Contemplating a Powerful & Versatile Custom Party for BGEE +SoD: I welcome your thoughts
billbisco
Member Posts: 361
I'm thinking of the following for a custom party that will travel through BG1 & SoD but not BG2EE. Please give me your thoughts on what might be more versatile / optimal.
Summary:
3 Mage spellcasters and 3 Cleric Spellcasters
2 Frontline Beserkers, 4 Primary Ranged Attackers
1 Thief for Finding/Removing Traps and Pickpocketing
Using Sanctuary and Invisibility, all party members can avoid combat
Melee: 1 Quarterstaff, 1 Dual Scimitar, 1 Dual Warhammer, 1 Longsword, 1 Flail/Morningstar, 1 Mace
Ranged: 2 Longbow, 3 Sling, 1 Dart
1. Main: Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief
2 Pips in Longbow 2 Pips in Quarterstaff 2 Pips in Two Handed Weapon Style
Use Quarterstaff to Backstab and be happy. Otherwise shoot ranged.
Go the Good Route and use Draw upon Holy Might Innate Ability to boost Damage and Thieving Abilities
Cast Find Familiar and Con Tome of for better HP, Read Dex tome for better thieving skills, read Str tome better backstabs
2. Human Beserker 7 -> Mage Dual
2 Pips in Two Weapon Fighting 4 Pips in Scimitar During Fighter Time. 1 Pip Dart during mage time. Delay leveling up to level 6 Mage and wait until enough xp to go Mage 8 and put final pip in 5 Scimitar
Use Drizzt's Swords and melee all day. Use Darts otherwise
3. Human Beserker 7 -> Cleric Dual
2 Pips in Two Weapon Fighting 4 Pips in Warhammer. During Cleric Time put 1 Pip in Sling and 1 Pip in Flail/Morningstar. Delay gaining Cleric 4 until you have enough xp to gain Cleric 8 Then put 1 more pip in two weapon fighting and another in Warhammer
4. Human Fighter 7 -> Mage Dual
2 Pips in Longsword 4 Pips in Longbow during Fighter Time. Put 1 pip in Dagger during mage time. Delay leveling up to level 6 Mage and wait until enough xp to go Mage 8 and put final pip in 5 Longbow
5. Human Fighter 7 -> Cleric Dual
2 Pips in Flail/Morningstar 4 Pips in Sling during Fighter Time. During Cleric Time put 1 Pips in Sword and Shield Style and 1 in Mace. Delay gaining Cleric 4 until you have enough xp to gain Cleric 8 Then put 1 more pip in Sling and 1 more pip in Flail / Morningstar
6. Human Fighter 7 -> Cleric Dual
2 Pips in Mace 4 Pips in Sling during Fighter Time. During Cleric Time put 1 Pip in Sword and Shield Style and 1 more Pip in Warhammer. Delay gaining Cleric 4 until you have enough xp to gain Cleric 8 Then put 1 more pip in Sling and 1 more pip in Mace
Summary:
3 Mage spellcasters and 3 Cleric Spellcasters
2 Frontline Beserkers, 4 Primary Ranged Attackers
1 Thief for Finding/Removing Traps and Pickpocketing
Using Sanctuary and Invisibility, all party members can avoid combat
Melee: 1 Quarterstaff, 1 Dual Scimitar, 1 Dual Warhammer, 1 Longsword, 1 Flail/Morningstar, 1 Mace
Ranged: 2 Longbow, 3 Sling, 1 Dart
1. Main: Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief
2 Pips in Longbow 2 Pips in Quarterstaff 2 Pips in Two Handed Weapon Style
Use Quarterstaff to Backstab and be happy. Otherwise shoot ranged.
