FMT tips?
jubango
Member Posts: 11
Hi everyone! I'm not new to the game but I've never managed to finish it and I want to give it another shot. I'm looking to play an elf FMT and I was wondering if anyone had some good advice, especially about equipment and tactics.
Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks for your help
Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks for your help
1
Comments
You certainly DO NOT need a powergaming class to beat the game or have fun so do make sure it's what you want to /like to play and not just you read it's super powerful. BG trilogy is a lot of play time so make a character you like, set him up how you like and enjoy. There's virtually nothing you can do that will make the game unbeatable.
It probably makes some difference whether you're planning to play BG1ee only, or take the character through BG2ee as well. (My own plan is BG2ee as well.)
It'll probably also matter whether you're trying to solo, or playing with a party. (My own plan is a full party, and I'll advise on the assumption that you have a party too.) Incidentally, I reckon the F/M/T class is mainly intended for people who are trying a solo run, because not sharing the XP will alleviate the problem of very slow levelling.
Obviously it's a particularly complex character to play, since you'll be juggling a lot of different roles and skills. You can't be good at everything at once, so it'll be sensible to have a plan for how you intend to use your F/M/T at various stages of the game. My own plan is to start out (i.e. in BG1ee) using her mostly as a trap-finding Thief with some ranged fighting ability, then mid-game (i.e. in BG2ee:SoA) mostly as a backstabbing Thief with some melee fighting ability, and finally (i.e. in BG2ee:ToB) mostly as a melee Fighter who doubles up as an all-round Thief ... so in my character's case, her magical skills will be mainly just to support her combat and thievery skills. Your plan may differ, but it ought to be taken into account in character development.
An F/M/T will be a strong character in BG1, reaching F6/M6/T7 at the XP-cap. S/he'll be a weaker character in BG2:SoA (assuming that you're sharing XP with a party) because the slow levelling of a triple-class will leave the F/M/T several levels behind. S/he'll catch up some of the lag in BG2:ToB, because extra levels make less difference at that stage, and so will again be a strong character, reaching F18/M17/T22 at the XP-cap.
If you're playing BG2ee as well - Reaching T7 means that s/he'll already be able to cover the key Thief skills (Find Traps and Open Locks) on his/her own by the end of BG1ee, but earlier on you might want some other Thief character with you ... this is a good opportunity either to take Imoen with you and then dual her to Mage at the canonical level 7, or to take some other Thief with you for the first half of the game and then swap him/her for one of the late-game NPCs when you no longer need another Thief. Put all your Thief skill points into FT and OL until you've got them to 100% (which you ought to reach at level 6, if you start with DEX 19 as any elf Thief should), then start putting points (a few left over at level 6 and all of the level 7 points) into other skills ... with Fighter levels giving her much better THAC0 than a plain Thief, s/he'll make a very good backstabber in BG2:SoA, so there's a good case for investing skill points into Move Silently and Hide In Shadows after FT and OL (although personally I'm planning to boost my F/M/T's Set Traps before focusing on the Stealth skills). In BG2ee, you'll eventually have enough thieving points to cover every skill, so you shouldn't need any other Thief as part of your permanent party, although you'll likely want another Thief to cover your deficiencies in the early stages of BG2ee.
If you're playing BG1ee only - In this case, take some other Thief throughout BG1ee to cover FT and OL, and concentrate your F/M/T's Thief skills in MS and HiS from the start, so that s/he'll be a good backstabber even while you're still in BG1ee. Or if you're prepared to rely on a lot of Potions of Invisibility to set up backstabs, then you could instead focus on Set Traps and even Detect Illusion (which I find to be skills which never reach a useful level in BG1ee unless I have at least 2 Thieves).
If you're playing BG2ee as well - Be very careful with your weapon proficiency point allocations. You'll get them only when levelling up as a Fighter, which won't be often. You'll have 6 by the end of BG1ee (like any Fighter class), but still only 10 by the end of BG2ee. Remember that you can backstab only with melee weapons which a single-class Thief could use, and your backstabs will be better if you're specialised (**) in such a weapon ... and you'll be wanting at least one point in Single Weapon Style (or Two-Handed Weapon Style if your backstabbing weapon is a Quarterstaff) so that your backstabs have a doubled chance of scoring a critical hit. In fact, you might even want to restrict your weapon proficiencies to Thief weapons only, so that you can backstab with whatever works best against the particular target. Having a Fighter's THAC0 means you'll be better with ranged weapons than a plain Thief, so it's worth being proficient with a ranged weapon too ... or, of course, choose Dagger and get both melee and ranged in one proficiency. (Of course Axe also has the advantage of being both ranged and melee, but you can't backstab with an Axe.) Personally, I'm planning to go with Crossbows and use Quarterstaff for all backstabbing, then expand to Halberds and Spears in BG2ee (with the idea of using my F/M/T as a second-row melee fighter, using the extra reach of two-handed weapons to stay mostly out of danger, with a pair of dedicated warriors as front-row tanks). However, I suspect that many players would go the dual-wielding route, putting their F/M/T in the front row ... but with the limited proficiency points available, the latter plan pretty much dictates that your BG1ee allocation needs to be Dagger **, Single Weapon Style *, Two-Weapon Style *** (because otherwise you get proficiencies too slowly to fight efficiently in the intended style until you're quite a long way into BG2ee), and then allocate the slowly-acquired proficiency points in BG2ee to specialisation in two other weapons (preferably a blunt and a slashing, and preferably also usable for backstabbing, to maximise flexibility against enemy resistances, so I'd probably add Club in SoA and then add Longsword in ToB).
