Is a Beast Master worth it?

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It seems he gets his summoning spells awfully late and they aren't very effective at those levels:

level 8 = MS1
level 10 = MS2
level 12 = MS 3

or am I misjudging the spells effectiveness?

Anyone ever try this character?

 

Yes. They suck in ToB. Their summons are useless in the late game. But if you are only playing through SoA, they are worth trying. I used him as an Archer/Reach warrior, fighting from behind his summons. I solo'd him.

At character creation I put ** LB, ** Spear, ** Halberd. Added Warhamer next and * more in 2WF Style. But my game is heavily modded with tons of extra content, including extra equipment that is not in the vanilla game.

 

They're decent. Underwhelming compared to other ranger kits, but you still end up getting HLAs like Greater Whirlwind. Blades is right about the summon animal spells. What's worse is that they don't even get these summon animal spells at the levels you start BG2 with.

In BG1 they have a massive advantage over other warrior-types thanks to their innate Summon Familiar spell, and in early BG2 they do have a tiny edge if you pick Chaotic Good and get the Faerie Dragon (it can cast an aoe Invisibility spell).

 

How do people solo? I have a hard enough time with a hole party. Lol.

 

Main advantage to solo is you level up much* faster. Also, a lot of folks have played this so many times, it's the best way to challenge themselves.

 

Instead of soloing, I usually exit Chateau Irenicus by myself (beating the crap out of imoen to get her to leave if i have to), do a couple quest solo, and proceed to get a party at a much higher level than I normally would be.

 

Solo is somewhat of a challenge at first but if you choose the quests carefully you'll level up quickly without much difficulty. Solo basically takes advantage of a flaw in the game in that the PC becomes exponentially more powerful with increasing level even though levels are gained linearly -- this is especially true with spell casters. A 20th level character will easily smoke 2 10th level characters (perhaps even 10 10th level characters). HLA's and specialty weapons make things even more unbalanced. In SoA the character just becomes too powerful for even Firkraag to challenge -- the extremely powerful enemies in ToB up the difficulty for solo.

 

Yes, you level up fast soloing. You level up incredibly fast when you you solo a character that can cast Arcane Magic(Mage or Bard levels, not true for Sorcy) as you get tons of XP from memorizing Scrolls. You can really leve up fast as a Bard when soloing. It's defnitely my favorite solo class. Pure Druid is a close 2nd. Archer with Improved Invisiblity is pretty awesome as well.

 

If your doing it just to level why don't you just make a ToB character, export it & use it for SoA?

 

The goal is not to level quickly, that is just what makes it easier than it perhaps should be.

For me, I like to solo because it's less micro-management. It's also a good way to focus on a specific class and learn all it's intricacies. For instance, I normally don't use spellcasters a lot, mostly they sit on the back row and throw rocks or whatever and occasionally break out the big spells for the somewhat more difficult fights.

So a solo is a good way to force myself to use a spellcaster more. Or to learn how to handle the tougher fights with warrior classes.

It's a challenge mode where some things are easier, and some things are more difficult. Fighting Sarevok in BG1 with a solo fighter-assassin was the easiest fight with Sarevok I ever had. Just needed 3-4 potions of invisibility.

 

I hardly use spells either. I always tell myself "No hold them for the big fights" and then still never use them. Also keep telling myself to use potions (non-healing ones) and scrolls but never do. Lol.
About the only time I do use spells is when I prep for a fight. I'll get all my buffs up and then get to the fight.

 

I have used up to 5 arcane spellcasters in a party. PC Fighter/Mage, Immy, HD, Aerie and Nalia. Add any warrior to the mix and you are an ass-kicking team-machine. 5 Skull Traps, 5 Fireballs or 5 Cloudkills in SoA is some pretty hefty damage. Or try using in combo to start a battle - Grease, Entangle, Stinking Cloud, Web, Cloudkill/DeathFog and pretty much stand back and lob in more Fireballs, Lances of Disruption,etc.. and the fun really begins. Held/Stunned/Sleeping opponents are also nice targets for mutilple Lightning Bolts.....SIZZLE!.....Sunfire is pretty good too, especially for a solo PC when mobbed.

Magic is awesome. Purposely try using magic more often during battle. The game has decent graphics so the special effects can be nice to watch.

 

Sounds interesting. If you had Keldorn and his "kill mages" button as your only warrior, I imagine throwing 5 fireballs into a crowd of unprotected mages and clerics would be quite entertaining

 

Eggzachary...