You forgot to point out that arcane casters only dominate BG2 in late game.
Between Glitterdust, Web, Skull Trap, Slow, Polymorph Self, Spider Spawn, Animate Dead, Breach, Cloudkill, Feeblemind, Lower Resistance, Continguency, Death Spell, Improved Haste, Mordenkainen's Sword and Spell Sequencer I'm having a hard time agreeing with this.
Non-Avenger Druids are downright bad until they can cast 3rd level spells, and Avengers are pretty bad until they can cast Web. I would often prefer a Sorcerer at lvl 1 vs a Druid, assuming the Sorcerer has Sleep and Shield. Not quite as good as a lvl 1 Cleric, or a warrior specialized in Longbows (assuming you can afford a LB especially), or even a Berserker.
Druids are very good after they start getting decent spells (4th lvl spells they start getting really good), but Druids again fall behind fairly quickly, though not as badly as Clerics and certainly not as precipitously as pure warrior types do. Clerics are arguably better 3rd lvl spellwise, as they get Animate Dead, which can almost win the game without help.
Personal opinion, but as soon as you can cast Web, that caster can start utterly owning anyone unble to cast Web. Not much is immune. The next big gamebreaker is probably Minor Sequencer, and to a lesser extent, Greater Malison, and only arcane can cast these, and even a Sorcerer can cast them in BG1.
Not everyone likes using spells like Web or Sleep (or Cloudkill, or Chaos) to dominate the battlefield, but these are still usually the best choices power-wise. Try fighting through those Web traps without preparation or immunity in Cloakwoods if you don't agree Web is better than almost anything. Even shorties get stuck with depressing regularity, and stuck = free hits.
Don't be myopic guys. MAGIC dominates Baldur's Gate starting around the end of the first game. Yes, Mages get lots of top shelf goodies but Druids and Clerics aren't slouches either.
Clerics are some of the best around in BG1 I would say, and the best at low levels, but they really get screwed over in SoA. The difficulty of getting more APR for pure clerics (well, not Lathander and kinda Helm, but Seeking Sword is not as good as Boon most of the time) mean that those sweet combat buffs do very little, and other than a few good summons, Clerics really start to pale. Imho, Cleric is an easy BG1 solo, but an awful BG2 solo, one of the hardest Possible.
Between Glitterdust, Web, Skull Trap, Slow, Polymorph Self, Spider Spawn, Animate Dead, Breach, Cloudkill, Feeblemind, Lower Resistance, Continguency, Death Spell, Improved Haste, Mordenkainen's Sword and Spell Sequencer I'm having a hard time agreeing with this.
You better believe it. A single, successful Nature's Beauty cast alone could quite easily replace more than half the spells you mentioned in many situations. Greater Fire Elementals can hit even Kangaax and are available a lot earlier than Mordenkainen's Sword (the equivalent mage spell is level 7 AND requires you to make a lucky roll), EACH nymph from Call Woodland Beings has the following spells: Barkskin, Two Hold Persons, Call Lightning, Miscast Magic, Cause Serious Wounds, Mental Domination, Mass Cure, Confusion and Hold Monster; and Insect Plague pretty much takes care of casters by itself. Finally, you don't need a mage to nuke stuff in early-mid BG2. The game gives you more than enough Fireball, Lightning, Cloudkill, etc. wands for that, and there are other items with the innate ability to cast certain arcane spells that remain useful until mid-game. You could easily make do with a bard, F/M or F/M/T. To gain access to many important druid spells though, you'll need to actually bring along a druid. I really wouldn't bother trying to compare any other early-mid dedicated caster to a druid. Between them the 5 summoned nymphs alone will likely have more spells to cast (total) than your typical mage character up until you get level 7 spells or so. That's when you get Project Image, btw, and all the "arcane magic is OP" insanity actually begins.
Nymphs behave according to their scripts though so you have little control over what they do (without game mods). If you summon 5 of them in a battle all 5 will likely cast at whatever enemy is closest to them, regardless of their threat level. In the meantime they are taking up a summon slot to unreliably perform a task (disabling targets) that a mage is better equipped for.
Fire elementals are good but are susceptible to a wide range of mind affecting spells (unlike skeletal warriors). Skeletal warriors get enough slashing, piercing, and missile resistance on their own to take a lot of physical damage, but at the same time in bg2ee they have between 45-90% magic resistance to protect them from spells. That is of course on top of their immunity to mind affecting spells.
You don't get any castings of natures beauty until 1.5 million xp in, the same xp value mages get access to level 7 spells. Ultimately though natures beauty is not enough to compare it with the ability to summon practically unkillable swords, since natures beauty does not bypass magic resistance and has a long casting time.
I went ahead and went with the Totemic Druid who is almost level 5 and I'm currently at the Mines because the idea of a Spirit Animal is cool, but at the same time it's confusing and I want to try and understand these spirit animals. As for the Totemic Druid, answer me this: I understand that the Spirit Bear is basically your in-game "Summon-It-When-You-Need-It" tank. But as far as the Wolf, the Lion, and the Snake go, what are their differences? The Lion is a bit tankier than the Wolf and the Snake isn't as tanky as the wolf, but they all seem to hit at the same rate and do just about the same amount of damage (Yes, I have already looked at the thread describing the different Spirits to me, but it was all clustered.)
Use the Snake against casters - poison works wonders expecially in BG1. It goes through all the protections.
Also, a combination of the Snake and the Wolf is good: poison + cold damage and later level drain makes an enemy mage an easy target.
Don't forget to cast the Strenght of the One on your animals (but not on the Lion - it has 19 STR). This spell will buff them greatly.
Use the Lion as your main fighter - its STR and APR are very solid. Have two of them and watch how quickly they clear a map after a map.
I've quitted using the Bear becase the Horror it brings actually doesn't help, I think, instead it makes battles longer - when you chase the fleeing enemy. The lion is an excellent fighter.
