Well , I don't want it to be changed if only because I've come to accept it as just another feature. But for the sake of making an informed decision let's just list what they gain and what they lose out on.
So, they gain druid only spells of spell levels 4-7 where according the rules they shouldn't have them. Well, there are not very many druid only spells as druids are the spellcasting class that has access to the least broad spell list but the ones they do get are mainly really good ones.
Level 4: Call Woodland Beings Seems to me that this is an often overlooked but really awsome spell for it's level. You summon a nymph that is useless in meele but has a bunch of spells of her own which you can direct her to use. Among them are Mass Cure, not that great but a 5th level spell, Hold Monster, a 5th level arcane spell and Confusion which, while really bad for a 7th level spell nontheless is awsome when you can get access to it by casting a 4th level spell. So, overall, really good! Access to a bunch of high level spells by casting a single fourth level spell.
Level 5: Ironskins, Insect Plague and Pixie Dust Ironskins is a no-brainer. Just a great spell for anyone who's likely to get hit by weapons. Plus it can't be brought down by breach (at least in vanilla). Insect Plague is a great mage disabling spell with some minor damage per round and a horror like effect (that allows a save every round). It's a great spell to have. Pixie Dust is like Mass Invisibility and generally useless. Still, two great spells that a cleric doesn't have access to.
Level 6: Conjure Fire Elemental, Dolorous Decay and Fire Seeds Well, Conjure Fire Elemental is one of the better summoning spells at that point and unlike with the arcane version, there's no chance that the thing will go hostile. Dolorous Decay has some minor slow effect (short but without save) combined with poison damage (good damage but save or nothing) and Fire Seeds are kinda similar to Melf's Meteors. Nothing overwhelming here but nothing completely useless either.
Level 7: Conjure Earth Elemental, Creeping Doom and Nature's Beauty Another elemental summon, that's useful. Creeping Doom is of course an upgraded version of Insect Plague. I never use it because Insect Plague does Mage disabling just as well and that's what I'd actually use that for. Nature's Beauty is an awsome spell that has a Whail of the Bashee like safe or die effect (with a safe bonus, however, so it rarely kills anything worth killing) with an added no-save permanent blindness effect.
Bottom line is that while a Ranger/Cleric doesn't get a lot of spells over a Fighter/Cleric, he does get some of the best at every level. Yes, that has a significant impact on power level. In addidtion he gets two free proficiency points in Two Weapon Style, which is pretty useful since most people will go that route and he gets a totally useless Charm Animals ability.
His Ranger part levels slower than the Fighter part of a Fighter/Cleric or Fighter/Druid multi-class. I don't see that as a big downside since the melee classes generally get much less out of additional levels than spellcasting classes.
Compared with a Fighter/Druid his Cleric part will level slower in the beginning which is significant in BG1. Still, he'll have a greater variety (and generally more useful) spells -- level 2 druid spell list is just horrible, for example, and he won't hit that wall at level 14 in BG2. After overcoming that, the Fighter/Druid will have a lot more high level spell slots for memorizing HLA-spells for quite some time. That's a significant advantage. He'll also have access to Greater Elemental Summoning, which is great. For the sake of completeness, the Cleric/Ranger has an advantage over the Fighter/Druid in the weapons department.
The only real downside compared to Fighter/Cleric is that you are restricted to Half Elf but that's a real one. Dwarves and Half-Orcs are strictly better than Half-Elves and not just by a little.
Compared to a dual-classed Fighter -> Cleric/Druid the Ranger -> Cleric loses out on weapon mastery. Not significant in vanilla BG2 but it is in vanilla BG1 or BG2 with a Grand Mastery patch installed and it will be in BG:EE, I believe.
Anyway, I think it shows that one cannot argue that the increase in power level by getting druid spells isn't significant or that the Cleric/Ranger as is isn't strictly better than than a Fighter/Druid or a Fighter/Cleric. In any case, there are still reasons why one might want to play a Fighter/Cleric or Fighter/Druid that are more than just role-play decisions (not that that wouldn't be enough in my mind). So nothing is getting obsolete here.
