Badass Divine Caster
ariakas2
Member Posts: 80
I am planning to solo BG2 with Scs installed. This time i want to roleplay a paladin type with high level casting ability. The best combination i can think of is fighter/cleric dual. I will invest on flail and equip Defender of Easthaven. I think it will be a good combination with armor of faith.
- Should i invest to two weapon fighting style or a shield? What would you choose as second weapon or shield?
- Which fighter kit is better in terms of roleplay? I want to imitate a paladin. Do you have any other class/kit in mind to dual with cleric?
- I am planning to dual at 9 since cleric thaco will surpress fighter thaco at some point.
- Should i invest to two weapon fighting style or a shield? What would you choose as second weapon or shield?
- Which fighter kit is better in terms of roleplay? I want to imitate a paladin. Do you have any other class/kit in mind to dual with cleric?
- I am planning to dual at 9 since cleric thaco will surpress fighter thaco at some point.
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Comments
Best kit to this is berserker, because of rage if you dual class. The cleric thaco is at max 6 so not reach the fighter 0 without mods.
If you multiclass, you will loose dual class benefits, but gain better saves(use dwarf,) and smoother progression.
Or, mod yourself the paladin spell progression and use paladin.
From an optimization standpoint you lose out on grandmastery compared to a dual-class Fighter/Cleric, but if you were planning on multi-classing anyway the trade-off isn't so bad since multi-class Fighters are limited to specialization just like Rangers.
If you go fighter and dual to cleric, i'd say you'll end up more as a "war priest".. you'll have basic fighting skills but mainly a cleric.
Fighter/cleric multiclass however, is very much like a paladin since you also focus on fighting skills and gain fighter HLA.
The HLA from fighter is in my oppinion much more important to a fighter-cleric combo, than a fighter-mage combo.
Keep in mind you can combine Hardiness fighter HLA, with Armor of Faith and Defender of Easthaven for a total of 85% physical resistance.. and it'll last you for quite a while, meaning you can face-tank just about anything - Paladins can also do this.
If you go fighter and dual to cleric, you'll get more pips in weapons and 1.5 more attacks per round than a single class cleric.. that's it.
A multiclass fighter/cleric is pretty much exactly like a paladin in terms of progression.. the paladin will get some handy stuff like lay on hands and remove fear and lvl 4 spells, but will also lag 8 lvls behind in caster levels (lvl 18 paladin is lvl 10 caster).
A fighter/cleric "suffers" much in the same way in caster level.. by mid-SoA a dual class will have higher caster level than a multiclass, but we're really nitpicking now.
A rather huge advantage of the dual classed cleric however, is that he will have a high lvl of turn undead.. if you solo for high xp in most of SoA you can even use turn undead to make Kangaxx explode
i agree with @Khyron , the real difference between dual and multi is 1/2 apr more, only if you dual at fighter 13, the berseker kit that is really useful in a solo, slightly worst ST and a much faster progression in the cleric levels once you catch up with the multi, for undead explosions and early use of high level spells vs smoother progression, no down time, better combat ability if you are dispelled and fighter's HLA.
i would say that it is a close call, but without a mage that improve haste him the dual will never get more then 5 apr and as a dual in the end game progression, that soloing happens a lot early then in the real end game, you will loose a lot of HLA as you have already selected all the available ones.
imo in both the cases your main weapon when you are dual welding should be the FoA, not for his damage, but for his no save slowing effect, and you can use the defender, a shield or crom for the OH depending if you want damage reduction, better AC or 25 str.
but you have to carry all the weapons and be flexible and adapt to the battle, ie you can start it with FoA and the defender, buffed to have 25 str from your spells, then if you get debuffed you can equip crom in the OH or in the main one depending on the particular situation.
also some pip in mace is worth it if you go multi and you want to deal with undeads early, later also a solo multi has enough levels to make explode vampires and anything that is not a demilich or elemental lich.
a multi at cap level gets only 3 lev 7 slots and gets the second one only very close to 6M xp, while a dual gets lev 7 slots earlier and at level cap has 6 of them.
a dual can also in some situations use the energy blades as a sort of GWW, and combined with implosion are a very good weapon, hold, hit 10 times in a round and repeat.
the dual and the multi seem to be similar, but are not so, each one requires specific tactics to work at best, they are both very strong, so probably the player's style is what matters more.