Basically, a totemic druid is a very strong kit, his summons let you survive nearly all the encounters the game throws on you. Even when my druid reached HLAs, his spirit animals still reaped everything apart. Constant Chaotic Commands, immunity to Pertification and constant Death Ward. These are the solid buffs.
Nymphs behave according to their scripts though so you have little control over what they do (without game mods). If you summon 5 of them in a battle all 5 will likely cast at whatever enemy is closest to them, regardless of their threat level. In the meantime they are taking up a summon slot to unreliably perform a task (disabling targets) that a mage is better equipped for.
Not following you here. Summoned Nymphs are directly controllable, down to the level of manually selecting their spell-casting choices.
Are you perhaps playing some mod that prevents that?
Also, the Skeleton Warrior to Fire Elemental comparison is slightly misguided in the sense that Fire Elementals will be available to Druids at 200,000 xp, but Mages will be waiting until 1,875,000 xp for Skeleton Warriors. They're tools for very different stages of the game (though Fire Elementals are still half decent at later stages).
That all said, I do think the general discussion is a bit odd. I don't think anyone would dispute that the arcane casters dominate in the late game. Druids probably are a little more powerful in the very early levels, particularly the Druid kits. In between it's kind of a toss-up, depending on what you're going for, and on how often you are resting which will have an even bigger influence on Mages than on Druids.
You can select what spells they cast but their AI script will sometimes override your choices (and turning off party AI won't prevent that). The first thing they will cast is also one of their hold monster spells, and if you have a bunch of them close to eachother unless you tell them to do otherwise there is a good chance they will just cast them all on the one target.
Another issue with them though is even just getting them to move. If they have an enemy in sight their scripts will make them want to stay in place, which just makes them sitting ducks.
I'll agree that micromanaging them is not as convenient as it should be. They still represent a tremendous value for the slot their summon spell occupies though.
Nobody is arguing they suck, mostly that they don't stack well, IE more than 2 or 3 is usually pretty clumsy.
Animate Dead is weaker vs some opponents in BG1, but on average 4 or 5 skeletons can really clobber most enemies, and a solo Cleric can usually have a large escort of them everywhere all the time, as they are easy to control.
Anyways, Druids are really solid in the 2nd half of BG1, and better than most still into early SoA, but as soon as they hit their XP wall, they really don't make gains fast enough. I still like Druids just fine, don't doubt that, but they have 2 big dead periods play-wise. They are awful early unless you rely on kit abilities, and they go stagnant in SoA before picking up again in ToB, where they are pretty decent. Elemental Princes are better than Devas iirc, and Druids also have Elemental Forms, though these are of questionable utility unless you are a multi or dual class, but they are better than nothing for sure. Cleric HLAs are nothing to write home about.
Nobody is arguing they suck, mostly that they don't stack well, IE more than 2 or 3 is usually pretty clumsy.
Animate Dead is weaker vs some opponents in BG1, but on average 4 or 5 skeletons can really clobber most enemies, and a solo Cleric can usually have a large escort of them everywhere all the time, as they are easy to control.
Anyways, Druids are really solid in the 2nd half of BG1, and better than most still into early SoA, but as soon as they hit their XP wall, they really don't make gains fast enough. I still like Druids just fine, don't doubt that, but they have 2 big dead periods play-wise. They are awful early unless you rely on kit abilities, and they go stagnant in SoA before picking up again in ToB, where they are pretty decent. Elemental Princes are better than Devas iirc, and Druids also have Elemental Forms, though these are of questionable utility unless you are a multi or dual class, but they are better than nothing for sure. Cleric HLAs are nothing to write home about.
It's funny how your argument works because it's like you're saying that druids are like fighter/mage dual classes. They're not. The first "dead period" you mentioned is laughable because it applies to all classes. Not to mention druids get Entanglement and Cure Light Wounds, which doesn't really require that much brainpower to use properly - send in stealthed character, cast Entangle multiple times, then pick off members of an enemy group one by one using ranged weapons. There are several groups in BG1 you can use this one on, ranging from enemy adventurers to bandits to mages. But look at you, giving Tarnesh as an example. It's ridiculous because you are actually implying that your thought process goes "Oh no, we should NOT let Xzar cast Larloch's Minor Drain on him to disrupt his spells and then have everyone attack him" or "Oh no, we should NOT let Montaron backstab him", your thought process actually goes "We should cast Entanglement on Tarnesh!". No wonder you're failing the class this badly. And then you go on to compare Entanglement to the GREASE spell of all things - a spell which does nothing but slow people's movement speed on a failed save - and go on and on about the Chaos spell, nevermind that nymphs already cast Confusion or that you should have more than enough mages in your party for this spell or given that the example you gave resulted in your party getting ZERO XP because none your people actually dealt the killing blow, which is the main reason why people avoid using confusion spells in the first place. Nymphs, at least, are able to spam various "hold" spells on their targets to prevent them from killing each other. I mean seriously. You could just use Insect Plague to shut down mages and/or cause them to go into panic, and then go to town with your Hasted party members and summons and casters (and Ironskinned druid) and WIN because Gee, I dunno... HOW COULD YOU LOSE TO A PARTY THAT CAN'T CAST SPELLS ANYMORE? But no.
Oh and about druids and fighter-mages. The main difference is that a fighter-mage dual-class, before he becomes a fighter-mage, is just a fighter. He's nothing special, really, and so when he becomes a low level mage trying to gain back his fighter abilities he legitimately goes through what you would call a "dead period". A druid, on the other hand, retains access to ALL his level 4-6 spells while trying to make that 750k XP leap into level 13. That means he's still potentially the party's best healer, he can still summon minions strong enough to hit Kangaax, he can still shut down casters AND he still has Harm/Heal (and he gets these earlier too). But wait! (gasp) There's more! A druid, unlike the plain fighter or the dual-classed fighter/mage still trying to gain back his fighter abilities, can actually help his party go on a rampage through most of BG1+SoA, allowing the party to tackle powerful enemy parties and helping improve the quality of EVERYONE's gear faster than normally possible. This is the key difference - while a fighter-mage dual class goes through a "dead period" before coming back stronger than ever, a druid never actually loses his usefulness. While as a character his growth slows down considerably at 11-13, a druid can help start a chain of events that guarantees that this should NOT negatively affect his party in any significant way. Assuming, of course, that you are actually use your druid to the best of his potential. Ergo, the second "dead period" you mentioned does not exist. Or, at least the case of some people, it's optional.
