Blade?

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well...i was wanting something different...

so i went with a blade.

tell me..are these guys better in the upper levels than they are at lvl 7? *shudders*

or am i just plain screwed?

anywho....just curiuos...

 

Blades aren't THAT bad. No choice really is. The best thing about blades is that they have fighter abilities, and mage abilities. Unfortunately, the worst thing about blades is that they aren't very good fighters and they aren't very good mages.

Here are some of the benefits. Most people go through the game with two mages. By taking a blade, you avoid the need for that second mage, as your blade can take over some spell casting duties. Plus, as a blade, you are going to get a much wider selection of weapons, and a much better THAC0 than any of the dual-classed mages in the game would.

There are also a few tricks you can use in battle to help them out. One of their abilities is defensive spin, which reduces their armor class to -10, but as a penalty they can't move. If you give your blade the Ring of Free Action, he CAN move even when he enables defensive spin. So, a few times per day you can wade into the middle of a melee battle with -10 armor class, and just be swinging away.

Other good points about blades - they can get up to three stars in two weapon fighting style, so they can dual wield with no real penalty. Also, by the time he hits around level 10, you'll be able to identify everything in the game, and you won't have to waste slots for the identify spell.

Take your proficiencies in katana and long sword, and you won't be disappointed with his skill in battle, and you'll still have a secondary spell chucker around to boot.

 

what im really needing is the gauntlets of dex and belt of str....i had to nerf those two attributes...

STR - 16
DEX - 12
CON - 18
INT - 18
WIS - 10
CHA - 18

and i put my first weapon attribute into short swords, though i plan to follow up with long swords and katanas asap...not to hard since they only get one point...

are their any items that are like the gauntles and girdles except for wisdom?

thx!

 

No belts, etc. that boost wisdom, but you don't really need to worry about that for a bard too much.

 

I would say your blade is to intelligent and has to much con. He doesn't get more hp for con over 16, and as he can only learn spells up to level 6, you don't need so much int. You have enough lore and you only get a little better chance for learning spells wit each int point.

 

As diebystell said you have "bailed" a little with your stats... If you had lower int, you could just have learned some spells via potions etc. Using that trick it's easy to avoid the max spells per level limit...

 

If you have Throne of Bhaal installed, rogues gain a really powerful ability: use all items.

I think this applies to Blades too. This ability lets you use any item - all armor, cloaks, all bracers, etc... My thief in Throne of Bhaal has a AC of -19.

The best armor you can wear in Shadows of Amn is in the Umar Hills. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll be intentionally vague.

Since Blades have better fighting skills than normal thieves - you will be a jugernaut of destruction.

 

Presumably he's only playing SoA, or he would have posted in the ToB forum.

A couple of comments:

In one respect, a bard can actually be a better spell-caster than a mage, in that the effectiveness of certain spells depend on the level of the caster. A bard can get to lvl 23, while a mage is limited to lvl 17 (assuming no exp cap remover).

Also, I wasn't sure if you are soloing, but if not, you might want to consider Haer'Dalis for the simple reason that, while blades can only be proficient in a weapon, he can be specialized (not sure why; maybe because he's a tiefling, or maybe just because its one of those NPC bonuses). (Doesn't get the exta 1/2 attack, though, so the advantage of specialization is probably offset by his poor stats relative to yours.)

 

Tenser's Transformation combined with Offensive Spin is a powerful combo: 10 attacks per round, improved THAC0 and double HP...

And like Splunge says, the Blade can be a pretty good spell caster with the level based spells.

In SoA I'd go with a Skald instead of the Blade though, his bard song is greatly improved compared to the other kits - and later on when you get spells like Mislead you can have your clones do the singing (and the songs are stackable!) while you fight, or sing or whatever... If you have - or get - ToB the HLA Enhanced Bard Song will give the Blade an awesome song.

IMO the Skald really becomes useful in a group around level 15: by then it only takes two bard songs to give your party members +8 to to hit and damage, - 8 to AC and some immunities as well.

