I will agree on one thing, Cavalier is a better choice for newbie players, since most of his special abilities are passives and u don't have to proactively manage them. Also, Dispel is a double edged sword, if u don't know what you are doing, it can hurt you more than help you.
What bothers me a little about the Blackguard is that he overlaps with the Undead Hunter. I mean both have immunity to level drain (and hold if i'm not mistaken), but then Blackguard also gets two more amazing bonuses, in the form of his Aura and Lifesteal.
I think Blackguard is actually more powerful than Cavalier or Inquisitor. His aura and the poison weapon are pretty devastating. Especially poison weapon is a mage-killer.
Cavalier is getting more things, but i never really payed attention to the acid/fire resist, there are more items that cover that and more, plus the +3 hit/dmg for demons or dragons is rather limited, although handy. Still, i never had problems to slay beasts like that, so it's not like he made a difference.
Inquisitor, he's getting some powerful abilities indeed, but damn, the guy doesn't feel like a paladin at all, no turn undead, no LoH, no spells, i mean gah, he's only good for beating mages, and i can poison weapon them, plus have my cleric true seeing. So meh
I think Blackguard is actually more powerful than Cavalier or Inquisitor. His aura and the poison weapon are pretty devastating. Especially poison weapon is a mage-killer.
Cavalier is getting more things, but i never really payed attention to the acid/fire resist, there are more items that cover that and more, plus the +3 hit/dmg for demons or dragons is rather limited, although handy. Still, i never had problems to slay beasts like that, it's not he made a difference.
The only problems with the Aura is that it's only useable once per day. Poison weapon is nice but scales more slowly than the abilities granted by the other kits. I'd say Dispel Magic is a much better tool for killing enemy mages (afterall poison weapon will be wasted if attacking a mage with mirror images up) and dispel magic has far more utility than poison weapon. I'm also curious as to whether you can use Carsomyr with the Blackguard kit... it is the "Holy" Avenger afterall... time will tell I suppose.
I will agree on one thing, Cavalier is a better choice for newbie players, since most of his special abilities are passives and u don't have to proactively manage them. Also, Dispel is a double edged sword, if u don't know what you are doing, it can hurt you more than help you.
You can also try to play with a first roll character or whatever you want if you really like difficulty. ;-)
If you want some REAL difficulty, go and give a try to Dark Souls with the fan fix (Dsfix) that fix everything of what was broken by the developpers.
In this game, difficulty is not a matter of hordes of monsters and whatsoever, you have to learn how to play if you want to complete the game.
And, some of the other time, people just want something efficient to play with. ;-)
Best is obviously subjective depending on playstyle.
I love the passive bonuses of the Cavalier and the immunity to fear, charm and poison that are very useful for a low-level character. It takes a number of insta-death/reload scenarios out of BG1. Sirenes, Wyverns, suddenly they aren't as scary.
There's a poll on the forums - scariest enemy in BG1, but it doesn't include Hobgoblin Elites. A group of 4-5 of those is enough to ruin your party's day at level 1-4, all you need to do is fail more poison saves than you have antidotes. A Cavalier tank fixes that problem nicely.
I often carry a Cavalier through to BG2 purely because I've enjoyed playing them through BG1. I think I've got about 3 to TOB, completed the series with 2.
I see the advantages of the Inquisitor, but mage battles are by and large not that hard in BG1, Daveorn being the exception. Even he's not too tricky if have a balanced party and get a bit of gear and XP before facing him. Where they truly shine is BG2's caster-heavy combat, and a lot of people will be thinking in the long term on this forum.
Let's face it, the best Paladin kit is "Anything but the basic class". Everything else is gravy.
Let's face it, the best Paladin kit is "Anything but the basic class". Everything else is gravy.
Paladins really lucked out. Every single one of their kits is better than the vanilla Paladin and all are completely viable and powerful from the beginning to the end.
I was thinking cavalier for my first char. You guys make this hard.
I'll end up wishing I went undead hunter when I get to bg2, but cavalier sounds really useful in bg1.
You can buff yourself up for fighting vs. the undead. There are spells that block annoying (and dangerous) effects like Level Drain.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you on the buffing yourself up bit, but negative plane protection does only protect you (as a spell) from a very short amount of time (5 rounds).
