Custom party run, BGEE, BG2EE, ToB, My plan maybe your challenge
Hello...
I'm planing on playing through the trilogy, with a custom party of 3.. Trying to make as much as possible of the NPC quests. The heroes would be Blade, Avenger and Fighter/Thief multi-class.
The goal is to make the most use of the available equipment, not leaving a lot of it behind, no equipment switching between characters.
Yes, there will be no pure mage and so no high tier Mage spells, I'm trying to forgive this myself and on the other hand I know myself and the mages are really OP. No abuse of sell/steal/sell. Sell and steal back is most that is allowed.
Without any mods, (as I feel that if the developers would find something should really be in the game they should add it...)
Reasoning behind this:
I don't like to solo because it leaves a lot of content out of the game. A full party is just unnecessary.
3 heroes seems good for making the game challenging.
Custom made because party because I want to keep them though the whole trilogy.
4th hero would be a NPC just for the NPC quest, then would be change for another one.
No pure Fighters. No mage able to get to lvl 9+ spells.
I love the idea of Bards, and the Blades are now even better as you can change weapons on the go 2WS/bow/2H.
The questions are:
1. Should I use a Avenger or a different kit? To me it seems the Avenger might be most enjoyable. I don't want a cleric as their spells s**k. Druids have more offensive spells.
2. Fighter/Thief multi-class is also open to changes... A pure Assassin seems also viable, mostly because of the poison, giving up the traps on the other hand. A thief seems necessary, mostly because of traps and locks.
3. Is there a list of NPC quests, are there any quests which are NPC related but can be done without NPC?
4. What I really don't know are the weapons.
The blade is mostly easy, kundane or belm or scarlet will be used in SoA. In BG1 i would like to go crossbow and don't know what to chose. Are there any good bastard swords in BG1?
The druid is maybe the easiest Sling/Quarterstaff.
The F/T will get short bow but the melee weapon is again harder, the weapons should not mix between F/T and Blade.
5. What difficulty to chose?
6. Do you have any other propositions? Like a really good mod, I would like to keep this to one and bigger.
Thank you in advance.
I'm planing on playing through the trilogy, with a custom party of 3.. Trying to make as much as possible of the NPC quests. The heroes would be Blade, Avenger and Fighter/Thief multi-class.
The goal is to make the most use of the available equipment, not leaving a lot of it behind, no equipment switching between characters.
Yes, there will be no pure mage and so no high tier Mage spells, I'm trying to forgive this myself and on the other hand I know myself and the mages are really OP. No abuse of sell/steal/sell. Sell and steal back is most that is allowed.
Without any mods, (as I feel that if the developers would find something should really be in the game they should add it...)
Reasoning behind this:
I don't like to solo because it leaves a lot of content out of the game. A full party is just unnecessary.
3 heroes seems good for making the game challenging.
Custom made because party because I want to keep them though the whole trilogy.
4th hero would be a NPC just for the NPC quest, then would be change for another one.
No pure Fighters. No mage able to get to lvl 9+ spells.
I love the idea of Bards, and the Blades are now even better as you can change weapons on the go 2WS/bow/2H.
The questions are:
1. Should I use a Avenger or a different kit? To me it seems the Avenger might be most enjoyable. I don't want a cleric as their spells s**k. Druids have more offensive spells.
2. Fighter/Thief multi-class is also open to changes... A pure Assassin seems also viable, mostly because of the poison, giving up the traps on the other hand. A thief seems necessary, mostly because of traps and locks.
3. Is there a list of NPC quests, are there any quests which are NPC related but can be done without NPC?
4. What I really don't know are the weapons.
The blade is mostly easy, kundane or belm or scarlet will be used in SoA. In BG1 i would like to go crossbow and don't know what to chose. Are there any good bastard swords in BG1?
The druid is maybe the easiest Sling/Quarterstaff.
The F/T will get short bow but the melee weapon is again harder, the weapons should not mix between F/T and Blade.
5. What difficulty to chose?
6. Do you have any other propositions? Like a really good mod, I would like to keep this to one and bigger.
Thank you in advance.
0
Comments
For the Druid, I'd consider Darts (for APR) rather than Slings as ranged weapon, unless he's high-STR (because Slings get a bonus for STR, whereas Darts don't), and maybe switch to Throwing Daggers as ranged weapon in BG2 (where there are some good ones). Quarterstaff is a reasonable choice of starting melee weapon (although I might be more tempted by Clubs, in order to equip a Buckler) but you'll also want Scimitars before long, and in BG2 you'll also find a couple of worthwhile Spears.