...what? Lots of classes are at their very best pretty much at level one. Most warriors never are as capable, relatively speaking, and Berserkers are simply ridiculously good lvl 1 characters. A lvl 1 character thats better in a battle than many lvl 3 warriors?? Thats not a dead period at all. Clerics are incredible from lvl 1 to the end of BG1, before starting a pretty much rest of their career dead period, in which they get no big jumps in terms of power. They steadily keep getting a bit better, but other than maybe Energy Disks, what big jumps do they have? Skeleton Warriors maybe at lvl 15? They are strong I suppose.
Uh, using CLW usually requires bad tactics to make it necessary. You shouldn't be risking getting hit at lvl 1 whenever possible. Thats why Sleep, Command and even stuff like Charm Person are so valuable. If your PC can't get Crititical Hit immunity, all he CLW spells will have a hard time saving him when a Gnoll oneahots him. Or a Gibberling. Or a Wolf. You are way to fragile unless you play minimum difficulty at lvl 1. Entangle can prevent some enemies from attacking, but its not hard to save vs it and folks like Bandits will a still kick you in the head til your dead. Hobgoblin Elites can still end a run really suddenly if you have merely enyangled them. The spell is a bit of a noob trap, and its the main 'utility' spell Druids get. And they get nothing significant at lvl 2 either. How many Slow Poisons are you planning to prepare??
What in Gods name do Xzar and Montaron have to do with fighting Tarnesh with a Druid PC? Your grand argument here to defend Druids is to just use NPCs that don't have as crummy low levels to make up for the fact that Druids frankly are dead weight early on? This is a profoundly bad argument. For the record, the CORRECT course of action for a Druid vs Tarnesh is pretty much hope you can interrupt Horror with darts and the Wand of Magic Missile. Hint: Thieves can trap, Clerics can Command, Arcanes can use Larloch's Minor Drain, and Fighters can count on actually hitting with almost any attack. Druids have no good counter, just darts and charges from a wand any class can use.
Low level druids are terrible. 2nd half of BG1 they can clean up pretty well, but thats self-evident.
How am I saying Druids are like Fighter Mages?? A Druid just straight up stops leveling for a really, really long time. That sounds like a dead period to me. Also, I've never been one to claim F to M has much of a downtime, and I'm pretty strongly in favour of dualing at 13th lvl. Mage levels are so good that the character is a full power team member very quickly. Getting to maybe 9th lvl for a mage is enough for them to be a huge asset to a party. Ever try casting Chaos after casting Greater Malison? Pretty reliable, and quite doable. Besides, a F/M likely has 19 str and dex after BG1, so he will be pretty useful ranged with the Boomerang Dagger. 2 apr, decent THAC0, and 11 to 17 damage is not dead weight. Also, as we have been trying to point out, a wizard at 3rd level can drop Web. Which trumps almost anyhing a Druid will ever get.
That's your big defense? "Oh, druids suck because they can't do anything about the Tarnesh encounter themselves?" HAH. No wonder you can't even play your druid properly. Creating a good PARTY is about taking the right amount of abilities from DIFFERENT classes and using them in such a way that they complement/have excellent synergy with each other. God this stuff is so basic it's shocking how you can fail to properly grasp they idea.This is one of the reasons why classes like the bard and the cleric/druid classes are so powerful - because many of their abilities are unique and EXTREMELY desirable in a group setting, perfect for anyone intending to create the perfect party. Given your "standards" then the ToB bard must be one of the weakest classes in the game regardless of the fact that a bard only needs to use Enhanced Bard Song/summon an image to sing and suddenly a SINGLE fighter-type using Whirlwind/Greater Whirlwind is potentially doing an extra 40 damage per round. In essence the bard is generating an extra 40 damage per round -just by being there-, but since he's not actually doing any of the real work... Similarly, ANY druid can shut down spellcasters and warriors - which, considering all the rave about kits like the Inquisitor, should mean a lot more for anyone interested in creating a great party - but since he's not doing any of the "real" (gritty) work then you'd rather focus on things like the Chaos spell and druid kit abilities. That's what you've been doing so far - you have mostly failed to acknowledge all the key abilities and synergies druids bring in favor of doing something "flashy" or dramatic. There's some irony in there somewhere.
Given your failure to acknowledge synergies then no wonder you can't figure out yourself that it only takes a stealthed thief and ranged attacks to make Entanglement so powerful. It also makes perfect sense why you keep going back to your argument about Tarnesh and the hobgoblins - because it doesn't matter to you that it's the mage/thief/warrior's job to disrupt/backstab/tank hits, you are only concerned about the individual powers of each of your party members and I suspect that to prove your point you did something completely stupid like letting your druid tank, instead of using your party as a cohesive whole and, say, using your party fighter to tank hits like he was supposed to. Then the druid could have healed him and saved his last Entangle for dangerous monsters like ogres/wolves/bears. It also makes sense why you would make unnecessary and dangerous gambles and leave everything to chance instead of using your PARTY in such a way that Sarevok and co. are left almost completely vulnerable with minimum risk to your group... because doing so would elevate your druid in a sense that he ended up (personally) doing more. So much for teamplay.
And I see you didn't even get the druid/fighter-mage dual-class comparison. That's fine, play a few dozen more games and maybe you'll get it one day. And you're actually defending the very real "dead period" levels of a level fighter 13/mage x while going on and on about the druid's false one? Talk about your double standard.
And you have the gall to call my arguments "profoundly bad"? Go back to your solo/"me" games if that's all your standards are based on.
