Berserker vs. F/M multi.
d00der82
Member Posts: 21
Which if these two classes are more powerful in your opinion. Started a f/m multi in bg for a trilogy run and not sure if I want to stick with it or go zerker.
For the purposes of this discussion please stick with analysis of the multi class only, no duals.
For the purposes of this discussion please stick with analysis of the multi class only, no duals.
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Do you like to give your fighter the best armour possible, the best weapon possible, see any enemy, click Rage, see the end result. Repeat. Additional plus if you like playing dwarfs. - Take a Berserker.
Do you like to think about spells you want to use? Do you like to put on and put off armour so that your fighter was only protected by magic? Do you embrace being almost impossible to hit in melee because of your spells? How about hasting yourself? Do you like to learn new and new spells? Do you like to use wands? Take a multiclass F/M, as an option a gnome F/Illusionist.
I would say that while the Berserker's Rage makes you immune almost to any bad effect in the game, a F/M, if used right, with right spells, will be much more reliable against enemies who hit hard, while being immune to nasty magical effects. A F/M for me.
In the beginning through mid SOA Berserker is better. In the beginning especially when you have limited spells and no armor Berserker is way better.
There's a reason I call Fighting types Lowly Peons. Depending on how well you understand the magic system you can replicate whatever immunities the berserker had that were necessary for a particular encounter and proceed to lay down some arcane justice.
BG1:
Early F/M has sleep. Sleep is almighty and so are bows. Armour is a level 1 spell and even then you don't need it when you get the RotA of your alignment.
Late F/M has Mirror Images, Ghost Armour (full plate? Wheee!), and Wraithform. Fighter/Mage is pretty well immortal in BG terms and has an array of ways to disrupt enemy casters while still wrecking face.
BG2:
Early F/M has Stoneskins, Spell Immunity, Improved Invisibility, Jelly Form (which tanks pit fiends and mages alike) and extraordinary crowd control options, with Breach to clear away buffs that stop the Berserker flat, and RoV for instant casting.
Late F/M Summons nigh indestructible Mordenkainen's Swords, armies of nearly magic immune skeleton warriors, AOEs, CCs, buff strippers.... and is still nigh immortal compared to the 'zerker, and gets Improved Haste while sending out projected images to gain dozens of spells per casting and supreme magical domination.
ToB:
F/M has timestop, turns into an intelligence eating mindflayer with Whirlwind Attack and eats everyone before summoning an army of people almost as good at fighting as the Berserker. Whatever argument you had was invalid.
Optimised Berserkers master weapons, get more health, deal slightly more damage, and hit slightly more accurately.
Optimised Mages of any flavour dominate everything and everyone forever.
my multi F/Mages love to spit in the face of vampires and laugh at them as they try desperately to hit trough PFMW.
Later on they cast a Simulacrum and smoke their pipe watching the clone as he massacrate a couple of bersekers.
I hope that is clear what is my opinion about.
Anyway Pantalion you are right, the immunity to level drain is not possible with arcane spells, even if a mage can avoid to be hit so avoid the drain (that go through stoneskin).
Up until say 1.5m XP I would rate the Berserker as stronger. But after that, once the F/M has access to level 6 and above spells, he becomes more powerful.
Berserker is a very strong class offensively and defensively. Against a single target that does not have magical defences, a berserker's damage output easily outstrips F/M. But against groups or targets that have magical defences, the F/M can do many things that the berserker cannot (crowd control, debuff, summon, AoE damage etc).
Defensively, the berserker's combination of HPs, AC, saving throws (esp dwarf) and enrage immunities are unparalleled. You just need to activate one ability to have an unstoppable tank that no amount of crowd control can disable. Yes, it is possible to replicate those immunities with spells but it takes a stupid number of spells to do that. Especially if you do not know what spells you will get hit with, it is far more effective to use one ability and then start hacking your opponents apart than spend 6 rounds trying to find the precise combination of defences you need to make sure you've got the bases covered.
So there's several plus sides for the Berserker. But there still comes a point later on in the game where the F/M's versatility is invaluable. Especially against tougher monsters and with SCS, you get to a stage where you really need to avoid damage rather than suck it up; where you need to strip away defences to make the enemy vulnerable; where you need to summon help to keep some enemies occupied rather than try to handle them all yourself. And that is when the F/M excels and can do things that no Berserker can.
Hope that helps in hopefully providing a balanced view
Spells like Project Image and Simulacrum are fundamentally broken (a 7th level spell that creates a illusionary clone that replicates the original caster's full complement of spells?) and change the usual linear fighters vs quadratic wizards power curve to linear fighters vs exponential wizards curve.