If you're playing BG1ee only - Dagger specialisation gives you both an excellent backstabbing weapon (the Dagger of Venom, probably the best weapon in BG1ee for a backstabber) and throwing daggers for ranged combat, so that's a good way to go. Take Single Weapon Style as well, for the extra criticals. Then your other 3 proficiency points can be spent either on specialising in another melee weapon (in which case I'd take Club, so as to be able to backstab with blunt damage against skeletons and suchlike, which resist sharp damage) and a second point in Single Weapon Style, or on specialising in a missile weapon to save having to carry loads of throwing daggers (which weigh a lot) and again a second point in Single Weapon Style, or (all 3 points) on Two-Weapon Style so as to be able to dual-wield efficiently with daggers. All three are valid development strategies, IMO. Or alternatively, you could do what I'm planning as the BG1 stage of a both-games plan, i.e. specialising in Quarterstaff, Two-Handed Style, and a missile weapon (in my case Crossbow) ... that'll still give me a strong character in BG1ee, as well as being the foundation for my plan for BG2ee.
If you're playing BG2ee as well - even a single-class Mage levels fairly slowly, and as a triple-class you'll level very slowly. You'll be fine as a support arcane caster for another Mage, but an F/M/T would be distinctly weak as a main arcane caster, so you'll always want some other wizard behind you to do the heavy casting. In particular, you'll never reach the level in BG2ee to be able to cast level 9 spells (and you'll therefore never get the Mage HLAs), because you'll be XP-capped before you get that far. (Fortunately, however, you'll still be able to pick up Fighter and Thief HLAs, so you've still got some good options available.) Since your F/M/T will presumably be in melee a lot more often than a pure Mage ever ought to be, your most important spell (from the moment you can first use it, which is early-BG2ee for a F/M/T, right through to the end of BG2ee) is going to be Stoneskin - since you'll probably be wearing robes (or maybe sometimes an Elven Chain) throughout, your AC is generally not going to be very good, and Stoneskin will save your life time after time. When you get them (in BG2ee), the other melee protection spells (e.g. Protection from Magical Weapons, etc.) will also be much more important to you than they are for an ordinary stand-at-the-back Mage. Likewise, the usual Mage defensive buffs (Mirror Image, Blur, etc.) will be especially important for an F/M/T. Most of your spell-slots (which will be limited because you'll always be a few levels behind) will be needed for these defensive spells, so that you can use your Fighter levels without getting killed. Also, however, you might want to pay some attention to the touch-attack spells (e.g. Ghoul Touch, Vampiric Touch, etc.) - they're pretty useless for a single-class Mage (who shouldn't be getting within touch-range of an enemy), but for an F/M/T who can stand up in melee and has a much better chance of hitting, the touch-attack spells may be worth a slot or two. Don't bother too much with the big attack spells and summonings, your F/M/T won't have the spell slots to spare, so let your main arcane caster do most of that stuff.
If you're playing BG1ee only - the slow levelling is a definite handicap for an F/M/T's Mage skills even at BG1ee levels, more so than for the Fighter or Thief skills. His/her highest-level spells will still be only level 3 at the end of BG1ee, which isn't impressive. S/he could chuck a Fireball, but would be better off letting your main caster do that, while your F/M/T uses level 3 slots for protections (such as Ghost Armor and Protection from Normal Missiles, or Haste if your main caster doesn't have room for it) so that s/he can fight better.
Blimey, what was meant to be a quick reply has now turned into a wall of text! YMMV, of course, but I hope some of these thoughts may be useful to you.
I went with staff and bow straight up for mine and added two handed sword to wield Carsomyr with UAI.
Mislead backstabs with Whirlwind Attack and Staff of the Ram is totally obscene.
I never had a problem leveling with a full party as your bhaalspawn is ahead of other characters anyway and the leveling experience just gives everybody in your party a chance to shine really.
