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The party that finished half the game in chapter 2...

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  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    VanDerBerg wrote: »
    I also found one of the two houses you get to loot after killing that lich in Underdark quite tough. Not lich's house, but the other one. There is like 20 drows of all kinds that attack you and they are all highly magic resistant, so crowd control doesn't work. It took me 4-5 reloads to kill them.

    for that fight i like to "permanently borrowing" some potions from the potion merchant in the city and drink up potions of; mind focusing, heroism, cloud giant STR

    coupled that with a defensive harmony, protection form evil 10' radius, mass invisibility and haste, and that house gets wiped out :)
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    :D Well, the problem seem to be that every squirrel in the game seems to be throwing around dispel magic at level 55, so all my buffs get dispelled at the beginning of every fight despite my cleric being level 19. Didn't know mass invisibility worked there, I thought that as soon as you get transported there, it somehow gets dispelled.
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    VanDerBerg wrote: »
    :D Well, the problem seem to be that every squirrel in the game seems to be throwing around dispel magic at level 55, so all my buffs get dispelled at the beginning of every fight despite my cleric being level 19. Didn't know mass invisibility worked there, I thought that as soon as you get transported there, it somehow gets dispelled.

    SCS i assume? i play unmodded so i don't have that problem fortunately
  • MaurvirMaurvir Member Posts: 1,090
    House Jae'llat - and yes, that is a tough battle. Rewarding, though. You walk out of there with a boatload of gold and gems. You also only get one shot at it, given the wardstone disappears after its first use. Better make sure you are ready.

    I also had my second wave of casualties, this time Drizzt's entire party. The worst part is, I never even had a chance to talk to them. They beat me into Bodhi's lair and got killed while I was still buffing my party. It was a bit nuts watching the messages show up as each one died in quick succession - along with the assassins from the Shadow Thieves. The only group that DIDN'T get killed were the paladins, and only because they stayed with my party.

    SCS vampires are no joke...

    I disabled that little twerp Malchor Harpell who asks for Drizzt's weapons back, so now I have this ridiculous stash of stuff from his party. Sadly, they are all lesser than what my party is already carrying (which is why I don't get the inclusion of Harpell - the gear just isn't that great?)
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    the mithril platemail is pretty good because it used to stack with items of protection ( i think the EEs got rid of that though ) and in vanilla defender used to hit as a +5 weapon and having that +2 AC bonus is pretty solid

    and this was before ToB existed and if you were someone who didn't know where all the super cewl items where, then some of that gear is pretty good

    thats my only assumption though
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    edited July 2020
    SCS i assume? i play unmodded so i don't have that problem fortunately

    It is, though the 'smarter priests' part of it probably isn't what makes that encounter much harder (to me, it is hard even in unmodded game, far harder than a lich before it). Fron what I have seen so far, smarter priests just tend to use dispel magic and silence radius more often, and use summons - otherwise they are the same as vanilla ones. And, since those drows are highly immune to magic anyway, you might as well spend magic on rebuffing once they strip you of buffs.

    The problem is better calls for help part, because in the unmodded game you can clear the two rooms separately. Here they all join in together, so instead of fighting two groups separately you fight one group of 15-20 of them and they attack all members of your group at the same time, so you cannot shelter mages
  • MaurvirMaurvir Member Posts: 1,090
    Yup, better calls for help really changes thins a lot. No more of this picking off enemies one by one by abusing the FoW. Once you start a battle, everyone in the area jumps in. I actually prefer this tactic most of the time, as it makes it more realistic.

    After all, just because YOU can't see someone doesn't mean they can't see you. Kids learn this about, what, the age of 3 or 4?
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    House Jae'llat? SCS adds some spellcasters to the mix; several "Jae'llat Mages" which are actually fighter/clerics, a "Jae'llat Priestess" which is actually a fighter/mage, and another named member of the house who is a mage.
    AI-controlled priests in SCS don't use Dispel Magic; they don't want to take out their own buffs. It's those mages using Remove Magic that you're looking at. At caster level 12 or 14... that'll take out your buff potions, but probably not much of anything your party actually casts.
  • MaurvirMaurvir Member Posts: 1,090
    Well, it looks like I may have to up the difficulty after all. Saradush has now put my two paladins at level 26. They ran out of HLAs and are now just stacking GWW. My sorcerer is now level 24, as is Imoen. A level 24 sorcerer is a thing to behold. Back to back time stop with a side helping of devastation. She can single-handedly end most battles in the blink of an eye. Between the robe of Vecna and greater alacrity, she can just about pull off that stunt Irenicus did at the beginning of BG2.