On the other hand I agree with many others here saying that it doesn't break game balance. The game is already inherently imbalanced. Ranger/Cleric is great but it still cannot hold a candle to anything getting high level arcane spells which, let's face it, rule everything, at least form mid SoA. Also, there are already quite a few classes that, from a mechanical perspective, are strictly worse than others. I don't have a problem with that. In fact, I think, game balance is an inherently faulty concept in single player games such as this and should never influence any decision at all.
As to the "but it's the rules!" argument, well, the de-facto rule as it is at the moment is that Ranger/Clerics get Druid spells all the way. The question is should we update the description to conform to the status quo or the other way round. Simply a matter of preferrence, nothing else. It's the rules of a game, not god given law.
So, the game came like this and it was never patched. It doesn't cause any problems, doesn't break the game and doesn't (or shouldn't) detract from anyones fun. In fact, for some of us who like to play Ranger/Clerics as they are, it would detract from our fun to change it. The communtity is clearly devided on this issue. In such a case I think preferrence should always be given to the status quo. Make it easily moddable, if possible, and everyone can be happy.
Sh*t, that was long. Well, nobody is required to read it.
Wow look how close it is For my part I vote yes. The point for me is that this bug stops Cleric/Ranger being a genuine representation of the Cleric and Ranger classes combined. Instead it becomes a divine spellcasting machine, it basically becomes a more powerful druid/cleric with fighter HLA's. I've played it and it is my firm belief that it would be a much more interesting class with this exploit fixed.
You can choose to not utilize level 4+ druid-only spells if you feel it is OP or doesn't represent the true AD&D class.
/thread
Meanwhile my kensai/thief does 350 damage per hit for a round from Assassination against anything not immune to backstab. Because Ranger/Cleric is too "op."
You can choose to not utilize level 4+ druid-only spells if you feel it is OP or doesn't represent the true AD&D class.
/thread
Meanwhile my kensai/thief does 350 damage per hit for a round from Assassination against anything not immune to backstab. Because Ranger/Cleric is too "op."
Leaving aside how much broken dual classing is with munchkin combos, your logic here is: "do not fix something OP if something else is even more OP". Perhaps it's just me, but I'd prefer to fix both slightly-OP and uber-OP things.
Anyway, the balance issue isn't even what bothers me the most (we're not speaking of something as broken as a Kensai-Thief), it's the consistency/roleplaying issue. My cleric/ranger is a CLERIC/ranger, not a DRUID/ranger. Why the former exist (not a great concept imo) and latter doesn't (when it does in PnP AD&D) is another story...
I don't know if infinite engine is able to make the p&p spell limits for ranger/clerics anyway, so maybe this is a wasp comb that isn't worth to mess. I kinda like the bug, as a ranger/cleric should be able to differ from a single cleric class, as he's much more near to a druid than a cleric. Unfortunally there's no druid/ranger combo in AD&D.
If possible i would like to restrict the ranger/cleric to lose some of the cleric spells that aren't compatible to this class in my personal opinion (as finger of death, ressurection, gate... among others) than restrict the druid spells.
So since people keep on bringing this up, I'm wading into it again I guess...
@SandmanCCL aren't most of the more difficult enemies in TOB immune to backstab? So the benefits of having that to begin with are pretty minimal. I'm not sure if it really is as overpowered as you make it out to be, since to the best of my knowledge there is no way of removing immunity to backstab.
There is a key difference when making a comparison like that anyways. The manual says "This character [cleric/ranger] can use the abilities of a cleric and ranger, though weapons are restricted only those allowed by the cleric’s ethos." It says nothing about druid spells beyond the first three levels. Now granted, I'd be the first to admit that the manual itself needs to be more properly edited (for a lot of reasons), but I think in this case there is no evidence that they got anything wrong in 2nd edition rules when they wrote that in the manual. I mean, if cleric/ranger's get level 7 druid spells, why not rangers? Why not let paladins likewise get 7 spells levels instead of only up to 4 if they get to a certain point. Why not let bards get up to level 9 mage spells if they get up into the high 30's in level? I mean you are on your way to godhood, why let some rules get in the way?
