Over Powered (Friendly Discussion)
Necroscope86
Member Posts: 79
Evening Folks.
Having never really taken a Cava fully from BG1 through TOB; I'm now early/mid SoA and my Cavalier is literally ripping enemies apart. With a few buffs, hes eating Liches for breakfast. Granted hes now got the equivalent of a slightly weaker Carsomyr (In Halberd form, thanks to @Tresset
Thanks dude!) after I cheesed SCS Imp Firkraag with Skull Traps, but still. I never knew how strong a well equipped Paladin could be.
I've always been tempted some day to try Kensai/Mage, or Kensai/Thief - but I'm scared, I've never Dual Classed, I've always been a Multi-Class boy
Anyway, as title - What are some of your powerful class & equipment combos? (Not looking to upset anyone by saying Combo A is better than Combo B - I'm really enjoying actually being on a BG Forum, I could discuss BG tactics for days!)
Having never really taken a Cava fully from BG1 through TOB; I'm now early/mid SoA and my Cavalier is literally ripping enemies apart. With a few buffs, hes eating Liches for breakfast. Granted hes now got the equivalent of a slightly weaker Carsomyr (In Halberd form, thanks to @Tresset
Thanks dude!) after I cheesed SCS Imp Firkraag with Skull Traps, but still. I never knew how strong a well equipped Paladin could be. I've always been tempted some day to try Kensai/Mage, or Kensai/Thief - but I'm scared, I've never Dual Classed, I've always been a Multi-Class boy
Anyway, as title - What are some of your powerful class & equipment combos? (Not looking to upset anyone by saying Combo A is better than Combo B - I'm really enjoying actually being on a BG Forum, I could discuss BG tactics for days!)
2
Comments
Pureclass / Dual-class arcane casters are the most OP characters in SoA/ToB. Sorcerers, F>M duals, or my personal favorite, the Swash(10)>Mage dual for your basic thieving needs.
Dwarven Defenders are kind of ridiculous. 70% on-demand damage resistance just for showing up, (90% with DoE), Shorty Saves, (basically +5 to Death, Wand, and Spell, plus an additional +2 to everything with Defensive Stance up), +27 HP (18 from the class, 9 from the dwarven constitution bonus), and their "drawback" is they lose out on 1/2 APR for forfeiting grandmastery. Boo freaking hoo.
If one could easily multiclass kits, (yes I know there's a mod), a Wizard Slayer / Swashbuckler multi would be the craziest cheese ever. Massive damage, THACO, APR, and fighter HLAs for physical battles, on-demand disruption and easy magic immunity for magic battles, plus Time Stop and Spike Traps for why the hell not. All with literally no drawbacks past 3m XP.
Swash/Mage sounds interesting, except then I wouldn't have much reason for keeping a thief NPC like Jan, or Imoen, or that EE chick, or one of the custom ones.
I was never a fan of dual classes myself, much preferring multis, but they can be incredibly powerful, trading mid game usefullness for late game win buttons. The most overpowered build I ever did was probably my EEKeepered half orc Kensai/mage multiclass. Good times.
I would also say a single class wild mage is *extremely* powerful late game and even earlier game if you play your cards right due to your ability to memorize any spell you want in a first level slot and have a *reasonable* chance of it not ending in disaster - and when it does you get a good laugh.
I still went through the entire game and never saw a flaming cow
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Whenever threads like this come up I'm taken back to Heat.net when the game first came out - I remember there were *so* many advocates stating that the very best class in the game (and mind you all multi's or duals were bad) was Ranger (granted ranged weapons rock in BG). If you said anything else you would get shouted down for being a dummy. It's funny how thinking has changed about the game - since ranger now (and pretty much only 1-2 years after release) is regarded as a middling to low powered option.
(They all involve playing all or most of BG1 as the "wrong" class. On the other hand, one could easily do something really basic like a Fighter(3) dual and have it unlocked before you're done clearing out the basilisk garden in BG1, forfeiting the extra class APR but gaining access to the fighter's improved equipment selection and proficiency tables. Or if you're willing to grind a bit more in BG1, something like a Fighter(7)>Druid dual is achievable by TotSC XP cap.)
