Are 2 healers too many?
hammernanvil
Member Posts: 98
My party is as follows
PC-Stalker
Imoen
Khalid
Jaheira
Branwen
Neera
Are 2 healers too many?
PC-Stalker
Imoen
Khalid
Jaheira
Branwen
Neera
Are 2 healers too many?
0
Comments
However, if you are planning to use them strictly as healbots, you might want to revise your concept. Healing spells are highly substandard, especially in the middle of a battle because of limited range and slow casting time. Potions do the job better, especially since you can pause and inventory-trade them during battle.
Generally speaking, it's better to avoid taking damage rather than brute-heal through it. This becomes more important at higher levels because healing doesn't scale as much as hit points do. As such, your priests should focus on support and disabling spells (Entangle, Silence, Hold Person, Bless, Chant etc.) One or two healing spells memorized can still be useful to heal up injuries after battles if you don't feel like resting.
So it's usual for me to take Jaheira (as a tank and a divine caster) and then either Branwen or Viconia.
For Arcane, since I mentioned it anyway, I often dual class Imoen to a mage after a few levels of thief and then have a single class mage of some sort. Usually Dynaheir or my PC or in BG:EE Neera.
Oh~ And divine casters aren't "Healers". They have a lot of very nice spells to cast and healing mid-battle is one of the less useful things they can do. It can be important, but usually moreso after battle. Mid-Battle you're almost always better chugging a potion.
If you are referring to people who can cast curative spells, you really can't go wrong with divine spellcasters. With the right buffs, they are the most competent melee characters anyway. Single-class fighters are kind of meh in the meta-game scheme of things.
A healer doesn't have to be a healer.
Multiple pure divine casters is probably a bit less powerful, but perfectly possible to finish the game with. Druids do have it a bit tougher though- they get some great spells at level 4 (and 5 if you remove the cap) but their 1-3 spell choices are a bit poor.
Having played a Cleric of Helm through BG2 with only Aerie as a squad mate (I LOVE Aerie) I can say that it is a cakewalk as well. Imagine having a fighter completely immune to level drain, hold, confuse, fear, etc., with 6 attacks per round (after haste), 25 Strength and Dexterity (and Constitution), and a THAC0 hovering around 0 (if I remember correctly). Absolutely amazing. Those Mind Flayers in the Underdark never stood a chance.
Firstly, just call them "priests" and "wizards." This divine/arcane nomenclature is silly, and came about after 2nd edition anyway.
Secondly, as lots of other people have pointed out, priests are more than mere healbots anyway. Sometimes you may need to pop a quick CLW in the middle of combat, and that's fine, a priest will do that. But they're more than just walking repositories of Cure magics: they have some rather decent offensive/support magics at their disposal as well (especially some of the higher-level Druidic elemental spells).
In the end, though, no matter what anyone on this forum tells you, there is no "wrong" or "incorrect" formulation of a party. Play with it, experiment, see what suits you best. When it comes right down to it, there are only two "must have" character types in a party: a Thief (for traps and locks), and a Priest (okay, maybe this one isn't necessarily "must have," but it's really difficult to leave out someone with some amount of healing magic). With those two character slots taken up, you've got three others to play with. Do what works best for you.
@Murkve: ah, the old "clerics are effective fighters" argument...
no, they aren't. they never were, they never will be, at least not in AD&D 2e. they never, ever gain extra attacks - a level 7 fighter can hit 3 times in a round when dual wielding, while your cleric will hit once, because even if she dual wields, the second attack from it will almost always be a miss. add weapon masteries to that, and a fighter is doing about *four times* as much damage.
fighter/ranger combined with cleric will be a very effective fighter however, but pure class clerics? they can't fight worth shit.
and about thief not being necessary... I'd like to introduce you to two of my friends, Mr. Backstab and Mr. Durlag Trollkiller. the former kills pesky mages in one hit, before they could even harm you, and the latter... he'll kill you, many, many times over is you even think about going near his tower without a thief in your party.
Never mind that a well rolled, mid-level Priest of Helm can buff his combat attributes up into the 20s with a 2nd level spell that takes 1 second to cast, or that Seeking Sword grants him those 3 attacks per round, or the myriad other minor/major buffs he could give himself. Of course a Fighter will chop things up real good, but a Priest can hold his own.
If that weren't the case, I wouldn't have been able to two man SoA and ToB with a priest as my front line fighter, because Goddess knows Aerie takes a while to get up there in damage capability.
