I'm back... and meaner than ever

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Hey, everyone, it's been a while since I posted here. Sorry to say D2:LoD and Max Payne have kept me away as well as RealLife(tm). But this weekend I downloaded the TOB patch and decided to roll up a new game and think I've gone to the dark side.

Starting in Muliplayer, I made the main character, Bowie, a Chaotic Neutral swashbuckler currently dualing to cleric after reaching level 10. Then a Lawful Evil Monk, Ruby Rayne, and a Chaotic Neutral Jester named DaFoo. Currently Korgan and Viccy are in my group, as well as Yoshi but I plan to dump him for Edwin once I get that option. So far it's been fun to try some of the dialog paths that my good-two-shoes first character didn't pick. And the Jester been surprisingly helpful so far. His confusion song combined with my cleric's low level turn undead skill made looking in the tomb for Korgan's book actually do-able for my low level party.

Anyway, before dualing my swashbuckler to cleric I had pumped his find traps and open locks skills to about 140% each. I'm thinking this should get me through to the end of TOB, but since I didn't play too far past chap.7 with my first party, I don't know for sure. Any opinions on this?

 

DaFoo, I like it! Yeah shoot you can complete the game no problem without a thief so having 140 in those skills is convienent but not neccessary. And there are always ways to boost thief skills (i.e. potions, Mercykiller Ring, etc.)

[This message has been edited by Big B (edited August 21, 2001).]

 

Yeah, DaFoo was definetly Mr T inspired, as in "I pity..."

Just hit a minor snag in my game though. I finished the Shadow Thieves quests, up to the point where I should get the stronghold, but Renal Bloodscalp doesn't offer it to me. I reloaded, dug out my cheats and gave my DC swash/cleric enough XP to finish the dual-class process then when I talked to him, he gave me the offer. So it looks like if your first class isn't active, you won't get the stronghold.

That means I need to reload and find 320,000 more XP before I can talk to Renal. Darn, I gotta find me some dragons to kill...

 

Indeed you should... And you really should start with the Shadow Dragon, from his skin you can forge the best possible armor for a Swashbuckler/Cleric in the game!

 

I do not entirely agree with you, Headbanger.

For a Neutral S/C, Shadow Armor sure is the best, but for an Evil one nothing beats Human Flesh Armor.

I tried it once and gave it to Viconia in one of my SoA+ToB games - it rocked.

[NO ToB SPOILERS ALLOWED!!!] -Tal

[This message has been edited by Taluntain (edited August 21, 2001).]

 

Please!Don´t talk about people from ToB.. I haven´t been able to buy it yet
(moneyproblems)

 

Meaner? Sure.

/me starts cutting beholders eyes one by one: "Who is meaner now?"

 

hi bowie,

what is the logic of getting a swashbukler dualed cleric?

 

Sometimes logic goes out the window and roleplaying comes in the door.

 

Extremist, don't worry I'll never say I'm meaner than you.

fuoco, the logic is you get some thief skills, AC bonus, thac0 bonus and up to 3 points in dual-wielding for having the swashbuckler class. Then you get ablity to wear whatever armor and helmets from the cleric and the spells of course.

Drawbacks are any armor over studded leather or elven mail will disable the thief skills. And while the swashb. can put up to two points in any thief weapon, the DC SB/Cleric can only use cleric weapons so the only weapons that overlap (i.e. you can put two points in) are club, quarterstaff and sling. You can only put one point in any other cleric weapon.

The plan, once I've completed the Dual-class is to dual-wield two clubs or one club and the Flail of the ages until I get the Crom, then most likely I'll use the Crom and FotA. Also, I only pumped up Open Locks and Find Traps with this character. The monk has Hide In Shadows covered for scouting and the Jester has Pickpocket so all main thief skills are covered.

 

There is no point in dual classing in BG1 or Bg2. Until now you were a thief...now you change your mind and figure out that you definetly want to be a mage instead. So in 5 minutes you forget temporarily all you have learned before and become a mage with prepaired spells and spellcasting abilities. Now c'mon! this is most unreal from even a fantasy game!!!

 

TIN_MAN, I think the point of disabling former abilities actually works quite well, if one digs beneath the surface of the reasoning for dual-classing. In essence, a character doesn't start out intending to dual-class -- you do. Your character has engrossed herself in one field of study, ignoring those of other fields, usually under a mentor, only to discover that isn't the path for her -- thus, the change. She will then completely engross herself in her new field of study, shunning that which she views as having misguided her before. It is only when she's achieved a level of mastery in her new field that she can face her past, and accept it as part of her tapestry of being, having full confidence that she has compensated for 'wasting her life' in her former profession by achieving even more in her new profession. Until then, it's not that she CAN'T pick that lock . . . it's that she WON'T. That hard to swallow . . . ?

 

You are misunderstanding me Gibben.

With my previous post I ment that studying a completely new art of magic or other skills take time; and a very-very long time. The mageling must study for years before he/she can understand the nature of the arcane magic, so that he/she can manipulate the magical energies into the learned shapes.
But in the BG series it is just a second to learn the ABILITY TO CAST SPELLS, which require many years of study to use properly.

That is the big nonsense in the game I was protesting against.

[This message has been edited by TIN_MAN (edited August 22, 2001).]

 

Sorry, my bad . . . and, I agree.

 

It's not well implemented in CRPG's but I think the original dual classing was allowed but the DM made a choise whether to allow you to change over immediatly, usually involving having a member of the party be that other class thus you learned the skills from your friend in the party.
Either that or your character would have to go learn other skills as you supposedly learned the first set.

I'm not anywhere near a D&D expert so anyone who knows better just say the reason

And shouldn't this be a separate topic
this hardly has anything to do with
"I'm back and meaner than ever"

[This message has been edited by Heironeous (edited August 23, 2001).]

 

Good News Bowie, you do not loose all of your theiving skills when wearing armor greater then studded leather. I also dual classed a swashbucker/cleric and she is detecting traps just fine with field plate and a large shield (I don't know how realistic this is but it works). She cannot disarm traps or use stealth unless she changes armor but IMO the detect traps is the most important. She is great out front because of her awsome AC and she has the hps and the THAC0 to stand up to most fights until the rest of the party arrives. The rest of the theif NPCs in the game (with the exception of Yoshimo)are dual classed mages which really limits their usefulness.

A quick note, once you get your theiving skills, your disarm trap ability is under the special skills star (I spent many frustrating gaming sessions until I discovered this)