Since this is a single player game, the only NPC's who would be affected would be Valygar, Minsc (who can't really cast spells successfully to begin with), and Haer'Dalis. Since there are few if any ranger/bard enemies you have to face in BG2 that I'm aware of it would not really have any impact on the game. Even if it did, there would be nothing stopping you from choosing to not use those spells to properly conform to D&D rules.
I mean, doing so would get rid of the uniqueness of every class, but I don't see why there is a need to begin with to give these extra spells to a cleric/ranger. It kind of seems like special treatment without a logical reason behind it. Between favoured enemies, stealth, and up to level 3 druid spells there is enough there to be a unique class to play compared to a fighter.
On a complete rant breaking note - @HugoRune isn't confusion basically a level 4 mage spell, so counting it as a level 7 spell is not incorrect but it does kind of ignore this point. Its sort of like saying animate dead is a level 5 spell (which it is for a mage/bard), when a cleric or paladin can get it at level 3.
You can choose to not utilize level 4+ druid-only spells if you feel it is OP or doesn't represent the true AD&D class.
/thread
Meanwhile my kensai/thief does 350 damage per hit for a round from Assassination against anything not immune to backstab. Because Ranger/Cleric is too "op."
Leaving aside how much broken dual classing is with munchkin combos, your logic here is: "do not fix something OP if something else is even more OP". Perhaps it's just me, but I'd prefer to fix both slightly-OP and uber-OP things.
Anyway, the balance issue isn't even what bothers me the most (we're not speaking of something as broken as a Kensai-Thief), it's the consistency/roleplaying issue. My cleric/ranger is a CLERIC/ranger, not a DRUID/ranger. Why the former exist (not a great concept imo) and latter doesn't (when it does in PnP AD&D) is another story...
The latter doesn't exist in AD&D as a druid and a ranger cannot share alignments.
My rule is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if it is broken but in a fun way, don't fix it.
I like my munchkin characters. Just because someone else chooses to run a half-elf fighter with 14 strength, 17 dexterity and 9 constitution doesn't mean that person should have any input on what I find fun in a video game. Half the reason Baldur's Gate has retained it's appeal to me for as long as it has is my search to find new and better omfgubermensh character builds.
And my logic of "if something else is more OP, don't worry about it" is legit. Despite the oversight that gives Ranger/Clerics druid spells, a cleric/mage is still a significantly more powerful class build. That is a "legit" class combo, too, according to most people who seem to have issues with stuff like Kensai/Thief or Swashbuckler/Mage. Is your ranger/cleric having access to iron skins really limiting your enjoyment of the class? Meanwhile Haer'Dalis just cast Tenser's Transformation, an enemy triggered his time-stop trap and he gibbed 16 different enemies after popping Offensive Spin and that guy is an NPC. He's not even a player character.
It's freakin' AD&D. It's a world of magic and dragons and a dead god's progeny waging war that kills hundreds of thousands of people. Balance be damned. If people derive fun by setting limits on themselves because they feel something else is too strong, more power to them. But people who don't have the self control to limit themselves to what they believe should be the correct way of doing things and want to ruin the fun of people who like to abuse game mechanics in a single player RPG that's already been out for literally more than half of my life really make me mad.
I swear, some people won't be happy until every class is limited to a max score of 10 on every roll and can only equip slings. Then we'd have some balance!
The latter doesn't exist in AD&D as a druid and a ranger cannot share alignments.
@sandmanCCL Ranger/Druid class does existed within official AD&D material instead. Unearthed Arcana opened the class to elves, and allowed ranger/magic-users, ranger/thieves and...the ranger/druid.
Well all other kits can dual class to any normal class combination, just archers and stalkers cannot.
A 9 Stalker / Cleric would gain an x3 backstab multiplier (only usable with clubs and staves), plus 20 points of extra stealth (107 over a plain level 9 rangers 87), and then dual classing to a cleric should remove the armor limitation. So you could actually go around backstabbing reliably with stealth or sanctuary for the lulz, even if its only x3 with lots of decent quarterstaves.