And thieves are useful, I would never disagree with that, but they are hardly necessary to every game.
having 20+ attributes in nice and all, except mr. fighter still beats you with his measly 18+ STR, because he can get specialization/mastery and assorted bonuses. seeking sword last 1 round/level, iirc once a day in BGEE - a fighter does the same non-stop. and beating BG2 with a sup-optimal party is nothing special, after all, it's a game people tend to solo, and how... some do it without picking up any items... some truly insane ones even solo with a *wizard slayer*.
if you want to fight with a cleric, combine it with a fighter/ranger, otherwise their damage capabilities are somewhat akin to giving a stern look at the enemy.
and thieves ARE necessary - you pretty much *can't* get through Durlag's Tower without one. (or nonstop raising, but that's just ridiculous)
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0077.html
But they can wear plate mail, and use a shield. As has been pointed out, their support spells can help them to up their damage output, buff their own defenses and in general lend them some unique combat use. And their combat numbers are frequently second only to the Fighter's at certain experience levels, potentially even equal to or better than depending on Strength bonuses. They cannot match a warrior's damage output, but they can hold the line extremely well, using both their physical ability with weapons and their support and healing abilities. The argument was not "The Cleric is as good as a Warrior," the argument is "Clerics are effective fighters." In the case of the former, your arguments in opposition would most certainly be correct. But since we are talking about the latter, they are not. I would tend to agree, actually: personally, I would never even try to make a run through BG or BG2 without a thief (any thief) in my party. But @Murkve, and others in these forums, do present us with interesting scenarios that speak to the versatility that this game affords to the creative player. There are, in fact, methods of accomplishing thief-like tasks without the use of a thief. If it works, it gives a playthrough a certain something that enables it to avoid being formulaic and boring. It's an accomplishment, it's admirable and even a little badass, and there's no reason to poo-poo it just because some of us play differently.
And to the comment above and my laziness to quote it; there are few weapons, which aren't slashy & pokey and still are a very decent choice, ie FoA and for a starter game Easthaven. I won't consider Crom sh..erm Feayr a good weapon, as all it does is to set your str to 25 and has very low base damage anyway. And the special sucks too.
For a pure cleric you are right though.
And I like Crom Faeyr. The damage is really nothing to sneeze at! Its base die damage is 2d4... but it has +3, +5 electrical. So at minimum, the weapon by itself is dealing 10 damage. And, since anyone who wields it has their Strength automatically bumped to 25, that's an additional +14 damage bonus. So, AT MINIMUM, Crom Faeyr is dealing at least 24 damage per hit, even on a crap dice roll. A *more* than decent weapon for a cleric -- though, I should say, I never ever use it as my cleric's weapon. For purely RP/flavor reasons, I always make sure it goes to a dwarf -- either Korgan, or to my Charname (if I happen to be playing a dwarf at the time).
But on the other hand, you have girdles ranging from 19 to 22 STR, so the difference from the highest to Crom F. is a mere +4 DAM bonus.
FoA+5 kicks in with at least 17 damage on a shitty roll (without STR)....and thanks to free action pnp mod doesn't prevent haste.
Though in my first BG2 games and for RP reasons too, Korgan was very happy to wield it :P
And about pure Clerics, I often read that Viconia 'kicks' ass...oddly I never experienced it in my games, might be the limitation to only 1 ApR. It's also a waste to give her warhammers like crom feayr.
I personally prefer as dual fighter/cleric otherwise or generally 'healer' played by me. BGEE was just sort of steppingstone for me, specially to the insane WIS boost, you can acquire there. Sadly I could never recover my old BG1 saves and my laziness prevented me from playing TuTu...
And for the topic, my only "healer" was Branwen, yet she was usually busy casting silence, buffs and alike - it's just easier to hammer your healing pot. The few spells they are restricted to thanks to the level limitation makes it hard to consider them as healer in BGEE.
...however, when combined with a cleric or something else, it all changes for the better. try a berserker 3 -> cleric (at least in BGEE), or a ranger/cleric multi, and there goes the whole dullness of fighters, without taking away their asskickery - there's a reason why fighter multis/duals are among the most loved classes
and if you're feeling up the challenge (or yearning for something different), try fighter/mage/thief, aka the most varied and interesting class of all... at least by BG2, in BGEE they don't quite have the same kick, but are cool nonetheless.
@Sixheadeddog: if it takes four of them to put out the same hurt as a single fighter, well... I certainly wouldn't call that "effective". however, I can agree with @CaptRory, despite the hitpoint differences (AC tends to be more important anyway), even single classed clerics are quite solid at protecting weaker party members - though I wouldn't use them as "main" tanks, mostly because I expect my tanks to not just work as meatshield, but also put out *a lot* of pain.