All clerical party?

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How much do you need for arcane magic with an all clerical party? Made up like this:

Anomen
Jaheira
Viconia
Cernd
Aerie
PC C/T

If I should have more arcane power, which of Viccy or Cernd should I drop? I'm siding with keeping Cernd.

Anomen
Jaheira
Viconia/Cernd
PC C/T
Aerie
PC gnome C/I

Opinions? Why yes, there was a power outage recently.

 

Why do you want to keep Cernd? Is he really useful or strong later on? Personaly, a Viccy buffed up to the max with right gear can beat Cernd any day, but...

Aerie can do the most needed arcane tricks like Breaches, Lover Resistances etc. She won't be able to manage True Dweomors for a quite time though.

It is always useful to have a second arcane caster for support though. One can never have enough Breaches. Hmm, a C/I PC will be much the same as Aeire. Why don'T you make it a F/M/C? A most ignored combo, it may be a nice change.

 

Spliting the XP amongst 6 people seems harsh for the triple class. Viccy is just too b***** the times I've taken her. I also have a difficult time keeping my rep down to play with evil NPCs. Cernd has the druid spells and can be more spellflingy than Jaheira, who will be tanking.

 

I like your first party kuemp because you only have Aerie as arcane it makes the game harder and consequently your tactics are going to have to be tighter and smarter.

I find triple classes only work in a small party or where everyone is multi-class.

Have fun though and I agree with Jaheira as tank and Cernd as a flinger you should be ok, if you go for party 2 I would keep Viccy althought she's a plain beach (sp) a slayer change every now and then handles rep, but I like her control undead ability.

 

I agree that Viccy is b****, but after you are in ToB, she evolves rapidly and you can redeem her porr soul. She is that bitchy thanks to hardships and fears she has endured. Once you romance her fully, she will reveal a new, naive and innocent Viccy.

It was one of the most memorable scenes that my PC noticed tears in her eyes, as she learned what does 'Love' mean for the first time. Try her!

You will use Cernd as a spell slinger? Then why don't you SK him into an Avenger? His kit's main priority is fighting shapechanged, so I doN'T think it makes sense if he never shapechanges and casts all day long, not that he can'T, he is more than cpaable thanks to his uber WIS, but it is just not suitable to the kit.

3 class PCs can gain in power even with 6 people. But ofcourse I have hoards of hard mods and my party basically swims through sea of experience, when they are not dead that it.

 

Who said I would romance anyone, least of all Viccy? From the guides I've read concerning romances, hers is the worst by far. Even evil, I wouldn't redeem her for the fact she would not be the 'woman I love' anymore. Another thing against her is I like chunkifying undead.

I don't SK NPC classes. What is the point of taking an NPC if you're only going to change their class? Make a PC through multiplay with better stats. I don't feel the Shapeshifter kit's main use is fighting. It's nice Cernd can change to a werewolf, but he seems too mellow. You know, you can tank Aerie if you like. It wouldn't be any more stupid than Viccy or Cernd.

 

Keep to your first idea. (I'm not sure I would call it a clerical party though, with the two druids in there as well. Perhaps all priest party or all divine party. I know, I'm nitpicking.) Having little arcane won't hurt much if you focus on spells to help your fighters like Breach and such.

I'm guessing that your C/T is going to be a half-orc, but just remember: Tiax rules all!

 

Ah-Ha! (I may have you here) Clerical would be correct as druids are merely a specialty class priests/clerics. Ah-Ha again!

It's either halforc or gnome. Depends on if I want no romance or just one. Just how sappy is Aerie for a romance? (Really, it's baby Quayle that's bothering me.)

 

Nope. Priests are a class group which includes all clerics, druids, and specialty priests; like warriors is a class group that includes fighters, paladins, and rangers. Druids are followers of nature, not necessarily a specific god/dess. Though druids started out as only an example of a specialty cleric (not all deities required no sharp weapons for their acolytes), druids quickly developed into a class of their own that did not require a deity. For RP purposes I suppose you could assign a neutral nature deity to Cernd (Eldath) and a good nature deity to Jaheira (Mielikki), but it's still a little artificial. Then again, so is the game's implementation. *shrug*

If you haven't done the Aerie romance yet, I'd suggest you do it at least once to find out whether it'll make you hate her more or maybe find out that she's not so bad. (I'll take the odds on the former, myself. ) I'm not terribly fond of Anomen (pr!ck), but I'm still going to do his romance when I get around to it.

 

Actually while They do revere nature many Druids do at least in part follow a Nature diety when they are provided. Dark Sun is the only one that truely breaks away from this totally and everything is indeed drawn from an outright connection with the land.

Though that might not be the way of things in third Edition.

Druids were put in the book to show a generic version of a specialty cleric in the sense of worshipping an Ideal or nature Mythos and unique abilities gained from it. Which is more than possible in 2nd Edition. Afterall. A generic cleric as is listed in the second edition guide book is another version of these granted powers by his beliefs in and ideal because one god or another picks up a slack and grants them to the person even though they don't worship that god directly but they really are not much more of a class of their own than many specialty priests following gods. in fact one could argue that they are more uniform in their characteristics than Specialty priests themselves are because Officially worshipping a god or not all Druids work in one organization and all are granted the same powers (Kit's excluded) and specialty priests belong to as many organizations as there are gods. So they are all Clerical in nature in that they are all priests of some kind whether generic or specialty and Divine is a wider group that does encompass certain warrior classes in their numbers as Paladin's are Divine warriors devoted to particular gods and Rangers have a divinity for nature with or without a god simular to the Druids.