Go the Good Route and use Draw upon Holy Might Innate Ability to boost Damage and Thieving Abilities
Cast Find Familiar and Con Tome of for better HP, Read Dex tome for better thieving skills, read Str tome better backstabs
2. Human Beserker 7 -> Mage Dual
2 Pips in Two Weapon Fighting 4 Pips in Scimitar During Fighter Time. 1 Pip Dart during mage time. Delay leveling up to level 6 Mage and wait until enough xp to go Mage 8 and put final pip in 5 Scimitar
Use Drizzt's Swords and melee all day. Use Darts otherwise
3. Human Beserker 7 -> Cleric Dual
2 Pips in Two Weapon Fighting 4 Pips in Warhammer. During Cleric Time put 1 Pip in Sling and 1 Pip in Flail/Morningstar. Delay gaining Cleric 4 until you have enough xp to gain Cleric 8 Then put 1 more pip in two weapon fighting and another in Warhammer
4. Human Fighter 7 -> Mage Dual
2 Pips in Longsword 4 Pips in Longbow during Fighter Time. Put 1 pip in Dagger during mage time. Delay leveling up to level 6 Mage and wait until enough xp to go Mage 8 and put final pip in 5 Longbow
5. Human Fighter 7 -> Cleric Dual
2 Pips in Flail/Morningstar 4 Pips in Sling during Fighter Time. During Cleric Time put 1 Pips in Sword and Shield Style and 1 in Mace. Delay gaining Cleric 4 until you have enough xp to gain Cleric 8 Then put 1 more pip in Sling and 1 more pip in Flail / Morningstar
6. Human Fighter 7 -> Cleric Dual
2 Pips in Mace 4 Pips in Sling during Fighter Time. During Cleric Time put 1 Pip in Sword and Shield Style and 1 more Pip in Warhammer. Delay gaining Cleric 4 until you have enough xp to gain Cleric 8 Then put 1 more pip in Sling and 1 more pip in Mace
0
Comments
Once you've completed all the duals, i.e. late-BG1 and SoD, it'll be an okay party which will win easily enough, but it's not especially flexible.
However, you don't need 3 divine casters - having a second divine caster can certainly be pretty useful, but the third isn't going to add much further value, and it also adds to flexibility if your second divine caster is a Druid rather than a Cleric. Also, you're going to be rather lightweight on thieving skills - your F/M/T will get enough Thief levels to develop decent Open Locks and Find Traps, but probably not also to be much good at stealth (or setting traps or pickpocketing), so you'll be using up invisibility potions (or spells) when you want to scout or backstab ... which is viable if s/he's going to spend most of the time at range, but it'd be much more flexible if you had a build which could develop wider thieving skills.
Thus you'd be better off if you made your F/M/T just a M/T, and if you kept your Bk->C as a dedicated warrior (and probably also if the latter were built to use two-handed swords, since there are some good ones available which you currently have no-one to use), and if you changed one of the F->Cs to a F->D (and the F->D could then be the one dual-wielding Scimitars instead of the Bk->M, which would be a considerable improvement for the front row because the F->D can wear heavy armour).
BUT ... the major weakness in your plan is before the duals are completed. Firstly, you're going to be without any divine casters in early-BG1, when healing (and curing poison) are often needed, and you might struggle to find enough potions to cope - you may well get wiped out by the ambushes in Cloakwood, or even before then. Then, if you survive that, you'll have 5 out of 6 level-squatting all at the same time (or 4 out of 6 even if you take my recommendation to keep one as a dedicated warrior), which means you're going to be very weak during mid-BG1 - so you may well get wiped out again in BG city. Level-squatting a character is fine if you have others who can carry them as a passenger for the duration, but level-squatting most of the party at the same time leaves you badly under-levelled for the challenges you'll be facing during that period.
To alleviate this problem (at least partially), you might consider dualling different characters at different times. For example, both a Bk->M and a F->D can be dualled at level 9 (i.e. early-SoD) and still complete their duals before SoD is finished (although only at the xp cap in the case of the Bk->M, so you'd have to be thorough or you wouldn't complete the dual).
Overall conclusion - as it stands, this is a weak and inflexible party which isn't likely to survive to see SoD, but with some tweaking it could be made viable. FMT can solo fine, yes ... but with the xp split 6 ways, the FMT will be only level 5/5/6 at the dualling point, which is pretty feeble when there are 5 level 1 passengers to guard! It may not be impossible, but it'd surely be darn difficult to win.
Edit: typo.
A 6 person party with all rolled up characters, I would do the following:
2 M/T - 1 shortbow and shortsword, 1 crossbow and dagger
2 F/M - both using bows and either longsword or bastard sword
1 R/C - dual wield warhammer/flail and tank
1 C/M - sling and mace
Both the F/M will be decked with armour and shield spells so that they can off-tank and/or intercept anyone that slips past the tank and ranged projectiles. Races are up to you, but I tend to favour elf for the THACO bonus for those wielding bows and swords. The C/M tend to be a gnome and R/C is only available to half-elves.
This set up has a consistent power curve throughout the series, which is something I value more than the sudden spurt you get when your dual-class finally gets its old levels back.
An alternative would be to drop one of the M/T for a F/D tank so that you have 2 tanks and one of them being able to use Dr'zzt's scimitars.
However, the OP specifically said that his party is for BG1ee+SoD only, not for BG2ee. With the mostly-geometric level progression in BG1, multi-class characters tend to be only one level behind in each class and yet have their other class as well, so multis have a considerable edge.
Therefore, in fact, a custom power-gaming party for BG1ee+SoD should consist mostly of multi-class characters, not duals. If you're going to use dualling at all in such a party, it's only justifiable (from a power-gaming perspective) if it's an early dual (i.e. level 2 or 3), for example to widen weapon access without restricting final level.