Or alternatively, if you want to go as far as levelling up to level 13 ranger for the 2 attacks per round, you also gain 3 extra mage spells in your level 3 cleric book - Haste, Minor spell deflection, and protection from normal missiles. The latter two are meh, but a 13 Ranger / Cleric with all cleric and druid spells plus haste and 3x backstabs seems rather awesome.
I don't see how there is an argument ... I guess the devs would have 'fixed' this issue if the infinity engine allowed it back when they made BG1, or perhaps it was too difficult to implement so just kept it.
If anything this game should be made harder, the Cleric / Ranger just cruises his way through the entire campaign, simultaneously doling out redundancy to several NPCs and class combinations left right and centre. Prick.
You guys can get rid of the Cleric/Ranger, just as long as I get a Cleric/Druid in return. Seriously, it's too fucking fun to just throw it out like this.
Oh really? Point me in the right direction on how to make a more powerful Conjurer than Edwin please.
Edwin is over rated, spells per day don't make a better caster. Any swashbuckler / mage or kensai / mage is vastly more powerful than Edwin. And anyway Edwins advantage in spell casting is a pure cheat as well, if you want everything to follow the rules and not be overpowered, you couldn't be more hypocritical than defending Edwin for his cheated extra spell per level.
Oh really? Point me in the right direction on how to make a more powerful Conjurer than Edwin please.
Edwin is over rated, spells per day don't make a better caster. Any swashbuckler / mage or kensai / mage is vastly more powerful than Edwin. And anyway Edwins advantage in spell casting is a pure cheat as well, if you want everything to follow the rules and not be overpowered, you couldn't be more hypocritical than defending Edwin for his cheated extra spell per level.
Its his amulet giving him that extra spell per level, so it is hardly a cheat.
Cheesetastic maybe, but not a cheat. I mean, there are lots of instances of one character abilities in both games. Edwin just happens to get more spells than any other mage in the game.
So if there's nothing wrong for Edwin to have his amulet and make every other pure mage in the game redundant, there's nothing wrong with a ranger / cleric with druid spells doing the same thing, or a kensai / thief.
So if there's nothing wrong for Edwin to have his amulet and make every other pure mage in the game redundant, there's nothing wrong with a ranger / cleric with druid spells doing the same thing, or a kensai / thief.
For my $.02, Edwin's amulet was intended. The higher level druid spells for R/Cs were not intended. It is about fixing an error in coding.
Edwin outstrips the other mages but doesn't make them useless. He can still only cast the same number of spells per round as Imoen.
Ranger / Clerics are only slightly better than fighter / clerics, so what? They don't make normal clerics useless, the game is still easy to beat without using a ranger / cleric.
Are kensai / thiefs dealing 300 damage per hit intentional? Are invincible swashbuckler / mages intentional? Ranger / Cleric is far from making anything else redundant, they simply get iron skins and insect plagues, so what?
This is one of these topics that people seem to just pick up on kind of randomly and then dies again lol...
Hell, at this point I'll take some kind of in-game explanation for the allowance. Even just in character generation. Like, "you are a follower of Silvanus, and that is why you get these spells". I get that it could involve a fair bit of programming to change these extra spells, and I'm realistic about it never happening, but just allowing this without making up a reason for it just seems lazy.
Edwin hardly makes ever other mage in the game redundant. He's still an evil mage, which means if you get above 18 in reputation he will at some point leave. So that by itself I'd say is a pretty big deterrence to use him for those who don't want to have to manage your reputation (or mod the game). Same with Viconia in SoA. She gets more cleric spells than any other NPC in the game (plus she can convert undead). But all of that is within the rules and explained.
Well, for one thing until you get thief HLA's you can't wear any armor with a kensai/thief (you may be able to wear one of the dragon scales I've never tried), so I'd call that a pretty big downside to the 300 damage that you could, under ideal conditions, doll out to enemies that aren't immune to backstab. Swashbuckler mages have a negative in that they have less health next to say a fighter/mage. So I would hardly describe them as being invincible especially since they aren't a multiclass option. With any dual class to a mage character you also lose out on the extra spell per level a specialty gives.