Most fights don't last much longer. And if you're going into a major vampire brawl you're going to need to do more than slap Negative Plane Protection on your main tank.
I'm just saying for characters not expecting a brawl with a vampire (like in the streets at night), or who aren't familar with where they are in Bodhi's lair, its not a long term spell. Thats all I'm sayin
Its fairly easy to distract a vampire with your party member that is protected to begin with, so its not really an issue. Just felt the need to point out that that spell does have its limitations.
Personally I like the undead hunter just because I can already get Keldorn in BG2 and (apart from him being
Spoiler
a terrible person to his family
I don't actually mind including him in my party to get those inquisitor benefits like true sight and dispel magic. So I guess my preferences are more for RP reasons than for strictly by-the-book benefit reasons.
I found that while intuitively, the Inquisitor is the most powerful, the passive well-rounded qualities of the Cavalier and, to a lesser extent, the Undead Hunter, actually made the classes more useful/easier to play. I've done a bg1 SCS no reload with a cavalier, but NOT an inquisitor. I was quite surprised after I tried a cavalier out of frustration with failure on the inquisitor play throughs and accidentally succeeded.
Personally I like the undead hunter just because I can already get Keldorn in BG2 and (apart from him being
Spoiler
a terrible person to his family
I don't actually mind including him in my party to get those inquisitor benefits like true sight and dispel magic. So I guess my preferences are more for RP reasons than for strictly by-the-book benefit reasons.
Yeah, but to keep Keldorn for any real length of time you have to be
Spoiler
kind of a douche and keep him from his family. Any party I've ever had lead by a charname who would actually want a Paladin in the party in the first place would also probably balk at the idea of dragging him away from his reconciliation with his wife and children.
For this reason, when I play Paladin, I usually play Inquisitor. The Inquisitor is the real Wizard Slayer.
Comments
Powerwise I'm not really convinced it can stand up to the Cavalier and Inquisitor though.
Edit: Sorry kind of overlapped with AlexDeLarge here but from what I understand it is fear and level drain.
Cavalier is getting more things, but i never really payed attention to the acid/fire resist, there are more items that cover that and more, plus the +3 hit/dmg for demons or dragons is rather limited, although handy. Still, i never had problems to slay beasts like that, so it's not like he made a difference.
Inquisitor, he's getting some powerful abilities indeed, but damn, the guy doesn't feel like a paladin at all, no turn undead, no LoH, no spells, i mean gah, he's only good for beating mages, and i can poison weapon them, plus have my cleric true seeing. So meh
You can also try to play with a first roll character or whatever you want if you really like difficulty. ;-)
If you want some REAL difficulty, go and give a try to Dark Souls with the fan fix (Dsfix) that fix everything of what was broken by the developpers.
In this game, difficulty is not a matter of hordes of monsters and whatsoever, you have to learn how to play if you want to complete the game.
And, some of the other time, people just want something efficient to play with. ;-)
I love the passive bonuses of the Cavalier and the immunity to fear, charm and poison that are very useful for a low-level character. It takes a number of insta-death/reload scenarios out of BG1. Sirenes, Wyverns, suddenly they aren't as scary.
There's a poll on the forums - scariest enemy in BG1, but it doesn't include Hobgoblin Elites. A group of 4-5 of those is enough to ruin your party's day at level 1-4, all you need to do is fail more poison saves than you have antidotes. A Cavalier tank fixes that problem nicely.
I often carry a Cavalier through to BG2 purely because I've enjoyed playing them through BG1. I think I've got about 3 to TOB, completed the series with 2.
I see the advantages of the Inquisitor, but mage battles are by and large not that hard in BG1, Daveorn being the exception. Even he's not too tricky if have a balanced party and get a bit of gear and XP before facing him. Where they truly shine is BG2's caster-heavy combat, and a lot of people will be thinking in the long term on this forum.
Let's face it, the best Paladin kit is "Anything but the basic class". Everything else is gravy.
I'll end up wishing I went undead hunter when I get to bg2, but cavalier sounds really useful in bg1.
It's that simple.
Its fairly easy to distract a vampire with your party member that is protected to begin with, so its not really an issue. Just felt the need to point out that that spell does have its limitations.
Dang, was hoping for a jousting contest to see who was right. =p
For this reason, when I play Paladin, I usually play Inquisitor. The Inquisitor is the real Wizard Slayer.