Hmm, but you wanted to talk about the Blade. IMO the biggest problem is the poor THAC0 and low HP. The Blade is a fighterish character so you have to compensate for those disadvantages - fx using Tenser's as mentioned above. Oh, and Stoneskin, Mirror Image etc. are of course nice when standing toe to toe with the enemy.

Oh, and you can use all those instruments as well. They can come pretty handy and they save some spell slots for your spell casters.

Any character can be great fun to play - even if they are not the most powerful...

 

is it just me or is one forced to power-game with his main character in any bg game or in virtually any D&D game period?

The dice rolls just aren't that nice to people...

If this were a blade i made for use in a story that im writing(im guilty of making characters just for that reason to) he'd probably have stats like these:

STR - 7 (under average)
DEX - 18 (for what the blade is all about)
CON - 10 (only average)
INT - 13-15 (the learned bard of any type knows more than average, perhaps a lot more)
WIS - 10-17 (depending on how much said bard has travelled and his age)
CHA - 18 (the performer's rite)

then you make up that person's trademark weapons and such. then any swing, cut, gash, miss, headache, kidnapping, blackout, etc. is simply written off as Act of Plot.

And i do have ToB...i just don't now if this character is going to go that far.

[ August 08, 2003, 07:37: Message edited by: Gaidin-_- ]

 

With regards to the stats of the bard, I am pretty sure that only the warrior classes (fighter, paladin, ranger) achieve a hit point bonus for having a constitution over 16. Thus, if you're a mage, monk, cleric etc. there is no reason to push the constituion past 16 from a purely power persepective. So, I would've lowered the 18 you put in con to 16 since those points don't help you any and raise your dex by 2 making it 18. That way you don't have to use the gloves of dex - there are more useful gloves out there. Strength on the otherhand is somewhere I've always felt free to skimp if necessary since many of my characters are going to wear a str enhancing item no matter how high the starting strength is.

 

Well I've taken a blade all the way to the beginning of ToB with only Aerie in the party, only reason I quit was it was too easy. With 5 misleads singing the enhanced song and tenser's+stoneskin+blur+mirror image, dual wielding Celestial Fury and Belm he could wipe through anyone. Around -25 AC, below -30 THAC0, over 230 hp, 7 attacks per round IIRC, and time/spike traps to boot, there was nothing he couldn't handle. Ruins the fun IMHO, but as far as how strong can they be...let's just say strong enough.

 

I don't get what some people are saying about the STR and CON. I'm to lazy to look up who said it, but someone said something like: you can drop both of these, since they can both be upgraded by belts.
Uh, yeah, but that means you can only upgrade ONE stat. It's either the girdle of fortitude OR the girdle of hill giant strength, right?
So I think it would be wise to dump DEX and one of the two, so you can pump both.

And to the last poster here: How the hell did you get those stats with a bard? -25 AC, seems logical to me, the bard can use any item. But -30 THAC0? How the hell did you do that!? I don't even think regular fighters get that. But I was most surprised at the 230 hp. I think a fighter with 18 con gets 238 (IIRC). So how can a bard get 230?

 

the 230 hp are from tensers transformation (magespell level 6) that doubles your hitpoints,gives +2 dam/hit and the THAC0 of a fighter of the same level for 1 round/level. But it deaktivates your magespells. The huge THAC0 i don't know i never played a blade.

Edit: Oh and can use both girdles. the one boost your strenght as long you wear it, the other must be activated and then your con is raised to 18 for 8hours. So after rest just use the one girdle and switch to the other.

 

Well I don't have my laptop here right now but when I get it (thursday) I'll load up my bard and see what his normal no-buff THAC0 is and then tell you all the spells I use, then it might become more clear. I know it involves tenser's and around 5 singing misleads though. And yes, the hp comes from tenser's, 115 or so at lvl 31, then double it, to around 230.