Off the top of my head some of the spells would include Iron Skins, Insect Plague, Dolorous Decay, Nature's Beauty, Creeping Doom. Plus none of your elemental summoning spells suffer from the mage's holding/"ohh crap its gone hostile on me" problem. There may be other spells I can't think of, but these would be the spells that they should not have access to. Certainly at least not without an explanation for it.
And how are any of those bonus spells that ranger / clerics get anymore broken than other dual / multiclasses?
Wizards don't need HP FYI, a 10 swashbuckler dualed to a mage gets -3 AC, compared to a kensais -2, along with both classes gaining major attack bonuses. I've soloed both games using each one and the swashbuckler was much easier throughout with the ability to disarm traps and open locks (insane amount of extra EXP in BG2), and wear armor while gaining the initial levels.
You don't need the extra spell per day, nor the two extra spells per day from Edwin, the fact is that either a dual class 10 shashbuckler / Mage, or 9 Kensai / Mage is hands down the most overpowered build in the game, ranger / clerics don't compare in the slightest to mage's spell book with -8 AC oh top. Pure mages are pathetically weak, run out of spells and then what? You can't kill anything with melee unlike the dual classes.
You can simply pop one haste and time stop and chop through everything with dual wielded weapons using the swaashbuckler or kensai combinations, while ranger / clerics gain iron skins and insect swarms (none of the other druid spells are any better than a clerics normal spells). Wahey, lets nerf an already weaker dual class just because it gets a few extra interesting spells to play with.
I suppose that people don't want to have any fun at all in games anymore these days. Nothing is allowed to be slightly more powerful than anything else, nothing is allowed to break a 20 or so years old ruleset, if something is just 1% more powerful, it needs to needs nerfed. This is one of the many reasons why most games are crap today as they are ruined by overbalance and have anything fun and enjoyable about them removed because a vocal minority whine too much.
Did the original developers of the game ever state that ranger / clerics being able to use druid spells was an error? If not then it is intended.
Ranger / Clerics are only slightly better than fighter / clerics, so what? They don't make normal clerics useless, the game is still easy to beat without using a ranger / cleric.
A wise man once said, "You can go a long way on Ironskins and Insect Plague."
This multi has access to every divine spell in the game, when the game's own materials state they're not supposed to.
So there's a mistake somewhere, either in the class descriptions or the mechanics. Either way, you're taking advantage of the error. That is what makes it cheesy.
Comments
So, they gain druid only spells of spell levels 4-7 where according the rules they shouldn't have them. Well, there are not very many druid only spells as druids are the spellcasting class that has access to the least broad spell list but the ones they do get are mainly really good ones.
Level 4: Call Woodland Beings
Seems to me that this is an often overlooked but really awsome spell for it's level. You summon a nymph that is useless in meele but has a bunch of spells of her own which you can direct her to use. Among them are Mass Cure, not that great but a 5th level spell, Hold Monster, a 5th level arcane spell and Confusion which, while really bad for a 7th level spell nontheless is awsome when you can get access to it by casting a 4th level spell. So, overall, really good! Access to a bunch of high level spells by casting a single fourth level spell.
Level 5: Ironskins, Insect Plague and Pixie Dust
Ironskins is a no-brainer. Just a great spell for anyone who's likely to get hit by weapons. Plus it can't be brought down by breach (at least in vanilla). Insect Plague is a great mage disabling spell with some minor damage per round and a horror like effect (that allows a save every round). It's a great spell to have. Pixie Dust is like Mass Invisibility and generally useless. Still, two great spells that a cleric doesn't have access to.
Level 6: Conjure Fire Elemental, Dolorous Decay and Fire Seeds
Well, Conjure Fire Elemental is one of the better summoning spells at that point and unlike with the arcane version, there's no chance that the thing will go hostile. Dolorous Decay has some minor slow effect (short but without save) combined with poison damage (good damage but save or nothing) and Fire Seeds are kinda similar to Melf's Meteors. Nothing overwhelming here but nothing completely useless either.
