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Mostly nature team.

WoebegoneWoebegone Member Posts: 18
in Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
Hi everyone. For my next playthrough I'm gonna try an almost entire nature team. Jaheira, Minsc, Valygar, and Cernd. The one exception will be my rogue spot as I'll take either Jan or Yoshimo(who will definately come with me to the Underdark) until I pick up Imoen. I have questions though.

1. I was thinking my character should go Cleric/Ranger or Ranger dueled to Cleric. Maybe a Berserker dueled to Druid? That's a lot of Druids. Not sure which direction I should go.
2. Is there a time limit to do Valygar's quest? I'm assuming there is for Cernd as his seems more dire, but I wanted to head to the Underdark before the Planar Sphere. My plan was to get to the Underdark as quickly as possible whille still grabbing all my companions.
3. With only one mage and possibly no cleric, will this be a problem with SCS Tactical? I was distracted by another game and didn't get very far on my last SCS attempt, so essentially this will be my first time trying it.
4. If I head to the Underdark as quickly as possible, will I be able to handle it?
5. If I can handle it, will it negatively impact NPC side quests and a romance with Jaheira?

Thanks a bunch for any help.

Comments

  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,829
    edited January 2021
    No cleric in SCS? No problem. I've played multiple parties with druids but no clerics, and it has gone just fine. There are three key healing elements that pure druids don't have in their spell list that clerics do, but you can easily compensate for all of them.
    - No restoration. Here, there are plenty of scrolls that can do the job. Also, once you get HLAs, a mage's summoned planetar can cast it.
    - No resurrection. Here, Jaheira gets her special version of Raise Dead, there are multiple rods of resurrection, summoned planetars can cast Raise Dead, and druids get the fantastic HLA spell Mass Raise Dead.*
    - No curse removal. Here, your mage can learn the spell, and summoned devas and planetars can cast it once you get HLAs. Also, there just aren't that many curses to worry about. The clay golem no-healing curse is the most common, and that's only if you install a specific SCS component.

    Only one mage? My last playthrough beat the game with none - just a bard who was forbidden from casting spells. And no divine spellcasters either. On Insane difficulty.
    I did make substantial use of wands early on; Jan joined me for the Planar Prison in Haer'Dalis' place for that reason, even though I didn't let him cast spells.

    Cernd's timer is fake. He'll complain twice, but he'll shut up after that and not actually leave. If you kick him out before the quest is done, he'll head to the druid grove and wait for you to catch up.
    Valygar doesn't have a time limit of any kind on his quest.

    On the cleric/ranger combination - keep in mind that in the EE, you only add druid spells to your list for the spell levels that you could cast at your ranger level. Unless you add the IWD spells, level 1-3 druid spells are pretty lackluster.

    * Mass Raise Dead is bugged in 2.5, in both positive and negative ways. It lists party-wide healing of 3d10 + 1/level, but actually multiplies that by up to six; the secondary spell that casts the healing is cast for each party member rather than just once. In addition, it breaks all creature-targeted sequencer abilities. This property is shared with other resurrection spells, but normally you don't target living characters with those. A hotfix for these bugs is attached below, at least for the standard version of the spell. The SCS component that makes HLA spells innate copies the spell (with an ID code that may vary by installation), so this change would need to be included before installing that component.

    [Edit note - updated fix to include other spells as well]
    [Edit 2 - new version of the fix as of 1/4/21]. It should fix lots of bugs without introducing any new ones now.]
    Post edited by jmerry on
  • velehalvelehal Member Posts: 299
    1) You don´t need cleric, druids are sufficient. But SCS adds some good divine spells and although druid´s spells are great cleric´s are even better. But the most important cleric´s spells (raise dead, restoration) can be cast from scrolls or wands.
    2) There is no time limit for Valygar´s quest. As for the Cernd´s quest I don´t know. I always do it early.
    3 On mage is sufficient. I used to think that mage is the best class and more mages make the game easier but know I incline to regard warriors as the strongest class. And you will have plenty of them (Valygar, Jaheira, Minsc, charname). Mages make the earlier parts of the game easier but for the bosses in ToB you want to have as many fighters as possible (of course the strongest is the combination of fighter and mage whether multi or dual).
    4) Will you play with reloads? If you play no reload game I would try to get some levels before heading for Spellhod. Underdark is very dangerous place for low level party.
  • masteralephmasteraleph Member Posts: 270
    Note that you can, in EE, make an alteration in the .ini which will restore Cleric/Rangers getting Druid spells at all levels- but yes, by default that doesn't work anymore. Berserker->Druid is very powerful, though note that you're going to need very high stats- dualing into Druid requires 17s in both Wis and Cha, which means you need a starting 16 in Cha (before the tome). Since you can easily use an 18 in the physical stats and an 18 in Wis, you're looking at wanting a score in the high 90s, ideally, and it's not especially easy to get on a human berserker.
  • KhyronKhyron Member Posts: 627
    Mind you.. your Wisdom score is not what governs how high lvl spells you can cast, but it does govern the amount of bonus spell slots.

    A high wisdom = more spells - this is different from how mages treat intelligence.

    But it also means you can get by with 17 wisdom, which means 14 at char creation as there are 3 wisdom tomes in BG1.

    18,18,18,10,14,16 really isn't very hard to get.

    You could dump intelligence to 3 if you want to, it has no bearing on how the character works.. so then it's easy to get. However! I always take 10 int, so the tome pushes me to 11.. that way i can survive mindflayer brain eating attack twice. (-5 int each hit, reach 0 and you die)
  • DhariusDharius Member Posts: 654
    edited January 2021
    Actually I’m doing something similar at the moment in TOB with the following party:

    Me (Beast Master), Cernd, Jaheira, Minsc, Hexxat, Sarevok (Fighter only, redeemed to CG)

    The lack of any undead turning makes fighting spectral undead rather challenging (especially against the Master Wraith and his pals in the Forest of Mir). Also, I have no arcane spell-casters which makes some options limited.

    But, you know what? It’s one of the most enjoyable run-throughs I’ve done in a while. I like the dialogs between Cernd and Jaheira, and summoning loads of animals to hold off foes while picking them off with missile weapons is actually quite satisfying. Cernd is rapidly becoming an MVP, and I have to think carefully about the best equipment for him to use, as well as my main character who uses clubs and bows. I also don’t have to go through the hassle of finding and memorising scrolls.

    In Watcher’s keep I was able to increase Cernd’s WIS to 19 permanently, which makes him a spell casting power house :)

    After spending 2020 outdoors a lot, and seeing the importance of protecting the natural world against global warming and plastic pollution, it seemed like a good idea. Most fun I’ve had in BG2 in ages :) but yes, I do need to invest in a lot of restoration scrolls and rods/scrolls of resurrection, but that isn’t too much of a problem as druids can use them luckily.
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,367
    No nature-centric party is complete without Wilson though! How can you possibly resist a big furry Teddy ? in your party?
  • SouplesseSouplesse Member Posts: 131
    edited January 2021
    If you don’t mind eekeeper, you could play an Half orc Barbarian/Druid which is a very very cool multi!
  • WoebegoneWoebegone Member Posts: 18
    Just a quick update, I opted for a Half-Elf Cleric/Ranger. The team is powerful. Having multiple high melee damage characters able to stealth into position while enemy mobs are distracted by summons is quite powerful. I've enjoyed my run so far. Thanks to everyone who contributed options and opinions.
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