I started playing BG 2 as a kensage and yes they are powerful but I still prefer my F/T dual class for some reason. I took all the buffs and stoneskin for the kensage but its just not my play style for some reason. I think what it comes down to for me is the UAI from thief that I just love.
@kansasbarbarian: don't worry about all the screams in this thread, these things really only come into play at the highest difficulty levels and mod settings. Anything below that, play what you enjoy and don't let people spoil it for you with their cries of OP-ness :P
And yeah, that scripted BS is the reason I don't play SCS/Tactics anymore
I think you're talking about prebuffing, i.e. spells that get cast instantly at the start of battle to simulate pre-battle casting. If you don't like it, turn it off: it's optional, and fairly well documented. (You'll still get stoneskin, but that simulates a 24-hour duration spell that can be cast at the beginning of the day.) SCS with no prebuffing is fairly far ahead of the vanilla game as regards not cheating.
I don't use any cheese, and I sure as hell aren't allowing enemies to do so.
Seven years of writing AI mods has made it fairly clear that there is no stable definition of "cheese" other than "things I don't like". (I can think of several people who'd define a Barbarian/Mage multiclass as cheese!)
Only mod i use these days are Ascension and RRB, and what edits I've been able to figure out to make things more PnP accurate.
By your definition of cheese, Ascension is fairly radically worse than anything else you're discussing. (Possibly the point is that it's worth putting up with for the story, though.)
A true difficulty mod would nerf the $%#^ out of every overpowered house-rule in the game, and institute as close to PnP as possible.
That would mostly make the game easier, I think - vanilla ToB, in particular, is absolutely full of places where the PnP rules are bent or broken to increase the challenge, and the various BG rule changes for spellcasters are mostly to make mages half-way reasonable as opponents for the party. Of course, you can implement a fairly large part of your plan straightforwardly enough by just deciding not to use HLAs, which are probably the biggest deviation from PnP in the game.
well HLAs are not such a big deal if you choose kensai/mage 18/100/18/18/ with berserker/cleric 18/100/18/18/x/18 with kensai/thief and barb and more kensai mages barbarians inquisitors you will roflstomp everything with level 7 spells on improved haste
this game is just not that hard vanilla or not prebuffed scsii
So how is a F/M better than Kensai? Are we talking about multi for the HLA instead of dual? Personally I don't get it, you can't we armor as a Mage anyway, you lose the bonuses and Kai.
I agree, F/M multi never made much sense to me. Yes you do get to a high level in both classes if you have enough XP, but do you even WANT those high fighter levels? Past 13, you gain so little as a fighter, while as a mage you continue gaining spells well into your 30s. The fighter HLAs are largely redundant with mage abilities as well, except for Critical Strike - which is nice, but arguably not as nice as Kensai passive bonuses and Kai.
You do have an easier time in the early game, I suppose. Early access to mage skills is a big plus, as is the lack of a "down" period. Still - that part of the game isn't particularly challenging, and can be bridged quite quickly if you know how to manage XP. I don't think that the comparatively small period of being less-than-optimal is worth the sacrifices after that point.
I don't think Kensai is really a "tank". I consider it to be a "DPS" class. A real "tank" needs to establish aggression, and then the Kensai should swoop in and do massive damage, hopefully without being attacked. It's a "glass cannon" class. Even though one normally associates the "glass cannon" trope with mages, both monks and Kensai qualify as melee versions of the same trope. Arguably, even rangers like Minsc can be built as "glass cannon" DPS, second-line melee toons.
There is no real tanking in BG, because it does not have a real aggro system. "Threat management" involves a lot of frantic clicking around, hoping the enemy will charge the right character. The best way to simulate tanking in some way is to use the terrain to your advantage, but that doesn't always work.
We do say characters are "tanky" or even "tanks", but more in reference to their durability than their combat role. You want every character to maximize party DPS as much as possible - the best defense really is a good offense. Note I said *party* DPS - that includes buffs as well as personal performance. It's the whole reason you bring clerics, for example.
As for Kensai, they certainly excel in their offensive capabilities; but as there is no dedicated tanking system, they do require a lot of micromanagement. Being a Kensai->Mage helps a lot in that respect - with the right buffs, you can safely ignore a lot of the direct and incidental damage, and focus on maximizing your offensive potential.
Comments
Seven years of writing AI mods has made it fairly clear that there is no stable definition of "cheese" other than "things I don't like". (I can think of several people who'd define a Barbarian/Mage multiclass as cheese!)
Only mod i use these days are Ascension and RRB, and what edits I've been able to figure out to make things more PnP accurate.
By your definition of cheese, Ascension is fairly radically worse than anything else you're discussing. (Possibly the point is that it's worth putting up with for the story, though.) That would mostly make the game easier, I think - vanilla ToB, in particular, is absolutely full of places where the PnP rules are bent or broken to increase the challenge, and the various BG rule changes for spellcasters are mostly to make mages half-way reasonable as opponents for the party. Of course, you can implement a fairly large part of your plan straightforwardly enough by just deciding not to use HLAs, which are probably the biggest deviation from PnP in the game.
this game is just not that hard vanilla or not prebuffed scsii
You do have an easier time in the early game, I suppose. Early access to mage skills is a big plus, as is the lack of a "down" period. Still - that part of the game isn't particularly challenging, and can be bridged quite quickly if you know how to manage XP. I don't think that the comparatively small period of being less-than-optimal is worth the sacrifices after that point.
We do say characters are "tanky" or even "tanks", but more in reference to their durability than their combat role. You want every character to maximize party DPS as much as possible - the best defense really is a good offense. Note I said *party* DPS - that includes buffs as well as personal performance. It's the whole reason you bring clerics, for example.
As for Kensai, they certainly excel in their offensive capabilities; but as there is no dedicated tanking system, they do require a lot of micromanagement. Being a Kensai->Mage helps a lot in that respect - with the right buffs, you can safely ignore a lot of the direct and incidental damage, and focus on maximizing your offensive potential.