Level 7: Conjure Earth Elemental, Creeping Doom and Nature's Beauty
Another elemental summon, that's useful. Creeping Doom is of course an upgraded version of Insect Plague. I never use it because Insect Plague does Mage disabling just as well and that's what I'd actually use that for. Nature's Beauty is an awsome spell that has a Whail of the Bashee like safe or die effect (with a safe bonus, however, so it rarely kills anything worth killing) with an added no-save permanent blindness effect.
Bottom line is that while a Ranger/Cleric doesn't get a lot of spells over a Fighter/Cleric, he does get some of the best at every level. Yes, that has a significant impact on power level. In addidtion he gets two free proficiency points in Two Weapon Style, which is pretty useful since most people will go that route and he gets a totally useless Charm Animals ability.
His Ranger part levels slower than the Fighter part of a Fighter/Cleric or Fighter/Druid multi-class. I don't see that as a big downside since the melee classes generally get much less out of additional levels than spellcasting classes.
Compared with a Fighter/Druid his Cleric part will level slower in the beginning which is significant in BG1. Still, he'll have a greater variety (and generally more useful) spells -- level 2 druid spell list is just horrible, for example, and he won't hit that wall at level 14 in BG2. After overcoming that, the Fighter/Druid will have a lot more high level spell slots for memorizing HLA-spells for quite some time. That's a significant advantage. He'll also have access to Greater Elemental Summoning, which is great. For the sake of completeness, the Cleric/Ranger has an advantage over the Fighter/Druid in the weapons department.
The only real downside compared to Fighter/Cleric is that you are restricted to Half Elf but that's a real one. Dwarves and Half-Orcs are strictly better than Half-Elves and not just by a little.
Compared to a dual-classed Fighter -> Cleric/Druid the Ranger -> Cleric loses out on weapon mastery. Not significant in vanilla BG2 but it is in vanilla BG1 or BG2 with a Grand Mastery patch installed and it will be in BG:EE, I believe.
Anyway, I think it shows that one cannot argue that the increase in power level by getting druid spells isn't significant or that the Cleric/Ranger as is isn't strictly better than than a Fighter/Druid or a Fighter/Cleric. In any case, there are still reasons why one might want to play a Fighter/Cleric or Fighter/Druid that are more than just role-play decisions (not that that wouldn't be enough in my mind). So nothing is getting obsolete here.
On the other hand I agree with many others here saying that it doesn't break game balance. The game is already inherently imbalanced. Ranger/Cleric is great but it still cannot hold a candle to anything getting high level arcane spells which, let's face it, rule everything, at least form mid SoA. Also, there are already quite a few classes that, from a mechanical perspective, are strictly worse than others. I don't have a problem with that. In fact, I think, game balance is an inherently faulty concept in single player games such as this and should never influence any decision at all.
As to the "but it's the rules!" argument, well, the de-facto rule as it is at the moment is that Ranger/Clerics get Druid spells all the way. The question is should we update the description to conform to the status quo or the other way round. Simply a matter of preferrence, nothing else. It's the rules of a game, not god given law.
So, the game came like this and it was never patched. It doesn't cause any problems, doesn't break the game and doesn't (or shouldn't) detract from anyones fun. In fact, for some of us who like to play Ranger/Clerics as they are, it would detract from our fun to change it. The communtity is clearly devided on this issue. In such a case I think preferrence should always be given to the status quo. Make it easily moddable, if possible, and everyone can be happy.
Sh*t, that was long. Well, nobody is required to read it.
You can choose to not utilize level 4+ druid-only spells if you feel it is OP or doesn't represent the true AD&D class.
/thread
Meanwhile my kensai/thief does 350 damage per hit for a round from Assassination against anything not immune to backstab. Because Ranger/Cleric is too "op."
Anyway, the balance issue isn't even what bothers me the most (we're not speaking of something as broken as a Kensai-Thief), it's the consistency/roleplaying issue. My cleric/ranger is a CLERIC/ranger, not a DRUID/ranger. Why the former exist (not a great concept imo) and latter doesn't (when it does in PnP AD&D) is another story...
