Chronic Restarter Needs some help

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Please forgive me, I feel like I'm constantly restarting and should go to Restarter Rehab. I was playing around with a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist because gnomes are my favorite Race is the Dnd world. However, as I'm playing through Tutu i keep getting the feeling that the game is intended to be played with a human, or a half-elf at minimum. SO I decided to restart yet again. This time I'm inspired by the alternative portrait for Faldorn in the LostItems mod. The portrait features a human woman wearing a hood and leather armor. The portrait screams Thief, but it could also be any leather armor wearing class or even a mage. I've come up with a few possible choices for my new PC.

Human Wizard Slayer -->Thief, I've been wanting to try out the combination for awhile now. If I don't play choose it here, I'll probably make Valygar into one to test out the combination once I get to SOA.

Half-Elf Fighter/Thief, Always powerful, I'm willing to stretch this to an Elf for powergaming or even adding a Kit to one side for fun and/or powergaming.

Human Thief-->Mage, another powerful choice, but I don't which Thief Kit to choose just yet.

Half-Elf Thief/Mage same as above, but multiclassed.

Other choices that I can see playing are Thief-->Cleric, Straight Thief (kit), Druid of some kind (the pic is from Faldorn after all). I'm trying to decide, but I just can't.

I have a few other questions.

2) Is there a class, or multiclass that benifits the most from the Tomes of BG1. I was thinking a divine caster because the Wisdom tomes actually add to your bonus spells.
19 INT (20 for gnomes) does little good that a 18 INT can't without an occasional Potion of Genius and maybe a reload or two.
19 Con is nice for warriors and 20 Con is a nifty novelty for Dwarven fighters.
19 Dex is only good archers and thieves, but its nothing game breaking and 20 Dex for Elves and Halflings is again only good for archers and thieves.
19 Cha is good for all leaders for prices, but again not game breaking
19 Strength is really nice for the time before you can use the strength belts and having a PC with 19 allows someone else to use the first belt you find/buy.
21 Wis actually provides a benefit that can't be found elsewhere making the cleric or druid unequaled by any other.

With that conclusion I'd have to say the class that gets the most benefit would be some kind of divine caster combined with a warrior class. So a Fighter/Cleric, Fighter/Druid, or Ranger/Cleric. A Cleric/Thief would probably get the most out of them too, being able to take advantage of 4 of the 6 super stats.

3) I'm trying to figure out my party right now for tutu. All I know is I want to keep Imoen around, I want Viconia, and I want as many short races as possible. I'm thinking Monty and Quayle except I'm going to change Quayle to a Wild Mage because I think it fits his personality the best. I'm trying to figure out what Imoen and Viconia should be. I was thinking Imoen would be a good rebalanced Jester, but there's always the option of swashbuckler-->mage or sorcerer as IA has it. Viconia works as a Cleric/Mage, Cleric, Cleric/thief, or even a sorcerer.

Anybody able to help me. I'm playing Tutu with SCS and about every mod out there except for Hard Times.

 

Hi there,

I'm guilty of chronic restarting too. Believe me, no matter how much help you get from these forums, the desision should ultimately be yours. If you don't have fun with the game, you'll just quit again.

About your class choices. I seems like you're looking at it from a pretty powergamey point of view, nothing wrong with that ofcourse. But it will effect your character choice as well.

Don't take a wizard slayer, not in its current form, it's just plain bad...

I like the thief-mage, thief-cleric or druid combos myself. Keep in mind that if you multi the thief, you will probably only use it for traps and locks, something you can have Imoen do as well.

My current run through Tutu has me playing a swashbuckler (of the Rogue Rebalancing variant), its been great fun so far. I've never played a pure thief before and I'm getting a chance to use skills I've never thought of before, such as detect illusions and set traps. I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

Partywise: take Tiax! Tiax rules!

Hope I helped you out a bit.

 

Very true, trust your gut feeling about which type of gameplay you want to play. Otherwise you'll restart again.

Urr.. No? Have you ever played a Wizard Slayer more than just Act 2? One of the most powerful classes in the game. Wizards of all sorts are the most powerful characters in SoA asccording to me and many others. Mage fights are the toughest in the game. In ToB, fighters takes over IMO. So let's see - high MR, 10% comulative spell failure/hit. Succeed with five hits and he'll fail half his spells (etc.). Anyone who thinks that the WS is bad, play through the whole game with him/her.

Multi-classed with thief though, the WS gets too powerful due to Use-Any-Item -> magic gear.

 

Ranger/Cleric takes advantage of nearly all the tomes. It's a fun character to play. But you have to like playing good alignments.