Okay, you are officially trolling on this. Please actually read and reply to the messages I post, as opposed to just putting words into my mouth. Also, stop making this discussion personal, thats not allowed on these forums. I have plenty of experience withnthe BG series, and especially with BG1. I'm not insulting you, I require the same consideration. @Tresset whats your opinion of the tone of the previous post? Am I feeding a troll, or dousing it with the burning oil of logic?
Seeing as the discussion is about Druids specificly, and you are the one insisting Druids are great at low levels in BG1, and your solution to the issue of 'how do you deal effectively with casters like Tarnesh' is rely on your party. Oookay, seeing as the other classes can expect with some care to triumph unassisted vs casters, most Druids cannot, I see a problem with your position. The Druid in your party is the weak link, hence not having a good solution, hence being considered weak at low levels.
Also, Druids don't have any common ground with bards in 2nd edition. Clerics do, Mages, do, Fighters do with Blades, Rogues do, but no, Druids do not really other than both requiring Charisma and being racially restricted. Druids have scant buffing spells, while your entirely off-topic point about bards is summed up by 'Bards = Druids, Bards = Good At Buffs, Therefor Druids = Good At Party Support Too', except you never actually defended your position. Druids don't buff the party, they cast anti-buffs at higher levels and use summons. Kits add more options, but don't change things that much, play-wise.
Entangle is not powerful. Sleep is powerful, Web is powerful, Command is tactically significant, and even ranged combat in general is powerful at low levels. The enemies Entangle can help with are enemies you can beat much easier and more safely by using a much better 1st level spell. None of the 'threats' you mention are immune to Sleep. The obvious problem is that Entangle does nothing to help deal with enemy Archers or Casters, ehile the options open to other classes DO deal with them effectively.
I require no gall to state your argument is bad, because it is. Druids suck at low levels. And if you think healing spells are required, let alone a top pick for spell slots in BG1, you should try some new strategies. Using a weak spell like Entangle is why you need to bother with healing. Chaos is a spell that experienced plsyers like a great deal because its reliable; if a caster fails his save, he's done. If a warrior fails, he either stands around or attacks the nearest person, usually a team mate. Even if they attsck you, they will use poor tactics and not consume potions etc, msking yhe fighg much easier. That save is hard to make, with -4 penalty. Hence, its a reliable spell.
Ok then. This is getting a bit heated in here so I think people should take a break from this argument to cool their jets and READ THE SITE RULES! It is ok to disagree with each other and have a civil debate, but when that crosses the line to insulting each other and name calling then it is not ok! I will reopen the thread but if this argument continues to degenerate into name calling and insults then I may have to close the thread for good and start issuing warnings.
....... resulted in your party getting ZERO XP because none your people actually dealt the killing blow, which is the main reason why people avoid using confusion spells in the first place.
Sorry, I made a snippet... Can I ask if people really feel that way and avoid confusion-like spells just for xp reasons? I am very surprised by that statement. I think people avoid disintegration and flesh to stone spells for loss of loot, but for xp reasons is new to me.
Would you willingly risk losing XP for the sake of a disable? You only need to check whether your characters need the XP or not to figure out the answer.
I don't know. I like using confusion, personally, just not in areas where NPC's can attack your enemies because that's when you'd lose the experience, if one of them lands the final blow to an enemy. I would still take confusion depending on how your party is. If you're soloing, getting to max level is easier done than said, meaning, yeah, you have to go to several places and possible progress in the story a bit, but realistically, it's not that hard. The point of that, though, is that if you're already max level, you don't even need the experience, so getting a Confusion spell before hand could be a good idea for future fights that grant EXP that you don't need. It really depends on your party size since all the EXP gets split amongst each party member, so for each party member you have, the longer it's going to take and the less useful Confusion type spells are going to become in NPC populated areas, especially if you have a full 6 man party because you need every tiny bit of EXP you can get. I don't even remember if it's possible to reach Max Level without farming reoccuring mobs over and over again with your 6-man.
I'm about to start a new 6-man...So I guess I'll prove to myself whether it's possible or not.
Also, it's kind of saddening that an argument had begun in one of my threads, I honestly wasn't expecting it over a simple topic, but nontheless, I hope it doesn't happen again. This is an awesome community and it sucks when awesome communities argue.
Can I ask if people really feel that way and avoid confusion-like spells just for xp reasons? I am very surprised by that statement. I think people avoid disintegration and flesh to stone spells for loss of loot, but for xp reasons is new to me.
Yes, I avoid Disintegration and Flesh to Stone (and striking the final blow with a Wand of Frost) to avoid loss of loot.
No, I don't avoid Confusion and Chaos for fear of missing XP. I find that I rarely lose the XP, because once the enemies are disabled by confusion, I can usually manage to kill all of them with my own party, before any of them kill one another. Occasionally the odd one will get killed by his own side before I get to him, but not often enough to be any concern.
I don't even remember if it's possible to reach Max Level without farming reoccuring mobs over and over again with your 6-man.
Oh yes, very easily. I never farm re-spawns in BG1ee, yet I always hit the XP cap well before the end. Too long before the end, usually, so I'm often playing for quite a while with no scope for further development.
Was someone really trying to argue that Druids weren't weak early-game because... other classes were useful then? I'm not sure how to answer that...
To answer the last question about Confusion and Chaos that somehow became relevant in a druid thread: as all I do nowadays are no-reloads (on SCS for BG2EE!), using one of the best disablers in the midgame vs possibly losing some experience? No question. Not a single bit. Granted, it's sometimes a bit irritating like it's a bit irritating when Drizzt decides to get the killing blow on Bodhi after doing next to nothing during the fight, but...
From the Bioware forums regarding no-reloads, I can also verify that Confusion and Chaos spells are very much used.
I see. I never even thought about xp regarding confusion and I use them all the time. Sorry for the tangent.
Regarding druid usefulness early game. I feel they are close to on par to the other classes. With shillelagh they get a mild thac0 bonus that closes the gap to that of warriors (save 18+ strength bonuses and apr). They get the same ac as non-warrior and non-clerics (which can be buffed with barkskin through levels). They get decent spell casting. Not sure what to complain about really. ..