Shortbow for the F/T is okay, although personally I'd go with Daggers for both ranged and melee, because that way you can get both Specialisation in Daggers and Mastery in Two-Weapon Style before the end of BG1 - I did this on a recent F/T run myself, and he was devastatingly good. (Don't under-rate Daggers as a melee weapon, especially in BG1 - the Dagger of Venom +2 is one of the very best weapons in the game, and paired with Longtooth +2 in the off-hand it made my F/T really effective in melee.) However, if you insist upon Shortbows for range, then go with Longswords for melee (wield Varscona +2 with a Shield) and a point each in One-Weapon Style (for backstabbing) and Two-Weapon Style (for further development in BG2). Either way, in BG2 add proficiency in a speed weapon (i.e. Shortswords or preferably Scimitars) and something blunt (because in BG2 there are times when blunt weaponry is essential). Core difficulty is "the real game". If I were going to install any mod, SCS would probably be it. But personally, I haven't yet got bored with the standard unmodded game, so I stick to that for now. YMMV.
Edit: typo.
You really got me thinking with the daggers and axes... but:
you can't change the proficiencies at import to bg2. This might be fine with the blade and axes..
As much as I like the RP of F/T wearing dual daggers..
you can get 3 points in 2ws but can get only 2 points in a specific weapon... this would leave enough space for 2ws and short-bow...
I'll have to check the proficiency progression... you know dual long swords seem so boring in the light of the dual daggers
The difficulty change seems necessary... as for me a solo run - assassin dual to mage - ruined everything, it was uncomfortable until I gotten the bag of holding, but it was easy the whole way. So if I want more heroes I need a higher difficulty.
Dggr ** Club ** Smtr ** Ktna ** 1WS1 * 2WS3 ***
(I realise that it would have been more power-gamey to have some other blunt proficiency instead of Club, and perhaps Bswd instead of Ktna, but I deliberately chose for this character to use Thief weapons only, rather than the full range available to Fighters. Clubs turned out to be adequate for all the places where blunt was vital, even though not the optimal power-gaming choice.)
In BG1, he used Daggers throughout, with 1WS * and 2WS ***. In SoD, he added the first point in Clubs, but still fought with Daggers almost all the time. In BG2, he added Smtr (for APR), then Ktna (to use CF), then the second points in Ktna, Smtr, Club (in that order, IIRC) - he spent most of SoA wielding Celestial Fury with Belm, and most of ToB wielding Spectral Brand with Scarlet Ninja-to. This worked well.
A point to bear in mind with multi-classed Fighters is that they get only 12 proficiency points in the whole series, unlike 17 for single-class Fighters (or even more for a dual-class). It pays to have your proficiency allocations for the entire series planned out from character creation. If you give your F/T Shortbow proficiencies, then you need to think about what melee weapon you give up in return.
Anyway...
The daggers are really nice for their RP aspect... will have to check them later/and other competition...
I would definitively drop 1WS and go for a Shortbow. Also the clubs are fine.. but I'm thinking that because blunt weapons are only for the necessary occasions, I would go with hammers or flails and just one proficiency point So I'll have a second point for Swortbow.
I mostly wanted the Scarlet Ninja-to for the Blade.. which makes my thinking...
The F/T would have ** in a weapon... he would get 3/2 APR does it automatically mean 3 ARP when dual wielding? Plus 1/2 APR at lvl 7 and 13 makes 4APR at lvl 13 and ** ???
This would excuse that I would pass the Scarlet Ninja-to to the Blade as he would get a bigger effect out of it... plus I suppose the F/T will get Greater Whirlwind while still in SoA...
Will have to check other weapons as Spectral Brand is also a scimitar (I just realized)
As for the SCS, It will get a try later as for now I have to reinstall the game.. There are some comparability issues... which can be handled if there is a fresh install and not in steam dir.
A Blade doesn't get the speed bonuses for levelling, and of course can't do Specialisation. Even so, a Blade gets 3 APR when dual-wielding with a speed-weapon (before Haste or Offensive Spin), which is enough to make a useful contribution. Or give the Blade the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialisation for 3.5 APR, and cast Improved Haste, and now your Blade is striking at 7 APR ... not quite what you can achieve with a true warrior, but nevertheless quite enough to be very effective in melee ... especially if he's also under Tenser's Transformation to get Fighter THAC0. I'd probably give the SN-t to the Blade, but some would argue for giving it to the F/T. Matter of playing style, your call. Even with a full party, yes in late-SoA. With your three-man party, you should get that far by mid-SoA.
