in combat; either you open with a stab and just stay in combat (best with fighter/thieves, naturally) or you stab and retreat repeatedly. Either way, I recommend setting that party member's AI to not attack targets automatically, so you can move them into the right position each time you backstab.

    I've played a halfling swashbuckler recently. It's weaker than a fighter/thief multiclass early on, but really comes into its own in the epic levels. The key is that AC bonus; it's not enough to overcome not being able to wear heavy armor at low levels, but in the late game it pushes you far beyond most others. That swashbuckler I played routinely reached the AC cap (-20 plus Dex), for a fantastic melee tank. On offense, your APR is weaker than a fighter, but you can take Whirlwind Attack for bursts of damage.
    AerakarJuliusBorisov
  • ConwanConwan Member Posts: 39
    So basically what I'm getting from these responses is that a Slinger/Katana fighter is viable for an entire saga. If that's the case I'm going to continue as a Halfling fighter, cuz I'm rather enjoying the playthrough so far. There's something about a tiny ball of steel throwing rocks at everyone that I really enjoy.

    Thanks guys.
    Aerakarsarevok57JuliusBorisov
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @jmerry "Not applicable in the BG series. Nearly all missile weapons, including both bow/arrow and sling/bullet, use the "missile" damage type, which is separate from both "piercing" and "crushing"."

    No, totally applicable. Bullets have the tags, "missile" and "crushing". Arrows use "missle" and "piercing".

    Your point only applies to enemies that have blanket immunity to missile weapons (like Otyughs). For enemy types only immune to one (like skeletons or certain golems) you can damage them with bullets when arrows wouldn't work.
    ShangerooAerakar
  • DanacmDanacm Member Posts: 950
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    @jmerry "Not applicable in the BG series. Nearly all missile weapons, including both bow/arrow and sling/bullet, use the "missile" damage type, which is separate from both "piercing" and "crushing"."

    No, totally applicable. Bullets have the tags, "missile" and "crushing". Arrows use "missle" and "piercing".

    Your point only applies to enemies that have blanket immunity to missile weapons (like Otyughs). For enemy types only immune to one (like skeletons or certain golems) you can damage them with bullets when arrows wouldn't work.

    In vanilla as i saw in the files its not true, the bullet has only missile damage, the arrows has missile too. Not saw any other tags in near infinity, but it should be better.
    Do you have modded game ?
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Danacm wrote: »
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    @jmerry "Not applicable in the BG series. Nearly all missile weapons, including both bow/arrow and sling/bullet, use the "missile" damage type, which is separate from both "piercing" and "crushing"."

    No, totally applicable. Bullets have the tags, "missile" and "crushing". Arrows use "missle" and "piercing".

    Your point only applies to enemies that have blanket immunity to missile weapons (like Otyughs). For enemy types only immune to one (like skeletons or certain golems) you can damage them with bullets when arrows wouldn't work.

    In vanilla as i saw in the files its not true, the bullet has only missile damage, the arrows has missile too. Not saw any other tags in near infinity, but it should be better.
    Do you have modded game ?

    If that's true, why have bullets always hurt skeletons, but arrows are resisted? This is true for vanilla as well.
  • DanacmDanacm Member Posts: 950
    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/23323/sling-bullet-no-crushing-blunt-damage-tested-only-on-skeletons

    Bullets resisted as well in vanilla bg and bgee. All is missile type unfortunately, not crushing.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Danacm wrote: »
    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/23323/sling-bullet-no-crushing-blunt-damage-tested-only-on-skeletons

    Bullets resisted as well in vanilla bg and bgee. All is missile type unfortunately, not crushing.

    That can't be right. I specifically remember using bullets to get around skeleton resistances.
  • JDowJDow Member Posts: 71
    Pretty sure skeleton's have 90% resistance to sling bullets too. But, with only 8 hps they are still killable.

    Battle Horrors, when arriving at Durlag's Tower have 100% resistance to missile attacks. So slings won't be any good at all with those.

    For the OP, I'd recommend putting two pips in Katana's rather than in two weapon style to begin with. At least then you'll have a slashing melee weapon that you can do decent damage with.

    Katana's are interesting weapons. In some ways, a basic katana is almost at the same level as a +1 long sword. Overall, in BG:EE, you'll do slightly better using long swords though in terms of what's available. However, by all means use a Katana for role-playing reasons - they are very cool. There's a good +1 Katana about half way through the game.

    A halfling fighter/slinger is very viable. If you're in an area with connected screens (rather than travel time needed between screens) you can glug one of the various strength potions and then you get the best of both worlds -> the potions strength for sling damage and a halfling's sling accuracy.

    Have fun with your cool halfling! (I've personally taken a team of halflings through BG:EE & BGII so doing it shouldn't be a problem) :).
    Aerakar
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