Confusion is fine. It must be a rare thing indeed for confusion to meaningfully impact total character levels at the end of anyone's run, and in the unlikely event anyone truly does miss that xp there are opportunities within the game mechanics to earn xp to your heart's content.
I don't agree that Druids are particularly dead weight at early levels. Throwing darts at 3 apr they aren't necessarily that far off from generating similar numbers of hits as fighters for spell interruption (at low levels only, obviously this changes quickly as levels increase). Wand of Missiles is the best option for reliably interrupting Tarnesh for most of the classes; counting the fact that it is an item as a strike against Druids seems a bit petty given that most characters require items at various stages of the game (imagine your mage run with no scrolls!). Entangle vs sleep is an apples and oranges discussion.
Then there are the Druid kits. Shapeshifter and Totemic are two of the strongest character types at level 1, and Avengers will at least have Chromatic Orb to pull their early utility much closer to a mage.
Well there you go. If you think the risks are minimal, then why not? But the point is that people have beaten the game in various degrees of ease without ever actually relying on confusion effects. So if you ever find yourself rushing through BG1, only doing the main quests and a few sidequests with a full party, then it's something that would certainly make you hesitate about using such spells, wouldn't it? Not when you know you have alternatives, anyway.
Was someone really trying to argue that Druids weren't weak early-game because... other classes were useful then? I'm not sure how to answer that...
I wouldn't bother trying to, if you phrase the argument that way. Druids can disable an enemy unit/group at lower levels and make it possible for a group to pick them off one at a time/away from melee. Forgetting about hobgoblin groups for a moment, which normally you pretty much just smash through anyway because they're busy attacking your tank, this makes it possible for the party to safely tackle stuff like ogres, dangerous wildlife and the occasional higher level adventurer/enemy group. But druids have no personal, innate ability that allows them to deal with Tarnesh (and similar casters) at low levels, the same way low level mages have no personal, innate way of dealing with someone trying to kill them dead while they cast their spells or how low level warriors rely on casters to disable dangerous/high level enemy units so they can safely tackle them. Does that make them weak? Should we start facetanking wolves with our mages just to prove that they aren't weak?
From the Bioware forums regarding no-reloads, I can also verify that Confusion and Chaos spells are very much used.
I think you're missing the point about no-reload runs. Backed into a corner I'd even use Flesh to Stone/Disintegrate if I knew it would help, given no-reload rules.
To clarify one thing, mages do not dominate only the late game : they dominate every single step of the game, from the very early levels (sleep, wands,...) to the very end (no debate there)
But this was not the point of my first post: I see druids as a combination of offensive spellcasting (like arcane casters) and limited melee capability (through shapeshifting). The thing is that, at higher levels, their melee capability because neglectable (the forms fo not scale well). Therefore they are left with offensive casting only, on which they cannot compare with arcane casters.
Clerics (as an example), on the other hand, focus on defensive casting and, in that way; bring something to the table that arcane caster don't.
As a sidenote, i do not consider being able to wear plate armor (AC is useless at higher levels and mages are the best tanks at the end of the game) or wearing belm (2 APR with poor thaco) to bring something significant.
Please, no more arguements about the uses of a Druid early, mid, or late game. It is not what the topic is abot, the topic is me asking what advantages each Kit have over each other and which one would be the best for a solo run, not whether Druids are good or not.
Please, no more arguements about the uses of a Druid early, mid, or late game. It is not what the topic is abot, the topic is me asking what advantages each Kit have over each other and which one would be the best for a solo run, not whether Druids are good or not.
Well, Totemic does summoning quite well, they are certainly among the very best at it, which canmobviously be very handy for soloing. Shapeshifters start out as really solid melee fighters, but will require more planning to be effective, as they can be fairly vulnerable early when not shifted. Pretty durable late game as a GWW, but I would jot recommend them for a solo run, especially if you aren't deeply familiar with Druid use. Avengers are by a significant margin the most aggressive divine caster option, and get a few really amazing arcane spells. IMHO, they are strongest, but depending on how you like to play, Totemic may be more intuitive. If you don't like casting Web especially, Totemic is probably better.
Vanilla falls under the heading of 'viable', but you really might consider a dual or multi-class if you are fine with a Vanilla druid, as Druids get some great synergy with Fighter levels, especially Kensai or Berserker. Wizard Slayer would be totally awesome RP-wise, but pretty challenging to actually run. If you try dualing to Druid from Fighter, you must have 15 strength, 17 wisdom and 17 charisma. If you don't mind dualing a bit late in BG1, or even in SoA, its much easier to dual, since you can boost your stats via tomes. Its a rough thing to try and roll a perfect Fighter to Druid, so multi-class might be more your speed. If you do decide to dual, I very strongly recommend figuring out what level you want to dual in advance. Druids gain levels very quickly for awhile, but dualing at 13th would be awfully tedius, either 7th lvl or 9th sounds practical. Berserker is popular, as is GM in scimitars.
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Druids are very good after they start getting decent spells (4th lvl spells they start getting really good), but Druids again fall behind fairly quickly, though not as badly as Clerics and certainly not as precipitously as pure warrior types do. Clerics are arguably better 3rd lvl spellwise, as they get Animate Dead, which can almost win the game without help.
Personal opinion, but as soon as you can cast Web, that caster can start utterly owning anyone unble to cast Web. Not much is immune. The next big gamebreaker is probably Minor Sequencer, and to a lesser extent, Greater Malison, and only arcane can cast these, and even a Sorcerer can cast them in BG1.
Not everyone likes using spells like Web or Sleep (or Cloudkill, or Chaos) to dominate the battlefield, but these are still usually the best choices power-wise. Try fighting through those Web traps without preparation or immunity in Cloakwoods if you don't agree Web is better than almost anything. Even shorties get stuck with depressing regularity, and stuck = free hits.