 

I agree a multiclass, or to keep it legal, a dual class is very overpowered. But I personally think the class' drawbacks outweigh the advantages.

Sure, the magic resistance is nice, but if you play a different kit you can still get that from other sources (like cloaks) and have the advantages of a completely different kit.

Spell failure/hit? By the time my fighters break through a wizards defenses he's as good as dead already.

I really try to like the Wizard Slayer, 'cause it sounds like a great class, but personally I'm not convinced. Granted, I haven't played a full game with one yet, so maybe I should just shut up and try it .

 

You should try picking ***** in darts + whirlwind. Now that's some serious anti-maging Did it once for fun, and fun it was .

Dualed to a thief, the WS is superior to just about any class, mayby not the diffrent F/M versions, Kensai beeing my favourite.

Time Trap -> alot of Spell Failure, job done. Doesn't even get his prots. up. But that's powergaming to the max.

Play it right though, and any class is powerful.

Oh, and I didn't mean to "attack" you, it just hurts my heart when ppl talk down on the WS.

 

Sorry for asking this in your thread Thalyr, but since the WS dualed to thief is mentioned here already. If you start as a WS what would be a right level to dual to a thief then, and what would the stats have to be to dual a WS to a thief?

 

No offense taken. As I said, I like the concept of the Wizard Slayer, but in my opinion, its a poorly designed class. I'm still thinking of creating one. Or even better, learning how to mod and create an NPC. I've wanted to do that for quite some time now and I've got a good character concept for a Wizard Slayer, but I digress.

From Thalyr's post, I gathered he was looking for a bit of optimization, which is why I didn't recommend the WZ.

Last comment though, I thought the WZ's spell failure only worked with melee weapons?

Str 15 and Dex 17. From what I've gathered, the best times to dual a fighter is at levels 9 and 13. 13 giving an extra 1/2 attack.

 

Thanks Boy at a busstop.

 

Hi, my name is Rastamage and I am a chronic re-roller. Anyway, my current favorite is elven Wild Mage. Fun and power wrapped up in a tasty enchillada!. If you are going to play it, though, take a look at JOG's mod for Wild Mages.

 

You're fine, Amdis. The more info sharing the better.

Whenever I play any kind of RPG whether its p&p or a video game, I always seem to choose a roleplaying concept for my character, but then power game that concept as far as I can while staying in that concept. Ultimately I'm looking for a fun character to play both in conception and application. I've been intrigued by the Wizard Slayer for a long time. I rarely use any of the expendable magic items in the first place (except for healing potions) so the lack of those is not a big deal for me. But I don't really know if I want to play a Wizard Slayer as my PC. The biggest reason I listed a Wizard Slayer was because its the only Fighter kit that can use ranged weapons and conceptionally I want my PC if she's a fighter to use Xbows solely because no one seems to be able to and I like Xbows much more than Bows. I'm thinking I might turn Kagain into a WS in Tutu and Valygar into one in SOA.

In the unmodded game, yes but through some mod or another WS in my game use their spell failure for ranged attacks too. Also through another mod, the WS starts with 8% Magic Resistance and continues with 4% each level after that.

On the general discussion whether a WS dualed to thief is overpowered, I'd have to say its no more overpowered than any other Thief dual using UAI. Its arguable which is actually more powerful. A Kensai armed with a Time Trap or a Time Stop is going to be able to kill that enemy mage prior to the mage's protections just as fast if not faster. I just don't see how its anymore overpowered than anything else.

I like Wild Mages, but I don't see this PC as being one. Possibly a NPC would be a likely candidate to be the Party Wild Mage.

Right now I'm considering a divine caster because 21 Wisdom just looks sooo good right now. So at the moment that puts my options of Leather armor wearing divine casters at Straight Druid(with or without a kit), Fighter/Druid dual or multi, Cleric/Thief, and Cleric/Ranger. A Fighter/Cleric is also possible, but why would she be wearing Leather?
I haven't thrown out all the other options either and I'm probably 2-4 days away from even attempting to re-roll this character and playing through Candlekeep for the 30+ time since January.

 

That is some pretty insane MR! Does the mod introduce further disadvantages, or is it a straight buff?

 

Agreed, just about any class dualed to a thief with ToB installed will be immensly powerful, and that includes the WS hence my comment on the subject. K/M is my favourite class to solo since it really makes you feel like a god. However, it is pure powergaming and it's of course one's choice. It's nothing I'll play for the traditional "I love BG2 and want to play it once again", it's something else; a scenario if you will.

The K/M - K/T and WS/T - WS/T can both take down enemies fast - the Kensai chops them up, and WS takes away their spellcasting abilites which for a mage is obviously a death sentance. Both ways are somewhat overpowered IMO, and I personally think the Kensai is the superior officer.