If possible i would like to restrict the ranger/cleric to lose some of the cleric spells that aren't compatible to this class in my personal opinion (as finger of death, ressurection, gate... among others) than restrict the druid spells.
@SandmanCCL aren't most of the more difficult enemies in TOB immune to backstab? So the benefits of having that to begin with are pretty minimal. I'm not sure if it really is as overpowered as you make it out to be, since to the best of my knowledge there is no way of removing immunity to backstab.
There is a key difference when making a comparison like that anyways. The manual says "This character [cleric/ranger] can use the abilities of a cleric and ranger, though weapons are restricted only those allowed by the cleric’s ethos." It says nothing about druid spells beyond the first three levels. Now granted, I'd be the first to admit that the manual itself needs to be more properly edited (for a lot of reasons), but I think in this case there is no evidence that they got anything wrong in 2nd edition rules when they wrote that in the manual. I mean, if cleric/ranger's get level 7 druid spells, why not rangers? Why not let paladins likewise get 7 spells levels instead of only up to 4 if they get to a certain point. Why not let bards get up to level 9 mage spells if they get up into the high 30's in level? I mean you are on your way to godhood, why let some rules get in the way?
Since this is a single player game, the only NPC's who would be affected would be Valygar, Minsc (who can't really cast spells successfully to begin with), and Haer'Dalis. Since there are few if any ranger/bard enemies you have to face in BG2 that I'm aware of it would not really have any impact on the game. Even if it did, there would be nothing stopping you from choosing to not use those spells to properly conform to D&D rules.
I mean, doing so would get rid of the uniqueness of every class, but I don't see why there is a need to begin with to give these extra spells to a cleric/ranger. It kind of seems like special treatment without a logical reason behind it. Between favoured enemies, stealth, and up to level 3 druid spells there is enough there to be a unique class to play compared to a fighter.
On a complete rant breaking note - @HugoRune isn't confusion basically a level 4 mage spell, so counting it as a level 7 spell is not incorrect but it does kind of ignore this point. Its sort of like saying animate dead is a level 5 spell (which it is for a mage/bard), when a cleric or paladin can get it at level 3.
My rule is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if it is broken but in a fun way, don't fix it.
I like my munchkin characters. Just because someone else chooses to run a half-elf fighter with 14 strength, 17 dexterity and 9 constitution doesn't mean that person should have any input on what I find fun in a video game. Half the reason Baldur's Gate has retained it's appeal to me for as long as it has is my search to find new and better omfgubermensh character builds.
And my logic of "if something else is more OP, don't worry about it" is legit. Despite the oversight that gives Ranger/Clerics druid spells, a cleric/mage is still a significantly more powerful class build. That is a "legit" class combo, too, according to most people who seem to have issues with stuff like Kensai/Thief or Swashbuckler/Mage. Is your ranger/cleric having access to iron skins really limiting your enjoyment of the class? Meanwhile Haer'Dalis just cast Tenser's Transformation, an enemy triggered his time-stop trap and he gibbed 16 different enemies after popping Offensive Spin and that guy is an NPC. He's not even a player character.
It's freakin' AD&D. It's a world of magic and dragons and a dead god's progeny waging war that kills hundreds of thousands of people. Balance be damned. If people derive fun by setting limits on themselves because they feel something else is too strong, more power to them. But people who don't have the self control to limit themselves to what they believe should be the correct way of doing things and want to ruin the fun of people who like to abuse game mechanics in a single player RPG that's already been out for literally more than half of my life really make me mad.
I swear, some people won't be happy until every class is limited to a max score of 10 on every roll and can only equip slings. Then we'd have some balance!
In SoA they could be, but with ToB installed they cant.
A 9 Stalker / Cleric would gain an x3 backstab multiplier (only usable with clubs and staves), plus 20 points of extra stealth (107 over a plain level 9 rangers 87), and then dual classing to a cleric should remove the armor limitation. So you could actually go around backstabbing reliably with stealth or sanctuary for the lulz, even if its only x3 with lots of decent quarterstaves.