I really wouldn't bother trying to compare any other early-mid dedicated caster to a druid. Between them the 5 summoned nymphs alone will likely have more spells to cast (total) than your typical mage character up until you get level 7 spells or so. That's when you get Project Image, btw, and all the "arcane magic is OP" insanity actually begins.
Fire elementals are good but are susceptible to a wide range of mind affecting spells (unlike skeletal warriors). Skeletal warriors get enough slashing, piercing, and missile resistance on their own to take a lot of physical damage, but at the same time in bg2ee they have between 45-90% magic resistance to protect them from spells. That is of course on top of their immunity to mind affecting spells.
You don't get any castings of natures beauty until 1.5 million xp in, the same xp value mages get access to level 7 spells. Ultimately though natures beauty is not enough to compare it with the ability to summon practically unkillable swords, since natures beauty does not bypass magic resistance and has a long casting time.
Also, a combination of the Snake and the Wolf is good: poison + cold damage and later level drain makes an enemy mage an easy target.
Don't forget to cast the Strenght of the One on your animals (but not on the Lion - it has 19 STR). This spell will buff them greatly.
Use the Lion as your main fighter - its STR and APR are very solid. Have two of them and watch how quickly they clear a map after a map.
I've quitted using the Bear becase the Horror it brings actually doesn't help, I think, instead it makes battles longer - when you chase the fleeing enemy. The lion is an excellent fighter.
Basically, a totemic druid is a very strong kit, his summons let you survive nearly all the encounters the game throws on you. Even when my druid reached HLAs, his spirit animals still reaped everything apart. Constant Chaotic Commands, immunity to Pertification and constant Death Ward. These are the solid buffs.
Are you perhaps playing some mod that prevents that?
Also, the Skeleton Warrior to Fire Elemental comparison is slightly misguided in the sense that Fire Elementals will be available to Druids at 200,000 xp, but Mages will be waiting until 1,875,000 xp for Skeleton Warriors. They're tools for very different stages of the game (though Fire Elementals are still half decent at later stages).
That all said, I do think the general discussion is a bit odd. I don't think anyone would dispute that the arcane casters dominate in the late game. Druids probably are a little more powerful in the very early levels, particularly the Druid kits. In between it's kind of a toss-up, depending on what you're going for, and on how often you are resting which will have an even bigger influence on Mages than on Druids.
Another issue with them though is even just getting them to move. If they have an enemy in sight their scripts will make them want to stay in place, which just makes them sitting ducks.
Animate Dead is weaker vs some opponents in BG1, but on average 4 or 5 skeletons can really clobber most enemies, and a solo Cleric can usually have a large escort of them everywhere all the time, as they are easy to control.
Anyways, Druids are really solid in the 2nd half of BG1, and better than most still into early SoA, but as soon as they hit their XP wall, they really don't make gains fast enough. I still like Druids just fine, don't doubt that, but they have 2 big dead periods play-wise. They are awful early unless you rely on kit abilities, and they go stagnant in SoA before picking up again in ToB, where they are pretty decent. Elemental Princes are better than Devas iirc, and Druids also have Elemental Forms, though these are of questionable utility unless you are a multi or dual class, but they are better than nothing for sure. Cleric HLAs are nothing to write home about.
The first "dead period" you mentioned is laughable because it applies to all classes. Not to mention druids get Entanglement and Cure Light Wounds, which doesn't really require that much brainpower to use properly - send in stealthed character, cast Entangle multiple times, then pick off members of an enemy group one by one using ranged weapons. There are several groups in BG1 you can use this one on, ranging from enemy adventurers to bandits to mages.
But look at you, giving Tarnesh as an example. It's ridiculous because you are actually implying that your thought process goes "Oh no, we should NOT let Xzar cast Larloch's Minor Drain on him to disrupt his spells and then have everyone attack him" or "Oh no, we should NOT let Montaron backstab him", your thought process actually goes "We should cast Entanglement on Tarnesh!".
No wonder you're failing the class this badly.
And then you go on to compare Entanglement to the GREASE spell of all things - a spell which does nothing but slow people's movement speed on a failed save - and go on and on about the Chaos spell, nevermind that nymphs already cast Confusion or that you should have more than enough mages in your party for this spell or given that the example you gave resulted in your party getting ZERO XP because none your people actually dealt the killing blow, which is the main reason why people avoid using confusion spells in the first place. Nymphs, at least, are able to spam various "hold" spells on their targets to prevent them from killing each other.
I mean seriously.
You could just use Insect Plague to shut down mages and/or cause them to go into panic, and then go to town with your Hasted party members and summons and casters (and Ironskinned druid) and WIN because Gee, I dunno... HOW COULD YOU LOSE TO A PARTY THAT CAN'T CAST SPELLS ANYMORE?
But no.
Oh and about druids and fighter-mages. The main difference is that a fighter-mage dual-class, before he becomes a fighter-mage, is just a fighter. He's nothing special, really, and so when he becomes a low level mage trying to gain back his fighter abilities he legitimately goes through what you would call a "dead period". A druid, on the other hand, retains access to ALL his level 4-6 spells while trying to make that 750k XP leap into level 13. That means he's still potentially the party's best healer, he can still summon minions strong enough to hit Kangaax, he can still shut down casters AND he still has Harm/Heal (and he gets these earlier too). But wait! (gasp) There's more!
A druid, unlike the plain fighter or the dual-classed fighter/mage still trying to gain back his fighter abilities, can actually help his party go on a rampage through most of BG1+SoA, allowing the party to tackle powerful enemy parties and helping improve the quality of EVERYONE's gear faster than normally possible. This is the key difference - while a fighter-mage dual class goes through a "dead period" before coming back stronger than ever, a druid never actually loses his usefulness. While as a character his growth slows down considerably at 11-13, a druid can help start a chain of events that guarantees that this should NOT negatively affect his party in any significant way.
Assuming, of course, that you are actually use your druid to the best of his potential.