It's not something I would recommend your average joe to play, it's simply too powerful. However, a pure WS is alot of fun and not "simply bad" as posted earlier.

R/C is also a very, very powerful class. You get the Ranger melee abilites as well as all the spells from both the druid and cleric pool. F/C, C/T or F/D are powerful and versatile classes - whether dual or multi - compared to going single class. C/T is too unorthodox for me though - a thief should be wielding a bow or dagger/short sword. The rogue Cleric doesn't work for me unless he's evil and then I'd pick another class.

I recommend the R/C if you haven't played one yet!

 

That's only 4% more than what they'd have vanilla. I installed without really looking at it until after so I forget which mod its from. I think the mod creator thought the current disadvantage was too much of one for the unmodded class.

@spetznaz I thought about the Ranger/Cleric, but I really want to play neutral to evil. I did my last run through (even if that was years ago) straight good and roleplayingwise I don't want to be good.

 

If you want to go evil as well as a divine caster, I'd say the F/C or possibly C/T. Could go vanilla Cleric of Talos or C/Mage actually. Very versatile.

Druids must be Neutral so they're out. An evil based Druid would loose his powers when he/she drifts away from a neutral alignment. Now, that doesn't happen in BG2 but if you're the least bit of roleplayer, it just doesnt add up. I rule out Neutral since most neutral NPC's in BG2 are leaning towards the good side. Nothing wrong with that, but if you "don't want to play good", you should go evil IMO.

 

Thalyr, do you mod your games heavily? Because if not, that is, at least from me, usually a good way to make sure you get out of Irenicus dungeon before you get tired of the game. Combine that with a class that you've never played before and you might even make it to spellhold.

 

Aye, Dungeon-Be-Gone mod for president.

 

I'm starting with Tutu, but so far I've added about every compatible mod except for Hard Times, Grey Clan, and Sirine's call, but once I do get to SOA I plan on adding some kind of difficulty increasing mod and probably others, but those are decisions for another day.

The only time I finished BG was with a Fighter and the only time I finished SOA or even ever went to Spellhold was with a Paladin (i forget the kit). Both of those complete games were completely unmodded and years ago. Since then I've played Chapters 1-3 of each about what seems like 30-40 times.

My problem seems to be that there are so many options and I'm a perfectionist I want to compile every possible option into one game. I just need to find a character I really like and a party I equally like.

 

Well, if you are starting from BG I (tutu or no tutu), it's not going to be easy any way you try it, simply because BG I is so tedious that is impossible to play through it without concidering giving up. At least in my case it is. If you do get tired with playing in BG I, but you still feel like your character could be fun, I suggest modding BG II heavily, and then importing your BG I char into the game, and set an appropriate XP amount.

 

I've played with a solo Wizard Slayer on Insane, and managed to win Ascension. Yet, I'd say, that the WS is weak. Really weak. Maybe when dualled to a thief things improve a lot, but I'm not sure that this makes him one of the most powerful classes. I'll try to point out why:

The WS's spell failure on hit penalty requires the Wizard Slayer to actually HIT an opponent. Most mages run Protection from Magic Weapons + Protection from normal missiles, and all sorts of Mislead and other protective spells which somehow negate hitting them. Indeed, a hit through Stoneskin counts, and applies Spell failure 10%, but this Spell casting failure lasts only a couple of rounds. And still Contingencies, Spell Triggers and Spell sequencers can be fired even with 100% spell failure. Besides, mages are rarely alone, so if you focus on the mage at the start(and you are solo) then you cannot disengage from hitting him for more than 2 rounds, because his Spell Failure will fade.

With various buffs from ally casters, WizardSlayers become very powerful, but still, not so powerful in pure Damage and Attack per round scores as other Fighter kits, since they cannot use the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization.

A dualled WS->T is less powerful than a multi F/T, because he lacks the warrior HLAs, in exchange for a little innate MR and the spellcasting failure on hit. With Warrior HLAs, a multiclassed F/T can have Critical Backstabbing, as well as permanent physical resistances 85%(missile 90%) with the help of Hardiness. And frankly, a F/T of any kind rarely needs more than 6 or 7 Thief HLAs, while there is always room for another Critical Strike or Hardiness.

Besides, there are certain powerful spellcasters, which are unaffected by the Spellcasting failure on hit, and there are monsters which have spells as innate abilities. Dragons, Mellisan, Demogorgon all can cast spells even with 100% spell failure.

So in conclusion, the WS is an interesting, but not so powerful class, yet it is a nice challenge to play with a solo WS in order to increase game difficulty.