Dual wield foa and doeh through soa once u hit tob move around from doeh foa crom and rune hammer use ur buffs to augment your skills...
Righteous magic is effectivly a longer lasting kensai kai.you do max damage every hit.
Death ward lasts forever no more wail banshee timestop or finger of death fears
Chaotic commands, everyone and their mom knows this one.
Holy power makes your thaco act as if you were now a pure fighter stacks with em so you only miss on a critical miss.
Duhm stacks with above and em
Prot evil who doesnt want that?
You can no fear yourself without zerk and you're hitting just as fricking hard as if u were if not harder cuz u go 25 str u also can cap up 22 23 con for regen on top of ur gear.
Use ur zerk for imprison guys and go trash em. Since ur dual wielding can gaxx ring and go 4 apr while having a deva and globe/barrier messing shit up beside u coupled with multi rings for situations.
On top of that ur still rockin heavy ac for soa and into tob.
Toss in armor of faith with all ur gear ur rocking literally half damage of any melee coming at u and cant be gibbed by a death or vorpal.you also get true sight to trash mages with ur foa with.
U can also run 4 aerials and 1 deva as summons so if u go full party u now have a party of 11 that can only be hit by +1 or greater before you even come in. Shits gonna splat. (Or skele warriors)
You dont even really need crom tbh but might as well build it, the golem kill is handy. You're gonna be 25 str no matter what during tough fights anyways.
A cleric and fighter compliment eachother so stupidly well it's not even funny. Hell a cleric thief are just as badass almost. You wont have an issue.
when buffed he gets already 25 str and when he uses holy power the str from the hammer is anyway overridden, the only items that are not overridden are the ones that add some str, while all the items, spells and potions that set str are overridden by HP.
giving that hammer to the cleric is to don't let an other fighter in the party fight with 25 str.
also the barbarian can not use plate mail and can not go beyond specialization, and as dual with cleric can not use any speed weapon, so will not go over 3.5 apr DW if not for the limited number of rounds he has GWW to spend.
dualing from berseker, even at 13, gives some less HP, but buffed he gets anyway 2 hp more every cleric level + the ones from better dex thanks to duhm, can reach GM and his rage protects against imprisonment while the barbarian one protections can be replicated with chaotic commands.
dualing from barbarian is not wrong, but imo from berseker is way better, as you get better AC, +1/2 apr and do more damage with the main hand thanks to GM.
same apr then at 9, you roll d8 instead of d10 for 2 levels so only a marginally lower hp and base thac0 of 14 instead of 12, but as the cleric class reaches lev 13 it gets already a 12 thac0.
dualing at 7 you shave almost 200k xp from the first class and 340k xp on the second to complete the dual, so you have a functional F->C almost half million xp before, that will have, not buffed only a marginally lower thac0 for a little part of the game and will have actually better thac0 when buffed, more cleric levels to turn undeads, to self buff and to cast.
i would say that dualing into every other class 9 is the sweet spot, but dualing into cleric imho 7 is the better option, or eventually 13 to get the half attack more as a dual is prevented from using GWW and a cleric can not use speed weapons so his problem is the low apr, even if when buffed each attack hits very hard.
Downtime for a level 9 fighter to cleric dual: about two days in Athkatla, or less if you work the system with scroll XP.
The level 9 dual is much easier, unless you're including Siege of Dragonspear. With the 500K cap there, you're looking at either a level 7 dual or a level 10 dual as the most practical.
i was answering to you from the point of view of a person, like the OP, that starts directly in bg2.
by the way as he is planning to go solo the learn and erase scrolls trick is not available and the xp gain is completely different from the one he gets in a full party, even if the xp caps remain for a solo trough the whole saga.
i think we both have lost the fact that the topic is a only bg2 scs solo in our last posts, but as the only way to speed up the downtime playing solo bg2 is to keep how many rewards uncollected as fighter it is probably easier to dual at 7, even if there is plenty of xp to do it later.
doing it at 7 the advantage is that a certain part of the needed 340k xp can be obtained with rewards and with easy to kill for a cleric enemies left not killed in those quests.