Ergo, the second "dead period" you mentioned does not exist. Or, at least the case of some people, it's optional.
Uh, using CLW usually requires bad tactics to make it necessary. You shouldn't be risking getting hit at lvl 1 whenever possible. Thats why Sleep, Command and even stuff like Charm Person are so valuable. If your PC can't get Crititical Hit immunity, all he CLW spells will have a hard time saving him when a Gnoll oneahots him. Or a Gibberling. Or a Wolf. You are way to fragile unless you play minimum difficulty at lvl 1. Entangle can prevent some enemies from attacking, but its not hard to save vs it and folks like Bandits will a still kick you in the head til your dead. Hobgoblin Elites can still end a run really suddenly if you have merely enyangled them. The spell is a bit of a noob trap, and its the main 'utility' spell Druids get. And they get nothing significant at lvl 2 either. How many Slow Poisons are you planning to prepare??
What in Gods name do Xzar and Montaron have to do with fighting Tarnesh with a Druid PC? Your grand argument here to defend Druids is to just use NPCs that don't have as crummy low levels to make up for the fact that Druids frankly are dead weight early on? This is a profoundly bad argument. For the record, the CORRECT course of action for a Druid vs Tarnesh is pretty much hope you can interrupt Horror with darts and the Wand of Magic Missile. Hint: Thieves can trap, Clerics can Command, Arcanes can use Larloch's Minor Drain, and Fighters can count on actually hitting with almost any attack. Druids have no good counter, just darts and charges from a wand any class can use.
Low level druids are terrible. 2nd half of BG1 they can clean up pretty well, but thats self-evident.
How am I saying Druids are like Fighter Mages?? A Druid just straight up stops leveling for a really, really long time. That sounds like a dead period to me. Also, I've never been one to claim F to M has much of a downtime, and I'm pretty strongly in favour of dualing at 13th lvl. Mage levels are so good that the character is a full power team member very quickly. Getting to maybe 9th lvl for a mage is enough for them to be a huge asset to a party. Ever try casting Chaos after casting Greater Malison? Pretty reliable, and quite doable. Besides, a F/M likely has 19 str and dex after BG1, so he will be pretty useful ranged with the Boomerang Dagger. 2 apr, decent THAC0, and 11 to 17 damage is not dead weight. Also, as we have been trying to point out, a wizard at 3rd level can drop Web. Which trumps almost anyhing a Druid will ever get.
No wonder you can't even play your druid properly.
Creating a good PARTY is about taking the right amount of abilities from DIFFERENT classes and using them in such a way that they complement/have excellent synergy with each other. God this stuff is so basic it's shocking how you can fail to properly grasp they idea.This is one of the reasons why classes like the bard and the cleric/druid classes are so powerful - because many of their abilities are unique and EXTREMELY desirable in a group setting, perfect for anyone intending to create the perfect party.
Given your "standards" then the ToB bard must be one of the weakest classes in the game regardless of the fact that a bard only needs to use Enhanced Bard Song/summon an image to sing and suddenly a SINGLE fighter-type using Whirlwind/Greater Whirlwind is potentially doing an extra 40 damage per round. In essence the bard is generating an extra 40 damage per round -just by being there-, but since he's not actually doing any of the real work... Similarly, ANY druid can shut down spellcasters and warriors - which, considering all the rave about kits like the Inquisitor, should mean a lot more for anyone interested in creating a great party - but since he's not doing any of the "real" (gritty) work then you'd rather focus on things like the Chaos spell and druid kit abilities. That's what you've been doing so far - you have mostly failed to acknowledge all the key abilities and synergies druids bring in favor of doing something "flashy" or dramatic.
There's some irony in there somewhere.
Given your failure to acknowledge synergies then no wonder you can't figure out yourself that it only takes a stealthed thief and ranged attacks to make Entanglement so powerful. It also makes perfect sense why you keep going back to your argument about Tarnesh and the hobgoblins - because it doesn't matter to you that it's the mage/thief/warrior's job to disrupt/backstab/tank hits, you are only concerned about the individual powers of each of your party members and I suspect that to prove your point you did something completely stupid like letting your druid tank, instead of using your party as a cohesive whole and, say, using your party fighter to tank hits like he was supposed to. Then the druid could have healed him and saved his last Entangle for dangerous monsters like ogres/wolves/bears.
It also makes sense why you would make unnecessary and dangerous gambles and leave everything to chance instead of using your PARTY in such a way that Sarevok and co. are left almost completely vulnerable with minimum risk to your group... because doing so would elevate your druid in a sense that he ended up (personally) doing more.
So much for teamplay.
And I see you didn't even get the druid/fighter-mage dual-class comparison. That's fine, play a few dozen more games and maybe you'll get it one day. And you're actually defending the very real "dead period" levels of a level fighter 13/mage x while going on and on about the druid's false one?
Talk about your double standard.
And you have the gall to call my arguments "profoundly bad"? Go back to your solo/"me" games if that's all your standards are based on.
Seeing as the discussion is about Druids specificly, and you are the one insisting Druids are great at low levels in BG1, and your solution to the issue of 'how do you deal effectively with casters like Tarnesh' is rely on your party. Oookay, seeing as the other classes can expect with some care to triumph unassisted vs casters, most Druids cannot, I see a problem with your position. The Druid in your party is the weak link, hence not having a good solution, hence being considered weak at low levels.
Also, Druids don't have any common ground with bards in 2nd edition. Clerics do, Mages, do, Fighters do with Blades, Rogues do, but no, Druids do not really other than both requiring Charisma and being racially restricted. Druids have scant buffing spells, while your entirely off-topic point about bards is summed up by 'Bards = Druids, Bards = Good At Buffs, Therefor Druids = Good At Party Support Too', except you never actually defended your position. Druids don't buff the party, they cast anti-buffs at higher levels and use summons. Kits add more options, but don't change things that much, play-wise.
