Garrick as a model for a PC
Rigel
Member Posts: 251
I love Garrick. I know he is not very popular, but I love his personality, He is too very useful, even if with his relatively low Int, he fails a lot when he tries to learn spells. I like his naiveness, his credulity. The only thing that i do not undertand in his character is his alignment. He seems to me more like a CG character than a CN. But, generally, all CN characters seem closer to CG than to "true CN" (the way I underatnd it, pure selfish free-spirits).
So I think I will try to model a PC based on him. But it will be a woman, less intelligent then Imoen, less agile, perhaps even with less charisma. Not so bright, to be honest, she sings a bit out of tune, will learn spells but with difficulties, but during her adventures, will learn and progress. So no Min Max and 18 in her abilities. Let's see whet will happen to her ...
But which alignment should I give to her ? CN like Garrick ? N or even NG ? Or CG with EEKeeper ?
So I think I will try to model a PC based on him. But it will be a woman, less intelligent then Imoen, less agile, perhaps even with less charisma. Not so bright, to be honest, she sings a bit out of tune, will learn spells but with difficulties, but during her adventures, will learn and progress. So no Min Max and 18 in her abilities. Let's see whet will happen to her ...
But which alignment should I give to her ? CN like Garrick ? N or even NG ? Or CG with EEKeeper ?
5
Comments
F 10 C 10 D 14 I 15 W 11 C 16
We'll see what will happen to her...
Which sound set are you using for her? I always find one of the hardest things when trying to create a new character is finding a voice to suit.
Once I played a Barbarian and I used the one with the strong accent (scottish ? welsh ? ) "I ll get in a minute guv".
I often find Garrick works well alongside one of the specialist mages, allowing you to pick up the useful skills that are not in their school. While not having to burn a second party slot on another character with terrible Thaco and gear limits. I find that to be a stronger setup than two pure mages. That being said, he's still not quite as good as having a sorcerer or thief-mage.
The later half of the game also throws a bunch of mage-only items as rewards, and Garrick makes excellent use of these. I've also found the bardsong to be a useful timer for trap detection.
Much of this can also apply to a bard MC if you like. I think they pair well with one of the specialist mage NPC's. Xan probably being the best candidate. The evocation damage spells scale with level, and the bard will level faster.
There's him, there's the other bard, there's dual classed Imoen, and then there's Safana if you give her the tome of intelligence and then dual class her.
Bows and arcane magic are some of the most powerful tools at your disposal in BG1. While Garrick may not be a master archer or an archmage supreme, there is a lot of value in the fact that he can do both. Mages have a fair bit of down time between spells, especially in BG1, so the ability to plug away at enemies with crossbow bolts when you're not casting is pretty great.
As far as his stats go, he doesn't have a whole lot of spell slots, so his intelligence isn't that big a deal. You only really need to successfully scribe a couple spells per level. His Dex is perfectly solid for keeping him in the backline so stuff like the constitution and strength isn't that big a deal. In a pinch you can use a mage protection spell and he'll be hardier than any of your fighters anyway.
He gets less spells than a mage, but even lvl 1-3 spells are extremely effective when used right. Charm person, shield, sleep, web, fireball, haste, etc... Plus he can use wands and scrolls, which are plentiful. I have him quaff a potion of genius before learning more valuable spells so he's less likely to guff up while inscribing.
If you kit him out he can be quite strong in ranged and melee. The crossbow of speed is an obvious choice, but last playthrough I ended up having him memorize the level 2 spell strength and whip out the Chesley Crusher +2 halberd. For a bard he can hit pretty hard when you raise his strength to 18 with potions or spells. It was a little silly, but I liked seeing him land those big hits and splash gore across the screen.
Playing as a bard PC sounds fun. Even with middling stats, if you're resourceful they can be quite good.
I agree on the spell selection - give Garrick the buffs and disablers, let the dedicated MU cast the big ticket spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt. You don't need to have six copies of Haste prepared at all times, one or two at most is fine. Plus a Bard's spellcasting is generally more potent than a MU of the same level, since spell power is by class level rather than by spell slot, and point for point a Bard will be higher level than a MU (Bards level on the Thief table, which famously reaches level 10 by the TotSC cap).
My dad never gave bards a fair shake, but that's largely because of a personality clash - he found Garrick to be too... Garrick (though the one time I remember him using Garrick, he appreciated the Sir Robin gag), the other prefab bard is a complete and utter villain, and classic BG1 is notoriously deadly if you're not some form of warrior. Ironically his game of choice was Icewind Dale, and bards are even better there.
Once more unto the breach dear friends !
In my view, the BG1 writers made a number of poor decisions about whether or not some characters should be Neutral. I may make a post about that at some point, but I don't want to hijack a thread about using Garrick as the inspiration for a PC!