    The party did have a fatality, though. At the abandoned temple of Bhaal, where the wraith show up to be jerks, Imoen managed to get level drained a bit too far. Fortunately, the party has a plethora of options to raise her at the moment, including, as it happens, devas. She was back up and running in no time, though she did miss a bit of experience.

    There have been some hilarious moments, though. Isra's undead is really, really powerful. Even knocking off 2 level for being a paladin and not a priest, she made mincemeat of the jail under Saradush. Only the main vampire required more kinetic action. The rest of them exploded as soon as she got near them.
    ThacoBellsarevok57
  • borntodieborntodie Member Posts: 199
    edited August 2020
    VanDerBerg wrote: »
    I'd suggest manually resetting your XP to what it was before you started the extra strongholds
    with a NPC from the second most broken kit in the game (cavalier on the NPC which was never there in the original game), another NPC from an excellent kit (paladin) + rolling a character from the most OP class yourself (sorcerer).

    Hmm, I wouldn't say that cavalier is broken or even that strong at all, what makes you say so? Sorcerer isn't that much better than a normal pure mage, either.

    The most OP legal characters, by far, are multi and dual in my opinion. A berserker dual into mage.. ouch. Having high HP and the berserk ability on top of your mage spells, now that's broken - nothing can peel back your many layers of defenses.
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    edited August 2020
    Hmm, I wouldn't say that cavalier is broken or even that strong at all, what makes you say so?

    Cavalier not strong at all? Come now. All the benefits from the paladin class (+2 saving throws, turn undead, insta healing via lay on hands, protect from evil, cleric spells) plus innate +3 to damage and hit to some of the strongest enemies in the game (Demon Knight and Aec'Letec in BG1, the final boss of SoD, dragons, tanar'ris, half of the Watcher's Keep and Demogorgon in BG2, just to name a few), innate immunities to charm, fear and poison and 20% fire and acid resistance? If that's not strong, I don't know what is. You'd be hard pressed to find a class that is more useful from level 1 in Candlekeep until the final battle in ToB. Just take poison resistance as an example - many of the harder encounters in BG1 (red wizards, just to name one) you can clear by sending in your cavalier to enemies and casting Stinking Cloud on them. For late BG1, SoD and most of BG2, you can do the same with Cloudkill - send cavalier to draw enemies, cast Cloudkill and let the cavalier clear up. At the end game, you get all the fighter HLAs plus Summon Deva plus buff spells like Armour of Faith, DUHM, Death Ward and so on. So, yeah...Cavalier is a ridiculously powerful class.
    Sorcerer isn't that much better than a normal pure mage, either.

    Spontaneous casting is immensely helpful unless you rest and prepare your spellbook for every fight. Plus, I think many people would be hard press to find more than 5 spells per level they regularly use.
    The most OP legal characters, by far, are multi and dual in my opinion.

    That's a given. I really don't like how dual and multi-classing is implemented in 2nd edition rules. There is virtually no penalty for dual classing. Fighter -> Mage char can be an excellent fighter and excellent mage at the same time with basically zero penalties. Surely that's not the intended spirit of multi or dual classing and surely a single-class mage should be better than any multiclass one. And some multiclass combinations are plainly ridiculous to me from the RP perspective - cleric/thief, wtf? I much more like how this is done in the games like NWN that are based on 3rd edition rules - you have a limit to the number of levels you can obtain and the cost to level is the same regardless of the class you are levelling in. So, with the limit of 20 levels, do you really want to be mediocre fighter and mage as opposed to very good fighter or very good mage?
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    3e multiclassing is awful. You're basically either crippling your character irrevocably, or you're munchkining so hard that the nothing can touch you. 2e has always had the best multiclassing imo.
    sarevok57
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    2e has always had the best multiclassing imo.

