Who's the true tank?

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Hallways work just as well, any constricted area. The Beholder tunnels work perfectly, though I perfer to use summoned monsters and an invisible rouge (as a scout) to deal with beholders (if I'm not using my cheesy shield), the Illithid lairs work well also. As for Dragons, if the dragon starts chasing a mage, all the better, make sure the mage is hasted and have them run like hell, gives your fighter a breather from tanking. I love exploiting monsters who case mages

As for a lot of the demon fights, most of them have a narrowed corridor nearby which I can lure them down to if I don't have my don't just bum rush with by fighters protected from evil (curtesy of my Cavalier) or make old Korgan charge demons while enraged to absorb the gaze attacks and follow up with my other fighters. Pit fiends are relatively easy to trap and then bash with the flail of ages to make sure they don't go anywhere.

 

Actually it takes one hell of a thaco to hit through anything every time just because it's lower. Unless your taking the die roll out of it. A Thaco is just a base number for hitting. That is it. a person with a -1 thaco against a person with -11 ac still needs to roll at least a 10. Higher if they have things that modify the dice rolls to further negatives such as particular belts or the advantages of certain kinds of armor for example.

Against a sword that 10 that needs to be rolled suddenly becomes a 14 in full platemail. One thing that AD&D always took into account for is no matter the odds there has always been possible for that miraculous devestating blow. This is in the natural 20. It's enhanced by the fighting styles of Two handed weapon style and single weapon style. Increasing that margin. Has anybody ever bothered to even check if some of the biggest baddy's are even taking advantage of this little bonus the characters get? I wouldn't be surprised if some of the nastiest are.

You talk about stone skin being so great but most of the tank capable types at high level will rip through stone/iron skin in a round or so. That's the beauty of whirlwind. Even without it many can do away with it in a matter of two the way many here profess that dual wielding is everything.

Turning everything into a critical hit is nice too. Those can be some powerful blows.

And on top of that they can't just be stripped of their protections in one or two quick spells. We're just lucky that most scripts don't even try to take advantage of that fact and do to us what we do to enemy mages time and again that your swearing is such power at tanking.

If it was such a power at Tanking why would we solve most of them so easily? Why aren't many of the enemies that try such tricks harder than they are if this is the ultimate tanking technique? it doesn't stand up. It's not a true tank. It's playing at it until their spells fail them.

When I get really bored and am not feeling too particularly devestated by an enemies spells do you know what I do to these types? I take my tanks I throw them into battle and I wait for their wonderful spell protections to end or be worn away. Just mercilessly smacking the crap out of them with nothing more than weapons until the enemy mage is dead.

That is of course after I wipe out their nice little friends first just to make them feel like they are accomplishing something with their defenses first.

 

Indeed I do. Playing an F/M/T solo will do that.

I believe Prine was talking about a THAC0 equal to or lower than your AC, as in -11 THAC0 vs. -11 AC or something like that. In that case you'd be hit 95% of the time (with critical misses still applying), but such a situation should not be happening unless you screwed up either by making it more difficult than it should be (core, people! ) or neglecting your tank.

EDIT:
For example, most dragons have THAC0s under -10 thanks to having 25 STR. Abazigal takes the prize so far with an adjusted THAC0 (STR, Gram the Sword of Grief, and proficiency) of -22.

EDIT2:
Even Demogorgon has an adjusted THAC0 of only -21, Abazigal's dragon form's THAC0 is higher (-15), and even Melissan is -17. And if you're not going to prepare for these battles, what will you prepare for?

The last one I checked (bed time) was GORDEMC1, a nameless "Balor" that I don't think I've seen anywhere in the game, because I'd remember getting ripped to pieces by this monstrosity. It's THAC0 is about 15 points lower than a normal Balor, leaving it with -25 adjusted THAC0. Given the prefix (GOR), it'd have to be somewhere in Watcher's Keep.

On another note, I haven't seen anything lower than a -12 AC. I'll look through the other half of the CRE files if I have time tomorrow.

EDIT3:
On a whim, I checked the scripts of the Balor and it's a cutscene creature in AR3017, the main area on level four (w/ Lum's machine). I suspect it's the one that Carston summons to chase away the other summoned creatures when you first get there. Therefore, as a creature you cannot fight, it is out of contention.

[ March 11, 2006, 07:21: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

starwalker - THAC0 = To Hit, Armour Class Zero.