Will begin with the axes on blade... there is actualy a Axe of Kruntur (+1 ARP but only in SOD)
The F/T will be a dwarf... daggers **, 2WS ***, Short-bow *, long-swords later in BG2
but I've just checked I could not put *** in 2WS at character creation... will it be possible later or only in BG2?
Do you know anything about this?
I had no luck with the SCS so at least for BG1 I'm going without it...
Will return with news about my progression later. For now, thank you for the great input.
Indeed, if you allocated Dggr2 2WS2 at creation, then at level 3 my recommendation would to be complete dual-wielding immediately, before bothering to add other weapons, so that you can get maximum advantage out of dual-wielding as quickly as possible ... that's how I did it on my recent F/T run, with excellent results.
On the other hand, if you went with Sbow1 Dggr1 2WS2 at creation, then I recommend adding the second point to Dggr at level 3, and the third point to 2WS at level 6.
2. I would suggest a FMT. More magic is always better in BG2.
3. I'm sure there is. Try google.
4. Yes, there is one in Dorn's quest. It's a pretty tough fight to get to it, so I wouldn't say bastard sword is a good early game option.
5. At least core.
6. Consider switching Avenger with FD and FT with FMT. The blade is fine if you like it.
I actually tried the FMT a long time ago while I didn't knew BG2 so well... and never tried him again. Don't know why...
As for companions... I've been thinking of keeping the avenger... but yes a multicast would be better...
this leaves F/C or F/D... both don't loose much against a pure Fighter nor a pure Druid of Cleric.
at 8mil Exp the differences are that the F/D has more lvl 7 spells but for a small party the F/C is clearly a better choice because of all the buffs and all the lower lvl spells are mostly better...
FMT (improved F/T)
FMC (improved F/C)
FM (dual or multi; 9th level spells)
The party composition was custom because I like those characters an started with:
1. Blade: fun PC, gotten changed to F/M/T, actually because of you... @FinneousPJ
The weapon choices go to @Gallowglass *** dual ** dagger - and I'll try to stick to them as long as possible in BG2, short-bow because of the variety of arrows, later long-swords (short swords just suck... no CF I know how good it is...) and then a hammer most likely for blunt dmg
2. Avenger: it's nice to have a caster who is not a OP mage, is getting changed most likely to Jaheira... Bonus points for my conscience for using a build in NPC Khalid will have a nasty accident and she will be mine... mu hahahaha,,,
Why Jaheira over custom F/C, I got to shoot myself in the knee to that the game will not become to easy...
I'll not change the beginning proficiency's just build on them...
she stars with ** Club * Quarterstaff * Sling
and would end with **Club, **Scimitar, *** dual-wield, * Quarterstaff , * Sling and the rest will be decidet later... 3* left...
3. F/T: you need a thief, well it turns out you don't, at least I don't need a thief because the PC is F/M/T
I just don't like having a big party... Don't like OP because its easy... And will definitely go BG2EE with SCS, the developers just have a little bit of time... maybe for a new version that will install without issues.
And there is another thing I never realized... (haven't done imports because I haven't played BG1 so much as BG2) Only the PC is imported!!! I could understand that Imoen because of the story (een that could be explained without dual classing her) but why not others... What is the point of sticking to any NPC when they don't keep actually anything... Well I shall change everything according to the imported save in the Keeper...
Taking Jaheira instead of your original Avenger is a reasonable idea (and even means that you could add flavour by playing through her romance story). However, if both of your other characters are going to be dual-wielding (and I agree that 2WS makes sense for both of those), then I wouldn't build Jaheira for dual-wielding as well. Instead I'd build her for two-handing with Quarterstaves and Spears, and also a big shield for single-handing with Scimitars and Clubs ... so (without even needing to edit her with 'keeper at the start of BG2ee) I'd have her ending up with Slng * Dggr * Club ** Smtr ** Qstf ** Spr ** 2HS * SSS * (yes, I realise that the point in Sword & Shield Style is pretty worthless, but the start-BG2ee version of Jaheira has that pre-allocated - so you could 'keeper it to something more useful if you're so inclined).
As for Jeheira... she will most likely get changed with the keeper... the investment in playing with her should be respected at import and not like, once a long time ago a developer decided that you have to play Jaheira in a certain way... and every one says OK
By the way just yesterday, Khalid died of spider venom... while clearing a house for a poor old lady in Beregost... He did so to protect his love Jaheira... It could not be helped... please honor his sacrifice with a minute of silence...
Later I realized he could have given me a quest. What makes the lose of our bellowed friend even worse...
I just found out that I don't remember s**t from BG1... will have to check lvl requirements...