The Swash(10) dual, for instance, "wastes" 160k XP in your thief class, and in return gets you +3 AC, +2 THACO/damage, thief equipment options (if you're dualing to mage), and 265 thief points to spend. Swash/Mage is totally unlocked by 535k XP, which is still pretty early in chapter 2, (fresh out of Chateau Irenicus, actually, if you stole a bunch of scrolls before you dualed and scribed them all immediately after).
Even something like a Priest of Lathander (11) > Mage, which is a mid-level dual, requires 1.42m XP to unlock and will therefore probably be fully realized before you're sailing for Spellhold, unless you're rushing.
But yeah, waiting to level 13 before dualing your fighter is going to result in really long downtimes and a pretty mediocre mid-game experience.
FMT is probably the easiest option, even if you do every side quest you should only just reach the level 50 cap by the very end of ToB. I had a lotta fun with a 36 Wizard Slayer dualled to Thief, took forever to unlock 1st class, but by the time i did i was basically running 120%+ Magic resistance whilst greater whirlwinding with +6 Carsomyr and had the option to use scrolls for additional potency, not that it was really needed, pretty much invincible.
Tried a FMC and had great fun, lower resistance and harm is a truly OP combination haha.
As for gear then anything Wizardy definitely needs robe of Vecna, amulet of power also well worth it, you really can't beat that cast time reduction, beyond useful, so easy to get spells disrupted w/o it. Also highly recommend using the Shadow Thieves Merchant to sell and buy-back (or steal) a variety of wands, so you get them with either 50 or 100 charges depending on type, means you can go nuts with cloudkill, Fear, Sleep, Paralysis and fireball/Scorcher without needing to memorize spells to do any of that, as long as you leave 1 charge left you can just recharge by selling and re-buying/stealing.
Daystar is probably the most obscene weapon for the early game, you can get it immediately after leaving Irenicus' Dungeon, just need a Thief to pick the lock, grab it and leave, the Lich will waste time pre-buffing and you can just return later since he won't leave his broom cupboard.
Celestial Fury is ludicrous if you can get it, but it's a really tough fight, very few enemies are immune to stun and if you put it on a high APR fighter it can trivialize many encounters.
But by far my favourite weapon is the Staff of the Magi, unless you are fighting one of the few enemies that sees through invisibility or someone casts true sight you can literally mow through entire encounters doing cheesy hit once (dispelling magic at the same time) then going invisible, repeating until everything is dead. It even strikes as a +5 weapon and gives +2 AC when equipped, although the damage is not that amazing. Again like Celestial Fury it is a hard encounter to get it, but with some careful positioning and preparation it's far from impossible at mid-levels.
Even Berserker on his own is pretty ridiculous. The largest threat to a Fighter are disabling spells and effects(damage can just be tanked) and Enrage makes you immune to almost all of them at the press of a button. Especially important for the main character, when Charm or Maze simply ends the game. The actual fighting bonuses are kind of secondary to this.
Combine it with a Cleric since they can cast in heavy armor and cover whatever Enrage doesn't with spells. Blunt weapon limitation? Bludgeoning damage is best in the games in general, and warhammers are great both in BG and BG2/ToB. +4/5/6 Wisdom you normally don't know what to do with becomes a fantastic bonus for a Cleric because it gives you extra spell slots. And even if you do run out of spells, well... you are still at least a level 13 Berserker in full plate.
Assassin/clerics are rather awesome with the Harm/Poison Weapon combo that allows them to instakill anything. And much like blackguards they were dope with Energy Blade/ Poison weapon before poison weapon was nerfed.
But really, the most feel-good character I've ever played was the Berserker/Mage. Really it was all about using Protection from Abjuration, Protection from Energy (or whatever the level 8 spell that protects you from everything except physical damage by 75%) Stoneskin Mirror image and Rage and renewing the last three when needed. The rest is pure right click the right enemy and you win. I like that dual even more than Kensai/mage because Kensai/Mage could fall for a timely dispel/Pierce-magic etc...+some control against multiple enemy casters. The berserker had his rage
There are mods that change imprisonment to a permanent maze effect, which avoids this issue and also some other (imprisonment kicks victims out of the party, which can cause issue with romances or characters with permanent invisibility).