Entangle is not powerful. Sleep is powerful, Web is powerful, Command is tactically significant, and even ranged combat in general is powerful at low levels. The enemies Entangle can help with are enemies you can beat much easier and more safely by using a much better 1st level spell. None of the 'threats' you mention are immune to Sleep. The obvious problem is that Entangle does nothing to help deal with enemy Archers or Casters, ehile the options open to other classes DO deal with them effectively.
I require no gall to state your argument is bad, because it is. Druids suck at low levels. And if you think healing spells are required, let alone a top pick for spell slots in BG1, you should try some new strategies. Using a weak spell like Entangle is why you need to bother with healing. Chaos is a spell that experienced plsyers like a great deal because its reliable; if a caster fails his save, he's done. If a warrior fails, he either stands around or attacks the nearest person, usually a team mate. Even if they attsck you, they will use poor tactics and not consume potions etc, msking yhe fighg much easier. That save is hard to make, with -4 penalty. Hence, its a reliable spell.
I think people avoid disintegration and flesh to stone spells for loss of loot, but for xp reasons is new to me.
I would still take confusion depending on how your party is. If you're soloing, getting to max level is easier done than said, meaning, yeah, you have to go to several places and possible progress in the story a bit, but realistically, it's not that hard. The point of that, though, is that if you're already max level, you don't even need the experience, so getting a Confusion spell before hand could be a good idea for future fights that grant EXP that you don't need. It really depends on your party size since all the EXP gets split amongst each party member, so for each party member you have, the longer it's going to take and the less useful Confusion type spells are going to become in NPC populated areas, especially if you have a full 6 man party because you need every tiny bit of EXP you can get. I don't even remember if it's possible to reach Max Level without farming reoccuring mobs over and over again with your 6-man.
I'm about to start a new 6-man...So I guess I'll prove to myself whether it's possible or not.
Also, it's kind of saddening that an argument had begun in one of my threads, I honestly wasn't expecting it over a simple topic, but nontheless, I hope it doesn't happen again. This is an awesome community and it sucks when awesome communities argue.
No, I don't avoid Confusion and Chaos for fear of missing XP. I find that I rarely lose the XP, because once the enemies are disabled by confusion, I can usually manage to kill all of them with my own party, before any of them kill one another. Occasionally the odd one will get killed by his own side before I get to him, but not often enough to be any concern.
To answer the last question about Confusion and Chaos that somehow became relevant in a druid thread: as all I do nowadays are no-reloads (on SCS for BG2EE!), using one of the best disablers in the midgame vs possibly losing some experience? No question. Not a single bit. Granted, it's sometimes a bit irritating like it's a bit irritating when Drizzt decides to get the killing blow on Bodhi after doing next to nothing during the fight, but...
From the Bioware forums regarding no-reloads, I can also verify that Confusion and Chaos spells are very much used.
Regarding druid usefulness early game. I feel they are close to on par to the other classes. With shillelagh they get a mild thac0 bonus that closes the gap to that of warriors (save 18+ strength bonuses and apr). They get the same ac as non-warrior and non-clerics (which can be buffed with barkskin through levels). They get decent spell casting. Not sure what to complain about really. ..
I don't agree that Druids are particularly dead weight at early levels. Throwing darts at 3 apr they aren't necessarily that far off from generating similar numbers of hits as fighters for spell interruption (at low levels only, obviously this changes quickly as levels increase). Wand of Missiles is the best option for reliably interrupting Tarnesh for most of the classes; counting the fact that it is an item as a strike against Druids seems a bit petty given that most characters require items at various stages of the game (imagine your mage run with no scrolls!). Entangle vs sleep is an apples and oranges discussion.
Then there are the Druid kits. Shapeshifter and Totemic are two of the strongest character types at level 1, and Avengers will at least have Chromatic Orb to pull their early utility much closer to a mage.
Druids can disable an enemy unit/group at lower levels and make it possible for a group to pick them off one at a time/away from melee. Forgetting about hobgoblin groups for a moment, which normally you pretty much just smash through anyway because they're busy attacking your tank, this makes it possible for the party to safely tackle stuff like ogres, dangerous wildlife and the occasional higher level adventurer/enemy group. But druids have no personal, innate ability that allows them to deal with Tarnesh (and similar casters) at low levels, the same way low level mages have no personal, innate way of dealing with someone trying to kill them dead while they cast their spells or how low level warriors rely on casters to disable dangerous/high level enemy units so they can safely tackle them. Does that make them weak?
Should we start facetanking wolves with our mages just to prove that they aren't weak? I think you're missing the point about no-reload runs. Backed into a corner I'd even use Flesh to Stone/Disintegrate if I knew it would help, given no-reload rules.
But this was not the point of my first post:
I see druids as a combination of offensive spellcasting (like arcane casters) and limited melee capability (through shapeshifting).
The thing is that, at higher levels, their melee capability because neglectable (the forms fo not scale well). Therefore they are left with offensive casting only, on which they cannot compare with arcane casters.
Clerics (as an example), on the other hand, focus on defensive casting and, in that way; bring something to the table that arcane caster don't.
As a sidenote, i do not consider being able to wear plate armor (AC is useless at higher levels and mages are the best tanks at the end of the game) or wearing belm (2 APR with poor thaco) to bring something significant.
Vanilla falls under the heading of 'viable', but you really might consider a dual or multi-class if you are fine with a Vanilla druid, as Druids get some great synergy with Fighter levels, especially Kensai or Berserker. Wizard Slayer would be totally awesome RP-wise, but pretty challenging to actually run. If you try dualing to Druid from Fighter, you must have 15 strength, 17 wisdom and 17 charisma. If you don't mind dualing a bit late in BG1, or even in SoA, its much easier to dual, since you can boost your stats via tomes. Its a rough thing to try and roll a perfect Fighter to Druid, so multi-class might be more your speed. If you do decide to dual, I very strongly recommend figuring out what level you want to dual in advance. Druids gain levels very quickly for awhile, but dualing at 13th would be awfully tedius, either 7th lvl or 9th sounds practical. Berserker is popular, as is GM in scimitars.