Here're a couple of threads about FMT tips:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/29116/how-f-m-ts-fare-in-a-full-party
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/30287/advice-for-running-f-m-t
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/34372/to-use-a-triple-class-or-not
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/39377/weapon-proficencies-f-m-t-for-the-entire-saga
Overall, this character is one of the most powerful in the game, if used right. Just learn to use all your advantages: buff spells from your mage help to your fighter part, while a thieving part gives you backstabs and traps. Despite the common opinion this class is not for a party play, it's completely fine in a party.
Calling here FMT experts, like @Gotural and @FinneousPJ
(Since I've also got other characters rolled up and waiting to go, it'll probably be a while yet before I actually get around to my F/M/T run.)
I guess it just comes down to whether I want to be more "fightery" and stand on the front line or more "thiefy" and sneak around backstabbing dudes. I've heard that the shine can rub off of backstabbing as you get farther into BG2 though. Is that true? Does it start to get a lot worse?
Probably something like this:
Longbows *
Daggers **
Single Weapon *
Two Weapon **
Scimitars *
Clubs **
Scimitars **
Thanks for all the help, everyone!
Here I'll speak only about BG1, since it is where the topic was created.
I would definitely advice you to choose a ranged weapon at level 1. It will be awesome for BG1.
You can either go for Longbow ** which is nice because the ammo management is easier, plus there are some cool arrows available (biting, detonation, dispelling) or Dagger ** which is more polyvalent I think. You will be able to use the Dagger of Venom which is incredible, and also the Silver Dagger (very very convenient to finally have a Fighter with ** in this weapon). Plus, you'll be a bit stronger early on because you can equip a heavy shield at the same time.
I usually go Dagger ** Scimitar ** then at level 3 and 6 I go for dual-wielding. I usually end the game by dual wielding Drizzt's scimitars which are really effective both for backstabs and sustained damage.
Concerning strategies, I would focus on using the Sleep spell plus your ranged weapons to deal with most of the early game. Later on you can continue to do that by using multiple Web spells while pelting your foes from afar, or you can become a very powerful melee Fighter with some buffs (Spirit Armor from another Mage in your party, + Blur + Mirror Image + Haste (from the potion or the spell)).
I wouldn't use backstabs too much until the end game, there are some risks involved when you go into melee range, and the damage multiplier isn't that great until x3.
Concerning Thief skills, you'll plenty of points considering you are an Elf with 19 natural Dex (20 with the Tome, even more with DUHM innate). I would focus on utility if you are the only Thief in the party. If there are two or more Thieves, you could put some points on stealth : something like 50 in Hide in Shadows and 50 in Move Silently will make you able to initiate most battles with a good backstab.
A small amount in Detect Illusion is always a good idea because you can, if needed, cast Invisibility on yourself and wait for the Detect Illusion skill to work, even with only 10 points.
You can also spend points in Set Traps, because you earn another use of the ability at level 6, then 11 and because the ability improves at level 11, there are no differences between a F/M/T's traps or a single class Thief's traps.
Hope it will help you ! I'm still here if you have other questions.
In BG2, I would chose a combinaison of Two-handed sword ** (for Carsomyr), Quatterstaff ** (for Staff of the Ram / Staff of the Magi), Two-handed weapon style * (the second pip is totally unneeded for a F/M/T) or even Long Swords ** depending on your party.
If you play with Keldorn for example, he should use Carsomyr so you should not take ** in two-handed swords.
Scimitars are such strong and versatile weapons that you should fight with these 90%+ of the time. The only important thing in my opinion is ** in Scimitar and Dual-Wielding, you can do fine with anything else.
One perk of big weapons is less micromanagement between ranged and melee - and on that note I'd recommend short bow rather than longbow (sure longbow is stronger in bg1 but you will decimate all opposition with any ranged weapon anyway until bg2 and in bg2 short bows are just so much stronger if you want to keep ranged combat as an option).
Remember that you have a total of 10 pips to allocate. The best guide to deciding is to consider what NPCs you want to bring.
What I wanted to say is that you need to make a choice between differents setups, depending on your party.
Concerning the ranged weapons, I agree about Short Bows being superior to Long Bows in BG2. Still, BG1 is quite an important and long part of the trilogy, plus the F/M/T is not the best archer of the game. So I would stick with Daggers as ranged weapons.
Setup A:
Dagger**
Single Weapon Style*
Scimitar**
Two Weapon Style**
Club**
Two Weapon Style***
Setup B:
Staff**
Shortbow**
Two handed weapon style*
Two handed sword**
Halberd**
Two handed weapon style**
Party members will adjust the choices slightly of course. If you have Mazzy and/or Keldorn you might be better with Set A. If you have Jaheira you might be better with set B or swapping scimitar for Shortsword. If you have 2 characters that can benefit from speed weapons you might be better with set B etc etc.