So she would be right in calling her party a Clerical party even though Druids are included.


But to take care of one last thing before they come up. The Shadow Druids are rather a radical splinter group of returning things to the wild and feeling man has gone to far and needs put back in his place by force. But they are still part of the bigger organization even though they are attempting to change that. The Bigger Organization of Druids as a whole still deals with their wayward members in the ways necessary. As evidenced by Jaheira and Faldorn's argument in BG1. The actions of the Shadow Druids in BG1 towards any normal druids and the business of Cernd being in Trademeet and his stance against the Shadow Druids in the Druid Grove in BG2.


Edit: Concievably in a campaign you could actually assign in table top that all Druids in your world follow a particular God or Gods of nature and still have what they are granted for it laid out in detail for you. Precident for this is given in the following quote from the second edition players handbook:

"The Druid is an example of a priest designed for a specific mythos. His powers and beliefs are different from a cleric. The druid is a priest of nature and guardian of the wilderness, be it forest, plains, or jungle."

They do not have to follow the historical real world example and worship the earth mother or plants and animals.

[ February 14, 2006, 00:32: Message edited by: starwalker ]

 

Druids in the Forgotten Realms always follow a deity, otherwise they do not receive spells. This has to be a nature deity, such as Silvanus.

This is not a necessity in standard 2E dnd, but it is a quirk specific to Forgotten Realms.

This means that Jaheira (as well as Cernd, Valygar and Minsc) should all probably have patron deities. Although they don't mention it in the game.

 

@starwalker:
Wow, all that writing and so little reading. Do you realize you're actually agreeing with me on almost everything? The only place we seem to differ is that again you don't seem to make any distinction between "priest" and "cleric", even after I so clearly outlined it. Meanwhile, Andyr's post was much shorter and much more helpful.

And if you're wondering about the attitude, it's because you implied I was talking about third edition. Never make that mistake again.

EDIT:
Oh, and the reason I called it artificial is because Jaheira and Cernd don't talk about any gods that I've heard. All I hear from them is "nature this" and "nature that", so any attempt to apply a specific deity is unsure at best as to whether you'll get the right one.

 

No I said I don't know what Third does. Not that you specifically were talking about it. I will admit that I read your post wrong though. Sorry about that. I thought you stated something a bit different but rereading it I screwed up.

I accidently read it that you were splitting them all up into seperate things and not all part of one and that was my mistake and I apologize.

 

How about this then: can druids cast healing spells? Why yes, they can. They're clerical, so says I.

The decision is whether go with 19 str of a halforc or thieving bonuses with a gnome.

 

There's more than enough potions/items to boost the thieving skills and later on it just isn't a problem (sooo many skill points)unless you are wanting a thief to do everything including stealth/BS, then you'd have to wait a lil while to be doing it all. Just dump points into traps and lockpick initially? An all clerical party's mantra would probably be something like: we'll just out-last it! Thinking that way, you can just wear platemail on that char until you need to pick a lock or something ... safer that way. A high initial strength would also free up a str-enhancing item for an NPC in your party that really needs it more letting you get blunt belt or gloves of XXXX or whatnot instead.

 

Can druids cast holy spells (i.e. Spells like Sunray and others of the Sun sphere)? Why no, they can't. They're not clerical, says I. (We could do this all day, if you like.) But they are priests; I believe I've made the difference in terminology quite clear, but if you want to be difficult then on you.

No question. If you're not going to romance Aerie with a gnome, go with the half-orc. Not getting a penalty to WIS is worth it alone if romance isn't a factor.

P.S. Are you going to do BG1 as well? You could get 19 STR & 20 WIS with a gnome C/T if you went through there first. Let's see, you've got: Branwen, Faldorn, Jaheira, Quayle, Tiax, Viconia, & Yeslick

Tiax's place would already be taken by your PC, but then you've still got someone to drop. I'd definitely keep Jaheira and Yeslick for their melee ability, and then Quayle for arcane, but who else?

 

I don't think I can handle doing BG again so soon. I'm still going with my dual class. If I did, I would keep:
Jaheira
Yeslick
Branwen
Viconia
Quayle
PC C/T

Well, since we're joking around, they can all be secretaries.

EDIT: Finally got started after a long search for a decent female halforc portrait. Peko is a C/T and will have this party:
Anomen, Jaheira, Viconia, Peko, Cernd and Aerie.
I grabbed Aerie after first emerging, on the insistance of Minsc. Next is Anomen, then Viconia and finally Cernd. Jaheira is leader because she has the best Charisma of 15.

The thing that hit me with this party is I really don't need to buy a magical license from the Cowlies. Divine magic cannot be regulated by government.

[ February 14, 2006, 17:36: Message edited by: kuemper ]

 

Just make sure Aerie keeps her over zealous "I've got so many spells!" self in check while in town.

 

^Sounds like a very pious party!

What is Peko's alignment, and what God does she worship?

Just curious.

 

Peko is CG and worships Lathander. There's huge backstory which will appear in Creative Surge. Felinoid's idea is too good not to 'borrow'.

EDIT: I'm almost ready to get the party together. All I need is Cernd. And better weapons. And something to kill trolls. I have no archers, so no fire arrows. I guess my only alternative is Flame Blade for this and making a straight run through. I have very little money for buying magical weapons. I'm counting on Trademeet for a bunch.

Do Viccy and Aerie every duke it out? Or is it just snipping back and forth? How hard is Cernd's quest for a beginning party?

[ February 15, 2006, 19:47: Message edited by: kuemper ]