    The best in that it makes single class characters almost pointless from the power gaming perspective? Why being a mage when you can be fighter -> mage? Why being a cleric when you can be fighter -> cleric? There is no penalty. In 3e (at least what limited experience I have with it), you at least sacrifice something. For example, fighter/mage combo and it is not as ridiculously overpowered as it is in 2e.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    VanDerBerg wrote: »
    2e has always had the best multiclassing imo.

    The best in that it makes single class characters almost pointless from the power gaming perspective? Why being a mage when you can be fighter -> mage? Why being a cleric when you can be fighter -> cleric? There is no penalty. In 3e (at least what limited experience I have with it), you at least sacrifice something. For example, fighter/mage combo and it is not as ridiculously overpowered as it is in 2e.

    No, in that you are ACTUALLY MULTICLASSING. You are learning two or more classes at the same time. Not dualclassing back and forth like an indecisive college student who hasn't figured his major out yet. Any given multiclass in 2e is usable. This is NOT the case in 3e. Especially since so many class abilities keep scaling way past what is viable for a multiclass with balanced levels.
    Realistically in 3e, you're going to to have 1 or 2 (maybe even 3) classes that never go past level 1 or 2, and then your main class will be way ahead. That's not multiclassing.
    If 2e multiclassing is "bad" because its not balanced, then 3e should be even worse by the same logic. NOTHING in 2e even begins to approach the munchkin-y crap that 3e encourages.
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    edited August 2020
    No, in that you are ACTUALLY MULTICLASSING. You are learning two or more classes at the same time.

    You can approximate true multiclassing in 3e by alternating between two classes at each level up. Now, of course, you don't -have- to do that, but you can. If you want to powergame, then you can push one class and pick a level or two of the others just to get proficiencies/feats. But you can do exactly the same thing in 2e via dual classing. How is picking one level of a fighter then dual classing to a mage in BG any different than picking one level as a fighter then others as a mage in NWN?

    We are talking about the balance of end game characters? Tell me, then, how is end game fighter/mage in BG balanced against end game mage or end game fighter? End game fighter/mage can reach level 24 as a fighter, which means it has exactly the same thac0, APR, saving throws and slightly fewer HP that level 40 fighter. It will also be level 20 mage, which means it will have a few less higher level spell slots than the pure mage of level 31, but will still be able to cast all the spells that a pure mage can. So, you are basically a top-end fighter and a top-end mage at the same time and, undoubtedly, infinitely more powerful than either pure mage or pure fighter at the end game.

    In contrast to that, in NWN (which I find a far weaker game than BG in every respect apart from this one, btw) the end-game fighter/mage would be level 10 fighter and level 10 mage. So, it will be a significantly weaker mage (capable of casting only up to level 5 spells) than the end-game mage and a significantly weaker fighter than the end game fighter. So, in that respect, 3e is much more balanced.

    Now dual-classing...Dual-classing in BG is exactly what you describe is wrong with multiclassing in 3e. Plus it is worse because when you dual class in BG1, your new class starts from level 1 and experience needed to level is very low. In BG, you can play the whole BG1 + ToSC as a fighter, for example, and so reach level 8 or 9 as a fighter, then start BG2, dual class to cleric, do one side quest in Chapter 2 and get your fighter levels back, and proceed as a much stronger character than a pure cleric while having exactly the same pace of progression as a pure cleric for the rest of the game. The equivalent is not possible in NWN, because if you switch from fighter to cleric at level 7 or so, you would have to reach the overall level 15 to be level 7/8 fighter cleric. So, again, dual classing in BG makes for much more OP chars than the equivalent in NWN.
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    You're comparing two different things - the endpoint of an epic 2E campaign to that of a non-epic 3E campaign. It would be fairer to use 3M XP for the 2E side of the rules ... which makes that fighter/mage level 14/14. Compared to a level 20 pure fighter, you're short six points of THAC0, plus another two to hit, three damage, and half an attack per round for not being able to go past specialization in a weapon. Compared to a level 18 mage, you're out the 8th and 9th level spell slots and only have one 7th level slot. Not exactly a top-end fighter and a top-end mage at the same time.