Or alternatively, if you want to go as far as levelling up to level 13 ranger for the 2 attacks per round, you also gain 3 extra mage spells in your level 3 cleric book - Haste, Minor spell deflection, and protection from normal missiles. The latter two are meh, but a 13 Ranger / Cleric with all cleric and druid spells plus haste and 3x backstabs seems rather awesome.
If anything this game should be made harder, the Cleric / Ranger just cruises his way through the entire campaign, simultaneously doling out redundancy to several NPCs and class combinations left right and centre. Prick.
Edwin outstrips the other mages but doesn't make them useless. He can still only cast the same number of spells per round as Imoen.
Are kensai / thiefs dealing 300 damage per hit intentional? Are invincible swashbuckler / mages intentional? Ranger / Cleric is far from making anything else redundant, they simply get iron skins and insect plagues, so what?
Hell, at this point I'll take some kind of in-game explanation for the allowance. Even just in character generation. Like, "you are a follower of Silvanus, and that is why you get these spells". I get that it could involve a fair bit of programming to change these extra spells, and I'm realistic about it never happening, but just allowing this without making up a reason for it just seems lazy.
Edwin hardly makes ever other mage in the game redundant. He's still an evil mage, which means if you get above 18 in reputation he will at some point leave. So that by itself I'd say is a pretty big deterrence to use him for those who don't want to have to manage your reputation (or mod the game). Same with Viconia in SoA. She gets more cleric spells than any other NPC in the game (plus she can convert undead). But all of that is within the rules and explained.
Well, for one thing until you get thief HLA's you can't wear any armor with a kensai/thief (you may be able to wear one of the dragon scales I've never tried), so I'd call that a pretty big downside to the 300 damage that you could, under ideal conditions, doll out to enemies that aren't immune to backstab. Swashbuckler mages have a negative in that they have less health next to say a fighter/mage. So I would hardly describe them as being invincible especially since they aren't a multiclass option. With any dual class to a mage character you also lose out on the extra spell per level a specialty gives.
Off the top of my head some of the spells would include Iron Skins, Insect Plague, Dolorous Decay, Nature's Beauty, Creeping Doom. Plus none of your elemental summoning spells suffer from the mage's holding/"ohh crap its gone hostile on me" problem. There may be other spells I can't think of, but these would be the spells that they should not have access to. Certainly at least not without an explanation for it.
Wizards don't need HP FYI, a 10 swashbuckler dualed to a mage gets -3 AC, compared to a kensais -2, along with both classes gaining major attack bonuses. I've soloed both games using each one and the swashbuckler was much easier throughout with the ability to disarm traps and open locks (insane amount of extra EXP in BG2), and wear armor while gaining the initial levels.
You don't need the extra spell per day, nor the two extra spells per day from Edwin, the fact is that either a dual class 10 shashbuckler / Mage, or 9 Kensai / Mage is hands down the most overpowered build in the game, ranger / clerics don't compare in the slightest to mage's spell book with -8 AC oh top. Pure mages are pathetically weak, run out of spells and then what? You can't kill anything with melee unlike the dual classes.
You can simply pop one haste and time stop and chop through everything with dual wielded weapons using the swaashbuckler or kensai combinations, while ranger / clerics gain iron skins and insect swarms (none of the other druid spells are any better than a clerics normal spells). Wahey, lets nerf an already weaker dual class just because it gets a few extra interesting spells to play with.
I suppose that people don't want to have any fun at all in games anymore these days. Nothing is allowed to be slightly more powerful than anything else, nothing is allowed to break a 20 or so years old ruleset, if something is just 1% more powerful, it needs to needs nerfed. This is one of the many reasons why most games are crap today as they are ruined by overbalance and have anything fun and enjoyable about them removed because a vocal minority whine too much.
Did the original developers of the game ever state that ranger / clerics being able to use druid spells was an error? If not then it is intended.
This multi has access to every divine spell in the game, when the game's own materials state they're not supposed to.
So there's a mistake somewhere, either in the class descriptions or the mechanics. Either way, you're taking advantage of the error. That is what makes it cheesy.