If you have a THAC0 of 10, and you're fighting an enemy with AC 0, you need to roll a 10 to hit. If your THAC0 is 0, you will hit them every time except on critical misses. The toughest enemies have such a low THAC0 that it's impossible for your PCs to have a low enough AC to tank; the enemy will hit you nineteen times out of twenty.

Hey, guess what. If you're fighting an enemy with more than five attacks per round, or critical strike, or both, then they're going to tear through your fighters like Kleenex. But no amount of impotent smacking away will remove PFMW, and Immunity: Abj. will stop other casters from stripping away your defenses.

You say this as if enemies who don't use defensive spells are harder!

 

If we're talking about tanking, I'd just like to mention my Barbarian, who has a natural damage resistance of 45% (including David Gaider's Bhaalpowers). Add to that the flail with the extra 20% damage resistance and a Hardiness et voila, 105% damage resistance. That's right, he actually gets healed when he gets hit. Plus his 95% resistance to fire and cold he's by far the best (or easiest) tank I've got.

Sure, magic users can be played as a tank as well, but I'm not overly given to resting just to restore my spellbook, plus I'm not too fond of micro-management and sending in a couple of fighters is just far less of a hassle than managing a couple of mages.

The AC story is basically a moot point in ToB, because everybody and their grandmother can hit you just fine, even if you have -25 AC.

 

ummm yeah. Right. Let's just go with that. Let's ignore oh say Ruby Ray and pretend your way is massively infallable and all warriors die in 10 hits or less and your invincible. Good enough for me.

As if it makes them any easier either. Your picking a fight over it. I however. Quit.

 

No skin off my shaft.

 

Well I can never trust AC in my heavily modded game, so pure fighters are just weaklings, they can not tank, and die easily on insane. Whilst those capable of casting mage or druid spells(iron skin) survive for rounds! YAY!

But ofcourse, that is just me. And my unique BG2 game...

 

And no one says a word about their tank mages when they've hit the dead magic zones in watchers keep? Give me a fighter with thick plate mail and a big sword any day of the week and twice on sunday!

 

^Come on, dead magic zones are so very rare. A high level mage will cripple a warrior even before he is able to act, via Time Stop, Improved Alacrity, and poor fighter is all yours to feast on!

 

Hmmm... I wonder why Big Jon didn't get a SINGLE spell off in spellhold against my Paladin. I even managed to save a couple of the inmates (sadly, Tiax was not one of them).

 

Isn't it a bit unfair to give them items that vary som much in power. i mean, the Gorgon Plate +4 is , if I remember correctly, much better then the armor you gave Minsc. As some other people said: to make the fight fair, you either have to unarm them and let them fight with no items at all, or you must give them the same items with Shadowkeeper. I suppose you could also give them the items that you think is best for them.

 

Actually. no. none of the items she gave are too remarkably better than any other to really constitute them as a great advantage.

 

@T2bruno

Come on, a level 40 sorcerer with right equipment will swipe the floors with JonBon's sorry a** too! What were you expecting from a little boss-fight anyway?

 

Level 40 ANYTHING should wipe the floors with EVERY boss. My paladin was level 12 (and a level 12 sorcerer would get his butt handed to him by a level 12 fighter).

I was messing around and looked at this issue where the different fighters would fight a equivalent level fighter. I used 550,000 XP for the NPC's and gave them equipment they should have early in the game, based on their individual strengths and proficiencies with no stat improving items (basically, they would need to get equipment from one or two of the easier quests -- nothing from Kangaxx, rogue stone, or a dragon). I also allowed them to cast one spell or use one special ability.

This was entirely statistically based and I simply wanted to know who could do the most damage before they were killed. I tried to roleplay as much as possible with choosing items. Most had the following armor -- Full Plate +1, Cloak of the Sewers, Helm of Balduran, Ring of Earth Control. Keldorn and Valygar kept their own armor. Those using shield used the Tower Shield +3, except Anomen who used his own shield. Only Valygar used two weapons (no shield). Keldorn and Minsc used two-handed swords (also no shield).

Anomen: Flail of Ages (without counting the slow ability), 181 damage before dying.
Jaheira: Belm, 148 damage before dying.
Keldorn: Hallowed Redeemer, 80 damage before dying.
Korgan: Frostreaver, 423 damage before dying.
Mazzy: Kundane, 271 damage before dying.
Minsc: Lilarcor, 186 damage before dying.
Valygar: Corthala Family Blade and Katana+1 dual, 165 damage before dying.

The opponent was a 10th level fighter with 18/50 strength and ***** in longswords. He/she had an AC of -3 and used a +3 longsword (and infinite hp's).

End of game get significantly more complex.