    It is definitely stronger than a 3E balanced fighter/mage of the same overall level equivalent... but that's what prestige classes are for. Replace half of those levels with Eldritch Knight, which advances both casting and attack bonus - now you're looking a lot like that fighter 14/mage 14 from 2E.
    ThacoBell
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @VanDerBerg I never claimed any of them were balanced. I said both were unbalanced, but 3e gets even worse than 2e in that regard with its super munchkin builds. Also, you CAN even balance you classes, but its not remotely like 2e. In 2e, they level simultaneously, and the end result is that your a few levels behind a single. In 3e, you character is effectively half the level of a single class and seriously crippled. The way skills and save scale in 3e, you NEED the high level spell penetration/fighter skills to be remotely useful against any enemies above lower-mid grade.
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    I never claimed any of them were balanced. I said both were unbalanced, but 3e gets even worse than 2e in that regard with its super munchkin builds. Also, you CAN even balance you classes, but its not remotely like 2e. In 2e, they level simultaneously, and the end result is that your a few levels behind a single. In 3e, you character is effectively half the level of a single class and seriously crippled. The way skills and save scale in 3e, you NEED the high level spell penetration/fighter skills to be remotely useful against any enemies above lower-mid grade.

    I don't like either of these solutions, I just happen to prefer 3e to 2e. If I was designing multiclassing, I would put much more severe restrictions. For example, in fighter/mage combo, I would let the player chose which class would they want to be their primary class (using your college analogy, what would be the player's 'major'). If they chose a fighter, I would restrict the magic they can cast to only a particular school or a particular set of spells. Or put much more severe limits to the number of spells castable per day, to just a few per level. Alternatively, if you chose to 'major' in magic, I would prohibit specialisation in weapons, restrict weapons to that a mage can use and probably decrease the level of thac0 progression. So that you still get benefits of reduced thac0, increased APR, fighter saving throws but you are nowhere near the pure fighter in terms of fighting capacity. Bards, to me, are what a fighter/mage multiclass should look like...


  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @VanDerBerg "I would prohibit specialisation in weapons"

    So you would make the fighter part of the fighter multiclass completely worthless. Got it.
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    If higher HP, lower thac0 and more APR are all worthless, then yes. But yes, the solution that obsolete single classes is, indeed, perfect.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    VanDerBerg wrote: »
    If higher HP, lower thac0 and more APR are all worthless, then yes. But yes, the solution that obsolete single classes is, indeed, perfect.

    You keep putting words in my mouth, stop it. I never said it was balanced or "perfect". What extra apr? Most of a fighters innate apr comes from thier weapon proficiencies (AND a large chunk of their thaco as well.) You'd get, what, 1 attack by level 13? By the time a multi gets there, there's no real reason to have them do anything BUT cast spells anyway. Enemies will be too tough to attempt any kind of melee (also negating the extra hp), and archery is rarely gonna hit.

    You want a balanced class spread? Play 4th edition. You know, the one that everyone hated because classes were all too similar. D&D is more fun partially due to the various imbalances.
  • VanDerBergVanDerBerg Member Posts: 217
    edited August 2020
    No, in BG most of the fighter APR comes from their base APR and only 1/2 of an attack comes from weapon specialisation. So, level 13 fighter without specialisation would have 2 APR. A fighter with specialisation would have 2.5 APR. If having 2.5 APR makes fighters killing machines but 2 makes them utterly useless, then fine. I guess that would make them useless.
  • MaurvirMaurvir Member Posts: 1,090
    The party just finished ToB. Isra and Sirene hit level 31 somewhere during the final fight, while Eilrie and Imoen hit level 27 (sorcerer/mage respectively). Once all of the magic users had simulcrum, it was pretty much over. The real versions wandered off to a quiet part of the throne room while their doppelgangers unleashed their fury. Between that and the paladin's GWW all over the place, the final battle was surprisingly short.

    In the end, Eilrie chose Sirene. That was a fun campaign, but I'm now looking forward to the current BG1 party that is now just starting.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    VanDerBerg wrote: »
    No, in BG most of the fighter APR comes from their base APR and only 1/2 of an attack comes from weapon specialisation. So, level 13 fighter without specialisation would have 2 APR. A fighter with specialisation would have 2.5 APR. If having 2.5 APR makes fighters killing machines but 2 makes them utterly useless, then fine. I guess that would make them useless.

    There's a big difference between "specialized" and "proficient". I mentioned apr, but there's also thac0 and damage.
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