But the power in game is a different thing, and without knowing if is used solo or in a party (of how much people?) is impossible to give an answer. Solo the multi level up his classes at 3 x speed each, the berseker at 6 x. And solo the multi can help himself with wands, very useful when he is not so powerful at the beginning, after "that"staff for a soloer is fantastic. The multi FM in this situation level really fast and have summons, versatility, wands, spells. and after planetars, mordys, skellys, CC, TS and IA. The robe and the staff on top. Imo no context, the berseker is a good one, maybe the best fighter for soloing, but is competitive only in the very beginning and after lev 20 don't improve much.
In a party of 6, with a well balanced composition, the FM level at 0.5 x each class and the berseker at full speed. And there are other toons that use the wands, that cast the spells, arcane and divine, other that can go mlee and help him. The FM loose some of his advantages, level up slowly and as pure physical damage dealer is inferior. And somehow a party has versatility in himself, the versatility of the single members is less important. In that party the berseker perform really good and can be the better choice. I would choose the FM also in that situation, but is related to my personal style, I love the tactics that a multi allow and my goal is not to win the battle at half HP or less, is win it unscratched, if my toons are damaged I regard it as a partial failure. But the berseker is the one if you want high damage and good tanking based only on AC.
In a situation in between, a party of 3 or 4,.... depend on the party composition. In a party of arcane casters, like Aerie, Jan and Imoen is better the FM, each one can tank, can protect himself very well and can be versatile. In a party with Nalia, Keldorn and Jaheira maybe is better to let the mage be the mage, the inquisitor be the dispeller an flank attacker, the fighter druid a jolly that can be divine caster (summoner and antimage), ranged one or mlee helper as needed and be yourself the berseker tank. A more single sided role for charname in a party with more fixed roles.
Because imo the more powerful one is the one that is more useful to the party.
In terms of "fighters", I agree that the Berserker is a great, if not the best, Fighter class, and is a better "fighter" than the Fighter/Mage. A Berserker is flat out superior to a suboptimal Fighter/Mage, possibly even to a Fighter/Mage run by a player with passing familiarity with a few defensive buffs, because they are a powerful class, and they're very hard to go wrong with.
But against an optimised Fighter/Mage with sufficient familiarity with the magic system, the only place where berserkers can shine is against Level Drain before the Amulet of Power.
How many single targets without magic defences are there, and how many such encounters would you consider to be dangerous, serious, encounters? Ankhegs? Vulnerable to the Sleep spell. Ogres? Sleep spell. Basilisks? Protection from Petrification and a bow. For all the talk of Fighters being OP in BG1, a surprisingly large portion of the game can be invalidated by first level spells when you know which ones to use, and with Evermemory you have slots to burn through the terrible saves most enemies possess in BG1.
And by the time the enemies start being too high a level for sleep shenanigans, the Fighter/Mage can easily reach a level where they can have AC just as good as any fighter for any battle that matters (RoP+2 + Ghost Armour + Shield or Twinkle + Helm & Cloak of Balduran), vastly more effective HP (Mirror Images = +"Whatever damage you would have been hit for" HP per image), and just plain more tanky in general (Wraithform - Immune to normal weapons), and have Polymorph Self, for 100% resistances to Magic, Piercing, and Electricity damage, 85% to missile damage, and 60% vs crushing. That's by 120,000 Exp, well short of the TotSC cap, and while the Berserker hasn't yet reached level 8. Levelling half the speed is an illusion when every level takes twice the XP as the one before it, particularly when the Fighter/Mage can turn gold into XP.
And yes, for the record that is indeed six rounds, assuming they need to combine "immune to all magic" with "tanking a small army" for the same encounter. Thing is, the game routinely signposts major encounters, and you can always have a scout - whether the Fighter/Mage enjoying 24 hour invisibility spells, the entire party with a Fairy Dragon familiar's 10' invisibility, or just the party Thief - to let them know when it's time to spend those six rounds before combat starts. At that point it's not so much "more effective" to hit Berserk, just "easier", and if you're anti-rest, then "slightly more times per day", since even Gnomic F/Ms can only pick up Polyself twice per day until BG2, excluding scrolls.
After that, when they hit 500,000 Exp, they get SI for handling particulars up to demiliches, and get enough spell slots to nab Stoneskins as well, making them pretty much immune to unexpected backstabs and nets them even more effective HP. And because this point is still low levels, the F/M is level 9/10, while the Berserker is only level 10. It's actually only when the Fighter/Mage has already begun to dominate that levels start to diverge.
And for the record, this all combines very well with a party. Not only does a Fighter/Mage depend largely on self-buffs which other party mages can't put onto others, F/Ms take some of the pressure off them by providing another source of Breach, Lower Resistance and other debuffs that make their jobs easier as well.
tl;dr: Optimised Gnome F/I > Optimised F/M > Berserker > Suboptimised F/M.
As for personal preference, I'd go with a f/m multi (elf or gnome). You can add Korgan to your party and have both, while there isn't a f/m NPC unless you count bards.