However, in my earlier response, I was trying to offer helpful suggestions to the OP to improve the viability of the dual-classed team he had in mind, rather than pointing out that the "optimal power-gaming solution" would be to scrap the entire concept and start again with a mostly multi-classed team.
For class choices, sorcerer is also a consideration, a sorcerer obtains most wanted spells much earlier than when they first become available, like invisibility 10~radius~
I admit my bias against Druids. They aren't bad per se, but I really find them lacking in my playstyle since they can't cast Animate Dead or some of the party buffing spells. They do offer an outlet to use scimitars but are still forced to use slings
The Fighter 7 -> Mage 8 Dual can be accomplished within BGEE's level cap (161K) Since 7 Fighter is 64K and 8 Mage is 90K.
Fighter 7 -> Cleric 8 Dual has to happen during SoD. Since 7 Fighter is 64K and 8 Cleric is 110K. Although I figure this can come to fruition pretty quickly.
In either case I plan to XP Farm extensively in BG1 to make it easier.
Regarding Thieves. I plan to max out Pick Pocket and then Find/Remove Traps. After that I'm not sure. Is there time to get 100 HS and MiS to enjoy those skills? Maybe? Although it would probably be at the tail end of level 9 or 10 when it would become consistent probably. I could devote all the 2nd level mage slots to invisibility if desired but that does prevent other useful spells for sure.
Do I need set traps? I've never really used it in BG1 or BG2. If I had 2 thieves, it would be more possible to get a Dual backstabbing team, but how often do you really want/need 2 backstabbers? That sounds like even more micromanagement.
I don't really believe in putting points into open locks until lategame BG2 or ToB when I have nothing else to put it in. I usually spread out a couple of open locks across my mages when a bash won't work.
Regarding Multi vs. Dual. A Multi Fighter cleric will only end up 9/9 whereas a multi fighter mage will end up 9/10 at the tail end of SoD. The Fighter Dual Clerics will end up getting Fighter 7 / Cleric 9 or Fighter 7 / Mage 11 . The Thac0 difference will be made up with weapon mastery but the Dual class will have more APR due to grandmastery, more damage, more hit points, and more proficiency pips.
So, if I'm willing to grind through the dual class "inactive levels", it seems a better choice than a multiclass.
However, since you're explicitly not intending to proceed into BG2ee, you're only getting a relatively short time when the duals are fully functional, at the cost of substantial disadvantage for a longer time beforehand. With multi-classed characters instead, you'd have had their advantages throughout your run, but without the cost of their main disadvantage (because their levelling doesn't lag severely until BG2, which you're not intending to do). They can also use darts and throwing daggers for range, and those are often a good choice instead of a sling. (If your character has high STR, choose daggers; otherwise choose darts.)
When your playing style involves a lot of summoning, I agree that the lack of Animate Dead is a drawback for Druids in BG1.
HOWEVER, in SoD (at 200K xp), Druids gain the spell Conjure Fire Elemental, and that's an excellent summon (which Clerics don't get), much stronger than Animate Dead (at least until Animate Dead upgrades to the higher-level Skeleton Warriors at level 15, which obviously doesn't apply until BG2). In SoD, therefore, a Druid is a great asset for a summoning-based style. Shouldn't be necessary. Even without farming, a full party should reach the xp cap in BG1 long before the final battle. No, not enough levels to max all of them. 3 skills yes, 4 skills no. Need, no. Of course you can complete the entire series without ever setting a trap, and indeed I've often done so.
However, since you're planning to spend a long time with a weak party (because of simultaneous dual-classing downtime), you're going to need some way to survive. Setting traps can turn a tough battle into a cakewalk, so you might find it a very useful skill. Of course it's up to the OP to choose what he'll enjoy doing.
However, the whole point of his thread is that he's asking for advice. Therefore, on those points where I reckon his plan is misguided, I'm explaining why I think he should make changes.
You can do the same with other area-effect projectiles, such as Arrows of Detonation, etc.
(Many of us regard this as a rather cheesy exploit, however, because it's probably not an intended benefit of the Poison Weapon ability.)
By 10th level Thief, getting 100s or near 100s in 4 skills (Move Silently and HiS are combined together). Of course this is at the tail end when this happens and it's not possible to get near 100 in a 5th skill (Set Traps)
Ol 25
Ft 15
Pp 35
Ms 30
His 30
Di 0
St 10
1 40
Ms 70
2 25
Ms 95
3 25
Ms 120
4 25
Ms 145
5 25
Ms 170
6 25
Ft 40
7 25
Ft 65
8 25
Ft 90
9 25
Pp 60
10 25
Pp 85